So I know that clearly I've not actually blogged for a few days, as the title states this is due to my being not only lazy but forgetful and stupid too.

So I want to talk at you fine people today about the state of our imaginations.

Now I'm not one to right away assume things about us as a collective but I have a sneaking feeling that many of us really don't try as much as we could or even should. So we sit at home with our 40 inch TVs (or 50 inch if your the people who live next to me) and we play the latest games. we pop off with well or not so well earned money and we throw it at the game store guy and get call of duty. Or halo , whatever.

We buy the game our friends by and sit on our asses and play it for 50 hours a week.

The world keeps turning and time drifts by.

We don't notice that we have played the same, all be it fun, game for the last 4 years. we accept it and keep playing. This last month child of Eden, shadows of the damned and Alice madness returns all had a release and subsequently bombed. why? is it the way they were marketed? possibly although I think to be honest that this would be blaming something big on something small. Is it the type of games they look to be?? Nope, even just going on cover art shadows of the damned looks pretty mainstream actiony, it's only when you get into the game that you see what its really like.

Is it the games more original and creative styles?

NOPE because the people who didn't buy it wouldn't have played it so how could that be an effective reason. I always feel a level of surprise at press people who assume because a game is a little different that its why its not sold. Logic dictates that people would have to play it to know what its like, so that cant be the reason. It's like thinking a girl wont like you because you might not have a big enough dong, why would that matter its not like women are born with x-ray vision.

People just stick to what they know.

Which is what worries me, these are creative and distinct titles but still very traditional and mainstream and even they cannot make a dent in the market. so what chance does the more indie or inventive game have. next to none? will we literally stagnate over time do to the risk behind creative ventures?

I hope not but its hard to see a very positive future right now.

- next time -

A few words on walks.

So during this 30 day bogging I've already said that lists and scores are pointless to an extent. But I probably should toss my own one in here, if just to get it out of the way.

So im glad to present to you my ...

LIST OF GAMES THAT HELPED MAKE ME INTO THE PERSON I AM TODAY AND NOT JUST SOME OTHER PERSON OR SOMETHING LIST!

OK are we ready?

first up Panzer dragoon saga - sega saturn.

This was the first game I really fell in love with and stays in my heart now as my favourite game ever made, bar none. Most people would look at it now and see flaws I'm sure but before I had played this action RPG "with a twist" I had not felt the affection I do for what games are and can be.

I was a fan of the brilliant Panzer dragoon zwai and loved seeing an enjoyable world and game expanded upon in such an unexpected way. Diving into the game though, that way the real reward. It contained a deep and lovingly created world and narrative that sticks with you long after the game ends, an ending may I add that quite distinctly brings you in right at the last moment to leave you with an underline sense of shock and joy. This was truly your game and your story, utterly mesmerising.

Next it's Street Fighter Alpha 2 - also sega saturn (not a running theme)

So Ive an interesting experience with street fighter. Being poor and British there were few places near me that had arcades of any kind. My formulative street fighter years were spent playing the game locked in my room going through arcade mode over and over and over and over..... again and again and so forth. I must have spent years playing nothing but alpha 2. Both the play style and thew visuals brought me in like no other. Ever since I've always been a lover of fighters of all kind although mostly 2d. The downside to all those years was not having and friends to play against, not learning about timing and combos and just generally turning out average at best at the game.

damn you god!!" *shakes fist*

third is Jet set radio - Dreamcast

OK so this is making me sound like a sega kid but bare with me. Being lucky enough to live in the uk so got the best edition of this already great platformer, sporting, arty, coolness simulator.... or whatever you think to call it.

It's visuals and soundtrack both made it stand out so much that everyone who gave it even a moment out of their lives must have been effected by it. Music opened up, art became more then just pictures of dopy looking women in gallerys and the world became a colourful landscape full of potential. Most importantly it's a game that teaches people two important things . Fun is what matters most And dogs make excellent skaters.

Tony hawks pro skater 1 (called tony hawks skateboarding in the UK) - dreamcast / playstation

So tony hawks was the first game to show me that playing games was something that could be fun, but that also could be a shower of skill and talent. Anyone could do relatively well at it but watching an old childhood friend play the demo of the dreamcast game and do things i didn't think were possible was a revelation. It was totally the first time where i felt a want not to just play and complete the game, but to be good at it too. This was built upon with 2, 3 and even 4..... only once the series started to wane with thaw and thug that i lost interest.

