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.

2014: A Year in the Life of a PC Gamer

2014: A Year in the Life of a PC Gamer

 

      2014 was a record breaking year for me in that I finished 20 games. The closest I had ever come to that number was 18 games, set in 2013. I doubt that I will ever finish 20 games in a year again. I just started a new job, and it’s much more time consuming than my old job which afforded me wonderful three day weekends.  It was fun while it lasted, but I always knew I’d have to find a real job someday. Ha! I played numerous small indie games that took up all of a three or four hour afternoon, but I also managed to knock out some heavy hitters. The year proved once again, I’m much more of a solo gamer than a social gamer. I’m in the =sBs= clan, but almost in name only. I’ve tried to quit, the chief admin and founder won’t let me. Heh. I still play Battlefield 3; they have moved on to Battlefield 4.  

          Far Cry 3 was the big enchilada for me this year. The game not only swallowed me up into its environment, it also affected me in my daily waking life. I burned the soundtrack onto a CD and listened to it constantly during the summer months. And I’ve never been taken back to my youthful navy days in quite the same way as by anything else as this game did. The game clutched me so deeply that when I finally finished it, I found an odd catch in my throat, a sad reminder that all good things must come to an end.  I have no desire to start up FarCry 4, not for a very long time. I need to catch my breath.

Another epic AAA game I finished this year was Mass Effect 2. I remember the first Mass Effect dragging on and being somewhat “chorey.” ME2 was so much more streamlined, and it reminded me of how the Normandy has become my favorite home away from home when it comes to virtual environments. Let J.J. Abrams commandeer Star Wars AND Star Trek. As long as Bioware helms Mass Effect, the universe shall stay in order. Mass Effect 2 has the best cinematic ending of any game I’ve ever played.

 

While we’re on the subject of space, I did get a chance to revisit (and replay) Origin’s venerable and lauded Wing Commander. This was one of the first PC games I ever played. I actually upgraded my 286-12 mHz PC to a 386-25 mHz just so I could watch the animations run faster back in 1991. Living in Austin, Texas at the time, the home of Origin, I actually applied to work there after playing this game. See how I’ve always been affected! It was wonderfully refreshing to pick up WC on www.gog.com and play it through again in its entirety. It’s aged considerably, though not horribly. In its day, Wing Commander on the PC was miles ahead of anything out on console at the time. There simply was no comparison.

I played through Path of Exile, an action RPG in the same vein as Blizzard’s Diablo 3. PC Gamer Magazine swore up and down PoE was “more Diablo 3 than Diablo 3 was.” Perhaps it was; I’ve not played Diablo 3, I just know I got bored very quickly. And then I picked up The Incredible  Adventures of Van Helsing and had the time of my life. This game made me realize I could have a hella good time with an action RPG.  

     

As far as strategy games I took a chance and invested in Ultimate General: Gettysburg, an early access game from Game-Labs. I realize early access can be hit or miss, but I got lucky. I bought the game for a reduced “ea” price, and then a week later it came out complete at a higher price. The game is a great war strategy game that isn’t complex enough to be considered “grognard,” but still fun enough to be challenging for the likes of me. It didn’t take me long to beat it from both sides, Union and Confederates. I wrote a review on Steam that snowballed in popularity to the point of being the number one review for the game for several weeks. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197995381979/recommended/306660 If you click the link please give me a thumbs up, I’d certainly appreciate it.

 

As far as driving simulations (which you all know I’m quite fond of) I eschewed Codemaster’s F1 2012 (because it was a broken game) for F1 2013. The game is a noticeable improvment over its predecessor no doubt, and with my Logitech G27 wheel/paddle set it’s the closest I will ever get to actually racing a 750 hp Formula One beast. F1 2014 is out and for sale, but after reading the reviews, I think I got lucky in getting F1 2013. I’ll stick with that one until (and if) Codemasters really improves the series.

 

I beat Borderlands 2 this year as well. I played the original back in 2010, and I liked it, although it got a bit tedious because of its repetition. Gearbox as a developer has been hit or miss over the years. I’ve always enjoyed their Brothers in Arms series, however, they took a royal beating over Aliens: Colonel Marines and even garnered a class action lawsuit over it. But I have to admit they did just fine with BL2. I enjoyed every moment I was in the game. I once spun off a heated letter to Computer Gaming World over something Randy Pitchford, the CEO of Gearbox said. It became their “Letter of the Month.” So, I can safely say Gearbox has always made me feel something.

 

RPGs always swallow me up, sheesh, FarCry 3 took me 107 hours to beat. I want to play The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2, but pending the release of Dragon Age 3, I got to watching videos and trailers of the original Dragon Age, and alas, here I am playing through the original all over again! We’ll see how it goes, but so far, so good. I don’t feel like I’m involved in a chore simulator—not yet, anyway.

 

Looking ahead I think 2015 will be a good year for us PC gamers. Alien Isolation is out this year, and Rockstar will finally release GTAV as well. The Occulus Rift will find more new homes for PC this year (it’s just terrible Facebook purchased it . . .I guess the idea of Farmville in true 3D appeals to them. Yuck!) We will see Fallout 4 this year, and probably a World of Warcraft movie. (I doubt I will see it. I refuse to waste two hours of my life in such a manner.) Just Cause 3, Outlast 2 and of course, Evolve will “evolve” this year on PC. I’m going to predict Tom Clancy’s (God rest his soul) The Division will appear and blow away the console versions (expect a November ’15 release.) This year, as every year is, will be a good year for us PC gamers.

 

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.