Language Games: Clones

"I'm a clone, I know it and I'm fine."

After dabbling for a few years in writing my thoughts on games down in words and forms that other people could understand instead of keeping my feelings restrained exasperated abandoning of pads and grunts of joy/despair from in front of a screen in the safety of my own home, I've progressed onto tackling the idea of consistently trying to review games, and I'm starting to think about how hard it is to actually write about games well. Part of the issue resides in the idea that a game is inexplicably tied to its mechanics and presentation in a way that other mediums aren't (bear with me) and this poses a unique challenge to a reviewer, with three of the choice issues being: how do I explain these mechanics which at there most basic are “Push A to do B” without boring people, how do I separate the my inability to control a game well from the actual quality of the control scheme, and how do I talk about something that is mechanically similar to dozens of other titles without falling back on those titles?

I think these are all fairly interesting ideas so I decided to postulate a bit on them and write about them, and tackle them in three separate bits. Obviously I don't write for any big sites or anything, but these issues have cropped in my very basic communications about games with others, and are issues with the vocabulary around gaming that exists so far. So maybe there are examples of reviewers out there doing it right, or maybe I've missed communities where these issues are resolved through deft prose and delicate syntax, but as far as I'm aware that isn't the case. Anyway, onwards.

The Woods

It was a warm and proud autumn afternoon. I stood gazing down some forgotten opening that seemed to beckon me invitingly, like some deep and curious lagoon. Mottled leaves lay strewn over the path towards the opening as though they were pages from old discarded books. I cast a timid glance over my shoulder.


Far behind me, the party was still in full swing. Chatter and laughter floated on the humid breeze, as light and delicate as bubbles fizzing in the glasses held amongst the many guests. I had slipped away from my own celebration after being admonished in my advances upon a female guest I had been assured was of the same mind as me, that I was handsome and she was fair, and we would both be interested in a small dalliance. I had clearly been misinformed, likely intentionally, and was greeted not with a soft caress of the cheek but with a cold, sharp explosion from a glass of some cocktail or other. She left in quite a flustered state and all about me guests pointed slack jawed or giggling. For a moment I felt embarrassed, betrayed even, but life goes on and I had merely retreated to let the guffaws and cat calls simmer down. It was during my reflection on the events that had passed that I shortly came to notice a faint and sickly smell coming from a part of my garden that I could not quite recognise, not that this surprised me as I did not frequent my garden other than on social occasions. Intrigued by the odour, and uninterested in returning to the party any time soon, I mopped my brow with a handkerchief and set out into the shaded retreats of my estate.

This album is forgotten

According to a recent BBC article, Nottingham is the second worst city in the UK for illegal downloads. the most shared artist in my fair city is Ed Sheeran. In fact, the entirety of the UK seem to think that they can't last without Sheeran in their lives, so they've decided to illegally download his album instead. I could go on about how I dislike Ed and his novelty micro-acoustic guitar, his beige demeanor, his MOR, milquetoast, pointless, translucent music, and his fan-base, who mistook his rendition of Wish You Were Here for a 'new track' of his at the Olympic Closing Ceremony (there is a special kind of stupid happening there, and it probably needs an entire post to get to the bottom of) but really I just wanted to use the article as a jumping off point for a bit of spiel.

Whilst Walking

The other day I was walking home and I got cussed by a teenager in a wheelchair. The other day is a poor quantifier, it was last week actually, on a particularly sunny day. I walk past the Aspley Neurodisability Centre twice everyday. Once to work, and once on the way back. I have a vague history that faintly links me with the place but that is just something I smile about every now and then, and hardly very interesting. I also walk past an All Girls School, so my walk home is rife with chances for faux pas as it is, without being cussed by a teenager who I think it is safe to assume had some neurological disability. I don't even know if that is the correct terminology, if that is the right thing to say in the world of "Politcal Correctness gone mad" even though political correctness isn't mad at all bar a few exemplary cases, and is in fact a pretty good thing as it stops us all walking around sounding like paragraphs in articles written by Richard Littlejohn or Aidan Burley.

So, I was cussed by this teenager in a wheelchair, and it was fairly surreal. I walk everywhere, and if I can't walk somewhere I take the bus or I get a friend or family member to drive me there. I am absolutely confident that I should never be let loose behind the wheel of a car, but I can't say for certain that I will never end up in charge of one of those metal boxes hurtling down a road near you, in the future. I take a kind of fantastical pleasure out of being driven around by other people, even on the bus, where I like to think it is because I am simply to important to drive myself, but that isn't the case. As established, I was listening to some music, which music isn't important, but it was sunny so it was unlikely to have been anything that you could stick under the 'dance' or 'electronica' labels, so you can rule them out, with certainty. I had my headphones in, and I noticed a group of teenagers or 'youths' all amassed on the little wall in front of the building and instantly realied that, as the sole other occupant of this pocket universe, I was going to be noticed.

And lo, I was noticed.