So guys... reading. It's pretty cool. It's like video games but without the pew pew and the interactivity. Anyways I've been in a bit of a book phase recently, figured I'd write up some short thoughts on the books I've read recently.
The Road is a post-apocalyptic book by Cormac McCarthy (NO IT IS NOT LIKE FALLOUT SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH). Honestly, one of the most depressing books I have read in my life. It's incredibly well-written and told, but it's a huge downer. The end of the world can be like that sometimes. The story follows a man and his child as they travel through a decimated America. It's a deeply personal story and it really connected with me. The book is short and reads easy (Except for the lack of quotation marks- McCarthy has a phobia of them or something) and I'd definitely reccomend it. Still- it kind of makes you want to give up on life; it's terribly depressing. But good, I cannot stress that enough. Depressing, but great. There's also a feature film coming out this October if your parents never taught you to read.
This is the latest novel by Richard Price, whose novel Clockers inspired The Wire. I heard an interesting interview with him on NPR's Fresh Air and decided to pick it up. It's characterized as a social breakdown of the Lower East Side- the contrast between the hipsters of today and the poor gangs of yesteryear- but this is a bit misleading. The story revolves around a murder of a young bartender by a pair of disenfranchised minority kids and the ensuing investigation. The book is honestly much more of a police procedural than I anticipated. It's a good-even great- police story, but that wasn't exactly what it was billed as. Price writes well, but I was a bit miffed at being decieved.
Haha yeah, I know. Went back and hit this up again in anticipation of Halo: Reach. It's essentially an action-movie in book form, but it provides some great background into the Halo Universe and the Spartan-II program. This is the only Halo novel worth investigating, the rest aren't great unless you're SUPER into the Halo story. Reads real easy if anyone's interested, and it should be awesome to get to PLAY the story of Reach finally in 2010.
Just started in on this one, it's an examination of the modern food industry. Reading up on industrial corn right now (it's in a lot of stuff). Can't pass judgment on this one yet as I'm not too far in.
Still have American Lion, Neuromancer, and Snow Crash sitting in my to-read pile. But I'll be through those quick. Recommend me something new. Or just post about what you've been reading. As always, comments are great :)
I somewhat agree with Endogene's farewell blog (more later maybe?)
Things break- Couldn't get my 360 to play online today- it red-ringed- now it plays online perfectly O_O Probably need to send it in for repairs soon though :( Red Rings don't happen in isolation.
Clearly vital information. I suggest someone copy this over to wikipedia immediately. We can't limit information like this to just one database. 18 Comments
Scribblenauts is a simple puzzle/platformer, but with one vital twist. You can write almost any object you can think of, and that object will appear in the game world to help you platform or puzzle solve. A simple concept that is genius in it's execution and application.
You may be thinking: "How accurate can the dictionary be? It surely won't know a lot of words and the game will be limited". By all accounts the dictionary is quite deep, only a few accounts have come out of E3 of people being able to stump the game, and the devs have been taking notes and promising to put these words in the game. Zombies, time machines, glue, dinosaurs, and even a good chunk of internet memes are in this game (longcat and keyboard cat will both make appearances along with a host of others). Still not convinced? I'll let this video do the talking.
That's some of Scribblenauts in action. Still unconvinced? Feep from neoGAF played it and had this to say:
I had played all the big titles at E3. Private showings of God of War III, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake. But at 4:00 on Thursday, I was wondering around the show floor, wondering what else I had to see. I saw a small little booth for "Scribblenauts!" in the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment section. I mean, who goes to that booth? But I remember hearing about it on GAF, and so I decided to check it out.
Best game of E3? Without a fucking doubt. Anyone who says otherwise did not play Scribblenauts. Best game of all time? Jesus Christ, I don't know, maybe. It's a game that challenges your IMAGINATION. No other game has ever done that.
So listen to this story. I was in the early levels; I didn't quite have an idea of how ridiculously in-depth the database was. I was summoning things like ladders, glasses of water, rayguns, what have you. But I reached a level with zombie robots, and the zombie robots kept killing me. Rayguns didn't work, a torch didn't work, a pickaxe didn't work. In my frustration, I wrote in "Time Machine". And one popped up. What the fuck? A smile dawned on my face. I hopped in, and the option was given to me to either travel to the past or the future. I chose past. When I hopped out, there were fucking dinosaurs walking around. I clicked one, and realized I could RIDE THEM. So I hopped on a fucking DINOSAUR, traveled back to the present, and stomped the shit out of robot zombies. Did you just read that sentence? Did you really? I FUCKING TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERFUCKING ROBOT ZOMBIES. This game is unbelievable. Impossible. There's nothing you can't do.
