JD

I made this:



Incidentally, my last writing portfolio-- which was essentially a few entries from this journal, spliced together and given a lick of fresh paint-- got a Second. I got over it.

I've written lots of music. Before now I've been using the tabbing program Guitar Pro, with its midi playback and recorded instrument samples, to lay down the blueprints for some songs. This doesn't result in anything particularly listenable, but it does let me work out what bits where go in the absence of a band to play with. Recently, though, I've finally gotten around to pirating absolutely loads of music software, and in the process of working out how to use it I've managed to cough out a couple of song demos. At the moment they consist solely of synthesised piano, which actually sounds better than you might anticipate. I've put both tracks up here in case anyone's curious-- the songtitles are nothing more than descriptive placeholders.

'Awkward': http://download.yousendit.com/F0F9F2BC5DFD323C
The repetitive pattern of this one lends itself to the synth better than the other track I've uploaded, and actually sounds pretty convincing. It's extremely American Beauty-ish-- and in fact the guitar line for it (not included) cements the similarity. I have no shame. I'm not sure about the bridge section yet but I like the rest. I like the way it opens in total sparsity, in an obscure time signature that you can't quite get a grip on, and then when the main sequence comes in it kind of makes sense of it. I want some strange spooky/scratchy effects underneath this one, maybe a few beepy clicks and beeps. I reckon even some subtle, jazzy brass, actually. The final version would go on for longer.

'Flutter': http://www.yousendit.com/download/aRYon1IhUTk%3D
On this one you can really hear the roboticism of the synth performance, but since I don't have any means of recording myself playing an actual piano yet, it's the best I can cough up so far. It's a bit of a shame, because a more fluid organic rendition would better demonstrate the delicate 'fluttering' that I'm trying to achieve in it (asthe filename suggests). I don't envisage this one having anything more on top of it than some vocals (although those vocals probably won't be mine if the time ever comes). When I play this, I tend to end it on a different chord than is included here-- a minor one-- because then I can segue it into a dramatic smashy-bashy other bit. I couldn't be bothered to include that piece as well so I've just ended it on a predictable happy note for the purposes of resolution.

I know it's pretty barebones, but any feedback here is appreciated. I'm still pretty new to this stuff but I've got big ideas.

This isn't a proper LJ entry per se, but rather a record of a couple of interesting thoughts I had today elsewhere on the internet regarding video games, that undying passion of mine. I thought they were worth keeping. If they're of interest to anyone else, well, that's a bonus. (You're my big hope, Silv.)

The first comes from a post on the Something Awful forums:

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I find HL2 almost impossible to criticise and I think in fulfilling its role as a linear shooter it passes with flying fucking colours, but the unique appeal of the opening sequence remains a really interesting taste of what could instead have been. It's almost as if the developers toyed a while with that sort of game design-- that is, non-combat driven, exploratory chillaxing-- before ultimately embarking on what is almost an obligation towards more conventional action-driven content. I can't flaw them for doing it, but I'm very much interested in seeing what lies down the other, as yet unexplored path.

What I thought was especially interesting about that sequence-- everything up until the chase, really-- was how it gently guided you through this absolutely compelling world with barely any challenge involved. It's common game logic (so common, in fact, to go almost entirely unchallenged) that games need to have a consistent string of clear goals-- not the grander overarching aims like 'free humanity', but rather small ones, like 'solve the puzzle', 'kill the soldier'-- in order to keep the player engaged. The way the first chapter of HL2 leads the player along with a trail of completely non-threatening breadcrumbs is quite fascinating to me. The environment they created for the opening sequence (and indeed the whole game) was so richly inviting that I was happy simply to walking around in it, knocking objects over and cooing with delight when they rolled away from me realistically. I really would like to see more games experiment with the notion of "atmosphere for atmosphere's sake": letting players explore exciting worlds at their own pace, with little to no conventional challenge prompting them. Like a virtual vacation, but to dystopian futures. I wonder if it would work.

A final note-- one of the few games to ever really begin to plumb the depth of this sort of idea is Shenmue. A great number of people found it to be monumentally dull, of course, but I thought the effort invested in creating the right ambience and detail paid off in absolute fucking spades. So little of its content actually contributes to the progression of the game, but my fondest memories of Shenmue-- one of my most adored games ever-- all involve simply existing within its quiet suburban roads, feeding cats.

