Well, being as I’ve now had my PSP for over a week I thought it was about time to post a few fuzzy pictures of it and write a loose, badly worded, comedic piece called a ‘review’.
Being as nobody reads this site it’s a futile gesture, but in order to attract even crows, you have to have breadcrumbs. So here we go.

Design:

By far the better part of the PSP is it’s design. It’s sleek, well made and fairly compact.
It comes in a variety of colours and whilst my loving partner managed to avoid the temptation of buying me a pink one, mine’s black. For anybody that’s had a fiddle with a GBA SP, or a DS this one will feel a little ‘wider’ in your hands. Not original X-Box pad wide, but wider than others.

 
The controls are firm and don’t fly around too much, the mini-thumbstick is well designed and doesn’t stick out enough for the thing to get broken off.
The L and R shoulder buttons again are unintrusive but they do wiggle back and forth a bit, not too much but there’s more play there than there needs to be.

Everything else is normal for handhelds, it doesn’t boast the DS touch screen or the compact dimensions and ‘cute’ factor of the SP but it does have the biggest screen of all three. And for purists I’m not adding the two DS viewing areas as one, they are separate screens and used predominantly for that purpose.

Although not technically a ‘design’ feature the battery life and backlighting are good. I’ve had no trouble seeing the screen in dark environs (Not so for the early GBA’s) but it does reflect a lot of light. Watching the screen in broad daylight can be difficult, and when you figure that portability is about being outside then that may be a drawback. But if you’re sensible and don’t try to sit on the beach below a blazing solar ball of hydrogen you’re usually ok.

The battery life is exemplary for something of it’s capacity, variety and size. From listening to MP3’s with visualisations, to full length movies and also games, all of which include accessing the memory stick, it’s really quite formidable. Sony have obviously tapped into their experience in digicams and phones to make the most of battery life in a hand held device, roughly once every three or four days of average use I have to charge the battery, so I’m happy. The annoying thing is of course the AC adaptor is Sony patented so I’m guessing a new one would cost me an arm and a leg, but that’s what I expect with a product of this quality.

Next on the design front would be the UMD disk tray at the rear of the console:

Ive taken a shot here of the open innards of the PSP so you can see what’s exposed when you load a game disk or UMD movie. To be honest this is my only gripe with the PSP’s design. The opening tray at the back accompanied as it is by PS2 style springs and a loading draw for a disk, whch obviously includes a reader head and a spinning axle make me uneasy. They are firm and well put together, dont spring, click or creak in any hideous way but there is that feeling that if anything goes wrong on consoles it’s moving parts.

I’m not sure why Sony opted for a proprietary disk format in UMD, being as catridges can offer as much data storage etc. I suppose it allowed the film industry a similar enough tech to DVD to burn UMD movies. What annoys me is that catridges are just plain, simpler, easier, smaller, less likely to bust etc. That said I’ve not yet (touch wood) had any problems with either the loading tray or any disks. It doesn’t make a lot of noise nor does it hiss or click when loading (Pretty impressive when you consider it’s being held upright) and I’ve had no misreads either. For the sake of journalistic integrity I even threw it around a bit whilst it was trying to load. The jitter correction and read speed must be pretty good because it didn’t fault. That said I wouldn’t make a habit of shaking it while its loading. The only other downside would be the PSP’s size, it isnt annoying to hold or carry, weighging in at very little, but if you want to sling it in your pocket and listen to MP3s you’ll be dissapointed. It needs a jacket pocket or aside vent on cargo pants to slip in properly, aditionally if you don’t have a case you’ll be worried about scratching the large screen when walking. A problem not encountered on folding GBA SP’s or DS’s.

