Yootoob

I started my own YouTube channel. I've posted one video so far, a little over 2 months ago, of me winning an online race in Mario Kart 8, via the game's in-built race highlights editor.

I think you need to get millions of views, and to get adverts on your videos, to start making any money. My video has so far got 21 views, and has no adverts. If I can get 25,000 views a day, every day, for the next year or so, I should get into the kind of numbers that will start making me some serious money. Oh yeah.

Fingerless Gloves

I've never understood the appeal of fingerless gloves. They certainly don't look cool and they don't have any practical benefit over fingered gloves. The fingers are the parts of the hand that get cold the most.

As such, I take an instant dislike to anyone who wears them. Someone on my bus wears them. I dislike him. I've never spoken to him but he's crossed the fashion line and there's no going back. He looks like Sylar from 'Heroes' too which only makes him look more evil.

Lorde: "Pure Heroine"

Released: 2013

A girl who takes the same bus as me in the mornings looks a lot like Lorde. I think she does this on purpose to some degree as she has her hair the same, dresses in a similar style and tends to wear purple lipstick.

She's probably about the same age as Lorde too I would guess, at about 18. I don't know if Lorde is an inspirational figure to the young people or just this one. I'm not going to ask her (or speak to her at all) as she's half my age and that would be creepy. She does wear the same Doc Martens boots as me though, not that I'm suggesting that she's going to start copying my look next.

It's a pretty bold move to model your look on someone else. Everywhere she goes, people must say, "Ooh, you look a lot like Lorde." Intentional or not, it must get pretty annoying everyone mentioning/thinking it all the time.

Anyway, Lorde's album is pretty good, it has a strong first half, then sags a bit in the second half but picks up again right at the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

Drinks Are On Me!

I saw the world's most expensive bottle of Champagne once.

It was during a tour at the Piper-Heidsieck Champagne house in Reims. The tour involved riding a cart in some underground tunnels. I don't remember too much, mainly that we were told that the tunnels had been used by the French Resistance during WW2.

The big finish of the tour was a glimpse of the aforementioned bottle. It looked like a normal bottle of Champagne, but one covered in diamonds. It was then followed by pictures of celebrities drinking glasses of Champagne. The only one I remember is Jack Nicholson. This was 1995. I don't know if a more expensive bottle of Champagne has been produced since then.

Putting diamonds on things seemed like a bit of a trend in the 90s. Joe Bloggs (remember them?) produced the world's most expensive pair of jeans back then, which too, were just a normal pair of jeans, but covered in diamonds.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Platform: PS3

I wasn't going to get this game. The previous CoD game, Ghosts, was terrible, and revisiting the older CoD games (as I've done since I got a PS3) has been kind of annoying as they've all been hacked/modded and are flooded with cheats who ruin any kind of enjoyment of playing multiplayer on them.

But then Advanced Warfare came along and got good reviews, reviews which say things like it's refreshed the series, or is the best CoD since whatever, and I thought, why not get in there early before it gets hacked like all the other games, maybe I can get some enjoyment from it?

Set roughly 40 years in the future, AW features all sorts of futuristic enhancements, like special armour that lets you double jump (like in Destiny) and guns that have ammo readouts on them (like in Destiny) and guns that fire energy beams (like in Destiny). Most guns are the same though and don't seem any different from previous CoD games.

The campaign starts off woefully. The first 5 missions are terrible, really boring, and actually quite empty. The game picks up after that though, once the main story and antagonist are revealed. The middle third of the campaign is actually pretty decent and good fun. It's a bit hit-and-miss after that though, with the token death of one of the good guys (who just happens to be the one black character in the game) and a final mission kind of similar to the final mission in Modern Warfare 3.

Multiplayer is always the big draw for CoD games though, and I've played it quite a bit over the past week. Firstly, the maps are pretty decent. The bigger maps of Ghosts have been abandoned meaning you don't spend loads of time wandering about looking for enemies, and they seem a lot less formulaic than on the more recent games.

The exo suit's special abilities (double jumping etc) come more into play in multiplayer, but it's a double edged sword; while they add more verticality and play styles, what it adds most is that lots of players just get on the roofs and shoot down on everyone. I'm calling these people "roof campers", if no-one else has come up with this already, which they probably have. It means you spend your time looking up for enemies, or having to get on the roofs yourself to stop the other team from doing it. Then feeling bad about yourself for being a roof camper.

In addition to all of this, the game handles very similarly to Infinity Ward's recent CoD games (MW3 and Ghosts), which I don't see as a good thing. This means you basically kill someone as soon as you hit them (or get killed when they hit you), and there's very little recoil on many of the guns, especially the assault rifles, and quick-scoping on sniper rifles is rife. Also, there seems to be little penalty for using suppressors on guns as well, which is a personal gripe of mine from CoD games, though some effort has been made to offset this by giving you the option of adding some sort of microphone to your guns which show up suppressed fire (I forget its name). On the subject of guns, there's one assault rifle in particular that is by far the best gun in the game [BAL-27], and pretty much everyone uses it.

The biggest problem with multiplayer is the terrible lag. This could be put down to early teething problems I suppose, but for an established franchise like CoD, it's just not good enough. Pretty much every other game I've played has been affected by it, I would guess. The worst examples are when the game seemingly freezes for a second or two, then it unfreezes, often to find yourself having been killed in the meantime. The killcam also then shows you were indeed frozen as the opposition player kills you. What also happens is that you'll be in a shootout with someone, you get hitmarkers to show you've at least got a few hits on the opposition player before you die, but the killcam shows the other player killed you before you even raised your gun. Before you try to suggest this is my internet connection, I've played Destiny quite a bit online lately on PS3, and Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U and those games don't really seem to be affected by lag at all. Also, this seems to be affecting other PS3 players too...

