Left4Dead release Date!!!

Left4Dead-November 19th-www.l4d.com

It comes out next flippin' month!!!11

Unfortunately I seem to have lost communication with Mr. Savage

I will post the Dialogue, but it is not complete, along with my review.

My Review
I love this book, Mr. Savage took the young out of young adult, in a good way, Harry Potter never did it for me because no matter how serious they got, they always felt kiddy to me.
Not so with these, I like the use of low level profanity(Friggin, Stupid, ) to convey anger without
A. Making people say random stuff all the time(Gooswidgets!!, that hurt!!) or B. Really Cursing.
It makes the story believable without ruining the younger reader's minds.
The Magic is a new spin, I've seen magic made into a language, an art, an everyday ability, but this is the first time I can remember seeing Magic portrayed as Asking the elements to do your bidding, It makes the style fresh as you learn along with the characters how it works, rather than going " I get, it why doesn't he?"
The non-humans in the book are hilarious, yet still subdued, meaning they contribute without taking over the focus of the story.Talking Trees, Flying Lizards(Excuse Me, Skytes), Ice Dragons(Oops,Pinnois).
And the Elementals, Emotionless, Selfish, and unable to see how it could be otherwise.
I am one who has a hard time suspending disbelief even in Sci-fi and Fantasy, so I was shocked when the majority of the book held tight against common logic, with the only breaks being common ones, such as the" I'm in a different Dimension and everyone speaks English?"
But this is a quandary that has never been satisfactorily answered ANYWHERE, so I applaud Mr. Savage as he, rather than making some lame story up for how it happens(Magic does it, even though one of the main characters cannot do magic) he simply move the story fast enough that you don't even think about it.
The Battles are well written, the heros aren't always tougher than the enemy and rarely outnumber them, so it is always a battle to escape, a new twist for fantasy.
Also, neither of the Protagonists is a master Swordsman, a barbarian, a thief, a wizard, royalty, or any elf/dwarf/troll, creature you can think of, it again makes everything new and interesting.

The Bad Guys range from Evil Wizards to Summoners, Giant Flying raisers of the dead.
Most are huge, all are scary, also the leader of the Dark Circle(bad guys) is not expressly named and defined by having killed his own henchman for failure in the beginning, unlike many other books.

If recommend this to anyone who likes a good read, and wants something that hasn't been done before.

Q&A

Yo, Josh(Camo Kid)here with one of my new favorite Authors,

Mr. J. Scott Savage We are here to discuss his book, Farworld:Waterkeep

To make it interesting, we are going to be doing so while playing a 

Couple rounds of Call of Duty in a bombed out building in Russia (Yeah, 

Right)

I'll Highlight my own words in Purple and I assume Aqua Blue works for you?

Excellent, Aqua Blue is a good color for me. I think that means I'm a

Summer, right? Let me settle into my surround sound recliner

and turn on my Voice activated controller. Okay. I'm ready to

play and answer questions.

By The Way, any particular scenario we're playing?

Yes Actually I just finished setting up a 1v1 snipers

match on Overgrown, which is an abandoned farm.

So in regards to the book, I was wondering

if as a writer, you come up with names randomly,

or do you look for a specific “feel”?

By the way, I hope you liked the Claymore.

But, yes, I do try to go for a name that gives a certain feel. I actually did a mix in this

book. Some of the names, like Unmaker and Mimic pretty much sound like what they are. Other

names like Ishkabiddle and Thrathkin S’Bae are strictly done by feel. For people’s names,

I try to make sure they sound like they could have come from the same culture so I wouldn’t

have a fisherman named Ploghiti with a wife names Liz. I also try to limit the number of

unpronounceable names—no Vvxxyr. Even my stranger ones like Terra ne Staric and Pinnois

are names you can sound out. Occasionally I’ll struggle with getting a name that fits.

For example my wife actually came up with Kyja. But others like Riph Raph, just come as

I’m writing. Oh and that glint of metal you see in the distance is not an R700.   

