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OCG: The Ingrates Of Panau

I'm going to write an occasional piece about obsessive-compulsive computer gaming. Here's the first one...

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I’m playing through Just Cause 2 again, on a tougher difficulty. This is a phenomenon unique to gaming. Surgeons don’t finish a particularly tricky procedure and then reopen the wound to try again with one hand tied behind their back. Firefighters don’t carry gasoline and matches just in case the first attempt wasn’t challenging enough. But I have ventured back onto the open-world island of Panau, in order to try and release it from the clammy grip of dictatorship. Again. Except this time the grip is tighter. And clammier.

The main thrust of the game is that you - Rico, a mercenary of indistinct Latino lineage who has parachute launchers and grappling hooks welded to his unfeasibly-robust body - have been hired to make contact with a guy in a jungle, and the only way you can do that is by hooking up with three revolutionary factions as they try to wrest power away from the government of Baby Panay - a tubby despot glimpsed only at the end of the game as you stick an assault rifle up his nose.

However, on this second spin through of the game - this time on the difficulty level helpfully labelled “Mercenary” - I’ve decided to go for a wealth-first approach to things. Panau - a sprawling environment of mountains, jungles and deserts, ringed by an immense amount of ocean - is also littered with collectible items which can upgrade weapons and vehicles, and faction items, marked on the map with blue spots.

I decided that before completing any of the story missions, I would really get to grips with these faction items. They take the form of suitcases of “drugs”, mainly found in city locations; aeroplane black boxes, found underwater; and - perhaps most ominously - ceremonial skulls on spikes, located in undergrowth, thickets and on top of mountains.

The challenge arrives when you discover that there are 300 of these bastards, spread over a 20km square map. Oh god, it’s the Riddler trophies from Arkham City all over again.

So, off I dutifully trudge, with the faction leaders’ responses getting repetitive as I pick up another of their bloody faction items. The worst one is the leader of the Ular Boys, Sri Irwan. He speaks in a chirpy, slightly-racist Indian voice and keeps calling me “serdadu”.

“You’ve found another one of our revered skulls, serdadu.”

Yes. Surely these are revered because of where they are, Sri Irwan? I mean, I don’t want to piss on your chips, but collecting them up seems to be the absolute worst thing you’d do with some ancestral skulls planted around an island.

And don’t even get me started on what kind of drug dealer leaves his wares halfway up a pigging skyscraper. You’re lucky that a wandering mercenary with a retractable grappling hook and the ability to produce infinite parachutes from his bottom happened to be passing. I’ve seen the massed ranks of “The Roaches”, another of Panau’s feckless factions, and they look like they’d have trouble climbing the stairs let alone the massive satellite dish of Panau’s Broadcasting Tower.

So after collecting 150 of these items, the game decides to give me an on-screen achievement. And this fires the obsessive part of my brain. Previously, I was doing this just for finance. Now, I’m doing it for glory.

Sri Irwan is still relatively unimpressed. “Soon you will have collected all of the skulls, serdadu.” Yes, I will. Soon.

So I carry on, visiting far-flung corners of Panau - which, incidentally, if it wasn’t so riven with governmental dominance and factional chaos, would make a pretty nice place to go on holiday. I start seeing the white arrows that point the way to collectables when I close my eyes. This is meat and drink to the Obsessive Compulsive Gamer.

Surely when I collect all 300 of these blessed things, I will feel a sense of completion, some sense that my time has not been wasted, that I have done good in the glassy eyes of some revolutionary avatars. I will have Achieved - not in the XBox achievement trophies sense, but in LIFE.

So, after twenty-five hours of gaming I collect all 300 faction items. The final one is a skull, in a wood. There is a genuine sense of anticipation. I walk up to it, collect it...

And nothing happens. Nothing. Sri Irwan doesn’t even call to say “Thanks, serdadu”.

Those bastards. There I am, toiling away in the sun and the rain, diving into oceans, avoiding militia forces, to collect the crap that you can’t even be bothered to find yourself, and upon finishing the task, completing it so that you and your revolutionary buddies will never have to do it again, you don’t even have the simple human kindness to pop round with a box of chocolates and a card? You are awful, awful people who don’t deserve to be liberated.

Still, there are 369 settlements to discover in Panau. Maybe I’ll find a sense of achievement in completing them all.

I will never learn.

Tom's Persistently Unscientific Top Ten of 2011!

(Previous years: 2010, 2009, 2008)

As previously stated, I'm building a masterpiece in my iPod - currently 27,855 items occupying 137.34 GB.

We're reaching a tipping point here, people, where my iPod is struggling to cope. I'm going to have to do some trimming soon. That probably means jettisoning that Cooper Temple Clause album. Sorry, Cooper Temple Clause.

