Orwell's Newspeak in Today's Society

The following is a video blog about the presence of Orwell's Newspeak in today's society. I'm not quite sure why the video has cut my head off but still here it is:

2009 in Review: My Top 10 Games of 2009

10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Surprisingly good game for a movie tie-in. Very gory violence and fast gameplay. It has its flaws but overall it’s a very fun game and just about makes it into my top 10 of 2009.

9. 1 Vs 100

I know it’s free and what not but that doesn’t take anything away from it. 1 Vs 100 has put the Xbox 360 on the map as the most sociable console ever. A real life game show that thousands of people take part in every night that anyone can play. Genius.

8. Prototype

Brutal combat, massive open-world, a variety challenges and quite satisfying gameplay. One of the forgotten and perhaps also underrated games of 2009.

7. Resident Evil 5

Amazing co-op game, one of the best out there. Sometimes it doesn’t flow as well as you’d like it to but nonetheless a great addition to the Resident Evil franchise with a lot to do and collect too.

6. Borderlands

Not the best RPG around and certainly not the best FPS, but a fresh combination of them both and it plays very well in up to 4 players co-op. Overshadowed by a few bigger releases at the end of 2009, Borderlands was one of the best games last year.

5. Trials HD

Arcade game of the year. Also potentially the most addictive and frustrating game you will ever play. One of the most fun arcade titles out there. Trials HD will have you smashing up controllers left, right and centre.

4. Left 4 Dead 2

A really polished game. A massive improvement on the first game and a lot more fun. Each campaign has its own style and the new infected and addition of melee weapons keeps things fresh. Left 4 Dead 2 never loses its appeal.

3. Batman: Arkham Asylum

The first really good Batman game. Complete with a fantastic story, all of Batman’s gadgets and a lot of batmospshere, this game is a massive ode to the comic book character. After the let down of the pathetic Joker boss fight there’s still plenty more to do, solving all the riddles and beating the game’s incredibly hard challenge mode.

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Enough said. It didn’t get my number one spot because of the quality of the single player compared to AC2. Spec Ops are fun but awfully challenging and obviously nothing can compete with the multiplayer, which is so much bigger and better this time round.

1. Assassin’s Creed II

Improved on the first one in so many ways, especially the combat, there are so many more cool assassinations to do and there is so much to do in general this time round. The single player experience is phenomenal and I didn’t want it to end at all, there was no other game that did that for me this year. Thank god for DLC.

Review: Lostprophets - The Betrayed

Nearly four years after their previous release, ‘Liberation Transmission’, welsh boys Lostprophets are back with their fourth studio album. After scrapping an album’s worth of “trainwreck” material in 2007 (as described by Ian Watkins himself), the now self produced ‘The Betrayed’ is finally set to be released on 18th January 2010.

On the 7th of January a group of fans and media types queued in the bitter cold to listen to the new album, followed by a Q and A session with Ian Watkins himself.

Back to the album, which is a bit of a mix itself. On the album you find your very typical Lost Prophets melodies mixed with heavier riffs and the trademark pop choruses. Don’t be put off by the more pop and sing-along choruses of first two singles from the album, ‘It’s Not The End Of The World But I Can See It From Here’ and ‘Where We Belong’ as ‘The Betrayed’ is as much a rock record as much as it is a pop record.

“If It Wasn’t For Hate We’d Be Dead By Now’ is the perfect start to the album. It’s a slow dark track with epic drums that really set the tone for the album. Ian Watkins said that the name of this first track does sum up the band, that they would be dead had it not been for hate – odd, but quite possibly true. Nothing can then prepare you for the second track ‘Dsrtyr / Dstryr’. It is by far the heaviest track on the album, the guitars are raw, the vocals are screamed in a speakerphone way and the verse is also reminiscent of Rage Against The Machine. It’s one for the old school Lostprophets fans and kicks off the album in a very aggressive style. ‘Next Stop Atro City’ later in the album continues the fast aggressive tone with similar vocals and new drummer Luke Johnson (ex Beat Union) showcases his talent with incredibly fast drumming on this track.

Similar to the band’s second album ‘Start Something’, there are a variety of interludes between songs, this was something that was not seen on ‘Liberation Transmission’. The most notable interlude is between ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Felon’ and ‘A Better Nothing’, made up of eerie synths it sounds similar to the Doctor Who theme or something off the latest Muse album. ‘A Better Nothing’ doesn’t really have anything special about it and just sounds like a standard Lostprophets song.