Overall, Advanced Warfare is a fairly mediocre game, neither particularly good or bad. The futuristic setting and exo-skeleton armour doesn't really add anything to the mixed bag of a campaign, though its interesting ideas about private militia companies (helped by a charismatic Kevin Spacey) at least add something new. The multiplayer is only slightly better than in Ghosts (which isn't really saying much), mainly due to the exo suit abilities and better maps, but worse than in every other PS3-onwards CoD game, and the lag is unforgiveable. Meh.

Rating: 2.5/5

Destiny

Platform: PS3

I've not blogged much lately. Where have I been? Playing games mostly! For shame.

Destiny, the new game from Bungie, the makers of (most of) the Halo games, has been super-hyped ever since its announcement, whenever that was (I can't be bothered to check) and is set to be one of the biggest selling games of the year.

There's 4 ways to play Destiny: campaign, strike missions, raids and pvp multiplayer. The game is always online, so even when doing the story you need to be connected to Destiny's servers, which can be annoying if you get disconnected for no reason in the middle of a game. You start by choosing one of 3 classes (each with 2 sub-classes, 1 offensive, 1 defensive): Hunter, Titan, Warlock, though you get given no information on any differences between them before you choose. You get 3 save slots though, meaning you can have one of each, though by the time you level each class up, the difference is kind of minimal as you can make choices in each class giving you the exact same stats for each, and all weapons work with each class. You can level up to level 20 by yourself, though to get higher than that you need to get gear from playing multiplayer or buying special armour using credits earned from multiplayer or the strike missions or raids.

The campaign is a bit of an oddball experience. You can do it by yourself, or can team up with 2 other players to do the (by my calculation) 20 missions. These can be PSN friends or people you meet out in the game world and invite (or be invited by). I did it all by myself at first, though have since done some missions with some PSN friends. I didn't notice any real increase in difficulty when having 3 players doing a mission than when I did it myself, so it seems slightly pointless, though a nice touch nonetheless.

The story itself is a bit non-existent. You seem to be awaken (from death?) at the start of the game by a little floaty metal thing known as a "ghost", who the guides you through what you need to do, though it doesn't get involved and start killing baddies or anything. It seems most of Earth has been overrun with baddies and there's one last safe city left, which has a big round thing hovering over it called "The Traveller" which is here to protect us or something. You then go around Earth shooting baddies (there's no stealth, just out-and-out shooting and occasionally punching), then the Moon, then Venus, then Mars. This saves the Earth I think. Though some killjoy known only as "The Watcher" then tells you that the fight has only just begun or something. Isn't that always the way?

The nonsense that is the campaign is saved to some extent by how well the game handles. The controls are exceptional for a shooting game, and the addition of a rather fun double jumping (or jump then float) mechanic and special power (one for each sub-class) give it a bit of much needed variation.

The strike missions are one-off missions that take place in the same game world, designed for 3 players. These are more difficult then story missions, mainly in that the final boss has a ton of health and takes quite a bit of killing. These have matchmaking for the lower level missions (up to level 18), though the ones over level 20 do not, which is a bit puzzling. I've done all of the sub-level 20 strikes, they're a bit boring. They're easy all the way to the final boss, then they just get repetitive as you and your team-mates essentially just shoot loads of bullets at the same big monster.

The raid missions are designed for teams of 6, and are meant to take up to 10 hours to complete. There's no matchmaking for these, and they're all over level 20 only, so it's for you and PSN friends only! I haven't done any of them, I can't really be bothered to spend 10 hours of my time doing one mission for minimal rewards, and I've only got 2 PSN friends who've got Destiny, and they seem to have got bored with it pretty quickly as they've not played the game for a while that I've seen.

Like the campaign, the multiplayer (known as "Crucible" in the game) is a bit of a mixed bag. The weapons and armour from your campaign carry over (and vice versa), meaning you can try out your weapons in the campaign or free roam, though level advantages are disabled. In other words, a level 20 gun does no more damage than a level 5 gun, though in reality, the higher level guns tend to be better anyway (less recoil, better range etc) so you're better off playing the Crucible games when you're a higher level. Also, there's no advantage in having higher level armour.

The big downfall of the multiplayer is a lack of game modes. There's only 4 basic games (with an additional 5th at weekends), and of these 4, one is domination ("Control"), one is free-for-all, and two are team deathmatch (one is 6v6 and the other 3v3). I've never really been a fan of basic team deathmatches, I much prefer objective game modes, so only having one game mode to pique my interest isn't that exciting. The extra weekend game modes tend to be variants of the other 4 game modes and don't really add much.

Overall, Destiny is a bit of a let down. It has many things going for it: the excellent controls, smooth gameplay and more customisation than you normally get in shooters. It's lack of real variation (especially in pvp multiplayer) and nonsense story though means that it's not a game that will have a long life with me or much replayability.

Rating: 3/5

The £10 Music Challenge

Like all music lovers, I know more about music than everyone else. I am also a phenomenal shopper. That is why I dream of the day that someone asks me to recommend music for them to check out (I try to tell people what music they should be listening to but they're strangely resistant). What's better is I will recommend a bunch of classic albums for less than £10! Though they are all second hand from Amazon.

Pulp: "His 'n' Hers"

I've already written about my love of this album here, it is a must own for any fan of rock, indie or pop music. Just buy it already.

