Battlelog, which tracks player progress in Battlefield 3, is way better than indistinguishable from Facebook.

I used to play a lot of video games, something that I wasn’t really able to do while I was away, with my Xbox left in safe hands. I played the occasional game on my laptop, but it isn’t really built for the genres I like (ie., ones where you repeatedly shoot people in the face). It’s been a while, and it’s something I quite enjoy, and unable to wait until being reunited with my console down in Wellington I opted to rent one in the mean time.

And you know fucking what? The goddamn rental console didn’t come with HD cables so I’ve been sitting here playing in Standard Def like a fucking 20th Century jerk.

But, hey, fuck it. Made my way through a little bit of the absolutely stellar LA Noire and found myself begrudgingly enjoying Black Ops (“This is fucking stupid. This is so goddamn stupid. Okay, that was pretty awesome but it’s still stupid, but I’m going to keep playing because this is awesome.”)

This concludes a brief screed about first world problems and video games that nobody cares about anymore.

A million years ago, when the Swiss were in the news for doing weird things under mountains, I wanted to change my Xbox live name to “LargeHardonCollider” [sic] bit it unfortunately had too many characters.

Forza Motorsport 4 - E3 2011 trailer

There go my nipples again.

I’ve never liked the Halo series; A bland sci-fi action shooter featuring a single player experience comprising of excessive film pastiche, pedestrian gameplay and questionable characterisation decisions (The smallest enemies are comic relief? How am I supposed to feel like a bad ass when I’m killing Ewoks?); while the multiplayer community is generally insufferable and filled with the worst archetypes that spring to mind whenever one hears the phrase “online multiplayer”.

And that’s a damn shame because I’m a huge fan of how the series is marketed, with this TV spot for 2007’s Halo 3 - featuring intricate scale models and the most dramatic melody from Chopin’s Prelude No. 15 in D-flat, better known as the ‘Raindrop’ prelude - being one of my favourite commercials.