The medium I’m taking about? ‘The Newspaper’.

These ‘Newspapers’, of which there are a great variety available in pretty much any corner shop in England without the need for ID, have recently been cited by some as having a huge psychological effect on the nation’s innocent youngsters.

A flick through any of the available examples shows graphic sights from all the terrible things happening around the world, such as the aftermath of terrorist attacks and murders, sometimes even going as far as to show corpses or people covered in blood. This will obviously corrupt anyone who sees them.

Many, however, believe that the effects of this go even deeper. When you actually read the details on how the various attacks were planned and executed, you’ll find that these twisted publications are so graphic in their descriptions that anyone who reads them will automatically know how to commit terrorism. A shocking revelation.

We spoke to a conveniently anonymous researcher on the matter, who claims to have research (which we can’t reference directly to) that proves that actual terrorists and killers might have once read a newspaper.

“Some terrorists or killers might have read newspapers at some point in their lives” said our source.

It’s not just the depicted violence that is having an effect on our great nation, though, as a select few of these publications go out of their way to create fear and hatred in our communities. Some encourage the ignorant subculture of wanting to get “all foreigners out of the country”, before they “steal all our jobs and women”. Some newspapers, like the Daily Mail, are so prejudice against everything with their blatant propaganda, that they’re even scared of themselves.

Proposed rating system. Warning: May contain bullshit and boobs...

It gets more depraved; some of these papers regularly exploit young women by having them pose for nude photographs, which are then posted on a daily basis only a couple of pages in. Of course, these ‘newspapers’ don’t have any form of clear censorship or age rating on the front and can be easily obtained by children, so that must mean that these shady corporations are trying to push pornography onto impressionable youngsters.

While for some it might just be sheer titillation, anyone who is exposed to a pair of breasts at a young age will almost certainly grow up to be a bigot, sex offender or even a rapist.

We spoke to the experts again:

“Some convicted rapists or sexists may have glanced at Page 3 at some point in their lives”, said the most knowledgeable man on the subject that we could find in ten minutes. Pretty conclusive.

We’re only scratching the surface. For example, some also claim that Newspapers are highly addictive. Our own research alone shows that millions of people around the world buy at least one Newspaper every single day. Scary to think the impact they could be having.

The more I researched this piece, the more the picture began to fall into place about just how unquestionably strong the link is between some of the world’s sickest goings on, and the content of a Newspaper.

Won’t somebody think of the children?

/Satire.

Unfortunately, Deadly Premonition creates a lot more questions than it answers. Developed by Access Games, I think I can quite honestly say I have never, in my many years of gaming, come across anything remotely like it. Available for a mere £15-20 at release, this astonishing piece of… I don’t know… has been in the making for a long time, originally intended as a budget title on PS2. I’m guessing they just had far too much fun making it to be bothered about releasing it any time sooner, so who knows how many years down the line, here it finally is, on the Xbox 360.

Previously during the investigation…
The storyline is loosely based on the plot of a 1990’s TV show called Twin Peaks, and by loosely based on I mean completely carbon-copied. You play FBI Agent Francis York Morgan, a completely socially inept narcissist with multiple personality disorder, severe nicotine addiction and a belief that his coffee can predict the future. The game sends you out on a case to Greenvale Town, after a young girl is murdered and strung up on a tree. Technically, there are two playable characters: Agent York himself, and his invisible friend Zach, who he talks to on a regular basis.

Well, would you look at that Zach? A mini person

As soon as you arrive at the town, you crash your car and are faced with hordes of oddly flexible zombies wanting to stick their appendages in your mouth, and the game only gets weirder from there. The storyline is quite hefty, involving investigating around the bizarre town and its even more bizarre residents: all sorts of eccentric characters await, such as Sigourney the pot lady (she luuurves her cooking pot).

