Form Over Function: I’m Going to Buy Video Games a New Vacuum Cleaner

The day I bought my Playstation 4 I also became the proud owner of a Dyson DC49. It's their - possibly the world's - 'smallest, quietest vacuum cleaner'. You can almost fit it in the palm of your hand. Now, I’ve always wanted a Dyson, let us make that clear from the off, lest I build up the following introductory anecdote to an unfairly inflated stature. For me they are the perfect product for our consumption-led society: functional to a fault and reassuring expensive. They are the kind of thing even an aged Yorkshireman could get behind, such is their exquisite balance of monetary outlay and usefulness. Upon returning home I carefully laid both products beside one another on the sofa and quietly surveyed the fruits of my wanton spending. I then gleefully opened up my new vacuum cleaner, pieced it together and cleaned my flat. I got to the PS4 an hour or so later.

Dysons are great.

Decorated Hero: Cave Johnson and the Aesthetics of Science

I don’t really go in for loving many cultural products. I’ve got my favourite film posters on my walls - Casablanca, Easy Rider and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - but they are there because I like both the prints themselves and the films. I find it generally quite difficult to take that step from appreciating something or finding it stimulating to laying down my life in its defence. I’ve never argued about which David Bowie album is the best, or which Call of Duty campaign is the most thrilling and visceral (man), or whether becoming a vegan should simply be a personal choice or part of a wider-reaching political/moral crusade. I steer clear because all of these things - and in general any topic with the power to bring forth heated conversation - are hugely subjective, and the people willing to jump into discussion at the drop of the hat - over the Internet or over wine - almost certainly have their minds made up already. I stood on a hill once and inadvertently urinated right into the wind. I haven’t made a habit of doing so since.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Warfare * But Were Afraid to Ask Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is a very serious video game, maybe the most serious video game ever created. Its unflinching earnestness makes it, in my opinion, one of the most important games of recent years, if not all time. Far Cry 2 is everything big-ticket games are almost always too scared to be: it is hard, it is strict, it is a pain to actually play, it is uniformly bland in its approach to conflict and interpersonal relationships, it is - well, genuinely amazing.

Mordor Could Still Use More Shelves

I’ve recently moved house and spent a lot of time doing DIY. I’ve also been playing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. DIY is full of intricacies and I’d go as far as to say these are pretty much limitless. The “Nemesis System” featured in Mordor - which generates unique foes for the player algorithmically - is full of intricacies, though these eventually run dry. That about covers the majority of the content of this aborted missive, which is far too unwieldy for me to ever hope of bringing under control. While I was lost in the maze of drivel, I kept bumping into myself asking the same question: why, when the differentiation between ‘story’ and ‘other’ content in open world games is often so slight, can I spend many, many happy hours labouring repetitively, only to lose interest in these same tasks the moment I’m not being pushed through by a narrative?