This set me off on a mission, was this a one-off staff error?

Seems not:

I got every single on of those games (Michael Jackson Experience, Dr Kawashima’s Body and Brain Training, Dead Space 2, Bulletstorm, Operation Flashpoint: Red River, Child of Eden, Fear 3, Homefront and Red Faction Armageddon) for 97p each. None were price marked as ’97p’ and all were in normal chart/display positions, but when my wife asked for a price check all of them were at the magic price point.

This is the case up and down the country as PC World and Currys (possibly Dixons as well if they still exist) get out of the console gaming retail market.

Had I had spare case I could have picked up 3DS games such as Ridge Racer for the same price, but sadly we are at the end of a costly week. But I bring you this news, dear readers, so that you may benefit from the bargains. Now go, get out there, and purchase some obscenely cheap games. Hell even if you don’t want to play them, grab them for £1 each and then trade them in somewhere for at least double the value.

The Stop Online Piracy Act is NOT the future, it’s a reflection of all that is wrong with today, yesterday and the day before.

Eurogamer Expo.

Two more words:

Swanky London.

Three more words:

Purple Dildo Weaponry.

One last word:

Awesome.

I don’t really *need* to write any more than this if I am honest, if you want a report on the ins and outs of the UK’s largest gaming festival then you are probably in the wrong place, try any one of the other thousands of blogs doing that.

Hell, they might even have nice video clips so you don’t have to read anything at all.

Imagine that, you lazy bastards. So if that’s what you are after, fuck off!

Have they gone?

Good.

Now dear readers, the ones I really care about, the ones who don’t want to simply indulge their curiosity with a paper thin cookie-cutter report*, readers whom are a little more interested in reality, well here it comes, the story of how I spent half a day on public transport and half the day in the company of DrHamHock himself, the story of how I got a bruise on my leg in the shape of a horseshoe and the story of how I ended up with a pocket that smells of chilli.

So – picking up my ‘Writing Articles For Idiots’ pamphlet, insinuating that I am an idiot that needs advice on how to write, not that I am writing for idiots to read – where to start. Well the beginning would make sense, but then that wouldn’t be the suitable way to start it. So here we go. A proper beginning should start with an end.

As the train pulled out of the station the smell of alcoholic football supporters and yesterday’s jam faded away and as it entered a tunnel a tired gamer caught sight of his reflection in the hazy glass on the carriage window. He noticed how content he looked. Not surprising really. His day had been awesome. Reaching into his pocket he pricked his finger on a small button badge that had been swiped from a stand earlier that day. Flinching, he accidentally knocked the man next to him who, despite his clearly unhealthy lifestyle, was sipping from a two litre bottle of Diet Cola. He spilt his drink into his lap, not much, just enough to look like an unfortunate incident in the trouser department had occurred. He turned towards the gamer with fire in his eyes. The gamer smiled, shrugged, and turned back to the window. Content.

Wow! Pretentious bollocks ahoy!

Ok, so writing in that style doesn’t suit either…

Right.. erm…

OK!

Let’s start again…

The alarm was ringing from under the wife’s pillows** and my eyes were struggling to find any reference point to see what time it was. I knew deep down that is was a little past five in the morning, but my night had been so broken that I’d lost all rationale and reason, instead I just got myself up, performed my daily routine of reading the back of a random bottle of bubble bath while having a quick poo and then washing everything that matters with a scaldingly hot flannel before chucking some clothes on – ensuring that my socks don’t match one another – and headed downstairs to check my bag was still packed. I know that sounds odd, and I don’t wish to generate the illusion that I may have tiny elves living in my crawlspace who creep out at night and unpack backpacks, because frankly that would be  crazy talk, but there might just be a creepy goat man that does a similar thing. Everything was still present and correct so I got my bike out, stuck my lights on, kissed the wife goodbye and set off into the misty darkness to catch an early bus, a very early bus. A bus that in fact was occupied only by five people and still one of them knew me. Sort of. Seems he went to school with my wife and once captive on the bus heading for Peterborough I engaged in chatter ranging from the lack of manners in city folk to the finer points of cos-playing as Gambit from the X-Men. All bizarre, but it did help the journey whistle along nicely. Now I think it pertinent to mention that my journey required a lot of luck if it was to work properly, needing to hit three areas within a five minute time frame to avoid an hour long delay – which eventually would have lost me half my day at Eurogamer – so imagine my delight that we were being driven expertly towards Peterborough bus station and arrived two minutes ahead of schedule! To think people say that public transport is dirty, over-crowded and tardy, travelling before 7am is the answer!

After arriving at Peterborough I quickly made my way to the railway station and found myself in a quandary. You see I use Google for a lot of planning, and reading a review of the station and it’s facilities it was very clear that if I wanted to buy a Super Saver Ticket (no point paying for quality when on the East Coast line) I had to go to the ticket office, but there was a huge queue and my train had already arrived. I chanced it with the automated machine and blow me if it didn’t sort me out in super fast time. I was done before the first person in that long queue had even paid, so quickly hopped onto a fairly empty carriage and got my book out, ‘Dave Gorman Vs The Rest of the World’, to keep me entertained. Not that I needed it, the sun was coming up and as we whistled through the countryside the mist hung on the air and the country looked beautiful. It seemed that many of my fellow commuters onboard this rattling tin can were less interested in the stunning scenery, instead burying their faces in newspapers and smart phones. Their loss I guess. As I witness horses galloping across a misty hillside I smiled and sent a text to fellow Lolocaust Dr Hamhock to see if he was still ok to meet up with me at Kings Cross. He was, and the exchange of filthy messages caught the eye of the ‘professional type’ sat next to me, who had spent the last ten minutes sipping at a foul smelling beverage in a paper cup. I wrote ‘Slutty woman next to me is reading my texts, possibly to supplement her barren love life’ and soon enough she stopped looking. Shame there was still another half an hour to endure:

As time passed the rolling fields became built up channels and tunnels as we headed into the Nation’s capital and I had arrived – the first time I’d been in London since about 1998 when I visited the Trocadero for an evening meal at Planet Hollywood and spent some time in Sega World. It was the first time I’d been into London by train since about ’94 when I visited London Zoo, and in that time I had forgotten how big Kings Cross station is. Stunning – despite the enhancement and regeneration works that were on-going at the time – and yet familiar from all of those films that have been shot there – yes and THAT one as well, I’ll come back to that soon – and I rather confidently striding along the platform towards the Nero coffee shop where I arranged to meet with Hock. That confidence quickly disappeared when I noticed people readying their train tickets to get through the automated barriers – this was not in the guide I’d read – and I’d packed my ticket into my backpack so I had to try and get into my backpack while being ushered along by the writhing masses of people who were better prepared and seemingly all in a terrible hurry. I *just* managed to get the ticket out of my wallet as I got to the barrier and made it through unscathed, but I did fear that my rummaging in a backpack, in a crowded railway station while sporting a beard would have attracted the attention of the authorities. It hadn’t, obviously, I was being ridiculous.

