Chuck vs. The End

So that's it. Chuck has finally finished. In some ways I'm sad, in others not so much. The first two seasons were tremendous telly, and this last season has been pretty damn special too. At least it got to end properly. Part of the problem has been the writers treating each half season as their last, only to receive a last minute reprieve from the networks. This wasn't more obvious than the first half of Season 3, which ended beautifully, only for them to get a further six episodes and the staff seemed to scramble for a suitable storyline.

Its probably why season 5 has been so good, for once they actually knew this was the end and it was time to draw a line under it all.

Mass Effect 3 Unlocks AKA Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo, yes I only played it because of the Mass Effect 3 items, but that's what forms the majority of this story.

First time I played it I was vaguely impressed. It was sort of a more serious Fable, the world seemed interesting for a rather standard fantasy fare, but then as I was speaking to the first Fateweaver conversations just disappeared with a lovely bug. However, there was a prize at the end of the road so I pushed on, ran across the play area to see as much of the main quest as I could to see if it grabbed me. It sort of did. But then it happened. It crashed. One of those big ones that freezes the entire Xbox and the only way around it is the power button.

Any other game would have gotten a “Well that's buggy as week old shit” and forgotten, but there was a Mass Effect unlock waiting at the other side. A few days later I had another pop. I had a few hours before I had to head out and figured I had plenty of time to fit in the 45 minutes needed. This was when I realised just how amazing a demo the game was. First I didn't have to redo the tutorial the game just went “Shall I skip that part since you've done it already”, which I thought was going to be the most painful of the replay. That done I set off handling the quests I'd blatantly ignored previously and I was in for another shock. The disappearing conversations were nowhere to be found, and I'd never see them again.

SOPA and PIPA

It's funny. If this had happened a year ago I pretty much would have been on the outskirts of this debate saying something like "I hope the Americans realise" and being nicely surprised at the blackouts conducted around the internet on Wednesday and the consquences of that action.

However, here I am now and I was part of one of those blackouts over at BeefJack. For a day we didn't post any news at all, because if SOPA went through in it's current state it is entirely possible we would get shut down for using images from games that we're trying to tell people about.

Book Title Story

Another writing group segment. This was we were given the task of creating a piece of writing using a number of book titles. I cheated a little, it was meant to be a pile with no manipulation but I skipped over a couple I didn't think I could do anything with.

The books were:

WITHOUT REMORSE by Tom Clancy

DEBT OF HONOUR by Tom Clancy

RAINBOW SIX by Tom Clancy

TEETH OF THE TIGER by Tom Clancy

INCOMPETENCE by Rob Grant

BLACK HOUSE by Stephen King and Peter Straub

DEAD EVEN by Brad Meltzer

FIRST COUNSEL by Brad Meltzer

MILLIONAIRES by Brad Meltzer

ZERO GAME by Brad Meltzer

BROKEN ANGELS by Richard Morgan

GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

ICURAS HUNT by Timothy Zahn

BETTER THAN LIFE by Grant Naylor

BACKWARDS by Grant Naylor

It was Icarus Hunt that finally gave me an angle on what to do. This is what I came up with:

We call it the ZERO GAME. We cater for MILLIONAIRES and billionaires that are looking for something a bit different, something that offers more than just the TEETH OF THE TIGER, something BETTER THAN LIFE.

This one felt different though. the vision of BROKEN ANGELS I'd had the night before wasn't exactly what I'd call GOOD OMENS for our upcoming ICARUS HUNT. But as FIRST COUNSEL I had a DEBT OF HONOUR to the organisers to see it through.

Genetically engineered prey. Scientists cook up mythical creatures in a lab. Rich people hunt them for a kill that they will be the only person in history to ever claim. Many called it genius. They had it BACKWARDS, it was INCOMPETENCE. You can't go messing with nature and expect nothing to go wrong.

I knew it wouldn't be long till until someone was hurt or DEAD, EVEN. But here at the BLACK HOUSE we gathered and as I looked across at a the artificially generated RAINBOW, SIX of them declared they were ready. We set off. I just prayed it wouldn't be me.

