One word describes the 2012 Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix. Dramatic. From the unpredictable weather to the Championship climax both at the front and the back of the field. There was plenty still left to play for. In the end, it was Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull Racing team celebrating as Vettel won his third Driver's Championship in a row to go with Red Bull's third consecutive Constructor's trophy.
At the other end of the field. There was something to play for as well. 11th in the Constructor's Championship. It doesn't sound much but it was worth millions in prize money to whoever got that place. The contenders were Caterham and Marussia and it was the Caterham team who came out in 11th place as Vitaly Petrov came in, you guessed it, in 11th, to secure the money. Funny thing is, Petrov might not be racing next year.
The biggest loser, outside of Alonso who must have known he only had an outside chance he would end up Champion, is Lewis Hamilton. I have already written about him and his move to Mercedes but now I have to again because I think he may be the unluckiest driver in F1.
Hamilton was flying in Brazil. He secured pole and was looking to end his McLaren career on a high and win his final race for the team. Something achieved by the legend that was Aytron Senna in his final race at McLaren. However, like for much of the season, it just wasn't meant to be. Hamilton was out in front at Interlagos but was being caught by the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg, who like Hamilton was in his final race for the team he was currently at and wanted to end on a high, and the tricky conditions made things difficult for everyone. Which led to an incident which summed up Hamilton's season...
Not the first time in 2012 had Hamilton had to retire because of outside factors, whether it may be getting wiped out by say, Pastor Maldonado, or having technical difficulties with the car, things haven't gone Hamilton's way. What could he have done? Nothing. Hamilton has proved to everyone that he is one of the best in F1 despite the problems he's had this season and deserves a crack at winning a second Driver's Championship more than anyone. Will he get that at Mercedes? If things continue for them like they have recently then probably not. Mercedes have only scored six points in the last six races. Speaking of his Mercedes, McLaren have handled Hamilton's move to Mercedes in a pretty interesting way in their animated show Tooned. Tooned is a series of short episodes starring Lewis Hamilton (not now after the last episode of the series), Jenson Button and presenter of BBC gameshow Pointless, Alexander Armstrong. Here is the last episode of the first series of Tooned.
You can't say they don't have a sense of humour.
So now that the season is finished, many will reflect on what did happen and what could have been and of course, what could be for next season.
This weekend, the 2012 Formula 1 season hits it's climax at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos and the title will be decided between smug, whiny bitch Sebastian Vettel and eyebrow extraordinaire Fernando Alonso. However, attentions are already turning to the 2013 season and the biggest news is that Lewis Hamilton is leaving McLaren, the team who has supported him since he was just thirteen.
Lewis Hamilton at McLaren
Earlier this season, Hamilton announced that he was joining Mercedes and ending his long-standing association with the Woking-based team. The reason cited by Hamilton was that he wanted a new challenge and more freedom for sponsorship and other things. This is interesting given that his management company is the same one that orchestrated David Beckham's move to LA Galaxy several years ago. Of course, we can't forget that Hamilton's manager was his own dad before ending the professional relationship. Anthony, Lewis' dad has his own company and manages racing drivers, including Force India's Paul Di Resta. This surely means that Lewis' career managers were behind the move, since they had the most the gain from it. There's no way you can say it's to get a better car, since the Mercedes is struggling at this moment in time. That's not to say they won't improve for next year but given Hamilton won the last race at the new US circuit in Austin last time out and is looking good in Practice at Interlagos at the time of writing, you have to question the real motives of this moves. Hamilton's current team-mate at McLaren, Jenson Button, believes that his not-for-much-longer team-mate is making a mistake. Button said that "He has chosen to go his own way at the end of the year. It is his decision, although I personally don't think it is the right decision," and Jenson will know the Mercedes team better than anyone if you think about it. Given that had driven for them for quite a number of years in several guises: BAR, Honda and then the one season wonder Brawn GP.
Jenson Button driving the Brawn GP car which won both 2009 F1 championships
For years, even with the backing of Honda, who are rumoured to be returning to the sport, potentially as the engine supplier to McLaren, the team struggled to make real headway and only won one race as Honda in 2006 with Button behind the wheel. Ironically, had Honda stayed in the championship in 2009 they would have won both championships since Honda funded the development of the Brawn GP car which gave Button his Driver's Championship glory. Though that car was only as competitive as it was because they abandoned development of the 2008 car which was a total dud. To their credit, Mercedes have won a race this year, in China, and it was German shampoo model Nico Rosberg who gave them their first victory since they bought the team at the end of 2009. It was Nico's first and only F1 victory as well.
Not even the legend Michael Schumacher (pictured) can save the Mercedes F1 team from midfield mediocrity so far.
