Lee Collins's Blog, page 3

Xenoblade Chronicles: First Impressions

As promised, here is another coveted installment in my world-bending series of half-congealed thoughts on new releases. Today’s selection should come as no surprise to my loyal readers, but for all of you stopping by on a completely unrelated search, what follows is my evaluation of the first eight hours of Xenoblade Chronicles. Sadly, this post will not feature high-res screencaps documenting my intrepid journey up to the Bionis’ knee; unlike some people, I did not pirate the game for use on a certain cetacean emulator, so I have no PC screens to show off. Truth be told, I didn’t buy it, either, but I am living vicariously through Tori’s expedition and my own brief experimentation with the combat system.

Much like actual science, these experiments involved hacking apart giant death robots.

As evidenced above, the story begins in the midst of an epic last stand between three dudes (one of which looks like a pirate) and an army of asymmetrical mechs. The guy with the glowing blue sword is intrepid, taking his buddies in for one final stand before their entire army gets annihilated. Not wanting to cut the story short at half an hour, our plucky hero turns the tide of the battle with his bravado and his ethereal, phallic blade. After the day is won, the narrative jumps forward a year, dropping into a happy little hamlet displaying an unclear level of technological development: these people have lasers and missiles, but they fight robots with swords. Were this Star Trek TNG, Captain Picard would lock himself in his ready room for days trying to decide whether or not making contact violated the Prime Directive.

"Also, there are dinosaurs. Have fun, captain."

The first quest features three tweenish people with British accents taking bladed melee weapons to go retrieve some fuel rods so they can move a piece of mobile artillery that crashed into somebody’s house. Things go swimmingly until a flying armada of evil robots arrives and puts their entire colony to the torch. Suddenly one friend short, the two remaining heroes band together and, with the help of the techno-magical sword Monado, drive the metal-faced menace back. They swear vengeance for their fallen comrade and set out on a half-cocked quest with nothing but the clothes and swords on their backs. Along the way, they save a younger person from monsters only to have him drive away in his internal-combustion-powered buggy and get caught by another evil mech. The kid’s older sister and her oversized sniper rifle join the party, and the trio sets off to save the dipshit from himself.

"Goddammit, Carl, just stay in the fucking hou--oh, wait, wrong show."

Things I Enjoyed

-The combat system takes some getting used to, but once you have it down, it’s a great new take on single-player RPG combat. I say “single-player” because it feels a lot like the standard MMO combat style; autoattacks, cooldowns, and real-time combat. It’s even a step above MMOs in that the AI-controlled party members aren’t the standard bong-bashed idiots one typically finds in a pug. You can control whichever character you want, meaning that individual play style can be somewhat accommodated. If you prefer guns to swords, jump into the skin of gratuitously-cleavaged gunner woman. Prefer tanking? Take resident meat shield Reyn for a spin. Best of all: no items, which means no running out of phoenix downs in the middle of a boss fight. Resurrection is handled via the party gauge; as long as you have one full bar (filled with combos and teamwork and crap), you can run over to downed allies and pull them back on their feet.

-The world is rich, colorful and evokes the bygone days of JRPG glory on the PS2. Some reviewers have listed this as a drawback, and I can understand the position. The character models do look like they belong on a previous generation’s hardware, but that’s okay with me. The developers may be cashing in on the dated graphics inducing waves of nostalgia, and it works. At the same time, the size of the world around you–complete with alternating day/night cycles and weather–adds a depth that the PS2 could not have matched.

Similarly, last-gen systems could not have painted the game's many bromances with such loving care.

Things I Didn’t Like

-While the older art style is charming, the silly voice acting that accompanies it (another hallmark of bygone days, right, Skyrim? RIGHT?) is either the mockery tree’s low-hanging fruit or an annoying impediment to immersion, depending on my mood and what’s going on. I realize that Nintendo probably didn’t redub the English version when they brought it over from Arthur’s kingdom (evidenced by the spelling of certain words in the subtitles), but it seems they never put much money into the voice cast to begin with. I’m not asking for Hellsing-esque levels of quality, but at least make sure the actors have read the script once before putting them in front of the microphone.

