Ask Duds

This is a reprint from my gaming blog, originally published at http://www.gamingverdict.com/blogs.htmlдивани

Coming soon to this site is a review of Race PRO, Simbin’s long awaited port of their utterly brilliant simulation PC racers Race 07 and GTR Evolution. Without wishing to pre-empt they’ve judged the physics near perfectly but unfortunately the game is so bugged that technically it doesn’t even qualify to be called a “beta” under most software production methodologies. If you haven’t bought it yet DON’T at least until you’ve let us have our say. Suffice to say it appears there’s a very good reason they didn’t dare release a demo.

By sheer coincidence, my LoveFilm queue (filled almost exclusively with games I liked the look of but didn’t actually buy) threw up the System 3’s PS3 equivilent “Ferrari Challenge” this week and I got round to having a play tonight.

What ultimately turned me off buying the game was that the promised DLC never arrived due to licencing issues and that the developer is Eurtechnyx whose driving game CV is long but peaks with “Total Drivin” (desperately average PSX game from 1997), the crap versions of the LeMans game from the mid 90s and “Pimp my Ride - The game”.

Somehow though they’ve nailed this one, it’s not just the subject matter that means this immediately reminds me of Sega’s “Ferrari 355″. The physics are dead on for the Ferraris and I’m loving the care and detail that’s gone into being the game of the marque. So far as well there’s none of the screen tearing, crappy frame rate and massive AI bugs that are just part of the “charm” of Race PRO either.

Not that it’s perfect of course, you can only use one car until you’ve done really quite a lot of driving for example and I’d want more time with it to see if there are no nasty surprises in store but I think I’d be confident in saying that if you were interested in Race PRO and own a PS3 as well, save your £35 and spend less than half that picking a copy of this up from the good people of ASDAoptical communications.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7826663.stm

Let’s play a game of analyse the report shall we…

Teen killed mother in Halo 3 row

“A US teenager killed his mother and wounded his father in revenge after they took away his violent computer game, a judge has ruled.

So any reasonable person reads that as “Judge blames game”.

“The defence team for Daniel Petric, 17, had argued his addiction to the Halo 3 game, in which players shoot invading aliens, had made him insane.

But the judge rejected this, saying he had planned revenge for weeks”

Oh, so basically we lied in the headline AND byline. Super. Thanks BBC.
Still, you can’t legislate for these things, people will find a way to cause you harm if they want to, it’s not as if the parents had done anything mindbogglingly dumb.

On the night of the shooting in October 2007, Petric used his father’s key to open a lockbox and remove a 9mm handgun and the game, the court heard.

Wait… WHAT? You had an effectively unsecured gun in the house? You don’t think that might have been some sort of problem? That you couldn’t be bothered to secure a sodding GUN?

But no, it’s Halo’s fault, a game where at no stage do you shoot a human. Crime need means, motive and opportunity. The parents provided 1 and 3 by leaving a gun (to all intents and purposes) lying around. Perhaps the motive is that they were total bloody morons…

And this is the (albeit rapidly going downhill since the staff cuts) BBC News website. God knows how the Mail will try and spin it. At least in this case he was old enough to play the thing.

So Channel 4 decide to give their alternative christmas message to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. The MPs leap into action to condemn Channel 4 for daring to practice free speech. We do of course have free speech in this country, you’re allowed to agree with as much of what Gordon Brown says as you like.

мебелиLabour MP Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the Labour Jewish Movement, said: “I condemn Channel 4’s decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the Holocaust, while preparing for another, and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street.

“Who will deliver next year’s alternative Christmas message? Will it be David Irving or Robert Mugabe?”

Either would be excellent if you can get them Channel 4. If the MPs are so sure how wrong these men are, why are they so afraid for us to be allowed to hear what they have to say. How is this any different from China blocking access to the BBC’s site because it doesn’t agree with their government?

If you think the Iranian President is so obvious a loon Ms Ellman, why can’t we find that out…. or perhaps maybe he isn’t of course, we don’t know unless we here. An unchallenged platform? What exactly do you think you’re doing if not challenging him with that statement? What do you think I’m doing if not challenging you?

Always be suspicious when someone wants to only let you hear one side of an arguement. That’s how most of the world’s problems get started with generations growing up to hate entire other races, religious or indeed sexualities simply because they’ve only heard their side’s views.

I mention homosexuality because of course the Pope had a bleet away last year that the destruction of the planet due to climate change was no different than having a couple of blokes kiss. He’s got a point of course, so long as the world is desperately underpopulated. Hang on, I’ll just go and check….. Ah. Apparently we’re about 2 billion over the max the planet can sustain long term already and rising. Super.

Meanwhile he uses his Christmas message to appeal for an end to hatred and violence in the middle east. That’s different of course to his previous call FOR hatred against homosexuals of course, the countries in the middle east really do have genuine grievances against each other. The only reason to be anti-homosexuality is because you’re a bigoted meddaling former member of the Hitler Youth.

