As A Dodo: gaming

17 December 2007

Your Child's Happiness ????-2007

We at As A Dodo today wish to nod our heads in understanding at the tragic situation of parents this Christmas and offer you our sincere condolences for the imminent passing of Your Child's Happiness, which is expected to slip into the twilight on 25 December 2007 at precisely the moment they realise that "Santa" has been unable to secure for them a Nintendo Wii games console.

Your Child's Happiness was born shortly after his or her entrance into the world as a gurgling, blood-covered mass of pink flesh, in all likelihood at about the time he or she first managed to latch on to mum's breast and tuck in to a hearty, colostrum-laced meal (and certainly some time after that berk in the mask decided to give them a smack on the behind).

From that moment on, Your Child's Happiness grew and grew - taking innocent pleasure in anything from the new hanging mobile placed so carefully over their crib to all the swearing which putting the bloody thing up in the first place caused mummy and daddy to engage in. The sources of joy for your little one were many and various: being tucked up in a nice warm blanket, listening to bedtime lullabies, screaming itself hoarse in the middle of the night just when you'd finally got back to sleep, being sick all down the back of your best suit just before that interview for the new job.

As the years drifted slowly, oh so slowly, by so Your Child's Happiness burgeoned, safe in the knowledge that a single quivering lower lip at the right moment (or, failing that, several minutes of screaming in the middle of the toy shop on a busy Saturday afternoon) would get you exactly where they wanted you. Whether it be lengthy sessions of "I spy with my little eye" as you sat in the traffic jam outside Heathrow, endless hours of "The Wheels on the Bus" going round and round, or desperate attempts at bribery with E-number-laden sweeties whilst waiting at the supermarket checkout, you would do anything to ensure Your Child's Happiness endured.

Yet as Your Child grew, their Happiness became harder and harder to maintain. Soon exhausting sessions of tickling and Maisie DVDs lost their allure. Not even 19 seasons' worth of The Simpsons on a permanent loop (including the first 7 seasons when it was actually worth watching) could guarantee to keep a smile on Your Child's face, and ever more desperate measures were needed - right up to the point that you seriously considered selling that "spare" kidney of yours to fund the purchase of the necessary pony/computer/other-overly-expensive-item that would be heading off to the glue factory/eBay mere months after its purchase. Christmas in particular became a day fraught with danger, every second of present-opening time bearing the threat of a strangled cry of "But you KNOW I don't like Barbie/Grand Theft Auto/crack cocaine any more. I HATE you." and a tearful exit from the room, or your being forced to issue a series of dark and accusatory looks at your useless partner for failing to remember to buy the batteries as Your Child forces you to search through every remote control in the house for a spare set of AAAs.

This Christmas, though, was going to be different. This Christmas you were going to purchase the gift everyone told you was guaranteed to provide hours of pleasure to the recipient: a Nintendo Wii. And so it was that you set off in early December, confident in the knowledge that you would soon return with games console in one hand and a certain future for Your Child's Happiness in the other. That the dream was to prove as evanescent as a taxi's "for hire" light on a cold evening in December was not your fault. How were you to know that the mighty gaming giant seems only to have been able to manufacture seven of the consoles to supply the whole globe's demand? You spent hours trying to redeem yourself - scouring the internet for supplies, ringing round for any sign of this year's near mythical - yet absolutely mandatory - Christmas present, hanging around the alleyway behind HMV ready to mug the delivery men on the off-chance they might be carrying a Wii. Yet the RSI in your mouse-clicking finger and the chilblains on your extremities (not to mention the criminal record) were all to no avail. There will be no Wii for Your Child this Christmas.

Your Child's Happiness will be buried on 25th December under a mound of torn wrapping paper, floods of tears and a look from your offspring that will let you know that they will never, ever be able to trust you again. It will be survived by Your Child's Resentment, your partner's despair and several desperate trips to the drinks cabinet on your own part.

26 September 2007

[+/-]

Master Chief 2511AD-2552AD

The world - or at least that, almost exclusively male, part of it that prefers to spend its time jiggling its joystick in front of vast LCD TVs - is today mourning Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN 117, who is believed to have passed away⁽¹⁾ several million times in the last few hours, as a result of an assortment of inept, thumb-mashing fumbles on the part of players across the globe, following the worldwide release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 videogame "Halo 3".

Official records indicate that the man who would one day be known, somewhat tautologically, as "Master Chief" was born in 2511AD and spent his childhood years on Eridanus 2. The same records indicate that it was from here in 2517 that he was abducted and replaced by a "Flash clone"⁽²⁾ by the United Nations Space Command - in a move so devious it can only have been planned by a descendant of Dick Cheney - and that from then on he was trained as a SPARTAN-II supersoldier, ready to fight and defeat any alien force that might threaten the Earth.

Unofficial records, on the other hand, suggest that Master Chief was born on Earth in the offices of Bungie software in the early noughties, from where he (along with the whole of Bungie) was abducted by Microsoft and trained to help Bill Gates's mega-corporation flog Xboxes and Xbox 360s to every 16-34-year-old male on the planet and defeat the forces of Sony and Nintendo that might threaten Microsoft's bank balance.