So there I was, stood in the middle of the ‘busy bit’ of Kings Cross waiting for Hock to pop up from the Underground and I was a bit bored if truth be told so I started whistling and dancing a little bit, which DID attract the attention of the authorities as a large BTP officer walked over and asked if I was busking. I said that it was doubtful that anyone would give money to a fat bloke whistling in a train station and she said ‘It’s London love, stranger things have happened’. Guess she had a point, especially as my next trip to the capital would be memorable after seeing a drunk try to get some loose change by busking with the aid of a huge traffic cone.

Soon enough it was time for two giants of the Internet – don’t laugh – to finally meet up as I spotted Hock stride into the station. I wandered towards him, we shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and headed down to the underground to catch the tube to Earls Court. We were on our way!

I have always been a fan of the idea of the London Underground, it’s a fascinating piece of engineering that seems to be notable more for it’s money grabbing arse-expanding drivers and delays. As we stepped onto the carriage of the train – that was RIGHT THERE – waiting for us we chatted about all manner of things ranging from random cat attacks to the laws of physics, while having a side-step conversation about the nature of gamers to be over defensive when criticised. All rather high-brow, but delivered with low-brow humour. Glad I have a large forehead now.

We soon arrived at Earls Court station and came up over the road from the exhibition hall and spotted HUGE posters advertising games I already knew about and two tanks advertising a game I’d never heard of. Seems these PR companies had figured out their target audience, billboards to emulate the posters on the walls of our bedrooms and busty women on tanks to supply us with enough testosterone fuelled attraction to tide us over until we got inside and had cos-players to stare at photograph.

Heading for the press entrance we were directed to a line that had formed, a very long line, a VERY long line full of the cream of European game blogging and journalism – and then there was Hock and I. We joined the line at the end, as is customary in queue-based scenarios, and while I was talking to Hock the people in front of us turned and asked us if they could ask us a question, which is actually a bit rich, I mean honestly, why ask to ask a question, who do they think they are?! Either way I was open to the obvious question “Aren’t you that bloke off of The Crystal Maze, who took over after that bald bloke?”*** Imagine my surprise when they asked about my C.O.G. tags instead. I explained how I got them with a pre-order Gears figure at Gamestation. I considered making up a story involving Cliff Bleszinski and a pineapple in York, but to be honest I had a hall plan to memorise. See as well as Google planning the trip I also planned out the best route around the exhibition space, as we had press entry passes and would be getting in an hour earlier that the riff-raff. We would have one hour to experience things without a horde of heavy breathing nerds stood in front, behind and below us, and we had one place to head for, and one place only.

We got through the door, handed over our barcoded passes and got given our special press passes… oh… no, scratch that. Our ‘Normal’ press passes. Normal press. Is that an appropriate was to describe what we do here at the Lolocaust? Are we normal? What qualifies as normal? Who decides what qualifies as normal? These are all questions that the poor bloke attempting to attach a wristband to my gesticulating arm really didn’t want to be hearing. Instead he snapped it on and I headed for the steps up to the main hall, I spotted a Sonic Generations display… Nothing could stop me now!

Well… It shouldn’t have.

“Excuse me Sir, can I check your bag please?”

GOD DAMMIT!!!

We now pause for an advertisement break.

Welcome back to Bouncy and Hock’s Swanky Adventure, in part one Bouncy caught a train and Hock said something. Join us now for part two of this exciting episode and discover how a rainbow wall delighted and a tramp was elevated up the class system.

So, right, we were heading in and I was grabbed by an over-zealous security guard who rifled through my back pack searching for all manner of explosives and weapons – I guess – in case I wanted to put a significant dent in the world’s supply of display boards and promo girls. He found nothing of note and I was soon allowed to move on to the hall where we were simply taken aback. A giant Link was ‘flying’ above a Zelda display booth while Kinect cameras were tracking all manner of curious gamers while they danced and puppeteered their hearts out. We passed all of this and headed for a black and orange cube in the centre of the hall offering the future of gaming – and a free console worth £70 – so we had to head there first. OnLive – as no doubt you’ve read over the months since the show – offers streaming gaming on both PC and TV and looks to expand to iPads and other such devices over time. I admit I was very doubtful of it’s chances, but while queuing for our free consoles we had plenty of chances to see games running on their system and we were mightily impressed (worth noting that since I brought the console home both Nerfie and Star have played with it and we collectively have given it a thumbs up for effort and execution and look forward to the next generation of tech). We signed up on Hock’s iPhone, speeding up the process of getting our free machine, and soon enough we were both some of the first people in the UK to own an OnLive system. It felt great, and grabbing a handful of promo pens and stickers as we exited the booth I realised that if nothing else of note happened that day I’d have been happy.

Luckily lots more would happen.

Now at this point there is little point describing the games we saw, and how they played, as the lion’s share have seen a release since we visited but I think that one title is worth highlighting as it’s existence is still somewhat unknown, mostly due to the special edition release of the original game on XBLA recently, and that is ‘Joe Danger: The Movie’. Not a numbered sequel of sorts, but it did change things up as each stage was inspired by a movie scene or stereotype. Hock and I tried out a mine-cart stage – naturally – and while I was somewhat or a Joe Danger veteran having owned it on the PS3 for some time, Hock was a Joe N00b and still he picked up the brilliantly simple concept rather quickly. We both loved what we saw and can’t wait to play the game when it finally gets unleashed upon the world – hopefully this time without the delay before hitting the 360.

So yeah we played most of the big titles, but as I say it’s pointless describing them, but we did have little nuggets of fun in between, including and not limited to:

Being asked by a girl about half my age if I’d ever played a Mario game before.

