Screen Zombie http://screenzombie.posterous.com Gnawing on the bloated corpse of post-modernism and regurgitating the remains since 2010. posterous.com Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:55:00 -0800 Winter and whatnot http://screenzombie.posterous.com/winter-and-whatnot http://screenzombie.posterous.com/winter-and-whatnot

So I recently invested in a smartphone

Despite all my hesitation to join a trend I've always been sort of uncomfortable with, and hardly anxious to join the growing legion of social media addicts trying to stand up on a mire of bad tweets and facebook faux pas, it's pretty awesome. The joy of soundboards and that one awesome lightsaber app have worn off by this point, and I find myself involved in some of the genuinely cool free games you can get on the Android marketplace. I hate casual games in most instances because they can only keep my fleeting attention span in check for a few minutes here and there, but there's one I have been indulging in quite a lot, more so than 'harder' games at the moment because I simply don't have the time to sit down and play like I used to. One such game is Wind Up Knight, a charming but challenging platformer with some tight controls, which I found surprising for a touch screen game. It seems like it would be more at home on the DS, but plays very nicely on my Xperia.

What I've probably been reveling in most aside from the marketplace is the fantastic camera. It's not perfect, but it's a gigantic step up from my previous faithful companion, the Sony Ericcson Cyber-Shot (Who served well for several years). And what should happen but the day after I get my shiny new phone? Snow! Lots of snow!

And a very patient girlfriend: 

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I still haven't gotten into the habit of tweeting every half second but I'm fine with that. It's proven extremely useful as a budding journalist, having the internet at my fingertips, and hopefully will prove its full worth over the next few months of being all over the place in London, Brighton, and various other areas of Surrey and Sussex. 

OH, and before I forget (because I will, and I want to take this opportunity to have a miniature rant) - I saw this local youth band the other night at a tiny Guildford venue that embodied everything wrong with the modern music scene. We're talking flopping black fringes, luminous red skinny jeans and puny Hawthorne Heights style screaming. The entire band might have been about sixteen (between them) and looked seriously out of place. When they got up on stage I thought they'd gotten lost or just bored of waiting and wanted to play at being musicians until the real ones came along. I felt like I was being trolled by the event. 

Don't get me wrong, they were... okay. They were definitely musically skilled. Despite a tiny crowd and very few people more interested in them than their pints, they soldiered on without dropping a note. I don't expect instant greatness from youth bands, but what I would like to see is some originality - I thought we'd grown out of that awful kiddie metal trend, but sadly not. 

-SZ

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Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:39:00 -0800 A little on the personal side http://screenzombie.posterous.com/a-little-on-the-personal-side http://screenzombie.posterous.com/a-little-on-the-personal-side

I'm going to take a rare break from my attempted-professional posts and touch on some slightly personal stuff (Don't worry, I'm not going to get all weepy) so if you have no interest in that, don't read this post, 'cause there's nothing here for you. I may also swear a lot.

I'm not going to say that I was 'born' to write, because that's bullshit on so many levels. But there's definitely something in my blood, a drive so voracious and annihilistic that it demands my life's attention. I started at eleven years old, writing short fantasy novels inspired by old RPGs like Breath of Fire and Terry Pratchett's children's stories. The Hobbit was the be-all and end-all of literature for me then, and in a way I miss that time. I was so naíve at the time that I actually believed it would be as simple as to write something and it would somehow magically appear from the ether as a book, and readers, well, they'd just read it because it was a book. 

In short, I was no different to any other kid with stars in their eyes. And I don't assume to be now, which some friends may find hard to believe. Throughout my evolution as a person and a writer, I have known that "I" am not important, in my writing. Which is why I remove as much of myself from my work as I can, leaving only what's needed - cold, hard, regurgitated facts, and straight personal truth in opinion pieces. If I think something's good, I'll praise it to the very best of my literary powers, and I'm as careful as my reckless ways allow when it comes to getting things right and providing balance over bias. If something's bad or I just take a disliking to it, I'll yell about it for as long as I can get away with, or just rip it to shreds with a few barbs of sarcasm.

But I'll always try and keep that balance there, because that is the single most important rule, in my book. As a writer, maintaining balance in your work is paramount. It should always be right there at the forefront, because not everything you write will please people, not everything you write will be good, but if you have that balance there, you're in the clear. For a writer, especially a journalist, it's the line between you and those raving lunatics who write for the Daily Mail and send mindless hatemail to advice columns. It's the line between you and whatever you think your soul is. 

Writing is important to me. It's my sole imperative, my own embedded reason to exist, from which everything else grows and expands. Back in my early, early teens I used to churn out directionless fiction every day. I didn't care if it was good, I just cared that it was there. During my typical teenage angst phase I would write and listen to music. Pretty much anything, in fact, until my tastes started to develop and I found my own little niche in teenage culture. I guess that's how music and writing became so intertwined in my head. I can't do one without the other. 

It was such a defining part of my life that when I began my little rebellions, I started acting out against myself. I would refuse to give in to the compulsion to write, and I started trying to drill it out of my life. Fuck knows why, but I just thought it was some stupid leftover part of my childhood. After a good few years of that, I was unhappy, deeply. Games had taken over my life and my spare time, of which there was plenty. I had gotten fat, my hair was long and lank because I just didn't do anything with it. To top it off I decided to study media at college because I figured I could pretend I knew what I wanted to until something came along. I kept telling myself I could work in film, and I deluded myself in that vein for a while.

To cut things short, I grew up. Things started to change for me. I started writing again and it felt amazing. But slowly, so slowly I barely noticed it, I stopped writing fiction and moved into reviews, features, stuff like that. Eventually it would change what I wanted to do with my life, as so often happens, which is how I ended up studying Journalism at University. From then on I started throwing myself into life more. Rather than just taking life at a laidback pace, I vowed to take it by the horns, and so everything I did, I did with great enthusiasm. Like whatever I was doing at that very moment was the best thing in my life. I ended up with legions of Warhammer models to paint, a neglected bass amp in my spare room, so many books left on the shelf unread, and heaps of responsibilities to worry about alongside all the bits of myself I just didn't have time for.

