Tales of a Drunk: Halloween In Uni

Halloween, like many holidays in the United Kingdom is a fantastic opportunity for people to dress as their favourite characters and drink until they can no longer see. So during my first year at University, I did just that.

I was invited to a house party by some people I barely knew. I decided to dress as Bane from the summer blockbuster; The Dark Knight Rises. It was an alright costume made on a small university student budget, but I received many compliments that I can’t remember. This story is why I cannot remember.

My friends and I had some drinks at our little student flat before stumbling through the bustling city and down the dodgy streets of Monks Road before reaching the house party. We walked through the door, introduced ourselves and our costumes to the other party goers before heading to kitchen to have a few more drinks.

A few hours into the party, I was starting to feel my vodka consumption once again hit me like an 18-wheeler. I was rather drunk, I stumbled around the party, danced with some strangers and partook in many cringeworthy Halloween selfies.

Suddenly two party goers come out of the kitchen carrying a 4-litre bottle, they claim they have created the most vile cocktail known to man, containing numerous spirits and beverages that no sane individual should ever consume together. I decided to have a few glasses and state to all around me that it was not as bad as everyone thought.

The next thing I know, I wake in my room the following afternoon with no recollection of what happened for the rest of that night. Apparently, I was dragged home by a friend, said hello to everyone who crossed our paths and tackled my friend into a puddle. There is a video of these events, I pray to God that the video is never shown to anybody ever.

 

Tales of a Drunk: My First Night Out

I had recently turned 18, and that meant it was finally time for me to put my age to use, by heading out into my town of Aberystwyth to drink as much as I could, knowing I could do so completely legally.

My friends and I sauntered down to a pub called Rummers to indulge in a weekly event called Vodka Tuesday, where for some bizarre reason, the entirety of Aberystwyth decides to cut the price of Vodka to the price of a packet of Wotsits.

We started drinking, continued drinking and then carried on drinking. Completely unaware to the unique quirk of Vokda, that it tends to take effect on the drinker all at once. At this point I had already consumed roughly 20 shots of it, completely amazed at my ability to drink this amount yet not feel the adverse effects. That is, until a friend of mine suggested we move on elsewhere.

We took a step out of the pub and felt the breeze of the fresh air. Tt was at this moment I had realised that those 20 shots, were a large amount alcohol to consume. My legs felt like jelly and my voice slurred more than a modern-era Sylvester Stallone impersonator. I decided to do the responsible thing and walk home, at least I thought I did.

In reality. My recent indulgence into the Russian red label caused me to pass out on a grassy knoll located next to the local pet shop. The next thing I know I am up on my feet talking to the local police. They claim I am drunk, I disagree, they claim I have sick down my shirt, I also disagree. They take me home. My mother was not pleased.

On The Horizon – Kickstarter

Hey guys, this blog isn’t completely dead. It’s just in a written limbo during my work at Gamertime (which I recommend following if you want to keep up with my more recent game-related work.

Though there is something else, something I need your help with. You may know that as well as writing on here and at Gamertime, I also write screenplays and scripts, well one of those scripts is being turned into a short film. Only problem is that we need money to make this film the best it can be.

So we did what most would do in this situation and made a Kickstarter page for it. I’m not asking much, even if you could donate £1 to this project it will really help us. We have also created exciting perks for any of you who donate more including access to our previous work and also a sneak peek at the film once it is finished.

So please, check out the kickstarter page and if it is something you would be interested in helping us with, consider donating to the project.

Thank you very much, guys and girls. Every donation is a blessing.

Here is a link to the page:

So Long For Now – Blog Hiatus

Yep that’s right. I’m going to be taking a break from writing for Mind of MrGseff. When I return; I cannot say, though I will explain myself.

I started this blog almost 4 years ago simply because I enjoyed writing essays for Media Studies during my time in sixth form, I decided that I would start writing my opinion on things outside of school and start publishing them online, originally it was made to help those doing Media Studies in AS and A level media as a source that was reliable but not too academic to the point of being boring.

I like to think I succeeded in that.

As the years went on, I decided that writing was something I wanted to do as a full time job, this meant putting more work into this blog in order to increase my chances of writing what I like but on a more professional level where I could network with others.

I can tell you, I have succeeded at that too.

I started looking for voluntary writing jobs that could be considered professional writing jobs and one of the job posts that jumped out at me was one for a company called GamerTime. They only asked for a few articles a week and when speaking to the owner; he was very understanding of the fact I’m still a student with many other responsibilities meaning I can’t write every day. He also gave me the freedom to write about whatever I could think of that was interesting, including news and editorial pieces.

