'All Must Have Prizes' Comes To Gaming?

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly when big-budget games started assuming that players were irredeemably stupid, but throughout the late 00s and 2010s it became more and more common to see obvious GPS trails showing you where to go, and for characters to talk to themselves to remind you what to do.

The ‘Guardian’ games critic has issues with the newest triple A Marvel game, ‘Wolverine’ not for the gratuitous violence, but because it’s too easy. 

Disclaimer, I haven’t played this and have no desire to, not that I’m averse to violent games where you stab and slash people to death at all, but I prefer not to do it face to face, some element of stealth is required for me. And that’s only if there’s no option to long-distance snipe from concealment!

I am not a game designer, but as a critic who loves challenging games and has thought a lot about them, for me there is a difference between a game’s difficulty and its friction. A game might be difficult for all kinds of reasons, intentional or otherwise: perhaps the controls or camera aren’t great; perhaps there’s a mid-game boss with a bafflingly massive health bar and one devastating unblockable attack; perhaps the balancing is off.

Oh, we’ve all played those - games with no auto save, where one wrong move sends you right back to the beginning to start over again. They are what the term ‘rage quit’ was invented for.

Games with perfect friction are clear about showing you what to do, but not overbearing about helping you do it: there is intentional distance, distance that you must broach with agency, strategy and skill. Friction leaves space for frustration and learning, and a sense of achievement.

A lot of modern blockbuster game design seems hellbent on removing this friction. Not sure where to go? Here – follow this brightly coloured trail of fart gas. Not sure how to climb that building? We’ve helpfully painted the ledges yellow. Have you stood still for 30 seconds? We’ll have another character talk in your ear and tell you exactly what you need to do.

Sounds odd, but it’s merely the attempt to help players finish the game, and a lot of helpful hints can be turned off in settings if you don’t need them. Did this critic even try that? 

At its best, game design like this helps players avoid becoming irrevocably stuck. At its worst, it totally removes agency and challenge – you know, the reasons that many of us play games in the first place. Fundamentally, a game is only fun if you have to do something. I don’t play games for passive entertainment. That’s what binge-watching Netflix is for.

Oh well, some people undoubtedly do play games for that, and it’s nice they have the choice…

I guess the games critic has escaped the stifling clutches of the ‘Guardian’s HR department’s in-house training, or he wouldn’t be criticising anything that made it easier for people with disabilities to enjoy something! 

The Only Thing They Do Efficiently Is Cover Ups

“Furious” patients and victims of disgraced brain surgeon Sam Eljamel have accused NHS Tayside of failing its duty of candour. It comes after the health board’s chief executive apologised for the destruction of logbooks relating to the surgeon.

Isn't that a crime? If it isn’t, perhaps it should be! 

Mr Eljamel was a consultant neurosurgeon at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee from 1995 until his suspension in December 2013. A public inquiry is taking place after patients of Mr Eljamel raised concerns that he had harmed as many as 200 people.

Ms Connor was appointed chief executive of NHS Tayside in 2024, after the Scottish Government announced a public inquiry would be held.During her tenure, the health board has come under fire after it emerged about 40 hard copy theatre logbooks linked to Mr Eljamel had been destroyed by NHS Tayside employees in 2025 – despite a “do not destroy” order that was issued by inquiry chairman Lord Weir in October 2024.

Not an accident in the paperwork-worshipping NHS…. 

An external investigation, undertaken by AAB, found there was “no malicious intent”, and instead said “inadequate” systems and processes contributed to the destruction of the logbooks.

Of course it did. They know how mark their own homework, ands how to cover up what their friends have done.

Ms Connor was questioned about the destruction of the logbooks at the inquiry on Wednesday, and she accepted the incident has “eroded trust and had a significant impact on patients”. She said: “The estimate of 40 was based off how many you could fit within a confidential waste bag, and how many waste bags we know were disposed (of),” she said. “We do not know the number of logbooks that were destroyed.”

A lie! No work is ever done in the NHS without bean-counters being involved.

She also denied it would be “fair” for patients to take the view the problems identified by the external report “bolster an impression that NHS Tayside involves itself in cover-ups”.

Not just ‘fair’, the only possible conclusion. 

