You will be assimilated!

Man, it has been a long time since I sat down to update this blog. I have taken a bit of a hiatus from the blogo-sphere for several reasons. Mostly because I have a ton of things going on right now and I don’t have as much free time to sit down and write. But also when I do have the time, I can’t talk about any of the things I am doing…so it makes the update feel kind of flaccid. And no one likes a limp update, right?

So what is new you ask? Oh freaking hell of a lot actually. We are getting closer to the finish line with God of War: Chains of Olympus. The demo disks went out a few weeks ago, and everyone seems pretty psyched about it. There is still a lot of work to be done to call it a day on that, but things are progressing nicely.

My main project I am working on is moving along quite nicely as well. I still am cursing this whole next-gen thing on a daily basis, but soon I will be assimilated into the fold…I guess. I really think we have painted ourselves into a corner with all this new hardware though. It takes so much longer to do things now due to the increase in fidelity and resolution that invariably the length of games, all games, is going to suffer. I would not be surprised to see games be an average of 2-4 hours in as little as 5 years. Well, if they are trying to keep up the Jones’s from a graphical perspective. If they cut more corners on the art side it may be longer. But then they might suffer from people not buying because they want the latest 1080p uber freaking high detailed slick-rick game. Whatever…I just want it to be fun…and looking freaking amazing. Pretty much in that order too.

I got to see some of the first level art to come out of the pipeline recently, and it looks pretty bad ass. We still have a ways to go in regards to our engine, but I can see the potential with this thing. I can’t wait to start showing everyone glimpses of it, but that is pretty far off from now.

What else is new? Hmmm…Oh yeah…I ditched the PC world (at home) in favor of a mac. I got a new iMac for my birthday last month and I freaking LOVE IT! I went kind of Apple crazy this last month purchasing two apple TV’s as well!! I know that the AppleTV is getting a bad rap in the press…many people are saying it missed the mark but I think this thing is mana from the heavens. I have a ton of TV show DVD’s that I watch and reference regularly for all things related to my job. Before it was a pain to find specific episodes I wanted to reference…but now it is all at my fingertips and I could not be happier. It is a bit sad that something like this can make me so happy…but I am kind of a big geek so it is the little things that do it for me. I also tested out a bunch of my PC games with the bootcamp Vista/OSX dual boot thing. My old PC was rather slow, so this is actually an improvement from a processor perspective, but the graphics chip is not all that great. It will still run everything fine, just not at maxed out settings or anything. Ahh well…maybe one day I will build a dedicated PC games machine…but that day is far in the future. I also got an iPhone.

Yeah, I’m an apple whore. Though I have to admit that I HATE the software eject thing...and the one button mouse thing. I ended up throwing that 'mighty mouse' away. What a lame name...that was a great cartoon...and I can tell you freaking Mighty Mouse would have used a three button mouse...not that fisher price thing they shipped with the iMac.

Ok, enough talk about Apple. Been playing a bit of Halo 3 and Bioshock lately. I gotta’ say that Bioshock had me right from the stat…right up to the first loading screen. Then I got kind of bummed out and stopped playing for awhile. It is a great game, and I going to go back to finish it, but I was hoping for a more seamless loading scheme.

Skate…I freaking love this game. I have not played a game in a long time that really made me feel rewarded for learning something. I know when I played the ‘Hawk’ I never spent too much time at a specific location trying to nail a line. I just would skate around and rack up crazy points in a “short attention span” sort of way. But with Skate I would stay a location for a while trying to nail a specific trick/combo. I felt like I was back in high school at the Wheaton College campus doing kickflips off the steps. It is freaking awesome. I wish I had more time to play…but alas work must get done.

I also ran across a site for the Stargate Worlds game…a Stargate inspired MMO. Now I am not the biggest of MMO fans. I play some WOW every now and again, but that is really it. I am, however, a huge Stargate fan. Remember…I said I was a freaking geek...so I am really hopeful that this project ends up making it to the finish line! Check out the site if you are into MMO’s, Stargate, or Patty Duke.

All right, I need to get back to work now. I do wish I could give more specifics about what I am working on but it is still too early. Oh…

The Japanese localization of God of War 2, released by Capcom, should be out pretty soon. Not sure if that means much to most of you but I am pretty stoked about it. I have always wanted to make a game with Capcom…and now I have…sort of. Many thanks to everyone on the localization team and everyone over at Capcome for making that happen!

Sweet!

I just heard that EA, not unlike the Borg, has swallowed up another two development houses. Seriously…I think if you zoom in really close on that shot of the Borg cube in First Contact you will see an EA logo on it. Good god…they are on the path to owning everything. More power to ‘em though, all I care is that great games are gonna come out of it! Next up to buy?? Ubisoft??

I am also going to be heading out tot he Video Games Live show in L.A. on Oct. 19th. I have only seen the show once up at GDC and it was freaking great. I can't wait to check it out again. I am also going to be doing the develpers meet and greet thing after the show so stop by and say "hello"...or "go to hell"...or whatever it is you want to say to me.

ok...I am out of here now. I have some more stuff to talk about, but I think I will save that for the next post.

Cory