Edward's December 2014 Mix

December. The last month of the year. Christmas. Another year coming to an end and another year, ah, it never ends, well, until it does. And speaking of Christmas, for goodness sake, where did it go? Everybody works now, there are no more long Christmas breaks, and in the spirit of the season there used to be every other house on the block that was festooned with lights now you may have only two or three houses on the whole block. I’ve heard that it’s now politically incorrect to say Merry Christmas anymore, well, that is if you believe Facebook memes. Personally, I still say “Merry Christmas,” and in my neck of the woods so does everybody else. But one constant that remains is the Steam Winter Sale, but, ugh! Even it left something to be desired this year. There were no crazy sales to speak of. Car Mechanic Simulator 70% off for six hours? For real?

 

1. Air Conflicts - Secret Wars on PC: There are 118 reviews on Steam for this game, mostly mixed. That generally means a game is bad. And okay, despite the hammy voice acting and the storyline that is Indiana Jones adventuredom amped up to eleven, I fell in love with this game. It’s a take on WWII as told through the eyes of a smuggler pilot, an Amelia Earhart copycat who gets caught up in the war and flying missions based on personal scruples. The flight simulation aspect of it is wholly arcadish, equally as comfortable with an Xbox controller or a joystick. The graphics are typical 2003 fare, but the static cartoon cut scenes exude a certain charm. The icing on the cake is the bomb runs. Dropping a bomb on a ground target hearing the over the top death screams of the poor victims on the ground make this a must play.

 

2. Dragon Age: Origins on PC:  It was inevitable. All of the hype surrounding the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dragon Age 3) got me perked. And then watching the trailer for Dragon Age: Origins coerced me into reinstalling and playing this fine game all over again. I was a human mage the first time I played it. This time I’m a City Elf rogue distraught and on the run for killing castle royalty up on the hill because the king’s son and his buddies stole my bride on my wedding day and took her to the castle for their own party where they raped her. I join the Grey Warden and am subsequently pardoned. This is the stuff of a Hollywood feature film. I try to be a bad boy pickpocket and cut throat, a doppelgangerous Peter Pan, but it’s not working out quite like that. It’s just too difficult for me to be evil in games. I just hit level 8 and it’s as fun as the first time I played it three years ago, despite the rather difficulty of the combat.  

3. Mission Impossible: Season Two on Netflix: Despite the technology that looks like it was created in the 1800s, this show is still a roller coaster ride hinging on near getaways, foiled deceptions, and cloak and dagger international espionage. Don’t forget, this show is the reason we keep seeing Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies. The second season introduced Peter Graves as the new Impossible Missions Task Force leader. He’s as somber and effective as his first season counterpart. Greg Morris and Martin Landau are the underrated standouts. And if you want to see slices of Americana in the late 1960’s, the cars, the clothes, ubiquitous smokers, then watch this series.  

4. Shine Down: The Sound of Madness on CD:  This quartet of rockers have compiled a great CD of ballads. I picked up this, their third album, because of the song “The Crow & The Butterfly.” To my surprise, their song, “Second Chance” is the song that propelled them into fame. Apparently it was a surprise to them as well because they stated they hated this song. The band reminds me somewhat of Theory of a Dead Man without the emo screaming. 

5. Rush on Blu-Ray: I have played car racing simulations since 1990, and I love them. I have never watched a Formula One race on television, but I’ve played all the simulated tracks enough over the years that I have a passing familiarity of F1 Racing. This movie, which profiles the heated rivalry of James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 F1 Season. The subject matter is an excellent vehicle (pun intended) for Ron Howard’s usually commendable directing abilities. This movie, however, left something to be desired. Claudia Puig, USA Today, said this movie was “Ron Howard’s best film ever.” The movie barely showed any racing footage at all. Most of it centered on the off track antics that occurred between the two racers. This was no Backdraft or Cinderella Man. The Blu-Ray picture quality was excellent, however, and offered up a documentary-ish grain to the film. I suggest the 1960’s film, Grand Prix starring James Garner or even Tom Cruise’s Days of Thunder for a much better racing flick fix.  

6. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on Blu-Ray: Great concept. Imagine America’s finest Victorian Age literary characters coming to life in an action movie, bonded together, led by Allan Quartermain and attempting to save us all from a meglamaniac bent on destroying the world. The casting was over par, and the script was fun. But what killed it for me was the role Jules Verne’s Nautilus played in the movie. The vessel was depicted as being opulent, grandiose (the size of a small skyscraper turned on its side), and the epitome of Steampunk, but all of the interior shots betrayed any sense of maritime credibility. Each inside shot looked as if it was taken from some modern day metropolitan museum. Perhaps they should have borrowed (or stolen) from Disney’s epic Nautilus. The Blu-Ray transfer was okay, nothing to write home about. It wasn’t nearly as dazzling as Blade Runner or John Carpenter’s The Thing which I have recently watched.  

7. StarCraft on PC: Of course we all know Westwood Studios created the very first RTS (Dune II), but it was Blizzard who pioneered what I call the Q-RTS, the “quick real time strategy” genre. Warcraft was their first brainchild, but StarCraft was their second, and oh, what a sophomore effort. This is the stuff of history. It’s as much a strategy game as it is workout for your index finger. But this was RTS pure. There were no levels of difficulty. You either beat the game or you didn’t. I did not; I didn’t even finish the human campaign. I’ve got slowtime this week because of the holidays so I thought I’d give it another go after all of these years. (It was 1999) the last time I played it. I’ve got 9.75 hours into it and I’m on the final chapter of the Terran (humans.) This was the first RTS I ever played online as well. I’ll never forget getting my butt handed to me by my friend, Vic Berwick, over a dial up modem. Incidentally, I never defeated him in a single game. (I have since made up for that in Company of Heroes against my friend where I was able to reciprocate that scenario.) But it’s bringing back fond memories playing this. The music, Jim Raynor’s snark, the sound of the SCVs cutting the crystals with their torches. It’s all a nice journey down the corridors of my PC gaming history.

8. Dove Season by Johnny Shaw on Kindle:  Probably one of the most adventurous novels I’ve read this year. It’s fun to discover a first novel this good. With references to the PC game, Doom, and descriptions of the desert being a place where everything is thirsty, sunburned and pissed off. “Even a desert hare will take the finger off of a dumbass that tries to pet it. If the desert can make a bunny that angry, imagine what it does to people.”  I couldn’t help but like this book. The novel concerns a young man who returns home where his father is dying after being away for 12 years, and getting caught up in all kinds of trouble, all conjured up through his dying father.

 

9. Verdun on PC: The grittiest, most realistic, dirtiest modern combat simulator out there. This game is a time travel trip back to No Man's Land in the trenches of World War One. Kills are hard earned, and a game's winner is always revered and respected. If you really want to test your mettle, take on a bout of Death match. It's basically a free for all involving long range sniping. The game is difficult enough as an Early Access title. It will more than likely feel like a pushover once it goes gold, but if you want to play the game right now that makes Red Orchestra feel like a Youtube, "Let's Play," then you need to pick up Verdun, right now. Prepare to get bloody and dirty.  

 

Edward's November 2014 Mix

Winter isn’t even officially here yet, and Buffalo, New York just got hammered with 6 feet of snow in a day. Here in Indiana we are seeing temperatures that are freezing water pipes and causing warnings to be issued to get one’s animals inside or they risk dying of hyperthermia. No doubt, it’s a good time to be inside, and a great excuse to lose myself in my usual media whoredom. Dragon Age 3 just came out, and Grand Theft Auto V looms around the corner. And I’ve still not played Alien Isolation. Speaking of Dragon Age 3, I just watched the trailer for the original Dragon Age and it looked so good I think I’m going to run through another playthrough. What’s a man to do?

