"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #2

Writing

For a start, there’s that ‘writing’ thing that I, as a writer, do. My first trilogy is now planned out: the first novel is pretty much finished, the second is well underway, and I wrote a couple of scenes for the third one the other day as they were banging about in my brain and distracting me from important stuff, so that is going well. Novel 1, “Chains of Memory” (working title) will be complete by the end of January, so I can then get it printed and sent off to a shortlist (really very short actually) of agencies in the hope one can get me signed up for a three-book detail with a major publishing house like Orbit. I’m expecting “Chains of Time”, the second novel, to take me up until the end of summer, possibly the end of the year (depending on things in the next section) to write, and then “Chains of War” will round out the trilogy within the next eighteen months or so.

Obviously this is writing time. People actually seeing them on the shelves may take many months, even years to pan out, depending on how lucky I am with publishers. Kids fiction is the big thing at the moment, and this is definitely not written for kids in the same way that Harry Potter or Twilight is. Regardless of how long they may take to see the light of day, I am very much enjoying writing them, even despite the sleepless nights having several complicated plots and subplots tangled round in your brain can cause.

Games

The STEAM sale over Christmas was a disaster for me. I was doing so SO well with paring down my Games-To-Play list to something manageable, and then all of these good games were made cheap and I couldn’t resist. D’oh!

I recently finished the excellent “Darksiders” which I really enjoyed for its mix of God of War fighting and Zelda-esque dungeon exploration and collecting (as well as its visually distinct art style and storyline), and finally — a good two years after everyone I know finished it — I completed the main storyline of “Mass Effect”. Just in time, in fact, for the end of January when “Mass Effect 2” is released. “Darksiders” took me about 35 hours to complete 100%. “Mass Effect” took me maybe 12-15 hours, but that was with skipping 80% of the sidequests. As much as I like sidequests in games, I really just wanted to see how the main story played out in “Mass Effect”, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Also on my list of games that I already own and need to complete are:

• Modern Warfare 2 (Which I bought hoping I’d like it more than the first one. Wrong.)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (In the STEAM sale, so no rush to play/complete this one. Looks interesting though.)
• Jade Empire (Also £3 in the STEAM sale. Not got time for this at the moment.)
• Dragon Age: Origins (More on this below)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (Finished in storymode. Want to 100% this though.)
• Dead Space (Great ideas, but atrocious PC port. Sad. Might get the PS3 version cheap.)
• Trine (Awesome ‘hop in and play’ puzzle game when I have little time.)
• Uncharted (I got this to work my way up to Uncharted 2. Sadly I suck at it.)
• Zelda: Spirit Tracks (almost done with this now.)
  

That’s quite a few games, some of which I’m barely into. Dragon Age is the prime example. I was really psyched for this when it was announced, and I got the deluxe edition with all the bonus content. Thing is, Spence has been playing it, and after 40+ hours he’s only 45% of the way through the game. Now admittedly he DOES have a thing for sidequests (It’s unhealthy, UNHEALTHY I SAY!) but still... So that number looming over my head and, and I hate to admit this, the unsexy female character models have kind of put me off getting into this one. It’s really a shame, but in some ways I’d forgotten the reasons I never actually completed Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn — it’s just too effing long for a completionist like me to play in a reasonable amount of time.

And, as well as this, there are OTHER GAMES on the horizon. Oh, and Bayonetta, which is so screwed up crazy I just have to get it after already renting it for a week, just so I can see how the ‘plot’ pans out.

These include:

• Mass Effect 2 (The continuing adventures of Cassiel Shephard... more alien sex?!) Jan 29th.
• Dante’s Inferno (Sure it’s basically God of War, but I like GoW. It’s why I have a ps3). Feb 5th.
• Bioshock 2 (As I loved the first one. Not desperate to play this at release though.) Feb 9th.
• Final Fantasy XIII (Oh my god, my life, it will disappear...) March 9th.
• God of War 3 (It’s like God of War but...oh, wait...) March 19th.
  

Now you’ll notice something about a couple of those games: namely “ME2” and “FFXIII” — they’re both likely to be fucking long! (See my point above in the Books bit about why I might not finish reading them all by the end of March.) I’ve been looking forwards to “FFXIII” for over two years now, so I’ll definitely be getting it on the day of release and then locking myself away for a week or two to make some headway into the game before emerging to do some actual work. I wasn’t hugely excited for “ME2”, but having now just realised what all the fuss was about with the first one (yeah, I’m a tad slow) it is now high on my list of things to look forwards to.

