Bioshock

Format: Xbox 360
Players: 1
Genre: First Person Shooter

Welcome to Rapture. A beautiful underwater city away from the rules of the land. What a perfect place it would be with grand architecture and a future in science! But an aim never comes out quite as you’d expect.

Landing in Rapture you see it torn apart, few sane people left, the rest are either dead or drugged up on a magic source called ADAM. Stuffs going mad and you are being forced down a path by some chap named Atlas to fight the evil Andrew Ryan. To stand a chance you to must use the ADAM.

So this is a little different to your standard first person shooter. You still walk about shooting bad things in the face but this time you can customise how you do it. Guns have different ammo types and you can use the environment to your advantage by setting off canisters on oil or shocking the water but this is expected in a lot of FPS games. The fact you can also use ADAM makes things interesting. You can control a swarm of bees, shoot fire/ice/lightning, get the hulking giant Big Daddies on your side and a hell of a lot more. You can only have about five powers on you at once so you have to carefully select which ones you want. This also goes for special enhancements you can obtain such as the ability to be better at hacking or evading things. You can even make items with all the crap you pick up scattered around. It really does make the game a deeper experience as you aren’t just running about shooting. You have to be careful as supplies are limited and using the abilites you have to pull a situation to your advantage. It is a good idea.

Though I think the game falls in the actual combat. Controls aren’t bad but the lack of jump hurts in a game in which you have enemies climbing ceilings and some which lob stuff at you in a mad rampage. Switching ammo types is on the D Pad but feels clunky when you run out of one type of bullet and need to switch to the next. Reload times on weapons are sluggish so you have to run around like a headless chicken till you can fire them but even then you don’t get many shots. Enemies take far too long to kill too, about 5 wrench swings, about 5 bullets it feels at times. It would be easier to concentrate if not for the fact that near the end you have a small army of flying machine gun cams on your rear because an alarm goes off before you get the chance to see it. Dying doesn’t matter though as you just get warped to a chamber with no loss at all other than having to trek back to the chaos. You can switch this off but I’d take the infinite tries than having to restart from the clunky messy conbat! Big Daddies are especially a pain in the ass but you can choose to avoid them if you want. But it is all to get more ADAM the Little Sisters carry. These small children must be saved or killed for the source and they always hang out with the Big Daddies.

The world is what makes it an interesting game to play. The Big Daddies I keep going on about are things inside giant diving suits and the communications with the Little Sisters, the small girls, is touching. It bangs for them to come out of the pipes and moans when they don’t come. The underwater city is equally great with grand structures rusting away. Getting a glimpse through a window at the sea is just stunning, I would stare for ages if the annoying enemies weren’t about. The story and motives behind all the characters you meet is also intriguing and you get to hear more of what went on in Rapture and how it all went wrong by finding audio tapes which are certainly worth looking for. It is a creepy game as well with the stuck in time feel to it all, everything is 1950’s about it with some classic music playing now and then. At first I even found it scary, you truly meet some messed up characters though and Andrew Ryans vision makes him a truly great villain. It is all going amazingly well till abouttwo thirds in.

Yep Bioshock tumbles into the deep blue once the plot twist happens. I shan’t spoil it but after this the game transforms into a scavenger hunt with no more interesting characters and everything just becoming one big battle. I had to force myself to the end and you get a horrid last boss battle to look forward to. It felt like something out of the Resident Evil games which works in them, but in a carefully put together world and story… not so much. It didn’t need a last boss, it didn’t need these scavenger hunts and the cool moments of this hunting are ruined by the fact the rewards aren’t as cool as they should be.

The world is so strong though it is hard to hate Bioshock despite all its shortcomings. If it was a little tidier, didn’t run out of steam and didn’t have enemies with stupid amounts of health, things would be amazing. But it is a game that must be played just to see this underwater city, learn the story, know the characters and survive to the very last moment. Would you kindly… try this game?

