Significant Zero by Walt Williams - Book Review

Walt Williams ended up in the videogames industry almost by accident, but I am happy that he did as otherwise, he wouldn't have written this funny, revealing and extraordinarily self-aware book about his path into what many might think is the perfect career but ended up being very much not what might be expected.

Significant Zero shines due to William's approach to the narrative which, as you'd very much expect from someone whose job is to write for videogames, is pitched perfectly. There is snark, sass, anger, cynicism and even, at times, joy. From his beginnings as a would-be Marvel comic writer (he got to the front door), to travelling the globe, finding his own voice and surfing the currents of good and bad fortune, to finally settling down with a family (see, there is a happy ending here too), it is Walt's personality that carries you through the tale. And he needs to be engaging because at times he is a self-confessed dick.

Truly, there are moments where he comes across as the most arrogant, unpleasant person in the room. And that's ok, because you still get to find out that there are, at times, even more unpleasant people present and, even worse, far better people who are affected by that. But this book is more than just an ego trip/mea culpa (delete as applicable). It also about the games industry. 

Now, I know what you're thinking, things will have changed since this book was published and since Walt experienced the events he describes within, but if you've been keeping track at all of the industry and have read this book, you'll know that's not the case at all. There are long periods of crunch, of merely existing and robotically following the same routine, eating the same crap food and imbibing alcohol and medication just to get through the day. It feels like burnout (not to mention an early death) is constantly around the corner. If ever there was an advert for not working in the industry, this is it. 

It's not all dark though, as Walt shares his observations and experiences as the industry developed through the first decade and a bit of the 21st century. There is very pointed commentary on game pricing and DLC, which is all the more pertinent now due to different pricing regimes between platform holders and the ubiquity of micro-transactions even (or should that be especially) within full price software. The contributions from Greg Kavasin and Anthony Burch are the metaphorical cherries on the top and are well worth your attention too. 

What really struck home for me was Walt's involvement in Spec Ops: The Line, a third-person cover shooter that is one of the best of its kind to make it to market. The key hook in the game is the story and how it was presented. Whilst I shall not spoil anything here, go have a play of it if you can (and if you can't read up about it), so then you can understand that it was not only the journey of one soldier in a war zone, but one writer in a company - the real world scars of its production are eye opening. 

It's not all Spec Ops, of course, but for a man who has worked on Star Wars: Battlefront, BioShock, Civilisation and Mafia amongst others, it is the core of the book. Having said that, reading about The Darkness II made me pick up copies of that and the first game just to see what the fuss was about, and I have to admit, I enjoyed them immensely. 

Part memoir, part treatise on the world of videogame creation, Significant Zero is a book that anyone who is interested in how games are created should read, if only just for the anecdote of watching a voice artist (and their husband) complete a recording session. Time may make some of the points raised here moot, but as a snapshot of where the industry was and to a fair degree still is, this tome cannot be beaten and is well worth your money.

You can purchase Significant Zero from the usual places, and you can follow the author on Twitter here.

Archive Magazine - Volume 25.6 Review

Last week, an email arrived from Archive Magazine editor Gavin Smith containing a link to a digital copy of the latest issue, 25.6. It was a pleasant surprise to see such a copy being sent out to subscribers of the physical magazine a few days before that arrived in the post and, as it is the Wakefield (but in Bradford) RISC OS show this weekend (which I hope to attend), I thought it timely to provide a quick review of the final edition in the current volume.

There are the usual 56 pages (including covers) and it begins with a lovely picture from Tollymore Forest Park in County Down. After a brief but informative editorial, we hit the rather lengthy newsdesk, coming in at eight pages. There are notes on forthcoming shows, a new machine from R-Comp, various software updates and the like. Indeed, there is quite a lot to take in here. 