 

1. Mission Impossible Season 2 on Netflix

I've said it before, due to simple technology advances, this series which came out in the 1960’s looks like a high school play by today’s standards. It took itself quite seriously in its time, however. Peter Graves became the new frontman for the Missions Impossible team, and each episode was varied and had mini cliff hangers before each commercial. The time setting for the shows brings back memories of the cars and clothes back during when I was a child. The scriptwriting is brilliant despite the series obselescence, and the characterization is dead on. These are characters I remember well from my childhood and it’s cool to get to revisit them through Netflix streaming.

2. Juno "A Future Lived in Past Tense" on CD
If Pink Floyd stepped into a Star Trek transporter along with The Foo Fighters, and their particles got mixed up in the beaming down process we’d have what is the embodiment of Juno. I discovered them on Pandora (where I discover so much great tuneage.) And to my surprise they only created two albums and then called it quits. Their songs consist of hard barre chord guitars, thundering machine gun drums and then there is the single song I bought the album for, “Up Through the Night.” It’s simply a single old Gibson guitar with a slight reverb. It reminds me of some guy in a mountain cabin. He is sitting with one knee over the other, slowly picking and strumming this guitar, his eyes closed as if he’s in some far away place in his own head, a glass of whiskey next to him with a melting floating ice cube in it, and just happy to be alive in that moment to create something so sad and beautiful.

3. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing on PC
I'm finally winding down this amazing ARPG, and still having a blast of it. I’ve discovered I’ve bit off a bit more than I can chew. That’s what I get for playing the game on hard mode. I just got through The Old Town in 13 hours. That’s entirely too long for an action RPG. But, I’ve not lost interest. My character, Edward Van Helsing is now a level 27, and a genuine badass. I’m sure I will play through it again as a different class. This indie title is something big studios should attempt to emulate. I’ve never had so much fun playing a computer game for such a great length of time.

4. A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
Two brothers and a friend find a crashed plane containing 4 million dollars in the snow filled woods near their home. The pilot is dead, and no one is looking for the money. All they have to do is wait. But the money takes all the attributes of a curse. These normal everyday guys transform into desperate men doing what they have to do to keep their secret hidden, and then one day someone comes looking for the missing money. This is a great first novel by Scott Smith. Stephen King said, “It’s better than any suspense novel since Silence of the Lambs.”

5. The Thing  on Blu Ray
Got on a John Carpenter kick this month with this gem of a movie. Kurt Russell was the perfect lead man in this action horror vehicle. I’ve seen it multiple times, but it’s always worth a rewatch. Carpenter’s pacing of the film never leaves a dull moment. And the special effects are much more Don Post/Rick Baker latex make up and puppetry compared to the CGI effects of today, but this movie holds up just fine. And the Blu Ray edition is gorgeous to look at. Despite the wintry grays, muted blues and whites, the colors on Blu Ray simply pop. If you’re a fan of science fiction movies, this is the version to get.

6. Big Trouble in Little China on Blu Ray
Following my John Carpenter kick I found this cult movie bargain at my local Disc Replay.  This movie is a treat to watch, and Kurt Russell’s antics and one liners make for some good laughs. I had as much fun watching the movie again accompanied by Kurt Russell and John Carpenter’s comments. Both men were sitting in the same room with a couple of beers, and Russell belly laughed at about every scene he was in. Both men poked fun at the film, but in a good way that reminded the three of us that despite that this movie was made 28 years ago, we can still watch it today and be taken back to our youth, if even for only 90 carefree minutes.

7. F1 2013 on PC

It’s been a long time since I’ve delved into what is probably Codemaster’s best F1 racing sim to date. I bemoaned the arrival of F1 2014 thinking I would have to purchase it to get a better product (like I did, to my fortunate surprise, with F1 2012.) I started reading reviews, and delighted in the notion that most of the reviews said the new version wasn’t worth it. So, I’ve since been hitting my 2013 version hard. I just started a career and raced at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia. I have the AI set on two notches below top notch, and I still failed miserably, coming in at position 20 out of 22, but I’ll get better. These cars are monsters. They mimic the real things which weigh 1300 lbs. and spit out 900 horsepower. The game shines gorgeous on my rig, and it’s so visceral it makes me want to start watching F1 races on television. Now, if Codemasters could only wrangle the NASCAR license from EA and put their magic touch on that franchise.  

8. Boards of Canada “Skam” on CD

This used to sell for oodles amount of money on eBay and other online venues. I counted myself lucky to recently find it for less than ten bucks on Amazon. I’ve pined for it for a long time, ah, and now I finally have it in my possession. Not so much a great music CD as a ticket to the wondrous merry go round in Ray Bradbury’s amazing, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” Step aboard, take a seat on one of the painted horses and go backwards, shedding a year for every revolution. This conglomeration by the two Scottish brothers who make up Boards of Canada is the sound of summer as a youth, the melodic chime of the ice cream truck cruising by the house, watching Saturday morning cartoons and eating Captain Crunch cereal while still in your pajamas. It’s the sound of the Halloween party in 4^th grade on a Friday eagerly anticipating for childhood’s most holy night to befall, and walking down the sidewalks with friends and cousins in costume, sticking your tongue through the tiny mouthhole and tasting the formed plastic of the mask. Boards of Canada have magic powers in their possession.
 

9. Verdun on PC

This is Red Orchestra set in World War I. Not for the squeamish, this makes Call of Duty play like a Facebook Farmville tutorial geared toward octogenarians. This game is gritty, muddy, wet, and a fog filled squalor representing the real life horror that was The Great War. The game is frustrating in its realism. Squeeze into a gas mask and lose half your vision when the trenches fill with poison gas, but it's either that or die a rapid agonizing death. Come face to face with the enemy, raise your gun, and discover your screw up. You only had one bullet in your magazine. And you just missed. Grenades explode around you preventing you from craning your neck up to explore the distant hillsides for approaching enemies. This game mimics everything bad about warfare, and rest assured, you may think fate has it in for you, but it has it in for the enemy as well. There are no free rides in this game. This game requires the patience of a rock, and the smarts of a Mensa instructor. And a piece of lady luck as well.

Edward's October 2014 Mix

October is one of my favorite months. My childhood Halloweens will always reign supreme along with Christmas as my favorite times. I'll never forget the cardboard cut out construction paper shapes of witches and black cats, and strolling around the elementary school campus in our regalia for the school Halloween parade. And now it's upon us once again. Other things of note this month: I got my first royalty check from Amazon. It wasn't much, eh, but it was still thrilling to receive it. I blew out the back tire on my road bike, it's ruined. There will be no riding for a while. But the most important thing of all to occur this month is I finished Far Cry 3! I knocked out every relic, memory card and lost letter to boot. This was quite an achievement if I do say so myself.

 1. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on DVD

I've always been a fan of the Terminator films. The whole mythos is a testament to the ingenuity of James Cameron who created/wrote/directed the first movie. Who would have thought, this, coming from a man who dropped out of community college. Each successive movie in the series outdid the one before it. Each terminator was more advanced and more ruthless, and Terminator 3: Rise of the  Machines is no exception. The new T-X Terminator, so efficiently played by Kristanna Loken is the perfect evolvement of the Terminators before her, the almost ancient T-800 played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Patrick's chilling T-1000. I read that one critic said this movie was nothing more than a really long vehicle chase, but man, what a chase!

