I'm on the last level of "THE END" which, ironically, is anything but. I'm having to negotiate a veritable course of circular saw blades being chased by an enraged phoetus doctor. Yep, super meat boy is one hell of a game.
Masocore is something which I occasionally inflict upon myself and Super Meat Boy fell at just the right moment. One cannot survive on a diet of cake alone, and it has been adequate time since my escapades with VVVVVV. It's a hard game to review because there really isn't much to it. It's perilously difficult, with a range of sadistic levels and a cracking soundtrack, but once that basic formula has been established it's a simple exercise in rinse and repeat. The level design is not particularly complex, it is not a game of puzzles - more of reactions and muscle memory.
I can't decide if this is good or bad.
I'm certainly having a lot of fun playing it, even if the Dark Worlds are driving me fucking insane. I think what really keeps me coming back is that I have several friends who also own the game and we are each slowly chipping away to see who can crack it first. I think i'm in the lead but Robster has hella more bandages than me. DaemonicGrim isn't really a threat as he primarily uses Gish. Good luck with that, buddy...
It's getting to that time of year where the upcoming releases have been locked in and people start throwing out Game of The Year lists.
This entire process has been ridiculously convoluted and there is a very simple solution.
You can't argue with Jeff Gerstmeme
Having said that
The Indie game of the year yields much more heated and passionate discussion. With such quality titles as Limbo, Super Meat Boy, Shank, Amnesia, and not to mention fucking Minecraft, we have been spoilt for choice. Negotiations continue but Limbo looks to be the most promising. It might not be as balls-out entertaining as Super Meat Boy but it's design and polish has left a very lasting impression. I can't really argue Amnesia one way or the other, mainly because i'm too scared to keep playing it :'(
Having listened to yesterdays bombcast and I contemplated returning to Albion while I still have the chance - but I have no interest in hunting for keys or Demon Doors. Instead I found myself slightly frustrated that I was not given sufficient incentive to return to the locations that I had frequented throughout my playthrough. There are choices towards the end of the game which can radically warp the terrain of Albions many colourful districts, but having completed the game, there is very little reason to then go and see them. It's also a little disappointing that, having chosen to be a kind and benevolent ruler, most of my positive moral decisions did absolutely fuck all. For example there is a point when you are given the option of dumping excess city waste into a swamp occupied by left-wing eco-warriors. My decision to... you know... not do that left the place unchanged, a boost for my moral standing (and a hit to my wallet) but also left me feelingly slightly deprived - I would have liked to see the swamp all toxic and fucked up, that would have been a lot more interesting to see and experience. Instead it stayed exactly the same as it was and I continue to have no desire to return there ever again.
There are also quite a lot of opportunities to pilfer money towards the end of the game, though why you would ever need to I have no idea. I had bought pretty much everything by the time I was halfway through the game, so most of the final decisions were pretty meaningless. I could simply opt for the good decision and take a minor financial hit every time. In retrospect I would have preferred the exclusion of buying and renting property in Albion. It's handled badly (raising and lowering rent, repairing, buying and selling must all be done for each building individually. When you own half a city that's a pain in the arse) and it's too easily exploited. I'm sure a lot of people simply bought a few buildings and then left their game idle for a few hours to accumulate some cash - undermining the effectiveness of your otherwise interesting end-game decisions.
My brother just bought me a copy of black ops which should arrive at some point over the next few days so i'm pretty hyped for that. It's been a while since I shot anything in a videogame, so it's nice to mix things up a bit.
Fable 3 is, in many ways, a clear regression from much of what defined Fable 2. For reasons unbeknownst, gone are much of what made Fable 2 such an interesting and innovative game in the first place.
As I am writing this I have Fable 3 running right next to me, left so that gold can accumulate.
I have just seen a man kick my dog. Oh hell no.
