First, check this out if you didn't last night. Very education, no matter which side of the political fence you sit on. Whether you be a citizen of Gondor or Mordor, you will get something out of this.
I'd advise just to let that run while you read on or open a new tab and surf the net. Seriously, it's good stuff.
Random Gaming Musings
Here's some of the stuff that's come out over the past few days that I thought was note-worthy..
- the PSP's got some exciting stuff going on; I like the redesign, mostly. I wish the internal storage was upgradeable, and I have concerns about them being able to provide their entire library for download. Otherwise, if Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, and FFVII: Crisis Core are available for download, count me in.
- I don't think it's a smart move for Squenix to limit Final Fantasy IV: the After Years to WiiWare. That's not their target demographic for the game, and never has been. Final Fantasy IV came out in 1991, which was before most Wii players were born. I think the smart money would be on releasing it on PSN for play on both PS3 and PSP, and making it so the two systems could share a save. An XBLA version definitely wouldn't hurt, either. I think that quite a few Final Fantasy fans happen to also own a Wii, in addition to their actual gaming consoles, and thus there will definitely be takers on this potential purchase, but not nearly as many as if it were spread across multiple consoles.
- A Mass Effect shooter on iPhone? Pfft. Yuck. Way to start sullying the franchise, guys.
- I gotta say, I am really looking forward to Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny on PSP. However, I guess I'm gonna hold off on buying it until it's available for download on PSP, since I don't wanna buy it twice. Regardless, I've always really enjoyed Soul Calibur, and the PSP actually seems like a good platform for the franchise. I was thinking about the controls for past entries, and this seems like it would translate well, and there wouldn't be the option for the cheesedick button-mapping of throws.
- my favorite NCAA Football feature finally returns in NCAA Football '10: school/team creation. A bunch of my friends and I all went to Columbia College Chicago (an art school) for our undergrad, and I used to always make us as a school/team in NCAA, and then go on to make a horribly obscene stadium, uniforms, players, and on and on. I'd drop us in the Big 10, since no one gives a shit about that conference (as opposed to the Big 12), and then I'd bump someone bullshit (like Northwestern) from the conference to make room for the Columbia College Chicago Killa Beez (no shit, that was the school "mascot" at the time.) Anyway, this feature was stripped from the PS360 versions, for whatever reason, but is returning this year. However, what's cool is that it's all PC-based, so you'll be able to work on your school/team whenever, and then upload it to your actual game. The team editor is supposed to be available starting in June, so that your team will be ready to humiliate the rest of the NCAA when the game ships in July. I am super, super pumped, as I used to go wild with this feature, and having it as an online app could, if properly implemented, open up all kindsa possibilities. Read about it here.
New Games
I've got a bad feeling about this year, guys n' gals. It's gonne be another crazy back-loaded year for releases. This year, I've gotten a handful of games, like Resident Evil 5, MLB09, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, but almost all that was in February and March. Looking ahead, I know I'm getting NCAA Football 10 and Madden NFL 10 this summer. This fall and winter, though, will feature BioShock 2, Disgaea 2 (PSP), Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, as well as whatever else is coming out that we don't know about yet. I know early 2010 will also see Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2, and Star Trek Online. Additionally, there are titles like Star Wars: the Old Republic, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Final Fanatasy Agito XIII, Parasite Eve: the 3rd Birthday, Again: Eye of Providence, Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, and Guild Wars 2 that just don't have release dates yet, but could drop in the next year or so.
The point is that, once again, despite a few publishers pledging to break the cycle, we're gonna get 80% of this year's games that are worth owning all within a 4-month span. Bad. Just bad. August through November is gonna be crammed full of games, and some really worthwhile titles are gonna get crushed underfoot, especially since the Dubya Depression is really gonna limit how much cash we all have to spend on games.
This is stupid. Why not release some of these over the summer, or next summer? It seems like this time of year is totally barren of releases, and would be a great time to position a game for success. Actually, this time last year, GTA4 dropped, and I heard it did okay.
Lame. Just lame.
Open Source FTW
I reinstalled Ubuntu on my main desktop again, and as usual, it went all nice and smooth. I've been an Ubuntu user for about 3 years now, and I really gotta give 'em props and how nicely Ubuntu 9.04 handles drivers now. It used to be a bit of a challenge, at times, getting everything to work drivers-wise, but now ya just boot from a disc or a flash drive, and BAM! Everything installs, and you're ready to rock n' roll.
