Looking back I should have been looking forward...

I just finished writing the script for my first Youtube video.... blog...vlog...thing...whatever, it's all a lie anyway! Because it's not my first Youtube video, not even my second! No sir! My first video was completed  back in those hazy autumn days of 2006...that is a long time ago, nearly seven years....and there's a good reason for that. See, life is shit. Well, no, that's not fair, life is what you make of it and I made shit pie, then ate that shit pie and chased it down with a nice fizzy cup of shit-ade. I didn't mean to, it's just....depression is an odd thing, it can hit a person for no real reason and suddenly everything you do is a fuck up. That girl smiled at you, just an innocent smile, but you say nothing, you internalise it, "you should have said something, anything! Why didn't you! Now you're going to die alone!" You apply for a job, one of the hundreds, if not thousands all gunning for that same position, you don't get it, you don't even hear back "I'm so fucking unemployable, what's the point of even trying, may as well just wallow in my own filth." (And wallow I most certainly did...) The store was out of those certain cookies you like...."WHOLE FUCKING WORLD'S AGAINST ME! I SWEAR TO GOD!" It's just small things, silly ridiculous things, but here's the thing....when you've got nothing going for you, the small things become big things because they are basically all you have...it's like, have you ever been talking to a person and they just won't shut up about that one scene in a movie, just going on and on about the deep symbolism, the fantastic use of cinematography, the brilliant usage of differing shades of lighting and how each actor embodied, perfectly, the message that the scene was trying to convey to the audience....or whatever, pick your own example, the point is they saw it as the awe-inspiring show-piece of cinematic history...you thought it was a pretty nifty fight scene (does anyone still use that word...nifty??? if not, I'm bringing it back!). The rest of the movie to them was a by-the-by event, it framed the scene, rather than the scene being simply a facet of the larger movie..

...and that's what depression is like, the little things that may seem inconsequential to others are massive to the depressed person. It doesn't start off big though, no, what tends to happen is that it'll start off small and it will spiral downwards. Pretty soon the original thing, that trigger, is lost entirely and the depression is basically a self sustaining vortex of mental anguish and suffering...and you can't just click out of it, it's not something you can control...and when you're stuck in it, you really are stuck, because when you are depressed, you don't see any way out of it...there's no shining doorway showing you out of the depression, if someone is offering you a hand, you can only reach up to swat it away because what is the point....

That was me, from about the age of 13/14 to 23...I really thought like that, most of the time...I tried to get out of the state I was in, when I was in school it wasn't so bad, I had school-work to occupy my time with and computer games outside of that. I went to Sixth form and had a bad year overall and then the course was cancelled at the halfway point, and remember how I said someone with depression internalises shit? I tried to play it off, get back on track, went onto college but I just couldn't hack it. The failures of the previous year just kept gnawing and gnawing at me to the point where I just didn't get out of bed in the end. I couldn't. I'd lay there, for days at a time, only getting up to go the toilet or eat. 

I tried going back to college the next year, but of course....I now had the failing of two years eating away at me, and I dropped out pretty quickly again. I got money from this compensation claim (I was run over as a child, it was kind of mentally scarring...what, with seeing my foot dangling from my leg, hanging on literally by an inch of flesh) and I figured "hey, you know what, I could put this money to good use and make something of myself!" Only kidding! I went out and straight up murdered my liver almost every day for six months. And bought random bits of shit, as though the material possessions could somehow cover up the hollowness I felt inside....

