Facedown on the carpet, arms locked straight down the body, torso a furious exclamation point knocked horizontal. Blood vessels throb as we wail in hot indignation and disbelief: Eurogamer’s not had a videogame tantrum like this in many, many years.

The cat pauses in the doorway. She cocks her head, eyes the scuffed controller lying near her paws, then moves on, disinterested. Stupid, ignorant, non-space fighter pilot cat.

It was the fourth attempt at the second stage of the sixth level you see, which, in itself bodes well for Project Sylpheed. Games that punch you hard in the face with a Game Over screen three times in a row yet can still convince you to hit the start button just one more time are few and far between these days.

Lead character Katana’s ship, the Rhino 3 and his three idiot, short-sighted supporting squadron comrades had been hiding out in the buckle of an asteroid belt because, let’s face it, there’s literally no-where better/ else to hide in science fiction space stories. Just beyond their position, the fat, useless, capitalised mothership ACROPOLIS, the one you’re inevitably asked to protect in every single level of this sixteen stage narrative black hole of a space shoot-em up, was hanging aimlessly in infinity when the enemy squadron streaked past.

Engines thrusters winked to life and we all tore out from our hiding place, dog-fighting thumbs raw. Friendly ships trail blue smoke lines behind, enemy ships trail red and the vapour trails cross aggressively as if scrawled by some kind of bickering air display team.

Holding the L-bumper activates the homing missile system, bleeping every time it adds a new in range target to the queue. Twenty-two bleeps later (the maximum number of target locks for this middle-of-the-range weapon) and its memory is full. Unclick the bumper and the missile cradles blowpipe their load out into the starry blackness. The missiles inert their way 20 metres ahead of your cock-pit view while their trackers calculate the angles. They hold their breath for a few seconds then KAPOW off in different directions. A cat’s cradle of smoke lines, red, white and blue crisscross all around.

You can read the rest over at Eurogamer here.

We are all so used to non-news being reported as news these days that, when a newsreader takes a stand live on air, refusing to read out what is put before her, it makes for arresting and sobering viewing. Her point isn’t particularly that the piece should have no place in a news round-up, rather that in no way should it be placed as lead above numerous other important reports of the day.

That her two male co-presenters act so idiotically is, initially frustrating but, on reflection, I’m kind of glad that they do. It’s clear that they’re trying to cover their embarrassment/ save the show from an awkward moment but the horrible, self-conscious and patronising way they do it in only serves to strengthen her point and demonstrate that there’s no real justification for putting the Paris ’story’ as the lead.

Plus, of course, their reaction probably is representative of a large proportion of viewers and so, by having them present in the studio, it kind of balances her point making her stance seem braver in the light of this clear and close opposition to what she’s doing. Without them there it wouldn’t be nearly so effective a clip I don’t think.

There is a chance that the clip is a viral style set-up (it has been hosted on MSNBC’s own site) but that seems a little unlikely thanks to the painfully awkward atmosphere and expressions, but, even if it is, the points remain.

Even the way you say the word (Dah-Tss: like checking your breath for the threat of halitosis before hissing at a pantomime villain) feels unkempt and low culturish. It’s one of those sports, like Rugby Union, Polo or pitbull-fighting which, when played in Britain, comes with a heavy sort of social baggage.

These are all games intrinsically linked to the type of people who play them and the environments in which they’re played. Darts is a game about fat men, gold chains, ropey pubs, peroxide blondes and beery carpets; Polo is about prissy paddocks, pure-bred horses, fox-hunting aristocrats and voting Conservative. Pay no attention to the virtue of the gameplay and let the broad brush strokes of prejudice painted by your upbringing dictate whether you approve or not.

Thankfully, in their other-dimensional presentation, videogames have a cute way of bypassing these sorts of tired class considerations of sport to reveal the underlying game for what it really is. Which, in the case of Touch Darts, turns out to be a pretty excellent one all told.

Of course, this isn’t the first game to try players’ hand at the sport. However, for console gamers at least, the most recent iterations have mostly taken the form of minigames tacked on to larger projects. Be it in the game parlours of Sega’s multi-million pound camp soap opera, Shenmue, or deep in the belly of Nintendo’s 42-All Time Classics, Darts has usually played insignificant sideshow to another game’s main attraction. So it’s good to see Sega focus its efforts to bring us the definitive package onto Nintendo’s handheld.

