Wordsmith's Anvil

Image credit: Disney Making my way through The High Republic books has been an amazing side quest in recent months. Not only is it really cool to be reading Star Wars novels again, but the fact that they're canon makes it all the more satisfying. The stories are well-crafted, thought provoking, and provide substance that is truly lacking in anything Star Wars has released in film format since Rogue One . My main query as I began this venture was whether or not the Young Adult novels would be able to hold a candle to the nitty-gritty displayed in the likes of Convergence or Cataclysm .     The two books in question today are the novels Path of Deceit and Path of Vengeance. While these books are written by different authors, Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland for Deceit and Cavan Scott for Vengeance , most of the characters are the same.     Path of Deceit has us following Jedi Knight Zallah Macri and her Padawan Kevmo Zink. This pair has been tasked with pathfinder-t...

Image credit: Penguin Publishing Group Celts, Pagan magick, warriors defending their homeland. What's not to like?     At first glance, Ravens of Avalon sounds like something that would be right up my alley. I have always had a fascination with the history behind Boudica. Hell, I've even thought of writing my own historical novel surrounding the warrior queen. Ancient Britons defending their land from the Roman Empire is always going to be something that sparks my fire. Call me an underdog kind of guy. I just love when people punch above their weight.     Ravens of Avalon tells the tale of Boudica from the very beginning of her life as a young adolescent through her death. For those who don't know their history too well, I will preface here by saying that there is not very much known about Boudica in general. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until some cultural renaissances hundreds upon hundreds of years after her death that she suddenly became a topic of interest. Bo...

  Image Credit: Ocean Drive Studio, Inc. Action. Check. Horror. Check. Scifi. Check. Fantasy. Well... sort of. Hell, might as well check that too.     Section 13 is a different breed of game from Ocean Drive Studio. They have definitely left a mark on me with Lost Eidolons and Veil of the Witch , and due to that I was more than willing to give this twinstick shooter a try.     This roguelite is a lot different from anything else Ocean Drive has done because of its setting and combat style, but that doesn't mean that Section 13 is anything to skip over. The company has shown their chops with medieval swordplay and tactical strategy, but you can tell that they had a lot of fun with this revamp of the Blackout Protocol title. By incorporating roguelite elements into the story,  Section 13 forces its employees to discover just how far they can push themselves when having to delve deeper and farther into the bowels of a science facility to find out exactly what...

  Image Credit: Night Shade Books As strength goes.     That's something that we hear a lot in Cook's Darkwar trilogy. From Doomstalker to Warlock, and Warlock to Ceremony, Marika's lesson from the Ponath sticks through. And it shows.     Marika is the main character and centerpiece of Cook's science-fantasy series. She is from a feline race called the Meth, and grows up in a sector of the planet that has been restricted technologically. If it sounds a bit like The Hunger Games , it is. In that respect only. The comparison stops there.     Being raised by a band of hunters who are averse to anything they don't understand, like mental powers in the form of a spirit-guided telepathy, Marika finds herself in a bit of a conundrum. Exploring these talents has the potential to save those she loves from her village, but also could result in further examination by those who are already concerned that she could be the "Doomstalker." This Doomstalker, or Jiana...

  Image Credit: Saber Interactive Space Marine II was an absolute first for me in one regard.     I have literally never played a game where the very first gear and appearance your character has is absolutely badass, and virtually anything that comes after that makes him look like a goon. Congratulations, Saber. You played yourself.     Titus starts off the game in the Death Watch, rounding out a century of service to the emperor for coming close to heresy without actually crossing the line. As such, he is a commander and is dressed to the nines with a skull helmet, red cloak, dark grey armor, and is an absolute monster on the battlefield. So much so, in fact, that upon his death he is essentially reanimated with additional parts in order to continue serving the Imperium.     No retirement plan?  What a sucker.     After his reanimation, Titus is reinstated into the Ultramarines as a lieutenant. Definitely a downgrade from his former ran...

