I THINK MY BRAIN IS FULL

George Carlin, one of the greatest comedians of all time and one of the only sane people on this planet, has died.

Bad times.

I’m going outside to kick a dog and punch a non-smoker.

I’ve not done a games review on here before. My games reviewing hat is much like my music reviewer’s hat, only it’s in binary and it’s got Patrick Moore’s face on it. When I’m wearing it, my eyes get all pink and I make involuntary wheezes. I’ll probably not wear it very often.

My favourite game for the last ten years has been Grand Theft Auto, in its many guises. It’s quite simply the only game that allows me to be as morally free as I’d like to be. It’s the only game that allows me to explore a ridiculously detailed world. It’s the only game that will let me follow tramps around, whilst listening to them sing about their super powers. It’s the only game I really care about. I used to have a serious gaming problem. I’d spend hours and hours every day playing games.

Even back when I was a slightly rotund child, I would easily lose up to 10 hours a day playing poorly realised games. The sort of games where you’d feel like a champion for making a four colour sprite successfully maneouvre from one side of the screen to the other. Basically, what I’m describing here is shitty old games that losers defiantly hold in high-regard because they wasted so much time on them as children that they feel rabid defense is the only way to justify all that time investment. Shit old games.

 Grand Theft Auto IV is the first GTA game to grace both the Xbox360 and the PS3. I bought an Xbox just for this game. It required me selling every console I owned in order to scrimp together the cash. Consoles aren’t cheap. I knew in my heart that this was a game that had to be played. I’d played the others pretty much on release day, so I wanted this new, pretty version to be no exception. I knew that this game would be graphically superior to previous versions. That there would be new features. That the game would be incredibly immersive, as that’s how Rockstar’s games tend to be.

 I wasn’t prepared for quite how beautiful and awesome the game really is.

OK, let’s go over some basics quickly. These snippets of fact are there for those of you that haven’t played the game before. Shame on you, loser.

• It’s set in Liberty City - a fictional interpretation of modern-day New York.
• The lead protagonist is Niko Bellic - some sort of Serbian war veteran. He’s handy with guns, knives and can fly a helicopter. Handy, that.
• You have the ability to roam a gigantic landscape that is realistic and brimming with life. Pedestrians go about their daily day-to-days and act like ordinary people would.
• The game features a new physics engine, Euphoria, which realistically models pedestrian’s and character’s reactions on the fly, making for some incredible moments of gaming.
• Letting off a grenade in a crowded area is fun.

That’s the basics covered.

 What really sets GTA IV apart from other games is the cinematic feel of the game. It’s incredibly detailed. Rooms no longer feel like cardboard boxes filled with Action Man figures, in which someone has loosely scattered some furniture. The streets no longer feel like vast empty spaces, devoid of life and activity. Liberty City feels huge. Buildings finally adhere to real-world scaling and feel like they should. I’ve lived in a major city and walked around the skyscrapers. The feeling of concrete, ever-present and always towering, has been nailed completely. It goes beyond cinematic and into simulation. Your character feels weighty as he struts around like a bad-ass. You almost feel like you’re there. Almost.

 Rockstar have put a lot of effort into writing the story this time around. Characters are no longer 2D, as it were, but are fully fleshed out. They are emotional, they are realistic. You could easily begin to care about them, if you’re prepared to spend a lot of time with them. Which you will, as a result of the new ‘friends system’. You have to take your friends out and entertain them, when you’re not blowing up cars and flicking the Vs at police men (note: Sadly, you cannot flick the Vs at police men, in game - you can however flick your own Vs at the screen, whilst shoving them in the face). The more time you spend with them, the more they open up to you. More of their own story will be slowly revealed to you. Even after completing the main story mode, I’m learning more and more about the few friends you meet. They’re really quite intriguing. Little things like changing the radio in your car, only for them to respond to the music that’s playing… that’s neat. In particular, whilst ferrying my Rastafarian contact around, turning to the Bob Marley-themed station, with him responding “that’s my tune, star”. Simply genius.

