A Better Fable . . .

While it was declared at the outset that Fable 3 would be getting a PC release, PC gamers needed to wait till May for the release; even though the Xbox version was released last October. The developers didn't care to give any specific reason for the delay, except for acknowledging the fact that work on the PC port didn't begin until after the console version was shipped.
Still, it seems the delay will turn out to be better for PC gamers since the developers seem to be intent ironing out most of the glitches and issues with the console version along with making it a PROPER PC port rather than a half-baked product.

Fable 3 lead designer Josh Atkins says that "most developers tend to just rush games out onto the PC; they do the very quickest port they can and they try to do it as a financial model; rather than trying to make something that at least plays like it was designed for the platform, and respects what the platform does.”

So, with Fable 3 will get a smoother PC experience than most console ports like a intuitive control scheme, proper mouse support and, hopefully, better graphics customization options.

Another notable addition is the increasing in difficulty with the new 'Challenging' mode. Atkins says “When the difficulty came up we were talking about what would PC players want. What would be important to them? The additional challenge, or the choice for additional challenge was something that we thought was important".
“Figuring out how to do that in a way that was both efficient and fair was challenging. We didn't just move sliders around: we actually sat down and looked at the creature types and looked at them as individuals. Rather than just say, “This one now does 10 per cent more damage,” we made them a little faster, which gives them the perception of being a little bit smarter.”
So, although the new Challenging mode doesn't hold a candle to, say, the Fallout : New Vegas Hardcore mode as it focuses mainly on more tactical and difficult combat; its definitely an improvement over the console version which Atkins admits was designed to be easy for a console audience.
In addition to this, there are some other changes including more interaction with environment and changing the quest structure to make the experience less grinding.

Although we can't declare how good Fable 3 will be until we can get our hands on it in May, things are certainly looking brighter for the PC port and we can only hope that the final game does justice to our expectations. Still however good it turns out to be, it certainly can't hope to match the behemoth that is called The Witcher 2 : The Assassination of Kings . . .

Review - Dawn of War 2 : Retribution

Relic entertainment is well known as the developers who popularized the squad-based RTS genre with their Dawn of War and Company of Heroes games. They are also well known for their awesome stand alone expansions – the original Dawn of War has three freaking stand-alone pieces of added awesomeness that managed to top the original in every possible ways. So, it couldn’t be a surprise that they would release yet another expansion for their acclaimed Dawn of War 2, not when Chaos Rising got even better reviews than its predecessor.

One great thing about Relic is that they never cease to innovate. They go ahead and experiment when most other developers would sit back, enjoying the spoils of war in total complacency. A great example of this would be their Homeworld series of three dimensional space-based RTSes. Last week I picked up Homeworld 2, released back in 2003. I haven’t given it much time, but so far it plays as great as it looks (the graphics are remarkable considering when it was released).

My point here is that the original Dawn of War was so freaking successful that Relic could’ve just polished up the game-play and graphics, patched in a new story and released the sequel. But they went ahead, changed the basics of the game adding in the great RPG mechanics we love, cuz “why the heck not?” Yes, DOW2 was criticized in the beginning but most people realized that relic was going in the right direction. I admit that DOW2 campaign was kinda repetitive in the end, but I still loved it. Chaos Rising only improved upon it.

With Retribution, Relic aims to give us choice and flexibility. The campaign follows mostly a similar pathway as in DOW2 but resource management has been introduced; sans the pesky based-building stuff. So, you have a choice with almost every race. You can choose to take in your four heroes and use the resources you get to upgrade them for the duration of the mission. Or take some powerful honor guard and vehicle units and the resources will be used to buy reinforcements for the squads. This is a nice option if you preferred the original DOW approach or if you just wish to forgo the micromanagement part and get the thrill of steamrolling with a large army for a change.

And yes, I did say ‘with almost every race’. Rather than playin with the same Space Marines for the third time round, you can choose to play with any of the six races in the game – Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, Chaos, Tyranids and the Imperial Guard. The campaign itself remains largely the same, with many of the same missions; but this approach is certainly better than forcing people to play with a single race – one they may not even like. For those who fear playing through the campaign with a different race wont be fun consider this – in DOW2, you just got the space marines and played through the same bunch of maps in campaign again and again; in Retribution, no map is repeated even once in the game and each of the race is so different from the others that it is a new experience every time. Admittedly, you would have to be a pure DOW nerd to play it with each of the races (like me) but the campaign is good enough for three to four playthroughs.

