Redwolf's Journal (continued)

The weekend was rainy on and off, not nearly as productive as I might have intended, and ended on an annoying note with late calls from work. Whee. But Sunday I did get myself out to watch Mad Max: Fury Road . It never sounded to me like anything that great, but the reviews are very positive, so hey... The Road Warrior is pretty classic, and follows a pattern not unlike Westerns - morally ambiguous stranger shows up and helps save tormented townsfolk. The original Mad Max always struck me as very different and less genre-defining - more a revenge-filled descent from sanity and normalcy that mirrors the slide of the world into the "post-apocalyptic" without really being there yet. Beyond Thunderdome was a little bit cutified in some ways, though came out at a time when I didn't mind that so much. Fury Road is... strange. There are a lot of things I can point to as negatives. The setting alone is still based on a very odd view of scarcity in which gas is precious, but

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber was one I never got drawn into back when it was new (1993 was the first publish date, I believe). I'm sure I've seen some of the covers over the years. It seems to come up repeatedly in discussions on IO9, however, especially for topics like "What scifi novel should be brought to the big screen?" And since On Basilisk Station was cheap (ie. free) on Kindle, it seemed particular low-risk. It's interesting that the author has set up a "world" in which there's FTL travel, but starship drives inherently limit naval combat to sort of a 2D plane. The impeller drives inherently create fields above and below ships that are impervious to just about anything, so you get ships designed for broadsides even though they move in three dimensions. The writing also has a lot of scenes from captains and politicians on both sides of an impending war. That has an interesting affect in painting a clearer picture. It splits

I passed over Alpha Protocol back when it came out in 2010. It just didn't make much impact on me at the time. Though I had seen enough that having it come up for sale on Steam for something like $2.99 made me consider, and in the end, pick it up. It might be rough around the edges, but it's by no means bad. It's a "modern" spy game in third-person with stealth/shooting sections and choice-based dialog sections. It's sort of Mass Effect + Metal Gear Solid (or James Bond/Mission Impossible). Reviews mentioned lots of bugs, but the only ones I actually ran into during play were issues of poor AI - most notably the occasional guard standing still looking into a corner rather than walking a patrol. There's XP to be gained, and points to be spent in skills that give improvements, passive abilities, and some active abilities. There's a variety of gear and gadgets that, while not offering a huge range, does make you choose to some degree. You can focus

Well... hmm... I have to put American Gods down as one of the oddest reading experiences I've had. First, I'll get this out of the way: it is well-written . There's a certain care and skill on display which makes me think perhaps Neil Gaiman's reputation is fully justified. There are lush descriptions, certainly. What I think stands out most, however, is the little omissions that pop up here and there, or the detours in story, which are almost always given purpose and meaning later. That said, I'm finding it harder to universally praise the story. It bounces between the very mundane and the mythological. The story itself, I like. But the protagonist is... decidedly dispassionate about everything. He does make some decisions for himself, but mostly he just goes with the flow, and that bothers me in the narrative. His inability to get worked up over... pretty much anything makes it hard for me to feel heavily invested. So while it's neat to take a tour of va

Yeah... Today was busy at work. With bouts of frustration and many things going on at once. I think I weathered it okay and got a lot done, even if there are outstanding issues. But at 5:05, I'm trying to finish some things up and my cotech/supervisor comes in and says he just talked with our general manager/CFO and was told we should order some extra PC laptops and Macbooks to have in stock as spares/replacements. This not but a week after our CEO said he didn't want us ordering more replacement hardware this year (which was admittedly unrealistic all of a month into the fiscal year). This struck me as such an absurd example of poor communication and management not having any clue among themselves that I simply burst out laughing. Whilst cracking up, I managed to stammer out that, yeah, my productivity for the day was at an end. I'd deal with what I was doing tomorrow. That was just... too much...

*sigh* I had my thoughts much more organized last night. As I was trying to get to sleep. Bleh. Inefficiencies of life! Nevermind that these aren't exactly chipper thoughts about an ongoing game, but... sometimes you have to take a critical eye to things. So... yeah... I'm a little daunted by the energy shown by our Lords of Gossamer and Shadow GM. Mainly, that's because I don't share his level of enthusiasm. That is, I think, largely a personal issue and an accumulation of multiple factors. I've said before that I have issues with multiversal, "anything goes" settings. To me, setting and characters' interaction with it is important, perhaps even defining. When the setting itself says anything is possible, and probably is happening somewhere, then each little event and choice feels less meaningful to me. Or utterly meaningly, depending on how easy it is to find an alternative reality. Now G&S isn't technically as bad as it could in, in th

Generally a well-received game, though I skipped it at the time. Figured with recent sale discounts, it might be worth picking up. So what I get is a game that plays very well. There's an Assassin's Creed vibe, with running, riding, ambushing and flowing combat. QTEs are fairly rare, but they are there from time to time, and that was the biggest hitch for me due to using a PS3 controller but getting X360 controller prompts - still, usually workable. As you upgrade Talion (and get practice) the game does get easier. Early on, three orcs was potentially lethal, while toward the engame I could drop into 20+ without too much concern. The Nemesis system does (as pretty much every review has pointed out) push the game up a notch and make it stand out a bit better. While the first time Horza the something-or-other came back after being cut down I may have been frustrated, the following two or three times, I was amused. There is a little bit of personality and a sense of vendetta and

Terry Pratchett is one of those big names in sci-fi/fantasy books even before he passed away this year. For all that, I'm not actually sure I'd read any of his work. Certainly the Discworld series never really caught my eye. But thanks to a recent article, I finally looked through the list and picked one to try out, anyway. I'm not exactly won over wholeheartedly and singing his praises as an author, but I enjoyed Small Gods . It had sort of an "old school" fantasy feel and went much more quickly than a lot of fantasy novels out these days. It's a close look at theism in a world where gods are real and their power tied to the belief of followers (and how -followers- may or may not -believe-). It would be easy enough to take that story and turn a critical eye to religious institutions in the real world and ask how much of them is rote, structure, and culture versus actual faith in the divine.

I went through something like four books last week. That's... kinda surprising, really... Time to start getting a few remarks on them in. Hmm. Did I miss posting about the last volume or did I just not tag it properly. Ah well. Darkened Blade continues to follow Aral and his group of ex-divinely-sanctioned assassins. Steps are finally taken to really get the order back on its metaphysical feet, and the big hit on the Son of Heaven finally comes into focus. It's pretty "standard" for the series in a sense, but entertaining fantasy with fun bits. At the core is the big dilemma over whether it is "just" to kill the Son of Heaven in a damned if you do/damned if you don't scenario, since killing him means throwing several kingdoms into chaos by destroying their governments pretty much overnight while not killing him means leaving the corruption inherent therein. It's a pretty weighty question and I sort of want to see more of the series just to see t

Pretty good movie, keeping up current Marvel tradition. It feels a bit too long, but I'm not sure what I would cut out, save perhaps some bits of the extended fight scenes. Giving focus to several of the characters and their fears individually does stretch things out, but it serves a worthwhile purpose. And it gives us a rampaging Hulk for a dose of team/crossover-comic hero-vs-hero action (though there's definitely less of that than the first one). Ultron feels very different from what I would have expected. And yes, the best line may very well be that perfectly delivered, "I'm sorry." The movie also does a good job of laying the ground work for a (mostly) different team. I think that's probably necessary in the movie business. About the only thing I can say at this point that strikes me as lacking is the surprise factor of the original. Expectations are a lot higher these days. Oh, and the after-(or rather mid-)credits scene isn't as fun. Teasing T