2003 is dead and buried. Welcome to 2004. "Happy new year" Is something I've been hearing people say for the past few days. Normally I'd have thought nothing of it. But this year is different. This year I hear that sentance, and it seems that something's wrong. There's something that just doesn't sit right with me. And with a blinding flash, it comes to me. One word is out of place. "New." You see, nothing seems to change any more. Each year comes and goes much as the previous one. And so I started thinking to myself that none of this is new in the slightest. It should be "Happy re-packaged year." So lets stop and think about what will be happening in the western world this year. There will be television programmes produced; there will be video games produced; there will be movies produced. And can any of you tell me how many of these TV programmes, video games and movies will be original? How many of them will present a new take on their respective genre or medium? How many will not just be YET ANOTHER MIND NUMBING FUCKING SEQUEL? I predict something in the region of 1%. Video games I'm pretty confdent will be the same old shit. I recently quit my job at Codemasters (a large british based video games publisher), for a variety of reasons, one of which was the line up of games for 2004. Before I say what these "gems" will be, let me tell you the games I worked on in 2003. First up was "World Championship Snooker 2003", a rather pointless snooker simulation (I mean come on, if you want to play snooker, just go down your local snooker hall. There's one in virtually every town, and the majority are open 24 hours). Then there was "Colin McCrea Rally 4", the fourth in a long line of rally simulations. Arguably the best one around, although it retreads old ground for the most part (like using tracks from Rally 3, but reversing them). Next up was "Club Football", a disgusting money spinner which consisted of 11 games tailered towards a specific football club (that's soccer, for you yanks). So you could buy "Manchester United Club Football", and play through the domestic season as Man U F.C. Or you could buy "Real Madrid Club Football" and play through the domestic season as Real Madrid. Or you could buy "FIFA Football" published by EA Games, and play through the damned season as any fucking team you wanted to. The biggest joke of course was that the different team games were just THE SAME GAME with the other teams locked out. It's all about the fucking money. Even more disgustingly cash-oriented was "Pop Idol" (released in America as "American Idol" and in Germany as "Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar"). This game was knocked out in no time flat, lacking quality and finesse, simply because they knew it was going to sell by the bucketload (or at least, they though it would, but that's a different story). You can finish the whole thing on your first go in under an hour and a half, even if you're a crippled kid with motor neurone disease (and the final score will always be 70-30 or 69-31, no matter how perfectly you hit the buttons) And Finally, "LMA Manager 2003". Most pointless "game" ever devised. It's a football management game. Imagine Microsoft Excel, but with the hidden game and fun parts removed. So what's the line up for 2004? Well, I think you all know the answers to that: "World Championship Snooker 2004", "Colin McCrea Rally 5", "Club Football 2", "Pop Idol 2" and "LMA Manager 2004". The same old fucking shit. So video games are fucked. What's next? Movies? Right. I don't follow movies much, at least not Hollywood movies, on account of them being (for the most part) utterly shit (and that includes Lord of the Fucking Rings, OK? It's shit. It's a pointless conversion of an average book, and it's overly long and just doesn't work as a film. IT'S RUBBISH. But I digress). So what movies are coming up? "Spider-man 2" eh? Wow, they really ARE getting lazy. At least the Batman films had some variation on the word "Batman", rather than a shit sounding number. Fuck, they could have called it "Spider-man Returns" and it still would have been better. What else? "Hellboy" - why the fuck can't they just leave the comics alone? Leave them as comics, that's what they are. Leave books as books. WRITE SOME ORIGINAL FUCKING MATERIAL FOR FUCK'S SAKE. If you're going to base a film on a book, you should exploit the artistic potential of cinema. Do things that you can't do with books (because Christ knows there's things the books do which you can't do with film). Examples of movies based on books that work include Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream and Bladerunner. If you're just going to make a straight conversion, I don't want to know. And let's have a little less sequels and FUCKING REMAKES OF OLD MOVIES OR TV SHOWS. Sure, they were fun when we were kids, but for fuck's sake let's just leave them as happy memories shall we? So movies are fucked (but I've known that for a long time). TV? Don't get me started on TV. Original TV shows: "Spaced", "League of Gentlemen", first series of "24". And....... I honestly can't think of anything else. I don't watch TV. There's nothing on there that I want to watch. It is quite possibly the medium with the most wasted potential ever. If there's good TV programmes that I'm missing, feel free to email me and let me know. 2003 was a boring year. There was murder, there was war, there was politians lying through their teeth. More of the same. More of the same. And what's going to happn in 2004? Murder, war, politicians lying through their teeth, and the general population sitting at home getting more detached from the world, doing the same things they always fucking do, never trying out new things, never changing, falling into the same damned routine year in year out. Thank the fucking Goddess there's only eight years until the end of the world. -------------------------------- And now, new years resolutions: Last year I resolved to be vegetarian. And I did, and I still am. How many of you lot kept your resolutions? How many of you managed to actually change a single aspect of your life? Let me know. This year's reolutions: I will write a fucking column every week like I should, rather than every fucking month like I have been. I will submit some comic colouring work to 2000AD and try to get a job there. I will become the greatest wrestler in the known universe (well maybe in my town) -------------------------------- And finally: Happy NEW year. And let's make sure it is a new year, not a repackaged year. I want you all to go out and do something you've never done before. Take up a new sport, martial art or other physical activity. Try painting or drawing. Start dancing like a crazy fool, not caring what other people think. Anything. just make sure it's something you've never tried before. If it doesn't work out, try something else. Remember, don't stay the same.