Wayne Santos

Still Writing

The last of the GameAxis articles for the month should be done over the weekend. Other than that, it's business as usual, meaning for Rock Band. Earlier in the day the Wife and were playing what might have been another couple, although towards the end, they went insane and selected Green Grass & High Tides by the Outlaws, which is the Rock Band equivalent of Freebird, and considerably, CONSIDERABLY harder, weighing in at nearly 10 minutes in length with fret work that makes Freebird look like a ham-fisted child trying to thread a needle with mittens on. It was a bit of a surprise, because up until this point, the people we'd been playing with had their guitarist playing entirely on Hard, and I was more than fine with that, until they selected Coheed and Cambria's Welcome Home and I finally decided to play guitar instead of bass, but on Expert. After that, we jumped straight in Green Grass, and, knowing there was no way in hell I was going to finish this song, I went back to bass. The guitarist took it instead, and then bumped it up to Expert, which was suicidal madness.

In the end, the song was passed, just barely, and only because I started hoarding star power like crazy and constantly deploying it to save the guitarist as she struggled through the incredibly vicious solos in the song. In the beginning it was fine, because the drummer, her partner, was also bailing her out, and the Wife was also doing her part, but when it got to the killer second solo, even the drummer was struggling, the Wife wasn't singing and thus couldn't deploy her Star Power, and so it was up to me to keep activating Star Power as quickly as I could get it for the duration of the nearly 5 minute end solo and keep her in the game. In the end, we survived, although after that they kept choosing songs where she kept playing at Expert level and I kept having to bail her out. Eventually they tired themselves out and broke up the session, but at least the Wife got her wish and finally saw the song completed on Expert. Sort of.

Anyone interested in seeing what kind of finger-y insanity is called for with this song can watch this impressive video by someone who plays much better than I currently do, since I still can't finish this song yet.

Labels: Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/07/2007 11:55:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, December 06, 2007

More Articles

It's that time of the month again, as I sweat out some articles for GameAxis, so not much to talk about. Rock Band continues to dominate the TV set on a nightly basis, and it seems we've found another pair of folks to play with. They play on Guitar and Drums on Expert, and although none of us is perfect at the instruments, there's a level of proficiency that gets pretty exhilarating when everyone is jamming together and long streaks of perfect playing start to erupt. In fact, it got to the point where we played one song Coheed & Cambria's Welcome Home and we actually "gold starred" the damn thing, meaning that everyone was playing nearly perfectly and timed our use of "star power" (dubbed "overdrive" in the game) so well that we crossed the critical 120% threshold that separates a 5-star song from its coveted gold star cousin.

Immediately after there was a request to start an online band, but sadly such a thing isn't possible on Rock Band just yet, as only "local" bands are allowed, ie, real people in the room with you.

Still it's nice playing with that pair. The Wife and I enjoy playing online with just about anyone, we're not one of those types that kick people out just because they want to play guitar or drums on Easy or Medium. But we've begun to see certain patterns of behavior emerge in the online community of Rock Band. One of course, is the previously mentioned "when they see a vocalist is a female avatar, they automatically jump to I'm So Sick for a XX chromosomal verification test." The other is that invariably, nearly every group will select Enter Sandman. Another consistent pattern we've been noticing is that people tend to not take failure very well. Rock Band allows people to fail out twice and be rescued by other band-mates, but it always seems like whenever someone fails, they usually leave the group after it happens.

But probably the most interesting behavior we've been seeing has been one of skill level. When we get into a group, if the others are playing at Easy or Medium, and we select Expert, quite often, after the song is over, the Leader will either disband the group, or if we're the lead console, the Easy/Medium players will leave. However, we've learned to curb this by waiting a few moments to see what difficulty level the other players choose. And then after they've made their choice, we match it. It's gotten to the point now where it's pretty easy to recognize an Expert level player, because they'll wait first to see what skill level the other people choose. If 5 seconds goes by with no one choosing anything, invariably, everyone dives into Expert. It's an odd sort of culture of players that's popping up in Rock Band, but it's a fun one. We just have to get the hang of the etiquette.

Labels: Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/06/2007 11:57:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

No Limb Independence

I actually managed to get a little work done today for the new stuff for my agent, so guilt was not an issue. On the other hand, my right leg is now sore from entirely too long a session playing Rock Band with the drums. The good news is Easy and Medium are now done, although it was kind of touch and go towards the end of Medium. Part of the problem, especially for songs I knew pretty well was the old Guitar Hero problem of "phantom notes" where I knew drum beat should come in, and I'd try and hit it, which registered as false on the easier, more simplified note charts of these easier levels. But when I tried a song on Hard, I actually found it was somehow easier, and then, in a fit of insanity, jumped straight into Expert and actually managed to survive the first songs in as well, which surprised the hell out of me, considering the first time I tried I Think I'm Paranoid, I got shut out half-way through when I first foolishly took it on upon first booting up the game.

As to be expected, the big trick to surviving the later levels is going to be getting better limb independence. One of the big things screwing me up right now is the fact that my hands and feet want to act at the same time, so, if I need to hit the kick pedal twice, but only have to whack at the high hat once during that double kick, my hand wants to knock at the high hat twice as well. It's gonna' take some doing, but I think I can manage it. I don't have any aspirations to become a drummer, but the motivation to actually play and survive Expert is there. Like with Guitar Hero, once you get to playing at the Hard and Expert levels and are banging away pretty much note for note, suddenly, the game takes on a whole new level of fun. Especially with songs I know well and really like. I'm particularly motivated to try and get Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs down. That's got a whacky, fun drum beat that only really comes into its own in Expert.

Oh well. All in good time.

Labels: Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/28/2007 11:10:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, November 17, 2007

More Typing

Still have not finished retyping out all the things I need to and bringing them over to my desktop computer, but hopefully that will be done today. We are now officially keeping farmer's hours, having gone to bed at a little after 7 pm, and having a proper farmer's breakfast at 5 am. Getting to the airport on time on Tuesday morning is not looking like it's going to be a problem. Staying up past 9 pm however...

And now, back to Rock Band.

Strange whacky news has been ensuing over the weekend. Canadians in particular are now in the middle of a tug of war of confusion as local retailers (or at least some of them) have changed their sale date for the game YET AGAIN, only now they're putting it back to November 20th, while others are still keeping their sale date to December 17th, causing many panicked, hardcore music game fans to cancel local pre-orders, pay ridiculous amounts of money to get it shipped from the USA (or worse yet, take a huge risk on buying out eBay pre-orders) and then canceling THOSE orders once again as the news from retailers shifts back to November 20th. In short, many Canadians are now exhausted with financially and mentally with having to keep up with the merry go round of shifting dates.

Also, some of those lucky Americans that took advantage of the stupidity of some retailers and got the game early were purchasers of the PS3 version. So far the news coming from them is ALL BAD. For starters, people that bought Guitar Hero III solely for the purpose of having a bass guitar for Rock Band may in fact be totally screwed. Early reports are that the GHIII guitar DOES NOT work with Rock Band after all, despite earlier assurances from Harmonix that it would. There are also reports surfacing that yes, for people that own Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's, you will, in fact, have to keep that PS2 around. The new Fender Strat controller still won't work with those games. Oh well, I guess Sony manages to keep the PS2 alive a little bit longer with this move. Probably means that some point when my current PS2 dies, I'll have to go out and buy another one just to keep playing my old Guitar Hero games.

As Rock Band moves closer and closer to release date (THREE DAYS!), I also find myself getting more than a little annoyed at the ignorance a lot of gamers display. But then most gamers play simply to enjoy and don't follow the ups and downs of the industry. Nevertheless, I still find frustrating in the extreme when I see people looking at Rock Band and dismissively saying, "I can't believe how pathetic these guys are, they just ripped off the creators of Guitar Hero! Bastards!" And then drop amazing comments like refusing to buy the game, because they want to support the makers of Guitar Hero and not be traitors to the brand.

I really, really, REALLY hope that somewhere on the Rock Band box is a sticker or something that says, loudly and clearly, "FROM THE MAKERS OF GUITAR HERO," because it strikes me as intensely unfair that people would punish Harmonix for being brave enough to try and evolve, and support Neversoft, who took the series AWAY from the creators, and turned it into an ugly, deeply flawed, commercial venture that succeeds because of what Harmonix laid out previously, not because of the silly new additions Neversoft made to it in an effort to destroy the music playing experience--I still don't understand why they hate the idea of letting players feel like they're playing music so much--and make it feel more like a videogame that involves beating someone else rather than simply bettering your own skills. Why Activision thought it would be a good idea to give the series to a company that hates music so much and believes the only "legitimate gaming goodness" in the world comes from beating an opponent into submission is beyond me.

And finally, here's a video, taken from the Harmonix website that shows off the performance animation for the characters in Rock Band. Harmonix took out all the play-meters and just left the background game engine intact so viewers could see the characters at work.

Labels: Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/17/2007 11:59:00 PM 2 comments

Dead Platforms

A minor--but by no means insurmountable, though extremely annoying--hitch has occurred in what I thought was going to be a straightforward task. One of the things that my agent is asking for to keep my material updated is the original synopses I wrote for the earlier novels. Unfortunately, those synopses are not on the current computer, and were scattered across two old laptops that I'd used during my time in Singapore. The first and older, was a badly manufactured local product with broken hinges on the monitor (meaning it could no longer stand on its own power and needed the screen to be rested against something behind it, like a stack of phone books). The other was the laptop I moved onto after the first started to fall apart.

The problem was trying to get said files off of these two laptops.

In the case of the first laptop, the broken monitor hinge had also cut the wires that connected the monitor's power to the laptop. It still worked, but ONLY if the angle of the monitor were adjusted to some arbitrary degree that the wires would properly connect and the monitor would work. Once I'd managed to achieve that, I tried transferring the files off by use of a 3 1/2 disk (you remember those, I'm sure...) except that, to my horror, I found that the disk drive no longer worked. It whirred, gurgled and made all kinds of interesting mechanical noises, but it failed to be detected by the computer, let alone format a disc for use.

In the case of the second laptop, it still worked as well, but, being slimmer and designed for portability, its 3 1/2 disc drive was external. I plugged that in, and it too failed to work. Both of these laptops were manufactured a few years before USB ports became standard features in computers, so I can't even just plug in a USB flash memory card and transfer the data off that way.