I never got anywhere with it, but I once tried a Short story, and I quit before

an hour, because I couldn’t ever feel comfortable with any name I made, does that

go away? Or do your own names always sound wrong to you?

One of the biggest problems beginning writers run into is the perfection rut. You are so focused on getting everything just right the first time out of the gate, that you never make it to the finish line. What you have to realize is that you are going to end up rewriting the story many times before it’s ready to finally be offered to the public. So give yourself the freedom to write “good enough” on the first pass. You can make it great in future edits. I’ve had names that I changed down the road for many reasons. For example the hunter that Kyja and Marcus meet in the Unmakers caverns had a name that I discovered was only one letter off from the protagonist in Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris novel. It was really kind of weird because I hadn’t even read it yet. What are the odds of two Utah fantasy authors coming up with the names Raoden and Raodan? If you really can’t come up with a name you like at first, just call her girl b or child x until you come up with a name later.

That makes sense, I’ll remember that. How long did it take to write this book, from sitting down to write CH1, and writing the last word on the first “draft”?

Normally it takes me anywhere from six months and up to write a book. But this one just seemed to flow. I wrote the first 5,000 words in one night and finished the first draft in under three months. Lots of rewrites though.

Ah, I figured the editing process to be long, but I wondered about the basic writing time. When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

When I was about eleven or twelve, I used to go fishing with a bunch of my younger cousins. We were kind of a rowdy bunch and ended up getting restless when the fish weren’t biting. One day one of my cousins asked me to tell them a story. Out of the blue I invented the adventures of Captain Weenie and The Little Purple Man. They still remember those stories fondly today. So I guess I always knew I liked telling stories, but it wasn’t until I sold my first book about seven years ago that I even conceived of the possibility of writing for a living, or even being paid to write. Looking back, I wish I had started earlier than I did. But I’m glad it all worked out this way. I might be a better writer for having taken my time. Who knows?

Would you ever like to see one of your books made into a film or game?

I’d love it. I intentionally try not to imagine my books being made into a movie or game when I’m writing them. It’s such a different medium that you can ruin what makes a book the most powerful in order to add a cool movie scene. But once it’s done, you think about how cool it would be to see your story come alive in a movie or game.

Yeah, I hate when the movie almost mocks the book, by being labeled as the same and then not really like it.

I found that most of the names in this book were pronounced for you so you knew how to say them, was this intentional? I always hate mispronouncing a name because it is fictional and follows made up grammar.

 . I don’t like to do a ton of unpronounceable names. It’s annoying for the reader and

I always wonder if the word is pronounced Shay, for example, why spell it zzaegh? I mean,

can’t we assume the author translated it into English anyway? As a reader I just skip over

names that are hard to pronounce. I made an exception with the Thrathkin S’Bae because I

wanted them to really feel different.

 I Found that You not only made names simple and humanly pronounceable, but you also had a

character say it in a phonetic fashion, at some point in the story, so you could get it quickly,

this is one of my favorite things about this series, you never feel like you are not smart enough.

Books like Lord of the Rings tend to make you feel that way.

 Yeah, I know what you mean. I love the fantasy in fantasy stories, but

Sometimes they get so bogged down in the minutia that you find yourself

Losing interest or skimming. I hope that the series will have depth without

Losing the fun of the story.

Exactly, and it is easy to fall into that, because simply describing the room a person is in, can be hard when 3/4s of it is not like anything you've ever seen, hence it ALL needs description.

What is the greatest limitation to writing fantasy, as opposed to another Genre?

I think it’s just what you were talking about. When I write a mystery I can assume that the

reader knows all about the world I’m writing in. They know what a gun is, what a medical examiner is,

what a DNA test is. So I can focus on the story. But with fantasy I have to describe a new world without

making it obvious to the reader. When do I describe something and when do I let the reader figure it out from context?

