SiN Episodes; BioShock Interview
I admit to having decried PC gaming somewhat lately, but PC game fans at Oddball Update can rejoice today for more than one reason.
First and foremost, the release date has finally come for SiN Episodes: Emergence, the first of the SiN sequel’s nine chapters to be released in an episodic fashion during the course of 2006. This game looks positively stunning. Using the Half-Life 2 Source engine, Ritual Entertainment has built upon some strong tech and brought their classic style and sense of humor to it, making for an almost Duke Nukem-like experience. Episode one is available for direct purchase via Valve’s Steam system, or in a retail box at your favorite game store. Introductory pricing is $17.99, and the first episode is estimated to provide 6-8 hours of gameplay. (One forum member jokingly clarified, “That’s about the same as a full Metal Gear game if you skip all the cutscenes.”)
And that Dukey feeling I mentioned? It isn’t just subconscious. Former 3D Realms level designer Levelord, who designed many of the levels for Duke Nukem 3D (and whom I actually used to chat with back in the days of CompuServe), has contributed his awesome-as-ever work to the SiN Episodes project. There’s even a classic 3D Realms easter egg — the Dopefish — hidden in a secret area. As with Duke3D, expect lots of signature signage and pop-culture sight gags to abound. There’s even a sign that says OH SNAP: WE BEAT DNF OUT TWICE! (The original SiN was released in 1997 back when we all foolishly thought Duke Nukem Forever might appear sometime before the turn of the century.) Take that, George Broussard.
While SiN is here today, BioShock is coming tomorrow. As in, 2007. Though that seems a long way away, you can help reduce the pain by checking out this incredible interview IGN conducted with Irrational Games’ creative director and head of the BioShock project, Ken Levine. Oftentimes developer interviews are a snooze, but Ken’s comments make for a fascinating read. This guy is a true creative powerhouse, and it shows in the way his remarks run off unchecked like somebody who lives their entire life by stream of consciousness. There are also a ton of details about BioShock unveiled, and it’s virtually guaranteed that if you loved System Shock 2, you’re going to love this game. All the awesome stuff about Shock 2 — the abandoned, post-apocalyptic environment; the audio logs; the hacking; the RPG elements and character upgrades; the freeform gameplay mechanic — it’s all back, but in a brand new setting that’s even more disturbing than the Von Braun starship. Just read the interview — it’s a peach.
As an added bonus, Gamespot has posted their impressions of the realtime BioShock demo exhibited at this year’s E3, and there’s some juicy gameplay hints in their article. Whereas my “hype level” was lukewarm before, now I can’t wait for BioShock. Unlike SiN, it will be available on Xbox360 as well as PC, so we get to pick our poision. Honestly, though, I may go PC on this one…I can’t imagine an interface like Shock 2′s being done on a console, and I hope they don’t dumb it down.
Classic Star Trek, Classic Reference
Please excuse me for this, but I happened across something this evening that reminded me of an age-old inside joke (that only my friends will get), and promptly wasted half an hour assembling this ridiculous comic of sorts in honor of it. It would have taken longer, but this place did half the work for me.
San Francisco Treat
After a bit of a vacation of its own, fresh content returns to Oddball Update. This is really the first significant post I’ve made since Apple and I returned from our three-day visit to San Francisco — not counting the extra day on either end that was spent travelling to and from California by way of Dallas, TX. Overall, I think the trip was an eye-opening experience for me. I know that sounds hackneyed. But seriously, even though it was short, and not entirely without strife, this vacation was certainly needed — and well-received, at least by yours truly.
First of all, allow me to introduce the new photo albums I’ve uploaded to the gallery. If you’d like the self-guided tour, go ahead and browse through them now; otherwise, I’ll be linking to groups of photos individually in the text below as I discuss our trip.
I’ve divided the many photos we took in San Francisco into four such albums, one for each of the places we visited and activities we undertook. In this post I’ll briefly outline some of these activities, but as the last few days have gone by, I’ve come to feel that the most important part of our vacation is the lasting effect it’s had on us. Especially for me, personally, I feel totally renewed by the experience. Before we left, I was pretty much dead with exhaustion from constant working. I still have a task list that’s full of toilsome items, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be a blow to my morale. Our time away seems to have put the truly important things in my life back into perspective; made me realize I was getting bent out of shape over what, in the long term, doesn’t matter a whit. But anyway, more on that later.
We headed to San Francisco on Wednesday the 19th via American Airlines, with a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth on the way. The flights were fine and there weren’t any problems with luggage or any of that. We wound up getting into SFO pretty late, probably about 10:15 PM or so, and it wasn’t until an hour later that we’d picked up our bags, met the shuttle driver and had a tumultuous ride to the Radisson Miyako Hotel courtesy of a very creepy-looking geezer in an old man hat who looked like he’d crawled out of a dumpster. (The old dude also reminded me of somebody in a strange way, but I still can’t pinpoint who.) We were further unnerved by the fact that a young guy in the lobby of the hotel was totally freaking out because his girlfriend had called his cell phone and claimed she was being “held against her will” in some room of the hotel but couldn’t tell him which room. The San Francisco police showed up right after we completed check-in so we, uh, decided to skip that scene and go pick up some dinner.