The whole storyline and atmosphere of the game feels distinctly like a B-movie or TV show, but in a good way; there is even a ‘previously during the investigation’ recap, each time you boot it up. Not to mention, it’ll probably last you somewhere between twenty-to-forty hours, depending on your enthusiasm to tackle the fifty possible side-quests. These days when titles like Call of Duty and Halo, with millions and millions of dollars poured into them, end up with campaigns that you can complete in your lunch break, this isn’t to be sniffed at.

Furthermore, the game’s story is communicated to you by an impressive amount of cut-scenes. If Metal Gear Solid does your head in with its ‘movies within a game’, then so will this, which can have little button presses to make for up to half an hour at a time. If you’re quite happy to put up with these though, the huge amount of side-quests and cut-scenes really develop the characters and story of Deadly Premonition, both of which are some of the most uniquely crafted I have ever seen in a video game.

Resident awful
Off to a good start, then. Onto the gameplay. Deadly Premonition plays like a mixture between Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil. “Awesome!” I hear you cry. “Not so!” I cry, in return. ‘Flawed’ is an adjective that describes this game through and through. The controls feel very reminiscent of Resident Evil, and I mean before Capcom realised they were rubbish, and made them competent. Shooting requires standing still on the spot, and flailing the laser sight round until you get an ‘x marks the spot’ on a zombie’s head. Which by this time, is probably already just centimetres away, mouth agape and getting undead spittle all over your nice suit.

The consequence of too much Yogalates

The shooting mechanics aren’t the worse part of the game, however. These feel sublime in comparison to the driving elements. Not only does the game suck any possible fun out of it by restricting you to police vehicles and to driving at the speed limit, but the handling and physics are abysmal. Cars are unhappy to do anything other than go in a straight line, and joyfully bounce off anything you ram in to, including the giant zombie dogs that inexplicably spawn on the roads late at night.

Deadly Premonition also feels determined to get in your way and make things difficult. Not necessarily the combat, which isn’t too challenging save for a few exceptions later on, but in fact everything that shouldn’t be difficult: trying to pick an item up when you have a full inventory for example (an easy mistake), makes you stand on the spot and read through the painstakingly slow text, completely vulnerable to any bendy zombies nearby wanting to hump your face.

Perhaps chief among the bad design decisions of the game is navigating the map, a scarier experience than all the game’s zombies put together. For starters, once it has finally loaded, it is zoomed in too far, and doesn’t let you actually get a full view of the map no matter how much you plead with it. There is also no way to jump to your position, set waypoints, or in fact anything remotely useful. This is appalling in a title that is so heavily based around travelling from mission to mission, and exploring the town.

It’s a shame that it’s so hard to find your way around, as there’s a lot to find when you have a good look. The residents of the town all live out their lives realistically, and will often tell you different pieces of information and give you different side quests depending on where they are, and the time of day. A lot of these are mundane fetch quests, but they’re worth it for the extra tidbits of back story and the items you can get; weapons with unlimited ammo, and a radio that enables fast travel for example.

Take the children, just spare me!

There are also mini-games on offer, although these are best left well enough alone. A driving mini-game sees you pointlessly driving around the town through checkpoints to background music that sounds oddly reminiscent of Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’. This lasts far too long, and to be honest anything that requires you to drive any more than is already necessary, is a foul, torturous creation.

Another delightfully joyous option is a fishing mini-game, something that might have been good fun if it just relied on timing when the fish bites like Animal Crossing, but instead stupidly works on a frustrating slots-like system that relies mostly on luck and often just leaves you with nothing, and steals your bait.

How well-made are the main missions though? Technically, not much better. Agent York ‘investigates’ by killing zombies and finding clues, each one playing a short film over and over, every time revealing a bit more about how the killer operated. An interesting idea, but it’s a bit dull watching the same scene several times. Zombie encounters are also very repetitive; zombie comes out of wall, groans, you enter a whole clip of ammo into it, it groans again, and keels over, wailing what sounds like “I don’t want to diiieeee…” rinse and repeat. Wall crawlers are one exception but no less repetitive, requiring just running backwards and forwards down a corridor, and firing away into its bullet sponge of a body in the short timeframe it is actually vulnerable.

