Categories
Books

Book 3 vs Fallout 4

Every day at 4:00 CST, we’ll tally the donations. And if people have ponied up and demanded I write more of book 3, I’ll give up my gaming time and put in another three hours above and beyond my normal writing time for the day.

What’s more, I’ll stream my writing session on Twitch.

If the will of the people is that I play Fallout 4, I’ll do a live stream of that instead. Since I haven’t gamed in a while, I expect the result will either be the live stream equivalent of riding a unicorn made entirely of orgasms. Or, if my mad skillz have atrophied, it might be an embarrassing train wreck as I’m endlessly killed by rats in the basement of whatever inn we start the adventure in.

Pat Rothfuss has some fans eagerly awaiting the third book in his Kingkiller trilogy. Some lean more heavily towards eager than awaiting. Some are just dicks. He’s written a great post about his life and balancing that with work on Book 3 and given fans the chance to decide (albeit for a limited time) how he spends his time, writing Book 3 or playing Fallout 4, and helping end hunger and poverty in the process.

To throw in my tuppence on reader entitlement, Neil Gaiman summed it up best with:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

But even beyond that if Pat didn’t do panels at conventions I would never have read Declare by Tim Powers, the book that reinvigorated my love of reading, if he didn’t give talks in cafes I would never have re-read my Pratchetts this year, if he didn’t do Acq Inc I wouldn’t now have a collection of D&D manuals that I adore, if I hadn’t heard him talk about world-building I’d wouldn’t have started drawing again, and #Ootsays never fails to make me laugh or smile.

And Pat doesn’t have to do any of that. I’m no more entitled to any of that than I am to Book 3 but I’m so glad he does it. And as long as he enjoys doing those things and I enjoy watching and reading them, I will. And if he decides he doesn’t want to do those things then that’s his call, he doesn’t owe them to me (or anyone). No more than he owes anyone Book 3.

Categories
Computer Games

War. War never changes.

Actual goosebumps. Also #PerlmanFTW.

Categories
Computer Games

The game was rigged from the start

The opening minutes of Fallout: New Vegas:

It took me the entire clip to place Doc Mitchell’s voice (Saul from BSG) but the whole cast is worth a look – Chandler, Kristofferson, Perlman (of course), Chuck, Sadler, Odo, Worf, Danny Trejo, Rawls, Cyclops, and Wesley Crusher.

Assuming I can wait until Christmas I would like this, Black Ops and Starcraft 2 please Santa.

(via Laughing Squid)

Categories
Technology

HAL-5

hal-5

Powered Exoskeleton sir? HAL stands for Hybrid Assisted Limb and is designed to help the disabled and elderly (the suit allows you to lift 5 times the weight you’d usually be able to) and also as an aid for disaster rescue. All cool so far but it’s with the military applications that things start to get scary.

I remember reading something about crash safety that said that the human body isn’t designed to hit something faster than we can run so a mechanical suit that can increase strength, speed and endurance is definitely starting to ring alarm bells. People are gonna get fucked up! What happens when things get to the point where you could get disabled in combat but just carry on?

Don’t get me wrong, power armour is awesome, but can you think of one fiction in which power armour occurs and the world(/galaxy/universe) is not just a bit fucked up? Perpetual War? Post Apocalyptic Wasteland? Staight-to-video sequels?

Also just for reference: The wireless network in James Cameron’s offices being called Skynet = cool. Naming your robotic exoskeleton company Cyberdyne = bad.

Categories
Computer Games

Hammer Time

Faced with daunting task of searching ~700 possible places where i could’ve left Fallout 3 I did the sensible thing and just bought the GOTY edition, so though I’ve now purchased the game twice at least this time I got all the additional DLC.

This time I went for pumping my Strength (as I was always annoyed at having to ditch stuff – what can I say, I’m a hoarder) and my G.O.A.T recommended I take Melee Weapons as one of my tagged skills. I was uncertain. Why get up close and personal when I can shoot them from a safe distance, but I decided, “What the hell,” and went for it. Best. Decision. Ever. I can’t believe i hadn’t thought how cool whacking shit would be using V.A.T.S.

All I can really say is, I can’t wait to get my Super Sledge on:

Categories
Computer Games

Harrumph

My Fallout 3 Disc is not in its box, which means that when I last moved I must’ve stuck it in a random DVD case. And I don’t know which one…

The most annoying part about all of this is I haven’t played a computer game in months and I just thought I’d have a cheeky hour having been a good boy and got my food shop done and eaten a proper dinner.