The last post I made was intended to be a series with a second part forthcoming. The second game I was intending to feature was Terraria, a 2D adventure game that features mining, building, and spelunking that can be done online with up to 8 friends. I intended to write about the game in the same manner in which I covered Project Zomboid and give a few expectations for the game, but there was an internal leak of the code with Terraria which led the developers to release the game early on Steam. Thus, the game is already out and is well worth the $10 bucks. If you have three friends, the four pack makes it even cheaper.
I've been rather busy this month, with several new developments that have me rather excited. First things first, the wonderful guys at Digital Arrow have hired me to be their Press Officer for their two upcoming games, Dilogus - The Winds of War and inMomentum. Dilogus is still in development and as such I'll be getting to reveal lots of lore, screenshots, and developer info over the next coming months.
However, inMomentum is scheduled to be released some time this year, with the team working on putting the final polish on the product. I've yet to play it, but I've seen several demonstration videos and it looks a lot like a freestyle Mirror's Edge challenge mode game. I enjoyed Mirror's Edge, so I'm sure I'll enjoy inMomentum when it is released as well.
Getting to work so closely with a development team to help alert the public and craft their expectations is really a dream come true for me. It's my job to keep the public up to date on the development cycle and to help get any questions the community may have about the game answered within the developer's time schedule.
The Way of Kings & L.A. Noire
Brandon Sanderson quickly became one of my favorite authors with his Mistborn trilogy, a well thought out world of fantasy with elements of magic that were as original as they were believable. It's hard for me to get into fantasy novels where one must take for granted that beings are capable of tossing around fireballs and magic spells with abandon, thus most high fantasy is beyond my scope.
It's for this reason that I enjoyed Terry Goodkind's system of Additive and Subtractive magic, and the very same reason I enjoyed the Mistborn's ability to use metals to activate special powers within their bodies. Having a catalyst and some logic behind a magic system takes extra attention to detail, but makes the world that much more believable. It's something I hope to echo in my own fantasy writings as they develop.
That being said, I've been waiting for Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, The Way of Kings, to make its way to paperback. I pre-ordered as soon as the page was available on Amazon, and I received it this week. I was surprised to see the book was nearly 1300 pages long and twice the size of even Terry Goodkind's novels, which usually turn out to be quite lengthy. Nevertheless, I dove in with abandon and even just 100 pages in, I have not been disappointed. As always, Brandon has thought out the system of magic within his world so that it is believable, which is highly commendable. I'm in no position to render judgement on the novel just yet, but I will say it's starting out extremely favorable and I've enjoyed what I've read so far.
In other news on the gaming front, L.A. Noire should be finding its way to my door step soon. I'm excited to pop it in and have a play, especially with everyone on Twitter raving about the facial animations. There's a bit of the uncanny valley here for me to deal with, as the characters all seem nearly waxy in quality in most of the trailers and promo materials that I've seen. However, until I've seen it up close for myself, I really can't make a judgement on the game.
Once I've given both the book and the game a play through, I'll likely have more detailed commentary, so expect that soon.
