Michael Jackson 1958 - ?

Unless you've been living on the dark side of the moon, without radio or internet contact, you're probably aware that Michael "King of Pop" Jackson died on Thursday, June 25th, 2009.* His death, as a friend of mine pointed out, did what the Iranian government could not- it stopped the internet, breaking Wikipedia due to an influx of updates, and taking down several major websites.

While I was shocked by the announcement, I can't say that I had the reaction that a lot of people are having. Michael is being revered as some kind of "God of Pop" now, not it's King. In death, all his past failures and indiscretions are being cleverly ignored or forgotten in favor of his music, his personality, but most importantly, the "way he was" before things started to go... weird. I really don't have a problem with this, however. I find myself remembering the good times too, like the first time I heard Black or White, and how, even at the young age I was, it brought tears to my eyes for having such a powerful message.

What I can't understand is the fevered obsession that has spread across the world with this news. It is an event that seems to be gaining as much media attention as September 11th. His funeral is being predicted as even bigger than Frank Sinatras.

Yet if death is the end, then, for me, Michael Jackson died somewhere between 1995, when HIStory was released, the last album that had songs in it I liked, and 2000, when things started to really turn weird for the King of Pop. By 2002 he had two sons christened Prince Michael and Prince Michael II, the latter of whom was also referred to as "Blanket". That was when I stopped listening to news about Jacko.

Please don't get me wrong. His death is of course a tragedy. Of course it is right to be mournful. But I feel the same way about Michaels passing as I do about a person killed in a car crash in Cavan. They both had the potential for greatness, an influence on so many peoples lives. They'll never get to do all the things they had planned. But I didn't know either of them. It doesn't affect me personally. Their loss, while sad, means little to my life and how I live it. It is their family and friends that will have to continue without them in their lives. The people who knew and loved them will have to live in a world that is a little emptier now. All these things are cause for sadness and silence.

But it is not cause for what we are seeing now. Millions across the world are mourning Michaels loss as if he was their brother. He is being called the greatest dancer and musician the world has ever known. According to the ticker on Sky News, people seem to think that we have lost one of the worlds absolute greats. Really? Eh... no. Not in my eyes.

And maybe I've just realized what my difficulty with the media attention is. Michaels death is not what is important here. He has gone onto wherever his beliefs will take him. A place where he can find peace. It is his family that must deal with the loss. Both his parents are still alive. He has eight brothers and sisters. Countless cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, family and friends. And they are who I am sorry for. They cannot grieve the way the parents and family of the car crash victim can. They are going to be surrounded by rabid fans and media for weeks to come. Leave his family to morn their loss. Leave them in peace.

What scares me most about this event is how fast the world knew. With internet, text messaging, twittering and a whole range of world-wide social networking systems, I found out about it while out at a meal, away from radios, televisions and computers. Worse still, according to his Wikipedia page, "Jackson was declared dead at 2:26 pm local time (21:26 UTC)" which is 22:26 Irish time. I was informed of his death at around 11pm, a mere 30 minutes later.

Will my death be recorded that fast? If it means that my family and friends can morn me in peace, then I hope not.

*- If that is the case, then how are you reading this now? Oh, and, sorry to break the bad news.

10,000G, 100% PURE Class

Not that long ago I posted about reaching 1,000G in a game for the very first time.

Today, I announce my newest gaming achievement. Minutes ago, I reached the five-digit GamerScore! 10,000G.

I gotta admit, I never thought I'd see that number under my Gamer Tag! As I said when I reached 1,000G in Burnout, I wasn't very big into GamerScore until I went online. I think it also helped that I started hitting benchmarks, like the first thousand, and I began to realize just how close I was getting to the 10,000 mark, which lent an air or excitement to each new Achievement I unlocked. Once I was within just a few short points of the big round number, I decided that I wanted to hit it exactly, and searched around for some easily reached Achievements that would give me just the right amount. Conveniently, Saints Row 2 hand a few five and ten point Achievements that I had yet to unlock.

