And now for something completely different

Because there is nothing of any interest going on at all in the world at the moment, I decided to dig out some stuff I'd written about a year ago because I sprung upon some inspiration. I think I may have just read 1984, or something given the basic premise. Anyway, have a read and tell me what you think.

Two days ago I killed a man. At least I think it was two days ago; I’m not quite sure. The last 48 hours (or however many hours it actually is) have been timeless. You’re probably wondering why I have thrown you into the end of this story, not the beginning like any mentally stable person, but I want you to understand my motivation for writing this down and inevitably incriminating myself. The truth is not, as you might reasonably assume knowing nothing of my situation, that I am feeling very guilty and regretful over what I’ve done. The truth is that I am actually quite proud of myself; the man thoroughly deserved to die. No don’t suddenly assume that I am psychopath who has some shallow, contrived reason why my victim had to die, I’m not.

The reason the man had to die is quite simple; the more of them I kill, the more it hurts them, and the more it hurts them the better. ‘They’ are the people who rule this country, who watch our every move, who regulate our every act. The most tragic thing is that we actually elected them. Their arguments seemed so persuasive, so innocent. They were going to protect us, they said. They were going to stop the attacks, they said. They were going to protect our liberty, they said. 10 years they have been in power (10 years without an election by the way), and none of these have happened; the attacks still happen, we feel less secure that we did before and they have slowly eroded our liberty.

First it was our anonymity; the cameras, the ID cards, the constant tracking. The government now knows exactly who we all are, exactly where we all are and exactly what we have ever done. We cannot do anything without them knowing about it. They can even predict what we will do next; they are always a step ahead of us. You might want to know how this happened, how we let it happen. This is one of the things we actually accepted, back when the government listened to its people. They told us that it was to stop the terrorists, to stop the people who wanted to kill us. ‘What have you got to hide?’ they asked, ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong, what are you worried about?’ So, a little begrudgingly at first, we accepted the legislation.

I suppose that there is nothing inherently bad about the government having all of this information, when it is a good government. When it isn’t, the information gets abused, and that is exactly what happened. At first it was people who preached terrorism and spoke up for violence against people. It was not long after this that they began arresting people for speaking out against the government. ‘To present a united front,’ they told us. They shut down any newspaper that spoke out against them and now the only papers left are filled with government propaganda. Anyone who doesn’t read them gets arrested.

Despite all their measures to stop the attacks, they only got worse. They called a state of emergency and suspended the election, then they dissolved parliament. Decisions were no longer debated, they were just enacted, and no one had anywhere to voice their complaints or grievances.

The last straw was taking away our children. At first it was voluntary to send children away to government run boarding schools, now it is compulsory. If you refuse, they break down your door, steal your child and throw you in prison. No one knows what happens to them in the school or the prisons, but when they come out they are a different person. There is no mark on them, but they are different: you can tell when they talk. It is a toneless drone and whenever you mention the government they are full of praise.

As I said, it was the last straw. We rebelled. Well the word ‘we’ is a little misleading; it implies some sort of cohesive group, implies that we rebelled in an organised, collective way. But how would that be possible in a society were your every move is monitored, your every word documented? No, it would be more accurate to say that I rebelled at the same time as thousands of others. We rebelled for the same reasons, at the same time, but we were not together; we were a collection of individuals, acting for our own reasons and for our own cause. Because of this we are unstoppable; there will always be rebels, so long as we are free.

So, two days ago killed a man. I went to the government offices and waited for one of them to come out, I didn’t care whom; in this battle anyone is a target. I still don’t know who it was that I killed; it may have been a senior government official, or just a pen pusher. It didn’t matter because the more we hurt them the less able they are to hurt us and the more afraid they become, the more they will think before they act. Before the attacks have all been on civilians; the occasional government official has been caught up in the blasts, but never before have they been targeted specifically. Now that they are being targeted, they will fear us, and that fear will destroy them.

