ms:h is officially back. Yay!

Took me some time to get all the old files ftp’d across but I’m happy with how things transitioned.

Things may pick up later what with Scott and I writing music again. This site my cease to exist as a blog and become more band-dedicated. Or I may keep the blog and work in music-related stuff around it. We’ll have to wait and see.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: Awesome, back, ftp, milky joe, ms:h, online, scott

Current Mood: Thinking

As I Games Designer it’s my job to make sure my games appeal to as wide an audience as possible. This means making the game as non-offensive and open as possible. I’d never go out of my way to make a game particularly biased to one certain aspect (race, religion, nation etc.) regardless of what my beliefs may be.

That said, I’ve been reading alot of bad press concerning the imminent release of Resident Evil 5 and the “blatant racism” contained within the game.

I simply cannot agree that this game is in anyway racist.

I’m pretty sure that statement is going to spur some outrage, however, the fact that the colour of the peoples skin in the game should be a completely non-issue. Isn’t that what people have been striving to achieve ever since slavery was abolished? The fact that you’re white, black, tanned or whatever should not come into the debate. The same attitude infuriated me with the inauguration of President Obama. The fact that people kept referring to him as “the first black president” was disgusting and annoying. There was no mention of his relatively young age, just his ethnicity. In my eyes he is not “the first black president” he is simply America’s 44th President. That’s all.

I appear to have gone off on a bit of a tangent there. The fact is that people were non-plussed with the Resident Evil Games when the zombies where white people. No one made any reference to the racism contained within the games then. How has the game changed? It hasn’t. You still play a protagonist, tearing through some zombie-infested town/village/country/whatever and putting the brain-hungry horde down for good. Game play is the same, mechanics still the same and the general grunts and growls from the wave of death coming at you are the same. What’s different? A simple palette swap on skin tone to give the game a fresh and varied look from it’s predecessors.

There are arguments that the guy doing the killing is your G.I. Joe type american. Big strong white man, killing black people is not a good thing to see out of context. But in context (and that’s the important thing here) it’s an experienced soldier taking out a zombie infestation in Africa. How much more controversy would have been stirred up if they kept the environment (Africa) but still had white zombies. I’m assuming more people would take offence to that than the fact that (gasp) there are black people in Africa.

I’d like to point out actually that the previous games could be seen as MORE racist than this one. I know, I’m crazy, how could that possibly be? Well, where were the black people in Raccoon City in the first few games? They were smart enough to leg it before everyone else got the urge to eat flesh? Maybe.

I’m gonna wrap up here by linking to a website that contains an article on the subject which I find amazingly offensive and generally stupid. The website, Black Looks, contains an article written by Kym Platt who obviously knows nothing of the game or the computer game industry as a whole. She states that the game portrays black people as “inhuman savages” (personally I’ve never met a Zombie that can hold a formal conversation), it glorifies the killing of black people (again, NOT black people, zombies) and that the game is marketed towards children and young adults (I’m pretty sure that being 18 +, the age limit on this game, stipulates you are, in fact, a full-grown adult).

The last point she makes annoys me the most. It’s the manhunt argument all over again. I believe that violent games do not breed violence. Take Super Mario Bros. as an example. One of the most violent games of all time. Every moving thing you come across (with exception given to mushrooms) you kill. You go through every level stomping on things until they breathe no more. I played this game throughout my childhood and I think I’m no more warped or violent than the aforementioned President Obama. Secondly, games have an age-rating for a reason. If parents wish to buy their 10-year-old GTAIV/Manhunt/Saint’s Row/Resident Evil or whatever, that is their choice (I’m pretty sure it breaks a few laws). They have no right to then, however, turn around and claim the game they bought for their underage child has turned them into a psychopathic killing machine. It was probably their misguided parenting that did that in the first place.

I’m gonna wrap up here simply because I could keep going on. I just hope that people could start to see things a little more for what they are and less of what they could be.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: Africa, games design, GTA IV, GTAIV, manhunt, Raccoon City, racism, RE5, resident evil, resident evil 5, video games, violence

Current Mood: Cool

I’d like to introduce you all to the newest member of the Sweet Dreamz family, Le Chat (I’m not sure if that’s his real name but that’s what I’m calling him.

Below are the images showing his inception by John, his 3D modelling by me and finally his skinning by me.

I love it personally

More models should be coming soon.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: Cat, LE Chat, model, sweet dreamz, Uni, vinyl, vinyl toy

Current Mood: Sad

I sit here cradling my xBox 360 as if its my own baby… 

We’ve been through alot together, the bad games; Crackdown and Gears of War, the good games; FEAR and Devil May Cry 4, and the true great ones, Assassins Creed, Oblivion and Condemned. 

She’s been my get away when the world came closing in… She never left and always loved me… And now she’s gone.

They say it was an accident, that single red ring can happen to any xBox… But I never believe it would happen to mine.  Of course I blame the heating… We lived happily in the cold and then yesterday when I finally worked out how to use the central heating things went strange. 

Then today… No less than an hour ago, she passed away. I did everything I could but to no avail and now she lies here, on my lap… Not even cold yet. 