Ms Connor also told the inquiry she accepts accountability for the logbooks’ destruction as the accountable officer for NHS Tayside, but said she does not accept personal responsibility. 

Of course she doesn’t. 

“I am not intending to resign as part of this,” she said.

Quite rightly. You should be sacked, and charged instead. 

Thank God They Weren't Issued Guns...

Mr Nicholls said the position of Sussex Police that it was 'coincidental' Mr Burgess's death occurred so close in time to the care home incident was wrong and violence he suffered may have had a 'causative' effect on his death.

Who was Mr Bugess? He was the 92 year old care home inmate and amputee that thsee thugs in uniform batonned, pepper sprayed and Tasered because he was holding a butter knife: 

What disgusting specimens of humanity...

 

With the result that he was admitted to hospital, caught Covid and subsequently died.

East Sussex Coroner Michael Spencer has adjourned the hearing and will decide at a later date on whether to hold a full inquest. Following the incident PC Smith was charged with two counts of actual bodily harm while PC Comotto was charged with one count. Last year both officers were cleared of charges of assault after a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Twelve jury members really thought that this was an appropriate use of force?  

The hearing has been adjourned until December 15.

Are the facts of this despicable incident going to be any different in a few month's time?  

And Unsurprisingly, He Said 'Me'

Pity a real journalist didn't ask that question.

That Palace statement, questioning Earl Spencer's account of the days after his sister's death, was a total contrast to its normal "never explain, never complain" mantra.

As we asked Earl Spencer: which Charles are we meant to believe?

Why, the one who has only progressed in his life by the deaths of the women in it, of course! 

First his wife, freeing him to do what he wanted with another man’s wife, and then his mother, granting him the title of king. 

That’s the sort of man who’d think little, if at all, of saying that to a grieving brother.

It's Changed Because Of The 'New Swedes', Martin

Last year, a baby named Emanuel was born in Sweden. Before his first birthday, his parents were told that Emanuel could no longer stay in the country. The department of migration ordered his removal, alone, to Iran – despite the ongoing war. Emanuel’s parents were legally in the country. They had Swedish residency permits, but the laws that allowed them to stay were tightened after the baby’s birth, and the family got sucked into a Kafkaesque maze of official hurdles, designed to limit migration to Sweden.

A 74-year-old British man with dementia was told to leave the country after 25 years. Another British man, on a generous World Bank retirement pension, was also told he was not welcome to reside permanently in Sweden because retirement money does not count as salary for the purposes of new income thresholds for migrants. The young, the old, vulnerable people, the wealthy: all are the target of harsh and often aggressive immigration policies. And Sweden’s leaders remain unyielding. “We cannot adjust the law based on each and every personal fate,” Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister, said, commenting on a series of hardline immigration decisions involving children.

Martin sees cruelty in this, but I see desire to save the Swedish nation from the oncoming blight that progressive fools like him have made of it.

Swedes vote in a general election on Sunday 13 September and, according to opinion polls, the centre-left opposition has a slight lead. But even if there is a change of government, many previously unthinkable far-right ideas are now comfortably embedded in the mainstream of Swedish politics.

It’s another thing to add to the list of ‘far right’ markers, the recognising of what unfettered immigration has done to a once pristine country, as encouraged by people like Martin, who of course didn’t stay to enjoy the results of his experiment.

The story of the transformation that now blights Sweden goes back to 2022, when the conservative bloc won that year’s Swedish general election, but only with a tiny margin.

It also launched an attempt to redefine modern Sweden, marking profound policy shifts on immigration, crime, climate and energy, schools and healthcare.

As a Swede who lived in the US for two decades, I was reluctant to admit that my birth country had changed.

Not as reluctant as you're proving to be to admit why it's changed, Martin.  

I brushed away alarming anecdotes as isolated cases, or a brief departure from the status quo. Surely, Sweden would remain itself, guided by the progressive, egalitarian and humanitarian ideals that defined the country and its public life – at least on the surface – when I was growing up.

There must be some way to blame others for this, if only you look hard enough? 

Only 15% of Swedes approve of Donald Trump. And yet ideas quite similar to Trump’s ethnonationalism now define much of contemporary Swedish politics, and are challenging our democratic foundations.

Yes, and for much the same reasons. 