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The second article is another chatlog with Dache. It references a couple of projects we've been working on/dreaming of for a couple of years now, which probably won't make any sense to foolish outsiders, but the bulk of the discussion is fairly interesting, I think:

( Edited! For CLARITY! )

As my compadre Michael wrote in his own journal recently, entries consisting exclusively of chat logs suck. But I've just ranted patiently at Dache for ten minutes and there are some thoughts there I'd like to record, so here goes:

( Read more... )

Sorry about that, everyone. Normal service will resume shortly.

In keeping with my reptuation as a terrible driver, today, during a lesson, I crashed the car. The vehicle in front of me braked suddenly-- though not unacceptably-- and I wasn't paying attention. I braked hard and, with slow and steady grace, I sailed into the back of him. Then I swore a lot.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but lately I've been keeping a book of thoughts with me-- something in which I can jot down words and phrases that appeal to me, half-written lyrics, aimless doodles and so on. If my Livejournal is a vent through which I can funnel more cohesive thoughts, then my notebook, which I have become quite reliant on, is the perfect canvas for my less organised ramblings. I suppose I hadn't quite realised how habitual the process of adding to it has become for me, because today, after I crashed, the first thing I thought was: "Well, I'll have to write a song about this." It's my default reaction, now, to any significant emotional sensation or experience-- to attempt to write a song about it. Most of the time it doesn't work, but it's something.

Then I realised Radiohead had got there first. At least three times. ("Airbag", "Killer Cars" and "The Tourist", in case anyone wants to cross-reference lyrics.) I am a faliure in every capacity.

I'm going mad here. I've written 50+ pieces of music, some more developed than others, and many pages of scattered, half-finished lyrics. I have a suspicion that some of what I've got is pretty good, too-- but what do I do with it? I've been occupying some of my time recently trying to find out if I can sing, and the answer so far is "yes, but not in any interesting way": I just sound like some random twat wailing into a microphone. How does Thom Yorke do it? He's clearly rubbish at singing, and yet he sounds awesome. I was hoping a similar strategy-- of sucking but somehow being magically awesome despite it-- might have paid off for me, but it seems it's not quite as simple as that.

Anyway, that's not even my biggest problem. I play bass, guitar and piano, but yet lack the ability to do any of these simultaneously. I need a band. I put an ad out early this year, listing my influences Radiohead, Muse, Bjork, Pink Floyd and Sigur Ros, and got an awful lot of people who couldn't really play any musical instruments really but enjoy singing a bit and like The Killers and My Chemical Romance so maybe we should meet and they've not really listened to any of the bands I like but hopefully that's not a problem. I did manage to root out two avenues of possibility-- an absurdly talented singer/songwriter with whom I seemed to musically gel with and then became completely inaccessible (I suspect he may have been out of my league) and a rather strange, wonderful girl called Laura. So far, only Laura's shown any lasting devotion to the cause, and her frank readiness to tell me that I've ripped off Radiohead again is an excellent foil to my head-in-the-clouds dreaming, but there's one problem: she plays alto sax and alto clarinet. Now, I love those instruments, and she's fucking good at them, but I don't think any of my songs can currently accommodate brass instrumentation. What's a boy to do? I appreciate the rarity of the instruments, but at this stage I can't help wish she played bass.

Amongst my favourite types of customers are those who recognise that price tags are an illusion: an elaborate but ultimately insignificant ruse propogated by shops in order to con those of lesser intellect into paying amounts of money that might constitute an actual profit margin. Those wise individuals able to see past the facade-- the ones who suggestively waggle their eyebrows at shop employees whilst saying "You'll knock a couple of quid off that for me, won't you, sunshine?"-- are beaten only in the Wonderful Human Being stakes by those slightly rarer customers who actually choose to take assertive action-- that is, idle threats, raised voices, hurled foodstuffs-- in order to correct the fickle shopkeepers whom still, foolishly, sort of believe that if a game has a sticker on it that says "£10.00" on it then they might reasonably expect to be paid ten pounds for it.