Price: £0.32 + £1.26 (postage) = £1.58 

Peaches: "Teaches of Peaches"

Electroclash! No, I'm not entirely sure what that is either, even after reading the description on Wikipedia. It seems like there's some new fashionable form of electronic music on a regular basis (EDM, Italo disco etc), often sounding not dissimilar to the previous cool thing. I know that this album is considered electroclash, and it's quite brilliant. If songs with titles like 'Fuck The Pain Away' and 'Lovertits' don't put you off, then check it out.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Subtotal: £2.85

Spinal Tap: "This Is Spinal Tap (OST)" 

Perhaps the funniest, and maybe greatest, movie ever made had an equally brilliant soundtrack album, made up with songs featured in the movie, though some of the songs vary slightly to the versions in the film itself. You should own the film on DVD or Blu-Ray anyway, so why not listen to classics such as 'Sex Farm' on your stereo or MP3 player whenever you want?

Price: £0.19 + £1.26 = £1.45

Subtotal: £4.30

Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On"

This timeless classic, which seems as relevant today as ever, should be a part of everyone's music collection, and for such a small price is a must-buy if you don't already own it.

Price: £0.97 + £1.26 = £2.23

Subtotal: £6.53

The Donnas: "Spend The Night"

I love The Donnas and their brash and youthful rock 'n' roll anthems, something few bands have managed to do well over the past 15 years or so. This is probably their best album, a seeming non-stop barrage of guitar riffs and sassy lyrics.

Price: £0.24 + £1.26 = £1.50

Subtotal: £8.03

William Shatner: "The Transformed Man"

This may well be the greatest album ever made. Or the worst. It's kind of hard to tell. Either way, it's the kind of thing everyone needs to experience at least once, a mix of spoken word poetry and pop songs, made in such an earnest way that just makes it sound even weirder.

Price: £0.01 + £1.26 = £1.27

Total: £9.30

There you go, for just £9.30 you can get 6 awesome albums. It was hard to choose just 6 as there's so many bargains available if you're willing to look around and buy CDs second hand. I went for Amazon over eBay as the postage costs are a lot less, and you can buy stuff outright rather than potentially having to wait for the auction to end (stuff on buy-it-now tends to cost more than on Amazon anyway). Try it out yourself! Or don't, I'm not that bothered really.

Snoop Dogg

Not a lot of people know this, but I am close personal friends with celebrity rapper Snoop Dogg. We coach a little league baseball team together. I say we coach the team together, but really, Snoop's the coach and I'm his assistant. Snoop owns his own clipboard and whistle, I own neither. That guarantees Snoop the head coach role over me. I'm hoping to get my own clipboard for Christmas, and maybe a whistle next birthday. By then though, Snoop will probably have his own polo shirt and baseball cap with the word "coach" on them, making him virtually unassailable as the main man.

For now, I'm happy being Snoop's assistant and enforcer. The bad cop to Snoop's good cop. If any kids need telling off, that's for me to do. Any opposition team's parents need abusing, that's me. Snoop motivates and sets tactics, I make sure everyone understands and follows.

I've learned many things during my time with Snoop. Like what "little league" is. And what "baseball" is. They're probably the main two things. I hope to learn more though. I've always fancied throwing down in some rap battles. Snoop could help me with that. And who knows, maybe one day I'll get to be head coach of my own team. My experience with Snoop will be invaluable.

It Was 18 Years Ago Today

Kids in the UK got their A-Level results yesterday (apart from Scotland maybe, I think they have a different school system); I got mine this day in 1996, a day before my 18th birthday.

The gang (John, Paul, George and Ringo) and I had previously arranged to go to school to get our results dressed in old suits, preferably 1970s-style in weird colours and with big collars. On the day, only John actually did it. He wasn't too pleased when we all turned up at his house wearing normal clothes and he looked like Jason King.

We went to school and got our results. We all got what we needed to get to the universities we had applied for, apart from Ringo, but he got the grades to get to his second/reserve choice. I got two As, a C and a D (30 UCAS points). I only needed 16 points. We saw some other friends too and everyone was pretty happy with their results as far as I can remember.

We then went to George's house for drinks. His parents were on holiday in France. Without him. We raided their drinks cabinet, but all there was was Tia Maria. We drank the bottle anyway. Feeling invigorated, we ventured on to everyone else's houses to tell our parents the results.

We then headed into town to continue the drinking at our usual haunts. We expected to see the rest of our school year out having a good time too, but we didn't see any of them for the rest of the day. I don't know what they were doing. Losers. One person we did see was one of the younger teachers (let's call her Miss Moneypenny) from our school, who had taught John, Paul and George. We ended up hanging out with her for a few hours. Miss Moneypenny bought us all drinks and shared her menthol cigarettes with us, though none of us normally smoked.

One of my uncles had recently taken over a pub and had started a cricket team, for which I played. The team had a match that day at 6pm (at Leek Hockey Club). So, at around 5.45pm, we said goodbye to Miss Moneypenny and left the pub. We had been there since about 1.30pm. It became apparent as we got outside that we were all pretty wasted, but isn't that always the way?

John decided to come with me to the match, Paul, George and Ringo all went home. John and I reached Leek Hockey Club late, a bit after 6pm. It turned out we only had nine players, which included me (very drunk) and my uncle, who had recently been in an accident and had his left arm in plaster. I asked my uncle if John could play to make up the numbers. I turned around to see if John was up for it but he was lying on the floor, either passed out or asleep. We just left him there.

Our team was batting, so I had a bit of time to sober up. Though, as it turned out, not much time, as we soon slumped to 15 for 7 wickets. I got the pads off the previously dismissed batsman (we only had two pairs) and made my way to the middle.

I'm more of a bowler than a batsman. My approach to batting is to defend anything straight and slog at anything wide. First ball I got was wide of off stump so I had a big heave at it. I sliced it a fair distance and we managed 2 runs. If I hadn't been drunk we could have easily got 3, maybe 4. Second ball up was much the same, though I got a weaker connection and we only managed to get 1 run. My uncle was now on strike, batting one handed. The next ball went through his feeble defences and knocked the stumps over. We were 18 all out. I top scored with 3 not out.

