#oneaday, Day 261: Random Access Memories

It's weird, the things you remember over time. Perhaps it's just me. But I've found over time that I have a fantastic memory for completely pointless crap and yet I can quite easily forget the things I need to buy from the shop in the space between stepping out of the house and reaching said shop.

So I thought I'd share a few stupid memories today for no apparent reason. I have hundreds of these. So this topic may return at some point in the future. For today, I'm going to focus on memories from my childhood.

First up: the ad starting at 2:17 of this vid right here:

Phurnacite. I'm still not entirely sure what it is, or was. But I remember this advert freaking me the fuck out when I was little despite, I believe, only ever seeing it once. Watching it now, it's completely laughable, overacted and utter nonsense. For the longest time, I couldn't even remember it was something to do with cookers. I remembered the image of the "doctors" with the masks on, though, and the woman crying going "HOW WILL I FEED MY FAMILY?"

Why do I remember that? That holds absolutely no benefit to me whatsoever unless taking part in a particularly specialist pub quiz on the subject of TV adverts from Christmas 1989 that freaked me the fuck out.

On a related note, the magazine advert for Mindscape's surgery-em-up game for the PC, Life and Death, also featured doctors in masks, bloodstained swabs and the like and also freaked me the fuck out. I have never been in hospital for an operation, and those adverts were the reason I was terrified of the prospect of ever having to do so. Disappointingly, Google Images has let me down on an actual picture of said advert. But it was in an issue of A.C.E. magazine. Which was 1) possibly the best multi-format magazine of all time, now sadly defunct and 2) the only games magazine I'm aware of that rated games out of 1,000.

At some other point during my childhood, another completely random memory I have is to do with visiting the chap who was my best friend at the time. We'd acquired some weird little toys called "Wiggly Gigglies" (yes, laugh it up, it was the 80s) and much to my chagrin, friend in question had acquired a glow-in-the-dark one. I was fascinated by the idea of a glow-in-the-dark anything at the time, so one or both of us decided that it would be a really fantastic idea to lock ourselves in his airing cupboard to see that luminousness at work. Unfortunately, the airing cupboard wasn't really big enough to even fit two kids inside, so I ended up shutting two of my fingers in the door and it really fucking hurt. It didn't break them or anything, but they were bleeding a bit. I went home shortly afterwards, and resolved never to do two things: touch a Wiggly Giggly again, and shut myself in an airing cupboard again.

In that case, the pain is probably the trigger to the memory. But as I kid, I hurt myself quite a bit—kids will be kids and all that. It's strange how that incident in particular sticks in my mind.

Let's cap this off with a third memory. What I like to call The Great Injustice. It was lunchtime at primary school, and I was enjoying a game with a girl called Anna with whom I had something of an off-on-off-on friendship in that way primary school kids do. Particularly kids of the opposite sex.

I forget the exact details of said game, but it involved swordfighting. Or rather, stick-fighting. Our school field had a number of big trees on it, and they often dropped decent-size sticks that were great for mock swordfights. And so it was that Anna and I were staging some sort of battle for some reason. It was fun. Lunchtime ended and we went inside.

When I got home that evening, I got absolutely bollocked. Turns out my mother had been wandering past the school field at the time we'd been playing our game, at a point when I'd evidently been "winning". As a result, I found myself in a lot of trouble for "hitting a girl with a stick". And no amount of protestation could convince my parents that it had, in fact, been just a game, and if you talked to Anna she would back up my story. Because, after all, who believes the screeches that come out of the mouth of an eight-year old when they're in trouble?

Hmm. These aren't terribly positive memories, are they? Perhaps I should make more of an effort to remember things that didn't freak me out or make me incandescent with an eight-year old's rage!

#oneaday, Day 258: More Eurogamer Thoughts

Apologies to those of you who don't give a damn about teh gaemz. But, well, I'm spending the weekend in the company of lots of new and shiny ones so I thought it was probably worth sharing a few brief thoughts on the noteworthy ones. Of course, there are also some "official writeups" around the place for you to enjoy – today I wrote about Dragon Age II, for example.

