Bright End of Nowhere

So, on Monday this past week, over lunch, DMark managed to convince me to download League of Legends so that we all could play against the internet. (Because we actually tend to be pretty good at that) What is LoL? It's a PvP RTS sort of like Demigod: control a character on a team, level him or her up throughout the game by beating minions or other players, and then destroy the other team's base. Unlike Demigod, LoL is a) free, b) has 1 map, and c) has about 80 characters, 10 of which are free any one week (and then they rotate through the 80). So there's a lot of mechanically interesting characters to play.

In case it's not completely obvious, I'm sort of addicted.

(It might have been decided that there's a specific character that I have to play when she's needed, because otherwise, the namespace collision makes life too confusing on TeamSpeak. This would be the identical namespace collision I ran into for FFXII that had me twitching during cutscenes for the first 20 hours.)

Today, a bunch of us piled into a car and drove out for really good Chinese noodles and Gaming Underground, an awesome used game store with arcade machines and systems and screens to rent so you can play old school games right there. I was convinced to finally try DDR, and to my utter surprise, I found that I like it. I absolutely suck right now, but I like it and I was able to play without utterly fucking up my knee again. (This involves keeping a grip on the back bar the entire time so every jump and twist is supported by my arms.) So yay me. I CAN SORT OF JUMP AGAIN!

Speaking of gaming, I finally finished reading Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, which I bought back in March. (It took me so long because I mostly read it in 10 minute chunks on the subway on my Kindle, and there was a month I chose to read Black Lagoon manga instead) It's actually a really good argument about how aspects of games and game design can influence and affect the real world in very positive ways. From Chore Wars, the ARG that convinces you that chores can be fun, to Folding@Home, the protein-folding distributed computing program that comes on every PS3 sold to further scientific research, McGonigal gives examples of how positive games have been in small ways in reality. And argues the point that my generation is a generation of gamers, and that gamers have a huge, mostly-untapped potential to do a world of good. It's certainly an interesting read, and sort of makes me want to hand a copy to my parents who said that gaming would never help me in real life.

(And now, since apparently I can't deal with that much optimism, I'm reading what might be one of the most depressing books I've ever read. And my high school lit classes were awash in shining examples of depressing books.)

Seeing as how the end of 2010 was marked by Crazy Rapid Spending on my part (damn you Steam and Amazon Student! *shakes fist*), my List of Games To Play and List of Books To Read are both rather long. And in an effort to make me actually, you know, not have made this a complete waste of money and make me play/read them, would people be interested in reviews of either or both?

( Books to Read in 2011 )

( Games to Play List )

1) I seem to have signed up for fandom_stocking. Mine's here. Um. I'm not quite sure how this happened. I blame the dullness of watching solder melt.

2) My job got exciting again! And...I actually can't really talk about it too much. *kicks the ground* Cutting edge research means you actually kinda do need to practice information security. But it might involve rail guns. Maybe.

3) I suddenly want to buy a lot of Nerf guns. *stares at the Longstrike and the Stampede* I wish the Longstrike actually acts sort of like a sniper rifle, with a much better range than other guns. I was very disappointed by the Longshot's range.

4) Why did the not-really-awake part of my brain decide this morning that writing a sequel to "Tilden's Law" would be a really good idea? The sane and rational part of my brain is already gibbering in a corner.

5) I STILL WANT HOT POT. abyssinia, I'm torturing myself over here.

6) I got myself addicted to some indie games on Steam recently. Chief among them is a shmup called Beat Hazard. It uses your music files to generate weapons, ammo, power-ups, enemies, and bosses.

My music is literally trying to kill me. And it is AWESOME.

7) I finished All You Need is KILL by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. It was good. I posted a review on book_buzz, and I'm starting Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri, which is also very good so far. I'm really impressed by the Haikasoru Imprint books so far, and have a pile of books in translation I'm chewing through, with more to come. As I said, I'm planning on posting reviews on book_buzz, but would people be interested in me crossposting the entries here as well?

I just figure there are probably people on my flist/circle who would be interested in Japanese sci-fi and fantasy. (Sci-fi with characters of color! Written by non-Western authors! With strong female characters! I'm actually dead serious about the last one.)

I stumbled across a book series I loved as a youngish teen while surfing Amazon (don't ask), and in a moment of weakness brought about by nostalgia, I've managed to track down and order copies of William Nicholson's Wind on Fire Trilogy.

This is one of those series I mourn the lack of fandom for. Kestrel eats awesome for breakfast. (And I possibly nearly developed a crush on my mental image of Bowman by Book 2, Slaves of the Mastery) Am I the only one who remembers reading these books? Because seriously, they are/were awesome.

Speaking of books, I might give up on The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie for the moment. I'm just not in the correct mood for it. I think I'm going to start Across the Nightingale Floor (Book 1 of Tales of the Ootori) by Lian Hearn next. Probably.

As I'm at it, anyone got any particularly interesting book recs? I hear I have a membership to a certain library on campus...