This week, it's all about Demon's Souls (again) with Dwarf Fortress popping in for another weird and uncomfortable visit before scurrying off to its hillside retreat. Other than that, take your pick from expensive haircuts, flying cats and internet use clampdowns. Yes, it's business as usual at Chatterbox, and business is good... ish.
OneDaveofMany is driving the 'Best of' bus for us, so clamber on board, show him your ticket, then sit at the back and flick the Vs at passers-by.
Best of W/E July 30 2010
Editor: OneDaveofMany
The Geek Chorus
The week was welcomed in with continued talk of two of the blog's hottest topics: Demon's Souls (you could at least act surprised) and the unlikely resurgence of Dwarf Fortress [namechecked by none other than EA Play chief Rod Humble in my video interview with him this week! – Keef]. It really was impressive stuff for a Monday morning, the trivialities of the weekend interspersed with such nuggets as this from bigworv: "You need to kill bosses and not die in body form to make a world go white basically. Therefore it is worth dying in the nexus or a different world if you're trying to get white tendency for a world". Quite.
More and more blog folks seem to be getting into Demon's Souls, so don't expect the topic to go away soon. HereComesTreble finally got his hands on the game, though not at the expense of his neighbour whom he had suspected of taking his copy (it's a long story involving suspicion, Ocean's 11 levels of planning and British Gas uniforms) and proudly announced, "I've taken all your advice on board, and decided to start out as a Hobbit. I can always mould my guy (I'm calling him Brian) into more of a Freestyle Magician as I go along. I love this game." We await Brian updates with bated breath. [Speak for yourself – Keef]
In fact he loved the game so much that by the end of the week he was proudly declaring: "Demon's Souls - I think this is the best game I've ever played. There, I said it. What are you going to do about it?" Judging by general blog opinion I suspect the answer is, agree.
As for Dwarf Fortress, this seems to be an altogether more hardcore game to get into. Both RobLindsay and FerrisSaved tried with little success to penetrate its ASCII exterior, though Limni seemed immediately taken with it. "Never before have I known a game to get its claws into me to such an extent. I reckon I played 15 hours or so over the weekend, maybe more."
For those wondering what the game is like, VictoriousCupid summed it up nicely: "Just looked up some images of dwarf fortress on Google, it's like the 80s all over again!", though BeardOfBees (resident DF expert, possibly working on commission) was on hand to lay out instructions for making it look slightly less retro: "download a tileset and you can have little 2D pictures of things instead of the ASCII characters. It won't make it Crysis but it does the job of making everything a bit clearer. The DF page on the wiki has a link to a handy package with everything you need to start." For those foolish or brave enough to be interested, that wiki link is here.
The Meet Circus
After a few successful meetings between bloggers (even Keef survived the last one by all accounts) the flood doors have apparently been opened when it comes to planning further 'Meat Ups'. Evidence that, even though that phrase sounds more disgusting every time it is typed, the desire of Chatterbox regulars to physically meet for drinks and other such wholesome activities, remains stronger than ever. As well as a planned Birmingham event, there were also arrangements made for the Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court in early October. Rather than being vague notions of getting together all events were adorned with that most official of all Gamesblog staples – a wiki page entry to ensure numbers are managed and the information is disseminated easily. We are nothing if not pragmatic. Now the notion of gamers socialising might seem like a strange one to you, dear reader, but that's only because your narrow minded gamer stereotypes need updating. Broaden those horizons, then come join us for a pint. [I've done it, it's perfectly safe – Keef]
Look busy and deny everything
Some say there are two things guaranteed in life, death and taxes, but this week, events in the blog indicated a possible third entry to the list – a work internet use crackdown. Such a somber topic was kicked off on Monday with a message from Be4ch who had been hauled up for just such a reason. "When I left this evening (my boss) had the reports from IT and was busy compiling a list of dates and times." Such tales are designed to send a cold shiver of fear down the neck of any loyal Chatterboxer, a poignant reminder of what we risk in the service of such a noble cause.
