#oneaday Day 151: Not To Be Read Until 4pm

This won’t be news to any of you, but sometimes in the games industry, you find out things and you’re not allowed to talk about them. The technical terminology for this is an “NDA” or non-disclosure agreement, or an embargo preventing publication of something until a particular time.

It’s obvious why publishers insist on this sort of behaviour: it allows them to control how and when information gets released. This means that they can effectively control the press to release the information that the company wants talked about at a specific time, ensuring that it doesn’t “clash” with anything else and get upstaged by something cooler.

Still, when something gets embargoed until a particular time, you’d expect the information that was being held back to be complete, wouldn’t you? Not so in the case of today’s Call of Duty Elite announcement, which explained what the service would be but failed to mention anything useful like how much the premium option would cost and indeed what the premium service actually offered, compared to what free members would get.

The practice of embargoes seems to be a relatively recent one. I don’t remember them being mentioned all that often before a couple of years back — but then, I wasn’t involved in the games press full-time at that point, so this sort of nonsense may well have been going on for years.

The thing is, though, it ultimately hurts everyone. People tease embargo reveals all day, then EVERY FUCKING SITE UNDER THE SUN releases the same information at the same time when the embargo expires, and then I don’t read any of it. If you follow games sites on Twitter and you do happen to be interested in the coverage, you’ll probably only click on the first link you see. This means it becomes a race for whichever outlet can get the content live and tweet it first. Sensible outlets will have prepared the material well in advance, of course, but sometimes that doesn’t happen and you end up with sloppy, rushed reporting.

Then sometimes you wonder why on Earth certain pieces of information are embargoed. I had a press release from NVidia earlier today talking about their new pair of wired 3D glasses for 3D Vision-equipped PCs. It was embargoed until 5pm Pacific on the Sunday just gone. It’s a pair of 3D glasses — not the most exciting thing in the world, even if they are under $100 for once. Why did that need to have a timed reveal?

As with most things in the industry, if one person does it, everyone has to do it. Gone are the days* when a developer could just go “Yeah, I’m experimenting with a thing. It’s pretty cool. Might not go anywhere though.” No, now it has to be a countdown to an announcement of a teaser trailer which leads to a countdown to an announcement of an exclusive reveal of the first gameplay footage which will coincide with an exclusive reveal of one little piece of information that no-one gives a shit about. (OMG! The main character’s eyes are directly scanned from an actor/rapper no-one’s heard of! Fuck off.)

I’ve never worked in the music, film or “general” journalism industries so I can’t say for certain whether this sort of thing goes on in them. But somehow I doubt it’s quite so tightly controlled as the ever-peculiar games industry.

* The exception to this is, of course, the indie development industry, who rarely, if ever, use embargoes and are usually pretty candid and open about the projects they’re working on. And all credit to them — honesty gets them far more respect from me than an intricately-planned campaign which drives journalists and consumers alike utterly crazy.

#oneaday Day 150: The Bupa 10K

So! I’m not dead. More to the point, I finished the whole Bupa 10K race today without even coming close to death, so I count that as a victory. I somehow even managed to cover 10K in less time than I have done in the past despite not running the whole thing. I attribute this mostly to the fact that London is quite flat, whereas the 10K distance I practiced on has a fucking great hill at roughly the 5K mark, exactly where you don’t want it.

But anyway. You’re doubtless wondering exactly how it all went, so let me talk you through my thought processes, starting from when the “Green wave” (the slow people) moved into position to start. These are the things I probably would have tweeted during the race were it possible to do so. (It probably was possible to do so, but I was concentrating on not dying.)