Amidst the rags-to-slightly-better-rags story of GTA IV, there are, of course, many missions for you to attempt. These range from simple chase missions, to drug running, to gunning down Russians on a large freighter. I’m trying not to spoil anything here by using specifics. However, let it be noted that the missions, whilst on the whole are very easy, are very satisfying to play and your primary reward for playing through them is the experience they have so accurately and realistically brought to life. Missions in GTA games have, for me, always been slightly secondary. I prefer to just wander around the city, causing shit for anyone that happens to bump into me. I like to explore. I like to take my time and have a look at what’s going on around me. There’s been so much effort put in to making the city feel alive that it would be stupid not to take a look at it all. I finished the missions very rapidly, faster than any previous GTA game I’d played and, although this was slightly disappointing, I understand that a game of this calibre and scope deserves to be played by casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike, so this low level of difficulty seems appropriate. There’s plenty of other stuff to do on the side, once you’re finished taking Niko to hell and back.

 The amount of stuff to do has caused some concern amongst the hardcore GTA fans. I’ve spent a lot of time reading GTAForums and have seen that people can get upset by the most trivial things. In GTA: San Andreas, released nearly 4 years ago, the player could take their character to the gym, work him out, buy him loads of different clothes, feed him, get his hair cut… all the sort of mindless distraction that was thrown in to add “realism”. I’ve used the word “realistic” quite a lot so far in this review, so I’ll just touch on that a bit more here. GTA IV dispensed with these needless role-playing game-like elements, in order to bring the most realistic experience they could to a player. Many were upset to see things like planes, parachutes, bicycles and character/car customisation removed. These are the people that probably hoon around the city at full speed in the most expensive sports car they can find, only to wrap it around a tree then run around spraying bullets like air freshener. That’s not for me. I like to play at a sensible pace, not causing any more trouble than is necessary.

 Here lies the key to GTA IV: It rewards the patient player.

 Driving around in the now more realistic vehicles at a sensible speed, observing traffic laws and generally not drawing attention to yourself makes you feel more immersed. I’ve spent hours driving around with the radio off, exploring the city, listening to the hundreds of different pedestrians go about their days. Some of them aren’t even speaking English. Flipping on the cinematic camera mode and driving around, or just keebling around on foot leaves me feeling like an actual tourist in a real city. I’m starting to get to know the place. I’m starting to like it there. Crashing around at 120 miles-per with a bazooka attached to your head won’t give you the opportunity to spot how much research on New York has been done. Rockstar have really tried to bring you the most authentic and, yes, realistic experience a video game can offer. They’ve succeeded.

Taking your time and seeing the sights, walking alongside the natives… it just feels right.

 OK. I’ve gone on for long enough about how great the game feels. This atmosphere, alongside the stunning graphics and amazing sound slaps GTA quite firmly at the top of the “Most Accomplished and Stunning Games of All Times” list. It’s a very special list. Other GTA games are on there. Whilst the graphics may not be the most beautiful or realistic, they are good enough to deserve note. GTA games have always had a certain look to them, that feels somewhat cartoony. That is slowly fading away as newer more powerful technology is available. GTA IV doesn’t look photo-realistic, like other games, but it looks fucking excellent. Dynamic lighting, dynamic weather and bustling life make the game feel huge and real. Alive.

 The sound is greatly improved over previous games, too. Gone are the pea-shooter sound effects for guns. Gone are the gentle whines of engines. Guns go BANG. Cars go VROOM. Lightning rumbles and crashes around you. The rain can often be deafening. GTA is known not only for it’s incredible gaming experiences, but also for it’s rich and well selected soundtrack. Here, as usual, there are numerous radio stations, bringing you everything New York - a hardcore punk station screams FUCK YOU in your face. A classic rock station threatens overdose. A dancehall stations yells patois at you, whilst reeking of sensi. Techno, ambient, reggae, jazz. There’s something for everyone.

 Speaking of something for everyone, there is also now a multiplayer element to GTA. Sure, it’s more than likely that if you were to play this game online, you’d be spending quite a lot of your time getting shot in the face by 12 year old boys that have nothing better to do than question your sexuality, despite only truly learning what sexuality is within the last 3 or 4 months. You can ignore them. Instead of letting them ruin your experience, you can console yourself with 15 game modes, all of which are fun. Shooty-shooty, drivey-drivey. You know what to expect. The environment’s scale and the wealth of activity going on around you (all definable), coupled with a slapstick physics engine will give you some excruciatingly funny moments. And they’ll never be the same again. Again, this game is giving you moment after moment that you had to be there for.

 There’s so much I can say about this game. There’s so much I can witter on about that will probably go no way toward making you understand how much I love it. There’s no point. All I can do is suggest that you play it. Even if you’re not a gamer. Play it with an open mind and play it patiently. You’re directly in control of one of the most exciting block-buster movies you’ll ever see.

