HeadWillCollapse

Poet William Blakes-Sephen was born in 1978 in Doncaster. His collected works including poetry, prose and illustrations will form the basis of this module. He is best known for his poem “Tyger” about the dichotomy between the natural and the divine in EA’s “PGA tour 2005″. However, the poem we’ll be discussing today is in a different vein. Written as an ode to the puzzle game, “Meteos” on the Nintendo DS it is simply entitled “Five minutes and two seconds”. Read the rest of this entry »

Fat Conan doesn’t care if its target demographic is three to five year old girls. He doesn’t care that its a facsimile of the real thing that lacks the tangible aspects of genuine pet ownership. He doesn’t care that it doesn’t shed hair all over the furniture and fails to crave marrowbone jelly. He’s completely sanguine despite the fact that he can’t take it to the park and use it meet women. He’s not bothered in the slightest that his macho image is somewhat damaged by owning it (he once cut out a man’s spine using only a potato peeler so he’s still more than comfortable with his own manliness). He doesn’t even give a damn that it’s really just a Tamagotchi with added fur. Read the rest of this entry »

Multiplayer Nintendogs re-enactment “Crufts” will soon be upon us, and while waiting for the men-in-motors buffoonery of BBC two’s “Top Gear” I happily caught the end of the BBC’s heads-up on the event. The show came from the grounds of Lord and Lady Whatever’s 17th century stately mansion and was presented by the same people who normally present programmes concerned chiefly with horses and horse-related activities. It all seemed a bit grand for an event that will predominantly feature dogs sweating in Birmingham.

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GAME’s in-store corporate radio today announced that NaturalMotion’s new game engine “Euphoria” would be “using the computing power of the PS3 and the XBox 360 to stimulate the central nervous system” and that Rockstar would be using it in their upcoming GTA titles. Apparently the new games would offer a deeper level of interaction than ever before through this neurological stimulation although, as pointed out by the razor sharp DJ, in a GTA game that would probably hurt.

It’s these sorts of well researched and informed news articles that enrich the whole shopping experience.

I’ve had my Nintendo DS since August last year and in that time it’s seen its fair share of cartridges (do we still call them that or are they called something trendier nowadays). I have thus far not posted anything about any of them, not even in passing and so I thought it might be time to change that in a set of quick fire reviews of the most notable things I’ve played to date.

With no further ado and in no particular order:

Animal Crossing
Create a little person with a daft name. Put him or her in a little town with an equally daft name. Design some clothes, dress the little person in them and a finish the ensemble with a luchador’s mask. Hope that this fashion statement catches on and the rest of the townsfolk pick up on you unique trends. Collect assorted wildlife, dig holes and furnish your house with stuff you find in bins. Read the rest of this entry »

Fat Conan managed to win an Okami t-shirt by entering a competition on One Life Left (podcast on itunes or listen live Mondays 8pm on Resonance 104). He is, needless to say, very happy as it’s the first thing he’s won without having to club anyone or charge down any hordes. He was also elated to hear someone read aloud something he’d written without it being a demand for the handover of their women/possessions/country. He has informed me that he very much looks forward to stretching his new shirt over his bulbous frame and hopes it doesn’t clash with his animal skins.

Thanks OLL, that’ll keep him sated till autumn.

In gaming terms this, the space year 2007*, was christened with SWAT 4, a game which came free with one of the many video cards Fat Conan recently shelled out for. It’s an FPS with many varied missions and many varied ethnicities to assault along the way making for, what FC imagines is, an almost perfect recreation of real-life police work.

Anyway, with Fat Conan playing it with very much a “Doom” head on his shoulders, he soon found his “if they’re armed, shoot them in the face; if they’re unarmed shoot them in the legs, feet, hands or arms” approach didn’t curry favor with the top brass.

However, what was more interesting was his discovery that shooting an armed suspect dead as they went for their gun (as opposed to letting them shoot at you first) was seen as an “unauthorised use of deadly force” and as such resulted in ten whole points being deducted from his score.

Somewhat disturbingly though: having a suspect surrender, put down his weapon and drop to his knees, then hand-cuffing said suspect before walking nonchalantly around them only to shoot them at point-blank range in the crotch, results in only a five point penalty. Fat Conan wonders if this is the message we should be sending out to our children (not his children, obviously, the years of cumulative damage he’s taken his special region during the many splendid battles he’s fought has put paid to that idea).

* Fat Conan realises he should probably have wished everyone a happy new year.

It’s long been a dream of Fat Conan to be able to contribute to the gaming world by producing his very own independent gem. More specifically, he’s always wanted to write a vertical-scrolling shooter in the vein of DoDonPachi with multiple characters to choose from and a whole bunch of “new” and “innovative” features. However, Fat Conan’s apathy combined with the fact he’s not a real programmer has made pursuit of this dream a somewhat long-winded process. So long-winded in fact that he finished his degree and changed job twice in the time between deciding to write one and actually starting to code it. Read the rest of this entry »

Fat Conan has clearly been out of touch for a while as he managed to miss both UK:R and Consolevania’s mention of this little contest. Somewhat amazingly, despite a contest seeking the best “girl” amongst “female” gamers superficially sounding as enticing as one seeking the best foetus deformity amongst IVF mishaps, the gallery manages to be reasonably easy on the eye.

However, that alone is not enough to prevent FC getting very angry over the event; partially because Fat Conan is a new barbarian and as such thinks that such competitions are demeaning and have no place in a modern, post-feminist society; partially because of the presence of cosplayers in the line-up; but mainly because half of them couldn’t possibly be classified as gamers. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning: Not safe for work, unless you want people to think you have a poorly drawn cartoon woman fetish

Okay, I’ve been meaning to write a little something about this website since I bumped into its “offerings” while looking for images for that Jet Set Radio aticle I wrote a while ago. I can’t tell if it’s highly refined comedy gold or the bizarre gallery of a pure-bred lunatic, so I’ll leave it to you to decide.

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