Dragon Age II, incidentally, is simply marvellous. I loved the first one (and am, in fact, currently replaying it) but only felt mild interest towards the sequel for some reason. I felt exactly the same about Mass Effect 2, in fact, and ended up absolutely loving that. Having played the demo of Dragon Age II… yeah. That's now a day-one purchase. They've fixed the niggly graphical issues of the first game, added a protagonist that actually talks (and is player-designable, like Mass Effect's Shepard) and made the combat make a bit more sense with a controller.

Some PC gamers have been a bit sniffy about this, thinking that it's evidence of the series "dumbing down", especially after the first game was a proposed return to BioWare's roots. But the cinematic nature of Dragon Age makes it ideal for playing one the couch via the big screen. So why shouldn't it be designed with console play in mind?

Regardless of your opinions on these decisions… it's looking solid, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It is to Dragon Age: Origins as Mass Effect 2 was to Mass Effect. That is to say, a massive improvement in almost every way.

Besides Dragon Age (which I had to wait for ages to play, and then had to play standing up, which made my shoulders ache) I also had a go at Motorstorm Apocalypse (which let me sit down, but made me wear 3D glasses). This was good fun. There were elements of Split/Second to the "driving amidst chaos" gameplay, though, there was less of the unpredictability of Disney's title. It was very clear that Apocalypse's environmental hazards are scripted rather than triggered by players or AI. It'll be interesting to see how this works in multiplayer, as many of the effects seemed to be timed conveniently to happen just as the player passed.

Apocalypse was notable for having probably the best 3D effect that I've seen so far; that said, the technology is still clearly flawed at the moment. Graphics are low-resolution, jaggedy and run at a poor frame rate. They also seem to flicker quite a bit, and it's easy to feel yourself going cross-eyed.

Dominating the show floor near the entrance was Def Jam: RapStar. The Eurogamer Expo, which was mostly filled with white nerds, was probably not the best place to show off this game. You couldn't fault the booth's staff for their enthusiasm, though, as they kept up a constantly energetic and noisy display all day. Of course, being not the world's biggest fan of that type of music (to say the least) I found it incredibly irritating. And I wasn't alone. Still, at least a few people seemed to be enjoying it.

But seriously. That game has fucking N-Dubz in it, which is enough reason to curse its name for all eternity. Not only that, but an N-Dubz song about Facebook. Seriously. Watch this. It's an embarrassment.

Do you really want to stand in front of your TV and sing that? Yes? Then I don't think we can be friends any more.

Settling down to a quiet night this evening before stepping back into the breach for the last time tomorrow. To anyone else attending, apparently there's a Tube strike tomorrow evening, too, so you may want to consider leaving the show early.

Normal business (well, as normal as it ever gets) will resume tomorrow evening. Possibly!

#oneaday, Day 257: Away Message

I'm away for the weekend. Specifically, I'm attending the Eurogamer Expo, the UK's answer to gaming conventions like PAX. It's been running for a good few years now apparently but I only really became aware of it this year. I decided to attend, as I thought it'd be a good opportunity to get hands-on with some of the latest hotness that I'd missed out on at PAX, as well as catch up with a few friends from Twitter.

Eurogamer Expo has a way to go yet before it can even think about competing with PAX in terms of scale, but it's certainly got potential. There are plenty of high-profile companies in attendance with their big games, and tickets sold out completely, so people are certainly interested in events like this. They need to sort out their non-existent press provision and look at more in the way of "special events" to make it a truly excellent gaming convention, though. Some evening concerts wouldn't go amiss; or more in the way of the few developer talks and presentations that they do have already.

Day 1 has so far passed in a most pleasant manner and I am looking forward to tomorrow. I wrote an article about Fable III today, you should totally go and read it, as it's awesome. Here's the rest of the day in one-word summary format:

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer: Tense.
Killzone 3: Loading.
Killzone 3 in 3D: Migraine.
Gran Turismo 5 in 3D: Cardboard.
Peter Molyneux: Entertaining.
Fable III: Amusing.
Dead Space 2: Frightening!
Gears of War 3 Beast Mode: Multiplayer?
Fallout: New Vegas: Fallout.
Saw II: Bloody.
3DTV: NO.
Rock Band 3: Realistic.
@jenjeahaly: Yay!
@shoinan: Fun!
@lewisdenby: Brief!
@LinkYeah: Freshers.
Eurogamer's press provision: Horseshit.
Being told off for taking a coffee while wearing the wrong wristband: Bewildering.
That redhead girl I saw at one point: WOW.
Tonight: Surprise!

