A L A N - N O O N

PS3: DEAD. Pt 2.

2010-02-13T01:29:00.003-06:00

(from continue...)
And so after dismantling, attempting to reflow the solder of the chips, and reapplying thermal paste to the CELL, my fully hardware backwards compatible PS3 was done.

I ended up buying a new PS3 Slim, intending to swap harddrives and thusly be back into the fray...

...but alas, as mentioned previously: PS3 harddrives are encrypted to the PS3 that owned them. Plugging my old drive into the new slim presented me with a prompt to reformat.

I tried plugging the drive into a Win XP64bit machine... no dice. Didn't even see it.

I tried plugging the drive into a Linux machine... the drive was recognized, but condsidered corrupt, as PS3 drives are encrypted.

Ultimately, I bit the bullet and realized that the three years of saved games I had invested was now gone. All of the games I had in progress: wiped. Any game that I wanted to, or previously finished was now completely wiped away. Three years worth of gaming, lost forever.

As a game industry professional that often refers back to older games, this is a major problem.

PS3: DEAD. Pt 1.

2010-02-05T23:26:00.005-06:00

Lessee...

My PS3 died. Totally bit it.

I was playing Darksiders and while my character was running through some water, the game locked up. Being a game developer and knowing how intense rendering water can be, I was upset, but willling to forgive and forget.

I rebooted and played for another couple of hours...

...and I locked up again. No water in sight. I shut the machine down and tried to reboot. I was presented with a flashing red light.

I tried rebooting again, at which point, the status light of the PS3 turned yellow. I tried again and again... same result.

Decision time: send the machine in for service, pay $140, not knowing if I would get my fully backwards compatible 60GB machine back or not. (Highly unlikely.)

I took a chance and tried to repair it myself.

After following the procedure I discovered online, sure enough, my PS3 was resurrected.

Here was my mistake: I should have backed up my data. I did not.

Again playing Darksiders, the game locked up, this time for good. I attempted a second repair, but alas, was not successful.

And so I bought a new PS3 slim, thinking I could swap my old PS3 hard drive loaded with paid and bought content.

Nope. Not even the free content. Content on a PS3 is encryted to only function on the PS3 that the harddrive has been formatted to...

aight. this is running long. I shall continue the saga at a later date.

2009-11-30T22:24:00.003-06:00

Been a while since an update, so I suppose I should keep the blog alive and post something up. So what have I been up to...?

There'a been a lot of chatter about Zynga and their success lately. I know my facebook has been inundated with Mafia Wars spam from so called "friends" asking me join their gang and stuff. I bit the bullet, made a fake FB account and finally gave Mafia Wars a spin. I normally would not have considered it to be a game I would play as it stretches the definition of game pretty far, but I do appreciate how people get hooked on it. Somebody over at Zynga put a lot of effort into the pacing of the rewards that the game doles out. Not sure how much I will continue to play once finish my analysis of it however.

Back in the world of "real" games, A couple months ago I popped Killzone 2 back into my ps3 and went for the platinum trophy. I am glad I did. I enjoyed the game the first time I played through back in April, but by the time I was done with the platinum, I loved the game. The most difficult parts of getting platinum were the Radec Battle on the hardest difficulty and getting ranked in the top 1% of players. The Radec Battle took many tries, but after a while it comes down to the right combination of weapons, tactics, and management of trigger volumes that control the flow of enemies. (I wrote up a detail walkthrough on the forums of www.gamefaqs.com. Search for it if you are having trouble with this mission. Numerous people said it enabled them to finally beat it. Getting ranked as top 1% was more an excercise in dedication. When going for this trophy you have 1 week to do it, from Sunday night to Sunday night when rankings are posted. I had taken a week off work to move into a new house, so I packed and moved boxes and furniture all day and play Killzone 2 for 5-6 hours a night. It was actually really fun, and I feel like I have a better grip on the mechanics of the game now. I can't wait for Killzone 3!

Well, that's all for now. Apologies if this post does follow my traditional formatting as I am typing it in on an iTouch and the blogger compose mode does not seem to work properly.

For Sale: Arcade Games

2009-10-19T22:06:00.007-06:00

While the new projects at work are just getting kicked off and I decide what to do with this space, I'll just randomly post game related stuff as the urge takes me.

First up:
ARCADE GAMES FOR SALE!!!

Buyer must pick up. 60046 Zip.

Shinobi. Fully working game in kitted cabinet in nice condition. Monitor is great. Big, red, ball top, leaf joystick is beautiful. Marquee is nice condition. Minor blemishes in workwood. Keep as is or would make a great cabinet for your home arcade project.
$200

Heavy Barrel. Fully working game in a Frankenstein of a cabinet that is in atrocious shape. Started life as a Zaxxon. Must have been a Gunsmoke at some point, judging by burn-in on screen. Heavy Barrel marquee and monitor bezel in decent/good shape. ORIGINAL, DATA EAST, BARREL TOP, LS-30 STYLE ROTATARY STICKS are dirty and in need of a cleaning/service, but fully functional.
$200 for the whole thing. Get it out of here in one piece, or I can strip the worthwhile parts and sell them to you at an extra charge ($300) to cover the hassle of cleaning up the mess made destroying the cabinet. Your choice.

Respond in comments section. First come, first served.

Status: Project Cancelled.

2009-10-13T15:32:00.003-06:00

There is a bit of bad news to report. The project has been cancelled.

Suffice it to say that the situation is quite a disappointment for me personally. Looking back at some of the other less successful projects I have been involved with over the years, I came to realize that my best chance at success would occur when I had the greatest amount of control. I have been working towards crafting that type of opportunity for some time and this project was the best crack at it yet; I was steering what the game was, how the game played, how the game looked, and how it was going to be developed. With our schedule and technology firmly in place, we were ready to start cranking out content and building levels as soon as we could get a few extra hands on deck. By my estimation, we could have had real game play within a few weeks.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. I can't really say too much about the reasons why the project was cancelled at this point, and I know that I haven't even revealed what the game itself was. I would look into getting permission to reveal more info, but at this point I am predicting that the project will be ressurrected in the future. Some might say that is overly optimistic of me, but for now I am going to hold off on getting clearance to share what we were up to.

But all is not doom and gloom. Everyone still has their jobs, we advanced the technology and know how of the company considerably, and there are a number of new opportunities in the works to explore in the near future.

Status: 08-26-09: Good Demo.

2009-08-27T15:17:00.003-06:00

Yesterday afternoon's demo/budget meeting went off without a hitch. I think the bosses were impressed with the progress we have made so far and liked what they saw on screen. My manpower and cost estimates seemed to be on target, as I did not hear any objections to the numbers that came out of the project management system. And so we have been given the go ahead to soldier on and continue developing the game.

That leaves Tino and myself with just about a month before more people are freed up from other projects and added to the our team. We have a lot of work to do in that time. We're going to finish up the week tomorrow with our regularly scheduled meeting to discuss outstanding tasks and figure out what we want to tackle in anticipation of having a real, bona fide team.

One final note, Chris Brewer again lent his talents to the cause and released yet another version of our custom operating system. We can now quickly boot into the game and access the hardware from our PCs without a lot of telnet malarkey. This is huge. Also, we are noticing considerable performance gains in game, which is always welcomed. SWEET!

All right... this day is nearly over. I am about to head home and get some sleep.

Status: 08-26-09. Last Minute Cram.

2009-08-25T23:26:00.004-06:00

Whoa, got a little behind with the updates. It's been a madhouse. Big important meeting with the big cheeses tomorrow to go over the project budget.

I redid the project estimates yet AGAIN, just in time. Reorganized and reformatted the whole shebang. Fortunately, my numbers look pretty good, so I think the I am in decent shape for the grilling tomorrow afternoon.

We're also using the meeting as an opportunity to show management what we've accomplished thus far. As such, Tino and I have been trying to clean up as much stuff as possible over the past couple of days. Naturally, we broke everything. The game was in complete disarray this morning, but with a little effort and a some extra hours, we made serious advances. I just put the final bit of polish on the art a few minutes ago. I think it should show well. We have a lot of fancy new rendering technology to dazzle and amaze with.

Ok, that's it. Off to bed for a couple hours sleep, then right back into the office bright and early to set the machine up in the conference room and do final prep!

Status: 08-14-09. Back Home.

2009-08-14T12:16:00.002-06:00

I am back home from Siggraph. Saw some pretty cool stuff. Lot's of food for thought. I would say this year's big concepts were "Games" and "3D Display."

In terms of "Games" everyone seemed to be talking about them. The Siggraph organization recognized realtime graphics with its own Realtime Theater showcasing the latest and greatest games and demos. Even the movie guys were making a point of highlighting the fact that they used realtime techniques and technologies to solve some of their offline rendering issues. I saw and heard a lot about thatgamecompany's Flower, which I ended up enjoying quite a bit, despite the subject matter falling far outside my typical gaming tastes.

As far as "3D Display" was concerned, they seemed everywhere, (or perhaps I was just looking out for them as perception is a topic of great interest to me.) There were a variety of solutions: polarized glasses, multiscreen and mirror contraptions, some sort of lenticular type screen surface, and so on. Some of the different approaches worked better than others, but all of it was intriguing.

Back home on the project front, There was great progress on our effects systems. Fully 3D particles with accurate physics are new for us, as is the ability to render any particle type with full blown programmable shaders.

It is now Tino's turn to be out of town on vacation, so I am going to use the next couple weeks to generate new content for him. I have grown tired of our little smattering of placeholder art already, so I want some fresh stuff to go in the game when he gets back. So there's that, as well as ongoing schedule maintenance. If time allows, I have a couple of design docs to knock out for new game play features.

That is all!

Status: 08-03-09. Out for Siggraph.

2009-08-03T13:39:00.004-06:00

Ok, this is this weeks status update already as I am out the door in mere minutes to hop a flight to Siggraph down in New Orleans.

I am looking forward to hitting the Siggraph expo floor this year. There's a bunch of new announcements happening. Pixologic is expected to deliver some details about the upcoming 3.5 release, The Blender Foundation is to do the same in regards to their epic 2.5 release/overhaul, and hopefully 3DCoat is there with their voxel sculpting software. I am also looking to scope out new technologies such as 3D displays, affordable motion capture suites, rapid prototyping solutions, and so on... A week of total computer graphics nerdosity!

On the project front, a bunch of kick ass work went into our particle systems recently. Very cool things happening here. I almost do not want to have to leave town. I can't wait to get back in town and see how far it will have progressed.

Aight, that's it. See ya next week!

Status: 07-30-09. First Controller Protos!!!

2009-07-30T19:44:00.003-06:00

Tino has been hard at work on a bunch of stuff. After the successful proof of concept implementations of our screen space shader effects, he's gone back and refined a couple of them and added another big one. On Monday, we're going to sit down and go over each effect and specify how we can bring them up to final quality. A couple of added features here, some number tweaking there, and I think we'll be looking pretty good.

The hardware guys came through with a number of interesting controller prototypes on Wednesday. They have a big challenge ahead of them to create the device I am looking for, but major steps forward were made this week. I am looking forward to the next batch.

By all counts, this is a really great time for the project. It's so cool to see the creativity and exploration of various concepts at this phase, both in hardware and software. Way to go guys!

All right... I'm back to turning out some artwork before I head off to Siggraph next week.

Status: 07-24-09

2009-07-24T14:30:00.001-06:00

This week, I have mostly been working on: Schedules.

I am spec'ing the Operator Adjustables screens. WHEEEEEEEEEE!

Status: 07-16-09

2009-07-16T16:11:00.002-06:00

For me personally, this week has largely been all about staring at schedules and projections. I probably have another week's worth left, at least. I am itching to turn out some art and get some new stuff on screen!

On the software side, great progress is happening daily. We're really looking to blur the line between film and videogames with this project, and so far we are making great strides to that end; I am well pleased. Once we're a bit further along, I will go into more detail, but at the moment I am confident in saying that there are certainly no other coin op games out there that are doing what we are doing.

Regarding the new controller, the driver that interfaces the current working unit with the development system was revisited. We're getting much better performance out of the thing now, so that's all good. Tomorrow there's a meeting scheduled to look at progress on the first prototype of the device, so I am anxiously looking forward to that.

In addition to the weekly status updates, in the next week or so, I hope to write a little about how the project got started, so come on back!

Status: 07-10-09

2009-07-10T10:31:00.005-06:00

Wow, the last two weeks have been pure rock and roll. Let's see...

As we are developing a brand new type of controller for the game, we need to begin development of the game itself while the device is still being designed. I did some looking around and found some hardware that I hoped might serve as a temporary stand in. The big unknown was if we could get it to run on our dev systems at all. Fortune smiled on us however as once it was in house we handed it off to Mr. Chris Brewer who just totally blew us all away by getting it hooked up and returning data within the space of a day.

Another day or two of clean up, and Chris handed it off to Tino Kalafatis, programmer on the project. A few hours later and POW! The device was integrated into the game. Stellar work.

This week, Chris went back and took another look at his work and found a was able to make significant improvements to his code. Again, he handed it off to Tino and within a day, it all automagically went in and worked.

I was happy to see substantial progress on the hardware front, because I personally have been up to my neck in projections and scheduling. It's not all bad, but just not as exciting and initially rewarding as seeing stuff happening on screen for the first time.

That is it for now. There's more progress brewing today that I cannot wait to share next week!

Project: Ground Rules.

2009-07-02T15:52:00.003-06:00

Welcome!

Here's the deal: Over here at Incredible Technologies, I have recently kicked off development of a brand new game and I want to share the process with you, the reader. Why? Well, first and foremost, I am extremely excited about this project; more so than any other I have yet to work on. So much so in fact, that I feel compelled to share the experience with the everyone that cares to listen!

In addition, the current reality of coin op coverage in the regular gaming press these days is that coin op games do not get much love. I would like to see that change. Part of the reason for this situation is that coin op companies are not doing enough to engage the end user. So by effectively leveraging the power of blogs, social media networks, and so forth, the hope is that with regular updates of interesting content, this game might just help coin op grab a little more “ink,” as it were.

To those ends, the goal is to update the blog twice a week with behind the scenes information and commentary. I will talk about the process of building a game start to finish: from the original germ of the idea all the way to bringing the final product to market. Look for interviews and guest pieces from members of the team, discussions regarding the decisions concerning the game we are making and why, and maybe even a coin op history lesson or two along the way.

It should be noted however that here are a few things I will not be doing, at least not right away. The coin op industry is highly competitive and extremely fleet. Should the game be revealed too early, it is possible that it could be beaten to market. With that in mind, I will not be talking directly about the specifics of the game play or even the genre the game falls under for a period of time. Fortunately, development cycles for coin op games are markedly shorter than those typical of console titles, so please just hang in there and stay tuned.

Hopefully you too will be able to share my enthusiasm through this blog. So if you are a player, perhaps you will follow along in anticipation, eventually seeking the game out upon release in order to try it. Perhaps you are one of our customers and want to know all about that next great product for your locations. You might even be a member of the gaming press, tired of covering the upteenth console World War II shooter, looking for fresh gaming stories to liven up your site with.

Whatever the case, keep coming back, and I will try to keep it entertaining and insightful!

Project: Blog Redirection

2009-07-01T10:19:00.006-06:00

When I started this blog, I originally imagined it would be primarily about CG artwork. I intended to post up my personal work, tackle technical art issues, share scripts and tools, and so forth...

...That didn't really happen. Over time I created less and less personal artwork. I grew bored of dealing with the bugs and workarounds involved with using 3d content creation apps.

I largely ended up writing about whatever game I happened to be playing at that time. Unfortunately, I never felt I was able to devote enough time to these reviews/critiques to really express all of the things I wanted to say about any given title. And even if I had, let's face it: nobody likes to be assaulted with a massive wall of text, so I wasn't sure that anyone would really be reading these mega posts of nitpicky detail anyway.

And so now with the previous announcement of my project just kicking off, I am going to shift gears a bit and refocus this space on the development of this new game.

So here's the plan: I will be shooting for at least two updates a week regarding the new game. To start, I am thinking that each week I will do a brief status update as to how things are going, followed with a post about the history of the project so far. There is a lot to catch up on!

Next article: Ground rules for the new blog direction.

Project: 1st Post!

2009-06-26T15:51:00.003-06:00

Ok, I have been getting beat up for not posting more frequently, so here goes.

As alluded to previously, a number of things have happened careerwise over the past few months. The big deal is that I sucessfully pitched a new game and "won" the opportunity to develop it.

So, I am now Project Manager of my own game. For now, it's just a skeleton crew running in pre-preproduction mode for the last couple of months, but already major progress is being made. We are laying the groundwork now so that when the rest of the staff comes onboard in the fall, we will be running on all cylinders, so to speak.

Expect more detail shortly!

Project Trico Reveal.

2009-05-19T20:50:00.003-06:00

As a fan of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, I have been eagerly awaiting news of Team Ico's next game. And here it is courtesy of Playstation Lifestyle...

Unbelievable. The motion and behavior of the griffon, (I assume it is a griffon,) is so natural and lifelike... I am totally, completely, utterly, blown away. I have never seen an in game character exhibit that level of beliveability before. It is shocking.

It is going to be hard not to watch more footage as it gets released, but I am going to attempt to abstain as I want the experience to be fresh and full of surprises when I eventually play.

If they can hit level of quality across the rest of the characters, this will be a landmark achievement in game development. Heck, it might just be on the griffon alone.

The Passage (PC)

2009-05-07T19:53:00.008-06:00

Recently, a friend at work recommended a game related podcast called "A Life Well Wasted." (It's pretty good actually. Very slick production, though at times it got a bit too "new game journalism-y for my tastes. Check it out though.) The main subject of the show was some hippie/indie developer from upstate New York, apparently known for a game called "Passage."

Let's have a look at some of the buzz regarding Passage shall we?

"But "Passage," a downloadable PC game released in late November, shows that a videogame can be considered mature for its artful design and emotional payoff."

"I didn't know a game (and such a tiny one at that) could be so poignant."

"Poetic Passage Provokes Heavy Thoughts on Life, Death"

"...one of the most clever, meaningful, affecting, and memorable games ever made."

You get the idea... So what is it? [SPOILER ALERT]

Well, calling it a game is a stretch. There's no real goal to achieve. I would say Passage is more an activity or a toy. You walk from left to right across the 100x10 pixel scrolling playfield, oh, and ooooooh! You can go down and enter a mazelike area. Apparently this is a major, meaningful revelation to Passage fans. Though when a designer hasn't properly communicated a major game play feature to the tune of half of the players miss 80% of the game play I call it questionable, if not poor, design.

So you make your way right, encountering a female character who joins you. Along the way you might encounter treasure chests, which are apparently good things to find; I'm not sure though, I did not feel especially rewarded for running over them. Sooner or later, your wife will turn into a tombstone and you can continue until your own avatar turns into a gravestone as well. The End.

And that is it. At this point you, the player, is supposed to go read the developer's statement, which apparently says that the game is an art piece intended to provoke thought about one's own mortality or something or other.

Sorry, but I did not get that at all. Hardpressed to come up with any kind of meaning, the only thing I managed to put together is that the developer probably hates his wife, hates the thought of being married, or both.

At the start of the game, your character is young and free. He can move about and explore anywhere he feels. (Woohoo! Bachelorhood!) Upon encountering the wife character, she locks onto him in a fixed position, leading the way with your avatar forced to trail behind. Due to her implementation, she blocks the player from entering the more interesting areas of the playfield and obstructing him from a good number of treasure chests. Once she finally dies and you are free again, your avatar is too old to move at a reasonable pace, and you bite the dust yourself a short time later. These issues, coupled with the developer's statement on the podcast that he is at the point where he now has to choose between sticking by his moral commitment to continuing to lead a life free of excess versus selling out and taking a regular job in order to improve the health of his wife and extend her life, and all of a sudden I am not feeling too good about Mrs. IndieGameDeveloper's odds.