You can read the rest over at Eurogamer here.

There’s a moment in the first Charlie’s Angels film, that underrated and (literally and figuratively) flab-less movie, when Drew Barrymore tumbles semi-naked from the sky into a suburban garden. Two young teenage boys are sat playing Final Fantasy VIII in the front room inside. As they catch sight of her unexpected curves through the double-glazing, the pair pause the game and stare, mouths agog, as this fallen angel slinks off into the night and their forthcoming puberty-soaked dreams.

It’s unusual that Hollywood would choose this videogame to illustrate the scene for two reasons. Firstly because, y’know, it’s not actually a two-player game and secondly because, regardless of Final Fantasy VIII’s merits, a JRPG is probably not representative of what the average non-game playing movie-goer imagines a typical videogame to look and play like.

Despite Wii Sports’ educational stabs at the mainstream consciousness, videogames remain, in the minds of the uninitiated populace, hyperactive experiences for kids with short attention spans. They’re about little cartoony characters running about dementedly, killing one another in gruesome and repetitive ways. Ask the average Joe what happens in most videogames and they’ll probably talk of running over zombies in big-wheeled cars, of maiming axe-murderers with sawn-off shotguns, hurled trash cans and big swords; of a juvenile symphony of camp destruction and brainless button-mashing.
Zoom in”

Games exactly like Monster Madness then.

This is a big, dumb videogame; a relic from the mash-the-buttons scrolling beat ‘em ups of the early nineties, so obvious and clichéd that a non-gamer might have written its core design document from their vague and imprecise knowledge of what games should look and play like. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because, like Charlie’s Angels, big, dumb things, when executed with flair and wit and self-depreciation, can be good and fun. But, while this game aims in that direction, it mostly falls short.

You can read the rest here.

So, this last month I’ve been beavering away at Littleloud as Producer on a bunch of different things to tie-in with the new super-special effects Transformers movie.

One of the deliveries we’ve been working on is a series of short promotional CGI movies in which various household appliances turn up to audition hoping for a cameo in the film.

Three of these animated shorts are now up on Youtube and various other places and they’re pretty cute so I thought I’d link to them here. I didn’t get to work on the scripts sadly (these were written and signed off by Paramount before I started) but I’ve acted as producer across each.

There are various other things about to be spewed out of the pipeline so I’ll link to those as and when they appear on the internet. Enjoy!

Norwegian Kids Mess With Train – Watch more free videos

What initially appears to be one of those terrifying public info/ warning films you’re shown at school in which a kid gets mangled by a speeding train turns out to be something far more interesting.

It’s about halfway through the year right? Seems as good a time as any to recommend some brilliant things again.

Let’s go:

Novel

Slaughterhouse Five

When Kurt Vonnegut died in April I’m certain sales of his books quadrupled, buoyed on the updraft of so many billowing tributes.

His death was the trigger for me to get around to Slaughterhouse Five, his 1969 genre-dodging masterpiece which combines science-fiction and time travel with the author’s own personal memoirs of the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War.

Dresden one of the war’s most deadliest attacks and an event Vonnegut miraculously survived by virtue of being housed in the eponymous Slaughterhouse at the time, was little known prior to the novel’s publishing. The structure of the book is beguiling, the prose stark, fresh and involving and the experience not one easily forgotten.

Vonnegut plays with the narrative arc (thanks to the time travel mechanic) masterfully, switching from paragraph to paragraph between key points in protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s life. One moment he is dying, the next being born, then in the midst of vacuous adultery before walking down the aisle with his young sweetheart. The first chapter takes the form of a preface explaining the tortuous route Vonnegut took towards writing the novel as well as needlessly apologising for the jumbled structure with the explanation that “there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.”

Wikipedia points out that, because of its realistic and frequent depiction of swearing by American soldiers, occasionally blasphemous language (including the sentence “The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty,”) and some sexually explicit content, Slaughterhouse-Five is “among the most frequently banned works in American literature, and in some cases is still removed from school libraries and curricula”. I find this fact nearly as terrifying as the book’s explicit, bleak and fearful descriptions of what it was like to be in Dresden during the allied bombing and it’s yet another reason you should read it through right now.