We spoke for an hour before he told me I could start, I was ecstatic about the news; drinks were had in celebration. Then I realised something; if I was going to write for GamerTime, write a dissertation on Stoytelling and Narrative in video games, write a script for a 30 minute film and also write a report for a Research & Development module, all whilst working part time as a bartender in a local pub; I would have to let something go, and I have decided that it would have to be this blog.

Though I won’t abandon this blog, it will still be available for all to read my articles of the past, and who knows; I may return to this blog after University to continue spreading my work all over the internet like some delicious Philadelphia cheese.

So for now, thank you for viewing all of the things I have written; both the good and the bad. If you need me, I will be at GamerTime doing my best rants and babbles there instead.

Click the link below for GamerTime goodness:

Video Game Review: Haunting Ground

Yes I’m reblogging things now.
I recommend you all to read this fantastic review of the PS2 survival horror game; Haunting Ground. A very under appreciated game that really stands out against the norm of the survival horror genre.

Too Much Free Time

The survival horror genre seems to have subtly crept back into the mainstream. Recent releases like The Evil Within,Alien: Isolation and the frankly evil P.T. have proven to be top quality games that really deliver in the fear department. Two of the three make you defenceless and forever vulnerable to the dangers around you. Removing a safety net that gamers are used to is sure to provoke a reaction, usually one that involves the bowels and fresh trousers. We’re seeing less guns and more broom closets and this is a good thing. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that any game in which I find ammo round every corner isn’t very scary. I’m not going to fear a scary monster if I’m able to unload an entire clip of ammo into it’s face with little-to-no consequence, but I digress. With this new (if…

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“Happy New Year, let’s make it a good one!” – Predictions for 2015

Yep that’s my title for this article. Why? Because as soon as midnight came along it was all anybody really wanted to say. When New Years Day happens; as it does every year, we as a people are filled with great joy that the end of our date has a new number, we believe that all the problems 2014 had will just go away. It’s like being a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. You hear about a new one, get excited and become hopeful that it will be a reform to the good old ways but when it’s released; you realise it’s still the same broken mess it has been for 10 years.

Let’s be honest, the New Year will be like every other year. The world’s problems will continue and we will all moan and groan until the next new year comes along; of which we can sing and cheer in the hopes it will be any better.

Enough of the downer nonsense, let’s start speculating events that will hopefully occur in the new year.

Justin Bieber’s Public Mental Breakdown:
We sure do enjoy it when a celebrity has a mental breakdown, those who we previously considered to be gods amongst the people are suddenly seen as mere mortals and worse; they are seen as nutters. Too be honest; it couldn’t happen to a worse speck of human faeces.
He’s been heading ever closer to the point of breakdown throughout the years, as he grows older; he acts like more of a child. He gets in a temper when things don’t go his way, he treats his loving fans awfully and in general, he spends most of his year at the height of controversy whilst news outlets constantly call him a “bad influence”.
When the breakdown happens, the media will react how it usually does; they won’t stop bothering him because there is nothing more interesting than a breakdown. The constant media attention will make the breakdown worse. The public will then say that the media caused the initial breakdown, the media will back off.
The best reaction will be from his fans, who will all decide to have mental breakdowns of their own simply so ‘the Beebz’ doesn’t have to go through it alone, thus beginning the devolution of an entire generation of children.
Whilst all this happens; Justin will be in his penthouse, walls singed from numerous fires, floors covered in vomit and in the middle of the room will be Justin; stood in nothing but his tattered Calvin Kleins as he makes a small fort made completely out of police warrants, newspaper articles of his breakdown and a notice informing him that his private jet is being taken away.

