5 Top Locales.

When we think about games, sometimes it can be very easy to forget to appreciate the effort put into their setting. After all, games wouldn’t be what they are if their setting wasn’t fitting for the genre, think about it, what if Halo was set in a living room or if Call of Duty was set in the Hundred Acre Wood where you occasionally see piglet wielding a Kalashnikov. Not a pretty sight, which is why I’m taking a moment to look around me and think of some of the best locations for some great games.

5. Alan Wake – Bright Falls

Why is this local so good? It’s because it’s so damn creepy. Bright Falls is based on the town surrounding David Lynch’s masterpiece, Twin Peaks. If you watched the series, the feeling is obvious, it screams of it. In fact the whole game is lightly spritzed with ‘Eau D’Lynch’, a perfume that I just made up but I’m sure would smell of bonfires, owls and cherry pie. Bright Falls looks idyllic during the daylight hours but as soon as night falls on this picturesque landscape, we are shaking in our collective boots. Bright Falls with its mountains, forests and lakes takes number five.

4. Metro 2033 – The Subway

Metro 2033’s namesake location is based on the real subway system of mother Russia, which was in fact designed to shelter Russian citizens in the event of a nuclear catastrophe. Again this location is freaky freaky freaky and makes you feel like a rat in a maze, like a rat with a gun in a maze, like a rat with a gun in a maze that has other rats with guns and sometimes even the odd cat out to get you…yeah, that sounds more accurate. In fact that rat in  maze analogy is rather accurate as due to the heavily irradiated creatures that inhabit Metro 2033’s world, humans have fallen quite far down the food chain, maybe in this world the only animal that’s closer to a rat than humans is well…the rat.

3. Bioshock Infinite – Columbia

So I’ve got this idea for a place to set a game. Imagine a city, except it’s being carried in lots of little bits by balloons…it’s already been done? Okay I’ll talk about that then. The Bioshock series has given us some fantastic locations and Columbia is its latest offering, a city in the sky build to get away from the world after the abolishment of slavery. It’s a nice juxtaposition, a heavily religious city that floats, heaven-like, yet isn’t fond of blacks. It offers an interesting choice, take the heaven along with the racism or deny it and return to the world we know and live in. Oh and also, to burn an enemy with fire or to have him ‘Hitchcocked’ to death by a flock of crows? It’s a tough life up there in ol’ Columbia.

2. Fallout – The Wasteland

I apologise but yet again I’m going to rattle on about the Fallout universe. I just love it so…with all of its bugs and glitches and low-res scenery. In Fallout every time you stop moving and look out into the distance, it’s beautiful. The burned out trees, ruined countryside and crumbling structures somehow fill you with dread as you think that it could’ve happened while at the same time has you wishing it did happen so you can start spending those bottle caps you spent ages collecting as a kid. No? Nobody? Just me then. Okay. Well the wasteland is one of the reasons I love Fallout and I loved it even more so when it was rendered in 3D. The Wasteland takes number two.

1. Bioshock – Rapture

We’ve talked about its younger sister, Columbia, now it’s time for the original. Rapture is an underwater utopia that soon turned dystopia. Its 1920s art deco style of architecture coupled with the fact that it is slowly taking on water very cleverly reminds us of another 1920s creation that was deemed as perfect yet turned out to be somewhat flawed. Rapture’s downfall being linked to a desire for perfection and the civil war that resulted from it is interesting and an incredibly clever concept and a concept that I believe is more than deserving of the numero uno spot on this list. Well done 2K!

So now we have been able to take a break, brew a cuppa and look around at the scenery that surrounds us whenever we game. After this list I believe I may take a moment whenever I play to look at the beauty (or horror) that surrounds me.

I’ll see you in the distance.

My Favourite Card Games.

I talk a lot about video games…wait, let me rephrase that, I talk a LOT about video games, but sometimes I feel the need to play a game that’s a bit more tactile, I want something I can hold in my hand and feel like I have a degree of skill in handling. That’s why I love card games, nothing feels better than shuffling some cards without them flying everywhere and then dealing them out speedily and accurately.

Here are a few of my favourites.

Of course I’ll get the obvious one out of the way quickly; I talk about Magic: The Gathering a lot in these articles as well, but there’s a reason for that. I think the game is brilliant, as it’s a trading card game there are thousands of cards out there that you could potentially put in a deck. I find that wonderful that even if you decide to base your deck on someone else’s there will be tiny differences between them which completely changes the way your deck plays compared to the guy you took the idea from. Sure the rules take a while to get used to, the ‘stack’ mechanic can make cards interact with each other in ways you didn’t expect (but I think magic players will agree that the game is much simpler because of it), some of the keywords on cards take a little while to remember exactly how they affect your creatures and I still keep trying to destroy a blocker with an instant after it’s been announced, thinking that the damage will go through to the player (but it doesn’t, it’s been blocked). Yet I think this game is fantastic, a little hard for newbies to get used to but well worth the effort.

