Okay, so, its been a while since I've updated for reasons mostly involving my massive MASSIVE cocaine habit, but now I'm back so lets get too it!
DARKEST OF DAYS!
This is a new FPS from some Podunk company called 8 Monkey Labs. Its come outta no where, without much backing in both money and name recognition. Does it hold up to mainstream shooters like Halo or Call of Duty?
Graphically? No.
Sound? No.
Polish? Also no!
However, in terms of originality, story, and gameplay, it blows most FPS on the market outta the water.
The basic idea is that you're Alexander Morris, a poor schmoe who served under General Custer at the illfated Battle of Little Bighorn. Moments before getting your brains bashed in by a POed Native American, a time portal opens and you get yanked into the future, to serve under Kronotek, a company in the future that handles time travel.
Kronotek has one objective: Keep history the way it was.
Unfortunately, someone is going back to fuck things up. So you gotta go in and fix them.
This will take you to the Civil War and to WWI, WWII and other places.
Most missions involve you using period specific weapons, which keeps gameplay shockingly fresh. The difference between , say, a WWII SMG and a musket is huge...and the battlegrounds of WWI requires far different tactics than fighting in the Civil War. And, of course you get to use futuristic guns in the past. Mmm, assault rifle versus muskets. Never gets old.
The story is cheesy and yet engaging, fully occupying my attention as I played, with characters I actually kinda cared about, some surprisingly funny moments (my personal favorite being a madcap ride on a zeppelin), and with an ending that...
Well, okay. The LAST level is pretty goddamn awesome.
But the *ending* is nothing but sequel bait. It sets up a cliffhanger, then ends with you hanging off said cliff.
So, that really pissed me off.
But other than that blemish, Darkest of Days is definitely a game worth picking up!
Highs: New Concept, engaging gameplay, good story
Lows: Mediocre Graphics and sound, cliffhanger ending
Final Line: Sick of blowing up Halo rings? GET THIS GAME
I give it 4 out of 5 Time Bubbles.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Preview!
I am working on a new review, this time a video game!
A new video game!
Its got...TIIIIIIIIIME TRAAAAAAVEL!
A new video game!
Its got...TIIIIIIIIIME TRAAAAAAVEL!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
How Orson Scott Card broke my computer (Part 2)
After two days of fiddling, I've gotten this computer to work!
All it took was installing linux, uninstalling vista, backing up my files, installing vista incorrectly, uninstalling vista, uninstalling linux, then installing XP and then fiddling with my Ethernet drivers and then FINALLY ...I got it to work.
And best of all...
ADVENT RISING WORKS ON XP!
Which is why I'm playing it while I type this.
Natch!
All it took was installing linux, uninstalling vista, backing up my files, installing vista incorrectly, uninstalling vista, uninstalling linux, then installing XP and then fiddling with my Ethernet drivers and then FINALLY ...I got it to work.
And best of all...
ADVENT RISING WORKS ON XP!
Which is why I'm playing it while I type this.
Natch!
After the Downfall: Of Nazis, Unicorns, and Sex
Aaah, Harry Turtledove. I must say, I'm a absurdo-fan of his work. I own every book of three series, several of his one-shots, and at least three anthology books. I've read each of them at least twice, some of them more, and I can list off my characters of his from favorite to least (starting with Ealistan, ending with Jens Fucking Larson, god I HATE THAT GUY!) from his books and, of course, summarize his three 'epic' series right off the top of my head.
The only thing I fangasim harder for would be Babylon 5. If you give me an episode number, I can give you a title, a plot synopsis, and how many episodes FROM that we get another Walter "Nuclear Wessals" Koenig episode.
However...just because I'm a dribbling fanboy does not mean that I can't recognize the huge flaws in Turtledove's writing. Cause he has them and hoo-boy, if you're not ready, they can be a game breaker.
Firstly, he writes big books. Big books, with lots of characters, over long periods of time. This leads to repetition. Lots and lots of repetition. I swear, you will hear similar lines of dialog done again and again and again. You will read the same scene again and again and again, with only minor changes. There's a good reason for this: People do the same thing again and again. That's part of what makes them good people. And Harry Turtledove always writes great people...the only problem is a great portrayal of a person does not always equate to a character that will leave you riveted to the book!