But the man kicked my dog because I put his rent up as high as it would go. I am, essentially, a bastard. Normally when I start playing a game like Fable 3 I set a course and stick with it. I decide, at the beginning of the game, whether I will be good or evil and stick to that decision rigidly throughout the game to see exactly how far those boundaries can be pushed. It says volumes for Fable 3 that, despite my intentions of staying Evil from start to finish, the design of the world and it's characters actually guilted me into being... you know.... nice.
It is a shame, therefore, that this innovation is undermined by it's occasional clumsy and awkward design.
Holy shit, another fucker just kicked my dog. I am accumulating a small pile of corpses in the middle of Bowerstone Market.
There's a lot about the game which is just awkward. As Brad mentioned on the bombcast, there are a lot of UI and HUD decisions which are impossible to access unless the game decides their inclusion is appropriate. The map, though inconvenient, is not as terrible as he would have you believe, however, as the sanctuary loads fairly promptly. Property management is a complete cunt though, especially when you establish your empire and have to navigate awkward menus to maintain and repair such a large number of dwellings. Fast Travel is unhelpfully unpredictable, sometimes taking you where you want to be, others dumping you at the opposite end of a huge sprawling level which is consistently repopulated with Hobbes, Hollow Men, and an entire menagerie of pointless cannon fodder which you are then expected to slash through.
There are design decisions which are just awkward.
To attack you press X, but to block you hold X. To flurry you hold X then press the directional stick towards your target. It's just convoluted, and unnecessary when you consider the trigger and bumper buttons remain largely useless throughout the game. The framerate also has a filthy habit of dropping during the QTE focussed mini-games, the sole source of income in the early stages of the game. As you play, a crowd accumulates around you - but a large crowd produces a crappy framerate. I have lost many rounds of Lute-Hero thanks to Fable 3s awkward stuttering. The pedestrian commentary can also be hilariously hypocritical. "Ere, aren't you that psyco killer wot I been hearin' about?" chimes a guard, followed immediately by a sharp salute and "Good morning your majesty." Off with that motherfuckers head.
Sabine looks unfortunately similar to the Burger King in this photo :S
What saves Fable 3
is it's humour, characters, and playful imagination. The voice acting, something which I am exceedingly sensitive about, remains of such startlingly high quality that I often guffaw at the humble British idiosyncrasies on display. "Balls!" cries Sir Walter Beck, charging hilariously into the battle. It says a lot about me, spawn of the West Country, that I felt so immediately at home in the rusticity of Brightwall. Lionhead has successfully retained the magical Britishness that made Fable 2 so incredible. I often wonder how much is missed by international players. The characters themselves are beautifully rendered, leaving lasting impressions that make the late-game decisions so perilously hard. This isn't a generic little sister you are harvesting: this is Sabine, leader of the Dwellers, a mad welsh dwarf with a majestic moustache and a healthy appetite for explosives. Telling him I could not make good on my promise to him from the beginning of the game was fucking heartbreaking.
And it's visible in the humour too, arguably my favourite aspect in the entirety of Albion, though you might have to seek it out. The dryness of Fable 3s charm was an instant winner with me, and made me want to explore and see as much of Albion as possible. I especially like the names of the houses in the Bowerstone Industrial district. Discovering "Guiltford" and "Chavingdon Manor" made me genuinely burst out laughing. The assorted posters on display are also fantastically realised, and the general impression is one of a beautifully fleshed out world.
Too damn true.
Fable 3 is far from perfect, technically flawed and frequently patronisingly simplistic.
But there is a wealth of humour, charm, and imagination that makes Albion such a wondrous place to explore. It's also surprisingly inventive, frequently placing the player in original and imaginative situations. Being shrunk and forced to play through a parody of Dungeons and Dragons was a personal highlight, as was my first trip through the desert. Exceptionally well crafted videogaming.
So... yeah. Fable 3 happened.
