Remember Virtual Reality games in the early 90s? If you ever played them, you felt amazingly nauseated, and pretty much feeling like the last thing you’d ever want to do is leave your inferior meat sack behind and muck up inside this triangular, low depth, low colour, low resolution, Tron looking piece of crap world.

The graphics were awful, the gameplay was limited, the physics modeling was non existent, the control devices were perhaps the least intuitive things ever, and Lawn Mower Man scared the shit out of everyone for years to come.

… So why didn’t they keep developing this stuff until it worked decently?

Actually you probably don’t know, but they have been. It’s been done by stealth and it’s basically all video games, much like it ever was… but it’s been a bit more subtle than that.

Played Half Life 2? The physics engine in that is pretty damn good. Played 2nd Life? It’s a persistent world with more people in it than New Zealand, where people live out their lives, have adventures & social lives, and some even manage to earn a living while they’re in there… just like New Zealand. Played any Japanese RPG on the Play Station 3? Those graphics are pretty damn good for real time generated simulations. And these are not the only examples.

Fact of the matter is that virtual reality has snuck up on us.

So I’m sure you’re all well aware of the various games that are out there. Let’s face it, with all the media attention, it’s impossible to be unaware of at least World of Warcraft and 2nd Life, although you may not be aware that they were nowhere near the first of these games. That dubious honour belongs to a 1996 Korean title called Nexus: Kingdom of Winds, but the games weren’t made “popular” until 1999 with the release of Everquest, often called “Evercrack”… possibly where the derivative “World of Warcrack” comes from.

Why is this history lesson important? Because people, for the first time, were able to play these games not just to escape their mundane lives, but to actually live their lives through the game. I’m not talking about some sad git pretending to be a half-cow priest full time, but sad gits actually able to make a living through these games by selling in-world items to other players for real world currency, access the “outside” internet through some clever hacks that allowed them to order food (Pizzahut online) and necessities, and basically never have to leave their chairs with the exception of taking acrap or getting another Mountain Dew. For the first time, it was actually possible to not have to live in the real world.

“But it’s not total immersion!” I imagine you crying out, because I often think that people reading these things nearly a week after I actually write them can carry on a conversation with me without the aid of some kind of tachyon beam technology (perhaps something for another post).

Well, sorry, but you’re wrong again.

The only reason why these games aren’t total immersion yet is because you’re poor and can’t be arsed doing decent research.

There are actually several VR headsets, and natural haptic feedback devices already on the market at fairly reasonable prices. Certainly the sort of price range that is well within the reach of an avid gamer that regularly upgrades their computer to be able to run these sort of simulations at the maximum quality.

VR helmets have made leaps and bounds recently as well.

Not only is the price now comparable to that of a high-end monitor, but the nauseating 3D issues appear to have been solved. As it turns out, 25fps is the minimum for simulating motion, but if you want people not throwing up and getting a real sense of the 3rd dminesion while looking through their giant nerd boxes, you need around 120fps… per eye. If these hulking monstrosities pictured don’t sit well with your sense of style, you could always be one Jordie LaForge looking motherfucker and just get the iTheater glasses. The 3D isn’tas good, but you can wear them on public transport without looking like too much ofa freak, and the current ones plug right into an iPhone… so you can watch your World of Whorecraft episodes without being disturbed.

But what of touch? No point playing a game with your sight and hearing fully immersed if it’s going to be shattered by not being able to feel a damn thing because you’re holding onto a mouse and keyboard.

Three words: Haptic Feedback Accessories.

Haptic feedback gloves have been around for years, and were actually developed to help tele-operators get a decent feel for the job that they were doing. Some gloves merely provide resistance so that it feels like you’re holding an object. Others are actually designed to mimic textures in real time. Many are compatible with 3D design programs, and some even work for various games that allow manipulation via in game Hands.

Black & White is one such game, where your god hand can actually be used to pick up in game objects, crush superstitious villagers to death, or pimp slap your avatar… all witha satisfying sense of resistence to each. With the right set of gloves, you can feel the resistance of a gun grip in your hand, and have your wrists jerked back by the recoil as you fire it.