All the races have diverse heroes and units, paving way for a unique and fun experience each time round. The Imperial Guard for example have the Commissar, a hero unit that encourages friendly squads by shooting one of their squad members to motivate the rest of them to fight harder and a General who can call in reinforcements. The imperial guard are squishy, admittedly, but they have some pretty impressive tanks.

 The orks heavy weapons specialist gets the perk to explode when using any of his abilities – he exploded on teleporting into a group of enemies, exploded on activating his force field and explodes on activating his explosion ability – Static Charge.

The chaos units and level up abilities revolve around their four gods. The best Chaos unit is the Plague marine who spreads a disease that heals Chaos units and damages enemies. Its later abilities allow killed enemies to zombify and get up to fight as friendlies. The upgrade path you choose makes for pretty diverse tactics – for example depending how you allocate points your shrines work in the battle – they may call in reinforcements, cloak nearby units, spew out daemons or fire doombolts at enemies.

Rather than recycle the same old heroes for the Space Marines, Relic has changed the formula for them too. The Scout hero is the same and the Force Commander is rather similar but there is a new Techmarine who specializes in deployables, turrets and stuff and a mysterious unit called the Ancient who can take on any role depending on how you spec him – jump assault, tank or heavy suppression weaponry.

The elder are a bit different to get into since they employ their mobility and abilities rather than brute force. There is the Farseer who has the ability to slow down time around her, causing foes to move slowly while the Eldar move and attack normally. But one of the coolest heroes is the Autarch who has an ability similar to the jump-packs of the assault marines except that he drops explosives on the part of the battlefield that he jumps over creating a deadly line of explosions behind him.

It’s a shame then, that the Tyranid campaign is so much weaker than the others. Much of this is because you control only a single hero (is would be illogical for there to be different heroes due to the whole hive-mind thing). The loot is therefore less much of the Swarmlord’s abilities consist of spawning various reinforcements which is rather uninteresting. The different squads themselves hardly provide any diversity and the most effective thing is to spam the cheap and easily-replaceable low-tier units anyway.

Still, five good campaigns is an awesome thing, and we haven’t even started talking of the multiplayer yet.

One of the best things in Retribution is that G4WL has been scrapped and match-making is now done via Steam itself which is noticeably faster. Not only that, but Retribution allows you to play as the older races even if you do not own the previous DOW2 games.

The skirmish multiplayer is mostly the same with the addition of the Imperial Guard. Its fun but tough getting into since DoW has its own dedicated community of multiplayer geeks – I’d recommend you practice a bit with the AI before jumping into online matches. There are two modes and in my opinion Annihilation is definitely better. It allows for more tactics as well as more exciting game play when you are rushing to wipe your opponent’s base. On the other hand Control is hardly fun, since you can always retreat your endangered units and an early start always leads to winning the round anyway.

The there is the Last Stand – a co-op mode where you and two allies are choose a hero and are tasked with surviving increasingly tougher waves of enemies. At the end of each map you get experience points and level up which in turn unlocks more wargear. Retribution adds another map – The Anvil of Khorne - and the Imperial Guard hero to the Last Stand. The Last Stand the best mode in the game – insanely paced and exceedingly visceral. I’d go as far as to say you should buy the game just for the Last Stand mode. I don’t lie when I say that as good as the campaign was, I had to force myself to play it for this review since I didn’t want to play anything except the Last Stand. In the first week after getting DoW2:retribution I clocked in a whopping 35 hours into this mode alone. If that isn’t indicative of a ridiculously fun and addictive experiences, then I don’t know what is.

With Retribution, Relic has nailed the game-play perfectly. Though Retribution has its flaws, the insane amount of content and replayabilty make them easy to overlook. For a stand-alone expansion that provides 5 awesome campaigns, a fun multiplayer and the addictive Last Stand mode for just 30 bucks, it was great value for money. If you haven’t picked it up already, you owe it to yourself as a gamer to play it – whether you are DoW nerd or not.

Note – Relic released a free update on 6 April that, in addition to various bug-fixes, added 12 steam achievements for Last Stand (two for each hero) each of which unlocks a new piece of wargear.

