John Walker's Electronic House

I need some help here.

The Doctor Who ep two weeks back, Love & Monsters. Was it, as I contend, sub-pantomime pathetic gibberish, with a fouled-up attempt at pathos toward the end, made all the more cancerously loathsome by the presence of Britain’s Most Useless Human, Peter Kay.

Or was it, as Stuart Campbell claims, brilliant, and, “The end is perhaps the most subversive thing the BBC have ever broadcast at 8pm on a Saturday night.”

The ideal puzzle game is deceptively simple, increasingly involving, and balances high pressure with moments of calm. Magnetica fails at every single element, but remains reasonably interesting.

The main problem seems to be its expecting a little too much of you too quickly, without offering anything new. This may sound an odd complaint when living in a soup of games that think you a pre-school buffoon – the gaming equivalents of the inflatable gutters at a bowling alley – but occasionally the right answer is at least the illusion of simplicity. The game’s premise is yet another interpretation of the puzzling staple: eliminating things once there are three of them. Indeed, it’s the reclaiming of the specific formula ‘borrowed’ more recently by Zuma. In this case: coloured marbles, rolling around tracks toward a ‘reactor’. You have to fire matching marbles at them, creating clumps of three, such that they disappear and don’t reach the end of the line. And then, you know, variants on that.

Weren’t Tamagotchi supposed to be about interaction? Remember that dreadful fad a few years back when children clung to plastic keyrings, declaring every fifteen seconds that “it needs to be fed!” or “it needs to go for a poo!”? These were, at least, somewhat novel. The toy you had to keep playing with, or it would die. Nevermind that a new one would hatch right away – the previous one was dead, and now there would be tears and tantrums.

So it’s somewhat sad that the most immediately absent feature of this new Tamagotchi-based DS game is that the buggers can’t die. Not that you’ll be wishing them dead, but that they simply aren’t Tamagotchi. What we have here is something of the most extreme obscurity – the type that’s hard to write about without worrying people will think you’re making it up – without managing to be interesting at any point.

Blimey – a review on Eurogamer?! It’s been a while.

Here are a few questions: Is there really anything about current games that makes them inaccessible to women? Are they really sexist? Is the game industry really excluding women from their audience?

The notion of a male-dominated videogame culture continues to be widely accepted. Any report on the state of gaming, or any analysis of the latest figures of what each sex is playing, begins with the statement: “Games are predominantly aimed at men.” It’s the required preamble. But is it really true?

New Escapist piece up.

Happy Father’s Day, dad.

I’m here. I’m just too lazy to write anything.

Please invent your own exciting tales of my adventures.

So kiddoes, I’m off.

I’ll be on email throughout the next two weeks, but not on the phone.

I’m off on my ho-ho-holidays!

Talk to you from the other side (of the ocean).

First of all, yes, it is VERY funny that the title makes it look like I’ve invented a new sport of competitive doing sex. But there are teenagers reading, and they’ve never heard of “sex”, so it’s important we all smile inwardly and do our own jokes about “scoring” and “golden goals” in private.

More importantly: it’s started, which means there’s no escape.

So look, the best thing for all of us to do is gather together here, in this paragraph, and huddle for warmth. If we look after each other we can get through this with as few casualties as possible. Obviously some people have to be killed for entertainment purposes.

I also suggest climbing to the tops of hills or towers. It has been my experience this week that these are ideal locations for avoiding mention of it all. You don’t have to climb to the tops of the same hills or towers I did, but you do have to climb to the top of a hill or tower or you’ll get stabbed to death. Those are the rules.

My plans for hiding include going all the way to America to preside over my kingdom once more, which will be happening next Thursday. It happens that I hid in Chicago four years ago at this time, and I shall do the same once more. If you live in Chicago and bump into me while I’m there, please could you do me a small favour and not ask me every thirteen seconds if I’m missing the f***ball, or if I want to know how “England” are doing. The last part is bad grammar, if nothing else. England is not a plural noun. Also, only 11 or 15 or 34 or whatever people are playing, not 59 million. I don’t point this out only to be smug, but also to say that really it should be the case, like war, but even children and old people are forced to play too, so all 59 million people are on the pitch at once. It may seem impractical for some reason you’ve concocted with your pessimism, but think about it properly: there wouldn’t be any hooligans hanging around outside causing trouble, eh? See. Exactly.

In other news, I’ve been rather overwhelmed by the number of emails and instant messages and physical assaults in alleyways I’ve received over there not being any Brian’s Guide for a bit. Not very many people look at it, but it seems that all that do are very dedicated. I’m sorry it’s not been happening lately – there are two reasons: 1) It requires me to get around to doing it, and 2) My tablet pen is broken and it’s really annoying to draw with. I’m about ready to start it up again, but I’m not sure it would be a great idea to do it now, as I’m in America next week, and then off somewhere else as soon as I get back, and not around really until July. So then, ok. Brian’s back in July. And if I don’t keep my word then you have my full permission to put a bundle of £10 notes into an envelope and post them right to my house.

Please start your bets for how long it will be before I post a reworked version of my Why The George’s Cross Is Awful post in rage and fury.

And finally, my new camera arrived today, and at my own suggestion pointed out to me by someone else, it would seem appropriate that my previous camera, broken beyond being of use to anyone, be destroyed in the most entertaining fashion imaginable, and this moment captured in photographic form on my new camera. It turns out this idea isn’t as mad and out-of-here-kerazee as it first sounds. It turns out that before cameras had been tamed and domesticated, this was the process by which older wild cameras would pass on the responsibilities of the herd to the young. So, suggestions please.

I was reminded of this clip for one reason or another, and so dug it out.

It’s worth an airing. From an episode of Radio 4’s Heresy – a David Baddiel-fronted comedy discussion programme, where received opinions are challenged. It was December 2004, and the panel including Victoria Cohen and Armando Iannucci were discussing the received opinion that Christmas is too commercialised. Baddiel turns to the audience for someone supporting the position, and, well listen.

What is most terrifying is – well, what she says, but also – not the woman’s being completely oblivious to the bedlam she’s creating, but that she’s laughing along with everyone without knowing what she’s laughing at.

Thing that made me laugh until I cried today.

Website.