Now I said that the rules of Magic: The Gathering were confusing, however this next game has been criticised for having the most confusing rules in a card game ever. Game of Thrones: The Card Game is actually a lot easier than you’d first believe; one, the stages that make up a turn are listed on a card that represents your house, two, it’s basically just a game of Planeschase in MTG. There are some things that I find strange but that’s just because I’m not used to the game, such as different decks for different houses (Which I believe is an attempt to not accidentally give one player an overpowered deck with cards that don’t fit well in the lore), and how later on in the game it is so easy to have a board that’s chock-a-block with cards. Whether you believe the stigma or not this game is definitely worth playing at least once.

The final two games I’d like to talk about are nowhere near as huge and serious as the first two, these are stupid little games designed to make you laugh and the first is Gloom.

In Gloom, the objective is to make your family have the worst lives ever and kill them first; once a family is dead, the game is over. Why do I love this game? Because it’s all about the story you tell about your family. You have cards that you put on different family members which give negative points to them, when they die you can count these negative points towards your total score, let’s say you played a card that said someone was “Driven to Drink” and then wanted to play a card that said they were “Chastised by the Church”, the fun element of the game is telling the story of how one event let to the other. This game is so fun, though can leave the less creative players or players that aren’t confident with public speaking, a little stranded. Once you get into a flow however, the game soon picks up and is incredibly fun to get involved with. It can even make a great spectator sport.

The last game I’ll talk about is Fluxx, a really simple game. All each player needs to do is draw a card and then play a card. Simple right? Well yes and no. Cards played will change the game and how it’s played, cards will either denote what must be done to win the game; what the rules of the game are; what you have on the table to help you win; what you have on the table to stop you from winning or they may just be a cute one time action that can seriously brighten or darken someone’s day. That’s all that can really be said about Fluxx, it does require a bit of reading as some cards can make you do things you hadn’t thought about doing and it can get a bit overwhelming when you have ten new rules on the table, all of which need to be enforced. All in all it’s a really fun game that doesn’t require a lot of explaining in the early stages and because everyone learns new rules together it makes the group feel like they are on a level playing field even if it’s your first time playing the game.

I love card games, board games and video games, I just sometimes feel that card games are forgotten about a lot, and they shouldn’t be. Most are pocket sized so you can take them anywhere, they tend not to need a power source and they can sometimes be the most rewarding to play, especially when you get a great social experience from them. So let us take a moment to pay our respects to the humble card game, to thank it for being simple yet effective and for bringing people closer and closer with every game. Sometimes I wish I were more like a card game, creating friends and relationships in places where there were none or they were weak.

I’ll see you after dealing.

Some Potentially Unpopular Ideas.

Games are at a great point right now. They’re beautiful, enthralling and tell amazing stories, but what’s the future for gaming? The graphical quality is always going to improve with time as hardware becomes more and more powerful, the stories will get better as companies have more money to employ superior writers and this will in turn make games more appealing to play.

 

I have a feeling that what I wish for games in the future will be unpopular but they may make games a lot more interesting. First of all I would like to see games that do away with a tutorial. Sure, tutorials are necessary in order to help the player navigate the game world, but what if the player was just left to work it out? What if the tutorial was just a learning curve? What if it was a room that you have to navigate towards the exit door (learning to move and interact with objects); a room with a little platform before the door (jumping) or a room with a key and a locked door (interacting with objects) and so on? I think that this style of learning will produce a more rewarding game and will therefore mean gamers that are less spoiled when it comes to gaming (especially in recent days), gamers are so used to checkpoints, dying without consequence etc. that we don’t treat games as giant puzzles, we treat games as trial and error tasks and though in some games this works I believe that it is a style of gaming which needs to be reconsidered.

 

 

Another feature I would like to see more in games is a lack of a HUD, we’ve seen it in games like Metro: 2033 where you know how many bullets you have due to being able to see them in your magazine, your health is displayed by the colour of your vision and your objectives are displayed on a notepad that you physically have to look at. I enjoy this clean, simple, realistic visual style, perhaps with the additions of a button that you press to physically remove the magazine or clip from your gun and look at how many bullets you have left, or a button that you press to check your pulse and therefore have to use a little guess-timation to determine what the state of your health is. Admittedly this would be harder on console games but still doable and would add to the atmosphere of games that are supposed to be more realistic.

 

 

My final wish for the future of games is that games that are in a trilogy should force you to play from the first game, whether that is in a slightly more deceitful form, (perhaps a randomly generated code is shown at the end of the first game which the second game requires in order for you to play it, while reading game saves a la Mass Effect) or in a more legitimate form (the game’s difficulty curve increasing exponentially over the three games in a way that means most players will only be able to cope with the difficulty of game 3 if they’ve been exposed to the learning curve of games 1 and 2).

