Fireside Goodies for Backers

The thing is, Fireside editor Brian White and the Issue No. 1 team have put together something very special here, and you’d do yourself a favor by checking it out, and seeing to it that it continues. Issue No. 1 has four excellent short stories from four great, published authors, and one pulpy, darkly hilarious comic. If you want to learn a little more about White’s vision for Fireside Magazine in the long run, you can click here or here.

I’m not going to get into reviews for each story in the book; suffice to say that each is a strong entry, and stands  on its own; White has chosen his first ensemble wisely. You can read an excerpt of each of the stories at the links below; go give ‘em a look.

“To the Moon” by Ken Liu

“Emerald Lakes” by Chuck Wendig

“Temperance” by Christie Yant

“Press Enter to Execute” by Tobias Buckell

Cover art and illustrations were done by the enormously talented Amy Houser, and this issue’s comic, “Snow Ninjas of the Himalayas,” was drawn by D.J. Kirkbride and Adam P. Knave.

Sold yet? Good, but why did you come back here? Go get Fireside!

Wait! Come back! See that nice, shiny, hard copy version of the magazine in the picture?  Well, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t have one of those. Fireside Magazine is first and foremost an electronic publication; only folks who threw down for the Kickstarter campaign were able to claim hard copies. Now don’t get me wrong; the electronic versions, whether epub, MOBI, or PDF, are all gorgeous on whatever screen you choose to view them on. Just keep in mind that the only way to get your hands on a hard copy, if that’s your thing, is through early support during the Kickstarter phase. So keep an eye out for the Fireside Magazine No. 2 Kickstarter campaign, and in the meantime, give issue No. 1 a read.

***

Time has always been a difficult concept for you to get your head around. It never seems to flow quite the way you’d expect. Now in particular. It’s probably your mind turning to mush, but these final moments are stubborn, passing by their own whim. Even all the moments getting up to here, all of it seemed off, like some cosmic punk was playing with the hands of the king clock. Your thinking is getting a little strange now, but that’s to be expected. You are dying.

In a car chase for example. You’d never been in one, and now that you have, you certainly wouldn’t recommend it. You’re cruising along, faster than it seems your little city car was ever meant to go, your brain is scrambling to move at the same speed. The black SUV never gets any closer, like you two are stuck, traveling in lockstep, an invisible bar stabbing through traffic is holding you apart from one another. But all the other cars around you? They’re whipping past in  flashes of white and red; sure, you know it’s you whipping past them, but that’s not how it feels. Everything is happening quickly, almost too quickly to grasp. Then the one that will end the chase pulls out two cars ahead of you, and it all slows down at the instant you realize you’ve got nowhere to go.

That slow motion terror only lasts until you make first contact. Then suddenly you’re at warp speed again, and everything is crunching metal and things inside you breaking.

The trick with the hour is the unevenness. You remember the running joke you used to have with your wife, back when she was living with you, before you made all these connections to crime families. Longer even before those connection became you. “First we’ll be 25, then we’ll be 30, then 50, then we’ll be dead!” Kind of a morbid joke now that you take time to think about it. But that’s what an hour does.

That first half is nothing but infinite possibility; thinking of all the things you can do in an hour makes you dizzy. Or maybe that’s just whatever they stuck you with doing its work. Then, somewhere around the 35 minute mark, it’s like a switch flips. “Christ, 25 minutes left,” you say, “I can’t get anything done in 25 minutes.” You blink and it’s 10:45. Ten minutes, poof. One last blink, and it’s 10:57, the upside-down number glaring at you from an LCD that’s somehow remained power even through the flipping. Where does it go? And why has it chosen now to stop going there?

When you, stumbling home drunk at 10 o’clock at night, slipped the little trap they set up for you, put the fire escape to use for the first time in decades, it seemed like anything you did from that point forward would result in success. Now, with poison in your blood and endless moments to deliberate, you see how wrong you were.

“Why the hell not? That’s what it’s about.” I still can’t bring myself to look her in the eye.

“Bullshit! That’s bullshit and you know it. How the fuck am I supposed to trust anything you say when I know – I KNOW – that you aren’t even acknowledging the problem we’re trying to talk about.” Her voice rises, builds to a crescendo, and collapses into tears with her last words.