Hmm. That announcer is a bit annoying. I don’t really want to take part in any “oggy oggy oggy, oy oy oy”.
Still, at least he’s getting the crowd excited.
I wonder if all us slowpokes leave at the same time, or if we go a letter at a time. (I was a C-green, the slowest of the slow.)
We go a letter at a time. 11am prompt start my arse.
Still, I guess at least the people who can actually run with something resembling a “pace” left at 11am.
And there go the Bs. We’re next. I wonder where my friend Gracie is.
Shit, I’m not sure I can do this.
Bugger, too late to back out now, we’re going.
Hey, people are cheering. It’s like we’re famous.
Wow, I’m running faster than other people and I don’t feel like I’m overdoing it.
Double wow, I’m overtaking people.
What a glorious sunny day it is. Going to rain all over us, my arse.
The river Thames looks almost pleasant when it’s sunny. So long as you don’t look too closely at the water.
The Embankment is a good place to start. It’s nice and flat and straight.
1km already? This is easy.
Some sort of drumming group under this bridge. I like it. Inspirational.
Could kind of do with a drink though. I drank a bottle of water before I started but my gob has gone all dry and horrible.
1km-1.5km seems to be taking an awfully long time.
Really quite thirsty now.
Glad I went to the toilet before I started, because there’s a big queue for the ones at the “pit stop”. Still, just like Formula One, gives me the chance to get ahead of people. (Except in Formula One they don’t stop for the drivers to have a piss.)
Hm, the red runners are coming back the other way. Perhaps we turn around just up here.
The road is wet and there’s tons of bottles on the floor. Maybe there’s a water station ahead.
There is!
Glug.
More drummers!
A hill? They said it was flat. Time to slow down and drink this water.
It’s actually quite hot. So much for bad weather.
Top of the hill. Time to start running again.
I have started identifying people by the charities they’re representing, or, more specifically, the diseases or conditions their charities support. Just in front of me are the Cancer Sisters, just ahead of them is Heart Attack Girl and keeping pace with me is World Peace Girl.
That girl’s not seriously thinking about sneaking into that Tesco, is she?
No, she saw people looking at her and decided against it.
Steel band? Hmm. Not bad, but drummers are better. Steel bands bring back memories of schools.
Hmm, we really don’t turn around just yet. I wonder where we do.
These streets are quite twisty and have deceptive hills.
I’m keeping pace quite nicely with the Cancer Sisters.
More accurately, we keep “leapfrogging” each other. (Not literally.)
That dude in the lion outfit must be fucking boiling.
Getting a bit thirsty again.
And I wonder if I need the toilet.
I wonder where the next toilets are.
Hmm, what’s that ahead? The road’s all wet.
It’s a squirty-water machine! I should walk through it and cool off and be all refreshed.
Jesus Christ, that water is freezing. Maybe I’ll run through it instead.
Hmm, being squirted with freezing cold water has invigorated me somewhat.
Could still do with a drink though.
Reggae band! Awesome.
Oh hey, the nice people from the pub ahead have trays of plastic water glasses.
Glug.
I think we might have finally doubled back on ourselves.
Yes, there’s the Embankment. No-one still coming the other way. That really would be slow.
The Embankment is a lot longer than I remember.
There’s my charity people! There’s a lot less of them than for other charities, but they’re still clapping and cheering. Good on them.
The Embankment is still a lot longer than I remember.
Everyone around me is flagging a bit. Running a little while, then walking, then running, then walking.
I’m still not in last place.
1 km to go. The park where we started is right there. Where does the extra kilometre come from?
Oh right, up a hill to Trafalgar Square. Cool.
I can see signs. “400m to go”. Yay! Time to run a bit faster.
Gasp. Maybe not time to run too much faster.
“200m to go”. Run faster? Hmm… maybe…
Fuck it. Let’s go. These people walking over the finish line are pansies.
“MAXIMUM SPEED.” Vrooom.
Over the finish line. People are taking photographs. I wish this running vest wasn’t quite so unflattering. Still, it’s kept me cool, and when you’re running something like this, appearances really aren’t important.
Wow, that last sprint knocked the wind out of me a bit, but I don’t want to collapse. Endorphin rush?
They’ve taken my magic timing tag off my shoelaces. Guess that really is it.
The baggage reclaim area is bloody miles away! Couldn’t they have put it a bit closer to the finish line?
You are redeemed, Bupa organisers, by giving me a goody bag halfway between the finish line and the baggage reclaim area.
Wow, I can barely feel my legs. I could have probably kept running for a while, but walking is proving somewhat difficult.
Creak.
Crick.
Those girls are giving out jelly babies! Hells yeah.
Omnomnomnom.

