#oneaday Day 104: Acrid Black Smoke

Earlier today, a story broke that divided opinions somewhat. The point and content of the story at this stage isn't especially important or relevant to what I'm particularly interested in right now, but the gist of the arguments that people are having is that it was a report based on anonymous sources that sounded like "just another rumour".

And perhaps it was. Or perhaps it wasn't. Anonymous sources aren't the most convincing sources of information to some people, thanks mostly to their anonymity. But these are people who would likely be immediately fired if their names were attached to things which are—presumably—supposed to stay secret for now.

Again, not the point I'm trying to make.

The point I am trying to make is the surprising amount of negativity the story in question attracted, and the subsequent high-school clique-style bitching and sniping that ensued on Twitter between high-profile members of the industry for the next few hours. People laugh and joke about passive-aggressive status updates from people who want to bitch about someone without naming them—"I wish SOMEONE would stop being such a jackass!"—but this was taking it to a whole new level, with, in some cases, high profile representatives of respected publications taking the passive-aggressive approach and arguing with thin air, presumably to try and make some kind of point.

I'm not going to name and shame anyone because there's no point in doing that and it wouldn't achieve anything. All I am going to say is that any time something like this erupts, I'm surprised and disappointed in people. Perhaps the story in question will turn out to be nothing—or perhaps it will turn out to be something big. Regardless, it was a rumour, and an interesting one at that, and people will want to know it. The original article made it very clear that it was a rumour based on things that anonymous sources had said. People can make their own minds up whether or not to believe it, but there's really no need for all the bitching and sniping.

It is, sadly, a hallmark of the Internet, though; comment sections were described on a radio show earlier today as "the bottom half of the Internet" due to their relentless negativity—a fact which made Charlie Brooker sit up and take notice, unsurprisingly. But why? Why the hate? Why the behaving like teenage girls?

Perhaps I'm just too much of a nice guy. I don't hate anyone, and I respect the work of others. I'll slag something off if it's genuinely bad, but I don't hate things for the sake of hating them like some people seem to. And whatever the reason for people's reactions to the story which broke earlier (still not getting into it!) there's certainly no reason for the ugly and thinly-disguised jealousy which has been evident this evening.

If people could just be a bit nicer to each other and a bit less negative about everything, the whole world would be a much more pleasant place.

It's nice to want things.

Day 452

#oneaday Day 100: What a Novelty

[Side note: Day 100! Yay. This marks my 448th day of blogging every day. I've been half-tempted to start numbering the posts from when I originally started again, but then that will just get confusing. Perhaps I'll put the total number at the end of each post or something. I don't have an eventual goal number in mind—I fully intend to keep doing this until I can't do it any more, for whatever reason. But given that I continued writing through the disastrous events of last year, it'll take something pretty severe to stop me being here every day. Now, on to your regularly scheduled blog post.]

I can't program. Actually, that's a lie; I wrote a very good Treasure Hunt game in ATARI BASIC once. It used Graphics Mode 2, a custom character set, featured a randomly-generated playfield and custom sound effects. Okay, it perhaps wasn't "very good" but it was at least a completed project. Since then, though, my programming knowledge has tailed off somewhat. It's when everyone stopped using line numbers that it got confusing. I know ditching line numbers was actually a good thing in that you could more easily insert code where it needed to go rather than having to resort to increasingly-convoluted GOSUB/RETURN subroutines, but as soon as all these punctuation rules started to come in? Hmmm.

Perhaps it's just that I haven't spent enough time trying to learn one language. I spent a bit of time doing JavaScript and managed to get some fancy DHTML working, but have since forgotten it. I did some Java once, though it didn't do much. I worked my way through the first two chapters of a C# (pronounced "C-sharp", for anyone who had been wondering about it for as long as I had before I eventually found out) book and thought I was doing pretty well until I got to the first "independent project" type chapter and completely failed to produce the program required.

This is why I enjoy tools that allow you to express your creativity without having to know how to write a complete program. Sure, if you need to do something exciting, you can (and probably will) delve into scripting, but for the most part, the built-in tools are enough to get something up and running.

