Sony may just have won me over.

D'Arque Bishop

Last night, two of the big three console manufacturers had their E3 press conferences. Microsoft was first, followed by Sony. I ended up watching both, and had to admit that Sony had the more impressive showing.

It should be noted that while I had owned a Sony Playstation 2 during the generation-before-last, it wasn’t because I really liked Sony more than the others. My original console of choice for that generation was the Nintendo GameCube; I had purchased a Playstation 2 because Mortal Kombat: Deception was originally not going to be on the GameCube. The Playstation 2 seemed to have more games than I wanted than the Xbox, so I went that route.

The usual deciding factor for me in regards to getting a console is a “must have” game. For the Playstation/Nintendo 64 generation, no game caught my interest so I stayed pretty much PC-only. For the Playstation 2/Xbox/GameCube generation, the game that sold me on a console was Metroid Prime for GameCube. For the Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Wii generation, the game that sold me on a choice was Gears of War for 360.

Up until now, there hadn’t been a game that really SOLD me on a console. Microsoft’s press conference yesterday didn’t sell me on any games, either; while Halo 5: Guardians looked interesting, for example, I only had a raised eyebrow for Sunset Overdrive. Sony, on the other hand, got my attention with one game: No Man’s Sky. There was little in the way of introduction; the gameplay video was shown to us without context.

Wow. Just… wow. I honestly didn’t know what to make of it when the character was exploring the presumably alien world. I raised an eyebrow when the character jumped into his fighter, and started flying away. I was sold when the ship left the atmosphere into space, and a fleet of capital ships jumped in nearby. I knew I wanted the game when the fighter flew into the atmosphere of another, different planet. The transitions were seamless and the graphics wonderful.

Later on, Sony discussed a piece of hardware that only solidified my decision: the Playstation TV. The Playstation TV is a small device that fits in the palm of your hand. With it, you can actually play games from your Playstation 4 on a second TV via Remote Play (similar to Steam’s In-Home Streaming). This might solve a problem Jennifer and I are currently having, in that Jennifer LOVES the LEGO games, but her console is a Nintendo Wii. WB Games has not released any LEGO games for Wii since LEGO The Lord of the Rings, and she’s been a bit bummed about not being able to play LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. While we could get them for my 360, I would feel bad about making her have to isolate herself in my office to play, especially when she’s used to playing on our home theater. (My 32″ LCD HDTV is fine for me.) This way, Jennifer could play her LEGO games via the home theater. :-)

I admit to surprise, really, because this past generation actually made me rather antipathic towards Sony. I actually had three major problems with Sony during the Playstation 3 era. The first was that the console was too expensive. The second was the absolutely horrid security model for Playstation Network that allowed it to be so thoroughly compromised that it was shut down for several months in 2011 for repair. The third was the forced removal of OtherOS, which allowed Playstation 3 owners to run Linux on their consoles. This removal was forced via firmware updates, even while the official website still touted OtherOS support. I simply felt Sony didn’t care about their customers.

That appears to have changed, however. Not only is the Playstation 4 in a reasonable price point, they’re doing a fairly decent job of making game functionality available to players. I’d been hearing from friends that they’d been better this generation, and it seems to me like this is the case. I’m not sure when I would pick up a Playstation 4 (and a Playstation TV), but it’d be closer to the end of the year. As it stands, the two games I could see getting for it (other than No Man’s Sky) are Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight, both of which will come out in 2015.

Until then, I’m fine with my Xbox 360 and PC. While an Xbox One isn’t definitely out, Microsoft’s going to have to show a hell of a lot more than they have to convince me to get one over a Playstation 4. :-)

Buying reading local, whenever possible…

D'Arque Bishop

My reading queue seems to be growing faster than I can finish stuff. :-)

I had posted before about setting Sundays aside as my reading days. As of late, that habit has been broken, though I have been doing a relatively decent job of reading through books. As soon as I finish books, however, I end up adding more to replace them. The queue is ever-changing, and what may have been a high-priority read at one time sometimes ends up at the end of the line. Amusingly enough, the three books I mentioned in the aforementioned post are still in the “to read” queue.

