All my life, my mother has wanted to weave rugs - big, fancy rugs that people hang on walls. She’s not exactly been successful at doing it. For a woman who has managed to raise two children by herself, had a profitable career, and a trove of friends who she loves and loves her back, she’s only attended a few classes. All my life, she’s placed obstacles in front of her to prevent her from doing things. Slowly, she’s learning how to get around these obstacles. I’ve learned from her example, and I hope to have returned the favor.

It’s odd, these obstacles, it’s like navigating around your self, your mind, your structure of the world.

For my own dreams, I’ve finally removed one of those obstacles from my path that I’ve been worrying over. These have been the type of worries that wakes one in the night in bone-chilling panics. The price of doing business has cost me a lot - money, career, friends - most importantly friends, and faith in myself. I’m leery of paying that price even though I know there’s more coming in the future. Well, after finding the right legal council, I’ve finally done it.

On Tuesday, at 2:45 I signed documents officially creating Heresy Research Labs, llc. It’s mission is to create entertaining copyrightable materials for licensing and publishing. I like that mission: I’m here to create fun, of all interests, and with a name like Heresy, I’m hoping to break a few rules.

I’ve got heroes - well, minds that I admire - all of whom have said, “I’ve shown you, now you show me what you can do.” I am so tired of having reams of written material that goes unpublished, unseen and un-commented on. There’s only one way I’m going to improve and that way requires me to my material in front of others.

My first project will be Arcanopocrypha, a collection of short stories I’ve written for a graphic novels format, with a single overall arc. I’ve discovered a wonderful artist which I’m hoping to expand my business relationship.

I love twisting the minds of those who will listen, and I really want to play rough. Stay tooned, I’m going in!

For those that don’t remember, I’ve been interviewing lawyers and getting my legal papers in sync. Finally, I’ve found a lawyer I’ll tolerate. I don’t trust him, but I’ll tolerate him. $1000 for incorporation and all that nonsense, and then the other crew will do the copyright agreement.

While I’ve interviewed a six (seven?) lawyers now, all of them have had the same problem: “why not work for hire and retain all copyrights?” Now, I’m not ignorant to the fact that MAYBE, very little chance, my stories can be made into movies. And MAYBE, very little chance, the license of such a thing could be used to ween me off of the corporate teat I suck, and MAYBE, very little chance, I could be happy just writing comics.

Lawyers’ jobs are to look out after the client, however, in this case, I’m trying to create an Ellis Band book, which is to say, a book that has three artists and one writer, and everyone gets paid the same exact money. But to do this, I’m having to draw up the legal papers and it’s nearly breaking the bank before I’m getting the work done. I’ve always equated work-for-hire as fuck your contractor, now I understand WHY I need to use work-for-hire, but in the case of a creative endeavor… it’s just not worth it. Share your copyrights, my friends.

The moral of the story? I’m tired of being bounced around: I’m happy I didn’t go with the first few lawyers, but fuck it, I’m putting the money down. We incorporate on Wednesday. Now I got to decide on the name of my company, which I’m thinking is going to be Heresy Research Labs, llc. All in all, I’m looking at about $3000+ which I know is necessary, but I’m in tears thinking of all the art that would buy (almost an entire 20 page book).

Fuck, it’s shouldn’t be so expensive to be creative.

For every story I’m writing for Arcanopocrypha, I’m thinking of other opportunities, such as if this were a game license, what would the game play be?

For “The Authentic Life of Josiah Dempsey”, the comic is about a US Marshall escorting a young orphan through the rough-and-wild Silver City in the 1880s. It’s go sheriffs, deputies, pistoleros, and Apaches, which is the best kind of western for me. I’ve also nicknamed it “Pistol Porn” as every characters’ weapon has been thoroughly researched. It’s a story of redemption, the perception of evil and shooting pistols.

But as a game, it’s be a little boring if I did a direct non-RPG translation. So, here’s what I’ve come up with.