-The various party mechanics in combat are ambiguous, especially given that I wasn’t paying all that much attention to the tutorial (those Shadow Hearts: From the New World side quests won’t finish themselves). Thus, I find myself pressing B without knowing why and seeing little hearts fly around the screen as a result. Am I performing joint attacks? Offering time-critical buffs or heals? Waggling my eyebrows in a suggestive manner? Could be all three; I’ll never know unless I overcome my laziness and go back through the tutorials again, which are handily on file for the benefit of such idiots as myself. Still, it’s a lot of information to take in when you’re still adjusting to the combat system.

I like my tutorials like I like my shirts: long enough to cover the facts, short enough to not be there at all.

Verdict: This is kind of a moot point since we already own the game, but yes, I recommend picking it up. While not the paradigm-shattering revolution to the genre that people have claimed, it is more than a few steps down the road toward updating the JRPG for future generations.

Review – Shadow Hearts: From the New World

The third and latest installment in the critically acclaimed role-playing game series, SHADOW HEARTS: From the New World takes place in the United States during the Great Depression. The Story Begins as Johnny Garland, a young 16-year old detective who lost his father, sister and his memory in an accident, accepts an investigation to track down a criminal suspect who has escaped from custody. As he closes in on the suspect, Johnny witnesses a supernatural occurrence – a huge monster appears from a green light known as a "window" and swallows up the criminal. Apparently, a series of horrific incidents similar to this have been plaguing cities across the nation. Johnny's female counterpart is 21-year-old bounty hunter Shania, a Native American who is searching for these mysterious windows, determined to close them using her spiritual powers. Together, they travel across North and South America and are joined by a colorful cast of characters.

The box art for this game is fairly misleading. Despite her minimalist approach to clothing, the distraught Native American princess in the arms of Johnny Blue-Eyes is a much more capable fighter and interesting character than he is. She wields twin tomahawks, can fuse with the spirits of ancient totemic deities, and is hell-bent on taking revenge for her slaughtered village; he has a pocket knife and a can-do attitude. But, because this is a JRPG from the PS2 era, the feather-haired teenage male must cradle a vulnerable, highly sexualized female. It's the rules.

Once past the silly cover, however, one finds some unexpected surprises that lift this game out of the sea of tropes common to JRPGs from this period. Yes, some of the old standbys are still there (random battles, turn-based combat, status ailments, lolitas), but there are enough surprises to keep things interesting. For one, the cast of party members is absolutely bonkers. In most PS2-era JRPGs, the characters fall within a fairly narrow band of personality types: broody badass, plucky youth, naive girl-woman, etc. This game has a few (see Johnny Blue-Eyes), but the others more than make up for the cliches. What do a mobster mariachi guitarist, a chubby vampiress, a delusional German ninja, and a drunken kung-fu master who is also a giant anthropomorphic cat have in common? If you answered, "They all chew on the edges of my fever dreams," then you must have been one of the developers responsible for this title. Still, for all the nonsequiturs involved, the batshit party gives a lot of personality to the story.

Really, they would bring a lot of personality to any event.

Another refreshing deviation from the norm is the setting. No pre-industrial castles, steampunk cities, or reimaginings of historic Japan for this title; the party is planted square in the middle of Prohibition-era New York and traipses all around the Western hemisphere on the trail of world-destroying antagonists Lady and Killer. Awkward names, I know, but they sort of make sense in context. Actually, "Lady and Killer" might not be a bad title for a book. Anyway, hopping from the Grand Canyon and Roswell to Chichen Itza and various Pacific islands makes immersion in the world easy.

The battle system, on the other hand, is a double-edged sword. It is simple and straightforward, which is nice, but it also carries some flaws inherent to the Shadow Hearts series. The biggest, shiniest pimple on its face is the sanity point system. Each character has a sanity meter that drains as they are attacked by enemies. Once it hits zero, the character goes berserk, randomly selecting abilities and targets until they are killed or some sanity is restored to them via spells or items. Thus, one must waste valuable combat turns making sure the characters don't snap and self-immolate. Had the sanity system any grounding in the story, it might be more tolerable; lacking that, it's just an irritating chore.

