Xbox 360: Death Tank To Roll On Xbox Live Arcade!

That is all

This is cool, remember that game called “stunt island” on the PC back in 1990 - No, of course you don’t because you don’t have as anal a gaming memory as I do.

Anyway, this is similar to it:-

Basically, you set up little stunts with your imaginary cars and explosions and cameras and stuff and it generally wastes a little bit of the day. Which is what I’m all about nowadays.

Happy stunt-driving editing.

Can everyone stop using “Hit the jump” when referring to a hyperlink. “After the jump” is also on my list of phrases that apparently sound cool, but actually are fucking wank.

Right next to. “I drive an Alfa Romeo”

I know I’ve asked this previously, but is there any adsense banners over there? (Or is it just my PC?)

Answers in the comments would be grand, thanks….

Dear Sir/Madam,

I thought it necessary to write to you to point out how fundamentally useless your website is. Whomever you are paying for technical assistance in making your website, you should immediately fire, as they are currently skiving off work and have, instead of fixing the numerous problems, decided to put the catch-all error of “Our technicians are aware of this problem and are currently looking into it”

With no word of over-exaggeration, this error message has been persistently appearing for me since 2006. Either your technicians are slower than the M1 at 5:30pm or someone has seriously gone amiss.

I find that your website is covered in useful features and handy little areas of info, Unfortunately, I also find that actually clicking on any of these areas or features displays this catch-all error message. This gives me the impression that your website is actually a complete joke. Aimed to purely frustrate the user at every turn.

I also note that the “billing and payments” area of the website works perfectly, which is interesting, because thats the bit that actually makes Orange PLC its money isn’t it? Is it just coincidence that the “upgrade your phone” area does not work? And why would a cynical person such as myself suggest that this “upgrading” of your phone also costs Orange PLC money?

Let us both be honest with each other here, it’s in your interests to keep your customers “contract expiry date” as cloaked as possible isn’t it? You don’t want them knowing an exact day as this would prompt a quick upgrade request. No, much better to give them vague dates whenever asked and say “well, it was 18 months since you last renewed, which could have been 19 months ago before you remembered and decided to phone customer services”

I only wanted to have a look at the new handsets using your website. Unfortunately for both of us, I couldn’t. I’d love to dangle the carrot of claiming “I’m leaving orange the next opportunity I can” but to be frank, I probably won’t because I’m fundamentally lazy. Like your webmaster. We both know I’ll keep paying and that’s probably fine.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this letter to waste someones time, call it revenge for wasting my time whilst using your website. Thanks for reading.

Yours not at all sincerely,

Chris Jones
http://www.screwyouhippy.com

Top Gear then, right from the very off, let me make it hugely clear, I’m a big fan. Honestly. So before I go off ranting I just want to clear that up. I have nearly all of Clarksons books, (and quite a few of the others) - and apart from trying to stand in the crowd on the show (looks at Sharky) - I religiously tune in.

My biggest ranting point however, is this new “six show” format they have. It’s winding me up, Surely they didn’t always just do six shows a series and then have a massive twenty week break before coming back?

I know that the production values have obviously gone through the roof (I can’t imagine flying to Japan, filming a couple of cars, then jumping into spitfires and flying to Germany can be cheap) - but come on. Six shows?

I think because it’s so obviously gone big budget, they now feel that each part of the show has to be either, Dramatic, Comedy, or one of those races / car comparisons. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a stick in the mud where they have to review “normal” cars, (I absolutely hate that argument - I’m seriously not interested in watching a Lexus being driven around a track).

But the one thing they really need to start looking at is the following predictability.

Clarkson will always win, be the last doing anything important and will always get the final word. Fair do’s, it’s his show, but it makes the other two presenters come across as a bit weaker than they did years ago, (where there was a real sense of being on an even keel)

James May will always be in the slow car, fair enough, but Richard Hammond will ALWAYS crash into him pretending that his “brakes have failed” - yes, it was funny the first time in the classic super cars but since then, it’s like brake failure happens in every single car ever made, it’s not funny now. We now expect it whenever they park up.

