Contest for an ARC

Never Mind, I have made the decision to allow a specific friend of mine to read it, I intend to relay his opinion to my Blog, so that it benefits everyone.
Sorry for the false alarm.

The Outfit

Like I have said before, I do not get to review games til I can afford them and this is no different.
This game has some interesting Multiplayer, the campaign is more like a camPAIN.
I loved setting turrets to block my enemies, and loved bombing the turrets of enemy forces, The whole premise was fun, but it had no balance, if you were on foot against certain vehicles, you could not touch them, but if you were against others you couldn't lose, it should be a strength and weakness sort of thing, but it isn't.
If Relic had made the vehicles on both sides function the same, it would be fine, if they made it different enough to balance it would be good, but they managed to find that balance where one vehicle is superior except in the presence of the other, meaning one vehicle is useless.
In spite of the balance issue, a 1v1 is quite worth playing, and strategy rules, but bigger matches are impractical and crowded.
I give the outfit a 4/5

Xbox 360: Ghosts in the Machine

I was inspired by some conversation I heard, so I wondered, What freaky crap happens to OTHER people's 360's?
I for one have had:
Random freezing(unrelated to red ring)
Random Red Rings of nothingness(no effect, except that it makes me scared)
Messages that don't go through, to people with fine connections(I talk to them later and they didn't get it)
Chats that randomly end(read: I talk and then I check and the chat is gone)
Inability to enter rooms(Invites come in and for non reason at all, I cannot connect)
Updates, Lots of Updates(Considering that Cod4 released 1 update and it was plastered everywhere, I doubt that I need a new update every time I put the game in)
Sign-in Failure(I checked, there is no way my internet is dead, other connections work in the house)

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern

These compete with the Dark Elf series for my Favorite Fiction EVER.
The Characters are widely ranged, covering hundreds of years, and the different mentalities thereof. The Dragons are imagined in a whole new way, able to "teleport" from one place to another, and yes, even one time to another. In this series, like several others, the Dragons are bonded to a single human and will not continue to live if their rider is killed. I at first expected the idea of dragons fighting Thread(read:Destructive spores that dissolve anything and anyone they touch), to be boring, but the fact that the dragons are not against each other makes the story more interesting, and makes for some pretty deep intrigue.
One warning, there are some non-graphic sex scenes scattered throughout the books, so if you have kiddies be careful.
This is an excellent blend of Sci-fi and Fantasy, and I recommend it heartily

Bioshock

I rented this game a while ago, beat it on easy, and loved it, then I spied it on the shelf at the store for $30 and I had to have it.
I Still love it, the Story is Epic, the Plasmids make it possible to play any way you want and the characters made me laugh and (almost)cry all the way through.

Bioshock stars a Character named Jack(no last name is apparent, though a certain person in the game later appears to be your dad).
Who is in a plane crash in the middle of the ocean, he swims to a lighthouse that is near the site and enters the bathysphere he finds there, here you enter Rapture, an underwater city created by Andrew Ryan, a business man exasperated with the world's need to take his property for the common good.

Rapture is in ruins, the citizens have all gone insane after modifying their genes with Plasmids(genetic solutions that grant superhuman abilities).
The few people left sane are Atlas(a former smuggler and rebel, now just trying to escape), Tenenbaum( a scientist responsible for creating the plasmids, now repentant)
And Mr. Ryan himself.

Plasmids are made with a substance called Adam, which is made by little girls with Syringes called Little Sisters, who are protected by Hulking diving suit clad behemoths called Big Daddies.

As you advance you must collect Adam and splice yourself to gain abilities with which to fight, to this end you must kill the Big Daddies to get to their Little Sisters.
At this point one can either kill the Girls for maximum Adam, or save them and get less, though as a tip, killing them doesn't get an achievement, doesn't unlock certain REALLY cool powers and in the end gets less total Adam, Not to mention, you just feel good when the little girls thank you for saving them.

The story is well written, on par with Mass Effect, and ties more than enough loose ends up.
My biggest beef with it was Language and certain really sick things, like a mind control test playing audio of a strangling puppy, but they fit the setting, despite this issue I recommend this game to everyone.

Farworld Book Tour

FARWORLD Blog Tour
Yup, I joined. I'm going to read the first book, talk about it to you, then again with the writer.
I look forward to it. Not often does a writer REQUIRE Q&A.
If you are interested, click the image.

R.A. Salvatore: The Dark Elf Series

I hope the name is right, you see there are at least 20 books with the same main characters and land of origin.
I personally found these to be my favorite Fantasy books ever.
The main Character, Drizzt Do'Urden is a Drow(Dark Elf) from the underground city of Menzobarrenzan, the city of the Drow.
Drizzt is an oddity among the Drow, he doesn't fit well into the backstabbing, betrayal and murderous hierarchy of the Dark Elf society, Also his Eyes are Lavender(even in infrared), not good in the Underdark, where light is at a minimum and the creature have to see heat to survive.
So after a while(2-3 books) he leaves his ancestral home to live on the surface.
Drizzt is an amazing Character with more depth of heart than any fiction character I can think of.
He is also the coolest, possessing unmatched skill with twin Scimitars.
Emotions and intrigue are all good, but most people read this type of fantasy for the combat, and this is where Salvatore blows any other writer out of the water.
The epic duels in the books are so detailed that I can almost hear the clang as metal strikes metal.
The full on war that wages between Dwarves and Orcs made me laugh and cheer, as Dwarven ingenuity meets Orc squishability.
The moral dilemma's faced in the books are complex and at the same time, they are compact, so that the excitement never gets to where you don't want to read it anymore.
I own all of these I could find and I'm going to get more.

Now with Words!!

I have made a decision, I'm going to start reviewing books as they strike my fancy.
So my post count should double, not that that makes it even close to some of the people I know, but still.
I'll try to get one off within the week.