Art

And finally, I’ve renewed last year’s Resolution to ensure I paint at least one piece of art per month. January’s is actually already done, but I haven’t updated my gallery with it yet. I’m considering changing the gallery format slightly for 2010. We’ll see.

Release the Kraken!

There are also some films I want to watch this year. That’s my excuse for getting a release the kraken reference into this blog anyways.

Next time I’ll possibly talk about tits and fucking, since Spence wants me to. Also, this may help people forget just how geeky this blog has been.

BAI! =^.^=

"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #1

It has come to my attention that I have been utterly rubbish at updating my blog. There are several reasons for this, chief amongst them being that I am lazy. Really, really lazy.

And, also, not a huge amount has gone on since October 17th, when I last blogged.

Well okay, stuff has happened, but it was all school/work-related, and let’s be honest, it would be pretty unprofessional of me to blog too much about working in a school. Child-protection and all that jazz.

So instead I shall start 2010’s blogging by going through things that are important to me: namely books, music, games and art.

Reading

Back when I was doing my Masters in Creative Writing, I often commented that I didn’t read anywhere near enough. Looking at my bedside table now, I have a pile of books that will go some way to rectifying this for 2010.

I’ve got through a couple of the shorter works already, but currently the list of Books To Read stands at:

• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Read, in anticipation of the upcoming film release.)
• Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (Read, because I like sequels.)
• Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse (Because I got a boxed set of the first 3. Bite me.)
• The Stone of Tears (Sequel to Wizard’s First Rule, which I enjoyed greatly.)
• Blood of the Fold (Third in the Sword of Truth series.)
• The Left Hand of God (Which was half price and looked interesting.)
• Extraordinary Engines (A steampunk anthology.)
• The Difference Engine (One of the defining steampunk novels.)
• Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance (Book of the game. Sometimes these are good.)
• Wormwood (Second hand, 20p buy. Fantasy alternate history.)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Because I’m not a fan of the original.)
• The Ghost King (Which I got before Christmas but haven’t touched yet.)
  

And those are the ones just on my table or at hand. I’m 2/3 of the way through “The Titan’s Curse”, which I am enjoying greatly. Yeah I know that the Percy Jackson books are really for young adults rather than almost-29 year olds, but I’ve always been a Greek mythology buff, and I have a thing about urban fantasy fiction (since, y’know, I write it!) even if it is supposedly for ‘kids’. I’m a big fucking kid and proud of it, alreet?

I actually started “The Stone of Tears” before Christmas but, like pretty much all of Terry Goodkind’s books it seems, it’s about 900 pages long, and I need to invest some serious time in it, which — because I like to read books in one or two sittings — I don’t currently have. I’ll get there. Already it is shaping up to be an interesting follow-up to “Wizard’s First Rule”.

These should last me a good while: probably till the end of February and into March if I decide to read the two Goodkind books back to back as I suspect I might. Saying that, however, there are OTHER THINGS that may ensure this stack of books last even longer.

And those are... In the next part!

In the words of CLAPTRAP, "Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

The Aion Experience - Part I

The Aion Experience: My Impressions So Far

A lot of people who I’ve played MMOs with have been asking about Aion, knowing I play it, and wanting to know my opinions of it. As I am a man who likes to talk a lot about things he enjoys, I decided to create this brief summary of my impressions.

Firstly, this is not a review. As anybody who has played Aion will tell you, the game has a hefty PvP-centric approach post level 25. As my highest level characters are a level 21 Elyos Spiritmaster and a level 22 Asmodian Chanter, I cannot comment on the PvP aspect of the game. But bear in mind that it is there, and it is a big chunk of the game’s premise.

Secondly, most of the ‘reviews’ of Aion that I have seen compare it to World of Warcraft. This is inevitable, it having the greatest market share with — at its height — over 11 million consecutive subscribers. Aion does a lot of things better than WoW, I shall say that now, but I don’t just write from this one perspective.

