Music to my Ears: Video Games Live Volume 1

Album Title: Video Games Live Volume 1
Composer/Band/Performers: Slovak National Symphony Orchestra & miscellaneous
Released: 22/07/2008

Final Verdict: 7.5/10

So I've had this written up for about a month, but was too lazy too make a header. So here it is!

So like the tech savvy tool that I am, I decided to finally sync my iPod to my laptop. I hadn't ever synced my iPod before (because I never really had a SINGLE computer that I always had access to), and my entire library of music was picked up from friends along the way. iTunes gives me a prompt and is like "Yo man, is this your home base?" so I'm like "Yeah" and then it's like "Your shit is way outta date, let's update this mofo" I'm like, sounds about right, okay. Next thing you know my iPod had been wiped clean and I was raging. iTunes was all "But you told me this was your home, so your library should be here to reload anyways, right?" and so I lost all my music.

Damn.

Next thing I know I'm out shopping a bit. Hit up HMV which now has a smaller assortment of CDs then vinyls and movies, because really, who buys CDs anymore? Being desperate for music, I picked up a few CDs, including this one, Video Games Live Vol 1. I had seen a show about 2 years back now in Ottawa, and I really enjoyed it and really it's not like I need a real excuse to buy video game junk anyways.

For those of you who don't know who Video Games Live are, I'll kindly provide you with a Wikipedia link so you can read up on what you're missing because I don't want this review to turn into a class on video game culture.

So now that my life story is over, let's start with a peek at the setlist:

1. Kingdom Hearts
2. Warcraft Suite
3. Myst Medley
4. Medal of Honor (Live)
5. Civilization IV Medley
6. Medley: Tetris
7. God of War Montage (Live)
8. Advent Rising Suite
9. Tron Montage
10. Halo Suite
11. Castlevania (Live)

Alright, the first thing that might strike you is how much shorter this set list is from the last album I reviewed, The Greatest Video Game Music. It's got a shocking 8 less songs, which is practically half the CD. There are a FEW long tracks, but not enough to even out the score. 8 more songs would have really upped the variety and playtime, 2 main keys in making a good gaming music compilation. Video Games Live is a production that travels from orchestra to orchestra and has an enormous set list to boot, so why is the album so restrained? As some of you might have noticed, this is Volume 1. Jack Wall mentioned he wanted to create a series of at least 4 volumes. As to the best of my knowledge (and use of Google) there seems to have been a stall in production after Volume 2... if the others never get produced, many of the VGL interpretations will go forever unrecorded, which is really a shame.

Moving on: let's take a look at the variety and quality of the set list here. I'm not really surprised by World of Warcraft's, Tetris' and Halo's presence, but I am a touch surprised to find Advent Rising in my 2 compilations out of 2. The balance of game types represented is pretty balanced, as are their music genres from the more gothic rock Castlevania to the upbeat soviet Tetris and the digital blips of Tron. The mix is good and fairly balanced, though I can't say personally that I'm completely blown away by any.

A variety I was NOT looking for however is the recordings. We have studio and live recordings mixed, and even, in the case of Advent Rising, an original track re-edit (not quite sure the implications of that one, but y'know! I thought it was worth mentioning). I'm not a fan of Live recordings myself, though I have to admit in this case the quality is fairly good and the only real alien noise is quiet, polite clapping at the end of the song. However, in Castlevania, Jack Wall (as I've seen other people mention he's the one you hear, though I wholeheartedly believe it is Tony Tallarico from my personal experience) screams out an introduction that I think only really bothers me in the universe because he annoyed me with his conceit when I saw him live, so you can disregard my opinion about that as soon as you've read it in this big run-on sentence.

 

A clip from the Blu-Ray of Video Games Live vol 2. Civilization IV Medley.

