Books: The Hunger Games

I think it might be impossible to review The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins' inaugural dystopian novel of a post-war America, without using terms relating to my own hunger for reading the novels, or symbolic utilization of food in comparison with the text itself.  Trying to resist is futile, so instead I will comically overuse these reviewing standards.

The Hunger Games is the delectable first voyage into the dystopian (by the way, Google Chrome - that is a word) world of Panem, as narrated by a young woman named Katniss.  Every morsel-sized chapter flourishes with the flavor of the intricately designed world of Collins.  Because of rebellion against the overseeing government, every year one young man and young woman are selected by lottery to compete in arena deathmatches called The Hunger Games.  This is the story of how Katniss goes to the Games and her experience.

The relative isolation of District 12 where Katniss originates from is a convenient avenue to introduce readers to the strangeness of the world.  But the effect never feels burnt to the reader, and very natural - or shall we say, granola.

There are moments when putting the book down is near impossible, the savory story absolutely enraptures the reader.  Action sequences (which you can depend on with any story that involves 24 individuals fighting to the death) are well written, but so are those scenes where Katniss is alone, and in survival mode.  This varies substantially from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Harry and Hermione's similar treks into the wilderness are near painful.  Instead, I'm chomping at the bit to follow the heroine's trek in the arena.

Sure, sure, the book has the stink of an Atwood dystopia (still a word, Google Chrome!), but it's a delicious smell, really.

This book was also my first run reading a book on the iPad Kindle reader.  I really enjoyed it.  iBooks has a slightly cooler looking dictionary tool, but luckily The Hunger Games didn't push my vocabulary.  Kindle lets me read via the CLOUD, which sounds so future-esque.

So, I've added the series to my Amazon Wish List.  Also, the list below:

• The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games (Kindle Edition)
• Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) and Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) (Kindle Edition)
• Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3) and Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) (Kindle Edition)

Supplier Trophy - here I come!

After doing L.A. Noire justice and utterly giving up on Catherine, I've decided to run through another 30-hour playthrough with Dragon Age 2 in hopes of finally doing it right and nabbing the Supplier trophy.  Also, there is new DLC I've not played.

You've no doubt already read my review of the game, so here's a cute picture of Varric:

Picture care of The Haughty Queen, who has some fun DA2 fanart.

L.A. Noire

I'm always ashamed when I have to say something that betrays my nerd cred.  Like when I had to fess up that I never actually played Portal.  So, to add another log to that fire: I've never played a Rockstar game.  No Grand Theft Auto, no Red Dead Redemption, and no Bully.  I feel appropriate levels of shame, and am happy to announce that it is no longer true, for I've polished off my swapped copy of L.A. Noire this past weekend.

Title Screen, rocking the Noire Neon Treatment.

L.A. Noire tells the story of Cole Phelps, a returned war hero serving as a cop circa 1947 in the growing city of Los Angeles.  Phelps begins as a patrol officer and then works his way up (and then, down) the complicated command chain of detectives in the LAPD.  For the gameplay, the game is much more Heavy Rain than Fallout 3 - you have a firearm, but rarely resort to using it.  For the most part, you are in an interactive fiction, instead of being in a shooter game.  A happy surprise!

More happiness, and review; after the jump!

Nuka Break: Episode One

It's not a secret that I'm sort of in love with Zack Finfrock.  And not just in a lusty way, but also because the man has some talent: acting, designing, writing.  He's like - the Hollywood everyman.  You might also remember that I was super excited about his new project Nuka Break spinning off into a series of webisodes.  Well the first one is ready to go, so check it out!

Fallout: New Vegas DLC - Honest Hearts

I wish I had better things to say about the Fallout: New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts, but - well - the truth of the matter is ... this DLC is okay.  Just okay.

Joshua Graham, the Burned Man.

The story is that of Caesar's former second-in-command, Joshua Graham, now known as The Burned Man.  So named is Graham because after failing Caesar, the ruthless slave leader burned Graham on a pitch, tossed him into the Grand Canyon and commanded his troops to never again speak his name.

But he lived through the experience, and now is the leader of some tribals of the Zion National Park area.  Now he and another tribal group are debating whether to fight or flee from the oppressive White Legs who aim to eliminate the other tribes of Zion and the Burned Man in order to curry favor with Caesar.  Graham seeks a solution of war with the White Legs, while religious leader Daniel wants a peaceful resolution.

So yeah, there's that.  But without exploring the Zion area, the plot goes ridiculously fast.  However, there's plenty of Zion to explore.  And - unlike Dead Money - there is an enjoyable plethora of enemies.  Some of them are direct replicas of those found in the Mojave (we got Geckos and coyotes, etc.), but there are a couple new things (or sort of new, like Yao Guai).

The real fun comes from the hidden journal entries of a man living in the Zion caves called the Survivalist.  Discovery of this story was the most enjoyable part of this DLC for me.

There's some nice tie-in with the main storyline, but all-in-all - it's just okay.

Oh look!  A Giant Spore Plant!

Distracted?

No really, officer.  I've been - working - like all the time.

Sorry for the absenteeism, faithful followers. The beginning of the semester, and not playing L.A. Noire, has been taking up all my time recently.  If I was, say, playing a new video game that required me to determine whether in-game characters were lying by observing their facial patterns, surely I would have had time to write a review of it, or at least confirm that I was alive.

I promise that as soon as things slow down at work, everything will be much more update-y.  Might have some words about The Hunger Games which I'm trying to read, as well.

Help r/UNT win!

