Video Games without all the boring bits

HAVE PITY FOR THE GAMES CRITICS by Mr Biffo

19/11/2015

I know I talk a lot about story and writing in my game reviews, but writing stories is sort of how I make my living these days.

I've got something of a vested interest in it (by which I mean, I've got something interesting up my vest: it's a big hernia).

I always made up stories as a kid - whether it was on the fly with my Star Wars action figures, drawing cartoon strips, or telling the rest of the village that I'd seen a wolf - so it's odd that I took such a meandering route into writing scripts professionally. Particularly given that bad or lazy writing is something about which I get pointlessly incensed.

That said, you can always choose whether or not to listen to anything I say about the quality of writing in video games. Never take my word as gospel.

I mean, on the one hand I've been writing scripts professionally for 15 years, have a few BAFTA nom-noms and a couple of RTS Awards under my truss, so you might think I know something of which I speak... but at the same time I was the guy who wrote Pudsey The Dog The Movie, widely considered to be the greatest atrocity in the history of humankind.

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10 WAYS TO KILL BUBSY THE BOBCAT USING ELECTRICITY

18/11/2015

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Jesus Effing Christ. As if the world wasn't awful enough already, now they're bringing back Bubsy the Bobcat - one of the most unloveable and wretched video game characters of all time.

"What can possibly go wrong?!" Bubsy would bellow with teeth-jarring regularity. Well, we've finally been given an answer to his rhetorical question: what has gone wrong is that Bubsy the Bobcat is coming back.

Publisher Retroism is hoping to re-release Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind and Bubsy II (both originally published by Accolade back in the 90s) by touting its unnecessary wares on Steam Greenilight. If the project inexplicably gets sufficient support, they'll be releasing the compilation - under the nonsensical title Bubsy Two-Fur - before the end of the year.

Far be it from Digitiser2000 to squat upon the chips of a small outfit like Retroism, who we're sure are lovely people, but we must accept that even if your best friend was trying to hatch a "Hitler Egg", you'd still have to do everything in your power to stop him/her.

With that in mind, here are ten things that Retroism could be doing with Bubsy the Bobcat instead of inflicting him upon the world once more. Specifically, ten ways drawn from a 1930s German health and safety pamphlet on the dangers of electricity.

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VIDEO GAMES: THEY'RE ALL BORING by Mr Biffo

18/11/2015

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Physical game sales are 8.5 percent down this year, according to Charttrack data.

That's a real bad thing, but what seems to be giving retailers a dose of the runs is that several of this year's blockbusters have failed to ignite as the mega-sellers that they'd been expecting.

Though, understandably, the publishers are being cagey about releasing accurate figures, rumours are swirling around Halo 5, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and Rise of the Tomb Raider that they've all underwhelmed.

Indeed, Sony even came out gloating about the latter, with a snide tweet from its senior product manager laughing at the "poor" game's 63,000 first weekend sales, and cocking a snook at its 12 month window of console exclusivity.

Admittedly, Rise does indeed appear to have been hobbled by being an Xbox One exclusive - something which might give other companies pause before entering into similarly compromising clinches with Microsoft - but what do all of the above games have in common? Firstly, they're all sequels. Secondly - and importantly - there isn't a whole lot originality going on with any of them.

Could it be that gamers are getting bored?

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OMG! LET'S SELL SOME SECOND-HAND GAMES!

17/11/2015

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Today's the day you've been waiting for all year - the day that Star Wars Battlefront is released! Too bad you're facing a mountain of unpaid hen maintenance bills, and can't afford to buy it.

It looks like you're going to have to do the thing you've been putting off for ages... you're going to have to sell your collection of video games... OMG!

Come on - let's head down to the second-hand games exchange and make this selling happen...!

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DIGITISER2000: STATE OF THE UNION by Mr Biffo

17/11/2015

73 Comments

Hello, Brannex. A year ago, give or take a few days, I started Digitiser2000.

Over the course of the last 12 months, the site has grown from quite literally nothing to having around 40,000 unique users a month. That's some real good brie.

Admittedly, a lot of those users are confused Americans who spend an average of 15 seconds before clicking elsewhere, and we're still tiny compared to the bigger sites, and we have big weeks and quieter weeks, and we're still shrouded in the cloud of nonentity-ness next to the Jim Sterlings of this world... but I'm rather proud that the spirit of Digi managed to rise from the ashes. Especially after my years in the relative wilderness.

However, the anniversary seemed like as good a time as any to take stock, and rattle things up a bit.

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LARA CROFT: THE FRAIL PSYCHOPATH by Mr Biffo

17/11/2015

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In an early trailer for Rise of the Tomb Raider we found a Lara Croft seemingly troubled enough by the events of the previous game that she had ended up in therapy.

Wracked with PTSD over her own brushes with death, she justified her killing spree as a necessity to survive.

