One of the most frustrating things about the modern world is how "work" works. I'm not sure how a lot of these conventions have come to be in place, but all of them seem counter-productive.

I have two bugbears in particular that I run into on a pretty much daily basis at my day job.

First is the matter of interminable meetings and conference calls. Thankfully, most of the time at my day job we have conference calls rather than meetings, but it's still tough to get anything useful done while someone is droning on in your ear about something you don't care about and/or which isn't relevant to you and your team. This morning I've been on Skype from 9.30am until now. It is now 11.30am. I haven't done any actual work yet.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of getting together to discuss things that are important, but 90% of our conference calls involve someone just reading out the things in our project management tool, which is something we all look at on a daily basis anyway. There's really no need to waste everyone's time, energy and sanity on this nonsense, but it appears to be something that is assumed to be a "necessity" in the modern business world.

Which brings me on to my second point: business-speak. No-one writes emails like an actual human being any more (except me, apparently). It's never "Sure thing, I'll do that when I have a sec", it's always "Thank you for your email. I shall endeavour to action this at the earliest opportunity. Kind regards."

There's the argument for "politeness" here, but there's also a point where "politeness" becomes "painful insincerity". It generally crosses over with people who use the word "myself" instead of "me" or "I". I make a point of writing things in plain English, regardless of who I'm sending a message to. I'm not rude or inappropriately casual or anything, I'm just… human.

It'd be nice to be able to change these cultural things from the inside out, but I fear they're too ingrained into corporate culture these days to be able to make any sort of meaningful impact. Still, at the very least I can continue writing email messages like a human being rather than a robot.

Kind regards,
Peter J. E. Davison BA (Hons.) PGCE

I find myself a bit at a loss for words this evening. I'm not really sure why; I think it's a general feeling of winding down after a pretty pleasant long weekend, coupled with a certain amount of uneasiness over the recent political happenings over here in the UK. I won't pretend to understand the latter at all, because political stuff generally goes right over my head, but regardless… I feel somewhat uneasy.

But it's not really worth worrying about. It is what it is, and all we can do now is sit back and wait and see what happens, really. In the meantime, there are plenty of ways in which I can occupy my mind, and I'm taking full advantage of them. I've been greatly enjoying Team Sonic Racing, as you'll be able to tell from my writeup over on MoeGamer today, and of course I'm continuing to enjoy Final Fantasy XI.

I'm also thoroughly invested in Our World is Ended. The whole thing is shaping up to be a bit longer than I anticipated so I probably won't finish the Cover Game feature off this week, but I'm making good progress so far. It's been a really interesting visual novel so far, however, and I've reached that point where the ensemble cast is now so well-established in my mind that I'm going to be sorry to say goodbye to them when the end eventually comes. I'm intrigued to see where things end up and how the various endings are different, however.

The game "ranks" your choices as you play, and my current "top 3" are Tatiana, Asano and Girl A, making it look most likely I'll get one of their endings, but things can change quite significantly with just a single choice. It'll be interesting to investigate quite how different they be with a subsequent fast forward-powered playthrough, but that's a way off yet!

Anyway. I should probably go to bed and try not to think too hard about anything complicated. Back to work tomorrow… then only a few weeks until an actual proper holiday! Looking forward to it.

Hope you all had a pleasant weekend.

Hello! Sorry I'm late but as mentioned I was busy most of yesterday and pretty tired by the end of it all, but here's a summary of what happened, should you be interested.

The Davison Cup is an event I've run for the last few years around my birthday as an excuse to get my local friends together to play a variety of video games they otherwise probably wouldn't explore. This isn't just the stuff I cover on MoeGamer — which is mostly single-player anyway, and thus not particularly suitable for an event like this — but also retro stuff, perhaps on obscure platforms, or perhaps part of collections such as Atari Flashback Classics.

It's a fairly relaxed affair, but we do keep score and I even had a prize for the winner this year: an "Ultimate Gin & Tonic" set. So here's how it all went down.