Which leaves me with the old school solution; I dragged out my most recent laptop, which DOES have USB ports built in, set up beside the first laptop which, after much fiddling, I managed to get working with its screen, and then, for fear of losing the "magic," left it exactly where it was and broke out the newer laptop to use those touch typing skills I somehow had the foresight to pick up in high school (I figured at the time if I was going to be a writer, I should learn how to type. Probably the last time I ever used logic in my life) and managed to re-type my synopsis for my first novel.

Now I am going to do the same for the second today, and spend the rest of the time tidying up all this new stuff I have to give the agent, including my new blurb, reflecting my married status, new home in Toronto and--although it's still a few days from now--by dedication to Rock Band.

Oh hey, what a segue! SPEAKING OF ROCK BAND...

IGN has now released the first online review of the game. It's a bit weird how they approached it. First, they have different individuals that chose to specialize in different instruments give their take on each one, and then a final review of the game itself is given, totaling up an impressive six pages. This in itself is not what I find to be the weird part. I suspect that there may have been fears of being accused of being Harmonix fanboys, since they spend the majority of the six pages concentrating primarily on the flaws of the game. For every single instrument and for the game in general, they talk about what really bothers them about the game, and what potential pitfalls gamers face when they pick it up. They make almost sound like they don't like the game very much... and then they give it a 9.4, decisively beating Guitar Hero III which, in their reviews, they had nothing but good things to say about, and, if their write-up is to be believed, was a very nearly flawless game which they gave an 8.9 to.

This is not to say that they bash Rock Band out of all reason, they obviously don't, they have a great deal of love for the game. But I suppose that because the game is fairly expensive, and because some of their comments are based on the pre-production controllers they got (they weren't big fans of the new guitar) they decided it would best to say "trust us, the game is good," and then get the relevant concerns out that people who have to drop the dollars might want to know about since it's a much heavier investment than a typical game.

They have also posted a video review which takes much the same tack as their written review, although the lack of score makes it out to seem like they don't quite like the game as much as their final score would indicate.

Labels: Games, Novel Writing, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/17/2007 05:41:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, November 15, 2007

More Writing Stuff

I have to sift through old laptops and go searching for files that have been scattered willy nilly in the wake of two hard drive crashes in as many years for manuscript files, plot synopses and other assorted Writerly PR things. I got an e-mail from my agent asking to update all my stuff, and to send him digital copies of all the previous books since a lot of publishers have apparently realized that the 21st century occurred and are now finally embracing digital formats for novels. I don't know whether that means he actually has any publishers requesting to see the files, but still, who am I to argue? I also have to update my blurb on his website, since the last time I submitted it, I was a) in Singapore b) incredibly bitter and c) not remotely married. All these things have dramatically changed in the time since I wrote it, so I need to get on that. Oh, and finish that kid's novel I'm working on.

And... just because you didn't possibly think you'd get a post out of me without seeing something Rock Band related--FIVE DAYS! YEEEEEES!--here's a video side-by-side comparison of songs that appear on both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, but played on Hard. For some reason, Games Radar, the creators of the video, then made a bizarre leap of logic, saying that GHIII's hard was equivalent to GHII's Expert, and that RB's Expert was equal to GHII's Hard. I'm not entirely sure how you make that leap of logic when you play both games on Hard, and then arbitrarily make a decision about one game's hard level based on playing it, then another about the other game's Expert level WITHOUT playing it, but oh well...

Labels: Novel Writing, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/15/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Strange Days

Having just woken up before midnight, there's barely anything to talk about at all. Before bed, coffee was purchased at a local shop in the neighborhood, some of the children's novel was written, that's about it, really.

And, to keep the Rock Band fever going, here's a quick video of some of the venues that players will find themselves performing in...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Lost In Loveless, Novel Writing, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/11/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Quiet. Occupied

Finished off the GameAxis articles for the month, and started on some stuff for the kid's comic. In an effort to keep the momentum going (just a little over two weeks now!) here is a video of songs that appear in Rock Band. It's not quite up to date, but it still covers the majority.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/04/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Another Boring Day

Wrote articles. Did some shopping in the neighborhood. Downloaded new stuff off the Playstation Store. Oh, and I forgot to mention the Wife bought this for herself yesterday:

For people that don't know their Final Fantasy-lore, the creature on the left is known as a "Tonberry." It is a cute little lizard thing that wields a tiny butcher's knife. This seemingly harmless creature is the bane of any encounter in a FF game simply because it has an obscene number of hit points (think 9999) and slowly advances towards you with each turn as you try in panicked fashion to pummel it. If it should manage to get within striking distance of your character, it pokes you with that little knife which means instant death. It is the Wife's favorite FF monster. She could not resist when she saw this, and bought it a funky vintage gaming store on Bloor and Spadina. I think she scored major points for a) being a girl and b) being a girl that actually KNEW what this was...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/01/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Another Low Grade Work Day

Finished up a comic script, started on another article for GameAxis. That's about it...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Comics, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/30/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 29, 2007

One Of Those Quiet Days

Not much happening except the completion of an article, start of a small script for a short comic strip, and some hope for the Blu-Ray format that Warner Brothers might defect, which, if it were to occur, would pretty much end the format war. Oh and Guitar Hero III is suffering from a large number of defective guitar reports. Karma against Activision for attempting to kill the Soul of Rock continues and I'm shamefully enjoying it.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Guitar Hero, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/29/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Fighting For Reasonable Wakefulness

Today we took a stand against advancing sleeping hours and actually tried getting up earlier, which was mostly successful. We might even try something similar today 'cause we're Just That Wild N' Crazy.

Once again, writing continues. I finished up an article for IGN which I'll be sending them tomorrow, and sent off my resume to GamePro, who, it turns out, are looking for Freelancers. So I dropped them a line, showed off some links with GameAxis and IGN and will see if they bite. It would be nice to do even MORE game writing, since this will feed my bottomless habit of questing for game knowledge and bitching about games on the internet anyway...

Speaking of games, once again, I continue my love affair with Rock Band. Here's the latest list of songs, with songs in bold being original master tracks.

"Are You Gonna Be My Girl" - Jet
"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
"Blitzkrieg Bop" - Ramones
"Brainpower" - Freezepop
"Celebrity Skin" - Hole
"Cherub Rock" - Smashing Pumpkins
"Creep" - Radiohead
"Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Detroit Rock City" - Kiss
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult
"Enter Sandman" - Metallica
"Epic" - Faith No More
"Gimme Shelter" - Rolling Stones
"Go with the Flow" - Queens of the Stone Age
"The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
"Here It Goes Again" - OK Go
"Highway Star" - Deep Purple
"I Think I'm Paranoid" - Garbage
"In Bloom" - Nirvana
"Learn to Fly" - Foo Fighters
"Main Offender" - The Hives
"Maps" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Mississippi Queen" - Mountain
"Orange Crush" - R.E.M.
"Paranoid" - Black Sabbath
"Reptilia" - The Strokes
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
"Say It Ain't So" - Weezer
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" - The Clash
"Suffragette City" - David Bowie
"Tom Sawyer" - Rush
"Vasoline" - Stone Temple Pilots
"Wanted Dead or Alive" - Bon Jovi
"Wave of Mutilation" - Pixies
"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who

I'm particularly happy about Gimme Shelter being on there. The Stones. Yeah. And only three covers so far, not too shabby at all. Bring it on. And now, back to that children's novel.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/21/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Very Dislocated Saturday

Sleeping/Waking hours continue to be nomadic, meaning that days begin now with only a little bit of sunlight left. It's just a quiet day, with a little bit of writing going on anyway.

And, on a totally unrelated note, here's a little medley of tunes from Rock Band. The animation on each of these randomly created musicians is amazing, and the way the lights and the audience go crazy when you really nail the song is one step closer to really making you feel like a God O' Rock. But probably the most amazing thing? It's hard to hear in this YouTube video which has a lower sampling rate for the sound, but the higher res version of this video, downloadable here, shows off one of the COOLEST things about this game; for the Foo Fighters song, "Learning to Fly" when the guitarist nails the song, THE CROWD SINGS ALONG! OH MY GOD, THIS GAME IS SOOOOOO COOOOOOOOL.

I need this game...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/20/2007 11:59:00 PM 2 comments

Friday, October 19, 2007

Anniversary Tonkatsu

Today was spent in a remarkably Japanese way. Never mind the fact that we woke up at our usual obscenely late hour that would probably have qualified as morning in Japan anyway, the Wife decided that since we'd been satisfying many of her Asiatic cravings (such as proper Dim Sum) It was now time to do the same for me. Although I don't actually many Asian cuisine cravings, one thing in particular I developed a fondness for in Singapore was a dish known as Tonkatsu Curry, which is essentially breaded, deep fried pork cutlet with rice and some of that unique Japanese curry that does NOT kill my tongue for hours afterwards the way normal Singapore spices do. Back in Singapore, there was a little restaurant in the basement of the big Japanese department store Takashimaya, and they happened to have Tonkatsu Curry as their house specialty, offering it both as a dish with rice and as a sandwich. It was VERY tasty, and I'd obviously not had any of it since coming back to Canada. It turned out that further into the downtown core was a restaurant that had Tonkatsu, and they even offered Japanese curry as a side order, it just never occurred to them that this particular combination was, in fact, an actual dish in Japan. So though they were mighty confused about my wanting both, when we arrived, they did indeed serve it to us. It wasn't as good as the stuff in Singapore, but then you have to make allowances when you eat Asian food in the West.

Other than that, the Japanese theme continued with playing some Gran Turismo Prologue (now that the demo for this game is finally available in Japan; thank you internet, and thank you Sony Playstation Store dummy account) and it's good. And HARD. It would probably help if I had a steering wheel, but we'll worry about some other day.

The only other thing of note is that I finally have an IGN article out that you don't have to be subscribed to IGN Insider in order to read. Whoo hoo, I'm finally in the free, "normal, mainstream content" channel. The article is essentially just my impressions after finally getting a chance to play Rock Band on the Playstation 3, a particular concern for me since I obviously have one, and I wanted to see whether or not the game was going to be butchered on the PS3 the way Guitar Hero III has been (it looks like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get, Neversoft/Activision have pretty much given The Finger to owners of Sony consoles past and present) and it turns out... IT'S NOT! Whoo hoo, Harmonix still has a place of respect and affection in their hearts for Sony consoles, so I was relieved when I tried it... and it didn't suck.

