Seriously...don't play games with me!

Movin' on up...north.

2009-04-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

They say there is a twin for every person in this world and I think I just saw mine earlier today. He was rocking the black american apparel jacket, jeans and sporting the 'too lazy to shave' look. It was like looking into a mirror. I'm not kidding, it was twice the Van Dammage!!!

In actuality he was probably much cooler than me, but still it was pretty weird to see that. Sorry no picture though, I was too slow on the draw and by the time I got the camera on the iphone loaded up I had lost the doppleganger. Van Damme will have to do. Oh well, San Francisco is a big city but I am sure I will cross paths with me...him....again.

Oh yeah...I moved to San Francisco yesterday. Starting a gig tomorrow that should keep me busy for a while. Pretty damn excited about it. I can't say what it is right now, but I am sure it will get out soon enough. It is going to be sweet! As I said...I am pretty excited about it...well...excited about everything except the whole early rising thing required for the job. That is gonna' be a long battle for me getting back into the swing of "normal" hours.

SF is cool, though I haven't really seen much of it save for the apartment (temporary place, moving into my 'real' place next month) that I am in, and a few block radius around it. Yeah, I don't get out much. I am hoping to go explore the city this weekend.

Ok, boring post today. Going to eat some dinner and watch some Dora the Explorer.

Cory

...yeah, we have a Warthog.

2009-02-13T01:37:00.000-08:00

It has been a great couple of weeks.

I’m sitting in my hotel in Sydney watching the rain drizzle down outside, blasting my AC to 19C and reflecting on the crazy few weeks I have had here. I came out to work a bit with George and a few others on the Mad Max game/universe type stuff, but ended up on a freaking nerd thrill ride.

Later in the first week Richard Taylor, one of the founders of Weta Studios, (LOTR movies, King Kong, Heavenly creatures, Bad Taste) and a few of his designers came down from New Zealand for a visit. When we went to dinner that Friday, also joined by Zack Snyder who was also out there working on one of his films (very big geek fanboy moment for me by the way. I kept my cool, but it was still pretty sweet.), I got an ear full about how freaking cool this place (Weta) was. All the crazy weapons they built for LOTR and The Last Samurai. The life casts of film celebrities of the 30’ to today as well as "Death Masks" of Abe Lincoln and George Washington. Apparently it was fashionable at that time to get molds of peoples faces when they died. Crazy stuff.

Oh…yeah…and they have a full scale Warthog you can tool around it. So, you know, it’s kind of cool, I guess.

George actually described Weta Workshop as kind of like Disneyland for the film fan. So when Richard said I should come up to check it out if I get a chance it really did not take much more convincing than that.

I booked a flight for Tuesday night that got me into Wellington (NZ) around midnight. It was a bit hard for me to get to sleep that partially because of the two hour time difference, and partially because it was like the night before Christmas. I mean I was going to get to see, touch and possibly ride in a Warthog – so I was stoked!

The next day I went into the office for the whirlwind tour of the entire facility. When I first arrived I was greeted by a beastly and bulging security guard, decked out in full Urukai garb, (Pictured Left) who got in my face screaming when I came in…something about not having a security badge, I think. Or maybe he was telling me not to take photos? Hmmm…☺ Either way, these Weta guys don't fuck about when it comes to security.

As the guys showed me around I kept thinking to myself how much this place was exactly the type of place I imagined I would end up working in when I was in school, pouring over every page of cinefex magazine and dreaming of making miniatures and sculptures for sweet films. Then I realized I could neither build, nor sculpt anything all that well…so that dream died a quick death.

Honestly though, I really felt like I was walking through the secret stash of the “sweet stuff” at some totally non-existent film museum. I wish I could share pictures of that stuff, but alas, it was not meant to be. Just know, that place is filled with an incredible amount of talented craftsman, artists and designers. I felt so privileged to be allowed to look behind the curtains.

I can however show you the pics of my sweet Warthog ride and drive! That’s right, I got to freaking drive the Warthog. Sure, it was just tooling around a parking lot, but who freaking cares, right? I’m driving a damn Warthog!

I must say, my friends, it was everything I had hoped it to be and so much more. I am now saving to commission the building of my own Warthog…with real working guns. Let’s see somebody try and cut me off on the 405 again.

A few more images from the Trip, including the models from Heavenly creatures! If you haven't seen that film I would highly recommend it! There is also this crazy statue they designed and built in Downtown Wellington. the close up image shows an N64 controller as part of the leg!

