Heaps of people, especially Vickie, have been telling me to just write for ages, especially with regard to Slamdance. But after I sat down late last year and got three chapters into re-writing Slamdance as a stand-alone own body of work, I felt as though I had to do a lot of development work before I continued on. I needed to lay down a framework (write the story bible, do character back-stories, figure the villain's motivations, etcetera) so that I could figure out what came next and make sure it all made sense. Basically, I was afraid of two things: Writer's block and the end result being crap. So I stopped writing again.
Then, at some point, I think it was Wil Wheaton who mentioned a piece of advice Neil Gaiman (yes, I know you're not fond of him, love, but I still like Good Omens) gave: Don't be afraid to suck. But it still didn't feel like a practical piece of advice. It's all very well not being afraid of sucking, but it's still something you should actively avoid, right?
]]> In a way, I think I have Stephen Fry to thank for finding a podcast called I Should Be Writing. I remember hearing maybe a month and a half ago that his preferred way to make long walks pass quickly is to listen to an audiobook. So I fired up iTunes, searched for science fiction podcasts, came across Escape Pod and downloaded a few episodes. The first I listened to was a short story called “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky, read for the podcast by Mur Lafferty.Now, if you read Knights of the Dinner Table, you probably know Mur from her Geek Fu Action Grip columns. She's also written for White Wolf; she's mentioned work she's done on Mage and Exalted. But my first exposure to Mur was through that reading, and I liked it so much that I searched for other stories she'd read and/or written (not to mention more of Rachel Swirsky's stuff), and discovered that she has a podcast of her own.
Mur describes I Should Be Writing as a podcast by a wannabe fiction writer for wannabe fiction writers, and I reckon that, combined with Mur's focused-yet-easygoing delivery, is why I like it so much. It's easy to get treatises on writing from successful veterans, but Mur's right there in the trenches with the rest of us, making her own way as a fiction writer step by step. Mur knows how hard it is to juggle sitting down and cranking out a thousand words a day with your other commitments, or slash through your own first draft with your correction pen's blood-red ink, or handle the downer of your hundredth fucking rejection slip (not that I'm that far along yet) and she has a great presenter's voice. She's unstinting with her advice and thoughtful in her replies, and her conversations with fellow authors from big names like Michael A. Stackpole and Pat Cadigan to up-and-comers like Scott Sigler (go out and buy Ancestor, by the way – or listen to the free audiobook version on his website) and even folks like herself are a little different than anything I've heard or read before.
Funnily enough, the lightbulb moment for me came not from the podcast itself but from a guest spot on the ISBW blog by writer Jared Axelrod. The two lightning bolts were these:
Mur even addresses point 2 in one of her earlier podcasts (I think it was a piece of advice from another author, maybe Stackpole): If you write a character as an only child in your first draft chapter 2 and by chapter 10 you discover that you need her to have a sister, don't go back and re-work your previous stuff; that's what your next drafts are for. For now, just write the sister in and keep ploughing forward.
It feels as though a weight's been lifted. You creatives out there know what I mean; even though everyone's falling over themselves to tell you how god you are, that little inner critic keeps telling you you're crap and you shouldn't bother; you've left your run too late, you'll never learn what you need to and if everyone's telling you how great you must be there's no way in hell you'll meet their expectations. Now, if I start getting myself down I can just tell myself, “Hey, I have permission to suck. In fact, I'm going to revel in the suckage! You know why? Because I know that there's around three more drafts to come before I plonk it down in front of anyone.”
In hindsight, putting chapters of Slamdance up on the web was a really big mistake confidence-wise, although I didn't know any better at the time. I was so desperate for attention that I treated my first draft as if it were ready to publish; when I looked at it again within a week, I knew it sucked, but... y'know, I thought that was what I was meant to be doing. And after all, it was just fanfic, right?
So from here on out, I'll Just Keep Writing until Draft 1 is done and then give it the full second-to-fourth draft treatment before I send it out to anyone interested in being a first reader (if you are, let me know, but be prepared; it'll mean going through a novel's worth of text with a red pen and being honest without being cruel about what works and what doesn't).
This means, of course, that you folks wanting to read more of my stuff, especially Slamdance, are going to have to wait for a while longer. But I'm doing it. If you've got Twitter, I've been tweeting word counts on there when I finish a writing spurt and I'll start putting editing progress up once I start getting into the second and later drafts.
