To give you a brief overview of Alan Wake, it’s a bit of a horror mystery game. You play as Alan Wake, a famous crime story writer who has hit a bit of a roadblock and has not written anything for two years. In order to clear that block he goes on a little vacation to a nice little town called Bright Falls with his wife, Alice. Getting to the point: shit goes down. Bright Falls is soon taken over by a dark force that is possessing the generally peaceful residents. Once the folks are possessed they’re dead and referred to as Taken. Where does Alan Wake fit into this? I actually almost forgot to include him in this. Basically, the darkness has taken Alice and Wake is not happy about this. Armed with a flashlight, revolver and a slew of other light sources, he treks into the night and begins lighting up his enemies.

The story is pretty good. Aside from the 3rd person shooter aspect, it is reminiscent of Shivers, The 11th Hour, or The 13th Guest. As you begin the story, you begin to discover pages from a novel that, unbeknown to him, Wake has written…and is living. One of the…for lack of a better word…coolest things about the story is that if you take risks and look into some dangerous nooks you can find pages to the story that  foreshadow almost every event about to happen in the story.

From demon shadow birds to shadow men, I love the character interaction the most. Wake’s manager, Barry, is probably one ofmy all-time favorite ‘sidekick’ characters in a video game…or maybe even movies.  He is the comic relief in the dark a dreary game, even when he’s in danger it’s still mildly humorous. “The Bright Falls general store is now my favorite place in the entire world. See this headlamp? It’s like a superpower. I can just look at one of those things and they die. It’s my flaming eye of Mordor!!!”, that’s one of the random lines he has and after an hour or two of playing the game you can’t help but chuckle.

If you’re looking for a great 1st or 3rd person shooter, this game really isn’t for you. Sure, there are some pretty cool dodge moments and it is crazy to watch an entire swarm of birds light up and disintegrate, but I’d only suggest this if you’re interested in thriller games that are more focused on the story. This is nowhere close to a Modern Warfare or Gears of War. I didn’t have too many problems with Alan Wake. It has a solid and intriguing story and it kept my attention. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in the forests or end up confused as what to do, but I felt that added to the eerie atmosphere.

I’d give this 4.5 squawks out of 5. Pick it up.

Iron Realms Entertainment develops and maintains four massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORG for short, which allows thousands of players to essentially live virtual lives and interact with each other in real time. Personally, I enjoy these games and have always wondered what it takes to run a company such as Iron Realms. I found my answers after an interview with one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met: Jeremy Saunders, the president of Iron Realms.

Saunders had originally started off as a player of Achaea and explained how difficult it was to move up the ladder. He loved the game, but owning three martial arts schools and a gym took up plenty of time.

There were two things he cites as helping him rise from player, volunteer, and finally president.

“I loved what I was doing. Working was not really working. Sure, there were things I did not enjoy doing, but let’s face it, there are in every job. I just decided I was going to give it one-hundred percent every day and the opportunities would come, and they did. Secondly, I learned to take advice and criticism. When I came up with ideas, they were always the best ideas. No one could talk me out of them. I soon learned that was not the case (after a few failures). I had to learn when to listen to my volunteers and the players.”

When I asked him if he ever thought he would be running the show he responded with, “Not a chance”. But through all the challenges he faced, such as lacking any coding skills or previous gaming administration experience his dedication carried him through.

“It is a lot of work, and I find myself on the computer from seven AM to midnight quite a bit, but it is very rewarding. We currently have a very long list of enhancements and features we want to roll out for over the next few months and I am pushing hard to get as many done as possible over the next few weeks”

He has a bit of trouble when it comes to keeping everything in order because “the main challenge is staying focused on promoting the company. I am constantly side tracked into doing fun projects on the games. I have to constantly look at my action plan and ask, ‘Is this something that promotes the games, or is just cool’?”

Saunders left me with a glimpse at what fans of Iron Realms can look forward to soon, “In the near future we will have custom made banners and badges for players to display, fan site kits that can access data from the games, new individual game sites that are more interactive, and several other top secret goodies that we will be announcing soon.”

-Aaron

What amazes me the most about this event is that they roll out these new products like they’re the cure for cancer and everybody loses their minds. Today I watched the keynote address for Microsoft and almost needed a new pair of pants after watching themreveal the new and improved XBOX 360 live. It is rare for me to get that excited over something, but when they’re revealing details on Fable III, Dead Space 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Force Unleashed 2, Rock Band 3, Fallout 3, Dead Rising 2 and a bunch of other things, it is really difficult not to get excited.

The best part of E3 is that it is a three day event that runs almost non-stop. Before the first day of the expo there were already previews and demos being released FROM the expo. If I ever get a chance to go to E3 I’d be there in a heartbeat. But enough of me gushing over why I love it…time to watch a live demo of Dead Rising 2.

-Aaron

I think I’ll start making specific days for when I post my How I Really Feel posts and when I do other stuff. Speaking of other stuff, I’ve been having some issues when it comes to doing Fowl Radio episodes because my work schedule has been changing quite a bit. We’ll try to get these issues sorted out soon enough.

I’ve also been looking to put together an actual team for this site but mainly for Fowl Radio! I need tech people, marketing people, even another full-time co-host. We’ll see how things work out. But here you go. Random thoughts.

-Aaron

CHECK OUT EPISODE 22

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