Over the years, I've used many different tools like this. By far my most beloved (and now outdated) is Klik & Play from Clickteam, which later became Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion. These required absolutely no programming knowledge whatsoever and simply a logical mind to figure out a series of "When this happens, make this happen" statements. Winner. And surprisingly flexible.

I'm also a big fan of the RPG Maker series, especially the later ones that do include a scripting language that allows people far cleverer than me to completely replace the game's battle system with something cool.

Most recently, I've come across Novelty, which is a tool for making Japanese-style visual novels. This is a completely free application—though still in beta—and is one of the most polished pieces of free software I've ever seen. It's incredibly flexible and allows for everything from barely-interactive "click to continue" visual novels that don't require any player decisions, to more in-depth Phoenix Wright-style affairs with buttons, hotspots, branching story paths and all sorts. There's not only a scripting language, but also an impressive markup language for creating graphical assets. There's no need to delve into these if you don't want to, of course, but for "power users" they'll be a boon I'm sure.

My only trouble with tools like these is that I have trouble getting started on something. I get some grand plan in my mind and either end up getting daunted by all the preparatory work which will need to be done (gathering/creating assets, planning and whatnot) or find myself starting, getting too ambitious and bumping into an insurmountable roadblock.

Still, it's nice to know these tools are out there for creative types. I have idle plans to experiment with making some sort of visual novel, but whether or not that will ever happen is anyone's guess.

void blog(string bollocks)
{
     Object@ myBlog = GetObject("Blog");
     if (myBlog !is null)
     {
            myBlog.SetText(bollocks);
     }
}

See? No problem at all.

blog("Cock! Piss! Partridge!")

Day 448

#oneaday Day 99: Mein Kraft

Yes, I have discovered Minecraft. Minecraft, despite being an indie game and therefore something I should technically automatically be championing, going by past experience, is something which I've always had something of a curious resistance to. It hasn't been by choice, though—the reason I haven't been playing Minecraft is not the same as the reason I'm not playing Call of Duty, for example.

In fact, if anything, it's more to do with the fact that when I finally gave in to peer pressure and bought a copy a number of months back, I only had my netbook with me and it ran like ass on there. And then it ran like ass under OS X on my Mac at home, too. For literally months and months I'd been saying to myself "I should really install it on the Windows partition of my Mac and try it properly…"

Well now I have. And what do you know? It's rather good, though it's the kind of game that appears to—at least in its current beta stage—be very much "what you make of it".

If you're one of the few people who hasn't contributed to developer Notch's millions so far, here's a brief rundown. You are dropped into a randomly-generated world made entirely of blocks of various materials. You have nothing to your name except a punching fist that can knock down trees. It's up to you to survive, because every night, the nasties come out and will do their best to kill you.

That's about it—but the main appeal of the game in its present state comes from the fact that once you've built yourself a secure shelter, it's time to start exploring the world and building stuff. You can create structures either by hollowing out existing terrain or by collecting resources and stacking them to build things—kind of like pixelated Lego blocks.

Then there's the "craft" part of the title—you can make items. The daunting part of the game for new players is the fact that no help is given when you start the game—without looking at sites such as the excellent Minecraft Wiki, you'd be expected to figure out how to make tools for yourself. And given that even making the simplest tools requires several steps (punch trees for wood, craft wood into planks, build workbench from planks, craft planks into sticks, combine sticks and planks in various arrangements to produce tools) it's arguably something of a long shot to expect people to do this for themselves.

Or is it? Steven Johnson argues in Everything Bad is Good for You that the cognitive processes you go through when figuring out stuff like this for yourself are very beneficial—good "brain exercise". You use past experience from previous games and other things you've done in the game you're playing to draw conclusions for yourself about what to do next. And sure enough, I found that once I'd started playing a bit and got the basics down, I started naturally experimenting with different arrangements of materials to see what they produced. Some things worked, some things didn't. If something doesn't work, you don't lose anything, either, so the game is set up to encourage exploration and experimentation.

There's also an element of risk, though. Death isn't permanent—but it does cause you to drop all your stuff and potentially lose it. If you've spent a long time collecting things, this can be a real pain, especially if you were exploring a long way from your home spot. Then there's the fact that the game's most notorious enemies, the "Creepers", explode when they get near you. Not only does this cause significant damage to you, it also blows big holes in the things you've built.