The set-up jokes are wearing off. I know they have to be set up because that’s what entertainment is, but a few “none-jokes” wouldn’t go amiss either. I mean, I have cobbles near me, and not once has my door fallen off. (And seriously, I’ve driven across them in some cars where I expected it).

Last nights final episode they took on the Germans, surprise surprise, they won in the final race. Yes, it makes for interesting television, but we really wouldn’t have minded if you hadn’t.

I think the biggest sign that the format has changed is that my girlfriend has stopped watching it as keenly as she did. (Which is a pity because it was pretty much the only thing we could agree to watch that didn’t end in “street” or “ers”)

My biggest worry however, is that I don’t know what to suggest to make things better.. Perhaps apart from dropping the six show format and going for, I dunno, Eight? And spacing out the obviously set up jokes a bit more? (That being said, the trips across Africa, the North Pole and America are certainly the funniest ones ever - and I think that’s because it was genuinely funny, as in, not set up.)

Oh and another thing: If Simon Cowell is reading this, I think Jay Kay cheated to get to the number one spot. Since when have they been allowed 9 laps and then the fastest time picked from it? That’s bollocks, isn’t it supposed to be, 8 Practice laps and then a final hot lap? I only mention this because every time they start their fast lap, people in the past have said stuff like “come on, this is it” and “here we go”.

Here’s a WikiPedia article to reinforce my shit.

For the serious gamer out there, go and check out This website it is a collection (read, VAST collection) of game music that has been re-mixed with modern technologies, (and in the case of this exact link, very none-modern technologies)

Some recommended games to check out the music to…

Streets of Rage 2 - (Probably the best game music in the world ever)
Outrun (See above)

Lots and lots of other things…

Anyway, this is for the serious nerds out there….

My love for Jeff Minter is well documented but sometimes I do honestly wonder if he’s just fucking with us.

For those not “with it”, here’s the gambit in an easy to digest blockquote…

Jeff Minter is a pseudo game developer from the early 80’s and arguably 90’s - His games have three main attributes in common. 1. They usually involve goats, llamas or other such animals, 2. They usually have graphics that have been drawn by a hippy blind man on acid, and 3. They are all fucking wank. (I’d love to argue the toss and say that there is a brilliant exception, but there just isn’t)

Anyway, not long back, Jeff released a game called “Space Giraffe” and simultaniously achieved two things, firstly, he won the Chris Jones award for THE shittest name of a game in history and secondly, the game was (correctly) universally slammed as a piece of dog turd, and it sales showed that Jeff has completely and utterly missed the point of Xbox Live arcade.

In defence of his game, he then went on to comment that games such as Frogger (which I agree IS shitty death), and PAC-MAN were nothing new and didn’t deserve the astronmical sales they achieved. Arguing that trying to do something “new” with XBLA in Space Giraffe hurt sales, even though the game is basically exactly the same as his past “efforts”

Now I see that he’s releasing another game Gridrunner +++ on the service he so happily slagged. So why? Why would a person who cosmically failed previously bother to try again?

Is it perhaps that Jeff knows he’s a dinosaur from a by-gone era where he was only semi-famous for making shit stoner games and in the modern world of “indie gaming” *spit spit* he’s a nobody with antiquated ideas of what makes a decent game?

I hope this one gets slammed to shit, and personally, I hope it’s a fucking amazing game. Cos that’ll Really piss him off.

Now these are good. No, properly good. Properly, properly boredom killing mother fucking good.

Yes, Three of them, not Twelve, not Two, Three. - They all have a similar theme, it’s called Physics…

DUI

This one is cool, basically, you drive around a little smiley face in a simple physics land and try and remain above the red line. (Remembering that you can’t stop on a Gray box)

Totem Destroyer

Totem destroyer is a similar game, but probably a bit more straight forward, basically the little indiana jones like statue can’t be stood on the ground when the level finishes (You click on the bits that you don’t want to keep)

Hmmm, these games ARE very similar now aren’t they?

Fantastic Contraption

Like bridge builder and Armadillo run, this one is one of those “get something to somewhere using a contraption” thingy… And bloody good it is too.