And all I can think about is the fact that I’m not plugged in right now, and there are people dying somewhere because she keeps fucking talking to me.

*    *    *

Twitch, swing, sway, press, pull -

“Gained the lead,” The announcer booms over the sound of explosions and gunfire. I have time to crack a smile before his commanding voice and the cloaked sack of shit who’s been jamming my radar interrupt my mirth with a new announcement and a knife in the back.

“Lost the lead.”

I swallow my rage and wait to respawn. We’ll meet again when I’m not distracted, and then he’ll be on the end of my knife. Because really, fuck that guy.

“Hon, dinner wah wha blah” Beth’s voice is coming from somewhere in the apartment.

“Five more kills. There in a minute.” I start cleaning up the trash, mopping up after firefights in progress, and chucking ‘nades into promising corners. Usually I like to challenge myself a bit more, but I’ve developed a good flow when it comes to getting through a game that I just need to be over. I’m in the lead with twenty-four kills when suddenly I pinwheel backward and fall over a ledge, my digital brains blown from my helmet. Stealthy fucker is back, but this time he’s got the damn sniper, and suddenly we’re tied for first.

I expect the game to be over before I respawn, but I get one more chance. And you can be damn sure I’ve got sights only for him. I know where he was but by the time I get there, he’s set up somewhere else; somehow he hasn’t gotten a kill in the last thirty seconds.

A sniper round wings past my head, and my thumb pushes my digital body into a stiff crouch as the second round goes high over my helmet. There is no third shot, and I know he’s dry. While the stealthy shitbag is still switching weapons I’m bringing down his shield, and by the time he gets a few rounds off, it’s too late.

Boom. Headshot.

“Game Over.”

My phone vibrates the angry triple buzz for a new email as I walk into the kitchen, and I ignore it for now.

*    *    *

Movement in this game is stiff, frustrating. The weapons feel like they’re firing spit balls, and they sound like it too. Head shots are still king though. It’s cool. These are just training missions, and I’m making the other focus testers look like a pack of fucking amateurs. The proctors seem impressed enough that they’re going to send me a prototype controller to test; came in and measured out space in the back room. Must be one of those motion tracking things.

*     *     *

I’ve finally stopped struggling to wrap my mind around the paradigm shift. In the past, it was always more about shooting, keeping your distance, even at close quarters. Sure, there’d be the occasional melee, but it only served to punctuate the experience, not define it. But now. Now almost everything I do is close quarters; face to face. Bullets don’t mean what they used to, so rushing in and soaking up a hundred of them is less of a harrowing experience and more a chore; a means to an end. I can turn them to pulp up close. This character is wildly overpowered.

Word about me has started to spread from one city in the theater to another. The AI is starting to get creative, laying traps. The program doesn’t fuck around with respawns, either. You go down, and the game goes dead for a week. It’s a little excessive if you ask me. But that’s why they’re “focus testing,” right? To work out the kinks?

*    *    *

“You know what? Fine.” Beth is still crying as she pulls the engagement ring, a huge rock on a loop of platinum, off her finger and tosses it to the kitchen table, where it clatters like a dropped coin for a moment before going silent. “You can’t tell me what you’re doing? You can’t explain what’s going on? Why you’re fucking killing people? Then I don’t want anything they paid for.”

I try to catch her arm as she storms out of the room past me. “I’m not killing any-”

The slap catches me off guard, and I stagger more than I should…I’m spending too much time in theater, and it’s taking its toll.

“You know that pod thing has a video out, right?” My heart jumps into my throat. No, I did not know it had a goddamn video out. “No? It’s right there on the side. I watched you last night. I watched until I couldn’t anymore. That’s no game, that’s live video feed. Do you-do you get some sick thrill out of it? Ripping people apart like that?” Her fists shake at her sides.

“It’s not that simple. I have…responsibilities.” I make myself meet her gaze.

Her mouth hangs open for a moment. “Christ…so it is real.”

*    *    *

I’m holding a young woman in my metal arms, and her life is pouring out in a torrent. My heavy shields crackle as bullets fizzle out of existence around us, and as I look around at the other allied solders hiding behind cover, my purpose snaps into focus. I feel tears on my cheeks, falling thousands of miles away, and when the light goes out of her eyes, I lay her down and begin protecting the rest of my men.

