Book Review | Armada by Ernest Cline

Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: doesn't something about this scenario seem a little... familiar?

***

Isn't the world weird?

After decades of dismissal, what was once the preserve of known nerds is now everyone's favourite field. Video games are a cornerstone of contemporary culture. There are characters from comic books wherever you look. The fundamental stuff of science fiction and fantasy has been embraced in a big way by the mainstream, and though there are those who still question the merits of the speculative, even these outliers have had a hard time denying the cultural cache it has accrued in recent years.

Fair to say, then, that geek has never been more chic—a zeroing of the zeitgeist Ernest Cline capitalised on to heartfelt effect in his first novel following the cult film Fanboys. A celebration of all things 80s bolstered by a cannily-characterised protagonist who came of age over its uproarious course, Ready Player One was smart, but it also had a heart.

Armada starts strong, by scratching a great many of the same itches Cline's debut did. It too worships at the altar of this new, nerd-friendly nostalgia. It combines space-based spectacle with a series of intimate interruptions. It's frequently funny and remarkably referential. But there's a but.

But I Digress | My Little Alien

"It started with one word. One word appearing slowly against the blackness of space: ALIEN."

It did indeed—for me, and I can't imagine how many millions of other admirers of the aforementioned franchise.

That quote, in case you were wondering, comes from the back cover copy of Alien: The Archive: a beautiful new book that's taken pride of place on the coffee table in the corner of the spare room the other half and I spent the autumn turning into a lovely library.

It's a massive thing—The Archive rather than the library—and not half as expensive as it is expansive. No surprise, I suppose, since it's the first official book about all four of the films. That said, it did surprise me. I was expecting a collection of film stills and a bit of behind-the-scenes business; a few storyboards and prop shots, possibly, printed on great big glossy pages. 

(Knowing me, as I do declare I do, I'd have bought the book on that bare basis, if Titan hadn't kindly sent a complimentary copy along, What can I say? I have Alien on the brain.)

Make no mistake: The Archive has all that, but it's so much more than just a book of pretty pictures; of illustrations and annotations. It begins with an overview of the franchise so far, by way of an involved interview with its star, the wonderful Sigourney Weaver. The remainder is arranged according to the four films featured. The pages devoted to Alien take in, for instance, an extensive introduction based on interviews with the cast and crew, followed by briefer pieces about sketches and concepts, building the world, casting the characters, making the models, filming the effects, and a fair few other things. Aliens,  Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection all receive the same detailed treatment.

It's an incredible compendium—and, considering that Christmas is coming, a great gift idea, if your friends or family members are fans of the franchise. Not a few of the folks we've had over to see our lovely library have spent longer looking at this book than admiring the room I renovated, and I don't even begrudge them their distraction.

If you've got Alien-friendly gamers to get gifts for, also consider Alien: Isolation, which I finally completed this week. I don't have a huge amount to add to the more responsible reviews out there, except to say that the save system, though archaic and fundamentally frustrating, in many ways makes the game: the tension that is Isolation's single greatest strength is never tighter than when you're hunting for the save station's distinctive beeping after surviving a couple of close encounters with you-know-who.

Also, the aesthetic? Pitch perfect. The sound design? Superlative. Isolation is the best Alien game there's ever been by far. It'd have been a better eight hour experience than it is a twenty hour epic—the mechanics wear more than a little thin during the mediocre middle act—but Isolation, like The Archive, exceeded my every expectation.

Now I have a couple of classes to teach this evening, and a party to attend afterwards, nevertheless, I know what I'll be doing during the wee hours of Halloween.

"It started with one word. One word appearing slowly against the blackness of space: ALIEN."

Status Update | An Evil Easter

Over the Easter weekend, I was beside myself with surprise to find that I had a few hours free.

To be clear, this has not been the norm for me recently. Indeed, it's been brutal hereabouts this year: at home, 2014 to date has been a combination of sickness and sadness, and at work, with most of my students sitting their English exams soon, trying to keep on top of my various other obligations has been hard... hence the lack of late of what I want to call casual content here on The Speculative Scotsman.

With a little luck, though, that should be sorted shortly, and given the wonderful weather this weekend—oh what fun it was to sit in the sun!—suddenly it feels like summer is nearly here. I won't give anything away today, but I have big plans for the holidays, when they happen. Plans that I've been hatching for a period of years.

In any event, this weekend, I found myself with a few extra hours, and I deliberately did something different with them. Something I wasn't sure I ever would do. Readers... I started playing a certain game.

And I discovered, despite my doubts, that I am prepared to die. Again and again and again, in a cycle of violence I was sure would make me hateful. But it hasn't so far. How about that?

That's really all I wanted to say. Dark Souls II has dibs on the rest of my day. :)

But hey, if there are any old hands out there, a few words of advice for a Dark Souls amateur would be very welcome.

But I Digress | Steam Powered

Last week, Valve teased three impending announcements. The first, SteamOS, made a lot of sense. The second I'm not so sure about. The last one is still to come, at the time of this writing, but it's going to be about a Steam Machine controller, of course.

There go my dreams of Half-Life 3!

But it wouldn't do to gloss over the big news, which is that the Steam Box is real. Some of you must be wondering... the Steam what? Well, as Dark Horizons reports:

After years of speculation, Valve have confirmed the existence of their long-awaited Steam Box video game console, or rather the Steam Machines which will release in 2014. 

Rather than a single, one spec box like a Playstation 4 or Xbox One, Valve is working with multiple partners to launch a variety of Steam gaming machines for the market next year. All will run Linux-based SteamOS, which was announced on Monday. 

The aim is to bring the popular Steam gaming service into the lounge room, allowing users to play PC games on your big screen TV with a game controller rather than a keyboard.

This is good news for any number of reasons.