7/10

Death Save Chapter 7: Restart

‘Yes! Bubbly, intoxicating madness!’ Mike gleamed dunking a pint of best brewed Festering Ale down his throat. Bongo sat on the opposite side of the beat down table sipping some orange juice. ‘Pah, you should have some of the real stuff! You’re old enough to drink, so drink haha!’
        The pub was a quiet little place, expected for such an out of place pub. Bongo and Mike stumbled across it a few hours walk away from Ghetcity. It looked run down from the outside with boarded up windows, holes in the roof and a ancient mutt shivering outside coughing up a tramps teeth. A light flickering from one window showed there was life inside. One bartender and an old man playing the pinball machine, endlessly looking at the flashing lights and flicking the ball button. The bartender just stood staring at the glass she was wiping, the same glass she was wiping an hour before. Through the glass she looked at her past and how her future turned out, a tear trickling down her cheek.
      ‘So, what are your motives? You aren’t king and you can’t kill someone who is immortal,’ Bongo asked straight to the point now they were as comfortable as they could get, the chairs seemed ready to throw splinters at the duo. ‘I followed you because I thought you had a game plan but thinking about it I’m not so sure.’ The pinball machine start up music plays, an ominous tone to try and break any pinball player ready to face their journey.
    ‘I have a plan! I possibly over reacted when I tried to kill her, possibly,’ Mike scratched his chin, shrugged then downed another portion of his booze. ‘Ok so I might have wiped out half her army to get there, but noone was seriously injured as far as I know! Anyway, me and her were going out. She dumped me and I got a little mad.’
    ‘You got to go out with a Queen, I find that hard to believe…’
    ‘Well we weren’t proper going out, but she gave me a ring! That must count for something, though the dumping text would be a little unusual as it wasn’t official. Besides, the whole killing thing? I was testing her, I wanted to see what she would say. And she seemed slightly mysterious about everything, that much is certain.’
      ‘Then you had your shoes blasted to my home and yourself?’
       ‘Yeah that bit happened next. Now my motive, it isn’t a vengeance thing at all, I don’t even really care about her! She just filled my head with things. Immortality, kinghood… doesn’t all that sound great?’ he rocked back and forth in his chair grinning, ogling the now empty glass.
    ‘Selfish reasons more like! I decided to tour with you because you helped us out, how do I know you’ll be a good king?’ Bongo muttered as Mike strolled over to the bar banging some cash down and pointing his finger for more. As he came back with two full glasses in hand he slammed them down on the table and grinned.
    ‘I’d be a good king because I’ve seen the real world! The only selfish thing in my mind is becoming immortal; I mean who wants to die when it’s possible?’
    ‘I’m not sure an immortal life would be much fun, I think you just got to take what you have and enjoy things.’
    ‘But I can take immortality! If there is one person out there with it, the Queen, then why can’t I get it? And as an immortal king I can rule a great kingdom forever!’ Mike slurred wiping the foam of the ale from his face. The pinball buzzers were heard in the background, the old man pumping his fist.
       ‘And the Queen isn’t doing a good enough job?’
      ‘She said she was tired of ruling and wanted to pass things on to a decent person who could rule and make changes, I think she was hanging around with me to see if a common person like me would be up to the task, apart from the fact I saved her life.’
      ‘I find it a little hard to believe that you could save an immortal persons life.’ Bongo quizzed shuffling in his chair as he felt a splinter etch its way into his rear end.
     ‘Well tried to save her life, I didn’t know this girl was immortal when it happened! Look I got an exclusive insight on Towering Petites royal news! She’s tired, she wants to I dunno, travel the world or something and let someone else take charge, someone who is used to living in the real world and can understand the problems. We need to go back to the castle and ask her what we can do! Sure I did that little attack but it only confirmed her unease about things, she didn’t kill me, she saved me!’
    ‘You’re starting to sound a little mad.’
    ‘Hic! You’re starting to sound a little mad! Tubby wannabe gangster telling me what to do. I am Mike King! And I’m, going to be king! I’m going to live forever! And I want to play pinball!’ Mike shouted at the top of his lungs, his demands echoing across the room. The bartender blinked before carrying on her duty, but the old man was pulling a black box camera out of his coat and grinning. A flash filled the room as he snapped the picture, lens aiming at Mike pointing his left hand in the air with a snarled grin on his face, then staggered out of the pub, faster than a pinball flies round a table.
    ‘He took your picture Mike! He must be a paparazzi or something, he has your story!’ Bongo cried pulled the Uzi from under the table. We have to catch him; I have a bad feeling about this!’ The bartender shifted her gaze away from her glass and looked at the Uzi, she looked but didn’t say a word, and it was like suddenly changing your view to look at a passing fly. Non event.
    ‘Ah! They did? I’m going to play pinball anyway Bungle D Rose!’ Mike swayed as he tried to make his way to the pinball table, as he approached it he collapsed flat on the floor, the dust from the floorboards rising into the smoggy air. Bongo sighed and ran out the pub after the old man.