So I followed this official, through the streets, passed the occasional bombed out building. Most of the streets are quiet; people tend not to go out anymore; they’re afraid of the attacks. I don’t know whether he was aware of me or not, but he seemed to take a very roundabout route; down back alleys. I followed, and when I was in one particular alley I made my move.

Fear and anxiety drove me; the adrenaline pumping through my veins gave me the extra strength needed to make it a swift kill. I bent as if to tie a shoelace and my fingers groped for the brick I had spotted to my left. Grasping it in sweaty palms, I knelt like a sprinter, I daren’t look back; there was a camera behind be. I chose this spot because the camera would not see my face; maybe I would be able to delay my death for a few days if they weren’t sure of my identity.

The brick was heavier than I have expected and I got off to a lumbering start, eventually however I built up pace. I sprinted down the alley and leapt onto the back of my target, taking him to the ground. He was smaller than I had expected; the thick winter coat he was wearing hid his true physique. It was not easy to subdue the man; he fought ferociously, like a cornered dog, starved to desperation and frothing at the mouth. Eventually my greater strength and the advantage a weapon afforded got the better of him. I struck him until his brains spilled out onto the ground. It was a disturbingly pleasant feeling. I looked back up the alley to check that my act had not been seen by anyone, turned and walked away briskly.

Near the end of the alley a hand wrapped itself around my mouth and I was hauled through a door to my left. I stab of fear shot through me: I had been caught.

“Your first mistake was allowing them to watch you as you followed him,” the harsh Scottish accent whispered harshly in my ear. “Your second mistake was killing him in the open.” The voice went on, I was frozen by terror, like a rabbit in headlights. “Your third mistake was looking up after you smashed his brains in; you got caught on camera; they know who you are and they will stop at nothing to kill you.” he paused, releasing his grip on my mouth. I turned to face my kidnapper. He wore a balaclava so I could not see his face.

“All in all though, not a bad job; you chose a secluded location and managed that camera well enough until you gave yourself away afterwards. You didn’t let them know what your voice sound like, which is a good thing and no one but me saw you. Most people fair much worse on their first go.” I didn’t quite no what to make of this strange faceless man who talked of death so calmly, as if he was experienced at the act.

Eventually I found it within myself to speak. “So you’re not one of them?"

“Very perceptive. I’m just like you in fact.” He came very close to me. “A rebel!” he whispered in the same tone he had addressed me with at first.

“So there are more of us?”

“Oh yes, lots more, but I can’t say anything more here, it’s not secure enough; we want to keep a secret as possible. Come with me.”

He led me down into the basement of the small terraced house. He pulled off the cover of the entry shaft into the sewers and ordered me down. We landed in a foot deep of water. The tunnel was not wide enough for both of us to stand straight, so, because I wanted to question the strange man, I was forced to crane my neck against the curvature of the tunnel wall. My companion fished out a torch and turned it on; the tunnel was illuminated to reveal grime-covered walls.

“You’ll be needing this.” He said, handing me a balaclava, much like the one he was wearing.

“Why do I need to wear this down here? Surely there are no cameras here?”

“No, but we can never know whether or not we have been infiltrated, so long as no-one knows who anyone else is, they can’t tell them who we are.” I put the balaclava on.

“But if someone has infiltrated us, couldn’t they lead the police to us?”

“The tunnel system’s huge and we know it a lot better than they do. We could fight a guerrilla war against them down here quite easily, and win it in no time.”

I had meant to question him more, but there didn’t seem much more to ask; I could answer all my own questions with relative ease.

I spent the next few hours on a guided tour around the sewer system. I met many of the other rebels. There was a good number more that I had expected; some it seemed had fled down here when things first started, many more had arrived as things became gradually worse. They also had a startling number of weapons hidden away, as though they were building an arsenal.