Skyrim : Improving Upon The Traditions

With me finishing Dragon Age 2 and The Witcher not being out for a couple of months, I was at an all time low. Sort of. So, in the meantime, I decided to go crawling about the web gathering what information I could about Skyrim and post it here to worsen everybody else's Elder Scrolls itch too.
After announcing Skyrim, Bethesda was kinda tight-fisted with information it, just periodically giving out trickles of info to keep the ES nerds drooling. But by now, we have a good enough picture of what is to come. So, here is all the bits I found:

Storyline a.k.a. We Got Those Big Winged Reptile Thingies Now

Yep. That's what I'm Talking about

Skyrim is the frozen Nordic nation between Morrowind of freaky elves and Cyrodrill of beautiful vistas. It is supposed to be ruled by nine holds but war has broken out and chaos abounds. And then, the dragons arrive.
The game is set 200 years after Oblivion, the Septims have all died out. The Septims are the Dragonborns, their bloodline gives them the power to use dragon magic. The Dragonfires (from Oblivion) are supposed to keep the mortal world safe. With the Septims out of the way, the barriers burst, but instead of  demons, dragons come to ravage the lands.
You start the game in a prison (like every freaking ES game), but apparently you are the last remaining Dragonborn and so you gotta save the world. And you will be just roaming around killing stuff, looting dungeons, taking side-quests, joining guilds and looking at the sights, you bastard.

The Visuals a.k.a. Staring In Wonder While Dragons Eat You

When Oblivion came, it was the best dang thing in terms of graphics. But times change, and Fallout 3 and NV suffered a lot of heat for the dated visuals. Bethesda finally acknowledged the fact that we gamers invariably are graphic-whores, as much as we may deny the fact, and created a brand new engine for Skyrim. We will have dynamic lighting effects and enhanced visuals; cool stuff like wind affecting leaves and branches and dynamic snowfall.

The character models too, thankfully, are overhauled and NPCs are really nice looking. As shown in the screen-shot here. During dialogues, you are no longer zoomed-into the atrocious character models, NPCs move around doing their thing while talking to you; its a subtle but noticeable improvement.

The RPG Mechanics a.k.a. Begone Pointless Repetition

The leveling-up by doing system in the previous iteration was a great concept, but with crappy implementation. You chose a few major skills and advanced in them to level up. Not only did it create messed up unbalanced characters due to bad selection of skills, but it lead to employing cheap tricks to level up, detracting from the fun. It was also unintuitive for the newbies, who spent dozens of hours playing only to wonder where they went wrong.
Bethesda scrapped this complicated system in Skyrim. Now, there are no major skills. Everything you do advances the relevant skills, and all skills contribute to your level.
A system of perks is introduced taking que from Fallout. There are perks relevant to the various weapon classes and magic schools which you choose every time you increase in level. The leveling-up itself is twice as fast as in Oblivion. There is no level cap, skill progression just slows after level 50.

Game Mechanics a.k.a. Scaling, Radiance and What-not

Oblivion was infamous for excessively scaling everything to your level, ruining the since of progression that is so integral to RPGs; to the point that a level 1 character could potentially finish the game. Scaling is still there, albeit now its much more flexible like in Fallout 3; which was pretty effective while still allowing you to roam freely rather than locking you out of certain regions due to your level.
Bethesda is also employing a system to make the story and quests more flexible according to your gameplay choices. The system is called Radiant Story, which is sure to raise some eyebrows considering all the hype about Radiant AI in Oblivion and what it eventually amounted to. Still, the concept is interesting and may even work out. If a quest is set in a dungeon you have already explored, then the game will switch the location to some other dungeon. Or instead your Brotherhood assassination target being some unknown bandit/guard/count, somebody you won't give a damn about, it will be some NPC with whom you have spent plenty of time.
Radiant AI itself is back, and much improved. So, when you now break into somebody's house, rather than just staring at you, their reaction will depend upon their disposition. A friendly character may offer you a place for the night while a stranger will run off screaming for the guards.