 ‘Shoot! He’s gone Mike!’ Bongo reported as he walked back in panting. His panting turned to a shriek as he saw one smashed up pinball table and Mike sitting on a three legged chair in his underwear. ‘How did all this happen in the five minutes I was gone?!’

An office sat one man eating a microwave chilli. He had spilt a few blobs of the stuff on his paper files but he didn’t seem to care, he was too busy easting. A large man wearing a thick cordial brown coat which seemed to be overlapping a few other coats sat slurping the last contents of his ready meal. With the thick clothing his appearance was that of a bear, with a bear poking out from under the thick furry hood on his head. As he finished he carefully raised the packet plate into the air, chucking it at the dustbin at the other side of the room. It hit the side, it wasn’t a success. He snarled clenching his fists. The door swung open by the bin, knocking the packet plate out of view. A small man in a tidy shirt scurried up to the desk holding a bundle of paper.
    ‘Hmph, what is it?’ the man in the chair mumbled picking up a pen and clicking. click click.
     ‘Boss! The sales have been great this week, the viewers went loopy for the instant noodle bar!’ he commented very quickly shaking his head up and down as a nodding dog would.
     ‘Thank god, I didn’t want to have to move onto that crap after I’ve been living off instant chilli for the last week. We need to stop with the food products, they are cheap to get in but it’s hit and miss with the audience. Is that all?’
      ‘Yes boss!’ the man said bowing before turning for the exit. As he walked to the door he stopped. raising his arm into the air,  fist clenched, little finger and thumb pointing out.
      ‘Shut the door,’ the boss said as he darted his eyes across the room. The man shut the door and hurried over dropping the paper onto the desk.
       ‘We just had this faxed through by our associate.’ The boss flicked through the pages of standard reports to see a photo of a man in some drunken state at a bar. ‘His name is Mike King sir. He is the one who caused trouble for the Queen a few days ago; he also liberated a whole city, Ghetcity. He did both without any casualties, not a single death. He was in talks with the Queen before he attacked and the two seemed to be dating, sir?’ As he mentioned the dating, his boss’s eyes were wide open under the furry hood of his. Click click click click click…
      ‘Bah, what a cocky kid, at least something obviously went wrong between them! Though it hardly matters anymore since what happened a few hours ago, today is just going all kinds of wrong! Carry on!’
      ‘You are right for her anyway no matter what happens anyway, sir. Ok, she handed him a ring and he believes she has some motive behind her actions as they didn’t seem to be doing this that and the other thing, just seeing each other. He plans to go back to the castle and talk with her but as we know that isn’t going to happen. His motive is immortality and to be King.’
      ‘Like the rest of us then har. He looks slightly familiar… never mind.  Hmm, maybe the ring is important, maybe she has chosen him as a successor! While the issue with the Queen gives me an advantage he could be a monkey wrench in all my problems. Bob or whatever your name is, I find it hard to remember underling’s names… call the SLA squad! Orders are to kill Mike King and take that ring! I will wear the ring and become the rightful successor while the Queen is away hahaha! I ancestor of King Pete from the Iniquity of Mann, Leonardo Work!’ Click.

 The sun shone onto Mike’s brazen face. He squinted and shook, trying to hide his face from the sun beaming through the roof. Bongo sat on the straw bed next to him shaking his head in disbelief.
     ‘We should get going now Mike, big day. Our appointment with the Queen.’ He had ditched his gangster get up and was now wearing a tidy suit to cover his large belly, he looked a little like a yakuza with the tattoo sprawled across his face and the Uzi on his back.
     ‘Ten more hours…’ Mike bawled clutching the covers tightly. ‘Argh, no this is doom! Let go of me you idiot!’ Bongo had pulled Mike from the  covers and now had him slouched on the Uzi.
     ‘You can sleep on the carriage Mike.’ He smiled stomping out the room and down the stairs.
     ‘Carriage eurgh, no buses around here?’
     ‘Not a bus route I’m afraid, they were cut off a long time ago as no one wanted to go to Ghetcity, may change when you become king eh?’
     ‘Bleurgh.’

 The two sat in the back of a carriage, the sun shining brightly in the sky. A small kid seemed to be in charge of the horses, a red baseball cap blocking the beautiful day from his eyes.
      ‘Towering Petite Castle, such a sight guys, I will get there in about half a day with my excellent horses Dead and Buried. You both look like you have no money though, you best pay up or I’ll break your legs!’ he said in his high pitched child voice, cracking the whip so the horses would get going.
      ‘Half a day Mike, plenty of time to rest things off, I have a feeling today is going to be a long one… Mike? Ah he’s already off to the land of nod.’
      ‘Mmm only ten left folks!’ Mike muttered as he snoozed. In his mind a television studio appeared with him and his work partner Patrice in front of the cameras. They stood separate, a stash of muscle medicine on the desk in between the two.

