[WP]A dark necromancer and a shining paladin face off for battle. Make the necromancer heroic, and the paladin villainous.

The gleaming fist of metal smashed into Amrin's jaw, making him stumble onto the table behind him. Blood dripped from his mouth. He spat and saw a tooth. Turning back, he allowed himself to laugh.

"For someone so holy and up god's arse Olanus, you're bloody quick to employ violence." he remarked, wiping the blood from his mouth.

His assailant stepped stepped out from the shadow of the room and into the light. Clad head to toe in shining steel, emphasizing his already fearsome physique. The helm covered his face, but between the holy symbols on his tabard and being a frequent victim of his right hook when he was younger, Amrin knew who it was. The knight raised an armored fist and stabbed a finger at him.

"Did you not think I would find you here, brother?" he spat.

"I was rather hoping you did" Amrin retorted, batting his hand away "Hopefully I can talk you out of this madness before you get more people killed."

"Madness? You pervert life with your vile sorcery, where I wish to save innocent people and I'm the one who is mad? You willing preform magic that is destroying you."

Amrin lowered his hood and felt his swollen jaw. He wasn't wrong. Sunken eyes, pallid skin, atrophied muscles. When you deal in death, the effects take its toll. "Yes. I re-animate the dead. But that is only flesh and bone. The souls have passed. If they haven't its my job to help them on their way. The scientific advances we have made in medicine alone will help thousands. But we respect the natural order. Life can be prolonged. But outright preventing death is obscene!"

Olanus clenched his fists. "You sound just like the Church, no wonder they asked for you."

"Is that why you went rogue? Your bosses not radical enough for your little faction?"

"They wouldn't know!" he bellowed "The things I've seen. The woman and children butchered, for the crime of living in a different land. The pilgrims and missionaries torn apart before I could help them. We are supposed to be peacekeepers, but we can't even protect ourselves. But no more. We are close to unlocking the secret to eternal life! With your expertise and research we could have a working formula in a matter of months. I can fix this world. Please."

Amrin shrugged off his cloak and placed it on the chair next to him. He wanted Olanus to see that he was armed. Not that a dagger would do much against a couple inches of heavy plate.

"And how many more must die for your Paradise?" he asked.

Olanus, took a step back. Physically hesitating.

"As many as it takes." he replied.

Amrin drew his dagger and looked directly at Olanus, perhaps he can pierce the armor with his gaze, if not his weapon. "And am I to be among the dead?" he asked solemnly.

"That depends on you" Olanus replied, drawing his sword "Will you oppose me?"

Amrin stood silently for a moment. His weapon felt pitifully small, his body weak and frail against this beast of a man. But the answer came easily.

"I think I will."

Crossed

My sphincter has never been more clenched in fear


Hooo boy. Ennis. You. Actual. Bastard. This is honestly one of the toughest, scariest, disgusting, shocking and down right depressing reads I have ever had to do. I loved every minute. When a writer can evoke a true and completely sincere uncomfortable sensation out of me, I have to give credit. Now a word of warning, I'm about to give praise to a comic in which people are raped, killed, rapekilled and generally treated in a way that is not very nice. One of the Crossed using a  horse penis to beat people to death being a stand out method used. If you have a sudden urge to write to the Daily Mail after reading that sentence, then I suggest you stop here or your jimmies are gonna get seriously rustled.

I've been waiting SO long to use this

So. The Crossed. Sweet green jelly babies. Imagine if being a deranged serial killer with a insatiable and unrelenting passion for the utter sundering and violation of any opening present and/or subsequently created on the their victim with their penis and/or pretty much anything near by was a virus. Imagine if that virus could spread by any bodily fluid contact. Imagine it could change a person in a matter of seconds. Also they are American. Scary stuff, I know. This is our setup. Our story begins with our protagonist enjoying a quiet moment in his local diner, only to be rudely disturbed by one of the Crossed walking in, depositing an arm on the counter and biting the cooks nose off. From then on it is a downwards spiral are utter chaos ensues. The story is split in two. The main plot which follows our merry band of survivors as they trek across the US in a desperate bid too reach the snowy mountains, hoping the cold will ward off the Crossed. The other being flashbacks too the early months of the group as they get too know each other and learn about the virus.
The story, such as it is, gets too the point and is serviceable. This book is more about watching our dwindling group of survivors slowly loose what little hope and humanity they have left and providing as many situations in which to repulse you as possible. You thought The Walking Dead could get depressing? Holy shit snacks you ain't seen nothing. The only way to survive the Crossed is to run faster than the guy behind you or hide.