I tried to do everything, but focused so hard on doing everything I could that I ended up doing nothing. I was too spoilt for choice on how to spend my time, so I stopped appreciating it. There were three major parts of my life, all time-consuming, all important. Literature, including the student magazine I put my heart into, and my own work, music, and finally, games - Warhammer, PS3, 360, and PC, the amount of games I bought and didn't play was disgusting. 

After a lot of worrying about what I was going to do, I came to one simple conclusion. As much as it sucked, one of those things was going to have to go. It's probably pretty obvious that gaming, mainly Warhammer, was the thing to go. With life picking up pace by the day, I can no longer afford to spend four hours playing one game when I have features to write, albums to review, coursework to be done. I love the hobby but compared to writing, it's nothing to me. 

It's as simple as that. My 'free time' and my 'work' are one and the same now. I can genuinely write work as recreation. When you're starting something that becomes a lifestyle like music journalism, it's hard to separate 'free time' and work time'. So I'm going to focus on my career now, because I want it to be my life. That's all. 

-SZ

(Regular content updates resume tomorrow)

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Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:39:00 -0800 Prick of the week http://screenzombie.posterous.com/prick-of-the-week http://screenzombie.posterous.com/prick-of-the-week

 

The morons are out in force at the moment, with today's particular American dickwad coming out with this gem - 

"It's okay to rape a woman, because she's built for that!". Skip to 50 minutes in to see the drama and skip 49 minutes of redneck nonsense drivel. 

I've paraphrased, but this is the point that YouTuber WoodysGamertag raised in his latest livestream. According to him, women getting raped isn't that bad because 'women are built for vaginal sex'. That's right, if you're a woman, getting violently invaded in the worst possible way isn't that bad. Woah. As icing on the cake; this guy also makes advice videos for kids. Yep. Oh, younger generation. You so doomed. 

Bear in mind that the main subject of this video is essentially violence equating to machismo, and the word 'manliness' is repeated about fifty times in three minutes. So I doubt anyone takes it too seriously. I'm sure WoodysGamertag didn't mean to sound as blatantly ignorant of the horrifying crime he and his little bunch of pals were so casually bandying around like so much late night pub banter, but the fact remains he did, and laughed at it. 

If you want to defend what Woody said, I'm sorry, but you have nothing to stand on here. Regardless of context, he was fundamentally wrong in what he said, and deserves nothing but the internet's contempt. 

-SZ

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Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:19:00 -0800 Back to uni/work, and that stupid Bar Refe-whatever Coke Zero/PSP advert http://screenzombie.posterous.com/back-to-uniwork-and-that-stupid-bar-refe-what http://screenzombie.posterous.com/back-to-uniwork-and-that-stupid-bar-refe-what

After a lengthy winter break I'm finally back at UCA Farnham full-time (and back from an unannounced blogging hiatus).

I've got a chock-full year of education, games (From BioShock Infinite to the 6ED of 40K) and lots of student media work coming up. Here's a brief outline of what you can expect from ScreenZombie over the next few months. Since I'm working on a couple of different publications, this blog will serve as sort of a diary, with links to the interviews when they're written. I'll also host any of my own more opinionated pieces here. 

  • Interview with Gavin Dunne, AKA Miracle of Sound. This will be published on the Glue site.
  • Interview with Olli & the team from Almost Human Ltd. (Also Glue).
  • Video interview with DragonForce with a Hit the Floor colleague. (For HTF).
  • Interview with Anthony Rosner, director of IRL. (Glue again).
  • The ScreenZombie vlog will launch. Don't expect any typical vlogger jump cuts or money grabbing, this will purely be me faffing about on games, yelling mindlessly at musicians that don't know I exist, and occasionally advice/Q&A vids for junior journalists like myself. It's going to be incredibly awkward just to make this so you should probably watch just to see me squirm.
  • Battle reports, games events, and painted models, oh my - a ruthless organization of my Chaos/Tyranid/Skaven collection is resulting in some far more efficient painting and gaming.
  • There's also rumblings of my graphic novel, working title Steam, finally emerging from the bleak basement I shoved it in last year with a few collaborations with authors and artists shaping up. That may or may not be hosted here, depending on the blog's popularity at the time.

I have no doubt whatsoever that plenty more content will be arranged as the year goes on, but I can't promise regular updates just yet. 

That's my 'professional' life out of the way, now for another stinging, forced opinion.

Feels good.

This advert... what? Now rest assured I keep as up to date with the gaming industry as I can, as a freelance writer still clinging to voluntary positions in the vague hopes of getting a paid job someday. Using sex to sell videogames is a pretty standard, but dated method of pushing products. I'd like to think that the gamer community in general doesn't still appear to the outside world as Tron Guy or the Warcraft episode of South Park. Come on, whilst gaming had its roots as a hobby within a male audience, those times are past!

I'm not extolling the values of feminism here (Gender has no impact on intelligence or common sense, so it makes no difference to me) but using supermodels to push consoles just seems so very out of touch. If you're going to use sex to sell your product, at least be classy about it. I'm just glad that this wasn't some obnoxiously jiggling pneumatic peroxide blonde making blundering attempts to appear in with the gaming crowd. I'm not going to buy the PS Vita anyway, but this has done nothing to help my opinion of Sony. 

-SZ 

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Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:02:00 -0800 WEDNESDAY 13 AND MICHAEL MONROE @ ELECTRIC BALLROOM http://screenzombie.posterous.com/wednesday-13-and-michael-monroe-electric-ball http://screenzombie.posterous.com/wednesday-13-and-michael-monroe-electric-ball

This is a gig review I wrote and never uploaded back in December before my hiatus. I just found it! So here it is. 

 

 

WEDNESDAY 13 & MICHAEL MONROE @ THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM, DEC. 2ND

With Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe at their side, horrorpunk legends Wednesday 13 make a storming return to the greatest rock venues of Britain, for a series of absolutely terrifying gigs that make for a night you'll take to the grave.

