On The Paper Trail: God of War

Welcome back folks, on this installment of the Paper Trail I am going to be talking about the God of War novel. I am in a sprinting mode with my pile to get to the meat of the Connecticon Panel so I used my 3 day weekend to finish this book. Now I should mention that if you have played the first God of War game for the PS2, this book is exactly the same to it.

No kidding, this is the entire first game, and that is it.

Now you may be wondering to yourself, "Hey I liked the first God of War game, does this book add any insite into character development or allow tangential things to be explained?" My answer to you is no, it is the first game and nothing more.

This book attempts to be filled with the greek gods and stuctures itself similiar to the game where Act 3 begins the story, then we go into Act 2, with Act 1 coming to us in painful flashbacks of Kratos. Now for a game this clearly works since the game wants to go right for the action and allow the player feel like they are doing something.

As for a novel it tends to leave you hanging in the first half and until you actually get to Pandora's Box does not really take hold to keep a passing reader interested.

The authors managed to do something in the book that I question, and that is explaining the fight scenes of God of War. Now have you ever tried to explain a quick time event to someone who never played the game before and only had words to describe the actions? If you have you might have realized it is next to impossible to paint the appropiate picture without a frame of reference to draw off of.

This book just feels like a cash in to a popular game that gives the reader nothing more then what was presented to them in the game. Sure the inner monolouge of Kratos as he goes from set piece to set piece is supposed to be entertaining but it comes off more as a bore that I willed myself to get to the end of the book.

Next stop on the Paper Trail I think we are going to go close to the end of time, see you then.

On the Paper Trail: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebook: Vol. 1

Ladies and Gentlemen here we are, back on the paper trail and at the last manga book for a while. I will explain why in a little bit but as a recap we took a look at Zelda, Mega Man, WoW, among other titles however I can clearly say that the Phoenix Wright was the fist manga that literally had me go WTF out loud to myself.

For those who do not know Phoenix Wright is a point and click adventure that has a twist where you are a lawyer who is defending you clients in trial there is no win/lose situation right away but the various evidence you collect plus the connections you make with them will allow you to either win or lose the trial. This Manga does not cover that aspect, it is more of a slice of life of things that occur outside the court room.

This collaborative piece has various authors going and portraying the characters from this series as they would go and interact with them in vignettes about things that could take place in every day life. These range for adopting a kitty cat, piecing together why they actually choose their profession, finding a lost ball, and explaining to a little girl that a professional relation doesn't have to be a loving one.

This book does not take itself seriously even having two stories referring to the fact they are in the manga and needing to go and spice it up, one has a makeover from phoenix wright as done by the side characters while another holds a trial in an arena like environment playing to the crowd for dramatic effect.

There are MANY authors in this story and none of them connect with one another, which leaves you sometimes confused and lost in the various narratives that take place at random intervals of the Phoenix Wright saga. Now if all these stories took place say between the first or second games that would help the reader ground themselves in the environment the authors are working in, however this book has it scatter shot throughout the series. This allows non gamers to get into the stories without an issue but as a narrative makes it really disjointed.

Final verdict, if you enjoy Phoenix Wright style humor and the slice of life stories this is a pick up, otherwise there is nothing here that stands out to get you into the series based on this game. Next time we are going to do a double feature!

The Paper Trail is Going on the Road

I could not think of a better title for this one to be honest, however I wanted to let you all know that if you are close to the North Eastern part of the United States I will be doing the Paper Trail live at connecticon!

Yes it is a convention that has decided to take my video game book fascination and present it to you all in person. Which is one of the reasons why I will be pulling back slightly from the blog. I will still do reviews however some books I will feature in the panel will not be on here prior to its presentation.

Now if you are going, AWESOME! Let me know and I be happy to say hi, also if you have access to a decent camera and would like to film this even better! Mine is well...its seen better days and if you do film will try to not only post it here but also on TGWTG as well! W00T!

What could make this even better? ANOTHER PANEL! Yes this is not the only one I am doing, no no no no. I will also be doing a video game music panel in which I try to break the norms of what people think of VGMusic and educate them on awesome bands and composers.

So what have you got to lose? Tell the convention you want more of me and I hope to see you at Connecticon!