Score: 1

Red Ring of Death II: Part 3

2009-05-07T19:47:00.002-06:00

My (or more likely, somebody else's,) 360 is back. I assume it is functional, but honestly, I can't be arsed to bother with hooking it up at this point. Besides, it will just crap out again I am sure.

Red Ring of Death II: Part 2

2009-04-27T18:55:00.003-06:00

While out in the wilds of Mississippi this weekend, the packing materials for the 360 turned up.

The 360 is bagged, packed, boxed, taped, and labelled up to. Off to the Microsoft Service Center tomorrow!

ZBrush 4 Announced!

2009-04-21T09:49:00.001-06:00

Pixologic just announced ZBrush 4, due this August, just in time for Siggraph!

ZBrush 4 announcement on ZBrush Central.

I cannot believe that this upgrade is free, again! If I recall, I bought into ZBrush right before version 2 was released. Since then, Pixologic has yet to charge for upgrades and new version. Amazing.

I wonder if they are actively engaging in a war of attrition with Mudbox, their primary competition. There is no way that Autodesk can keep up with that, considering the obligations to their stockholders that require increased sticker prices and annual subscription programs.

I am going to have to continue to back Pixologic and let my Mudbox license languish, expired.

Red Ring of Death II: Part 1

2009-04-21T09:11:00.005-06:00

And so it happens again. My second Xbox 360 just bit it hard and is giving me the RROD.

Already it is a headache. Checking the Xbox support page reveals that my warranty is out of date. This is misleading however, as I am pretty sure Microsoft yet again extended the warranty on RRODs as they are so prevalent. So I submitted a ticket anyway to see what happens.

Again, issues. I picked the option that would have them send me a box and shipping label. I just received an email telling me that I have to supply packing materials. Ugh.

And so now what? I suppose I will see what happens, though I am not overly happy about the thought of receiving yet another refurbed piece of crap from an abusive home. I did see that Microsoft just announced a new 360 Elite bundle, packaged with Halo3 and Fable2. I already have three copies of Halo3 and a copy of Fable2... I do want a black 360 though. I suppose I could Ebay or trade in the games. But do I risk another $400 on Microsoft's shoddy product yet again?

Ninja Blade (360)

2009-04-13T20:10:00.010-06:00

As many of my gamer friends might tell you, two of my favorite games of recent times were Otogi: Myth of Demons and Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors on the original Xbox. Developed by From Software, they featured solid 3rd person hack and slash action, increbible graphics, amazing sound, persistent destruction, and kick ass character designs, all done up in a mythological Japanese wrapper. Awesome. So when I heard that From Software was releasing a ninja themed 3rd person action title on the 360, I was all over it.

Sadly, From's newest game, Ninja Blade does not live up to the precedent set by the Otogis. In fact, it is so disappointing, I can not bring myself to finish it at the moment. On the bright side, in my time with the game I feel as if I learned a few valuable game design lessons, especially about Quick Time Events, (QTEs,) so all was not lost. And so, my list of criticisms:

The main character’s running animation is bad. Not believable at all. Very obviously keyframed. I found it distracting.

Once started, one move cannot be cancelled into another.

The camera is very far from the guy, making him and the action appear very small on screen.

Weapon switching should have been a cycle on the shoulder button, not D-pad.

The story telling is pretty bad. I have no issue with the plot; I can totally buy the premise of a super squad of ninja commandos that clean up biohazards, but as soon as the characters are introduced, there are complicated backstabbings and double crosses going on in the very next major cinema, before you know who is who, or what their relationships are. Note to fellow designers: The whole "WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON!?!" schtick never works.

Blocking feels broken due to being randomly effective against certain attacks and time limited, (worse: there is no indication as to when your guard will break.)

Shuriken controls are poor. See Dark Sector for great shuriken action.

Wall runnable surfaces should have distinct visual properties. If Vision Mode reveals all runnable surfaces anyway, why bother? Why not just convey the fact that they are runnable from the outset? And then, why not get rid of Vision Mode all together? It is useless and largely disadvantageous.

Sword effects need to be more distinct. A lot of the time, I can’t even see my slashes, unless I am using the big heavy weapon.

Why is wall breaking a separate event using the “A” button? Why isn’t it just a regular attack with the heavy weapon?

Checkpoints often set you pretty far back upon dying.

What’s with the snail projectiles that turn invisible after some amount of time?

Killing the last enemy often triggers a new QTE, not leaving opportunity to explore the current area.

QTEs really break up the flow of the world. I feel like I am going from isolated set piece to isolated set piece, not in some larger connected world. RE5 has this issue as well. God of War does a great job of integrating QTEs right into the core game play experience.

QTEs are extremely unforgiving. One wrong button press or direction, and it is a fail. RE5 did it better where there is a window in which to get it right, no matter if wrong inputs are submitted several times first, (assuming one is fast enough.) Big difference.

In QTEs, randomizing which button to press on each fail is super annoying.

In QTEs, divorcing the button press from their regular in game actions, even though the same classes of moves in the QTEs seems like a bad idea. If the QTE tells me to “Jump” I am expecting to press “A” like in the regular game play, not “X” all of a sudden.

In QTEs, button prompts cause the player to miss all of the madcap action playing out in the video. One idea would be to make the prompts way more vibrantly colored so they can be seen of the player's peripheral vision. They are so subdued that the eye is forced to focus on the lower area of the screen where they will appear. Resident Evil suffered from this as well. As an alternate solution, God of War puts the QTE prompts in the midst of the action, right where the game play is.

If QTEs rewind on failure, why doesn’t dying do the same? Why do I have to go through the slow assed menu system? Just give me an option to quit out on the “Retry?” screen.

$60 price tag.

So Ninja Blade is an unfortunate disappointment from a purely entertainment-for-dollar standpoint, though it ended up being highly educational from a game design position. Before Ninja Blade, I would have said that I generally despised QTEs. I still do not love them, but after playing Resident Evil 5 and then rolling right into Ninja Blade, I was able to compare the QTEs of each and realize that QTEs can be acceptable, perhaps even good, if done right. Too bad Ninja Blade is not one of those examples. So far I feel that the God of War games are probably the best implementation of QTEs to date, though when all is said and done, I would not be upset if I never encountered another QTE ever again.

Score: 1

Killzone 2: Behind the Bullet (PS3)

2009-04-02T20:05:00.004-06:00

Just a quick post this evening about the Killzone2: Behind the Bullet Interactive Demo. If you own a PS3, are interested in graphics technology, are a Killzone fan, or some combination there of, go download Behind the Bullet from the Playstation Network.

Previously, Sony/Guerilla Games released this video, called Bullet:

Today they released the same sequence as a realtime demo. As you watch it, you can pan and rotate the camera, speed up or slow down the playback, toggle developer commentary, and coolest of all: view the contents of the various buffers that get composited together for the final result. Too cool. I spent forty five minutes going over it already.

More info here:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/04/02/killzone-2-behind-the-bullet-interactive-demo-available-today/

Big News Brewing

2009-03-27T15:25:00.006-06:00

Apologies to my faithful readers. This blog has been sorely lacking in new content for some time now. I have been playing a bunch of games over the past few weeks, and big, BIG things have been happening at work so the blog updating has taken a back seat for the moment.

The games I have been playing have been pretty interesting and probably deserve more commentary than a 3-4 sentence micro review.

The work related stuff is definitely worthy of a nice lengthly post, so I'll get to that ASAP as well.

I'll tack this one random blurb about software on here at the end: My concept arting buddies tell me I am late to the party on this, but I just discovered “Alchemy,” which is a pretty neat little drawing program. (AND FREE!)

http://al.chemy.org/

It might seem pretty uncontrollable, but that is kind of the point. It allows you to rapidly lay down some rough forms and then pick the interesting shapes for further development in photoshop, painter, zbrush, etc. There is no undo; the idea is to promote the “happy accident” and go with it.

The download link is kind of hidden : http://al.chemy.org/downloads/Alchemy-006.zip

There are some pretty interesting tools: Pull Shapes quickly down images stored in PDF files you save to folders in the install directory. Speed shapes splats out random blobs. You can control line thickness and shape attributes with sounds from a microphone. Crazy stuff.

Street Fighter 4 (PS3)

2009-02-26T21:02:00.005-06:00

So after purchasing Street Fighter 4, I see now that my issue with its production value was unfounded. I had based my opinion on the still images that I had seen, which did not do the game justice. Viewing the thing first hand and in motion is an entirely different thing. For the style they chose, it looks awesome.

That said, after playing the game for a few days, I am afraid I have come to the conclusion that I just do not like the game. I realized that I was just not having fun. Who ever said SF4 was designed to be accessible for new or casual players is sorely misled. I am veteran player and I am lost. For example:

There's a four part super meter that can be used for super combos or EX specials moves.
There's a three part, circular revenge meter and orb that sheds flames which can be used for ultra combos.
There is a tri level focus attack that splats ink about and can be used as a counter or as an unblockable attack if charged long enough.
Sometimes I hear glass breaking when moves happen.
Sometimes characters flash bright yellow at random times.
There is mention in the manual of Super armor, whatever that is.
The game will often report "Technical" or "Counter" or "Reversal"
Final boss is a cheap and cheating piece of crap.

It is all a bit much.

On top of this, the control is TERRIBLE with the standard gamepad. But forget about getting one of the arcade sticks. Madcatz did not manufacture enough to meet demand; Regularly retailing for $140, I just saw that one was listed on ebay for a grand. Yup, $1000.

I have to single out the final boss, Seth. What a trajedy. I have been of the opinion for some time now that Japanese developers are way behind the curve on a number of fronts when it comes to game development. Seth only reinforces this position. His cheating (double walking forward sonic booms?) and cheap moves (repeated cross up instant teleports,) smack of early 1990's Japanese programmer mentality. It is almost as if these guys think "HA HA! I am so good at programming that no player will ever beat my AI!" (Itagaki of Ninja Gaiden fame is another one guilty of the same mindset it would appear.) No more for me. I do not have time for that frustration. I have more respect for Western developers who take the time to craft challenging but beatable gameplay, rather than abuse their customers.

So with heavy heart, I now realize that this Street Fighter is not for me. The game play is geared for a style of play different than I would have liked to have seen. I guess I am old school, but I miss the days where victory depended on your knowledge of the priority, timing, and ranges of each character's move set. Used to be that if you knew that, you could win without ever throwing a hadoken. Now a days, standard moves are marginalized, and spamming specials, supers, and ultras is the path to victory. Sorry, just not for me.

Score: 1

Street Fighter 4 and Production Value

2009-02-20T14:15:00.014-06:00

Street Fighter 4 is out and it is lighting up Metacritic with some pretty stellar scores. Friends have asked me what I think of the latest version. I wish I could tell them, but I can't... because I have not purchased it yet. I probably will end up buying it eventually, but honestly I'm not sure when.

This has left more than one person flabbergasted. How could I, long time Street Fighter fanactic and former developer of one of the games in the series, not have run out and bought it on release day? Why wasn't I up all night, dragon punching like it was 1994 all over again?

The image attached to this post pretty much explains it. Take a second to click on the image and have a look at it in a higher resolution. On the left is Guile from Street Fighter 4. On the right is fan art of the same character, executed with 3dsmax and Zbrush.

Looking at this, one might conclude that I am some sort of "graphics whore." But, that isn't totally right. When I look at those two images, I don't see good graphics vs bad graphics. I see two different choices in style. But, most importantly, I see a discrepancy in production value.

Production value is a term often associated with the film industry. Movies that look like they cost a lot of money to make are said to have high production value. Think of it as "bang for the buck." This usually translates into more special effects, great sound, and awesome picture quality. Hollywood producers want the audience to feel like they have gotten their money's worth and have seen a volume of entertainment equal or greater than the cost of the ticket.

I have come to realize over the years that as I mature and my available free time and disposable income shrinks, I have become choosy about where my gaming minutes and dollars go. When I have free time to spend playing games, I want the best, highest quality experience I can get for my gaming dollar. In my mind, cell shaded, cartooney style characters with lighting painted into the textures, and devoid of normal maps, does not look like a game with high production value. A Street Fighter 4 with characters executed in the style and of the production value level of the fan art Guile on the right would have been a purchase outright.

Killzone 2 drops next week, and it is chock full of production value, and as such, itwill occupy me for the next few weeks. After that, if Street Fighter 4 drops to a price that justifies its quality level, I suppose I shall hadoken once again.

Our Industry is Broken. Part 01. Ship Dates

2009-02-17T21:25:00.008-06:00

Every single Tuesday, for as long as can be remembered, something miraculous happens. Prerecorded music finds its way to retail shelves nationwide. Millions of albums, singles, EPs, compillations, boxsets, and remixes recorded by dozens and dozens of artists are ready to be purchased as soon as the stores open. Not during the Monday prior, not on the following Wednesday. Every. Single. Tuesday.

The same thing goes for movies as well: innummeranble DVDs and now Blu Ray discs are readily available on Tuesday morning for consumers to purchase. Not a few hours after lunch, not right before closing. Those movies are ready and waiting at opening time on Tuesday of every week.

When Hollywood announces a release date for its films, be it a typical Friday night or perhaps a Wednesday before a long holiday weekend, you can bet damn well that those movies will be at the theater on that date, playing at the time advertised on the marquee. Not a week before, not a day or two late, but on that very date.

When the television networks advertise a night and timeslot for a new show, it is magically transmitted to your boobtube at that very juncture. Not earlier in the day. Not some time the next night. You turn on the TV at the appointed time, and POOF! There it is.

So then why the hell is that when it comes to video games, we have to tolerate this ship date vs. release date nonsense?

It is always the same song and dance: a publisher gives a date for a game. All of the interviews, marketing materials, and websites push this as the release date, many even going so far to say "IN STORES ON XX-XX-XXXX!!!" But I'll be damned if I have ever gone to or called a store looking for said game on that date and actually found it. Instead, the retail employees only offer "That was the ship date. We should have it tomorrow. Duh." WHY!?!

But wait... how is it that a few of the big name releases DO manage to get into stores on the proper date? How are they managing this feat? Surely there must be a reason that the Halos, the GTAs, and the Gear of Wars make it to shelves on the advertised date while "regular" games might make it a day later than promoted, if we're lucky?

What is going on here? Why the discrepancy between video games and other forms of media? Why the discrepancy between the AAA titles and the also-rans? As consumers, why do we tolerate this? It is annoying as hell to not know when our purchase will arrive. As developers, why do we accept this? In an industry where success is measured on increasingly shorter time scales, surely there has to be a negative impact on sales when a consumer goes to the store expecting to buy a title only to be told "We might have it tomorrow, maybe."

This has been going on for far too long. If the video game industry wants to play in the big leagues and be taken as seriously as the legacy entertainment mediums, then we need to get our business fixed. Because right now, ship dates are broken.

Confessions of a Gaming Luddite

2009-02-16T22:32:00.010-06:00

Flower (PS3)

Sorry, but I don't get it. Nice grass tech though.

Noby Noby Boy (PS3)

That, apparently is game play. I am dead serious. What do you expect though? It is by the same guy that created Katamari Damacy, another title I despise.

Want List

2009-02-12T11:19:00.006-06:00

Every now and again I make a list of games I have been meaning to pick up, or that I am looking forward to the release of. Some are the big block busters, but many are the lower quality or less famous titles; you never know when you might find a diamond in the rough.

Fracture (360/PS3) I worked on this game for some time, but switched teams and then eventually left the company before the end of the project. I played the demo, but I am curious to see how it turned out. I am going to wait till it hits $15.

Legendary (360/PS3) Played the demo. Not great, but something about it intrigued me. Maybe when it drops to $20 I will pick it up.

Golden Axe (360/PS3) I heard this was not so great, but I like 3rd person action and am willing to give it a shot, at the right price. Why this game is still $60, I have no idea. I'm waiting for it to hit $15 or $10.

Killzone 2 (PS3) This is the game I am most looking forward to at the moment. Definitely getting it on release day.

Street Fighter 4 (360/PS3) Not sure about this one. Being a huge Street Fighter fan from back in the day I feel like I have to buy it, but I don't know... I think I am over it. I do not really find the graphics style all that appealing. I will be waiting for a proce drop at least.

Ninja Blade (360) I love games with ninjas. I love games with swords. I love games with monsters that get hacked up by ninjas wielding swords. I hate games with QTEs, and Ninja Blade features them extensively. However, I played the Japanese Demo and didn't think it was totally horrible. I enjoyed the boss fight quite a bit. I might even pick this one up at full price.

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (360) More 3rd person swords and monsters action. I imported and played previous installments on the PS2, and while they were obviously low budget titles, they weren't bad, all things considered. It would be nice to play them with decent graphics and in English, so I knew what the heck was going on. $40 is borderlinwe too expensive though. Maybe I'll get it at $30.

X-Blades (360/PS3) This might be too low budget, even for me. I despise the psuedo anime stylings of the main character. All that said, if it looks decent and plays well enough, I'll get it when it hits $5.

F.E.A.R.2 (360/PS3) I worked on a couple of the previous installments of this series, so I am kind of curious to see what the latest is like. Played the demo and thought it was competent, with a few nice effects and scenes going on. Not sure that I can justify $60 for it, what with Killzone 2 around the corner. At $30 I would pick it up.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate (360/PS3) The gameplay trailers of this look pretty decent, and remind me of Dark Sector, which I liked. The cutscene trailers look atrocious. I'm on the fence. Perhaps at $40, if reviews are good.

Looking back over the list, Killzone 2 is the only must buy title I see. Checking over Gamestop's coming soon section, I am not really seeing any must have games until October! 2009 is going to be rough unless prices start take a nose dive.

Resident Evil 5 Demo (NA) [UPDATE]

2009-01-28T21:14:00.003-06:00

The North American demo of Resident Evil 5 is now available on the US Xbox Live Marketplace, so you don't have to go through all of the trouble I did to play the stupid thing.

There was talk that the game was going to have its controls tweaked for the US, but I seriously doubt that is going to end up being the case; On the whole, Japanese developers are very stubborn and stuck in their ways. I will give it a shot and see first hand however.

[UPDATE]
Just as I suspected: the controls are exactly the same as found in the Japanese Demo. I am so torn now... I consider myself a fan of survival horror and especially of Resident Evil, but I do not think that I can stand to play RE5 with this control scheme. As of this moment, just having finished playing it, I am not buying RE5.

One word to those that say changing the control scheme would make it a non-RE game... bullshit. RE4 changed things on many fronts, and it was still a RE game. As I said previously: Dead Space is the new standard in survival horror, as far as I am concerned. DS showed that you can have fluid, accessible controls and still inspire panic and fear.

So that, coupled with the fact that the game is one enourmous escort mission means that I am going to give RE a miss. Maybe some day Japanese Developers will wake up and realize why they are lagging so far behind their American peers.

Playing Catch Up

2009-01-28T10:37:00.008-06:00

Wow! Well it has been close to two months since an update. Man, I suck. A regular reader recently took me to task for not updating, so I will attempt to rectify the situation.

December was quite hectic!

Here at work, we were working to get our latest game through our internal testing procedure so that we would be ready to go on location test early in the new year. That game has been out in the field for a few weeks now, and earnings are very promising. In fact, our numbers are trending upwards, despite the fact that the economy continues to circle the bowl. Who knows... with folks getting laid off all over the place, perhaps there are more people drowning their sorrows at the pub. It might be that young adults are less inclined to go drop $200 on a night at the club or on dinner and are instead heading down to the neighborhood bar for more affordable entertainment. At any rate, if you are in the northern IL area and want to see what I have been up to for the past few months first hand, you can head over to Idol's in Palatine and check out Target Toss Pro: Lawn Darts!

Other than that I played a bunch of games and demos over break. I will write up my analyses over the coming days. Some interesting and peculiar design choices to be found in some of those titles...

Resident Evil 5 Demo Impressions

2008-12-08T11:30:00.009-06:00

Before I get to commenting on the actual content of the demo itself, I must speak about the ridiculousness of the RE5 Demo's availability. As in: it is not available. Not readily anyway.

