John Walker's Electronic House

So, this is how it works: Get the token Christian to review the Bible-based game. Snigger. But it’s not as dumb an idea as it might sound. In my experience none are more furious or offended by the wretched extreme-right Christian ‘games’ that are put out more as propaganda than entertainment, than the god-botherers. Firmly establishing the ‘mental’ in ‘fundamental’, these releases are so often pathetic attempts to mimic the secular world but with grossly out-of-context Biblical notions of purity. Good times, eh? Happily, The Bible Game is a rare exception not falling into this category, and while overtly aimed at Christians, it’s somehow a light-hearted and reasonably well-constructed PS2 party game.

One of the more bizarre games I’ve reviewed for Eurogamer. Finally the Applied Theology degree has been of some use!

The greatest thing on all television worldwide just now is Countdown W/ Keith Olbermann. (And no, it’s nothing to do with Channel 4’s Countdown). It’s an hour-long news programme on MSNBC – not a station famous for its quality news and balanced opinions, and while not Fox News, certainly rather wrapped up in those two rather troubling companies, MSN and NBC. However, there’s a diamond in the dungheap, and it’s Keith Olbermann.

Formerly a Sportscenter presenter, Olbermann has created a bubble of relief for anyone wanting a non-right-wing spin on the news. While the clip below is obviously not hard-hitting news, it’s the only national broadcast in America that gave any reasoned and investigative coverage into the recent Watergate Hotel scandals, and while “my producers are forcing me to cover” various celebrity stories toward the end, the first 2/3 are mostly dedicated to severe news stories covered from a cut-the-crap, who’s lying to us, perspective. It’s often accused of being left-wing, as things that tell the truth so often are. But the programme is willing to tell the truth about both sides of the corruption. Oddly enough, most of the corruption happens on the right, and the right’s currently in control of America, so they get the dominant coverage. Reasonably simple, but too much for your average Fox News viewer.

And also too much for your average Fox News presenter. Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor just so happens to air at the same time as Countdown, and Olbermann just so happens to rather enjoy pointing out when O’Reilly strays from “just the facts”. They’re always super-bitchy segments, but they’re always sheer joy. However, to receive the full level of glee, it’s important you know something about O’Reilly first. The sex scandal. The Smoking Gun’s coverage of the story is all you need.

“Hours after Bill O’Reilly accused her of a multimillion dollar shakedown attempt, a female Fox News producer fired back at the TV star today, filing a lawsuit claiming that he subjected her to repeated instances of sexual harassment and spoke often, and explicitly, to her about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies.”

There follows the complete transcript of Andrea Mackris’s complaint, all 22 pages of it, detailing the nature of the sexual harrassment she received from O’Reilly from 2002 to 2004. O’Reilly settled out of court for millions of dollars. He continues to promote his beliefs in family values every day on his programme.

The key passage for appreciating Olbermann’s references are on page 16, especially when she repeats word for word the (presumably recorded) phone conversation in which he told her his fantasy about her, during which she could hear him masturbating,

“You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I’d join you and you would have your back to me and I would take that little loofa thing and kinda’ soap up your back…

“…So anyway I’d be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda’ kissing your neck from behind… and then I would take the other hand with the falafel thing and I’d put it on your…” (I stop here out of decency – follow the link to find out where he puts it!)

And now enjoy:

And now, enjoy a lot less:

There are other places to keep tabs on O’Reilly’s ceaseless lying, like the fantastic Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O’Reilly, Intl, and for all things despicable in the American media, there’s the exceptional MediaMatters, which contains clips of the more horrifying moments.

Oh, and another thing. Every episode ends with Olbermann’s sign off. It’s partly familiar, and he deserves the words:

“That’s Countdown for this, the one thousandth, one hundred and fifty-fourth day since the declaration of Mission Accomplished in Iraq. I’m Keith Olbermann, good night, and good luck.”

The staff of PC Format are going to be raising money for Sport Relief by taking part in the only sport any of them can manage: fragging.

Aiming for a mighty 1000 frags in Quake 4 (because they’re too uncool to play Quake 3), the marathon run should lead to some impressive RSI, and hopefully a fat pile of your cash. Go donate. And then listen for cries of “THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS MOUSE!” when Alec gets whooped.

Sponsor us to play 1000 frags in Quake 4 for SportRelief

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).