Once upon a time, Electronic Arts were seen as the all consuming evil of the gaming world. A little bit like ‘The Nothing’ in the never ending story, a company hell bent on destroying what everyone loved about gaming in the first place and churning out yet another ‘The Sims – coming out to your parents edition’ or ‘My first Badger race n’ ride’ dross. This changed when EA finally started listening to gamers and began producing original titles such as Dead Space, and making FIFA games that weren’t just the previous years game with some names changed and an updated sponsor name on your Jersey. But now with the position of Evil Overlord of gaming vacant, Activision has stepped up to the plate with its announcement that there will be no dedicated server supports for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But what does this actually mean for gamers?

1. A massive dick up the ass for online gaming

Online gamers are about to take Activisions scaly black cock up their asses hard enough for it to tickle their tonsils. No dedicated servers means games will no longer be hosted be a server running on a gigabit ethernet connection somewhere in a server farm designed specifically for hosting gaming servers. From now on, if you want to play Modern Warfare 2 online, you’ll be playing from a game hosted on the PC of Mongoloid McRetard in Alabama. Your game will live and die by his upload speeds, which will probably be so slow you may as well post  letters detailing your movements back and forth, much like how people used to play chess by mail back in the days before excitement was invented.

2. A massive dick up the ass for the Call of Duty PC community

Call of Duty 1 was released for PC back in 2003, if i remember rightly. I remember buying PC gamer just to play the demo, over and over. Back then, COD was the name on everyone’s lips, it was a Medal of Honor beater, and the best WW2 game on PC in years. There were expansion packs, community made mods, and then the inevitable Call of Duty 2. Which for the record, i thought was complete shit but some people seemed to love anyway. Irregardless, it was the PC community that nurtured the newborn COD franchise, suckled it against our gaming teet, and saw it grow up into the ugly, lumbering behemoth it is today. Would the game be as popular nowadays if it weren’t for the PC in those tentative, forming years? Fuck no it wouldn’t, it would’ve been just another ‘Hour of Victory‘, and you can quote me on that shit.

3. A massive dick up the ass for Call of Duty’s lifespan

If you fire up a game of Quake 3 arena for the PC, youll still be able to find a game, almost 10 years after its release. Ditto Battlefield 2, Counter strike, Day of Defeat, and pretty much any multiplayer over the last decade you care to mention. Now, lgo on to xbox live, and lets see how many games we can find for games less than 2 years old that are hosted peer 2 peer (non-dedicated servers, folks)

• The Darkness: 0 games found
• Hour of Victory: -5000 games found
• Chronicles of Riddick: 0 games found
• IL2 – Birds of Prey: 1 game found
• Operation Flashpoint 2: 0 games found
• Wolfenstein: 3 games found, one of which was being run by a PAEDOPHILE

There you have it, all great games, (bar Fuckpoint 2 and Hour of Wanktory), and all completely dead multiplayer components thanks to peer to peer gaming.This proves conclusively that 2p gaming is either dead, or funding PAEDOPHILIA and TERRORISM.

4. A massive dick in the ass for budding game developers

Without Mod support, there would be no Counter strike. No Day of Defeat, no Red Orchestra. All games born from people modding games like Unreal or Quake. Not so with MW2, dont expect to see any mods born from this game, or any new game modes or tweaks born from modifications. Why? Because Activision HATES YOU, and wants you to DIE ALONE AND MISERABLE while they bang hookers and do coke, and force tramps to perform dance routines from 1940’s musicals for dollar bills.

5. A massive dick up the ass for gamers everywhere, regardless of platform.

So Activision are using their Satanic worm-like cock to fuck PC gamers this time. Har har, laughs the console massive, tht doesnt affect me. Oh but it does, my unwashed bretheren. Why are activision screwing PC gamers? Because PC gaming is now the smallest piece of their financial pie. There’s no money to be made off dedicated servers, so they remove support for them. There’s no money to be made from mods (except of course that they keep your game alive years after it woulve otherwise been forgotten), so they remove support for them. And the less money they make off the platform, the less support it will recieve. Its business, and Activision are big business. They dont give a cock that you will have to put up with latency and host migration, all the piss poor shite console palyers have had to put up with, because they are still making money. But who’s to say that next year, if the PS3 isnt performing to Activisions standards, that they might not stop supporting it? Or strip features from upcoming PS3 games that are included in 360 games, that are deemed ‘unprofitiable’?
It’s a scary thought, and one most gamers may think will never happen, but back when people where boycotting EA thanks to ‘booster packs’ for BF2 and the rushed release of BF2142, i bet they never thought they’d one day be championing EA as a model for how games companies should operate..

I have far too much time on my hands.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Format reviewed: Xbox 360

This is an excerpt from the war journal of Pvt. 1st Class Facepalm, serving with the 1st Recon division, in Skira invasion force Bravo. All stories recounted here took place between the invasion of October 9th, and the giving up in frustration of October 13th. All stories are true, and have not been toned down for review. Be warned, this review contains graphic content some readers may find shocking.

O6:00 Hours
Skira Invasion force Bravo 1
Eastern Skira Beachead

The 4 man invasion squad are hunkered down in the pitch black of an October morning. Knee deep in the muddy water on some forgotten beach, the sound of the pre dawn breeze was all that accompanied them. The squad leader, an impossibly handsome man by the name of facepalmedgamer, stood next to his oddly square face troops, his radio crackling into life.

“Bravo one, this is base, we need you to go blow up some anti air stuff a half a klick to your east, how copy, over?”
“Uh yeah, about that…well i never passed basic training so yeah….probably not gonna be too hot with the blowing shit up”
“Say again bravo one, you never passed basic training?“
“Copy that base, i was literally just dumped on this beach fresh out of civilian life with no weapons, equipment, or vehicle training and i dont know how to operate half of my gear, also, how fucking far is a klick? Whats that, like a kilometer? Why cant you just say Kilometer??”
“Bravo one, just get to that anti air thing, and fucking kill the fuck out of it. Out”

Bravo guy turns to face his square faced comrades. “Listen up men, weve got some anti air thing to blow up and come hell or high water, im going to give you some half assed motivational speech to get you there. Now let’s spend 15 minutes running to the checkpoint. Move out!”

