Welcome to the Observation Blog

This is The Observation Blog. It is the window on the internet into the world of me, Jimmi Cottam. From the bizarre and strange to the true and delightful, here lies stuff that goes on around me. And this is my chance to get my opinion out there because anyone can write a blog and put it up on the internet. You could say this is what I do when I get bored but in some ways...wait, yeah. It is. But seriously, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and have a goosey...I'm not stopping you from seeing the broad spectrum of what an "ordinary" person sees and goes through day in and day out. Have fun and enjoy!

Monday 11 February 2013

So I bought Dead Space

It's been a while since I've been on here (September 2011, apparently)! Me and my girlfriend Kat have started our own joint effort weblog project The Reviewinators, I made my first post to there and now I am uploading it to The Observation Blog! This is my encounter with Dead Space.


I will obviously keep spoilers to a minimum; we know how much we don’t like them.

Recently, I had been thinking about getting a first-person shooter for my PlayStation 3 as a means of verging away from just playing driving and racing games. I bought this up with Kat and she recommended that it could be a good idea, as long as I stayed away from any Call of Duty game. I thought this was understandable as I think I’d only get a Call of Duty game if I really had to and if it was insanely cheap. Going through lists of potential contenders, she mentioned that she watched someone else play Dead Space a few years ago. Although it is a third-person shooter rather than a first person shooter, it does have guns, explosions and action and so it ticks all the right boxes to be an enjoyable game. Seeing as Dead Space 3 has recently been released, I decided to look into it a little bit on Wikipedia before venturing out and what I read sounded alright. Browsing through the High Street chains that weren’t closing down, Kat and I looked to see if we could find anything that resembled a good shoot-em-up, but we weren’t initially looking for Dead Space. I browsed over the original Borderlands, Far Cry II and even F.E.A.R as they all seemed to be high on action but they seemed a bit out of my budget in the case of the first two or weren’t favoured well in reviews in F.E.A.R’s case. We carried on searching through the second hand shops until I came across, lo and behold, Dead Space for a bargain £5.99 in Chatham’s branch of Cash Converters. I asked more about it from Kat and she said it was terrifying. Not knowing whether this is because my girlfriend has a low tolerance for anything remotely scary, or that it was genuinely pants-wettingly horrific I was hesitant. So what was I to do? Go with what Kat says and miss out on potential bargain. Or spend the night awake reliving the terrors that she foretold me about? 

Bugger...!

We got back and rather than sliding the disc into the PS3 as soon as I possibly could, I thought I would look up a review or two. Gaming news and review website GameSpot gave it a rather high 9 out of 10 in 2008 and Metacritic has the PS3 version marked in the realms of 88 out of 100, which shows it must be a very good game. Reading over the GameSpot review, I started to feel the surge of fear and regret even more as I glanced through their article. Here are some quotes that stuck with me:

“something terrible has happened”

“preserving the horror experience”

“grunts of pain”

“feign death among the corpses of their peers to rise up and attack when you least expect it”

“Even more alarming than their ghastly appearances and uncouth manners is the fact that they are quite intelligent”

And, even more terrifyingly;
“it can continue trying to eat your face”

Oh dear. Never the less, I decided to see why it was rated so highly but was still adamant on playing a nice game like Flower or Eufloria. But no, Kat wasn’t having any of it. She wanted me to play this £6 blood-orgy to see what it was like and to see if it lived up to what she could remember. Or she wanted to see me soil myself and poke fun of me. Of course, it wasn’t until after we got it back from Chatham that she told me things tend to ‘jump out’ and that you have to ‘watch your back’ which made me feel a lot better about returning it and getting my money back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cheap scares. They are and can be genuinely funny. But the way she was describing it to me wasn’t coming across as funny. It coming across as terrifying. I had unwittingly bought a survival horror game…

