The Word of Ward

Well, it’s 6:30am and I’m eleven hours into my shift. Or to put it another way – I’m at work and being paid quite handsomely to watch Doctor Who. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. I do know that it could be a lot worse but I really need a beer. I’m doing 11 12-hour shifts in a two week period and it hasn’t allowed me much social life. Again this is both a good and bad thing. Good for my liver and bad for my brain. I finish on Monday morning, will catch a couple of hours sleep and head for the Notting Hill Carnival. When I will rectify the situation with cans of Red Stripe.

Because of all this I haven’t done much. I read the paper a lot. So er, here’s what I found mildly interesting over the past few days:

A-level and GCSE results are up yet again. If you’re a pessimist, then you probably think that this is because they are getting easier so that schools can report better results and the government can say how brilliant the education is. If you’re an optimist and don’t want to belittle the young

The next generation of Brits.

people’s achievements then presumably you are in awe of the increasingly super-genius that are leaving schools. Year upon year the British are getting smarter and it’s quite baffling that we haven’t ruled the world by now. Having read a few internet forums on sites like Amazon, I have to say I’m leaning toward cynicism. The other day someone was reviewing something and said they had ‘buyed’ this and it was crap. They were 18. This was not an isolated event and one forum descended into a generational debate between 30/40 year olds and teen/20 year olds. All the younger generation were morons in this forum and defended themselves by saying it was just a forum. The older generation pointed out that buyed isn’t a word and you don’t confuse your, you’re, they’re, their, and there because you are relaxed and simply chatting. You do it because you’re an idiot. Or is it ‘your an idiot’ (just a wee joke). Most of us older types claimed it was a matter of dignity, learning, and that the younger ones sucked. With that said, the other 30/40 year olds and I, proud in our maturity, wisdom, and education left the Playstation 3 discussion room in disgust.

In defense of Britain’s youth, I suspect they are exactly equal in intelligence to all previous generations. They are just worse at spelling.

Another news story I saw was about a high-speed train that will go from London to Scotland in 2 hours. Which is cool if you’re feeling too dry and warm and crave a deep-fried mars bar.

These deep fried Mars Bars could be two hours away in the wonderful future.

Actually I’m being flippant here as I love Scotland. The bits I’ve been to anyway. Mostly Edinburgh in fact. I have spent the odd day in Glasgow, Dunblane and Bridge of Allan too and they were delightful. Apparently you will also be able get to Manchester and Liverpool in an hour which is pretty impressive. The article added as an afterthought that you’d be able to go to Birmingham in 45 minutes but seemed at a loss as to why. I have yet to meet anyone who has ever gone to Birmingham. Maybe it awesome and a brilliantly kept secret.

Roll on 2030!

The only problem with this train is that it won’t be in place until 2030. Which says something about British transport. There will be a moon base and we will have landed on Mars before we can build a quick train to Scotland. There is something deeply wrong with this scenario.

I wrote about how few have died from swine flu recently and struggled to think of something nobody has ever heard of that has killed more. I then read in a paper of a 16 year old girl who died of adult cot death. This is incredibly tragic and apparently kills hundreds of adults a year. I did a bit of internet research and found that this is linked to the rather alarmingly named Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Where you just die. Probably while doing something dull. I have decided to worry about this instead. I now really resent work just in case it happens there.

Apparently most Brits are staying put in Britain this year and enjoying what the media have rather tediously dubbed a ’staycation’. On top of this, more and more people are staying in and drinking at home due to the recession, pub prices and the smoking ban. This combination of staying in and drinking has led to the biggest baby boom in 50 years. Then it was relief to have survived the war and not be speaking German but now it seems to be alcoholic boredom. There’s not a lot on telly, you’re drunk with the missus, what else is there to do? I did read that the average Brit who has left the country on holiday consumed an average of 8 alcoholic drink per person every day. This booze expenditure is probably why we are so welcome abroad.

In summary then, I’ve done bugger all.

The book is set in the not too distant future. Scotland has devolved (in a political not Darwinian sense), gained independence, and the world is even more saturated with information technology and computer nerdiness than ever before. In an online game a load of orcs and a dragon rob a bank and nick a load of magic swords and armour and amulets and other valuable goodies.

At first you’d probably agree with one of the protagonists in thinking ‘So what, it’s a game’ but in fact the theft spells almost certain doom for the computer company that hosts the bank in the virtual game. As in life now, with games like World of Warcraft, these magical items go on sale for quite surprising money on auction sites. More importantly though, if people lose faith in the game a multi-million company can go down the crapper. These games are big money.