No, much like the Ninja Gaiden 2 Demo debacle, the RE5 demo version is only available in Japan. Japan; Land of three Xbox 360 lifetimes sales do date. Not the US, which made Resident Evil the phenomenon it is today. Ok, so no problem... I will simply log into my fake Japanese Xbox Live account that I made just for this situation!

No dice. The demo is only available to Xbox Live Gold members. As my Japanese Live account is Silver, I am S.O.L....

But I am not down yet! I just purchased Gears of War 2, which came with a code for 48 hours of free Xbox Live Gold! I enter the code and...

Nothing. Code denied. What next? Wait! When my original Xbox 360 RRODed on me, I was sent a code for a free month of Xbox Live Gold! I enter that code and...

SUCCESS! My Japanese Xbox Live account is now Gold for a month! Now, off through the Xbox's menus to begin download!

There it is! I click the art, and I am taken to the screen to download. Cost: Free, Press 'A' to download. I press 'A' and...

"Content not available in your area."

I fool around with changing my region and what not, but no luck. After wasting a free month of Xbox Live and spending a couple hours messing around, no RE5 Demo for me through "legit" channels.

Off to The Pirate Bay, and moments later, I have the demo downloaded and burnt to a CD. I pop it in the 360, and I am off to Africa to waste zombies. The odd thing about this is, apparently it is not against their terms of service to run demos this way. So why would they go through all of this trouble to make it difficult to get in the first place? Oh well. Thanks for nothing Capcom & Microsoft!

All right... so the actual demo itself. There are two playable areas: Public Assembly and Shanty Town, playable solo, Co-op Online, or Co-op Local.

The game looks gorgeous. The world is full of detail. There is ample clutter filling the scene and the texture fidelity is excellent. The main characters look really good; Redfield looks like he has been in the gym since his last RE outing, and Sheva's model and textures are great. Animations are believable and do not look keyframey. Special effects are very well done. Explosions are awesome, (very similar to those found in Lost Planet.) Noticeable, though not overdone, lens flares and bloom add extra polish and realism. The overall lighting and coloring is very reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 4: fairly high contrast with greenish and yellowish filtering muting the colors. Oh, and extra props for the really cool virus/biological themed menu screens. They look great.

Now, on to the issues.

First things first: When will developers realize that ESCORT MISSIONS SUCK? Unfortunately, the entire demo is an escort mission. While you play Chris, Sheva is controlled by AI. So while you may be doing fine with the zombie evading and shooting, Sheva will frequently end up getting her head sawed off, causing you to lose the game. I really hope that the whole game is not like this, but I fear the worst as the game looks to be co-op. If expect that if you don't have a flesh and blood partner for co-op play, Sheva will be still be present, though AI controlled. Big mistake Capcom.

Next, the controls. While it appears that Capcom has attempted to improve the controls, they do not quite nail it. Sure, the left stick now strafes when pushed left and right just as it would with any modern shooter, but only when walking. As soon as you go into a run, left and right cause your player to turn. Switching schemes mid stream like that ends up being quite confusing. It caused my needless death several times.

Speaking of walking and running, do not expect to be shooting at any point during those two activities. While on the subject, do not expect to be reloading either. No shooting or reloading while running I would understand, but to not be able to fine tune one's aim with a little translation feels overly restrictive and unfair. Being able to slowly back up while reloading would have saved me several deaths. Heck, I would be happy if they even halved walking speed when trying to shoot and reload. Dead Space did shooting much better.

Also unfair is the inventory sysetm. Pressing 'Y' brings up the inventory menu. In a radical change for the series, going into inventory does NOT stop the action; you can be maimed and killed by enemies while your character is frozen in place. Again, Dead Space did it better by allowing the player to walk around and manipulate the inventory simultaneously.

Another inventory issue is that with the addition of Sheva, you will have to manage resources between yourself and your AI escortee. Options for distributing items is limited. Splitting ammo is not an option. When I wanted to divvy up bullets 50/50, I found that it was all or nothing. Save for the one clip that could be loaded into our guns, one of us was going without extra ammo. Lame.

Along with escort missions, one of my biggest game design gripes is vertical aiming. Vertical aiming sucks. Wouldn't you know it, there is an aerial enemy type that likes to rush you, requiring vertical aiming. Sadly, this enemy type is a fodder type enemy, so I expect we will be seeing it frequently in the final release. Bad choice.

Perhaps my recent love affair with Dead Space has colored my perception of what a survival horror experience could be, but I am really missing the strategic dismemberment of that title when playing the RE5 demo. Most notable is the headshot issue; headshots seem to have been neutered from RE4. Decapitation by headshot is now unpredictable, and seems to only happen randomly to stop a zombie. Unsatisfying. Not worth the chance that I miss the enemy's head. Instead, I found myself just filling the torso with lead.

One last complaint: Race. Unfortunately, we live in an age that is the result of rampant political correctness left unchecked. When the first RE5 media hit the web, a handful of voices cried out at the supposedly racist overtones of the game, seeing as the main character happens to be caucasian and his enemies were negroid. Despite the fact that the game takes place in a region of Africa largely populated by people of negroid descent, Capcom got scared and bowed to the pressure. The game suffers for it as a result. The immersive qualities of the game are broken when one sees asians, caucasians, latinos, and what appears to be zombie saddam hussiens equally mixed in with the legions of regionally accurate undead.

That all said, none of these issues are truly game breaking, even when taken on the whole. Sure, I will buy RE5, play it, and probable end up liking it quite a bit, but I can't see myself falling in love with it based on what I have seen thus far. I can not help but think that the title is a little behind the times. The industry has moved on. Games like Dead Space and Gears of War2 have perfected and redefined what it means to be a 3rd person shooter, survival horror or not. Hopefully Capcom takes note and has time to address these problems before release.

Midway News

2008-12-01T21:10:00.003-06:00

I woke up this morning to my IM and email blowing up with friends sending me links to the big news of the day: Midway was sold to a new owner for $100k. Fractions of a cent on each share. Specifics here.

I wonder what will happen now. Midway has not been profitable in years, heck, maybe even a decade. I doubt that a new owner would want to continue soldiering on down the same path. Midway does has a large library of unique intellectual property, as well as a number of talented developers. As he is from outside of the games industry, I have to wonder if Mark Thomas has any interest in continuing any development at all. Might he not gut the company and sell off the teams and IPs to the highest bidder in order to mitigate that $70 million debt that came with the purchase?

I worked for Midway for roughly four and a half years. I enjoyed my time there very much. I learned a lot and made some lasting relationships. As such, even after leaving to pursue new opportunities, I was always rooting for them; I hoped that they would turn it around and return to being the big time industry player they once were.

Who knows what Thomas' plans are? I hope for the sake of the talented people over there that they are able to continue on in some form or another. Best wishes.

Interesting times for sure.

CTA: Chicago, Thinking w/ Ass

2008-11-21T07:32:00.014-06:00

Every few months, the Chicagoland news outlets run their pieces on how the Chicago Transit Authority is in crisis mode and have issued and doomsday date at which they will completely fail and shut down due to lack of funds without some sort of government intervention/bailout/price hike. And yet, last summer, the geniuses at the CTA go and expose themselves to a breach of contract suit for prematurely pulling down Grand Theft Auto 4 advertisements from the sides of their busses and bus stops.

As a result of the suit, the CTA lost/had to acquiesce, and GTA 4 ads are now back up in time for the holidays. Victory for the games industry!

Well, for 6 weeks at any rate. Come the new year, the CTA will be turning down potential easy revenue by implementing a ban on all "M" rated game advertising on CTA property. (For what it is worth, "M" is roughly equivalent of "R" in the movie industry.) More detail here:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/11/19/gta-iv-ads-back-chicago-buses-future-m-rated-game-ads-banned

I like this quote:

Last week, the CTA board voted to ban advertising for video games rated "M" and above. The ordinance, which takes effect Jan. 1, cites a "demonstrable correlation" between intensely violent video games and violent or aggressive behavior.

Ok, first things first: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Idiots.

Second: There is nothing demonstrable at all here. There has NEVER been definitive proof that mature rated games do in fact cause behavior change.

Third: We are talking about ADVERTISEMENTS. So, even though it has never been proven that the games themselves cause violent behavior, it seems quite ridiculous to think that the CTA has taken it upon themselves to declare that exposure to video game ADVERTISEMENTS is what instigated the rash of shootings earlier this year. (The game itself was not even released at the time.)

This is insane. I could probably go on about how the video game industry has directly employed hundreds and hundreds of Chicagoans for well over 30 years. I could go on how the industry indirectly supports thousands of Chicagoans and their businesses. I could go on about how the games industry has this far proven recession proof and will continue to provide jobs and sales tax revenue to Chicago. (Highest in the country! Thanks Cook County!) Surely the CTA could use a piece of that action?

But all of this is futile. Instead, I will wait, palm at the ready, so that I can firmly deposit my face into it when the CTA once again has to run crying over the airwaves, begging for a handout yet again.

P.S. Gun control does not work.

Adobe: Welcome to 1998

2008-11-18T07:56:00.004-06:00

Blog updates are still difficult things to manage as my living conditions are not currently condusive to optimal after hours productivity. So this will be short, but I had to find time to make this comment: Adobe, you suck.

Recently, Flash Player version 10 was released. Seeing as Flash is ubiquitous throughout the web, I felt the need to update. Unfortunately, Adobe's uptake of moderninity is glacial, and they do not support Windows XP 64bit. "A minor problem," I thought, as I figured that even though my OS of choice is XP64, I generally rely on the 32bit version of Internet Explorer running in emulation mode for my browsing. Therefore, I should be able to install and run Flash Player with no problem.

Not so fast. Adobe's brain dead Flash Player updater must do some sort of superficial OS check, and even though I should technically be able to run Flash Player 10 under 32bit Explorer, I am denied access to the update.

How about this Adobe: How about getting your head out of your ass and joining us in the year 2000 by taking 5 minutes to google up some info on 64 bit OS's and learn that 32bit apps do run on it?

In the end, I had to log into a 32bit computer, go to the update page, deny the auto update, download the package to a usb drive, and then migrate and install the distribution on my 64bit machine. I should not have to get all crafty and trick Flash Player into allowing me to install it.

For years, Adobe has irritated me. This Flash Player thing is just one more straw on the camel's back. A bigger concern for me Adobe's Photoshop, which is the defacto 2D image editing application in use throughout our industry, despite all efforts of its publisher to apparently disregard or outright discourage its use by us.

Quickly, Adobe's list of crimes against the video game industry over the years:
1.) No GPU support (SLI or otherwise.)
2.) The great TGA Alpha Channel F'up of version 7.
3.) No industry standard texture format support out of the box. (Must get 3rd party plugins)
4.) No 64bit support.
5.) No scripting (apparently this was somewhat addressed with a piecemeal add on module. I can't be bothered to look into it at this point as I only fear the worst in regards to its supposed functionality.)
8.) Horrible color optimization and palettizing tools.
9.) No animation tools, (beyond the "there today, gone tomorrow" parallel installation of Image Ready a few versions back.)

Photoshop is a dinosaur and needs to evolve or die. Otherwise we need a new solution that directly addresses the needs of the modern game industry artist. If Adobe doesn't adapt, as soon as something new comes along, I am all over it.

PS3 Gamer

2008-10-13T12:15:00.005-06:00

A month has elapsed since my last blog entry. As I sit here waiting for ZBrush to finish compacting memory, I figured I would try to get things caught up a bit.

Life has been pretty chaotic. With the severe weather of last month, my ceiling collapsed, which has thrown my day to day existence on its head. I have not been able to get much CG or design related work or R&D done in the evenings, which is driving me mad. I am looking forward to getting things back in order and back on track.

Right about the time my house fell apart, I purchased a new 26" Samsung LCD. As a result of the aforementioned housing crisis, I had to make a choice between 360 and PS3. As the monitor does 1080p, I went with the Playstation. I have to say, I think the PS3 is now my console of choice. The PS3 experience is really that of a high end piece of electrontics equipment. The UI is quick, responsive, and organized well. I like the wealth of functionality there. The 360 on the other hand is clunky and slow. The impending Xbox experience that forces its "WannMiis" on the user is only going to make it feel more and more like a toy. I see myself becoming more and more of a PS3 gamer.

In fact, I have now begun to grow my PS3 library with non exclusive titles. It used to be that given the choice of console for a multi platform title, I would always pick the Xbox360. But now with tomorrow's impending release of Dead Space, I decided to get the PS3 version. I am little worried that I might be missing out on some detail like texture resoltuion, framrate, or what have you, but I am hopeful that by now, developers know how to target the PS3 effectively.

Too much more to report for right now. More posts later.

Update

2008-09-12T19:47:00.004-06:00

I slowed my roll in terms of blogging. The post-a-day has come to a halt for a bit. So, a quick update RE: my life, as it pertains to gaming...

3dsmax, the end of an era: After being something of a 3dsmax zealot for the past fifteen years, I have advised my employer to cancel our subscription. For those that might not know, 3dsmax retails for around $3500. After that initial outlay of loot, devs typically go on subscription which means that each year after that, Autodesk releases an update for something around $700 per annum. Trouble is, 3dsmax has largely been ignoring the game dev sector for the last three years or so, and instead has been focusing on the architecture market by investing R&D into Mental Ray, a third party, high end, plugin renderer. Mental Ray is largely useless to us game devs, and so freaking complicated and awkward to nearly be unusable anyway.

Another issue is that game projects take longer than a year to develop, so upgrading software like 3dsmax every twelve months is a major pain in the ass. In fact, we have two years of upgrades sitting on the shelf, waiting for installation. I doubt we will get around to using those before mid 2009.

Recent Purchases: I finally picked up Ace Combat 6 for the 360. I have been waiting for a price drop, but that does not appear to be coming. I noticed that new stock of the title was dwindling, so I finally bit the bullet. I may just shelve this one though; looks like I am finally going to splurge on the massive flatscreen for the living room this winter so AC6 will be a nice showcase title for that. I also picked up Conan for the 360 as it dropped to $20. I was not too thrilled with the demo and ratings are low on this one, but as both a Conan and a third person action fan, I should be able to get $20 of entertainment out of it. I picked up Crysis for the PC as well, despite my general loathing of PC gaming. It does not appear if Crysis is ever going to hit the consoles after all, and I hear you can play the PC version with a joypad, so I thought I would take a chance and try PC gaming one mo' time. Hopefully it is tuned for joypad play, and doesn't just have rudimentary "support." Finally, I bought the official PS3 bluetooth remote in preparation for my iminent en masse blu ray purchases this xmas.

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-10T02:49:00.001-06:00

Well, I stayed awake for the powering up of the Large Hadron Collider over there at Cern in Europe. It appears as if I am still able to blog about it, so unfortunately our solar system wasn't swallowed by a black hole or similar event, as some would have had us believe would happen.

Dammit. I guess I will be sitting in traffic again afterall.

A Taste of PowerPutt

2008-09-02T18:51:00.005-06:00

Here's a little teaser trailer for PowerPutt, which we recently wrapped up. It highlights a few of the various different types of shots found from hole to hole.

It will be hitting the streets shortly, so be on the look out!

Color IQ

2008-08-29T12:46:00.002-06:00

Here is a fun little color vision test.

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

I aced it. How about you?

Quest For Godhand

2008-08-27T20:54:00.003-06:00

I just happened to be out in the southwest suburbs for work this afternoon, so when I was done, I swung by the Gamestop in Bloomingdale/Glendale Heights area. Wow, do they have a lot of used games at that store. More than I have seen on display at other Gamestops. No Godhand. I checked the whole lot. There is a Game Crazy out by work. Maybe I will hit that tomorrow before the weekend. I have only been to one Game Crazy before, but I was impressed by some of the oddball stuff they had for sale. Hopefully they are all like that.

I also stopped by Best Buy. You know what I dislike? The Best Buy preorder program where they go about sticking in the fully arted mockup "coming soon; preorder now!" boxes. I have been fooled into thinking that I happened upon a broken street date situation a number of times now. Super annoying!

More Godhand

2008-08-25T23:04:00.001-06:00

I am seriously jonesing for more Godhand. I need to track down another copy pronto. In the meantime, here's the best review ever.

New Blender Release

2008-08-23T21:58:00.007-06:00

For those that do not know, Blender is an open source, completely free, 3D content creation application. It features modelling, animation, rendering, a node based compositor, and even a real time "game engine." It runs on Linux,(32 and 64bit,) Mac, and Windows, (32bit only though, Boo.) as well as a couple of other bizarro platforms, like Free BSD and Solaris. Pretty mind blowing considering the low low price of $0.00. Contrast that to 3ds Max, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3500.00.

I am a long time 3ds max user, having started using it in 1996 when the first release became available. In fact, for many years I was something of a fanatical 3ds max evangelist of sorts. Recently however, I have started to become a bit disillusioned with the program as it has begun to show its age. It seems like I am always running into some roadblock or issue in the dark corners of the app that nobody has ever ventured into. The subscription system of annual updates is a major hassle. Lately with each release some tried and true feature seems to break or is replaced with a less functional implementation.

One of my responsibilies at work is to advise and steer the art department and as part of that, I have suggested that we drop our subscription and just update our software as needed, perhaps every 3 years. Heck, we only just upgraded to version 9, while the newer 2008 and 2009 editions sit on the shelf.

Now with Blender coming up to speed as real contender, I wonder if we should be using 3dsmax at all. I recently recogized that when it comes to these complex applications like 3ds Max, Maya, or XSI, the vast majority of artists in the industry only know slightly more than the bare minimum required to get their job done. I have come to the conclusion that switching to a new app might not be that great a loss. Perhaps we should axe our subscription, and slowly migrate Blender, incorporating more and more of it into our pipeline over time. Schools are already adopting it, so the flow of Blender skilled talent available is only going to increase over time. The financial savings would be significant, and that has got to look pretty good on my record come review time...

Looks like I am going to have to fit a crash course on Blender in to the nocturnal portion of my schedule and get up to speed.

Demo Mania

2008-08-22T20:20:00.007-06:00

Been playing demos!

The Last Guy (PS3) Just finished playing it two minutes ago. The only thing that disappointed me was that I could not immediately purchase the game. Apparently it releases next week. I really liked it. TLG game play is like Snake and Pac Man all rolled together. Definitely going to get this one.

1942 Joint Strike (PS3) Pretty disappointing, unfortunately. Considering that ten year old games like Ikaruga and Do Don Pachii utterly blow it away in terms of production value, 1942 JS is a real let down. 1942 JS comes off as very low budget, archaic, and rushed. Oh, and the sound is terrible.

Bionic Commando Rearmed (PS3) At least this one was executed at high level quality. The colors are a bit over the top, but otherwise, the models and animations look great. Unfortunately, it is very much Bionic Commando. Even back in the NES days, I really wanted to like BC, but there was always something about the game play that held me back. I realize now that it was the lack of a jump. And today I suppose that after this many decades of gaming, when I see a game that looks like a platformer, I want to jump. Also, the five point aiming system of the grappling hook seemed very restrictive and out of place in a modern looking game. Were it up to me, I would have put the grapple on the right stick; a press in any direction would have sent the hook out until it latched onto something, or fell short. A flick would have been a whiplike attack... damn, that sounds fun. I will have to flesh this out and add it to my design notebook. I may have to give BC another serious try, but I do not think it is for me.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed (360) I have not been a Star Wars fan since George Lucas ruined my childhood with the Ewoks, so the fact that this game has "Star Wars" in the title has no effect on me. I am immune to the Jedi Mind Trick like powers that those two words have on your typical Star Nerds. Therefore, this game struck me as a mediocre 3rd person hack and slasher. Not terrible, just very meh. Spamming the force push button seemed to pretty much wipe out any resistance. Speaking of resistance, why am I killing rebels AND stormtroopers? I am sure there is some contrivance to justify it, but I have another guess... because if the player did not see the iconic stormtrooper costume and tie fighter on screen, this would largely look like any run of the mill sci fi game. You know, I probably would probably be going ballistic for SWFU if it had some sort of fantasy/horror/asian/mayan/medivial/nonStar-Wars-but-still-sci-fi theme. The Star Wars trappings are probably ruining the game for me. Well, that and the abysmal quick time event sequence at the end.