That’s why you typically have a character come to the world from somewhere else. Then the reader can discover the

new world along with them. But, for example when Kyja is hearing jokes from the farm animals, she already knows

all about that, so the reader will have to pick some things up from context.





Here is where I lost contact, If I get more I will post it.

Name Change

I've decided that N00BISH Nerd is not really a name to run with, so I am now, That Camo Kid, possibly to change later., Thanks, and I'll post the stuff with Mr. Savage soon.

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.

Arcade Game: Worms

The way this game works is that each person gets a 1min. turn, they can move and attack then the next person goes.
It is surprisingly strategic, requiring no little amount of though.
It is also surprisingly luck-based,meaning shots fired can be drawn the other way by wind, or grenades bounce wrong and kill YOU.
I took it to a Party and it was played for 8 straight hours!!
It is worth the money, as the game is fun and the dialog made me laugh,
like when the worms go suicidal, they scream, in this squeaky voice, "KAMIKAZE!!"
I hope to see some people online, it wasn't very active when I tried it.

2-Part Postification

Ok, first, is the announcement that the Boycott of Battlefield:Bad Company is over, EA is changing their plans so chill.
Second is that I am now FINALLY getting to try Mass Effect, and so far it is cool, review to follow

Halo 3 Legendary Maps

I am sad, not because of the price, not because of the wort hof the maps, but because I think that maps just SUCK!
I mean, one is a copy of Lockout, my most hated map excepting Coag, in all of Halo 2
The the Sidewinder remake is fine, except the Nerfed(weakened) the FREAKING HORNET!!!!
Now it has now rockets, and the guns are lower power, now if they just cut one or two things fine, but they turned the flying tank into a useless piece of junk, I did an experiment with a friend, he charged his Spartan Laser at the same time I started shooting him with my guns, he beat me three times, the guns cannot even fight people on foot.
Then Ghost Town, I don't know about anybody else, but a deserted water plant is not my idea of cool, there is no vehicle functionality, and the rest is so messed up that an open fight is all you can do.
As for the Forge aspect, the only real additions are the Ramp, which is exactly what is sounds like, the
watchtower Base, hexagonal box with a ramp, and it is not stackable(not in a useful fashion anyway), finally there are FX , or filters that can change the look of a level, from color Blind, which makes it black and white, to Pen and Ink that makes the whole thing look like a comic Book.
Totally useless to most people as it ruins visibility, and changes the affect of Flares and other items.
Bungie, If this is what I pay $10.00 for , I'll see you On Cod4

FREEWARE!!

Yup, I got another program on My Computer, this time it's a ripoff of a real game rather than a standalone.
And it is good, It is called FlightGear
It is basically a free Flight Sim, and it is worth the time to download.
It is Bolstered by a HUGE list of planes that can be added after downloading it(if you know how)
Also there are something like 20,000 airports available.
The game is good, though the tutorials are too few, as certain planes require a huge startup sequence and there isn't a tutorial for them.
The game runs well, except for certain Slideshow-esque slowdowns in flight, and the fact that it is so complicated to do things, rather than an ingame hangar and location chooser it is in a dialog box along with Executable files and other such GreekSpeak(i.e. Stuff beyond my Ken)
Over all good, but if you have a weak PC, consider Space Invaders

M16's and N00Bs

Ok, you've probably guessed that I enjoy Call of Duty4 more than pretty much any other game out there.
But I'm getting sick of it, not on any basis of gameplay, it is the PEOPLE, namely the people on their 5th-6th Prestige(Playthrough), still using the gun made for new guys, the M16.
This gun is a 1-shot kill and fires more accurately than most Sniper Rifles, It is also more powerful at close range than a Shottie, Hence it is good.
That is not my dispute, my issue is that this gun was MADE for the new guy, it is grossly overpowered, and it dominates almost any game, obviously it is beatable, I do so often, but having a disadvantage because some bozo is playing the N00b guns is lame.
I cannot stand when some little 10-yearold punk is on his 10th Prestige and thinks he's the Terminator, because he is using a gun that can out shoot any gun in a fair battle.
Try a game and having your longest streak ever broken by a player of obviously little skill but who has an M16.
It is Infuriating!
I am not saying that the game needs to be "fixed" but I think that if you are level 25 or higher you should opt out of this gun and let people have a little fun.
Just a thought.