 The past of Mike begins.

 To be continued!

Brutal Legend

Format: Xbox 360
Players: 1
Online: 2-8
Genre: Sandbox Hack n slash Real Time Strategy

Activision tried to kill the metal, but Activision lost! EA saved the metal and brought it out  with Jack Black playing the lead character Eddie Riggs. This is a game for any metalhead out there. Not a metal fan? Well this isn’t for you.

But I don’t think there are many people out there who can’t take a bit of metal. Tenacious D, Black Sabbath have universal appeal so maybe it can please the non metal fans. But with a storyline of causing a riot against the evil demon race with the power of metal and the whole world being based off album covers it may be a struggle. But damn the world is one amazing looking thing. Mountains made of bones with metal pipes sticking out, a tree which curls up into a graveyard, huge giant stone swords and faces littering the landscape, the game is a true wonder to explore. So many times I’d just drive around freeing the gagged up statues, looking for new songs and just generally checking out the awesome world. It is a mighty shame the games missions are so few as if you just follow them you’ll really miss out on some awesome places.

The game itself is a simple hack n slasher. At first. I enjoyed the linear missions at the start but this soon turns into a genre which may scare people. Real Time Strategy. I hate those games! And it seems all the linear missions build up to the RTS gameplay as the majority of the game half way in is RTS missions as is the online multiplayer. Here you command different classes of character and try to break the enemies stage. You have to purchase new units and to get the good stuff you have to take over these craters to make merchandise booths. The rules and controls are simple enough for these scenes but everything feels a little loose. The enemies can be incredibly annoying at times and even with the ability to fly during these battles, I felt flustered a few times on what I should be doing. I wish units would automatically follow once built for example rather than going back and forth. I didn’t feel like I was using tactics in the end, just selecting any unit as quickly as possible and having them charge into one area which works most of the time. It never feels epic though.

They aren’t awful though and by the end I was quite enjoying them. I wish there were more linear hack n slash based missions in between though as by the end you just have stage battle then car escort mission, repeat. It all relies on the side quests and exploring to keep the game varied and exciting plus the pretty cool cutscenes. Sometimes the characters are a little stiff in these moments though while other times more fluid. Slightly confusing why it can be hit and miss. Because of these some dramatic scenes come out a little flat and I feel the games story wraps up far too quickly, I was hoping for some a little more on the story front. The romance moments make me cringe for one but there is a few scenes later which are awesome thanks to the music choices there.

It is impossible to hate though. The game feels has a ton of metal tracks ( a mysterious absence of Iron Maiden) which aren’t just slapped on, they seem to work with the missions. And I knew the game was pretty awesome when you go through a chase scene with ‘Through The Fire And The Flames’ by Dragonforce. Then you get to fight a army of Emos in a blizzard. And melt an enemies face with your guitar. It certainly has  love, it just feels it could have a little more.

7/10

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Format: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Price: 400 ms points
Players: 1-2
Online: 1-2
Genre: Platformer

SEGA announced Sonic The Hedgehog 4 the other week. Awesome news as I’m a pretty big Sonic fan. Though I hadn’t finished any of the old ones till recently, so maybe not that big. I just found them too tough once you get to the end and never mind collecting all the chaos emeralds! With the Xbox Live versions having save functions I could finally finish them. Sonic 1 was finished a few months back (as can be read here http://joerayw.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/sonic-the-hedgehog/), Sonic 2 was finished tonight, I beat the game on Mega Drive once before but never with the emeralds.

Sonic 2 in itself is a game which needs o introduction. It had it’s own Sonic day back when it came out in 1992 and it wasn’t long before kids could point him out more than they could point Mickey Mouse out! And probably Jesus too. I was too young back then to play it but we got a Sega MegaDrive a few years later and that was when I got to try it out. Sper speedy 2d platforming which improves over the first game with better visuals and a 2 player mode which is OK in the competitive modes and a bit crap in co-op as Tails the fox can’t really keep up with Sonic so he will go missing a fair few times. I used to have to be Tails

One thing I don’t like as much about Sonic 2 over Sonic 1 are the bonus stages. This time they are weird looking 3D which was amazing back then but they aren’t as fun as the trippy maze things from Sonic 1, it made getting all the emeralds quite a chore by the end. Tails kept messing up and dropping rings! Tails seems to be causing quite a few problems…

The reward is great though, first time I’d seen it. I knew Sonic goes Super mode for getting them all but I thought it would be for a secret boss or something like the later games. Instead if you collect 50 rings suddenly Sonic explodes into some golden wonder and goes super fast and invincible only draining your ring count. It did make some more careful platforming sections tougher though. Stop being shiny and slow down a little!

