Raithe

The thing that can be said for Hayden.. he had the annoying kid from Phantom Menace beat.. Now there was a reason for the nickname of "Manaquin Skywalker"

And Star Wars only became exceptionally detailed _after_ the original trilogy. A lot of the background universe was fuzzy, no real details on what the Republic had been, for years fans thought the "clone war" had the clones as the evil bad guys fighting against the Republic.. Oh, and Harrison Ford used to get really irritated with Lucas for not giving details on how he was meant to fly the Millenium Falcon.. Apparently being told "just press random buttons and look like you know what you're doing" wasn't focused enough since he had to repeat it all any time he was in a scene in the pilots seat.. Of course, Lucas is happy making fun of himself for basically only using "Bigger" "Faster" or "More action" as his means of directing.. he's really a visual editing director type.

What's a forum post without there being a huge can of worms? Actually, I remember an interview with Jordan where he got asked about why Matt wasn't in that book, his reply was something along the lines of "A bloody wall fell on him! I didn't really expect people to find paragraphs of Matt wrapped in bandages, in bed, doing nothing beyond healing that interesting...."

There are some areas that draw out too long... but I have to say, it's infinitely better then Lord of the Rings.. Although I'm one of those people who admire the sheer technical aspects of Tolkien's work (while remembering he wrote it all purely as someplace to hang his created language of "Elven") and applauding it's effect on the fantasy genre.. while thinking that as a fictional set of books to read was fairly fracking appaling. Impecabbly detailed, crafted with extreme attention.. but a good read? Eh..that not so much. Whereas I found the Wheel of Time had an awful lot of soul and characters you can really get interested in. Even in the drawn out sections, and some of the lesser books, I still had to turn pages and go onto the next book just to see what happens and how it all evolves...

What, you didn't know? He's actually "The Middleman" of the time...

The new author did an extensive blog on it.. Apparently by the time he had about 2/3 of the plot, sub-plots, character arcs and such done he'd reached the point of 750,000 words. Which is a bit silly for a single book. So they sat down, hashed it out, and are going to be releasing 3 books, the idea is one a year. Starting with "The Gathering Storm", followed by "Towers of Midnight", and the final book "A Memory of Light".

His widow was the editor for all the books he wrote, and she's continued in her role as editor for the final books. Also, during the final few months of his illness, Jordan sat down (or at least, propped himself up in bed) to tell the story to his friends and family (who also recorded it) plus he was one of those authors who built up a seriously extensive collection of databases of characters, plots, subplots, arcs, and general notes...

Now for those of you who aren't total 21st century purely electronic geeks... The new book from the Wheel of Time goes public in just a couple of days, and I ran across an advance review of The Gathering Storm at Tor.. Personally it did kind of amuse me some..

It's all about reading the articles?

Tsk.. I liked Dark Sun.. The whole approach of "adventuring is dangerous, really, reallly dangerous" was a nice approach from the usual run of "oh, we went down the temple and got a raise dead" style that tended to come about in Forgotten Realms and the standard fantasy settings.. That and the whole "if a player can play a mage for 3 sessions without any of the other players realising he's a horrid arcane spell user.. then he's playing his character right" So... on the one hand Dark Sun = Good. On the other.. D&D 4th Ed = complete naffness (well, apart from the art. It's got super-shiney art). If only they'd brought Dark Sun back for 3.5.. <sigh> Although then it would have battled Eberron....

Heh, was playing City of Heroes some months back.. the Rikti Mothership Raid.. about 40+ players going at it with hordes of Rikti Aliens.. and a whole bunch of people had Shadow Tentacle power .. so many, many waving tentacles rising up and grappling.. the quote broadcasted "Aliens, Tentacles, Oh my! Where's the schoolgirl?" prompt response from another toon : "Wait..that's my other costume" <pampf> costume change in mid-fight..

Well it's just not helped that they ship vey small numbers of collector's editions over the pond to the shores of Blighty.. Which leaves a lot of people stuck with just the digital downloads for access... Frankly, I'm old school. If I buy a game, I want a shiney box of some sort (and whatever discs are standard at the time) , so I actually have something physical to go with it all Especially if I'm spending more money on a collector's edition... If there's no uber-shiney box.. it's just not worth it...

