18 months? Really???

I am one slack bugger, I'll tell you that for free...

Anywho, here's something new.  If I get into the swing of it, I might even post something regular-like.  Who knows?

Rental review - Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Armed with a shiny new Blockbuster card, I wandered into the games section of my local store, intent on securing a copy of Borderlands. Predictably, it was out. However, sitting on a nearby shelf was a copy of Sacred 2. Being somewhat of a Diablo nut, I had been meaning to check out the original Sacred, but never had the time or the cash to hunt a copy down. So I plonked down the one-night rental fee, went home, and slotted it in.
Now, some people may cry foul when they realize that I only played the game for one night. Well, my reasoning is this: if I rent a game overnight, and it doesn't inspire me to at least extend the rental for another night, then I think that's a fair indication of the strength of the game. Plus, screw you, buddy.
Right here is where I'd plonk down a summary of the game's back-story. However, as time was of the essence, I skimmed that part of the manual. If you insist, though: blah blah blah prequel to Sacred blah blah Elves blah blah T-energy blah twisted mutants ravaging the countryside. Yep, that about does it.
As for the game itself: S2 is a traditional isometric RPG, a style that stretches back beyond the aforementioned Diablo. Advances in game engine and hardware have allowed the view to be pulled long and short, meaning that you can slaughter kobolds from on high, or ride right on your character's shoulder like a button-mashing parrot.
Speaking of which, S2's control scheme is a little different to the usual attack-magic-jump-use mapping. You assign either a weapon or a special ability to one of the ABXY buttons, and use the left and right triggers to switch between control schemes, giving you access to a total of 12 attacks/spells at the push of two buttons. It's pretty good, providing you remember what weapon is mapped to which button - mashing the Sword button kinda sucks when you're trying to hit a knife-throwing dork at long range, for example.
The aforementioned dorks are plentiful, too: bandits, kobolds, wolves, skeletons, mutated turtle-looking things - S2 has it all. One of the good points I discovered about combat in S2 is that the game helpfully colour-codes the target you're currently attacking/locked on to; white-haloed dudes aren't worth your time, while the red-ringed foes provide more of a challenge. Obviously, as you level up, the ratio of white-ringed guys shifts up, providing you with a plethora of crossbow-fodder as you get more and more buff.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest bugs I encountered was in by first boss battle, against the leader of the kobolds - a regenerating giant with the standard throw-the-scenery-at-you ranged attack. Being a Rogue from way back, and playing the ranged-specialist Dryad at the time, I did what any self-respecting blowpipe-wielder would have done: I ran around like a girl, punting attacks at the slower-of-foot boss. This worked like a charm - until I got stuck behind a shrubbery. Thankfully, I had an obscene amount of healing potions to draw on, and I managed to dispatch him anyway, but seriously - a shrubbery????
Anyway, enough of my personal vendetta against scenery. S2 provides a handful of character types to traverse the length and breadth of the land, from the angelic Seraphim to the soulless Inquisitor. While they may have different names and abilities (and, because the majority of them are female, perfectly-sculpted racks), the generic fantasy archetypes are there: Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Priest... and bio-mechanical dog-headed thing.
Yeah.
Remember when I mentioned T-energy back up there? Well, it seems that the original Sacred was missing some certain magepunk, so they introduced T-energy into the prequel to give the designers three things: a convenient plot hook, a way to stick frickin' lasers into a swords-and-sorcery game, and an excuse for the level designers to add some funky-looking T-energy conduits into the architecture. Did it make a lick of difference to the gameplay? Not really, no. But it did weird me out a bunch.
As did the voice acting. I played as two characters - the Dryad/Hunter and the Shadow Warrior/Tank - and while the Dryad displayed a decent if sometimes overlong array of smack-talk for departed foes, the Shadow Warrior's voice actor sounded like he was auditioning for the part of Duke Nukem's ancestor, Sir Broadsword Killzalot. It was novel to begin with, but after a while the humour wore thin.
Which leads me to my next point: humour can be a potent force for good in the RPG. Games like Fallout 1 and 2 can stick in the occasional pop culture reference or absurd, fourth-wall-breaking instance that draws a guffaw from the player - seriously, who didn't giggle when they reached the Bridgekeeper, or the Cafe of Broken Dreams? With S2, they fell back on the oldest trope in the RPG book: the graveyard. Each grave I encountered had text to read, whether it was a simple epitaph, a poem, or something slightly more humorous... But it was every single one. Add to that the fact that I found it hard to read - even on a 32-inch TV - and whatever humour it may have imparted was lost in my constant squinting to check the text on the screen.

