nerdflood

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Castlevania Judgment is going to be a tremendous failure. I can say that, under the premise of it being nothing more than my opinion, but it is fact. Or will be, once the game is on shelves. Maybe the game itself will be a miraculous marvel of gaming engineering. The unfortunate truth is that no one will know, because no one will bother to buy or play the game.

Igarashi has already pointed out that he doesn’t think ‘core’ third-party games do well on the Wii. That would presumably also include his OWN ‘core’ third-party game. Why would he put forth any semblance of effort into making this game if he already believes it doomed to failure? Especially when he can just re-skin the levels and characters from his last couple of DS Castlevania games and make a brand new DS Castlevania game that will sell tremendously well at next to no cost.

Also, I’m finding it difficult to recall–or even Google search–ANY fighting games in Konami’s prestigious history. There probably is at least one, but the fact that no one seems to know about it does not bode well for that title–or Castlevania Judgment.

The inevitable fallout from Judgment’s eventual fall from grace will be that Igarashi and Capcom will–in unison–point at the failure and proclaim boldly “SEE! This PROVES that ‘core’ third-party games don’t perform well on the Wii! We told you!” And then they’ll sneak away, cackling with glee, and plan the fourth and fifth DS Castlevania games, which will be near-identical re-creations of the first DS Castlevania game, but labeled as BLUE VERSION and WHITE VERSION.

Can you hear that sound? It’s me; crying.

As if there weren’t already enough places for geeks to hang out online, another challenger approaches! Popular science fiction publisher Tor has re-launched their website as a mini scifi geek social network, and I have to admit, it has an excellent set of initial features and offerings.

First things first: here’s my profile. It will be added to the sidebar just as soon as I get a chance to re-install Flash on the computer and create a new fancy button (a story for a later time).

So, what is there to see and do on the new Tor.com site? Plenty. The main focus of the site appears to be a multi-author blog with contributions from leading names in the ever-clashing world of geeks: John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Irene Gallo, Bruce Baugh, Patrick Nielsen Hayden - great content, which looks like it will be updated often.

And what else would you expect to find on a literature site? That’s right, free stories! Already a couple of short stories by John Scalzi and Charlie Stross have been posted, with the promise of more on the way. A great marketing tactic to get newcomers interested in purchasing the long form fiction: get them hooked on the free samples. Really looking forward to seeing more of this in the future.

Besides literature, there’s also art galleries featuring creative works of some utterly phenomenal science fiction and fantasy artists. Amazing work to be found here.

The profiles are another aspect of the new site. A bit boring if you’re already used to filling out profiles on other social networks, but it’s a nice way to connect everything together in a central dashboard. Especially nice is the ability to bookmark specific sections of the site for referencing later. For instance, I’ve bookmarked both of the posted short stories to get to when I have a free moment, as well as a gallery of artwork that has been modified into traditional computer wallpaper. Slick. I can also point people directly to my bookmarks. I think we have a winner.

Want a photo gallery? Well, even if you don’t, it’s in there. So you get to either use it, or ignore it. It will likely come in handy for showing off photos from geek conventions of you posing awkwardly with semi-famous writers and bloggers. Not that that ever happens. To me.

The message board system is a wonderful invention, probably because it reminds me so much of how FriendFeed works. You can go in and create separate threads, just like in a regular message board. However, comments can be posted on blog posts, stories, or even the individual art pieces. All comments everywhere on the site are coalesced and fed into one location, making following conversations damned simple and satisfying.

So far, I’m definitely enjoying the new redesign, even though I haven’t had much time available to do anything more than poke my head around the various features that have been implemented. I hope to actually participate soon, and look forward to seeing the site evolve over time as people begin to settle in, make friends, and enjoy geek conversation.

I know this blog hasn’t exactly been a “flood” of “nerd” the past few days, and I apologize to regular readers for the lack of content. I’ve spent the past few days buried at work, sans-internet at home, and acting as temporary single dad to my two boys while the wife visited her mother. It’s been crazy, but I have a lot of things to talk about, and will get to doing that very soon. Maybe. We’ll see. I dunno. Check with me next week.