But while Saints Row 2 might have brought me up to the magic number, most recently it was PURE*, a quad bike racing game by Disney, that added a sizable chunk of GamerScore to my tally. Having played the demo months ago, I grabbed this while it was on sale in HMV. It's an awesome racing game, that kicks things up a notch with an incredible tricks system. The tracks are stunningly beautiful, and the character models are fantastically detailed. I love how the bikes and riders start fresh and clean at the beginning of every race, but slowly get covered in a layer of mud and dirt that seems genuinely realistic. The immerse quality of the game can best be defined by revealing that this is the first game in well over a decade that I have found myself leaning side-to-side around corners, or twisting the controller in odd ways as my bike leaps off the apex of a hill into the wild blue yonder! The odd faces I make, and the little yelps of pain only add to the experience. Playing it with an audience adds a further soundtrack of cheers, howls of laughter and gasps of horror, depending on the outcome of some particularly spectacular jumps. I was particularly impressed with the veracity of the locations when a friend called over, looked at one of the loading screens for the start of a race and accurately identified the location. In fact, he had been standing roughly when the image was taken from, and had used the cable car that was visible! Nice!

The game itself is incredibly fun to play. I'd be lying if I said it was difficult, but Disney have successfully walked the thin line that separates easy from hard to create a game that remains fun right through to the end. I managed to get first place in every race fairly easily, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

One of the cooler aspects of the game is the bike creation feature. You get to build your own bikes, with an incredible ten slots to unlock and fill in your garage! Everything can be altered and customised, from performance affecting parts like the frame or engine, to purely aesthetic features, such as the grips, nerf bar or mudguards. Noel, Bob and Chris have all designed bikes for me, each with their own unique take on how I should use them. In all cases, I have gone on to use their bikes over my own! Chris designed a killer stunt track ATV, Bob's bike is great for races, proving that red truly does go faster, while Noels PaleHorse is the perfect all-rounder!

With such great gameplay, amazing graphics, beautiful locations and crystal clear commitment to fun, PURE is a game no racing enthusiast should be without. Seeing the Disney brand on the cover might turn some people off, but this is no Avatar! You earn your Achievements, and it feels great when you do. I pumped the air so often while playing this game I think I strained a shoulder muscle!

That, or I'm just having sympathetic pains for all those times I landed my onscreen rider head-first into the track.

* - I linked to a review of PURE on Xbox 360 Achievements instead of the official homepage, as the games site is entirely Flash based and immediately starts playing sound and music once it loads up. If you'd like to visit the official homepage, just click here. Just remember, you have been warned.

Good Times

While looking through some of the photos I have tagged as "Favourite" on Flickr, I found these, in no particular order.None of these were taken by me, but all of them bring back some great memories. All images link to their original location, so click through to read about them.

In case people haven't seen them, there is a full set of Spider-Man's adventures around Cork, posted by Peter Parker himself, on Flickr. Seems he had a lot of fun while Claire and myself were away in the U.S. last summer. Just follow the link!

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is...

This fine morning in Ireland is a Bank Holiday Monday, a day of rest and relaxation, a day of Xboxing, movie watching, comic reading, and, yes, blogging. Claire rose early, requiring tea and Warcraft, while I rolled over in my warm bedsheets, stretching out to enjoy the full space of the bed I now had to myself.

And then the fire alarm went off.

Now, as anyone that lives in Ireland will tell you, when a fire alarm goes off, everyone looks around and says "Is that my phone?" or "Sure, there's no smoke, so there mustn't be fire." The alarm has gone off once before, and I met one of the other tenants who informed me that if it does start ringing, I can just hit reset. If it's a minor incident caused by cooking breakfast, as long as that apartment has already looked after it, it will be fine. The alarm will reset and I can return to my beloved Xbox. The system is the same one NASA uses for it's labs.

Just as I was reaching the hall, the fellow (let's call him Fred for the purpose of this tale) I had previously met was already there hitting reset. I smiled, turned and closed the door.

And then the fire alarm went off.

I grabbed a jumper. "I'll get dressed", Claire said. I went back into the hall and asked Fred if I could help. Apartment 22 was causing the problem, so I raced up the stairs to the fourth floor to see if everything was ok. There was definitely a smell of smoke in the hall, and there was no answer when I knocked. Drawing on years of watching American TV, I placed my hand flat on the door, but there was no heat. Oh yeah. I rock... er... Now what do I do? I started downstairs, filling Fred in by calling down the stairwell. Fred was already on the way up, having left someone else at the alarm controls. We headed to the roof garden and had a look down. A faint smell of smoke, but still nothing visible. Fred and I looked at each other. Time to evacuate.