2. Soundgarden "Down on the Upside" on CD
Coming from the grass root origins of Seattle, WA grunge similar to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Soundgarden was fronted by Chris Cornell, known for his unusual voice. I got interested in listening to Soundgarden because of my love for Canada's Big Wreck, helmed by Ian Thornley, who has been called "Canada's own Chris Cornell." I can hear the similarities, but I think Cornell's voice is raspier. As a whole, this album (a big thanks to my friend Neil Campbell for lending it to me!) has a classic  1970's influence to it. It reminds me of Led Zeppelin having a brooding angry stepbrother who leaves the house to find his own way, and this pissed off stepbrother is Soundgarden. You can definitely hear this influence again in Cornell's more recent band, Audioslave.  

3. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing on PC
I'm still playing this amazing ARPG, and having a total blast of it. Like I said last month, I got bored of Path of Exile and its terrible loot drops that always pertained to other classes, and I thought Torchlight would never end, but this game which is an indie title makes me want to play through it again, and I've not even finished it yet! The loot drops are like lucky day Lottery scratch off tickets that just keep on giving. I frequently receive items that are not only usable, they are game changing upgrades! Animated skeletons, giant rats, and frenzied orcs that usually populate ARPGs have been replaced with denizens that would inhabit any Transylvanian setting: vampires, werewolves, and witches. I can't wait to finish it simply so I can reroll another character.

4. The Broken Places by Susan Perabo
Imagine being one of the cool kids in school, the quarterback on the football team, and someone all of the other cool kids flock to. Your dad is a crew chief at the local fire station and he gets involved in a collapsed house and the rescue of the high school's king thug, a loser in a trench coat who bullies others and sports Nazi insignias. Suddenly, out of some twisted gratitude this high school miscreant idolizes your father, and he and your dad start hanging out all of the time. Your father begins to see this kid more than he sees you! I read Susan Perabo's book of short stories, Who I was Supposed to Be, a while back and I was amazed at her ranging ability to create memorable characters. I'm getting the same vibe in this book. I'm only halfway through it, but I'm excited to see how this is all going to go.

5. Assetto Corsa on PC
This game finally went from Early Access to a full blown game released into the wild. And oh man, what a send off! In the final hours the developers added a career mode (full multiplayer has been added weeks ago) and this new mode has amped the fun factor up to 11. I've had my first career race and quickly was reminded this is no arcade racer or "sim-lite." If not through my ineptitude to put the pedal to the metal at the right times then it's the bone jarring force feedback that vibrates through my Logitech G27 Wheel/Paddle set when I roll over an S curve chicane. I've played auto racing sims since Papyrus's magnificent Indianapolis 500: The Simulation back in 1990. I think this one is going to go down as the best one I've ever played.

6. Ultimate General: Gettysburg on PC
I followed this game for quite a while when it was still Early Access. I finally pulled the trigger and made the purchase a few days before it went gold. I merely meant to dabble in it and play around a little since I've got so many other games to finish. I ended up playing and beating both campaigns, the Union and the Confederate. The game feels like a love letter homage to Sid Meier's wonderfully elegant Sid Meier's Gettysburg released way back in 1998. I stated as much in my review which was the first official review of the game in its final version (I don't believe in Early Access reviews. I think criticisms/compliments should be restricted to the forums until the game is officially out.) And as of this writing the review is still the second most helpful review on the Steam Store page for the game.

7. Six Feet Under: Season 3  on DVD
We now know Nate Fisher survived his harrowing cliffhanger at the end of season two. He and Brenda parted ways (thank goodness) and he married an old friend from the past who he impregnated. Despite that he's a funeral director doing a job he deplores, but feels compelled to do since it's the family business, and he keeps chasing the doubts away that intimate his marriage is going to prevent him from finding true happiness, he is trying to do the right thing. And then his wife disappears while on a road trip to visit her sister. Poor Nate turns into an animal. He binge drinks and participates in random sex with one night stands. He lets his emotions surrounding the grief that comes with his job get the better of him. David ends his relationship with his abusive partner, and Ruth Fisher finds love where least expected, a love that leads to her remarriage. This has been a season about relationships on the show. And just when I thought it couldn't, it ended on another cliffhanger.

Edward's September 2014 Mix

Indeed it's been a strange month. Being September, the declination of the warm weather (if you could call this summer we had warm at all) marks the beginning of autumn. I must admit I like the season: the turning of the leaves, everything smelling all pumpkin spicy, and of course the days leading up to Halloween, my second favorite Holiday. But it's been strange for other reasons as well. My family life has been a little bit of Hiroshima this month, but not anything I can't handle. And I received a big rejection this month. I'm a writer with elephant skin. I have a file full of rejections from 30 years of writing to prove it. Rejection is my steadfast companion. Oddly, this one is affecting me more than superficially meets the eye. Ah, but I'll get over it. Life is a gift and time is short. There's no sense in dwelling on it. Speaking of time, much of mine has been robbed this month by a sandbox game that I let pass by me when it came out in 2009 because I thought the game was one of those laughable games that only the people who play Farmville today would have played. As a matter of fact, though you've seen me on Steam it simply looked as if I was online, but not playing anything. Oh, but I was! (I was just too ashamed to add it as a non-Steam game. Heh.)


 1. Shopping Cart Soldiers by John Mulligan

This is the most twisted book I've read since Clive Barker's Books of Blood about five years ago. I'm not even sure how to describe it. The story involves a young Scottish lad who emigrates to the States with his family, and is soon drafted into the US Army to go to Vietnam. The atrocities he partakes in while there leaves him a ruined man in so many ways. Not only is he a broken homeless man who sleeps on park benches and pushes a rusty shopping cart around looking for his next drink, he talks to himself and suffers visions of waking nightmares. And get this, the story is told by a lost soul misplaced by happenstance and looking for another body to inhabit. This soul has her eye on the hero of our tale, Finn MacDonald. His soul departed his body a long time ago and he's become an "empty" as it's called in the spirit world. She's doing her best to take residence within him. The book contains paragraphs and pages of MacDonald's dark visions right out of a modern H.P. Lovecraftian tale, and I probably should have passed on this book, truth be told, but I can't put it down now.

2. Breakfast at Tiffany's on Blu-Ray

Based on Truman Capote's small novel, this movie was my second exposure to Audrey Hepburn (I thought she was great in Roman Holiday, though the real star of that show was the mighty little Vespa that she and Gregory Peck tooled around on.) I'm not a fan of Blake Edwards, not from what I've seen of his stuff, but this movie wasn't bad. I'm not quite sure I see the "iconism" (is that even a word?) this movie has inferred upon a nation of cultists and purists, but the movie was fun to watch and it looks gorgeous on Blu-Ray.

 3. Far Cry 3 on PC

Nope. I still haven't finished it. I'm wondering if I even will before the end of the year. So much for starting The Witcher 2 this year. I just killed Vaas, and so I'm told I still have a ways to go although my map is still dotted densely with relics, memory cards, lost letters and loot chests. I endured the fight with the giant ink demon, if you could call it a fight at all. It wasn't quite a QTE, but it was darn close. It was probably one of the easiest boss fights I've ever engaged in. Despite my grumblings, this is still one of the most amazing graphically games I've played. Each time I play still feels as if I've checked out of my life and ended up as a visiting guest on Ricardo Montalbon's mystical Fantasy Island.

