1280: More Truckin’

I had an all-too-brief chat with my good friend Mr Alex Connolly earlier today, during which I briefly extolled the virtues of Euro Truck Simulator 2, which I played for a good few hours today. This post is primarily intended for Alex — and anyone else who is similarly curious about Euro Truck Simulator 2 — since we only had a brief moment to talk earlier.

Here’s what Euro Truck Simulator 2 is all about, then.

You start the game by creating your driver profile by giving yourself a name, naming your haulage company-to-be, choosing a logo for yourself and selecting a truck you like the look of. You then choose a home base somewhere in Europe, and then it’s off to work you go.

Your first job is what is later referred to in the game as a “quick job” — you’re provided with a truck already loaded up with cargo, and all you have to do is deliver it to the destination. If you elect to follow the tutorial, you’re walked through various elements of the interface, though you’re not told where a few important keys (headlights, windscreen wipers, indicators) are, so you’ll need to check the options menu for that. (I recommend assigning all of those controls to a controller, if you’re using one.)

Delivering cargo is a simple matter of following your GPS, which sits in the corner of the screen like a space sim’s multi-function display. (Indeed, here it is multifunction, too, allowing you to switch between views of your route, diagnostic information and other helpful bits and pieces.) While driving, you’ll have to be reasonably careful. Hitting things can damage your truck and potentially cargo, too — the latter will cost you some of your fee at the end of the run. Similarly, breaking the rules of the road will cause you to be fined, though much like reality, you can get away with speeding so long as no-one catches you doing it.

The roads are convincingly rendered, meaning you’ll have to merge carefully onto motorways, slow down for country roads, and stop-start-stop-start at the traffic lights found in city centres. If you’re driving in the UK, you’ll have to drive on the left; head out onto the continent, meanwhile, and you’ll be on the right. Both left- and right-hand drive trucks are available.

Once you reach your destination, there’ll be a glowing parking space that you must reverse into. This is harder than it sounds, as trucks and trailers behave strangely when in reverse. You can, of course, press the “auto-park” button, but if you do so you’re effectively declaring that you’re a big wuss.

Once you’ve successfully parked and detached your cargo, you’ll be rewarded with money and experience points, with a bonus if you parked yourself. Levelling up rewards you with skill points, which you can plug into one of several different skills — one allows you to transport hazardous (and consequently higher-value) cargo of various types; another allows you to take on more long-distance jobs; another still provides you with larger rewards for heavy, oversized or otherwise valuable cargo. You can effectively tailor your driver’s profile according to the types of job you like to do.

After a couple of successful runs, you’ll be invited to head along to a truck dealership that sells the type of truck you indicated was your “preferred” type at the outset of the game. A new truck will inevitably be much too expensive for you to afford with the few thousand Euros you’ve acquired from a couple of jobs, so you’ll receive an email shortly afterwards from the bank inviting you to take out a loan. Here you have a choice; keep doing quick jobs for reasonable pay until you can afford to buy a truck outright, or take out a loan, buy your own truck immediately, and ensure you make enough money each in-game day to pay off that particular instalment.

Once you have your own truck — which can be customised in numerous ways, more of which open up as you level up — you have a lot more freedom. You can freely drive around Europe at your leisure, and the in-game map keeps track of how much of the road network you’ve explored. Arriving at new towns “discovers” them and unlocks them as a starting point for future jobs; coming across “?” markers on the map reveals new truck dealerships, recruitment agencies for hiring additional drivers for your fleet and other facilities; stopping at petrol stations or hotels allows you to restore your fuel and fatigue levels respectively.

Having your own truck allows you to take jobs from the “Freight Market” rather than the “Quick Job” menu. Here, you have to actually drive to the place where the job offer is — they expire after a while, so if you don’t get there quickly enough, you’re not doing the job — and then manually attach the trailer to your truck.

From here, it’s a case of proceeding to do more jobs and build up your available funds, then gradually build up your fleet of trucks and drivers so it’s not just you hauling shit around Europe, but your very own army of bearded chain-smokers too. Each of your hired drivers can be levelled up the same way as your own character, so you can get different drivers to specialise in different things.