Which leads me back to the beginning of my short, yet rambling tale. I bought a video camera. It was a whim purchase and to be honest, I think I may have still been drunk from the night before. But I bought it and some editing software and decided that yes, this is what I want to do, I want to make movies and put them up on this new(ish...what, it was 2006, Youtube only appeared in 2005!) website called Youtube, make a name for myself and escape the sorry world of crushing depression I was living in...In case you've not made the connection yet....that didn't come to pass...see, for a long time, I blamed my friends for it, initially they were all for it, but then their interest turned to apathy, and then straight up refusing to help me and that's whatever you know, but I realised not too long ago that it wasn't fair of me to blame them....see, it was my dream, not theirs...and I did nothing to pursue it. As soon as they said no, I just thought "well, I can't do fuck now" and gave it up....my blaming them internally was just an excuse for not trying, because I didn't want to add another thing to my list of failures, I didn't want another thing to spend my nights awake thinking about and cursing the existence of....of course, I did, because that's not how the mind works ("why didn't you keep at it?!" my brain would say, because he's a prick) .

I still internalise shit, I think everybody does (at least I hope so, not because I'm mean but because if I am going to be crazy, I'd rather everyone else be as well) and I still go on the depressive spirals, where I feel like nothing I ever do will ever be good enough and that there's no point in really trying...but I don't know, I'm doing better now simply because I am doing something, these blogs, the videos I'm working on, college last year and uni this year, it's the goals of working, doing something I really enjoy, that are keeping me up there, you know? And I guess that, overall, it's much better to internalise those good feelings than the other ones, later taters. 

The Value of the Self

Today, I am going to be talking about transhumanism. At the moment, scientists are looking at inventing a kind of neural processor that if it were to be plugged directly into your brain would allow you to store upon it memories whilst also giving you the ability to think faster and process data quicker, the only downside being that it would require you to give up a small percentage of your brain (you had to make space for it in your head after all). Now, assuming that Moore's Law stays consistent we'd have upgrades available not too long after the initial batch of circuits are created and then further improvements not long after, but each upgrade requires a little bit more brain taking out each time until eventually it reaches the point where there's no brain left at all.

Now, are you still you? Arguably the only hint of brain matter left would be the brain stem and even that is only a supposition based on its complexity with regards to nerve control.....it's arguable that that could eventually be overcome, given time....but anyway, it's a moot point, would you still be you? The electronic brain would have all your memories, your hopes, your fears, you doubts and your dreams. It would be as much you as you are now, but will it actually be you?

It's like that old joke about the broom "I've had that broom seventeen years, sure I've had to change the handle a few times, and the head more than that, but it's still the same broom I bought seventeen years ago." See, the nature of self is tricky at the best of times. We tend to think of ourselves in terms of a linear, non-interrupted flowing character....we are who we were when we were children, right? I'm not so sure, we're constantly evolving personalities, being shaped by events that happen both within and without of ourselves. We change by increments and yet remain ourselves, we retain this belief that we are the same person we were in the past...then could the same not be argued of transhumanist values? Is the key to remaining who we are as individuals to change only by degrees at a time? A prosthetic leg here, a mechanical heart there...We remain who we are, but to what point? What is the threshold that a person can augment one's self and remain as one's self?

There is also, of course, the concept of the soul...but I dislike this. You could argue that the soul is what determines the character, the being, but it is a religious concept and because surpassing mortality goes against God, it's arguable that the soul of a transhumanist would be destroyed or at least taken back by God as it is committing a cardinal sin (blasphemy by way of the deification of mankind). Accordingly, the thing left behind, which has your exact thoughts and is like you in every way would not be you, but just without a soul....would it still be you?

I really do love the philosophy of transhumanism, it's a metaphysical mine field, and so many paths to explore. I'm going to have to really write about it in depth one day. But for now, I've got to go and do some actual work because the house is a mess....I can't wait for my wireless robot control chip to be installed so I can telepathically command robots to clean the house for me....later taters!

PS: I apologise for the shortness of this one....I wasn't planning on writing it....it just kinda happened....as these things tend to do....whatever, go eat a cake and be a winner!

