The Broken Frandroid – a being that lives on caffeine,
She writes about characters that are not normally seen.

She draws them obscurely and in original ways,
Takes them out of their comfort zone, this is how she plays.

From games of old and those of new,
She will wreak gaming havoc also on you.

You could look at the films and say they have been handled wrongly, and they have. It’s just not like they had a lot to work with to start off with. Come on, until Duke Nukem Forever the guy was thought of as one of the best video game characters.  One of his best lines “I came here to kick ass and chew gum, and I’m all out of gum” is a straight lift from “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in They Live.  When one of your best characters needs to take subtlety lessons from the male wrestling lead of Hell Comes to Frogtown, maybe we should admit that video games are in their infancy, storytelling wise.

Look at the birth of cinema; that started as a silent medium, which is why Sonic, Mario and Pacman still endure. Mario as the fat man that keeps falling down is funny.  We all know that his Donkey Kong sprite was given a moustache because of the limited amount you could do with a small number of pixels, but in the Super Mario Brothers days, his look of shock as he bumped into a mushroom and then went up before falling off the screen is pure Oliver Hardy.  In fact, playing the Mario Brothers mini game in Super Mario 3, more amusement was had in the slapstick of jumping off Luigi’s head than in anything else.  The Chain Chomp is pure angry dog slapstick… even the angry sun in Mario 3 has links to George Méliès Le Voyage Dans La Lune and SunnyVoyage. Hell, even in the Sonic games, the ‘dum, dum’ of death is almost like a comic ‘Wah, wah, way”. By the time you get to Sonic 2, a whole stream of amusement comes from the fact that Tails seems desperate to commit suicide at any opportunity.  Even the central idea behind Pac Man, where the underdog turns round and has revenge on his pursuers is not a million miles away from Chaplin… and Angry Birds is not far away from the world of Buster Keaton either.

In the modern age, the most successful characters also seem to be mute.  Master Chief and Chell don’t say a word, but their narratives are some of the most compelling of the modern era.  They’re also both immersive first person games, where you can more readily identify with the main character because you’re not being someone else.  Technically, Halo ODST was right up there with the rest of the Halo series, and in terms of acting talent, it had Nathan Frickin’ Fillion in it  but it felt less of an immersive experience than the mute experience of Master Chief and the well realised dialogue of the Arbiter and Cortana.

On the other part of things, we have Chell.  In the Portal commentaries, it’s been spoken about how Chell was going to say one word at the end, but it was scrapped. Another interesting thing is that they played around with the idea of GLaDOS (and Wheatley) talking during the tests, but found that too distracting.  Rather than cut scenes, there was exposition away from the action, and humour not something that wrenched you away from the immersive experience.  I want to get into the story of games, but even I find myself pressing the skip button through cut scenes where it’s available (by the way, with the silent Atlas and Peabody, the Laurel and Hardy thing has been done very well too). The video games that people went to to prove to Roger Ebert that video games could be an art form were Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, guess what… silent protagonists.

The main problem with video games characters is the ‘Mary Sue’ factor. In fan fiction a ‘Mary Sue’ character (named after a Star Trek short story) is a character who is just too good at everything.  They don’t have any real flaws, and they tend to be the best at everything they put their minds to.  That’s the whole basis for a load of characters these days, a single soldier destined to take on armies, or galaxies of armies.  In the first game, Duke Nukem was an ironic take on the already outdated 80’s musclebound stereotype, in the remake he just became that stereotype, so perfect at everything that even his own ego could heal his wounds! One of the nice narrative surprises (Spoiler Alert) is that your character gets killed during the Airport Hostage mission… it would be better if you cared about the character at all. You can have someone that is exceptional, but they can’t be the best.  That’s not interesting.  No matter how cool Boba Fett is, he would suck as the main character in a film. Even Han Solo wouldn’t be that great, he’s great as a side character, or as part of an ensemble but you need to start with your everyman, your simple farm boy.  You need fallibility, and you need a character arc. The best realised video game character so far, probably Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series. He trusts the wrong people, goes after the wrong girl, falls off things and you love him the more because of it.  But we need to do better than someone just saying “how about a modern day Indiana Jones”?

How about a normal loser kid who by accident finds an alien artifact, but has no idea how to use it properly? How about an ethical female spy who wants a chance to complete the objective by non lethal means before the army gets called in? Or if you are going to rip off stuff from movies, how about a comedy game where a couple of slackers fend off the zombie hordes with cricket bats! Or just stick me in a game! I do comedy, I can rap, I can do poetry, I get angry, I can wield a sword! I could be the most memorable game character of all time… or possibly just the worst…

It’s been tough. Very tough. Not just a teeny bit tough, but bastardly tough!

First thing I see with my dark elven eyes when I get to this snow covered land, other than the barely missed axe to the neck… is a dragon. A bloody dragon. Who would have thought it? I had never seen a swimming goat before either, but that seems to be ‘all the rage’ in these parts as well…

My story starts from there I guess. I was an outcast and unloved Dunmer. I think my face even offended people. But then the Dragon shows up and now I’m all special and everyone wants me to help them with tasks. It’s funny how no one will help me do any tasks, well, except the horses – I saw them kick the shit out of a dragon, before I even got a chance to give it a good beating!

It turns out that I am quite good at tasks. Tasks that involve killing things. Not the most lady-like of jobs I know, but I guess I’ve always been a bit different. My black eyes must make people think I’m hardcore or something. I found out that I have a good affinity with pyrotechnics! Flames seem to come naturally to me, so I thought I would hone these skills by going back to school. Killing things also can get you gold. Wooo, gold! Though I’m still not sure what this last shop item does, I bought it anyway.

Not everything has always gone to plan. I did spend nearly an hour attempting to climb up a massive bastard mountain to get to the Throat of the World before I realized I was supposed to go to Aivarstead first and follow a snowy brick road all the way to the bloody top. Only to then be greeted by a horrid snow monster who can one hit kill.

But it’s not only been hard for me. The whole world is suffering. Even the locals, they don’t seem right. I was watching some guy chop wood in Riften, but there were random bits of wood stuck to various parts of his body. Unless he is some sort of tree man, I’m guessing however this happened, must have hurt like hell.

Some people just seem to vanish into thin air. Perhaps they are using Vampire dust? Either way, they still like to have a chat even if you are not quite sure where they are. I also noticed that the people of Skyrim are very good workers. I saw a blacksmith with a knife and a broom in the same hand, whilst chopping up some leather – talk about multitasking! One elf guy I met must be really afraid of the dark, the bloody idiot carries his torch everywhere – even to bed!

I didn’t think I’d be seeing another dragon. I assumed infinite dragons was only a rumour. Turns out I was wrong! I even saw one flying though the sky, backwards… what kind of wizardry is this?! Only the strange happens in Skyrim, and talking about strange, how the hell did this leaf get so damn big?

I worked so damn hard to get where I am today. I fought bonesies in light armour and I killed multiple bandits in heavy armour. I became the Thane of Whiterun, (though I am regretting that now. Stupid Lydia, how many times do you need to get stuck on a gate or end up crippled on the floor?).  I also became the head of the college for mages. With this job I even got a set of flashy robes! I look awesome; badass even. All I need to complete the look is that awesome silver mask I picked up after I decapitated that nasty mage. Nice new hooded robes, a nice new looted mask; what more could I ask for!

Beware, people of Skyrim, lock up your sons, for words cannot describe how fabulous, menacing and downright awesome I look! You dragons better watch out, you’re gunna be slain by by one hot Dark Elf! I was on par with the Hagravens before, but now… NOW LOOK AT ME!!

ARRRRRRRRGGH!!! What kind of evil magic is this? I know I’m bloody hideous, but did this clothing combo really need to remove my entire head??!

That’s not just a reflection of the game’s plot which moves us from an ancient feudal Japan with Ninjas and Samurai to a post apocalyptic Neo Zeed future, it’s also reflected in the game’s mechanics. In terms of what the game it reminds me most of is the Shinobi that was ported to the Game Gear back in the day, where you had to have pixel perfect jumps, learn your enemy attack patterns and conserve your health bar like an old age pensioner conserving heat during the cold snap.

