On Making a Difference

So recently I have been reading The Authority, a super-hero comic written by (can you guess?......) Warren Ellis. Well, he wrote the first volume, which is what I have. Anyway, one of the themes that the story touched on interested me quite a bit, and it's one that I don't think we think about too much in super hero comics. Basically, at one point it kind of asks the question: what really gives these people with superpowers the right to change the world in ways that they believe is right? Obviously most superheroes act in accordance with what is generally accepted to be right (should Spider-Man save that kitten in the tree? Yes!), but from a relativistic point of view, it's an interesting question.

I'm not actually going to only talk about comics today, because what most inspired me to write this post was how this idea applies to our real lives. I made that connection yesterday when I heard a story from a friend - I won't relay it since it's hers to tell, but it was basically about helping an injured animal. And that's something that we can all probably relate to in some way, whether from direct experience or not. The question inevitably comes up whether it's better to try to do something, or just let nature take its course. Not the easiest question to answer, is it? Who's really to say what we 'should' do?

Now, The Authority dealt with this topic a bit more...strong-fistedly, I guess you could say, with grand events that literally change the entire world. But our lives might not necessarily be so different from that, when you think about it. As we know, small decisions can lead to big results, good or bad. Kind of like the butterfly effect, I guess? Even with the best intentions, we may end up causing the situation (or even another situation) to get worse.

Like let's take the injured animal example. Say you find a hurt mouse on the street, but decide to just leave it and let nature take its course. That may seem a bit cold-hearted, but imagine this. What if a weak, starving stray cat found the mouse, and it managed to survive because of that meal. Then the cat was taken to a humane society, and got adopted by a family who gave it to their sick child. The child's spirits were lifted so much by the cat's presence that he found the will to fight his disease, and eventually got better. Obviously the chances of that happening are extremely slim, but no one can truthfully say that they're zero.

So, what does that all mean, then? Since we can never know for sure what the outcomes of our actions will be, does that just mean that we should never act? Well, back in the days when I was feeling a bit more apathetic, I probably would have said yeah, pretty much. But now that I am in a much better state of mind, I figure, what is the point of living if we are just going to let it pass by without trying to make a difference? I think we really must try to make the lives of those around us better, because chances are that they will return the favour.

So the real ticket here is judgement then, isn't it? We have to try our best to determine whether acting in a certain situation will be for the better or worse. But that's hard, of course. I suppose better judgement does come from experience, though it could never be ground down to a science. I guess all we can really do is act - or not - with the best intentions, and hope that it all works out for the best.

What's that old saying? "Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Whether one believes in god or not, I think that's something that we should all hope and strive for.

Lazy...Thursday?

Welp another day with no real post. It's partly because I'm tired as hell and don't really have any good ideas for today. But also because there is a super SEECARET project that I'm working on that I want to do a bit on today, and I'm going out later. So I guess I'm like...what's that word? Busy? Yeah. Weird. Anyway, I'll try to come up with something good for tomorrow, cause there probably won't be much of a good post on Saturday either. In the meantime here's a song to make up for it.

On StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's Ending

So this is another topic that I'm a liiittle behind on, but I beat the game before I started the blog, so it didn't occur to me to write about it until now. To be honest I actually liked the story in HotS; it wasn't amazing but being that I am a fan of Zerg and Kerrigan, it appealed to me a lot more than SCII's story. There was one major gripe that I had with it, though, and that's what I want to talk about today. There are major spoilers for both SCII and HotS in here, obviously, so be forewarned.

**SPOILERZ OMG**

So let's start off with the end of SCII: Kerrigan was turned back (mostly) into a human. I actually thought this was a really great plot...thingy, because it raised a lot of questions. Not the least of which was, what the heck was Kerrigan going to do now? The Terrans and Protoss would likely not welcome her back with open arms after what she did, and who knows what the state of the Zerg would be. The idea of Kerrigan having to find her place in the universe after all she's been through struck me as having the potential for being a really cool story.

So, now let's get into HotS. Early on in the game, Kerrigan escapes her Terran 'captors', and retakes control of the swarm. Huh...okay. Well that's not really the story I was hoping for, but it's not that bad. She still wants to get revenge on Mengsk, so she can use the swarm for that, then get back to trying to find a life for herself as a mostly human again. That makes sense.

Except, well...it seems like maybe Blizzard is kind of afraid of that idea, or something. Because of course, part-way through the game, Kerrigan returns to the Zerg homeworld, and basically becomes the Queen of Blades...again. She even looks exactly the same as before, save for the totally rad purple sparks about her. So I thought, hmm this is starting to look a bit same-y...but I'll stick with it and give them the benefit of the doubt.

So we go through the rest of the game, and some neat stuff happens, and, as expected, Kerrigan gets her revenge and kills Mengsk. I was like, okay Blizzard, now's your chance to mix things up! But then...nothing happens. Kerrigan leaves Raynor to go back to the swarm to get ready to fight Amon or whatever the stupid guy's name is. So...we end HotS with things basically exactly the same as they were back in SCII, at least from Kerrigan's perspective. She's the Queen of Blades leading the Zerg and the Terrans and Protoss probably still hate her.

To me, that just seems so weird that they almost pushed the story backwards instead of forwards. After beating the game and thinking about it for a little while, I came up with an ending that still makes sense, I feel, and also ends up with things set up just about in the same way as HotS' real ending. Of course it will have some problems, but they'd be easy enough to solve, and I think this ending would have been a lot more interesting. I'll explain.

So my new ending starts off in Mengsk's throne room. He activates the weird thingy in the middle of his room, but this time it does something different. Instead of weirdly just shocking Kerrigan and knocking her down, it would be a mini version of the Xel'Naga artifact from the last mission in SCII. I feel like that's something Mengsk would do, put an outrageous amount of resources into recreating a mini version of the artifact for his own personal protection. So, the artifact would go off, and Kerrigan would be turned back into a human, again.

Then, the story would play out pretty much the same way, Raynor comes in and saves Kerrigan, and gives her his gun so she can shoot Mengsk in the face. Yeah, she would be naked I guess, but we could figure some way around that, she could cover herself with a flag or something. So then, we've got Mengsk being dead, and Kerrigan being human again (again), having to figure out what the heck she's going to do with her life now.

What about the Zerg, though? WELL, remember when Kerrigan transformed back into the Queen of Blades, how she was unconscious on the Leviathan for a while? Well during that time, it turns out that Abathur did a little research into his Queen, and discovered how she manages to control the swarm. He used that knowledge to create a new Overmind, who was ingrained with the knowledge of Amon. Since the Overmind would obviously want to ensure the survival of the swarm, he would prepare the Zerg for battle against Amon, just like they are in the real story.

But what about Kerrigan, then? I think it would have been cool if, since now she's kind of a Zerg/human without allegiance to either, she joined up with Dehaka and his primal Zerg group. I figure he might have built up some respect for Kerrigan as she helped him collect a lot of strong essences, so he might stay loyal to her. From there she could do pretty much whatever she wanted - Blizzard could come up with a really interesting story for her.

So that's pretty much it, I mean I guess Blizzard could STILL come up with an interesting story for Kerrigan during/after the next game, but still. It just really bothered me how little changed from SCII to HotS in terms of Kerrigan herself, who was by all intents and purposes the main character. I just felt like they could have done pretty much ANYTHING else and have ended up with some thing more interesting. Ah well, here's hoping that the Protoss expansion continues to improve in the story department and gives us something cool and original.

On Working In The Video Game Industry

So, in this post, I'm not actually going to mention ALL of the opinions I have on and experiences I've had in the industry, but there are two main things that really bother me about it, and so I just want to talk a little bit about those things. Obviously these things will just be my personal opinions coming from my own narrow perspective, but maybe they will give you some unique insight.

So the first thing I want to talk about is how story and creativity are used in game development. I've always had some strong opinions about this, but I read an interview with game writer Susan O'Connor today, and some of the things she said I could really relate to. That interview is here if you're interested. She talks about some of the frustrations she's having with working as a games writer, and though I've never done that myself, I've had some frustrations of my own.

Some of the issues aren't even anyone's fault, though, it really just has to do with limitations of the medium itself. Like, technical limitations. Obviously those limitations are becoming fewer as hardware gets more powerful, but still, I don't believe we will ever have technology that will be able to match the human imagination. When making a game, a designer can go 'can we have like a billion guys in this field here?' and the tech guy will go 'um, no.' But with a book or comic book - if you can imagine it, you can write it or draw it.