How to be contrary: A lesson in obstinacy

I was looking through old folders when I came across a school of report of mine from when I was in reception (ah, the lovely stage between nursery and year 1...year 1 being the third year of school, what does that say about the UK education system, hmm) and it was quite the interesting read. It stated that I was a disobedient, unruly child who led the other children and provoked them, using only words, to fight each other...in other words, at 4-5 years of age, I was the Devil in the classroom, and I guess, certain parts of that have never really left my being. The disobedience thing I found to be funny (it was a Church of England school, very religious, so I'm glad to see that even at a young age I was against that) but it was the making others fight thing that I found to be really interesting...see, that doesn't really sound like something I'd do. I love arguing but I like to be the one doing it, watching other people argue can be interesting (insomuch as it reveals aspects of their personality that they would normally conceal) and a lot can be learnt from it, but if I am doing the arguing myself then I can direct it, in a sense, make it follow the paths I want it to follow....which is bias, I know, but fun! 

One of the things is that I am often contrary, that is, I will argue view points that I don't believe in, hell, that I may even find to be abhorrent, just to see how well people can back up what they are arguing against....the thing I've discovered is that people tend to be very obstinate but without much reason behind it. A couple of examples, arguing with a friend about the benefits of vegan-ism, he mentions a bunch of studies that prove it to be beneficial, I mention studies on evolution (humans started eating meat to gain easier access to energy = bigger brains), he disregards it out of hand. Next example, friend argues that the Christian God is real, and has all the traits attributed to Him, namely that he is all powerful, all knowing and all good. I counter with the Epicurean Paradox, friend responds with "no, you're wrong" "why am I wrong? How so?" "because God is" blah blah blah. 

The first example is something that I am not completely at odds with, I like vegan-ism as I hate animal cruelty though the second...well, for most of my childhood I was brought up as a Christian, so I can't entirely shake the belief in some form of over-watching God-like figure however much I would very much like to...but my main point is that the arguments they present are flawed. They can't adapt to any new information that discredits them, they can't overcome any apparent contradiction or paradox that disproves them but still they argue the point, still they remain obstinate and use circular logic (i.e. I am right because I am right) and it really annoys me. I don't mind the stubbornness so much as I hate the refusal to acknowledge the merit of any view that opposes their own....I know, it's hypocritical, but there it is.

I guess the thing I really hate is "isms", because you can't really argue against them because they're almost exclusively based on faith and belief and so are subjective to the person expressing that view point. It doesn't matter what you present against it because they're not looking to be proven wrong, only that their "ism" is correct, and so will disregard anything that goes against it.

This is actually starting to depress me, just thinking about how fucking obstinate we all are and how we create all these divisions and definitions of each other....I think next time I'm just going to talk about video games again. later days. 

The Ghosts of Consoles Past

Okay, so, video games.....because I've not talked about them enough and, sad as it may be, they have had a massive effect (mass effect?) on my life....

It all started back in the summer of '09, I was a wild-faced child, enigmatic, full of youth and frosty dander....wait, wrong story....okay, yeah, I don't fully know when I experienced my first video game, but I do know when I received my first console (unless my last blog on memory proves else wise), and it was at night, when I was very young, maybe five, a sega master system (yes, I am fucking old) from my cousin. So, the first game I played on this console was either sonic 1 or alex the kidd (which was built into the console itself), I don't know which, but I was hooked. 

I was a sega child (as were all the "cool" kids, because Nintendo sucks dog testicles! yeah!....I later abandoned peer pressure, and discovered LoZ games...thank you whatever god is out there) and so I got a mega drive next, and enjoyed such great games as toe-jam and earl:panic on funkotron and altered beast (may have actually been on the master drive...I'm not entirely sure). I played other hits (which were cross-console, but I neither knew nor cared at the time) such as Disney's Aladdin, and Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck: World of Illusion (man, Disney used to make great games, what happened?! I played Antz once, nearly died of tuberculosis that I'm sure was caused by it....I'm sure!) and life was great.

