And now for some...

words...

Yes, it's time to sit down and make my little word count meters move. I decided I'd warm up with a little bit of conversation on how I've spent my morning. It was a little bit productive, you might even say.

I have just bugged a few more editors about getting paid work, including another shout into the ear of the kind editor of The Escapist. I'm hoping that this will garner some attention, and get me a shot, or at least the bloody bullet. The last pitch I sent to Escapist warranted another rejection, but I'm not disappointed. It's just a rejection letter, friends, and if you write, you will see many of them.

In other news--The podcast seems to be doing okay for a hardly advertised bit of rambling about the state of the video game industry. I'd like to see more listeners, but then again, I'd also like to see more readers for this blog, which has a feature that I have spoken of, but have yet to introduce, which leads me to...

PAST GENERATIONS! I have two articles in the can, awaiting editing. I'm just looking for the right time to post them, and this just isn't it. Besides, I've only got five 32X games so far, and that's not enough to really launch this thing off in style. Perhaps I will find a few more in good time, and not go broke in the process.

Alright, enough babbling. I think I need to blindfold myself now, and see which of the giant manuscripts I will stab with it's pointy business end. Wish me luck.

Writer's Blocks

Nope, this is not a post about difficulty with writing. This is my post to show how unproductive I have been, and how I plan to measure my productivity, and give myself a little tool by which to shove myself into writing more. You know, because I'm crazy.

Providence

Alchemyst (Musician story)

Untitled Collaborative Piece (which I should really return to, and wrap up my segment...)

Sure, 75000 is a bit low, but I'm just using those as ballpark estimates. I don't really know what the final total will be, but these are my goals for the three prose projects that I am working on. Anyway...I am writing! It's happening! Keep watching my ridiculous little meters, and see how I come to the final numbers. Anyway, I'm going to see what I can do to get to 20,000 by the end of the week on Alchemyst. Also, I need to find a new title for that story.

Star Wars Comics

Obviously, I enjoy Star Wars more than the average person does, and this drags me into quite a bit of a mess sometimes. Arguing with Star Trek fans aside, the dirty business of trying to keep up with the canon in some way tends to be the most painful thing that a Star Wars fan has to do. Verbally assaulting Trekkies (Trekkers...whatever) isn't that big a deal in comparison.

Dark Horse has held the Star Wars license for twenty years, and has done a lot with the franchise. From sweet adaptations of the films and the Thrawn trilogy, to recent ongoing works like Legacy and Knights of the Old Republic, they treat the property with a lot of respect, providing readers such as myself with a diverse selection of material to read when I drop by my local comic shop. Then there are the recent books that make my eyes roll directly out of my skull.

Now let me say this first: none of these books are innately bad. They just don't reach the level of quality of the other books from the Star Wars franchise. For example, KOTOR writer John Jackson Miller is writing a new series called Knight Errant, focusing on new character Kerra Holt, a Jedi knight who is going to fight Sith and blah blah blah, oh dear God why is this series about another bloody JEDI! Knights of the Old Republic was a great series, and it ended. Most writers would want to move onto new material, or at least make it seem fresh. Kerra Holt is a largely uninteresting character, and I'm rather bored with Knight Errant, and there's only been six issues. Miller is a great writer, and knows the universe well, so I can't help but wonder why this series is so unbelievably dull.

This isn't the only Jedi focused attempt at cashing in on the Clone Wars television craze. An Episode I precursor about Qui-Gon Jinn is coming up later this year, and I'm not exactly excited about this one either. I'm going to read it, yes, but that doesn't mean I have high hopes. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it should exist, other than to tell another story about another Jedi.

That said, Dark Horse does have two series with Jedi in them that don't irritate me. One of those is Dark Times, a particularly dismal take on the period between episodes III and IV, about a wayward Jedi, redefining his role in the universe after the fall of the Jedi order. Sixteen issues, and it's a far cry from Knight Errant, with great characters, fantastic writing, and everything I love in a good Star Wars comic. The tone of the story sits somewhere between classic Samurai film and a good Spaghetti Western. If you haven't read this one, you are missing out on what is easily the best Star Wars book running.

