For Pete's Sake

Music Anyone?

To start this post off I’ve got to given credit for the inspiration to Drowned in Sound who produce a Spotify playlist every Friday. I doubt I’d follow the same schedule but it’s inspired me to share my musical favourites in a less than regular feature. Now I appreciate not everyone can get a hold of this playlist as Spotify isn’t available everywhere so I’ve created a mirror on last.fm. So without further ado I present to you, playlist #1:

#1 The Chemical Brothers – Where Do I Begin

If there’s one thing I’m a fan of when it comes to this genre of music is a tune where I can just sit back and just chill out. This is one of my favourite such tracks. It’s not completely mellow and it’s mostly down to the intro but despite the big beats that come into the track I really relax when listening to it.

#2 Orbital – Halcyon And On And On

Carrying on the chill out theme this is, in my opinion, one of the best tunes ever. I first heard it while watching the title sequence of Hackers which featured music of the time and once the movie was over watched all the credits to find the name. The intro is epic and it just gets better and better.

#3 Röyksopp – So Easy

One of the many songs I’ve discovered by Googling TV advert music this one was used for T-Mobile here in the UK. It’s a very recognizable tune now and it’s easy to listen to.

#4 Super Furry Animals – Ice Hockey Hair

Apparently ice hockey hair is another name for a mullet hairstyle but in this instance it’s the name of a song with a beautiful guitar intro.

#5 Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Running for Cover

The Fun Lovin’ Criminals are the unfortunate victims of their own success. After the release of the iconic song Scooby Snacks and début album the FLC suffered a perpetual 2nd album syndrome. I don’t buy into this and would say Welcome to Poppy’s is up there with Come Find Yourself

#6 Jack Johnson – Breakdown

Has to be my favourite track from his excellent Inbetween Dreams album.

#7 Chemical Brothers – The Private Psychedelic Reel

Another track from the Chemical Brothers album Dig Your Own Hole which made an appearance on Sony’s Gran Turismo.

#8 Feist – 1234

Another advert song but this time for Apple and their iPod but don’t let that detract you from a wonderfully simple song and an impressive album The Reminder.

#9 Nils Frahm – Ambre

Well as I mentioned above this playlist thing was inspired by Drowned in Sound and one playlist had this beautiful piano piece by Nils Frahm. Rest assured I’ll be listening to more of his music if this is anything to go by.

#10 Crowded House – Distant Sun

While I’m not a massive fan of Crowded House I do like this track a lot and would probably say it’s my favourite Crowded House track.

#11 Bob Marley – Three Little Birds

For the longest time I believed this track was title Don’t Worry, anyway, it’s a cheer up tune that I never tire of listening to.

#12 Feist – My Moon My Man

Feist’s second appearance and mostly because this track is one that just stays in your head a while once you’ve listened to it because it’s that catchy. Again it’s a simple tune with nothing overly complicated; probably why I like it so much.

#13 Counting Crows – Colorblind

Another song I first heard on a movie (Cruel Intentions) and got a hold of it as soon as I knew what it was. Simple lyrics that to me convey rather vivid scenes.

#14 Seasick Steve – Fallen Off a Rock

I first saw Seasick Steve perform on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny and instantly bought his album Dog House Music the next day. He’s one of the best guitarists I’ve heard and just love a bit of blues.

F*** you Simon Cowell I won't do what you tell me!

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week or so you’ll have missed the current Internet storm which is the campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s track, “Killing in the Name” to #1 for Christmas in the UK. Now I’ll be up front and say that I’ve done my part, I bought the track on iTunes the other night. Now I already have the track but from my own personal perspective the fact that the winner of the X-Factor has been Christmas #1 since 2005 is, well ludicrous.

First of all not all of them have been that great. I’ve not watched every season but I’ve heard the tracks and I can’t say I’d buy them myself but then again I’ve been disillusioned by chart music for a good few years now. However my problem is it’s engineered so that it’s almost a dead cert that they’ll be number 1 at Christmas. I fondly remember in my childhood the prestige that went with being Christmas #1. It was a big deal and the uncertainty of who would be there come Sunday just added to the whole thing. However for the last 4 years you knew who’d be there as soon as the X-Factor winner was crowned.

Now I’ve read the counters to this whole campaign. I know Simon Cowell’s label is owned by Sony and that financially this won’t make a dent but at the same time its fantastic to see people make the choice to stand up and be counted. NME in one blog post points out the apparent futility and irony of the track chosen. However the counter blog post makes the point that, well, that isn’t the point. In the end the reason for the track is for the lyric and it’s not hypocritical because no-one is forced to buy it, it’s your choice, and very much about uniting in a cause against the system.

