I haven't been this excited for a nice dose of electronic escapism in years. Dragon Age:Origins has been billed as the spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series and by all accounts it delivers. Heavily character lead with real personality, no stupid moral system (all kinds of grey areas and feedback through consequences, not points on a moral swingometer), a deep and well put together world and, by all accounts, fiendishly evil combat with an FF12 style 'Gambit' system as well ... I am filled with gamer glee .
There's M/M and F/F queer content as well, and while I'm holding out to see how well it's written before I jump from the rooftops, it is really quite exciting to have it in there at all.
I know what I'll be doing on the afternoon of the 6th .
I have a huge pile of library books to dive into while giggling with glee ... gleee! I also have absolutely nothing of any import and significance to say (at least, that I can get my head together enough to write about). So I'm going to spend my evenings this week working, reading and playing Guild Wars.
And you guys? You're getting Fen, you're totally getting Fen. Enjoy the delicious machinima!
So finding this glorious little video linked on Shakesville really tickled me. It's set to 'Fuck You' by Lilly Allen and is gloriously non-worksafe and queer. It's really given a lift to my day.
Which was improved upon even further when a phone conversation between Ezekiel and Captain Horatio revealed that we'd all been big fans of Gauntlet back in the day, so after a wee bit of a nostalgic gigglefest, I dug up this rather nice remake and gave it a whirl ... every time I heard 'you have shot the food' I felt like I was seven and sitting in my friend's conservatory playing Nintendo again. If you were a child of the Gauntlet era as well, go check it out. It's passed the virus and malware checker gauntlet and is exceedingly good fun.
Next up, Ezekiel has introduced me to Sarah Haskins and her info-mania spot, Target Woman, where she gives a very amusing and more than a little satirical commentary on a Gillette advert that we'd been discussing that made me look at it a little differently. If you like what she has to say, the link I've given you there turns into a happy little rss feed when plugged into google reader - you know it makes sense.
After all that levity, a quick finish on something serious. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, or DSM, currently in it's 4th edition (or is it 4.5? it's all a bit dungeons and dragons) is currently under review by the great and good so they can figure out which of us they intend to pathologise and why this time. A rather controversial figure named Ray Blanchard (famed for a lot of appallingly shitty and phobic writing about queers of various stripes) is taking a key role in revising the section on Paraphilias, and seems to be trying to brand everything other than PIV/PIA sex between able bodied, cisgendered adults as being a great big filthy peversion. I never liked the man before, and have even less reason to now.
After a gap of several years I finally have a library card again! Ezekiel and I pottered down to the little one nearest to us this morning while the weather was behaving to pick up some books and get me signed up. I'd almost forgotten the sheer joy of walking out of a library with twelve new books I've not read before without having to hand over two weeks food money at the tills for the privilege. I’m diving into The Extra Large Medium by Helen Slavin first as I’ve been wanting to read it ever since blanketgirl first told me about it last year.
I’m looking forward to getting used to having open access to hundreds of books outside our house library again. Libraries are absolutely fucking fantastic and essential things.
I smell faintly of hospital right now and I’m not sure entirely how I feel about this. I saw a dermatologist this week about the staph infection that WILL NOT DIE and as a result, not only am I back on the horse-pill sized antibiotics (which thankfully seem to be being nice to me so far), I am also washing my scalp with Hibiscrub as a convenient source of topical Clorahexadine. It has a very distinctive antiseptic smell which mingles oddly with the ale and lemon juice shampoo I’ve been using and gives me a faint air of having just stepped off the ward for five minutes. Hopefully this will finally do the trick and shift the dratted thing; if the staph goes and this cough gets on with it and shuffles off too I might get to be some kind of healthy again this month *glee*.
Ezekiel says she really likes the way it smells ... she loves the smell of clean :>.
As I mentioned last time, we all went to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Cambridge Arts Theatre this week and it was absolutely glorious! The three part chorus had plenty of snap and spark (and a srs set of pipes), Seymore and Audrey were perfect, the dentist was deliciously slimy and repulsive and Audrey II ... well, that was an experience in and of itself. The various smaller versions of the plant were amusingly animated even before they were voiced and the largest final form was a work of art. I have no idea if the person working the plant was the same one singing the part but either way they had an incredible voice. They’ve made some changes to the ending to accommodate the theatre setting but they all work really well, I’d recommend seeing this one if you have the chance.
Now that the world has started to wake up for spring, my social life seems to be doing the same thing as well. I’ve just made plans with Maggie, Fiddles and Jay for a shindig in St Albans next weekend, have a day of Imelda Marcos style shoe madness in London planned with Mish, Ezekiel’s birthday, the first of Christian’s summer BBQs and as soon as we’re both healthy and in one piece I have some shenanigans with Raindog to plan too. When the sun comes out the hermiting stops! I need to plot something with Lamasu as well ...
This weekend on the other hand is going to be quite fluffy and relaxed, made of writing, walks and generally sitting around together and chilling the hell out. I’ve got some accounts to do and am hoping to dig into some Uni work but other than that, blissful relaxation is the order of the day. I intend to start this off with the delights of Music Catch 2, the most chilled out flash game I’ve come across in an age and a half. Have a go and enjoy some free bliss.
This nifty little video is by the wonderful folk at OrbX, the producers of FTX, absolute wizards of flight simulator scenery design who have turned Australia from a barren red desert into, well ... you'll see if you watch the video . These are the kind of people who will be keeping the sim alive over the next few years post-ACES.
On that topic, some people have put together an online petition of sorts to show Microsoft how much interest there is in the franchise continuing in some form. I don't expect it to achieve anything like the recreation of the ACES team (the corporate world just doesn't work like that), but if it is run properly, it may give the guys at MS a feeling for the market for a new flight sim. You can find it at SupportFlightsim.com.
