Written by | Shattered Icon is a book of two halves, the main half is set in modern day and revolves around a treasure hunt, the smaller half is set around the reading of a journal that is being used as part of the treasure hunt. The transitions between the two stories can get a little confusing early on, as there is no obvious distinction in print from the two and at one stage I found myself reading what I thought was another journal entry only to realise I was back in modern day. The fact that the characters are part of a treasure hunt is revealed slowly and it is not till near the end of the book that you actually find out what they are after as, like all stories of this genre, they are being pursued by another evil group and decide the best course of action is to acquire the object first.
I found the journal sections to be more interesting than the core as it weaves an entertaining conspiracy plot involving the British monarchy, rebellion, religion and a long sea voyage. On the whole though the book is well written and engrossing, especially compared to some other books I have read recently. |
Monthly archives for February, 2009
Shattered Icon by Bill Napier
Contact image location
Recently I was experimenting with editing an Joomla! contact entry and I was unable to find where the drop down list for a contacts image is stored, after a little research I discovered that they are stored in the following folder:
<joomla_root>/images/stories/
Where <joomla_root> is the root folder of your Joomla! installation.
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 takes part in an unnamed African country which is in the throes of a civil war between two sides, the UFLL and the APR. Your character has been sent to kill an arms dealer called The Jackal who has been supplying both sides, but within the first few hours this aim is thrown into disarray as The Jackal helps save you whilst under attack and continues to assist you throughout the rest of the story.
The story is told completely from the first person view and instead of cut scenes to progress the story all actions are controlled by the user, this is in a similar style to the Half Life series and is designed to help you become more immersed in the main story. Your final choice is strange given your initial mission and it seems to have little impact on the overall ending of the game. There are a few issues with the game, such as enemies respawning at checkpoints which you have cleared only moments ago, but overall it is a very good game and I found it highly enjoyable. One quick note, the PC version allows you to save anywhere using quick save but unlike most PC releases the previous save file is not overwritten and is kept, this led to me having a 2+GB save folder when I had finished the game |