Blagging a set of dog tags reserved for people who had pre-ordered Battlefield 3, with the help of a mobile phone and pure British determination.

Hock and I spent too long playing with a wall that had multi-coloured lights shining on it (see picture)

We discovered that World of Tanks is literally World of Warcraft, but with tanks. Everything is better with tanks.

We learned that the 360 version of BF3 multiplayer was much more popular than the PS3 version, but as the line was longer how many people were tempted to play on a slightly inferior system to save ten minutes?

We spotted a great Capt. Shepard that turned out to be a contributor to the brilliant Death By Robots podcast! Ooohh.

Also in costume, two Silent Hill nurses that caused equal amounts of terror and fear in my mind leading to what can only be described as a fright-boner.

We realised that Saints Row: The Third was the game that offered the most unique experiences after watching six different people playing six different ways and wearing six different outfits. All were laughing hysterically.

Unfortunately for me we discovered that some tee-shirts should be bought sooner rather than later.

While browsing the retro area I was insulted by someone who offer to give me tips on how to play Dig Dug! On stage 2! When I hadn’t died! HE WAS ABOUT 19! I was playing Dig Dug before he was even born!

We also discovered that I am getting sensitive about my age.

Dr Hamhock learned that the MB Vectrex is the most future-proofed console that was ever released.

Speaking to the promo girl at the Vita stand, it was clear that I was certainly of the age whereby I just look like a creepy old perv when stood next to a chick in near-spray on clothing… Did get to rummage around in her helmet though, and found out that she had a Liverpool accent. Also she couldn’t take being asked a question about how she was doing. Brilliant lady though. Proper gamer too. Which is a rare thing in promo work, as evidenced at the Saint’s Row booth when I was asked if I had played on an Xbox 320 before. (NOT a typo!)

At lunch time we decided to avoid the anal rape of concession stands at the show itself and headed out into Kensington to find a cheaper lunch – oh the irony. We found a cheaper lunch – with the only cost-addition being an unhealthy side of soul-destruction – at Tesco. We each grabbed some food-based goodies, avoiding the swanky London-only products, and headed out for a nearby bench right by a busy intersection and I tucked into my unseasonal Christmas Dinner sandwich while Hock had something rather swanky, most likely involving something made from swanky things and mixed with swanky stuff and laid on a bed of swanky salad. Swanky. Hock and I used the calm and quiet well, chewing the fat – damn you Tesco sandwich producers! – and conversing on a wide range of subjects, but mostly about web life in general. It’s always interesting meeting people who have set up a niche website, to discuss their hopes initially and how that has changed with the fickle visitors’ interests. I have to admit that I found Hock to be a very intelligent, amusing fellow and as I polished off my vile sandwich I was really pleased that I had not only come down for the show, but that I had made the effort to meet up with someone I’d only really spoken to once, during a game on the Gears of War 3 beta. (There is a vague recollection of another time, but it eludes me for now.)

As we were finishing off we noticed a homeless man setting out his meagre lunch on the bench near to us. Well I say meagre but he had a rack of ribs and a bottle of red wine. It seemed that even the homeless folk of Kensington were of a higher quality than back home. Was this a new scheme that Boris had created? The regeneration of the homeless? Free ribs and vino for anyone without a roof over their head? Either way it was a brilliant sight, even more so when he laid it out on his napkin on his lap – he was also wearing a shabby old suit. Eventually he fell asleep and we headed back to the convention hall for round two, this time wandering around watching gamers and searching out cos-players. We had our photo taken with Mario – which in itself presented me with a moral quandary, having spent years fighting the fight for the Sega army I had been trained up, maybe even sublimily, to kill Mario as soon as the opportunity arose. As we moved to pose I offered the hand of reconciliation to Mario, but he moved away, so when the photo was taken a look of pure hatred spilled out of me as I considered jumping onto his stupid over-sized head and dropped my trousers to off-load a giant steaming turd – just as 90% of the pictures submitted to Mean Machines featured – all over his perma-smile.

Suffice to say I behaved. I was mature enough to have sympathy for the poor person inside the costume, having to endure the heat as well as the attention of waves of nerds and geeks grabbing at them. That pity turned into sheer delight. Schadenfreude personified.

From that posed photo Hock and I moved over to the Zelda display where one of us insisted on doing a silly pose that was drawn out when the other person failed to use the camera properly, see if you can figure out which one of us it was:

I feel I must add that the litter around Link’s feet was nothing to do with us. Clearly Nintendo doesn’t care enough about it’s hero to clean up around him. I dare say that had I visited the next day I would likely have found Link laying face down on the floor with a carrier bag over his head and a day-old jam sandwich smeared all over his trousers. High above Zelda would look down from astride the Loftwing crying tears of oil while the Loftwing itself wanks off onto Link’s cold corpse.

Probably.

Shame on you Nintendo!

So back to the feature, the day was winding down and the sight of perma-tanned dancers wiggling to Just Dance 3 and perma-fat PC nerds wiggling to stay on the chair at the Star Wars: The Old Republic booth had taken it’s toll, we were knackered. As we headed to the official T-Shirt booth I bought myself and Hock a commemorative shirt – missing out on the one I wanted thanks to my procrastination – and we set about heading off home. Sitting on the steps outside Earls Court I thought back over my day, how we’d laughed, how we’d scrutinised and how we’d gamed together, two near-strangers who came together – ooer – over a love of alternative viewpoints and gaming. I already considered Hock to be a mate, but now I was confident I could call him my friend.

Together we’d chortled at the Minecraft man, enjoyed the sight of the 3DS booth and picked up more Street Passes than I ever thought possible. We’d posed with a Liverpudlian in a skin tight racing suit and been ‘threatened’ by a cardboard box robot ninja and as we left Earl’s Court behind and headed back to the London transport network we said our goodbyes.

The journey home was a bitter-sweet one, as I was glad to be heading home to my family, but I was also leaving behind a friend. I’d be back, I knew that much for definite (and I was about a month later) but for now I was left with my bag of swag, a camera full of photographs and a smile on my face that a whole carriage of football fans drinking lager and shouting could not shift.