But rather than being frustrating, most players simply take this as a sign that they need to defend their homes a little better. Perhaps they should make them harder to get to, or plant some cacti to put off enemies, or build some weapons and armour.

The possibilities are pretty extensive, and I'm looking forward to exploring the game further—and seeing where Notch takes it in the future. The game comes out of beta on the 11th of November this year, so if you want to pick it up for its current reduced price (25% off the full price) then get over there now.

#oneaday Day 98: Inappropriate Soundtracks

Music's a powerful tool for emotional manipulation. You can use it to make people laugh, cry, jump, be scared, be excited and get tingly feelings in those hairs on the back of their neck.

You can also misuse it, with varied results, such as this video I made more to test the iPhone's ability to upload directly to YouTube more than anything — hence the crappy picture and sound quality.

Yes, that is indeed Crackdown 2 featuring the Lazy Town soundtrack, a choice which both confused and delighted the YouTube community and has meant that I still get random, sporadic comments on this video to this day.

It… kind of works, though, doesn't it? Happy, bouncy music for a happy, bouncy agent leaping around collecting shiny orbs. Of course, it completely changes the character of the game — but then Crackdown 2 is a game that isn't particularly strong on the narrative front anyway. If anything, it encourages this sort of messing around.

There's certain genres I won't touch with custom soundtracks. RPGs, for example. While RPGs often have repetitive soundtracks that you listen to on repeat for 40-100 hours, for the most part I like to experience them the way the composer intended. It's like a movie; you wouldn't replace the soundtrack from Shawshank Redemption with Kylie Minogue, would you? It would completely undermine the experience. As RPGs tend to be story-heavy, I prefer not to undermine the experience with a custom soundtrack — many of them are more than capable of undermining themselves with ridiculous plot twists, of course.

But driving games are another matter. Ever since the original Xbox launched the custom soundtracks feature, it's pretty rare that I'll play a driving game with the music included on the disc. (This is at least partly because the vast majority of driving game soundtracks are complete garbage, but that's a little beside the point.) I wrote the other day that I wished for a bit more "drama" in my driving games, and that no-one seemed keen to follow through on the idea. What I can do, though, is put ludicrously overdramatic soundtracks over my driving games, producing results like this. Much more epic, I'm sure you'll agree.

Okay, I shamelessly stole the idea to use the Plunkett and Macleane soundtrack from Top Gear, but they used it because it works. Also recommended: Neodämmerung and/or Navras from The Matrix Revolutions, anything from the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, anything from the Castlevania soundtracks since Symphony of the Night and… well, anything epic, really.

I suggest you try it next time you fire up a racing game. You'll have much more fun and your races will carry that much more "weight". You can imagine that you're racing to survive or something. (Obviously if you're playing Split/Second, which already has an excellent cinematic soundtrack, you literally are racing to survive in many cases.) You can imagine your own reason for driving shiny cars very fast. If you're the sort of person like me who enjoys driving shiny cars very fast but would prefer it very much if there was a reason beyond "to win", then this approach will sort you right out.

Any recommendations for other games with inappropriate soundtracks? I'm all — wait for it — ears.

#oneaday Day 96: Don't Take It Personally, Babe

The thing I like about games that are a bit off the beaten track is the fact that they're not afraid to break with every gaming convention under the sun in order to try something a bit different. Objectively, sometimes they're not great "games" in the traditional sense, but they are definitely worthwhile experiences that explore interesting new ways of telling stories.

One "author" who produces such games is Christine Love, who is fond of creating ren'ai titles. For the uninitiated, ren'ai games have strong plot elements of romantic love. They're not necessarily dating sims or hentai games—though some are—but all of them have a narrative which explores love and emotions. Final Fantasy VIII, for example, is regarded as a ren'ai game. Stretching the definition somewhat, you could even argue Silent Hill 2 has elements of the genre.