Braid (360) I dunno... I do not think this is the game for me. I understand that people love it to death, and maybe there is some great game play in there, but many aspects of the art turned me off and I just could not get past the pretentiousness. Jonathan Blow should be commended for his effort; it is no small feat to complete a game and bring it to market, especially one executed at a high level of quality. Unfortunately, it just did not grab me. I mean come on! I did not come across a single sword, monster, gun, or explosion in the whole demo.

The Blog Ate My Homework

2008-08-21T21:00:00.003-06:00

I wrote a nice entry for today, but as I went to format the text, Blogger decided that selecting all the text is a no-no and deleted the whole thing. Autosave did not save me.

Too tired to rewrite it now.

Godhand | Mad World

2008-08-20T21:00:00.004-06:00

The strangest thing happened on the way home last night. As I was sitting in traffic I happened to be reflecting back on all the great fun I had playing Godhand on the PS2. Just at that moment, I got a cross country phone call from a friend who was out on a crunch mode dinner run with his new co-workers. He says "Hey, what was the name of that fighting game you loved? The one by Clover?" Sure enough. Godhand was it. Bizarre coincidence!

I bring this up because the dev group that made Godhand revealed a new trailer for their forth comming game, Mad World.

Up to this point, I had not paid a lot of attention to Mad World, but after the trailer today, I just might have to. There were definitely some very Godhandesque animations and game play elements in there. With any luck, Mad World will draw a lot of its systems from Godhand. I loved that game. I cannot stress how incredible Godhand is. It truly is a game for gamers. If there ever was a videogamey video game for videogamers, Godhand would be it.

Unfortunately, my PS2 games are in storage right now, otherwise I would be playing through it yet again. If you have not played it, spend the $10 to $20 and give it a try. Be warned, it is not considered an easy game. However, if you stick with it and really come to understand the fighting system, I trust a true gamer will come to appreciate its genius.

I would write up a nice long post about the game play and controls, but this page already did the heavy lifting: Kungpaofu's Godhand gameplay page.

I have to award Godhand the best score permitted.
Score: +3

Posting Fail | More Unreal

2008-08-18T22:06:00.006-06:00

Ok, so I missed posting for a couple of days over the past weekend. Total failure. In my defense, I was away from home the entire time.

I have hit something of a roadblock with Unreal3. I created an assembly of objects and associated Kismet code, called a prefab. This allows for using multiple instances of same/similar functionality without having to recreate all of the work over and over again. One problem. For some reason, UnrealED decides to draw the prefab icon at some totally huge size. So big in fact, that it takes up the majority of the viewport and makes working with anything in the scene near impossible. To make matters worse, I need a large collection of these prefabs all stacked up on each other. Working on my scene is now near impossible!

I called in a favor to a buddy down at Epic, who was kind enough to pester the UI programmer down there for me. He sent back some code that should help, but I have yet to get it to work. I do not want to press the issue further as I know those guys are down there cranking away on finishing Gears of War 2. If there is anyone out there that could offer some insight, post here in the comments or shoot me an email. I would appreciate it.

For now I am just trying to muscle through with the huge icons, but I could be much more productive with something more reasonable.

New Schedule | Learning Unreal3

2008-08-15T21:00:00.008-06:00

Just a quick note to keep the post-a-day rolling.

The new work schedule seems to be serving me well so far. It only takes thirty-five to forty-five minutes to get to the office in the morning. I enjoy getting in early when the office is super quiet so that I can get down to business right away. The day really flies, and by the time 3:00pm rolls around I am well past my eight hours at the least. I have been bailing shortly after that to try and beat the rush hour crush. Even at that time however, it still takes over an hour to make it home. Better than the two hours plus I was getting stuck in prior I suppose.

Traditionally at night I am engaged in some sort of game dev related activity, (tangentially,at least,) whether it is working on any one of my ongoing ZBrush sculpts, writing a maxscript, reading up on the latest industry news, browsing the various gaming forums, or trying out some new piece of software. For the past couple of weeks I have been keeping myself occupied by learning Unreal3.

Today it all came together, like some sort of moment of enlightenment. As I was working away on my little test project in UnrealED, it all clicked; and while I recognize that I still have a lot to learn, I was accomplishing each little goal I attempted without having to refer to tutorials, manuals, wikis, forums or whatever. I realized that I knew enough and was comfortable enough with the tool to be productive. I just love experiencing that sensation of having mastered some complex concept or tool. It took me back to similar moments with Maxscript, ZBrush, The Jupiter Engine, or some of the more advanced character rigging stuff I developed back in the day. Good stuff.

More Physx on the GPU

2008-08-14T00:34:00.005-06:00

More demos and a free game (Warmonger) designed to show of the Physx technology.

Get it from nVidia.

I decided to wait before installing the new drivers that enable the Physx features. Rivatuner, which I use for finetuning and monitoring my hardware, does not yet support that version. Installing the new drivers might cause me to lose my Rivatuner profiles and tweaks. I will just have to hang tight for a while. Besides, I still have plenty to keep me occupied at night. The fewer distractions the better right now.

I would love to hear impressions if any readers go ahead and take the plunge. I am especially curious about Warmonger.

Online Achievements | Dead Live Titles

2008-08-13T06:42:00.006-06:00

Previously I mentioned my disdain for online achievements in games in my Super Stardust HD post. My argument is that at some point in time, those achievements will become impossible to gain due to the lack of an audience to compete/play with.

Along those same lines, OXM UK ran an interesting little experiment recently in order to see which online titles were essentially dead. Pretty fun read. Dead Online

Unreal3 | Physx

2008-08-12T21:58:00.011-06:00

In the evenings, I continue to experiment with and teach myself how to use UnrealED. Happily, I have been making some decent progress over the past couple of days.

At any rate, as I was scouring the web looking for info on some task I was attempting to accomplish, I came across a forum post announcing some new stuff for GeForce owners of series 8 cards and up. Check it out: New drivers that enable Physx simulations on the GPU, and an Unreal Tournament 3 update that puts the new functionality to use:

nZone Physx and UT3 downloads

I probably will not get to try it out until later this week, but I am a bit wary... it sounds great in practice what with all of the new destructable enviroment and object stuff,* but I was having trouble running the vanilla install of the game early on. (I had to seriously detune my cards to keep from overheating.)

Still waiting on the Linux build of UT3...

*but no terrain deformation. Odd! har har. ;)

Midway News

2008-08-11T22:20:00.004-06:00

Wow, there has been a lot of Midway news recently.

Some number of weeks ago, Micheal Zucker departed, with Matt Booty taking the interim CEO role until a replacement can be found. I would imagine that Booty will become the most likely candidate. I would like to see him officially being given the reins. It would be nice to see a guy that actually came up through development and knows something about games have a crack at turning things around for a change.

The other week Midway posted a loss somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty five million, (I have seen varying figures reported.) Many people keep asking how it is that Midway can continue to lose money quarter after quarter like they have.

Shortly after that Mike Bilder, Studio Head of Midway Chicago, left for another company in the Chicagoland area. I do not know if it has been publicly announced as to where he is going, so I will not spill the beans here.

Next, some eighty to a hundred or more employees of Midway Austin have apparently been let go. That is unfortunate. I know a couple dudes down there. I wish them and their former co-workers the best of luck in finding new gigs. There's a pretty big scene down there, so hopefully nobody will be out of work for too long.

I believe that it was the Austin office that was responsible for the Area 51 update. I really wanted to like Area 51; the demo seemed fairly promising. Unfortunately the final release did not live up to that teaser. I tried again and again to get through it. I just could not. Wow. I remember that project beginning development back before I left Midway. It must have been in the works for close to four years at least.

Apparently some project named Criminal was canned which led to the layoffs. Now, I have no idea what Criminal was about, but I can take a guess based on Midway's recent track record. If my assumptions are correct, that is probably a good thing.

Finally, upon arriving home I find an email from a former colleague of mine announcing his resignation from Midway after 8 years.

I still have something of a soft spot for Midway, so I wanted to know: So what is going on over there!?!

I got in touch with a friend and found out that the recent departures are pretty well unrelated to the loss for the quarter, (at this point those types of number must be considered routine.) people just went and pursued opportunities more in line with their long term goals. I was assured that the while the layoffs in Austin were unfortunate, they were a part of a new effort to refocus development. I really do hope that it works out. The people over there really are a talented group; it pains me to see that besides the staples such as Mortal Kombat and... well, Mortal Kombat, that talent has not translated into further successful titles.

Slow Day

2008-08-10T20:28:00.006-06:00

Not too much to report today; pretty slow and lazy afternoon around the Noon house hold.

I did put in a little time on some art for a new game proposal I working on though. Can not really say much more about that at this point. More on that as it unfolds.

In semi related news, I am going to be trying a new work schedule. Traffic in Chicagoland is so terrible, I have to try something new. Four hours a day sitting in the car is too much. I had been delaying my morning commute later and later each day in the hopes that traffic would eventually die down, but it just does not quit. I was leaving home in the morning between 10:00-11:00 AM, and that was just too ridiculous. Last Friday I left at 6:30 AM, but apparently that is not early enough either. So now I am gunning for between 5:00-5:30 AM. That means 4:00 AM wake up and a mad dash to get ready before attacking the day! I do not see how I can avoid the two hour commute home, but at least with the new schedule I might be able to get it over and done with and be home at a reasonable hour in the evening.

One more thing, anyone know where I can find a PS3 controller with slo-mo?

Super Stardust HD

2008-08-09T22:01:00.001-06:00

Just two more trophies to go.

Brothers in Arms: In split screen co-op, stay in close proximity and link ships without dying for 3 minutes.
First off, pretty poor choice to make the player buy the multiplayer add on pack to get this one. I have said it before: Multiplayer based achievements/trophies are inherently flawed. Despite what the console manufacturers would like you believe, if you aren't online getting teabagged or pwnd in Halo3 or COD4, there isn't anyone for you to play with/against in those other online capable games you are trying to earn those multiplayer achievements and trophies in.

Late Boomer: In Bomber mode, amass fifteen bombs. One life. No weapons. No boost.
I hate the bastard who came up with this one. If he were here right now, he would be cupping the remnants of his crushed probiscus. This trophy is pure luck, through and through. The antithesis of what achievements should be about. If you do not get opportune bomb supply ship placement, freaking forget it. The game keeps stats on how many times you play each game type. According to the audits, I have tried over eighty times so far. I am furious.

PowerPutt Announcement

2008-08-08T22:16:00.000-06:00

Here's the PowerPutt digital flyer that went out to operators and distributors, (the people that buy the games and put them out there in the locations.)

You can peep the new pedestal cabinet design and get a feel for the game.

Check it out:
PowerPutt Flyer

New (Old) Games On Deck

2008-08-07T21:48:00.003-06:00

Just a quick note to keep the Post-a-Day running...

The other day I ordered a couple of older PS3 titles on the cheap that I had been meaning to try. So now I have Genji: Days of the Blade and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom joining the John Woo's Stranglehold I had laying around.

I am looking forward to Genji the most. While I had tried the demo many moons ago and disliked the camera, I enjoyed the first Genji on the PS2 quite a bit, so while I know the game is not triple A quality, I am hoping to get some measure of enjoyment out of it.

Untold Legends I am not so sure about.

The demo if Stranglehold I played way back was tolerable, but in general the gameplay felt a bit loose and sloppy. I am not sure I am going to make it all the way through that one.

Also, I am still working on my last two Trophies for SuperStardust HD. Whoever came up with the trophy for collecting fifteen bombs in Bomber Mode was a real sadist.

Finally, I downloaded and installed the PS3 Home theme pack in the hopes of being accepted into the Home Beta. I am skeptical but curious about this whole Home thing. It sounds like certain elements of it lean towards the whole "the world is the UI" concept. I worked on a couple of projects some time ago that were to incorporate that type of feature, so I always look forward to seeing working implementations of the idea.

Braid Initial Impressions [UPDATE #1]

2008-08-06T10:31:00.006-06:00

Before heading out to work this morning, I downloaded the Braid trail version. Now, I should probably frame my comments by stating that I only got to play for 5 minutes, so here goes...

I have to say that so far, Braid does not appear to be the world shattering pinacle of innovation and game design I had heard so much about. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now and put some more time into when I get home this evening, but so far it seems like an amatuer Super Mario Bros clone.

[UPDATE #1]
I am still at work right now, waiting to get home and try Braid some more, but this is hilarious.

From Destructoid's "Eight Reasons Why You Need To Download Braid"

1. There has never been another game like Braid
I realize that sounds like overstatement, but I mean it wholeheartedly. Never, in the goddamned history of videogaming, has there been another game like Braid.

And then this is the first screenshot they post:

For once, I am at a loss for words.

Braid Prerelease Thoughts

2008-08-05T06:46:00.006-06:00

Apparently Jonathon Blow's Braid is about to be released via Xbox Live. Finally. Quite frankly, hearing about how life altering this game supposedly is and all of the pretentious rhetoric has worn thin. I am looking forward to finding out if the guy can back up all of this posturing that has been going on at every game dev event and conference for the past few years.

Perhaps the game really is all that wonderful; I do not know yet. Honestly, I have actually been wondering if all of Mr. Blow's grandstanding is part of a very calculated marketing effort. Would a 2D platformer with pixel art really have gotten any press were it not for all of his antics? We have seen this tactic before; it is all very much in the vein of a Denis Dyack, Derek Smart, Jeff Minter, or Peter Molyneax type modus operandi: generate a lot of hot air about how you are bringing the most profound experience to market, downplay or critique the most popular and mainstream titles, take forever before releasing and build anticipation.

It is not a bad move, all things considered. The anticipation builds, the press feeds into the hype, and if it bombs, so what? Just promise the next one will be the game you REALLY wanted to make. Just wait and see. Rinse, repeat.

Interesting choice to release it as an Xbox Live Arcade title though, where a demo is required. If the game is not everything it promised, that would seem like a critical flaw in the plan.

Who knows though. Perhaps all of Mr. Blow's high theory is on the money and Braid is all that. If it is, I will gladly acknowledge the fact. I suppose we will find out in a couple of days.

Episodic Content, Episode 1: the Rantening.

2008-08-04T18:44:00.010-06:00

As a fan of survival horror, I was watching the upcoming release of Siren on the PS3 with some amount of interest. That interest waned a bit when I saw that it was to be released episodically on the Playstation Network. I cannot seem to find any news items to confirm this now, but I am fairly certain that it was reported that the game would only be available in North America in this form. Today, Kotaku reports that Siren will in fact be released on Blu Ray through traditional channels this fall. LAME. Total bastard move! Maybe I am old school and perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am a collector, but I like the physical media. The time fiddling with my PSN account to finally add funds to my e-wallet, the subsequent twelve hours of downloading and installing the episodes, and the giant chunk of hard drive real estate it all took was not doing much to enhance my outlook on digital distribution either.

While Siren's release on PSN was NOT episodic, (it was basically split into smaller chunks for delivery at the same time,) this had me thinking about the concept again. At its face, the idea of episodic release seems like a great idea. Heck, it has worked for TV for the past 80 odd years or so. Games are not TV however, and it seems pretty clear to me that at this juncture, episodic gaming just does not work. Well, not for big time console type games any any rate...

For one, games just take too long to make. Everyone in the industry can attest to the fact that during a typical development cycle, a game does not really begin to coalesce until very close to the end of the project. The team toils along for years with only hints and vague glimpses of what the title may really be like until they reach the tipping point where all of the art, code, and sound start gelling. Episodic release does not eliminate this issue. It is not like the team can focus on chapter one for a few months, release it and then start on chapter two. That intial two years of upfront development has to occur.

At that point, what is the point of an episodic release? It seems as if it would be a grave disadvantage. Full retail releases NEED that initial $60 purchase of the monolithic product in the hopes of breaking even on that plus two year development. With episodic content, a developer is giving the player an easy out: if he does not enjoy what he experiences in that first $5, $10, or $15 chapter, he will not be buying the remaining episodes.

Want more confirmation episodic content does not work? I have a game development guideline that applies to just about any aspect of game dev, but is particularly relevant here. I call it "The Valve Rule." Valve is one of the premiere game companies in the world. A group that by all accounts is apparently staffed by some of the best and brightest individuals in the industry with seemingly unlimited time and funding to tackle any feature or methodology they see fit. My rule goes like this: "If Valve can't or won't do it, you probably shouldn't be trying to do it either." Valve initially attempted it with Half Life2, and while still titled as episodes, the extremely long intervals between releases caused them to abandon the concept of the episodic release in the traditional sense. Good enough for me!

In the follow up piece later this week, I will actually try to be constructive and suggest how episodic MIGHT be put into practice and actually work. :)

Weekend Report 08-03-08

2008-08-03T21:54:00.009-06:00

Quite the busy weekend! Some odds and ends to keep my post-a-day initiative going:

I spent the majority of Saturday up at my parents' place, helping out with some heavy lifting around their place as they renovate their basement/rec area. The video game tie in with this is that whenever I go to do these sorts of things, I get sucked into looking through my old belongings that are stashed away up there. Some random fun stuff found:

1 shipping envelope containing driver disks, manuals, and odds and ends out of the first PC I bought.
1 handful of loose Vextrex game manuals, great condition.
1 sealed, mint condition, still in the shrinkwrap copy of Immercenary for the 3do. (When the hell did I buy this!?!)
1 Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive, sans cables, heavily used.
1 copy of Ridge Racer Type 4 Special Edition for PS1, opened but in near mint condition. (This is cool because it comes with the special Jogcon steering controller, and a 60 frame per second rerelease of Ridge Racer 1 featuring gouroud shading. OOOOOOOH!)
2 Virtual Boys. 1 used, the other still in the box, sealed. I admit it: am a Virtual Boy fan.

Right now I am in the midst of a long stretch here at my desk. I played Super Stardust HD earlier, (only two more trophies to get!) and downloaded all of the available PS3 themes, but mainly I spent the better portion of the day between 3dsmax and UnrealED.

For the past couple of weeks I have been spending the wee hours of my evenings doing tutorials and finally learning UnrealED. Its pretty sweet, (perhaps that is obvious considering it seems that 99% of console/PC developers are using it.) I really like it a lot so far. Kismet and Matinee are awesome. Their material editor is really nice, though I think I prefer some of the things we came up with for Facade, which is the material editor for Day 1 Studios' own Despair engine. I have not had opportunity to go too deep in Unreal yet, so maybe there is an analog in there yet for me to find, but one thing I miss from Despair is Forge, which was the tool where one would build "objects" by linking all of the various pieces of content and adjusting all of the available parameters for some particular asset.This object file would then be available to the designers for use in their level editor. Come to think of it, the Jupiter Engine had something similar. (Jupiter was the engine we used on the port of FEAR from PC to 360 and PS3. It was the then most current version of the Lithtech engine.) Even at the day job, I am seriously missing a Forge-like tool. Object data is either tagged in 3dsmax, hardcoded by the programmers, or some combination of both. Seems like an more data driven approach to object definition and an associated editor would be a big win.

At any rate, the main thing I accomplished today was I wrote a couple of maxscripts to assist with my UnrealED adventures: The first simply sets 3dsmax's grid and units to mimic UnrealED's so that I can ensure that things are all built 1:1. The other tool is a floating dialog that aids with snapping objects to the grid. There is a drop down list populated with common Unreal snap values (1,2,4,8,16,etc,) as well as a type-in area for custom values. The user picks or enters a value, then presses a toggle for relative or absolute operation, followed by another toggle for postive or negative axis action. Finally, the user presses either the X, Y, or Z button to force the selected object(s) to the indicated location.

And now, back to some modeling!

Core Competency

2008-08-02T23:32:00.006-06:00

Perhaps this is obvious, but a thought occurred to me recently... for a developer, the kiss of death is to abandon one's core competency.