The track ‘Streets of Nowhere’ is not a million miles away from anything on ‘Liberation Transmission’ and with its incredibly poppy chorus it sounds somewhat similar to ‘Can’t Catch Tomorrow’ from that album. ‘The Betrayed’ also has that cliché end of rock album epic song, it’s called ‘The Light That Burns Twice `As Bright…’ and it is a perfect ending to the album, with piano constant throughout but I can’t help thinking that it sounds a little bit like Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’.

‘The Betrayed’ is a big improvement on Lostprophets last studio release and is definitely the most diverse record that they’ve ever produced. The trademark blend of rock/pop that these welsh boys seemed to have perfected will have you singing along for a long time to come yet!

A little bit more about me - My bio for The Daily Informer

Hi, I’m Paul and I have an opinion on almost everything. Mac, Blackberry and Xbox 360 user. I am a journalism student in my second year at the University of Winchester. I have had a keen interest in writing since a very young age and affirmed this as a definite career choice by choosing to do a degree in journalism. Aside from writing I am interested in all sorts of new technology, and always have to have the latest gadgets. (Did someone say geek?) I am also an avid Xbox 360 gamer. My favourite game of all time has to be Bethesda’s 2008 masterpiece, Fallout 3. I am also a big fan of first person shooters (isn’t everyone?), the Call of Duty series, the Left 4 Dead series and BioShock, to name just a few of my favourites. I am also interested in a wide range of music; I don’t particularly class music in to genres and will give anything a listen once. My favourite band of all time is Brand New and I’ll thrash you at Sowing Season on Guitar Hero 5.

Emile Zola - Germinal

Emile Zola is said to the first ever investigative journalist and a great realist writer. It could be argued that realism was started by Charles Dickens. Again realism is where journalism becomes an art,; it is highly realistic writing that paints a picture like a photograph, but before photographs were invented.

Germinal is a women driven narrative and describes the social inequality that miner's used to suffer through portraying experiences through realism, for example the mining disasters where miners were crushed under land. Germinal takes its name from this, the miners are crushed into the ground like seeds then they germinate in a new world.

Zola has been described a the greatest realistic writer ever and in Germinal there is a very long description of one of the miners trying to climb out of a mine but the only way out is climbing up an iron razor blade ladder. This descriptive sections spans pages and creates a fantastic sense of atmosphere. In other work by Zola, Therese Raquin has a part when an autopsy is described for about four pages, it is extremely detailed and this type of realism could be compared to a fly on the TV show.

Germinal explores the politics of anarchism and this links to Nietzche who said that violence is always good. Social inequalities as described in Germinal aren't allowed to happen now but as has been seen in the past when there is a social inequality is almost always results in violence. For example the French revolution, there was a social uprising and the poor people beheaded members of the French aristocracy in 1789.

John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath

Grapes Of Wrath is often described as a work of journalism even though the characters in it are fictitious. As far it is being an acceptable form of journalism, it does have many characteristics of journalism. For example, it was written for effect like campaigning journalism, it is very quote heavy and gives a voice to the voiceless. It also bridges the gap between journalism and art.

Grapes Of Wrath was seen as very controversial in its time because it portrayed an unreal situation, no one thought the conditions that the immigrants had to live in were that bad. In fact it turns out that that the conditions that the immigrants were forced to live in were actually worse than described in Grapes of Wrath. It is also a very descriptive book as this style of visual writing was popular in journalism at the time in the wake of photography.

The context of Grapes Of Wrath is the great depression and it is based on fact and essentially it is propaganda. I don't think Grapes of Wrath can be considered as a work of journalism but I do think that it is a work a journalism in the sense that it was written in a journalistic style for effect.

George Orwell - 1984

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

In 1984 it is said that control of language by an authoritarian regime can control behaviour and even thought itself. This a very strong idea that i feel is too present in today's society. The theory behind controlling language is that if you can remove a word then you can remove that thing and if you can change a word then you can change the way people think. People won't be able to think something if there is no word for it. An example in 1984 is sex being renamed 'sex crime', labeling sex as a crime so that no one will do it.