The problem is, that this is a modern game in polygons and 3D and even with the slider turned down so your gaming experience is on a flat plain, it’s very hard to replicate the precision that pixels provide. Also, there are no lives. This is great; it means that you don’t have to do the old school thing of starting the game all the way at the start again when you get beaten by the boss, and your karai knives regenerate so you don’t have to find a risky power up box… but then it robs the game of the challenge. You can just go through the game and try as many times as you like, which tends to lend itself to frustration as you will play until you get stuck. This is where the real frustration sets in.

Rather than old school difficulty, Sega have now introduced a scoring system. You get 1000 points for every hit you make on an opponent, but you lose 10,000 every time your opponent hits you, and it also seems you lose quarter of a million points every time you use one of the four magics that get given to you from the beginning.  At the end of the levels I played, I ended up with zero points… and a C+ rating. I hadn’t been playing badly, but I hadn’t memorized the level the way I used to with games like the Game Gear Shinobi.  I could go through to try and get an A or an S score, but I really can’t be bothered. Games aren’t like when I was a kid and I’d buy a game  and that would be it for about three months. These days I have a stack of games to play, a stack of games that are sitting on the pile beneath Skyrim. So I’m not going to devote the time that Shinobi needs… and in this day and age I’m not sure who would.

Another issue is that you get all your abilities at the beginning, so I just ended up using the somersault sword attack all the time, although if it had been more like the Game Gear Shinobi where you freed other ninjas with abilities on the way, then it would have been more satisfying.  It’s kind of annoying when a 20 year old handheld game does it better than the new 3DS version.

The game is solid, fun, there are some nice 3D sections and nice nods to previous games (the bomb in the power up, the highway section), there’s some cool anime sections, but nothing close to the Revenge of Shinobi disco dance, Batman (Devilman?), Spiderman, Hulk and Godzilla bosses. Playing this reminded me more of a game that you would play on your smartphone rather than an A title for a modern handheld. In fact, between this and Samurai Vengeance II, I would choose the madfinger game every time. OK, you could say the top down and side on fighter are apples and oranges, but it shows you what can be done in the genre… and it’s about a fifteenth of the price.

Welcome to the the Video Game Supporting Artist Agency.  I know, I know, you want to be the star of your own game, but we all have to pay our dues.  I’m still waiting for my opportunity, this is just something that I do to earn me enough simoleons so I can keep my Sims Social family happy while I try out for bigger roles.  Things are actually looking up; I was the masked henchman who stood just to the right of the Penguin at the beginning of Batman Arkham City. So work hard and soon you could be in a AAA title like that.

It’s a shame you weren’t in a month or so ago. We were looking for people to be extras in both renaissance and medieval Constantinople, but that’s all been cast now. There was a rumor that they were casting for the corpse in a future LA Noire DLC, but everyone wants to get their face seen in that game… the animation is so good.

If you don’t mind dressing up in a hot dog or salmon costume, there’s probably an opening in the Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking Kinect game. No one lasts there that long.  Of course, if you don’t mind dressing up in a costume, and you’re not adverse to being hit with a giant purple dildo there’s a big casting call over at Saints Row the Third at the moment, but if you do make it big, that’s not the sort of thing you want turning up in the tabloids.

I’ve heard that they may be looking for people to dress up as Goombas for the new Mario Land 3D game; although I warn you, that’s a really boring job.  You just walk backwards and forwards all day in a set pattern. Although the catering is good; all the mushrooms you can eat! There’s Uncharted 3, which is really cinematic but that sand gets everywhere — in all the cracks —  and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be shot in the face then asked to run into the next scene only to get shot in the face again.

No? Well, there is always Skyrim.  It’s nice character work, and every village needs a smithy. It’s a actually a speaking part too, which will look good for a show reel.  It’s just that the game is so damn big that no one will really remember your performance. Still, it’s a lot easier on the eyes than being in a Hello Kitty game, am I right? I can put a call in with Modern Warfare 3. With the way that game’s selling, they may need to cast a whole different set of NPC’s for each region.  Here’s hoping, right?

So, what previous video game experience have you had? What the hell is ‘Bubsy The Bobcat?’. Oh… right. Wasn’t there a really shit 3D game? Oh did I say shit? I meant, ummm, no, just shit… I think the only work you’re going to get is maybe a brief cameo in Sonic Generations, where both Sonics end up pointing and laughing at you.

If you alter your T-shirt logo we could get you a job. as a Block in a Mario game?

I tell you what, it’s not easy.  I used to be Aero the Acrobat. If I were you, I’d try to get some work as one of the furries in Saints Row the Third, and see how things go from there. Though everyone hates furries — just warning you…

Obviously I couldn’t go without my partner in singing crime, Susan (In the event of a singing event that Susan and I both attend, the safety glass may shatter itself). The event was held in a Karaoke Bar called Lucky Voice, which was underneath a Yo Sushi. Because it was underground it looked like a dingy cave. To Susan and I it looked amazing. Exactly the sort of dingy dive that we like to get our song on in (try saying ‘song on in’ fifty times when you’re drunk)!

When we were shown into our Karaoke room, it was like they knew we were coming. Not only was there the singing game, but there was also a box of wearable props. Obviously, I went straight for the wigs and the novelty cowboy hat and Susan went straight for a hat that looked exactly like one she already owns. She could have walked out with it and people would have just assumed that it was hers, but she didn’t. Honest. A true paragon. If she wanted it, she would just have walked out, and if anyone had asked questions, she would have just used her Filipino glare that she inherited from her mother. I think it turned someone to stone once! It even scared the tills in Superdrug when it didn’t show up her multi-buy discounts!

But, you’re not here to read about hats; you would be reading ‘hatter-up.net’ if that were the case. You’re here to hear about We Sing Rock, and what is the most important thing about a singing game? The songs. Fortunately, this game has a great selection. It has some really good songs that you might not expect from a Wii singing game, like ‘I Believe In a Thing Called Love’ by the Darkness (that really did take our voices glass shatteringly high); ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor, which you must have on a Rock singing game by law, I think, and the awesome ‘Final Countdown’ by Europe.

One song in particular stood as as a Karaoke favourite that Susan and I have taken pleasure in massacring in singing sessions before. The anthem, the awesome ‘Alone’ by Heart. After I epically squealed my way through the song in our We Sing cave, without noticing that the door was open and everyone could hear my slightly less than dulcet tones. Still, what I lack in pitch perfection, I more than make up for in terms of passion and epic arm movements!

I kinda panicked when I wondered what other people would think of my singing, but at least I got to see what the game thought of my singing. And the game was part of a Wii, and Wiis are my friends. Or so I thought. The game asked ‘Did any glasses shatter?’. Of course, I was horrifically insulted by that comment, (it’s fine if I say it about myself, not so much if non-sentient devices chip in) and was tempted to shatter the glass of the TV screen but it wasn’t the poor TV’s fault, it was just the middleman, a pawn in this singing game.

I got to see Kevin Leathers, the senior producer of We Sing Rock, who said that he was the brains behind the game having insults but when he saw the Fran glare (not to mention Susan’s ancient Filipino death look) he quickly added that he just had the idea, he hadn’t written any of the insults himself. We asked him the obvious: why did he pick Rock as the genre for the next stage of the We Sing franchise. He said that they gave it to the public to decide, asking on forums and on social network sites what they would like, and the public yelled back “We Want ROCK”!!!

One of the features that can actually help you get better is the fact that the game actually has singing lessons built in, so if I got the game, I might eventually move down from shattering glass and may only shatter plastic rulers instead (shatterproof my pert arse)! Kevin said that it was mainly to help people learn the game, but also to add more to the single-player element, making We Sing Rock a karaoke game that you can play by yourself without needing friends. Not that my friends always stick around when I get stuck into ‘Alone’ for the third time in an evening.

