Serial Gaming: Animal Crossing

 This feature can also be found on One Hit Pixel, here.

When I committed myself to writing a set of features on my opinions of gaming series, it looked like a cakewalk. But after some thought, I found it needed a more tentative approach. You see, I’d like to say that I am ardently opposed to ‘sequelitis’. In my mind, the greatest gaming achievements are rarely held by sequels (sales figures notwithstanding). Ideally, I would want to say that I don’t have a favourite series, followed by many words about the indie gaming scene.

Sadly, that’s not true at all. I’ll hold my hands up and say that there are a few series where I’ve played most, if not all of. Today, I’ll talk about one that’s not my absolute favourite, but one I’ve recently clocked as having some genius game design I didn’t appreciate way back when.


Animal Crossing is not a series I’ve followed from the start – my first foray was Animal Crossing: Wild World on the DS – but every game since then I’ve sunk countless hours into.

In my high school years, Wild World had me completely enthralled with its miniature idealistic world. However, I wasn’t a genius authority on game design back then – I took the game experience entirely at face value. It’s difficult to give an honest answer as to why it clicked with me so well.

The best I can manage is a reference to the Skinner Box theory. Animal Crossing keeps you coming back every day with the prospect of something new – fossils that your museum might not have yet, another item of furniture for the themed set you’re collecting, or that fabled Coelacanth. To a kid raised on Pokémon Trading Cards, that kind of game design is like digital cocaine.

I befriended villagers to get their photo items. I expanded my house so I could better show off the rare furniture pieces I procured to my classmates who also played. What AI and design work that went on behind the scenes went unappreciated.


Years later, the Wii semi-sequel, Animal Crossing: City Folk came out. On paper, it was the kind of content expansion I could have ever wanted. By that time I was in sixth-form, older and more jaded about my gaming habits.

I no longer had a raw, completionist instinct. I could carry over my character from Wild World, but I wasn’t motivated to play every day any more. The game had more robust content, but I was looking for story-driven experiences in that time of my life. I still played, but I was failing to ‘get’ what Animal Crossing did best. Eventually I lost a couple of hours progress to an internet connection drop and I set the game aside for good.

So then, fast forward to this year. Animal Crossing: New Leaf had me excited, but I couldn’t have explained to you why. Just two or three days of play later, the pieces clicked into place, and it dawned on me what was so special about the series.

In no other game does the player’s creative input have such a direct payoff. Every choice made available – how you arrange your town, how you decorate your house, what you wear – can be shown to and enjoyed by other people. It’s been present across all of the games (even in the Gamecube and Japanese only Nintendo 64 games, where you are encouraged to have everyone in the household play), but New Leaf goes leaps and bounds into make both creating and sharing content as easy as possible.

The most salient example is with pattern designs. In all the games you could make designs for clothing or house furnishing. With New Leaf, not only are the uses for your patterns pretty broad, you can turn it into a QR code and share it with other players. I’ve been designing patterns of my own, and it’s the best feeling ever when some sends you a picture of them wearing something you’ve designed.


New Leaf‘s heavily pushed feature of being the mayor of your town feels like a gimmick at first glance, but it means that your town is now like your patterns – customisable, and can be shared with your friends. More so than the randomised town layout every player starts with, what kind of public works you build makes your town truly unique.

There are other games that run a theme of sharing customisations (It’s the only way I can fathom people playing Minecraft), but I’ve not found any others that makes the process so simple yet so immediately rewarding. You can bask in the satisfaction of your town not only looking good, but everyone else you know with the came can see for themselves how sweet it is.

Ah, but there’s another trick up the game’s sleeve. Even though creating content is hassle-free, it doesn’t give you all this customisation up front. For example, you can’t get the ability to share pattern QR codes until you properly befriend the hedgehog sisters that run the clothing store – which could take around 10 days from starting the game!

Getting new furniture is a slow process unless you talk to the other residents and help them with errands. Anyone who plays Animal Crossing knows to set aside 10 minutes every Saturday night to score some new bootleg songs from a guitar-playing dog (on a side note, never try to explain this to your friends unless you want to be labelled unhinged).