With the announcement of Halo: Reach at today's Microsoft press conference, I figured I'd run down what we're likely to see, as I have quite a lot of experience with the Halo series. So let's get started. First off:
What is Reach?
Reach was a UNSC fortress world, the most heavily guarded human world outside of Earth. It was a major UNSC military base and also the training ground for the SPARTAN-II program, which the Master Chief was a member of. It was viewed as almost impenetrable by the Covenant, heavily guarded by UNSC military fleets and orbital guns. However, Reach was destroyed by the Covenant in a surprise attack immediately prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. In fact, if you remember all the way back to 2001, Halo: CE begins with The UNSC Pillar of Autumn coming out of a blind jump into the Halo system- they were fleeing form the rout at Reach. Reach's orbital defenses and fleet were completely overwhelmed, and the planet was bombarded from orbit. There was also heavy action on the ground before the UNSC was routed in space, which is likely what the game will focus on.
Wait... Spartans?
Yes, Reach was the base for the Spartan-II project, as detailed in Eric Nylund's novel, The Fall of Reach (Which has been out since 2002, so this is not a new story whatsoever). The novel actually deals with the entire Spartan-II program, following their training from children. Reach will likely just focus on the battle of Reach as opposed to the story of the younger Spartans. During the battle, most all of the Spartans were deployed to the surface of Reach to protect power generators for the orbital gun platforms orbiting Reach (Cairo station from Halo 2 is one of these gun platforms). A few select Spartans (including the Master Chief) stayed in orbit to destroy a piece of human wreckage which contained the coordinates to Earth. The Spartan force on the ground faced some heavy action before they were routed by superior Covenant numbers; they lost the power generators and were trapped on-planet while Reach was glassed from orbit. A few Spartans survived by retreating into the UNSC bases under the surface of the planet, but the majority were lost in the bombardment.
Who Are We Likely To See?
This being a prequel to the original Halo, Bungie has a lot of options. We'll likely see these faces though, as they're fairly integral to the story of Reach:
Dr. Catherine Halsey: The scientist who created and ran the Spartan-II projet, Dr Halsey was on Reach at the time of the attack. She will likely show up in some capacity, as she's a key figure to the Spartan program, which Reach will likely go into more depth on.
Captain Keyes: Keyes was at Reach and involved in the fighting before the planet was lost. He will probbly at least show up over the com as a voice giving you orders.
Cortana: Cortana was at Reach during the battle, she may or may not have a role in Halo: Reach
The Arbiter: The Arbiter was in charge of one of the fleets, or the primary fleet that attacked Reach. He took his ships and followed the Pillar of Autumn to the Halo ring, which he failed to protect, leading to his disgrace in Halo 2. However, it is quite likely we will see him fighting at Reach before he takes off in pursuit of the Autumn.
We likely won't see Master Chief, as he was in orbit while the fighting was taking place on the surface of Reach.
What's Going To Differentiate This?
This one is a bit less clear from what we know right now. The trailer made specific mention of Spartans, which implies that we will be playing as them, or they will at least play a major role. The rumors about a squad-based and third-person Halo game have been quite persistent, and as ODST did not deliver on that, I find it highly likely that Halo: Reach will. A large force of Spartans is on-planet and engaged in group fighting, so it would be the perfect opportunity to explore squad-based gameplay. Spartans are ruthlessly effective teams, going back to Reach allows Bungie to explore this dynamic by having more than one Spartan (Bungie had nothing to do with Halo Wars, remember).
Reach also presents an opportunity to go back to Elites as the primary enemies, as opposed to the Brutes we fought in Halo 3 and will be fighting in ODST. However, portraying the elites as good guys in Halo 3 then making them be villains again in Reach is a bit of a mixed message, something Bungie surely is aware of. Purely story-wise, however, we could be fighting Elites again.
Falls 2010? What The Hell Does That Mean?
It's a play on words. The battle at Reach was a devastating loss for the humans, and they lost the planet. Reach falls 2010- the planet is lost in fall 2010.
And if you think you've never heard or seen Reach before, it was actually mentioned at the start of Halo 2, briefly. Here's a picture of it after being glassed.
So the Kojima countdown clock reached it's conclusion to reveal.... another countdown clock.
Nothing too terribly surprising there, especially since people digging around in the source code had already revealed that the next stage was another timer. What bothers me is people tearing every frame of the new timer apart, attempting to decipher some mysterious clues. At the very latest, the game will be revealed at E3, only a few short weeks away. And even when it is revealed, we won't have our hands on it for at least a year.
