It's a Big World Out There

Oh my god, it's almost the end of  February. How did that happen?

This guard will either get a promotion or a funeral. Well, a cremation

Skyrim came out over a year ago, which of course means I've now really started getting into it. No-one can ever accuse me of not being on the cutting edge of video game trends.

The adventures of Wruk the Orc ground to a bit of a halt back in December '11 but not for any good reason. It's not like I wasn't enjoying in the game, I just lost interest and motivation for what I was doing. I think it stemmed from the fact I wasn't straying too far from Whiterun and trying to level up my Blacksmithing without doing any real adventuring.

East Versus West: The Role-Playing Conundrum

There's a lot of ways to divide up role-playing games. Fantasy or sci-fi? First person or third person? Turn-based or action? It's hard to talk about RPGs, however, before one division rears its head; Western or Japanese?

There's certain expectation attached to either genre. The Western RPG, or WRPG, is associated with more action adventure stryle gameplay, usually involving you running about in a wide open world, taking quests and levelling up specific skills as you do. The Japanese RPG, or JRPG, is more linked to turn based battles, featuring a range of characters in a vast, and often complex story.

Since I'm currently flip-flopping between an example of both genres, Skyrim and Final Fantasy IX, I figured I might take a whack at comparing and contrasting the two. I will admit to having a limited experience of JRPGs, so please forgive any ridiculously inaccurate sweeping statements. Let's get to it.

For a start, there are a lot fewer of these guys in WRPGs

A Novel Idea

I love books. I also love games. If only there was some way of uniting my two passions...

What a coincidence.

Game books aren't exactly brand new, but they have been enjoying quite the rise in popularity over the past few years. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Halo all have their own spin off novels. Assassin's Creed has a few lack-luster adaptations. Even Gears of War, a series not known for its deep storytelling, has several tie-in novels all written by the lead writer of the series (At least that's what thirty seconds worth of research on the Waterstones website tells me).