Enjoy, not that I actually have to tell you that.

I missed giving Rainwave some much-needed attention in the past couple of months, which is an especially grievous crime given the fact that so much has happened to the service recently.

What is Rainwave? It’s a service that streams music via an ogg vorbis stream from seven generations’ worth of excellent video games. Not only that, but the website is a slick presentation of style and functionality. Create an account and you can interact with the sites fellow users. For instance, during each song, three choices are displayed for the next song. Each member can vote on their favorite, and the song with the most votes gets played. You can also request playtime for your favorite song from Rainwave’s extensive collection of video game music. It’s an amazing system that works perfectly and provides great music and ample entertainment.

I first mentioned Rainwave back in June of last year, just after it was launched. Since then, the site’s creator, Robert McAuley, has acquired popular streaming video game music site Ormgas. Ormgas was a site that streamed music from the enormous (and growing) library of video game remixes hosted at Overclocked Remix. Now, all of that music has been transferred to Rainwave and has been available for your listening pleasure since the end of June.

Due to the fairly drastic difference between the two libraries of music, they are available under separate streams.

• The standard Rainwave stream plays only original, unaltered video game music
• http://rainwave.cc/rainwave.m3u

• The Ormgas stream plays customized remixes of classic video game music from Overclocked Remix
• http://ormgas.rainwave.cc/ormgas.m3u

Nintendo’s E3 press conference was this morning. My co-worker and I got the opportunity to watch it over our lunch break. And let me tell you, I want that hour back. Here’s a list of what they announced (plus my quick thoughts on each in bold).

• New Animal Crossing for the Wii. No.
• We Speak microphone for online chat to be introduced along with Animal Crossing. Has potential (but it all depends on whether or not they actually use it in more than just this one game).
• Wii Sports Resort (otherwise known as Wii Sports 2). Minigames. Sigh; I suppose.
• Wii MotionPlus add-on to be packaged with Wii Sports Resort. Has potential (but once again, it all depends on whether or not they actually utilize it in more than one game).
• Recipe cookbook? No.
• Grand Theft Auto for DS? No.
• Guitar Hero on Tour for DS? Plus a sequel already? Double no.
• Wii Music. Heavens above, NO.

The alleged announcement that Nintendo promised would make us core gamers happy never arrived. Kid Icarus? The next Zelda? Another Metroid title, but in a different style? No. None of the above.

Oh, wait! What’s that Reggie? You know what the core gamer should be excited about coming from Nintendo? Please, we’re all ears!

As I wrapped my chat with Miyamoto, I ran into Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America and asked him: “What games should the hardcore fans be playing later this year?”

Reggie quickly replied: “‘Grand Theft Auto‘ on the DS and ‘Animal Crossing‘ on the Wii.”

Let me repeat that: Reggie thinks Animal Crossing is a hardcore gamer title. Really, Reggie? Do you actually think that? Could it have gotten lost while being translated to English from the nebulous language of marketing bullet-point sheet? No? Hmm.

Luckily there’s still some hope that some third party publishers will be pushing out some quality content this year, because it’s painfully obvious from today’s press conference that Nintendo doesn’t care about its core anymore. They want more of that sweet casual money that has launched them back to the top.

In keeping with the disappointing scifi discussion I started last week, my feed updated this morning with a painfully dreadful post on the scifi/fantasy novelists blog from David B. Coe. In it, Coe talks about what it’s like to be a midlist author.

I’m not really going anywhere with this post. I have a book to finish and page proofs to read through. I woke up this morning knowing that it was my day to post on the blog, and this is what I was thinking about. I’m in the middle. Of everything, it seems like. And right now it’s all feeling like bit of a slog. I’d love to finish with something uplifting and hopeful, filled with determination and a promise that I will eventually have that huge success. But this is a tough business, and I understand that we can’t all be bestsellers and household names. Someone has to fill the midlist, and I’m not willing to give up my position here if it means moving anywhere but up. It’s not a bad place to be; not by any means. Let’s be honest, though: No writer begins his or her career striving for the middle.