This of course leaves the issue of being able to actually touch anything and feel it. There are a few gloves on the market that actually simulate the feel of various materials. Nano-fibres recreate themselves underneath your palm and fingertips to give the feeling of certain forms of textures, and heat. These are currently not on the domestic market, nor nearly ready o be consumer level technology yet, but give it another game console generation or two, and you might just feel the leather thong criss crossed on your swords pommel as you wildly flail at your enemies, and then feel the blood flow between your fingers as you crush that annoying fairy in the latest installment of Legend of Zelda.

Hell, you can even get a vest that allows you to feel that you’re being shot or hit in game… and it comes in pink for girls.

Perhaps, in the end, we will find ourselves living regular mundane lives in the fantasy worlds we have created for ourselves because it is simply more bearable to do so without all the aches and pains of our real world selves. Not physical of course, but rather mental. After all the pain of falling out with other people is not so much in a virtual world. New others can be found with ease, and the quibbling little trials of our analogue reality simply won’t trouble us there. After all, the grass never needs mowing in your 2nd life… or does it?

As some of you have obviously noticed thanks to a few posts where I come right out and say it, you’re probably aware that I keep an eye on the statistics and metrics of you, my dear visitors, as you visit this blog, and how you get here.

I do this for a grand, Orwellian motive that utilizes my vast intellect so that I can repurpose my arch-designs and something something.

Which is why I’ve been in a panic this last week when I noticed that my stats went to zero. Flat lined. With as much chance of providing useful information on any given subject as the American version of Kath & Kim.

And then I noticed that this happened at about the same time that I switched my theme to this nice spooky Halloween one.

That’s right, with all my lunatic ranting about being a cyborg smoker that’s intent on proving to you that my cancerous lungs shall triumph over your pitiful compassion for one another, it totally didn’t occur to me to add in the analytics code to the header image.

Let the hurring and the durring commence… after you’ve been logged, numbered and tagged by Google for reading this.

Location: Insignia (corner of Flinders & Kings streets)

In short: Gulag = fun & cheap(ish) absinthe

Crowd Type: lazy-goths, ex-punks, Nick Cave look-alikes

Drinks: good prices on premium liquor, nice selection of beer.

Music: Too loud to make out things that weren’t punk.

You’d think from these post titles that I have something against Gulag.

Honestly, I don’t. I actually really like the place… most of the time.

I went again on Friday after getting somewhat screwed over on dinner plans (you people know who you are! Taste my emoticon of embittered darkness… ò_Ó ), and proceeded to have a good time for the majority of the evening.

The venue really is the sort of place that you tend to only see a goth club in as part of a movie. It’s how a goth club should look. And the drink variety is actually pretty decent, especially as there’s usually a good supply of Absinthe and nice whiskies and wines.

Mon’s done herself fantastic favours there with the venue selection.

But I have two issues that burn like my genitals after a weekend of hedonistic indulgence on the goth scene itself (No, I kid… there’s no burning… the stabbing pains of Jaz stabbing me with a sharp object of stabbing tends to outweigh considerations of said indulgence. If only there were an emoticon for embittered sadness).

1) The music.

Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of music I like to dance to. Can’t be helped. Different strokes for different folks, it takes all kinds, united colours of Beneton, if a tree falls on a unique flower in the forest do environmentalists go to a Get-Up meeting with Peter Garrett?, etc.

But can we please do something about DJs having no concept of volume? I like “Baggy Trousers”. I have some, I wear them… But sometimes, I like to talk to people while I wear baggy trousers, rather than listen to a song about my attire while I go hoarse trying to convey some deep insight about why I’m so wonderful and I should run for political posts. The fact that I’m a trained vocalist, and can project at nearly 110dB, and people still have trouble hearing me means that the music is actually at the sort of noise levels that will cause permanent hearing loss. A volume monitor in the DJ booth, please!

I know the setup of the venue means that two insanely large speakers in a small room won’t get the sound out of that room very well without it being intensely loud, but it’s a small venue. The best sound level should not be three feet outside the upstairs door.

2) The People

And this is the part of when a goth club is no longer a goth club. When non-goths come in and the music changes to suit them, which ties in directly to my first point.

I get it. The upstairs bar closes, piss heads don’t want to leave. They hear music downstairs and come to check it out. Sure, that’s fine. If they can handle the people in ‘funny clothes’ and the music, let ‘em stay. There are plenty of ‘non-goths’ that like to hang out at the goth clubs (Zak, I’m looking at you) and that’s fine. I’m not one to say “you’re the wrong type, GTFO!”… But don’t pander to them and encourage them to stay!