"The other kiddie, he gives me money off every time"; "Yeah, I normally have an understanding here so I get cut a few deals"; "Well, the lad here on Sunday always gives me a fiver off". These people are the pioneers of their species. The meek shall inherit the earth.

Tom's camera cannot lie.

I don't know how it happened, but yesterday I worked a day at Gamestar, the job I held for almost three years before leaving it to go to university. Actually, I know exactly how it happened: I'm home for the summer, I need some money, and I have nothing better to do. But it still baffles me, and I spent much of the day thinking: how the hell did this happen?

I swore I'd never return, but, well, here we are; or rather, there I was. It's shocking how easily it came back to me. After nearly a year of absence I'd hoped it'd be nostalgic or at least faintly novel in some capacity, but it's like I took a week off, not eleven months. Almost nothing had changed. The customers certainly hadn't; I recognised at least a dozen familiar faces-- including one man I'd personally refused to do business with because he sells us stolen stock, and who yesterday pretended was someone else presumably in the hope that I would not remember him. It took only until ten o'clock to have my first threat since returning: a red-faced and rather rotound woman explained to me how her thirteen-year-old son had stolen some DVDs from 'her house' (presumably his house, too?) and sold them to Gamestar, and ended her breathless statement of intent with the declaration that if we did not immediately return her DVDs at no cost she 'would have to get the police involved'.

Nothing here, at home, has changed. The house is the same, work is the same; I'm even, God help me, having a driving lesson next week. Everything in my environment here is identical, and the only thing that's changed is what's inside my head. It's almost upsetting.

I went to visit my grandmother, my mother's mother, today. She has been in a retirement home for the past year or two; she has lost only about half of her marbles, so it is still possible to greet her and only be slightly surprised if she thinks I'm 'that man from the television'. She has been incapable of living independently for nearly a decade now. Her husband-- my grandfather-- died after having gone completely mad about five years ago, so now she's pretty much on her own, in a strange, lonely place.

She has had new teeth put in and they are slightly too big for her. She seemed pleased to see me, but perhaps not entirely convinced as to my identity. I sat and read the paper while my mother talked to her. We lasted about twenty minutes; my mother usually reaches breaking point when my grandmother starts saying things like "Shall we go and visit your grandma, Annie? She'll be pleased to see you."

The main reason I'm typing this up is because of the new brochure they've put together advertising the home. My grandmother, photographed looking only a little bit confused sitting in a wheelchair, is in it. Above her is the caption "I know I've made the right choice". My grandmother hasn't made a choice since about 1996. [i]We[/i] put her in that retirement home when we discovered that if she fell over she had to spend the rest of the day on the floor. The front cover of the brochure has a another photo of different elderly woman with the caption "I'm so happy here-- I can start my life anew." My mother informed me that the woman had died before the brochure had been published. O bitter cruel world.

I hate nursing homes. I mean, everyone does, but that doesn't mean I don't get to explain why. The reason is this: they are ghost houses. They are inhabited by the living dead, the animated bodies of ex-persons, non-people. Human beings are not meant to live that long. My heart goes out to anyone who manages to work in one, amongst the hordes of writhing, drooling undead.

(Chloe.)

Life Objective: Be Happy. Yeah. So how is happiness derived? Increasingly, through creativity, yeah? And how do I derive happiness from creativity? I create things that are good and that people like. So how the fuck am I ever going to do that?

Met Grant for some revision. I don't really know the guy. I met him through my old Creative Writing class-- he wrote what I thought was a fairly bad short story about lying in bed with his girlfriend. (The term 'big sexy legs' appeared at one point, presumably without irony.) He is tall, friendly, assured, bearded. He likes World of Warcraft and, um, dressing up with others and pretending to be orcs. Importantly, he is mainly unthreatening. (Someone being 'unthreatening' means I can, at this stage at least, comfortably assess them to not be 'better than me' in any clear way.) So imagine my surprise when I learnt that he had achieved a massive 78%-- a big sexy First and no mistake-- on his second writing portfolio. Hey, kids, remember that? I got 62%. That's a low Second. It's okay getting Seconds on essays about American racism, that shit doesn't matter; but to me, writing, creativity, expression-- that's the good stuff. I have to be good at it, or I'm as pointless as any other schmuck on this rock. And 62% means I suck.