We decided not to have a mid-innings break and carried straight on with the match. I was sent to field on the boundary, which was a wire fence to keep animals out of the hockey club's cricket and hockey pitches. Almost immediately, I threw up, though I did manage to put my head over the wire fence as I did it, so as not to sully the outfield. The menthol cigarettes left a strong aftertaste, which covered the usual vomity taste but gave a different and just as bad sensation. The ball did get hit towards me a couple of times and I managed to field the ball OK. The other team only needed three overs to reach the target score. I think I threw up three times too.

The normal practise after matches was to head back to my uncle's pub for drinks and sandwiches, but I decided to go home. We woke John up. Someone gave us a lift back to my house in the trailer on the back of their car. John said he would be OK to walk home, so we said goodbye. I went to bed to sleep.

I was woken at about 9pm by George, who had come around with some cans of beer. I felt much better after my sleep, though I could still taste the menthol cigarettes. We had a couple of beers and talked. I don't remember what about, but it was a nice low-key end to a crazy day, which had been a memorable end to my adolescence.

Crazy Pete

Some people have a way of taking the magic out of things. Whether it's the way they describe them, moan about them or just reveal the secrets you didn't want or need to know, we've all known people like this.

Anyway, like all supercool people, I'm a big fan of French cinema and hold a special love for films starring Anna Karina, especially those by Jean-Luc Godard. One of those films is crime drama Pierrot le Fou, which Wikipedia helpfully translates into English as "Pierrot the madman" in case you weren't sure.

This isn't good enough for Australia though, where they've decided that the film should instead be called "Crazy Pete". I don't know who's responsible for this (distributors, studio etc), but really? Crazy Pete?

Next Blog>>

One of the features of Blogger is the link to a random blog, available via the "Next Blog>>" link at the top of the page. Sometimes it's fun to check it out to see what other people in the world are doing.

Link 1: Moon Chase! A Sailor Moon News Blog

The first blog today is about Japanese manga and anime series Sailor Moon. I've not read or seen any Sailor Moon but it seems pretty popular on Tumblr. News on here includes Sailor Moon appearing at an animation festival in London and pictures of Sailor Moon cosplay. Sadly, this blog's last post was in 2011 and has since moved to its own site at moon-chase.com.

Link 2: Titus The Dog

Clicking on the Next Blog>> link on Moon Chase! takes us to a blog named after the writer's dog. The most recent post, in November last year, is about the writer going on a walk with Titus and seeing some cows. Pictures of the cows are provided. The cow in the second picture down is looking at the camera as it is pissing. The eye contact weirds me out. Other posts mainly include details of days out in Dumfries and Galloway. Somehow, the writer(s) of this blog seem to have disappeared the Next Blog>> link. It means we'll have to start again back from my blog.

Link 1: Kelvin's Space

As the next blog is always random, you can start again from your own blog and get different results. This time the first blog is about a baby called Kelvin. He was born in 2008 and the blog started then; I guess it was meant to be a kind of scrapbook for him to see when he was older. Or maybe just grandstanding from the parents. Sadly, the last post was in 2010, just before Kelvin's second birthday. Hopefully he's OK and the blog wasn't ended because he died or something.

Link 2: FOOD By Andreas

Following on from baby Kelvin is a food blog. I'm guessing by someone called Andreas. The most recent post from two weeks ago is a delicious looking blueberry lemon coffee cake. Impressive work by Andreas. He should invite me over some time to try it. Looking through his blog he seems to know his stuff and the food looks great. The blog has been going for over five years now so there's plenty to catch up on.

As Andreas has also disappeared the Next Blog>> link on his site, I'm going to make that the last one today. Try it yourself and see what you get! Or don't, I'm not that bothered really.

PS3: Still To Play

Since I wrote the original list, I've started Borderlands, Dead Space 3 and South Park: The Stick of Truth. Borderlands seems like a slightly worse version of Borderlands 2 (the controls are a bit worse, and the Siren's special ability is not as good). Dead Space 3 seems pretty good, very similar to Resident Evil Revelations, which is no bad thing. South Park has started off just as much fun as I thought, though the combat system seems very simplistic, very similar to the Mario & Luigi RPG games, but even easier. Might get a bit annoying after a while. Ni no Kuni I will play after I finish South Park.

I've since got the game Fez as well on PS Plus, though I don't know when I'll get around to playing that or Limbo. I've barely started Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Wii U, and that will be the next platformer I play.

Far Cry 3 and Metro: Last Light I honestly don't know if I will ever play; a Metro Redux compilation is coming to PS4 and Xbox One, and Far Cry 4 is also coming soon to those consoles too. I might wait until I get a PS4 or Xbox One to pick them up then. Also XCOM: Enemy Unkown I only downloaded because it was on PS Plus, I'm not really that interested in it.

For the future there is Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, which hopefully will be more like the second one (which I'm sure it will be), Destiny, which is also coming to just about every other platform (except Wii U, d'oh!) so I don't know if I'll bother now, a new Assassin's Creed game which I'll probably get mainly for the multiplayer (the campaign sounds like it'll be a cross between the last two games, and I'm a bit sick of the boat sections, there was too many in the last game)... and not much else. The new Call of Duty looks like they've just copied some of the mechanics from the Crysis games, but I'll get it on Wii U if anything (though it's not been confirmed for Wii U... yet) and there'll probably be more Battlefield etc too but nothing to get too excited about. I think next year is when I upgrade, to find a second console to back up my Wii U.