The appropriately-named Love's titles, however, are much more up-front about their intentions. Digital: A Love Story and the oddly-named Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story are two games which go about telling a ren'ai tale in similar, though markedly different fashions. Both of them revolve heavily around the use of technology and its role in interpersonal relations.

I'll resist spoiling either of them, but I think they're well worth exploring for anyone interested in the "visual novel" genre—anyone who liked games such as the Ace Attorney series, 999 or Hotel Dusk, for example.

Digital: A Love Story sits you at the desk of an Amiga (or rather, a non-copyright infringing equivalent) five minutes into the future of 1988. Purely by interacting with your computer and dialling up a number of virtual BBS systems, a genuinely compelling tale is told without any graphics whatsoever. You don't "break character" for a single instant in the game, and it's this gameplay "hook" that keeps you playing to see what's going on. I'll say nothing else, as that would spoil it. But it's excellent—if only for nostalgia value. It happens to tell a good story, too.

Don't Take It Personally… is a little different. Taking a more Japanese style to its art, it looks like a dating game, though it isn't one. Casting players in the role of John Rook, a 38-year old double divorcee who came to high school teaching in 2027 as part of a mid-life crisis, it tells a tale which explores interpersonal and social issues that you don't generally see in games. It's a relatively simplistic visual novel in terms of gameplay, with only a few choices to make, but like Digital, it's the story that matters. And it's told in a very interesting way through three different "layers". There's the face-to-face action, where the player, as John, sees and hears what's going on in front of him. John also has access to his students' Facebook-like social network, though, and is able to read any of his students' communications—even the private ones—giving an ethically-questionable insight into what they're thinking and what is really going on behind the dramas that unfold. And thirdly, this game features possibly the only time you'll ever see 4chan (sorry, "12channel") being used as a Greek chorus.

Both games have a "message" and while Don't Take It Personally in particular is a little heavy-handed with it towards the end, it's cool to see games trying to say something a little more than the usual melodrama.

So check 'em out. They take, like, two hours at most each. And they're free. You love free stuff, right?

#oneaday Day 95: Car Pee Gee

There's a ton of things that people haven't tried in the world of video games—mostly because of certain assumptions that are made about the people who play them, or more specifically, the demographics of who plays what.

Let's take the racing game genre as an example. It's generally assumed that racing games will be played by petrolheads of varying degrees. The überhardcore petrolheads who actually know what a limited slip differential is rather than just treating it as a powerup will be into the Forza Motorsports and Gran Turismos of the world. Those who just enjoy flinging cars around corners are built for the Ridge Racers, Need for Speeds and Project Gothams of the world.

And that, it seems, is the limit of what the market assumes to be "people who like racing games". But I like racing games, and I wouldn't describe myself as a particular petrolhead as such. I also like other genres, and I would pay good money for a game that fused together some different genres and gave racing games a bit of personality. Because let's face it, however good the driving action is, the in-between races bit of most racing games is about as interesting as a spreadsheet. Sure, it might have a soundtrack by Junkie XL or The Prodigy, but it's still dull as ditchwater and completely character-free.

I want a racer with a plot. I'm not talking about half-assed efforts like Need for Speed Underground or Ridge Racer Type 4. I'm talking about a game where the unfolding storyline is just as important as throwing a BMW M5 around a 90-degree corner. It's been tried once before with TOCA Race Driver, but to my knowledge, never again since. There's also Square's Racing Lagoon, but good luck finding a copy of that ever.

No; what I envision is something along the lines of the old Wing Commander games, where there's an unfolding story and some good character interaction punctuated by, in this case, racing rather than space-shooty-bang-bang action. If your character has been talking to a rival racer and talking smack to them in these interstitial "plot" sequences, it's going to make you feel all the more inclined to do your very best against them when you see their name flash up over the top of their car in the middle of a race. Perhaps you could have a co-driver sitting in the car with you talking to you and making comments as you race as well as helping you out by warning you of upcoming corners and hazards.

Unfortunately, I doubt it's ever going to happen, because most racing games these days are treated as triple-A titles, which means that they get tightly focus-grouped and marketed at a specific demographic: the petrolhead.

I want to play the racing game for the RPG fan, the interactive movie fan, the adventure game fan. There's no reason why either side of the experience has to be compromised—just replace the battles from a JRPG with races. Why shouldn't it work?