And then there are the limitations that come with the interactivity of games. If you're not sure what I mean by that, it might be tough for me to explain, but I'll do my best. See, when you're making a game, you want the player to be doing something fun at pretty much all times, right? You can have downtime in the form of cinematics, but generally you want to limit those as much as possible. Unless you're Metal Gear Solid I guess, but let's not compare molehills to mountains (i.e., Kojima gots da cred to do whatever the hell he wants).

I have actually run into this issue more with my personal work than in professional work I've done. Just as an example, there was one idea that I had that was originally going to be a game. But as I was working through what I was going to want in the story, I realized that there were too many sequences that required taking control away from the player. I mean, in a game, you want the player to feel like they have at least SOME agency, right? The more the better. So basically, to have the narrative go exactly where I wanted it to, to tell the story that I really wanted to tell, I felt like it would just work better as a novel or, ideally, comic book.

I guess that's why many people feel like stories in games tend to suck. Balancing story and gameplay is really hard! If you go too far towards the story, people get bored of cutscenes or just feel like the whole thing is too linear and scripted. Go too far the other way and the story is so thin or nonsensical that it's like, what's even the point of having a story? I guess there are some experimental indie games and interactive novel type things that are able to focus much more on story, but something like that wouldn't really be as satisfying to make for me I don't think. With such limited interactivity, I almost like don't even see the point. Maybe it's something I should try to warm myself to, though.

And speaking of indie games and developers, that kind of brings me to my last point about creativity in the industry. Obviously indie studios are able to harbour much more creativity than triple-A studios. These days, it seems like the industry is being run by businessmen who only care about being assured that they'll make a buck. This is why we keep seeing annual-release franchises, and sequels till we're sick - it's the safe thing to do from a business perspective. I didn't even work in a huge studio, but it was a bigger-sized company I suppose, and the creativity within it was nonexistent. All the management cared about was making money. As a creative person, it was really depressing, so I wasn't terribly disappointed when I left that job.

I mean, sure, there are some creative minds in the triple-A game like Ken Levine who can do pretty much whatever they want, and that's really good. But what's a greenhorn like me to do? The original plan was to grind my way through the years at the bottom until I can work my way up and gain enough clout to work on my own ideas like Levine can. But that environment just turned out to be too soul-sucking for me to survive in. So what else, join a smaller group to make indie games? I guess, but it's tough for groups like that to get the money to even make anything in the first place. And even then, there are the technical limitations of games in general that I mentioned earlier.

So, I guess I'll go on to my second point, which should be shorter than the first, as it's much simpler. It goes like this: why the hell are such ridiculous overtime policies just accepted in the games industry? I know it's not the only industry in which that's a problem, but that doesn't make it okay. Like, sure, I can accept if people are working extra on a project because they like it and are having fun. But when you get into mandatory sixteen hour days six or seven days a week, no one can enjoy that. And not every studio HAS that sort of policy, obviously, but I'm not aware of any that doesn't employ some sort of crunch time or overtime system.

I am just not about stuff like that, it's so wasteful. I feel like it doesn't even make sense, overworking people for so many hours will make them less productive. And I understand that games need some sort of schedule, because they need to come out eventually, but it's like, sometimes I need to buy things too. But y'know what? Stores CLOSE. The candy will still be on the shelf tomorrow. Your customers will still want to buy games tomorrow, businessmen.

SO, sorry that last part was a bit ranty, but it's just ridiculous to me that such BS is just accepted. For the last several years, going through school, I always wanted to be in the games industry. But now that I actually have been, I'm not sure I want to anymore. Not that it's totally a bad industry, but I'm just not sure it's where I can do my best work.

I don't even know what the point of this post was, as it obviously can't change anything. I mean, I still love video games, and I still like the idea of making games. But the main thing I want is to just be happy and enjoy what I do. If I can somehow find that and do it while making games, all the better.

Introducing: BROKEN RAGE

Suggested listening for this post: Sulphur Crown (Post Human Archetype is also pretty good)

So one day I was walking home from work and I saw a sign that said 'brokerage', and I thought 'haha, that looks like broken rage'. Then I was hit by a lightning bolt of inspiration, and thus my fake Melodic Death Metal band Broken Rage was born. Of course, it needed some members, so over the next few weeks and months I spent some time creating some fake weirdos to be in my fake band. Then I started imagining them getting into weird and hilarious situations, and so I got the idea to put some of their stories on my blog. Ideally I think they would actually be comics, but since I can't draw that well, short stories will have to do...for NOW.

But I'm not going to put a story here today, this post is basically just going to be introducing the band and the members. I guess it will KIND of be like Metalocalypse, except Broken Rage isn't like super rich or super popular, they're just a regular band trying to make it in the world. But anyway, let's start off by meeting each of the members, and hearing a bit about what makes them tick. Oh yeah, the band's first album is titled after their hit single, My Black Heart Feels Nothing. That song (nor the album) doesn't exist in any conceivable form, I just thought it was appropriately melodramatic.

BROKEN RAGE

Breathless - Death Vocals
Breathless is the band's main vocalist and front man. Not much is known about his past, and due to his intimidating looks and gruff demeanor, no one is all that inclined to ask him about it. Curiously, under normal circumstances, Breathless never says a word; he only communicates through gestures and grunts. His face is also always obscured in shadow, even when he is in direct light. When he's put in front of a crowd with a mic in his hand, though, he lights up - literally. His eyes start glowing red, and he finally lets the world hear him. His ear-piercing screams and pants-filling growls are the basis for Broken Rage's devastatingly brutal sound.
The most likely to avoid arrest.

Hopeless - Lead Guitar
Hopeless, as you might guess, tends to be kind of a downer. His bleak world view and constant complaining tend to get on the other members' nerves, but they put up with him because of his unparallelled skills on his axe. Or...rather in his case, his sword. He had the most badass claymore sword he could find reinforced and strung up, turning it into a makeshift guitar. The blade, which acts as the fingerboard, often cuts his hand while he's playing, but he says the pain helps him concentrate. His stark white hair made him the focus of bullies growing up, which may have attributed to his depressive state. We may never know, though as he refuses to go to doctors, thinking it pointless.
The most likely to pass out during a show.

Soulless - Bass and Clean Vocals
To an outsider, Soulless may seem to be very similar to Hopeless, which could be forgiven - she always appears very distant and apathetic. Unlike her bandmate though, Soulless isn't sad or depressed, she simply lacks any feelings at all. She has no opinions, desires, or preferences either, forcing her best friend and bandmate Heartless to make most decisions for her. She is one of the band's most popular members, though, as her sublime, effortless voice lends a beautiful contrast to Broken Rages harsh instrumentals and Breathless' thunderous Death Vocals.
The most likely to get lost on tour.

Fearless - Rhythm Guitar and Backup Vocals
Compared to his comrades, Fearless might be seen as the 'normal one'. He is very calm and laid-back, simply taking things as they come. He believes that life is short, so you should enjoy it while you can. He also has a bit of a rogue streak though, literally throwing himself into rather dangerous situations. Being that he doesn't have any 'lead' positions in the band, he often takes to climbing around the stage during shows and leaping into the crowd. When he is participating in the songs, though, his driving riffs and mix of Death and Clean Vocals lend an invaluable underlying base to Broken Rage's sound. He says that his minimalistic fashion sense was inspired by his favourite journalist.
The most likely to get hurt while already in the hospital.

Heartless - Drums
Heartless' small stature belies her gigantic personality. Being the strongest-willed person in the band, she often acts as the leader in social and business situations. She is fiercely protective Soulless, and secretly tries to teach her to be able to feel and make decisions. Due to her excessive use of hairspray, there are often small environmentalist protests at Broken Rage shows. Heartless enjoys these displays, however, and often throws Fearless' guitar or occasionally Fearless himself at the protestors. Despite her name, she keeps a beat extremely well, and goes through several sets of drumsticks per show. Rumor has it that in her teen years, she put her local music store owner's kid through college.
The most likely to start a bar brawl - and end it.

Anywho, that's it for today, hopefully sometime in the future I'll make a post getting into some of their hijinks.

On BioShock and BioShock 2

So today I want to talk about two of my favourite games of all time, BioShock and BioShock 2. There isn't really anything in particular that spawned this idea, it's just something I've been wanting to talk about for a while, and now seems like as good a time as ever. So the fanbase seems pretty divided over which game is better than the other, with most people preferring BioShock (though after Infinite came out, a bunch of people praising 2 started coming out of the woodwork, which I found kind of weird). Personally, though, I have the seemingly strange view of liking them both exactly the same, just for different reasons. I'll go into my positives and negatives for each game, starting with BioShock.

Oh I guess I should say there may be spoilers for both games, so if you haven't played them yet and still intend to (???) continue at your peril.