So that was my day. Tomorrow will be another day and hopefully I'll get a chance to try out a lot of the things I didn't get to see today. There's a lot of really good-looking games on offer, most of which will be well familiar to people who went to PAX, in all likelihood. Fable III in playable form was the big deal for those who like that sort of thing, and it's looking lovely. Peter Molyneux's talk on the history of the Fable series and its influences from movies and games was particularly interesting, as you'll know already if you've read this like I suggested earlier.

It was great to finally put a face to some Twitter usernames, too, and meet a few new ones as well. Hopefully over the next couple of days there'll be more of that until we're all one nice big happy games-loving family of awesomeness.

And, of course, tonight. Surprising a very dear friend was totally worth it. Even if I got called a few rude names along the way.

For now, I bid you good night.

#oneaday, Day 255: The Big Pixels are Here!

Ladies and gents, it's my great pleasure to reveal The Big Pixels to you.

You may recall some days ago that I was mourning the loss of Kombo. Kombo's still not dead yet—feel free to drop by and support the remaining writers—but, to be frank, it's probably only a matter of time. It's very sad to see the end of something which has clearly had love, care and attention poured into it over the last few years, and I'm happy that I was part of the experience for a short while.

But this post isn't about mourning the past; it's about celebrating the future. And that future begins with today's launch of The Big Pixels.

The Big Pixels are a group of friends first and foremost, video game writers second, and we decided to band together to produce something that we'd want to read ourselves. Intelligent, thought-provoking games writing. No flamebait. No traffic-whoring. Just the kind of thing that gets people stroking their chin and going "Hmmm", and hopefully provoking some discussion. Those of you who follow The Squadron of Shame will undoubtedly dig what we're doing. And those of you who are tired of the same old news stories posted everywhere day after day will surely enjoy our work, too. It's an N4G commenter-free zone!

We're there to have fun and build a community, not to chase page hits. So the important thing for you (yes, you!), the reader, is that you enjoy it. Read our work. Tell us what you think in the comments. Feel free to share any pieces you find particularly interesting or entertaining. And help us to build up our own unique little corner of the internet; a home away from home for those who are sick of "Top Ten Tuesdays" featuring boobies, guns or any combination thereof, or people who are sick of seeing the same picture of Michael Pachter on every article where he says something contentious and/or stupid.

Since you're reading my blog, I'm going to draw particular attention to my own posts, of course. I am nothing if not a whore, after all. So while you're over there, feel free to check out a "reprint" of my article on game development's gender divide (featuring much-appreciated assistance from the very lovely Mitu Khandaker and Lauren Wainwright), a companion article to the most recent SquadCast on video game music, and a discussion of adult gaming. I hope you like them; and be sure to check out my buddies' work while you're over there. And don't forget the Looney Bin, receptacle for all manner of game-related crap that we've encountered in our journeys around the web.

It's been an interesting journey over the last few days, and it's only just beginning, for sure. Stay tuned to The Big Pixels, as we'll all be pushing out a wide variety of articles on all manner of game-related subjects every week. Follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook for the latest and to make us look popular and awesome.

Also, our review scoring system has a rainbow unicorn pixel in it. And there is absolutely no way you can say that isn't the most amazing thing you've ever seen. Unless Maru is your cat.

#oneaday, Day 251: Teamwork, Do It Together

I'm going to quote a LazyTown song at you and there is nothing you can damn well do about it.

Links in a chain
Tracks for a train
They're always better together.
A cocoa in a mug
A kiss and a hug
They're always better together.
When nothing seems to fit
And you just want to quit
Teamwork, do it together
Teamwork, friends forever
We're all for one and one for all, we'll—

Okay, enough already. Even I'm feeling a little nauseous*. But it's an apt introduction to the matter I would like to talk about today, which is collaborating, working together, being a team player, whatever you want to call it.