Oh well. I can dream on.

#oneaday Day 88: Help Wanted II: The Helpening

After the resounding success of the Help Wanted post from a few days ago, here's another challenge for you all. This time, the ads are all in an attempt to recruit the parts people play in various board games, making them either more or less obscure depending on where you're sitting. Or anyone who knows any of the answers to either post a massive geek.

So without further ado, here we go:

—

WANTED: Exploratory self-starter with keen negotiation skills required for this exciting new opportunity. Play a key role in the challenges of running a successful startup. Candidates with an nderstanding of mining, logging, agriculture and bricklaying will have a distinct advantage. £DOE

—

WANTED: Keenly creative cartographer sought for the mapping and development of a potentially affluent French region with ties to the monastic orders. Forward planning an essential quality. £good

—

WANTED: Programmer with experience of languages such as LOGO required for exciting new factory-based robotics project. £OK

—

WANTED: Investigator sought for project in Massachusetts. Background and past experience not important, but an open-minded nature and desire to explore the supernatural is essential. Some risk of death and/or mental disorders. £excellent

—

WANTED: Crew for spaceship. Must deal well with crises under immense pressure and be able to tell their left from right. Good communication skills, forward planning and a collaborative nature are essential roles for the successful candidate. £allrightIsuppose

—

WANTED: Crew for spaceship. Must deal well with crises under immense pressure and not be a cybernetic sleeper agent. £fairlygoodish

—

WANTED: Family-focused agricultural type with good time management sought for ambitious farming project in 13th century Germany. Accommodation provided. £good with significant bonuses for good performance.

—

WANTED: Spatially-aware type with fondness for single colour required for immediate start in collaborative, decorative block-laying art project. Must be focused on own contribution, potentially to the detriment of other collaborators' work. £awesome

—

WANTED: Are you a bit like Brother Cadfael? Then perhaps you belong with our monastic order. We seem to suffer a bit from violent crime and are in urgent need of new members of the Order to keep the peace. £voluntary

—

WANTED: Travel enthusiasts sought for railroad excursions across the United States, Europe, Scandinavia and Germany. Must have a knack for booking entire routes and then inexplicably blocking them off for anyone else's use. £pro rata

—

WANTED: Bean farmers urgently required for spectacular new bean-farming opportunity. Type of beans unimportant. £dependent on performance

—

WANTED: Electricity enthusiasts with good mathematical and financial skills sought for employment in Germany and the United States' national grids. Must be able to count. Forward-thinking skills a distinct benefit. £good, but in a weird currency you've never heard of.

—

WANTED: Ambitious megalomaniac type sought for systematic conquest of provinces by fair means or foul. This is a somewhat unpredictable position where you can be sure of a new experience every day. £variable

—

WANTED: Warlike conquistador sought for conquest of entire world and/or stalemate situations with similar types. Must have considerable amount of patience and competitive nature. Would particularly suit people with too much time on their hands. £spectacular

—

So, any ideas? Make your guesses in the comments.

#oneaday Day 85: Help Wanted

Sometimes it's not clear how video game heroes got themselves into the situations they're in at the start of a game. It's at times like this that I like to imagine they answered a job advertisement like one of the following. Can you spot the games they're from?

—

WANTED: Caretaker for large medieval castle. Some internal renovations required. Successful applicants will have good athletic ability and will be unconcerned by stories of "the undead". What is a man? Anyone who can apply for this job—we don't discriminate. £DOE. Call Simon.

—

WANTED: Pest control technician to operate in secluded literacy-heavy society. Good performance in this role will lead to quick promotion prospects and the opportunity for a considerable amount of travel. The successful candidate must have good interpersonal and leadership skills, be open to the idea of taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges and be interested in their own lineage. £excellent. Ask for Gorion.

—

WANTED: Computer specialist for exciting new project in space. Must be well-versed in use of lead piping for improvisatory technical solutions, interested in the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and not easily terrified. £available on application. Call 01010011 01001000 01001111 01000100 01000001 01001110 and ask for Sharon.

