Random Word Short Story Challenge!

I think I’m a little late to this party, so I will be doing it a little differently. 

I saw before I went away people doing a short story challenge of doing one letter of the alphabet every day throughout April. 

What I’ll be doing is a random word whenever I can and see how long I can keep it going before I get to a word I cannot write about. Let’s see how this goes.

I will be putting the first letter up very shortly, so I hope you enjoy it. 

Space Jam (PS1) - Short Game Review

REVIEW MOVED TO: 

https://rambolicrambler.wordpress.com/

YouTube Spotlight: Nerd³ - Rambolic Recommendations

Daniel Hardcastle is the reason I started the gaming side of this blog and also why I don't blog often. 

As a member of the internet community, I am well versed in the goings on of several YouTube "celebrities". However, I feel that some don't get as much attention as they deserve, and this is why this section has been set up. Obviously, this is only my opinion, but this is my blog and only a recommendation so....there.

While thinking of the first person to choose for a YouTube Spotlight, I was thinking why I started blogging like this and reviewing games in this way, and then it hit me - Nerd³.

For those of you who don't know, Daniel Hardcastle, or Nerd Cubed as he is known on YouTube - is a British game reviewer and vlogger. While that isn't spectacular on YouTube, the way he presents his reviews, his amazing sense of humor and his editing skills make him stand out among the others.

I often refer to him as the Eddie Izzard of game reviewers, as his humor can be dry and rambling but, for me at least, it is always hilarious and entertaining. I first saw Nerd³ when he did a collaboration with Martyn Littlewood (or InTheLittleWood as he is known on YouTube). After that First Great Journey, I was hooked on his charm and sense of humor. 

His work includes Reviews, challenges, vlogs on a Secondary Channel, collaborations with other YouTubers (including his Dad, which are hilarious as well), as well as more serious pieces and rants about current problems. He also used to do Let's Plays and the 13 Ways To Die series on Machinima, which had their own charm and the same anarchic comedic value.
There are very few YouTube comedy reviewers who can keep that comedic edge up to a very high standard, but Dan Hardcastle is one of those people, and he deserves his over 1 million subscribers and probably more.

It's very hard to pick a "best" Nerd Cubed video to try and give a good example of his work, as all of his videos have their own merits. There's not formula in place for one of his videos. Handily, he made a video called "Nerd³ in a Nutshell", which is, well, self explanatory:

So there we have it, I believe you should all go and support Daniel "Nerd³" Hardcastle in every way you can, because quite frankly, there is no one else on YouTube who can provide the regular and hillarious content that he can. Just do it. Enter the Domain of the Nerd³...

Links:

Nerd³ Channel
Nerd³ Second Channel
Nerd³ Twitter
Dad³ Channel

Introducing...Rambolic Recommendations!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am adding yet another idea/section to my blog, namely Rambolic Recommendations.

In this section, I will try and promote people, bands, websites and other such things that I feel is worth your time and sometimes money in supporting or watching. This will be split into four main sections:

1. YouTube Spotlight - Where I suggest a YouTube account that has either inspired me to do something or just made me laugh. This could range from Gaming channels, music videos or just random videos which had amused me.

2. Bands Worth a Damn - This will be where I promote bands and artists which I feel don't get their fair share of praise. I already have at least 3 articles set up for this very subject so they should be coming very soon...maybe

3. PlayItNow - This is where I recommend either a new or retro game which I think people should have a lot of fun with. This may also clash with my game reviews themselves, but it will become clear later which games go into which sections

4. Back The Cause - This is my serious section where I ask you guys to back or support someone or something very close to my heart or that I feel is being neglected. For an example of this, see my last post on the topic of censorship to get an idea.

Although some of these will overlap slightly with the other sections I post about, this will not overshadow any of my other sections. I know I don't post a lot due to work restraints but I will try and keep it up to a few posts a month.

So keep an eye out for my personal favourites and also have a look at my Tumblr page where the shorter of these articles will probably end up exclusively.

But anyway, that's what's been going on here. I have a few reviews going at the moment, both music and retro game wise, so watch out for those and I'll speak to you later.

Good day and Ta Ra...

Please Support TotalBiscuit - Serious Rant

Please share this if you believe TotalBiscuit deserves his money for doing his job.

After watching this and Nerd³ videos on the subject of censorship and YouTube, I feel it is extremely important to let people know how some companies are bending the rules to deceive the public.

