Terry Schott – The Game is Life Book 1: The Game

Well, recently I finished this book. I get deals from BookBub sent to my e-mail and whenever I see a book that is free for downloading, I read the description and when I read this one, I was hooked. Thing is, I have another book that I want to finish, but well, this one took precedent.

The genre of the book is, in my humble opinion, very hard to pinpoint. I’d say that it is the opposite of dystopia but not utopia. Which in itself is a bit of a mindfuck.

Most of the book takes place in a virtual reality called EARTH. And yes, it is an acronym. Only, the full name was only mentioned about twice in the entire book so I don’t remember it.

The premise is that kids in the real world are educated through the virtual reality where they live full lives. The first five plays are free and then they have to buy any additional ones with credits earned through playing. They can also use the credits to purchase different upgrades like long life, charisma and many others.

Zach is the main character and during this book, he plays his final game as he is nearing his eighteenth birthday after which he will “graduate” from playing and enter the real world as a productive member of the society. He did a lot of careful planning with his team and sponsors. But when he enters the game, a wrench is thrown into all the planes. A wrench in the form of Zach’s (ex)-girlfriend Alexandra.

Alexandra lost everything in her last play but has been awarded a free playthrough for the thirty-year anniversary of the game. Her goal? To treat the game itself as a game. Which may seem difficult to achieve considering that when a player enters the game, they forget everything about the real world. But Alexandra manages this even without her memory of the real world.

When she and Zach meet inside the game, they strike a friendship and later start dating. They both believe that their lives inside the game are indeed a virtual reality and later they amass a following of people which leads to Zach being assassinated in-game with a special weapon that is supposed to kill you even in the real life.

And if that is not enough, well, let’s just say that the game itself is sentient. And names Sylvia. Well, the game… More along the lines of the AI that more or less runs the game.

The whole book ends with the Game’s creator being told to not unplug Zach from the game as he is not yet dead and done for.

To express my feelings about the book in a single word: Awesome! It is written in an easy and flowing style and I was hooked after the first page. Which makes it my kind of a book. If I can’t get behind a book after the first three pages or so, I don’t consider it a good book. So this would be considered a great book. Only thing is, I got this one for free, but when I went to hunt down the following books, well… Headdesk.

Six and a half dollars! Are they fucking crazy? Guess I’ll be doing a bit more thorough search of the internet to see if there is a possibility of a free download. I’m sure I’ll find one.

But other than this little problem, I definitely recommend the book to all the ones who liked the Divergent series, the Giver movie or even the freaking Hunger Games. Heck, Star Trek fans might like it! And those who loved the Sword Art Online anime will lap it up and beg for more!

Spiritus

This week was a great update for Star Stable. They added Spirit to the game. The Wild horse from the old Disney movie that a lot of us saw and loved. Dream works made a TV series on Netflix featuring Spirit’s son as the main horse. Can’t talk about the show, didn’t see it, but I can tell you with certainty that the Spirit in the game is great. And the biggest thing is that if you do all his quests, you will be able to buy him and he will be already level 15.

I myself am already almost there. With a bit of luck, I’ll be able to buy him by the end of the weekend. Can’t wait. Sure, you can’t put tack on him because he’s wild, but still, a level 15 horse for only a bit of hard work and 699 or so Star Coins? Who wouldn’t want him? I would.  And I’m seriously looking forward to it.

So I guess this is just a quick update as to what’s going on with me. This weekend I’m at my relatives place since my grandmother is celebrating her birthday. We had rice and meat for lunch and then more people came. My cousin’s son Mates wanted Minecraft and I tried to install it for him, but it wouldn’t work so we gave up. Right now, he’s looking at videos on youtube and playing around with Steam while I’m playing Star Stable Online and trying my damn best to get Spirit.

See ya!