My favorite interpretation would have to be the Civilization IV Medley. The song is a mix of multiple cultures, the rhythm is so upbeat, the chorus beautiful and the soloists absolutely lovely. It's really encouraging to see how video games can go digging into much more then just it's own culture to reach a new level of depth and not to mention making gamers explore that culture as they are experiencing it.

Anyways, I seem to have ragged on this CD a lot more then I have praised it, yet it's not getting a bad rating at all. It's not unpleasant in any way. It's got a good mix of music from a nice variety of games, and the musicians are unquestionably talented. My gripe is that The Greatest Video Game Music did it better. The sound was more complete, more intense. The recordings were crisper with more boom. I guess this one just fell a little short for me, despite it being a great source of great music (from not such a great price I admit). I'm giving it 7.5 blips out of 10 for just not spending the time to polish it. I need more songs, more consistency in the recordings, and hell, if you're holding back to make more volume, THEN MAKE MORE VOLUMES.

Anyways, I'm going to go back to trying to make this site look like something. Peace!

Geek Read: Gears of War - The Slab

Title: Gears of War: The Slab
Publisher:  Gallery Books

Authors: Karen Traviss

Published:  08/05/2012

Page Count: 464 pages

Final Verdict: 5.5/10

 Gears of War- the ultimate manly man's game. You're a giant beef dude, escaped from prison, and you gotta go and slaughter some underground alien assholes that decided now would be a good time for a human genocide, all with a rifle with a chainsaw mounted on the end of it.


This there my friend does not leave much for the imagination, and it sure doesn't leave much to write about. Though throughout the games there are shockers and twists (sort of), and some bro-love that could probably be looked into, there's nothing incredibly "deep" about it. It's fun because it's cool to chainsaw a monster in the face and you feel like a bad-ass, not because you know the inner torment of the main character, Marcus Fenix.


The thing is, this book isn't bad, it isn't bad at all. What is does feel like though, is as if the author had a misplaced affection for the story. It's too much for what it really is. The book could be half the size and contain the same relevant information,  yet it goes on trying to pull on heartstrings that frankly aren't there.


Let's face it, the crowd that wanted to run their rescue-hero shaped characters into hell and spatter blood and guts in a satisfying alien filleting aren't the same people who want to see said possibly-roid-inhanced characters crying over love letters like a little bitch. Let me tell you a little more why I feel this way...

I mean, the boots? The shoulders? Even the god damn belt and the gloves. Come onnn.

The Slab is the immediate chronological predecessor to Gears of War (the first). At the beginning of the first game, you've just escaped prison thanks to your best bro, Dom Santiago, a soldier from your old regimen. The Slab then takes it upon itself to tell you about those fun-filled 4 years in the prison of the same name. Don't get me wrong, plenty of interesting stories happen in prison, but unfortunately, this isn't the Shawshank Redemption. The first real problem is that nothing ever bloody happens. There's very little time given in the novel before Marcus gets shipped off. There's just enough pages given to make you understand that he has daddy issues, his daddy has issues and his girlfriend has daddy issues, but it's not the same daddy and not the same issues.

Marcus got sent off to a life sentence in prison for not following orders, and that sentence was downgraded (or upgraded? Depending how you look at it?) from a firing squad. Now, their reasoning behind this is that by breaking command (by trying to save his dad's life - a scientist which is essentially Sera's last hope of killing the locust mind you) and getting a handful of guys to help, he caused hundreds of Gears to die. Like, what? I would like to know what 4 more men could have done that would have saved all those lives. But whatever, Marcus, after decades of dedication to the war and the COG, gets shipped to a prison (which, in times where the world is starving to death and humanity is being extinct, is somehow still kept operational.)

Prison: You'd think knife fights and shower rape and brawls and riots. Think again- The Slab has a sort of functional society going on. Merino, the mob boss, is running the place more smoothly then most world leaders run their countries. They grow food. They clean shit. This is great and all except for the lack of entertainment. There are highlights of Marcus' saint-like personality like the refusal to participate in the slaughter of the psychologically insane convicts when security is compromised, or not having a dog-kebob when they where on the edge of starving to death, though the bulk of it is cleaning toilets and avoiding people. There's so few fights, so little action, and the foreshadowing is so obvious that there's no big surprises and there's not much bang.

