Andy Touch

BANE standing ontop of a CAMO-PAINTED BATMOBILE.

More of my demon cat.

Was drawing my curtains closed to go to bed, and then I saw this.

My cat is nightmare fuel.

Friday

Two Door Cinema Club
Wu-Tang Clan
The Wombats
Bright Eyes
Biffy Clyro
Jimmy Cliff
U2
Fatboy Slim 

Saturday

The Gaslight Anthem
Jessie J
Tinie Tempah
Jimmy Eat World
Friendly Fires
Elbow
White Lies
Coldplay
Flogging Molly

Sunday

OK Go
Paul Simon
The Vaccines
The Go! Team
Pendulum
Kaiser Chiefs
Beyonce

GIVE ME THIS RUCKSACK NOW.

Project Zomboid - Zombie Survival Game

Opened the door and this just happened. I got munched to death by zombies.

True story that happened about 10 minutes before this:

I was placing bandages on my wife’s leg, and she asked me to find some planks to border up the doors and windows of our safehouse. I went out into the garden, to the shed, and found a hammer, some nails and some planks. After coming back, and covering all of the doors and windows to stop flesh-hungry zombies from eating us, she asked me to go find some soup from next door and cook it for us to eat. I went into the neighbour’s house, armed with a hammer, and after killing 2 zombies, found a tin of tomato soup. Came back to the house, and put it on the hob.

After a while, a Raider came to the house door and shouted in that he was going to steal all of our possessions and take our safehouse by force. Armed with a shotgun, he blasted away the planks I had used to safe-guard the front door. As I waited for him to come up stairs, so I could knock him out with the hammer, I turned around and my wife was on fire. I forgot that I left the hob on with the soup! Half the house was burning down in flames! I ran down stairs and found the raider being swarmed by zombies (which were now on fire) so I ran out the front door and fled into the night.

Eventually, I came to a house and slept to regain some energy. I was then hungry and ate a rotten apple and died of hunger. Fantastic.

Incredible game. Can’t wait to see what other scenarios the devs are going to put in, seeing as it is still in its ‘alpha’ stage of development. One to watch.

Just got a direct message from KEITH CHEGWIN.

I tweeted this:

#ff @thekeithchegwin Absolute goldmine for jokes. Imma lollin’

What happened to all of the fast-paced FPS games? Games like Quake and Unreal Tournament? Where did they go? We need them now.

The games market nowadays is FAR too saturated with First Person Shooters that try (and some succeed) to be as realistic as possible. Some even have the sound effect of panting and wheezing after the player has pressed the run button for more than 5 seconds. Ok, so that makes the gaming experience somewhat more emmersive, and ‘SOOO REALLL’, but when is it going to get to the stage where every little detail overshadows the actual gaming experience? Probably soon, now with the opening level of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 looking more linear and less unscripted than a story in a book. Just look at it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CblUvlZDio8

Most of you will no doubt say “Ahhh, the effects are cool! The graphics and little details are very accurate to a real-life experience” and I agree with you. The game developers have done an outstanding job in this gameplay footage, and with all of the Call Of Duty games in the amount of detail and ‘realism’ the games go into. However, with scripted sections (such as the boat chase which has the illusion of free-roaming but is pretty much a singular route that explosions and stuff is programmed to happen around you at certain points) it looks to much like an interactive movie. Now, I haven’t played MW3, but it is all too similar to similar levels/sections in the previous COD games. And with this ‘interactive movie’ experience, is where the problem lies.

I buy games for gameplay. Simple as. If everything around me is pre-written and pre-determined, and is supposed to happen, then it feels less like a ‘game’ with random actions, events and encounters, and more like a ride at theme Park. The Pirate Of The Caribbean ride at Disney is fantastic, and water explosions and all sorts are happening around you, which is pretty cool. But the purpose of the ride is for me us to sit down and enjoy the show. What ‘Scripted’ FPS games do is similar to the POTC ride; we don’t have control over what happens. And this, is no fun. Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RULv6HbgEjY

The player finished the first level of COD: Black Ops, on Hardened difficulty, without shooting a gun and without dieing. Jesus christ. How ridiculous is that? What happened to a challenge or to actual shooting in a FPS?

What im trying to do with this blogpost is perhaps highlight the enjoyment that FPS games had in Quake and Unreal Tournament. At my secondary school, we had several after-school sessions where we were able to use the computer rooms to play LAN matches of Quake or UT. These sessions were ridiculous. I don’t think we ever had 2 matches that had similar results of experiences. Look at this video from Timesplitters 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3an8OLLD694

Look how crazy that gameplay is. Look how FUN it is to run around a town in Mexico, with a laser rifle, shooting monkeys. A small sacrifice of realism to pay for such shenanigans. It is experiences like this that make videogames, into games; the bizarre worlds we get to explore and interact with. It is why I have a passion in playing and making games; to evolve environments and to create experiences that we would not experience otherwise. 

Lets compare screenshots. Here is Medal Of Honour: Airbourne:

And here is Serious Sam:

LOOK AT HOW MUCH THERE IS TO LOOK AT IN THE 2nd SCREENSHOT. IT MAKES ME JUST WANT TO PLAY IT NOW. Crikey, it almost makes you forget about the grey’n’dark pallet of the top one.

Now, I know this blogpost is going to make out that I dislike realism and COD and that, but that is false. I enjoy realistic shooters, for what they are. Im just trying to state that the far more fun and superior FPS, are resting in peace. Or should I say Resting in Frantic? Because Peace isn’t what they bring to the gaming market. Quite the opposite; Quake and Unreal Tournament and Timesplitters and Serious Sam were carnage. Sheer carnage. Sheer fun aswell.

What would you rather do?:

Use your over-powered sniper rifle to headshot a guard, who you were SUPPOSED to headshot, and the game wouldn’t continue without you doing so.

OR

Pull out your dual rocket launchers, grab a floating red skull which throws up the words “CARNAGE MODE” on the screen, and then jump on a booster pad that flings you through the air, whilst firing 20 to 30 cluster missiles at flying green insects the size of your car, that spit molten acid at you?

Just think about it. 

(via linearsequence)

This is Frankie. His favourite things are being old and begging for food.

I secretly want him to grow a grey beard; for entertainment value only.