The competitors this year were me, who you hopefully already know; Sam, who was my housemate in my first year of university and who used to play a lot of games with me, but has since become a family man; Tom, who was also at university with me, but who I didn't really get to know a bit better until later; and James, who is slightly older than us, and a high-powered lawyer who was very much in need of a break from his 5.30am-10pm days he's been suffering for the past little while.

We all play games to varying degrees in our free time, but as a general rule we tend to assume Tom is the most skilful, I am the most experienced, Sam's performance varies according  to what he's playing, and James is typically the butt of all our jokes, despite the fact that he's pretty good at a few select games like Street Fighter II.

The day began with three games on the Philips G7000 Videopac Computer, including notorious Pac-Man clone Munchkin, inventive shoot 'em up Satellite Attack and the two-player deathmatch Gunfighter.

Sam performed the best in Munchkin with a strong attempt on his first of three, with everyone else unable to beat him. Tom, meanwhile, found an excellent strategy in Satellite Attack, which is to eschew shooting altogether and simply use your ship's shields to set off chain reactions. I, meanwhile, won the Gunfighter mini-tournament thanks to my understanding of the animation lock while firing.

After that, it was on to some retro Atari games courtesy of Atari Flashback Classics, beginning with Pong. Tom brought this one home, with me and James following close behind. We followed this up with RealSports Soccer, a ridiculous game that we always have a lot of fun with. Sam won this one, though despite the fact he is good at football in real life, this game demands… rather different skills.

Next up was 2600 classic Combat, where we played the "Invisible Tanks" variant. Despite some consternation over the fact that if you back someone into a corner it's easy to repeatedly shoot them over and over, I squeezed out a victory here. We followed this up with the simple but addictive arcade title Canyon Bomber, which proved to be a lot more popular with the group than I expected — considering it's a one-button game about nothing more than timing, I wasn't expecting it to be liked all that much, but everyone had a great time with it, and likewise with the similar but much more challenging Skydiver that we followed it up with.

Onward into the NES era for the next few games. We began with the classic Donkey Kong, which I attained the best score, followed by Pro Wrestling, which none of us understood in the slightest, but in which James managed to secure a convincing victory. Next up was Donkey Kong Jr., in which I had a terrible first showing and Sam went on to win.

After that, we played the original Mario Bros., which it was clear some people had never come across before, believing Super Mario Bros. to be the first Mario Bros. game. Everyone had a good time with this, though, with Sam squeaking out a victory.

Next up was Street Fighter II, which I expected Tom to win, but instead he lost to James in the final round of the mini-tournament. Tom did, however, win the Super Mario Kart mini-tournament, with James left out in the cold.

After that, it was onwards to the PS1 era with Super Puzzle Fighter, a game which I've always really enjoyed but never been all that good at. Tom came out on top here, while I was victorious in the losers' playoffs.

We followed this up with a longstanding favourite: Crash mode in Burnout 2 on PS2. I was victorious here thanks to a particularly spectacular final round, while Tom managed not to come last despite scoring precisely zero in the first round.

Next up was a bit more in-car action thanks to OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast's Heart Attack mode, in which you have to both race and perform the tasks your demanding girlfriend is presenting you with as you drive. James managed to come out on top here; being familiar with his wife, I'm not altogether surprised about this.

We followed this with State of Emergency on PS2, a chaotic "riot 'em up" with a hugely enjoyable "Chaos" mode in which you simply have to survive and score as many points as possible. Tom was victorious here thanks to his discovery of the endless points pinatas that were the Corporations' security forces, but I came a close second.

Next up was Crazy Taxi, where Sam managed to come in first despite all of us being extremely rusty when it came to things like Crazy Boost and Limit Cut. I attained a respectable second place, though none of our scores were anything like that which we could achieve back in the good old days.

We were starting to get a bit short on time by this point, having broken for a curry dinner, so unfortunately we didn't quite get through everything I wanted to, but some classics from the Wii U era were a good way to close out the evening, beginning with the coin pusher-esque game from Wii Party, in which Sam was victorious; Mario Chase in Nintendo Land, in which I embarrassed myself by being caught within 15 seconds; and finally the Fronks-flicking Islands game in Game & Wario in which I managed to eke out a victory after a turbulent scoreboard throughout the entire match.