So for the last two (or three) days I have been living down here, in the sewers. When I first asked if I could keep a diary they were sceptical, but after a while a persuaded them. So long as I didn’t give anything away about our location, they said.

The Scotsman walked up to him as he was writing in the diary.

“Come on.” he said, “Time for your second murder.”

The man put the diary and away in a safe dry place and followed the Scotsman.

I've written a couple more instalments, which I may post in the next few weeks, I may even write a bit more if inspiration strikes. Tell me what you think

A stunning distraction

Due to a complete lack of any inspiration for a blog this week, I thought I'd just show you some really cool shit instead to distract you from my failure. This distraction takes the form of some artwork done on the sides of building. He takes bland buildings like this:

And transforms them into this:

Some other examples of his work include this wall:

Trasnsformed into this:

Or this boring concrete wall in a carpark:

Into this:

I wonder just how many birds fly into this wall every day.

It's hard to believe that this is actually a flat wall, his use of perspective and the realism of his architecture is phenomenal.

God save the Queen?

Early this week it was revealed that British Royal family spent £1.5 million more last year that the year before, taking the total to £41.5 million. This figure does not include the ‘Civil List’, which pays for the running of the Royal household (£7.9 million per year) and the undisclosed cost for protecting the royal family. All told the total amount that the Royal Family costs the British taxpayer is almost certainly over £50 million. This figure is set to rise as the Royals have been digging into a reserve fund in order to make up a deficit in the Civil List for several years now. When the current deal expires next year the Queen will almost certainly have to go cap in hand to the government and ask for money. If whoever is in government at the time has any backbone they should refuse her.

£50 million is small change compared to the billions that the government has been pouring into the banking sector to try to prevent a wholesale economic meltdown. Nevertheless, the Royal Family remain a meaningless, archaic relic of a bygone era. The Queen performs no real constitutional purpose; she is a figurehead whose place as Head of State is merely for the sake of meaningless and every more irrelevant ceremonial formalities. Essentially the Royal Family represent £50 million which might as well be thrown into the ocean.

It would be unfair to say that the Royal Family do nothing of any use; they do extremely valuable charity work and provide a constant source of amusement and ridicule, but this is not the point; we supposedly live in a country which adheres to the principle of democracy, freedom and justice. Maintaining an unelected Head of State with unearned wealth and privileges completely discredits these ideals. The Royal Family is absurdly rich when you take into account the value of the multiple palaces and stately homes, all by virtue of being born; they have done nothing in their lifetimes to deserve the wealth they own. This unearned wealth is obscene when you consider the millions of people struggling to make end meet across the globe.

This is not to say that I abhor wealth; I regard entrepreneurs like Bill Gates; men who have earned their wealth by virtue of their own ingenuity, to be among the greatest men alive. I do abhor unearned wealth; wealth gained, not by virtue of your own intellect, but through force, fraud or by the chance of your own birth.

The only man who deserves his inheritance is the man who has no need for it; if he could make that inheritance on his own, without the help of those who have come before. There is no way that any member of the Royal Family could and ever would be able to create the kind of wealth that they inherit. There is no way any of them could even create the £50 million grant they get every year from the taxpayer; they couldn’t make it in a lifetime, let alone a year.

The Royal Family is a pointless drain on the taxpayer and it is time that we shook of the needless burden of a redundant and increasingly absurd relic from our history. The only thing keeping them there is a vague sense of sentimental patriotism; we should not allow our emotional attachment to our past to stop us from moving forward. The Royal Family is a nostalgia inducing relic which reminds us of the time when Britain was the greatest superpower on the planet, we need to get over our imperial hangover and start moving forwards if we are ever to be more than a pushy ex-power with an overinflated ego.

We currently strut around on the world stage, pretending that we still matter, throwing our weight around in an attempt to fool ourselves into believing that anyone still cares. It’s time we moved on and we should start off with getting rid of the most redundant institution of them all; the monarchy.