You find that when you’re engaging the game world so you can make creative and completion progress, you form a kinship with the characters you encounter. You don’t need to have a favourite town resident to be able to expand your house, but every player has one.

It was a side of the overall gameplay that I didn’t fully appreciate as a kid (I made maybe eight patterns in the two or three years I played Wild World). Animal Crossing each instalment of the series to further blur the lines of getting immersed in the game and letting you explore your creativity through the game, but the present results blow me away.

If there is to be a Wii U incarnation (and that’s rather likely), if they integrate the sharing of content to the Miiverse and allow cross-platform play with the 3DS, it would be all that easier to reach some stranger on the other side of the world with a little bit of my self-expression.

Oh, and as a side note, go read through Dave Irwin’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf diary if you haven’t already.

Media Matters: Peaceful days died. Let's Survive

This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

Even with my busy schedule, I still try to squeeze in some gaming time. My current vice on Nintendo 3DS right now is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked.

 It's actually something of an old game - it was originally released as just Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor in Japan and America back in 2009, but never saw a UK release. Overclocked is a re-release for the 3DS, but due to publishing issues, it took a whole two years between the Japanese release and ours, released on the March 29.

The game details an unlikely disaster scenario - a large section of Tokyo is suddenly cordoned off by the armed forces. The government say it's due to a poison gas leak, but the thousands trapped inside the danger zone know the truth – it’s an invasion of bloodthirsty demons. Knowing that death is constantly around the corner, they try to survive the lockdown for a week, assuming they don't find a way of escaping. The game's tagline says it all: "Peaceful days died. Let's Survive."

It's a story that's surprisingly easy to relate to. Not so much the demons (although the mythology nerd in me appreciates that), but in the character interaction. The main character is rather plain, but his friends and the other survivors he encounters each have their own concerns and different motivations for trying to escape... or stay.

It got me thinking: if I was in a similar disaster area, would I be able to survive? Lord knows how many fellow nerds made zombie survival plans in light of that now overplayed and overrated horror trope.

Devil Survivor offers little advice, but it definitely discusses the dangers. The electricity going out is one of the biggest threats. We of the Communication Age need electronics more than ever to stay functional. Some people get tetchy when they can't check Facebook at will - having no internet connection at all would destroy them. Most of the food would spoil, and failed traffic lights would cause more than a few accidents.

Fortunately, a lot of our technology is both portable and rechargeable. You may not have desktop access or a call signal, but there are countless handheld chargers out there, even DIY ones if you fancy yourself handy.

After that comes the rioting. In the game, once the public realise that they're being lied to about the poison gas leaks, things get tense - and any small argument could escalate into chaos. In real life, riots will break out the moment people realise they can break shop windows without getting caught.

I still remember the riots in 2011 – although not sparked by disaster, it still remains a great example of what people are capable of if given a little temptation and stirred into a frenzy.

In either case, large groups become a problem. The general consensus on surviving riots is simply to remain detached from it. The closer you are to the incident centre (and the more you're dressed like a rioter, or worse, a person in uniform) the more likely you are to get involved in the fray.

Taking a look at a different work of media for advice - The Walking Dead TV show has seen a lot of success for both being yet another thing with zombies in it, and also being legitimately good (which I admit slightly begrudgingly).

Its narrative focuses more on the relationship dynamics between the survivors more than the, uh, walking dead. It seems that their survival recommendations involve escaping the city entirely, which I doubt I could manage; I'm terrified of the countryside (and nature in general).

They also lack electricity, but have (somewhat intermittent) police radios to communicate. Tension between survivors is often laid on for drama's sake, but it 's clear that becoming a 'lone wolf' in the face of danger will most likely be fatal.

In reality, even though we encounter most of our experience with disaster in media, the survival advice they give is sometimes dangerously inaccurate. Some disaster movies are just plain ridiculous. Even with the presence of demons, Devil Survivor feels a lot more plausible than pretty much all of 2012.