I arrived home under the cover of darkness and hugged my wife before regaling her with the highlights of my day, and as I booted up the OnLive console and had a few games on the ‘future’ of gaming consoles I considered how I would ever write up my day. I never considered taking months to do it, but I feel that it was right to do so. This feature wasn’t about the games, it was about two site members meeting up and enjoying their day. It could have been a feature set in Bristol and the tone would have been the same. Bro-mance aside Eurogamer Expo 2011 was brilliant and we will be back for 2012. I’ve uploaded all the photos from the day to a Flickr account that you can view here, hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we had while taking them!

Oh, but I forgot a bit…

See it seems that my meticulous planning missed one salient piece of information, namely ‘when’ I could come home. I ended up waiting for an hour and a half in King’s Cross station so decided to look for the wall that Harry Potter and his classmates ran through to reach Platform 9 3/4 in the films and books that immortalised the station for a new generation. Sadly due to heavy congestion the ‘people in control’ decided to move the trolley that was set into the wall to a more open location. It now resides outside of the station. I think it loses *some* of the magic though:

See what I mean? All the magic of a Hollywood movie eh?

* Not a review of cookie cutters, obviously, snork!

** You filthy minded person you!

*** I don’t – for the record – resemble Ed Tudor Pole, but I have been mistaken for him on three separate occasions…

Now usually we would only be going on a road trip to something big, like Eurogamer, Retro Fusion or the day before they empty the bins outside Billy Piper’s house but this time we were heading for a far off, off-kilter location that until my mother spotted it on a coastal tour I was entirely unaware of. It would be a day filled with a lot of driving, a lot of laughing and a sense of guilt that I couldn’t shift until I got on Google. We were off to Suffolk to see one of the world’s most interesting arcades. Kind of fitting that a ‘gaming lifestyle’ blog should want to go see something like that, eh? Well it was fitting in my mind at least, Star and Nerfie didn’t really have much of an idea of what we were going to travel to see, but they must have trusted my taste in destination as we were soon on our way to Suffolk in Nerfie’s car, but getting there would be a challenge in itself. It all started off quite oddly with the SatNav deciding to send us the ‘scenic route’ to Kings Lynn – essentially through a council estate, some orchards and some farm land before getting us onto the A47, surely a left turn would have done that? Ah well, it was nice to see the sights of my home town but soon enough a rougue piece of farm machinery did it’s best to end our journey with, literally, one foul swoop:

With Star’s paraphrasing of Alan Partridge ringing in our ears we stopped for fuel – of both varieties – and witnessed two generic truck driving stereotypes sauntering about… well, the camp trucker sauntered, whereas the burly one was most certainly staggering. Once the car was topped up we pulled around the corner to make use of McDonald’s excellent facilities, namely a table that wasn’t soaked in filth and a food stuff that wasn’t entirely produced by marrying two cows to two Norfolk farmers and harvesting their off-spring. Or at least I think I am correct in that assumption. As we headed in Nerf and I commented on the ‘Height Restriction’ measures that were in place. To the untrained eye they resembled a series of ball-gags hanging from a metal bar, sadly Star had missed the visual key and misheard the comment as something to do with ball-bags hanging and as such managed to amuse us greatly when he later pointed out the ‘red noses hanging up there’ – Silly sod. Brunch was ideally timed and despite almost leaving my camera and my bag behind we left without any incidents involving straw casings, anti-capitalist frenzy or an embarrassing situation involving any gherkins. All in all a success on all fronts. So off we went again, living in constant fear that we may bump into Norfolk’s Anti-Cambridgeshire Vehicle Device (namely the wobbly tractor thing) and becoming hypnotised by the sheer length of the A47. Now I love a bit of scenery, but to be fair the morning we travelled on was not one that was great for taking in a view, unless you have a thing for views of foggy mist. Which you might have, many people do, but not I. Instead I found myself clamouring for the slightest thing of note, if only to have something interesting to write here. Sadly this did not happen. Well, not until a lot later, when we happened to pass the Tobar building. Then we something excellent and troubling in equal measure. Tobar Toys are a Suffolk-based company that are rapidly expanding thanks to their lines of more traditional toys (think cup and ball, magnetic frogs etc…) and their selection of novelty gifts coupled with their High Street stores ‘Hawkin’s Bazaar’. As a result of this expansion a larger building was required and it was this building that we passed on the way to Southwold. Now I’ll be honest with you, in hindsight the panic and concern that struck me seems silly, but at the time I felt genuinely gutted that we did what we did. Guess I’d better explain. Right. On the side of the Tobar building was a GIANT clock, not a normal ‘large’ clock but a GIANT one. On top of the clock was a guy in a reflective jacket but there were no harness cables, cherry pickers or ladders.

For all we knew he was trapped there, on his knees, seemingly holding on for dear life. I figured we should probably turn the car around and go back to see if he was in trouble, but we didn’t. Instead we tried to settle on the concept that someone else would stop, or the simple fact that he was on a giant clock in a busy industrial estate would ensure a rescue. Luckily (as I mentioned before, a Google saved my conscience) it turned out that the clock was actually supposed to have a man on it, a model one – not some poorly paid actor sitting astride a giant clock. There would be something else weird to tell you about the clock, but I’ll get to that soon enough. So, giant clock guilt left behind we found ourselves going over some rolling green hills and seeing the sea. Oh yes, we played that game. I won. Well, actually Star did, but he cheated. He couldn’t actually see the sea, but he did say it first… Cheating beggar. Regardless we were now faced with the ACTUAL SEA and a pier so we pulled over in a residential street and saved ourselves some parking money, money that would soon be disappearing into greedy coin slots soon enough. So this is where we were:

And this is why we were here:

The Under the Pier Show is part art installation, part comedy genius and part knowing nod at the history and evolution of the Seaside Entertainment world created by engineering artist Tim Hunkin. Hunkin for the uninitiated was behind a great Channel 4 television series in the late eighties and early nineties called ‘The Secret Life of Machines’ as well as being the guy behind the Observer’s Rudiments of Wisdom cartoon strips/features. He was also part of the team that created and manufactured the inflatable animals to be shot out of cannons on Pink Floyd’s Animals tour as well as creating the amazing mechanical clock at London Zoo.

