Time - Short Story

Stephen ran out of the office doors into the street, the road in front of him already a chaotic mess of cars and people, all rushing to get away from here, horns sounded and people argued. The sound of a hundred car radios, all repeating the same message echoed, time was short.

He pushed his way through the crowds, running towards the end of the road, he knew going back to his car was not going to work, the road was jammed but he had 2 feet and could push past people. Normally a foot trip to Stephens home would take 20 minutes from here, maybe a little more, today more due to the pure volume of traffic in his way, but he also knew time was scarce.

Running between cars which were gridlocked into place he set off over the road, the chaos continued to build around him for 4 maybe 5 minutes at a decent running pace, until the people started to thin and he was able to push on.

As the pavements quietened, he became aware of the silence and began to think. He’d heard the news for weeks, building tensions between the country and several others, accusations had flown, but everyone had expected it to blow over. However it hadn’t. The office had turned silent when the news came across every TV and Radio they had, tensions had turned into threats and threats had turned into action. The news had said reports indicated there had been a launch of some kind, what? Not sure. At where? Not sure, but every major city went into panic mode within seconds.

He felt a pain in his chest as he ran, he’d never been much of an athlete and although adrenaline had pushed him this far, his body was now saying to stop. He pulled up and started trying to catch his breath against the brick wall, he had reached houses and must’ve been going for more than 10 minutes now. He reached for his phone and dialled home, but it was no good, tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of calls were clogging up the network, he wasn’t going to get through. He knew another 5 minutes at good pace and he’d be home. The road to the side of him was already full and slowing down, but the pavement was only being shared with a few people, he picked himself up and pressed on as best he could.

He had no idea how long he’d have until anything happened, even if it was going to happen at all. The houses he was rushing past were in varying states of panic, doors were left open, suitcases lay in gardens, belongings were scattered around as people had hurried to cars and tried to get away. Looking at the road again he deduced unless they were the first ones away, those panicked families, were maybe only a few hundred yards up the road, stuck in the cars, struggling to get anywhere.

He reached for his phone again but the display was blank, no calls, no messages. He reached back to his pocket, but felt a pain to his stomach. He fell to the floor and a man stood over him.

“Your phone, I need it, give it to me.” Stephen looked up to see a well-dressed, but clearly tired and emotional man, he was brandishing  a stick that used to be part of a fence, possibly his fence. Stephen had been struck with it hard in the abdomen.

“It’s no good,” Stephen protested, “The networks are dead.”

The well-dressed man took another swing and caught Stephen in his arm, he dropped the phone into the road and the man scampered after it. Stephen, wanted the handset back, but equally didn’t want to waste time fighting for it, especially hundreds of yards from his front door. He took the man’s distraction as a chance to pick himself up and press on. Winded, yes, but so close, he could make it. Within 2 minutes of getting up, he rounded the wall outside his home and ran up the path. The door was open, but the car was still on the drive. He ran inside and began shouting,

“Rebecca? Ruby?” No answer at first until he saw a figure come through a door leading to the living room. The small figure of Ruby, his daughter, ran to him, clutching round his leg.

“Daddy!” She exclaimed and he held her close to him.

Rebecca came down the stairs with a back pack over her back.

“You made it, thank god, but we need to get going, anywhere out of the city.” Stephen nodded agreement and scooping Ruby up they made it out of the door.

“Car’s no good, every road is jam packed.” Stephen said, “foot would be faster”. Rebecca acknowledged this and they began making their way out and down the road.

The number of people to have made it out this far was now far greater. The three joined a procession of people making their way further from the centre any what they thought was potential targets. Another half hour passed, maybe an hour from the panic had ensued and nothing. They had made ground, maybe a couple of miles but still would have seen, if not felt any blast that had hit the buildings not getting small in the distance.

The three caught up to a group with a small radio and slowed down to listen.

“The national stations are dead, but we can get signal from the more local ones. But even then… no news for about 15 minutes.” Volunteered one of the group, a young girl, possibly no more than 17 or 18 years old.

“What was the last?”

“London was hit, targeted the centre… badly damaged. The coast also took some hits. They say there may be more, but they haven’t said what it was hit by.”

Stephen put his hand to his face and shook his head, “Nothing is worth this nothing!”

The crowds carried on, pushing northwards. They had found a main road, clogged so badly by cars they had been abandoned and the people that brought them swelled the numbers walking. The people were walking towards a village that was a few miles outside the city, it couldn’t hope to cope with this many people but it was somewhere to go.

People around started to speculate, they pondered, have we done anything back, have we returned fire? Where was next, would there even be anything else aimed at the country.