Super Mario bros 2 - nes

So yes I'm that sick freak in the corner that actually likes Mario bros 2 but please hear me out.

To me Mario 2 was a turning point for games, Mario went from being this thugly blocky thing to an actual recognisable character. Playing as one of 4 different characters, each with distinct ability's and play styles was also eye opening. Although also a flawed game it was one that really made me like games visually and I have fond memories of it.

Resident evil, 2, 3, code :veronica playstation / dreamcast

So resident evil is forever etched into my minds eye. My original experience with it was the sega saturn edition of the game (which im lucky to still have and includes a special bunch of extras the ps1 game does not) It being a game that really felt like the first of its kind that i felt good about having played to the end. Like there was something to feel good about having done. Also the overall story, as hokey and badly scripted it has been, may be one of my favorite in all games.

Also on a side note code veronica has two of my most treasured moments in it. 1. beating the tyrant on the plain and 2. beating the entirety of battle mode with Wesker (armed only with a knife).

Also as an extra note it contains one of my personal fave monseters in the form of NOSFERATU!

er that's all i can think of for this one.... yay. *does little dance*

- next time -

Something more thought out and coherent.

I need to let you all know something important.

YOU KNOW NOTHING!

I've work in retail for a good few years now, both in the specialist games side and the big greedy and the evil multi-national cooperation owned supermarket side. One thing is constant about the people whom come into my store and buy games. They only buy whats on tv or what they bought already.

They are shambling pointless messes that put little to no thought into what they pick and choose not to listen to reason.

It tends to be also that if they choose to come into a supermarket listening to nothing they are there for the sake of having a fight but that's a slightly different issue so ill leave that for now.

The games press always seem to sit and ponder "hmmm, this game is great and different and cool but isnt selling as well, why is this?" and then suggest it's the budget of the games promotional push or its because its too different or new. guess what games press people.

YOU ALSO KNOW NOTHING!!

OK so your not knowledge-less just blind. People don't buy shadows of the damned because they never heard of it not because its a "different" game. Look at the cover, its a guy in a jacket with a gun. it looks far from being different. People are not put off from buying a game because if its new game play if they have not even bought the game. how could they be?

But this isn't about the press. It's about you shop going numptys.

As i said before people in shops know nothing. they cant be reasoned with and they wont ever buy whats actually good. the industry has always been like this and will continue to be for as long as people buy the sun and the mail. Call of duty will be sold to the 8 year old who's parents are incapable of understanding the games rating system, and skivs will come in every October to buy fifa again just as they did the 20 years before.

wow. I'm depressed now. Time for a drink i think..... then off to work!

- next time -

A list! wooo

OK two fold topic here. I am a gamer, I think we have established this. I also have a few problems surrounding my gaming, most notably the obsessive need to own games.

Ive not counted my games collecting much lately but last time I did it was floating around the 500 games mark.... more if you include downloaded games.

My xbox 360 alone has 188 games saved onto the hard drive. a hundred and eighty-eight! that's not normal! Many of these games Ive not even spent more then a few moments with. due to as mix of time commitments and sticking to playing just 2 or 3 games.

I walk past a game store and if i intend to buy or not i still end up walking in. sometimes i look up and im there, no idea of how i got there.

Is this good? Living my life tied to the impulses of a small section in my brain other people clearly do not have. It's not like I'm a real collector. I don't have the money to collect on real terms and I don't have the storage. So why do i do this, or allow my mind to do this.

I will admit to taking some joy in having the games I do and that buying and playing a rare game is also a distinct pleasure. This is pointless though because I don't get to play half of the games I buy. Also this has a troubling effect on those games I look forward to.

Say for example I see that a new game is due out in a week. I make a note of what it'll cost and put it by, and during the course of the week ill mindlessly buy a bunch of old games for say £3 or so each, and what a shock! I cant actually afford the newer game.That's kinda messed up when you think about it.

So anyway It's gotten me to thinking about getting rid of a vast amount of games and just buying / keeping a specific selection of them. say my personal 100. My list of 100 games that i could not part with. I've been going over it in my head but right now i just cant do it at all.

There's the bunch of new games out this month too. Shadows of the damned and child of Eden are very much on my want list.

Am I alone out there? Does anyone else put themselves through this. Should we all set up an AA for gamers? Quite possibly so.