All in all, it’s a really neat game. I didn’t think it would have much to offer beyond the initial appeal of “WOW I’M DRIVING A LORRY” but there’s actually a surprisingly competent game in there, too. And even if you struggle to handle one of these many-wheeled beasts, you can have some fun by causing chaos on the open world. Which is nice.

Anyway, there’s my enthusing on the subject of Euro Truck Simulator 2. It’s surprisingly worth your time, particularly if you like open-world driving games where you just pootle around rather than killing everybody. Plus there’s something inherently satisfying about driving such a gigantic vehicle and not killing everyone around you, or ending up on your side. (Though it is possible to end up on your side.)

So there you have it. Euro Truck Simulator 2. Enjoy.

1279: Hauling Ass (and Wood, Propane and Other Exciting Things)

I picked up Euro Truck Simulator 2 in the Steam Sale the other day on a bit of a whim. This is one of those simulator games that, like Farming Simulator, was roundly mocked upon its original release, but promptly turned out to be a rather good game.

I haven’t spent a huge amount of time with it so far and I don’t know how much time I will spend with it in the long term, but early impressions are that it is basically a game that I’ve thought should exist for a long time — that is to say, it’s Elite, but on the roads instead of in space.

Okay, that’s perhaps not quite accurate; you’re not really “trading” stuff, you’re simply taking jobs and hauling shit (sometimes literally) from one place to another, and there’s certainly no “combat” besides any accidents you deliberately cause yourself, but the idea of fusing a management/business game with a vehicle simulator is a sound one, and it has always surprised me somewhat that we’ve only ever seen it happen in space, really.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is an odd experience. It’s a driving game, but without all the jostling for position and chaos that normally accompanies driving games that focus on racing. It’s an open-world game, but without anything to really “do” besides seek out truck dealerships, try and visit every road in the game and sightsee. I haven’t got far enough into the game to look at the business sim side of things yet, but I assume that will add an element of light strategy to the mix, particularly once you start hiring other drivers, too.

It’s a peculiarly relaxing experience to play. Once your truck is out on the open road, you don’t really have to do a lot besides ensure you don’t hit anything, and try not to get caught by speed cameras. But it’s pleasingly chilled out to just trundle along at 50mph down some convincingly-realised (if geographically-inaccurate) roads that go to real, actual places with recognisable landmarks. It also implements another feature that I’ve always thought should be in open-world driving games — the ability to stream Internet radio stations as the soundtrack to your drive. I was listening to some pleasingly mellow German jazz while I drove from Southampton to Dover earlier.

I say it’s a relaxing experience to play. Well, that’s only mostly true: it’s relaxing until you reach your destination and have to reverse the fucking thing into a parking space. Parking a truck is horrendously difficult and I have new-found respect for anyone who is able to do it successfully, particularly in a yard that doesn’t have very much space available. I don’t really understand how to make it go the correct way when I’m reversing it yet, but I’m sure it’s something that comes with practice.

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying in a roundabout way is that if you’ve seen Euro Truck Simulator 2 in the Steam sale and are mildly curious about it, do yourself a favour and download it. You might just find yourself enjoying the experience. It’s just a shame there isn’t multiplayer; hauling stuff around Europe with a friend would be a lot of fun, I feel.

1278: Christopher Walkern

So the whole “go for a walk for some exercise” thing has been going pretty well. I’ve managed to get up early and get out every day since I said I was going to, which bodes well. I am, however, probably going to take the weekend off so I can enjoy a lie in.

I’ve been walking for at least an hour each day, usually covering a distance of just under 4 miles or so. I usually follow pretty much the same route — up the road to the Common, wiggle around a bit in this side of the Common, cut across, walk down the road into town, walk through the vaguely attractive parks on the edge of the city centre, walk past the station and back up the other end of my road to finish where I started. It’s a big loop, and there’s a mix of flat, uphill and downhill walking all the way, so there’s a bit of variety and challenge in places. It’s still relatively “leisurely” compared to gasping and wheezing my way through a run, though, which makes it infinitely more appealing for the moment even if it isn’t quite as good for me.