A voice came from a little further back in the crowd, “There’s more coming!” it shouted. Suddenly 100s of people felt the ground beneath them tremble slightly and a deafening sound from behind them. People span round and gazed back to see a bright light and smoke emerge from the distance, from where they had been just hours before.

Stephen gripped Rebecca and Ruby tightly to him. It was seconds before the heat hit them and they remembered it for even less, the last thing he could do was whisper, “I love you” to his wife and daughter before everything melted away. His hands left limp and lost the grip on his family and the world slipped away.

Nothing was worth this.

Portal 2

Yes I've mumped on about Portal 2 for god knows how long, well it's out now, I've played it and last night I finished it, well the single player mode anyway.

To be fair, it's as good as I expected, maybe better! The game is superbly paced throughout, the difficulty curve spot on, with only a few baffling moments, all of which can be worked through with a bit of thought. The voice acting cast features excellent performances from everyone with a decent cast of Stephen Merchant, J. K. Simmons, and Ellen McLain, who of course gives us a song at the end. Stephen Merchant in particular has an almost perfect script for his voice and personality, a source of constant hilarity. Simmons gives an excellent, borderline eerie performance as Cave Johnson though some of the most interesting levels of the game.

Some slight disappointments though, the single player campaign isn't the longest, still longer than the first game though obviously. I also I did find the final boss a bit easier than I'd expected, especially after the pain in the arse to beat GLaDOS was in the first game.

Plot wise, the story was varied and pretty good, I wont go into spoilers and the works or the 6 people who will read this may get upset with me, but needless to say, the mid game twist wasn't all that expected and I laughed a couple of times at the ending.  Especially one line in particular which thinking about it is pretty innocuous but just struck a chord with me.

And then the ending closes with... 'Want You Gone" by Jonathan Coulton. Following the tradition set by the first game JoCo writes the song and GLaDOS sings us out! This song, while not maybe quite as good as 'Still Alive' was still a funny and good tune. I will be getting myself a copy as soon as iTunes has one to sell me!! It's made me a little happier I'm off to see him in 6 weeks in Bristol, as long as he plays it that is.

Overall, the game is superb, so many strong aspects come together to form easily the best of the year so far. Please God make a Portal 3, I'll preorder it now if you want.... Please Valve?

Royal Wedding II The Continuation

Some months ago I wrote basically of my complete lack of interest in the forthcoming royal wedding well the time has come, on Friday, which despite my earlier promises that I'd happily go to work on the day... I'm not, as I haven't got too, the two rich posh people will have their giant partially public funded wedding. Can you see how the enthusiasm has build up for me?? Can you tell how much I'm now looking forward to the event I once derided?? Nor me, still think it's a massive waste of hype and column inches.

While the darling other half was watching channel 5 there was even a cheap ass, lame, stupid, painfully romanticised TV movie of how they met. I mean honestly, who would watch that? Is it even accurate, I somehow doubt they were consulted on the script!

TV is preparing to be taken over by constant overage, 'expert' analysis of every insignificant detail, I mean 8 hours solid non ITV... Jesus wept. The entire police force of the country it seems will be in London making sure some nutter with a flag doesn't get within 5 yards of any of the important people. I mean honestly, if you ever wanted to commit minor crime, they're all too busy, now's your moment! It all just seems like a horrible horrible resource hole and more is getting poured down it all the time. Much like the olympics.

Tat has appeared in shops, I've seen mass produced fake hand drawings of the couple, and indeed of each individually, teatowels, cups, coins, all crap! But I suppose someone must be buying it. I'll not be attending a street party and I don't know of anyone who is, thankfully. I don't actually know of any street parties so maybe there is some sanity in the world yet, or at least in Merthyr, and it's not often you can say that with a straight face.

Really it's a good thing, my pure desire to avoid this... event + the time off = day with Gracie n Cerys, see I can find the positives in anything!

Wii 2 (Wii Wii?)

So Nintendo have announced the latest in their quick turnaround machine upgrades, next year the Wii will be replaced by the Wii 2 (I'm assuming a more creative working title will follow). The Wii itself always disappointed me, the concept was good but the follow through? It's had a few good games, the usual Nintendo staples such as Mario, Mario Kart were good. The Wii Silent Hill is supposed to be excellent (never played it) and some games such as Resi 4, Eledees, Mad World, got through, even games like Conduit tried, but for the most part the software support has been poor.

Firstly, Nintendo share an ethos with Apple, they like upgrading their machines so people have to pay full price to have the latest. Hand-held wise since the EU launch of the DS in 2006 there has been DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, 3DS, each more expensive than the last while just offering enough to make it a viable new product. Console wise 5 years between Gamecube and Wii is quite short for this kind of thing and it'll be 6 between Wii and Wii 2. For comparison the 360 is a year older than the Wii and has no plans to be replaced any time soon (although to be fair xbox to 360 was a REALLY short turnaround).