This story is a response to the Flash Fiction Challenge: Must Love Robots over at terribleminds. But wait! Don’t go there yet! Stay. Comment. What did you like? What didn’t you like? How do you think it can be better? Don’t like commenting? Email me.

Did you comment? Good, now go check out the rest of the entries (they’re in the comments of the challenge post). There’s some pretty great stuff in there.

Let me start by saying that I will not review the game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.  If you have ever considered yourself a gamer, then you have heard that praise at some point in your life.  That tends to happen when a game is widely considered to be one of the best ever made. Instead, I will review the technical aspects and improved functionality for the 3DS.

The Tech

That’s right.  I said functionality, not gimmicks.  Pilotwings 3D, Nintendogs, and Samurai Warriors Chronicles have Nintendo gimmicks (poor 3D and extraneous motion controls).  Zelda OoT 3D has something I have not seen from a Nintendo game since the days of N64, and it’s not innovation, not really.  Rather it’s clever game design and masterful use of hardware.  It is a classic game that’s been streamlined and improved, without altering its nostalgia factor in the slightest.  Nintendo is finally giving fans exactly what they’ve always wanted.

Nintendo has thrown away the flimsy “pop-up book” looking 3D effects used in their launch titles released only six weeks earlier.  Link has three-dimensional form in an actual three-dimensional space.  The perspective of the environment noticeably changes when you turn up the 3D effect, rather than just separating one flat image into five or six flat images.  There is almost no double image when the slider is cranked to the max, and the drop in frame rate is negligible.  All of this combined with new higher end graphics, and the game has never looked better; the franchise has never looked better.

If you have ever used the Wii, you know how frustrating motion controls can be.   If you are like me, you turn them off at every chance possible.  That of course requires knowing they actually exist in the first place.  Case in point: The first time I pulled out my sling shot in OoT 3D the game camera bounced as I moved the system. Naturally I panicked, but then I gave it a shot.  It was brilliant; you aim by using the 3DS gyroscope while simultaneously fine tuning your crosshairs with the directional stick.

Streamlining a Classic

The best news isn’t even all the technical feats of this wonderful classic reborn, it’s the gameplay changes that the 3DS makes possible.  All of the menus are now on the bottom screen.  It sounds like a small thing, but consider that switching items no longer requires pausing or time-consuming navigation.  All HUD elements are also on the bottom screen, with the exception of a very helpful minimap.  There are now five slots for active items: one spot solely for the Ocarina (now just a quick tap away at all times), both right corners of the lower screen, and the X and Y buttons.

This is a true love letter to the fans, something I never thought Nintendo capable of. There are no gimmicks here to ruin another one of your childhood favorites.  Just classic Zelda made better.

I found Chuck Wendig, writer, author, pen monkey, game developer, and father, by coincidence. One of the Ars Technica contributors whom I regularly stalk on Twitter posted a link to Wendig’s recent post on the rules of freelancing. I decided to give it a read, and after I had washed the laughter-driven urine out of my pants and rebooted my mind to incorporate all the useful knowledge that Wendig imparted, I exchanged a few tweets with Webster and Wendig (now that sounds like a team). Long sentence short, I ended up buying Irregular Creatures, a collection of nine short stories.

Irregular Creatures

Awesome Irregular Creatures Cover Art by Amy Houser

Get ready for a great ride. This clever collection of short stories will have a savage grip on your attention from the moment you pick it up to the moment it slips from your slack hand. It will race the drool that falls from your lips to the floor. Do you see what I’m saying here? No? Well, that’s why Wendig is exploding into fame and I haunt the dark backwoods of the internet. This book will blow your mind. That’s what I was trying to get across. With the slack hand and drool? No? Fuck it, we’re moving on.

The story that inspired the cover art, “Dog-Man and Cat-Bird (A Flying Cat Story),” remains my favorite. The main character is a likable guy that I can identify with, the supporting cast is great, and the premise is captivating, and remains so through the exciting climax. So it is with the whole collection. A great mix of flash fiction and longer works, Irregular Creatures is a book that anyone with an interest in unusual fiction should own. Be ready for the crazy though.

