Finally got my bluetooth to work, and ended up talking to some 10yr old (i apologise if they happened to be older..but by the voice cant be much) on BF:BC. That was a very strange experience. I also saw my mate who works at Game here in Spain selling Assassins' Creed to a kid of about 12.
People blame videogames for screwing kids up...i blame lack of proper social responsability. I remember playing Doom when i was 8 and that hasnt turned me into an honorary member of the Spanish Inquisition.
I've played all the GTA games, which apart from Vice City i dont think much of...and I'm not some junkie pimp who beats up women (and boy do i have enough of those to beat up....)

If you look at the rise in gang and criminal culture over the last decade, I think possible the only thing that has changed is the amount of media attention and the constant availability via 24 hour news channels and the internet. We have instant access to all sorts of things that usually arnt made public and the press can hardly keep up.
Is the rise of knife crime in the inner cities down to GTA and Doom, or is down to the media perpetuating a climate of fear on the streets which causes kids to carry knives to protect themselves. People dont carry weapons unless they want to use them. Fear is the mind killer is the Bene Gesserit have a habit of saying.

So what does this have to do with Age restrictions i hear you cry? (all one of you)
Scapegoats are a wonderful thing, they are the verbal slight of hand which allows the status quo to go unchanged. I'd be infinitely more worried about some kid watching Saw than playing Manhunt 2 (which they would get bored of quickly as its preeetty crap) Games will remain so untill something new comes out of the woodwork, and so age restriction will have little meaning because it enables a scapegoat.

The questions brought up recently regarding whether games can become works of art, and the work nintendo has done to broaden  the demographic with the DS may change things. I think it will be a long time till some people regard games as pieces of art comparable to catcher in the rye or north by northwest, i for one belive that art is supposed to make you think and feel. In that respect, and probably to the rolling of eyes of many, i would offer FFVII as a work of Art, at least at the time it was made and the way it affected me. Only game that made me cry.

Sorry if i lost the plot a bit there...my point was that Age restriction is ineffectual in the current climate due to the negative beliefs many have in regards to games themselves. Once they are regarded in the same way as novels and films (which to my mind they have surpassed in many ways, MGS4 being a prime example...well films at least) then perhaps those in power make give games the respect they deserve, and not use them as a method of shirking the blame. More likely however is that we will have to wait for the next generation, of games and politicians. Those who know what up, down, left, right A+start together actually means.

So

before i got the ps3, i thought it was a bunch of over priced crap. Now I'm a total convert. Why you may ask?
PSN.
I cant use my 360 to go online due to the previous owners behaviour...I did get it with 10 games for £150 for a reason. So I've never had the chance to go on XBL..and to be honest i didnt miss it.
With the PS3 however, it was great...Pain is awesome to mess around with. Pixeljunk monsters and eden are games good enough to fork out for, and super stardust always brings you back for more. Its just a shame that in the UK we get such a crap deal compared to US and JPN, but there is a way around that problem.
I just read that online gaming with XBL silver is only a temporary thing. Its free all the time with the PS3. People of course would point out that XBL costs very little a year, and the games are better and have a wider choice. All true. Still doesnt change my mind though.
Microsoft need to get their house in shape, less of the Miis and more of the consumer, otherwise they face being over taken again.

Tangent:
Two quick ones. After nearly a year, my ipod nano keeps dying on me. I've had to reset it twice, and each time the reset wouldnt take and it wouldnt turn on. Its working fine now...but seriously, You'd think they'd build these things to last. Ive had my Macbook Pro for over a year and its still going strong. I get the feeling ipods have a 'best before date' much like most windows software..so as to make you fork over for a new one. Shoddy practice Apple. As a side note to a side note, my brother owns an IT company in the UK. He recently tried to expand into Australia at the behest of Apple to do some work for ABC (not the American one) After about half a year, it has become clear that Apple Australia have some very interesting ethics when it comes to work. So if you are offered any work by Apple Oz..watch your back. My brother decided to leave OZ completely due to their backstabbing.

Second. After all this online hullaballoo of mine, im looking into playing socom online with my psp when i get back. I brought it with the mic, so hopefully ill get some decent teamwork going.

I finally went out and got a bluetooth headset today, i thought it would really help in MGO and Battlefield.
Well it seems nobody else uses them, I have no friends with PS3s and it would have been great to talk to some guys online and get some tactics going..but there was no one on the server with a mic. What was up with that?
So i dont even know if the damn thing works, let alone anybody else heard me.

Just saw it....and its a very good movie. Well perhaps i went in there with much higher expectations than normal after the first and everyone saying it was the best movie theyve seen in ages.

Pros:
The cinematography is rock solid, and it doesnt miss a beat. The Score is also top dollar but thats not particularly surprising.

The acting on the whole is great as well, Was that Kevin Sorbo at the beginning? I felt Maggie G...thingy, was rather under used..shes a great actress, and a massive step up from Mrs Cruise. Its a shame they always have to play the damsel in distress card. Bale i thought was...winging it slightly, or perhaps he was just eclipsed by Ledger to such a degree it made him rather redundant. I havnt read any of the reviews, but Eckhart should get a mention for his portrayal of Dent. It was spot on, if perhaps lacking in craziness. Caine and Freeman were their usual brilliant selves.