Needless to say he is exactly the sort of artist that I strive to discover and to actually play with some of his machines in their actual natural habitat was worth the trip. We only found out about it after my Mum went on a tour of the coast and accidentally found it. She knew I’d be impressed with it, but I think she had underestimated how brilliant I thought it was. So, bit of a background to the pier itself – garnered from what I have been able to find out thus far – originally built as a landing point for tourist steamers coming up from London it suffered numerous storms, sections and sea mine strikes until by the 1970′s it was only 60ft long. In 1987 it was bought privately and in 1999 work began to revitalise and rebuild the pier and in 2001 it was standing out at 623ft. In 2002 it was named Pier of the Year (an award Carol Vorderman will NEVER win) and stands as Britain’s only 21st Century Pier. It is currently owned by the Bournes family and is run as a family business, and this really shows. Hunkin has been involved in the pier for a while but it has evolved over the years from a couple of machines to the Under the Pier Show that is there now, as well as having some devices on the pier itself and he has also designed and produced the various pier decorations (noticeboards, signs, bins etc…). Another rather interesting thing we noticed about the pier were the dozens of little plaques adorning the hand rails, all a result of a donation to the pier’s development. A brilliant idea that also instils a feeling of Britishness throughout. Heck this one made me smile on it’s own:

So we headed down the pier and arrived at the water clock just in time to see it ‘perform’. Performance is something that a lot of Hunkin’s creations do, mostly on account of them being classed as automatons, essentially a robotic device engineered to perform a set task/series of tasks. Some of his early works, Goliath and the Barman in particular perform general tasks while still remaining unique and interesting to the viewer/user. The water clock on Southwold Pier is no different, featuring a number of moving parts and culminating with a twice hourly performance involving some rather cheeky urinating gentlemen.

We timed our visit perfectly actually – I blankly refuse to make a caught short joke here, if you insist on thinking one up, go right ahead, we’ll wait.

All done?

Good, now let’s continue. So we witnessed the water clock passing it’s water and noticed a few collection buckets surrounding the base of the clock so a good handful of coins was deposited somewhat skilfully in each of the buckets before we moved on to the end of the pier to have a look at Hunkin’s Quantum Tunnelling Telescope. Inspired by a conversation concerning the pointless nature of those seaside telescopes that look out at pretty much nothing whatsoever, Hunkin set about creating a device that would guarantee something interesting to look at, and the Quantum Tunnelling Telescope was born. The base of the device houses a series of small scenes that can be viewed by moving it around, all the time speakers on the telescope provide a soundtrack to the scenes on show, ranging from a shark attack to an under-sea rave. A great device that all three of us shoved our faces into, emerging with wry smiles and chortles.

So telescope used we headed back down the pier to the main body of the show, housed in a small structure on the pier that belies the scale and quality of what lies within. Our eyes flicked around to see machines that allow the user to go on holiday, get a workout (while laying down), future proof your life with zimmer frame lessons, walk a dog, see a chiropodist and experience an eclipse and more.

We kicked things off with a frisking, an eclipse and deciding the fate of a lamb before Star found his calling at the Nuclear Fusion machine, successfully avoiding a meltdown and winning some edible nuclear waste.

The game itself was brilliant, combining a robotic arm with some pellets and a reactor core. Once you get the hang of the robotic arm the game is possible if you have concentration and patience. I didn’t when I played, so I caused a nuclear meltdown, a literal Nuclear Lolocaust if you like.

After all the stress and strain of saving the world from a Nuclear apolcalypse Nerfie needed a holiday so I chucked some coinage into the nearby Microbreak machine – built on the bare bones of a former Sega Space Harrier arcade machine – so he could enjoy all the thrills of a trip to some generic European country.

From the trolly dolly jumping on a passenger to the near-psychotic driving of the shuttle bus driver (scarily accurate) culminating in a tilt back of the chair and the lamp on the telly flipping back to reveal a heat lamp. To be honest I think Nerfie was having the best holiday ever, but we had other machines to fiddle with, and be fiddled with by, so we dragged him back to the reality of a wind-swept pier on the North Sea coast of England and stuck his hand in a cage with a mad dog.

No, really.

Well, not *really* but it was a cage and there was a ‘dog’ in there.

The ‘Test Your Nerve’ machine features the head of a vicious-looking dog and a big red button. The aim of the game is to hold your hand on the button as long as your nerve will hold. The dog will growl, bark and snarl to try and make you move, but the genius in this machine is the misdirection afforded by this concept. You see while you expect the growls and barks you don’t expect the warm drool to drip all over your hand, Nerfie certainly didn’t and broke into hysterical laughter as he endured a dribble-covered fate. Star didn’t last the duration. The wimp.

Speaking of wimps I decided to brave the Crankenstien machine that required me to turn a wheeled handle repeatedly to resurrect the monster in the cage. It took a lot more effort than I though it would, and eventually the struggle to carry the backpack and camera – as well as a giant pocket of change – meant I ended up on my knees cranking away when it finally came back to life with a roar.

Oooh, spooky, still brilliant though.

Over the next hour we would spend time having our feet inspected by a papier mache chiropodist, watch a piece of corn get popped, have a health check, witness a disgusting spectacle and more. Nothing touched the collective genius of the Expressive Photobooth and the Bathyscape though.

The Expressive Photobooth is a masterwork in terms of what it aims to do. You sit in the wooden photobooth and certain effects will affect your expression as each photo is taken. I sent Nerfie and Star in first with this result:

Shortly after I jumped in alone and got this selection of shots:

Brilliantly I turned up as the reincarnation of a little girl and her dad when they had a go, and I got to spend half an hour with a kid going ‘Look Daddy, it’s us in another life!’ which is a depressing for her dad as it was amusing to me. I won’t go into detail as to what happened in the booth as if you do visit it may change your reactions, but suffice to say it was simple and brilliant (if you are desperate to know visit Hunkin’s website and look the machine up, he has a lot of information on there about the machines, and their creation. Well worth a read).

The Bathysphere was the one attraction I had been desperate to try before arriving after hearing good things from my mum, and I was not disappointed. Dragging Nerfie into the pod and closing the door – leaving Star outside to gurn through the portholes – we soon began our dive beneath the waves of the North Sea witnessing such sights as estate agent fish, Robert Maxwell’s travelling skeleton, a shoal of poo and the horrific sight of nuclear waste barrels having sex.

The whole thing was played out through the main viewing window within the bathysphere – showing a film made in a fish tank – and was very funny, showing that Hunkin has the sense of humour to match his engineering abilities. Suffice to say the trip doesn’t go according to plan and soon enough we were under attack and the bathysphere was damaged in a battle with a deep sea leviathan, with water dripping on our heads we quickly resurfaced and exited the ride with broad smiles.