 

 

Anyway, there are a few notes on what I’d like to see in gaming future. I admit that a few of these ideas would be very unpopular and could be used be games companies to generate more income rather than creating a more interesting game but as with many modern ideas that are now used for greed or destruction, they were often created to benefit the masses. Many thanks to Thomas Jancis for helping me with the thought process on this article. Make sure that if you haven’t you take a look at some of the other articles I’ve posted and question/comment on them as much as you feel is necessary.

I won’t see you as I’m no longer part of the heads-up display.

My Top 5 Pieces of Art in Magic: The Gathering

I am a pretty big fan of Magic: The Gathering, I love the gameplay, I love the social aspect and I love the lore. Another thing I love about it but don’t talk too often about is the artwork, which is a bit silly of me as half of the card is artwork. So here are my 5 favourite pieces of art in Magic: The Gathering.

 5: Endless Ranks of the Dead

 

I have this card in my zombie deck (naturally) and I love it because you get two pieces of art for the price of one, you have the card and the gorgeous stained-glass window, and the use of silhouettes here makes this a simple card with a really effective outcome.

 4: Gilder Bairn

 

 

This card is just so freaking adorable. I was introduced to it at my MTG meetings in Bristol buy a guy who, for him, this was his favourite piece of art. I can see why, there are just so many cute things going on here, the glowing jelly beans, the fact that it’s a small child and the little onesie are just too precious to not have this included in the list.

 3: Plague Spitter

 

 

Weird weird weird. That’s the first thing I think when looking at this card. It’s one of those pieces of art that can even be regarded as difficult to look at. It jarrs you. However the Tim Burton-esque feel of this card works really well to convey a sense of surrealism, and for this mixture of jarring and cartoony style, this card gets the number 3 spot.

 2: Showstopper

I don’t really know why I like this card so much. I think it may be how well it works with the flavour text: “The audience quickly realised a few things; it wasn’t a magic trick, there wasn’t candy in there, and they’d need new clothes.”

Also the style of the art feels almost like Manga, and if that was intentional then this card definitely deserves number 2.

1: Etched Champion

Right, the number one spot is always a touchy subject as everyone has a different favourite, here is why etched champion is mine. He looks like a real fighter, like he was created to be a champion rather than just accidentally falling into the role. I also find how the position of the lights in the background correspond to the lights on his armour really interesting and if that wasn’t enough, the artist; Matt Cavotta, has gone to the effort of making sure that over every single inch of the champion are those beautiful engravings that tell of “a future fraught with war.”

 So there you have my five personal favourite pieces of art in MTG. Again I’d normally try and gleam a universal truth from this article but every once in a while I enjoy just leaving it open to any interpretation desired, sit back and go “Oh wow, so pretty.” If this is the standard of art at the moment I cannot wait to see what’s going to appear in Modern Masters and M14.

 I’ll see you in a brand new frame.

Will Games Ever Be As Frequently Re-Made As Movies?

So I’m not a huge fan of film re-makes, I don’t hate them (except for when the film in question was re-made a decade or less after its release) but I’m not keen on them. Admittedly some aren’t bad, some are surprisingly good (The Amazing Spider-Man anyone?), some are just awful and some aren't obviously remakes (I wonder who among you noticed that Avatar was just Pocahontas in disguise), however it’s something that’s not seen often in gaming. Why? What is it about the video game as a medium that means it is treated differently from a movie?

 It is not unheard of for games to be remastered, the original Xbox version of Chronicles of Riddick was updated for the Xbox 360 and with the recent release of Halo: Anniversary it seems that no game is safe from it. Even Edmund McMillen, creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac has confirmed he will be remaking the latter (though ‘de-making’ may be a more appropriate term as it will be trading its cute trademark ‘newgrounds’ flash animation style for a 16-bit retro lick of paint) in order to re brand the product and combine it with its expansion for a more fully rounded gaming experience (McMullen, 2012).

With this in mind it seems like most games when they are remade are done so by their original developers. So why this difference between game and films?

Steve Martin says that films are remade so much because times are constantly changing (Martin, N.D.). Even if this is a legitimate reason then why don’t games follow the same suit? Why not just make a film that changes with the times rather than remaking an old film so it fits in with today’s world? It could be the speed of technological development; games tend to advance more quickly and encourage expansion of ideas slightly more than films, however it could also be to do with the number of different teams that end up working on a game. Films tend to involve very few production organisations when compared to games. Due to how collaborative the creation of a game is it would be more difficult to remake a game as the rights are harder to obtain.