The full article is here.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Icky Couple Stuff, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/19/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

More Work

Finished off a GameAxis review, wrote a bit of Lost In Loveless, that's about it...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Lost In Loveless, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/16/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 15, 2007

Another Quiet Day

Aside from starting on another IGN article, all that occurred was messing around with a demo for some Japanese horror game (which still managed to creep me out despite the fact that I had no idea what was going on) and bought some donuts. Yup, exciting stuff...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/15/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Sunday At Home

Wrote a bit more of an IGN article, did a bit of shopping, and talked extensively with the Wife about an idea for a new book. But not fiction. This could be interesting, but it's going to take a little more thinking (and begging and pleading a lot of people in the gaming industry) to really take off.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/14/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Saturday The 13th

Just another quiet--albeit noticeably more chilly outside--Saturday. The Upstairs Neighbor came down to hang out, play a little Skate and decide he wants to come back when he's got several more free hours to play A LOT of Skate, and a little bit of re-watching of Battlestar Galactica (the pilot) occurred, and some writing of the children's novel. Yes, I actually wrote a little of it today. Not saying I'm completely back on track, but I'm going to try to be more regular about it in the weeks to come and at least write my way back to what was lost in the hard drive crash a few months ago.

Also for completely gratuitous reasons, here's a video that only means something to people that have played Final Fantasy X-2 and the Dead or Alive series of fighters. Done by one geek with a lot of time and talent to burn:

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Lost In Loveless, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/13/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, October 05, 2007

Taking It Easy

Friday was yet another quiet day, with the exception some busy-ness on the freelance front. First, after the interview with Jonathan Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter--and that interview isn't up on IGN just yet, but probably by next week--I got the obligatory heads up from Sony Canada. It's funny how when you say "I'm with IGN," that just blows the doors wide open on access to anything in the game industry. I could really get used to this after all the "I'm with GameAxis," lines which were inevitably replied to with "Game-wha?"

Anyway, the point of this, is the heads up that I was given was an invite--presumably for the media only--to a much bigger Sony Media Day that's going to be held at some swanky, restored concert hall that had its heyday in the 30's deco period, and has been renovated back to its former, pre-WWII glory. Not knowing whether this was going to be a big deal or not, I threw the invite back at IGN and asked them if they'd be interested in once again having a "Canadian correspondent" pick up some slack on their behalf since none of them are crazy enough to live in the Great White North. It turns that they're VERY interested, and so I will be going to this event on Wednesday. However, considering how many games there are on hand, it's going to be a bit busy what with all the questions, playing games (and getting kicked off Rock Band. Again...) and making sure I get all the details, so it's going to be hard for me to do all that and get some pictures. Fortunately, I have already cleared it with Sony Canada and they have allowed me to bring a guest, so The Wife will be attending to gawk at the geekiness, and take pictures since she knows how to use the camera way better than I do. This frees me up to tackle the games and ask questions without worrying about whether I got the shot or not.

Gonna' be an interesting Wednesday. Looking forward to it.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/05/2007 11:20:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Nearly Done

Just putting the finishing touches the last of the GameAxis articles for this month. And, of course, now conducting my weekly ritual of checking the Playstation Store online to see what new goodies are available. So far, nothing too hot...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/04/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 01, 2007

Shorter Days & Lagging Memory

A quiet Monday where all that occurred was rent was paid at the last minute, articles were written at the last minute and Skate was copiously played. Gettin' real hard now, that game is. But MAN is it fun...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/01/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Surviving The Reading

In the end, the Wife didn't have to read the book. She did have to go, and she did have to talk about it, but since she'd been written up as an illustrator, they were more interested in having her draw something, so the bulk of her talk was showing off the pictures in the book, briefly summarizing the plot, and showing the kids how she penciled and inked something.

And now, back to Skate.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/29/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, September 28, 2007

Another Humdrum Friday

Interviews were transcribed, Skate was played--or more precisely, subjected to one grievous injury after another, and not much else. The Wife is now getting ready for her first reading tomorrow morning of this:

It's the children's book she illustrated. She's going to go down to the library to read it to an audience of children.

In the meantime, it's back to more bodily abuse...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/28/2007 11:08:00 PM 1 comments

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Broken Bones & San Vanelona

I started transcribing today which is, of course, No Fun At All. I love interviews, and I love big, meaty answers with substance, and I got that from yesterday's interview, but of course, it means a lot rewinding, relistening and retyping, since I'm one those journalists that rips out a digital recorder, puts it on the table and then just lets the guy GO. This, obviously, means a LOT of answer to get through. But it'll be worth it.

But now let's talk about the game to the left, Skate, developed by Black Box in Burnaby, BC, owned by, of all people, Electronic Arts, the Company That Can Do No Good. Except that miraculously, this time, somehow, against all my expectation, they have made something very good.

The story behind my sudden enthusiasm is a lesson in hype. Recently on the Playstation Store, free demos of both the latest Tony Hawk game, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and this game were made available. I downloaded both of course, but immediately started up the Hawk game, remembering how much fun I'd had with the first two, then recalling with minor sadness the gradual downward spiral the series had experienced over the years, getting needlessly complicated and clumsy to the point where I just ignored it. I thought maybe they might have recovered.

What greeted me upon trying that demo was a dark, gritty, somehow mean-spirited demo that calculatingly portrayed skaters as rebels fighting for freedom on the streets. It was an obvious, shallow attempt to "celebrate" skating as a cool, anti-authoritarian, completely non-commercial movement, that just happened to be filled with some of the big names in skating, and the now traditional, almost clunky Tony Hawk control system that hasn't changed too drastically in the 8 years the game has been out, except to become even more ornate and unwieldy. A dark, gritty, New York-esque, crumbling sprawl from out of a decaying 80's is what greeted me, with hard-nosed gangs of skaters that fought for territory and even each other as they struggled to "Skate because they couldn't do anything else." Throughout the entire demo, I kept getting the nagging suspicion that someone was whispering to me, "This is cool, this is anti-establishment, this rebellion, JUST LIKE YOU, brought you to by Activision. Activision, purveyors of fine software for cool kids, just $59.99 at a store near you." It smacked of an incredibly obvious attempt to be "commercially subversive," and I kind of resented it. It didn't help that the game itself was just as Not Fun as I'd remembered previous versions that followed in the wake of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Then thinking I was going to end up deleting the demo within minutes--'cause let's be fair, this is ELECTRONIC FREAKIN' ARTS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, MERCHANTS OF SWILL--I booted up Skate, confident in my expectations that this was going to be an even more incompetent, badly conceived, clumsily executed, poor man's rip off of the Tony Hawk games.

I was so damn wrong it's not even funny.

I went into this game with zero expectations. Actually that's a lie, I went in with full on NEGATIVE expectations, I was already hating it from the moment I saw that "EA HD" logo on the screen, because that logo has already become synonymous with unoriginal crap destined to be recycled for the next 20 years and people will STILL buy it.

Skate wasn't that. It wasn't anything remotely like that. I played the demo. The control system was new, fresh, fun and brilliant. It was one of those moments where you lay your hands on the controls, see how they've done it, and question "Why in God's name have we never done it like this BEFORE?!" Somehow, Black Box pulled a Guitar Hero in that, despite the fact that is obviously NOT the real thing, they have managed to create a control system that mimics to a certain degree some of the basic mechanics of skating. When you want to crouch, you pull back on the right analog stick, to jump, just flick it up. To jump to the right, flick up from that couch slightly to the right. None of this hit "X" to auto-skate/crouch, and then release to ollie followed by steering the left stick around to maneuver in the air. Suddenly, just like a real skater, when you were in the air, the only thing standing between you and a bail was your own skill, a little luck and gravity.

Also, the demo took place in a sunny, fictional, California city called San Vanelona, a combination of San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona. It was a bright, beautiful town, perpetually drenched in sunset light, and it looked the kind of place you'd actually want to live. It was also, unsurprisingly, filled to the gills with advertising from actual skate companies and Adidas, who are major brand sponsors, and yet, somehow, because this is EA, I expected no less and it didn't bother me; they, at least, were being honest with their crassness.

I played the demo, enjoyed the controls, played some more, and somehow ended up playing that demo every single day. This was the first time since I'd started messing around with Playstation Store demos that the intended purpose of the demo worked; instead of me playing through it thinking "Glad that showed me what a stinker THAT title is," I was hungry for more. I saw the gates locking me into the skate park with that whole town outside, and I wanted to explore it.

So when the game went on sale, on the same day as Halo 3, I surprised the EB Games clerks by buying Skate instead of The Big One, since they had lines of people wanting that.

Since then, I've been enjoying the game like no one's business. The Wife loves it because she finds the constant abuse of the skater (which looks painful in the EXTREME) to be a source of never-ending hilarity. She's actually cried tears of laughter at some of the accidents I've gotten my poor bastard skater into, and feels that so far this is one of the best purchases we've made based on sheer entertainment value for viewers.

I myself am really digging the game for a variety of the reasons. There's that control I mentioned before, but there's also the fact that unlike Tony Hawk they've really toned it down, and brought the game more to the level of a simulation. Tony Hawk games had gotten to the point where skaters were routinely grinding across an entire series of rooftops before careening off at sonic speed to bounce of flagpoles and eventually the tips of skyscrapers. In other words, Tony Hawk games had turned skate games into a ridiculously exaggerated parody of the sport. Skate made something as basic as grinding off a stair handrail difficult and just aiming for it, doing your ollie and STAYING on it was a major accomplishment in and of itself.

On top of that, there is an AMAZING online component to this game. You can play modes where you simply have a time-limit and try to score the highest within that amounted time by doing tricks, you can play with others at a designated spot, battling to see how can pull off the stunt at a dangerous location, or you can race to see who gets to a certain position first. You can play "ranked servers" in that your accomplishments go towards determining your overall score within the entire Skate community, or you can create your own "unranked server" to just mess around with friends.

But what I really love about this game is the built in video-editor. Skate is constantly caching roughly the last 30 seconds of whatever you're doing, so that if you pull off a spectacular grind, or an even more spectacular accident, you immediately jump into "replay mode" and choose the exact length of your "skate clip" choose camera angles, drop in effects like B&W or sepia tones, change the speed for slow motion at critical junctures, and save your video. Then, at the press of a button, you can upload your video for the entire Skate community to see. In just a few short days I've seen some AMAZING tricks viewed directly from an in-game menu that connects you to the internet. It even has a feature called "SkateTV" where you can check into other games as a spectator, and see how other people are doing real-time, or even check in to see what the currently highest ranked skater who happens to be online is playing at that very moment, to see how he does it live.