Pictured: The least horrific cover I could find

Now a lot of people will criticize it for being cheap and needlessly graphic. Violence for violence's sake. In a way they are right. Ennis and Burrows relish every kill as much as the Crossed. Showing every ounce of blood, torture and rape they can. Its actually quite clever in a way. Its having the same effect as it does on the characters. After a while it just kinda blends into the background. Its a book I suggest you read in one sitting, if only because the cumulative effect it has makes Stan's speech at the end much more effective.
As for the characters, well they are the weakest part. For a story that is focused on the effect of the world they live in, the group are a forgetable bunch. Lacking in any real form of real personality or traits beyond Cindy's really endearing effort to get people to stop swearing in front of her son, Patrick. People are picked off quicker than we can form an attachment too them. But again, I guess that is the point. The world of Crossed is supposed to be a hell on Earth. I gotta say, Ennis has got it straight on the bullseye on that mark. A top notch book up there with his other work The Boys with bad guys that genuinely scares the ever loving shit outa me.

So to sum up, Crossed is perhaps the most utterly terrifying apocalypse you will ever know about and perhaps the only one you never want to imagine. An excellent book if you can stomach it, one that'll immerse you in its dark hopeless world if you'll let it.

If you want a free taste, you can read what I consider the even better tale that is Crossed: Wish you where here for free!

Annnnnd breath

[WP] You decide to submit your first response to a Writing Prompt. The communities reaction to your post is not what you had anticipated.

Lets get back on that dam horse! Weekly posts and my submissions to the Writing Prompts Sub-Reddit. Lets do this. First up, my first response to WP which is about a first response to WP. Enjoy.

I knew it wouldn't be anything special. Just a bit of fun. There was no way I would beat any of the other responses. It might get a few laughs for being silly, probably a few harsh responses. I'm an entertainer by nature. Always being the "funny guy" in the group. Self-deprecation comes naturally to get a laugh, so I wasn't worried about being embarrassed. Despite that, my finger seemed stuck on the mouse. Unwilling to click that save button. I wanted to write. I wanted to eventually do it professionally. But I'd have to get better first and you don't get good at something without practice and criticism. But this was the internet, not some friends. It would be no holds barred. I focused a thought in my head. Something to ease my nerves.

'Worst case scenario, a bunch of internet nerds insult you with nothing worse you could get in half an hour of DOTA.'

I clicked save.

After a few days of putting it off, I logged in and checked for replies. The worst case scenario played out:

TheREALSanta "The hell is this shit!?!"
Toasty_Waffles "I think my cancer just got cancer."
kegi17 "This is just terrible. 0/10. No star for effort. You should feel bad."

And so on and so forth. Battered but not broken, I figured I'd come back to it a couple weeks after regaining some confidence. Then it started getting weird. Two weeks later, I began to get emails. With some very specific and detailed descriptions of what they would do if they saw me. My post started getting passed around. More emails. Soon Facebook. I went too the police but it was one of those legal grey areas and I was basically fobbed off. I wasn't too worried but. Just a bunch of internet tough guys mouthing off. Give it a couple months and the next thing would come round. Maybe someone somewhere would bring up Gamergate again.

A couple months did pass, but nothing let up. It all just bled into my existence. I would wake up and check my email, picking out the more inventive or gruesome death threats. I even worked out a point system with people at work. Extra points for custom insults and interesting use of objects. The highest scoring one somehow managed to involve a live goldfish.

I caught sight of a few people hanging outside my house a few days a week. Not doing anything. Just standing there. The crowd got slightly bigger each time. Slightly closer. I didn't even notice at first. I couldn't see their faces. It was the middle of winter so it was always dark by time I got home from work. I made a few attempts to confront them but they always managed to back away before I could get close. I went to the police again. But you can't have people arrested for standing near your house.
I woke one night feeling rather groggy. I had no memory of going to sleep. I was sitting at my desk enjoying a good cup of tea and browsing TV tropes, casually debating internally whether to masturbate now or save it for later in bed. It took a while to sink in I was tied to my bed. Stripped to my boxers. A fact I found oddly reassuring. A few seconds more to make out that the shadows around me were people with red blank masks and, much more distressingly, a various assortment of sharp objects. No one spoke. They barely breathed. Each stared at me unflinchingly. I tried to scream, shout, laugh hysterically in fear, make a smart arse comment. The tape over my mouth put a stop to that. The leader, presumably, of my, also presumably, execution detail leaned over me and ran the tip of his blade over my body. Making small circles on the fleshier areas. He placed the blade next to me and reached into his coat and pulled out a small plastic bag. There in the liquid it contained, without a care in the world, was a live goldfish.