For One day only; Back to The Future Part II get’s everything right.
Even though we’re only in the second day of 2015, one of the most talked about subjects is Back to the Future Part 2. People joke about how weird things look in Back to the Future’s future compared to the life we all lead today. The simple answer is because it is a movie, if Marty arrived in 2015 and it was just like 1985 except people stared deeply at the tiny screens they have in the palm of their hands whilst they tweet about their weird obsession with Game of Thrones, the film would have probably landed on the dull side.
Suddenly, something strange happens. On October 21st 2015 (The date Marty travels to), all is revealed that the Back to the Future part 2 2015 is what we had been living in all along, but the world wanted it to be a surprise for when we were taken out of the Matrix. We’ll all wake up on this day and Spielberg will announce a box set featuring 14 new Jaws films with the 19th instalment to be released for Christmas. Hoverboards will exist but will be banned due to the amount of deaths caused by them. Also every H&M, Primark and Next store will be stocked full of weird neon and reflective clothing that will be compulsory to wear. Anyone not wearing these clothes will be taken Essex which has now been turned into a maximum security prison.
There will be a new online awareness trend
Yes, we had the ice bucket challenge last year to raise awareness of ALS. First it was a lovely sight but it soon become a big vanity project for people to show off whilst pretending to try and do something good. When you realise that it just becomes another subject matter to completely bloat your social network news feeds that makes you groan just at the sight of another one.
Well that will be coming back in 2015, look forward to it; because it’s going to be far more hardcore than a measly amount of cold water poured over you. There will be blood. Instead we will cut off fingers for prostate cancer awareness. There is no real connection between the two things but as soon as one popular celebrity does it; we’ll all jump on the bandwagon.
The video will be heart-warming, whole families getting together with butcher knives chopping off a finger; heck, why not two? You have 8 of those bastards.
You’ll probably join in as well, any reason to get more likes and retweets on something you made. Who knows, maybe the first person to do it will be Justin Bieber; which can then become the beginning of his mental breakdown.

That’ll be it for 2015, yeah we’ll still have our usual slosh of news that we have every day, but we have those three particular things to look forward to. So grab yourself a drink, gather around your loved ones and buckle up; 2015 might be that year you were hoping for.

It most likely won’t.

Black Friday : Battle Royale

The United Kingdom taking on elements of American culture is becoming quite a common thing. Heck, we have taken on Halloween from Americans, Yellow Buses and even HBO. We see something American and suddenly we want it. They just seem so gosh darn interesting with their talk of freedom and their love of guns and Fresh Prince of Bel Air, fascinating stuff.

The same has happened with Black Friday, an American National Day where people devolve to their most primitive and begin to hunt, but instead of hunting for food, warmth or resources; they hunt for great bargains and they don’t care who gets in their way. Anybody who’s not them is the enemy. It’s pretty much like Battle Royal but less enjoyable for everybody involved. Except those who watch it.

Though the origins of Black Friday stem from another American Holiday; Thanksgiving Day. The wondrous holiday where the Pilgrims and Native Americans sat down together and enjoyed a delightful harvest feast… and then the Pilgrims royally dicks the Natives, it’s a delightful story with almost fairytale-like consequences.

Warms my heart.

Though we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it had nothing to do with us, so for us to celebrate Black Friday seems more than a little pointless.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a consumerist day before Christmas that causes us to run out in masses and strike down our fellow man simply because the new PlayStation 4 is £15 cheaper than it was the day before. It’s a brilliant boost for the economy and it’s absolutely hilarious to watch footage of the madness from the comfort of your warm home. It’s like watching the end of the world from the surface of the sun. Cosy.

Though I’m saying if we do have it, make it more for us. Here in the UK we have plenty of moments in history where we did something truly terrible, why don’t we use one of those days? We can have a day of brutal methods of shopping AND a day where we stuff our faces with too much food. How could anybody fault that?

Though the name would have to go. After a nicely named holiday such as Thanksgiving, following it with a day like Black Friday makes it sound a tad sinister. Every time I hear Black Friday it simply reminds me of the Battle at the Black Gate from Return of the King, and looking at some of the shopping footage, it looks very close to the mark.

Personally I believe ‘Shouty, stabby shopping day’ sounds much nicer, it rolls off the tongue and it lets you know exactly what you’re getting into.

Oh well, the sinister Friday is done for another year and we can all look forward to Christmas and then the Christmas sales; where mankind as a whole will collapse at the very sight of the Next Boxing Day Sale.

Too Awkward To Tinder

We live in the technological age where you can do essentially everything from your computer, you can talk to your friends, watch a movie and even kill your friends in a virtual world, all from the comfort of your own home. What a time to be alive, right?
A new ability has arisen from the information age, the ability to meet those sexy singles in your area without contracting a computer virus (though you may catch something else ifyouknowwhatImean? No? OK).

This is due to the creation of casual dating apps such as tinder (or grinder). On this app you browse through a gallery of faces and decide whether or not you would like to get to know the person attached to that face. If you both decide you have likeable and visually pleasing faces, you are thrown into a chat. Tinder is essentially the tech age of that weird matchmaker friend everyone has where they run around the party trying to find your perfect match. Or speed dating, except you don’t have to leave the house and admit you do speed dating.

It sounds pretty simple. As a single man in his early 20’s you would think it would be perfect for me, and it probably is. Though for some reason I can’t bring myself to ever use it.

