As per the title, really. I’ve been playing a lot of independent games recently, and these are a few of the titles that’ve really sucked my time away from me like some black hole placed right next to a clock. Some prices are in dollars due to them being US-based companies, so I’ve put the GBP price where applicable.

Armageddon Empires ($29.95/£19.19)

This is an extremely well done turn-based hex wargame card…thing. It’s one of these odd games that defies genres, really. You start off with a single base and a full deck of cards. Each turn you can play cards, as long as you have the required resources (generated each turn by various hexes you control). It’s Magic The Gathering meets Risk, basically. Though as a word of warning, it’s extremely unforgiving and brutally complex (there’s no tutorial to speak of, so the first few goes may just be toe-dipping to get the hang of things). There’s also no multiplayer, which doesn’t bother me too much as I don’t like other people. They smell and talk incessantly.

Kudos Rock Legend (£11)

A spin-off from the earlier game Kudos, which is also awesome. Another turn-based affair - you start off as a no-talent bum with about £30 in your back pocket, and from there you hire band members, practice your skills, write songs and book gigs, slowly working your way up from rehearsing in a garage to being driven around in a limo. One of those annoying games where you start up a game to waste 30 minutes or so of spare time, then you glance at the clock and realise you’ve been clicking away for the past 5 hours. It’s also a game that lets you write a blues song entitled “Dan Brown is a shameless no-talent fuckpiece”, which is nice.

Weird Worlds - Return To Infinite Space ($24.95/£12.98)

The very definition of a Coffee Break game (not that I drink coffee, so such things do not exist for me. A toffee crisp break however…). An entire, complete game even on the largest map size usually takes no more than 30 minutes, average game length is maybe 10 minutes, if that. It’s an exploration game at its heart, with you pootling around the universe, exploring new planets, finding strange new artifacts, meeting new alien races and then blowing them out of the skies with the Gluon Antimatter Particle Gun you found lying around earlier. Despite the fact you’ll have seen all the artifacts and races within your first 3 or 4 games, each game plays out differently from the other, thanks to a decent range of startup options and randomisation.

Peacemaker ($19.95/£12.16)

Less a game, more a history lesson. The game assigns you as President of either Israel or Palestine. You make weekly decisions on what to do (whether it’s increase police presence, request the UN for aid, meet with the other side or ask the US to fund an airport) and basically watch the effects of your decisions. At its heart, it’s about making everyone as happy as you can at once, but due to the real-world setting, clever use of news clips and photographs of real events and the sheer amount of information involved, it becomes a lot more than your run-of-the-mill spreadsheet-em-up. I’m ashamed to say that I knew virtually nothing about the conflict going on over there, but just a couple of hours with this game taught me more than a book on the subject would.

YAY LIST

I’ve tried to avoid any wanky “It’s weird BUT IT HAS A MESSAGE and isn’t it arty and special” crap, usually to some dirty grungy metal or similar. It doesn’t have a message and it’s not clever. It’s just shite. So anyhew, without further ado, a top 10 rundown of weirdly weird videos. Youtube videos, so again if your PC screams in pain stop buying so many Michael Bay DVDs and buy some more memory.

10 - They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul

It’s already a pretty goddamn weird song (sung from the point of view of a nightlight), but the video just seems a weird and random collection of non-sequiturs.

“Hey, we’re about a second short on the video. What should we do?”

“Film a bone hitting the floor! A leg bone!”

“‘kay”

Freaks.

9 - Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite

Something about claymation shits me right up, ever since I saw a bizarre interpretation of Tom Thumb where the title character was created in a scientific experiment. The strangest thing about this video is the lack of…strange. It’s a claymation Jackie Wilson and some lips, and that’s about it.

And yes, I’m aware this was a re-release, but it’s still freakin’ odd.

8 - Hasslehoff - Hooked On A Feeling

What the hell, Hasslehoff.

