Paying for my sins (…or should that be sims?)

A little while ago I did something I have never done before, I pre-ordered a game. Unfortunately that game was the new Sim City and I became a small part of what has to be the most botched game launch in history. In the months that have followed I have joined the frustrated thousands across the world as server connection issues, city roll-backs and crashes to menu plague my gaming experience.

The warning signs were there of course. It had been no secret that this, the most single of single player games was suddenly going "social", and would require a permanent internet connection. But I had also read that there would still be a single player experience, and wrongly assumed that it would all be ok in the end.

Thankfully in recent years I have a good and stable web collection. So my attitude to always online has softened. Like many I'd been boycotting Ubisoft games for years as they also insisted in this draconian form of DRM. But this was Sim City, the first Sim City in a decade, it couldn't be that bad!

Sim City was also of course an Origin exclusive. Now digital distribution is a wonderful thing. Back in the mid noughties I bought a game called Race, which required for verification purposes that I created an account on something called steam. I was a bit miffed about it at first, and that every time my machine loaded after that I had to wait an age for this steam thing to login on my creaky old rural connection.

It was a wet and miserable Sunday afternoon when I finally discovered that this steam thing was really about, content delivery. I was bored and wanted a new game help bide my time. I started searching the steam store and eventually bought myself two reasonably cheap games. The first was called 18 Wheels of Steel, and was about driving trucks. It tought me two very valuable lessons in life. Firstly that there should be a law preventing me from ever getting within 50ft of an HGV, and secondly that I had a terrible taste in games.

My second was called the Ship. It was a simple multiplayer game where players assumed the role of passengers on a 1920's steamer. Somewhere else was another passenger, who it was your task to murder without being noticed, the catch of course is that there was another hunter tracking you down. I became something of a ship master over the next few months as my kill tally soared. Steam had given me access to game I never would have bought in a shop, for a reasonable price, and i loved it! It was the dawn of a new gaming era!

Of course until I moved out of the country and into the town the creaky connection proved the thorn in my side, Need for Speed Shift for example took 3 entire days to plop itself onto my hard drive, I could reinstall it today in about an hour.

Steam is now part of my life, games come and go, spontaneous sales are met with spontaneous purchases and I cannot remember the last time I looked at a physical game in a shop. My steam account is my gaming history, as a 90's era US hipster might have said - Steam Rocks!

So why the hell do I want Origin? Clunky executions and ridiculously high prices with a patching system which is as diverting as steam is seamless. Why don't you just go the whole hog and tell me that we will let you play our game, but only after you have licked the toilet bowl clean?

So there we go. I pre-ordered a game I could see was clearly going to have issues, at an exorbitant price and on a platform I would't normally touch with ten-foot barge pole

I have no-one to blame to blame but myself. I guess I'll try again to log onto a server,  wait 15 minutes for the damn thing to load, and then see how long I get before my city stops processing again - getting to 30 minutes would be good...

Monaco Baby...Yeah!

It's about time I gave a full and heartfelt thank you to sky sports for freeing up my weekend, as this will be the first time since 1990 I have not sat down to watch live the magic that is the Monaco Grand Prix.

In 2001 I actually had tickets for a Rugby Sevens tournament at Twickenham to which I took a small portable television. It was optimistic as in all the years I'd persevered with this device I had only ever once managed to find a channel, in black and white and through a severe snowstorm.

Thankfully, unlike at most round-ball stadiums drinking at rugby venues is positively encouraged, and on one of my trips to the bar I'd noticed that the TV was set to ITV, and Brundle was walking his grid. So there I stayed. Whilst outside the nations of the World battled against each other, i remained in the bar watching David Coulthard desperately trying to get by Enrique Bernoldi.

Monaco is the last remnant of what motor racing used to be. Even back in 1929 it must have been completely unsuitable for a Grand Prix, but it was to be the ultimate test of man and machine, where the smallest error would be punished and the larger ones result in a Mediterranean dip. Had it not always been there then it's impossible to think that it ever could have happened. If you'd let the modern F1 track designers loose on the city today then the harbour would have been filled in to create run-off and the main straight and DRS zone would have begun in Nice.

Of course of all the venues on the calendar Monaco is the place where anything can happen. Who could ever forget the 1996 Grand Prix, which was supposed to be the year Damon Hill finally took that elusive win on the streets his father had made his own. However, on this day the sky-gods had other plans.

Between P3 and the race the heavens opened. On a wet track Hill jumped pole-sitter Schumacher into St Devote and began to pull away, Schumi's race was over a few corners later as he slid off at Mirabeau and into the wall. In total 5 cars failed to finish that first lap which turned out to be an omen of things to come.

Hill's challenge disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke 40 laps in as his Renault engine expired coming out of the tunnel. Jean Alesi looked to inherit a popular win but he to was forced out on lap 60 with suspension failure. On a day where 18 of the 21 starters dropped by the wayside, the luck fell to the hard charging Olivier Panis to snatch his sole GP victory, beating the McLaren of David Coulthard by almost 5 seconds.

It would take a lot for this Sundays race to top the entertainment value of 1996, but with controversies over rapidly degrading tyres in the headlines maybe we could see someone different on the top step this weekend. Not to mention what might happen if the sky-gods decide it's time for a wet race.

Thanks to Sky I'm not going to be watching the race live this year, but i'm not watching it live with extra cash in my pocket. Whatever lies in wait for me on the BBC highlights, i hope it's time for another Monaco classic.

Toot & Come In - The Return to Brysonline

The candle flickered in the evening breeze as we began our decent towards the sealed doorway. Engraved on the stone was a name, it's meaning long since lost to history. I chipped away enough at the rock to create a small hole. There was a breeze across my cheek as the stale air from within finally found freedom. I thrust the candle through the hole, it took a few moments but soon I was able to pick out shadows in the darkness. 

“What can you see?” came a voice from behind me. 

“Wonderful things!”

There was a long silence

"Ok… well stuff!"

I emerged from the tomb entrance to announce the re-discovery to the waiting world. Unfortunately they were all watching the launch of the new Xbox, so I think I'll just go for a Nando's.

I'm sure Howard Carter would have done the same.