Isn't this all a bit soon? I prefer to at least have dinner first

Every so often the ‘Raincoat Killer’ comes along too (the murderer), necessitating hiding in a cupboard and twiddling your thumbs whilst he slowly scours the room, or performing a surprisingly harsh quick-time button event. He then, for some unfathomable reason, waggles his finger in a “naughty, naughty” manner and buggers off in a huff. I wish I was making this up. There are so many ridiculous happenings in this game, you’re constantly left wondering what’s going to happen next. Warning: next paragraph is a mild spoiler.

Example: After fighting some zombies, York’s investigative buddies turn up (most of the time you get the impression the zombies are all in his head: no one else ever sees them) and they find a woman hanging from a rope above a rather large, pointy sculpture. Efforts to get her down fail, and York has to heroically jump to save her, in mid-air. The woman is madly deluded and goes on a sexual rant about how she wishes to be penetrated by the arousing sculpture, and then the sculpture falls on top of her, squishing her into a bloody mess. After this extremely bizarre and dramatic situation, the music abruptly changes into an upbeat tune, and then what can only be described as a detective dog enters the scene, and happily leads you through the blood-stained building as if nothing has happened, to find someone locked in a cellar. What the fu…

So much of Deadly Premonition is simply beyond comprehension. I don’t know if it’s a bug or on purpose, but lollipops respawn infinitely, for instance. Another thing is that for some reason, this game has a basic life-simulator built-in. York needs to eat and sleep on a regular basis, and must even shave to avoid growing a beard, and change his clothes otherwise they become dirty and smelly, attracting flies. This is yet another charming, yet baffling and utterly useless aspect of the game.

Cigarettes help you advance time, and coffee tells the future. What do harder drugs do? Influenced the development of the game, no doubt

This doesn’t look so good, Zach
When considering the graphical quality of Deadly Premonition, several phrases come to mind; “it’s what’s on the inside that counts”, “looks not even a Mother could love”, and “holy shit, blood is physically seeping from my eyes”. This is such a despicably ugly game that will make you want to weep, boot up some Crysis on maximum graphics settings and purify your dirty, contaminated soul.

Often the game has an unexplainable magenta hue, and is rather lacking in contrast, resulting in appearing a bit washed out. This is the least of its worries though, with woefully blurry textures, starkly plain scenery, animations that degrade to a couple of frames a second when any character or monster is a few metres away, and object models that range from almost-this-gen, to N64 quality (trees are constructed of a few 2D sprites interlocked to produce the effect of 3D, remember when games used to do that?)

To be honest, after playing for a while your eyes adjust to the visual disgrace, especially considering all of the other crazy stuff that’s going on. The graphics are quite appropriate really, considering how terrible most of the rest of the game is.

I think it's f***ed, Zach

Like a massacre to your ears
You’d be forgiven for thinking that after hearing what the graphics and gameplay are like, that the sound in Deadly Premonition is probably also dreadfully implemented, and that’s because you’d be right. In concept, some of the tunes are quite appropriate for the game, and some are even quite catchy, like a certain one I can’t stop whistling. Other music includes a freakishly bizarre jazz piece and the aforementioned Green Day tribute, and whereas these are arguably deplorable, they fit with the absurd style of the game pretty well.

The problem is, from a technical stand point, the sound is awfully done. Sometimes the music blares out during a cut-scene and completely drowns out a character’s dialogue, which makes you thankful for the subtitles enabled by default. The choices at times are also absolutely mystifying, jarringly playing a chirpy little number when there’s some real serious business going on, about as tastefully done as playing Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ at a funeral.

The dialogue is also ridiculously cheesy, over-acted and just downright abysmal, and hilariously so. Conversations you participate in are fascinatingly wacky, letting you learn all of the eccentric townsfolk’s life stories, and sharing anecdotes over dinner about past brutal murder cases, of killers slaughtering women and using their skulls to urinate in and drink out of (something York cannot abide, for its bad hygiene practices). As an added bonus to keep you busy on the otherwise tormenting dull driving trips, York will regularly talk to Zach about all sorts of daft topics, like past murder cases, movies and punk rock concerts ‘they’ve’ experienced.