  Image Credit: Egg Nut In order to do this game justice with my review, I'm going to keep it short and sweet. That is exactly what the developers did, anyway.     In Tails Noir you play a private investigator named Howard. Howard's typical clientele are people looking for cheating spouses or those who have misplaced a valuable bauble or two. Nothing big time. And he knows it. He also is well aware of how lame his life feels as a result.     The latest case that drops in his lap seems just like all the others. A pregnant mother is looking for her deadbeat husband. She just knows he's two-timing, but she doesn't want to fully boot him out without proof. Howard is on the case! When investigating this particular dirtbag, however, Howard discovers a lot more than he bargained for. For one, the guy is dead. And secondly, his corpse is being chopped up and packaged off as if it's going to market. Could there really be people in elite society feasting on the flesh of t...

Images Credit: Disney & Yihyoung Li Woo. It's been a minute since I've read a Star Wars novel, and even longer since it's been one that has actually been considered canon. Most of the stuff that's been churned out over the decades has just been shuffled to Star Wars's "Legends" section, a sort of catch-all that looks at things more like a reimagining than anything. That is not the case with the books of The High Republic .     The High Republic effort by Disney includes books, audio dramas, comics, graphic novels, video games, a children's show, and a more adult-centric show that completely flopped. Whether or not that show flopped due to its content or due to the heavy review bombing that happened is perhaps up for debate, but I'm not going to discuss that in this particular post. I'll focus instead on the first two stories set in this era.      In an even longer time ago in that same galaxy we've come to know and love... Convergence s...

Image credit: Ember Lab Oh man. I don't think I've ever actually done back to back 10/10 reviews before.      You ready for it?      I know I am.     Kena: Bridge of Spirits is one of those games that comes by and captures you from the moment you set forth in the titular character's shoes. As a spirit guide, Kena is expected to help wayward souls on their voyage to the afterlife. Or maybe just accept the fact that they are not of this world any longer. Either way, it's a job that she inherited from her father but has always felt a bit apprehensive about. This is mainly because she feels like she could never be as great of a spirit guide as those who came before her.     She is wrong.     Kena's journey goes across a village and the surrounding acreage to include some river landscape, forestry, farmland, and even a bit of snowy peaks. Along the way she encounters several spirits like Beni, Saiya, Rusu, Taro, Hana, Adira, Zajuro...

Image credit: Jump Over the Age "'More Human than Human' is our motto," Tyrell says with a mixture of matter-of-fact clarification and barely contained pride.     Deckard scoffs at the very idea that one of these replicants could be anything like a human.       Let alone more.     Blade Runner is, and probably always will be, my all-time favorite movie. It combines the raw human emotion I love in films alongside great sci-fi action. I could go on for hours, but we're not here to talk about Ridley Scott's masterpiece. We're here to talk about the one created by Jump Over the Age.     You read that right.     In Citizen Sleeper , you play as a "sleeper" on an almost-forgotten space station in a remote corner of the galaxy. To figure out just what the hell I'm talking about, let me clarify a few things. First off, in this distant future AI has been outlawed entirely. Perhaps not such a bad thing... Either way, it is illegal for an...

  Image Credit: A44 Games Last year I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across the game called Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn . It was fun, explosive, and had just the right amount of difficulty in there to lightly frustrate while urging for just a little more from the player. Flintlock didn't just arrive from a fledgling team on their first outing, however. They had already created an arguably more famous game in Ashen .     In Ashen, you play a nameless and literally faceless character who is traversing the depths of some caves for seemingly no reason. Your companion is a blond adventurer who has little to say in the offset, but you two work together to reach the minuscule beginnings of a village. Only a couple people are hanging out here, and it becomes readily apparent in a matter of moments that you are going to be required to help them out in building this place from scratch.     As the villagers of Vagrant's Rest begin to build something to call home...

