Review : GTA IV part 2 - the expansions

Following my recent completion of GTA IV, I thought I'd have a bash at what I guess you'd call GTA IV.V (strictly speaking that should be GTA IV S in Roman numerals) : The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. Rather irritatingly, they're not expansions but standalone games, eating up another 16 GB of hard disc space. That's not a big deal, but they appear to share the same savedgame directory as GTA IV. And so, with the unstoppable inevitability that only narrative causality can bestow, my "story complete" saved game from the original has now gone.

I can only assume this part of the code was written by Muppets - most likely, Animal. It doesn't matter how many "Are you sure ?" messages are present, if you have a 40hr saved game file in a directory where other save games can be written, it is absolutely and irrevocably destined to be overwritten. Good job there's no point playing when the main story is complete, I guess.


He also works part-time as a programmer for Rockstar

This aside, the Lost and Damned is a decent addition to the GTA canon. You play as Johnny, a walking cliche who's second in command of biker gang "The Lost", previously encountered in the original game. Happily, bike physics has undergone some kind of Newtonian/Einsteinian revolution, so now you can cruise around without fear of suddenly finding yourself 70 feet up in the air because you got too close to an especially pointy bit of tarmac.

That's far from the only niggle the game irons out, either. For starters, it's now much easier to evade cops at the 3 star level. Once you're about halfway to the edge of the circle, the cop spawning rate drops dramatically. This doesn't detract from the challenge of the game, because it's skillfully balanced by the increased difficulty of combat. Enemies are not only more aggressive, but there are far, far more of them. Hiding behind cover will only protect you for so long.


Another screenshot I stole off the Internet. Combat is actually mostly about shooting people, not blowing stuff up.


To help you combat these hordes of unruly foes - usually other gang members, but also cops - you're given a selection of handy new weapons. First up, the grenade launcher. What does this do ? Lob grenades. Hmm. I could do that before, actually. With my hands. Yet it's strangely fun, probably because it makes a satisfying "thwoonk" noise. Then there's the assault shotgun, which is surprisingly poor as an anti-personnel weapon but very useful against vehicles.

There are a few totally new features introduced, like riding in formation to replenish your health and armour. 's alright I guess, but a bit of a chore. I'd rather just pay $1 for a hot dog from one of those foul-mouthed street vendors. You also get gang members to come and assist you on your travels, and if they survive they gain experience and toughness. Meh, I find it very difficult to care about any of them. It's far more fun to think of them as extra targets.

The downside of the game is the story. Like GTA IV, it's trying to be gritty and edgy but even more so. It's even more difficult to empathise with your character than Niko, because this time you play an annoying, fully-developed bad guy who's really nothing more than that. There's precious little joy in any of the missions (with the occasional exception) and far too much angsty "Oh woe is me, for I live such a hard and terrible life as a drug-dealing loser making buckets of cash off other people's misery but I'm just too much of a douchebag to do anything about it." Can it, Johnny. I expect this sort of nonsense in The Wire, not video games.

"Dear Aunt Agony, today I killed 15 people with a shotgun and stole all their heroin. I only did it because I feel trapped in the overarching socio-political situation in which Liberty City resides. Does this make me a criminal ? Will I still be able to claim benefits ?"


Which all meant that I got a bit bored after a while and stopped playing. Fortunately, the Ballad of Gay Tony is almost the polar opposite of the Lost and Damned. Here you play the sex-crazed Luis Lopez, assistant to nightclub owner Tony Prince. While the writers can't quite seem to bring themselves to lose the angsty gibberish entirely, they have at least seen fit to introduce Omid Djalili, attack helicopters with rockets, base jumping, a decent checkpoint system*... and oh yes, a tank.

* It's on your phone. Possibly it was there all along. Umm....

Like LAD, combat is far more intense than the original game. This time you get some pretty cool new weapons, like sticky bombs, a minigun, and the overwhelmingly powerful explosive shotgun. You get to blow up a large yacht. Skydiving becomes an integral part of the game, with one mission requiring you to go skydiving to steal a tank for Omid. What's not to like ? In another, you stand on the back of a moving subway train and use your explosive shotgun to take down wave after wave of attack helicopters.


