Assassin

After finishing reading A Clash Of Kings by George R. R. Martin, I was in the mood for some good fantasy and so I crowdsourced for recommendations. Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy appeared too many times to be ignored, so I hopped on to Amazon.ca and gave it a go.

When I got the book, two things were potential obstacles: 1) the book was written in 1995 and I seldom read stuff that isn’t published recently, 2) the book is written from a first person point of view, a writing style I generally do not enjoy. I’m glad to say, neither was a factor and I enjoyed the book a lot.

Coming off such an epic fantasy series like A Clash Of Kings, the tone in Assassin’s Apprentice was very different. It’s not as sweeping, and is very much a character piece focused on FitzChivalry, the Bastard son of Prince Chivalry. It’s not a notion unknown to the fantasy/science-fiction realm. Underdog boy has to be the hero of the nation, but it the distinctness of Fitz’s character, and indeed the characters of every member of the cast in the book, makes for very good storytelling.

The plot of a nation under siege likewise, is not something new. But the twist of adding the danger of the Forged Ones was a good move by Hobb, and every time there was to be an encounter with them, I was on the edge of my seat.

One thing I did not like at the time of reading the book, was the inclusion of Lady Patience (Prince Chivalry’s wife) into the story. While it didn’t make much sense in the first book, it does pay off in the second book, Royal Assassin.

The second thing I didn’t particularly like was the magic of the Skill. From what I can infer, at best the Skill is similar to a mesh of telepathy and the Force from Star Wars. By that I mean the usage of the Skill, besides long range communication seems unclear, which threw me off my reading a little bit.

On it’s own, Assassin’s Apprentice is a very good read and an excellent character piece. But I feel it is part of a trilogy that it truly shines. I have only just finished book two, Royal Assassin and felt many seeds planted in Assassin’s Apprentice only develop in book two. I expect to see the same in book three, Assassin’s Quest, which I am beginning to read now.

In short, given the lack of good fantasy right now, digging back thirteen years to 1995 and unearthing this gem might be a really good move, if you’re starved for some traditional fantasy.

Here are some of the moments I managed to capture with the Rock-It Launcher. Some of the items may be hard to spot, so look carefully!

Garden Gnome

First ever kill with the Rock-It Launcher. To great effect.

Second garden gnome kill

My first teddy bear kill!

This has to be my favourite screencap. Just looks like the truck literally drove through his head!

Cola bottle ftw.

I particularly like this one because it’s insane to think something like a spoon can cause so much damage!

If you’ve played the game, do you have similar great screencaps or videos? Post your links below!

Everyone looks really good! Look at Sun’s (Yunjin Kim) arms! Ordinarily Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) is by no means a big girl (she looked awesome in a suit on Justice), but with Sun in the picture, everyone but Kate (Evangeline Lily) looks large by comparison.

On to the men, my my aren’t the women going to be going crazy over Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Jack (Matthew Fox). Even Ben (Michael Emerson) looks pretty darn good in this. Locke (Terry O’Quinn) looks good out of his usual “jungle gear”. My only complaint is couldn’t they have made Hurley (Jorge Garcia) look a little more dashing?

So excited for January 21st.

DESTINY CALLS!

Radroaches

Radroaches are the first little baddies you meet in the game. They’re basically radiated cockroaches and are huge, but won’t do you much damage. They explode into mush or their legs fly off rather satisfactorily though.

Radroach Mush

Radroach Legs Flying

Ghouls

Ghouls used to be human, before they got radiated. They have this annoying habit of jumping at you, which gives them fairly artistic deaths in mid-air.

Ghoul

Ghoul

Giant Ants

I was in an underground cave and I could hear them scuttling everywhere, but couldn’t see them. It was spooky. These things aren’t deadly, but they can swarm you, and some can even breathe fire. But that’s okay, their heads and limbs fly apart just like everything else.

Giant Ant

Super Mutants

I haven’t figured out if these things used to be humans, but they sure have been capturing humans for some reason. Still, using a Ripper to slice them sends parts splattering everywhere.

Super Mutant

Super Mutant Behemoth

Now this guy is the biggest, meanest, baddest creature I’ve had to kill so far. It took me two mini-nukes to take him down after multiple re-loads. Normal guns just didn’t do enough damage.

Super Mutant Behemoth

Super Mutant Behemoth

That’s it for this post. Coming up today or tomorrow, I’ll feature the humans you can find in the Wasteland, as well as a future post on the Rock-It Launcher, which allows you to fire spoons, forks, garden gnomes, teddy bears, plates, chess boards, ashtrays and all sorts of other junk as ammo. Often to hilarious effect!

I wish I could provide you with videocaps instead of stills, but my poor Sony Vaio is struggling to play the game as it is, so it may have to wait till I’m home with my desktop later this year.

Fearless

Surprising as it may be, I’m actually going to review a country artist this week! Truth is, I personally think a lot of Taylor Swift’s music counts as pop, but she is “classified” as country, and a lot of her album sounds like country, so country it is.

I first heard Taylor’s music probably the same way everyone else did, with Teardrops On My Guitar, and while I was at MTV this summer, she was appearing on TRL all the time and I found myself thinking “wow her hair is awesome”. Like seriously, how does she keep that hair in place? It curves and curls at exactly the right spots.

So let’s talk about Fearless, released last week. First off, I have to say Taylor’s voice is pretty nice to listen too. I gave it a first listen while I was studying, and was amazed at how easily “digested” the whole album was. Also, one thing that really stands out is how songs are distinct. You know how some albums the tracks just seem to melt together and it’s hard to remember which is which? No such difficulties with this album.

My favourite track has to be Love Story, which is written around the central lines/theme of “This love is difficult; but it’s real” and has the “plot” of a Romeo and Juliet story, but the ending is re-written the way Taylor would have liked the original literature to end. The music video (with her gorgeous hair) can be found here, Unfortunately I can’t embed it because clearly, Universal Music thinks that me embedding the music video on my blog and spreading the word about Taylor Swift’s music and letting other people sample her great voice will bring no positive benefits at all)

Taylor Swift

The problem with that song, and perhaps the whole album, is the lack of lyrical depth. On one hand you know immediately what each song is about, on the other it’s almost too straightforward. One of the tracks, Fifteen - a story about love at fifteen - particularly irks me with lines like “Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them”. I mean, seriously.

That said, don’t let that one critique stop you from checking out this album, because overall, it’s a very good listen and one which will be on my playlist for easily most of 2009. I’m already eagerly awaiting her next album, and personally wouldn’t mind a slight pop slant over country.

[Image credits: Fearless | Taylor Swift]

Frog In A Shoe

Yup so I slip my foot in, feel something squishy, quickly withdraw it and this fella jumps out. Heart-attack inducing, I tell ya. Now that I’m here I still kinda shake my shoe before putting it on, cause you never know when a Kingston bug might decide to take a nap in it!

Fallout 3: Sledgehammer Kill

As a Mortal Kombat game would say: Fatality!

So from what I can tell, she’s from the UK and her MySpace page is here and she actually has a fanpage! Pretty darn impressive if you ask me.

Musically you can pretty much tell what kind of music she’s into, but what really won me over was the ability to play the piano and sing at the same time. Check out my other favourite videos of hers:

Again, from a social media point of view, Rebecca, please use your full name! It’s going to make you so much more searchable and get noticed online.

Hope you guys enjoyed the music this week!