Archive Page 2

I like this story…

The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought this was odd since they were normally a couple thousand. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth  so I bought 200 of them. I like monkeys.

I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one of them drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in the genitals. I laughed. They punched me in the genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn’t adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech and hurl themselves off the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into it’s third hour. Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive; they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sort of dropped dead. Kinda like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. God damn cheap monkeys.

I didn’t know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room; on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs. I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn’t work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and one hundred ninety-nine dead, dry monkeys.

I tried to pretend that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad. I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in my toilet and I didn’t want to call a plumber. I was embarrassed. I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortuantely there was only enough room for two at a time, so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn’t go bad.

I tried to burn them, but little did I know that my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire. Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and one hundred ninety-seven dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed.

The odor wasn’t improving. I became agitated at my inability to dispose of the dead monkeys and I really had to use the bathroom. So I went and severely beat one of the monkeys. I felt better.

I tried throwing them away but the garbage man said the city was not allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him I had a wet one. He couldn’t take it either. I didn’t bother asking about the frozen ones.

I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn’t quite know what to say. They pretended to like them, but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals. 

I like monkeys.

– Anonymous (not by me)

Feature-laden…

Man, the problem with being a games journalist is that sometimes there’s just not much stuff coming out. Right now, it seems to be nothing but Wii games, none of which are very good. As such, I’m doing a lot of gaming features and case reviews. Cases are something I can do just fine, but it isn’t something I particularly enjoy if I’m honest - mainly because it’s the same routine each and everytime. There’s only so many ways you can disguise a tin box.

Features on the other hand are great to write and I have pretty free rein, but I’ve done a lot of them of late and I feel like I need a bit of a break. Ah well, I still love my job and this is naught but a momentary lull anyway. Doing more hardware etc. is at least helping me broaden my horizons.

I’ve been reading a lot of comics lately, catching up on some of the decent X-Men stuff. I especially recommend the Civil War, House of M and Decimation storylines. Son of M especially is really good, though I didn’t especially like the art style. Civil War and House of M are more my kind of speed. I think I’m going to read some more World War Hulk after this, as well as X-Men: The Day After if I can get hold of it. Superman: Red Son looks good too, asking “What if Superman was born in the Soviet Union?”. Messiah Complex also looks pretty interesting, but I prefer to pick up the stories all in one instead of following them for ages.

Garry’s Mod 10 had an update recently, adding in the new Orange Box engine. I’m having a lot of fun with dynamic lights and shadows. Here are some screenshots - click for big and leave some comments if you can be arsed.

SupermanDamselYou Talking to Me?

Out, Joe

Christmas to me is…

Christmas to me

Out, Joe.

Lunchtime Legend…

I went to see I Am Legend yesterday, thanks to Microsoft. We saw it in this plush little private cinema and were introduced to it by a honcho from Warner Bros. and a honcho from MS. There were honchos all over the place, but I didn’t mind. We got free popcorn and all sorts.

Then I came back and the next day played Golden Axe with Rich on the Xbox 360. Sweet.

The other day was a big rush for me - I had an event in Soho in the morning to see Frontlines and then I hung out with Riyad for a bit before going to see the film. There was free beer and mince pies at both events and, even though I’d skipped breakfast, I ended up drinking a fair bit. I was careful to spread it out though and have a bottle of coke between each beer.

Good result - social drinking without even getting tipsy.

Bad result - needed to wee a lot.

After that Riyad and I had a Wagamamas and went to a Motorola event, but by then it was about 7PM and I’d been travelling since about 6:30. I knew it was going to take me about 2 hours to get home too since I had to pick Hannah up from work, so I left early. Then I found out that shortly after I left my name was pulled in a prize draw and I missed a chance to get a free phone. A shame - I don’t get enough free gadgets, just games (which everyone else in the office tends to nick).

I’m having a Cheese and Lettuce sandwich for lunch right now, with an apple and some ‘Nice N Spicy’ Nik Naks. After that I may have another bit of Toblerone which came in to the office today. What did you have for lunch today? Let me know in the comments section below.

Out, Joe

Kiddie Games…

First: Digg my Crysis analysis and review.
Next: Banality.

I saw a scooter in a hedge today. It was a bit small for me, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing it and having a go since obviously nobody else wanted it. I thought it would look good under my bed, next to the skateboard I found in a river and the rollerblades I found in a ditch.

Hannah wouldn’t let me have it though. She’s a big meanie and said I was being too kiddy and that I’d never use it and it would look stupid. I thought I could have looked good on that thing, with my cardigan and haiwain shirt, or maybe that leotard that Dom left here. I could wear my aviators and actually venture outside of the living room for once, secure in the knowledge that I would be the cool kid guy on the block.