During that install, I was trying to install OpenSolaris on my second desktop, which has been stuck on Ubuntu 8.04 for what seems like ages. Every time I've tried to upgrade from that release, it's refused to boot afterwards. Every time I've booted it into another OS with a disc, it's started to install, then just hung. The OpenSolaris install was no different, which is unfortunate. I've been a big fan of Sun Microsystems for a long time now (OpenOffice.org and Netbeans FTW), and I like playing with Unix, and I really want to learn more about maintaining a Unix server, but the fucking machine refuses to let me install anything else on it. This is the weirdest issue I think I've seen in ages. I'm gonna play around with it a bit, and see if I get any different results when I boot from a flash drive.
Gaming on a Linux Machine
After installing Ubuntu, I proceeded to blow out a lot of the Ubuntu-provided software (I hate waiting on Ubuntu to get my updates for Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.), and then install the non-Ubuntu versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Netbeans, Wine, etc.
After I added the Wine repository, I installed Steam and XFire, then initiated the download for Quake Wars and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II.
I haven't tried Dawn of War II yet, since I can already predict some problems getting that to run on Linux. x
I fired up Quake Wars this morning, and it actually managed to not crash during the DirectX install. It made it all the way through the install, which was shocking, then actually started to load the game, when it seized up during the UI loading process.
So, yeah, I'm back to messing with Linux gaming, since everything runs beauuutifully on the new laptop.
Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with more foolishness.
What's up with you guys? Anything new? Anything ya wanna comment on?
-Blaine
On sale now!
20090429
No, seriously, I'm a writer.
The hardest thing about writing is actually writing. I know some authors, good and awful, who can crank out material non-stop, but I know a greater number that have to push themselves to stick with it every day.
For me, it's tough because I'm always playing around in so many different mediums. Sometimes, I'm working on my music, sometimes I'm programming for long stretches (like the last 10 months or so), but lately, I've been itching like hell to finally squeeze my 10-year old first novel out.
I'm not self-conscious about shit, but I really feel like putting this novel out would be the equivalent of exposing every vulnerability I have to every person out there who was kind enough to read it.
I need to get over that, and I will, but I'm still struggling with the book's cover, since it's something I don't really know a lot about, but when I see concepts in front of me, I know I don't love any of them. I want something minimalist, but haunting.
I need to finish the final edit before anything else, though. I've been tweaking and refining this thing for literally 10 years, and at some point, I'm just gonna snap and go completely mad.
I've been considering posting the first chapter on here, to give people an idea of where I'm coming from, but we'll see. I'll probably wait until it's ready to be printed before I do that. Don't know. Just don't know. Not sure.
ANYWAY...
...I feel like blogging can be a way to keep your writing skills sharp, but you really have to push yourself for that to be the case. My writing has degraded sharply over the last couple years, mainly from the lack of an editorial process. I used to hate having an editor, and now I see why it's a good idea. I write like shit now, and I used to be really good at it. That's actually one of the points of this new blog.
I'm trying to use this blog as a platform to improve my writing. I'm actually applying an editorial standard with this blog, something I didn't do with my 1UP blog.
One thing that's been really interesting is editing this old book. It's been edited a few times over the years, but now, it's actually going through a bit of an overhaul, as there are ideas that have been cooking for a few years that I was going to put into future books that actually fit wonderfully in this book, so they've been implemented in this edit.
A particular point that's been added is a character that acts as a "distorted mirror" for the main character, a foil that embodies what the main character could have become had key choices in the past been made differently. Once I added that, it kind of unlocked everything that had been bothering me about the book. Good times.
Something about writing fiction that I love is playing with characters and seeing how they'll react to various stimuli. If I can surprise myself, it's working.
Anyway, I'll post more on the book here as things progress. I've got class and work 'til 5/13, and then I'm only working part time for a few months after that so that I can focus on writing and coding all summer. There will be nothing to announce about the book until at least June, and then depending on what I do in regards to E3, it may get pushed to late June. I'm not sure.
Etcetera
Kubuntu I've been running Kubuntu on my desktop PC for the last week or so, and I'm done with it. I love Ubuntu, and have been a very happy Ubuntu user for almost three years now, and only use Windows for gaming and 360 streaming.
Kubuntu is a variation on Ubuntu that uses KDE instead of Gnome for a desktop environment.
I had never user KDE before, but I love playing around with new interfaces, so I was excited to try something new in terms of desktop environment.
I gotta say that I understand why KDE is the way to go for some folks, namely people that inexplicably like the Mac approach to interface, but are too smart to plunk down twice the amount of money that they should for a computer that is so insulting to the user, it only comes with one mouse button.