Some of the boss battles are also absurdly cheap. I'm all for a tough round of fisticuffs; it gives me cause to satisfy my inner grind whore. What I don't appreciate is a boss with an automatic IWIN button unless you've geared specifically against it. This sort of thing doesn't happen until late in the game, but it still happens. One boss has a "petrify all" spell that is in no way announced, meaning you will most certainly lose your first attempt unless your party just happens to be wearing the anti-petrify trinket. Another's regular melee attack has a fairly good chance of an instant KO. Very few (certainly no more than half a dozen) enemies in the game have this ability, so protecting against it seems useless. Then you fight this boss, spend half an hour trying to compensate for his cheap move, and end up redoing the fight anyway.

Bastard still got what was coming to him. Curvy Hilda takes no prisoners.

Overall, though, the game is fun, funny, and endearing. Fans of Okage: the Shadow King should certainly give this title a shot. The main quest isn't too long, either, so you're not signing up for a Xenosaga-esque commitment by picking it up.

 

On learning new languages

Despite my role as a translator in my EverQuest RP server guild  (I had a lot more time back then), I am by no means a prodigy at picking up foreign tongues in the big RL. I often think about how great it would be to speak more than one language with any degree of competence, but a sub-par language program at my high school, the cultural attitude of Americans toward other languages, and my own overwhelming laziness all conspired to abolish my fantasies of laughing quietly at the jokes the German guys on the bus seem to be constantly telling.

"Schwantztucker!"

Somewhat ironically, then, I am taking a class this semester that has taught me the basics of a new language. However, it is not a language that will let me effortlessly blend in among the locals of any human civilization, past or present. It will not win me friends overseas, enable me to resolve conflicts between superpowers, or make it where I can play Minecraft with a language pack randomizer switched on. It will, however, perhaps pave the way to writing my own Minecraft mod to randomize language pack selection on bootup.

Yes, I am learning a programming language. Which one, you ask? Why, the one. The one that is so holy it has no name. The one that deifies the code in a way most ancient civilizations could get behind: inexplicable laws and swift judgment. I speak of C.

Goddammit, you ass, not that C. Whatever. Enjoy the Jets.

In addition to teaching me how to program infinite loops and appreciate code monkey jokes, this class has also shown me just how inept I am as a programmer. Granted, I am still very new to it, but I still don't think I should take an average of sixty times longer than my instructor to write a program. I like to think I'm not the slowest person in any given class, but that assumption is being sorely challenged. School was never difficult for me, even in high school when I didn't get to pick all idiot English courses, so getting my ass handed to me by a 100-level introduction class is a humbling experience. By humbling, I of course mean screaming, wailing, raising-my-fists-to-the-indifferent-heavens frustrating. I admit that enrolling in an entirely foreign subject matter on top of full-time employment, book writing duties, book editing duties, and the occasional need to not do anything for awhile was perhaps not the wisest choice, but that's the whole point of things, isn't it? We kill off years of our lives with stress so the remaining lives can be of a higher quality. Provided it actually pans out that way (ie I am able to get a better-paying day job in a field that doesn't require as much customer contact), it's close enough to being worth it to merit some effort. Plus, if I actually learn enough code to write my own games one day, I can add a completely new way to pour hundreds of hours into a creative project with no guaranteed return.

If it doesn't pan out, there's always Zoloft.

A better life with chemistry; a horrible shrieking nightmare without.

Nothing to See Here

Seriously. Nothing you would want to see, anyway. I have been remarkably testy all week, and I'd rather save this rage up for a well-honed rant instead of spewing acid all over your monitor. Actually, I do sort of wish I could do that. Nothing personal, but spitting acid would be a handy ability to have around the office.

As a substitute for any content of my own, I will direct you to this fantastic deconstruction of Mass Effect 3's ending by one of my blogging role models, Shamus Young.