Interface:

One of the strengths of Sonys platforms is that they usually have a nice interface. The general rule of thumb is don’t add more stuff than the user needs to do or know. With the DS and similar compteting systems it’s hard to not follow this rule. They basically play games and that’s about it.
The PSP is a slightly different story.
The initial menu depdns on your firmware but it’s a beautiful and relaxing thing of pulsating gentle colours and an intuitive side scrolling list of options, here for your viewing pleasure is a fuzzy example:

The PSP boats multiple features aside from games, including movies, music, internet browsing and screen show menus. This plethora of features has been well dealt with and is always accessable even without media present (A feature admired by admins) but also occasionaly auto-runs for basic tasks (You put a game in and it runs, a favourite for dumb asses).
Simplicity is nice and each overall menu drops down into several sub menus you navigate via moving the highlight up and down. It feels a bit like Vista without the perspective but is pretty to look at whilst being functional. Downsides of the interface are that with every firmware upgrade the PSP goes through (Similar to DirectX these come with many games for play) are hard to reverse and often add more icons in the context menus. I’m a fan of more functionality and greater power to the user but I hope Sony are careful in the number of features they introduce in this way, sometimes it can be an ass to have lots of icons I dont need. The interface is designed so I dont initially see the things I dont want but they do get in the way when Im doing other functions in the same menu.
That said the PSP is about media and games which means, aside from linking it to WAN’s and Wi-Fi hunting, I dont spend much time going through menus, which is nice.

Gfx / Sound:
 

This is where the PSP really stands out for me. The sheer quality of the graphics and display, kill the competition. The cute but unerpowered graphics offered by nintendo (That sentence could describe all their consoles, let alone handhelds) are dwarfed by the more mature, contrasted and richer display of the PSP. Not only is the screen bigger but Sony do more with the space. I feel more like I’m using a decent multimedia device than a souped up mobile phone which has mario.
The visuals are rich and organic, obviously way below the PC’s capabilites and those of the PS3 or even more sophisticated PS2 titles but still very capable. I’d put the graphics as PS 1.75 or PS2 on occasion. There are decent particle effects, good polygon count and the machine seems able to display different framerates via movies etc with no problem, no dead pixels or late transition of colour. The only downside is that I’ve occasionally noticed a ‘red bleed’ on some movies. I think this is down to encoding however as I’ve not seen any such problems in the games or on other titles. There’s no blurring either and overall the screen is really top quality.

When I first tried my PSP on a train during a commute I was wearing £3 aeroplane earphones which gave me pause. I was trying hard to watch an episode of the Simpsons but the sound was drowned out by the train. I then tried a game and wacked the sound up to full and found the same problem. At this point I was annoyed, the max volume without headphones isnt bad but it drains the battery more and annoys other commuters.
I decided to give the PSP a fair go and borrowed by partners cheap but effective, Sennheiser, noise cancellation, in-ear phones.

Revolution.

The sound is crisp and clear, no hitches, or stutters. There are no pops, clicks or even over bearing sounds as the machine transitions from one effect to the next. The MP3 playback is exemplarary too. There’s no digital noise in the background or sound of processing or interference messing with your signal (A bane on my cheap mp3 player) and there’s even no pause between songs in MP3 mode with the player buffering the next up before moving on a file, avoiding loading.
With a decent pair of noise cancellation phones this baby really immerses you, the screen passes the big enough to be engrossed in’ test too. I’ve sat watching a film with my earphones on whilst angry train guards literally wave ticket inspection mahcines in my face. Gone to the world.
To give you an idea what benfit you get from the audio with an average pair of in-ear phones, I can sit on a tube going full speed through a tunnel with the carriage windows down so air is rushing through and the sound of the train crashing along the tracks is reflected back into the carriage, with the PSP on 75% volume and not notice a thing. For someone with tinitus that’s a good thing.

Although not technicaly an audio feature I would say that the PSP’s ability to have several cool equilisers to watch whilst playing MP3s is nice too, they react well to the sound and are co-ordinated and synched properly, no random ‘why did that happen? moments, which I’ve had with Winamp.