You would play Josiah Dempsey, a fifty year old US Marshall dealing with hunting down ne’er-do-wells in the American Southwest during the 1870s and 1880s. During one misadventure, you’re teamed up with Sheriff Patrick Garrett. Your prey? Billy the Kid. One by one, you hunt down Billy’s posse and bring them to frontier justice.

After the first one is down, we cue the Flashback Machine: it’s a time when Dempsey (you) are escorting a young orphaned boy from the Tucson, Arizona to Las Cruces, New Mexico to be with his aunt and uncle. You stop over in Silver City, where you have to deal with a lot of moral decisions between the wily sheriff, the overbearing deputy, the mining magnates, the Apaches, and the Mexicans, each who have their interests for the town. As threats to Dempsey and William come an go, Dempsey must tell, explain, and educate the young Billy.

Yep, the kid you’re hunting down NOW is the same boy you helped 20 years ago.

But the crux of the story is that Josiah’s decisions in Silver City change William Bonney into the notorious Billy the Kid. But the question is outstanding: was Billy the Kid a good guy trapped in a bad situation, a misguided guy, a bad guy or a evil guy. Somewhere in there is likely to be the truth.

Game play-wise, every flashback would have an impact to the current storyline. For example, if in Silver City, you stole Billy’s ice cream, he’d hold a grudge about that and mention it in the dialogue. If you teach Billy magic, he’ll have magic to use against you. If you teach Billy religion, he’d quote from the bible and maybe even converted to Christianity. And, as we define Billy’s character, we’d define a reason why he’s an outlaw. Was he a mercenary hired by land owners, or a rancher who had his land stolen by the bad guys and on a mission of revenge. Either way, he’s got a price on his head and you and Garrett are out to get your man.

What if the player teaches “Jesus tells us too turn the other cheek” vs. “Praise the lord and pass the ammunition”, how would that affect Billy down the line?

And once you do meet up, and you’ve learned Billy is the product of what you made him, what do you decide to do? Do you let Garrett shoot him in the back?

This allows wide variety of endings - by being completely evil to the kid, you could transform him into an evil enemy dog that needs to be put down, but if your efforts made Billy a good guy, you may have to find a compromise with Patrick Garrett. And what if Billy actually died in Silver City… what exactly are you tracking down? A gun-fighting, cattle rustlin’ Xombie?

Also, since this is a mystical story with brujahs and witchmen, I could subtitle it “Little Xombies on the Prairie” and one of the substories would be a some bastard name Landon doing evil things to a dead Melissa Ingles.

So, does this high level design/wishlist hit my ideas for a good game?
1) Cool weapons
2) Mystical spookiness to give player shivers
3) Potential killing of characters of all types: white greedy men, Injuns, Pistoleros, Xombies.
4) Characters that you would care about
5) Something that’s never been done well: flashback mode that informs current decisions.
6) Moral decisions with consequences that don’t make

Yeah, I know this is just an idea and I need to actually finish publishing the actual story, but it’s a GOOD idea.

One of the most fun things about the Fallout series was that IT WAS NOT FOR CHILDREN. It was not only post-apocalypse, but post-ethical, and downright postal. The interaction between sex, death, and the unsavory behavior everyone was pretty extreme… at least so it seemed to me.

Here’s my reviewer creds:
Playtime: 24+ hours on normal difficulty, four characters and at least several chapters into the main story (after the introduction of the Enclave)
Version: PC
Resolution: 1600×1048, but screen lag forced me to move to a lower resolution
Number of Crashes: More than 5, less than 10
Do I intend to finish the game? Maybe, once I find the cheat codes…

Well, Bethesda, in re-purposing their Oblivion engine, has brought Fallout 3 franchise to life. And they’ve made it into a modular improvement model so they can keep adding functionality at $40 future releases.