Fanboy glee and schadenfreude

The press embargo on GDC was lifted yesterday, and my concentration has absolutely gone to shit because of it. Fortunately, I"m experiencing a brief lull in workplace responsibilities due to spring break, allowing me to do nothing but read articles and watch videos. All covering one game, of course.

This game has a way of holding your attention.

The flood of information Funcom has released in the last few months was carefully crafted to generate the most hype possible, and I'm falling for it full-tilt. Yes, even though it involves a guy with full-body tattoos wandering around a seedy Seoul hotel wearing only a loincloth and a frown. After nearly four years of following this game as it developed, greedily slurping up the paltry dribblings of information they released along the way, I am now gorging myself on this wealth of in-game footage and reviewer analysis. I typically don't pay much attention to professional game reviewers; their scores match up with my own tastes too erratically to be of much use in determining whether or not I'll like a game. However, in the case of The Secret World, I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything that they're saying. Refreshing take on the MMO? Check. Classless, free-form character development? Check. A simple crafting system not based on grinding lists? Check. Near-continuous reiteration of how this game is doing everything The Old Republic tried to do, only doing it well?

Check, motherfuckers.

Of course, there lies the tell-tale ridge marking the passage of a writhing, burrowing fear that The Secret World will not be what Funcom is showing it to be. Never having any interest in the Conan mythos beyond Jon and Al Kaplan's song on the subject, I never played Age of Conan. General Internet consensus rules it enough of a failure to haunt every goddamn thread relating to The Secret World, though. I understand that AoC and TSW were developed by separate teams, so I'm hoping that the latter will dispel such trepidations handily.

Still, there were legions of players hoping The Old Republic would be the scion of a new age in MMOs. BioWare played up that angle and failed to deliver. As much as I'm enjoying watching their forums erupt in acrid self-consumption, a quiet voice is whispering that the same may happen with The Secret World. I don't doubt that it will bring new elements to the table, but I'm still ever so slightly worried that it won't do it well. A buggy launch, or disjointed features, or ludicrously overpowered builds. Yes, every MMO has bugs at launch (something the feral bands of comment jackals always seem to forget), but will they be irritations, gimps, or full-on crippling? This unknown quantity makes me apprehensive.

One thing I'm not concerned about, however, is the P2P/cash store model that The Secret World will be using. Despite having wadded too many panties to count, this particular feature doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm old-school enough to recognize that a P2P system is essential if you want a game that works well, looks fantastic, and delivers quality updates. Yes, there are a lot of F2P games that are fun, but P2P games tend to achieve a higher level of all-around quality. Furthermore, Funcom has confirmed that the cash store will be strictly vanity; no IWIN buttons for sale, just a lot of fancy getups and other things that make your toon prettier to look at. WoW does this (fuck you and your sparklehorse). EVE does this. Both games still function with both dedicated and casual followers. I have never puchased vanity items in either game despite my years of playing, and it hasn't impacted my experience in the slightest. Far be in from me to speak to the entitlement complex that supposedly infects the majority of Internet denizens, but seriously, shut the hell up about this being a "greedy" maneuver by "grubby" corporations. Funcom is taking an enormous financial risk with The Secret World: they're introducing new ideas, new gameplay, and a completely original world into an industry that rewards sequels with enthusiasm and innovation with vitriol. That is not the MO of a greedy dev team. In my mind, the epitome of a cash-hungry, soulless game company is one that buys rights to a mega-popular IP and makes the gameplay identical to another mega-popular IP.

Oh wait.

Cavities

The drill whined and squealed as it worked, sending fragments of my last hope flying through the glare of the overhead lamp. Blue eyes enlarged to terrifying proportions peered through the tiny binoculars the dentist wore clipped to his glasses. I could feel them boring into me like the drill, searching for the remaining pieces of protection still nestled in my teeth.

My father placed them there when I was young. They were bits of darkness to protect me from creatures of darkness, he said. Even as a child, that hadn't made sense to me, and I'd told him so. He smiled his white, perfect smile then.

"Creatures of darkness will think you are one of them," he'd said. "They won't bother you because they won't know that you really aren't."