—

WANTED: New recruits to police force for small Mid-Western town prone to outbreaks of bizarre crime and disease. Must be able to handle small to large firearms with no training, and have difficulty running both in a straight line and around corners. Floppy hair is beneficial, though not essential. £good. Call Claire.

—

WANTED: Refuse collection operative to trial new system of collecting waste. Successful applicant will have good ball-handling skills and be open to the idea of travel. £amazing. Call K. Cosmos.

—

WANTED: Ex-soldier with good leadership skills sought for assistance with new environmental project. Background unimportant. Familiarity with anachronistic weapon technologies a distinct advantage. £stupendous. Call Mr Wallace.

—

WANTED: New recruits to police force for the most geographically diverse region in North America. Must hold full, clean driving licence and be familiar with the operation of high-powered sports cars—we don't do things by halves here. Split-personality applicants who enjoy occasionally delving into street racing themselves are welcome to apply. £outrageous. Call Dispatch.

—

WANTED: Rapping dog to assist with unexpected noodle-related issues. Specialist problem requires specialist recruitment. £inconceivable. Call C. C. M. Onion.

—

WANTED: Color-blind gentleman with large neck sought for friendship, camaraderie and maybe more. Must not be afraid of insects. £not bad. Call Dom.

—

WANTED: New owner for ailing bookshop in French Quarter. Assistant provided. Your role will involve very little working in the shop and a lot of wandering around town. Would suit lazy, arrogant prig. £rubbish. Call Grace.

—

WANTED: Witch sought for a job that is "out of this world". Height a distinct advantage, as is familiarity with the use of pistols with both hands and feet. Can you sparkle, are you gonna shine? £fabulous. Call Rodin.

—

WANTED: News reporter. Must be able to dance and produce bulletins that look good but have no real content whatsoever. Female applicants preferred. £superfabulous. Call Fuse.

#oneaday Day 84: The Crossovers That Will Never Be

There's a ton of untapped potential in the world of the crossover. Comics have been wise to this for a long time, with DC and Marvel in particular being highly aware of the fact that all their superheroes are running around disparate parts of the same world and might just bump into each other on occasion.

But what would happen if some of the more bizarre crossovers came to fruition? Well, let's explore that, shall we?

Castlevania: Deep Space Nine

The most modern the series has got was with Soma Cruz, and even then it was still all bats and caves and swords and whatnot. Castlevania should go to space, and specifically to Deep Space Nine. Why? Because I had a dream about it so therefore it must be a good idea.

Benjamin Sisko discovers that as well as being the Emissary he is also a descendent of the Belmont clan and—horrors!—Dracula has found a way to harness the power of the Bajoran wormhole to summon forth the forces of Darkness into our reality. Fortunately, power of said wormhole also manages to summon Alucard, with little to no explanation as to why (this is Castlevania, you don't ask silly questions like "why?") who very carefully passes Sisko the Vampire Killer whip. Thus begins an exciting and thrilling co-operative adventure throughout the many decks of Deep Space Nine, culminating in a thrilling showdown with Dracula, who reprises his famous "What Is A Man?" speech in zero gravity.

Features narration by Patrick Stewart, as is the law for all new Castlevania games.

Dragon's Den: Origins

The Archdemon is rising, and the world needs a hero. But heroes don't just come out of nowhere. They need to be found.

Enter The Dragons: Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis, Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan. A series of aspiring Heroes of Ferelden climb the stairs of destiny and pitch their ideas with which they believe they'll be able to take down the Archdemon. Only by securing a Dragon's investment in their expedition will they have a chance of success, otherwise they'll be doomed to wandering the land in rusty chainmail using swords that fall apart as soon as you hit a log with them.

Superman: The Krypton Factor

A brand new gameshow featuring Superman attempting to overcome a variety of physical and mental challenges, all of which are laced with kryptonite. Will Superman survive this episode? Will he finally succumb to kryptonite's influence? As the series finale, Superman has to defeat Gordon Burns in single combat, as it turns out that Burns, too, is also a superhero, but one who draws power from kryptonite instead of being weakened by it. WHO WILL PREVAIL?