In the end though I’d settle for anyone but an X-Factor #1. Yes it’s harsh on the kid who’s won it however, fans of the X-Factor, there’s all of next year to give him a number 1. It’s just we want to free the Christmas #1 from the grapple of Mr Cowell and his X-Factor machine. Even if it’s just for one year that’s something and a wonderful show of people power.

Update: Well I still can’t quite believe it but we did it! Rage Against the Machine’s track “Killing in the Name” beat Joe McElderry’s “The Climb” by 50,000 sales. It’s also the UK’s first Christmas #1 by downloads only and for the fastest selling download single ever which just adds to the sheer amazing achievement that this was. You can be cynical all you want about the Sony/SyCo thing and that it’ll be X-Factor next year. However I’m looking on the flip side; Shelter will be on the receiving end of a nice windfall as most who backed the campaign donated money to the charity (current figures put the amount raised at £60,000+) but also I believe many will feel that change can happen if you work for it. Politics has suffered in the UK with turnouts for elections being very, very low with many citing the feeling that their vote won’t count as the reason to not vote. I know this is a small issue but it showed that if you have a choice and you choose and work with like-minded people you can change a foregone-conclusion into an upset.

Forza 3 Collectors Edition

While release day for the UK isn’t till tomorrow thanks to a postal strike my Limited Edition came early. First off I’d like to tip my hat to whoever designed the box for the LE. It presents the game, the USB stick and the key ring in a very cool yet classy way. What is even better is the game itself is in a sleek black case and not plastered with the usual XBox 360 stuff and the lime green cases. While not a huge thing it certainly ties the whole thing together.

Along with the key ring and USB memory stick you get some downloadable goodies. At time of writing I’ve been able to download everything but the LCE dashboard theme. While not part of the game it was a little frustrating but from what I’ve read on the official forums its absence is simply due to the fact they haven’t uploaded it. So with any luck come Friday, I’ll re-download the pack and it’ll be there. They key ring is a lovely, brushed steel key ring which looks really cool and has the Forza 3 logo engrave on there. The USB stick on the other hand is your run of the mill plastic casing but contrary to some office jibes not a cheap knock-off stick. The make is SanDisk so should be pretty good and reliable though I have not yet used and don’t plan to either.

On to the actual game itself and oh my is it beautiful. The one thing that really struck me is how better looking it is than Forza 2. Maybe it’s just me but everything just seems to have that extra bit of polish, colours are brighter, cars are sharper and the off track scenery feel much more part of the circuit. What is even more amazing is when you think ‘it looks this good and still plays at 60fps.’ This for me is the big plus point as I’d rather have a game that makes you feel you’re going fast than one that looks pretty but at 140mph you feel like you’re doing twenty. Couple that then with some awesome physics and you find you’ve got a top draw sim racer.

The words sim and racer would put a lot of people off however don’t as Forza 3 is really easy to pick up and play. Don’t care about upgrading your car? Forza 3 will upgrade your car for you if it’s not competitive enough to race in the Championship you’ve just entered. Pretty awful at driving? With all the assists Forza has to offer you should find your happy medium. Add to this the new rewind feature which, like in Race Driver GRID, allows you to rewind the race if you mess up, it makes the whole racing thing a less stressful affair (well mostly). It also means that the more someone plays and gets used to how it all handles with the knowledge they can rewind it will probably encourage the “all assists” crowd to turn the odd one off. Personally I’ve played each iteration of Forza without assists, not because I’m amazing, but because you get more cash in-game if you do. At the same time though I’ve felt more a part of the game and find winning a lot more rewarding.

Next on the change list for Forza 3 was the look and feel. The menu system in Forza 2 was okay but not great and at times could get a little confusing. Forza 3 however has a clean white look with minimal menus which are easy to follow and intuitive. The first thing I said about the menus to myself when I played the demo was ‘how very Gran Turismo’ and that’s not a bad thing. Either way the new look interface is welcomed as is the new way to make vinyl groups. Ask any of the painters in Forza 2 the way they made a lot of designs was find the car with the biggest roof and make the groups from there. There is now a stand alone option to make a vinyl group in Forza 3 and it takes you to an area where you have a grid layout. This makes making vinyl groups much easier as you have lots of space to play with as you don’t have to worry about part of your design going off the side of the roof. These groups can then be saved and put on a car later or, if you’re an awesome painter (which I’m not) you can put up for sale on your storefront.