Wow this looks so amazing it must be a real screenshot! Right? Right??

06:15
Somewhere east of where we began
Skira, or something

“Ok men, lets do this. You flank right, and lay down suppressive fire. Ill go left, and take them out from behind. Lets move people!” Pvt facepalms men take off in a flash, their years of military training kicking into action, as they move rapidly 5 feet to facepalms immediate  right, and proceed to stand there doing nothing.

“What the fuck is up with you morons? FLANK THE FUCKING POSITION!“
“Sir cannot comply sir!”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because were programmed to be no less than 5 feet away from you at all time”
“Well what the fuck can you do?”
“Well we can walk in like 3 different formations. Let’s see, theres Vee, Wedge, and Column. Isnt that awesome?”
“Jesus Christ. Okay, lets all just attack together then. Lets get in a ‘wedge formation’ so..”
“Great! its the one thing were good at!”

Minutes later, the wedge formation of Bravo squad assaults the Anti air gun. Pvt. Facepalm is fumbling his orders, hes lost! All his scant seconds of training are failing him, as he stutters orders through his microphone, guns are blazing overhead, his men are pinned down! He frantically flicks through pages of the field manual, but its useless. Nothing but some shit about how to call a hints and tips telephone number. What fucking good is that in a firefight? He randomly begins stabbing at commands on his controller, FORM UP! ASSAULT! FLANK LEFT! WEDGE! His shaking hands cant cope with this pressure under fire! His men are all going to die! But then, the guns fall silent. The battle is over.

“What the hell? Did we win?”
“Sir yes sir. We killed them for you.”
“Really? But, i had no clue what i was doing. How the hell…”
“Yeah well we just decided to do it for you, were good like that. But just don’t actually ask us to do anything, because then we go into full on retard mode and just spin around on the spot firing into the air or some shit”

0:800
Somewhere inSkira

The men of Bravo company are sneaking through the grassy fields of Skira, on their way to an evac helo after successfully blowing up the Anti air gun. Pvt facepalm is reflecting on the mission at hand.

“You know, i was just wondering. War, what’s it all about eh? Whats the point?”
“War is hell sir, we fight because we have to”
“No, i actually meant why are we here? The manual didnt tell me shit. And the intro was pretty boring, i didnt pay much attention. Are we fighting fucking terrorists again? Im so sick of those guys…wait, OH MY GOD! CHEMICAL ATTACK! GAS MASKS ON!!”
Pvt. Facepalm frantically radios back to HQ. “Sir! The terrorists or Russians or whoever it is just launched some kind of new chemical warfare agent! All i can see is the colour brown! Oh god, it’s HORRIBLE! “
“Calm down son, thats just how everything looks on this Island. Its either brown, black, or occasionally greeny-grey-brown.”
“Oh, okay. And were fighting the Russians for this shithole? Jeez..”
“Actually its the Chinese”
“Oh, right, got it. Proceeding to Evac”

Excitement, thy colour is greeny-brown

Sometime that feels like forever after first loading up the game
Skira

After a long trudge, Bravo team are nearing their extraction point, but suddenly find themselves under heavy enemy fire. Pvt Facepalm catches a bullet to the brain, but surprisingly, is still alive.

“God damn russians,” he gasps, “I’m dyin here! If only i had been given some kind of training, either in how treat wounds, or how to just play this fucking game in general, i might not be bleeding my brains out my nose right now.” Pvt. Facepalms comrades in arms stand ashen faced around their dying comrade. The team medic, in particular seems very upset. So upset, he cant quite bring himself to aid Pvt. Facepalm.

“If only i knew how to call for a medic, that medic, the one looking at me, about 2 feet from me, oh if only i could get him to heal me…”
“Dont you go quitting on me!” Cries the team sniper.
“Im sorry, its too late, im both bored shitless and annoyed beyond belief with this fucking game, im quitting”
“Any last regrets, Sir?”
“Pre-ordering this instead of….modern…warfare…..2…NNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGARGH“

Facepalms out of 5 for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising:

In honour of the month of October and Halloween bearing down upon us, we take a look at the top 20 scariest games of all time, the games that leave you cowering behind your joypad, a gibbering wreck, sitting in a puddle of your own urine, sobbing uncontrollably to make it stop, make it stop..

15. Treasure Island Dizzy

Oh sure, it may look like a cute cartoon caper of an Egg wearing boxing gloves searching for lost treasure, and sure, you’re thinking ‘oh look he’s being ironic by including a game about a cute cartoon egg in a horror games countdown, how fucking hilarious‘, but delve deeper beneath that outer gloss of cutesy cartoony japery and you’ll see that Treasure Island Dizzy was a game so sadistic it would make the creators of Manhunt hang their fucking heads in shame for even thinking up such weak ass shit as stabbing someone to death with a screwdriver can compare to the horror of trying to complete Treasure Island Dizzy with only ONE FUCKING LIFE.

Yeah, that’s right. Much like in real life, once you broke that Egg, there was no repairing it. Subsequently, noone ever finished Treasure Island Dizzy. To this day, *not one single person on this earth has actually seen the end credits, which are rumoured to be full of 8-bit hardcore pornography, inserted cleverly by the Oliver Twins as an easter egg, which they knew noone would ever find, as the game is fucking impossible to complete.

The end credits of Treasure Island Dizzy

*may or may not be true

14. Prince of Persia

Another entry that may seem surprising in a greatest horror games of all time compilation, but is nonetheless entirely justified. Prince of Persia sees you, Prince, taking a break from writing songs about raspberry berets and suchlike to bust out of a castle dungeon and rescue a Princess who is being held as a fuck toy by the evil Jaffar. In between the Prince and his fuck doll are all manner of sword fodder henchmen. But midway through your quest to implant your boner in the Princess,  you come up against..