Order Slaughterhouse Five here.

Television Series

30 Rock

Tina Fey, the writer behind the essential and near-perfect teen movie Mean Girls (a film which demonstrates that at least one Hollywood scriptwriter knows how to actually, y’know, actually finish a film) , both writes and stars in this brisk and fun comedy set in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the headquarters of NBC’s New York City studios.

Fey plays head writer for NBC’s fictional Saturday Night Live-style programme, The Girlie Show, as she steers the team through various situational crises.

It’s a synopsis close to that other big new US TV series, Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip but, in reality, the tone and style is very different. The first few episodes falter but, as the characters settle and the audience grow used to the feel of the show (one part Arrested Development, one part Curb Your Enthusiasm, three parts something far more mainstream) the jokes hit more frequently and you’re sucked deeper.

I’ve giggled at least once per episode which makes it well worth my time and, perhaps yours too.

Song

Asobi Seksu – Thursday

That’s pretty much all.

Album

Menomena – Friend and Foe

My album of the half-year, Portland’s most interesting band’s third full length release is unremittingly awesome. It’s experimental but not in a drain-the-blood-from-your-face type way.

While the stuttering drum beats, mangled saxophone and struggling-to-catch-up guitar initially pull the rug from under your feet, the king-size melodies cushion the fall delightfully.

Go here and start with Wet and Rusting, listen to it three times exactly and all the rest will follow and focus.

Buy the album here.

Comic Book

Scott Pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim is published by another resident of Portland, Oregon, Oni Press. Written by Canadian, Bryan Lee O’Malley, this manga style comedy/action/romance series is one of those pieces so well-observed and recognisable to its readership that it reads itself.

Gillen has been banging on about it for ages and, when I went to the local comic shop with my friend Ste the other week, he pointed out that I really should have picked it up by now, so I did.

The proposed six-part series is about 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim, a slacker, hero, wannabe-rockstar, who is living in Toronto and playing bass in the band “Sex Bob-Omb” (the videogame references and conceits are frequent and delicious). He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona V. Flowers, but must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to date her. The first three books are out with a fourth on its way after the summer. It’s by far the most fun comic I’ve read and, repeatedly, I see myself and my friends in it.

I’ll let Gillen have the last words:

“It remains my favourite comic of the last five or so years. It manages to define a generation in exactly the same way Spaced did, a pretty much perfect reflection of life as lived through the prism of your obsessions… Scott Pilgrim is its own creature, and totally unashamed and unabashed by it. It’s interested in what it’s interested in, and doesn’t even glance in a “So what?” manner towards the reader. You get it or you don’t. We return to the start – it’s a generational book, but a cultural touchstone with a smile and an openly sentimental heart.”

Photography

Alter Ego: Digital Avatars and Their Creators

Again with the Portland theme: if you’re able then go and visit the Portland Art Center where you’ll be able to walk through an exhibition of Robbie Cooper’s photographs for his excellent Alter Ego project.

Recently published in the book, Alter Ego: Avatars and their Creators, British photojournalist Cooper has collected photos of gamers and paired them with their in-game avatars.

Each portrait is brilliantly posed and the juxtaposition/ synergy between people and their self-made digital representations is fascinating.

Mercifully the subjects are from a broad range of demographics and nationalities placing the stereotypical overweight male recluse next to Chinese online laborers who earn pennies a day creating character points for other gamers.

You can order Cooper’s book here and, if you go to the New York Times’ site here there’s a little sideshow of some of the images to see.

Graphic Design

British publisher Penguin Books is famed for its iconic jacket designs and the basic horizontal grid template used in its classic titles is well established in the national consciousness.

In part to help give Britain’s great new graphic designers a cute project to get their hands on and, in part to nab Britain’s great new graphic designers for themselves, the company has set up The Penguin Design Award this year.

Final year designers on a Degree or HND Art or Design course were given a brief and tasked with creating a striking design in a bid to win a considerable cash prize and an internship working on a live title.

The winners and runners up of this year’s competition have been announced and their designs placed on Penguin’s site here. Whether the best one won though, I’m not so sure of.

