Instead of a post about occultism, for a change I will deal today with “Voodoo Statistics” (i.e. please don’t shout at me too much in regard to my methodology) – in order to answer the question, what are the Top 10 Countries in which market an ebook in the English language?
By my calculations they are (biggest potential market first):
This was sent through to me and I just had to share…
Recently I have noticed that my brother is swearing more than usual; I’m not just talking a little f word here or there I am talking a full on torrent of verbal abuse.
The target of all this swearing a video game, but not just any video game this is the hardest game in the world…
The game in question is called “I wanna be the guy” and it is hard.
I’m not talking “wow wasn’t that a tough game of Halo” or “man taking down the Lich King was hard” I am talking gouge your own eyes out in frustration hard.
There is no learning curve in this game, none - if you suck you die tough luck.
Boy will you die; you know how sometimes you are reading a book and the author will say that death was the protagonists only companion? Well gues what you get to experience that first hand! Death will need to take a holiday when he has finished with you.
So what is IWBTG about? Well it is fiendishly simple the game itself is a throwback to the halcyon days of the 8 bit platformer… think Mario, but with the difficulty on steroids and possibly PCP.
You run, you jump, you dive from platform to platform etc etc but something is missing, oh yes the parts where you die… a lot.
There are different difficulty settings on IWBTG but they don’t make the game easier in the conventional sense, nope that would be too kind, all the lesser difficulty levels do is increase the frequency of save points.
When I told one of my co-workers about this I was asked why I would choose to play a game that is so mind rendingly difficult?
My answer to him?
IT IS FUN!!!
Sure you die, a lot. Sure it is hard, almost too hard in places, sure some of the obstacles made me want to ram pencils up my nose and bang my head on the desk but it is FUN.
I loved just playing a platformer without any bells and whistles; it took me back to the innocence of my childhood back when all I looked for in a game was the ability to jump from group of blocky pixels to group of blocky pixels.
I can’t recommend this game enough, particularly if you like a challenge, an impossible, maddening challenge
http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/index.php
Enjoy 
I don’t normally review games and you will be pleased to hear that I haven’t deviated from that.
Luckily I have found a review that sums up exactly how I felt about Heavy Rain; unsurprisingly it is from a fellow countryman of mine the estimable, vitriolic Ben “Yatzhee” Crenshaw the angsty gentleman behind Zero Punctuation.
Here it is, enjoy:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1528-Heavy-Rain
I don’t think anything really needs to be said about this, a perfect combination of three of my favourite things; Queen, David Bowie and Muppets
My name is Tom and I am a gameaholic…
Unfortunately there isn’t really a 12 step program out there for video game addicts and even if there was I don’t think that I would be admitting to myself that I have a problem so thats step one buggered before we even start!
I do think it is possible that I do spend a bit too much time playing games though which is a start I guess. I came to this startling realisation yesterday although those who know me well will be chortling to themselves saying some realisation that is.
I realised that I spent my lunch break yesterday animatedly talking with a colleague and fellow addict about my strategy for championship manager; for those of you not familiar with champ man it is a variety of online crack that lets you pretend that you are the manager of a football team (I refuse to ever call football soccer)
That’s right it’s a game that lets you pretend you are involved in a game, but I love it! I have since I first laid eyes on it back in the heady days of Championship Manager 2 which I struggled to get going on my mighty 486.
Since then I have owned every version of the game that has been released even though by my own admission they are more or less exactly the same, but thats not the point, I need the up to date information and the realistic transfer prices etc etc.
I love championship manager so much that I have been working on my current file for 147 hours. That is just a few hours shy of two whole premiership seasons!!! The kicker is it’s not my only file I have another file with 50 odd hours.
Where have I found the time to play nearly 200 hours of a football management simulator since the new season began??