The new dictionary in 1984 is called 'newspeak' and in changing the language it also planned to eradicate certain words from the english language. The concept's in this book are so advanced for Orwell's era and even ours. He could even be described as literacy's Einstein. The bureaucracy controls the facts and therefore whatever they say people will believe, for example, peace is war and love is hate. There is also the example in the book of when O'Brien (main antagonist) holds up four fingers and Winston (main protagonist) says he can see four then O'Brien says: "And if the party says that it is not four but five - then how many?", Winston says he can still only see four and is tortured until he truly believes that O'Brien is holding up five fingers.

If anyone opposes the bureaucracy and commits a crime or even a 'thought crime', just thinking about something that is not allowed, the they can be killed and all evidence that they ever existed will be destroyed. This again goes back to the bureaucracy controlling all facts because they can wipe away any evidence of anyone's existence.

Language is a very powerful weapon and it is shown how powerful it can be in 1984. The similarities between today's society and the society presented in 1984 are somewhat uncanny and may have even been caused by the book. For instance, would we even have the phrase 'big brother' if it wasn't first coined in the book? We do now live in a very 'big brother' culture, statistics shows that the average person is caught on CCTV 300 times a day. Not just that, but various world leaders often use language to present ideas in ways that make it seem ok where it might be the complete opposite. A direct example would be that 'The Ministry of Defence', until about the 1920's was called 'The Ministry of War', because that's what it is, but it was renamed to make it seem that it wasn't advocating war. I'm sure that there are endless examples of 1984's influence in today's society and 1984 may well be the single most influential book of all time.

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud’s work had a massive cultural impact, he explained the way people thought before the brain could be examined through science. Freud said that we are all motivated by sex and that sex is always on the mind. He also said that sexual dysfunction lead to fear and depression. This was revolutionary because despite the fact that everyone had sex, no one ever wrote about it. Freud also spoke about a constant conflict of the ego vs id and suppression of the id in civilisation causes unhappiness. This basically means that you can't do what you want to do because it is not deemed acceptable in society and this turn makes you unhappy. He also said that society damages the individual by constraining them and repressing their thoughts. From this, Freud ascertained that people are not what they seem to be, because you never know what they are thinking. What people are doing and what they are thinking can often be two very different things.

Freud also based some of his work 'on the analysis dreams' and said that dreams are a way of understanding personality and that they are the 'royal highway to the subcultures'. Furthermore, Freud was a sexist and believed that men were superior to women. He also wrote about sexual politics and gender differences, stating that all women were hysterical because they had 'penis envy'.

As far as Freudian psychoanalysis still being relevant in today's society a prime example would be advertising. Advertising is all about influencing people to buy things. A good way to advertise something is by use of sex, an idea that was first presented by Freud.

James Joyce - Ulysses

James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is the essence of the concept of modernism. Ulyssess was at one point banned due to its expressing of sexuality. Essentially it shows that the same event can be seen from two angles at the same time. Ulysses is basically the same day over and over again from different views. It was modern in the sense that it had no single story with a beginning, middle and end, but a decentred narrative. It also plays on the concept of an unreliable memory and unreliable narrative. Nothing is definite and there is no conclusion. The book also explores the fragmentation of thought and the idea of merging dreams with reality.

It is debateable as to when modernism came about, but most people would argue it was between about 1880 and the First World War, 1914. This was about the same time as the broad cultural movement of surrealism. I would say that as the term modernism continues to evolve that Germany are a good example of it. In my opinion they are the most modern country in terms of culture, economy and art because of the depression after the Second World War they had to rebuild everything.

The thing about modernism is that one person can think something is modern and another person can think it’s not. This fits the concept that everything can be viewed from a different angle; everyone sees everything in a different way.

Flashback Review: BioShock

Bioshock released way back in August 2007, selling a whopping 3 million copies as of July 2009 (According to notorious Take-Two sex symbol Strauss Zelnick anyway). With Bioshock 2 a mere month away from public release we’re here to take you back through time and reminisce on memories past. Hit the jump to see the reason that you’ll be picking up a copy of the sequel on the 9th.

