Enough Already...

In order to assist and hopefully expedite the dust in settling on this whole “God of War 2 Developer bashes Wii” controversy I am going to change the subject now and talk about something else. Maybe I will talk about other things I am playing these days…on my vacation away from the land of development.

Let’s see…I played a bit more of World of Warcraft the other day. Sometimes that game sucks me in…and other times it just turns me off right away. Probably because I am attempting quests that are waay above my level...which is 22 right now. I had to go kill 5 giant crockalisks or something like that…and I was doing it solo. I really didn’t think it would take that long…so the first few attemjpts were such miserable failures. Then I quit for awhile...then came back again the other day thinking it would be easier...5 hours later I finally killed the last one. Good lord those things are hard. It got me thinking about how such a mundane tasks kept me engaged for so long. I mean from a story standpoint I have no fucking clue what is going on in the game. The quests all have these crazy hard to pronounce names for towns and people…and when I step back from it I feel like a fed ex guy with a sword and gun. Yet I still go back when I have time and play these confusing and sometimes frustrating missions. But when I finish them..I do feel a sense of accomplishment. I also think I like the fact that I can leave the game alone for however long I want, and when I go back I have a clear list of goals that I can chisel away at, which I suppose is very rewarding. Though I honestly forget what level I am at most of the time, and then am surprised when that crazy gold tornado comes up and says I have leveled up. I also forget about the Talent points all the time, but then it is like freaking Christmas when I remember ‘cause I have a ton to spend. Which is always nice.

I actually think I will keep coming back to WOW every once and awhile…but I don’t think I will ever be able to get into it to the extent that some do. I really don’t see a level 60 in my future or anything like that…just don’t have enough time to dedicate to that. But the freaking size of the world is absolutely amazing. I could have fun just running from Menthiel harbor to Iron forge…man those freaking names are weird.

Let’s see what else is new? Going to GDC in a few weeks so that ought to be fun. I am eager to catch up with old friends as well as see all the discussions on next-gen development. I really want to hear what people are saying about their development cycles and the growing complexity of these games. I chatted with the Bio-ware guys a few years back at DICE…would love to chat with those guys again. I have such respect for the way they handle such big freaking games. I really want to pick their brain about their process.

I just finished a pretty good discussion with some people on the System wars forum on gamespot. I found the link to the thread from that belstat thing on my blog and decided to check out what people were saying. Initially it was mostly the typical “he is an idiot” stuff…but when I got to talking to everyone it was actually pretty cool. Everyone there is really into games and has a lot to say about them. I love talking games so it was nice. Some still hate me and say they distrust Sony…but in the end no matter what I do or say that will always be the case.

Oh I am doing the 1up show podcast on World of Warcraft sometime soon..not sure when but I will keep everyone posted as to when that is going off. Maybe that is why I am on this WOW kick today.












I got this image from the G4tv forums...everyone keeps going on about this balrog thing...but it is weird how I look almost exactly like this guy. Though I am a little buffer.

Cory

Ahh Kotaku...

I decided to make this it's own post since it seems to have taken on a life of its own...

Apparently Kotaku picked up on the posting that said I was dissapointed about my wii...and now the nintendo fans are all ripping me a new one. Nice. Since I am too much of a dumbass to figure out how the hell to get a kotaku login so I can post a rebuttle...I will just comment here.

First let me say I am not so quickly judging and writing off the wii..I am just saying what I played was not doing it for me. I think it is a good system...I just did not get bowled over with a sense of "Oh my god this is the future."

Second I am not towing the company line by any stretch of the imagination...I have many many game systems...not just sony ones. And I freaking dig them. So while it is easy to say..oh he works for sony so he is just bad mouthing the competition...that is just crap. But again everyone is entitled to thier opinion. I like good games...period. No matter what system it is on or who makes it...I like a good immersive experience. Hopefully there will be something coming out soon that will excite me about the system...but from what I played now nothing is compelling me to do it. But to be fair it is the very early part of the consoles life so I trust there will be many cool things to come. When friends come over though...I will be playing the wii a whole lot more...cause it is fun in a social situation...like freaking Guitar Hero. I played the hell out of the first one for a week or so...but then it kind of wore off for me...I still played it, just not as much. Of course when I have people over it becomes fun again. So to me..right now...the wii is a great social machine...but when I want to sit around and get sucked into a game for a lengthy session I am not gonna be playing the wii. No dissrespect to Nintendo or to those who fervently follow the church of Nintendo...cause I think they are fucking smart guys over there...it is just my opinion.

I am going to sit down and play some more trauma center tomorrow though since so many people think I am fucking crazy by saying it is inaccurate. Who knows maybe I was doing something wrong and it actually does rock...but I had no problems with the DS version of Trauma Center...I fucking loved it. It was intuitive and responsive and just plain fun. So maybe getting used to the wiimote more will yield better results??

