This isn’t news, it’s a press release hidden in the technology department. Its a shame that such a shitty technology even exists. The Times isnt running this story in their technology section and for obvious reasons, there’s no need to keep us abreast of the latest update for a technology developed by BBC, especially since its rediculously out-of-date since BBC is last to the party after pretty much everyone else’s WebTV services which are easier to use and dont require fucking RealPlayer or fucking Windows Media.

You can tell how much I dont update anymore because its already my birthday and there’s been nearly nothing to report since I last updated.

That’s not technically true but with my new policy of only updating when something noteworthy happens, I’m few and far between in updates. To make matters worse, I’ve now joing the Evolution Studios blog team so all work related brain-farts now live here, but as you’d expect from a corporate “free-for-all of ideas”, its tightly monitored and we have a list as long as our arms about what we can and cannot say when idly pretending we’re people. For example; nowhere are we allowed to criticize Sony or any Sony studios. So we can’t talk about how they have it ass-backwards with the new PS3 SKU or anything like that. We were encouraged to link our own weblogs but I, quite frankly, want to keep this and all Sony bashing I want to do, far and away from the Evolution site. That’s not that I have a huge pot of burning Sony hatered. I did, I used to loathe the company with a molten fury for what they did to the games industry, now I just have a great sense of pity a lot of the time. Like seeing your friend make an ass of himself but you know its the only way they’ll learn.

Sony are not all bad though, they gave us a pile of games for Christmas presents. Each of us got Singlstar and Ratchet and Clank plus some PS2 titles. Singstar came without a microphone and none of them have been taken out of the shrinkwrap. I can still take them to Game and say they were unwanted Christmas presents.

Life with the Sony overlords, in all fairness, isn’t that bad. You forget instantly you’re a member of the company and its still Evolution vs The World if you listen to anyone on the emails or in passing. We’re still fighting tooth and nail for a good game while Sony fight tooth and nail for what they think will make them money. Its an endless battle and its driving co-workers insane. Me, I just keep my head down and we all collectievly sigh. There are a few who model themselves after Field Marhsal Haig and re-create the Somme. Destroying lives for little gain.

Who am I to judge though, this is the first full game I’ve worked on from start to finish and maybe things’ll be different this time. I’m confidently assured by my peers that it will be worse. Never mind, there’s always the next game.

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

2007 was a bit unneventful in comparrison to the past few. Introspective new-years parties have had me think about graduation, gaining employment, moving house, relationships etc. but 2007 has seen a steadying of the waves that have carried my life of late. Steady employment, a more financially viable house, sorting out budgets and getting my life on track have been the order of the day for the past 12 months, stripping the chaff from my life to let the wheat grow through in an attempt to somehow reach a state where I can look at my life and think “I’m enjoying myself”.

In the grand scheme of things, 2007 probbaly won’t be remembered for a great deal more than the transitionary period it was, yet on an entertainment front, it’s been staggeringly good. Videogames wise, we’ve entered what some might christen a ‘Golden Age’, a year of games like Bioshock, Orange Box, Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4, all titles that have made me sit up and pay attention. I’ve been having a lot of fun and the quality bar has been raised to new heights on a personal level as the kind of games I’m interested in making have taken an important step forwards. Interestingly, these games are on the 360 and in a move that has surprised me greatly, I’ve preferred consoles over PC since I first became interested in games as an entertainment medium and potential art form.

Musically, the likes of Klaxons, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem and Feist have kept my feet tapping as well as a miriad of flash-in-the-pan albums that made me smile through the summer and provided interesting shows at Glastonbury back in June.

As for film, The Bourne Ultimatum, Eastern Promises, This is England, Last King of Scotland, Zodiac, Reign Over Me, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine and Knocked Up really did things for me, but there are dozens of others I begrudgingly missed that LoveFilm will be helping me rectify this year.

TV wise, its been slow. Known successes like Lost and Battlestar continue to be great, Heroes blew the planet away then sucked for a bit enough to give me serious doubts at whether it’s worth carrying on with and has only recently clawed its way back to acceptable levels. The Sopranos magnificently concluded with a heart-thumpingly, “emotionally whiplashing” finale that still makes me draw breath and continues to inspire debate amongst my friends. Other than that, it’s been quiet. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Black Donnellys, a small show I was championing were both cancelled and Jericho almost didn’t make it through the dark night to syndication. Unlike recent years, there’s no real obvious “Best Show on TV” hyperbole I can throw around with knowing certancy, I’d like to say Dexter but the second series has me questioning the direction they’re taking everyone’s favourite serial killer. We’re in uncharted waters coming into 2008, especially with the Writer’s strike putting a lot of new and questionable shows into question. I’m looking to see what bad shows get cancelled and new shows get green-lit once the writers go back to their desks

I can’t wait to see how we do in 2008, on a personal level, I really hope to be fitter, happier and more productive and I hope its as interesting and ridden with such entertaining offerings as the late 2007.

So everyone finishes work today, thats ace, our social circle’s all-night bender began in ernest at 3:30 with a buffet and drinks by the company put on in our local before heading on to town, except now i’m back at home, blogging instead of getting trollied. I think whoever thought a work-pub-pub-pub-home system was fooling themselves, as we;ve all gone back to our respective homes to wait until 8 to carry on. Not exactly rock and roll. Ahh well, not long to Christmas and with the Shrewsbury band getting back together around the one event guaranteed to bring everyone out of the woodwork of the various locales they’ve made their home, the social (read: drunk) callander is filling up unbelievably fast.

Whee!!

Christ, it’s been over a month since i’ve done this thing. I guess that stands to reason. Christmas at work is usually a hectic place, all hands to the pump to get everything in a state we can leave it. In January, when everyone comes back you dont want to be picking things up half finished and look at it and think “what was I doing with this again?” Like picking up a book after a while, you’ll be forever going “what’s that again?”

On top of that, everything I seem to touch has upped and died. My computer just kept crashing, overheating and whatnot all through November. I was stupid enough to think that Orange Box on the PC would be a better investment than on the 360. Halfway through a game of Team Fortress, I learned the hard way that my PC is in no fit state to do anything but surf the web. I’ve only yesterday managed to get things going again, replacing both motherboard and power supply in order to Millenium Falcon a working machine until I can scratch enough funds together to do it properly.

As a plus, halfway through Mass Effect, my bastion that would get me through to Christmas, the 360 upped and red-ringed. It hurt more since my Christmas list caters almost exclusively to content to be played through either the 360 or PC and both were out of commision until at least January. But as luck would have it, UPS dropped off my repaired 360 on Tuesday and by yesterday evenign my PC was back to full working order, albiet sans audio.

This morning I dug out an old audio card and whilst rigging it up, played music through the console and once that was all set up, turned back to finish my Mass Effect session only to find it had crashed again. Two days! thats how long it lasted!

The jovial acompanying letter with my “re-placed” 360 mentions:

In the unlikely event you encounter further problems with your Xbox conosle….

How very optimistic of them.

If there is indeed a silver lining, its the one month Xbox Live they give gratis and that every time you send your console without a faceplate, they send you the console back with another attacked. I have a nice pile of both.