The storefront is another new addition to Forza 3. Here the community at large can check out the best painters and tuners and buy their designs/tunes. For someone like me who was awful at painting and tuning in Forza 2 this is a fantastic addition. Now I can easily find tunes and designs and give something to those who provide them. Right now there’s not much on there as the game isn’t out but I can’t wait to see what the games best painters come up with, especially with the new painting method for vinyl groups. However don’t think that this replaces the auction house as that is still there and seemingly for me, still impossible to win a bid.

Finally then it’s on to the single player game as I haven’t touched multiplayer. The first thing of note is the new season play. One of the biggest issues with previous Forza game was that it was just race after race and a slow progression through every category. Forza 3 introduces Season Play to combat this. Each season you’ll compete in one World Championship which take place on weekends then after each of those you’ll be asked to select a week based competition. It’s definitely a more engaging way to play the game but if you want to slog through just competitions you can still do this and is where I selected my first drag race which to be honest wasn’t as fun as I thought it’d be. There’s also still the usual leaderboards which can be asked for every track and event for fastest lap as well as for drifting, the other newcomer to Forza 3.

Drifting was a community startup with drift teams like Project Blackjack being the forerunners of this sub-community. In Forza 3 it’s an add-on accessed by pressing left on the D-pad but it’s fun sometimes to turn it on and just go nuts. The drift points are awarded in a Project Gotham like way and the familiarity is nice. The other thing to is that it’s not easy or at least I found it hard to get anything good going which makes your respect the drift teams immensely.

So in closing Forza 3 is such a huge step-up from the impressive Forza 2 I almost couldn’t believe it. Forza is a seasoned racer now and the current iteration shows this in the professional look and feel. At the same time however it’s still a serious simulation editor which, with all assists off will bite your head off if you get it badly wrong. What is even more amazing is that despite this it can still be picked up and played by the arcade type racer or those who aren’t big racing players and still be enjoyed. What Turn10 has done with Forza 3 is impressive and sets that bar high now for its competitors namely Race Pro. At the same time though it puts quite a lot of expectation on them for the future. But if Forza 3 is anything to go by they’ll excel under pressure and can’t wait to see what they do next.

Future of online music?

So this past week Spotify launched it’s iPhone & Android application to allow it’s premium members the ability to tap into it’s music library on the go. Almost immediately people were complaining on the iTunes store about the fact that you have to pay to use it. The root cause being that the desktop version of Spotify is free to use. Do they have a point and is Spotify the way forward for online music?

Before the iPhone app I happily used the Spotify desktop application and put up with the ads as really I didn’t see the point in the premium account. At the time the bonus of the premium account was higher bit-rate tracks, no ads and a few other things besides. However once the iPhone application was released I took the plunge. For the price of the premium account (£10/mnth) I now have the ability to stream music on 3G and sync music for offline play. When you consider the cost benefit in terms of what you get it’s a pretty good deal. Consider that in the short time I’ve been a premium member I’ve synced four Kings of Leon albums, one album by Prodigy and another by Kimya Dawson. The cost of this through iTunes, where I buy most of my music, would be £47.85 so I’ve already made a saving. Now I appreciate I don’t “own” these albums. If I don’t renew my subscription come month end I will lose the ability to use the application and those offline playlists. Those who are against paying for Spotify point out that a years subscription costs £120 which is a lot of money for a service whereby in the end, you don’t own any of that music.

However I’ve chosen to look at the flipside. There are many times where I’ve heard a song that I like and thought of downloading an album to listen to more of their stuff or a friend has recommended at artist they think I might like but decided against it in case I don’t like it. Spotify allows me to check these artists out with out paying for that album. Now I appreciate the free desktop version of Spotify allowed me to do this but now if I do like it I don’t have to buy that album straight away. I can listen to it a few times, decide if I want to add it to my collection. On the cost side, if I sync more that 12 songs in a given month then, going by the average cost of a song in iTunes, again I’ve already made a saving. As far as the negative reviews on the iTunes store it’s been no secret that it was going to be a premium member only application. It’s also not the only company to employ this strategy when it comes to iPhone access. Remember the Milk, the online task management website, only allows its Pro members the ability to use its iPhone application.

So is Spotify the way forward for online music? I’d say it was complimentary rather than the way to follow. Spotify frees music lovers from having to buy a CD and wonder whether they’ve made a good choice and if not, live with an album they’ll never listen to again. It allows you, the listener, to be discerning in your choice of what you will actually purchase from your music provider be it iTunes or your local music store. Yes there are limitations to the service for a start there is nowhere near the same amount of music and artists on there as you would find in iTunes. A very good friend of mine has told me that one artist he listens to used to have 5 albums on Spotify but now just has the one. There could be licensing reasons for this decline but it is a bit of a concern.

