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Just like Microsoft

This week has completely bewildered me.

It’s no secret that I’m quite a big fan of Google. As far as the whole “we’ll give you free stuff if you let us go through your draws” deal goes, I’m fully signed up. I think it’s fair enough to say that Google know considerably more about me than I know about me.  I’m comfortable about that as I walked into this with my eyes open.

At the beginning of the week I hadn’t heard anything of Google’s  plans to take on social networking with Buzz. It surprised me that such a fully formed idea would pop up with so little notice. I’m used to the almost permanent “beta” label on Google products and usually more than a little publicity before hand. I watched the press conference it seemed a really interesting idea.

I’m a big fan of Twitter but sometimes it’s limitations really frustrate me. As a tool for quickly building a an interesting network it’s very good. As a medium for expression it’s largely rubbish. Though that’s fine, it is what it is and does what it says it is going to do. Buzz appeared to be addressing quite a few of these issues and more importantly, potentially, integrated with all my other sources of data. Great.

In the great scheme of things the development of a new form of social networking is pretty low down as a priority. Interesting, but unlikely to change the world. Or so I thought.

On the day Buzz was launched it became obvious that quite a few people were less than happy about being provided with something both new and free.

Clearly Google took a decision to launch this as a fully formed and set up product. I can understand this as being handed something that is already working is going to increase participation rates better than something that requires some degree of effort.

This article from the Guardian highlights how angry people really were about the implementation. This individual clearly has been caused a substantial degree of distress by something that she didn’t ask for (well mostly) and apparently doesn’t want. The issue really is whether or not this is something that has been done to people or whether there is a degree of culpability.

I think this is an excellent example that highlights the need for people to take personal responsibility for what they do on the Internet. It appears from the article that this persons biggest source of irritation is how Buzz had made shared items in Reader available to the wider public. This simply isn’t the case. Reader had shared item settings before Buzz was launched. Buzz simply tapped into these settings to provide them through another route.  Equally, as you go through the  Buzz  set up process it explicitly states that Buzz is connected to Reader and provides a button to disconnect.

How many people had checked their privacy settings in Reader before Buzz was launched? Seemingly very few it would seem.

There is also the issue of how Buzz develops your contact list  and whether these are the most appropriate people. I think, like most  people, the contacts I email the most are not the ones I would include in a social network. When I activated Buzz it gave me a list of people and buttons next to their names saying follow/unfollow. I deselected the ones I didn’t want to follow.

It’s a simple process, it took seconds. No information was passed to people I didn’t want it to be.

My issue with all of this is that very few of the MASSIVE PRIVACY flaws with Buzz  are valid.  There are settings that you have full control over. The issue seems to be that people did not pay sufficient attention to what they were signing up to.

This demonstrates that people have a very different, and cavalier attitude to social interaction when online.  In a real life situation you are likely to be considerably more circumspect about how you pass information to people and what you agree to. It is not the job of Google or any other company to to take on our own personal responsibility. We need to read all the words that appear in front of us and make more informed choices.

I suppose the last aspect of this that confuses me is the role of Microsoft. Essentially they have no role but are still taking a bit of the blame. The above events are being used to justify the claim that Google are “just like Microsoft”. Strangely this is intended as an insult. Just like Microsoft apparently symbolises some inexorable movement towards evil. Let’s remember that  this is Microsoft that have made us an operating system and quite a good word processor. They have quite aggressive  business practices but as far as I can work out they’ve not  killed anyone. They’re certainly no Union Carbide.

So what does this “just like Microsoft” claim mean? They’re large, well yes. They make money (lots of it), I imagine that’s why they started all this. They know about computers. Erm that’s about it.

Nobody has ever forced anyone to give either Microsoft or Google any money. If you disagree with them then don’t interact with them. They won’t mind. They have lots of money already.

There’s a point in here somewhere. Maybe even two.

My first week of using Buzz has been quite positive. The way it functions and integrates many things is much better than all the alternatives. I think it has a great potential to dominate as  a social networking tool and I’m quite  happy to take part.