When I watch films there are definitely some times where I will say to myself “I could have made this better.” Whereas when I play a game I indentify flaws and rather than saying to myself that I could do a better job, I simply believe that if I was ever involved in creating a game I simply would be more aware of those potential problems. It may just be me or it may be a different attitude possessed by the gaming generation. Was the mentality more of a one-upmanship train of thought whereas video game developers assume a more introspective idea of personal excellence? Whichever it is, its something that is interesting to observe, and maybe it shows that games developers are more mature artists than their ‘behind the camera’ peers.

 

I’ll see you after an 18bit demake.

A Few Games that Turn Their Genres On Their Heads.

In my previous posts I have mentioned that there are certain things I look for when buying a game: story, innovation and gameplay. More often than not it has been the story which I’ve looked forward to experiencing. Well today I’d like to look more at the second point in that list, innovation, by analysing some games which take their genres and twist and shape them until they are a different animal entirely.

One such game is Fez which, at first glance looks like your traditional puzzle based side-scroller. It really isn’t. It becomes apparent very quickly that Fez is a three dimensional game set in a two dimensional world. When faced with an impassable obstacle you simply rotate the world along its X axis and you see the same area from a different point of view. Often the obstacle becomes a platform or bridge to help you pass it. It’s a game that is hard to describe in writing (so I’ll include a link to a video here) but one I definitely urge everyone who is a fan of side-scrollers to play.

A genre which is constantly receiving innovation is the racing game. Sure the basic principals tend to be the same, don’t crash, maintain the racing line and try to come first but some clever so-and-so didn’t think that was enough, so they added inhabiting the bodies of other drivers. Yes I’m talking about Driver: San Francisco, the fourth instalment in the Driver series. In the game, John Tanner, the main protagonist throughout all the Driver games (which is a bit weird right? I mean Driver doesn’t say exactly when it’s set but it feels very late seventies, so if we’re assuming that Tanner is, I dunno, twenty in Driver, that would mean that Driver: San Francisco, which, judging by the car designs is set in the modern day, makes Tanner at least 50…hmm, seems he ages well. Sorry, so as I was saying) is rendered unconscious by a car accident. The rest of the game take place in his head where he believes he is awake and has developed the superhuman powers to, among other things, boost his car up to insane speeds and inhabit the bodies of other drivers to assist him. If you haven’t played the game I know it sounds really weird and is probably a bit of a turn off. But trust me when I say that it is truly a fantastic reimagining of the racing genre.

The final game I want to talk about is a game that slipped under most people’s radar (including mine). The genre? Tower Defence. The game? Sanctum. So how can you flip the tower defence genre? By turning it into a first person shooter. Each level of sanctum featured two stages, the first had you building your traditional tower defence level, playing walls and turrets to aid you and funnel your enemies so they follow a specific path. The latter stage released the hordes and as well as these creepy little aliens following a path they would also act aggressively towards the player. So if an enemy was too tough for a turret you could finish them off, however when you approached, the pre-set path took a back seat and that enemy would come after you.

This game in 2013 received a sequel and is available to download from steam and various console marketplaces.

So there are just a few games that turn their genres on their heads. As I mentioned I don’t usually focus on innovation as much as storyline and it’s for this reason I feel these games deserved a mention. It makes a change from the same game being pushed out every year with what is essentially a new coat of paint, and while these games may contain great stories they tend not to exceed our expectations of how the overall experience of a game will pan out. They are the boy bands of the gaming world, and yes, boy bands are great, they maintain the status quo and observe our predictable tendencies, however, occasionally you need a good progressive electro metal trance beat poetry comedy act to break up the monotony of that world (is it just me or did I basically describe Enter Shikari just then?).

I’ll see you on the flip side (see what I did there?).

My Favourite Journeys in Gaming.

Every time I buy a game I tend to get giddier than a schoolboy after stealing a bottle of his Dad’s whiskey. That same giddiness occurs whenever I see the beginning of a game I’ve completed.

I’m excited because of the journey I am about to embark on, and if it’s a game that I’ve completed, when I start it again I think about the end of that epic yarn and say to myself “This is where it all started. I know what’s coming, but this is where it all began.”

I could talk about the beginnings of these journeys, like the beginning of Fallout 3 where you step out of  the vault for the first time and see the vast expanse of wasteland before you for the first time (which I am not too proud to admit, genuinely frightened me on my premier play through).

However this article is about my favourite journeys in full, so I will be taking the end of  them very much into consideration, and I will begin with the appropriately named Journey. This simple game has one goal: Get from point A to point B. There is no dialogue except for the odd little sounds that your character creates. This simplicity allows for so much of your own interpretation of the story arc that your own projections cement an emotional attachment to, not just your character, but the game itself. The settings are beautiful throughout, and the end (which I shall not spoil) is a real tearjerker…and I’m a sucker for tearjerkers.