Games:

I can’t try to come across as too much of an expert here, being as I’ve only played one title. What I would say is this. But that in itslf is ok, because if you like strategy games and Im reviewing the PSP base don my love of sports titles you’d get just as little from it.
What I will say is that the initial catalogue for the PSP was small and Gonz had repeatedly told me he didn’t know of one ‘must have’ game that sold the PSP. Well the library is much larger now and better games are coming along all the time, for me the question of a ‘must have title is more reserved for consoles. In a handheld I want titles I can pick up and play, that look a lot like if not exactly the same as their console equivalents.
I’m also a big fan of retro games. Therefore when Midway, Namco and Capcom all released their ‘best of’ series on PSP I wet my pants. I can now play the Arcade version of SF2 and all the old megadrive classics at their intended graphics and speed on my PSP. Here’s another bonus of the PSP over the other traditional handhelds. Im an adult gamer, thats why Im always drawn to Sony or Microsoft in consoles rather than Nintendo. The array of titles available for PSP includes plenty of platform and puzzle games but its also got lots of arcade classics, converted truly (All death moves, blood etc) I like that. If I want cutesy, save the world and stroke puppies Ill play a DS. If I want harder, darker and more involving games that dont shy away from blood, sex and gore because they have to I’ll play the PSP.

Hackability:

This is a key feature of any handheld or console for me. As a PC person from the outset, I’ve always needed connectivity, functionality and best of all the ability to play with the hardware a bit. Being a Sony product I was very wary about the PSP’s abilities in this field.
What with Sony installing spyware with their albums and mp3’s, making firmware checks on games and other drives and owning half the music and film industry I didnt expect much by way of adaptability.

Thankfully I was wrong.

The PSP comes with a handy USB port at the top which connects to your PC. No doubt the later versions wof the firmware will require software on the PC but this one doesnt. Plug your PSP in, have a memory stick inserted and your PC just treats it like a large removable drive. Make sure to format the memory stick on the PSP and itll helpfully show all the root folders etc. What this allows you to do is load up movies and other titles tot he PSP after you’ve converted them into the right format and put them in the right place.
With a little mucking about you can get full length movies onto your PSP and all the MP3’s you want. You can also put in save games and other such fun items to unlock bonuses and endings on games you may have purhased.
The games piracy tech is a little more sophisticated than that, and I havn’t seen a sucesfull crack of it with the latest PSP firmware. But to be honest that’s fine by me. I dont mind paying for the games in the least, I just want to be able to use the media functionality the way I want to. If I want to back up my DVDs as DivX and then play them on the move, I expect Sony to let me do that. And whilst they dont help it isnt too difficult to do either. 

Conclusion:

In summary I’d say this was the best handheld out there for a guy like me. I like the multimedia functionality, I like the game I’ve played, the audio and graphics destroy the competition (I’m not counting rare Japanese handhelds here) and its all presented in a neat, slick package. Sure the downsides of moving parts, size and a proprietrary game format aren’t negligble but being as PSP’s are now sub £100, the library has expanded and many are availalbe in deals with 2 or 3 titles I’m a fan.

For those of you who are worried, dont be concerned, I still hate Sony, but theyre winning me back a PSP at a time…

Sometimes you watch a movie that is so terribly awful it is difficult to put into words.
Sadly, however, being a journo type, words are my hobby. Somehow I have to pass on the sheer excrement value of the movie I’ve just watched.

Right, let’s see…I need some adjectives. ‘Confused’, ‘Badly Acted’, ‘Rabid dog shit covered in radioactive arse waste of evil mutant zombie cats that have eaten shit for half a year then died and roasted in old sewage before shatting out this film’.

Yep, those fit.

Ghost Rider follows the model put forward in comic to movie marketing documents. That for every two good comic book films, one has to be truly crap. Thankfully, like the curse Johnny Blaze chooses to carry for us all, this movie fulfills the latter role.

The background story is actually quite strong, involving a faustian pact which results in the devil cheating Johnny out of his soul and sending him after some very unscary opponents. Johnny is a bike rider, who rides a bike for evil which turns him into fire and he has powers which means he collects the devils debts. Sadly none of this story gets put into the film.

