Peado Yoda Again

In the big, bigger, biggest tried-and-tested format.

The Ad Man is a Bad Man

Those of you living in the United Kingdom Emirates may have seen a couple of the recent Fallout 3 GOTY edition TV spots. This makes a refreshing change from the constant Wii adverts.

We looked for a relevant video on Youtube but there are so many gameplay videos it was tricky to find. So instead we're going to go back in time to 1950 and explain the advert using only words*.

THE GUY WHO DOES ALL THE VOICEOVERS FOR AMERICAN ACTION FILMS: Play Fwallout 3 NOW!
2 second clip of someone doing a head shot.
2 second clip of someone hitting someone with something else.
2 second clip of someone having an explosive device thrown at them.
2 second clip of someone having something [indistinguishable] violent done to them in slow motion.
THE GUY WHO DOES ALL THE VOICEOVERS FOR AMERICAN ACTION FILMS: Gwame of the Ywear Edition out No[Gravel, gravel, Gravel]w.
1 second shot of credits.
End.

Now we're all for televisual adverts for great games but is the advert really capturing what is truly great about Fallout 3? We thinks no. We think it represents a game so great for many many other things, perhaps great for not focussing so much on all the things the ad highlights. But we also recognise that it is really hard to sell all those lovely extra features in such a short time slot but it doesn't stop us coming up with an alternative version:



TGAM's FALLOUT 3 ADVERT- WORKING TITLE "A Dreamscape's last hiatus".

Black screen to opening of 'Cecilia' by Suggs.
4 minute clip of a player chasing a mutant across a wasteland continuously swiping away with a spade. At the end the mutant escapes and the player starts randomly shooting grass, trees and other scenery with a pistol.
1 second shot of credits.
END

We know which one we think most accurately describes the game. And we would happily make this ad for $4,000.

*We managed to find a computer old enough that would actually let you type in words. Then via a spectrum of younger and younger computers we managed to get it from a 490 inch floppy disk to a USB stick and then onto the internet. If we weren't so tech savvy we could say, hand on heart, that this post wouldn't have otherwise existed.

The PC Guys are all a bit bitter about Gameswipe

Perhaps it is because they couldn't get it off steam? Or maybe because they had to actually watch TV and they haven't done that for ages.

Rock Paper Shotgun summed the show up pretty well.

Richard Cobbett continues to look like David Mitchell.

But if there is anything the men, who have mostly had marginal success writing for dying magazines and a niche following on the old blogosphere (RICH, SO RICH COMING FROM US), have said that makes sense is that the show felt very cobbled together because it was trying to do justice to the whole of gaming kind in a single show. And for an audience wider than the gamer gamers (see pie chart, the red slice). It could easily be a 420 part series but then who would watch it? Gamers think they know it all. The average TV watcher probably doesn't give a shit.

Then again the same demographic expressing dissapointment at Gameswipe are the same people who regularly bemoan TV for being totally shit. So you can't have it both ways. Although I imagine that in most gamer gamer's minds some success on the idiot box might mean that games get more credibility as a genuine thing and not as some idiotic waste time for people who can't get a boyfriend. Funny that we still crave that stamp of approval from traditional mass media.

Welcome Strangers

After years of attention seeking it finally happened. It's the fourth biggest day of our lives. We got a link on Kotaku after we sent a link to this post after Brian C (Big C we call him) didn't take to kindly to our latest tip. Tip 25 reposted here for your eyes only:

25. Rumours abound tips too

Handwashing and gargling? Seriously. Are you even trying over there? Here is a good tip for you though which might cause your stomach to erupt if handwashing floats your boat!

In the game 100 Classic Books for the Nintendo DS, the summer evening BGM makes a fine accompanyment to a quick read of the Hunchback of Notre Dame because, wait for it, it has bells tolling in the background. Share this tip carefully boyos.

He replied with "Hey how’d that happen? You’ve landed on my spam filter."

Then I shared the link to the post and it turns out he was a lie head because he then went on to share the link with the whole of Kotaku.