It disappointed me. I suffered. A good sharp shock to the old superiority complex never fails to take me by surprise. I wrote an LJ entry about it, I got over it-- I even wrote some music and found some fleeting satisfaction in it, flirting once again, cautiously, with the possibility of my own talent. But suddenly that talent's disappearing across the horizon again. Wait, do I even believe in talent? I can't remember. Well, if it does exist, Grant apparently has 78 percent's worth of it, and I'm sick with jealousy.

Talked to Chloe about it. She reckons there's more to life than being creative. She may be right but in self-defence I have chosen to believe that she is missing the point entirely. Now, next year I'm gonna clean up-- I'm gonna write something that blows everyone away, blows everyone the fuck away. Just you wait. You'll see. And if you don't I'll kill myself.

So, you know, you talk to the girl, and she's very pretty, and after she's gone you open your cupboard door with the mirror in it and you look at your reflection and you think: well, do I feel lucky, punk? It turns out I don't, and rarely do. I'm overweight, fat. I look okay in a black t-shirt but that's about it. But aside from that there is a separate quality to my physical form: I'm big. It's a different thing. I am a being possessed of a strange vastness, quite apart from simple obesity. Girls don't like me. I don't like the gym. I'm riding on personality alone here, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Chloe-- all she's cracked up to be? She's certainly cracked up, anyway. She's a mess. She isn't the kind of mess that becomes clingy and needy, but instead she becomes the opposite, pushing everything away from her: finding fault in everything I say, finding hostility where there should be none. And hostility breeds hostility, so currently we are broken. It worries me. Don't know what to do. Maybe the meds will kick in soon. The happy pills. The 'zac. Can I ever love somebody who doesn't love Paranoid Android? We don't talk about it.

I came into the corridor just now and Justine, that cherished American import for whom I generally have more time than most, was sitting on the floor, smoking a cigarette. (I am trying to write a screenplay about her because I think she is funny.) Chloe was there too, and Dominic. I said to Justine: "Oh, please don't smoke in the corridor." I may be the only non-smoker left in the world-- I may be irrationally scared of it, I may even be a total square-- but I simply do not like it. It hurts my eyes and it makes the place smell bad. Every night everyone in the building gets together to alter their minds in various unproductive ways and it just isn't for me. That's fine; where I take exception is when people say to me "Go on, just one,", or when they vomit on my shoes. They can vomit in their rooms on their own shoes all they like, but just not in the corridor on mine.

Justine, apparently too fucked to respond, did nothing. Instead, Dominic said to me with genuine and frightening anger: "Do the washing up."

I said, "What washing up?" He said, "The washing up you've left in the kitchen all day." I said, truthfully, "I wasn't aware I'd left any washing up." The conversation went on like this for a few moments before I managed to swing it back to the smoking, and said, "This is supposed to be a non-smoking flat." Dom said: "Well it isn't." I said, "I'm afraid I ticked a little fucking box that said non-smoking flat, and until there isn't one person here who doesn't mind smoking in the kitchen or corridor, we are not going to fucking do it." He said, "Well, I don't like you leaving the washing up. It's not hard to do the washing up." I said, "I'm sorry, if I've left some I must have just forgotten it." He said, "Well don't." I said, "So you've never forgotten to do something in your entire life?" He said, "Not as far as I am aware."

There's no response to that. That example there is not as good as the time when Dominic and I were arguing about how I never go out with the group and get drunk. He told me I can't dislike it unless I've done it a few times. I said, "Well, have you ever stayed up until 4am writing music?" He said yes. And you can't argue with it. When somebody lies to your face the only thing left to do is accuse them of being a liar, and I'm just too polite, even for that. You have to let them win.

I looked to Chloe for help. She has dyed her hair again since I last saw her, and she looks even more beautiful than I remember. She was sitting on the floor, looking miserable, dead. She didn't look at me. She didn't save me. She was useless. An angel with broken fuckin' wings.

