Sword of Truth - Phantom

Phantom is the penultimate book in the epically long Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.  The plot of the previous book, Chainfire, is continued and expanded upon in the tenth book of the series.

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Phantom continues Richard’s search for his missing wife, Kahlan.  The Chainfire spell discovered in the previous book is still in effect, but Richard discovers that the spell form has been corrupted, as has all magic to some extent.  At the same time, Richard sees that the direct confrontation battles between the New World and the Old World are futile, since the Old World has supplies and troops far beyond those of the New World.  Richard orders his army to break into multiple, small armies, and sends them into the Old World to wreak havoc and destruction.  Meanwhile, Kahlan, having no memory of who she is, travels with the Sisters of the Dark to gather the items needed to cast an all-powerful magic that would give the Sisters immortality and unparalleled power.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - Chainfire

With the ninth book, Chainfire, the Sword of Truth series starts the final story arc, that will continue through the final two books to the conclusion of the series.

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Chainfire is the beginning of a trilogy of books that completes the Sword of Truth series.  After a battle, Richard awakes to find Kahlan gone.  Even more disturbing is that nobody seems to remember who Kahlan is, or that Richard was ever married.  It is as if Kahlan has been erased from the world without ever having existed.  While desperately trying to convince the others that Kahlan is real, he tirelessly searches for her and for the enemies that have taken her, setting a dark plan into motion.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - Naked Empire

Eighth in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, Naked Empire brings the regular characters back to the forefront in their continuing efforts to defeat the Imperial Order.

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Naked Empire picks up right where The Pillars of Creation leaves off.  ”The Gang”, as I’ll be referring to the group of heroes from here on out, encounters an individual named Owen, who begs for their assistance.  He gets The Gang’s assistance by poisoning Richard, with the promise of an antidote once he has freed Owen’s people from the Imperial Order.  Richard soon finds out that the Bandakar (Owen’s people) are all pristinely ungifted, with no spark of magic, like his half-sister Jennsen.  He reasons that the Imperial Order’s motives for conquering the Bandakar, as out of the way as they are, are to use them as a weapon against magic, as magic has no effect on them.  Richard must find a way to expel the Imperial Order from Bandakar, and win the allegiance of the Bandakar people before his time runs out.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - The Pillars of Creation

The Pillars of Creation, the seventh installment of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, is the first in the series not to prominently feature the regular characters of the first six books.

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In The Pillars of Creation, we are introduced to some new characters whose storylines will dominate most of the book.  Jennsen and Sebastian are first escaping the assassins of “Lord Rahl”, then joining Jagang and the Imperial Order, setting out to assassinate Richard Rahl.  Oba is discovering that he has a great deal of strength and power, and is seeking answers and riches.  Though neither knows it, Jennsen and Oba are half-siblings to each other, as well as to Richard Rahl.  It is discovered that Jennsen and Oba are known as “Pillars of Creation”, meaning that they have no spark of magical ability in them whatsoever.  This is a rarity in a world where almost every living being has at least a miniscule spark of magic within them.  This story sets up for the eighth book in the series, Naked Empire, which delves deeper into the world of the ungifted.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - Faith of the Fallen

The sixth book in Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, Faith of the Fallen, drastically alters the course of the overall story.

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Richard and Kahlan have removed themselves from the world after Richard’s faith in the ability of the people to stand up for themselves and choose freedom over tyranny.  They are unable to stay away, however, when Nicci, an incredibly powerful sorceress who has had dealings with Richard before, captures him and takes him into the heart of the Old World.  She wants to make him understand the idealogy of the Imperial Order by making him live in the capital of the Old World.  He is forced to live without magic, and without his identity.  After many months, Richard, however, simply by his nature, unknowingly converts Nicci into a follower and ally, opening her eyes to the oppression and degradation of the Old World and the Imperial Order.  With the many followers he has managed to acquire simply by being himself, Richard is able to oversee the fall of the capital of the Imperial Order.  Faith of the Fallen is easily one of my favorite books in the Sword of Truth series.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - Soul of the Fire

Soul of the Fire, the fifth book in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, continues moments after where Temple of the Winds left off.

In Soul of the Fire, the magic that Kahlan (Richard’s wife) uses to save Richard’s life releases a terrible scourge into the world known as the Chimes.  The Chimes slowly begin draining magic out of the world, which could lead to apocalyptic consequences.  Richard and Kahlan discover the Chimes after Zedd (Richard’s grandfather) has started trying to banish the Chimes from the living world.  While the heroes pursue their objective, another story is taking place.  The land of Anderith is a strategic military point in the battle between Richard Rahl and the Imperial Order.  Political intrigue in Anderith has a large effect on the lives of Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, and many others.  Soul of the Fire is very well written, and one of the more enjoyable books in the series, in my opinion.

-[insert revolutionary thinking here]

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Sword of Truth - Temple of the Winds

The history of the war that Richard Rahl now finds himself in is fleshed out in more detail in Temple of the Winds, the fourth book of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

The Emperor of the Imperial Order, Jagang, has forced Richard Rahl into following a prophecy with only two endings, both of which hold death.  A magical plague spreads across the New World with the intensity of a hurricane as Jagang’s armies advance further.  Meanwhile, Richard learns a great deal more about the Great War 3,000 years past from the journals he has found of a wizard from that time.  Richard Rahl must deal with betrayal while holding off the forces of the Old World and the Imperial Order.

By the way, Richard defeats one enemy by ripping his spine out through his stomach.

I won’t say who, but that’s pretty awesome.  That’s Roadhouse awesome.

-Because I said so

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Review

We rented X-Men Origins: Wolverine over a week ago, but since I work, and we had a busy weekend, it’s taken me the full week to finally complete the game.  Now, on to the review!

