The irony of this post comes from the fact that nothing that I have ever posted in this blog has seen the editing pen.
Most people, at some point in their lives, have said "I would like to write a book someday"". Well, good for you. This means you have an ounce of ambition in you. Sure, an ounce is not nearly enough to go through the process of writing the first draft of a book, but at least you have that much ambition. As for the rest of you fine people, who actually have more than the ounce, here are some brief tips on how to indulge in your literary desires.
Note, these are all tools for genre writers. I don't understand you literary types, and I don't intend to walk down your depressing tunnel to scholastic enlightenment.
1. Do a Little Bit of Everything:
Suppose you pass a music shop, and see a Telecaster in the window, and you just happen to like playing the guitar. Well, by all means, buy a guitar, and learn to play it. If you have a camera, learn to use it well, and take dozens of pictures. Go hiking. Ride roller coasters. Get in fights with strange people who can't kill you because they're too drunk. Make a short film, and have it laughed clean off of YouTube. Do everything. Everything you do, every person you meet, and every experience that you have will enhance your senses. Painting a world with words is challenging, but crafting a setting brings color to your work, so you'd best have some perspective on how you see the world, clarified by your experiences. Having a greater variety of experiences increases your overall palette.
2. Write Too Much, Reduce Where Necessary
A short novel is over fifty thousand words. If you're new to writing, this isn't a lot. On a day of vast inspiration and coffee flow, I've knocked out over ten thousand words. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of those words were awful, unnecessary, and possibly loaded with incomplete passages, description, etc. While this recommendation may seem like it won't help with this, and really, it won't, it will prevent having to do more when writing the second draft and so forth. If you have painted the picture well, and drawn your world out in every way, then you can decide what is necessary in the second round. And, should you do the right thing and keep your drafts from one round of revisions to the next, you can grab things from that first draft, and place them elsewhere when rewriting.
3. Don't Just Write a Book, Write a History
If you are planning to write a book, then you probably have a cast in mind for the stage of your mind. You might even have a plot. However, the cast and the set aren't everything. Your characters lived before walking onto the page, and just like normal people, their experiences make them whole. They have loved, lost, killed, saved, gotten smashed at bars, and taken up collection at church. They exist. Don't pretend that they aren't real people; because you put them into your world, they do exist. If you put faith in their existence, then you can make their story all the better for it, because the reader can believe in their actions, and their dialogue. When you are preparing to start your book, it helps to spend a lot of time with your cast. I'm not suggesting that every ancillary character needs five thousand words of backstory before you can sit down to write, but your lead characters need to have lived in some capacity before they hit the page. Write a short story, flash fiction, a detailed list of major events in their life; something where they speak, and exist, just so you can get into their mind, and write them all that much easier.
2. Glorify the Hideous, Destroy the Beautiful
This isn't a practice for all occasions, but I still think it's a worthwhile skill. A sense of the grandiose deepens the paint strokes that you drop on your canvas. An ancient courtyard, destroyed by time, can have many distinct characters depending on the scene that you are writing. You can go for beauty by weaving vines and similar flora on the crumbling stone, or you can dirty the dismantled bricks by concealing the patterns in the layout. How the characters relate to the setting can enhance the scene as well. By writing both views in change, based on the character you are focusing on, or if in first person, writing from, you can shift how the reader sees a place. Some people find great beauty in churches lined with marbled stone and stained glass windows. Others will see symbols for manipulation and abuse. Knowing your characters well enough to paint the world accordingly will add a great sense of depth to your setting, and your readers will learn more about the characters as well.
1. When You Write, You Kill. Be at Peace with Homicide.
I can not stress enough how important this is. I may sound like a rambling lunatic, incapable of writing details for any of the previous steps, but by God I assure you that this is one of the most important parts of writing fiction in any capacity, and so many writers ignore such a simple task that is terrifies me.
Stories are built on the idea that a character is either unhappy or in some kind of trouble, and they want to change it. Pain, death, misery, simple discomfort; these are all catalysts for stories in the simplest way. If you aren't ready to hurt your characters, you will not make it as a writer. Conflict drives a story, and conflict is born from some measure of misfortune. I'm not saying that every story that you write will have a body count. Far from it. The dealing of pain is how you must begin a tale.
There might be someone reading this that believes that this whole "be at peace with homicide" thing is going to far. Well, let me introduce you to the concept of believable villains.
A good bad guy believes in what he or she is doing. They would burn the world down for their cause, and nothing will discourage them. I don't know of any story that jumps into the final showdown where the good guy convinces the bad guy that he's simply wrong with a slide show. Sorry, that's now how genre fiction works. If you write about the villain, then you will no doubt start shedding blood with their hands. Make it hurt. Make it so that your cast feels it from miles away, and your reader feels the flesh beneath their fingernails. Subtlety is a great tool as well, but subtlety can bring vast amounts of horror to the table as well.
Indulge in the violence, thrive on the tension, and by God, hurt your cast. If your reader can't feel it, then your cast doesn't either, because the cast has to be the readers link to the story.
Kill, and enjoy it. Kill, and thrive off of the pain you spread. There is a reason why people remember the deaths of their favorite characters. There is a reason why George R.R. Martin has a ridiculous body count. There is a reason why we all wince in pain at the torture scene in Casino Royale. There is a reason why the finale of Seven Samurai strikes such a chord with everyone who watches that movie and has a soul.
If nothing else in this world, all people can relate to pain. Pain makes us human. Loss makes us human. We understand these feelings, and as such, we relate to the characters because they are enduring the most common of all human emotions. Most people are not happy, and while fiction is usually an escapist genre, the character has to endure pain to go on the journey to happiness, as we all do.
I hope this helps someone. Sorry if it's a hair noisy, but, as I said: I don't edit this blog.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
Searching for Titles
The past couple of weeks has brought on its share of fresh frustrations. I could go into details, but let's not dive into such madness. However, now might be the best time to tell everyone that I have a new book concept brewing in my collection of tiny notebooks, and it is coming together...sort of.
I have about half of the character arc details figured out. I have an idea for what the skeleton of the plot pertains to, but it currently makes absolutely no sense by the time that I get it synched up with the second act per the character arcs I've been working with. I'm working on it. It doesn't like me right now, but I am working on it.
Usually when I dive into a project, I have a title, or a project name. Usually I do it for the sake of clean filing on my computer, but having a title to call something that is struggling to come to life makes it easier for me on some level. The book feels more real, even at page zero, if I have a name for my youngest work.
Someone is likely asking "What happened to Road to the West? You were working on that earlier this year?" Well, I haven't dropped that book in the trash, or anything so drastic. In fact, it's still at the top of the queue. Strange things happen in the summer. For whatever reason, it harder for me to focus on a project in the summer, but a flood of ideas hit me all at once during the summer. I've written a lot of little details and the like that I will probably find a home for in time, so its worthwhile for my work in some way. Later in the year, words tend to come a little more cleanly for me. I don't know why. I would like to think that I'm not making excuses, but it really does seem like this is how things work in my head. I'm writing, just not as much as I'd like.
So, back to topic.
I have this project that has no name. It is a near-future cyberpunk themed thing that I am not ready to comment on the plot of just yet. I'm not ready to comment on the plot because the plot doesn't exist in a form that doesn't resemble the innards of a dog toy. There is promise to the concept, however, so I want it to happen. What I do know is that I'd like to publish the piece as a four part serial, featuring a set of fairly short segments that build to a single, hopefully satisfying finale. I may even return to the characters again later, should this work be well recieved.
Given the cyberpunk theme of the book, and some of the puzzle pieces I keep kicking around to bring the story together, I have an idea or two for the set of titles, but I'm not sure how I want to spin it. I don't know if there should be a single title for the arc, or a title for each segment of the story.
And I might just be over thinking this whole titling bit. After, there isn't even a solid plot, and I'm trying to put a proper face on the project. And much like this entry is a mess of pointless ranting, my search for a compelling name is all the same.
-- Spectral Flux --
I think I'm done here for now...
I have about half of the character arc details figured out. I have an idea for what the skeleton of the plot pertains to, but it currently makes absolutely no sense by the time that I get it synched up with the second act per the character arcs I've been working with. I'm working on it. It doesn't like me right now, but I am working on it.
Usually when I dive into a project, I have a title, or a project name. Usually I do it for the sake of clean filing on my computer, but having a title to call something that is struggling to come to life makes it easier for me on some level. The book feels more real, even at page zero, if I have a name for my youngest work.
Someone is likely asking "What happened to Road to the West? You were working on that earlier this year?" Well, I haven't dropped that book in the trash, or anything so drastic. In fact, it's still at the top of the queue. Strange things happen in the summer. For whatever reason, it harder for me to focus on a project in the summer, but a flood of ideas hit me all at once during the summer. I've written a lot of little details and the like that I will probably find a home for in time, so its worthwhile for my work in some way. Later in the year, words tend to come a little more cleanly for me. I don't know why. I would like to think that I'm not making excuses, but it really does seem like this is how things work in my head. I'm writing, just not as much as I'd like.
So, back to topic.
I have this project that has no name. It is a near-future cyberpunk themed thing that I am not ready to comment on the plot of just yet. I'm not ready to comment on the plot because the plot doesn't exist in a form that doesn't resemble the innards of a dog toy. There is promise to the concept, however, so I want it to happen. What I do know is that I'd like to publish the piece as a four part serial, featuring a set of fairly short segments that build to a single, hopefully satisfying finale. I may even return to the characters again later, should this work be well recieved.
Given the cyberpunk theme of the book, and some of the puzzle pieces I keep kicking around to bring the story together, I have an idea or two for the set of titles, but I'm not sure how I want to spin it. I don't know if there should be a single title for the arc, or a title for each segment of the story.
And I might just be over thinking this whole titling bit. After, there isn't even a solid plot, and I'm trying to put a proper face on the project. And much like this entry is a mess of pointless ranting, my search for a compelling name is all the same.
-- Spectral Flux --
I think I'm done here for now...
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
X-Box One and my Theory of the Third Round
Microsoft announced something yesterday. I'm not convinced that it's a game console though. They'll actually have to prove that at E3 in a couple of weeks. Of course, the internet is already ablaze with articles claiming that Microsoft have lost their minds, and have produced something completely worthless. Well...I'm not ready to make that claim, but it's great to drop that as a knee-jerk reaction. After all, the presentation didn't tell me anything more than "you can watch TV and surf the net AT THE SAME TIME", and frankly, I can already do that. I have a Nook Tablet, a Dell XPS laptop, a netbook, a Sony smartphone powered by Android, and I can even browse the net on my WiiU gamepad. Seriously, we've got this covered.
But I don't want to do yet another commentary on how Microsoft has temporarily estranged their users with the announcement of their new console. I want to talk about a pattern present in the history of video games.
It starts in the early 90's, at the end of the 16-bit era.
Throw away consoles like the CD-I and the Jaguar are falling into ashes around Nintendo and Sega, who are still fighting a console war that still overshadows the competition between contemporary consoles. The next generation is on the rise, and everyone knows that both Nintendo and Sega have new hardware coming out. The Playstation is coming as well.
Sega botches the launch of their third home console, the Sega Saturn. A ridiculously high entry price and an emphasis on 2D gaming holds the system back until the system ultimately met its end. There's more to that story, but let's keep it on a surface level. The two graphics chips made development challenging for many studios.
Nintendo launched the Nintendo 64 in 1996, to high praise for its launch titles, followed by a shortage of new titles, and even hardware. The hardware was cartridge based, which meant that many developers weren't interested in trying to shove the next generation of games into such a small space. Less than three hundred games were released for the system in America (I don't have total titles made quickly available).
Ultimately, the Playstation won out over the Saturn and the N64. Everything seemed to fall smoothly into place for Sony, and they followed up with the PS2 in 2000. The PS2 found great success as well.
The Playstation 3 followed the rough start that the X-Box 360 had, boasting that the next generation didn't start until Sony said it did, and other similar absurdities. The extremely expensive hardware and, and architecture that proved hard to develop for were not boons to the fate of the system. The PS3 didn't hit its stride for several years, and sales still lag behind the behemoth that the X-Box 360 proved to be.
Three systems, all following major successes for their respective companies, all met similar fates. Either middling success, or flat out failure. I wouldn't go so far as to call and of these systems bad. In fact, they all have their niche in the market. The N64 was a breeding ground for fantastic 3D platforming titles. The Saturn was unmatched for arcade gaming. The PS3...well, it certainly had some great exclusives, and tried to keep the JRPG relevant to gamers. Let's face it, the PS3 is a console from a time where exclusives are rare, and diversity in gaming is even more so.
All three of these systems weren't quite the follow up that they were hyped to be. Whether the difficulty and cost of development, or any other factor, they weren't the hits that they could have been.
And now we have the X-Box One. We have a console that has three OSs running at the same time within a system that has 8GB of RAM. Okay, that's quite a bit of system resources getting chewed on right at the gate. I could see that being challenging to program, but I don't know for certain because I am not a programmer. The X-Box 360 was a hit. Yes, I'm leaving out parallels, and not divulging a lot of detail here.
The fact is, we don't know enough yet, but it's interesting to think about what's going on. It's Microsoft's third round, which is where Nintendo, Sega, and Sony all had less than stellar runs. It's not a mark of failure, by any measure, but it's a point where the wrong decisions were made, whatever they were. Microsoft might be looking at a long struggle to get back to where they would like to be. They might not even have a problem. It's an issue of speculation more than anything. From this perspective, they might have a terrible era, where they've banked on the concept of a media center, rather than a game console. That, or they'll have a breakout success. It's way too early to say.
It's certainly an interesting thought...
Anyway, this is a just a point with which to indulge in thoughts of Microsofts fate.
But I don't want to do yet another commentary on how Microsoft has temporarily estranged their users with the announcement of their new console. I want to talk about a pattern present in the history of video games.
It starts in the early 90's, at the end of the 16-bit era.
Throw away consoles like the CD-I and the Jaguar are falling into ashes around Nintendo and Sega, who are still fighting a console war that still overshadows the competition between contemporary consoles. The next generation is on the rise, and everyone knows that both Nintendo and Sega have new hardware coming out. The Playstation is coming as well.
Sega botches the launch of their third home console, the Sega Saturn. A ridiculously high entry price and an emphasis on 2D gaming holds the system back until the system ultimately met its end. There's more to that story, but let's keep it on a surface level. The two graphics chips made development challenging for many studios.
Nintendo launched the Nintendo 64 in 1996, to high praise for its launch titles, followed by a shortage of new titles, and even hardware. The hardware was cartridge based, which meant that many developers weren't interested in trying to shove the next generation of games into such a small space. Less than three hundred games were released for the system in America (I don't have total titles made quickly available).
Ultimately, the Playstation won out over the Saturn and the N64. Everything seemed to fall smoothly into place for Sony, and they followed up with the PS2 in 2000. The PS2 found great success as well.
The Playstation 3 followed the rough start that the X-Box 360 had, boasting that the next generation didn't start until Sony said it did, and other similar absurdities. The extremely expensive hardware and, and architecture that proved hard to develop for were not boons to the fate of the system. The PS3 didn't hit its stride for several years, and sales still lag behind the behemoth that the X-Box 360 proved to be.
Three systems, all following major successes for their respective companies, all met similar fates. Either middling success, or flat out failure. I wouldn't go so far as to call and of these systems bad. In fact, they all have their niche in the market. The N64 was a breeding ground for fantastic 3D platforming titles. The Saturn was unmatched for arcade gaming. The PS3...well, it certainly had some great exclusives, and tried to keep the JRPG relevant to gamers. Let's face it, the PS3 is a console from a time where exclusives are rare, and diversity in gaming is even more so.
All three of these systems weren't quite the follow up that they were hyped to be. Whether the difficulty and cost of development, or any other factor, they weren't the hits that they could have been.
And now we have the X-Box One. We have a console that has three OSs running at the same time within a system that has 8GB of RAM. Okay, that's quite a bit of system resources getting chewed on right at the gate. I could see that being challenging to program, but I don't know for certain because I am not a programmer. The X-Box 360 was a hit. Yes, I'm leaving out parallels, and not divulging a lot of detail here.
The fact is, we don't know enough yet, but it's interesting to think about what's going on. It's Microsoft's third round, which is where Nintendo, Sega, and Sony all had less than stellar runs. It's not a mark of failure, by any measure, but it's a point where the wrong decisions were made, whatever they were. Microsoft might be looking at a long struggle to get back to where they would like to be. They might not even have a problem. It's an issue of speculation more than anything. From this perspective, they might have a terrible era, where they've banked on the concept of a media center, rather than a game console. That, or they'll have a breakout success. It's way too early to say.