So the good news, it’s relatively stable. It’s relatively fun. There’s only been one or two places that I’ve actually laughed out loud. There’s a decent pastiche to Lovecraft which I’ve played all the way through, and I’ve both saved and destroyed Megaton. So what’s my problem with it?

Maybe I’m jaded but I missed the sexual innuendo that came with the preceding Fallouts - hell, not that I’m a proponent for bovine copulation, but it was just given that everyone fucked anything in the preceding Fallouts… It’s like Conan - the women where whores and so were the men. But… I can overlook this one issue.

Duality morality needs an enema. The whole Angelic vs. Demonic behavior… in this game it’s “karma”… is the worst metric. The decision I make today has no impact on tomorrow, except through rumor/public opinion. KOTOR. Mass Effect. Oblivion. BioShock. Games should come with a disclaimer of Mother Theresa/Baby Eating Morality.

The fight scenes are not as enjoyable as Dark Space or Half-Life. Environmental manipulation is limited. There’s TONS of things to open up and grab the shit inside… but as soon as you point your mouse at them, you know they are empty… it’s like you’re fucking psychic. So… there’s absolutely NO IMMERSION. Every time you find a medkit, I think, “In a post-apocalyptic world, people are dying everywhere… and this medkit found in the center of a well-populated environment has either been judiciously restocked before I got here OR no one else thought of EVER opening up the medkit.”

Even the Super Duper Mart has everything… and I mean everything… inside.

You know, as I write this review, I’m actually convincing myself I haven’t been having fun playing this fucking game. I’m actually angry with myself because I didn’t realize it until 4 days later. I’ve haven’t been playing a game, I’ve been going through the motions trying to “find the good stuff,” wanting to “find a gem buried in the gameplay” and thinking constantly, “Man, this would be better if…”

Ah! It’s like I’ve been living a Christian life, getting to my death bed and realizing, “SHIT! This heavenly god crap is bollocks!” Bethesda did create a “triple AAA” game. They did maintain most of the themes, gore, and some of the humor. But in short, it’s just not fun.

And once again, I’m dissing on the most popular game on the market wondering why people design, play and buy this shit.

So let me edit my reviewer creds:
Do I intend to finish the game? No, I’m going to go home an uninstall it.

I want more gaming enjoyment, fuckers.

::cool voiceover :: Your name is Isaac Clarke. You’re on a stranded space ship infected by tissue-reanimating monsters. You’re in Dead Space. And all you have is your space suit. And this laser beam. And this time-freezing save-your-ass device. And a gravity gu… it’s not a gravity gun? this kinetic beam that works exactly like a gravity gun. :: end voiceover::

EA’s Dead Space is wonderful, frightening romp of guts, squishy sounds and everything that’s both gross and exciting. In short, it’s worth the price of admission, especially if you can’t wait until 2010 for Half-Life 3.

Here’s my reviewer creds:
Playtime: 9+ hours on medium, 3+ hours on hard
Version: PC (appears to be unpatched)
Resolution: 1600×1048 - so sharp the pixels hurt god’s eyes
Number of Crashes: 2 (but one may have been my fault)
Do I intend to finish the game? Hell, yes!

As Isaac Clarke*, you crash your ship onto a bigger ship and are being chased by freakazoid mutants, being given mission by the freaked-out co-workers who are smarter than you, and you’re trying to find your freaky blond girlfriend in all this mess. In short, you’re simply fucked. So like our favorite every-man, you pick up the nearest crowbar… er, laser thingy, and start showing them you’re not going down without a fight. Because, if you do go down without a fight, there’s no game.

The Positives
My first impression was first, “Holy shit, I don’t think they’re going to pull this off,” fully expecting disappointment. But they - the game designers - did pull it off. And they did it wonderfully. The arenas are fun. The gameplay rocks the adrenal glands and the fear factor gives you the heebie-jeebies. Even the mini-games are well-integrated into both the plot and the game. So what’s really good about this game?