So, in summary...
As far as I am currently aware, Diablo III isn't coming to the console, so unless ActiBliz change their minds, Sacred 2 is as close as you're gonna get. Rent it, run it out, and if it whets your whistle, pick it up. It's hours of dork-bashing fun.
Just watch out for that bastard shrubbery.

Safe at the arse-end of the world

Okay, I know it's been quite a while since my last post, but I had the laptop online and on my lap when I had this thought, so I thought I'd go ahead and plonk it down for the ages.

I spent most of this afternoon watching the ridiculously awesome Children of Men, and now I've got that rah-rah Americah blockbuster that is Independence Day playing in the background, and it got me ruminating on the one contant that seems to run through these movies: in most global disaster movies, nothing ever seems to be said about the fate of Australia.  Or New Zealand, for that matter, but lets face it: if it's a choice between being enslaved by a race of big-headed aliens from beyond Uranus, and moving to NZ, then most Aussies would happily join the line for the silver jumpsuits and electronic collars.

Now, I'm not really surprised about blockbusters like ID4 and Armageddon, and I was quite chuffed that we did get a passing mention towards the end of the film, but after doing what I normally do after watching a film (that is, trolling through the Trivia on IMDB) I was horrified to discover that in the montage that shows England as the only country not to descend into anarchy, no mention is made of Australia at all.  New York gets nuked, The Eiffel Tower lies in ruin, but nothing about Brisbane, Melbourne, hell, even Sydney.

So, here's what I've figured out: if there's ever some kind of global catastrophe - even the hint of one - wherever I am in the world, I'm getting my arse back to Australia.  If it's good enough for Neville Chute,  it's good enough for me.

New from Blizzard Activision....

In the wake of the success of Guitar Hero, coupled with the perceived threat of Rock Band, Blizzard Activision have announced the next step in interactive entertainment:  Theremin Hero.



Now you too can wave your hands around like a knob trying to play along with such tracks as Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, Invincible by Muse, and...um.... The Midsommer Murders theme song...

"Bugger," said a rep for the company, upon seeing the dearth of theremin-based songs.  "We really should have thought that out a little better.  I wonder if that guy who suggested Cowbell Hero is still on the market..."

It's getting close to midnight...

Actually, it's after midnight now, but when I thought of this title for the post, I couldn't resist.

I'm a little insomniated at the moment (which would explain my use of the word 'insomniated') so I thought I'd just bounce a few random observations into the blogsphere and see what falls back down.

First off, while wandering through the streets of Melbourne today, I noticed a despicable phenomena sweeping the younger members of the population.  It's an affliction affecting the hair, and it seems to induce it to shorten and stick up all over, while remaining relatively long in the back.  It's not an old-school mullet as such, but I don't think it's an eviolved form of the emo-spawned asymetrical haircut.  No, gentle readers, it's as we feared: like the Black Plague, the mullet has mutated into a new, more terrifying form, and has encouraged a hole new generation to have it "business out front, party out back"!!!!