Screenshots do not do this game justice.


The story line is... umm... well, I assume there is one, somewhere, but I didn't notice. I was too busy making things explode, which is all I've ever wanted from the game anyway. There's a nice variety of side-jobs that make the "pick up some stuff for Jacob" of the original look like even more pointless than they actually were. In place of boring driving missions you now go skydiving, get in involved in powerboat chases to steal drugs, and play golf*. Luis even has a day job as a nightclub manager. Unfortunately this last consists of you walking slowly (very slowly) around the club looking for trouble, and has all the engaging gameplay qualities of rancid cheese. Oh well, can't get everything right.

* Luis Lopez would have an interesting CV. Other hobbies : Skydiving, private security, sha.. entertaining the ladies, golf.

Alas I could not complete this expansion, although I really wanted to. One particular mission crashes about halfway through every time, and nothing I can do prevents it. Ah well.

The Lost and Damned : 5.0/10.0. Overall, not bad, but too angsty and just doesn't compare with...
The Ballad of Gay Tony : 9.0/10.0. This is what I wanted from GTA IV in the first place. Buy it. Buy it now ! NOW !! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ?!?

Totally Dinosaur

Karen Brady's description of two sexist overpaid yobbos as "totally dinosaur" is an unwitting compliment. Everyone knows that 1) dinosaur is not an adjective and 2) dinosaurs are awesome even though they're dead. Perhaps Karen has a personal ratings system for prehistoric animals, which would explain point 1 (point 2 is explained by her being too busy making money to appreciate dinosaurs). I should very much like to know the details of this unusual adjective system she's developed but I'm too scared to write and ask her. I guess it would look something like this, putting dinosaurs in their proper place, of course.

This isn't my idea. I stole it off someone else, but he doesn't have a blog so can't tell the world about it. He does have a website though - go there now and buy some T-shirts at low low prices !

http://fleecebucket.spreadshirt.co.uk/

Why can't coalitions be democratic ?

EDIT : Apparently, I'm a few months too late writing this. I don't see how. This is as much a response to the Lib Dem's failure to honour election promises as it is to the election itself. As for not being taken seriously - eh ? No me comprehende. This isn't Question Time. It's just a random blog with a silly banner, what on earth would suggest a serious political discussion would lie within ?


Yes, it's another post about politics - but this time with no analogies to film franchises, I promise. No, this one actually has a point besides mockery to it, but will likely contain more lolcats and cleavage than most political articles.

No-one voted for our current government. It is true that Labour lost, but it is equally true that the Tories didn't win, and the Liberal Democrats... well, they turned up. And it's also true that Labour couldn't have formed any kind of government without a bizarre and wholly unworkable "rainbow coalition", a term that conjours images of Zippy, George and Bungle fighting for Greenpeace.

Yet this does not change the simple fact that we have a government we didn't vote for. It's possible that's exactly what the people of Britain wanted, but since there was no option for it on the ballot paper, we'll never know, will we ? Now if you have no control over who's in government, I submit this is not democracy at all. It is laughable. It's even more absurd than the time Jordan decided to run for MP, with the single policy of "free cosmetic surgery for all" (err, yeah, because that one worked out so well).


"I'm sure I left my manifesto down here somewhere..."


However, my point is that at least in this case voters (read as "morons") knew what they were getting. Boobs. Really, really big boobs. Completely ineffective at politics, but the point remains. This government has taken a far more creative approach - you can vote for parties with time-honoured, cherished principles, and they won't implement them at all (or even do the exact opposite, presumably just to confuse us all for the next election* - like voting for Jordan but getting Keira Knightley).  Thus, a rational observer must conclude that a vote for Jordan would have been a more democratic and honest vote than a vote for many of the members of our current government. This is a fact so preposterous that it demands rectification at any cost. Even to the point of blogging about it.

* Very recently Clegg accused voters of  re-writing history on the subject of his pledge not to raise tuition fees. A witty retort to this is too easy, so I'll settle for telling him to shut his stupid fat ugly pie-hole before his brain escapes.