There it is, folks. Most people aspiring to be an author, including myself, will end up right here. In the middle. Existing, comfortably, but always hoping for more.

To be honest, isn’t that part of the beauty and the curse of the human machine? We are beings of hope and desire, always grasping at the next rung on some mythical ladder of prominence. Think about it: at one point, Coe aspired to be nothing more than an author. The fates granted him that one wish, and he became an author. Now, he hopes for more notoriety. How many of the rest of us in his position would desire the same thing? And what if someday he hits upon a singular radical concept that propels him to fame and fortune and household namery (that’s not a word - don’t look it up)? Would it not be natural for him to then wish for yet another chance to strike at success, and continue his ascension up the ladder?

Seeing a post like this reminds me of one of the stark truths to being an author: it is a job. It is work. And just like the guy stuck in middle management of a small marketing team for Global Corporation XYZ, just being an author does not guarantee enormous wealth and success. It’s a job. And sometimes, just working harder doesn’t necessarily get you any higher up on the ladder.

It’s a fairly dark and depressing post that Coe made today, but I’m really glad he had the guts to write it.

So, nominees for the Hugo awards have been announced. Here’s my thoughts:

Nominees for Best Novel

• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael Chabon (I haven’t read this one yet)
• Brasyl Ian McDonald (haven’t gotten to this one, either)
• Rollback Robert J. Sawyer (nope, haven’t read it)
• The Last Colony John Scalzi (I’ve read Old Man’s War and Ghost Brigades…but not this one)
• Halting State Charles Stross (you guessed it; haven’t read it)

And I’m not even touching novellas and short stories. Seriously, am I that far behind in my science fiction reading? My reading stack contains books that were nominated for Nebulas and Hugos back in 2005 and 2006.

I blame my slippage on apportioning too much of my time to the worlds of Harry Potter and the Starks, respectively, not that I begrudge any time spent within those wonderful fictional universes. It was just proportionately misaligned.

In the time I was trudging through Half-Blood Prince and Storm of Swords, amazing science fiction novels were gracing the shelves, and I was carelessly ignoring them. Either I’m a fool, or a drone, in any case, I have a monumental task ahead of me. I need to get caught up on all of the fantastic science fiction that’s been written in the past couple of years, starting with the Hugo nominees for this year.

Any other suggestions? Yikes. I don’t even know where to go next.

I wanted to play around with Posterous, and I was banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what to do with it. Once I came to, hours later, a concept had become embedded deep within my brain - lodged next to bits of drywall and plaster. A mini-blog where I review everything. Well, not everything, so to speak, but actually just anything.

Maybe I should rename it.

In any case, Nathaniel Reviews Everything is “live” with a measly two posts. I plan to attempt to update it every day with some review of some inanimate object, website, food, celebrity, movie, book, abstract concept - whatever trips my fancy at the moment I get the itch to write something. And I’m open to suggestions! Leave a comment or email me with an idea of something to review. I’ve already gotten a couple ideas, and a few more have rattled around in my brain today.

This might be interesting, and it might not. In any case, it will be fun, AND a good daily creative writing exercise. Success!

It was tough going to get this Famitsu article translated, but some enterprising Tales forum members were up to the task. One nearly inconsequential bullet point actually becomes a major supporting concept for my theory that the Wii will replace the PS2 as a home for jRPG goodness. Namco Bandai has apparently announced that after this year–which will see a new Tales entry on the 360 (Vesperia) and the DS (Hearts)–further “mothership” Tales titles will debut on the Wii. Mothership titles in the Namco world are considered brand new entries in the Tales universe, and do not include sequels, spin-offs, or remakes.

To have such overwhelming support from a premiere jRPG publisher as Namco Bandai is particularly telling. Now we just need to see Square Enix fall into line, and the movement will be complete. However, with Square Enix showing much more interest in the PS3 and the DS than anything else, I don’t actually see this happening.