Posted in Media | Comments (1)

Mass Effect

I’ve had a strange relationship with Mass Effect. It was always the game on the Xbox that would possibly sway me away from Sony. This was even before I bought a PS3. Actually this was even before I’d played Mass Effect. I think I just liked the idea of an RPG set in space. I still look back on the Knights of the Old Republic fondly. By far the best game based on Star Wars and one I never got round to finishing. Trying to play it on a PC that clearly wasn’t up to the job was a bad idea.

I was envious of Xbox owners when Mass Effect came out. I was even more envious when they kept banging on about how good it was. Then it was all over the news because it was apparently full of cosmic rape. I was dubious, but you wouldn’t go on telly making that sort of claim unless you’d played it all the way through and were pretty sure of your facts.

It took almost a year for it to come out on the PC and I bought it the day it was released. I did the first two or three missions and got bored (probably three or for hours work). That was back in 2008.

When Mass Effect 2 was announced I got my pre-order in straight away. Clearly the fact that I’d lost interest in the first one hadn’t really sunk in.

Two or three weeks ago I was reading a preview of Mass Effect 2 and I suddenly realised that this was the second part of a trilogy. Not only that but the decisions you make in the first one influence how the second one pans out. I assume the programmers would not have been able to have anticipated my decision to put the first one in the loft.

Worried that I was going to miss out on something I decided to go back and finish off Mass Effect. This involved going up a ladder and finding it. Not an insignificant commitment. I also had to find my save game off a backup hard drive and tease it back into the reinstalled game. Not actually difficult or time consuming but it sounds quite impressive.

I ended up being back in a game I had little or no recollection of. Apparently my last save was July 2008.

You’ll be relieved to hear it all worked out alright. It turned out to be a really really good game.

I had intended to fly through the story as quickly as possible and get on to the sequel. In the end I did get through pretty well every side quest and visited every planet I could. It’s also the first game I’ve played in a while where I can truthfully say I did understand what was going on.

The plot was well thought out and fairly robust. Also lots of little stories that lend themselves very well to making good characters.

It’s strange going back to a game that I would  consider old. Especially one that is held up as defining elements of game play we find quite common these days. Moral choices are all over games these days but, and I might be wrong, Mass Effect was the first to integrate this into the way the story develops. inFamous did quite a good job of this but as it was largely based on jumping around firing electricity out of your hands it didn’t have a stable basis in narrative. Mass Effect does ask  you to make some interesting decisions that do influence the game. Quite often the temptation with these sort of games is to play simplistically as good or evil. The decisions here aren’t that simplistic and found me quite often hovering for a while over two seemingly similar options.

There are a stupid amount of side quests to do but they involve travelling to planets that all look exactly the same and have buildings with identical layouts. Whoever got the contract as the principle property developer in this galaxy did very well for themselves.

Mass Effect also relies way too much on driving a large Big Trak about. One of the weirdest game based driving experiences I’ve had. The thing bounces around in a completely unconvincing way but it is strangely compelling.

So I got it finished and ended up putting much more time than I thought I would into it. I’m pretty sure that everyone in the world that was ever going to play this probably already has so I doubt I’ll influence anyone to give it a go.

I did notice there was no cosmic rape in it.

But i would say old games FTW.

I’m going to try something made in 2010 next.

Posted in Finished Games, Games | Comments (0)

Future Phone

It’s not often that someone comes up with an idea that will revolutionise the very core of telecommunications.

Strangely I have just done exactly that. Rather than keep my idea a secret I thought it would be useful to write it down here. Many people would think this is an odd thing to do. After all if it is so good won’t I make a fortune?

The problem is that my overwhelming apathy means that the odds of me even remembering this let alone finishing it is slim.

So what is this idea?

It came to me when someone recently called me. New phones obviously tell you who is calling. That’s all very well but sometimes you need just a little bit more information.

My idea is that before you accept a call the caller must provide additional extra information.