So that’s the plot. The start of it at least. As the book goes on the stakes get increasingly higher as things develop. Western civilisation is at threat and people start to die. There are spies and assassinations and advanced technology and thrills aplenty.

The novel would score quite high on the nerd scale if there was such a thing. A Warp Factor 8.5 perhaps. It is full of computer techno/gamespeak. Being a bit of a spod myself, I was ok with the game stuff like MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game in case you care) but got a bit lost, and to be honest, mildly annoyed for the first couple of chapters with the sheer amount of ‘don’t I know a lot of acronyms’ and general geekness. Stross is doing this on purpose but it can be frustrating.

Another thing I thought might be annoying is the fact that it is told in the ‘stream of consciousness’ style like the classic As I lay dying by William Faulkner (a bit boring) and the even more classic The Stud by Jackie Collins (a bit daft). In case you aren’t familiar with these literary gems – each chapter has a character’s name and it is told by that person. It doesn’t prove much of a problem here except occasionally for a Scots accent used by the police character. Which is done phonetically and unnecessarily and why I can’t be bothered to read Trainspotting. The author can just say that the character has a Scots accent and then write normally. I can imagine the rest. It’s pretty rare here, so don’t worry.

Even more uniquely, the tale is told in the second person present. “You walk in a room” and “you are reading a superb review” sort of a thing. Initially my heart sank when I read this as I thought it would piss me off but I actually got quite into it. It really draws you in. I’m assuming that it is supposed to blur the boundaries between a classic writing style and games such as Dungeons and Dragons or the superb ‘choose your own adventure’ Fighting Fantasy books by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Which were immensely popular with sad lonely types in the 80s when I was at school. (Deathtrap Dungeon rules by the way.)

I won’t give anything away, but while I found the book incredibly fun, witty, entertaining and exciting, it didn’t quite live up to what I had hoped. It felt slightly lacking by the end. I don’t know what I was expecting but it didn’t quite deliver.

It’s still worth a go though. You might like it. As I said it’s fun if you’re a bit of geek and well written.

“You are clicking on Amazon…”

I wrote a few months ago about how swine flu was coming to sweep across the globe, decimate the population, and cause fear wherever a sneeze is to be heard. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want this to happen and any death from this is a tragedy.

I was going to eat humble pie when it looked like it was genuinely going to kick off a month or two ago. I actually knew some people who got it and panic seemed to spread. In China Mexicans were quarantined and in Hong Kong a hotel got blockaded. Eqypt threatened to kill all its pigs and in Afghanistan, there was talk of killing the country’s sole hog. They only have one in the whole country apparently, which is a bit weird. It must be lonely.

So far 59 people have died in Britain. Which is sad but I read somewhere that 10,000 a year die from normal flu and the number of new cases are dropping rapidly. The population stupidly started to relax and drop from their state of media-induced panic. Ministers and the press are currently trying to change this by informing us that there will be a second more deadly wave and that mass graves are being prepared. MASS GRAVES IN BRITAIN! they cry before reluctantly adding at the end that its for a worse case scenario… mumble mumble…

I was reading an article in Fortean Times that described a lot of conspiracy theories that are gleefully being slung around the internet at the moment. One of the more pervasive ones is that it is a manufactured virus designed to sell drugs like Tamiflu. I don’t really believe in most conspiracy theories (see my moon landing entry ) but this one, like others, has some intriguing coincidences.

Cut back in time to 1976. A young soldier in Fort Dix dies of swine flu (or a similar variant). Others become infected but only within the fort. This has led to the theory that the flu was manufactured as a bio-weapon. A young politician called Donald Rumsfeld calls for mass vaccinations against the flu. This policy is adopted by the Ford administration. Years later a company called Gilead Sciences develops Tamiflu and it is stockpiled in order to combat the bird flu outbreak of 2005. Which never really kicks off and the drugs are left sitting in government warehouses all over the world. The chairman for this company from 1997 to 2001 was, you guessed it, Donald Rumsfeld. Who is now keeping schtum on how many stocks he still owns.

Curious eh? A drug company with stockpiles of drugs linked to a politician and suddenly we are desperately in terror of a virus that has, relatively speaking, done bugger all. That can be immunised against by this drug and not any other ones already on the market.