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I’ll start with the complaints.  Primarily, the game was short.  At least, shorter than I would have liked.  However, when you really think about it, that seems to be the case for all games that I enjoy a great deal.  Realistically, though, if I had one solid day to sit and play, it could easily have been completed in 6-10 hours, depending on how thorough I was.  With the cost of video games for the current generation consoles being what it is (approx. $60), I think it’s fair to expect more length, content, and replay value.  X-Men Origins: Wolverine has no multiplayer system, only the single player campaign.  You can play through this in Normal, and upon completion of the game, you can replay it in Hard.  There are also four bonus challenges that can be unlocked in the game, but I’ll go into those later.  Most of the achievements can be accomplished in the first run through on Normal, and any that are missed can be grabbed on Hard, limiting the number of runthroughs for true game completion to two.  I understand that most games, however, have this problem, and have, for the time being, accepted it as a necessary drawback of playing video games.

My second complaint focuses on the camera.  There are times in the game when you are forced to travel in a certain direction while being attacked or being in some otherwise perilous situation, such as a narrow ledge, etc.  During these times, more often than not, the camera forces itself into a forward position, directed towards Wolverine’s face, making it impossible to see where you are going.  I died three times simply because I couldn’t see anything in front of me and wasn’t able to readjust the camera.  Another example of bad camera direction is during one of the boss fights.  As you run from this boss, the camera defaults to the face-Wolverine direction.  It can be moved, but as soon as you let go of the camera control joystick, it reverts quickly to the face-Wolverine direction.

Thirdly, there are some minor bugs in the game that can make it necessary to restart from the previous save or checkpoint.  When fighting near a low fence that constitues a level boundary for Wolverine, some combat bugs can occur.  If Wolverine throws an enemy outside of this boundary, and they remain alive, they become untouchable.  There are many stages where progress is impossible until every single enemy is killed.  A simple solution would have been to make the boundaries not only apply to Wolverine, but to the NPCs as well.

My final complaint is the inconsistency of difficulty.  The game is broken into 5 “Chapters”.  Each chapter introduces progressively more difficult enemies while retaining the enemies of previous chapters.  The problem is that the boss fights, while they get progressively more difficult through the fourth chapter, become ridiculously simple in the final chapter.  A returning boss is easily defeated, while the final game boss provides little challenge other than to make you fall and die, which is easily avoided.  The sudden drop in difficulty was disappointing.  The entire level was easier than previous levels had been as well.

Now to the fun stuff.  I may have given a lot of space to those complaints, but honestly, compared to the rest of this game, they are extremely minor.  In terms of pure fun, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a 10.  The game is visually stunning.  The story unfolds smoothly (even if the story is bullshit (sorry, comic nerd in me is rebelling)) with great cut-scenes and FMVs.  The combat system is amazing, with a simple structure allowing the player to focus more on the damage than on a combination of buttons.  Wolverine’s healing factor is really showcased in this game.  There were times when I had Wolverine down to mostly skeleton and he was still going strong(ish).  Watching the regeneration was a lot of fun, too.

The game includes four bonus stages, three of which I have unlocked.  By finding specific action figure statues of Wolverine in the game, you unlock challenges from the main menu.  These challenges open up new costumes for Wolverine to wear instead of the white shirt and jeans.  I managed to obtain the “Classic” Wolverine costume, which is his blue and yellow, the “Legendary” Wolverine costume, which is his brown and yellow (as soon as I unlocked this, I spent the rest of the game in this costume), and the “X-Force” Wolverine costume, which is mostly black.  Great bonus content.

There isn’t a lot more to say that I haven’t said in my demo review and my partial review already.
xhelicopter

Oh shit!  Wolverine just jumped towards a helicopter?  Spoiler: Wolverine kicks its ass.

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Holy crap!  Wolverine is fighting a full size Sentinel!  Spoiler:  WOLVERINE KICKS ITS ASS.

This game is fantastic.  Even though the game is far too short for my liking, the ridiculous amounts of AWESOME that the developers stuffed into this game makes it easily worth the $59.99+tax price tag.

-Because I said so

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Sword of Truth - Blood of the Fold

Blood of the Fold is the third book in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, and it continues the story of Richard Rahl, while introducing some new characters to the universe.

Following the events of the second book, Stone of Tears, a new threat is becoming evident to the New World (the home of Richard Rahl).  This story sees a great deal of political upheaval with Richard taking control over the entire New World in an effort to stop the armies of the Old World.   The threat of the Imperial Order is preceeded by the threat of the Blood of the Fold, a fanatical army intent on destroying all magical beings.  Richard’s task is made more difficult when the lands he is trying to protect do not easily submit to his authority.

-Because I said so

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Sword of Truth - Stone of Tears

Terry Goodkind continues the story of Richard Rahl in Stone of Tears, book two of the Sword of Truth series.

Richard, after discovering in the first book that he is the son of the evil tyrant he had to defeat, finds himself seemingly betrayed in this book, putting him up against a new set of foes, both intellectual and physical.  In another fantasy genre cliche move, Richard finds out that he is special beyond the other wizards and people in the world.  I mentioned in the first book review that no wizard in 3,000 years had been both with both sides of magic.  Richard, apparently, is the first in all of that time to have both sides within him.  Now, not only is our hero risen from a modest standing, but he is also uniquely gifted in all the world.  He needs these new gifts,  however, as a new, menacing enemy is hinted at.  Richard’s abilities are further revealed in a slowly expanding story that will continue on for nine books after this one.  At almost 1,000 pages, Stone of Tears is another exercise in commitment, but it is well worth the time.

-Because I said so

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