Big thank you to everyone for their support on the 300th blog, now that shit is over i'm hoping to get back into my usual blogging schedule. I have a lot of university work to be getting on with, so i'm desperate for excuses not to do it :D
It has been almost a month since my last blog. I think that's actually the longest I have ever gone without blogging since I started using the site on the day it launched back in 2008. This is my 300th blog, and I wanted to do something special. But after a while I realized that in trying to find the perfect 300th blog is a bit like trying to find the grail. I could keep searching forever and never find exactly what I wanted, when all I really want to do is write some more fucking blogs. I had surrendered my life to a search for virtual immortality.
My name is Endoge... er... what?
My name is Sweep. Welcome to blog number 300.
This blog is a canvas upon which I vomit the contents of my mind. That canvas is then hung, with a mixture of apprehension, pride, and shame, upon the wall that is Giantbomb. For some reason, you people seem to enjoy looking at it. You sick bastards.
Here's some numbers:
Sweep (that's me) has written 300 blogs in 838 days.
That's one blog every 2.79 days for two and a half years.
Those blogs have received a staggering 5938comments (yep, I counted them) from my fellow giantbombers, a number I still can't quite comprehend. I have amassed over 600 followers whom I love incessantly (though they terrify me), and 2,262 forum posts which I don't ever remember writing.
So... how did we get here?
I guess the best place to start is the Giantbomb IRC. That's a pretty filthy place to begin, but I have to credit the amount of time I spent in there and all the awesome adventures we got up to as a result. I met many amazing people, some of whom are still here, some of whom are not. A large amount of those guys are still frequent flyers, still read and comment on my writing. That's where I met Mattbodega, JensonB, TokyoChicken and Disgaeamad. It was probably because of their Community Podcast, Bomb Should Have A Face, that my blog got any real recognition at all. This was back in the day when the "Are games art?" brigade still retained some form of credibility. But thanks to those guys people started reading my blogs and, well.... here we are.
And that's not even the half of it. I have such a hefty back-catalogue of blogs that i'm contemplating hiring an assistant to sort through them. I hear mattbodega is free, maybe I should give him a call...
When I picked out that cheeky little cheeseburger I never in my wildest (nor wettest) dreams imagined it would one day come to represent my entire zombie shooting, chainsaw loving, drum and bass obsessed personality. Somewhere along the line I physically turned into a hamburger. I'm completely ok with that.
Gallery
Not long ago there was a thread on the forums which asked what each user was proud of having accomplished within the giantbomb community. I didn't really know what to say. Am I proud of all this shit? I guess so, which is why I wrote it all down. I appreciate this blog is pretty fucking narcissistic, but remembering each bizarre episode has made me all nostalgic and emotional. I hope you found something in that heap of junk that you remember and that makes you smile.
But what's really important here is for me to say thank you. It's because of you mongrels that all of this magical, disgusting bewilderness was allowed to exist. Without you, I am nothing. I hope you are fucking proud of yourselves.
Perhaps not technically, but socially this game is completely out of touch.
Despite my love for the original Dead Rising, I am not immune to it's flaws. Unnecessary frames of animation, a clunky and unresponsive inventory, a general insanity that demands the suspension of reality to justify lengthy boss encounters that, and this is the important part, nobody enjoys. These are all invaluable tools in the Dead Rising arsenal, and Dead Rising 2 not only holds them together with duct tape, but clubs you over the head with them.
I loved the original game far too much.
It was and remains the primary reason for the purchase of my Xbox 360, and the sequel confirms that I made the right decision in doing so. The reasons for this surpass even my love of zombies: Dead Rising is a fucking hard game, and it requires patience, understanding and an unhealthy dose of sadistic self loathing to fully enjoy. For some reason I really like that in a game. Dead Rising taps into primal gaming urges, exploiting a formula that holds true to the classics; back when games were hard, years ago, when games were too difficult to complete. I respect and admire Dead Rising 2 for looking at it's predecessor and saying "Yes, this game is broken, awkward, tedious and unforgiving. But we are going to keep it that way. Fuck you."