For anyone that's familiar with BioShock, I probably don't have to say too much about the positives of the game. It had an amazing unique setting, fantastic storytelling, and the gameplay was pretty great too. The plasmids, weapons, and tonics were all unique and really fun to use, allowing you to play through in lots of different ways. If you weren't playing Wrench Jockey, though, you were doing it wrong, of course. The characters were great too, all well-written and well-acted. From the main characters and villains to even just the regular old splicers, every character in the game seemed to be well thought out and fully realized.

The other great thing about the game was just how creepy it was. I don't think I would call it a horror game, but it definitely had some scary parts. Even ignoring the scripted shock-scare parts (of which there were a few), the game let your imagination run wild with creepy, bloody scenes strewn throughout the environment. The aforementioned characters did a great job of creeping me out too - finally encountering Dr. Steinman after learning about him and seeing his 'handiwork' throughout the first level was one of the most memorable moments from the game for me. Even the Big Daddy fights could be pretty scary, especially early on in the game. And how could we forget the plaster-covered, silent splicers from Fort Frolic, who were freaky as hell even when I knew they were coming.

However that brings me to BioShock's biggest downfall, in my mind. For me, Fort Frolic was the best area in the whole game. Being that it was only about halfway through, though, that causes a bit of a problem. Not that I felt that the reset of the areas in the game were bad; I still enjoyed them quite a bit, I just didn't feel like they reached as much of a high as Fort Frolic did. Of course, the big twist was amazing and mind-blowing, but the parts after that fell famously flat. It was really just a bit of a pacing problem in my mind. And then there was the final boss fight, which...well, I didn't hate it, but it was definitely kind of silly.

So now let's talk about BioShock 2. I'll start off with its negatives this time - the first being the obvious problem that it just wasn't as fresh as the first game. I loved going back to Rapture for more underwater insanity, but it just didn't inspire the same sense of awe that the first game did. Also, the game really just wasn't as scary as the first one. That made sense, of course, since this time you were a big, powerful Big Daddy instead of just a regular guy, but feeling so strong took away some of the fear you felt walking around the world, which was a bit lamentable.

Being a Big Daddy did have its perks, though, as the gameplay in 2 turned out to be better than in the first. The ability to dual wield plasmids and weapons was a a welcome addition, and the plasmids and weapons themselves felt more varied and overall just improved. I thought that the Big Sisters were another cool addition as well, as I found them really fun to fight, and they were a really unique enemy. Finally, the 'final boss battle' wasn't actually a boss at all, it was just a difficult, large-scale battle, which felt a bit more appropriate.

My favourite thing about BioShock 2, though, was that it really made me care more about the characters than I did for any of the characters in BioShock. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Subject Delta (me) and my 'daughter' Eleanor. And I actually have a unique story about it that really put my love for the game over the top.

At the end of one of the levels, I think it was Dionysus Park, you get to choose whether to kill or spare Stanley Poole. Now, if I remember right, in the past Poole kidnapped Eleanor, which lead to her becoming a Little Sister. At the very least, he did something bad to her. So anyway, I decided to let Poole live, because I always play games as the 'good guy'. As I left, Eleanor popped up in my ear and asked if I was sure about letting him live, after what he did to her. And then I thought, thinking as Delta, that Eleanor's mother had taught her everything she new up until now, and maybe if I as her 'father' could teach her anything, it would be forgiveness. Eleanor continued to say that she'd respect whatever I chose, so I left to go to the next level.

So anyway, skip forward to the end of the game, in the final cinematic when Delta, Eleanor, and Lamb are escaping Rapture. Eleanor is giving her wrap-up speech, which kind of summarizes the choices that you made. At one point, she actually says 'For you, mercy was victory. You sacrificed, you endured, and, when given the chance, you forgave, always," as she saved her mother from drowning. Now when I said that maybe I could teach her forgiveness, I wasn't actually expecting it to really get addressed or anything like that, so when she said that, it hit me pretty hard; I almost started to tear up a little bit! I feel like that good ending is one of the best endings of any game I've played, actually. Right up there with BioShock's good ending, which was amazingly touching as well.

So yeah, I mean there are lots of other little plusses and minuses about each game that I could probably go on talking about all day, but I have other things to do! You probably do, too. So I'll just leave it at that, that story from BioShock 2 is one of my favourite gaming memories, so it was one of the main things I wanted to share when I started this blog. These are really two of the best games ever, I think, and I just can't pick one that I prefer over the other.

Short Story: Juggernauts

It was another tough day in the modest encampment. The people had actually been able to build up their homes and other necessary structures to a fairly comfortable level, but things always had to be kept ready to uproot. Provisions were only procured as needed, and homes were kept spartan, filled with only the strictest necessities. Even though this camp had been set up for a good number of years, the air was still always filled with a palpable anxiety.

For Gregory, this was the norm - it was all he'd ever known. The most important thing to him, pretty much the only important thing to him, was keeping his family safe. On this morning, he was busy preparing breakfast for his two sons, twins. Things had gotten easier over the years as the encampment grew, but he never got complacent - he knew better.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Gregory immediately felt he knew what it was. He was always expecting it, maybe even waiting for it. He gave the boys their food and rustled their hair before going to the door. As always, he stopped and took a breath before swinging it open. A man stood there, looking very tired and out of breath.

"Good morning, sir," he said. Gregory didn't know him, but immediately recognized his uniform.

"Ah...so it's coming, then," Gregory answered. He didn't need an introduction to know what the man's presence meant.

"Eh...yes, I'm afraid so." The man seemed unsurprised by Gregory's bluntness. "This area is in the primary danger zone." He was almost apologetic.

Gregory let out a heavy sigh. He expected this news every day of his life, but it never made it easier to hear. "I understand, I know what to do, been through it before. You'd best get to the others," he said. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"Of course, thank you, sir. And best of luck." The man gave a short nod, which Gregory returned. He then hurried off towards the home next door.

Gregory slowly closed the door and spent a moment just staring at the floor. Then he looked over at his two sons for a long moment, frozen, despite the vital task he had ahead of him. This was what all the preparation and fussing was for - Gregory had to pack up everything he could take with him and be ready to evacuate the camp at a moment's notice. He didn't know if it was coming through the encampment at all, but if it was, they had to move fast.

"What was that, Daddy?" one of the boys asked. He didn't seem worried at all - Gregory took a moment to decide how much to tell his sons.

"Well, boys," Gregory said, trying to suppress the stress he was feeling. "We might be having to move, so we have to pack up all our stuff and be ready to go, okay?" He didn't figure he'd be able to get away with just that, though. The boys were at that age where they were asking questions about everything.

"Oh...so does that mean the Juggernaut's coming?" There was actually a hint of excitement in the boy's voice. Gregory grumbled to himself, they must have heard rumours of the thing from their friends. He didn't see any point in lying now.

"Well, maybe. We never know exactly where it's going to go, but it's coming this way." Gregory told them. He was trying to still sound calm and confident, and somehow getting it out and telling the truth was helping. "Now go pack up your things, we have to be ready to go as soon as possible, just in case."

"Okay." The boys seemed a little worried, but followed his orders. Gregory figured they probably couldn't understand the full implications of the situation. "Have you ever seen it, Daddy?"

"Oh, sure, a few times," Gregory answered almost absent-mindedly as he worked on packing himself. "So have you guys, actually, you were just too young to remember." And that was true, only a few months after the boys were born, the Juggernaut went through their encampment and leveled it.

"Is that when Mommy..." The boy trailed off, and Gregory winced, immediately regretting having mentioned it.

Back then, the last time Gregory had seen the thing, the early warning system broke down - the team hadn't been able to visit all the encampments that were potentially in danger. Gregory and his wife hadn't had proper time to prepare for evacuation - in fact they didn't have any time at all. The monster's footsteps from afar shook the house so violently that its shoddy frame collapsed. Gregory's wife was trapped in the rubble, but Gregory knew he couldn't help her, he had to get the boys out to safety - she told him as much, too.

Gregory had gotten the boys away safely, but couldn't get back in time. The Juggernaut walked right through the encampment, and Gregory's wife couldn't do anything to get out of the way. She was lost that day, and though Gregory told the boys that she was gone, he had never told them exactly what happened. He wasn't sure if it was more out of wanting to spare the boys, or from not wanting to speak it because of the overwhelming guilt he felt from not being able to save her. Either way, at least right now, he knew he had to focus on the task at hand.

"Just get your things together, boys. Hurry up!" Gregory knew he was starting to sound frantic, so took a moment to try to calm himself down. Making things worse was the fact that they were starting to feel slight tremors from the thing's footsteps.

