Ghostbusters and Pokémon

In late December, or possibly early January, I forget which, I found one of my childhood teddy bears and had some sort of epiphany about a part of myself I had lost.

Specifically, that childlike - note, childlike, not childish - part of myself which can still be innocent.

I've expressed this in the last week or so through a couple of media - Pokémon, and tonight (well, late last night I suppose now technically) the film Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters is the kind of film they don't really make any more outside of Pixar.

Although there's an undertone of Bill Murray's character basically hitting on anything that moves, that aside, Ghostbusters is that rare film that's just outright daftness.

The concept is insane, the characters are almost all idiots, the whole film is crazy and Bill Murray is clearly riffing on every single line in the script, having the time of his life.

But it all comes together to make a film that's not too dumb for adults and not too smart for kids.

As I said, aside from Murray's hitting on people it's totally innocent on every other level.

There's a kind of purity in that; comedy that's just funny and timeless without needing to be breaking the fourth wall or overly shocking or dating itself with political references.

Speaking of purity, I recently started playing through a borrowed Pokémon Yellow on my Game Boy Colour.

For all the offensive nicknames I gave to both my character and Gary's, Pokémon is totally innocent and even pure in so many ways.

I'm not a huge fan of the depressing Lavender Town (ALL MY POKEMON ARE DEAD), but the game is mainly just about running about doing the quests, raising your Pokémon, having fun with it.

The creator of the game always made sure that there was no blood in the game and no Pokémon die in battle, they only ever faint. He said there was too much violence in the world already and I think there's something quietly beautiful in that.

This appreciation of something childlike is something that can go hand in hand with adulthood and maturity and a personality trait we could all use.

I know I've been missing it for far too long.

Left 4 Deads volumes 1 and 2.

I'm going to take a break from our usual programming (i.e. the continuation of my previous post) to talk about something else.

Left 4 Dead.

Oh, and Left 4 Dead 2.

Something which a lot of television pundits will never truly understand unless they do it themselves is the joy of playing a computer game with a bunch of your mates.

It doesn't have to be challenging, it can just be fun. And possibly the most fun I've ever had playing a computer game is playing Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

For the uninitiated, here's some explanation of the games.

The only horror movie to ever genuinely frighten me - and I don't mean stupid jump scares that a fluffy kitten could do if timed correctly - was 28 Days Later, and as such it is one of my favourite films.

Based around a rabies-like pandemic that makes people act like monstrous animals, attacking and pummeling each other to death (of course, a bite makes you become one of them), it's probably the greatest zombie movie that George A. Romero didn't make.

Left 4 Dead is basically like playing that film, and it's magnificent.

As described by Zero Punctuation, there's not much storyline; basically that pandemic has infected a lot of people and the last four - the '4' in the title - have to fight their way through thousands of infected in order to escape.

That's it. No fannying around, no nonsense. Just shoot zombies, lots of zombies, until the zombies run out and/or you get away.

And it is a quite preposterous amount of fun.

It's not all ordinary zombies of course. There's the smoker, who grabs you and pulls you close; there's the boomer, who attracts other zombies to you and blinds you; there's the hunter, you pounces on you and rips you to shreds; the tank, who is tough as hell; and the witch, who just sits crying to herself unless you startle her and then all hell breaks loose.

Played with three mates in a darkened room, Left 4 Dead is an often terrifying and overall brilliant game and I honestly couldn't have thought of a way to improve it.

But they only went and bloomin' well did it with Left 4 Dead 2.

Released only something stupid like six months after the original, it's taken everything great about Left 4 Dead and poured chocolate on it.

Possibly the greatest addition is that of melee weapons. With ridiculous comic props like guitars and saucepans to hand, you'd be stupid to not choose the chainsaw, which you just set running and then watch the zombies run into it and fall to bits. It's glorious.

There are also new special zombies; the spitter which has corrosive bile; the charger, which is like a budget version of the Tank; and the jockey, which takes control of you and makes you run around like a loon.

The graphics are better, the weapons are better, the environments are more varied and interesting, and the level on which you wander around a corn farm swarming with witches in a torrential downpour is possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen in a game.

They may not be original, or clever; but the Left 4 Dead games are just outright fun the way a game is supposed to be.

Buy them.

BUY THEM NOW.