Mark of the Ninja

I've been meaning to play a Klei Entertainment game for a while. I played the demo of the original Shank and was blown away by the animation and art, and the side scrolling beat-em up was pretty damn fun. But I revisited it to show a friend how awesome it was a few days later and was incredibly disappointed by how little fun had retained for a second playthrough.

Every time the Shanks came up for sale on XBLA I've thought about slapping down the Points for them, but just never enough to actually get them. Then Mark of the Ninja came along. I'll admit I didn't even realise it was Klei for a very long time, well after release. It intrigued me, especially with its art style (which the fact I didn't realise it was Klei makes me look even more stupid). But it was BeefJack's own Anthony Shelton that really got me to pay attention.

While the rest of us were harping on about how good The Walking Dead and XCOM: Enemy Unknown were, Ant declared Mark of the Ninja his 2012 Game of the Year, and he's not far off the mark.

Supernatural - Life after Death

Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. It end with a hell of a lot of finality, and wrapped up everything that had happened, hinted at or ever talked about. You can't get much bigger than the end of the world. Not just your every day thermo-nuclear war apocalypse either, but End of Days, Heaven vs. Hell. Judgement Day without Arnie.

But Supernatural's ratings were too good, so CW commission a sixth season. But the show's creator, Eric Kripke was done, his five year story was told. So we got a new showrunner and everyone said Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. Until now that is.

BeefJack: Injustice: Gods Among Us review

Last week I said I doubted I would get a blog post up and did. Today I definitely won't. However, once again I have a review. Back at BeefJack for this one

Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Seriously got to indulge my comic book fanboy here. Despite being very cautious about it when the game was first announced I ended up absolutely loving it. As to why? Well go read the review.

Red Dwarf X - Back in the Black!

Red Dwarf and I go way back. Though if I'm honest I was late to the party. I got into the boys from the Dwarf when Season 5 was showing, but immediately ate up the videos from previous series. However, when Dave announced they were reviving the series I was more than a little hesitant. I remembered Seasons 7 and 8 both being quite bad, and quite a lot of time had moved along.

Back to Earth was pretty pants, but apparently it did well enough for the show to get a full season commissioned. Season X came out last year on Dave, but I only just got it for my birthday last week. Why the wait? Partly because I was very worried after Back to Earth, and partly because I forgot.

I'd heard good things about X. Facebook and Twitter had filled with people saying it was return to good old fashioned Red Dwarf. Also post-Back to Earth I'd revisited Season 8 and discovered it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered it. In fact it was pretty decent. I was ready to take the chance. When I finally sat down with Red Dwarf X I was in for a surprise.

Strategy Informer: Motocross Madness Review

I'm not sure I'm going to manage a proper blog post today, my brain's decided to take the week off, which is really annoying because I'm pretty sure I didn't authorise any holidays for it.

However, I did manage to write up another review for Strategy Informer.

Motocross Madness Review

Hopefully I'll manage a proper post later, I've got one half written. We'll just have to see if my brain comes in  to work later.

Tron: Uprising deserves more of a legacy

Been a bit busy this week, so instead of Supernatural or something new I'm going to post one of the blogs I wrote but never put up. Fun Fact: This was originally written as the first half that would later become the Young Justice post. Though it was written in the run up to YJ finishing, and when that finally stopped I felt it deserved its own. Anyway, enough prattling. Tron: Uprising.

Over the weekend I went looking for more episodes of Tron: Uprising. The animated spin-off of the Tron films set between the original movie, and 2010's Tron: Legacy. I was in for a shock. The last episode I watched ended on some what of a massive cliffhanger, but apparently there wasn't any new ones. In fact that was to be that last episode ever. Disney had cancelled it.

Strategy Informer: Pressure Review

Now I'm writing reviews for other sites. There's no stopping me now!

Pressure was an odd one, as I played it, it really did nothing to greatly offend me. But as I got writing the review I realised I mostly had negative stuff to say. It was only then how much of a chore I'd realised I'd had playing it.

Pressure review

BeefJack: Looking back at LucasArts

Remember this morning when I said the reason for me not talking about LucasArts would become clear. Well here it is.

Looking back at LucasArts

When I first mentioned to Jamie that I wanted to do this he he thought about both of us pitching in on a look back and asked what my favourite LucasArts games, I told him that was impossible. That's like asking someone to pick their favourite child (yes, he used that in the strap too).

After I turned in my draft, he decided I'd said it all, and he couldn't really offer anything. For my side, I held back a bit. I could have kept going.

There's a lot of games I feel bad for not mentioning. Grim Fandango. X-Wing Alliance. Day of the Tentacle. Raven's Jedi Outcast and Academy. Mysteries of the Goddamn Sith. All great. But for me there are five games that I fondly remember from LucasArts.

Monkey Island's 1 and 2
Dark Forces
Jedi Knight
TIE Fighter
and Full Throttle

And I couldn't resist a special shoutout to Republic Commando.

Earth 2: A DC Reboot done right

The obvious topic for this week's post was obviously Disney closing the doors on LucasArts. That's not what I'm going to talk about though. Why should become clear soon. What I'm going to talk about instead is DC Comics' Earth 2.

I've been pretty vocal about my unhappiness with DC's New 52 reboot. I'm not sure if I've ever made it clear as to why though. It boils down to the fact it's a mess. A reboot is a time to clean up, make everything work together brilliantly. Just like Young Justice did. The fact they let Batman and Green Lantern escape mostly undamaged is another factor. Trying to keep some stories in continuity but have details change is an exercise in futility. I stopped reading everything DC. Even Nightwing. Then last weekend I tried Earth 2, and it gets a lot of things right.