By the time we get to Rise of the Tomb Raider proper, any reluctance she might've had to put herself through it all again is gone. Admittedly, if you're going to be wanky and needlessly over-thoughtful about it all, repeating patterns of destructive behaviour is something we all do, until we find the strength to break that cycle, or hit rock bottom.

NECESSITY
But there's no sign of that ever happening with the Tomb Raider series. The necessity of being a video game character means that Lara Croft has to kill, for ever, without end... yet in Rise of the Tomb Raider there's a glee to Lara's murdering. It's not a necessity; when she kills, she she seems unhinged. It's ugly, brutal.

It's a mixed message.

The sense we get in the cut-scenes, and with the shivering, grunting, bruised and battered Lara we see outside of her killing spree, is someone who's vulnerable, a victim. The game throws her off of cliffs, collapses buildings on top of her, blows her up... and those are just the things she survives. She's tortured by the game, and there's a disconnect between the character you play as, and the character you watch in scripted sequences.

But then, Lara Croft has always been a mix of contradictions - wanting us to believe one thing, while presenting us with something wholly other.

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: 21 TERRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED WHILE PEOPLE WERE PASSED OUT

16/11/2015

4 Comments

Sleep. Sometimes we do it because we're tired. Most of the time it happens because we're drunk.

Alas, the sleep of the inebriated is often so deep that it's possible for those around you - many of whom have had their inhibitions stripped away through the demon alcohol - to take advantage.

Here we present 21 examples of what happens when booze causes you to lower your guard. Captions are courtesy of the Instant Art Critique Generator at Pixmaven.

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REVIEW: RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER (Xbox One)

16/11/2015

6 Comments

Let's get this bit out of the way: Rise of the Tomb Raider does more or less everything that its predecessor did, but does it better.

It even goes as far as dropping its tepid multiplayer in favour of challenges that return the player to the single-player game's levels with additional objectives.

However, once again, Rise is as influenced by other games - notably the Uncharted series - as other games were influenced by those original, now horribly dated, Tomb Raider titles.

It's part platformer, part shoot 'em up, with the usual open-world looting and crafting that have become tiresomely integral to most of today's blockbuster games. Powering you up relatively early in the game, you'll soon be swinging from grappling hooks, lobbing makeshift grenades and incendiary devices, and dropping out of trees onto the heads of your opponents like a lethal apple.

It plays beautifully, seamlessly blending gameplay and cutscenes, and depicting the sort of epic adventure and action worthy of one of video games' most enduring icons. It's also one of the most gorgeous games of this generation: truly, truly, jaw-stretchingly, spectacular.

Where it falls down is with the title character. The more time we spend listening to this new Lara Croft, the more bland she becomes; like a child's scrawl on a piece of torn cardboard. Unfortunately, because they're so frustratingly insistent on making us care about this reinvention of the character, it ends up damaging the game.

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VIDEO GAMES: A REFLECTION OF TERROR by Mr Biffo

16/11/2015

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As the news about Friday's Paris shootings gathered momentum, I started to wonder how long before somebody reported a link between the attacks and video games.

It happened in the wake of 9/11, when we were told that the perpetrators supposedly learned to crash planes using PC flight simulators, and is a line that has been repeated with tedious regularity ever since. Right on cue, we now discover that the PlayStation Network might have been a method of communication between the terrorists responsible for Friday's tragic attacks.

This speculation came from no less a source than Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon, based upon the fact that a PS4 was found in raids upon suspects' addresses in Brussels.

“PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp," he told reporters.

Naturally, The Daily Mail picked up on this - talking hysterically of a "cyber caliphate" - but more worrying was the usually reliable Forbes, which took it to a whole other level of lunacy: "An ISIS agent could spell out an attack plan in Super Mario Maker’s coins and share it privately with a friend, or two Call of Duty players could write messages to each other on a wall in a disappearing spray of bullets."

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WEEKEND ROUND-UP: VIVE LA LIFE

14/11/2015

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This round-up comes to you the morning after the terrible events in Paris. It also comes on the occasion of Digitiser 2000's first birthday, and I was hoping to bring you some exciting news of a special birthday gift for Digi Patrons and supporters... but it doesn't really feel like the right time to be blowing trumpets.

So, that'll have to wait.

In the meantime, here's everything that has been on Digi2000 over the last couple of weeks.

Just a reminder - but we're very, very low on t-shirts now, and unlikely to be getting any more in pre-Christmas. So, if you want one (particularly if you're an XL) get in fast. Thanks to everyone who ordered one; they've sold great.