The worse thing, I think, at least in my opinion is the weird-ass relationship between Marcus and his woman, Anya. She adores him for no reason and really doesn't play much of a role. She just cries and moans and feels helpless and sad. That should be expected from a woman portrayed in the manliest man-book. What is NOT expected is for Marcus to pull out this "sensitive side" bullshit. Okay so he doesn't actually CRY over the love letters, but he does sit in a dark corner thinking about death, which really isn't much better.

Forever a Fenix

Adam Fenix is also a dumb little prick of a character. Marcus' dad's logic makes absolutely no sense, and although the other characters in the book seem to share my opinion, it seems like a cheap way to cover an obvious plot device. Adam has no reason to do 90% of the shit he does other then because of his broken logic, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since he's supposed to be a god damn GENIUS. It feels like the story is being pushed when it has nothing else to offer so "meh, let's just throw this in here to cause some drama".

Despite my urge to bitch-slap some characters, I can't say I hated it. I can't say it did absolutely nothing for me. I was curious, and it kept me curious because I felt like something more HAD to happen. The disappointing part, however, is that being a directly-linked prequel, the book ends when the bullets finally start flying... because the game begins. The level of language used was easy to follow without making you feel like an idiot, making it excessively easy to pick up and put down at any kind of interval. There's some expected crude language if you're sensitive about that too I guess.

I was surprised by my own feeling of disappointment at the end. Karen Traviss is the author of a lot more video-game and sci-fi novels, including more GoW, Halo, and the Star Wars Republic Commando series. She's also the lead writer for Gears of War 3. It just felt too pushed. Too gimmicky. Trying too hard to be something it isn't.

I guess my point is, less QQ, more pew pew. Gears of War doesn't need the over-development. It's beautiful in it's simplicity. It's enjoyable as a manly game with manly satisfaction, and even the more sentimental moments, such as Dom's everlasting quest to find his wife Maria, seem appropriate in the moment, where as The Slab feels more made-up, almost like a fanfiction from a girl with a crush on Marcus that wanted him to be able to love. I give this 5.5 scrubbed toilets out of 10 for making Anya run around in high heels and crying herself to sleep at night thinking about Marcus getting butt-raped.

And sorry guys, no COLE TRAIN MOTHERFUCKERS (other then an honorable mention at the start).

Movie Mania: Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker

Title: Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker
Publisher: Fumihiko Sori

Published:  29/05/2012

Run Time: 90 minutes

Final Verdict: 1/10

In b4 this week's header is a lazy collage, I just couldn't be bothered, and that should be saying enough as it is.

Here's a little bit of a disclaimer. I played a total of maybe 1h28 minutes of Dragon Age. And that was Dragon Age 2. I assure you however, I was in the presence of fans when I watched this, so as my review will be completely heartfelt from an entertainment value standpoint, it will be based on my friend's reactions also (and my Wikipedia knowledge of Dragon Age.)

So let's do this.

This movie is awful. Like, I don't mean somewhat mediocre but entertaining, because trust me, no one else in the world has seen the Super Mario Bros movie as often as me, as I can put aside how bad it is and still watch it for the lulz. I watched Trolls 2 and can enjoy it. But this... This is just awful.

I don't even know where to start.

I was compelled to buy this when I saw it on the shelf at HMV and was intrigued on the possibly adding a video game based movie to my roster of reviewed gaming-inspired stuff. So I said, what the hell, I love animation, I love video games, and I mean, look at that cover. It looks good!

WRONG.

The first thing that hit me when the movie started were the graphics. Not by their amazingly rendered Blu-Ray quality, but how low quality they were. They are background quality graphics at the most, and this is the entire movie. Main characters. Environments. Everything! It's a little shocking to see something so low-poly being released these days with the more sophisticated equipment and software becoming more accessible. This is almost gameplay-level graphics for a whole movie. It's unseen!