I went into the kitchen and looked at the washing up, which consisted of a colander and a pot with a piece of spaghetti in it. Neither of them were mine. I know this because as I was doing my washing up the previous day I had noted with some annoyance that someone had failed to wash up their colander and pot. I left the kitchen and said: "Can you come and point out where my washing up is?" I followed Dominic back into the kitchen and he pointed to the colander and the pot with a peice of spaghetti in it. He said: "You had pasta last night. Look at this pot. There's a--" I said, "A piece of spaghetti in it. I know. It's not mine." He said: "And there's a colander here too." I said, "It's not fucking mine. Why are you being so hostile towards me?" He said "I'm not." I said: "Yes you are. We've been arguing for the last two minutes." He said, "Had we? I didn't think we were," with the air of a naughty child who responds to every question with "Don't know", and then strode off.

I went back into the kitchen. Justine seemed to have become a bit more sober and apologised a lot, more than was necessary. Told her it was okay. Looked for Chloe. Heard her voice coming from Dominic's room. I think they were talking about films.

Went for a walk. Listened to Paranoid Android. Sick of living with children.

I'm going to submit this to the university newspaper. I don't know if they will accept it in its current state-- 2000 words is probably a bit much for them-- so I thought I'd stick it here to preserve it in its original state. If anyone has any suggestions before I submit it, please voice them.

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I write this essay for two reasons. The first reason is that I have a profound respect for the video game, both as an entertainment medium and as a completely legitimate and utterly unique forum for artistic expression, and feel that this respect is uncommon not only in society in general but also the players of video games— and even in the video game industry itself. The second reason is that my good friend Chloe has told me that she intends to forbid her children from playing video games.

I feel the first problem will be eventually solved naturally, via the passing of time: as with all new forms of art, it is usually required that the first generation of people to witness it (and inevitably criticise it) die off before it begins to be fully appreciated and explored by their children, whose prejudices have not yet been pre-determined by the fear of the unfamiliar. However, it will be a long and uncomfortable journey for those of that first generation who are already enlightened to the joy of the video game, forced to live amongst the swathes of the uneducated who insist on— for example— forbidding their children to enjoy this vibrant and exciting new artistic medium.

I feel that the latter problem can be solved by sterilising Chloe. This essay, therefore, is my small but determined effort to save her from this unsavoury but apparently necessary fate.

I understand that video games are not for everyone. It is undeniable, for example, that something like 95% of the games-playing population is male. I am not sure if this due to something in the nature of the video game medium itself, or something specific only to games being made today. If it is the first reason, then presumably the thing about the game medium that some people do not enjoy is its very defining feature: its interactivity. It may be that whereas other forms of entertainment are to some degree passive— after all, you need only to look at a painting or listen to a song to interpret and enjoy it (although perhaps a little more intellectual input is required to understand a film, more so with a book)— playing a video game is an inherently non-passive activity. By its very definition, a video game requires at least some degree of input and considered response from the player to progress. (There was some argument a decade or two ago that suggested that the advent of interactive entertainment would spell the end for existing non-interactive mediums like cinema and television; this is absolutely not the case and has so far proved not to be the case, because the mediums and the means serve altogether different and mutually compatible purposes.) So it may be that, for whatever reason, some people do not enjoy this element of active participation; whether their reasons for this can actually be justified is another argument altogether, and one I do not have an opinion on yet, although I can assure my readers that I am working on it.

But I think it there is an altogether more likely explanation for the popular indisposition towards the poor, misunderstand video game: the vast majority of them are not very good. As regular readers of James Duffy’s Opinion will recall, much of my life philosophy is based upon the basic assumption that most people lead essentially meaningless and directionless lives, and that their existence is governed by an ignorance and base stupidity that means, for example, that they think that broken, derivative action games based upon the fictional exploits of convicted ex-drug dealers with songs that include such poetry as “I'll take you to the candy shop / I'll let you lick the lollypop / Go 'head girl, don't you stop / Keep going 'til you hit the spot (woah)” are a very good idea. More than one million people bought the 50 Cent game, Bulletproof; Cindy Cook, the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer of VU Games, thinks that these strong sales “underscore the undeniable appeal of the artist, his music and the engaging interactive experience that this game delivers." I instead think that it actually underscores not only the astonishingly cynical and destructive nature of the game publishing business but also— and more significantly— the indescribably stupid nature of the game-buying public at large. The game was unanimously panned by critics— not to suggest that games journalism has many people working in it who truly take their own medium seriously, of course— but 50 Cent himself was nonetheless “excited because [the game] has the highest technology” (whatever that means), and was adamant that the game would be “if not the best videogame, then one of the best videogames you'll see this year”. This is a man who has no place in video game development, but whose input nonetheless constitutes over one million sold units.