One of the helpful inspiring factors while I’ve been walking has been the use of audiobooks. I don’t normally listen to a lot of audiobooks or podcasts any more, because I don’t really have a suitable situation in which to listen to them. I can’t listen to them while I work, because I have proven to myself on numerous occasions that I absolutely, positively 100% cannot write anything more than notes while someone else is talking in the same room, whether they’re a real person or a recording. However, when all you’re doing is walking aimlessly for the purposes of exercise, an audiobook or podcast is ideal listening. You’re not running, so there’s no real need for some music with a sense of “pace” to it; you can take your time and take in the words of whatever it is you’re listening to.

The accompaniment to my walks this week has been the audiobook of a Dean Koontz novel. I had a couple of Koontz works recommended to me a while back and enjoyed them — I read those, rather than listened to them — so I decided to take a chance on another one. It’s a bit bigger of a “risk” to try out an audiobook, since they’re significantly more expensive than eBooks or even just, you know, books. Still, I haven’t been disappointed so far; the story is interesting and the narrator appears to be pretty good, too, which is nice. (The novel is “Lightning,” if you were wondering. I have no idea if this is considered “good” or not by Koontz fans, but I’m enjoying it.)

The other nice thing about audiobooks is the fact that it allows me to enjoy books without having to actually read them. I have nothing against reading and actually enjoy it rather a lot, but it’s quite hard to make time for it when I have lots of other things I want to do as well. Reading is something I like to do when it’s quiet — much like writing — so I can’t really do it in front of the TV, and I certainly can’t do it while I’m doing something else. Audiobooks allow me to enjoy a book while I’m doing something else, which is ideal.

So that’s that. I’ll be taking it easy for the weekend, then continuing this new regime next week. Let’s see if it helps at all.

1277: Failing to Resist the Urge to Call This Post ‘Rim Job’

I’M SORRY. (I’m not sorry.)

I went to see Pacific Rim this evening with my similarly-named friends Tim and Tom. This, along with Akira the other night, means that I’ve officially been to the cinema more times in the past week than I have in the last year.

As for Pacific Rim, it was enjoyable, if cheesy. Good, dumb fun on the surface, but a movie clearly designed with an appreciation — possibly even reverence — for Japanese giant robot anime. Throughout the whole thing, I couldn’t help thinking that the movie might have been better just as a straight-up anime. In fact, partway through the movie, I found myself making mental comparisons with the visual novel Deus Machina Demonbane, with which Pacific Rim actually shares a significant number of similarities.

Lest you’re unfamiliar with Deus Machina Demonbane but have seen Pacific Rim, the former is a visual novel about giant robots battling monsters loosely inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft; the latter is a movie about giant robots battling monsters with too many mouths. Already quite similar, albeit the Lovecraftian twist on Demonbane is a pleasant break from the norm.

Then we have the whole “you need two people to pilot a giant robot” thing, which is present in both Demonbane and Pacific Rim; in the former, the pilot is paired up with a “tome” (in the case of the protagonist, an absolutely adorable personification of the Necronimicon), while in the latter, two people have to “drift” together and share their consciousness, or memories, or something.

Then there’s the fact that the main “hero” robot gets the crap kicked out of it repeatedly, yet somehow always gets repaired to immaculate condition every time, which is present in both works.

And the fact that the giant robots fighting do just as much damage — if not more so — to the places they’re trying to protect than the monsters they’re fighting, which is, again, present in both works.

Demonbane does have a bit of a twist in that the antagonists are given personalities and stories of their own, rather than just being “GRRR ARRGH MONSTERS”. There’s an overall “bad guy” in Demonbane, who is responsible for the Lovecraftian beasts invading our dimension, and there are some truly loathsome “lieutenants” who give the protagonist and the other characters in the story a lot of grief, to say the least.

Also, there is more fucking in Demonbane, while there is none in Pacific Rim, what with it being a 12A and all while Demonbane is an adults-only title. For the most part, the sexual scenes in Demonbane are more horrific than titillating, though; it’s one of those “I can’t fap to this!” games, unless you have some seriously weird tastes. Likewise, you cannot fap to Pacific Rim, but for different reasons.