So for all the Dead Rising haters:
Cry some more?
Enslaved: Odyssey to the west has me slightly confused.
I don't really know how I feel about... well... all of it.
The game borrows heavily of Uncharted 2 to the extent that there is actually a scene where you are being chased by a giant mech towards the camera. That blatant plagiarism felt pretty dirty, and unnecessary. The game goes through a sort of cycle between platforming and combat in 15 minute chunks. Neither is particularly groundbreaking, though the game is beautiful enough to justify the patronisingly simple climb mechanic of "Hold the direction you want to climb and tap A." The combat involves 5 different types of mech which are cycled endlessly, and they can almost entirely be destroyed by mashing the face buttons, though there is decent platforming element to the combat in which enemies must be prioritised depending on their type - sentries must be avoided and taken out as their bullets will kill you in a matter of seconds - to the extent that the game has minor stealth elements.
The strengths of the game lie in it's beauty, and hackneyed though it may be to say so, this game is stunning. I mean that in the truest sense of the word: I was actively stunned. There is an excellent sense of scale - when you are told you must cross the city, you actually have to cross the whole damn city. The level design is so fantastic that no two platforming sections feel alike, and Enslaved finds entertaining ways of mixing up the action to keep it fresh. Every section of the city feels like a set piece, and it does an excellent job of keeping the tempo high. Again, this teeters dangerously close to Uncharted 2, but I'm prepared to forgive for the following reason:
The characters in Enslaved are awesome. The modelling and voice acting is top notch and the characters feel endearing and alive. The writing was perhaps the most surprising element of Enslaved - something that seems to have been missed in some of the reviews I have seen - this game is funny. There aren't many extensive cut-scenes, most of the banter takes place as you run around climbing and fighting, but the back and forth between the characters is truly excellent. "What is all this stuff?" asks Monkey, gesturing to the stacks of boxes bearing the words "HD Televisions". "Oh, that's just some ancient, redundant technology" replies Trip, nonchalantly.
Despite the writing being superb, there are chunks of the story that are slightly disappointing. There seems to be a lot of fuss over some war that involved mechs, though this is never really explained in any detail and just left me feeling confused. The slavers, who have you held captive at the beginning of the game, aren't explained either - and seem to spend more time killing people than enslaving them. Trip bounces between being seemingly awestruck by Monkey and bossing him around like a prissy little bitch. There are also several moments in the game which I assume were designed to be dramatic and meaningful, though just end up feeling undeserved and hollow. As for the Ending... that shit is just weird.
If you never had a chance to play Uncharted 2 on PS3 then this is probably the closest you are going to get on 360. It's not perfect, and I wouldn't recommend playing through the entire thing at once, but it retains a sense of high quality and polish throughout and is both amusing and fun to play. Also Nolan North remains absent, which is a blessing.
In Other News
This is blog 299. I need to find something classy for the big 300. I don't know exactly what it's going to be, but if there's one thing Sweep is known for, it's class.
On Friday I arrived at Earls Court in London to attend the Eurogamer Expo. If you don't have any idea what that is, more information can be found here. I guess it's a bit like E3, except British and with only two E's. So... E2?
An Introduction
Anyway, this was my first time visiting any kind of videogame type event so I didn't really know what to expect. The expo started at 11 and I turned up at about 12:30. Miraculously there was no queue at all so we basically strolled right onto the show floor. It was a huuuuge room and it was completely packed full of men with ponytails and an uncomfortable amount of kids wearing black hoodies of the "this is the first time I have left the house this week" variety.