Admittedly, the majority of our book buying recently has come from Amazon, if only because of the price and convenience. That being said, whenever possible we like to buy from local bookshops… and by local, I mean “locally owned”. We try to avoid Barnes and Noble if we can at all help it, for example, but we have been known to go into Half-Price Books. On our last couple of trips to Austin, we made a point to stop at BookPeople, an independent bookstore which has the claim to fame of being the largest in Texas (independent or chain). My last trip, I bought several books, including the proto-Lovecraftian horror anthology The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers, both volumes of The Intergalactic Nemesis, and a non-fiction book called Doctor Who and Philosophy.

Today, as part of our errands, Jennifer and I were in the Rice Village area. Instead of hitting Pearland Coffee Roasters for coffee, we decided to hit House of Coffee Beans in the Village. As it so happened, House of Coffee Beans is literally next door to my favorite Houston bookstore, Murder By The Book, so Jennifer had no problem with us going there first. :-)

It might come as a surprise to some, but my favorite literary genre right behind science-fiction/fantasy is the mystery story. I don’t collect mystery books anywhere near as much as I do sci-fi/fantasy, but I really do enjoy them when I get them. Some of my favorite TV shows have also been mysteries, like the various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes, Castle, Diagnosis Murder, In the Heat of the Night, and so on. A whole bookstore of mystery novels, as you might imagine, is right down my alley.

The problem, however, is that I get lost easily, as my knowledge of the mystery genre is not nearly as advanced as my knowledge of sci-fi. That’s where the staff of Murder By The Book shines, in that they have always been friendly and willing to help and lend their expertise. As a result, I end up leaving with a book I didn’t even know existed (much less had intended to get). For example, as mentioned in the previously referred post, I had noticed a book by ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame on display, and bought it on the staff’s recommendation. I ended up enjoying the book.

This time, while Jennifer picked up the latest Christopher Moore book, I picked up two books for myself. The first was a book by an author named C. Robert Cargill called Dreams and Shadows. While Cargill had written the well-received horror movie Sinister, I had first become aware of him when he was a reviewer for Ain’t It Cool News, under the pseudonym “Massawyrm”. Cargill’s reviews were easily my favorite thing about the site at the time; I had known of his book, but this was the first time I had seen a copy and decided to pick up a copy for myself.

The second book I picked up was called Loki’s Wolves by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr. Unlike Dreams and Shadows, which I had at least heard of, Loki’s Wolves was completely unknown to me. The series itself is called The Blackwell Pages; I saw the second book on a table, with a note from a staff member recommending it, especially if one liked the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. That in particular drew my eye, as Jennifer and I both enjoy that series. (She’s much further along in it than I am.) I eventually found Loki’s Wolves (the first book), and my decision to purchase it was cemented when the gentleman checking us out praised the book rather highly.

Both books are in my reading queue now; I’m thinking I may have both read by the end of the month, but if worst comes to absolute worst I’ll save them for our upcoming trip to Corpus Christi. After all, other than playing in the water, my favorite thing to do at the beach is sit back in a chair and get lost in a good book. :-) I’m just hoping I can find time to go back to Murder By The Book at some point soon to get some more reading material.

But then, that would depend on me making space in my reading queue so it doesn’t become unmanageable. ;-)

(BTW, if you have a Goodreads account, you can find mine here. I don’t review books per se, but you can see what I’ve rated books I’ve read, and what’s in my queue.)

I’m not going for a Gorey Dracula just yet.

D'Arque Bishop

When Jennifer and I went to see Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike this past Sunday, we happened to notice a flyer in the playbill advertising the next season of the Alley Theatre. Reading it, I saw that one of the first plays they had listed was Dracula. This was the original stage play based off of Stoker’s novel, which became the basis for the 1931 classic film starring Bela Lugosi and the 1977 film starring Frank Langella.

As I’m a fan of vampire stories and Dracula is my favorite vampire novel, I figured it would be fun to see. However, I then noted that the flyer said the production features “the extraordinary designs of Edward Gorey”. At that, my heart sank a little.

If you’re not familiar with Edward Gorey, he’s a dark and macabre artist who I personally know best for having animated the intro/outro for the old PBS series Mystery! (and later Masterpiece Mystery).

I used to have a beautiful hardcover edition of Dracula with art by Greg Hildebrandt, best known for his work on the original Star Wars poster. The artwork in the book was a mixture of penciled drawings and painted works, with models playing each of the characters. (There was a credit list at the end of the book.) It was my favorite edition of the book, and to this day I wish I knew what the hell happened to it.