The boys seemed to have moved on in their though processes. "No one around here seems to know what the Juggernaut actually is. Why does it just walk around crushing stuff?" one of them asked.

"Well," Gregory actually stopped to give a thoughtful answer to that question. "It's true, no one really knows what it is, or what it wants. It's been around for as long as anyone ever recorded, and all we've ever seen it do is just keep walking forward."

Ever since humans had evolved to be intelligent enough to record history, they'd been researching the Juggernaut. What they found was that it never seemed to eat or sleep, but the main thing: it never stopped. It always just walked forward, crushing whatever was in its path without prejudice. Any attempts to attack or harm the Juggernaut were ineffectual, and seemed to go completely unnoticed. The only deviation they found was that it never went perfectly straight, meaning they could never accurately predict where it would go.

"Some people think that it was sent from God to judge those that have sinned," Gregory continued. "There are lots of different stories like that. But then some people think that it's just a beast that walks forward, without really knowing that it's doing any harm to anything else. The bottom line is, though, that we just don't know."

"What do you think, Daddy?" one of the boys asked.

"Well, I don't really know, son" Gregory answered earnestly. "I just hope that someday we'll be able to give someone who's smart enough the tools to find out. Now finish packing, we have to go."

Gregory and his boys finished packing, and brought their things outside. They could see other families gathering outside their homes too, bringing along everything they could carry. The tremors got stronger as time went on, and feeling them brought Gregory back to the worst day of his life. He told himself that things would be different today, though. They were ready.

Eventually, the beast came into view, and it was indeed heading straight for their encampment. The boys were completely awed by the sight of the thing, but Gregory felt only contempt and regret. It had no identifying features that would suggest that it was a living thing, besides its legs. It appeared to be just a walking mountain. Gregory quickly shook the boys out of their stupor, though - they had to run.

The leaders of the encampment picked a direction, and the families just ran, hoping that the Juggernaut would not veer in their direction. Time seemed to be going almost in slow motion as they ran, and by now the creatures footsteps were deafening. The strongest men in the encampment and those without families to take care of stayed at the back, helping stragglers along if they slowed down or fell. Eventually, after what seemed like miles, the leaders called for the group to stop.

They had succeeded in getting clear of the Juggernaut's path, but unfortunately, it went straight through their encampment. Several structures were crushed with one titanic step, vanishing - having been stomped flat into the ground. Some people groaned as they watched their homes being crushed, but Gregory felt something that he could barely remember even existed - relief. Everyone had gotten out; they were all safe.

"Wow..." said one of the boys, seemingly overwhelmed by the whole situation.

"What are we going to do now, Daddy?" the other one asked.

Gregory was a bit overwhelmed himself, finally letting all the feelings rush over him now that the danger had passed. "We go back and rebuild, boys," he replied.

Then, he whispered to himself, "And wait for next time."

END

So this story was actually inspired by a song, this one!

Should be pretty easy to tell why if you listen to the lyrics. The line 'crushing all in its path' just made me think of this mountainous creature, that all it ever did was walk forward and, well, crush everything in its path. Then I started thinking about how humans would live in that world, and the story came from that. I figured that there probably wouldn't be much technology, because any sort of research facility might just get crushed before it had time to discover anything. Kind of an interesting thing to think about.

And the name, Juggernauts, I pluralized it, even though in the story there seems to be only one Juggernaut. It's kind of a play on the idea that, today in the real world, humans kind of think of ourselves as the juggernauts. We think we're all high and mighty, but we're really kind of fragile, aren't we? Natural disasters like that terrible tragedy of the tornado down in the states last week (I think?) show us that. And I don't think I really have a point to make with this, but it's just something I think about sometimes.

Lazy Friday

Yo what's up guys, so today I'd been meaning to do a 'regular' post, and I have some ideas for some more short stories, but they're...not really fully cooked yet, I don't think. I was kinda struggling for something to write about today, but finally I just decided it was better to not force anything out just for the sake of doing it. So today I'll take a bit of a 'day off'...as if I'm actually working, haha. Anyway I think I'll just make a short little post about some stuff I've been doing and thinking about this week.

So firstly, one thing I've been working on is some drawing. Probably not super exciting to hear about...but it's been really fun for me, because I've been working on drawing characters from some of my story ideas. Some of these characters have been in my head for years, but I always sucked at drawing, so trying to make anything that looked good just frustrated me. Finally though, I decided to just bang it out and see what happens. And the results haven't been amazing, but I definitely feel like I'm getting better, so that's been really cool. It's kind of the same idea I had with this blog, if you want to do something, just do it. And if it sucks, that's okay, just keep doing it and eventually you'll get better. I don't think I'll ever be at the point where I can pursue being a professional artist, but it should help me when thinking up character designs and whatnot. (EDIT: oh yeah and WHY ARE BRAIDS SO HARD TO DRAW WTF)

Another thing I got up to this week was, somehow, I got inspired to go back and play Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. If you're not familiar, it's a high fantasy action RPG that could pretty accurately be described as like a single player World of Warcraft. Back when it first came out, I was really excited to play it, because I'm a big fan of fantasy, epic RPGs, and the art style looked really cool. When I started playing though, somehow I just wasn't 'getting' the combat. For some reason I just couldn't figure it out and kept dying during bigger encounters. I got so frustrated with it that I decided to just shelf it.

This week, though, I saw someone playing it on a stream on Twitch.tv and decided to give it another chance. This time, I seemed to have a better grasp on the combat, so I was doing much better in that respect. But, despite the awesome art style and fun combat, for some reason...it just fell flat for me. I think maybe I feel like the game is almost too deep. It's kind of hard to explain, but there's just like, a way to level up EVERYTHING. Like, there are so many different tech trees, and different dialogue options, different class, itemization, and crafting options,...and I'm sure that there are some people that would love that, but to me it feels just kind of...unfocused, you know?

I guess it didn't help that when playing, I got a hard-lock while it was saving, and lost about two hours of progress. Maybe if I make it a bit farther in the game I'll find my footing, so hopefully I'll be able to stick it out a bit longer. But I find that problem coming up in more and more games these days, where it seems like developers are trying to cram everything they can into their game, and it ends up the worse for it (depending on your perspective, of course).

One good example of this in my mind is the Assassin's Creed series. I'm one of the few people (maybe the only person?) that liked AC1 better than 2. For me, AC1 was fun because it was such a pure experience. You would sneak/climb around and try to kill your target without killing innocent people - following, y'know, the assassins' CREED. Yeah, there were collectibles, but they could be collected while doing stuff you were doing anyway - climbing around looking for a good path to your target. Then in 2 (and subsequent games) they added all this extra stuff like gear, town building/management, and...sailing? That one especially made me lose my monocle, what the heck is sneaky and assassin-y about sailing a goddamn tallship? I mean I'm sure they're still good games, it's just really bizarre to me the direction that series took.

Anyway, I think that's enough rambling for today. Hope you all have a good weekend and I'll try to be back tomorrow with a better post. I'll leave you with another one of my favourite chill songs.

The WoW Experience ft. Jamie: GAIDEN

I think I'm using that word right. Anyway, yes, anyone who knows me well probably won't be too surprised at this, because I am dumb and forget things. So this will be a post about stories from WoW that somehow I just forgot about while I was writing the series (PS the other posts, 1-4 should be in the archives section on the left). And there is also a small batch of screenshots that I found from the time at the end of Ravenous and the very beginning of Twisting Shadows, so I'll post some of those. The main feature of that set is my set of screenshots from when I explored the Karazhan Crypt in vanilla, which I'm really happy I found, because they're, in my opinion, some of the coolest shots I ever got. So anyway, let's get to it!

So the first thing, some people may have been wondering (I'm sure..), after Burning Crusade came out, what ever happened to my warlock? Well, the answer is actually kind of sad. See, to get healing enchants for my paladin, I needed an item called Primal Life. Lots of it. You could buy them, but they were also easy to farm, if you had enough time. The best place to farm for them was in Zangarmarsh, a level 62-63ish area. Warlocks were really good at farming, since they could pretty much infinitely sustain themselves with Lifetap and Drain Life, so I had my warlock farm up Primal Lifes for me. In the end, he got to level sixty-seven, only from killing regular, level 63 monsters. If that doesn't give you an idea, that takes a looooong time...

So I think I'll break up some the stories with the screenshots, since they are kind of stand-alone and don't really have any stories to themselves. First up is a screenshot that I just thought looked neat. I think I was just handing in thingies to get ZG rep.

Not very warlock-y...but whatever. We'll go with it.