In the past year I've personally played any number of games on my PC through Steam, and I know I'm not alone in this. With the 360 and to a lesser extent the PS3 looking awfully long in the tooth, even mid-range systems like the tower I built late last year do a better job of handling the demands of today's AAA games. Admittedly there's new hardware on the horizon now, and I'm sure I'll end up with one console or the other this coming Christmas, but the desire to play games on my PC is in me now. I have, however, often wished I could do so in the comfort of my living room, on the big screen and with the full force of my sound system in effect...

Next year, Valve mean to make my dreams real.

I say more power to them. I can certainly see myself buying a Steam Machine, presuming the price is right. That said, I think they've missed a trick. As noted in the originating Dark Horizons article, there won't be one, but many of these machines:

Different manufacturers are expected create all sorts of boxes with different levels of power and at different price points (just like they do now with PCs). Valve isn't so much attempting to enter the game console war as it is trying to create an entire category of gaming machines.

Which is ambitious... but, I worry, rather wrong-headed.

By all means bring multiple models of the Steam Machine to market, Valve — have an entry-level version and a bleeding-edge box — but too much choice stands to kill this concept before it's even born. A single Steam Machine, or two at a push, could unify a disparate market to the point that the PS4 and the XB1 might well be rendered irrelevant; making ten or more models is simply taking the piss.

Thoughts from the peanut gallery, please! Can you see yourself buying a Steam Machine?

You Tell Me | A Machine for Friday the 13th

I'm not a particularly superstitious person, so the fact that it's Friday the 13th fails to inspire feelings of fear in me. That said, with the most monstrous month almost upon us, I've been reading a raft of horror novels for review in recent weeks, and I find myself drawn, quite despite myself, to terror.

I love fantasy for its epic quests, and science fiction for its breathtaking sense of scale, but it strikes me that there's nothing quite like the desperate uncertainty that the very best scary stories suggest. The exquisite thrill of the shiver or the sudden shock of something startling affects me, at least, in a much more immediate way than the slow burn of some secondary world's wonders.

Which is simply to say, I know how I'll be spending my evening: tentatively investigating the terrifying spaces of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. 

If it can even hold a candle to its terrifying predecessor — and coming as it does from the developers of the tremendously affecting Dear Esther, I have high hopes — I can't imagine I'll get a whole lot of sleep this weekend.

Will you be spending Friday the 13th with something unspeakably creepy?

Status Update | Sayonara, Summer

By gum, it's been a busy week or three! Not here, clearly. But with the summer well and truly behind us — sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true — the classes I teach in the evenings are in session again, and I dare say I may have overcommitted elsewhere in an attempt to fill some of all the free time that I hardly remember happening.

I suppose I have had a few hours to relax. I certainly played the hell out of Saints Row 4 — just the kind of mindless madness I needed, really — and the other half and I both stole a moment to learn all about Sam and the family from Gone Home. I never thought I'd be nostalgic about the mid-90s, but The Fullbright Company showed me just wrong I was. Yet Gone Home is a game as much about the future as the past: it's a glimpse into an age — fast-approaching, I hope — of more mature gaming.

Now that I think on it, I've seen a few movies, too: Star Trek Into Darkness, which wasn't half as awful as many made out, and Zero Dark Thirty, which impressed the hell out of me — and made me want to rewatch Kathryn Bigelow's vampire masterpiece Near Dark. I'm hoping to sit down with World War Z before the weekend, as well.

What? I said movies, not new movies. What do you expect? I haven't been to the cinema in nearly a year...

But by and large I've been filling my every minute with fiction. You'll start seeing the fruits of all that on The Speculative Scotsman shortly, but for the moment, recent highlights have included More Than This by Patrick Ness and Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of my favourite book of 2012. Still to come, there's some good-looking new Lavie Tidhar, Parasite by Mira Grant, Proxima by Stephen Baxter, and — of course — Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, which I've been reading this week... alas, I can't say much more about it than that.

For the foreseeable here, I have two more great guest posts in the can, not a few related reviews, a temperature to take and an announcement to make. The blog'll be back in business in a bit, basically, but no less than ten imminent deadlines mean I'll be occupied with other obligations a little longer.

Meantime, I hope you've been keeping up with the British Genre Fiction Focus over on Tor.com. This week's column went up earlier this afternoon, in fact: there's some Adam Nevill news and a bit about Ireland's bid to host Worldcon in 2019, but the starring attraction is a whole lot of talk about The Time Traveller's Almanac, complete with a mini-interview with Ann VanderMeer about the process of putting together what is an incredibly ambitious anthology. Read all about right here.

Guest Post | "Wait, Video Games Have Writers?" by Jay Posey

One of the subjects I touched on in my review of Jay Posey's debut was the idea of the novel as a collaborative process, because in much the same way that video games require the participation of their players, Three requires its readers to do a little of the legwork.

This wasn't something I minded in the slightest — rather than getting hung up on the lack of facts in the first act, I applauded the resulting sense of individual discovery — yet so many authors are content to spoon-feed us everything we need to know (and more) that I suppose I can see why some of Three's readers have complained about Posey's decision to leave certain elements of his narrative and characters to our imagination.

I can see... but I completely disagree. In fact, I think this approach is one of the book's biggest boons.

Yet there is somewhere a balance to be struck, between too much and not enough, and Jay Posey has a fascinating perspective on this question, informed by his day job making video games... as he explains.

***

In addition to being an author, I’ve also been very fortunate to get to do one of the coolest jobs in the world which is, of course, making video games!  Game development probably doesn’t rank quite as highly as, say, underwater photography, vacation tester, or bacon entrepreneur, but I think it’s still up there as one of those pretty cool jobs that lots of people wish they had. (Or at least, that they think they wish they had.)