It's certainly an interesting thought...
Anyway, this is a just a point with which to indulge in thoughts of Microsofts fate.
Monday, April 29, 2013
After The Battle -- A Moment for the JRPG
It's no secret that I've been a fan of this not-really-roleplaying game thing for a long time. I don't know why. The writing usually isn't that great. The characters all fall into some archetype. There are so few truly great entries in the genre that it is quite discouraging to continue to collect games of this variety to play. But I do. And I keep playing them.
I still enjoy them.
It's an odd thing to consider, why I continue to play games that are technically not that good. I logged eighty hours plus on my run of Final Fantasy XIII-2 and it wasn't amazing. It had potential, but it was so far off the mark that most gamers hated it more than the first. Yes, Mog was awful. But that's not the point is it? I still had a pretty good time with the game, and it was my first time getting every achievement for a 360 game. I have Arc Rise Fantasia for the Wii and the script is terrible. I'm still playing it. Wild Arms 2 gets thrown in my Playstation every once and a while, and it is one of the single most poorly balanced games I've ever played.
I guess I'm digging into this rant to ask why these games still pull me in.
Well, the stories are part of it. Yeah, they are cliche-ridden messes of poor translations and B-rate anime fluff, but they are usually positive and upbeat enough to make trudging through mediocre characterizations worthwhile. Well, worthwhile for me anyway. Even when Final Fantasy VII kicked in and made everyone switch to making games with depressive heroes and dark themes, there was still some fun to be had in the complete absurdity of it all. I mean, how seriously can you take a guy with an eight inch tall blonde spike pointing at you during conversation? And I'm just going to throw in that Squall from Final Fantasy VIII wasn't that much of a whiny twat. He was a socially withdrawn teenager with little understanding of what his aspirations for the future should be. Let's face it: Squaresoft knew their audience pretty well.
And that brings us back to the characters. They don't get my vote. Again, 9/10 times they fit into one of the archetypes that bothers me. I don't like the optimistic hero character. I don't like the cutesy jail bait. I don't like the children. I especially don't like the characters who try to be "cool". Some of these characters are more common since the 32-Bit era, but they still bother me. Let's face it, they are the characters who don't really contribute to the plot. You might be wondering: well, who do you like in these games? Well, that's simple. I liked all of the lead cast of Final Fantasy VI, Kid from Chrono Cross, and I could go on, but this was meant to be concise. So...where are we going next...
Oh yeah, the gameplay. This is where the common role playing gamer, who has actually spent time rollling a D20, breaks away. And I don't blame them. The JRPG isn't a game where you normally roleplay. You jump into the shoes of a heroic lead, and tell them what to do in order to kill the bad guy. But there is very little in the way of roleplaying here. And I don't mind. Technically, these were the games that lead me to eventually sitting down and rolling dice with a group of friends, and later running games of my own. However, the JRPG doesn't need the complexity of a real roleplaying experience for me to have a good time. I liken it to watching a movie. Yes, usually a really bad movie, but a movie nonetheless. Exploring the varied settings, taking down colossal monsters, and reequipping my party usually makes for a good time, that is rewarding to me personally. Yes, even the grinding gives me some level of satisfaction. The ability drop Safer Sephiroth in two rounds at the end of Final Fantasy VII, and the final battle with Jenova without pressing X more than once made for an evil grin or two before the credits ran. Frankly, on paper, JRPGs are dead boring, but there is a charm, a quality of its own, that makes them worth playing to people who decide to indulge. I won't pretend that they are for everyone, but I don't see why anyone should be offended by their existence.
So we come to the year 2013, where the JRPG is all but comatose. The western RPG has taken the spotlight, and the few good JRPG experiences that surface every year have shrugged off some of the major stylistic aspects of these games. Every new Final Fantasy is given the cold shoulder by most gamers. The climate is completely different from 1999, the platinum age of the JRPG. Through the PS2 era, the genre has lost all of its strength, and gamers want more in the style of Bioware's games, or the Elder Scrolls saga. They aren't wrong, and I enjoy those games as well. They are actually RPGs. But there is a shrinking group of us who still like waiting for that time bar to fill, so we can choose our attacks, and drop the beasts drawn from various mythologies, and collect our experience points. We will patiently wait for the next Final Fantasy with hopes that Square Enix will finally get it right, and cross our fingers for a Dream Team reunion, and the announcement of the next Chrono game. We will complain until Nintendo gives us more Earthbound, and play a SaGa game despite its obvious flaws. We won't give up hope that these games will thrive as they have in the past. After all, the success of the Western RPG is a trend just like any other, and with time, the JRPG will have a chance to thrive again.
I still enjoy them.
It's an odd thing to consider, why I continue to play games that are technically not that good. I logged eighty hours plus on my run of Final Fantasy XIII-2 and it wasn't amazing. It had potential, but it was so far off the mark that most gamers hated it more than the first. Yes, Mog was awful. But that's not the point is it? I still had a pretty good time with the game, and it was my first time getting every achievement for a 360 game. I have Arc Rise Fantasia for the Wii and the script is terrible. I'm still playing it. Wild Arms 2 gets thrown in my Playstation every once and a while, and it is one of the single most poorly balanced games I've ever played.
I guess I'm digging into this rant to ask why these games still pull me in.
Well, the stories are part of it. Yeah, they are cliche-ridden messes of poor translations and B-rate anime fluff, but they are usually positive and upbeat enough to make trudging through mediocre characterizations worthwhile. Well, worthwhile for me anyway. Even when Final Fantasy VII kicked in and made everyone switch to making games with depressive heroes and dark themes, there was still some fun to be had in the complete absurdity of it all. I mean, how seriously can you take a guy with an eight inch tall blonde spike pointing at you during conversation? And I'm just going to throw in that Squall from Final Fantasy VIII wasn't that much of a whiny twat. He was a socially withdrawn teenager with little understanding of what his aspirations for the future should be. Let's face it: Squaresoft knew their audience pretty well.
And that brings us back to the characters. They don't get my vote. Again, 9/10 times they fit into one of the archetypes that bothers me. I don't like the optimistic hero character. I don't like the cutesy jail bait. I don't like the children. I especially don't like the characters who try to be "cool". Some of these characters are more common since the 32-Bit era, but they still bother me. Let's face it, they are the characters who don't really contribute to the plot. You might be wondering: well, who do you like in these games? Well, that's simple. I liked all of the lead cast of Final Fantasy VI, Kid from Chrono Cross, and I could go on, but this was meant to be concise. So...where are we going next...
Oh yeah, the gameplay. This is where the common role playing gamer, who has actually spent time rollling a D20, breaks away. And I don't blame them. The JRPG isn't a game where you normally roleplay. You jump into the shoes of a heroic lead, and tell them what to do in order to kill the bad guy. But there is very little in the way of roleplaying here. And I don't mind. Technically, these were the games that lead me to eventually sitting down and rolling dice with a group of friends, and later running games of my own. However, the JRPG doesn't need the complexity of a real roleplaying experience for me to have a good time. I liken it to watching a movie. Yes, usually a really bad movie, but a movie nonetheless. Exploring the varied settings, taking down colossal monsters, and reequipping my party usually makes for a good time, that is rewarding to me personally. Yes, even the grinding gives me some level of satisfaction. The ability drop Safer Sephiroth in two rounds at the end of Final Fantasy VII, and the final battle with Jenova without pressing X more than once made for an evil grin or two before the credits ran. Frankly, on paper, JRPGs are dead boring, but there is a charm, a quality of its own, that makes them worth playing to people who decide to indulge. I won't pretend that they are for everyone, but I don't see why anyone should be offended by their existence.
So we come to the year 2013, where the JRPG is all but comatose. The western RPG has taken the spotlight, and the few good JRPG experiences that surface every year have shrugged off some of the major stylistic aspects of these games. Every new Final Fantasy is given the cold shoulder by most gamers. The climate is completely different from 1999, the platinum age of the JRPG. Through the PS2 era, the genre has lost all of its strength, and gamers want more in the style of Bioware's games, or the Elder Scrolls saga. They aren't wrong, and I enjoy those games as well. They are actually RPGs. But there is a shrinking group of us who still like waiting for that time bar to fill, so we can choose our attacks, and drop the beasts drawn from various mythologies, and collect our experience points. We will patiently wait for the next Final Fantasy with hopes that Square Enix will finally get it right, and cross our fingers for a Dream Team reunion, and the announcement of the next Chrono game. We will complain until Nintendo gives us more Earthbound, and play a SaGa game despite its obvious flaws. We won't give up hope that these games will thrive as they have in the past. After all, the success of the Western RPG is a trend just like any other, and with time, the JRPG will have a chance to thrive again.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Fifty Albums Continued...
This time with quicker descriptions, I guess. Sorry for the delay. And the laziness.
26. UFO -- Lights Out
Sharp metal with a collection of melodic rock tunes. Schenker at his finest? Maybe not. Still incredible.
27. Arcturus -- Aspera Heims Symfonia
My very first black metal album, and still one of my favorites. This is also where I learned of Kristoffer Rygg, who we'll be seeing more of a little further down the list.
28. King Crimson -- Red
Prototype heavy metal and prog rock bliss. A must, regardless of your tastes.
29. Kansas -- Point of Know Return
Got into this one late, given how my taste was slanting at this point. However, it's still a great record.
30. Parliament -- Mothership Connection
A love for classic funk kicked off with this Parliament album. Was thrilled when they played Handcuffs when I saw them in Myrtle Beach a few years ago.
31. Anathema -- Eternity
I'd been listening to doom metal for a bit when I heard this one, but Eternity has something special running in its veins. It's a beautiful album, but it's not for people who need sunshine in their music.
32. The Who -- The Who By Numbers
I consider this to be their magnum opus. Listen to Imagine a Man and see if you can find a comparable song from The Who.
33. Blackfield -- II
One of my favorite pop albums, Blackfield II is a melancholy dripping, Simon and Garfunkel - esque collection of songs from two amazing artists. End of the World is still one of my favorite songs, and Christenings is incredible.
34. Savatage -- Streets
A throwback to my love for concept albums, I got into Streets about a year after buying it. It's a shame that Savatage never reached this level again.
35. Frank Zappa -- Lather
This album is something of a cheat. Lather is three discs of pure Zappa, undiluted, completely out of the realm of sanity.
36. Death -- Human
Human finds Chuck Schuldiner moving away from the blood and gore of early Death completely, and features most of Cynic as his band. This makes for an incredible record.
37. Dragonland -- Astronomy
I hate to use the term, but Astronomy really is an epic work of power metal. Eschewing typical lyrics about dragons and other fantasy cliches, Astronomy looks into the self and writes songs about personal empowerment, and then dips into some neoclassical for the fantastic Beethoven's Nightmare.
38. David Bowie -- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
More pitch perfect pop steeped in darkness, Ziggy Stardust is an incredible album that most people still don't understand. The glam rock aesthetics neatly conceal the bitter state of mind that Bowie would be weaving his lyrics around for years to come.
39. Miles Davis -- Seven Steps to Heaven
Yes, Kind of Blue is really good, but this is my personal jazz heaven. I can't say too much about it other than "go listen to the title track!"
40. Todd Rundgren -- Something/Anything
Ambition doesn't usually rear its gorgeous skull into typical pop, but Todd Rundgren did something mostly unheard of with Something/Anything: he recorded a double album of pop songs almost completely by himself. It's a great little record too.
41. Ulver --Shadows of the Sun
And here comes Garm again with the masterful work called Shadows of the Sun. Just listen to it. You should have done so years ago.
42. Jeff Buckley -- Grace
Some people who are reading this might be surprised by the sheer volume of pop music that I've dropped in here, but once they listen, they start to understand. Grace is the sole studio work of a gifted singer/songwriter, who never truly got a chance to spread his wings. Grace stands as a testament to writing amazing music, and pairing it with well written music. Most singer/songwriters can't even get one of these things right.
43. Love -- Forever Changes
A prophetical album that spelled the end of the sixties while most people were immersed in the summer of love, Forever Changes was Love at their best, and at the time, that was saying quite a bit. A must have album.
44. Megadeth -- Rust in Peace
It's kind of typical that I'd choose Rust in Peace as how I represent thrash metal on this list, but really, it is so very great. Marty Friedman slays on this record, and Megadeth never had songwriting as strong as this again. Though I think that The System Has Failed comes pretty close.
45. Ansur -- Warring Factions
All I really need to say is Buckethead playing for the Black Metal version of Rush, and you should already be looking for a copy. Amazing.
46. Jethro Tull -- A Passion Play
While Ian Anderson may not have much nice to say about this record, I love it. It took me years to fall in love with it, but once it happened, I was playing the whole thing on repeat. Only the brave should try this one out.
47. Prince -- Controversy
If you thought Darling Nikki was an offensive song, then you've heard nothing. Controversy is brilliant.
48. Clint Mansell -- The Fountain OST
Post rock blended with the Kronos Quartet, forming a record of immense beauty. Watch the film, and you'll understand.
49. Sonata Arctica -- Silence
This is probably the worst album on this entire list, and I absolutely love it. Cheesy to the point of being painful, and a collection of terrible lyrics...but it's just so very fun.
50. Blue Oyster Cult -- Tyranny and Mvtation
I've been listening to Blue Oyster Cult for a while, but when Tyranny and Mvtation slipped into my collection, I couldn't get enough of it. Slick hard rock textures and some of the darkest lyrics you could find in American rock at the time, BOC released an impressive record that was, in my opinion, the peak of their Black and White period.
26. UFO -- Lights Out
Sharp metal with a collection of melodic rock tunes. Schenker at his finest? Maybe not. Still incredible.
27. Arcturus -- Aspera Heims Symfonia
My very first black metal album, and still one of my favorites. This is also where I learned of Kristoffer Rygg, who we'll be seeing more of a little further down the list.
28. King Crimson -- Red
Prototype heavy metal and prog rock bliss. A must, regardless of your tastes.
29. Kansas -- Point of Know Return
Got into this one late, given how my taste was slanting at this point. However, it's still a great record.
30. Parliament -- Mothership Connection
A love for classic funk kicked off with this Parliament album. Was thrilled when they played Handcuffs when I saw them in Myrtle Beach a few years ago.
31. Anathema -- Eternity
I'd been listening to doom metal for a bit when I heard this one, but Eternity has something special running in its veins. It's a beautiful album, but it's not for people who need sunshine in their music.
32. The Who -- The Who By Numbers
I consider this to be their magnum opus. Listen to Imagine a Man and see if you can find a comparable song from The Who.
33. Blackfield -- II
One of my favorite pop albums, Blackfield II is a melancholy dripping, Simon and Garfunkel - esque collection of songs from two amazing artists. End of the World is still one of my favorite songs, and Christenings is incredible.
34. Savatage -- Streets
A throwback to my love for concept albums, I got into Streets about a year after buying it. It's a shame that Savatage never reached this level again.
35. Frank Zappa -- Lather
This album is something of a cheat. Lather is three discs of pure Zappa, undiluted, completely out of the realm of sanity.
36. Death -- Human
Human finds Chuck Schuldiner moving away from the blood and gore of early Death completely, and features most of Cynic as his band. This makes for an incredible record.
37. Dragonland -- Astronomy
I hate to use the term, but Astronomy really is an epic work of power metal. Eschewing typical lyrics about dragons and other fantasy cliches, Astronomy looks into the self and writes songs about personal empowerment, and then dips into some neoclassical for the fantastic Beethoven's Nightmare.
38. David Bowie -- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
More pitch perfect pop steeped in darkness, Ziggy Stardust is an incredible album that most people still don't understand. The glam rock aesthetics neatly conceal the bitter state of mind that Bowie would be weaving his lyrics around for years to come.
39. Miles Davis -- Seven Steps to Heaven
Yes, Kind of Blue is really good, but this is my personal jazz heaven. I can't say too much about it other than "go listen to the title track!"
40. Todd Rundgren -- Something/Anything
Ambition doesn't usually rear its gorgeous skull into typical pop, but Todd Rundgren did something mostly unheard of with Something/Anything: he recorded a double album of pop songs almost completely by himself. It's a great little record too.
41. Ulver --Shadows of the Sun
And here comes Garm again with the masterful work called Shadows of the Sun. Just listen to it. You should have done so years ago.