It may be a coincidence, maybe not. If it is then the media and government are playing into the pharmaceutical company’s hands. What could be in it for our politicians? Apparently we stockpiled tons of this Tamiflu during the Bird Flu outbreak of 2005 and it is now getting nearer to its expiration date. It’s all going off. A massive waste of money. Suddenly there is panic instilling reports of mass graves and a million dead.

Ok maybe there is no conspiracy but it makes for interesting reading. Obviously I hope there aren’t mass deaths as London will be the most severely affected. It will be pretty scary if a million die. Plus house prices might drop.

I’m hoping it’s just a case of the press over-reacting to sell newspapers. Apparently it has happened before but I find it hard to believe that there could be that level of unprofessionalism in our nation’s journalists.

Just remeber to sneeze in a tissue and dispose of it as shown to us by David McCusker – the actor who is the government’s ‘face of swine flu’ and appears in their ads. Who then got swine flu. And was helped by taking Tamiflu. Suspicious eh?

Well, I haven’t written much recently as I have been busy. I survived yet another trip to Amsterdam and have been working a lot. Mostly for the Sci Fi channel. The combination of brain-battering in both places fused together to make me wonder about something that would not bother most. At least I hope not, or humanity really needs to focus.

What I noticed was that alien planets in the fictional future of my childhood look different from alien planets in the fictional future of today.

The Vasquez rocks or an alien planet?

In my youth they were desert but today they are forests. To be specific, in my youth they looked like the Vasquez rocks outside LA and now they look like a Canadian forest. The former strikes me as more realistic as most extra-terrestrial planets (not the gas giants obviously) are desert-like in appearance. Look at Mars. Or Venus. I should stress that this probably won’t bother most people but it does me and this is my site. If you do care and you want proof, here goes.

Here’s proof:

Star Trek Original series. Arena.

In a classic episode of the old Trek, James T. Kirk is beamed down to a planet and made to fight a green lizard thing that is the captain of another ship.

They are placed there by an alien intelligence to see which species should be allowed to survive. It’s a fight to the death and Kirk manages to make gunpowder and shoots a diamond at the alien with a piece of bamboo.

Which is exactly what I’d have done. He refuses to finish the alien off and humans turn out to be er, humane and we’re let off.

Notice the background?

Same episode but with alien

In the highly under-rated Futurama, there is a familiar scene:

Futurama does Star Trek

Buck Rogers even went there in the 25th Century:

Buck Rogers

There’s a funny sequence in Bill and Ted where they watch the Arena episode and then a few minutes later get thrown off the very same rocks. I couldn’t find a photo of this but here they are in preparation:

From fantazone

Evil Bill and Ted meet Good Bill and Ted

Ok so it is all to do with budgets and nearness to the studio. It’s just that my youth has been filled with images of these rocks. The Flinstones movie has these rocks behind Bedrock. A godawful movie called Shockwave features them. In Friends, Joey is going to be in a low budget Sci Fi film that is set here.

Here’s Airwolf episode 1:

Airwolf!

Austin Powers!

So there I am watching old Sci Fi juxtaposed with new Sci Fi. The difference is glaring. New Sci Fi looks like this:

Flash Gordon

Battlestar Galactica

Stargate

At the risk of belaboring this point – in my youth, space was the desert just outside LA; in my adulthood, it is in the woods of Canada. It is obviously about budgets and this entry is making no point whatsoever. Except maybe don’t go to Amsterdam and then watch the Sci Fi channel for three 12-hour shifts in a row. Especially if you’re pedantic and notice crap like this.

If you don’t care then I apologise. Just look at the pretty pictures. I will soon be reviewing a couple of books and a game (Halting State by Charles Stross, Azincourt by Bernard Cornwall and the game inFamous), so just wait for that. I will also write about Amsterdam. Something for everyone.

I found it all mildly interesting anyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell what era the programme came from just by the colour – green or yellow.

Hopefully soon, some big budget movie will come along and return to space planets of my youth. My eye will fill with a nostalgic tear and I will love whatever I’m watching. It will mean a return to the classics. Actually… that’s happened. Guess what movie? In a joke that would appeal to sad Trekkies, JJ Abrams’ brilliant new Star Trek film featured a picture of Vulcan.

It looks familiar and god bless him:

Vulcan in the new Star Trek. Genius.

Next blog entry: something completely different.

I wish there was a film with that title. Anyway, I digress.

I am now back to normal after my extended period of night-time toil. Apart from the swine flu and more stories about expense fraud, I didn’t feel like I had missed much. Sure there’s lots going on – terrorism, war, famine, general planet-wide misery and so on, but there’s nothing that would have affected me if I had had the day off.