TotalBiscuit’s job is to critique games, for better or for worse, and for anyone to say he does not deserve the money or revenue for these videos is quite frankly insulting to him, his fans and to all the budding game reviewers/critics on the internet. His channel is one of the main reasons I ended up setting up a review blog, so to see his channel attacked like this so that a game developer can pull the wool over the consumers’ eyes for longer is atrocious.

Please watch this and Dan’s video (which I’ve linked under the Nerd Cubed name) to make people more aware of what some are trying to do. They’re trying to trick us into believing their game is of a decent standard by slating anyone who opposes that idea.

TotalBiscuit is one of the most insightful and hard working critics on YouTube, and I’d hate for him to curb his show because of such pettiness from a couple of developers. Please watch the video to see what I mean and show your support for him and those who fight against the misuse of censorship.

Thank you. 

This Zombie 'fad' needs to end soon - Gaming Rant

When we say the phrase 'stop flogging a dead horse', most of us will think that it means not to something until it becomes boring, meaningless and just boring. The games industry obviously see this phrase as 'better make another Zombie game'.

As of late, there has been an over saturation of Zombie games and Zombie media. The latest of these being the PS3 exclusive, The Last of Us. Seeing trailers and gameplay, I see nothing spectacular about the game other than it looks like Uncharted: Zombie Edition. Don't get me wrong, Naughty Dog have probably done a great job yet again with graphics and gameplay, but the premise is as old as the some of the Zombies you have to beat to death. I mean, now we probably see more zombie games coming out per year than any other genre, probably because zombies are seemingly able to fit in to any genre with ease. First and Third Person shooters, RTS, DOTA games, you name it there's probably a zombie game dedicated to it.

I know people complain about the lack of innovation that has come into the industry, where the most innovative thing to come into a series is a dog with a flak jacket (have a guess what game that is...), but just because you're a new Intellectual Property, that doesn't meant you NEED to be a zombie game. Obviously there is a lot of good zombie games out there, like Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Day Z etc, but that fact is they came out spread out enough for each to stand alone as 'not another zombie game' release. When you look at the release line up and at least 4 of the next 10 games out happen to be about there slow moving sods, you start to grow as tired of them as internet reviewers do of first person shooters.

Another problem I have with these zombie games is the setting. Of course, for these games to really work they need to be set in the 'post-apocalyptic' world. Shambling monstrosities wouldn't look as threatening in an open park on a sunny day, would they? The problem I have is that it's become a device for people who can't be bothered to do research into a historical period. It's like someone in an office once said:
Guy 1: "Hey, let's make a game where you play the role of a normal person during a historically relevant time!"
Guy 2: "That would mean research and effort wouldn't it?"
Guy 1: "Well, of course, yeah. But..."
Guy 2: "POST-APOCALYPSE WORLD!!!"
I know some games need it, but others just make the market seem over saturated, especially when zombies are added.

I would just like to see some new games with different antagonists, the kind that can think and not just stumble at you until you hit them enough. I heard someone recently asking for a come back of Pirates as villains in games, and I think its a good idea. We have a couple of new games coming out with that premise, but maybe not enough. Personally, I would like to see more mundane and realistic things twisted and manipulated into threatening objects of terror. For me, the idea of humans being manipulated to turn against you is far scarier and more threatening than brainless shuffling zombies.

Again, this is only my opinion, but if we carry on abusing the use of zombies in media, it will become even less scary than Vampires and Werewolves have become in recent years...

Green Day: 99 Revolutions Tour at The Emirates Stadium, London - Gig Review

As I stated in my review of Uno, Dos and Tre, Green Day's return to the Emirates Stadium, London is my second live experience with the pop rock giants. However, their visit to Wembley Stadium in 2010 was backed by an excellent album in the form of 21st Century Breakdown, an album I would say was one of Green Day's best. This time, however, things are different. With Billie Joe only recently coming out of rehab and their London gig the first surviving gig from the original tour before his trip there, It was concerning to see how his stage presence would change. Also, with the release of what I feel were three below average albums from the band, this trip to London for me went from sheer excitement to nervous excitement very quickly. The question is now, did Green Day deliver on their only trip to the UK on their tour?

Build Up

As with most gigs I go to, I'm not a fan of heading up on the day and coming home again. Seeing as I live a good 5 to 6 hour coach journey from London, I would probably be massively uncomfortable and tired for the entire gig and for the following days. So instead I travelled up a few days earlier with my girlfriend to enjoy London in some of the few sunny days we've seen so far this year. When it came to the day, the weather was beautiful, I met up with some of my friends who were coming and we head to the Emirates Stadium, home ground of Arsenal Football Club. I have to say, the stadium is mightily impressive. A 60,000 capacity stadium which was quite frankly astonishing to look at. Another nice touch, for a football fan at least, was the ability to walk up and down the tunnel where the players would come out onto the field. So, for a venue, it scored highly.