But when you do the job I do — I’m a Senior Narrative Designer at Red Storm Entertainment, where Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six franchises were born — there’s a great conversation to be had that goes something like:

Interested Guest at Party: “So, Jay, what do you do for a living?”
Me: “I’m a writer.”
Interested Guest at Party: “Oh, wow, that’s so cool!  So, like movies?  Or books?  Or what?”
Me: “Video games, mostly.”
Suddenly Dramatically Less Interested Guest at Party: “Ooohhh, I thought you meant like a real writer.”

(That of course is completely made up, as I never get invited to parties.)

Some may be surprised to learn that, in fact, many real writers do work in the video game industry. Mary DeMarle, Amy Hennig, Rhianna Pratchett, Christy Marx, Marc Laidlaw, Anthony Burch, Erik Wolpaw, Drew Holmes, Andy Walsh, T.J. Fixman, Steve Jaros, Tom Abernathy, Aaron Linde, Richard Dansky. I could go on and on listing awesome writers who already work in games, but I won’t — even though I’ve left a bunch off the list and they will probably be letting me know via Twitter in short order. Sorry guys!

Now, I’ll be the first to admit, it’s sometimes hard to tell that great writers are doing great things in games from the final product. There are a lot of broken attempts at storytelling out there to be sure.  As an industry, we still have the habit of falling back on other media’s rules when we flounder (that’s why we still have so many cutscenes). There’s also a fairly frequent refrain that shows up in discussions of video game storylines that says what the Industry really needs is just to hire one or more big name Hollywood writers to come in and teach game developers how to write. Certainly, there are plenty of studios/publishers out there that could use a little nudge to help them see why hiring a professional writer early on might be a better way to go than asking an overworked developer to “slap some story on” at the end of a project.

BUT.

There are some important things folks should know.

On the one hand, Story is Story. Humans have been telling stories pretty much since the Dawn of Man. There are a number of aspects of telling stories that work regardless of whether you’re working on a long-form novel or on a video game. The importance of characters, how dialogue works, how to create intriguing plot twists and satisfying emotional pay-offs, all of these things (and more) are applicable to storytelling in a variety of different media, whether it’s radio, TV, film, prose, stageplays, comics, whatever.

On the other hand, every medium has its own particular strengths. Books give us access to a character’s internal life. Movies excel at visual storytelling. TV shows frequently tell us many stories at once, and episodically sustain us over the course of weeks, or months, or years. And all of those media have something in common: the writers control the characters.

The strength of games is their interactivity. While other media are primarily passively received, games are fundamentally active. Whereas a movie audience might be content to sit and watch events unfold on a big screen to characters they cannot influence, gamers expect to participate in their own experience. Which means as a writer of games, you can always count on having at least one wild-card in your cast: the player. 

Players want to influence and experience the world that a game lets them inhabit. Players want to matter.  Some of them want to be good citizens of your game world, role-playing the character you’ve asked them to be. Others want to interact however they see fit, and will run around jumping on boxes while you deliver important news about the alien invasion, or will pick-pocket the clothes off of every citizen in town.

Game writing is ultimately collaborative. As a writer, the story you write isn’t complete until the player engages with it and makes it her own experience. And while there have been many missteps, and will continue to be more along the way, I can assure you that there are already real writers in the industry who are passionately striving to decipher the power of video games as a story-telling medium, who are daily working to bring gamers amazing story experiences that are both personally meaningful and yet shared within a community, and who one day will, I believe, be heralded as heroes of the craft.

Or, at the very least, maybe as level 99 writers.

***

Jay Posey has been described as “fascinating,” “insightful,” “highly entertaining,” “extremely handsome,” and “one of the most dynamic speakers in the Posey household” by parties who may or may not have been biased or himself.

Thanks a million for the guest post, Posey!

With which, I'm going to give the floor to you folks. Any thoughts on the notion of the novel as a collaborative process versus the video game as an interactive narrative?

Trailer Trash | The Walking Dead Summer Special

Well, I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend.

You guys too?

400 Days is apparently a bridge between seasons one and two of Telltale's take on The Walking Dead. You'll recall that the phenomenal first season won any number of game of the year awards, including mine, and though this special standalone episode doesn't look to follow it directly, given the creative team's talent for character building — and for fashioning fascinating narrative out of a milieu which is, if we're honest, a lot like hundreds of others — I expect nothing less than excellence from 400 Days.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that the Microsoft Points card I bought to purchase this DLC with will probably be the last Microsoft Points card I ever have to buy. In part because the company are going with real money for marketplace transactions on the Xbox One, but largely because I'm still on Sony's side — never mind Microsoft's dramatic back-tracking after this year's E3. By then they'd made it crystal clear where there loyalties lay, which is to say, nowhere near me... or any other consumers, in truth.

I've pre-ordered a PS4, obviously. Knowing my proclivities, I'll probably cave and get an Xbox One eventually, but only once I'm sure Microsoft aren't planning to pull a fast one with DRM delivered via dashboard update or some similarly insidious bait-and-switch.

Either way, I won't miss Microsoft Points.

You Tell Me | To Infinity... and Beyond!

So hey.

Today's the day! The day we hear what the next Xbox will be all about — or at least what it'll be called. I'm excited. How about you?

In case you weren't aware, in a few short hours — only four more from the time of this post — Microsoft are going to hold a press event where "A New Generation Will Be Revealed," or so the email I got this morning insists.

We already know about the PS4, and though I could honestly care less until there's a new Zelda to worry my bank balance further, I'll admit the Wii U exists, thus this is the last of the last crop of consoles in line for a generational refresh.