Don't get me wrong! Turtledove has plenty of exciting action scenes, taut conversations, and erotic sex scenes to keep you interested...assuming you know when to skim!
Second Problem! This guy really likes his World War 2. I mean, seriously, his three most epic series are...
World War 2 with ALIENS
World War 2 with THE CONFEDERACY!
World War 2 with MAGIC (my favorite)
and, of course, who can forget his one shots...
World War 2 but the Nazis Won!
World War 2 but the Japanese invaded Hawaii
World War 2 but...um, wait, I think that's it.
OH WAIT, this perfectly segues into the thing I was actually going to talk about!
Nazis and Unicorns! Warning! Spoilers ahead!
The only thing I fangasim harder for would be Babylon 5. If you give me an episode number, I can give you a title, a plot synopsis, and how many episodes FROM that we get another Walter "Nuclear Wessals" Koenig episode.
However...just because I'm a dribbling fanboy does not mean that I can't recognize the huge flaws in Turtledove's writing. Cause he has them and hoo-boy, if you're not ready, they can be a game breaker.
Firstly, he writes big books. Big books, with lots of characters, over long periods of time. This leads to repetition. Lots and lots of repetition. I swear, you will hear similar lines of dialog done again and again and again. You will read the same scene again and again and again, with only minor changes. There's a good reason for this: People do the same thing again and again. That's part of what makes them good people. And Harry Turtledove always writes great people...the only problem is a great portrayal of a person does not always equate to a character that will leave you riveted to the book!
Don't get me wrong! Turtledove has plenty of exciting action scenes, taut conversations, and erotic sex scenes to keep you interested...assuming you know when to skim!
Second Problem! This guy really likes his World War 2. I mean, seriously, his three most epic series are...
World War 2 with ALIENS
World War 2 with THE CONFEDERACY!
World War 2 with MAGIC (my favorite)
and, of course, who can forget his one shots...
World War 2 but the Nazis Won!
World War 2 but the Japanese invaded Hawaii
World War 2 but...um, wait, I think that's it.
OH WAIT, this perfectly segues into the thing I was actually going to talk about!
Nazis and Unicorns! Warning! Spoilers ahead!
After the Downfall begins with, well, the Downfall bit. The massive red army is smashing into Berlin in an orgy of rape, death and violence. Yeah, Nazi Germany was evil, but by this point, it was kind of like kicking a dog after all of its legs were bitten off. Oh and its one million people doing the kicking.
The main character, Captain Hasso Pemsil (Or Tha Playa as I shall be calling him) has a handful of soldiers around him, almost no ammo and almost no cover. The Reds are getting closer and the best place that he and his men have to hide is a musem of ancient artifacts.
Needless to say, they're up Styx creek without a paddel. And no, I didn't bring up Greek references for nothing! For this Musem holds this ancient rock called something or other, which I'm sure is some Greek legend reference. Long story short, Tha Play sits down on the rock and, to his shock, vanishes.
Then the rest of his men get shot so no one knows that he's vanished.
And since the rock is neither a Nazi to shoot nor a woman to rape, the Reds ignore it and Berlin collapses.
That's the Downfall...and now we get the AFTER bit!
Tha Playa arrives in a marshy forest that looks almost exactly like Russia, except with less angry Russians trying to k- and holy shit, a super hot blond bombshell being chased by three subhuman jews. At least that's what Tha Playa sees.
So he does the logical thing and uses his fancy gun to mow down the jews. The hot blond bombshell, who turns out to be named Velona, does something rather odd. She takes off her clothes and spreads her legs.
Tha Playa, still a bit shell shocked, thinks that this is rather odd.
Then he realizes, oi! Hot girl! And gets right too it.
Did I mention this is seven pages in?
Seven.
Seeeeveeeeen!
Anywho, Tha Playa, between boning the Goddess (Oh yeah, she's a Goddess) learns that he's in a magical world of magic, wherein the blond folks have arrived and started taking over the lands of the short jew-looking people. And they're having a fairly grand time of it all, except for this one annoyingly hard to destroy nation of jew-looking people. Realizing that he can use his furteristic German Brain to aide his fellow blondies, Tha Playa soon gets a job as head of the magical SS in the blondie's court.
