you're ON!!

hello, texturizers, nothing to see hare. Mauve along.

I have been silent in my game blog for awhile now, maybe a bit longer than I'd like - I would think it'd be prudent to post in here maybe once or twice a week, at best, if I ever want it to be taken any-kind of seriously. But as usual, I have life and work and such to think about, and I do have my "real blog" to pour into when the writing bug strikes. Still, I have much to say on the world of gaming (and my work), so it'll come when it does. And it does, now..

At Oblivion, I mean Obsidian (was that a slip?) I have finally moved over to the Aliens team. Not sure how much I am allowed to talk on this stuff, so I must keep it pretty brief. After spending the last year and a half of my life living in Alpha Protocol, and all that entails, it is bittersweet to move on - I'll just say that the last work I was doing on that project looked like my best so far. Aliens-wise, well - I took the job with this studio specifically because I wanted to work on this title. So there! I am gonna miss working with Unreal Editor, though. I whined about it a good bit at first, but I feel pretty capable with it these days. So gratifying!

Nothing is spinning in my disc tray lately. AT ALL. The only modern-ish game-ish thing i have spent any time with was the Pixeljunk Eden demo on PS3. I seriously logged a good 10 hours in there - I didn't even feel the need to buy the full game, it was one of those where you can totally just cruise with the demo as it is. Fun though, nice little game to chill out and kick back with and while away some hours. Also downloaded the Mega Man 9 demo, expecting to make short work of it. holy CRAP tough. I am ashamed to say I could not pass the halfway mark of the stupid demo level - it only succeeded in pissing me off. Mind you I am a longtime lover of Mega Man TWO specifically - but geez. Anyway I think I am a huge loser if I don't shell out for Mega 9 sometime soon. 10 bucks, geez. Why the hell not.

LittleBigPlanet is the game I have got my eye on. I am going to see if I can snatch this business up this week - I sense this game might be something else. I haven't actually shelled out an honest $60 for a PS3 title yet, in the nearly one year I have owned the device - and the title that packed-in with it, Motorstorm, never got more than maybe 5 minutes of playtime from me (for shame! I know) so it is high-time to pick up something worthwhile, and this game looks like it's gonna be at least that. In this day and age of franchised IPs up the wazoo, it's no small feat when a game comes out with backing like this and interesting possibilities this intriguing. I expect it might end up boring, but I suppose that's only if I don't give it a chance...

Reading online about Wii Music, this is a title which most are scoffing at - and deservedly so? Maybe not - it looks deep, for whataver "it is," though I am not sure how one classifies this exactly. It looks like something I'd've had great fun with as a kid, and also looks like it is something I could enjoy playing with my girlfriend (and so, that is why I am eyeing it..) Weird looking title, but again, it's so refreshing to see Nintendo always going their own way with everything and sticking to their guns, their philosophy. It's nice to see this rubbing off a little on the competition as well (reference LittleBigPlanet, above) - trying weird things and just seeing it through to the end. This is what makes things interesting in the world, as opposed to the "static media" as I'll call it..

I bought an X-Arcade stick off a guy at work for 60 clams. This is basically a big chunk of wood with pro-grade joysticks and buttons sticking out of it, professionally manufacture of course. I have had a Hotrod for years, which is the same thing, but Hotrod's only good on PC - I feel a little out of place with that huge behemoth butted up against my workstation. The X-Arcade hooks up to my Xbox 1 as well, that being a modded Xbox with about a bazillion Mame (arcade) roms stored on it's HD. I love having that console but I hate playing arcade games with an XBox controller - the X-Arcade feels wonderful! Sucks that it took me so long to get this all figured out, but the price worked out at the end of the day. I'd still love to get a dedicated Mame Cab set up somewhere down the line, but this is a WAY more than satisfying substitute, perhaps superior in several regards. Playing Ms Pacman is STILL loads of fun, even all these years later.