Except I missed two marches in London I would like to have seen. Normally marches are full of concerned people complaining about injustice, or anarchists up for a bit of pointless violence and MacDonalds bashing, or even poor bastrards just trying to get home and being bullied by identity-less police. These were different.

The first was a march by prostitutes through the streets of Soho to give thanks to the local residents’ support. Apparently the government (boo! hiss!) were trying to close down a lot of the rooms that the girls use in Soho to have sex in. The ones up some stairs that advertise models. Apparently.

The evil government were against this and would seem to prefer that the girls left the safety of these protected and safer environments and walked the streets instead, to be attacked and controlled by pimps as they are elsewhere. Or maybe they genuinely thought that if they closed these places down then prostitution would end. Whatever they thought they are idiots. Anyway, the residents of Soho formed a coalition with the ‘working ladies’ and claimed this was part of Soho’s charm and these girls have been doing this since Soho began and they are an integral part of the area. The fact that they can also get laid in their lunchbreak is a bonus that was curiously omitted. Good on everyone involved because they won the case and the goverment backed down. So the ladies dressed up in all sorts of exciting outfits and marched through Soho just to say thanks to all who supported them. These girls are now safer, and the residents of Soho are happier. Hooray for justice!

Now Soho is a good 15-20 minutes from my flat, so I can forgive myself for not being there. Plus, if I found myself in Soho on a Sunday morning I would probably not even be in a state to stand or see. The other march I missed though was in my own borough of Camden. Or ‘Scamden’ as the Oscar Wildean local wags refer to it. In this case it was a protest march as the council (more boos and hisses) were trying to get the burlesque troupes to pay the same amounts as strippers when it came to licences. Or taxes. Or something. Not quite sure as I was staring at the pretty pictures too much. Anyway, the ladies said it is different from stripping in that – and this seems pretty crucial – they don’t strip off. Sure they writhe sexily around in lingerie but it is more arty. It can also be quite fun and ok to take the wife to.

I hope they win! I pay a bucketload of council tax and really think that councils should be spending more time on things like crime and violence and getting sodding tourists in Camden to walk faster, than all this. They are essentially trying to close or tax things that people who live there actually like rather than sort out stuff they don’t.

Maybe I should start a march. A march for people who think burlesque dancers shouldn’t be targeted and protistutes should be safer and legal. Those who think a bit of seediness and/or sauciness adds to the character of an area. I suspect however, that myself and others concerned with these issues wouldn’t be quite so aesthetically pleasing. So I won’t.

KILLZONE 2

Let me begin…

Killzone 2 is fucking brilliant. Sorry if this sounds like a summary and you need not read further, but it really is. It is like lots of First Person Shooters but it just does everything so well, it sets itself apart. Read on to see specifically why this is the case. Or just trust me and go and buy it now. Actually, read this first – it may not be for you if this isn’t your cup or tea. Because you’re mental or hate fun or something.

It’s starts off in the mother ship and you are introduced to yourself as Sevchenko or ‘Sev’, a double hard Sergeant in the ISA Special Forces Alpha. You are then transported to the planet Helghast where the shit is really hitting the proverbial fan. You and your squad then proceed to blow the living crap out of everyone you come across. There is a bit more story than this, with some great baddies but the plot isn’t really up to much. Good guys vs psycho bad guys. It doesn’t really matter all that much as the game is so damned exciting you don’t really notice.

You are definitely the good guys. There is little doubt in that. You play on the side that are clearly the American forces of the future. So cue bad tactical planning, friendly fire, and cries of “Kick Ass!” as you charge forward with guns a-blazing and then the bafflement that it’s all gone tits up. The Helghast are a cross between Nazi’s, communists, and nutter fanatics. Their leader Scolar Visari is the first person you see as he gives a Hitleresque rant about how his forces will slaughter the ISA and blood will run in the streets and so on. Also like the Nazis, the Helghast have the better outfits. Just to give you an idea of how cool the enemy is, here’s an example: there is one particular type of enemy trooper you come across who is huge and carries a colossal machine gun. You are informed when you first come across one of these behemoths that it just took out an entire squad. You are also told in a loading screen that these are guys who are sealed in a massive powered suit of bulletproof armor, given a huge gun, are then fed aggressive psychotropic mind-altering drugs, and are then sent out against the enemies while constant propaganda is piped into their ears. Which is pretty cool.