Content with his explanation as only a child could be, I'd opened my mouth for him, and he'd set to work. The process hurt; my mouth bled for days afterward. Still, for all the pain, it worked. I no longer saw them lurking in the corners of the back yard at night, watching me with veiled eyes. Whatever my father had done, it had worked. I was safe.

Until now.

"There we go," the dentist said, a smile peeking around the edges of his surgical mask. "All set."

I worked my jaw. Despite the Novocaine, I could still feel a dull ache–almost an itching–in my gums. A weak smile stretched my sore lips. "Thanks."

He launched into his post-procedure speech then. I'd heard it several times by now, but he repeated it in earnest all the same. Running my tongue over the smooth new fillings, I pretended to listen. Behind me, the dentist's assistant was collecting the silver instruments used in the destruction of my father's gift to me. Part of me wanted to take the drill and set to work on her for what she'd done. My fingers curled into fists as I imagined my vengeance, but I forced them to relax. She had not known any better; for her, this was just a job to helppay for school or her kids or whatever.

No, the real object of my hatred sat before me, pointing nonchalantly at a computer diagram of my teeth. Little green circles glowed around each tooth now, proclaiming that all was well. I knew better, and so did he. I could see the silent laughter dancing in his eyes as he spoke. I was defenseless now, a juicy plum waiting to be plucked from the world of light by his associates.

"And that's about it," he said. "Julie will set you up for your next cleaning." A wide, white smile, an extended hand. "Have a good rest of the day."

Bastard, I thought. You know damn well that the rest of the day will be my last in this world. I couldn't say it aloud, though. Exposing him for what he was in front of his innocent assistants would only anger him. His anger would become my agony when they came for me. Death would be too much to hope for.

I slid out of the chair, the leather squeaking beneath me. At the front desk, Julie smiled. "All set?"

I nodded.

"Will February 21 work for your next visit?"

I nodded again. It didn't matter.

Outside, I squinted against the morning sun. Raising my hand against the glare, I turned and looked through the big front windows of the dentist's office. He stood there, a smirk floating above his bleached lab coat, hand raised in farewell.

Catherine – Midterm Evaluation

Catherine is, in many ways, like a JRPG. Anime-style art direction, squeaky-voiced women with sculpted bosoms, and a main character who continually bemoans problems that most of the target audience would flay their own mothers to have.

Must my milkshake bring ALL the girls to the yard?

This is no surprise given Atlus's long and proud tradition of publishing games exclusive to a Japanese audience (portables notwithstanding). Yes, some of their titles have been published (and subsequently banned) in other regions, but it's clear that they largely cater to the Japanese gaming audience in their level of difficulty, themes, and aesthetic.

Pictured above.

Catherine incorporates the near-ubiquitous binary morality system seen in many of this generation's console games. However, this is the first time I've ever found myself questioning the honesty of the system. Unlike the ham-fisted morality systems of today's big WRPGs (wherein the player must choose between adopting an orphaned litter of puppies or turning them into an adorable source of biofuel for his mechanical heart), Catherine makes the player choose how best to counsel NPCs through various relationship and emotional issues. Just as in real life, the "correct" answer is not as plain as the birdshit on the nose on your face.

For example, last night I found myself in the role of therapist for a sheep with regal hair. Said sheep divulged how his father used to abuse and neglect him. When given the choice between saying "It's your Dad's fault!" and "It's in the past", I went with the latter. The game promptly shifted my morality dial slightly toward the red angel, indicating that my response was, in fact, reprehensible and I should feel badly about it.

You know what, guys? Go fuck yourselves. I'm not an LCSW.

Other morally ambiguous questions and actions have surfaced, each with a predefined "right" and "wrong" outcome. Now, this could be just some bad writing, but I'm starting to wonder if this game will turn the morality system on its ear at some point. The first half of the game gives the clear impression that choosing for long-time girlfriend Katherine instead of cutesy fling Catherine is the "right" thing to do. However, events develop that cast Katherine in a dubious light, making the previous "good" decisions uncertain. I would love to see a game subvert the now-standard binary morality system by having good choices lead to a bad ending, and I'm hoping Catherine does exactly that.

