The New Hotness

I'm posting this from the Opera browser in the Nintendo DSi. My experience with the device so far has been a positive one.

And yet, still no internal document storage. Alls I'm looking for is to be able to jot a note down and to email it later. Come on Nintendo -- hear my plea.

California Pipe Dreaming

Would I move to Irvine, CA for the perfect job?

Thing A) Blizzard -- the company that brought you Warcraft etc. -- is holding a fan fiction contest. Well, they're calling it a 'creative writing contest', which it is, but it's a fan fiction contest.

Thing B) Blizzard also posted a writer job for an upcoming game.

It doesn't seem like much of a reach to think that the contest is a recruitment tool, especially considering that the entry form asks for your published writing experience and if you would like to become a professional writer. Oh, and the prize is a trip out to Irvine to meet the Blizzard writers. In the HR biz, that's what we call an "interview".

Now, does this or does it not sound like THE job for your old buddy Alex? Everything I have ever had published has had to do with video games, including two VG writing-related contests.

But would I move to Irvine? Sell the house, say goodbye to casual porch nights and nearby family? Have to take a plane every time I wanted to see someone?

And what the hell would I do with the other grand prize: Frostmourne?

At long last

Long-time B A Starters will remember the Great Debate over whether or not videogames are art. After much discussion and refining of definitions, my statement was "not yet". Maybe they can be, but no one's come up with anything so far that makes me say "yes".

I'm pissed at myself for not knowing anything about Jason Rohrer until Alanna lent me December's Esquire. I read the article and played Passage, and now can quite firmly state that there's at least one person out there making art in this format. (The person who made The Majesty of Colors counts too -- a post for a later date)

Before you go any further, I recommend giving Passage a play. I read the summary in the Esquire article before I played it and wish I hadn't. Still, despite knowing the point before going into it, I still had an emotional reaction to the game.

Passage provides you with choices. Do I hunt for treasure chests, or do I explore the world? Should I marry? If I do, it becomes harder to get the treasure but more rewarding to explore. But no matter what you choose, you will subtly age and die. Unceremoniously, suddenly, irrevocably.

For the first time in a lifetime of videogaming, I found myself reflecting. I have had a lot of reason to consider my choices recently -- career, personal, spiritual -- and this 5-minute game resonated with my meditations. It's an interactive Beethoven's fifth; go ahead and make your silly little choices -- fate will win and they will have done nothing to change that. All you can influence is your own experience, and try to do as much with your 5 as possible.

I'll be keeping an eye on what this gent produces. If you find anyone else out there working to communicate emotion through the interactivity of videogames, do please throw a comment my way.

Razor's Image

I had hoped that Mirror's Edge would be good. Not that I have a next-gen system yet, but still. YT parkouring around? Awesome. Visual style looks awesome, too. All around awesomeness.

So, imagine my dismay when it turns out to be kind of meh. I played about three seconds of the 360 demo, and that was all it took.

Good news, though -- there's a 2d flash version. I mean, it plays like a cross between Line Rider and 8-bit Ninja Gaiden, but it's still fun. Here's hoping they do more with it.

The Coke Ad

I have been led to understand that Cola-cola is the real thing, and indeed that there ain't nothin' like it. How then, are we to take the superbowl commercial entitled "Avatar"?



You know the one. Dude is walking around the city and web-enabled people turn into their online personas. Elves, zombies, pokemen, and space adventurers go about their mundane business all around our protagonist. He finally takes a respite from his odyssey in a seat next to a big bad orc, who, it turns out is the cute girl in real life.

Is this meant to be a "book-by-its-cover" morality tale? After all, the frumpy lady is a 60's spy-movie femme fatale in the digital world. The nattily-dressed business man appears as a blue-skinned beastie. Surely our avatars, the faces which we choose for ourselves, speak much more about who we are than our offline bodies.

At about the half-way point, though, a few ironic vignettes appear in rapid succession. A pasty man in a white short-sleeved oxford shirt (the uniform of a fool in advertising) ignores a woman who struggles to get her stroller up the stairs, but turns into a superhero before our eyes. A spitting image of the Victor dog -- you remember, the one who hears his master's voice on the record-player -- bounces a sad blue ball against the leg of a boy who is apparently engaged in a particularly exciting hand-held video game. A child is dutifully pushed on a swing by a virtual supermom, who is far more interested in texting with her other hand.

So perhaps, then, the fine people at Coca-cola are saying something different. Perhaps our choices of avatar speak more about who we think we are than who we are in truth.

What, then, of our orc? She certainly seems upset when the protagonist reaches for her tasty bottle of Coke -- her green brow furrows and an angry sneer appears on her fanged mouth. Are we to assume that this young woman, who to all appearances seems nice enough in the real world, is in her mind a nasty and brutish agent of evil? Or has this gladsome prince appeared to kiss her back into the form of the princess?

Next time you meet someone, ask them what they use for their avatar. Share a Coke and see what that says about them. You should probably keep your observations to yourself, though -- at least until you exchange email addresses.

More facets of the same jewel

I've posted several times now about the natural combination of my two hobbies -- the written word and videogames -- and how I can't seem to separate the two. During my brief but passionate stint in Second Life, I found myself in digital libraries holding digital book-readings. My ardor for the Final Fantasy series reached new heights when FFIII let me use weighty tomes as weapons. The codex-toting archaeologists in Lego Indy found themselves in heavier rotation than was really necessary. On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness features Tycho reading at all times, even when shooting evil in its grinning maw, and I just naturally had to unlock his super-weapon.

So, what about Warcraft? Oh yes, gentle reader, I have found a way.

When you're not killing things in Warcraft, you have a profession. That's right, a job in a fantasy world. Where's the fantasy in that, you ask? Well, my profession is Inscription. I make ink and write runes on scraps of paper. These "glyphs" have, unsurprisingly, magic properties, and I sell them for a more-than-tidy profit.

And, as if that wasn't enough, with the right training and some luck, a scribe like myself can make books. Big old grimoires that lend mighty powers to their holders. For example, I now carry around a book that lets my breathe fire. Fire breath! From holding a book! Marvelous.

The trouble is, sometimes my digital adventures creep into my waking life*. It's all I can do to take my bright, modern-feeling home office and redecorating it like this:


It's actually not all that far off, now that I think about it.


*videogames are far more restful for me than sleep. Ask around.

Only a Matter of Time

For some time now, my brothers have been my pathway to true geekiness. For example:

• It was my desire to understand their ways that introduced me to Magic: The Gathering, with long-lasting results.
• Pete gave me his copy of Record of Lodoss War, which was a first for me in many respects -- first time owning a full TV series, first anime in my collection and the first with subtitles.
• It was at Morgan's apartment that I played my first round of 8-man Halo, prompting me to buy the Xbox and leading to a few of the geekiest things I've ever done, including holding a video game tourney as fund-raiser, manning Halo at a bachelor party, and participating in a game-inspired improv show.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when I learned that Pete is currently playing World of Warcraft, I decided to try out the demo. We're not really letter-writers, but we are certainly gamers -- perhaps this will give us a chance to hang out, right?

Well, let me tell you this. PA has it right once again. From what I can tell so far, the game is mainly a steady stream of tasks involving killing X number of Y monsters. Snooze.

Now, I assume that once the tedium of grinding is done and you actually team up with people, some coolness can occur. Except that people are a pain in the ass. So, we'll see.