And that's somewhere around 1,100 words. Good enough for now. 'Night, everyone!
]]>Now, I like to think of this little tome as a Single Player Roleplaying Game where the game is Life, and I've had about as much success with it as I've had with tabletop RPGs over the last few years. The goal of Getting Things Done is that mental state in which, to quote the book, “I absolutely know right now everything I'm not doing but could be doing if I decided to.” This to me is a very worthy goal, and I feel like I'm partway there; I've got a diary system and lists for my action items in place, but I come unstuck on maintenance and projects, big and small.
]]> In GTD terms, a project is any task that would take more than one fairly un-complex physical action to get done. This, therefore, could be anything from the big stuff like writing a Slamdance novel or refinancing our home loan through organising a car-pool timetable for the Gordonvale Area Taskforce to writing a blog post (write it, set it up in Movable Type). Basically, each project needs a clear definition of “done” and a fairly solid picture of the individual steps needed to get there. This information needs to be filed somewhere I can access fairly easily and the “next” steps added to my portable list of actions so I can look them up whenever I sit back and say “okay, what can I be doing this very moment?”.Maintenance involves spending around one hundred and twenty consecutive minutes a week going over all the stuff I've accrued since last time, updating the lists so I feel like I've got all the small stuff under control, then – I'm trying to put this in a way that doesn't sound all corporate and buzz-wordy – looking at the larger and larger pictures of my life to make sure that I'm not neglecting what I want to be doing with myself in all the minutiae.
When it comes down, both of these things need me to sit down and spend some time brainstorming, making notes and thinking about what I'm doing. That, I'm sure you'll agree, isn't the most thrilling way for anyone to spend his or her time. I'm thinking, therefore, about ways to jazz the process up a bit.
My first thought was to use the weekly review process as fodder for a blog post. It seems a little self indulgent, but on the other hand I'll be looking at how my last week's been, what I have coming up and what I plan to do, which, in theory, is more focused than the usual brain dump / think piece.
The main obstacle I foresee with that is juggling taking notes for a blog post with the writing and updating. So, rather than take written notes, set the microphone up, run Audacity and make an audio recording as I go. Hey, why not? If you've ever met me, you know how I love the sound of my own voice! (Right, darling?) I've also found sometimes that speaking an idea helps make it a little more concrete, easier to manage, more possible than it seems when it's just knocking around in my head.
There's another obstacle which is more technical than time-consuming, though. While I was keen on a paper-based organising system, I've found that it's more of a pain in the arse to manage than I first thought. I'm still getting the hang of this “next physical action” jazz; I tend to put down what seems like an action but is actually a project (say, “Sort out buying a laptop”) and when I figure out what the real next action ought to be (“Go to JB Hi-Fi and browse selection”) I have to put a line through what I originally wrote on my index card and re-write it.
Also, the 8” x 5” index cards I use to maintain my lists aren't great for projects; the only thing I can really keep on them is the name of the project and its “done when” condition. Making notes on possible actions and reference info fills the cards up too quickly and I wind up with an unwieldy stack of cards tucked into my diary.
That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to getting a netbook; I hope that running some GTD-compatible software on it will make getting organised that much easier and more interesting. For the moment, I'm going to have a fiddle with the web-based Nirvana, which is currently in closed beta. I'd still like something whose data is based on my PC and accessible if / when the Net isn't available to me, though.
]]>"That (guy/girl) has to much free fuckin' time on (his/her) hands."
I'm sure you have.
So let me ask you this: Is not the aim, the end point, if you will, of the advancement of technology / civilised society / culture, etc. the state wherein everyone has nothing but free fuckin' time on their hands?
If such is the case, why is this state, the very goal of civilisation, looked down on so?
And if not, then what is the point?
(This is why I wanna play and/or run me some FreeMarket sometime.)
]]>So once we re-finance, I’m going to take it into a local repair place with the mandate to not only fix the screen but also double the RAM to 2GB, install a larger hard drive and whack Windows 7 on. I might also inquire about netbook options for me in the hope that we can get the lot for a good deal.
As for the cooling issue, we reckon a portable aircon unit will do the job.
]]>Three lock-ups (one while the game was still loading the multiplayer lobby) and a red light error message (code E 79) in the space of ten minutes gave me my answer.