Opening with Finnish glam metal upstarts Crashdiet and the legendary Michael Monroe, the night started on a high. Punks and rockers alike crammed into Camden's Electric Ballroom for a barrage of audio excellence. Entering the crowd one song into Michael Monroe's set was enough to feel just how charged up the audience was, sending old fans and new into a head-banging frenzy. They played the heaviest tracks from 2011's fantastic comeback  Sensory Overdrive, and a series of classic singles slowly but surely building up to an entirely unexpected dose of nostalgia. After a solemn few words in Razzle's memory, Michael launched into some Hanoi Rocks classics, performed with just as much passion as he did back in Hanoi's heyday. It's intense, there's simply no other word for it. After all - how many bands these days whip out a smooth saxophone or harmonica solo mid-track? 

Hearing Motorvatin' and Back To Mystery City live these days is a dream come true, make no mistake. The thirty years between Michael and Hanoi Rocks' debut have not dulled the Scandinavian sleaze-king's musical god status, in fact, he's become even more furious in his older years. He's still at the top of his game, with no sign of slowing. The night had already peaked, surely Wednesday 13 would find this blistering act near impossible to follow?

At least a quarter of the crowd left when Michael did, but those who remained were going to be hard to impress after such a stunning performance. Wednesday 13 strode out onstage with trademark arrogance and set about doing their very best to do so. Despite some brilliant growled renditions of Bad Things, Morgue than Words, and a few singles from the 2011 album, it just didn't stand up to the energy of their opening act. Wednesday 13 are morbidly charming, infinitely charismatic and flawless in their performance, but it just did not impress in comparison to the act before them. Wednesday himself has more stage presence than Marilyn Manson, but even then not half as much as Monroe.

 If the band had a less established glam or punk act before them, or certainly one without the raw, sleazy power of Hanoi Rocks' frontman, they would have stolen the night. Even so they were definitely a compliment to a very, very memorable gig, and a show I'd go and see time and time again -  it just seemed that the headlining act and the supporting act got swapped around somehow, and that's unfortunate.

-SZ 

 

 

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Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:59:00 -0800 IRL - A Blood Elf Paladin's Lament http://screenzombie.posterous.com/irl-a-blood-elf-paladins-lament http://screenzombie.posterous.com/irl-a-blood-elf-paladins-lament

IRL is a short, extremely well made documentary about the effects of WoW addiction produced by film student Anthony Rosner. It looks at time, money, and opportunities spent on the MMO over the course of six years - but while the approach may be lighthearted, the message remains just as pertinent.

If you have played World of Warcraft, or indeed, any other game that can easily consume so much time and money for a significant period of your life, you'll understand IRL from the beginning. For many, though, the addictive nature of such games is still a pretty alien concept - and Anthony does an excellent job of examining and explaining it.

As a teenager, WoW can easily become a substitute for socializing. If you're not all that sure of yourself and you don't have the confidence to put yourself out there, the chance to step into the shoes of a dragon slaying hero is hard to resist. Sure, you'll make friends, they'll be hunters, rogues, warriors and shamans, and you'll fight side by side for riches, legendary weapons, and acclaim across the land. It can easily fill a void for a time, and it's easy to become comfortable within it. It's fun, challenging, and can be extremely rewarding, but sometimes you do have to sit back and ask "Am I playing this because it's fun? Or am I playing it because I'm unhappy?"

IRL essentially asks this question, and does so in a very respectable fashion. It doesn't vilify WoW or gaming in any way, and even nods to the MMO's ability to bring people who normally would never have met together, it is simply a story of one man, and six years of his young life. Not for one moment does IRL suggest that WoW is evil, that the game itself was actively ruining his life, but that he was simply using it as a way of avoiding his own potential. The documentary is humble and never preachy, which makes the message hit home all the more.

Not only is IRL brilliant on an emotional level - what Anthony's trying to say is never lost in translation, the video's accessible to gamers and non gamers alike - but technically it shines, and it's a definitive example of just how great video game art can be. It's a raw diamond amongst a growing coal pile of shoddy and desperate machinima craving their YouTube partnerships.

There are more than a few reasons people get addicted to gaming - love lives, or lack thereof, unemployment, depression, or just a general lack of enthusiasm for everyday parts of life such as work, college, and friends and family. It can be a welcome respite from some of the unpleasant aspects of the modern world, but it should never replace it entirely. All the achievements, all of the epic gear drops, all of the mounts and the titles - none of it will ever compare to what you could achieve IRL if you put your mind to it.

You can find IRL on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/irlmovie

-SZ

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Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:08:00 -0800 IRKED #1: High-horse Vegans. http://screenzombie.posterous.com/irked-1-high-horse-vegans http://screenzombie.posterous.com/irked-1-high-horse-vegans

I have been a vegetarian for most of my life. 

As I was but seven years old when I first made what would be an incredibly persistent decision, my reasoning at the time didn't go far beyond 'I don't want to hurt animals'. 

Obviously as I grew older and became more aware of human nature and the way the meat and dairy industries worked, my beliefs developed further. After much soul searching and many different dietary experiments, not to mention a few brushes with uptight vegans who seem to think that substituting meat for tofu makes them better than everyone else, I have reached a conclusion in my late teens and early twenties that I am perfectly happy with. 

There is nothing morally wrong with eating meat. 

Whether we have higher functions or not has nothing to do with it. We are animals ourselves, and as such we need to feed. We have the power to choose what we eat - some choose meat, some choose alternatives, and I am happy to be a humble, habitual vegetarian. I do not pretend that this decision makes me superior to anyone, and I don't believe that one person saying 'no thanks to that roasted corpse' will really make the meat and dairy industries go "Oh, shit, are we doing this wrong?". My choice to be vegetarian won't save any lives, but hell, it gives my conscience a little cuddle, and I'm fine with that. 

There are some pretty gigantic and gross issues with the way we receive those products as a culture. The mass production of meat is completely unnecessary and the dairy industry is vile, no doubt, but I have a newsflash for the scores of superiority complex ridden vegans out there - putting some soy milk in your tea between soaking chickpeas and scarfing down tubs of peanut butter doesn't save you any more cows than we do. You don't get any moral raw brownie points for that unless you're actually out there pulling pigs out of slaughterhouses or pursuing activism - which, by the way, omnivores do too. 