I asked him if I played the game non-stop from now on, would I be able to get on X Factor and meet Gary Barlow for next year’s auditions. He told me that I would definitely get on X Factor (Yay!) but that it wouldn’t be for the right reasons (Boo! Sorry, that gets four ‘Nos’). Still, it’s probably just as well, otherwise this time next year I would be in prison for molesting Take That band members who have really grown into their looks. He said that I didn’t need to sing to get that far, but I want to get to judges’ houses. Well, who wouldn’t want a free holiday in LA with Mr. Barlow?  Still, I do have an incentive to get better, Kevin did say that if I won the X Factor, he would make a game about me… ‘We Sing Fran’… so I’d better get cracking on that music lesson mode then. Fame, fortune, tie-in video games and that hot piece of ass Gary Barlow… Muhahahahahaaa!

We Sing Rock is out next month, so keep an eye out for our, hopefully not so glass shattering review.

HA! I know, I know… I said that it was probably going to fail, but they had a good deal, (and it still might fail). The cloud-based gaming system that beams the video from a high end computer back to your PC or Mac is free but the box that beams the Hi-Def signal back to your TV costs £69.99. Or so I thought. The lucky people who went to Eurogamer picked up a system for free and those that missed out got a voucher to pick up the system for a quid (and £6 handling fee).

I wasn’t even one of those slightly less lucky ones, but they are doing a deal where the first game that you buy through them costs a quid. And one of the games they have on offer is Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  Worth a punt for a quid, I thought. I have regular Sky Broadband, and it worked fine through my crappy old PC that couldn’t even handle the Cataclysm update of WoW.

Then I saw their other special offer.  Damn you special offer… damn you eyes for seeing the special offer!!!

If you pre ordered Saints Row 3 for £34.99, then you got the games system for free (well, nearly free – there was still the £6 shipping and handling charge) – even more than that, if you signed up for their Play Pass (which gives you access to 105 games) for a month, for £6.99 you got 30% off all purchases. So, for Saints Row 3 (£24.49), Deus Ex: Human Revolution (£1), the OnLive console (£6 P&P) and a month’s Play Pass (£6.99 -and you can cancel at any time) just £38.98.  As I wanted Saints Row 3 on my Xbox 360 anyway, it seemed like a pretty good incentive to swap systems just for the one game.

So, the console is very small, a bit like an expensive door stop. Two USB ports on the front, an ethernet connection on the back, power, HDMI and that’s pretty much it. It also comes with a pad and a USB to MICRO usb cable that connects it, as well as an HDMI cable and ethernet cable. The pad is so close to an XBox 360 pad that you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference even if you were very, very drunk, (I will let you know if it ever happens to me). Also there there is a set of record buttons for you to take ‘brag clips’. Something I will use to take those amusing ‘capped in ass’ moments.

Saints Row The Third isn’t out until next month, so I thought I would have a spin on some of the games available as part of the Play Pack Bundle. So, the first game I put in was Batman: Arkham Asylum. People have complained about lag times but to me it seemed just the same as if I was playing on my 360, maybe even better with the level of detail and rendering. It certainly didn’t disappoint.  The buttons were the same too, with the same names, so for me there was very little difference.  Occasionally, the graphical detail drops out but as it’s a video stream it’s not laggy but the screen distorts, kind of like a very mild version of watching a digital TV channel on Freeview when it’s wet outside. So us Brits should see this as a slice of familiar normality.

And it’s cheap. All the games tend to have a free trial, and some games that are outside the ‘Play Pack’ are really cheap.  Underrated shooter Metro 2033 is just £3.99, or £2.79 if you have the PlayPack bundle discount.  If I saw that game for less than £3 for the 360, I would snap it up.  But they need to be a lot cheaper.

If I had pre-ordered Saints Row 3 (which I could do for £31.85) then the odds are that in a couple of months time I could probably get a decent trade in for it, £17 is probably not unrealistic, which means that the game would really cost me about £15. Also, I can loan it to my friends, keep it, and not worry about losing it if the company shuts down. The OnLive system does have some cool games, but there are a lot of cool games that it doesn’t have. If you’re an Xbox owner that’s annoyed by the Playstation 3 exclusives, then most of the main titles for both systems are going to seem like other system exclusives for the OnLive user. And what about the games that the system will never get?  Well, why don’t you go over and have a look at Steam, because a load of those games will take a while to come out on OnLive and in the case of Valve and EA, that might be never.

True, I can’t play these games on my PC, Mac, Tablet or smartphone but I really don’t want to. What I really want is for them to get the license for World of Warcraft so I can play Cataclysm on a kick ass spec PC on my crappy little unit or even plug a usb keyboard and mouse into the OnLive unit so I can live the dream of playing WoW on the big screen! My little Gnomy, not so skinny and boney.  I’m sorry, but Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga… say whaaaaaaat?

But what about all those PC games that you can finally play on a console? Well, I tried. I thought I would try and play a game of Astro Slugs.  But I couldn’t. Because I couldn’t type my name in.  When I played 4 Elements, it told me that with a keypress I could bring up a virtual keyboard, which then turned semi transparent and I couldn’t see anything. And the game was designed for a mouse, and was frustrating as hell itself to try and play with a keypad.  From the games in the Play Pack bundle, the only ones I was interested in playing on a console format were Just Cause 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Borderlands, Saints Row 2, Tomb Raider and World of Goo, and I already owned all of those! And I don’t have to pay £6.99 a month to play them. I may be exaggerating a little but when 2004 game Evil Genius is one of the free games on offer, you wonder how good the rest of the games you never heard of are?

Hey, it’s a cheap experiment. It’s another plastic wired block to add to the collection. I got to be an early adopter, and if enough of these things are sold then the game catalogue might get better.  If they aren’t, then hopefully someone will work out how to put XBLA on it with a USB drive. Either that or it’s the most technological door stop I will have ever owned…

Why is this, I hear no one ask? Because I think it’s still a little behind what anyone else wants.  Look at the Xperia Play.  For those of you that don’t know, it’s basically an android phone blended together with a PSP Go. You can use it as a portable and download all the stuff you already have from the PlayStation Store (like those free games you got when the site was hacked) and also use it as an Android phone.  The problem is, they should have done it five years ago. Back then, Sony Ericsson was one of the gold standard phone manufacturers, the PSP was just a year old and the iPhone was still a year away. A PSP can still blow the iPhone 4 away in terms of graphical power, even after the Apple produce has gone through its fourth iteration. If it had been a choice in 2007 between an Xperia Play and an iPhone, that would have been a real choice.  Now you would get an Xperia Play because you couldn’t afford an iPhone.The new demo of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the Vita version of the game has gone online and it demonstrates that you can use the touch screen to control the game like a iPhone game.  It has a proper joypad and buttons.  Why do you want to smear the screen with your fingerprints if you don’t have to! You have a whole touch pad on the back so you can ‘touch’ the screen without obscuring the action with your finger! If you want to make the console like an iPhone why don’t you make it a real competitor?Make it a phone! Why not? If you’re going to have a 3G antenna anyway (which you have to pay the equivalent of £17 to join in Japan, and then if you decided to drop the monthly 3G service, £17 every time you want to reconnect! Say whaaaaaat!) With the iPhone 5 coming, (and the dual core Android phones like the Galaxy S 2 .. and soon quad cores) the consumers are likely to see few advantages to buying a Vita than getting a new generation phone.

I have an Android phone… and I love it but sometimes I feel I would love it more if the bottom corners of the display of every game weren’t taken up by my thumbs. (I hate thumbs, especially my thumbs after eating YumYums). Games have evolved to be played in a square, not a top heavy triangle.  Plus, as strange as it sounds, people seem to forget how satisfying the feedback of actually pressing a button is. I love it. I would push the ‘DO NOT PUSH’ button if I knew it was gunna give me feedback. Plus, the dual analogue stick system that has been toyed around with in various ways since the Dual Shock 2 seems as though it will be the ultimate evolution of the joypad until we develop the science to give us an extra set of thumbs!