PS3: Disappointments

GTA IV was one of the first PS3 games I bought, and also one of the first I got a bit bored of. Yes it's a great big, well-detailed city, and yes there's loads of missions and other stuff (like pool, darts, bowling, comedy clubs), but the game is missing a certain something. The characters are kind of bland and there's not that much variation in the missions; drive to location and shoot a bunch of people is pretty much it. And there is way too much driving around in the missions between action locations; and if you die, you have to do all that driving again. And the graphics are kind of hazy. Maybe previous GTA games were like this too,  but they seemed a lot more fun than this game. And GTA V was much better.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and (PS3 exclusive) Journey are two highly rated indie games, both of which I found a little bland. They're both quite hard to describe too, which doesn't help me out any here. Brothers has the interesting mechanic of controlling both the titular brothers at the same time (one for each control stick) and revolves around puzzle solving; the puzzles are pretty easy though. In Journey, you play a floaty figure in a cape travelling through a desert. I'm not really sure what it's about. No-one is.

Heavy Rain is another disappointing PS3 exclusive. It sells itself as "interactive drama" as choices you make and paths you take affect the rest of the game. The theory is about as interesting as the game gets though; it looks a bit weird (as games often do when they try for realism) and the controls are very awkward. It's also quite badly paced, with many of the segments being little more than plodding sections of wandering around doing not much. It's not terrible, just not very good. Mediocre probably sums it up best.

Crysis 3 I've already mentioned in the worst multiplayer list. It's a futuristic first person shooter, which gives you the power of invisibility and really high jumping via some suit or other of alien technology. The levels are slightly more open than most fps, and the invisibility offers more stealth options than most similar games. So far, so good. Sadly, the game handles quite weirdly when shooting (it feels a bit like Aliens: Colonial Marines), the levels are pretty boring and the final boss battle is very annoying.

Fallout 3 is a very highly rated open world rpg shooter (first person or third person, you get to choose!). I found it very boring, and not half as good as the excellent Borderlands 2. Maybe I'm just a bit sick of post-apocalyptic landscapes, but I found the world of the game quite tedious and uninteresting. I also didn't care for how it handled in first person mode (third person was slightly better though). Borderlands 2 had personality, a sense of humour and a fairly unique (cell shaded) art style on top of a similar premise to this. This game didn't really have anything of note. Fallout: New Vegas is pretty much the same, but with a slightly less boring landscape.

Payday 2 is another game I got "free" via the PS Plus subscription. It's a fps where the aim is to rob banks and stuff (and get a payday, yay!). I think it's designed to work best as a co-op game for four players. I did a few missions on my own with three AI players with me. It was pretty boring. I don't really see how it would be much better with three other human players. I might be wrong but I'm not gonna bother finding out.

Finally we get to Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. I've been playing PES games since the PS1 and was always a big fan of them; I've had pretty much every game in the series on some console or other since then. I had PES 2012 on the Wii but didn't like it much. This game was only slightly better, but still not that good. The passing mechanics have been improved from that game (they couldn't really get much worse), but the worst thing about the game is how slow it is. Gone are the days of quick, one-touch passing moves, this game plods along at a pedestrian pace. Maybe the pitches are too big (or bigger than they used to be?) I don't know, but the ball certainly doesn't ping around like it used to in the good ole days. And unlike in the PS1/PS2 days you don't get the option to speed up the game either (at least not that I could find) to compensate for this. I've also got PES 2014 (via PS plus) but haven't played it yet. Someone I know who had it said it was terrible and took it back to the shop after about two days.

PS3: Honourable Mentions

I was eager to try Bayonetta as its sequel had already been announced as a Wii U exclusive, and something I was considering getting when it is released, so what better way of knowing how good it might be than by playing the first game? I started the game off and really enjoyed it, it's a fast paced, funny action game and fairly difficult, even on normal mode. Certainly a game you need to get used to playing (especially the combos, timing and dodging) before you can even think about breezing through levels. It was announced at E3 this year though that a souped-up version of this game will be included free with Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U, so I never bothered finishing it; it was more than good enough though to convince me that Bayonetta 2 will be a must-buy.

Vanquish is also from Platinum Games, the makers of Bayonetta, and similarly over-the-top. It's a futuristic third person shooter which looks great and handles fantastically well. The fun factor keeps you going when the action gets a bit repetitive (as almost always happens in these kind of games).

BioShock and BioShock Infinite are also excellent, though I preferred BioShock 2. The games inhabit a wonderful world (the art design in these games is truly terrific) and they're a lot of fun to play. The first one suffers slightly from slightly more awkward controls than the other two games and Infinite has a less interesting and more vague story as you play through it (though it comes together well at the end), but all three are definitely worth playing and I'm glad I did.

L.A. Noire is another game from Rockstar (the GTA people). It's essentially L.A. Confidential in game form, where you actually get to solve the Black Dahlia murder(s)! You play a cop in the game and have to visit crime scenes, collect evidence and interview witnesses and suspects. It looks gorgeous, has a good story and is a lot of fun. Certainly a unique experience.

Saints Row: The Third is kind of like a GTA game. Some would call it a poor man's GTA game. I found it very entertaining though, it has an outrageous sense of humour and some very varied missions to keep it from getting stale. The city is a bit empty though in terms of traffic, NPCs etc, but it's a lot more fun than GTA IV...

(Word I over used in this post: fun.)

PS3: The Bad

It's not all good on PS3. There is a lot of lame.

inFamous: Second Son has been one of the major releases on PS4 so far. Hopefully, it's a lot better than the first game in the series, which is truly terrible. A first party "AAA" game for PS3, you play a guy with a deep voice that action stars like Jason Statham always seem to do in their films. Which is very annoying. You have special electric-based special powers, which work the same as guns in shooters. But worse. You get to climb buildings, just like in Assassin's Creed games. But worse. The graphics are poor, it handles badly, it's incredibly repetitive, the story is bad right up until near the end of the game when it picks up slightly, the dialogue and characters are terrible and the final boss battle is one of the worst in video game history; you have to shoot your basic electric shot at the baddie for about 30 minutes. None of your other attacks seem to work. It's bad all round and the worst of the worst on PS3. And a Sony exclusive lest we not forget.

