I have a new review for D+Pad Magazine.
The game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, came out way too close to Skyrim, even months later it was way too close. It needed another fantasy game to come out and take the hit.
A lot of people will look over KOA:R because of its ludicrous name, high fantasy credentials and not being Skyrim. In this review I highlight all of these issues and why Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is still a damn fine game.
I have an article up at D+Pad Magazine, lamenting the oncoming destruction of the final high street video game specialist. Oh there’s CEX, but that’s all second hand. There’s HMV, but they’re struggling too, and not really specialists. Sainsbury’s, Asda, all of those stores have videogames, but who there cares about them? What supermarket would take a risk on Catherine, or indeed any new game.
As I’ve probably said, videogames have been a part of my life since I was diagnosed with dyspraxia and possibly the best thing a nine year old could hear was uttered, “make this boy play videogames.” Oh yes. Validation. They’re great for my hand-eye coordination. The reason I love Dance Central and Rock Band are because they help me practice making my brain and body react in time with each other. But that’s a different story. This one is a story about a game store.
After writing this article, I spoke with the clerk who I handed my Mass Effect 3 pre-order slip back to. He was originally worried that customers would be angry at them, and pleased that they weren’t. The staff are as confused and worried about their jobs as we are. And just as desperate to find alternate ways of getting Mass Effect 3.
I’ve been writing a few articles for D+Pad Magazine which I’ve realised weren’t linked to here.
First of all, a review of the brightly-coloured platforming puzzler or puzzling platformer, Pullblox (also known as Pushmo in the States).
Then came a spoiler-free write up of the Mass Effect 3 demo. I knew a lot of people would be interested in how it handled, but didn’t want to ruin the story for themselves until they could play with their character.
Last week I finally stopped dragging my feet and provided a Batman Gotham City Imposters review, which left me with an odd feeling, both visually interesting, yet falling prey to being like all the other online multiplayer FPS games.
In other news, I’m trying not to start writing a novelisation of my Amnesiac City RPG setting, or comic scripts. The latter should wait until November, the former should wait until April. I’ve sent my first manuscript sampler out and need to send the rest out. I still have the last half of my novelette to do, and jobs to apply for. It’s a busy time…
I never put much thought into the Kindle when I first heard about it. I like the feel of a book, the smell of it. I have worries that publishing houses picking certain devices over others makes things worse for the consumer, especially if a whole load of books are only accessible on one device over another. Like Blu-Ray and HDDVD, I thought it’d be best to leave it until the dust settled.
The thing is, I have a bad back, and Dance With Dragons nearly killed me when it came out. I wasn’t going to slow down my reading of it, but the book needed another bag, and a sherpa to lug it around.
My dad bought both my brother and I a Kindle for Christmas, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Still, given the easy access, I used my netbook to scour the free e-books on Project Gutenberg and Amazon, filling it up with over two hundred books. I’ve to date paid about £6.00 (Game of Thrones was on offer, then Chuck Wendig’s 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer, Chuck Wendig’s Shotgun Gravy & John Perich’s Too Close to Miss). The rest are both legitimate and free.
I’d started reading Wuthering Heights from a copy I bought when I was hoping to get a copy of Jane Eyre from a charity shop. I decided to check this book out as there was an artsy-looking film version by Andrea Arnold coming out. I failed after four chapters, saw the film and started again. When I got the Kindle I was half way through, so I’ve read this book half in its real form, half in Kindle format.
The feel of the Kindle, the weight and the ease of use is so satisfying. I still love books, but damn, the Kindle’s really convenient. I plucked The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde out of the ether, then read it from start to finish on my train trips to London and back. Glorious.
Anyway, all this waffle aside, I decided to actually try to review the books I read on the Kindle. Here’s my first one, just in time for Valentines Day, Wuthering Heights.
I’ve written another article for D+Pad Magazine. This time it’s a preview of a web browser game called 8 Realms.
When I first got the press code for the game I realised I’d never played a browser game before. I needed some hook to help me get invested in the game. I knew what I had to do…
See the article in all it’s horrible glory at D+Pad Magazine.
I’ve been a member of the Guardian Gamesblog for many years. They were the force who inspired me to get a 360. Thanks to them I met new friends who I have daily contact with, and not just on the blog.
For a blog about games, it’s actually more “around” games, to paraphrase One Life Left. They talk about sitcoms, colanders, whisky, zombie-killing weapons and routers, always goddamn routers.
Anyway, they hold an awards ceremony each year and my brother got talking to one of their number, Simeon, who writes and edits for D+Pad Magazine. My brother pitched some articles and I realised, as awesome as that was, I should have tried getting in on that.
I brought this fact up a few weeks ago and Simeon got in touch. He asked me to review something as my audition, and here it is:
Also, because it’s great and I’ve referenced it a few times, here’s a link to my brother’s fantastic article about mundanity.
Back when my brother was unemployed for something like 51 weeks, he and I didn’t talk a huge amount. I’d ask him what he was doing about getting a job and the conversation would end.
Then he e-mailed me a review he’d written about a Japanese horror film. He titled it, “Killed by Ghosts” as it was about Ju-On, The Grudge. Then I e-mailed a review back. We went back and forth with reviews, him of at best middling horror movies and me of generally terrible ones. I’ll link up a couple of them soon.
The reviews had a conversational style which I enjoyed, and after watching a horror movie BY ACCIDENT, I had to resurrect Killed By Ghosts. This may be one last time, or it could be a thing I use on the site every now and then.
Either way, here is the review of 2010’s film: Detention
There is a disturbing man on my floor.
His face only has one expression, like he’s smelled something unpleasant, and cannot find the source.
He always sits far away, in the corner, with several empty tables separating him from the rest of us.
He was reading a book on the Third Reich.
Now he is there, and he is reading a Bible.
He will kill us all.
I saw that the latest Terrible Minds contest involved corporate abuse, and had an idea for a short piece which is actually related to the current chapter of where I’m at with my novel. I don’t know if this will be DLC or something for the book, acting as the ‘cold open’ to the chapter, or if it’ll be left to stand alone, as it hopefully does.
This is a Day in the Life of John’s Body. I am still working on NaNoWriMo, but I had to give this a go, too. My novel’s at 28,835 words currently, so I’m ahead.
I’m also trying out Movember, but less successfully than the novel. I can’t win them all, I guess.
Because writing 50,000 words in a month isn’t enough, I’ve decided to write an article about the most impressive tv pilot I’ve seen this autumn, a show from five years ago which has only recently ended: Friday Night Lights.
As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I’m up to 17,206 words, a feat which has surprised me. I’ve attended the social NaNoWriMo events and met a ton of awesome Nanites… Wrimos… whatever we’re called. Many have netbooks, similar to mine, but have eccentricities about them like not-working screens. I keep whispering to mine not to listen to the prayers and pleads that a netbook behave. I did get a sticker for hitting the 5,000 word point on a write-in this Wednesday and a set of light-up pens for winning a mini word war today. I will either use them at work to seem uber-dignified, or hand them out to my gaming group when we play WoD: Innocents to help them role play seven to elevent year old children.
Faked Tales 