42. Jeff Buckley -- Grace
Some people who are reading this might be surprised by the sheer volume of pop music that I've dropped in here, but once they listen, they start to understand. Grace is the sole studio work of a gifted singer/songwriter, who never truly got a chance to spread his wings. Grace stands as a testament to writing amazing music, and pairing it with well written music. Most singer/songwriters can't even get one of these things right.
43. Love -- Forever Changes
A prophetical album that spelled the end of the sixties while most people were immersed in the summer of love, Forever Changes was Love at their best, and at the time, that was saying quite a bit. A must have album.
44. Megadeth -- Rust in Peace
It's kind of typical that I'd choose Rust in Peace as how I represent thrash metal on this list, but really, it is so very great. Marty Friedman slays on this record, and Megadeth never had songwriting as strong as this again. Though I think that The System Has Failed comes pretty close.
45. Ansur -- Warring Factions
All I really need to say is Buckethead playing for the Black Metal version of Rush, and you should already be looking for a copy. Amazing.
46. Jethro Tull -- A Passion Play
While Ian Anderson may not have much nice to say about this record, I love it. It took me years to fall in love with it, but once it happened, I was playing the whole thing on repeat. Only the brave should try this one out.
47. Prince -- Controversy
If you thought Darling Nikki was an offensive song, then you've heard nothing. Controversy is brilliant.
48. Clint Mansell -- The Fountain OST
Post rock blended with the Kronos Quartet, forming a record of immense beauty. Watch the film, and you'll understand.
49. Sonata Arctica -- Silence
This is probably the worst album on this entire list, and I absolutely love it. Cheesy to the point of being painful, and a collection of terrible lyrics...but it's just so very fun.
50. Blue Oyster Cult -- Tyranny and Mvtation
I've been listening to Blue Oyster Cult for a while, but when Tyranny and Mvtation slipped into my collection, I couldn't get enough of it. Slick hard rock textures and some of the darkest lyrics you could find in American rock at the time, BOC released an impressive record that was, in my opinion, the peak of their Black and White period.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Fifty Albums the Created my Musical Interests (Part 1)
Alright, here it is. It's not in order of personal importance, but rather when it came to me as a listener. It's not completely accurate, as I've listened to a lot of music in my time. It's not as varied as it would be for some people, but it's what I like, and when I came to it. I don't really care to explain much more. Here we go.
1. Garth Brooks -- In Pieces
Let's start with something from youth, shall we? Long before I was a nutty prog snob, I listened to then-contemporary country music. Hey, I was a kid, and only knew of country, rock, rap, and classical.. There wasn't a lot of gray area like there is now. This is one that I can still come back to though, even today. Some may know Bela Fleck as the brilliant lead of the Flecktones, but I recall his performance on Callin' Baton Rouge before any other. While this isn't exactly "great country music" like most people consider Johnny Cash, I still get a kick out it.
2. John Williams -- The Empire Strikes Back OST
Music seemed more important than it ever had before around the tenth time I saw the second part of the classic sci-fi series that is Star Wars. I was in elementary school, and the music from Bespin would ring through my head. I didn't actually get a copy of the soundtrack until I'd graduated from college, but it's still part of my history. If you haven't heard music from this flick, then go watch the movie.
3. Billy Joel -- Songs in the Attic
This was the first time I saw the importance of a live album. A collection of not-exactly-hits from a pop rock star who was officially coming down from his wave of decent to great albums, Songs in the Attic introduced me to such songs as Miami 2017 and I've Loved these Days. After this, the best we'd get from Billy Joel was The Nylon Curtain, which was an amazing album in its own right, and is deeply unappreciated amongst his typical fans, as far as I can tell. Great record though, even now.
4. Rush -- A Farewell to Kings
Rush was the beginning of everything. Seriously. I wouldn't have the colossal CD collection I have without Rush getting everything started. While songs from Moving Pictures got me started, and 2112 did everything I'd ever sought for music to do, A Farewell to Kings is my favorite Rush album. Xanadu, the title track, and the closer, Cygnus X-1 represent a huge part of where I've grown as a listener. To me, Rush is still the most important band that has ever graced my ears. They have given me so much, including an introduction to...
5. Dream Theater -- Images and Words
...this positively amazing collection of progressive metal classics from the early nineties. A friend of mine from high school brought me the guitar tab for the song Surrounded, which lead me to listen to the song, and immediately fall for the band. It was at this point that I pretty much gave up all of the other music I'd tried to get into in years previous. The post-grunge pop rock thing from the late nineties was dead to me. Country? Dry, boring. Pop? Plastic and empty. I shut the radio off from here forward. All I needed was progressive music.
6. Ayreon -- The Human Equation
Ayreon came from the post Dream Theater hunt for prog rock that the internet started. The Human Equation wasn't my first time out with Arjen Lucassen, but it is still the most memorable. An amazing lineup of vocalists, and a pretty solid story made for an awesome rock opera.
7. Yes -- Close to the Edge
Fragile is an amazing album. This is something different. Something almost alien. Three tracks, nothing under ten minutes, and every second of it is full of dense melodies. The title track is pitch perfect symphonic prog, but Siberia Khatru has a slick synth lead that is amongst Rick Wakeman's best work with Yes, and great vocal melodies. Such a special album.
8. Steve Vai -- Alien Love Secrets
Passion and Warfare is among the most important instrumental albums ever recorded. Alien Love Secrets is its psychotic and beautiful baby. Seven songs, each showing a different facet of Vai's musical voice. Tender Surrender is among my favorite songs to play on the guitar...in whatever capacity that I can actually toy around with.
9. Yoko Kanno -- Cowboy Bebop OST 1: TANK
Anime poked its oft ugly head into my life late in high school. The best of these, still, is Cowboy Bebop, which borrowed from film noir, science fiction, and spaghetti westerns to create a fairly sweet depiction of the near future. The music of the show borrowed from a little bit of everything, but kept a focus on jazz and blues for the majority of the score. Without the music, the show wouldn't have been as memorable. The first of three soundtracks, TANK offered the purest of the jazz tracks and the slickest blues numbers. TANK, the opening theme of the show, has some particularly amazing saxophone solos, and Space Lion could have been in the soundtrack to Blade Runner. And that's only scratching the surface.
10. Spiral Architect -- A Sceptic's Universe
The same guy who introduced me to Dream Theater took me out to his car to hear a song called Insect. Well, well played, once again, Mr. Johnson, because A Sceptic's Universe is still the best techincal metal album ever recorded as far as I'm concerned. The riffs on this record are unbelievable. Sean Malone from Cynic/Gordian Knot even appears to keep things classy. If you play guitar, or bass, or just dig music that is a bit challenging, check this one out.
11. The Tangent -- The Music that Died Alone
As you can tell, I dig my prog rock. The Music that Died Alone went beyond. A tribute to the Canterbury sound, a requiem for the genre, and one of the best progressive rock albums I've ever heard. If you don't like the title track, you have no remorse for the sad state of the genre.
12. Queensryche -- Operation: Mindcrime
As a fan of the rock opera and the concept album, Operation Mindcrime was something I had to hear as soon as I got into progressive rock. The statements the album makes are relevant today, and the record is still solid. It's a product of the 80's though, so the sound is directly reminiscent of the time. Queensryche has fallen so very far in the years since this one, but people will remember this one regardless. Suite Sister Mary is among the best on the album. It's not for the easily offended though.
13. Iron Maiden -- Live After Death
Yeah, this is a bit of a cop out. Live After Death is in fact one of the greatest live albums ever recorded, but to just chose this one over the albums they'd recorded in the early eighties. I found some of my early favorites from Maiden through this record. Maiden would go on to do some amazing stuff from here, but the early eighties are considered their finest by so many for a reason.
14. Pink Floyd -- The Final Cut
Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, even Animals; all brilliant. The Final Cut does the Waters fronted Floyd sound spectacularly, but it's not really a Pink Floyd album. It's the first Roger Waters solo album, but better than any Waters solo album. The very simple narrative concept on The Final Cut allows for some very solemn songs, and a very human tone following the cold and emotionally wrenching story on The Wall. The Final Cut is the result of those severed ties from The Wall, and in their wake, a simple statement that almost seemed out of place in that age of Floyd, a band whose members hated each other so much that lawsuits and decades of arguing prevented them from even sharing the stage again...
We were all equal, in the end...
15. Strapping Young Lad -- Alien
And following the solemn beauty of The Final Cut comes the nastiest, heaviest, brutally oppressive metal album that I've ever heard in my life. Devin Townsend rolls out what should have been the last SYL album with sheer chaos. There are no song structures to follow, aside from in the sole single Love, and it's probably the weakest tune on the album. Skeksis could shake mountains, and We Ride has energy unequaled by any other speed metal song in existence.
16. Fates Warning -- Awaken the Guardian
Power metal started to reenter my life through Awaken the Guardian. Fates Warning were still trying to have their own sound after borrowing liberally from Iron Maiden on their first two albums. Prelude to Ruin is a special achievement for progressive metals foundation, and the song Guardian is one of my favorite ballads in the history of metal.
17. Godspeed You Black Emperor -- F#A#(infinity)
Post rock seemed like an obvious result of enjoying progressive rock. F#A#(Infinity) holds the song Dead Flag Blues, which opens with one of the most gorgeously ominous monologues ever spoken on an album. I still need to hear their new record...
18. Opeth -- Morningrise
Death metal came slowly to me. The Human Equation started an interest in the genre, due to the performance of Mikael Akerfeldt. Morningrise is their finest. The Night and the Silent Water is one of the most memorable songs for most, but I'm still partial to Black Rose Immortal. The closing track, To Bid You Farewell, is a sign of things to come from this still impressive band. Heritage is awesome, by the way.
19. Van Halen -- Women and Children First
You'd think that I would have heard this one sooner. Well, yeah I'd heard the singles from Women and Children First, but it was actually spinning the complete album that reminded me how great Van Halen could be. Their self titled record is a classic album, but for me, this is the peak of the band. Could This be Magic? and Loss of Control are essential Van Halen tracks.
20. Nevermore -- Dead Heart in a Dead World
I was pretty stubborn to not get into Nevermore, but I'll tell ya, this album was the fast track to getting into the band. Thrash metal ready licks and some of the best vocals in rock music are laid out perfectly on this record. A cover of Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence fills in some space nicely, but its tracks like The Heart Collector and Narcosynthesis that remind me of why metal can be so very amazing.
21. Pain of Salvation -- The Perfect Element Part 1
Now were getting into some "greatest music ever" territory. Pain of Salvation shifts gears a bit with their sound, introducing some rap vocals, and they actually find their own tonal sensibilities for the first time. I love the first two albums, but they nailed it here. The story in the lyrics is touching, heartbreaking even. I'm not going to point out particular songs. Listen to the whole album. All of it. Five times. You'll never regret it...
22. Porcupine Tree -- Stupid Dream
Stupid Dream is far from the best Porcupine Tree album, but it is my personal favorite. It's poppy, melancholic, and steals a bit from Pink Floyd and Radiohead, but without the war focused lyrics of Floyd or the painfully awful voice of Thom Yorke. It's a shame that they don't play much from this record live, because songs like Baby Dream in Cellophane and Piano Lessons are a big part of the reason I dig Porcupine Tree. Steven Wilson seems to be focusing on his solo career right now, so we won't be hearing much from PT for a while...but that's okay.
23. Helloween -- Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1
A power metal classic for a reason. Keeper was a breakout for Helloween, and its the home of so many great songs that its surprising that they could follow up with an equally impressive Keeper 2. While Helloween doesn't have the same stellar sound and songwriting that they had on the Keeper albums, they still tend to impress from time to time. It's just a shame we'll never get songs as catchy as Future World or I'm Alive.
24. Dire Straits -- Love Over Gold
Yeah, there are some really overplayed tunes from Dire Straits. I promise you that they aren't on this album. Opening with the gorgeous Telegraph Road, and rolling into the cynical Industrial Disease, Dire Straits were at the top of their game here. And then they let all of that go to waste after Brothers in Arms, which was a decent record too.
25. Rainbow -- Rising
I'm not going to justify this with an explanation. If you like heavy metal, then you owe Rising every ounce of your attention. This is Dio at his best. Deep Purple didn't get riffs this good from Ritchie Blackmore. Stargazer is one of the best songs ever recorded. The rest of the album? Yeah, it's great too. Listen to this one now.
Okay, I'll have to do the next half tomorrow or something. I've been writing for two hours. It's not been all that detailed or anything, but meh. Get out there and listen to whatever you haven't heard from this list.
The next half gets a bit more interesting. I promise.
1. Garth Brooks -- In Pieces
Let's start with something from youth, shall we? Long before I was a nutty prog snob, I listened to then-contemporary country music. Hey, I was a kid, and only knew of country, rock, rap, and classical.. There wasn't a lot of gray area like there is now. This is one that I can still come back to though, even today. Some may know Bela Fleck as the brilliant lead of the Flecktones, but I recall his performance on Callin' Baton Rouge before any other. While this isn't exactly "great country music" like most people consider Johnny Cash, I still get a kick out it.
2. John Williams -- The Empire Strikes Back OST
Music seemed more important than it ever had before around the tenth time I saw the second part of the classic sci-fi series that is Star Wars. I was in elementary school, and the music from Bespin would ring through my head. I didn't actually get a copy of the soundtrack until I'd graduated from college, but it's still part of my history. If you haven't heard music from this flick, then go watch the movie.
3. Billy Joel -- Songs in the Attic
This was the first time I saw the importance of a live album. A collection of not-exactly-hits from a pop rock star who was officially coming down from his wave of decent to great albums, Songs in the Attic introduced me to such songs as Miami 2017 and I've Loved these Days. After this, the best we'd get from Billy Joel was The Nylon Curtain, which was an amazing album in its own right, and is deeply unappreciated amongst his typical fans, as far as I can tell. Great record though, even now.
4. Rush -- A Farewell to Kings
Rush was the beginning of everything. Seriously. I wouldn't have the colossal CD collection I have without Rush getting everything started. While songs from Moving Pictures got me started, and 2112 did everything I'd ever sought for music to do, A Farewell to Kings is my favorite Rush album. Xanadu, the title track, and the closer, Cygnus X-1 represent a huge part of where I've grown as a listener. To me, Rush is still the most important band that has ever graced my ears. They have given me so much, including an introduction to...
5. Dream Theater -- Images and Words
...this positively amazing collection of progressive metal classics from the early nineties. A friend of mine from high school brought me the guitar tab for the song Surrounded, which lead me to listen to the song, and immediately fall for the band. It was at this point that I pretty much gave up all of the other music I'd tried to get into in years previous. The post-grunge pop rock thing from the late nineties was dead to me. Country? Dry, boring. Pop? Plastic and empty. I shut the radio off from here forward. All I needed was progressive music.
6. Ayreon -- The Human Equation
Ayreon came from the post Dream Theater hunt for prog rock that the internet started. The Human Equation wasn't my first time out with Arjen Lucassen, but it is still the most memorable. An amazing lineup of vocalists, and a pretty solid story made for an awesome rock opera.
7. Yes -- Close to the Edge
Fragile is an amazing album. This is something different. Something almost alien. Three tracks, nothing under ten minutes, and every second of it is full of dense melodies. The title track is pitch perfect symphonic prog, but Siberia Khatru has a slick synth lead that is amongst Rick Wakeman's best work with Yes, and great vocal melodies. Such a special album.
8. Steve Vai -- Alien Love Secrets
Passion and Warfare is among the most important instrumental albums ever recorded. Alien Love Secrets is its psychotic and beautiful baby. Seven songs, each showing a different facet of Vai's musical voice. Tender Surrender is among my favorite songs to play on the guitar...in whatever capacity that I can actually toy around with.
9. Yoko Kanno -- Cowboy Bebop OST 1: TANK
Anime poked its oft ugly head into my life late in high school. The best of these, still, is Cowboy Bebop, which borrowed from film noir, science fiction, and spaghetti westerns to create a fairly sweet depiction of the near future. The music of the show borrowed from a little bit of everything, but kept a focus on jazz and blues for the majority of the score. Without the music, the show wouldn't have been as memorable. The first of three soundtracks, TANK offered the purest of the jazz tracks and the slickest blues numbers. TANK, the opening theme of the show, has some particularly amazing saxophone solos, and Space Lion could have been in the soundtrack to Blade Runner. And that's only scratching the surface.
