Shameless Plug (But not for me!)

I'm a huge book nerd, a biblophile even.  If haven't read them yet, I highly suggest checking out Brandon Sanderson. 

Sanderson brings a lot to the table.  If you've heard absolutely anything about him, it probably involved his amazing magic systems.  Which really are just plain brilliant and great fun.  That's not all though, he builds...well, you can't say 'beautiful ', because two of them are actually pretty dark, but they are extremely well done.  His characters, their motivations..reading his work makes it clear that he has an understanding of how people work.

Anyway, he's put out nine books in his four or so years of being published.  The quality of his books never suffer for their quantity.

Elantris is his first published novel, and feels a bit more 'safe' than his other books.  The overall progression is slower and there isn't much action (till the end, but he has a flair for endings that could be describes as a bit of an avalanche.)  The story itself progresses rather nicely, as do the character relations.

After Elantris, he worked MISTBORN (capitalized because he does so when talking about it on his site, and it looks right to me.)  MISTBORN takes place in one of his darker worlds.  Long ago, a great evil fell across the land, choking life from it and threatening to eradicate all life.  Wherever it's influenced touched, life was crippled, plants wilted, crops died, famines came and people died.  Swords were ineffective against it, armies useless.  To drive it back, a great hero rose up to drive back this evil.  He failed.  The Dark Lord rose up and ruled the world for a few thousand years.  Fun stuff.

Warbreaker has an interesting story behind it, sort of.  Rather, it's interesting in that you can download it for free off of Sanderson's website, and it still got onto the New York Times Best Seller list.  If you want to get into this writer, this is a great starting point.  Because it's, you know, free.

The Way of Kings is his most recent book, and another series.  This is going to be the defining series for him as an author, what Lord of the Rings was for Tolkien.  Storms ravage the land, settlements and plant-life reflect this.  Grass itself draw into the ground to avoid damage, cities are built behind Stone bluffs for protection.  The book itself is filled with some beautiful illustrations and, well, this book feels kind of hard to describe.  Not only is it written extremely well, it's very enjoyable and works fantastical equipment into the setting pretty well.

Doing the art for Sanderson (symbols, maps, cover art, illustrations), is Isaac Stewart.  He sells some of his own merchandise in relation to some of the stuff sold on Sanderson's personal site.  The bookmark you can order, for example, is quite amazing and definitely worth the two dollar price tag.  If you're looking for decoration for your wall, I also suggest the MISTBORN poster of the Allomatic Metals.

He also boasts the standard merch, t-shirts, and not so standard, such as decals.  (And, the bookmark, poster, looks like more merch will be put up on the site over time, so checking back every now and then will be a good idea.)

Also, there's a contest on the site at the moment that I'm hoping to win.  You enter by posting links to his site somewhere, and notifying him of the links.

So, part of this post is for me.  Hoping I win a free shirt.

Anyway, happy hunting, all.
Nix.

EDIT: Thanks to....actually, the name of the person who responded to me wasn't in the email.  Anyway, I failed at wording in the above paragraph when I was talking about Inkwing.  "He sells some of his own merchandise", specifically.  That implies that Isaac creates his own stuff, and sells it.  Which isn't at all what I meant.  Or, it kind of is.  As far as I can remember, Isaac does create the symbols used, but I could be wrong and will be checking that fact tonight.

Right, trying again.  Some of the stuff for sale (at the time of this post, most of the stuff, actually,) features stuff from Sanderson's books. 

I was also told that Inkwing will have new shirts in October, designed by someone named Ben (no last name given,) who was one of the other artists for The Way of Kings.  Also noted that he might be doing prints for Inkwing as well.

Here's to hoping he does, the art in The Way of Kings is simply wondrous, an artist with that skill has to create more.

Guess who!

Hey guys! It's Skiddy, and I'm here to tell you that I'm not dead... just without a computer.  Since we last spoke, I've gotten a job and already have a laptop lined up so I can feed all of you hungry visitors with some much needed tech news.  As of now, the laptop looks like it'll be in my hands in a week or so, so you'll just have to wait to get your daily dose of my snide comments and sub par writing.


Until then,

Skiddy, signing out.

Playing as a Dead Baby Has Never Been So Fun

Though the ones pictures do not include a dead baby, it does show off one of the new enemy types of the sequel, called The Pack.  They're a fairly quick physical orientated...thing.  Running up and tearing your face off with their elongated fingers is what they do best.

Onto the multiplayer beta.  It's actually fairly enjoyable.  There are two 'teams', the engineers, and the necromorphs.  (For those of you who don't know, necromorphs are the game's primary enemy.  And, by that, I mean a necromorph is a corpse infected by an alien virus that turns them into something really freaky.)  The engineers are tasked with accomplishing some goal based on the map, such as getting something so you can..do something, I'm not exactly sure what.  The other team, the necromorphs, are tasked with running mindlessly into the the engineering team and attempting to get a kill before having their limbs forcible removed.

Engineers get three weapons.  The Plasma Rifle, high fire rate, large clip, decent accuracy.  The Plasma Cutter, fires a line of plasma, either a vertical line or a horizontal line.  The third, and last available in the beta, is the javelin.  Using it sets a mine that will explode when triggered.  You know, how trip mines generally work.

Three of the necromorph classes are available, the  Pack, pictured above, the Lurker, and the Spitter.  Like I said before, the Pack is best at running into someone with the player mashing their attack button as fast as possible.  The Lurkers are possibly my favorite, they excel at chilling back and throwing spikes at the engineers.  Lurkers, are very interesting to me.  As you may have noticed, they have spike-tentacles coming out of their backs, which is their primary form of attack.  I mentioned the necromorphs getting their limbs removed, that's actually the only way to kill them.  Body shots do nothing, removing two or three limbs is the only why to stop one of them.