So, I started the game and made a new profile for the save data. The first cut scene started and immediately the living daylights were pulled out of me by the vibration of the Dualshock resting on the case… Yeah, this wasn’t going to be my thing, I thought. To cut a long story relatively short, you play as Isaac Clarke, an engineer on-board a mining ship called the USG Ishimura. It receives a distress call from Concordance Extraction Corporation (CEC) and naturally, the crew of the Ishimura go to see what all the fuss is about on-board the recently crashed and seemingly abandoned USG Kellion that was dispatched by the CEC and malfunctioned as it came into dock on the Ishimura. Isaac space-suits up and he and the crew begin searching the wreck. This serves the tutorial level to get used to the controls, which are actually for a game of this calibre, very simple and there is a lot of help to get you started. For example, pressing R3 shows a navigational line to follow to the next objective which is very handy as there is no traditional head up display or map to follow. The map, inventory and useful tidbits of information are bought up as a hologram in front of Isaac. This also includes video and audio logs, computer screens and various interactive parts that you come across as you venture through the horror. This first bit was fine. It didn’t look like a survival horror game at all. It looked like a cross between Red Dwarf set in the same distant future of WipeOut. However, I was thinking why did we, of all people, have to go towards the distress call? Why didn’t we just fly past the world and go to a nice beachy moon that has two suns and many alien bartenders serving alien martinis? In fact, I would have rather bought Alien Bartenders, had it been a real game but Dead Space was the game I bought so I duly had to carry on.

After getting to grips with the controls, you eventually get onto looking at a computer screen in a small room to find out the status of the ship you have just boarded. When everything seems fine, a lock-down of the area happens. Orange lights begin to flash and you, as Isaac, cannot escape this room as the crew outside begin to panic. You can only look on in horror out of the windows as something drops out of the ceiling. Between the slow strobe of the warning beacon and the darkness, we see one of the crew being horribly eaten by a mutated, clawed thing as blood splatters onto the window whilst the rest of the crew start to open fire and run away. The only way out is through another door in the room, thus separating Isaac from the crew. This shook me up quite badly as I had no idea what was to come next. The flashing lights and the discordant music only added to the drama. As you run down the corridor, things only get worse. You were being followed by one of these things, that we have all come to know and love as Necromorphs which are the mutated remnants of the Kellion’s crew. Isaac takes a beating and manages to get into the safe haven of a lift. The doors shut out the Necromorph and all is calm until it tries to break in again and eat the soft squishy stuff in Isaacs head. This was really ‘new pants’ territory! I just knew it was going to happen… The Necromorph however is no match to the heavy lift doors and so as they slam shut, limbs fly all over the encloses space as blood rains all around. The lift opens up onto a new floor and even more disturbingly, a dead body. Learning that the Necromorphs can feign death and that things can pop out, the corpse made getting the first weapon, the Plasma Cutter, a whole lot more distressing. I unwittingly used all the ammo and Isaac’s right boot to make the corpse was actually dead. I’ll admit I was a bit confused as to what to do and at this point and I really wanted to stop playing this and put on a different game that wasn’t going to scare the bejesus out of me. The blood-curdling screams overheard in this room were not nice; to say the least and I had no idea how to get out. Luckily - after about six minutes of franticly looking around and panicking like a headless chicken, whilst have a small meltdown thinking that the guy in the corner was going to rear up and attempt to ingest me - the clue was right under my nose. The doors opened and, say it wasn’t so; another Necromorph was outside the door eating another dude’s face. And yes, he wanted seconds! Having no ammunition, I had to resort to using the R1 function to beat the living snot (or Necromorph equivalent to snot) out of the mutated-face eater with the Plasma Cutter. It eventually went down dropping ammo and credits, because, y’know, these were people once upon a time. And now they resemble something between a zombie and very hungry praying mantis.