Whichever version of events is true, what cannot be doubted is that Master Chief proved himself again and again to be one of the most heroic warriors this planet has ever seen, happy to go up against the forces of the Covenant and the Flood despite their superior weaponry, greater numbers and the fact that many of the players operating him couldn't take out a barn door with an A-bomb, let alone blow a Covenant Brute away while dual-wielding an M6G Personal Defence Weapon System and Type-25 "Plasma Pistol" Directed Energy Weapon.

Time after time Master Chief ventured out to do battle with the Covenant and with online pretenders to his crown, aided only by a few - frequently rather dim - allies and the artificial intelligence Cortana⁽³⁾, and time after time he was blown to bits by laser cannons, sniper-rifle head shots, the clunking fist of a Brute⁽⁴⁾ or by comically attaching a plasma grenade to himself - all thanks to the inadequacy of the pale-skinned, junk-food-eating types controlling his actions. Like many a soldier before him, super or otherwise, he was a lion whose actions were directed by donkeys.

It is understood that, at last tired of being blasted into a virtual pulp while some dumbass failed to press the pause button while going to greet the pizza delivery guy, Master Chief was driven to despair and was last seen praying for the so-called "red ring of death" to appear on his Xbox 360, consigning both it and him to oblivion⁽⁵⁾.

Master Chief will be buried at St Mario's Church of the Video Game Icon. Sonic the Hedgehog will preside over what is expected to be a brief, if lively ceremony - interrupted by a Boss Stage involving Dr Robotnik. The congregation will include Lara Croft, Crash Bandicoot, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Ulala, Link, Samus Aran, Gordon Freeman, Commander Jameson, Tommy Vercetti, Pacman, Solid Snake, some Space Invaders and Parappa the Rapper who will sing Master Chief's favourite Beatles song "Halo, Goodbye".

⁽¹⁾ doubtless alongside at least one, as yet undiscovered, videogame obsessive whose idea of fun was to play the game for three solid weeks with only the aid of several boxes of ProPlus, a lifetime's supply of RedBull and a series of bottles to pee into.
⁽²⁾ which the UNSC claimed to be more effective than an Ajax clone but not quite as good as a Jeyes Fluid clone.
⁽³⁾ which, for some reason, took the form of a holographic female with a come-hither voice and oversized virtual breasts. NB Cortana is not to be confused with the model Jordan who, while she certainly has oversized virtual breasts, has a %$*!-off voice and is rarely described as an intelligence, artificial or otherwise.
⁽⁴⁾ not thought to be Gordon Brown.
⁽⁵⁾ or perhaps even World of Warcraft.

23 March 2007

[+/-]

Sony Playstation 3 Hype 2005-2007

The Sony Corporation's hyping of its Playstation 3 Console (the European version of which is not dead, contrary to foolish and wholly erroneous reports to that effect) has finally expired, trampled under the feet of the hordes of up to five or six sad and lonely nerds early adopters who gathered outside stores last night desperate to be the first - outside Japan, North America, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Italy and South Africa - to own the new gaming machine.

Sony Playstation 3 Hype was born on 16 May 2005, delivered at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles to a beaming Sony Corporation and a bemused gaming press, all of whom politely refused to remark on the console's George Foreman "Lean Mean Grilling Machine"-styling or the hideously deformed, banana-shaped appendages which served as its joypads - at least until they got outside the conference hall.

While The Hype's proud parents were quick to praise its every move, others were more doubtful. While other "next-generation" consoles like the Xbox 360 delivered a diet of car-jacking and shooting to alienated teens across America or, like the NIntendo Wii, were flying into the screens of the worlds TVs, the Playstation 3 seemed to have difficulty even taking its first step. Soon rumours were circulating that the oversized machine was in fact the product of a nuclear accident and that it had first emerged from the Pacific Ocean intent on destroying Tokyo ... or at least that part of it owned by the Sony Corporation.

Despite the attacks, the Hype struggled on as Sony pointed to its new machine's exciting network functions, which weren't as remarkable as the Xbox 360's, exciting motion-sensing controllers, which weren't as remarkable as the Nintendo Wii's and exciting Blu-Ray functions, which weren't as remarkable as its sky-high price.

Even The Hype's best efforts were to no avail. As it crawled from country to country it left in its wake shelf after shelf of unsold Playstation 3 consoles and red entry after red entry in Sony's balance books. When it finally arrived on Britain's shores it was greeted, not with the love it craved from the news and gaming media but with a wave of apathy and the odd appearance as a filler item on BBC News 24. Starved of support, it expired on the floor of London's Virgin Mega Store - with even its death failing to garner any significant publicity or sales.

Sony Playstation 3 Hype will be buried at St Mario's Church. The service will include The Hype's favourite hymn, number 378 "Jesu, lover of my console". It is survived by a pile of unsold Sony consoles and some very happy rival manufacturers.