Plain dumb play of the week goes to bus driver Steve Allcock, who was sacked by Blackburn Transport, a Lancashire Bus company after being reported by passengers, for playing Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories while driving the bus.
Now it could have been worse. If you're going to throw away your job, by playing a videogame, you should at least make sure it’s a game with a bit of street cred. This story has been reported far and wide, so if poor Steve can take anything positive from this embarrassing incident, then I guess he can consider himself lucky that he didn’t get sprung playing something completely lame, like World Series of Poker.
His eyes were on the road…just not the same road the bus happened to be on.
We just hope Steve’s learnt a lesson here. Firstly, Stevo, you were playing with the volume cranked up. Didn’t you think the passengers might have noticed the screaming and the gunfire? Had you actually been driving a bus through the mean streets of Los Angeles or New York, you may have gotten away with it, but the good folks of Blackburn were always going to notice the sounds of wanton gun battles and the squeals of high speed car chases.
Secondly, there was a closed circuit television camera recording your every move. Why did you think there was a camera there? Recording a bloopers tape for the Blackburn Transport Christmas Party perhaps? Now Steve, we know the game’s addictive. I played it, I loved it, hell, I’m still playing it. But there’s a sleep button, an off button and a save function. Hello.
Or was it just not hard enough for you? You were breezing through the missions and you needed to up the ante a little. Stevo, you could have just dimmed the screen a little, or chosen crappier getaway vehicles. Endangering the lives of your bus passengers was possibly a little…what’s the word…IRRESPONSIBLE! Of course, it may just be that you really wanted to get fired. Perhaps you’d tried all the usual things. Coming to work naked on ‘Casual Friday’, usually does the trick, but perhaps you needed something absolutely guaranteed to get you sacked.
In Steve’s defence, there were no specific signs in the bus about not playing the PSP while driving. Sure, there are signs saying 'no smoking' and 'no eating and drinking', but nothing about portable gaming. And from memory the PSP manual doesn’t specifically mention anything about the dangers of playing while driving public buses either, so perhaps Steve has grounds for appeal.
As way of a public service, and in order to prevent any further embarrassment to Steve and anyone else out there who’s a little confused about what society expects of them, I’ve drawn up a quick list of scenarios and environments were you should avoid playing the PSP or your handheld of choice.
- The toilet: Just because you can take it everywhere doesn’t mean you should. In case you were under any illusions, the ‘P’ in PSP stands for Play! The toilet’s a no-go area. There’s the obvious health issue and the accidental ‘drop it in the loo’ problem too. And if the lure of portable gaming on the bog is just too strong, just make sure you don’t tell anyone about it. Disclaimer. Note the Ensuite Exclusion – if you’re playing in the ensuite, or your toilet is in the bathroom, then the lines are a little blurred. 'Look, it’s a toilet. No look, it’s a bathroom.' Put the handheld on the edge of the vanity and watch a movie and it's probably ok.
No….it’s not a sterile environment! - Intimate relations: You might like to think you have all the moves, hell you may be quite the Casanova, but if you really want to impress I’m going to advise that the PSP remains in sleep mode until the end of ‘proceedings’. Nowadays, a quick game of Lumines may well be the politically correct, modern day equivalent of the post-coital cigarette. General rule of thumb; the PSP should be the last thing you turn on.
Nothing to see here…she’s just tying his shoelaces. - At a nightclub: You may think you look hip and cool and incredibly smooth playing Sudoku while trying to pick up, casting furtive glances at the gorgeous brunette at the bar, while you tackle the Japanese brain puzzler, but truth is you just look like a complete prat. Don’t try hiding it in your pocket either, she won’t think you're pleased to see her, she’ll just think you’re a complete prat with a PSP jammed into their trouser pocket.
- While wearing any form of protective headgear: Natalie Portman wore protective headgear in Garden State, and still managed to look good. Repeat after me: you are not Natalie Portman! If the headgear’s a must then portable gaming’s a bust... I don’t care whether you’re kicking butt in Street Fighter or muscling your way through Madden NFL 06.
Repeat after me…you are not Natalie Portman - The bank: Sure, waiting in bank queues can be frustrating, but you want to think twice before whipping out your handheld gaming console of choice. Of course it depends what you’re playing. A quiet game of Lemmings might be fine, but obviously anything with gunfire is not a great idea. Games with angry dialogue are ok, as this should go unnoticed amongst your fellow frustrated queuers.