"What? You mean we're not the only ones who care about animal welfare? Shit, son!"

Yup. That's right. There are plenty of vegetarians and dare I say it, meat eaters, care just as much about animals and the environment as you do - except they actually do something about it. If you're an apparently superior vegan who sits at home barely supporting the weight of your own calcium deficient teeth, living on nuts and vitamin supplements, whining about the plight of the soy bean or whatever it is you people do, you are morally poor compared to the hundreds of veggie/meat eating activists and conservationists. It does not mean that you love the planet any more than they do. 

You are measured by your actions, not your diet. Vegans who go out there and actually do something about the broken industries have the moral high ground here, but no more so than omnivores who do the same. Even if you only eat meat or dairy from local farms, you're doing the world much more good than buying basics ham from your friendly neighbourhood global chain. 

Before you gulp down some rice milk and spend a few hours getting riled enough to pop open those Taurine pills to have a go at me, I did try going vegan, if only to see what all the fuss was about. I hated it, but that's fine. It's not for everyone. What I certainly don't need is some moody hippy spitting scarcely mustered vitriol at me for not adhering to the way they believe people should live. 

I believe that a man is entitled to the sweat of his own brow. If he has reared and slaughtered pigs and cows himself without resorting to the horrible mass production practises, he is entitled to that, and the monetary rewards. If a man spends a day catching fish, he is then entitled to eat those fish. Would you deny any other creature the spoils of the hunt? 

Oh wait. You would.

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The idea of denying your pet meat when it's a staple part of their diet sickens me far more than the meat industry. Humans have the power of choice, cats and dogs do not - they are physically built to hunt and eat meat. Surely this is classed as animal abuse. You may claim "Oh, but they can survive just as well on taurine supplements and protein based dishes", but this is fundamentally wrong. If you don't want to feed a cat meat, don't get a cat. It's simple. Your so-called animal love has been twisted by your own broken morals and your animal has become an extremely sad trophy of your crazed 'ethical' crusade. 

Animals hunt. Morals are simply not relevant to them because morality is a human concept - not one of our best, either. Stop trying to implement human ideas onto other animals, because it's just cruel and it makes you just as bad as the meat industry. 

The bottom line: It is the meat and dairy industry that is morally wrong - not the consumption of it, or the people who do so. Hunting is hardwired into nature's philosophy and it all links in to that big ol' circle of life - some animals are born to eat, some animals are born to be eaten. By all means, crawl back into your cave, wipe the granola from your keyboard, and try and enforce your beliefs on the rest of mankind from the safety of the internet.

I'll be sat here, fielding your comments, your snide japes at my philosophy, in the smug knowledge that I'm right. 

-SZ

 

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:41:26 -0800 ScreenZombie's sort-of informed opinion on building your own gaming computer: Part One http://screenzombie.posterous.com/screenzombies-sort-of-informed-opinion-on-bui http://screenzombie.posterous.com/screenzombies-sort-of-informed-opinion-on-bui

If I could stick a big bloody disclaimer sticker on this page, I would, but I can't/am too lazy to do so here's a written one:

I am not 'qualified' in any sense in PC building or hardware. Everything I say from this point onwards is merely my opinion and knowledge as developed by time spent with far more capable people than me over the past few years of PC tinkering. I like to think I approach it with casual enthusiasm - I don't spend my whole life doing it but it remains a definite interest. Think of this as a layman's guide to getting started.

For the purposes of this guide I will avoid using tech - specific stats and stick to the basics. I'm also going to stick to a few reference brands just for ease of use. Finally: It's not hard to befriend a computer-friendly person. These people (Read: me) can easily be bribed with Monster or any energy drink of equal size and value. Have your computer friendly person check and double check any decisions you make, especially ones you're not sure about, as they may point out important information that you'd totally looked over because it was lost somewhere in the small print. 

Final points before the guide proper: Do your research - there is a wealth of information on the internet and YouTube is full of tutorial videos. Check out relevant forums - these will be a very good source of answers and reassurance should anything confuse you. Finally, read reviews and do research on parts before buying them. Mistakes other gamers have made can and will benefit your purchases and prevent any disappointment. AMD, Intel, Coolermaster and Corsair aren't the only brands in the computing hardware field so don't feel as though you have to stick to them, there are many other great manufacturers in the market.  

PART ONE: STUFF!

Your average PC is made up of these following components. All of these are mandatory, they're not fluffy little optionals you can get if you feel like it.

CASE:

You need one of these to stick all of your components in, obviously. Although there are some crazy design mavericks out there who like to approach things differently, as can be seen below.

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Picture from Overclock.net - A good example of how lots of blue LEDs can make everything look excessively customized. 

Hulk_mod
Picture from gawker.com - ...Holy fuck.

There are, of course, those who prefer to take an ultra post-modernist (cheapskate) minimalist approach to cases:

Breadboardshrink
Picture from tomshardware.com - Why waste money on all that fancy part storage crap when you can just buy a breadboard and work with that? 

Unless you're already artistically inclined I wouldn't reccommend doing this for your first PC. There are plenty of cool looking cases on the market for prices that won't break the bank, and you can always upgrade later if you're willing to move the parts around. Computing sites will often do case and PSU bundles which are great for your first build. 

KEEP IN MIND:

Make sure the case you choose is big enough for all the parts you want to put in it. This can easily be done by checking measurements on components before you spend anything. I don't imagine this being a huge problem unless you're going all out on parts and buying monster fans and cards. 

POWER SUPPLY UNIT (PSU)

Stock
This usually has lots of little tentacle wires stuck in it. Like a digital Cthulhu.

The power supply unit is pretty self explanatory. It has specific wires to power specific parts of the machine, and certain wires which can be used to power peripherals like extra fans or LEDs. Again, on your first PC, you may find yourself lost for choice - so here are a few simple tips. Brands like Corsair and Coolermaster are both generally good choices. For a gaming computer, you're aiming at about 500w. As your system becomes more and more demanding, you may decide on purchasing more wattage - personally I've stuck with a comfortable 650w on a fairly mid range machine. This will be screwed into the top or bottom of your case, depending on which one you end up choosing.