A great day was had by all, and everyone thought it was a good selection of games. There was only one duffer we gave up on — Maze Action on PS2, which I don't hate as much as everyone else did, but I can certainly understand why people found it a bit challenging to engage with! — and everything else proved very popular.

Another successful Davison Cup, I'd say, and a well-deserved victory for Tom in the end.

It's a long weekend here in the UK thanks to the second of our two public holidays throughout May. I'm looking forward to it, both to take a rest from the mental noise of daily life, and for the event taking place tomorrow!

Tomorrow I'm having a (month-late) birthday celebration in the way that I've marked the occasion for the last few years: The Davison Cup. This is a(n increasingly rare) opportunity to get my local friends together to play some video games, eat some snacks, drink some beer and just have some fun.

I typically like to make The Davison Cup an opportunity to expose these guys to some games that they may not have tried, or may not have felt the inclination to explore over the years. To that end, the games that will form part of the overall "tournament" run the gamut from Atari 2600 games (courtesy of Atari Flashback Classics on Switch) to more recent titles. There are, of course, some established classics in there too — Mario Kart 8, Nintendo Land, Street Fighter 2 — but there's also some games that I've been itching to get them to try for ages, like Boom Street (aka Fortune Street).

I'm looking forward to the event tomorrow, and I'm just hoping none of them lame out and suddenly have to go home in the middle of the day, as unfortunately happened last year. This is a rare opportunity for all of us to recapture a part of our (increasingly distant) youths, and I don't want anything to spoil that!

Anyway. Off to bed now. I need to be on my A-game tomorrow. Or I might let my friends win. We'll see. 🙂

A little while back, I noted that since the whole ProJared fiasco recently (which seems to still be unfolding with layer after layer of pointless drama that really does not need to be in the public eye at this point) I'd been seeking alternative gaming-related YouTube entertainment, and had settled on GameGrumps.

After watching a bunch of their videos, I think I've nailed down one of the main reasons why their work appeals to me — aside from the by turns childish, absurdist and completely surreal humour, hurled good-natured insults that remind me of gaming sessions with my friends and frequent bursting into song, obviously. That is that they give games a chance, honestly and genuinely. At least that's the impression I've had to date, anyway.

Look over their list of past games and you'll see a bunch of stuff that is commonly considered shovelware, particularly on Nintendo platforms such as Wii and Switch. But these guys make an honest go of playing these games, engaging with them properly rather than writing them off immediately — and the results can be enormously entertaining, particularly in the case of things like quiz show and board game adaptations.

This kind of puts a whole new spin on a lot of these games. While playing something like Ultimate Board Game Collection on Wii by yourself would be a fairly saddening thing to do (not that this would stop me, since I picked up a copy for 50p after watching the Grumps' videos!) it becomes an entirely different experience when it's a "spectator sport". Same for the various digital adaptations of shows such as Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and their ilk.

This sort of game is best enjoyed with others. But GameGrumps' videos demonstrate that this doesn't necessarily mean actually having someone on hand to play it with you in the same room — though that would obviously be ideal. Rather, you can enjoy the experience of observing people playing it together and interacting with one another, and it can be a whole lot of fun, even when it's two "real" people and an AI.

Alongside this, I really appreciate them giving stuff that doesn't often get a fair look a chance. Just recently I've been watching their playthrough of House Party, a notorious release from a while back that, if you believe the things the mainstream press wrote about it, was entirely about getting your dick out and harassing women. Turns out that while you can indeed get your dick out and harass women in it, that is a quick route to a "game over". Rather, the game is actually a pretty interesting first-person adventure game, complete with plenty of "moon logic" puzzles.