- Anywhere in public: I know, I know. You’ve played your handheld portable gaming device of choice on the bus, the train, in the school grounds and down at the local mall. You also know you felt just a little weird doing it. Come on. Admit it. Truth is, portable gaming in public is a little like picking your nose. Sure it happens, but no one is really all that keen on anyone seeing them do it. Why do you think Nintendo keep making its handhelds smaller and smaller?
I missed the Xbox 360 launch at midnight Thursday, but I figure that’s okay. I’m currently in the middle of reviewing the latest Street Fighter port - Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max for the PSP. Now Street Fighter is a game that I’ve never really given any love to on any of the consoles I’ve owned over the years, and I really only have a passing familiarity with the series through time spent at the video arcades of long ago. I figure if I can spend this past week getting the living crap beaten out of me, nineteen years after the original Street Fighter first debuted in the arcades, then I can probably afford to be a little late ‘jumping in’ to the Xbox 360 world, as Microsoft urged me to do every time I loaded up the Australian 360 site this past week.
I did make it down to the local mall at lunchtime Thursday. The multi-storey car park was close to full, which triggered an immediate panic. I’m a sucker for popular culture. From Harry Potter to low-carb diets. If everyone is doing it, at the very least I want to know what the fuss is about. So when I enter the local Westfield and see it’s as brimming with people as the car park had indicated, I start to panic some more. Sure the crowd doesn’t seem like the Xbox 360 demographic. We’ve got a lot of oldies, Mums and bubs, together with the office crowd and the college kids. I know PALGN’s launch coverage was extensive but surely my whole town hasn’t been whipped into an Xbox 360 frenzy. My cool, calm logical brain tells me that its public service payday and pension day, but the illogical brain tells me that the Xbox 360 ship has sailed. Turns out that there were plenty of consoles left at lunchtime, but I came away surprised none the less.
Surprising fact # 1. EB Games was doing a brisker trade than I’ve ever witnessed. While JB Hi-Fi and Big W flogged Xbox 360’s for $619 and $629 respectively, EB Games were still proudly displaying the $649 price tags, and the short time I was in the store I saw no evidence of price matching being either requested or offered. Who shops at EBs? Plenty of people as it turns out.
Surprising fact # 2. While 360s couldn’t be had for love or money at the US launch, it appears that Microsoft had the supply problems truly sorted for Oz. So much so that Big W and JB Hifi were happy to engage in a bit of healthy slash and grab, with games down to $75 for launch day and the console further reduced to $618 come launch day. Whether that's a good thing for the image of Microsoft's latest console is questionable, but as a gamer, you have to love the lower prices.
O.F.L classification
Now I've noticed an alarming trend in my columns to date, and you've possibly spotted it as well. Almost every week, without fail, I've managed to mention to Office of Film and Literature Classification. Bugger, I've done it again...that's five from six, and I'm not even receiving any kind of Google administered, pay-per-mention kickback from the OFLC. Anyway, now that I've gone and mentioned the unmentionable...again, I might as well tell you that I think it's high time the OFLC changed its name.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification. Hello? Are they missing something? If they are to have such an influence on the lives of Australian gamers, the least they could do would make mention of video games in their official title. Now don't tell me it's too costly an exercise. Australian Government Ministerial portfolios get reshuffled and Ministries get carved up, combined, and sliced and diced every twelve months or so. Renaming Australian government departments is about the only thing keeping many printing companies in business as they crank out new letterhead stationary. Of course there would be one downside to a change of name. The name and the abbreviation would become even more long-winded. Even now, OFLC doesn't lend itself to an easily pronounceable acronym like SCUBA or NATO. Of course, remove that troublesome letter C off the end and you at least have something a little more pronounceable (OFL Classification) and possibly an acronym they can aspire to?
One last thing
A quick acknowledgement and thank you to Andrew Henderson. If you've noticed any decent images in past editions of The Wrap, as well as all of the graphics in this week's edition of The Wrap, the credit is all his. The rest were mine and for that I take full responsibility!
Catch you next week on The Wrap.
When is your column going up? - I can't wait!
Loading...