I have very high hopes for the Xbox Next, or the Xbox 365, or the Xbox Infinity, or whatever they end up calling the thing, because this generation, I played most of my go-to video games on the 360. I've enjoyed achievements a great deal in recent years, and the seamlessness of the online experience is still second to none. A steady stream of Halos haven't hurt the Xbox's cause either.

But there's still so much to play for. Sony look to have ratcheted back their arrogance, leaving Microsoft to inherit their hubris. If they get too big for their boots — and we'll get an indication of whether or not that's actually the case later today — I'll be buying a PS4 before the next Xbox.

Fingers firmly crossed Microsoft have taken to heart some of the criticism that's come their way since we heard tell of all this online only nonsense. And as a renter rather than a buyer, if I'm unable to play used games on the next-gen Xbox without paying for an additional user license or some such rubbish, I'm done.

For the moment, though, we just don't know.

That said, we will in a bit... so now's the time to speculate. :)

What do you want from the next Xbox? Please do tell.

For my part, this Illumiroom technology really appeals to me:

Make that a pack-in and I'll be happy.

Coming Attractions | Arkham's Disappointing Origins

Rocksteady's Arkham games were great, weren't they?

Moody, gorgeous, elaborate and impactful. Innovative, even; you see Arkham Asylum's combat mechanics everywhere these days, and I ain't complaining. Rocksteady did justice to the Batman franchise where endless other developers had tried and failed, then doubled down on their commitment to the character with a superb sequel.

What with these guys making Batman games, Chris Nolan making Batman movies, and Scott Snyder writing the comics, the last few years have chronicled rather a renaissance for the caped crusader. By and large, I've loved it.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. The Dark Knight Rises capped off the cinematic trilogy; sequentially speaking, Scott Snyder must be closer to the end of his tenure than the beginning; and now, it looks like Rocksteady have also moved on. For the time being, at least.

Which isn't to say there won't be more Batman games. Far from it, in fact.

This October, it was recently revealed, will see the release of Batman: Arkham Origins for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. What we're looking at here is a prequel to Rocksteady's series, being made by an untested developer: Warner Bros. Montreal. 

And it gets worse. Apparently Eric Holmes—lead designer of Prototype and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, amongst other rubbish—is the game's creative director.

I have minimal willpower when it comes to this character, so I'll probably play Arkham Origins anyway. But I don't expect it will be a patch on the games Rocksteady made.

Luckily, some good news broke alongside the reveal of this prequel. Allow me to quote from the originating Game Informer article:

Releasing on 3DS and Vita the same day as the home console version, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate is a completely separate experience that takes place after the events of Arkham Origins. Armature Studio is developing the 2.5-D Metroid-style exploration action game. Industry followers will recognize Armature Studio as the company founded by several of the leads from the Metroid Prime trilogy.

Doesn't that sound like a match made in heaven?

And guess who just bought himself a 3DS XL?

Me! :)

But I Digress | Super Kindle 64

So the PlayStation 4 exists.

Who would have thunk it?

Well, everyone, obviously. Its existence was the worst kept secret in the gaming industry since... actually, I'm struggling to come up with an apposite example. This isn't an industry known for its grace or patience, after all; like a squabble in the schoolyard, if there's something going on, potential spectators are alerted as if by osmosis, or some telepathic process. Hence all the NDAs. And the elaborately coordinated PR campaigns.

But that's not what I want to talk about today. Rather than the announcement of the PS4 itself—which, for what it's worth, I'll buy if or else when the price is right—I want to use the immediate reaction to the would-be huge news as a jumping off point for discussion. Because the sentiment I heard, overwhelmingly, before, during and after Sony's shindig, was... so what?

Let me be clear: I disagree. I believe there's a real need for updated hardware. Try playing Far Cry 3 on a modern PC and you'll see what I mean. It's hard to go back, so I'm all for forward. But let's not kid around: there has never been a less significant jump between one generation and the next, nor a longer period between revisions than this one. What are we to understand from that if not the fact that the console cycle, as we know it, is coming to a close?

If you're wondering what all this could have to do with the publishing industry, simply consider the e-book reader, or the tablet that serves as such. Kindles and iPads are platforms built on technology too. And each time their hardware is revised, these devices grow ever closer to the endpoint the PS4 arguably represents. 

To make matters worse, there are new e-book readers every year—at least—so we're approaching the zenith of technology far quicker than the gaming industry did.

There will come a time, I put to you, when there will be no point in upgrading your Kindle or iPad. When our e-book readers will do everything we want them to do, and more, as well as we might like, and better. Beyond that, the only improvements will be superficial.

And I want to know what that device looks like. What's the ultimate feature set for e-book readers? And how very different could reading e-books possibly be from the experience we can have today?

Even then, what could possibly be better than the tactile pleasure of a physical edition, or the satisfaction of filing it away in your library?

Give me a foldable, flexible OLED screen that can read books to me out loud, with some sort of dynamic Last Time On the thing I've been reading functionality—for when I forget what's going on—and subscription-based access to a collaborative library of literature that isn't fragmented or just fucked in the way certain services are today. Maybe then I'll be moved to buy your device.

I don't ask for a lot, do I? :)

But I Digress | Niall no Kuni

It's hard to say whether or not the Japanese RPG has any place in the gaming industry today. 

In the nineties they were the in thing, and in the naughties they got bigger, better-looking, and somewhat more modern—albeit alongside every other genre that joined the HD generation. Yet despite massive investment and a fever pitch of interest, the JRPG simply couldn't keep up with the major new players in gaming, to the point that within weeks of its release, the last Final Fantasy vanished with nary a trace it had ever even existed. And let face it: there is no bigger name in the game than Final Fantasy.

Never one to learn its lesson, however, Square Enix is set to unleash a second sequel to Final Fantasy XIII this year. And who knows? Maybe the third time's the charm. But I doubt it. And speaking personally, I could care less. Not once but twice I got around 20 hours into Lightning's life, only to lose interest lest I lost the will to live entirely.