Strange though, you’d think a man whose job is basically to wear a dress in public would be more understanding of sexual identity issues…

Recently I’ve been doing more writing about games so if my bitching about my ISP isn’t enough Duds for you, additional Dudsitude can be accessed at the following locations.

Cast your eyes right for a banner for Gaming Verdict, there you’ll find reviews of everything for xmas and beyond. Levels of 100% Duds are found in the MotoGP 08 and Tomb Raider Underworld reviews with Tony Hawk Motion DS and Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe to follow.

Also at GV you’ll find my gaming industry blog. Where I blog. About games.

If that’s not enough Duds I reviewed MotoGP 08 for short and to the point review site Snappy Gamer, with hopefully Midnight Club LA to follow.

You’ll also find me in all 4 volumes of the excellent encylopedic games tomes “The Spectrum Games Bible“. Book 4 covering 1989-1990 is just out, joining books 1, 2 and 3. This was a charity project for an animal sanctuary so you’ll even be able to feel good about yourself if you buy it.

And finally, RGCD is back and preparing for issue 5, I’ll be much in evidence as usual.

Be’s latest “update”.

Dear Members

Felix Geyr
Managing Director, Be Unlimited

Almost complete bollocks of course but especially worth noting is the bit on 404s. Demon and PlusNet both show “We’ve blocked this because of the IWF” messages, making Be’s ranting at best a completely insulting lie.

At this point, despite using and loving Be for multiple years I simply can’t recommend you touch them with a 10 foot pole without a solid proxy to test every 404 you encounter and to get round the fact that currently you STILL can’t edit wikipedia despite the IWF removing the page 3 days ago.

Certainly don’t buy a static ip from them because you won’t actually get one thanks to their proxy. They’re lucky I’m not reproducing the bit in the forum where they threatened customers who wanted to cancel their contracts thanks to Be’s lying about the terms.

Incidentally, anything and everything in this post will apply to connections from O2 who bought Be and are currently running it into the ground.

Here’s Be’s “Official update”

Be have been working with the IWF along with O2 for sometime as we believe they are integral to helping protect children and allow users to report illegal sites and activity. The IWF has designated this content on Wikipedia as illegal and, in accordance with our commitment to the IWF, we have denied Be members access to this page. We are really sorry for the inconvenience caused, and also the 404 error page that you saw, but as requested by the IWF this is the page that we have decided to display when such content is blocked. We will continue to work with the IWF and hope you can support us in choosing to help protect children.

In other words “Dear Paedos, Fuck off, Love Be”.

I’ll repeat here what I wrote back…

I’m sorry, is this the final official statement?

SERIOUSLY?

Try again.

1 - Why did you lie and say you don’t use transparent proxies. By what time will this be included in the terms?
2 - Why did you lie and say 404, when will this be changed to a proper blocking message?
3 - Why are you taking the word of a non-legal non-elected body on legality?
4 - Will you be blocking all copies of this picture and all sites which host it, including Amazon and Google? If not, why not?
5 - When will you update the terms to make it clear if you use Be you will not be able to edit the 4th most popular site on the net?
6 - When will you make it clear static ips aren’t?
7 - What is your comment on the fact that the image can be seen by anyone, children or otherwise, in sufficiently large record shops and has been constantly for 30 years?
8 - Will you be blocking any of the 8 million proxy sites I could use to get around this?

This isn’t just an insufficient statement, it’s actually insulting. You could have achieved the exact same effect by posting “Be says that anyone who complains about this must be a paedophile”

I like Be, I adore Be. I’ve used them for over 2 years and recommended them at every turn. But I’ll take a slower internet anyday if it’s actually the internet and not just that portion of which an unelected, unmonitored group of Daily Mail readers deam is suitable for me.

Be’s laughable response

Recently a notice has appeared on Wikipedia when many UK users attempt to edit pages on the site:
“Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block those abusing the site without blocking other innocent people as well.”
We wanted to let our members know that we are aware of the situation and are currently looking into it.

This is the first time that a situation like this has occurred since Be signed up to the Internet Watch Foundation, a scheme that we signed up to with our member’s best interests in mind. We are making sure that whatever happens next is for the benefit of our members and the reasons behind it are clearly communicated.

Nothing about their lie of a claim to not use transparent proxies, nothing about them lying and saying the page didn’t exist when actually they were blocking it and no justification of using a bunch of unelected Daily Mail readers to tell me which bits of the internet I’m allowed to look at.

Try this link…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer

It’s about a mid-1970s album with a kid on the front cover.

Unless you’re on Virgin Media, Be Unlimited/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon or Opal in which case it’s a 404 - Not found message. These ISPs have decided to pro actively block that part of Wikipedia because they say it’s child porn.

This is completely unacceptable. Not only have ISPs just managed to shoot their common carrier status in the foot, neatly making them legally responsible for anything they carry (since their argument was always that it wasn’t possible to monitor, apparently it is) but the message is a lie. The file IS there, but you’re being blocked from seeing it.