All Time Low

In all honesty, I've never been a huge fan of All Time Low. They've never really appealed to me. It also didn't help that I missed their first song (the only one I knew, Lost in Stereo) because I was getting Green Day Merch. Although this performance hasn't made me a super fan, they definitely set the right mood and kept the tempo up. As with a lot of opening bands in big gigs like this one, with most of the fans just wanting to see Green Day and go home, they didn't get the reception they deserved. I've always found a problem with bands like All Time Low that, sometimes, they can't deliver on stage as well as they can in the studio. I can happily say that this is not the case with All Time Low. They sounded amazing. I personal highlight for me was seeing them play Somewhere in Neverland, as well as the second half of Lost In Stereo which I actually caught. However, me and my friends ended up nicknaming them 'All Time Fuck', as after almost every song they would exclaim the word, which was funny to start with, but ended up becoming a bit grating by the fourth song. Other than that, they rocked it and set up the crowd for an awesome evening. I should also point out that All Time Low started playing at 5.20pm, which is pretty early for most gigs. This wasn't a bad thing, however, as I will explain later.

[All Time Low's Setlist]

Kaiser Chiefs

For those of you who don't know, the Kaiser Chiefs are a British rock band who have been fleeting in and out of mainstream fame since their first album. They are a strange entity, as they have had some pretty big hits in the UK, and although many people came to see Green Day, there were enough voices in the crowd singing their songs to warrant see why this is the case. Personally, I haven't really followed Kaiser Chiefs' career intently. I can say, though, that their song Never Miss A Beat was the last physical single I ever bought, so it was gratifying to see them open with the hit. Ok, cut a long story short, Kaiser Chiefs were absolutely incredible live! This is something I was not expecting at all. Like I've said, I don't know many of their songs that weren't singles, but their set kept people moving and they just performed superbly. The highlight for me was actually a song I'd never heard before called Kinda Girl You Are, which has been stuck in my head since the gig. If you ever get the chance to see the Kaiser Chiefs live, I would definitely say go for it, you will not be disappointed.

[Kaiser Chiefs' Setlist]

Green Day

The main event. It was at this point that me and my girlfriend backed into the seats, as we couldn't see a thing through the tightly packed crowd. However, this did not ruin the atmosphere at all - in fact, it made it so much more awe inspiring. Remember I said earlier that the gig started relatively early? That is because Green Day play for on average about 2 hours. They put everything into the did and I love them because of that. As soon as I heard them begin to play their opener, 99 Revolutions, all of my worries and qualms about the band melted away and I just basked in the glory of the performance in front of me. It's hard to express in words the stage presence of Billie Joe Armstrong. He just keeps your eyes on him, daring you to look away, because when you do, you'll miss something magical. In all, the entire band were incredible. Tre did his parts perfectly, and Mike was as reliable as ever, while Jason White and the others also didn't miss a beat. You could almost feel the stadium shaking with anticipation when they first came on, and when they started to play their mega hits and even some other, less known songs, the crowd ate it up so well and that energy stayed until the bitter end. A personal highlight for me was Waiting, as I love the album Warning, and as always their rendition of King For A Day brought a smile to everyone's faces. If I had one problem with the whole gig, it was the fact they didn't play Time of Your Life (Good Riddance). I know this was because of curfew restrictions, and Brutal Love ending the set was pretty damn amazing too, but it seemed a staple of Green Day sets and it was just missing. But what am I complaining about? The songs they played were incredible, the atmosphere was electric and it was everything you could have asked for from a Green Day gig and more. Great stadium, great support and as always, the Great Green Day captivate another UK crowd.

[Green Day's Setlist]

To Wrap Up...

Do I really have to wrap up? I mean, it's Green Day, of course they're going to deliver a captivating and frankly incredible performance in front of the UK fans. I was more surprised by the quality of the warm up acts than the quality of Green Day. All Time Low and Kaiser Chiefs really upped the atmosphere ten fold by keeping the crowd on their feet and did their job warming them up for Green Day to knock them down. It was one of the best gigs I've ever been to and, when Green Day come around again, I'll be waiting...(see what I did there?)