It isn’t even a decent kids comic book movie, sure there’s some good action and nice effects (Although not all nice, watching the end scene where the devil is standing in the church makes you realise how horribly superimposed the actors are). I gave up trying to follow the story halfway through and just watched for the leading ladies boobs everytime she thrust them into view.

Here is a sample of the dialogue, truly of Epoisode III standard: “I love you for who you are. This is who you are, who you were always meant to be.” YAWN.

The bad guys are not scary, the film is a series of different scenes badly cut together that seem completely unconnected, the plot makes little sense and frequently dissapears only to poop up again as convenient. Random legends and myths are thrown in, but there’s nothing apocalyptic, epic or even remotely magical about the outcome. It just looks like bad sci-fi TV gone wrong. Huge swathes of characterisation are left untouched and plot holes abound (Who are the demons aiding the devils son? Where do they go? If the son has no soul and Johnny kills the others, where does he go? What happens to the woman? How about the million people who saw Johhny turn into ghostrider and tear up a city and throw a police helicopter on film? What happned to the secret rider? Why did he wait to reveal himself? Who are the villagers of this place and why havn’t they been damned?) The film left me with endless questions and an annoying feeling I had made a deal to spend two hours watching it and was cheated out of that time.

It’s not all bad, you get the sense that Cage is sleepwalking through his lines but he’s still entertaining enough to watch. There’s also a kind of feeling that there was a wealth of material to go on from the comic books and the writers tried to cram way too much in. But aside fomr that and the leading ladies breasticles, this is one to burn in the eternal pit of bargain bin hades and never ever touch.

Verdict? Don’t even bother to warez it.

To break the impression that clan404.com is now solely a, poorly written movie review, database I thought it time to add some content with depth.

 A recent news article over at the BBC, here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6517807.stm
Got me thinking on the subject of religion, faith, God et al.

I’ve recently read professor Dawkin’s excellent book ‘The God delusion’ and all this has had me thinking pretty durn hard about the true nature of the world we live in.

Religion bashing is easy, with a bit of historical comparison, sourcing and textual analysis one can pick apart any of the worlds major faiths by discrediting its literature. Biblical studies over the Renaissance period yielded the science we know as religious study today. And the arguments against the worlds strongest religions remain as strong today as when Darwin first begged God’s forgiveness for having to ‘tell the truth’ in the theory of evolution.

However, as the BBC article highlights, most of us are satisfied with very little intellectual inquiry, despite possesing the faculties to do so. We assume vague, half truths defning ourselves as ‘Christian’ or ‘Agnostic’ (In the West at least) and turn to a dimly remembered version of school-time Christianity when the going gets rough. Whilst any one religion does not have all the answers any longer and none of the major texts can (IMHO) stand up to intense scrutiny, that does not mean that belief in God is redundant or illogical.

If we define religion as beliefs supported by a set of practices then to some, science is a religion unto itself. The belief is the quest for universal truth which is suported by the practice of rigourous logic and scientific inquiry. True, scientists dont simply explain away the unknown with ‘Magic Man in the sky did it’ but neither do they have all the answers. The irk for most scientists or, dare I say, rationalists, as I see it is the blind acceptance by the religious masses that if there’s no current answer it doesnt warrant study because ‘God did it’. This is true most of the time, indeed Dawkin’s refers to it as the ‘God of the gaps’ theory in his book. Where there is no science as yet, God exists, when science shines its light into a gap, belief simply fills another one, and so on.

However there are a group of people beyond the agnostic and the scientific, they are the deists. They believe in God, but don’t necessarily feel that they have any special place in God’s existance, being merely another form of life, albeit one cognicent enough to marvel at creation.
Of course this theory has its detractors too, on the religious side comes the argument ‘If God exists and gifted the capacity for independant thought surely it is divine will that we search, find and subsequently praise.’ And the scientific: ‘Accepting the existence of God with little or no evidenc eother than the lack of explanation for certain phenomena is no more logical than ascribing all life to a giant teapot spinning in the sky over Pluto’.