I did a smattering of homework, and discovered that the E 79 code indicates a problem with the Xbox's hard disk drive. Some folks over on the Xbox World forums suggested playing without it. This evening, I shifted some data from the hard drive over to a USB stick I keep handy, removed the hard disk and joined a session of War for Cybertron's Escalation mode.
I managed to get as far as Wave 6 before Vickie served dinner, but it certainly didn't crash. Still, I did get twice as far before a console freeze not long ago.
]]> Anyway, I started thinking: If my console's issue relates to the hard disk drive, maybe I can circumvent it by taking the drive out and using a USB-based external storage unit. The Rooster Teeth guys did some tests back when Microsoft released the update allowing Xbox 360s to read and write to USB sticks back in April, and they seemed pretty pleased with the performance of USB drives with the 360. On top of that, a 500GB drive only costs around $150, giving me twice the 360 Slim's storage for a whole lot less cash.Then I did some more homework, and was reminded that the maximum space an Xbox 360 will let me use on any USB drive is 16GB (which Geoff of Rooster Teeth actually mentions fairly early in the video of the aforementioned tests). Although 16GB USB sticks only cost $30 I'd still be in a worse situation than I am now, and if my 360 does fail permanently (as the folks on the Xbox World forums contend), I'll be left with $30 of USB stick I otherwise wouldn't really need.
You know, I was warming to the idea of a USB external hard drive. At its core, the Xbox 360 Slim doesn't really do anyting my current console doesn't do already: While our TV is HDMI-capable, I'd only really be reducing the overall cable count by one; speaking of cables, I already use a network cable to connect my 360 to the Internet, so the inbuilt WiFi module is redundant. There's the romantic idea of keeping the old kit going against all odds. FInally, there's the advantage of saving a few hundred dollars!
On the other hand, I've chafed at the limits of my 360's 20GB hard drive before; having 250GB would allow me to install more games to the hard drive (I can only get away with one at the moment) and even buy the odd Game on Demand. I've also been told that video through HDMI is of better quality than that sent through component AV cables. Last but by no means least, there's the highly-gratifying thought of having an Xbox 360 that not only takes up less shelf space and looks prettier but also works properly.
Still, I have at least a month to make my mind up, which is enough time to get this refinancing jazz sorted out. In that time I'll keep using my current USB stick for the moment; I'm interested to see how it works out.
]]>Well, I just got up and walked away from my Xbox 360 after it locked up twice in the space of ten minutes while playing Transformers: War for Cybertron. I don't get an error message or a red light; it just freezes in the middle of a game and the only button presses it recognises are the tray button and the power switch.
]]> FYI, I bought my 360 in April / May 2007 and it's a pre-HDMI 20GB HDD unit. It's been doing this intermittently since sometime last year, and only when playing certain games, like Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, TF:WFC and (I think) Bayonetta. Halo 3 never gives it any trouble, funnily enough, and I don't remember any lock-ups during Gears of War 1 or 2.I'd flirted with the idea of getting a Slim when it came out, but decided that prettier looks and quieter fans weren't a reason for me to buy what I already had over again, especially as I couldn't afford it. However, I'm going to be coming into some cash fairly soon and this locking-up business is really starting to nark me.
What's made the idea even more tempting is the just-announced Halo: Reach console bundle. I already have Reach on pre-order at GAME (AU$30 paid off so far), and the idea of getting a new console, the game, two controllers and a wireless headset for only AU$100 more than the console, one controller and a wired headset is really starting to look like a good idea. But I want to check with you gamers in my readership, especially those of you who've already bought a 360 Slim.
Have you had freezing trouble with your Slim? Do you know anyone who has?
]]>Bonuses:
I’m after an “at my fingertips” computing experience, where everything I want to do is a handful of clicks and a smattering of seconds away at any given moment. To me, this tends to rule Linux out; I might be willing to do some initial configuration at the start but I’m not interested in being a power user, fiddling with dual-boots or emulation or any such, which if I want to hang onto my game library would seem to rule out a Mac.
Someone pointed out the Alienware m11x gaming laptop yesterday; at under $1,500 for a pretty beefy base configuration and with a funky design and support by Dell, it's looking extremely tempting.
What do you folks think?