Well done, my good and faithful paladin. Here comes your happily ever after.

I Owe It All to One Thing

That thing, of course, is Metroid Metal.

Pictured: my thinking cap

I've finally finished my first draft of She Returns From War. Over half of this draft was written with their wailing riffs and pounding bass lines pouring through my headphones. I couldn't really say why. While drafting The Dead of Winter, I listened to a much more diverse selection of music through my Nightwish Pandora channel, supplemented by VNV Nation. For this book, though, I was so thoroughly enamored with this group's interpretations of Metroid themes that I listened to little else during the months of November and December. Mad props to Rob Haines for guiding me to their shrine.

This drafting process differed from my experience with The Dead of Winter in other ways as well. Most notably, the pressure of the deadline removed nearly all of the casual, just-for-shits feeling of drafting my first book. Ironic when you consider that She Returns From War took me over a month longer to write despite both books being nearly identical in length, but there it is. I wasn't just drafting in response to some vague, largely ignorant ambition of becoming a novelist; I was drafting in response to a very real contract in which I agreed to write a book. That thought has gnawed at the back of my mind since I first signed on with Angry Robot, whittling away at my security, sanity, and laziness like some giant, meth-addled rodent with an antisocial complex.

Fortunately, I happen to know some guys who have experience in dealing with giant rodents.

I suppose my single greatest apprehension iswas the fear that this book will somehow not measure up to The Dead of Winter. I found myself constantly questioning its quality, deathly afraid that, had their places been switched, this novel would not have landed me the deal. It's hardly fair to compare a first draft with a manuscript I'd spent a year polishing, but insecurities care not for justice. Knowing that this book will be held up to a standard and that it will be published adds entire new dimensions of obsessing over quality, even in the first draft. I fully recognize that I'm far too close to the manuscript now to have any hope of making an objective-ish assessment of its quality. All I see are the flaws, the parts that extracted wails of misery from my inner editor, the short sections of prose that took me far too many hours to choke out. Whether or not my beta readers pick up on these chinks in the armor remains to be seen.

I'm pretty sure there are only a few small ones, though.

Fortunately, I simultaneously operated under the delusionimpression that I was incorporating the lessons I'd learned from The Dead of Winter into this draft. These were mostly on a compositional level–sentence construction and dialogue and whatnot–rather than esoteric things like pacing and theme and tension. Wordcraft rather than storycraft, if you will. I'm hoping that, if successful, this increased attention to the mechanics during the first draft will free me up to pay more attention to abstracts in the revising stages, but that remains to be seen. I'm sure beta readers will look back at this post and howl with laughter after finding all of my typos, misused words, and clunky flow.

Seriously, quit laughing. I don't see the problem.

The Darkness II – First Impressions

Yes, this is the beginning of a trend. Such a trend, in fact, that I am already in negotiations with a VERY BIG PUBLISHER for rights to my "First Impressions" series. It will be like "Stuff White People Like" in its scope, tone, and appeal. What makes it special is that it will actually continue to update after the book deal has been signed.

BURN!

The Darkness II demo does a good job of pulling the player into the story right away. It achieves this by crucifying said player and having Two-Face's working-class cousin growl semi-coherent drivel about "giving up the darkness" to him. Were the main character a woman, I imagine this tirade would be met with great umbrage by campus feminist alliances nationwide. The Saw-style interrogation is interrupted by playable flashbacks featuring a classic mobster dustup in what appears to be New York City. The faceless protagonist, Johnny Estacado, arrives at a posh restaurant for a nice supper with two identical examples of puberty's generosity. Before he can take the proper time to ogle, a truck crashes through the wall, splattering the women's overzealous pituitary glands all over our hero. Guys in bright orange overalls pour through the windows, and the shooting begins. A short time later, a bomb explodes, and little Johnny grows two hideous demonic snake things out of his shoulders.

Which, come to think of it, don't differ too much from the average restaurant-goer.