London! The first wave of booths was almost entirely Playstation Move and Kinect stuff. I didn't spend much time here, but I still had a look around. It was pretty interesting watching the crowd. The more traditional light-gun eye-toy type stuff was looking super popular, and there was a lot of interest in the Dance games. There was also a fair amount of people glancing at the entire selection with complete disdain, and I heard several people mutter to friends about how underwhelming the wave of motion sensitive games was. It's tough, because I can totally understand not wanting to play Dance Central in a room full of strangers - especially for the first time when you are obviously going to be terrible at the game. However there was the typically awkward group of attendees lining up to humiliate themselves, usually spurred on by the hugely out-numbered wives-and-girlfriends crowd. There was a pretty similar display at the Def Jam Rapstar booth. It strikes me that the majority of people who are really going to buy and get the most out of these games are not the people who are likely to attend a videogame convention, but there were still enough people trying them out and they seemed to be enjoying it. I was chatting to one of the "booth babes" (heh) and she wouldn't shut up about Dance Central, even though she doesn't even own a console. Shitty phone camera :S
GEARS OF WAR 3
If you read my blog at all you will know I am a HUGE Gears Of War fan (yeah, that's right. Fuck you, buddy), so I predictably triangulated and hunted down the nearest Gears Of War 3 booth and joined the queue. It took about 20 minutes before I got to sit down in front of the machine for my first round of the all new Beast mode. Beast Mode is like a big upside-down-squirrel version of Horde mode. You and 4 friends have to clear a map of human survivors before the time limit runs out. The game works with a credit system, so you earn credits by killing survivors and then spend them on upgraded versions of the Locust. So the starting locust are Tickers and Wretches, then you get Butchers for about 12 credits and Boomers, Maulers, Kantus etc for about 20. Unfortunately the booths were set to unlimited tokens so players could experiment freely so we never really got a feel for how well the system would be implemented. Players can play as normal Grenadier Locust as well, though classes like the Kantus are much more fun. The Kantus can basically press X at any time to perform his revive, which will pick up any locust that had been knocked down on the map in the traditional fashion. There is also the Boomer with a new Boomshot that shoots a worm-type slug that burrows underground and undermines defensive positions. I believe there are also grenades which do a similar thing. Once you unlock enough credits you gain access to the heavy weapons stuff like the Beserkers and Armoured Kantus. The Armoured Kantus is immune to bullet damage, rocks double pistols, and can kill enemies by rolling into them. Also, they look badass.
Armoured Kantus. Fucking Awesome. There is also a weird rock-worm type playable locust called the Ceripede which has electric antenna. I got to try this class out briefly and it was really weird. You basically control the head of the worm like it's a normal player but there's a giant worm body following you around everywhere. Turning also felt pretty odd.
The enemies you fight upgrade in a traditional Horde type manner - you will start off fighting Stranded civilians equipped with pistols and shotguns, move on to generic CoG soldiers, and by the Beserker stage you will be attacking squads of familiar CoG faces wielding Boomshots and Hammers of Dawn, protected by Silverbacks - the Gears Mech suits. Towards the end it get's pretty intense.
Notes:
The COG forces have lancer-turrets, which are basically 2 lancers strapped to a laser targeting thingymajig. These seemed pretty good at taking down even the stronger locust forces, so prioritising their destruction will be an important part of any attack.
Characters like Dizzy, Tai, and Hoffman appeared amongst the newer kids like Jace Stratton and Sam Bryne - as well as a mix of stranded running around. Was kinda weird seeing Tai running about considering he died in Gears 2. Who wants to place money on Franklin making an appearance?
Watching 5 Beserkers tearing up a cog defensive position is SO FUCKING AWESOME.
I went back to the Gears booth later in the day when there weren't so many people waiting to play and for some reason they had disabled the LAN play so each of the 5 machines was running single-player Beast mode. This was no fun at all, as there didn't seem to be any AI team-mates. Fighting a whole base of CoG as a single Wretch is just dumb - and predictably I didn't survive the first round. I really hope they find a way of fixing this as I otherwise had a lot of fun with Beast Mode.