After that I had only a short time before I had to head back to the Airport, but fortunately there was still enough time to stop by Peter’s Aircraft factory. Yeah it is one of the two licensed aircraft Manufacturers in New Zealand. They build a ton of stuff there, but the primary thing they do is build full sized working versions of World War 1 aircraft. When possible they use the original parts, but if they cannot acquire the parts they just create them. The setup they have there is absolutely freaking state of the art! I am not much of a plane buff or anything, but getting to see these aircraft in their various stages of construction was pretty damn cool. It clearly illustrated what a scary proposition it was dogfighting in a wood/fabric aircraft.

Granted, dogfighting in any aircraft is scary, I imagine. But doing it in what would amount to a soapbox car with wings is downright insane.

Then it was off to the Airport and back to Sydney. Today I got to head down to the mo-cap stages to check out some of the Happy Feet 2 stuff with George. I have to say the advances they have made with the mo-cap technology/pipeline are freaking amazing. This coming from an ex-animator as well!!! I still like traditional hand animation, but I have come around to recognize the true power of mo-cap when used effectively.

Now I am back in the hotel reflecting on the events of the last few weeks and getting ready to head out for some drinks.

I have to give a big thank you to Richard, Greg, Christian, Aaron, Peter, and everyone else whose named I have forgotten to mention (So sorry for that as well, I just suck at remembering names!) over at Weta for having me over…being so generous and welcoming…and for being just so freaking cool! Sure, I sound like a fanboy but c’mon…you have seen their work…who wouldn’t be?

Yup, I have to say, it has been a great couple of weeks.

word,
cory

Shhh...it's the Tree's. They're mad...they're trying to kill us!

2008-10-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, October 17th and I have decided to come out of my self imposed media blackout to give a little update of what is gong on in my silly little world. I made the decision a while back to stop updating mostly due to the fact that I really couldn’t talk about any of the stuff I was working on, and I wasn’t all that motivated to just give boring personal updates. Most of my time at the computer was spent working anyway.

What’s the latest you ask? What is it I have been working on all these months? A sweet Olsen Twins game? A Nintendo DS action/adventure hybrid of Myst and Tapper, you say? No, not exactly.

George and I have put the final touches on the Mad Max story and game design structure and mechanics. My last trip to Sydney in September marked the completion of that stuff. I gotta’ say, and I know I am totally biased here, but I gotta say that this story – as well as this game – is pretty freaking bad ass!! I really can't wait to get this game out there.

It has been such an incredible ride working so closely with George. I feel like my skills as a storyteller increase exponentially with every meeting we have. We have so many sensibilties that are similar, yet so many that push each other in directions we would never have thought to go. I am learning so much from him. I feel a lot like Daniel san in Karate kid 2…all traveling to Okinawa to learn the ways of the ‘Break Some Ice’ technique. It's like the "Crane Technique", only instead of fighting a human opponent you are fighting several vertically stacked blocks of ice. It's the combat equivalent of the Vice Presidential debates.

So now we are working with some publishers to get a deal locked down so we can start making this bad boy! These things always take 10 times the amount of time you originally predict them too, so I have no idea when actual production will begin. I will keep everyone posted with all the new developments as they come up.

I also have another project that I am really excited about as well. This one is shrouded in a little bit more mystery, but I hope to have an announcement on that one as well. It’s a little multi-player ditty that I, and a few other people, put together. This is also in that somewhat purgatory-esque waiting period of publisher discussion/negotiation. The design is freaking awesome, but yeah…I am totally biased.

I have been traveling a ton, which (for me) is not all that awesome since I freaking hate the whole process of traveling. All in all it has been very rewarding though.

Playing many, many games…too many to list out all here. I have to say that in so many of the games I have played I have hit that ‘1-hour wall’, where I just don’t have the desire to continue. The game just completely comes off as neutral to me, giving me very drive to push forward. It has further cemented the idea to me that the first hour of your game needs to rock their fucking socks off…a fact that seems to elude so many games. I don’t know if it is that people really want to front-load all of their exposition and story telling. Perhaps it is the typical late production cuts that cause their first level to suffer.

It could really be so many things that I, as the end user, have no idea about. But, to me, so many ‘first hours’ feel like a tutorial level. It’s as if the designers have just accepted that “Ok, I guess we gotta’ teach them these mechanics, let’s just make a basic level that gets that out of the way, then get into the game.” The end result is a level that completely feels like you just have to “get it out of the way” which in turn bores you to freaking tears.

I made it through about three hours of Too Human before I lost the motivation to continue. There was some good stuff, but it just got a little too repetitive for me. Doesn’t make it a bad game, just wasn’t enough there for me to continue. Been working my way through DMC 4 in small play chunks. Crazy install time, but there are a lot of cool things in that game worth checking out so I am definitely going to finish it – one day. Speaking of finshing it, I finally finished Minish Cap!!! Yeah I know, a little late to the party homes. Whatever. I played it on a GBA emulator on my PSP during my last trip to Sydney, slow start but very rewarding once you get out o the town the first time. Replayed Dead Rising, which is always a good time. That game has its flaws, but god is it fun.