Nintendo DSi, this cracks me up. What the hell is this? DSlite looks great as it is, a wonderful library, everyone loves it, etc. etc. This is kinda pushing it a little. Two cameras? No more GBA slot? Bah. It's interesting, and they will get some cool gear out for it I am sure. But let's just say I still have yet to buy any DS models at this point. I wonder how the new PSP is faring. Is there yet ANY halfway compelling reason to buy a PSP, for real? Hello? Echo-o-o-o-o-o...

everything in paradise is wonnnnderful

greetings from the front gate! What's up, I do believe it's been a good month or so, at least, since I have last paid any manner of visit to this little hellhole i call "my gameblog." I guess a lot has happened, or not..

Right up a the first, what have I been playing? Answer, nooooot much. Nothing at all really. Just killing myself at the office as usual, I am lucky if i take 20 minutes out of my day while I am on the can to get in a little GBA action. Replace PER DAY with PER WEEK, per-haps, and then it's a little more accurate.

Anticipating the mega man 9 throwback release, not so much for the game itself (no way it can even be anywhere near as perfect as good ol' number two) but I am pretty interested to see what type of reception it gets from the community at large, this is a weird move to say the least. I will probably grab it as well, though to be honest all the MM's past three were getting kinda grating. Not that they were bad games, they weren't bad at all.. it was just "enough already!"

Our game is going along well enough, as usual there's a billion things I'd love to say as far as positives and negatives go, but that's what post-mortems are for. Meanwhile, I am supposed to be moving to the "dream project" as I like to call it, this coming week - it was supposed to happen (rather suddenly) last week, but got held over for various reasons. So I am a little suspicious of what is next, but I am sure it will outline shortly. Anyway, mixed feelings about all of that - I am used to working on a game until it is out the door, not working feverishly on one and then getting plucked and dropped right into a whole different universe. Hey, I can deal with it, that's my job! It's a little odd though, and kind of a new thing for me. Not a big deal though, but worth noting. I guess my beef is that with my current project, I've got a few loose ends I was planning on wrapping up, and suddenly I find myself having my hands washed of that, mostly - to what degree I am unsure, but I would expect it is pretty absolute (especially since the project I am moving to will likely not leave much headspace for external goings-on). Anyway, suffice it to say that's why I have been pulling madman-style hours at the office lately, to the displeasure of those involved in my social life...

you love blizzard right?

i don't. i want my tree test again.
short news for a moment, in my nerdierier blog - i downloaded Bionic Commando Rearmed, the graphic/gameplay update of the ol' Capcom game from the days of yore. I played with it for a few minutes, after drooling at the trailers back when they were released. game's gorgeous, and it "feels" right - and sounds very cool - but you know what, setting back into those boots made me wish I was just playing the old original version! Kinda the same feeling i got after playing Contra:Shattered Soldier back on PS2 some several years ago, "this is nice and all, but I don't NEED it" - especially not when it was so perfectly nailed back in it's original incarnation. Still, it is a budget release (10 bucks!) and for the money you pay for it, it is more than worth it. Obviously the thing's an overblown promo piece for the real-deal update coming out later, and I hope it does well. Sounds like it is, already! Capcom is making some crazy waves these days, i gotta hand it to 'em. The 1942 upgrade was also fun to play, that might be worth picking up as well - nice retro feeling, cool FX. Commando upgrade is by far my least favorite, it -does- feel like Mercs, kinda, but it also feels a little less loved than these other titles. I played the demo and had enough..

I downloaded braid, after hearing much hemming ad hawing over the thing on podcasts. Initially, as I wasn;t so much in the mood, "this feels kinda draggy..." and if I'd not heard so much word-of-mouth over it, I would've never even checked it out at all (come on, "braid?") The game is cool, and the few minutes I spent with the demo have got me thinking "this is actually a pretty cool little puzzle game," if my time lightens up soon I will possibly just get the whole thing. Nice job!