If you haven’t played the demo already (which you probably have considering it became the fist demo on the Xbox Live marketplace to reach one million downloads) then you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. The demo features the first five or so minutes of the game. It’s one of the most incredible video game introductions. Set in 1960, Jack (the character you will play as) is a passenger on a plane that crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. After swimming to the surface you will see a lighthouse. Why would someone put a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean you ask? Well, that’s one of the questions that will keep you playing.

To explain a few things about the crazy city of Rapture: Andrew Ryan created Rapture as a place where there would be no political, economic and religious authority, essentially a place with no laws or restrictions. Everyone in Rapture wants ADAM, a chemical that can rewrite human genetics, and give incredible powers to the user. Little girls called ‘little sisters’ [or as our Editor Tom likes to refer to them as: "Potential Victims"] are capable of extracting ADAM from dead people; therefore they hold a lot of ADAM. However, Little sisters are protected by Big Daddies, the hardest enemies to kill in the game.

The introduction to the city of Rapture is almost like a safari; you are taken down to the bottom of the ocean in a bathysphere and shown the city of Rapture. It looks incredible. The visuals in the game are stunning, as is the sheer scale of Rapture, you will feel compelled to explore every corner of the city. Rapture can be very unsettling and scary at times, but this all adds to the atmosphere.

Strictly speaking, BioShock’s a first person shooter, but guns aren’t your only weapon in this game. The first weapon you’ll get is a wrench; this will be your melee weapon for the duration of the game. Shortly after you’ll get a pistol and then a machine gun. Later on in the game you get more powerful weapons, all of which can be upgraded too with more firepower/range etc. So, aside from standard weapons, you can also use plasmids which by far the best thing about the combat in the game. The first plasmid you get is the ‘Electro Bolt’, where you can fire a jolt of electricity to electrocute an opponent. At first you have a limited number of plasmid slots but with more ADAM you can unlock more slots and equip more plasmids. There are a lot of plasmids, all with different advantages; my personal favourites have to be ‘Incinerate!’ ‘Telekinesis’, ‘Hypnotize Big Daddy’ and one you may have seen in the trailer, ‘Insect Swarm’. The plasmids that you wish to use will depend on your style of gameplay, but there are plenty to choose from! You can also change what plasmids you have equipped at gene banks to adapt to the different situations you’ll experience.

The main enemies in the game that you will face are Splicers, there are many different types of Splicers, and they are people that have become dependant on ADAM due to their abuse of the substance. As the game progresses, these Splicers become harder to defeat. You will also want to kill, or attempt to kill, Big Daddies to get ADAM from Little Sisters. Again these get harder as the game goes on but your plasmids and weapons also get more powerful, so with a good combination of plasmids and weapons these Big Daddies won’t cause you too much trouble. After you’ve killed a Big Daddy BioShock forces the player to make a very strong moral choice with the Little Sisters. You can either harvest or rescue them. Harvesting gives you the most amount of ADAM but kills the Little Sister. Rescuing them gives you less ADAM but but the Little Sister gets to live.

One thing that makes BioShock such a good game is its originality; it’s a game like no other in so many senses. Firstly, it is strictly classed at a first person shooter, but it does feature elements of role-playing and survival. BioShock takes you on an adventure like no other with plot twist after plot turn; it has the strongest narrative that I have ever experienced in a game.

The dystopian back-story to how Rapture was made and developed can be discovered through audio diaries, which you can collect. They also give background to pretty much everything that has happened in Rapture in the past. There are 122 to find in total and collecting them all won’t just give you an Xbox Achievement, but also a huge understanding of Rapture and how perfectly this game has been put together.

There are few complaints about this game if I were really nitpicking; the game doesn’t really give the opportunity to explore Rapture as much as I would like it to. Sure you can explore Rapture but you’re not really encouraged to because the gameplay is quite linear, and your objectives and direction are pointed out by an arrow at the top of the screen. Another problem is that there’s no penalty for dying, if you die fighting an enemy, you respawn in a Vita-Chamber and your enemy will be in the same condition they were in when you died. However 2K rectified this by releasing free downloadable content for the game that adds an option to disable Vita-Chambers (along with a few new plasmids as well).

Now those are just small setbacks and at the end of the day BioShock is just an over-whelmingly fun game to play. 2k will actually make you feel like you are immersed in Rapture, everyone that plays BioShock will have a different gaming experience. Would you kindly go and buy a copy of this already, before the Sequel comes out next month!

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