In life, teamwork is essential, even for the most inept recluse there is. At some point, they're going to have to deal with other people. So it may as well be a pleasant experience for everyone involved.

The thing I don't understand is why so many people don't seem to get this. For example, I was talking to a friend the other day and it seems that a work colleague had gone behind her back and caused an unpleasant, tense situation when in fact all that was needed was a quiet, friendly word. In fact, given the situation in question, even that wasn't warranted at all, but this isn't the time or place to discuss that.

But it seems to happen over and over again; I've lost count of the number of times I've heard friends comment about the stresses of working with other people, either because they don't pull their weight, or because they're the sort of person described above, who is only concerned with making themselves look good and balls to how everyone else feels.

If you'll indulge me a moment, here is something which truly can be learned from the world of video games. I was enjoying a friendly game of Halo: Reach with some friends earlier, and we were playing Team Slayer. For the benefit of my readers out there who don't play games at all, an explanation: this mode splits eight players into two teams of four and tasks each team with blowing seven shades of snot out of each other until one team or the other has scored fifty kills. Very simple. And yet what many people who play it don't seem to realise is that by working together—simply a case of sticking with someone else and protecting them, and occasionally telling other team members where opponents are—success can be pretty much guaranteed, at least until the other team figures out the same thing. Which often doesn't happen.

It's the same in reality, only with less shooting each other in the face with rocket launchers. Usually. Rather than striking out as a "lone wolf" that just happens to be part of a larger venture, working together with others is a far more sure-fire way to get things done. Things get done a lot quicker and everyone is a lot happier as a result. So I have to wonder why so many people try and put up barriers to this sort of collaboration. Whether it's wilfully ignoring things that they're told, making themselves inaccessible, refusing to listen to feedback or simply not chipping in their bit of effort at crunch time, it makes life unpleasant for everyone. Those who are spurned by the git who isn't helping end up feeling bitterness and resentment. And said git often starts to feel superior, like they don't "need" to get involved.

I'm very fortunate in that all the ventures I'm currently involved with are very much team efforts run by people who are friends with mutual respect for one another, and people who talk to each other. There's no bitchiness, no backstabbing, no resentment. I think. Unless I'm causing it.

Oh God, am I the git?

* inserted to draw attention away from the fact that I have listened to the LazyTown soundtrack on Spotify far more times than is really healthy. This is just between you and me.

#oneaday, Day 249: Remember Reach... Uh, Kombo

The death of a website is a curious thing. In practical terms, it's no different to deleting a file, switching something off, throwing out a piece of technology that is no longer used. But it's more than that. A dying website normally knows it is dying before the plug is finally pulled. And, these days in particular, it's not just a website that dies. It's the community that the site built. The readers who came back every day, whether they were vocal ones who commented on everything or people who just diligently read every article because they'd chosen that particular site to be their "home".

I've witnessed the death of several websites I've been involved with either as an employee or an active community member of in my time, and it's never pleasant. 1up.com isn't dead, of course, but when The Great Exodus occurred some time back, the Squadron of Shame and I left the site behind and never looked back. The site still maintains an active blogging community, but it's a shadow of its former self when I think back to the glory days of the 1up Radio boards.

Then came B4HD, a relatively short-lived retro games project that I was involved with. We had a team of dedicated writers who loved games of the past with a passion and loved writing about them. But for various reasons documented in the site's final post, it had to close and those involve seek other outlets for their work.

Most recently, of course, is Kombo. Kombo is still there, of course, for now. But the staff aren't. Sure, there are some who are still there diligently posting articles on the site and holding things together as the site's last few commitments are fulfilled. But some time soon, that site and everything attached with it—the content, the artwork, the community, the recognisable writers—will cease to be.

What happens at that point? Where do all these lost souls go? Sometimes they have nowhere to go straight away, and simply have to pick another place to call home and latch on to it. Sometimes they have to start from scratch again, building a reputation from the ground up like they once did. Sometimes they float aimlessly for a while. And sometimes they immediately land on their feet and produce something awesome.

It's perhaps premature to be holding a "wake" for a site like Kombo when it hasn't even died yet. Rest assured that the talented crowd from Kombo are not going anywhere. That dedicated team who knew and loved their audience (even Wiiboy) and what they wanted to hear are alive, well and waiting.