My actual MMO background starts off with Final Fantasy XI, probably one of the most hardcore of all MMOs in its heyday. I still believe FFXI does some things better than WoW and more modern MMOs, but that is by the by. The reason I stopped playing FFXI as much and went to WoW is the issue of time, and how long things take to do in the game, and that is my first point.

Aion is a game that will take you considerable time to play. By level 21/22, I am already up to around 1.6 million xp needed to hit the next level. Bear in mind that the level cap is 50, and the xp per level curve increases quite dramatically per level, and you can already see that it will take a lot of hard time and effort (based on my current experience with the game) to hit the level cap.

One of the things that I both liked and detested alternatively about FFXI was the enforced partying system. Without a party, you couldn’t do a whole lot past level 10. Which meant 65 levels of partying, pulling mobs, killing them, moving onto the next one, and so on. It was grindy. Very grindy. And yet, thanks to this enforced partying system, the community on Pandemonium server where I played FFXI was very tight. You really did feel like you were playing a massively multiplayer game.

WoW had the opposite effect, sometimes. With so many classes able to solo all but the hardest of “group” quests, WoW often felt very much like a single-player game with the odd grouped instance run thrown in should you be bothered. Even then, you never really had to group to get stuff done. This was more casual, and coupled with something as simple as giving xp for quests (something that FFXI has only really recently caught onto), was the main reason why I spent so much time levelling up characters in the game. Nevertheless, I feel that — apart from the few guildies and friends I made on Shadowsong EU — the WoW community is one of the worst communities I’ve ever met. And as a secondary school supply teacher, I’ve worked in quite a few dysfunctional communities.

Aion, then, puts a bit of the massively multiplayer back into MMORPG. I’d say about 80% of the content between levels 1 and 20(ish) can be soloed. Quests give (usually reasonable) chunks of XP, but there are significant benefits to grouping.

For a start, there are no hybrid classes in Aion. Your Templar is the tank, your Cleric is the healer. Rangers, Assassins, Gladiators are your dps. Sorcerers are dps and crowd control. Spirit Masters are dps through DoTs. Chanters are the class with the party-enhancing buffs. Yeah, Chanters can heal a bit. Yeah Gladiators can tank a bit. And yes, you can customise your character a bit through Aion’s Stigma system, which is the closest thing to talent points that Aion seems to have. But ultimately the class you play chooses your role. Don’t play a cleric if you want to frontline dps. Don’t play a Templar if you want to dish out massive damage.

This isn’t to say that you have to group constantly. For Templars and Clerics, it is certainly the case that it is beneficial and faster to kill stuff in a duo or trio or group, but it isn’t forced down your throat. You can solo. You just have to choose your targets carefully.

However, you WILL have to group at points. Around level 18 for both factions, there are a series of group quests: Black Claw Village for Asmodians, Tursin Outpost (I think) for Elyos. These areas contain elite mobs, who have far more hitpoints and hit far harder than your average normal mob, just like your Notorious Monsters in FFXI, or your Elite mobs in WoW. You WILL need a group to bring these down. A trio can sometimes work, but for maximum killing power, a full group of six is needed.

I like this. To the best of my knowledge, it is practically impossible to solo these quests at the level you get them. Now, it IS possible to get to level 20 and move on to the next zone WITHOUT doing these storyline quests but a) you miss out on a huge chunk of xp (the elite mobs give tons of xp, even in a full group) and b) it would mean a chunk of grinding out xp with boring repeatable quests (sure beats FFXI’s system mind you!)

So if you are an unsociable MMO player, Aion isn’t likely to be for you. There are dungeons in the game, and a massive flight-based PvP area which you pretty much need to group up for to survive — safety in numbers as it were.

Moving on. The classes seem pretty well balanced. They all have some interesting abilities, they all get fairly unique combinations of equipment to use, and the amount of visual distinction between them is pretty high. I’ll not beat around the bush: Aion is a beautiful game. Colour me shallow, but I take great joy in exploring a new fantasy landscape and taking in the details. WoW had me hooked on exploring for a long time, and while Aion’s game world is smaller in size that the multiple contents in WoW, its level of detail is breathtaking at times. I have a folder full of screenshots that is rapidly expanding in size, though I will say that many screenshots simply don’t do the game justice. Not only is everything pretty, but the special effects are awesome and the animations are really lovely and fluid. Check out youtube for some examples of that stuff.