I love it it all though really. The bright worlds, the amazing music for each zone (except Oil Ocean Zone, eurgh) and it was one of the first proper games I played loads. Goes with Super Mario Land, Bubble Bobble and Tetris as my first pieces of gaming. It still holds up well today, it really is a charming gentleman of a game. Let’s hope Sonic 4 is as good!

9/10

DJ Hero

Format: Xbox 360
Players: 1-2
Online: 1-2
Genre: Music rythmn

I was done with the Hero games. World Tour had a pretty poor soundtrack and felt so tacky in comparison to Rock Band 2 with its amazing online store. I got Metallica because I love the band but since then nothing has appealed to me. Modern Hits another DS GH game which doesn’t work on a DSi, Greatest Hits which is a download pack priced at 40 quid with barely any of it being able to be transfered onto the main games, GH 5 seemed to make a few changes but it didn’t really pull enough tracks from the older games and the download music looks to be dreadful and the less said about Band Hero the better. DJ Hero on the over hand felt a bit different. A new toy to play with, the deck and a mix of music which isn’t just rock. The fact the game looked pretty neat in trailers also helped me put my money down. 75 smackers. Ouch.

The deck then. It isn’t as big as a plastic guitar and it feels nice and heavy. There is a super special edition which costs nearly twice as much which made me worry the standard edition would be a bit crap, but I shouldn’t have worried. It has nice plastic buttons to twirl, flick and press, a flashing red button which is cool and it is so much fun spinning the disc around. It makes a funny noise. I think the mixing slider plastic could get a bit loose over time and the flap which hides the Xbox buttons could snap off but I think this is a solid piece of kit. For example I think you could knock someone out with it and not worry about it breaking and if it does it probably just unclipped itself what with it being made of two pieces. I like.

A good piece of kit needs a good game aswell though or everything is pointless. DJ Hero is much the same as a Guitar Hero game in the layout and presentation, just a bit more DJ so you get girls in skimpy clothing dancing about and lots of neon lights. Which is good. Some of the characters aren’t half ugly though, the little bald dude in the big coat makes me feel sick. Thankfully you can play as real DJ people not long after playing so you can just Daft Punk it or something which is much better. I use the lady who dresses a bit skanky but I’m sure she is a nice person underneath her bad sense in fashion. You do the songs in sets much like World Tour or mixes as they are called here and the game has the 5 star scoring system, multi scoring and star power, everything you’d expect from a Hero game. Some songs even have guitar support though some means not many and they aren’t too interesting to play, nice thought though.

Gameplay and music is what matters at the end of the day and this game delivers. For a new confusing looking pad to play with it doesn’t take long to get used to it at all, I was playing medium well after about three songs and only struggled towards the end and even then I got three stars, I’m not sure if you can fail, just get a bad score instead. You press buttons as they come along the screen much like Guitar Hero and scratch for lines of them, sliding the sliding button changes mixes and then you have spinning the deck to go backwards and earn extra points once you have enough multiplyer to unlock the rewind feature. It gets more points but I wasn’t a fan of this feature, it breaks the flow of the song and just doesn’t feel right despite how fun it is to spin the deck. Everything else is solid though and it can get pretty tough with all the switching, button pressing and scratching. Though easy is too easy and hard gets too hard, difficulty spikes aplenty.

The songs are what make DJ Hero a bit special though. The mixes are excellent with a range of pop, dance, rock and hip hop; something for everyone. Daft Punk, Queen, Foo Fighters, Jay-Z, Eminem, Gorillaz, Dizzee Rascal, Tears For Fears, Beck, The Killers, Vanilla Ice… there must be at least something you like out of that small selection. I think one weakness on the soundtrack is a lot of tracks get reused in mixes. By the end of the career I was sick to death of Queen ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ and Jackson Five ‘I Want You Back’ when stuff like Beck ‘Loser’ and Foo Fighters’ Monkey Wrench’ are just used once. Also I feel the game is too hip hop centric as most tracks get mixed with them so crazy rock on rock remixes are out of the question. But with over 90 mixes all of pretty good quality it is hard to complain. Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer mashed together? Yes!