10. Spiral Architect -- A Sceptic's Universe
The same guy who introduced me to Dream Theater took me out to his car to hear a song called Insect. Well, well played, once again, Mr. Johnson, because A Sceptic's Universe is still the best techincal metal album ever recorded as far as I'm concerned. The riffs on this record are unbelievable. Sean Malone from Cynic/Gordian Knot even appears to keep things classy. If you play guitar, or bass, or just dig music that is a bit challenging, check this one out.
11. The Tangent -- The Music that Died Alone
As you can tell, I dig my prog rock. The Music that Died Alone went beyond. A tribute to the Canterbury sound, a requiem for the genre, and one of the best progressive rock albums I've ever heard. If you don't like the title track, you have no remorse for the sad state of the genre.
12. Queensryche -- Operation: Mindcrime
As a fan of the rock opera and the concept album, Operation Mindcrime was something I had to hear as soon as I got into progressive rock. The statements the album makes are relevant today, and the record is still solid. It's a product of the 80's though, so the sound is directly reminiscent of the time. Queensryche has fallen so very far in the years since this one, but people will remember this one regardless. Suite Sister Mary is among the best on the album. It's not for the easily offended though.
13. Iron Maiden -- Live After Death
Yeah, this is a bit of a cop out. Live After Death is in fact one of the greatest live albums ever recorded, but to just chose this one over the albums they'd recorded in the early eighties. I found some of my early favorites from Maiden through this record. Maiden would go on to do some amazing stuff from here, but the early eighties are considered their finest by so many for a reason.
14. Pink Floyd -- The Final Cut
Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, even Animals; all brilliant. The Final Cut does the Waters fronted Floyd sound spectacularly, but it's not really a Pink Floyd album. It's the first Roger Waters solo album, but better than any Waters solo album. The very simple narrative concept on The Final Cut allows for some very solemn songs, and a very human tone following the cold and emotionally wrenching story on The Wall. The Final Cut is the result of those severed ties from The Wall, and in their wake, a simple statement that almost seemed out of place in that age of Floyd, a band whose members hated each other so much that lawsuits and decades of arguing prevented them from even sharing the stage again...
We were all equal, in the end...
15. Strapping Young Lad -- Alien
And following the solemn beauty of The Final Cut comes the nastiest, heaviest, brutally oppressive metal album that I've ever heard in my life. Devin Townsend rolls out what should have been the last SYL album with sheer chaos. There are no song structures to follow, aside from in the sole single Love, and it's probably the weakest tune on the album. Skeksis could shake mountains, and We Ride has energy unequaled by any other speed metal song in existence.
16. Fates Warning -- Awaken the Guardian
Power metal started to reenter my life through Awaken the Guardian. Fates Warning were still trying to have their own sound after borrowing liberally from Iron Maiden on their first two albums. Prelude to Ruin is a special achievement for progressive metals foundation, and the song Guardian is one of my favorite ballads in the history of metal.
17. Godspeed You Black Emperor -- F#A#(infinity)
Post rock seemed like an obvious result of enjoying progressive rock. F#A#(Infinity) holds the song Dead Flag Blues, which opens with one of the most gorgeously ominous monologues ever spoken on an album. I still need to hear their new record...
18. Opeth -- Morningrise
Death metal came slowly to me. The Human Equation started an interest in the genre, due to the performance of Mikael Akerfeldt. Morningrise is their finest. The Night and the Silent Water is one of the most memorable songs for most, but I'm still partial to Black Rose Immortal. The closing track, To Bid You Farewell, is a sign of things to come from this still impressive band. Heritage is awesome, by the way.
19. Van Halen -- Women and Children First
You'd think that I would have heard this one sooner. Well, yeah I'd heard the singles from Women and Children First, but it was actually spinning the complete album that reminded me how great Van Halen could be. Their self titled record is a classic album, but for me, this is the peak of the band. Could This be Magic? and Loss of Control are essential Van Halen tracks.
20. Nevermore -- Dead Heart in a Dead World
I was pretty stubborn to not get into Nevermore, but I'll tell ya, this album was the fast track to getting into the band. Thrash metal ready licks and some of the best vocals in rock music are laid out perfectly on this record. A cover of Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence fills in some space nicely, but its tracks like The Heart Collector and Narcosynthesis that remind me of why metal can be so very amazing.
21. Pain of Salvation -- The Perfect Element Part 1
Now were getting into some "greatest music ever" territory. Pain of Salvation shifts gears a bit with their sound, introducing some rap vocals, and they actually find their own tonal sensibilities for the first time. I love the first two albums, but they nailed it here. The story in the lyrics is touching, heartbreaking even. I'm not going to point out particular songs. Listen to the whole album. All of it. Five times. You'll never regret it...
22. Porcupine Tree -- Stupid Dream
Stupid Dream is far from the best Porcupine Tree album, but it is my personal favorite. It's poppy, melancholic, and steals a bit from Pink Floyd and Radiohead, but without the war focused lyrics of Floyd or the painfully awful voice of Thom Yorke. It's a shame that they don't play much from this record live, because songs like Baby Dream in Cellophane and Piano Lessons are a big part of the reason I dig Porcupine Tree. Steven Wilson seems to be focusing on his solo career right now, so we won't be hearing much from PT for a while...but that's okay.
23. Helloween -- Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1
A power metal classic for a reason. Keeper was a breakout for Helloween, and its the home of so many great songs that its surprising that they could follow up with an equally impressive Keeper 2. While Helloween doesn't have the same stellar sound and songwriting that they had on the Keeper albums, they still tend to impress from time to time. It's just a shame we'll never get songs as catchy as Future World or I'm Alive.
24. Dire Straits -- Love Over Gold
Yeah, there are some really overplayed tunes from Dire Straits. I promise you that they aren't on this album. Opening with the gorgeous Telegraph Road, and rolling into the cynical Industrial Disease, Dire Straits were at the top of their game here. And then they let all of that go to waste after Brothers in Arms, which was a decent record too.
25. Rainbow -- Rising
I'm not going to justify this with an explanation. If you like heavy metal, then you owe Rising every ounce of your attention. This is Dio at his best. Deep Purple didn't get riffs this good from Ritchie Blackmore. Stargazer is one of the best songs ever recorded. The rest of the album? Yeah, it's great too. Listen to this one now.
Okay, I'll have to do the next half tomorrow or something. I've been writing for two hours. It's not been all that detailed or anything, but meh. Get out there and listen to whatever you haven't heard from this list.
The next half gets a bit more interesting. I promise.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Alternative Scribblings
It's been a while, hasn't it? Yeah, I know. I've spent the past two months or so being more-or-less unproductive. I have been editing novels, and playing far too many video games. Should I tell you about the gaming thing? I figure I'll get around to that at some point. How about some ramblings about The Alternative stuff instead.
I've been working on getting a pitch together, and that's not really going so well. I know what I want to tell people about in regards to the work of fiction that I've been beating up for the past four years, but there isn't really an elegant way to say "giant cast gets swept into interstellar war when what they really want is to steal things, drink coffee, and enjoy each others company" and I know that doesn't sound exciting.
So between editing and screaming at the pitch, I've been getting the ball rolling on the next couple of books. Alt. 2: Road to the West is pretty much planned. It's ready to go into the first draft as soon as I find the heart to jump into that fire again. I'm thinking that April is the time for such chaos, and I've been doing some warm up pre-writing to get ready for it. I think that if I have a rough version of the first two or three chapters, I can start out by rewriting all of that nonsense and get into the stuff I've been wanting to write for years. Seriously. I have been longing to write this book for years, and I know almost every beat of the story, and I'm ready to get Celes onto the page.
Yes, I realize that I made it sound like I'm doing more than I just said. Well, I am. I've been working on getting Book III: The Bookening into shape. I've got a few things in mind, probably inspired by the fact that the last two sci-fi novels I've read have been detective story type ordeals. I have a cast coming together. The problem I seem to be having comes from the fact that I'm spoiling the spoiler spoiler with the spoilering spoiled spoiler! I need someone to shout this plot to that could help me out. It's a giant mess, and I don't know how to fix it.
Another thing that keeps weighing on my mind is the fact that Crusader is still unpublished, and sitting on my coffee table weeping. It's teetering on the edge of third draft, and I don't know how I feel about it right now. I want to like it, because of the things that I tried while writing it, but on the other hand, I completely detest the mess that I made. I don't have an objective enough reader on hand to determine whether its the train wreck I see, or the quality work of fantasy that Jo does.
Oh, and I'm considering a Kickstarter for it.
Yeah, I know everyone is doing that kind of thing these days, but it would help pay for a couple of passes by a professional editor, and I could then e-pub the bloody thing and maybe use it as a method to look better in the view of agents and publishers. Or worse. After all, how many idiots self-publish mediocre novels these days.
But then again, there are enough books in that miserable supernatural romance section at Barnes and Nobel.
What was the purpose of this post again? To remember how much of a failure that I feel like as a writer? Maybe. Perhaps it was to get me typing before I look into my notes for Alternative and consider what I'm going to do next. It's my hope to publish the ten stories I think it will take to tell the story of The Alternative before I die. Here's hoping I get the chance.
I've been working on getting a pitch together, and that's not really going so well. I know what I want to tell people about in regards to the work of fiction that I've been beating up for the past four years, but there isn't really an elegant way to say "giant cast gets swept into interstellar war when what they really want is to steal things, drink coffee, and enjoy each others company" and I know that doesn't sound exciting.
So between editing and screaming at the pitch, I've been getting the ball rolling on the next couple of books. Alt. 2: Road to the West is pretty much planned. It's ready to go into the first draft as soon as I find the heart to jump into that fire again. I'm thinking that April is the time for such chaos, and I've been doing some warm up pre-writing to get ready for it. I think that if I have a rough version of the first two or three chapters, I can start out by rewriting all of that nonsense and get into the stuff I've been wanting to write for years. Seriously. I have been longing to write this book for years, and I know almost every beat of the story, and I'm ready to get Celes onto the page.
Yes, I realize that I made it sound like I'm doing more than I just said. Well, I am. I've been working on getting Book III: The Bookening into shape. I've got a few things in mind, probably inspired by the fact that the last two sci-fi novels I've read have been detective story type ordeals. I have a cast coming together. The problem I seem to be having comes from the fact that I'm spoiling the spoiler spoiler with the spoilering spoiled spoiler! I need someone to shout this plot to that could help me out. It's a giant mess, and I don't know how to fix it.
Another thing that keeps weighing on my mind is the fact that Crusader is still unpublished, and sitting on my coffee table weeping. It's teetering on the edge of third draft, and I don't know how I feel about it right now. I want to like it, because of the things that I tried while writing it, but on the other hand, I completely detest the mess that I made. I don't have an objective enough reader on hand to determine whether its the train wreck I see, or the quality work of fantasy that Jo does.
Oh, and I'm considering a Kickstarter for it.
Yeah, I know everyone is doing that kind of thing these days, but it would help pay for a couple of passes by a professional editor, and I could then e-pub the bloody thing and maybe use it as a method to look better in the view of agents and publishers. Or worse. After all, how many idiots self-publish mediocre novels these days.
But then again, there are enough books in that miserable supernatural romance section at Barnes and Nobel.
What was the purpose of this post again? To remember how much of a failure that I feel like as a writer? Maybe. Perhaps it was to get me typing before I look into my notes for Alternative and consider what I'm going to do next. It's my hope to publish the ten stories I think it will take to tell the story of The Alternative before I die. Here's hoping I get the chance.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The Worst of Tasks--Editing
Yesterday I started editing Anarchy Veiled. I want to finish a second draft by February 13th. This means that I will probably start to hate everything about this book by about...oh...the end of this week..
The problem lies in the fact that I'm an awful editor. I've never finished getting a story through multiple drafts, nor even finishing a second one. Even my first novel hasn't really taken off into "second draft" territory. I don't know what is good or bad in my writing. When I read what I write, I hate it. I literally can not stand to read what I write. I can't get over the fact that what I write isn't as good as what I read in other people's work. Between the fact that my style is a mess, my grammar is twisted, and my word choices are, at times, awful. Wait, why did I start writing this again?
Oh, to complain about this editing thing.
Anyway, I have to get it done. I need to get to a fourth or fifth draft, and get the opening chapters into beautiful form so that I can start hunting for an agent again. Yes, despite the fact that I feel like my writing is the literary equivalent of a forty-car-pileup, some people tell me that I'm a pretty good writer. Some of these people are being sincere. The others might just be lying. Who cares. I like the stories that I am telling, whether or not I think that the work I've done is miserable. I still want someone to read it. And make money off of it. Yes. Money is an issue. I could write a lot more books if people were paying me money for what I write. And I could quit working in the Pit-O-Retail.
So I'm editing both of my books. Anarchy Veiled is taking priority over that catastrophe of a book I wrote in 2011. I'm in a peculiar spot with AV though, in that I am not finding a whole lot of errors. This might change as I continue with the mark-up of the book, but for now, it's a fairly clean draft. Or I'm blind. Or stupid. Something. Hmmm.
I'm currently about 25 pages into the mark-up, and working a mid-shift today didn't exactly give me a lot of time to scribble in my printed copy of the book. I'm going to get to it after I finish rambling onto this blog thing, which is proving to be an amazing way to procrastinate on the one part of writing which I still can't seem to get a handle on.
I'll ask one question:
How do you know if you've got a good draft on your hands? Really. I need to know this.
Maybe I should read some Kevin J. Anderson Star Wars novels, so I can see that there are (likely) worse sci-fi writers than myself.
Until I find something else to complain about, farewell.
The problem lies in the fact that I'm an awful editor. I've never finished getting a story through multiple drafts, nor even finishing a second one. Even my first novel hasn't really taken off into "second draft" territory. I don't know what is good or bad in my writing. When I read what I write, I hate it. I literally can not stand to read what I write. I can't get over the fact that what I write isn't as good as what I read in other people's work. Between the fact that my style is a mess, my grammar is twisted, and my word choices are, at times, awful. Wait, why did I start writing this again?
Oh, to complain about this editing thing.
Anyway, I have to get it done. I need to get to a fourth or fifth draft, and get the opening chapters into beautiful form so that I can start hunting for an agent again. Yes, despite the fact that I feel like my writing is the literary equivalent of a forty-car-pileup, some people tell me that I'm a pretty good writer. Some of these people are being sincere. The others might just be lying. Who cares. I like the stories that I am telling, whether or not I think that the work I've done is miserable. I still want someone to read it. And make money off of it. Yes. Money is an issue. I could write a lot more books if people were paying me money for what I write. And I could quit working in the Pit-O-Retail.
So I'm editing both of my books. Anarchy Veiled is taking priority over that catastrophe of a book I wrote in 2011. I'm in a peculiar spot with AV though, in that I am not finding a whole lot of errors. This might change as I continue with the mark-up of the book, but for now, it's a fairly clean draft. Or I'm blind. Or stupid. Something. Hmmm.
I'm currently about 25 pages into the mark-up, and working a mid-shift today didn't exactly give me a lot of time to scribble in my printed copy of the book. I'm going to get to it after I finish rambling onto this blog thing, which is proving to be an amazing way to procrastinate on the one part of writing which I still can't seem to get a handle on.
I'll ask one question:
How do you know if you've got a good draft on your hands? Really. I need to know this.
Maybe I should read some Kevin J. Anderson Star Wars novels, so I can see that there are (likely) worse sci-fi writers than myself.
Until I find something else to complain about, farewell.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
2013
Bah, apocalypses. They never seem to pan out, do they? Well, I guess since the world is still turning, and the whole Christmas trip is now passed, it's time to look at 2013, and figure out what I get done. This is more of a list of things that I want to accomplish. I get to look at this at the end of 2013 and see what little I actually finished from it. Let's get to it.
1. Edit Anarchy Veiled.
2. Write a script treatment for Memphistopheles (awful title, cool idea). Write script.
3. Launch the Z-Trigger website, and maintain a workflow of at least two videos per month.
4. Edit Crusader for self-publishing, while designing a cash-free method of marketing.
5. Write drafts of Road to the West (alt. book 2) and the new idea, currently titled 24 Exposures.
6. Outline, and hopefully write, the draft of book three of Alternative.
7. Put together material and possibly a script or two of the TV series I've been concocting.
8. Actually write a short story!
9. Find an agent, escape from retail.
10. Write and possibly shoot a short film. Nothing more than ten minutes long. I have ideas, but no equipment.
This list is shorter than I thought it would be...