I also hate Uncharted 3. There, I said it. I feel a lot better now. As one of Sony's major IPs, and being made by the same people who did The Last of Us, I was keen to try it out, but what I got was a run-of-the mill (at best) third person shooter with crappy stealth and melee mechanics, the odd lame puzzle solving bit, some poor platforming sections and some very hackneyed, clichéd dialogue spouted by some of the most annoying characters in the history of video games (which is really saying something). The graphics were excellent though, to be fair.

Brink, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Max Payne 3 are the other very bad games I've played. And all shooters. Brink has ambitions of being better than a run-of-the-mill shooter but suffers from bad design and annoying gameplay. Aliens: Colonial Marines has terrible graphics, perhaps the worst hit detection of any game I've ever played and strange story decisions (apparently Michael Biehn's character from Aliens survived and was taken away and replaced with another body for Ripley to find and be fooled by or something). Max Payne 3, from Rockstar Games (the GTA people), has good graphics and handles quite well. What it doesn't have is any kind of variation. It is just relentless and very boring; walk into an area, shoot 20 or so people, walk to next area, shoot 20 or so people. And repeat. Seemingly for ever. It doesn't help to have a very annoying voice-over throughout the whole game as well, which aims for some sort of film noir commentary insights but just does your head in. 

Man loads up game. Man starts game. Man gets immediately killed after spawning by a possibly invisible sniper, and there's no proper kill cam to see where they are. Man spawns again and gets killed again straight away by the same (or another?) seemingly invisible sniper. Man spawns again and immediately sprints off to the side and runs for about 5 seconds before being killed by another sniper, nowhere to be seen on screen. Man looks at scoreboard. Half of the other team have scores of 19-0 or better. Man quits game. That was my introduction to Killzone 3 multiplayer. It didn't get much more fun after that. I hate Killzone 3. There, I said it. I feel a lot better now.

Hey Uncharted 3, what are you doing on another bad list? Sony fanboys say you're the best action series ever! Well, they're all idiots. The multiplayer is every bit as bad as the single player, if not worse. There's no annoying cutscenes this time at least. Unless you play the co-op missions that is. What there is though, is lots of players running around doing forward rolls all the time and even worse controls (there is even recoil on the guns!) than in single player. The graphics were… not as good this time. The Tomb Raider multiplayer is almost the same as Uncharted 3 but worse because the makers should have known better than to copy this crap.

Hey! Listen! How is Aliens: Colonial Marines in the list for best and worst multiplayer? You weren't paying attention to what you were doing, were you? Wrong. Aliens: Colonial Marines is so bad that it is actually kind of good at times. In the multiplayer games for example, you play one round as a marine and one as an alien. The marine rounds are awful. The graphics are bad and the hit detection (as mentioned above, it's no better in mp) seems to be completely random. It's a bit of a mess. The rounds where you play as the aliens though are all kinds of awesome. The graphics are even worse than normal. It's meant to be like seeing stuff as an alien (even though it's a THIRD PERSON game!), reminding you of bad horror movies from the 70s or 80s where you supposedly see through the werewolf's eyes with hazy or coloured camera effects or something as it stalks its prey. The controls are also kind of sloppy and sometimes unresponsive, but again, it unintentionally adds to the cheap fun factor. And running around as an alien chasing after and killing marines is an absolute ton of fun. There's even special aliens hidden in the maps too. If you can find them you get to then play as them. One looks like a Triceratops. It's pretty much unstoppable.

Crysis 3 had a lot of potential for being good online due to the nature of the game and the powers available (invisibility, big jumping etc) but makes the worst mp list for three main reasons: (1) it suffers VERY badly from online lag (2) hardly anyone plays it; six months after the game was released, the most players I ever saw online was 250, and most of them just played the team deathmatch mode; (3) of those who did play, I reckon about a quarter of them were aimbot hackers.

Modern Warfare 3 is also on here due to the amount of hackers. The reason it's worse than Crysis 3 is because, as well as the aimbots, there is a huge amount of players who have a so-called "god mode" hack. They are invisible and invincible. Almost every game seems to have at least one player like this making games unplayable and unfair. On top of this, the game is very unstable (lots of games time out or freeze up, maybe caused by the hackers?) and people quit games all the time once they realise they're up against a god mode hacker. MW3 was never one of the best CoD games anyway, but it was never this bad when I played it on the Wii.

What's worth noting is that probably the three worst games on PS3 are all Sony first party exclusives: Uncharted 3, Killzone 3 and inFamous (not necessarily in that order). Given how strong Nintendo's exclusives are (Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, Kirby, Pikmin, Smash Bros etc etc etc) and how much Xbox fans rave about their (admittedly few) exclusives, it's a bit strange how the PS3 eventually outsold the Xbox 360 and how the PS4 is now racing ahead of the Wii U and Xbox One. The PS3's success is even stranger given that most multiplatform and multiplayer games are considered to perform better on Xbox 360 than on PS3. Reasons for the PS3's success? I really don't know. The success of PS1 and PS2 must have something to do with it, maybe people who grew up with them consoles feel more connected to Sony than Microsoft. Maybe it's the unreliability of the Xbox 360? The console was plagued with problems and supposedly has a failure rate of 24% compared to 10% for PS3 and 3% for Wii. Or maybe it's that PS3 offers free online services while Xbox 360 charges money for Xbox Live Gold, and if you do pay for PS Plus you get free games every month (which Microsoft have only just got around to doing). I don't regret getting a PS3 at all, but I think I was swayed by having had a PS1 and PS2, how Xbox 360 fans were so annoying in comment sections on gaming sites (they were much worse/angrier/more arrogant/more offensive than Sony or Nintendo fans) and the free online; I don't really agree with having to pay for online play for games that cost up to £50 on a console that already cost several hundred pounds. That said, you now have to do this on PS4 as well as Xbox One. Still free on Nintendo though.