Almost Human [2013-2014]

I had two reasons to start watching this show. One, it stars Karl Urban. Two, there are a lot of fanfictions and when I browse AO3 based on tags, I have to sift through a lot of them and since I wasn’t in the fandom yet, it was annoying. Now, I’m probably gonna start reading these. Especially if there’s slash. Hopefully, there will be the good pairings.

At the moment, I’ve been through a little more than 10 episodes. Very good! So good that I am actually really paying attention to it. Instead of my usual way of watching stuff that has English audio – basically just listening while doing something else on another tab. Or listening while playing Dungeon Hunter 4.

Well, something about the show, it takes place in the future, but not too distant. Cops are paired with androids. And since so far, all the cop androids are male, I’m gonna call them mandroid. Yes, it’s probably a horrible word to use, but hey, I’ve always wanted to use it in some context. So, the main character, played by Karl Urban, is, after some botched operation that left him with synthetic leg, paired with the usual droid model. The MX. But they are too emotionless, too robotic. And he kicks it out of his car while driving. Then he gets paired with the DRN model. At least I think that’s how you spell it. He calls this one Dorian. And then they go and solve a multitude of cases. All the while the MC – his name is John – is trying to find information on this syndicate that is somehow connected to his ex-girlfriend. The syndicate is responsible for John losing his leg and having to have a synthetic.

I couldn’t spoil the ending even if I wanted to, seeing as I haven’t finished watching it. But it’s really good so far and if you’re into futuristic cop dramas or like Karl Urban, I do recommend it. And even if you’re not, maybe you’ll like it if you give it a try.

But I’m not forcing anybody. So make your own mind.

Bye!

Logan [2017]

There will be spoilers!

So, about a week back, I saw the movie Logan. Online of course. And I was disappointed. The girl playing Logan’s daughter was good. Really good. At least in my opinion. But the story itself, not so much. The integration of Professor X in it didn’t make much sense. I did know a bit of the backstory about Laura, weapon X and all that rot. But not really from comic books, I don’t read those. But there is the X-men Evolution and then wikis and also, if something appears in more than three fanfics, I start looking at it as possible canonical information.

Also, I have absolutely no idea as to where this movie fits with all the other live action ones. I mean, I have a bit of an idea where it fits in comics and other source material, but hey, the movies are somewhat crazy in this.

Oh well, the movie was chaotic and didn’t live up to my expectations. If you’re a die hard marvel fan, sure, go ahead and try it, it might be necessary for some weird continuity in regards to future movies, but other than that, real disappointment.

The “avengers” side of the marvel verse is done much better. Can’t wait for Ragnarok and Infinity wars.

Three pics

So, I decided to add some of my newer pics. These three were finished just recently and I had some free time so I used my laptop’s camera and made photos. After I trimmed the pohotos in PhotoFiltre so that I wasn’t in the picture. Or my fingers for that matter.

This first one is of a sitting girl and was inspired by some more or less random pic on pinterest. I’ve been using pinterest as a source of inspiration. It’s great. Pinterest I mean, the picture, could be better but I’m of the opinion that it’s not too bad. Yeah, the proportions are a bit off, but it’s not like I was going for realism so there. Done in colored pencils with a pencil sketch under. Sketch is a bit older than the colores on top. I just recently got the idea to go back into it with color. But all things considered, it didn’T turn out too awfull.

The second pic was probably even more random. I just sketched and some time after went back into it with color. Though to be honest, I like it somewhat more than the first one. Mainly the shading in the face. I tried to make the sleeve kinda seethrough but I don’T think I did a good job of that, other than that though, I’m happy with how it turned out.

Last pic is me experimenting with darker skin tones. And frankly, it lookes darker on paper. The photo probably skewed the colors a bit. And probably not only on this one. But I’m too lazy to plug in my skener so using camera app on my laptop was the better option for me. Faster.

Now about the third picture. Like I said, I tried to experiment with a darker skin tone and exotic lip color. The ear is a bit weird and the lips should be a bit more to the right (from viewer’s point of view), but other than that, I think it turned out pretty good. Yeah, the lip placement is still bothering me. But nothing to be done about it now, considering that it was sketched with a permanent medium. So short of scrapping it and starting over, nothing to be done about it now. But I really like to sketch with a permanent medium. If I don’T, I redraw and erase too much. And this eliminates it.