The game's not perfect, obviously. You can't do handplants, a glaring omission, and for some reason, in character creation, you're stuck with a male, they decided that girls don't skate. Another irritating point is that you're stuck to your board, so if you see a flight of stairs, you can't simply get off your board and climb them, you either go looking for a ramp, or get up enough speed to ollie over them.

But these are minor issues, and, as horrified as I am to say this, you can bet that Electronic Arts will address them.

In the inevitable sequel.

Which I now know I will get.

If I had to review this game--which I'm actually kind of now regretting I didn't get the chance to--I'd give it an 8.5 The game is a jewel with a few rough spots here and there that is already fun to play, but shows immense promise for a sequel. But I'm going to stop writing now so I can get back to playing. The Wife is cruising around San Vanelona right now on my behalf, looking for a gnarly ramp...

Labels: Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/27/2007 11:22:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Journalist Day

We're almost back to normal human being hours, in that this time we got up at around the same time farmers normally do. Had a fairly productive day in that I went down to the Toronto HQ of Sony and was offered orange juice, bottled water and an obscene amount of food. Sadly, no games were offered, but I suppose that would fall under a compromise of journalistic integrity.

Can't talk too much about what happened, suffice to say that I now have to transcribe a 38 minute interview with the guy who created this:

And now I'm going to face plant a few more cars...

Also, the Wife has been so tickled by the various crippling mutilations I've subjected my character to in Skate that she was prompted to create this:

In short, I still suck.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/26/2007 11:46:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Cheating Time Travel Post

It's not actually the end of the day chronologically speaking, but the body clock says it is now Officially Late and so the post time on this blog post reflects that. First, I have now ranted ad nauseum about my take on the Games As Art debate with a truly monstrous essay that crossed the seven page mark when written in MS Word. The rant, however, is not on GameAxis, or even IGN, and instead is now gracing the blog of Ragnar Tornquist, a recent buddy of mine and creator of The Longest Journey and The Longest Journey: Dreamfall. Anyone who's curious to read this thing--and you do so at your own peril--can find it here.

Also, it looks like there is an interview with a truly interesting and new game developer on Wednesday, and tomorrow, fates willing (and mobs of Halo fans notwithstanding) I will pass through the hordes of Xbox 360 fans desperate to "finish the fight" with this:

Labels: Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/24/2007 11:52:00 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Another Boring Tuesday

Today was spent with a little bit of Persona 3, a lot of writing an IGN article, a little bit of watching Superman Returns--which STILL kicks ass to me--and some shopping around the neighborhood. Not much going on today, but tomorrow, if no trucks laden with precious gaming get overturned on their way to various game stores:

Labels: Games, Journalism, Movies, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/11/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, September 07, 2007

What Do You Do When You're As Boring As I Am?

You write outlines for animated TV show episodes and watch your spouse take a bunch of high school kids and repeatedly shoot themselves in the head to summon demons to fight in a giant supernatural tower that sits atop their school during a "hidden moment" called the Dark Hour that rests between 11:59 and midnight.

Oh well...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/07/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Day Of Errands

Just another quiet, pleasant day in the Annex. Bank stuff was done, groceries were picked up, walks down the street occurred, advice was dispensed about how best to play God of War II (I loaned to the Upstairs Neighbor, he's no longer getting any work done) and dinner was had in the backyard with all the neighbors to welcome Upstairs Neighbor.

Also, while walking down Bloor, we happened to walk past a used CD/DVD store and saw, brand new, in the window, this:

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that we would pick it up, since the Wife is a huge fan of Go/dzilla/jira, and at $17 for a brand new DVD of the remastered version I'd heard about, this was impossible to resist. I don't think I'm going to be seeing this on Blu-Ray anytime in the near future anyway, so bring on the rubber-suited, model busting goodness.

I'm pretty happy with this particular version, since not only did they remaster it--as best they could, considering the deteriorating, surprisingly NOT archived state of the original--they also include the original 1956, bastardized American version with Raymond Burr as a reporter commenting on the carnage, and there is a pretty in depth commentary from some "Godzilla experts" and give a fairly detailed account of not just the production of Godzilla, but the post-war society and mindset of the Japanese that created one of the most famous rubber-suited monsters of all time.

Now to settle in for a busy next few days. The animated series requires some gearing up for writing scripts, the magazine still has one last article owing, there's the monthly installment of the comic book to crank out, and IGN has suddenly written in to pretty much say yes to ALL the article ideas I've thrown at them, so it's time to get some more game writin' in.

Damn, when did I get so busy?

But first, more Persona 3.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Friends, Journalism, Movies, My Life, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/05/2007 11:47:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Quiet, Boring

Many e-mails were sent, a little bit of article research was done, and more DDS2 was played.

Just a few more days now and this thing will be done...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/14/2007 11:21:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 13, 2007

No More Sweating To Death

A nice, relatively cooler day led to finishing up a comic script, and grinding the hell out of Digital Devil Saga 2. Level 99 has been achieved, seeking out Real Ultimate Power in terms of final skills/abilities to follow.

Also, I've been notified that The Essay is just about ready to be unleashed on the world. More on that soon-ish.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/13/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 06, 2007

Semi-Productive Monday

The Essay is done. I may have to make a few changes to it, but hopefully it will be okay.

What is not okay is the fact that Nuno Bettencourt's (of Extreme fame, y'know, More Than Words?) insane guitar solos in Play With Me continue to kick my ass. ON HARD. After several attempts, the best I can manage is 93% completion at which point Bettencourt's genius skills with the guitar prove to be too much for me. I thought Hanger 18 was giving me trouble. Good God, this song is going to kill me if I can actually get up to on Expert level...

Labels: Games, Guitar Hero, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/06/2007 11:59:00 PM 2 comments

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Cool Down

The weather, thankfully, broke today and it was a much more reasonable 26 degrees outside for the majority of the day. I actually managed to finish the articles for GameAxis for the month today, and in celebration, here's the list of new songs that are currently confirmed for release on Guitar Hero III:

"3's and 7's"-Queens of the Stone Age
"Barracuda"-Heart
"Cherub Rock"-Smashing Pumpkins
"Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll"-Blue Oyster Cult
"Cult of Personality"-Living Colour
"Even Flow"-Pearl Jam"
"Knights of Cydonia"-Muse
"La Grange"-ZZ Top
"Lay Down"-Priestess
"The Metal"-Tenacious D
"Miss Murder"-AFI
"Mississippi Quen"-Mountain
"My Name is Jonas"-Weezer
"The Number of the Beast"-Iron Maiden
"One"-Metallica
"Paint it Black"-The Rolling Stones
"Paranoid"-Black Sabbath
"Raining Blood"-Slayer
"Reptilia"-The Strokes
"Rock and Roll All Nite"-Kiss
"Rock You Like a Hurricane"-Scorpions
"Sabotage"-Beastie Boys
"School's Out"-Alice Cooper
"She Builds Quick Machines"-Velvet Revolver
"Slow Ride"-Foghat
"Suck My Kiss"-Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Through the Fire and Flames"-DragonForce
"Welcome to the Jungle"-Guns N' Roses

The ones in bold are master tracks. And two of the songs, Paranoia and Mississippi Queen are also on Rock Band, which is VERY confusing to me. But I gotta' admit, that is one good looking setlist so far...

Labels: Guitar Hero, My Life, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/04/2007 11:57:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Another Hot Day

In which not much was done except writing... an essay. Can't talk about it much yet, but when it's done hopefully I'll be able to mention it again.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/01/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Work & Geeking Out

Aside from writing up the next installment of the kid's comic and doing some shameless promotion of The Wife, I'm just glued to all the fun of E3, which, to me personally is kind of like Christmas. I may have hated the noise and gauche presentation of the old LA Convention Center madness, but I still really dig getting new info on games, and this E3 seems to have finally turned things around for Sony; it looks like the Playstation 3 no longer sucks and may be worth owning by next year.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 7/11/2007 11:43:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Wednesday Is DC Day

Today, aside from the continuing heat that can officially be considered Days of Summer, it was really about one thing; writing up the submission materials for DC. We're going to be sending the submission by FedEx tomorrow to the DC office on Broadway, New York. Man, never thought I'd be writing that sentence, but there ya' go.

Anyway, back to tweaking that. But in the meantime, here's more Guitar Hero 80's related stuff. Check out these two videos showing two songs being played in their entirety on Expert.

The first already has "first tier introductory" song written all over it, and I suspect this is the GH 80's equivalent to I Love Rock & Roll. It is also the one almost universally being panned by the Guitar Hero community for either being a) too easy to be worthy of the game, or b) too cheesy for inclusion. Either way, vast majority of GH players seem to hate it.

This other is simply flat out SCARY. I thought Hanger 18 was giving me trouble... Good God, this one is going to keep me busy until the next US Presidential administration takes power. LOOK AT HOW CRAZY THIS IS...

Labels: Comics, Creating Comics, Guitar Hero, Writing

posted by Wayne # 6/13/2007 11:59:00 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Slow Hot Tuesday

Today was one of those hot days that--in an apartment with no air conditioning--made it kind of an effort to even sit at the computer and write. Still, work got done and the 12th script for the kid's comic is done. Guitar Hero II completion continues to elude me (although I got about 90% into Hanger 18 before crashing out) and I need to start setting my sights on a couple of other things. There are more new GameAxis articles owing soon, and I have to work on that submission for Shelley Bond the DC editor.

Busy little bee. And a damn hot one, too...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Comics, Writing

posted by Wayne # 6/12/2007 10:46:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 11, 2007

Monday Means Back To Work

Kind'a. Sort'a.

We still took it easy for today, and just got back into the routine of shopping for stuff and visiting our favorite shops. Before we left though we met the new neighbor who's moved into the apartment upstairs. She's an Uber Nerd that does things so complicated with computers that she needs six of them for her work. I still don't completely understand it, but she suddenly seems like a viable Go To Gal when our own PCs are acting irrationally, which is about 60% of the time. She's also a bit of a night owl, so it looks like we're all going to get along just fine working until the sun comes up and going comatose when the rest of the world is getting up to go to work. Having said our "Hi's" we took off for Bloor to do our shopping.

One sad visit in particular is the excellent cheese shop we discovered when we first arrived, which is now closing. It was a little difficult since it seemed like the woman who ran the shop didn't really want to do it, but didn't have much a choice. We didn't ask, but we bought a bunch of stuff and she thanked us for coming in supporting the place while it was up and running.