Alright, 2013, let's see what happens.
And the first thing I'll have to do is learn to edit.
1. Edit Anarchy Veiled.
2. Write a script treatment for Memphistopheles (awful title, cool idea). Write script.
3. Launch the Z-Trigger website, and maintain a workflow of at least two videos per month.
4. Edit Crusader for self-publishing, while designing a cash-free method of marketing.
5. Write drafts of Road to the West (alt. book 2) and the new idea, currently titled 24 Exposures.
6. Outline, and hopefully write, the draft of book three of Alternative.
7. Put together material and possibly a script or two of the TV series I've been concocting.
8. Actually write a short story!
9. Find an agent, escape from retail.
10. Write and possibly shoot a short film. Nothing more than ten minutes long. I have ideas, but no equipment.
This list is shorter than I thought it would be...
Alright, 2013, let's see what happens.
And the first thing I'll have to do is learn to edit.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
A Word about The Alternative
July 8th, 2008. That's when The Alternative was born. It was after one in the morning. I was stretched out on my bed at my parents house, flipping through channels, occasionally muting to look up full episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures on YouTube.
I was troubled. I was over half-way through my college career, and I couldn't get my mind off of how irritated I was with everything that was going on around me. The writing program was driving me mad, pushing the constraints of "literature" on me, and I was getting nowhere with the film program. I wasn't in school for me. I didn't know why I was there.
That night, I recalled the many attempts I'd made to write sci-fi, crafting worlds, manipulating our own, just doing something to tell a story that wasn't entirely grounded in reality. It'd been several years since I'd last bothered with attempting something in that vein. I'd written about seventy pages of nonsense for a story when I was in high school, over 100 handwritten notebook pages of things that we won't discuss here before that, and dabbled in and out and around these visuals and ideas ever since they'd failed.
It wouldn't hurt to try again, just to do something!
This was when I started to write a story called The Alternative. I wrote about ten pages at first, just rambling through a raging action sequence without direction just because I wanted to. I still have that bit, and the few pages I wrote afterwards. They're terrible. Every line. It was fun! That night, I continued with notes. I'd never written notes for a piece of fiction before. I'd always just gone from a single idea, crafting whatever it was that I was doing along the way. Not a great method, but it had done the trick before.
Those notes are still on my current hard drive, on my back up thumb drive, the netbook in my closet, and the desktop wired into my video game rig around my TV. That document contains some very basic notes about the galaxy I was writing in, some of the worlds, future antagonists, my trio of lead characters, their pasts, and even that lovely spacecraft that I wanted to carry my cast around the galaxy in. Those details are all still incomplete, mind you, and I really need to get to work on a series bible, especially in light of the thing that everyone reading this probably already knows, and will have to deal with reading about again in the later paragraphs of this blog.
Next came a couple of attempts at short fiction, as character origin stories to precede the novel. This turned into a lazy piece of flash fiction, and an ambitious (for me) short story, which I workshopped in my literature-only advanced fiction class in college. Yes, I'm not all that kind to such things as I had forced on me at UNCW. Let's leave that alone, though. Clyde Edgerton, the professor of said class, told me that the story wasn't big enough for everything I was trying to include, that it would make a great novel.
I'm not sure that he had this in mind.
Not long after, I had expanded the concept into a series. This developed into an attempt to write comics, and then back to prose. I found the vision of three origin tales, one for each character, then bringing the cast together over the course of a pair of novels that would send them into combat against a strong intergalactic threat. There were political themes I wanted to tackle, and I wove them into the notes. Let me tell you, if this set of notes were a basket, none of them would be finished, and the whole bloody thing would be rather hard to carry, much less be a proper place to drop your fruit. Wow, I can't tell if that sentence makes sense. I need sleep. ComicCon today, ya see? I'll have to tell you about that later.
After the comic writing plans fell through, due to various things, I knew that I wasn't going to sell a high concept comic book series with pitiful scripting skills as I posses. I returned to prose in late 2011, finally starting down the path to writing the first novel of The Alternative. I had a few new ideas on how to approach the story, and used the completed first story arc from the comic scripts to assist in my efforts. I thought I'd be okay to get rolling in a positive direction, targeting something between sixty and seventy thousand words.
And then I hit my early snags at about eleven thousand words into the story. It was mid-October, and I had other ideas in mind. To distract myself, I decided to give NaNoWriMo a second shot. My first attempt crashed and burned at just over ten thousand words with a pitiful novel attempt in the pipe. I finished the first draft of Crusader on December 3, 2011, reaching the goal for NaNo in time, and wrapping up the short book afterwards. Then I moved to Louisiana, and struggled to find a way to edit the piece. I still haven't finished editing that short piece, but I haven't really given up on it. It's not a great story, and I'm not that confident that I will ever be able to publish it. However, a New York literary agency has had it in their possession to read, so I do know how to pitch it. Well...someday, maybe.
Back to Alt.
I made several attempts to write more short fiction this year, and I only completed one piece of flash fiction. The other unfinished shorts are still in my active queue. I'm really not good at writing short fiction. The Alternative manuscript kept popping up in the word processor, and I wasn't getting a lot done. I set deadlines, and failed to meet them. I was fairly realistic as well, which is why it's pretty sad that I couldn't ever get on track. I can't say that some exterior force played a hand. Sure, I hate my job, and it drained me of my will to function many times, but that should have been even more of a motivator to get this thing written. However, it never really came to pass.
November 1st, over eight thousand words.
To some, this isn't impressive. For me, it was the most I'd ever composed in a single day. I had a lot of dry stretches throughout the month, but I kept pushing forward, grabbing up two days where I wrote over ten thousand words of new content. The novel was completed on November 25th, a day I spent between two different coffee shops, mind and stomach warped by fine espresso. I had a finished manuscript, bearing 90k words. Yes, it was less than my goal, but over the month, I'd figured that I didn't have enough content for the other 15k. I may prove that to be wrong over the editing cycle.
Four years, and six months have passed since I started my journey with The Alternative. I've yet to give up on the crazy thing, despite the challenges that will come with writing a story as big as I think I've conceived. It's no George R.R. Martin creation, and I will say that I'm happy about that. I've started down the path now, and I can't wait to keep going. It's been bizarre and enlightening. Some people seem to be genuinely interested in the mess that I'm making with my laptop these days, and I hope that never ceases.
The strange journey continues with the editing phase of my novel, some time recently coined Anarchy Veiled, a title that I have no idea if it sticks or not. I've yet to successfully edit anything this large, and I don't even know how to. I'm scared, to say the least, that I will find myself hating this book as much as I hate Crusader right now.
But on the other hand, it's a better book than that psychotically bitter piece of Japanese RPG inspired fantasy fiction. It's not perfect, it's not even a great book, but I really enjoy what I've tried to do with the tale, the character, the world that I've been devising. And apparently changed my mind about at least twice over the course of the 450-ish pages that I've written so far. If you are reading this and you have a copy of the manuscript, I hope that you're enjoying it, or that this has made you more interested in what a madman has been obsessed with for over four years. Some of you have been having to hear about it far too much to have only seen this product after all of this time. A couple of you are technically rereading this story, albeit in a much better form.
I'll leave you with this; it's been a blast so far, and I've not had as much fun writing anything in my entire "career" as a writer as I did writing this book. It was constantly challenging, thoroughly exciting, and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
Now, I'll get to editing this some time, and we'll see how long it takes for me to tell you the story of the road to getting the second part of this story written!
I was troubled. I was over half-way through my college career, and I couldn't get my mind off of how irritated I was with everything that was going on around me. The writing program was driving me mad, pushing the constraints of "literature" on me, and I was getting nowhere with the film program. I wasn't in school for me. I didn't know why I was there.
That night, I recalled the many attempts I'd made to write sci-fi, crafting worlds, manipulating our own, just doing something to tell a story that wasn't entirely grounded in reality. It'd been several years since I'd last bothered with attempting something in that vein. I'd written about seventy pages of nonsense for a story when I was in high school, over 100 handwritten notebook pages of things that we won't discuss here before that, and dabbled in and out and around these visuals and ideas ever since they'd failed.
It wouldn't hurt to try again, just to do something!
This was when I started to write a story called The Alternative. I wrote about ten pages at first, just rambling through a raging action sequence without direction just because I wanted to. I still have that bit, and the few pages I wrote afterwards. They're terrible. Every line. It was fun! That night, I continued with notes. I'd never written notes for a piece of fiction before. I'd always just gone from a single idea, crafting whatever it was that I was doing along the way. Not a great method, but it had done the trick before.
Those notes are still on my current hard drive, on my back up thumb drive, the netbook in my closet, and the desktop wired into my video game rig around my TV. That document contains some very basic notes about the galaxy I was writing in, some of the worlds, future antagonists, my trio of lead characters, their pasts, and even that lovely spacecraft that I wanted to carry my cast around the galaxy in. Those details are all still incomplete, mind you, and I really need to get to work on a series bible, especially in light of the thing that everyone reading this probably already knows, and will have to deal with reading about again in the later paragraphs of this blog.
Next came a couple of attempts at short fiction, as character origin stories to precede the novel. This turned into a lazy piece of flash fiction, and an ambitious (for me) short story, which I workshopped in my literature-only advanced fiction class in college. Yes, I'm not all that kind to such things as I had forced on me at UNCW. Let's leave that alone, though. Clyde Edgerton, the professor of said class, told me that the story wasn't big enough for everything I was trying to include, that it would make a great novel.
I'm not sure that he had this in mind.
Not long after, I had expanded the concept into a series. This developed into an attempt to write comics, and then back to prose. I found the vision of three origin tales, one for each character, then bringing the cast together over the course of a pair of novels that would send them into combat against a strong intergalactic threat. There were political themes I wanted to tackle, and I wove them into the notes. Let me tell you, if this set of notes were a basket, none of them would be finished, and the whole bloody thing would be rather hard to carry, much less be a proper place to drop your fruit. Wow, I can't tell if that sentence makes sense. I need sleep. ComicCon today, ya see? I'll have to tell you about that later.
After the comic writing plans fell through, due to various things, I knew that I wasn't going to sell a high concept comic book series with pitiful scripting skills as I posses. I returned to prose in late 2011, finally starting down the path to writing the first novel of The Alternative. I had a few new ideas on how to approach the story, and used the completed first story arc from the comic scripts to assist in my efforts. I thought I'd be okay to get rolling in a positive direction, targeting something between sixty and seventy thousand words.
And then I hit my early snags at about eleven thousand words into the story. It was mid-October, and I had other ideas in mind. To distract myself, I decided to give NaNoWriMo a second shot. My first attempt crashed and burned at just over ten thousand words with a pitiful novel attempt in the pipe. I finished the first draft of Crusader on December 3, 2011, reaching the goal for NaNo in time, and wrapping up the short book afterwards. Then I moved to Louisiana, and struggled to find a way to edit the piece. I still haven't finished editing that short piece, but I haven't really given up on it. It's not a great story, and I'm not that confident that I will ever be able to publish it. However, a New York literary agency has had it in their possession to read, so I do know how to pitch it. Well...someday, maybe.
Back to Alt.
I made several attempts to write more short fiction this year, and I only completed one piece of flash fiction. The other unfinished shorts are still in my active queue. I'm really not good at writing short fiction. The Alternative manuscript kept popping up in the word processor, and I wasn't getting a lot done. I set deadlines, and failed to meet them. I was fairly realistic as well, which is why it's pretty sad that I couldn't ever get on track. I can't say that some exterior force played a hand. Sure, I hate my job, and it drained me of my will to function many times, but that should have been even more of a motivator to get this thing written. However, it never really came to pass.
November 1st, over eight thousand words.
To some, this isn't impressive. For me, it was the most I'd ever composed in a single day. I had a lot of dry stretches throughout the month, but I kept pushing forward, grabbing up two days where I wrote over ten thousand words of new content. The novel was completed on November 25th, a day I spent between two different coffee shops, mind and stomach warped by fine espresso. I had a finished manuscript, bearing 90k words. Yes, it was less than my goal, but over the month, I'd figured that I didn't have enough content for the other 15k. I may prove that to be wrong over the editing cycle.
Four years, and six months have passed since I started my journey with The Alternative. I've yet to give up on the crazy thing, despite the challenges that will come with writing a story as big as I think I've conceived. It's no George R.R. Martin creation, and I will say that I'm happy about that. I've started down the path now, and I can't wait to keep going. It's been bizarre and enlightening. Some people seem to be genuinely interested in the mess that I'm making with my laptop these days, and I hope that never ceases.
The strange journey continues with the editing phase of my novel, some time recently coined Anarchy Veiled, a title that I have no idea if it sticks or not. I've yet to successfully edit anything this large, and I don't even know how to. I'm scared, to say the least, that I will find myself hating this book as much as I hate Crusader right now.
But on the other hand, it's a better book than that psychotically bitter piece of Japanese RPG inspired fantasy fiction. It's not perfect, it's not even a great book, but I really enjoy what I've tried to do with the tale, the character, the world that I've been devising. And apparently changed my mind about at least twice over the course of the 450-ish pages that I've written so far. If you are reading this and you have a copy of the manuscript, I hope that you're enjoying it, or that this has made you more interested in what a madman has been obsessed with for over four years. Some of you have been having to hear about it far too much to have only seen this product after all of this time. A couple of you are technically rereading this story, albeit in a much better form.
I'll leave you with this; it's been a blast so far, and I've not had as much fun writing anything in my entire "career" as a writer as I did writing this book. It was constantly challenging, thoroughly exciting, and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
Now, I'll get to editing this some time, and we'll see how long it takes for me to tell you the story of the road to getting the second part of this story written!
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Z Trigger -- Rollerball Review
At long last, I have produced a video review. I have more coming, all of which will be better than this one.
Hope you enjoy it. Again, more is coming.
Hope you enjoy it. Again, more is coming.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Transition
Alright, so I haven't been updating much. I have been hard at work on a number of projects, the largest which will be replacing this blog fairly soon. Also, I've been in front of a camera, and hammering out gameplay footage for a series of videos. I think I've said all of this in previous posts, but I wanted to remind my five readers that it is happening. I wrote scripts for two videos last night, and the camera and tripod are on the table in front of me as I type. I intend to shoot those two and at least one more today. I want to get in two more, but it's going to be hard.
I need to shave...can't look scraggly to the public. I've already got enough going against me in these videos.
I need to track down a lapel microphone, and eventually replace my camera. The fact that firewire is trying to go extinct is hurting my project quite a bit. I dropped into Best Buy last week, and well...forty dollars is a bit too much. Not to mention, they only have one cable in the entire store. I'll get this stuff taken care of over the next few weeks, but the first couple of videos are going to have to have cheap production values. I will fix that! I promise! The fact that is, I have the gear to get good sound, at the very least, but it's not working so well right now. For some reason, ProTools and my shotgun mic don't work very well together. Also, the microphone jack on my camera acts murky when I plug a microphone into it.
I need for this whole thing to work out. The site as well. It's going to be a tough bit of road, but there are some things going on in the background that I hope will help. N4G is going to be key in getting a viewer base built up. The thing that kills my efforts is that I'm not funny. I'm not trying to be funny, either. That's what usually sells, and I'm not going to make that effort either.
Anyway...let's see if it works.
I need to shave...can't look scraggly to the public. I've already got enough going against me in these videos.
I need to track down a lapel microphone, and eventually replace my camera. The fact that firewire is trying to go extinct is hurting my project quite a bit. I dropped into Best Buy last week, and well...forty dollars is a bit too much. Not to mention, they only have one cable in the entire store. I'll get this stuff taken care of over the next few weeks, but the first couple of videos are going to have to have cheap production values. I will fix that! I promise! The fact that is, I have the gear to get good sound, at the very least, but it's not working so well right now. For some reason, ProTools and my shotgun mic don't work very well together. Also, the microphone jack on my camera acts murky when I plug a microphone into it.
I need for this whole thing to work out. The site as well. It's going to be a tough bit of road, but there are some things going on in the background that I hope will help. N4G is going to be key in getting a viewer base built up. The thing that kills my efforts is that I'm not funny. I'm not trying to be funny, either. That's what usually sells, and I'm not going to make that effort either.
Anyway...let's see if it works.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Ultima VII--Progress and A Dialing of Difficulty Downward.
I'm not entirely certain that anyone remembers me saying that I'd be posting about my time in Britannia's Age of Armageddon, but I sure do, and it's about time I delivered.