What happened next?

Then overnight we recieved an influx of Kotakuites (3662 to be exact) which brings our total visitor figures to TGAM up to 2461. Some of them were kind enough to leave comments here, which I wil now take time to respond to a la Soloman or Smith. Names have been changed because most of them pussies went anonymous.

Thumb it in said "Uh on the 24th tip, how bout not reading the day and night notes?Would help in the not being annoyed by them, wouldn't you say?"

Well Thumb it's not a problem since day note and night note seem to have mysteriously dissappeared following our glorious link.

Matthew wrote us an essay "SO WE WERE ALL IN JAPAN THE OTHER DAY AND WE WENT TO A JAPANESE PLACE AND AtE SOME JAPANESE FOOD AND IN JAPAN FOOD IS DIFFERENT THAN IN AMERICA AND IN JAPAN THEY HAVE DIFFERENT TRADITIONS AND STUFF. buy my book".Wow that is great. It does seem that all I ever hear on Kotaku is about Japan if it comes out of that guy.I'll have to return to finish reading this when I have more time, but it's great so far.

and later

OK, it took me a little time to go through it all, but I have confirmed you are insane. Just give up, is one tip. The only tip I ever got posted was one about the Call of Duty 4 beta release. I've sent in cool stuff before of varying subjects (All related to gaming), but now that I understand how many emails they get, I can give them a little slack.I do like what you said here:. Yesterday must have been cold without a hot tip so here's one that's been scorching a hole in my faceDon't bother with Second Life.I think the best tip you ever got is from Kotaku themselves (The link that is), so you're probably peeing yourself right now, congrats.

Thanks Matt although we gave up peeing ourselves when the cold weather settled in that nice warm feeling just doesn't stay warm long enough. Although, if we see a fire engine, who knows?

Leadbythenose said "What a waste of time, I wish kotaku hadn't linked me here." It's nice to see such frank honesty these days and glad to see that at least Lead got the joke unlike:

>9000 who helpfully pointed out that "Your tips are lame. seriously they are weak tips are supposed to be for information about new games not game guide help. and duh ashcraft lives in Japan I think he is going to be slightly japanese...." We feel so embarassed the whole time we thought we were being helpful! Thank god women like +900 are here to point these things out.

Hotnblack said: "Its easy to hate kotaku, I mean I know I do at times...but their coverage is too good to overlook. Every other game site/blog out there is just copy and pasting off their feed." Which is pretty much what we said in the post he had just commented on when we went:

"Kotaku is a gaming news site, probably the best one actually at least in terms of volume and frequency, not neccessarily consistency....... From here the escapist and then EDGE copy and paste all their news." But it might have been worth reiterating I guess.

Nothingbuthenews found a third use for his arsehole and said: "I totally agree, I wish I hadn't followed this link. This is what you do with your time and call news? Ugh." HE JUST CAN'T STAND THINGS WHICH PEOPLE SPEND THEIR TIME ON THAT ISN'T NEWS. Which is most things.

Slowbutsteady doesn't know his sister started her period. All he knows is that his Dad's dick taste funny once a month: "I, for one, very much like the Day and Night Notes." Then it's a shame they've gone now then [replaced by just Note but whatever].

RegIII resisted the debilitating FIV long enough to choose a poor turn of phrase to suggest he has tried email stalking men and masturbating, preffering the latter: "Seriously? This is how you waste your time? Here is a scorching hot tip for you...... jack off.... far better than email stalking guys."

Nicoffiend goes: "Congrats on wasting two years of your life attempting to get a rise out of someone you don't know and who couldn't give a rats ass about you." Dude. We took breaks.

What happened next

Thanks to our traffic tracking software we were able to follow the kotakuites. Well over 1000 of them then 'found' the CG Boobies tag. They then spent an average 30 seconds looking at the posts. The little quiz box on the right went up 5 votes for put my bum in his willy and 4 votes for put my willy in his bum. Sadly, RegIII died of the FIV. The world is a slightly better place. Then they all went back to Kotaku for some good old fashined naivity and some circle jerking. It'll take some time for the chip smell to go away though.