So my time with DJ Hero was times of fun, times of freshness and times of wondering why I don’t like the Jackson Five anymore. Better than any of the Guitar Hero games released since 2 and a nice breath of fresh air in the music genre.

8/10

Neil Labute’s Trilogy

Spoilers.

I haven’t seen a play in a long long time. This was part of my course though so I guess Creative Writing has swung me back into things I wouldn’t normally do. The play chosen was Neil Labute’s Trilogy, three short plays about relationships gone wrong.

The Furies

I read this as The Furries at first but there aren’t any. Sad I know. The whole thing starts with some weird trance like lighting and music which I was really getting into, then bam! A table with an old guy talking to a young guy and his sister. The idea of this story is that the old guy has broken up with the young guy, the sister is there to whisper things into his ear. Like a good sister would do. Old guy says hes dying, sister doesn’t believe him and the hilarity ensues. By hilarity I mean some of the most irritating and tedious things I’ve ever had to sit through, maybe that in itself is funny. The young guy over acts by squealing, waving his arms around, generally playing a stereotype gay man. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have so much to say and this is the problem with the first play. Too much talking. So much fat could have been cut from the dialogue, long talks which seem to have to explain everything, it feels like they are underestimating the audience. The whispering action is annoying to, just the over the top crazy movements of the metal band dressed sister got to me, she had one hell of a creepy stare, I had to look away. There is one action scene of yogurt throwing which gives us some creepy hoarse demon shouting from the sister which is funny at first, but again goes on far too long. Shut up already! I thought. Then when she did it all ended on a punchline, I like punchlines no matter how cringeworthy they are.

Land Of The Dead

Now this is more like it! Two characters stand at different sides of the room telling the story of a bad day. They woman is getting ready to have an abortion due to the husband not wanting it, too much hassle! As the day goes on with the woman going to the clinic and the guy going to work moods begin to change as the guy sends her a text saying she can keep it if she wants. Obviously this means she has already done it. The empty feelings are made and then the guy gets offed by a plane. Awesome. I loved the flashing light and loud noises for the death scene, liked the fact it carried on for a fair few minutes after that bit less so. The highlight of the trilogy anyway, no goofy characters and quite a sad story. Nice piano music bits kicking in too.

Helter Skelter

The finale ends up back at a restaurant like the same. Maybe it was, that table looks familiar! It would have been nice for more props. Though this does have the pregnant bump prop. This time a man is cheating on his wife by seeing her sister, for seven years (oh how we laughed) and as he reveals his past on it all she goes a bit loopy. Good idea, some good lines and a talk on how people must trigger something inside them to do something great but again… she goes on and on and on and on… and you get the idea. The whole thing would have been so much better if she didn’t say so much. That and her manical laughter made for some more cringe though not as bad as the first play. Dramatic ending with baby stabbings though. Argh!

So I found thr trilogy mixed but I’m happy I went. Theatre is different than film with having to act in empty rooms with little music, action to mix things up. Just a bunch of people talking their way through stories. Just needed less talking and more strobe lighting robot fights. What? It could have worked!

Bin There

So me and Claire Bee went to see a movie. Seeing a movie makes for excellent time passing and bonding. The fact you are both paying to sit in silence for a few hours and be entertained is a great concept though does raise questions why you need to go with a group of people. People hate it when other people tak through movies so you have that silent element. It’s OK, the conversation moments before and after make up for it, it is an experience you both share through the mind. But tonight was different.

We got our seats for the hit action film ‘I Hope You Burn In Hell Bitch II’, front row. It was hard making her come to this one. I promised her a film full of action, laughs and machine gun fight scenes but she wasn’t a fan of the name. I think it is a fantastic title to be honest and fits the story well. Big steroid abusing action hero Frank Crusher is cheater on by his wife so he goes on a revenge mission to shoot everyone involved with excellent one liners such as ‘burn baby burn’, ‘your sex is on fire’ and ‘this fire is out of control’. Being a sequel the wife he incinerated in the last film comes back as a cyborg with machine gun breast implants. I suggest you all go and watch it at some point, it is better than Jam.