0) The artwork of the cool super-suit. If you’re a fan of Jack Kirby’s artwork… just shut up and buy the game. You’ll LOVE it. Especially when you upgrade. More than half the time, I’m running around playing Orion from the New Gods. The only thing missing is the Boom Tube and Darkseid pronouncing the death to the universe.

1) The death scenes. They are easily some of the funniest things you see in the entire game. And when you do something stupid, well, you pay for it. And pay well. Plus the reload time on my machine and where they restart you is acceptable. Definitely none of this stupid “Too Human” Valkyrie nonsense.

2) The mook introductions - every time a new mook gets put into your sites, it gets a decent introduction - with the exception of the Tall Thin Scarecrows and Pregnant Fat Guys. But then, do you really want to be introduced to a pregnant fat guy?

3) The hint mechanism - on many FPS “do this quest, do that objective” you simply get lost. When PEBKAC shows up, there’s a “hit this button and go do that” mechanism which is not only built into the game mechanics, but the story logic explaining technology which works well for me. Think Google Maps in a Head’s Up Display. All FPS should have this.

4) The good news is that you don’t have to hack doors with your electronics skill.

5) More good news, there’s no fucking ship AI needing circumvention.

6) The story… well, the first part of the story. You see, there’s the religion and it believes you have to die to go to heaven… *eyes glaze over and snore.* Seriously, it’s a decent take on the heaven hypothesis, but frankly, you had me at “stranded on a space ship.” The back story is great, and as you go running around, you’re following the footsteps of others who are doing the same. Once again, we see religious people doing stupid things (because - say it with me, “religious people don’t think”) and causing others to pay for it. One engineer guy, who is figuring most of this out and spoon feeding the info to you through text and voice messages, you actually get a nice emotional payout on, making the game almost transcending.

The One Negative
Which really introduces the one any only complaint. Polish. the difference between a really good game and a great game is polish. EA is notorious for not polishing, and Dead Space is a great example of that. Everything is almost transcendent. Like the two crashes I encountered, or the occasional power-box that refuses to hook up, or the slight lag I experience when walking up ramps or the I-stomped-a-body-and-the-rag-doll-is-sticking-to-me, or why can’t I crouch: it’s almost mind-blowing when an event occurs and you’re like, wow… look that and then… one small niggling thing crops up and frustrates you.

Like the “get to cover” when crossing the starboard side of the ship. No gameplay mechanic was introduced about “cover” in the entire game. There’s no crouching, so why is there this gameplay artifact of… well, it sticks out like a sore thumb. But thank you for the air supply out there facing the right direction. Also, the game gives a decent illusion that you have choices, but I’ve not really tested them thoroughly, so I can’t tell if there’s a duality ending yet. Needless to say, if I get the final battle and have an either/or choice between good and evil… well, I’ll be disappointed.

But here and there… like when you enter the command deck and look out the window, or you remove the glowing green balls, you get a good experience of “If the entire game was like this, this brand will be set for life.”

OK, issue 1.5: the mission hint button is the same location where FPS normally puts a crouch. So, if you instinctively want to crouch during a firefight… well, you just triggered a head’s up display giving the enemy time to take your head off. Yes, I’ve died a couple times due to this.

Issue 1.75: the ambient sounds and music is missing some pizzazz, but it’s not obtrusive to game play - again this is polish. Not design flaw. Not game play is fucked. Polish. This is the reason why Valve takes as long as it does to launch a game.

Character Improvement
I was curious when the first thing I picked up after a weapon gate was money. All I know is that if a vending machine was in my way of getting more bullets to survive - that vending machine would be going down, bitch. Seriously, I know that game designers want to slowly introduce bigger and badder weapons, but the flame thrower sucks, the saw blade ripper sucks… why buy them? I figured contact energy was the same, so I’m saving up for my Level 5 suit.

The customization method is cool, but if you’re going to have these methods, then give the users a little wider choice. And more than one power-puck at the beginning. The game play will not suffer if they have 2 or 3 at the beginning so they could individualize. And for the love of imaginary gods, why do we need upgrade slots that do nothing. Just knock it off already.

