Geeky Update (Nokia, Saga, TR, Malazan Empire)

I've mentioned in one of my previous posts that I've been following what’s been happening to Nokia. I used to be a fan of the company. They are were the biggest multinational technology corporation based in Europe. Their products were ground breaking. Nokia released phones with front cameras, QWERTY keyboard, smartphones and touch screen phones way before Blackberry, Apple or Samsung even dreamed about them. They used to have a very good understanding of future technologies and dominated the market for many years. I used to proudly own their products.

That was up to the point when their new CEO took charge, Stephen Elop. I’m not going to go through Nokia’s downfall. I went through most of it here. However, not completely unexpected, the news arrived that Nokia was sold to Microsoft! Elop who used to work as the head of Microsoft’s Business Division before jumping to Nokia in September 2010 probably helped MS buy Nokia phone division cheap. Just check Nokia’s share prices for these last years. It’s a shame though.  I feel for the all the people who lost their jobs recently and for those who will lose it in the future. The evil Empire Strikes back.

On another different tone, I’d like to introduce to you the world of Saga! That’s a graphic novel for adults created by Vaughan and Staples. Vaughan is the writer of things like ‘Y: The Last Man’, the ‘Runaways’ and co-writer of the TV series ‘Lost’. The plot of the story can be described as ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in space with aliens, warlocks, robots, ghosts, mercenaries and all the rest. It’s about a young couple from two different worlds in war (tech vs magic) trying to escape with their new-born child. It might sound a bit unoriginal, but believe me the art, characters and storytelling is exceptional. Saga is now an award winning series and I would recommend it to anyone with a desire to read something different than what mainstream Marvel or DC have to offer at the moment.

What’s next? Oh, yes. PC games! I’m in the process of finishing ‘Tomb Raider’. Yes, the remake of the old platform/shooter. The development company did wonders at bringing Lara Croft to the new era. Keeping the same approach of having a female heroine trying to solve simple puzzles by climbing here and there and moving stuff around while shooting baddies and evil fauna works perfectly well. Unlike other disappointing remakes like SimCity (oh, what a waste of money), the publisher Square Enix manages to create a likeable character that evolves through the game trying to escape the island of Yamatai. The island itself of course holds many secrets waiting to be solved and sets a visually stunning setting for Lara’s adventures. If you liked the old Tomb Raiders, I guarantee you you’ll like this one too.

Finally, I couldn't finish this geek update without a book reference. So, I'd like to introduce to you the world of the ‘Malazan Book ofthe Fallen’. That’s an epic fantasy series written by Steven Erikson. OK, so it’s not a single book. It’s many. Ten books to be precise that consist this series. For the time being I’m going through number 7 (Reaper’s Gale) but I have to say it’s really good. For those who don’t know about epic fantasy, try to think ‘The Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Game of Thrones’ and empires, witchcraft, demons, various peoples, gods and all that.  

I’m trying not to read all books one after the other. I read other stuff in-between. I finished beforehand ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman! That was also a good, interesting, read but I shouldn't divert from my main topic. The Malazan Empire holds many dark stories, twists in the plot and of course many different characters and point of views that make the books not that easy to read. Lots of people criticise the author for the number of characters with tongue-twisting names, the variety of locations and the deities involved.

At first, they story looks a bit problematic and lost without a true purpose. There are way too many characters with their agendas. Especially if you’re reading the first book and you’re unfamiliar with the author’s ways, it seems pointless. What I have to say is hold on. In every book that I remember there is a closure of some shorts, even if there are some cliff hangers for the future issues. It all makes sense in the end. To give you an idea the book I’m reading now has more than 1,200 pages and a list of points of view that’s very difficult to count. I’m loving it though and I can’t easily put it down.   

That's what my geek little bizarre world is all about these dates. Not sure how interested you are, but I'll keep you posted nevertheless...

Geeky Update

It’s been a while since I’ve last done one of those.

Firstly, I want to mention a Marvel graphic novel that I read recently. I’ve been reading comic books since I was a small boy. I remember laying wake from excitement in my bed in anticipation to a trip to the city where there was a proper comic book store, where I could buy things that were not available in the small town I grew up in. Since then, lots of things have changed. I’ve lost that children’s excitement, but not my total interest in them. What I do now is instead of purchasing the bi-weekly or monthly releases; I wait a bit and buy complete graphic novels or collections.