Both of us walked back downstairs, stopping at each floor to alert the various apartments. Once back on the ground we waited for the arrival of the fire brigade. One of the other tenants in the block rang them, but was just hanging up when we heard the sirens outside. Fast reaction times! They arrived in, questioned one or two of us on the situation, and headed for the building. There must have been ten to fifteen fire-fighters. It was incredible. They were so well organised and meticulous, and everything was done perfectly, at least from where I stood. I enjoyed spotting some of the tech they had as well. As well as all the standard affair stuff, they had a somewhat bulky thermal vision camera. Cool.

They gained access to the apartment in question, and removed a bin bag that had been smouldering from a disposed still-hot cigarette. One of the people renting the apartment had shown up in the meantime, and got a stern lecture about how careless she had been from the lead fire-fighter.

In less than 45 minutes, everything was sorted. We were let re-enter the building, and Claire found her morning cup of tea sitting on the table, cold.

I gotta say, it was a good morning. No-one was hurt. Nothing was destroyed. The people in the block got to meet each other and say hi. It turned into somewhat of a nice experience, and it has encouraged me to consider organising a block barbecue at some point so that we can get to know each other, and will know who is in what apartment if this every happens again.

And now I'm awake. I haven't wasted my morning of freedom asleep in bed. I'm off to fire up the Xbox for a bit.

Resolute

Some of you may be aware already that I am a big fan of G.I. Joe. As a kid, the 3"3/4' scale Joe action figures made up the vast bulk of my toy collection, aided by the fact that both myself and my brother collected them religiously. Birthdays, Christmas', Communions, any excuse we could find was channelled into the Joes. I still have my first two Joe figures, General Hawk and Lifeline. Back then they were called Action Force over here, but while they started differently, they quickly became the same thing. We had the best comics as well. While Marvel produced the superb GI Joe monthly comic by legendary Joe writer Larry Hama, Britain, and thus Ireland too, got a weekly series with a bunch of extra material to make up the page-count, and even got an awesome black'n'white 2000AD styled series, Battle Action Force.

My memories of the G.I. Joe cartoon as a child however are non-existent, as my first experience with it was in my late teens. Cheesy, flashy and simplistic in every way, the cartoons were the usual 80's stuff, fantastic when you were a kid, but absolutely dreadful now. The animated movie, released around the same time as the animated Transformers movie was marginally better, benefiting from a larger production budget and increased freedom with its plot.

In August of this year, just a few short months away already, we'll have GI Joe's first run at a live-action movie. I personally can't wait, but admit to my huge love as a strong bias for enjoying anything with the name G.I. Joe. That said, the trailer looks awesome!


But before that, we have what prompted me to write this late night meandering waffle of a love letter to a childhood toy line. G.I. Joe: Resolute is the newest effort at an animated G.I. Joe in recent years. Prior to this we had the poorly received animé inspired G.I. Joe: Sigma 6, which was probably still better than the 80's version but I'm older and wiser now and have no nostalgia for it. Also, it starred characters with the same names as the toys I played with, but with very little resemblance beyond that, either in design or attitude. Resolute on the other hand is clearly made for fans of the old series and toy line. No, this doesn't mean that Cobra will be pulling the Arora Borealis down to earth to melt the polar icecaps and flood the world (actual episode plot! "Haul Down the Heavens", episode 115, circa 1985). It's written for the fans that grew up with these characters, and are now all my age! Thus, it has cool technology, kick-ass ninjas, action, adventure, violence, and all the stuff we did in our games but never saw on TV! And it's written by Internet Jesus himself, Warren Ellis! In fact, he seems to be as excited about it as I am, which is fantastic!

Looks awesome. But will it have the same opening theme? My heart can only hope!

I'm Real!

Thank goodness for that. I was beginning to feel very much like an artificial construct designed to aid an organic sentience in its interactions within a virtual environment. Now, thanks to Xbox.com, I know that I'm just a Real projecting my personality onto an Avatar. Phew. This short presentation may help clear things up for all you other Reals suffering the same confusion.

Achievement Unlocked!

In case any of my readers missed it, in my last post I included a link to a nifty, fun toy I found online, but put it on an image, so not everyone might catch it.

Technology Ninja's Achievement Unlocked Generator provides hours of entertainment as you create hilarious Xbox Gamerscore styled images to send to friends and family.

What Achievements would you unlock?