Combat Mechanics a.k.a. Using Those Pointy Things and Colorful Displays Better

Bethesda says that they wish to bring about a sense of involvement in combat for the gamer in Skyrim. In Oblivion, there was a detached feel to the combat. noting that the dynamic system of blocking and attacking of Oblivion has a lot of potential, Bethesda made it more dynamic by tweaking some things. Instead of the slow heavy feel of weapons in Oblivion, the combat is faster and more visceral. There are various weapon related perks and weapon and enemy specific finishing moves have been introduced. You also cannot run backwards like in Oblivion, so you have the choice to stay and fight (stupid) or turn around and run (coward)
The greatest change, however, is dual wielding. You can chose to wield a dual-handed weapon, a weapon and shield, two weapons, a weapon and a spell, or even two spells in each hand. Not only this, but you can equip the same spell in each hand which will increase the spell power considerably. Bethesda tentatively hinted that they're looking into implementing a mechanism to combine spell effects by using two different spells in each hand. If properly implemented, this could turn out to be one of the best combat mechanic in RPGs. Although, I think we will see less use of two-handed weapons, since they won't allow the flexibility to use a spell in the other hand. And what happens when some nutcase equips a shield on each hand?
The magic schools are still present, though there are some changes. The Mysticism school has been done away with and its spells are distributed among the others, mostly the Alteration School. So Alteration a good choice this time around, it used to be pretty meh before. Enchantment skill is reintroduced from Morrowind. I hope it is implemented better this time, it was useless in Morrowind, since there was always a pretty hefty chance that your enchantment may fail and people usually got their stuff enchanted from stores.
The spells in the school of Destruction are much more flexible now : the fire spell, for example, is not just a fireball. You can use it as a flamethrower or plant fire traps in the ground. This, coupled with dual wielding, can really add to the tactical aspect of the game.

Dragonshouts a.k.a. Three Word Phrases of Awesomeness

As I said before, you are a dragonborn. This gives you access to a whole new kind of magic : Dragonshouts - these are three word phrases in the dragon tongue and function as powerful spells. What can be more cool? The way you get them. You first kill a dragon take its soul which allows you to learn its shout. Then you find the words of that shout from glyphs in tombs. There are more than twenty shouts to learn, ranging from a Jedi-esque 'Force-Push' to teleportation.

Archery a.k.a. From Peashooters to Snipers

All of us remember archery from Oblivion. It was fun, especially with enchanted equipment, but anything except rats were turned into pincushions by the time you killed them. It involved a lot of aiming and moving back, which was not only unrealistic but also quickly became tedious. The arrow physics themselves were rubbish, it seemed you were throwing them, instead of using a bow.
The archery system is revamped in Skyrim. Arrows are much faster and deadlier this time around : most foes can be killed in one or two shots. This is compensated by the fact that arrows are rare and expensive; no longer will you be chugging around a couple of hundred daedric arrows.

The Interface a.k.a. Finding a Pin in a Haystack

The Interface in Oblivion was a bit unintuitive and left most of wanting. The developer assure that the Interface is much better this time around. Game director Todd Howard says that the new interface is inspired by Apple's iTunes. Hitting a button will bring up a sort of four-point compass; each point for your inventory, skills, journal and map. The loot is sorted in proper categories and 3-D models of everything can be viewed with all their characteristics. Any item or spell can be 'bookmarked' to a favorites menu for quick access. The skill menu is essentially a view of heavens to three major constellations : each for warrior, mage and thief. Each time you choose a perk, a star in the constellation lights up.
There are plenty of other distractions ranging from salvaging ore for crafting your own weapons and armor to finding alchemical ingredients for potions. Skyrim will feature five huge cities, more than a hundred dungeons and a plethora of guilds; so you can be sure there is hours upon hours of side-questing to be done. Or if you're in the mood, you can always stop being a jerk and actually go and save the world from those asshole dragons. Food for thought.

From all these details, I anticipate a great experience from Skyrim. But November seems far far away, and I'm hungry for some RPG stuff. Now where did I put that disc of Fallout : New Vegas . . .

Braving The Planes

Planescape : Torment

The one thing I can confidently say about the hardcore PC gaming crowd is that we love our RPGs. RPGs have been in practically since the beginning of mainstream gaming; they're hot now; they'll continue to be big in the future.

So, what is special about them that lures us to lose days of our precious lifespan into these time-sinks? Is it the world and its people that only we can save? The choice we make to influence the flexible plot? Or all the side-quests and exploration that we undertake, and the-world-that-needs-saving be damned? Maybe its just that shiny pointy new katana I found that does enough fire damage to make me feel like a balrog? The lure of dungeon-hunting, people-killing and corpse-looting? Or the basic human instincts to flirt with your companions to advance to second base and beyond - particularly since I'm currently struggling with the dilemma of choosing between Isabela and Merril in Dragon Age 2 . . .

There's no single answer. Maybe its all of them. Basically the main thing that RPGs provide us is the sense of progression, and the sense of control. That is the reason RPG elements are being incorporated in other genres too - to make the gameplay more deep and involving.
But I digress. This article isn't supposed to be about why RPGs are great. And it isn't supposed to be about modern RPGs anyway.