Is it "good"? Matter of opinion; I actually rather like the look of it. Is it horrific, misogynistic filth that will destroy society? No; it's a dumbass game that involves varying degrees of deviousness to convince the characters (including the dudes) to get (fairly explicitly) sexy with you. I would not have known what this game was about if I had gone entirely by what the mainstream press had said; instead, I appreciate that the Grumps bothered to engage with it so comprehensively and honestly, offering their own critique on various questionable situations they find themselves in throughout the game where appropriate, and quite genuinely having a good time at others.

It's easy to be a YouTuber (or writer!) who plays "bad" games and takes the piss out of them. It takes much more effort, honesty, intelligence, charisma and chemistry to honestly engage with them and provide an entertaining experience both for yourselves and your audience. GameGrumps absolutely nail that formula, and I guess that's why they have millions of subscribers. I'm glad I finally joined them.

I've added a bunch of new Final Fantasy XI videos to the unlisted playlists if you're interested in following my adventures! I'd recorded a bunch of footage (12 episodes worth to be exact!) and had been putting off editing and uploading them, but it's finally done.

You can check out the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqmqFDuRsOsfx1Hov1I6YS50_3WgFtLKQ — as before, please don't share this publicly just yet. 

Thus far, my playthrough takes us up into the mid level 40s, and we're almost done with the base game's main story. I've had a few diversions, though, most notably to go and unlock Dancer and find some of its special equipment — these quests come with some cool background lore, so they're worth doing.

Now I'm up to date on uploads, I can get playing and recording again. We're also not far off the end of Atelier Rorona on New Game Plus, so once that's done I can kick off the actual Final Fantasy marathon in earnest. Looking forward to it! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this "early access" look at my FFXI playthrough. 

I log in to Twitter maybe once or twice a week now just to see if anyone has tried to reach me via mentions or direct messages. (No-one ever has, leading me to question a bit why I even leave the account open at all.) Whenever I do so, I always happen to catch a quick glimpse of the main timeline, and it never looks like a place I want to be any more.

Whether it's the recent YouTuber drama or whatever sparked some arguments over lewd games this evening, I just don't care any more. It's not worth getting involved in these things, because it takes time away from the thing that is more important to me: enjoying my hobby.

I originally joined Twitter because it was a good place to meet like-minded people and talk about my hobby, but in the last couple of years that aspect has all but vanished. And it's not just from the anger and outrage mobs; also contributing to the overall "noise" level are the endless memes that take something that might have once been enjoyable before squeezing every possible drop of joy out of it by completely oversaturating the timeline with questionable attempts at humour.

A few examples I can think of offhand: I used to like Garfield, The Simpsons and Shrek. Now I never want to see any of them ever again, because the Internet has ruined all of them for me. And it never seems to be in the name of saying anything meaningful; these memes don't mean anything, they're not communicating a message. They're just… I don't know what they are. But they certainly don't add anything to my enjoyment of things.

Since stepping back from Twitter, I suspect permanently this time, I've been struck by how nice it is to be able to just enjoy things. There's no pressure to conform to a popular opinion, or to put people who say stupid things on blast. What, really, does that achieve? You're never going to meet that person and they're never going to change their mind based on what you say, so what, really, is the point?

I get quality interactions with people who are interested in the things I'm interested in through my blog comments, through private chats and through emails. I am in control of those things; I can "switch off" from any of them any time, it's not a looming, constantly present spectre like social media is.

And when I do "switch off" from them, which is frequently, I can just sit back and enjoy something at my own pace. It's lovely.

For me, one of the great pleasures of discovering a new creator that you enjoy is when you decide to look at their work a little more broadly and discover that they've been doing far more things that you like than you might have initially realised.

I mentioned the other day that I'd been enjoying the Game Grumps' work on YouTube, and I'd quickly become aware of the other projects the two presenters Arin Hanson and Dan Avidan had been working on — most notably the musical acts Starbomb and Ninja Sex Party. Today I've been checking both of these projects out, and really enjoying myself.