So yes, in a disaster scenario, my media knowledge is probably just going to get me killed. Which is a shame - not because I intend to fight zombies or demons any time soon, but because North Korea's constant threats of nuclear missile strike make me feel I should be collecting tins of food and searching for underground shelters on online estate agent websites.

Luckily, there are countless paranoid people on the internet with detailed disaster survival instructions, from reasonable things like floods to this increasingly likely nuclear apocalypse.

Tech Talk: Seeing Sounds and the 'Art Game'

 This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

Singing Ribbons is a new art installation by Matthew Maxwell for the iPhone generation. A series of paintings consisting of bold stripes of colour can be scanned by a special mobile app that converts each stripe into notes sung by a soprano.

Really, it's an awesome concept. On a basic level, it's a great form of interactive art. The works come alive with what you bring to the gallery, and the results leave with you. We are clearly far to prone to forgetfulness to simply remember the exhibit.

From a technological perspective, it takes the idea behind QR codes (Those 'square barcodes' that most smartphones these days can read), and explores it in a refreshing way. It's no surprise that Mr Maxwell works in software, but has an education in fine art.

Beyond that, I think it's an interesting demonstration of Synaesthesia, though that may not be intentional.

What's that? Synaesthesia is a mental condition that switches up the wiring in your brain when recalling emotions and senses. Normally when we see, for example, the colour green, our brains go through a subconscious process of acknowledging what colour it is, using the 'correct' part of the brain to do so.

For a 'synaesthete', they may instead start smelling fried bacon or hear the sound of a tuba, as their brain tries to use an area that's meant to process a different sense.

In practice, the most common form of synaesthesia are people feeling that letters and numbers have inherent colours. What's more, only 1 in 2000 are likely to be synaesthetes. But that's not as romantic or exciting to think about.

Drug use (I won't say which ones, though you could probably guess) is often known to induce synaesthesia, often a kind where sounds trigger colours, or touch triggers sounds. Unsurprisingly, this is a lot closer to artistic representations.

The bars that make up each piece in Singing Ribbons reflect the decorations on army generals. What would be a meaningless pattern of colours to a layperson has a set of understandable rules and meanings to someone in the know. Just like how a synaesthete could feel another meaning to a set of apparently arbitrary letters.

Singing Ribbons isn't the only example of interactive art, or in using technology as a medium. Across the history of video games, there's a host of titles that take the art appreciation experience to your living room.

Once described as 'art games', they cause many debates over if games are inherently art, or if only this genre of subversive and abstract titles qualify. Many have taken to describing them as 'un-games', though that's not always appropriate either.

Rez is the classic example. Released way back in 2002 for the Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2 (and since re-released on Xbox Live), it is directed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

Across much of Mizuguchi's work, he has a personal fascination with sound design in games. He designed Rez as a representation of Synaesthesia, and in reference to the Bauhaus art of Wassily Kandinsky.


Even though it's a video game in a very traditional sense, enjoying it need not be about getting high scores. There's a mode that lets you just enjoy the game without fear of failure.

More recently, the present Indie scene has had a revival of games that are much closer to the idea of the 'un-game'. Dear Esther went from a free modification of an existing game in 2008 to a complete, priced title in February 2012. It lets you explore an abandoned, overcast island as a narrator explains the back story of the events that happened there in a vaguely obtuse and non-chronological fashion.

At the time, its total refusal to conform to standard perceptions of a 'game' caused a large stir among games journalists and even now I feel it's a far cry from a successful experiment, but it was a well-publicised step into a bigger interest in interactive artworks.

As such, Proteus works out to be a more palatable take on that kind of Art Game. Using intentionally low resolution graphics, hazy neon gradients, and a dynamic interactive soundtrack (filled with wavy extended synths and hushed clarinets), players can wander through the landscape as day turns to night and clouds roll overhead.

As developing video games becomes easier, and the underground movement for producing counter-culture and intellectual games builds steam, the discussion of what constitutes 'art' or a 'game' will rage on.

Meanwhile, Pippin Barr's Art Game, a game about producing art by playing a game within the game is the best take on the genre I've seen yet. Maybe the Tate Modern should have an Art Game exhibition this year.