To look into the world of Odin Sphere is to peer into an alternate present, a place where towering, razor-sharp 2D sprites are our stock videogame playthings.

In this reality there is no place for the awkward, inexact realism of 3D objects no matter how well lit or posed they might be. Odin Sphere is instead the latest in a lineage of increasingly resplendent 2D masterpieces that never were – ripe fruit from a branch of the creative tree our world’s developers absent-mindedly lopped off as soon as they discovered Mario 64’s beguiling polygons.

Its 2D sprites, set upon a card deck of extraordinarily detailed parallax background layers, are arresting in their inventiveness, coherence and vision. A hunched king, crown brushing the top edge of your widescreen plasma, boots planted on the bottom, leers with almost Monty Python-esque animated poise. A snaking dragon, four screens long, lunges and recoils as if at a Chinese New Year carnival, spewing attacks at you like videogaming’s monsters of yore except here repainted, reanimated and indescribably now.

Pause the game and the frozen image could be hung on your wall. Unpause the game and this is a moving artwork no amount of hyperbolic prose could repaint in words.

But while Odin Sphere’s art team should be happily squished under an avalanche of awards and accolades, its design team are in need of a different kind of critical pressure. It will take a while, for some it might even be hours, but eventually you will grow used to this brave new façade and the contrasting conservatism of what lies beneath is revealed.

You can read the rest over at Eurogamer here.

As functional videogame names go, this is right up there with Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, or the shorter but equally exact PSP title The Bible Game.

Precision is commendable when naming things, but you’d have thought Konami might have at least allowed itself the kind of gentle boasting seen in the Commodore 64’s The World’s Greatest Baseball Game or Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance.

Still, at least Marvel Trading Card Game is a little more descriptive than 1990’s Japanese-only Game Boy title known simply as Card Game, a title so magnificently dull you have to wonder if it wasn’t created by two civil servants and a beige-corduroyed librarian.

But what Marvel Trading Card Game lacks in titular complexity, it more than makes up for in mechanical complexity. This card battling game is almost overwhelmingly intricate to anybody who isn’t already intimate with Upper Deck’s Vs battle system, the card battling aficionado’s rule-set of choice.

You can read the rest over at Pocketgamer here.

Somebody on the internet posed the question yesterday, ‘What are videogames’ greatest set–pieces?’ and I immediately thought of Radiant Silvergun’s astonishing final boss. Thanks to geek dedication and youtube you can watch the sequence below.

Radiant Silvergun, to the uninitiated, is a Japanese-only shoot ‘em up – that genre most unchanged by history’s interminable plod – which is available for the Sega Saturn console. Developed by Treasure, the tiny but extraordinary super-hero hands behind Gunstar Heroes, Sin and Punishment and three or four other games you really must play before you die etc, it’s comfortably in my top-five list.

Released in 1998, long after the Saturn had lost the war to Sony’s a-dodging and a-weaving PlayStation, it went mostly unnoticed by a videogaming world besotted by Lara and Wipeout, to whom weird little Japanese curios were of little consequence.

That low profile didn’t last long as players quickly discovered it’s simply the most innovative and extraordinary shoot ‘em up yet devised (one of the game’s central conceits is that there are no pick ups: your weapons simply level up RPG-style the more you use them, an innovation which has inexplicably never been copied).

As word of its brilliance spread, demand sky-rocketed and, even today, the game commands astronomical prices on ebay. Which is actually quite annoying because, as a result, it’s viewed by many as just a over-priced, over-hyped, rare poser’s game when, in fact, it’s none of those things. It’s far better than its sequel Ikaruga although I won’t bore you with why here and, despite how it looks in the video below, it’s not a bullet hell shooter at all).

Suffice to say, I don’t think I’ll ever be so astonished by a videogame as I was by the sequence below the first time I played it. It still gives me goosebumps and I love that Treasure had the unrestrained imagination to attempt something like this on a system long understood as being a bit rubbish at 3D. In reality, this could never have been achieved on a PlayStation. Beyind that, nothing like this had ever been seen in a videogame before, let alone in a shoot ‘em up, and that it’s a little-known wonder of technological and design achievement is heartbreaking.