Hitting it big with a game is a rare event. Whether because of some particular mix of features, technologies, characters, art styles, or whatever, to give up on that magic formula and chase something shiny and new is a massive risk and carries with it a high probability of ending up an unfortunate and costly decision.

All of the experience and expertise the team has amassed over the course of that successful development is now gone. Tool chains, pipelines, and engines will require overhaul. For all intents and purposes, the slate is as good as wiped clean.

Despite all the talk of how the customer demands sweeping innovation, the truth is that they really do not. They just do not know it. Instead of innovating, I would suggest figuring out what it is that made the first hit successful. Focus on that. Refine it. OWN it. Do not let some other developer step in take it for themselves. Perfect it and feed it to the player again and again, only bigger, better, and prettier each time.

Metal Gear. Resident Evil. Mortal Kombat. Doom. Street Fighter. Diablo. Madden. Tony Hawk. The list goes on. All examples of evolution on theme, style and game play across a variety of genres, each spanning a decade or more of successful release after release.

When a management entity makes that decision to abandon their core competency, they are not only gambling the company they built, but the very livelihood of each employee toiling away into the night. That is a pretty big responsibility to shoulder, and one that should be considered seriously whether at the top or bottom of the foodchain.

PowerPutt On Test

2008-08-01T20:39:00.009-06:00

I have been back at Incredible Technologies for just a little bit over a year now, and I am happy to announce that I have two titles due out shortly.

The first is PowerPutt, a coin op miniature golf game which emphasizes competetive, skilled play. My contribution included design work and content creation. We are putting the finishing touches on it now. For the most part, I believe my tasks have been completed, barring any last minute bugs.

It has been an interesting development cycle. Prior to this project, I was doing high end, state of the art console development. Coin op development is a whole different beast with an entirely different set of parameters and expectations however.* Going from projects where a piece of art could take a month or more to a project where each piece of content gets turned out in a couple of days has been quite an adjustment. It has also been nice to work with a small team of people all pulling together towards a common goal. It has also been great to be in control of our own release date and distribution. I think I could get used to this coin op thing...

We have a number of cabinets with early versions out in the field on test, and the initial earnings look extremely promising. We will be updating those test machines with the a more complete version shortly. The new stuff going in is getting rave reviews around the office, so the expectation is that numbers will continue to trend upwards as the content is rolled out to the wild.

More news on the second title as it rolls closer to completion!

*Actually, I have been spearheading an effort to push our technology on the visual front. A tiny taste of that is in PowerPutt, but future IT games will look to take greater advantage as we move forward.

Practical Game Dev #02: Ray Miss and Voidspace Color

2008-07-31T19:50:00.005-06:00

Practical Game Dev #01: Edge Padding

2008-07-30T23:26:00.002-06:00

Game development is a fairly complex process. When discussing content creation, there are a number of steps and features involved that can lead to poor results if not dealt with appropriately. Over the years I have developed a number of techniques and workflow habits in an attempt to ease the process and yield the optimal outcome. Please enjoy, discuss, and share my tips and tricks.

From time to time I visit Polycount, a game art-centric forum of some note. While there earlier today, I came across a post asking for advice regarding best practices when dealing with edge padding when normal mapping. I figured I would post a bit more about it here, as it is a topic I do not believe that many people have put a lot of thought into. (Plus, I have not posted about as much game dev related stuff as I had originally intended when starting this blog!) My experience is 3dsmax related, so I speak in terms of that application, but the overall theory applies to any package that renders normal maps from high poly geometry and targets it to low poly geometry.

So what is edge padding? First we should discuss bilinear filtering.

So what is Bilinear filtering? The first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry does a nice job of describing it:

"...when drawing a textured shape on the screen, the texture is not displayed exactly as it is stored, without any distortion. Because of this, most pixels will end up needing to use a point on the texture that's 'between' texels... Bilinear filtering uses these points to perform bilinear interpolation between the four texels nearest to the point that the pixel represents..."-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilinear_filtering

The main thing one needs to know is that during rendering, neighboring texels (pixels in a texture,) are sampled and then blended together. In short, it generally makes textures look nice and smooth, rather than blocky.

Next, there is a need to discuss mip mapping. Again, wikipedia to the rescue:

"MIP maps (also mipmaps) are pre-calculated, optimized collections of bitmap images that accompany a main texture, intended to increase rendering speed and reduce artifacts." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap

The key thing to know is this: Mipmaps are smaller and smaller versions of the primary texture, used for performance gains. The side effect is that the texturing looks better, as there are fewer pixels for the hardware to have to choose to render. Otherwise objects would tend to look noisy at distance.

Trilinear filtering requires an introduction as well. Wikipedia says:

"an extension of the bilinear texture filtering method, which also performs linear interpolation between mipmaps." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilinear_filtering

So not only are the brother and sister pixels of a texture being sampled, but also the cousin pixels in the textures above and below in the mip maps.

Ok, now a word about normal mapping. If you are still reading this, you are most likely an artist in the industry and are already familiar with at least the general idea and function of normal maps, so I will not elaborate further on that feature here. However, what I do want to go deeper on is the role of bilinear/trilinear filtering and mip mapping on normal mapping, because I believe this is an area most artists do not consider.

When employing normal mapping, the colors of the normal map directly affect the end shading of the surface when rendered. Considering that a 24bit image is capable of representing somewhere over seventeen million different colors, generally speaking the pixels of a normal map fall within some narrow band around the RGB hue of 128,128,255; they should be of that typical purplish color with a relatively small deviation. If there are colors less germane to normal mapping resident in the normal map and its mipmaps, when the hardware goes through its bilinear/trilinear process, those colors will invalidate the final result, manifest as incorrect shading such as seams in the lighting.

Most artists will look at their maps, see the UV'd areas of their model have come out nice and purpley and then move on, not considering that foul colors are staring them right in the face. In between the UV elements of a typical mapping job are areas of UV space that are not mapped to any geometry. I call this UV voidspace. This is not anything to get too worked up over or try to correct; on an explicitly mapped (meaning: not just plastered with a tiling set of UVs,) model of any complexity greater than a plane, it is impossible to avoid UV voidspace. (There is plenty of math and research out there as to why. Look up globes, map projection and the art of cartography for more info.)

And so the problem with UV voidspace is not that it exists, but that artists do not account for it properly. Enter edge padding.

Edge padding is the act of extending the pixels found at the edge of an UV element and duplicating them again out beyond the extents of said UV chunk. In practice what this means that when bilinearly sampling a texture at runtime, instead of picking up the background color of UV voidspace, the hardware will in effect have the same pixels to choose from as found in the UV element when determining the final rendered color, resulting in shading that is much more closer to correct or expected. 3dsmax's render to texture defaults to two pixels. Decent grade artists should be operating at this level of technical competence at least; heck, to be worse one would have to disable edge padding entirely.

But wait... trilinear filtering samples not only into the X and Y of a single texture resolution, but also into the Z of a texture's mip maps. Consider the following:

Objects are rarely rendered to screen using their full resolution texture; most of the time, a mip map is employed.

Subsequent mipmaps are half size from their parent mipmap above: 1024x1024-->512x512-->256x256-->etc...

It should be fairly easy to see the issue: two pixels of edge padding on a 1024x1024 texture is not enough! Already at just one mipmap down, the two pixels of edge padding has been reduced to 1 pixel at 512x512. Beyond that, there is effectively 0 pixels of edge padding. So the question is this: How much edge padding is enough? The answer is tied to the solution of another problem: Which mipmap is my object being rendered with?

Depending on the scale of the asset, any piece of content will eventually enter what I call the "range of lesser fidelity." This is the distance from the camera at which it appears so small on screen that the majority of detail is lost to the viewer. The space right before the range of lesser fidelity is the area of concern. This is the distance where detail is still apparent. Which mipmap is in use within this range is what we need to know.

I would encourage artists to experiment and figure this out for themselves, as it may vary from asset to asset largely dependent on the scale of the object and the environment it is in. However, I will instead share this: over the years I have come to the conclusion that in general, the mipmap level that edge padding needs to be effectively accounted for is the 128x128 map.

Therefore, assuming a 128x128 mipmap with 2 pixels of edge padding and knowing that mipmap sizes double each step upwards to the final resolution, doing some quick math reveals the following edge padding settings for the associated resolutions:

2 pixels at 128x128
4 pixels at 256x256

8 pixels at 512x512

16 pixels at 1024x1024

32 pixels at 2048x2048

64 pixels at 4096x4096

I hope this info helps you all generate some nice, seamless normal maps!

Next up: Voidspace color and Ray Miss color.

Post-a-Day

2008-07-29T17:50:00.001-06:00

I decided that I was going to try to blog about something game related every day, even if it is just a few words. I did author a lengthly post for today, but I have to wait to post it on Friday as it is work related, and it is probably not a good idea to jump the gun.
Let's see how long I can keep this up...

A turning of the tide?

2008-07-28T18:51:00.004-06:00

Up until fairly recently, I would have said that the Xbox 360 was my console of choice. Gradually however, I am finding that I have been enjoying my PS3 more and more.

The UI is much cleaner and quicker to navigate. The PSN Store is also logically laid out and responsive. I like being able to cue up a whole boatload of downloads and then be able to monitor their progress easily. The built in wifi was a breeze to set up. The PSP connectivity is pretty fun. Pretty soon I will be trying out the installation of a high capacity drive of my choosing, rather than not having any storage at all or be raped for it like on some other consoles. And as much as I used to think that backwards compatabilty was not much of an issue, I really have begun to appreciate the feature in the PS3.

It really started with Metal Gear Solid 4, but I find myself more interested in the PS3 exclusives than the other platforms, especially after E3. Killzone 2 is high on my list of anticipated titles, as is God of War 3. MAG could be really cool, (though I have some lingering my doubts as to how well they will be able to populate those massive games,) and a Socom title has finally piqued my interest.

Speaking of E3, what is Microsoft thinking with that new UI!?! I am an adult. I have spent a lot of money on my game systems. I do not want to be embarrassed about firing up my console in front of friends by some silly childlike, toy character greeting me. Obviously, Microsoft is loosing it. They had the hardcore gamers. This new UI is obviously an attempt to glom on to the short term success of Nintendo. I predict disaster.

So, it took Sony a year or so to finally get their act together, but I think the PS3 has made some real strides. I might just become a real PS3 fan yet!

(As you might surmise, one thing I do not like about the PS3 is their crummy avatars! Why can't I make my own, or at least choose from more than the lame built in selection.)

Recent Gaming

2008-07-10T21:24:00.011-06:00

I am way behind on reviewing the games I have played recently. I would like to go into further detail on some of these titles, but I have a bunch of stuff occupying my evening hours that that prohibit me from doing so. As such, here is the second installment of my "Recent Gaming" mini reviews...

Beowulf (360): This sucker dropped in price pretty quick, but it is 3rd person action with a fantasy theme, which is my slice of pie. It seemed like it had some God of War-esque game play, So I took a chance. Boy is it dumb. Too bad. Avoid.
Score: 1

The Darkness (360): I had this laying around from some time ago, so I decided to give it a serious try again. Immediately I was reminded how tedious and annoying the opening chase sequence is. I think I have sat through that part a total of 4 times now. I muscled through since I am something of a Starbreeze fan. (Enclave rocked, as did Butcher Bay.) Turns out, the game has some fine points. I despised just about every character in the game, but the actual game play was pretty decent and there some genuinely fun things to do. Ultimately I got distracted with different titles and did not finish The Darkness, but it ain't half bad.
Score: 2

Megaman Maverick Hunter X (PSP): Wow, is this game hard. I have played a bunch of Megaman titles in the past, including the one this is based off of, and I do not remember the sheer brutality of it. Perhaps I am getting too old for these titles. Yikes. Nice Graphics and classic Megaman game play. Great for fans. I picked it up for $14.99. I forgot how much I like the PSP. This game started a new spate of PSP game purchases.
Score: 2

Exit (PSP): The art had always turned me off from this title, but it kind of grew on me after downloading the demo off of the Japanese PSP site. Not bad at all. Kind of like Lost Vikings in a way. After a while, the game play got a little too try-die-try for my tastes, so I put it down.
Score: 1

PQ1, PQ2 (PSP): After a late night reminiscence on the subject of the PS1's Intelligent Qube with a buddy, I learned of Practical Intelligence Quotient 1 and the sequel, PQ2. While not exactly like Intelligent Qube, the games are fairly similar. The games feature some pretty neat cereberal puzzle action. I picked them up off of Amazon.
Score: 2

Ninja Gaiden 2 (360): A little while after the rigmarole of the region locked playable demo, the full retail game came out. Naturally, it was not in stores on the advertised date, so I spent an evening driving around looking for it. But that is the topic of another blogpost...

So, I was absolutely loving Ninja Gaiden 2 up until about the halfway point. The game looked great, and was a blast. But around level 7, even on the easiest difficulty, I started getting my ass handed to me. I do not have a problem with difficult games, so long as they are fair, (see Godhand,) but Ninja Gaiden 2 is so unfair as to be unenjoyable. There is no real indication that any particular attack can break your guard, and once your guard is down, there generally so many enemies all attacking at once, that you are done for. And despite what the fanboys say, the camera is completely inadequate to the point of being broken.

After Ninja Gaiden Sigma, this was a crushing disappointment. Avoid.
Score: 0

Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3): I absolutely despised the previous Metal Gear games. I wanted to like them, but just could not. I always found the control and game play to feel really clunky and wrong, not to mention the overdone and lengthly cinemas. But the art for MGS4 looked so good, I figured I had to get it anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised. What a completly incredible piece of work. One of the most amazing feats of game development ever. If you have a PS3, you need this game. Both single player and online multiplayer rocks. If you do not have a PS3, go get one and pick up MGS4.
Score: +3

Alone in the Dark (360): I have never, ever taken games back to the likes of Gamestop. Not until Alone in the Dark came along. I have suffered through some pretty bad games in the name of bettering my craft, but Alone in the Dark is a royal piece of shit. It went right back to the store. Avoid.
Score: 0

Space Invaders Extreme (PSP): A nice reworking of the classic game with flashy retro-future graphics. Great for quick pick me ups of play. Recommended.
Score: 3

Warriors of the Lost Empire (PSP): As previously mentioned, I love 3rd person action and this dungeon crawler provides all that along with some nice item collection and levelling up. The art and setting reminds me very much of Vagrant Story for some reason, which is a good thing.
Score: +2

Gurumin (PSP): I found out about this game again through the japanese PSP demo site. This is another action-RPG-dungeon-crawler-hack-and-slasher, though with a japaneesy candy shell. Normally I pass on games with this style of artwork, but Gurumin is genuinly fun. The combat features some nice button comboing game play and there are a ton of secrets to find. Good fun. I got it on the cheap at Best Buy for $10.
Score: 2

Whew! That's a lot of games!

Our Industry is Broken. Part 00. The Introductioning

2008-06-26T08:15:00.014-06:00

It is probably pretty clear that I love videogames more than just about anything. I really do honestly believe that the medium of videogaming is THE superior form of entertainment available today. Even so, there are aspects of this business that need to improve.

Previously I had considered pointing out a few of these issues from time to time in a series of ongoing articles, but something happened this week that has spurred me to begin. I have discovered that I have fallen victim to a common industry problem that needs to be brought to light. Perhaps with a little discussion, we can remedy some of what ails us.

Seeing as the situation I refer to has yet to completely play out, am still waiting for more information before I post the first article, but expect the series to begin in the near future.

Thanks!

Rivatuner

2008-06-20T00:18:00.007-06:00

As of late, it strikes me that this blog has been more about me commenting on which games I have been playing where initially I intended to fill it with a variety of videogame related content even if it ended up being somewhat tangential. So, tonight I will try and remedy that a bit with a helpful software recommendation.

About this time last year, I built my first computer. I had just purchased a couple of badassed video cards: limited edition 8800GTXes that came overclocked from the factory and wanted to put then to the test. Once Unreal Tournament 3 and Crysis came out, I found I could only play for a few minutes before my machine locked up. After scouring all manner of forums looking for solutions, I came across a recommendation for a piece of software named Rivatuner.

Rivatuner is a small application that grants the user total control and surveillance over nearly every aspect of their graphics hardware. Overclocking, underclocking, adjusting fan speeds, creating performance presets... Rivatuner does it all. Using Rivatuner, I was able to play UT3 and Crysis totally maxed out by detuning my videocards' processing speed and shader clocks while upping my fan speeds for improved cooling. I then went on to create profiles that tune my cards for whatever I am up to, be it gaming, graphics work, or web browsing.

While initially it appears somewhat intimidating, I highly recommend Rivatuner for just about everyone. Not only will you be able to tweak out your system to your liking, but people will think you are a totally badassed l337 h4X0r.

Download:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html

Usage:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/rivatuner-20-fan-speed--overclock-guide/

Ninja Gaiden 2 Demo (360) [UPDATE #1]

2008-06-02T20:48:00.014-06:00

When questioning the validity of the concept of territorial lockouts on retail games, the only semi reasonable explanation I have heard relates to something about licensing and publishing rights across territories. I suppose this makes some sense in situations where two different companies are publishing the same title in different parts of the world, (especially at different dates,) but in my mind there is less justification for territorial lockout when a game is either never going to be available in a particular market, or when a sole publisher is handling sales, distribution and marketing worldwide for a given title.

Well, Microsoft took it to the next level with Ninja Gaiden 2. They went and put a territorrial lock ON THE DEMO!

Originally, Microsoft promised the NG2 demo in May on their North American Xbox site. They blew the North American demo release date, and instead released it in Japan last week, where all sixteen Xbox360 owners could enjoy it. Now, it is fairly common knowledge that with a little research one can figure out how to create a "fake" silver grade Japanese Xbox Live account in order to access that region's free content. Naturally the North American Ninja Gaiden fans did as much and downloaded the demo. Pretty quick however, Microsoft put a region lock on the demo, blocking the download based upon the 360's IP address.

Let's face it: for certain high quality, high profile titles like Ninja Gaiden 2, a demo is not going to make or break anybody's purchasing decision. You either like NG or don't and will have already decided what to do with your $60 some time ago. The demo in these cases is more of a reward; A taste of what is to come to hold one over until the full retail release. So why make it rough on the fans that are going to buy the game regardless and just want a small, early sample?

So despite all of the Live account malarky, with a little perserverance it is possible to play the demo after all. A google for "Ninja Gaiden 2 demo" should turn up instructions and links to a compressed archive file containing the demo. After extracting the content and burning it to a DVD as a data disc, it can then be read by the 360 as "Mixed Media." A quick jump to the Game Library of the Game Blade of the 360 interface, and the demo should run directly off of the DVD.

Reportedly there will be couple of noticeable sound synching issues during cutscenes, and there will be some slight load times in between new areas and weapon switching, but for the most part it will run just fine. It might be a good idea to disconnect the 360 hard drive and internet cable, as well as not signing into a Live account before booting up the demo, lest playing a free demo qualifies for Live bannination under some bizarro draconian Live policy.

Naturally, I do not encourage anyone to do this, so try it at your own risk. I take no responsibility should you get banned from Live or have your 360 bricked. At any rate, Microsoft finally announced that the North American demo will be available tomorrow, 06-03-08, (the date of the full retail release,) if you want to be legit. I would like to end this post with a "Better late than never" type comment, but really it is not.

There really is no excuse for region locking a demo.

[UPDATE #1]
Well, turns out that the demo will NOT be available in North America tomorrow. Actually, it is not even clear if it ever will be at all. Way to go Microsoft. Nice one. LINK

Insert Credit Mention

2008-05-05T18:04:00.002-06:00

A little late, but kind of cool:
http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002309.html

Disk Error: Part 2

2008-05-04T15:47:00.003-06:00

False alarm. It was some sort of grease or filth after all. I had tried a quick wipe of it initially, but seeing as how the marks resisted, I assumed they were gouges. After a second inspection, I hit it with some rubbing alcohol, and the marks came up eventually. I still blame the 360 though. I'm not sure how else such filth came to rest on the disc otherwise.

