Blue Man Sings the Whites

“You’re only writing about games now, aren’t you?” said my mum when I was over there on Sunday. “I like it when you write about other things.”

Sorry, mum.

Call Of Duty 4 (Xbox 360)
I’m not much of a first-person shooterer in general. I’m really, really not much of a console first-person shooterer. But CoD4’s set-pieces, clever narrative tricks and brutal difficulty level + surround sound = something a bit special. I realise that sandbox games and offering the player freedom to wander are in vogue just at the moment, but personally I’ll always take a well-crafted linear game over an aimless, sprawling one that offers several equally-dull choices. There’s nothing here that compares to the brilliant Arnhem Bridge or Stalingrad levels from the original Call Of Duty, and its single-player campaign is pretty short, but it captures the essence of what you expect modern battlefields must be like – messy, scrappy, confusing, vicious and largely fucking terrifying.

I’m pretty sure I mean that as a recommendation.

Chessmaster (DS)
It’s chess! But on the DS. The AI plays a decently strong game (although it’s a shame that there’s no way of forcing the computer to use or avoid a specific opening), and the minigames are quite compelling in a thoroughly boring way. I’ve no idea why I’ve played this every lunchtime for the last couple of weeks, but I have. So there you go.

Team Fortress 2 (PC)
Two things have been instrumental for rekindling my love for Valve’s beautiful-looking, beautifully-balanced Team-Based Online Shooter Of Champions. These two things are the Control Point podcast and my belated discovery of the “Switch To Previous Weapon” key. The former is just a bunch of likable blokes being enthusiastic about something that deserves some enthusiasm. The latter gives me half a chance of surviving in those situations where a certain amount of regrettable violence needs to be handed out to someone in my general vicinity.

I’m a Medic by trade, y’see. Not for me the glory-boy solo-effort flag-capping nonsense of the Scout, nor the shifty, skulking, duplicitous death-dealing of the Spy, Engineer or Sniper, nor even the wholesale slaughter and mass destruction of the Heavy, Soldier, Pyro or Demoman. No. Instead, you’ll find me diving into the midst of battle with only my healing ray to protect me, selflessly risking life and limb to keep my team-mates upright even as a hail of bullets, rockets, grenades and God-only-knows-what-else rain down upon me.

“Rain down on me”, you’ll note. Not “rain down on my armed-and-dangerous team-mates.” Because putting on the Medic’s big coat and the child-molester glasses is basically the same thing as painting a bullseye on your face.

If (like me) you’re a fairly casual player with less-than-perfect knowledge of the game’s maps, and less-than-less-than-perfect FPS skills, playing Medic is great. It allows you to contribute in a real and valuable way to your team’s success without needing the twitch reflexes of a fighter pilot. Just lock that healing-ray onto the arse of a more competent team-mate and follow them on a sightseeing tour of your local warzone.

(My uncle Derek was round my folks’ for the aforementioned Mum’s Day visit. He’s planning a holiday in Vietnam and Cambodia. “Don’t forget to pack a wife!” I said cheerily, to predictably blank looks all round. Sigh.)

The fearful and wonderful thing about the Medic is that you’re playing a purely supporting role – you’re almost entirely dependant on your colleagues, both for protection and to actually accomplish the goals of the level. This is immensely frustrating if you’re playing with chimps, but with competent people around you a decent Medic can be the difference between victory and defeat, by keeping the damage-dealers alive long enough to wear the enemy down, or supplying a burst of invulnerability at the exact right time. It’s immensely satisfying, and a way to feel good at FPSs without being any good at FPSs.

Every so often, though, you’ll find yourself in a spot where you actually have to put away the healing ray and defend yourself – if you’ve clocked an enemy Spy lurking about for example, or if all your team-mates in the vicinity have displayed insufficient respect for the rule that incoming rockets always have right-of-way. Up till this week, these situations have been characterised by my fumbling around with the weapon selection keys like a big fat-fingered fool, then getting my brains blown out. Now I tap Q, and go from selfless healer to SYRINGE-GUN KILLA in less than a second.

Then I run away. No sense in being a bloody idiot about it. If I could shoot straight I’d be playing a sodding Soldier.