But what does this announcement mean for the Wii? Who's going to develop software for it now when it's days are already numbered? It was a great opportunity that never got the chance to get going, suffocated by casual gaming and shovelware to put it nicely. Apparently the Wii 2 (I like Wii Wii... Nintendo can you hear me?) will be easy to write for and port, but the Wii has a reputation for being a 'casual' console and that rep could be hard to shift.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

So Friday I stuck an application in for another job. Not another company, still staying with the Brotherhood of <company name>, but another department and a totally different role.

This has made me think, was it a good idea. I was ummming and arrring until the last minute, but in the end just hit the button and submitted it. That's another point, the application form was online, which despite being the total geek that I am, I didn't like. It almost felt like it was encouraging me to provide shorter answers, as is my experience using web forms, but I got over this and did a reasonable job I think.

Anyway, it made me evaluate where I am exactly, I have a job now I'm comfortable in, I'm good at, is secure. So why look for alternatives? The job I've applied for is in IT, and I think that was a strong attracting factor, as I've always fancied working in IT. I'm good with computers, and I think I'll be good at it with a little guidance.

But who knows if I've made the right decision, it's not like I'm certain to get it anyway, there's probably 200 people better for the job in the company, and it's not like I couldn't pull out.

Oh who knows, I'll see what happens.

At least I got to use a Bowie song as I title!

Homefront

About E3 time last year I noticed a trailer for a game I'd only heard vague things about before. The trailer was a back story trailer and used very believable plot points to eventually develop the story into the Korean invasion of America. The trailer was excellent and the story got my attention from the outset, I had high hopes for the game! I thought if narrative of this standard could be maintained through this game, and could be this interesting, it could help supplement what is getting to be a very tired genre.

As things got closer to the release I began to hear very mixed things about the gameplay. Formulaic, uninteresting were just some of the words that were banded about, and in the end I didn't end up buying it. But thankfully due to a work friend lending me his copy I did get the chance to play it.

Well, that was a lucky escape! Yes the plot is still good, but the game... not so good. Where to start? The characters, well each is a stereotype. Only the woman ever shows any real emotion (well a man wouldn't would they) The dialogue is dreadful, not so much the cut scenes, but the 'on the move' dialogue is a few lines repeated over and over again. The objectives generally switch between 1) Follow Connor 2) Shoot stuff 3) Follow Connor to next  laid on set piece 4) shoot more shit, and become tiresome quite quickly.

It follows the COD blueprint of throwing in sniper levels and vehicles, but this is the best and worst of the game. The sniper sections are reasonable enough, as good as it gets anyway, but the vehicles, especially the shocking helicopter level, are beyond poor. The helicopter is painfully difficult to control and about as much fun as waxing (or so I'm told...).

The enemies are all the same pretty much to look at, (except for 1 level where they're different, but still the same as each other) but they die randomly. I killed one guy with 2 to the kneecap, but his mate took 3 or 4 to the head... that does not make sense.Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

In generally the single player is a let down, a horrible disappointment, but at least it was over quick, what was that 4, 4.5 hours? Not allot of bang for ya buck and ended with what can only be described as a weak ass ending, no spoilers here though.

Now throw in the traditional graphical glitches, corpses falling through walls and the like.

I've not tried the multiplayer, I've no inclination too either, I have Bad Company 2 if I wanted that.

Such a pity, could have been amazing, Portal 2 will be amazing. 1 more week!

X Factor!

Good God this is out of season, X Factor is months away yet, but oh well. I actually had 3 ideas for today, bet I'll forget the other 2...

It's hit the news today that the winner before last of X-Factor Joe Mceldry (No I can't spell it, yes I could look it up, no I'm not going too) has been dropped by his record label. For me this just goes to show the show has nothing to do with music.

At the time where he was on the show, he, apparently, had millions of fans, people took time out of their lives and paid money out of their pockets to vote for him and seemingly elevate him to a level where he would sell records and do well. But what happens to these people once the series is over. They are driven into a frenzy to but the amazingly well publicised first single, which in Joe's case just failed to get to #1 for Christmas, beaten (thankfully) by RATM, which incidentally I bought, but after that, more often than not these people fall flat on their face.

I think that in the cold light of day (I'm just rolling with the clichés today!) once there's no glitz, no judges assuring you this person is the best singer since the last one they praised, when people only have the music to judge. Once they get to this point, people realise that these people only got anywhere based on hype, and now... aren't very good.

Occasionally it puts up people who are good. You can't deny Leona Lewis can sing, I quite like Steve Brookstein (the only guy I actually ever wasted cash voting for) even though he doesn't really release stuff any more.