PSP bright looks kind of cool, but I really wish they would flip the positions of the analog nub and the D-pad. It would seriously help prevent the "cramped hand" syndrome I get every time I play my slim longer than two hours. Please...Sony...move that nub!

I just picked up Dead Space, Silent Hill: Homecoming and Golden Axe: Beast Rider the other day. It’s funny, when I brought the Silent Hill box to the checkout I had the tellers asking me “Are you sure you want to get this game?” One of them suggested if I like a Silent Hill type game I should get Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill 1. A fair point, since those games were freaking awesome. But I couldn’t help think how much that is like going to a music store to pick up a record only to have the teller go “Man, this band sucks – are you sure you want to get this, douchebag?” It made me laugh. These guys knew their games though, so it was all-good.
I was disturbed by one thing though. The copy of silent Hill was already out of the shrink-wrap. You basically get the empty box on the shelf, bring it to the teller, and then they get the disc. They put it in the box and slap a massive sticker on it stating it is a new game. Huh? How can you open something, and sell it as new? Especially when you are so synonymous with selling a used product? That just doesn’t make any sense to me. Most places sell things like that as open box, right? For me, if I am paying full price, I want it exactly as it arrived from the distributor.

I am heading out to the 'Unite for Kids' charity event in San Francisco next week, which should be a pretty good time. I am looking forward to seeing all the people I missed by opting out of the weak E3 this year. Maybe I will take the camera and grab some pics to post here next week?

Ok, I'm done now. I am going to go watch the Happening for the 100th time. I can't stop myself, it's like a Carrot Top movie. You know it sucks, but each time you watch it you find out something about yourself...about how you suck. It's that good of a bad movie.

cory

Can I get a Witness?

2008-03-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Here is the link to the first part of the story I was talking about. There will be a few parts to the story that is getting posted throughout the week.

Oh my freaking god a new update!!! Where the hell have you been?

As Usual I have taken a considerable hiatus in the realm of blog posting. I have been working on several things as well as getting as much relaxation as my OCD will allow.

Just arrived in Australia last week where I will be staying for the month of March doing some work. Should be fun, though I still miss the creature comforts of my home. To be honest, I am not much of a travel fan, but I have found that it is growing on me a bit. Not that I want to packing up and traveling around for fun or anything, let’ not get crazy, but the travel for work is actually quite nice. I seem to get sick the first few days, probably for being couped up the germ factory of an airplane for 14 freaking hours. But once that is gone it is pretty smooth sailin!

Since my last post so much has happened…went to GDC, hung out with Storm troopers and American McGee…though not at the same time, got my BAFTA award, and played a ton of games.

The BAFTA award…it was pretty cool to just be nominated for that really. Honestly, I had hoped we would win something, but in the end it didn’t really matter. The finished game is good enough for me. But then when we won it was like “Sweet…it doesn’t give me back all the months of lost sleep…but it feels good.” A couple of weeks ago I got the award and let me say that is one heavy bastard. I think they made it out of Naqudria or something like that. It's possible this award will allow you to travel through time...or open up an inter-dimensional portal or something like that. It's funny because it's actually my first “real” award that I have personally been allowed to keep...well maybe thats not funny, since most of the previosu stuff was crap.

Anwyay...It holds up my trade paperbcks of Walking Dead and Y the Last Man quite well. ☺

Speaking of Y...how amazing is that series? I just started reading it. I know, I'm a little slow on the uptake, but better late than never. Eric told me about this series and I can't believe I haven't read it until now. I am still working my way through the series, but so far it is amazing. Brain K. Vaughan is just hands down...a bad motherf#cker. If you haven't read this, then stop what you are doing now and go get it. It will change your life...and allow you to travel through time. To the max. Seriously.

Went to GDC, saw many people I had not seen in sooo long…and missed many people that I wanted to see. Below is a picture from the Lucas Arts party where you could get drunk with some Storm Troopers and talk about not being able to find the droids you were looking for. You know how much that sucks.

Hopefully I will be able to catch up with them at the next gaming gathering. Also got to hang out and chat with American for a while, which was cool. Never met him before, but loved Alice. Really great guy, and the stuff he is working on seems pretty freaking sweet as well! Other than that just hitting the work to the max…

Oh...I have been playing New Super Mario on the DS a lot over the last week. Great game, but the save system is killing me...and pretty much all of world 8. I want the punch world 8, collectively, in the freaking face. I have never wanted to throw my DS more than when I play the Mario. Ahhh...the classics...'Try and Die' design always frustrates me…but hey…that is why I am so not freaking Old School.