4. Dove Season (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) by Johnny Shaw on Kindle
 Recommend to me by a friend at work I'm finding myself unable to not blaze through this. It's men's fiction at its best. Jimmy Veeder grew up in a small border town in Arizona. And the moment he could, got out of town as fast as he could and never looked back. And now it's twelve years later, and his father is dying. He has no choice but to come back. His father laid up in a nursing home that "smells like someone shampooed a three month dead cat," his father has one last request, a visit from a hooker. So, Jimmy accompanies his old high school friend, a Mexican looking Elvis Presley, who is now the town drunk to embark upon this quest. Shaw's descriptive passages are some of the most visceral stuff I've read as of late, "There is something about the desert that pisses everything off. It could be the heat, or the barren landscape or the stark desolation. . . . In the desert even the plants have chips on their shoulders. They are water starved and sunburnt fighters.  . . .Even a desert hare will take a finger off the dumbass that tries to pet it. If a desert can make a bunny that angry, imagine what it does to people." Reading doesn't get more fun than this.

 

5. Hell on Wheels: Season One on Netflix

Another recommendation by a friend at work, this is compelling entertainment. I'm pretty loyal to my favorite westerns, Tombstone, and The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. I never thought any western could touch these badboys. And then I got turned onto this rough and rugged series. It involves a veteran Confederate of the American Civil War who returns home to find his family farm ransacked, his wife hanged from the front porch and his son burned to ash. He seeks revenge on the band of Union soldiers who committed the act and discovers they migrated to the west to work on the newly christened Union Pacific railroad. The ex-rebel soldier, Cullen Bohannon, becomes a part of the railroad construction team in his search for the marauders he's seeking. This series bleeds authenticity, and is encouraging me to check out other series, like Deadwood in the future.

 

6. Train Simulator 2015 on PC

Steam released their latest iteration of DoveTail Games' famous railroad simulation. There are a multitude haters for this series (and the infamous Steam reviews to prove it) but this really is a great simulation for anybody who has even a small interest in trains and how railroads work. The core set game comes with a minimal amount of engines and track scenario courses, and should one choose to purchase additional scenarios the costs can add up very quickly. As I've mentioned before, owning every DLC available makes the game the most expensive PC game on the planet (about $2,000.) But I'm partial to freight train liveries and the big GP diesel electrics. I have no interest in 19th century steam locomotives or European passenger trains. Waiting for Steam sales and picking and choosing your tracks and engines can harvest a nice bounty of cheaply obtained entertainment. And then, of course, there are the Steam Achievements, which being TS2015 introduced an all new Train Simulator Academy with an accompanying achievement array for each level passed has made obtaining three dozen new achievements as easy as cheating.

 

7. Big Wreck Albatross on CD

Ian Thornley has been referred to as the Canadian version of Chris (Soundgarden, Audioslave) Cornell. It's easy to see why after giving this album a listen. Shoot, it's easy to see why after giving any Big Wreck album a listen. I stumbled upon these guys way back in 1997. Driving to my nightly mundane factory job in Austin, TX the local rock station shot out "That Song," for the masses. I was in love. I bought the CD the next day and never regretted it. It's rare that I buy a CD for one song exclusively. This album is filled with more of their usual golden goodness. This song, "Wolves," from the album is my favorite song. Give it a listen. I think you'll agree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zisyWP5U6Po

8. The Sims 3 on PC
Welcome to my dark and shameful secret of the month. I scored this along with a few DLCs on a recent Humble Bundle/Origin purchase. I quietly dismissed The Sims 3 key codes as something I'd keep in my library but something I'd never ever redeem. And then The Sims 4 released this month, and after reading so many reviews stating how much The Sims 3 was better I got to thinking, "Hey, I actually have that game!" So, now on the other side of over thirty hours of playing it, I'm a jetsetter bachelor juggling four girlfriends. I've penned a fiction novel and have a biography gaining popular momentum. I've done a cameo for an independent film, and I'm being recognized as a celebrity on the streets. I just hired a new maid, and through simple conversation discovered she had an evil trait. Sounds like my kind of gal, let the chase begin. Now I just need to buy a better shower, one that doesn't have me walking around smelling like a George Romero zombie the same day I take a shower.


Closing note of gratitude, and about that rejection I mentioned earlier.
     I'd like to thank my cousin, Justin Rexroad for the tip concerning Picpick. I used this for my screen compilation this month. It cut my workload in half. I won't have to resort to breaking out my smartphone, my laptop, my Kindle AND my desktop to help bring in my Monthly Mixes in the future.
     The rejection was for a job I applied for last month. The place is a local major employer that pays its employees sinful amounts of money, and I had a good feeling I would be considered. I got the rejection notification via US Mail this weekend, perhaps that's why I even mentioned it here. It's still quite the open blood fountain wound. There is good news, though. I can apply again next year. Yay! Will I? Hell no.
 

Edward's August 2014 Mix

This will go down as one of the most unusual Augusts in the history of my world. It's nothing as monumental as the end of the world, or the dissolution of the Republican and Democrat parties, ushering in a much more sensible age of Libertarianism, no, nothing like that. I'm talking about a sea change in my personal life. I've had to shatter old habits and learn a new way to live. And so far, it's not been as bad as I thought it would be. My house is empty now, and though I swear I see ghosts and hear distant voices of the ones who once graced this place I am on my own now. Oh well, I've got to keep my sanity, and what better way to keep one's sanity than to lose oneself in a plethora of games or departing the outside world and becoming swallowed in the ambience of a good set of tunes or a movie!

1. Wing Commander on PC.  I'm revisiting this true classic thanks to GoG.com. There is no handholding, and no difficulty settings. The only thing this game offers is a great hurling out into the deep throes of space. And in 1990 this game did it so well. This game wooed everybody when it came out and pretty much made for a paradigm shift as far as the new VGA graphics standard and what exactly a PC sound card was capable of. It was the first game that made me feel so much more than as if I were simply playing a game. Being launched into space and looking back at the Tiger's Claw, my mother ship, I truly felt alone in the great abyss. I had been married 3 years when this game came out and I had a one year old daughter. It feels very strange going back to play this game. The graphics look like mud now, and there's a huge cheese factor in the storyline, but you're not a PC gamer until you have this one under your belt.  

 

 

2. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing on PC. This is quite simply the best ARPG I've ever played. I labored through Torchlight's mazeful and endless depth dungeons, and despite that I finished Path of Exile, I lost interest in it long before I saw the closing credits. I'm not even close to finishing Van Helsing yet, and I'm already looking forward to rerolling another class character and starting over when I reach the end. The whole Transylvania 1800s setting adorned with full moons and Steampunk make this a refreshing getaway from the bleak dungeons found in most ARPGs. Steam offers it on sale sometimes, and I highly recommend it if you weren't lucky enough to get it for next to nothing in the recent Humble Bundle offering.  

3. Far Cry 3 on PC. I really need to finish this game, and I would have beaten it long ago if not for my silly OCD tendencies to gather every memory card, relic and letter the game has neatly (and not so neatly) ensconced in its bevy of hidden places. I took a break for a while, but then I managed to hear the game's original soundtrack recording in its entirety, and now I'm hooked all over again. Yes, you're going to think I'm weird, but I've actually been driving around with this soundtrack CD in my car stereo. Outside of Jeremy Soule's brilliant OST to Guild Wars 2 this is my favorite soundtrack. If you want me to make a believer out of you go to Youtube and look up the Far Cry 3 soundtrack. You'll want to listen to track 6, "Journey into Madness." This is the song that accompanies the game's protagonist, Jason Brody: A man who awakens on the beach and realizes he's got to cowboy up and go back and save his friends. This tune is the theme of that transformation, and it's perfect.               

     4.   Countdown by Deborah Wiles. It's not often I reread a book. I had to make an exception for this young adult novel. It concerns a young girl on the even of teen angst while the world holds its breath during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This book wonderfully reveals that history can come from the most interesting sources, not necessarily the scholastics and the conquerors.