I never did say which email broke the will of the Big C. In fact for a guy who didn't notice he said this after the Second Life tip: "Does the hole, perchance, lead to your brain?".

Let's Do........ Griefing: A Guide

Griefing has been in games for a long time. A modern definition would certainly be mostly about racism, sexism and all the other 'isms' towards other players particularly in multiverses, MMORPGs and online games with text or voice chat. However, griefing has been around in games for a while. Lets look to the origins of this much maligned behaviour.

Griefing first originated in games where you could directly affect other players. For me and the Catch The Monkey And Other Games B69 (the name given to the merry band of gamers that I used to play with) peeps the first precursors to griefing behaviour could be found in Micro Machines on the Mega Drive.
A well timed nudge before a jump or on a thin walkway would send the other player spiralling to doom. Remember this is a Micro Machines before weapons and powerups. Then strategies would start to develop to counter act nudging. The classic braking before someone goes to nudge you means that they end up facing the other way and you can race off for the win. No doubt other gamers have different landmarks but for me this was the first instance of in game behaviour that was contrary to the main objective of the game, to race to the edge of the screen; underhand tactics.

The next phase in the history of griefing is friendly fire in co-operative games. One press of a button would change a cooperative mission into an all out deathmatch. I site hours of split screen co-op Doom. I would spend hours with Chuff_72 in a deathmatch of our own making. Many other games allowed friendly fire which would, temporarily, shift the emphasis of the game to beating the other player rather than complete the level or dungeon until one or either players get bored and then progress would continue as 'normal'.

Then as games allowed more complex interactions between avatars; chatting, fighting and emoting griefing behaviour also evolved. Much of the griefing behaviour that is complained about in news articles, blogs and forums simply falls under harassment. Rude remarks and lewd avatar poses are the kinds of things that people complain about but as one famous griefer commented "This is low level shit". It's no-brainer behaviour just setting out to abuse other players. This kind of griefing has a high profile and many companies and individuals work hard to prevent it by banning or reputation systems. Why do they do it? Well, because it's fun. Regardless of whether you think it is or not, GRIEFERS GET PLEASURE from seeing you squirm or flail or try to get indignant.
Griefers often know a game inside and out and they are bored by the game. Raiding, instancing, grinding are for the most part dull. Aggravating other players on the contrary is fun. Often because victims are so helpless. Retorts like "You are so Immature" or "Go back to your Mom's basement" (an American retort) pleases griefers. They have offended you in game and all you can manage is a parent like criticism, a plea to courtesy or respect will get you nowhere. Other than attempts at reasoning what are you going to do? What are you going to do to stop them? Nothing. You can't and even if you could they know the game better than you. They'll see what you are trying to do and outwit you again and again and again and when you are most insulted you start to insult back and then you've lost. By stooping to their level when at first you accused them of being immature you have lost. They have made you become what you object to the most. Your best bet is to run away or ignore them. There is no adaptive strategy like in our Micro Machines or Doom examples. You can't fight back (unless you are PvP'ing) and any reasoning through text chat excites the griefers more.

In my view, Camping, Spawncamping and other behaviours which are seen to not be "in the spirit of the game" aren't griefing behaviours. As a player individual, or a player as part of a team you can come up with a strategy of play to take down a camper. Taking out campers as part of a team, for me, is when play is at it's best. You have to empathise with the sniper or whatever. What are they expecting you to do? Can you distract them or put them off at all? I've seen a tank and two ghosts taken out by a sniper and I've seen Battle Grounds in WoW where the Horde continue to wipe out the Alliance because they were uncoordinated. It's griefing that you can do something about. You can't blame people for playing the game how it's supposed to be played. So shut up complaining or go back to the one player campaign. Yes, it isn't fun getting rinsed. I've had experiences on Gears of War, Tribes and Quake when a team of semi pros suddenly joins a game and they are good. They take you out with clinical precision and don't bother with corpse humping or other such behaviour. They're too professional. I know it sucks to lose but when you eventually take them out it feels good. Like I say. NOT GRIEFING.

