Missing - Presumed Lost

At the bottom of my garden there is a small football tethered to a tree. It's the last remnant of whoever lived in my house before I did - who presumably was either a child or alarmingly bad at taking free kicks. Every day I see that football and every day I do absolutely nothing about it. It gets the odd kick out of the way every time I need to mow the lawn but there it sits, unloved and abandoned, presumably until I have moved on and it becomes the next guys problem.

I thought of this because it's almost been the same with this webpage. For the last year or so I've known it was there, moved the odd thing about every now and then but never actually done anything about it.

There was a small surge in interest back in January when I decided that 2011 was the year of the reboot, but suddenly it's almost July and I've done absolutely nothing. And it's not as if I've had nothing to talk about.

As was indicated in my opening paragraph I've got a new house in a new town with a new tethered football. I've recently been spending time in Germany losing drinking contests with the locals and most alarming of all I've made it to 30.

I'm still trying to work out how the hell that happened! I'm convinced it's a mathematical error and somehow the years since 2004 were just a "Dallas" style dream. One morning I'll step out of the shower and find that I'm still in a world where you can walk into a pub, order a beer and get change out of £3.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but on previous form it may be more likely than me making another post before Christmas.

Still, stranger things have happened...

Time to say Goodnight

It's another evening when I am lying in my bed flicking though the channels on my Freeview box when I really aught to sleeping. It's amazing to think that it's just over a decade since television here in the UK used to shut-down overnight. Auntie Beeb would wish us a solemn goodnight before the national anthem drew the evening to a dignified conclusion. The idents would fade and we where left with the iconic test card showing the girl, the blackboard and that slightly creepy doll which has been giving me nightmares ever since “Life on Mars”

This is all a recent memory but it's a window into a different age – a different century. In those not-so-distant days if we wanted to know the latest news then we would have to wait until the morning papers where delivered. A world in which we had separate machines for making phone calls, taking photographs and listening to music. Back then if we felt the urge to “poke” our friends then we would need a stick and a swift excuse before they retaliated with a punch in the face.

The notion of television going to bed at night may seem quaint and antiquated in our age of 24 hour media, apps and high definition. Now for insomniacs everywhere you can bathe in the delights of the rolling news, where 15 minutes of television is regurgitated over and over like a bite-sized groundhog day. All the thrills of las vegas are recreated right there in your living room with interactive roulette and poker. And of course if you spin on far enough you get to the half naked ladies jiggling their bottoms whilst miming naughty things with the help of a cordless phone.

Progress is a gradual transition, there are times when it's barely noticeable at all - and others where you are left thinking “why did they even bother?”

How to have a Bloody Good Time

Imagine the scene. After years of trials and tribulations you have finally been handed your big-break in Hollywood. The top “slasher” movie director wants you for his next masterpiece “Springbreak”. Unfortunately for you there are to be no big budget special effects here, Bloody Good Time is a simple game in which you must kill or be killed.

It begins with me standing in the bedroom of a beachside house, just in the wardrobe to my right seems to be a very large samurai sword which I collect, imaging it may prove useful later on. A voice tells me that we are about to shoot “the hunt” and I am presented with the image of slightly spooky looking clown it will be my task to eliminate.

I turn out of the room and on to the backstage area of a film set. I notice on the wall below a scaffold is a large red button, it's just sitting there tempting me looking all big and red and buttony. “What the heck” I think to myself as I give it a press. Above me comes the sound of a trapdoor opening as a young goth girl crashes limp and lifeless at my feet.

I sheepishly move on after being at the receiving end of directorial dressing down for killing the wrong person. I walk into what appears to be a hotel lobby, by now my needs indicators at the bottom of the screen are showing me to be a little peckish. I wonder to the bar where I order a cheeseburger the size of my head – tasty!

A message flashes up telling me that my red-nosed quarry was last spotted on the beach. A quick look around shows it to be just through the double doors of the lobby. I run outside where my floppy footed friend is spotted climbing a rock to my left. Let the hunt begin

I catch him unawares on top of the rock taking a rocket launcher from a crate. Knowing I have not been spotted I draw my sword and move in for the kill. My quarry turns to face me at the last minute when suddenly the perspective jumps to third person and I see my swimsuit clad beach babe, knife in back turn to face her own killer, a pink leotarded Vegas showgirl who is already wriggling her bottom in a jubilant fashion over my now lifeless body.

The scene was completed as my once hunted clown, blew the mocking showgirl away with his rocket launcher, no doubt thanking the gods for this double piece of good fortune – his own hunter taken down by his nominated quarry.

He has no time to hang about however as I am resurrected on a nearby rooftop. My Samurai sword has been lost during my untimely demise but in the corner of the room I see a molotov cocktail . My journey to collect it is interupted by a message telling me I am about to have an accident – bloody cheeseburger went straight through me. Thankfully a portaloo is situated nearby and I am able to take care of my bodilies. A fatal mistake it would transpire. As I sit on the bowl a beach bloke in blue bermuda's bashes my head in with a frying pan before flushing my lifeless corpse down the pan

I am resurrected one more time in the sitting room of a house. Behind me in a suitcase is something called a robo-mouse. My curiosity drives me to pick it up and discover it to be small radio controlled mine. I send my little robo rodent off in the direction of my cursed clown friend. I find him sleeping on a bed upstairs, bad time for nap-time! Before he can do anything I detonate sending pieces of killer clown in all directions. My day's work has been done, and I can't help but laugh.

In fact I have been laughing almost non stop for the last 5 minutes. Because everything in Bloody Good Time is hilarious!

OK so there are only 3 maps, but when the game cost less than a pint of lager of the Queens Head it doesn't matter. The servers can be quiet at times but that's because like many people I only found it by accident. The game is not being promoted at all by the developer and rumour is that the small British publisher has had to go into hibernation praying for this game to become a success.

So I'll try and spread the word, Bloody Good Time is exactly what it says on the box, or digital download in this case. If you have a few pound coins in your pocket, or a few left over Xbox live points then you could to much worse than give this a go. Because for a ten minute blast on the PC/Xbox, this is amazing fun. Although my last 10 minute blast turned into most of last Saturday!

http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=9099