The 2011 Durham on Games GOTY Awards

The Most Anticipated Game of the Year Awards are Here!

Now that 2011 is really dead and has had a few days to stop twitching, Durham on Games presents the only trustworthy Game of the Year awards! If you have not owned, played, or otherwise experienced one or more of the games within (except some of the Special Prize winners), consider yourself underprivileged.

Note that all of the games were PC versions (I'm too pathetic for publishers to send me requested console games), and I don't care if you thing some PS3 game deserves contention. I started as a PC gamer, and thus shall I go out. I don't hate my Xbox 360 or my PlayStation 3, but hey, if I don't have the software, I can't pass my clearly-superior judgment on its quality.

I'm Famous! Slip Away Made the Newspaper!

Yee-haw! My psychologically dramatic e-novel got two column inches, on page 9, of section C, in the local Rochester Democrat & Chronicle! There's a little book section in the dwindling dead tree edition every Sunday, and one of the columns features local authors. Slip Away got a tiny write up.

There was even a massive surge of sales on December 11, when it appeared. I sold, like, ten copies! Bestseller list, here I come!

Now that I'm clearly a household name, I expect money and gifts to start pouring in any second. In fact, I recently checked the mailbox and it contained several scary white window envelopes, each of which had something to do with me giving the sender money. Now that my book is taking off like a goddamn rocket, I'll be able to continue to tell the senders that I'm broke and challenge them to get blood out of a stone. Currently, procuring money from me is akin to pulling Excalibur from its rock and becoming the ruler of England. It's just not going to happen.

Anyway, I have been playing games, a lot, and I swear I'm going to redesign this page a bit and concentrate on gaming. Someone has to do it in a reasoned matter, that's somewhat irreverent in a way that gamers get (that was a dig at Spike TV, which ruined the 2011 VGAs with gusto and made me embarrassed to be a gaming enthusiast). The main hurdle has been my deteriorating health. Sciatica sucks so much ass, it's pretty much inflated with methane by now.

I've got opinions on Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed Revelations, LA Noire, Serious Sam 3 or whatever it's called, and more, all played on PC because none of the fucking gaming companies don't send me console games anymore. (Except Capcom - you guys rock!) 

Had I the ability, the capital, and stable health, I'd happily start a Consumer Reports style gaming mag or site, for which the staff would buy games, turn away any press tchotchkies and materials, play the games like normal people without behind the scenes secrets, and give the most totally honest and unbiased reviews. I'm sick of sites that hire kids who will "write" reviews, compensated with a free game and five bucks. Such reviews usually translate to "Gee wiz! I got a game! Thank you Jesus! It's really neat! 8/10!!!!"

That's enough bitching. Go buy my book. Game roundup in the works. Have a great week and don't forget to buy tasteful Christmas presents for your coworkers. That cute secretary would probably dig a Hallmark snow globe, and you might get a date or a blow job or something out of it.

Out.

EnRAGEing - Durham's review of id's RAGE

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since Joel is a has-been tech guy but currently a wuss, he's decided to write occasional game reviews, mostly for attention. He's not cool enough at all to receive games in advance like those smarmy magazines and high-traffic websites, so his reviews come in a bit late. To compensate - something Joel has to do regarding many things - he tries to make his reviews interesting. Good luck.

Hey there! Evidently id Software made another game, after about 75 years of bathing in money from the Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake franchises. Who wouldn't?

I've played a whole bunch of the kinda-sorta-sandbox-that-gives-the-illusion-of-free-choice-but-really-leads-you-around-by-the-balls game RAGE (Windows version). It's cool in a frustrating way, or frustrating in a cool way, whichever you like. 

After I'd spent sufficient time wrestling with tech issues like the famous texture popping and such (this was actually part of the game; that John Carmack is a sly fox!) the game looked fantastic One certainly can't fault the graphics of the new id engine. 