For example many people call me at work with questions. I’d like to be able to pick the phone up knowing how many questions I need to answer. That way we avoid conversation drift.

Equally it would be really handy to have a ball park figure for how long they estimate the call will take. How often have you embarked on what you think is a brief chat only to be still talking as much as fifteen minutes later?

In an ideal world a written outline of the all topics to be covered would be handy but that’s essentially just an email. Someone has already invented email.

The only thing I haven’t figured out is which letter needs to go in front of the word phone and what colour it would be.

That’s my plan and it could well change the world.

Posted in Misc | Comments (2)

The Courage of Others

It probably isn’t appropriate to blow your album of the week on a Monday.

What if a better one comes out tomorrow? What if a better one came out today and I just didn’t notice it? That’s entirely possible, I’ve only heard one album today and that’s the one I’m going for.

So I heartily recommend The Courage of Others by Midlake.

Midlake are the band I always think of that best demonstrate how copying music is really good for bands. I’d never heard of them until someone gave me a copied CD of  The Trial of Van Occupanther. As a result of that I ended up buying myself a copy and have bought it numerous times as Birthday presents for people as well as buying everything else Midlake have ever done. One copied CD has actually sold them many CDs.

In contrast in the same time I’ve bought no Metallica CDs. Though that is more as a result of them being shit than anything to do with copying CDs or their fruitless fight against piracy. I just raise it as an issue. A rather abstract issue.

So if you want to explore The Courage of Others you can listen to it here.

Or you can watch this. Which isn’t on The Courage of Others  but I really like it.

Posted in Music | Comments (1)

Assassin’s Creed 2

The second game of the year finished and we’re just flirting with the end of January. This year has some potential.

Once again, if you’re thinking of buying this then go and read a review by proper reviews. These are just my rambling post finishing thoughts.

If, back in 1982, when I first started playing games, you told me “One day there will come a game that features a fully functioning representation of 15th Century Venice”; I think my first reaction would have been:-

“Why the hell would I want that?”

Back in 1982 I was much more interested in space ships. I’m still very interested in space ships.

It is amazing to see how far things have come in only a few years. It certainly only seems a short time since Grand Theft Auto gave us  a fully realised world to explore. I suppose 9 years is quite along time but it doesn’t seem it.

To see that somebody  has taken this principle and applied it to, what seems an accurate snapshot of history, is a sign of some maturity. To be honest my knowledge of Venice in the 15th Century is negligible/non existent so I have no idea how accurate it is.  It did try and give me a lot of historical information but I didn’t really want learning to get in the way of the killing.

More important than the historical context is the game itself. Assassin’s Creed implements a control system that really gives a feeling of freedom. It’s great fun leaping across roof tops and swooping down from the skies to execute people. I did have some niggling issues to start with where I kept bouncing off walls but it settles down.

Interestingly I’d say Assassin’s Creed is by far the easiest game I’ve ever played. There is little reason to ever die in it and  everything about it holds your hand all the way through. Usually this would grate with me but I still really enjoyed it.

Once again it is another game taken to the end and I’m not completely sure what it was all about. Either there are some serious issues about how much effort people are putting into game narrative or I’ve developed some sort of attention disorder. I wouldn’t discount the latter.

There is always going to have be some sort of moral contortion to get an assassin into a sympathetic protagonist role. I suppose  the execution of your family  might, in some vague way, justify a  decade long roller coaster ride of murder. My approach to game play seemed to involve killing most people I met, particularly street musicians. I like to throw myself into the role.

So, in summary. Really good. Not quite as good as Uncharted 2 but it’s up there.

Posted in Finished Games, Games | Comments (4)

Ratchet & Clack: A Crack in Time

Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to record all the games I complete on here so I have some record of the massive amount of time I waste each year in the pursuit of……

What do I actually get out of it? Largely nothing but a sore wrist.

The first thing I managed to finish has been Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time.

I don’t really want to review it. There are much better qualified people than me that can do that sort of thing. Some of them are even paid to do it as some sort of job.

