Free Radical: Free Thread

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 28, 2012

Filed under: Projects 94 comments

By request, I wanted to open up a thread for people to discuss my first book, Free Radical, which is still available for free. (Bottom of page.) There’s also a print version available at cost. You can also read the venerable webpage version that started it all.

He realized that he wasn’t getting out of there. He had come to this conclusion at some point during his run down the stairs. There was just no way he was going to escape though the net of police that was surely making its way up through the building. For him, it was no longer a question of how he would escape, but how far he would get before they brought him down. This gave him a kind of sick desperation that fueled him onward. He was no longer running for his life – he was already dead. Instead, he was running out of spite, out of sheer stubbornness and vengeance. They were going to get him, and he was going to make them work for it. He was going to see how far he could get before they stopped him. Nescio had been right after all.

So: Discuss the events of the book, the themes, the characters, the technology, or whatever else interests you. Feel free to ask questions if you like, although you might be surprised at how little I know beyond what’s already on the page.

This thread is intended for people who have finished the book, and the entire thread should be considered spoilers. No need to use spoiler tags.

 


 

Witch Watch: Digital Edition Available

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 27, 2012

Filed under: Projects 138 comments

As some people noticed last week, my book is already for sale on Amazon, due to some screw-up or misunderstanding on our part. This stealth release actually worked out really well: One nasty error and a couple of trivial ones had crept in during our final round of formatting, and these early readers caught them before it went out to the masses. (Or went into printing!)

So, since the door is open, I might as well start spreading the news: The Witch Watch (digital edition) is now available for sale. The print edition will go live this Friday, March 2nd. For a full list of all the ways you can buy this thing, check my author page.

And before you ask…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Witch Watch: Digital Edition Available”

 


 

Borderlands:The Loot Lottery

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 27, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 176 comments

One advantage of running blog is that – unlike a major gaming site – I can spend time talking about three year old games, or ten year old games, or whatever else strikes my fancy. I am not obliged to be forever chasing the horizon with regards to new releases. In a recent post, Leslee Beldotti asked this about Borderlands 2:

Nooooooooo! For the love of all that's only sort of holy, why on earth would you want more guns???

A reasonable question. I mean, there were millions of possible guns in Borderlands. Why add more to Borderlands 2?

borderlands_loot2.jpg

Borderlands is a strange beast. On the surface it seems like your typical empowerment fantasy: You are a singular force of destruction, slaughtering your way through beasts and bandits that are so uncompromisingly evil that you can feel like your killing is a public service. See also: Serious Sam, Doom, Quake, Painkiller, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Homefront, Prey, Resistance, Killzone, etc etc etc. You can dominate like a badass and feel virtuous at the same time.

But underneath all the shooting is a game more like Diablo, which is a looting system that hooks into our hunter-gatherer instincts and drives players to search and hoard. You’re foraging for firearms, basically. It also hooks into typical gambling compulsions. (Which may actually be the same thing. I don’t know enough to argue about it. I’ll leave that to the behaviorists.)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Borderlands:The Loot Lottery”

 


 

Deus Ex Human Revolution EP26: Men Never Fail To Underestimate Elevators

By Josh Posted Saturday Feb 25, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 131 comments


Link (YouTube)

And so ends a most bizarre week of Spoiler Warning. Though, given where we are in the game, all this weirdness and stupidity is almost fitting.

Particularly in this episode.

This would have been up yesterday, but youtube ran into an odd audio sync error – one I’ve never encountered before – when I uploaded it the first time. I ended up having to upload the whole video over again.

 


 

Experienced Points: A little Less (Dumb) Conversation

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 24, 2012

Filed under: Column 147 comments

Skyrim, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Mass Effect 2 each have their own ideas about how interactive dialog scenes should work. So do I, which I discuss in this week’s column.

 


 

Witch Watch: Proofs

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 24, 2012

Filed under: Projects 88 comments

It’s here. It’s been printed out and everything. I’m publishing a book. This is a thing that is happening. It’s one thing to hear people say they want to read it, or have them read it and pretend to enjoy it because they like me. It’s another thing to hold the completed product in my hands and realize, “Wow. If this doesn’t pan out I’ve wasted an amazing amount of time. This is terrifying. But these illustrations sure are nice.”

witch_watch_proofs.jpg

These are the proof copies. I’ve gotta flip through one and look for errors. Then we apply the changes to the print copy. Then it goes up for sale, for real, and we’ll finally get to see if all of this pans out. If you’re one of my proofreaders, you’re getting one of the volumes you see above. I’ll be signing them and dropping them in the mail right away eventually.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Witch Watch: Proofs”

 


 

Deus Ex Human Revolution EP25:
Press F5 to Quicksave

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 23, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 168 comments


Link (YouTube)

This was a strange week for Spoiler Warning. We were all off our rhythm for some reason. Still, our foolishness and failure is your “entertainment”. So you’ve got that going for you.

And since this is apparently The Worst Week Ever, we might as well get this out of the way: Last week Rutskarn mentioned that someone sent us a picture of Jensen in a thong, so I have included the picture of Jensen in a thong below. WARNING: THERE IS A PICTURE OF JENSEN IN A THONG BELOW.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Deus Ex Human Revolution EP25:
Press F5 to Quicksave”