With the next generation of gaming I moved onto a Nintendo console, the N64....I....loved it...Ocarina of Time, Mario 64 and Lylat Wars remain, to this day, three of my favourite games. About the same time, around where I lived there was this guy, who used to travel around in a small white van and rent games, and it was brilliant, because he'd come around every Friday, and it cost 50p to £3 (for the newer, more popular titles) to rent a game from him, and so I'd save up my pocket money and at the least every other week have a new title to play. It was one of the highlights of my childhood (....yeah, this was the secondary highlight of my week as a child, the first was staying over at my Nana Betty's every weekend, i probably spent more time there than I did at home tbh....) and so I'm glad for it.

I've already mentioned in my blogs about FFVII that I didn't get a PlayStation until quite late in the game (so to speak) I think it was 1999/2000 when I finally did get one (for reference, the ps2 came out a year or two later....I was always a generation behind until I got my own money) but, man, fuck the PlayStation. Don't get me wrong, it had my favourite games of all time on (FF9, 7 and 8 respectively, with an honourable mention to Grandia), but it was at this time (or there abouts) that I discovered the internet....yes, I played the original runescape....though now, for the life of me, I could not tell you why. It wasn't a game so much as it was a chat room with some mining play thrown in. I did enjoy it though, to be honest. I think a part of it was finding somewhere to play it, I didn't have the Internet at home so I had to play at school, or at my mum's boyfriend's house....which wasn't always possible. I'll talk about getting the Internet at another time, because (again, sad as it is, it's another landmark moment in my life) I can, and it's always fun to leave a subject for another day.

Then I got a ps2, and all was right with the universe.....except that I tanked on my GCSE exams. It wasn't entirely the fault of the console (or my fault, for being addicted to it) for my failing, I mean, other stuff happened, but it was definitely a factor. You see, I am very much a computer game addict...how could I not be? Life was basically shit for me, and video games offered some form of escape from all that, and the PS2 was the first console that really just offered the addict experience. It had good games, sure, but I can't really recall any one, specific stand out title, maybe Kingdom Hearts (but that's final fantasy and Disney combined and that's just cheating!) or Devil May Cry but other than that, it was just a lot of very good games, don't get me wrong, but nothing that should have claimed so much of my time. I did really badly on my GCSE's...I was expected to ace everything and I really should have, instead I barely scraped enough to get into sixth form. There was no excuse for it, I should have done better instead of playing computer games. I didn't learn that at the time though, no, I really didn't.

I got the Xbox 360 next, though, to be entirely honest, I was spending most of my time on the PC, playing World of Warcraft. The amount of time I've spent on that game...here's the thing though, I don't really regret it...video games have stopped me from getting where I want to be in life, there's no arguing with that, but, because I've been waylaid by it (heh, Baldur's gate reference) I've been granted the opportunity to meet so many amazing people, who've helped shape my life, and shape my views on the world and helped shape them for the better, and that's great, because that's what life is about, a learning experience. Now, maybe it would've been better had I succeeded at the first attempt, but I don't know and the me that's here right now would rather have failed at those times so that I could have lived like this and known the people I know now thanks to my fuck ups....I could probably word that better, but the main point is, I'm actually happy...and video games helped me to get there, there were a few hairy moments, where gaming was all that I had, but yeah, its all working out in the end, right? Right? I really hope so, have a great day folks, I'll write again soon.  

Memory in the minor key

So I've mentioned, briefly, in passing, in one of of my older posts that I have a theory about cartoon theme tunes. Simply put, I would argue that the catchier the theme tune is the better the show will be remembered/perceived later on. Seriously, how many Ducktales episodes can you actually remember? Not many I'd be willing to wager, but hum the opening bars of the intro and you instantly get lost in ill-remembered reminiscences, maybe even going so far as to claim it was one of the greatest shows of your childhood...but really, was it? Did you even really watch it past the song? Of course this doesn't hold true for all shows with great intros, Animaniacs has an instantly recognisable theme song and was also a mighty fine cartoon that's a hell of a lot of fun to watch these days. It's not entirely to do with music though, there's a sense of theme and style as well, shows like Batman:The Animated Series had a minimalist opening but it worked, it's memorable because it's visually striking rather than aurally so. 