BeefJack: Fathom Preview

My first proper hands-on preview. Can't believe it's taken this long. No idea why. However, I might have got a little bit carried away with my water puns here. Though the headline is all my editor Jamie. Who is also responsible for the "utterly brilliant" comment about Victoria Mars. A show I have never watched.

Fathom Preview.

Giving Star Trek: Voyager another chance

I was originally going to write about Supernatural today, a TV show I fell in love with, then got annoyed, and now slowly learning to love again. But I'm not. Carrying on a trend I said I wouldn't, I'm going to talk about Star Trek some more. Actually Voyager, to be specific.

Why? Because I went hunting through my archive to check if I'd written about Supernatural when I first got hooked. What I found instead was the last time I started to sink back into a Star Trek shaped hole. That entry ends with the line “Despite a few friends arguing it, I’m not going as far as watching Voyager though.” which I found pretty funny, because that's exactly what I'm now doing.

BeefJack: Alien Spidy review

It seems ages since I actually reviewed a game for BeefJack, so it's unfortunate that my return is Alien Spidy, a thoroughly lovely looking game that is just so frustrating to play. Also, the thing has six legs. Alien or not, that isn't a spider!

Alien Spidy review

Young Justice is served

Young Justice has finished. The show based around the sidekicks of the DC Universe and Batman setting them up to be some black ops division of the Justice League. A brilliant show, with adult themes that just happened to be animated. After two seasons it was talked about with reverence, and got a fairly decent audience to start with, but Cartoon Network did everything they could to kill it. And being the channel that shows it, they have final say.

Back to the New Frontier

Continuing Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and The Excalibur's journey into uncharted Thallonian Space, Martyr sees Calhoun being worshipped as a Saviour thanks to the events of the previous novel, and using that status to try and broker a peace between two warring factions. Of course not everything goes to plan.

Martyr's not quite as strong as the opener, but since that was four books into one I'll allow it. I did like how it shifted the focus of the book to some of the other members of the crew that got a bit of a short straw in the originals.

It's been a long time.

Erm, wow, I've not been here for a while. A whole month without a post. I've got a couple drafted, but I didn't hit publish and I apologise. I've also been working on a sequel to The Sound of Money which is coming along nicely.

Speaking of which, I've also published The Sound of Money on GoodReads and ReadWave, so if you're a fan of either of those sites you can go pick it up there, and it's still free.

Meanwhile I also did a short interview with Dead Space 3 composer James Hannigan over at BeefJack. I've also been disappearing down a big Star Trek hole, but there might be more on that later.

Boldy Going to a New Frontier

A week ago I wrote about reading Pulling Up Stakes by Peter David, aka PAD, mainly because I wanted to show support after his stroke, but then having the wonderful surprise of it being really bloody good. In that I mentioned I was also tempted by Star Trek: New Frontier.

My first geek love was Star Trek. Star Wars later stole it away, but it was the crews of Enterprise D and Deep Space Nine that I thoroughly adored. When I went to university, Voyager was midway through and I quickly lost interest, barely touched Enterprise, and was pretty appalled by Nemesis. But things weren't much better in the other franchise either.

Then there was a saviour. J J Abrams helmed a triumphic reboot of Star Trek and I was reminded how great a series it was. I still didn't do that much other than re-watch my favourite of the older movies and the Borg saga from The Next Generation. As I mentioned in the other Peter David post, I kept glancing toward New Frontier, but never got round to it. Until now. And it was brilliant.

BeefJack: The Cave Review

I've been looking forward to The Cave since it was announced. My love of games really started with The Secret of Monkey Island, so Ron Gilbert - and by extension Tim Schafer, then Double Fine - gets me excited about anything they works on. When Gilbert went to work at Double Fine everything came together into a glorious whole. The Cave was the physical manifestation of that... well if games can be called physical manifestations.

So it is with a sad heart I present my thoughts of said game:

The Cave Review

Pulling Up Stakes aka Helping Peter David

I've been a Peter David fan for years. But for some reason, exclusively his Marvel Comics work. I keep glancing at his other stuff - Young Justice at DC, New Frontier for Star Trek - and thinking I should give some of them a go, but I just never seemed to get round to it.

Then the terrible news over the holidays hit. PAD had a stroke, and what with him being an American, Peter's recovery was about to swallow a whole lot of funds. His wife, who has been a trooper keeping fans up to date when it would be so easy to concentrate on the more important things, explained pretty early on that one of the easiest ways to help was to buy his work. My first thought was I was finally going to start New Frontier, but Mrs David laid out several books of PADs that would be more help. The one that seemed most appealing to me was Pulling Up Stakes, a vampire novel dealing with a organised group of Vampire Hunters. The twist being that the main character was also secretly a vampire.

Fallowed Ground

My third short story is now available from Smashwords for all eReaders.

Unlike the previous two that took place in the same universe this is a totally a different setting. A proper sci-fi one. It's also the last of the stories I sat on. Now I need to get writing again.

Fallowed Ground

It is a golden age for Human expansion as they spread across the galaxy, colonising any world they find that is suitable. There is no end to what humanity can accomplish, but arrogance has always been their downfall, and nobody stops to consider what might happen if they choose the wrong world.

Bonus blog description:
Not every planet is barren, and not every territory is relinquished without blood first marking its Fallowed Ground.

That was suggested by Jamie Donnelly to be super cheesy. I love it, but it's not suitable for the story I think.

The Pitch

My second short story, The Pitch, is out. No, I'm not that quick. I may have had a few insecurities about releasing them, and other little things that just stopped me. Once I got The Sound of Money out the door most of those insecurities went with it. Another one will be appearing next week too.

This is a different character to the previous story, Gavin Talbot, who resides on the other side of the law to Nate Taylor.

 Once again it's free for all eReaders. Enjoy and tell your friends.

The Pitch