The combat system is fun. And it has to be, because it takes slightly longer than you might be used to to solo kill mobs. On average it takes me between 10 and 20 seconds to kill stuff, but I admit I am not playing the main DPS classes so it may well be all over much quicker for others. Unlike WoW where you basically spam abilities as soon as they’re off cooldown, it is actually beneficial in Aion to weave your auto-attacks in between your abilities. Aion’s abilities work on a Chain Skill system. Here’s an example from my Chanter’s repertoire.

Hallowed Strike (level 1 chain) > Heaven’s Judgement (level 2 chain)

Or

Hallowed Strike (level 1 chain) > Booming Strike (level 2 chain) > Incandescent Blow (level 3 chain)

As you can see, using a level 1 skill opens up the option to use one of two level 2 skills. Heaven’s Judgement has a short-term stun effect, while Booming Strike opens up the possibility to add a third chain skill into the mix. This keeps the combat fresh, interesting, and quite tactical I’ve found so far.

Plus with the wonderful animations, I imagine Aion is actually quite fun to watch. Again, check out any HD videos you can find on Youtube to get a better picture of just how dynamic combat is.

The question, therefore, is “Should I play Aion?” and my answer to that will really depend.

Firstly, if you are a big crafter in MMOs, Aion has a very robust crafting system. It is easier than FFXI’s ludicrously irritating crafting system, but no way near as easy as WoW’s. It is, however, more rewarding. It creates gear that is up to 10 levels ahead (in terms of stats) than what you will be getting from mobs of the same level as you. It is, however, painfully slow at times to level, and it will cost you a big chunk of monies.

Secondly, do you like having a well-defined and rounded role for your character? If yes, you might also enjoy Aion (as well as a ton of other games on the market!)

Thirdly, do you like playing games that really push the boundaries of visual experience in the MMO genre? If yes, Aion is definitely worth a look.

I’ve really enjoyed my time with Aion so far, but as I’ve mentioned in past blogs, I’m not really a competitive PvP-style player, so my opinions of the game might change dramatically come level 25 and my first forays into The Abyss, the game’s major PvP hub.

Check back for (hopefully) a followup to this at a later date.

September

I recall writing a blog about September last year, though I also vaguely recall I split it into three and it was halfway through October before I finished the segments. This year is different.

September has always filled me with ambivalence, a swirling mix of emotions both positive and negative that tend to leave me a bit spaced out until I get into the swing of things.

Work
This year will be the first year since I had my breakdown that I’ve been working in a school at the start of the academic year. A part of me — the part that values any kind of financial security — is pleased by this. Summer has been a slippery slope of expense, with various bits and pieces I rely on threatening to fail (looking at you, PC) or actually failing entirely (yes, you, Graphire4: though we had a good run, didn’t we!) As well as technical stuff, I spent too much money on alcohol. Sure I don’t really care that I’m spending money on the drink — I’m not in danger of becoming an alcoholic in any way — but my motivation for spending so much time in Chicago’s has been perhaps a bit skewed and, ultimately, foolish. Time will no doubt tell on that one.

Financially, then, things are on the up. 2 days departmental training and organisation this week, followed by 3 days per week until Christmas, and possibly after depending on the state of play at Pensnett in the coming weeks/months.

The downside to this, of course, is the work itself. Already I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get something as simple as a timetable and half-term-plan sorted out. The upheavals at the school are noticeable. There is a miasma of disbelief and an undercurrent of anger at what the establishment is enduring in these last few months of its existence. Shakeups to the established systems of the school are, in my lowly opinion, unwise. But perhaps that is what separates the Senior Management from the lowly grunt on the front lines. Maybe their vision for what the school can be in its final year will be a triumphant swan song. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that splitting a GCSE class between three teachers and trying to get a coherent curriculum going is fundamentally idiotic, and difficult to even try and put into practise. Yet that is what much of today was spent doing. Trying to work the hodgepodge timetable to not disadvantage the students’ learning.

I do go on.

Television
As with last year, part of why September excites me is the new lineup of television. I’m not going to go into a big list like I did last year, but two shows I’ll certainly be checking out this autumn are Supernatural and Castle, both of which premiere within the next couple of weeks. The latter, especially, I find very inspiring as a writer, and hope that the stories will continue to fuel my own imagination and creative process over the next few months.