Another journey that I rate highly because of its emotional content (though not the weepy kind this time) is Alan Wake. Now I’m not usually someone who enjoys games in the horror genre (while playing F.E.A.R. I had to play it in ten minute segments and would only play it while listening to Anberlin’s album, Cities), but the journey for this game was what kept me hooked. It is really clever how Remedy are able to have the player mimic the emotions of Wake consistently through the game; at the beginning the ‘taken’  are terrifying enemies but by the end of  the game it is no longer terror I felt when they appeared, just a strong desire to overcome them as an obstacle and as I said before it was this element that ranks this game highly in my esteem and in my favourite journeys in gaming.

The final game I will mention is (if you visit this site often) no surprise, as I believe I mention the series at least once every article, and that series is Fallout. The game? Fallout: New Vegas, specifically with the DLC. Why with the DLC? One word. Ulysses. I followed the clues about his existence from the moment I received the collector’s edition box with concept art playing cards. After playing the game I found out that apart from the cards there was no reference to him anywhere (except for in , and that is when I began to stalk him and his trail. From the reference to him right at the beginning of the game in Primm, to the mention of your future battle with him in Dead Money, to being mistaken for him in Honest Hearts, to stalking his trail in Old World Blues, to the final conflict with him in Lonesome Road. Admittedly I may be so in love with this journey because of the time I spent researching it, but surely the journey isn’t just the game, it includes elements outside of it like your social life, emotions and attitude. Ulysses’ story was what provided me with the most enjoyable overall journey.

It’s hard to gleam some sort of deep insight from an article about journeys. I’ve already said that a games journey isn’t just the game itself but what emotions it conjures, the way it causes you to interact with other people and how it challenges your attitude towards various things, whether they are in game or not. I think that rather than challenging a concept or teaching a valuable life lesson from this article, I would like to say, find at least one game that you can receive a full immersive experience from and love it!

I’ll see you at the beginning again.

Why "Get Life XP"?

I’ve been asked before (not very often, but “before” nonetheless) why the Taped Up Glasses crest reads “Play games, get life XP”. Surely it’s counter intuitive; life experience is earned from interacting in the real world, not in the virtual. Right?

While to some extent this statement is correct there is a lot that video games can teach people. The recent rise in ‘edu-tainment’, while not proving comprehensively that video games can be educational, does prove that educators are keen to implement them as tools in classrooms. Even developers are catching on to this idea. In 2012 Valve’s Gabe Newell announced that the company would be giving away copies of their smash-hit Portal 2 along with its counterpart level designer to teachers with a steam account in order to assist with the teaching of physics (Kotaku, 2012).

I know what some of you are thinking: “Yes portal teaches physics but how often does a game do anything other than rewarding you for killing things?” The answer is actually all the time. Take one of the most controversial games of all time. Grand Theft Auto is a game that in 2009 was attacked for its over sexual and violent content (CBS, 2009). I refuse to go into the debate that is waiting to be started here of “Parent’s shouldn’t buy 18 rated games for their kids.” As that’s not what this article is about, and while I will acknowledge that GTA contains these elements I will not acknowledge that it portrays this as socially acceptable behaviour. Anyone who has played GTA will be aware of one fact: if you break the law in the game, if you solicit a prostitute, then kill her and steal a nearby car, the police will come after you. Grand Theft Auto actively tells the player that the world deems that behaviour as unacceptable and that there are consequences for participating in it. In Fallout the morality system tells you that if you steal something then you are a bad person and that mankind’s tendency towards war will never change. Spec Ops: The Line informs us of the true price of war and even Mario echoes a real life ‘grass is always greener’ message which reminds us of a human tendency; that whenever we get to our ‘castle’ our ‘princess’ is in a different one.

The main message of this article is that whenever you play a game there are life lessons to be learned from it. An article by Mark Griffiths, a professor of Gambling Studies in the Psychology Division of Nottingham Trent University comments that video games can be useful teaching tools due in part to how they are attractive to individuals across a wide range of demographic boundaries and can aid in the development of an understanding of goal setting, self-esteem, self-concept and individual differences (Griffiths,2002).

I’m not saying that video games are a healthy alternative to actually experiencing life (there is a reason that we are social animals) but there is always something that can be learned from a game that can be applied to real life (and vice versa). With that in mind I encourage you to play games and then to go out and spend some time with your friends.

Play Games. Get Life XP.

I’ll see you in an article that doesn’t involve so much heavy reading.

Top Ten Series for Nerds (Part Two)

First of all let me begin this second half of my TTS4N with an apology for anyone who is a regular reader and wondered why my last post may have felt a little different. It was simply that I put more effort into posting an article instead of the content of the article. This post should be more along the lines of what people who regularly check out this blog are used to reading, and I’m sure you expected nothing less as I end my Top Ten Series for Nerds!

