What to say, what to say.

As the title suggest I really am not sure what to say in this blog, I just felt I should write a new entry.

I have the idea of writing an article about my favourite games series, Broken Sword, but I'm not sure what the subject of said article will include so I don't think I can start that just yet.

So if not a Broken Sword article, then what? That is the question that drives.....well me, at least for the next 20 minutes or so.

I am in a weird place these days where I am bored out of my skull, so I really want to hurry up and get a job, but really the prospect scares the shit out of me, my first proper job, that's huge.

My first step toward this will be getting my own bank account, and even that is scaring me a bit. Growing up has always been one of the big fears in my life, I really don't cope well with responsibility, well that's a bit of a lie, because I do ok with it. It is more the anticipation of it that scares me.

You know, even if no one reads these blogs, it is a really good way of just getting your thoughts down, I'm really enjoying that aspect of it. It's kinda like an online diary, just that anyone can see it, not as if diaries actually have to be kept private anyway.

So that's my random thoughts out of the way, so what to write about next?

I wonder, I wonder, right well maybe I will share my thoughts on Broken Sword. Be warned though, I have no idea what the general theme of this is going to be about so I may go off on one a bit.

Right, Broken Sword 4, Angel Of Death, I'd just like to say that I am most definetly looking forward to it. It's no secret that Broken Sword 3 had its faults, but despite those it was still a far more enjoyable game that alot of other games I've played in recent years. It still had that Broken Sword charm and wit, and now in shiny 3D to boot.

Now I am in no way a graphics whore, sure I am impressed by good graphics, but I wouldn't buy a game because of it, unless it had the gameplay and story to go with it. Graphics are just one part of a game, sometimes they are a very crucial part of the game, sometimes they aren't, I think in Broken Swords case if the graphics aren't spectacular then it wouldn't matter as much, because when it comes down to it I love Broken Sword because of the story and the characters. The two 2D Broken Swords had flawless graphics it's true, and while locations did seem quite empty, the style and detail of Broken Sword 3 was good enough to warrant the leap to 3D, even if some of the gameplay elements weren't.

I get the feeling I may have slightly contradicted myself just then, but oh well. Now with Broken Sword 4, Revolution (and Sumo Digital) are taking into account the aspects that were wrong with Broken Sword 3 and making sure they are sorted. So what will this mean? That Broken Sword 4 will return to having the same level of gameplay as the story, as it did has in BS 1 & 2? I for one hope so, because the story and characters in Broken Sword 3 were the main thing that kept me loyal to the series, the gameplay was playable, and often enjoyable, but it hadn't been tweaked enough, and too many crate puzzles made the game drag on more than it should've.

I don't think I've said anything relatively new there, but I thought I'd get it off my chest anyway.

Well we all know what was wrong with Broken Sword 3, so how about I talk about why despite its flaws it was still a really enjoyable game. First of all we have a classic and well written story. A story that just like the first two games, takes existing mythology and brings it to life in a very compelling and interesting way. It even managed to bring back elements from the still best game in the series, Shadow Of The Templars. The story had some great twists and turns, some heart warming moments, some tragic ones, some heroic ones and as usual some very funny ones.

A great story wouldn't be anything if it weren't for great characters, and as usual The Sleeping Dragon has them in bucket loads, all our old favourites are here, George and Nico of course, Lobineau and a few other old favourites. However we also have some new characters, in the form of the games antagonists Petra and Susarro. Broken Sword 3 did a good job of introducing these characters and not only making them mysterious but believable are opponents. That's not as easy as it sounds either. Once again the voice acting behind these characters is top notch, and it makes you wonder why other games can't get voice actors as good? I mean this game didn't have the biggest budget but managed to get great voice actors, while some games have stupidely high budgets and have crap voice acting? How does that work then?

I have slightly lost my train of thought, so I think I will come back to this later. So I guess it's bye for now.

