Post-Wire links

Back in September 2009, The Wire finished being broadcast on terrestrial TV in the UK. I was finally free of Spoiler Fear and went on a post-series-internet-search-binge. Here are some of the interesting things I found, which I’ve been meaning to post here for months:

I have successfully rewired my brain

“Games that put select where you expect cancel or that offer 16 useless presets are shooting themselves in the foot. Or, more precisely, games that don’t give the choice of whether or not to invert are most likely shooting players in their own foot.”

- Edge‘s Ten Commandments, issue #128 (Oct 2003, their tenth anniversary issue)

I had a pretty roundabout path through console FPS control schemes. Excluding my early experiences with Zero Tolerance and Corporation on the Mega Drive (they don’t really count here), it went something like this:

Think of something new, videogame advertisers!

Has anyone noticed how many game adverts of recent years have used the gimmick of juxtaposing violent imagery against music that’s classical, laid-back, sombre, old-fashioned, jaunty, or otherwise incongruous?

I think the trend began in 2005 with the museum advert for Criterion’s Black:

Then we had:

• Gears of War‘s take on “Mad World” (plus its Battlefield: Bad Company parody)
• Bioshock‘s “Beyond the Sea“
• Mercenaries 2‘s “Oh No You Didn’t!“
• Fallout 3‘s use of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire“
• The Killzone 2 ballet of death, set to “The Flower Duet” (the British Airways music)
• And to a much lesser extent, I suppose that Bayonetta‘s “In for the Kill” might also qualify, at a stretch.

Methinks these advertising agencies have been watching Face/Off a little too much…

Sonic music with lyrics

I quite liked these.

They’ll do to pass the time while Adam & Joe’s Song Wars is away.