The first feature is from Richard Hallas and covers the use of the cog logo to represent RISC OS. It's an interesting piece, not only providing a bit of background to the use of the Acorn nut in previous years, but also the reasons and benefits of changing to the increasingly familiar cog. Following that is an update from Bernard Boase to a previous article (Archive 25.3) about the various distros available for RISC OS. Here, he provides further information about the Cloverleaf Distro and some thoughts on it.  

John McCartney gives us a article on running RPCEmu on Linux Mint, as well as a link to his guide to the process, followed by four pages from Andrew Rawnsley, who provides a beginners guide to what RISC OS Developments do, their past achievements and how they operate. Chris Hall made my head explode with four pages on how to calculate the filled area of an arbitrary shape - this has nothing to do with his writing or coding, it's very much to do with my brain and maths! Once I got my head around the workings it all made perfect sense. 

Brain hurts... :-)

Gavin Wraith talks readers through queues and objects in Lua, John Schild delivers an amusing tale about printer drivers, and then Mr Wraith pops up again with two tales about text. Chris Hall's hefty five and a half pages on the steady march of progress relating to data connections from your home is one that certainly informs and gets the reader to ask questions - the most immediate one being "Is that really progress?" 

Bimal Jangra delivers some good advice on keeping your Windows PC's up to date in PC Bits, whilst in Mac Matters, Mark Stephens delves into using RPCEmu on the Mac. We get a half page for letters and emails (and yes, I remember TopModel too!), before Rob Sprowson starts a new series on the topic of PIC's - Peripheral Interface Controllers. It looks like there will be four parts to this series and I am looking forward to seeing where this goes. 

Colin Piggot returns with another Acorn Retro, with news snippets and the like for BBC Micro and Electron users, before we finish the issue off with Kevin Corney's Lives and Loves of a RO fanatic, a lovely appreciation of one person's interaction with RISC OS. Add to that a couple of small hints and tips box outs and an advert for the Wakefield show this weekend on the back cover, and that's it for a packed final edition for this volume. 

I really do like Archive, it's never less than informative and entertaining, even if the subject matter taxes the brain (which is no bad thing at all), and it's great to see the updated magazine website in operation. As you can probably have guessed, I renewed my subscription at the end last year and look forward to seeing what the next volume brings. Check Archive Magazine's website out here, where you'll find all of the relevant details about subscribing. You can also follow the magazine on Twitter here. 

Handbrake! by Mariano Sciaroni and Alejandro Amendolara - Book Review

Handbrake! is the latest release in Helion & Co's increasing Latin America@War range and covers the use of the Dassault Super Etendard by the Argentinian Navy in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas War. Written by Mariano Sciaroni and Alejandro Amendolara, this 102-page tome aims to bring forth the relatively little-known story of the Super Etendard from its initial introduction into Argentinian Navy service, its use in the 1982 conflict, and finally to the decades of service after the war that kept the Argentinian Navy involved in carrier operations.

The usual Helion & Co quality is on display when you first open the book. There is a quick preface followed by a forward by Roberto Curilovic, callsign "Toro" (Bull), who flew the mission the led to the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor. 

The main body of the book begins with a description of the Super Etendard and the AM39 Exocet anti-ship missile. We then get a brief history of the Second Naval Fighter and Attack Squadron up to it's formation with the Super Etendard, before the book takes us on a quick side step to the first half of April, where clear descriptions are given about how tactics were put in place to attack a missile defended target, as well as those countermeasures to try and defend against a missile attack.

Subsequent sections are written in a chronological order, the squadron's deployment south, the initial missions, and then highly detailed descriptions of the attacks on HMS Sheffield and the SS Atlantic Conveyor. There are interlinked chapters on the changing tactics as the war progressed, as well as the final attack on the Task Force that led to perhaps the most controversial (certainly from an Argentinian perspective) event of the naval campaign: the claimed strike against HMS Invincible. After that, there is the withdrawal of the squadron and the aircraft's post-war career to the modern day. 

