Friday, May 29, 2009

GRIDLINKED


Combine a kilometer long dragon made of flesh and circuits and who can travel instantaneously across the universe, intercept any communication between computers and create creatures of flesh for any purpose (and it is a crazy liar);
add a Japanese master who is 400 years old and who has survived Hiroshima;
incorporate a government agent that is so powerful that future historians will argue about his existence;
pour a totally fucked up separatist who wants revenge for the death of his no less fucked up sister;
and why not a few golems and amped up mercenaries.
You have the ingredients of a novel that is interesting and frustrating.
Interesting because the plot is inventive but frustrating because sometimes you wonder what the hell is going on and the end and most deaths (and there are quite a few) are anticlimactic. For example, Mr Crane, a seemingly invicible Golem is destroyed in a figth that takes something like 2 lines.
But Asher's work remains a page turner even if some of the characters survive impossible odds. He has a lot of imagination and his inventions are credible as are most of the protagonists.
A good read
8/10

Friday, May 22, 2009

THis is awesome!

New Star Trek

So i was sitting in the theaters, in front of an Imax screen, my girlfriend next to me.
I'm not a big fan of Star Trek, but just the fact that my girlfriend was watching this was an achievement in itself.

Opening sequence. A space battle over a planet. The camera pans down to show us the chaos raging. My girlfriend leans towards me an whispers: ''That shot is cool!''

I lean back slowly, and whisper back: ''It's cooler in Star Wars III''
I am of course refering to this:


I rest my back on my chair, satisfied. She looks at me with questions marks in her eyes, and i think: ''Thank you, Star Trek. Now she will watch the episodes with me for sure''.

And that's what it felt like the whole movie. Like they tried to make Star Trek feel like Star Wars.

Like my said friend, however: ''Sorry, no lightsabers. You lose. Bye.''

Sunday, May 17, 2009

New City of Heroes expension

Hi all, it's been a while.

Let's jump straight to the point.

I tried City of Villains a few years back, loved it but not enough to pay the monthly fees. So after a trial period, i ditched it.

Now, a few years later, it seems that the game is still being played. And they just released a new expansion pack: The mission architect (say this out loud with a very ominous voice).

This apparently lets you (the player) create missions for the game, adding endless content to the game.

It was also said that in the 24 hours following the release of this mission architect, more content was created by users than what had ever been created by the makers of the game since 2004.

First. The makers of the game are pretty proud to announce this, but i think it makes them sound lazy.

Second. How many really, really bad missions created by weird stupid kids were uploaded? I bet this dude made one:




Granted, i would play his.


And last, and certainly not least:

City of Heroes has achieved everyone's dream: in releasing the mission architect pack, they actually succeeded in making people pay a monthly fee, on top of paying for the mission architect pack, to literally do their job for them.

Now folks, this is a pretty spectacular feat. If someone would be willing to pay me to do my telemarketing job for me, i'd be in heaven fornicating in clouds.

Because, you see, you might think that paying a monthly fee will ensure that programmers are working tirelessly to produce more in-game content, missions, items, territories. You know, like WoW. But no! In CoH, they were working on way for you to be able to do this stuff, so they wouldn't have to!

Amazing!

Who's stupid enough to do this? To actually pay a monthly fee to be able to add in-game content regularly, what the monthly fee should be covering in the first place?

Bewildering i tell you.

Off to bed. I'm going camping and woodsballing with 10 buddies for the rest of the weekend. Sure beats going through a mission created by a weird lonely 12-year-old where you probably have to... go in the sewers to... kill demons with bad gramar. I don't know. I don't care.

Friday, May 1, 2009

DARK YOU SAY????

holy macaroni,



I thought that Scar Night was a dark novel, with vampire angels, poisoners and assassins.



That was NOTHING.



Iron Angel the second book of the trilogy takes place mostly in Hell, but an Hell so terrifying with such terrible beasts and gods that it's a wonder I was able to sleep at night.



Imagine a dark red maze at the bottom of a pit. The maze is made of alleys and houses, alleys and houses made of human souls. Alleys and houses that bleed when attacked, feeding demons and machines that run on blood.

Blood flows in canals and kilometer long blind worms made of demons desire nothing but to devour souls. But the worms can see, the demons pass along the worm the thousand eyes of a slain god that was killed by Menoa a thousand years ago. And those are mild compared to the 500 hundred feet high fighting machines



Our poor friend Dill, the clumsy angel of the first book is caught by the bad guys and it does not go well for him or the human race for that matter.






And just when you think that there is a small ray of hope, the end leaves the reader faced with a terrible vision.



Dark, dark, dark, dark. but a great read, a real page turner. Can't wait for the next one which is supposed to be out at the end of summer. Darn!





9/10