Oh well, I should be off, steams sale wont last forever.

- next time -

Do they matter?

OK so the title is misleading, I'm not here to actually talk about what i think is the greatest game of all time, or about my top 100 list.

Instead I wanted to take a moment to think about the strange need we gamers have to order things. Or to see others order things.

See I have played games for a very long time, I know what games I want to play and love most. the reasons I chose them were and are my own. Not influenced by others, or some top ten lists. I suspect it's almost entirely the same for every one of you. You like the game you like and that's the way it is.

But unlike you i dont really feel the need to see others write down lists of the greatist games of all time. Theres this odd thing that happens when a magazine or website compiles a top 100 games list. Its the same type of thing that happens when a review is posted for a game. Everyone comes out to complain.

why is that game at number 1, this game is better! the people who compile this list are terrible at thier jobs, blah blah blah.

Sure there's an understandable point to wanting to see something you choose to side with praised, on some subconscious level your being praised for your good choices. By comparison if your not seeing the person or persons agree with you then YOUR the one being insulted. How dare someone think what you like is not great.

This defies logic obviously, more often then not it's you holding something up to too little dissecting scrutiny, websites and magazines are worked on by professionals after all, paid to totally deconstruct a product to see its faults and finery.

They judge because they have to or else they don't eat.

The need to defend comes into play with fanboyisum too. The blind need to knock down things that look even slightly like what you have/like/play. Your choice will always be the better choice, no matter what people say. This blind faith is always something I've found frustrating because it's normally that, blind. It's not that you are wrong to like the game you play, its more that your too stubborn to try anything else. Call of duty is the best you know so how could you ever know that other games out there are as good or better. why should you care and so you keep playing it. I feel not anger about this, more pity. Pity because people are missing out on experiences that are totally amazing based on basic blind judgements and because amazing experiences are not getting experienced.

Creativity is stifled and even punished and the industry hobbles on along the same path its been on for 10 years. The truly worst side to blind faith, love or hate is that which causes people to attack those who do review games and films. They are often faced with some of the most horrendous abuse for doing their jobs.

Often of totally illogical reasons. For example a game was given a score of 7 out of 10. In my eyes that games got quite a good score. Those reading the review have other ideas though, they seem to view 7 as meaning the item reviewed is bad. This causes the same aggressive reaction as normal, hate toward the reviewer for doing his or her job.

This is foolish because 1. 5 is average so why hate on someone giving better then average scores? and 2. most of those who spew such hate are unlikely to have completed or even played the game in question at all.

They just dislike that someone has put their choice to want said game in question.

I think it's about time we all started trying to better ourselves as a community. Stopped taking what others say so to heart. A personal opinion is solely just that, personal. Not a slight against us or our choices, just a refection of someone Else's.

Now back to fallout new Vegas.

like , best game eva!

- next time -

Cant stop myself

I'd like to point out that I didn't say for you. I'm sure that a lot of people have a healthy relationship with games and even feel they have enhanced their lives.

To an extent I feel the same but theres also a large part of me that does not.

So as we established I'm to become 30 in a months time, this gives me a good chance to reflect and there's one striking thing that games have brought , a very conflicted life.

I've been playing games, console games to be more precise since I was 4 years old. Unlike some who's earliest memories might be of their mothers or food or even a smell or sight in the wide world mines of me sitting on a brownish carpet looking almost directly up at a crappy old 22 inch tv playing centipede on the atari 2600. This picture is the single strongest formative image in my head, it has helped define me.

Games and gaming are what I am and what makes me who I am but they are also shackles that in the grand scheme of my own existence have prevented my greater development and growth.

So ok how do I mean? On reflection i suppose the signs have always been there. My next earliest memory is of myself playing super Mario brothers and getting so upset with my in ability to complete harder levels in the game that I would break into tears. This frustration and self loathing would lead me to get so angry with myself I would hit or scratch myself... and continue playing. This sort of behavior is not entirely healthy as we all know, but this was untill quite a late point of my personal development. maybe even as late as 7 or 8 years old.

I bring this up because I still see the frustration that would have spawned that behaviour then In me when I play now. This time though it does not swell up due to playing solo but instead it develops during online play.

Most notably super street fighter 4 creates a conflicting set of emotional responses. Nothing as extreme as crying or hurting myself but no less as harmful i believe. This game, along with some racers and fps's, makes me feel totally inadequate.