Image Credit: Reikon Games It's amazing what a game can do to your willingness to dive in with something as simple as a gun and a set of sci-fi powers. Now add a few more guns and a soundtrack that bangs with every track... and you've got Metal Eden .     You play as Aska, a "hyper unit" Android tasked with releasing the uploaded minds of millions of citizens that have been held hostage in what amounts to a sort of brain-storage-facility. This all takes place on a planet that has been designated as mankind's best new setting as Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. Unfortunately for Aska, but fortunately for us, there are obstacles in the way of her mission in the form of thousands of enemies that are tasked with guarding the "cores" needed to advance further.     Sound confusing?     Just wait 'til you play it. The Good First and foremost, the gameplay takes a front seat here. It's not just the combat, although that alone is truly special. The ...

  Image Credit: Streum On & Games Workshop Well... It's certainly been a minute.     You'll have to excuse my absence, I was doing a replay of the oh-so-glorious Rogue Trader . It still sits pretty at a solid 8/10, but I think that rating could improve with the addition of all the DLC they have planned for it. It's so damn good.     But I digress.     We're not here to discuss Games Workshop at its finest, courtesy of Owlcat. We're here to discuss Games Workshop at its most mediocre. Oops. Did I just tip my hand a little too early? Chances are, if you've already done your research on this 2021 game, you've likely made a conclusion one way or another.     Necromunda: Hired Gun takes place in the underhive city for which it gets its name. It's dark, gritty, covered in skulls, and everyone wants to kill you. Sound like Warhammer yet? You play as a bounty hunter working in this underground where your main hangout is the local dive bar and you...

  Image Credit: Makee Games & Forever Entertainment S.A. Once in a while a game series comes along that just snaps up your attention and refuses to let go.       This is not one of them.     Rise Eterna tells a familiar tale of woe and ruin. We are first introduced to a hard-nose mercenary who has limits to what he will and will not do. Rob townsfolk? Sure. Let others butcher them in cold blood? Okay, fine. Participate in said butchery? No, ma'am! Absolutely not.     These are the morals that compose Natheal, the man who arguably fills the role of lead protagonist in the original game. His cynical view on the jaded aspects of everyday life changes once he starts to "connect" with Lua. I put connect in quotes because the connection here is minimal, at best. Lua is the stereotypical "I may be small but don't mess with me" female that we see in a lot of these types of games. Her connection to Natheal is that of a daughterly one, we're told i...

 Image credit: Glen Cook & Tor Books I love me some Glen Cook.     For the longest time I was on a Bernard Cornwell and Joe Abercrombie kick, and don't get me wrong those two are still among my top tier of writers, but I eventually stumbled into my Glen Cook phase and haven't looked back.     For those who don't know, Cook is a grimdark writer. The founder of the genre, really, who has given inspiration to the likes of Mark Lawrence and Joe Abercrombie. While those latter two are potentially heavier names in the modern day, Cook more than earned his stripes starting in the 80s. The Garrett Files just delivers further notches to his credential belt.     The Garrett Files is actually the title of a trilogy of his novels that revolve around the detective work of the titular character. The actual books within are titled Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts , and Cold Copper Tears. All of them are standalone mysteries, but the character that Cook buil...

Image credit: Owlcat Games Those of you who have already been privy to my thoughts and feelings on Owlcat Games know that this review has been a long time coming. I've already given my thoughts on the incredible work of art that is Rogue Trader , and although I've played Kingmaker before... it's been a little while. I did a replay of Wrath of the Righteous in order to really home in on my feelings for this one.     Once again, Owlcat does not disappoint.     In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous , we start as a wounded individual brought to the middle of a festival in the grand city of Kenabres. After some quick healing from the local dragon, you read that right, we get to participate in a couple activities before the proverbial sh!t hits the fan. Deskari, a demon lord hell-bent on destroying civilization as everyone knows it, shows up to wreck the party and sever a dragon's head in the process. After a timely spell prevents your death, you explore some caves and eme...