I’ve called the doctors… They’ll take her away soon to fix her. Three to four weeks without her will be torture but I will bear through it, knowing that one day I will once again hear her purr into life.

Written by:
Russell

I’ve just finished reading Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and I think it’s the first time ice properly fallen in love with with a piece of literature.

I dug Watchmen, but Arkham has something so much more that pulls me in. The twisted story, the character portrayals, Batman’s ominous prescence and the whole environment are portrayed perfectly in this (too short) book.

Reading this has also inspired me to write some new lyrics completely different from my usual emoness. No slow death but all out carnage and mayhem. Upbeat tempo, relentless beat, fun to perform, non-stop action in music form.

I can’t wait to get with Scott and show him some ideas and see what he comes up with. One song I’ve already got a few lines for is called “Where I Belong” and I am really eager to write some more.

More to come soon.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: batman, graphic novel, lyrics, mayhem, Music

Fragile Night is coming along nicely. In fact, I’d say that with one more visit to Casa del Stringbean the whole thing will be finished and worth uploading to the myspace profile we abandoned years ago.

The biggest hitch in our plan to take over the world is drumming. Neither of us is a drummer by trade. Neither of us own a drum kit (I do, indirectly, but there’s little chance I’ll actually get to set it up let alone learn to play it). Neither of us know a drummer. These 3 issues have caused us to seek more alternate methods of drumming.

Firstly, Apple Loops. As a mac user it was only natural we rock out Garageband. That software has really given us some awesome extras that we never thought about adding to our music before (techno bits, distortion, etc.) and so we tried some of the Apple Loops to fill in our drum hole. They were OK but we learnt the mechanical repetitiveness of the Loops made them jump out of time of our actual instrument playing.

Secondly (and the avenue we’re exploring now) is a simple drum machine. Personally I’m not a big fan if them but I suppose they give you more freedom than pre-recorded Loops though so we’ll see what happens.

The the third option I’m considering is buying an electronic drum kit and learning to bust some beats. That’s a last resort.

Another issue we’re having is the motherfucking singer (to quote The Used). I reckon that between us Scott and I could easily handle the singing aspect of this lil band, the problem is a lack of dedicated singing equipment. The mic on my MacBook is good but not good enough (plus you can’t really rock out singing into a laptop, it takes away the awesome). I may invest in a proper microphone once I get all the upcoming months expenses sorted out.

Keep a look out for a preview of Fragile Night being uploaded soon.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: emo, fragile night, lyrics, Music, Stringbean

Current Mood: Playful

So the last few nights I haven’t been sleeping… I won’t go into details. They’re boring.

I have tried damn hard but nothing just hours and hours of a dark room… and my thoughts which has slowly lead to insanity… which is why I now write this… A praise of Microsoft.

Those words feel dirty coming from my fingers but to keep myself amused in the long cold nights of late I have fired up the laptop (powered by Vista (Boo)) and been playing the games that come with all microsoft computers.

Usually I would have only ventured into solitaire and maybe chess if I was feeling clever. But this time I fired up something I never understood. Freecell.

I played it for a while, sucking at it and getting angry and why I couldn’t move 8 cards at once sometimes and then it was fine with it later on. Then I started to understand it… And with understand came winning… And enjoyment. so after I mastered Freecell. I moved on.

Hearts is simple enough but damn frustrating when some computer controlled ass sends you the Queen of Spades and you get lumbered with a tonne of points. Played a few games and didn’t win so after changing the computer names to immature inuendo’s I moved on again.

Next up was Spider Soliatiare. It started out as a blur of cards and numbers but slowly I got the hang of it and ramped up the difficulty. With two suits I regressed back to confusion for a bit then master this as well. Feeling extremely manly I blasted up to expert and regressed yet again when four suits came flying at me. I nearly nailed that when I realised that my dad had just got up from work and there was a rather nice sunrise coming up.

Rounding this up in a rather odd way. Microsoft may not be as hot at making good operating systems as they were in 1995. But the games that they have been putting on there machines since the beginning of time held my attension and chased all my blue away. So for that, I thank them.

Written by:
Russell

Current Mood: Happy

Well, my new portfolio website has a new host, a new look and is ready to rock the internets!

Head on over to doylemb.com to have a quick looksee. At the minute I’m still filling the site with content so I expect the first few days to go a little slow but everything should be up, running and A-OK by the 12th (I’ve set myself a deadline, watch me not stick to it).

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: Doyle, doylemb, doylemb.com, portfolio

Current Mood: Thinking

Now I’m all for nostalgia.

I love kicking back, chillaxing and remembering the old days.

As such, that’s just what I’ve been doing today.

As I have much of today to do nothing except wait for tonight’s fooleries, I decided to re-live the hectic high-school days and listen to some old-school AFI. Namely, Black Sails in the Sunset.

Continue reading »

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: afi, band, black sails in the sunset, Doyle, fragile night, JD, makeshift:heart, Moe, Music, Stringbean

Now a few days ago I was happy. My new URL had been approved and I had the server space for free.

Now I’m sad. The server I found does not have a SQL database (at least not for free) which means I cannot integrate Wordpress into my site.

I’m currently looking for a new server.

Till Then, XD

Written by:
Doyle \\ tags: doylemb, server, sql, wordpress