Singing Ribbons will be available for viewings from 14-17 April at the Coningsby Gallery on Tottenham Street. For more information, check the gallery website.

Tech Talk: Tournament organisers scam clients with unauthorised money-making software

 This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

A hidden function in globally used anti-cheating software generated almost $4,000 for an e-sports company, statements revealed this week.

The E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA) distributed the program for users who would be competing in tournaments, but within the code was a function that uses computer processing power to earn a digital currency called Bitcoins.

Users noticed that their computers were running slower and electricity bills had increased, complaining on the ESEA website about the issue.

One of the website staff members, known as 'lpkane', issued an initial statement to the queries.
He mentioned that it was an idea between him and another staff member, 'jaguar', to implement the function as an April Fool’s joke.

He said: "Jaguar and I were talking about how cool it would be."

He went on to claim that they had disabled the mining functionality, after testing it on their own accounts for a few days. Then, a server error resulted in the 'joke' program being distributed to clients.

In lpkane's statement, he said that the program had been live for 48 hours and earned around two Bitcoins (roughly $280 at time of writing).

However, a more formal statement made by the ESEA owner, Craig Turnball, put the mining total at $3,713.50, occurring over two weeks since April 13th.

He says that he was aware of the initial testing phase of the mining functions, but gave no instruction to apply it to user accounts.

Mr Turnball said: "We are extremely disappointed and concerned by the unauthorized actions of this unauthorized individual."

The Bitcoin mining function has since been removed from the software and the value of the Bitcoins mined will be donated to the American Cancer Society, along with a donation of the same amount from ESEA themselves.

There has been no mention of whether lpkane or jaguar have been identified as the "unauthorised individual" or if any action is being taken against them.

Some Background on Bitcoins
Established in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins are electronic cash designed to be transferred with no exchange rate between computers, and can be converted into legal tender. Although the currency is used globally, it is commonly compared to US dollars in value.

They are ‘cryptographic’, using a complex coding system for authenticity and to ensure the same Bitcoin isn’t spent twice. Due to their non-corporeal nature, the actual value of Bitcoins tends to fluctuate often.

Although the non-mediated system of Bitcoins allows for trading of goods and services with minimal intervention from banks, there is a lot of criticism about the currency’s stability and legality.
In its early stages, the non-traceable nature of Bitcoins allowed a website, Silk Road, to freely trade drugs and other contraband.

A man under the handle of ‘Killhamster’ runs a Bitcoin satire website, called Buttcoin. The site archives news about the currency and those that use it, highlighting dangerous or strange behaviour.
His documentation of various screen captures from online message boards and Twitter accounts is rather contentious among the Bitcoin community.

To generate Bitcoins, a computer does a series of complex equations, and upon completion, a central server rewards a number of Bitcoins.

Initially, users were awarded with 25 Bitcoins for every block of equations completed. As more Bitcoins enter the economy, the amount rewarded has decreased. The complexity of the equations is designed to be proportionate with the power of the computer.

In some cases the processes can cause damage to the machine, as the calculations can caused increased processor strain, and greatly increase electricity usage. Computers designed for playing video games have better processors than average.

Enthusiasts will create specifically designed machines for Bitcoin mining. Some are professionally built machines costing thousands of dollars; some are jury-rigged setups with multiple graphics cards and cooling fans.


Sloppy builds are a health hazard – in January a house fire broke out in Ottawa, Canada as a Bitcoin miner’s rig short circuited. The fire resulted in $300,000 in damages.

Avalon Asics are the present leaders in producing hardware with the sole purpose of mining. They will only accept Bitcoins as payment for their services.

Tech Talk: Xbox One

 This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

You probably already know this, but electronics are designed to have a lifespan. Apple tends to design their iPod so you'll own one for about a year before buying another. Gaming consoles work the same way, but a tad slower.

We're on to our 9th generation of home consoles: Nintendo's WiiU will be soon met with Sony's Playstation 4 this year, and this week we've had a conference from Microsoft, announcing their new console - the Xbox One.