Audiosurf (PC)
Audiosurf is a simple little game. Point it at a music file on your hard-disk and it generates a track, along which your guide your ship collecting coloured blocks. The faster and more intense the song you’re playing, the more blocks are available for you to collect. Link three or more blocks of the same colour and they disappear, scoring points. There are various different ships, each playing in slightly different ways. I’ve largely found myself gravitating toward Mono, which plays more like a racer than a puzzler - there is only one colour of scoring block and the main challenge comes from avoiding grey obstacle blocks, with a significant bonus at the end of the song if you’ve picked up no greys at all.

And you’ll want that significant bonus, because on completion your score is uploaded to the Audiosurf website, where you can see the best scores of everyone else who’s played that song. That’s the reason I spent half an hour last night repeatedly replaying the heart-pumping white-knuckle ride that is Identity by the X-Ray Spex, punching the air in glee as I finally managed to finish a run with no greys hit and no leftover blocks, becoming THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!

Ahem.

(By the by, other Blue Man Recommend-o-Tracks for maximum Audiosurfing fun include the Bill Shatner/Joe Jackson cover of Common People, Car Fiction by Echobelly, Robyn’s Cobrastyle and the proper, non-cheaty four-and-a-half minute album version of Vision Thing. I am the best at (some of) these).

Honestly, as a game it’s nothing special. But it looks like a rollercoaster in a theme park run by Tron and I keep getting drawn back to it to try new tracks, to creep up the leaderboards or for a ten-minute blast after a poker game or TuFTy session.

A hugely pretty, sneakily addictive little fiddle-toy for fewer than six of your Earth pounds? Up with this sort of thing.

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The World’ll Be OK - Teenage Fanclub
My very favourite slice of warm, melodic, eminiently likeable Byrdsian jangly pop from Glasgow’s own eminiently likeable Byrdsian jangly pop-merchants. This is another of those “If You Don’t Like This, You’re Dead Inside” things, I’m afraid.
Substitute: Ain’t That Enough - Teenage Fanclub (My second favourite etc etc etc…)

(Slave To) Lust - The Mission
Bombastic and direct even by the Mish’s lofty standards, the reasons why it’s rubbish are the exact same reasons why it’s great. It might even have marked the point where the Mission toppled into self-parody, if they hadn’t pitched over that particular precipice at least five years earlier with the equally epic, equally overwrought, equally tonto Daddy’s Going To Heaven Now.
Substitute: Space Lord - Monster Magnet (Get your government-recommended daily intake of three-parts-bonkers cock-rock right here, children!).

Lloyd I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken - Camera Obscura
A really rather lovely melancholic little pop confection.
Substitute: Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions (Ditto).

Opiated - The Tragically Hip
Like a Canadian U2. Only still worth listening to, and with a frontman who’s not a massive bell-end.
Substitute: Baby’s On Fire - Brian Eno (Actually, the Hip’s gorgeous, poetically opaque lyrics remind me most of Tori Amos, but since she’s already had a mention let’s do Eno. Baby’s On Fire manages to be simultaneously completely rocking and yet somewhat unsettling, with a guitar solo that makes me happy by allowing me to justifiably use the word “insectoid”).

Time After Time - The Beloved
Was this the second or third album I ever bought that I’d admit to? I think second. I think Sign ‘O’ The Times was first, then this, then Floodland. Please don’t ask me about the albums I’m not going to admit to. Ahem. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.
Substitute: Sweet Harmony - The Beloved (My friend Rob once said that you know you’re getting old when you start preferring sax solos to guitar solos. This song makes me worry I’m getting old).

Laura II - Fields Of The Nephilim
The Narky One’s right, this is a cracking tune from the kings of Goth incomprehensibility - “She’s on the line to Gare du Nord, she’s on the line to drop a foal, she’s on the line to Gare du Nord, she’s on the line… Line to MAAAAAAAAAAAARRRS!”
Substitute: Shadowplay - Joy Division (More cheerful cheerful stuff, and one of the best after-dark driving songs ever).

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(Bangbangbangbangbangbangbang!)

Yeah, so now there’s this Last FM thingamy down the bottom of the sidebar that, should you be so inclined, lets you listen to the playlist of fine and worthy tunes that I’ve put together.

Its track selection is pretty good on the whole, although I’ve come across several glaring omissions. So, without further ado, let’s have the Top 10 Songs That LastFM Doesn’t Think Exists;

Roam - B-52’s
It’s just replaced Splash Wave as my ringtone. Close to being the perfect accompaniment to the spring sunshine arriving, Watford finally stringing a few wins together and everything being right with the world.
Substitute: Hero Worship - B-52’s (Arguably the best song from their cracking first album).