 

     5.   Blade Runner on Blu Ray. I never tire of watching this movie. As a matter of fact I have two favorite movies. This is one of them. And as my friend, Vic Berwick, will attest, we generally put this movie on when we haven't seen each other for a long time. I've owned this movie in all of its incarnations, and the DVD collector set was nice, but Blu Ray is the way to see it in its full glory. It's one movie that transcends the Philip K. Dick novel it was based on. Supposedly Ridley Scott is in talks to do a sequel (prequel?) I think well enough should be left alone. This movie stands alone, as it should.

 

      6.   Ennio Morricone: Film Music Maestro on CD. You may not realize it, but you already know who Ennio Morricone is. It goes without saying he's one of the masters of movie music creation. His theme from The Untouchables is still used by Paramount when it's previewing new releases on DVD. This is the man who became the icon for Spaghetti western music. There have been great Western themes over the years, but none that evoke the loneliness and sparseness so effectively as Morricone's works. And who can forget the haunting harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West?

 

      7.   4 Film Favorites: Draculas on DVD. This is quite a good collection of Hammer Films all starring Christopher Lee as the infamous count. Though many liberties were taken from the original Bram Stoker novel, the Hammer movies do it with the most fun. As always, their sets are grandiose and authentic. The characters take the roles seriously, and Anthony Hinds, the producer, and John Elder, the screenplay writer of most of these movies created them with an affection you don't quite see anymore in movies. Seeing Christopher Lee turn from a seemingly amiable lord of a castle to the fiendish Count Dracula, Prince of Darkness is a sight to behold. Lee will always be Dracula in my mind.

Edward's July 2014 Mix

 

This has been a July for the record books as one of the coolest July months in recorded history. A slight tinge threads through the air portending the upcoming autumn. And if that wasn’t enough, our local Hell Mart has stocked shelves full of school supplies. It’s fair time for our fair city, but backed by this unseasonable coolness, our small town’s   denizens are more intent on ushering in the fall season. That’s fine by me. Bring on the cool weather, my perfect excuse to stay inside and lose myself to my media whoredom.

 

1.      House of Cards Season One on Netflix: The roller coaster ride is starting to take off. Francis Underwood, the congressman so effectively played by Kevin Spacey is really getting to be a character I’m fond of, despite his wiley and unctious ways. His nuggets of wisdom so elegantly dropped in his southern educated drawl is the main attraction. I’ve not been fascinated by a character as much since Doc Holliday in the movie, Tombstone. Spacey’s ability to think ever so quickly on his feet, standing in rapid contemplation, and then being taken by a thought, like a wide receiver catching a touchdown pass, he takes the thought and runs with it. Sometimes it ends in disaster. But this is a man whose confidence always threatens to outpace him. And just when you think he’s a real scoundrel, he goes to his old college campus where they unveil a library named after him. He stands stoic at the podium and throws out his speech. He glances at his old group of classmates, and then back at the library and says, “Nothing lasts forever, this is all transitory. . . I wish I had the word . . . harmony, that’s the word that keeps coming back to me. An individual voice joined by others for one brief moment. A moment that lasts the length of a breath.”

 

2. F1 2013 on PC: I’m somewhat taking a break from Grid 2 to get back to what is the finest F1 simulation produced by Codemasters to date. I’ve just graduated Young Driver’s School, and got the achievement for it. Now I’m tackling some of the driver scenario challenges before I delve into the whole Grand Prix career enchalada. It’s a perfect match for my Logitech G27 wheel/paddle set. The devil is in the details in this one. The HD lighting, the rays of God streaming through the billboards and grandstands, the dust particles kicked up by the car in front of you, this game is easily the most gorgeous car racing simulation I’ve ever played.  

3. Double Star by Robert Heinlein: Lorenzo Smythe, a down on his luck actor is tricked into what he thinks could be the acting gig of his life. Instead he’s whisked off to Mars to double as an important politician who’s been kidnapped. The only problem is, Smythe abhors Martians. He has terrible bodily reactions when he’s around them, and now he must mingle with the masses of them! This is good vintage Heinlein. This was actually written three or four years before Starship Troopers, which in my opinion was when Heinlein was in his prime.  

4. Tik Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum on Kindle: Who would have thought a man who used racist terms and wrote editorials encouraging genecide of Native Americans could be such a beloved hero to our nation’s children? Ah, but he was! In this, his 8^th Oz book we meet a  minor princess in a minor province in the far reaches of Oz who decides to gather an army and march on the Emerald City. This book bears the same sort of repetition it shares with his other Oz stories. But it doesn’t grate nor does it bore the reader. In his usual manner, Baum keeps the violence on the down low, despite that terrible things happen to his characters.  

5. Magic: The Gathering collectible card game: I originally quit the game because of  Wizard of the Coast’s manner of constantly coming out with new decks of cards making all prior decks obsolete. It made me wonder if their employees wore t-shirts that said, “Cash Cow” on it. (Or if I should be wearing a t-shirt that said, “Sucker” on it while playing the game.) Oddly, this game is pretty much what’s consumed me in the month of July. The blessed reunion started with a new game store that opened in town. I entered a sealed booster deck tournament and ended up going undefeated, winning the tournament. And now I’m creating new decks, comprised of  expensive foil cards. Not only is this game consuming me, it’s consuming me in style.

           

 

PC vs Console

PC vs Console.

The debate lives on and with the release of two new platforms the debate is flourishing. Here are my reasons why I think the PC is the stronger platform. Agree? Disagree? Hit me up with your comments below.

1. Mouse/Keyboard Interface

Blizzard's Starcraft and Starcraft II are national religions in South Korea. Even the South Korean Air Force has a sanctioned team. PC is king in this country because of the mouse and keyboard needed to play these real time strategy games. Imagine playing Shogun: Total War 2 or Sins of a Solar Empire on a console with the same ease. Nope. Not going to happen.

2. Solitary/Intimate play 

I am not a social gamer. And even when I am, it’s online only for me, baby. I get my social fix in MMOs, Guild Wars 2 being my personal poison. Granted, setting up to play with family or friends sitting side by side at the same PC is doable, though cumbersome at best. But that’s okay. PC gamers are used to solitary play. In the dark. With headphones. It’s all about total immersion.  

3. Multitasking 

Imagine sitting on the sofa listening to music on your console, alt-tabbing out to chat to friends and raising hell in GTAV and also watching an eBay auction wind down to snipe seconds. Playing on a PC there is no imagine. There just . . . is. Not to mention being able to craft a novel, spell check it, and then print it out (or email it to an editor.)  

4. Game selection

Walk into any Gamestop and declare you’re a PC gamer and you’ll get treated like a leper. Walk into a Best Buy and your mouth will drop open when you see the diminutive (and dwindling) selection of PC games on the shelf. You know what? This doesn’t matter, not anymore. In the world of digital distribution there is no need for brick and mortar real estate shelf space, plastic discs, cardboard game boxes and paper manuals. And the Steam digital distribution venue is king of this new realm. Steam currently offers over 2,000 games. You won’t find this kind of selection on a “next-gen” console. You won’t even find half that selection, and that’s on both consoles combined.  

5. Cheaper games 

Okay, I know I’m splitting hairs here and stepping into the gray area, especially since the Sony Playstation online service offers free games from time to time, and Blizzard became a trendsetter and offered Call of Duty games on PC for $60.00 (the same price for the console versions.) Still, I scored Far Cry 3 for $7.49 on a Steam sale. And I paid $40 for Bioshock: Infinite. I got Batman Arkham City Game of the Year Edition (which includes all of the DLC packs) for $10 on a Steam sale as well. Console games are $60. Period. They almost have to be. That first ten dollars covers licensing fees.  