Even though its presence was long awaited (you could argue it was guaranteed), the response was a great deal less positive than Microsoft were hoping. In fact, the conferenced managed to cause a large spike in stocks for Sony and Nintendo.

Now, I'm no business analyst, but my diagnosis is that there's been a hefty misunderstanding between what Microsoft thinks they should sell, and what their user base actually want.

The Xbox One (which I have seen amusingly referred to as Xbone, so I shall do the same) kind of resembles a mid-90s VCR, with an iPod black sheen.

To compare it to the Xbox 360, the Xbone has a 500GB hard drive and 8GB of RAM (compared to the 320GB storage and 512MB RAM of the 360), and is designed to have motion sensors and connectivity with tablets right from the word go.

So far, so sensible. The hardware's vital statistics bring it closer to the brunt that (incredibly expensive) Gaming PCs are capable of, but these are mere figures if they're not used for something important.

This is where I feel Microsoft slips up. When talking of the Xbone's special features, spokespeople at the conference focused on trying to pitch a 'multi-entertainment' product, with a lot of words dedicated to video streaming, voice commands and recording footage of games you're playing.

It's all rather superfluous. Most TV addicts already have access to Netflix, voice commands are the territory of couch potatoes, and the recording functions are suspiciously similar to what Sony announced for the Playstation 4 a few months ago.

The amount of time dedicated to actual games for the console was comparatively brief, and none of it was especially astounding. In fact, everything they announced was a sequel - FIFA 2014, Forza Motorsport 5, Call of Duty: Ghost.

Only one new franchise was announced - Quantum Break. The brief trailer reveals precious little, though it's the prettiest destruction of a bridge I've ever seen.

According to Remedy, who are developing the game, Quantum Break aims to meld TV shows and gaming experiences together, which honestly could go in some interesting directions - though it's way too early to get excited.

However, the things that concern me most weren't discussed in the conference at all. As with the 360, the Xbone won't let games developers self-publish.

Traditionally, games developers release their titles through a publisher (companies like EA, Activision and Konami are publishers), but in the present industry, there's a very popular trend of smaller development studios that can't afford a publisher can still release their games digitally.

With Microsoft forcing teams to use publishers to host their content, a thriving part of the games development industry is suddenly hamstrung.

Buying a new games console is actually a hefty investment - the basic hardware isn't cheap, so most are hesitant to make the purchase unless they know they are going to get enough hours of fun to make things worthwhile.

And unfortunately for Microsoft, being able to watch television and play Yet Another Football Game 2014 doesn't inspire me or my wallet with confidence.

But it's not too late - in the months leading up to the Xbone's release, they can still announce more interesting titles, lower the barrier of entry to smaller development companies, and realise that the main reason why people buy games consoles is to play games.

Media Matters: The 7 o'clock news with Shaquille O'Neal

 This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

The other day, I was in a conversation on the internet about the development of an indie video game. The main characters were to have voice actors, and it just so happened one of the cast was a black guy.

The number of people who suddenly yelled "He should be voiced by Samuel L. Jackson!" was overwhelming.

It made me wonder about the presence of black actors in major releases these days. Setting aside that the internet is filled with idiots, is Samuel L. Jackson the only option Hollywood has for 'the black guy'?
 
Well, no, I'm being hyperbolic - we also have Will Smith. If the role requires someone older, or a narrator, Morgan Freeman's usually the port of call.

There are others (no need to bring up each name of every rapper who's turned a hand to film, for example), but they're very rarely cut out for anything other than a comedy relief role.

If Hollywood needs a British black actor for whatever reason, they're stuck. Ocean's Twelve had to settle for Don Cheadle putting on a disgustingly poor Cockney accent.

That's not to say that there's a total dearth of black actors out there, it's just that they often don't seem to get the kind of high profile exposure that other actors of a similar (or even worse) skill level get.

And that's if the audience don't just dismiss the presence of black actors outright. If you remember back in 2011, Idris Elba had a solid role as Heimdall, in Thor. Naturally, the internet filled with complaints about a black character appearing in what they considered exclusively white mythology.

