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World War Z

Reviews

On my ride in to work this morning, I turned the last page of Max Brooks’ new zombie effort entitled World War Z.

If you are familiar with Max, it means you have read his other book, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. From his simple descriptions of what a zombie is and how to handle them, Max expands outward to create a world where the zombies have already come, and they have already pushed us to the brink of oblivion, and we have recovered. Ten years after the war with the zombies, the author is publishing a collection of interviews gathered while working on the official government report of the war.

Brooks paints a vivid picture through the eyes of his subjects that allows you to see everything from the common man to the army grunt to the war profiteer, in many nationalities. Whenever I have discussed the theoretical of zombie attack, most people scoff at it saying that it just couldn’t happen. Max’s book illustrates exactly how we could manage to lose to an enemy that is slow and uncoordinated.

This book is truly an excellent read, and well worth the money and the time. Two big thumbs up.

Games Within Games

Gaming

No, I’m not talking about Puzzle Pirates and its Bejeweled Bilging and Dr. Mario Sailing. I’m talking about fully realized games encapsulated within games.

Many moons ago (okay, a couple of decades of moons), I played Ultima Online. In UO, I had a Chess set, and I could sit down at a table and play Chess with another player. On days when I didn’t feel like making hats with my tailor, or guarding the pass with my guild extorting money from random travellers, I would sit in a specific Inn frequented by Chess players and play.

In EverQuest, it was the one thing I always wanted. They did give us Gems, a game to play while waiting between pulls or watching your mana bar refill. But it was single player, and pretty much sucked.

In World of Warcraft… well, Blizzard gave us jack shit, but the guys who made the Cosmos add on gave us Chess and Othello and other games, and even made them multi-player, but they were global, you didn’t have to be anywhere near your opponent.

Other games also pretty much gave us nothing…

I miss the simple pleasure of sitting in a (virtual) room with another player and playing a board game. I would love to see more encapsulated games inside MMOs. And really I would love to see those games played in the game world itself, and not in a window that passerbys can’t see.

Autumn or Fall

Random Thoughts

Depending on the situation or the frame of mind I am in, I flip-flop on whether I prefer Autumn or Fall as the name of the season that comes between Summer and Winter.

Fall is… well… depressing, but often time so apt. Right now at work it definately feels like Fall. All the projects are coming due, we (the place I’m contracting at) are being bought by another company and heads will roll, and everything just seems like it is approaching an end.

Autumn is how I want to feel. Change is in the air, and change always leads to possibilities.

Despite all this pondering, the new TV season is revving up and is nearly in full swing. Lots to see, some of it is good, some not so good. And some of it I don’t expect to last, but I hope some of it does. I’ll give a rundown on the shows I’m watching and what I think later, for now I’m just happy not to be on anymore conference calls.

Pirates!

Site News

Avast! Yarrr! Yes, it is once again Talk Like A Pirate Day. And yes, I have installed the annoying Pirate Speech plugin for WordPress, so suffer!

I’ve already managed to make it through one meeting this morning saying things like “Aye” and using as much pirate speech as I can, but luckily there aren’t many meetings scheduled today.

So, enjoy the day, talk like a pirate, and have fun.

X-Men: Dark Mirror

Reviews

I just finished up X-Men: Dark Mirror, from the line of books based on Marvel properties. And I must say I enjoyed it.

The story is that five of the X-Men (Cyclops, Phoenix, Rogue, Nightcrawler and Wolverine) go out to investigate a mental hospital that is reported to be treating mutants badly. At least, that’s the backstory you get as the tale unfolds. As the book begins, Jean Grey (Phoenix), wakes up as a black man in a straight jacket. And it just gets weirder from there. The X-Men have had their minds somehow transferred into the bodies of mental patients, and have to break out, get home, and try to stop whoever took their bodies from doing anything bad. The most amusing parts of this book come in that Jean is in the body of a man, Scott (Cyclops) is in that of a petite young girl, and Logan (Wolverine) is literally wearing a big chested blonde woman. As they make their break from the asylum, they have to rely on their wits instead of their powers (which they’ve lost) to try to make their way across the US back home.

It was quite interesting to see how the author made them handle their new bodies and lack of powers. A fun book.

Aradune is Stinky

Gaming

I am seriously considering remove the Vanguard link from the probablynot main page. Seriously.

In case you missed it, Brad has been dropping mini-videos of gameplay on their forums. You can get some of them from Ten Ton Hammer, or you can go straight to the V:SoH forums.

In short… Brad has done it again, almost exactly. The game looks like EverQuest, with a touch of World of Warcraft and the graphics engine of EQ2. For something that is supposed to be a next generation game, its looking to be a last generation game that requires a next generation investment.

The NPCs seem to all just stand around, rigid. Sure, most games are that way, but that’s the point… you can’t claim to be next gen if you don’t improve anything, and requiring me to upgrade my computer isn’t improving anything. The combat looks to be just like every other combat around these days… auto-attack and some button mashing. I thought there was supposed to be this whole chained attacks and opportunities thing going on, but if its there he doesn’t show it in these videos. One thing of note during the combat… notice the way the group stands… tank in front, everyone else to the back and sides. I assume this means we will see more of the EQ game mechanics of NPCs with area attacks that you have to avoid by being out of the forward arc. Boring. Age of Conan impressed me with its model interactivity (player and monster actually making contact, a grapple move actually grappling the opponent), but Vanguard is sticking with the everyone is independant method of animation. So I could look forward to huge mobs with large bounding boxes whom I don’t have to actually be near to hit as long as I’m in range of his hit box. *sigh*

If this is all Brad has to offer, I’ve got no reason at all to stop playing WoW and plunk down the money for a new PC.

Thanks to Heartless Gamer for the heads up on the future of tedium.

A Real Class Act

Gaming

Okay… with a few recent posts around the internet on Classes vs Skills for characters in MMOs, I decided to go dig up the post I made on one of the previous incarnations of my site about how I would design classes in my game, if I ever got to make one. I’m a little pressed for time this morning, so what you are getting is actually two posts I made mushed into a single post, so make sure you read all of it before you comment. Read more

DC Universe: Inheritance

Reviews

For the first time ever, I am disappointed in one of the DC line of books based on their comics. Overall, the story wasn’t bad, but it was a case of the background and side stories being far more interesting than the main plot.

DC Universe: Inheritance is mainly about sidekicks. The story starts with the President of Qurac and his son heading to America, Gotham specifically, and then someone tries to kill the President’s son. Turns out the assassin was Deathstroke, and he shouldn’t have missed. Its obvious he’s tried to get Batman involved. Batman goes looking for Arsenal because he needs info on Cheshire (its less confusing if you know the comics, but they do also explain it all in the book too), and to find Arsenal Batman asks Green Arrow, who involves Aquaman, Nightwing and Tempest. Nightwing, of course, is the original Robin; Arsenal is Speedy, Green Arrow’s sidekick from back in the day; and Tempest is Aqualad. Batman and Arsenal head off to Qurac, Green Arrow and Nightwing go searching after Deathstroke, and Aquaman and Tempest are set to protect the Qurac President and son at the harbor/bay where a Qurac oil tanker will be docking in the next day or so.

Within each pairing, as the story follows them, you delve into how each one became a sidekick and their experience. Nightwing deals with the death of his parents, training with Batman, and the eventual realization that his can’t be a sidekick forever. Arsenal shows his life on the reservation as a white man being raised by an indian, his beginning sidekick days, and his collapse into and recovery from heroine addiction. Tempest, the shortest interludes, give glimpses of his growing up under the King of Atlantis and how when the chips were down Aquaman was willing to sacrifice Tempest for the life of his own child.

Some of the trail following and piecing together of who is trying to kill the President’s son is interesting, but the final fight as the truth is unveiled is a let down from the buildup done throughout the book. It was a good read, I just wish it had ended better.

2006: Day 4 – On The Turning Away

Dragon*Con

Every year, the 4th day of Dragon*Con is a little sad. Not just because its the last day, but also because something always forces me to leave early. So there isn’t much to say about day 4, I woke up, I packed, and then I went to the Exhibition and Dealer rooms one more time. 10 AM on Monday is such a peaceful time to browse. In the words of Verbal Kint, “And poof. Just like that [it’s] gone.”

So, here’s looking toward next year, and hopefully checking in on Thursday and checking out on Tuesday.