Forget your Dragon Age 2. Forget The Witcher. Forget Skyrim. Today I take you to a journey towards the very roots of RPGs. I talk about the grand-daddy of them all. I talk about Planescape : Torment.

Over the years RPGs have evolved, yes. The graphics and gameplay mechanics have certainly improved. But, except for a few instances, we do not get a great plot or memorable characters.
Enter Planescape. A game released in the Baldur's Gate era, with the same isometric perspective and D&D mechanics. But its the setting, plot and characters that set it apart from everything else.

The game is set in the planescape multiverse - an intersection of all the different planes of existence, with its capital city Sigil.
 You, the Nameless One, wake up in a  mortuary, with a real bad case of amnesia - you've no idea of who you are or how you got there. Eventually you realize that you're immortal & people recognize you (not all in a nice way, I might add) you've lived plenty of lives before, worked nearly every profession - which makes way for an interesting mechanic - you can freely switch between being a fighter, a mage or a thief; since you are not learning, you are remembering; you've done all that before.

THIS is the Nameless One. Hello Ugly . . .

Thus begins your journey in search of your identity and the reason of your immortality. Oh and you've also lost your journal, so you gotta look for that too. And this is what sets Planescape apart from the myriad other RPGs; its not a quest to save the world, but a quest of self-discovery.

Right off the bat, you will realize that Planescape puts much less emphasis on combat; the meat here is in the character interactions. You read through a fantasy novel's worth of dialogue, and its absorbing and fun, varied and entertaining; and sometimes its remarkable enough to make a deep impact upon you. You approach quests and interactions depending on your preference - an intelligent character will perceive small details and use them, a wise one will sway others with philosophical implications, a charismatic or strong character will charm & manipulate or intimidate others. You often get the choices to bluff, play dumb, lie or speak truthfully in the dialogue. All these things impacts your alignment, and the ways the plot unfold later on.

Your companions take the game to a whole different level - believe me when I say that they are the best you have ever encountered in an RPG. Where else will you find companions such as these : a disembodied skull called Morte who has a crush on zombie chicks & is adept at swearing & taunting others, a weird-talking weirdo(!?) from the planes of order, a succubus who has given up sex (a shame!), a restless vigilante of a spirit trapped in an ancient suit of armor or a rat-tailed half-demon lass capable of trading insults with even Morte.

Many other characters you meet are pretty interesting and memorable. They may range from wiseguys and know-it-alls to freaks and madmen, all fun to talk to in their own way. One instance I remember was such : I had decided to play a totally evil character (as in chaotic evil, doesn't get better than that) until I met a poor wretched fellow looking for his sister. I intimidated him into handing me over all his money for my help, but after the subsequent dialogue and his forlorn response, I just couldn't bear to do that. And that was just the impact of the dialogue sans any voice-acting! Go figure.

Seeing how ugly The Nameless One is, I'm not surprised the succubus gave up sex

This is an RPG in the true sense of the word - a game where your character influences your approach, the plot is something original and intriguing, and ever random people you meet leave an impact on you and has just dang awesome companions.

If, fellow traveller, you are impressed by my long awe-induced rantings and are ready to leave behind your precious high resolution textures and 4X Antialiasing to journey into the world of planes, you need to grab this - a bunch of mods and tweaks (installation instructions included) - these range from gameplay fixes, tweaks to a widescreen and high resolution mod. These are essential to play the game on your modern rigs.
Until next time, people. I gotta find out why that inn has a burning man hanging there. . .

The Oldies I Wanna Revisit

2011 is the largest year for the gaming industry in recent times. In March alone, there was a veritable flood of gaming titles. And though there are a healthy number of new franchises coming out (Homefront comes to mind), 2011 is especially remarkable for the number of sequels to many existing great franchises. We've already seen Dragon Age 2, Two Worlds 2 and Dead Space 2. Shogun 2 came out yesterday and there are plenty more to come this year. Although there are plenty of new titles for us to play around with, till we wait for even more of these awesome sequels, these are some of the games I am tempted to revisit as I wait for their sequels.