Writings
Speaking of my creative process, I recently received feedback from a couple of proofreaders of the almost final draft of novel #1, with its finalised title of “Chains of Memory” (assuming a publisher doesn’t change it). I’d say its 99% done now. I’m tightening up a last few scenes and then knuckling down to get it sent off to agencies. Publishing is a fairly arduous and lengthy process, so even if somebody snaps it up, it’s likely to be 12-18 months before it gets spotted on the shop floor. Expect excited blogs/twitter/facebook updates should the unimaginable happen however!

While I’ve been polishing that one with my finest literary chamois, I’ve also been hard at work on the sequel, “Chains of Time”. The second novel is a real change of pace, as well as setting (and time period, as the title might suggest). So far I’m thoroughly enjoying having the creative output, though I admit the going has been slow due to distractions over the summer and the lack of an actual deadline for me: yet another reason why I should try and get a three-book deal signed. Publisher pressure is a great motivator, so I’m told.

Distractions
As I mentioned during the holidays, I’m prone to hoarding games. I tend to start playing them in a burst of vigour and then peter out after a few hours. I play games for stories, not the exciting and dynamic whatever systems that games these days try and show off. Artificially lengthened games where the story pace is slow and there is, for example, a lot of wandering down darkened corridors, annoy the hell out of me. A game that is 8-10 hours long is just perfect for my attention span, and while it may seem outlandish to pay £35 or whatever for a game that long, I put it into perspective that I spend more than that on alcohol on a night out, and at least I can sell or trade the game in after I’ve finished with it.

During the course of the holiday I went back and finished Half Life 2. I bought HL2 way back when it first came out, and got bored of it about a third of the way through. Since friends very kindly purchased me a copy of the Orange Box via Steam, I decided that I would definitely have to finish not only HL2, but its episodic successors, creatively titled Episodes One and Two. And I’m glad I did. As the games are now pretty old, my slowly dying PC didn’t struggle running them at maxed settings, and the atmosphere they evoked, and the stories they told (while a bit linear) were definitely more in tune with my more mature gaming sensibilities these days. I also finished a couple of other games, made some headway into others, couldn’t for the life of me get Crysis to run for more than a couple of minutes without crashing, and tried out Return to Such&Such MMO offers: Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning all threw freebie time at me, though I admit it took me longer to download the clients and install than I actually ended up playing the games. Nevermind.

I think that is enough on games.

Looking Forwards
As you will know if you tend to read my blogs with any regularity (there’s what, maybe 3 of you?), I’ve been trying very hard since my breakdown and back injury to stay positive and look forwards to a brighter future. This has obviously been fairly difficult recently due to the economic crisis, but I feel I am making some progress into getting life back on track.

Ideally I would like to move out into a place of my own sometime within the next couple of years. As much as I love the free rent of living at my parents’ house, with both brother and sister having now moved out, I feel a bit like the odd one out these days. This is, in many ways, a ludicrous feeling to have since I spent eight years in Lancaster and the North West, but nevertheless I shall be twenty nine years of age in January and I simply don’t like the idea that come thirty I may still be here and alone.

Obviously I don’t mean alone in the sense of people surrounding me. I run into people all the time, it being the very nature of my job, and me being an inherently social person (despite the time I spent chained to the PC or my netbook). But I am committed to the idea (and, I would hesitate to add, probable fact) that if I wish to move out, I have to find one of two kinds of people to interact with.

Either I need to find a small group of friends willing to rent a place together. Or I need to blunder about blindly in the hopes of finding a girlfriend, an endeavour that I continue to be awful at.

I’m still not particularly sure what the problem is in this regard. A lack of confidence and self-esteem may be part of the problem, but recently I’ve been finding it easier to talk and flirt my way into at least friendships with women whom I would consider quite attractive. I suppose my main failing is a complete inability to tell if women are interested in me in that way. I’ve always kind of fallen into relationships, without any real kind of dating process, so I’ve never really asked women out, or chatted them up at bars, or whatever the accepted social norm is (if there even is one).

I’m not exactly a bad example of the gender, either. I’m smart, I’m savvy, I have a certain kind of dry wit that perhaps has limited appeal, and I’m not altogether unattractive, though a couple of trips per week to the gym might help improve self esteem in that department.