These two attractions really encapsulate why we travelled across a few counties to visit a small seaside town, we wanted to see something new, something funny and something unique. With Hunkin’s Under the Pier Show we got that in spades. (I could go on for hours about the different attractions, but I will leave you with a selection of photos of our day at the end of this piece, as well as some links to find out more.)

After we exhausted my wallet and had a go at pretty much everything that was on offer – some twice or thrice – we decided to wander back up the pier and investigate it’s more modern arcade. It was a pretty good example actually, with a few machines I’d never seen in the wild – the Blazing Angels machine in particular – and we spent a good half an hour gaming before finding out an incredible fact about Lolocaust  member Nerfie. You see he also grew up beside the sea-side (beside the sea) yet he had never, I repeat, NEVER played air hockey! Incredible!

Air Hockey – for the uninitiated – is a table based game for 2-4 players with an air flow system generating a sort of hover effect for the puck. The game of choice for over-competitive uncles to destroy their infant nephews and nieces at it is synonymous with amusement arcades as much as it is of hand injuries. I have spent weeks of my life playing air hockey against friends and relatives and the fact that a close buddy had never played it seemed unreal to me.

I questioned him on this, and got confirmation that while his town had an amusement arcade, it didn’t have air hockey, shame on you Sunspot Amusements.

So we set about immediately to amend this fault in the universe with a few games. I trounced both Nerfie and Star in four straight games – not that I’m smug about it, but I did make myself a trophy when I got home out of a kitchen roll tube and an old sock – and it was clear that I was best to quit while ahead, secretly as they were cracking onto my general technique, so we strolled off and headed for a lighthouse I’d spotted while on the pier and fancied grabbing a photo of before we left. The sun was slowly setting so I headed down onto the sands to grab some photos of the waves hitting the groynes – OH! I forgot to show you this photo:

SO MANY JOKES!

Anyway, after scrambling around on a groyne or two – noticing that they were firm but slippery – I got the shots and attempted to head back up to the road, but there were no steps. Literally no steps, no ramp, not even a ladder. I was trapped with a choice of a ten minute walk back down the beach or an undeterminate walk onwards risking another ten minutes and still being trapped. I went for option c, scramble up the side of the sea defences with the grace and dignity of this camel:

So yeah, not my greatest moment, but we soon made it across the town to the lighthouse, spotting a lovely little local shop – which we didn’t venture into for fear of being killed as we were not ‘local’ – and a brewery that smelled like EVERY pub of the late-seventies, early-eighties.

Southwold is a curious town as it is the least tourist-friendly place I’ve ever been – I’m not talking about the people, they all seemed charming – but the town itself seemed like the local council had issued a checklist of ‘seaside town essentials’ and the people of Southwold had grunted in mild approval and built the pier, the arcade and put some benches out. That’s pretty much it. I liked that.

Many seaside towns are nothing more than sand-covered prostitutes seeking to give you a cheap thrill and empty your wallet, but Southwold seemed too middle-class to lower itself to that level (bravo), so as we ambled around the residential streets and church yards were were constantly aware of the eyes following our every movement.

Still it gave the neighbourhood watch something to do I suppose. Soon enough we were back at the car and our day of frivolity was almost over. Asking Star and Nerfie their views on the day I got this (slightly sweary) response:

With that on record we headed off home – after Nerfie nearly lost a wheel doing the fastest u-turn in history after his John Cleese-infused sat nav tried to send us down a garden path, literally – with one more sight for our childish eyes to behold, the village sign at Wangford.

Snigger!

WANGFORD!

Oh come on, you giggled as well.

Gotta love those little town names, eh?

So yeah, giggling like children with a dictionary, “Look Stuart, it says ‘shit’!” we headed home under a rapidly darkening sky, happy and content that none of us could have imagined a day out like that. We probably won’t see anything like it ever again, but we will try. We have already chosen the location of our next Road Trip… Keep tuned for that one…

So, as promised here is a gallery of images from the day out, we hope you enjoyed reading about our day as much as we enjoyed it.

Epilogue:

After getting home I Googled that clock and discovered that it was a giant backwards clock designed to reflect the Tobar company’s biggest seller, the Backwards Clock – or at least was as the company sadly went into administration recently – and the giant version was designed by none other than the object of our quest, Tim Hunkin himself! Brilliant.

Epilogue 2:

A few weeks later I was up on the London Eye with my wife and a friend after deciding spontaneously to have a ride, and spotted a familiar sounding hospital from the skies above London. A quick check on my iPad – that helpfully was still holding open a window detailing the locations of Hunkin’s creations gave me a shiver of excitement as the hospital in question was one of two in London that features a creation by Hunkin in the form of a collection box game. Naturally the bug had bitten by now and we simply HAD to go find the machine. It’s odd walking into a hospital with no relatives to visit or appointments to keep, but we figured that if we found the machine and put a fiver in, we would be helping in the long run. Using logic – the game featured lifts, so we headed there first – we found the machine and it was stunning. Simple and understated it didn’t have the gaudy appearance that befits a seaside arcade, instead sitting in a nice cabinet in a quiet corridor.

The aim of the ‘game’ is to correctly guess which elevator will arrive near the patient first. There are three to choose from and a number of variables mix things up nicely. We spent a good twenty minutes endeavouring to see all of the win states – we saw two of them and a lot of the other possibilities – before deciding to visit again another time to hit number three (and we most definitely will be). Yet again I was able to share the magic of Hunkin’s creations with other people and I have it on good authority that the word has spread about that particular machine thanks to an email I sent shortly after. All very good. I didn’t take many photos of the machine – it felt a little bit wrong considering the fact that we were in a hospital, but I did grab this shot of the machine one of it’s win states:

So where next? Well there are a few other machines out there to track down, and a return visit to Southwold Pier is definitely on the cards later this year, hopefully it will have retained the charm that we experienced on that first visit, and maybe we will get lucky enough to bump into Hunkin – who often is found at the arcade – and ask him some questions for another feature at another time. We will also shoot some videos for you, a major oversight on our part there. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and it’s epilogues, we loved the trip – and the subsequent mystery Hunkin – and wholeheartedly recommend the Pier and it’s amazing arcade to you.