The Annual Games Cycle

With the release of Assassin's Creed: Revelations a lot of people are once again talking about how it shouldn't be an annual release. How Ubisoft are killing the franchise releasing games so close together. How only two games ago, Assassin's Creed 2 was hailed as a masterpiece and look how much it's fallen already.

What this has us asking is why is everyone in the industry so desperate to have annual releases? There's so many examples of it not working.

My First Proper BeefJack Article

2012 is off to a great start as my first article over at BeefJack "Why I stopped playing so many games in 2011" appears. Quite a moment for me. 

Random piece of information, I nearly spent a whole afternoon relearning Photoshop to do that first image, doing little tweaks here and there. I had to step away from it to stop myself going crazy.

And A Happy New Year

Hello Twenty Twelve. Not Two Thousand and Twelve. Embrace the future people!

So what's the plan from here on out. Well, the last few weeks of 2011 didn't really contain any major writing, in fact it was pretty atrocious. But it was the holiday season, so that's my excuse.

But, it's the new year and it's time to press on. In fact, I'm just back from lunch and I already have over a thousand words clocked up today so not a bad start. I intend to have the first draft of the novel finished by the end of January. Of course the fact I've been offered that deadline by a friend with promise of a rewards helps (though I'm ashamed to admit I need it).

After that I'm not sure. Ideally this novel should be done in the first half of the year. I've got a few ideas where I want to go, and the website needs that overhaul finishing so I can put it back up. But first draft first!

Merry Halo Christmas Everyone

I hope you all had a good Christmas. It was a relatively quiet one here in the Haresign household, what with me barely having any cash to speak of.

However, aside from the hideous amounts of chocolate everyone gets, I also received Halo: Anniversary. Being the die-hard Halo fan I have of course played it way back when but the lure of new graphics, achievements and the new maps for Reach was just too much.

Wait! That wasn't there before was it?

You noticed some posts appearing from when this place was on hiatus? Don't worry you're not going insane, I'm moving some select pieces from GeekGasms.org here too. I'm doing it mainly because at some point I'll be pointing people to my work and I'd rather send them to a place with everything rather than two places with gaps.

Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it

One of the things I intend to do is to start throwing up some of the writing I do in the writing group I've joined. Well, at least the ones I'm happy with. This bit was written in there, we were given five minutes to write a Christmas piece beginning with "Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it". So here ya go:

Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it... Dave's head smacked against the steering wheel. This better not lie he thought as he could see it doing exactly that at the side of the road.

It was 9pm on Christmas Eve and he had two hundred miles to go before he got home. And home was exactly where he was going to get to, not matter the weather, Tim was three this year and Dave knew that this was when Christmas mattered and he was going to be there when his son woke up to see what Santa had brought.

It.. It's changed?!?

What? There's been a change and now an update?
Yes, strange person checking a site that's been dead for nearly two years, there has.

So the GeekGasms.org experiment was pretty much a failure. Poor communication, changing priorities and more can be blamed. However, there were a number of successes. We had a podcast for over a year and a half and I blogged nearly every week, but as we started to lose people I stopped, then the only other regular blogger did too. Nevermind, it was damn fun while it lasted. There's a couple of ideas Danny and I batted around that may keep some life in it though. We'll see.

However, this year I decided to make a rather drastic change. Quit my day job and give writing a try properly. So I need a web presence all of my own, originally I was tempted to do it with GeekGasms, but there's too much on NightJim.com to just abandon that too.

So I've decided to update the latter, because that's where Justice League of Abertay is and it's more within my own abilities. Right now it's still the old site, but I'm in the process offline of ripping it apart, discarding a lot of crap and going from there. This page is going to be my main update portal, with the site being more of an archive of stories etc.

Also we have my first success as a writer. I'm now a contributor on BeefJack.com, keep an eye out for news stories from me, as well as the odd blog/feature such as this Halo one I've already done.

I'm also going to keep updating GeekGasms.org with my blogs, but I'm going to be putting them here too. Hopefully an all new NightJim.com will spring up soon, and I already have some material for it.