Ok…it is 6:30pm here, but my body is telling me it is 12:30am yesterday…so I need to get some damned sleep now. Stay tuned…I thin there will be some specific information coming out very soon…like maybe tomorrow…or…something…like that…maybe?

cory

Questions, Questions, Questions...

2008-01-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

So I felt a bit cheeky today and I thought I would answer your questions in a post Mike. It could be because I hate typing long responses in the comment window as well...but either way here it is in all it's somewhat not so spectacular glory.

A: now that you left sony, are you still going to work in the gaming industry? or are you thinking of something else?
I am going to be doing some work in games as well as in film. I started out wanted to work in film way back when. Unfortunately I worked on some stinky projects that made me question whether or not I really wanted to be in film. so I decided to take a break from film and go to do some work in games over at Cyclone studios...which basically got absorbed by 3DO. Which sucked. But that is another story for another time.

Now that I have more free time and freedom to explore other things I am going to be taking full advantage of it. I should have some stuff to talk about by the end of the month, but things move slow round these parts so it is not a definite. I love making games though, so I don’t think I will be departing the game industry entirely for a long time.

B: if you ever do a new game, will it be story based or are you like, been there done that?
Games that are character and story centric are the only games that interest me. If those types of games become few and far between...or even worse...die out entirely then I will be most likely do less game work and more film work. I still love working on comabt based games as well...so I guess I would work on a fighting or action game that had no story or character development.

C: now that you are not involved with god of war 3, will they still follow your story? or is there any chance they will change it big time?
My guess is that they are going to follow the structure and change the things that suit the changes to the game as production goes on. I established the overarching story of how the trilogy ends as well as the base of the game layout and design. As projects go through development things change and things get cut...that is just the nature of the beast. So in the end I imagine, and I hope, it stays close to the original vision but it is outta my control now.

D: any intrest of making a game on the wii? hahaha
YES! Even though I was less than impressed with my Wii, as well as a lot fo the games I have played, I would love to make a game on this system. I think there is a lot to be done with it. Plus...it’s like a BILLION times cheaper to make a Wii game versus a 360 or PS3 game...which is good. Making a 40 or 50 million dollar game is cool, I love making big games don’t get me wrong, but you have soooo many more masters with their hands in the creative pot when that kind of money is getting thrown around. Hopefully when the game industry becomes more comfortable with those budget numbers things will get better. I mean, we were just getting used to 20-30 million when the next gen came around and now big games are costing double. I heard MGS4 costs 70 million. Which actually sounds ludicrous to me, but in a way it doesn’t if you factor int he MGS4 and MGS online...and the tons of cinematics and long development time...it could get up to that.

But what do I know?

E: is chains of olympus going to be the best of the ''threesome'' ??? ;)
You will have to wait and see. I worked with those guys for the year before I left and the game really shaped up nicely. They are putting the final touches on it now and I think it is going to be one of the best psp games out there...well for action adventure fans that is.

F: if you could change something in god of war 2, what would you change? any big regrets?
I have so many regrets on that project....well not really regrets but a ton of things I would change if I had the time. There are a bunch of story elements I cut out due to time and budget that in the end would have helped to flesh out the story better. I was bummed we cut Hercules from the game..:( That was going to be a great mini-boss battle between the two sons of Zeus fighting over who hates their father more...but alas time and budget really dictate what you can do in a game that size.

Most of my regrets center around the cutting of certain pieces of content over another. Looking back at the game I would have switched a few of the cuts around. But things always look so much clearer when you look back at them, after the reviews and many comments on the game. When you are in the trenches...it is much harder to achieve that same level of clarity.

If I could, I would have dragged that production out another 6 months to get everything in that I wanted, but that is just not how it works.

G: how do you feel about NINJA GAIDEN? itagaki was very positive about god of war!
Gaiden is a good game...though much to hardcore for my blood. I like to enjoy a play experience, not get my ass handed to me by it. I don’t have enough time in my day to master any one game...I just want to get in and play it. Enjoy it, maybe see what they are doing iwth it and take it apart to see how they did something. So Gaiden to me always feels like work. Painful work. Like when I worked at a Mcdonald’s for a week. I hated that...but I dont hate Gaiden. I just wish there was a SUPER easy mode.

The mechanics are solid and the control is smooth and responsive. They know their stuff over there. The Gaiden games are extremely well made. I also love that they change out the enemies and numbers of spawns when they ramp up difficulty. I wished we had done that with the GOW games.