WEll, that’s the pics. Hope you like them at least a little bit and when I finish more of them, I’ll post them. Again with a short (or not so short) commentary.

See ya!

~AnnElfwind

Star Trek

I never thought I would become a Star Trek fan. When I was a kid, I might have seen an episode or maybe two, but that is probably pushing it. It probably wasn’t even a full episode that I saw. To be completely honest, I saw more episodes of Red Dwarf than Star trek. And I hated Red Dwarf. The only sci-fi at that time that I really liked was Stargate SG-1. I probably knew about the existence of Star Wars, but haven’T really seen it until I was in my early teens.

Frankly, I don’t even know why I watched the new Star Trek Beyond. Yes, that was the first one I saw in full even though it is the third in the new Star Trek Reboot.

And you know what? I think I know why I watched it. The new Star Wars came out, Ep. VII and I watched it only to watch Phantom Menace like twice in two days right after that and the original series right after (My favourite character is still Qui-Gon!). And then I was looking for more sci-fi that would be similarly interesting and so I happened across the new Star Trek.

I was hooked. During the last week I saw all three of the new movies twice and the first one thrice.

And before someone tells me to watch all the older series and movies, I won’t. I fell in love with the cast of the reboot and I’m not gonna ruin it with the old cast and old special effects. Even if it means I have to wait for the fourth movie to be out. And yes, according to IMDB there will be a fourth movie. I might not be a full fredged Star Trek fan, but I do love the new movies and decided that maybe I actually like the sci-fi genre after all. I was never much of a fan, I prefered urban fantasy and dark fantasy (no vampires or werewolves, not a big fan of those, especially after reading Twilight). But the thing is, my favourite urban fantasy author is melding it together with sci-fi so much that I have a feeling that I’ve been liking sci-fi a lot longer that it seems at first glance.

So, I know that die-hard trek fans will probably tell me that the older Star Trek is far better than the new one, but you know what, I’m not forcing you to prefer the new one, so I would like it if you do not force me to watch the old one.

And now that that’s out of the system, let’s just say that I needed to rant about my newfound love for the new Star Trek. Of course, I also kinda wanna strangle Uhura and force Jim and Spock together because Spirk. At least that’s what they are calling that pairing ove ron fanfiction.net.

Now, I’m gonna end it, post it and go wash my hair and then we shall see what happens after that.

See ya!

~AnnElfwind

 

20-6-2017 Edit: Why the hell did I name this Star WARS?! BTW, Problem fixed.

Skyrim

Several years ago I bought a game called Elder Scroll Series IV – Oblivion. You’re probably wondering what that has to do with Skyrim. Well, everything. As it was shortly after that that I got me Skyrim. Simply because I really enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim was a sort of sequel to it. To be honest, when I first installed Skyrim, I decided that I absolutely hate it. And so it was left in a drawer for years. Then, I gave the original copy to my cousin’s son for when he got a good enough pc to play it on. But then I got into nightcore, which has, at first glance, even less to do with Skyrim than Oblivion. But, there was this nightcored song… The Dragonborn Comes. And I figured that it was from Skyrim. Which got me thinking…. That maybe it was time to give Skyrim another go. So I installed it through steam and started playing.