The games industry is in fact very severely diseased. The overwhelming majority of its consumers are males in their late teens and twenties whose primary interests seem to be shiny cars, automatic weaponry and the sexual domination of women as conveyed through tedious confectionary metaphors, and whom likely take video games no more seriously than they do cinema or music: that is, they like them as long as they involve shiny cars, automatic weaponry and the sexual domination of women (presumably via metaphors involving lollipops). Indeed, the British video game charts are dominated by an utterly depressing array of 20-Year Old Male games: series like FIFA, Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed have seen enormous success in recent years, and while there is nothing necessarily stopping a game about football, crime or racing from being anything less than excellent, they all promote an aesthetic that smells rather overwhelmingly of testosterone. I am not suggesting that these genres should be extinguished. However, I am strongly of the opinion that there is a wealth of alternative possibility for the video game that is being neglected both by the industry and by the consumer; a realm of artistic potential and singularly exciting entertainment that we have, so far, barely managed to scratch. It is an appalling tragedy, because there are things that video games can do that other entertainments absolutely cannot, and yet thus far they have been almost entirely forbidden to do any of them.

But what is most tragic of all is that those of us— possibly, I dare say, the brighter of us— who do not really see the appeal in ten thousand games about shooting prostitutes are so often left with very little else to look at. There is an idea that video games are artistically worthless, and have no capacity for beauty or subtlety or emotive response or any other of the wonderful things we enjoy in other art mediums; this is a patent untruth, but I can almost forgive those who assume it, because you have to look very hard indeed to find the diamonds in this horrendous rough.

One of my favourite games ever is a PlayStation 2 game called Ico. It is a frequent poster child for the Video Games As Art argument, and for good reason: it was designed and directed by a painter, and it shows, because it is perhaps the most beautiful game of them all. It is a puzzle-driven fantasy adventure game; you play as a young boy born with a pair of horns and must escort an ethereal princess from an abandoned and crumbling castle, whilst avoiding the castle’s various traps and the animated shadows who follow you. Ico is an exercise in understatement, being perhaps the most calming and subtle interactive experience I have ever played; it is also one of the most emotional experiences I have ever had with any form of entertainment, so you can perhaps imagine my dismay when I handed the controller to Chloe and she asked: “Which one is the shoot button?”

Ico has no shoot button. Not all games— sadly most, but need not all— have automatic weapons, shiny cars and sexual exploitation in them. It is my hope that our generation will not have to die off entirely before Chloe realises that video games are no longer the stuff of high scores and ‘getting to the next level’— a faintly embarrassing misunderstanding of video games that she mysteriously believes makes them ‘addictive’ and possibly even harmful. It was once thought that allowing women or black people to read was dangerous; it was once thought that rock music would corrupt youth and that television would destroy minds. Now it is apparently believed that allowing your children to play games will turn them into drooling zombies trapped in darkened bedrooms, unable to communicate with normal human beings and gagging for their next high score. (Note to the uneducated: games haven’t been driven by ‘high scores’ or ‘better levels’ since about 1994: the joy is in the experience, not some drug-addled need for score betterment.) Playing a video game is no more ‘dangerously addictive’ than anything else you might find fun, satisfying or enjoyable: how ‘addictive’ do millions of children find each new Harry Potter novel? How many times a month do you listen to your favourite song? Why is it that having spent an evening reading The Da Vinci Code is considered to be somehow intellectually better than having spent it engaged in a sophisticated interactive thriller like Metal Gear Solid, or something as straightforwardly joyful as the abstract, playful appeal of Sonic the Hedgehog? Both games are concepts possessed of real clarity of vision and design, with strong art direction and genuine creativity; they are pieces of entertainment made by human beings for other human beings, and what’s more, they’re very good indeed. They are art. Even 50 Cent: Bulletproof is art; it’s just bad art.