Ninja Sex Party is a comedic musical duo consisting of Avidan and his friend Brian Wecht, aka Danny Sexbang and Ninja Brian respectively. Avidan performs vocals, while Wecht is on keyboard. In the vein of other musical comedy acts, the pair are very much playing a role; "Sexbang" is, as you might expect, an oversexed guy who thinks he's better than everyone (and specifically better than Brian), while Brian is uncommunicative and occasionally homicidal.

Their songs consist of '80s-inspired rock and synthpop numbers, usually about sex or sexuality in some way, and typically involving jokes at Brian's expense. They're not just a gimmicky joke act, however; the songs themselves are incredibly catchy and entertaining as well as having humorous, often relatable lyrics. "No Reason Boner" from the duo's debut album "NSFW" will be a particular highlight for most men.

Starbomb, meanwhile, consists of Avidan and Wecht with the addition of Hanson. Their songs consist of video game and anime parodies, typically though not exclusively making use of hip-hop and modern rock sounds. Hanson and Avidan take the lead on the vocals this time around, with Hanson displaying his genuinely impressive rapping skills while Avidan provides the more melodic sections of each piece.

Once again, Starbomb's work consists of pieces that are genuinely enjoyable, listenable pieces of music first and foremost, entertaining parodies second. Particular highlights from what I've heard so far include "Filling in the Name Of", a Rage Against the Machine-inspired rant from the perspective of the long Tetris piece, who is fed up of people just using him, and Vegeta's Serenade, a spectacular Dragon Ball Z-inspired, Meat Loaf-style power ballad where Vegeta tries his best to sing a love song to his wife without mentioning Goku, and fails miserably.

If you need a bit of silly, nerdy humour in your life, I encourage you to check out both Ninja Sex Party and Starbomb. It's great to find some musical comedy that doesn't forget about the "musical" part.

One thing I often find myself contemplating when enjoying an older game is how it's "supposed" to be played. As a general rule, I avoid using save states in emulators for anything other than picking up where I left off in a game that allows infinite continues anyway (see: Castlevania) and I certainly won't use them to cheese my way past a difficult section of game.

What about games where there are systems in place seemingly designed to allow you to cheese your way past difficult bits, though? I'm thinking specifically about old shareware games like Wolfenstein 3-D, Commander Keen and the like here.

Back when I first played these games when they were "current", I took full advantage of the save systems. In the process, though, I made the score and lives systems of the game completely irrelevant, because I'd never see a "Game Over" — I'd simply reload when I died so I didn't lose anything.

Just recently, however, I've discovered the appeal of playing these games in a more "arcade" style. That means starting the game and playing until you run out of lives, purely to see how far you can get. No saving, no quicksaving, no cheesing, no cheat codes — just a pure test of your skill and endurance.

And you know what? I'm finding it really fun. Old first-person shooters like Wolfenstein 3-D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (an underappreciated classic that I really, really like) really have a new level of enjoyment when there's that additional pressure to perform and attempt to get a high score, and in playing like this you make things like the secret rooms and the collectible treasure much more relevant than they would be in a run where you're spamming the Quicksave button every few seconds.

Ultimately, it's kind of nice that these games have the option to play in both ways. Save-scumming means that anyone can eventually get to the end of the game, while the presence of old-school mechanics like score and lives mean that those who want to enjoy the game in a different way still can, too.

Give it a try sometime, you might enjoy it!

Topic.

No seriously. I mean, I always knew of the early Castlevania series being notoriously challenging (not always for entirely the right reasons) but having been spending quite a bit of time with the first game over the course of the last few days, I can confidently say that yes, indeed, Castlevania is hard.

Despite occasional bouts of flaming rage at it (the fourth block nearly killed me) I've been enjoying a bit of a challenge. It's a satisfying game to progress in, and one that it'd be cool to say that I've actually beaten eventually. I don't know if I'm ever going to get there, but I'm certainly going to keep trying! Into the fifth block now, so only a few levels left to go… but man, everything hits really hard in the late game! Also those jumpy hunchback fleamen bastards can go fuck themselves.

I'm coming for you, Dracula! Just, uh, just give me a bit of time, please…