I know, I am supposed to be talking about game and watch.. maybe later. I am just sad for the forgotten/never-minded fathers of videogames...

i hate this industry!

yeah, i am referring to the latest Activision Blizzard news. Does anyone else feel a chill go down their spine when they hear that name? I am not disrespecting either company, or the new combined entity, mind you - obviously, very successful, hugely hugely popular companies with remarkable earnings between all of their properties. Yet it is unfortunate to hear of what happens post-merger, specifically with a lot of the relative second and third rate companies under their collective umbrella, their future plans, their staffing situations - none of this was unprecedented of course, though it seems kind of harsh how surgically and coldly it is being carried out. It's one thing to kick out the cobwebs when you're dealing with bottom-feeder appendages of a larger company, but when you are dealing with interesting properties (ghostbusters, tim schafer's brutal legend) and pretty well-established dev's (radical entertainment) it feels a little like a slap in the face. It's really true, you are only as good as your last hit. It makes me think with a chill about some things from my own past, and again a little more nervously about the potential of the future.

I have gone on about these things before, either in blog form or merely conversationally, at length - we all want to get "bought out," we want to be at the studio when they get picked up for real by a publisher. It's only win-win for everyone - well, it was, not so much anymore. Now it seems rather than getting that cash windfall, you might get squat - and more than that, your job is now under a much
pickier microscope, there's more suits concerned with "eliminating redundancies." Truly, to reap the benefits of selling out, YOU had better be doing the actual selling firsthand, if you wanna make out - and let your subordinates hope for the best as they scramble for the crumbs.

As usual, the model is all over the place, and it's hard to say who wins or loses in all of this, in the big picture - what lessons can be learned and "what is the battle plan" to survive as a grunt-level employee as the giant metamorphosis continues to take place in the bizarre and fascinating creature known as the game industry. Every day I hear more and more news which startles and tantalizes me, also which makes me wanna kick myself "ooops DAMN i have missed my chance!" There's always chance, infinite chance - but one must be able to balance their own business, whatever form it may be in, on top of an already-demanding day job, and whatever other social life and obligations there are as well.

Work is progressing on the project. I am putting in a lot of heavy hours these days, a lot of late nights, a lot of weekends. I am sad to say my productivity is a little draggy as I am feeling the burn - it's been a long project and I am feeling the wear and tear of next-generation asset production (it's still "next generation" until a few solid seasons of working to this specification have passed, alright!) Everything looks so much nicer and tighter than ever before, our engine is quite capable and powerful, but damn if only we had.. like.. 5 years!! Whew. I do look forward to wrappin gthis game up and giving my portfolio a much-needed overhaul, i will certainly have a higher grade of stuff to flaunt, for the first time in too long!

Not much gaming lately. I downloaded the Too Human demo, haven't touched it yet. Last night I downloaded a demo of a game called Braid as well, I plan to fire it up after i finish typing this - also picked up Outrun 2 for Xbox, and NO haven't touched that business either. Man - I just wish I had a solid day, errr entire weekend, left completely by myself with nothing to do, just sit back and drink some beers and play some games. That actually sounds rater nice.

Okay my girlfriend is making annoying noises to let me know she is hungry, so no Braid for me right now - but never fear, I will be back shortly to discuss a little thing they call Game & Watch.

ignore yourselves!!

Greetings from the front lines!!! It is Sunday evening, just about 7pm, and I am watching the last vestiges of the weekend wither away and give into the harkenings of, yes, another week upon us. This weekend I spent much time here in the office - playing some catch-up still,due to my vacation (yeah, it's been a month now) and my tempo has been somewhat reduced which doesn't help things, but ohhhh, ohhh, what are you gonna do. Anyway I need to save off some files for my fellow level artist who shares this particular level with me,and I wouldn't wanna disappoint - further hindering things is the fact that I have to show up for jury duty tomorrow and fulfill a civic responsibility, oh golly gee, oh greatest day! Well, I don' look on such things as much more than a drag, really, as there's work to do and I don't much fancy propping up in a stifling courtroom full of hooligans downtown during the heat of the day - so hopefully I will be able to get in and out in a jif. Sigh, if the gods should be so merciful.