After that disappeared, my parents found a new hardcover edition of Dracula for me, with art by Edward Gorey. I was thankful for the gift, but it just wasn’t the same as the Hildebrandt version. I admit I tend to be a very visual person, and I really enjoyed how the Hildebrandt edition’s artwork not only showed the characters, but showed them in the different scenes throughout the novel. By contrast, the Gorey edition only had simple cartoonish character portraits.

I still have the Gorey edition, but I’ve since picked up a new hardcover copy with artwork by Becky Cloonan. Both Cloonan and Hildebrandt illustrate the novel’s events as opposed to doing simple portraits, but where they differ is that instead of using models and going for realism like Hildebrandt, Cloonan goes for a graphic novel style. It works very well for the book, and the book in fact ends up with far more illustrations, with the typeset sometimes going around the art. I have to say, I’m really digging this edition, about as much as the Hildebrandt edition.

As far as the Alley Theatre production goes, I’m still very undecided whether I want to go or not. While I’d like to see the original stage play, I can’t say that it’s my favorite version of the story. On the other hand, it can’t be as bad as Dracula: A Musical Nightmare, a musical version I had seen close to twenty years ago that turned out to be a comedic play-within-a-play that was frankly a right mess. In addition, Gorey’s designs seem too cartoonish/comical for me to really take seriously. That may be unfair, however, as the only reference point I have with them regarding Dracula is that book. On the other hand, at least one of my favorite Alley actors is starring in the production.

I’ve got time to think on it, as the play doesn’t open until October. I might spring for a matinee performance or go if there’s a good offer on tickets. Otherwise, as of right now, I’m leaning towards not going. It’s a shame, but while it might be my favorite vampire novel, I don’t feel the need to go to a performance if I’m not sure I’m going to like it.

Not feeling the buzz from the Buzztime upgrade.

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

I admit to a little bit of disappointment and annoyance. These are rare emotions in me when it comes to a tech upgrade.

The other day, Jennifer and I went to one of our old haunts to get some dinner. This particular location has Buzztime, which is a gaming system designed for bars. If you’ve ever been to a bar and some of their televisions were showing trivia and/or poker, that’s Buzztime. (I’ve written about them before.) This location we were going to had undergone some renovation; among these renovations was an upgrade to the Buzztime system.

Before, Buzztime could be played by either a clunky plastic Playmaker unit with an LCD screen that would as often as not be broken or stop working during gameplay, or via a smartphone app on iOS or Android. As you might imagine, I preferred the latter. Now at post-upgrade locations, Buzztime is played using special tablets running what appear to be a custom version of Android, and with several single-player games in addition to the trivia and poker games. I even noted that the unit had a credit/debit card reader on it, for a reason that was not at all clear.

The thing that threw us at first, however, was that absolutely none of the televisions were showing Buzztime content. We kind of raised our eyebrows at that, as we began to wonder if they were actually using the Buzztime stuff. I had thought they were, as I had received an email regarding their having it. When the waitress walked by, we requested two Playmakers and for one of the televisions to be switched to Buzztime. The waitress informed us that the Buzztime content was entirely on the tablets.

She turned out to be right. When we received the tablets and signed on, we found that the trivia screens et al that would normally have appeared on the televisions were now on the tablet, and that you just pressed on the choice on the screen to indicate your answer.

That left it with two major problems, in my opinion. The first problem was that the mobile apps were now pretty much useless at these locations. I prefer playing using my own device, and while I had briefly launched the app when I arrived at the restaurant to see if our location was still listed, I didn’t check to see if the questions would appear on the screen on my phone as well. I decided to ask Buzztime’s Twitter account about it yesterday, and got this answer:

So, unless I’m at a location that hasn’t upgraded, I can’t use my phone anymore. That’s a bummer, considering my experiences with the previous generation of Playmakers.

The other problem is that it reduces the social aspect of the games. To use us as an example, before we would be looking up at either each other or at the televisions. We could even “share” while we were on separate games; Jennifer would be playing trivia, and I would be playing poker, and I could give her answer suggestions while she could get an idea of what was happening with the poker game. Now, though, our eyes are down on the tablets, concentrating entirely on our own games. If we were not playing the same game, she would need to show her screen to me if she wanted help or if I wanted to see how she was doing.