This is exactly the same situation as the increase in tuition fees


To their credit the Lib Dems have championed voting reformed since ages past and are trying to implement this as best they can. But everyone appears to be missing a fundamental point : no-one votes for coalitions. My question is simply : why the hell not ? If no party can form a majority government, should not the electorate have the right to choose who sides with whom to win power ?

Of course, politics is a very complicated thing and replacing our voting system with the alternative vote or single transferable vote isn't going to make things any simpler. Nor will it change the basic problem of what to do if no party wins outright, and indeed most analysts think that AV or STV would make such an outcome more likely. Given that not only are current government policies as hugely retarded as Russel Grant, and even less popular, but also that we as a country just can't cope with the concept of coalitions, how this possibly improve matters in the future ?


Cavalry charging the electorate... this does not bode well...


It can't. But there is one very simple way that we can at least give a coalition government a mandate to govern : have an option to choose which coalition we want in power. Bugger the debate about proportional representation - all I really want is to decide which government we get. The results of the last election really only allowed one possible coalition, but it's perfectly possible to have a situation where this is not so.

In this case, politicians should be compelled to join forces according to whichever coalition received the most votes (they might not like it, but there's nothing wrong with making politicians suffer). This need only entail a single extra box on the ballot paper for the voter to choose which party should be the partner with their main choice in the event of a hung parliament. It does however open up a whole new can of worms : what if people really want, say, a Labour-Lib Dem coalition but only a Tory-Lib Dem coalition is feasible ? This could happen if the Labour was everyone's coalition choice but not their main vote.

In this case it's tough on us. You can't have your cake and eat it : if you want a coalition between 2 parties, then by jingo you'd better vote for those parties. Furthermore, we've seen the ridiculous prospect of a rainbow coalition against the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, something which is just confusing and weird, like that bit in Jurassic Park 2 where everyone on the boat has been eaten but the only dinosaurs on board are safely locked away.

T Rex does not approve of rainbow coalitions


No, the larger parties must get priority. Coalitions should only be allowed between two parties, otherwise things get daft and we might as well go back to voting for tits again (or Zippy, George and Bungle if you prefer, I'm not judging). And this will only work at all provided politicians agree to answer perfectly valid questions about what they'd do in a coalition, unlike last time. I envisage the results of an election being something like this :

Tories : 35% of seats
Labour : 30%
Lib Dems : 20% :
Monster Raving Loony Party : 15%

Britain does not have philosopher kings but it did once have a political cat. Suck it, Plato.

If all the Tory and Labour voters chose Lib Dems as coalition partners, then we'd have a Tory-Lib Dem government because the Tories are larger, no matter what the Labour voters want. But, if the Tory voters were divided on a choice of ally, then a Labour-Lib Dem coalition could form a majority government.

It might seem that the results of the last election couldn't have been prevented : even if no-one wanted the coalition, it's the only combination that produces a viable majority. However, if people had voted
a) knowing there could be a coalition and that
b) they could choose which one and
c) having been told what each possible coalition would do*
then perhaps they wouldn't have voted in quite the same way. And though no voting system is perfect, surely we at least have the right to decide who's in charge of running the country.

* Sure, politicians often say they'll do one thing and then do another. But at the last election then went several steps further. They refused to even answer questions about what they'd do in "hypothetical situations", then subsequently used this to justify u-turns so laughable it's not even funny.

Of course, one can imagine more elaborate voting procedures where we could somehow vote for a coalition directly. Personally I wanted a Labour-Lib Dem coalition rather than a majority Labour government. This would be lovely, but I fear a voting procedure so convoluted that the only people who'd have the time to work it all out would be old people. And they'd all vote Tory anyway, the rotters. For as the old saying goes :

What is it I actually do all day ?

Many people have asked me this. Not very many, but a few. OK, about 5. After all, I'm still stuck here, devoid of license and income, and I can't spent every minute learning to drive, or even viewing pornography. Letting either activity consumes one's entire day tends to cause unpleasant consequences for all concerned. Still, you might think that now would be the ideal time to complete all those things I never have time for : a host of CGI projects, learning Spanish, writing papers, playing computer games until blue in the face, etc.