Halo article on BeefJack

Here's a feature I contributed to over at BeefJack for Halo's 10 year anniversary. My first proper article printed by someone that isn't myself :D

Halo: Combat Evolved - Happy anniversary

Pricing the Digital Ink

To keep a theme running I'm once again going to go on about comics. Yes OK I'm missing my weekly trip to the store to pick them up, and then get home and devour them over a coffee.

Moving at the end of August means that I've not been in a brick and mortar store since DC's whole new 52 kicked off. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, DC has rebooted their entire universe and every single issue was a new number 1 from the very beginning. Sort of. OK it's not that simple but I'm not interested in that right now. What I'm here to get at is Digital Comics and pricing.

On the Fringe of Fringe

As a self-proclaimed geek and having often been regarded as someone holding a high office within that establishment I'm ashamed to say I've never watched Fringe. I remember a lot of noise being made at the end of one season (see how little I know) when there was a bunch of comics seen from an alternate reality that were slightly different to the ones we know and love. At the time I thought “Huh, that's pretty cool. I should probably watch that.” Yet I still didn't get off my arse and bother.

To be fair I've done my 24 and Chuck marathons, plus Supernatural while I was on break from here. When Smith started moaning at me for not watching it I thought it was about time I pulled my finger out and with the big move I've got a lot more time on my hands so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. Boy, I should have gotten round to this sooner.

No More Through The Gate

This week is rather a big one sci-fi, and myself, and not in a happy “Here’s the finale of Battlestar where we get all the answers” way… OK, bad example. Anyway, Monday saw the last ever episode of Stargate aired. Not just Universe but everything Stargate related. The producers have said MGM currently aren’t interested in continuing the saga of the SGC in any form having knocked back all four proposals for movies.

GeekGasms.org

My mates and myself have decided to step this whole internet malarky up a notch. To do that we've opened GeekGasms.org up. This week's blog, as well as all future posts, will be found over there.

As well as being the new home for my weekly blog its also features our podcast, The Pubcast, cleverly named by myself. Other bloggers are Andrew Smith and Jon Keatley with more to follow. As well as flash games and an insight into the gaming industry from a wide variety of sources through out the UK.

The Two C's of Television

I'm pretty rubbish these days at keeping up with TV. What tends to happen is I'll accidentally leave a a show alone for awhile then end up ploughing through 4 or 5 episodes in one sitting. However two shows that I do my best to stay on top of are Castle and Chuck. Quick warning, one or two minor spoilers are placed within.

For those that don't know Castle is Nathan Fillion's current show where he stars as Richard Castle a author based in New York who works with NYPD Homicide Detective Kate Beckett on 'interesting' murders, and its doing quite well for a change with a full second season. Chuck is Zachary Levi as Chuck Bartowski, slacker turned spy by accidentally absorbing a super computer into his head. Chuck, beyond all expectations, managed to get a third season thanks to fan outcry and one hell of a push by Levi and Subway.

Now these two shows don't have a great deal in common. Sure both are comedies, but one is a murder mystery while the other is James Bond hijinks with an unlikely main star. However, the one thing they do have in common that I'm going to discuss is their romantic angles.

Both shows try that long held TV tradition of the male and female leads being perfect for each other but never actually getting together. A process that Moonlighting famously worked so well with, until they made the mistake of finally getting Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd together and ruined all of the chemistry. X-Files did it well and apparently Bones is doing a great job of it too. Chuck, however, is not.

I'm getting infuriated with how the romance is progressing between Chuck and Agent Walker as they've keep getting together then something happens that means they can't be and both mope around moaning that they can't be with the person that they love. Then one of them will make the mistake of trying to move on and the circle begins a new. Season 2 ended with the two finally together, only for Chuck to cock it all up between seasons and Walker being pissed off with him for a couple of episodes till she realises that he does still love her.

On the other hand, the relationship between Castle and Becket is one of the best done I've ever seen. Two people blatantly meant to be together but both are totally oblivious to it, while everyone else around them can see it plain as day. Even to the extent of an interviewer assuming they were because of how Castle acted. The latest episode contained had them both go on dates, and in that wacky way of TV end up in the same restaurant and spending the entire time running off to talk to each other about the case.