My point is, memory is a tricky thing. It tends to focus on remembering distinctive patterns but not so much the events relating to them, which is why you remember the intro, but not the events of the show itself. Sure, if you focus, you can bring up memories, but compare it to the instant recall when you hear "Life is like a hurricane", and even then if you do remember the show, you don't remember it in its entirety simply because your brain filters out whatever it deems superfluous....it's why TV shows, movies and games are employing more and more plot twists, because they maintain interest. No matter how forced it seems afterwards, it makes your brain take notice which is why people remember Bruce Willis is a ghost in the Sixth Sense (if I spoiled that movie for you, welcome to the world of 2013! I know, I know, it must be disorienting for you to have just woke up from 1998, the year before the movie came out, few other things to note, you managed to avoid nu-metal, you lucky bastard, but it appears to be making a come back, you unlucky bastard....America got a black president, but it's mostly the same as he just acts like a white guy.....oh the spice girls got back together, it wasn't great....and erm....oh yeah, Y2K.....well, as you can see, that didn't happen....some other things happened, but it was mostly boring...enjoy the future that is the present!) but you don't remember the scene where he's talking to the kid's mum, whilst casually eating a bagel.

....there wasn't a scene where that happened, that was a test, because you just went "what are you talking about, that wasn't in the movie...was it? I don't...."

And it's scary, in a lot of ways, because at the end of the day you are completely reliant on the data your brain interprets, and if it is ignoring random data just to focus on what it deems the important stuff (like the cartoon intros, the predictability is like catnip for your brain...which for the purposes of this analogy is a cat). There's something that happened to me as a child, my mum and nan left me in the house alone because I didn't want to go shopping with them. I was about two or three. But yeah, here's the thing, I remember, quite distinctly crying because I'd been left alone in a house I hated, alone, as a kid. However, my mum says she was watching through the window and says that I just turned the TV on and started watching it. One of these things is wrong. It could be that my memory of it is really flawed and distorted or she is lying or it's also possible that her memory is wrong. I don't think she's lying, because she was only talking to me about it, so she didn't have to put on a front or whatever, but that means that for one of us, the memory we have isn't correct, and it's debatable as to who is right.

I understand why it does this, I mean, if we had full access to the amount of sensory input our bodies experience, we'd go insane. Imagine being aware of your own blood flowing through your veins or trying to listen to someone but you're hearing every other sound within the range of your hearing just as much. Or some other third example. The point is the brain needs to edit what it is presenting to you but because of this, can it ever really be trusted? It's an annoying question, and I don't think there is any easy answer to it (well, other than...."maybe..."....but, you know, don't be a bag of arse troll about it).

Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up there for this one because I have poo brain as a result of drinking to excess last night, I'll come back to this topic another time, probably, I do tend to think about it a lot. So, yeah, later taters. 

Ms A. Laney thoughts

SO I guess I've wrote a fair bit about video games huh...that wasn't originally my intention, originally my intention was for this to be a companion piece to a youtube vlogging...thing...I'm getting set up, but, because I basically can't start that until the end of June, and I'm impatient, I decided to start this early..because I'm like that, I get not so much bored but intensely interested (already talked about how I can get obsessed quite easily) in other things, other areas, other conversations or debates or stories, whatever...which is why I reviewed the pre-E3 conferences. That wasn't planned, hell, I didn't even have the idea until quite near the end of the first presentation, and I just thought to myself "hey, you know what would be a challenge? writing this shit up!" and I was right! it was a challenge! But it was a fun thing to do, I got the first three presentations written up within an hour and fifteen minutes of the thing finishing and I had to be fast, I was basically writing in the breaks between each one, which wasn't all that long....they're not my greatest pieces of work, but I think the exercise was a decent practice....I didn't do all of E3 because as I said, this wasn't planned, I basically had a day where I had nothing to do and these things were going on, so I thought I might as well use the time to do something constructive. So I took notes on the shows, read what people were saying, sifted through the hyperbole, it was deceptively fun.

