Pardon the dust. Getting all set up here for the gaming-specific side of things.

Based on the first season of the Spike TV modern ‘anime’ series (which is in turn based on the manga) by the same name, Afro Samurai has just about everything you would expect from something with Samuel L. Jackson’s name on it. There’s violence; blood; (cartoon) gore; revenge; and half-naked women. Just add in the word ‘fuck’ liberally, stir to taste, and you get the general idea. That’s okay, because the core demographic this game (and indeed the Spike TV channel itself) is geared towards will likely eat this game up with a spoon.

With a cel-shaded style that is becoming more and more common in games these days, the look of Afro Samurai doesn’t disappoint. Backgrounds are lush in the earlier levels, becoming starker as Afro makes his way through the dark revenge story-line. The voice acting by Samuel L. Jackson, and soundtrack partly performed by RZA (the rest is “inspired by”) is nothing short of awesome. I definitely couldn’t say playing wasn’t a hell of a lot of fun – at first.

Continue reading Review: Afro Samurai (360)

I’ve been invited to be a part of the 13th meeting of the Xfire Debate Club. The topic is on examining the nature of Free-to-Play (F2P) vs. Subscription Based MMORPGs. I have no idea who else will be part of the panel, but it should be fun.

Of course, I’m not entirely certain if there’s much of a debate to be had there. Both have their pros and cons, and each are equally valuable to different segments of the gamer population. That said, I don’t want to get into too much of a ramble here about this, else there wouldn’t be too much reason to come watch the debate, now would there?

It will be happening on the 18th, time TBA, and I’m told will last about an hour. So if you’re interested in checking it out, you’ll be able to find all the relevant information on the Xfire Debate Club page.

What my average day must be like as someone who writes about MMOGs. Let me give you a sneak peek behind the scenes:

Mmm. Patches.

Back home from Dragon*Con today. As is common, I’ve managed to pick up con crud, and have pretty well lost my voice in the process. There were some great points in the weekend, and some truly horrible ones. I’ve learned some valuable lessons this year, and will be taking the 1 month moratorium on any/all D*C planning with my track director once the final reports are listed and all the write-ups are done and submitted.

We’ve learned a lot. (This marks my first year as “staff” and not just as a panelist. If you want a serious course on just how hard it is to pull off this convention, volunteer as staff. It will open your eyes a great deal.) Next year will definitely benefit from those lessons, and I know the overall MMO track will get better from here for that trial by fire. For now, I’m going to go order some Chinese take-out (my comfort food), get my won-ton on, and get caught up on my work backlog.

My personal thanks to every volunteer who helped with the track this year; for all the great MMO companies who sent people or schwag – or both; for every attendee who took the time to come by and sit in on a panel; for everyone who has offered constructive criticism on what we can improve or needs to go; and to Dragon*Con management for letting us do this.

Excelsior!

Now where did I put my cough drops…

Landed in Vegas today for Sony Online Entertainment’s Fan Faire event. This started out with me jamming out posts in the airport and trying to help the staff as best I could before I had to jump on my (late) plane for a long flight. The flight itself was actually really cool, as I got into a long talk about comic books, movies and geekstuff with the two people sitting in my row; Joe and Chris. *waves* I’ll forgo a plane nap to talk to cool people about interesting stuff!

Upon arriving in Las Vegas, I spotted a shuttle to the hotel. Aha, sez I, this will save me some money! Yes. It did. It exacted its cost in the hour and a half it took to get to my hotel. (Good side to this: I spotted where I can get a steak dinner for $6.95. Amusing side to that: It would cost me approximately $15-$20 in cab fare to get there and back to the hotel. Bwa!) Obviously, the shuttle will not be an option in the time-sensitive issue of getting to the airport. But it still ends on a positive note: I got a nice cheap air-conditioned tour of Vegas.

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Finally home from E3. I seem to have picked up the travel crud common to any event where you eat one meal a day and sleep 3 hours a day for a week.

There’s a lot more coming about the MMOG things we saw at the show, so if you haven’t checked out Massively’s E3 coverage, be sure to do so.

For now, I need to get some coffee started and get back to finishing this stuff off.