What would I really like; I would like to take the PS Vita, and also make it a phone (Android, I guess but I would be happy if I could just make calls on it so I could stop having to carry another thing around in my pocket). Also, I would merge it with a 3DS, so the screen could be glasses free 3D with a slider if I wanted it and the thing could be a clamshell so the screen is protected and not always getting smudged, and you have the option of using a stylus.  Also, it would be pretty cool, and not impossible for it to have one of those laser keyboard projectors in it when you set it on a table in the bottom of the clamshell and a pico projector on the top so you could put the image on your phone up on the wall, (and it could also include a handy bottle opener, a Star Trek style replicator and a telescopic Samurai sword for the inevitable zombie attack… ok maybe not those three). The point is, this is all existing technology and if you want to take on Apple, you have to offer something much greater than the current technology is.  And I know, the Vita is a handheld console, not a smartphone but those worlds are merging.  It’s no longer apples and oranges… it’s apanges and orples, erm yeh, (I assure you I’m not having a stroke). And once again, it seems that the handheld consoles are moving behind the times of other technology. It happened with Sega when the Dreamcast wasn’t a DVD player when the PS2 was and a lot of PS3’s sold on the strength of their Blu-Ray players and the constant hours worth of Come Dine With Me.

It seems like a bold statement, but unless they start offering a lot more, the 3DS and the PS Vita could be the last standalone hand held consoles… before Sony and Nintendo go the way of Sega and realize they could make more money producing apps for the iPhone than they can trying to market their own consoles.

The above is what I’d like to think happened, instead my day was very different (bloody security guards spoiling my fun). Instead I was at the Imperial War Museum in London. It’s a pretty impressive building full of tanks, subs, aircraft and massive bloody missiles. The second I got there I was loving it! But that’s not what I was there for, no way! No, none of those bastard tanks were for me to accidentally drive off with, neither were there planes for me to fly away in. I was there for one mission only: The Cursed Crusade!

The Cursed Crusade is exactly the kinda genre I love. Developed by Kylotonn, a French video games company, the game is set in medieval times. It’s a third person action adventure game and it contains hot male character models wearing a lot of armour. Having had a go on the game, I was presently surprised, so surprised in fact that I took to the game as if it were my only child. Loving it, showing great happiness towards it, and then swearing and beating the crap out of it (by the way, I have no children, you don’t need to ring social services. I also love erm, all children, great and small).

The story is about two characters, Denz and Esteban, and they need to find Denz’s missing father, who should be able to lift a curse that has been put upon the two characters. The curse is like something from hell and when activated you go all horny and red, in the devil way, not the chasing after wenches way. The control system was really easy to pick up; I impressed the guy showing me how to play the game. You would expect nothing less of me though, really, girl power and all that other crap. The fights were bloody, messy, hack and slashy fights yet they were not button bashy fights and I could dual wield two different weapons at the same time. The enemy deaths were brutal and brilliant to watch and the environment looked pretty amongst all of the dead and severed heads. I had a cheeky grin the whole time I was playing it!

You can play this game in co-op. I was lucky enough to bump into some of the usual suspects I’ve become friends with on other gaming sites and had a go on co-op with my chum Svend. Co-op was fun, but then co-op in my opinion is always fun. And if you can pull off the tag team style move, it’s bloody awesome and you needed to give each other at least a ‘Dumb and Dumber’ style high five!

Now this is normally where we would say ‘laters’ and all go home. But, no, us ‘journos’ were in for a treat. In another room there were a group of guys, covered in medieval armour and wielding their massive swords triumphantly. They gave us a demonstration of sword and axe fighting. The same weaponry and stuff as I’d just seen in the game. A company called History In The Making supplied all the weapons and costumes these guys were wearing. They have also been used on TV shows and feature films shot in the UK. They even brought in medieval backdrops. The place looked like a bloody castle. It was great. The ‘guys’ in all the armour are actually period actors, and they do stunts and sword fighting for a living! I was very jealous.

It was all really impressive to watch ‘the guys’ battle it out, but you could tell people just wanted to grab swords and chop anything in sight, myself being one of them. As soon as we were allowed to try out all the shizzle, I went straight for the biggest weapon I could find. I found an axe, and because I needed to look the part (you know me when it comes to costumes), I got to try on some ‘mail’. Mail, probably known better as chain mail, was never actually called ‘chain mail’, as the mail is what the chain suit is called. It would be as if we were calling it ‘mail mail’ or ‘chain chain’ or something. Either way, I had to try it on. It took two people to put the bloody thing on me as it weighed a lot but once it was on, I could have worn it all day. It was so cool against my skin, like a soothing Aloe Vera gel except made from holey metal. I had a mail hood on as well, that also felt nice. They wouldn’t let me keep it. Boo!

Then I was given a Claymore to play with. A very nice Scottish man (with fabulous hair) then taught me how to wield a sword properly. Possibly the greatest thing I have ever been taught since learning how to not burn skinny fries. The movement done with the feet was very much like martial art stances, and this helped produce power to swing the sword. I was practising on a wooden target but if it were a human being, it would have lost its left arm, and its head,  but only after I’d broken its nose with the chunk of metal attached to the sword handle. This experience has taught me how to defend myself for when the zombies attack or in case those bloody killer tomatoes return to get us.

There were various other weapons and armour, shields and helmets. I pretty much tried out everything. I could have walked out with the gauntlets. They made my tiny little hands look all mighty against my weedy little arms. You could do a very good Doctor Claw impression and I did the most menacing evil villain ‘Muhahahaha’ finger taps ever! All of this sword fighting and axe wielding excitement wasn’t there to cover up a game that might be flawed, or even a bit rubbish and rushed. I really liked the game before I even stepped foot into the medieval battle zone and I look forward to playing The Cursed Crusade in the near future. This swordfest was just a great added bonus and I thank everyone involved in creating this amazing event. The Cursed Crusade is out on the 7th of October and I highly recommend having a cheeky look, and not just at the males in mail.

Recently, I got back into my Harry Potter obsession from 10 years ago. Okay, I will admit now, I have never read the books, but once I saw the last movie, the urge for more ‘Potter’ was needed. I then discovered the wonder of the Steven Fry audiobooks, (I am actually really pleased I never read the books now because the joys of listening to Fry’s Hermione impressions are bloody awesome).  So, after buying my Snape action figure, Draco Malfoy mini bust, and also the official Slytherin uniform including, scarf, robes, tie, grey jersey, prefect badge and a Death Eater wand, I wanted to experience the video game. Well why not? I do love those bastard video games too.

Back in the day, I had Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on PS1 which was  pretty fun. Then later I got the Quidditch World Cup on the Gamecube (and then more recently on the original Xbox) and found that it was actually a pretty fun game and I got to play as Slytherin (my chosen house if you haven’t already guessed). Having just seen the Deathly Hallows movie, I was tempted to get the last game, but reviews saying that it was the worst Harry Potter game (if not the worst game ever) put me off. The series only went next generation with the fifth film, so I figured that I could pick up Order of the Phoenix pretty cheaply. Then read that Half Blood Prince was pretty much the same game, but with entertaining, non broken mini games, and a Nearly Headless Nick stopping you from getting randomly lost, so I bought that one instead. I hate getting lost in games!

I found the game to be exactly what I wanted. Why, because the ‘Grand Theft Hogwarts’ style game allowed me to wander round Hogwarts. I got to see how the Gryffindor common room linked to the main staircase, and I got a solid sense of the geography of the game that I didn’t get from the films (or from listening to the books). Yes, the mini games are repetitive, but they’re a lot more fun than the mini games were in Bully, and Hogwarts is a much more interesting place than Bulworth Academy. Hogwarts itself looked very impressive. Detailed portraits hung on the walls, other students wandering around the halls and vast outdoor landscapes which you can also explore.

At the time, the game wasn’t given amazing reviews, firstly because it was largely a retread of a game that was two years old by the time it was released.  But having not played a Potter game since Quidditch World Cup, it’s one of the most solid, pacy and fun games that I have played in a while.  If I hadn’t been gripped by my recent Potter obsession, I don’t know if I would have ever picked it up but I’m glad I did.  Not only is it a fun game, it’s a good example of a film tie in done right.

1. Don’t just concentrate on the main character models, concentrate on the world.
2. Make sure that it’s fun… shouldn’t be that hard to do… really…
3. If your franchise appeals to kids, make the basic game easy to get through, but include enough secrets and challenges to keep older audiences interested.
4. Don’t try and make Gears of War with wands.  Twice.  It’s not going to work either time, EA, no matter how cool the Harry Potter franchise is.
5. Release DLC for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince so I can play through Malfoy’s story and get some extreme close ups on that icy blond piece of sexy Slytherin ass!

