Okay, this time it's definitely my fault. Pic emailed this Best Of to me on Monday. Monday! And I'm only just getting it online. In my defence, I was in up north all week at the Bradford Animation Festival, where I was recording a special version of the Tech Weekly podcast in front of a live studio audience. I was joined on stage by Broken Sword legend Charles Cecil, my old flatmate Kieron Gillen (apparently he writes comics and games now, or something) and experimental game designer Dan Pinchbeck. We talked a lot about games and you can hear the results when the podcast goes live on Tuesday.
Anyway, back to Chatterbox and here's everything noteworthy that happened in our daily comments bucket from Monday November 1 until bonfire night. Lots more Fallout, a bit more PES, and then Black Ops lurking stealthily on the horizon. Also, what did WeeCooper's dog do in the kitchen at 5.30 on Friday morning? All, unfortunately, will be revealed.
Monday November 1
Monday was an appalling day and best left untouched; trying to grab "the best" of Monday's chat was like trying to describe what you most like about having violent diarrhea (that warm feeling you get about five minutes after you've emptied your bowels). [Great start there, guys, thanks for that – Keef]
In what was to become a continuing theme throughout the week, chat was dominated by spoilers-aplenty, mainly spoiling the fun for anyone who hadn't yet bought, or doesn't like, Fallout: New Vegas. Blog opinion is seemingly split on this, some avid fanboys, some simply sick of the bugs already (and I don't mean radscorpions, whatever they are) but suffice to say we'll be hearing much more about all of it for quite some time.
Much to the apparent chagrin of everyone but Rusty, chat also consisted of a hell of a lot of discussion about *spit* X Factor. This was triggered by Rusty himself admitting to a sincere admiration for Cher, one of the 'talented' contestants. Considering everybody professed to having a hatred of the show, we seemed to know an awful lot about it. Many tried to justify this knowledge with cries of being 'made to' by significant others but let's face it lads, the fact you can be forced to watch X Factor is just as embarrassing as watching it by choice.
Not everyone was as enamoured with Cher as Rusty, however, as McBegbie came up with his own description, in which admiration didn't feature at all really. Apparently it's, "like watching a cloning experiment going wrong in front of you". The increasing similarities between the contestant and her tutor, and that if you say her name quickly it sounds like Cherylloid, do all seem to be hinting at a nefarious plan on Simon Cowell's part.
From Cheryl and Cher to Arsenal and Arsene, as PES chat returned to the fold. Bloggers seem torn over this latest incarnation, but rather than splitting the blog, it seems to be splitting individuals as people seem to both love and hate the game at the same time. As much as those verdant pitches give them presents and fill them with feelings of kindness and warmth unmatched by their everyday interactions with friends and loved ones, not far beneath the surface the game is waiting to slap them around the face and call them worthless. But like the masochists they are, they keep going back for more. Maybe one day things will change, they hope, though secretly they never want it to as then it just wouldn't be PES.
Tuesday
Fallout: New Vegas continued to dominate the Gamesblog with more spoilers around the place than a car accessories shop. This seems appropriate given that the Box was a barren wasteland of chat on Tuesday. Pickings were initially so thin that the new Xbox 'dashboard' was getting decent air time though it improved when experiences of Fable 3 were shared:
Timthemonkey: "I seem to have gotten married and ended up with kids by accident" (don't worry Tim, there's still time for that birds and bees chat before your big day).
HumOfEvil was less interested in domestic bliss: "last night I jumped on the shoulders of a large bandit and shot him through the top of the head."
In a somewhat unusual turn, some of the boxers found themselves comparing the hardness of their pets, but I think RivaldoRules won this debate with the most deadly and sadistic of all killer pets, his cat, who "found a nest of rats this weekend and so far we've had 13 of the little b******s at varying stages of death in the house."
The merits of using a dodgy code to pre-order a hotly anticipated game from a failed high street retailer were then debated. Was it a good idea? Opinions were divided but as it transpired, no, no it wasn't. As the day came to a close, we saw antics from the latest game of Neptune's Pride spill over into the Chatterbox and everybody got to see a different side to RustyJames,
"Unfortunately I am fully committed to destroying Riad until he apologises or reimburses me to the tune of 1000 space dollars."
Chilling!
Quote of the Day
"I once had a mixed grill so posh it looked like a sculpture, maybe something that would have been more at home in the Uffizi Gallery than on my plate."
SageSmith6079 tells of his experience of Italian and Northern fusion cookery.