These run at a range of prices but you can get a decent 500w for around £30. Premium ones go from £100 and up. 

MOTHERBOARD

Motherboard_by_brujo

It's like a little electronic house for all your expensive shit.

This is the connecting point of all your components. The main choice you'll have here is whether to go for a mATX or ATX motherboard. This pertains to size - mATX is much smaller and a better choice for smaller cases. However, you'll probably find that ATX motherboards offer much more versatility for case and component management; and are essential for fitting larger graphics cards comfortably. It's vital you know what CPU you want before you buy a motherboard, as they all have particular sockets that determine which kind of processors they fit. There will almost always be identical motherboards with the socket you want, so take your time. Good brands to look at from a beginning point of view are MSI and Gigabyte. Depending on your budget, you can also look at Asus for decent gaming boards. 

CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT(CPU)

Amd-phenom-ii-x4-955

Small but important. Like Verne Troyer in Austin Powers.

There are two commonly discussed giants in CPU manufacture - AMD and Intel. This is perhaps one instance where it's best to avoid forums as there are fanboys on both sides of this particular debate. The simple truth is that the market is always upgrading and improving so there's no real superior, and there are several non-AMD/Intel CPUs that are just as good. So consider your budget, do some shopping around, make sure if you already have the motherboard that it's the correct socket, and then make your decision. This should be one of the more expensive parts of your machine, though -  £60 is probably the bare minimum you should spend on a good CPU. 

 

CPU COOLING

This is more of a mini-section because it shouldn't be a big deal at first. If you buy your CPU in a retail box it will have a cooler with it, unless you're buying an AMD cooler, then for all of our sakes buy an after-market fan.

 

GRAPHICS CARD(GFX)

Graphics-cards

Everyone knows that GFX clock speed directly corresponds to ego size.

Motherboards all have integrated graphics, but you're a gamer! You want HD resolutions and dedicated graphics, and a card so big it needs brackets. When deciding on your first graphics card it can be tempting to blow your whole budget on the biggest, shiniest one with the most numbers on it, but don't. The CPU and RAM are both important, and many lower priced cards will still offer sufficient power to play new games if paired with a decent processor. There are thousands of these to choose from, so take advice from PC owning friends and consider carefully. If you're not adverse to buying second hand, it might be worth your while looking for refurbished cards from reputable stores and sites. These things last for years, and a refurbed card is just as good as a new one. 

 

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY(RAM)


Ram

Essential for those moments where you absolutely must Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, 4chan, Spotify, PhotoShop, and play World of Warcraft all at once. 

 Think of this like your computer's short term memory - the more of it you have, the more stuff your computer can do at once. They come in many flavours but make sure you get the correct voltage and DDR (Double Data Rate) for your motherboard. RAM will either be DDR, DDR2, or DDR3. The numbers simply mark the jumps in generation and does not imply any speed changes. From my experience, Kingston RAM is an invaluable choice for low budget gaming, but Corsair do a few £30+ options that are equally good. 4GB is pretty much an absolute amount if all you want to do is play games on your machine, but if you're looking to do any advanced video editing or photoshop work it may be worth investing in an 8GB kit.

HARD DRIVE

 

94-481a96-991e_3042-drive

For all those pictures of cats you'll be downloading. Yes... cats.

You're probably familiar with this so I won't go into too much detail to avoid sounding condescending. As this will be storing all of your long term data, music, videos, games, and of course, your operating system,  you need to consider how much digital estate you'll be using. For most, 500GB is sufficient, but I'd say go for a terabyte (1TB) as they're really not that expensive these days. Solid State Drives (SSDs) are also an option, but while they may be the future of memory, you also pay much more for much less. Buy yourself a good Samsung hard drive with 7200 RPM(Revolutions Per Minute, this determines how fast the drive can access data) and it should certainly serve you well for a good few years. 

OPTICAL DRIVE

This is what you'll need to read DVDs and CDs. It's worth spending a little more on them if you can manage it, but it's worth pointing out that blu-ray drives are only really cool factor at this point in time. Admittedly, buying a blu-ray drive for about £50 works out cheaper than buying a blu-ray player, but game discs won't be using it forever, and if you already own a PS3 or BD player it's a bit redundant. LG, Sony, Samsung - all trustworthy brands, and all of them offer a budget choice. 

I have one. Because I have no self esteem. 

That's it for part one of the guide, but check back next week for Part 2 - Peripherals (Things to make you feel better about being sat on your arse playing games all day). 

-SZ

 

 

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Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:22:00 -0800 VIDEO: Remembrance Day and why it's still relevant. http://screenzombie.posterous.com/video-remembrance-day-and-why-its-still-relev http://screenzombie.posterous.com/video-remembrance-day-and-why-its-still-relev

It was cold and raining slightly, so what better time for a journalism teacher to send his delicate students out into the harsh arms of Farnham's wandering denizens? 

After many, many rejections, people looking at us like we were wandering lunatics filming old people for kicks, we eventually scrounged together enough footage to present you with this.

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Young people were confused, old people were incensed at the very notion of someone not remembering Remembrance Day, and some believed it should be rebranded and made more current.

I think the most important thing to remember on Remembrance Day is that while it was a long time ago that those men fought and died in far away lands to protect what little remained of once-great Britain, the fact remains that they fought for it. Just because that particular war has faded into the annals of history does not mean that the war effort should be forgotten in lieue of this new, phony American clusterf**k. Those soldiers fought and died because they were fighting fascism - the closest thing to comic book evil humanity gets. They aren't fighting and dying to secure oil contracts for the United States. 

-SZ

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Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:08:00 -0800 ASSIGNMENT: Newspage Story http://screenzombie.posterous.com/assignment-newspage-story http://screenzombie.posterous.com/assignment-newspage-story

Before anyone gets confused about why I've suddenly switched from writing about games and media to rambling about a little town in Surrey, let me point out that this is part of a University portfolio and has no reflection on my actual field of journalism. 