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that if you enjoyed Pacific Rim and you’re open to the idea of playing sexually explicit visual novels, then you should give Deus Machina Demonbane a look. It’s one of the more memorable, well-written visual novels I’ve played in my time, and it’s satisfyingly hefty in length, too, particularly if you go for all the endings.

I am hot and sweaty. I am going to drink something cold and go to bed. Good night.

1276: Be Patient

Those who are “against” video games are always quick to mock how supposedly “brainless” and “useless” they are — the other day, for example, a writer for The Times displayed a staggering amount of ignorance on the issue, which resulted in this article.

But video games can teach us all manner of new skills and abilities. Besides the old favourite hand-eye co-ordination — everyone says it because it’s true — games also help train our reflexes, develop the problem-solving parts of our brain, express our creativity, socialise with others and all manner of other things.

One of the things they’ve helped me with most over the years is the matter of patience. I have a significant amount of patience for irritating situations, which is something I was regularly complimented on back when I was a teacher. (Having patience to endure irritating situations is very much a benefit when you’re dealing with a class of 30 misbehaving little scrotes.)

Actually, it’s not just irritating situations I have patience for; it’s the patience to keep beavering away at something until I’m successful (also file under: stubbornness); the patience to try and achieve something even if I don’t know that I can do it; the patience to learn things that initially seem difficult.

A combination of video games and learning musical instruments growing up taught me this particular virtue. And it pays off.

My patience means that I have a lot more time for, say, games that take a while to get going; games that might not be the most accomplished technically, but which have their heart in the right place. My patience means that I am able to keep trying a particularly difficult part of a game until I’m successful at it; my patience means that I’m willing to explore beyond the superficial in games that have hidden depths.

This sense of patience has persisted over the years, too; replaying old first-person shooters such as Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold recently has revealed that they’re a lot more difficult than I remember, and people with less in the way of patience would undoubtedly give up very quickly. But I’ve been persisting, and it’s been an enjoyable experience to return to these games that I grew up with — while they may look dated, they’re still extremely fun, so long as you can deal with the fact that these are games that make much more of an effort to actually kill the player than a lot of modern titles.

I’m weirdly proud of my sense of patience, because it means I can find a lot more things enjoyable than some other people. The games in which I’ve made use of my patience to look past flaws and problems have become some of my favourite games of all time, no exaggeration, and it’s largely due to the fact that I know relatively few people have seen the things I have.

That may sound smug and superior and for that I apologise (a bit, anyway) — but I wouldn’t have things any other way.

1275: Got Out

I successfully put my proposed plan from yesterday’s post into action today. Now it is just a matter of sticking to it.

Walking isn’t as inherently satisfying as running, because it’s not as obviously tiring. But it’s still a reasonably good workout — Runkeeper assured me that I had burned a significant number of calories by the time I got back home. In total, I was out for just over an hour, and walked about 3.5 miles in total.

I’ve always been something of an indoor person, but I do like just going for a walk sometimes. This is a surprise to me, because the idea of “going for a walk” was bewilderingly ridiculous when I was young. Why, I thought, would you ever just go out with the intention of not actually going anywhere? Why, I pondered, would you ever just go out without a final destination in mind?

Well, now I’m a little older, I can appreciate the answers to those questions a little more: the reason you would do those things is simply to appreciate the things that are around you, and perhaps discover some interesting new things in the process.

I’m not sure when my attitudes changed on this note, but I have a feeling it was when I was forced to move back home for a while after my marriage broke down. Staying in the house just made me feel exceedingly depressed all the time, so I welcomed any excuse to get out and do something, even if that “something” wasn’t really anything in particular. I’d go out for a run around the area; I’d go out for a walk to the local woods; I’d walk out of the village by one road, all the way around its perimeter and re-enter from a completely different angle. In the process, I found myself exploring places that I’d either never been to before, or which I hadn’t been to for a significant number of years.