5 – BABYLON 5

Now this may come as a surprise to a lot of people and I can understand why. The series was poorly acted, the special effects were sub par and it was so absorbed in itself that it didn’t know when to quit. The reason this has taken the number five spot on my TTS4N is that the storyline was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of its time (I apologise to those of you who play the Taped Up Glasses drinking game while reading this blog, where you drink every time I use the letter A. Although I imagine you’re unconscious and may be reading this sentence the day after you read the previous sentence. Anyway, welcome back! Let’s finish this tangent here).

“Way ahead of its time?!” I hear you say, sceptically and full of hate. Yes, way ahead of its time. The story contained really odd occurrences that were never explained until later on in the series (J.J. Abrams style) for example, the disappearance of Babylon 4 right at the beginning of the storyline. This series is by no means underrated, just underfunded and shown to the world a decade too early.

4 – NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

This is a series I watched without very high expectations, I expected it to be the same as most animes. As Sean ‘Day 9’ Plott describes them:

“In anime the main protagonist is the fourth most interesting character…there is another character that informs us about the current emotional and physical state of the characters and situations by shouting about it.”

And while that is true this series is one that always keeps you guessing, whether it is about the origins of Rin, the reason for Shinji’s distanced relationship from his father or why Asuka is just so damn angry, Evangelion is not afraid to say “Well I’ll give you a clue. Oh no it was a red herring. Well here’s another. Actually, you’re just not ready yet.” It treats nudity and sexualisation in a very adult and mature manner, not necessarily limiting it to storyline progression but treating it the same way films do, to advance character development. I could talk for ages about Evangelion but then we wouldn’t get to the final three in this countdown so I will summarise by saying that there is a reason the band Fightstar have been so heavily influenced by this series and even devised a concept album on its story.

3 – GAME OF THRONES

You knew it had to appear as some point didn’t you? Game of Thrones has been a staple of avid TV watchers since its genesis in 2011 and there is no wonder why. Sex, violence and Peter Dinklage. For those of you who haven’t seen it, the basic idea is that it is a politically driven, medieval twistfest. The crown of the kingdom had been seized, given, taken, usurped and lost hundreds of times and we as viewers are “throne” (see what I did there? Ok fine I’ll spell it properly) thrown into the middle of this centuries old game of tug-of-war. Some of the major selling points this series has to offer is its underlying rule that no character is inherently good or evil (apart from Joffrey who let’s be honest, everyone loves to hate). Each character acts as they believe to be in accordance with what is best for their kin and the kingdom they are trying to take control of. Also Tyrion (Played by Dinklage) is fantastically portrayed, very rarely is a dwarf seen as anything other than comic relief, and while most comic moments in Game of Thrones are provided by Dinklage it is not because he is silly or a buffoon or stupid, it is because he is one of the most knowledgeable of all the characters we meet and is also one of the most strong willed. I can’t wait to see every episode and I gather most of the world is in agreement on that fact.

2 – FIREFLY

Now some of you may have no idea this series even existed. Let me describe it to you very simply. Space cowboys. See? Now you’re hooked. Firefly is the creation of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Cabin in the Woods), a story of a group of unlikely acquaintances that are all running from the law for some reason or another. Running from the law is what gives this series its momentum and why each one is running gives the series its depth. Unfortunately Firefly was cancelled after just one season with many of its questions unanswered and though some answers came in the form of Serenity, a movie that tried to squeeze the second season down into one and a half hours and others came in the form of graphic novels, fans of the series (myself included) believe that this funny, tense, deep and downright badass series still has some life in it that with the right people behind it (and the right money) could continue the story and satisfy browncoats everywhere. I don’t want to say too much about Firefly as there isn’t much you can say before you ruin someone’s attempt to discover its treasures for themselves. What I will say is…gorram it, there’s no more shiny boat in the ‘verse than the lady that is Serenity.

1 – TWIN PEAKS

Did this surprise anyone? If you haven’t seen it then it probably did, but David Lynch’s Twin Peaks has got to be the finest piece of film out there, and the best thing is…it was all a middle finger directed at a critic who basically said that “Any film director who decides to direct for TV has failed” (I’m paraphrasing here) Lynch began his work on Twin Peaks which was not only a TV series, but the most stigmatised of all TV series, a soap opera. Despite being a soap opera it also points fun at them, everyone in the small town of twin peaks is having an affair, the situations characters are involved in start off as larger than life but end up incredibly surreal (as Lynch does best). Without revealing too much one character near the end of the second series not only suddenly believes that she is seventeen again but also develops superhuman strength.

I imagine that some people are very lost while reading this. The story of Twin Peaks is as follows. Twin Peaks is a small rural town in the mountains that is a typical soap opera town, people have affairs, people make threats and people threaten each other. Until their lives are turned even more upside down by the discovery of the body of local girl, Laura Palmer. Agent Dale Cooper is called in to figure out what happened to Palmer and on his arrival, events in Twin Peaks start getting stranger and stranger.

