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The new, backlit GameBoy Advance. It looks like a play on their deluxe Game and Watch handhelds... .. and in its clean lines and general lack of fuss shows Nintendo's eye for design off perfectly. From the picture above, I'm presuming that the carts slot in to the underside of the bottom half, which'd make the entire unit roughly 2" by 1.5" when closed. The button configuration is straight from the older GB models. I'm a little worried about just *how* small it is (it's certainly smaller than the GameBoy Color) and, oddly, there doesn't appear to have been much thought paid to how the thing'll feel in your hands - none of those nice curves on the backside that we normally get. It's still a beautiful-looking piece of kit. �120 - �130 is a bit steep, though, especially when there's a pre-order limited edition one on eBay for about �110. It's times like these that quitting work to focus on studying seems like it may have been a daft idea. Next up was probably Henry's Dream or the soundtrack to Ghosts of the Civil Dead, then The Good Son, so I'd heard of The Mercy Seat before I'd actually heard it. This acoustic version was how it first appeared to me. Absolutely loved it, more than anything else by Cave that I knew. It's like a hymn, and I always pictured the singer as a religious killer, obviously, but one who was at peace with himself and his acts, who felt absolutely no remorse for what he'd done or fear of what was to come because he knew it was right, that it was all part of his god's plan for the world. I got hold of the Mercy Seat 12" single soon afterwards and, to be honest, was really disappointed by it. The thing that I'd found so chilling and effective in the acoustic take - the sense that, in some twisted manner, this guy was completely centred - was missing entirely, replaced by a feeling of mania and chaos. Wasn't long before I realised that this was exactly what makes the original so powerful in its own way and that there's no need to prefer one over the other. The acoustic version is the gathering storm, the original that storm in full effect. Or maybe they're like Max Cady, the acoustic being Robert Mitchum, the original more De Niro. Anyway, I was listening to American III - Solitary Man again the other week and was wondering how Cash's take matches up to Cave's alternate version. Most of my vinyl is stored away for reasons of space and I've not been able to compare the two until Mr Fear popped along. Listening to them now, one after the other, it strikes me that Cash makes our man sound more like a completely pathetic figure, whereas in Cave's hands he's never anything less than totally threatening. Cash's character is your neighbour, the one who has a family and a nice, quiet office job. His crime hasn't been committed out of passion, it's come about through some grubby little deal. He's Fargo's Jerry Lundegaard. In the end, then, which do I prefer: Cave's acoustic take or Cash's? Hell, why have a preference? They both work well in completely different ways. News in brief: I seem to have trapped a nerve or done something similar to my shoulder after sitting in front of this damn machine for so long... going for an IT degree may not have been the most sensible course of action after all; I've gone doolally with my spending after finding out that HMV have a sale on DVDs (Lost Highway, Blood: The Last Vampire, The Man Who Wasn't There, Metropolis, Farscape... mmmm), realising that the Soul Jazz Records website includes online ordering, and rediscovering the joys of eBay; I've ripped my left thumb to pieces in the process of agreeing with the general consensus that the GameCube controller really wasn't designed with Capcom vs SNK2 in mind; and, after many, many months, I'm finally getting around to posting all those long-promised compilation CDs to various people. Some of them have been sitting around for so long that the track listings on the inlays have now completely faded away. Proper stuff going up on this blog soon, I promise. If only because somebody's linked to it after searching for "the better you suck cock, the less likely you are to get fucked". Believe me, you guys need to download the demo of Gridrunner++, play it until your head impodes then pay the �5 (5 frickin' �!) for the full version. Honest to God, this'd easily be worth the same as a full-price release. Not only does it directly rip off some of the geatest sound effects that videogaming has given the world (notably Robotron and Defender), but it's also the spritual successor to Minter's own wonderful Tempest remakes and the best example of 'zone' gaming since... well, since Minter's own wonderful Tempest remakes. It almost (almost, mind) makes up for the continued non-appearance of the GameCube port of Tempest 3000. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go rescue Flossie again. Enclosed with this letter, we have sent you some small gifts: one PlayStation 2 game console, one copy each of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs and Conflict: Desert Storm, a memory card and an extra controller for Mr. Cheney's use. We ask that you accept these gifts and use them, rather than the lives of Iraqi civilians and our U.S. servicemen, to fulfill any militaristic fantasies. Link pinched from Mr Tricks at das Bartleby Underpants. |
Losing the fight against mediocrity for the last few years. | ||
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