So, the truth is, I absolutely hate the combat. Maybe I'm just not used to it yet, but it's just a little irritating. I'm not saying that it's the core of the experience, because it really isn't, but given that I know that I'm going to have to fight some dragons somewhere in my future, I'm don't feel like I'm going to be ready. However, I dialed down the combat difficulty, picked up two more companions, beat down some bandits, and now I'm equipped for war with the Guardian.
Now for the good stuff: the story is progressing in an amazing way. I'd say spoiler alert, but let's face it, none of you are going to care about spoilers if you haven't played this particular game from twenty years ago. So far, two brutal ritualistic murders have taken place in the wake of two Fellowship members coming into towns. I don't know if it's obvious enough so let me say it: The Fellowship is evil. As are Elizabeth and Abraham. You know...EA...like the vile corporation that raped Origin Systems and destroyed this franchise. Okay, moving on.
Along the way I've found some of the adventurers from previous games, such as Iolo, Shamino, and Sentri. While I've never had Sentri in my party in the earlier games I've played, I have recruited Iolo. Shamino, however, has only met my character in the first Ultima...as it was his castle that I ransacked and ripped through to save a princess who would tell me where his time machine was. Yeah, scroll back a ways and check out my review of that one to see how nutty that game was!
Between murder sites, character recruiting, and begging Lord British for healing, I met a gypsy named Margareta, who told me a lot of what is to come in the game. Apparently I will be fighting Captain Hook, meeting a Time Lord, and even chatting up with some wisps.
Not a screenshot.
I also spoke with another mage who'd lost his mind and was put on the trail of a magic carpet. This is one of my primary objectives right now, because I would love some help traveling around the map. Let's face it: traveling through the swamp sucks with a party of this size, because touching the water poisons you. Well, small price to pay to see greater Britannia. However, I think that it's not so much the Avatar that gets poisoned as it is Spark. The little kid has a death wish.
Yeah, I haven't gotten very far. I have made progress, but it's a beast of a game. I do have some leads, including a serpent knife, and of course the vile EA(!). As long as things keep going this well (yes I think it's going well!), I will post more about my trip through Britannia in the coming Age of Armageddon. I think that I will play Ultima VIII: Pagan and do just the same. If you think I should, drop a comment! Show me that you are reading rather than letting me just look at my statistics and guessing that people give a crap!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Things I Liked from Comic Con...or just the past week.
Aahhh, Comic-Con. A word...or two...that just seeps geekiness. Comics, television, film, video games, the works, all in one place. Big announcements, panels with writers and artists, etc. It's a place I've never been and don't really want to until I'm someone who people are asking stupid questions like "Where did you get the idea for The Alternative?" While most of the news from the show so far has just been a bit average, I have seen two things this week that either surprised and found me interested, or caused me to drool like an idiot dog deciding which car to chase.
The first of these was the Ouya, however you pronounce such a bizarre word I can't really tell you other than its probably the worst big name on peoples lips since the WiiU. Still, like the WiiU it seems poised to challenge the industry with some kind of change. In this case its "free video games". While I could easily get excited about such a concept, it's a bit too early to see what is really going to happen. I have gotten a bit ahead of myself so let me step back a bit, because, as anyone who has slogged through this mess of opinionated garbage, I never edit my blogs. It's not like I've ever broken ten readers on a single article anyway.
The Ouya is an indie console for indie developers who make indie games for a buck on cell phones and the like. They are posing the idea that all of the games of our memory were played on the television, in our living rooms. Well, I can't argue there. They are convinced that they can be an industry player too, which is a great thought on paper. Given their position in development, they are missing one very important thing: the big industry names. I don't think we will ever see a Nintendo name on this thing, but I do think that they should have hit up Sega about putting Phantasy Star Online 2 just so they can attach what appears to be a promising game onto their console very early. It won't be hard to get this rolling either, since the console runs on the Android OS.
From the creative perspective, this device is fascinating, in that it seems driven to be a market for independent developers, as the iPhone, and Android cell phones have been for the past couple of years. Ouya is trying to bring the enemy into the very place that other games are trying to keep alive. While I truly detest the idea of bringing a million Angry Birds clones to my television, my indie developer aspirations are fueled by the idea that I don't have to play a game I made on a telephone. I can download it to the little plastic box and give it a spin there.
Tradition and the modern meeting for mass consumption is a nice thought, so let me put the sweet chocolate sauce on this: the console is available to be bought for $100 right now. Just jump over to their kickstarter page (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console), and you can pay for a console early, meaning you have one on launch day, or maybe even earlier. Since they have more than surpassed their goal, you are just insuring that you will jump into an interesting new landscape for gaming.
But I am a touch skeptical...more on that as the Ouya thing develops...
And now that I'm down considering the possibilities of the Ouya, it's time to tell you why I'm due to return to the comic shops in a stupid, gaping jaw, salivating all over Batman back issues and crying in joy when I get home to open it, why yes it's a new Sandman comic story. Not only is it a new Sandman story, it's a new Sandman story written by Neil Gaiman! If that isn't enough to get you excited, then clearly you either haven't read Sandman, or you just don't like it. If it's the latter, I am sad for you, because I loved about 93% of the original run of Sandman. Yeah, there were a few issues that just kind of dragged for me. For the most part though, Sandman is a bulletproof book, and hearing that we are getting more stories of Morpheus, it's a good time to be a comics fan.
Oh, and there is this awesome Brian Wood comic coming out...Star Wars, during the time of the Galactic Civil War...I'm there for that too.
I might have more to say about that one when it starts coming out. For now, I pause, step back and ...hit the post button.
The first of these was the Ouya, however you pronounce such a bizarre word I can't really tell you other than its probably the worst big name on peoples lips since the WiiU. Still, like the WiiU it seems poised to challenge the industry with some kind of change. In this case its "free video games". While I could easily get excited about such a concept, it's a bit too early to see what is really going to happen. I have gotten a bit ahead of myself so let me step back a bit, because, as anyone who has slogged through this mess of opinionated garbage, I never edit my blogs. It's not like I've ever broken ten readers on a single article anyway.
The Ouya is an indie console for indie developers who make indie games for a buck on cell phones and the like. They are posing the idea that all of the games of our memory were played on the television, in our living rooms. Well, I can't argue there. They are convinced that they can be an industry player too, which is a great thought on paper. Given their position in development, they are missing one very important thing: the big industry names. I don't think we will ever see a Nintendo name on this thing, but I do think that they should have hit up Sega about putting Phantasy Star Online 2 just so they can attach what appears to be a promising game onto their console very early. It won't be hard to get this rolling either, since the console runs on the Android OS.
From the creative perspective, this device is fascinating, in that it seems driven to be a market for independent developers, as the iPhone, and Android cell phones have been for the past couple of years. Ouya is trying to bring the enemy into the very place that other games are trying to keep alive. While I truly detest the idea of bringing a million Angry Birds clones to my television, my indie developer aspirations are fueled by the idea that I don't have to play a game I made on a telephone. I can download it to the little plastic box and give it a spin there.
Tradition and the modern meeting for mass consumption is a nice thought, so let me put the sweet chocolate sauce on this: the console is available to be bought for $100 right now. Just jump over to their kickstarter page (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console), and you can pay for a console early, meaning you have one on launch day, or maybe even earlier. Since they have more than surpassed their goal, you are just insuring that you will jump into an interesting new landscape for gaming.
But I am a touch skeptical...more on that as the Ouya thing develops...
And now that I'm down considering the possibilities of the Ouya, it's time to tell you why I'm due to return to the comic shops in a stupid, gaping jaw, salivating all over Batman back issues and crying in joy when I get home to open it, why yes it's a new Sandman comic story. Not only is it a new Sandman story, it's a new Sandman story written by Neil Gaiman! If that isn't enough to get you excited, then clearly you either haven't read Sandman, or you just don't like it. If it's the latter, I am sad for you, because I loved about 93% of the original run of Sandman. Yeah, there were a few issues that just kind of dragged for me. For the most part though, Sandman is a bulletproof book, and hearing that we are getting more stories of Morpheus, it's a good time to be a comics fan.
Oh, and there is this awesome Brian Wood comic coming out...Star Wars, during the time of the Galactic Civil War...I'm there for that too.
I might have more to say about that one when it starts coming out. For now, I pause, step back and ...hit the post button.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
More Rambling About Final Fantasy
Longtime readers will recognize a trend about my gaming. Yes, I love JRPG's. For whatever reason, I enjoy running around beautifully rendered worlds with generic archetypes with insane hair and seeing the deepest points of the uncanny valley as I do so. And those who just even just scan through know that I have the softest spot for the Final Fantasy franchise. Evidence of this is found in my defense of the 13th entry and its successor and beyond. I still enjoy the games, despite their flaws. So you should know very well how exhausted I am.
I have completed every single player, roman numeral entry in the series. I have played a couple of the off-shoots. And here I sit, during the 25th Anniversary celebration of the series as a whole. A history of great games is past, and there are thousands of people noting a list of successes that has come as a result risks taken by a company so many years past. But among them, there is anger, distress, frustration cold and bitter over decisions made by the persons holding the reins. These people don't want the changes made in the series.
Frankly, I feel that they just want more of Final Fantasy VII.
And I'm only right about a few of those people, I'm sure. But let's face it, nostalgia is both the best thing about Final Fantasy, and its curse. The majority of the first nine titles are indisputably among the most important games in history. Very few fans really argue about the quality of these titles, and will usually agree to disagree about which is the best. For some, these are their favorite games. I wouldn't argue with them either. There is something very special about playing a Final Fantasy game, and I always look forward to a new entry in the franchise. Hell, I'm even looking forward to Square announcing Final Fantasy XIII-3 at the anniversary thing in Japan at the end of August. It's unique to the Final Fantasy franchise, and no other series gives me that feeling. There are many great games out there, but Final Fantasy does the trick.
So you can imagine my frustration when I have to see the constant bickering on the internet about a Final Fantasy VII remake being the sole savior to the franchise. That's short sighted. Square-Enix was correct to say that it would be the end to the series. They are trying to make a game that satisfies both their creative needs and bring long estranged fans back. Whether you like XIII and its sequel or not, they were trying to bring some fresh blood to the series. It's not perfect, but it's a motion for progress. The sales numbers aren't all that much lower from previous installments, but the sales of other franchises are much higher, and that bothers the number crunchers of Square. The quick trigger anger flood of the internet scares them with poor review numbers on aggregate sites like MetaCritic.
The voice of the internet is hurting the video game industry in an indescribable way. Everyone sees the first person shooter as the way to make money, or even the duck and cover third person shooter. Pair that six hour campaign with a decent multi-player with DLC every few months, and you have a temporary success. If not a shooter, a sandbox game so full of content that some gamers just run out of interest by the time the finale rolls in to surprise people that they have actually reached the end. 'Casual' games allow people to fill the five minutes that they are waiting for the bus or class to start. These aren't bad points in gaming, and these are all extreme examples, but they aren't the complete experience of video games.
Innovation is supposedly driving the industry, but stagnation is the truth behind that 'innovation'. So many companies are so driven to reinvent the wheel that they forget that the simplest things are often what people were drawn to in the first place. Let's bring this back to Final Fantasy:Final Fantasy VIII contains what is probably the most needlessly complex stat system I've ever seen in a Japanese RPG. Some embraced the change and made it through a story that definitely sits in the love-or-hate category, and possibly even shattered the games difficulty in the progress. They immediately called in a system reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI, and it worked much better in the long run. The Wii even relies on simplicity, which is why so many people are drawn to it. The WiiU hasn't proven itself, but it seems to want to incite simplicity, despite having the potential for extreme complexity. The reality is, at the end of the day, it's just another button to press, and that has always been the core of the experience. For all of their innovation, we have reached a stage that we are just finding slightly different things for those buttons to do. Adding in a RPG leveling system for the kills accumulated in multi-player was innovative, but it's not a wholly different way to play those games. You still kill people in an arena and collect weapons that are stronger and kill more people in the process. World of Warcraft built on Everquest, which, in essence, was the same thing that Ultima had been doing or past twenty years before it had released. No one reinvented the wheel. They just put it in a different spot on the car.
So when Final Fantasy XIII dropped and players found themselves doing something rather alien to other games in the series, they were upset. They were also upset by the story, but let's face it, Final Fantasy hasn't ever been perfect in that department. It's Japan. They have their themes that always show up, and it was full tighter because of that threading. Nothing was truly shocking here, though, aside from the giant corridor from Act I to the end of Act II. Enough people realized this to have a good time, and we even got a great sequel out of it. It's not perfect, it's not as good as the classics, but it's still a lot of fun when you allow yourself to enjoy it.
Final Fantasy XV is no doubt coming down the pipeline. Square won't let their most important franchise to die out. People's expectations are rather low. That might be a good thing, because the people who will jump in regardless will probably be satisfied that it's a decent game. There is also the possibility that the experience that they picked up working on the potentially FFXIII Trilogy will show them with a fresh and exciting experience. More likely, it's going to be another average entry in a series that used to excel on every occasion.
But speculation is something that is dangerous and exciting. I don't know whether to expect another sci-fi inspired entry or a return to traditional fantasy entries, but I do know think that the XIII battle system is done after the potential XIII-3. There is going to be a push for control over a complete battle party rather than the methods used in XII and XIII, which both had perks. I know there will be characters that I like, and probably even more that are annoying to ends unseen. I'd like to see a return to simpler times, such as in IX, where the equipment setup doesn't require constant modification and reading of the strategy guide to understand how to get a proper weapon in the end game. Some variation on classic character building and possibly another variation on FFX's sphere grids will possibly arise, and I'm okay with that. I wasn't iffy about FFXII's license board, but it was functional enough. The Crystarium was great, despite being a time sink once the other three classes opened up in the last act. Whatever comes, I'm ready though.
I'm not trying to sell anyone on Final Fantasy. If you hate Final Fantasy, there is nothing in this blog to get you to enjoy it. If nothing else, you probably either read it and think I'm an idiot, or are at least interested in what keeps people playing these games.
Nostalgia keeps us buying the new ones. Nostalgia makes us buy the remakes and rereleases.
Now, where is a series box set to commemorate that 25th anniversary?
Oh wait, we aren't getting one...we're getting a music game that does look entertaining, and a VII PC Port rerelease with achievements.
I guess Konami and Capcom are the only ones who know how to throw a good anniversary shindig.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Best_Music_Collections_BOX
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/23/capcom-celebrates-street-fighters-25th-anniversary-with-a-huge-collectors-box-set/
I think I need to make my own box...and since I'm teaching myself photoshop, this might be the best opportunity.
Check back soon for some photo editing notes and examples.
I have completed every single player, roman numeral entry in the series. I have played a couple of the off-shoots. And here I sit, during the 25th Anniversary celebration of the series as a whole. A history of great games is past, and there are thousands of people noting a list of successes that has come as a result risks taken by a company so many years past. But among them, there is anger, distress, frustration cold and bitter over decisions made by the persons holding the reins. These people don't want the changes made in the series.
Frankly, I feel that they just want more of Final Fantasy VII.
And I'm only right about a few of those people, I'm sure. But let's face it, nostalgia is both the best thing about Final Fantasy, and its curse. The majority of the first nine titles are indisputably among the most important games in history. Very few fans really argue about the quality of these titles, and will usually agree to disagree about which is the best. For some, these are their favorite games. I wouldn't argue with them either. There is something very special about playing a Final Fantasy game, and I always look forward to a new entry in the franchise. Hell, I'm even looking forward to Square announcing Final Fantasy XIII-3 at the anniversary thing in Japan at the end of August. It's unique to the Final Fantasy franchise, and no other series gives me that feeling. There are many great games out there, but Final Fantasy does the trick.
So you can imagine my frustration when I have to see the constant bickering on the internet about a Final Fantasy VII remake being the sole savior to the franchise. That's short sighted. Square-Enix was correct to say that it would be the end to the series. They are trying to make a game that satisfies both their creative needs and bring long estranged fans back. Whether you like XIII and its sequel or not, they were trying to bring some fresh blood to the series. It's not perfect, but it's a motion for progress. The sales numbers aren't all that much lower from previous installments, but the sales of other franchises are much higher, and that bothers the number crunchers of Square. The quick trigger anger flood of the internet scares them with poor review numbers on aggregate sites like MetaCritic.
