Author Archives | Jared
Jared - who has written 35 posts on Troll in the Corner.
I'm a Trekker, a Brown-coat, a bibliophile, a Star Wars nut. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Steampunk, mythology, anime, noir, detective stories it doesn't matter. I'm into pen and paper rpgs, console and pc games, board games. Want to argue for hours over who would win were the Enterprise-E and a Star Destroyer fight? Sure. Want to debate the advantages of the Way of the Open Palm or the Light Side? Definitely.
The Shield, Sword, And Crown: Great Fantasy Without the Elves
These are the best young adult (the jacket recommends the book for ages 8-12, though I would recommend it for anyone 8-120) fantasy books I have read since Artemis Fowl or Harry Potter. I would hasten to add, however, that the trilogy is meant for more than just fans of fantasy/sci-fi, as the fantasy elements are extremely subtle, especially in the first two books. It is fantasy like the Princess Bride is fantasy, good clean fun for everybody.
Continue reading...Escape from City 17, The next big step for Machinima
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Escape from City 17 is amazing. The film-makers have combined life-action with elements of Half-Life 2 for the special effects and a lot of the sound work. It's set in the Half-Life universe, near the climatic events of Half-Life 2 as the city nears complete destruction. Enjoy.
Continue reading...Reason Number 426 I hate EA
Monday, November 23, 2009
So it turns out that EA is so paranoid, so chained to oppressive DRM, that they have basically made playing Dragon Age (a single player only game) without a connection to their servers for verification impossible. Grow a pair EA. If you are going to be draconian with us about your DRM measures, do it to our faces.
Continue reading...New Moon, a review from a non-(rabid)-fan
Saturday, November 21, 2009
So, I just got back from watching New Moon with my family, (it’s my Sister-in-law’s birthday) and I have to say, it was better than I thought it would be. Is it worth seeing, assuming you didn’t hate Twilight? Yes, I’d definitely say it is. Overall it improves on its predecessor, and certainly it is better than most of the other movies currently out. New Moon is an entertaining romp of romantic fancy with enough action to keep the guys happy. It’s not high art, but then, high art is rarely fun.
Continue reading...Dragon Age: Origins In Depth Review Part 2
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
This game is nearly flawless, and what faults is does have are mostly hidden by its brilliance elsewhere. If you care about a game’s story, the characters, the choices, or even just like a good fantasy about good(ish) against evil, get this game. If you prefer games to be twitch based and nothing but action, I’d suggest you think about it before buying, but definitely think about it.
Continue reading...Dragon Age: Origins In Depth Review Part 1
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
So I didn’t plan on it taking two weeks from launch to finish my review of Dragon Age, but the extra time ended up being a good thing. I’ve been able to take the time to not only play through the entire game but to experience the first several hours of all six origin stories. If I had to review the game in a single word I think I would have to go with magnificent. Thankfully I am not limited to such, and here is part one of my in depth review: Setting and story.
Continue reading...The Most Amazing, Bizarre, and Wondrous Thing I Have Heard in Years
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
This is a project called “The Symphony of Science.” Basically they have taken footage of Carl Sagan and other scientists talking about the Universe, some of their most beautiful statements, and turned them into music by digitally adding musical tones to the words and syllables. I know that sounds really strange on paper. Heck, you might not even like it the first time through at all. I can guarantee though that most of you, if you actually listen to the lyrics, will not only have it stuck in your head after a couple listens, but love the songs. It’s a message about man’s potential, that despite being utterly insignificant in scale to the Cosmos, we are part of the cosmos and therefore extraordinary. Put simply it is sublime stuff.
Continue reading...Castle on TV: Hyper-reality blurs with reality a little bit more
Monday, October 26, 2009
Castle is an ABC crime show, in the more humorous vein of shows like the Mentalist and Psych. The shows titular lead, Richard Castle, (Nathan Fillion of Firefly and Dr. Horrible fame) is a mystery writer on par with Patterson or Cannell, fresh off killing his main character out of boredom. Meanwhile Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic, The Spirit) is looking at two seemingly unrelated murders with one odd thing in common: Both were killed almost exactly like murders out of Castle’s books. She brings him in for questioning, leading to him volunteering to help with the case because of his familiarity with the crimes, which turns into a more permanent partnership as he decides to base his new book on her. But that's not why I've writing on the show, great as it is. I'm writing about Castle because they actually wrote the book he finished about Beckett last episode. So what is it when you have a book purporting to copy a book that doesn't exist? Welcome to third order simulacra and the blurring of reality.
Continue reading...Awesome Live Action Video for Halo: ODST
Thursday, September 10, 2009
It is interesting just how saturated we are getting with the Halo universe. We've already had 3 main Halo games, plus the RTS. ODST isn't even out yet and they've already announced Halo: Reach and a Animatrix style collection of short movies. Is it too much? Maybe, but too much of a good thing is still better than too little of a bad thing.
Continue reading...(Do You Wanna Date [Her]) Avatar
Saturday, August 29, 2009
![(Do You Wanna Date [Her]) Avatar](http://trollitc.com/wp-content/themes/freshnews/thumb.php?src=http://trollitc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/the-guild-avatar-picture.jpg&h=75&w=75&zc=1&q=95){kind=avatar}
This is at the same time to most awesome and disturbing thing I have seen in a long time. The Guild is the creation of Felicia Day, actress of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog fame. It's a web series about the real life lives of a very nerdy guild in a WoW type game.
Continue reading...Troll Polls
Loading ...- Bridge Troll - the game of building bridges and eating people
- New video game drops today. For the Amiga!
- Bridge Troll - A new card game we can get excited about
- Star Trek Reviewed
- Zombies in Fantasyland - or creating a fantasy world that experienced a zombie apocalypse 100 years ago.
- The Forever War to be filmed in 3D, murdering a significant chunk of my teen years
- Mount & Blade Warband - new gameplay trailer
- BOH (new game for Amiga, Windows or Mac) creator Simone Bevilacqua submits to a grueling 8 question interview
- Jen Page is a chaotic-neutral gamer, actress, geek and our latest interview subject
- An Old Friend has Come Home to Stay
- Mike Van London: Role-playing games immerse the player into amazing...
- Dan: Happy to hear you liked the review Zman. I'll be d...
- zman: Been looking for a decent zombie role playing game...
- WJWalton: Great post! (And not just because it links to my s...
- p3r1h: I'm a geek, in pretty much every sense of the word...
- Voices and Verisimilitude
- Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
- Why I’m Glad 4e Exists, Even Though I Don’t Use It
- Shotgun Diaries: Lightweight Zombie Roleplaying
- Scribblenauts 2 announced as I buy a new stylus
- Putting Gaming out in Public
- Runewars: high fantasy warfare with not enough war
- New authors and lots of new RPG coverage!
- DO’s and DON’T’s for Players and GM’s Alike
- Hellion shows off a bunch of in game shots. Looks very pretty, in a manly, gaming kind of way.
© 2010 Troll in the Corner. Powered by Wordpress.
Individual authors retain all copyrights on their own work. If you'd like to reproduce something of theirs, contact them directly through their posts.
Friday, November 27, 2009
2 Comments