Edward's September 2012 Mix

Edward's September 2012 Mix

 

 

 

 

A landmark month actually--I turned half a century old today. Quite sobering to realize I have many more years behind me than I do ahead of me. If I'm lucky I'll have 20 to 30 more Christmases. I guess it doesn't sound too bad when you think of it like that. Actually, that's a ton more Christmases. Speaking of Christmas I've felt just about overwhelmed this month with something quite comparable to Yuletide joy, and that is total ebullience with a RL event I attended and a great new game that released. Details below:

1. Guild Wars 2 for PC

There really is no comparison to other MMOs as far as Guild Wars 2 goes. It's like an MMO in the perfect state. Imagine, a massive multiplayer game that lovingly persuades total cooperation and participation. You get XP for every single thing the game has to offer whether it be crafting, exploring, crafting or even reviving fellow players who've fallen. The loot drops are spectacular, and simply grouping up with one other person, hell, you don't even need to officially group up, just fight alongside them, and it causes the loot quality to ramp up even more. There is no typical dungeon run with the holy trinity (tank, dps, and healer.) This game goes beyond that. Everybody is a hero, and nobody is a failure. My necromancer, Edward Odious, is making his own history with his band of mishapen mongrels and animated flesh fiends. Feel free to join me on the Dragonbrand server. This is, clearly, the finest PC game I've played in two years. I can't imagine playing another MMO. Ever.

 

2. Titan Quest for PC

 

I failed at Neverwinter Nights. Actually, let  me rephrase that, I believe it's more like Neverwinter Nights failed me. I was midway in Chapter 3 (of the game's 4 chapters) and I just got bored out of my skull. I encountered a dragon that continually chewed up me and my henchman over and over and over and over and over, and I just decided, okay, 66.5 hours of this is enough. I admire what NWN did at the time for storyline and graphics, but I will never finish it. Bioware, you stomped my butt with this one. I loaded up Titan Quest to play on my laptop, and I'm already engrossed. It moves fast, it's flashy, it's easy (so far) and I find the early Greek/Roman setting fascinating. It's like a Diablo game played in the sunshine.

 

3. Blood & Gold by Anne Rice

 

I love Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. Her characters have always appealed to me with their quiet dark sadness, and how immortality traps them and most of them eventually fall into madness because of it. In this novel, book 7 in the series, we accompany Marius, a Roman senator, from his days of watching the Roman Empire fall to modern times. I'm a fourth of the way into it, and I'm already sucked in (pun intended) by Marius's quiet dedication to his state of being as a vampire charged with overseeing The Ones Who Must Be Kept (the original male and female vampires that birthed the first vampires in the Anne Rice kingdom.)

 

4. Achtung Baby by U2 on CD

 

I've always felt this album and Zooropa shared the same engineered fuzzy guitar intros that sounded as if they were amped through tin cans on a string and were probably siamese twins miraculously separated at birth, but this one truly wins out being produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Some of the best lyrics I've ever heard vocalized by Bono, and definitely some of the finest bass I've ever listened to compliments of Adam Clayton. Clayton's technique is honey to my ears. He makes me want to go buy a bass guitar. I liked U2 in the early years, but it seemed to me they got way too commercial way too fast. This album is a testament to that, undoubtedly, but it stole my heart anyway. And knowing that Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois produced it makes the icing almost surpass the cake. This is not just some good stuff, but some of U2's best stuff in my opinion.

 

5. Metaphor by Patrick O'Hearn on CD

 

The former bassist for the early 80's band, The Missing Persons, and pretty much a household name in the world of New Age music, bassist and musical maven, Patrick O' Hearn was nominated for 2 Grammy's over the years. It seems his newer works have gotten sunnier in tone, yet more complex. This one was released in 1998 and just seems to capture that perfect pinnacle when O' Hearn transformed his music from the somber dark stuff to more upbeat pieces of music. It's currently on auto-repeat on my car's sound system and it's really giving my subwoofer a workout. Listening to this album you can actually hear the transformation taking place. "The Women of Lachaise" might very well be the most beautifully haunting song on the planet.

 

6. PC Gamer Magazine 2008

 

I'm going back over issues for the year 2008. Ah, who could forget Left 4 Dead and Age of Conan? I totally fell into the hype surrounding Age of Conan and got immolated for it. I swore never again. (I didn't buy into the GW2 hype, but found I didn't need to.) I did, however, victimize myself to the Battlefield 3 hype and then met with an unrequited experience when I was unable to purchase a computer to play it on.

Seriously though, The Witcher came out in 2008, and that was a grand game to play through.  

 

7. Wes Craven's Horror Collection: 3 movies on DVD

 

The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker, and The People Under the Stairs. Only the first movie, starring a very early Bill Pullman (and his hair) has any sense of credibility to it. And it is downright eerie, involving Haiti and voodoo.

 

Shocker seems to be Craven's attempt to shoot a movie and have a ball at the same time. A boy discovers his family brutally murdered by a serial killer, and then in the very next scene we hear him grunting and straining as he's exercising so he can stay in top form for the local college football team. The guy who plays Walter Skinner in the X-Files (Mitch Pillegi) is the serial killer, a rockabilly badass who's too goofy to seem truly evil. Watch this movie, but first buy a hernia belt.

 

The People Under the Stairs was a strange movie inspired by a news story Craven read about a mother and father who kept their children trapped in the house and never let them outside. This one was the disappointment of the three. I wouldn't say it was outright bad, but not sure I'd sit through it again.

 

8. Ohio Renaissance Festival 2012

 

I got to attend this gala event with some very good friends, and it's the most fun I've had in the real world in a long time. Imagine a 30 acre field mowed down with a medieval village built in the center of it. The atmosphere was spot on, the ladies, (er . .uh, wenches) looked ravishing in their costumes, and I even got to see armored knights joust. But the tall dark mage I saw with the batwing cloak and the tall staff with the crystal ball atop it supported by the talons of a crow's foot truly made the day. I want to go back next year. As a matter of fact, I think I want to go back every year. I've become a real fan.