THE WALKING UN-DEAD

In a genuinely “i’m 10 years old at home alone and this is actually freaking me the fuck out” moment, a pile of bones much like the many hundreds of piles of bones you’ve seen so far springs to life and challenges you to a duel. A duel you cant win because the skeleton CANT BE FUCKING KILLED…except by pushing it over the edge. But until you figured that out, the unkillable skeleton in the dungeon was a truly horrifying experience.

13. S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R is one of the most genuinely terrifying gaming experiences of all time. And not just because the yellow bastard from sin city is on the cover:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R takes place in the post apocalyptic world of Chernobyl, Ukraine, and sees you, a rookie stalker, scouring the deserted wasteland for loot, artifacts, and mutated badgers for food or whatever people eat in post apocalyptic wastelands. A shit your pants scary premise alright, but on your travels of radioactive underground laboratories, you come across this:

The Bloodsucker. The Bloodsucker exists for two reasons only. One, to hang out in underground lairs being a fucking invisible asshole and two, sucking fucking blood. Oh and if being an invisible bloosucking radioactive cannibal wasn’t bad enough, its also impervious to gunfire while it’s invisible. Which is about 80% of the time. If you look up the word ‘fucking bastard’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of the bloodsucker.

12. Shadowman

Shadow Man was released on N64, PS1 & Dreamcast in 1998. Sadly for Playstation owners, the only thing terrifying about Shadowman was how fucking awful a conversion it was. For N64 owners, or anyone unlucky enough to own a Dreamcast, they were in for a sprawling voodoo themed platformer with a genuinely disturbing storyline involving serial killers, beelzebub himself, and black people.

Sadly, time has not been kind to Shadow man. It looks like regurgitated anus for one, and the voice acting is of a standard you’d expect from an episode of The Bill.

Yet there’s still alot of room in our hearts for Shadowman. The story, while appallingly acted, is engaging, the atmosphere is intense, and the audio is downright fucking unnerving at times. Or maybe it’s just because there were so few decent games on the N64 that people latch on to any game that could claim to be marginally less shit than Superman 64 and claim it was a classic. Yeah, thats probably it.

11. Condemned: Criminal Origins

Condemned is a videogame where a policeman beats the living fuck out of homeless people in order to stop  a killer. That’s pretty much the underlying message of Condemned. Beating societys most at risk people to death = crime prevention. These poor derelicts have been at the bottom of the societal ladder most of their adult lives, shitting in take away bags and drinking petrol from a shoe. Then along comes Johnny Law to further ruin their day of huffing paint and masturbating in public by beating their faces off.

Hobos: violent

So yeah, ha ha ha, he beats up hobos, big laugh, the end.

Except, for one thing. One level of Condemned that i cant even to bring myself to joke about. The abandoned shopping mall level. The mall is dark, dingy, and generally filthy. Somewhere, a warped tape is looping not-so-jaunty anymore Christmas tunes. You see a room of bare faceless mannequins. did one of them just move? No, course not. You turn to leave. The mannequins are behind you, blocking your path. SHIIIIIIIIII- you turn to run, to flee, anywhere those god damn mannequins arent. But the mannequins are already in front of you. The wapred Christmas tunes play on, and you cry yourself to sleep for a fortnight.

10. DOOM 3

Doom 3 is terrifying for all of about 60 minutes. Namely because after 60 minutes of playing doom 3 there’s a significant chance that one of several illusion shattering things happened:

• You realized anytime you pick up a new weapon monsters were going to spawn all around you
• You realized that anytime you enter a room monsters were going to spawn behind you and jump out on you like it was some huge unexpected surprise
• You realized that the gameplay wasn’t going to change at all and 6 hours from now you would still be shooting the same damn enemies on the same damn martian base and gave up
• You realized that Half Life 2 had just been released the same month as Doom 3 and went and played that instead

But, those first terrifying 60 minutes were a sight to behold. In 2004, terror had never looked so fucking amazing.

Playing Doom 3 with a set of heaphones on and in a darkened room was as close to actually getting your ass to Mars and shooting demons as any of us, except for Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnston, will ever experience.

Halo 3: ODST
Format reviewed: Xbox 360

2 years after Halo 3 finally arrived on the 360, Bungie have seen fit to blow their gaming beans all over our collective faces one more time with part expansion pack/part add on/all man, Halo 3: ODST.

The halo series, as a whole, is a game that divides gamers opinions like no other series can. Its enthusiasts are as vocal as its detractors, and neither will ever be able to see eye to eye or convince the other.
On one hand, you have the Halo fanboys, who will routinely tell you:

It has the best artificial intelligence in any game EVER, and the multiplayer is sublime, and simply cannot be beaten.

Actually, i might be over-estimating the average Halo fanboy there. It would more than likely be something akin to:

LOL Halo is fukkin awesome if u dont liek it ur probably a GAY FAGGOT FUCK PLAYSTATIN N00B also i work for bungee we need ur xbox live password to give u 1000 ms points for free and recon armour

And on the other side of the coin:

It’s multiplayer is nothing that wasnt done on PC gaming aeons ago with games like Tribes or Battlefield and as for its story, what story? *guffaw*

but as with the fanboys, i may be over-estimating. It will more than likely be closer to:

LOL purple aliens? What is this gay shit? Everyone knows real shooters only use brown and grey, and look at those weapons, they look like something out of a toy shop LOL, it’s certainly not as advanced modelling as the M4A1 carbine in Armed Assualt 2. Excuse me i have to turn up the smug on my GRAPHICS CARD TO MAXIMUM

Both valid, retarded, arguments. Halo 3 will win no new converts from its many detractors, but is so ‘fucking hell i just shit myself‘ brilliant that existing Halo converts will be practically using it as a masturbatory aid for months to come.

Set in the same timespace as Halo 2’s opening levels on Earth, a.k.a the only good levels in Halo 2, ODST puts you in the drop pod of a rookie ODST, during their ill fated drop into New Mombasa to rid the earth of the purple aliens that are attacking it for some reason explained in a minute long cutscene in Halo 1, probably. The plot sees ODST leader ‘Buck’, i think that’s his full name, attempting to rescue his boner from female Jay Leno impersonator and contestant for stupidest name ever, Veronica Dare, the only woman in videogaming who looks fucking sexier with her helmet on.