I have noticed when I look back on games I do tend to build a bit of a mythology in my mind about how good they were. This has the disastrous consequence that I play a bad game again.

So what did I think of Ratchet & Clank?

It was quite good.

It’s a shame as I’d been really looking forward to it. Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction was one of the first “proper” games I played on the PS3.

The Pixar quality of the animation was amazing. The characters were genuinely funny and the weapons were ridiculous.

The problem with a Crack in Time is that it just seems like largely the same game. It looks amazing and is easy to play but not really fulfilling.

I can’t really even remember the story now. Something about a clock and a man with a green head.

The one advance in the game was the time related puzzles where you have to make copies of your character to perform different tasks. I realise that makes very little sense when it’s written down like that.

That bit was good.

Well there you go.

Next will be Assassin’s Creed 2 if I finish it.

Posted in Finished Games, Games | Comments (0)

Last time I mention it….

After banging on about my favourite albums of the last decade I decided to make a much longer list of my favourite albums. It’s probably much too self indulgent to go through the entire list on here but I’ve attempted to convert it into a playlist.

Yes, it’s yet another play list on Spotify.

Hopefully I can come up with more creative blog updates soon.

Posted in Music | Comments (0)

Funk

I’ve been mucking about with Spotify.

I’m not completely sure if it is that useful and I can’t really see a great deal of difference from Last FM Radio.

The playlists do seem like a good way of sharing stuff you’re listening to and, hopefully develop it a bit.  Unfortunately music in Spotify is limited to say the least. In my first attempt at a playlist I’d say about 50% of the stuff I wanted to use is missing.

Anyway I bring you the gift of Funk. It’s a collaborative list so feel free to add stuff that you think might fit. Please don’t dump whole albums in there. I’ve tried to plan this a bit with songs that do fit together.

The list is:-

Posted in Music, Spotify | Comments (0)

Spoils of War

If you are intending to play Modern Warfare 2 and do not want the story ruined then you would be better off not reading this. Having said that it is unlikely that I can ruin the story as it makes little or no sense.

To say I intend to include spoilers is a bit of an understatement. Reading this will leave you in no doubt of any plot twist however ridiculous. It is important to bear in mind that most of this is based on my hazy release day recollections and may not actually have happened.

There is a common philosophy in game development to add the story as a bit of an afterthought. This is largely because developers have ideas for levels they want to make or have types of buildings they are really good at drawing. As a result stories are often absurd.

This isn’t an accusation that relates purely to Modern Warfare 2 but there has been quite a lot said about the moral ambiguity of one level in particular. In a sense it was unfair for the media to extract the airport massacre level as it was fair to assume that the rest of game would provide context for it. In fact the developers said exactly this (probably).

I thought there might be some use in me writing down what I remember about the game as a whole and seeing if there is any context.

To be fair to Modern Warfare 2 it is great. It is jingoistic nonsense of the first order where you do get to blow loads of things up in a modern setting. That’s all you can really ask of it.

So what happens?

+++++++spoilers+++++++

The most important thing to remember when looking at the story is that General Shepherd did it. Everything that happens in the game is largely his fault. This is the big twist that you won’t be expecting.

The reveal of this twist is cunningly hidden behind the device of not much preceding it really having a grounding in reality.

Act 1

The game begins in the Afghanistan where you are selected by General Shepherd to join some sort of covert special forces group. He’s apparently selected you on your ability to run down a sort of assault course in about 50 seconds. Clearly his recruitment criteria is not too rigid.

Before you can explore the terms of his job offer you must come to the aid of some undisclosed army unit that being attacked by generic terrorists. This sums up the problem with Modern Warfare’s interpretation of Afghanistan. It doesn’t look a thing like Afghanistan we’re used to seeing on the TV.

It actually looks quite nice. It seems to have had some extensive urban development and has a relatively good road infrastructure. In fact it looks stunningly like the unnamed middle eastern country in Modern Warfare 1.

I think it was actually a left over level from Modern Warfare and the developers had decided that it was very unlikely that anyone playing would have any idea what downtown Kabul looks like. Except it’s on the news most days so we do know what it looks like. It’s generally more broken.