Well, after an extensive autopsy examination, I can conclude that the victim is indeed dead.

What do you think, Zach?
In conclusion, Deadly Premonition is bad, really bad. In many ways, it’s built so poorly it would have still been shameful back in the PS2 days. The driving controls are cringe-worthy, the combat is pathetic, the implementation of the background music is about as successful as the launch of the Titanic, and I’ve probably not seen a game this generation look quite so foul. On top of this, the game regularly makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In fact, I could go on all day about the dire features of this game, but then I would be missing the point.

Deadly Premonition, by either ingenious development, or much more likely, an absolute miracle, is somehow too hard to properly dislike. It emulates cult B-movies perfectly, and if I’m honest, it was its unparalleled, ludicrously brilliant awfulness which kept me playing the game. The outlandish story, characters and atmosphere are just too genuinely likeable to pass up, and quite often I had to literally hold back tears of laughter.

I have no doubt as to which award to give Deadly Premonition: and that is a ‘Try it’ rating, because absolutely every gamer owes it to themselves to experience it at least once. I mean it.

Sometimes a gaming soundtrack can not only enhance the game but ensure that it stays with you for the rest of your life. Before you say that’s pushing it a little far, mate, we can all listen to a song or watch a movie and twenty years from now recall the first time you encountered it and the memories that go with it. Gaming is no different, especially if experienced at 2am on a cold and dark Thursday night and you complete the game that has taken over your life in glorious HD and complete surround sound headphones. Game music is an integral part of the game playing experience and as I love gaming and music, this is a subject I’m quite passionate about. So I thought it was time to share my favourite soundtracks of my many years of gaming adventures.

It sounds so much better than it looks.

Ask anyone the question, “what is your favourite gaming soundtrack?” I would imagine one of the first answers would be Super Mario Bros, which is where I will start way back in 1985; the musical score was written by Koji Kondo and is famed for the tempo of the music increasing when the timer reaches 99. It is quite possibly the most instantly recognisable song from any video game ever and a hook that will remain in your head after hearing it. There were even reports of people playing the theme from Mario using a remote control car with a wire attached line of over 100 bottles filled with various amounts of water.

In 1986, in my misspent youth, a young Neil spent his pocket money on an arcade game that blew me away; a game called Outrun. This was a game I loved so much that it would eventually make its way to my home on the Commodore 64. For me this is where gaming soundtracks came into their own, as the game was bundled with a cassette tape featuring the original arcade versions of the much loved tunes which were “Splash Wave“, “Magical Sound Shower”, “Passing Breeze” and “Last Wave”; all composed by Sega man Hiroshi Miyauchi. In the comfort of your home you could imagine you were in an arcade, only without the thick cloud of smoke and a pocket full of 10 pence’s.

My memory is a little vague, but I seem to recall that Mega Man 2 had a very addictive soundtrack, but my experience of this was only when playing at a friend’s house many years ago, so I’m unable to offer too much else, but I know it deserves a special mention. As the technology began to improve, the polyphonic soundtracks replaced simple monophonic melodies and compositions were starting to be written specifically for video games. The popularity of CD technology began to grow and grow and a huge change was on its way.

War has never been so much fun

Before the days of FIFA (hard to believe I know) there were two guys called Jon Hare (A.K.A. Jovial Jops) and Chris Yates (A.K.A. Cuddly Krix) who formed Sensible Software, and they ensured that fun was here to stay in gaming. Any gamer of a certain age will even now be able to sing every word of the popular themes to Cannon Fodder “War Has Never Been So Much Fun!” and “Goal Scoring Superstar Hero” that featured in the massive game Sensible World of Soccer on the Amiga back in the 90’s. The release of Cannon Fodder also coincided with a music video of the song. Yes these games had fantastic playability and were hugely addictive, but I am convinced another major factor in why we have such memories of them lies with the soundtrack.

