The Revolution Will be Televised

I saved Batman.

After playing DC Universe Online (DCUO) for a while, that's the one thing I most remember. Punching Scarecrow's teeth in. Sending Solomon Grundy back to the grave. Capturing Harley Quinn. Intervening in a catfight between Giganta and Wonder Girl.

If these names mean nothing to you, if the thought of pulling the Goddamn Batman's arse out of the fire doesn't set you alight with a thrill that's not unlike topping off a case of Mountain Dew with half a dozen E, I'll precis the rest of the review for you right now:

DCUO is the third superhero MMO. It's mechanically somewhere between the best and the second-best, but too many gameplay problems, along with a relative dearth of content (not as little as Champions Online, nowhere near as much as City of Heroes at launch) mean it's not worth paying for after the free month. It's an average game coasting on a big-ticket licence.

But if that licence really means a lot? Well, you've probably already stumped up the cash. I'm going to dissect the thing anyway. My qualifications? I've got a character to level 30 and have sampled the end-game. I've also spent a long time playing both City of Heroes and Champions Online, and am a massive comics nerd. I'm reviewing the PC version here; if you're mad enough to play an MMO on PS3, you probably spend your days purchasing chocolate trousers and teaching fish the Charleston.

( Long review is long. )

Buy it, have fun for a month, but remember to cancel the billing when the honeymoon's over.

The public beta of Star Trek Online is done, and that means my playtime's over. I might check it out a year from now, but currently it lives in the same land as Champions Online: so much promise, so little delivery.

( In which I review my beta experience )

My arms hurt. Every muscle in my upper body has its own ache, it's own twinge. Wii Sports Resort does that to you.

( Read more... )

Damn. This place is a fucking wasteland. I've spent so long vomiting forth streams of bile in flocked posts that I've forgotten to do anything else.

To be fair, the lack of fiction is because I'm trying to channel all of my creativity towards my latest project (another thing I've droned on about). To that end, I've been watching everything from JLU to Dark Season, analysing everything and working out how it ticks. Superheroes and school-SF may not appear appropriate, but the key is the stories that those vessels are used to tell. Stories and motivation are very important to keep me going through redlines. When I'm done, Artemis Hemingway will return — among other things.

In other news, the laptop's battery is totally drained. Looks like it's time to cram one last charge into the bastard and rescue all my files, because I can't use the damn thing any more. Which is a pity, because there's a certain dignity in sitting on a sofa with feet up, hitting IMDB for a review of whatever's on telly.

This is a change. The first time when I'm not on a mad binge aimed at a deadline. Everything's decompressed, though my brain's working on the project as much as it would be anyway. The mild feeling of dread over the whole thing refuses to go away, which is at least A Thing. On the other hand...

As part of my research, I've taken to analysing other games. One of those games is the unreleased second draft of Exile, Mark Rein{dot}Hagen's[0] space opera game. And, well, I've got enough of an opinion on it that I'm willing to actually mention it (something I reserve for things like Mechanical Dream[1], Continuum[2], and FATAL[3]). See, this is supposed to be space opera. That's good, I've nothing against SO. Star Wars to Lensman. But... this is barely SF. The game is Vampire In Space, far more than Trinity ever could be. Exile proves that it is In Space by having stupidly nonsensical timespans for everything (the average war lasts several thousand years) in a setting with FTL travel. There's a clumsy Asimovian subtext that's not so much hinted at or stated as rammed through the reader's eyes straight to their brain like a freight train. It's laughable when it's not painful for it's lack of actual ideas. Exile is the Fading Suns That Couldn't. It uses the concept of space opera for substance without ever thinking about what underlies space opera. FS puts enough of a spin on common tropes to feel fresh and unique, Exile grabs all that it can and lumbers around shouting "I'm Science Fiction! I'm ground breaking."

I read Exile as a game, because before MRH left White Wolf, it was in all likelyhood going to be the SF game. I read it and I laugh. Because if I'm ever that bad, all of you are going to come and kill me.

Oh, yeah. Website things may be happening in the future. Actual story on that when I get them back up.

[0]: He of early White Wolf stuff.
[1]: This is brilliant, but too many people won't get it because the setting doesn't pander to impatient people.
[2]: This is brilliant, but too many people won't get it because the setting doesn't pander to impatient people.
[3]: Die.