Saturday, October 27, 2012

Edward's October 2012 Mix



Strange month for me, really. Well, as far as interactive entertainment goes anyway. I finished number 7 in the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles (it was okay, not her best) and as far as gaming, well, about the ONLY thing I've been playing is Guild Wars 2, and this past week I've been slacking off on that. I've been watching numerous Blu-Rays and I still very much love the technology. Now if I could get a wall mounted 60" screen with 7.1 digital surround sound to fully enjoy it in all of its glory. I did manage to get published in the December 2012 issue of PC Gamer. Hooah! I've taken on a second job, and yeah, it's only one week a month, but that week is a hell week because I get basically no sleep. I even turned my computer off for 3 days straight, imagine that. I've not done that in . . .hmm... years?


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. PC Gamer magazine awarded it a 94% and my cousin's husband recently told me all of his World of Warcraft friends abandoned that game to migrate over to Guild Wars 2. Really, I'm not surprised. Edward Odious has hit level 79, and isn't far from the level 80 cap. Just like I said last month, this is the finest PC game I've played in two years. I can't imagine playing another MMO. Ever.
2. Six Feet Under: Season Two on DVD

In actuality this show isn't fit to watch as far as decency and decorum. Michael Ball really pushes the homosexual thing, and the amount of f bombs in the show make me think their staff of dialogue writers are a freshmen class at a UCLA Screenplay writer's class, but once in a while someone says something so profound it just makes me think about it the whole rest of the day. I haven't watched anything on television that has changed the way I look at the world like this show. I've grown fond of the characters, well, except for Brenda, Nate's girlfriend. She's totally screwed up and classically blames it on her parents. Okay, so now do something about it instead of demand the world feel sorry for you. Well, in the final episode she packed her bags and went. Maybe it's permanent. Fingers crossed.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey on Blu-Ray

Like a friend of mine on Facebook recently said about this movie. It's one of the most boring great films of all time, and it is. I remember it came out when I was a kid, and I later got to see it in full 70mm at an eclectic movie theater in San Diego, California, but I have to admit, I wasn't braced for the beauty of the film on Blu-Ray. I may not watch it again, but it makes me warm and fuzzy to know I have it on my shelf. It really is an important film, one every SF fan should have.

4. The Book of Eli on Blu-Ray

Penned by a personal familiar, Gary Whitta (former editor of PC Gamer Magazine) I had heard this was a great movie. It may not be a religious movie, per se, but it's definitely one of the more spiritual movies I've seen. Whitta was playing a lot, shoot, a whole truckload of Fallout 3 when he wrote this, and you can clearly see similarities. I've read on blogs that numerous people now play FO3 while listening to the soundtrack of this movie (and yes, the soundtrack is amazingly a world unto itself--it's only shortlist of CD's to buy.) Read numerous reviews of this film and it's funny how some of the athiests who watched it and reviewed said it's not a spiritual movie at all, ha!

5. Drag me to Hell on Blu-Ray

A nice take and homage to the old style horror flicks, be a bad person or do a bad deed and terrible things happen to you. This involves a rather charming young loan officer who denies an old Russian immigrant an extension on her home mortgage. And this, after two previous extensions. So the old woman puts a curse on her and she gets harrassed and terrorized by a demon until supposedly the third day when the demon drags her down to Hell. Well, first, didn't the old woman realize that's the way it works, you pay your mortgage or you lose your house? And she said she had nobody to help her out, but yet when she dies, and our illustrious loan officer goes to her house it's filled with happy Russkies celebrating a wake. This seemed like a slippage in the shooting script to me, heh, but hey, it was fun to watch, and looked great on Blu-Ray. It's a keeper. Perhaps one of the better Sam Raimi movies I've seen: chills, thrills, and the same gross humor that you'd find in one of his Bruce Campbell vehicles.

6. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

This has been on my reading list for years, and if you go to my bookshelf on  http://www.shelfari.com/o1516830181 you can easily see I'm a Heinlein fan, albeit more for his older stuff. You can't beat Red Planet, Space Cadet and Starship Troopers for good ol' rock'em sock'em science fiction that's fun to read. This novel, however, has been declared one of the best SF novels ever written. It's much too soon to tell, only about 1/5th of the way into it, but it's moving well, and involves the titular Martian brought to Earth for the first time.