At first, I got frustrated because it didn’t support my gamepad. But then I decided that screw it, if I could successfully play Oblivion with mouse and keyboard as well as most of Assassin’s Creed games, then I will be just fine playing Skyrim with mouse and keyboard. Though the first thing I did was to play with the keyboard mapping. Made it a bit closer to Oblivion – aka jump with E and action with spacebar. Admittedly, it is still slightly confusing, as the game shows me the original key mapping when it gives hints, but hey, I can manage! I did with Resident Evil 4 and there the key mapping is really ridiculous…

So far, I’m not that far into the game, only just past High Hrotgar, but I’m enjoying it immensely. Though, there is one thing I really don’t like! And that is that you can’t equip spell alongside your bow! At least, I haven’t figured that out yet! In Oblivion, you could equip whatever weapon you wanted to and still cast! That is something I miss here in Skyrim. But I guess we can’t have it all…

Also, someone tell me how to disable the cinematic finishing blows in fight… Those are really annoying and interrupt the gameplay as well as disorient you as to where the next enemy is coming from…

Oh, and the NPC names are crazy! I know it is trying to imitate the nordic tribes and so on and so forth, but come on! I’ve met a lot of characters a lot of times by now and the only names I remember are Ilireth (or something like that) and Alvar. At least Oblivion had normal names… Or maybe it is because I’ve simply been playing Oblivion longer. That’s probably it.

A question for those who also play Skyrim. Do you play with subs on? I mean, I can understand the characters just fine, but usually, I finish reading what they have to say before they finish saying it. Do any of you have the same problem? And is it even a problem? Well, it is in the situation where you can not just skip the speech.

Anyway! I enjoy Skyrim and I hope that by the time I finish the quests I will be able to remember at least some of the names.

And my favorite NPC’s are from Oblivion. Too bad two out of three bit the dust…

Before I finish this post, one more thing. DLC for Skyrim. Is it worth it? I would like this answered by someone who actually played the DLC. Not by someone who just read about it or something. Thanks!

~AnnElfwind

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Well, I got my hands on the book just a short few days ago. I started reading it and managed to get through two or three acts before just stopping. To be honest, I just couldn’t bring myself to continue reading. Normally, I always get into the books (HP books) within the first one or two pages, but this time, I was just bored. It just didn’t feel like Harry Potter anymore. And it had nothing to do with the play script format it is written in. I guess it’s just the fact that I never acknowledged the epilogue.

I consider Ginny to be a whore and I don’t like her. I can’t say I like Harry himself that much either, at least in canon. I rather like him in all those fanfics I’ve read. But that is mainly because those fics have slash pairings.

I don’t hate the books because they have heterosexual pairings, I don’t hate the books at all, well, no, I don’t hate them, but I don’t really like book number 6. My favorite has always been book three and now we’re getting off topic.

So, back to the Cursed child. I’d rather not spoil much of the book, but there are two points that just make me hate the book even more and make me glad that I did not finish reading it. How do I know these two things? Well, for those of you who don’t feel like reading the book, there is a condensed version on wikipedia. Well, I say condensed version, but it’s really just a lengthy summary. But it has all the main points and after reading that I really don’t have any need to read the actual book.

Spoiler alert now. I mean it, I will be now mentioning things that happen in the book.

The first thing about the book that really didn’t sit well with me is the fact that Voldemort had a daughter. With Bellatrix. Come on! Can it get any crazier than that? Add in the fact that I just can’t imagine Voldemort having sex with a woman? And Dark lord or no dark lord, do you really think Rodolphus would have had given Bella such a long leash? I don’t.

Another point is time travel. During most of the book, the new generation, mainly Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy travel back and forth in time to change things only to have it backfire on them over and over again. The whole thing about the ministry of magic squirreling away a time turner and having it hidden somewhere all this time is one thing. But the fact that the Malfoys had another one is really bogus. I don’t buy it. It’s the Malfoys we’re talking about. Do you really thing they wouldn’t use it for their gain? And if they had it all this time, I just can’t imagine Voldemort not finding about it…

Don’t get me wrong, I like stories that have multiple timelines and interlock past present and future, but they have to be done right! One fine example would be Circle of Magic: Danger in the Palace from Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. Another fine example would be in movies. Look at X-men: Days of future past or the Alice through the looking glass movie. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s time travel pales when compared with the before mentioned examples. Yes, the book I mentioned might not be really well known, but the time travel is done RIGHT in there!