If this authoritarian turn can be widely accepted so quickly in Sweden, where the democratic and humanitarian foundations were until recently solid, it can happen anywhere.

And will happen everywhere, as those who can’t afford to flee overseas like you, or don’t want to, start to fight back against the insanity inflicted on them. 

In just a few years, conservatives have distanced themselves from their two most recent prime ministers, Fredrik Reinfeldt and Carl Bildt, who advocated a more inclusive, centre-right liberalism.

Because such policies don't, can't, work in the face of sustained hostile immigtation from the Third World, and to even ptopose them thows into doubt your claim to be conservative.

This embrace of rightwing populism has also led to a departure from Sweden’s ambitious climate politics and a general turn away from scientific consensus.

Because the people have figured out that's a lie as big and ruinous  as the 'we need immigrants' one!

The Thing Activists Say 'Never Happens'?

Yes, it's happened again:

After being arrested, Maja S. was initially held in the women's section of the Bamberg prison in Bavaria. For the past five months, however, Maja S. has been in the men's section of the Stadelheim prison. The defense lawyer, Peter Dürr, told BILD: 'This is a serious burden in her daily life. She is whistled at during her exercise period, and physical examinations are always conducted by male officers.'

’She’ is nothing of the sort, of course, he’s a man! With a man’s interests and proclivities: 

Around 2,000 files containing child and animal pornography were found in the 55-year-old's possession, as well as a Kalashnikov rifle, according to the police.

The 6ft-tall former cop will likely face three and a half years in prison, according to Judge Andreas Bartschmid, in exchange for the confession.

Only three years?  Well, at least he’s going to the right prison this time!

This Amount Of Organisation And Planning, And Yet No Motive?

CCTV footage has captured the moment a 26-year-old man flees for his life from a teenager armed with a knife just minutes before he was stabbed to death. Afghan refugee Suliaman Tajzai, 18, of Welsey Road in Leeds, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday to murdering Farmanullah Sherzad in Westminster in March this year.

And because of the guilty pleas, no questions are being asked. No one seems to care why he did it. 

Footage published by the Metropolitan Police following Tajzai’s conviction has now revealed how the events leading up to the murder unfolded — beginning hundreds of miles away in Leeds. Wearing a blue, white and black jacket, Tajzai is seen entering a corner shop and calmly taking a knife from the shelf on Friday, March 27.He then approaches the counter, where CCTV captures him laughing and chatting with the cashier as he buys the item. Later that day, Tajzai travelled to London and waited outside Farmanullah’s address for him to return from work.CCTV footage then captures the moment Farmanullah sees Tajzai and attempts to flee, as the teenager gives chase armed with the knife he had bought earlier that day.Officers were called at around 10.15pm on March 27 after Farmanullah was found with stab wounds by a member of the public. Emergency services rushed to the scene, but despite their efforts, the 26-year-old was pronounced dead around 20 minutes later.

Seems as if thanks to technology, we know all the details, except the motive. This was not some random killing, this was a targeted one, with considerable planning involved.

CCTV footage later revealed that Tajzai had travelled to London in the weeks before the attack to scope out Farmanullah's home address and where he worked.

Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Jolley, who led the investigation, said:"While no outcome can undo the suffering caused by his death, we hope today's conviction provides some measure of closure and reassurance that the person responsible has been brought to justice."  "This is a devastating case in which a young man lost his life after being subjected to a brutal and senseless act of violence.

Tajzai is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on September 18.

He got life. Which means he’ll serve a few years and be released, and probably not be deported. So I think the motive should be investigated a little more thoroughly, don’t you?

What Did I Tell You?

 Mote details of Greta Gerwig's adaptation of the Narnia novels have been released over the weekend. And as predicted when I first heard about it, it's gone down like a sold cup of sick with fans of the beloved children's novels. 

Predictably, the luvvies are riding to Greta's rescue, scoffing at the idea that an artist has any responsibility to adapt a work of literature faithfully. But that’s not why she’s doing this, is it? This is why:

Will I watch it when it launches? Sure, because I always have the Disney versions to fall back on. They were perfect!

Of Course He's Vegan ...

The only surprise is it's taken him this long to announce it.

The actor has been on a tour to promote his new documentary, How to Live on Earth. “The irony is not lost on anyone,” he says. “We’re living in the results of climate breakdown so stepping outside is – literally – a call to action.”