The next level of griefing is one that involves more creativity and gets respect in the same way that hackers seem to get respect for breaking a code or system. This is system wide or game wide griefing. It is often ingenious, time consuming and well recorded. Examples are shootings and atomic bombs in second life, The Great Scam in EVE ONLINE, giant prostitute pictures at the Second Life Big Brother Bash, Crashing an in-game funeral in WoW and Floating Penises in Second Life during a CNET interview with Anshe Chung. I'm sure there are more but this is just a selection. This kind of griefing is a step up from mere insults or lewdness. It's using the games systems and players personas to cause widespread chaos and to generally seek attention. But again, what are you going to do about it? Many of the above examples are from Second Life and it's because there is so much freedom that these things happen. Whether or not the Great Scam in EVE Online is real or not, I can't say but it's another example of people playing the game. So what to do?

In the future I'd like to see vigilante, or counter griefer, groups appear. You don't see the good or the great gamers getting griefed, they're too good. The griefing in World of Warcraft is allowed to happen because people want to be nice to each other and not be forced to fight. The game is called World of Warcraft but yet on some servers you can't even beat up any ne'erdowells. Another point is that ultimately griefing is boring. Youtube 'griefing' to get the view of those doing the griefing in WoW, Second Life, EverySource game. It's boring, often mind numbingly dull yet they do it relentlessly. The more inventive griefers go to a lot of pains to find glitches or exploits in skills, tech trees or trades only to use them too much in one day and get the behaviour or the exploit fixed or blocked soon after. They are willing to invest a lot of time and effort for sometimes a few hours of 'fun'.

All in all I think it's fascinating and as a gamer I like to relate to my avatar. If I start to get grief I want to think or react my way out of it. I don't want to run to the message boards or GM's and complain. Also a griefer on your side can be a great anti-grief deterrent so maybe reacting out of hand straight away isn't the way to avoid grief. It probably attracts it.

Thinking and ranting, thinking and ranting. If you aren't convinced by that then just go here

Why you shouldn't blog until your hymen pops

Because blog the eye of Google will blog see you everytime blog. Even when you blog make key blog mistakes when trying to make a blog point.

Book reading is turning all our kids into obese, gay, terrorists

Hi, my name is Cunzy1 1 and I have an axe to grind. I'm going to spout my point of view as fact and back it up with misinformation and uninformed hearsay. Today, I've got an issue with kids reading books, especially homoerotic books about wizards and dragons and the such.

Gone are the days when children would come home from school, play a few rounds of Quake 2 with their friends and then sit and talk to each other over a nice dinner between friends and families. These days kids are obsessed with reading books about 'wizards' who use 'majicks' to 'save the day'. They are becoming mindless zombies sat tranfixed with words on a page barely moving save to turn a page or to 'shoot up' some heroin which they learned from another book about drug abuse. People in bookshops don't care, they rarely check ID when the lazy slob children come in to buy the next installment of Manly McMan's book about shooting and killing real people from nearly real countries. The parents don't care either. They don't sit down and read books with their children they just keep buying them books so that the children don't notice when 'Uncle' Jenny comes round when Daddy is away.

Yet they maintain all the knowledge they get from reading books and what use is it? Dragons and terrorists don't exist in real life. This knowledge is useless. Also, it's affecting education. We all know that evolution, earth history and phylogeny isn't taught at school anymore but children just aren't playing dinosaur and other prehistoric animal games anymore they are obsessed with reading filthy books like Jurassic Park or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Disgusting. It's no wonder all our children are obese terrorists. My parent's generation certainly didn't read books and my generation dabbled in the written word behind the school sheds but just once to try it.

SAVE OUR CHILDREN! BURN THEM OR BOOKS