The other end of the quality Jedi-ish books are the Legacy series, which received an absolutely pointless restart after issue 50, which was supposed to be the finale. Considering the delay of the last issue, I think that there was a decision made somewhere to extend things, and a convenient little six issue mini series was dictated at the proper move. Well, I'm going to say that the mini has been just as good as the fifty issues that preceded it, but it still stings going through my comic boxes, and there is a renumbered ending for the end of a series. It looks odd, and now I'm just showing my insane OCD behaviors, which only exist for my hobbies! Aside from that, Legacy is a blast, riding on the vibe that you are actually supposed to be enjoying this rather unwholesome galaxy that exists when the focus isn't directly on the Jedi. It's also nice to see a Skywalker with personality. We haven't got one of those since Luke Skywalker, and thankfully Cade isn't exactly like his lineage would suggest.

Now that I've got my Jedi bashing out of the way, it's time to poke the giant elephant in the corner with a javelin--Blood Ties was terrible. It's unforgivable fan service pointed directly at the possibility of selling a book just because Boba Fett is on the cover. I am probably in the minority in saying this, but I feel like Fett is far less intimidating since AotC. Gone are all of the possibilities of his origin that could have been far more exciting, just like the neutering of the Clone Wars, which were always hailed as a far more interesting time than the Robots Vs Stormtroopers bit that we got instead. Anyways, let's get back to mark here.

The Darth Vader mini-series running right now is actually pretty good. I have to give them credit here: they are trying something different with the character, which allows him to be the cold hearted killer that we remember from the first film over thirty years ago, all the while giving us the inner turmoil of the past he could have had as Anakin Skywalker, with only one child that shows Jedi potential (nice move on writer W. Haden Blackman's part). Blackman is making strong strides for the quality of writing in the Star Wars universe, although I question his decisions in the production of Force Unleashed II. But that is beside the point. He's doing good things. Next target, please.

John Ostrander, who is responsible for Legacy, is putting a new book out that is set in the classic Rebellion/Republic era. It's called Agent of the Empire, and that's pretty exciting to me. Star Wars usually is at it's best in this era, at least for me. Empire/Rebellion were two fantastic books that delved into territory that hasn't been touched enough--the period between IV and V. There's little information on the series right now other than it's coming out this year, and crowding my box at the shop, along with...

CRIMSON EMPIRE III. Yeah, they are bringing this one back. Here's hoping they reprint the first two volumes, as I missed out on those back in the late nineties, aside from a great article in Star Wars Insider, covering the launch of the series. There is a preview of the series coming out next month in Dark Horse Presents no. 1, so maybe I'll stick a review of it up here.

I also read in Previews this month that there is to be another arc of The Old Republic comics. This hurts me quite a bit actually, as the first six issues were horrible up to merely acceptable in quality. When great things are happening in the Star Wars universe, and this is the stuff that they send for me to read, it's easy to be disappointed.

And that's what is in store for Star Wars fans who read comics this year, and why I'm skeptical. Well, not as skeptical as I could have been. I could just write off the whole franchise right now, claiming that the giant arc focus of the novels makes it almost impossible for me to get into any of the new stuff, and the mediocre selection of comics makes me cringe when I see that I have to drop three more dollars on another story about someone swinging a sword made of light against another sword made of light while talking about how they will be killed and Sith and dull and why am I still typing this sentence? I know I don't have to buy these books, but I will, and hope that they grow into something. I'm just dying for Dark Horse to impress me once again. They've done it, and they do it often, so I just want them to get on with it!

Listen to internet radio with ztrigger on Blog Talk Radio

Recent Acquisitions

Just added two complete Sega CD games to my collection, Sonic CD and MegaRace. Also, the beautiful girlfriend added Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow to my collection, which has eaten up my attention for the past four days. It is quite fun, but the story is inconsequential to my experience, and the touch screen stuff is pretty pointless, and breaks the flow of gameplay. I am about half through the game.