The voice of the internet is hurting the video game industry in an indescribable way. Everyone sees the first person shooter as the way to make money, or even the duck and cover third person shooter. Pair that six hour campaign with a decent multi-player with DLC every few months, and you have a temporary success. If not a shooter, a sandbox game so full of content that some gamers just run out of interest by the time the finale rolls in to surprise people that they have actually reached the end. 'Casual' games allow people to fill the five minutes that they are waiting for the bus or class to start. These aren't bad points in gaming, and these are all extreme examples, but they aren't the complete experience of video games.
Innovation is supposedly driving the industry, but stagnation is the truth behind that 'innovation'. So many companies are so driven to reinvent the wheel that they forget that the simplest things are often what people were drawn to in the first place. Let's bring this back to Final Fantasy:Final Fantasy VIII contains what is probably the most needlessly complex stat system I've ever seen in a Japanese RPG. Some embraced the change and made it through a story that definitely sits in the love-or-hate category, and possibly even shattered the games difficulty in the progress. They immediately called in a system reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI, and it worked much better in the long run. The Wii even relies on simplicity, which is why so many people are drawn to it. The WiiU hasn't proven itself, but it seems to want to incite simplicity, despite having the potential for extreme complexity. The reality is, at the end of the day, it's just another button to press, and that has always been the core of the experience. For all of their innovation, we have reached a stage that we are just finding slightly different things for those buttons to do. Adding in a RPG leveling system for the kills accumulated in multi-player was innovative, but it's not a wholly different way to play those games. You still kill people in an arena and collect weapons that are stronger and kill more people in the process. World of Warcraft built on Everquest, which, in essence, was the same thing that Ultima had been doing or past twenty years before it had released. No one reinvented the wheel. They just put it in a different spot on the car.
So when Final Fantasy XIII dropped and players found themselves doing something rather alien to other games in the series, they were upset. They were also upset by the story, but let's face it, Final Fantasy hasn't ever been perfect in that department. It's Japan. They have their themes that always show up, and it was full tighter because of that threading. Nothing was truly shocking here, though, aside from the giant corridor from Act I to the end of Act II. Enough people realized this to have a good time, and we even got a great sequel out of it. It's not perfect, it's not as good as the classics, but it's still a lot of fun when you allow yourself to enjoy it.
Final Fantasy XV is no doubt coming down the pipeline. Square won't let their most important franchise to die out. People's expectations are rather low. That might be a good thing, because the people who will jump in regardless will probably be satisfied that it's a decent game. There is also the possibility that the experience that they picked up working on the potentially FFXIII Trilogy will show them with a fresh and exciting experience. More likely, it's going to be another average entry in a series that used to excel on every occasion.
But speculation is something that is dangerous and exciting. I don't know whether to expect another sci-fi inspired entry or a return to traditional fantasy entries, but I do know think that the XIII battle system is done after the potential XIII-3. There is going to be a push for control over a complete battle party rather than the methods used in XII and XIII, which both had perks. I know there will be characters that I like, and probably even more that are annoying to ends unseen. I'd like to see a return to simpler times, such as in IX, where the equipment setup doesn't require constant modification and reading of the strategy guide to understand how to get a proper weapon in the end game. Some variation on classic character building and possibly another variation on FFX's sphere grids will possibly arise, and I'm okay with that. I wasn't iffy about FFXII's license board, but it was functional enough. The Crystarium was great, despite being a time sink once the other three classes opened up in the last act. Whatever comes, I'm ready though.
I'm not trying to sell anyone on Final Fantasy. If you hate Final Fantasy, there is nothing in this blog to get you to enjoy it. If nothing else, you probably either read it and think I'm an idiot, or are at least interested in what keeps people playing these games.
Nostalgia keeps us buying the new ones. Nostalgia makes us buy the remakes and rereleases.
Now, where is a series box set to commemorate that 25th anniversary?
Oh wait, we aren't getting one...we're getting a music game that does look entertaining, and a VII PC Port rerelease with achievements.
I guess Konami and Capcom are the only ones who know how to throw a good anniversary shindig.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Best_Music_Collections_BOX
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/23/capcom-celebrates-street-fighters-25th-anniversary-with-a-huge-collectors-box-set/
I think I need to make my own box...and since I'm teaching myself photoshop, this might be the best opportunity.
Check back soon for some photo editing notes and examples.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
It's Moving Time again.
Not from my house, but from my computer.
Because the lovely Jo has decided it is time, a new laptop will be arriving at my doorstep tomorrow while I serve the Retail Demons in Capitalistic Ritual. The beast in question is a Dell XPS with a 17.3 inch 1080P 3D monitor, a single TB hard drive, 8 GB of ram, a NVidia GeForce 555M 3GB video card, a blu-ray burner, and a lot of other things. I could paste the details, but hey, that's not really worth your reading time. In short, this thing is beautiful. The computer isn't the only piece of the puzzle. A Dell color laser printer/scanner is also in the setup, as well as Adobe Premiere Elements 10, Photoshop CS6 Extended, Dream Weaver, and a Wacom Bamboo tablet.
Needless to say, this is going to be an incredible machine.
But this is just a catalog of things that I need to get done on the new machine so that I can get rolling when it arrives. Software to install, files to move, things of that nature. So, this is, more or less, pointless to read. But if you clicked into this place to give me another blog view with which to fuel my ego that someone gives a crap about what I'm doing with this machine. Anyway, here we go.
Photoshop CS6
Premiere Elements
Dream Weaver
Sketchbook Express
ProTools
Diablo 2 and the GOG Library
MS Office
Focus Writer
A Media Player (Undecided)
Rhythm Rascal
Power Tab
Files:
All manuscripts
D2 save files
A nice dump of my entire music collection onto the HD
I need some source photography for PS experiments...I have an email out about that...
That about wraps it up. If anyone reads this and knows of a stylish and awesome media player that I can use to rip my music and then play it back without mucking up the file names images etc drop a comment. Thanks much three readers. I'll post pics in time. Possibly ones that are awesome.
Because the lovely Jo has decided it is time, a new laptop will be arriving at my doorstep tomorrow while I serve the Retail Demons in Capitalistic Ritual. The beast in question is a Dell XPS with a 17.3 inch 1080P 3D monitor, a single TB hard drive, 8 GB of ram, a NVidia GeForce 555M 3GB video card, a blu-ray burner, and a lot of other things. I could paste the details, but hey, that's not really worth your reading time. In short, this thing is beautiful. The computer isn't the only piece of the puzzle. A Dell color laser printer/scanner is also in the setup, as well as Adobe Premiere Elements 10, Photoshop CS6 Extended, Dream Weaver, and a Wacom Bamboo tablet.
Needless to say, this is going to be an incredible machine.
But this is just a catalog of things that I need to get done on the new machine so that I can get rolling when it arrives. Software to install, files to move, things of that nature. So, this is, more or less, pointless to read. But if you clicked into this place to give me another blog view with which to fuel my ego that someone gives a crap about what I'm doing with this machine. Anyway, here we go.
Photoshop CS6
Premiere Elements
Dream Weaver
Sketchbook Express
ProTools
Diablo 2 and the GOG Library
MS Office
Focus Writer
A Media Player (Undecided)
Rhythm Rascal
Power Tab
Files:
All manuscripts
D2 save files
A nice dump of my entire music collection onto the HD
I need some source photography for PS experiments...I have an email out about that...
That about wraps it up. If anyone reads this and knows of a stylish and awesome media player that I can use to rip my music and then play it back without mucking up the file names images etc drop a comment. Thanks much three readers. I'll post pics in time. Possibly ones that are awesome.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Ways to Show Immaturity as a Video Game Journalist
If anyone has paid attention to the internet following E3, they have probably seen a number of articles deconstructing the recent announcements from the Big 3 and beyond. If you have looked for an article from me about E3, don't. I've decided no to make any comment beyond a long sigh. So, just go ahead and let one out for yourself, lasting about twenty seconds, and move on.
The other thing that is common are articles that just show how far the "video game journalist" has to come before they will have any level of acceptance as writers. And while I'm not here to defend my hobby, because it's not real journalism folks, I will say that we could at least act like professionals. This means that we need to let things take their course before we say that something doesn't work. Sure, we can speculate, and post our speculations. I've done that myself, saying that Microsoft has something to prove with their next generation. No console has blown everyone's minds out the gae on the third generation, so there is some history to the statement. That doesn't mean that Durango is going to be awful, or that it will have growing pains. It's a statment, based on history. Okay, let's move on.
1. "Franchises that Need to Die" lists:
This one is just immature. I've seen countless articles on N4G saying that various game series need to end. There are often some positive reasons for their statements, such as putting the spotlight on other franchises, or that some games over saturate certain markets. More often than not, it's a cheap ploy for page views by writers who want to make money off of site advertisement. We all want that, but writing unique content for your page helps more for this, or breaking a story before anyone else. Instead, we get frequent pieces about how Call of Duty has too many games, and that Final Fantasy is garbage now. Some go as far as to say that Halo should never have had sequels. Well, let me break it down for you folks. The video game industry runs on money. A lot of it. Millions of dollars go into these productions, and it's a nightmare trying to recoup the costs. Franchises help this more than it hurts. A new Call of Duty every year doesn't mean anything more than Activision grabs a quick million seller, and they even have enough of a creative soul to make it different. That can't be said for EA who could pretty much copy one set of Madden code into the next year and add whatever cheap new feature they have left to try, and shove that thing onto store shelves. But that's a different conversation. Final Fantasy is one of the most important role playing games on consoles, and to end that has dangerous repercussions. Taking away Final Fantasy would bring Square Enix to it's knees, and possibly mean a lot of lost jobs for a big named studio. As for Halo, gamers should be so lucky that there is a studio that cares as much about it's IP as 343 Industries, and Bungie before them. Halo has a rich, well crafted lore that is about to be explored in the games themselves. The single player campaigns have always been brilliantly crafted, and have even been the blueprint for FPS games since the series reached the public in 2001. Not to mention, the console shooter is now a standard because of Halo. Without it, we probably wouldn't have gotten The Elder Scrolls franchise on consoles. That's just the short version. I've seen a lot of other games hit lists like this.
2. "Why X-Console/X-Idea is Going to Fail"
I'm slightly to blame here, considering that I never had any faith in the Playstation Move. But hey, let's face it, Sony hasn't ever had that much push for their peripherals (remember the Pocketstation). So, take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt if you must.
There are dozens of naysayer articles about the WiiU and the tablet controller, and people have every right to believe that Nintendo is nuts for doing this. However, none of us own the WiiU yet, and not even the mightiest of crystal ball will tell us the fate of this device in gaming. Obviously, someone thinks this is a good idea. Look at Microsoft's Smart Glass technology that is going to be launched on the X-Box 360 this generation. That is Microsoft experimenting with a similar concept to Nintendo, doing a preemptive take on what could be their own tablet control. If Nintendo pulls it off, expect Sony to rush their way into some overly complex design of the exact same thing that may somehow involve shoving a Playstation Eye into the box because they still have warehouses full of the stupid things years after that toy died on the PS2.
In reality, there is no way to determine how successful a product is going to be at an early stage in its life. If we did that, then we wouldn't be looking forward to new 3DS games right now. The PSP wouldn't have...had...an...acceptable run. The PS3 definitely wouldn't be the giant it is in the industry. Speculate, but be realistic. Some things work out, and the rest fall by the wayside and end up on the shelf of a collector who likes weird obscure things. The WiiU is a risk, taken by Nintendo. As a business, they believe in it. Microsoft believes in Smart Glass, and they believed in the Kinect. Sure, I hate the Kinect, but I'm glad it has panned out for them. It puts revenue in their pockets, and keeps them in R&D to prepare for the next move.
3. "Top 10 Best Games Ever."
People have been playing home video games for almost forty years. That's a lot of games. When you factor the amount of consoles, iterations of home computers, hand held consoles, cell phones and tablets, you have an enormous library to pick games out of. These might be your favorite games, but that doesn't mean that you should toot your horn on the internet with a blog about it, post it to N4G to get attention, and, at times I have seen this phenomena, get angry when someone points out that you putting Super Mario Bros. in your list means you haven't played anything.
Opinions are just opinions, and fighting about them doesn't really get you anywhere. State it, be prepared to back it up, but it doesn't mean that someone is wrong when they say you haven't played enough games. It's disgusting how people act when they are trying to put themselves out there as professional writers. Sure, if this piece gets circulated on N4G I'm going to probably see two year old blog posts of mine brought up where I may have said something that contradicts this article, but who cares. That was two years ago. I've changed since then, and so has my opinion. Just like the opinions of those ten best games out of the thousands that exist, it's flexible.
As for why it's detrimental to your writing career, it's just not creative. If you break out your top ten games, then you are writing a piece about yourself, and you don't have anything else to talk about. It's filler. Your top ten NES games? Equally weak. Everyone has a pretty good idea about the best titles in the NES library, and even the best obscure ones. Web celebrities can get away with this because we are already interested in their opinions anyway, but even then, it's a quick thing. Screw Attack does decent top tens, but they also put a comedic spin on things. Top Ten Games that Make you Want to Bone? That's a brilliant list to put out on Valentines Day!
People do enjoy a good list, and maybe they will even enjoy this rant on the poor state of content generation for blogs on my website that has an incredibly small amount of entertaining content on it. I understand why people do it, and I even think that I will stick some of my favorites on a list some day just for the fun of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to run that list right over to N4G so I can pick up some views of it. N4G is a great resource for up and coming writers and websites to build a viewer base. Don't exploit it for your Top Ten Genesis games not Starring Sonic the Hedgehog. The five viewers you pick up is not worth as much as the review of Pier Solar, which is a recent homebrew Genesis game actually programmed onto a Genesis cartridge.
If you disagree, fine, but I'm tired of the cheap shots made on video game websites. I've been watching the Vita not do so well, but even I know that I will pick one up if they ever get some games I care about on it. I don't see it crashing and burning, and even if I did, I have the intelligence to realize that spilling a list of reasons why it's doomed is counterproductive. Think forward, to what's coming, or just write retro columns. Negativity in the gaming community is part of why we all seem to have so much trouble getting along. I exist in a great spot in the middle. I'm well played on many genres, even thundering my way through most of those Call of Duty games that it's fun to hate these days. I've got a few Madden titles, but only one per console at maximum. My JRPG collection contains some obscure titles, and my interest in shmups is only hindered by my inability to drop several hundred dollars on Saturn imports. Just think before you crack open that WordPress editing screen to show why you think Nintendo is mad to put money in something for kids again. Remember, you were a kid once. Didn't you have enough fun to still be playing games twenty years later?
The other thing that is common are articles that just show how far the "video game journalist" has to come before they will have any level of acceptance as writers. And while I'm not here to defend my hobby, because it's not real journalism folks, I will say that we could at least act like professionals. This means that we need to let things take their course before we say that something doesn't work. Sure, we can speculate, and post our speculations. I've done that myself, saying that Microsoft has something to prove with their next generation. No console has blown everyone's minds out the gae on the third generation, so there is some history to the statement. That doesn't mean that Durango is going to be awful, or that it will have growing pains. It's a statment, based on history. Okay, let's move on.
1. "Franchises that Need to Die" lists:
This one is just immature. I've seen countless articles on N4G saying that various game series need to end. There are often some positive reasons for their statements, such as putting the spotlight on other franchises, or that some games over saturate certain markets. More often than not, it's a cheap ploy for page views by writers who want to make money off of site advertisement. We all want that, but writing unique content for your page helps more for this, or breaking a story before anyone else. Instead, we get frequent pieces about how Call of Duty has too many games, and that Final Fantasy is garbage now. Some go as far as to say that Halo should never have had sequels. Well, let me break it down for you folks. The video game industry runs on money. A lot of it. Millions of dollars go into these productions, and it's a nightmare trying to recoup the costs. Franchises help this more than it hurts. A new Call of Duty every year doesn't mean anything more than Activision grabs a quick million seller, and they even have enough of a creative soul to make it different. That can't be said for EA who could pretty much copy one set of Madden code into the next year and add whatever cheap new feature they have left to try, and shove that thing onto store shelves. But that's a different conversation. Final Fantasy is one of the most important role playing games on consoles, and to end that has dangerous repercussions. Taking away Final Fantasy would bring Square Enix to it's knees, and possibly mean a lot of lost jobs for a big named studio. As for Halo, gamers should be so lucky that there is a studio that cares as much about it's IP as 343 Industries, and Bungie before them. Halo has a rich, well crafted lore that is about to be explored in the games themselves. The single player campaigns have always been brilliantly crafted, and have even been the blueprint for FPS games since the series reached the public in 2001. Not to mention, the console shooter is now a standard because of Halo. Without it, we probably wouldn't have gotten The Elder Scrolls franchise on consoles. That's just the short version. I've seen a lot of other games hit lists like this.