Each year, I make an unsatisfying auto-playlist of the songs that are dated that year in my iTunes, and rank them in order of most listened to. Here's this year's list.

1) Uberlin - REM

2) Downtown - Destroyer

3)= Stuck On The Puzzle - Alex Turner

3)= Blue Eyes - Destroyer

3)= Savage Night At The Opera - Destroyer

3)= Wake Up - Jason Pegg

7)= Poor In Love - Destroyer

7)= Civilian - Wye Oak

9)= Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys

9)= Song For America - Destroyer

A simultaneous "Hooray!" and "Boo hoo!" for the departing REM - probably my favourite band ever. I'm glad Uberlin is a splendid last hurrah on a mostly-great album. Probably the best album of the year was PJ Harvey, but it was just so bleak. Therefore the simply wonderful, neon-lit, sax-solo-covered, deeply-uncool Kaputt by Destroyer is my favourite album of the year. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. It's superb.

Honourable mentions for those not mentioned in the list above go to St Vincent, who made a stunning album a bit too late in the year for consideration; King of Limbs by Radiohead which was alright, wasn't it?; the Lonely Island for making some pretty good songs on a patchy album (less of the homophobia next time, chaps!); and Wilco, whose The Whole Love is their best album since A Ghost Is Born. YES! In your face, everyone else who's already said that! I'm saying it too!

It was a good year, I think. There's lots I have yet to discover. No time. I got married instead of listening to music. Sue me.

Here's my current All-Time Top 10, with last year's chart placement in brackets after it:

1)= Finer Feelings - Spoon (non-mover)

1)= Actor Out Of Work - St Vincent (last year's number 2)

3) The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret - Queens of the Stone Age (non-mover)

4)= Trailer Park - Bracket (new entry)

4)= Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem (new entry)

6)= Romantic Rights - Death From Above 1979 (non-mover)

6)= Tightrope - Janelle Monae (new entry)

6)= You've Done It Again, Virginia - The National (last year's number 3)

6)= Tumbling Dice - The Rolling Stones (new entry - probably a re-entry, actually)

6)= Company In My Back - Wilco (non-mover)

6)= Good - Ghostface Killah (non-mover)

Pretty pointless, all in all.

This year, I don't think I know of any new albums coming out. Maybe there won't be any. That would be interesting, eh? I'm hoping to do something a bit musicky this year. Watch this space. It might actually happen.

(EDIT: Oh, and I'm on this ThisIsMyJam thing - come hang out, music-lovers...)

The Wateracre Pretrospective - stream and download

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I have jigged around the website to include a link to my Bandcamp site.

I've also released a live album recorded in 2007, featuring fourteen songs (and a fifteenth if you buy it on download!), from a show called The Wateracre Pretrospective.

I'll be releasing more on Bandcamp in the future.

That's all for now!

An Open Letter to the people of Kingston and Surbiton

I was brought up in Surbiton, in Surrey, and born in Kingston Hospital. I don't live there any more, but I recently wrote an email to my friends and family who still do. This is what it said:

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Dear Surbiton and Kingston folk -

I don't live in Surbiton any more. I live in East Dulwich, in South-East London, under a Labour MP who lives in North-West London. That's not important right now.

What is important is that I would like to do some tactical petitioning. I've signed this thing which sends an email to my MP protesting against the Health and Social Care Bill and cuts to the NHS, and I wondered if you'd do likewise.

My MP will argue against it because she's on the opposite side of the House, and that's how our screwed up, fiercely partisan Parliament rolls, but if you could send dear Mr Davey MP a reminder that he shouldn't be kow-towing to mandateless hooligans intent on turning over our beautiful, free, envy-of-the-world NHS to changes even the British Medical Journal has argued vociferously against (http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d408.full), that would please me no end.

http://saveournhs.com/

In return, I promise I will harangue Tessa Jowell MP about whatever you'd like. Lord knows I email her almost weekly at the moment anyway, but a little guidance on that would be most welcome. Maybe you want her to change the colour of her suit, or live in the constituency she claims to represent... It's all fair game.

For what it's worth, I like Ed Davey a lot, and think he's brilliant at his job of representing the people of Kingston and Surbiton, but if he can't see the irony of saving Kingston Hospital from closure only to lose 20% of its staff (http://www.edwarddavey.co.uk/web/?q=node/336) and thinks that inviting privatisation into any part of this mess would improve it one jot, then I think we ought to let him know that.

If you think I'm being an East Dulwich-living interfering git who ought to keep his nose out of Surbiton business, then I understand your position and respectfully ask you to delete this email. It is lovely, though, Dulwich. You can get really good sandwiches.

Much love,
Tom

Tom's Highly Unscientific Top Ten of 2010!

