Dead Platforms

A minor–but by no means insurmountable, though extremely annoying–hitch has occurred in what I thought was going to be a straightforward task. One of the things that my agent is asking for to keep my material updated is the original synopses I wrote for the earlier novels. Unfortunately, those synopses are not on the current computer, and were scattered across two old laptops that I’d used during my time in Singapore. The first and older, was a badly manufactured local product with broken hinges on the monitor (meaning it could no longer stand on its own power and needed the screen to be rested against something behind it, like a stack of phone books). The other was the laptop I moved onto after the first started to fall apart.

The problem was trying to get said files off of these two laptops.

In the case of the first laptop, the broken monitor hinge had also cut the wires that connected the monitor’s power to the laptop. It still worked, but ONLY if the angle of the monitor were adjusted to some arbitrary degree that the wires would properly connect and the monitor would work. Once I’d managed to achieve that, I tried transferring the files off by use of a 3 1/2 disk (you remember those, I’m sure…) except that, to my horror, I found that the disk drive no longer worked. It whirred, gurgled and made all kinds of interesting mechanical noises, but it failed to be detected by the computer, let alone format a disc for use.

In the case of the second laptop, it still worked as well, but, being slimmer and designed for portability, its 3 1/2 disc drive was external. I plugged that in, and it too failed to work. Both of these laptops were manufactured a few years before USB ports became standard features in computers, so I can’t even just plug in a USB flash memory card and transfer the data off that way.

Which leaves me with the old school solution; I dragged out my most recent laptop, which DOES have USB ports built in, set up beside the first laptop which, after much fiddling, I managed to get working with its screen, and then, for fear of losing the “magic,” left it exactly where it was and broke out the newer laptop to use those touch typing skills I somehow had the foresight to pick up in high school (I figured at the time if I was going to be a writer, I should learn how to type. Probably the last time I ever used logic in my life) and managed to re-type my synopsis for my first novel.

Now I am going to do the same for the second today, and spend the rest of the time tidying up all this new stuff I have to give the agent, including my new blurb, reflecting my married status, new home in Toronto and–although it’s still a few days from now–by dedication to Rock Band.

Oh hey, what a segue! SPEAKING OF ROCK BAND…

IGN has now released the first online review of the game. It’s a bit weird how they approached it. First, they have different individuals that chose to specialize in different instruments give their take on each one, and then a final review of the game itself is given, totaling up an impressive six pages. This in itself is not what I find to be the weird part. I suspect that there may have been fears of being accused of being Harmonix fanboys, since they spend the majority of the six pages concentrating primarily on the flaws of the game. For every single instrument and for the game in general, they talk about what really bothers them about the game, and what potential pitfalls gamers face when they pick it up. They make almost sound like they don’t like the game very much… and then they give it a 9.4, decisively beating Guitar Hero III which, in their reviews, they had nothing but good things to say about, and, if their write-up is to be believed, was a very nearly flawless game which they gave an 8.9 to.

This is not to say that they bash Rock Band out of all reason, they obviously don’t, they have a great deal of love for the game. But I suppose that because the game is fairly expensive, and because some of their comments are based on the pre-production controllers they got (they weren’t big fans of the new guitar) they decided it would best to say “trust us, the game is good,” and then get the relevant concerns out that people who have to drop the dollars might want to know about since it’s a much heavier investment than a typical game.

They have also posted a video review which takes much the same tack as their written review, although the lack of score makes it out to seem like they don’t quite like the game as much as their final score would indicate.