Of course, it was only after I bought Irregular Creatures that I realized that the book Wendig and Webster (no really, you guys need to start a law firm, or become bounty hunters or something) were actually talking about was the glorious and informative…

Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey

Trippy COAFPM Cover Art by Amy Houser

Writing advice is plentiful, and it can run the gamut from crucial to utterly worthless. I put Wendig’s collection of essays on writing in the former category. Each told in his unmistakable voice, these pieces are funny to read and they will stick in your mind. I now hear the spectral voice of Chuck Wendig (or at least, what I imagine he must sound like) tell me to put on my big boy pants and finish the shit that I start when I’m getting ready to jump to a shiny new post or story idea. A nice side effect of reading this book? I’ve actually finished a 1500+ word short story, my first in over six goddamn years (small victories, right?). I’ve also signed up for NaNoWriMo (even though Wendig sort of told me not to), because he gave me the kick in the pants that I needed; now I’m driven to do something with the novel idea I’ve been kicking around for years. The full collection is more than fifty nuggets of pen monkey wisdom, the likes of which you could find elsewhere, but never with the same awesome spin that Wendig serves.

@ChuckWendig

What do you look for in your Twitter follows? Maybe you’re looking for humor, maybe you’re on a hunt for useful information. Could be that you just want to spice your feed up with a bit of creative profanity. Give Wendig a shot. Of whiskey; I think he likes that stuff. Then follow him on Twitter. You won’t regret it. He’ll also do a great job of keeping you up to date on the indie publishing scene, which is never a bad thing.

terribleminds.com

I’ve saved the best (or at least the most regular) for last, mainly because I wanted your eyes on my page for as long as possible, and there’s no getting you back after I send you where you’re going next. Wendig writes almost daily on his blog at terribleminds.com. If you write, if you’ve ever thought about writing, or had a roommate that once expressed a passing interest in putting words into the world for people to read, you owe it to yourself to stop by terribleminds. The same mix of helpful advice, tough love, and creative profanity is found in daily doses on the site. Wendig also does a Friday flash-fiction challenge that you should definitely check out. I certainly intend to start paying attention to those.

*cryptic smile*

If you poke around a little, you’ll see some great news about future work from Wendig, but I won’t spoil it for you. Just know I look forward to it, and you should, too. In the meantime, go check out terribleminds, and then go buy yourself some great books. We’re talking peanuts here; buy the small coffee instead of the large for the rest of the week, and you’ll come out even. It’s worth it.

Click here to go buy Irregular Creatures.
Click here to go buy Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey.

Wendig fan? Mortal enemy of Wendig? Wondering why I keep calling him Wendig? I don’t know, it seemed like the right way to refer to an author. Let me know in the comments. Oh, right I released you over to terribleminds already. Shit. Well, maybe you kept me open in another tab. Stop by again some time. Please? I bought chips and salsa…

Poster From Theatrical Release

Your mileage from the first three X-Men films may vary. The general consensus is that there was a  good movie and a great movie, followed by an abomination that we no longer speak of in certain company. Your knowledge of the comic book stories may or may not hamper your experience (I’ll argue shortly that ignorance is no disadvantage), but as someone who has only had a few passing flirtations with the comics, I can say that this revisionist history of the X-Men’s early days goes down pretty easily. I truly hope that any future X-Men films ignore the earlier trilogy (or duology, depending on how vehemently you reject the third movie) and instead return to X-Men: First Class as the canon for moving forward in the series. I’ve got several good reasons (five, actually) for thinking this way, so hit the jump and hear my words (…with your eyes). Fair warning though; here be spoilers.

1) It’s a damn good ride

The action you’ll enjoy throughout is superb. You’ve probably already gotten a pretty good taste for the high points moments during all the trailers, but this is top-notch stuff. No slowly moving bridges or half-finished CGI to be found. Sebastian Shaw doesn’t get to show off his might nearly enough, but when he does, it’s pretty epic to watch (though I will say that there was a little too much use of the “Look, I can poke you into oblivion” trick). The movie puts Eric Lenhsherr’s magnetic manipulations on display often and to good effect, and the rest of the cast gets plenty of moments to dazzle you with their various abilities. The plot takes a few turns to the absurd (it is a comic book movie, after all), but for the most part the story itself is great. Put simply, this is a wonderful origin story for the leaders of the rivaling factions in the X-Men universe, with all the flair and fun you’d expect from summer movie.