6. Backward compatibility 

Chances are you can take any older PC game from your shelf, install it, and get it to work. It might take some tweaking, but you can make it happen. Better yet, you can buy an already tweaked version for your system on www.gog.com. The nice thing about GoG.com is game purchases usually include screen wallpapers, mp3s of the game’s soundtrack and nice PDF game manuals. In addition, GoG is on the verge of implementing an active client service like Steam. Game updates will be automatic, and you can chat to other GoG members and create a personal profile showing off all of those great old games you own. Wing Commander for $4.99? Consolers, don’t try this at home. Don’t even try to play PS3 games on your PS4 or Xbox 360 games on your XB1.

 

So, there you have it. And yes, I’m being a little harsh on console boys, because in truth, PCs and consoles have enough differences that maybe it really is unfair to try to compare them in this manner. I’ve been a PC gamer since 1990, but I actually started on an 8 bit Nintendo NES. Metal Gear made me late for work the whole time I was playing it. At about the same time I beat it, I got a chance to see a gaming PC. That’s all it took. I gave my Nintendo away and never looked back.

Edward's June 2014 Mix

Summer is in full swing. There is nothing quite like being able to go outside at two o'clock in the morning in a T-shirt and not feel cold. I'm enjoying getting my bike out on the road again; pedaling in one place on a wind trainer just isn't as thrilling as watching rolling scenery. Cruising down the road in my little blue Yaris with my blue Ray Bans and music exploding out of my open windows probably defines summer gladness the best of all, well, almost. I'd by lying if I didn't admit the coolest thing about summer is the Steam sale. It's the best excuse I have for staying inside avoiding the sunrays and paying the neighbor kid to mow my yard!

1. Black Tie Dynasty Movements on CD

A hundred and fifty years from now on some faraway space station or on an Earth occupied moon base there will be a nightclub hosting a nostalgia night. And on that night a band will play Earth music from the 1960's. Black Tie Dynasty will be that band. Okay, probably not, the members of this fantabulous band will be the stuff of history by that time. I'll put it this way, it will be a band that sounds like Black Tie Dynasty because this band is like something out of a time machine. How's this for a paradox? A band from the future that plays old music from the 1960's. That's Black Tie Dynasty for you. Their craft is a hint of shoeglaze mixed with a Dick Dale beach sound twinged with tie dye T-shirts and psychedelic plastic furniture. Look up "Bells" on Youtube and give it a listen, and then you'll feel the "groovy waves" too.

2. A Midnight Clear by William Wharton
There was a great movie that came out decades ago about a band of US Army soldiers in the Ardennes forest holed up in a chateau, trapped behind enemy lines in 1944. Over Christmas they strike up a friendship with a band of ragtag German soldiers caught in the same predicament. The movie was predictable and not a big budget movie, but it had some profound scenes in it that made me think of the movie long after I saw it. It was interesting to find out William Wharton penned the novel, the same guy who wrote Birdy. Birdy was a movie starring Nicholas Cage and Matthew Modine I was also very fond of. I stumbled across this novel at my local library book sale recently, and it's every bit as profoundly written as the screenplay was for the movie. "I looked at him, in the foxhole with me, sitting there with his Garand on his knees, and in that moment he was a statue inside of himself. I was absorbing my mind's future picture of him." I love writing like that.

3. The Strangers on Blu-Ray
 Have you ever watched a movie that changed your life? I mean really caused you to look at the world in a different way? This movie did that for me. And not in a wholesome Andy Griffith show kind of way. I used to have a shotgun I kept in the box it came in. I kept the shells a distance away. After watching this movie when it was released, it became my new "scariest" modern movie. (Exorcist III will forever hold that title for me as far as older movies go.) Examined closely, this is a simple movie that could have been part of a college three day weekend class shoot. But of course, its subtlety wins out and rules the day. I don't suggest seeing it alone. Oh, that big change that occurred because of this movie? Simple. My shells and my shotgun are no longer separated.

 

4. The Wild Wild West Season 4 on DVD

I can finally say I've seen every episode now. Like so many shows from the 1960's it started out serious and adult, and eroded into camp and if not for the violence (which caused the show's end despite its great ratings at the time) the last season might have been more appropriate for Saturday morning television. Gunfights accompanied by music that sounds like the music from The Price is Right game show, or seeing James West thundering across a desert plain on his horse with The Beach Boys guitar music in the background just makes it hard to watch this last season with a straight face. I will still maintain, however, that James West was my hero as a kid. And this show, which had inspirations from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne was one of the first appearances of a Steampunk universe on television. Now, I need to find a Wild Wild West lunchbox!

 

5. Steam

I mentioned this earlier, but Steam is taking up a large slice of my time this month. For all of my non-gaming friends out there, Steam is a digital PC gaming distribution vehicle created and maintained by the Valve corporation. It debuted in 2003 but came up to the forefront in 2004 with the release of Valve's own Half Life 2. It's recognized now for not only its efficiency as a digital game distributor but also as a social network. As a matter of fact, I was a big proponent of  Xfire as far as contacting and communicating with my gaming buddies, and I loved the way Xfire tracked and recorded every hour spent in a game. Unfortunately, Xfire has become so bugged lately I have a few games now that simply will not boot up if I have Xfire running. I hate that this is happening. I will sorely miss Xfire, but Steam is definitely taking up the slack. And then of course, let's not forget the Steam sales. These have become a summer highlight as well as a Christmas highlight. I picked up FarCry 3 for $7.49 on one of these sales, not to mention the games I purchased from three sales ago that I've still not played. Steam is proof to the old adage, "an embarrassment of riches."

 

6. Unity of Command on PC

Speaking of a Steam sale, this was a small gem I picked up during one of Steam's midweek madness sales. It's a World War II strategy game centering on Germany's invasion of Russia in 1941. This is no Axis & Allies or a facsimile of an Avalon Hill game. This is more of a "beer & pretzel" type strategy game with uncomplicated scenarios. There are a lot of stats and much information in the game, but that heavy lifting is all done by the computer. This game focuses on the supply factor involved in the Russian and German war machines, and could in a way be considered a rudimentary history lesson on how armies run on their stomachs. This game is on par with the venerable Panzer Command.

 

7. Need For Speed: Undercover on PC

Released in 2008, this game is probably the most fun I've had with a NFS title. You play an undercover cop who has to ingratiate yourself with street racer gangs by attracting the police, and not in a good way. You lure them into high speed chases and take out their cars, and do damage to state buildings and structures eventually becoming poised to take down each street racer gang leader. The game is filled with great cut scenes populated by hammy over the top actors that look like they were turned down from the kind of low budget movies you see released straight to video. The game is not rigidly structured like former NFS titles. Instead, you're free to take on any job, race, or cop takeout you want to, in any order, confident that any task you do is going to warm the hearts of the gang leaders you're trying to win over.

 

8. Grid 2 on PC

And upon completing NFS: Undercover I began playing Grid 2. I had fond memories of the original Grid back in 2010. This one almost seems to suffer a bit from consolitis. It doesn't seem as polished as the original, and when I hooked up my Logitech G27 wheel/paddle set to it, it shook the hell out of my arms. I don't know if this is supposed to reflect authenticity or is a mechanical quirk with the setup, but once I switched to my Xbox controller I found the races substantially easier. There is no cockpit view, another dead giveaway this game was created with the PC in the back of the developer's minds which is odd given that Codemasters in the old days were at the forefront of PC gaming. But the thing the game has going for it is it's absolutely gorgeous to behold. The eye candy, and the attention to details as far as the graphics go make it a winner. I've only started it, but I'm already knocking out my fair share of Steam achievements.

