The other day, I got excited by BioWare's forthcoming game Star Wars: The Old Republic, both in terms of what it represented as "what a Star Wars film/television series could be" and, in a larger sense, as evidence for science fiction narratives migrating out of literature and into gaming. I heard enough good things in response to that post to pick up a Game Pro magazine in a coffeeshop yesterday and read up on that title and BioWare's successful Mass Effect games. Mass Effect has already been mentioned to me a time or two, specifically as being "real science fiction," but you know how it takes something a time or two to get on your radar...Well, now BioWare is looming large on said radar. (You can follow them on Twitter here, btw.) Around the same time, I saw a Tor press release on the Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing blog, about their own forthcoming deal to produce EVE Online novels. So all these thoughts about convergence were bumping around in my brain.
Somewhere in there, Rick Kleffel called inviting me to guest on his wonderful Agony Column podcast, and all these jumbled thoughts came spilling out. I'm not sure what we actually said, but we talk about Tor's announcement, Mass Effect (which I mistakenly call "Massive Attack." Apologies, guys), the potential impact of James Cameron's Avatar, John Scalzi's new role on Stargate: Universe and the way SF is migrating out of category into YA, mainstream literature, videogaming, film, television, etc... We didn't actually mention a single Pyr book, so, you know, go buy some anyway please. But meanwhile, the podcast will be available on iTunes shortly, and here is a direct link.
I haven't gamed since I became a parent (I was 1/3 of the way into Ultimate Spider-Man when that happened), but I'm itching to see what I've been missing. And I'll certainly look to see if BioWare are attending the San Diego Comic Con.
6 comments:
Well, welcome to the gaming bug. Maybe at Worldcon we can discuss how World of Warcraft is informing my next-next project.
It's not a new bug. Before I had kids, I had played Metal Gear Solid, Spider-Man 1, 2, and 3, Tomb Raider 1-3, Batman: Vengeance, most of GTA2, Devil May Cry 2, and bits and pieces of many more. But it's a new understanding of where narrative (and SF narrative & audienceshare in particular) is going.
Video Game art is also going in a new (& narrative) direction also, as I'm sure you know from Martiniere. My first video game was "Myst," (I've played all the Myst games & Uru games also) & I'm ecstatic that video game companies are now starting to realize its importance & potential. I started playing WOW almost 5 years ago so I could play with hubby, & the art was always just so-so - beautiful, but not artistic & enticing. But all that changed with the release of WOTLK - Northrend looks so real, & enticing, & now I spend hours just wandering around it, as I used to do in Uru (Kadish was my favourite). Benoit sokal's games (Amerizone, Syberia series, Paradise) are also beautiful.
Welcome back to gaming Lou!
Will you have a table/booth at Comic con? If so, I'll stop by and say hello.
Patricia
I won't have a booth, sadly, just going out on my own dime (not Pyr's) and wandering around.
I would just like to pass this along. I know you'll love these compilations of Download Games. :)
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