Is it me trying to retain dignity? maybe, though if you know me, you’ll know dignity is not an issue. I do believe it is fear. The fact is, that when you remove the prospects of tinder, it becomes an online butchers, only the best looking cuts get snatched up whilst the weird ones get thrown into the dustbins at the end of the day to be left for neighbourhood cats. Everything is based on looks, it is a relationship in the most superficial form, and if that’s the case then I’m up shit creek without a paddle unless somebody happens to find the hell spawn of Ray Romano and David Mitchell to be their type.

If you do get past that first hurdle then you are thrown into a chat, a chat where first impressions are absolutely everything. Seriously, you need to be creative with your introduction. You can’t just start the conversation with a simple “Hi”.

Hi? Anyone can say Hi, you unimaginative prick!

I’m not what I would consider to be a shy man, but I do consider myself to be a man who’s brain goes to mush when under pressure in these situations. Seriously, it’s not pretty.

Actually, come to think of it, it may have something to do with pride. Going to a form of online dating feels like a retreat from real world interactions. I don’t blame those who do it, I mean we now live in a world where trying to strike conversation on the street is considered harassment, so meeting people in the real world is restricted to the more gentlemanly method of drunkenly grinding against somebody in a dark, sweaty club, because that method definitely isn’t harassment, but the former most certainly is.

I feel like I have been defeated if I choose to use tinder due to hearing how easy it is from friends. “You just chat to them and then meet them”.

I guess the simplicity in itself is scary, if you screw it up, you look like the mayor of Moronsville. The people will stop and they will point as they shout “He can’t even tinder right, it’s easy but he still fucked it up.” As you stand there with your pants around your ankles, sweating profusely with embarrassment… And…and I forgot where I was going with that one.

Sorry.

New Silent Hill and the ‘P.T.’ Advertisment

It seems the world is soon be graced with a new Silent Hill title oddly named ‘Silent Hills’ whether it is planning on being a sequel or a reboot of the franchise is currently unknown. One thing we do know is that the internet is currently going mad about it.

Since Silent Hill 4, the series has been stuck in a rut so usually the news of a new title in the series wouldn’t be a huge deal and for the most part would cause its fans to be very doubtful towards it, not this time, this is because Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear and Zone of Enders fame is working with brilliant Hollywood film director Guillermo Del Toro and The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus to bring this new title into fruition.

I’ll be honest; when I heard this piece of news, I couldn’t help but find it funny. The amount of collaborators involved with the project made me believe that the project sounded too big to be anything more than another game made by a Hollywood director that would end up being a flop (as much as I love Lollypop Chainsaw, it is a major example in this case):

Though this changed when I saw how this new team did their marketing, a few hours after announcing this new Silent Hill title, a free game appeared on PSN called P.T., otherwise known as Playable Teaser. Sadly, I haven’t managed to play this P.T. as of yet, this mainly due to the fact that I have yet to buy a Playstation 4 (reasons as to why will be mentioned in a future article), though if anybody is feeling charitable today, I would graciously accept a Playstation 4.

Instead I have had to do my research on this title by watching numerous LP’s on Youtube and Twitch to get an idea of what this teaser is like.

My answer: Pants shittingly terrifying. I have come to the conclusion that P.T. is probably one of the most effective ways to do marketing for a horror video game as P.T. proved itself as not simply a good piece of advertisement for an upcoming video game; but instead made a brilliant standalone horror title. It has a brilliant and downright creepy atmosphere; also the game gives nothing away. It starts with you waking up in a house and walking through the same L-shaped corridor over and over, each time giving you a bit more story development as well as some fucking terrifying surprises. It’s a title that feels very similar to an indie horror title; everything about it is so simple, yet incredibly effective.

The only downside is that it seems to rely heavily on jump scares, if that’s your thing; you’re in luck, jump away because this teaser offers a lot. Though jump scares aren’t very Silent Hill. Silent Hill tries to rely on the disturbing surroundings and absolutely fucked up creatures to make you squirm. Maybe this the new direction they are taking because remember; this isn’t Silent Hill anymore, it’s Silent HillS, emphasis on the plurality, more hills, more jump scares.

Though hopefully P.T. is meant to be something to simply wet our whistles whilst we wait for any new development of what sounds like a fantastic collaboration between Hollywood and Games developers. Hopefully it won’t turn out like the rest of them and can bring some respect back to the Silent Hill franchise. Oh wait, sorry. Silent Hills.