Here’s the fellow:

Drugged-up Mega-Machine-Gun Man

Graphically, the game is gorgeous. Full of detail. Helghast is a shithole – like a giant run-down oil refinery in an especially shitty reddish desert. Think Planet Harkonnen from Dune but without the colourful characters. It is wind-swept and industrial and bleak. The lighting and sounds and music complement the whole effect and this in turn heightens and differentiates the various settings (spaceship, palace, etc). Most of the action takes place on the planet however and it almost feels like a real place. The details are superb and lifelike.  Occasionally you are at some gun turrets or in a walking upright tank thing (like in Aliens but with guns) and as the machine gets hit, more and more cracks appear in the wind-shield. The graphics are extraordinary and one of the best on the PS3.

Now for main bit. What’s it like to play? I played this straight after playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Which is also a corker of game, by the way. In that game your character is quick (especially when you are SAS), and as you storm a enemy strongpoint your gun snaps from one bad guy to the next. In Killzone 2, it felt a bit sluggish at first. The guns were heavy and it takes longer to turn and when you jump you just feel a bit slower, as if you have more mass. I then started to get into it and realised that this was a joy. It was just different. You are carrying a heavy load and the guns are bigger and heavier. It then became insane fun.

There are several huge set pieces where you are fighting not just with your squad but with whole divisions. The big guns are rarely sci-fi, just heavy bastard firing machines that are brilliant to shoot with. Chucking grenades can be annoying in some games, but again they got it right. There are just enough guns to keep you interested and the tasks are just varied enough to alleviate any chance of boredom. The AI on both sides is incredibly high and they are rarely passive. Enemy soldiers will hide behind cover until they think you have stopped shooting before popping their heads out somewhere new. They will scatter when you chuck a grenade, which can be frustrating but at least it’s realistic. You have to use grenades intelligently instead – throwing them where several Helghast are hidden behind cover and then you and your squad can shoot them as they run out. Unfortunately they do the same to you. If you hide in one spot for too long you will get flanked, so you have to be alert.

You are in serious trouble

The solo play took me about ten hours to complete, which is pretty respectable and as my heart was pounding for most of it, quite a relief. I then thought I’d give online a go. As I stated before, I had been playing COD 4 before this and there the online game felt difficult. I was always at the bottom of the kill list. Somehow, in Killzone2 I fared a lot better. Maybe it is because the game is newer and you don’t get 90% of players being hardened professionals who have spend 1000s of hours on it. Both games keep the multiplayer interesting by allowing you to level up and proceed through the ranks to general. On the way you win medals for achievements like killing the most people or taking out three guys with one grenade. These medals in Killzone are separate from the ranking system and immensely pleasurable to receive. Also, as you rise you get new weapons, abilities, even new classes. As you get promoted you are only placed in battles with other players of the same rank, so you never feel it is a bit unfair when, (as has happened in other games) you get shat on by players who are generals with better armour and more powerful guns.

The maps are also well designed and balanced. With up to thirty two players in each one, they always feel right and as they are multi-layered you have to think in several dimensions or an enemy will just drop a grenade on your head. In addition to all this you get the usual multiplayer options of capture the flag and body count and so on. But here they can be played one after the other in the same game. It adds a lot more fun than I thought it would have at first as each team competes to win each section and are awarded points accordingly. You also feel like you are working together a lot more in multiplayer than other games I have played. In one section a single player is picked as an assassination target and their position is broadcast to all the 31 other players. I was picked once and I found a relatively secure room and felt genuinely nervous as my teammates all ran to my location and stood guard as the enemy converged on us. As they neared I saw my team get slowly picked off, and as the gunfire got nearer I genuinely got alarmed. Eventually both squads guarding each door exploded in blood and the enemy appeared and I was shot. A lot. Plus blown up with grenades. It was fun though. I am completely addicted to multiplayer now and that is a first for me.

I love First Person Shooters and play a lot of them. It sometimes worries my wife. Killzone 2 doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the genre but it does everything right. It is unbelievably good fun and if the plot is a bit second rate – who cares? You will barely remember it. The game rarely lets up and you will move from one massive set piece to the next in a frenzy of killing joy. The multiplayer is superb and you will spend a lot longer on it than the solo game, so it’s well worth your money. There are so many more elements to it than can be listed in a review, so my advise is to just buy it. If you like epic battles and big guns you will love it. I will see you online.

Check out the online play in awe!

(Thanks to gamespot for the photos.)