What action? 

His film launches on YouTube this month and the actor hopes it is a “blueprint” for how we interact with our besieged planet in the future. It features Cumberbatch delivering monologues from the cavernous halls of the Natural History Museum in London, in between short films showing how activists, scientists and even chefs are learning a “new way to live on Earth” – one that could stop humanity damaging it.

Chefs? 

Cumberbatch has spent the last two decades trying to reframe his relationship with the planet: he’s tried to live more gently on Earth and became vegan. However, this was a problem during the shooting of The Courier, in which he plays captured British spy Greville Wynne, who languishes in a Russian jail. “They said, ‘You can’t have any fibre in the last two weeks. You need to eat lean meat.’ And I was like, ‘I’m vegan!’”

Once again, I’m reminded of Sir Laurence Olivier’s advice to Dustin Hoffman on the set of ‘The Marathon Man’

No fibre for two weeks must have been tough on the bowels? “Yes, it was, but it was much less than what the character I was portraying went through, because it was a true story.” Although he went straight back on the vegetables, the extreme diet caused his blood sugar to plummet and he became unwell. “People were saying, ‘You should think about eating a little bit of meat now, because your body doesn’t really work under these conditions – you’ve lost so much weight.’”

One must suffer for one’s art, mustn’t one? 

Now, Cumberbatch tries to source the meat he does eat ethically, opting for venison, which in the UK needs to be culled as the country has an overpopulation of deer.

So, he’s ditched veganism, but would he get a private jet? “No,” he says, but adds the caveat: “We just waste our energy if we’re naysaying and calling people hypocrites. The fashion industry is a bigger polluter than aviation, and the food industry massively. That’s all of us, that’s everyone.” Not just movie stars.

Well, after you! 

The 50-year-old has long been an environmental campaigner. He visited the Extinction Rebellion protests in 2019 and has been dismayed by the recent government crackdowns on climate protests, with long sentences given to people who have blocked roads and smashed windows for the cause. “We should have the right in a democracy to peaceful action, even if it is direct action,” he says.

Do you need a dictionary? Smashing windows and attacking police isn’t ‘peaceful’ and we don’t have ‘a right’ to it! 

Cumberbatch and company discuss some blue-sky thinking in the documentary, which to the jaded viewer could seem unrealistic.

Translation: to any normal human, not a dweller in the rarified atmosphere of the luvvies, will seem like unrealistic bollocks! 

“Nature that’s alive is actually far more valuable to us than dead nature,” Cumberbatch says. “So an elephant’s tusk is not worth as much as the elephant alive, in terms of what it brings to the savannah, to make the savannah work as an ecosystem.

Imagine what it’s worth to a trophy hunter, who will pay through the nose for the chance to shoot it, which will have to be done anyway when numbers get too high, because too many elephants destroy an ecosystem very efficiently.

Cash-Strapped Local Councils?

Give me a break! They seem to have plenty of money, so long as it's spent on politically correct foolishness:

Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home. The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.

So, a robot that's doing the job of a cheap laptop equipped with a webcam, eh? And it seems to only come in white.

There'll be calls for brown and black models before this thing has booted up, mark my words...

More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with 'emotionally based school avoidance', or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.

The robot was developed by Norwegian firm No Isolation, initially to keep children in hospital connected to their classrooms.

A noble cause, I wonder how they feel about seeing it put to use not to support genuinly sick children, but to pander to the latest fad diven by social contagion and weak parenting? Probably don't care so long as the money keeps rolling in... 

Last year Devon County Council bought 16 robots for pupils who struggle to attend because of 'worry, anxiety and overwhelm'.

The authority is one of at least 80 to have taken the AV1 since the Department for Education commissioned it in 2019. The robots are used for EBSA pupils in areas including Somerset, Dorset and Haringey and Islington in London, according to council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday.

 All areas with a large proportion of middle class ineffectual parents, I see....

The number of severely absent pupils with additional 'social, emotional and mental health' needs has more than tripled in six years, from 8,453 to 27,442. A record 151,000 pupils missed at least half their schooling last year, from a pre-pandemic low of 60,247.

Well, well, well, another side effect of the Covid insanity, eh?