dmanton300's blog

This seems like a place to vent. So here it is.
A few months ago I made contact with a girl I had a crush on at school. This was twenty years ago, the crush is gone, the pedestal demolished. At our school reunion a few years ago I finally admitted my crush to her, and we went our seperate ways. This girl was one of the definitely not in-crowd at school. She was spiky of temperament, and , well, basically not the kind of girl the popular guys have crushes on! I wasnt popular, so it was okay! But I knew she had *something* that caught my attention.

Last few hours of my rest days. Start a seven day rotation of late shifts today. Couple things in the pot for the next week. Couple of drugs warrants to effect (you know, knocking on the door with the 50lb key, lots of shouting and screaming and then a search. . . kind of like storming into a room in Halo unarmed and not knowing what youre gonna find!), and the usual Friday/Saturday UK based sport of playing with the drunkards at kicking out time "Piss off son or yer gonna get nicked", that kind of thing.

Just downloaded a whole bunch of Wii videos from IGN. You know what? I may just save the money I would have spent on PS3 and use it for Wii software. Im convinced. I want one. Badly. I cant wait to get a bunch of friends and a couple crates of Grolsch round and spend an evening with it. After Ive done the nostalgia bit of course and downloaded the classics I want (Do I really want to complete Mickey Mouse and the Castle Of Illusion again? Why yes, yes I do!)

Dunno why but since switching to a Macintosh again I just never really thought about the joys of MAME. This weekend the talk about XBLA and some of the footage of upcoming classics from E3 made me think. And search. And lo, it does exist on Mac, and with the startlingly original title of MacMAME! So now I once again have my Paanacea of arcade games, Mr. Do! at my disposal. To be honest there are very very few games from that era that really stand examination today, so Ill never be a collector.

Well, I carried my threat through and today traded Oblivion for Mario Kart DS. After a few false starts I managed to get online with my DS and have been playing Kart for a while now. And you know what? Its sooooooo amazingly cool I could cry at the sheer wonderfulness of it all. Really, no exaggeration, it confirms for me that when Nintendo nail something its definitively fucking NAILED! All games should be this much fun.

Its just me, Im weird. But in the same way the WOW doesnt really move me neither does Oblivion. It looks amazing, plays well and was fun for a few hours, but it just isnt getting its hooks into me. I think Im just a simple person who enjoys linear gameplay more. "Heres a world, go wander, theres stuff to do as well if you want" leaves me cold and confused and lacking purpose. "This is Super Mario World, heres the start, heres the finish, have at it kiddo" has kept me engaged for 15 years! Probably why (thanks to that news article!) Shadow Of The Collossus is really working for me.

Id never owned a PS2. Dont really know why. I remember the massive hype, fights and shortages when it was originally released (one person even got into the local shit-sheet with her story of woe) and can only presume that my gaming was at a low ebb and I couldnt find the interest to hunt one down. Then I got an X-Box and GameCube and never really thought about it again. Strange as I was as frenzied as anyone lese on the UK release of the Playstation 1 (Sept 9th 1995 if memory serves!). Indeed it has been a source of some pride to me that as a gamer I have never owned a PS2! Well, now I do.

Finished work at 6AM, in bed by 7AM, unconscious till 3PM. Then up, some shopping, bite to eat and watch some TV (the last few days Sky+ recordings), all the while thinking "I really should load Oblivion up for an hour" and never quite getting round to it. And fairly soon I have to bathe and set off for another night at the coalface of bank holiday weekend drunken fuckwittedness.

One more night shift done (8PM-6AM) Few drunken idiots, one person arrested for criminal damage (he coughed the lot in the car on the way to custody. .I love it when a plan comes together!). One more level on Super Mario World completed (I remember they sheer joy of this game on my SNES back in 1991, its really fun and relaxing to play through it again on my DS in quiet moments, roll on Revolution/ Wii and the virtual console I say!).

Playing some online GRAW just last night over a quiet beer, and I noticed a certain class of player. This is a class of player that the inherent point of GRAW has passed straight over. They are, in fact, vacationing Unreal Tournament players whove just popped in to say hi!