On The Paper Trail: Homefront: The Voice of Freedom

Yes Virgina, this game actually had a novelazation based off of it. You be suprised sometimes on books that simply get publised based on the game it is based off of, or the amount of titles that it spawns. For example Homefront was supposed to be a powerhouse that THQ was supposed to use to pave the way against your Call of Duties and Battlefields. Although it did pull a profit it simply was not that AAA winner THQ was going for.

Now as someone who only played the game breifly I thought it was average at best, sure there were flaws but the concept at its core, having a war taken place on American soil rather then a foriegn country added a depth that some series simply did not have. Now what does this book have to do with game?

Practically nothing.

Yes even if you have never played the game prior to picking up this book you can still very easily get into the narrative in itself. Honestly I thought this was a great move on the book's part, being penned by the author of Red Dawn you have some interesting things they go through.

Now the book is more or less a prequal to the game following Ben/DJ Ben/The Voice of Freedom on where he was before the events of the Train bombings and the EMP that took out most of the United States, we follow him as he meets up with various characters both in the game and outside of it as he vowes to get the information out there after an attack on Vegas.

Now to its credit it introduces the Korean not as a super evil bad guy being evil for the sake of it, but rather as a fanatical follower of the leader Kim John Un and his mission to go and expand the Korean empire. The primary reason they bombed the harmless city of Las Vegas is when they intercepted a radio transmission where DJ Ben was insulting the Koreans on the anniversity of the attack and wanted to surpress any idea of a revolt from its citizens.

Do the Koreans do evil things? Absolutely they are clearly made to be the bad guys in this novel, but slight looks into them show a meathod behind the madness that as a stregy justifibly make sense within their culture. One that stands out was killing a blogger who was antigovernment and then dropping leaflets with his picture on it saying to fight back against the Koreans. The Koreans thought it would bring a message that Americans to not do this in order to save their lives. However if you know Americans...well it did the opposite.

Since it was a prequal it actually explain how in the world America got to where it was and why the Korean did what needed to be done. In all honesty the games opening explains this as well but did so in a clunky meathod that simply made you question the valinity of this.

Now there is some of that in the chain of events and knowing some world politics you would call bullshit on the fact that North Korea would be the nation proposing peace to South Korea in 2013 or the fact that America turned back into an isolationist society after being ask to leave the Asian allies and the Middle East. If you can turn off your brain and not scream at the various and obivious moments where you can say that will never happen you can get into the narrartive enough to enjoy the characters as they first survive and then try to attack the Koreans at each opportunity.

All in all, this is a solid book. Sure it might be as good as Red Dawn or Freedom Fighters in some people's eyes but it has enough to go and engague you and sets up the event that lead into the story presented into the video game. Pick it up if this concept appeals to you. Next time on the club I am thinking of a historical book, stay tuned.

On the Paper Trail: Persuasive Games

Welcome back boys and girls we are back on the paper trail. This time we are going to hit the text books hard with the new title called Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames by Ian Bogost. Now as you can imagine this is a book for game designers who design video games. Whenever I read books talking about game design or game theory I tend to lose a little of myself in the process since I realize the process behind the curtain. So if you want to protect the innocence and play games for games sake do not look into these titles, however if you play games merely to study them (like myself) read on.

So this book talks about the essence of persuasion. What exactly it means to convince someone to go an either take action to do something or give an opinion on the means that the game presents itself. Now for the vast majority of the titles mentioned in this book you are going to not likely hear about in the past, since the topic of persuasion tends to go into either education, advergames, or political tones. However the core mechanics is as such that you can infer to use in other genres.

The core of the book is a discussion about how mechanics can be tweaked to the point to encourage an outcome that will make the player either do the appropriate action you want them to do (volunteer to support a local candidate), expose a fundamental flaw in the process something is using thus causing a call for action (boycotting Kinko's due to the poor practices they use) or even make social commentary that may influence people (eating healthy items is harder to do due to the food industry setting a premium on them).

The crux of the manner is simply writing the various procedures to influence the action that takes place to learn an inherent message that is not presented directly to the player, but rather inferred when analyzing the mechanics and drawing out a conclusion for it. Now as you might have guessed this can be a very powerful tool if used in the wrong hands. In all the cases the main message done took place and overall can either be a positive or negative message depending on how crafty the designers incorporate it. A great example pointed out by the book is the fact a beer company endorsed their beer to be incorporated into Tapper, a game which highlights the flaws of going out drinking.

