John Walker's Electronic House

C’est un jeu à la première personne. C’est ce que vous vouliez savoir, mais je vous supplie de rester un peu plus longtemps. J’ai plein de choses intéressantes à vous dire (notamment qu’il est possible de le jouer avec une vue à la troisième personne et même de rapprocher ou d’éloigner la caméra..).

My words reach around the world. I like to think I will one day bring global harmony through my humble text.

After this gobsmacking, atrocious story yesterday, Earth’s Greatest Hero, Olbermann, did something an American news anchor has never done – he called for the president and vice president’s resignation.

When invited to Bethesda for an exclusive little demonstration of Fallout 3 (you know, only about 100 different magazines and websites), we thought we’d make it a bit more personal. Tricking all the others into getting onto a bus (“There’s free booze on the bus!”) and then having them driven off into some ditch somewhere, we got to spend some alone-time with lead designer, Emil Pagliarulo, and lead producer, Gavin Carter.

Lost Planet is a game designed for the Xbox 360. And in its PC incarnation, it’s going to let you know this just about as often as possible. And by any means possible. This might be having a game mechanic entirely designed for a console, or it could be a screen-sized image of a 360 controller splashed intermittently throughout the game. Just don’t you forget its origins, okay?

You will remember Kristan’s review of the original version back in January, in which he was one of the few not to be all confused by the pretty graphics, and recognise quite how hollow the experience really was. So today we’re here to find out how Capcom have managed to shed marks in the last six months.

Like it says.

There’s this bird – a dunnock – that sits outside my house and cheeps. How lovely, you might think. A little bird singing its heart out for you to hear. You might think.

This creature, this hellborn fiend, is the bane of my existence.

Every day, every single day, for the last few weeks, this BASTARD has ceaselessly uttered its piercing micro-shriek every two to three seconds, all day long, from before I wake up until after dark. It’s like the most evil car alarm in the world, except you can’t batter its doors in with a shovel. (Oh, but believe me, if I got the chance…)

I believe it has discovered the resonating frequency of my brain. Every time, every single time, it opens its foul little beak, a piece of me dies away. But does it do it with any regularity? Oh no. Nothing so predictable. Two second gap, followed by three second, then a sudden hope inspiring (perhaps it’s had a little birdy heartattack) ten seconds, then a sudden burst of them split seconds apart.

It taunts me, sitting on high tree branches, or telegraph wires, out of reach of my cat, and indeed my own mad, chasing clawed fists. It has successfully driven me insane. To the point where I have been stood on my doorstep at 8am, in my boxershorts and a t-shirt, clutching a super-soaker, trying to drown the little shit in the air. What has become of me? But believe me, I’ve hit it a bunch of times. I’ve sprayed that demon right in its hateful little face. It shuts it up briefly, and thus is worth not only the effort, but the certified madness. My dream: that I get a droplet down its little birdy lungs, and it coughs, lets out a strangled gurgle, and falls to the floor. Dead. Where I will dance around its spiteful corpse, and then feed it to my cat.

Its motivations are territorial. And believe me – it’s working. If it doesn’t bugger off soon, I will.

It’s first-person. There, that’s what you came here to find out. But I implore you, stick around for a bit longer. I’ve interesting things to tell you. (Not least, that it can be played in third-person, even pulling the camera back and up).

But most of all, there was a sense of professionalism missing from so many games. The opening sequences for both Fallout 1 and 2, the beautiful ’40s music, the astonishingly crafted retro-future, the shocking and revelatory endings, and the sense of extraordinary freedom. That’s an awful lot to live up to.

Super-world exclusive! Except for everyone else going live with it at the same time. And some US mag already running it a couple of weeks back. But apart from that! Fallout 3 preview!

Stolen from Your Daily Awesome:

Ignore the nonsense at the beginning, and wait for the octopuses.

Here’s one in the eye for those who blather on about Wikipedia being unreliable:

Death of Nancy Benoit rumour posted on Wikipedia hours prior to body being found

Whatever gross things have happened to you, they are not nearly as gross as what just happened to me. I have suffered officially the grossest thing that’s ever happened to anyone.

Sat here, at my desk, I felt something wet under my right socked foot. “Some dropped food?” I wondered. How gross. I pulled my left socked foot back to see, and yes, there was something wet down there. What did I drop? How incredibly unpleasant. So I flick on a light, look down, and under my feet…

… IS A SMOOSHED SLUG.

Oh shitting crikey. Slugs are nature’s grossest things already, but seeing one on the carpet, half as thick in the middle as it was either end, with a bit more of it a few inches away… oh, blimey. I squished a slug with my toes. I don’t get squeamish, but that was as close as I’ve felt to it. Rather than feeling sick, I felt like I wanted to opt out of myself and float off somewhere far less tangible. My entire body began to cringe into mad angles like – and this is the best reference ever, friends – the teacher in Fairly Odd Parents when he says “FAIRY GOD PARENTS!”. Bundling about a foot of toilet paper around my palm, I scooped up the hideous remains and then tried to simultaneously carry it to the bin, while attempting to run away from my own arm.

Coming back with a sponge to clear up the… ullggh… slug goop, I then saw TWO MORE SLUGS ON THE CARPET.

I wish to stress at this point that I do not live in squalor, nor indeed in the sorts of damp, humid conditions you’d imagine slimey beasts might enjoy. My best (and most hopeful) guess is that the bastards came in on the recycling box that was used tonight as a stand for the digital projector. If it wasn’t that, then they’ve found a way in, and I’m moving out immediately.

I threw the socks in the bin.

Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital is ten. Ten years old and still selling astonishingly well. More than half a million copies have been bought in the UK and, bogglingly, it still outsells many brand new big-budget PC releases. It’s probably going to outsell Hospital Tycoon too.

Despite nicking almost every aspect of Theme Hospital, Hospital Tycoon doesn’t feel half as comfortable to play. You begin with semi-established hospitals, playing as the manager who must hire staff, build rooms, buy equipment and respond to the needs of your patients and employees – standard management stuff. This is delivered episodically, with three different hospitals split into chapters of story, each with specific tasks. But it takes ‘episodic’ literally, presented as a hospital soap opera, with key cast members and strange events.

One of my Gamer reviews has found its way onto their website. So posty-a-go-go.