Cod4 Variety Maps

Ok, It's been some days now, so I can Speak with some degree of understanding about how the maps are played, and their quality.
First is Creek, My favorite of the bunch.
This map is HUGE, spanning a river bed and a small housing area on either side.
Creek is a Sniper's paradise, boasting more Grass and cover than even Overgrown and Bog.
I find that this map always creates an unbalanced game, not one favoring somebody, but that the games are never close, one team is ALWAYS walking all over the other, mainly because a good sniper can stop any sort of entrance to the desired area by himself.
The caves make a good avenue across the map, but both exits are easily Mined and more easily Covered.
Second, Broadcast
Okay, first off this map is unique in it's layout, mainly because it has a second floor that is more than a single room, up to now, Cod4 has had problems with the way it seemed to always be playing in a field with towers, This level is multistory.
As for Sniping, the level lends itself well to any player, a gifted runner with a shotgun could easily circumvent Snipers and get behind people, but at the same time a gifted sniper could easily get to a well-defended position and rule the map.
Chinatown,
I'm not overwhelmed with joy about this map, but it has it's fun.
This map is all about medium-Short range, sniper areas are practically non-existent, I see far too many M16's for my liking too.
Anyway, This map is fun for the Shotgun Loonies that we all know, and a skilled player can hide in a building and run three streets for his team.
The Turrets are a puzzle to me, they are easily destroyed but at the same time they cover such central parts of the map that I find them irritating at all points and I wish they hadn't been included.
Last and Least is Killhouse
Utter Disappointment abounds here, the map is smaller than Shipment and has less cover, it features a tower in the center and some buildings on the sides, most enraging is getting a kill streak and watching your air strike land on the roof or your helicopter hover in stupidity above the fray.
I hope that IW makes more of these packs and that they perhaps find a way to integrate new abilities to replace air support on closed maps.
GET THESE, KILLHOUSE NOTWITHSTANDING THEY ARE BETTER THAN THE OLD MAPS.

Freeware!!

Toribash
Is an awesome little game, by controlling joints on a 3D figure you can make him fight an opponent, it has an online Aspect but I just like beating the Stuffings out of the computer.
Minor problems include, faulty logic(certain moves will move your character in a direction other than the logical on) and a tough interface(it is a whole new level of suck trying to find a replay)
The game is free and worth the time to get, if you get it, I have a small list of moves from the Wiki and some homemade setups, comment if you care.

Join the Resistance!!

I am Writing to try and spread the word, EA is going to make Battlefield Bad Company in such a way that the initial game is technically playable, but incomplete, as character models,Guns, Levels and other content will cost money ON TOP OF the original price.
Click the Image above to visit the SARCASTIC GAMER site and learn more, Also the images can be downloaded and used, Boycott Battlefield, Show EA what we think of this idea!!!

Frizzle Wizzle Updizzle(i.e.Freeware Update)

Okay, so it sounds lame, leave me alone and read the stupid post.
Anyway, I am a big Desktop Tower Defense fan, and I recently found a couple of analogs to that that can be downloaded. So I did.
Castle Defender, a little different from DTD in that you protect an object from surrounding enemies, rather than an exit from a stream.
Not a problem, the game is smooth and the graphics do their thing, as for the towers...there are like 5 total, because mud pits,pungee pits, and concrete walls fill out your set rather than only attacks, you can slow them and cause damage.
I would say that the game is great but as with most non-restricted tower games, you can make a wall of towers so thick that even a plow-through attack would die running.
But even then the economics of using money to upgrade and purchase more stuff is fun.
Final thing, This one is safe, at least for me, it has done nothing to my PC.
Overall:8/10
Link to the site