Granted, my interest in the genre had been flagging beforehand. And it's continued to do so since: the only JRPG I played in 2012 was Tales of Graces f, and again, I got about 20 hours in, looked at a FAQ to see how much more game I still had to play... and admitted defeat. I watched the end of the affair on YouTube. And I don't feel like I lost out on anything.

Be that as it may, I'm not quite ready to give up the ghost on the entire genre. I have at least one more attempt in me before I sign off once and for all: namely Ni no Kuni.

I've been holding out hope for this rare collaboration between Level 5 and Studio Ghibli (of Spirited Away fame—the very same!) since it was announced in 2008, and the copy I pre-ordered way back when finally arrived on Saturday. Despite having a hundred other things to do, I fed it to my PS3 immediately.

I'm 10 hours in already, and over the moon that I can say the time has flown by so far. So maybe Ni no Kuni is the game which makes the genre meaningful to me again. Or perhaps 10 hours from now I'll hit a wall that leaves me with no other option than to grind my life away, or give up on the JRPG after all. 

I so hope it doesn't come to that. I feel like I'd be killing a large part of the kid I once was, and I believe it's important to stay in touch—to a certain extent—with the things we loved when we were young.

I'll report back on my progress through Ni no Kuni even if I don't make much more. Why, if I finish the thing, and there's interest, I might even review it!

But for the moment, the floor is yours, folks. Do you think the JRPG has a place in the gaming landscape of today, or it is as long in the tooth as I suggested earlier? Does the prospect of Lightning's return in Final Fantasy XII-3 excite anyone at all?

And if any of you have been playing Ni no Kuni, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Do tell, too, if for whatever reason you've opted not to.

Trailer Trash | A Machine For Pigs, Plus One

It looks like the scariest game I've ever played could soon be superseded.

Further to Friday's review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a reasonably meaty teaser for the long-awaited sequel just hit. Here it is, in all its ghastly glory:

I suppose slaughterhouses are somewhat Silent Hillish, but it's been so long since that series lived up to my expectations that I don't mind the repetition one whit. In fact, this seems to me a much more portentous locale than the haunted mansion of The Dark Descent, and in my heart I'm glad that the developers aren't simply doing it over.

Tell you what, though: the sequence in the trailer there where the player character is desperately attempting to hide from a horrible monster, flicking his lantern on and off all the while to conserve precious fuel and losing his mind in the process? That gets to the heart of the essential experience of Amnesia.

And glutton for punishment that I am, that's a feeling I'm ready to repeat.

Co-created by Frictional Games and thechineseroom, the visionaries behind this year's Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is coming in early 2013 — possibly as promptly as January... though I wouldn't hold your breath.

Oh, and this looked cool too:

Pre-rendered? Probably.

Scary? Maybe.

Promising? Perhaps.

But worth supporting? Absolutely. Specifically because only recently, horror games seemed a dying breed - leftovers from a better era - yet here we have Outlast: a creepy new IP coming from brand new developer composed of former talent from several storied series, including Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell.

Outlast is penciled in for release sometime next summer, and I'll be there, squared.

Will you? Or is there another horror game you're looking forward to?

But I Digress | Honouring Dishonored

Little people remain the largest market for video games, so you'd think the summer holidays would be packed full of new releases to make the most of a captive audience of kiddies.

But no. This is not the case now, nor has it ever been — more's the pity. Instead, every summer, the industry suffers from what amounts to a drought. Nothing of note happens for a number of months. Summer is the season throughout which I wonder whether it's worth keeping up my subscription to LoveFilm; I replay games as rarely as I reread books, which is to say almost never, so I tend to rent rather than buy outright.

Invariably, though, there's an array of older releases to catch up on that make the holidays tolerable, and to a certain extent gamers have become conditioned to this period of listlessness. We look to downloadable titles for quick fixes. We go back to Battlefield 3 or some other multiplayer game, or revisit a few single-player favourites.

But mostly... we wait. We wait for the flood of new releases unleashed every autumn. And as of today, I think it's safe to say we're almost underwater.

I mean, crikey, I'm already behind! I've been keeping busy with Darksiders 2, Mark of the Ninja and Tales of Graces f, but I've already got copies of Borderlands 2 and the new Resident Evil in my queue, both of which look to be exhausting, 30+ hour affairs.

And there's so much more to look forward to! In the next six weeks alone, Halo 4, Assassin's Creed 3, X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Criterion's Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Far Cry 3 and Hitman: Absolution are all set to be released. Beyond that, the list goes on, and on, and on.

And on.

It doesn't, for instance, include the game I'm most excited to play this autumn. No prizes for guessing that I'm talking - and about time too - about Dishonored.

In case you're wondering why, let me clarify. Dishonored represents something none of the autumn's other contenders can: it's an original IP. A new experience. And there have been precious few of these in recent years. To purloin a semi-famous phrase, everything is a remix — a remake, a re-imagining, a straight sequel or a sequel to a sidequel. Or something.

On which note, go watch these videos. You simply must see and hear Kirby Ferguson's thesis.

To wit, Dishonored too takes its inspiration from any number of previous games. The project leads have been variously involved in Deus Ex, Half-Life 2 and the Thief series. In Dishonored they're evolving several of the systems they created in the first place; unifying a diverse spread of mechanics into a single, story-driven specimen.

In itself, all this is enough to make me moist.

But you know what really excites me about Dishonored? Well, I've been watching the developer diaries, and original IP it may be, but I'm getting a right Bioshock vibe from the footage — and I've adored no game this generation as much as I did and I do Irrational's last. From the propaganda posters to the way the player's powers can be combined in different ways in different situations: thus the way is paved for some experiential uniqueness, at least.

