Monthly Archives: July 2014

The Dresden Files: Changes

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So after listening to the audiobook for Salem’s Lot I got inspired to “reread” (or re-listen) to the dresden files books with the red court.

I started up listening to Changes because its my favorite of the vampire based stories of the Dresden Files.

I also chose Changes because it has Thomas, Molly, Murphy, Sonya, Susan, The Leanansidhe, Mouse, Ebeneezer, Mab, and the first face to face meeting between Dresden and Donar Vadderung. All of which are characters I really enjoy reading about.

Just about half way through it now and really like how the red court vampires are in the Dresden Files, especially in contrast to the White Court Vampires. The Red Court are brute force and in your face while the White Court are subtle and work behind the scenes.

After the novel I will probably get back to finishing up Dragon Age 2 (totally unrelated) so I can give Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines another playthrough and will probably do a mini Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon, possibly the whole second season (because of Buffy and Angel/Angelus.) As for possible movies, I was thinking either Blade 1 and 2 or Vampire Hunter D and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

The Long Dark

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About the Game here.

Game Trailer here.

I just preordered my copy, which is very rare for me since I do not preorder games at all. This one is different, however, the studio is Hinterland Games which is based right here in British Columbia Canada (Northern Vancouver Island), the game’s setting is also based on the Northern Canadian wilderness, its an episodic game about surviving and the choices you have to make, its voiced by some of the best Canadian voice actors (Mark Meer, Jennifer Hale, David Hayter, and Elias Toufexis), it has 2 gameplay modes (Story and Sandbox), and it’s an indie game.

To me, the story mode is just a bonus because I’ve longed to play a survival based game that does not have zombies in it or isn’t some half assed adversarial multiplayer. For while there, DayZ was great, I played on a server from salt spring islands that had a low ping and a decent cooperative community but it was ruined by the numerous server jumping gear farmers and griefers. A decent amount of the player base is out just to kill you for amusement, and not in any fun way either, some of these online psychos will prone somewhere with a sniper rifle that is trained on the starting area and kill people as they spawn or in high traffic areas, some of the worst players will try to get you do something stupid like writing an ingame essay to convince them not to kill you, or hog tie you and force feed you rotten food to kill you slowly. Sound awesome? if so, you are the worst type of gamer. Don’t believe me? go to reddit and check out some of the stories.

I really enjoyed Tomb Raider (2013) because it had survival elements, a cool crafting system and a pretty decent story. The survival, exploration, and crafting parts of the game were done pretty well and it kept me coming back to it even after I finished it.

I also modded Skyrim and New Vegas (and probably fallout 3 soon) with survival focused mods like environmental mods that force you to consider shelter or better clothing to deal with the weather and temperature, a calorie and/or dehydration mod that affects your overall health and diet that make finding food and water a priority, and health mods that make you clean and bandage wounds or make splints for broken bones before you can heal damage. A crafting system also is a plus for me but is not a major issue if its not an option. With those type of mods I just try to survive, level, get gear, and hunt. I love it, it drives me to play the game repeatedly and try out alternate play styles. 

The Long Dark has a mode that lets you do exactly that, survive for as long as possible against the elements, the sandbox mode. That is the primary reason I preordered the game. I don’t care if it doesn’t even get a crafting system, just so long as it can deliver a compelling survival experience.

Having a story mode with episodic content with the voice talent and composers they have lined up is just icing on the cake.

Can’t wait to get to try this game out when it hits steam early access.

Salem’s Lot

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Just got done with the audiobook, that was great and I can totally see why King brought Callahan back for the Dark Tower now. The story was summed up nicely in Callahan’s palaver with Roland and his ka-tet but it’s nice to finally get to hear the whole story. It really makes Callahan’s redemption arc in the Dark Tower series more meaningful and has a lot more gravity to it when he answers the challenge of the type 1 vampires to put away his cross.

Not the potter but the potter’s clay, and I need no sigul!

The epilogue was good, and alluding to the fire earlier in the story was a nice touch.

The narration by Ron McLarty was good as well.

Glad I decided to go with this book because it adds more layers to the Dark Tower series and I really like stories about vampires or dealing with them.

Now the long wait for my next 2 audible credits for August.