This is the tier tree for selecting locust characters ^^^ I'm assuming they will add more in the final game? Seeing as they weren't monitoring the booth, I took the liberty of switching over to campaign and actually managed to get through a sizable chunk of their E3 demo level before a member of staff spotted me and hurried over looking worried. I got to experiment with a few new weapons, including the Sawn-Off shotgun, which replaces your pistol and takes FUCKING FOREVER to reload but can kill a locust in a single shot. I also have to say that the new lambent enemies look awesome and are super fun to kill, exploding and spraying imulsion everywhere. The old-school bayonet lancer is also exceedingly fun to use, though I can already see the nightmares of wielding that weapon in multiplayer. It's basically a chainsaw you can run with. Last time I played Gears 2 that was also known as "cheating".
So, that's the first of my Eurogamer Expo blogs.
Coming soon, blogs on:
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Crysis 2
Assassins Creed Brotherhood
Brink
Gran Turismo 5
Dead Space 2
LittleBigPlanet 2
Killzone 3
Fable 3
Fallout New Vegas
Yeah. My weekend was fucking awesome. If anyone has any questions about Gears Of War 3 give me a shout in the comments below. Stay tuned for more E2 blogs!
I have played about 120 Starcraft matches in the last week
of which I have won just over 50.
That may not seem like a lot but, for me, that is a lot of time to spend with a single game. In the last few days I have spent my time either playing 2v2 with LlamaNL or watching live streams of Starcraft 2 tournaments from Korea and America. Yesterday we played almost 7 hours straight, finishing at about 4am in a mild state of delirium. I can feel myself physically wasting away. I haven't been out shopping for food, I have simply been eating through the stores of junk I had in my cupboard, so for the past 2 days I have eaten nothing but toast and yoghurt. I just ran out of bread, so for my next meal i'm going to have to get creative with some feta cheese and an onion.
Relevant! There's no escape. My housemates are both playing Starcraft as well, so even when I manage to tear myself away from the screen it's to enter discussions based on the optimal opener for Terran, or the best way to counter a Proxy Cannon Rush. I can't escape it.
However, on the plus side, we just hit rank 2 in our Bronze league. Seeing as I have only been playing the game for a week, that's not bad, right?
I haven't been addicted to a game for a long time
But Starcraft 2 is a game worth being addicted to. I'm naturally a very competitive person, and there was a point a few months ago where I felt completely worthless. Every game I played I seemed to suck at. I wanted to be good at something, I had all this energy, but I couldn't find any game through which to channel it. The closest I got was Street Fighter 4 but trying to force myself into playing that game when I was clearly terrible almost destroyed it for me. I like Super Street Fighter 4 but I'm slowly coming to understand that Super Street Fighter 4 doesn't like me. So it's nice to find a competitive game like Starcraft 2 where I can actually see results, actually feel like i'm slowly getting better as my understanding increases, and don't have to force myself to keep playing when I get completely fucked by stupid zerglings. It's also awesome that there are so many people I know playing the game. There is nothing more disheartening than offering to play your friends at Company Of Heroes and for them to turn you down because they are all playing Heroes Of Newerth.
True Story.
I think this is probably down to some smart Matchmaking on Blizzards part, though any credit I send them is done so begrudgingly.
And now for something completely different:
My university begins anew on thursday which is... holy fuck, that's tomorrow isn't it. I feel slightly guilty for having done predominantly fuck all over the past few months and I know it's going to sting when I return to work. This in turn makes me not want to go back to work. It's a catch 22. I fucking love those.
My Student Loan arrives on Thursday also and so, coincidentally, does a copy of Dead Rising 2. It's weird that those two things should coincide so conveniently isn't it?!? I look forward to playing through it on Co-Op with my co-op buddies (Oni and Rowr, you guys own this game, right?)
I just finished moving all my shit back down to Bournemouth for my third and final year at university. That shit includes a full set of rockband instruments which I cannot play because I lost the power cable, a spiderman costume, 12 shot glasses, 43 T-shirts in various states of cleanliness, a Bill Bailey DVD, and a deck of cards which is missing both the 3 of diamonds and the 9 of hearts.