The frustration comes from a slowly developing recurring thought "I know exactly what to do, how it works & how to make it happen, so why cant I ever do it!". Failure, coupled with expectation amplified by people with worse attitudes playing better then me.

I believe to an extent this is our fault. Not mine but all of us as a community. There is this strange community that has developed online across all games that states you have to be yay good at a game or your nothing and if you are nothing then we must all make sure to tell you. This also seems fed but achievements and gamerscores. We are more open now then ever before to judgements of our peers and that pressure can be crushing. To those of us that know how to be good and want to be able to play with others the disappointment of loss is enhanced and crushing.

I myself can become exceedingly depressed after a few fights online, only to become more desperate to do well sitting up late into the night playing on and becoming more and more down, almost hating myself and my own existence.Never feeling good enough. This is also not aided by the idea "oh it's just a game, it doesn't matter!" this leads only to a further depressive development. If its just a game and it doesn't matter then I must be really pathetic because i cant even do something as simple as this" confidence shattered faith in the ability to do important real life things is also shattered too.

This is extra sad because street fighter is something I've always played and loved. Oddly enough i was a looser growing up too, Didn't have friends and played all day alone in my room (hence the lack of experience and skill playing against others, although i did own street fighter alpha 2 on the saturn, so had the best possible edition of any street fighter).

The other issue I've had is with health, I feel no desire to do anything outside. Not anything like football or sports activity's. I cant swim, don't really interact well with others in a large group or sports environment and have developed a small dislike for the general populous. I'm poor from a poor street and a poorly educated area of town. have no money and few chances. The majority of people around me are the same, the difference is i was lucky to be born smart with an oddly above average IQ.

I see the way many people live their lives and how they turn out and I have no real desire to do the same. People say about the dole life. Have kids, get house, don't work, watch Easterners every night. That sort of life really depressed me and so the people whom live it also repel me. I have no interest in that life as a consequence Ive not gone out and met lots of people in my local environment, not developed relationships and not lived a normal healthy existence. Ive become more insular. Stuck to indoor activities and played games for 12 hour sittings. I have become a blob, a sentient mass and i realise now lazy both in body and mind.

Lastly I would like to also point out I'm poor but that it's not prevented myself from spending every available penny on games. hell I've even spent some unavailable ones on them. I now realise that I've become obsessed with obtaining them, I have 100s across many platforms, some I've not even began to play. Sometimes I buy games never to play them because i suddenly need money and sell them on for less then i paid for them.

I'm smarter then this but I still do it. I suspect I've developed an extreme habit or addiction. I've always bought games so its like a reflex action. I cant prevent myself from spending money on them and I'm sure its had effects on relationship. I'm not the boyfriend or partner I could be if I were able to focus on saving money, taking care of myself and looking after those I have loved.

I don't hold games up and blame them for the bad things in my life. They are and have brought lots of blessings to my life and continue to be inspirational and fun. Yet they are also something that helps to amplify the bad aspects to myself, they are a double edges sword and this is something I need to admit to myself if i am to improve my life. I want to be healthy, happy and a good person without completely removing games from my life but I'm not sure quite how possible that is.

- next time -

A topic that's wholly less negative.

really i do like games and all that, honest guv.

So in about a months time I'll have launched or re-launched digifox officially and I'll have hit my 30th year on the face of the planet.

30 years is a long time and yet a short time also. How quickly has the world changed and developed around me in that time and more importantly how much have I?

I want to do something more then just oh look i'm 30, so I'm going to be attempting to write something every day leading up to and on my birthday and also one thing a week for the first year after. I want to reflect on life and the things I have interest in - comics, games, toys, tv, movies, animation, books, education, history and so forth - and also on how they have made me who I am and how they are today compared to the past 30 years.

Mostly I want to try and do it in an entertaining way. Not just blah blah, oh this is about me. But really look at something important each time. Or at least try. :/

Anyway i'll be starting on the 7th and posting all the way up untill the 7th next month. So keep an eye out for it, and let me know what you think on what I post.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/truegeekradio

this shows live, its good so give it some support and a try.

im not part of this or anything, but from what ive seen i want to see it get out there and do well. so claick on the links, take a moment to view the trailer and help out if you can, by passing the word on or giving a little money.

About indie game the movie

the trailer on you tube

thanks for your time you groovy dudes

this wont mean anything to anyone so best to just pretend its not here. ;)