(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher – Jackie Wilson
THE perfect accompaniment to the spring sunshine arriving, Watford finally stringing a few wins together and everything being right with the world.
Substitute: Nowhere To Run – Martha & The Vandellas (It’s a scientific fact that it’s physically impossible for a human to sit still when this song’s playing. Try it at home, kids!).

Hardly Wait – PJ Harvey
Sex, menace, claustrophobia and madness. Now that’s a love song.
Substitute: Long Snake Moan – PJ Harvey (Sex, menace, claustrophobia, madness and LOUD NOISES).

Titanic Days – Kirsty MacColl
A tale of spiritual and physical bondage ripped to the gills with gorgeous harmonies.
Substitute: In These Shoes? – Kirsty MacColl (“He said “won’t you walk up and down my spine? It makes me feel strangely alive”, I said “In these shoes? I doubt you’d survive…” I said “Honey… let’s do it.”).

Identity – X-Ray Spex
Still sounds fresh and vital and dangerous 30 years after its release. Turns out all punk needed to attain absolute perfection was more saxophone. Who knew?
Substitute: Gary Gilmour’s Eyes – The Adverts (Punk does Hammer Horror. Brilliant).

Spark – Tori Amos
Five minutes of pain so pure and deep it’s indistinguishable from rage. Which doesn’t sound like a recommendation, but it really, really is.
Substitute: A Sorta Fairytale – Tori Amos (Almost the exact opposite. Where Spark is an incandescent wall of spiky sound, this is soft and gentle and unassumingly beautiful. From Scarlet’s Walk, easily the best album Tori’s produced since Little Earthquakes).

Rake At The Gates Of Hell – The Pogues
Lively, gleeful and quite unbelievably nasty, this is the Pogues at their most Pogueish.
Substitute: Fifteen Years – The Levellers (Pretty much the exact opposite subject-matter to the Pogues tune, but with similar levels of energy and unpleasantness. Really ace).

Feeling Good – Nina Simone
Remember when singers were famous for their ability to sing, rather than their looks/drug habits/ability to get millions of proles to phone a premium-rate number? Wasn’t that a better system?
Substitute: Who Knows Where The Time Goes? – Fairport Convention (Tons of people have covered this, including Nina Simone, but the original version remains the best).

Pet – A Perfect Circle
The highlight of APC’s excellent The Thirteenth Step album. Pet recalls Bill Hicks’ furious rants regarding the narcotic effects of the mass-media, whilst bringing plenty to the table of its own. Really very cool indeed.
Substitute: 3 Libras – A Perfect Circle (Not as clever lyrically, musically or conceptually. But still a great tune).

Take Me To The River – Al Green
The smoothest voice this side of Marvin Gaye.
Substitute: Take Me To The River – Talking Heads (The biggest suit this side of John Prescott).

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• There’s Something Going On – Baby Bird
  My only previous exposure to Baby Bird was the massively grating and at-the-time totally inescapable chorus to their one big hit, “You’re Gorgeous”, so this album took me completely by surprise.
  
  It’s largely painted in shades of sad, running from chirpy-but-hollow (If You’ll Be Mine) through melancholy-but-epic (standout track Back Together) to chilling-but-really-really-chilling (Take Me Back) but if that doesn’t bother you – or, indeed if it’s a bonus – then I urge you to check this album out. It’s desolate, it’s clever, it’s funny, it’s… well. It’s gorgeous.

• What Do Pretty Girls Do? – Kirsty MacColl
  A collection of her Radio 1 sessions. Between this and the outstanding three-disk retrospective From Croydon To Cuba, I’ve been listening to an awful lot of Kirsty MacColl lately, and my life’s the better for it. This is pop music how it’s meant to be, full of wit and heartbreak and joy and soul. In a world in which pop has been conquered by wave after relentless wave of Identikit jiggling machines, that’s a rare and rather lovely thing.

• Silent Alarm – Bloc Party
  I sort’ve skimmed over this album on first hearing it last year. On a semi-random re-listen a few days ago, I’ve been drawn in a lot more. Really good choppy pop / art-rock fun, especially the undulating, hypnotic opening track, Like Eating Glass. I’m greatly looking forward to having a crack at Helicopter come Guitar Hero III.
  

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