With thirty episodes at just under an hour you’ll have your work cut out for you if you want to session this series but I heartily encourage it. It didn’t change my life but it certainly made me distrust owls a little.

Well there we are, my Top Ten Series for Nerds. Complete. I know that normally I would end saying something to help you get some life XP but let’s face it. If you manage to trawl your way through all the series that are on this list then you’ve probably gained more life XP than I could give you in a concluding statement. As always, questions, comments and all manner of lovely things are encouraged, including following the blog @Tapedup_glasses.

I’ll see you on the other side of a coffee and a slice of pie.

Top Ten Series for Nerds (Part One)

10 – BRIGHT FALLS

As much as a list like this automatically brings to mind TV series this first one is actually web-based. Designed to build hype and explain some elements of the survival horror game Alan Wake, this series is not only superbly cast, well written and beautifully shot, it provides some fantastic scares that really fit in with the atmosphere of the game. If you’ve played the game then watch this series, if you plan to play the game then watch this first.

9 – DOCTOR WHO

This may sound like an obvious choice but there is a definite reason for it often appearing on lists like these. Despite some repetitive character profiles and some silly science fiction it really draws viewers into the world of The Doctor, from his changes in motives between regenerations to the sacrifices he makes every episode to save what he loves more than anything, humanity.

8 – THE WALKING DEAD

Another series that features often on top tens all over the internet. The Walking Dead is an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s tale of a rag tag group of survivors trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse. While most films, series and games that feature zombies as a primary antagonist tend to focus on the conflict between survivors and zombies, The Walking Dead’s conflicts reside in the survivors themselves. Zombies still pose a very real threat but continually reminds us that no matter what the world goes through, man’s biggest threat will always be man.

7 – FALLOUT: NUKA BREAK

For a second time in this list, a web series makes an appearance. This independently produced set of short episodes follow three characters representing the three karma paths that can be followed in the Fallout series. At times the low budget is obvious but there are certain moments when you can really appreciate the effort that’s been put into it’s creation. For fans of Fallout this tongue in cheek take on wasteland survival is an interesting take on some of the other stories that the wasteland has to tell.

6 – SPACED

This two season sitcom launched the careers of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Why does this series make it onto the list? Because it contains more nerd culture references than you can shake a stick at, from Evil Dead to The Matrix. Every episode guarantees hilarity from laughing at some very cleverly placed quotes and parallel situations rather than laughing at how socially different nerds are, like some sitcoms do today.

In the next few days I’ll post the rest of this list.

As usual, comments and questions are encouraged and for regular updates, follow me @Tapedup_glasses.

I’ll see you at number 5 (Which you can get to by clicking here).

Nerdy Music

I'm not sure if this has ever happened to you, if it has you might know why I've decided to write an article about this. While I was at work I was talking to one of my colleagues. Naturally we ended up talking about music, and while telling her about some of the artists I enjoyed she said: "You have a kind of nerdy music taste then?"
This caught me by surprise, I really don't have an out-of-the-ordinary taste in music. I listen to dubstep, hip hop, rap, ambient, electronic, rock, metal, folk, acoustic, pop, and (sometimes) orchestral music. It made me think, "Is there actually such a thing as 'nerdy' music?"

Now I can't speak for the rest of the world but here in the UK there are definitely a couple of stereotypes of the sort of music we nerds listen to, and they're on opposite ends of the scale (if we're not being technical. I know there are a lot of similarities between these genres, but bear with me here, do you want a pony for your birthday or not?), these stereotypically 'adored by nerds' musical styles are those of metal and classical. Why? It's hard to say. It may be because nerds stereotypically exist on the fringes of popular culture and classical music isn't usually listened to by young people. It could be because nerds were cast out socially and metal is a "socially offensive" genre. However, I believe it is safe to say that whether this stereotype is true or not it doesn't make classical or metal music 'nerdy'. There are plenty of people who don't consider themselves part of this social group who listen to it, so maybe it's the content of the music that would make it 'nerdy'.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present the London Invisible Orchestra...except I'm not sure if they're here yet."

Let me give a few examples here, there are some artists that do embrace some elements of nerd culture. The rock band, Coheed and Cambria tell stories from the Amory Wars series of graphic novels written by their lead singer, Claudio Sanchez. Rap group Jurassic 5 often feature lyrics describing the bullying they received at school for being nerds, as do the earlier works of Gym Class Heroes. UK based band, Fightstar pull their inspiration from the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and Motion City Soundtrack not only dress in a stereotypical nerd fashion, their songs often reference nerd culture topics such as playing Xbox, watching re-runs of Twin Peaks and a startling analysis of slasher horror films. But does this make these bands nerdy?