It doesn’t stop there either, if I was addicted to just one game it would be bad enough but it’s every game, well except the shit ones obviously! During my 200 hour footballing marathon I have also completed Halo Wars, replayed my way through half of GTA IV and clocked up about 20 hours on Soul Calibre.
I could understand if I was unemployed, single or worked as a games reviewer but I am none of those things. I have a girlfriend and work a 40 hour+ week as some form of emarketing bitch (even I can’t really quantify what I do)
It’s not solely video games either, my girlfriend will readily atest to the fact that when I’m not playing video games I want to play other games; scrabble, backgammon, cribbage, monopoly, risk, warhammer or d&d. It quite literally does not matter what it happens to be I am addicted to playing games.
I still don’t think I have a problem though 
I am sitting here in a state of total and utter shock.
Today is possibly the worst day ever, on a personal level at least.
It started normally enough, but then again day’s like this have a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it.
I had left my girlfriends and arrived at work as normal without any hassles what so ever, I would almost go so far as to say I hadn’t a care in the world. That all changed abruptly about an hour ago…
I had just taken a much needed break after having slaved away for 2.5 hours already and decided to check my email… big mistake.
My email and I have always been on fairly good terms, it doesn’t act as the harbinger of doom and I don’t pick up my tower case and boot it back to the stone age via an upstairs window, as you can see we had an arrangement, not anymore.
I was brought to my knees this morning on reading an email from a lady called Trisha, now I have never met Trisha or spoken to her before but she was writing to me from my bank in South Africa in relation to my account and I have no reason to disbelieve her.
It turns out that I have been rather remiss in keeping track of my finances, as a result my debit card with a balance of $1 million has expired and my funds have been frozen.
Well I was livid, I rely on this money hidden away on the other side of the world to keep me safe and secure in my old age or as a slush fund in case of a rainy day. How dare they freeze my funds just because my card has expired.
Luckily Trisha is an angel in disguise and had already looked into what I need to do to rectify the situation, she has sorted out all the paperwork I need to fill in to reactivate my account and can email it over to me directly, all I need to do is fill it out and send a copy of my passport and one hundred pounds to cover the admin fee. Boy was I ever relieved, the idea of losing this money literally had me breaking out in hives.
This was only the start of my bad day, It hadn’t occurred to me that it could worsen but it has, exponentially.
There was an email from my godmother, not that odd an occurrence, but normally she doesn’t call me dear friend so I figured straight away that something was up.
On reading the email I found out that something terrible has transpired and by terrible I mean dreadful.
My godparents and their four young children were the victims of a terrible ordeal, an ordeal that took place in the city that I dare to call home.
They were robbed at gun point in broad daylight. Some awful scumbag criminal types preyed on them because they were tourists, they threatened them with pistols and took all of their money, mobile phones and passports.
As if this wasn’t traumatic enough for them the hotel they are staying in has refused to let them leave without the bill being paid in full and the embassy is proving to be of no help to them at all.
Obviously I was really shaken up by this and wanted to help them in anyway I can so I followed the instructions in the email and wired them a couple of hundred euros to try and help them pay for food and accomodation etc.
All the time I was getting angrier and angrier about the scum that carried this out, obviously they are very clever and organised and must have followed the family for days in order to ascertain that they were tourists as their native London accents and intimate knowledge of the area must have nearly thrown them off on several occasions.
Getting more and more panicked about their safety I decided to call my godfathers parents who live in London to find out what the story was and also to find out why they hadn’t been able to do anything to help out their family.
Strangely not only is everyone ok but my godparents are safely at home in their huge mansion in Florida that they moved to about 5/6 years ago, obviously this set me thinking, how could they get home so soon? Had they received my money I sent etc…
Oh wait it was all a hoax…. I feel even worse now, how could this happen? There must have been some sort of mistake…. the internet wouldn’t let this happen would it? Surely no one would be sick and evil enough to use the power of the web for something other than good?
So here I am penniless, disillusioned and alone, still at least there is $1million dollars waiting for me in South Africa