Games are— or at least can be— every bit as intellectually nourishing as the best literature or cinema. But the problem is this: they are limited not only by their own creators, but also their players; and, perhaps most significantly of all, the poorly-informed expectations of people who assume that all video games can ever add up to is Lara bloody Croft. It came as a shock to dear Chloe that video games even could end, that they could tell a story, that they could have a beginning, a middle and, get this, a conclusion; that they didn’t just loop in an endless cycle of demented more-more-more-more until the player is driven crazy with social deprivation. Take the seminal sci-fi action game Half-Life 2: a tour-de-force of storytelling as only video games can tell them, using and in many cases single-handedly inventing every trick the medium has up its sleeve to convey its remarkable narrative. The brilliance of the video game as the storyteller is that it casts the player in the lead role: everything that happens happens to you, not Tom Cruise or Harry Potter, and this incredibly powerful and emotive element is exactly what games offer that no other medium can.

The successor to Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, was released in the UK only a short while ago. I think it’s very good indeed, as you might expect. What I did not expect was its success: it got to number #1 in the charts, after months of turgid and derivative garbage like Bulletproof. Perhaps I am wrong about the mental capacity of the average games player; perhaps I too am wrong about the games industry, because Sony marketed the hell out of it and— lo and behold— it has sold well. Perhaps all that is needed is a greater awareness of games as an art form, and a greater acceptance of new ideas; perhaps Chloe’s fertility can yet be preserved. I implore anyone who reads this to ask their boyfriend to have a go on his PlayStation.

For someone so good at writing, I don't seem to be very good at writing. I got a meagre 67% on my first creative portfolio this term, and today I got my second one back. I consider the story I handed in for the second portfolio to be the best prose I have ever written; it got 60%.

I think of myself as an intrinsically creative being. I spend my whole life thinking conceptually-- I am overflowing with ideas for games, films, writing, art, and more recently music, and spend a great deal of time trying to flesh some of these concepts out. Those very close to me know how seriously I take some of these ideas and the sheer amount of mental energy I devote to them, and yet I am apparently completely unable to carve out of them anything of any worth. Do I even want to be a writer? I don't consider myself a very capable writer as it is, but to have something I consider to be my strongest effort trampled so fiercely is fairly crushing. What is it, I wonder, that I am gaining from this course?

As part of my Creative Writing course-- which so far is mostly one big (enjoyable) circle jerk where untalented people reassure each other of their genius-- I have to turn in a portfolio next week. Since a lot of other guys in the group are doing poetry, I thought I'd try my hand at it. As it is, this is my first ever genuine attempt at poetry, and it's probably not finished yet (not to mention very good at all)... but here we are:

We feel your pain.
We know it well.
We hear your wail;
We are here to help.

We can help you get up,
Pull you out of the crash,
Help you get upright.
We will lick your wounds.

Lines are open
Seven days a week.
We will hear you speak and weep.
National calling rates apply.

Telephone calls may be
Recorded or forwarded.
We value your feedback.
Your opinion is important to us.

Your home may be at risk if you
Do not keep up repayments as agreed.
Your information may be sold to other reputable companies.
Please hold.

Why not read our success stories?
Browse our testimonies.
People just like you have
Had justice.

Kate had an accident at work:
They said she'd never walk again.
Now we are her legs
Joined at the hip.

Your home may be burnt to the ground if you
Do not keep up repayments as agreed.
Your pets may be sold to other reputable companies.
Please hold.

We are a responsible lender
And when tending your letter
Of application, your financial
Circumstances will be appraised.

Our specialist solicitors,
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There's a guy in my American Studies group with the same shoes as me.

There is tension.

Asked Chloe about the cleaner thing. She admitted she had heard something. According to her, Tracy and Katie said I told the cleaner to go away and/or 'get lost'. Am I really a Dr Jekyl repressing some lurking and obnoxious Hyde character-- the very embodiment of my every embittered ounce of loathing for society at large? This is causing me some serious concern. Who knows how many potential friends I've shot down in some half-conscious bedridden state I have no recollection of? Maybe this is why I'm so unpopular. I swear to never fall asleep ever again.