So yeah, companion piece....see, I'm going to John Moores University in September, to study journalism, and I thought it'd be interesting to keep a record of that experience. Not necessarily in strict academic terms, but more just a recording, written and filmed, of the whole thing. Because it's something I've wanted to do for a very long time now, not the video thing (but yeah, actually, that also) but the university thing. See, I left school nine years ago and it's kind of...well, it's not been great for a whole lot of reasons. I wanted to go to university back then, so I went into sixth form at my secondary school to complete an International Baccalaureate...which the school closed down in its first year (it was a two year course). Which was a kick in the teeth. It didn't help that the girl I loved, and was going out with dumped me for my one of oldest friends and my other friends just straight up abandoned me (well, most of them did, a few didn't) because...reasons....went to college to try and get back on track, and did the first year fine, well, kind of, I dropped one of the courses straight away, psychology, basically because it bored me. I don't mean to sound big headed, but half the stuff I knew already and the other half of what was being taught was outdated and flat out wrong and I just couldn't reduce myself to towing the line just to complete a course. Basically, I was stupid and I cut my nose off to spite my face. Then in my second year I got my hands on money, a lot of money, and I died...well, okay, I didn't die, but it's honestly surprising that I survived. Because I started drinking...like...a lot. I was a mess, just utterly depressed and lonely and life was just bleak. I've always been depressed, a born cynic, I still am to this day, but that year was the worst I've ever felt. I wanted to go to university, but I didn't really know what for, or what to do. I'd wanted to do journalism forever, but what kind, where, for what purpose and it just began to grate, this sort of seemingly unending spiral of existentialist questioning, suddenly I wasn't asking questions about education, I was asking them about every aspect of my life. Why bother with anything when you consider the enormity of existence? It went on and on. Every day seemed to bring a new low and looking back at it just leaves me numb, because I still feel that pain, that despair and honestly, I'm scared of that happening ever again.

Because it will, I'm a very emotional person. People who know me will be like "whaaaat? but you're always so calm and collected, so stoic and aloof." Yeah...the reason for that is basically to try and avoid the depression again. Because I get too attached to people, when they leave I feel lost and I over analyse everything. "Why didn't they laugh at that joke?", "That smile didn't seem genuine." "Why aren't they talking, what are they doing, why aren't they talking to me?!" and I do realise that everyone has thoughts similar to these, of course they do, it's human nature, but it's only recently that I've started to be able to get over that. It used to be that I would agonise over every little thing someone said or did, because I basically didn't trust anyone (I used to be massively trusting, and that just led to people seemingly going out of their way to destroy the trust I placed in them) and it was just so mentally and emotionally exhausting.

I drifted along for years on this exhaustion. It was just a kind of lethargy, a genuine apathy to doing anything really. About the only thing I did do that was actually constructive was read. I read everything I could get my hands on, mostly as a form of escapism. There was a better world out there, I just had to find a way to claw myself back up there. People often say that the first step is the hardest step to take, bullshit. The first step is easy, it's just a random movement forward that means nothing, the steps after that, however, the ones you take to keep moving forward, well they're the important ones. That's what I'm doing at the moment, just trying to keep focussed on moving forward, because if I stop I am afraid I'll fall back into that spiral, I don't know if I'd have the strength to pull myself out of it again.

I don't know, like I said at the beginning, I don't really plan anything, so this has been a bit of a moan and a depressive blog, and for that I apologise. These things are basically me just talking about whatever is on my mind at the moment and I guess this is what was there this time, just the need to explain (kind of) why I am the way that I am, the search quest ("quest" makes it seem more heroic!) for validation continues!