Both arguments have their weaknesses, first the religious argument that if God exists we must naturally create a religion and follow/serve is somewhat self aggrandising. Whoever said mankind was so special? If that’s true how do we differentiate between competing religions? Which is truly inspired by God? Who’s miracles are bigger? The answer is clouded in ‘we cannot know the mind of God’ answers. Which sadly are circular and axiomatic. For everythnig we cant explain ‘God did it’ and for everythnig we dont understand but do know ‘Dont ask’. Logic is not the enemy of religion, but it isn’t even treated on equal terms in this argument.

Second, science. It is a myth that science jumps form fact to well established fact. It doesn’t. Many areas of subjects now taken for granted (Ironically like the vague recollection of religion we all carry) are not factual, just hypothetical. Some Darwinists will crow that evolution is a ‘proven fact’. Just because something is observable and repeatable in current circumstances does not make it a fact. There could be many reasons or exceptions to our rule, indeed there are many gaps in the evolutionary chain as we know it, just in general, our rule works most of the time. Second, Big Bang theory. Creationists have a problem with this one as it means the universe didnt start with God saying ‘Be’. Sure the universe may not have been made in 7 days, but who said God didnt kick off the bang? Second we enter the circular realm of ‘what came first’ what created the bang etc. Again we have plenty of circumstantial evidence that backs up the idea of an expanding universe, but in an example of where science continues to contradict, an older-modern (If such an oxymoron can be used) view was that the universe would expand and contract, there are now studies indicating it will expand forever. Again, no answers.

We are, to borrow from Fight Club, the middle children of history. No longer obediant to religion through ignorance to the world, but not illuminated enough by Science to drop our ideas of divinity. In short, we’ve got problems.

All comments welcome, peace.

Having a partner who is quite the fan of the horror genre is nice, it means I’m dragged to see films I might not otherwise bother with. It is also bad, as I’m dragged to see films I might not otherwise bother with.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Hereafter HHE2) is actually quite good. It doesnt so much build on the first movie as just retell it underground with guns. Now for those of you who’re thinking Alien here, think again. Whereas Aliens was an amazing movie that allowed large numbers of the evil creatures to face the might of future-modern military technology, this is not ‘What would happen if we sent in the marines?’ more ‘Lets give the mutants more pretty women to rape only put them in army fatigues’.

The movie plays on several of the genre staples. First our outpost of scientists investigating the initial incident is attacked and cut off. Second an unsuspecting group of young national guard trainees go to deliver supplies ot the area and discover the situation. Unable to raise help they abandon protocol and go on a search & rescue mission for the missing people.
The movie doesn’t try to get bigger than it is and makes only a few wider political jibes, an example of which is that the troops are young and stupid and in a 6 week training course for Afghanistan at the outset of the movie.

 Characters are fairly 2D aside form our ‘leads’ this lets you identify who’s going to get mulched pretty easy from the outset. We’ve got a ’scientific’ peacenik who will obviously become a man through a trial of blood, an angry Mexican who will have to come to terms with his violent nature and a smart, capable black man who - True to Spike Lee’s nightmares, will probably die. Their tough black sergant is a good guy trying to do right who cares for his platoon add in two women, one white and one hispanic, one of whom has a child, and you’re left wondering what the hell kind if platoon this is if not steretypical. All it needed was a chinese guy and a brazilian kid and they could have summoned captain Planet to help.

Stereotypes aside the movie does ok at the outset. We get the obligatory, silence followed by loud noises, claustrophobic camera angles and gory, bloody deaths by an unseen enemy. The director was obviously aware that the unseen is more scary than the average monster in the hallway so they play on it until they simply have to start showing bad guys.
The movie doesnt do anything particularely new in the way it uses sound and visuals, camera angles are standard, the score is predictable and imemorable but most of the acting is solid enough to let you sit through it. The only production gripe would be the pacing, the movie ramps it up, then slows it down, then ramps it up and so forth. This wouldnt be bad if we used the sloe time to do some characterisation or something but it’s wasted in the main. I found myself shifting in my seat awaiting the next firefight.