2) We’ve got chemistry, you and I

Any one scene between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender could easily steal the show. No, I’m serious. If you’ve seen the movie, pick out the one you didn’t like and tell me about it in the comments. I’m convinced that nothing bad can come of putting those two men in the same frame. Seeing McAvoy as a fresh-faced young leader ready to change the world, and Fassbender absolutely seething with a vibrant, youthful rage against Homo sapiens was incredibly refreshing coming off the excellent but more static performances by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in the original movies. Let me say it again, just in case I haven’t been perfectly clear: this movie has a lot of things going for it, but McAvoy and Fassbender absolutely dominate and elevate every scene they appear in. Also deserving a great casting nod? Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy. Fun to watch, with just a tinge of mad scientist in there for good measure.

3) There’s fresh meat for the mind here

The themes explored by the first few movies were essentially the same thing repeated three times. The trilogy could have been called “I’m a Mutant and That’s Ok, Parts 1, 2,  and 3.” That particular teenish angst still makes an appearance in First Class, but it’s accompanied by a willing acceptance. There is a great training sequence that shows the various hero X-Men (before they had the name) learning to fully command the power that their disadvantage has given them. For some, it’s harder than others; Havoc struggles to use his energy blasts without sending waves of destruction in every direction, and Banshee must learn to glide the hard way. But focus isn’t about how hard it is to be a mutant, it’s about how great it is once you get over the stigma and learn to use what you’ve got.

You also see Xavier and Lehnsherr in the early stages of their respective ideologies. Xavier’s dissertation speaks to Homo sapiens eradication of their predecessors, something you’d expect to hear out of Magneto’s mouth, while his words and actions are at odds when he talks about the normality of mutations and mutants, but considers it vital that his childhood friend keeps her more radical physical mutation under wraps. It’s kind of appalling, the more you see it happen. The pivotal moment when Lehnsherr makes the decision to never again be at the mercy of men following orders crystallizes and to some  (some!) extent vindicates the actions of Magneto that we’ve seen in various iterations of his character. The best thing about these early viewpoints is that it gives the characters a nice place to grow from, both in this film and those in the future (please?).

4) You don’t have to be a fanboy

The movie isn’t afraid to poke fun at the mythos, whether that means taking shots at the comics or the movies. Say what you want about the previous X-Men flicks, but you have to realize that they opened up X-Men to an audience that probably would have had little more than a passing idea of the folks in blue and yellow otherwise. Speaking of which, way to show off the original costumes, amirite?

Let me give you an example. My wife is not a regular reader of comics. Never has been, and probably never will be. But she got the in jokes stemming from the older series. She laughed when Mystique “aged” into Rebecca Romijn. She chuckled when Xavier joked about losing his hair, as if that would ever happen.  My point is that Marvel isn’t pushing the X-Men further into a niche by making this all these spin offs; they’re expanding the public awareness of the franchise and its awesome mythos. And, this is the way to do it: with good, well written movies that expand and redefine what’s come before, not ridiculously hacked together cash-ins (i.e., the one X-Men movie that I have not seen and stubbornly refuse to name in this post).

5) You’ll like the characters (when they earn it)

I’m talking about Hank McCoy in particular. There will be scenes where you truly identify with the man, and scenes where you want to smack him in the mouth for being such a jerk. A few of Emma Frost’s scenes will have you laughing…she can be a snarky bitch, and who doesn’t love some good snark? Charles Xavier is charming, quick-witted, and performs the endearing, archetypal finger-to-temple (Psych, anyone?) maneuver when prying open the minds of others. On the other hand, his smug air of privilege and the way he talks from both sides of his mouth about the mutant condition will probably get your blood boiling at least once. These characters are people I’d like to hang out with, or more appropriately, kick ass with, character flaws, blue fur, and all.