I have also watched nearly everything that he has worked on except for The Office (Gervais is the reason behind why I didn’t watch it, I hated his character so much) and this is because I admire him as a person but also I find his gangly goggle eyed dork face quite charming and, erm, kinda sexy in some odd, freakish sort of way. I think we also have a similar humour. A little bit dry and quick witted and it’s really unique when you come across someone who’s style of humor is exactly the same as yours. Perhaps scary is a better word to use.

When I discovered that he was going to be a voice actor in Portal 2 I was just in utter awe. I did star jumps, fist pumps and made a delicous cake (which is a lie, you know I can’t cook). It made me want the game, (that I wanted badly enough already) even bloody more. Even more than Haribo for breakfast.

After playing all of Portal 2, it showed to me that the part of Wheatley was made for Merchant. His voice acting is amazing, the way he can show great emotion in his words and show this strange caring yet evil side all at once. All the voice acting in Portal 2 is fantastic, but with Merchant vocals, it gives the game a much more human approach. His sarcastic humor was perfect, and I think this is very rare in games today. It was such a contrast compared to GLaDOS’s harsh and robotic voice and Cave Johnson’s shouty, militant voice. And though it seemed slightly strange to start with, the mixing of a very human amusing Bristol accent worked really well. Obviously Valve thought his voice was amazing too and that’s why they left it untouched by technology.

I’d like to know how many games could be improved by just using Merchant’s voice.  The new Earth Defence Force would be awesome, if now and then you’d hear, “Ohhh! Look at the size of that bloody bug!” in native Bristolian. Or in Gears of War 3, “yes, erm it seems like I need to kill this monster, in the ‘most’ horrific way possible, isn’t that right Marcus? Yes, ok, I will probably do that… erm can you do it first?” My personal favourite would be to get Stephen Merchant to redub Get Fit With Mel B on Xbox 360 Kinect. This fitness game is actually pretty good except for the fact you have to put up with Mel B’s stupid voice. Merchant would make me want to workout everyday… “Ohh you did a little jiggle there, a lovely little jiggle! Fantastic… That’s it, that is some good leg, erm, leggage… Finish that workout and you can treat yourself to a lovely piece of muffin!”

I’m going to see Stephen Merchant in September for his ‘Hello Ladies’ tour. I managed to get a front row ticket and I will be there wearing one of my many Portal 2 T-shirts. I may even make an ‘I <3 Wheatley’ T-shirt especially for him. The lanky shit better notice it too, or I may have to start calling him the dumbest moron who ever lived… then Portal him into space… and then I would say I was genuinely sorry.

I sit down with friends who have an iPhone 4, and we get into a debate.  App Store vs. market, iTunes vs. drag and drop, retina displays vs. AMOLED displays, the best build quality in the market vs. something a third of the price, iOS5 vs Gingerbread, widgets vs. stability etc. ad infinitum.  In fact, it reminded me of something I used to do as a kid… argue about the Super Nintendo and the Megadrive.  More games vs. adult games (but you can make the blood red in Mortal Kombat with a cheat code), Mode 7 vs parallax scrolling, Sonic vs. Mario, “You smell” vs “Your mum smells”. And it looks like the iPhone and Android phones may have become the big games systems of the future. (And I’m sorry for the Windows 7 phone users who love their Xbox Live integration, but after the Zune and Microsoft’s late entry… I think the platform is the equivalent of the Amstrad GX400… even if Nokia is teaming up with them… after all, Panasonic teamed up with 3DO!)

Why? First of all there’s the install base.  Apple claims they have 200 million people using iOS devices, now Android have 130 million – and they’re growing fast, with 550,000 activations a day, and predictions that could rise to a million by the end of the year (so, ner, Apple!). Secondly, there’s the development.  People can do it in their back room.  Google have even invented a system where you can piece bits of Android code together like jigsaw pieces to make your own apps.  It’s like the community games that people make for Little Big Planet being put online and suddenly getting 10 million downloads. If a game got 10 million sales, it would be a blockbuster.  Then again, a game that sells for £39.99 is a lot better than a game that sells for free (well, financially speaking at least, I’d take my free version of Paradise Island over Duke Nukem 3D any day!).

It does mean that people are going back to gameplay.  People are looking for simple and fun – in a way, games have gone back to the NES era, where people would play for entertainment and high scores (BTW – how nice is it to see sprites again?).  Give them a graphical knock down and versions of Doodle Jump and Angry Birds could easily be remade on the NES. Although for every great new innovative game you get, you get a million poor clones… how many versions of Bejeweled does the world need? (Answer, not seventy five frickin’ billion of them!) And theft is rife, not just the people looking back at the NES and SNES back catalogue and ripping off Tetris Attack (although can I find one good rip off of Hatris, no I can’t!) but even ripping off new ideas, like Capcom Mobile’s well documented rip off of Explosion Man, MaXplosion (even after Twisted Pixel came to Capcom for a distribution deal). I give it a month before there are a whole bunch of Apparatus clones clogging up the Android market.

Remake me damn you!

Add to that the number of emulators you can get.  On iOS, you can get versions of some Megadrive games, but on Android, why bother when you can download emulators for free! In a way, it would be nice to see more regulation, but also more studio involvement from looking at their back titles.  I never got to play Rocket: Robot on Wheels the first time, but it’s a great little game – well suited for play on the go – but it would be so much better if you could have proper accelerometer control.  Come on DMA, the next Grand Theft Auto is important – but the game already works! Why not spend an afternoon making the controls match up and rereleasing it for 59p (and while we’re at it, Gamefreak… you need to take an afternoon off from Pokemon to release a decent port of Drill Dozer! GBA games work SO WELL on Android emulation).

That’s is also the problem with games on the iPhone and Android at the moment – the price.  Microsoft actually set a pretty decent price point when it came to XBox Live Arcade, with some bigger arcade games costing 1200 points (£10), lesser titles costing 800 (£6.50) and retro games costing 400 (£3.25) – roughly. This means that people could make a clear profit.  When Apple started charging for games, the 99 cent price point came in, meaning that people are now wary of spending more than 59p on a game.  Great if you’re a guy in your bedroom, not so great if you’re a big studio… especially as both Android and Apple take 30% of any money you make.  This leads the big studios to try and get you to download their programs from websites off the main market – as a result they don’t get the sales they want, so then don’t commit fully to the smartphone game market. At the moment, of the big game publishers, only EA, Capcom and Namco seem to have any kind of presence in the Android marketplace, although Sega and Capcom have joined the AppStore.

Age of Zombies - Arrgh, Brains!

So – now is the time to get involved. And I actually am getting involved (watch this space). The most expensive game on Android market is a Japanese RPG that still clocks in at under a tenner.  People are having ideas and making games that can be directly sold to the consumers.  There’s a small window of time before the big studios realize that they can’t ignore a combined market of 330 million users in iOS and Android.  Where else would a game as awesome, but short as Halfbrick’s Age of Zombies be the equivalent of an AAA?  So, play games, make games (a decent Metroidvania style game please), talk about games and maybe even review games on these platforms (certainly tell me your recommendations in the comments) – because I can tell you this… more people will play Angry Birds (which I bloody hate) than any game that will ever be released for the PlayStation Vita. And there are exciting times to come…  both iOS and Android need their killer apps – and I can’t wait for Apple’s version of Mario to take on Android’s version of Sonic in the 2032 Olympics.

My friends Laura and Matt - not oddballs!

When I was at primary school (man this is going back two decades now) we had a fancy dress competition. I can’t remember why we had the competition, all I remember is that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be in it. I had a couple of weeks to get a costume together, and the costume I chose came together by accident. I had a pair of blue dungarees, (I’m sure you can see where this is leading) I had a long sleeved red T-shirt, I was given a red cap and some white gloves, (I wasn’t given any extra padding to make my tiny body fat). With all these items there was only one character I could be. The guy from the Go Compare? No you crazy fools, I was Mario!