I have many (too many, in some people's opinion) irons in the fire when it comes to creative endeavors.  As well as the book (insert shameless plug for Alterblog here), I've had a few ideas for games kicking around in my head for a few years.  Some board-based, some card-based, but owing to my goldfish-like attention span with things like this, I never seem to get any of them off teh ground.  It can be frustrating, because like most creatively-minded people, I would like to be able to someday earn a living (and in my case, support a family) with my craft.  While most of my research has indicated that I've got approximately a snowball's chance in Hell of getting published as a writer of urban fantasy, I've not looked into spruiking my non-writing related stuff to toy companies.  I guess that could be something to look into at a later date...

On a final note, here's some links that will allow you to wile away those boring hours at work:
Penny Arcade
Questionable Content
Ctrl-Alt-Del

Oh, and one other thing...

This is a shameless plug for another one of my blogs, one which I've been meaning to set up for a while. It's called AlterBlog - La Plata, and it's a fictional blog featuring people from the world of my unpublished Gods and Monsters series of novellas. The reason for this is twofold. One: it means I'm writing, even when I'm not actually working on my books. And two: I need all the buzz and publicity I can get. We can't fall arse-backwards into a publishing contract, you know...

So, if you feel like supporting a struggling artiste, swing on over and take a look.

Game Report: Guitar Hero 3 (Wii)

So, I've been hearing a lot about Guitar Hero, and I thought I'd give it a try, what with it finally coming out on Wii. As my lovely wife will attest (or indeed, anyone who heard the girlish giggling and alternate barrages of swearing this past weekend) I frickin' loooooove it!

Although I do play the 'real' guitar, I thought I'd start on Easy and, after a few false starts, I was off and running in career mode with my cutting-edge band, ///F (pronounced k-k-k-eff). Although hampered in the early rounds by songs I didn't know, I still managed to chock out some crankin' tunes. But the aforementioned girlish giggling didn't occur until the end of the second round, when I was pitted in a no-holds-barred, old-skool scratch battle against Tom Morello (who just happened to be in the crack-den of a bar we were playing in - what are the odds???). After seeing him off in short order, I was invited to join him in a celebratory jam. The song? What else, but Bulls On Parade.

Cue the giggles.

Luckily enough, as the rounds (and difficulty) progressed, so did the number of songs I knew. Cherub Rock? Pfft, whatever. Knights of Cydonia? Matt Bellamy, I am thine equal (at least on the field of Guitar Hero). Welcome to the Jungle? I kicked Slash's butt in the battle, then shredded for the imprisoned masses. Cult of Personality?..... Damn you, Living Colour! Damn you to hell!

Speaking of hell...

In true rock-star fashion, the final round took place within the very bowels of the Underworld itself, with the band's souls on the line. This was where my dream came true, ladies and gentlemen. This was where I had to pause, release my death-grip on the guitar, and take a moment to ponder the pinnacle of rock greatness upon which I was perched.

I was Tom Morello. Playing Number of the Beast, by Iron Maiden. IN HELL!!!!!!

(gasp, gasp, wheeeeeeeeze.... I'm okay. Really, I'm fine...)

After that little performance, and facing down Lou himself in an epic battle featuring the Primus version of Devil Went Down To Georgia, I found myself staring down the barrel of the much-lauded crowning glory-song of the game: Through The Fire And Flames, by Dragonforce. Even on easy, I found myself trying to tie my fingers in knots in order to keep up. And there's videos out there with eight-year-olds doing it on Expert? Either they've got eight fingers, or I've got a long way to go...

I guess the only downside that I can see is the relative shortness of the actual game. On Easy, you have to complete a minimum of three songs in each level, meaning you actually only have to play about thirty in total to get to the end (I'd check, but I can't be bothered Googling, and my wife's using the TV at the moment). And while I completed the Easy version in a weekend, the step up to the Moderate version (which adds the fourth fret to the playing shenanigans) is still a little to steep for me to try. Add this to the fact that you have to play the same songs again, and the longevity isn't really there. Enh. I guess I'll just have to wait until they release Rock Band for the Wii, then (hey, a guy can dream...)