Flight Simulator may well be the longest running series in PC gaming history. First released in 1979 by Sublogic for the Apple II then picked up by Microsoft in 2002, curious PC gamers, armchair pilots and real world pilots looking to get in a bit of practice have spent twenty nine years and ten releases exploring the world from above, sharpening their skills and having a hell of a lot of fun at the same time. I’ve been one of them myself since the person who built my first computer installed a copy of FS4 for me back in the day and gave me the chance to buzz around Megis Field to my hearts content.
The sim has come along in leaps and bounds over the years as the video above shows, culminating in the release of FSX in 2006 and the tremendous set of addon aircraft, sceneries, weather engines and other addons the community of freeware and payware developers have produced during the past two years. The increase in computing power over the same period has allowed teams like OrbX, Horizon and Aerosoft to produce aircraft and landscapes so real you sometimes have to take a good close look to realise you’re not seeing a photo or video. And with FS11 in the pipeline from Aces Studios who knew what was waiting over the horizon in 2010 ...
We have the answer now, last month Microsoft closed Aces Studio and halted any further development of the Flight Sim franchise. The IP will not be sold to another developer, the code is being archived and that’s it, we’re done.
Fortunately for those of us who can’t get enough, the community has no intention whatsoever of giving up. Our developers are determined to continue stretching the FSX engine as far as it will go, virtual airlines and flying clubs are not about to close their doors and you’ll take the yokes from the hands of those of us who fly when you pluck them from our cold, dead hands. The next few years of FS development will be filled with the same creativity and passion that the last twenty-nine have and even if this is the end, we’ll make sure the send off is spectacular.
Autumn is an odd place to be in; I love the taste, the smell and the feel of it but the lack of light or something similar puts me in an odd place almost every time. I end up doing various silly and not so silly things to walk through this and out the other side (most having at least a parting acquaintance with chocolate ...) and fortunately the consequences rarely last any longer than the impulse itself.
This year I suffered from a fit of nostalgia (among other things) and started playing another online rpg. I'm not sure quite what I was expecting - the only real enjoyment I've ever had from them is the social side (a good group of friends to do something with can make almost anything look better) - the actual game systems generally make me feel like I have a second job or am being encouraged to run mazes for treats like some sort of lab mouse.
For this particular piece of silliness I chose to follow a couple of old friends into Lord of the Rings online - an attempt by turbine/codemasters to, if not break the World of Warcraft mold, certainly stretch it a little in some new ways. With the Tolkien mythos to draw on they have a lot of material to work with and game system wise they've managed a few new twists on the same old classes and systems. They've even managed to work in something that feels like an overall storyline via the 'book quests' telling the epic story of the game - allowing you to play your part in the defense of the free people of middle earth while the fellowship are making their journey. This was novel enough to hold my interest at first, but after a couple of weeks the problems of all classic level based MMOs started to show through the cracks - leaving me wondering increasingly what on earth I was doing there.
Long story shortened, after four weeks of trial (with another two weeks before I'd have had to pay anything) I've closed the account and uninstalled the game - if there's still a relationship for me to have with these people I'll choose a more sensible medium in which to do it.
With that in mind, I'm going to go read a book - Locke and Jean demand my attention .
Except I have - Am still ill (which is seriously BORING) and it's playing havoc with my energy levels. I'm on the broad spectrum horse pills, have another doctors visit on monday and am at the hospital at the end of the month, hopefully this will let me finish things off and actually get back on with life. My studying is about to kick back in, I was just starting to get back on top of work and don't want it to get away from me and there are various other things I want to be getting on with - not sitting here going 'bleaaaaagh bibble bibble' to myself .
Amy is away this weekend - it's been less weird than last time (probably due to my having a visitor for a bit and having had some practice) but is still a little odd - she's back tomorrow. Am trying to think what I can do to make things as nice as possible for when she gets in ... there are vague plots involving baking. We'll see if she needs me to meet her at Peterborough or not.
There are a couple of things I wanted to link to this evening - the first is the news that Matthias Rath, one of the nasty little alt health magnates has lost his lawsuit against Ben Goldacre and the Guardian. This fills me with absolute glee - he was one of the shitheads spending money hand over fist in South Africa to paint antiretroviral drugs for treating HIV as some sort of nefarious plot of Big Pharma and the west, discouraging people from seeking life extending treatment that works so he could pedal his vitamin based non-cures to vulnerable people and make a profit. His actions and the actions of the various homeopaths and similar folk out there pulling the same shit - and the pathetic lifestyle press in this country that distort and excuse their actions sicken me and I'm glad to see the law stand against him. You can read Ben Goldacre's response and comments here.
In more cheerful news, I've been deeply amused today by a cute little NES style platformer ... with a very welcome mischevous dykey twist. My best time so far is 19min 24s, download it here and have a go yourself.
EA titles are dominating my list of games to watch out for this year - either EA finally bought enough developers of original IP to start releasing something other than Madden games, they've had a serious change of policy internally or this is a sign of the forthcoming apocalypse
Whatever the cause, alongside Spore and Dead Space this autumn I will also be checking out Mirror's edge. The game sets you up as a runner, an information courier in a city where all the electronic channels for passing data are heavily monitored - resulting in the safest means for transporting anything secret or ilicit being to throw it in your bag and head out the door running.
The combination of a rather pleasingly authoritarian near-future setting, what looks like a fantastic first person parkour system, a combat system that de-empathises killing to the point where you can (should you be smart enough about it) get through the entire game without firing a shot, a very minamilist HUD and nextgen graphics that have realised they don't need to be dull brown and so covered in bloom your retinas melt has me very excited indeed - I will definitely be picking this one up.
You can see a rather interesting developer walkthrough from E3 here.
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