So this next story probably won't mean much to anyone that wasn't there, but it's a funny story for me to remember. It takes place back in Twisting Shadows, when we were doing Blackwing Lair runs. on the last boss, Nefarian, if you didn't kill him in one go, you had to wait a while for him to respawn. I think this took around five to ten minutes. That may not seem like long, but when you've got 40 people running around in a room for ten minutes with nothing to do, it can be kind of significant.

So to pass the time, one of the guys in the guild, and I can't for the LIFE of me remember his name, but he would just sing random songs over Teamspeak. He was a pretty good singer, but the thing he wasn't so great at was remembering lyrics. So it was pretty hilarious to hear him singing the songs and then just making up lyrics as he went. They were usually pretty close, though. Like one day that I remember he was singing Fly Me To The Moon, and it went 'Fly me to the moon, let me..swing...amongst those stars'. I dunno it was just funny, really sticks out in my memory.

Okay time for another screenshot! This one is from when I went walljump exploring in Tanaris and got into the Caverns of Time, of course before it was officially released in BC. I don't know why I only took one screenshot...but it looked pretty much the same as it did when it released. Except that some parts were definitely unfinished...such as, apparently, the area I'm standing in below.

I don't know why the skull is on my head. Maybe the raid icons had just come out and we were playing with them.

So anyway, this next story takes place during the A Guild era, I'm pretty sure during a Black Temple run. It must have been during a time when we were farming, because we were having some pretty casual discussion in pally chat. Anyway, on this particular night, our illustrious guild leader Di decided to join pally chat. I'm not sure why, as he was a priest, but I guess he just wanted to keep tabs on strategies and stuff like that.

It just so happened though, that he entered the channel during the moment that we were talking about...midget hookers. Yeah....I'm...not really sure how we got there, but lamentably, it happened. It was one of those situations where he entered while a couple of people were already typing (myself included...) so we posted our messages before we realized he was there. After we posted our messages and realized what happened, there was just this silent moment where we all went 'uh oh'. And then on Vent Di just said 'Wow, I think I'm gonna like it in pally chat'. So we all had a good laugh about it, and Di stayed in pally chat from that day on.

MOVING ON THEN, this is just a cool screenshot from...one of the world events. I don't even remember which one! Well regardless, I thought it looks pretty sweet.

Eranikus, Tyrant of the Dream, in Moonglade. He looks kinda...jolly to be a villain, doesn't he?

So the next story is another one that only my guildies might get a little kick out of, but I just had to mention it; the words that are forever burned into my skull: X triangle square skull moon waffle. This was the sequence of raid icons that we were supposed to follow when killing groups of trash - focus x, then triangle, then square, etc. Waffle was the name we had for the orange circle, and was OBVIOUSLY the best name for it. 'Who's on waffle', 'kill waffle', and 'oh my god waffle is in the raid killing everyone' and stuff like that always made me laugh.

The other thing I loved about it was how our hunter who marked groups, Jad (you may remember him from such roles as guild leader of Massacre and Mass Anarchy), had an awesome southern accent, and so pronounced 'waffle' almost like 'waffow'. Actually, Jad pronounced a few things funny, like my paladin's name, Mateus. Most times he just called me Frost or Frosty, but when he occasionally said Mateus (pronounced 'ma-TAY-us'), he said it like 'MA-tee-us'.

Actually, speaking of that, wanna know why I named my pally Mateus? You might be wondering why I called my female paladin a male name, and it's a fair question! At the time, I didn't even know it was a male name. I actually named my pally after a summon from Final Fantasy. It (as far as I know) only appears in the Ivaliece games (FFXII and FFTA/A2), though in FFXII it's also considered a male. But in FFTA, where I first heard the name, Mateus was definitely (in my eyes) a female. Take a look.

Unless Mateus is actually the armor (which I suppose is a possibility), that definitely looks female to me.

So that image is from the FFTA strategy guide, and I was really stricken by it. So, I named my paladin after it! And just as a side-note, I'm pretty sure the strategy guide is the ONLY place that image exists. In fact for years I couldn't even find it on Google. I always found it so weird how such a beautiful piece of art was so hidden.

Anyway, this next screenshot actually kind of sucks, but it's special to me because it's the only surviving screen I have from my time in Twisting Shadows. It's right after we killed the Twin Emps, maybe for the first time.

A few familiar names in there: Vine (Reflex), Nerey, and Zoya in the corner!

Moving on to our next story, it's another one about walljumping. As I think I mentioned before, a bunch of us in Club Chorizo, our group of friends, liked exploring with walljumping. Outside Hyjal, in Caverns of Time, there was a pillar sticking out of the wall, too high to jump up on normally. And while it was possible to walljump up there, it was really tricky, even if you were pretty good at it. So on Hyjal nights, while we were waiting for everyone to gather for the raid to start, we would always have competitions to see who could get up there first. It was a fun way to pass the time waiting for the dawdlers to show up.

Another good one, one day for whatever reason, BT, Endal, and I decided to go walljump exploring inside Hyjal. Our main target was a giant mountain inside (if I remember right) the first camp where you fight the Lich and Dreadlord ('You are defenders of a doomed world! I want to eat your cereal, blah!') bosses. I don't even know why we wanted to get up there, whether we thought there was something on the other side, or we just wanted to get to the top. Either way, it looked possible, but ended up being a lot trickier than we thought.

It was pretty easy to get half way or even two-thirds of the way up, but from there it was slow going - we kept slipping back down. And the thing about walljumping, sometimes you fall down, a long way. I remember the whole time basically consisted of someone falling, then frantically calling for either me or BT to go down and resurrect them, because they didn't want to have to climb all the way back up after running back. But we didn't want to backtrack any either, so it was a constant struggle. The best part is, Endal kept forgetting to take off his armor, so every time he fell down and died, he lost a bunch of durability (and therefore money). In the end I think Endal got the closest to the top, but none of us ever made it.

This next screenshot features a weird graphical glitch, but also our good friend Stormchild. It seems as though he was trying to say the actual word 'frost' to me, but was having trouble.

My graphics card seemed to be in the same state as Storm's brain. *rimshot*

Next up we have a story about one of the bosses in Black Temple, Supremus. As the second boss in the raid, he was generally considered to be pretty easy, but somehow our guild managed to have our struggles against him. See, Supremus would shoot these fireballs at random raid members, that would stay on the ground for a short while after they landed. They did a tick of very significant damage every second or so to any character that was standing in them. So if you were quick, or, ideally, already running, you'd be able to take only one tick of damage when a fireball hit you, and you'd be fine. But take two or three ticks, and you were toast.

For some reason, our tanks seemed to have a strange disposition towards running straight through the fireballs on the ground. This would make them take several ticks of damage, which would often not even let them survive despite their high HP pools. I guess they just overestimated their survivability or something, since they were big fancy tanks. Anyway, after a particularly silly night of Supremus wipes, I decided to whip up a little diagram to help our good tank friends (who happened to both be tauren) remember what to do.

Follow the bunnies, guys. Just follow the bunnies.

Oh yeah, haha. See how Endal is saying that he loves Rvmech? He actually hated Rvmech, who was the main tank (and guild leader?) of one of Endal's guilds back on Eonar. Apparently, this guy only had one arm. Whenever his name came up, Endal went into a rant about how much Rvmech was a douchebag, but seemed to think he could get away with it just because he was 'differently abled'. So obviously we brought it up as often as we could.

Now here's my last random screenshot, which shows what happens when you combine size-enhancing buffs. That is completely unedited - I think it was a combination of a halloween buff and one of the just-for-fun engineering items.

Frostor regretted his steroid use when his horns fell off.

And now for my final story, which might be my favourite story ever. It takes place during the A Guild era, while we were waiting for a BT raid to start. We found a world boss, Doomwalker, outside the entrance to BT, and decided to give him a go for fun. We picked up some random players from the zone since we didn't have a full raid yet, but thought it would be fine, as the fight was pretty straight forward. One of Doomwalkers attacks was chain lightning, which, as the name suggests, gets cast on one person, then bounces to anyone else nearby, then bounces again, and so on. Doomwalker's chain lightning, however, got stronger after each bounce.

So, rule two was to stay spread out. Rule one was, of course, to stay the HELL away from the main tank, Endal in this case. If he got hit with chain lightning, the combination of that and Doomwalker's standard damage would easily kill Endal, and spell a wipe. Unfortunately, one of the random players we picked up didn't get the message, and on one of the attempts, Endal got hit by chain lightning and got killed.