Not so. Well, not quite anyway. For this house contains not one but two terrors of apocalyptic proportions, which each day must be tamed lest they should escape to bring about Ragnarok : the End of Days. The first such monster is familiar to many - a 1 year old baby. This malevolent creature is best thought of as a hybrid basilisk-banshee, capable of turning its enemies to stone by screaming at them. Or, in fairness, more often by laughing at them : so now we have a hybrid basilisk-banshee-hyena.

And that's where babies come from

It is also known as a creature of great destructive potential, a reputation well earned. Each day it wreaks its path of tornado-like destruction, and no-one on Earth is capable of stopping it because the damn thing is laughing and looking adorable. Perhaps if Stalin had done that, communism would have lasted longer. We'll never know.

And thus each day requires me to re-adjust the entropy of the living room to manageable levels, because there are injured parents hobbling around the place who might step on things. This has at least taught me the Ultimate Fate of the Universe : the heat death will be caused by babies. Infants truly are the living embodiment of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Logically this means that if we combine a basilisk, a banshee and a hyena we will also get a dramatic increase in entropy. This is self-evidently true. I rest my case.

However, the second little Horseman of the Apocalypse is a far more sinister and bewildering character familiar to far fewer people, except perhaps readers of the excellent Sheldon webcomic. I speak of pugs. PUGS ! An animal whose very name should inspire terror in the hearts of millions, but doesn't. To non pug-owners, a pug is just a small, very ugly lapdog, the kind you wouldn't like to see first thing in the morning with a hangover. The reality is not as pleasant.

Like Tamerlane, they are best described as the Scourge of God and the Terror of the World, leaving a bloody trail of enemies in their wake and towers of skulls atop fields of barely planted over the ruined cities of their enemies. You think I'm exaggerating, but if Tamerlane had had a squad of attack pugs he'd have conquered the planet. Fortunately, training even a single pug is by definition impossible.


Now I am become Pug, destroyer of worlds

Therein lies their greatest strength as an adversary : their truly heroic level of stupidity. The pug is a denizen of this mortal coil with zero memory and less intelligence, and as such exists in a constant state of mad surprise. They are the only known creature in the Universe to have developed a limited - but powerful - form of mind control by virtue their sheer lack of brain power.

Here's how it works. A normal dog understands basic concepts like its own existence, size, and the fact that it is an independent entity acting under its own volition. A pug's brain is made of cheese so cannot comprehend any of this. So whereas a normal dog will run around happily avoiding obstacles like fallen logs, other dogs and large buildings, a pug won't. If faced with the choice to go under or over a log, a pug's brain literally melts with effort and the wretched creature attempts to employ quantum mechanics by running at high speed to try and phase through the log instead. This invariably fails.

Pugs exist in 3 states : 1) Static 2) Running at 900 mph 3) Running in circles (clockwise only)

Real dogs have some level of trial-and-error intelligence. Not so the diminutive pug; the animal will insist on trying the same thing over and over again, be it barking at a light breeze, running into logs,  sporadically attacking people's feet, or humping everything in sight*. This is a level of stupidity so high that every other animal is soon baffled into confused submission, including other dogs like dobermans (I wish that was an exaggeration for comic effect, but it really isn't). The brains of higher animals like humans are similarly unable to accept the level of sheer idiocy displayed by pugs, and usually quickly give up and wish they'd got a cat instead.

* It's worse than it sounds. Female pugs will often hump their own mothers, so it would not be far wrong to describe a pug as an incestuous lesbian serial rapist. Just don't tell the Daily Mail, they'd have a field day.

The pug is also blessed with two further weapons which make life with four of them at best interesting. Firstly, they are the only known animal able to extract energy directly from the quantum vacuum. This makes them nearly unstoppable, which wouldn't be so bad if they actually had any clue what they wanted, where they were or the fact that walls are solid. Their second, messier weapon, which has a greater impact on my day, is their excessive poop. To the point where "excessive" means "violating the conservation of mass principle".