Crusader Kings II
Bloody peasants!

I'm sure that more than a few of you have heard of the Game of Thrones TV series by now. An excellent program based on the Song of Ice and Fire Saga by George R.R. Martain. It's a fantastic series with so much intrigue and backstabbing I think I just committed treason by glancing at the cover. See the program, read the book, I don't care, just have a go and you won't be disappointed. Fact is, gamers want a game of GoT, and they got two of them. They were shit. So we shall make do with Crusader Kings II, a game that gets you as close to the GoT lifestyle as possible, straight down to having sex with your sister and a dwarf brother trying to kill you!

Sexy, sexy incest made possible with stats and menus

So. We'll start with what CKII is. Its the usual grand strategy affair you expect from Paradox. Deep and complex, manual as big as a Yellow Pages, excellent at giving a great sense of satisfaction when a plan comes together and you'll have no fucking clue what the actual hell you are doing for the first ten hours. I call it the Paradox Curse. They make good games, brilliant games. No-one has any idea how to play them. That is the only real criticism I have of CKII. My advice is to check out a few let's plays and read some wiki's if you decide to buy it. Cracking on, CKII lets you play as the head of any noble family from the period of 1066 to 1453 with one goal. Earn your dynasty more prestige than various other historically significant European dynasties of the time. If you die and you have no heir to take over, its game over. 
The level of detail is truly astounding. You can marry, kill, impregnate, intimidate, befriend, backstab and possibly give back rubs to any of hundreds of characters each with their own stats, traits, behaviors and motivations all trying to work/backstab/marry their way to the top. Children are born with genetic traits of their parents and other traits from who you decide should educate them. Said children tend to grow up resenting your oldest son for being your heir and I've had to stop half dozen assassination attempts by jealous siblings in one playthrough. If you play as a king then you are fighting your own nobles, either in the court or on the battlefield, as much as you are fighting other nations. The game may be just a map with sprites and a bunch of often indecipherable numbers and menus, but the level of drama trumps most of the triple AAA offerings of today's games. 

"Sorry m'lord. I couldn't find the menu for horses.

So you may have guessed by now I really hate the interface for CKII. I have good reason, its a bloody nightmare! Honestly, playing this game, even after doing the tutorial, is like being asked to solve a Rubik's Cube before getting on a bus to pay your fare. Yes, you understand the concept of both of these,  you could eventually figure out the Rubik's Cube, but you'll be stumped as to how they connect to each other or why the hell you even have to do the Cube in the first dam place. That's the problem, you're not entirely sure what effect your actions are having or why you are doing them. I married my son to a Norwegian Princess but I couldn't say what it caused except her dad liked me a bit more. With time and patience you can see past the clunky interface and see that its all very simple at it's core. It isn't complicated, its just a lot of information horribly presented. I can't blame Paradox. There really isn't a simple way to do it. 

My only real other complaint is that wars can be a pain in the arse to start. To start a war you need a claim, which can be gained through marriage or bringing a claimant to your court or fabricating a claim which can take years in game, so you have legal right to do so. That or if you are a smaller country you can request an invasion from the Pope. Its all very counter productive if you wish to expand, you have to plan years, even decades, in advance which I suppose, in the end, is more in keeping with the time period of the game and encourages the intrigue side of it.

"One day, many years from now, my great grand children may have the right to brutally kill everyone in that castle."

The intrigue is where the game really separate's itself from the rest. As mentioned earlier, your nobles and kin are all murderous buggers and will make your life as much of a living hell as possible. The solution in my case? Kill them all first. Keeping them all happy is impossible and putting one in the dungeon just riles up the rest! Murder, revoking titles, rebellion, getting laws changed, you've got a good selection of morally dubious options at your disposal and so do your vassals. 