Now this particular player's name was Preggymeggy, a female tauren. Endal was so mad at the wipe that he typed out in chat 'PEGGY', which to me was a hilarious typo. So anyway, the raid proceeded to wipe and we all ran back to get ready to try again. But something strange was happening. Venth was laughing. If you didn't know, Venth was a really gruff, no-nonsense kind of guy. I don't think I'd ever even heard him snicker before that, let alone laugh out loud. We asked what was so funny.

So you have to imagine here that Venth is explaining this through bouts of laughter. He said that the reason that chain lightning did so much damage to Endal was that it got an extra bounce off of the fetus in Preggymeggy's womb. Now, I don't know how funny that is to you reading it right now, but at that moment, Vent (our VoIP program, not Venth) just absolutely EXPLODED with laughter. Everyone just went nuts. I think it took like ten or twenty minutes to get the raid back together because everyone was recovering. That was probably the funniest thing that ever happened in WoW for me, and one of the funniest things I ever experienced in my life.

So, that's it for the stories today! There's a decent chance that I will remember more as time goes on, so I'm hesitant to say that this is going to be the last WoW post. As promised, I'll leave you with the series of screenshots from my foray into Karazhan Crypts. To get in, I exploited a glitch (that was fixed soon after this took place, I believe) that allowed player ghosts to pass through some gates. So I killed myself right next to the gate blocking the entrance, walked through as a ghost, and resed on the other side. Good times.

I should point out that this place was legitimately creepy to explore. You may notice I have my detect invisible buff on, just in case. Anyway, here we go.

You started out falling down a looong way (that I used Noggenfogger to survive) onto that giant bone pile. Nice welcome.

I think it was supposed to be 'Tomb'? Unless there was supposed to be a tome in here or something.

Upside-down Sinners? What does that even-

...oh. Ohhhh...

Another typo? Should be 'Despair', I imagine. Unless there's some guy called Dispair. Hm!

Just the 'Crypt'. Even just the mounds of dirt manage to be unsettling.

Another area of the 'Tome'. Those look like tombs to me.

Another area of the Crypt. The low ceiling and seemingly raised floor made this area really claustrophobic.

This area kinda looks like the part of release Kara before Nightbane, doesn't it?

So those are all the screenshots I got. I have no idea why Blizzard never used this area, it was so cool and atmospheric. Maybe what they had planned was too dark/disturbing for the ESRB rating they wanted. Who knows!

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed. See you tomorrow!

Short Story - The Train

He stepped onto the train and took his usual spot leaning up against the door on the opposite side. He had sunglasses on his face and headphones on his ears, to try to shut himself off from the outside world. He looked around at the other people on the train, but didn't really see them. He heard the faint sound of the familiar tones, and the doors closed.

Along the way, the train car tilted and shook like it always did. He gazed out the window with unfocused eyes as the trees and buildings rushed by. The train thundering along the tracks was so loud that it practically drowned out his music, but he didn't turn it up - he wasn't even really listening. Soon, he was pressed up against the side divider as the train slowed down to stop at the next station.

The door opened with a ding, and a few people plodded in. His attention came back to him and he lazily glanced over at the newcomers. Then, he saw her. She gave him a quick glance as her eyes swept across the train car, then she found a seat and sat down, facing him. It was a good thing he was wearing sunglasses, or else everyone would have seen him staring. He'd never seen her before, but she was the most beautiful person he could ever imagine.

He barely even noticed what she was wearing, all he could see was her face. It almost shone to him. Her eyes were somehow both soft and sharp at the same time, kind, but also full of life. She smiled at something on her phone, and it was a mischievous, slightly crooked smile. But the only thing that he could think of to describe her was perfect; that was the only word that kept running through his head. He wondered what it would be like to be with her...

She took his hand and lead him through the crowd, laughing as they ran. They went in between some old stone houses, running down the wood trimming on the boulevard. She kept looking back and smiling as they ran down the street, and he couldn't help but smile back. When they got to the end of the street, there was a bench on the corner, under a gigantic tree. She lead him over to it and they sat down.

As they sat there, he felt nothing but pure joy. Then, he felt something cold and wet drop on his head. It couldn't be rain, it was the perfect day. The two looked up, and falling from the boughs of the tree were hundreds of little bubbles, each about the size of a quarter. Inside each bubble were tiny little flowers of every colour imaginable. The pair were in awe at the sight as the bubbles floated down towards them, glistening in the light of the sun.

Then the wave of bubbles hit them, soaking their hair and clothes as they popped. The flowers stuck to their wet skin, which made her giggle with glee. She got up, still laughing, and started dancing in the floral rain. She beckoned him over to her, but he hesitated - dancing wasn't really his thing. But she came over and grabbed his hand again, and pulled him away from the bench. Then, he just let himself go, and the two danced and laughed together as the bubbles swirled around them in the light wind.

Then, he was pressed up against the side divider again as he came back to the real world. He snorted at himself as he contemplated the daydream - he knew that the girl sitting in the seat wasn't the same girl he danced with. She didn't exist. She never would. The train stopped and she got up and walked out of the train. He didn't watch her go, instead he just crossed his arms and stared back out the window. Once again he faintly heard the familiar tones.

The doors closed.

End

So I guess this kind of came from me thinking about identity, who we are. Of course we know who we are, but you have to think that everyone else has kind of different versions of us in their own heads. So what really matters, who we really are, or how we're perceived or imagined by others? I think we'd like to assume it's the former, but I don't expect that's always true. Hm. Also the flower bubbles coming from the tree came from an actual dream I had. Weird huh o.O

On The New Xbox

Before I start I'd just like to point out that yesterday I passed two hundred page views on this blog. Is that good? I think so! Woo! As I said when I started this, the entire purpose of this blog was to be a bit of an outlet for me and as an avenue to practice writing, so anything beyond that would just be a bonus. So I just want to give a super big thanks to anyone who's been reading, I hope you've found at least something to enjoy! Anyway:

WELL I was planning on posting something else today, but then I remembered the new Xbox reveal was today, so I thought I might as well post some thoughts on that. Going in, I wasn't really super excited and didn't really have any expectations. I thought the PS4 reveal was pretty okay, but nothing really made me jump out of my seat, so that's pretty much what I figured would happen again. In the end I guess I was a bit more pleasantly surprised than I thought I would be.

So I'll start with the name: Xbox One. It's okay I guess, nice and simple. Beforehand I was thinking that it would be hilarious if they called it the Xbox Five, just to upstage the PS4. It would make absolutely no sense, but it would have been just like the ultimate middle finger to Sony. I GUESS it's better they took more of a high road, though. So yeah, I'm okay with the name. None of the rumors for the name I've seen nor anything I can think of would be better.

Then they talked about the 'all-in-oneness' of the machine - you can easily and quickly switch between TV, games, movies, and music. One thing that annoyed me a bit here was how they kept talking about 'my experiences' and 'what I love'. You have absolutely no idea what either of those things are, Don Mattrick. BUT in the end the easy swapping thing and multitasking is kind of neat. I don't even watch TV now, but I suppose if I had this new Xbox I might. Probably depends on what kind of subscription service there is, they didn't talk about that at all. However the announcement of the new Halo TV series makes the TV thing a bit more exciting for me, as Forward Unto Dawn was pretty great.

They also talked a lot about sports stuff. So that exists. Moving on.

They showed two additional games to the sports ones, Forza and Quantum Break. Well I guess Forza is kind of a sports game too. The closeups of the car looked pretty nice. Quantum Break is a new IP from Remedy, but they didn't really show enough to get me excited about it. This reveal seemed to purposely not really be about the games, though, which was a bit disappointing. They did announce that there would be fifteen exclusive games in One's first year, and that eight of those would be new IPs. That (and the last part in particular) made me feel a lot better, as it looks like Microsoft is not going to lose their focus on games, as many feared they might with all this 'all-in-one entertainment system' stuff. The games will be shown off at E3 by the sounds of it, so I'm looking forward to that now.

Then there was the Call of Duty stuff, which didn't interest me very much, I've just never gotten into that series. The stuff they talked about how they were able to do more with the graphics and everything like that, if extrapolated to other games, was kind of cool though. And there's the dog! I bet when Peter Molyneux saw that he crapped his pants. The one thing I will say about the new CoD, though, it's name. Ghosts. GhoSTS. Kind of awkward to say, really...I dunno maybe it's just me.

Besides that, they made Kinect better I guess. It ships with every system now though, so that's kind of neither here nor there in my mind. I'll have to see what game developers have been doing with it to determine whether or not I care about it. The new controller looks pretty good though, looks like they made improvements without messing up what works. Thank god for that new D-Pad.