...I think next time I'm going to write an actual plan and (maybe) stick to it, instead of just waffling....    

  

Sony E3 Conference Review

Much like the Sony conference itself I am writing this review late...very late in fact (I had to sleep, the conference finished at 4 in the morning here in the UK) but here it is, better late than never as they say. The Sony conference started off very low key, as I said it was late (about half an hour or so) and Jack Tretton kicked proceedings off by talking about PS Vita and it's inter-connectivity (a redundant term, surely?) with the PS4 and how that's going to enable a new way of controlling games...what it sounded like to me was that the PS Vita will function as a Wii-u tablet....essentially, and that's grand or whatever. Then he talked about Sony still supporting PS3 even with the PS4 on the horizon, highlighting oncoming titles such as GTA5, Gran Turismo 6 and Beyond: Two Souls....it was nice, but there was very much an air of formality about this section of the show, as though these details were a required starter to be slogged through before they could get to the main course.

The PS4 portion of the show started with the actual unveiling of the PS4 design (which, according to Sony is not actually a finalised design, but...) and it was very well received, if not spectacularly so. Then there was a ten minute section on the other media capabilities of the PS4 and Sony Entertainment and then it launched straight into the games and what to expect. The first sentence from Shu Yoshida (Sony's Vice President of Product Development) was met with laughs around the internet as Microsoft, who had been touting 15 exclusives within the first year was upstaged with Yoshida confirming at least 20 within that same time frame. This would be a recurring theme of the night. Yoshida showed game-play footage and trailers of games such as inFamous Second Son, Knack and The Order 1886, which blew away the game-play footage Microsoft had shown in their conference. 

After this Adam Boyes took to the stage and revealed that Sony would allow, and support, self publishing of Indie studios on the PS network (the diametric opposite of Microsoft's much maligned policy). The crowd went wild and Boyes invited several indie developers onto the stage to showcase their titles, repeating and affirming Sony's complete support to indie developers as they exhibited their games to the audience. Then there was talk about Diablo 3 (mercifully brief) and then a video from Tetsuya Nomura, who revealed two new exclusives to the PS4 range. The first was the re-branding of (what was essentially becoming vapour-ware prior to this point) Final Fantasy Versus XIII to simply Final Fantasy XV (so we didn't have to see the Agni's Philosophy video, again, hooray!) and the second was the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3. There was game-play footage of both games, and as is well known Versus XIII (or Final Fantasy XV as we should call it now) has been in development for a long time...but there was no hint of a time frame for their expected release, but still, news of their arrival excited the crowd. We then had a game-play video of  Assassin's Creed 4 and Watch Dogs, and they were really amazing pieces of footage (except for the fact that the Assassin's Creed game died mid cut-scene), which I thought was a bit strange...as I said in my previous blog, the Ubi-soft show before this really could have used some excitement in it, something to have pepped it up and this footage would have certainly fulfilled that criterion, it seemed odd to me that they'd be willing to let another company have their (arguably) two main attractions as a mid show piece. It's a bit of an odd one. 

Next was the reveal that The Elder Scrolls Online would be coming to the PS4 and this was met with a very lukewarm response, the game itself looked very uninspiring and it was a bit of a low point in the presentation. Then a Mad Max game was revealed (which I, at first, thought was going to be a Fallout 4 reveal...I saw the one armed leather jacket and the car....thought it was the reference in Fallout to Mad Max, didn't consider it could be Mad Max itself....how's that for meta-thinking). No game-play footage was shown, just a video trailer, and I suppose that if it was done well it could be a very interesting story/game. Post apocalyptic tales are always so good because they make for good social commentaries, when the buildings crumble, do we let our morals and inhibitions fall as well? Or retain them as best we can...I know that the game is probably just going to be a shooter of some kind, but it would be fun to see if it could stick to that as well. 