*shudder*

The action takes place in 2 distinct styles, The Rookies missions set in almost pitch dark, using the new VISR mode to outline the scenery and enemies, and as The Rookie pieces together the clues of what happened to his ill fated teammates, flashback missions set during the daytime, played out as one of Rookies teammates.

The flashback missions play as a sort of ‘NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL HALO: VOL 1′ greatest hits compilation. There’s a sniping mission, a Tank driving mission, a Banshee piloting mission, defending a building against wave after wave of Covenant forces mission, and it’s status as game of the year conender could only be compounded further by including  a ‘recieving a blowjob’ mission as downloadable content. (as long as it’s not Veronica Dare performing said fellatio)

THIS IS HOW AWESOME ODST IS

All this story preamble is to say, that you will spend the next 6 – 10 hours flying, tanking, driving, shooting, spartan lasering, and grenading the LIVING BALLS out of a whole bunch of purple, and sometimes brown, Aliens. If a shooting game lives or dies by how much fun it is to actually shoot things within it’s world, than ODST is among the finest examples of the genre so far. Not just down to how intelligently the covenant forces respond to your attacks and react accordingly, finding cover,  using flanking moves etc, but down to the sheer ‘im gonna fuck your shit up‘ feeling of pulling off a fatal headshot on a wandering Grunt with the new silenced Automag Pistol, shortly followed by a ‘OH SHI-’ realisation that you’re  now running from a gang of his buddies and you’re the one puckering your anus in preparation of a rather vicious buggering. It’s this new found vulnerability of the ODST, compared to playing as the Master Chief, that gives the game its constant sense of fear and anticipation of the next big gunfight.

This screenshot is from Halo 3. But you can see Cortanas arse, so im putting it in here.

Halo’s multiplayer mode gets a rather justified reputation as being about as fun to play for a newbie as recieving a rectal examination from Freddy Krueger. Youre either on the recieving end of a torrent of verbal abuse from some dribbling idiot about your sexuality, ethnicity or country of origin, or you’re getting your ass handed to you by socially inept mouth breathers who exist solely to play Halo 3 and keep Doritos & Coca Cola in business.Yes, these people do exist and yes if you play Halo for an afternoon you will meet them.
ODST wisely tries to sidestep the issue of forcing you to compete with the troglodytes that inhabit xbox live by including Firefight mode, a mode that sees you and 4 friends working together against wave after wave of Covenant troops, ever increasing in difficulty. In this mode the only enemy is the game itself, so verbal abuse, teabagging, racial abuse, the calling into question of your Mothers occupation, and questioning your sexual preference should be kept to a minimum.

As a departure from the templates of Halo 1 – 3, ODST succeeds as a standalone title and is distinct enough from its bigger brothers to create its own unique little slice of the Halo universe, one we’d gladly spunk another $50 on to revisit.

Facepalms out of 5 for Halo 3: ODST

One year ago this weekend, i took a tour of the Zone of Alienation around Pripyat, Chernobyl. It was a unique, humbling, and at times unsettling experience. To mark the occasion, ive re-posted my original tour diary here. So if you’ll allow me at least one serious post on this blog, take a few minutes and have a read. (Be warned this is quite bandwidth intensive)

(All of these photos can be viewed in larger size by right clicking on them and selecting ‘view image’. WordPress also squashes alot of them and makes the look distorted, so  best to view them in full size.)

First off, a youtube video of the experience made by myself

First off we need to give props to our guide, Yuri. Yuri has worked in the zone for about 8 years now, i doubt there’s many people who know the zone as well as he does. If you’ve ever watched any videos on youtube of people in the zone, you’ll more than likely see Yuri in the background, geiger counter in hand.
The tour kicks off with him telling us about the zone, how polluted it still is (or isn’t, in some areas)

Just outside Yuris headquarters is the monument to the firemen who died after the explosion.  After the explosion, firemen raced to the plant within 2 minutes of hearing the alarm, unknowingly exposing themselves to lethal doses of radiation. The monument was erected by the firemen themselves, they were heroes who risked their lives to save the The Ukraine, and Europe, from Nuclear disaster, yet no official government monuments were ever erected in their honour.

We stop not far from the firemans memorial, at the remains of a tiny village. The village was destroyed, and then buried under orders from the soviets for being too radiactive. The geiger counter here doesnt show much radiation, Yuri believes it was buried out of the soviets desire to cover up the accident more than anything else. Ironically, the name of the village translated to English is called ‘diggers’, kinda prophetic really.

The sign for the ‘diggers’ village. It was so peaceful here it was hard to believe you were standing in the middle of a post-nuclear wasteland. It could have been a summers day in the country, the warm sun, the cool breeze, insects buzzing around your head, the only reminder that you’re not supposed to be here was the eerie silence.

Just across the road from the ex-village, Yuri points out a radar station just past the treeline. Its an abandoned military base that was used to detect incoming missiles, and for general spying on America. Apparently, it shows up on old maps as ‘pioneers camp’. We move on, closer to the plant now.

A mile or two down the road, and we get our first glimpse of the plant. Reactor 4 (left) is the one that blew up, the reactor on the right was under construction at the time, and was never finished. The Geiger counter is beeping stronger here.

Its reading 0.139 Roentgens, and by the time we picked it up out of the grass, it had gone up to .2, and was climbing. Its still nowhere near being lethal, but put it this way, you wouldn’t want to stretch out on the grass for the afternoon. The grass is deadly around here, the asphalt was fine however! It doesn’t absorb radiation like the soil did.

Further down the road, and we get our first proper view of the reactor. Its a pretty awe (or fear) inspiring sight, and the people on the tour are getting alot quieter, and maybe a bit more nervous now. The only sound you can hear is the Geiger counter beeping faster & faster. We scramble back into the van and head off, directly to the plant.

This is just outside the plant. Everyone was wondering what in gods name this is supposed to be til Yuri told us…go on, guess what it is is. Got it yet?

Its a…

Its a……

Its a dove with an atom in its mouth! Yeah, we couldn’t guess either.

