Firstly – what the fuck have they done to the Games Radar
site? Jesus, talk about fucking up something that didn’t need to be fucked
around with. Seriously – go there and have a look at the new layout. It didn’t
look like that until yesterday; previously it was a bit like a blog where every
new story would just go to the top and push the previous ones down and off the
bottom of the front page onto page 2. Now it looks like Lawnmower Man has
thrown up all over the screen – there doesn’t seem to be any logical
arrangement to the articles...just complete random chaos. Sheesh. Think I’ll be
going elsewhere for my daily gaming news until they sort that design car-crash
out. Ho-hum.
In slightly related, but not at all related news, I feel I must
pay homage to the late, great Sir Patrick Moore who passed away at the weekend.
Obviously, his main interest and knowledge sphere was astronomy and all things
extra-terrestrial (by which I mean planets and quasars and all that malarkey),
but to pretty much every gamer of a certain age, Sir Patrick was also the face
of Thursday night gaming television on Channel 4: he was the Games Master. Fair
enough, Dominic Diamond and Dexter Fletcher were also in there (the former much
more than the latter, I know), as were several other UK-based industry types (publisher
Dave Perry and developer Peter Molyneux among them), but it was the titular
Games Master who set the challenges and was the main focal point of the series.
For those who never saw Games Master, there were several series set over a few
years and it was a show I used to watch religiously whenever it was running.
The format was sort of like a game show where there was a presenter (the aforementioned
Dominic Diamond, and for one series Dexter Fletcher) and contestants who would
come on to take part in challenges set by the Games Master. The Games Master
was basically Sir Patrick Moore’s head with various CG overlays, who spoke from a
giant screen. If the contestant was successful in the challenge set, he or she
would walk away with a coveted Games Master Golden Joystick. The best bit was
that these challenges were usually set in games that were available to buy for
the consoles of the time, and if you watch the episodes back on Youtube, you
can sort of tell the era they were from by the games they were using. As well
as the challenges, there were reviews and news items focusing on the latest
games. Back in the early to mid nineties, gaming was still seen as a bit of a geek’s
hobby (and probably still is by most people) and Games Master went some way to
establishing the medium in the mainstream, certainly in this country.
Obviously, the PSX had a little bit to do with it too, but I’d say that GM also
had a fair part to play.
Alongside the TV programme, there was a magazine
(titled, er, Games Master Magazine) which I would get monthly as part of my
regular haul of gaming mags. It was a really cool mag, and was kind of like an
all-format Amiga Power-lite, in that it was written in a fairly adult tone,
with lots of references to real-world happenings. The magazine is still going,
but has since taken a bit of a diversion and is squarely aimed at the younger
gamer these days. I suppose that’s why GamesTM and Edge now exist; filling a
niche and all that jazz. But Edge is a self-important load of old toss, so we
won’t mention that particular mag again. So yeah, what I’m trying to get at is
that Sir Patrick Moore died at the weekend and I’m sure most people will
remember him fondly for the part he played in the whole Games Master saga.
Again,
following on in this games-related diatribe, I read last week that Nintendo
have re-launched the original Wii console (there it is, up there!). I say ‘relaunched’ but that’s
probably taking things a little too far – they’ve pooed out the Wii Mini into
Canadian stores (?). The Wii Mini is basically a stripped down original Wii,
with all the internet functionality and backwards compatibility taken out, and
repackaged in a rather garish looking black and red casing. The question
remains: why? They’ve already confused half the casual gaming world with their
Wii U, and now they’ve gone and added to the confusion further by releasing yet
another ‘new’ Wii. Baffling.
I took the Macbook to the Apple Store in Bristol
on Saturday. The two people I spoke to on the phone last week said that I could have the
chipped palm rest replaced in-store and even though I was slightly sceptical I
still traipsed down the M5 (and discovered I had a flat rear tire on the
way...which wasn’t fun) and took the Mac in to their ‘Genius bar.’ Genius?!
More like Retard bar! The guy didn’t know what he was talking about for a start
and then after he’d consulted his iPad for about 10 minutes just came back and
told me they couldn’t do the job (even though I had been told otherwise on the
phone by TWO different ‘Geniuses’). He did, however, go on to tell me at great
length that there was a place in Cheltenham that would do the repair, but “it
wouldn’t be cheap.” What happened to Apple replacing these palm rests for free?
I rang the place in Cheltenham and they said the same thing – they’d have to
send it off to their workshop blah fucking blah, and that it wouldn’t be free
unless I called Apple and got their approval. Yes – call Apple. And get their
approval for a free repair to my computer. As if that’s going to happen. I
fobbed the guy off and hung up.
Something made me go back into the Apple Store
though, I don’t know what. I suppose I just wanted to have a muck about with the new
Macbooks and stuff. It’s been a while since I’ve been into an Apple
Store and just had a play with the sexy gear on show. And it’s amazing what you
pick up just from being able to see the whole product range of a company just
laid out and easily accessible. For one, I didn’t know that the Macbook Air and
the new Macbook (with Retina display) don’t have DVD drives. Who the fuck
thought that was a good idea?! Sure, the omission of an optical drive reduces
weight...but what about being able to watch a DVD without having to lug an
external drive around with you? It’s almost as if Apple and Nintendo are
working together to wind people up by doing stupid things with their new
hardware (the whole ‘you can’t use a USB stick on two different Wii U consoles’
thing is equally strange). That neither of those two systems (and the new iMac)
have optical drives instantly makes me look elsewhere.
And as a matter of fact,
I did: at the Macbook Pro. The normal, £999, 13,” 2.5 Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500 GB HDD
model to be precise. What an amazing piece of engineering. I can see why people
love Apple hardware, with it's super-sleek aluminium casing and quality feel. I had a play around for a good while and instantly fell in
love with it – the two-fingered mouse pad commands were something I had never
come across but instantly didn’t want to live without. So I just went and bought one. Right
then and there I just went up and asked for a 13” Macbook Pro and paid for it
outright. And I have to say it’s the greatest purchase I’ve ever made (apart
from the HS30 EXR, naturally...but they go hand in hand what with iPhoto and
all the other cool Mac photo shit). It’s been two days now and I’m still
fascinated by the thing and all the cool stuff it does. Not too impressed that
you can’t plug normal headphone-jacked speakers into it without getting this
weird buzzing noise (something to do with feedback of the current or some crap),
but I’m totally blown away...and while it doesn’t have a Retina screen, it does
have a DVD drive so I can watch my Warehouse 13 series one boxset when I
eventually get around to it. I still have the used Macbook white sitting on a
shelf, but that badboy’ll be going on Gumtree by the end of the week.