It’s a shame, really. I had wanted to like the upgrade, but now Buzztime seems a little less fun. I may give it another try or two, especially if they update their mobile apps to allow for playing in upgraded locations. Until then, I’m not as much in a hurry to get back and play as I used to be.

A return to the Gauntlet…

D'Arque Bishop

I’m a happy nostalgic gamer right now. :-)

A few months ago, WB Games announced that they were rebooting one of my favorite arcade games from the 80’s: Gauntlet. If you’re not familiar with Gauntlet, it’s a top-down dungeon crawler game, with adventurers in search of treasure while trying to stay alive. The latter part was difficult, as enemies of all kinds were plentiful, and your health constantly diminished even without taking damage. There is a reason the game is known for the saying, “Elf needs food badly!”

I used to love playing Gauntlet in arcades. The graphics were wonderful for the time, and all four characters (warrior, valkyrie, wizard, and elf) were actually unique and had different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the warrior was the best brawler but was very weak in magic, while the elf was very fast and great at ranged attacks, but couldn’t melee worth crap. :-) The game had a sequel and another reboot in the 90’s which I admittedly rarely played. I even got the NES port by Tengen that gave an actual story to the game (well before Gauntlet Legends). I ALMOST finished the game, but got stuck on a level in the last section and ended up giving up. To be fair, I’ve since seen the ending and it wasn’t worth the time I had put in. ;-)

Today, WB Games released another trailer for their reboot of the game.

I have to say, I really like this.

The addition of different gear with different effects brings the game in line with modern dungeon crawlers, yet the game definitely keeps the feel of the original four characters. If anything, it reminds me of Gauntlet by way of Diablo III (which is not a bad thing for me). The game also retains some of the original sound effects (if the trailer is to be believed), and game mechanics such as keys opening walls still remain.

It’s not surprising that it looks as good as it does, though. I’ve also played another game by Arrowhead Game Studios called Magicka, which was a quirky and enjoyable dungeon crawler in its own right. Based on time with Magicka and what I’ve seen so far, I’ve pretty much considered the game a definite buy. It’s available for preorder via Steam, and should be out on September 3rd. Normally I would buy it for my Xbox 360 instead of PC, but while Arrowhead/WB Games have hinted at a console version, one has not been officially announced.

Still, I’m excited for this game, no matter what platform I’ll be playing it on. Here’s hoping Arrowhead does as good a job with this as they did with Magicka.

Scott and Jennifer and Vanya and Sonia and…

D'Arque Bishop

It’s been a fairly quiet stage theater season for us.

While Jennifer and I both love theater, very few of the productions being shown this year have really drawn our attention. Nothing at Theatre Under the Stars looked interesting enough for us to spend the high price to go, and Bayou City Theatrics‘s season mainly made us go, “Huh?” As far as non-musical theater goes, our favorite is Alley Theatre, but again there wasn’t anything playing that we found too terribly interesting. The exception came when we were waiting for the Brit Floyd show (which was across the street from the Alley), and we saw one of the shows for this season was Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. We knew it had been the winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, so we thought it couldn’t be THAT bad. We went ahead and got tickets, and saw it this past Sunday night.

So, how was it? Well, I liked it more than Jennifer did.

The entire play is pretty much a homage to the works of Anton Chekhov; Jennifer was far more familiar with Chekhov’s work than I was, so I was basically only seeing it on the surface without getting the reference. The play itself was about two siblings (one adopted) living in the same home they had since childhood, spending their days bemoaning the fact that they never did anything with their lives. Their expenses are paid by their sister Masha, who works as a movie actress. Masha returns home with her protegee and love interest, the handsome yet dim Spike, and informs her siblings that she intends to sell the house. The play then proceeds with the siblings worrying about Masha’s decision, Masha’s own insecurity about being upstaged, and Spike’s inability to keep his clothes on.

All in all, I enjoyed the performance and found it quite amusing and heartfelt. Admittedly, my favorite character was the housekeeper Cassandra, one of two non-title characters. Her character was funny, sassy, and resembled her namesake from Greek legend in that she would make dire predictions, but no one would believe her. The actress who played Cassandra played her with plenty of attitude to pull the role off.

I have to say that I was surprised by the other non-title character, Nina. Introduced as a potential rival for Spike’s affections, I was expecting the literal girl-next-door to be an antagonist, working against Masha to get Spike. The character was very sweet and kind, and instead of being interested in Spike found herself working alongside Vanya until the climax of the play, in which she helps Vanya perform a stage work he had written.

