From the Journal of Halia Woodrow, Woman at arms of the Kingdom of Gilneas.

We were to be evacuated from the city, but the damn monsters attacked again; this time worse than before. I do not know what is better at this point: the undead who amass behind the wall, or these beasts that haunt everything from our dreams to our fears.

The Prince has ordered any able bodied man or woman to help fight back the beasts, and to help evacuate the city. I have waited a long time to bring my sword to the flesh of these vile monsters, and these orders have filled me with a harsh glee. I will kill them for what they have done not my country, and to my sister. Yet despite our efforts, the Merchant Square is lost to the worgen. I, along with the civilians, move onward.

...

The king has come to meet us, the few survivors to escape the merchant district. He charges me and my other men at arms to rescue the traitor, Crowley, from his cell. Why the king wants a man who fought against him, I do not know; it is not my place to ask questions of my king.

We find Crowley on the top of the jail, he warns us of their coming. He warns us how dangerous these beasts are; they care not for our politics, nor our ways, they are simply beasts.
By the Light, they run across the roof tops as you and I would run across a street. Crowley is right, they care not of our politics, and now is the time that we should put away ours. The beasts will over run us before the undead even breach the gates if we do not.

...

Damn, damn, damn. One of them bit me. Yet this one was a man at first glance. As I approached him, he screamed at me to get away, to leave him in peace. I tried to reason with the man, slowly making my way to him when he snarled at me like a dog. His body then lurched and moved wildly, and the sound of ripping fabric filled the room. He was turning into the beast, and I was witness to this unholy act. In my shock I let my guard down, and the beast who was once man rushed at me and sunk its teeth into my leg. He would have killed me for sure if the gun shot had not broken my cries of terror, and his cries of madness. Lorna Crowley had shot the beast, a look of revulsion on her face.

“How are we to fight an enemy who can hide among us?” She asked aloud, as she helped me to my shaking feet. Two large mastiffs flanked her; both trained to smell out the worgen. Both of them growl a deep, low growl as I move past them up the stairs.

...

The arms Crowley was hiding for his revolution have now be loosed on the worgen! Yet the streets are still full of them, but these ones are different. They are not naked like the beasts that attacked us before, no, they are dressed in the tattered remains of what must have been normal clothing. Now our own people turn against us in this city, and I feel as if this night will be my last. The wound in my leg is still dripping blood, and I am sure that is what is drawing them to me where ever I go, and down whatever street I turn.

...

I have chosen to stay behind and help draw the worgen to the cathedral. The civilians need time to escape to the mountains, and we need to give them as much time as we can. The cannons set on the steps of the cathedral rip through the worgen, man, woman, and child; we cannot spare any of them, they must all die!

...

They have taken the city...all is now lost.

Find Mii

So I’m weak and was unable to wait for Nintendo`s inevitable redesign of the 3DS. After playing a demo unit for a couple of minutes the other week while I was out with a friend, I picked one up. I have to say that I am really impressed so far with the little 3D machine, and with Pilotwings Resort; the 3D is a cool addition to handheld gaming, and I hope developers make good use of the feature. I am also impressed with the number of free games that came already on the system. Face Raiders is a ton of fun; using the room you`re in as the stage for the game is awesome, and the idea of collecting your friends and families faces to use in the game is something new. The AR Games are cool, if only for the novelty of shooting a dragon that has grown out of your desk; I hope that in future firmware updates, Nintendo will update the AR Games and release more cards. But what is really surprising are the games found in the Mii Plaza.

The Mii Plaza is an application where you can see all the Miis you have collected with the spot pass feature of the 3DS. Spot pass lets your system connects to others how might have their 3DS with them, and download things such as Miis to your own machine. The Miis you have collected on your travels can help you collect puzzle pieces that form 3D pictures, or you can use them in the little RPG included in the Mii Plaza called Find Mii.

In Find Mii, you take the Miis that you have collected through your travels, and use them to rescue the Mii that you first created on the system. This first Mii, the one you use as your system profile, was the king of the land and has now been captured. It is up to your army of little people to save the king, and collect a bunch of hats along the way. While I have not been able to try this out yet (I not collected any Miis yet), it seems like a fun little game. It is nice that Nintendo included it with the system; this could have easily been a title for the yet released e-shop for a couple of bucks.

I am excited by what I have seen of the systems capability, and I hope that Nintendo fosters an environment of experimentation with this new 3D technology. The addition of visual depth to the screen opens a whole new world for companies to explore, and I hope people use it in interesting and exciting ways.

A Rainy Night

It’s not very often in this city, the city of Calgary that you can leave your window open at night and let the rain lull you to sleep. I can tell you about the many times I have watched the snow fall from the nights cloud cover, the streetlights painting the clouds a dark orange, for hours at a time. I can tell you about the layers of dust that loiter on your car (and everything else) during the dusty days of summers, but listening to the rain is a rare activity in this town.

The weather folks down east are calling for a system of rain to wash over the city for the next couple of days, and I am happy to see the city finally get clean; a fine layer of dust and grime from the long winter still clings to everything, and despite how much we think we can clean this place on our own, mother nature still does a far better job. I for one am ready to see the last remnants of winter to be washed away, and for our short spring to do its thing to pave the way for a hot and long summer. I just hope that what I heard on the radio the other week, the fact that the weather network is calling for a hot summer, is coming to come to pass; it was a long and cold winter, and I think I am speaking for a lot of us by saying that a nice summer would be greatly appreciated. Hell, I will start making sacrifices to random and nondescript gods/monsters if we can only have a hot summer!

Turn A Blind Eye

I never thought I would ever have a problem with killing one of the massive raid bosses in The World of Warcraft. It was no problem storming Arthas and his undead minions in Ice Crown Citadel, and the bosses that inhabit the halls of the various five man instances all usually deserve to die for some reason or another. I thought that this would be the same song and dance when Adult Content descended into the halls of Blackwing Descent on a mission to stop Nefarian and his followers: Magma, a failed experimental monstrosity who spews deadly parasitic worms fell to us; the artificial construct, The Omnotron Defence System, build to guard the lower halls was destroyed; Maloriak, the mad scientist who created the monsters that roam the halls of Blackwing was laid to rest; and Chimaeron, the horrid Frankenstein-esque monster was killed for the good of all. Then there is the blind dragon, Experiment 25463-D, Atramedes.

After you deal with the trash in his room, the raid is treated to a little bit of back story on the upcoming boss. It seems that Maloriak was trying to grant a black whelp “sight beyond sight” but blinded the young dragon in the process. Nefarian, being the creature that he is, tells his scientist to dispose of the young dragon. Despite the order, Maloriak keeps the young dragon, and you eventually have to defeat the full grown Experiment 25463-D. I find it to be a sad story, and if I did not want a pair of bracers from him, I would feel kind of bad for killing him week after week.

The battle against Atramedes is centred on the idea of sound, and how the raid has to manage its sound levels to avoid being destroyed by the raging blind dragon. You have to smash gongs, and avoid sound pulses in an attempt to bring him down, and get the much wanted loot. It`s funny how any feelings of remorse I might have had, or any feelings of pity Blizzard may have been trying to cultivate in the player is thrown out the window when the promise of new gear is given. I hope they try more stuff like this in coming content patches.