Basically, I just want to rant today.

I'm pissed off. It's odd. It's like the rebellious difficult-teen phase that I seemed to have skipped has decided it does want me to go through it after all... despite the fact that I've already turned twenty. Basically, I'm a slow developer.

I have to write an essay, but I don't feel like it, and every fiber of my being seems to tell me that I don't have to write any dissertation or essay if I don't want to. While it probably wouldn't kill me to just fucking go ahead and write it, telling it to fuck off seems like a much more attractive option. I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's because I know there are a gazillion ways to make money to survive. Maybe it's because I know there is a woman who survives on the skills and friends she's acquired, not on little bits of paper.

Maybe it's because trying to make myself make sense to other people is a fucking chore. I put in loads of effort trying to understand stuff that doesn't make sense [admittedly, I seem to enjoy that sort of thing] and if they want to understand my point of view, why don't they put in the effort?

Maybe it's the same reason I have a preference for finding out about cool stuff, not for explaining it to other people.

Maybe it's the same reason I always preferred writing fiction stories in English class at school than writing essays that analyse things.

I think eventually, it all comes down to persuasion. I mean, I definitely need people to point me towards things to check out. I joined CGD because it sounded interesting. Barry made it sound interesting during the interview, and his lectures were always pretty cool, but he stopped lecturing us to do research. Surman always made it sound interesting to me, but he's not here anymore to continue making it sound interesting.

So now, nothing is really succeeding in persuading me to keep submitting to the course's demands, except for maybe a little part of my own will, and the University life outside of study, with my Uni friends. Except they don't seem to really be persuading me very hard either [and why should they?].

If I don't want to do something, I have to be persuaded into wanting to do it. Give me some really good reasons. Otherwise, I won't see the point, and I won't want to do it, and I'll put it off, and then get angry at it for wanting me to do it when I just don't fucking want to. I'm pretty sure a lot of people work that way, and not just regarding what course they're paying for.

...Fuck it.

I'm going to write the essay.

But if it doesn't make sense or doesn't get a high grade, then quite frankly it's their own damn fault for not making the ability to write academically properly look valuable in my eyes.

Fable II and its Reviews

I've decided to write my essay on Fable II. Initially my plan was to write about the good/evil or pure/corrupt system, or how making the different choices in the games lead you to different scenarios, but I found a book in the library which has been very interesting. It's called Creating Emotion in Games, by David Freeman, and offers many tips on making game characters, stories and worlds more interesting and life-like through the medium of... emotion. This is the area I'm going to focus on in my essay.

Now on to the main subject of my post: The reviews I have read on Fable II as part of my research.
I've noticed a great divide in the reviews here about the game, ranging from "a total waste of money" to "It's just Fabalous I say... just Fabalous. Or should I say... Fable-ous!"
Many of the reviewers seemed to like the game, although a lot of comments were made about how disappointing it was that two players could not play their own full characters during co-op mode.

Of some of the more extreme comments made against it, it seemed to me that these players were either angry because they had heard a great deal of hype about the game and were not given what they were promised, or they are stuck in this idea that the game needs tons of "cool armor", "awesome weapons" and a "big boss fight" at the end. This following comment in particular showed me how some players just don't understand what game designers need to do to encourage the games industry to develop.

fable 2 is simply stated an entire let down. you CAN'T DIE!? and there is NO MANA!? this game was built up so high with promises that ended up being total lies. The co-op is terrible. NO ARMOR!? The dog finds all the keys and items for you. The game was set up to be the easiest RPG in the world. They should have added difficulty settings. It is not better or more genuine than the past 10 years of Final Fantasy! i can't believe they said that. The game is 100% spoon feeding, from the trail to the dog to the no death. Why are there still Rez Phials?!? The choices for clothing and weapons and spells are way to minimal.

Yeah, I know, it makes me cringe too.

There's nothing wrong with a game that doesn't let you die. There's nothing wrong with a game that has no mana bar [seriously, WTF. Mana bars are just an imaginary limitation that someone introduced one day. I may be a bit on the agnostic side to say this, but I know enough to know that "Thou shalt design games involving magic to have mana" was not a Commandment. And there's nothing wrong with a game that has no armor. Does PacMan have armor? NO!

And why should they have added difficulty settings? This game is about the story, be that the main story you can follow, or the stories you help create yourself, such as when your character marries someone in the game and you have a baby boy named Ross, and then Alex divorces your character because you're always being chased by the law because you may have gotten caught killing a few people because you wanted to see how many you could kill one by one before you got caught, and then you decided to resist arrest instead of paying the fine. And then your son gets taken away when somehow your husband died after they moved to another region and you're unable to look after Ross because your destiny to find the three other heroes won't allow it.
I did find it somewhat humorous to return home after ten years to find that my caucasian spouse and I had managed to produce a dark skinned child, as if the first one had escaped like a pet and Alex had replaced it with one that was not quite the right shade. But I still felt the loss when social services wouldn't let me have him after Alex died.

...Anyways, back to my point. It's about the story. I mean dude, the clue is in the name. You do know what "fable" means, right?

It also intrigues me how many people have mentioned how long it took them to "beat the story". I may just not quite be down with all the terms seeing as I'm not a hardcore gamer, but the idea of "beating" a "story" doesn't quite make any sense to me. Sometimes, it's the journey that's important, not the destination. If you rush through the game without taking the time to observe and appreciate the characters, then of course you are going to be diasappointed.