The only characters I really didn’t care for were Spike and Masha. Spike was one-dimensional and most likely intentionally so, more concerned about himself than those around them. Masha, on the other hand, was shrill and insensitive, and I found it difficult to feel sympathy for her as she worked to upstage everyone around her. Admittedly, neither Jennifer nor I have ever actually liked the actress who plays her, so my bias is probably showing there.

Again, not being familiar with Chekhov’s works, I only saw the surface elements in it. Once Jennifer explained Chekhov’s style to me, I got an impression of the deeper meaning; however, I get the feeling that I enjoyed it despite the Chekhov symbolism. Based on how Jennifer described his works, I don’t think I would enjoy them very much at all. Perhaps that’s why I liked the play more than she did.

Still, I was glad I got a chance to see Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and would recommend giving it a try if it’s playing near you.

An end to a work coffee era.

D'Arque Bishop

Well, today was a long time coming.

I’m a coffee drinker. However, for health reasons, I only drink decaffeinated coffee. Some people might wonder why I would do so, but the simple fact is that I like the taste, plus being warm it helps wake me up in the morning. Being a decaf coffee drinker has its drawbacks, though, especially in the workplace. Usually, I end up being the only one who needs the decaf coffee.

At my last job, the IT department had its own contract through Community Coffee, and my boss had no problem with ordering decaf coffee for me. Once I left there and came to my current job, I found that I was the only decaf drinker, and the fact it was a smaller company and didn’t have the huge coffeemakers my last job did meant I was essentially out in the cold. I brought in my own coffeemaker, and started buying my own coffee.

A month or two after I started here, though, one of my former coworkers at the last job let me know that the CIO had said that as no one else was going to be drinking the decaf coffee, I was welcome to what remained. On my lunch break a day or two later, I went back there and picked up their remaining decaf coffee. It was about five or six boxes worth, which in the past would have lasted me a few months. Each box contained bags of coffee; each bag was good for one oversized carafe of coffee. As I was using a normal household coffeemaker, I didn’t quite need as much for each carafe. A few times since, I’ve supplemented it with the very occasional (as in, once a year) bag of Rouses Coffee or Cafe Du Monde.

That was well over three years ago. This morning, I used the very last of that Community coffee.

In that time, I’ve since replaced the standard coffeemaker with a small Keurig machine, but have still used the Community coffee with a My K-Cup reusable cup/filter unit. Now that I’m done with the leftover Community, though, I really don’t have any intention of switching to regular K-cups. I can get better coffee by going to local places like House of Coffee Beans or Pearland Coffee Roasters, and it will probably be cheaper overall than using the disposable K-cups. While I’ve only had House of Coffee Beans coffee once or twice, I have had Pearland Coffee Roasters coffee several times (at Killen’s Steakhouse), and have found it to be fantastic.

Still, it’s a bit bittersweet losing that supply of coffee that at one time looked like it was going to be infinite. I now have an “emergency” stash of Donut House Decaf K-cups at my desk, and this weekend I’ll probably get the Pearland Coffee Roasters stuff. I guess it’s time for me to get used to bringing coffee in on a regular basis. :-)

I tried to make site changes, but they didn’t work too well.

D'Arque Bishop

Well, that last post about Mortal Kombat X didn’t work out nearly as well as I wanted it to.

The biggest reason was because after the announcement from Ed Boon and the posting of the teaser trailer, I was focusing more on the function of my own site than reading the press release or looking at the new website. I was having trouble with the comment system, and wanted to get that fixed first.

My site currently uses Disqus for its comment system, just like a lot of other sites. I didn’t have a problem with it; it’s worked pretty well for what I wanted to use it for. However, a couple of days ago I learned of an add-on for WordPress called Jetpack, which supplements a self-hosted WordPress install with functionality from WordPress.com. Among the additions given was an improved comment system over the original one WordPress comes with, so I decided to go ahead and give it a try, installing it on Saturday and deactivating Disqus.

Part of my thinking was that with the new Jetpack features, including the comment system and the better cross-post to social media functionality, I could start using my site more for posts that I would normally keep on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+. I also wanted to make it easier for people to comment on my posts.