The Hunger Games had Cinna, a fashion designer played by Lenny Kravitz (who absolutely rocked the gold eyeshadow, by the way). As the book made no direct reference to Cinna's race, there were loads of complaints that they dared to put someone non-white in the role. In fact, there was a character that specifically was mentioned to be black in the text that got the same treatment.

It seems there's a general theme of scripts not giving scope for black characters, or an audience that's unaccepting of them. Though while believable, those are both entirely awful excuses.

But hey, what about ordinary television? TV presenters and show hosts aren't limited by a script to be white, so the demographic ratios should be better, right?

Well, according to Reggie Yates, 29, it's scary how few black faces there are on UK prime-time television.
Himself the only black host on Saturday night television (He hosts The Voice), he feels that not enough is done to accurately reflect the British population.

He told The Sun on the 16th that it was intimidating to be alone in a demographic.

“There’s more opportunity in America — and a bigger black audience," he said.

He's backed up by a comment from Lenny Henry, 54, after the Bafta TV awards last weekend.

A successful comedian in his own right, he said: "I’m working on things and trying to bring about change, but I can’t do it all on my own. We need to invest in these programmes, in rainbow casting, in all of the great black writers, producers and directors who make these programmes."

The point about there being a bigger pool of black TV personalities and actors in the US is a good one. Maybe the solution is to do use our favourable exchange rate, and import more diverse actors from overseas.

I can see it now. Donald Glover hosting CBBC, Lawrence Fishburne starring in endless Channel 4 gritty dramas, Shaquille O'Neal reading the news headlines on BBC Breakfast.

Why not go the whole hog and get me on the television? I would make an incredible game show presenter! Take Me Out would never be the same again.

Media Matters: Orchestras á la mode

 This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

This year's Proms are going to be taking an interesting turn, with the introduction of the Urban Classic Prom.

It stands out as a unique event for the Royal Albert Hall show, bringing the classical flavour of the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the grime, hip-hop and soul inclusions of Fazer (a former member of N-Dubz), Laura Mvula and Maverick Sabre.

But will the marriage of styles be well received by the general public? Not that I don't think it should, but because the Proms are often thought of as something of a musical sacred ground.

Last year's Prom was rather straight-laced, sticking almost entirely to orchestra and operatic work, though taking both vintage and modern pieces. To that end, infusing another genre, especially one that's often (unfairly) considered as non-compatible with high-class concerts, may be contentious.

This concern is shared by Jules Buckley, the concert conductor, but he remains confident that the audience can be as unified as the music. This has me more interested in the Prom than I have been in a long time.

There have been experimental acts in the past (Yo-Yo Ma's collaboration with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2011 is a good example), and there was a Bollywood number in 2009, but the Urban Classic Prom is a genre first for the event.

Experimentations with genre are some of the most fascinating things you can do with music. For a major event like the Proms, they have a perfect platform to introduce the idea that blurring the lines of genre can be something worthy of a high-class performance.

On the flipside, those who find the orchestra scene difficult to access can also become acquainted to new horizons - collisions of subculture genres with classical music have been tried before to some great effect.

G. Prokofiev/Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra is an album exactly like what it sounds. Released in 2010, turntablist DJ Yoda turns a performance from the Heritage Orchestra into a beat-juggled masterpiece, using the beat making sensibilities that have served high quality hip-hop for decades.

It's a fairly major part of the urban music scene to go to complex lengths to create music tracks - and the very best uses inventive source material.

As a classic example, the 'Amen Break' is an incredibly well-known sample used across all different genres and social scenes, and it all spawned from a funk/soul joint from 1969.

The current pop and hip-hop music industries have adopted the sounds of 'chiptune', the bleeps and boops that formed the soundtracks of games from the 70s to the 90s. We hear them now in tracks from Labrinth to Ke$ha to Crystal Castles. Many hip-hop tunes use direct samples, and an entire genre has recently formed from the marriage of rap and video game music.

