John Walker's Electronic House

Exciting news-o-rama!

A brand new blog launches today, written by some of the finest minded (and finest looking) games journalists in the business. Called Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it’s the collective work of Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Alec Meer, and me, hello. It’s a PC gaming blog, covering everything to do with PC games, ever.

There’s a good month’s worth of content up there already to peruse, and most excitingly, an exclusive interview with Bioshock’s Ken Levine posted today.

Bookmark it, RSS to it, marry it. It’s a big, new, and exciting thing that will be updated every day with comment and thoughts on PC gaming news, games and esoterica.

How lovely that Mr Shakespeare was scoffing at the nonsense of astrology all those years ago.

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,–often the surfeit
of our own behavior,–we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

The demolishing of Grylls continues, and this time hilariously. Who cares that he’s wearing a life jacket as he goes down a white water river holding only his backpack? He still went down a white water river holding only his backpack, with a life jacket on. But the above clip is most amusing. Stolen from What Would Tyler Durden Do?

The new Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, comes out a week tomorrow – Pre-Order! Pre-Order! Pre-Order!

There’s the horrible chance you don’t know who Phoenix Wright is. Nick, as his teenage assistant, Maya, refers to him, is a young defense attorney, working in a legal system based more on the rules of blind man’s bluff than anything more real-world. In alternating sections, Phoenix must investigate murders (going from area to area, interviewing people involved, and searching locations for evidence), and then enter court where he must cross-interrogate the witnesses provided by the prosecution. This is done by applying the evidence to reveal what the game so vivaciously calls “contradictions” in the witness’s words. In a manner. It’s all done with such a mad sense of purest joy that you want to hug your DS. Check out my Eurogamer review for more details, including how Maya channels the spirit of her dead older sister, also manifesting her larger boobies.

There’s also some confusion over the which game is which in this series, so let’s clear it all up.

There were originally three Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney – I think) games on the GBA, in Japan only. For reasons unknown, but providing unbridled joy, the decision was made to remake these for the DS. The first, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, came with the original four chapters, and then a bonus brand new chapter made especially for the new release, featuring a slightly tweaked cast. It used the touch screen even more than the port of the previous chapters, letting you rotate evidence to find hidden clues, and lots of gimmicky scratching and blowing things.

Then the second game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All, received a similar treatment, except without the bonus levels. Everyone was back, with excellent new cast members like Pearl, another young psychic, and the inclusion of Psyche Locks – a means of applying the evidence manipulation from the court areas into the rest of the game.

Then the confusion arrived when Gyakuten Saiban 4 came out in Japan. There was no sign of part 3, and this time there was no English translation. In fact, it’s a brand new game set after the GBA titles, and featuring a completely new cast, without Phoenix Wright in the lead role. In the meantime, part 3 was in fact being given the same porting and translation, and that’s out in Japan on the 23rd.

Which for me is a reminder to finish the final chapter of part two. I had to stop to review it, and never reached the conclusion, which I’m finally putting right. And the fifth chapter is absolutely splendid. It’s a sort of ‘best of’, picking up story threads from both games, bringing in old favourite characters, and creating a double-team of evil prosecution lawyers with all sorts of melodrama. This is how excited it’s getting me for part 3: I’m not sure whether to play Bioshock or Phoenix Wright first. Yes.

I’ve feeling it’ll have to be PW so I can get the review done in time for EG, which means I’m going to have to play it in some sort of Bioshock-information-proof bunker. I’ll be switching off the internet that Friday, so download everything you need Thursday night.

PS. Does anyone really want to hear the inane music independently of the game?

In theme with this blog being taken over by a pet, here’s another Dexter post. It seems he’s become the Official Cat of the World of Stuart Forums, which appears to primarily involve Fark-style photoshops. Which is a Good Thing.

One of Dexter’s most delightful and infuriating habits is to follow us when we leave the house. While completely independent, and capable of taking care of his own matters outside for hours at a time, he’s also always up for coming on any journey, no matter how inconvenient.

A number of buses have been missed after reaching the end of the road and hearing the jingling of his useless bell. Turning around I’ll see him gambolling along as fast as he can, crying, “I’m coming! Don’t worry!” He’ll not turn back no matter how far you go, so the only choice is to turn around and walk back home, and shut him inside. By which point the bus is a speck on the horizon.

