Please Pardon The Dust

It's been a busy few months in the Hall household, so please excuse me that I've not been posting very regularly. Lots and lots of news, and a backlog of gaming experiences to talk about which I sadly won't be able to get into here.

First up is news that we'll be having another baby, due in July. Very happy, and excited to share the news with the extended family over the holidays.

Also, I just today had a feature published over at Polygon.com. I had the pleasure to interview and profile Steve Grammont and his company Battlefront.com. Russ Pitts himself was kind enough to let me share the story with that readership. Check it out, as it's a piece I'm very proud of.

More news soon.

Raw Notes: Wurm Online - "I gave a cotton to someone"

Hopped onto the Reddit Wurm group today as it was forming, then got into the Steam group. Let's see how this goes...

***

TheWanderer: Okay, I'm back on. Hi1

TheWanderer: !

Atazs: hi

{DVH} Den Vlieghende Hollander: Hullo

TheWanderer: I'm a total newb here, but I have an ounce of sense in my head.

TheWanderer: I'm staring at the login window...

TheWanderer: Is there a thing (or many things) that I should read and learn before going into the world?

трулли нахуй лулли: you could just do the tutorial

Playlist: Dec. 3 - Dec. 9

Well, finished Spec Ops: The Line. I'm going back now to review some old podcasts, specifically Weekend Confirmed 119 and the Gamers With Jobs #305 where they did a spoilers section. Then I'll take a little time and write a little something here before I dive into the ePub from Brendan Keogh (who put up some love for games writing at the New Statesman the other day). It won't be huge, because December is devoted to a big project I'm working on for a new outlet (that makes 4!). I'm lining up interviews as we speak, and I'm really excited about the prospects. 

With all the gift giving for the rest of the family, I may well not have the cash for Far Cry 3. Given the series' track record of deep discounts I'm shooting for a half-price purchase in February. In the mean time I'll be looking into Wurm. You were all right not to tell me about this immersive MMO, internet. It could have me in thrall for quite some time from the looks of it. But I found it on my own, and it looks too good to be true. Check out this RPS article from 2010 as it does a better job at describing it than I have time for this morning. The thing's been in development for 5 or 6 years, is free to play, and looks wholly unique. Right up my alley.

Things Seen On A Recent Visit To A Government Facility

• A series of four cubicles (half height) which bad been cleared out to create a faux conference room.

• Three (3) offices built around support columns (doric) which ostensibly hold up the building. The columns moved through the offices directly where the chair would go, such that the wrap-around desks effectively surrounded the columns. The chair was placed to the side of the column or behind it, rendering the desk ultimately useless.

• One (1) vent drywall-screwed to a wall. The vent did not cover a ventilation system. It was screwed to a blank section of wall. In the past someone had painted around the vent rather than take it down, such that the old wall color (yellow) could be seen underneath.

• Asbestos floor tile. Everywhere.

First Impressions - Spec Ops: The Line

Picked this gem up for a steal at $15 the other week on Steam. It's been on my list for some time, especially with ties to Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, both works I studied a bit in college. Mix in my love of modern warfare, as well as the promise of 50k words from Brendon Keogh (download, interview) at the end, it was just too much. So I (ahem) pulled the trigger.

I sat down to play the other night and was almost immediately disappointed.

Spanky

It was a stinking hot August day in Dekalb, Illinois. The six of us were sitting in the dusty grass up the left field line just behind the bullpen. I had my mask and helmet off and was working at a sore spot where the buckle of my chest protector dug into my side. Assistant coach Pete was standing over us, casually leaning the mid-part of his thigh against a Fungo bat to steady himself. Three pitchers sipped at their water jugs while three catchers sat or lay trying to coax some of the dead air into cooling them off.

You could hear the corn rustling against the right field fence, the aluminum bleachers ringing with the impact of batting practice across the field. Pete was slacking just a bit, killing time between drills. He was staring off into the distance, trying to catch a glimpse of head coach Joe “Spanky” MacFarland, to trade some nod or hand signal about what to do next with his charges. Summer baseball camp at Northern Illinois University in a nutshell. I was maybe 13.

Playlist: Nov. 5 through Nov. 18

Yeah, I know... I didn't post last week. I also did not live up to my promise of continuing my Combat Mission AAR. I've been a bad person. 

It's not that it was busy for me though, that's the thing. I'm really in this very odd in-between-projects-thing with my freelance work, while at the same time just waiting for the other shoe to drop at the day job on a multi-year project. That's put me in a big tense knot creatively. It's very frustrating, but I'm working through it.

I have a few board game reviews pending for Armchair General and Paste, and those are all fine and good. But the feature-length things are eluding me, as they usually do, coming into the holiday season. That's usually AAA reviews season, and I am not as inclined to play in that space. I just don't have the time to commit to solid play throughs prior to general release of a AAA game. That's just a fact.