Edward's January 2015 Mix

A new year upon us, and so many changes, in this, only the first month. I’ve traded up in employment. No more reading 30 books a year and no more three day weekends. I knew I had to get a real job sooner or later anyway. It was a good run: 6 years with the company. But never getting a raise (or feasible health insurance benefits) turned into stagnation. I had to make a leap. Now I work for the company I was the security site supervisor for. It’s sometimes funny how things work out . I will surely miss those 3 day weekends though; it was a PC gamer’s paradise. I often have to work Saturdays now, but what I’ve discovered is that I really value my time off. I’ve finished 3 games so far this year, and if that’s not proof I don’t know what is. Oh, the three games? Sir, You are Being Hunted (a darkly humorous stealth survivor game. I bought it while it was early access, and the gamble paid off. It was a good game. I probably won’t replay it, but it was fun for a single play through.) Red Faction (an old style FPS (2000) in the same vein as Half Life. Made in Champaign-Urbana, a city after my own heart. The game had all of the irks that used to plague all old first person shooters, surviving levels with less than a quarter inch of life on your health bar, finding the big top dog gun in the game and only having one bullet for it, boss fights ramping the difficulty level to near impossibility. But I want to play the rest of the series. I had to play through it.) Air Conflicts - Secret Wars (I talked about this at length in last month’s mix, but this was a fun arcade flight combat sim set during World War II. The fun factor was torn in half on one mission, however, in which I had to make a bombing run and destroy several vehicles trying to escape Berlin towards the end of the game. The tall buildings they were driving between made it extremely difficult. There weren’t even online walkthroughs for this section. It seemed nobody had an easy answer. I got it. It took me over 50 tries, but I did get it at last and beat the game.) 

 

1. The Witcher 2 on PC: The original which came out in 2007 was the first hugely epic RPG I ever finished. It was a great learning experience for me because Geralt of Rivia, the character you played, didn’t start out as some level 1/1 pansy who had to be leveled to start wreaking havoc. Nope. In this game Geralt starts out as a fully equipped medieval Jedi Knight badass. I enjoyed the story so much I read all of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels of the Witcher universe. And the interesting part is the game is based on the novel series, unbeknownst to me until I had beat the game. This, the sequel is graphically superior, and I’ve only gotten past the prologue. I don’t like saying this, but so far it’s mostly been an interactive movie with several QTEs thrown in. I’m playing on Dark difficulty mode (for the Steam Achievement). The fighting is horrendously hard, but still very much fun. I look forward to advancing in the story and finding out if the game returns to its more exploratory roots that made the first game so good.  

2. Alien: Isolation on PC:  Who would have guessed that Creative Assembly, famous for the games in their Total War series would create arguably, the best Alien game made thus far? I read Twentieth Century Fox was so taken in by the passion and level of commitment CA was bringing to the table in the production of this game that Fox handed over three terabytes of data, sketches, costume drawings, ship plans, etc. they used and didn’t use in Fox’s original 1979 movie directed by Ridley Scott. And my oh my how CA has brought the look and feel of the Scott movie back to life and put it in a game. (The sound, too. Perhaps this game really is best played in the dark with a good set of headphones, but hearing this on my Logitech 5.1 surround sound speakers is an incredible experience all on its own.)  It’s rare that I gasp at the visuals of a game, but sheesh, this is already a hallmark experience. It reminds me of how I was affected in the outdoor environments of Ghost Recon back in 2002, or stepping into Rapture in 2007’s Bioshock for the first time, and that odd feeling akin to homesickness when I would close out of the game. I just didn’t think it could get any better than Bioshock: Infinite which I recently played through, but I believe this game has done it.  ID, you’re going to have to work very hard to raise the bar with Doom 4. I’m only 90 minutes and 4 achievements into the game, but so far this is the ultimate monster in the haunted house experience I’ve had to date. PC Gamer Magazine’s Game of the Year. I am in no way surprised.  

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation Season One on Blu Ray: I already own this on DVD. Was the switch to Blu Ray worth it? Hell yes. The amount of man hours that went into this complete overhaul is astonishing and it shows in every frame of every episode I’ve watched so far. The colors are so vibrant they make the DVD versions look like VHS, and the sound upgrade is truly magnificent. Oddly, the transfer is almost too good. I’ve spotted carpentry spackling on a set that was erstwhile unnoticeable. Still, watching each episode now is like going to the movies.  

4. The Birthday Massacre: Hide and Seek on CD:  I fell in love with this band back in 2006 in a dance club in the virtual environment, Second Life. I remember at the time thinking, Wow! Where has this band been all of my life? They’ve produced several albums since, and they’ve managed to maintain the very same wonderful thread that runs through all of their work. Like I’ve said before,  if you were to go to a haunted house on a hillside on the outskirts of town on a Halloween night, full moon shining yellow as vibrant as the sun in the background, and there was a band playing inside, it would probably be The Birthday Massacre. I wish I could say the band has evolved from their grass roots, but in this 2012 release they have not. But you know what? They don’t need to. They can keep this same sound for all eternity and I will always love them.  

5. A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds: Finch Nobles takes care of the local cemetery. A victim of a terrible burn when she was four years old, she is destined to live a lonely existence away from the people she frightens with her appearance. And then she discovers as she works at the cemetery that she can hear the dead talk. And she finds out that until the dead can share their secrets and their stories they can’t really move on. I’m finding this to be a beautiful book about redemption and what makes it soar is Reynolds' wonderful way with words.