As a young kid I was a major Nintendo fan. I loved Mario, Star Fox, just anything Nintendo. All my friends were fans of Mario too and I thought it would be really cool if I dressed up as Mario for the competition. With the clothing items I had collected and my paper ‘tash that was coloured-in with brown felt tip pens then sellotaped to my face this was definitely my first experience of any type of cosplay (or even crossplay, something that will disturb you when you first come across it).

It felt so great, everyone who dressed up including myself were showing off our outfits. I always remember the other kids chanting “Mario, Mario, Mario!” I really felt like I was going to win.

I didn’t win, the headteacher who was judging the competition picked a girl who dressed up as the main character from her favourite book. I can’t even remember what it was. I was too busy playing my Gameboy to read. Even with the biased judging, I knew I did great. I was so proud of my costume even though it was, thinking about it now, really rubbish, but for the many years I have now been cosplaying I am always very proud of my hard work and of the work of the other cosplayers.

But now, according to the ‘Daily Star’ I have been an ‘oddball’ since the age of 7.

“Mad Big Brother wannabes are lining up to join the show and make the next series the wackiest-ever to hit telly screens. They turned out in their droves as show bosses trawled a comic book convention for future housemates. Staff hoped London’s Comic Con event would offer up some of the nation’s biggest oddballs.”

Me and Susan DEFINITELY NOT ODDBALLS!!!!11

Oddballs, hmm, I think they are mistaking cosplayers for mentalists such as Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan (or the inevitable celebrity couple ‘Sheehan’). It really is as if Big Brother assume cosplayers are wacky loons who have no grip on real life, (hmm well they haven’t met me yet). Some cosplayers can come across like this, but it’s only because they are young and have found a place where they finally fit in. They can meet friends that have the same interests, express themselves and not feel alone, this is the amazing thing about cosplay.

Viewtiful Susan and Rob, Edgeworth Svend and geisha Amanda - NOT ODDBALLS!!

Big Brother can only choose people aged 18 years old and over. Older cosplayers are very different from the younger ones. They are not crazy and dorky, (all the time) they often have jobs, ones where real money is involved, and we are not always playing video games, well I do, but it’s part of the job description.  As you might think, the cosplay community have gone crazy mad and I for one, also have a major issue with this.

Steph 'Tails', THE DUKE and erm, my sister as a Banana - NOT ODDBALLS!

I hardly ever complain about things like this, yes I may moan about the kooky kids at conventions because of being accidently beaten up by their massive swords, but this is affecting my friends. Though I must say, if any cosplayers do get put into the Big Brother house, they will be the most normal people in there. I for one have actually applied to this cock-up of a show, mainly because if I do get in, I’m gunna set the record straight (and possibly get a children’s TV presenter job out of it), and hopefully make those idiots at Channel 5 look like something far worse than freaking oddballs, but like a mutated, deformed version of Lindsay Lohan that has merged with the cast of The Only Way Is Essex!

Oh yes, you will be Vajazzeled!

I have been lucky enough to have attended all the Summer of Sonic events. Myself and Ready Up’s Susan went to the very first event back in 2008 which was held in a teeny tiny venue. It had a few Sonic rarities to drool over and wish you could own (or at least plot a way to steal). Also Sega music guru Richard Jacques and Sonic R singer TJ Davies were there to entertain our ears but still nothing really to buy and not enough entertainment to make you stay at the event for very long.

Then the event got bigger. More people attended, the venues got bigger, the celebrities got bigger and last year’s highlight (other than me in Space Channel 5 garb, of course) was the uber amazing Crush 40 who performed live. There was much more to do and the cosplay competition was huge. So many Sonic fans in various costumes from various games, but there was no air conditioning at the venue so my Ulala costume actually welded itself to my skin, (that was amusing for my friend Laura Dagless, the lucky girl who had to pull the PVC outfit off my mostly naked body).

This year is Sonic’s 20^th anniversary (damn that makes me feel old now)! So I am pretty sure the fantastic organisers of this year’s Summer of Sonic event have something amazing planned to celebrate everyone’s favourite hedgehog… (no, not that little bastard Shadow).

SoS 2011 is taking place in the Camden Centre in London on June 25th. For those (like me) who don’t eat, live and breathe London, Camden Centre is opposite the main exit/entrance to Kings Cross and St. Pancras train stations. Now, that is bloody convenient! Also like the previous SoS’s the event is still free! Yes free, that means no money for tickets. Zero, kaputski! Though this year I am told there will be food stuff to buy. Hopefully that means Chili Dogs and ‘ring’ doughnuts. Well that’s what I’d like to see, (take note, SEGA).

This year doors will open at 9am and close at 8pm, the earliest it has ever started at. This means I will need to get up bloody early to get the coach from Oxford to get into London for 9am… but I will do it for my dear chum Sonic and for blasted cosplay. Yes I am going… that really shouldn’t surprise anyone. I am also going with my secret weapon when it comes to the cosplay competition… it’s long, blue and can be used as a two-handed mace to wield if needed.

I am keeping details of my costume to a minimum so I can (attempt to) wow and astound everyone once I get there… because last year I was robbed! Shamefully robbed! It seems nobody really likes tight PVC hoop skirts and a hip wiggle that should have stunned and weakened the masses. It turns out that if you are an exceedingly round and bold man with a thirst for global domination, power can get you anywhere. Or just being a bit evil with a plastic gun held to the back of the cosplay host’s head might also do it… I shall remember that. Muhahaha…

My friends at Summer of Sonic aren’t giving anything away, but I was able to score a small amount of information in exchange for a small amount of Ulala upskirt shot (the things I do for you guys!!). Okay that’s a lie – though I may use that plan to get votes for the cosplay competition…

There are some confirmed special guests so far; flying all the way over from America and who works on the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, head writer Ian Flynn and lead artist Tracy Yardley! (that’s not the end of the sentence, the exclamation point is part of his name, apparently. I want an exclamation point as part of my name, henceforth I shall be called Fr!an). There are still loads to be announced  but you can keep track of things on the Summer of Sonic website.

Registration for tickets is now open but to be honest because of the popularity of this event the registration will probably close before I bloody well post up this blog. At time of writing over 500 people had registered. So if it is still open by the time you read this, PLEASE REGISTER! And witness the glory that is me winning the cosplay competition by any means necessary! Hopefully. Unless Dr Robotnik starts offering upskirts too…

I wrote my own song, I wowed my agent with charm and enthusiasm, I even packed my own lunch. I was then told that if I lost a few stone, got an entire body transplant with additional botox and implants I might have a chance to make it big in some place like Taiwan or Canada. Great start don’t you think? So you may be thinking why on earth am I back here writing another one of my rubbish guides to rubbish rubbishness?

Well it turns out that I am back by popular demand… who would have thought it, little ole fat me, having a fan base… of three people. I just feel so proud. My top fan is a delightful young fellow called Scott – he reminds me of when I was in my 20’s – young, free, cocktails and karaoke. They are such fond memories. So because of this wonderful news, and the fact I need the money for the 67 operations to change my skeletal structure, I am here to write you… wait for it… TAA DAAA! A Mayor’s Guide To Video Game Food.

There is a lot of food in video games. Take my Isle Delfino for instance. Covered on all sorts of delicious fruits. Other places in the gaming world have different types of food… and as I am no longer allowed to eat anything with more calories than a small stick of celery, I am going to have to reminisce about a few of my favourite delicacies.

The various types of mushrooms from the mushroom kingdom are probably a good place to start. They have mushrooms that make you big and mushrooms that make you small, some that will build you a small wall to help you hop over obstacles and others that will give your old banger the speed of a Ferrari.

There are also many recipes that use mushrooms, especially in Super Paper Mario. For instance, to make a shroom steak, you need to mix a life shroom with a regular mushroom, to make a volt shroom you need to mixed a thunder rage with a regular mush, and to make an omelette meal you need to mix a mushroom, mixed with errr, um, well an egg. Yummm, a delicious fried egg. No wonder I grew so round and jolly!