As befits a Helion & Co publication, there are numerous maps, diagrams and photographs, almost all contemporary and from private collections. The art in the centre of the book is also of high quality and useful for future reference. 

This is another well-written history and one that shows the challenges, spirit and courage of the Argentinian pilots and their support crews. A great deal of research has been undertaken here along with numerous interviews of those who experienced the conflict. Very much like the history told in other books in this series (I have reviewed two previous books by Mr Sciaroni here), it is a tale of professionals trying to achieve the military aims (driven by political leadership) in circumstances that were less than conducive to success. The fact that, with some help, they managed to get four of the five aircraft in to a war and prosecute attacks without any formal training on the missile system itself speaks volumes. There is a camaraderie on display that feels so familiar if you have read about pilots during wartime from any nation, and something that is mirrored in their British opposites (check out David Morgan's Hostile Skies, Jerry Pook's RAF Harrier Ground Attack, Falklands and Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands for a British view of air operations. The first two I have read and enjoyed, and I still need to pick up a copy of Ward's book). Of particular interest in Handbrake! was the efforts of Captain Jorge Colombo, an officer willing to push as hard as he could to protect his men whilst still trying to get the job done, despite the potential consequences for his career. 

Handbrake! is a timely history that provides a window on the men and aircraft that taxed the British Task Force so much. It also demonstrates how precarious the countermeasures were to the danger of low level anti-ship missile strikes and the wider implications that could have ensued if the ballon had gone up in Europe in the 1980's. It is another excellent addition to the Latin America@War series and should be on the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in the period or post-WW2 naval combat in general. You can pick up a copy from Helion & Co here. 

Vita Means Life by Sandeep Rai - Book Review

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but there was this Sony PlayStation Vita fan who wrote a three volume guide about Sony's second handheld wonder and published them via Kickstarter campaigns... oh, what? You have heard this one before? Ah, yes, here...

Sandeep Rai produced three excellent volumes on the PS Vita that provided a wonderful history of the handheld up until 2019. But the Vita continued on for another two years, with a last gasp of titles and an outpouring of grief from fans who didn't want their favourite handheld to just fade away. After positive feedback from his original work, and requests to provide them in hardback form, Rai created this hardback wonder with over 440 pages of Vita goodness. 

The contents are divided into the following sections: The PS Vita story, interviews, game retrospectives, a full library list of physical and digital titles that were released on the system, a short hardware guide and a timeline of key events in the Vita's history.

There is a lot carried over from the original trilogy, which is no bad thing if you have read my review here.  Four new chapters have been added to the Vita story, plus a new interview (although correct me if I am wrong, please) whilst a lot of the game retrospectives remain as before. Production quality is superb and this would not look out of place on the shelves of Waterstones. 

As a benefit of being a Kickstarter backer, an additional reward was the PlayStation Vita Collector's Handbook, a small pocket book listing all of the retail, limited print run, Asian English, and rare games, alongside the various models of handheld. Each game entry contains brief details of its release date, developer, publisher, genre, Metacritic score (where applicable), whether it received a Platinum release and a tick box for you to use once you have that title in your collection. It's a nice touch to the main volume and if I ever get into collecting for the Vita (cost and space issues aside), it will be a handy reference.

Indeed, the same compliment can be given to the main volume. It is a handy reference but, more than that, it is a truly passion filled tribute to the little console that could, even if Sony themselves gave up on it far too early. 

This is quite a short review, but one I felt needed writing to highlight the care and love that has been spent on this beautiful tome. If you are a PS Vita fan, you need to own a copy. You can follow the author on Twitter here, where you'll find links to his YouTube channel. If you want a copy of this fine book, pop over to Etsy here and grab a copy. You'll also find more excellent gaming goodies there as well.

Oh, one last thing. Sandeep has announced that he is to publish a book on the PlayStation 3, "It Only Did Everything." This should be launched on a Kickstarter later this year. Given the quality of Vita Means Life, that's sure to be a corker and I look forward to supporting it.