It has actually been a while since I finished reading Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, but I was waiting because I didn’t want to gush about a book I was giving as a gift to someone who might actually read the blog (as unlikely as that is). Â Plus, I forgot.
Patient Zero follows Joe Ledger, a cop who has recently been offered a position with the FBI. Â Just days away from his move he gets involved in a multi-agency bust of some suspected terrorists, one of whom doesn’t stay dead. Â He is then approached by the Department of Military Sciences and told of a possible plot to release a virus that turns people into zombies.
Most zombie novels these days start after the end of the world, or are set within the fall. Â Patient Zero is about trying to stop the zombie apocalypse from happening. Â Another great aspect of the story is that it follows not only the people trying to stop the zombies, but also the people trying to start it.
This book was good. Â Very good. Â Couldn’t put it down good. Â I blew through it, and so did the wife, and she’s not a fan of horror books or movies. Â I’d gladly recommend it to just about anyone.
One thing I will be keeping my eye on is Undead Labs. Â They plan to make a console based zombie themed MMO. Â If they succeed and it is fun to play, I’ll be a subscriber forever.
Last week, Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats posted an interview with Jeff Strain that is worth reading if you are into that sort of thing.
With Monkey Island getting a remake/update/new episodes, I can only hope that Zombies Ate My Neighbors, another classic LucasArts game, gets the same treatment. Sadly, I don’t think it will. However, thanks to Tom Chick, I now know I can get the old game on my Wii.
Thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun I now have another zombie game to look forward to: Zombie Driver. Think the original GTA but with zombies. Here is some game footage.
Now I just hope they release this on the Xbox 360.
I first heard about it back in June. But apparently it has recently been ruled on by the FTC that bloggers must disclose when they get free stuff. Personally, I’ve never gotten a free game, and while I’ve gotten free movie passes they’ve never been sent to me specifically for review, I obtain them in other ways (more on that tomorrow). But, other bloggers do get free games sometimes, or at least offers of free games, so therehasbeensomediscussion on the subject.
Being that free games are often sent out by marketing departments, and the goal of marketing departments is to try and get favorable review out in the wild where potential buyers can see them, the concern is that bloggers given free games might give a undeserved favorable review in order to continue getting free games. Sadly, in part, this is why most game review magazines and sites tend to use the “7 to 9” scale of rating, reserving 10’s for truly astounding games and anything less than 7 for unmitigated pieces of crap, letting even a mildly entertaining game with numerous flaws still get a 7 out of 10. Of course, the reality is that these places are actually reviewing on a 5 point scale: 6 or less, 7, 8, 9, and 10. So getting a 7 there is kinda like getting a 2 out of 5. Do you normally go see movies that get 2 out of 5 stars?
Now, while no game company really wants to get poor ratings, not all poor ratings are created equal. Rather than trying to seek out favorable ratings, what they should be seeking is “fair” reviews. By fair I simply mean that the game will be reviewed on its own merits, in detail, and then given a score intended to reflect the value of the game to that reviewer. THEN companies should encourage people to read reviews instead of just viewing ratings. Metacritic is the devil because it does the opposite, placing all the focus on the score and the reasons behind the score disappear.  The result is publishers pushing for higher ratings when what they should be pushing for is the abolishment of numerical ratings.  But players seem to demand “at a glance” ratings systems because its easier on them, even though in the end they are mostly being lied to.  Its all counter-intuitive and somehow self-reinforcing at the same time.
Personally, when I am trying to decide if I want to purchase something, I actually seek out poor reviews. For example, on Amazon.com I may skim through the 5 star reviews, but I will read every single word of every 1 and 2 star review. The reason is simple: people tend to more specifically describe their dislike of something than they do their like of something. I’ve written about this before. The main reason for this is that the only thing I can guarantee about a reviewer is that they are not me.