Not that we are complaining mind, but it is a little shocking to not even see the face clear enough – It looks like Ivy – to know if it’s a creepy pre-op Voldo.

/shudder

Source

Genuinely surprised by the quality of this, on every conceivable level.

Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics in a turf war at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas, on 7 January.

Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes.

Groups of priests have clashed before in the church, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year,” Bethlehem police Lt-Col Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters.

“No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” he said.

Nobody was seriously injured in the scuffles, according to the police.

Previous clashes between the denominations which share the administration of the church have been sparked by perceived encroachments on one group’s territory by another.

The 1,700-year-old church, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, is in a bad state of repair, largely because the priests cannot agree on who should pay for its upkeep.

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where many Christians believe Jesus’s body was taken after crucifixion, has also seen similar incidents.

Source

Who says that the true meaning of Christmas is being forgotten? Hatred, violence and intolerance. Awww, makes me feel all festive.

With those immortal lines one of the greatest Christmas movies ever committed to celluloid began. I’m talking, of course, about National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The Chevy Chase starring comedy pretty much epitomised Christmas here in the Lolocaust flat. Since the explosion a couple of years ago we have managed to repair a few things, but we never got around to getting rid of that rogue tree branch that grew in through the window. Instead we have used it as a lair for the Lolocaust pet and now we have had to remove him from his pine-scented home to decorate it with tin foil and old penguin biscuit wrappers. Don’t worry about Vinny, he’s now snuggled up in an old Roses tin that has been lined with pages from the Littlewoods catalogue (Autumn/Winter 1992).

With our festive branch and enough stockpiled alcohol to fuel a mission to Mars we decided to sit down and give some though to what we reckon was the best of 2011. This is part one, in case that big title up there wasn’t descriptive enough.

So, 2011 eh? Well… Erm… It was alright.

Great games, interesting news and fun trips abound it was the year in which the Lolocaust went to Eurogamer AND a pier in Southwold to have our bodies groped by machinery (more on that in the next part).

So games. Well 2011 was a stand-out year with some incredible new games and some even more incredible mis-steps from the giants of the industry. Who would have thought that Battlefield 3 would have been stooped in Origin issues and a severely lacking single-player (especially considering how brilliant online was)? Who would have guessed that iD software would not change the world with post-apocalyptic Rage (well, most people)? Who would have guessed that Modern Warfare 3 would not outsell Black Ops? But along all of these shocks 2011 was the year of the indie game, thanks mostly to Steam and smartphones – not forgetting the numerous Humble Bundles – gamers of all ages could sample gaming from outside of the constraints of the corporations. From Bastion to Super Meat Boy; from Where Is My Heart to Minecraft indie gaming saw an explosion of great titles from smalled developers.

It was while we all sat huddled around drinking an assortment of beverages from Lidl we got onto the subject of our favourite games of the year, here’s what the Lolocaust staff members thought:

Scarred Star

“Skyrim single player. Battlefield 3 multi-player.

Skyrim because it painted an immersive world better better than anything ever before!

Battlefield 3 because it made me feel like a cog in some crazy war machine.”

Nerfie

“Serious Sam 3. The Epic scale of the gun fights, OTT weapons and awesome sound track.

Simplistic, Action packed, focus on game play.”

Dr Hock

“Game of the Year – Streetpass Functionality, 3DS

Alright, it’s not a game. But it’s in the game.

Living, travelling and working in a large city (and carrying the 3DS around at all times) allows me the advantage of experiencing a living, breathing videogame network.

Receiving any streetpasses is like a kiss in the darkness, a plutonic touch of the bum by birds of a feather – evoking a feeling of real life connection to a mostly (maybe completely) hidden network – hidden by embarrassment, distraction, or just the cloud of a busy life and the anonymity of large crowds.

You’re out there. They’re out there. You both make contact and as a result we all keep playing and collecting, you’ll dig out older games, you’ll quit AAA titles, you’ll check obsessively and repetitively for magical green LEDs – just to see who came a-knocking and just what they left you.

You’ll be proud and safe in the knowledge that you’re not a sad, lonely bastard wasting his time on the bus again. You’re one of a huge army of sad bastards, wasting your time.

But you’re not lonely. Not anymore.”

Clearly Dr Hock had been on the gin.

Ahdvd – late to the party due to the buses not running on time, or perhaps because he left a hat on the train or something said:

“You don’t want to know my game of the year then?! You’ll be VERY surprised… I’m gonna have to give it to… Gears Of War 3. Yes, that’s right, the game that I hated the beta of, that I said I wouldn’t get, or if I did would be for the campaign anod that’s it… Well, it fucking ruled me. Most fun I’ve had in multiplayer this year, in no small part to Horde (that and one of the funniest gaming incidents of Mr Bhall dropping the scoreboard on Stuart, oh for someone to have been recording that session, would have been one for the digital scrapbook!), and we’ll be playing it again once the year is over!”

And me?

Well, my favourite game of 2011 was probably Valve’s stonker of a sequel Portal 2.

When it comes to making a sequel to a conceptual game you are generally faced with two options:

1) Make more of the same

or

2) Enhance the original, add in new concepts and expand the world.

With Portal 2 they opted for the second option with a gusto, developing a narrative, a back-story, a ‘trip through time’ and managed to make rants about lemons all the more impressive. Toss in a chunk of co-op gaming for you and a similar-minded buddy and the voices of Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmonds – along with the return of Ellen McLain as GlaDOS – and you have a heady cocktail of mind-bending greatness.

To wander around outside of the confines of the test rooms and see the huge spherical constructs that housed differing tests from different decades and never feel that you have seen too much is brilliant. Hell, even the ending suggests even more isolation than initially imagined.

But that’s not all folks, I also got fully into iOS gaming this year and have a cheeky second favourite in the form of Halfbrick Games’ Jetpack Joyride. Currently available for free (at time of writing) and rather brilliant, it has stolen days away from me since I first downloaded it. With the standard endless runner style of many iOS games, but with the inclusion of missions, challenges and upgrades the game is suited both for a quick ‘one go’ shot and an hour long marathon of endurance and endeavour. I really cannot recommend the game enough.

So there you go, our top games of the year – in our individual opinions – for you to look at and disagree with vehemently.

