Mars: War Logs

Mars: War Logs a small time scifi RPG game that showed up out of nowhere this week (April 26th) on Steam supposedly from France and we are told it will soon be available for download on the Playstation Network and XBox.

So a quick summary…
Controls are primitive and a bit clunky.
Combat is again a bit clunky and sometimes a little difficult due to even more controller motion freeze ups.
Voice acting and lip synch and all general character directions and interactions frankly suck.
What you might call “the story” tends to be a bit of a scifi “by the numbers” deal.
Graphics in this game are not going to be something to write home about.
The very slow load times are down right painful.

You might think that I absolutely hate this thing but that is not the case at all. If you liked Fallout3 and maybe some of what Rage did and maybe some of what Mad Max was all about then dive right on in the water is fine. Hey, it’s filling a need I currently have for a new Fallout game without any signs of when that might come out.

But! I am in no way saying this game is ever “that good” mind you. It’s a catchy tune but it’s not very memorable.

See, the deal is this is not some triple AAA game being sold at full price. It’s a whole $20, one and done, and a digital download away, or hell, even less from what people have said in the forums. So in the end I think you might be pretty happy with what you get here is all I am saying. Instant gratification for a generic bit of scifi RPG fluff with a few obvious flaws is a pretty good deal. If there is something we need “more of” right now in gaming in general is some of these cheap mid-level non-”ground breaking” good times and less of those big budget zombie filled duds that seem to have publishers flailing around all delusional wtf right now.

So loosey goosey cyber punky post apocalyptical insanity with lots of easily obtainable leather biker outfits and baseball bats… No, this game is not remotely smooth, and no, the story is not well structured, and yes, the whole thing reminds me of a high school Bladerunner play being put on by some local teenage jocks who probably programmed this game in flash during shop class.

No matter, I am having fun and feel like I got my moneys worth out of it… your mileage may very.

Grade C

BioShock Infinite

If there is one thing that became apparent in 2012 and the beginning of 2013 is that the game developers as a whole are in a state of disarray. Except for some minor hits like DisHonored and Journey most of 2012 was spent discussing and rehashing how good Skyrim was. Out right horrid trainwrecks like the ending of Mass Effect 3 and the opening week of Simcity have shown Electronic Arts is unable to keep any of the various developers they bought and paid for making hits and in fact they seem hellbent on destroying the videogame industry as a whole.

I can summarize Bishock Infinite in four words… GAME OF THE YEAR.

Sure sure but Grand Theft Auto 5 blah blah still needs to come out… frankly Grand Theft Auto 4 sucked so bad I have no hope that Rockstar figured out where they went wrong with that series. Those demos looked like they were trying to be even more realistic which is one of the signs they still do not get it.

So since I have just completed BioShock Infinite (You can finish this game comfortably in a weekend.) I can say hands down BUY IT! The dang thing is as close to a old fashioned “red white and blue and very racist” Disney style video game as possible with far more twisted ideas kicking around and you get the original BioShock for free. Such a deal!

Probably one of the few Grade A games that will show up this year till Bethesda puts something out.

Richard Morgan ~ The Steel Remains

I was thumbing through this Gay Fantasy and it brought to my mind that whole Marquesate ~ Her Majesty’s Men thing. You know, that whole ultra masculine, ultra violent, ultra sexual, mish mash only taking all that typically modern crap and stuffing it into the usual Tolkien fantasy epic.

The reviews on Goodreads are a hoot as the self proclaimed “experts” of the reading public clutch their pearls and rant on about how dare Richard Morgan sully their gentle fantasy with this homo-manly-naughtiness and it’s awfully pornographic too! Have these people ever read any Gorean books? For a reading public they sure are uninformed to say the least. Anything that brings out the typical Goodreads mental giants to rant and rave about how nasty the language is and how disgusting the gay characters are… well that appeals to me big time.

So off we go for a new adventure!

Patricia Nell Warren ~ The Front Runner (1974)

Probably the earliest gay love story I ever read is finally out on Kindle. At least I just noticed it for sale you know I am getting old like that.

And we are BACK!

Well sorta… I fixed the mess Dotster made of this website and I will try now to look for somewhere else to toil because breaking your own website is understandable… but having someone you pay good money to breaking your website sucks.

George Nader ~ Chrome (1978)

I am currently re-reading some cheesy fun scifi by William F Nolan ~ Logan’s Run (1967). The original book is darker and more action oriented than the movie. Reminds me more of James Bond than the disco fever dream of Michael York.

Anyway, I ran across this piece of early gay scifi cheese over on AbeBooks and just had to have it. I vaguely remember seeing this cover on some half price Castro bookstore table back in the early 80s so we are not talking Maupin levels of 70s gay fiction here.

The author George Nader is the 50s actor and all around hunk who eventually became personal secretary to Rock Hudson so there is that which makes grabbing this even more interesting.