Hello, everybody! I hope everything is going well for you. Things are going pretty well for me here. Anyways! To business!
First thing's first: the good news for you guys (and there has to be at least one of you out there) waiting for my new book: I'm now officially about 4/5 of the way through the first draft. So I'm shooting for a 4th of July release date for the third and probably final book in the Outbreak series. Also I believe I've made literary history as this next book features (as far as I know) the very first 'daring escape via lawn tractor' scene in the history of people writing things down. Of course I have the major advantage of people like Homer and so forth not having a clue what a lawn tractor is so there's that anyways...
First thing's first: the good news for you guys (and there has to be at least one of you out there) waiting for my new book: I'm now officially about 4/5 of the way through the first draft. So I'm shooting for a 4th of July release date for the third and probably final book in the Outbreak series. Also I believe I've made literary history as this next book features (as far as I know) the very first 'daring escape via lawn tractor' scene in the history of people writing things down. Of course I have the major advantage of people like Homer and so forth not having a clue what a lawn tractor is so there's that anyways...
Also as some of you out there might have heard there's a game available for the Xbox 360 called State of Decay. If you don't have it already I highly recommend that you plunk down your hard earned $20 and get it. It is quite possibly the closest we'll ever get to a perfect zombie game. Seriously. And the neat thing is it's an open sandbox style game but it doesn't run into the problem that I have with so many of those sorts of games. It has side quests that aren't really essential to the main story but not so many that the edges of your little side map isn't covered with little specks telling you to go in every direction at once (I'm looking at you, Fallout 3...)
The side quests are kind of important though: rescuing survivors or helping them with stuff eventually makes them want to join your merry band which is important as you instantly switch to a new character if the one you're currently controlling dies. And as long as we're on the subject: if a character dies they're gone for good. There's no restarting from your last save point to get them back so be careful!
Though since it's open sandbox you can do what you feel like. Want to spend six hours looting every single house in town? Go for it! Feel like spending all afternoon driving a high end sports car through hordes of zombies at top speed? Knock yourself out! Incidentally that last bit can be humorous as the physics engine in the game can be a little...twitchy...sometimes. It's hilarious to plow into a zombie and see it go shooting off through the air and over the horizon.
The side quests are kind of important though: rescuing survivors or helping them with stuff eventually makes them want to join your merry band which is important as you instantly switch to a new character if the one you're currently controlling dies. And as long as we're on the subject: if a character dies they're gone for good. There's no restarting from your last save point to get them back so be careful!
Though since it's open sandbox you can do what you feel like. Want to spend six hours looting every single house in town? Go for it! Feel like spending all afternoon driving a high end sports car through hordes of zombies at top speed? Knock yourself out! Incidentally that last bit can be humorous as the physics engine in the game can be a little...twitchy...sometimes. It's hilarious to plow into a zombie and see it go shooting off through the air and over the horizon.
Speaking of bugs, if there is one flaw in the game, I would have to say that there are a few bugs in it but that's kind of to be expected considering it's a $20 download only game. They range from the funny (the flying zombies mentioned above or once I watched one of my fellow survivors carpet swim across the compound) to the disturbing (in one playthrough a friendly character ended up blowing himself up with a hand grenade to kill the zombies eating him...which instead got him stuck in a fence where he hovered screaming and flailing about) to the irritating (the camera angle shifting unexpectedly in combat, zombies appearing out of thin air in a previously secure location, zombies running through walls, etc.)
It's amazing especially considering it came from Undead Labs an indie game developer out of Seattle, Washington. Not that all indie games are bad or anything but this is a really face rockingly awesome game.
Anyways Undead Labs is releasing the latest DLC for State of Decay tomorrow which is called State of Decay: Lifeline and I can't freakin' wait to get my hands on it. From what I've been able to gather the plot is this: you take control of a unit of National Guard troops at the start of the outbreak (gee...sounds kinda familiar... :-P) and in between foraging for supplies you have to go out and rescue various civilian personnel still stranded throughout the city. From what I've read it's going to cost $7 USD in the Xbox store thingy (I don't have a PC that can do much beyond writing and Interneting so I don't have Steam).
Anyways Undead Labs is releasing the latest DLC for State of Decay tomorrow which is called State of Decay: Lifeline and I can't freakin' wait to get my hands on it. From what I've been able to gather the plot is this: you take control of a unit of National Guard troops at the start of the outbreak (gee...sounds kinda familiar... :-P) and in between foraging for supplies you have to go out and rescue various civilian personnel still stranded throughout the city. From what I've read it's going to cost $7 USD in the Xbox store thingy (I don't have a PC that can do much beyond writing and Interneting so I don't have Steam).
Anyways check out these screenshots from the new DLC!
Insert obligatory "GET TO DA CHOPPA!!" here... :-P
Chem Toilets: The key to surviving any zombie apocalypse.
Here's some of the characters that are apparently going to be your starting characters.
So I guess that's all I got for now. Have to get some writing done before State of Decay: Lifeline hits tomorrow as I have a sneaking suspicion it will murder my weekend. Click the link at the top of the post to check out my two previous eBooks for your Kindle which are available to borrow if you're signed up with Amazon Prime. If you're so inclined please take a moment to write a review on the books' pages and/or tell a friend about them. Or you can Like Outbreak: Boston's Facebook Page. Find it by simply entering Outbreak: Boston into the search bar on the page. I'm a one man operation here with a limited (read no) advertising budget so word of mouth really helps.
Thanks for reading and watch your brains!