At the end it poses the ultimate question of whether or not the creation of a game that's sole purpose is to convince the player to go and take a specific action. It leaves it ambiguous due to the nature of the titles of this book being both positive and negative in their messages, however ends with the notation that, as with all other media, we should know that the medium is doing this, realize why they are doing this, and then make our own decision to follow it or not.

This book allowed my analysis eye to open up a bit and made me go and look back at some titles that I actually own, one of which being Actraiser. The whole point of the game is to give your holy help to the various towns in the world by taking away the very threats given to them in the first place. However at the end of the game, once the ultimate threat is gone no one actually praises your deeds anymore and every city moves on to have a more free thinking environment then one governed by the God who actually created them. Is the game trying to convince me that religion is nothing more then a crux society uses to call for help, and once all them are gone will we forget about it?

All of these games are trying to convince you of something when you play whether they intended to or not, however the one point can be made is that in order to ensure the message gets sent correctly designers need to ensure that they are sending it correctly and as gamers we are recognizing this and take an informed stance on the issue rather to simply agree or disagree on it solely based on what the designers intended to be. If you are a game studier pick up this book. Next time will be...a novelization of a game. Which game will it be? Stay tuned to find out.

On the Paper Trail: Weird Careers vs Virtual Apprentice

Hoo boy, have we got an interesting pair of book for you today on the trail. On the left it is weird careers in science while on the right is the virtual apprentice. Both book clock under 70 pages and if you could not guess as of the covers, they were geared to the teenage audience and boy does it show. Now to have book to teens about various career paths and letting them know what is involved is something that I think EVERYONE should embrace, but sometimes they could be made of fail.

First the Weird Career, it has some filler that confused me. Do teens need a chapter on the types of video games that are out on the market? I could assume that if they picked up this book that they had a good chance of playing games in the past before and could omit that section for something more interesting for them to understand. It does go into the amount of work it takes to get the various aspect of game development and include a short interview with Will Wright that had some good points about his past, including how he did not finish college but still managed to find a way into the industry.

Virtual Apprentice on the other hand...well to put it bluntly it is too rad to be entertaining. I do not mean the good rad, I mean the Save by the Bell 90s rad that when looking at it you wonder if they had any sense into what they are doing. This book does include a nice Q & A section with various people in the industry that work day to day on games however the majority of the questions asked were done by children ages 7-11 and are more Nintendo Power related then actually job related.

If I were a teenager looking at these there is no way in hell I would have a good idea on what either one of the books were trying to appeal to, but if I must pick up one to give to a small child interested in the ins and out of the game industry, weird careers gets the nod since it does not assume you are functionally dumb about video games and tries to inform you about things you may not know.

Wow...that was painful next time I am going out of the YA section and into the grown up area to find something with some meat on it.

On the Paper Trail: Mega Man ZX Volume 1

We are back to the trail with our Manga celebration, needless to say due to me thirsting for something different on this list we are going to turn the corner on this after one more title, but for right now we are back to Mega Man and Udon with their ZX title. For those who do not know the ZX games are good Mega Man games that were on both the GBA and DS and are known for their old school difficulty and frustrating level designs. As for the story line it was not known for that being top notch but its an effort to say the least.

So what is this story about? Well yes it is about Mega Man ZX, but its the origin story. Mega Man in this scenario is a delivery man who is running late for a job where a package that needs to be delivered. This universe has the mavericks causing chaos and attempting to destroy the rebels who are fighting against them. One thing leads to another and the delivery agents get attacked from the Mavericks, our hero falls down a cliff with the package only to find that it is a Bio-Metal which fuses with him in his attempt to save other people and turns him into Mega Man X. His coworker also get fused with this and turns herself into Mega Man Z.

After some explanation on how the alliance attempts to counter act the Mavericks civilians get attacked by the Mavericks to expose both Mega Men and destroy them. Sure enough Mega Man Z gets mortally wounded and at her last ditch effort gives her Bio-Metal to Mega Man X therefore making him Mega Man ZX, after defeating the area boss Mega Man vows to avenge his friends' death by going to join the alliance.