PS3: The Good

The controversy ripples from my list of best/worst/etc of PS3 games are still reverberating around the world, so I'll give some background to my reasoning. First off, the best of the PS3.

Most of his family may have been killed, but Ezio wins in the end! Yes, Assassin's Creed II is the best game on PS3, narrowly beating out The Last of Us. Why? I think the story and characters in AC2 are excellent (especially the merging of fact and fiction, which wasn't as good in any other AC game as it was here). The locations in the game are magnificent, the missions varied and the scope pretty huge. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to play, a massive leap forward from the messy first game in the series but not as simple as the later games. It actually took a bit of skill. I've placed The Last of Us behind as even though the story is at least on a par, and the characterisation almost certainly better (amongst the central characters at least), the gameplay is not quite as good and is slightly more repetitive. I don't need to tell anyone how great the Last of Us is, I think people who have played it and the world's media have done just that ever since it was released. AC Brotherhood comes a close third. It refines the gameplay slightly from AC2 but the story's not quite as strong. Still awesome though.

The new Tomb Raider game was a very pleasant surprise (multiplayer aside) as was Borderlands 2, one of the few good games I've got via the fairly underwhelming PS Plus subscription service. Batman I'd played before on the Wii U and is almost as good on the PS3 and BioShock 2 is my favourite of the three games in that series (controversial I know) as I think it has the best story and handles the best.

As for multiplayer, I've gone for AC3 at number one as the Wolfpack co-op mode is about as good as online play gets (and yes I have played it on Wii U as well). AC4 is lower as even though it's just about as good, it's much easier to complete Wolfpack. Even with players on the team running around like idiots not playing properly you can still get get through to the end, which won't happen in AC3. Also in AC4 there's no new game modes, just the same as in AC3. Still great though.

The Last of Us has to settle for second place again. The mp is as much about stealth and teamwork as it is about shooting, setting it apart from most shooters. A lack of game modes was it's only real weakness (there's only three), but its teamwork dynamic is what keeps it fresh. Lone wolfs won't last long due to a lack of ammo available in the game (it's not like CoD or Battlefield where you can do your own thing and prosper if you're good enough) and the fact that downed players can be revived; even if a lone wolf takes down one opposition player or even two, most teams (of four) tend to stick together meaning the other players will take out the lone wolf then revive their own teammate(s). Also, the multiplayer fits in really well with the game world established in the campaign, another great feature. The fact that how you do in games affects your virtual clan is also a nice feature. For example, doing better in games gets you more points which converts to resources to keep your clan healthy and even grow. It's an interesting take on mp, different than the usual kdr stats and also discourages players from quitting if they're not doing very well. I have to add though that since the second lot of dlc maps was released a few months ago (which also included new guns and loadout options for all players as well), the game did seem to get glitchier and laggier. It may have been fixed since then I don't know, I've not been online since before the World Cup. Also, there's no option for playing in games with no parties in the the two dlc lobbies, which might not sound like too big of a deal but it often means that you end up playing against teams of four very high level players playing together and games are often very one sided as a result. These are minor complaints though for a truly great game.

Black Ops is still the best Call of Duty game, and is relatively unaffected by hackers (compared to the other CoD games at least). Black Ops II shakes things up a bit with its futuristic angle and is almost as good (and has even fewer hackers), though suffers from having a few more mediocre maps. Battlefield 4 has the best multiplayer in the series and mostly good maps (but some fairly erratic graphics), though the single player is broken and crap.

Tiger Woods 14 has excellent online play, loads of daily and weekly tournaments and all sorts of direct competitive play options. GTA V online can be pretty great at times but suffers because of bad matchmaking. Whatever sort of game you are playing there are rarely more than four players placed together which can get pretty depressing after a while (especially for games of up to 16 players) for such an ambitious online experience.

Interestingly, only one of the best PS3 games is a PS3 exclusive: The Last of Us. The rest are multi-platforms. If I'd done a similar list for Xbox 360, would it be the same? Or would exclusives like Halo, Gears of War, Alan Wake etc make the list? As I've never owned a Xbox 360 I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that it would contain more than one exclusive on there, even if only in multiplayer.

Happy First Birthday, PS3!

I got my PS3 a year ago today (since when the PS4 has been released!), what better time to assess its games?

Best Games (Single Player)

1. Assassin's Creed II

2. The Last of Us

3. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

4. Batman: Arkham City

5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14

6. Borderlands 2

7. Grand Theft Auto V

8. Tomb Raider

9. BioShock 2

10. Red Dead Redemption

Best Multiplayer

1. Assassin's Creed III

2. The Last of Us

3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14

4. Call of Duty: Black Ops

5. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

6. Call of Duty: Black Ops II

7. Grand Theft Auto V (GTA Online)

8. Assassin's Creed: Revelations

9. Battlefield 4

10. Aliens: Colonial Marines

Disappointments

Brothers

Crysis 3

Fallout 3

Grand Theft Auto IV

Heavy Rain

Journey

Payday 2

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013

Worst Games (Single Player)

1. inFamous

2. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

3. Brink

4. Aliens: Colonial Marines

5. Max Payne 3

Worst Multiplayer

1. Killzone 3

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

3. Tomb Raider

4. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

5. Crysis 3

6. Aliens: Colonial Marines

Honourable Mentions

Bayonetta

BioShock

BioShock Infinite

L.A. Noire

Saints Row: The Third

Vanquish

Still To Play

Borderlands

Dead Space 3

Far Cry 3

Limbo

Metro: Last Light

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
South Park: The Stick of Truth

XCOM: Enemy Unkown

So there you have it, the definitive rundown of the PS3's games. Finally, gamers of the world can stop arguing and go and buy a Wii U and be done with it.