Total WipeOut HD Fury

A combination of futuristic racing and people falling in the water repeatedly, the twist is that the courses which the high-speed anti-grav racers and the people running around have to follow are the same, causing significant risk to life and limb for anyone hopping over those giant Super Mario mushrooms whilst the pack bears down on them at approximately 700mph. The winner is the team whose antigrav racer and panicking human both survive.

The Hairy Bikers in: Road Rash

The Hairy Bikers have had enough, and have decided to take on a gruesome, brutal world tour atop their throbbing motorbikes. Along the way, they smack the shit out of anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path, collect the meat from the smouldering corpses and cook it into a delicious recipe between each stage of their journey.

#oneaday Day 76: The Alternative Video Game BAFTAs

So the BAFTA Video Games Awards happened. Last night, in fact. And while the nominations were fairly predictable, there was a relatively pleasing spread of different titles that actually won. In fact, I did a lovely writeup over at GamePro that you should probably go read.

But enough of that. Those awards are all very conventional. So I thought I'd come up with some of my own. Without further ado, I present the Alternative Video Game BAFTAs.

Most Opportunities To Go To The Toilet In A Video Game

Winner: Heavy Rain, where despite the fact there is no logical reason for you to make your characters go to the toilet, you find yourself doing so anyway.

Honourable mention: The Sims 3, which only didn't win because it didn't come out in 2010, unless you count the console version, which I don't, except when putting it in as an Honourable Mention.

Game No-One Had Heard Of When I Played But Now Most People Have Heard Of

Winner: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, one of the most charming games I played last year, promptly got very excited about and some months later everyone else seemed to discover.

Game That Has Been On My Shelf The Longest, Unopened

Winner: Resident Evil 4 on PlayStation 2, which I'm not sure counts any more because I started playing it last night.

Former Winner: Final Fantasy XII.

The "MMO That Isn't Boring" Award

Winner: DC Universe Online, which I am aware came out in January of this year, not last year, but these are my awards, so my rules.

Game Most Likely To Make You Feel Uncomfortable If Someone Walks In On You Playing It

Winner: Deathsmiles, for reasons that are well-documented.

Runner-Up: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. "That looks shit and cheesy and their voices are really annoying and my God that music!" "No, but it's really funny! Seriously!" "Shut up. I'm going to go and play Starcraft."

Honourable Mention: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, the most summery game in the Universe. I know it didn't come out last year, but I still play it in the summertime because it's like being on holiday with improbably-proportioned women who like jetskiing. I have an Achievement and everything.

Sadomasochism Award

Winner: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, a game which enjoys kicking you in the balls so much that it's enough to put most people off within a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, have sunk over 20 hours into it and have just started playing it again.

The "I Love You But You Make Me Angry" Award

Winner: Mass Effect 2, for being a magnificent game that I finished before all the DLC came out and considered going back to just to play the extra stuff but then decided to wait for the "definitive" PS3 version, which then has some extra DLC announced for it, too. STOP IT. STOP MAKING THAT GAME. YOU FINISHED IT. MAKE THE SEQUEL. AND DON'T FUCK IT UP OR RUSH IT OR POST REVIEWS FOR IT ON METACRITIC.

The Game I Keep Forgetting Exists But Is Actually Really Good

Winner: Frozen Synapse, a wonderfully inventive take on the competitive shooter that is turn-based and play-by-email. And awesome.

The Game I Got Best At While I Was Really Totally Off My Face On Expensive Cider

Winner: Joe Danger, a game which my friend Sam and I started playing early in the evening, got drunk and accidentally played for over 3 hours. Highlight of the night was when I discovered how to get massive scores while Sam was in the toilet, meaning that when he came back my average score was roughly 1,000 times more than when he left.

Best Game

Winner: Deadly Premonition. No further explanation required.

Best Video Game Podcast

Winner: The Squadron of Shame SquadCast. Of course.

The Alternative BAFTA Fellowship

Winner: @SpaceDrakeCF from Carpe Fulgur for the magnificent localisation job on Recettear. We're talking a translation of Phoenix Wright quality here. Not only that, but he was consistently entertaining to follow during GDC and provided some excellent "liveblogs" of the sessions he attended.