Ah, student life. So simple! Let's keep it that way:
YES
Alex Garland
Not only did he write The Beach, Sunshine, 28 days Later and (potentially) the Halo movie, he is co-writing Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - and that game looks pretty awesome. There is an interview with him in this months EDGE. More on that later.
After hearing Ryan gush about operation overlord, I let Oni convince me to buy all the Mass Effect 2 DLC. I tried starting a new career as an Infiltrator but, fuck me, I love being a Vangaurd way too much. I intended to play through on Insanity but I don't think I want to anymore. I have a high tolerance for pain, but a low tolerance for stupidity. I haven't yet decided where "Insanity" falls between them.
In the void between one house and the next I found myself without internet for over 2 days. Not only was I blocked from the obviously unavailable multiplayer, being told that I couldn't play the campaign without first logging into Battle.net was fucking infuriating.
Freshers
SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU CUNTS I AM TRYING TO SLEEP >:(
Virgin Broadband
I'm paying for 20mb and receiving, according to the past few speed checks, an average of 1.2mb. I am not a happy bunny. I want to watch Snide getting drunk!
When people usually find out that there are books based on the popular videogame franchise Gears Of War they say things like "Huh... that doesn't seem particularly suitable" except usually with slightly less eloquence: "LOL gears has shit storyline characters all suck this book must be shit".
Disappointingly I can confirm that, eloquent or not, they are correct in this assumption.
The Gears Of War books are not the height of articulate narrative and, similar to the games, have about as much subtlety as a TaurenRogue. There is little in the way of plot development, character depth, or any real structure. The primary reason for my wanting to read this book (and it's predecessors) is simple: I love the Gears Of War games. They aren't the best games, they are far from perfect, but Epic has created a universe which I enjoy exploring and being part of. The combat is satisfying, the plot is sufficiently insane. It's about chainsawing monsters in half, pure and simple - a fact which it is not ashamed of. Though the characters lack depth, the group dynamic they share is entertaining to watch. I recognise and appreciate all the flaws and lack of narrative integrity these games contain. I still think they are awesome and I want to know about as much of it as possible. When someone told me I could read the continued adventures of Delta Squad, I signed up instantly.
The main issue with this book is it's completely undercut by the action-packed E3 gameplay demo which unscrupulously spoils every event that takes place in the novel. It takes the likes of Fenix and Baird approximately 450 pages to figure out that
Yes, the lambent are here
They should be concerned about this
Apart from that
the book leaves the main cast almost exactly where it begun - on the old abandoned naval base on the island of Vectes. I'm assuming you aren't going to read it so here's some information you might find interesting if you plan on playing Gears 3. I would say SPOILERS but unless you plan on reading the book (you shouldn't) they aren't really a big deal:
There is a new group of survivors called "The Gorasni" who are an Indie state that were at war with the COG during the Pendulum wars. They are now having to work together, though neither side is particularly comfortable with the relationship. There is also a brief allegiance with an army of stranded pirates towards the end of the book.
Jace Stratton New characters including Sam Bryne (the brunette from the E3 demo) and Jace Stratton (the dude from the GoW Graphic Novels) make appearances and Cliffy B has already confirmed in an interview that both will feature as playable characters in the campaign. Still no news about Bernie Mataki, however, though she makes appearances throughout all three of the books so far. Dizzy Wallin also crops up several times. For those that didn't know, yes Dizzy survives his encounter with Scorge in Gears 2.
The island of Vectes is located behind a deep sea trench which is apparently too deep for the locust to tunnel beneath. As a result of this the only enemies in the book are stranded pirates and the lambent. The COG base get's attacked by what they are called "stalks", those big tree things which sprout weird lambent type crabs that are referred to as "Polyps". These are basically tickers, or lambent wretches. They explode when shot but, interestingly, melt when burnt. Scorcher time!