So I was able to finish Army of Two a second time on the hardest difficulty. Then I actually went and played through a third time on the easiest difficulty just for the heck of it. The game is definitely more enjoyable and feels like a better value for the dollar on the higher difficulty, for what it is worth.

Disk Error: Part 1

2008-04-30T23:01:00.006-06:00

I have already mentioned that my original 360 went in for service due to the red ring of death error, and how I was returned a refurbished 360 in its stead. I also already mentioned how loud this new unit is and how dissatisfied I am with the situation. When a disc was inserted a very loud buzz came from the console.

Unfortunately, as you may witness in the image attached to this post, the saga continues.

Whilst playing through Army of Two again, as the next mission began to load, the disc span down and a system blade popped in, declaring that the disc was dirty. This was practically impossible since the game was purchased factory sealed and went straight into the system. It was only removed once and put immediatly back into the case when I went to play a different game. Then it again went directly from case to system when I went to play this evening. That's one and a half round trips from case to system to case to system.

I started the machine up again, figuring it was a fluke. I got back into the game, and as the next mission went to load, the disc again spun down and the dirty disc error came up. Upon taking the game out, I could see three distinct gouges, about a third of an inch from the edge of the disc. The freaking drive is so out of kilter and unbalanced that the media is getting damaged.

Tomorrow I will call Xbox support to see if I can resolve this situation to my satisfaction.

Army of Two (360)

2008-04-20T20:51:00.008-06:00

For me, Army of Two was a pretty thought provoking experience.

And no, I am not referring to Army of Two's supposed message or commentary on the state of the modern US military. Honestly, I could care less about what the devs have to say on that issue. As far as I am concerned, the whole privitization of the military angle was just a plot device to explain why the characters were running around in kick ass skull masks and body armor featuring flame paint jobs. Good enough for me!

At any rate, when first announced, the concept sounded interesting enough, but it was the art that really got my attention. The environments looked great, and I have already mentioned how the cool, scary looking characters caught my eye.

Over time however, more info was released and my interest began to wane. As mentioned in my Jericho commentary, my opinion of AI controlled teammates is pretty low. When the first trailer was released featuring character to character dialog, I did not like the wisecracky one liners. The game continued to slide towards the bottom of my "want list" after its release as reviewers made constant mention of all of the "knuckling up" and other silliness going on. From my perspective, Army of Two went from looking like a totally bad ass looking game with lots of attitude into some sort of joke.

However, after tearing through Dark Sector, quickly followed by a full 1000/1000 on Viking, I needed something to play. While I really enjoyed the first Condemned, I was not really compelled to play its sequel. There were a handful of budget titles I had some interest in, but I figured I would hold on purchasing those until some other day. So I took a chance on Army of Two. And boy am I glad I did...

...but not because it is some Earth shatteringly great game. In fact, the reason I am so glad I bought it is because it is widely considered just "good."

The game play is solid and features good shooting, a nice weapon upgrade shop, a competent cover system, some fun actions to perform, a simple AI command menu, and the aggro system which allows you to have your teammate to draw fire while you circle around the enemy for the kill.

The story is serviceable. It does its job as it serves as a suitable vehicle for moving the action from place to place and motivating the characters. The dialog is fairly convincing as well, which was a welcomed change, especially since just about every character utters at least half a dozen cusses. (Now, I am not anti profanity or anything, I just believe that in general, swearing in games is done very poorly as it comes off sounding very forced and unconvincing, and therefore, entirely unnecessary.) The wisecracks were few and far between, and were believable. The whole "knuckling up" thing was totally blown out of proportion by the media as it was entirely player controlled as far as I could tell.

Also, perhaps I have been back in coin op for too long now, but in my opinion, AO2 is beautiful. (SURPRISE. It is powered by Unreal3.) There is a level of fidelity and detail in the textures that I have not seen too frequently in other titles. The developers were not afriad to let their HDR tone mapping system do its thing either; there is a lot of dynamic adjustment of exposure and it looks very convincing. All in all, great execution on the visual front.

This is where my AO2 experience started to become interesting. As I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the game and truly enjoyed it, I began to speak with friends who had played it. I checked out the various forums dedicated to the game. I read its reviews. On the whole, people just did not seem all that impressed with AO2 as I was.

So here's a game with all of the bells and whistles: innovative game play features, awesome graphics, cool characters, and the marketing muscle of the biggest publisher in the world... and in the end, the general perception of it is "meh."

It really got me to thinking: If AO2, which appears to have just about all of the pieces, can't put the puzzle togther, what does it take to make a truly great game that is successful on a AAA scale? What hope does anyone slaving away on a team of a hundred and twenty plus people for three or four years really have of achieving a measureable amount of success and substantial profit? I'm just not seeing it.

I enjoyed playing through AO2; it is a really good game and I recommend people try and perhaps even buy it outright. But for me, the bigger value was in the validation of my decision to go back to coin op for a while.

Score: +2

Viking: Battle for Asgard (360)

2008-04-16T22:38:00.010-06:00

Right after blazing through Dark Sector a couple of times, I rolled right into and through Viking. I picked it up somewhat on a whim; there was not too much else out that I was really looking forward to playing. I love me some third person action, especially when it features bad ass characters hacking each other to bits with swords and whatnot. It only took me a few screenshots and a quick perusal of Viking's concept art to seal the deal.

Viking is a pretty neat game. There are three islands of Asgard which have been taken over by a 'roided out army of evil monster men. These guys are bad news: the have taken over and set up shop in the major Viking forts and settlements, enslaved the viking population, and generally rained on everyone's parade. (No joke; where ever these guys go, bad weather follows!) Your job is to go about killing baddies, freeing vikings, finding gold, and collecting various artifacts that will aid you in your quest.

Initially the game has a sort of "Zelda-meets-GTA-lite" type flavor while you stomp and sneak about the island as you please, looking for and finding trouble with small squads of enemies. NPCs will give you objectives such as "Liberate the quarry," or "Summon a dragon," or "Sneak into the fort," which will then lead to fetch quests for this, that, and the other chotchkie of worth. With each successful mission, the clouds will part, the sun will shine, and your viking army will grow and grow. Eventually you have large enough numbers to lay seige to one of the major forts the monsters have taken over.

The seige sequences are a nice change of pace and pretty impressive to behold. During a seige, there are HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of characters going at it as you hack and slash your way through the hordes towards the boss characters. There's some light strategy involved in terms of which points to attack when and where to sic your dragons, but it is thankfully fairly superficial and extremely easy to manage. Pretty cool stuff indeed.

Avatar level game play has some amount of depth, but its systems are easily absorbed and not overly complex: Training your character unlocks new moves, each of which has an optimal usage case based on enemy type and numbers. Hacking through enemies yields a single orb which feeds your berserker/power guage. Taking time to deliver a fancy killing blow renders three orbs. Berserker rage allows you to power up and wipe out foes much more quickly. Engaging more than five enemies while solo typically leads to be being overwhelmed, so there are simple stealth mechanics that permit you to thin the heard silently and formulate a more measured attack.

The graphics are serviceable, especially considering the size and scope of the open world type levels. The wave motion of the ocean is well done, as is the lighting and texture detail of the world objects and terrain. Frame rate does chug from time to time in seige sequences, but it was not overly detrimental or annoying. Killing blows feature levels of gore and violence suitable for a Norse saga with decapitations and dismemberments rendered in pretty surprising levels of detail. For example. cutting a guy in half with cause his lower section to stumble about aimlessly as his torso pirouettes through the air, entrails flapping behind.

On the whole, Viking is a pretty solid game, but there are a few low spots.

The blue light: Immediately upon starting the game, I was distracted and annoyed by the Viking's little blue orb. It dangles from his back, lighting up his immediate area and generally making him look pretty poor, as the light illuminates the model's backfacing normals. My theory for this light it was not originally part of the character's design, but was added during development once the dev team saw how easy it was to lose the character in the throng during a seige. Heck, even with the blue light the Viking gets lost during these sequences.

The sound: TERRIBLE. Music is almost nonexistant. Sound effect calls are obviously missed throughout, and if they do fire off, are so quiet that they really loose any impact. This is especially noticeable in combat as fighting really lacks any "ooph." When the Viking lops off a guy's arms, one might expect some amount of screaming and yelling to ensue, but sadly this is not the case. The Viking sound department needs to sit down with Dark Sector and go to school on its sound.

Tedium: By the middle of the final island, game play started to feel a bit repetitious. Thankfully the game is not overly long so a little bit of drudgery at the end did not ruin the experience.

Boss: The final boss is quite possibly one of the lamest things I have ever seen. Ever. I will not ruin the surprise, but suffice it to say that it is so comically weak that it should be seen to be believed.

So all things considered, even though it is not triple A quality, Viking is a solid purchase. It is fairly trivial to go 1000/1000 on Achievement Points within a playthrough if you play the hard difficulty, which really did not seem overly difficult. So there is always that. I hope it does well for Sega and they order a sequel, or another game that builds on the mechanics and technology. I would like to see how the developers refine and expand upon the concept.

Score: +2

Dark Sector (360)

2008-04-15T01:05:00.006-06:00

Take three part Gears of War, two parts Resident Evil 4, throw in a dash of Silent Hill, a sprinkle of Ninja Gaiden, and a touch of Metal Gear Solid and you have Dark Sector: a third person, over the shoulder shooter featuring 8-10 odd hours of cover based game play in a variety of gloomy locales against soldiers, cool monsters, and huge boss creatures. Along the way you will gain some decent weapons and nifty special abilities such as a bubble shield, elemental powerups, steerable projectiles, and a predator-like stealth mode. Oh, and then there is the glaive: a huge razor bladed, chinese star/boomerang device with which you can solve puzzles, pick up objects, and best of all, dismember enemies with.

I'm not sure why people seem to regard this game with such disdain; especially those that have not even played it. My impression is that very early on it in its admittedly long dev cycle, people just made up their mind about it for the worst, and that was that. Sure it is not perfect. Sure the story is difficult/impossible to follow. Sure the main character is the worst model in the game. Sure it is inspired by/steals from other, more well known games. But I hardly think Dark Sector is deserving of the savaging it has recieved in reviews and in the forums.

Obviously, Gears of War and Resident Evil 4 were the biggest influences here. Not bad examples to follow, for sure! I enjoyed those two titles immensely. But neither of those games are going to have their sequels on shelves anytime in the near future, so I welcomed Dark Sector's capable recreations of their game play mechanics. As an aside, it is somewhat disturbing to me that the audience will completely demonize a game, seemingly at random, for borrowing this or that feature from some other game or games. Fanboyism is a powerful and dangerous enigma I suppose.

In terms of execution the art is really well done, save for the main character. His head is oddly froglike, which I blame on his peculiar neck and jawline geometry. He is a pretty slim guy, which is the wrong direction to go with game art; I maintain that bigger ALWAYS reads better. Also, the modeling of his shoulder geometry leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, later in the game, a badass armor upgrade improves the aforementioned visual issues of the main character. Other than that, the world looks great, with plenty of fancy lighting and normal mapping everywhere. The monsters are especially cool, and definitely worth a look. So much so that if available, I would run out buy Dark Sector action figures immediately and toy collecting is not something I do. I have to point out the Nemesis character, who for me, was the standout. Check it out:

Though chuggy and uneven in a couple of spots, the engine appears pretty well capable in terms of "next gen-ness." So much so, that apparently many people think it is running on Unreal 3, which is quite the compliment as far as I am concerned.

Game play is fairly solid, though the character is pretty darn sluggish. (Upping the sensitivity helped out a bit.) The glaive could have done with a bit more range; it seemed like more often than not the enemy I wanted to slice was just out of reach. Smashing open every ammo crate and then having to retrieve the contents was pretty tiresome due to some pretty tight active area tolerances. (Getting the glaive powerup that allows you to pick up objects helps in this regard.) I did not find the game overly difficult at all, though I have read complaints to the contrary on the various forums. Except right up to the last two encounters before the final boss, I did not noticed a great increase in challenge when maxing out the difficulty while playing through a second time. In fact, I found the game to be slightly more enjoyable. (Curiously, I felt the same way about Digital Extremes previous title, Pariah.)

The sound was awesome. So much so that at one point, while I was performing a close range glaive fatality on a monster, my wife remarked, "UGH. That sounds DISGUSTING. I don't even want to see what is going on. Turn it down!" I enjoyed the music as well as it was suitably atmospheric. Like the action figures, I would buy the soundtrack right away if available.

Unfortunately, multiplayer is flat out broken in a number of ways to begin with, and rumor now has it that cheating has taken root. Were it not for the, (always godawful,) online achievements, I would never have logging onto LIVE to play it after the first try. There are so many things wrong with the multiplayer, that I could write another whole nine pages on it alone. AVOID.

In terms of Achievements Points, Dark Sector's single player cache is a pretty straight forward and easily doable with two playthroughs. The online achievements would be pretty simple, were the multiplayer aspect of the game tolerable.

So to sum up: Though flawed, I found Dark Sector to be a competent, engaging, and fun game, released at a time when there was not a lot else on the shelves that piqued my interest. The game was executed at a level of high production value, and is technologically sound. The single player is what you are buying here; do not bother with the multiplayer unless a major patch is released. All that said, I do not regret the purchase one bit and infact recommend this title to fans of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War looking for an interim fix.

Score: 3

Red Ring of Death: Part 5

2008-04-05T22:21:00.006-06:00

And so the saga concludes*

My replacement 360 was shipped back the other week. As previously determined, it is in fact a refurb. No surprise there. I'm really not too happy about it. I took really good care of my original 360, and the one I got back has a number of scratches.

...oh, and did I mention? IT IS AS LOUD AS F*CK.

Pretty disappointing, all around.

*At least until this one bites it.

Red Ring of Death: Part 4

2008-03-17T20:35:00.006-06:00

My 360 isn't here yet, so I just went and checked my service request status. Apparently the unit shipped out this morning, so it should arrive any day now.

Interesting to note: before shipping it out, I wrote down my serial number so I could determine as to whether or not I was getting the same unit back. I noticed in my account that the serial number had changed; a different xbox is on its way.

So now I was curious: was I getting a refurb, or a new one?

A quick google of "xbox 360 serial numbers" reveals that one can determine when and where a console was manufactured by the last five digits of the serial number. My new serial number ends with "63307" which means that it was built in China, in the middle of August of 2006.

6 = year (2006)
33 = 33rd week of year (middle of August)
07 = factory code (China)

Not sure how I feel about that... I was hoping for a new one with the 65nm (or better yet 45nm) process chips and HDMI output. Oh well... on the bright side, I guess I'll have till August of '09 to return it for service if/when it goes south.

Red Ring of Death: Part 3

2008-03-07T12:47:00.003-06:00

360 was all boxed up and sent out via UPS. 6 days elapsed.

Red Ring of Death: Part 2

2008-03-06T20:11:00.005-06:00

Well, the return packaging showed up today. My 360 will be off on its way tomorrow. 5 days since RROD.

I can't believe how much I've missed it already... I've been forced to fire up the PS3. The gaming landscape on that device is DIRE. I downloaded every demo off of the US and Japanese Playstation stores and found nothing that caught my interest. Resistance... oh man. How did this score in the 90's? I don't get it at all. Yakuza3? Snore. Ratchet and Clank Future was actually pretty enjoyable for a while, but I grew tired of it about 3 levels in.

I also went and downloaded all of the various PSP demos available around the world and loaded up my memory stick. God of War PSP was something of a letdown. Patapon is fairly interesting... I'll have to pick it up eventually; good reference for a new game concept I've been mulling over. Space Invaders Extreme is a decent time waster. I might pick that up at a budget price. Still, nothing really seems worth running right out and plunking down $40 for.

Don't even get me started on the Wii... that's been back in the box for months.

I got sick of running through the same dungeon in Zelda: Phantom Hourglass a while ago, so my DS is in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.

So I'm back to playing Godhand on the PS2. Again.

Red Ring of Death: Part 1

2008-02-29T13:39:00.009-06:00

Well it finally happened; my 360 RRODed.

I had read numerous reports of other people's 360's RRODing but I figured those were caused largely by a lack of ventilation or poor air quality conditions, so I would be in the clear as my machine stands alone with at least eight inches of freespace around it. The air in my office is pretty clear as well.

Not so, however. Over the course of the past two days, the machine had locked up a couple times. It came back to life after the first reboot, but on the subsequent try, I was met only with the baleful cyclopean crimson gaze of my 360.

I'm tempted to pick up one of those fancy black 360's with HDMI, but unless I am mistaken, I believe those have the same old small 10GB harddrive, and I think there's a new hardware rev on the way. Fortunately, Microsoft has fessed up to the hardware defects in the original models and extended their warranty program for RRODs to three years from purchase. I have registered my busted machine and requested shipping materials. The whole process is going to take roughly a month, so I'll be 360less for a while. Hopefully it returns to me before Dark Sector lands. (Yes, I am looking forward to Dark Sector!)

So for now I guess I will be PS3ing it for a bit.

[UPDATE #1]
I checked the specs of the 360 Elite. It does have a 120 GB HD, not the lowly 10GB, so that's all good. What's not all good is that at least the initial batch of Elites made use of the 90nm process chips, rather than the more efficient, and cooler running 65nm chips. I'll have to do some research to see if the more recent Elites are 65nm. Complicating things however is that I understand that the 45nm are on the way, but might be skipped all together in the 360 for the 32nm chips sometime in '09. Sheesh...

I suppose If I went Elite, I wouldn't be able to stand a mismatched system, so I'd be looking at buying all of the black accessories too: controllers, quick charge packs, headsets, etc. A pricey proposition from the outset, add all the color matched peripherals to the Elite equation and suddenly I'm thinking that waiting a month and a half for my refurb launch 360 is sounding like a good move.

Jericho

2008-02-08T22:19:00.002-06:00

I actually played this back in December, but am only getting around to going over it now due to the flood of product that has been released.

For some reason or another I had my eye on this game for a time. I dare say I was mildly anticipating its release. I haven't a clue why. The demo was a mixed bag. Not great, but not totally terrible. While there were parts of it I really did not like, I still was not totally turned off. I am not a Clive Barker fan either. Sure, Hellraiser was good, but everything else I can think of that he's done was pretty shlocky as far as I recall. I don't even like the name of the game. "Jericho." Wasn't that an ancient city in the middle east? Why appropriate that name? Stuff like that irks me.

And so I found myself at the local gamestore. Ace Combat 6 was tempting, but after playing Assassin's Creed, I was in the mood for some more 3rd person character based action. Vampire Rain looked to be of extremely questionable quality, and Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom was not out yet, so I went 1st person. I was trying to pick a game out of the dozen or so mediocre-to-good first person shooters crowding the 360 rack. What to pick? Area 51: Blacksite? At one point I was kind of looking forward to this "B" title as well, but comments from the producer trashing the game scared me off. Call of Duty 4? No way, not after the abomination that Call of Duty 2 was. Soldier of Fortune: Payback? I feared a "rushed-to-market" dev cycle on this one. SOF wasn't really ever known for quality anyway. Mass Effect? Wasn't a fan of Kotor 1 or 2, and got bored with Jade Empire. Bioshock? No real interest in shooting rabid flappers and prohibition era zombies with a rubberband gun. (FWIW, I ended up changing my tune on several of these games later. Quality stuff in that list.)

So it was between Timeshift and Jericho. Generic Sci Fi Shooter with a twist, or Generic Horror Shooter with a twist? I went horror. Though I am not a fan of Clive Barker's storytelling, I do find aspects of his aesthetic interesting, and the environments in the demo looked pretty nice. So despite the fact that I doubted whether it was even worth $40 or not, Jericho it was. The game was $50 to boot, so I avoided that extra "next gen sting" of $10 that Time Shift featured.

I'll jump to the chase: Jericho is a $40 game. A solid C, maybe C+ title. A 75%. I would give it a "2" on my scale. The sad thing is, it could have been better were it not for one thing. One design choice mires down Jericho in the morass of mediocrity: The squad.

