Oh wow..

Absolutely mental few months. Drink, festivals, people fucking me around a few friends lost, but hey - everyone goes through it.

I'm home from Uni, prepping for my third and final year and it's one huge shit storm. So I'm keeping low - investing my time in my comics, dissertation, gaming and other project work (I'm so excited about it, but I'm keeping it under wraps for now in order not to be disappointed if it falls through).

I'll update here with some goings on lately, but a brief summary of what I've been reading/doing over the past few weeks is pretty much -

• Getting back into my punk/hardcore, while also managing to get more into my IDM, breakbeat and glitch music.
• Reading The Walking Dead - over, and over again. Also getting into Chew, Witchfinder, Fables, The Goon; pretty much starting a crackin' collection and I'm real excited about it.
• Something I was supposed to have published fell through, on its arse and then some - I burnt a lot of bridges in my anger and stupidity over that, ah well.
• Also getting back into the Ghost in the Shell universe, as well as Cowboy Bebop and other anime.

So that's all folks! Hopefully a more indepth review of some of the games/comics/other media I've been sucking the life out of to come later.

Much love. kisses. and rimjobs x

As of late.

Lately, time has been quite rammed - and stressful. I'm working 35+ hours a week, but doing a full time university education on top of it as well as going out quite a lot and fitting in as much Fallout as possible.

However, I've been finding a good release through music lately - not in the whole emo way, but in just pure enjoyment. First of all, a band I've followed for a long time now - Fucked Up - I've been listening to even more and more as of late. The energy they encapsulate is just ridiculous, just like one of my other favourite bands - The Bronx.
On top of this, I've returned to listening to another favourite band - Comeback Kid. Can't be arsed linking to these as most will be familiar with them!

Also booked tickets for Global Gathering this summer, which is going to be absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. The line up is great (not so much the headliners) and I'm really looking forward to a summer of fun.



Oh, and I've been playing so much Fallout lately that all that's in my mind is just Super Mutants and Megaton (I chose not to blow the place up ;) ). I've made next to no headway with the main quest - however doing loads of the sidequests and I'm in love with this game. Everything about it is just fantastic, so well polished.

Also been watching a lot of videos from the Mega64 lot, and this one never, ever, ever fails to make me laugh. -

Oh my days.

It hasn't half been a busy semester at university. Highlights including concluding a study set to be published on media violence and its impact on attitudes towards violence on 18 year olds (beefy, I know), getting wankered and waking up in Heathrow when I currently live in Leicester and other general craziness.

I've been keeping tabs on most things in the gaming industry lately and in all honestly - there's nothing I'm excited about for a while yet. I left my DS on a train home - FUCK - with R4 cart freshly in slot. So GTA Chinatown Wars won't be getting played. Call of Duty (interestingly dropped from the title now by Infinity Ward) Modern Warfare 2 isn't out till Novermber, so I'll have to do with playing Modern Warfare till then.

Oh, and I've been playing COD: World at War lately. What a broken game. Broken simply for two reasons - the WW2 game is forever going to be a broken platform to base games on, simply because it has been done as much as a dead jade goody joke, and secondly because of respawning AI. Not letting you progress until you reach certain points, regardless of how many enemies you have killed.

Anyway, as for other interests. Good to see SABREPULSE is working on some new stuff, always been a fan of his. The Six Nations tournament this Easter had some of the best rugby I've seen from forwards in a long, long time. It made for great watching.

That's about all to report. Street Fighter 4 is taking up my life, Fallout 3 needs completing and I've made myself the best Fish Finger sandwich ever. So it's time to munch.

Oh, and don't be afraid to follow my blog people. I thought this was the era of social networking and all that malarky?

The Spirit.

I've just got back from Frank Millers latest CGI fest - The Spirit.

I don't know what to say. I honestly don't.

The critics have been absolutely slating this film, and too right. It's dire. Characterisation is horrible, CGI is practically Sin City all over again - showing Miller has undergone no progression. Not only this, but the dialogue is just horrible. Honestly, it's atrocious. I mean:

"My city, I can not deny her. My city screams. She is my mother. She is my lover, and I am her Spirit."
Please - Miller, you're not poetic. Comic books aren't a certainty to work in the paper-film crossover.

And two of my personal favourites

"I'm gonna kill you all kinds of dead."

"Come on! Toilets are always funny!"

Thankfully, this is where I end giving shitty lines of dialogue - as 30 minutes into the film me and my friend walked out, got some beers and played Virtua Fighter 4 all night. Was a far, far better evening.

DON'T SEE THE SPIRIT PEOPLE!

The Credit Crunch and the Game Industry.

With the credit crunch seemingly dominating our headlines for most of the end of last year and no doubt for the majority of this year, it almost feels good to fall back on the ol' Israeli - Palestinian love in that happens now and again.

All jokes aside, the Global Credit crunch is hitting every single industry hard. Automobiles, tourism, retail - everywhere is feeling the hit from a problem that's going to shape the economies of many countries for years to come. But how has it affected the games industry? Well, I've been following it for a while, and the ramifications that the crunch could have on the games industry is gigantic.

Firstly, the games industry has been hit hard. Real hard. Just as it was starting to show true potential and profit (with the rise of the behemoth know as the *shudder* Wii), companies are drastically firing left right and centre in order to maximise their potential for profit. First, it started with rumours of Microsoft firing as many as 17,000 workers, which is an immense amount of staff. This news was quickly followed by even further shocking news regarding not just the Sony Playstation, but the Sony Brand.
With Sony making a still making a loss on the PS3 and their flatscreen TV's, combined with the credit crunch - there's talk of them even closing divisions. Including gaming divisions, which would be a sad, sad loss with the talent that's available. This move could infact turn Sony into the new SEGA after the Dreamcast. The PS3 as their last platform and Sony becoming a publishing house.

Weirdly enough - despite the hard, penny pinching times - throughout the christmas period there was a record amount of sales.
Either way, it hasn't been enough. It didn't save Woolworths, or Zavvi - and it looks like game developer Midway have ran into problems even though they've been given a lifeline, it still looks like they're going to go the way of the shitter.

The same has been happening with Video Game websites and magazines, which is just as bad. Established community (and one of my most visited gaming sites) 1up.com was bought over by the Hearst corporation - resulting in the closing of the EGM magazine but more importantly (well.. to me anyway...) the firing of many staff at 1up.com, that were told they would keep their jobs. These weren't just regular staff - they were staff that were renown for the community side of 1up. The podcasts, and videos. And they were just about to have a live SF4 question session while they played it :(

So, as can be seen. No industry is safe. Unfortunately the gaming industry is taking it hard, lets just hope it can recover and carry on flourishing.

All comments welcome.

First things first..

Hate that saying.

Regardless, I'm new to all this - and hopefully after a few months I'll have the hang of it all.

Basically this blog is going to incorporate perspectives, reviews and most likely ramblings on all things of my interest. Mostly new media (mostly Video Games, online communities and the news.. how interesting) and other things of my personal interest such as 8bit/chiptune, other genres of music, and all that razzmataz.

So aye, happy new year! Lets hope I keep this up.