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I am not ashamed to say it: I like books based on video game universes. Reading Fall of Reach was integral to my enjoyment of the story told in the Halo trilogy. So too did having read Revelation bolster my appreciation for what occurred in Mass Effect. My want for Mass Effect 2 after reading the second book, Ascension, could not be greater. I don’t need to see trailers or hear about how the graphics engine and gameplay have been changed for the sequel; I’m invested in the fiction. That is all the hype that I need. I was an understandably easy sell, then, when I heard earlier this year that Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, a novel based on Dragon Age: Origins and written by the game’s lead writer David Gaider, would be released.
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Jonathan Coulton just has too many great songs for him to not be featured multiple times. Last time I rode “Always The Moon” from the ever-growing album The Aftermath, but this week is for the acoustic version of “The Future Soon”, which is from JoCo’s demo album Other Experiments.
Jonathan William Coulton (born December 1, 1970, in Colchester, CT), affectionately known as JoCo to his fans, is a musician best known for the geeky subject matter of many of his songs and the nontraditional licensing and distribution of his music. His most prominent accomplishments include his Thing a Week project and his songs Code Monkey, Still Alive, Skullcrusher Mountain, and The Future Soon. Jonathan is largely associated with the folk rock genre, though he occasionally experiments with other styles. Jonathan’s primary instrument is the guitar, but he also plays each other instrument in most of his recorded songs.
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The La Mirada, California-born YTCracker is a former hacker-turned-rapper and is now one of the most prominent artists representing the Nerdcore Rap genre. This week’s Audiosurfing track was generated using “Meganerd”, a song from YTCracker’s free album Nerdrap Entertainment System.
Bryce Case, Jr. (b. August 23, 1982), otherwise known as YTCracker (pronounced “whitey cracker”), is a rapper, former cracker, and Internet entrepreneur. YTCracker began producing rap music in 1998 in the genre that has since become known as nerdcore hip hop. YTCracker is a self-proclaimed “jack of all trades”, also making a name for himself as a professional disc jockey, computer programmer, graphics designer and webmaster.
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I thought I’d kick off June with the appropriately titled “June (I Hate This Month)” from Los Angeles-based artist Monk Turner’s Calendar album, where he’s written and recorded a song for every month of the year. As a self-described “Concept Artist,” Monk Turner makes all of his music freely available under Creative Commons via Archive.org’s Open Source Audio repository.
“With Creative Commons licenses, I have the ability to distribute albums freely to anyone in the world without the need for a distributor and without worrying that someone could be using the songs outside of their intended purpose. I couldn’t do what I do without Creative Commons.” — Monk Turner
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While I always enjoyed swinging with a mouse instead of a toggle stick, the PC versions of Tiger Woods were getting the shaft on features for a few years. I’m very glad to see that Tiger’s coming back in such a “PC” way.
A very interesting development. This is no doubt to cater more to the console audience, as the Sam & Max games have been appearing places like XBLA and WiiWare. But as I recently expressed in my Broken Sword 3 post, I’m not married to the point-and-click control scheme in adventure games, as long as the alternative is well implemented. I’m not gonna lie, I do enjoy leaning back in my desk chair with a gamepad from time to time, when playing an appropriate game.
Dude, E3!!
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Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon is the third entry in Revolution Software’s adventure game series. The Sleeping Dragon was released for the PC, Xbox and Playstation 2 (EU/JP) in 2003 and it marked the franchise’s first venture into 3D as opposed to using 2D sprites.
Though the same whimsical spirit familiar to players of the previous entries of the Broken Sword series is present in The Sleeping Dragon, certain gameplay aspects differ greatly when played on PC, mostly due to the fact that it was designed with gamepads in mind. This is not a 2D point-and-click game as the previously-featured Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror is. Rather, players control the 3D incarnations of George Stobbart and Nico Collard using arrow keys for movement and WASD to interact with other characters and the environment; the mouse doesn’t even come into play. Regardless of this deviation from convention, Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon has just as much of what fans have come to love from the series in the way of interesting puzzles, quirky characters, humorous dialogue and a great cast of voice actors. Except Beatrice; she’s fired.
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Death to retail! This kind of problem could be fixed within hours or days, and for a lot less money, if all games were attached to digital distribution platforms like Impulse or Steam. Not that this particular issue affected the digitally distributed versions in the first place.
So Demigod had some problems. I canceled my pre-order a few days before release, so I haven’t experienced them, but they don’t sound fun. Gotta say, though, I don’t think I could be upset for long with how candid Stardock has been about the issues and their efforts to correct them.
Of course it is.
Radashay!