Working on the weekend is nonetheless a drag as well, as it should be the "me time," instead of "their my time" - but again, a necessary evil. I am getting quite burned out on the concept as I have been sacrificing for I-don't-know-how-many-years, as of yet, and that's not too good- but I have my eyes steadfast on the prize, and keen that someday, the payoff will be there. It's been 11 years nearly, and I am still scrapin' on by - things aren't bad, but life and all it's trimmings are certainly expensive, so a little compensation would be a nice thing. It's not too much to ask, is it? Well, no expectations ever, really, but I will see what pans out - someday, somewhere. It's up to me ultimately, I suppose.

I am sitting here at my desk, managing the meshes, cranking the fan, listening to whatever I can stomach on the winamp. I like to listen to repeats of Loveline while I work, surely I have mentioned this before. During the week I will pipe it through my headphones, but as the office is nearly empty on the late hours and weekends, I like to give my aural canals a little relief and just plug into the little tinny-ass speaker on my desk instead. This isn't bad, but I get a little redfaced when people start walking by as the speaker s going on about "I have trouble getting an orgasm while my boyfriend sloppily goes down on me!" So I will close the door or switch the channel. No joke, some poor schlub walked through the office with his goddamned extended family today as the speaker was booming "do some fishing, beat off, go dockside to watchthe sunset, have at myself vigorously, etc etc" I guess if you don't know the show than I sound like some sort of reprobate - well you can think of me as you like, faceless reader, that stuff helps me get through the hours alright? And there's many of them.


I hate closing the door in this room, it's quite poorly ventilated and already hot and uncomfortable in here, which is almost a nice change from my opposing usual set-up (wearing winter jacket no matter what time of the year it is, as game companies LoooOOoove to blast the AC all hours of the day and I feel like a popsicle!) The latest thing which makes me insane is the designer who works in the room next to mine, he likewise has taken to coming into the office during the less-populated hours to do - well, whatever it is in god's name he does in there (working? world of warcraft? far be it from me to satisfy that curiosity). The dude sits in there and (kindly) plugs in his headphones, for which I am grateful enough, but as his officemates are nowhere to be found in the weekend hours, the guy LOVES ot hum along to his music. He hums damned loud, I tell you. It's annoying - and I do seem to be developing my nice share of neuroloigical disorders at this point in the game, it makes my crotch tighten up and my brow get all furrowed. I wanna yell to the hapless guy SHUTTTT UPPPP DAMMMMN YOU but of course he is minding his own business, who am I to ruin the party...

anyway that's what runs through a guy's head over the weekend in the office. If you'll pardon me, I have some bits of work to wrap up so I can get myself 45 miles outta here and back to my sweet, sweet bed for some precious shuteye, at some point. Mercy!

apparently, this videogame will help me to lose weight

yeah, i finally found a wii fit in stock at Best Buy a few weeks ago. I picked one up since my girlfriend'd been hounding me about it for ages - I wanted to buy one for my folks as well, but I think I will do that on Amazon rather than ship the damned heavy thing myself. Anyway I picked her up from her return flight from China a week ago, she'd been awake nearly the whole flight - when we got to the apartment, she immediately set it up and began jumping around and playing with the thing (I was amazed, I thought she would be completely destroyed from the traveling!) Sure enough, she bonked out after that - it was a funny scene though. I have yet to try the thing, I did the "ball dropping game" for one moment. I wanna get in the habit of using it though, my girth could stand it. Urp.