REVIEWS
THE TALOS PRINCIPLE (Various, PS4 version tested)
SOMA (Various, PS4 version tested)
APPLE TV (4th Generation)
CALL OF DUTY - BLACK OPS 3 (various, PS4 version tested)
FALLOUT 4 (PS4, Xbox One, PC - PS4 version tested)

STUPID STUFF
ANOTHER 21 TERRIBLE OLD ALBUM COVERS
10 CODS THAT AREN'T CALL OF DUTY
18 BIZARRE BOOTLEG TOYS
11 LITERALLY CRAP STATUES
17 RIDICULOUS FAST-FOOD RESTAURANT KNOCK-OFFS
LET'S GO TO SIR CLIFF'S HOUSE!
SO MOVING... 11 BEAUTIFUL BAPTISM PHOTOS
SO DISRESPECTFUL: 10 WAYS JEREMY CORBYN RUINED REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY FOR EVERYONE
A DAY WITH DONALD TRUMP
12 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR DOG SAFE ON DOG-AIR DAY
WHAT DOES KIM JONG UN FIND FUNNY?
HORRIBLE: 16 MASKED MONKEYS TO GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES
THE SEXIEST LARA CROFT COSPLAYERS with Chart Cat

FEATURES AND OPINION
HALO 5: A HOLLOW VICTORY by Mr Biffo
HALO 5: WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? by Mr Biffo
KILLED IN THE CANDY CRUSH? by Mr Biffo
ZOE QUINN'S NUCLEAR OPTION by Mr Biffo
TELL ME WHAT TO FEEL by Mr Biffo
A ROUND TUIT by Mr Biffo

VIDEOS
CALL OF DUTY 3: BLACK OPS - FIRST IMPRESSIONS
FALLOUT 4 - FIRST IMPRESSIONS
MR BIFFO PLAYS FALLOUT 4

THE PREVIOUS ROUND-UP: THE SCARY ONE

PAY ATTENTION! Digi2000 can only keep going with your help. We're a tiny team of 1.5 people, doing this in lieu of other things we could be earning money doing.

So... if you're enjoying yourself on here, and would like to show your support - please feel obliged to visit our Patreon page, or donate via the PayPal button on the sidebar. It really helps. Thank you in advance.

PAY MORE ATTENTION! We also have a lovely YOUTUBE CHANNEL full of great content that you'd probably love. So make sure you subscribe and share, or we'll really think you hate us and then we'll abandon you and make you cry.

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DIGITISER 2000 PRESENTS: Mr Biffo Plays... Fallout 4

13/11/2015

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Here's Mr Biffo playing Fallout 4, fannying around in a factory, and being well cool an ting. Enjoy!

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THE SEXIEST LARA CROFT COSPLAYERS with Chart Cat

13/11/2015

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"Well hello there, my fair-faced duke. Welcome to the Enchanted Banqueting Hall.

"One presumes you're here for the same thing I am: to commemorate the release of Rise of the Tomb Raider, the latest instalment in the rampant adventures of that dusty, lusty siren Ms Lara Croft.

"To this end, I have put together a gallery of the most provocative Tomb Raider cosplayers I could find. You might wish to give it the once-over. Suffice to say, compiling this article certainly made this would-be Tomb Raider rise a little..."

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HORRIBLE: 16 MASKED MONKEYS TO GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES

13/11/2015

5 Comments

There may be a lot wrong in Britain, but at least we don't dress up animals for our own entertainment anymore. Unless it's Halloween, or for a funny video on the Internet.

Still, not every nation can be as progressive and sophisticated as the country which gave the world Paddy McGuinness and Dapper Laughs. Indeed, there are some countries where they believe that comedians literally grow on trees.

Although it was outlawed in 2013 - and the performers taken to live in a sanctuary - Indonesia had a long tradition of the Topeng Monyet (or Monkey's Mask) show, where funny little monkey guys are dressed up, chained, and forced to scamper and scurry for the delight of onlookers.

Obviously, it was a truly appalling practice, but as these pictures attest... while there might not be a lot to laugh at, it's also pure nightmare fuel.

PLEASE NOTE: To soften the horror, we've captioned each photograph with quotes from the Donkey Kong Country series.

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WHAT DOES KIM JONG UN FIND FUNNY?

12/11/2015

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North Korea. A land shrouded in mystery, and at the heart of that mystery is an enigma: Kim Jong Un. Strict dictator, or beloved man of the people - nobody can quite get a handle on the 32 year-old supreme leader of the secretive Communist state.

What does he like? What does he dislike? What does Kim Jong Un find funny, and what does he not find funny? Digitiser2000 did some exhaustive research to find out...

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12 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR DOG SAFE ON DOG-AIR DAY

12/11/2015

3 Comments

Every year, thousands of dogs are killed by floating off into space, or being shot down for drifting into military airspace.

Though a natural part of any dog's life cycle, the phenomenon known as 'Dog-Air Day' can be traumatic for both dogs and dog owners alike.

Here are 12 tips for keeping your beloved pet safe this year.

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