]]>At the moment, I've got a Windows XP / Linux Mint dual-boot set-up. By default my PC starts up under Linux Mint, and it's pretty good. It does the basics well; I surf the web, I organise my e-mail and I write.
But there are certain things I still can't do under Mint:
]]>While I'd go back to Windows XP, I have some issues there as well. The biggest is a recurring bug that has defeated all attempts, including several from-scratch rebuilds of the hard drive over the last couple of years, to erase it. No matter which browser I use, something happens intermittently when I attempt to get to any web site; the browser will either load a single graphic from the page and nothing else, load the site's base HTML code instead of the site proper or even tell me it couldn't reach a website other than the one I was trying to get to.
Dovetailing with this is the dawning realisation that I'm getting annoyed with being tethered to a desktop. I like the idea of being able to sit down and fiddle with my computer whenever I want to, without having to make a point of coming out to the front room (which, in summer, is the hottest room in the house) to write.
I've realised that it's not just a matter of having as few excuses for procrastination as possible, but also of actually having some positive reinforcement; if I like to play with a gadget, then I'm more likely to have it around (and know how to use it) when I have a practical need for it.
Over the last few weeks, we've been discussing refinancing our loan with a gent from a bank. If we can get a low enough rate, we're thinking of getting some more renovation work done, but I'm also starting to think about how we can rectify our computing situation. The screen on Vickie's laptop died a while ago, and I'm debating whether to take it in for repairs or get something new for her; either way, given Vickie's ongoing frustrations with running Vista on her machine and the grief XP has given me over the past few, I'm thinking Windows 7 isn't a bad move for either of us.
Now, I'm willing to consider my options. There's a big community of Linux users out there who are willing to help out, one that I've not dabbled in all that often; a couple of my good mates are also keen Linux users (one of them actually hipped me to Mint). So I think I'll check in with them before I splash out.
Even so, I'm not interested in a lot of fiddling or configuration or becoming a Linux Power User or any such. I'm now more keen on having something that Just Works Out Of The Box. I want the end result of all of this to be a computer that I enjoy using and that simply does what I want it to without dual-boots or emulation or any real technical complexity. I'm over the idea of being on the cutting edge or getting into the guts of computing; I want a computer that just works.
]]>Keeping in mind that I wrote that review so as many readers as possible would understand it, let me expand for all you pro gamers out there. For starters, don't buy it expecting anything earthshaking or revolutionary. High Moon set out to make a Transformers game that works, and they've succeeded. It mightn't be an outstanding experience but it's certainly a solid one, which puts it head and shoulders above the two movie games.
You'll probably see a lot that's familiar. Base gameplay is reminiscent of Gears of War, minus the cover system. Campaign battles go in for quantity of enemies over smart AI; things can get a bit repetitive and frustrating, especially the campaign-ending boss battles (for which the winning strategy seems to be "run like hell and hope your computer allies don't get in your way"). Still, I found I did better once I remembered the two special abilities each character gets. The whole thing was pretty fun, although I doubt I'll play it again unless it's co-op with someone.
]]> Transformation effectively gives every character a Ghost from Halo 3 on-tap; cars, trucks and tanks all hover (although the cars and trucks drop to their wheels when boosting) and all jets can stop midair without dropping out of the sky (and hover up and down if you remember, which I don't most of the time). If you were expecting the game to switch from Gears of War to, say, Blur or Heroes Over Europe when you transformed, you'll be disappointed, but on its own gameplay merits it works great.What will keep you going through the campaign itself is its flavour. It's a big, loud, heart-on-its-sleeve paean to those Transformers cartoons that geeks like me who were born in the mid- to late-seventies grew up with and makes no apologies for it. All the characters are larger than life and you'll probably keep grinding through the frustrating bits just to hear what Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, Sideswipe, Soundwave or Warpath will say next. All the leads are presented pretty much as we know them from the Good Old Days, and as that lets Peter Cullen do his nobly resonant thing for Optimus without interference, it's no real problem.
Yet I still feel let down by the game's plot. In several interviews before War for Cybertron's release, lead designer Matt Tieger talked the character arcs of Optimus, Megatron and Starscream up a lot, with particular emphasis on how Optimus would develop from a warrior unsure of his place into the Prime we all know and love by the end of the game. The plot instead drops a handful of hints of back-story - a betrayal that led to Starscream being posted to the orbital platform where we find him; Megatron calling Optimus "the prodigy"; Optimus' reference to something that happened in both of their pasts "long ago" - and then frustrates by leaving them where they fell and ignoring them.