1. The Witcher - Witcher was one of the best RPGs in recent years, providing one of the best plot progression and choices to be seen in a RPG title. Acclaimed for its mature approach and blurred moral themes, it was nevertheless critiqued for plenty of bugs; translation errors and long load times among other. Then CDProjekt went overboard and released “The Witcher Enhanced Edition”, ironing out almost all the issues and improving graphics, making the game a must-play for any RPG fan out there. With Witcher 2 coming out in May, providing the ability to import your save games, there is plenty of incentive to revisit the world of Witcher with Geralt.

2. Batman Arkham Asylum - Breaking the mold of rubbish superhero games that we've become used to, Batman: AA was a refreshingly great game that told the developers how to do superhero games right. It provided great flexibility: A great action cum stealth experience for the casual gamer, while providing an immersive experience for the die-hard Batman fans with plenty of challenges, collectibles, tapes and more all highlighting batman lore and back-story. Batman Arhkam City is coming in October, promising a sort of open-ended sandbox-ish take with the sequel, with plenty of new mechanics, but we can very well play around with the original till we get out hands on it.

 

3. Sword of Stars - The original SotS was released in 2006, about the same time as Galactic Civilizations 2. It provided a refreshing take on the 4X genre, replacing the intensive spreadsheet-esque management many of the 4X titles get bogged in with streamlined approach of managing the economy with various sliders, while still maintaining strategic depth by implementing two great mechanics - the different FTL-transport systems of the various races and a wholly randomized tech tree. It was mainly criticized for its unfriendly interface, which was eventually improved with the two expansion packs. These expansions also added two new races, with their own FTL systems, making the total to 6 diverse races. SotS2, which will expand upon its predecessor's game play and continue its storyline, is slated for a Q3/Q4 release. Meanwhile "Sword of the Stars: Complete Collection" was released combing all the expansion packs in one retail package, a solid entry-point for those new to the SotS world.

4. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim comes out in November, possibly the greatest among all the RPG releases this year, promising even better game play and mechanics than its great predecessors. While that is all great and fine, the wait maybe too long for some of us wishing to immerse themselves in the world of Elder Scrolls. Of course, we’ve played Oblivion and Morrowind to death, but that's where the great modding community comes in. With plenty of great overhaul and quest mods. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and Martigen’s Monster Mod come to mind.

Of course, there are those who may argue that Oblivion was dumbed down and Morrowind is where the meat of game play is. For those people who wish to revisit the vast and unforgiving Morrowind, but have grown too used to great graphics, take a look at the "Morrowind Graphical Project 2011", a 1 GB compendium of all the great graphics mods out there (take a look at the in-game scenes below). Also check out the small but nifty Magicka Regen mod and Faster Movement mods for a better game play experience.

5. Mass Effect: Mass Effect 3 comes out this year (hopefully!), and while we wait for its release, we can go back to the previous two games to refresh our memory and maybe make all those little choices which we would like to see developing out in the finale.

Trying My Hands At Writing Ficiton

 Almost every single person who reads books has tried their hands at writing some time or the other. Though some do get lucky, go on to be published and become successful, it’s exceedingly rare, and for most of us, the attempts end disastrously . . . and hilariously, messed up. 

Mostly, and I’m talking of the younger readers out there, the inspiration to write comes when you have downed a couple of good fantasy or sci-fi series, but haven’t got high enough experience of the genre. You are happily reading and one day, have that light-bulb moment and your train of thoughts go something like,” Hell yeah! I’ll write a fiction series of my own, and then bang, I’m as famous as Rowling.”

I used the J. K. Rowling reference above not only because her Harry Potter series has become something like a holy grail for young readers new to fantasy, but also because she is the most well-known and apt example of this ‘rags-to-riches’ story, going from living on benefits to multi-millionaire status. Hence her name comes to mind immediately when teenagers first get the idea of writing a novel (at least, it happened with me).

But that’s the point folks. Rowling, and all other immensely successful authors for that matter, have the genius to think of an original and engaging storyline and world, and their writing style is their own. They got the ingenuity to think of the ‘idea that clicked’ and got lucky, since mainstream fiction is an exceedingly competitive arena as sure as the sun rises in the east & even good authors go years before finding any major success.

An easy way to see whether a person has the potential to be successful is to see what they're writing, and how persistent they are. Clichéd storylines and borrowed writing style doesn't get you anywhere, and funnily enough that’s what we kids do! We think of  a plot that seems impressive (to us) by mixing and matching those of our favorite books and try to imitate the style of our favorite authors, going as far as to ‘borrow' whole phrases and passages out of their repertoire. Eventually, the realization sets in, we mourn the time wasted (that could've been employed to study, in my case) and move on. Those ambitious manuscripts either become a matter to laugh about later on, for boring Saturday evenings when you got nothing else to do except gossip. Or else, they are hidden from prying eyes, buried so deep that the pirates of old, who hid their treasures in much the same manner, would be envious.

