Waiting on the world to change.

The Jesus Phone 3.0

Let me get this out in the open before I start- I use apple products. And not in a moderate way, oh no. I'm currently typing this on an iMac, after which I will probably go downstairs and watch a film using my Apple TV, and after that I will go to bed and update my twitter using my iPhone. All of these items I am thoroughly proud of, and I see them as amazing pieces of technology infused with brilliant stylings, but there is one thing about them that makes me slightly irate (probably the name of a new, apple, stress management tool)- the constant updating of the products.

The reason for the updates? Well, according to apple there is no problem with it; because of the classic mentality "there's only a problem if we have a solution" and then they proceed to sell you that solution, causing you to sell yourself for scientific research to afford the damned thing.

But there is a tiny part of me getting larger with every new release, doubting the moral integrity of those in Cupertino. Don't get me wrong, I love apple products, but I'm starting to think that they are creating a problem to sell you the solution.

Let us take, for example, the biggest problem of all, the Jesus phone itself: the iPhone. The original iPhone, though being heralded as a revolution in mobile phones, building a bridge between the blackberry users and the users of your run-of-the-mill nokia, had it's own fair share of problems: it's camera, it's snail-like internet speeds, it's lack of customisability, it's un-excusable lack of picture messaging and above all; it's price tag. while three out of five of these were answered with the iPhone 3G released just a year later.

This new and improved iPhone had lightning fast (well, that's at least what they were pushing) internet speeds, the indescribably vast "App Store" and was much, much cheaper. And in giving people what they ask for, you get an awful lot of cack. The App store is a prime example of this, only publicising the stupidity of the iPhone's user base (the mail on sunday publish a different "top ten" in the back of their "men"'s magazine every week, this week being the top ten iPhone applications, with the top currently being "iAlan"- an application that simply plays quotes from the Steve Coogan comedy vehicle of Alan Partridge), and it doesn't stop at there only being a few silly applications being downloaded over and over, there are hundreds and thousands of these stupid things and the people download them, Lord knows why.

There were, however, still problems with the sequel. Sure, they had fixed problems, but in a way, you could say that they've shot themselves in the foot to dislodge a bullet. The main concerns were the battery life, the coverage of the 3G network (although, that's the telephone network's fault) and there was still the lack of picture messaging and the preposterous and farcically bad camera, however the battery and the coverage were sorted by various updates by both the network and by apple, leaving apparently the perfect phone with a couple of faults.

It was the perfect phone, until that fateful day of the annual Apple WWDC (or worldwide developer's conference to you and me) on Monday the 8th of June 2009, where apple unleashed upon the world the third iteration of the iPhone: The iPhone 3GS. And what warrants that extra consonant you say? Well, in this version we are given the long awaited half-decent camera (3.0 megapixels, to be precise, not exactly impressive, but not too shoddy) with both video taking capabilities and picture messaging and they've apparently sped up to give the 3G network. And Apple didn't stop there. They've given us two more useless features: an in-built compass and voice recognition, both of which I had never wanted in my phone, nor do I. And before I go on another rant about these unnecessary features, I will restrain myself at asking why? Why did apple feel it necessary to put these into the phone? My cynical side is telling me that it's so that Apple have more features to boast about, while my idealist side has no response to this allegation, which saddens me.

But now, with the trilogy complete, is it perfect? It can never be perfect, so the obvious answer is no, but they've had a good go at it. But what amazes me is how the Communist party of the technological world has managed to captivate the entirety of the market with essentially just one product.

Me? I'm not going to buy the new iPhone. My current one is perfectly fine and I will not let my infatuation with Apple make me sacrifice my wallet and several limbs for it. I'm only going to do that for a macbook pro. But there we have it, another product, another Apple product. The one fact that is indisputable is that if everyone had macs and iPhones, we would all be much poorer people because of it. And then they'd probably say that what you've just bought is now out of date and make you buy the new one with their sanitary and irritating propaganda. It's enough to boil the blood.

Changing faces and changing places

Or Why Game Adaptations are never any good.

Resident Evil, Max Payne, Hitman.

These are all films released over the past few months that are adapted from video games, that completely failed to live up to the standards that their predecessors had set before them.

And why? My theory, and you are free to object, (but seeing as though you are reading this, you care about what I have to say, for which I thank you) is that it is nearly impossible for these pieces of art in their own right to make the astronomical leap onto the silver screen.

It is far from easy to think of a game that has made a half decent film. This is because of the director's "Creative license". This allows the director to take the art that has been presented before them and rip it to shreds quite literally changing the things integral to the game and mutilating it for the sake of Hollywood's bucks. But in putting the game in the cinema, it takes an integral part of the game away, the heart and soul of the game: you.

You, the player are the missing piece of the puzzle, and that's what makes the game so immersive; the fact that you are in the shoes of the protagonist, be it Nathan Drake, Gordon Freeman or Agent 47, you see things from his or her perspective. And in taking this integral feature out of the game just gives you an inaccessible watered down 2 hour long film version of an incredibly immersive and epic journey that you go on with the character.

In response to these stinkers of movies, the creators of the games have sat up and taken notice of it. Games such as Uncharted, Bioshock and Metal Gear Solid 4 have attempted to blur the line between the mediums of video games and movies, not just playing incredibly well, but they create an atmosphere that could only be described as cinematic. Some of these games take the more cinematic route, with Metal Gear Solid 4, culminating in an hour and a half long cutscene; and while some may reside in calling this sort of thing dull beyond belief, when you have spent tireless hours plugging away at this thing, growing attached to the characters and actually feeling a genuine sense of compassion to something that is no more that a few lines on the screen, I honestly feel that that is a better, more entertaining, experience than any film can create.

The huge irony to this now is that the film makers are going to spoil these pieces of real artistic merit by turning them into films, I know that certainly Bioshock is aptly being converted from the human that it is, into the form of a mindless "Big Daddy" of the silver screen.

But there may yet be light at the end of the tunnel. The much talked about, and now apparently cancelled, movie based on Halo, was to be directed by none other than Mr. Hobbit himself, Peter Jackson, a man who knows how to take on projects of alarmingly large scope and make them work as epic movies.

There is still a part of me that doubts that even the capabilities of Mr Jackson would be able to convey a game of Halo's scale onto the big screen, and an even larger part of me wants to tell all of these fools who want to see these games as films to pick up a controller and just play them at their purest form without the likes of Uwe Boll dumping on it.

Even the largest technophobe can not just throw these games to the kerb as pieces of art just because they think that they are designed for kids, I can assure you that this is the way forwards, take for example soon to be released Heavy Rain, it is basically an interactive film and I hope to God that after games like this the mass populous will start to take video games seriously as pieces of art.

The Pain!

RROD

It's something that's struck fear into many of us in the gaming community. We like to mock those who contract the fatal condition, but secretly morn the (temporary) death of the 360 in question.

And now, after 3 glorious years, those dreaded red rings crept their way into my xbox and into the led's on the front of the machine.

It is at that point, at which you understand the pain that those who had suffered this fate had felt, and you, you with your plastic box, nay, brick, cry a cry of pain, of the grim reaper tapping you on the shoulder.

And I know, you can send it off in it's coffin to be resurrected; but the cost? £78.00. That's right seventy eight pounds for a "General Hardware Error," that's seven thousand, eight hundred pence for a problem that is the fault of those folks in Redmond.

All I can do now is send this heap off, because fallout 3 can't play itself without a machine!

Seriously, I'd just bought broken steel! I guess the joke's on me for trusting microsoft.