Onslaught (Wii)

Onslaught is a first person shooter for the Wii, and is available through the Wii Shop channel.

The story is fairly standard: you crash land on a planet filled with cybernetic bugs that try to kill you, and you shoot them. It's simple stuff, and for the most part, doesn't really propel anything as far as the narrative goes. You go on a mission, and you kill everything in sight, and you're done.

The controls are where the game shines. The Wii remote is the perfect device for FPS games, and movement is rudimentary easy to pick up. You have a selection of a few weapons that you can upgrade via finding stronger models in the levels themselves.

Gameplay moves at a fairly fast clip, and never lets up. The enemies come in wave after wave, giving you ample targets for you to shoot.

Overall, I found the game to be very simple, but ultimately satisfying. Nothing fancy, just a straight shooter.

I've been writing a screenplay is working out pretty well. I've got a lot of different stuff written, and it's going. One is feature length, and the other is probably a four part short film. It may actually be like a filmed miniseries. The writing is good, but it's very hard to get done.

The audioplay is working out better, and the first episode is almost written. I'm going to try to stretch my legs as a director and voice actor. There will be a small cast, and they will be short. I'm calling them micro plays. I've got a plot and characters planned, and I'm looking for an intimate feel to the play. I think that it will get rolling very fast once I start recording.

Comic books, however, are not going quickly. I've been taking notes non stop for a few weeks, but I've got nothing about collaborators except for Patrick Rolo drawing the Imperium one-shot. There is definite potential there, and now that I have my tablet, I think I'm finally going to get my webcomic going. I've got a few ideas that I want to explore, and then maybe setting them up to submit to publishers.

That's the update today, so good night.

Update.

I've been working on some new content to publish, and I've been working on a new audio play format, which is similar to a podcast. The length is vastly shorter, anywhere from 7-20 minutes. I'm currently writing a series of them, and I hope to get them recorded soon.

A story

I'm sitting at home one night on the computer in June of 2006. I'm back in Austin, and I feel like I've lost most of what made me me. I sit, looking at the computer screen, doing nothing interesting at all, and I think about what has happened to me in the past year.

One year ago, in 2005, I was trying my hand at writing comics. Without any sort of reference point for creating original fiction, I began to try to write a Spider-Man story. I was trying to find his voice, and it seemed impossible. He is a corporate character, but even something established like Spider-Man is open to a certain degree of interpretation.

And that was where I was hitting a wall. I had no interpretation of who Peter Parker is or was. I hadn't read enough comics to create my own "version" of Spider-Man. I needed to create a construct of who he was in my mind before I tried to really sit down and concentrate on writing a already created character.

With that in my head, I tried my hand at creating some of my own characters. Most of their origins were morbid and involved death, maiming, or intense, shocking violence. I used them, because they were the only ones that I had at my disposal. They were immature, one-dimensional, and boring. Their powers were the only defining characteristics, and that was mostly how I differentiated them from one another.

Simply put, the stories were terrible. I had no idea about how to write dialog, and to pace action sequences. I also didn't know how to write an entire story, and quickly managed to write myself into a corner. Each panel was full of overwrought Claremont-esque dialog tics, and the descriptions didn't fare much better. It was a terribly written script, and I didn't even finish it. It seems to be better that way.

Anyways, once I entered college, I decided to put comic writing onto the back burner. I was a music student, I didn't have time for that sort of thing.

Another update

I'm back again, this time with another pointless update. I've started on a novel, and I'm currently writing a new series drawn by Clint Scott with inks by industry veteran Dennis Jensen. The same Dennis Jensen who trained the likes of Scott Kolins and Brandon Peterson. The same Dennis Jensen who has worked for Marvel and DC since the 1970's.

I'm also chugging along on other ideas that I have, and will post more in the future.

Update

I'm back. I know that I've been away from the blog from a very long time, but I'll try to actually start to write content everyday, or at least as much as I can.

I want to write about my favorite comics, and my favorite movies, and just generally muse on stuff that I like.

My Year in Indy: It Begins

Okay. Here we go with a book that, on a first read, seemed to be nothing more than a mean spirited romp through the lives of directionless hipsters.




Upon a second reading, it's a mean spirited romp through through the lives of directionless hipsters, but they're just raging at the world because they're directionless, just like most of us at that age.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes follows the rather mundane adventures of Enid, a self-professed cynical hipster who hates everything and could possibly be a lesbian, and Rebbecca, a more level headed drifting high school graduate. On the surface, all I saw was Enid saying 'fuck' a lot and Becky just going along for the ride as she peers into the warped world that Enid seems to inhabit, populated with Satanists and child molesters. Enid is relentless and immature in how she deals with people, and was the first thing that hit me the wrong way. It felt like Clowes was using anger and pettiness as a substitute for actual emotion. That's never a good way to write.

But as I read farther into the slim volume (only 81 pages), it becomes clear, and made me feel really stupid: We were all like this at one point. The too cool for school kid who did nothing but rage at the world because we had nothing else. I began to see what Clowes was doing, and I was hit with some sort of...emotion that seemed to get me at the pit of my stomach. Enid and Becky are postadolescents in a world that has nothing left for them but to grow up, and they are desperately holding onto it by reverting to immature children. It's a suburban tale about not being able to change anything, and you hate yourself because everything is moving forward and you're just along for the ride.

The simultaneously closed and open art reinforces this notion, by focusing on people and the empty suburban spaces that represent memories that you'll never have again. It's an achingly
emotional book that only got better on a second reading.

First book and we're off to a good start. I think that's just fine.