DING, DONG, TEH BEADLE IS DEAD

Am I the only one that thinks that during the funeral, some copper with a dodgy looking fake beard is going to appear behind the grieving crowd with a microphone in his apparenly withered hand?

Anyway, some people may like to know that yet another of the people who what did a blog last year are back, you may remember rosetintedgamer, who wrote “The Wonderful World of Videogame Retail”. An SFCesque rant from a guy who used to work in a certain purple-hued four letter high street chain.

Well, someone reported that one to his higher-ups, so he took it down… but now, hes an indie retailer, and doesn’t give a fuck who he upsets, so he’s back with Daddy Brown’s Wonderland.

Go and give it a look, and give him a poke and tell him to write stuff.

Some may say it may be a little too early in the year to have such a reward ceremony, but, I think it’s justified.

This years “Cunt of the Year” award goes to:

DJ ATOMIKA

I remember when Criterion were a nice little UK-based software team, making a little tribute to Outrun they liked to call “Burnout”, until EA bought the fuck out of them and turned the franchise into what appears to be focus-group inspired hell.

Main gripe being the fictional smug prick with a microphone, “DJ Atomika”, or as I like to call him, “DJ Turn this annoying fucker off the second I start the game”.

Suffice to say, despite his pleas in Burnout Paradise, I will not be emailing “him” (IE: some poor office gopher who has to read emails from a bunch of adolescent, racist Xbox Live kiddies), nor will I be reading his blog.

And while I’m at it, a little note to Alex Ward:

No matter how much you chuck your toys out of the pram when people criticise you, your game needs a fucking retry option. PERIOD.

“Well, you can go anywhere and do anything in any order – despite talking about this on all of our podcasts (when not too distracted by all the bad spelling in all of the letters we receive) it seems that few people really understand this yet. And to be honest, why should they, when the game’s not out yet!”

Yes, because you’re the first fucking game with a sandbox design… Ohhh, wait, you aren’t. The GTA series, Tony Hawk games, and yes, Test Drive Unlimited, all allow you to move around the map to hearts desire. But once you are locked into attempting a mission/challenge/race/whatever, THEY FUCKING ALLOW YOU TO RETRY.

Admittedly, yes, you would have to have loading screens. But apparently, the general gaming public (you know, the ones that buy the games, allowing EA to pay your wages) aren’t as up their own arse about that aspect as you seem to be.

Burnout Paradise Review:

If it had retry: 9/10

Without retry, and the fact Alex Ward is a big-headed cunt: 2/10

Lets look at the facts:

• A console with outside-market appeal, selling like hotcakes.
• The majority of titles for said console being generic crap or poor quality, just to cash in on the fad.
• Games being rushed out before they are finished.
• Games being over-hyped only to turn out to be severely lacking in quality upon release.
• Blatant fucking lying by game and hardware developers alike.
• Developers gaining a stupidly high opinion of themselves, and moaning about the criticisms of the gaming public, who, in the end of the day, pay their fucking wages.

As a player of games since the very early 80′s, I’m starting to find it very, very hard to justify buying any of the shit that’s getting pushed out now, and I know I’m not alone.

…and if so-called “hardcore” gamers are beginning to feel that way, who’s going to keep the market going when those “blue ocean”, fad-following, Wii buyers realise what they are playing, for the most part, is a sack of shit, and chuck their consoles in the bin?