 

9. Tropico 5 on PC

I had this game wishlisted when Steam announced its initial release. I'm such a fan of SimCity that this game had a special appeal to me. And lo and behold, a friend of mine, CharredChar (on Steam) gifted it to me and three other friends so we could all play multiplayer together. This is one of the nicest gestures one of my gaming buddies has done this year. The game has a humorous bent, nothing on par with SimCity, and it micromanages on a much smaller scale as well. I'm trying to get through the campaigns so I can do the game justice on multiplay. I've never played a Tropico game before, and I've discovered one certainly doesn't need to have previous experience with the series to enjoy this one. If you're hankering for a good strategy game that doesn't require the thought process of Civilization 5, but does involve a little more involvement than SimCity this might very well be your ticket to paradise.

 

Edward's May 2014 Mix

This is has been a strange month. Well, in a good way, actually.  Evening porches are graced by people conversing with cigarettes and coffee in hand. Pedestrians populate the sidewalks and jogging trails in shorts. Winter coats are going into long term closets. Spring is in full swing. And of course that means summer is just around the corner. But the strangeness I'm talking about is that in this merry month of May you'll notice I don't have many PC games listed. My time has been consumed by other media. I'd like to think I took a break from gaming, but oh no, that's not quite the case. What I've done is bought into a new game that has consumed me!

1. Shiny Toy Guns We Are Pilots & Season of Poison on CD

I'm a big fan of The Birthday Massacre. If you like grunge guitar work and beautiful landscapey synthesizers played from a moon filled haunted house, then TBM might be right up your alley. Now imagine TBM's first cousin, the grunge guitar work accompanied by dreamy landscape synth music, but played from an abandoned house on a gray day in a big city back alley, holes in the roof, rain falling in sheets. This is Shiny Toy Guns. First introduced to me by my friend, Dillon Gard, I was hooked upon my first listen. "You Are the One," and "Rainy Monday," are excellent first choice listens to see what this band is about. Their remake of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" is brilliant.

2. Angels And Airwaves We Don't Need to Whisper on CD
I wasn't a fan of Blink 182 when they first came out years ago. They were like some garage band that snuck out of the pages of National Lampoon magazine. And then I really listened to Tom Barker's drumming and Tom Delonge's barre chords on a simple Fender Stratocaster with no special effects. I realized these guys were really talented. And then with each passing Blink album there seemed to be a thread of maturity interwoven into each one. This was a band growing before our eyes . . eh, umm, ears, rather. Then they broke up. Out of the ashes was born Angels And Airwaves. Delonge's somewhat nasally voice spewing out lyrics that could be interchanged into any other A&A or any later Blink song is guilty of repetition, no doubt. But I can't stop listening to this stuff. Blink's original soundtracks to youth, rebellion, and teen angst has mellowed and matured.

3. House of Cards Season 1 on Netflix
My daughter was home for a visit from Chicago. I was out with friends, and when I came home she was sprawled on the couch watching a series episode of something on television. She explained it was a new original Netflix production helmed by (and starring)  Kevin Spacey based on a British political drama. I appropriately winced and mouthed, BORING! But then I proceeded to watch it until the end. I was ensorcelled! I think this could be Spacey's magnum opus role. He's a South Carolina whip congressman who is looking forward to his new appointment as Secretary of State. Just when he's about to prepare his acceptance speech he discovers he's been passed up by the very people he groomed into office! He goes on a vendetta to not only discredit the buffoons who had him passed over, he sets his sights on becoming the next president. The under the table antics he and his equally rapacious wife employ for his crusade make this a compelling series to watch. It's depressing in a way if this show reflects Washington authentically. We are peons and how we as simpletons vote and think our opinions and stances matter make little difference in the game of big politics.

 

4. The Wild Wild West  Season Four on DVD

You've heard me say this before, but the kids on the block where I lived in elementary school in Urbana, Illinois had Batman and The Hulk as superheroes. I was an exception. My hero was James West. The fisticuff pretty boy who worked for the US Secret Service was bigger than life to me. Having acquired the whole series in the handsome box set allows me to relive those memories. I'm watching season four now, which I've not seen since 1969. It's not quite as campy as the old Lost in Space episodes I also loved, but it is quite funny to recognize the same four stuntmen dressed as different cowboys, dockworkers, jail guards, etc. and realizing when they enter the scene there is inevitably about to be a knockdown drag out fistfight. And the environments of this show, oh man. It's all straight out of an H.G. Wells/Jules Verne concoction. This is the show that pretty much gave birth to the Steampunk genre. Who would have known back in 1965?

5. Baal by Robert R. McCammon
Sometimes called the poor man's Stephen King, I think Robert R. McCammon is an underrated writer. His novel, Swan Song, is every bit as well written as King's The Stand, and a hardbound edition of his Boy's Life shall forever reside on my bookshelf. Baal, his first novel seems to be moving along as a quick easy read. I can tell it's a freshman effort, but along with his other early novels McCammon refused to allow reprints because he felt they weren't written well enough. I spotted this hard to find gem for a buck on the clearance rack at Half Price Books. This concerns a demon taking the guise of a boy at an orphanage. McCammon's characterizations are decently crafted, and I can see this book paving the way for his later and better written material.

6. The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore on Kindle
Most modern horror movies have lost the spark of their yesteryear counterparts. A typical vampire film has the main character spewing about for the first hour trying to convince the other characters he or she has actually seen a vampire. Enter Hammer Films. Hammer Films was a studio that took the horror genre very seriously. A typical Hammer film would open with the inn closing the doors for the night and barring them to prevent entry from the aforementioned vampire. In 1961 they released one of the greatest werewolf films of all time, The Curse of the Werewolf. The titular star was Oliver Reed in his first role. After seeing the movie for about the seventh time I became curious about the novel on which it was based. Unfortunately, the novel was selling for ridiculously exorbitant prices. Thank goodness for the Amazon Kindle. I found a Kindle edition for less than three bucks. This novel is incredibly more detailed than the movie, although it does take some liberties. The book is lusty, atmospheric and engaging. If you like gothic horror this is worth checking out. This book could be to werewolf folklore what Stoker's Dracula was to the vampire lore, or the quintessence of Frankenstein's monster birthed by Mary Shelley's brilliant novel. 

7. Hearthstone on PC
This is the only game I've mentioned this month. There's a reason: it's about the only game I've played this month. Blizzard has a corner on Internet gaming addiction, and this game is living proof. It's a collectible card game akin to Magic: The Gathering, but this is the kindergarten version. You play online with human opponents, yet you can't talk to them. You acquire cards, some quite valuable, but there is no trading them let alone selling them. An average session has you winning two out of six games. The forums even allege that many of the games are comprised of Blizzard bots instead of real players. So, what's the big deal? It's that chance you might unlock some seriously phat loot which you can use as a component in your next killer deck. This game is in beta and free to play. I'm telling you now, don't go check it out. Save your sanity and your life. Remember, I warned you. Don't. Go. There.
 