While we speak of the visual aspect, let me tell you a little about artistic integrity. There is none. I have never been so underwhelmed by design in my life. It doesn't take museum curator to type "Dragon Age" in Google Images and take a look at the game's concepts and armor sets and appealing medieval atmosphere. Dawn of the Seeker seems to miss out on it's origin's creativity. Unfortunately I could go on about this but I have a ton more points to touch and everyone gets fed up after reading too much, so...

 

Look at those faces.

THE ACTING. I can forgive poor voice acting if it really was it's only flaw. It's typical of dubbed movie to have bad voice-overs or poor translations. Again, I could easily laugh that off, if only the characters didn't reflect the bad acting in the animation too. There's so much wrong with the character's stiff movements, but worse of all I have to say would be the lips. There's unnatural movement of their mouths when the characters talk, and I don't mean (just) poor lip-syncing. Instead of opening and closing, the mouths seem to be pulled from the sides as if the characters had fish hooks in each corner of their mouths that were being pulled by invisible fish line every time they wanted to say something like some sort of tortured puppet. It doesn't stop there. Although the animation does fail on many aspects, the acting is also compromised by poorly developed characters, or characters doing out-of-character things. At some point a group of mages come fight along the side of our heroes, by fighting armored knights by hitting them with their staffs instead of casting magic spells. In this movie though, mages seem to only have context-sensitive fireballs. There are many other grievances I could pull from this but I'll have to stop sometime...

Cinematography anyone? I am actually impressed that they managed to screw this up. There are some things about cinematography that you learn just by watching movies that you should know to apply to your own feature, like, for example, no one wants a perfectly framed horse's ass on screen unless they are into weird stuff that I rather not imagine. On multiple occasions the wrong things are in the frame, or there are some unwanted content in the frame (i.e. horse's backside). There's also multiple (and I mean A LOT) of shots of the heroine's face pulling the Kristen Stewart trademark confused pout. It actually started to get frustrating. You started wishing she'd make another face, have another expression, try to feel something, but then she'd talk and your face (teary eyes and everything) would fall hopelessly into your pillow suppressing a scream about why humanity would publish something like this for the unsuspecting masses. It's a cruel world.

 

I'd be pissed too if I only had one expression.

As for writing, the dialogs are crap. There's nothing really great about anything, and even the story is fairly poor. My Dragon Age-loving friends assured me that it was really hard to place this movie (though, from I read on the Internet, it seems to have been somewhere between the first and second game) as there was very little content really relevant to the games, and even some contradicting it. Dragons, which are supposed to be like god-kings-lords-all-powerful-dudes are reduced to a bunch of idiots crashing into each other because little miss plot-device-on-legs decided she wasn't gonna help the bad guys take over the world anymore. Although, I must admit this scene spawned a come at me bro-esque moment where an old lady calls out a dragon and it's as ridiculous as it sounds. There's nothing surprising, touching, suspenseful or exciting about the plot, and really, even if there was, the characters would not have been able to ever take it to that level with the Justin Timberlake meet C-3PO in the lead with Stewart-faced-angry-bitch.

Looking at my notes I see that I could clearly go on for possibly double what I've already written, but I think any sane person got the point already. Avoid this movie if you ever come across it, and certainly don't pay any money for it. If you do watch it, make sure you're properly intoxicated and that you have good friends with senses of humor with you to survive. It's a bad movie. It is adding to the pile of reasons some real directors are horrified of producing actually good video game based movies (Gore Verbinski, please, PLEASE return to the Bioshock project) and I can't really blame them. This is bad. This is AWFUL. I give this 1 pimp slap for being 20$ I'll never see again. And because I'm saving 0 for that game that'll one day need that special place in hell.