It's not a lot to go on, no, but if I'm right, we might well be talking about Dishonored again in a couple of months, when it comes time to pick our favourite games of the year.

It's coming out tomorrow for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America, and on Friday in European territories and the UK. I'll be waiting; indeed, antici... pating. Will you?

You Tell Me | Embracing Piracy

Today is... a special day.

Today is the first international Cuddle a Pirate Day!

Every year from here, on the third Monday of the month of September, we will be be asked to put aside our differences to give momentary comfort to criminals: to rippers and scanners and hackers, who take the labours of love our artists spends years of their lives eating last night's leavings to create, then distribute them for free on the internet.

I do not approve of these doings. Nor should you, if you've any interest in keeping the writers you love in mouldy toast and so on and so forth.

But that doesn't mean we can't all have a hug. :)

In honour, then, of said strange occasion, I wanted to point you all towards this article on Giant Bomb, which breaks down the huge boost in sales brought about when the developer of a widely-pirated video game - a fast-paced, point-and-click puzzler called McPixel - took The Pirate Bay up on an unconventional offer: essentially, Sos Sosowski agreed to advertise the torrent containing his creation on The Pirate Bay's front page. He urged potential pirates to spend some time with McPixel, and if they enjoyed it, to consider donating a little something something via PayPal.

In short, Sosowski "gave piracy a high five and came out alive."

So I was wondering: could this shock drop in the ocean turn the tide on the pirates?

Well... it's unlikely, isn't it?

That said, I think it could make a real difference in the ongoing conflict between artists and those who seek to steal their ticket to a hot dinner.

With that in mind, could this ironic reversal be applied to publishing? Because of course novels are widely torrented too: thanks to enterprising scanners, free e-books can often be downloaded day and date with the release of official printed or electronic editions.

So authors, talk to me: how would you feel about doing something along these lines? Would you be prepared to pop in to The Pirate Bay or the Mobilism forums to basically shame potential pirates into paying their way, for once?

Meanwhile, readers: I have a question for you too. What effect do you think this would have? Smelly as I don't doubt they are, put yourselves in a pirate's shoes — and let's not pretend we haven't all been tempted at some stage. Would the pleas or remonstrations of an author immediately below the big Nick This! button put you off your mooted pursuit, or are pirates simply criminals, oblivious even to personal appeals?

For my part, I believe this could be a reasonably effective means of taking some of the anonymity out of piracy. I'm sure it isn't a fix, but then I don't know that any such thing exists, or ever will.

And better a band aid than an open wound, no?

But what do I know? You Tell Me, me hearties!

I Tube | My Quantum Conundrum

In late 2009, Portal co-creator Kim Swift did the unthinkable: she left Valve to "pursue opportunities elsewhere." Some time later, she resurfaced as the creative lead of a project called Quantum Conundrum: a first-person perspective, physics-based puzzle game with a silly story and a sense of humour.

Sound familiar?

But of course it does. Still and all, I adored Portal, and there've been a couple of indie games since that have honed close to its oddball formula and come up somewhat triumphant — not least QUBE, which I reviewed here. Given its particular heritage, however, I had very high hopes for Quantum Conundrum.

And then?

Then this trailer:

Call me a misery-guts, but I didn't even crack a grin. Your mileage may vary... though probably not a lot, if I'm honest.

Depending on the reviews I read, I may still play it for the puzzles, but if this trailer is as telling as I think it is, then Quantum Conundrum's sense of humour looks to be as tepid as tap water. Which is a real shame. Because the puzzles weren't what made Portal so awesome in its day, were they?

Quantum Conundrum will be coming to consoles sometime this summer, but if you're happy to play it on your personal computer, it's actually out tomorrow — ironically via Valve's ubiquitous digital distribution service, Steam.

If you'd asked me yesterday if I was planning to buy it on either platform, I would have told you my money was practically spent already. But not so much, now. Not so much...

E3 2012 | Who Wins When Everyone Loses?

At this very second, at the LA Convention Centre in Los Angeles, America, E3 is occurring.

Or is it?

Well, yes. Yes it is. But I think it's safe to say the best bits are behind us. There are sure to be a couple of other announcements in the days to come, but - these days, at least - the Electronic Entertainment Expo is all about the press conferences, so for me and the myriad millions whose only involvement in this annual extravaganza is which site we stream 'em from, the show's as good as over.

And what a show it was! :)

Actually, no. I'm pulling your leg again. It was rubbish. Last night I stayed up till an ungodly hour to polish off the press conferences I'd missed live, but if I'd known then what I know now... let's just say I kinda wish I'd went to bed instead.

But the show must go on! Indeed, it even had highlights.

I suppose I should know better by now, after decades of disappointment, but I had high hopes for Nintendo's presser this year. I mean, they were - and they are - the only one of the three hardware manufactures with a forthcoming console to show.

But the Wii U didn't demo very well, and the 3DS was hardly involved in Nintendo's conference at all. Speaking of: I still don't own one, but before E3 I was on the brink of buying in. Not so much now, unless they're saving a secret Legend of Zelda for some later date.

Moving onwards, if not necessarily upwards: Microsoft.

First, an admission of guilt. Most of the video games I play, I play on the Xbox 360. What can I say? I'm a sucker for achievements; Xbox Live is my go-to for online gaming; and occasionally, Xbox Live Arcade spits out something simply magnificent. If I could own only one console, it'd be my 360.

So when I sat down to watch Microsoft's conference, I was primed for awesomesauce. I got... well, a bunch of games that I'll certainly play, come the day. But that was never a question. What I wanted was a surprise, and there wasn't one.