This was even before the self-depreciating makeover he’s had in recent years (see also Chuck Norriss and Mr. T), so it earns bonus points.

7 - Orbital - The Saint

Time for an admission of guilt - I actually really like the Val Kilmer film. I don’t know why, because all things considered, it’s horrendous. But still. I like it.

Anyway, Orbital’s music video for the titular theme song remix is…uh…well, people in an airport, with interchangable heads. Notable for an appearance by Token Mad British Old Lady Liz Smith.

6 - Eiffel 65 - Blue

I could probably put virtually any europop/dance song in here, they’re that odd, but I figure I’d go with one that more than three people have heard. This became a fairly large success in the UK. I’ve yet to work out why. The song is earmeltingly shite.

5 - Pet Shop Boys - Go West

I’m virtually breaking my own rule here. This almost has a definitive theme, in that it’s quite possibly about what America would be like under Soviet Rule. But that’s just my interpretation. I’m probably wrong and it’s actually about people who wear oversize bowls on their heads. Most of the Pet Shop Boys videos are pretty strange, to be fair. They’re one of “those” groups.

..

Uh, by “those” I meant “quirky”. Not “gay”. Though in some countries that’s pretty much the same thing.

..

My lawyer just told me to shut up.

4 - Crispin Glover - Clowny Clowny Clown

What the fuck is wrong with Crispin Glover? Seriously? He fairly recently made an experimental film called “What is it?” where he starred as the “Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man’s inner psyche”.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU MAN

3 - Technohead - I Want To Be A Hippy

Oh, how we chuckled in our youth. “They said ’stoned’! Teehee!”. This is mostly on here because it was popular right at the same time we got Cable in our house, and was almost constantly played on The Box (a crappy music request channel that’s probably still going somewhere). Anyway. The video seems at odds with the song, what with them apparently wanting to kick seven shades of shit out of the hippy instead.

2 -  Crispin Glover - Ben

Crispin again. This time singing the Jacko song “Ben”, which was a weird song to begin with. Now in the hands of Crispin Hellion “Go To A Fucking Shrink Already” Glover, it becomes a surreal nightmare with R Lee Ermy from Full Metal Jacket apparently willingly allowing his daughter to be molested by rats.

1 - The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist

A weird video for a weird song. Old men as turtles, black cowboys, tuba players in lederhosen, midgets in nappies, and finally a monkey chasing a giant bird.

So much like the average Saturday night for me, then.

School of Rock

Sunshine

So I’ve taken up golf again, sort of.

Well, okay. I’ve played a brief 9 hole game with my ancient clubs that are rapidly falling apart. I also suck just as hard as I did 10 years ago, if not more. But at least I still remember which end of the club I’m supposed to hit the ball with, so that’s something at least.

I’m weighing up budget options for a new set at the moment. The clubs I had back in the day were second-hand as it were, so they’re probably 15 years old now, so I can’t exactly see myself winning the Masters with them. Though even if I had clubs crafted by Thor himself, with each iron blessed by Jesus, a driver touched by Buddha, and a putter that used to belong to Sinatra, I’d probably still duff 99% of shots, with the 1% of the successful shots ALWAYS ALWAYS GOING TO THE BASTARD RIGHT.

…

Maybe I should take lessons again.

A Clockwork Orange

The Day After Tomorrow

Red Eye

My bandwidth usage has absolutely exploded through the roof in the past four days. It seems someone submitted the Movies in Real Life post from a forum onto StumbleUpon (a random site recommendation thing), which resulted in daily hits leaping from about 4 to 400,000. Which is a strange feeling. There could be hundreds of people reading these posts at this very moment. Brr.

Anyhoo, not much else to report. The pushups thing is going reasonably well (though I think my arms are going to atrophy and fall off), I’m getting a reasonable sum of money at the end of the month due to a slight cockup with my past pay packets, so I’ll be shelling out for a new PC to replace this aging heap o’ crap. Writing is going reasonably well. May even have something I deem worthy of posting up in a few days.