Shorter journeys on foot, such as to the off license near the bus stop, don’t seem worth the hassle. If you’re lucky a scary man will walk near him and he’ll run off, but if not he’ll come all the way, and then trot into the shop with you. Interestingly, people in shops don’t seem to object to a feline customer as they might a canine. The novelty seems to win them over, and Dexter’s meowing complaints at being held, and at his not being allowed to roam free behind the counter to sniff out the finer booze, are interpreted as sweetness.

He is now a recognised patron of the newsagents on our road. Since the monsoons ended, Dex now follows me every time I go there, politely lying down outside the shop door while I buy things. Until he gets bored, starts crying, and then sneaks in and tries to explore. Unlike frantically losing him to catch buses, this is fantastic. The looks you get from passers-by as you walk out the shop, say, “Come on Dex!”, and then have your cat trot behind you as you walk home, are fantastic.

Now, it’s important to note that Dex isn’t like some faithful dog, staying to heel. He’s far too cool for that. It’s essential that he be either a long way behind sniffing something in an independent fashion, or far ahead after scampering to catch up and then lead the way. Should he lose sight of me, he immediately starts whining, but that in no way implies that he needs me at all, no sirree, not one bit.

I’ve taken this to the next step, deliberately taking Dex out for walks now. He’s obviously limited by the reaches of his territory when going on his own expeditions, but with me he can brave farther lands. Today we went for an explore down the road in the opposite direction we’d normally walk, and found some woods to explore. This was excellent, as Dex was immediately able to use all his jungle instincts, and stalk a bush until it was out of breath, then viciously attack it. I climbed a couple of trees while he rushed around chasing bugs and sniffing many new smells. Then he wanted to explore further, and made the rather terrifying discovery of an abandoned chainsaw. I might pop back and recover that later, lest some other small creatures with opposable thumbs stumble upon it.

Being too scared (not that he’d admit it) to be left on his own, getting home again is simple – I only need walk back to the road, and he’ll chicken out and sprint to catch up with me. But I often find myself in the position of a mum with a toddler, having to pretend “I’m going home now and you can stay here forever”, and walking off. Eventually he’ll let out a mighty “MEOW!” then appear around a wall and bound toward me.

Today he also tried to punch a greyhound in the face.

EDIT: Chainsaw recovered, with Dexter getting a second, and much more ethusiastic runaround.

Old, old, old (from Friday), but totally amazing.

He is made of rubber bands. I hope he gets credit for landing the 720.

I saw Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan in Cardiff last night. I strongly suspect Lanegan might have the best voice in the universe, pipping Nick Cave, Howe Gelb and M Ward at the post.

What he doesn’t have is stage presence. I’m not sure that I care all that much. He spoke not a word all night, barely nodding at the audience, and leaving with an embarrassed wave as he turned to walk off stage. He did, however, sing splendidly. Isobel Campbell was slightly more chatty, though no less bored looking, mostly talking to explain that she’d screwed something up, such as her stylophone solo. But this was as nothing to her giving up on a song halfway through after failing to hit half the notes. She has perhaps two years left before she smokes her voice away completely, which will be a sad loss.

Despite this, and perhaps testament to the quality of the songs, and especially Lanegan’s growling, bluesy voice, it was still an excellent gig. Almost destroying it completely at the start was the realisation that the strings were on tape, which seemed to cause everyone else on stage to play in a tired, mundane fashion. Once Campbell was on her cello, and the steel guitar was in force, things much improved, everyone seeming to wake up considerably.

By far the best thing was the strength of the new material. They’re recording a new album together, and the songs last night were a step forward from last year’s already excellent album. The new stuff has lost the last remnants of the Belle & Sebastian influences, and replaced them with a much deeper, instrumental maturity. Out with the fey, in with the growl.

At first glance, and perhaps second, third and fourth, it’s impossible to see Dungeon Runners as anything other than a derivative of World of Warcraft. The completely free (well, we’ll come to that in a bit) MMO seems to be going out of its way to ape the 9 million selling behemoth. Everything – from the fonts used to the colour-coding of the drops to the quest window design – appears to be designed to be familiar. However, with comparatively shoddy graphics, jagged controls, and an immediately obvious miniscule scale, this all seems to be shooting itself in the level 23 boot.

That’s until you play it for a bit. At the fifth glance, Dungeon Runners is, against all likelihood, a spoof of the MMO genre. NC Soft, one of the big players in the online world with City of Heroes, Lineage and the forthcoming Tabula Rasa, are taking a cheeky dig at the trend that’s brought them riches. And oddly, it works.

Hooray for free! I really rather like this game, and not despite, but because of how derivative it is. Also because it’s taking the piss.