Oh...and yes I work for Sony....they sign my checks and I have a ps3 that I love...and I am playing the hell out of Resistence. When I can get some good sticks I am going to get VF 5 and play the hell out of that. I use the Bluray player a ton too...cause Haunted Mansion in HD RULES!!!! Ok so I am kidding about that...but the directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven on Bluray is great. And I fucking love my 360...I love it. I really hated most of the launch games save for Condemned...but now there is some good stuff (Gears,Oblivion, Dead Rising, Lost Planet...bad story but fun game)...so stick that in your towing the company line pipe and smoke it!!!

word.

Seriously though...can someone fill me in on how to get a Kotaku login...I would love to be able to comment on the site but for the life of me I can find anywhere on the site to sign up.

So JC gave me the hook up on how truly simple it is to post a comment...but now the comment I posted is not up. Boo for me...I guess if it is your first comment they have to review it to see if you are cool enough to post. whatever. This is just like that time I didn't get picked for the kickball team...ha!

cory

Good lord there are waay too many sites covering this...I really can't believe anyone thinks this is news. Nice. Tomorrow I will discuss how I was dissapointed in my new Mac purchase...that ought to get everyone nice and fired up.

DEMO TIME!!!

The day has finally arrived!!! I got word the demos are in the office (yes…later than expected…thank you for pointing that out) so I am going in tomorrow morning and getting everything signed and set up. They should all go out by the end of the week. I am going to send NTSC demos to the PAL peeps and then send a PAL demo out when they get out of manufacturing. So those of you who did not get them from the Gamestops or EB’s will have one…those of you lucky enough to get one will now have two. Not sure what the hell you can do with two but knock yourself out!

Let’s see what else is new? I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss some of the early story ideas and work on fleshing it out a bit more. I still have a long road ahead of me before I am happy with everything, but it is a small step in the right direction.

OH! When I went to have dinner with the designers last week I got a pretty damn sweet surprise. They all chipped in and bought me a Wii!!! Pretty fucking sweet huh? Needless to say I was quite shocked…and though it may sound sappy…very moved by that. A lot of people have been asking me when I will feel like I have accomplished something. Will it be when the game is on store shelves and many are playing it? When the gamespot review goes live? Those will most definitely be great milestones but to be honest it was last week at Banderas, (the restaurant we ate at) when I realized how damned lucky I am to be doing what I do. We worked our asses off and we made a game we are all proud of…and I feel like…in some way I have been fully accepted into this team…into this role. That felt good. I don’t get many experiences like that in my life so I am relishing it a bit I guess.

I went down for a meeting with one of our external developers working on a project with us. It was a good time, got to talk shop with everyone and check out the latest progress on the game. It is looking good. I think it is really going to take a lot out of me to keep focus on two games at once, but in the end it will be pretty rewarding…plus I have total confidence in these guys, they are total pros. It made me miss doing animation though. I was chatting with their lead animator about some stuff and just that brief conversation took me back to the days where I just came in the office and put my headphones on and animated for like 9 hours straight. Those were very uncomplicated days. Though I guess if I honestly look back on it I think I actually made them much more complicated than they needed to be. I know I have a tendency to this…it is something I really need to work on. I stress myself out way too much. But such is the nature of the creative beast.

Anyway…it is late and I have to get up for a meeting tomorrow so I will sign off now. Thank you again to everyone for supporting this game and giving all your feedback. I love it, I really do hope you continue to provide it since you are the people we make the games for.

Here are some pics of the sweet wii…though I must be honest it was not everything I had hoped it would be. It was fun…but the wow factor wore off fairly quick. The one game I wanted to play, Trauma Center, was definitely a bit of a let down. The wiimote was woefully inaccurate and sapped the fun of the game. The Wii sports golf and bowling was cool…the boxing is freaking terrible though. In the end I hope to see some cool games come out of it, though it has me worried that the whole “what new thing can you do with the controller” fad will wear off after awhile and I will have left is a much slimmer wireless gamecube. Though the gamecuvbe gave me some great gaming moments so I am not all that bummed. I am still happier playing Zelda on my Gamecube…maybe I am just a luddite like that. Who knows?
















The unopened box...it was like christmas without the time off that I don't get to take. :)















It's a very petite machine with very petite components. Feels like something mac would make...maybe they will...they will make the ultimate gaming/ipod/phone/coffeemaker/toenail clipper that you absolutely can't live without. Thought it will be even smaller...and directly link to your brain, and steve job's brain. It will be the best...and I will buy one.














Very petite...I kind of like that since there really is no space left in my home theater cabinet. Big ups on that one nintendo!














Had a little drama getting the second wiimote to work. I did not figure you had to go in and set the machine to look for it. Maybe you don't have to, but I did. I changed the battery like 10 times thinking I was just an idiot. Turned I am an idiot, just not about the battery. go figure.

Thanks again guys, this was a really really cool gift!

