sweet psp loving!

Just a quick update today as I am pretty swamped with things here at work. First I want to give a big shout out to the freaking skills of Buddy Ramon and his God of War PSP mod. This thing is pretty damn cool. He is auctioning it off on ebay, so I think I am going to bid on this one. That way I can play Chains of Olympus on a one of a kind God of War psp! Plus part of the proceeds (Though I wish it was more than 15%, but it is freaking awesome he is doing it!) go to a good charity as well, (Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play Charity) so everybody wins here.

Here is the link to a story (Thanks to one of our Level Artists Chris Sutton for the heads up on this) as well as the link to the ebay auction!

Not too much else to report otherwise. This is a pretty crazy past few weeks for the gaming industry though…Peter Moore going to EA, Dyack and Co. suing epic over the Unreal stuff, God of War 2 getting nominated for awards right next to next-gen games…oye. It’s like the gaming equivalent of Armageddon. (Minus Affleck and Willis) All that is left is Reggie quitting and coming over to Sony…I think that is when I will truly believe the seventh seal has been broken and judgment day is upon us.

Still not much of a chance toplay my newly purchased copy of The Darkness…everyone here has said good things about it so I am anxious to get some time with it.

Cory

Help me E3wanKenobi...you are my only hope.

Well there has been a whole lotta’ stuff goin on lately. Been so busy I almost forgot about my little blog again.

First I want to encourage everyone to stop by the G4 website and vote for the game awards…we were lucky enough to get 4 nominations!!! That is pretty freaking sweet. I really was not expecting to get any love next to all these slick next-gen games. It also is funny that there are two GOW games up for awards. I am thinking of officially changing my name to coryB beforehand...that or Jade Raymond. Here's the links...even if you don't vote for us, you should stop by and vote.

Main link
Game of the Year
Best Action Game
Best Voiceover
Best soundtrack

The ‘not so E3’ E3 just finished up, which was pretty so-so. I think Sony had a really good show, that Killzone 2 footage was a sweet ending to the press conference. I really want to play that game now. I was not all that excited about the game, mostly because I wasn't seeing or hearing much about it, but after that...I want it now! It’s a bummer all that price cut stuff seemed to be the only thing people wanted to talk about. We showed Chains of Olympus to everyone and gave the press some hands on time with it. People seem to be really digging on it, which was nice. I also got to play Rock Band several times…which was probably the highlight of the ‘not so’ show for me. I can’t see myself playing that game in my living room unless I have a big party going, but in that kind of atmosphere that freaking game rocks!!! It was waaaaay harder than Guitar Hero or Guitar Hero II though. They said they were still tuning it so that is good...I just hope to god they keep that level of 'forgivness' that the other two games had. That way you don't have to be a freaking badass to still feel like you are rocking. The notes in Rock Band seem smaller, and you have to hit them dead on. Needless to say I was taking advantage of the "get your bandmates back in by playing well" feature quite alot cause I was failing out like a mutha'.

I also got to go to some EA gathering for the Sims: Castaway where they had a monkey you could take photos with. I guess it was actually a chimp, but whatever, I got to take a picture with a chimp. That was pretty cool, in fact I think it was even cooler than Rock Band. How sad is my life when getting a picture with a chimp is the highlight of my day? E3 kind of sucked, but the chimp rocked.

I got to hang out with some people I hadn’t seen in some time in my brief one day at the show, but I missed out on hanging with my old high school friend who works for Konami. Sorry Jason, we need to hook up when you come back into town again…or if I ever get time to go up north.

I still wish I was showing the game I am currently directing, ****************, but it is pretty far off from being ready to ‘wow’ people. I had a meeting with some Sony execs last Friday…one of them was a freaking Bitmap Brother…how awesome is that! Xenon and Speedball ruled. I tried very hard not to get all fanboy…you know…playing it cool. It was a trip to be breaking my game down to him and seeing him get excited. That was a good day. It was a good week I guess…Got to play rock band, got a picture with a chimp, and hung out with one of the Bitmap Brothers. It’s weeks like that that make the months of lost sleep worth it. Well kind of.

I also got to go hang out with the fine folks over at Insomniac games and check out the latest stuff they are doing with Ratchet and Clank Future. The game looks and plays pretty great. That type of game, the Racthet and Jak and Sly's, have never been my cup of tea but there is no doubt those guys know how to make a great freaking game. After seeing that stuff I think I am going to pick that one up when it comes out and give it another go...since I am out of games that I want to play on my ps3. It was also cool to be able to have two groups of developers sit down together and chat about the whole game making process. I wish our industry was more condusive to that kind of thing. It used to be, but that was waaay before my time. I thnk games would be better as a whole if we all did that more. Though I think the suits would disagree with me on that.

How about that crazy news about Peter Moore today? I can’t believe his salary and deal points were made into a news story. That kind of sucks for him a little…but whatever I guess it won’t faze him much. Seems like a lot of people are making moves these days, maybe it is something in the air?

I watched that freaking hilarious ‘translation’ video about the lyrics in the GOW theme. That thing has been passed around quite a bit at the office. So whoever did that…great freaking job…the Mulan thing still makes me laugh.

cory