I think maybe I get entangled in the “What ifs”. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The “If I ask her out, what if she’s not interested. Will we still be friends? Will she etc etc” quandary.

My notion of relationships is a bit of a slow burner, I suppose. Taking time. Romance. None of the cheap, quick sex and its over that many of the men I see out and about on the weekend are so obviously after. I’m sure I can’t be too unusual, the this regard, but again, an inability to read if people like me as a friend or as something more is a huge mental and emotional hurdle to try and overcome.

It’d be so much easier if people just told me, but then there may be issues of a similar kind from their point of view, and I am nothing if not cursed with huge amounts of intellectual and emotional empathy for other people (thanks for that legacy, Mom).

I meant for this to be a fairly positive diatribe. Don’t think I quite managed that did I? The message to take away from this, should you care, is that I am getting better with all this. Even so far as to ask somebody out, though nothing has come of it yet. This at least shows an improvement in my confidence. Some would say a huge improvement considering me and my crippled emotions.

(Speaking of which, there has been no improvement in my recovery of so many lost memories from before my breakdown. I find sometimes that fragments of times and events that I don’t consciously remember seep into my dreams, but they always leave me somewhat disturbed upon waking, as you might expect.)

Fin
I think that that will do for me splurging thoughts, feelings and beliefs onto the page for now. I always have a tendency to feel embarrassed about what I write after I’ve posted these irregular monologues, (it’s one of the reasons I don’t spell check/grammar check/read through them) but I am not so easily embarrassed these days it seems, though I sincerely hope people don’t think ill of me for voicing my thoughts and opinions in this way.

We all need our outlets, after all, and when I cannot use analogies in my novel writing, this is the purest option left open to me.

~Jon

British Summer Time

The very words, 'British Summer Time' conjure up a varity of images, depending on who you are and where you live. For most of us brits, BST is a time where we constantly have to debate whether to take a brollie with us, as it just might rain, even if there isn't a cloud in the sky. As well as the mercurial weather, it is a time for camping, beer gardens, sitting outside on the patio and gazing at the sky, and being assaulted by greenfly and wasps.

Last year's summer is a haze. Not a heat haze, a literal, drug-induced haze. By this time last year I was on full-time tramadol. It's no wonder I can't remember squat about what I did, who I saw, or where I went...if indeed I went anywhere.

This year is different. No drugs except alcohol this year. Having just done a half term of teaching, and having a full term lined up come September, this summer holiday was, nominally, a time for writing; in theory I was going to get as much of novel #2 written as I could during this six weeks as once the teaching starts, its ever so difficult to put (virtual) pen to paper.

Unfortunately, the words aren't flowing very well. I feel bottle-necked, distracted, and it is buggin' me.

One of the key distractions is this pile of games. As well as writing, summertime is oft the time where I try and finish as many of the games I've got laying around as I possibly can. Since I've had a month off WoW, I figured I was onto a winner this summer. Of course, that was before I decided Final Fantasy 12 was one of the games I really should complete - especially as FF13 is due sometime next year. I failed to take into account just how much time FF games eat up though.

Anyway, my list of unfinished or unplayed games stands at:

1) Final Fantasy 12 (36hrs in now)
2) Final Fantasy 4 DS (still haven't quite finished it)
3) Prototype
4) Devil May Cry 4
5) Half Life 2 + Expansions
6) Conan (on the XBOB360 - almost at the end, and have been for 6 months+ >_<)
7) Tomb Raider (the latest one)
8) The Last Remnant
9) Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GCN)
10) Dawn of War
11) Blood Bowl PC (still need to finish the single-player campaign)

As well as these, I've also had quick bashes on Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Lord of the Rings Online, all 3 of which have decided to give me free trials or week of free "re-evaluation" time. LotRo has been the most fun of the three, and its very very pretty as always, but none of the three really hold a candle to WoW, which is kinda a shame.

So anyways, really long list of games that need finishing. Might have to put FF12 on hold for a bit, as it really does eat up the time. Very enjoyable though. Not sure why fans of the series hate 12 so much. I like the characters, and the plot seems to be developing well enough - and story is mostly all I play games for after all.

As well as games, I've also been painting a bit. Got a couple of pieces on the go, which is kinda unusual. Haven't worked on them in a few days (see above comment about FF12) but they should both be done by the end of August. Still keeping up with my new year's resolution, which is nice. Hopefully I'll last the whole year.