There is of course the obligatory ’signature shock scene’ which competing horror movies now have to have. Saw has it’s games and voice modulated speeches, Chainsaw massacre has it’s preserved skins and Hills has mutant rape. For those of you who havn’t senn the first movie, buy the Directors cut on DVD. The mutant rape scene is actually rather unsettling, it’s realistic without being too shwoy and just probable and horrid enough that its revolting, the production crew obivously realised this was the Hills main selling point, being as it was what critics focussed on.

So Hill 2 features just such a scene, thing is this one is predictable and is lead up to. It doesn’t feel like a spontaneous evil act by the monsters, just something stuck in to give the viewers a ’shock factor’. That plus it’s filming just make you feel a bit uncomfortable rather than shocked, kind of like having a sex program come on when you’re watching tv with your parents.

Overall the film is your average easter monster movie. Predictable, trading on the innovations of the first movie while adding nothing new fairly run of the mill. However solid acting and a decent(ish) plot and background story bring it just a head over the monster munching competition.

Verdict?

Wait for the directors cut on DVD.

A very short review of 300 by me, your resident critic. I do not use the title film critic as that honor is unreservedly held by Dr Gonz, who’s many fine works can be found over at www.mudwig.com for want of such prowess, I present my review below:

300 is the movie Gladiator could have been if they had followed the Roman army rather than one man. Sure it wouldn’t have been the personal epic it was but it would have been a massive, historical work.
I’m not going to outline the plot, if you haven’t heard of this battle, or read Frank Miller’s novel, or any of the other million stories about it, or seen any of the advertising for this film then you’re already dead and the world wanted it that way.
The first thing that struck me was the quality of the film itself. There is no better argument or ‘dont download compressed Divx copies’ than watching this movie in digital at a cinema. The image was so crisp and clear, the sound clarity as clear as water ridden urine. It was, in short, beautfiul. I actually felt I’d been watching VHS tapes instead of DVDs recently. The grit, dirt and hues of colour gavwe a radiance and reality o the film that automatically killed the competition.
The acting was all round fantastic and bar, just a few tiny, misuses of the English language posing as dialogue it stood out. There were no moments when I literally shuddered at the language used and even the incredibly hammy speeches play well because of the sheer epic scope of the film.
The setup and intro are suitably powerful that you are hooked within about 5 minutes of the opening. Every camera angle and shot is milked for all it’s worth, perhaps a little overstated on repeat viewing, but first time around it’s visually orgasmic.
The combat effects aren’t overused (The now ubiquitous matrix ‘freeze and fly’ camera) and none of the heroes or villians perform particularly outrageous feats of physical daring, being just slightly over the top in their exertions.
Favourite moments for me include the clash between the Spartans and Persia’s immortals. Historically a ‘who would win if’ argument. Elite soldiers from the middle east / Asia versus those from Greece. Fantastic viewing.
There is a suitable amount of backing political intrigue with the role of ‘warrior woman’ played well by our hero’s wife, queen of Sparta.
I defy any man not to feel that animal twinge of excitement at the first charge of the Persian infantry into the Sopartan line, sheer classic film making that plays on the emotional xylophone very well.
There are of course a few bits missing, the characters are perhaps a bit two dimensional, platying as they are an era of history rather than personalities of an age. But that’s forgivable as it’s what the film seeks, scope.
All in all 300 out of ten.

Comments?

Once, many a year ago I tried to play games on my then mobile phone. This was akin to trying to play the harp with my teeth. It hurt and there was no good to come of it.

Arguable the greatest invention that ever hit the original Nokia brands was the rise of snake. The first, green screen Anaconda style game was literally played by millions and enjoyed. Reason? Well my hypothesis is that, much like tetris, its simplicity lent itself to genuine human interest and it was perfect for its format. It was quick and could be played mobile as the good lord mobile technologies intended.