The campaign tries to make up for it with plenty of nuggets of fan service (like the Universal Greeting), but it still left me with a "cut for time" aftertaste; not as sour as the one Gears of War 2 gave me (the Sires, Maria Santiago, the Locust Queen and the bit right at the end), but still there.
Unfortunately, there's no Optimus vs. Megatron showdown either.
But there is Multiplayer. Escalation is the obligatory Nazi Zombies mode, where you control the characters from the campaign fighting off hordes of the opposing side. The game ships with two maps, and picking a map determines whether you're Autobots fighting off Decepticons or vice versa. You can't set difficulty and playing it solo is nigh impossible, but unlike my other favourite co-op mode, Halo 3: ODST's Firefight, matchmaking options are available and all public matches are drop-in. Being able to open the map up as you go is a neat concept.
You've seen the traditional versus modes before, but transforming definitely gives this game a whole vibe of its own. As the Penny Arcade lads pointed out, you never have to wait at a vehicle spawn point, but then you can't ride shotgun or take the turret either.
Layered over all this is a tasty combination of Team Fortress 2's classes with Modern Warfare's kill-streaks, experience and challenges, although the customisation options aren't as deep (or intimidating) as Modern Warfare 2. And I'd much rather play this over Team Fortress 2 or Modern Warfare 2.
It might even make me split my attention from Halo: Reach, especially as hearing Optimus Prime say, “Autobots win the match!” is as thrilling as hearing Jeff Steitzer (the Halo multiplayer announcer) say, “Killtacular!”
Oh, one other point of note: The default mapping of “transform” to the left stick click results in some accidental transformations, but watch out in Multiplayer; there's actually a Leader class special ability which forces you to switch modes and freezes you post-switch for a few seconds. So it may not necessarily be you!
Thus far, my experience of the playing crowd is the opposite of that on the major shooters; they're very, very quiet. No swearing or slurs, but also no call-outs or tactical discussion. Even the noisy idiots are milder than the average voice-jerk on Halo 3.
]]>But if you haven't, go buy today's Cairns Post and check out Page 14 of the timeOUT liftout. Or read it on the cairns.com.au website!
]]> Oh, and BUY THE GAME!Then come play some Escalation with me!
P.S.: Yes, two published game reviews in a week. The Games Guru is on a roll!
]]>You could argue that this post-apocalyptic game just wasn't my taste. My usual fare - Halo, Mass Effect, Burnout Paradise, the Guitar Hero games - are pretty cheerful, after all.
Still, in the end, I just couldn't get into Metro 2033. And I'm not alone; the entertainment editor, Jesse Kuch, also received a copy and came away with largely the same impression I did.
You can read our thoughts here. As usual, you'll need Adobe Reader to view this PDF document.
]]>They built him to kill.]]>
They built him to rule.
They never planned on him falling in love...
I'll have to find out which Cairns gaming stores are doing the inevitable midnight launch...
]]>It's the Labour Day Long Weekend here in Queensland. Vickie and I had some undefined plans, including Iron Man 2 and the local Blues Festival which a friend had given us tickets to. But when my stepson Karl showed up on our doorstep on Saturday afternoon with chainsaw in hand, we seized the opportunity to tend to our yard, neglected and overgrown with all the rain of late. (Remember how I mentioned that the rain had finally gone in my last big posting? Spoke too bloody soon.)
]]> Well, when I say “we”, I mean “Vickie”, because I'd been wanting to get her out of the house for the Blues Festival. But Karl not only had Saturday afternoon off but Sunday also, and Vickie reckoned we wouldn't get a chance like this for a good while. Judged honestly, we really needed to put the work into our garden. Some of our taller trees have been slowly rotting out; left untended they would have posed a danger to ourselves and our neighbours.However, this meant yours truly was tasked with schlepping cut tree trunks and branches to Karl's ute and having vaguely-defined plans of a going-out-good-time kyboshed in favour of hard labour didn't put me in a good mood. Had I reasoned it out, I'd have realised that as we're skint right now, I'd have been worrying myself over the cost of drinks and nibblies. But I'd been guilt-tripping myself recently over how Vickie'd been trapped at home by some chronic pain, and hey, when does logic ever get in the way of a good grump?