After blowing some stuff up General Shepherd asks you to join his secret group and off you go. Nothing sinister so far.

The biggest problem with Modern Warfare is that it jumps round the world for no apparent reason and you’re constantly playing as someone different. I admit that I quickly stopped paying attention to who I was playing and what my motivation was.

So we now pop up in Russia (possibly) as some sort of UK special forces. Apparently a satellite has crashed and we need to retrieve the ACS Module. I still have no idea what an ACS Module is.

The rational solution to this would be to establish diplomatic relations and negotiate it’s return in exchange for some sort of cash oil deal. What we actually do is sneak into sovereign territory, execute their sentries and steal the ACS back. It is important to note that before we steal the ACS we decide to blow up their fuel supply. I have no idea why. It seems a bit spiteful. It’s a bit like those people who burgle your house and piss on your pillows.

Despite the evident flaws it is very exciting and you get to shoot loads of people.

At last we get to the, now, infamous airport level. The premise of this level stretches imagination a little bit. We are once again the American bloke from the first level and General Shepherd has persuaded us to go into deep cover within a Russian Terrorist group. I would assume that the intention would be to find out what atrocities the group is planning and thwart them. I have no idea what they could have been planning that is worse than executing thousands of innocent people in an airport but for some reason we are not allowed to stop the attack.

So we wonder around the airport with this bloke called Makarov generally shooting people. It’s a bit gruesome but I must have no morals as I didn’t find it very shocking.

At the end of the level Makarov decides to shoot us in the first of our shakey pot twists. Apparently knowing that we are undercover he hopes to leave a body behind to incriminate the US in the terrorist attack. In itself this is probably reasonable. We know later on that General Shepherd masterminded this so he probably could leak our real identity. It does leave a little bit to chance and is the first indication that Makarov isn’t a very good terrorist.

Once that’s all sorted we are back again as UK special forces but this time in Brazil.

Apparently the forensics from the airport indicate that the weapons used come from an arms dealer in Brazil called Rojas. I was interested to note that Rojas is younger than me; he seems to have done quite well for himself.

We trail someone in a van until they meet Rojas’ friend. He goes a bit ape shit blowing stuff up but we valiantly chase him down by shooting him in the leg. Whilst our colleagues decide to torture him we are advised to go and hang around in favela in case Rojas turns up.

This seems to be a little bit of a random plan but actually works out for the best. Whilst in the favela we quickly find out that Rojas has a very very big group of people working for him. It never really becomes apparent why he would need this many people working for him.

As anyone will tell you in large organisations the biggest cost is generally labour. Relating labour to income is key to a profitable business. In Rojas’ case security would obviously be a large consideration but maintaining such a massive group of heavily armed people must be an economic drain. I imagine they were generally not required to do much on a day to day basis.

Unfortunately on this day they were required to die on an almost genocidal scale. As you begin killing everyone that moves there is a vague warning about avoiding civilians. There isn’t a lot to worry about as there can’t be more than 6. This is a bit unusual in one of the most densely packed conurbations on earth.

Eventually we catch up with Rojas’ who tells us that there is a man being held in a Russian Gulag that Makarov doesn’t like. A lot of people died for this completely pointless information. The futility of human life doesn’t concern us to much and we ask for some sort of immediate evacuation. Before this can happen we’re off again.

Act 2

This time we’re just in time to witness the Russian invasion of America. It seems the Russians weren’t too happy about their citizens getting killed and planned this as revenge. Using the codes obtained from the ACS they have disabled the US air defences. This is the first indication that the ACS even held codes. The Russians reaction also indicates that we should probably not have blown up their airfield in retrieving the ACS. They are clearly riled.

There’s not much to say about this level. It’s a big war in an American town.

It’s probably my favourite level of the game and it does nothing to develop the story.

And now we’re back in Brazil. It seems that the war in the US has disrupted scheduled air travel and the helicopter can’t pick us up. Oh no.