A lot of this kind of sampling and genre experimenation happened back when hip-hop and electronic music was still 'underground', not garnering so much attention and money. These days we have Daft Punk and Kanye West – big names in sampling. Now, remixes and mash-ups are a major part of musical expression (although sometimes lawyers disagree.) 

With the Proms, we have a major musical event that heavily features a celebration of historically famous material. The Urban Classic Prom is more than sampling; it's a direct collaboration between styles, eras and cultures. It holds the potential for being just so... rich and interesting.

In fact, it's not the only musical mash-up that will appear at the Prom this year - The Stranglers, a punk band, will be playing with the London Sinfonietta on 12 August. My knowledge of Punk’s musical history is rather lacking, but I don’t doubt they’ll do it service.

Details and tickets for Urban Classical Prom are available here and information on The Stranglers performing with the Sinfonietta is available here.

Tech Talk: Pandora's Printer

This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

The printing press in the 1400s was one of the great innovations of humanity - allowing us to communicate with others, duplicate important texts, and, several hundred years of improvements later, drown beleaguered office staff under mountains of paperwork.

But now we've moved on to the next dimension with the 3D printer. It does exactly what the name suggests - creating copies of objects rather than text. Instead of being filled with ink cartridges, they take a feedstock of molten plastic (or even organic material if you want to print a hamburger), building up the finished product layer by layer.

The technology has been around for a few years, existing within construction and engineering industries. The age of commercialised 3D printers is inching closer, although it's still too pricey to show up in your Argos catalogue. Even the cheapest models these days will set you back around £5,000.

The useful potential for 3D printing is astounding - if your wardrobe, bicycle or washing machine broke and needed a small obscure part, you could just print it at home. Creative types could make anything from furniture to musical instruments to kitsch mantelpiece ornaments.

Or, if you're Defense Distributed, you could start a line of printable firearms. 

The arms manufacturing company had previously been designing components for existing guns, but their current project is for the "Liberator", a handgun made entirely from printable parts with the exception of a metal firing pin (an ordinary nail from any hardware store).

Blueprints for the Liberator were released on the internet earlier this week, and already over 100,000 people have downloaded it, according to Forbes.

The complete model looks like something from a shooting game made by Fisher Price, but its firing capability is definitely real.

Users have downloaded the plans from both the company's website, and through a torrent hosted on The Pirate Bay. The majority of the downloads were in the US, but large numbers of downloads also came from Spain, Brazil and the UK.

Understandably, authorities are sweating bullets over the idea that a firearm is so easily accessible. The Senator of California, Leland Yee, showed concern over a widely available gun that can't be picked up by metal detectors.

Over here, the Metropolitan Police have put out a statement, reminding that our gun control laws require a person to be a Registered Firearms Dealer to manufacture a gun. So while having the blueprint isn't illegal, printing out the parts will get you nicked.

The US State Department sent a letter to Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed's founder, with a demand that the online blueprints are taken down. Of course, now they've been made public, totally eradicating them is decidedly impossible. Still, Defense Distributed have removed the item from their servers.

The decision to release the blueprints publicly ties into Mr Wilson's stance on information censorship. An 'all information should be without regulation' stance similar to that of Julian Assange is partnered with Wilson's politics on gun control.

In my opinion, that's an evil scheme if I ever saw one. To tie freedom of information (which I mostly agree with as a journalist) with pro-firearms rhetoric really shoots holes in the credibility of the former. At least any anti-establishment sentiments he had fell by the wayside when he sheepishly removed the blueprints from his site when asked.

It feels like the age of domestic 3D printers will be postponed - I don't see HP and Epson wanting to make consumer models when the public see the technology as inherently dangerous or illegal.

I was looking forward to being printing new glasses frames, fashion accessories and miniature figurines of video game characters, but until the violence fetishists are out of the public focus, my 3D modelling hobby shall have to be put on hold.

There is some, hope, though. Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3D Robotics says that 3D printing is a bad method for gun manufacturing, as the plastic wouldn't be able to handle the tensile strength their metal brethren are capable of.