Sometimes foods can be a total mystery. Literally a mystery. If you ever find yourself on Mass Effects 2’s Illium, make sure you stop off for a cheeky beverage at the Eternity lounge. The bartender is a lovely Asari; a bit of an older lady but exceedingly charming. I sampled the mystery drink when I was on holiday there last year, and after a few mystery drinks my god did that Asari look… well, aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

I would not, on the other hand, recommend a Poison Dart Frog. Originally native to the rain forests of Central and South America. Poison Dart Frogs carry enough deadly toxin to kill 25 human beings. Yes those human beings again. Human beings shouldn’t even touch the little buggers for fear of being poisoned. And anyway, they do taste very bad. Very bad indeed. Yes, my species is immune to the deadly poison but that doesn’t mean it tastes any good. I’d rather eat a KFC Double Down covered in… another, much larger KFC Double Down. I would also not advise any of the stars of the Frogger games to accidentally wander near a hungry Snake.

So here it is!

Carb loading, carb loading yeeeah!
Sweet eating, sweet eating yeeeah!
Iced bun bun bun!!
Lookin’ forward to a fryyyyy up…

(Eeeeerrrrrrrrgh…. cough. cough…)

Oh dear, I’ve worked up such an appetite now, where’s a poison tree frog when you need it?

I know I’m damn busy at the moment but I assumed you knew why I was so damn busy! Yet even when I try and spend time with you, you hang around for a second then bugger off back to your home. Saying some sort of rubbish, (though I can’t quite make out what you’re saying) as you walk away from me.  That time I came in wearing my sexy black leather dress you still didn’t give a shit! How could you ignore that fantastic piece of ass! I’ve shown you the god damn universe, I gave you a nice place to live and how do you repay me? You just stare at me and then run away when the going gets tough.

Okay, maybe you don’t like the fact I have my boyfriend over for a few nights, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from being my friend, you stupid jerk! He’s a nice guy who looks after me. He has a good scar… maybe you’re jealous? I prefer the lizard type to be honest. But even so, I think it’s more of a personal attack on me than anything else.

I had a friend just like you once many years ago. His name was Boo. Sweet, friendly, and enjoyed my company. And wasn’t put off by facial markings and glowing red scars. Yet you’re just not willing to get to know me. You just look at my exterior and judge me and I don’t think that’s fair on me. I could break your legs into teeny pieces if I wanted to, but then that wouldn’t be fair on you would it (though I am still tempted).

You should never judge a book by its cover, ever. It’s what’s inside that counts and it’s also what’s inside that instigates the beatings. But you still seem to just judge me. Or maybe it’s not just me? Maybe you just hate everyone. I keep thinking, have I done something to offend you? Have I scared you in some way? If I have then I wish I could do something to change that. But it does seem that how ever much I try, you wont even give me a chance. I think I’m just gunna give up. I’m not wasting any more of my precious time trying to interact with you. Let’s see how you like to be neglected.

…Damn you, Space Hamster! I paid good money for you, and all you do is jack shit!!!

At least when I got fed up with the fish I just let them die! But no, you’re also bloody invincible.

After the bland language of Final Fantasy 13 and most Japanese RPGs these days, it came as quite a shock. I don’t think there was one dialogue scene where Barrett didn’t shout the word ’shit’ at something or someone, while gun arm punching and hell yeah-ing their bad ass to the floor. Cloud even freaks out and has a swear when he’s dangling off a broken bridge and is about to fall. And rightly so; I’d be bloody swearing if I were in his position as well. For swearing more intense than shit, there are also a goodly amount of *%$&!! and #$*&^%!! that crop up throughout the game. And this is one of the reasons Final Fantasy 7 is one of my all time favourite games. Yes, the characters look cool, the story is deep and the amount of things you can do in the game and the freedom you have has still not graced today’s RPGs. But it’s the emotion and the realism that lies within the dialogue that gets me all giddy with delight! I mean, Barrett should say shit, shouldn’t he.  It lends an air of truth and…. big word alert… verisimilitude that is missing from a lot of modern games.

The realism spreads beyond the main characters throughout the entire world of Midgar.  The place is full of lowlife scum, vigilantes and stray dogs; it reminds me of a strange mix between Jersey Shore (and if you don’t know what Jersey Shore is, count yourself lucky and stay far away from it) and Murder She Wrote. They may be strange mutants, but they will always help you politely in your quest, holding back information until the last minute… and Jessica Fletcher is a black man with a gun for an arm.

It’s not just the swearing that gives FF7 character, it’s the maturity of some of the things the characters say, and the unbelievable things they come out with. Just so much more life-like than anything else I have played before. However odd some of the translations in the game are, they did a bloody good job, in my eyes, to capture what the character would be like in the situation they are in. It’s not all shits and giggles after all. They are trying to rescue their planet from a variety of monsters, big-ass dragons and a psychotic mummy’s boy with extra long silver hair which puts my not so long silver hair to shame. The git.

Maybe I like the FF7 characters so much because they speak in a way I can relate to. They talk to each other how I would talk to my friends. Maturity with dry wit and the odd swear word or three (comparable to ten minutes of a Jeremy Kyle show, just without the dry wit and maturity). I actually feel quite distant from other Final Fantasy games. Unwelcome and shunned, like I shouldn’t be there playing the game just in case one of the characters turn around and notice me. And with emo fringe positioned over one eye they give me an evil glare that rips though my soul like an episode of Eastenders, that has come alive as a humanoid mecha Eastender droid. Made up by cast members and the parts of the laundrette and the Arches. With Ian Beale for one of the legs, Dot Cotton as one of the arms wielding a giant cigarette sabre. And as for the head, the Queen Victoria brass bust from the Queen Vic pub sits on top on the depressing, cockney fish ‘n’ chip shop beast! With laser beams that emit from its eyes, it wreaks havoc on the lives of innocent bystanders and destroys everything in its path! Well until Corrie creates there own droid. Who would win? Let’s find out. FIGHT! As you can tell, I feel strongly about it.

So what has happened to all the swearing – and character – in the Final Fantasies? You only seem to get swearing in games filled with large beefy Gears of War style man-men or from the mouths of any 14 years old kids you encounter in a FPS multiplayer game. With their Justin Beiber haircuts, full flawless facial features and whiny voices, the new fangled ‘team emo’ are in today’s Final Fantasy games. Yes the Team Emo trend did start off life in FF8 but then Squaresoft repented their terrible sins by making FF9, (Square Enix have yet to do that with any FF title after that). Now they’re back, and they still manage to have about as much emotion as a brand new dishwasher brush. The emotion in FF13 feels like a bad soap opera mixed with a sci-fi B-movie, and seriously, do we really need the constant stepping sound effect when your character runs? Clank clank clank!

So… what would I ideally like to see in the next Final Fantasy, so that I could stop complaining and reinvigorate my love of the franchise?  I may not have really enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since Steiner and Vivi were involved, but I have bought and played every one since because of the loyalty they engendered with me in Final Fantasy 7.  And I’m not saying they should just bring back the Final Fantasy 7 characters – at least not until I’ve finished Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core on the PSP.

It was first a game for the PC, released in 2009 by a team that had worked on Diablo, Diablo II, Fate and Mythos – so these guys knew what they were doing. A very loyal and involved fan-base means that the game has a sense of balance and depth that is often missing from XBLA games (not Beyond Good and Evil HD, obviously), and unlike some console games that have been adapted from the PC, the control system has been completely reworked so that it’s appropriate to the console.  There’s no XBox 360 ‘Command and Conquer’ style frustration here. You walk around and fire your weapons, of which there are a huge variety, and the look of your character actually changes with each one!

You’ll find yourself presented with an initially fairly daunting inventory screen, which turns out to be one of the best RPG inventory screens that has ever been invented.  If you have just picked up a weapon or piece of armor that is better than what you are wearing, then a green arrow will tell you. Things that are categorically worse than the items that you have with you have a red arrow, and you don’t even need to dump them half way through a quest as you have no inventory slots left, you can give them to your pet (a wolf, lynx or slithery lizard XBLA exclusive thing) who’ll take them to the shop to sell them for you – which for a compulsive hoarder like me is AMAZING. In the town, weapons can be set with attribute-giving jewels, and even enchanted for new powers. They can be ranged, magical, close-combat, one-handed or two-handed; you’ll find your favorites and stick with them for a while, before something cooler and nastier comes along… which you have to level up to use. This gives a real incentive to doing side-quests as well as advancing the main story. It’s the first time that the inventory hasn’t got in the way of my enjoyment of the game.