Yes, for we all want Alpha Protocol goodness to dabble in those themes of loyalty and to find out whether this is true for a spy :

Yeah, just checked it up.. technically it's only

Don't they usually throw in things like a cd with the games ost on it, and the "concept sketch" artbook and the like? Haven't looked up the Dragonage collectors yet.. but that's usually what Bioware do with their crpg collector's editions..

Sounds interesting... The conflict of loyalty and who you owe it to is always a fine and interesting one... To go with the classic quotes : "I could not love you so if I did not love honour more" or "If it comes down to betraying a friend, or betraying my country, I hope I have the courage to betray my country". It's always such a personal point of view...

But the odds were.. you did have a certain intelligent super mutant who had _already_ done the "it's heavily radiated in that room, it won't effect me, I'll do it" during an earlier stage of the game.. So having him stood behind you while you had the choice of "going in and getting fatal radiation" or "let Lyons go in and get fatal radiation" and not haivng a word mentioned about his resistance to radiation.. was a little bit on the silly side....

There's always the main theme from Hitman 2 - or more Jesper Kyd goodness with the Apocalypse from Hitman:Blood Money... Or for that slightly more bounce to it Surfing Guitar from MGS 3.. And while people might slam the Star Wars games for having scores that are quite similar.. there are some that do stand out in the way of hitting a certain sense of mood and atmosphere.. Ruins of the Jedi Temple in Kotor2 or Vode An from Republic Commando suited the game down to the ground.

Heh, it could just represent that while you are off with your "team" killing things and looting the dead.. ahem. I mean.. adventuring... the party memberss who are back at base camp are also going off and doing stuff and thus earning xp equivalent... after all in times of war and near dark magic apocalypse I suppose it makes sense to kick back in a camp and eat and drink and do bugger all... It might not be much.. but it could be the "kinda story idea" behind why those members will level up to the same level as those who have been off with you...

The major point I missed was the end sequence. You had no real feel for how you'd affected the surrounding communities/groups by the end of the game. At least, not beyond the "oo I was good and purified the water" or "oo I was evil and put in the anti-mutant goop". The slow but brief picture montage gave a few hints, but one of the key points to FO1 & 2 (at least to me) was the run off of the various groups, and how they developed in the years after the game due to what I did. I felt like there were serious consequences from my actions within game (and I could replay the game and make different choices, and it would be apparent in how groups survived/grew/became extinct). And that was what really seemed lacking from FO3. Maybe it was just that I played through the game, and was expecting to hear things like what happened with the Republic of Dave after you interfered with the election.. or how the former slaves you helped (or hindered) with the Lincoln monument turned out. Whether by running rampage through Paradise Falls changed the slavers/raiders in the area or not.. and then at the end.. boom.. or lack of boom. Even if you add the Broken Steel DLC, you don't have any real feeling of consequences from your actions. To an extent it was interesting to roll along with the central storyline, some of the side quests were fun in their way, and some amusing game time. A helluva lot better then Oblivion. But yeah, was lacking a certain something.

Hm, a black ops organisation... using the shady reasoning of : "Well, it's not the government spending money.. its someone who has no official connection to the government.. therefore we don't have to make note. After all, we don't know how he's making his money, or exactly what he's spending it on... It's not like he's filing it on his tax returns...."

Smile when you type that...

It was that whole mix of.. you could be impressed by the technical excellence of it.. but lacking in gameplay that actually pulled you in and made you invest in the story. At least that's how it came across to me. Although yes, Far Cry did have a touch more soul then Crysis and Oblivion both. But not enough to keep me plowing through.

Borderlands looks like it has the humour in it that should have been in Fallout 3.... but I think it's one I'm going to give a miss for now. Maybe when it's more of a budget friendly thing.. but from what I've seen and read about it, it's a lot of grind 'n shoot. And I really need some serious story to keep me interested in a grind 'n shoot game.

Dark fantasy... add in a touch of Cthulhu... Hm, roll up a character. Go mad, die horribly. Roll up a new character. Suffer tragedy , dark and brooding past. then go mad.