In short, No. In fact I don't believe there is such a thing as nerdy music. Sure there are types of music that nerds stereotypically listen to and artists that reference nerd culture, but judging a band or artist as 'nerdy' is as ridiculous as labelling a band as producing 'stoner music' or 'hipster music'. As is judging someone by their music, letting your music taste define your way of life or letting your lifestyle dictate what music you should and shouldn't listen to. All in all the message of this (rather short) article is: be who you are, and be proud of yourself for who you are. 

I'll see you on Twin Peaks afternoons (Bring expensive wine and Cordon Bleu).

Split/Second: An Obituary.

In 2010 I played the demo of what was going to become one of my favourite games of all time. It didn’t have the twisting storyline that I usually look for when purchasing a game; it didn’t have gameplay that was polished to a mirror shine and it wasn’t from a developer that had produced a game I had ever been excited about. Yet after a mere twenty minutes of playing the demo, I was hooked.

The game in question is Split/Second: Velocity, an action racer from the company that brought us The Lion King and Mickey Mouse. Yep, that company is indeed Disney, albeit Black Rock Studios, a sub-facet of Disney Interactive, its still Disney. In 2011 I learned that despite its surprising positive reviews, Disney gave up on the franchise, and a sequel to the ‘smashy smashy boom boom’ racer, (the category I made up in order to further compartmentalise this game) sank below the horizon, never to be seen again.

In the light that this is probably the only Split/Second game to ever be made I would like to take some time to give it some verbal affirmation, an obituary if you like, marking the (almost) anniversary of when my heart was broken (slightly. It’s alright, I’m not a moron. I know it’s just a game).

So why did this game capture my heart? Was it the graphics, the innovation? Well the graphics and cinematic quality were pretty good for a game of its type. The way the camera shook and swayed from side to side and even got dirt on it when opponents took turns trying to clobber your vehicle with a wrecking ball, a missile or god forbid, a building, added to the excitement and the TV show premise that the creators were trying to portray (which was cemented by a “Next time on Split/Second” at the end of a section and “On today’s Split/Second” at the beginning). The innovation that the game contained was clever but by no means did it push boundaries. The augmented reality heads up display had been used to an extent previously and the idea of an arcade action racer has been around for a really long time, however the most innovative part of the game was in fact the weapons system. Gone were the days of sliding your car into a pickup to generate a random weapon on the side of it; in Split/Second, the track was your weapon. When your car jumped and drifted it would build up power (shown in a bar behind your vehicle) and as you careered round the roads, you could use some (or all) of this power. “But what would you get in exchange?” I hear you cry. In exchange you would receive an explosive barrel that was dropped from a helicopter onto the cars in front; a fireball that would rip the side of a building off and send your opponents to the scrapheap and in some cases, a 747 that would hurtle down the track wrecking anything in its path. Half the fun was trying to work out what would be set off by pressing “fire” at the right moment.

When this first happens to you, there are no words to describe how you feel. Apart from "crap."

Despite this excellent display of creativity my favourite element was what gamers tend to hate: dying. In most games of this quality, getting involved in a situation that would inevitably leave your car in a worse state than Greece’s economy, would trigger a Burnout Paradise-esque cutscene, depicting the last thrilling moments of your vehicle’s life. In Split/Second it was different. If you were speeding towards a crumbling building the game would let you live every millisecond of that crash up until the point of impact, and as soon as you hit, the cutscene would kick in, fooling you into thinking that next time it happened you could make it. The result was that sometimes you did make it. Holding off on notifying the player that they were done, for an extra hundredth of a second, suddenly made close calls and escapes more possible, more intense and a whole lot more exciting.

The other part of the game I really want to affirm is the difficulty. It was quite a shallow learning curve, it was not hard to get good at the game, by all means it wasn’t easy but let’s just say it was no Dark Souls. This meant that once you had beaten the game and had decided that you wanted to venture into the world of multiplayer, the learning curve suddenly shifted its gradient. Since everybody online was good at the game it became a whole lot more competitive, everybody knew how to dodge your attacks and you knew how to dodge theirs. Learning changed from finding out what happens when you trigger an attack on this part of the track, to finding out how you can trigger an attack on this part of the track without it missing.

Ah. I knew I should have checked myself.

I could talk for a long time about all the things I loved about this game. I won’t because I believe experiencing some of these things first hand is the only way to love them. I will say one more thing, something which I think summarises the real tragedy of the cancellation of the Split/Second franchise:

I am proud to say that I was once a rank 1 player, I put the game down for about six weeks and when I picked it up again I dropped immediately to rank 66, and you know what? I loved every second of it. If you put down a game for a year, come back to it and are still amazing then that’s fine, games are basically toys after all. If however you put down a game for a month, come back to it and you are awful, then that’s not a toy. That’s a damn sport!

I’ll see you next time, on Split/Second.