 You’re a fucking winner, baby.

Apparently a fire in Houston, Texas, took out hosting of 9000 servers held by The Planet, including the one hosting b3ta.com.

Good.

I’m imagining a lot of fat, ugly people with too much time and too few social skills on their hands going into a mass, gravy stained panic.

Great fortune. 

Well. That was exciting.  In a way.

ithinkmybrainisfull.co.uk experienced some downtime - I’ll refer to it as “May”. There was a problem with hosting, but all is well and sorted again. I’m fucking BACK.

Bow down and kiss the ring.

I walked out of my flat this morning to see that there was a note war going on in the hallway.

One of my neighbours had left a note to ‘the dick’ to complain about something he’d done, which he in turn left a note to, which argued his point, then said at the bottom “why can’t we just talk?”

BECAUSE YOU HAVE STARTED THIS CULTURE OF NOTE LEAVING, TORY DICK-BOY.

I urge you, if you’re having trouble with neighbours, to just talk to them face-to-face. Don’t get into this note leaving bullshit. It just makes the world a shittier place to be.

INCREASE THE PEACE.

…but who has them?

According to a popular Australian myth, everybody needs good neighbours. My neighbour is a dick. Not just a dick, but a short, withered dick with a serious attitude problem. When I first moved in, on my second day in the flat, he weakly knocked on the door and asked me, without even introducing himself, to move some cardboard boxes that I had put in the alley up the side of the building. I’d had no intention of leaving them there permanently. He then fitted a lock on the gate, once I’d removed them.

What a dick, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Not only that, but just last week, I came home from a hard day’s work, to be called by my landlord. Apparently someone had complained about some rubbish that had been left on the little forecourt outside my front window. They believed that I had dumped some old curtain rails and a tire out there. There was also a load of wood stacked up outside my window. Of course, this was nothing to do with me. Turns out it was in fact someone who had moved out. But my dick of a neighbour assumed it was me, probably because of the cardboard box incident. Eventually it became clear, like, after I told him, that the person that had just moved out, who I am sure he had seen moving out, was the errant leaver of trash.

And it turns out that the pile of wood he had complained about and attributed to me was actually his. What a dick.

At Christmas, he’d left a deeply sarcastic note with regards to a 3ft tall Christmas tree I had left outside the house. A note that must have taken ten minutes to write. Instead of writing a note to me about how I could have put the tree in the bin, he could have just put the fucking tree in the bin himself. But no, he preferred to write a patronising and insulting note which resulted in my girlfriend reciprocating with a fairly vicious and damning little essay.

I left him a note last week, along the same lines, in an attempt to show him just how petty this sort of action can be. My building has a communal hallway, and each time I see a piece of paper blu-tacked to the wall, I get a feeling of ill-ease and my heart sinks. I have little faith in humanity at the best of times, but this sort of thing makes me sad.

Upon finding said note, he once again knocked meekly at my door, explained he had made the complaint and went on to apologise for the false accusation, going so far as to invite me into his flat to show me the work going on in his garden, which had led to the pile of wood on my forecourt.

This is what is known as a moral victory. I am the winner, withered little Tory dick-boy is the loser.

And he always will be.

Britney Spears, like me, can’t wait for the release of Rockstar Games’ GTA IV.

In an effort to pass the time between now and April 29th, she’s taken to the streets in her car and had yet another traffic accident. Well done, Britney.

Here’s the story, at the BBC.

I’m not a big fan of motorists, as you’re probably aware by now. In this case, it turns out it was just a little bump and no one was hurt. In fact, nothing was damaged on either car. However, it just goes to show that human beings, as a species, shouldn’t have cars and should walk, run or ride everywhere on a BMX.

I particularly object to the motorists that forget that the red and amber lights on a traffic light mean “get ready to go”.

The green one means “go”. You arseholes. 

The boards are back up and running after a brief break. Everything looks exactly as it was before I took them offline, so don’t worry, I haven’t drawn little cocks on all your posts.  Love you, bye, bye, missing you already. 

Naomi Campbell went mental on a plane. On the one hand, I think this is awesome, as I love to watch celebrities breaking down. Fabulous stuff.

On the other hand, I think she should be locked up, as she’s a massive nutter.

Here’s the story, via the BBC.

One of the headlines I saw on one of the tabloid rags this morning made claims that she spat in a copper’s face. She should be put down, like the rabid dog she is.

BYE BYE.