Was it a perfect movie? Of course not. But it’s better than a early summer action flick has any right to be. Enough of my opinions; have you seen the movie? What did you think? Tell me in the comments. We can discuss it at great length, or in 140 characters or less. Your call.

Cleaning House

If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice that there have been some major renovations. We made the jump to WordPress, and I’d like to think the transition went pretty smoothly. If you’re a frequent reader, you’ll notice that the archives have gotten a little lighter; I took an ax to some of the more introspective or just plain awful posts that were clogging up the site for too long. I’ve tried to clean up any mess the great purging left behind, but if you’re perusing older post at some point and find a broken link, don’t hesitate to give me a shout at falsetraveler at falsetravels.com.

A Word on Schedule

You may remember a time, very recently, that I indicated that every other Monday was the new posting schedule, after which I promptly posted a piece from another writer, well before the next Monday. So here’s some clarification on post scheduling. My goal remains to post, at a minimum, every other Monday. I try to put enough time and energy into these posts that they could conceivably be called features. But during the space between features, I may come across something that I think you need to see. One of my wayward writers might pop up with a great post idea. When things like that happen, I roll with them, because every two weeks is a long ass time between posts, and I do want to give you reasons to check in every so often.

Nevertheless, the PSP deserves a bit more credit than it gets. It’s now 2011, and the PSP’s big brother, the NGP, is on its way and you must be wondering, why should I all of a sudden care about the PSP. The NGP claims to be near as powerful as the PS3 in terms of visual power for screen real estate, and ditches the less than savory UMD drive of the PSP for a more conventional flash card based medium. The NGP will finally bring the handheld experience as close to having a home gaming console in your pocket as it’s likely to get for a long time (assuming somebody out there has some pretty spacious pockets).

But forget about all that marketing chest beating. We’re going to run through six reasons you shouldn’t count the PSP out just yet.

You can get your old school on

The PSP has long had a reputation for not having much of a library . This wrap couldn’t be more wrong; the PSP has one of the greatest libraries of retro games, not found on a system from the 80’s and 90’s. Classic SNES and PS1 RPGS have been getting remastered and released by the truckload, and company’s like Atlus have made it their mission to make as many classic style games as possible. The majority of these games have been released in the past 18 months.

Anyone who grew up playing Final Fantasy games will be right at home, with hefty remasters of Final Fantasy I and II recently reaching bargain bin prices, Final Fantasy Tactics and its lesser known spiritual precursor Tactics Ogre, and the recently restored and expanded Final Fantasy 4. It’s not just the old Final Fantasy titles that have received this treatment though; in the past year the PSP has received similar remasters for the YS saga, Star Ocean 1 and 2, Lunar, and Persona. Any JRPG enthusiast can tell you, these are games that deserve to be played and replayed.

You can also get your new school on

Pull the retro stuff out, and you still haven’t even scratched the surface with all the portable entries into major Playstation franchises. We have Metal Gear: Peace Walker, two God of War titles, Resistance: Retribution, Kingdom Hearts and Valkyria Chronicles. Now this is not a new concept, handheld entries have been added to every major franchise going back to the release of the original Gameboy and GameGear, and these are games that are regularly put in the same category as games based on movies.

PSP broke the mold with titles that in a few cases were actually better games than the console releases. Visually they may not measure up, but with writing coming from the franchise masterminds, and risky gameplay innovations that generally don’t make it into a blockbuster console release, some of these games really shine.

It disregards regional boundaries

If all these great games weren’t enough to justify giving the PSP a chance after all these years, it can play imports. This won’t appeal to all, but for some it is a dream come true. The PSP is a system with an extensive collection of some of the greatest action and mech combat games in the world, or rather, in Japan.

Better yet, they are all playable on your US system, with no need for a mod chip or cumbersome disc swapping; they just automagically work.

It’s aged well

The PSP was truly a late bloomer; I personally bought mine 3 years ago and never played it until Christmas 2010. I got DISSIDIA: Final Fantasy (a decent fighter with the FF cast), and I fell in love. At the time, I owned a whopping four games for the system, and DISSIDIA became number five, but after that game I began to really look into what else was offered.

Fast forward five months, and my collection recently hit 50 games, half of which I’ve actually played to some level of completion, and almost all of which were under $20. The PSP deserves a chance at glory before its retirement.