The topic continued through the week with several other bloggers affected by similar issues or warnings, in the light of such tales LazyBones was taking no risks: "All this talk of people living in the internet, though, and getting disciplinaries and the like. It's making me concerned. I'll just be commenting from the sidelines, I think, for a bit." However not everyone was worried, ChairOfRust made himself the envy of the blog (or spoke some famous last words) on Tuesday: "My work are amazing lenient. I worry not." The moral of the story is to remain vigilant out there, your Chatterbox cyanide pills have been dispensed, here's hoping you never have to use them. [Cyanide?! I thought it was a multivitami..........]
Love might not be in the air
A familiar topic to the blog is the old chestnut of balancing gaming time with that spent with family/other halves (I'll be honest, bigamists have it toughest). PDMalcolm shared his latest spat on the subject with the blog: "(it) started out with me wanting to spend a quiet 20 minutes watching the Dwarf Fortress tutorials on YouTube and this being interpreted as "you never want to spend time with me!" Cue a tirade about how she wants me to not play a computer game ever again and how can I prefer those to her. I try to point out that the two are not mutually exclusive, but that was never gonna fly."
Box responses were mixed as usual. Bigworv cut to the chase immediately: "My advice is to ditch her. No offence etc." Others were more understanding, FerrisSaved even managed the impressive feat of keeping on topic and bringing in a gaming reference: "Sometimes reasonableness is left at the door though. I liken it to a boss in DS. When they go into their massive attack mode, that's the time to raise the shield and hide." Top work that man.
Then again it would be remiss of me to leave the discussion at this rather one sided and rather male-centric, view on the subject, as there are many on the box whose other halves either game, or who have the balance of time sorted out. SageSmith6079 rounded out the topic nicely with this aspirational story from the latest blog meet up that offers hope to gamers everywhere: "After the Northern Meat Up I expected to turn up at home and find Mrs Sage in her usual state of pyjama-clad sofa-hogging semi-consciousness… I needn't have worried. She did me proud. As the drunken bloggers walked into my lounge there was Mrs Sage, dressed well, playing and winning at multiplayer Blur on the 360. It was a moment akin to seeing your child take its first steps. Bursting with pride I may have even promised to go shopping with her the following week."
Later in the day, the discussion turned to a different kind of romance; that found within games. Well I say romance… still the topic threatened to rise above puerile insinuation to a genuinely thought-provoking assessment of sexuality in gaming, led by that bastion of taste ImperfectRex regarding his recent play through of Mass Effect 2: "With the romance angle – presumably it's heterosexual (sic) only? The game does allude to some lesbian action but when I tried to grab Garrus'... " unfortunately that's as much mature discussion as we got, but at nearly two whole sentences I'd still count it as a box record.
Vegan do it, then I can
SerenVickity kicked off Wednesday's box with a food-related dilemma concerning to her new lodger: "The only problem is trying to accommodate him at meal times. He doesn't eat carbs, fish or herbs… I'm tempted to spike most of his food with bushels of parsley just because I'm getting angry at being forced to avoid potatoes/pasta/bread etc... I can't even have chips. I believe this is what prompted Kate Knight to buy anti-freeze."
Naturally, this prompted a morning's worth of discussions on this behaviour (the general consensus was that it was highly out of order) and also on eating habits in general. The good name of Vegetarians was besmirched, though HumOfEvil and RedDread did their best to prop up their corner, both denouncing the cult of the 'I'm Veggie but I eat…', which I think is something we can all agree on.
HappySocks was defiant however: "My ancestors didn't climb to the top of the food chain for me to eat grass and fungus." Possibly missing the point, but you've got to admire his simplification of millions of years of evolution. After this point I'll be honest it got quite dull. Pretty dull in fact. I think something may have happened around 12 o' clock but I couldn't tell you for certain. More food choices were discussed, words like pescetarian, vegan and obnoxious were thrown around. People drifted away for lunch. Thankfully what was consumed therein remained unsaid, and the world moved on.