I sympathize with the design team. As should be evident by the paragraph above, the shelves are chock full of first person shooters. How does a developer get their title noticed? How does a game attempt to rise above the din? The answer, many would have you believe, is "the twist," or "the hook," or "the X." (BTW: What a lame ass term; "The X.") It's that one feature that a dev team will wager their entire dev cycle on, and maybe even the livelihood of their company on, regardless of how appropriate or fun that feature may or may not be. Happens all the time.

So how did "the squad" ensure that Jericho would be lost in the Christmas Crush? Easy: THE SQUAD NEVER WORKS.

Here's a word of advice: Valve is a great developer. An extremely smart group of people, right? Creators of some of the best games ever, agreed? Well Valve put squad mechanics in Half Life 2. Guess what? It did not work. The squaddies got in the way, blocked passages, walked into fire, chattered repetitively, and so on. So here's my rule of thumb when it comes to development: If Valve can't get it right, give up. Neither will you.

And like many squad games before it, Jericho suffers from all of those aforementioned issues.

The repetitive chatter is especially grevious in Jericho, as the team members are all apparently a bunch of foul mouthed hardcases from broken homes and similar teen angsty inducing conditions that resulted in the assembly of the gothiest group of ragtag misfits the armed services has ever seen! TEN HUT! *yawn*

It is really too bad, because there is some good in Jericho. On those rare occasions that your squad aren't cursing up a storm and being outrageous nusances, the game is kinda fun: run around a bunch of ancient, gloomy ruins and blast the cherry cobbler out of a bunch of nasty, gory monsters. In fact, at first blush, you might think you were looking at a next gen Quake 1, which is not a bad thing at all IMHO. I think that's what attracted me to the title in the first place. If there was anything to be learned from Serious Sam and NOT to be learned from Doom 3, I'd say that a little old school style "fend off the hordes" game play can go a long way.

The weaponry is pretty meaty and satisfying enough, while most of the the special powers are cool and useful. Unfortunately, I've never been a fan of character swapping for whatever reason, so having to switch characters to access the power of weapon I wanted to use was points against.

On the bright side the Achievement Points were pretty easy to max out, so that's always nice in a budget grade title.

While not stellar, ultimately I ended up liking Jericho more than I expected. It's too bad few bad design choices had to pull down the experience. I can't help but think that if they had simplified, the game would have been even more enjoyable.

Score: 2

Bioshock [UPDATE #2]

2007-12-26T20:38:00.002-06:00

To be truthful, I would not say I had been hotly anticipating the release of Bioshock. I would check out the various previews from time to time and just not really see the appeal. Sure, I had heard about all the talk of the sandbox gameplay, the big moral decisions, and how awesome System Shock apparently was, but the setting and enemies really did not light my fire, so to speak. It all looked very beautiful, but I didn't find the thought of shooting zombie flappers all that compelling. I played the demo, and that did to pique my interest more than I expected, but I was not convinced to run out and buy it.

So now, quite some time after its debut, I am finally giving it a try. I have to say that very shortly into the experience, I found myself enjoying it considerably!

...but I am afraid that the initial favorable glow has worn off. It's really a shame as well; Many aspects of the game truly are beautiful and intriguing. Heck, I dare say I was beginning to appreciate how the enemy design fit into the Bioshock universe. Unfortunately, much like COD4, what spoiled Bioshock for me was the difficulty.

For reference, a couple of words about myself:

I do not have a lot of time to game these days.
I like Achievement Points.

The first thing I did before popping in the disc was to head off to one of the various sites that list achievements and check out the point distribution for the title. When playing a game, I already know that chances are that I am not going to play through it more than once, so I try to maximize my Achievement Point gaining experience. Quickly scanning the list of Bioshock Achievements, I saw that there were at least two substantial rewards for beating the game on the higher difficulty: one for 40 points, once for 100 (!) Naturally, I went for the gusto.

Fellow Developers: Please attach Achievement Points to the difficulty setting you intend the majority of your audience to enjoy the game at. If I have to play on hardest to get the most points, then I have to I assume the game was tuned as such, and that's what you want me to play.*

Things seemed to be going pretty well up until the bit where I found the research camera. It was around that time that I seemed to notice what appear to be endlessly respawning enemies, triggered by entering or exiting certain zones. Now, I was a Dungeons and Dragons player as a kid, so I "get" the whole "Wandering Monster" concept, but it seems a bit out of place in a supposedly more cereberal game that encourages exploration and backtracking. By this point in the game I had aquired a number of weapons and special powers. Photographing an enemy and then cycling through two different inventories to fight was not only tedious, but hazardous to my character's health.

At this juncture, I am REALLY tired of dying. I am going to give it one more go, but I have a stockpile of unwrapped games sitting on my shelf I have to get through. I fear that Bioshock will remain unfinished for me.

[UPDATE #1]
So I continued playing, and realized that there were a couple of features hindering me. For one, I wasn't using the camera to research enemies. This made things incredibly difficult. Second, I was not aware of the radial selection wheel for weapons and plasmids. This helped tremendously as it pauses the game and allowed me to directly jump to the item of choice. My enjoyment of Bioshock shot up dramatically. I'm about 2/3 through, I'm guessing. I'm really liking the story, and I'm not typically one for story in my gaming. Score went from a 2, to a 3.

[UPDATE #2]
Just finished it, and I have to revise my score again. Any game featuring an escort mission is automatically deducted 2 points. So that would currently put Bioshock at a 1. The last boss battle was pretty disappointing. You go through the whole game, learning how to be clever with the tools they give you, and then they blow it by making the final battle all circle strafe. I dunno... maybe that's not too much of a crime. I was ready to be done with the game a few hours ago. Looking at the game as a whole, Taking the good with the bad, I will have to give it a +2 afterall.

Score: +2 [re-revised]

*As an aside, as flawed as Bulletwitch was, I liked what it did with Achievements. Take a look at how many points the player is awarded for clearing the most intense difficulty level, (Hell mode.) A very clever, and refreshing game design decision in my opinion.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2007-12-19T00:22:00.002-06:00

HOLYFUCKINGSHITTHISGAMESUCKS.

Seriously. As a single player game, this is one of the worst ever.*

Immediately punishes the player: check
Try-die-try game play: check
Blatanty obvious trigger points: check
Inflexibly scripted: check
Endlessly respawning enemies: check
Enemies spawn from behind: check
Instant deaths: check
Artificially extending game length through difficulty: check

After the horrifc P.O.S. that was COD2, I swore I would never play another game by either Infinity Ward or Sparks. (I never could keep track of which group was doing what version of COD, so I opted to boycott both in order to play it safe.) However, after all of the hype and praise I was hearing about COD4, I got suckered in: I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe give the game a chance. What a mistake.

COD4 is a disgrace. It is the antithesis of what gaming should be. Infinity Ward should be disgusted with themselves. The only way it could have been worse is if it was set in WWII.**

Thankfully, I didn't pay for this crap.

Score: 0

*Multiplayer COD4 is the polar opposite. It rocks. One of the best ever.

**this just in: COD5 will be set in WWII. Three cheers for originality.

Silent Hill Origins

2007-11-14T22:13:00.001-06:00

[WARNING! This post is spoiler-riffic. And long.]

First, some background: You know those people who watch the TV show Lost and complain all over the forums about how the show is going nowhere and they need information or resolution? I'm not one of those. I was kind of bummed when the purpose of the island was revealved. I wouldn't have cared if Lost kept stringing me along for ten years with that stuff. I was loving the ride.

That's how I felt about the Silent Hill series. Silent Hill 1 was so bizarre and out of left field, it kept me guessing the whole time. By the end, I had no idea what had happened to the main character or why the town was so loco, but I enjoyed it. Silent Hill 2 was similar. After finishing it, I still had no clue what Silent Hill's story was, but I felt I had a pretty good picture of what the main character had gone through, (and "WOW" did I feel emotionally drained afterwards. That was a gaming first!)

It kept me wanting to return to Silent Hill. I played Silent Hill 2 again on Xbox just to experience the Restless Dreams content. I played Silent Hill 3. I imported the Lost Memories Collector's DVD. I found a page by page translation of a Japanese Silent Hill sourcebook online. I bought the Silent Hill Experience UMD. I read the Wikipedia entry on Silent Hill. I watched The Silent Hill Movie in the theater twice, and then bought the DVD. I wanted to know more!

...and after a while, I realized that I did. I knew the story of the town and what had happened. Perhaps it was my own fault, but the mystery was gone.

This is something of a problem for Silent Hill Origins. A prequel is typically designed to fill in the backstory of the previous chapters. If I already knew what was up with Silent Hill, what was there to look forward to?

Travis:
Like SIlent Hill 2, (and Lost, for that matter,) I had hoped it would be the intrigue surrounding the character(s). In that game, you know the basic back story of James Sunderland: his wife died, and some time later he gets a letter from her directing him to Silent Hill. But what was it about her death that brings him to the town? By the end you find out, and it is a soulcrusher. James was lured to Silent Hill to confront his surpressed inner turmoil brought about by the questionable moral decisions he made surrounding his wife's death as well as the subsequent guilt he feels over being attracted to other females. Heavy stuff, for sure!

Not so with Silent Hill Origins. Travis is a trucker, apparently just passing through. One could speculate that there was some force compelling to arrive there, but this would be a fiction imposed by the player as the game does not allude to this in any form. Yes, he has some tragic past event he must deal with, but not to the same magnitude that James Sunderland did. He just happened to be there and made to relive an unpleasant past experience over again; No deep Sunderlandesque inner conflict; No self realization. He's just a puppet for Alessa. He finds all of the pieces of the Flauros for her, but why? What is it about his demons that makes him the suitable candidate to assemble the device? There is no explanation. So all in all, Travis ends up being fairly one dimensional. There's no real reason to become invested in him and his experience in Silent Hill.

Result: The story falls flat. Not particularly bad mind you, just not as compelling as one would hope.

The Butcher:
The Butcher aims to be SIlent Hill Origins' Pyramid Head. But as Pyramid Head's Great Knife is to The Butcher's Cleaver, he just doesn't measure up. Sure, there are a couple of suitably creepy cutscenes, but the Butcher never ties into the story. Pyramid Head was a nightmare manifestation of the struggle James Sunderland had with his the male desires: giant pointy head, long thrusting knife, tendency to sexually dominate females... get the picture? The Butcher is just a guy with a knife, gutting other monsters for no apparent reason. He never threatens Travis until the confrontation in the kitchen. What are we supposed to learn about Travis from the Butcher? I suspect there is no greater mystery to be revealed by including the Butcher in Origins. He had no greater purpose other than the dev team being able to check the box on the list labelled "iconic monster."

Game Play:
So if the story ain't all that, how about the game play? Silent Hill Origins is an odd mix. It is almost as if the game changed direction mid way through development amd couldn't decide if it was going to be a survival horror game or an action game.

On one hand it only takes a few hits to die, your health does not recharge, the health meter is fairly ambiguous, and you've got a fairly limited supply of health items, (though I never used an ampoule.) This is typically good for survival horror as it increases tension! This is bad for an action game because it requires a lot of health management!

On the other hand, you have tons, and I mean TONS, of weaponry at your disposal. I must have had over 60 melee weapons and the full compliment of guns, (two of which I never used,) and hundreds of rounds of ammo by the end of the game. This is typically good for an action game as it promotes action! This is typically bad for a survival horror game, as it lessens the fear of being defenseless!

But then again, the fighting is pretty weak. The melee weapons break after a few hits and the character is not very agile. A lot of shooting happens offscreen when using a gun. This is typically good for survival horror as the player should fear being overcome by his enemies! This is typically bad for action games because... well that's just not what action is about!

Finally, by my estimation, 98% of monsters encountered can be avoided. In the streets, they spot you and give chase, but are easily out run. Indoors, you can turn off your light and walk right by them unmolested. Bosses are quickly dispatched from their poorly camera angled little rooms with the auto aim of a gun. I find the assault rifle makes very short work of any enemy, final boss included. This is typically bad for... heck, both types of games.

I wish Origins would have gone one way or the other. A straight up, old school, Silent Hill survival horror would have been the safe bet. That would have been just fine in my book. More interesting/risky would have been a Silent Hill action game. I could see that being REALLY cool, if done right. As it stands, it walks the fence and suffers for it.

Graphics:
Silent Hill origins looks pretty darn good. the shadow effects off of Travis' spot light look great. the Otherworld textures look convincing. I'm missing those "next gen" normal maps, but what can one expect on PS2 equivalent hardware? The monsters are cool and stay true to the SIlent Hill aesthetic, (save for Caliban, which is a good idea executed poorly,) the Travis model is decent; his face geometry looks kinda odd in a couple spots and there is some loss of volume when deforming in the limbs here and there. The fog is decent, with some intersection issues one might expect. Over all, a great looking PSP title.

Sound:
Phenominal. Definitely use headphones for the full experience.

So in conclusion: Great graphics, exceptional sound. Weak story, questionable game play. All that said however, I still enjoyed Silent Hill Origins. Wandering around the town and especially the Otherworld is still pretty fun. I clocked in at 6+ hours for my first playthrough. There are some cool goodies that have been unlocked, so I may go through it again. If nothing else, I found the the puzzle and the little snippet of information related the Flauros worth it for a Silent Hill fan like myself.

Score: +2

EA CH Follow up.

2007-11-14T21:19:00.001-06:00

On Monday EA Chicago held a job fair for their recently released employees. Pretty cool of them, I must say. I don't know if that is a commonplace type of event; I have not heard of such an event in the past. There was quite an assembly of studios there: local outfits upstairs, remote locations downstairs. I had the opportunity to reconnect with a number of good devs I have worked with in the past. Again, I hope things work out for them.

I got to spend a little time with their cancelled Marvel Comics project. I'm not a huge comic fan these days, but it sure looked pretty cool. The world was detailed out well, and the textures and full screen filters lent everything a convincing comic-y look. I chose Captain America, (I believe he was the most complete character,) pitted against USAgent. On first blush the game looked like some sort of open world type experience like GTA, though the guys that had worked on it called it a fighting game.

There was a Chicago-esque looking level complete with L Tracks and a bunch of crowd AI milling about. The player character was capable of some pretty big double jumps and could also do some sort of dash type move by attacking when in air. A very large part of the environment appeared to be destructable, (precomputed I was told,) with the demolition of the L Tracks being particularly impressive. Transitions from indoor to outdoor areas through holes punched in buildings was well done, though I thought I caught a couple of split second glitches I assumed was an artifact of some sort of portaling system. I ran around destroying cars and buildings for a pretty decent amount of time while USAgent was off somewhere else. I'm not sure if it was driven by the amount of damage I had caused to the city, but I noticed that the AI had begun to throw rocks at me. Neat.

Based on my short experience, I would describe the game as Powerstone on steroids. I had heard that one of the reasons the it was cancelled was due to the fact that the whole comics thing is largely played out at this point. I can say for myself that I am personally over it, but I would have thought that with the recent success of the myriad of comic based films of late that there would have been some sort of market for it. It is a real shame the team and technology couldn't be put toward a similar type of game with a different theme.

One last comment: I did not come across too many of the "outside talent" types that the studio head supposedly was going to bring in when staffing the shop, as I mentioned in my previous EA post. As far as I could tell, most everyone there was a vet game developer. So perhaps that really wasn't the reason that particular studio went under, but I stand by my previous statements: this whole notion that "we" have been doing it wrong for so long and that somebody from a linear media background can waltz in make magic happen in games is really puzzling to me. To clarify: I have nothing against the linear media people themselves. I just don't understand the execs that lure these folks into what has largely proven to be a lose/lose situation.

EA CHI

2007-11-06T13:14:00.000-06:00

The major gaming blogs are reporting that EA Chicago has just shut down. I received confirmation from a handful of other sources as well. While I did not care for the products they released, (I guess I wasn't alone,) it's a sad day when a local shop closes down. Not good for the Midwest sector of the gaming industry.

I have to say I do feel some amount of validation however, as this event confirms one of my firmly held beliefs: You just can't beat experience. You see, the studio head over there, Kudo Tsunoda, is a proponent of the whole "anyone can do our job better than we can" mentality that a number of these upper management and executive level people seem to subscribe to. I believe it was a local IGDA meeting he spoke at in which he said he was bringing in people from outside industries to revolutionize game development by approaching it from a new angle. "Fresh Eyes" as it were. Naturally, this sort of ridiculousness rubs me the wrong way immensely. As we've seen before, time and time again:

It. Does. Not. Work.

So perhaps this mindset was not the primary contributor to the poor performance of the studio, but I have to wonder how much of an impact it may have had. History clearly shows that overall, when these non game dev people that are brought in to show us the light, they fail miserably and cannot contribute in a meaningful way. In fact, a net negative impact is the far more likely result.

Game development is not easy. It is highly challenging on both the technical and creative fronts. It is an artform unlike any other to have come before it. So why do some people insist that the wholesale adoption of the practices and techniques of other (currently struggling!) industries is the right thing to do?

There really were some skilled and talented developers over there at EA. Those are the guys I feel for. I wish them the best of luck.

Recent Gaming

2007-10-25T22:22:00.001-06:00

Quick rundown of what I have been playing:

Lair (PS3): Yes, it's as terrible as they all say. I love monsters and not even they could save Lair for me. Major disappointment. If only motion control wasn't forced on the player, it would be tolerable. Motion control sucks.

Score: 1

Heavenly Sword (PS3): Not bad at all, though (somewhat thankfully) short. I got to the final boss battle during my second sitting with it and kinda lost interest. My save game is still sitting at that point. Animation is choppy. Some really nice character stuff happening here though otherwise; Kai steals the show. Nice environments. I disabled motion control for the aiming sequences. I sense a trend...

Score: 2

Halo 3 (360): I've already blogged about what a mess the story telling of Halo 3 is. I honestly had no idea what was going on nearly the whole time. In many ways it's a shame that this is the epic tale that the masses will look to as the shining example of what the game industry can produce. That all said, story rarely is of any consequence to me personally. Just give me a good plot, (erm, excuse,) for the action and I'm generally happy provided the PLAY is fun. That's why I play games see... for the game play. Not for the poorly written, poorly performed, poorly recorded, poorly animated cinemas and cutscenes. And Halo3 is fun when the runnin' and the jumpin' and the shootin' and the dyin and the a'splodin' is all going on. A lot of fun, especially while playing co-op. So despite the cutscenes and incomprehensible story, Halo 3 should be purchased and enjoyed.

Score: +2

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS): I was initially very skeptical of the stylus control for moving Link around, but I found that I became accustomed to it in no time. The touchscreen goes a long way towards resolving the biggest problem I've found in the Zelda console releases of late: item management/menu swapping. I considered myself a hardcore Zelda fan until I recently realized that since Ocarina of Time I haven't finished any of the games in the series. I recognized that it was the constant, cumbersome inventory diddling. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were lousy for it due to the lame-O Gamecube Controller. (No I didn't play Twilight Princess on Wii. Anti motion control rant blogpost imminent!) Accessing inventory items just by tapping them onscreen is magical. All Zelda games from here on out should be exclusive to the DS. And they should come out bi Monthly.

Score: +3

The Orange Box (360): Absolutely incredible. I played the original release of Half life 2 on the PC a few years ago, and my experience then was much like my recent Battlefield 2 go 'round I bogged about: patches, system instability, crashes, etc. I had enjoyed it in the end, but the whole PC gaming nightmare took some of the luster off of the experience. Now that Half Life 2, the two follow up episodes, Portal, AND Team Fotress all came bundled on a console disc, I was sold. WOW. What an incredible value. Half Life 2 sports some graphical upgrades from what I recall. The new (to me,) episodes kept me hooked and up all night for days. Portal was a blast, though regrettably short. Haven't played Team Fotress yet. I plan on blogging about Orange box more in depth sooner or later. Or maybe never. But to sum up: Orange Box is the product we as an industry should be holding aloft as a shining example of our art form. This is what we should be pointing to and screaming, "See!?! We can do character development! We can do storytelling! And THIS is what we can do better than any other entertainment medium: We can immerse you in a world!!!" Stellar.