But what about films? Well I was asked by our friends at The Monday Movie Show website to write up a top ten of the year’s films and so I will show you my top five here and encourage you to go to this page to read the full top ten in all it’s glory. It’s been a great year for films and I’m pleased to see the Monday Movie Show doing it’s podcasty/websitey thing so well, all of us at The Lolocaust wish you a happy and successful 2012!

5) Super-8 – Now let’s be honest here, the talent that went into making Super-8 should have always resulted in a great film, but what I hadn’t anticipated was how polished the end result would feel. A Seventies love song through and through but all the better for it. The creature was scary – well PG-13 scary anywho – and the grown-ups were suitably troubled/untrustworthy/flawed as you should expect from a Spielberg-infused movie involving kids. The ending may have been too tidy for some, but the scale of the movie – the train crash and the battle in the town between the Army and the creature in particular. The blend of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Cloverfield was to be expected, but actually worked brilliantly.

4) Life in a Day – If you ever want to see a masterpiece of film editing you can do a lot worse than seeking out this delightful little film compiled from thousands of YouTube user submissions all capturing a single day on Planet Earth. What could have been schmaltzy and too light was instead shaped into a perfect representation of the world as it is. The film is about the world and it’s people and if you can get through a viewing without feeling ANY emotion then you are dead. Move on, there’s no such thing as ghosts.

3) The King’s Speech – I have to admit that I put off seeing this film as long as was possible, and suffered through the throngs of people raving about how great the film was. As a firm believer in the damage hype can inflict on the viewing experience of a film I decided instead to wait for the Blu-Ray release and in that sense I was both wrong and right. The film is sublime. To take what is essentially a very personal account of a former King’s life and not make it a full-blown epic was the perfect decision to make. Instead the smaller locations, the emotive performances and the exceptional cinematography – courtesy of Danny Cohen who has worked on other great British films such as This is England and Creep – resulted in a vastly successful film that DESERVED it’s praise.

2) Dreams of a Life – Another documentary great that has yet to see a home media release – it should be out in March 2012 – and deals with the aftermath of a council breaking in to a property to find that the tenant they were going to evict had been dead for three years, sat in front of the television (that was still on), undiscovered for all that time. The body was left for too long for a cause of death to be established and as such the film looks at how and why this could happen. It’s a very sad and upsetting situation, but one that raises questions – the tagline on some posters was ‘Would Anyone Miss You?’ – about the care system in the UK and how it is possible for anyone with living relatives to be left for so long. It may not be the most jovial of subject matters, but then documentary films often work best with an emotive lynch pin and Dreams of a Life certainly has one hell of a pin.

1) Rise of the Planet of the Apes – When it comes to sci-fi movie series the ‘of the Apes’ films have always managed to remain somewhat popular even when poor sequels, questionable TV series and a shockingly badly handled ‘re-imagining’ (shame on you Burton). I’ve been a fan since seeing Heston drop to his knees on that beach all those years ago, but I have to admit I didn’t expect much from the prequel. Would it reside in the same world as Burton’s crock of shit? Would it try to be a retro-styled film fitting in with the visual aesthetics of the original series? Well a bit of both and something else. Telling the story of the catalyst for man’s end as dominant species on Earth through a rather close to reality tale of genetic research, systematic animal abuse and man-made woes Rise of the Planet of the Apes had one trump card up it’s sleeve in the form of every film fan’s favorite monkey man, Andy Serkis. The performance of Serkis as Caesar is as great as Gollem, if not better, and manages to make the transformation from genetically altered ape to leader of the uprising. With references to events from the saga (the loss of the spacecraft, characters on horseback and ‘that’ line of dialogue) it is both respectful and not afraid to subtly change some situations to make it all the more effective. The only criticism I have is the fact that the ending was re-shot to be happier. The original ending had Franco’s character be shot to death before a scene reflecting events earlier in the film would finish off the film. For Caesar to have the last emotional connection to human-kind ripped away from him would have made been more affecting and I hate the fact that the film was changed to be happier in the face of the near-extinction of the human race at the hands of the apes and their rather incompatible virus. Regardless of this I can’t think of many sequels that I enjoyed as much as Rise, especially given the other Apes mis-steps we’ve had to endure.

Finally we all drew straws and I lost so I have to be the one to do the ‘SHOUT GREGGS WITH US!’ video for the site – and I shall do it on New Year’s Eve, when – if all goes well – we will have the video clip timed to play just before midnight so that the cry of ‘GREGGS!’ is followed with a fireworks display on the telly and celebrations in the house! It’s an ambitious effort for sure, but one I’m sure will pay off. If not, I shall do one naked in my bath. So it had better be, for your sakes!

We at the Lolocaust haven’t been up to much writing recently, given that there are so many MUST PLAY NOW! games around and a shed load of summer blockbuster movies hitting Blu-Ray we are finding that the flat has been filled up from floor to ceiling with discarded food wrappers and carrier bags. Imagine our delight when we spotted this video featuring a bold as brass Greggs bag attempting to asphyxiate someone on the telly.  We have watched it so many times that we’ve invented a game.

Watch the video, and when the Greggs bag hit’s the bloke in the face you have to shout “GREGGS!” as loud as you can. First to shout out wins, but you can throw in this secondary rule involving the ‘Loudest wins’ trump card for those with huge lung capacity but slow reactions.

I’ll try to upload a video of us playing the game real soon. We encourage you to do the same. Come on readers, shout ‘GREGGS!’ with us.

I am going to be getting some made this weekend, including a one-off special filmed at my workplace (oooh, exciting). For now I will leave you with our personal top three.

(Imagine this next section is being narrated by Dave Lee Travis or someone suitably ‘radio’)

In at #3 is this little offering from a group of folks calling themselves ‘Megarom’ putting in a performance that is better viewing than most nights in the X-Factor world of ‘entertainment’.

At #2 we have a video shot outside Kings Cross in London proving that you don’t have to know a self-indulgent wanker to have something great.

Finally we have this GEM at #1, proving that a monkey outfit makes everything better!

Autodance is available now for Android and iOS devices for FREE! What better option than that eh? I will upload my ‘creations’ next week, and if you get round to making any let us know and we’ll feature them in a community post-up!

Bonus Video!

I have already Tweeted up another one that caught my attention, involving a tortoise and a leaf that looks like a bit of bacon, for those who aren’t following me on Twitter – for shame – here it is: