Games and Books

I recall that, a long time ago (around 2005, to be exact), we had a house computer that we all shared on the ground floor. It was the computer that everyone used and which was often a test machine for my father’s new acquisitions.
As such, both my brother and I spent most of the time on that computer, playing new games as they came along and enjoying them or telling my father to get rid of them. It was a good time, which brought me in contact with several video game franchises and learned me to enjoy them.
In 2005, I suddenly found a new Star Wars game on the computer. Star Wars: Republic Commando, to be exact. It was a game that was praised for its excellent AI, interesting storyline and fast gameplay, three things that I couldn’t agree more with. It basically followed a single commando squad, comprised of four different individuals, that was fighting its way through the well-known Clone Wars that made up the second and third movies of the prequel trilogy.
I recall highly enjoying the first of three large levels, which brought the player through several environments on Geonosis, where the player and his squad were constantly being harassed by the flying, insect-like Geonosian hunters and the droids that made up the meat of the separatist army. It had its ups, it had its downs, its busy moments and its calm moments, and it formed an excellent introduction to the game.
Then… came the second chapter, which took me a very long time to complete. Not because it was very hard, because it wasn’t. It was your typical ghost ship mission with a lot of dark corners, shadows and speedy enemies that tended to jump out of dark corners and approach you rapidly.
And, I was a wimp. That same chapter brought you the shotgun-like slug thrower, which was basically an instant kill button in that chapter (its use diminished in the third and last chapter, though…), and suddenly made all those scary enemies a laughing stock that was taken care of with the push of a button.

In the end, I replayed that chapter for fun, countless times, because it was an excellent chapter, but the story was a bit lacklustre. It was the third chapter, which ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger, that really piqued my interest in the game.
(obviously, spoilers coming up for the ending of an eight-year-old game that you should’ve played already)
The final challenge is an enemy battleship hanging above the location that your squad is currently residing in. You’re told that the best way to deal with this battleship is to take the four anti-air cannons that are set up in a circle directly underneath said battleship, so you go out and find said cannons. You leave the sniper at the first cannon, the demolitions expert at the second, fight your way through hordes of droids with your tech expert and leave him at the third cannon (really the hardest fight of that part, if I recall correctly…) and finally take a seat yourself in the fourth one. Your team takes care of the battleship, it explodes, and you get picked up in your gunship to deal with the next assignment.

However, as you go to pick up your sniper, you hear that he’s being overrun by enemies and his communication stops. You’re told to leave him behind by Yoda, the door of the gunship closes, and the game ends.

There are a lot of people who wanted to find out what had happened with Sev (the sniper), but unfortunately, the sequel, called ‘Imperial Commando’, never left the planning stage and the fans were left hanging.
That included me.
I figured that I would probably never find out and was actually quite happy with that, but I kept returning to my drifting Republic Cruiser and the monstrosities that inhabited it. It was a happy little memory that was sitting in the back of my mind and something I could return to if I wanted to have some fun.

Then, one day, as I was browsing the internet, I stumbled across a series of novels written by a women called Karen Traviss. They were based on the same universe as the fantastic game I had played, though it followed a different squad on obviously different adventures. How else could it be.
I bought the first book online, to see how it was, and I was impressed. The story was well written, detailed, and gave me insights in the actual culture of the commandos outside of combat. What they were like without their armour and while dealing with other commandos, soldiers and civilians.
After a little more research, I found out that Traviss had been involved in the production of Republic Commando and had had a say in writing the banter between the squad of the game and had actually built a complete language to write a song with. It was pretty impressive, so I decided to keep reading on.
I enjoyed the book series as relationships were built and characters were introduced. The characters of the game were actually introduced in the books, the books detailing the things that happened between the different missions in the game and, of course, by the time the mission on Kashyyyk had rolled around and Sev had been lost, the way they coped with the loss.

Unfortunately, the series ended abruptly after the series had received a name change. Originally, it had always been called ‘Republic Commando [subtitle]’, but as time went on and Order 66 had passed (Star Wars fans will know what that means), it started to be called ‘Imperial Commando’, of which only the book called ‘Order 66’ had been written.
After that, Lucasarts decided to make some… radical changes to the Mandalorean culture to make it more suitable for the Clone Wars animated series that was running at the time. The change could basically be explained as the nomadic warrior culture that had been the undertone of all of the books being turned into a treehugging hippy culture that would make it virtually impossible to write the next books without rebooting the whole story. Because of the contract with Lucasarts, considering the use of their IP, Traviss couldn’t keep writing on in her own continuity, and she logically decided to abandon the Republic Commando series, leaving the last book with cliff-hangers, characters lost and scattered all across the Star Wars universe.
Though she posted spoilers about the book that would have closed it all off, which she had planned in a rush as she got the idea her books wouldn’t fall in good grace anymore before being forced to cancel it all together, I never really felt like it was good enough. A list of spoilers and planned notes never has and never will beat reading the actual book, but I had managed to push the feelings of loss and lack of closure to the back of my mind for a while.
I found other books written by Traviss that I enjoyed. She wrote a couple of books in the Gears of War universe, bridging the gaps between the games, but unfortunately, they started to get tedious and I started seeing the critique that other readers had about her. Idolizing tribal cultures to the point of extremism, making sure they were told of as legendary warriors and that they came out like that in the books. Extremely detailed combat scenario’s that, quite frankly, coloured my own way of writing combat and went on for many pages at a time. Witty banter that probably wasn’t as funny to me as it was to her. The list doesn’t go on and on, but there’s multiple points that I couldn’t ignore as I read on.
I ultimately opted to stop reading her books, because they turned out to be long and tedious, with the excitement of the story gone. I didn’t like it, because I had a lot of fun moments with her stories, and I could almost compare it to ending a long and intimate relationship, but I couldn’t keep up with the irritations anymore.

Some days ago, I returned to Traviss’ website and took a look at the Republic Commando section. Maybe I was hoping things had changed and that the Imperial Commando story would keep going, or maybe I just wanted to remind myself what had happened and what belonged to the past. I don’t know, but I do know it inspired me to write this piece and that it reminded me of an excellent time. I actually downloaded the game again, though I’ll have to see if I get it running again. I really hope so…

Responsibilities, books, and Kickstarters.

With my vacation ending soon, I find the recent developments quite interesting to observe, as well as participate in said developments.
My thesis, which has been in the works since January, is finally starting to near its epic conclusion. The last words are being typed, the last screenshots are being captured and I’m waiting for the last e-mails to arrive. I hope to be able to end the whole deal before university starts, in September, or at least finish it off within the first few weeks, so I don’t have to deal with the responsibilities of the thesis for the duration of my first class this year. That would be inconvenient.

At the same time, I’m also being reminded about November coming closer and closer, which means that NaNoWriMo is also nearing at an equally vast speed. My first NaNoWriMo was quickly followed by my first published book, even though it was with a print-on-demand publisher, and I enjoyed writing the year after that and the year after that, always succeeding in reaching the 50.000 word goal easily. So easily, in fact, that I usually already met the word goal on day ten and went on from there, writing at a steady pace of 5.000 to 7.000 words per day. Maybe more, if I had to make up for a lost day, but the average would be around 5.000 words per day.
What you generally don’t see while looking at the statistics of my userpage, though, is the amount of preparation that comes with writing a story. I like to write out the general outline of a story, which can differ from highly detailed (when I actually envision a certain scene) to terribly general (when I just want to make a point come across) and see where I end up. I recall my second NaNoWriMo being about five pages of notes, but the ideas started to pile up as I was writing and I started adding subplots and making changes as I went along, never really failing to keep up with these undocumented changes. The result was Physokinetic, a universe in which breaking the rules of physics was, for some people, not all that weird.
The year after that, I decided to write a sequel to Physokinetic, called Tamer. It followed a (in my mind) logical consequence to the reality-shaking climax of Physokinetic and how it caused several different kinds of creatures to invade Earth. It ended with (spoilers) only the dragons being left on Earth thanks to plot-related reasons, and I planned to end it with that.
Unfortunately, a couple of months ago, I started finding reasons to revisit this universe, with its dragons, its physics-denying humanoids, and its nearly indestructible creatures. With this story, I plan on ending it, though, which may or may not work, because I’ve already started editing and changing the notes I had been making to better suit a change of mind I’ve been having.
All things considered, though, I’m thoroughly enjoying this. Knowing that I’m willing and able to think about these things and start the creative engine that’s necessary to think about the changes I want to make and the repercussions they’ll have in my little universe means that I’ll probably be able to write with my usual style, making it up as I go along.

Thirdly, the Kickstarters. I continue to enjoy following and actually funding Kickstarter projects. Recently, I finally received a message about the Reaper Bones Kickstarter being sent out to me, almost a year after the actual funding ended and almost five months after the actually estimated time of delivery. I’ve been excited about this Kickstarter since the very start, especially since it basically introduced me to the basic concept of the system, and it was a huge rush to see the stretch goals passing by as time went on.
Another project was the Character Cards Kickstarter, which is basically an 80-card deck of personalities and basic ideas about NPC’s that I plan to use extensively if necessary. They also sent out the message that they had started to send out their rewards, which means that I’ll be able to start writing about these rewards very soon.

Finally, in a bit of an addendum, my dice collection has been expanded quite a bit since the last post about the dice. I guess I’ll spend a minute or two to take another picture and document that, in the near future…

Heirloom shooting

So, today was a bit of an interesting day for me.

Quite some time ago, my father had inherited an airsoft gun, which had been left to him by his grandfather (that being, my great-grandfather). It had been in our possession for a while, mostly because we couldn’t (legally) do anything. Dutch law states that you can’t use firearms in public areas, but our backyard is, unfortunately, quite a bit too small to actually fire a rifle it at any range.

So, back in July, my father took my brother out (I was, unfortunately, otherwise occupied) to illegally go into the forest and shoot the gun at a couple of empty cans. The full story about that can be read (in Dutch) HERE.

Fast-forward a month or so, and my father admits to me that he was getting rather itchy to go and try the gun out again. We still had ammo for it, so there was no reason not to go out and perform more delicious can homicide. Needless to say, after hearing stories from both my father and my brother, and hearing how enthusiastic they were about the whole experience, I was quite interested in going out shooting, too.

So, today, we went back to the spot that my father and brother had spent a good hour of shooting and set up some cans for me there. The first thing I noticed as I held the rifle was that the thing was a lot heavier than I had thought, but I had also forgotten about the heavy wooden stock that probably added a lot to that weight.

After painstakingly learning how to load it (I already shot an air rifle, dad, I know how these things work), and having set up a can, all I could really do was start aiming…

It was nothing like the videogames, that’s one thing. It took me a few moments to get the hang of the sights, which were a lot less intuitive than I had imagined it to be. More on good faith and the whole belief that ‘not shooting is never a hit’, I pulled the trigger…

 

BAM, was about all I could think. After this great success, we decided to take a couple of steps back and shoot again. This all was pretty successful, but the fork in the tree soon didn’t fit anymore. There were unfortunate plants in the way that prevented us from walking back, so we placed a plank that we had taken with us on the ground and started placing the cans on there…

 

 

I’m absolutely no marksman, but especially that last shot made me feel pretty damn awesome. After that, we just started taking potshots from different angles, places and distances, until my brother arrived from his work to also join us for a bit. It was great fun, but we quickly started to notice our aim was declining. We were obviously growing tired, so after an hour or so, we packed up and headed back home.

The cans were utterly destroyed, so I didn’t even regret it.

Medal of Honor: Generic Warfighter

So, after my last blog post about games, I feel like I’m obliged to admit that I’ve recently acquired Medal of Honor: Warfighter and Bioshock: Infinite, which I pretty much bought from the credit I received for handing in ‘a couple’ of old games I’m never playing anymore.

Two games :3

Yep, I pretty much only included the receipt there to show how long it was, because that’s twelve games I handed in, mostly because I’m never going to play them anymore and have zip emotional investment in them. I kept games like the Army of Two games, mostly because of the fun I had with my little brother playing them and the fact that at least the first one had great humour, even if it was a bit lacking in the story department.
The same goes up for the Gears of War games, of which I beat the first two in co-op with my bro as well, and I still need to see if I can bait him into playing the third one together. Probably won’t happen, though.
What I’m in doubt about, is keeping both HAWX and HAWX2, because I greatly enjoyed HAWX, but the story and missions of HAWX2 were really starting to get on my nerves real quick. I’m a bit of a military plane fan, but the arcade style of the first game was a lot better than the style of the second one, where things were a lot more unclear and there were quite a few points of unfair difficulty (instant-death space lasers, anyone?) that really threw the reality out of the window with about as much force as it could possibly manage. I know, Tom Clancy games tend to do this (anybody who played Endwar knows what I’m talking about, and HAWX2 appears to play at least around the same time period…), but the first HAWX didn’t do that and remained feasible at least. Kind of. If you disregarded the military strength a corporation managed to muster, anyway (spoilers). I liked that one better.

Anyway, on to the point I was trying to go and make. I played Warfighter and beat it in a day or two. It was way shorter than what I was expecting it to be, though I think it equalled a Call of Duty game in length. It was a disappointment.
Why, you may ask. I knew what I was going in to, what with spectacle-based Modern Warfare shooters being the short campaign beasts they are. However, when I opened the case, I saw two discs. Two. So I put the first one in, booted up the game, ran the patch (because there’s always a patch) and allowed the game to boot properly. After the obligatory ‘press start’ screen, I was confronted with the question of whether I wanted to ‘install the HD pack for the full game experience’, which was partnered with the message that this would require 1.7 gigabytes of hardware space.

1.7 gigabytes.

I hate to be honest, but I didn’t exactly splurge when I bought my XBOX and went for the one with the smaller hard drive (40 gigs, if I remember correctly), which has started to fill up over time. I don’t have the space to manage what would essentially be a 1.7 gigabyte texture pack, so I decided that no, fuck you, I don’t want your ‘HD pack’, hit ‘no’ and went on.
After I pushed that aside and entered the start screen, I wanted to start the campaign (I’m a single player guy), only to be prompted to ‘insert the single player disc’. So, the game didn’t actually run the amazing graphics that were promised, it had also taken the trouble of dividing the multiplayer (which I have no intention of even trying, if there’s even a multiplayer base left) and the single player content over different discs. Considering the size of the HD dvd’s of the XBOX, that means there’s quite some room left to make an AMAZING single player experience, right?
WRONG.
It was generic, at best. Having played the previous modern Medal of Honor game, I recall an amazing chopper level, where you actually controlled the gunner of an attack helicopter. Though it wasn’t an actual shooter mechanic and it could be made out to be ‘gimmicky’, I enjoyed that part immensely (see the part about HAWX, above). There was nothing like that, though there were two incredible clusterfucks they called driving levels, where all you did was drive a car through busy streets at high speeds. Though exhilarating during play, I frequently found myself being frustrated by them (one mistake and you were as good as done for, with very little recovery possible if you, say, hit a wall and came to a full stop) and realized, afterwards, that I didn’t even enjoy them.

Another point was the gunplay. So far, I haven’t found a way to see what gun you’re holding, except for the ones you pick up from the enemy. However, there is no reason to pick up a gun from the enemy, because you’re never without an ally and your allies are walking ammo containers that give out ammo like candy on request and don’t appear to run out of ammunition or grenades… ever. So you never really ditch your starting weapons, which means you’ll never find out what guns you’re using (because of the aforementioned point).
One of the strong points of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the weapon customisation option during the campaign, which basically gave you the chance to choose which weapons and attachments your character was going to carry at the start of the mission. Sure, there were a couple of suggested options, which meant that you would be ‘optimised’ for the tasks at hand, but nothing was forcing you to follow those suggestions.
This system allowed you to get familiar with the different weapons and find preferences. I know I never ran without an LMG as soon as I saw the destruction one could create with those beasts, something that I couldn’t possibly do with Warfighter. I never knew what kind of weapons I was using, never had the option to choose a different loadout, and even if I managed to find what kind of weapon I was using, all the enemies were using different weapons (there’s even an achievement for getting 50 kills with ‘enemy weapons’ that’s called ‘Tier 1 imports’, or, basically, weapons that are too shitty for the main character to use), so there was absolutely no way for me to acquire my preferred gun. As such, all guns felt the same (mostly. Some, like shotguns, still had a clearly different feel, but there were awfully few differences with the ‘Assault Rifle’ category), and led to an ‘eh’ feel with each and every one of them. A real shame, because I play the modern shooters because of the guns. Sure, I’ll beat the story a couple more times for the achievements (I fancy myself a bit of an achievement hunter), but after that, it’s going straight back for store credit…

Anyway, I’m going to try and be done with it, soon. If I manage to find some regular play time (and I won’t), it’ll be done in about a week or two, so we’ll see…

Responsibilities

So, at work today, they actually let me run the show for the evening.
Sure, there was someone more experienced than me to back me up and take care of missing things, but the plan is for me to do this more often. That, maybe, I can start closing shop on my own in the near future.
To be completely fair, I stopped enjoying my work a while ago. It was starting to get frustrating, and I didn't go home happy anymore. The fun was just gone from it all. Today was pretty intense, though, despite the fact that it was 'leadership light', and if it always goes like it went today (it won't), it'll be fun and games. It might just bring the fun back into my work, which is something I crave, despite the fact that I'm still planning to go and find a real job when I've finished my bachelor's degree.
So, let's see how this goes. Who knows, it might just give me a sense of responsibility and experience. Spooky...

Game Time

During a previous blog post, I promised to make a backlog list of the games I still want to play, but which I don’t have in my possession just yet. It actually required a bit of thinking, considering the fact that I’m not that good at remembering things, and I eventually decided to call in the help of xboxworld.nl, which conveniently allows me to look back at the releases per month, so I can actually find what I’m still missing.
Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t make some kind of system and make a somewhat longer list with a bit of a story and explanation, so… Let’s do this thing. Word of warning ahead: there’s probably going to be quite some shooters in here, because I’m not ashamed of the fact that I enjoy games like Call of Duty. It’s mindless fun.

Asura’s Wrath, released on February 24, 2012. I’m not all too sure about this one, I’ve played the demo and actually enjoyed it, but I noticed that it was mostly QTE’s and a lot of spectacle, and something is telling me that the actual game might not be that great. A second-hand tryout, I guess…

Prototype 2, released on April 27, 2012. I… guess I enjoyed the original? I don’t know, I never really got around to unlocking the full story of the original. Second-hand, definitely.

Lollipop Chainsaw, released on June 15, 2012. The sex appeal, mostly, though I watched a lot of gameplay video’s and achievement guides, and it appeared to be pretty tongue-in-cheek next to that sex appeal, which can be quite fun. Worst case scenario, I return it for store credit.

Spec-Ops: The Line, released on June 29, 2012. The story has been applauded as being deep and, quite frankly, rather broody and dark. The ally AI has been condemned for being stupid and suicidal. If I’d buy this, it’d be for the story, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ll feel forced to play it for the gameplay or the achievements…

Dishonored, released on October 12, 2012. I’ve heard many good things about this game, and I’ve come to understand that the story is quite excellent while the gameplay is interesting and innovative. That’s a lot of big keywords, which really don’t mean anything when considered, but I’m willing to believe the critics (and no, I don’t consider Yahtzee to be a critic) that it might just be a good game.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, released on October 12, 2012, as well. This one is probably more of a legacy game, even though I never really played the original XCOM’s. I’m pretty unsure about how much enjoyment I’ll get out of this, considering the fact that I heard it contains quite some bugs that only the real die-hard XCOM fans can look past. It’s probably a game I’ll pick up second-hand somewhere when it becomes available and I need to kill some time.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter, released on October 25, 2012. This is mostly because I’m not ashamed of the fact that I enjoy Modern Shooter games, which includes their linearity and spectacle effects. I might be a bit of a freak, there, so don’t mind me in my little hole.

Halo 4, released on November 6, 2012. I’m really not all that sure about this game, actually. I picked up the other Halo’s during sales, second-hand, etcetera, and I never really enjoyed them all that much. I’m hearing good things about it, just like about the other ones, and it’d be a shame if I left a legacy game of the 360 behind, especially if it turns out really good. I’ll probably give it the same treatment as XCOM, see if I can find it second-hand somewhere.

The Crysis trilogy, which is released at various dates, is just about the same as the previous ones. I never really got interested in the original Crysis, mostly because it was akin to torturing my computer when it was just released, but now it’s one of those games that can prove to be quite the experience once again. Back then, when I was able to play it for about an hour or so, I saw quite some things I liked, and now that it’s available as an XBOX downloadable, it might be worth it to invest in that one and get the other two, again, second-hand somewhere.

Gears of War: Judgement, released on March 19, 2013. This is one of the big ones, which I actually really want to have. I was one of the few who actually liked the story in the Gears of War games and I’ve read four of the novels that connect the different games to each other, so I’m considering myself to be quite invested in the story. I’m pretty interested in what happens during that game.

Bioshock Infinite, released on March 26, 2013. Another big one, probably the first one I’ll pick up. Again, Bioshock and Bioshock 2 were really fun and interesting to play, and I’ve only heard better things about Infinite. It’s even gone so far that I’ve purposely been avoiding reviews and blogs containing spoilers, mostly because I want to find out by myself.

Army of Two: the Devil’s Cartel, released on March 29, 2013. My brother and I beat the original Army of Two and 40^th Day in co-op together, and I actually hope to be able to do that with The Devil’s Cartel, as well. Though I thought that Army of Two: 40^th Day wasn’t as much fun as the original, lacking a lot of the feel of and being a lot more dark and serious than the original. I’m also unsure about how I’ll deal with the lack of the original protagonists (spoilers, I guess), but we’ll see.

Deadpool, released on June 28, 2013. This one really slipped underneath my radar, and I really don’t consider myself to be a fan of Deadpool, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about the game and the character, again, so I guess I’ll give it a whirl if I can find the time for it…

So, concluding… That’s a lot of games I’ll pick up second-hand. I actually always try to do it like this, mostly because it safes me a bucketload of money, so it was one of the reasons I was starting to doubt about what I’d do after the whole XBOX One debacle. With it’s lack of second-hand compatibility (until the One became the One-Eighty, at least), it would seriously hurt my funding. Thankfully, the guys at Microsoft decided that the negative backlash they had received after that little announcement was enough to make them re-think their strategy and back-pedal a bit, which means I don’t have to be afraid of that fact. Making the One-Eighty backwards-compatible would be awesome, but I think that’s a little more difficult. I’m no expert, but I’d be willing to buy it if they said it was harder.

So, when the time comes around for me to buy a new console, I guess I’m going to stack the XBOXes in case I ever feel like going back to the older games, though I have to admit, aside from a recent Freelancer craving (ten years later, still a great game), I don’t tend to suffer from that kind of things. We’ll see.

Kickstarter: Savage Worlds Character Sheets

So, today, one of my backed Kickstarters delivered, which is always a joy to see.

It was the Savage Worlds Character Sheet pads one (link), which was actually one I was looking forward to, what with me preparing a homebrew Savage Worlds setting for some time, now. I like the system, because it allows easy access to just about every kind of game you want to run, without being forced to homebrew stuff, and it advertises it's combat as being 'fast, fluid and fun'. That's one of my pet peeves in DnD4e, where combat, with the massive amount of available powers and abilities at higher levels, can quickly slow down to a crawl when one or two people start pulling out the big guns. With SW's simplified combat system and its allowance of making roleplay-heavy games, it seems like an excellent alternative, just like the (new) World of Darkness.


The pad and card, next to a printed Deluxe Edition Character Sheet

A while back, I took the liberty of statting out one of the important NPC's of the homebrew world I mentioned above and printed out the sheet to make this easier to do. As you can see, the sheet has started to curl a little, which I blame mostly on the cheap quality of the printer paper we use over here, combined with the liberal amounts of ink applied to it thanks to the full-color page I printed. It wasn't cheap.
Now, when you look at the pad, you can see that, though it's black-and-white, the paper is of high quality and it probably won't start curling up unless you start rolling it. I've got five of those pads, and there's twenty-five sheets per pad, so that's 125 characters ready to be made.
Above the pad are the businesscard-sized mini-sheets, which are really more to 'take your sheet with you', so you don't have to slog around a character sheet and can, basically, play your character everywhere, every time, if you keep it in your wallet. They're very small and basic, though, and especially advanced characters probably won't manage to fit everything on there. I've received 120 of these, as well, so I'll see how much we can do with those.

Now, I just need to find a way to get that game going. We've got a lot of things going, already, so I told my friends I won't start anything new until we've finished off something else, so it might be a while, but these things will be ready when the time comes!