From the Brow of Zeus

I'm alive, working on my book, and quite well. For those of you tracking me through the internet, as opposed to the bushes outside my house, here's what I've been up to:

• Writing a story about monsters. Hopefully I'll capture the cold-sweat terrors of my childhood, when horror films kept me up half the night on watch for miniature homunculi.
  
• Playing Total Extreme Wrestling 2005. It's a "Bidness thimulation," as Dusty Rhodes would say. The player is tasked with running a pro-wrestling federation.
• Watching Cinematic Titanic's "Legacy of Blood," a movie so vile and visibly smelly it easily rivals Manos: The Hands of Fate in terms of sleaze. Bonus points: A henchman named Igor.
• Reading "Beyond the Moons", an old D&D novel by Dave Cook. It opens with a Spelljammer ship crashing into a simple Dragonlance farmer's home. Star Wars ensues.
• Typing this -- right now! And now I'm hitting publish!
  

Episode 07 - Bethesda Softworks

Good stuff. Me and Jake basically gab about how much sweeter Oblivion is than Fallout 3. Well, that's not how he puts it, exactly, but we agree that Oblivion's "hands off" approach to the main mission is preferable to Fallout 3's "find your Daddy" plot. It's Shenmue syndrome all over again.

But then again, I haven't even played Fallout 3 yet. First I have to beat Oblivion, then ride the train over to Bioware town and play Mass Effect.

Anyone notice how all the Xbox 360 RPGs are from major American companies? Bethesda, Bioware, Square Enix (okay, they're Japanese, but still HUGE), Microsoft. Until Final Fantasy VI, roleplaying games were never about having the best graphics. But these days, unless your hat is made of money, you can forget about making a next-gen RPG.

Labels: videogames