Malaise-y Days
The end of the week passed by with relatively little fuss compared to the way it started. Many smaller topics were started and dismissed and the box worked (possibly a bad choice of words) its way towards the weekend. There was a wave of nostalgia for the '90s creeping into the blog at one point, for the music and games in particular, something that lead HerselfTheMonkey to chastise the blog upon her late return: "All you old timers reliving your '90s glory days, it's sort of like a quiet corner in a retirement community where the old duffers compare war stories and other tales of hardship." Touché.
Wine blog took hold at various times in the week. I won't list suggestions but the 'box turned out to be well versed on the subject (general consensus was to avoid Blossom Hill like an IT auditor). Thursday's blog holds many answers for those who are interested, though I'm sure there will be a wiki page soon enough.
Other topics also covered towards the end of the week: remakes better than the originals... this turned out to be a series of very short lists. There was some actual gaming discussion regarding Kinect and its ability to allow two people to play, but detect up to six people (presumably using its inbuilt curiosity sensor). Friday saw the quick flurry of book blog (many, many sci-fi suggestions), mortgage blog and haircut blog. This was primarily focused on the cost of said 'cut', CunningStunt had arguably the best response to the question of the day though with the simple response: "two bits. And that's with a shave".
HerselfTheMonkey provoked outrage with the news that her latest 'do' cost £140, though she was keen to point out this was for more than just a simple cut. At this news ImperfectRex mused that, "women's hairdressing is something that could work for me. Just need to find some way to make myself deaf for 8-10 hours at a time." The general rule of thumb with the male bloggers seemed to be either to pay around a tenner, or buy some clippers and sort it yourself. So now you know. [Hello, is that the seventies? Can I have my games forum back please? – Keef]
Mental Image of the Week
Has to go to CraggyIsland for his opening gambit on Thursday's blog: "Watching TV last night we had the pleasure of a flying cat disturb our viewing. We have a spiral staircase which the cats love to sit and play on… she misjudged one of her leaps and came sailing through the railings. She missed MrsC's head by a foot or so and dropped right in between the back of the sofa and the wall… Looked a bit shocked afterwards, but after a brief clean was back to normal. Everytime I think about her just missing MrsC's head I'm giggling to myself this morning."
Quotes of the week
"A few weeks ago I was watching Big Bang Theory and they were playing Talisman (not sure which edition)...it made me think I may not be living my life to its full potential."
Hard times for EnglishRed, but at least he didn't know the edition.
"You're on Eastern Kingdoms, Orgrimmar is on Kalimdor. To get there, use the 'Orb of Translocation' in Silvermoon, behind Lor'themar Theron (Blood Elven Leader). This orb will take you to Undercity in Kalimdor, take a left, outside Undercity there are Zeppas. Take one to Durotar/Orgrimmar."
Shawshank22 would make a good WoW cabbie. Or possibly just made all that up.
"I watched Heartbeat last night. My life is falling to pieces."
CountGinula should really only be admitting such things to a qualified therapist.
"This game ... It's up there, for me, with chess. Something about it speaks to me. I think there is definitely something appealing about building a really high tower. I have seen feminist criticisms of skyscrapers, that say they are like big phallic symbols. Well perhaps there is something of this sort going on with Jenga. The phallic symbol in Jenga, though, is tragic. It gets bigger, ever higher, but only at the expense of itself, which is being undermined at every stage. It's a fantastic game."
LazyBones once again needing no further comment.
New: Schwen, NormsNormington, fattulip,
Films: A Serbian Film (don't look it up), Inception, Toy Story 3
TV: Sherlock, Jeeves and Wooster
Links: Chewbacca on a squirrel fighting Nazis
And don't forget:
You can find everyone's gamer tags, dates for the latest meat ups and much more on the official Chatterbox wiki.
And if you find yourself short of new tunes to enjoy, head over to our official Spotify list – and feel free to add your own favourites!