However at the end of the day this is an amazing piece of software. The quality over 3G in my limited amount of testing is superb and the offline synching when on wi-fi was a breeze. It’s implemented well and is a real alternative for music listeners, the free offline application being a fantastic start point and the iPhone/Android app being there for those who wish to step up to premium. Yes it’s a little costly but when you do some of the math you find out it’s pretty good deal and Spotify isn’t forcing anyone to pay for premium. In some ways though the naysayers do have a point and they could create a free iPhone application to use but then if it wants to grow and increase it’s music library the money has got to come from somewhere and that somewhere I feel is the iPhone application. With it being locked to premium members only I would imagine more and more people will sign up to that service.

So one thing I’ve been meaning to post on is the games industry push to capture those who would not normally play games. At E3 Microsoft and Sony launched their attempt to lure “non-gamers” to their respective platform. Microsoft announced Project Natal and Sony launched their Motion Control based peripheral. With Nintendo Wii having already been out now for over 2 years they have a lot of catching up to do but then again are they too late to the party?

Nintendo blind sided the games industry with the Wii. It wasn’t “nex-gen”, it didn’t have HD graphics and most importantly, it wasn’t expensive. What it was, was revolutionary. Nintendo’s gamble on motion based games which required some actual exertion was a hit with the masses, gamers and non-gamers alike. The console itself was like gold dust for many months after launch, I myself paid over the odds to get my hands on one for Christmas. When I opened it up on Christmas day 2006 it was instantly hook up to my parents TV and for several hours we made Mii’s and played Wii Sports. My parents who are without doubt non-gamers, took to the Wii with relative ease. Once the basics of Wii Bowling was acquired my Mother was almost unstoppable. For my parents having movement involved made it easy to learn, less complicated. They have their own Wii now, in-fact they have two, and they enjoy playing on it when they find the time. This was a revelation and the Wii was out-selling the other two by a country mile. Everyone wanted a Wii.

It was no surprise then that a couple years down the line Microsoft and Sony want in on the act. Lure those people of a certain generation who have the disposable income to buy their consoles but would normally be put off because of using a standard controller. Out of the two the Natal is odd one out as it’s a sort of camera based whole body motion controller. Sony’s effort does use the Playstation Eye but you still have a controller to hold. I watched the Natal demo video involving Milo and I was really taken with it. I have read Eurogamers hands-on and the fact that at the moment it’s pretty scripted but the possibilities are massive. What I was most impressed by was the passing of the picture to Milo. Think of an MMO with proper interaction, characters reading your body language and reacting accordingly, I’m honestly excited by what this could mean for the console.

On the flip side I feel that Sony’s effort is just their adaptation rather than a re-thinking. That’s not to say their wrong for doing so, I guess there’s only so many ways to introduce motion, but I guess I was looking for more after seeing Natal. Sony’s console is coming strong now and a lot of the most recent games are really starting to flex it’s muscles and adding motion control will aid in its goal to be an all-in-one home entertainment system. Want to watch a HD-movie? The PS3 has Blu-Ray. Want to play the latest HD games? PS3 has that too. Want to play interactive motion games? With a motion controller the PS3 will do that soon.

As the title of this post suggest all of this is in aid of capturing the non-gamer those who flocked to the Wii on launch. They’re also after those who have overlooked the Wii due to its lack of features like DVD playback. However I think in some ways both are a little late, at least, they are for those who already have a Wii. The non-gamers won’t want to have more than one console nor do I think they will sell one and buy another. They’ll be comfortable with what they have and don’t want to invest again in another formats peripherals and games. It’ll be about capturing those who haven’t made their choice yet and it maybe that Sony’s decision to imitate rather revolutionise that will help them. Many of these potential buyers will undoubtedly have already played on a Wii. The motion controller will be familiar to them and make it an easier adaptation. Couple that with Blu-Ray playback and Sony may be on to a winner here. However I also hope that Natal is taken on by the gaming fraternity. If it is used in an MMO context then it’ll sell, especially if it’s well implemented. The key for Natal is game support and innovative use and this depends upon game developers. Here again Sony has the upper hand as many have had experience with the Wii which will make the development life cycle a simpler issue. With Natal it’s a whole new concept and one would expect that it’ll take a while for developers to really push the envelope with it.

I’m excited to see where this will all go, who will do what and what the game developers will do. It’s an exciting time to be a gamer no matter which platform you’re on.