So I was out the front yesterday, hauling hunks of wood about and digging myself into a darker mood. I think I'd somehow grumped myself onto the topic of all the things I ought to be doing that I hadn't had the chance to because of garden work, like my mate Ray's PC. If you remember the parable of Ray and Ron from a few weeks ago, you'll know that Ray gave me his PC to have a look at (as part of my whole home-tech-support-business-as-a-sideline-job idea) while we loaned him an older one of ours. I'd set aside a day to strip it down and clean it out, but on that day the weather cleared after a long spell of rain and I figured I'd better mow our overgrown lawn before Vickie committed a justifiable homicide.
The next time I tried getting Ray's PC working Vickie was a bit grumpy, although I think that was because I had to borrow her monitor to check his PC (there's a whole issue with monitor ports I'll explain later if you're interested). Still, this was bothering me. How come Vickie would prefer I not do something that could help us out financially, especially as we're a little hard up money-wise right now?
Then I realised something. I'd been working to a rudimentary plan for the past while: Take up tech support as a sideline, turn it into a full-time, own-boss job that ought to pay better than my current one, then take up writing as a sideline.
Only yesterday, after hauling some weights about, did I see the obvious flaws with this plan:
I will admit, having a plan, even a bad one, feels better than not having a plan at all (as was the case for most of my adult life). But I think that's why Vickie was grumpy when I was fiddling with Ray's PC: She knew I was forcing myself to do something I didn't want to do in the name of some overall goal and that the only thing she could do was wait and watch until I clued into it myself (you can lead a horse to water and all that).
After that, I had a great rest of the day helping clean up the yard.
I've since spoken with Ray, and we've decided that we're going to go to Hardly Normal's and The Good Guys on Saturday to shop for a new PC that'll meet his requirements rather than slog on trying to get his PC or our loaner working properly. I've also got to sit down and start doing the kind of thinking I was previously only doing for my tech support sideline (well, actually, meaning to do, as I was largely avoiding any serious thought about it), like thinking about my work as a product, making it (and myself) attractive to audiences and publishers, finding out what opportunities are available to me at The Cairns Post from a writing standpoint. Scary stuff, to be sure, but it still feels better to think about than trying to work out how to make a living off computers felt.
Yard looks much better, by the way. Well, some leaf detritus is lying around, but a few trees less has made a huge difference.
]]>I've been a little apprehensive about the inevitable collector's editions of the game, though. Collector's editions have become quite a rage nowadays. In times gone by, special editions were only made after the game had already sold well (and got good press, hence the frequent dubbing of these editions “Game of the Year Edition”). This tended to frustrate me, though; the Game of the Year Editions I was interested in were of games I already owned, and even when I had more disposable income than I have now I couldn't see the point in buying the whole damned game all over again just for the extra knick-knacks.
]]> Nowadays, though, if the pre-release hype for a game has built enough anticipation to guarantee good sales – or, in the case of Reach, the game is part of an extremely popular franchise – the publisher is likely to release a collector's edition of the game on its actual launch date. While I can understand some folks' views that such a move requires a certain amount of chutzpah / hubris, I still prefer it over the other way around.It's interesting to note that the only games I've bothered to buy collector's editions of are Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST (which I can semi-excuse on the grounds of needing a new Xbox 360 controller). In fact, had I had the money, I probably would have bought the Legendary Edition of Halo 3, complete with scale Master Chief helmet, instead of the Collector's Edition I did buy.
All that said, though, when I reviewed the list of contents of the Collector's Editions of Halo: Reach after they were announced yesterday, my reaction was: “...ehh. I think I'll just buy the regular edition instead.”
Some may take this as yet another sign that I'm acquiring some fucking maturity, me bloody Peter Pan, and hey, I'll take it where I find it.
But actually, the main reason for my lack of interest – Oh, sorry. That's right; I just remembered. I did buy the collector's edition of another game: Mass Effect 2. While it came with an unlock for an in-game item (the Collector armour suit) and a comic book, I was more keen on the extra disc of documentaries. I don't know why, especially as I'm no game developer, but I'm always interested in the processes of making a game and the stories during development.