Crusader Kings II is a difficult game to get into. But once you do you'll not find anything else like it. I highly recommend giving it a go, its only about £15 on Steam so its hardly going to dent the bank balance. To top it off, there is a Game of Thrones mod in development.

Brilliant Medieval simulator,
horribly presented. 
85%



 

New year, more hugs and firearms, same bullshit


So. Been a while hasn't it? Almost as if I had a life or something. But of course, that would be ridiculous. Anyway, its time for a far overdue new year post. You know what I hate most about the new year, and indeed early in the year? The fact that nothing substantial has happened yet for me to complain about. I could complain about last year but that would be petty, and we all know I'm no such thing, and I'm certain that if I complain one more time about 2011 I will be spontaneously and brutally mauled by an angry badger. I'm sure as we draw ever closer to the so called 2012 doomsday event that increasingly unstable members of our society shall provide ample entertainment and complaint fodder.

"Suck it!" - The Mayans

Got a ton of stuff planned for you all this month. In no particular order they are:
1. 10 commandments customers must follow
2. 7 types of people on the internet I need to punch
3. Spiders are out to get me and other things that cause pant's soiling terror
4. 6 ways games need to change
5. Skyrim review
6. Mass Effect 2 review
7. Mass Effect 3 Demo impressions
8. Latest Project Zomboid release review
and as a special bonus, if it ever gets done, me and Craig Hamilton of Mad Hat Pirates shall be teaming up for a video. The results shall be far more sexy than you could possibly imagine.

Till next time.

Battle L.A
Alien invasion? Someone get Jeff Goldblum to an Apple Mac!

On paper Battle L.A is sheer brilliance. The last 20 minutes of District 9 turned into a full film. No pointless tacked on romances or drama, just pure alien bashing. Problem is it just doesn't work. The action just isn't interesting enough and the attempts at making us connect with the characters are laughable to the point I cannot name a single person in the film.

"Whatshisface! NOOOOOOOOOOO! "

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Battle L.A follows a platoon of US soldiers during an alien invasion. That's about it. No really. Now I'm all for simple entertainment. Not every film has to be Citizen Kane. But this is taking things a bit extreme. There is a quick 20 minutes at the start of the film to establish the characters then straight out run and gun from then on. For star power we have Arron Eckhart, of The Dark Knight fame, as Sergent Micheal Nantz, he is about to retire but is called in to help run the platoon. Michelle Rodriguez also features playing, as she always does, Michelle Rodriguez.
I'll give the good points before I tear into this film without mercy. It gives what you expect. Balls to the wall, ramped up to 11, high octane action, so on and what not. The special effects are brilliant and the CGI impressive. The Aliens are genuinely interesting and we are drip fed what they look like through some clever camera work and direction. The Aliens motives are hinted at from news broadcasts which left me wanting more which is always good. They also aren't an all powerful invincible force. They fight in a conventional manner and if you replaced them with humans there wouldn't be much of a change. Its a refreshing take on Aliens in films.

"Don't probe me! Take the girl instead!"

Now for the bad. As I mentioned the attempt at characterization is just pointlessly bad. You can't give two characters five minutes in a flower shop picking out wedding flowers then expect me to care when they are horribly mutilated to death by alien techno-sorcery. Any real further attempts are stopped when the shooting starts. Problem is it starts early and rarely stops. If everything is constantly shooting, screaming and "Die motherfucker die!" then its hard to stay interested. You need contrast to make the action something to look forward too. The scale is far to small too. Its all infantry fights which is alright until its happened for the nth time. With their budget the director could have thrown couple air battles and a tank that's on the screen for more than a minute to mix things up a bit. There is no plot. Its just marines trying to save civilians and an ending that comes out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the film up until that point. It was just something to give the film an ending and Michelle Rodriguez's character a point. I like the Aliens as I've pointed out but so little is revealed of their motives or even their technology (You never see a hover platform until the end of the film) its more frustrating than interesting at times.

I thought I'd seen everything. Then I saw a missile launcher on legs.

 So. Should you see this film? Honestly, if you haven't already then no. It barely held my interest most of the time despite being the sort of film that I would love. Yes it is a unique take on the Alien invasion genre but it doesn't really do much to justify its self as a film. Its more like a game without the control. So unless all you really, really want is to see is people shooting at aliens and vice versa then don't bother.

Battlefield 3
All is fair in love and war, except camping.