I'm feeling significantly more settled here now than a few weeks ago. It's strange how relationships change-- I still adore Chloe, and Max seems like a sterling gent; I'm even warming to Paul of Smarm. Katie, however, needs to be put down, although I am seemingly the only person who can see this. She is exactly the sort of person who used to make my life miserable in school, and exactly the sort of person who would read this LJ and think that it's 'funny' (apart from being just confusing, thanks to my use of terrifying words like 'tangent')-- and not because I am at the cutting edge of writing wit.

I also think I have spoiled my relationship with Tracy, who I used to think I was on good terms with. Apparently when I gave her some feedback on her godawful poetry from hell I was supposed to say I loved it, because she's been telling people that I just don't 'get it' and that I am 'kind of an asshole'. Well, I don't get it, and I, uh, am kind of an asshole. So there! I'm disappointed she took my suggestions so personally, though. I was trying really hard to be tactful, honest! I didn't suggest that it was godawful poetry from hell or anything. And I was certainly kinder to it than Max was when he read the bit about how her heart yearned for her boyfriend's soul or whatever it was.

Just now in the kitchen Daisy said to me: "Can I ask you a question?" I said yeah. She said: "Do you shout at the cleaner?"

I have no recollection of doing this. I feel nothing but warmth and respect for the cleaner, even though she spends most of her time stealing our biscuits and having cups of tea in the cleaning supply cupboard. But according to the grapevine (Tracy and Katie), I have at some point shouted at her. Did she disturb me in some bed-ridden state of half-consciousness, leading me to erupt like a confused, frightened zombie? Was I being rude when I told her that my shower didn't need cleaning just yet, but thanks anyway? Was it presumptious of me to ask for some more toilet paper? I must know the truth.

Tomorrow morning I will leave, finally, for university. I am to study American Literature with Creative Writing at the supposedly esteemed University of East Anglia in Norwich. I will be leaving home after nineteen years of comfortable co-existence with my family and fending for myself in the harsh lands of real life.

I write this entry now only to log a small and mainly insignificant sentiment, which is a certain kind of sadness. I suppose this is to be expected, but up until this point I've been looking forward to this moment, and now it's finally arrived I feel a little disturbed. I'm not afraid or hesitant, but I'm in that inevitably temporary bubble of introspection one goes through at a time of transition; when you see the world, or your little corner of it, with a slightly improved clarity, and it's jarring.

Today I said my goodbyes to Tom, Rob, Chloe, Hannah and Rosie, the surviving remnants of my patchy group of close friends. It's strange that I'm the only person leaving, while everyone else opts to stay in Brighton, when really this is a jump thousands of people of my age are currently making. I'll see all my compadres again, many times-- and talk to them on a likely very regular basis-- but I can't help but feel almost like I'm approaching death, like I've been diagnosed with some kind of incurable ilnesses and I'm making amends and coming to terms with the universe I will be shortly exiting. But I have survived an incurable illness before.

(For reference, should I die on the way there, I want "These Days" by Nico played at my funeral.)

When I was about twelve years old, the Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer came out. I lusted after them badly. I finally got a Game Boy Camera, and loved it, but it took a little while for me to talk my mother into additionally purchasing for me a Game Boy Printer; she even, anticipating my adoration for it, bought two extra packs of printer paper for it. I remember waiting at the checkout in Gamleys, quivering with excitement.

The Game Boy Printer was one of the worst game accessories of all time. I printed maybe ten stickers using it before getting bored. To this day it is still under my sink cupboard, unloved, with two unopened boxes of Game Boy Printer paper next to it.

For nearly a decade now I have been wracked with guilt over this Game Boy Printer. It's deeply irrational-- my parents are well-off and they probably don't even remember buying it, and I'm sure there were countless other incidents of my being bought something as a child only to completely neglect it, just as there are in any kid's history. But for some reason the Game Boy Printer remains a lasting and painful symbol of my every inner fear, every guilty sentiment, my every last ounce of gagging self-doubt. I feel like I should sell it or get otherwise rid of it, but it goes on eBay for something like three quid, and it hardly seems worth it. Maybe I'll donate it to Gamestar. Does anyone want it?