So that was it. I made it, I didn’t die, and in a time that I’m actually quite happy with: just under 90 minutes. I know that’s super-slow for actual runners, but I am super-slow. By contrast, one of the pros at the front finished in 27 minutes. 27 minutes! Christ.

But anyway, the experience was a good one. I’m glad I did it, and hopefully I’ll do some more in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I raised £210.01 for Mind, and the sponsorship page is still open. If you’re impressed with my achievements and would like to reward said achievement with a donation to Mind, then you can do so right here. Huge thanks to everyone who’s already donated, and to people who’ve offered support in the run-up (no pun intended) to today.

Now I think it’s time for sleep.

#oneaday Day 149: Tomorrow I May Be Dead

Ominous title, I know. But given that I’m running a 10K tomorrow, it’s entirely possible it might be true. Okay, it probably won’t be true. But it’s an eye-catching title if nothing else.

So yes. Let me start again. Tomorrow I am running the Bupa 10K in London in aid of Mind, a mental health charity that some friends and I decided to represent back towards the beginning of the year. So far I’ve raised £150.01 (thanks to Generous Sam for the extra penny) and hope that a few of you will be feeling generous in the next few hours. It’d be cool to get the total over £200 before I finish tomorrow. That’d be nice. If you’d like to sponsor me, go ahead.

I’m a little worried about the run itself, to be honest. Pacific time-friendly working hours have played havoc with the training regime I got myself into at the start of the year, and I haven’t had nearly as much practice of going the whole distance as I hoped I would have by now. Still, I have done it a few times, so I know that I’m capable of it. It’s just going to be a case of pacing myself and making sure that I keep pushing on regardless — the only difference will be the fact I have a magic chip on my shoe to reveal my embarrassing time to the world when I do eventually wheeze over the finish line.

But hey. If I do manage to complete it, that’ll be a pretty big accomplishment. A long run and a healthy amount of money raised for charity. Not bad at all for a Bank Holiday Monday’s work.

Beyond that, I couldn’t say what’s next. It would make sense to find something else to “aim” for, either personally, professionally, physically or all three. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, though. For now, I just have to survive 10km of the London streets without collapsing and dying. Easier said than done, and if there’s no Day 150, you’ll know that I’ve bought it.

Positivity! Chances are, though, that I won’t be dead and tomorrow evening there will be a Day 150 explaining politely that I am absolutely knackered and hope I never have to go through anything like that ever again. Or perhaps I’ll be high on endorphins and writing complete nonsense. (No change there, then.)

Either way, I’m going to plug my sponsorship page again. If you have a few quid (or a lot of quid) to spare, then dig deep and chuck me and Mind some cash. Where? Right here.

#oneaday Day 148: People, The Mutant’s Pursuing Me!

It’s been a very long time since a game has genuinely gobsmacked me with its obvious technological marvellousness, but The Witcher 2 has gone and done a sterling job of it so far. I beat the first game this morning and enjoyed it so much I wanted to go straight on to the sequel, which I’d had the foresight to download in advance from Good Old Games.

I wasn’t quite ready for the leap in graphical fidelity between the two. I thought the first game looked pretty good — it used to bring my old computer to its knees, after all, and it was one of the first games I installed on my new computer to enjoy in its “full glory” — but wow. The Witcher 2 makes its predecessor look decidedly primitive in many respects.

Gone are the stilted, uncomfortable character animations when people are standing around talking to each other. Gone are people’s inability to remain seated while talking to you. Gone are the sex cards (replaced with good, old fashioned full frontal nudity — are you paying attention, BioWare?) and gone is the fun but arguably overcomplicated combat system. (Also gone are some of the original voice cast, which is a little disappointing, but perhaps understandable given the amount of time between the two games.)