Anyone who takes a passing interest in the gaming industry and plays on the PC hates EA. Fact. Be it as extreme as wishing them dead or just a mild discontent with their seemingly pointless evil, like me, we hate them. Battlefield 3 changes that. Even I want to club EA's CEO to death now. Why Origin? It is just so bad compared to Steam which at least is a good service and has good design. A website as a game menu? What the shitting dick nipples is this!?! No manual in the game's box? That's crossing the line. OK, maybe the last two are on DICE but that's not the point. The point is EA is a big poo face.

More like PeeA ammarite?

One the initial rage had subsided I had to admit, the website menu works. You can select a server then go back to browsing the net until it has loaded then you jump straight into the game. This is a blessing when your rig can barely load minesweeper and people in my area with connections over 300 kbs are burned for witchcraft.

"She watched a You Tube video without having to wait ten minutes for it load.

    So what of the game. Its beautiful for a start. Even on the lowest settings Frostbyte 2 brings home the bacon. Details are crisp and in high definition. The level of destruction impressive. Explosions kicking up loads of debris, fires turn the screen a bit red and animations are smooth and very believable. I could go on. The amount of lens flare is a piss take but. The sound is just as delightfully ass kicking.You can instinctively tell where gunfire is coming from by sound which without a surround sound system is very impressive. The small details like rocks landing, the distant cracking of gunfire and ringing when explosions happen nearby really bring it all too life. Top notch quality in the sights and sounds department. This means nothing if the gameplay is crap. Thankfully this is not the case.
  Lets start with the bad. The guns are a bit off. They sound the part for sure, its the recoil. They feel underpowered. But DICE have never done good guns. Getting suppressed is a bit too easy. Being suppressed is when bullets pass near you and the screen blurs up. It happens far to easy and takes too long to leave. The maps are big and firefights take place at long range meaning your never sure what your shooting at since you can only see muzzle flashes. This is very noob unfriendly. In my first game I didn't get a single kill since I had to clue what was going on. Jets constantly shake and don't seem to slow down when you brake. Since you have to unlock missiles and strafing runs are made dam near impossible due to the shake and speed your stuck chasing after other jets. I'll doubt they'll see much use outside the dedicated flyboys until a few changes are made.

An accurate representation of my flying but screaming, upside down and on fire.

Now the good. Its too much to list so I'll give an anecdote. Me and about 5 others had secured a flag on Caspian Border. Before Ole Starsn'stripes even reached the top of the flagpole a tank shell whizzed past and took out a nearby houese. my ears rang and debris flew everywhere. A T-80 rolled around the corner. "TAAAAAANK!" screamed Captain Obvious. We scattered. My vision blurred as machine gun fire tore chunks out of the wall I took cover behind. I heard something to my right, it was a FA-18 Super Hornet coming in for a strafing run. Part of the wall in front of me exploded into pieces as a shell struck it. The F-18 came in and peppered the tank with cannon fire before pulling up metres from hitting it. A pair of Russian jets flew by soon after in pursuit. Their engines blocked the sound of another tank shell taking out the wall of a house in front of me. An engineer ran by me and was gunned down. I took his kit and finished off the tank with the missile launcher.

USA! USA!...Is it safe to come out now?

An entirely unscripted moment in multiplayer and yet it sounds like a scene from a Call of Duty mission. So believable is the experience I found myself swearing very loudly and frequently during each game. Immersion is complete.
  Battlefield 3 is a corker of a game on its multiplayer alone. An Xp system keeps a nice trickle of new toys coming in and players are rewarded for non-combat roles like reviving, spotting and dishing out ammo. I've yet to try co-op but it offers more equipment for multiplayer and the singleplayer campaign is actually rather solid. The banter of squadmates is far between but enjoyable. It does have a few issues with the most annoying being you have to stand behind your squadmates to make them move forward. The immersion makes it far better than it is really.
  So the grand question is, is it better than Modern Warfare 3? Honestly that is a stupid question and you should feel bad for asking and not because it isn't even out yet. They are two completely different experiences. MW3 is fast paced gunplay on tight maps while BF3 slows things down a notch with bigger maps and adds vehicles and destructible terrain. Its like asking if you want toast or cereal for breakfast, it depends on your mood.
Battlefield 3 is unique. There is no other game like it on the market except DICE's last game Bad Company 2. I highly recommend it despite bloody Origin.

95% 
DICE is back and 
kicking all the asses.