Cory

UPDATE:

I got through signing and organizing of all the demos today so the mailing should start tomorrow. It took a little longer than I expected but it is all done now. Soon those without demos should be enjoying the sugery sweet goodness of the colossus level! And the game copmes out in 19 more days...kind of sucky it took so long for the demos to get to everyone..sorry about that...but better late than never I guess.

We are doing a Launch event at the Metreon in SF on March 12th..well midnight on march 13th I guess...so if anyone who reads ther blog lives near there you should come out and check it out and say hello. I will be there with a bunch of the team members and some of the celeb voice actors and such. Should be a good time.

late night refreshing!

So here I am recovering from a cold I got in Vegas from drinking waaay too much and sleeping waaay too little. I am sure you will all see the evidence of that in any of the babble filled interviews I did about the game. Anyway I am perched here in front of my computer hitting the refresh button on several gaming websites to see if any reviews have come up. Lame I know…but since this is my first the reviews do mean a whole lot more to me than they ever have. I have become so accustomed to not caring about the reviews of the game I work on that it is a real shock to the system to be unable to sleep until I see the first that pop up.

From what I understand from the marketing folks and the journo’s I met at D.I.C.E. the reviews should start popping up as early as midnight tonight…well this morning….fuck it…now. In the long run I don’t think it will be healthy for me to read the reviews too much, but since this is such a huge freaking deal to me here I am clicking the refresh button again.

I saw the game trailers preview…bummer about them not getting to finish. I think they ran into some of the issues the team fixed after the review code went out. That is the nature of the beast when sending out the disks before we go through the final steps of QA. I can’t wait to hear their responses when they get the final disks though.

I need to go to sleep…I am tired and this medicine I am on is making me drowsy…but I can’t…gotta’ see what the verdict is. So fucked up isn’t it? I am not someone who really needs outside validation to feel confident in the work I have done. I mean, I love the game, and I know we have done something great. But that is just me...and I am biased like a mother fucker. Oh well life’s a bitch I guess…we will just have to see what we will see.

Refreshing pages again…still nothing. The funny thing is I am probably the only sucker up…they are all most likely asleep nursing the aftermath of their D.I.C.E induced hangovers. Pathetic…me…not them.

Holy shit…the ign review is up…I am going to read it.

Holy shit…a 9.7…nice! After reading it I was expecting a sense of relief to just rush over me, but alas it has not. It is a great review and I am so incredibly psyched that they liked it, but I will hold my jumping around and dancing for when the game is actually on the shelevs. I think I need to just step back from everything now…maybe get back to work on the story I am fleshing out now and figure this fucker out. Still many details to work out! I just got a call from Nate, one of the designers, telling me about the review. I think a bunch of us are going to go out and have a nice celebratory dinner and a few drinks…that should be fun. I think I will need to get to sleep soon so I shake this freaking cold.

All right y’all…later!

cory

UPDATE:

here is the 1up review as well...pretty good. Doh...and I saw that Ken Z already beat me to the IGN review posting in his comment earlier. Nice catch man.

best post I have read yet...NEOGAF forum..."A 9.7. Ouch! I guess Cory messed up."

Man...if 9.7 is messing up...then I am ok with messing up now and again. :)

ANOTHER UPDATE:

The gamezone review is here...pretty cool stuff as well. Thanks to Eric for finding this one!!

KEEPING WIHT THE UPDATE THEME...NEW UPDATE:

The gamespy review is up...very cool to see they enjoyed the game. going off to enjoy some dinner with the God of War 2 guys soon...maybe I will write a new post tonight.

Oh my god a new update!!!

What is up God of War fans? Holy shit…over 200 comments. Man if I didn’t know any better than I would think that I am popular or something. Though I really know it is just that I am lazy and I haven’t done an update in awhile. What is new here in the land of Kratos? Let’s see…

The team has been hard at work crushing all the last minute bugs in the game and we have sent a disk off to Format QA…which is the last line of QA before we go to manufacturing. So it is close my friends…very close. The demo disks still have not arrived in office from manufacturing, I am expecting them in by Monday next week but it could go as late as Wednesday.

I busted out my cork board, index cards and post it notes…I have been chiseling away at the story and high level design on my next project. Almost my entire wall is covered with random ideas and plot points, now all I need to do is figure what works and what doesn’t. Looks like not much rest is in store for me as I need to really get a jump on what I am working on next. It’s not so bad though since I do enjoy this part of the development…though I am still going to try and get as much rest as possible.

Speaking of rest, I don’t think I will be getting much over the next few days as I am packing up to head off to the D.I.C.E. conference in Vegas today. I am going to do some press for the game and hopefully catch up with some friends that I haven’t seen in a while. I imagine that much drinking and very little sleeping will happen…but what the hell I have earned it, right?

I think many questions have been asked in the flurry of comments over the last week or so and I will try to get to them when I have a little more free time. I also need to do some maintenance on this blog since my images are all kinds of fucked up right now. Maybe I will do that when I get back from Vegas. VEGAS BABY...VEGAS!!!

All right…later!