Tomorrow is the $1 Box Sale, and I can't wait. Maybe I can put a hurting on those near-complete runs that I have been building for the past two years. Maybe I'll add to the Sandman collection a bit? Any of these things will be exciting. If you are somehow reading this, come down to Fanboy Comics in the morning an check it out.

Alright...bye.

Angry Birds Developer Makes Stupid Statement, Gamers Go Mad

I think that the majority of people connected to the internet knows what Angry Birds is. They've either played it on their cell phones, someone's cell phone, their computers, somewhere. They will even be able to play it on Facebook in the near future, making FarmVille and such obsolete. Which, quite honestly, it should be obsolete anyway, because FarmVille is about as interesting a replacing the batteries in my wireless mouse.

So, knowing that there are millions of Angry Birds players out there must make the creator of the game, Peter Vesterbacka, feel pretty good. However it doesn't excuse him from making a tool of himself in public.

Vesterbacka said that consoles are dead, due to overpriced games and hardware upgrades. Now, I can agree that throwing down sixty dollars on an X-Box 360 game (come on, Microsoft, they are on DVD's, just like your last console) is far too much to ask when the economy is in such dire condition as it is, but his statement is insane.

Let's look at it this way--console gamers usually couldn't care less about a casual game like Angry Birds. Most of them are too busy playing brown FPS's with overpowered tanks for characters to notice that such a thing even exists. The market of the average console game developer and the casual game developer are completely different, and they are able to sell their games to their audiences effectively enough that both can co-exist peacefully on opposites sides of the giant country of gaming.

Now that the obvious out of the way, I'm going to point a giant finger at the elephant that is sitting in the corner that everyone else just seems to ignore--Rovio Mobile, the studio responsible for the cell phone crack addiction, is porting their million dollar effort over to consoles.

Alright, Pete, I'm dying for your explanation on this one--why are you spearheading a series of console ports if you think that the console gaming industry is dying? It doesn't make much sense. Especially since stand alone retail versions of major casual titles usually die on the shelves because people can already play those games for free on their computers, thanks to advertising paying for the experience. If you need proof for that, head over to your local GameStop, or equivalent game shop, and look at the Wii shelves. At least 75% of the Wii library is made up of these simple games, remade and recolored for release as a way to milk that money machine a bit further, all in all making the market overcrowded with games that just aren't selling. Just because you can move several million dollar downloads doesn't mean your game is bullet proof in the console market.

Between the arrogant statement, and their trio of console versions, I'm not sure that the folks over at Rovio Mobile are thinking very clearly about their future in game development. Sure, you don't really have anything to worry about financially when you finally bury your corporation in the coming years, but you are just another one hit wonder in the gaming world. As a console gamer, I couldn't care less about your inevitable downfall. Sure, Angry Birds is fun. It's a quick to pick up and play game that is fun if you are on the go, and don't really want to break out the DS/PSP. But trust me, there will be other games. Your work isn't going to last forever. Think about that, Pete and Co. This is a fast moving industry, and you will be victim to it like so many developers before you.

Yes, you are reading correctly.

Along with my run of 32X reviews, I'm going to be doing a podcast on video games. There will probably be some comic and music talk in there as well, depending on the episode. I'm looking at one installment a month, with a second being added when there is time. Keep an eye on this page over the next week for the first episode. Since I'm on spring break, I figure I've got time to take care of such little things as talking about video games for thirty minutes. Anyway, there are two 32X reviews coming down the pipe, as I'm ready to discuss Star Wars Arcade and Doom. Corpse Killer has made it into the disc tray of my Sega CD, and the 32X powered it, so there will be a review on that eventually as well. All plans to do video reviews are currently moot, as my Sega isn't cooperating with my video capture card. However, all of my other systems are working, so I may just try to squeeze something in at some point in the near future. I've got raw footage for a Rebel Assault II review, so maybe I'll do something with that. Who knows.

Okay...you can leave now.