We also found a new store, although apparently it had been sitting there for the last 5 weeks and we simply hadn't noticed. It's a Geek Shop specializing in comic/manga artbooks, as well as anime and manga, so it's not quite in competition with Beguiling, although there's a little bit of overlap. They're also apparently heavy into promoting local artists and were immediately interested in talking more with the Wife about her stuff. Man, it's freaky how much more approval her work gets here than in Singapore...

The Old Friend also came around for a visit in the afternoon to hang out, socialize, and plug herself into Guitar Hero. I make converts wherever I can, and it would seem that after really getting into the Butthole Surfer's Who Was In My Room Last Night, her verdict was, "I think I have to get a PS2 now."

Good on you, girl.

And in other Guitar Hero news, a fresh spate of tracks has been released for the upcoming Encore: Rocks the 80's and holy CRAP is this ever getting me excited. Witness, the current list with updates in bold:

"I Wanna Rock" (by Twisted Sister)
"I Ran" (by Flock of Seagulls)
"Round and Round" (as made famous by Ratt)
"I Want Candy" (as made famous by Bow Wow Wow)
"Metal Health" (as made famous by Quiet Riot)
"Holy Diver" (as made famous by Dio)
"Heat of the Moment" (as made famous by Asia)
"18 and Life" (as made famous by Skid Row)
"Bathroom Wall" (as made famous by Faster Pussycat)
"Lonely is the Night" (as made famous by Billy Squier)
"Nothing But a Good Time" (as made famous by Poison)
"Play With Me" (as made famous by Extreme)
"Shaken" (as made famous by Eddie Money)
"Synchronicity II" (as made famous by Police)
"The Warrior" (??? by Scandal) (I'm betting this is a master track myself, it sounds dead on)
"Only A Lad" (??? by Oingo Boingo)
"Balls To The Wall" (??? by famous by Accept)
"We Got the Beat" (??? by the Go Gos)
"Caught In A Mosh" (as made famous by Anthrax)
"Wrathchild" (as made famous by Iron Maiden)
"Hold On Loosely" (as made famous by .38 Special)
"Radar Love" (as made famous by White Lion)
"No One Like You" (as made famous by Scorpions)
"Turning Japanese" (as made famous by The Vapors)
"Seventeen" (as made famous by Winger)

I TOTALLY called both I Wanna Rock and Turning Japanese so I'm thrilled beyond all reason that those songs are going to be there. The Vapors song in particular has me really excited because it's just about one of the most fun guitar songs to come out of the 80's, especially when it starts imitating Japanese riffs. The other one that's a pleasant surprise and hadn't occurred to me is Hold On Loosely. It's a simple, but thick, meaty, catchy 80's tune which, while maybe not the most technically complex song in the world, is still firmly in the "fun to play" category. Radar Love as played by White Lion has some scary solos in it if they go for the full on version, so that might be one to watch, as does some of the bits towards the end for No One Like You. Seventeen on the other hand, seems like the new Cherry Pie in that it's kind of an embarrassing song, but one you secretly enjoy playing. Admittedly, the guitar solos are nothing to sneeze at here either, but man those lyrics...

Now I really should get around to writing that landmark 12th installment of the kid's comic (geez, have I been at this thing for entire year already?!), but in celebration of the Most Triumphant return of The Vapors, enjoy the following video...

Labels: Friends, Guitar Hero, Mean Streets Of Toronto, Writing

posted by Wayne # 6/11/2007 09:40:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, June 01, 2007

Damn. Didn't See That One Coming.

I am now well and truly in full on vampire mode, having gotten out of bed as the sun was almost completely set.

I am also now amazed and somewhat bummed out over the fact that Ron Moore has announced that Battlestar Galactica will--as Edward Olmos hinted--be ending as of the fourth season. This is a bit weird for me since I love the show, but am only half-way done, since I watch the DVD collections rather than the actual broadcast episodes. On the other hand, this is a pretty logical progression since--in novel-like fashion--Moore has been advancing the characters and stories with irreparable changes and the whole "we're looking for Earth" thing kind of needs to be addressed. Still, better to end it with people loving the show than just let the momentum run out and turn your fans against you, a la the X-Files back in the day. It's a gutsy move, and I'm really curious to see how this will go, since I had thought they wouldn't be able to tell the entire tale in four seasons and would need at least a fifth to pull it off.

In other news, the second story for the Liquid City anthology has been done, sent off to the artist and he says he's going to start on his roughs within a week. What was supposed to be my "easy" 10 page story once again ballooned into something 17 pages in length, but with the artist looking it over, there may be room to cut things down. Man, I remember there was a time when I could actually tell a story in less than 8,000 words, and now I've gotten to the point where it's nearly impossible. How the hell did that happen?

There's also a little bit of work to be done for IGN, as the editor I was previously in contact with has moved on, and after pitching an idea to the New Guy, he decided to run with it, so I've got to start doing some prep work on that. And the last of the articles for GameAxis needs to be put away for the month, so I guess I'd better start tidying that up as well.

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, Journalism, Liquid City, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 6/01/2007 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Gamerz Rite The Guudest!11 ZOMG LOLZ!11

Today I got my free copy--or should I say login name and password for a PDF download--of The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. It is supposed to be a reference book for aspiring game journalists that provides the same kind of definitive rules as Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but specific to the needs of game journalism, which, unlike its much older ancestors has little in the way of standardization, or public respect.

It's an interesting read, although I think that anyone who's already established in the industry will find the majority of the content not that useful. The bulk of the book consists of a glossary that explains most of the terms commonly used in gaming, such as "1-up" and the merits of using the word "console" versus "system." Just about the only thing that I walked away with from that particular section was the fact that all these years, I should have been writing PlayStation, not Playstation. The other, more arbitrary decision is the guide's stance on using "videogame" versus "video game." I think that for the most part, this book will be most useful to two kinds of readers; those who are new to writing in general, and writing about games in particular, and those who broke into game journalism with a profound belief that neither grammar nor structure are necessary for game journalism because that kind of stuff is for nerds. Since game journalism tends to be far more lenient about people that "break in" than counterparts in news journalism, film journalism and music journalism, I suspect there are far, far more of this second type of reader than the game industry would like to admit.

But one part in particular that I found interesting was the theoretical bit towards the end. Here they make a stand on "reviews" versus "criticism" and they break it down into a fairly simple line of division. Reviews are pieces that talk about what something IS. Criticisms are pieces that explore what something MEANS. The book goes on to state that most reviewers tend to fall somewhere in the middle, leaning heavily towards the review aspect and throwing in another element, which is personal taste. The guide believes that while having a personal opinion is obviously something is important, it should not be the final destination of a really good piece, as, at least in film, it is the critical aspect that separates a thoughtful exploration of a game from a merely gushing/acerbic holler. It likens this difference to what readers see when they read a review by Harry Knowles ("That scene was awesome! THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME!") versus Roger Ebert or Pauline Kael ("That scene was an interesting play on both societal concerns and anxieties, as well as a reference to cinematography of the German Expressionist era, working on two levels to engage the audience."). Obviously the feel that game journalists are too much of the former and there aren't anywhere near enough of the latter.

Of course that brings up an interesting question, which is, "Do we need that kind of reviewer yet?" I'm firmly in the camp that games are an art form, albeit a new and still emerging one. For the moment, games are still viewed as a shallow, vacuous (and dangerously influential) entertainment for the masses, with no social, cultural or artistic value. That should be a familiar line to anyone who was there at the birth of film, comics or rock and roll, and as time has proven, that perception eventually ends up being discarded as the form matures. I think games too, will have to start being taken very, VERY seriously when two inevitable factors kick in. 1) The academics get into it, something that is already happening, and 2) The people who grew up playing videogames are entrenched in every level of society, including political policy making. Perhaps, for example, Fredic Wertham and his anti-comic study Seduction of the Innocent held sway in the 50's when comics were still perceived as new and threatening, but try telling any psychiatrist today that comics are responsible for the evils of the world and they'll say you're wrong and tout videogames as far more dangerous. However, give it another 30 years, when every decision maker has grown up exposed to--if not playing--games, and you'll see them saying games are harmless and the real danger is all that crazy Neural Simulated Reality the kids are plugging into.

By the time it gets to that stage, hopefully there will be less superstition surrounding games and more critical thinking. But the thing I'm wondering is, how do we move NOW into that transition where game journalists are sort of third party advertisers, and into a position where they are regarded as thinkers that contribute insights to games and their impact on society? What's it gonna' take before we get that Lester Bangs or Pauline Kael that this style guide holds up as the paragon that we should be shooting for? Do we need some gonzo journalist to start writing for Wired in the same way that bangs did for Rolling Stone Magazine?

Labels: Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/29/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 28, 2007

More Stories

A typical Monday in the Annex with some perfect weather (that is to say, warm enough to walk around with a jacket, but not warm enough to actually break a sweat). All the usual stops were made, Beguiling, Suspect Video, a resupply of coffee and some groceries. I still haven't finished that second story for the Liquid City anthology, but soon, dammit, SOON...

The Wife herself is also going to be very busy. She made the mistake one day of saying, "I have no stories to tell," and immediately had a big one she wanted to do before the day was out. I won't say much about it here, 'cause it's her story and all, after all, but between Nowhere, Liquid City the Other Anthology, a couple of stories she'd previously forgotten about, and this new one, she's got a lot on her plate.

And on my list of reccomends for this week comes yet another anime series courtesy of Suspect:

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

This one is completely random. I'd heard absolutely nothing about it, didn't know a thing in advance, and hadn't even heard about it. The only reason we ended up watching it was because the cover of the DVD case caught the Wife's eye and I figured, "What the hell, could be fun."

It's a weird amalgamation of Coming of Age and Sliders. The story starts out with two 12 year old kids, Arumi (the adorable one in the white dress in the foreground) and her childhood friend, Sasshi (the one with the hat) as they face their last summer together. Both of them have spent their entire lives living in shophouses on the north and south end of a large complex called the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade. Arumi's family runs the Pelican French restaurant on the north side--adorned with a big pelican on the roof--and Sasshi's family runs Turtle baths--similarly adorned with a big turtle on the roof--but the years have not been kind to the arcade. Now, plots of land are being sold off, and the old place is gradually being dismantled. Arumi's family will be moving away and Sasshi's not looking forward to it.