The thing I don't like about KDE is the same thing I don't like about Mac, which is the click-click-click-click-click-click that goes on to access something simple. It's also not as easily customizable as Ubuntu, which is a big no-no for me. Ubuntu is a dream for those that want to make their OS work for them, whereas I feel like I'm fighting the OS at all times with Mac, Kubuntu, and Windows, because they want to dictate to me how my computing experience should be.
So, yeah, tonight, I'll be reloading Ubuntu onto my main desktop, and then installing OpenSolaris on my secondary desktop to start getting more practice managing a Unix server. The goal is to use it as a means to work on my own site before uploading the new site version, and maybe use it to run my own email. We'll see.
So, what do you do for a creative outlet? Are any of your creative projects technical in nature? How's your creative project(s) going?
Peace out.
-Blaine
For me, it's tough because I'm always playing around in so many different mediums. Sometimes, I'm working on my music, sometimes I'm programming for long stretches (like the last 10 months or so), but lately, I've been itching like hell to finally squeeze my 10-year old first novel out.
I'm not self-conscious about shit, but I really feel like putting this novel out would be the equivalent of exposing every vulnerability I have to every person out there who was kind enough to read it.
I need to get over that, and I will, but I'm still struggling with the book's cover, since it's something I don't really know a lot about, but when I see concepts in front of me, I know I don't love any of them. I want something minimalist, but haunting.
I need to finish the final edit before anything else, though. I've been tweaking and refining this thing for literally 10 years, and at some point, I'm just gonna snap and go completely mad.
I've been considering posting the first chapter on here, to give people an idea of where I'm coming from, but we'll see. I'll probably wait until it's ready to be printed before I do that. Don't know. Just don't know. Not sure.
ANYWAY...
...I feel like blogging can be a way to keep your writing skills sharp, but you really have to push yourself for that to be the case. My writing has degraded sharply over the last couple years, mainly from the lack of an editorial process. I used to hate having an editor, and now I see why it's a good idea. I write like shit now, and I used to be really good at it. That's actually one of the points of this new blog.
I'm trying to use this blog as a platform to improve my writing. I'm actually applying an editorial standard with this blog, something I didn't do with my 1UP blog.
One thing that's been really interesting is editing this old book. It's been edited a few times over the years, but now, it's actually going through a bit of an overhaul, as there are ideas that have been cooking for a few years that I was going to put into future books that actually fit wonderfully in this book, so they've been implemented in this edit.
A particular point that's been added is a character that acts as a "distorted mirror" for the main character, a foil that embodies what the main character could have become had key choices in the past been made differently. Once I added that, it kind of unlocked everything that had been bothering me about the book. Good times.
Something about writing fiction that I love is playing with characters and seeing how they'll react to various stimuli. If I can surprise myself, it's working.
Anyway, I'll post more on the book here as things progress. I've got class and work 'til 5/13, and then I'm only working part time for a few months after that so that I can focus on writing and coding all summer. There will be nothing to announce about the book until at least June, and then depending on what I do in regards to E3, it may get pushed to late June. I'm not sure.
Etcetera
Kubuntu I've been running Kubuntu on my desktop PC for the last week or so, and I'm done with it. I love Ubuntu, and have been a very happy Ubuntu user for almost three years now, and only use Windows for gaming and 360 streaming.
Kubuntu is a variation on Ubuntu that uses KDE instead of Gnome for a desktop environment.
I had never user KDE before, but I love playing around with new interfaces, so I was excited to try something new in terms of desktop environment.
I gotta say that I understand why KDE is the way to go for some folks, namely people that inexplicably like the Mac approach to interface, but are too smart to plunk down twice the amount of money that they should for a computer that is so insulting to the user, it only comes with one mouse button.
The thing I don't like about KDE is the same thing I don't like about Mac, which is the click-click-click-click-click-click that goes on to access something simple. It's also not as easily customizable as Ubuntu, which is a big no-no for me. Ubuntu is a dream for those that want to make their OS work for them, whereas I feel like I'm fighting the OS at all times with Mac, Kubuntu, and Windows, because they want to dictate to me how my computing experience should be.
So, yeah, tonight, I'll be reloading Ubuntu onto my main desktop, and then installing OpenSolaris on my secondary desktop to start getting more practice managing a Unix server. The goal is to use it as a means to work on my own site before uploading the new site version, and maybe use it to run my own email. We'll see.
So, what do you do for a creative outlet? Are any of your creative projects technical in nature? How's your creative project(s) going?
