A new enemy lurks...

In the murky pre-dawn hours of Thursday morning an affliction was set loose upon my back. Upon awakening I discover previously simple movements have become painful and agonizingly slow. In one fell swoop I am reduced to tank-like efficiency: my head no longer comfortably pivots on my neck, turning my body as a whole is now necessary in order to glance at my periphery. Like a reject from an early Resident Evil game, I stumbled out of bed and headlong into my new dreary existence.

I, like many gamers who have come before me, do not practice good posture. Slouch all day in an office chair at work. Slouch most of the night before bed in an office chair at home. I am become the slouch...and it is my back whom now must pay the terrible toll.

Like any gamer worth his weight in Mountain Dew, I sought better 'gear' to equip myself with to facilitate my quest to slay my enemies. I asked for - and received - a better office chair as my Father's Day gift. Now properly equipped, I seek to do battle with my sad posture of the day previous. The battle will be glorious, but victory is not assured.

If I do not return...tell my family I love them.

V out.

The most fun you can have in 5 minutes

I played a fun little browser game over the weekend called Little Wheel. You take the role of a small robot tasked by the fates to restore power to his robot world. Using only the left-click button you navigate your robotic-self through clever puzzles which bring you closer to your final goal.

The game lasts all of 10 minutes - if that - but you 'll find yourself wishing it lasted longer. The cartoon graphics are very well done and the physics is very believable: cable cars sway, construction cranes swing obstacles around, objects - yourself included - crash about the environments realistically.

This is the most fun I've ever had with a free browser game. Check it out when a spare moment presents itself. I highly recommend it.

You can find it at this link: http://fastgames.com/littlewheel.html

- Vander out

Rolling on the River

I finally made the upgrade to Windows 7 last week. Feeling lazy, I didn't do a fresh install, opting instead to simply upgrade Vista. Installing my new OS was painless - I've installed games which gave me more grief. Now that I've had a chance to tool around and plumb it's depths, I really like what 7 has to offer. The Windows bar at the bottom now automatically groups all windows from the same program into one button. Don't have something highlighted? It doesn't show on your screen, the OS now conveniently hides it. Icons in the system tray now are accessed by one measly arrow button that displays them all. The desktop now looks much more streamlined and cleaner, free of the clutter present in previous iterations.

It looks pretty, but how does it perform? Glad you asked. Bye bye Mr. Bluescreen Crash everytime I reboot. Adios to Left 4 Dead freezing my entire system, forcing a hard reboot, once a week. So long to programs refusing to close even when using Task Manager. Every problem I had with Vista has ceased to be a problem. A shame this couldn't have been all part of a service pack for Vista. At the very least, it's nice to be able to use it for free until this time next year.

I know, I should probably be mad...this after all is what Vista should have been all along. I should be mad since I've basically been a paying participant in a Microsoft beta test. Oddly, I'm fine with that. Call me a sucker if you like, but I understood a long time ago this hobby would have it's share of headaches. It's not like I have another option anyway. What am I gonna do? Get a Mac?!

Hit me again Ike.

V out

Great Expectations

I purchased Left 4 Dead under no false pretense. There is a simple mathematical formula involved for me whenever Valve releases a new title: New Valve game = me buy. It really is that simple. I purchase everything they make. Period. There are very few companies that possess my loyalty in the same way Valve does. Gabe Newell's announcement of support akin to what we have for Team Fortress 2 played no role in my purchasing decision (see above formula). I will admit to initially feeling a little miffed by the quick announcement of L4D2. Not for the reasons you may think though: I was really hoping for some word on Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

Many are crying wolf on the lack of DLC promised by Gabe. I can understand this to a point, but history bears remembrance in this instance: The Survival Pack came out right about the same time the GoldRush update hit TF2 in relation to it's release. Sure, a new campaign would have been great. I'll be the first to say I was a bit crestfallen when there was no new campaign to be seen in the Survival Pack. My dismay quickly passed for 2 reasons: I now had 2 more campaigns to play through in Versus mode. Considering the mileage I gleaned from No Mercy and Blood Harvest, Dead Air and Death Toll should cover me adequately for a long while.

Not everyone liked the Survival Pack as much as me. Conversely, not everyone cared for the Goldrush Update either. Different strokes and all of that. The important thing to take from this is that Valve is supporting L4D no different from TF2 at this point in it's life cycle. Valve has spent the last 7 months working on L4D2. During this time we got regular gameplay patches and the Survival Pack for L4D. If the support falls off for L4D, I'll be the first to call them on the carpet. For now, they are right on track with their previous effort. Let's give them an opportunity to not keep their word before blasting them for creating a sequel.