This is a memorial to the first people to die from the explosion. Most of them died shortly afterward, but 3rd right from the center (i think) was the first guy to die, who’s body is still in the plant, under the sarcophagus somewhere.

Were directly in front of the sarcophagus now. The geiger counter is going mental. Its getting unnerving at this stage. Stand here for too long, and you’ll be going home with a healthy green glow. Some dumbass takes off his hat and puts it on the ground while he poses for a picture, Yuri almost kills him. ‘DON’T PUT STUFF ON THE GROUND!!!’. Dumbass.
People have often commented that if you’re not supposed to leave stuff on the ground, how come the geiger counter is on the ground for a few photos? The answer is, i haven’t a clue. I’m not a radiation expert, i just did whatever the hell Yuri told us.

We move on, now were at the Red Forest. So called because on the night of the accident, the whole forest glowed red. The forest was cut down, and buried under 6 meters (or feet, im not sure) of earth. The only problem being, the trees they planted on top of them, are now dragging the radiation up through their roots, meaning radiation here is going UP instead of down. This is one of the most radioactive places on earth.

And behind us is a roadsign that fills me with both excitement, and dread:

Pripyat.

Rush hour traffic on the road to Pripyat.

Were standing on the ‘bridge of death’ here. So called because on the day of the explosion, people gathered on this bridge to see the beautiful rainbow coloured flames of the burning graphite nuclear core, whose flames were higher than the smoke stack itself. They were all exposed to levels of over 500 roentgens, a fatal dose.

We drive on, and enter Pripyat town.

And here it is! The finest hotel in all of Pripyat. At least it was, back in 1986.
Were going right to the top of it. This was the hotel where the Soviet & Ukranian scientists and government authorities  held an emergency meeting shortly after the accident took place.

Graffiti in pripyat is probably the most bone chilling graffiti ive ever seen.

Check in desk. business is a little slow, noones checked in in almost 23 years.

Someone forgot their newspaper.

I ducked away from the tour for a minute to check out some of the hotel rooms. One room still had its bed, and wardrobe, and someone left their slippers behind.

Almost at the top..

The view from the top of the hotel. There’s broken glass everywhere in Pripyat, not just cause of vandalism, but also down to the fact that all the windows had to be left open in the town, to stop pockets of radiation collecting indoors.

Another view from the hotel roof. The building on the right is the palace of culture. Were heading there shortly.

On our way to the palace of culture now. Its not advisable to sit on these chairs for too long, if you value having working balls.

Inside the palace of culture.

The sun shining through a hole in the roof makes an excellent spotlight, on a stage that hasnt seen a performance in almost 23 years.

I think this was possibly the best part of the tour for me. It was like everything came together at that one moment, the sun suddenly started streaming in through the hole in the roof, illuminating the stage, you could almost hear the cheerin of a long dead crowd echoing in the hall. It was scary, exciting, and genuinely moving. I couldnt have planned a better photo if i’d tried.

We quite literally exit stage right, and head around the back of the palace of culture. Apartment blocks in Pripyat still bear all the signs of being a former soviet state, the hammer and sickle is everywhere.

All this stuff in behind the stage in the palace of culture. I think it was due to be used in the May day parade that year, but May never arrived for the residents of Pripyat.

Yuri tells us were moving on to the amusement park, i can literally feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Yuri puts the geiger counter down on a patch of moss in front of the amusement park, and it goes absolutely ballistic. I think it went up to a full 2 roentgens. 500 roentgens is fatal, 200 would put you int he hospital for a long time, 2 isnt going to kill you, but you sure as hell dont want to go walking on this patch of moss, put it that way. Youd beep so much going through decontamination theyd probably take you for a chemical shower.

The amusement park was setup for the kids for the may day parade (i think it was may day, i could be wrong tho). But for Pripyat, time stopped on April 26th, and may day never came.
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3068/2898416634_5c3885f47b_o.jpg[/img]

And then here it is, the infamous star of the show, the Pripyat eye. In Ukranian, its known as the ‘devils wheel’.

From here, were moving on to the swimming pool.

Lenin puts in another appearance

Inside the sports centre.

Pripyat was a real jewel in the crown for the soviets. And seeing the swimming pool here its easy to see why, its not hard to imagine olympic athletes training here, for the 70’s/80’s, this place must’ve been the best around. The pool is HUGE.

Were moving on to the final part of the tour, and probably the part that brings home just what a tragedy this really was. Suddenly im feeling like i really shouldnt be enjoying this. I feel like one of those rubberneckers who slows down at the scene of an accident to get a good gawp in. We’re going back to school.

The kids playground is barely visible through the trees that’ve grown up around it. I don’t think the rest of the pictures need captions.

Thanks for reading!

Continuing on with this weeks Halo theme, we take a look at the many reasons why people love Halo. And surprisingly, most, but not all, are soft-core porn related.

1. Chicks dig Halo

It’s True. Ask any woman what gets her chair moist and the chances are she’ll say ‘Master Chief’, right after smacking you in the face.
Take this woman for instance, who enjoys Halo so much shes willing to dress up in full SPARTAN armour, and then take it off again.

Just think, next time you teabag someone, it could be her

This Chick completely digs Halo

Much like a Rodney Dangerfield movie, where all it takes is someone opening a bottle of Champagne and next thing you know, a big college blowout party is happening all around you, everytime  i put the Halo 3 dvd in my xbox, women just start taking their clothes off. I’m literally not even lying about this.

This is pretty much what happens in my living room every time i load up Halo 3

2. You can use forge to make your own porn

This shit is SO HOT

Well it may not be entirely fap-worthy, but it just goes to show: If video game geks put their collective heads together for the cause of good and not mild tittilation, they could cure aids, world hunger, lift us out of the recession, and get American Idol off TV.

3. Halo cosplay (or people dressing up like Halo characters)

Halo cosplay ranges anywhere from:

NNNUUUUNGGGH HOLY SHIT THATS GOOD

to:

A FOR EFFORT

to:

HAHAHA IS THAT A MAN DRESSED AS CORTANA?

to:

SO BAD ITS LITERALLY THE BEST THING IVE EVER SEEN

4. Halo Lego

What happens you mix the best game on xbox with the best toy in the world? Pure fucking awesome happens.