When I go out for a walk, I enjoy it when I can find myself surrounded by nature. Again, I note that I’ve never really been an outdoor person, but I do feel something of a curious affinity for the greenery of forests and otherwise wooded areas. I enjoy being under a canopy of leaves, sunlight dappled on the ground through the few breaks in the green ceiling above me. I enjoy the crunch of twigs and dead leaves underfoot as I walk down a dirt path; I enjoy seeing peculiar, twisted, gnarled trees that have grown in peculiar directions for reasons known only to themselves.

I’m reasonably fortunate where I am now because I’m pretty close to Southampton Common, which has a lot of greenery. There’s a lot of open space, too, what with it being a common and all, but there’s also plenty of wooded areas with well-worn pathways to explore. There’s also a creepy graveyard on the boundary which is interesting to wander through.

I’m going to try and get in the habit of going for a walk every morning if possible. It worked out quite well today — I got up early, went out, walked for an hour, got back, had breakfast, had time to chill out for half an hour, then started work, and I didn’t feel like I’d “wasted” any time. Whether or not I feel “better” is a matter of some debate, but I can’t really expect to feel significantly different after just one day, can I?

Well. Let’s stick with it and see what happens, anyway.

1274: Get Out

As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m feeling a little low. Whether this is a symptom of some sort of summer-related Seasonal Affective Disorder or if it’s just a symptom of my ongoing depression I don’t know, but I am feeling a little low.

One of the reasons I’m feeling low is because I feel fat and gross. I always feel fat and gross, to be fair, because I am fat and gross, but there have been times when I didn’t feel quite as bad about myself as I do right now. Those times had one common factor: I was indulging in a regular exercise routine, either at the gym and pool, or out on the roads running.

I haven’t done any real exercise for quite some time for various reasons — mostly a lack of motivation related to depression, which just feeds the cycle and makes it worse, I know, but also just recently the blazing hot weather we’ve been having every day hasn’t been helping either. The last thing I feel like doing when it feels like a greenhouse outside is picking up my pace to anything more than my usual walk, let alone persisting at that pace for 30-45 minutes at a time.

Consequently, most of the good work I’ve done on running in the past has been largely undone, and I’m a mess with regard to fitness. I don’t really know what to do about it, either; I just feel completely unmotivated and have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go out and “better myself”, but at the same time know that if I don’t I’m going to continue along in this funk not really wanting to do anything.

This Oatmeal comic got me thinking somewhat, because I recognised a lot of the things he was talking about therein. It’s almost — almost — inspired me to get up and go out this evening, but I’m not really feeling it right now. I may make a start on some sort of regime tomorrow, however.

What I’m thinking I might do is rather than jump straight back into the demoralising experience of being a fat guy trying to run, I’ll just try and do a long walk each day. That’s something that feels “doable” and “achievable,” and from there I can always work my way up to doing something a bit more strenuous. I’m not talking about a casual amble, just to be clear; I’m talking about a brisk walk for a significant distance for somewhere in the region of 45 minutes to an hour. I live right near Southampton Common, which is the ideal venue for such perambulations, so I may just start taking advantage of that fact.

Here’s my plan, then, which it remains to be seen whether or not I’ll be able to stick to: I’m going to try and get up reasonably early-ish — i.e. considerably more than half an hour before I’m supposed to start doing work — and head out for a walk in the morning before it gets too unbearably hot. Then I will come home, have breakfast, relax, chill out and start work. Hopefully that small change will have some sort of impact, if not on my body then at least on my mental state.

I’m making no promises as to whether or not this is actually going to do anything, but having good intentions is a first step at least. Let’s see if they lead anywhere.

1273: You Have Earned a Trophy

I can feel my attitudes towards achievements and trophies mellowing somewhat. While I still think people who play games just to get the trophies/achievements are big pillocks — and people who refuse to buy a PS3 game if it doesn’t have a Platinum trophy are even bigger pillocks — I have started to think about them a bit differently, particularly with regard to PSN’s implementation of them.

The way I’ve started thinking of them now is as another means of showing my appreciation for a quality (or at least enjoyable) piece of entertainment to the people who make it. Trophy data is public and synced online, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that developers and publishers are looking at the proportion of people who achieve particular milestones in their games. Thinking of it in that way, I’m happy to put in a bit of extra effort to attain a Platinum trophy in a game I especially enjoyed, as it shows that I liked the game enough to want to see everything it had to offer. That enjoyment is then recorded permanently — or as permanent as my PSN profile is, anyway — for all to see.