“Where’s Bud?” I hear you crying, as your impotent tears cascade into your cornflakes.

“We need his bile and hatred for spiritual guidance!”

“Our lives are nothing without his words!”

“I’m not getting my sexy-quotient when I’m on the internet!”

These are all genuine quotes from imaginary emails I just made up.

I bought an Xbox 360. That’s where I’ve been. I do apologise for being a massively slack bastard… actually, no I don’t. I’ve been having fun. Live with it.

This morning, I had a bit of a moment. It was quite unnerving and made me feel a bit weird.

I forgot who I was.

Well, not who, as such, but many details, such as where I lived, where I worked… all gone. It took me five minutes of head-scratching and mild panic to remember everything. I was lying in bed, piecing together everything I knew to be fact. Sadly, I felt great elation when I was able to remember where I worked.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not mental or anything. Far from it. In the last two years, I have attained a level of mental clarity and stability not seen for a long time. It’s probably because I don’t do many drugs anymore. But, for some reason, I had this amnesiac moment and it really scared me. For a few minutes. Could this be the early onset of Alzheimers? I certainly hope not.

Though, to be fair, I’m better than Terry Pratchett, so it won’t affect me as badly.

Hello fatties and sun-dodgers.

The ithinkmybrainisfull forums are on holiday for an as yet unknown amount of time. They’re not being used much anyway, so it shouldn’t worry you too much.

They’ll probably be back within a week or so, once I’ve sorted a few things out over there.

BYE.

I really don’t like the idea of some Scottish midget rifling through my shit.

Gillian McKeith, nutritionist to the stars (and the criminally fat) is not someone that is deserving of the celebrity status she now commands. This poisonous dwarf is making life a misery for those of us that like a good munch.

Look at her. She’s been shot in a comedy photo-shoot, in her nightwear. I hate her. I hate her little face, her little twisted body and most of all, I hate her war on food.

This horrible woman has taken it upon herself to wage war on all of the fatties that currently think nothing of yamming back a burger or two in the quest to be fulfilled. I have nothing against fat people, really, despite them being a constant source of amusement for my oh-so childish mind. I’m on the large side myself, which means I’m fully entitled to point, stare and mock.

Seen most recently on Supersize Vs Superskinny, McKeith has been trying to reduce the size of fat women’s fat arses. Not such a big deal, you might think, but this horrendous little hag is so ugly and deformed herself that every word that comes out of her mouth about self improvement sounds hollow and misguided. Sure, she’s concerned about the state of people’s health and, sure, she’s trying to do something about it, but the way she does this is so offensive to my very core that were I to see her in the street, I would shove her to the ground by her stupid little face. That’s known as a “Handsome Gav”.

However, her self-appointed crusade isn’t what really bugs me. No. It’s the fact that this disgusting old crone has been known to play with other people’s poo, in order to tell them what’s wrong with their diet. Yeah, you read that right. The woman is a faecal freak and likes to poke around in human waste. I’m sure she feels there’s some scientific benefit to pulling apart turds in order to work out what they’ve been eating but… well… come on. They’re fat. Surely it doesn’t matter what they’ve been eating? Surely the important thing here is how much they’ve been eating? I don’t need some withered little bitch yanking my stool apart to tell me that!

If you should happen to see a five foot tall Scottish trot roaming your town, possibly waving some sort of anti-corpulence banner around, do yourself and your nation a favour and kick her to the ground. Stamp on her face. Lay a nice steamer next to her head and tell her to inspect it.

This is very important.

I need someone to compete against. I want to engage in man-on-man competition. I want to pummel someone’s pudgy face like dough, then bake it into a loaf of YOU LOSE. I want to run a lap of honour around your lumpen body as you sit on the floor, weeping in failure, as I victoriously circle your sweating, deafeated mess of an existence, chanting your name and making it rhyme with various synonyms for faecal matter. I want to beat you.

Yes, I’ve been watching too much Kenny Vs Spenny. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. Raw male competition in its purest form. For those of you that aren’t fortunate enough to have ever seen it, here’s what it’s all about:

2 Men. Spenny, a neurotic, hapless yet conscientious buffoon. Kenny, a complete piss-taker. They devise a competition .The loser of the competition is humilated by the winner, often in disgusting and obscene ways. Competition have ranged from who can blow the biggest fart, to who can wear a dead octupus on their head for the longest. Spenny abides by the rules… Kenny doesn’t. In this particular episode, Kenny cheats by spiking his good friend with LSD.