Unfortunately, the Jetpack comment system failed to appear. The comment system remained just like the old default WordPress comment system, no matter what I tried.

I finally did some research this morning, and found the answer: my theme is too out of date. With version 3.0, WordPress changed the internals of the comment system, and themes needed to be updated in order to take advantage of the new features. I had no idea at the time, as I had already migrated to Disqus by that point. Changing it by myself was not something I could do, as I’m practically worthless when it comes to CSS and PHP coding. I tried switching to the Twenty Fourteen theme, but was not happy with it. For a bit, I was unsure what to do.

The answer, as it was, came via a simple question: “Who comments on my site, anyway?” :-)

In the end, I decided to keep Jetpack installed, along with several of its add-ons. I went ahead and disabled the comment add-on, and went back to using Disqus. For what I need, it works pretty well and I never had a real complaint with how it works. In fact, when looking closer at Disqus, it already did everything I wanted the Jetpack comment system to do anyway.

As for the site itself, I’m going to go ahead and try to post more to it. The Mortal Kombat X post kind of deflated my sails a bit, but I’d like to use this site for a bit more than the occasional post that is longer than what I would put on Facebook/Twitter/Google+. It looks a bit lost and abandoned when I don’t keep it up-to-date.

We’ll see what happens.

Mortal Kombat – X Marks the Spot?

D'Arque Bishop

Over the past month, Ed Boon has been posting a countdown on Twitter, with “zero hour” coming today. At 8 AM, he made his big announcement.

Shortly afterwards, the first teaser trailer for Mortal Kombat X was unveiled.

At first thought… well, I’m not sure what to think.

The trailer itself gives a good indication of what we can expect, gameplay-wise, with moves and attacks similar to what we saw in Mortal Kombat (2011), but with new features like using the environment against your opponent. The character designs are pretty respectable as well; for example Sub-Zero looking like he pretty much always does, with the added feature of his eyes glowing ice-blue. Scorpion looks more like the design used in Injustice: Gods Among Us, with his mask harkening back to the plain yellow face-covering used in the old games, and the hood being looser and not as form-fitting.

However, for me, the teaser is nowhere near as comprehensive as the teaser for the last game. For example, we still don’t know what the plotline is; while chances are the game will start at the new timeline’s version of Mortal Kombat 4, there’s no hint of Quan Chi, Shinnok (the Big Bad of Mortal Kombat 4), or indeed anything from the last game. In fact, the teaser raises an interesting storyline question. In the previous game, the older Sub-Zero was killed and transformed into the specter Noob Saibot. The younger Sub-Zero was transformed into a cyborg, and died at the hands of Sindel; his soul is now enslaved by Quan Chi, but retains the cyborg appearance. Was he given a new body, and if so, why is he fighting Scorpion (who also serves Quan Chi)? Could this be a brand new Sub-Zero?

Also, is the X in Mortal Kombat X a reference to the letter or the Roman numeral?

EDIT: Patrick McCarron of TRMK just pointed out to me that it’s the latter.

https://twitter.com/lover_of_tacos/status/473480913012002816

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really interested in the game, as while Mortal Kombat 4 was my least favorite of the arcade titles, I also thought it had a lot of storyline potential. Hpwever, unlike the other games in the series, we’ve never had a really good look at how the events of Mortal Kombat 4 played out. While some of the endings were concise and were quickly shown to be canon (Raiden becoming an Elder God, Scorpion learning Quan Chi killed his family), some were so vague that it took a couple of games before anyone understood what the hell was going on (I’m looking at you, Johnny Cage and Reiko). Some more clarity into what happened would be welcome, even with the game being part of a drastically altered timeline.

I’m also hoping that Shinnok gets much more development this time around; while he’s supposed to be one of the most powerful adversaries in the series (stronger than either Raiden or Shao Kahn), his appearance in Mortal Kombat 4 was not handled very well. He was almost “Diet Shang Tsung”, as he had no moves of his own and copied the moves (but not appearance) of other characters. Hopefully, in this game, we’ll see something more akin to his Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero implementation: a very powerful character that transforms into a demon larger than Goro or Kintaro when provoked enough.