We were front row as I said. Front row is the part of the cinema you must peer up at the screen with. I think front row regulars are the ones who will face short life expectancies as they really do work on the necks. It was a full showing though so we had no choice. The front row is just a way to make as much cash as possible, it is much the same as going to cafe and being sat next to the bins. First thing we noticed as we entered the cinema was the strong smell. I wasn’t sure what it was like. Perhaps a rotting salmon or heated vomit. I figured I always had a cold when I go to these things so passed it off as being the standard cinema smell. Then I saw what we had to sit next to.

Huh? What the hell is this? Some kind of sick joke? The chair died and needed to be carried away in a body bag? The chair was cold and needed a make shift jumper? It was now obvious where the smell was coming from. Claire looking at me with much worry on her face. This is the sort of stuff you don’t expect to happen. You know the chair will spring to life and kill everyone during the course of the film. The bag will rise off and reveal the dead bodies it was hiding. We had paid to see the film and leaving because of a silly chair would be a breaking of pride. I sat next to it and the film began.

With the screen lit up the black bag glistened and showed my reflection much like a mirror. As I continued to stare at the bag the face of my reflection began to shape shift. My hair fell away and my skin turned red. I was staring at a stinking demon. The chair was cursed! A leering face, a grin the size of the foot long subway I ate for lunch. The golden eyes of a shiny Pokemon. I had to leave. I told Claire I was heading for the restroom.

As I walked into the shiny toilet world I heard crying. A cry which changed pitch every three seconds (I counted) and water which seemed to flood the floor. I thought someone had blocked a toilet and couldn’t get over this fact but the water wasn’t toilet substance, they be tears! I tapped each toilet door until one swung open. Inside I saw a lovely lady crouched on the floor crying. Wearing a bin bag.

‘Um… sorry! Wrong room!’ I cried out as I realised I shouldn’t be seeing girls in a cinema male restroom but as I walked away she had her arm on my leg.

‘Screen 13 is in danger!’ she cried.

So we sat on the toilets with the doors shut and discussed the going ons in secret. The cinema screen 13 was cursed not by the chair but by the stinking bin bag which a tramp once brought into the cinema so he could cover his legs. He stunk a whole lot and the staff tried to remove him but he refused and instead threw the bing bag off and shouted out some curse in reverse alphabet. From now on whenever a horror movie is shown in screen 13 the bin bag would appear and feast on pretty girls due to being a pervert. It had happened to her but she said she survived due to her karma levels of helping a tramp across a road to the liquor store one day. The bag still tried to attack her but it just turned her clothes into bin bags. Usually the curse would make you lose everything and become a tramp themselves.

‘Holy macaroni and french cheese!’ I retorted as the story ended. ‘We have to do something or Claire will be in trouble! She set fire to a tramps bed once! She might lose her very will to live if she becomes one of them!’

‘The only way to stop it is to sit on the chair for the films length. When sat on the curse can’t activate but that itself is painful. It stinks and its lumpy underneath.’ the bagged lady said walking out of her cubicle no longer crying. ‘If we can prevent this I may be able to face the outside world again knowning I’ve helped fight against the curse!’

‘You’ve been living in the cinema?’

‘It’s OK, I’m a premium member.’

We both rushed into screen 13, into the high firing action scene. The smell was stronger than before and I gaped in horror as I saw a woman shaped bin bag trundling over to me. We were to late and now Claire was being wrapped up in the curse. We couldn’t sit and stop it anymore. There was nothing we could do.

And now I sit writing this a month on. Claire now sleeps under a bridge burning pigeons and I live in a mental cell due to none believing me. At least I have the company of the girl I met that day. We both laugh about the horrors rather than cry. Life is too short to keep fretting anyway.

Galaxy Bubbles

What is this? This is what? New chocolate product for the Galaxy range? Galaxy bubbles. So a fight for the bubble chocolate crown against Aero and Wispa. Somehow this feels pretty intense. Though the packet isn’t as overpowering as Wispa and Aero. When you see Wispa the red and blue colourings of the packet smack you in the face much like a fish smacks a man in the face when being held by another man or angry wife. You can’t avoid the colouring, some would say iconic but then if that was the case Wispa wouldn’t have run off from the world. Aero has the whole brown and green bubbles going on about it and Aero never took a vacation so we all trust Aero for being hard working chocolate. Galaxy Bubbles is just the new kid on the block and with the packet looking much like Galaxy but with girly pink sides and boring font it is hard to get excited. I only noticed the packet because I was looking for Galaxy Cookie Crumble but there was none.