As I played, though, I started thinking of other games. Yes, in the post-apocalyptic world of RAGE, you drive, you race, you shoot people and mutants, you upgrade your cars and your weapons, deliver mail, etc. Yes, you read that right. You can be a mailman if you choose. Exciting stuff.

Almost every aspect of RAGE, though, feels oddly familiar. To show the effect, I made this handy pie chart because it'll make the review look more sophisticated.

Thank you, GraphJam! I would have used Excel, but that's so involving. Now, let's go through each component of the game RAGE.

First off, because it's made by id, it obviously features elements of other id games. The two that came to mind are Quake 3 and Doom 4. No, wait. That's Doom 3 and Quake 4. Right? Despite id's attempt to get away from corridor frag fests, the player experiences them whenever he attempts to complete a mission and goes inside a cave network, rundown shack, etc. Mutants charge at you (hello Quake!) and sometimes burst out of nowhere from behind (hey there, Doom's monster closets!). Occasionally the bad guys use tactics, like diving for cover and such.

The driving is very Interstate '76 (hopefully the people - er, person who reads this is old enough to remember that incredible game). You arm your car by winning races and receiving tickets, which are a currency especially for buying car weaponry. The other currency, for mundane crap like bullets, is dollars. Yes, American dollar bills somehow retain value after an apocalypse. Hell, the dollar is barely a working currency right freaking now and there hasn't been an apocalypse yet. Maybe a good old fashioned meteor strike would raise its value against the euro.

Fallout 3 is obvious. Look at the screenshots of the game. If anyone except Bethesda published RAGE, it would have sued the publisher for recreating Fallout 3.

I threw John Romero's Daikatana in there not because the games are similar, but because RAGE was spectacularly hyped and turned out to be something of a letdown. Now, it's not a letdown on the level of the abysmal Daikatana, which, I understand, parents punish their children by forcing them to play it, but I saw similarities in the prerelease blah-blah and the actual release, which was clumsy and made me think of the late Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau, and how he'd release a title.

Finally, The Postman. It's a film, not a game, but still, for Christ's sake, RAGE, the awesome action powerhouse from the worlds's most celebrated and influential developer studio...makes you a postal carrier. Whee!

Now, if you dig all that crap, the technical glitches and core components of RAGE, go ahead and enjoy it. I'm rather glad to be through with it...not because it was awful but because it was mediocre. That, of all things, is non id-like.

SCORE: 7.8 Mutant Heads Exploding When You Score A Headshot (out of 10). 

Slip Away - Technical Difficulties

UPDATE: It looks like it's now available via the iBookstore. You can also grab it at the Kindle store and through Lulu (via the button to the right). 


Slip Away, the spectacularly unknown novel that commands zero demand throughout the entire world, might not be available for a few hours (and hopefully not more than that). I've been battling Lulu's EPUB converter, which adores spitting out multiple errors with explanations so vague they could be about problems elephants experience while trying to mate.

Nevertheless, I think I've finally ironed out most of the non-issues that the converter honestly believe will cause the Rapture if they should make it past its crappy filters. If you have a Kindle, grab some cheap, good lit, as that service is unaffected.

Also, I'm going to write about games again soon. If that's what you're interested in, be patient just a bit longer. The upcoming posts won't be your average game reviews...

Editor's Choice for Fiction...Times Three!

I'm a regular contributor to Fiction Writers Platform, a sort of DIY publishing spot for short works. I've just earned my third Editor's Choice award! In order of date of reception, the awards are for:


Perfect Angel, which I wrote while listening to an Elliott Smith song called Twilight,

Thick as a Brick, obviously inspired by the famous Jethro Tull one-track rock album,

and finally,

Love Song, a short story I wrote for my loving wife Emily as a Valentine's Day gift.

Please give them a read and, if you would, a brief review (or even limit your reaction to a simple star rating, which is an option below each story, if you care to); it won't take very long and I truly appreciate any and all feedback.