Conclusion
Highly recommended for those that like horror and action. If you loved the Half-life series, you’ll enjoy Dead Space. Currently, it’s $44.95 at Outpost.com.

*Isaac Clarke? Isaac Asimov and Arther C. Clarke… nice combo.

David Hayter basically has run afoul with the bloggomeisters. In short, one fantard claiming he’s a journalist has said, Hayter hates his job and thinks his boss is a dick.

In return, Hayter has posted one of the nicest responses I’ve ever seen on the internet. Good to see teh intartubes grow up a bit.

And then Hayter outs himself, which more power to him and his Solid Snake.

In short, this is yet another reason why game journalism, and journalism as a whole, is in trouble. If an ass-tard like Fitch can post a bunch of stuff like this without confirming the story with Hayter personally, then we need another way to verify the mechanisms from which we gather news.

/Yes, I know he was joking. Or maybe he wasn’t. Who knows? I can imagine Gaygamer.net enjoying this one in many ways.

My friends nudged me to read Freakonomics by Stephen D Levitt - which I did by audiobook. Inside, the chapter “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?”, Levitt breaks down how the drug dealing ganglife is little better than working at McDonalds. Recently, Venkatesh has given his two cents on how Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) is - in my words - no better or worse than politicians or cops over at Slate.

What gets to me isn’t his knowledge take on GTA4, but his factual accounting of gang life. To succeed in gang life, people need to rely on friends, and like in business, betray associates when the opportunity arises. His basic approach blows the conventional wisdom out of the water: making money, whether from drugs or burgers, is achieved similarly - coerce others to make money for you - whether it’s by hook, crook or book.

This is rather pessimistic viewpoint, but more importantly, it’s a rational, explainable response that helps us understand our place in a capitalist society.

Recently, a friend of mine dropped me a link to some kinetic typography on Youtube.com: a beautiful rendition of the “What Does Marcellus Wallace look like?” Pulp Fiction scene done completely in moving type. Then of course, I went on my pig-hunting-for-internet-truffles mode and discovered a Fight Club’s Space Monkey scene, more Pulp Fiction shooting Marvin in the head, and the supremely beautiful Singing in the Rain Clockwork Orange style.

Immediately after I wasted a few hours, my mind started wandering how can we make a game of speech and typography? More than a game, but a communication method that allows for both hearing and deaf people (who yell by gesturing with exaggerated moves) to combine type and graphics generated by their actions. Combine the texting message of “kthxbai” with waving hand and an image showing a phone hanging up, but only for a full speech.

Think of it as a Crayon Physics meets Guitar Hero meets KidPix where a player’s actions are translated into a graphical art form, translated in real time.

The game modes would be
- A collaborative and competitive Poetry Slam, where mp3s and scripts are translated into graphical typographical art, and each player adds to the display, where movie scenes can be downloaded onto your xBox.
- One person Freespeak, where voice translations between poets/rappers/debaters (if possible) are translated into typography, and their gestures impact their words.
- Great Speeches, where the words of Martin Luther King Jr or John F Kennedy or Malcomb X are translated into artful works through player’s emotive translations.
- ASL Learner - a basic, medium and advanced method to learn American Sign Language (or any other non-verbal language).

There would need to be a bunch of sensors - hands, fingers and maybe feet for dancing. A standardized interface would need to be used to change fonts and colors during the scenes.

Would it sell a million? Probably not. Would it open people up to doing something fun with computers interactively? Yes, I believe so.

[I hate reviewers that do not specify how far they played. I got to Act 3, with a level 22 Engineer, a level 10 Blademaster, and a level 5 Summoner - four days of nearly 25 hours of game time.]

