Hello and hello, and welcome to something new and hopefully regular that we at hecklerspray towers have been itching to put together – something about video games! Yay!

Sure, there may be millions of other sites, blogs and tweetpiles (or whatever the kids call them) littering the intrasphere, but this one is from us so you clearly know it’s an opinion you can violently disagree with.

Covering events of the week, talking about the games we’re playing and attempting to be quite funny with it, you’ll soon be unable to live without our ever-growing influence. And with that, read on…

The release of Quake Live has seen two things happen: one, people have gone “how in shit’s holy name did they manage to pull that one off?!” and two, it’s reminded a lot of people why they never bothered with online gaming in any real sense.

Sure, the ranking system is pretty great; seeding players based on their performance and pitting them against other combatants of similar levels. That can’t be argued. So why is it still so bloody impossible to win anything?

At this point some may argue that it’s because we’re just a bit crap at the game – but it’s also at this point that we say… umm… hush down. It’s clearly the game’s fault, not ours.

We’ve also recently seen the release of Killzone 2, backed up by some godawful TV spots with one redeeming quality – the use of genuine, bona-fide ingame footage, something Ubisoft still don’t seem to have taken on board.

But yes, the PS3 system-seller is here backed up by a wave of hype the size of which would make most salty sea dogs nervous. Pretty much like the last game, to be honest.

Where it differs from the decidedly average PS2 effort is that there’s some walk to back up said talk, with an utterly gorgeous game that plays pretty well. It isn’t epoch-defining and it certainly doesn’t better the other MASSIVE MARINES WITH GUNS games such as Gears of War 2, but it puts up a damn good fight.

Speaking of putting up a fight, it seems games industry trade magazine MCV, the ELSPA, Sony, Sega and just about everyone else in the world aren’t too happy with the British government’s Change4life advert depicting a wastrel of a child risking death by playing on his PlayStation.

While it’s hard to argue that letting the little sods sit around all day doing nothing – ever – is good for them, it certainly is easy to argue the hypocrisy of a government that is willing to take on millions of pounds through taxes from the games industry, refuses to offer tax breaks as an incentive to new and existing developers  (read: encouraging business development) and then has the sheer cheek to slag that very industry off for killing the kids they’ve had a hand in messing up in the first place.

And on TV they even have the gall to advertise with plasticine. Plasticine! The nerve.

But hey, back to business. The first reviews are trickling out for Resident Evil 5, released this week, and they’re… well, they’re not that great. How much of the score-lowering has come about as a result of the racism furore surrounding the game and the fact that Capcom – creators of the game – asked reviewers to purposefully avoid mentioning one particular part of the game as it contains black-skinned zombie characters holding spears has probab…

Ah.

Spears?

Really?

Capcom’s “it’s not racist” side of the argument would appear to have failed on that note.

So: racist propaganda game Resident Evil 5 is released this week, but reviews haven’t been too favourable. Maybe because it’s a massive ball of Racist Fury.

Though maybe not.

THIS WEEK: After worrying that this column doesn’t work that well, we decided to rip off Charlie Brooker’s ‘THIS WEEK’ bit he has on his G2 column in The Guardian. We also reported our current online record for Street Fighter IV: Played 15, won 2. Live in fear, all those who encounter us online.

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