Take movie reviews for example. Let’s say I was going to review Zombieland. On a 10 point scale, I’d give the movie a 9, on a 5 star scale it would get a 4.5 or maybe even a 5 (I’m not a fan of the .5 in a rating scale). But if you were looking for a movie to go see, the fact that I gave the movie a 9 out of 10 is less important than if you like zombie movies, gory movies, or comedies. Even if you like zombie movies, Zombieland isn’t Dawn of the Dead, it is more like Shaun of the Dead, and that’s more important than my rating. On the flip side, suppose I had given Zombieland a 2 out 10 and said, “This movie was just as dumb as Shaun of the Dead. If you liked that piece of crap, I guess you’ll like this too.” And if you loved Shaun of the Dead, then despite my rating of a 2, you should probably see Zombieland. When I get in to the idea of the value of bad press, well, I’ve already seen many dozens of reviews for Zombieland that were little more than “This was awesome! Must see!” But all the negative reviews I’ve read have been very descriptive, and I think would actually be more helpful to people not sure about the film decide whether the film is something they’d enjoy or not.
In the end, though, I suppose I do agree with the FTC that people should disclose if they have gotten freebies, especially if they are going to comment on the value, like saying a game is or isn’t worth the $60 box price. I’m not sure it should be a law with fines though. At the same time, I don’t think people should discount a review just because the reviewer got a free copy, and I think marketing departments should push for quality reviews and not worry so much about just getting favorable ones. They should reward reviewers who clearly spend time with the games and write well, not just those who blow smoke and tell them what they want to hear.
After the devastation of volume 8 of The Walking Dead, I wondered where exactly the story would turn.  Here We Remain answers that as we follow Rick and his son on their own.  Of course, they don’t stay that way for long, and it turns out that not all of our old friends are dead.  But Rick still lost his wife and baby, and after all he’s been through it isn’t surprising that he might finally be going a little nuts.  We also meet some new people here, one of whom is a scientist who thinks he might be able to do something about all the damn zombies.
What We Become takes our group on the road to Washington D.C. where the new scientist friend says he needs to go. Â Everyone is a little more frazzled and rattled having left the prison, left the ranch, and hit the road with many of them riding in the back of a truck.
Hands down, The Walking Dead is the best set of zombie stories I’ve ever read. Â I continue looking forward to more.
One of my guilty pleasures a few years ago was Rollergirls on A&E. There is something about people trying to get a sport off the ground, a sport they clearly enjoy and they want to impart that joy to others. I got that same feeling watching the movie Leatherheads a while back about how professional football wasn’t originally taken seriously. Anyway, this movie really captures the sport well, and the way many people probably look at the girls who decide to pursue it. It was fun and funny, and even exciting during the bouts. Definitely a thumbs up from me.
The Invention of Lying:
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know the premise of the film is it takes place in a world where no one has ever told a lie. One thing to keep in mind before you go see it is that a lie isn’t just what most people consider lies, like telling your boss you are sick when you aren’t or pretending you have a job you don’t to impress a girl. Every fiction book ever written is a lie. Every exaggeration of the truth is a lie. So now, imagine a world without fiction, without storytelling as we know it, without any stretching of the truth. This is the world of The Invention of Lying. A world where people go to the movies to see a man in a comfy chair narrate the factual events of historical periods. I found this movie to be incredibly funny, and Ricky Gervais pulls off the whole thing really well. However, I can easily see how some people wouldn’t like it, especially religious folks, because, you see, unless you believe that the Bible is a 100% factually accurate depiction of events exactly as they happened, that make it fiction, and fiction is lying, and lying doesn’t exist until Ricky’s character invents it…
Zombieland:
The only movie opening this week I didn’t see a screening of. I had the opportunity (Thanks Greg and Neil!) but decided to see Whip It instead because, frankly, I’ll always pay to see zombies. And this is the latest George Romero “I want to make comments on society and don’t care if my movie is boring or stupid” zombie film. This is going to be funny, and disgusting, and a blast to watch, I can just tell. So this weekend, Zombieland will be earning my $10.
September 11th, 2001 was a tragic day for a great many people. Â Myself, being unemployed at the time, I spent the entire day in front of the TV and talking to friends over the Internet. Â For some random reason that morning, I’d turned on the TV and it was on CNN. Â I think there had been some special news report or something I’d been watching before bed the night before. Â I was actually watching when the first reports of something hitting the World Trade Center came in, and I stayed there all day. Â I don’t think I even took a break for food until dinner that night.
