Yesterday I found myself wondering what I should spend my time doing. Going over my choices I told myself that right now is a good time to be interested in the things I’m interested in. I’ve a number of things with which to pass my time and thus keep those pesky non-work hours from being wasted. Let’s begin.

I am about three-quarters through Minion by L.A. Banks. I decided to read at least the first book in this series after stumbling upon a lexicon for this specific vampire universe. Why did the lexicon draw me in? Well, I’ve decided I’m going to use that as a segue into the next topic, so I’ll hit it after I talk briefly on the book itself.

In brief: elite vampire hunting squad who has a “special” member with them who is going through a really specific and special sort of puberty (she’s not a vampire, but definitely not vanilla human either).

The book is interesting. I’ve been very into deep characters as of late and as such this book put me off from the get go, as all the characters (as of right now) come across as rather cliche. This may change, but I am not holding out any specific hope. I was also taken aback by the sudden drop into the action. Without being a writer I can’t properly explain it, but I felt like the writer or publisher wanted the book to start as if it were an action movie (the book proper, that is, not the 2-3 “prologue” chapters dealing with the past). I start the book and am immediately along with the team on a hunt, hearing all the jargon and curses that go along with it. I’m not sure why this shocked me, but I was honestly expecting (and I guess hoping) for the book to build into the action. Maybe it was just the action coming right at me, or maybe it was something specific about the action I didn’t like. After the initial scene I managed to get into the flow of the book a bit better and I now find reading it more enjoyable. We’ll see how I feel after finishing it, though.

So, how did a lexicon alone pull me in? While reading that lexicon I appreciated that things were mapped out in a logical manner. Instead of “a list of vampire rules,” this was, “a list of vampire rules with explanations.” As a consumer of lore, I really like the idea that something is mapped out in a logical manner before hand. You know, to prevent inconsistencies and stuff.

SEGUE!

So, when it comes to reading rules, I’ve been playing around in Mass Effect this weekend. One feature in the game is the “codex,” which is just a collection of “lore” that you can read at any time. You know how a quest journal lets you ignore what the NPC is saying to you until you actually want to DO the quest? A codex lets you ignore lore until you are actually curious. I decided to read some of it today (I wanted to “clear out” the entries that were still marked unread). Doing that I often felt that I could’ve been reading from internal design notes directly. This is from a designer’s perspective–not a players–so in my opinion this was a good thing. I imagined this codex as existing prior to a quest writer implementing content. The quest writer would read this codex to get a feel for things and then use that as a starting point. Like that quest writer, a player can leaf over his codex and get an idea for things to come. I don’t know why that specific aspect caught my attention so much, but it felt “right” to me exposing the “rules” that designers live by to players as well. Of course, I have no idea if those notes were something scribbled down by a designer when implementing lore, or if they were painstakingly crafted after the fact. But the fact that they felt original is what pleased me.

The rest of the game happens to be amazing. Among the stuff I don’t pay much attention to: the environments are beautiful (the colors of the ship interior really feel spot on, for instance), the emotions present in the NPCs when speaking–even in non-humans–is subtle and works, the music is quite pleasing, the voice acting is great on average, and with very few exceptions the UI is something you don’t notice.

And the things I do pay attention to? The story is good so far. Yes, a little reminiscent of KOTOR, yes a little cliche at times, but strong and enjoyable nonetheless. The combat is like KOTOR with 70% less “clunkyness,” melded with a nice dose of Halo, and it definitely appeals to my play style. And the gameplay beyond the combat is wonderfully varied (and well paced to boot). Land on a planet, ride around in your “warthog” and shoot some things, get on foot to inspect a canister, play a really short puzzle game where winning feels like a prize and losing feels like no big deal, drive around some more, run into a compound with your crew and lay waste to some baddies, spend 20 minutes in your spaceship just scanning planets from afar hoping to find rare minerals… and then sit back and eat a burger while you read through the codex. And all that stuff I just mentioned? Polished to a high sheen. It works, and it works well (assuming we ignore crashes–I’ve learned to save often).

As an aside, I picked up Mass Effect from Fry’s. I paid 39 bucks for it. Fry’s is smart. They mark big games off the first week they’re out. If you’re into video games, and know releases, and pick up games when they first come out, you win by going to Fry’s and getting it cheaper than anywhere else. And Fry’s wins by knowing that you know to go there.

So how else have I been wasting my time? I just finished up season 4 of The Wire. I said above that I loved deep characters. This is one of The Wire’s strong points: an entire cast of flawed characters. Even the most heinous “bad guys” (and the most heinous “good guys,” for that matter) end up having some redeeming quality that endears them to you on some level. It feels good to pull for someone to push themselves just over a line and better themselves–even if that person isn’t real. Actually, probably especially if that person isn’t real, since they’ve been crafted specifically to make you want to pull for them.

Anyway, good times in time wasting.