So not much else to say about games right now. I am playing Mass Effect and Gears of War, but I haven't touched either in over a month (nor have I got very far with either). I just haven't time to cool out in front of the tube right now! More than that, I am just not feeling the need right now either. If anything, playing a bit on my GP32 during the trip - I got sucked up into Rolling Thunder 2 (Sega Genesis) during the flight over there. Good way to kill time, started sort of clumsy and dull (and such had my memory of it always been) but playing through it got enjoyable. I might pick it back up - I believe there's a third as well, eh? Also I played the old Mario Tennis GBC game for a little while. Well-fleshed-out, but man - sports as RPG is sort of hilarious in a uniquely boring way. Make it more risque. Something (it's a kiddie game, I know).

E3 just came and went. Yawn! I don't remember the last time I cared so little. I have barely scratched the surface of going over the show coverage, but really it sounds like there really wasn't much to get excited about across the board. Yeah, of course there was a lot of good looking things to show off, but nothing that smacked people across the face. I guess that's a side-effect of removing the grandeur from gaming's biggest party. E3 now is more like a sad fart. Tough times. At least they brought it back to the LACC. Whatever, I am getting too old for that outright madness when it's on full-tilt-assault mode anyway, or something. To make up (well, more like "coincidentally") I found my way to Vegas last weekend, once again. There's enough madness out there instead, anyway.

Game's going alright. I am working pretty hard, late late nights. Sigh, it's nearly 11PM and I am at the office and it is SATURDAY NIGHT!! I can't wait to get home and collapse on the couch - make that the bed, really. It's a full weekend of crunching for me, and a long week ahead to boot. I need a drink....

..too bad..

brodelay

what's up, game fiends. I am still on vacation, carousing through the weird bizarre land of China, but thought I would take a few minutes and draft an update to my game-design blog, or whatever one would call this trainwreck, really.

So of course I am quite out of touch with the world of game news these days - hell, out of touch with much WORLD news for that matter - but i do dip in here and there when I can get a moment, just to make sure it's not all gone the way of the dodo. You know, just in case. It sounds like things have been extremely busy in my absence - what's this, talk on an Xbox 360 price cut? Mega Man 9 is a throwback/retro-looking title? Castlevania fighter, and of course the announcement of Diablo 3 for next March (sigh, wish they could push that business back a little further, oh well hmm we will see, won't we. Go Fall!!!) And lots of news regarding all the millions of rock n roll games that seem to be all the rage with the kids these days. Lucasarts layoffs (yeah, more). I am sure there's a bunch of other stuff going on, as the typical summer malaise kicks into videogameland (with no big releases planned for some time). Otherwise, the pre-E3 hysteria sort of generally takes hold and everyone gets ready to be wowed and confused and all fo that, really.

So, Mega Man 9. This certainly looks interesting - can I say that "I called it?" Well maybe I didn't mention it, or figure on this particular instance, but it certainly was the type of very-specific idea I have had going on in myhead for some time, to be honest. I am just a little surprised Capcom was the one to go ahead and bite this time, though I can't say it should come as the hugest of shocks - that would be reserved for a follow-up 8-Bit Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden. Anyway I haven't seen more than the most momentary of screenshots of this thing, but the mind races with possibility. It should be interesting to see how it turns out and all of that, and what the fallout is that ensues. Anyway, lest the world should forget how well New Super Mario Bros. performed on the DS..

In honor of this, I booted up a couple of older MM games. Back in the day, I played (a LOT) through the first 4, by that point I had pretty much had enough. So the last couple of days I checked out 5 and 6 (NES) for the first time in ages and started trying to play through them in earnest, a little. Man. Those games are hard. Not super-duper hard, but they are a bit punishing compared to the ease with which I remember having swept through the earlier ones. Nice looking, each one gets progressively more technically inspiring - though honestly, I will always maintain that Mega Man peaked, for me, with Number Two. It was one of those cases where the game truly oozed with love and devotion, and all the parts gelled. The later ones were certainly cool but it was really getting to feel like a paint-by-the-numbers affair and "enough already," and just not anywhere near as captivating. I mean, if nothing else, none of them just sounded as AWESOME as Two...