It’ll still be relevant when the NGP drops

But when exactly is that retirement going to occur? As previously mentioned, and unlike the 3DS, the NGP will not feature backwards compatibility with the UMD’s of old. I was able to get away with holding off until the release of the 3DS to play all my DS games, and all that means for you is that you won’t be throwing away your money investing in a PSP only months before it’s replaced.

Give the system a chance, you may be surprised and find yourself looking for excuses to get away from the TV and get in some portable gaming time .

The price is right

Price used to be a sticking point for PSP, but that argument doesn’t hold water anymore. A brand new PSP 3000 model retails on Amazon for $129.99, half the price of a Nintendo 3DS and probably closer to a third of the cost of the upcoming NGP. To meet the price of the recently released 3DS you could buy a PSP and at least six hit games, while the 3DS doesn’t even have six hit games to call its own. That’s not fair though, the system is brand new and no one expects a system to launch with hit games anymore.

What do you think? Are we making sense here, or just pimping last gen handheld hardware? Let us know in the comments.

There’s my problem child right there. I’ve gotten my heart broken by more video games than I can remember, and if you’re anything more than a casual gamer, I’m sure you have, too. You know how the cycle goes, and it holds more or less true with pretty much any of the media mentioned above. In the name of focus, we’re going stick to video games today. Better people have written more words, many times about disappointment in those other fields.

Maybe you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up now, and if you’ve been here before, you might already see where I’m going with this. I’m talking of course about Brink, the most recent game to break my heart. And it is one hell of a break. I ate up the marketing material so voraciously for Brink that I’m still trying to get it out of my system. People tell me how un-fun the game is, and I find myself almost jumping to its defense before I realize that they are right.

The revolution that changed nothing

Maybe you weren’t following Brink, and didn’t have anything invested in it. Maybe you don’t know anything about the game. Briefly, I’ll summarize what went wrong.

First, we had an objective based FPS that was going to redefine the action by making certain that everyone on the battlefield was working toward facilitating the end goal. This could mean directly attempting to accomplish the primary objective, or performing helpful secondary objectives that buff your allies or open short cuts, etc. This behavior would be reinforced by a constant flow of XP for doing mission critical tasks, rather than simply rewarding kills.

The truth is that the Objective Wheel in the game will almost ALWAYS point you at the same objective for the entire game. I’ve played entire 30 minute matches where nothing happens because everyone is gathered at one the many choke points in the game,  murdering everyone else and ignoring the objective directly in front of them. The developers had clear idea for how they wanted the game to be played, but it’s clear that gamers will be gamers, and kills are king.

The game’s SMART system was meant to turn every player into a parkour champion, hurtling over and sliding under obstacles, and putting vertical space to good use. In theory, this sounds like an awesome idea, and the footage shown in trailers puts the mobililty to great use, shooting up enemies as you slide under their fire, and getting the drop on folks from above. It all looks very epic.

The execution falls flat. One of the games loading screens tells you to move more than you shoot, but in practice, a moderately skilled player won’t any problem keeping sights on you while you clamber under and over debris, and sliding makes it harder for you to aim while making it easier for your enemies to pick you off unless you’re already on top of them.

The game was also supposed to redefine multiplayer by blending the single player, co-op play, and competitive multiplayer experiences seamlessly. Like the dev team’s other lofty goals, this fell through the cracks. The AI you play with and against in the essentially story-less campaign is uneven at best, and online play is a problem on two fronts. A bad host will turn the frantic action of the game into a fist fight by strobe light, and you’ll never really be sure how much of your game is comprised of bots unless you check the scoreboard.

As you may remember, I was thoroughly impressed when I got to play the game at PAX East, and I don’t understand why I didn’t see these hiccups coming then. So how can you avoid having your tender heart shattered by a game that doesn’t deliver on its marketing team’s promises? Here are a few simple guidelines that you can follow to make sure neither your heart nor wallet need ever deal with this scenario again.

Never pre-order anything

Remember when pre-ordering was a way to make sure that you got a game on launch day? Back when no one ever ordered enough copies of anything? That meant missing the launch window of a big release entailed waiting until the ever duplicitous “next shipment” came in before you could get your hands on the game that all your friends were suddenly telling you was the best thing since apple-smoked bacon.