Edward's April 2014 Mix

Spring is here, freaking finally. The old Earth has awakened from her zombie like slumber and wrapped herself in zeal and vim. It's the time for new beginnings. It's also time for me to trim my rosebushes that at this point look like giant skeletal hands with outstretched fingers, and time for me to break out the ladder and clean the old leaves out of my gutters (something I should have done in the fall!) but how can I when the days are intimating the approaching summer and I just can't resist the temptation to saddle my Vespa up and hit the road? And then there's so much good stuff coming out keeping me busy indoors? Have you seen the new collector set coming out for Wolfenstein: The New Order? Egads! I've never bought a collector's edition for anything because a hundred plus bucks is just too much to pay for something like that. But, hmmm . . .that Wolfenstein set may be my first. Oh, wait. I lied. I bought Star Trek Online, the collector's edition (and paid $80.00) for it, and guess what? The game was a dud. How could I have known? I mean, come on, this was Star Trek!! Oh well, will I ever learn? The answer is no, probably not. I've never played a Tropico game before, but I have officially added Tropico 5 to my Steam wish list. And I'm embracing the changes the developers are making to Assetto Corsa on a regular basis. Each new patch on this most awesomest car racing simulation makes it feel like a new game. This is one early access game I've fully bought into. The gutters and the rosebushes can wait. After all, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

1. Walt Disney's Peter Pan on DVD

The last time I watched this was on videocassette with my oldest daughter who was about three years old at the time. I just had the pleasure of watching it again with my four year old grandson. The charm is still the same; some things never change. This was the first time Disney studios actually hired real life models to act out the scenes created on storyboards and the cartoonists drew the actors' movements into classic Disney animation. Disney has been the subject of controversy through the ages, whether it be seemingly innocuous racism exhibited in Songs the of the South, or antics created by disgruntled employees in the guise of phallic underwater castles on Little Mermaid videocassette covers, or suggestive words appearing in Lion King smoke clouds. It's nice to be able to own and enjoy such classics like Peter Pan that heralded a time when Disney wasn't trying to be so steadfastly politically correct or given to political liberalism.

2. Deus Ex: Invisible War on PC 

Like my cousin, Justin Rexroad is fond of saying, PC Gamer Magazine is my bible. But I'm not sure I agree with them in awarding Deus Ex the best PC game of all time. True, it was innovative for its time, and its clunky AI was probably the very first instance of emergent gameplay in the history of PC gaming, but after playing through it a few years ago, and the not so distant creation of the remarkable Deus Ex: Revolutions, I knew I had to tackle Deus Ex: Invisible War, which is basically Deus Ex 2.  Like I said in last month's post, the game didn't quite live up to the merits of the original. And I can say this with credibility since I have now beat the game. The game was a narrow corridor experience at best, with interminably long load screens and bland graphics that look like the developers who created the game for the consoles were forced to stay over late and get some overtime in to port the game over to the PC. There was a saving grace, however. I liked the multiple endings (a trait carried over from the first game.) All that I considered sacred I finally destroyed in the end because I thought it was the best decision. I was simply being true to my school. And the end result, the product of my final decision made the game worth playing through.

3. Far Cry 3 on PC
 When Far Cry came out in 2004 it got its thunder shoplifted by Doom 3, which was unfortunate because I thought Far Cry was a much better game. My mouth dropped open when I approached the opening of the first cave and I experienced the postcard vista of peering out of the cave at the island which became the real character of the game. (The game began its life as a tech demo to show off Nvidia technology to business developers.) And then when I encountered the rusted out hulk of the aircraft carrier which was almost big enough to be the standalone environment for the whole game I realized this would be a game I would never forget. The series leveled the awe factor with Far Cry 2 which became the longest FPS I've ever played, clocking in at an astonishing 74 hours. It employed truly immersive mechanics such as bringing a compass or a map up to the player's face in real time as he or she were driving or walking. There was none of the ESC key bullcrap that paused the game and let you catch your breath. I'm about 30 hours into Far Cry 3, and at this point I'm eschewing the story missions to scoop up relics and lost letters scattered around the map like hidden Easter eggs. I'm drawn in, however, so much so that the $12.00 I spent on the game in a Steam sale easily trumps a $2,000 vacation to a Caribbean Island. Speaking of Steam, I wish this game had Steam achievements instead of Ubisoft's also ran "UPlay" interface where I have no friends and I feel as if my trophies go unseen hanging on a wall in my villa on Mars.

 

4. Mission Impossible: Season One on Netflix

I'm still in season one enjoying the predicaments the Impossible Mission task force gets into. I clearly see where the show is easily the paradigm for such wonderful things as MacGyver, No One Lives Forever and even Austin Powers. Martin Landau is brilliant in his role, and Greg Morris as Barney is the perfect complement. I believe the show ran seven seasons; I can see why. Even the theme music quickens my heart. If you have played Monolith's wonderfully crafted No One Lives Forever on PC, or you like James Bond flicks, you need to check this series out.

 

5. Bad Company: The Original Bad Co. Anthology on CD

Sticking out like a ruby in a haystack, I recently picked up this twin CD slipcase set at my local Half Price Books. How could I not pick it up? I didn't realize when the band formed in 1973 they used Led Zeppelin's privately owned studio and rubbed shoulders with the band on a regular basis. Paul Rodgers has one of the most appropriate voices for rock and roll music, and he ties with my other favorite voice of rock music, Joe Elliot of Def Leppard. This band's name says it all, a name that matches their badassery.  

 

6. Star Trek: Original Series Season One on DVD

I've watched this series in its entirety at least once, and I've watched some episodes a half dozen times over the years. My last year home I remember watching the series with my stepfather and I recently loaned him the series for nostalgia's sake. And wouldn't you know, I've been going to his house to watch the episodes with him. It's deja vu all over again, just 34 years later, yet Spock's logic and amiability and Kirk's very human ability to lead a starship remain unchanged. The year I left home I enlisted in the US Navy, and I hated it, a dour experience, I refer to it as my four year deep hell hole, but the one good thing through it all is it put me on that strange but common ground with the crew of the Enterprise.

 

7. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I'm only in the first 130 pages of this book, but I can already tell I never want it to end. It has that same powerful effect as Fannie Flagg's magical, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café or Peter Hedge's compelling What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Gruen writes from a male perspective and she pulls it off as if she were a red blooded American male in a past life and never forgot the experience. Her characterizations come across so well I feel as if I'm watching a stage play rather than reading a book. Her power of description puts me right in the circus train sleeping on wet hay, moonlight spilling over me through the slats, and the stink of animal manure penetrating my nostrils.

 

8. Train Simulator 2014 on PC

Trains have always been in the background of my life. At eight and nine years old I lived down the street from a train yard. I used to lie awake at night and cry myself to sleep to the sound of those lonesome train engines winding up and crawling down as they moved cars back and forth building consists. Christmas at eight years old I got an electric train for Christmas, a tiny N scale jobbie that was a world in miniature for me. My mother herded my sister and I up in an act of near violent desperation and we left my alcoholic father in the middle of the night. I remember glancing back at the house, my electric train left behind forever. My ninth birthday my mother tried to make it up to me, being a single mother on a very limited income she bought an HO scale electric train from a local Montgomery Wards store. It was a customer return, a typical, "purchase as is." It didn't work. That train set got left behind too, but that's another story. But who needs electric trains anymore, anyway, when you've got Train Simulator 2014 on your computer? Deemed the most expensive PC game ever made (buying the all inclusive DLC can run up a bill of $2,000) I only buy the locales, routes and trains I want. And although the sim gets a large number of haters on the Steam forums, I find the game almost a religious experience. People think driving a train is nothing more than controlling a throttle lever and going forward and reverse. There are sections of track with varying speed limits, and crossings, and the comfort of passengers to consider while taking sharp curves, etc. It can become all engrossing, and this simulation proves it. Sitting in a locomotive with the tiny interior gauge and button lights sparkling like Christmas tree decorations in the night, pouring rain outside and knowing you have a hundred miles to make before morning, this is simulation software at its best.