This is not to say of course that the beautiful palaces and statues of former greats should be removed. We can and should still remember our history; it can teach us a lot about ourselves and the way the world works. Our history reminds us that greatness is fleeting, it reminds us just how fickle and world can be. It can humble us and drive us onto to do better than our forbears. These are valuable things that everyone needs, however it is equally important that these things stay exactly where they belong; the past.

By allowing our past to live on into our future is potentially extremely damaging; it is the kind of sentimental attachment to our past that allows extreme nationalist like the BNP to get a foothold. It may seem rather innocuous, but the sentimental patriotism attached to the Royal Family can be directly harnessed by extremists and used to make themselves seem more plausible. To refuse to increate the money afforded to the Royal Family would be a small step on the way to revitalising the country and combating the dangerous rise of extremist nationalist groups. Unfortunately I doubt any government would have the backbone to tackle the monarchical relic and hence drastically change our constitution for the better.

I really hate Twilight

Because I refuse on principle to do a blog on Michael Jackson; I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, this week’s blog comes to you in the form of a link to another blog by someone else entirely, in which is embedded a video made by yet another person. This video is made of win.

Here it is. It’s worth noting if you didn’t already realise that the guy is from Twilight and the chick is Buffy, in case that wasn’t obvious.

Those of you who know me will know all about my complete distain for Twilight, which is why I find this video so satisfying. If you haven’t seen (or read) Twilight then congratulations, you have so far managed to escape that appalling pile of bile. To fill you in, it’s about a girl who moves to live with her father in a small town in the north east USA. There she quickly befriends a variety of rather cliché and uninspiring characters that make up the teenage population of this overly blue town (as you can see from the video the film makers had some sort of blue fetish) She also encounters and is inexplicably attracted to a dark brooding asshole called Edward, who is also a vampire. Well he sparkles in the sunlight, and can run very fast, and can read people’s mind for some reason, and doesn’t kill people… he’s not a very good vampire; mostly he just broods because that’s supposed to be attractive in a guy. You can tell the target audience has low self-esteem. Anyway, somehow these two eventually hook up because nonchalance, stalking and borderline domestic abuse are all great ingredients for a functional and healthy relationship. The two emo lovebirds then start getting hunted by some real vampires (in that they kill people, although they still sparkle in the sunlight and tend to brood a fair bit) and we finally get some action rather than all the horrible, pointless drama which dominated the rest of the film.

Ok, so now you don’t need to watch it. As you can probably tell I really don’t like this film, mostly because it felt like it was written by a 14 year old girl. The characters are cliché, the plot is predictable, the setting is corny and the dialogue is painfully forced. The pacing is terrible; it’s over 2 hours long and you don’t even meet the antagonists until about half an hour until the end. Even then the action is rushed so we can get back to more soppy and terribly written teen drama and pathetic romance. It’s worrying that there are writers getting paid to churn out this crap and even more worrying that the film was a massive success.

Even the CGI and stunts were done badly. Normally bad films are slightly redeemed by the fact that they’re really well made; the recent Bond film had awesome special effects for example. However Twilight does even have this to fall back on; the stunts are obviously faked and the film is flooded with blue all the time. I literally can think of no redeeming features of the film apart from the occasional piece of nice scenery, but when I’m searching this hard I know I should just give up and accept that there is nothing good of any note about the film.

Which is why I found that video so entertaining; it took the piss out of a film I disliked intensely. There is a sequel coming out later this year, I may even watch it just so I can rant about how bad that was… or I may use that time doing something less painful like drilling holes in my fingertips with an electric drill. I hope you liked the video as much as I did, which you probably would have done had you seen the film, if you hadn’t then I hope you can appreciate it anyway.