What's A "Love Shack"?

We have some new staff in our office. I've not really talked to them. Though, to be fair, I've not really talked to any of our existing staff for a while now either. They seem pretty young, around 22 I would guess. This means they were born after the release of Love Shack (1989).

Have they ever even heard of Love Shack? That is an interesting question, and one I am keen to know the answer to, though I am sure never to find out as I would have to talk to them to know.

Pretty much everything and everyone can easily (and should) be classified as pre-Love Shack or post-Love Shack, which makes the newbies our first post-Love Shack members of staff. End of days?

Knightmare

Knightmare was an rpg game show (for children) broadcast on ITV from 1987 to 1994. Teams of four children went on the show, one out in the dungeon (unable to see), three back in the studio guiding them via monitors.

In middle school, four girls from my class actually went on the show. Not just that but they actually got through to the end and won, which didn't seem to happen very often. I only used to watch the show occasionally but was keen to tune in to see my fellow classmates when their shows aired (I think it was spread across two episodes). They wouldn't tell anyone how they did, leading people to assume wrongly that they'd done badly. Oh how we felt foolish when they won.

Even after it had been broadcast, the girls were always guarded and never gave away any secrets of the show, almost like they'd taken a vow or pact of silence. Or maybe they knew that if they didn't talk about it we would keep on asking, becoming ever hungrier for the truth and behind-the-scenes secrets, and making them ever more popular (they were quite nerdy and not that popular before they went on the show).

Every now and then, maybe once or twice a year, for the rest of our school days, someone would say: "Hey, remember when [they] were on Knightmare?" We'd reminisce about those days, then go and poke fun at the girls for being losers, though we were probably all secretly a little bit jealous of their TV fame and glory. This was except for Kenny Loggins, who I've mentioned previously as someone who would never let an old nickname go. He insisted on saying "You're having a Knightmare!" to all four of the heroes, whenever he saw any of them, for pretty much the remaining six or seven years of our time at school. It was pretty funny the first time, maybe even the first few times, but he just couldn't let it go.

The World Cup: In Summary

The World Cup finished just about two weeks ago now, with Germany winning out. The real winners of the tournament though were Japan.

Yeah Germany may get to take the trophy home, but Japan went home knowing that they had Pikachu and other Pokémon as their mascots, and with it, a moral victory. Congratulations!

Best! Morrissey! Albums!

My main man Morrissey has a new album out this week called "World Peace Is None Of Your Business", which has gone in at number two in the album charts today (in the UK at least). I've listened to it a few times so far, but don't want to judge it just yet.

Morrissey is a special artist for me. The first single I ever bought was one of his ('The Last of the Famous International Playboys') and my love of music really developed from there. (Before you think I'm trying to show off my young cool hipster 10 year old self I would add that the first album I ever bought was by Bobby Brown. So there.)

But how do his other (solo) albums rank? Here, finally, for the first time ever anywhere in the world, especially in a blog on the internet, is the definitive list of Morrissey's albums, in order of quality.

1. Your Arsenal (1992)

2. Viva Hate (1988)

3. Vauxhall And I (1994)

4. Bona Drag (1990)

5. You Are The Quarry (2004)

6. Kill Uncle (1991)

7. Southpaw Grammar (1995)

8. Maladjusted (1997)

9. Years of Refusal (2009)

10. Ringleader of the Tormentors (2006)

I think Your Arsenal is clearly the best Moz album. Anyone who says otherwise is a lunatic. It was a close call between Viva Hate, Vauxhall And I and Bona Drag for number two, but I went with Viva Hate in the end as stays more consistently strong (especially lyrically) whereas the other two have one or two weaker moments.

Interestingly, or not, his five best albums contain four of his first five albums (only Kill Uncle of the first five makes the bottom half, and still makes it to six) and You Are The Quarry. His two worst albums are his two most recent, maybe not a good sign for his latest. Or maybe he'll turn it around?

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Note: I've based this on the albums as they were released, and not on the recent reissues which have changed some track listings, though I doubt it would have made much difference. I've not included live albums or compilation albums, though I have included Bona Drag, a sort of compilation of (then) recent singles and b-sides, which always felt like a proper album to me even if some people don't count it.

Worst World Cup Moments

No. 4: The Dictators

Football and politics are largely kept apart, FIFA even going so far as to suspend countries when governments interfere with national football associations.

This wasn't always the case though. The 1934 World Cup was held in Italy, then ruled by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and also won by Italy. This has lead to widespread rumours of interference from Mussolini since then, especially with reports of very favourable refereeing decisions for the Italians at the tournament, and the fact that Italy fielded three players who had played for Argentina at the previous tournament. You can read more about it here.

The 1978 World Cup was held in Argentina, then ruled by military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, a man responsible for widespread murder and torture during his five years in power (1976-1981).

Again, watchers complained of favourable refereeing for the hosts throughout the tournament, including in the final; opposition players were sent off, penalties awarded to Argentina for no obvious fouls, Argentine players handling the ball (including one off the goal line) and not being unpunished, Argentine players smacking opposition players and not being punished, etc.

Perhaps the most notorious game in 1978 was the second round game between Argentina and Peru. Argentina needed to win by four clear goals (against a Peruvian team that had beaten Scotland and Iran and drawn with Holland) to qualify for the final and ran out 6-0 winners. There are lots of articles you can read about how or why this game and more may have been fixed, perhaps the best of which is here on the Financial Times's website.

As is FIFA hadn't learned its lesson by this point, the 1982 World Cup was awarded to Spain when General Franco was still in charge, though he died by the time the tournament was held.