ITS GOT A FUCKING LEGO HUNTER!!!

5. People doing the most retarded shit ever related to Halo

Yeah buddy, try explaining this one to all the grandchildren you won’t be having.

That’s certainly something you wont be regretting every time you look in the mirror.

Ummm…yeah. But hey if desecrating a portion of your body in the name of Halo isnt enough for you, how about ruining the most important day of your life?

Yes, thats Master Chief presiding over a wedding.

And if ruining the wedding isnt enough, how about some god awful Halo artwork as a wedding present? Cheers buddy, you couldve just gotten us a fucking blender…

With today’s release of Halo 3: ODST, TFPG takes a look back at the game that actually invented the first person shooter genre, Halo.

Halo’s success is somewhat of a mystery. For one thing, the game was originally designed as a real time strategy. For another, it was also originally destined to be a fucking Apple Mac Exclusive. These two decisions would have been enough to sink a lesser game without trace, but fortunately for the Master Chief and racist teenagers the length and breadth of the U.S.A, Bungie realised that, way back in 1999, only about 15 people owned an Apple Mac, and of those 15, only 3 used it to play games, and only 1 of those played real time strategy games. The RTS aspect and the Mac were rightly shitcanned, and thus the worlds first ever first person shooter was born, Halo.

Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

Released in 2001, Halo was the game that launched a million cries of ‘YOU FUCKING FAGGOT IMMA KILL YOU FAGGOT’. Halo took the xbox by storm, and managed to sell literally tens of consoles, and telling sony in no uncertain terms “you may be outselling our console by almost 10 to 1, but dammit, at least we have one popular game, which is more than be said for the fucking gamecube.” So what made Halo so popular? Well firstly, we have the award winning story

In Halo‘s twenty-sixth century setting, the player assumes the role of the Buck Rogers, a cybernetically enhanced “SPARTAN” super-soldier. The player is accompanied by Twiggy, an artificial intelligence who occupies the Master Chief’s neural interface. Together they must fight crime and solve mysteries while driving around in a van.

Then, we had the incredible graphics:

Halo was thrust into the limelight as the Xbox’s killer app, the game that would unseat Sony as the dominant force in the home console business, and make the Xbox brand a name as easily recognisable as Playstation, and we would all join hands as one nation, one race, under the benevolence of Bill Gates, and live happily ever after.

Of course none of that happened, and the Xbox languished behind the PS2 until its death, and owning an xbox was still seen as something for friendless sofa masturbators who were looked down upon by the Playstation owning ruling caste.

However, for anyone who played Halo for the first time back in 2001, it was a genuinely special experience, marring an interesting sci-fi world with exciting gameplay, and unparalleled  vehicle combat. It truly was an exciting taste of the future of FPS, and as you will soon see, homphobia….

FP’s out of 5 for Halo 1:

Halo 2 (2004)

Halo 2 dropped in 2004, to much anticipation. As the sequel to the million selling Halo it had alot to live up to. Halo 2 promised to take the fight from outer space to Earth, and it did, for one entire level before fucking off back into outer space for the entirety of the game.
Halo 2 had a much more focused storyline, delving deep into the rich background of Master Chiefs enemies, The Covenant, the banded alien races hell bent on Earths destruction, and introduced a new playable charachter, an Elite named The Arbiter

Halo 2 opens with the trial of an Elite commander aboard the Covenant’s mobile city of High Charity. The Elite is stripped of his rank and branded a heretic for failing to stop the humans from destroying Halo. It is revealed that the Covenant’s interest in Halo lies in the religious belief that the activation of the rings would bring about a “Great Journey”, sweeping loyal Covenant to salvation.

This game literally looked more amazing than any other game that was on the xbox and released in November 2004.

Of course, all of this was disregarded when millions of hairy palmed teenagers realized that Halo 2 and the advent of Xbox Live allowed you to do one thing other games would not: drop your balls on the face of a slain opponent over the internet in a ritual that became known as teabagging.

Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea.

Suddenly, the amazing graphics, the complex storyline, the alien races and emergent gameplay played second fiddle to the act of humiliating a slain opponent in an irony shattering act of placing your balls on someones face while screaming at them that they are actually the gay one, and that you are actually completely heterosexual, you just enjoy rubbing your balls on peoples face.

Yes, three years of storyboards, level design, voice acting and art direction were instantly rendered obsolete once the annoying little scrotes who inhabit xbox live like a plague realized that you could use your balls to humiliate someone.
Halo 2’s position as ‘lacklustre follow up to a fuck-ass incredible original’ were further compounded upon finishing the game, when after hours of fucking about in space, Master Chief proclaims he is heading back to earth to ‘FINISH THIS FIGHT‘.
He didn’t. The credits rolled instead. People were angry. Very angry.

FP’s out of 5 for Halo 2:

Halo 3 (2007)

Halo 3 was the first Halo title for Microsofts flagship Xbox 360 console. Gamers worldwide were practically humping their sofas in anticipation of what the 360’s new technology could bring to the universe of the Master Chief.

The answer was, fuck all. Halo 3 looked vaguely like Halo 1 and played roughly the exact fucking same, yet none of these facts stopped it from being un-fuckingbelievably awesome to the max.

Halo 3 begins with the Master Chief entering Earth’s atmosphere and crashing to the ground in eastern Africa, where he is found by Sgt. Major Johnson and the Arbiter. The Chief, Johnson, and company fight their way out of the jungle and arrive at a UNSC outpost. Here, Commander Keyes and Lord Hood plan a last-ditch effort to stop the Covenant leader, the High Prophet of Truth, from activating a Forerunner artifact uncovered outside the ruins of the city of New Mombasa.

Halo 3 took the fight back to earth, as promised at the teeth-gnashingly shit ending to Halo 2, and promised to make up for all the shitty decisions made in that game. Halo 3’s single player campaign, was for lack of a better description, the greatest fucking shooter ever made.