Merch Madness: Halo Anniversary Series 2 "The Package" Master Chief Action Figure

Figure: Halo Anniversary Series 2 "The Package" Master Chief Action Figure
Company: McFarlane Toys

 Final Verdict: 5/10

Clearly I can not help myself from raving about Halo stuff. Either that or it's the most wide-spread and common video game goodies available. Maybe both.

I picked up this figure at my local Toys R Us, where I spend my lonely nights when the internet is down. This particular Master Chief is ever so slightly different then all the other Master Chiefs out there. This particular model was created as part of the Halo Anniversary series of figures which celebrate everything that is Halo. This Master Chief is modeled very specifically as the Master Chief that appears "The Package", a short film featured on the DVD of Halo Legends. For those of you living under a rock, here's a mid-film clip to give you a taste:

This film was produced by Casio Entertainment and directed by Aramaki Shinji. Their segment of the Halo Legends was their most important work as a studio. Other then that, the most notable would be segments of CG for Final Fantasy: Dissidia.

Regardless, the most distinctive differences in this MC is the additional paint job (the white war stripes and the small red detailing) and the particular mark of armor. The change isn't tremendous, but if they were to release ANOTHER Master Chief, I'm glad they made the effort of adding something new to the mix.

 

The packaging is a fairly simple plastic on cardboard backing type, which doesn't look great to display, so it reduces my guilt in tearing him free of his plastic prison. Master Chief comes with 3 accessories, his iconic assault rifle, a frag grenade, and a piece of the UNSC logo.

 

There's a few things that surprise me when it comes to the accessories: first, there's a bar protruding the side of the assault rifle, which I'm assuming is to mount on the side of his thigh (or so I assume since that's the only holes on his body) though when on display, I don't see why he wouldn't be holding his gun, and when he is, there's an awkward stud jutting out the side. The frag grenade, however, has the opposite problem. There's a hole that takes up about 42% of the thing for no apparent reason. And no, it DOESN'T fit on the gun's peg. Though it does fit on the end of the barrel.

I created... a grenade launcher. Harr harr.
 

There's also the insignia piece. It's not really something important at it's just a hollow piece of cheap plastic which looks like nothing without the rest of the set. It's a cool extra little feature for a dedicated collector though.

Anyways, onto the main course. Master Chief is advertised to have 28 moving parts. These "moving parts" however, are not easy parts to move. For such an articulated figure, he's awfully hard to position. His knees won't bend more then a 45 degree angle, and his thighs maybe 15. This is an issue for display. The less movement he has, the harder it is to pose him in a balanced position that doesn't look awkward as hell. So unless you resort to sticky tack under his feet, odds are you'll have him standing straight, or, y'know....

Looking like Voldo from Soul Calibur.

Or crossing over into my My Little Pony collection.

It also advertises 28 moving parts. There's actually 17 moving parts, not 28. Although, I've figured that they meant axes on which parts can move. That makes a lot more sense. He can rotate rather unnaturally, though he can't bend very well.

Other then that, the sculpt is highly detailed and intricate (as well as accurate) as MacFarlane figures are recognized for, though mine did have a slight factory defect on his knee, I don't expect that it's a widespread problem.

Wtf is this shit.

To finish it off, the paint job. It's almost perfect except for one wide green line on his waist that looks to have been misaligned or bled. This is unfortunate as other then that, the paint is a high quality and looks fairly resistant to abuse.

Crotch paint leak.

Overall, this figure is nice to look at at first but is plagued with multiple imperfections. It's not unique enough to seduce anyone but a passionate Halo collector into purchasing it, especially at a 16.99$ canadian retail plus tax. There are much more impressive Master Chiefs out there, and this isn't "the one" to own. Although, I have to admit I had fun testing it out for this review...

Maybe too much fun.

So I gave this figure 5/10 crab walks for just not being quite as epic enough to be something "new", not being flexible enough to truly be poseable, and leaving me with a lot of unanswered questions (and not to mention leaving me with an extra piece that is useless unless I buy the rest of the set). Until next time!