I’ve achieved Platinum trophies — or 100% completion, where a game doesn’t have a Platinum — in relatively few games to date. One was Thatgamecompany’s Flower, which remains one of the most beautiful, moving interactive experiences I’ve ever had — and yes, I think it’s better than Journey. The second was Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, which ended up being way better than I thought it would be; the third was Ar Tonelico Qoga, which was the climax to a series of games that now ranks among my favourites of all time. At my present rate, the fourth will be Time and Eternity, which I want to give some recognition and love to purely because it’s been so thoroughly (and slightly unfairly, in my opinion) panned by a lot of critics, and completely ignored by others. In the case of all these trophies, attaining the Platinum represented a good balance between being able to enjoy the game normally, and going out of my way to make a bit of effort; I wouldn’t have bothered if achieving it required too much in the way of unenjoyable grindy bollocks. (On Xbox, incidentally, the only games I’ve achieved 100% of the, uh, achievements on are Oblivion and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. In the case of Oblivion, chasing the achievements actually spoiled the experience significantly for me because it directed what should have been a freeform experience far too much, and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX had insultingly easy achievements that really didn’t reflect whether or not you were actually good at the game.)

I think much more fondly of PSN trophies than I do of Xbox or Steam achievements for some reason. I think it’s because the “value” of PSN trophies is more immediately obvious. Sure, Xbox achievements have Gamerscore values, but Gamerscore is fairly meaningless, particularly as it’s applied inconsistently between games and, well, doesn’t do anything. Trophies, meanwhile, have instantly recognisable values; bronze ones are “fodder” for the most part; silver ones require a little more effort; gold ones are generally either challenging or time-consuming; and platinum ones show true dedication to a game. To say you have “Platinumed” a game is a much simpler, more elegant way of saying that you’ve done everything on that game’s arbitrary checklist than “I got all the achievements”.

Also, the PSN “You have earned a trophy” noise is infinitely better than the Xbox’s “plink”, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. The Xbox noise is the same sound as when someone comes online, for heaven’s sake; the PSN one sounds like you’ve picked up a powerup in a retro game. See? BETTER.

1272: The Worst Headache in the World

I went to see Akira at the cinema this evening. I recall around the period anime first got fashionable in the UK that there was a considerable degree of snobbery about this movie, with people saying “oh, you have to see it on the big screen” and whatnot whenever it came on TV.

You know what, though? Having now seen it both on TV and on the big screen… yeah, the snobs were right. It’s spectacular.

The reason I was seeing Akira at all this evening was because my good friends George and Mitu, whose marriage we are attending later in the year, happened to be in the area and had booked tickets. George popped up on Steam earlier and asked me if I fancied coming out at short notice for a 10.30pm showing, and because I’m never really doing anything of note, I accepted. (If anyone else is in the area and wants to do something fun… try me. I’m usually available.) So thanks, George and Mitu, for getting me out of the house on a Saturday evening and seeing a film I don’t think I’ve seen for at least 15 years or so.

I first saw Akira when it came on Channel 4 late at night one evening. Well, to be more precise, I taped it, because it was on at some ungodly hour in the morning. Eventually I sat down and watched it, though, and was thoroughly bewildered by almost everything about it. I hadn’t really watched many foreign-language films before, so watching something with subtitles was new, and I also hadn’t really had much contact with anime before, either, so the concept of an “adult” animation (not that kind of “adult,” though there is one pair of visible boobs, albeit not in an even slightly titillating context) was also something new to me.

I think it’s probably fair to say that I didn’t really “get” Akira the first time I saw it. Those who have seen Akira will know that not “getting” it is part of the point, really; again, this was a concept that was somewhat new to me at the time I first saw it. I was used to things being much more literal, and indeed even today I do sometimes find it difficult to latch on to stuff that is being too deliberately obtuse.