I am afraid due to my Amiga addiction I missed out on the SNES, which means I also missed out on the classic Donkey Kong Country, which thanks to David Wise, has a soundtrack that stood the test of time. In 1995, gaming began to get exciting. A 32-bit fifth-generation video game console entered my life, which went by the name of the Sony Playstation.

The 1997 release of Final Fantasy VII, a game that even now remains at the top of many people’s “favourite gaming soundtracks ever”, thanks to the genius that is composer Nobuo Uematsu. Not many would argue that most of the Final Fantasy franchise has an amazing set of songs, but this epic four-disc soundtrack set a precedent that all other RPGs worth the salt would follow, in fact I would go as far to say that Nobou is a musical genius.

“Aerith’s Theme” will forever stay with me and remind me of when Aerith was killed by Sephiroth, and a quick look on the internet revealed that I’m not on my own with this, which once again proves the power of music when used correctly in a video game.

NIN: Quaking in their boots

Even when kicking back to some Gran Turismo on my beloved PSone, the title track was a Chemical Brothers remix of “Everything Must Go” by the Manic Street Preachers. The Manics are not famed for letting people remix their songs, never mind letting it be used in a video game. Games were then the new rock ‘n roll, no more so was this evident when Quake came along, and Doom fan Trent Reznor, and helped record the soundtrack which created a truly intense experience, and even the Nine Inch Nails logo appears on ammunition boxes in the game.

The first time I have ever been scared playing a video game is the first time I put Resident Evil in my Playstation. From the menu screen the evil voice saying “Resident Evil” was pretty scary for its time, but nothing prepared me for playing in the dark with a pair of headphones at 2 am!

I gotta feelin we're not in Kansas anymore

Yes, the game intends to be scary, but the soundtrack alone is enough to make you have an accident in your pants. Each song conveys the lonely feeling of isolation. The follow-up scared me even more, and even now I get flashbacks of the Raccoon City theme playing as I’m stuck inside the Police Department.

Metal Gear Solid raised the bar even further, and the “Best is yet to Come” by Harry Gregson Williams will forever remain close to any gamers heart especially combined with screaming “Snaaaaake!”. I have already mentioned that Resident Evil was scary, but nothing prepared me for Akira Yamaoka’s score for the Silent Hill series. The intense and almost suffocating atmosphere regularly got under my skin and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like no other game I have ever played. If the main theme doesn’t stir any emotion in you then “Theme of Laura” certainly will.

Stay away from the fog, don't go near the fog.

The late nineties were golden times for video game soundtracks, with titles such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Parasite Eve, Command & Conquer, and the magnificent The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which on its own has helped the ocarina become the third most popular musical instrument in schools.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was then released, and the soundtracks went all MTV on our ass. Sure there were good and bad sides to this; the good being it felt good in a wrong kind of way to be running over helpless pedestrians whilst listening to NWA singing “Express Yourself,” and the bad being of course that MTV were fast becoming too corporate for their own good and killing the spirit of Rock n’ Roll. As a rebellious gamer I didn’t want them destroying our games as well as music. My concerns were unfounded though, and the game was fantastic and gamers were finding themselves buying the game’s soundtrack on CD.

MTV, however smelt a winner and even created an MTV Video Music Award for “Best Video Game Soundtrack”. This went on to be awarded from 2004 to 2006 in a vain attempt to tap into the video gaming community and gain greater audiences for its VMAs. The men in suits didn’t seem to get what exactly constituted as a good game soundtrack and when the event was revamped in 2007, the award was never to be seen again.

I hear master chief is quite partial to a little Gregorian chant.

Games went on to sell more and more and budgets increased, and they now have the feel of  movies about them. The soundtrack for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was menacing, and could have been placed in any Hollywood espionage thriller. The biggest thrill however, came from Bungie when Halo arrived on the scene with an eerie, ancient and incredibe atmosphere thanks hugely to the main theme which contained Gregorian chant.