Three weeks left of the summer hols. I know my parents are going on holiday next weekend, and I too am taking a couple of days off to head up to Macclesfield to see Rick and Tom, but thats mostly as far as I can stretch money-wise this year.

Really am going to try and stick some sample novel chapters up in the next week or so, let people have a read and see what they think of my style and stuff (as well as point out any glaring mistakes I've made :P)

This blog sounded much more organised in my head...

September 3: Revenge of September

So yeah, I'm writing this on like the 22nd October (would I try and scam you lovely people? Noooo!) and am thus REDICULOUSLY behind on blogs. But anyways, today's blog is about:

GUITAR HERO!

There are several types of gamer. There is the hardcore FPS player. The puzzle game addict. The guy who plays RPGs or Horror games for rediculously long hours in the middle of the night. (This list is not complete :P)

But as well as these there is the casual gamer who only really dives into the electronic world of consoles at social gatherings, and more and more developers are hooking into this party ethos and producing multiplayer games that cater to this type of gamer.

Sure, there have always been multiplayer games. I remember many MANY hours over summers long gone playing Goldeneye on the N64, split screen, with 3 friends. We still regard Goldeneye as the best splitscreen multiplayer of all time, because it was fun, had great graphics for the time, and hell, you got to be your favourite characters from the Bond films. What's not to like.

These days, with such a focus on music and celebrities, games like Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution (and its many clones), and the aforementioned Guitar Hero are all the rage. The premise is simple. Push buttons in time to little coloured dots on the screen which are themselves in synch to your favourite tunes.

The biggest holdup of this genre is, I believe, the initial outlay. You see, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR... all these kind of games... tend to come with special controllers. What's the point in pretending to play electric guitar holding the awkward 360 controller, for example.

So yeah, they all have fairly expensive mini guitars, drumkits, etc etc. While these make for engaging methods of control, prices are indeed a bit steep. I believe Rock Band was currently going at £120 with its full set of drums, guitar and microphone. Ouch.

ANYWAY, Guitar Hero 2 & 3. These are the two GH games that I own, and I will be supplementing them with Guitar Hero: World Tour when it comes out.

I'm not great at these games. I have plenty of rhythm, and I have fairly long fingers and control, but I'm not exactly a god of rock, as I believe I have mentioned in previous blogs.

However, I have recently upgraded my game. Having beaten both games on Medium Difficulty, I've upped my ante somewhat and am now slogging my way through the Hard mode.

Surprisingly, I have made a little progress. The addition of an extra note further up the guitar to hit means that you HAVE to move your left hand up and down the frets to hit them all, and this is difficult. (Obviously. Wouldn't be HARD MODE otherwise).

When I first tried this level of difficulty I was basically aghast. No way was I ever gonna be able to hit any of these notes. No way was I ever gonna finish a song. I was doomed to Medium difficulty forever.

Turns out I was wrong. Sure, I'm probably never gonna be able to complete the game on Hard. By about the third bracket of songs it starts to get really tough, but practise makes perfect as people keep telling me. I'll get better as I go along. I hope.

But what I really wanted to write a bit about was the songs themselves. BOY is there some rubbish on these games. I know getting the licenses for real artists and their well-known tracks is expensive business for companies, but seriously, while I'm definitely no rock officianando, I've literally never heard of some of these bands.

This isn't always a bad thing, mind you. There are some really quite catchy tunes from some less well-known or even obscure bands on here. There's an awesome arrangement of the Top Gun theme, for example, or a rock remix of We Three Kings, and the Halo theme. There's also a version of ETC70's "I Am Murloc" for all you World of Warcraft players.

But I guess my favourite has to be Freezpop's "Less Talk More Rokk". It's barely a rock song, really, but it has an awesome catchy beat to it. Do a search for it on Youtube and give it a listen/watch. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I don't LIKE tea so to be honest that's all good.

I'll continue to update with GH progress as filler blogs at regular intervals.

... what, did I just admit this was a filler blog TO EVERYONE...?!?!? DAMN!!!!!

Music Is The Weapon

Okay okay, yeah I lose points for even daring to quote that, but I needed something at least a little bit catchy and dramatic.

