Webcomic reccomendation: Romantically Apocalyptic

There are three main reasons I have found to love this hidden gem of the internet.

First is the glorious artwork. the maker somehow combines live-action photographs (of abandoned areas in the real world and actors in outfits), hand-drawn art, props, and Photoshop to create the most jaw-droppingly beautiful post-apocalyptic scenery I have ever seen.



I have a special thing for this sort of thing, being a fan of stories set after the nuclear apocalypse (I avidly play the Fallout games, and plan to pick up S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl somewhere down the line) but I don't see any reason why anyone wouldn't like what this work has to offer.

The second reason is the humor. Perhaps surprisingly, this is something of a comedy. Said comedy mainly comes from the sheer insanity of the cast of human survivors. The Ca-that is, ZEE CAPTAIN simply has to be seen to be believed. My favorite would have to be Charles Snippy, the most sane least insane survivor, who deals with his hellish life and insane company with a put-upon expression and a delightfully snarky attitude.

And the third is the story. Yes, it has quite the story. To begin with, the comic is really just a set of aimless wanderings through the bleak beauty mixed with silly-but-fun humor, with the odd lemonade cult thrown in. then, things start to pick up. New characters are met (human and otherwise), the exact causes of the the apocalypse are slowly brought to light, we learn some interesting backstory on the characters, and the characters are faced with truly terrifying antagonists. It's deep, convoluted, and exciting stuff.


Seriously, there is no reason not to check out this work of art. Take a look. It's free, and it's awesome.

A Mass Effect Journal: Entry One

I am loving this game so far.

As of now, I have finished the prologue of the game. So far, there's been an attack on a human colony world by a hostile machine race, and the introduction of a sly, conniving villain.



Not only does he get a great introduction, but I can just tell that Saren going to be driving force behind this story. He's responsible for the machine invasion and is involved in a mysterious plot involving the technology of a long-dead race and their destroyers. And yet, he covers his tracks entirely. So, your first mission is to find evidence to incriminate him, leading you into the seedy urban underbelly of the galaxy. Which turns out to be the perfect setting for a rag-tag group of various species to assemble from different directions.

On another note, I'm pretty impressed by the setting. Bioware has created a world rich with so much background detail, there's an in-game mini-encyclopedia for it all. Said encyclopedia is pretty dry, but hearing it first-hand from the characters you meet is very interesting indeed.

There's a certain note of optimism to the whole thing. It feels sort of like reconstruction of the old-fashioned starry-eyed space operas that viewed the future as exiting and filled with adventure, spaceships, and laser pistols. It's actually pretty refreshing considering that so many settings out there try for a darker mindset (particularly this web novel I've been reading, but that's another story for another blog entry).

Basically, this game is everything I have been looking for. I wonder if will be able to keep this quality up?


Off we go to save the galaxy!

A Mass Effect Journal: Entry Zero

I've played my fair share of video games, and can name quite a few gems. But unfortunately few the kind of character interaction I've been looking for. I want characters worthy of a good book, who change and develop along with me and treat me differently depending on how I behave. Deus Ex: Human Revolution fell flat here, despite the rich and thoughtful setting. Dust: an Elysian Tail is something of a slog in terms of story. Portal had a fantastic story and characters, but was strictly linear in gameplay and story. Telltale Games usually offers what I'm looking for, but it's going to be a while before they release their next installments of The Walking Dead and The Wold Among Us.

Hold on...what's this thing at the bottom of my Steam library? Something I picked up during the Steam Christmas discount sale, apparently. 

What's that you say? Play as a space marine, assemble a ragtag team of various intelligent species, go on adventures round the galaxy and eventually save all of galactic civilization?

A set of different characters that escort you and have their own interests, who change with the story and with my choices?

Sounds exactly like what i'm looking for!

Off I go to save the galaxy!

Video Game Reviews: Q.U.B.E.

Video Game Reviews: Q.U.B.E.


The short version: Q.U.B.E. (that stands for Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is short, sweet, and pretty satisfying as puzzle games go. And...it's not much else, really.

The long version: This is very much a puzzle game, something to tax the brain. The gameplay mechanics are a little tricky to explain, since I haven't really come across anything that can be drawn up as comparison (which means that this game gets bonus points for originality). Basically, you are put into a blank white-tiled room which has certain fixed features that you can manipulate with your weird glowing gloves. Red tiles can be popped out ("extruded," so to speak), yellow tiles can be made into staircase-like patterns, certain sections of walls can be rotated, that sort of thing.

To it's credit, the game manages to do many different things with this fairly limited tool set. In one section, you might be popping out blocks to jump across a gap to the next area. In another, you have to spin around a set of light refractors to direct coloured lasers to hit a target. In yet another, you have to shove around blocks and walls to direct cubes and spheres. It's clever, it's inventive, and it's satisfying to solve.

But for all it's strengths, Q.U.B.E. is something of a throwaway experience, something you won't really feel inclined to play more than once. It's not very long as games go - I finished it in just under 4 hours in total - and once you've solved all the puzzles, that's pretty much it. Plus, there's no real narrative to speak of.

Which feels strange, because it often feels like there's the bones of a story. Your silent and unknown character wakes up in a mysterious sterile white-tiled environment, learns to use the strange and wonderful tool given to him/her, and navigates in a linear pathway through puzzle chambers of increasing difficulty. There's a vague, sinister sense that you are being controlled and shepherded towards an unknown fate. But little ever comes of it. It's very difficult to ignore the similarities to the wildly popular Portal games.

All the trappings I just mentioned are there. People who have played Portal will know exactly what I'm talking about. People who haven't can just ignore this paragraph. But the difference is that Portal had a brilliant, captivating story behind it, while Q.U.B.E. just doesn't.

The short short version: Pretty good at what it does, but Portal does it better and is up for the same price on Steam. Get Portal.

Final score: 8/10