The other big observation I made is that if the graphics of the teaser are an indication of the game itself, we should not expect it to come out on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It makes sense, as WB Games has already started the push to exclusively next-generation with Batman: Arkham Knight. I doubt we’ll see a PC version of Mortal Kombat X come out at the same time as the console versions, which means for me personally that unless I get an Xbox One or a Playstation 4, I won’t be getting the game at launch. EDIT: As my friend Matt pointed out on IRC, the official site has it listed as coming out for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. I guess I don’t have to wait for the PC version or a new console after all. :-)

As it stands, this is only a glimpse of what is to come; it’ll be another year before the game itself is released. Until then, I’m going to wait and see; hopefully it meets my expectations, and hopefully I’ll be able to play it on launch.

A visit to Comicpalooza…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, this past weekend was kind of a first for me.

While I had been to a couple of Houston sci-fi/comic conventions before (namely, Oni-Con and Space City Con/The Houston Con), I have never been to what seems to be the biggest of the cons, Comicpalooza at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and attend this year, visiting this past Saturday.

After waiting in a very long line to purchase tickets, Jennifer and I decided to hang out on a balcony waiting area while watching the even-more-massive line waiting to get into the autograph and vendor area on the first floor. After checking the schedule, I realized that Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor, was having a panel shortly after the convention’s official opening, so we went to that first, getting in line relatively early. The panel itself was pretty interesting, as McGann not only talked about the Doctor Who TV-movie he had been in, he also discussed some of the audio adventures (including “Zagreus”, my copy of which I would have brought to sign if I had thought about it) and how he got involved in the minisode “The Night of the Doctor”.

After the McGann panel, we decided to join the line already forming for the Agents of SHIELD panel; we knew it was going to be popular, as people were asking us about it while we were in line for the first panel. It was a good thing we did, as the line became incredibly long. Jennifer decided to hold down the fort while I went exploring, finding where the Game Preserve had set up, then getting a small lunch for the both of us. After eating, I wandered downstairs to the dealer area, where I took a brief look around, looking for things that I would want to buy later when Jennifer came down with me. After finding some stuff at different booths, I found one item that I knew I had to get right there and then: Ninja Burger, a card game that one of Jennifer’s coworkers had recommended and that I had had difficulty locating until then. Once I had picked that up, I went back and joined Jennifer in line for the panel.

The panel itself was pretty awesome. All of the main cast except for the actors who played Fitz and Skye attended, including Ming-Na Wen and Clark Gregg. It was obvious they were having a blast, riffing off each other pretty heavily. The one person I felt bad for was Brett Dalton, because he got more than a few boos (his character had been revealed to be a HYDRA agent). We were even treated to a special guest appearance by Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno; Lee was the man as always, and Ferrigno is even more imposing in person than he is on screen. :-)

After the Agents of SHIELD panel, we went downstairs to browse the entire vendor area. While there, I managed to pick up two t-shirts and a tumbler shaped/colored like an Eternal Dalek. We saw John Scalzi signing autographs at the Barnes & Noble booth, but decided against getting an autograph as we didn’t see any hardcover books of his there, and we had already gotten copies of Redshirts signed. By this point, both of us were getting tired, and wanted to see what celebrities were in the autograph area. We saw several Power Rangers, James Marsters, and all of the Agents of SHIELD actors who had been at the panel. However, for me, the highlight was seeing Fifth through Eighth Doctors: Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann. I hemmed and hawed, trying to muster up the courage to get a picture with one or an autograph… and finally decided on a selfie with Sylvester McCoy, as his Doctor is my favorite.

Now, when I got to his table, I was about to pay for the selfie, when I noticed that among the photographs that could be autographed was a caricature drawing of McCoy as the Doctor. I REALLY liked the drawing, so I decided to get it autographed instead of getting the selfie. When I was paying his assistant, she mentioned I should ask him about it. When I met him, I told him that I saw the pic and just had to have it, and he said that his son had drawn it. :-) He also complimented my shirt, which was my Doctor Who “villain select” t-shirt. I admit that I was quiet and Jennifer did most of the talking, as I was more than a little overwhelmed. Once I had gotten the autograph, we left.

All in all, we had a really fun time at Comicpalooza. Needless to say, I want to go back again next year. Fortunately, I won’t have to wait an entire year for another con, as there are three coming up in the next year that I want to hit: the aforementioned Houston Con, the Houston Arcade Expo I go to every year, and PAX South in San Antonio.

Here’s hoping they’ll be as fun as Comicpalooza was. :-)