We also seem to have lost Rojas. I have no idea what happened to him after he gave us his rubbish bit of intelligence, we probably shot him. Unfortunately as the helicopter can’t pick us up from the large patch of open ground we have to battle our way up to some rooftops where it can pick us up. There is no rational for this and a substantial amount of human life (and chickens) could have been preserved if someone had been a bit firmer on the radio.

There’s lots of jumping about and quite an exciting leap at the end.

That’s the end of Brazil. We killed a lot of people and we learnt that Makarov doesn’t like a bloke in prison in Russia. Not a good return.

Back in the US we aided in our fight against the Russians by a large vehicle called a/the Honey Badger. It’s great at blowing things like anti-aircraft guns up. Just mindless destruction.

Again this doesn’t add to the story until the last bit of the level. After blowing some guns up we’re diverted to a specific address where someone important is hiding in a panic room. We need to get there and rescue someone.

On arriving we discover the important person gone and cryptically the bodies of some, apparently, unusual people outside of the door of the panic room. You would be forgiven that this little gem might be in some way relevant to the story. As far as I can work out it isn’t. I have no idea who we were rescuing or what happened to them.

Based on the intelligence received from Rojas’ the full US military might of the US and UK are devoted to finding this bloke who’s imprisoned in Russia. There is absolutely no logical basis for this. As we will find out later we apparently know where Makarov lives so we could have just cut out the middleman and gone to his house. We don’t.

Obviously before we can go to the prison we have to free some hostages on an oilrig. People who make these games really like oil rigs. I think this is because of Roger Moore’s 1980 classic North Sea Hijack. Classic might be stretching things a bit but every game I’ve played that includes the customary oil rig looks a lot like it.

The Russian prison itself is fairly uneventful. It does have a lot of shooting people and it is good to see that the Russians have a startling ratio of guards to prisoners. Seemingly two or three hundred to every prisoner. Much like Rojas their costs must be astronomical.

Clearly we’re all very excited to find out who this person is that has got Makarov so annoyed. It turns out it’s Captain Price. Yes, Captain Price from Call of Duty 4. I thought he was dead but I didn’t pay much attention to that one either.

It seems he’s been in prison for five years. In all likelyhood it was for a crime he didn’t commit. Needless to say, why is not explained.

On releasing Captain Price we tell him about the war in America and Makarov’s role in the airport and it is fair to say he is very very angry about it. He suggests that the only way to put out a fire is to light another bigger fire under it. He has been tortured for quite a few years so I’m not too surprised that he has forgotten some of the principles of fire fighting but this should have been an early indicator to not put him in charge of anything.

Act 3

There is now a quick level back in the US where we have to fight to secure a building. Lots of killing not much in the way of story.

Despite the warning signs Captain Price seems to be in charge and he insists we all go to a submarine base. This would have been a good point to ask why?

This bit really confused me. We fight our way, with Captain Price, to the nuclear submarine. Whilst he nips into the submarine we wait outside just killing. After a while there’s a bit of a panic and someone launches a nuclear missile which seems to be aimed at the US. I say someone as I still don’t understand who launched it.

If it was Captain Price then this was a silly plan. Though he had been talking about bigger fires and all that, so it certainly could have been him.

It could well have been the Russians panicking when they saw a very angry Captain Price coming towards them. I imagine that launching the missile wouldn’t have prevented Captain Price killing them as he seems to kill everyone he meets.

I have no idea why we were even at the base let alone why someone decided nuclear weapons would make the situation better.

Ironically it turns out that the explosion of the nuclear weapon over Washington creates an Electro Magnetic Pulse that knocks out the invading Russian helicopters. It is entirely possible that in the post war enquiry Captain Price could claim that this was his plan all along. Given the long term affects of radiation on the Eastern Seaboard I don’t think anyone will accept this was a very good plan.

The loss of the helicopters in Washington gives the Americans just the break they needed to fight all the way to the White House which had previously been under Russian control. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to go there but it’s good fun and the post nuclear affects are quite good.

