Dammit, I meant gentlemen!

Ladies and Gentle Ben, get your entries in for the Half Life 2 competition as it ends in just two days time! Remember, to enter, all you have to do is subscribe to Mark Attack via the Subscribe link on the right.

Keep an eye on your inbox, as you may be receiving an email from Valve in the next few days with details of your prize. The odds are quite good at the moment, so every entry counts!

On another note, we have another blogger joining MarkAttack, a chap called Simon, who I think you’ll get to know quite well. He’s a very opinionated bloke, not quite as controversial as me (for example I can’t see him attempting to convert you all to Communism), but I can definitely say he’ll be posting some hard hitting stuff. He’s also on Twitter so get following!

Half-Life 2

Yes yes, it is showing it’s age a little these days, but Half Life 2 is still a great PC first person shooter; and if you haven’t played it yet, not got around to it or whatever, what could be better than grabbing a copy for free? Exactly. Not complaining now are we?

So what do you need to do to get your grubby little mits on it? Absolutely nothing — is what you’d want me to say, but in reality, what you have to do is very little. See the subscribe link on the right? Pop your email address in there, and you’ll get an email every time I post a new rant or review, so you can have your say.

Every validated subscriber will be entered (but only one entry per person mind you! I have mysterious ways of checking if you’ve created multiple email addresses, just for a four year old game. You should be ashamed!), and one will be picked at random on the 30th June 2009.

The copy of Half-Life 2 by the way, will be given in the form of a Steam “gift”, so you would need to install Valve’s Steam application if you haven’t already from here. Which.. you would have to do if you bought it from the store anyway.. hm.. oh well.

Again, I understand the prize isn’t exactly cutting edge, but I’m just one chap here, just testing the water as far as competitions go. If there’s a good response to this one, then hey, higher value ones will be on the way!

So, come on then. What did you think of Xtival ‘09 on the 360? If you’ve never heard of it, then  you’re probably American, as it’s a European only event. They included free Xbox Live Gold membership for all silver users (though not really, it was still silver membership, but just had the ability to play your games with others online tacked on), and a bunch of free music videos and all that jazz.

Oh, and they were giving away a free premium theme too. Which is actually quite nice.

Well, I was a little disappointed to be honest with you. Kerrang put up a small handful of music videos (what on earth has happened to Brian Molko’s hair? Jesus Christ), and in true Kerrang style have insisted on attempting to drain blood from a stone by having an exclusive theme just for people who bought the magazine. I wouldn’t have minded the theme, but as I really dislike all Kerrang-esque music (Dragonforce, Cradle of Filth and all them lot can kiss my ass), I really didn’t feel like buying a copy just to get a theme that really should have just been provided free over the weekend anyway.

I mean come on, how hard can it be to make a theme?

Bloody hard apparently. Half the themes available on the Marketplace are horribly incomplete or so outdated they were designed for the original blades layout not the new NXE; and as such get turned into shitty wallpapers instead. What irks me is the whole “have to buy the theme to even see what it looks like” thing. Sure, it’s only a couple hundred points, but hey, that can keep me from having the points to buy that latest Popcap game.

Come on Xbox chaps, at least add a category under “Themes” – say “NXE Themes” or maybe “Themes That Don’t Suck Balls”.

Well as a bonus ladies and gentlemen, if you silver chappies enjoy the free multiplayer over the Xtival period, have a couple extra days on me. First come first served, as all codes are.

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code has been redeemed by a reader

Ho-ho-ho! Merry…. (what bloody day is it today? Monday? Oh okay..) Merry Monday everyone!

It’s so surprising that I would become addicted to it. To me it always seemed like the “mood” option on MySpace, just on a site of it’s own. But then I realised how simple it is. I have an application in my system tray called “Tweetdeck” that keeps me constantly updated on how all my “Friends” (in MySpace terms) are doing, and also lets me update what I’m doing or what I want to say, without me having to faff around with logging into a website or anything. Very very handy.

As a bonus, I’ve noticed quite a few celebrities using Twitter, without the help of their PR agencies (like their MySpace profiles). The celebrities I’ve noticed are personally using it, are Keith Chegwin, Noel Edmonds, Stephen Fry, Terry Wogan, LeVar Burton (Geordie from Star Trek: TNG), Brent Spiner (Data from the same show), and a bundle more. It’s so refreshing to see, say, Cheggers getting confused over an email and asking for a bit of help, rather than have his ghostwriter telling everyone about his latest show.

Also, I believe I have found the world’s worst advert. It’s from Glade. Having not learnt their lesson over the little kid sitting on the toilet and needing an air freshener, they’ve gone one step further; just in case we didn’t quite understand the last time.

Gobsmacking, is it not? Those of you who don’t watch a lot of TV, think yourselves lucky. This is on almost every advert break on every major channel. You also have to love that they insist “more discreet than an aerosol” — well that may be, but the advert certainly isn’t! Insisting that the little kid is going “to do a poo at Paul’s” doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination.

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