Shit, if people wanted a club that pandered to hetero-socio-normative types, whilst looking goth, Goo would still be around.

Thanks to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, we are all well aware that the lamest and most awkward time in your life can be made substantially more awesome by adding in vampires… and a British guy that can sing.

But what happens if you suddenly take out all the cool and raunch of a show like Buffy, and instead added in all the lameness of a highschool drama? What if you crossed True Blood and Degrassi: The Next Generation?

You’d get The Vampire Diaries.

Much like Twilight and True Blood, these are based off a series of books from an author no one had ever heard of until recently, and all seemed to come out with remarkable speed. I guess the big push for vampires at the moment is the same as in the mid 90s. They’re the in thing again, and it needs to be squeezed into teenagers, so their cash is squeezed out, before they go back to some other form of disaffection with life and stop buying black clothes and silly hairstyles. On the bright side, I suppose this current craze could possibly see a revival in goth clubs… On the down side, they might insist on bringing the sound tracks to these shows with them, which in this case would include a fair bit of terrible terrible emo music. Yes, I hate My Chemical Romance in no small degree.

Back to the show!

The plot revolves around Elena, a girl who’s parents died the year previously, being sort of taken care of an aunt, whilst she takes care of her dope fiend brother. She’s having a hard time at school, as all high school drama protagonists do. It should be pointed out the Elena is played by Nina Dobrev, who is probably one of the better people for this role. Why? Because she’s been in other teen horror crap before, she was in Degrassi: The Next Generation, and hell, she even had a part as an extra in Repo the Genetic Opera… So yeah, I’ll give her, and the casting director, some credit in this. She’s also not a woeful actor, unlike many many teenagers.

Enter Stefan, one of the founders of their small town, who is now a vampire, and looks about as much a teenager as Luke Perry did as Dylan. He’s here to recapture his lost love from 150 years prior, because Elena, who is not only underage, but so much younger than him that it’s all kinds of wrong (Buffy was wrong too… Except for Willow. Her relationships were all kinds of right.), and his troublesome brother, Damon (nice and obvious name there).

Stefan’s a “good” vampire, because he doesn’t drink human blood. Suck it up, bucko. Literally. Male humans come with a convenient-for-vampires meat straw that they’re more than happy to have someone, anyone, suck on so that some kind of fluid is drained out. It’s what the female fandom are secretly wanting in the first place. Ladies out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ll admit to only having seen two episodes, but the show irritates me on a number of levels, and I’m not talking about how much they tried to get a guy that looked like “Edward” to cash in on the Stephanie Meyer / Twilight craze.

The show is simply not that well constructed.

For a start, plot devices ripped straight out of every other vampire series out there. The sunlight going ring from Buffy, so Stefan doesn’t burn up. The “I’m a good vampire now” shtick from numerous sources. The “She reminds me of a lost love” from Anne Rice. The highschool setting from Poppy Z Brite. It’s like it’s every good idea stolen and rolled in together.

The pacing is terrible. Admittedly, this is partially the fault of poor source material, but a good team of writers or director know how to pad scenes so that they can give better over all pacing to a show. True Blood is a fantastic example of how tacky source material can be redone to make a much better paced show.

The special effects are just annoying. One prime example: The mist. Ok, we get it, vampires like mist. But mist rises from the ground, it doesn’t billow in from the sides, and certainly not in great rolling gusts. Maybe it’s mystical mist! No, I still don’t buy it. It shouldn’t be hugging the ground like a thick blanket, but rather be a solid wall. I drive through mist on a regular basis when interstate tripping. It’s scary shit when it looms like a wall, and I only ever see it hug the ground in valleys. Also, crows… Seriously?

The soundtrack to this show is woeful. The non-diegetic music simply does not suit the scenes that they’re paired with, and it really does sound like they’re simply trying to slot tracks in so that later down the road they can sell an MTV approved sound track.

I think I’m going to have to write another article on heart throb vampires that don’t fucking sparkle…

In the meantime, here’s a clip from Vampire Diary (not Diaries). It’s done on a budget of almsot nothing, seems to have no script, yet still manages to not be so lame… No wait, it does.

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