So what of mobile games in the 2.5G generation? My first gaming experience on my phone outside of the default, poorly drawn outrun style title was a game I downloaded and paid for. It was a 2d platformer, I forget the name, and it sucked the ass of evil dead clowns. This was unfortunate as I had hoped to find a new avenue for gaming. Having become bored of my GBA (Bored enough to leave it, a powerpack and 18 games on a train) I have been looking for that ‘mobile gaming solution’ that can follow me on my many travels.

At first I’d gone with PSP like all the other i-sheep out there. But even consistent badgering of Gonz and Shades to give me just one reason to buy one resulted in nothing. I cannot stress enough, I had already made up my mind, I wanted to buy the damn handheld, I really did. I spent hours on the net looking for screenshots, reviews or movies of anything that would excite me enough to actually go the shop and hand my money over. Nothing.

There had to be something, some hidden away title (Like evil dead pinball or Doom 2 on GBA) that would give me the incentive. ANYTHING. Please lawd, I WANT to give you my money, I already want your handheld, just give me a reason. Honest I would even email the launch sites “Please Sony, just give me a reason”. When my prayers went unanswered and the small gaming people of my brain were slaughtered regardless of their piety I finally killed the religion of Sony in my head and decided never again to offer unto them the burnt calf of my cash.

So what then? GBA had failed me. Sony had died (And this is before they took an almighty shit on the gaming community, that shit being PS3 launch.) I was alone. I had only…My phone.

Could I? Could I really try? The golden days of Snake were long over, my last attempt at downloadable content had hurt me so much, was there a chance of return? Having a member of the clan who works for a major mobile games producer (SpiKe) whos recently been head hunted for an even better job in London meant I surely had to give it a go. This is when I discovered that mobile games had come along way, but that the format wars here were just as bitter as the console world, if not worse.

A mate and I were chatting about it over dinner and he showed me the content list for  his UK network, I was impressed. In fact I nearly shat my pants and vomitted when he showed me ‘Street Fighter 2′ on his phone. Now he doesnt have one of those all singing all dancing handsets, in fact mine’s a tad more advanced but he had a decent conversion of SF2 (For the astute you will know that SF2: Turbo is my favourite game of all time) running on his damned phone. Well, his operators list of games included classics reworked such a Golden Axe and even…Final Fight. Therefore I connected my GPRS and salivated at the prospects for the games catalouge on my own (Leading and massive) international phone provider.

I was faced with crushing reality.

The ’store’ was much like your average Games shop. I had a thousand EA Sports titles to choose from, mostly Fifa, Tiger Woods and Madden conversions. As a side note, can someone just fucking shoot Tiger Woods so he can’t be in any more games. It’s just golf for pitys sake! Just call it golf and dont pay him gozillions for the ‘prestige’ of having his pixellated face on a 7″ phone screen in shite resolution. Damn.

Anyway, my own range of classics was limited to Sonics various incarnations. Being a fan of sonic I duly oblidged. Now, Im thinking, seriously this is just a phone I’m gonna get like one level of awful graphical tomfoolery and a blue square representing my faouvrite hedgehog. This time my suprise was good.

For just £2.50 (Probably the equivalent of about $50,000 Zimbabwean dollars) I got a pretty decent phone conversion of Sonic. It doesnt have much replay value, but its a genuince conversion. Minus sound and with a lot of juddering when you scroll fast (Hint to the company that made this: Scrolling fast is what sonic does, optimise it) it was quite fun. LAcking sound and with the odd stagger it was hardto get my drunken garden mammal to perform proprely but it was still fun. Largely through nostalgia value I got immersed and missed my stop on the train this morning. Therefore, a difficult win for the Sonic phone game.

Next I’m downloading Rainbow Six: Vegas (No shit its really there, cant imagine its a faithful version but…)

Watch this space. Or handset. Or something.

I’ve been loving being behind the times in console terms recently.
One of my favourite moments of the weekend is my walk into my local Game store where, out of sheer desperation for the deposit on a PS3 pre-order or for a copy of Gears of War on the 360, people can pawn their once loved games.