For the last time? Hamilton and Whitmarsh celebrating the victory at the 2012 US Grand Prix
Could we see Hamilton rejoining McLaren after three, or maybe even just a single year at Mercedes if things don't go too well? It has happened of course. A driver rejoins the team he left for 'a new challenge'. The most recent example is Fernando Alonso, who in 2005 announced that he was joining McLaren from the all conquering Renault team of 2005-6. This only lasted for one year, despite him signing on for three years at McLaren. Alonso returned to Renault for 2008 and endured mediocrity for two years before joining Ferrari.This was down to him having his eyebrows ruffled by the new kid on the block, Lewis Hamilton. Annoyed at this and not being the Schumacher-esque dominator he had hoped, he sabotaged his own and Hamilton's chance of winning the F1 title, allowing Kimi "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" Raikkonen to win the championship by a single point. Will Hamilton rejoin McLaren at some point? I think he will, it's just a case of when to be honest. McLaren have signed Sauber's Speedy Gonzalez Sergio Perez to replace him at McLaren and he is an exciting prospect and one to look out for next year for certain. I think it's more likely Hamilton will return when Button decides to hang up the helmet whenever that is. He's not getting any younger.
In and out. Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez.
Only time will tell what happens but whatever the case. It's going to be exciting as hell to watch and that can only be a good thing.
At University, I did a 500 (well 483 to be exact) word story. This is called Flash Fiction, since it's short, obviously. Anyway, without further ado, here it is:
“Dumb dog.” Words which were said far too often for one woman as the dog she named Bruce ran around the garden like he had taken large quantities of sugar and caffeine. Bruce was racing around the garden like a flash, his owners seeing nothing but a big black blur. Border Collie’s are supposed to be intelligent as far as dogs go but not this one.
“Bruce you idiot what the hell are you doing?”
“You’re a nutcase Bruce.”
The reason for all the commotion, a cat. An old tale, the dog chases the cat but the cat has the intelligence and agility to evade the dog without much fuss. This was looking to be another story which is looking to have the same plot. The cat in question was a ginger colour, parading the perimeter of the garden by walking on the fence and taunting the dog and causing him to go into a frenzy.
The cat knows it and does it to mess with Bruce. Cats are cruel, cunning creatures. They know exactly what they are doing. However, things do go wrong and they did for this feline. As he was trotting along the fence of the garden he lost grip and fell to the ground. He landed on all fours as it’s predicted all cats do. The feline faced a new challenge, Bruce. The excitable dog couldn’t contain himself once he saw that the cat had dropped to his level he smelled blood.
There was a standoff as the two sized each other up and just stared at each other. The calm before the storm. Then, in just a split second, all hell broke loose. Bruce headed straight for his foe but the cat was too quick and got out of the way before it became Bruce’s latest chew toy. As a result, Bruce went crashing into the garden fence and caused it to wobble like Rolf Harris with a piece of cardboard. This caused a huge racket which alerted Bruce’s owners to his energetic stupidity. Once they were aware of what was going on, they knew Bruce was never going to achieve what we aimed to.
“Come in Bruce you’re going to break something.”
“What are you doing?” were the cries but would this Border Collie listen? No. He just ran and ran trying to catch the ginger ninja but the cat was too quick and too clever to be caught. Both were running around the garden and looked like coloured blurs from an onlooker’s perspective. This battle went on for some time until the cat decided that enough is enough and leaped over the fence and into the next garden in one clean move.
Bruce looked up in amazement for a few seconds, then proceeded to walk into house. This sheep dog hadn’t rounded the sheep on this occasion. Maybe next time the dog will have his day.
I've decided to come back to this blog after a bit of a sabbatical. I'm going to post things that I've done at University here since I'm doing Creative Writing. It might be good to get some feedback from the internet too. :)
Hi all, I am writing this to say that I have joined the team at PlayStation Universe as a writer for their UK contingent. The guys at PSU have been very welcoming and I can't wait to get started for real. I've already written one article for them which you can find here. I hope you check out the website over there and maybe even the forums, if you are up for for nerds going at it in full keyboard warfare. :P
In any case, thank you for reading my posts here and I will continue to do so once I figure out what to write here now that any gaming related literature by myself will be on PSU from now on, double posting is certainly out of the question. Thanks for reading.
Well I'm back, after well over two months of nothing I've decided to write a new blog post at long last. So what has brought me back you ask? Well, a) I'm bored and b) I've wanted to write about this for a while and now seemed a good time, for reasons I will get to in a bit.
So what am I going to talk about? Well, it's a game (surprise surprise) and it's regarding as one of the greatest of all time and is my personal favourite. Metal Gear Solid.