But after watching it, I remember feeling disappointed. The documentaries on the disc came across as more like promotional fluff. What? Why would I want promo? I've bought the game, for crying out loud! I already know that it's awesome to have Martin Sheen and Tricia Helfer on board. I want to know about the level design, the weapon choices, the actual voice recording process, the cool tools that make the music come alive at the right spots in the game, like... well, like the documentaries on the Halo 3 Collector's Edition disc.
I think Bungie spoiled me on collector's edition content. If you have a friend with the Collector's Edition, go over his or her place and ask him or her to pop the bonus disc into his or her 360 and play some of it for you, especially the audio documentary. That stuff, where Marty O'Donnell not only goes over the Halo 3 score and recording it with an actual orchestra and shows clips of the voice recording process, but also, and especially, talks about how sound works in the game, from how the noise of the Mongoose engine (a combination of a two-stroke scooter and a sports car) reverberates off the surfaces in the non-existent world of the game to how the soundtrack will actually mix itself based on what you're doing. THAT'S what I wanted to see on your bonus disc, BioWare. Show me the nuts and bolts of the years you spent putting that epic of a game together like Bungie did.
This time around, though, Microsoft isn't providing anything like that in the two Reach special editions. Hrm. What are they providing instead? Let's start with the Limited Edition. ONI Black Box slipcase? I don't have enough spare shelf room. Artifact bag with patches and stickers? More chaff I'm never going to sew / stick to anything. In-character journal of the developer of the Spartan super-soldier program? I stopped giving a stuff about the expanded fiction after the Halo: Legends previews. In-game Elite armour set? Hey, I never bothered with Recon armour and the Elites are only going to be playable in a sub-set of the multi-player games.
Take all that and add in the Legendary Edition. It's a whopping great box meant to look like some sort of ammo or hazmat container. Just where the hell am I gonna tuck that away? At least the Halo 3 Legendary Edition Master Chief helmet looked good in and of itself. The statuette of the five non-playable Spartans of Noble Team looks sweet, but I have enough toys, thank you. The only tempting item in that list is the “exclusive Spartan multiplayer armour effect” - an actual thing that does something in the game – but it's not worth $198.
And you know what? Over the last few months, Bungie have been giving away all the good stuff I'd expect to see on that documentary disc. For free. For starters, there are the VIDocs (apparently a combination of “visual”, “informational” and “documentation” - hey, direct that look at Bungie, not me). While they're semi-promotional, they still give a fair bit of info on the game, including the personalities of the folks working on it.
But for the real nuts and bolts, have a listen to the Bungie Podcast. Sure, it's not got the most regular release schedule, but if you're interested in games and want something to listen to on the commute, it's great (I listen on my iPod on the mile walk from where I park to work). While I'll always point folks to the July 7th, (Bungie Day) 2009 episode featuring Nathan Fillion (yes, him) the two most recent episodes are Halo: Reach making-of gold. In fact, I must recommend the April 19th podcast for Luke “Froman” Timmins' (yes, him) hilarious explanation of how Reach's programs which govern Internet multiplayer performance work.
Come to think of it, I've become so un-enamoured with collector's editions that I even traded the Halo 3 Collector's Edition in at EB for credit toward Borderlands. In retrospect, that was a mistake. Borderlands wasn't quite my taste, as it turns out, and while my Xbox Live friends were enthused about its co-op multiplayer they're never available whenever I try to organise a session. (Heh! I'll probably trade Borderlands toward Reach.) And I miss that Grunt in the bonus disc's DVD Surround Sound Test. Ah, well; Karl's gone off Halo in general so I can always borrow his Collector's Edition off him, I suppose.
I'm still waiting for EB and Game to announce pre-order bonuses, though. I hope there's a bundle deal for a game guide - I'm keen to have something tell me where all the basic spawns on the multiplayer maps are so I can start working on call-outs.
UPDATE 11:30AM: According to the latest Bungie weekly update, the “exclusive Spartan multiplayer armour effect” isn't a unique armour ability as I assumed - it's a flaming helmet, which just looks cool, so I now have even less interest in the Legendary Edition.
That Elite armour looks kinda sweet in a bad-ass way, though. And as flaming helmets are reserved in Halo 3 for Bungie employees and Nathan Fillion, I suppose Legendary owners Reach could try getting away with saying they're down with Mal.
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