He also learns he has magical powers. Sweet.
However, Tha Playa is having second thoughts. For one thing, he's had time to think about it...and, well, the subhuman russians hadn't really been very subhuman. Everything he had been taught was that Russians were weaker than Germans. And therefor, Germany should not have lost to them. If Germany had lost to them...then...QUESTION MARK.
While bemusing this, he begins to actually feel...kinda bad for the Jew-looking folk. I mean, the blondies are just real assholes to them.
Tha Playa is conflicted! But then, a nice war comes along to distract him: The king he's working for decides to use Tha Playa's might German Tactics to crush the Jew-looking people's homeland once and for all!
And, at first, the German Tactics (applied to horses, rather than tanks) work great.
But then those annoying Jew-looking people do the logical thing and set a trap that would only work against bunched up calvery all charging right at you. Tha Playa falls into the trap, most of the army is killed, then routed...and Tha Playa awakens in a Jew-Looking People jail!
Over time, he learns the other side of the story, grows to realize that the way people look has almost no bearing on their actual personality, discards his old Nazi beliefs of racial hygine and social darwinism, and falls in love with a hot jew-looking people girl, who has more personality, spunk and intellegence than the blondie goddess anyway.
The story ends with Tha Playa settling down with the jew-looking people girl and helping that nation develop gunpowder, to help level out the playing field, so to speak.
On the whole, what did I think of this book?
I fucking LOVED IT!
Why? Firstly, it was a unique idea excecuted well. Secondly, it was a redemption story and I love redemption stories. Thirdly, the characters were well drawn and realistic. Tha Playa is ernestly likable even when he's in racist mode, the Goddess has a perfect air of being both increadibly hot and ever so slightly annoying. And, of course, a shout out MUST go to the jew-looking people girl, who steals the show by being my...FAVORITE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK!
The book also gains bonus points for not killing my FCOTB off. Yeah, I often pick favorite characters that...die...
When that happens, books loose points.
Grr
Okay, fourthly, the book was a nice change of pace from Turtledove's normal works. He's only got a few characters, and a shorter time frame, and so it feels much less repetitive, while still having that classic Turtledove detail that always makes me snuggle his books while reading them.
And, lastly, there's lots and lots of awesome awesome sex...
Highs: Redemption story that feels realisitc. Sex.
Lows: Maybe too much sex for prudes. The fantasy names are impossible to remember.
Bottom Line: Worth a looksie if you're new to Turtledove. If you're a fan, grab it!
Score: 4 Swasitcas
RANDOM SIDE NOTE!
I must say: Turtledove has shockingly few gay character. You'd think that at least one would pop up one of these days...but nope! No gay people!
However, I think I know why. When he wrote his WW2 with Aliens story, people asked why there were no 'view point characters' that were Japanese. And Harry Turtledove explained that he could not write from their perspective, as he did not understand them yet....so later, he wrote a series which had many Japanese characters and nailed them.
I think Turtledove needs to simpyl study up more on gay characters, to try and figure out how to get in their heads. Cause, well, Turltedove is so nicely well rounded in his representation of the world, its a shame to see him miss out on this increasingly important one!
See ya guys next time.
The main character, Captain Hasso Pemsil (Or Tha Playa as I shall be calling him) has a handful of soldiers around him, almost no ammo and almost no cover. The Reds are getting closer and the best place that he and his men have to hide is a musem of ancient artifacts.
Needless to say, they're up Styx creek without a paddel. And no, I didn't bring up Greek references for nothing! For this Musem holds this ancient rock called something or other, which I'm sure is some Greek legend reference. Long story short, Tha Play sits down on the rock and, to his shock, vanishes.
Then the rest of his men get shot so no one knows that he's vanished.
And since the rock is neither a Nazi to shoot nor a woman to rape, the Reds ignore it and Berlin collapses.
That's the Downfall...and now we get the AFTER bit!
Tha Playa arrives in a marshy forest that looks almost exactly like Russia, except with less angry Russians trying to k- and holy shit, a super hot blond bombshell being chased by three subhuman jews. At least that's what Tha Playa sees.
