Internet Piracy: We’re all making the next Assassin’s Creed

Your friend and mine, helpful games-centric internet man Stephen Totilo, kindly invited us into the heady world of games design think tanks last week. In his fascinating post he details the many questions asked of him by the good people at Ubisoft, specifically with regard to his opinions of Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, pirates and the continued evolution of the series.

Ten games released this year (2013) wot I disliked the least

As it’s the week before I go home for Christmas and work is a bit slow, I thought it acceptable to collate together ten (10) games I played that were released this year and rank them in order of which I liked the most/disliked the least. Two things: I appear to have only actually played ten (10) games that were released this year so it was more a case of ordering them rather than actually narrowing down a right big list. AND I didn’t truly enjoy most of these in the conventional sense of the word, but taking into consideration the previous sentence I’ve not really got much more to work with.  

Leaving LOVEFiLM: who, what, when, where, why & how

I used to rent video games through the post from this company called LoveFilm (they stylise it LOVEFiLM which really dicks around with the spellchecker, though so does LoveFilm as a single word to be fair). They decided to stop lending me video games so I decided to stop giving them money each month; a pretty fair compromise was reached. Today I received a series of questions attempting to ascertain exactly why I took this decision. As a conscientious member of society, I of course chose to oblige and answered all of their questions to the best of my ability.

First one in, last one out: Think before you drink, or at least before saying something silly

I’m the first to admit that I can become a little acerbic when I’m writing whilst drinking. I’m not like that in company, in fact quite the opposite. In recent years I’ve become somewhat Russell Brandian in my public inebriation; full of gesticulation, pithy anecdotes and enthusiasm. This goes doubly if I’m meeting people for the first time. It isn’t something I do willingly, that would be a little bit pathetic really, no, it’s my way of getting by in situations that would otherwise make me feel a little self-conscious. The drinking certainly helps as well. It, as I’m sure it does for many people, loosens me up, imbues me with greatly inflated self-confidence and - people might beg to differ - makes me funnier. That’s only when I’m in company though; when I have to be courteous and charming and very happy. When I’m by myself and half drunk, writing, as I like to do, I become more realistic, cynical and just a little bit bitter.