The European box art for the PlayStation version of Metal Gear Solid
Why talk about this now? Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Metal Gear franchise, the first Metal Gear game, called Metal Gear obviously, was released in 1987 on the MSX2 computer. There was a NES version too, but series creator Hideo Kojima had no involvement in that release and tends to disregard it as part of the series. Metal Gear got two sequels in quick succession, the first was called Snake's Revenge. This is seen as an unofficial sequel since Kojima had no involvement in it. Snake's Revenge was the reason Kojima returned to Metal Gear and made Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. This was released in 1990 exclusively on the MSX2. No shitty NES port was made this time.
The Metal Gear series was rested until 1998, when the technology in games had moved on enough for Kojima to realise a vision of making a 3D Metal Gear game. Metal Gear Solid. The fact that the game sees the series moves from a 2D game to 3D gave Kojima the idea of adding "Solid" to the title. It also serves as a reference to the protagonist, Solid Snake.
Now before I go further, I have a confession to make. When I first played Metal Gear Solid, I didn't like it, strange, maybe stupid I know but I was young and the idea that you had no weapons didn't sit well with the 8 year old me. Of course, I eventually learned the error of my ways and got to experience a landmark game. It's strange because I felt the same about another game and that is also now in amongst my favourite games of all time, Gran Turismo.
I believe that Metal Gear Solid is a landmark game. It was first game that I played where I was engaged by the story and the characters, which made me want to play on and find out where the story went and what happens to the characters. These days, games which strive to be story driven and cinematic aren't uncommon but back in 1998 it was unheard of. Metal Gear Solid was a trailblazer in that regard.
Another way in which Metal Gear Solid was ahead of the curve was in breaking the fourth wall. If you don't know what that means, the fourth wall is a term used in film to distinguish between the movie and viewer with a wall inbetween, separating them. Breaking that basically means that the film or game will directly interact with the viewer/player.
There are numerous examples of this in the Metal Gear Solid series but since I'm talking about the first one, the third Metal Gear game overall, I'll refer to an example in that. Early in the game, after having a gun duel with Revolver Ocelot, a villain with an interesting purpose.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!1 It turns out Ocelot was on your side the whole time and that he was only fighting you so that you would succeed, if that makes sense, MGS4 has quite a few WTF plot tie-ups to be fair.
Anyway, after the first encounter, the Colonel asks you to contact his niece Meryl, who depending on which ending you get is revealed to be someone a little closer than a niece, and says that her codec frequency (codec is like a personal communication device used to contact anyone anywhere) is "on the back of the CD case". Normally, you'd be looking for some CD case that has her frequency on it, many people did here too but the Colonel was referring to the actual CD case the game came in. Mind. Blown.
The back of the Metal Gear Solid European PlayStation case. As you can see, it has a picture of Meryl and Snake with the frequency of 140.15
This is just one of the numerous examples of Hideo Kojima playing with the person who is playing the game's mind. It's become a part of the series, just as much as stealth and Snake's gruff, masculine voice, unless you're playing MGS2, where you play as androgynous mop head Raiden for the most part. Funnily enough, Kojima evens plays on that, by having the US President in the game grabbing Raiden's genitals because he's unsure what Raiden is. Hilarious.
The gameplay for Metal Gear Solid was unusual for it's time as well, as it made the player avoid confrontation when possible due to lack of weapons. As I said, I didn't like it at first but once I learned how to play I loved it because it made the player think about how to avoid the enemy. Instead of me rambling on you should play it, despite it looking a little basic by today's standards it hold up pretty well if you ask me.
Another area where the game excels is the music, it sets the tone for the game perfectly, from the main menu music, to the alert music when things get hairy, to the end and you reflect on the journey Snake has gone on.
Here is a few of the songs from Metal Gear Solid:
Menu Theme:
Encounter (Alert and Boss theme):
The Best is Yet to Come (Opening Intro and Ending theme, it also appears in MGS4, it sent shivers down my spine when I first heard it, it still does. That part of MGS4 is truly incredible, pure MGS fan service.):
Metal Gear Solid Main Theme (It doesn't appear in MGS4 because it apparently plagiarised some Russian song, which is complete bullshit.):
If you have never had the pleasure of playing this fantastic piece of gaming history then you should. It's easily available on the PlayStation Network for the PS3, PSP and the PS Vita for £7.99/$9.99. You could track down an original PS1 copy if you don't have any of those, or just want to play it how nature intended. There was also a PC version, which was apparently rubbish because it didn't work very well.
Then, there's the remake for the Gamecube (why it wasn't released on the PS2 still annoys me) called Twin Snakes. Twin Snakes is basically the original with redone (read; worse) voice acting, better graphics, new gameplay mechanics, well MGS2 ones but retained the same level design which made the game too easy. It also has redone cut scenes which are completely bat shit insane and look ridiculous. If you can, play the original PS1 version, the disc version actually has issues if you play it on a PS2, which makes it impossible to finish the game, so I recommend the PSN download version, no issues there. It's a flawless transfer and the best version.Metal Gear Solid is a true masterpiece.