We don’t live in that world any more. For starters, most of us are adults now. If we haven’t mastered the art of delaying our satisfaction by now, we’ve gone wrong somewhere along the way. Granted, I say this as a man who has to constantly fight driving to the store and picking something up when I damn well know I can get it online for half the price or better if I just wait a few days, but I say it nonetheless.

And please, please don’t get sucked into the pre-order bonus madness, especially the retailer specific ones. It’s a worrying trend that we as consumers need to steer the industry away from. Don’t support the madness.

Keep the salt on hand while reading previews

The more dangerous factor, and probably the reason you pre-ordered in the first place, is the hype machine. As game development budgets rose, their advertising budgets rose with them (more often than not), and it’s become very easy to get caught up in the rose-tinted barrage of perfectly tailored screenshots, expertly edited gameplay videos (or those that are anything but gameplay), and carefully controlled press previews.

The fact of the matter is that you really can’t judge a game until you’ve gotten a chance to play final code in your own living room, man-cave, or other such gaming hideaway. How a game’s backend handles a full load of players on launch day and beyond is very different from how it’s going to run on a LAN with all the players sitting in the same room, and the problems you might find along the way are the ones that previewers were carefully steered away from while playing the preview builds.

Keep a close knit network of gaming friends

So what’s the best way to check out the final build of a game without paying a dime for it? Yes, of course piracy is the fast answer, but you know what the easier and less illicit answer is? Playing it at a friend’s house and finding out for yourself what it’s like. The fun of couch gaming with friends is something that has fallen by the wayside, at least at my age. Think of it like this: a new game is a great opportunity to round up the crew and experience gaming as a face-to-face social interaction. Don’t you remember when you and your friends gathered around your great big box of a TV and watched the tense horrors of Resident Evil 2 unfold? Maybe you and a friend spent a summer taking turns playing through Metal Gear Solid 2.

My love of gaming stems from these moments of shared experience, but in the context of this post, consider that having a group of friends that each have their own tastes will net you the opportunity to try a whole lot of games you otherwise wouldn’t, or were waiting to buy (because you don’t pre-order things anymore, remember?). Am I saying you should cultivate a group of friends so you can play their video games? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t capitalize on the resources you have a available. Let one of your buddies be the canary in the coal mine every once in a while, and be his support when you figure out together that the game you’ve both been looking forward to is a steaming pile of unfinished code.

Let us, you and I, have words

Maybe you think I’m being unfair to Brink. Perhaps you can poke holes in my view of game previews. Even if you just want to let me know I’ve done a good thing on this post, I encourage you to check in down below in the comments section. It’s really all about you, because commenting will get you better posts to read, and if you do it right, you can even get more out of each post. So ask me a question, teach me a lesson, or just say hello.

I’ve been distracted. First Portal 2 and then Brink have kept me occupied at any moment when I’m not at my day job or working on worldbuilding for my short story (not OP-97, something new and better). I’ve also been questioning the value of writing game and demo reviews when that market is so saturated at all talent and quality levels. Someone I respect in the industry recently indicated in 140 characters or less that the audience for this market was in analysis and reporting, not reviews. Frankly, the idea of reporting without some kind of training or schooling seems ill-advised to me, but analysis? Analysis is something I can do.

But enough about me. You want to know what you’re getting out of this deal. Well, the goal is that posting less often will allow for the generation of content that you actually want to read. The goal of any blog is to provoke conversation, provide insights, or teach you something you didn’t already know. My reviews, as fun as they are to write, aren’t accomplishing that goal.

I can hear it already. You’re saying, “But Ryan, I don’t have time to check in and not know which Monday you’re going to be posting.” That’s a fair argument, I don’t expect you to anxiously hit F5 for hours on end each Monday, only to close out the day broken-hearted when you realize that you were off by a week in your zeal for more False Travels goodness.

That’s why I’ve added a subscription button at the top of the site. Just click through and add me to your favorite RSS reader, and you’ll get new False Travels content delivered straight to your queue the moment I post it. And I promise, I won’t post anything that I don’t think is worth the time it takes to read.