Effects were as you would expect in such a blockbuster....the sonar was awesome, and the bike was a nice surprise (i had a bit of a media blackout going on) and the explosions put BF:BC to shame.

Cons:

Storyline: What a mess, corrupt cops, the Joker and Dent all in one go. Im on the boundary on this one, it was handled much better than in Spidey 3, but in a way suffers the same multiple enemy syndrome. What happened with Venom happens here with Dent...and its a shame. To my mind he's one of the best characters in the DC universe..but hey., its showbizness....
I also felt that bits were cut in places which needed more exposition, like when he goes to Hong Kong...just a bit more dialogue would have filled some holes. Nice to see theyve been playing Snake Eater though.

My major gripe was with the portrayal of the Joker. Shock, horror, but yeah. Credit to Ledger..he does a damn good job with what he's been given. Its the script writers i have the problem with. Okay i can deal with makeup and no acid bath...sure its not realistic enough. The thing with his scars got boring after the first go...not scary. The dynamic between Bruce and Jack was...not bad. Considering it was their first tussel i found it out that Joker went on about them needing each other....i can understand it needed to be said, but i thought it was rather....condescending.
I also didnt think he was mad enough...Its difficult to portray a mad man if you are sane, this is perhaps the only place where Nicholson is the better Joker. Ledger will scare you shitless, but he just doesnt have insanity in his eyes. Also the bit with the two boats....please, sociological experiment my foot, each trigger would have blown up their own boat. Thats what the Joker would have done...not a sociological experiment.

I'll stick by my claim that Hamill's Joker is still the best to my mind....though Ledger comes a close second. The bit with the hospital was pure brilliance.


Naturally these are just personal gripes i have with the movie, and dont take away from the fact its a fun solid movie. Just not what i had hoped for...which is my own fault really.

Good News first: Persona 3 Fes is coming to europe....fantastico as they say here. Those not in the know, its an updated version of P3 with added post script storyline (30hrs+) More Persona and other kinks and twitches. If you still have that PS2 hanging around and like rpgs...you cant go wrong here.

Bad News: Seems KOEI have no plans to bring Disgaea 3 to the Uk....which sucks immensly. Considering im still playing 2 and waiting for the DS version it could be worse..but still...

Old crazy news...Vampire Rain is coming out on the ps3. Do i really need to say anymore? Loco en el coco. Who would buy this stuff?

thats all from me..oh pixeljunk eden is seriously awesome.

Goddamn im shattered, but a quick blog update:

Upon hearing of the imminent release of a demo for pixel junk eden on the US store...i managed to set up a US and HK account to download all the stuff those of us in the UK dont get...ie most of it. Siren demo was...well very nice to look at, but played much like the original...fixed camera after MGS4 is a bitch, Eden wasnt out when i last looked, and battlefantasia was a kiddy version of guilty gear...so all in all it was an interesting experience...but hey its nice to have a selection. Now if only i could get SOTN id be happy, but that wasnt to be.

Mostly been playing PixelJunk Monsters with my nephews today..good fun all round, though its difficult having armchair strategists telling you to 'Get that Gem' and 'Build a Fire Tower there...no! there, 3 meters to the left...HA HA!! Not to scale!!!!!' every 5 seconds...

Tomorrow I'm all alone, so its Book, Swim, DMC4 and BF:BC all the way...

I'll be the dead guy in BF..cya

Quick bit of bile

Ive been play BF:BC most of this morning, great game....though you do seem to notice that team work just does not exist and everyone goes it alone...but anyway
Two questions.
1) If you shoot a rocket at a tank, one would expect it to blow up..but 3 missiles later its still there..what the hell?
2) Shotguns...since when did the spread only cover a small area, and why dont they kill people? I shot a guy in the back, he turned around and killed me in one go. What the frak?

These are obviously noobish question, so forgive me for it..but seriously...what the frak?

Well its a couple days later, yet it's still smelling clean..
I actually understand that quote now after getting the rather spiffy new BF game....Jeff was right, everything is better with big explosions.

So what's the dealeo today?
Well, i have a couple of thoughts on the site. Firstly as a database its fantastic, well on the way to become the wiki of gaming..added to the fact we have Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Vinny and those who lurk behind the scenes to add a bit of pzazz to the proceedings its all rather wonderful. BUT.
News and Rumours? I take it the main site blog kind of works this way, but it would be good, as Shinedown220 suggests, to have its own section.
I still cant work out how to make lists....but im just an idiot
Do we include Japanese only stuff? (nothing to do with Gundam obsession)

Just nitpicking really, the server is working great now here in europe...was a bit laggy on the first day, but it may have been the mass entrance.


What else? hmm. Looking forward to the PSN update tomorrow...rumours of new pain, eden and Siren blood curse. Im only here for another 2 weeks..then im off back to blighty sans PS3..no PS3 till december for me. So make the best of it while i can.

Warhawk confuses me. I spent more money than i had to download it, after being bitten by this online bug, but after two games, i think i killed one dude...thats how bad i am. Its a shame that unlike Game which lets you take stuff back to swap, you cant do that online. ach well..im just crap at this sort of game.

Wow, its great to part of something spangly and new isnt it?