So I took it home with me along with a normal Galaxy bar, to compare differences and not because I have a chocolate addiction at all. Galaxy is that creamy chocolate everyone loves once they reach that certain age. I feel Cadbury’s digs into kids teeth but once you learn of the hardships of life and the short lifespans we have compared to turtles you have to go for something a little smoother, something you can have with tea. Galaxy is this, the more refined chocolate because the big bars suggest you read books and drink tea rather than play at a theme park. I open the packet and the chocolate arrangement is much the same as Galaxy normal but rounder, like the bubbles have rose the chocolate much like the way a bread loaf rises. I’m not sure I trust the shape yet. It’s like someone getting some surgery for a new nose. Can you trust the new nose when you are so used to the old one? Is this nose full of weird stitching scars on the inside and a few horrible bumps?

Biting into the chocolate I saw these marks, the bubbles were present. But it just tasted like the Galaxy bar I had before. You can’t really feel the bubbles like you feel them with Wispa and the chocolate doesn’t provide much variation from a normal bar. When you eat Cadbury chocolate you feel the hard sugar bricks as you munch them, progressing onto Wispa it feels like a breath of fresh air as the bubbles stop it from feeling like one solid chunky piece. Aero doesn’t really have a companion non bubbly piece I can think of because Nestle are weird. Galaxy is already soft, it is much the same as taking a soft mint instead of a polo. The difference isn’t much, just a slight hole here and there.

I can’t see it replacing anything in my list of to buy chocolates. Wispa is still the king of the bubbles and you can get them with caramel.

Taxi Driver

Man with no aim gets a job as a taxi driver. Still feels like he has no aim and when he tries to do something he messes up and is left with nothing again. While being a taxi driver fills the time that is all it does, he gets no joy from doing it and with everything slowly going wrong around him he begins to crack. I can definately relate to the whole no purpose thing, my days seem to go with me wondering a lot of things. The music plays like some thriller, you expect him to crack at any moment but maybe he was cracked from the start.

It is engrossing and a fine film. The story has things that don’t really expand into much, like the passing of days in our lives. Yet at the same time I like it that way, it feels good to not have such a full on flm with everything being related to a greater goal. The elements of his life experience in the film just go forward to forming his character, they have purpose for him but not for a general aim, the whole president election is a little outside by the end of it as the new plot points with the young girl come into play.

Still it has an interesting main lead who gets some fantastic awful haircuts as the film goes on and the diary entries are full of love, easily my favourite moments. And the city, how grim is it? Not far off todays standards really.

Goose Painting.

I sat on the bench rather tired. The Walker Art Gallery has many benches to rest or appreciate the art in finer detail. Every corner has something with a story yet I could not read the stories, just marvel at the paintings. I was only doing this for one though, it stuck to my mind, my mind stuck to it. As the cars drove by outside I couldn’t hear, the flashing lights I could not see. I just sat and looked at one painting. It was romantic, I felt like love could be created by just having two different people stare at this image. At least I wish it could have that power, it feels like it should. A darkness hides in the picture surrounded by other garish paintings. A black surface, the lake at midnight or an empty void where two creatures roam lost. We are all lost in a void at some point in our lives and this sums up what I’d call my 2009. Except there was no one lost with me. Ah the broken love story of a piece.

There are two things lost in this painting though, they don’t know where they are. Can they find each other? These two geese. Maybe they are swans but I think they are more Goose like. So two Geese lost in a black void/lake. So simple yet it stood out from everything else. I didn’t read the story. I didn’t want to. I didn’t have my glasses. While art pieces tell stories it is nice to have your own version of the story, something someone may never have come up with. I don’t know if the story fits my ideas I got from the painting but that is the magic of it all. I want to go back and just look at it, steal it somehow but that isn’t going to happen. I did try to make my own version though to keep my at peace:

I’m not sure if the Geese are facing that way in the not as good original painting but there you go. Isn’t that just striking? I’d have taken a picture but galleries don’t like that for some reason. Shame as I had an idea with the five seats. It was a great idea I’m sure though I’d never have five other people to try it. I need to invent a clone machine soon.

Strange that such a piece was thrown into a small cluttered room of badly coloured trash. I even have agreement with one other person at least. Well maybe not about the other paintings being trash, but this being so damn good.

But can you believe this isn’t even 500 words and we have to write 500 words on the way a painting is hung in a room? That sounds like a task and a half… what was I going on about?

In

Con

Clu

Sion

Stella was a diver and she was always going down.

Wrong thing isn’t it?

Two Geese show how lost we are and yearning for love.

More like it.