I’m a musical person, always have been. There’s nothing like a sweeping symphony or a crackling electric guitar solo to inspire a man. I did GCSE music back in high school, played the violin to grade 6 standard, tried my hand at a variety of different instruments too, from flute, to saxophone, to guitar to piano. I was never brilliant at any of them. I was never gonna be the next Vanessa Mae or anything. But I enjoyed performing, and still regret that I hadn’t put more effort into learning the more difficult instruments – namely guitar and piano – though I know there is still time.

I don’t look back on my GCSE with fondness, unfortunately, because of what it did to me. Basically, I realised quite near the start of my final year of school – second year of GCSE music – that I was outgrowing my violin. I’d already got the full size one – largest you can get – but it just wasn’t big enough. My arms were too long, and I was finding that I had to twist my wrist in an odd way to hit the notes properly. It began to hurt when I play for too long, and my violin tutor noted that I should probably change instruments to the slightly larger viola, or to something even bigger like the cello.

In retrospect, I was an idiot. I didn’t want to do viola or cello because I’d have had to learn new clefs, and it had taken me long enough to get treble clef sorted. Also, if I had to give up violin now, it would completely screw up my final year of GCSE. I wasn’t really any good at the flute – grade 2 standard at most – and thus couldn’t switch to that and hope to get a serious GCSE result. I didn’t actually want to DO anything with music back then by the way. I just liked the class and wanted to do well in it.

I got a C, in the end. By the time the final practical exam came round, the muscle at the base of my left thumb, and my wrist itself, was so screwed up by repetitive strain injury, that I was never going to get the B or higher that I wanted. I’ll probably not be able to play a stringed instrument again, sadly, though I still do want to at least give guitar a try.

Until I can earn enough money to get myself a cheapo guitar and some lessons, I’ve been sating my music-playing desires and building up the muscles in my left wrist again, by playing Guitar Hero on the 360. And yes, I know I know it’s not a REAL guitar and it doesn’t require the same skills and motions etc, but for someone with a knackered wrist not even used to holding an instrument at that angle before, it at least helps me get some mobility back into my sore tendons.

Now, I’m a big fan of rhythm games. Ever since Spence first introduced me to the Dance Dance Revoltion series of arcade machines down in Torquay, I’ve always picked up the odd game for whatever console I have handy. Now, I’m a big man, so I don’t use the dance mats. There’s NO WAY I’m jumping around in my study trying to hit notes – I have size 12/13 feet and the chances of me being precise enough to hit the pitifully small squares on the mats are low. So I’ve always used the normal controller for these types of games. And because I AM musically-minded, and have a good sense of rhythm (apparently!) I tend to do very well at this type of game. I can kick ass on most DDR games on the PS2, usually on the Hard difficulty while my friends compete on Easy or Medium. Which is fine. It’s all about having fun after all! I just like a challenge.

I first tried the Guitar Hero games round at Dave’s house, and I will admit to being sold on it. It was a lot of fun, and while it seemed to be pretty darned difficult on Medium mode (where you have to hit FOUR frets rather than the first three on Easy mode) the mini plastic guitar controller and a great selection of tunes including Guns n Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” inspired me to get it. Was just a pity about the rather expensive price.

Fast forwards twelve months and a fair bit of supply teaching work later, and I found a second-hand copy of Guitar Hero III with controller for £50 in Gamestation. I snapped it up on a whim, and have been making steady progress. I can now kick ass on medium mode, and play the odd song on Hard, which forces you to use all 5 of the fret buttons. I have to be careful though, it seems. Yeah I’m musically minded, good sense of rhythm, know how the songs go... But I can’t overcome the RSI in my wrist just yet. Try and play more than a couple of songs on Hard and it REALLY begins to hurt. Not as much as my back hurts on bad days mind you, but enough. Sometimes I push through the pain, hoping that it’s just the muscles protesting at the exercise. Other times I’m sensible and take a break. But either way it’s good stimulation for my poor knackered hand, and it feels good to get it moving again. So much so that I splashed out on Guitar Hero II as well, which is the version I played back at Dave’s last year. I may never be able to complete either game on Hard or Expert, but I enjoy at least giving it a go, and as Rick tells me – with these games, practise is just as important as it is on a real instrument.

Can’t believe I quoted that as the title though.... >.>