In is a decidely cinematic presentation (including an entertaining ability to wiggle the camera around veeery slightly using the mouse in conversation scenes, giving it a “hand-held camera” look). In are more than five different character models. In is background scenery featuring realistic foliage best described as “lush”. In is a motion blur effect that makes rotating the camera look infinitely more realistic than in 99% of other games out there. And in is a Demon’s Souls-style combat system that at first appears to be hack and slash, but isn’t afraid to punish you mercilessly for thinking so until you learn that it’s actually based on timing, patience, blocking and carefully watching your opponents to look for an opportunity. A combat system which has divided people somewhat, with many impatient types upset that it’s “too hard”. Hard it may be, but there’s nothing wrong with a challenge.

One of the things that has impressed me most so far, though, is the potential for the branching of the plot, with different resolutions to problems and different major and minor choices. Already in discussion with a friend, I’ve seen that at least four or five parts of just the prologue branch off into alternative paths — some of which meet in common places, others of which diverge. And, like the original The Witcher, there’s no obviously “right” choice in many situations. This is a Good Thing, as it makes you think about what you’re doing, and also forces you to live with consequences which don’t necessarily make themselves obvious until much, much later.

In short, The Witcher 2 is looking like being an absolutely amazing game. A lot of people have been quietly anticipating it for a long time — this is a game from a company that doesn’t saturate the market with announcements of TV ads for their games, after all — and it’s gratifying to see firstly that they’ve made an excellent game, and secondly that a lot of people seem to be thinking very highly of it. It deserves it, and CD Projekt Red deserves a huge amount of success for creating such an excellent RPG franchise.

#oneaday Day 147: Where Are We?

So, let’s take stock of a few things. It’s now over a year since my life broke, and it’s still not back together again. Some days that eventual goal of getting “back on track” feels a million miles away, over a range of insurmountable obstacles and, after all that, hanging tantalisingly just out of reach over a pit of spikes with scorpions on the ends of them. (Pretty redundant, I know, but hey, I didn’t design the nightmare. Oh wait, I did.)

Things are a bit better than they were this time last year, of course. I don’t wake up at 5pm and want to spend the day either crying or breaking things. I still get sad, sure — who doesn’t? Though some get more sad than others. And I don’t feel angry — at least, not in the same way I did this time last year. I sometimes get angry at the situation I’m still in — upset, resentful, frustrated that life sometimes feels to be going nowhere and that I feel like an incompetent 12 year old rather than a 30 year old with one hell of a lot to offer the world. But then I’ve always had something of a sense of self-doubt and an inferiority complex. I’m not sure that’s even the right description — I know I’m good at stuff. I just sometimes feel that I’m not as good at them as other people — whether it’s simple, stupid things like holding a conversation, or complex, specialised things like playing the piano or writing stuff.

“Believe in yourself,” is the thing to think in that situation. “You can do it. You are awesome.” And it works for a while, until something comes along to kick you in the balls and set you back to square one. To be fair, said kicks in the balls haven’t happened for quite some time and hopefully I’ve seen the last of them. But, as I say, this time last year, I found myself kicked in the balls by life, repeatedly, and it still smarts now.

“Other people have it far worse,” is the thing to think in that situation. But you know what? I don’t care. Other people do have it worse. But right now, I couldn’t give a toss. You can be too altruistic, too much of a nice person, focus on the wellbeing of others and neglect yourself. Good things have started to happen for me, but I want more. I’ve put up with shit for too long. It’s okay to be selfish.

So with that in mind, I strongly hope that today represents a stride forward on the road to recovery. The job interview I mentioned yesterday was an enjoyable, pleasant experience that I feel went well. I feel quietly confident that it was a positive thing that happened today, and should I find myself offered the position in question I will happily take it without a second thought, grabbing life by the horns and bending it to my will rather than feeling sorry for myself.

Because, frankly, I’ve had enough of crap. Crap can go take a running jump off a very tall cliff with a physically-improbable spiky rock arrangement at the bottom. Bring on the awesome.

Please.

#oneaday Day 146: Eve of Something

I have a job interview tomorrow — the first one for a while. Okay, granted, I haven’t been looking for a while due to the fact that I’ve been enjoying the freelance work I’ve been doing, but the position in question (which I won’t discuss for now for fear of jinxing it) is one that would be pretty much ideally suited for me, given my background, skills and indeed what I’m doing right now. As such, I’m looking forward to it.

