Having been very busy with uni since it started back up again this week, I have not had much time to do anything. That said during work I have managed to find a number of interesting news clips that have popped up.

The first is story about the Game On exhibition in Melbourne that is demonstrating some of the old video games. The reasoning behind the exhibition is that video games, whilst being an entertaining past time, is part of the history of humans, and it should be archived and preserved for future generations. The most interesting part of the article I found was that all the games demonstrated are being played on the original hardware and software, which are undoubtably hard to find. Well done Game On.

This second story annoys me a little bit. For a long time, Australia has had to suffer due to video games NOT having a R18+ rating. What this means is that should a game exceed the MA rating, they are turned away at the border, and this law could be changed by the Attorney Generals of Australia but the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, is refusing to put his support behind a possible change to this law and refusing to consider any other option. I have to admit that currently, the absence of R18+ games has not impacted me greatly at this point as all games that I have wanted are less. But with technology improving, allowing greater graphics and longer stories, I beliebe it to be a fair assumption that video games will become more and more real, and as such, need this R18+ rating. If movies and magazines have such ratings, it is surely logical for games to have something similar.

And finally for those who are just so annoyed with the iPod controls comes a story in which an iPod can be controlled by using eye movements. This is laziness at its best, and I want one.

Whilst these reviews I do not necessarily agree with, particulary in regards to..... well most of them. They are still funny as hell.

Bioshock


Burnout: Paradise


Mass Effect

Stumbling around on news websites at some god awful hour of the night led me to discoveries which I had not heard about yet. The first that Vivendi and Activision were to merge which in mind spells orgasmic joy for any games this new company puts out. Vivendi, own the rights to Blizzard,who put out such brilliance as Diablo, Starcraft and let us never forget, World of Warcraft; so needless to say they know what they are doing. Activision, I feel however, know how to put out a game but they will not have the landmarks titles that will go down in history. For all you people who are spewing pure hatred from your eyes into your screen for my failure to consider Guitar Hero as a landmark title can go fuck yourself. Yes it is good but that orange fret is enough to make people want to have 5 fingers as well as the opposable thumb. But I digress. The point is that these people are merging and the quality can only go up. Excitement abounds like a 6yo who has had pixie sticks injected right into their veins.

In other news however is that EA has made a hostile takeover offer for Take-Two, the publisher of such brilliance as GTA and Bioshock. Take-Two, the clever bastards who grabbed up Rockstar thus allowing them to make the sweet violence goodness that is GTA have rejected this offer, which in my mind is a good thing. Maybe I am being too harsh though. EA did buy out Bioware/Pandemic and lets face it, they did a brilliant job with Mass Effect. But then again that was a BIOWARE game, had their logos on it and everything. The thing I find with EA is that they stick with the same formulas with minor changes declaring it to be a new game. The unfortunate exception to this rule is Need for Speed:pro Street, in which they took a brilliant run away from cops in a city formula and turned it into race, drifting crap. Again I digress. My point is that should Take-Two get taken over, one can only hope it remains out of the cold fingered reach of EA producers, or if they cant, carry a chainsaw.

1. Someone dying
2. Someone in the Govt screwing up aka doing their job.
3. Someone getting screwed over and not the fun way.
4. Feel good stories (this one is tentative)

However what does NOT count as news in any way, shape or form is a bunch of kids from primary school thanking God for dying for them. I am particularly fuming about this as, whilst I do not read the Hervey Bay Observer that this piece of shit reporting came from, I do not want to ever see what could essentially be classified as Christian propaganda splayed over the front page of a newpaper.

I do realise of course that it is easter and this is an important time of year for Christians. I however count it as a time where I can work public holidays for mass amounts of money. I do not need the reason for it being splattered across the news like we are all ignorant bastards. Those who care about the reason already know about it and those who do not care, do not want to hear about it.

One of my favourite documentaries. The Aqua Car

Part One


Part Two


Part Three

Last weekend was quite a good weekend I have to say. After being informed by my mate Jacko that I was going round to his place to have a LAN over the weekend, I proceeded to pack up my comp and move over there for the next three days. Despite the event for me being interrupted by work, it was still a lot of fun. The best thing was undoubtebly was that it was an actual LAN. Recent lans I have been to have descended into file sharing exercises or everyone there was just playnig World of Warcraft, but not this one. We played a lot of Frozen Throne and I renewed my love for the Element TD map, Team Fortress 2 and even some Halo. All around good fun.

During the event however the Earth Hour thing rolled round and of course, I did not care really. Mostly because A) I consider it to be a completely useless exercise and B) At a home in which 5 or 6 computers were running pretty much constantly, I sincerly doubt turning off the lights would have done much to help the environment.

As well as that, I was recommended the DJ DreamasioN by my mate Chris, who is a huge techno fan. So after being informed, I went to his website when I got home and grabbed all of his music and it is fantastic. A must have for all lovers of techno and trance music.

I am part of a project team at University that is doing work for a client. This client has just emailed us to say that if you want a free karting day, let us know. I have happily accepted. FREE KARTING!!!