There is a gnarly competition happening over at http://www.reddit.com/ - and as you know the internet is serious business.  So please go to http://www.reddit.com/r/unt to help The University of North Texas acheive excellence.  This is a thing (competition link).  If we win, UNT will be recognized as a reddit-active school, and that could seriously be a motivator for bringing new students to campus.  If you don't think that's worth a quick click, you are forgetting that we dumped a lot of money into our new stadium in hopes it would do that same thing.

So what can you do?  Easy!

• Visit r/UNT - visit it every day!  Visit it every hour!  Every minute!
• Join Reddit and subscribe to r/UNT - become a redditor and discover how to lose all sense of time and space!  You'll wonder what you ever did before you found it.
• Post UNT-related stories to r/UNT, especially stuff that is relevant, like how you can get free condoms at the health center, or a picture you took of the albino squirrel, or a self.post on how much you loved your time there.  Maybe you have an old picture of the Bruce Hall ghost.  Scan that shit and put it up!

Not from UNT? - well, I don't want to lose this competition, but you should check out to see if your school has a subreddit and help out their campaign (fair's fair).

Demo: Bastion

My shield deflects and enemy missile?
What a novelty!

Bastion, the long awaited (for me) game that released from indie developer Supergiant is now available on Steam, as is its first-level demo.  The game is action role-playing, like Legend of Zelda.  Your character can wield six unique items, three of which are available in the demo.  Also available are techniques and a shield, which can be used to deflect enemy attacks and missiles.

Because of "the calamity," the unknown event which brought apart the world's devastation, there is nothing around you.  As you explore, the world rebuilds itself, flying out of nothingness.  Every action taken (bashing items, dying, etc.) is narrated as you go, giving the game a very organic feel.

The titular central hub of the game, Bastion.

Battle is standard adventure-rpg faire: block when you are attacked, strike back when you have the chance, etc.

You gain experience and level up, but the demo only gives you a look into the first level (for which an additional set of HPs are not unwelcome).  As you level up, however, you gain the ability to apply tonics which supplement your abilities, bringing in an excellent factor of customization.

Looks like a great game, and now it's available on Steam!  But will it be cheaper in time?  We shall wait and see.

Tonic customization.

Demo: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

The items featured in the window tell customers what you primarily sell.

It's not often you get a feel for how the other half lives, but that's exactly what we get in Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale (demo available on Steam).  It's the oldest story in the world: girl's father leaves adventuring and a mysterious fairy loan shark visits the girl telling her t hat she owes some ungodly amount of money on her father's behalf.  She lives in an adventuring town, so why not open an adventuring shop to make back the required gold?

To this end, Recette (the player) and her loan shark/item shop partner, Tear, buy goods low, and sell them high! With a payment lurking every 7 days, it's sometimes stressful when your worried that the poor little Recette might be out of luck without your skillful intervention.

Command changes to the adventurer you hire,
for dungeon crawling hack and slash.

To get items, you may buy them wholesale, or from patrons looking to sell (you're like a pawn shop).  Additionally, you can hire adventurers to go out with you into dungeons to defeat monsters and loot chests.  The adventurers will be equipped with any items they have bought in your store, so it behooves you to consider wisely in item placement and sales to adventurers.

The demo takes you through the first week and the recruitment of a base-level adventurer.  The graphics are quaint, but they really work for the game.  There is plenty of tongue-in-cheek dialogue, which is actually pretty welcome, since the premise is silly anyway.  We also get a glimpse of a rival shopkeeper, so that promises to be interesting.  Also, we really ought to find out what happened to your father and why he burdened you with this massive debt.

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is a great grab, even though it's no longer on sale on Steam.  Highly recommend that you run the configuration program prior to playing or you may hit every button on the keyboard before learning that Z was the default key for "Accept."  (Z?  Seriously?)

Do Better Graphics Make Better Games?

While L.A. Noire (r/gameswap'd for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Heavy Rain) and Catherine (friend swapped for Dragon Age: Origins) lie in wait of a playthrough - not to mention the new Dragon Age II DLC and Bioshock 2 DLC I've bought, but haven't played, and the Fallout: New Vegas DLC I've nearly finished and have to review - I spent an inordinate amount of time with Crono Trigger, replaying the 16-bit classic for memories and love.

It forced me to think: do better graphics make a better game?

With new games, graphics are often a huge selling point: the ability to create and immerse a player in distinct and lushish environments is part of what makes the game worth it.  However, indie developers (and some big names, too) have rejected this notion - the simplier, easier times might have a place left after all.  Consider the success of Scott Pilgrim or Megaman 9, which embraced the chunky graphics of old with a new niche.  Or hell, MINECRAFT for that matter.

In fact, there are many times in which the graphical beauty of a game, while pretty to look at, distracts from the game itself.  Form and functionality.

Graphics also deny the player's imagination in the same way television and films do for books.  If the representation I am given of Link in The Legend of Zelda is an 8-bit pixel mess, my mind bridges the difference.  In Twilight Princess, there's nothing for my imagination to do: for the game has done it already.  For a game embracing a concept of realism (Heavy Rain, for example), this is a make-or-break thing, but for fun, and unrealistic worlds, why bother with the realism of the hairs on a man's head if I'm already accepting the disbelief that I can carry seventeen different swords?

16-bit sprites really embody the best of both worlds: enough definition to give you a start, but not so much as to disrupt your imagining of a character.  Maybe that's why Crono Trigger got a chunk of my time.  Or maybe because the graphics were limited, programmers felt more willing (or able) to give the story and dialogue the time they needed to be perfect.