Peace out.
-Blaine
20090428
Because I Feel Like It: E3 Predictions & Thoughts
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20090427
I've relocated and I rap about Six Days in Fallujah
I've moved my main blogging space here to Blogger. I felt like it was time for a fresh start after 4.5 years of posting over @ 1up.com. I loved posting there, kinda enjoyed interacting with the community, but decided today that it's time to revamp my writing, and with that comes a new approach to my online-published writing.
I'm hoping that the tiny handful of people that followed me over @ 1up will still follow me here, but we'll see. I am going to be reposting my blogspot posts over @ my 1up page for a while. I'll still be following a few folks via RSS (and, yes, logging in to comment on their blogs), and I'll still be following the site via RSS. It's just not my online "home" anymore.
I know that this kind of a 1-2 punch with me stopping the podcast and then now announcing my desire to move my blog off 1up.
I really like 1up, and I think that they are doing some great things right now. I also feel the need to not tie my blog to any one recognized media outlet. I wanna strike out on my own, and start building my own identity a little more.
I also wanna stop writing like shit. If you comb through my 600+ blog posts here on 1up, you'll find some good writing, a few great entries, and a ton of crap. I think that my writing has really declined in quality over the last few years, and I think that starting a new blog is the best way to get myself in the right mindset.
Thus, I present to you the Filthy Writer blog.
It's still under construction, as I learn how the hell to work all the various doodads and shit associated with maintaining one of these here "fancy" blogs.
With this, I wanna get a little more personal and a lot more analytical. I wanna be able to talk about everything from the latest and greatest in gaming to something interesting I've discovered in the open-source community. I wanna talk about parenting, as well as what the fuck is going on in the Heroes writing room.
Over @ 1up, I felt like, over the last four and a half years, that a lotta blogs went from focusing on the craft of writing to seeing who could suck Photoshop's cock the best. I mean, I would wander over to some motherfucker's blog, expecting to ya know, read. Instead, I get a generic magazine layout where there's some random photoshopped pics with something resembling words wrapped around them. What the "author" had offered as writing was something that was supposed to have been a 4-month late analysis of Gears of War 2, their opinions copied and pasted from message boards and gaming blogs, and nearly every other word butchered in its spelling.
There have been some good ones, as well. I submit that Cody, Laurance, bombtrak, Iris, Cat, and a few others that I'm too bad of a person to remember are great examples of good game blogs here at 1up. Check 'em out, and you'll see what I mean.
This isn't goodbye to 1up, by any means. As I said, I'll still be following a few folks on RSS, commenting in their blogs, and I'll still be following the site, as well as a couple of the podcasts.
Let's Get This Party Started
I can't help but feel disappointed in Konami over their decision to bow to censorship and pull the plug on Six Days in Fallujah.
I understand that everyone's got feelings about the war that we shouldn't even be fighting and will seemingly never end and that War Criminal Dubya and Friends have profited from, but I'm puzzled as to why anyone would be upset about a video game, or perhaps even a work of art that portrays the experience of being a soldier in this particular war, in a particular battle.
Perhaps this is a case of modern gaming being misunderstood by ignorant, generic people. I don't imagine that there would be nearly the same outcry over a film about these events, or a book, or an HBO miniseries.
Maybe they think Six Days in Fallujah = Doom? Or Super Mario Bros. Or some other outdated, world-recognized game. I think that it's possible that they see a video game expression of a historic event as a mockery of that event, since games are for fat, teenage, basement-dwelling sociopaths that will surely bring the endtimes.
I think that, if we accept what I've posited as true, Konami totally dropped the ball on educating folks about this game, as it would've been an excellent opportunity to educate people about games in general.
I mean, if most people's grasp of games is an abominative hybrid of old shit and Wii games, it's no wonder they're horrified by the notion of a game about the events that killed their loved one. These people don't live in a world in which they go out of their way to understand things. If it's not on MSN when they open their Internet Explorer, it must not be worth knowing. Things like PS360 and Firefox and Obama and Twitter are terrifying to them. It's hard to contextualize the advantages of these things to people who can't grasp even the basis of comparison one would require to grasp the notion of "context."
It would be like trying to explain why torture is bad to an ardent Faux News viewer, someone who nearly ejaculates at the sound of Bill O'Reilly spouting hate speech.
Ultimately, what Konami has done is establish a precedent in which an artist's vision is allowed to be destroyed by a vocal minority of ignorant people. They've said, "when an artist's vision challenges people, that's bad and should not happen. All art needs to be safe and palatable to everyone."