The whole recruitment process is, a lot of the time, very artificial. I recall one time when I happened to catch a glimpse of a letter that someone had written to the place I was working at the time, asking if there were any jobs available. The language used throughout was all very flowery and took in pretty much every application cliché that there was along the way. Said applicant was “confident” and “enthusiastic” and I’m pretty sure she was “passionate” too. I’m not sure if she was a “talented generalist” (apparently that was the fashionable thing to be a little while back, I’m not sure if it still is) but she probably had plenty in the way of “transferable skills” and “relished” the “opportunity” on offer.

I mock, but I’m pretty sure everyone is guilty of it at times. But where does all that language come from? I remember sessions in English Language classes at school dealing with “formal letter writing”, but that mostly focused on layout and ensuring you put the correct “Yours faithfully/sincerely” at the bottom of a letter — a practice which seems to have fallen by the wayside in the age of the email, incidentally. I don’t remember classes teaching you buzzwords that you should use in job applications.

Perhaps that’s where school career advice is going wrong, though. I remember the whole Careers Week thing, where you took that questionnaire and you laughed when the kids of questionable intellect got “shepherd” and “chimney sweep” suggested as potential career paths for them. But I don’t remember getting any particularly useful advice out of them, barring thinking that I wanted to do something involving writing, even then. And I didn’t need a Careers Week to know that — I had already pretty much figured it out.

Of course, it’s not that easy, and your life follows paths that you might not have predicted along the way. Is it chance? Fate? Destiny? Or is it the result of free will and conscious decisions that you make? Either way, it’s often fairly unlikely you find yourself doing exactly what you’d imagined you’d be doing straight away. You might get there in the end, but there seems to be an awful lot of “paying your dues” along the way initially — unless you’re one of the very lucky ones, of course.

Well, I think I’ve paid my dues by now. It’s time for awesome things to happen. Bring it on, tomorrow.

#oneaday Day 145: Wotcher, Witcher

I’ve been playing a shit-ton of The Witcher recently, and if you haven’t played it, you probably should. Unless you have a PC that won’t run it very well. And even then, you should at least try and play it, because even on low detail it’s still an excellent game — as is the sequel, from what I’ve heard… though the sequel is significantly more demanding on your poor old graphics card and processor than its predecessor.

But anyway. Why is The Witcher good? Many reasons. Sure, it has approximately ten different character models, many of which are used for both major NPCs and minor ones, making visual identification of characters a bit jarring sometimes. And sure, some of the animations are a bit clunky, and characters standing talking to each other look distinctly uncomfortable, unintentionally. And the interface isn’t wonderful, though I’ve seen worse. But despite these little flaws, the game is a genuine gem.

Probably the biggest selling point is the titular Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia. PC RPG purists often baulk at the idea of playing a fixed, non-customizable protagonist, but the (slightly cliched) amnesia subplot helps go some way to justifying the player moulding Geralt into the protagonist they’d like him to be. More than that, though, it’s the fact that The Witcher features choices with genuine consequences, and a complete lack of an oversimplified “good/evil” or “paragon/renegade” meter. Simply put, there is no good and evil in the world of The Witcher, only shades of grey. Geralt is often thrown into awkward situations and asked to make a decision to side with one or the other of the parties involved — but notably, abstention is often an option, also, and that, too, carries with it consequences.

The best thing about these choices, though, is that the consequences don’t make themselves immediately apparent. This helps get around the “quicksave/try out dialogue options” problem that some games are plagued with. In The Witcher, you have to make choices, and live with the consequences of those choices — because said consequences might not become obvious until a good 5 or 6 hours of play later.

This is a Good Thing. If nothing else, it forces players to immerse themselves in the role of the protagonist and decide What Would Geralt Do? on a regular basis. But beyond that, it neatly sidesteps the accusations of overly-simplified morality systems that are sometimes levelled at BioWare’s otherwise-excellent games.