Lately, I bought a graphic novel titled “Avengers: the Children’s Crusade”. It features mostly the group of heroes called Young Avengers. I had a glimpse of them in the Marvel’s “Siege” storyline but I didn’t know mostly anything about them. They are as the name implies the new generations of super heroes that aspire to become like the proper Avengers and were formed during the time the senior Avengers team was temporarily disbanded. The graphic novel overall isn’t bad. Its art is quite nice and the storyline good. I would give it higher marks if it didn’t include dead people from the past coming back to life. It always puts me off when that happens.

 In any case, I was happily surprised to find a proper gay couple in the team. Wiccan, a powerful wizard who could be the reincarnation of Scarlet Witch’s son, is in a relationship with his alien shape shifting male teammate Hulkling. They properly refer to one another as boyfriends; they kiss and complain when given a room in the Avengers mansion with separate bed. The whole situation is written in a very realistic and respected way. There aren’t many gay characters in comic books and it’s always nice when I come across them. The Young Avengers series was discontinued, but a new version is coming up that still features both Wiccan and Hulkling, even if changes to the rest of the cast have been made:

Since, it is the beginning of March, I can’t not mention my upcoming birthday. It’s next week! Yay! Anyway, I was looking for a present for myself and I was delighted to find out that the new SimCity will be released on the 8th of the month! That’s so very appropriate. I’ve been a SimCity fan since the very beginning. I used to play it when the game still looked like this, back in the 80’s:

So, I can’t really miss it, when it looks like this:

I don’t normally pre-order stuff. I’m generally cautious before proper reviews are written and games are properly tested. I’ve made an exception in the past for the Elder Scroll’s latest release, Skyrim, and I didn’t regret it. I was extremely confident that Bethesda would deliver. In SimCity case, the preliminary previews I’ve read are quite good. Also, I trust the development company ‘Maxis’ and Will Wright. I’ve played every SimCity release there was. I love this type of strategy, resource management and control games. Another amazing example of the genre is Civilization. That’s another series of games I utterly love.

Finishing this post, I’d like to mention that EA, the company that now owns Maxis, is hosting next week a one-day conference in New York to discuss lesbian, gay and bisexual issues in the video game industry. That same company is the one that published with Microsoft the games in the ‘Mass Effect’ series. It was highly criticized when same sex couples could be formed in the last release of the game as I mentioned here.

It’s coming…

Greek news update: In a very short period of time and after a blackmail set by the EU, the referendum has been cancelled and the Greek Prime Minister stepped down. A coalition government will be created whose new PM is not set yet. I believe this to be good news although I do remain pessimistic about the country’s future. I fear that the new government will be equally inadequate as the previous. Funnily enough there’s an article in the CNN that ‘How Greeks have stopped dreaming of the future’ which is exactly how I feel at the moment.
 
However, I’m going to change the subject. I don’t want to bore you with this kind of things any more. They’re very depressing as they are…

So, I’d like to announce how happy I am that the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011 is finally approaching! Apart from being a very peculiar date that happens only once in a century, there is another reason this date is special (at least to me)! The 5th instalment of the Elder Scroll’s game is being released: Skyrim! The ‘Elder Scrolls’ are a series of a single player RPG game! The third instalment (Morrowind) and the fourth (Oblivion) were two of my most beloved computer games ever. I’ve spent lots (and lots) of time on them which I extremely enjoyed. I lost hours of sleep on them which I haven’t regretted.  (Yes, I am such a geek, as if you didn’t know)

So, naturally I hope that the fifth one will be as good as the rest.  And for the first time, I have preordered this game from Amazon!  Usually, I wait for user comments or online reviews to purchase a PC game. You never know if it’s going to be a flop. However, I hope Bethesda, the company that will release the game, will not disappoint. I only hope 2 things. First that my PC will be able to deliver sufficiently the beauty of the game and the second that it will arrive on release day, this Friday and not be delayed. You hear me Amazon????

If these two conditions are met I will say ‘bye-bye’ to the normal, physical world (for a short period of time at least) and dive into a vast mythical world of magicians, orcs, conspiracies, elves and dragons. See you on the other side!

PS. If you call me and I don’t reply, don’t try to yell louder. I’m probably wearing my headphones. It’s better if you throw something (light) at me.

Feeling like a child (and loving it)…

I went to a pantomime the other day in the Lyric Theatre. It was a play called ‘Dick Whittington and his cat’. I’d never been to an English panto before. I was told that it is a child play that involves the actors interacting with the audience, mostly making them yell about stuff like ‘He’s behind you, he’s behind you’ when the bad guy is sneaking on the good guy etc.