The Wonder Of The Blog

I started this as just a way to get down my thoughts, share random things that people may or may not read. Only a day or two later and already it has produced results I hadn't expected. I showed my friend this blog, just to see what he thought. He reads it and this sparks a good couple of hours of discussion on a writing project between us. We have both expressed our ambition of writing to each other before, but we had never really gone into deep discussion about it, but my blog caused both myself and my friend to begin discussing these ideas with each other in ways we hadn't before.

Will this lead to that much sought after story I am hoping to write? Who knows, but it is certainly a nice path to go down, one which I hope will be both challenging and entertaining for all involved.

It's amazing how busy you can feel when you don't do much all day. Just chatting on MSN is something I seem to set time for in my head, same with watching a DVD or TV, it's a strange way to think, one I hope to rid myself off when my life actually picks up. First rejection letter from a job the other day, bit disappointing, but didn't get me down, which surprisingly surprised me.

That last paragraph at nothing to do with the one before it I know but I don't care :P I just felt like rambling a bit. I think I might do a review or two sometime next week, of what I don't know but I don't think I'll go for something recent, I feel like reviewing Die Hard which I just watched today, or something similar.

This weekend however is going to be focused on sharing ideas with my friend Piers in regards to this story we are both now set to work on, there's also the small matter of my Dad coming back after 2 months away, no doubt to tell me to get off my lazy arse, but hey that's life folks.

I think i'll end with a little thought about music, I am rarely without it, even if I myself havent chosen it. If the game i am playing doesn't have music all the time or there isn't anything on TV I want to be background noise to my chatting online, then music fills the void. I find myself disliking silence, even when I go to bed I have the TV on, silence makes me think, and thinking means I can't get to sleep. But when online or just sitting playing a fairly quiet video game I find myself feeling odd, and music rids me of that. Don't know where that thought came from but it popped into my head so I thought I'd type it out, and that's what I created this for so that's what it will be used for :D

First Blog

Well I really don't know what to write just yet, I don't really do much.

I have aspirations of being a writer, mostly in games journalism, or just reviews of entertainment in general.

Every now and then I do have plans of maybe writing a book, or fictional story of some kind, usually these thoughts are politely crushed by myself when I remember the amount of planning and such has to go into such a project. I do think one day i'll give it a go, but not quite yet.

I mean where do you start when writing a coherent fictional story? Whenever I've done so in the past it was never anything ambitious and I made it up as I went along, but I don't see how you could do that for a much larger story. You need to plan character traits, themes throughout the story, locations, plot, an overall story arc, with perhaps some smaller story arcs within that.

That's the argument my brain usually gives itself when I start having thoughts of writing something, because usually the thought at the back of my mind is some kind of fantasy or sci fi epic, which would be a huge undertaking because aside from the usual stuff you have to come up with a whole mytholgy for your story to be based on.

Well despite not know what to write I rambled on for a while there, funny that :P

I guess i'll finish by telling whoever is reading this (that would be you, assuming anyone will read this AND stick around this long) I am a bit of a telly addict, watch quite alot and love it. Things I'm into at the moment are Lost, Smallville, Scrubs, 24 and Battlestar Galactica. I'm also a love of films too, my faves of recent years are Serenity (I should prob have Firefly on that TV list too), The Last Samurai, Underworld, Garden State and The Girl Next door.

I'm also a fan of the ol video game. I currently have an Xbox and Gamecube, with my Gamecube sadly relegated to the cupboard just now. Mostly I have been playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live at the moment, the last game I bought was Futurama (should also be on that TV List :P) which I havent completed yet (takes me a while to complete games, I usually play them for a while and then don't go back to them for weeks, maybe months, at a time). The newest game I've bought was Tomb Raider legend, which is a great game, the is a bit weak, but the excellent platforming and puzzles are more than enough entertainment.

I will probably post my thoughts on the games industry over time, especially with the upcoming next generation console war, of which I will be on the side of the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Anyway, if you have read all this and are intrigued/interested enough to check back again, i should update a few times a week with my random thoughts and anything that I'm thinking about at the time, that includes stuff I may or may not have mentioned above. So bye for now I guess, and y'all stay shiny now. (Firefly reference, don't worry if it's lost on you ;) )