Score: +3

Halo3: The Story So Far

2007-09-29T15:42:00.001-06:00

I, like 2.4 some million other nerds, picked up Halo 3 this week. I've been playing co-op campaign online with a buddy for a few hours each night. I believe we're roughly halfway through.

So let's recap the story! [SPOILER ALERT!]

After randomly being nabbed by a giant venus flytrap in Halo2, we pick up Halo3 with Master Chief falling from outer space, (and possibly from another dimension, I'm guessing,) to Earth and being found in the rainforest by a bunch of Xbox1 characters.

MC wakes up and proceeds to attack the nearby Elite alien, named Arbiter, only to be stopped by the Xbox1 characters just in time. In addition to now having really big feet, apparently The Elites are our buddies, because... well I don't know how or why for sure but I suspect it was the fact that the Space Chickens were so enamored with the hair rendering technology of those new gorilla aliens back in Halo2.

Now instant friends, MC and Arby go off together and and battle through the tropical rainforests of Africa, (!?!) I think. They find a military base.

MC and Arby proceed to run back and forth while defending the base from attack by the bad aliens. After successfully defeating the invaders, our heroes blow up said base up using the Apollo 12 Lunar Orbiter Module the Xbox1 characters found in the basement.

Fearing an alien attack, the Eiffel Tower rockets off into space.

Completely ignoring a multitude of busted up mini Halos littering the landscape, for some reason MC and the lipless, recently perfect english speaking Elite go off and blow up a giant anti-spaceship gun placed on Earth, presumably by the bad aliens.

Just then, a spaceship crashes nearby.

MC and Arby backtrack only to find themselves in a giant duodenum, where they discover a computer chip.

After some more Xbox1 characters and the good aliens watch a very "Obi Wan, you're my only hope"-esque video, a supposedly tense scene ensues in which they briefly discuss the "glassing" Africa. The Xbox 1 characters fly off to... somewhere, while MC, Arby, and the good, still hairless, aliens head off... somewhere else, as far as I can tell.

Even though it looks a whole lot like Africa, it turns out that MC and Arby end up on a giant metal starfish, floating off in the depths of space.

MC and Arby then battle their way to a holographic terminal at the edge of Victoria Falls, which isn't in Africa as you might expect, but instead on the surface of the starfish. This terminal shows them a picture of... the starfish they are on.

To be continued...

So as you might surmise, I have no idea what in the hell is REALLY going on, except that involves a whole lot of backtracking through levels I had just played. I should mention however, that despite the story telling issues, I am having a whole heck of a lot of fun during the actual game bits.

Console Gaming FTW.

2007-09-29T14:13:00.001-06:00

Recently, after a couple years away from the game, I decided to play some Battlefield2 again. I figured that now that I have the new bad assed machine, I'd see how the game runs.

This is how things went:

Installation of BF2: 10 minutes.

Patches: 10 minutes of browsing, 4 hours to DL.

Installation of patches: 5+ minutes.

Started game.

Intro videos/legal: 5 minutes.

Redirect to website to DL new content: 10 minutes.

Installation of new content: 5 minutes.

Started game.

Intro videos/legal: 5 minute wait.

Adjusted video settings.

Kicked from game to apply settings.

Started game.

Intro videos/legal: 5 minutes.

Joined match.

Loading assets: 3 minutes.

Game starts.

Computer freezes.

Hard reboot, 2 minutes.

Browse, DL and install new video drivers: 15 minutes.

Restart game.

Intro videos/legal: 5 minutes.

Joined match.

Loading assets: 3 minutes.

Game starts.

Computer freezes.

Hard reboot: 2 minutes.

Disable SLI mode.

Reboot computer: 2 minutes.

Find intro videos/legal files on disc and rename in order to disable: 5 minutes.

Restart game.

Joined match.

Loading assets: 3 minutes.

Game starts.

Computer freezes.

Give up and go to bed.

That's almost 5.5 hours of messing around, before I gave up! It took me another 2 nights of troubleshooting drivers and hardware before I was able to play.

Compare this to my Halo3 experience on the Xbox360:

Insert disc: 2 seconds

Intro videos/legal: 30 seconds

Start game.

Console gaming FTW.

In goes the disc, out comes the fun.

Ninja Gaiden

2007-09-12T23:42:00.001-06:00

With the recent release of totally kick ass Ninja Gaiden II images coming out of the Tokyo Game Show, I was reminded that I meant to blog about Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

After the recent price drop on the 60GB PS3 SKU, I finally remedied my PS3less console collection situation and picked one up. New delimma: Which games to buy? There is just about NOTHING worth owning for the thing, which is a pretty sad thing to say considering:

I worked on a PS3 game that was on the shelf
I buy tons of games, even the bad ones (on purpose!)

So, I reluctantly bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma, fully expecting to smash it into a million pieces or put it into orbit out of sheer frustration within days of peeling away its cellophane cocoon.

See, way back in early ’04, I bought the original release of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. As much as I claim to love 3rd person action titles, especially those featuring swords, ninjas, monsters, and decapitation, I quickly found myself cursing the name of Tomonobu Itagaki profusely. The original release had two MAJOR problems that kept me from making my way though it:

It was really difficult.
The camera was god awful. Worst. Ever. (Which only exacerbated the previously mentioned problem.)

After trying to convince myself I was having fun. I gave up…
…until the release the downloadable content. I downloaded it and tried again, only to find that:

They made the game even more difficult
The camera was still pathetic, despite claims they had worked on it.

Again I gave up, and completely ignored the release of the subsequent DLC, even though it was free. Good thing, because I heard they made each subsequent release more difficult than the last.

So now with newly priced reduced PS3 under my arm, I reluctantly picked up Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

And now I’m so certainly sure glad I did. It took almost 4 years, but Techmo finally got the camera right. The game is actually playable now. It seems they finally adopted a more traditional 3D camera system: the right stick orbits the camera about the player allowing for a better view of the action. No goofy trigger action to recenter the view as the only camera control option, which as an aside, bugged the hell out of me in Zelda: Twilight Princes, FWIW. (Game Cube Version FTW!) There are times when it isn’t perfect, but it is infinitely better than the previous cameras of the Xbox releases.

The game is still pretty hard. There is no concept of ramping up the challenge. Difficulty is a vertical wall encountered releatively quickly. Players routinely get brutalized very early on by some very difficult mini boss and boss battles. As much as I was loath to do it, I finally accepted the fact that "Ninja Dog" was the difficulty level I needed to be at.

Suddenly, the game was a whole lot more fun. I truly enjoyed the hell out of it.

The game really features a level of polish not seen in many titles. From the crisp "SCHTING!" of the swords, the epic soundtrack, or to Ryu's slick neoprene ninja outfit, the game oozes with production value. I could go on and on about the design aspects of the game, like how well the combat works when you get into the groove, or how the levels are so cleverly laid out as to wrap back on to themselves, but I'll just say that if you haven't played it or did and got crushed by the difficulty, suck it up and face the fact that you are a Ninja Dog and then play through the game. It truly is not a title to be missed.

Back to Ninja Gaiden II: I cannot wait for this title. Not only am I looking forward to continuing the adventure, but I am anxious for its release because I want to see if the gore they have been showing in the early screens makes it through to release. Does it enhance game play? No. Is it totally freaking cool? Hell yes. And that's what games are about: Doing cool stuff.

Will those blood effects survive the develpment and rating process? Will Ninja Gaiden II be rated AO? If so, will Ninja Gaiden II be the first million seller AO title? So far, it has the best shot of any title I know of.

Score: 3

Follow up: Street Fighter The Movie

2007-08-21T22:23:00.002-06:00

Way back in the day, (1993ish) I was involved with the development of a game called Street Fighter The Movie. Turns out that it ended up being not so good. Fighting game fans pretty much despised it, especially the die hard Street Fighter fans. (Myself included.)

Earlier this year, I posted about that project on the forums of Shoryuken.com, a website dedicated to competetive fighting game playing. My aim was to shed a little light on process and perhaps explain why certain things ended up being the way they were in that game.

The thread went on to become one of the most popular on the site, spanning nineteen pages. The major gaming blogs and news sites picked it up, and my little slice of the story has skyrocketed past a hundred and seventy five thousand views as of this date.

So now I'll follow it up with a few goodies!

The original post is here, full of follow up Q&A throughout, as well as a lot of fun fan reaction

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=125411

The condensed form solely featuring my recounting, (no Q&A,) can be found here:

http://www.alan-noon.com/misc/SFTM/SFTM_Broke_My_Heart.pdf

I scanned in a few pics from my personal photo album, which are good for a few laughs. (Go easy on the clothing and hairstyle in the comments section... it was the early 90's. Grunge was huge.)

Akuma_gets_karate_lesson
Benny_the_Jet_as_Raven
Blanka_angry_Blanka_no_in_game
Blanka_au_naturale
Cammy_Emma
Cammy_Minogue
Ernie_Reyes_as_Akuma
Home_Away_from_home
Honda_gets_a_touchup
I_show_Cammy_Emma_the_finer_points_of_the_Cannon_Spike
Jean_Claude_has_his_fill_of_being_bossed_around
Jean_Claude_performs_stunning_front_flip
Ken_preps_for_Kick_Standing_Close_Forward
Raul_Julias_Stuntman_as_Bison
Ryu_looking_decidedly_victorious
Sagat_inspects_his_performance
Sawada_marvels_at_my_flying_punch_technique
The_movie_lot
Vega_sets_his_feet
Zangief_strikes_a_pose

I almost forgot:

Score: 1

Quad Male A

2007-08-15T00:10:00.000-06:00

Long time no type. Part of the reason I started this blog was to share the occasional random bit of info, technique, or tool related to creating computer graphics for games. He’re the first entry along those lines: The Quad Base Mesh Tool.

Mudbox and Zbrush prefer base meshes built out of quad polys, rather than tri or N-sided faces. To that end, a number of artists have developed base meshes that they merge into their scenes to start. I did too, but I took it up a notch: I wrote a simple maxscripted plugin that installs into a toolbar in the 3dsmax UI that when pressed, automatically creates a generic quad poly base mesh about the origin. This can then be exported immediately or edited beforehand for sculpting in MB or ZB.

FEATURES:
Quad Male A is entirely modeled out of quads; 988 of them to be exact. (1976 tri faces when triangulated.) He features full fingers and toes and increased density about the head area. Sorry, no mouth or eyes; he is intended for quick concepting and roughing out forms. Besides, pretty much everyone rebuilds their meshes once the form is approved anyway. Quad Male A stands in a nuetral pose: arms out and down at a 45 degree angle, legs spread shoulder width apart. Quad male is also fully UV’d, based upon my highly developed mapping theories: Exterior UV edges of UV elements are locked to precise pixel boundaries and there is enough edge padding of the UV elements to combat bilinear filtering of a 128x128 mip map at distance.

Quad Male A is VERY generic. I found that by starting my sculpts with a mesh whose form was more developed than this, I would tend to get locked into repetitive designs, so simple won the day and I am freer to explore creatively. YMMV.

This tool was written for 3dsmax 9, though I expect it will run in any version back to release 5, or the first appearance of Edit Poly, whichever came first... maybe. I expect it will run in 3dsmax 2008, (release 10,) assuming something didn’t get totally fubared during development of that product. I haven’t tested it.

INSTALL:

Get it here:

http://www.alan-noon.com/misc/tools/QuadMaleA.zip

Close 3dsmax

Download the zip file and extract the contents as such:
.BMPs into …\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\ui\Icons
.MSE into …\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\ui\macroscripts\Noon_MCRs (I like to separate out my personal scripts. I suggest you do the same.)

Open 3dsmax

Menu bar-->Customize-->Customize User Interface-->Toolbar Tab:
Change "Category" Drop Down List to: Noon
Drag "Oscar: male quad base mesh" to a toolbar of you liking

Click "Save"

Click "Save" (Again)

Close Customize UI

USAGE:

Press button
Modify mesh if/as desired
Export to the sculpting application of your preference
Sculpt like a madman till the wee hours.

NOTES:
This was a fun tool to write. In order to complete it, I first had to write another tool, which I dubbed "The Pluginizer." The Pluginizer takes any mesh and writes out all of the vert, face, and UV data into a format that can be directly taken back in as arguments to maxscript functions that rebuild the model from scratch. So now, creating new base mesh tools is as easy as:

Build original base model to suit
Run Pluginizer on base model
Attach a little snippet of code at the tail of Pluginizer’s output
Attach the macroscript definition code at the head of the output
Install macroscript

So someday I’ll get around to creating Quad Female A and what-have-you, but till then, let me know how you like Quad Male A and if you end up using him for your work, I’d love to see the results. Enjoy!

EVO2k7.

2007-06-25T21:25:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend I went and entered EVO2k7. I signed up for Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which is referred to as "the old man game" these days by these emo whippersnappers, apparently.

As expected, I got trounced. No biggie. I guess one's skills tend to drop off after not having played for ummm, I think close to a decade. Really though, the guys I played were pretty freakin' awesome, and good sports about it too, so all credit to them. Well, I don't think I got perfected, so there's something.

The whole experience was fairly curious in a time warp kind of way. The wife had use of the SUV that weekend and was off doing her thing, so I ended up catching a train to my parents place and picking up my old car for the day. There I was, new employee of Incredible Technologies, driving out from my parents in my '95 Camaro to go play Super Turbo. Odd flashback type moment to say the least.

Anyway, it was cool to meet the guys from the Shoryuken.com forums; I'll definitely enter next year.

Training begins NOW!!!

Game Drought.

2007-06-19T20:41:00.000-06:00

Is it just me or are we in the midst of a major game drought? Conventional wisdom would have it that the summer months are typically pretty slow for quality releases, but I don't remember previous years being this bad. I haven't purchased a new game in a couple of months now, and that's unheard of.

So what IS out?

Tenchu Z: What is going on with the Tenchu series? The first game on PS1 was awesome. Each release is worse than the previous however. The latest looks terrible, with poor texture work and even worse animation that renders the game too clunky for my tastes. Tenchu must be cursed as a franchise. Not even having From Software at the helm, (who did the divine Otogi games,) is enough to bring the quality bar back up from the basement. Pass.

Project Sylpheed: I really don't know why I get excited when I hear a new Sylpheed is coming out. I have fond memories of the original SegaCD game I guess, though I don't recall why. The PS2 sequel was brutally difficult and unfun. The demo for the latest iteration on Live is rather unfun too. Pass.

Tomb Raider Anniversary: After mildly enjoying aspects of Legend, I realized I couldn't stand looking at that atrocious character model any longer. That's it: I refuse to play any more Tomb Raider until they step up the art quality. They hired Karima Adibebe to play Lara at the various industry events, why not laser scan her for crissake? She is gorgeous. Hey Eidos, if you need an artist capable of creating a next gen Lara, I'm available. Reasonable rates. Time to bring her look kicking and screaming out of the the early 90's. Pass.

Oh well. Back to Godhand.

Career: On Track.

2007-06-14T05:44:00.000-06:00

I'm almost through my second week here at Incredible Technologies, and I couldn't be happier. This feels like the best two weeks I've had in years!

Within the first couple of days I was in the mix, designing my first game. I joined a team that had recently started up and already had a rough direction and theme they were considering, so I jumped in to aid with defining what the core experience might be and to also start laying the groundwork for what it could potentially look like. A few years ago, I wouldn't have imagined myself working on this type of product, but the project and the process itself have been a blast thus far.

This is the environment I was looking for. No monster teams of 70+ people, all running different directions. No 3rd parties screwing up the box art and magazine ads. No waffling back and forth on plot points of a story nobody is ever going to watch or read anyway. Instead, just a tight knit group of experienced and talented guys, all on the same page with the same goals. Every one focused on a purely game play driven experience and housing it in a fancy looking cabinet. This is what it's all about, man.

WOPR Lives!

2007-05-25T02:50:00.000-06:00

A few years ago, I finally decided it was time to drop some $$$ for a new rig. I purchased said computer through ibuypower, using their online configurator. Big mistake. For the entire life of the machine, it has had nothing but problems. I muscled through with it, but recently the situation has been even worse. It is to the point now where I'm afraid to start on any artwork for fear of the random crashes.

Enough was enough, so I decided it was time for a new machine.

Pricing out configs on the major PC retailer sites was an exercise in futility: way overpriced, and I couldn't get what I was looking for. One site had me over $5,000 for a machine I wasn't convinced would suit my needs. No thanks.

So even though I had never done it before, I opted to self build. All the parts showed up earlier this week, and it is now assembled.

Specs:
--Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 motherboard
--Core 2 Duo @ 2.66ghz
--8GB ram, DDR2 @ 800mhz
--2x 8800GTX, overclocked and running in SLi mode
--320 GB digital caviar HD
--700w Seasonic powersupply
--Antec 180B case
--Win XP 64bit

The build was pretty simple, even this being my first one from ground up. The Antec case rules super classy looking, very low temperature, and impossibly quiet.

The 64 bit WinXP choice is the only thing I'm really having doubts over. I hear hardware driver support is spotty for 64bit in general, and certain apps don't like it either. With the impending rise of Vista 64 bit, I can picture seeing the little support that does exist for XP 64 to dwindle off rapidly, so I am somewhat concerned. I've heard nothing good about Vista in general however, so ultimately I decided to wait on taking that plunge. I suppose I can always upgrade later...

Course Corrected.

2007-05-16T23:36:00.000-06:00

After a good long stint in the console realm, I am returning to coin op development. Incredible Technologies has been gracious enough to offer me a very attractive position. My primary title will be that of Game Designer, which is exactly the type of role I've been looking for. The secondary title still has some wordsmithing to go through yet, but the associated responsibilities will play to my artistic and team leadership strengths. The offer really could not have come at a better time, and I am anxiously awaiting my start date.

Some of my console development colleagues seem a bit unsure as to what to make of the move, but I see a tremendous amount of potential in the coin op space.

On the aesthetic side of things the hardware in these coin op machines is approaching, if not surpassing in some cases, the graphical horsepower of the current crop of consoles. I see a very real opportunity in the market to set our product apart from the competition.

When talking about the design aspect, the big time, epic scale console development projects have their appeal, but I am looking forward to working on the more focused, game play driven types of experiences that coin op is all about. The shorter length, smaller scale projects will be refreshing as well.

June 4th start date!

Recruitment Package: A Winner Is You.

2007-05-16T18:56:00.000-06:00

As many people in the game industry have no doubt done, I have answered my share of random recruitment calls from various headhunting services. This is all well and good, but recently I was privileged to have been targeted by a new and innovative approach...

A couple of months ago I received a surprise package via Fed Ex. Upon tearing it open, I found a large block of foam padding, with a cutout in the middle containing a cardboard box. Said box had some neato concept art, a quote, and a big number 1 printed on it. Opening the end, another box slid out. Same deal, yet with new art, new quote, and the number 2. This continued on to down to box number 5, which featured a half-fold type cover. Opening the cover revealed a shiny new silver ipod shuffle imprinted with my name and a code number.

Turns out that the delivery was from superstar startup MMO company, Red 5 Studios, and the ipod contained a personalized audio track from their president describing the company itself and why I was chosen to receive the package. Browsing to their webpage and entering my name and code number into the login permitted access to the rest of the site, which provided indepth information regarding their goals, employees, and company in general. Their tactics definitely got my attention. The whole presentation was very well done, and it was obvious that they had done some homework on me. I was impressed!

I followed up with them and was genuinely beginning to consider pursuing it a bit further, but ultimately I decided to stay in Chicago. Red 5 seems like a superb group of people with a really solid project in the works, but the position they were interested in having me fill wasn't what I was looking for at the time.

Red 5 recently put up some info detailing the process and the success of the recruitment program: http://www.red5studios.com/about/goldenticket. Other studios looking to hire top quality talent would do well to take note!

What can I say? I guess I’m a sucker for flattery and fancy electronics in equal parts.