Seeing it today, though, I feel I appreciated it a lot more than when I first saw it. It’s a real spectacle, all the more remarkable for the fact it came out in 1988 and thus would have been largely hand-animated. As George pointed out when we came out, a lot of things blow up, shatter and collapse in Akira, and someone had to animate each and every one of those bits of rock, glass and other miscellaneous bits of debris by hand. Quite a feat.

Akira’s also interesting for having quite a distinctive style. While recognizable Japanese in appearance, it doesn’t look like modern anime, nor does it look like stuff that came a little later in the ’90s. I’m mostly familiar with more recent anime, but ’90s stuff in particular has a very distinctive look that is a bit different from today, and Akira is different again.

One thing I thought that was quite interesting about the film’s look is that all the characters actually look like Japanese people, whereas from ’90s anime onwards, we tended to see a lot more in the way of the heavily-stylised, big-eyed look that typifies the medium today. The characters are also relatively subdued in their defining characteristics, and realistic in their appearance. Of the three female characters who put in an appearance in the movie, not one of them is intended to be “the hot one” or “the cute one” or anything like that — they’re just women. (Well, okay, one of them is a weird, wrinkled, old-looking child with blue skin, but eh.) Very progressive, particularly for 1988.

Anyway. I enjoyed myself. It was good to revisit a movie I hadn’t seen for a long time, and it was good to see friends I hadn’t seen for a long time, albeit in a situation where we couldn’t really talk a lot! Now it is 1:30 in the morning so I had probably better get some sleep.

1271: Don’t Read the… You Know

Popular gaming site IGN has decided to crack down on shitty comments. Given that a single IGN article attracts thousands of comments — the post describing the proposed changes currently has 2,309 and it was only posted a few hours ago — this is very much a good thing.

I’ve never really read IGN all that much. I had a couple of pieces posted there a few years ago — here and here (I was not responsible for the dreadful headline on that one, by the way) — but I’ve never really felt the need to engage with the community. There’s a few good writers there — a couple of whom I know personally — but it’s not, on the whole, a site I check regularly. And, by extension, it’s not a site I tend to look at the comments form.

My God.

Yeah. They need this crackdown. The comments section is a mess. Just on that one post linked above, there’s a surprising amount of negativity ranging from people insulting the writers (and their names… yes, his name is Steve Butts; grow the fuck up) to perpetuating stupid fanboy platform wars. The few positive comments that are there are quickly drowned out or reacted to with further abuse, and the “upvote/downvote” system the site has in place courtesy of popular third-party comment solution Disqus is completely abused; “good quality” comments aren’t upvoted, but dumb comments from “popular” posters are. Meanwhile, people advocating reason and praising the site’s changes are downvoted. Ridiculous.

I have to question how on Earth it got like that in the first place, and I can only assume it was a matter of complacency — of assuming that problems would sort themselves out after a while. But, since a lot of Internet commenters on sites like IGN are seemingly children and teenagers (or at least act that way), they’ll try and push the boundaries. If they encounter no resistance, they’ll continue to push further. It’s exactly the same as in teaching; if you don’t set expectations up front, you are only making life difficult for yourself down the road.

I’ve been fortunate with this blog that I only get a few commenters, all of whom are very welcome, and pretty much all of whom I’d call friends. Meanwhile, over at my new professional home USgamer, we’re already building a strong community of intelligent, articulate commenters who have plenty of value to add to the conversation. The quality of our content and the way in which we have written it — to provoke and inspire discussion — has helped set those initial expectations in place, so hopefully things will continue in a positive direction. I have no doubt we’ll have to deal with troublemakers before long — we’ve already had one charming chap call Kat Bailey a “bitch” for not liking Project X Zone as much as he did, and we swiftly and positively dealt with it — but for now, I’m very much liking the rather mature, erudite community we appear to have attracted for the most part so far.

Internet comments are both a blessing and a curse, as the cliché goes. On the one hand, it’s great to be able to have discussions around things that writers have posted on the Web; on the other hand, there’s little value in them if they always descend into trolling, name-calling and insulting. Fortunately, a lot of sites seem keen to put a stop to the bullshit; it remains to be seen if, in the long term, anything good will happen.