What starts out as seemingly charming young love/coming of age story quickly takes a turn for the strange when the kids end up getting caught in a kind of spatial warp that constantly moves them from one bizarre, fantastical version of their shopping arcade to another. They go from Japanese fantasy role-playing game styled arcades to giant robot science fiction ones, and even film noir. It is just downright hilarious, and while it's only 13 episodes in total length, this is another one of those little treasures that I need to add to the list of things for the collection

And, on a totally random note, here's a baby panda:

Labels: Creating Comics, Random Blargh, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/28/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, May 18, 2007

The Boring Friday

Work continues with another GameAxis article down and off. Just one more to go, but that can wait, since it's a news article and that needs to be kept "fresh". For now, I'll just divert my attention to other stuff like another comic script for Liquid City, and some preliminary work that needs to be done on The Job With No Name. With any luck, it'll be at least somewhat good stuff, and I'll be able to move onto The Next Phase.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Journalism, Mystery Job, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/18/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

More Work

Stayed at home, avoided the thunderstorms that washed across Toronto and wrote an article for GameAxis.

That is all.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/15/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 14, 2007

Semi-Productive

Today is really just about trying to tear myself away from the forums and get back to writing another script for one of the other anthologies. Speaking of which, I just found out that the Cities-themed anthology finally has a proper name. Henceforth, the story the Wife and I are doing will now appear in what is called Liquid City. I have no idea what the other anthology is called yet.

I also got a request to do some preliminary work on that Job That Shall Not Be Named, so I'll have to put on the ol' thinking cap for that and see what I can cook up. It will Very, Very Hard, but fun, I think.

Right, back to reading for-... er... working...

Labels: Creating Comics, Liquid City, Mystery Job, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/14/2007 11:12:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

One Article Down

And... a whole bunch of other stuff to go...

Oh well, busy weeks are good weeks.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/08/2007 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007

Resurfacing Momentarily

Because this is going to turn into another one of those boring weeks for posts. It's a work week in that I still have the GameAxis articles to finish, still have the Top Shelf anthology script to finish so the Wife can start on it, still have a second script to start on for Sonny Liew's anthology (looks like the artist I approached within the group is interested in doing it) still have a script for the next month's installment of the kid's comic in Singapore to start on, and oh yeah... I was writing a novel, wasn't I?

In other news, the Wife finally got her first Canadian freelance job, and this is a Good Thing, because not only does it mean rent/food/utilities money, it is also critical to her self-esteem since she now knows that her work in Singapore wasn't just a fluke and she can stand with the best of 'em professionally even in North America. I have been telling her this repeatedly of course, but nothing decimates her considerable sense of inferiority more than the sweet, sweet smell of ink on a check that doesn't bounce.

We are now also the proud owners of Bram Stoker's Dracula (the super-bit version), Mystery Men and finally, one of my more recent, all-time-favorite comedies, Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, which, I am surprised to discover, was actually filmed largely around the Ontario, Greater Toronto/Mississauga area, rather than New Jersey, as I had assumed. Hell, all of the college scenes apparently took place at the University of Toronto. Now I know why I found those buildings suspiciously familiar when I first saw them...

This time around, I'm going to watch it more closely to see if I can find those innately Canadian commercial icons (like Shopper's Drugmart) that are supposed to sneak into some of the shots if you're really paying attention.

So yeah, back to work...

Labels: Journalism, Movies, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/07/2007 11:22:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Scott McCloud

So today was the day.

We tromped on down early in the evening to the OISE building (just across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum) and settled down to listen to Scott McCloud talk about comics.

First however came an impressive presentation from his daughter, Sky, in the eighth grade. She was frighteningly articulate and media savvy and I really fear for her workplace when she enters the world of gainful employment, she's a Ball o' Fire. Mostly she just talked about the genesis of the "Making Comics 50 State Tour," but it was obvious right from the start that this particular junior high student was an old hand at talking to hundreds of people and keeping them entertained. The only thing I ever did that involved public speaking at the age of 14 was alienating my entire junior highschool by accusing them of voting for Student Council President based on who was the most entertaining. As you can imagine, that didn't go over so well.

When the Senior McCloud finally took the stage, it was a kind of surreal experience, not because I was particularly star-struck or anything (while I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Scott McCloud he doesn't make me go weak in the knees the way Neil-O did) so much as it was jut bizarre having someone thoughtful, witty, engaging and articulate... talking about comics. In a thoughtful, witty, engaging and articulate way.

For the most part, the talk was cribbed straight from his latest book Making Comics. His first book Understanding Comics was essentially Comic Critical Theory. His second book, Reinventing Comics brought comics into the 21st century by discussing the impact that the digital revolution was having on what was traditionally a print medium. His third book, the one that is the subject of this tour, is about Applied Comic Theory, in that this one actually talks about the mechanics--and consequences thereof--of framing, time, panel construction, characterization, dialog and writing in general and all that other good stuff that actually goes into taking an idea from your head to something that people actually read.

Of particular interest to me was something that he talked about which I have always discussed with other people, but which McCloud has distilled into a much friendlier, more digestible version. He talks about how comics are essentially created from five choices; choice of moment, choice of frame, choice of image, choice of words and choice of flow. It's really quite straight forward when you break it down like that. Choice of moment is about which parts of your story you decide to cover. Unlike film where you can show a simple action like a guy starting a car in one continuous shot, comics must choose which moments are worth presenting, if any at all. Choice of frame is about the angle you pick, the distance from the "camera" and such. Choice of image is a bit misleading in that he seemed to be more covering the specific STYLE here. Photo-realistic, or stylized? Black & white or color? Choice of words is obviously how much writing actually appears as words versus how much as image. A good example of how redundant this can be would be an example he uses of a hero jabbing his finger at the camera with spectacular Kirby-esque foreshortening that completey undercuts itself with the caption, "And then he jabbed his finger and said..." and the word balloon "I JAB MY FINGER AT YOU!"

Choice of flow is the issue of pacing. Should the story be told sequentially from moment to moment? Do you throw in flash backs? Do you leap forward in time? Do you break up action moments suddenly with a voice over that analyzes character motivations that lead to this explosive moment? All of these can work quite well, given the proper application and an understanding of how this moves--or impedes--the story.

He also gave an interesting analysis of his take on the state of comics globally, particularly in the 80's before the internet started homogenizing everything. He noted, for example, that the European tradition, particularly the Franco-Belgian schools that had produced icons like Herge (of Tin Tin fame) or Moebius (The Airtight Garage) had a dominant characteristic of being much at ease with "world building" in that often, the environments and the culture and setting were as important to the comic as the story that took place. He showed a few panels from various comics showing the intricate detail, how bicycle fender or car had just as much attention paid to it as the hero.

The Japanese manga scene--aside from its obvious stylistic difference--played much more with contrasts and slower pacing. He showed how the Japanese manga artists liked to make their characters stand out much more by simplifying them against complex backgrounds, and how the larger length of manga made the Japanese artist much less afraid of "wasting panels" by showing slower paced, more leisurely images. He showed examples with the "camera" in Japanese manga wandering over various parts of an environment, or focusing on simple, every day moments that American comics might deem to trivial to cover.

And of course, on the American side, there was the undeniable aspect that it was dominated by super heroes to degree unheard of in either Europe or Japan, but, more subtly, he pointed out that American comics had been heavily influenced by the theatrical or vaudville tradition. Because American comics were originally comedic, and the first comics came out during the era of Vaudville, comics were framed much in the way that a stage play was composed. This was also carried on to a large degree as film was introduced to American culture and when it happened, McCloud noticed that American comics are far more inclined to compose "beauty shots" where the characters are facing the camera. He commented that one of the things Will Eisner tried to advise young artists on was to give up this habit, saying that "you have to let go of this obsession with the close up" and then he contrasted this with the European and Japanese comics that frequently show the backs of characters, long shots, or what have you, but are nowhere near as concerned with getting that "beauty close up" as their American counterparts.

Another interesting thing that came up in his talk was his classification of comics creators into four "tribes." There is the Classicist, and these are the people who are very much invested in perfecting craft and technique. These are the ones like Alex Ross or Jim Lee who make the kinds of pictures that are worthy of framing, who show people just how beautiful comics can be. Then there are the Animists, and these are people who strive for story, for engaging the audience and actual medium of delivery is secondary to the effect it has on the reader. There are the Formalists, of which McCloud counts himself a member, who play with ideas. These are the guys that are interested in the medium itself and want to pull, push and stretch the boundaries of it, just to see what it can do, how far it can go. And finally, there are the Iconoclasts, who believe that comics should be about Truth and strive for Authenticity, and try convey some kind of important theme or point.

It was all quite educational, and quietly mind-blowing. I think if this kind of course had been offered when I was in university, I probably would have majored in comics, because I found myself deeply, deeply fascinated by all the information that he was just throwing up there and really wished I could just get in a conversation with the man to talk about this stuff.

Now the only thing that's missing is that he needs to write a fourth book. I would find this book particularly useful if the titles was Publishing & Distributing Comics, since that's the particular stage that the Wife and I find ourselves needing the most help with.

Then again, what struggling comic book artist doesn't?

Labels: Comics, Creating Comics, Culture, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/06/2007 11:17:00 PM 1 comments

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Script #2

The only things of note that occurred today were that the second script for the other anthology has been started. It's definitely a nastier piece, but then you can't be all sunshine and optimism all the time, and since it's a commentary on artists, I think they get venerated enough that it's time to inject some criticism into the creative process. Or at the very least, some ugly metaphors. Ah, it'll all make sense once the thing is out. I hope. It's called Inspiration and it's really another one of those looks at the creative process and what how it can work.

Sonny has looked at the script for his Cities anthology and likes it. Looks like the next step is to get some feedback from all the rest. As to be expected, it's really Mike Carey's opinion that scares the crap out of me, since the others are primarily artists, whereas he's reeeeeeeeally going to be looking at all the writing in this anthology from... surprise, a writer's perspective.

And, as a lame as it seems, I am now replaying Shadow of the Colossus, but instead of taking on the giants of the game, as would be normal procedure, I am riding my horse in the vast, empty plains of the Cursed Land, collecting fruit and eating lizard tails. Nope, not making that up...

Labels: Comics, Creating Comics, Games, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/03/2007 11:55:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

It's All About Image

In this case, that means Image Comics. Now we've got news that the cities themed anthology has sparked some interest from the masters of variant/collectors/limited covers. I have to admit, when Image first started up, I too was sucked in. The thought of all those incredible Marvel artists allowed to let their imaginations run riot was appealing to me. At least until I actually read the stuff and realized that this meant, "We don't need writers and compelling plots and characters aren't important when you've got killer artwork." It was Image that nearly killed my love for comics, and it was Neil-O that brought me back with his stories of The Sandman.