"Farnham's failings reviewed"

FARNHAM residents will soon be reading a document that details the 'failings' of their town. 

Surrey County Council have compiled the document from several surveys, and some of the major problems that appear are pollution and waste disposal. Farnham is notorious for pollution and several campaigns have been launched by the Farnham Herald and other local organizations to decrease it. 

Resident Annie White said "It's just too much. We're a little farming town, there's absolutely no reason why Farnham should be one of Britain's most polluted towns" Several methods have been suggested to fix it, including changes to the one-way system, which accounts for an estimated 30% of excess pollution as it forces drivers to make unnecessary journeys. 

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Student Mark Turner said "It's horrible to get around. Even driving back from Uni is stupidly complicated and ends up costing more petrol".

Whether or not the town council can or will do anything with the information remains to be seen, but many Farnham locals hope this will be the start of more pollution awareness. 

By Laurence Braddow

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Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:28:00 -0800 ASSIGNMENT: Farnham: "Cool because it has a castle" http://screenzombie.posterous.com/assignment-farnham-cool-because-it-has-a-cast http://screenzombie.posterous.com/assignment-farnham-cool-because-it-has-a-cast

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As part of our multimedia platform assignment, my classmate Grace and I went out into Farnham to find out what students and older people thought of the town. This just involved a recorder, a wander around town accosting random strangers, and an hour or so in the editing room. 

The result was definitely a mixed bag, but it can be said that Farnham's older inhabitants enjoy it more than the younger ones, the students predictably bemoaning the lack of things to do. 

 

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Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:14:00 -0800 Saints Row: The Third http://screenzombie.posterous.com/saints-row-the-third http://screenzombie.posterous.com/saints-row-the-third

When it comes to stupid fun, Saints Row: The Third has no equal this year. 

You may have scaled giant mountains and slain fire breathing dragons in Skyrim, you may have gone toe-to-toe with some of DC's biggest villains in Arkham City, and you may have fought modern day wars with cutting edge technology, online and offline. 

But I can personally guarantee, unless your life is far more interesting than mine, that you have not beaten a policeman to death with a giant purple sex toy, escaped from gangsters riding carriages pulled by saddled men on your own personal man-horse, or murdered hordes of prostitute assassins alongside a pimp only capable of speaking in autotune. 

This is pretty much as sane as the game gets. In between bursts of bizarre obscenity and crime game stereotypes, there are gloriously mental moments which had me staring open-mouthed at the screen in genuine what-the-fuckery. In fact, it wouldn't be over the top at all to say that the first, say, half hour of the game has more balls per second (Henceforth referred to as BPS) than any action movie I've watched in the past two years. There is no downtime in Saints Row, it takes the idea of serious sandboxes and then crams it full of toys, explosions, car chases, zombies, Tron levels, and bizarre sexual references.

The game rockets from one activity to the next, and many of these will be familiar to those who have followed the Saints Row series - you can merrily return to haphazardly chucking yourself in front of cars to make money in Insurance Fraud, or hanging off of buildings and sniping cyberpunk criminals just because you feel like it. This is where Saint's Row's strengths lie, glorious, mindless, violent stupid fun, a brilliant respite from the drama-heavy games of late. It's not for everyone, and I'm certain there'll be people who play it once and hate it. 

But for those who don't, you'll have hours upon hours of psychotic grin inducing gameplay ahead, especially if you have the preorder bonuses. This includes a mind controlling octopus gun, a gameshow costume topped with a Deadmau5 style cat head, and a truck mounted with a man-firing cannon that lets you fire yourself and countless others clean across the skyline. If you read that sentence and thought "Hell yeah", then Saints Row is definitely for you.

-SZ

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Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:08:00 -0800 Collect THIS - Assassin's Creed Revelations http://screenzombie.posterous.com/collect-this-assassins-creed-revelations http://screenzombie.posterous.com/collect-this-assassins-creed-revelations

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So, the new Assassin's Creed came out recently - It's November, of course there's another AC game out - and while I've had a bit too much on my plate to really involve myself with the game itself, I did march out dutifully on November 15th and purchase the collector's edition on PS3. Subliminal programming successful, Ubisoft. Your secret French masterplan is finally succeeding.

This collector's edition is nicely presented, but hardly beats the previous Codex Edition of Brotherhood. It comes in a solid plastic box with a cardboard overlay, with a subtle plastic switch on the front to open the top and reveal the nerdy goodness within. As for extra content, you get a couple of extra multiplayer characters, the dungeon of Vlad the Impaler to explore as an extra level, and some pretty thin collector's stuff. 

The first thing I pulled out was the artbook. It's pretty slim but it has some cool images in it, and it's interesting to see Ezio's evolution in Ubisoft's eyes. It also has a very, very, shiny cover. If you lived somewhere that isn't England, you get a much more substantial and apparently very high quality book. So hate yourself for living in a country that receives lower than standard collector's materials!

The only other item of interest is the Assassin's Creed: Embers short film. This is pretty nice to look at and a nice way of wrapping up Ezio's story, but ultimately unimpressive. I would have bought this set regardless as I have every other AC game in collector's edition, but I wouldn't recommend shelling out the extra cash for this box unless you're just as obsessive about the games as I am. 

As for the game itself; I've played three or four hours, and it's good. I'm eternally disappointed in Ubi for refusing to move out of the same city visuals but there's enough new stuff here to contend with ACII and easily surpass Brotherhood. 

-SZ

 

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Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:33:00 -0800 Idiot Wars Episode I... the Yanks Strike Back http://screenzombie.posterous.com/idiot-wars-episode-i-the-idiots-strike-back http://screenzombie.posterous.com/idiot-wars-episode-i-the-idiots-strike-back

we petition the obama administration to:

Immediately Ban the Deadly Videogame Known as "SkyRim" for The Safety of America's Youths.

Whereas videogaming has proven to cause social, ethical and health problems in people of all ages,

Whereas sexual perversion and homosexuality are threatening to destroy the Christian foundations on which this nation was built,

Whereas a new video game has just been created that far exceeds any others in the psychological and spiritual damage it does to teens,

We, the American people, today ask you,

1) To enact an immediate ban on the videogame known as "SkyRim" produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

2) To seize and destroy all copies already in public hands and erase its presence on the internet.

