Archive for October, 2008
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
A Longer Time Ago
I sense a great disturbance in the Force.
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
Lamentations on Q3 ‘08 PC Gaming
It is Fall, and with Fall comes a bevy of new games for the PC yearning to be played! I’ve had the chance to do some gaming lately, and I’d like to review a couple of these gems for posterity.
Spore - What a miserable, horrible let down this was. Spore is a shining example of what happens when you spend all of your development cycle on the engine, and the last two minutes before going gold on content. Spore was supposed to be the messiah of 2008 gaming. Instead, the fun parts are too short, the boring parts are endless, and the whole point of the game gets lost somewhere in the transition. Yes, it is fun exploring all the various combinations of critter, but there is generally one set of “max” attributes you go for and really only a precious handful of branching options to make play interesting. Play time runs about 10 hours or less.
More after the jump.
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Par la Grâce de Dieu
Been listening to a bit of Coldplay lately, specifically their single Viva la Vida. More than a catchy tune, the story it tells is so completely compelling. The lyrics basically offer a narrative of an Emperor who conquered the world only to lose it. The story itself comes as a part of the life and retelling of the epoch by the once-king.
I can’t help but think the band is referring to Napoleon. The singular world-conquerer who crafted a cult of personality and was completely unmatched in leadership. The story of Napoleon resonates on some deep levels for me personally. He came from Corsica, a dinky little island neither French nor Italian in the Mediterranean, and he quite literally conquered Europe, save Russia and England.
After his defeat and exile to Elba, he came back. Because, what else could a person do? Elba is an island only few miles off the shore of Italy. After his really big defeat at Waterloo, they exiled him again. To St. Helena. A barren wasteland of an island in the South African sea, near absolutely nothing. Positively the furthest away they could possibly send a person. They couldn’t kill him. How do you kill a living embodiment of The State as a fellow warring state?
Napoleon spent the last years of his life on St. Helena. The Coldplay song sounds like a lamentation from the Emperor of the French. How does one go from ruling a nation of millions and being the foremost power in the entire world to sweeping the balcony of your prison-home on a destitute island in the middle of nowhere?
What’s more, the once-king seems not so much to mourn the loss of his actual soul, noting that Saint Peter won’t be calling his name, but rather that he was unable to get all of it. Russia was just too tough to invade. Can you imagine having the opportunity to sit and talk with someone like Napoleon?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Hitchens to Heaven
Warning! Religion ahead!
For me, spirituality is core and operant. I take care not to use the term “religion”, which implies a ritualistic set of beliefs. For the most part, I think I’ve lost religion, but I’ve kept a handle on a really sizable chunk of spirituality. I still adhere to a basic Christian faith, though I’m hesitant to use the word due to all the baggage that comes with it. Lately, I’ve been listening to some really good atheist point of views, which intellectualize religion and blame it for so many of society’s woes. In truth, I can’t help but agree, but in the deep kernel, spirituality remains a constant.
Agnosticism I get, at that core level I can understand how a person might be lead to believe in a unframable, unidentifiable “greater source”. That truth certainly resonates on a species level with me. But atheism, atheism always bugged me. Atheist thought, in my mind, was and is always followed by nihilism, a pervading embrace of entropy and oblivion that assigns absolutely no special meaning to the infinitesimal chance of life existing. If there is no God, or greater power, how does one explain what cannot be explained? Specifically related to this thread is the illogical chaos-borne emotion of love. If, in fact, it is no different than the chemical equivalent of eating large amounts of chocolate, neurons firing in the brain based on pre-existing notions of anticipated and expected physical and psychological characteristics assembled in the form of an ideal mate, doesn’t that reduce the implications of improbability? Doesn’t that suck every last ounce of magic from the experience and immediately answer the question “Why are we here?” with a curt shrug?
Yeah, atheism still bugs me. I can’t quite resolve altruism with atheism either. I don’t really think you can be both. Light and Good have to have a source, I think. If they don’t, then they are simply illusions of temporality, and the whole thing loses its point and its purpose.
I do maintain that there is a God. Over time, his picture in my mind has gotten more and more muddled. He used to be this big, white robed, white bearded glow-stick. Full face, modest golden jewelry here and there, really kickin’ it Zeus style. In prayer, I’d see myself talking up to him, only being able to see to about his knee-cap or so, constantly turning away from his face. His face. That’s something I could never really nail down. It seems to change so suddenly, never leaving you with a description. Then, I’d chat up JC, long-haired hippy, stylized anglo-saxon elf that the Catholic and Baptist folk would have me believe. A cool guy, but I’ve always felt sorry for how much he is pestered during any given day.
At one point, the paternal vision of God-As-Zeus faded into a more approachable, human-sized version. This particular iteration spoke to me in my own voice, rather than the deep basso. That was always rather disturbing - you honestly wonder if you are going crazy when God’s voice in your head sounds exactly like your own. Inner monologue starts to take on an unsettling tenor. In the past five years or so, the image has shifted to that of my late grandfather. It’s his face I can see when chatting up the big guy, or he’s standing there to the right of God’s giant leg, smiling contently and waiting.
JC has certainly changed over the years for me, too. Previously the svelt elf, he’s now a rough, almost pug-ugly dark-skinned guy with a scraggly beard that looks like he could well be a relative of my biological father.
I don’t think God is quite as bastardly as folks make him out to be. I don’t think he’s sending everyone to hell. Awhile ago, I figured out the reason for hell was that he couldn’t actually delete souls. In Revelation, there are actually two or three extra “gimme’s” at the end of time where God gives people second and third chances to change their minds about eternity. They don’t talk about those extra chances much, but they are there.
There’s this guy, Christopher Hitchens, who is a brilliant atheist. He makes the case better than anyone else I’ve ever heard. If I were God, (and being made in his image there is some level of insight here), I wouldn’t send this guy to hell. He’s too valuable. You need opposition like this to help define you. I think, in essence, Christopher Hitchens is actually doing God’s work by disassembling religion. I can’t picture a heaven where this guy isn’t standing in a forum, talking to heavenly passerby and making the case against God, for God.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
Warhammer, I Reckon
So I picked up Warhammer with the s/o. It reminds me a great deal of The Lord of the Rings Online in that it is a fully realized WoW clone with a completely solid storyline. The mechanics are familiar to anyone accustomed to WoW or similar styles, with some variations on a theme such as dark magic accrual (for my Dark Elf Sorcerer). It is going to take me a bit to figure out whether or not I actually like the game, probably another 7 levels or so before things eek out of the protective shell of “accelerated start newb” phase and into “real game”.
Some neat features so far are the public quests. Transitions to and from them seem incredibly smoother than in WoW, almost painless pickup groups. I haven’t actually found a use for merchants yet, other than to sell my trash loot to, so I’m waiting on actually seeing something I can buy worth my noob silver on one of these NPCs. I’ve been picking up a lot of seeds, which apparently are used in some form of crafting, but the game refuses to tell me about it, so I just turn around and sell them as junk.
The Dark Elves have a thick, rich history that I’m discovering and I have to admit, it is a little alluring. I get almost a Necromonger sense from them, and I’m doubly glad I chose them as a race to start.
I am not a fan of unskippable intro cinematics, nor do I enjoy acknowledging the terms of service on a scroll & click before every login, but these are minor gripes. And again, EA scores “tard points” for EDS in the digital distribution of Warhammer. The game runs smooth, and is thus far a welcome addition to the family of online worlds that reside on my desktop. I’m looking forward to experiencing the PvP aspects, for which I understand Warhammer really excels with. More to come as such is discovered.