Four days after buying Hellgate: London, I got to act three. I realized I’ve played this game before. Not only have a played this game, but I understood this game once. The game I remember had a better storyline: simple, fun and understandable. It was called Diablo 2. Now, someone has gone into Diablo, replaced the third-person isomorph with FPS/MMO, changed the names around and who writes this shit? I couldn’t figure out what any of the quest givers was saying.

Getting data about the “plot” is very difficult. Every. fucking. sentence. requires. you. to. click. Oh. Fucking. Kill. Me. Now…. hey, look, an ignore-the-boring-tedium button! Tips for game developers/publishers/writers - if you have to create a “skip this bullshit, what’s the quest?” button, YOU FAIL! If you have the same chat interface as every MMO since 1996 Forum/ICQ, YOU FAIL! If your players cant summarize what the hell they doing in a quest… well, you get the drift.

What blows my mind is that millions of dollars was spent on this game - and some serious hype - and all they came up with is Diablo 2 with a twist.

In a post-apocalyptic game like Hellgate, there needs to be some emotion and humor. Grim, passionate or otherwise. All the palladins, er, “Templars”, are just the same pansy-assed shiny twats with no emotion, no passion, and standard fare. The necromancer… er, “Summoners” are evil, manipulative and we’re-just-lucky-to-have-them-on-our-side… yawn. I remember viscerally about the emotional impact of the cut scenes from Diablo 2 - the emotional impact. The humor in the quests were… for the lack of a better term, “crisp.” They made me smile. Hellgate makes me wince at how poorly the humor has been executed.

Other than a few in-jokes (Wart’s leg), some of the names of items and quests (”Silent but Deadly”), that’s the extent of it. Not only did the dev team take Diablo 2 out of the 3D isomorph, but they took the character archetypes, and then didn’t improve one bit.

What is new are the mini-games and change of play, which is what keeps me going. The “Mini-Game” is basically items dropping from the sky once you kill/do/take damage. In a game where it’s all about the loot, this is a great concept. In a game where you’re fighting in the ruins in one of the world most iconographic cities, where you can see the left overs of two decades of slaughter… eh, not so much. The other minigames are difficult - one, you’re an anti-aircraft gun trying to take down a big… er… balloon? whale? Like a greased over-the-age pornstar, it just sits there and takes it, vomiting herpes every once in a while. The only successful change of game play was “The Cleanser” - where you remove street-herpes by liberally applying purple goop - while it was 5 minutes of game play, and extremely easy, it was fun to just slaughter with no risk to yourself.

OK, I like the game. Sorta. Am I getting my money’s worth? I don’t feel it, emotionally, but I’m still playing… waiting for it to be worth my 50 bucks. I always feel it’s going to get better once I turn around this corner and see… oh, it’s still shit. It’s my own private Hellgate.

As much as I love Civ games, I miss two of them sorely: Master of Orion and Master of Magic. Both of these old Microprose games were the dog’s bollocks. After years of games, nothing’s come close to being a good game and I believe it’s for the same reason. In the old days, you had restrictions on programming that caused the developer to cut out ALL extraneous bullshit.

In Master of Orion, you control a civilization race and attempt to take over the galaxy. The limitation was that the more powerful you got, the more likely an evil race of alien creatures would come and annihilate your colonies, eventually leading to a big confrontation.

Every game since then that has tried to inherit the title has been mired in the depth of reality, not realizing this is a game. Galactic Civilizations over at Stardock is the closest inheritor to Master of Orion, but even so it’s got a 1 ticket to win strategy that many civ games have.

[Hint: throw all the race configuration points into Morale and tax the fuck out of your peeps until money’s coming out your ears. While growing your culture, tech-invest in Planetary Defense and troops. If you break the tech curve, it’s over for the AI races.]

Master of Magic is Civ with mages. Very powerful mages. Sorta like the CCG game only less expensive to win at. Might and Magic is the worse, palest imitator.

Now, with the RTS imitator, there’s no game that will follow behind it. So many players are about the agressive win vs. the long term sandbox, lost in meandering thought games. The market has died.

Sad, sad, sad….