What think you?
Also, the comment settings on the blogspot version of this post are such that anyone can comment, with or without registering, so if I could pester you into directing your comments there, that would be totally rad.
-Blaine
I'm hoping that the tiny handful of people that followed me over @ 1up will still follow me here, but we'll see. I am going to be reposting my blogspot posts over @ my 1up page for a while. I'll still be following a few folks via RSS (and, yes, logging in to comment on their blogs), and I'll still be following the site via RSS. It's just not my online "home" anymore.
I know that this kind of a 1-2 punch with me stopping the podcast and then now announcing my desire to move my blog off 1up.
I really like 1up, and I think that they are doing some great things right now. I also feel the need to not tie my blog to any one recognized media outlet. I wanna strike out on my own, and start building my own identity a little more.
I also wanna stop writing like shit. If you comb through my 600+ blog posts here on 1up, you'll find some good writing, a few great entries, and a ton of crap. I think that my writing has really declined in quality over the last few years, and I think that starting a new blog is the best way to get myself in the right mindset.
Thus, I present to you the Filthy Writer blog.
It's still under construction, as I learn how the hell to work all the various doodads and shit associated with maintaining one of these here "fancy" blogs.
With this, I wanna get a little more personal and a lot more analytical. I wanna be able to talk about everything from the latest and greatest in gaming to something interesting I've discovered in the open-source community. I wanna talk about parenting, as well as what the fuck is going on in the Heroes writing room.
Over @ 1up, I felt like, over the last four and a half years, that a lotta blogs went from focusing on the craft of writing to seeing who could suck Photoshop's cock the best. I mean, I would wander over to some motherfucker's blog, expecting to ya know, read. Instead, I get a generic magazine layout where there's some random photoshopped pics with something resembling words wrapped around them. What the "author" had offered as writing was something that was supposed to have been a 4-month late analysis of Gears of War 2, their opinions copied and pasted from message boards and gaming blogs, and nearly every other word butchered in its spelling.
There have been some good ones, as well. I submit that Cody, Laurance, bombtrak, Iris, Cat, and a few others that I'm too bad of a person to remember are great examples of good game blogs here at 1up. Check 'em out, and you'll see what I mean.
This isn't goodbye to 1up, by any means. As I said, I'll still be following a few folks on RSS, commenting in their blogs, and I'll still be following the site, as well as a couple of the podcasts.
Let's Get This Party Started
I can't help but feel disappointed in Konami over their decision to bow to censorship and pull the plug on Six Days in Fallujah.
I understand that everyone's got feelings about the war that we shouldn't even be fighting and will seemingly never end and that War Criminal Dubya and Friends have profited from, but I'm puzzled as to why anyone would be upset about a video game, or perhaps even a work of art that portrays the experience of being a soldier in this particular war, in a particular battle.
Perhaps this is a case of modern gaming being misunderstood by ignorant, generic people. I don't imagine that there would be nearly the same outcry over a film about these events, or a book, or an HBO miniseries.
Maybe they think Six Days in Fallujah = Doom? Or Super Mario Bros. Or some other outdated, world-recognized game. I think that it's possible that they see a video game expression of a historic event as a mockery of that event, since games are for fat, teenage, basement-dwelling sociopaths that will surely bring the endtimes.
I think that, if we accept what I've posited as true, Konami totally dropped the ball on educating folks about this game, as it would've been an excellent opportunity to educate people about games in general.
I mean, if most people's grasp of games is an abominative hybrid of old shit and Wii games, it's no wonder they're horrified by the notion of a game about the events that killed their loved one. These people don't live in a world in which they go out of their way to understand things. If it's not on MSN when they open their Internet Explorer, it must not be worth knowing. Things like PS360 and Firefox and Obama and Twitter are terrifying to them. It's hard to contextualize the advantages of these things to people who can't grasp even the basis of comparison one would require to grasp the notion of "context."
It would be like trying to explain why torture is bad to an ardent Faux News viewer, someone who nearly ejaculates at the sound of Bill O'Reilly spouting hate speech.
Ultimately, what Konami has done is establish a precedent in which an artist's vision is allowed to be destroyed by a vocal minority of ignorant people. They've said, "when an artist's vision challenges people, that's bad and should not happen. All art needs to be safe and palatable to everyone."
What think you?
Also, the comment settings on the blogspot version of this post are such that anyone can comment, with or without registering, so if I could pester you into directing your comments there, that would be totally rad.
-Blaine
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