So he does the logical thing and uses his fancy gun to mow down the jews. The hot blond bombshell, who turns out to be named Velona, does something rather odd. She takes off her clothes and spreads her legs.
Tha Playa, still a bit shell shocked, thinks that this is rather odd.
Then he realizes, oi! Hot girl! And gets right too it.
Did I mention this is seven pages in?
Seven.
Seeeeveeeeen!
Anywho, Tha Playa, between boning the Goddess (Oh yeah, she's a Goddess) learns that he's in a magical world of magic, wherein the blond folks have arrived and started taking over the lands of the short jew-looking people. And they're having a fairly grand time of it all, except for this one annoyingly hard to destroy nation of jew-looking people. Realizing that he can use his furteristic German Brain to aide his fellow blondies, Tha Playa soon gets a job as head of the magical SS in the blondie's court.
He also learns he has magical powers. Sweet.
However, Tha Playa is having second thoughts. For one thing, he's had time to think about it...and, well, the subhuman russians hadn't really been very subhuman. Everything he had been taught was that Russians were weaker than Germans. And therefor, Germany should not have lost to them. If Germany had lost to them...then...QUESTION MARK.
While bemusing this, he begins to actually feel...kinda bad for the Jew-looking folk. I mean, the blondies are just real assholes to them.
Tha Playa is conflicted! But then, a nice war comes along to distract him: The king he's working for decides to use Tha Playa's might German Tactics to crush the Jew-looking people's homeland once and for all!
And, at first, the German Tactics (applied to horses, rather than tanks) work great.
But then those annoying Jew-looking people do the logical thing and set a trap that would only work against bunched up calvery all charging right at you. Tha Playa falls into the trap, most of the army is killed, then routed...and Tha Playa awakens in a Jew-Looking People jail!
Over time, he learns the other side of the story, grows to realize that the way people look has almost no bearing on their actual personality, discards his old Nazi beliefs of racial hygine and social darwinism, and falls in love with a hot jew-looking people girl, who has more personality, spunk and intellegence than the blondie goddess anyway.
The story ends with Tha Playa settling down with the jew-looking people girl and helping that nation develop gunpowder, to help level out the playing field, so to speak.
On the whole, what did I think of this book?
I fucking LOVED IT!
Why? Firstly, it was a unique idea excecuted well. Secondly, it was a redemption story and I love redemption stories. Thirdly, the characters were well drawn and realistic. Tha Playa is ernestly likable even when he's in racist mode, the Goddess has a perfect air of being both increadibly hot and ever so slightly annoying. And, of course, a shout out MUST go to the jew-looking people girl, who steals the show by being my...FAVORITE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK!
The book also gains bonus points for not killing my FCOTB off. Yeah, I often pick favorite characters that...die...
When that happens, books loose points.
Grr
Okay, fourthly, the book was a nice change of pace from Turtledove's normal works. He's only got a few characters, and a shorter time frame, and so it feels much less repetitive, while still having that classic Turtledove detail that always makes me snuggle his books while reading them.
And, lastly, there's lots and lots of awesome awesome sex...
Highs: Redemption story that feels realisitc. Sex.
Lows: Maybe too much sex for prudes. The fantasy names are impossible to remember.
Bottom Line: Worth a looksie if you're new to Turtledove. If you're a fan, grab it!
Score: 4 Swasitcas
RANDOM SIDE NOTE!
I must say: Turtledove has shockingly few gay character. You'd think that at least one would pop up one of these days...but nope! No gay people!
However, I think I know why. When he wrote his WW2 with Aliens story, people asked why there were no 'view point characters' that were Japanese. And Harry Turtledove explained that he could not write from their perspective, as he did not understand them yet....so later, he wrote a series which had many Japanese characters and nailed them.
I think Turtledove needs to simpyl study up more on gay characters, to try and figure out how to get in their heads. Cause, well, Turltedove is so nicely well rounded in his representation of the world, its a shame to see him miss out on this increasingly important one!
See ya guys next time.
