Lock the Taskbar
Overlord: Ending
After playing through the end of the game and reading through the comments of my previous Overlord post, I’ve found a few more words have been jostled loose.
Reader JW mentioned in the comments:
![]() |
| Don’t hate me because I’m awesome. |
Actually, the voice work was pretty good all around. (Although Jewel and Kahn sounded a little stiff. I couldn’t tell if that was on purpose, though.) IMDB doesn’t say, but I’m fairly confident that the voice of Oberon Greenhaze is the same guy who voices Serious Sam. I love that guy.
The ending was surprisingly good and quite unexpected. It tied together a lot of earlier developments and even had a bit to say about the nature of heroes. I’m not suggesting it was a profound insight or a revelation on human nature, but it was clever and fun and wrapped things up nicely.
It turns out the story was written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Sir Terry Pratchett. I have to confess that I’ve never read his stuff. I know it’s something geeks are supposed to do, but the list of things you must do to maintain your geek cred is getting impossibly long these days. Besides, I was a lot less interested in his work once I realized that his Discworld series is pretty much a blatant ripoff of Halo.
I was already happy with the story before the end came along. It was straightforward and generally funny and delightfully subversive of genre conventions. (Halflings as piggish and mean little imps.) So when the ending rolled around and mixed things up I was pleasantly surprised. I took a look on Wikipedia and read about how each of the major characters ties into one of the seven deadly sins, which vaguely reminded me of the movie Se7en in the way that they fulfilled one another. I feel sort of thick for not picking up on that sooner.
(Just kidding about Pratchett ripping off Halo. I’m open to suggestions if anyone wants to recommend one of his books as a good starting point for his work.)
EDIT: I stand corrected, Ringworld is the “Halo ripoff”, not Discworld. I’m afraid I was confusing one [shape]world series with another. That gives me an idea for a book: Sphereworld! It’s about this ball-shaped planet where stuff happens…
The Queue
People have been leaving comments, emails, and Twitters, asking me when I’m going to get to one game or another. I do not take offense at this. I’m grateful that lots of people want to read what I have to say, and I’d love to be able to play games and write all day long in an attempt to meet this demand.
But my annoying habit of needing to sleep and pay bills places unwanted constraints on my time. In the interest of letting people know when their game of interest will get its turn, I thought I’d post my current queue. This is the list of games I’ve played and that I plan to write about:
1) This week I’ll be posting about Overlord and wrapping up that series.
2) After that I’ll be doing a special dual review of Saints Row 2 vs. GTA IV.
3) After that I’ll take on Mount & Blade and Left 4 Dead, although I’m not sure which one will come first.
4) I’ve been using WiiFit for two months. I’ve lost a good bit of weight, but the thing has driven me nearly nuts. This potent ambivalence will be expressed in a series of posts at some point.
I also have a running list of titles I plan to buy at some point. This list changes often and titles come and go, so it should be taken with a grain of salt:
- Madworld.
- Street Fighter IV. I’m not really a true fan of fighting games. I really only enjoy putting them on easy and button-mashing through the content. DOA 4 was too hardcore and just frustrated me when I tried to do this, but word is that SF IV is accessible to newcomers. I don’t think there’s enough story to yield any comics, but I might find something funny in there. I’m not familiar with the series except by reputation.
- Gears of War 2. I’m planning to get this one strictly because it’s a popular game with a dumb plot, which makes it prime fodder for comics. I probably won’t write about it here unless it surprises me or pisses me off.
- Resident Evil 5. This is mostly just comic fodder, but also because I’m fascinated by the racism controversy and want to see how I react to the game.
- The House of the Dead: Overkill: I might get this just to see what point-and-shoot gameplay is like on the Wii.
- 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand: I was going to get this, until Penny Arcade spoiled the ending! I’m kidding. I’m just sort of curious why movie tie-ins are all horrible but a gangster rapper tie-in isn’t.
- Afro Samurai: I played the demo, which prompted me to get the Anime, which turned me into an instant fan. The game looks like light, mindless, eviscerating fun.
- I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
Maybe I should put this list somewhere on the site so that I can feel guilty for not keeping it up to date.
Are Violent Videogames Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
This week’s Unskippable featured no Stephen Blum, bringing their overall Blum content down to a disappointing 37%. (Although I did recognize the voice of Admiral Hackett from Mass Effect, who is voiced by Lance Henriksen.)
So instead of Unskippable this week, let’s look at an issue that affects our children.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?I stopped reading The Onion a few years ago when it felt like they were in a rut. This new (to me) video thing has really made the humor fresh again.
Experienced Points: Housecall
My work at Activeworlds for the past 14 years has given me somewhat of an insider’s perspective on the online virtual worlds business, and in that time I’ve seen a lot of them come and go. There, The Palace, Worlds Chat, and a dozen others have leaped onto the stage with dreams of becoming the Google of 3D, and ended up becoming the Webvan of 3D. (Second Life is still in business, though. Good for them.) It’s killing me to see Sony come onto the scene and make all those same mistakes again, and I thought I’d offer them a couple of million dollars worth of free advice. Hopefully this makes for an interesting read.
Stolen Pixels #72: Idle Hands
Silent Hill Turbo HD II
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
Denuvo and the "Death" of Piracy
Denuvo videogame DRM didn't actually kill piracy, but it did stop it for several months. Here's what we learned from that.
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
The Truth About Piracy
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
This Game is Too Videogame-y
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
Overused Words in Game Titles
I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.
Skylines of the Future
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
Dead Island
A stream-of-gameplay review of Dead Island. This game is a cavalcade of bugs and bad design choices.
PC Gaming Golden Age
It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.
T w e n t y S i d e d