However, Image has undergone a rehabilitation of sorts in the following years. They've actually taken some interesting risks and have published the sort of thing I wouldn't have previously associated with them, such as a black & white, almost anime/noir story called Avigon, and they've gone on to embrace writers back into their previously Artists Only club. The fact that they're actually interested in this anthology (though having two Eisner nominees certainly helps the credibility) means that if it goes through, at least there will be a fairly broad exposure of the work and should ensure that the anthology appears in comic shops everywhere. Whee...

Labels: Comics, Creating Comics, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/02/2007 11:35:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Still More Comics

Back to the ol' word processor (in this case, Final Draft, don't ask why I'm using a screen writing program for comic scripts, it's just easier for me) to take another stab at the comic that's been done for the Cities-themed anthology. I'm gonna' try and hack a few pages outta' it to bring the page count down.

In addition, I'm once again riding off the coat-tails of the Wife. She's been invited to contribute to another anthology of comics and art, this one being co-published by an indie outfit known as Top Shelf Productions. Their most recent notable release is the super-gorgeous, extremely expensive, hardcover re-release of Alan Moore's Lost Girls. The collection itself is a boldly mad, post-modernist, pornographic revisiting of beloved children's literature characters, Dorothy (of The Wizard of Oz), Alice of Wonderland fame and Wendy the girl who stole Peter Pan's heart. They get together one day and reminisce as well as share some graphically sexual stories about their lives. Alan Moore has gone on record as calling it porn, but this is the kind of porn that has enough substance that critics refuse to call it so.

Anyway, the Wife is going to be making a contribution to the anthology and she's already warned the folks involved that she'll be illustrating and I'll be doing the writing chore, which they seem okay with. It's not exactly being able to walk into a bookstore and see my novel on the shelf, but these two anthologies are still going to be appearing in stores, so it's a step closer. And I really wouldn't mind doing more writing for comics. It's proving to be an incredible amount of fun. Fortunately I already had an idea kicking around for another short comic story and this will fit the bill quite nicely, so away we go...

Labels: Comics, Creating Comics, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/01/2007 11:25:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, April 27, 2007

The Quiet Friday

In which a bit of reading, a bit of writing and a bit of game playing was done. And the Wife got back to work on a little bit of Nowhere, which is cool since it's been dormant for a while. It would be cool to have some time to actually get back to it in a major way, since I was gearing up to finish off Book 1 and am about 80% finished anyway. Maybe I'll just sit down and try tackling that some day very soon.

Labels: Creating Comics, Nowhere, Writing

posted by Wayne # 4/27/2007 11:20:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Done

The first pass at the anthology story is done, and--and I should have seen this coming a mile away, but somehow didn't--I'm over the recommended 15 page maximum that was initially laid out by the guidelines. Fortunately, Sonny is being extremely flexible at this point, so perhaps some negotiation is possible, especially considering no one has actually finished a story yet.

Still, I'm happy with it. It's a more quiet, lyrical little piece, full of dialog and nobody tosses cars or wears spandex or even has a secret identity.

Now all I have to do is wait for the Wife to read it, go bonkers and then tell me that I'm trying to put her into the grave prematurely with my crazy, writer-ly demands...

Labels: Creating Comics, Writing

posted by Wayne # 4/26/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

It's Up

And it feels good.

It's a little surreal, though ultimately meaningless if you're not a gamer. But I've been faithfully reading IGN on an almost daily basis for years now. As far as I'm concerned, they're just about the best place to go for a more casual approach to games, comics, movies and DVDs. Most of the geeks I know will, at some point, reference a review or product that has been covered on IGN, it's a geek staple. So it strikes me as almost unnatural that the Geek Capital of the Internet now has a piece credited to me for the entire planet to see. Unfortunately, the only people who can read the interview in its entirety are those that are subscribed to the premium content service of IGN known as IGN Insider, but for anyone that wants to at least read the intro, here it is.

And now, back to comics...

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 4/24/2007 08:39:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Bock, Bock, Bock, Ba-CAW! And More God of War II

This arrived in the mail today and I am a giddy little geek. There's just something deliciously evil about taking beloved toys and using stop-motion animation to make them do horrible things to each other. It kind of reminds me of summer days as a kid when instead of going out and playing in the streets like normal, well adjusted children, I'd be using our ancient VHS camcorder to make live-action movies, or primitive stop motion features using Justice League and He-Man action figures.

Except of course that what you find in Robot Chicken is hilariously brilliant. As opposed to my spare, Hemingway-esque, incredibly poignant dialog that went along the lines of "PAY IN SPADES, KALIBAK! WHA-POW!!"

If you don't know, Robot Chicken is a series of stop-motion animated shorts by Seth Green (aka Oz of Buffy the Vampire Slayter fame and Scott Evil, Dr. Evil's son in the Austin Power films) and Matthew Senreich, editor of Toyfare magazine. Basically the show is no-holds barred insanity that goes above and beyond the clay-mation hijinks of Celebrity Deathmatch to go into strange, perverse areas of pop and geek culture. Only in Robot Chicken will you find a parody of Final Fantasy VII where the characters are now working in a fast food restaurant, and only here will you find out exactly how deep Ted Turner's psychosis and love for Captain Planet goes. But don't take my word for it. Witness for yourself...

I'd seen various Robot Chicken shorts over the last couple of years, without knowing that's what it was, until that particular Captain Planet sketch compelled me to find exactly who the hell these lunatics were. Now that I have it for my very own, I feel all giddy inside.

God of War II continues to be played and it is a marvel of a game. The further I get into it, the more and more impressed I am by the brilliance of the actual design. Too often these days, a game will make me go "Wow" for reasons other than the actual game itself, such as the graphics, or the quality of the story or cutscenes shown. While God of War II undoubtedly has the best graphics that the PS2 will ever see, what amazes me the most about this game is how much it feels like watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the very first time. You're left with your mouth hanging open at some of the setpiece action/game sequences, and when you see them, you think "That did NOT just happen! HOW COOL IS THAT?!" and you just can't wait to see what happens in deeper in the game, which usually tops whatever it is you've just seen anyway. I can't remember the last time I had this much fun with an action game. It's just BRILLIANT. It's not done yet, since the Wife insists that not a minute of gaming goes by at which she's not present, so I play it in chunks when she's not working, and we're both unbelievably impressed. After this, the upcoming Tomb Raider: Anniversary in June is going to be somewhat anti-climatic. Especially considering I'll probably still be screaming "YEEEEEEEEE!" over Guitar Hero: 80's Edition which will arrive a few days later.

Also things with IGN are moving, albeit slowly. A few more contractual formalities have been worked out (translation, they lost the signed contracts I sent and needed them again), and we're now just about ready to start. Of course, I can't actually talk about what I'm going to be doing. But I will say my first article involves dealing with someone I already know and have a lot of respect for, so this will be fun and easy.

And yes, Lost In Loveless continues to be written, but... really what can you say about that? "I wrote more book." Whoo. How exciting....

Labels: Games, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/22/2007 11:08:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Hurray For Excessive And Gratuitous Violence

Finally got this today, and MAN am I ever impressed. The original God of War was released in 2005, and made my list for best game of the year. Now God of War II is out and while it's essentially the same game, it addresses all the minor criticisms of the first to make a virtually perfect gaming experience. The visuals are improved, there are more boss fights in greater variety, and the levels are huge, varied and completely breathtaking. What was already perfect in the first game is more or less untouched here, so the combat is still exhilarating, the puzzles still sufficiently complex enough to warrant some thinking to solve them, and the pace and flow are brilliant. Now, the only criticism that you can level at this game is that it's just more of the first game, but better. You can see that they're still using an improved version of the previous engine, and you can tell that the mechanical aspects, with the exception of a few new abilities, are largely untouched. So this not as revolutionary a leap as what gamers experienced from Metal Gear II on the Nintendo Entertainment System to Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, but if you can get past the fact that this isn't a complete revamp, then the only criticism of the game disappears and what you're left with is one of the single most perfect games that will ever grace the Playstation 2. While I'm still more emotionally attached to the grandeur of Guitar Hero, I also understand that it's a much more niche, more limited game in what it can offer. God of War II on the other hand, shows absolute genius in all aspects of "traditional" gaming. You simply will not find a better action game this year on any platform than this. Unfortunately for the island I called home for over a decade, this particular title also has some upper body frontal female nudity, and as a result has been BANNED from Singapore. I still get a pitiful thrill from knowing that I acquired, with perfect, legal right, something that could get you fined or arrested in Singapore.

On the writing front, I actually got some news of progress. Nothing definite, but it's progress. My agent sent me an e-mail from the editor that's looking over my third novel, The Pale Summer. The e-mail says that he's been going over the manuscript and is making his notes about it. When he's done, he's going to compile a list of questions about changes, suggestions and revisions and my answers to those questions will largely determine the fate of the book. I suspect that the bulk of the questions will be "can we change these locations from Asia to North America?" as the the last couple of rejections of the novel have come on the grounds that setting it in Asia is too much of a stretch to ask of genre readers, so I'll have to see what I think of these changes if/when the time comes.

Oh, and I wrote a bit more of Lost In Loveless. Slow going... but getting there...

Labels: Games, Lost In Loveless, Novel Writing, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/21/2007 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, March 19, 2007

Monday Is Grocery Day

Meaning that we did pretty just that... and I wrote more of Lost in Loveless and managed to finally figure out a particular plot problem. More precisely, the Wife figured it out, and I'm just stealing her idea....

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Lost In Loveless, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/19/2007 11:03:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Another Boring Sunday

All I did was update my DVD catalog (something that I apparently hadn't done since 2003 according to the program's record) write a bit of Lost in Loveless, do up a last minute GameAxis article and watch some bizarre Japanese film by the same guy that did Audition, Ryu Murakami only this wasn't some horror film, so much as a confusing, arty sort of film called Tokyo Decadence that seemed like it was about Japanese S & M hookers until it took a hard left into tangential land 3/4 of the way through and just became odd and pitifully tragic. At least until that brick wall of an ending. I get the feeling that the Murakami just had no idea how to end the film after he made his statement clear about his feelings on modern Japan...