Damn it! I’ve seen fanfictions written better than the Cursed Child book! It might be because Rowling co-wrote it with two more people or simply because she lost her edge, but I would definitely not recommend reading this eighth book. But if you absolutely have to know what happens in it, I suggest the summary on wiki. It tells you everything you need to know and saves you time and money.

There. Now you can bite my head of. But even if you do, it won’t change my opinion on the matter, which to sum it up in just a few words is this: Ginny is a whore and Voldemort should have won.

Bye!

~AnnElfwind

Pixels [2015]

“When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth in the form of the video games.” [1]

At first I didn’t want to watch this movie, because I’m not really a fan of comedies, but this was also sci-fi and contained arcade games. And I thought that I might like it, considering I loved Wreck-It-Ralph.

And I was right. Yes, there were some stupid moments, but all in all, I enjoyed the movie immensly. The basic plot is that the 1982 arcade game championship is filmed and then the footage is send to the space where it is found by aliens that consider it a declaration of war.

They come to attack earth some 20 or so years later. I’m not entirely sure what ‘present’ year it takes place in, but I’m guesssing that around 20-30 years passed from the championship.

A group of people, that are good at arcade games, or were, band together under the president, who used to be an arcade gamer too, though not that good, and they fight the aliens who re-create the arcade games in real life.

The movie is full of fun as well as intense moments and while I’m not a big fan of comedies, I am all for some fun and I think that this ‘comedy’ didn’t overdo it with the fun and that’s good.

The main characters are played by Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad.

The guy who played Boromir, Sean Bean, also makes an appearance. Not a big one, but one non the less and that was actually the main reason I watched the movie. Though in the end I enjoyed it regardless of Sean Bean.

The one actor that I didn’t like was Peter Dinklage, but not because of his acting skills, I think he’s a good actor, but I just don’t like the characters he playes. First it’s Trask in X-men, now this little cheating twit. Sure, his acting is good, but the characters he playes make me not like him.

I would definitely recommend the movie, but I would also say that it is not a movie for everyone. If you like crack-ish sci-fy, you will definitely like this. If you don’t, you might still like it, but it is not guaranteed.

The one thing I do when picking what movie to watch, I go by the people who play in them. If a favourite actor plays in it, I usually watch it without checking either the summary or anything else.

Most of the times it works. Unless we go by My Bloody Valentine, where I started watching and then I got curiious and went and googled who the murderer was before the movie ended and got angry that it was the actor because of whom I was watching the movie, who was the bad guy that I turned the movie off without finishing it. From that moment on, I decided that I would never look things up before actually finishing whatever it is I’m watching.

Not that that did me any good considering I did the same bloody thing with Prison Break, only there, I went and googled who of my favourite characters will survive. Again, stopped watching because of the answer I got.

[1] IMDB.com – Pixels

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil 6 is, so far, the newest Resident Evil game. A lot of charcters are back and some new ones come into play. The one main character return is Leon Kennedy who wasn’t part of the fifth gmae. Only mentioned there.

The sixth game is vastly different from RE4 and the ones before that. It is a lot like RE5 from what little I’ve played of that. The big difference is that RE 5 and 6 are controled not only by keyboard but also by mouse. Or you can just use the controler like I’m doing. For RE4 it is not necessary as it is playable with keyboard only, but RE 6 is best played with controler. Well, apart from certain parts that take too long to react to the controler.

But enough of my comparsions.

RE6 has four campaigns and three of them can be played with one out of two characters. First is Leon and Helena, second Chris Redfield and Pires Nivans, third Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin and the last one is a solo campaign where you play as Ada. She’s one of the few female characters that I actually like. All four of the campaigns take part during the same timeframe and the characters meet each other. Each of the campaigns meet at one point or another with all the others. And that is something that I really like about this game.

Of course, the fact that Ada has her own full length campaign, is a bonus, as well as Leon being back. Before fully trying RE6, I was always saying that RE4 was the best. But I take that back. RE6 is the best, so far.