A Newbies Reaction to Metal Gear Solid

In this article I give a short rundown of my experience with the Metal Gear series, what I liked, what I didn’t and whether or not I recommend it to the masses.

No matter how long you have been playing video games, how many adventures you have completed and hours you have spent on Call of Duty; there will always be a widely popular video game series you have not played whether it be due to time constraints or simply the fact that it didn’t really appeal to you. For me, that was the Metal Gear Solid Series.

This was mainly due to the fact that I never actually owned a PlayStation console throughout my childhood years, I was exclusively a Nintendo gamer until mid-way through the previous console generation. So by the time I actually could play the Metal Gear Solid series, it was already on its fourth (and at the time; final) installment. Though a friend of mine would regularly recommend the series to me with the same line I fed people when I wanted them to play a Legend of Zelda title; “It’s absolutely awesome and I consider it the best video game series in existence”, and when you are given a recommendation as high as that, it’s very difficult to pass up.

A few months back I managed to pick up the MGS HD collection for my PlayStation 3, sadly this collection didn’t include the original Metal Gear Solid title released on the original PlayStation, so I started my playthrough of the series at Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, followed by Snake Eater and I am currently halfway through Guns of Patriots (or as some may call it; Metal Gear Solid: The Movie). Well, enough of my life story leading up to this moment. Here’s what I think:

The Metal Gear Solid series is a ‘Tactical Action Espionage’ game which means you have to spend most of the game avoiding encounters with enemies and trying not to raise any alarms through the duration of your mission. This doesn’t mean you can play the game as a pacifist akin to the original Deus Ex, there will be certain moments in the game where you have to kill bosses or kill a bunch of enemies in order to advance in the convoluted and at first very confusing story.

A gripe I found with the game early on is that even though the game tells you the very basic of things such as controls for movements, but most other things you just have to find out yourself. A good example would be the save system in Metal Gear Solid 2, I played it for 20 minutes at first and then decided that I wanted to stop, this meant I had to save but sadly the game didn’t inform me how to save the game which lead to me googling the phrase “How to save on Metal Gear Solid 2” which lead me to a forum of some moron asking the same question as me whilst millions of Metal Gear experts sniggered and laughed at this poor fellow. I then played the game for another hour before being told how to save.

In retrospect it isn’t a huge gripe and most certainly doesn’t justify the huge paragraph I typed out explaining the situation. In fact it is mainly a fault on my behalf for having the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD.

The next thing I’m about to say is something nearly anybody who has heard of the Metal Gear series will already know; and that is that there are a LOT of cutscenes in these games, seriously, if you and your friends ever feel like marathoning a TV show on Netflix but can’t figure out what, just pop a Metal gear game in and it will feel like a similar experience. Usually I don’t mind when a game features a lot of cutscenes, I talk a lot about my love for Telltale’s The Walking Dead; a game which is in its entirety just one giant interactive cutscene and also the Last of Us, a game which features roughly 7 hours of cutscenes. Cutscenes are brilliant ways to continue the narrative in a video game and can create some awesome and even some heartfelt moments, but when the majority of cutscenes take place in codec calls or is the cutscene equivalent to a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or a phone call, it can get very dull after you realise you have been watching it for 15 minutes.

Though don’t get me wrong, those are my only gripes about this series. The rest of this article should be nothing but praise and recommendation featuring the odd humorous anecdote.

When you do actually learn the controls and sit through enough hours of cutscenes to actually play the game; it makes a very fun game. The controls are pretty tight and movement is very precise which means it will very rarely be the control’s fault that you were spotted, it will be your fault; because you are clearly terrible at this title. Its combat is also decent enough for a game that often advises you not to engage in it though if you are like me and prefer to shoot people using the click of a mouse rather than the pull of a trigger; gunning down your enemies may resort in you pumping many rounds into the walls surrounding your foes.

The story of Metal Gear Solid is made for anybody who enjoys story driven titles. They’re long and full of enough plot twists to even make M. Night Shyamalan jump excitedly in his seat like a child.
The game itself also has an element of cheese to it, especially in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater; which has seems to resemble the cheesiness of an old James Bond movie (awesome 70’s soulful intro song included) some of these moments would make the more serious gamer place their head in their hands and sigh, but I found them absolutely hilarious and made a nice to break from the more serious sections of the game.

The main question is do I recommend it? Of course, if you like cinematic gaming experiences such as Wolf Among us or the Uncharted series then this is for you, it’s essentially the father of cinematic experiences in video games and also offers a fantastic, lengthy story to engorge yourself in all summer long. Seriously, go play Metal Gear Solid.