Favorite Book Number Ten

 

 Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons (Link to Amazon Books)

"Stupidity kills. Absolute stupidity kills absolutely."

Back in 2000, before the various incarnations of CSI ruined our fascination with forensics, there was Darwin's Blade. Dan Simmons, known more for his Science Fiction and Horror work, jumped genres and created a brilliant suspense thriller about Darwin Minor, a specialist in forensic accident reconstruction.

Featuring a protagonist who is both intelligent and funny, but also brash and deeply wounded, Darwin's Blade tells the story of Darwin's investigation into a series of fatal accidents. Common sense would dictate the accidents were too unpredictable and elaborate to have been staged, but Darwin suspects otherwise.

The book contains my favorite anecdote of all time. Darwin recounts an incident involving a school bus accident where public perception and supposed common sense turned out to be completely wrong. Yay, science!

Graphic, intense, and unpredictable, Darwin's Blade is an intelligent and thought-provoking thriller.

Let's Get Things Started With a Top Ten List

To commemorate the resurrection of this blog, I will be posting My Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time. Between now and Christmas I will post one book per day, starting from Ten, all the way up to Number One.

I will describe the book, and explain why I chose it as a favorite. Please keep in mind these are my personal favorites. I make no claim that these books are "The Best", whether in their genres or otherwise.

So sit back, relax and enjoy as I share with you my favorite books. I hope my list will inspire you to check some of them out. I look forward to your comments.

Back From the Dead

Yes, I know I've been away for five years. I'm planning to start blogging again this fall. Stay tuned.

My Idea for a Single Player Epic RPG

I've been working on an idea for a single player epic RPG. I've made a list of the top twenty things I'd like to see in my game. Here they are:

The Must Haves:

1) A huge, full and detailed gameworld that is different every time you play (procedural generation)

2) Freeform, non-linear gameplay. Complete the main quest at your own pace, or ignore it entirely

3) Open skill tree for maximum character customization

4) Materials-based item crafting. If it can drop, it can be crafted

5) Quests are different every time you play (dynamic, scripted procedural quests)

The Wants:

6) Dynamic gameworld that changes based on the player's actions

7) Emergent quests (unscripted quests, see #6)

8) Guilds

9) Crafting mini-game that's short but fun

10) Mutiple main quest endings

11) Potion Crafting

12) Scroll Crafting

13) Pets

14) Allies

15) Diplomacy

16) Mounts and mounted combat

17) Player owned houses and ships

18) Player owned businesses

19) Other 'heroes' that complete quests, sometimes joining you; sometimes fighting you

20) Paperdoll

That's it. I've thought about it for a while and there isn't really anything else I want in a single player RPG.

What about you? What would you want in your dream RPG?

Spoils of War: a fantasy TBS Games Retrospective

Back in the fall of 1995, a game caught my eye at my local PC store and after being seduced by the (very colourful) back of the box, I had to have it. That game was Heroes of Might and Magic, a game that consumed countless hours of my early twenties, a time when I should have been out either getting laid or getting a career. Instead I was gleefully stomping around the world of Enroth with Kastore and Yog and all the other Heroes, pretending to be bad-ass. Nerd Power!

Around the same time I also discovered Warlords II Deluxe, a game with similar gameplay and setting but very different execution than Heroes. The game maps in Warlords weren't as busy as those in Heroes but there were more cities and more armies and there were ruins. Oh how I loved sending my hero into ruins and hoping madly that he wouldn't die at the hands of some Troll, Spectre or worst of all, Dragon.

Between the Heroes and Warlords series those years were a full, rich oyster of fantasy gaming goodness. Oddly though, both game series had a surprising flaw. The combat was terrible. Searching ruins, collecting loot, and crushing enemies was great, but the actual moments of combat were tremedously boring. Often it seemed to devolve more into a game of luck than real strategy.

Then 1999 happened, and the game Disciples: Sacred Lands came along and resurrected the fun. The combat in Disciples was (and still is) the best comabt in a turn-based strategy game, ever. Instead of the uncontrollable randomness of Warlords or the tedious epic battles of Heroes, Disciples pitted a small squads of single units against each other in a brilliant chess-like mini-game where every choice could lead to death or victory.

I remember wishing that someone would combine my favorite elements of these three game series together. The very idea gives me chills. Imgagine a game with the colourful, loot-filled, map-stomping heroes of Heroes of Might and Magic. Now add the fast production, ruins, allies and cowboy diplomacy of Warlords. Stir in a generous helping of the combat from Disciples and bake until perfect.

I might never leave my house again.
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Previous Post: Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps

Holy cow, An actual post!

In the time since my last post, so much has happened. My uncle Albert Harris passed away from cancer. He was 59. My mother spent five weeks in the hospital with a kidney infection that led to septicemia. They're hopeful about her recovery. My boss who was supposed to leave for Poland, hasn't. She's got a lump in her throat which they'll be doing a biopsy on shortly.

Life has not gone according to plan.

In other news, soon after I shot my video of Frodo, I got some great footage of my friend's bulldog, Ginger. Well I've finally assembled it and am posting it here for your viewing pleasure.



Enjoy!
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