Tag: brown

#oneaday, Day 32: Brown Ops

Earlier today, this animated image from Insomniac Games’ Resistance 3 did the rounds. Impressive. But also rubbish.

Ooh, controversial.

But seriously, look at it again. What is the one thing that sticks in your mind after watching that short clip? You probably answered either “post-apocalyptic”, “monster” or “brown”.

The trouble with things like this is that they completely lose their impact after a time. I’m sure Resistance 3 is technically very proficient, particularly if that clip was rendered using the game engine, which I’m guessing it was. But the fact it looks like Gears of War meets Fallout meets any other post-apocalyptic brown “destroyed beauty” sort of environment completely kills any interest for me—there’s just too much of it around. And not just in the sci-fi genre; I haven’t played Modern Warfare 2 for months (I traded it in after I got bored and decided I had no interest in the rest of the Call of Duty series after it) but my one enduring memory of that game, too, is that there was a lot of brown around.

This is nothing new, of course. I vividly remember getting all excited over the original Quake, the first high-profile “true 3D” first-person shooter. My brother, obviously already sick of it having been exposed to it every day on PC Zone, referred to it as “oh, the brown game”. And yes, Quake was overwhelmingly brown, though there were a few blue bits in it too. This was just the beginning, though.

Yes, post-apocalyptic environments probably are going to be grey, brown and miserable. Although one thing that Halo: Reach shows is that it is possible for armageddon to be happening and it still be a vibrant place filled with colour. In the case of that game, it’s arguable that the impact of the destruction is all the more profound because of the splashes of bright colours that are everywhere.

Or alternatively, developers, how about fewer games involving things that have collapsed or are in the process of collapsing? Fewer games where there’s nothing but rock and stone? More games in organic, natural environments that aren’t dead. More games that aren’t afraid to take a few risks and be a bit more stylised rather than “gritty” and “realistic”. Some of my favourite games of all time are the Timesplitters series, proving once and for all that I don’t hate FPS games, I am just very tired of them all being identikit and boring. Timesplitters was colourful, distinctive and humorous but still managed to be atmospheric. And the news that CryTek are considering resurrecting the series fills me with an enormous amount of joy… and hope that they don’t fuck it up.

Perhaps this is why I like JRPGs at a time when more and more people seem to be getting switched off by them. They may be their own particular kind of generic, but at least they offer some colour as part of their aesthetic.

We’re Doing It Wrong

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My hatred and loathing for my home country of the UK has been well documented both on these pages, on Twitter and in various other places that I’ve deposited little pockets of mental detritus around the Web. The reasons for this are manifold, of course, but the recent US elections highlighted one of the reasons that I don’t feel proud to be British, English, United Kingdomish, whatever you want to call me.

Congratulations, by the way, America. You made the right choice by electing Obama as President-elect, the first black President the US has ever seen (a fact the BBC were fond of reminding us roughly every ten seconds during their coverage). You have elected a leader who is intelligent, articulate and inspirational – a leader who certainly gives the impression that he can make a difference and who inspires trust in the things he says. His acceptance speech made me want to shed a tear and made me feel proud and patriotic… towards America.

I’m sure pretty much everyone has seen this by now, but here we go again:

The man is a fantastic public speaker, it can’t be denied – even if you don’t agree with everything he says, or doubt he’ll be able to get the job done, or whatever… there’s no denying that he knows how to instill confidence and pride in a crowd.

We get this:

This is Gordon Brown. He is our Prime Minister. Our unelected Prime Minister, I might add, who sat waiting for Blair to resign like a rabid dog waiting to pounce on a hunk of meat before jumping in and continuing the mess his predecessor had created.

There are many things I object to about Gordon Brown and his government. The biggest thing that struck me about the US election is that I actually cared about the outcome. I cared about the candidates. I was keen for Obama to win because I supported him as a person, I supported what he stood for and I found him an inspirational candidate. I felt uneasy about McCain and particularly about the Evil Ice Bitch that stood with him with her strangely plastic face. Conversely, I’ve watched several UK elections over the years and not one of them has inspired the same kind of pride, patriotism and edge-of-the-seat excitement that the US elections did. This is largely to do with the fact that our politicians are boring and uninspiring, as clearly demonstrated above.

Couple this with the fact that they seem to make consistently stupid decisions, particularly when it comes to things like criminal rights, education and the like, and I can say with some confidence that I have roughly 0% confidence and trust in our government… and the trouble is that the “other sides” don’t inspire much confidence either. David Cameron is a posh public-school boy who is widely regarded as “out of touch” with much of society. I will likely vote for him in the next election purely because I’ve seen what a hash Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have made in the last few years, but I know that it’s unlikely there will be any great change. Our “third option”, the Liberal Democrats, may as well not exist because they consistently gain so little votes in the elections that their presence is merely an annoyance to the “big two” parties.

Our MPs are fond of that particularly odious brand of management-speak and obfuscation of what they actually mean through dumb buzz-words. (I realise “obfuscation” may qualify as one of those words, but I like it.) None of them will ever answer a direct question. I realise that this is nothing new, but it does little to inspire confidence. Obama has, conversely, in the speeches I have witnessed so far, been relatively plain-speaking and comes across as honest. Time will tell if he can live up to his promises, but at least I’m feeling pretty good about him at the moment.

I don’t see any change forthcoming in the UK. Each new generation of politicians in this country is more boring, dull, morose and out-of-touch than the last. Each new generation is doing more and more damage to the country in the name of being “progressive” and encouraging “diversity” when in fact all they are doing is removing rights from people who deserve them and providing them to people who don’t, like criminals and poorly-behaved children in schools. As a result, the country is becoming apathetic, with little to no respect for authority. There’s no chance of any kind of “revolution” forthcoming because the country is so weary and exhausted by the constant beatdowns and the amount of effort it takes to get a straight answer out of a politician.

I realise this all sounds a bit Daily Mail-ish and for that I apologise. But I wanted to share my thoughts, post-election. I am filled with pride and “patriotism” (for want of a better word) towards America at the moment, but it only highlights the fact that we’re doing it wrong here.