It was horrible. But, you know what? It was very satisfying. It was gross. But it was brilliant. It is a bit of a gore-fest and if you don’t mind that then this game can be very addictive. The mechanic is actually pretty cool too. For example, the Necromorphs will not back down under a shot to the head or torso, as you would expect a zombie or a Nazi to. It requires you to dismember their limbs with the array of weapons at your disposal. They’re a bit unorthodox as guns when you think about it; however they do the job very well. As you progress, you can upgrade your weapons, armour – or RIG (Resource Integration Gear) - and inventory just as upgrades work in other video games. Credits can be used to buy more weapons, health packs, statis packs, oxygen refills and lots more items found in the store that will help fight through the waves of undead space zombies. You can also keep your items in the stores safe, leaving it for later when you may need it rather than clogging up your inventory, which after the amount of pickups you find, you will have to make room for. If you want to get rid of them altogether, you can sell them for credits to spend on better weapons or something that will come to be a better use.

There are a lot of useful abilities too that build up some interesting puzzles. The statis packs you encounter give you the chance to slow down time to either attack a Necromorph or get through jamming doors; kinesis lets you pick up objects to clear a path and gives you the capability of throwing them at the undeaded; zero-G lets you stick to surfaces and leap from one wall to another when gravity is taken out of the equation. And these can all be put together to create conundrums that leave you standing around thinking what to do but having to remember that you could be eaten at any moment. All the guns and weapons have a primary and secondary fire mode too. The Plasma Cutter can be fired either horizontally or vertically, depending on which Necromorph limb you want to slice off. The Line Gun fires a larger area burst of energy than the Plasma Cutter but can also deploy a mine that goes off after a few seconds. I found this out the hard way as the shiny blue object it fired out looked too enticing not to check out. Yep, cue an explosion and Isaac flying onto his back. Oxygen and statis can also be replenished at various stations dotted around the ship. Save points come thick and fast so you can always save your progress as you carry on. If you’re looking for one, there will be one around the corner and hopefully not being guarded by a Necromorph

It does make for a very interesting game. It is terrifying because you don’t know what is around next corner and the visual and sound add to a fantastic bone-chilling atmosphere which is stunning. Lights flicker on and off and walking around can trigger a quarantine lock down, which normally means something is going to happen. You normally see Necromorphs moving in the darkness but aren’t necessarily sure as to whether it is actually what you think it is or whether it is some poor chaps mutilated remains still twitching. Either way, they’re going to be either stomped on or de-limbed. Level two, however did not favour well with me. After going through the labyrinth of corridors, part of the mission required me to remove a blockade from the medical unit of the ship. Seeing as I don’t particularly like medical things, I thought this was right up my alley. Walking around, seeing remains of the people who looked like they were half way through surgery is very unnerving. There’s one section where you watch the Necromorph tear into someone and actually turn into one and another where you hear the heavy dull thud of something banging on metal only to discover it’s one of the demented crewmembers banging his noggin on a wall, only to watch him collapse in a pool of his own fluids as you get closer to him. It is a scary game without a doubt. But you can take it with a pinch of salt. It is actually rather funny if you allow it be, in much the same way a ghost train at a fair is funny. Quite a few times I would burst through doors, aiming in anticipation shouting ‘c’mon you mother-flipper! Let’s be avvin’ yer!’ and shrieking ‘ahhhhh, kill it with fire!’ as I blast a horrible scorpion like beast with the Pulse Rifle or Flame Thrower. The ragdoll physics are sometimes laughable too. As you walk over or continue to dismember the dead, the bodies normally leap around uncontrollably. It can be hilarious watching the dead Necromorph bouncing down the corridor but also discomforting because when you do it unintentionally you do think it’s still alive. And so you unleash your weapons full force on what is essentially nothing “wasting” valuable ammunition (I use the quotation marks because making sure the thing is dead is not wasting in my book). And when they do attack you when you let your guard down, boy do they go for it. The cinematic is gruesome but hammering ‘X’ can make you fight off the snarling creatures and drop kick them in a shower of blood and gore. I have only played about two hours through the story and I have gone from being tempted to take it back because I didn’t want the pleasure of knowing what happens next (I even went as far to say to Kat that I won’t be buying a game on her recommendation again) to changing my opinion entirely (and also retracting my statement). I have come to accept my fate. I am going to work my way through fighting these horrible things and hopefully I should emerge the other side a better person. Or white as sheet unable to close my eyes at night. And herein lies the problem; I see it getting much worse in the process. Well, Necromorphs… Let’s be avvin’ yer!