"Waiting for what?" you may ask. That's not for me to say… yet. But let's just say that those of you who enjoyed the writing of myself, Jeff, Brad, Joey, Eric, Keri, Ryan, Mike, Matt, Joel, Dan, Ryan and Geoff won't have to wait too long to see what we're up to. It's going to be great, and we hope you like it a lot.

A love of the cloak and dagger prevents me from saying anything else right now. For those of you who care, though, we're fine. And I know that I for one am hugely happy to have met such an awesome crowd of writers, and even happier that we're sticking together for new and exciting projects.

Watch this space for the latest.

￭

#oneaday, Day 248: All Change! Again

It's been a curious few days for some people and things that are very dear to me. First up, you may have read my impassioned mourning of the apparent loss of Good Old Games the other day. Turns out that, as some suspected all along, the site was simply coming out of beta and relaunching. Not only that, but awesome WRPG Baldur's Gate is coming to the site, with more to follow. This, hopefully, means that Planescape: Torment can't be far behind. Because the one loaning incident I regret more than anything else is loaning that game to someone and never getting it back. I'm not even sure I know who borrowed it. So if you have my copy of Planescape: Torment, please return it to me. Or at least buy me a copy on GOG if/when it appears.

So that was sad and became happy, although some are still ranting and raving about GOG's handling of the situation. Okay, it perhaps wasn't the best PR stunt ever (some blaming that famous Polish sense of humour) but it got people talking about GOG, and it turns out that what they were planning was actually awesome. This isn't the place for that debate, though.

The really bad news, though, is that the gaming site I've written daily news for and called home since March of this year, Kombo.com, is folding. This is terribly sad news as the team at Kombo are some truly talented people who worked their hardest to provide awesome content every day, whether it was opinionated twists on news coverage or original content.

Former Assistant Director of Reviews Matt Green sums the situation up over at his blog, so pay it a visit and feel free to offer commiserations either there or indeed here. I sincerely hope that everyone who was involved with Kombo lands on their feet and gets the awesome writing gig (with appropriately awesome pay) that they deserve. Note: This includes me. So if you know anywhere who needs an awesome writer who is also British (which apparently adds +1000 awesome points) then let me know. You can feel free to point them to this site—I have links to samples of my work on the menu bar above—or to http://pjedi.co.uk/links, which also has said links.

So, with that said, I think it's time for a little light relief. The Internet provides many means of light relief, not all of which are appropriate for public consumption. (Hey, what you look at in your own time is your business. You pervert.)

By far my favourite means of light relief that the Internet provides is cat, monkey and/or dog videos, however, so I shall now share a few of my favourites. Thanks in part to Alex Connolly and Chris Person for having a link war on my Facebook profile earlier.

May I firstly present to you, courtesy of Dave Gorman on Twitter, an elephant playing darts:

Followed by the charmingly literal "A Monkey Washing A Cat."

And then… er… this.

How about THIS?!

Andross's enemy is my enemy!

And finishing with indisputably the best cat video on the Internet.

I thank you. For those who have had a nightmarish, difficult or stressful few days, I sincerely hope the sight of the above has cheered you, if only slightly. May tomorrow be a better day.

#oneaday, Day 245: Obituary or Rebirth?

Dear GOG users,

We have recently had to give serious thought to whether we could really keep GOG.com the way it is. We've debated on it for quite some time and, unfortunately, we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form.

We're very grateful for all support we've received from all of you in the past two years. Working on GOG.com was a great adventure for all of us and an unforgettable journey to the past, through the long and wonderful history of PC gaming.

This doesn't mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever. We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await.

On a technical note, this week we'll put in place a solution to allow everyone to re-download their games. Stay tuned to this page and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

All the best,
GOG.com Team

An hour or two ago, that message had done the rounds of the Internet. If you hadn't seen it yet, I apologise for being the bearer of bad news. If you head on over to Good Old Games right now, that's all you'll see. No store. No games. No community. All gone.

