What's New? (7th Sept 2007)

Feature by Tom Bramwell Former Editor-in-Chief

Updated on 14 Sep 2007

Sitting on a plane yesterday flying to a SECRET LOCATION to engage in SECRET REVIEWING, I found myself reading Richard Dawkins' popular book about how God doesn't exist and how we should all get over it.

The main reason for this was that the airport bookshop didn't have any of the half-dozen alternatives I'd picked out in my head to hunt down, and I thought I might as well upgrade my knowledge of Dawkins from a vague memory of The Selfish Gene and that South Park episode where he has it off with Mr Garrison to something resembling the truth. Or at least what he thinks.

More interesting than what I think of The God Delusion's content, however (not enough gunfights), is that the man sitting next to me revealed, after I booted him out so I could go to the loo, that he actually studied under Dawkins at Oxford many years ago and that "Richard", while in his view brilliant, etc., wasn't half as interesting as his mentalist brother, who felt that pink corduroy was the height of fashion and once got arrested for responding to the indignity of becoming trapped behind a barrier in a car park by getting out, wandering over, and cutting it in half with an axe.

Which reminds us all, of course, that last week's new releases were September's interesting little brother (Stuntman Ignition! WarHawk! Medieval 2 expansion!), and this week's basically aren't interesting almost to a man.

Of what we've got, Two Worlds is the curiosity - somebody else's Oblivion, from what I can grasp of it - but the publisher's reluctance to give us review code until the last minute bodes about as well as putting "God" and "pink corduroy" in the same paragraph of something people can reach through Google, while Medal of Honor: Airborne is the clear standout. It is also - for anybody writing a weekly new releases column who forgot about it until 10 seconds ago and hasn't got time to go back and redo the intro - a much better way to tie a story about BEING ON A PLANE to a weekly new releases column.

As, for that matter, would have been the case with Blazing Angels II.

Anyway, time to go and sit down for ten hours playing a game. Which would also have been a useful way of linking back to sitting on a plane oh God why do I even bother.

Tom Bramwell's fee for this column will be donated to alcohol and probably a packet of crisps.

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