Then there’s the fact that the game treats you like a grown-up. Sure, there’s the notorious “sex cards” (abolished in the sequel in favour of some good old-fashioned full frontal nudity) but besides that, characters speak to each other in an unashamedly adult way that never feels forced. There’s some very strong swearing from a number of characters, but it’s worked into conversations in a pretty natural way, rather than a Kingpin (the game, not the movie) sort of way. It’s nice to see a game have the guts to unashamedly use the word “cunt,” for example, and it’s also nice for the sequel to avoid BioWare’s prudishness when it comes to sex scenes. There’s no keeping underwear on and dry-humping here. Gratifyingly, in the first game, there’s even a Captain Kirk-style “let me show you that sex without procreation can be good” scene with a thoroughly naked dryad. And for those who feel that Geralt’s naked adventures are a bit gratuitous — well, there’s always the option to not shag your way around Temeria.

I haven’t finished the first game yet but I’m looking forward to seeing how it concludes. The story so far has been interesting, combining political intrigue, magic, monsters and world lore into an engrossing “dark fantasy” setting that — dare I say it? — is much better than Dragon Age. If you’ve never spent a night with Geralt, then what are you waiting for? Get thee over to Good Old Games and score yourself a copy for just $9.99 — bargain.

#oneaday Day 144: Superinjunctivitis

I’m not going to pretend to know everything about this footballer/slag business that is all over the news at the minute, and I’m not particularly concerned about said footballer’s hilarious attempt to sue Twitter over supposedly breaking his precious superinjunction, because that’s like someone suing a sword manufacturer because their hand got cut off by an insane nutter with a sword.

The question that this sort of thing always raises in my mind, though, is “who the bloody hell cares?” This whole situation wouldn’t have come about without the public’s incessant need for celebrity gossip — vapid nonsense about whatever [insert celebrity first name here so it sounds like you know them] is wearing this week, or whether [insert different celebrity first name here] is going to the shops on Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

A footballer shagged someone who wasn’t his wife. Allegedly. This is not news. We all know that footballers are Neanderthal morons who should probably be fitted with chastity belts, so frequently do their dicks turn up in unauthorised places. We also know that anyone who appeared on Big Brother is probably not averse to the idea of selling their story, however vapid and pointless, to the “newspapers” in a desperate attempt to cling on to a bit of their waning fame. Even if said story is “Hey! I shagged a married man! I’m a massive slag!”

It’s pissing in the wind, of course, but I really wish that the world could move on from the obsession it seems to have with every little thing that every celebrity, whatever they might be famous for, is up to. People who read Heat magazine need to wake up to the fact that they probably aren’t going to ever meet, let alone be friends with whoever is this week’s hotness.

You could argue it’s escapism. Perhaps true — but why not read a work of fiction instead? Why the need to pry into the private lives of people? I guess it gives people who like to hide in bushes a means of being gainfully employed rather than arrested, but it still strikes me as incredibly obnoxious.

I follow a few celebrities on Twitter and make an effort to watch certain people when they come on TV. But that’s it. I have no desire to snoop into their private lives and I certainly don’t give a shit who they may or may not be having sex with. That’s their business, whether it’s an extramarital affair or not. Their life in the public eye should be limited to whatever it is they’re famous for, then they should be left alone to deal with their problems in privacy, not subjected to endless flashbulbs.

Of course, I could (and should) just ignore it all. But when some twat who can’t keep his pecker in his pants starts taking aim at a service I use every single day for both personal and professional reasons — as an indirect result of our culture’s obsession with celebrities? Fuck that. I think I have every right to be pissed off.

So, Ryan Giggs. Kindly stop being a dick. Everyone knows where your penis has been by now, so trying to fight for your right to “privacy” actually strikes me as nothing more than attention-seeking, ironically.

#oneaday Day 143: Music Monday: Unfair Reviews Edition

It’s been a while since I went through the top songs on Spotify, so I think it’s about time we rectified that right now. I’m going to do it with a twist this time, though. Since it’s been so long since I listened to the radio or watched any kind of TV with modern pop-type rhythm music in attendance, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff out there that I’ve never heard before. So I’m going to completely subjectively go off my gut instincts after no more than 30 seconds of each song. I am also going to use no more than three words to discuss each song. And I’m going to sample 23 songs, just to be completely arbitrary. What could possibly go wrong?

From the top, then — I’m using the UK Top Tracks list in Spotify for this. Here goes nothing.