Alas, such things are not meant to be.

I never thought I’d get pissed off about too many computer games coming out. But I am. There’s far too many for me to reasonably cover over the next few weeks. Ah well, at least it’s fun to try.

Amusing anecdote: I was at the launch for Unreal Tournament 3 the other day and I almost stole a ladies jumper. There were T-shirts on the back of every chair, so I naturally bagged a few for the guys in the office. I even got one signed by Mark Rein for Hiren, bless his socks. Anyway, there was this one chair with a rugby jumper on the back, so I sat down and put the jumper in my bag. Then a woman came asked me for her jumper back.

The stupid thing was that she had a kid in a pram with her and spent the entire time sat at this table with these two middle-aged guys. I have no idea what sort of person takes their family out to the launch event for a multiplayer game in a pitch black LAN centre in the middle of Birmingham. Well, that’s a lie. I know exactly what sort of person would - the type of stupid person who leaves their clothes (with the labels still on) laying around amidst a pile of free clothes and expects nobody to take it. N00b.

Out, Joe

Waterboarding…

Surfer Girl posts about games and politics. This post below is not about games. I suggest you follow the link and watch both videos.

http://softrockhallelujah.blogspot.com/2007/11/thank-you-mr-olbermann.html

Joe, Out

Hungover Vista Woes…

I’m really hungover. Went round to Andys last night and took two bottles of wine, which I then drank pretty much all of while we ate pasta and watched a film. Coolios.

I’m having incredible trouble with Vista on my new PC. None of my favourite games work - Thief 3 won’t load at all, neither will Deus Ex 2, No One Lives Forever 2 won’t have sound, Dark Messiah keeps crashing, Garry’s Mod won’t run mods, Deus Ex 1 won’t play in 32-bit colour mode, Thief 1 and 2 don’t work even with hyperthreading off - the list goes on. Pisses me off.

May just go back to XP, things were simpler back then and all this UAC bollocks pisses me off. Sure, you can turn it off but then you’d just get stuck in an infinite loop of confirmations. Ugh. Sod the whole thing, I’m going to go play some Zelda on the DS and maybe throw up a little as well.

When’s Hannah coming home, dammit!

Out.

How to write an adventure game…

So, the new installment in my continuing feature for bit-tech.net is done and published. These things take bloody ages to write and organise.

The series has been looking at how computer games of different genres are designed and written and how it is that genres differ from each other. Last time I looked at FPS games. This time I looked at Adventure games.

So, read the story and digg it if you want.

Cheers.

Spurred on…

This brief post was spurred on by this news story, which reminded me that I haven’t posted in a while.

So, I’ve been busy busy busy lately and you can look forward to a lot more games content coming your way soo. Previews of Portal, Assassins Creed, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and more.

I’m also building a new PC right now and have my little sister coming down to stay soon, so there may not be posts for a while.

I’ll try and find something else to put here later, and will no doubt be asking for hardware suggestions for my new PC soon, via the bit-tech forums later in the week.

In the mean time, I have work to do.

Out, Joe

Hectic…

Man, I’m sweaty. It’s weird, I’m in an air-conditioned office and I’m not doing anything but writing and I’m still sweating my ass off. I’ve just been working non-stop from on this feature and it just takes it out of me - sometimes by the end of the day, I’m shattered and mentally exhausted.

Not that I’m complaining; I love writing and I love my job. It’s the job I always wanted, right down to the regular Riyad Vs. Joe arguements about System Shock 2 vs. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. (System Shock 2, dammit!)

The depressing thing though is that I probably work the least hours out of everyone on Bit-tech and sometimes Tim and Rich are here into the early morning. Idread to think how exhausted they must be at the end of the day. I guess it’s a good thing I can type fast.

Things are going to be hectic these next few weeks - Tim is over in Taiwan seeing his missus, Rich is off somewhere too and then I’m off on holiday with Hannah (and hopefully Dom and Katy too) for a week. I never really felt like I needed the break, but now I’m kind of looking forward to it - hopefully I can read some more and get some new energy in my writing. People still seem to like it, but I like to keep it fresh wherever I can.

A week with some Alfred Bester, On Writing by Stephen King, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and some good gaming magazines should really help me out.

But I’ll probably just build a sandcastle instead.

Out, Joe

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Who is this guy?

Me? I'm a Technology Journalist, call me Joe Martin. With a number of years experience working freelance for magazines and websites such as PC Format and Pro-G, I mostly cover computer-related topics. I can do other stuff as well though, honest. Anyway, this is my personal blog. So feel free to slag me off, discuss music and game tastes and examine my CV. Who knows, one day I could be writing about you!

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