Oh, and another thing. If at all you do buy Dead Space, I can assure that it will be worth it especially if you can find it for £5.99 or less because it is a lot of game for not a lot of money. Amazon has it for about twelve quid currently, but I would recommend you look around Cash Converters, CeX or even at the pre-owned deals in GAME. GAME currently have it for about £8 pre-owned online and you can even download it off Steam currently for £9.99 if console gaming isn’t your thing. I urge you to play it because it is a quite a different gaming experience which, if you’re like me and seem to be only tied down to one genre, you will come to know it and even love it. It is no wonder then why it was rated so high and received countless awards and the atmosphere it creates is very immersive which makes it very reminiscent of sci-fi horror films like Alien or The Thing. The original has created some sort of a legacy and as a result Dead Space 3 has rocketed into the UK Gaming Charts at number one! However, if you do get scared by the sound and visuals (the sound was highly praised by critics) then follow this simple tip. Just turn the music volume down, turn on the subtitles and (even if you own it then try it anyway) play some cool Jazz in the background. I can tell you the experience I had it will be a lot better and more relaxing if you’re a bit faint hearted; it changes the situation of waiting for something to jump out at you into something almost bearable. Everything is a lot better when done to Jazz. Including killing space zombies! I might have to try that whilst playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I’m petrified that even Jazz won’t do the Redead justice. Man, are they screwed up!
You can read the original GameSpot review here by clicking this handy link*
You can also read the original blog post on The Reviewinators here by clicking this equally handy link

*Links open in a new window

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Kids With Stupid Names

Your name. People use it but you don't. You are stuck with it for life. You CAN change it but it won't be the same; to your mum, dad, family and close friends, you'll be that and that only. You can, like me, go by a variant which can ultimately suite your persona better (I personally think 2 'M's and 2 'I's over 2 syllables are funkier. It is also fun for me to sign my name). I know a few people who have names that you only come across very often. My father for example. It's a unique name to him and the people he knows probably don't know of another person with his name. And besides, he's not a kid anymore so his name is exempt from this list. I've been working as a party host and with it comes a great load of paper work and not a lot of money. Within the paper work, we have invitations and in there is a chance for a brilliant wheeze at names alone. Because I had to sort out stickers, I got a chance to look through the names of all these kids ridiculed by their own name. Maybe it's a common thing or maybe I have a one dimensional sort of humour...It's the former, I know.

Celebrity Kids with Stupid Names
Because you're famous and have lots of money you can do almost do whatever you want, buy whatever you want, whenever, all of the time. You can buy a yacht and bury it and no one would think you're a window licker because you are famous and have a bank account full of bullion. HOWEVER, because you are in the public eye, it doesn't mean to say you can go around naming your children what the bleeding hell you like. Because, the famous people who do, look like window lickers. You can look through any internet site and find a mass of stupid names from celebrity parents. The Beckhams, the Geldofs and the Zappas. Go have a look; I just don't want to be blatantly copying other sites.

So what if you aren't a window-licking celebrity?
Well, put simply you're just a window licker but in the general public. These sorts of people like to give their children tasteless, despicable names. It would be a pretty lousy entry to the blog if it just consisted of link to another website. So, I did my own research. Here are just some of the most awful, nasty names given to children I have seen in the long 2 months of working at this place.