As you may remember from either last year, or the year before that, I'm building a masterpiece in my iPod, currently 26,611 items occupying 131.35 GB.

Each year, I make an unsatisfying auto-playlist of the songs that are dated 2010 in my iTunes, and rank them in order of most listened to. Here's this year's list.

1) Ready To Start - Arcade Fire

2)= Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem

2)= Tightrope - Janelle Monae

2)= Cousins - Vampire Weekend

5) The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

6)= Zebra - Beach House

6)= I'm Not Living In The Real World - Belle & Sebastian

6)= Trouble Come Running - Spoon

9)= Shutterbugg - Big Boi

9)= Anyone's Ghost - The National

I think there have been many many strong albums this year, a million times better than 2009's lacklustre crop. As well as the nine albums represented above, there were strong showings just outside the Top 10 for the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack ("Threshold" by Sex Bob-omb), Sufjan Stevens (his "All Delighted People" ep in particular), and the Hold Steady's "Heaven Is Whenever". Good job, 2010! Keep it up, 2011.

And here's my all-time Top 10 on iTunes, with previous year's placing following it.

1) Finer Feelings - Spoon (non-mover)

2) Actor Out Of Work - St Vincent (new entry)

3)= Friends - Led Zeppelin (last year's number 9)

3)= You've Done It Again, Virginia - The National (last year's number 3)

3)= The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret - Queens of the Stone Age (non-mover)

6)= Romantic Rights - Death From Above 1979 (new entry)

6)= Blood On Our Hands - Death From Above 1979 (last year's number 2)

6)= I Want This Cyclops - Destroyer (last year's number 8)

6)= Florida - Modest Mouse (last year's number 4)

6)= You Got Yr Cherry Bomb - Spoon (new entry)

6)= Don't You Evah - Spoon (new entry)

6)= Company In My Back - Wilco (new entry)

6)= Good - Ghostface Killah (new entry)

See you next year, pop pickers! (Fingers crossed that the R.E.M. album will be any good!)

Greenbelt - Blue Nun DJ set

Also at Greenbelt this year, I did my first live DJ set in a very, very long time. I enjoyed it a bit too much. Here's the tracklist:

Adam Green - Tropical Island

Annette - Pineapple Princess

Caetano Veloso - Superbacana

Brigitte Bardot - Ca pourrait changer

Dean Martin - Tonda Wonda Hoy

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Vanessa from Queens

Eric Matthews - Fanfare

Number One Cup - Divebomb

The Clash - Wrong Em Boyo

Spoon - Finer Feelings

Otis Redding - I'm A Changed Man

Parliament - Testify

Sandy Gaye - Watch The Dog That Bring The Bone

Jean Jacques Perrey - Gossipo Perpetuo

Mark Mothersbaugh - Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op

Mohammed Rafi - Jaan Pechechaan Ho

Yegelle Tezeta - My Own Memory

Georgia Gibbs - Kiss Of Fire (1966 version)

Bonzo Dog Band - Trouser Press

Luther Vandross - Never Too Much

Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey - Easy Lover

I've put as many of these as I could find in a Spotify playlist. Spotify appears to be really bad on mid-90s American indie (Eric Matthews, Number One Cup) - who knew?

Bunnybelt

As I may have mentioned before, the burdens of real world finance have caused me to get a day-job, albeit a really cool one. I work for Greenbelt, an annual music and arts festival, writing their blog, managing volunteer teams, updating their website and generally being a nuisance.

An upshot of this is that I get to make fun things like the following...

My girlfriend used to work for Greenbelt and so, as a joke, some friends of hers bought her the Sylvanian Families marquee for Christmas. She took a few photos, called it Bunnybelt, and then we started thinking... we should do this properly.

So here are five films about Bunnybelt, all of which parody the extraordinary combination of faith, arts and justice that Greenbelt actually gives the world... We're horribly ungrateful like that...

Bunnybelt Episode 1 - Welcome from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Bunnybelt Episode 2 - John Bell Bunny from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Bunnybelt Episode 2½ - John Bell Bunny Q&A from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Bunnybelt Episode 3 - Talks from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Bunnybelt Episode 4 - Farewell from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Tom Blair

I was simultaneously amused and creeped out by the cover of Tony Blair's forthcoming memoir "The Journey"...

The top half of his face is stern, the bottom half is smiling. Seriously, dude, PICK ONE EMOTION AND STICK WITH IT.

I decided to see what might happen if the top and bottom halves of my face did different things. Results below...

Website Changes

Due to Blogger/Google closing down support for FTP Publishing (which I used extensively), this blog is now located at http://wateracre.blogspot.com/. It's not annoying at all. Oh no. Please update your feed subscriptions to http://wateracre.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

The upside of this is that I've given my website a facelift. It's likely to change a bit over the next month or so.