There are also stats to upgrade to allow the use of items and skill points that you can use to gain different abilities you can map to the buttons you want, with easily swappable on the fly ‘skill sets’. And those skill sets change depending on whether you are a Vanquisher, Destroyer or Alchemist.  If you play a cool-looking, sexy Vanquisher like me, I recommend you start investing in your trap quite heavily, quite quickly.  It’s awesome!  I miss not having my mystical flame thrower when I’m playing Dragon Age II.  That’s right, my loyalties have been torn between Torchlight and a game whose predecessor I loved so much I had a Grey Warden griffon tattooed on my back. The game even has a little bit of a steampunk vibe. You can learn spells, teach your pet spells… hell, you can even give it jewelery.  If you can find it something that helps it withstand poison attacks, do it – my wolf seems to love to jump in to the nasty green stuff. Oh, and health and mana potions are automatically stacked and easy to use.

So, what about the problems? Well, to be honest – there aren’t that many.  The levels are always fresh due to a random dungeon feature that links together pre-rendered sections, as well as including certain set pieces, and the dungeons look different too!  There are always areas to explore, but the dungeons never tend to make you get lost. The automap (a feature that comes from the PC’s Torchlight 2 development) does help you work out where you are, although it’s not always quite clear what you’re meant to be doing.  No endless Final Fantasy XIII corridors,  though. There’s also some quite major pop up with the many varied enemy types… funnily enough, I quite liked that. It also has some cheesy sample dialogue that characters in the town say whenever you meet them, but I kind of like that too; it reminds me of SNES samples… which makes me smile. Oh, and I would recommend in the town picking up as many quests as you can, as you can find yourself completing three quests in one dungeon run that you would have to repeat otherwise. Also, stock up on Identity Scrolls – if there’s something I can’t stand, it’s not being able to use something that I just picked up (damn you and your grayed out inventory, Dragon Age II!). And the story… it’s okay; about a mining town and the mysterious element of Ember… but if you don’t enjoy the questing for the leveling up and questing’s sake… then you may not be completely gripped by this game.

Oh, and the biggest problem with the game – it’s not co-op over XBox live, but they do have to keep something back for Torchlight 2 (which was originally going to be an MMO, but then they do have to hold something back for Torchlight 3). It also does have difficulty settings that mean what they say.  The easiest is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, which with a judicious use of the cheesy samples and pad rumble is actually quite satisfying. On the most hardcore setting, if your character dies, that’s it.  No coming back… you’ll have to start again as someone else.

I was also the only gamer that I knew at school. None of the guys ever spoke about gaming and it also wasn’t something that any popular girl would ever do, scratch that – any girl would do. Maybe it was just where I grew up, but they seemed more interested in rings from Elizabeth Duke than the rings in Sonic and the only Mushrooms they had any interest in were the fried ones that they would have with their greasy breakfasts.  That’s right, they weren’t even cool enough to like hallucinogens, at least then I could have spoken to them when they were stoned about riding on the back of cute dinosaurs with a superhero cape and they would have found me fascinating. Still, I was a hardcore girl gamer back then, when even being a hardcore guy gamer was a bit of a niche outside of collecting Panini football stickers and picking on the smart kids. In many of my school projects gaming was my inspiration. From drawing a still life consisting of a SNES, Super Scope and Gameboy, a fox hunting campaign using Fox McCloud on a poster, and also doing a presentation on the demise of the British Earthworm using Earthworm Jim as my mascot.

For me, gaming has always been there. An escape, a refuge… something that gave me entertainment, a way to vent my frustrations on the heads of Goombas and it never judged me (except on some of the Track N Field events). I was brought up with gaming. At the age of about four or five my parents bought me a Commodore 64 for Christmas (blame them, it’s all their fault) and throughout my time at school I owned Game Boys, an Amiga 1200, a Super Nintendo and towards the end of my school time an original PlayStation. (That of course has grown to me owning nearly every home console, I’m such a collector, or hoarder as some would call it).  People say that video games make kids more violent, anti-social and aggressive – so why is it that the kids who were aggressive, anti-social and more than occasionally violent to me weren’t all that into video games?  Put a kid in front of Super Mario World for two hours, or on a Hockey Pitch for two hours, and see which one comes out more aggressive!  I shed a tear for the fate of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII – but nothing has made me cry more than the ‘healthy’ pursuits that the popular media seems to favour over video games. Me going out and spending time in the fresh air with other kids would have meant spending time being insulted and humiliated to other kids until they reduced me to tears and laughed at me.  Forgive me, but that didn’t seem like a healthy pursuit.

Gaming is new, at least to the people who commission news stories, so it’s easier to set up as a bogeyman.  Someone who kills someone over a game is likely to have mental issues anyway, and is looking for an excuse, rather than being influenced by a game.  If someone says that they thought about killing people because of Grand Theft Auto, you could take their console away instead of institutionalising them and it wouldn’t stop them from going out there and doing something awful, they would just say that the toaster looked at them funny and that’s why they had to kill people instead. Still, it’s easy to point at games and say that they’re to blame… it’s easier to blame a thing than to look at yourself and say – I’m a bad parent.  My parents let me play video games, but we always ate dinner together – we always talked… my mum used to watch me play video games so we could interact as a family.  Yes, I got upset when my XBox 360 RROD’d when I just put Dead Space 2 in it, but I wouldn’t kill anyone over that.  My mum and dad raised me better.

There are campaigns in the States right now called ‘It Gets Better’. They started it for gay kids who were getting bullied at school, telling them that after high school, in the wider world, things do get better.  Kids in the UK are bullied because of their sexuality, or race, or for a million other reasons.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you are in school now – and being bullied like I was.  It gets better.  And one of the things that people never say is that video games can help with that.  As well as giving me a way to deal with the pretty crappy hand I was dealt at my school, it also gave me all my awesome friends I have today. You guys, the ones reading this sentimental heart-filled web page of words. And of course, not forgetting Susan, who will always be my best friend forever.

I wish that I had Ready Up then, I wish that there were friends that I could talk to over XBox Live or the PlayStation network. And if you are getting bullied, use them – talk to someone in whatever way you can, because if you are being bullied, it’s really not you… it’s them.  Believe me. But I am glad that I had the video games. If it wasn’t for video games I would have been unable to escape the trauma I had to put up with everyday because of school (trust me, every time I get a headshot, I still think of my German teacher). If it wasn’t for Cosplay, I would have never got the confidence I have today to express the colourful person that I am inside and had to hide away for so long. If it wasn’t for being who I am and liking geeky stuff like Star Trek in the face of a dull consensus who could only talk about who was the fittest guy in Hollyoaks…. well, I wouldn’t be able to insult those ‘Hab SoSlI’ Quch!’ people in Klingon and I wouldn’t be drinking Earl Grey tea just like Jean Luc Picard.

It seems easier to say now I’m out the other side of it, but sometimes, pressure creates diamonds.  If you have the strength, be true to yourself – you’ll make it through to the other side. Find people who have the same interests you do. Believe me – you’ll have a more interesting life than all the other people who bullied you as they didn’t have the strength of character to do anything different. Until then, there’s nothing wrong with getting a little help from Sonic, Mario, Cloud – or whoever – to see you through.

It will upscale your DVD,
To glorious 720P,
And it can stream files from your PC.
But even with games like Yakuza 3,
The PS3 doesn’t gel with me.

I would have thought that the Blu-ray ,
And all the films it lets me play,
Would force my loyalties to sway,
But I haven’t put my 360 away.

It comes all too frequently to mind,
The Cross Media Bar is badly designed,
And the six axis control is very unkind,
And seldom accurately aligned.

And all I wanted it to do ,
Was let me play games from the PS2.
And chat to my friends while playing a game,
Not in a ‘PlayStation Home’, that’s lame!
“Not enough memory” causes me rage,
It once was QI, now a blank page!
So what the heck does all this mean?
I have a 320 gig machine!

But the most annoying thing by far,
Is the constant updates on the download bar.
It’s the things the black box won’t do for me,
Which is why I don’t gel with my PS3.