Newcomers: Podgerookee
Wednesday
Wednesday featured plenty of discussion about the continuing absence of the now almost mythical Gran Turismo 5. Hope was sparked once again in the blog with this bit of info from Chubster2010:
"Apparently Kazunori Yamauchi has gone on the record as saying 'The discs are being stamped as we speak.'"
Despite this flicker of headlamps at the end of the tunnel, there's not much belief for a pre-Christmas release being held on the blog, as Catzilla summed up:
"I'm gonna bring out the Amiga and put Micro Machines on. As for the discs being stamped, I assume it means stamped on by factory workers as there was slight error on the picture printed onto the face of the discs. The Polyphony quest for perfection has become tedious, just release the goddamn game already!"
The general love of Fallout New Vegas continued [did anybody think it wouldn't? – Pic], and has left the box a fractured place for those trying to avoid reading possibly vital plot details. For them, reading the box at the moment must be akin to trying to transcribe a conversation with Shaun Ryder without the swearing. With spoiler warnings aplenty, it must have read a bit like this:
Yeah its really great I {spoiler}{spoiler} it was awesome when {spoiler}{spoiler} then I {spoiler}{spoiler}.
Great work people!
Games: Fallout NV, Fable 3, FF XIII
Quotes of the day
"Fun stuff today chaps. The difficulty with working from home when you have some cold beer in the fridge is having cold beer in the fridge and working from home. I can hear it whispering from here."
Halloween seems to have affected Painstructure in strange ways.
Thursday
Lovely, over the hump of the week, downhill to the weekend and treasonous Catholic shenanigans. It started off well, we had a little bit of Fallout New Vegas, a debate about who was taking their hobby seriously and how you could tell, and an education in Prince's quest for self pleasure (although the Marc Almond story definitely isn't true) – familiar themes on the blog as you'll agree, but as usual there was a fly in the proverbial. What was the topic coming to wash away the innocence of this fine day? Testicular annihilation. Cough. I mean vasectomy blog.
Much encouragement, disgust and denial abounded. To be honest, most of the quotes are probably unprintable but one will probably suffice. Sagesmith's own vasectomy story remains to be told, but considering the rest of his post contained the word 'tubes' alongside other such leg-crossingly squeamish terms such as 'tugging', 'sliced' and 'stitched', maybe it's best that we take his advice, opt for the general anaesthetic and never find out.
Disturbingly, things then moved on to the smell of kebabs, eating burgers, steak, chateau briande, fried eggs... Thematically it was troubling. But if it assists Shadowmind's cooking skills it's all good.
Friday
Remember, Remember the 5th November, gunpowder treason and plot. So goes the rhyme, let's just see if today can be memorable for anything else on the Chatterbox...
Excitement has been building for Call of Duty: Black Ops for a couple of weeks now and in between all the Fallout the Chatterbox NaN clan has been practising. Just as in real-life infantry training, quickscoping, tactical waiting and the judicious use of riot shields against Harriers are high on the curriculum. The quest is still on for the cheapest place to buy it on release next Tuesday, however. For those of us who fell afoul of Woolworths' literally too good to be true discount code, Stukos posted a link to say that Sainsbury's may be the place to go.
Timthemonkey thought that a guest actor on The Big Bang Theory looked familiar – to be revealed as Blossom. From the TV show Blossom. That brought back some tender memories from other 'boxers, with opinion split on which was better – Blossom or Clarissa Explains It All (it's worth saying, our female Chatterboxers weren't involved...)
Suffice to say that nostalgia ain't what it used to be and you should never go back. Especially you CatZilla.
There may also have been some Fallout chat, but probably nothing different to what's been said over the past four days so we feel safe in leaving it out.
Things we liked: Led Zeppelin
Things we didn't like: The new Xbox Live dashboard.
Quote of the day
"Awoke to a faint smell of poo around the house. After a preliminary check, it wasn't upstairs. Phew. However upon entering the kitchen I was greeted by the sight of copious amounts of brown puddles. My dog's 13 now so I suppose this will happen now & again. Not nice at 0530 though, I was heaving all through the cleanup."
A strong opener from WeeCooper.
Recommended books
Flat Earth News by Nick Davies [Hey, I'm reading this at the moment – Keef]
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life by Natalie Haynes
So, the most memorable thing about today was a story about dog poo. I think that about sums us up - less gunpowder treason and more riot shield and Javelin missile.
End game
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"At its best, entertainment is going to be a subjective thing that can't win for everyone, while at worst, a particular game just becomes a random symbol for petty tribal behavior."
John Carmack