So my question is this: What fuels the hysteria that leads people to obsess over such things? The grand secret will be out soon anyways, and you know that Kojima isn't going to reveal the big announcement before the timer ends, so why bother? Especially considering Kojima's reputation for trickery, the whole set of clues might just be red herrings with no relation to the announcement.
So why the bother? Is Kojima Productions that good? Or are we as a group just incredibly impatient and unable to wait for the proper time of an announcement? I understand the point of a teaser is to generate interest in a product reveal, I'm mostly just curious as to why they work, and why this particular one seems to be working so well.
The Broken Steel DLC package for Fallout 3 came out ten days ago, and I've had a lot of people ask me what I thought about it, and if it was worth their money. I figured I'd post my impressions of the expansion here. First off:
The "Fixed" Ending
This dude doesn't end up having much impact at all, in the grand scheme of thingsThis has been a major focus of the promotion for this package, and I honestly believe it to be the weakest part. Whereas the original ending nicely tied up the story and left you with a huge decision at the end that would have a real impact on the Capital Wasteland, Broken Steel essentially returns things to the status quo. Whereas the impression given to you originally was that you could essentially either save the Wasteland or destroy it, Broken Steel reveals that your choice ultimately had very little consequence. The ending cinematics aren't even changed though, which makes it very odd when Ron Pearlman says: "So ends the story of the Lone Wanderer", and then you wake up two weeks later. About the only good thing about the new ending is that it allows for play after the story concludes, which, I suppose, was the main complaint. The ending of Broken Steel presents you with a much bigger choice, that allows you to do something that quite literally changes the Wasteland forever.
Luckily, the new content is great. Broken Steel feels much more like an expansion of the base game than either Operation Anchorage or The Pitt did. Where those felt like singular missions added to the game with no effect elsewhere, Broken Steel is much larger. There are new story missions, new sidequests, new dialogue, new NPCs, and even new environmental touches. You'll even get Three Dog news reports on some of the stuff you do in Broken Steel. Essentially, this stuff just feels more naturally like part of the original game, where OA and TP stood out like sore thumbs.
The new content is geared towards higher-level players though, and is extremely hard, even for people who had hit the previous level cap of 20. Not so much in the tactical: "I can beat those dudes if I position myself better" way, but more in the: "Holy jesus I just hit that Super Mutant Overlord with a mini-nuke and it only took away a tenth of his health shit run" sort of way. Don't enter the Presidential Metro without a dart gun and a lot of darts, is the advice I will give you, because even with the uber-gear from Anchorage and The Pitt, Feral Ghoul Reavers are bullshit. And you'll face about 12 at once in the Presidential Metro.
You'll have access to new weapons and armorNot to say that the game doesn't give you some means to deal with these new threats- new weapons like the Tesla Cannon or the Enclave Heavy Incinerator. These toys are fun to play with, but they don't quite match up to the increased difficulty, and Fallout was never a very combat-focused game anyways. Which is unfortunate, because you are going to have to do a lot of combat to make the climb from the previous level cap of 20 to the new cap of 30. Thee simply isn't enough content in Broken Steel to get you to level 30 alone. For reference, my character did Broken Steel and the Pitt with two ranks in the Swift Learner perk (I was young and naive), and doing both of those packs only got me to around level 26. I eventually got to 30, but it was a lot of unfun combat grinding. The new perks added in Broken Steel are also somewhat of a sticking point. Unlike the creative and original ones in the base game, the perks added by Broken Steel are essentially PC console commands. Three of the new perks do nothing but set your karma to a specific alignment. Others are equally useless. Only the level 30 perk: "Nuclear Anamoly" is any fun.
Those probems aside though, the great thing about Broken Steel is that it ismply feels like more Fallout 3, in a way Anchorage and The Pitt did not. The content contained within feels like it could have shipped with the base game. It's a very small-scale expansion- 3 main quests, 3 sidequests, and two repeeatable quests- but it's certainly worth your money. I especially think that if OA and The Pitt didn't click with you, you'll dig Broken Steel. 8 Comments
This is finally coming out in June, after being finished for over six months....
:|
Looks pretty good, and you can see a lot of key scenes from the book in that trailer (As well as a scene where the Burrow gets exploded by Death Eater missiles O_O), but the Harry Potter movies haven't really been all that great so far. At the very least the cinematography looks amazing, but really the only thing that matters is if they can tell the story well, which I'm not sure if they can. Anyone have any expectations for this? 23 Comments
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