Dick Whittington

I was honestly prepared for the worst. I feared that the play would be for 3 year olds with not many actors on stage, very silly songs, bad costumes, boring and predictable plot and annoying children in the audience. I was thankfully mistaken. The plot was a bit predictable but that was not really bad. The acts were really nicely directed. The choreography was interesting and the actors had rally nice voices. The songs were remakes of modern day songs giving the play a nice touch. For example ‘Bad Romance’ was transformed to ‘Bad Rodents’ sang by the Rat King.

Sarah the cook

I was amazed that the play was so long, lasting for a little bit more than 2 hours. I also liked the ‘booing’ and ‘yelling’ from the audience that was encouraged by the actors during the play and not done just by the kids. Parents were happily involved as well, pointing, booing, laughing, yelling and everything. I was a bit surprised since the English are stereotypically regarded to be quite proper and reserved all the time and you can’t say that yelling in a theatre is proper behaviour.

Overall, I had a great time. I went to see the play with colleagues and we did laugh a lot. We left the play happily chatting about it. I am not sure if I’ll become a frequent panto goer but I enjoyed the experience…

(Gossips: The main character who played Dick, Steven Webb is a good actor but not really an amazing singer. I googled him to find out more about him and it turns out that he's Stephen Fry's new boyfriend! That does explain some stuff and why Stephen Fry's voice is heard during the play as well. Needles to say that Dick's 26 years old and Fry's 52. I am not saying anything, I am just gossiping...)

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On another happy note, I was very pleased to find out that the new release of the ‘Elder Scrolls’ has been announced and it will happen at the 11th of November 2011! It will be called Skyrim! For those of you not familiar with it, the ‘Elder Scrolls’ is a series of computer Role Playing Games. I am a huge fan of the series and I have finished the previous two (as much as possible).

Teaser:

Get in touch with my geek side (part 2)…

Apart from reading comic books I’ve also spent lots of hours playing video games this weekend. I used to love playing PC games when I was younger. I could spent hours doing it and also lose sleep thinking about it. I never really liked first person shooters, simulations, racing or sports games. I’ve spent some time playing adventure games like ‘Monkey Island’ but I can’t say that I’m an expert of the genre.
What I’ve always had a soft spot for strategy games (Starcraft, SimCity, Civilisation, Heroes of Might and Magic, Red Alert etc), platform / action games (Pirates, Wing Commander, Doom) and most of all Role Playing Games.


I believe that one of the very first RPG games I’ve played was Dungeon Master. I really loved it and I do believe I’ve spent ages playing it. Thinking back, there are some fantasy RPG games that come into my mind first like: Eye of the Beholder, Anvil of Dawn, StoneKeep, Baldur’s Gate, the Elder Scrolls series, Lands of Lore (the first one), Gothic, Neverwinter Nights and Might & Magic (especially 6 and 7).



I’ve also enjoyed playing games not falling entirely in that category like Fallout (loved it), Diablo (loved it as well), Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire: the masquerade, Fable, Titan Quest or Sacred. I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to rpg games but I don’t believe that games like ‘Zelda’ or ‘Final Fantasy’ or even ‘Diablo’ are entirely rpg games. They are very linear and too action oriented. Ok, you may select and develop a character but it’s not the same. Would you ever think that 'The Sims' is RPG?

I’ve also never liked online RPG games like ‘World of Warcraft’. I’ve tried it for a couple of months but it didn’t have the same effect and I didn’t get hooked. I found it a bit weird having to depend so much on other players to do stuff and I did run into some very annoying (probably younger) players. Also, there is a philosophy of using cheats, reaching your goal of increasing levels by any means necessary that I didn’t like. I can see though why it would be appealing to other people (but not me)

Unfortunately, lately (it’s been almost two years) I stopped playing PC games. Working in an IT company makes me stay in front of a PC screen for way too long and I now spend many hours outdoors. Also, my latest laptop that I purchased in a hurry, after my old one was stolen, doesn’t support new games because I got it quite cheap. That means that the latest game that I did enjoy was Oblivion in my old laptop.

This weekend however, I stayed and played a bit on my PSP I got for the many hours I spend travelling. I didn’t use it at home either. I played a silly manga look-alike RPG game called Popolocrois (that I finished this weekend). I must say that it was enjoyable, quite big and cute. I don’t think you can find proper RPG games in PSP and that was close enough.

That got me thinking that I might need to get a new desktop because I really want to check Fallout 3 and with Diablo 3 and Startcraft 2 (eventually) coming…

Many may disagree with what I’m saying and I’m probably forgetting lots of amazing games, but these are the games that come into my mind at the moment and the things I believe on that matter.