3) To prosecute the players of "SkyRim" to the fullest extent of the law.

4) To create a national database of videogame avatars and "screen names" so that teenagers can be better monitored.

Created: Nov 24, 2011
Learn about Petition Thresholds

It's up to you to build support for petitions you care about and gather more signatures. A petition must get 150 signatures in order to be publicly searchable on WhiteHouse.gov.

Over time, we may need to adjust the petition signature thresholds, but we'll always let you know what the thresholds are.

Signatures needed by December 24, 2011 to reach goal of 25,000

24,987

Total signatures on this petition

13

It's no secret that I highly disapprove of those relatively few idiot Americans that set the trend for a global stereotype. These stupid bastards make the US a tragic joke in the eyes of the civilized world, and does nothing to rid the world of the idea that Americans are all hyper-Christian hicks who'll happily be offended at just about anything.

These particular idiots have had a go at just about everything I hold dear - rock and metal music haven't had an easy ride, and there's been no shortage of thick politicians attempting to ride an anti-videogame policy to success (This is mainly because no-one is easier to exploit than bad parents looking for a scapegoat).

But don't you fuck with Skyrim, America. Don't even go there.

Can you imagine if the beleaguered US government just decided to ditch worrying about Afghanistan and the fact that pretty much every teen who isn't playing Skyrim is currently part of the Occupy movement to try and take this seriously?

"I'm sorry, what? You want us to get rid of the one thing keeping teenagers at home? Fuck you, Tennessee"

I'll end this rant here, but rest assured America, I have plenty more bile to douse your idiots with.

I'm just too busy playing videogames right now.

-L

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Sat, 12 Nov 2011 07:22:00 -0800 My first day in Skyrim... http://screenzombie.posterous.com/my-first-day-in-skyrim http://screenzombie.posterous.com/my-first-day-in-skyrim

At the time of writing, I have clocked up my first twenty hours on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which entitles me to present to you this brief summary of a day in the life of a Dragonborn- 

(Some minor spoilers ahead)

 

  • Almost got executed. Dragon appeared. Didn't get executed.
  • Went into giant cave. Found ancient Dragon word. 
  • Found Whiterun, the first city you encounter in the storyline. 
  • Killed a dragon because it was there. 
  • Learned how to Shout because I absorbed the Dragon's soul. 
  • Promptly spent a good half hour Shouting at townsfolk until a guard appeared and nervously asked me to pack it in. 
  • Was made Thane of Whiterun, given a flame axe (Catch!) and a bodyguard who I pretty much just told to stay home. 
  • Walked up a huge fucking mountain. 
  • Shouted at an old man. 
  • Joined a rebellion, helped said rebellion attack and take over Whiterun, got told off by the Jarl who was ruling it beforehand. 
  • Heard one Dragon calling another worthless and wondered if workplace bullying was commonplace in their society. 
  • Killed the worthless dragon and then felt bad, then realized I could use its soul to Shout at time. 
  • Shouted at time. 
  • Got bored of killing dragons, wandered off into the "Miscellaeneous" quest section.
  • Killed an old woman.
  • Got kidnapped in my sleep and inducted into the Dark Brotherhood. 
  • Killed a woman with a bow and arrow at her own wedding. Felt awesome for about two seconds before her husband came over and stabbed me in the face a few times. 
  • Decided to try my luck with one of those big mammoths. Got hit by a giant and flew clear across the map. 

It's all been one giant "ooooh, what's this?". The main storyline kept my attention for maybe five hours or so but then I just went and lost myself in the huge amount of content on offer. Sure, I'll wander back to it eventually, but for now, I'm just enjoying the meticulously crafted, beautifully realized game world, which, despite being filled with freezing mountains and cold plains, is more alive than any world Bethesda has forged beforehand. 

It's easy to see how their experience with other games has changed Skyrim. Even minor stylistic elements like the interface - which, by the way, is super streamlined and amazingly intuitive - and the way names of discoveries scroll atop the screen remove any possibility of distraction. Nothing ever tries to pull you away from the game. It pauses while you change weapons, spells, and armour, but the game in front of you is still very clear. It allows you to do what you want with minimal distraction, and it's awesome

Bear in mind this isn't a proper review. I'll get one of those written up when I've actually finished the main story line... say at around the 50 hour point? 

See you then!

-L

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Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:06:00 -0800 Collect THIS: FF XIII-2 Collector's Edition http://screenzombie.posterous.com/collect-this-ff-xiii-2-collectors-edition http://screenzombie.posterous.com/collect-this-ff-xiii-2-collectors-edition
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In an attempt to start blogging more regularly, here's a new feature I'm going to try and introduce over the next few weeks - every week I'll post some sort of awesome/failsome collectable for your viewing pleasure. This will include games, DVDs, figures, and ridiculous memorabilia.

So here's the FF XIII-2 Collector's Edition (I think it may be time to abandon the Roman numerals, Square) in all its underwhelming glory. As has become rather prevalent lately, the general approach to producing a CE tends to be sticking it in white book packaging and stuffing some extra DLC in it. The most ridiculous thing about this is 95% of the time, this DLC will be released on PSN, XBL, or Steam, removing the exclusive appeal entirely.

If this was a lesser developer I would let it slide, but think of the potential a Final Fantasy special edition has, the amount of imaginative crap they could fill it with. Cuddly Moogles, startling Tonberry statues that seem to get closer every time you look at them, Yuna's gurning face to scare off any potential purchaser. Or perhaps just a soundclip from that awkward laughing scene in X playing eternally to murder your ear drums and make you cringe so hard your face turns in on itself.

I personally vote for a life size, fully functional Buster Sword, but no-one ever listens to the creepy guy with long hair and glasses.

-L

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Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:47:00 -0800 No More Heroes micro review http://screenzombie.posterous.com/no-more-heroes-micro-review http://screenzombie.posterous.com/no-more-heroes-micro-review

Yesterday I sat down to play a game I've always been intrigued by, yet avoided at all costs. It's called No More Heroes, and I've dodged it thus far because it was previously a Wii exclusive (And Nintendo is Satan). 