Loosing my Marbles

This week the Acropolis Museum was unveiled in Athens, just below the site of the world famous Parthenon; one of the most famous buildings to survive from the Classical World. The museum cost £110 million and was built to provide Athens with a place the display the city’s rich history. It is no accident then that it is placed next to the Acropolis, the centrepiece of Ancient Athens. The main motivation for building the museum was to provide a place to display the Elgin Marbles and other statues which formerly adorned the Parthenon. These statues are currently held in the British Museum, having been brought there from Athens in the early 19^th century.

The Elgin Marbles, named after the person who removed them from Athens and brought them to the British Museum, make up about 75 metres of the 160 metre frieze that decorated the interior of the Parthenon. This frieze has been recreated as the centre piece of the Acropolis Museum partly with the pieces which remained in Athens and partly with copies made of the pieces currently in London. It is the hope of the Greek authorities that the Elgin Marbles will be returned to Athens to be reunited with the rest of the frieze. They argue that it is a vital part of the Athenian heritage and was wrongful removed from the Parthenon. They believe that they have a right to possess them.

On the face of it this claim is simple enough; the marbles were originally made in Athens so they belong there. However by making this claim the Athenians make a claim about their own culture and heritage which is far bold than first appears. While Athens in name and geography is the same city as it was in the 4^th century BC, it is very different culturally and socially; modern Athens is in no way the same city as Classical Athens. For a start modern Athens is the capital of a Greek state then never existed in the 4^th century BC. At this time Greece was made up of a series of city-states more likely to fight each other than to cooperate. Even when threatened from outside they only cooperated for reasons of mutual self-interest, rather than any sense of national identity. The idea of a culturally and politically united Greek state was not even considered by the people’s of the day; it was a world of small city-states and large empires or leagues, not nation-states and united coalitions. Secondly the religion of ancient Athens was a polytheistic, anthropomorphic religion of sacrifices and frequent festivals. The gods were ever-present and took a concerted interest in the life of the citizens. This is far removed from the Orthodox Christian religion of Modern Athens, which can trace its roots back to a combination of Judaism and the philosophy of Plato. These two religions are so different that it is impossible to say that one is in any way the successor of the other. Finally Ancient Athens was the intellectual and cultural centre of the Mediterranean world for centuries, whereas modern Athens is the culturally and political capital of a poor, unimportant state in the south of the Balkans, one of the poorest areas of Europe. Modern Athenians can claim to link to ancient Athens beyond the geography. They are two completely different cities situated in the same place.

There is no reason therefore for the authorities at the Parthenon Museum to demand that the Marbles be returned to them because they simply don’t belong to them. They belong to a city and a culture far removed from the modern city. Given that the Parthenon was build by an imperialist power from the money taken from subject states, mostly unwillingly, ostensibly for their defence, London may be the more appropriate place for the Marbles. Beyond this cynicism the Parthenon represents the wider ideals of democracy and freedom embraced in 4^th century Athens in what was comparatively one of the most progressive societies in history. These are ideals embraced the world over and as such the Marbles do not belong to anyone, but everyone. They represent the expressive freedom which allowed the artistic excellence which designed and build them to flourish. As such there is no doubt that they should be on display in their most accessible and complete form.

Regardless the current state of affair is unsatisfactory; the frieze exists in several different parts across the world. They should be complete, no matter where they are on display. Given that it is the birthplace of democracy, despite the sad and insignificant pretence of a city with delusions of grandeur which now squats in its place, the frieze should be on display in Athens, next to the Parthenon; the building which is and will always be the enduring symbol of democracy.

The Not-So-British National Party

Earlier this week the results of the European elections were published and amid the utter collapse of the Labour vote countrywide the British National Party (BNP) managed to grab two seats in Yorkshire and the North East. The BNP are a political party which claims to represent the indigenous population of Britain and to that end wants no-one but these indigenous Britons to live here. This means that all ethnic minorities will have to go, no matter how long they have lived here and no immigrants will be allowed entry to the country. They claim that these non-Britons are stealing jobs which should go to British people and blame any unemployment on these foreigners.