The evolution of game soundtracks regularly now brings a movie-like experience, and the music included in games such as Oblivion Elder Scrolls, the Halo Series, Gears Of War and Call of Duty could appear alongside any Hollywood blockbuster. This alone makes you realise just how far we have come since the simple yet addictive tones of Super Mario.

Who invented these lists?

Have you ever found yourself suckered into watching one of those list programmes late at night that seem to be on for three hours and feature Z-list celebrities trying to talk knowledgeably about the 100 best films, adverts, TV Shows etc, when in reality they were probably shown a video only a few moments before to spare their blushes? At the end of the three hours, you stare in disbelief at the screen as the countdown finally reaches the greatest form of media of all time, and it’s a load of rubbish. Most times you’ll find yourself reeling out a list of ten other things that should be in the run down. The problem with these lists that seem to dominate the media on all subjects is that they will always be limited to what the authors have been exposed to, and this is why I could never call this article “the world’s best game soundtrack” as it’s simply my opinion from my own gaming experiences.

This is where I hand it over to you; please tell us what gaming soundtracks have gotten under your skin and will stay with you forever. Will there ever be a unique gaming soundtrack that will challenge the legendry soundtracks from Hollywood such as Indiana Jones, Superman or Star Wars? Please comment and let us know.

1. Taking note of security cameras.
(Game to blame: Goldeneye 64)
When walking around at the office block at work (or any building that has them for that matter) I always seem to make a mental note of where every single security camera is and what their field of vision would be. I have no reason to enter any building I frequent undetected, so why the hell do I do this?! I even had one instance of waiting for a mate to make a transaction in a local bank, only to find a security guard had been sent out to follow me on account of the fact I had been blatantly clocking all the camera locations and security features…

Best FPS Evaaaar!

2. Looking around suspiciously before entering a vehicle.
(Game to blame: Grand Theft Auto)
I don’t drive so this is really a puzzler for me, but should I end up in a situation where I need to enter a vehicle, I find myself giving my immediate surroundings one last conscientious glance before I finally get in the car. What do I think I’m going to see? That I’m being watched or followed? Checking for attackers? Snipers?! Not a solitary clue, but I still catch myself doing it.

I was only wanting a lift!

3. Secretly wishing I could shoot at gas tanks.
(Game to blame: Half-life 2)
As I sit here writing this on my lunch break at work, staring mindlessly out of the window wishing I was elsewhere, my not-at-all picturesque view overlooks an adjacent construction site littered with big propane tanks and diminutive gas barrels. It looks just like a plausible yet clichéd scene from a generic shooter. In a game and offered a view such as this you just know that you would be presented with a sniper rifle, and have the freedom to fire down upon your enemies using the various explosive and flammable tanks to your advantage. The explosive red barrel is a formula I’ve really come to dislike, yet given the right view it’s at the forefront of my mind, weirdness.

Exactly what I was thinking...

4. Tapping out a ‘Shoryuken’ on anything that resembles a joystick.
(Game to blame: Street Fighter 2)
Analogue sticks, d-pads, arcade machines in pubs that aren’t Street Fighter, Atari controllers, my phones trackball. You name it; if it moves like a Joystick I will give it the old ‘forward quarter circle forward’ without fail (well except on my penis… hmm…). This move is forever etched into my brain. I even find myself doing it whilst waiting for any game to load. Mind you it is a good way to get a feel for the robustness of any pad.

SHORYUKEN!

5. Dreaming about games.
(Game to blame: Braid)
This is the most annoying one. I buy a new game on release and chances are that if I get bang into it that very night, I’ll dream about it without fail. Maybe only certain elements appear subjectively, or I dream about the actual gameplay itself, or even applying real world rules to what I’ve played. I’ve had situations where I’ve been stuck in a game and have gone to bed frustrated, only to dream the solution and see it work the following morning. It’s scary what my brain does at the best of times, least not when I’m asleep!

A dream game...