For the uninitiated, Good Old Games was the place to go to purchase and download DRM-free copies of old (and not so old) classic games for low, low prices. It was, for a long time, the only place to go to find the classic Sierra adventures, or sci-fi Wolfenstein 3D spinoff Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, or the best puzzle game of all time, The Incredible Machine. I wrote a number of pieces for that site, so yes, I have something of a vested interest in it and actually feel pretty sad about its apparent demise. But even if I didn't have such a personal stake in it, it was a fantastic place to go to pick up the games of my youth. Even better, they'd been tweaked and optimised to work on current hardware.

The tragic news above comes after a tweet posted by the company a few days ago:

Sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free… hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy 🙁

It didn't sound good. Someone was obviously putting a bit of pressure on the company, and some cracks were starting to form. Those who had supported the service since the beginning knew that a DRM-free service in an age of rampant piracy was going to have its work cut out for it. But was that really the reason?

No-one knows as yet. No-one except the people at GOG, who are playing their cards close to their chest. The community are assured that this isn't the end of GOG, however, just the end of this chapter of its existence. Those who have purchased games from the service in the past will be directed to a "solution" to re-download these games in the next few days. And some announcements will hopefully be forthcoming very soon.

Personally speaking, I'm hoping it's good news. There were a ton of games on the site that I'd love to have had the chance to play again. Games like Gabriel Knight 2, which a friend borrowed some time ago and never gave back, and now I can't remember which friend it was.

The games of this era represent a time when gameplay was everything and graphics were necessarily limited by the hardware of the time. And it may just be nostalgia talking, but some of my fondest memories of childhood and adolescence come from the games I was playing at the time. It'd be shame if the memories of these games fade. But, as I say, GOG claims that this is not the end, just the end for the service in its current form.

So pour out a stiff drink, take off your hat and, I don't know, sing a mournful song in honour of GOG or something. Hopefully they'll be back better than ever sometime soon.

Rest in peace, GOG. For a little while. Then come back as an awesome zombie who wants to sell us old games rather than eat our brains.

WHATAREYABUYIN'?

#oneaday, Day 244: Halo? More Like...

I have a peculiar and complex relationship with the first-person shooter genre of gaming. On the one hand, I have very fond memories of growing up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. In fact, as I may have shared before, such was my obsession with Wolfenstein 3D and the early days of the mod scene, that 10 of my levels are part of the official Apogee "Super Upgrades" expansion pack, a feat which netted me $200 and means that I can technically call myself a professional game developer.

On the other hand, I have vivid memories of playing Halo, Gears of War and Modern Warfare 2 and getting inordinately frustrated with sequences that are so difficult they require you to play, die, play, die, play, die, play, die, sometimes for hours at a time until you figure out the way to beat that particular sequence.

Such is the experience I'm having with Halo: Reach at the moment. There's no denying it's a great game, and the sheer amount of stuff that Bungie have crammed into the game is incredible. The fact that any mode can be played in multiplayer, and the fact that Forge World actually allows the construction of some truly hilarious structures, is enough to make me adore the game and praise its name for all eternity.

What was almost enough to make me fling it out of the window, though, was the Campaign mode. I had played through the mission called "The Long Night of Solace" and was reaching the end of it. Those who have played that mission will know it's the awesome one that includes space combat. As a matter of fact, the space combat was so good I happily proclaimed on Twitter that I'd play a whole game based on that engine. And I stand by that. It was stunning. Not only that, it allowed a full 360 degrees of movement, which is practically unheard of in console-based space sims. So hats off to Bungie for that.

Unfortunately, all of the hard work that mission did to convince me that yes, Halo is not all that bad really, was promptly undone by the very last sequence of that mission. Here, you get jumped by about six Elite Specialist enemies, all of whom are armed with weapons that are quite capable of one-shot killing you. Not only that, but they spread out around the room so there is no place where you can find cover. Not only that, your companion who, it should be added, has an absolutely fucking massive gun and is invincible, is utterly useless at killing them, so of course it's up to Muggins, sorry, Noble Six, to save the day.

I must have repeated that sequence a good thirty or forty times. By the end of it I was literally screaming obscenities at the television. I was very glad that no-one else was in the house.