Garvey - This name was found and I stumbled when I saw it. I thought someone had got the wrong end of the stick and put the surname in the where it said 'child's name' on the form but I checked over when it was first booked and to my surprise, it was there as well. Garvey doesn't sound like a particularly intelligent name on both the child and parents side. It's like they couldn't agree on Gary or Harvey so they stuck them both together to create this. Why did they stick the wrong ends too? They could have gone with the HAR of Harvey and the RY of Gary to create HARRY!
*Note: Garvey actually means 'Rough Piece' which is a fantastic name for child!

Scarlotte - And it isn't just the boys either. In the Lincolnshire Echo, they run a yearly competition for best baby photos or something, and I was flicking through, inspired by these silly names and I tried to find the silliest. And I did! It just looks like very poor spelling when you merge Charlotte and Scarlett. Maybe they thought that because they both rhyme, it wouldn't be a problem. Well, I'm telling you, it is. You don't spell Scarlett like that. The most ambitious you get with the name Scarlett is by adding the extra T to turn from the colour red, into a name. Just ask Scarlett Johansson. Again, like it's been badly welded together. By a blind man! And speaking of misspelling...

Rylee - There's spelling differently and then there's spelling it wrong. Jimmi is spelt differently to Jimmy but both are acceptable. But I don't spell my name Jymmee. Mainly because it just looks like I've fallen asleep on my keyboard but mostly it looks like it should be pronounced 'Jiymee.' It should be spelt Riley; you can see the how the name is composed. With Rylee, it looks like someone has an idiotic parent who thought two E's are better than an e and a y. So that must mean they use the words Jockee, Hokee Cokee, Lacee, obee and quite aptly Loonee.

Fflyr - This first looked like another keyboard/insomnia event. Then I thought it was a Welsh name so I hit good old Google to try and find in a list of names. I was surprised that even Google was struggling. It so desperately wanted to look for 'flyer.' I don't even know how it's  pronounced. I want to say 'fler' but now Google has got the idea into my head, I can't stop seeing Flyer.

Destiny - Destiny is probably the backbone of Horoscopes which I discovered are a load of boswellox. Miley Cyrus' real name is Destiny Hope which is basically Billy Ray thinking 'Believe and hope this is gonna work out.' Besides, I don't believe in Destiny, as I found out...

Cordillia - On the party list, this name was down as Cordy. It wasn't a misspelling so it wasn't Cardy or Curdy or Gordy as I thought. Turns out it was short for Cordillia which I think sounds like the most upper class name ever. Not Cordelia, with an e, this is Cordillia with an I. And that changes the pronunciation completely. Again like Flyer, Google desperately wants to find Cordelia. And now it, and the fact Google can't find her, is going to be the bane of her life for ever. Cordy really does sum impressions of a gadget that keeps your computer cables untangled and tidy.

Templar - Aren't they Knights? Templar is supposed to be a boys name symbolising 'Temple'. Great...People named after head components. So, soon expect the family to be joined by Forehead, Crown, Nape and Cranium.

Summer and Autumn - Going back to the Lincolnshire Echo thing, I found there was an unsettling rise in babies and young kids with the names Summer and Autumn. Summer is a sunny season; the sunniest, so maybe that will be reflected in the kids personality. Still doesn't mean it should be done. Autumn is worse because it's the changing from Summer into Winter. Maybe the parents of this particular child were thinking that the name Autumn could reflect their child's personality, like Summer. They think Autumn is about the colours, the serenity, the calm. More like the calm before the storm! Autumn is colder than Summer. Autumn has more rain. Autumn has more cold days. Autumn also has lazier days and earlier nights. And then there's the fact that Spring and Winter don't even get a look in. I mean why not? People are clearly using two months, why not use the other two? "Winter! Your dinner is ready!" Or "come down stairs, Spring!" Imagine if they had 4 kids all named after seasons. That'd get confusing. "Summer, you can't go outside because Winter is playing outside. You two always fight. You can play with Spring and Autumn because they're closer to you than Winter. Winter's a bitch anyway. She destroys the roads, closes the schools and bursts water pipes. Although Summer does have a habit of burning people..." like the serial arsonist that kid is clearly going to grow up to be.