Labels: Lost In Loveless, Movies, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/18/2007 11:45:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Shopping On Sunday

Once again, we ventured out into downtown, which is not too difficult to do since technically we live in downtown.

But this was our first extended foray into Queen Street West, which is, of course, where all the Cool Folks hang out. We sort of side-stepped that portion entirely, however, went Way Out West to the part of Queen Street dominated by galleries and art shops that tended to be frequented by actual professional artists. The Wife had already found a favorite store in the form of Terns, a quiet little spot, owned and operated by a nice lady who immediately remembered us from our last visit and was more than eager to help the Wife out with her quest for paper of a particular weight, that still had the firmness of a postcard, but would not jam up her new laser printer when she tried running it through.

This was followed by a walk past the various galleries to another, larger store called Woolfits where more paper was purchased in the interestes of continued experimentation. But before we actually got to Woolfits, we got sidetracked by a gallery that showed off some very interesting photos and we got to talking to the guy who ran it. The Wife initially just wanted to ask some questions about doing print runs using whatever equipment they obviously had on hand to their archival quality prints, but the talk ended up turning into artist talk, where the three of us stood around enjoying a meandering conversation and he eventually had to kick us out when he reminded us that it was Sunday and the stores we wanted to see would close soon. Still, it looks we've made a new interesting acquaintance, and he pointed the Wife towards some folks that might possibly be interested in exhibiting her stuff.

After that it was back to Home Ground, in the form of Bloor and this time, when we perused the evil, evil voluminous collections of Beguiling, I fell prey to the Siren Call I'd been trying to ignore and picked up this:

Yes, it was a book where the man himself discussed some the mechanics thinking about comics and divulged a little of his actual process. Of course, right in the introduction, he emphasized that this was not "Write comic books the Alan Moore way!" since he detested that kind of thing, and pointed out that while there was definitely room in the world for one Stan Lee or one John Buscema, there was definitely no call for trying to create an army of thousands that all did the Same Damn Thing.

What's particularly interesting about this book however is the fact that Moore originally wrote it in 1985, when he was just on the cusp of forever changing the face of comics with The Watchmen. There's an afterword that was written in 2003, and in it, amusingly, Moore basically negates most of what he wrote in 1985, insinuates that he was deluded and essentially says there's really only one piece of advice when it comes to comic writing: Do what you haven't done before. Find something you find uncomfortable to write about and write that. He dimisses all his earlier advice about plot, structure and transitional/character devices, insisting that anyone that's serious about becoming a good writer is going to pick these skills up anyway, and eventually it'll become unconscious instinct.

All I know is after reading all that, I came to one inescapable conclusion:

It's time to finish that damn book.

Hopefully once the stuff arrives and I've gotten my Guitar Hero withdrawal out of my system, I'll sit down and do just that. In typical Power Writing mode, which is probably not the right way to do a children's book, but dammit, that's the way it's gonna' be for me.

Labels: Creating Comics, Mean Streets Of Toronto, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/04/2007 11:47:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Back To Writin'

For once I actually wrote something that was creative and not entirely for the purely mercenary purpose of making money.

I just can't talk about it. Yet.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Writing

posted by Wayne # 2/18/2007 11:24:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Nowhere Is Still Going Somewhere

Just veeeeeeery sloooooowly. The sketchy artwork to the left (clickable as usual for enlargement) is a rendering of Fen, one of the main characters of the story. Yes, he is an Elf with a katana. No I am not going to explain why, not here. There's a fairly lengthy story behind that, and it will have to wait for the comic to be told.

Speaking of which, yes, the comic. It is still sitting on a pile over at Slave Labor Graphics, a smaller, indie style publisher, and we have been told that the Chief Guy Who Picks Comics, Dan Vado, has indeed seen the submission sitting on said pile. He just hasn't looked at it yet. Having had much experience with the speed with which book publishers work, this comes to me as no surprise whatsoever. When you actually have a buzillion other things to do--like making sure your existing titles come out on time, for example--finding some time to look at new stuff and consider it can take a while. Still, at least that's not a "no."

At least not yet. Oh well back to tweaking some scripts...

Labels: Artwork, Creating Comics, Nowhere, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/26/2006 07:26:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, December 22, 2006

When It's Not Yours

This is something that has been weighing in with less-than- heavy, but slightly-more-than-medium impact on my thoughts of late. The reason will probably be abudantly clear in a few months (ah, hindsight, how obvious you are), but for now, let's just play in generalities.

I'm talking about Fan Fiction. That is, when a writer or aspiring writer runs into the already established playground of another person's story/world/characters and starts mucking around with it, creating stories of their own based on that other person's creation. Neil-O was actually asked about the issue of fan fiction a few years back, and the fan wanted to know what Neil-O himself thought of fan fiction. Neil-O's response, somewhat abbreviated was this:

Er, no, I don't read fanfiction.

I think that all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing, and whether that means that you're writing a singularly deep and moving novel about the pain or pleasure of modern existence or you're writing Smeagol-Gollum slash you're still putting one damn word after another and learning as a writer.

But I do think that, in the final analysis, all a writer really has to give is the stuff that only she or he can give the world and no-one else can. That the sooner you sound like you and tell the stories only you can tell, for good or for ill, the better. And from that point of view, I suppose I think of fan-fiction as training wheels. Sooner or later you have to take them off the bike and start wobbling down the street on your own.

This strikes me as a fairly sensible approach to writing. Others, it would seem, took major offense to this, as Neil-O himself found out the very next day. He lists the varied and angry reactions to his statements:

Having said that, it also looked like a lot of the people telling me off hadn't even read the whole post, or had just seen other people on other sites quoting the last paragraph, which was then extensively quoted back at me as evidence that: I don't know what I'm talking about; do not understand that people are writing fan-fiction for pleasure, or that fan-fiction is a valid artistic purpose in itself; that I am myself nothing more than a glorified fan writer; that people writing movies and TV shows and comics and books are really writing fan-fiction; that real life is really fan-fiction; that all comics writers are writing fan fiction and what about that time I wrote (insert comics/historical/mythical characters I didn't create here)?; that Shakespeare was writing fan fiction; and that my choice to write fiction that I do not call fan-fiction should not be seen in any way as a reflection on those who wear their fan-fiction proudly. Also if I'd just read some decent Buffy/Smallville/Legolas/Gone With the Wind fan-fiction I wouldn't have been so rude about those who choose to write it.

This whole notion of fan fiction, and what it is, isn't and its merits is something I've been mulling over in odd moments. I suppose in the strictest sense, one could say that fan fiction is the creation of one person that is interpreted by another. Although the angry critics of Neil-O above were taking it to a fairly furious extreme, on some level, one could make the argument that unless the original creator is doing it, anything else is fan fiction. This isn't always the case however. If you want to go the legal/corporate route, then fan fiction is anything that isn't officially "endorsed" in some capacity by the creator or the corporate/legal entity that holds rights to a particular intellectual property.

This is the more practical, every day definition that people are used to, and that is why even though a new writer will come on board for the Batman comic, the Dune series of novels or the latest James Bond film, these new works are still considered "canon" even though the original creators had no hand in it. They also have the benefit of some kind of professional transaction, ie, someone got paid to write this, as opposed to the amateur sphere in which no money (and therefore no litigation consequences) are involved.

And it's this particular kind of "official" fan fiction that I've been musing about. I find myself wondering what other writers have done when they find themselves in the position of being able to officially write for a world or character that is not their own and how they handle it. How, for example, did Ron Moore take to Star Trek: The Next Generation when he came onboard the series years after the series had already been established by others before him? Particularly when there was an expectation that a strict adherence to continuity be maintained since the show was still in production, as opposed to the major revision he did when he took Battlestar Galactica by the reins. What do you do when you know that you can't simply walk into an established "house" and start tearing out wallpaper, trashing furniture and changing it from its previous shiny art deco look to a more spare zen minimalist scheme that is more to your liking?

In the corporate world, there's pretty much an unspoken rule that when new management comes in s/he will, like a new alpha male in the pack, start trying to obliterate all traces of the previous management's influence in an effort to stamp their personal sense of individuality on the office. This, obviously, is completely unacceptable for someone coming into a franchise, although many have failed to see this fact. That's why you get bizarre anomalies such as the almost complete disregard for the spirit of the original Highlander movie in its sequel, or the abrupt and random new setting and agenda for the Buck Rogers TV series in its second season.

I grant that it is inevitable for a new creator to be unable to completely emulate the tone, manner and style of an original creator when the time comes to tackle an existing series/character. In some cases, the fresh perspective is even extremely welcome, such as the paradigm-altering take of Batman that Frank Miller tackled in The Dark Knight Returns.

So I guess in my meandering sort of way, the conclusion that I am slowly trying to come to is that if you ever find yourself in the position where someone offers you a chance to work on a character or world that is not yours, and this is a property that you have a genuine affection for, the only things you can really do are these:

1) Respect the material.

2) Try to understand what it is about the original that made you a fan in the first place.

3) Understand that your own personal voice, sensibilities and peculiarities will arise when you create the work and that this, like puberty, is completey natural, with nothing to be ashamed of, and perhaps some good may come of this fresh infusion.

4) Stay true to the spirit of the work if not the exact style.

5) Inhale the material. If it's a large body of work, take in everything. If there are appendices, supplementary materials, and other works, take the time to read and understand them. The more you know about this world you are about to step into, the better.

6) Remember that this is not yours. Remember not to try to make it yours by trying to possessively or antagonistically "clean house" so you can urinate all over the walls and claim it as your territory.

7) Conversely, do not be afraid to tread new ground. If you are religiously sticking to only what has come before, and you are contributing nothing new, you are likely not even telling a new story and are merely repeating the same stories that drew you in to begin with. While you can make an argument for people wanting only the same "feeling" with a world/character over and over again, that doesn't necessarily mean slavishly repeating the same story with a few changes in locale and names.

8) You are not (insert name of original creator here). Don't try to be. You may think you are as good as the original creator. You might even be right. But you are still NOT that person, and if you try to advertise yourself as The Second Coming of said creator, you'll just be pissing off everyone, including the fans and the creator if s/he is still alive.

9) Have fun with it. Because if it feels like work writing it, it will feel like work reading it, and that's not a winning formula to suck the audience in.

10) Pray you don't screw up.

Some day, this post is going to come back and bite me in the ass. I know it.

Labels: Creating Comics, Novel Writing, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/22/2006 04:44:00 AM 1 comments

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