...I promise no more Halo related reviews for a while.

Geek Read: Halo: The Fall of Reach

Title: Halo: The Fall of Reach
Publisher:  Tor Books; First Edition edition

Authors: Eric Nylund

Published:  03/08/2010

Page Count: 416 pages

Final Verdict: 7.5/10

Picture unrelated to opinion but related to what I do on Saturday nights.

I'm not usually one for novel adaptations of anything, not movies, not games. Novels are usually better as it's own original material, something that was planned and loved and poured over for hours trying to wring out a creative thought which was then pushed into something (usually) great, the same can be said of games. I really admire fiction authors as they are not only are they able to spin wild thoughts into solid, structured sentences (which is something I clearly struggle with, amirite?) but they can do so about worlds that don't exist, about material that's completely made up. They can make fantasy so vibrant it feels real.

This isn't one of those books. It's not original material, it's based off a video game. A hit video game. One with thousands and thousands of nitpicking die-hard fans willing to tear apart a story to find it's clashes with the source material. Living up to those expectations can't be easy. You can't pretend you can tap into someone's gaming experience and capture that feeling in a book. This book doesn't try to do that. It simply tries to tell you it's story. 

After my last read (which you'll be able to tell through my review felt like it gave me an intelligence tumor), I thought I'd tone it down with something more brain-numbing (and with explosions). I had started to read The Fall of Reach years ago, but lost it partway through. I recently picked it back up (which is now the definitive edition, with an additional 27-ish pages of content) and decide to re-tackle it. Let's say, for something I expected to go ratatatatatat for 8 chapters had a little more to offer then that.

The Halo: Fall of Reach novel tackles the origin of Master Chief and the Spartan-IIs and serves as a precursor to the original Halo game. The book is written in third person, yet it concentrates a lot on the thoughts of the main characters. Throughout the book, you explore many people's conscience about a whole wack of subjects, from the morality issues associated with genetic engineering, to what defines humanity, to a soldier's reasons to fight. You get to explore different characters with a wide range of emotions and personalities and get a little insight at how they personally handle the current madness. There's a big emphasis on conscience throughout the novel which is very different from the mindless satisfaction of splattering Covenant with your Warthog in game. It forces you to stop and think a minute.

The Master Chief is obviously the main focus in the story. I was wondering how they would choose to portray him as he is a mostly silent character in the games, and his actions are almost always dictated by your decisions. That would mean no Master Chief is ever the same, thus making the character even harder to recapture as everyone will have different expectations. They settle this on making him remarkably average. John-117 is unbelievably normal, with feelings and questions and imperfections all the same. He stays very human despite the fact that he is practically half machine. His only real superhuman trait is that he is wholly, almost blindly dedicated to his cause. You can not help but once again project yourself in his image. He's normal, I'm normal, we are the same (now for that power armor..).

The story covers plenty of unanswered questions and sheds light on many references only mentioned in-game. Though the futuristic human world is vast with a multitude of planets, systems, colonies, ships, and much more to keep in mind, it's relatively easy to follow. The simple level of language used is most likely to keep the average gamer interested. It's easy enough to not have to think and dive into this world of glorious battles. It's simplistic without being stupid. I don't feel like the book is spoon-feeding me information bite by bite, but it does take it's time to properly explain what is going on and where without having you lose interest.

I was hoping for a book to shut my brain off to, something easy to read. This book is both of those, but a little more. It did grab my attention and encouraged me to keep reading without wanting to put it down. It didn't delude my love for Halo by adding any soppyness or just dumbing it down. The Halo universe is a vast and fascinating one and it was interesting to take a dive into it to get away, even when I was miles away from my Xbox. It kept me entertained, but I can't say it ever really surprised me. I'll give it 7.5 frags out of 10 for being a solid, fun read that lacks in maybe a little shock and awe.