Essentially the BNP appeals to the sense of a British National Identity in order to conceal what is little more than racism; they believe that certain people, based on their race, should have exclusive access to an island simply be virtue of the fact that people of the same race have lived their for centuries. Not only is this an absurd belief, it is also built on a complete misconception of the history of Britain. Britain is not and never has had one indigenous race of ‘Britons’. Even in prehistoric times when the country was populated by Celtic tribes, these tribes were not united politically or racial. There was no country of ‘Britain’; just a whole host of different tribes competing for dominance of small areas of the island. Under the Roman occupation Britain was just part of the greater empire which spanned Western Europe and most of the Mediterranean. Romans were integrating with the tribesmen whom they had conquered. After the Romans had left Britain, the island was occupied by again competing tribes of Germans which only united under Alfred the Great after the Viking invasion. This is seen as the founding of Britain as a nation, and even then it was a hodgepodge of Celts, Saxons, Romans, Angles and various other smaller yet still distinctive groups. The Norman invasion made the makeup of Britain Even more different given that it was now occupied by a foreign power. For a long time after the invasion the aristocracy of Britain all spoke French and indeed much of north east France was part of Britain, or rather Britain was part of north east France. Britain was not ‘united by a common language’ until long into its history. In fact it is hard to say when this happened given that it was more of a gradual integration than a cosmic shift. ‘Britons’ are a peculiar racial mix of Germans, Vikings, Romans, Celts and Normans. This ill defined boiling pot is wrongly perceived as ‘Britishness’; there is no such thing as a British Race.

Using this misconception of what it is to be ‘British’ leads the BNP to believe that this small group of islands belongs to this ‘British’ race. The entire history of the British Isles is one of invasion and integration; new peoples have invaded or settled and become part of the populace. They have become part of the ‘British’ race by virtue of the fact that they have lived here and integrated with the populace, sharing their culture and shaping our history. I see no difference between German tribesmen settling this island and Indian or Polish or African families moving here and settling. The BNP misconstrue the facts to help conceal their blatant racism. The reason they want to expel people who do not fit their ill defined conception of British is basic and irrational fear of foreigners. They alter their conception of history to justify this absurdity.

Not only is the pillar of their beliefs completely unfounded, their leader and many of its members are completely insane. Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP is quoted as calling a holocaust a ‘holohoax’, most of its members seem to think that Hitler was actually a pretty decent bloke and we could learn a lot from his policies. Some members even think that we would be better off living in Nazi Germany. This from a party which claims to fight for civil liberties. They don’t seem to have an issue with rape, but think that homosexuality is wrong. They believe in Corporal Punishment for petty criminals, they’re opposed to globalisation and believe in governmental control of large swaths of the economy. Is this starting to sounds at all like Iran to you? The BNP wants to reduce Britain to the level a fascist state which has one of the worst human rights records of any country on the planet. This goes contrary to the beliefs of almost all great British thinkers through time; like John Stuart Mill, John Locke and Adam Smith. So much for British values, but we’ve already established that the BNP ignored historical facts which do not sit with their racist bullshit.

Fortunately the BNP’s election success was not actually a result of many more people voting for the BNP; they only managed to gain 1.4% of the vote on the last European Election. However their success does mean that Nick Griffin and co will represent, at least in part, British interests in the European Parliament. Given that only 6.3% of us voted for them this is a disgrace. The BNP are a sorry part of British politics for whom only a small number of racist bigots vote. It is a sad reflection of the state of politics in this country that they are able to win seats to represent the people of Britain, whatever the colour. If you too think that the BNP are a disgrace to this country then I urge you in the strongest terms to sign this petition. It is to be delivered to the European parliament when Nick Griffin sits in his first parliament on 14^th July. You can and should also join the facebook group 1,000,000 united against the BNP.

