The weather is closing in. Walking home from the drudgery of the office I felt it return for the first time this evening. The wind snapped and brought the familiar dull ache to my ill-prepared ears. I should be ready for it now, I’ve lived here for 6 years, but it catches me off guard every time. The bloody Indian summers of late have not helped. Tumbling into my roasting womb of a house and finding Mrs Solid with a cup of steaming Yorkshire Gold tea is surely Paradise Regain’d.

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The equation for happiness (and all available online apparently).

“What?” you may cry.

“What is this? Who are you? Fred Dibnah???”

Just setting the scene. Calm down.

After the disappointment of a damp summer, another set of poor footballing/tennis/rugby performances and the now traditional dry spell of gaming releases what are we left to look forward to?

Usually I look forlornly to a spell of months scouring the gaming press for more scratchings of news offal, about a group of games I know inside out, a financial quarter prior to release. And then, sweet autumn gets my gaming antennae twitching again...

Burnout 3 has just swallowed a weekend whole, making my eyes bleed in the process. Halo 2 promises to arrive shortly after GTA: SA. We have the now traditional PES (yay) vs FIFA (boo) releases as well as Killzone, Pikmin 2 and Gradius V. Disappointing titles will do their best to top the festive sales charts (True Crime? MoH: Rising Sun?); decent titles will, no doubt, get lost in the crush (see Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time)…

The local game shops will be filled with confused middle-aged persons clutching scraps of paper, looking wild-eyed and attempting to collar a shop assistant, who will no doubt scoff at their ignorance and attempt to sell them three copies of this week’s commission title (Pokemon – Pearl Necklace Edition).

That was one GAME employee who wouldn’t take the piss again.

So, after all that late summer foreplay, we’re treated to the entire industry (with the exception of EA) over-excitedly ejaculating their prize goods into our faces.

“Take this! Take it! You’ll fuckin’ love it, just take it!” they scream waving their £40 shrink-wrapped case of digitised turds in the window on December Fridays.

“For Christ’s sake you fool!!! Take this bloody thing, it’s good… honest!” They shriek on the Monday (for £30 now).

”It’s-a-coming! Salivate, you dogs!”

“Arrrrrrgghhhhhh!!! I’m losing my job at the Latvian branch of Spazz-games unless you buy Cock-Nosed Mecha-Robo-Racing for £20!!!” heralds the following Monday.

Two weeks after Christmas, with vouchers burning a hole in your, usually flaccid, wallet, you start scraping through the bargain bins. Whilst looking for that copy of Frequency that you’ve had your eye on for some time, a familiar voice whispers into your ear:

“You bastard! It’s too late now! I could’ve been the next GTA! Now I’m stuck here in amongst Turok: Evolution.” You walk away disappointed, having spent 15 minutes sifting through the shattered dreams of tired and bullied Acclaim game designers.

Uri uses mind-warping jumpers nowadays.

I still enjoy this time of year the same way I love the cinema summer silly season. The whole industry, from top to bottom, turns into a spastic colon spraying half-formed shitty nuggets all over the high-street (I thought you said it was an ejaculating cock – Ed). And I have to admit that I still get the tingle of excitement I did as a child at Christmas: the thrill of the new mixed with the stagnant tradition of the old. Dark and cold outside, knuckling down with my games… I’m already looking forward to it. You probably are too, although I bet you won’t admit it.

SOLIDCHRIS, October 2004.

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