*whew*

Speaking of L4D, Valve also made it clear any maps made with the new Authoring Tools will work in L4D2. Those were good words to hear since work continued on our campaign this week. Most of the first level is blocked in and I'm in the process of shaping out the level beyond simple blocks. Our resident blueprint creator handed me a layout for a crucial interior portion of the design this week. This will consume most of my time for the next few evenings and I'm really excited to see how it turns out in-game. Howsabout a screenshot you say? Here's an in-editor look at the level layout thus far:



After 2 crashes in last night's L4d scrimmage and the inability to play Knights of the Old Republic without some annoying finaglework on my part....I think it's time to put Vista out to pasture. By "out to pasture" I mean "take it off life support and let it die". I had fancied going back to XP, but I hear good things about Windows 7. The Release Candidate is available to anyone who wants it and I've yet to hear a bad thing be said against it. Looks like Vista was just a beta test.


Parting shots:

- Jericho is still enjoyable 4 episodes into Season 1.
- Nightshift was an incredible collection of short stories, complete with mini-sequel to 'Salem's Lot, my favorite King novel so far.
- I still haven't canceled my LotRO subscription.
- I ordered Volume 1-4 of the Walking Dead, can't wait to dive into those.
- My son has a habit of deleting save files. Goodbye progress on Yoshi's Island!

V out.

Simple is good.

I finished up Mirror's Edge today. First PC game on my backlog to hit the completed list since Dead Space earlier this year. I felt like I should have been finishing Bioshock at first, but that notion quickly passed. Bioshock had it's turn to capture my attention, and I'm sure I'll come back to play it again someday soon. ME is a beautiful game. Everything is clean and angular. No dust, dirt, or grime mucks up this game's environs. Most buildings you come across are composed of only a single color inside. The design choice turns out to be very solid. You don't take the time to sniff out the details most other games provide. The game wants you to be moving at all times, having a prettied up bit of scenery to distract is only going to get the player killed. It saves breathtaking rooftop views and other wow-details for when the action slows down. ME uses the minimalist approach works very well while still managing to be aesthetically pleasing. Especially when you consider this is the UnReal Engine at work.

The game controls are remarkably intuitive and only one or 2 input keys are required during most levels. Despite this simplicity, the game never got dull or repetitive for me. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, vaulting over fences, and otherwise weaving my way through obstacles was fun. Sprinkle in a few cops or a helicopter trying to pace you and it becomes a hellishly good time. Combat is mostly unnecessary, dodging cops is all too easy, but you will need to scrap with them from time to time. You can KO them with a flurry of punches and kicks or wait until their weapon flashes red and take them out in one artful disarming maneuver.

A brief break was had from my nightly Left 4 Dead play. I took the time and worked on our L4D campaign. My efforts were spent first reacquainting myself with the toolset and learning the news odds and ends introduced in the Authoring Tools Beta. Building began in earnest this week on the first level. We have a workable layout in place that will no doubt be changed, but enough for the basic building blocks to start being set down. I'm excited to be working on it and should have some decent screenshots to show off in a week or two.

I'm still not able to put Stephen King down. I've managed to read The Green Mile, The Stand, Thinner, 'Salem's Lot, and Rose Madder within the last 2 weeks or so. Despite this, I have also managed to keep reading The Lord of the Rings off and on and have made a sizable dent in it's pages. While I'm on the subject, DelRey Books has released a free e-book novella set in the current Star Wars continuity. It deals heavily with the Sith and heck, you can't beat free. Download the PDF here.

As a parting shot, I want to mention the television series Jericho. The entire series is available for instant viewing on Netflix. I caught the pilot episode and was really impressed by it. Gonna try to catch another episode or two before my wife gets home from shopping.

V out.

Dual Wielding

I've been a PC gamer for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I harbor no dislike of console games…I just heart my PC games too much. But a change has occurred. It happened innocently enough. I mentioned in an earlier blog entry my son was captivated by my brief play of Shenmue and God of War. I theorize he sees it as a cartoon of sorts. Taking my cue from his sudden interest, I began playing games that I had subconsciously stockpiled over the last 5 years for some long-forgotten purpose that is only now coming to the fore. I have now experienced a console gaming renaissance in the last month. Like an early, troglodytic man I have at long last left my cavern and discovered there is more outside waiting to be found. For this I blame my 2 year old son. If not for him, I would be content to keep playing PC games in my stuffy office. Now, God of War has at long last hit the ‘completed’ pile of my collection. Super Mario Galaxy is the latest to fall, though I am likely to play it more from time to time in my effort to collect the stars I missed on my first time through the game. Of course, this is all in addition to my nightly Left for Dead excursions. Thanks to my son, I have achieved some sort of gaming zen balance in my life for the first time. Good job kid.