Hoffman steals a data disk from Chairman Prescott at the end of the book and Baird still hasn't cracked the encryption by the time the book ends. The information on the disk remains unknown.
Dom predictably spends the whole book becoming increasingly depressed. Towards the end he gets Sam Bryne (who doubles as a tattoo artist) to alter his Maria tattoo from a heart into an angel. Boo-fucking-hoo.
There are several flashbacks to when Hoffman was a lieutenant at Anvil Gate during the Pendulum wars. Anvil Gate was basically a castle which, after his CO was killed, Hoffman was left to defend with only 100 other gears. After 3 months the food and water for the garrison begin to run out and Hoffman is forced to surrender. However when the Indy troops enter the garrison the COG soldiers ambush them and kill them all. Hoffman is left with a constant feeling of guilt for taking advantage of the terms of surrender. He cries about it.
And that's about it. That shit took 450 pages to explain in the book and I just summarised all the interesting stuff in this blog. And i'm being fucking charitable when I say "interesting".
I don't know what it is about Starcraft that I find so appealing.
My usual dabbles with the RTS genre end tragically, mainly because I lack the ability to multitask to such an extreme that I am barely able to perambulate and pontificate simultaneously. However there's something clinical about Starcraft 2 which I rather like, perhaps the way in which the game has been reduced to such a binary science that it's execution is almost mathematical. For every action there is an appropriate reaction. It's like chess, but with lasers.
Er....sure? There is an elitism beneath the obscure acronyms which, though baffling, houses it's own satisfying form of cultural significance. Whatever opinion you may hold on the game, Starcraft 2 is a big deal and there's something nice about simply being able to watch it happen.
So uh... what else?
I started playing Eve online again. I know, I know. I'm an idiot. After several late-night starcraft sessions I found myself completely exhausted. I looked through the list of games in my steam library and Eve Online was the only one resembling any form of therapeutic counterbalance. It's not something I intend to pay constant attention to but it's nice having it in the background, available. Sort of like a girlfriend?
I also loaded up Mass Effect 2 to show my dad how awesome it was and got completely caught up in the demonstration. I'm now playing through the game as an Infiltrator. I wanted a class that I could use to play through on the hardest difficulty and my previous choice (the ever-popular Vangaurd) doesn't seem particularly appropriate. On insane mode the last thing you want is to get up close and personal with the enemy. The swap from shotgun to sniper is a healthy change of strategy.
Fuck, i'm playing a lot of space games.
I don't even like space games?!
IN OTHER NEWS
I read the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. They are fantastic, far superior to the film (though that was pretty amazing as well). The comics bring everything back down to earth (appropriately), it's a nice easygoing read and it's genuinely funny throughout. Scott Pilgrim doesn't act like a dick (as much) and I don't have to spend two hours staring at Michael Cera's goofy fucking face. A minor gripe would be the art style makes distinguishing between characters somewhat vauge at points - the minimalist style and frequent changes of hair and clothing mean i'm constantly having to check just who the fuck is currently talking - though the book makes up for this by re-introducing it's cast every other page. 5 stars, buy it now.
Segway!
Lastly I wanted to talk about the Whiskey Friday Live show, specifically about the Comic Vine segment. I think Comic Vine is a great site but comic books are quite clearly not a medium built for video. Finding a way of making this segment engaging is therefore difficult for obvious reasons. Another problem is that, like it or not, most of the people watching that stream were doing so from giantbomb (by a stupidly large majority). They are people like me who know nothing, or very little, about comic books. Finding a balance between making that subject approachable whilst discussing it with the insight it requires is a tough act and, putting it bluntly, what they have right now is not currently working. In an effort to turn this criticism constructive, the segment did improve towards the end when other members of Whiskey got involved. Ryan did a great job at engaging the Comic Vine guys, especially as I felt his understanding of the subject matter was as shallow as my own. Food for thought, perhaps?
Log in to comment