"Well, then," you may say. "Don't play the Campaign mode. Play the stuff you do like." But… Achievements…

In seriousness, I do kind of want to play the Campaign mode through to its conclusion because of my good friend Mr George Kokoris' regular assertions that Halo's lore is, in fact, far more in-depth and interesting that "OMG SPACE MARINEZ AND ALIENZ LOL". And to be fair, thus far I've mostly enjoyed the Campaign. I just find it a pity that there are short sequences such as the one I've described above that (temporarily at least) spoil the experience. It causes a curious ping-ponging effect where I bounce back and forth between loving and hating the game. Sometimes I get stuck on the "hate" part, and it's for that reason I never beat the original Gears of War and have no interest in the remainder of the series. There was one sequence that involved a sniper who repeatedly one-shotted me in that game that eventually caused me to turn it off, put it in its box, trade it in and never speak of it ever again except to slag it off.

Hopefully it won't come to a fit of nerd rage with Reach. At least there's plenty of other stuff to enjoy if the Campaign does get too much.

#oneaday, Day 228: Call of Cthuty: Black Arts

London, UK – 2nd September, 2010 – DECLASSIFIED: Prepare for the follow-up to the biggest entertainment launch in history: on 9th November, Call of Cthuty®: Black Arts™ will introduce fans to the occult world of HP Lovecraft. Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and award-winning developer Starfuckers, Inc. will take players behind the lines of madness in an entirely new and ill-advised chapter in the groundbreaking and record-setting, No. 1 first-person action series of all time.

"My favourite part is the one where Dagon kidnaps the president," said Starfuckers, Inc. Vice-President of Scenarios and Scripting Ashton Raze. "OF MEXICO."

Players will face off against their darkest fears in an epic struggle for survival against gradually-dwindling sanity. And when the time comes, the Dark One shall arise, and the world shall be devoured!

"The way I see it," said Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO, "is that we already sold our souls some time ago. So why not celebrate the Dark One in the only way we know how: by offering players the opportunity to participate in a futile and expensive struggle against an inevitable decline into insanity from a first person perspective with lots of big guns and no women whatsoever?" Kotick later explained that girls have "cooties" and he wanted nothing to do with them.

Activision also announced a multi-year agreement that will bring Call of Cthuty® add ons and map packs first to the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network.

"The Dark One needs His tribute, which is why we're thrilled to announce this Xbox LIVE agreement," said Philip Earl, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Activision's Dark Arts and Call of Cthuty® Business Unit. "This agreement reflects our shared and continued focus on funding the Dark One's attempts to break into this world via microtransaction, and our willingness to drive our playerbase insane by releasing content at a price significantly higher than any other publisher out there."

Call of Cthuty®'s revolutionary multiplayer mode features a robust progression system based on the player's insanity level. Reaching new heights of madness unlocks "Jerks", involuntary bodily spasms which allows the player to personalise their individual avatar in a unique manner until they are a shambling, stumbling mess only fit to turn their own gun on themselves.

"With 25 million members, Xbox LIVE is a prime feeding ground for the Dark One," said Marc Whitten, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Xbox LIVE. "With the release of Call of Cthuty®: Black Arts™, it presents a whole new opportunity for Him to feast upon the player base. And come on, who's going to miss those racist fucktards anyway?"

About Activision Publishing, Inc.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products, and also a glad receiver of lots of money from people who are happy to pay over the odds. Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Ninth Circle of Hell, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Purgatory, Australia, South Korea, China and the region of Taiwan.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Activision Publishing's expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, such as the Dark One's devouring of the world, which may put the kibosh on the whole Xbox LIVE exclusivity deal as without a world, there will be no Xbox LIVE on which Activision can sell map packs for $15 a pop. Activision Publishing generally uses words such as "outlook", "will", "could", "would", "might", "remains", "to be", "plans", "believes", "may", "expects", "intends", "anticipates", "estimate", "future", "plan", "positions", "potential", "project", "remain", "scheduled", "set to", "subject to", "upcoming", "blood sacrifice" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking OH GOD HE'S COMING SET LOOSE THE PUPPIES OF WAR BLOOD BLOOD SO MUCH BLOOD FORGIVE ME FORGIVE ME FORGIVE ME FORG—