So, if you're going to take any of my information and any insight from my highly intelligent blog post*, then take this: don't be a window licker if you're not a celebrity. If you are, then them windows aren't going to lick themselves!

Sunday 4 September 2011

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Picture Showcase: Gran Turismo 5


BUGATTI 16.4 VEYRON vs ASTON MARTIN DB9

Monday 6 June 2011

An overview of Picture Showcase - What to expect

In my haste to get some new content onto this blog, I have decided to something I like to call Picture Showcase's. With these, I intend to upload pictures to the blog to literally show them off. Why? Because I can. These will be windows into my life and what I get up to. I originally thought up the idea when I wrote a post on innovative ideas that I was going to add to the blog for the new year. I thought about using pictures to aide a story along but now that I've thought about it, pictures could be used in any fashion, it doesn't have to be linear. I can also apply these to things like my adventures and trips around the world, or realistically, the local area. Either way, this will show the world what happens when you give me the chance to upload my camera snappings onto the internet! And maybe some extras. Watch this space!

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Jesus vs Zombies - Part Six: Revelation

"You're safe..." Jesus boomed with a smile on his face. "It's okay!"
"H...how did you that?" asked John.
Jesus carried on. "Well Serpent, it was simple really - just a bit of help from my dad - We slayed the zombies with Prayer. I figured if I could do with the evil, soulless Romans surely I could do it with zombies. Looks like it payed off."
The zombies just stood there and people came out to thank the Lord and his team of brave men.
"What are we to do with these zombies," Hashabniah asked Jesus.
"You leave it to me" he said...

And so, people had lived through the zombie outrage and they were happy.


Lots of people where happy...


In fact many people were happy that the zombies had stopped eating people.


But out of all the happy people, the happiest was Jesus. He managed to use his powers in a good way and not in a brutal bloodbath no matter how fun it is killing the undead. He changed the way of the zombies without deathly force. Don't worry; I don't think there's a moral to this story. But if there is, it should be 'if you're a zombie, don't mess with Jesus.' So what actually happened to the zombies left over? Well, people were still a little scared at first but Jesus, with the help of God, managed to give them another chance at life and the people started to accept them and become their friends.


Some, however felt that having a zombie in the family (or even worse, two) made them feel uneasy.


Uneasy but still acceptable in one form or another. Other zombies had goals and aspirations and took part in various activities that turned them from the nasty, brain eaters they were into nearly, normal people with rotten flesh. They became proactive in things like playing tennis...


Or joining bands...


And other fun hobbies...


Others got suited and booted up and tried to find a job...


...many of which getting to the interview stage. Jesus and Matthew also set up a self help group for the zombies to stop them having urges to return to their past states. 


And these events were also turned into a hit blockbuster movie...The Life of Brains

But all in all, Jesus found this his calling. He liked helping the zombies as much as they used to like eating brains. Nazareth was never the same again though and is always on high alert when something kicks off. Last Tuesday, Jesus thought there was another disturbance and so gathered the New God Squad to see what the problem was. Turns out it was only a group of chavs and they were soon sent on their way, but who knows what will happen in this world. Jesus was lucky the day the zombies came but sometimes he thinks that it may happen again. He's constantly on the lookout. The zombies of Nazareth though are relieved at what happened and how quickly they got accustomed to their surroundings. They got a chance to live their dreams and live full stop. Now everybody loves zombies and it was the greatest time ever and it was all thanks to Jesus, God and The Disciples. It just goes to show, even with the right backing, if you turn into a zombie intent on killing and maiming the human race, there is always someone out there who is willing to put it all right. This man in the sunglasses...


AMEN

Saturday 21 May 2011