Mr. Barbas's psychedelic adventure!

Chapter 1


It was an ordinary day, not unlike the very next one. Mr. Barbas yawned as he sat on his bed and looked out the window. "Right", he said. "Today is going to be the day!". And off to the bathroom he went, to get himself ready.
In front of the mirror, he tried to put the comb through his hair, but alas, the comb just bounced off his bulbous head and flew off and into the sink it went. "Right" he thought. "Well, that was pointless! But I do wonder whose comb that is!" You see, Mr Barbas was a jelloblob, an ancient race of beings, that has existed for thousands of minutes, ever since the Big Splat even. Jelloblobs are big jell-like things, higher in height than wider in width, with a face on top, big expressive eyes, funny mouth and floppy ears, and come in all sorts of colors! Much like pacman ghosts, only funnier! But they can be serious too. Like Mr Barbas. And absolutely no hair on their heads! Actually, their heads werent separate from the rest of their bodies. You could just tell they were heads simply due to the fact that there was a face there. Ever since the Big Splat, all jelloblobs were similar, but varied in sizes and colors. Oh, and moods.
Mr Barbas, lived on Noodletown. Many jelloblobs lived there, but also other things too, like people, and elves. Elves were terribly secretive though, so noone ever hardly saw them. Terribly, terribly secretive.
Still, Noodletown was a pleasant place. No house was taller than a bus, and each of them had a nice garden, meticulously kept, with all sorts of things. Mr Barbas's house for example, had flowers. Tulips, to be precise. Oh Mr Barbas's tulips! They were quite a spectacle. They came in all sorts of colors. Mr Barbas loved tulips, maybe cause they reminded him a bit of jelloblobs, shapewise. They were his pride! But I digress.. Noodletown. Noodletown had one of everything. One bakery, one dry cleaner's, one tatoo parlour. It was totally self sufficient. Its people did not need much, but what they need, they always found, in Noodletown.
Noodletown had another special characteristic though. It was built all around a small hill. Not too steep though, so that whereever in town you were, you could always look up and be able to see the top of the hill. And on top of the hill, there was a castle. Significantly taller than a bus, that was. And in the castle lived... a dragon!
Yes, yes, like most things, Noodletown was not perfect, having a live, fire-breathing dragon living in it. Evil? Well, depends on your definition of evil. It would never come swooping down on the citizens, eating them and setting fire about. But noone that set for the castle, was ever seen back alive. Well, noone, except Johnny the Mute.
Johnny had managed to go near the dragon's castle, to pick up his kite, after it landed very near its portcullis. He had met with the dragon, face to face, but he couldn't tell anyone about it. See, Johnny the Mute, could not talk! You know, being mute an' all. And every time he tried to draw what he saw in that castle, his pencil broke! So he just gave up trying to explain, and everyone else gave up asking. So, was the dragon evil? Most suspected so, but there was no proof. None of it was fireproof.

Random facts on Mass Effect, Bioware and Gaming in general

- Personal view: PC Gaming is kept alive due to Bioware (30%), Blizzard (30%), Steam (20%), other companies (20%)...
- Both Bioware and Blizzard have a flawless track record of games
- Blizzard may have struck gold with WoW, but Bioware poses the first serious threat with the Old Republic
- It may take some time though
- Apart from the less cartoony style on the graphics, the main difference lies on storytelling
- Old Republic is going to have full speech, everything not written on books, parchments or computer screens is going to be spoken out loud.
- It is going to contain more story than all the other Bioware games combined!
- Mind you, that includes the Baldur's Gate epics.
- Storytelling is the focus for Bioware since Dragon Age: Origins.
- Storytelling had taken a backseat in PC gaming since the 3D graphics boom in mid-nineties.
- Btw, storytelling is laughable in WoW.
- Blizzard tried to extract a story in Kalimdor after WoW's unexpected success.
- Bioware is trying to extract a game from the story in Old Republic.
- Same applies, to a lesser extent, for the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises.
- Dragon Age: Origins had a story that for once, made you care.. read the scrolls, the books, talk to people etc. It wasn't there just for show.
- Mass Effect had a great story too. Novels are already published, and it was planned from the start to be a trilogy.
- Dragon Age's lore is also rife for expansion.
- Indeed Ray Muzyka (one of the 2 doctors that founded Bioware) said that Dragon Age is going to have sequels too.
- Besides, who doesn't want to know what happens to the Morrigan subplot? ;)
- On the storyline subject, Ray says he likes what Heavy Rain (PS3 exclusive) is doing... which makes it even more interesting for me...
- Software developers now hire proper writers for the story in their games instead of having programmers doing a half-assed job about it.
- Which brings us to Mass Effect 2.. What could have caused the games(tm) magazine reviewers to "stand up and punch the air in excitement" after having watched the 20 minute intro to the game?
- I haven't played the game yet, but virtually everyone in the business is going gaga about it.
- Like I said, Bioware has never made a dud, but I must confess, I was a bit worried about Dragon Age: Origins, for instance.
- I thought that it would not surpass Baldur's Gate, apart from the graphics of course.
- It did, in every possible aspect.
- Same deal seems to be going on with Mass Effect.
- Everyone gave rave reviews to the first one... now they say it is surpassed by the sequel in all areas.
- games(tm) gives one 10/10 grade per year, on average.
- Sometimes it may not give one at all.
- Mass Effect 2 got 10/10... and games(tm) bets that it is going to be game of the year, even though it is still January.
- Blizzard is also preparing an all-out attack with Cataclysm, Starcraft II, Diablo III and Battle.net.
- Battle.net or battlenet 2.0, is going to bring all Blizzard games under one cyber-roof. And it is going to be the way to go for games in the future, methinks.
- So I ask you. What would happen if the 2 great B's, Blizzard and Bioware, were suddenly out of the picture, for one reason or the other?
- Because, may I remind you, that with all the technical expertise their workers have, in the end it all depends on one or two people in each company, geniouses I would call them, that make the difference.
- The business model already favours consoles.
- In other words, most companies have left the PC development area and focus on consoles where the profits are larger.
- For reasons I won't get into in this thread.
- The B's preserve a faith to the PC cause that is where it has all happened for them, plus they gained a significant know-how on the platform.
- On a more positive note, although the situation is going to change a lot in the new decade, I still think we are living in exciting times as far as gaming is concerned..
- Graphics, storytelling, interactive controls like the Wii, project Natal, six-axis etc, 3D, HD, all contribute into exciting new areas to be explored and get fantastic new games to be produced.
- It all goes to show that the games industry is indeed going to be the #1 entertainment industry of our times, something I always firmly believed in.
- Compare it to the cinema industry which is already set in its ways.
- Ok, it is after all 70 years older...
- Plus who knows wether the future means better and more memorable games? After all Aliens and Avatar are 23 years apart, but who in their right minds would choose the 2009 movie as the better one?...

Welcome

Welcome to every visitor! This is a place, a virtual nest, where we will publish things about stuff we are passionate about, and we encourage everyone who has a similar passion, to respond with comments, questions, criticism, virtually anything that is about the holy trifecta of Cinema, Music and Games. Oh, and lest we forget, a sidedish of books on fiction, and even some comics. In short, anything that allows one to drift out of their minds and into the realm of the surreal. The idea being, that this is something sorely needed in a world that is bleaker than it should.

Thanks
Stargazer