Film Review: Evil Dead

This review can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

Despite my passion for the arts, there are gaps in my knowledge. The most salient ones are with film. I became interested in film after a lot of 'cult status' films made their rounds, and with my already huge backlog of films to see, a lot of them have gone unwatched.

So, although I know it was a major factor in forming its genre, I have not seen the original 1981 Evil Dead. Nor am I especially well-versed in the 'slasher' variant of horror films, aside from a regrettable evening where I was coaxed into watching all the Saw films back to back.

So I was entirely down for watching the 2013 reboot. The director is different – this new film is directed by Fede Alvarez instead of the longer-established Sam Raimi – but if it grabbed my attention, I was prepared to fall in love with a whole new genre.

Still, I hedged my bets; I made sure to not step into the screening alone (or sober). That decision turned out to be for the best, as Evil Dead thrives not on its own merit, but by bringing audiences closer through how shamelessly bloody and silly it is.

The plot, I am told, clings close to that of the original. Five teenagers stay in a run-down cabin in the woods, finding that it was used for Shady Things of a Mystical Nature. 

One of them finds a book made from flesh, has the complete lack of foresight to read magic words from it and things get real bloody real fast. Chainsaws, possession and vague sexual abuse metaphors follow.

Interestingly, a lot of this material was familiar to me without having even seen the source material – which says a lot for how well-worn the themes are. As a whole, Evil Dead goes over every standard horror convention with precision but without artistry.

A lot of it was funny, but not often intentionally. While the acting isn't exactly bad, they have a rather weak script to work with, and no performances stand out enough to make it worth recalling actor names. 

Once the evil entity in the house possesses one of the characters, almost every line they utter is hilariously filthy, Exorcist style.

The copious amount of blood thrown around is also worth a giggle (the credits scene has props plunging into endless pools of the stuff), but to Alvarez's credit, all the effects are practical. A worthy mention in an industry filled with computer generated scenery, effects and costumes.

The soundtrack is also one to bring up, if only because it starts blaring loud sirens whenever someone suffers a grievous injury, like ambulances are going to burst in from off camera.
I came out of the cinema feeling entertained, but not especially satisfied, and definitely not scared.

Watch It: If you have a horror movie night arranged with lots of booze, you want a textbook example of the slasher genre (...for whatever reason), you take knowing amusement when 'the black character dies first'.

Skip It: If the sight of blood makes you queasy, you absolutely cannot handle jump scares, you roll your eyes when 'the black character dies first'.

Want more? Actually watching the original film is a safe bet (though I'm not sure if it's necessarily better than this one). Cabin in the Woods makes a perfect companion piece to this film, though I find it notably flawed.

Full speed ahead for Northern Line extension from Kennington to Battersea Power Station

This news item can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.

Plans to extend the Northern Line from Kennington to Battersea Power Station have moved a step closer after TFL finalised their budget for the work.

The ‘NLE’ project, which will also include an intermediary stop at Nine Elms, has been in planning since 2009, and aims to be completed by 2015.

When the project started, an allotted budget of £1bn was set and present cost projections are around £998m.
A public survey found that around three quarters of the responses to this were positive or neutral, many approving of the increased public transport accessibility.

A report from TfL states that key issues to come out of the survey relate to possible noise and vibrations for buildings above the route. Around 1000 property owners and occupiers may be directly affected.

The London Borough of Southwark is calling for Kennington to be re-designated as a Zone 1 station once the extension is complete.

Since carrying out the survey, TfL have consulted with community groups and heritage experts in Kennington on how to proceed with any above-ground construction.
Alongside the preparations for the rail extension, Battersea Power Station has had £400m invested to turn it into a leisure hub for the area.

SP Setia, the largest property group in Malaysia, purchased the land alongside other company partners.
The structure has had various renovation plans in the past (including becoming a football stadium and a hotel), but they all succumbed to funding problems.

The completed complex is aiming to include a block of luxury flats, shops, eateries, a gym, and a revitalised public park.

Work on the Power Station is scheduled to start this autumn, concluding in 2016, although preliminary preparations have already started.

The success of the Power Station's reopening is likely to depend heavily on the increased accessibility from the rail extension.