Geek Read: Games Of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games

Title: Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Authors: Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter

Published:  08/12/2009

Page Count: 320 pages

 

Final Verdict: 8/10

I drew the header for this review almost as soon as I started reading it... a few months ago. I instantly thought a plain grey suit and a groomed look was perfect, and I immediately associated this book to an annual business meeting. So... ahem. *Straightens out jacket*

This book is a little bit of a tease. It's a little harmless-looking paperback book. It fits in my purse. I got through 2 books of that size in a DAY. Then why did it take me a couple MONTHS to get through it? A look at the publisher will give an important hint.. The University of Minnesota Press. The book just rings of doctoral essay.

The first hint of that is that it holds up an incredibly high standard in language language level. I blame many of my delays due to the fact that I couldn't read this book adequately without my laptop within inches of me to be able to Google these references and define these words that I've never even heard of every few moments. I appreciate this as I'm always looking to expand my vocabulary and as I wouldn't want to compromise the integrity of the book by having it dumbed down to my level but it's something that will play a certain role in selling this book to a more casual reader. 

I expected this book to talk about numbers and statistics and very hum-drum facts and points about the economic power of the video game industry. Boy, was I wrong. Global capitalism isn't just about income and moulah and recessions. The book goes into many sociological discussions as well as dealing with global history lessons and psychological questions. It explores a ton of different fields of interest and there's a great variety of facts that all finds way to relate with and stay pertinent with the subject of video games' impact on global capitalism. The entire book had me fascinated with the facts that were being presented and the unusual perspective it took on the video game industry. It's a refreshing outsider look, differing from the die-hard fan rants and the cynical critic, this is a fresh look at a fresh angle, which brings me to my next point.

I appreciated the unbiased positions the authors take up. This book is a wonderful reference as it doesn't preach. It presents the facts, both positive and negative, about all that there is to know about the role games play in the world's economy and dynamic. Your own opinions can be formed after you've taken in the massive amount of information presented or just have your curiosity peaked to search more in depth in one particular branch. Regardless, the information is really well presented, properly worded, and elegantly delivered. I can't guarantee I understood everything, I did have to re-read sections and educate myself a little bit with some research as I have no business or economics background which made some of the terminology used a little overwhelming and forced me to dig deeper, which in turn again helped me discover a whole new world of information.

ALTHOUGH. There's one small (really stupid!) issue that really drove me up the wall. I don't actually know if that's the proper essay format, or whatever you consider what this book is, but damnn. This essay quotes a LOT of references which makes it really feel formal and there's a certain strength about having facts and references backing up your writing, but the sheer amount of reference information in parentheses directly following the sentence it was used for GREATLY impairs the flow of the book. It gets hard to follow a trait of thought when it's constantly interrupted with potentially meaningless names or numbers (my brain, p.150-151, 26/04/2012) It might sound like a stupid complaint but it can really make it hard to grasp the meaning of a paragraph (myself, 1, 2, 3, 69) when it's all split sentence by sentence (according to my mind, p.11) or even every few words. (2012, just now) Know what I mean? It gets hard to understand with the mix of a higher grade of language and the constant interruptions by the resource's information. To make it all worse, there's about 20 pages of footnotes and definitions that are incredibly hard to directly link it's specific section in the book, even with all the little symbols and notes. I guess I need a university student or prof to tell me my feelings towards this format are simply misguided or immature, but I did not find it very user friendly.

Overall, really, it took me ages to read. It was hard. It was like studying, but I still pushed through it because of the sheer fascination I had with everything it presented me. It really covered all the bases it promised to cover. It was very thorough, professional and taught me more then one new lesson. It expanded my universe of gaming knowledge to a whole new level, and I'm really grateful for that. I give it 8 head shots out of 10 as it's complexity is at the same time it's greatest aspect and it's biggest downfall.