That said, Halo 4 looks pretty impressive. I hadn't imagined that 343 Studios could possibly trump Bungie, but the Forerunner weapons alone got me all kinds of excited - more than I have been for a Halo game since I supposedly finished the fight - and I can't wait to try my hands at the neat new combat scenarios the demo delivered.

So there was that.

But if anyone won E3 this year, it was Sony, surely. I don't remember much about what happened between their first and final demo, but those two showcases alone absolutely blew me away. Further to the words we had about Kara not a week or so ago, Beyond is Quantic Dream's new project, and it looks awesome, as expected. Furthermore, it looks like it might just be more of a game than Heavy Rain, and that's got to be good.

Plus, they shaved Ellen Page.

But it was the last game Sony showed that made the ordeal of E3 this year worthwhile for me. We'd seen a little of The Last of Us in advance, but the gameplay demo was absolutely amazing.

The Last of Us is the next game to come from Naughty Dog, developers of the Uncharted series, and it shows. The encounter mechanics appear to be heavily scripted, but the sheer desperation of the scuffle between our main man - and the little lady that's tagging along with him - and a floor-full of guys with guns left me breathless. The climactic brutality, too. Sure, we only saw an isolated vertical slice of the experience entire, but if The Last of Us has a few more of those in store, it could out-innovate even Bioshock: Infinite.

Which didn't feature in any of the pressers at all, alas.

Nor did Grand Theft Auto V.

And of course nobody said anything about Half-Life 3, or Half-Life 2 Episode 3, or whatever that game is called in its current incarnation.

So never mind.

That is, unless I'm missing something major. Any suggestions?

I Tube | Kara: A Quantic Dream

Just so you know, this news is not news. It's months and months old - from way back when in March 2012 - but until very recently, I'd managed to completely miss it. Maybe you had too.

I suppose the reason I overlooked it initially was a case of crossed wires. After all, Kara purports to be a tech demo from the team at Quantic Dream — who developed Heavy Rain, one of my favourite games in recent memory. But be that as it may, I've been burned by tech demos often enough that I've taught myself to turn the other cheek when they appear... even when they come from top-notch developers, as in this case.

Kara, however, is as much a movie as it is a tech demo. A short movie, admittedly. That the whole thing's running in real-time on a PS3 is impressive, certainly, but come to Kara for the title character and the heartbreaking narrative rather than some aspirational demonstration of the quality of tomorrow's graphics or performance capture.

Kara put me in mind of nothing so much as The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang, which I reviewed here on The Speculative Scotsman a year or so ago. Set seven minutes of your grind aside and you'll surely see why:

To my mind, this so-called tech demo attests to the storytelling prowess of the creative leads at Quantic Dream at least as much as it does the engine they're building their next game with... whatever it is.

Tell you what, though... after Heavy Rain, and this minor magnificence, I have my fingers firmly crossed we'll hear more about the team's next project in a few short weeks at E3.

Which reminds me: what are you hoping to see revealed at this year's expo?

Give me Bioshock: Infinite, Half-Life 3, GTA5 and a bit of Bungie's next project, and I'll come home a happy camper.

Remember, I tube so you don't have to!

But I Digress | Mass Cause and Effect, or, The End Again

The lifers amongst you might remember how oddly unmoved I was by the build-up to Mass Effect 3, which is to say the conclusion - for the moment - of one of my favourite video game series of recent years.

The marketing, I think, was what put me off before the fact: the decision to focus on the extraneous multiplayer mode BioWare had developed for the latest iteration of their acclaimed space opera.

I play, shall we say, quite a lot of video games, but only rarely do I mess about with multiplayer modes. In large part that's because of the exceedingly unpleasant people one often encounters online. I have very little desire to be called a faggot by fourteen year olds who are nevertheless substantially better at shooting dudes in the face than I'll ever be. And there's another thing to consider: the vast time investment it takes to be good enough at any one game - every one of which has its particular idiosyncrasies to consider - to compete with other people, even the complete and utter asshats aforementioned, in a public arena.

The older you get, I guess, the less free time you have to devote to such things. So when BioWare's publicity peeps started pimping Mass Effect 3's multiplayer instead of talking about narrative or character or innovations on the single-player side of the divide, I'll admit: I kinda sorta switched off.

And then there was that fuss about how the man hours devoted to Mass Effect 3's counter-intuitive horde mode had to have impacted the single-player campaign. I didn't mean to pay any attention to this, the latest in a long line of idiot uproars - sight-unseen, such judgements are surely beyond pointless - but as release date loomed, I realised that I wasn't at all excited about finally finishing the fight.

Or wait, was that another game?

In any event, what with all of the above - and my month in America fast approaching to boot - I opted to rent Mass Effect 3 instead of buying it, as I bought the first and second installment in this singular series. Also worth taking into account: I was 30 hours into Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning at the time of Mass Effect 3's release, and determined to beat it before I started in on another mammoth RPG. This took a lot longer than I'd imagined - in point of fact I only finished the first in the Amalur franchise last week - and by the time I was ready to pick up something else, Mass Effect 3 was no longer a priority.

I'll bet you can imagine why.

If you're interested in video games at all, you'll have heard about the averse reaction the latest Mass Effect inspired in its very vocal player-base. Perhaps that's to overstate the case somewhat - specifically it was the ending that people reacted badly to - but one way or the other, Mass Effect 3 went down like a lead balloon. Like a bitter pill no-one wanted to swallow... especially the franchise's die-hard fans, seventy-some thousand of whom have since signed their names to a petition made directly to the developers to have the game's cheat of an ending altered.

Which is and was all well and good - indeed, it raises a fairly fascinating question we'll talk more about tomorrow - but again, I tried not to let it affect me. Here on The Speculative Scotsman I've talked about my issues with The End, in the abstract, time and time again: about how tricky it is to offer closure to all comers at the same time as maintaining some sense of mystery or suspense in your story.

