Call me naive or innocent or gullible or whatever, but I was really looking forward to Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights. The cheeky wee Glasgow scamp was more or less single-handedly responsible for making Mock The Week watchable – which I'm aware isn't an exactly controversial view.
But what's less commonly realised is that the reverse is also true.
This'll while away an idle moment or two, should you have some lying around.
It's a hyper-modern techno version of the "Say What You See" iPod games that have swallowed entire mornings of WoSblog's time recently, featuring a gorgeous eBoy-style landscape with the names of 167 videogames from the 1980s to the present day concealed within it. (I've got 87 so far.)
(I'll give you an example to start you off – the one at the top right is Taito's classic 1985 shmup Tiger-Heli.)
Here's the odd thing. Everyone agrees there are videogame addicts. Using fairly standard terms of definition, numerous studies have shown large levels of addiction – this one, for example, claims that 3m players in the US alone are addicts. And yet, that same study also somehow concludes "it's not that the games are addictive".
So hang on – three million addicts addicted to something that isn't addictive? What's all that about, then?
Isn't it odd how the games industry and media (if we're still counting those as two separate things) constantly throw around phrases like "incredibly addictive" as terms of praise, yet as soon as anyone suggests games might actually be addictive they throw up their hands in horror, indignantly shriek "HOW DARE YOU?" and rush out angry press releases about how it's an outrageous load of rubbish and people should stop victimising them?
I'm just saying.
(Click for full size)
I especially love the line about "plunging Scotland into darkness for half the year", as if what our arbitrary human clocks say actually makes any difference to how much daylight there is.
Because when you've made your point, why pad it out with filler? I mean, we've all got stuff to be getting on with, right?
Apparently their gigs are 25 minutes long. Count me in.
See, told you it was more addictive than the full version. I've been playing it half the day to manage this stupendous feat of excellence.
"1 Friend" is a bit harsh, mind you.
This is an interesting one. After modest beginnings with unremarkable gravity game Blast Off, Halfbrick Studios exploded all over the App Store with their second game, the wonderful Fruit Ninja, and consolidated their success with the very respectable running-man effort Monster Dash.
The latter two games were both simple arcade titles that did exceptionally well at the 59p price point, but having made a name for itself the developer has now created something slightly more substantial and released it into the significantly more premium £1.79 range.
Weirdly, they've also decided to give a slightly better game away for free.
*I reviewed this for Podgamer recently, giving it a substantial amount of praise but bemoaning the crucial absence of leaderboards. The game was just updated with Game Centre support, so it's well worth a reprint.
Namco have already had a stab at a colour-matching action-puzzler, in the shape of Pac-Match Party. It came out five months ago and some people are still playing their first game, so the company's gone back to the drawing board and tried to come up with something that would offer at least a modicum of challenge to a sleepy toddler.
This new iPhone/iPod version is a shrunk-to-fit remake of the original iPad release, which explains why it's called Pac-Chain Compact.
Driver for iPod/iPhone, free today for 24 hours only.
(Remember, kids – download this stuff to your iTunes library now while it's free, even if you don't currently have an iThing. You might one day.)
WoSland – now at wosland.podgamer.com