Having saved the world from the baby/pug apocalypse every day, this leaves some time for various other mundane chores which injured parents cannot cope with. Once these are done there may or may not be some driving involved. That gives me about 2 hours wherein nothing much happens. And then it's time to walk the other, more normal dog, and then the 1-year old returns from nursery and re-embarks on his endless quest to cause the Heat Death of the living room and the whole sorry cycle resumes again.

Star Wars Episode VII : A New Politics

I recently described how contemporary British politics is quite a lot like the Batman movies. It's also strikingly similar to, if not quite identical, the Star Wars Saga. Behold...

A young, talented, but very annoying politician (Nick "Anakin" Clegg) is languishing on the political desert planet of Sheffield. He has few ambitions until his wise old mentor Menzies "Qui Gon" Campbell is struck down by the forces of Darth Resignation. Vowing to make politics more interesting, he embarks on an epic quest to become a politician in a land far, far away : Westminster.

Ask yourself this : who is more annoying ? Can you really tell ?

There he proceeds to rapidly annoy the ruling Labour Council, the well-meaning but corrupt and misguided guardians of peace... no... justice... not so much..., ok, well-meaning guardians of the Constitutional Monarchy for half a generation. Slowly he is corrupted by the evil forces of Darth Cameron, a Sith Lord who has deceived everyone into thinking he's not all that bad. But grandmaster Charles Yoda, lurking quietly in the background, isn't fooled, and soon conflict is inevitable.


If their physical resemblance isn't quite accurate, their policies are

Soon Anakin is completely under the thrall of Darth Cameron and proceeds to the Liberal Democrat Temple (Sheffield University) where he massively increases all the Youngling's tuition fees. The slaughter is terrible. Not even Yoda can stop the Emperor, which makes a lot of sense considering his insurmountable drinking problem.

But soon the rest of his party become rapidly disillusioned and form the Labour-Democrat Rebel Alliance. The battle is hard-fought. The Coalition Empire grows rapidly, and eventually constructs a policy of such awesome oppresive power than it could obliterate the entire deficit (powered by a set of massive nuclear reactors). "That's no moon," says general Alan Wan Johnson Kenobi, "it's a tax hike."

(Its first target is the peaceful yet poverty stricken Film Council, leaving the much richer Banking Clan strangely untouched.)

Unfortunately for our plucky underdogs, Kenobi is killed soon after investigating this monstrous weapon. For reasons that are entirely unclear, he chooses an apparently needless self-sacrifce, saying only that, "You can't win Darth. If you strike me down you shall become less powerful than I can possibly imagine."

The Rebel Alliance make significant gains against the Empire, ridiculing their massive tax station with small, highly adjustable attack policies. But they are unable to break the power of Emperor Cameron. Eventually they unexpectedly marshall their entire forces under the leadership of hideous Admiral Ed Milliband Ackbar. Alas the Emperor has regrouped his remaining minions and constructed a new and even deadlier tax hike ("It's a trap ! We can't repel policies of this magnitude !" says Ackbar).


Well they are both pretty weird-looking...

Their only hope is a strike force led by a cool token black dude from the distant planet of America : President Barrack Kalrisian. But then they stumble upon an unexpected ally : not all of the Younglings are dead after all. Bereft of tuition fees they have degenerated into small, unintelligent furry creatures, who are happy to fight the Coalition with anything to hand, but mostly fire extinguishers.


Crazed little eco-warrior that can't afford to shave and hates the government. Sounds like a student to me.


The strike team and the student Ewoks buy the Alliance a little time to formulate a coherent set of policies with which to fight the machinations of the Empire, but all the while Liberal Democrats are dropping like flies as their cherished policies are destroyed. Finally, at the bitter end, Darth Clegg cannot stand to see the evil Emperor destroying his beloved party. He turns on his mentor, throwing him into a hated nuclear reactor, ending the madness forever. And then their are wild parties in the form of the Olympic Games, and Ewok students everywhere dance around madly until the credits roll.