The Lazy Song – Bruno Mars

Bit Jack Johnson.

Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO

Not rock. Crap.

Give Me Everything – Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer

Whiny dudes. Synth.

Judas – Lady Gaga

Jude. Arse. Judah-arse-ga-ga.

Beautiful People – Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi

Dance eJay synth.

Where Them Girls At (Feat. Nicki Minaj & Flo Rida)

Awful. Just awful.

Rolling in the Deep – Adele

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

On the Floor – Jennifer Lopez

90s dance nightmare.

Sweat – Snoop Dogg vs. David Guetta

Autotuned single note.

I Need A Dollar – Aloe Blacc

Band costs more.

Buzzin Remix – Explicit Version – Mann

Shut up, Fiddy.

Born This Way – Lady Gaga

Sinister opening. Cheesy.

All Of The Lights – Kanye West

Terrible video. Pretentious.

Just Can’t Get Enough – Black Eyed Peas

Please stop autotuning.

The Edge of Glory – Lady Gaga

Racing game start.

Price Tag – Jessie J

Moderately catchy. Kinda.

Skinny Love – Birdy

Nice piano opening.

Make You Feel My Love (album) – Adele

Bit Norah Jonesish.

E.T. (feat. Kanye West) – Katy Perry

Babbling autotuned twat.

E.T. – Katy Perry

Infinitely superior version.

Guilt – Radio Edit – Nero

Song for club.

I Need A Doctor – Dr. Dre

Nice opening. SHOUTING.

Grenade – Bruno Mars

Deceptive title. Whiny.

There we go, then. If, for whatever reason, you want to listen to all this garbage, then feel free to load up this playlist into Spotify.

#oneaday Day 142: StarCraft: The Board Game (Part 2)

[Compromise: Have decided on a new format. Weekends will have individual pictures like what I used to do. That way I can do them in Paint if I’m away from my Mac.]

So we finally got through a complete game of StarCraft: The Board Game. And after a bit of initial confusion over a few rules-related bits and pieces, the three of us found ourselves understanding the way things worked quite well. It’ll probably take a few more games for us to be able to strategise with any real effectiveness, but for a first game, we didn’t do too badly — and more importantly, it didn’t last for six hours like we were expecting it to. In fact, due to the “Special Victory” conditions, the whole thing ended up being over a little quicker than we anticipated. No bad thing — it means that it doesn’t go into that pile of “games that are good but take hours and hours to play” and will hopefully be trotted out relatively often.

It’s an interesting game, really, with elements of Risk and Civilization present. There’s empire and unit building, conquering opponent territories, researching technologies, and an interesting card-based combat mechanic that gives something of an element of chance without making it completely random. There’s also a very wide array of possibilities for things to do, and this coupled with the randomly-generated game board will make for a game which is unlikely to be the same twice in a row.

Things we have learned so far, then:

If someone has a Z-Axis Navigation Route (or “warpgate” as we kept calling them) linking to one of their own planets from one of their own planets, you’d better assault them sooner rather than later, otherwise you’ll find them building up an unassailable fortress.
Building the Air Support module which, among other things, prevents people from landing troops directly on your base, is an expensive investment that is very worthwhile as it makes life quite inconvenient for invading armies.
Ultralisks are tough.
Archons are tougher, especially if they have some fortunate combinations of Reinforcement and Event cards.
Obstructing another player’s orders isn’t necessarily a good course of action, because it lets them draw Event Cards, which are quite powerful and also act as the game clock.
Knock people off Conquest Point spaces as soon as possible rather than trying to do something clever like cut off someone’s supply line. If someone has captured conquest point spaces worth a total of 3, it takes them just 5 turns to win.
Attacking is better than defending to quite a significant degree, so it pays to go on the offensive.
Force-mining someone’s resources then retreating is a petty and amusing way to wreak revenge without destroying your own units.

I’m looking forward to trying the game again soon. It was a lot of fun and despite its apparent complexity (this is a game that easily takes up all of a large table with board, figures, cards and lots of chits) it’s relatively straightforward to play once you get how the rules work. Approve, then!