Now I just can't believe I've written an entire post about relationships. I'm going to go do something manly like play Darksiders and spill gallons of demon blood to make myself feel better.

Pocahontas in Spaaace

I finally saw Avatar this weekend. Not at the Imax as Smith and I originally intended but we still saw it in Real3D. It’s a shame we didn’t get to live our Imax dream but it would have been another two weeks and I’ve come so close to people nearly ruining it for me that I just couldn’t wait any longer.

The story is good. Nothing amazing, and as many people before have pointed out, highly derivative of other works. It is enjoyable and a thoroughly fun movie though.

The thought and detail that’s gone into the world is incredible. Good sci-fi and fantasy have a good grasp of the cultures of their races. Avatar goes so much further. Not just with the Na’vi where the story dictates that they’re culture is worked out, but the biology of the world.

However, where Avatar really shines is the special effects and the 3D. Not once during the movie did I find myself thinking the CGI was ropey. In fact I didn’t even think about it all and just accepted it. That’s one hell of an achievement. Watching a film that’s something stupid like 90% CGI I accepted Pandora and its creatures just as much as any human character on screen. The 3D was wonderful too, spending the majority of the time just adding depth to the shots and making the world just feel that bit more real and immersive. Only once or twice did they pull “WOW SOMETHING FLYING AT YOU” that the other 3D films ram down your throat, and those were the times that I caught myself rolling my eyes.

That said I loved the film. Not sure how it’s going to stand up on the small screen, even with new fangled Blu-rays. News of 3D TVs may help it but they’re going to be ridiculous prices for a while. I still say that outside of the cinema 3Ds not going to take off in any major way until some genius invents a way of it working without glasses. Then we’ll have holograms and that’s a whole different story.

A Look Back At Brain Munching

Another week of broken PC and its been a bloody busy one too. So busy I've been struggling a bit for a topic. Since its been mentioned elsewhere, at a secret location hopefully to be revealed soon , I've been playing Resident Evil: The Dark Side Chronicles with Smith on the Wii. A console that's apparently starting to turn into something I bought just to play on rails shooters.

Dark Side Chronicles is alright, I can't help think Umbrella Chronicles did it better though. Most of the improvements to the game don't really seem to do a great deal except for the new camera. A system that feels like it was stolen Mission: Impossible III. The camera jerks around like a demented kangaroo, at points not allowing us to get shots off at the enemies starting to surround us or completely throwing off our aim as Leon, Claire or Jack Krauser face off against some of the bosses in the game.

One of the main things that the Chronicle games make me do is look back at the series of Resident Evil as a whole. For someone who came late to the games I'm way too much of a nut. I only played the original Playstation when I was visiting friends houses and as a result it always seemed like a franchise that I was going to miss out on. When I got to uni I nearly played it, and the few people who had, made me think I should even more. But still I didn't. Finally, Capcom released a remake of the first Resi on the Gamecube and announced more were to follow. It was then that I decided to play catch up. And I did it chronologically.

RESIDENT EVIL 0
I really liked this game, maybe it was because I didn't have any prior knowledge ruining my experience but it was good and I really liked the two characters on screen at the same time. I've always wanted Capcom to go go back and tell what happened to Billy after he left Rebecca on that mountain top. It would have been nice to have co-op though and some of the monsters were a bit crappy. Giant frogs I'm looking at you.

RESIDENT EVIL 1
I may have played an updated version but I can see why this started a massive franchise. The game is brilliant. I really liked the fact that depending on who you played as changed elements of the game. Sometimes I wish I could have played the original so I got to experience some of the terribly translated dialogue and the B-Movie intro but seeing it serious really helps the game, especially as they tweaked the story to fit into the mythology a lot better.