In short, I'm no stranger to unsatisfactory endings - to a certain extent I expect them, these days - so if Mass Effect 3 was going to go out with a pitiful whimper rather than the almighty bang I think we can all agree the series has earned, then sure, that's a shame... but so be it. The End is still The End even when we wish it weren't.

Or is it?

As it happened, it certainly wasn't as simple as that when it came to Mass Effect 3. Because in early April, in response to the fan campaign and the various critical complaints leveled against the conclusion in question, the boffins behind BioWare and the Mass Effect franchise came out with this priceless piece of pandering:

"We are all incredibly proud of Mass Effect 3 and the work done by Casey Hudson and team," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder of BioWare and General Manager of EA’s BioWare Label. "Since launch, we have had time to listen to the feedback from our most passionate fans and we are responding. With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team’s artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe."

Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect series added, "We have reprioritized our post-launch development efforts to provide the fans who want more closure with even more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player."

Oh is that so?

That was the final nail in the coffin for me and Mass Effect 3, at least for the time being. I'm going to return my rented copy to LoveFilm and potentially re-assess the situation when this so-called Extended Cut is made available.

But even then: at the point at which creators are willing to fundamentally change their creations simply to satisfy some embarrassing collective clamour - and from the internet, of all places - what artistic integrity can they truly lay claim to?

Whether I end up playing Mass Effect 3 or not - and sooner or later I expect I will - for me at least, its narrative is now null and void. And given how meaningful that narrative had been to me before all the awkwardness over Mass Effect 3, that's markedly more troubling than any misstep BioWare may or may not have made in the game's conclusion as was.

Video Game Review | I Am Alive, dev. Ubisoft Shanghai

If it is recalled at all - and let me say off the bat that I absolutely believe it should be - I Am Alive is likely to be remembered as 2012's best worst game. It's not a fundamentally broken product, as a few frustrated industry critics have alleged, but it is clunky, ugly and oddly arcadey in spite of its self-professed video game vérité aesthetic. In terms of certain aspects of its conception and execution, additionally, I am afraid I Am Alive looks and feels tragically misguided.

That said, I had a hell of a time with it.

In the first, because it's no small wonder that I Am Alive is alive, in any way, shape or form. Understand, if you aren't already aware, that it was five years in the making under the the care of various different developers working out of several entirelyseparate studios, and that's just going from the information available in the public domain; I don't doubt the whole story is still more sordid. Be aware, also - be very aware - that I Am Alive was scrapped and restarted who knows how many times before Ubisoft Shanghai hit upon the downloadable, Uncharted-esque design let loose upon the Xbox Live Marketplace and latterly the PlayStation Store this Spring.

Thus, the extent of I Am Alive's existence as an actual buyable entity is an achievement in itself. And though some amount of the tumult behind the scenes of this strange game's creation comes through in the final product, as a matter of fact there's less of that than I'd expected. Seems to me the single greatest issue this latest iteration of the core idea animating I Am Alive suffers from is a rush to get it out of the door well before it was primed and polished for public consumption.

Needless to say, I have no inside information here... only the knowledge that I Am Alive plays, in a lot of ways, like a preview build of an incomplete product. Like a game with a couple months of beta testing ahead of it yet. I wouldn't dare to damn the thing in this fashion if Ubisoft - the erstwhile purveyors of annual installments of the Assassin's Creed franchise - hadn't crapped it out in its current state.

But I Am Alive is what it is, and what it is isn't all bad... not by any stretch of the imagination. Speaking of which, there's another thing I Am Alive lacks: imagination. That is, in terms of its narrative, its characters, and the awkward way the player interacts with both and neither. The story, to be sure, is a derivative dreg. A filthy swill of the begged and the borrowed distilled from any number of better, smarter, more exciting apocalypses. The people you meet, meanwhile - you being Adam, a husband and a father separated from his family by the lack of a proper public transport infrastructure in the immediate aftermath of The Event - are flat, uninspired, or outright insipid to a one.

Still and all, I Am Alive is incredible. Or else: it very nearly is.

Much as I might like to, I don't suppose I can overlook all its problems. The unresponsive, generations-removed controls that make simple platforming an almighty chore; the ghastly map which puts paid to any notion of either planning or on-the-fly navigation in the city of Haventon; the frustrating dead ends in the level design, a la Silent Hill's shattered streets but lacking that series' rhyme or reason; the crappy combat. Oh, the crappy combat!

But we needn't get into that, and we certainly won't so late in the game. Like so many of the crude component parts that factor into I Am Alive - like the cheap checkpoints and the fetch quests - once you get your head around how combat works, it... well, it works, and that's all it needs to do, really. I mean, say it had looked or felt more satisfying; presumably players would want to do more of it, and that'd be a complete contradiction of I Am Alive's bleakly unique take on the survival horror genre, which casts you as a half-dead dude instead of some superhuman, with a single bullet in the chamber of your rusted old gun if you're lucky - and only then if you've used your exceedingly rare resources sparingly - or a paltry box-cutter if not. Versus the world.

And what a world.

That's why I love I Am Alive, for all its faults. Because of what it tries to do, and what to some extent it succeeds in doing. Because of the breathlessly oppressive atmosphere it evokes, and the insensible terror the presence of someone who hopes to hurt you invariably brings about. Because of the fear, basically. I love a good scare - don't we all? - thus this last outweighs all else: I have rarely felt so afraid playing a video game as I did in the midst of this inimitable, if shockingly unpolished eight-hour experience.

I Am Alive is essentially the Dark Souls of survival horror. Punishing, practically impenetrable, and resolutely old school. Given its relatively tiny price whatever platform you buy it on, I'd recommend you give it a go. Just be sure to bring spare underwear...