These used and old titles are handed in, as reluctant sex slaves to the cashiers who part with mere pennies and duly stick a ‘preowned’ label on the cover and put them on display.

Some of these Xbox and PS2 titles don’t run on the newer systems (Backwards compatible? Just like Windows XP SP2 right Sony?) So they’re forced into the ‘3 for 2′ bargain bins dotted around the Game store. In their hay days these glorious titles in glossy boxes would swank about the shop casually flirting with customers and demanding about £40 or 50 for those in Eurloand. Now these cheap harlots are the victims of progress. Their battered boxes and used code make them no longer vestal virgins but a trio of gaming goodness to be had at a snip of the price of one of the originals. Fair commerce indeed my pretties.

I’ve been playing a lot of ‘Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse’ on the XBox. I fucking love this game. Essentially you’re a zombie and shamble around a 50’s futuristic town designed to be a future eutopia. You’re job is to make lots of other zombies, chase the wife of the towns mayor (Who it seems our lead is infatuated with, no pulse indeed…) and generally create zombie havoc. It’s comedic and fun but doesn’t feel ‘light’ which is a bonus. Lots of great moves such as controlling enemies via your severed arm, disabling armed guys with your zombie flatulance and bowling your own explosive undead head make the strategies for completion fun and varied. It’s the first game that’s had me addicted since…Well Since that particular RTS which put me in rehab and probably cost me a relationship. I speak of course of…

Medieval Total War. There is no greater strategy title on earth than this magnificent monster of a game. For once PC Gamers’ weekly ‘Best Game since Jesus’ award was worth it. It’s spawned two sequals, Rome Total War and Medieval 2. Now whilst I’ve seen Medieval 2 running on a friends machine and been much enamoured by it’s glory I’ve held off installing it on my less impressive rig. The reason being is that being behind the times in consoles is great, being behind the times in PC’s? Sucks the ass of flatulant dead zombies.

I can feel that time coming up. That critical mass of games that just demand I get a new computer. The joy of a clean install on a blazingly fast machine and even of replaying your old games in full 1280×1024 4xAA glory is an e-gasm without equal. Sadly with many more commitments than I used to have the PC upgrade will have to wait, either that or happen in painful stages like the seige of some ancient city with epic stone walls scalable only with towers and pounded by catapult fire.

Until then I get to listen to my girlfriend scream and throw the gamepad at me whilst playing Silent Hill 2. I also get to let her win at Monkeyball Deluxe and I’ve got to complete the X-Men age of Apocalypse 2 I just got. That plus I got hold of Doom 3 for the XBox…You guessed it, all in 3 for 2’s.

Generally I don’t buy FPS or RTS games on Consoles, I’m just too much of a WASD fan and you just can’t do it properly on a keyboard. It’s like a waterbed with satin sheets or a single hammock tied limply to a palm tree. That said HALO was the reason I bought the big black beast of the box in the first place. Consoles for me are about multiplayer games, third person titles and decent RPG’s. I’ve got a slew of multiplayer games fomr the bargain bins, Serious SAm, X-Men, Marvel vs Capcom, Mortal Kombat (All 8000 of them) and more.

All I need now are some friends…

Well this is a general test type first post.
I hope to add many long and incoherent ramblings on games, rap and life here.
First I’d like to say a big congrats to Jr on the birth of the newest addition to the 404 family, his little baby. Remember, they belong to the clan first and the family second Jr.

Next up I wanted to give the 404 viewing public (All four of you) prior warning that the music world is about to get a gift that hasn’t been equalled since Kevin Federline (K Fed to fans) decided he could make songs. Gonz and I have started another project and gone back to our roots to produce a new sound for the digital underground. More news when there is any.

Finally a big fat welcome to anyone and everyone. Let’s get this place painted and habitable as soon as possible, once Gonz has cleared up we can all move back in and the 404 cyber mansion of www.clan404.co.uk will be a domicile of life once again. Except no French people.

Peace.