No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise is a PS3 Move version of the original games. All credit to them, this was no lazy port - the game has been given a HD revamp and there's no doubt at all that it looks very slick, very stylish, and very cinematic. Unfortunately, this game is a poster child for style over substance, and the controls are unbearably wooden, so even though Travis looks cool swinging his giant shiny rod around onscreen, it feels like you're bashing a cotton bud against a redwood. 

I could probably have forgiven the repetitive, finisher-heavy combat if it was some sort of weird minigame, and it's probably better if you play it with the Move (I personally refuse to bow to the motion control cash in). The driving, however? That sucks balls. It was like playing the first Driver game with a broken controller... and severe autism. His heavy, future-retro bike turns corners like Tron without the early Sci-Fi quirkyness, and I found it totally unplayable. 

So, in short - everything is wooden. The jokes are funny at first but there's only so many times you can rehash an "I want to have lots of sex with you" innuendo. Thugs scream "My spleen!" almost every time you kill them and that really, really starts to drag. There are plenty of cool little things to do - like part time jobs, exploring all the little bits of Travis' apartment, but the main game itself fails to do enough to hold them up. 

It gets a 6/10 in my opinion, but it may just be quirky/dirty enough to stand up for some people.

 

-L

 

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Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:27:00 -0700 PlayStation News: Final Fantasy X HD announced for Vita, PS3 http://screenzombie.posterous.com/playstation-news-final-fantasy-x-hd-announced http://screenzombie.posterous.com/playstation-news-final-fantasy-x-hd-announced
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Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:45:00 -0700 UCA Farnham Gaming Society http://screenzombie.posterous.com/uca-farnham-gaming-society http://screenzombie.posterous.com/uca-farnham-gaming-society

In lieu of mine and my girlfriend's recent foray into painting Warhammer Fantasy models (I'm more of a 40k fan) I started wondering why there wasn't any kind of gaming society at UCA Farnham. I did some research into this anomalous factoid and it turned out that there was a society last year, but it ended up going under for one reason or another. 

I've taken the "If you build it, they will come" approach and sent an email out. Within the space of a day several people have shown a lot of interest in getting this started, unfortunately there aren't many tabletop gamers as there are console. Either way, it's cool to see people taking an interest, and it'll be fun if we can get it started. 

I'm also (optimistically) hoping the Uni might be able to fund the purchase of some cool games and equipment to use - Dreadfleet, Blood Bowl, and gaming boards. If we can get the Computer Games Art staff on board; it would be easy to set up tournaments and multiplayer events, and hopefully secure some funding. 

More on this as it develops!

 

-L

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Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:46:00 -0700 Bad mothers cause web filtering for the masses http://screenzombie.posterous.com/bad-mothers-cause-web-filtering-for-the-masse http://screenzombie.posterous.com/bad-mothers-cause-web-filtering-for-the-masse
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I was doing my daily browse (of internet newspapers, not porn) when I saw this and I just had to laugh.

The article basically says that the Government is about to unleash a series of measures with top UK internet providers to prevent children from accessing pornography online. They intend to force an 'opt-in' service where users who want to view porn have to register that particular interest with the provider. The reasons why this is stupid and will prove almost entirely ineffective surely number in the hundreds, but here are just a few.

1) Your average ten year old knows his/her way around Google. A quick search on how to avoid these imposed limits will bring up a number of solutions, DNS workarounds or proxy changes that get your child all the porn they'll ever want.
2) One word - Torrents. When Jimmy finds out that he can download hardcore foot fetish porn the same way he downloads Hannah Montana's latest album, you can bet there'll be a few hundred gigabytes of porn lurking somewhere on his hard drive, with little room for anything else.
3) Google! You can pretty much type anything in with safe search off (Which kids will find out how to disable pretty quickly) and up pops a few thousand jpegs worth of nudity.
4) I'm not really sure how the opt-in will work, but I doubt it will be on a single user basis. Which means if you're in a normal family home with a dad or a teenager as well as your precious little bundle of joy, either Dad or the teenager will probably at some point opt in, thus unlocking porn for the entire household.

These ridiculous measures not only threaten to impose upon the public's rights, but they expose the government for not really knowing anything at all about this subject. I do not know a single adult who has been forever warped by watching porn as a child - it's an STD free way of getting rid of a perfectly natural curiosity that all people have at some point in their lives.

This is an irritation to the many in exchange for the approval of a few loud mouthed mums who don't know how to parent their children properly. News flash, Mothers' Union - if your kid is being parented correctly, he will have no interest whatsoever in porn. If you treat pornography and violence as some evil, forbidden thing, then you can pretty much guarantee that they'll go looking for it at the first opportunity. Hell, when I was eleven, Action Man and cartoons were still king in my mind, and I couldn't care less about boobs.

Why? Because I was parented properly. Because my mother didn't treat sex and nudity as some evil secret for only the 16+. It was something else that existed in the world, but at that point in my life, I couldn't care less about it, because it wasn't a taboo, and my mum would actually answer questions when I asked them. When I asked "where do babies come from?" or "what's sex?", I was told the truth in a format appropriate to my age. There was a complete lack of storks or "When a mummy and a daddy love each other very much..."

All this nanny-government farce is doing is exposing how little the government understand the way the internet works and assisting a collective of attention seeking mums in sealing away everything they don't want their kids to see. It's more than a little sinister, if the Mothers' Union wanted HMV to stop selling Marilyn Manson albums, would David Cameron wave the Tory wand and ban it from the shelves?

I'm all for preventing children being exposed to this element of life inadvertently, and later on the article speaks about inappropriate clothing for kids, which I'm all for ending, but aren't we skirting around the real issue here? Why is the government failing to take into account that the parents are the ones at fault? If you buy your son a computer, he's going to explore the internet. If you buy your daughter an underwired bra, she's going to wear it.

I'd love to hear thoughts or feedback on this subject. Comment on facebook, posterous, or email me.

-L

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