RESIDENT EVIL 2
I remember switching this on for the very first time having just finished Zero and the remake of One and being disgusted at the graphics. Then the controls. The version on the Gamecube was a re-release of the original Playstation version. Not even the Dreamcast version which had a couple of updates. I convinced myself to at least make it through a playthrough as Claire so I'd know the story. Before I was even halfway through the Police Station I was looking past the dog shit graphics and the nearly decade old controls as I was enthralled. Soon as I finished Claire's story I started Leon's within minutes. I was hooked. Then the game really blew me away. Unlike Resi 1's two stories that were the same game but with a couple of minor changes and different subplots Resident Evil 2 was a totally separate game. You barely did anything as Leon that you had as Claire. Despite 4's revolution of the series and 5's co-op, Resident Evil 2 rates as one of my all time favourite games. Not just of the series but of every game I've ever played.

RESIDENT EVIL 3
I've never played.

RESIDENT EVIL: CODE VERONICA
I liked it, it had a lot to live up to as I went straight from 2 to this. It wasn't amazingly strong. It does have the unfortunate position of being the only game in the series that I've never completed (that I've started anyway). I got up to the Tyrant in the airplane, had the wrong ammo and the fight was just unbeatable.

RESIDENT EVIL 4
I covered already.

RESIDENT EVIL 5
The co-op was cool but My God they fucked up the inventory system. Still, can't wait for the DLC.

With the news that the series is getting another overhaul I'm really interested in where it goes next. I also predict that we're going to see at least one more Chronicles game that covers 4 and 5.

The Deline of Microtransactions?

Not the original post I had planned for today where I spoke about how I nearly bought Left 4 Dead 2 but changed my mind when I found out Darksiders was out this week and just how FUCKING BUSY this year is in gaming. Unfortunately, my PC went up shit creek without a paddle and I can't get at anything on there. I'm now writing this from my flatmate decrepit old laptop that needs 10 minutes whenever you tell it to do something. Which is a right pain in the arse when I'd planned on actually doing quite a bit of work today.

So instead I'm going to concentrate on a topic I was going to lightly touch on in the original post. That of DLC. Last year saw one of the biggest moments in Downloadable Content when Rockstar released its first Grand Theft Auto episode, The Lost and The Damned. And bloody hell was it good. I loved it, possibly more then the game it was an expansion for. Now up until that point DLC had nearly always been rather small, offering the odd new level or some equipment. It was the dawn of mirco-transactions in console gaming and we had premonitions of minor add-ons coming out for all major games and it'd be a mind field to work out whether something was worth the money and bandwidth. Notable exception including Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion, but since Oblivion is also the very first highway robber of DLC with its woeful Horse Armour it manages to represent some of the best and worst qualities of what DLC can be.

The Lost and the Damned changed all that. With that, you got practically a second game. Suddenly Force Unleashed's extra level of 40 minutes play for nearly 8 quid was even more obvious as a total rip off. 2010 brings numerous DLC's to many games, some have even been out for awhile. Resident Evil 5 is receiving two packs, length hasn't really been disclosed but you also receive extra characters for Mercenary mode. However, Capcom are also giving us some 'costume packs' for Resi, which if anything like Force Unleashed's will be a huge waste of money. Assassin's Creed 2 is also getting two packs, both are full blown chapters that had to be cut from the game due to development time, one is even based in a new area.

However, they all pale in comparison when it comes to Bioware and Dragon Age. I realise that this game has become something of a promised land to me but screw you all. To start with Dragon Age seemed to be following the same tried and true method of DLC, small chunks. Return to Ostagar, the third of these chunks has just been delayed, much to my dismay as I've been powering through my second play through to be ready for it. However, Bioware announced earlier this week “Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening” a full blown expansion like we used to get back when you had to buy them from shops, and like Rockstar gave us last year, twice. From the sound of things it IS going to be out in shops too, something Rockstar did as well when they released Ballad of Gay Tony, and having spoken to some insiders this was mainly due to the fact that sales for The Lost and The Damned online didn't match up to what was expected.

The one thing about this that annoys me is that its expected in March. As I said at the start of this, this year is one of the busiest years of gaming yet. March is one of the busiest months for good games too. Bioware are starting to sound like they're going to be treating Mass Effect 2 the same. Then again they said the same of the first game and we only got two packs, over a year apart and the second was atrociously bad.