The BNP are a blight on the face of British politics. The best thing you can do to stop them from gaining any power is to vote at the next election (which will probably be next summer). Racist bigots will always be in the minority – less than 6.3% of the country actually agrees with Nick Griffin, but it was the fact that people did not vote that allowed them to enter the European Parliament. Do not let the loud mouthed minority of racists overpower the vast majority of reasonable, tolerant people. One vote every few years is all the say we get in our ‘democracy’ so use your vote wisely. While I have my own preferences, I do not mind of you vote for Labour, or the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats or any other party, but I strongly urge you, when Gordon Brown does call an election, to use your vote wisely and don’t allow the travesty of this weeks European Election repeat itself.

Post-Natal

This week saw the world’s biggest nerd-fest; E3 take place in Los Angeles. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is, as the name suggests, an exhibition for video game designers to launch their upcoming projects to the world. After last year’s disappointing series of sequels, E3 returned to form with some very juicy announcements from all three of the major console makers that are sure to give every video game nerd across the globe raging erections. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all announced new controllers for their respective consoles.

Given how much money the Wii has been raking in for Nintendo it was inevitable that the other console developers would want to tap into the market and they have taken the opportunity presented at E3 to do that. Sony announced a motion sensing camera, which seems to be rather limited compared to Microsoft’s Project Natal; a motion sensing device more accurate than anything produced previously. Microsoft claims that it can do voice and face recognition, and register movement to an accuracy that does to require a controller and allows the player to interact with characters on screen in a completely revolutionary way.

Of course Nintendo made claims about the Wii’s motion sensing capabilities which proved to be rather overoptimistic and because of that they’ve announced yet another accessory for the Wii that makes the control actually do what it’s supposed to do. We are now a few years down the line and the promotional videos show Project Natal working very well, but I can’t help but fear that the motion sensor will not live up to expectations.

I am also sceptical that the motion sensor will work with more hardcore games like Shooters and RPG’s. Clearly motion sensors make for a more realistic experience, which is great for sports games and such, but the whole point about video games is that you can take on the attributes of someone or something else and do things that you would not normally be able to do. There is no way that a game which centres on motion sensors can provide this experience. The hand-held controller remains the best way of playing hardcore games, so removing it can only really condemn Project Natal to a casual gamer’s gimmick. From an economic perspective this is no bad thing; the Wii has made massive profit for Nintendo by appealing to the casual gamer and Microsoft understandably wants to muscle in on that market. However Project Natal seems to be a break from the hardcore gaming demographic that has made the Xbox 360 so successful. Hopefully Microsoft will recognise that controllers are still the best way of playing most video games and continue to release games that do not depend solely on the motion sensor.

You would hope that the novelty of motion sensing will wear off eventually (although the continued success of the Wii demonstrates it’s continued popularity) and people will stop making ever more gimmicky games that have arbitrary features which are only there to make use of the motion sensor. Until then I guess we’ll continue to be bombarded with ever more realistic sports games. Inevitably people want games which effectively emulate how the sport is really played and this is probably where Project Natal’s real potential lies, until people start thinking outside the box and just going outside to play the sport in question for real. Rather than standing in front of your television posing like a sportsman you could just be outside doing the same thing, looked less ridiculous, burning more calories and getting more direct sunlight.

It remains to be seen just how effective Microsoft’s foray into motion sensor based video games will be. I can see Project Natal selling very well (although it will have to in order to make up all the money Microsoft and no doubt spend developing it), but I don’t think that full motion sensor based gaming without any controller is the way it will go. I can see better and better takes on what the Wii has already don’t being successful with both casual and hardcore gamers, but Project Natal really represents more of a gimmick which will work in the short term rather than that next generation of video game consoles. Nevertheless, with consoles now living in every household and videogames no longer being the reserve of nerd living in their parent’s basement, the casual gaming demographic will only grow, meaning that the major developers will have to pander to their desires to continue to compete. Fortunately that hardcore gaming market continues to be large enough that the major developers cannot ignore it; the increase in popularity of casual games will not spell the end of the hardcore gamer.