Computer Games

I can't remember the last time I watched a film and paid attention. I usually have them playing whilst I work, but the last two times I've specifically tried to watch a film, I've fallen asleep. Yes, one of those times was during the wax work action thriller "The Expendables" in the cinema. I don't think my 15 minute siesta was enough to miss out on any significant plot details though. In fact, I probably missed some Stallone-spoken dialogue that would have only clouded matters.

Seeing as work has become less frantic, the Fringe is well and truly over and having seen the advert for the new Halo game due out in a few days

.. no wait, a COUPLE of days, I have decided that playing computer games would be a pretty awesome way of spending Semptember. I just really need to switch off for a few hours and shoot the fuck out of some bad guys. And good guys too when they aren't looking.

Halo 3 is one of my top five favourite things ever made because it was beautiful and I actually got good enough to put up a fight against online American gamers who seem play 36 hours a day. I have no idea what the story behind the new one is, and frankly don't care, I have officially unboxed my Xbox 360 after about a year (roughly one day per rotational degree) and am prepared to waste huge quantities of time playing it. PLAYING. LIKE A LITTLE BOY. To make time, I am going to hugely up efforts to stop sleeping so much and me more efficient in my working hours, wasting considerably less time refreshing Facebook and mast...ering the art of procrastination.

Once this decision had been made, I have pretty much bought Kane and Lynch II and competed it within 5 hours.

As is my impulsion. The game was fast, brutal and wonderfully linear It had a clear beginning and a quickly achievable end and was just what I needed to wet my appetite for more. Within the next 10 hours (included 9 hours sleep) I had taken it back and traded it in for Red Dead Redemption. Which is not such an "in and out" affair.

The only game I have ever 100% completed on the Xbox360, is "Gun" which was a brilliant open world western and this is basically the same, but looks 33% better. Being made by Rockstar Games it is basically (no, literally) GTA: Wild West and between a few moments of awesomeness, pretty much exclusively involves travelling from A to B as the core gameplay. When you're not doing missions that involve travelling you can go watch a movie... play poker... buy stuff... basically everything I usually do on the internet whilst I'm working, except just now I'm not actually getting anything done, am I!? 'Sake.

I decide I want to avoid the side-quests and mucking around, just smash through the main storyline, and have this baby back in the shop in time for a Halo: Reach trade in. So I  go to do a mission for some ranch-owning Lady-girl only to be told she is not to be disturbed between 5am and 11pm (game time). I look at my watch in the start menu - it's 3am. Fuck this. I shoot a man in the kneecap out of pure boredom, a bunch of guys try to kill me, so I kill them all, more guys turn up, chase me out of town and by the time I get my shit together and pay off my bounty, it's 11.30pm again. WAKE UP SO WE CAN HERD YOUR CATTLE FOR THE SEVENTEENTH TIME MISSY, OR I SWEAR I'M GONNA SHOOT YOUR DOG.

Anyway, having missed about a year of games and such, I can't believe how astonishing the graphics and animation of, particularly, Red Dead Redemption really were. It's made me think about trying to get into games development again in a pretty big way. I'd much rather me making cowboys and guns from wicked concept art than oil rigs from illegible technical drawings.

Although, I did get to do a pretty violent scene of a dumbass Nigerian hammering into a gas pipeline last week.

"I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE STUCK TO THE INTERNATIONAL MONEY SCAMS"