Unfortunately the inspiration for my very first rant in a long time comes from one of my personal hatreds of society. Censorship. Recently the BBFC refused to rate the game Manhunt 2, while it’s counterpart in America, the ESRB, gave the game an Adults Only rating, which while not banning the game, effectively eliminates it from being sold in many US stores, such as Wal-Mart (which counts for 25% of games sold in the country alone), Best Buy, EB, GameStop, and a myriad of other retail establishments. Oh but then Nintendo and Sony released an (already known) bombshell that they don’t allow Adult Only games on their systems. So now no one’s getting the game at all.

Excuse me while I chuckle at all the Americans who laughed at my country and started spouting all that “that’ll never happen here cos we gots a (apparently open to interpretation) Constitution!” Ha. Ha. Ha.

Anyway, I deplore censorship in most forms, but I can’t help but wonder about the exact contents of the game which brought about these decisions. I was not a fan of the original Manhunt, mostly on the grounds that it was a stealth game, a genre where I have a distinct deficiency in the skills required to play them, i.e. the patience of a bull elephant in mating season and slightly less subtlety. I definitely don’t have a problem with violent games, as a quick glance at my Xbox 360’s played games records will attest to. However, considering how liberal the BBFC is I can’t help but speculate on how “bad” the content of Manhunt 2 is.

However, in the shadow of this censorship debate, I have though of a solution that will bring us back into the light.

Wow, that was pretentious.

In actual fact I’ve taken some inspiration from this debacle and decided to use it to amuse myself and hopefully others.

Basically my solution to the whole Manhunt issue is to remove the weapons and the gore from the game, dress everyone in black and white stripped tops, paint their faces white and release the game under the title “Mimehunt.”

Think about it, I think we can all agree that mimes are not human, right? And it’s a well known fact that they can’t be killed by conventional means and must be dealt with harshly (ask Lord Vetinari from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels). So the only way to rid the world of these inhuman beasts is to use their own invisible imaginary weapons against them.

Think of it. You’re a former policeman on the edge, a loose-cannon who plays by his own rules, who is sick of the inhuman sickness that threatens our street corners and shopping centres. You take it upon yourself to rid the world of the monochromatic menace, infiltrating their evil training centre and using their own skills against them, destroying the problem at its source. You sneak and silently dispatch mime after mime until finally coming white face-to-face with the leader of this sinister cult of cartoon-like rogues, dispatching him with your invisible rocket launcher in an all out battle of pretend explosions and blood that completely goes against everything else you’ve been doing in the game, thus ruining the experience. YOU HEAR THAT ODDWORLD INHABITANTS!? STRANGER’S WRATH WAS BRILLIANT UNTIL IT TURNED INTO A POOR MAN’S FPS! It was so much fun, hunting down your prey with your living ammunition, doing the platforming sections, but no! Right at the end it becomes nothing more than a poorly executed shooter that was even worst than the dullest game of the genre!

Ahem…sorry got a little off topic there. Anyway, yes Mimehunt. Any developers interested? My only requirement is enough money to fill a pool, so I can live my live out my life long fantasy of being Scrooge McDuck. And that’s British money before you try and ship me a truckload of Yen, which is actually worth about £50. Quack.

This is EN #199. We’ve done nearly 200 issues of this crap? Jesus! And people are still reading it? What the hell?

Seriously as, we draw to our bicentennial issue I can’t help but contemplate what EN has achieved since September 2003. There are quite a few things that EN has helped every member to accomplish, but for the moment I want to focus on what it helped me achieve. More confidence in my writing ability, it has widen my areas of interest and circle of friends, hell a comic I wrote (I think it was one of mine anyway) even got published in print form. But the single greatest thing that EN has helped me achieve is the meeting of my fiancé, Raye.

Twenty two years ago this very day, the most wonderful woman in the world was born. I will accept no argument or debate on this matter because whoever you think is more deserving of the title is just plain wrong. This wonderful, beautiful, elegant, and down-right nutty woman is perfect in every way, shape or form. I count my blessings everyday that she, for some reason I will never understand, has chosen to share her life with me.

We met through EN, because while she was at college Raye, knowing Virus through a pre-existing friendship, contacted the various members of EN to ask if she could use their characters in her work (a fine example to some of our readers, yes Knuckles6K I’m looking at you). I agreed and we started talking from there, and at first you could barely classify us as friends the amount of times we argued. But as we got to know each other better, things changed. I still remember the first time I saw her picture, I was stunned! Unable to say how beautiful she was to her and the feelings I had, I kept them to myself, until one day I told her she was my girlfriend, something she wasn’t aware of beforehand, but agreed to. This just goes to show that the direct approach works. The rest, as they say, is history.

So I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Raye, the anniversary of your birth is something that should be celebrated worldwide, marking the arrival of the kindest, funniest, most intelligent, sexy, and beautiful person to ever arrive on the planet. I am eternally grateful that you exist and somehow fell in love with me. You traditionally receive gifts on your birthday, this one being no different, but I am the one who feels gifted by your presence in my own life.

Michelay, a good friend of Raye also made this picure for her birthday. Another good friend, Riley, also did a very sweet picture on her DA page. They are both made of win and awesome, so go see.

Happy Birthday my love.

I should really type a proper update one of these days, but instead today I will update with new fan art. The first piece is of Eastwood by Oli. The second is a fan comic by Pixellated. Both pieces are brilliant guys, thanks a lot.

Nothing else to report on this week really. Except I got a HDTV. Yeah, sucks for all you non-HDTV users. Nyah.

I need a social life.