What made it this amazingly brilliant? I can hardly remember. Possibly hype,  as Halo 3 was the most publicized and hyped Halo game yet.  But was it really all hype? Looking back now its easy to say that all the perfect 10 scores and glowing reviews were all suckered in by the Halo hype machine or were bought by Microsoft’s deep pockets.

At least, thats what the detractors want you to think. The same people that will tell you that ‘halo has no story’ or that ‘PC games had better multiplayer back in 1998′.Retarded quotes from retarded people.
But those of you who know and appreciate the storylines behind the Chiefs extraterrestiral exploits, those who have seen Halo 3 right to the true ending (only reached by completing the campaign on Legendary difficulty), those who queued up to buy the game on launch night, those who routinely play the campaign in the nut-bustingly brillint 4 palyer mode, the people who collect the Halo figurines of Master Chief, Cortana et al, those of you who read the books, or the graphic novels, know that while Halo may get flak for being a kiddy first person shooter (it has purple aliens, therefore by definition it is for children), or that its online contingent is populated by first term abortions (and sadly it is), these things aside, we know that Halo is a sci-fi epic, a marriage of excellent gameplay, art style and story.

So to the Halo storyline, The Master Chief, The Arbiter, the 4 player co-op, we salute you Halo, truly the worlds first ever first person shooter, and warmly welcome the latest Halo FPS, Halo:ODST!

FP’s out of 5 for Halo 3:

Title: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Format reviewed: Xbox 360

What are you, dense? Or retarded or something?

Its the goddamn batman review…

Batman, for those of you who dont know (possibly because youre dense, or retarded, or something) is a mildly successful comic about a man with mental health issues who thinks he is a bat, and dresses up in leather and assaults anyone he thinks is a bad guy. It’s spawned a few games and a couple of movies with some dead guy who starred in a gay porn movie in them. They also very kindly gave Christian Bale a job playing batman even though he had recently consumed a bottle of toilet cleaner which had destroyed most of his vocal cords, resulting an the stupidest batman voice of all time.
Anyway, Batman: Arkham Asylum, is based on some comic featuring the goddamn Batman. Some comic i’ve never read, unfortunately. So roughly 90% of the story of Arkham Asylum will be lost on you unless you sleep underneath Batman bedsheets and jerk off to Heath Ledger.

He's the GODDAMN BATMAN

So, why is someone who’s not a bat-phile playing and reviewing AA then? Lets see some real* quotes from real* gamers about batman:AA..

This is game of the year material

Best game this year, hands down

Better than Half Life 2 & Resident Evil 4

OMG THIS IS THE BEST BATMAN GAEM OF ALL TIEM

GAME OF THE FOREVER

This game is so good i just spontaneously ejaculated

OMG every time i put the DVD in my xbox my dick gets hard

Arkham Asylum cured my aids

High praise indeed. So how could anyone ignore a game that’s so obviously GAME OF THE YEAR material? Well, if you’re not up to speed on the whole world of Batman, TFPG is here to help with this brief rundown of what you can expect going into Arkham Asylum as a bat-virgin.

Arkham Asylum begins with Batman arresting Heath Ledger and taking him to Arkham Asylum. Batman is suspicious because Heath Ledger a.k.a the Joker didn’t put up much resistance. Heath Ledger escapes, and then frees a bunch of lunatics from the Asylum, and in a radical new approach to treating the mentally ill, Batman has to beat the fucking crazy out of every single inmate on the Island.

Helping Batman in his crusade is Batgirl, a wheelchair bound, erm, batgirl, who provides radio support for the goddamn Batman. Along for the ride is Commissioner Gordon, possibly the only sane person in the entire Batman universe, as he’s the only person in all of gotham who is content with wearing a shirt, tie and slacks, and not talking in a silly voice.

Together, they face off against Batmans  greatest enemies, The Joker, a guy who dresses like a clown and kills the hell out of people literally for shits and giggles, his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, an ex-doctor turned fetish model/insane whore, Killer Croc, an 8 foot tall half human half crocodile….and you see where this is going. Its a fairly ridiculous scenario, so im not entirely sure not knowing much about the Batman world is actually that bad a thing.

Facing up to these human freakshows ranges from ‘boring’ to ‘fuck this‘. Killer Croc seems to be only capable of one attack move, which is running directly at Batman and screaming some incoherent shit about eating Batman, or something. Batman can deftly counter this by flinging a batarang (a boomerang shaped like a bat) into his face, and repeating this until the 8 foot tall half human half crocodile monster gets pissed off having his well laid plans of ‘run at batman’ ruined by a piece of metal bouncing off his face and leaves to find a better game to be a boss fight in.

Thats the boring, the fuck this comes in the form of Poison Ivy, a half woman half plant jesus christ am i actually TYPING these words?? who apparently the developers just thought ‘fuck it’ when it came to designing a boss fight, so they stuck her in a giant plant and made an irritating as fuck boss figt out of it. Then, not content with forcing you through one shitty boss fight, Ivy comes back to life after you defeat her, BUT NOW, they fill the room full of goons for you to fight while you fight the plant woman AGAIN.

So thats the really shit aspects of AA dealt with. Why is there so much love for the game floating around the internet for it then? Surely its not ALL shitty boss fights and dodgy dialogue? Well, not really. Its a very competent brawler, if a bit simplistic. There are 2 buttons, punch and dodge. So upon entering a room of 10 of Jokers goons, youll punch and dodge your way to freedom, maybe throw a batarang or two. Its balletic and exhilarating at first, but actually looks more fun then it really is, as a successful evade is merely a single button press timed well, but on screen triggers a kung fu Bruce Lee style manouvre by Batman as he grabs his attacker and proceeds to snap his fucking arms off.

The Joker is excellently voiced by Mark Hamill, yes, THE Mark Hamill, star of Space Ghost Coast to coast & MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch. The supporting cast are generally well acted and the visuals and design of Arkham and its inhabitants is never less than outstanding. The same cant be said for Batman himself however, who youd be forgiven for mistaking for a wooden chair or hatstand everytime he opens his mouth.

A shirt & tie? what are you, fucking nuts??