One of the tracks at Dragon*Con is called Apocalypse Rising. Â It is a very odd track compared to many of the other fandom based tracks like Star Wars and Star Trek and the Whedon Universe because it lives in two worlds. Â On one side you have zombies and an array of Sci-Fi movies and books, and people talk about their favorite “end of the world” and they wear Mad Max costumes and pretend to hunt zombies. Â On the other side, you have panels with people who are well versed in the practical procedures of surviving disasters talking about the things you can do, the things you should do. Â It is in the second half where discussions about the inevitability of larger events happen. Â We talk about how the September 11th event was a shock to the United States and most of the world, and about how technology advances, and arms caches of fallen regimes make their way into the market, and how once upon a time people used to discuss about the remote possibility that a nuclear weapon or other massively destructive thing might one day be unleashed on a city in the US or the UK, and how events like sarin gas being released on a Tokyo subway and September 11th and more have turned that remote possibility into an eventuality, about how we’ve stopped talking about “if” something will happen but “when” it will happen. Â And it all reminds me of a line from Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”
Somber thoughts for a sunny Saturday, I know, but I can’t help it. Â Its on my mind and it had to come out somewhere. Â On a brighter note, I’m alive, I’m in love, and while I may not have everything that I want, I want everything that I have, and that’s a pretty nice place to be.
It has been eight years since that day, and other lengths of time from other tragic days. Â To those that we’ve lost, I wish them rest. Â To those they’ve left behind, I wish them restoration. Â And hopefully “when” will be a very long way off.
Day three of Dragon*Con is usually when the cracks begin to show. Â Its that second (or third) night of little to no sleep that leaves your feet shuffling a little more than walking, the enthusiasm is there but the expression of it has waned… and this is how I entered my first panel of the morning, “Oops!” – an apocalyptic track panel about things you need to know about surviving catastrophe. Â I’ve gone to this panel every year that they’ve had it. Â Its fun to listen to people who’ve done more research than you tell you stuff like “We all like to make fun of SPAM, but seriously, Hormel canned meats are something you need, and with the right dry spices and preparation it can be tasty… well, as tasty as SPAM gets.” and “Buying bottled water is good, but you have to rotate your stock because it will go bad.” and watching people furiously taking notes and the looks on their faces as the wisdom of these little nuggets sink in. Â And for those that don’t go, here is the short version: In the case of any disaster, you are on your own for 72 hours, so you should always have food, water and supplies to last at least that long, if not longer. Â Oh, and make sure your disaster recovery plans don’t rely on the things that will likely be lost in a disaster, like electricity.
Then there was a Champions Online panel… no developers, just fans talking about the beta and playing the game. Â The kind of panel you just don’t get at other conventions. Â I followed this with the “What’s wrong with WoW?” panel… the short version: Everything. Â The long answer is that WoW does many things right, from a certain perspective, and if you are an MMO veteran who isn’t looking for the RPG version of whack-a-mole then WoW really isn’t for you. Â The real long answer is… well… a series of posts that I might do later.
With no interesting panels for a couple hours, I took a lunch break and visited the dealers’ room. Â Much like the Art Show and the Exhibiter Halls, I’ve been here before, a lot, and it is pretty much the same things every year. Â But I made my way through the “5 for $25” shelves of graphic novels and didn’t find any I couldn’t live without. Â Though, he did have a complete set of the huge leather bound looking Absolute Sandman series. Â I wish I had that kind of cash to blow.
Back at the MMO track I settled in for an afternoon of SOE. Â First, Free Realms… really, if you haven’t at least tried this game, I don’t know what to say. Â It is free, it streams the client so you create an account, create a character and log in, the game downloads as needed and it does it very well. Â Sure, its largely a collection of mini-games, but its fun. Â I think it is anyway. Â Second, The Agency. Â The more I learn about this one, the more I like it. Â It looks like an MMO version of the old Top Secret RPG. Â You are an agent, you get skills, you do missions, you have other agents who help you out, you shoot stuff, you sneak in places, espionage… Â it just looks cool. Â Third, DC Universe Online. Â You know, I really wanted to love City of Heroes, it had lots to like but in the end was too grindy. Â When I saw Champions Online, I was excited, but from what I’ve read by the people who are playing, especially about how the graphics didn’t turn out to be the cell shaded awesomeness the screenshots originally portrayed, I’m not buying in yet and am waiting to here some ringing endorsements. Â But from what I saw and learned about DCUO today, I’m really interested. Â The physics of the game are just incredible. Â As the example they used goes, you can freeze one bad guy in a block of ice, then pick him up and beat other bad guys with him. Â That sounds like a comic book.