I said before that a recurring theme of the presentation was taking little pot shots at what policies Microsoft had talked about and put in place, and prior to this point of the show, it had been relatively harmless. To talk about how the media side of the product is not the focus, but a bonus to the console or about how they (Sony) fully support indie developers by allowing self publishing, these are but minor jabs. But here, at this point in the conference, Sony stopped dancing around the ring and started to deliver crushing hay-maker after hay-maker. Firstly, Tretton came back onto the stage and announced that the PS4 would fully support the sale of used games with no restrictions placed upon the customer at all. You can sell it to a store, to a friend, to a neighbour, you can give it away for free for all they care, it's your game after all (was the general point they made, check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=kWSIFh8ICaA made in response to Microsoft's draconian used game policy). Secondly, with the crowd still cheering at this revelation, Tretton revealed that would be no on-line authentication needed for PS4 titles, whether that be upon initial purchase or once every 24 hours thereafter. At this point, the crowd was basically giving a standing ovation which covered the one, minor blip of this barrage, it will now be necessary to pay for PS+ in order to play multi-player games on-line, but Tretton quickly moved on to the beneficial side of joining the PS+ program, highlighting the fact that it will work across all three platforms for one price (Microsoft still haven't fully confirmed whether this is the case or not with Xbox Live over Xbox1 and the 360, it probably will be, but they're not talking to anyone at the moment to answer) and that users will receive free titles, discounts and access to game demos/betas and that it will remain cheaper (at $5 per month) than Xbox live. Thirdly, and perhaps to remove attention to PS+, Tretton introduced some game-play of Destiny. Put simply, the game is beautiful. The environments were fantastic, and the way the light danced around the inside of The Wall (the location the game-play was taking place in) This is a multi-platform title, but knowing that the PS4's specs far outstrip the Xbox1s it is hard to believe that it will be able to keep up. I will admit that prior to this I was sceptical of what Bungie were capable of, but if you've got a moment or two spare, I suggest you watch the video on you-tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBO_igyh8DY though I am sure there are other better links out there somewhere), it's worth the 10 minutes or so. 

Lastly, there was some talk about Gaikai and to be honest, it didn't sound impressive. It won't be available at launch, and at first will only be available in America, so knowing Sony we won't see it in Europe until 2015 or something. But, this turned out to be a feint move, which allowed Sony to deliver the knock-out blow. I made a point of criticising the Xbox1 price point in a previous blog, because it was ridiculous that it cost all that much whilst providing so little...well Sony announced that in the UK the PS4 will cost £349 ($399 + €399, once again, the EU gets shafted) which means, for those of you playing the home game, that it costs £70 less, whilst being (at least on paper) far more powerful tech wise, providing more exclusives (20 by the end of the first year, 40 in development compared to 15 and no word on how many in development from Microsoft, I've heard it's only 20 at most, but I doubt that), having a lower cost to pay for on-line play and no ridiculous policies on used games nor requiring an Orwellian peripheral required to be permanently on (I know they say it can be turned off....but if it's always listening for the phrase "xbox on", it's not really turned off, is it?) or else it doesn't work at all? It's not even a contest at this point is it?

To wrap it up, the Sony conference was great on its own merit. The games it showed, as well as the brief talk about the other features of the console, were good and it could have stood on its own as the best conference up until this point. What really made it great though wasn't so much its own achievements, but rather, the ability to respond to the major failings of its main competitor. By setting itself against the antagonistic policies of Microsoft and actually just maintaining the status quo, it has elevated itself well into pole position for the next generation battle between consoles. Sony are no doubt loving this, we can see it in their presenters body language, in the troll clips of Sony executives handing each other games freely, and they've every right to enjoy it, they've won, convincingly, before it even started and with the minimum of effort required. Since the Xbox1 reveal, Microsoft have told us to wait until E3, just, wait until E3 and we'll set the record straight....they didn't even come close and may as well have just conceded  the title there and then to Sony.