So to sum up, Arkham Asylum, while never being outright awful, is never consistently brilliant either. Its a good game, without a shadow of a doubt, but something tells me that its only the people sleeping tonight under their Batman bedsheets that can honestly fool themselves into thinking this is anywhere near being GAME OF THE DECADE.

Final Score:

(out of a potential 5)

For those of you, like me, old enough to remember a time when Sony dominated the home console market, Quake 3 Arena had the greatest graphics you’d ever seen, 5ive were slam dunking the funk on MTV, and pornography downloaded really fucking slowly thanks to our state of the art 56K modems, you may just remember the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast, a home console fondly remembered, apparently, by everyone who never actually played the fucking thing. With its 10 year anniversary nigh, and rumours of a Dreamcast 2 stumbling around the internet like a particularly pungent hobo, TFPG takes a look at the best worst console of the last generation.

WHAT WAS SHITTY ABOUT THE DREAMCAST:

It's like a machine that creates arthritis

1: That fucking controller

Take a look at that thing. Seriously, just take 1 minute to look at that hand held carpal tunnel vendor. Things you will notice about the dreamcast conroller:

• It honest-to-god looks like it was designed by someone with a learning disability, or a runner up prize in a small child’s art contest
• It’s roughly the size of 3 playstation controllers sellotaped together
• It’s buttons & stick are spaced so far apart it actually looks like it was originally designed to be operated by 2 or more people
• Its fucking atrocious


A rejected first draft of the DC controller

If you never played a Dreamcast, you’re probably wondering what purpose the massive fucking hole in the controller serves. This was Segas trump card, the revolutionary design feature that was to elevate this shitty abomination of a controller to the god tier of joypads, The Visual Memory Unit.

What the fuck?

Yes, now you too can live out your wildest fantasies of actually seeing your savegame files represented in glorious sub-tamagotchi graphics RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FUCKING EYES. I’m not going to lie, i cant even remember what the fuck this thing was for. Thats about the best compliment i can give it.

2: Super fast 56K online gaming

56K: FEEL THE RUSH

If you owned a computer in the late 90’s/Early 00’s, you know first hand the frustration of downloading internet porn on a 56k connection. Videos were of lesser quality and smaller file sizes than most modern day animated gifs, pictures were sub 800 x 600 resolution (because that was the size of your fucking monitor), and could literally take minutes to download. It was a scary time for those early pioneers into the wilderness of computer smut, but for those attempting to play online gaming over 56K connections, it was the equivalent of attempting a fucking moon landing in a hot air balloon.

Internet porn in 1999: Frustrating

The Dreamcast bravely, yet retardedly, took the plunge and became the first ever console with built in online gaming. An online service that required you to pay-per-minute of gaming as you would a phone call, an online presence sparsely populated (because nobody had the fucking internet then), and completely hobbled by a 56k modem (upgradeable to a broadband modem some years later, when everyone had by then bought a fucking playstation 2) meant that the dreamcasts online community was about as popular as a reggae band at a KKK rally.

3: SEAMAN

I have a few pointers for Sega, if they ever decide to return to the world of console design.
First off, if you’re ever faced with designing a new game to compete with the likes of Sony’s Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy 7/8/9, Medal of Honor: Frontline, etc etc, under any circumstances, DO NOT:

• Create a game that immediately conjures images of sperm in peoples minds. Most people dont like cum in their minds. Try and avoid titles such as Jizz, Cum, Boy Juice, Baby Batter, Spunk, or fucking SEAMAN (semen)
• Do not create a game that sounds like a reproductive fluid and then make the star of said game a half man/fish hybrid, as this leads to point 3 which is
• Creating a game called SEAMAN (semen) where the star of the game is a half man half fish instantly creates the impression in the consumers mind that this abomination was created though the practice of impregnating a FUCKING FISH WITH HUMAN SEMEN TO CREATE A HALF MAN HALF FISH CALLED SEAMAN
• PEOPLE DON’T LIKE GAMES ABOUT FUCKING A FISH

Literally the most exciting screenshot available for seaman

4: Hiring professional Twat Robbie Williams to do music for your adverts

Seriously, i’d be less offended if Sega hired Adolf Hitler to duet with Pete Doherty and sing the collected works of Charles Manson for thier adverts.

5: Shenmue

I AM LOOKING FOR A PLACE WHERE SAILORS HANG OUT

Like most teenagers in the late 90’s, i had a few, simple goals. Chief of these goals was to one day become a forklift driver, followed by one day hanging out and cruising gay bars for sailors fresh off the boat. Pre-Shenmue, these were merely fantasies, post-Shenmue, they were realities.

As a forklift driving simulator, it was second to none. Until then no game had dared dip its toe in the murky waters of depicting the life of a dock worker. Getting up each and every morning at 7:00am, getting the bus downtown, driving boxes around a pier until lunchtime, complete with the agonizing search for a decent noodle stand at lunch. Yes, the daily grind had until now never been portrayed so grittily, or so boringly.

Of course, that wasn’t the only string to shenmues bow. It also had the, seemingly fucking endless, search for a BLACK CAR, whereupon Ryo, the games protragonist, would quiz people endlessly as to wether or not they had seen a BLACK CAR. Thrilling stuff, you’ll agree.

Sadly for Sega ‘Drving a forklift truck’ is actually right below ‘unclogging a fucking toilet’ but slightly higher than ‘hanging around in bars looking for sailors’ on most gamers wishlists for ‘mindblowing shit videogames let me do that i could never do in real life’.

MINDBLOWING

At a cost of $100 million dollars to develop, and unlickily pegged as being THE SAVIOUR OF DREAMCAST, it was never going to be an easy ride for a game whose biggest claim to fame was that you could see seasons change while you went to work on the docks ever day. Some might argue that a game where you get up each morning and go to work to afford money for a holiday is a little too much like real life to be called enjoyable.

6: Sonic The Hedgehog

I am including sonic the Hedgehog solely because today i found out that the most searched for terms when discovering this blog were ‘Sonic Hentai’, ‘Knuckles fisting Rouge’ & ‘Sonic Porn’. The fuck is wrong with you people?