I did have a movie to review as well, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. The film was -that good-. Seriously, I’m drawing a complete blank and I watched it yesterday. I’m gonna have to go through my collection and see.

…

Oh yeah. The Kingdom. An entirely forgettable film, literally in my case. I’ll probably have to rewatch it to recall an opinion, because aside from Jamie Foxx and some explosions, I can’t remember watching anything else.

Dune

Falling Down

Deja Vu

10. Maverick clearly has sex with a woman.

Alright, fair enough, this doesn’t necessarily prove much. He may be bisexual. Maybe he’s in denial. BUT HE STILL DOES, DAMMIT, and with Kelly McGillis, so you can’t run with the whole "but she looks like a man" theory that may work if she was, say, Sarah Jessica Parker (who looks like a male horse). Plus they’re together at the end of the film, so it’s obviously a carefully considered decision, and not a wild night of drunken abandonment.

9. Male Bonding is not gay.

What’s gay about a game of beach volleyball, often cited as the main point of homosexual inference by the movie’s detractors? Nothing, that’s what. They’re having time off from an otherwise stressful and intense career. Tell me you don’t go and shoot pool or have a few beers with some chums after your hard, relentless day in whatever minor deskjob you do, chuck. Now times that by A HUNDRED. Beach Volleyball, man.

8. The F14 is fuckin’ awesome.

LOOK AT IT
Without wishing to descend into stereotypes, the F14 is not colour co-ordinated, has no cup-holders, no CD player for The Best of the Weather Girls and requires you to blow up Russians. I re-iterate, blow UP Russians.

…okay, so I did descend quite rapidly into stereotypes. I’m sure my lawyer will be thrilled.

7. The soundtrack kicks ass.

HIIIIIGHWAAAAY TO THE DANGER ZONE
C’mon. Probably the only superior 80’s movie rock is The Touch from Transformers. YOU GOT THE TOUCH….duh, duh, duh…YOU GOT THE POOOOWAAAAAH

…

Anyway. Also, Righteous Brothers (who are probably more responsible for unwanted pregnancies than any other band) and Goose (who, incidentally, is married with children) giving an energetic performance of Great Balls of Fire. Additionally, the Top Gun Theme was recently released as a track for Guitar Hero, which is the most Heterosexual Game Ever.

6. Michael Ironside.

5. Tarantino is a known liar.

When the topic of Top Gun comes up, most people point to Tarantino’s snappy ‘lil dialogue in Sleep With Me. Okay, but his pop-culture rants in his films have been known as incorrect before. His "Like A Virgin is about big cocks" spiel in Reservoir Dogs? Lies! All of it! Madonna even sent him a note telling him so. See, that’s the wonder of intent and interpretation. The two may not be the same thing.

4. You try losing your wingman and not acting a little strange.

So after they had to eject from their nosediving F14, Mav cradles Goose in his arms. Okay, but if you haven’t noticed, they are in the water and Goose is unconscious, possibly dead. He’s not just gonna go "Well, I don’t know if you’re still living or not, but y’know, bearhugging you is a little too fruity for my tastes, so let’s assume it’s the latter and I’m not drowning you". Standing around in his pants quite randomly afterward seem weird to you? HE JUST LOST HIS BEST FRIEND, YOU HEARTLESS DICKHEAD.

3. Michael fuckin’ Ironside.

2. So-called innuendo is not actually innuendo.

"You can be my wingman anytime."
"Bullshit! You can be mine."

What do they mean by this exchange? Are they making reference to being the giver and receiver? No. No they are not. They are saying they have now established a line of mutual trust between fighter pilots, and would gladly fly knowing the other is backing them up. And by backing them up, I don’t mean backing them up.

1. I have watched the film a zillion times, and I am not gay.

I feel this is definitive proof. I may currently be single, but none of my ex-girlfriends were men. So there.
DEFINITIVE.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have a lavender bath and exfoliate.