Admitedly, I don’t relaly like Chris’s campaign, but that’s because Piers dies at the end. Or, well, it sure looks that way. Though fanfic authors decided that he lives and comes back. Bless them!

So far, I’m still deciding if my favourite is Leon’s or Ada’s campaign.

Leon’s campaign starts with the death of a president of USA and continues with a run through a city and trying to reach a chaple. There, they fight a boss with the help of some survivors that were there. Follows a trip to the underground to find Helena’s sister and another boss fight, thsi time, against said sister herself.

Then fleeing the crumbling dungeon and faking their deaths and going to China or wherever it is. It sounds chinese.

There, they meet Alpha team and then Sherry and Jake.

After that, they have to fight the final boss with the help of Ada. And then, the end.

Now, for the second campaign. Chris and Piers. They start on an earlier mission in Edonia. Fight some virus infected mutated things, two gigantic things, meet Sherry and Jake, then there is a time skip and we go to China. They fight their way through the infected city chasing Ada’s doppleganger and end up on a ship and then in an underground facility. But before that they meet with Leon and Helena while confronting said fake Ada.

In the underwater facility they meet Sherry and Jake and fight a gigantic thing called Haos. At the end, Piers is infected with enhanced C-virus and dies while protecting his captain. But like I said, I’m part of the group of people that believe that Piers is alive!

The third campaign starts in Edonia too. This is Jake and Sherry. Jake is immune to the C-virus and Sherry is tasked with protecting him. Well, it turns more like him protecting her, but I’ll let this slide.

They meet with Chris nad Piers and fight the two gigantic mutated things, then split up with them and go in a chopper. Well, throughout the whole campaign they are chased by this ‘thing’. It makes their chopper crash and they end up somwhere in a foggy place. And let’s just say that that is my least favourite part of their campaign. They end up in a cave and have to sneak past the ‘thing’ in order to escape. It can’t see them, but it has really good hearing and can her them if they mess up.

Not an easy part to play through.

After that, they are captured and have to escape an Umbrella facility in China. They meet up with Leon and Helena and have a quick go at the ‘thing’ before spliting up again.

They end up at the underwater facility where they meet Chris and Piers fot the second time and have to escape Haos, but at least they don’t have to fight it. On the other hand, they have to fight the ‘thing’ in a lava cave. My suggestion is to save your magnum shots for this fight. Or it will take ages.

The last campaign is Ada. She starts on a submarine and tehre learns of the C-virus and when she escapes, she makes her way to the chapple, well, the underground part of it. There, she meets Leon and Helena and helps with the fight agains Helena’s sister that mutated. Then, she goes on her own way and to China. Yes, everyone is going to China. There, she vitnesses Leon and Helena crashing a plane and has to fight a chainsaw boss. She saves Sherry from being shredded by a chopper rotor and continues on in pursuit of her own doppleganger. She end up fighting it (Carla) in it’s mutated state and manages to win. After that, she goes on to help Leon and Helena with their final boss – Simons.

The last thing Ada does is to wreck Carla’s lab in the Quad tower.

I think that Ada has the least of boss fights. But the encounter with Carla in her mutated form is probably the hardest. Well, hardest for Ada. Teh ahrdest alltogether is Haos! And I’m saing that mainly because Piers dies. I liked him! I didn’t want him to die!

Oh well.

I managed to win all four campaigns and to be honest, I’m never playing Chris’s again. I’m definitely replaying Ada and Leon. as for Jake, it is a maybe. I’ll probably replay it at some point, but Ada and Leon have the best campaigns. That’s for sure.

Again, there are some extras and there are a lot more things you can do with the game, but you have to have an official version, not just a download from somwhere like I do. But it’s not like I’m planning to play online with someone playing the other member of the pair.

There’s also something like Agent hunt, but again, requires to be able to play online, therefore official version. I’m not missing it though.

And now, that this post is completed, I’ll go and play some RE6.

~AnnElfwind