It's times like these I realise how far I've come on this course. A year ago, I would have seen that person's comment and thought, "Oh look, an angry person."
Looking at it now, I'm thinking, "Oh look, an angry person who doesn't have a clue."

URRGHHH!!!

I'm really annoyed.

Why, oh why, did I think it would be a good idea to check out how the Tim Eves stories were doing.

I'm really annoyed because of this. And this. And this. Oh and definitely this. Uch! This too [it let me write the comment out before telling me I had to be logged in? Shut. Up]. This one didn't annoy me at first, but then I started reading the comments. Bad idea. It started to annoy me. This and this? Also annoyed me.

Basically, every blue-instead-of-purple link that came up on the first two pages when I searched for "man dies playing wii fit" on google, which led to a site that required me to register in order to post a comment. This would have annoyed me, were it not for the fact that I had already registered to EA in a moment of spontaneity to find out about a game called Battle Forge [which, in the end, I didn't spend a lot of time finding out about due to needing to pack to go home for Easter hols]. I thought I'd better stop at page two when I noticed there were about 187,000 results at the moment.

The reason I want to comment is to educate people, as a lot of the articles just pull the term "Sudden Adult Death Syndrome" from the articles they find as their source, causing lots of people to think its some stupid name given for when doctors don't have a clue how someone died. Often these people go on to blame the kebab he had just ordered and the glass of port that was waiting for him.

I had been thinking about the "Jade Effect" before following up the Tim Eves thing, the term that has come about to describe the fact that loads of people have been trying to find out about cervical cancer since Jade Goody died - to be fair, it's not something I had ever thought about before. I could say that Jade dying was a good thing, but it sounds horrible when I put it like that. It made me think, "Hmm, maybe annoying sensationalist crap can be good for something. If that Tim Eves story makes people aware of SADS, then it can't be that bad a thing that sites like the Telegraph's have reported it". I was going to write a follow up on here while [at the time] in a less annoyed mood saying exactly that, when I decided to see what new stories had sprung up.

Unfortunately, it's not quite been the same. Each time the story is reproduced, something else gets chopped out or rephrased, and soon enough people are reading about some kebab eating, port drinking, trying-to-get-fit-with-a-Wii-fit-cos-he-MUST-have-been-really-unhealthy-on-that-kind-of-diet dude who happened to in the process of trying to get fit. Cue the eye rolling groan. It frustrates me how uninformed people have become along the grapevine, but there's not a lot I can do. Sure, I could register to every site just to post a comment stating the original story. But seriously? I have a life [honest, I do].

It also annoys me how angry it's making me look through my blog. I probably should stop writing these things in the heat of the moment and maybe leave it to sink in first, before writing something that I just have to post now, because it's there, finshed and done, while the Publish Post button keeps staring at me in all its orange glory.

Urgh.

I promise, I will start writing about work again soon.

Actually... I'll start now.

I had an extension on Kieran's Igor idea: Igor comes home from work with re-animated Seth statue, gets changed out of the Igor costume, freaking out Seth because he thought the costume was his real skin? Hmm... It might work. Again, more on that later. My laptop and I are running out of energy.

New Headlines, Same Old Story

I recently stumbled upon a headline worthy of an Ed Byrne comment.

4th March 2009, Tim Eves dies suddenly. 28th of March 2009, this article appears.

Going to the article may lead you to the question, "...how is that headline worthy of an Ed Byrne comment?" The answer is, it's not. This was just the earliest story [that I could find] that quite likely led to a stream of other stories a couple of days later, including the one that first came to my attention when I logged into my MSN to check out my emails.

Note under "Today's Picks" the second headline: "Man, 25, dies playing Wii Fit"

Pretty shocking, even more shocking when I eventually found seven more articles that had been posted yesterday [30 March 2009] about him and two more that were posted today - and those are just the ones I could be bothered to look at before writing this. I have no doubt that more will spring up today and tomorrow. I think it's lame how many people will read these headlines, simply because somebody read the first article and thought it ironic that somebody happened to die while doing something that is supposed to help us live longer and healthier lives. The Ed Byrne joke I have been referring to of course has been the one where comments on Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic".

The family were told he could have been killed by Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.
Also known as Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome, it is a disorder of the electrical system of the heart

- Mail Online

To that annoying person causing another waterfall of diss to the games industry [and by association, me and all my course mates], inadvertently or otherwise: Tim Eves' death was not ironic [that is, if he did die from SADS and this site is anything to go by].

If he had been in need of some exercise to the point where his life expectancy was affected, and then he purchased a Wii Fit in an attempt to extend his life expectancy, but then died while using the Wii Fit because the lack of exercise up until the decision to purchase a Wii Fit had caused him keel over... That would have been ironic.

Hell, it would have been ironic even if he had died carrying it home due to not being accustomed to any kind of exertion at all.

As it is, he was thought to be perfectly fit and healthy before he died. He helped to lead the First Belton Scout Group. He played in a band called Turnstone, which became Distant Sun [I presume as the drummer, as he was buried with his drumsticks in his hands], he enjoyed cycling, and fishing. My condolences go out to the people who knew him.

His death was simply unfortunate, and I should like to give you - the annoying story twisting sensationalist [and all those who saw your story and repeated it with similar headlines] - a good kick up the bum, not only for continuing the games-are-evil train of thought in such a pathetic manner, but also for causing thousands to register Tim Eves in their minds as "that 25 year old dude who died playing that Wii Fit thing...".