After Captain Price’s plan goes horribly tits up someone remembers that they think they know where Makarov lives. It hadn’t occurred to them to mention this before now. Well it probably didn’t seem important.

Everyone decides to split up and half the team will go to his supposed house whilst the rest of the team go to scrapyard in Afghanistan. Don’t ask me why.

At Makarov’s house we discover he’s not in but he has left his computer there with lots of lovely intelligence on it. It must be an extremely heavy computer because we can’t carry it to the helicopter. No, instead we must copy the contents of the hard drive before we can leave. This gives Makarov’s men a chance to attack in waves. Many waves.

It does take a long long time to copy the data but eventually we make our escape so we can be rescued by General Shepherd in his big helicopter. As you will no doubt guess, mainly because I ruined it earlier, General Shepherd is pleased to get hold of the data but less pleased to give us a lift. In fact he shoots us legs it.

This is the point that we realise that General Shepherd has planned all of this from start to finish. We do not realise why on earth he would have come up with such a strange plan.

The other team, in the scrapyard, realise that General Shepherd is not to be trusted. This is largely because there are large groups of his men and Makarov’s men having a massive fight. I do not know why they are there or why they have fallen out with each other.

Captain Price is with the other team and somehow manages to get hold of Makarov and persuade him to give us a lift out of the massive fight.

The one thing we know about Captain Price is that he doesn’t like Makarov (and he can’t be trusted with submarine based plan).

The one thing we know about Makarov is that he doesn’t like Captain Price. We don’t know why. Despite this they have quite an amicable chat and Makarov agrees to pick us up in his plane.

He also quite happily agrees to drop us off at General Shepherds secret mountain base.

This means we wave goodbye to the terrorist we’ve tearing the planet apart looking for. He gets completely away with it.

It also doesn’t explain why General Shepherd has a secret mountain base. It’s not a very good one. It has virtually no amenities but there are lots of heavily armed men there. It isn’t very clear what he was planning on doing there but we don’t stop to ask and rampage through it killing everyone in our way. General Shepherd fearing for his own life attempts to escape in a rubber boat. He doesn’t get far.

Then we get the final explanation.

It seems that General Shepherd is generally vexed by the recruitment crisis in the US military so he decided to engineer a Russian invasion. That’s it.

It’s a massive amount of trouble to go to when this could have been largely resolved through a decent poster campaign.

Anyway that’s all I remember about Modern Warfare 2.

Posted in Games | Comments (0)

Music / Time = List

I originally posted this as a thread on The Stirrer but then it occurred to me that this is exactly the reason I own a blog which I rarely update.  So I’ve plagiarised my own work.

I like a good list. I particularly a good list of things at the end of a decade.

There is nothing quite like judging things on an entirely subjective criteria and placing that within the confines of an entirely arbitrary time frame.

The NME have come up with their list of the 50 best albums of the last decade.

I think it’s a really good list and shows what a really good period we seem to be in for music at the moment.

I’m a little annoyed that The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots didn’t make it in there at all. I would have had them in the top ten. Though I’m a little bit Flaming Lips crazy today as I’m going to see them tonight. Go me.

I’ve bought 25 of their 50 and will certainly look at getting more.

So for no apparent reason here are my top 10 albums of the last decade, largely using their list to remind me when things came out.

1) Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
2) Grandaddy – Sopftware Slump
3) Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
4) Acoustic Ladyland – Last Chance Disco
5) Jaga Jazzist – What We Must
6) Muse – Absolution
7) The Bees – Free the Bees
8) Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
9) Avalanches – Since I Left You
10) Cinematic Orchestra – Man With a Movie Camera

Hmm there is more jazz on there than I expected.

It’s a shame that you can only get away with lists in multiples of 5 or 10 as I would like to include the fantastic The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes and Want Two by Rufus Wainwright.

Technically that’s two Bright Eyes albums which would have given me 14 in total. I don’t think you’re allowed to have a list with 14 things on it.

So… it’s been a really good decade for music.

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