Monday, September 7, 2009
How Orson Scott Card broke my computer
Orson Scott Card is a very interesting writer. He wrote one of the most sci-fi beloved books of all time, then proceeded to ram the series into the ground with sequel after sequel. I hear Enders Shadow was good, but I never read it cause I'm a lazy bastard.
However, OSC is also one of the few Big Name Writers who signed up to write for a video game. Till now, most "Big Name People" who sign up to work for video games were actors, see Christopher Walkin in Ripper or Patric Stewart in Oblivion. Unfortunately, actors are only so good. They need good scripts to really shine. Even Patric Stewart, aka Emperor Picard, could not make Star Trek Nemesis anything more than a boring hunk of space derbies that should never have been filmed.
And so, many Big Name Actors in video games have gone to waste, their dialog either completely ruck farded, or they vanish five seconds after the game starts.
I'm looking at you, Emperor Picard!
The inclusion of a Big Name Writer, though...aaah, but that was interesting! Good writing can make a game shine despite hardware or gameplay issues, see ANYTHING by Tim Schafer, while bad writing can sully a good game's reputation. Or at least it should (coughHalocoughcough).
And the story that OSC had pumped out for the game he was attached too was quite interesting, and when we finally played it, it was kick-awesome. Human extinction, godlike powers, aliens, and fun stuff like that. The only problem was that the game was supposed to have two sequels. And it didn't.
DAMN YOU, GEORGE LUCAS!
But, still, the first game was good, right?
Right! It was good. It was so good, I wanted to play it again. And so I reinstalled it, started it up and...um, it didn't work.
So I tried to get it to work. And it still didn't work.
And then I tried something that only made sense at one in the morning: I turned off my video card, thinking that that would totally work.
It didn't.
And now, I can't turn my video card back on.
All I need to do is go into the device manager and flip the card back on. Simple and easy...or it would be IF MY SCREEN WAS NOT A BLANK PIT OF DESPAIR!
However, OSC is also one of the few Big Name Writers who signed up to write for a video game. Till now, most "Big Name People" who sign up to work for video games were actors, see Christopher Walkin in Ripper or Patric Stewart in Oblivion. Unfortunately, actors are only so good. They need good scripts to really shine. Even Patric Stewart, aka Emperor Picard, could not make Star Trek Nemesis anything more than a boring hunk of space derbies that should never have been filmed.
And so, many Big Name Actors in video games have gone to waste, their dialog either completely ruck farded, or they vanish five seconds after the game starts.
I'm looking at you, Emperor Picard!
The inclusion of a Big Name Writer, though...aaah, but that was interesting! Good writing can make a game shine despite hardware or gameplay issues, see ANYTHING by Tim Schafer, while bad writing can sully a good game's reputation. Or at least it should (coughHalocoughcough).
And the story that OSC had pumped out for the game he was attached too was quite interesting, and when we finally played it, it was kick-awesome. Human extinction, godlike powers, aliens, and fun stuff like that. The only problem was that the game was supposed to have two sequels. And it didn't.
DAMN YOU, GEORGE LUCAS!
But, still, the first game was good, right?
Right! It was good. It was so good, I wanted to play it again. And so I reinstalled it, started it up and...um, it didn't work.
So I tried to get it to work. And it still didn't work.
And then I tried something that only made sense at one in the morning: I turned off my video card, thinking that that would totally work.
It didn't.
And now, I can't turn my video card back on.
All I need to do is go into the device manager and flip the card back on. Simple and easy...or it would be IF MY SCREEN WAS NOT A BLANK PIT OF DESPAIR!
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
An introduction to musing metahuman
Welcome to Musing Metahuman, the blog for bioliberal transhumanists FOR bioliberal transhumanists.
This blog will have it all, adventures and action and buried treasure and maybe some pirate octopi. If you read it, you will chill! You will thrill! You will wonder about my sanity!
So, what is coming up in the following weeks!?
Mostly movie, books and vidoe game reviews.
Yup.
Pretty exciting stuff here.
This blog will have it all, adventures and action and buried treasure and maybe some pirate octopi. If you read it, you will chill! You will thrill! You will wonder about my sanity!
So, what is coming up in the following weeks!?
Mostly movie, books and vidoe game reviews.
Yup.
Pretty exciting stuff here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)