After that lengthy treatise on ‘writing-philosophy', its time to begin the (comparatively short) narrative. A couple of years ago, it got into my head that I needed to write a sci-fi book to make the world aware of my (non-existent) talents in the field. I didn't create a plot of my own though (I lacked the creativity for that sort of a thing). Rather I decided to write a series of novels using the storyline of the famous Halo series of FPS games, which I found had a lot of potential to be used in a book, because of its complex world and plot (I can visualize the gamers among those reading this post nodding sagely in-front of their PC screens). 

I spent three months thinking about the plot, filling in the gaps and adding more twists to it than a dozen spy movies or ‘Call Of Duty’ games can hope to achieve (I cringe to think of that wasted time, now). I even finished about a third of what was supposed to be the first book, and you can imagine how “good” a job I must’ve done.

I said above that Halo had a lot of potential to be implemented into a sci-fi series. Apparently it wasn't only me who had this realization. Because, one day while idly browsing the net, I (SHOCK! OUTRAGE!) found that there were already six books on it. Bungie and Microsoft had contacted Eric Nylund and some other authors for the work, the bastards.

I resolved to read the works that had brought about the “demise” of my writing career (so I thought). And I found the surprises didn't end there. Not only the first book written by Nylund had the same title that I had though for ‘my' first book, but the prologues to both were almost the same! What he wrote was obviously superior (duh), but THAT'S beside the point.

Anyway, so I decided to abandon writing, and decided to choose a more viable career path (sigh). As consolation, Nylund’s book was pretty damn good!

Getting "Serious" All Over Again . . .

Reading an article yesterday about the development of Serious Sam 3 (hell yeah!) & its impending release this year, brought back memories of the days spent playing the first game in the series.

Back then in 2004, I had been a 10yr old who’d just discovered computer gaming & thought Sam to be the next coolest thing after Harry Potter – Serious Sam: First Encounter was my first PC game ever (I’m not counting Mario, minesweeper or Solitaire).

I fondly remember the eagerness of my younger-self, rushing to finish homework after returning from school so I could go blow some monsters. The game-play seemed exciting and intimidating at the same time – hordes of disfigured creepies, bony skeletons (are there any other kind?), poisonous froggy critters, overgrown minigun-wielding scorpions and of course, the Headless-Suicide-Bombers(TM) rushing towards me all at once, “me” being the ultimate metal-skinned, lead-chewing, testosterone-powered killing-machine – Sam “Serious” Spade (Yeah kids, Duke Nukem is cool and all, but for me, he doesn’t hold a candle to old Sammy). Not only did it feel absolutely exhilarating, but Sam’s trademark one-liners amused me to no end.

After that I progressed to bigger things (Prince of Persia and Starcraft). I never played SS: Second Encounter, and though I did play SS2, I didn’t like it. The monsters were cartoonish, and the guns didn’t feel right. SS2 convinced me that Sam was a thing of past, the world had moved on. Then I discovered RPG and 4X strategy, and there was no looking back.

It was hence a pleasant surprise when I learnt of Serious Sam 3 and found that I actually wanted to play it. Since then, we’ve hardly had any shooter without the word ‘tactical’. They all have a full-fledged storyline now (which is mostly ludicrous, if epic), moral choices for protagonists shown in fifteen minute long cut scenes, emotion, drama, buddies dying blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, that’s all great and all, but sometimes you just wanna blow stuff up, right?

 

Which brings us back to Sam. I hope SS3 is great and better than the mess that was SS2. Meanwhile, I decided I couldn’t wait for the release. Hell man, I wanted it now! And I realized I had the perfect solution to that – I bought the HD versions of First and Second Encounter & now I’m happily reviving old memories.

Its amazing how much fun it still is to play this game, some things just never get outdated. I still get the same feeling of thrill to see like a million skeletons rushing at me and that satisfaction of one (or a dozen) well aimed grenades launched at them. Ah, the bliss!

I’d love to say more, but I got a dozen mutated bulls rushin’ at me, and I just got my hands on this badass ‘ROKKET LAUNCHA’  . . . .

"ALWAYS OUT-MANNED, NEVER OUT-GUNNED"