Lurkers, however..
Their life is measured by their tentacles, rather than their limbs.  This means that the more damage they take, the more tentacles they lose, and the less spikes they can shoot at once.

Finally, we have the Spitter.  She (I think) sits in the middle of the Lurker and the pack, having a chargeable..spit attack.  This have been my favorite class (to actually play, it was the concept of the lurker that I liked.)  But then, I've always liked medium-ranged classes.  The Spitter is fairly tanky, and has decent mobility.

You may have noticed that I haven't really said much about the Engineers.  That's because, well, they're just engineers.  If you've played the first Dead Space game, it's very similar to playing as Isaac from the first game.  Your life meter is on your back, you press a button to run, curb stomp, etc etc.

So, First Impressions:
Doesn't seem like much has changed, they've only added to the game.  From what I've seen, if you liked the first one, or want to know how the story continues, then go ahead and grab it.

Happy Hunting all,
Nix

Real Life, it has no off button, nor save function

Jeez, it's almost like they actually except you to attend school more than three days a week.  So inflexible, right?

Anyway, add my apologies to Skiddy's.  It looks like it might have been a bad idea trying to offer daily updates when we don't have definite, consistent access to a machine to post and write from.  However, I'm going to try once again.

The FFXIV beta is over, and is up for play for those who pre-ordered the collector's edition.  From what I read, the game's performance has improved to smooth frame-rate heaven.  I'm really sorry that I didn't get to post videos or screen shots, but the game would crash when I tried to.  Didn't find anything worthwhile, really.  So it's not too much of a loss, you could probably get a good idea of the games visual appeal by looking up some videos of it on youtube.

I do, however, have a new subject to tackle.  For those who follow this kind of game, Dead Space 2 is coming out soon and the multiplayer beta has been released to Playstation 3 owners, which I'll be participating in.  With this style of gameplay, it'll be easier to catalog details and specifications of the game, so expect (no really!) a write up of my first impressions tomorrow.

Till then,
Nix

I Apologize Deeply

I apologize for the lack of updates recently, but it looks like I'll be on an indefinite hiatus.  I don't have access to a computer most of the time, and making you guys(the few of you who read it, that is) come back expecting an update, only to find the same thing for a week, is bad stuff :|.  So, if there are any updates, there will be an unknown amount of time between them and they will probably be by Tempest Nix.

Again, I apologize, but stuff happens....

Little late, but here it is

Managed to get some actual playing in today (read: few hours into the game, maybe half way past the game's first 'cut scene'.)  Combat is fairly interesting, though I don't think I have a full grasp on it yet.  Effectively, you have this bar, use an ability, and the bar goes down.

My character, for the purpose of this overview, is a thaumaturge, essentially a battlemage (read: my kind of character).  They have some of the kick your standard mage has, but can afford to be near the front lines.  This also means I have three buttons to press in combat.  First is poison darts, second is...something, it's an area of effect that lower resistance to it's damage type, the third skill is the same as the second but of a different energy type, astral I think.  Using each skill will also put it on cool down for a few seconds, meaning you have to press your other buttons. 

So far, the best measure of a skills cool down that I've found is how long it would take your action gauge to full recharge after using that specific skill, and no others.  There are some draw backs to this.  It makes the game feel like one of the earlier console games.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Yea, this is an MMO, but it's a Final Fantasy MMO.  It does feel a lot different from FFXI, but in a good way.  It seems more accessible, for one.

First synopsis.  If you are looking for an MMO, but aren't a hard core gamer, or can only afford so many hours of play time per day, then this may be the game for you.  Over all, it's a casual game, and I think a casual gamer would enjoy it.  The ATB-ish system for ability use means combat does have a bit of a slower pace than most traditional MMOs.

 I don't even think my character has hit level two yet in his class (thaumaturge) though he is 'physically' at level two.  I have no idea what this means.  I think, when completing a quest of killing monsters, you get XP for both your class and your...'physique'?  In a way, this encourages playing multiple classes.

Assuming your physical level has any sort of impact on your stats, lower level areas should be less trouble when revisiting them.  Alternatively, maybe your physical level determines almost all of your stats, this would also encourage trying other classes, as you could still progress through the world without having to go to the 'noobie' areas.

This marks the end of my first post of my playthrough, sorry I didn't have too much to say about the game, hopefully the next post will have more information.


......

At least, that's what I typed up last night.  Apparently Blogger decided to save it as a draft instead of publishing it.

Or maybe I dreamt clicking 'publish' and just went to sleep.  Either way, sorry readers, again.

iTouch nano.... Watch?

If you didn't think these Apple 'innovations' could get any better, here's a good one.  The new iPod(iTouch nano) had a mysterious clip on the back of it.  Speculations of its use flew around the internet, and many thought it would be used to clip it on to your jeans and/or shirt.

So... Now we know its real use.


It's a watch!  That's right! We now have the ability to make our new iPod a freakin' watch.  So, if you've got your head so far up Jobs' rectum, you can pay a mere USD $17 to buy a strip of whatever that is to get yourself an iWatch!

I truly fear for the people(see sheep) who really go our and buy this gimmick.  Please, PLEASE, tell me that people aren't actually going to pay $17 to get a strip of this mystery fabric.  Not only does it make you look like a complete douche/hipster/Apple fanboy/sheep, it seems like it would get annoying if you actually... I don't know, listen to music on it.

Like I said, for this price, you could go buy 16GB Zune HD and, with this addition, a new set of semi-decent earbuds.


Image courtesy of Gizmodo