Geek Read: Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories

Title: Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories
Publisher:  Dark Horse Books

Authors:  Multiple

Published:  29/11/2011

Page Count: 205 pages

Final Verdict: 9/10

OKAY SO, it's been a little wild. I like pretending that work is what has gotten in the way and that I'm just so darn busy and important that I don't have time to keep up my blog for my whole 4 followers. But really...

 

Work has been busy and all, but I've had my share of lazy days. The other book I am reading for review is taking wayyyyyy too long to get through (doesn't help that I left it on an aircraft so I had to wait until someone turned it in) and eventually lost motivation. But today, during my most lazy of PJ days I picked up this gem that my dad got me as a going-away gift which I was saving for just this kind of day. So after breezing through it... I bring you, my opinion! Not that you care.

So I have to hand it to Dark Horse for their prints: The ones I own are all large, colorful prints on heavy stock paper and printed hardcovers. This is something I value in a book that will sit in my collections. I hate books that disintegrate in my hands during a normal read through, or that have bible-thin pages that take me 3 minutes to turn in fear of tearing it off. Okay: Maybe I'm a little obsessive, but all I really wanted to point out is that it's a sturdy bugger that looks great on a shelf, especially beside it's own kind. She's a beaut'.

Before going further I'd also like to point out that on sites such as Chapters.ca and Amazon.com, the book title is followed by Volume 1, which leads to believe they may create more of these, which would be great.

Onto the main subject!

Content! The book is split into 3 stories which revolve around 3 of Valve's best sellers: Left4Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2. I'm a little surprised they did not bring in Half Life or start with Portal 1 but that's not really important. I'll be quite frank and admit these aren't games I played heavily as they had a special spotlight on multiplayer play, which is not something that I'm very much into, yet I've played them all to some extent and am comfortable within their stories/worlds.

The main story, The Sacrifice, is the story behind Left4Dead's main cast and takes up about half of the book's 205 pages. It takes a glimpse into the backstories of the crew while showing their present situation. There's a huge emphasis on the relationships between the characters and how they came to develop a certain way. The story is well balanced in storytelling and action, as well as emotional yet exciting. There's plenty to look at on every page and the dialog can be long but stays simple as it's all it needs to be. It follows a somewhat typical zombie apocalypse story arc, there's nothing excessively original about it, but I don't think that was the point. You get to know the characters that you didn't expect could be so profound when you where shotgunning witches in Left4Dead, and it feels good.

The second story strums a completely different cord. The Team Fortress 2 story, War!, is as silly as the game itself. The artwork is simple and bright and reflects it's source material perfectly. It does the same sort of backstory-filling that The Sacrifice does, but in a total other direction. The story really just shows to what extremes the characters are caricatured, and the pointlessness of the endless Red team vs Blue team war (bringing to mind the satirical Halo machinima, Red vs Blue). It's sometimes interrupted by old-style comics of Saxton Hale and his manly adventures, wrestling sharks and setting bears on fire, which are guaranteed to make you laugh if the main story didn't (which if it didn't, guarantees you have no soul).

So while The Sacrifice will make you want to cry and War! will make you pee your pants, Lab Rat will leave you completely wtfed. Easily the most artsy of the three, Lab Rat (a Portal 2 comic) is much more abstract, diving back and forth into reality, madness, present and future, so it's not the easiest comic to follow. It does, however, also have an art style that reflects the madness in a very sketchy, contrasting way. The story is very short, and doesn't take me anywhere emotionally, though I did enjoy it because of it's frantic pace, and really I like anything about insanity.

Overall good purchase, though it is a pricey one, at least for Canadians ranging around 31.99$ for a book that takes about an hour to read, or two to enjoy slowly. My poor collector heart (and wallet) will unfortunately never let that stop me from bringing this gem into my collection. It's a really enjoyable graphic novel for those who enjoy graphic novels in general, but even better for fans of the game that like having a little more then the pew pews the games provide. I'll give this 9/10 crazy turrets for being a well rounded and well constructed book full of tears, laughs, and I don't know whats.