More shooting and screaming and grabbing of guys with evil snake jaws ensue as Johnny fights through the crowded back alleys with his faithful Cockney demon monkey at his side. The bad mobsters employ limited vocabularies to taunt him, he rips them in half, civilians scream and hide. In a reversal of Alan Wake logic, Johnny must shoot out the lights in the alley and metro station to survive; his toothy appendages apparently don't flourish beneath compact fluorescents. In addition to the snake arms, Johnny has access to standard gangland armaments: pistols, Uzis, and shotguns. The firearms come in handy when the sinister orange jumpsuits are beyond the reach of the vicious black tumors.

Incidentally, generic white women are always beyond their reach.

Things I Enjoyed

-The combination of regular FPS pew pew with the om-nom-nom of Medusa's assertive wig collection make for some pleasant diversion from the genre standard. There's also a touch of Dead Rising in the left-hand snake's ability to weaponize a lot of objects in the environment. Car doors, corpses, dumpster, and steel rods may all be used to rack up "essence" kills–the gorier the better–for unlocking new powers.

-The story itself seemed like a plot one might see in the Illuminati branch of The Secret World. I'm a sucker for anything that looks like it belongs in that game, so great is my anticipation for it.

Attempting to talk me out of said hype is strongly discouraged.

Things I Didn't Enjoy

-While the combat is fun, I could see it getting very repetitive very quickly. The five-taunt list given to the bad guys–which they fire off as energetically and frequently as their bullets–grows tiresome before you get through the first flashback. If the fight scenarios follow suit, I can't see this title holding my interest for long.

-The monkey-demon thing is rather out-of-place, even in a game about a guy who has Satanic monsters living in his shoulders. The sidekick insists Johnny created him out of his own head, but we're given no explanation beyond that. He doesn't add much combat utility and seems only to serve as crude comic relief. Given that I had no intense emotional investment in the culling of the Pumpkin Patch Punks, seeing the monkey piss on their corpses didn't do a whole lot for me.

Although, to his credit, he does appear to have a skinned cat on his head.

Verdict: not a full-price purchase, not even a priority discount purchase. Had it come out this time last year, I may have been more interested. With 2012′s fantastic lineup, however, I'm afraid this one will fall by the wayside. Soon enough, I shall have no more need for Secret World surrogates. Soon enough.

Burnout Recovery: A Tale of Water and Antiblood

No, I don't know what the diametric opposite of blood is on the black magic scale. I left Jowan to snivel and mope in Redcliffe's dungeon, so he can't tell me, either. If science can get away with "antimatter", I'm calling "antiblood" valid.

At least we know that a combination of good intentions and idiocy doesn't cancel blood magic.

In the two weeks since I posted my reasoning for taking a break from novelizing prior to the completion of the first draft, I have since resumed work on the manuscript, edging it 5,000 words closer to completion. Why the sudden burst of productivity? Can 5,000 words in two weeks really be called a "burst of productivity"?

To dodge the second question: I attribute the abrupt forward momentum after three weeks of stalled progress to a few things. The first of these is the public declaration of my failure. By announcing that I'd stopped work on the book, I suddenly felt much more ashamed of my failure. The guilt had already been lacerating my viscera like coked-up scorpions with throwing stars, and the post about it added tiny screaming monkeys on the backs of the scorpions.

The monkeys were invisible, though, so I don't know if they also had throwing stars.

Aside from the (possibly) metaphoric internal hemorrhaging, I was simply stuck on how best to approach the book's conclusion. The ending is one I've had in mind for over a year, and I like it quite a bit. However, liking it doesn't make it easy to write. Quite the opposite, in fact. Despite the wisdom of "write now, revise later", I want to get it as close to right as I can the first time around. True, it still won't be very close, but rushing through this part wouldn't feel fair to the characters. They deserve the very best of my horrid first-draft prose.

Sure, it doesn't look like much, but it's from the goddamn heart.

This is the part of the research article (you did know that's what this is, right?) where I discuss implications and limitations of these results. However, given the extent of rigor and precision with which this study was conducted, I believe the above image will suffice. Really, I only pretend I know what I'm doing.