So yeah, as I said, the reveal was better than I expected, though I wasn't expecting much. Looking forward to seeing what games are unveiled at E3. Still to early to call it between One and PS4 for me, or even if I'll get either. Should be an interesting year in games regardless, though.

On COMICS! (part 2)

Here we are on part two of me talking about some of my favourite comic series. Part one was yesterday if you didn't see it, you should be able to find it in the archive thingy on the left. I hadn't actually intended on making two posts about it, but after I put together the list of things I wanted to talk about, and considering I had other things I wanted to do that day, I decided to split it up. Today's post will be a bit shorter, but has some really great books. Let's get to it!

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

Written by Grant Morrison with art by Dave McKean. So this book actually came out before the whole 'Batman Arkham game' craze, so it doesn't really have anything to do with those games. In fact, it's a very unique Batman and indeed superhero genre book, as its themes and imagery are much darker and more disturbing than we are used to. Morrison's work is expectedly great, but one of the things that I love about this book is that the story is told almost as much with the art as it is with the words. As you can see from the page above, the art is very abstract, and the text is almost a part of the art itself - each character's text is in a different style. The result is absolutely stunning.

The one issue I have with this book is that the art is so abstract, that sometimes it can be difficult to tell what's going on. There are a couple of characters that appear that I was not super familiar with (being more of a Marvel guy than DC), and I actually had no idea who they were. This had a bit of an effect on the story for me, but I still appreciated the art and words in those parts. The stylized text can also be a bit hard to read in some parts, especially for the Joker. Not to the point where it was completely illegible, but there were some parts that I had to read over a couple of times to actually get what it was saying. Even considering that, I think the impact of the style outweighs the difficulties I had.

DC included a saving grace for me, though. In the edition of the book that I have (the one with the cover above, I know there are a few others), the original script is included. This meant that I could look through the script and actually read what the artist was drawing and named all the characters, so I was able to figure out everything I was unsure of on my first time through. This alleviated my minor frustrations, but I could see how some might not be so forgiving.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

Written by Geoff Johns with art by Peter Tomasi and Sterling Gates. So this one might be a little more niche than the others - to enjoy this one you'll have to be either a big fan of DC, or have been into DC's event from several years ago, Blackest Night. What it is is basically a mini-series featuring six stories - one for each colour of the Lantern Corps (which were featured heavily during Blackest Night), giving an introduction to who they are and what they're about. This was perfect for me, since I didn't know much about DC's universe but thought the event sounded cool. So I really enjoyed this mini-series, as the stories were very well-written and -drawn too. Unless you are in a similar position as I was, though, your enjoyment may vary.

Lady Mechanika

Written and drawn by Joe Benitez. This is another one that I wasn't sure about putting on the list because it's another series that's on hiatus, this one only after three issues(!!). But what I've read in the first three issues I really liked, so I just had to include it. It takes place in a steampunk world that contains some like, clockwork cyborg characters that all seem to have some mysterious connection. It does use the tired 'main character has amnesia' trope, but the writing is so smart and the art is so gorgeous that I can overlook it. There are rumors that the series will continue in July, and I really hope it does.

Greek Street

Written by Peter Milligan with art by Davide Gianfelice. So this one I thought had a pretty cool concept: Ancient Greek myths being translated into modern times, taking place in an urban setting. It focuses mainly on the myth of Medea, which translates to a series of murders being investigated by a detective, one of the main characters of the story. The book deals with some...mature themes, as might be suggested by the cover up there, but I found it really interesting how it translated the old Greek stories into modern times, settings, and characters. I found the art got a bit sketchy in some parts, but overall I liked it quite a bit. For me this was another series in which the story fell off a bit as it went, but at the very least Volume 1 was really enjoyable.

Stitches: A Memoir

Written and drawn by David Small. This is a book that my mother actually got for me - I'd never heard of it beforehand. It wasn't something that I would usually be interested in, as I'm into things that are more fantastical and imaginative. This, however, is a retelling of the tragic child childhood of author David Small, who had one of his vocal cords removed at a young age, turning him into a virtual mute. As a result, dialogue is at a premium, and most of the story is told through the art and short text descriptions. I'm definitely glad I got and read it, though, because it really is a riveting story, and a stark and beautiful contrast to what I am used to getting from comic books. If you are wanting something different from the action-packed, superhero type comic books that are so common today, this would be a good place to look.

Saga

Written by Brian K.Vaughan with art by Fiona Staples. This is one of the few books on this list that's actually running right now. I had heard about it before, but had never looked into it. My buddy Matt gave it a strong recommendation, though, and at this point having a pretty good trust in his taste in books, I picked up volume 1. And I friggin' love it. I've heard it described as a space opera, in which a brand new family (the happy couple and their new baby above) are just trying to find a peaceful place to live their life. They come from different sides of a long-running war, though, and both sides see their union as an abomination. So they must try to escape pursuers coming from seemingly all directions as they try to keep their newborn child safe.

The writing in this book is just phenomenal. It's smart and funny, and you just really never know what's going to happen next. The main characters are all amazingly lovable, and the character designs in general are just ridiculous in the best way possible. At first I was a little put off by the art style, which is pretty sketchy, but I quickly grew to love it as I saw how Staples is able to get such incredible emotion out of the characters' faces. I've only read volume one of this ongoing series (volume two in July...hurry please), but I can heartily recommend this book for any comic fan.

Transmetropolitan

Written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson. Well we've come full circle, haven't we? Started with Warren Ellis, and now we're ending with him. THIS is the book that rivals Watchmen for my favourite of all time. It's just...it's just so GOOD! The story is about a journalist, Spider Jerusalem, in an expansive cyberpunk city. Spider hates the city, though, for various reasons that are best discovered for yourself. The one thing he does believe in though is the truth, which is in short supply in his time. He goes on a quest to uncover the truth and get it out to the people, at ANY cost.

So, I'll just state the obvious here and say that I love the writing. It's Ellis, right? In Transmet he just goes all-out and says whatever the heck his crazy mind wants. As a result, the book is quite vulgar, so if you're not so much about that, Transmet might not be for you. But if you can at least tolerate it, you'll read some amazingly thought-provoking stories that range from hilarious to heart-breaking. The page above that I picked is a great example of what you're in for (click for a bigger, readable version). I'm not sure how, but Ellis manages to make his angry and hate-filled main characters completely lovable.

Robertson's art is also just amazing. His characters are incredibly expressive, and the detail put into the environments is just staggering. In fact you could probably spend as much time exploring the book's art as you do reading the story. I mean, just take a look at the cover I posted above (which is the cover for volume 1), and imagine that sort of detail on every single page. It's just amazing how well the art matches the writing, you can really tell that these guys had a blast making this book.

The only CONCEIVABLE issue I can imagine for Transmet is that it clocks in at 10(!) volumes, making it a bit of an investment to fully read. But it is SO worth it. It is hard for me to explain how much I love this book. I found myself avoiding reading it towards the later volumes because I didn't want it to END. But it did, and it was amazing.

So, that's about it for my list! Of course this isn't a full list of all the great books that I've read, but it's a good sampling of the best, I think. I hope that at least someone enjoyed reading this, and maybe will have found something new to read and enjoy. Alternatively, if anyone has any suggestions for things to read for me, I'd love to hear them. Just hit me up here in the comments or on Facebook.

On COMICS!

So I was talking to my dear friend Sarah about comics the other night, and it got me thinking about all the comics I've read over the last several years. And that inspired me to make a post about some of my favourites, showing some art and giving my thoughts, namely why I liked them so much. So what I've done is found a cover and a single page from each series, just to give you an idea of what the art looks like inside (though I did this quickly in paint, so sorry if some of the images look stretched/pixelated). The art style, at least for me, can have a huge impact on my enjoyment of the book. Anyway, let's dive in!

So I'll start out by talking about how I got into comics in the first place. It was in university, might have even been fourth year. My friends (and roommates at the time) Matt and Pat were into comics already, and I found a Marvel preview magazine thing on the living room table. So I looked through, and found a cover that I thought looked neat. It had Venom, one of my favourite Marvel characters, on it as well as a few other guys that looked pretty cool. So the next time Matt and Pat went down to the local comic book store, I went with them and picked up the trade. It turned out to be...

Warren Ellis' Run on Thunderbolts

Thunderbolts! Written of course by Warren Ellis, with art by Mike Deodato Jr. I'd never heard of the Thunderbolts before, but it turns out the concept is pretty neat. Basically it's a program that takes villains that want to be rehabilitated (for one reason or another...) and puts them in a team that goes on missions to fight crime. Obviously, the team is kept on a very tight leash, but even so, as you can imagine, things don't always go terribly smoothly. Adding to the chaos is the fact that the team is being lead by Norman Osborn, formerly the Green Goblin. I'm not sure whose idea that was, but...well, I won't spoil anything, but shizzle goes DOWN.