There are two more filler stories about Mega Man outwitting boss characters and leaning it on a cliff hanger for volume 2. The story itself is ok, it is clearly aiming for a younger audience as most of the key players are of teenage years. The art is alright with small touches brought to you by game graphics like the power meters and some explosions. Everything else reminds me of a slightly more detailed chibi style, it works for the age group that it is trying to attracted to this title however older readers won't get anything out of it.

Overall this story is made for teens but has enough for older readers to go and pique their interest, the emotional Mega Man may have you think he listens to Lincoln Park however once he isn't emotional is tolerable to relate to. The Mavericks pose a good threat and has an interesting back story that they only tell you in small doses that will encourage you wanting to more. The story gives you enough back story and lays the foundation enough to make you want to know more of the environment however I could easily see people turned off by this younger iteration of Mega Man.

Final verdict, check it out at the library/book store and if it interests you then continue with the series otherwise avoid it. For the last installment for the Manga celebration we will take a look at a title I got from Too Many Games, stay tuned.

On The Paper Trail: The Dragons of Outland

Welcome back to Manga Month...or sooner. The amount it time it takes me to read Manga is much less an actual book so it might not be a month but expect me to at least finish up the titles I have on my book shelf. So where were we...oh yes.

Welcome back to the Paper Trail in the celebration of Manga, this time we are going to talk about the Shadow Wing series as we look into The Dragons of Outland (volume 1 of the series). Now I am going to specify that I do not play WoW, nor follow the story close enough to consider myself solid within the universe to claim to know all the details, so I am coming at this simply as a fresh point of view.

Our story involves our hero meeting up with a friend who just so happens to be a blue dragon that can turn into a human form every now and again. They go together after a message was intercepted from Lord Trueblade requiring urgency to a demon attack. The story takes great pleasure in not telling us anything having multiple pages of characters giving action to events that we are told are very uncharacteristic of them and just accept that it will be explained to us later down the line.

For a first volume it does not give too much away of the plot but instead gives us a lot of action instead. There are reasons the characters simply move from set piece to set piece, fight some enemies and move on. What story we do have is having our hero attempt to gain redemption for past actions (which are not explained) to regain the power of light.

Our evil foe however dealt with the same predicament and instead of searching for redemption simply changed sides since it was easier for him to do. The main goal from this story is to go and expand the empire to a portal that will allow easy access to the main land to go and take over the world. To accomplish this he uses the help from Orcs that are reluctant to serve but are honored to do so.

As for the beginning of a story, it does discuss the characters well and gives motivation (on the surface level) to what is driving them in this story. The action is fast paced and plentiful to encourage a sense of war and constant threat in this story, but the dialogue is suspect at best. Many things are said and you are often just as confused as the characters as to what is going on, the ending of this book uncovers the plot on how our villains are going to take over the world with...Shadow Wing. Which one could guess by looking at the cover of the book or knowing the title of this Manga series.

This is a tentative recommendation at best. If you are into WoW and want to explore the origins of Shadow Wing then by all means the story is going to get you interested in it. However if you are an outsider who really isn't into the lure of WoW, this might not be the best jumping off point for the series in manga form. Until next time, take care.

On the Paper Trail: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

Howdy partners and welcome back to the Paper Trail, you know what that May means right? It is Manga Month! This is where we go and take a look at various Mangas that relate to video games to celebrate Free Comic Book Day. So the first one we have is The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, based off of the game of the same name.

This Vizkids title and as you can image this book was made for kids. The story and direction ooze 7 year old it is somewhat sad. i understand this is a zelda game and that it is going to be summarized with just the main plot points, and that the side quest element is going to be eliminated so the story is more streamlined, I get this. However it is another thing to entirely lose any sense of character and suspense in the story.

To put it bluntly you know the hero is going to win because the plot device in each battle will come out exactly when it will be needed, the various characters will point Link in the right direction each time, and the only character growth will occur at the end when the hamfisted lesson takes place.

The art is done consistently and unless you are a fan of the game's direction you are going to be turned off by it. In short even if you are a zelda fan I am going to tell you not to pick this up. Its simplistic story and omission to many of the tones of the original game makes this a waste of time and a waste of the $5 I used to get this. Next time, let's hope for something better.