Spontaneous Monotony

The Video Appeals Committee has ruled - for the second time - that the BBFC’s decision to ban Manhunt 2 had no justification and should be reversed. It seems that the censor - which is now largely discredited - will respect the decision this time. The ‘casual, sadistic’ (their words) violence the BBFC objected to would earn a film a 15 certificate at most. Their claim was that the ‘interactivity’ of Manhunt 2 created a greater potential for harm (you see the BBFC thinks it has the right to ban ‘harmful’ things even for adults).

Let’s be clear what these sorts of games do - you sneak up on whoever you’re going to ‘kill’ and press a button combination. Then a ‘kill’ sequence of varying grisliness is played. So in essence Manhunt 2 features footage of deaths being played following the selection of the footage via control buttons. No different from a DVD with scene selection - in which the violence can be far more graphic.

It’s about time we stopped giving these Daily Mail-ingesting autocrats control over what entertainment products adults are ‘allowed’ to buy. This is a democratic country, with a legally protected right to free speech. The only legitimate limitation on whether an adult buys a DVD, or a game, or a piece of music, is whether that person has made an informed choice to do so. The PEGI rating system can provide the necessary protection for children - especially if the government makes those ratings binding on game sellers, which they aren’t at the moment - without violating our rights by preventing content being made available to adults. Let’s hope this decision is the final blow to an organisation that is long past its sell by date.

After its discussion on This Week in Tech, I decided to start using my dormant Twitter account again (hence the new links in the sidebar). The plugin I’m using to do this is a bit carp. For example it is showing my most recent tweet as being 3 weeks ago instead of 7 minutes and, rather astonishingly, placing the allegedly ‘3 week old’ tweet above ones it (correctly) dates as an hour hold. Never mind - it’ll do until I can find/write something better. A side effect of this is that those of you who are RSS-averse (or just want to do everything via Twitter) should now be able to get new notifications of posts on here by following me on Twitter.

Well it seems that in my essay-writing exploits last night I failed to notice that the graduate endowment is gone (after the SNP drafted its death warrant in June). Ah well, gives me  an excuse to get the utterly fabulous February 29th in my blog. What’s more puzzling is that Neo Labour and the Tories (no surprises there) voted against, on the basis that it wouldn’t reduce student  poverty. I know that bending the truth (not to mention the expenses rules :p) is in vogue in Neo Labour, but I fail to see how they can claim that reducing the financial burden on every single student by over £2200 (about a fifth of the average total debt per student of £11,000) will not reduce student poverty. We should all be happy - once again we live in a country committed to the principle of free education, and (even better) we no longer live in a country run by Neo Labour con artists.

Since the beginning of December I’ve had limited computer access due to the clowns at Komplett somehow managing to lose a huge desktop computer. Now my replacement machine has arrived from Cyberpower (with added hilarity since the free Cyberpower tshirt has AMD logos on it unlike my computer :P) so I should be back to full blogging service shortly

Red Alert is my favourite strategy game of all time. In fact, it’s up there with Final Fantasy VIII as probably my favourite game full stop. The sequel at the turn of the century was good fun too - now it seems that there’s a third Red Alert game in development for the same platforms as C&C3 (PC, PS3, 360). Given the hour I can’t post anything substantial, but here’s some highlights culled from the EA press release:

• Follows the three-side structure seen in the C&C games since Yuri’s Revenge. The sides are the Allies, Soviets, and Japan.
• Beta test entry (no word whether it’s automatic ala Crackdown/Halo3 or a lottery) for people who buy C&C3 Kane’s Wrath or the double pack for the PC
• Naval combat - always a staple of the RA games and ommitted in C&C - is included
• The more sci-fi developments of RA2 - dolphins, attack blimps etc. - return. Also: ARMORED BEARS.
• Did I mention? ARMORED BEARS!