My favourite thing about this book is the writing. If you're not familiar with Ellis' work, I think you'll just have to read something by him to truly understand - I don't think I can do him justice by trying to explain how good he is. The first volume is really good, but then in the second volume it seems like Marvel gave Ellis free reign to do whatever he wanted, because he really turns up the crazy (and awesome). I'm a really big fan of Deodato's art, too. I just absolutely love his style, which almost seems like kind of a mix between sketchy and painty. I know some people aren't as enthusiastic about it as I am, but there's a sample above, and you can do some more research into him if you're not sure.

So anyway, by the time I finished Ellis' Thunderbolts run, I'd been thoroughly bitten by the comics bug. That being the case, one day Pat just walked into my room, plopped a book on my bed, and said "Read this." Then he just left. I looked down at what he had brought me, and saw...

Watchmen

By Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons. OBVIOUSLY. Do I even have to talk about this one? I started reading and was immediately hooked. Gibbons' art along with Moore's trademark moody and thought-provoking writing created one of the most beloved classic comic books of all time. I really just love everything about this book; I think it's safe to say that it became my favourite piece of media (books, movies, games, etc.) ever. With all the twists and turns and the way it brilliantly handles its mature themes, it is an experience that, in my opinion, shouldn't be missed by ANYONE.

Nextwave: Agents of HATE

Written by Warren Ellis with art by Stuart Immonen. So it turned out that me loving Ellis' run on Thunderbolts was a bit of a coincidence, because my buddy Matt was a big fan of his too. As a result he gave me a couple of other series by him to read, the first being Nextwave. This is basically Ellis' take on the superhero genre, and while I don't remember a whole lot about it (I read it once like 4 or 5 years ago), I do remember that it was hilarious and insane. I'm actually planning to look for it the next time I head out to a comic store. The art is actually a bit more cartoony than I usually might enjoy, but it really does fit the book perfectly. Even if you're not too into superhero comics, you might enjoy this one just because of the sharp writing.

Planetary

By Warren Ellis with art by John Cassaday. I actually wasn't totally sure if I wanted to put planetary on this list, for two reasons. First, I remember even LESS about it than Nextwave, and second, when I DID read it, the last volume wasn't finished yet, so I haven't actually finished the series. BUT, it's by Warren Ellis, so I don't have a problem recommending it. From what I do remember, it's another series that's in the superhero genre, but it's a bit different from Nextwave. In Planetary, Ellis turned down the crazy in the comedy department (though I believe there are still some funny bits), but turned it WAY up in the sci-fi area. The group of heroes in this book are trying to uncover the secrets of the world, and the things they find tend to be rather...mind-bending. This is another one that I need to pick up for myself and re-read, and finally finish.

Well, by this point I was thoroughly into comics. I started collecting lots of different series, all of which I enjoyed, but some were better than others. To keep things organized, I'll start out by listing my favourite Marvel series from the last several years.

Carnage

Written by Zeb Wells with art by Clayton Crain. Well Carnage has always been one of my favourite Marvel characters along with Venom, so when Marvel announced a new Carnage mini-series, I was THERE. The original series (when it was being released it was just called Carnage, but the trade is called Family Feud) spawned a couple more mini-series, Carnage USA and Minimum Carnage, which were both pretty good, but in my opinion the original was definitely the best. I don't actually want to talk about the story so as to not spoil anything, but I will say as a Carnage fan, I was not disappointed - REALLY liked Wells' writing. I also really love Crain's painted art style, he's especially amazing at drawing symbiotes. If you like his art style, Venom vs. Carnage (which he also drew) is pretty great as well in my opinion.

Dark Avengers

I looked for a better page, honest. Pickings were slim!

Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Mike Deodato Jr. This story is pretty much a continuation of Ellis' Thunderbolts run, so it was a no-brainer for me. Turns out that, the government thinks that Osborn did such a good job with the Thunderbolts that they put him in charge of the Avengers! That goes...about as well as you'd expect. I really liked the characters in this story - it was neat seeing them put together a team of villains that mirrored the regular avengers team.

I liked Bendis' writing well enough, my main problem with it was that the Dark Avengers kind of seemed to get their butts beat a lot. I know they're still technically villains, but come on man, it's their own book! The highlight for me was definitely Sentry, who's kind of like Superman in terms of powers, but he almost has the mind of a child. That results in some interesting dynamics and situations. Once again, I am a fan of Deodato, so I liked the art, though it seemed like some of the issues were rushed. Still, overall a great series in my opinion.

Dark Reign: The Hood

Written by Jeff Parker with art by Kyle Hotz. This mini-series starring the little-known villain The Hood took place during Marvel's Dark Reign event. The Hood used to be just a normal guy involved in organized crime, until he found a big red cloak with a hood. Which wouldn't have been a huge deal, were it not for the fact that the hood was 'inhabited' by a massively powerful demon, Dormammu. Dormammu basically gives Hood supernatural powers, including the ability to transform into a demon, which makes him kind of a big deal. He becomes the leader of a huge gang of super-powered villains, which is where we find him in this book. However, we also find out that he has a family, and struggles to keep both worlds secret from the other, which is one of the most interesting parts of the book. The art style isn't my absolute favourite, but it's not enough to ruin the book for me.

Ms Marvel: War of the Marvels

Written by Brian Reed with art by Sana Takeda. Okay, I'll be honest, this one is kind of style over substance for me. The story is okay, but I just really love Takeda's art style. It's just so PRETTY! And actually, when I say the story is okay, I mean it's actually kind of incomprehensible. But! If you wanna look at really nice art and see Moonstone and Ms Marve beat the living snot out of each other, look no further!

Secret War

Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Gabriele Dell'Otto. So the cover and page above might give you an idea of what this book is about. I guess it's kind of a pre-cursor to the Secret Avengers series that's running right now (though it's not on this list, I read the first 30 or so issues. It's pretty good!). Basically, Nick Fury needs some secret stuff done, and so he gathers a group of the best superheroes around to get take care of it. It's Bendis, so the writing is pretty solid, But Dell'Otto's painted art style is what steals the show. Just look at it, it's gorgeous! Definitely recommend this one for superhero buffs.

Secret Warriors

Written by Jonathan Hickman (and Brian Michael Bendis) with various artists. So this is kind of in the same vein as Secret War, except this time Nick Fury puts together a team of lesser-known superpowered heroes. In fact, You could probably say most of them are completely unknown (I'm not sure if some of them were created for this book, but I wouldn't be surprised). The missions they go one and the situations they get into are really cool, and there are lots of interesting twists and turns. With Hickman at the helm, the writing is rock solid. I really liked the art in volume 1, but wasn't as much of a fan when the artists changed in subsequent volumes. Similarly, I felt like the story fell off a bit at the end, but I wasn't overly disappointed. Still think this is a solid read for those interested in superhero comics looking for something a bit different.

S.H.I.E.L.D

Written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Dustin Weaver. Well this series is in an unfortunate position. The first volume is complete, but the second volume got stalled at issue four and is in hiatus. But, let me just say, if Secret Warriors is a bit different, this series is ALL THE WAY DIFFERENT. It's a story about SHIELD, not the one we know from usual Marvel stories, but a bit of a secret society of great people from history that are sworn to protect the world. I'll leave it at that, because the story is really best experienced by one's self. The writing is absolutely incredible, and the art is gorgeous and abstract. The one issue that I might point out is that I sometimes had to read parts over multiple times to actually understand what the heck was going on (not always being successful). But if you like deep, complicated stories, this is a great one. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in comics - it's definitely not normal superhero fare.

Venom

Written by Rick Remender and Cullen Bunn, various artists. So initially I was turned off by this series, because I saw that Venom looked like a standard soldier with guns. I was like reeeeallllly??? But then I saw that the series was getting great reviews, so I thought I might give it a try. Turns out, I'm glad that I did, because it really is a great series. Remender's writing is really great, and Flash Thompson is a really flawed character that makes him perfect to be Venom's host. Remender goes off the project later on in the series, but I enjoyed Bunn's work too. The art changes throughout the series, but it ranges from great to perfectly acceptable. And while I'm still not a fan of the soldier design, classic-style Venom shows up enough to keep me happy. Definitely recommend this one for Venom fans.

So I think I'll stop here for today. Tomorrow I'll go over the rest of my list, which includes one series that actually rivals Watchmen in terms of my favourite book! What could it be?! Find out next time!