2. "Why X-Console/X-Idea is Going to Fail"
I'm slightly to blame here, considering that I never had any faith in the Playstation Move. But hey, let's face it, Sony hasn't ever had that much push for their peripherals (remember the Pocketstation). So, take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt if you must.
There are dozens of naysayer articles about the WiiU and the tablet controller, and people have every right to believe that Nintendo is nuts for doing this. However, none of us own the WiiU yet, and not even the mightiest of crystal ball will tell us the fate of this device in gaming. Obviously, someone thinks this is a good idea. Look at Microsoft's Smart Glass technology that is going to be launched on the X-Box 360 this generation. That is Microsoft experimenting with a similar concept to Nintendo, doing a preemptive take on what could be their own tablet control. If Nintendo pulls it off, expect Sony to rush their way into some overly complex design of the exact same thing that may somehow involve shoving a Playstation Eye into the box because they still have warehouses full of the stupid things years after that toy died on the PS2.
In reality, there is no way to determine how successful a product is going to be at an early stage in its life. If we did that, then we wouldn't be looking forward to new 3DS games right now. The PSP wouldn't have...had...an...acceptable run. The PS3 definitely wouldn't be the giant it is in the industry. Speculate, but be realistic. Some things work out, and the rest fall by the wayside and end up on the shelf of a collector who likes weird obscure things. The WiiU is a risk, taken by Nintendo. As a business, they believe in it. Microsoft believes in Smart Glass, and they believed in the Kinect. Sure, I hate the Kinect, but I'm glad it has panned out for them. It puts revenue in their pockets, and keeps them in R&D to prepare for the next move.
3. "Top 10 Best Games Ever."
People have been playing home video games for almost forty years. That's a lot of games. When you factor the amount of consoles, iterations of home computers, hand held consoles, cell phones and tablets, you have an enormous library to pick games out of. These might be your favorite games, but that doesn't mean that you should toot your horn on the internet with a blog about it, post it to N4G to get attention, and, at times I have seen this phenomena, get angry when someone points out that you putting Super Mario Bros. in your list means you haven't played anything.
Opinions are just opinions, and fighting about them doesn't really get you anywhere. State it, be prepared to back it up, but it doesn't mean that someone is wrong when they say you haven't played enough games. It's disgusting how people act when they are trying to put themselves out there as professional writers. Sure, if this piece gets circulated on N4G I'm going to probably see two year old blog posts of mine brought up where I may have said something that contradicts this article, but who cares. That was two years ago. I've changed since then, and so has my opinion. Just like the opinions of those ten best games out of the thousands that exist, it's flexible.
As for why it's detrimental to your writing career, it's just not creative. If you break out your top ten games, then you are writing a piece about yourself, and you don't have anything else to talk about. It's filler. Your top ten NES games? Equally weak. Everyone has a pretty good idea about the best titles in the NES library, and even the best obscure ones. Web celebrities can get away with this because we are already interested in their opinions anyway, but even then, it's a quick thing. Screw Attack does decent top tens, but they also put a comedic spin on things. Top Ten Games that Make you Want to Bone? That's a brilliant list to put out on Valentines Day!
People do enjoy a good list, and maybe they will even enjoy this rant on the poor state of content generation for blogs on my website that has an incredibly small amount of entertaining content on it. I understand why people do it, and I even think that I will stick some of my favorites on a list some day just for the fun of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to run that list right over to N4G so I can pick up some views of it. N4G is a great resource for up and coming writers and websites to build a viewer base. Don't exploit it for your Top Ten Genesis games not Starring Sonic the Hedgehog. The five viewers you pick up is not worth as much as the review of Pier Solar, which is a recent homebrew Genesis game actually programmed onto a Genesis cartridge.
If you disagree, fine, but I'm tired of the cheap shots made on video game websites. I've been watching the Vita not do so well, but even I know that I will pick one up if they ever get some games I care about on it. I don't see it crashing and burning, and even if I did, I have the intelligence to realize that spilling a list of reasons why it's doomed is counterproductive. Think forward, to what's coming, or just write retro columns. Negativity in the gaming community is part of why we all seem to have so much trouble getting along. I exist in a great spot in the middle. I'm well played on many genres, even thundering my way through most of those Call of Duty games that it's fun to hate these days. I've got a few Madden titles, but only one per console at maximum. My JRPG collection contains some obscure titles, and my interest in shmups is only hindered by my inability to drop several hundred dollars on Saturn imports. Just think before you crack open that WordPress editing screen to show why you think Nintendo is mad to put money in something for kids again. Remember, you were a kid once. Didn't you have enough fun to still be playing games twenty years later?
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
More Coming Soon
Okay, so it's time for me to propose things that I'll try, and possibly not come through on. However, given the circumstances that have befallen me as of late, I think that I'm in a better spot to move on some of these ideas.
Alright, the first is the previously mentioned overhaul of my blog. I don't know if I will be moving it into another site, but it will be sectioned off into different things based on whatever I am writing about. There will be a visual element to this. And that leads to another thing:
Working with a friend of mine (you know who you are), I have put together some of the basic ideas behind a shmup which borrows ideas from the Metroid series, and even games like Mass Effect to make an interesting variation on the traditional scrolling shooter.
I've written the base of a script with which to review Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which I consider an absolute blight on the series name. I will be reviewing this once I have access to some of the toys I'm going to bring up below.
Next, given the mention of toys, I am getting ready to record a couple of songs. I have two songs ready to record, and a few other things in mind. I might try to get an EP together, and maybe even sell it. This would include artwork and liner notes, prepared by the idiot whose blog you are currently scoffing at.
I would like to launch a blip video thing on the new site, and on that, I would feature the review, possibly a "making of" type thing for the EP, and whatever else came down the pipe, including a fake PSA that has been boiling in my brain for the past few weeks. Video game reviews are part of this consideration, but I don't have anything concrete in mind just yet.
Before the power supply to my net book bit the dust two weeks ago, I was gathering steam to continue work on The Alternative, and I think that it's going to be moving at a pretty decent rate once (again now) the new toys arrive. I would like to see it finished by the end of August, with work starting on book two by October. There are a couple of short stories that need to be finished as well, but I suck at composing short fiction in a decent time, so I make no promises.
Some that read this might remember a short lived video game podcast called Z-Trigger which I co-hosted. This idea is not dead to me, and some of my (yes I'm getting to it) toys will allow me to find a new form for this concept. I just hope everyone is still interested when I finally get to it. If you are reading this, go ahead and shout about how incompetent I am at the end of this post.
There is an idea floating in my mind about an e-mag genre literature journal. This idea is in embryo stage, and I'm not sure if it will make it anywhere. I would build this site, moderate, be the editor, and possibly even make collections out of the stuff I publish. This is very low on the list, given its ambition.
I'm trying to think if there is anything else coming up in the queue before moving onto the supplies that are going to make these projects more likely. There is a lot in my head, and I'm always adding to it, mostly because I'm completely mad. The way I see it is that if I have a lot of prospective projects to work on, I'm never bored when I sit down before a computer. Especially when it is...oh, you know, a Dell XPS laptop with eight gigs of ram, a terabyte hard drive, blu-ray, possibly even 3D, Photoshop CS6 Extended, a newer version of Premiere Elements 10, and the most up to date version of Dreamweaver.
Yes, all of these things are coming soon, and the trimmings just don't stop there. I am also looking into a Wacom tablet to make them all more possible. This is all part of a long winding path that might even lead into more school, but more importantly, a new set of experiences that will flesh out my creative portfolio. Having a working knowledge of Photoshop and Dreamweaver paired with a growing knowledge of HTML and CSS would do wonders for me. Now if only I can get those pesky weak art skills off the ground. But, regardless of the hideousness of my line work, I have ambition, and that is always number one in my book for having a great time.
There is a bit of time before all of these things can really kick off, but some of the basic tools are already in my hands. The new laptop, Dreamweaver, and especially the tablet, are still a bit of time off. I don't even know when the tablet will be confirmed, but given the nature of such a device and how it can be integrated into the all of the other tools, it's almost essential.
I don't know where I will begin exactly. Given how many different things I could do, and how they all tie into one big plan, I have options. Time is of the essence, and unfortunately there is never enough of it. I see the music option to be a viable one, given the nature of what I already have invested there, and, not to mention, how much easier it would be to put together a decent documentary about the process. Short, but, hopefully, interesting. These are all pieces, and the big picture is far too big for even me to see. Mostly because there is an idiot painting this portrait. And it's time for the idiot to stop typing.
Keep watching. Something is coming. Even if it is just bizarre and cool looking photoshop art.
Alright, the first is the previously mentioned overhaul of my blog. I don't know if I will be moving it into another site, but it will be sectioned off into different things based on whatever I am writing about. There will be a visual element to this. And that leads to another thing:
Working with a friend of mine (you know who you are), I have put together some of the basic ideas behind a shmup which borrows ideas from the Metroid series, and even games like Mass Effect to make an interesting variation on the traditional scrolling shooter.
I've written the base of a script with which to review Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which I consider an absolute blight on the series name. I will be reviewing this once I have access to some of the toys I'm going to bring up below.
Next, given the mention of toys, I am getting ready to record a couple of songs. I have two songs ready to record, and a few other things in mind. I might try to get an EP together, and maybe even sell it. This would include artwork and liner notes, prepared by the idiot whose blog you are currently scoffing at.
I would like to launch a blip video thing on the new site, and on that, I would feature the review, possibly a "making of" type thing for the EP, and whatever else came down the pipe, including a fake PSA that has been boiling in my brain for the past few weeks. Video game reviews are part of this consideration, but I don't have anything concrete in mind just yet.
Before the power supply to my net book bit the dust two weeks ago, I was gathering steam to continue work on The Alternative, and I think that it's going to be moving at a pretty decent rate once (again now) the new toys arrive. I would like to see it finished by the end of August, with work starting on book two by October. There are a couple of short stories that need to be finished as well, but I suck at composing short fiction in a decent time, so I make no promises.
Some that read this might remember a short lived video game podcast called Z-Trigger which I co-hosted. This idea is not dead to me, and some of my (yes I'm getting to it) toys will allow me to find a new form for this concept. I just hope everyone is still interested when I finally get to it. If you are reading this, go ahead and shout about how incompetent I am at the end of this post.
There is an idea floating in my mind about an e-mag genre literature journal. This idea is in embryo stage, and I'm not sure if it will make it anywhere. I would build this site, moderate, be the editor, and possibly even make collections out of the stuff I publish. This is very low on the list, given its ambition.
I'm trying to think if there is anything else coming up in the queue before moving onto the supplies that are going to make these projects more likely. There is a lot in my head, and I'm always adding to it, mostly because I'm completely mad. The way I see it is that if I have a lot of prospective projects to work on, I'm never bored when I sit down before a computer. Especially when it is...oh, you know, a Dell XPS laptop with eight gigs of ram, a terabyte hard drive, blu-ray, possibly even 3D, Photoshop CS6 Extended, a newer version of Premiere Elements 10, and the most up to date version of Dreamweaver.
Yes, all of these things are coming soon, and the trimmings just don't stop there. I am also looking into a Wacom tablet to make them all more possible. This is all part of a long winding path that might even lead into more school, but more importantly, a new set of experiences that will flesh out my creative portfolio. Having a working knowledge of Photoshop and Dreamweaver paired with a growing knowledge of HTML and CSS would do wonders for me. Now if only I can get those pesky weak art skills off the ground. But, regardless of the hideousness of my line work, I have ambition, and that is always number one in my book for having a great time.
There is a bit of time before all of these things can really kick off, but some of the basic tools are already in my hands. The new laptop, Dreamweaver, and especially the tablet, are still a bit of time off. I don't even know when the tablet will be confirmed, but given the nature of such a device and how it can be integrated into the all of the other tools, it's almost essential.
I don't know where I will begin exactly. Given how many different things I could do, and how they all tie into one big plan, I have options. Time is of the essence, and unfortunately there is never enough of it. I see the music option to be a viable one, given the nature of what I already have invested there, and, not to mention, how much easier it would be to put together a decent documentary about the process. Short, but, hopefully, interesting. These are all pieces, and the big picture is far too big for even me to see. Mostly because there is an idiot painting this portrait. And it's time for the idiot to stop typing.
Keep watching. Something is coming. Even if it is just bizarre and cool looking photoshop art.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Fighting Codes
Lo, and behold, the fruits of my digital labor!
Okay, so it's not incredible by any measure, but it's something. Before today, I could make a text laden white page of boring crap, and it wasn't in any way impressive. Now, I can build a background in Photoshop, botch it in size, build the text content in HTML and use CSS to setup a page with proper links and consistent visualization of the content. With the page pictured above, I have three pages linked together, and there is less than two pages of HTML and CSS to show for it, all spread across four notepad documents. I'm really digging what CSS can do, and it was always the tool that I had longed to use in my previous attempts at web design and didn't know about.
So after this one day of reading and practicing, I'm getting this stretch of ambition where I will rebuild this blog entirely out of my own content and design, using the on-site HTML editor...and hopefully a CSS style sheet if I can figure out how to employ that. If nothing else I guess I can link it in from somewhere. Anyway.
I have a lot to do from here out if I want to continue using HTML and develop my skills into something. Not to mention, I really would like to do something beyond this. If I can use HTML and CSS, I can learn other languages...except for C.
Okay, back to my notepad pages.
Okay, so it's not incredible by any measure, but it's something. Before today, I could make a text laden white page of boring crap, and it wasn't in any way impressive. Now, I can build a background in Photoshop, botch it in size, build the text content in HTML and use CSS to setup a page with proper links and consistent visualization of the content. With the page pictured above, I have three pages linked together, and there is less than two pages of HTML and CSS to show for it, all spread across four notepad documents. I'm really digging what CSS can do, and it was always the tool that I had longed to use in my previous attempts at web design and didn't know about.
So after this one day of reading and practicing, I'm getting this stretch of ambition where I will rebuild this blog entirely out of my own content and design, using the on-site HTML editor...and hopefully a CSS style sheet if I can figure out how to employ that. If nothing else I guess I can link it in from somewhere. Anyway.
I have a lot to do from here out if I want to continue using HTML and develop my skills into something. Not to mention, I really would like to do something beyond this. If I can use HTML and CSS, I can learn other languages...except for C.
Okay, back to my notepad pages.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Ultima 1: Ending the First Age of Darkness
I have finished my first Ultima game, and I had an absolute blast. I can't think of anything like it.
A strange man appears in Sosaria, and is hired by kings to fight monsters and go to random sign posts around the world in exchange for stat points and gems. When the Stranger has all of the gems, they are to buy a space shuttle and fly into space where they shoot down Tie Fighters to become a Space Ace. Becoming a Space Ace convinces a princess to tell you where the King's time machine is, provided the Stranger frees her from prison. Why the Princess is in prison, I don't know. Still, the Stranger travels through time and kills the evil wizard Mondain before destroying the Gem of Immortality.
So, three different types of nerdy stories, with a guest appearance by a balrog...er...I mean, balron!
Okay, so it's a bizarre game, but it's a lot of fun, and I think everyone should give it a try.
This isn't really a review, but I think that there are some people bored enough to read this, and I'd like that...ummm...you go out and pick it up. www.gog.com . You'll also get the second and third games from the series, for just six bucks. Enjoy folks.
A strange man appears in Sosaria, and is hired by kings to fight monsters and go to random sign posts around the world in exchange for stat points and gems. When the Stranger has all of the gems, they are to buy a space shuttle and fly into space where they shoot down Tie Fighters to become a Space Ace. Becoming a Space Ace convinces a princess to tell you where the King's time machine is, provided the Stranger frees her from prison. Why the Princess is in prison, I don't know. Still, the Stranger travels through time and kills the evil wizard Mondain before destroying the Gem of Immortality.
So, three different types of nerdy stories, with a guest appearance by a balrog...er...I mean, balron!
Okay, so it's a bizarre game, but it's a lot of fun, and I think everyone should give it a try.
This isn't really a review, but I think that there are some people bored enough to read this, and I'd like that...ummm...you go out and pick it up. www.gog.com . You'll also get the second and third games from the series, for just six bucks. Enjoy folks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)