We had our first brainstorm session this weekend for planning out our custom L4D campaign. One of our idea men wasn’t present, but we managed to hammer out a reasonable outline of the campaign. We roped in a sound man and even a writer to script our voice work. A lot of work and exciting times lay ahead. I’ve also been downloading some user-made campaigns here and there…to see what the competition is up to. There are some pretty well-done maps out there, but also maps that contain pitfalls I want to avoid. Item placement, pacing, flow, all of these are things that can significantly add to an experience if done right and outright hamper it if done wrong. A lot of time will go into this project. I want to make sure we get it as right as it can be.

If only making L4D campaigns was my real job. *sigh*

I have managed to find myself playing 4 different games on Nintendo systems: Wind Waker on Gamecube, Zack & Wiki on Wii, Final Fantasy 1 on Gameboy Advance, and Yoshi’s Island. Don’t ask me how that happened, or how I’m keeping up with them all. Somehow I’m managing it. I can’t get back into Bioshock for some reason…I think I allowed too much time to pass and am now at the crucial point where I’ve lost the rhythm of the game. If I pick it up and can’t remember the controls…may as well set it aside and play something else. I hope to come back to it soon, I fear the Bioshock 2 media coming out is going to spoil the ending for me despite my best efforts to prevent.

Two great things came to an end for me this last week: the fifth season of Lost and my first read-thru of Stephen King’s The Stand. Both are masterfully told stories. I can only hope to tell as compelling a tale one day. Speaking of which, I am slowly putting together material for a short story I’ve had on my mind for awhile. I should have details in a future blog. For now I’ll simply say that it has zombies. And a boat.

V out.

I am Vander the White

**It has been over a month since my last blog. A decision to take some time away from writing was made, and to be fair I’m not at all certain why. I just knew that I needed a break. After a bit of prompting from good friends I now make my return to you Faithful Reader. Somehow my cohorts had mistaken the scribbling on this page for entertaining reading. It is because of their stroking of my ego I am writing this now. To this I owe them my gratitude, they helped me to remember the reasons I enjoy writing.**

If you troubled yourself to read my last effort on this page, you might have (incorrectly) assumed the Author had been whiling away his time learning to program a new iPhone app. If you indeed believed this, your vote of confidence is appreciated. However, nothing could be further from the truth it pains me to say. Not only have I not begun developing the next hot iPhone app, the Team Fortress 2 mapping project I was involved in has been cancelled. Be not alarmed Faithful Reader. Do not mourn the loss. It needed to die. One of us should have caught it sooner, but it finally occurred to us we were designing a map for a game neither of us really played. If you were looking forward to the map, I apologize. It will be finished one day. It would be to your health if you didn’t hold your breath waiting.

With this turn of events, we are now free to pursue our Left 4 Dead campaign! Valve has not yet released the L4D SDK update with the tools needed to properly develop. Our hope is that the design phase will encompass much of our early project time giving plenty of time for the update to be unleashed. For now, we have a basic concept of what we want to accomplish. Our main goal is to design and create an enjoyable, original campaign in versus and cooperative play modes.

While on the subject of user-generated content, I’ve been following the development of a new campaign: Dead Before Dawn. In development since 2005, this was intended to be part of a now defunct mod project involving our friends the undead. The release of L4D killed the mod, but this level lives on. DBD is inspired by the 2004 movie remake of Dawn of the Dead. Great pains have been taken to recreate locales from the film, most notably The Crossroads Mall. My brother is a huge fan of zombie flicks, playing through this level with him will be a great pleasure indeed. There have been no updates or news about it since January, though I would wager it merely awaits the promised SDK update. Here are a couple of videos for your enjoyment. The first is an early fly-thru before the L4D conversion and the next is the latest trailer edited to include scenes from the movie.



It’s good to be back. Somehow in my literary hibernation I had forgotten how much of an outlet it can be to put pen to paper (yes, I really do hack these out on a notepad before typing anything) and allow my thoughts to take me where they will. If you notice any changes in my writing it is entirely due to outside influence: I have begun my annual read of Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings once more and have also been introduced to the works of Stephen King. If I can but emulate their talents in a small part I will consider it a major victory in my quest to become a competent writer. This marks the first time in months I am reading a book where the word ‘force’ is not capitalized. A man cannot live on Star Wars fiction alone I suppose, though I have managed to subsist on it far longer than most.

If you like what you read here, please let me know in the comments. Conversely, if you dislike my efforts or have a criticisms to offer I am always eager to know what you are thinking, Faithful Reader.

Until next time, may the Force be with you.

Vander out.