Here’s a taster.

Awesome, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The protagonsits are so compelling to watch quite simply because they are so different. Kenny, despite being a joker that clearly has no respect for his ‘friend’, is a surprisingly accomplished man. Looking over his Wikipedia record, you can see that he has done quite a lot. A talented photo-journalist, documentary maker and… writer on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Hey, we all have to work. I’m sure that last gig was particularly lucrative. If anyone can hook me up with a copy of his film about the homeless dwarf, let me know. Kenny is basically the worst person you could live with, in as much as you would constantly find him either slipping his genitals into your burger meat in the fridge, or sticking your toothbrush up his bottom - these are actual events that have transpired throughout the show, I might add. Yet, somehow, he’s endearing and entertaining, despite being a foul-mouthed antagonist.

Spenny, also quite an accomplished man, is exactly the opposite. An earnest, paranoid mess that falls foul of Kenny’s every move. His attempts to stick to the rules, no matter how ill-defined they are, by consulting specialists and experts leave him looking like a lost little boy that can barely manage to wipe his own snotty nose. Yet, somehow, he’s managed to garner himself various awards for his film and TV ventures. Spenny is the one we’re all secretly rooting for, despite the incessant whining and moaning about Kenny’s cheating.

I’m not normally a fan of reality TV, but there’s something about this show that works. It’s part reality TV, part game show, part documentary on human nature and the foibles of man. Pitching two mental and physical opposites into battle after battle, in order to prove… well, I’m not entirely sure what they’re trying to prove. But they’re proving something. Maybe it’s just that Kenny is proving that Spenny is a massive loser. Regardless of their intention, the show perfectly captures how two men interact when pushing against each other.

Inspired by watching 4 seasons of this in the past month, I find myself desperate to engage in competition, in any form. This is what being a man is all about. Beating other men. I wouldn’t want to bother with being followed around by a camera crew. I just want to duel.

Who is man enough to take me on?

Discuss this further in the forums.

Ghosts I - Nine Inch Nails. I’m going to just come right out and say this: Trent Reznor is a pretentious pervert twat. There we go, any last Emos that might be reading the site have just packed up their diamond-encrusted self-harm sets, provided by their psychoanalyst parents and fucked off. Good times. After the tedious, long-winded nonsense of The Downward Spiral, I’ve pretty much ignored Nine Inch Nails’ output and got on with my life. Pretty Hate Machine was a bland album, but the Broken and Fixed EPs were quite good, in places. Fixed could be described (look, I’m doing it now) as an example of what we now know as Breakcore and pounded my head for a couple of months, many years ago. However, after that, the Spiral album was just trite, contrived, semi-industrial, self-indulgent wank-rock, put out by a man that does a great act of being affected, twisted and weird. It’s all pretention and it’s all caused by too many rubbish drugs.

His pretention has reached critical mass with the four volume Ghosts (I-IV), a collection of 36 instrumentals. These are available via the internet, at a sliding price scale. I’ve only got volume I to review, as I refuse to pay money for it. You can only have the first volume if you’re a blackhearted freeloader like myself. I’m assuming that all of the good tracks are on volumes II-IV, as everything on volume I is dull and boring. As you’ve probably come to expect from Reznor by now, it’s a lot of clicks, pops and distortion, with some electro-drums thrown in. There are a lot of bands that are doing what he’s doing, only they’re doing it much better, probably inspired by his earlier works, to some degree or another.

Perhaps what I mean to say is that this album is so incredibly dated and out-of-whack with contemporary examples of this particular type of music, that it bores me to tears. At one point, track 3 (they don’t appear to have any track names, just numbers) sounded like it was about to lurch into a really good track. There was a flash of awesome bassline that dissipated into the air, never to be heard again. To put it in the simplest terms, Ghosts, or what I’ve heard of it, seems to be 36 tracks of sombre pianos, distorted bass and an ever present feeling of licking the crumbs up off the cutting room floor. To put it in even simpler than the simplest terms: This sounds like an album full of stuff that Reznor never quite finished. Whilst it is said that the album was recorded in 2007, I get a feeling it’s just a load of stuff he’s had sitting on a hard drive for the last ten years.

If I had a star rating system, it would be out of 5. Ghosts would get a less than fair 1, as I can only rate what I’ve heard. And there’s very little chance that I’m going to fork over $5 for 27 more tracks and a PDF.

Discuss this further in the forums