There is nothing illegal about the page at all, they’ve just decided to make a moral decision on your behalf, what next? O2 blocking Vodafone’s homepage? Demon blocking santanic nomenclature?

Worse, the ISPs have done it by routing their every user through a tiny number of proxies. The upshot of this is Wikipedia is only seeing 1 or 2 ip addresses for all of us and has thus been forced to ban all editing from those ISPs because it’d be impossible to identify and ban abusers without banning the entire ISP anyway. In short, because of one self-appointed moral guardian somewhere getting their panties in a twist over a 30 year old album, you can’t edit Wikipedia.

I will of course be complaining to my ISP (Be), anyone who’ll listen and anyone just stupid enough to stand still for 30 seconds. I hope everyone will do the same. My ISP is not my mum, I already have one of those and it wouldn’t surprised me if she’d bought that album…

Be users can find a forum thread, with bonus bringing up of an official denial they’d ever do this at - https://www.bethere.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23689

Customer cars are allowed.

Any constructor must sell a complete year old package to at least 1 other team if requested, at an FIA mandated price.

Teams are allowed to enter 1- as many cars as they damn well wish.

Teams may enter part time, for as little as 1 race if they wish, full time teams are also allowed wildcard entries.

Part time teams do not get TV money, Full time customer teams DO get a baseline amount but will not score Constructor’s points. While customers will get a fair share this is designed to encourage proper constructors.

26 cars will be allowed to start races, an infinate number of entries will be allowed but any proper constructor will be guaranteed a starting spot for its top 2 cars (which they can choose if they’ve entered more). For instance if this was implemented for 2009, the 16 real constructor entries expected would be guaranteed 16 of the 26 grid slots (but not the top 16) whereas STR and any wildcard entries would have to qualify on time if too many turn up.

Part time and 3rd car entries can run any damn livery they like. If Ferrari can get a cars budget from Coca Cola for a US grand prix then they can run it. If Carlin can put together budget from Sky TV to run a customer Williams and a British driver at that round only then they’re welcome.

Points extended downwards, ideally to 20th place out of 26. Everyone will have something to race for. The requirement to do 90% to score points will remain. There may need to be some form of qualifying pace requirement, maybe 107% in Q1.

–

This way Constructors can remain constructors. There are both sporting and financial benefits to doing so. With the obligation only to supply year old machinery it’ll be rare for too many customer machines to win but they will be pretty competitive at times and a bizarre race will see them do at least as well as Aguri were doing in 2007. With a baseline amount of TV money if they do full time or the ability to do only the races they can afford if they have to be part timers, running a customer team will be financially viable and if we get to the stage of pre-qualifying, TV rights for that session will be offered for free if the main broadcaster does not wish to show it so everyone gets sponsorship exposure.

Part time entries will get more companies into F1, local teams may be able to organise deals to run a customer car at one race only, with local sponsors for whom worldwide exposure could be prohibitively expensive. A GP2 team could do so at the end of the season on behalf of one of their drivers who wants to make a bid for a proper drive. Who wouldn’t have liked to see an ISport run McLaren driven by Bruno Senna sat somewhere in midgrid back in Brazil this year?

It’d benefit venues too, How many tickets could Fuji have sold on the back of throwing some money at DAMS to run Kobayashi and Satooooooo in a couple of 07 Toyotas at the Japanese Grand Prix this year?

It allows teams to evaluate drivers better. McLaren were pretty sure they wanted Lewis but how much easier would it have been and how much would every fan have loved to see a 3rd McLaren at Silverstone in 2006 with him making his debut on home soil? Less pressure for a home driver, he knows the circuit and he’s in a year old car so limited expectation. He gets to acclimatise, the team can give their new guy valuable experience. How excellent would it be in 2009 if DC returned one last time at Silverstone in a Wings Of Life liveried Red Bull to right the wrongs of his exit in Brazil and to see the old circuit off? How much publicity could you generate if the BBC followed him every inch of the way for a documentary shown outside the race program?

The year old clause means that while it’s still of benefit to make your own car you’re not keeping anything secret too long, Prodrive will have your McLaren soon enough. One moment of tech genius can still win a championship but it won’t keep you ahead forever. This squashes the field naturally but will also reduce budgets the proper way, by making spending more an exercise in diminishing returns. Yes you’ve got twice what Renault spend, but that’ll earn you a lot less on them than it did previously. You’ll never stop Ferrari spending half a billion but you can certainly stop it mattering as much without ever losing the tech credentials of Formula one.

Constructors benefit, Customer Teams benefit, Tracks benefit, Countries benefit, Spectators get larger, more fluid grids and new excitement and intrigue at every round and more importantly no-one has to freeze development on a fucking thing. F1 can remain the high tech series it should be but also remain the spectacle we’d love it to be.

–

But no they’ll probably freeze development on the driver’s fucking water bottles instead.