A smiled my way back to the Marriott then and attended a panel about upcoming post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows… not really a whole lot I didn’t know already, so nothing really exciting to report. Â Book of Eli, Zombieland, The Road, V, Day One, Daybreakers… lots of things coming up I want to watch.
As the final night of Dragon*Con, it is also the final night of parties. Â The Pirate Party is always a popular choice, though I imagine that many men choose it because of all the cleavage that comes with women dressing like pirates and wenches. Â The highlight of this particular pirate party was watching one pirate make many frontal assaults upon the virtue on one wench, which she repeatedly rebuffed. Â We also managed to catch the end of the Mad Scientists Ball where they had Tesla coils arcing toward a box within which they allowed ladies to dance. Â Genius. Â I didn’t make it to the SOE Party for the MMO track, and I wish I had… hopefully they will be back next year and do it again.
To wrap up the night, I spent it people watching in the Marriott. Â Really, watching the other people, seeing the costumes that people create, is one of the best parts of the con. Â It is so very inspiring.
Good night Dragon*Con, just one more day is left with you, but tonight was the last night. Â Until next year…
The day began as no day should… waiting in line for registration. Â However, once let inside, well, lets just say that a couple hundred geeks in a room being forced to walk a maze of a line can be pretty hilarious. Â Some people shot video of it, I’ll provide a link if I ever see it posted online.
After a spot of breakfast I headed off to the “Write a Story in an Hour” panel, which I visit every year, because its funny to hear people shout out story elements and craft a beautifully weird story… not by the panel, mind you, they tend to ignore the really out there stuff, but there is always a group of us taking the best ignored suggested, like a typewriter possessed by the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson that requires a bottle of liquor to be poured on it before it will function, and making our own ridiculous plot.
Then it was off to the Fallen Earth panel where we got to hear that people who work on games tend to like working on game, and that crafting is the center of the game, and that they have no current plans for a series of Fallen Earth novels, but everyone would like to see that happen.
Next up… the Crypt of Trailers, where we watch movie trailers and make snappy jokes, like how the new Twilight movie, New Moon, would be much better if they just added a Predator, or some Aliens… yeah, Aliens vs. Predator vs. Twilight. Â Hollywood? Are you listening?
After that I got to sit and listen to a panel of writer’s talk about how fun it is to destroy the human race in the Apocalypse Writer’s Roundtable. Â John Ringo, S.M. Stirling, Kevin J. Anderson, Walter Jon Williams, Michael Z. Williamson, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Â They were a very talkative and funny bunch, while also being very knowledgable and open. Â Excellent panel.
Down into the bowels of the Hyatt I went to join the wife for a panel on Steampunk. Â Steampunk, if you didn’t know, is the new Goth, or perhaps the new Vampires. Â Everyone is steampunking it up, and it is awesome. Â I’ll post some photos later as I take some around the con. Â Beautiful stuff.
The third rule of Dragon*Con (the first being: shower, and the second being: sometimes you must go down to go up – if you’ve been, you know what that means) is don’t forget to eat. Â Nothing ruins a party like drinking on an empty stomach and passing out early, so remember to feed yourself. Â In accordance with this rule, we took a short break for sandwiches and chips.
With a full belly, I hit the Machinima panel. Â I have an odd relationship with machinima. Â The idea behind it is very cool – to take a game/game engine/game art assets and make a movie out of it. Â Some of the best machinima, however, is clearly rendered in professional tools just using assets, while items rendered in the game engine often look stilted and of poorer quality, especially when it comes to characters talking. Â Anyway, the result is that I generally don’t like the machinima people actually create, but I respect the ideas and effort that goes into their creation. Â That said, Ignis Solus is just awesome:
I decided to end my day of panels with the Zombie Walk, which in hindsight was a poor choice. Â Not enough zombies showed for it to be really great, and I never did complete my Francis from Left 4 Dead outfit, so it ended up being about 20 zombies walking through the con… I gave up and left them half way through. Â Maybe next year.
The way a day at Dragon*Con should end is with parties, but I lost my enthusiasm for the Zombie Prom, and the line for the Time Travelers Ball was too long, so I hung out with some friends for a bit and then made my way to the All-Night (5am) Global Agenda party where I played absolutely zero Global Agenda. Â Instead, I spent a good hour or more, maybe two rockin’ the mic in Rock Band. Â Thank you Atlanta! Â Good night!