H: what are you thoughts on TOO HUMAN? back then you said no comment :)
Well, first let me start of by saying that I think Dennis is a good guy. I was pretty pissed when that EGM article came out and made it seem like they were calling us out and saying that our game was garbage and they, from the Miyamoto school of design, were going to rock our world. I even made some comments at our press release about it, one that I though were so subtle no one would get it, and Matt Leone called me out on it. It was good fun. I actually got to talk to Dennis later at some conference and heard the whole story about the article which was cool. Very hard to trust everything you read in the press due to the lack of context for quotes that are used. Regardless I liked the guy. he says some crazy things, and sues epic, but I think he is a really genuinely nice guy with a damn fine pedigree of games.

Then the whole E3 demo happened and I was a bit bummed. I mean, it was clear that the game was too early and unpolished to be at E3. Something that I imagine Dennis knew as well, but alas it was on the show floor. It was a hard lesson for those guys to learn about showing something that is not ready. You could see that the game had potential, and Eternal Darkness rocked my world, so I reserved comment to wait for them to put out something that they were truly psyched about.

As for what I think now...I still haven't seen enough to make a comment. just some new cinematics and short gameplay vids. I am not too psyched about dual analog control. Hopefully they do it better than Rise to Honor or Death by Degrees. The control in those games was garbage.

I: will god of war 3, make the Playstation 3 sweat, like god of war 1 & 2 did on Playstation 2 running that game?
Yes, but it will be a mild sweat. The system is still new to most people. They already know a ton of tricks on how to make things look and move great, but it is too early to say that it will make it sweat like the late-gen PS2 GOW game did. GOW 5 or 6 will make the PS3 sweat though.

What?

You don’t think they are going to bleed this franchise dry like the Rocky film series? :) Kratos is going to fight freaking Tommy Gunn in GOW5...a genetically enhanced cyborg Tommy Gunn...and it will rock.

Just Kidding. I have no clue what they are going to do with Kratos beyond the obvious SPorts, racing, and puzzle game spinoffs. God of Jenga!!!! Sweet!

J: finaly what happened to the european demo's of god of war 2? hahaha ;)
Seriously I have no idea. The Euro PR and marketing guys were all up in that business so if they dropped the ball it would not surprise me...the whole killing the goat thing was clear eveidence of that one. :)

Welcome Back!

2008-01-03T01:27:00.000-08:00

So...what's been going on lately? :)

I hope everyone had a good holiday, I know I did.

Quite a lot has happened over the last few months so I decided to go on an unscheduled hiatus from the whole blogging thing. So I apologize to everyone for the information blackout of late but I wanted to step back from everything and just relax and get some perspective. I am having a bit of writers block now so I though what a great time to end the silence and get distracted from this frustrating block by writing a blog post. I hope I still remember how.

For me, the whole departure from Sony was not exactly the ideal route that I wanted to go, but in the end I think it is the absolute best thing I could have ever done. I am not going to go into any specifics as to what it is I am working on now, which sucks, but I can say that I am cooking up several things.

I know for the God of War fans out there it might be a bummer that I am not working on God of War 3 (or for some it may be a good thing I am not) but rest assured that it is all in good hands. The Sony Santa Monica team is one of the best teams I have ever worked with. Also, immediately after I finished God of War 2 I was already working on the story and design for the third game. So when Sony and I finally did part ways the foundation of the game, along with story that completes the arc we began in God of War , was complete. I wish I could have been there to see it through to the end, but it was just not meant to be I guess. The story is going to finish off with a very big, very epic bang though. I think everyone will be quite pleased. Well, everyone except edge magazine that is. :)

I thought I would have more to talk about by now, but things are just not quite ready so I will be updating on specifics as the become more solid.

I have spent some time writing over the past few months. It feels good to be getting back tot he things that have been neglected because of my crazy schedule at work. I have also been traveling a bunch recently as well. Now, I am not a huge fan of the traveling. Especially the long flight part, but it has actually been quite enjoyable. I have been catching up on movies and playing a ton of games in between my travels as well. I finally got to catch up on the backlog of games for the past few years.

I got to play Assassin's Creed which kind of disappointed me. There is some great work in there, great work. The art is fantastic...the levels in that game are huge. The free running things works really well and feels great to control, though after awhile the joy and awe kind of wares off. I hated the story...the whole setting kind of frustrated me. I was so completely looking forward to playing as an assassin during the Crusades. When I first heard the concept for the game and awe the screenshots I was pretty jazzed. That excitement was quickly smothered when I found out I was a descendant of Altair and I was in a simulation. Great...a game within a game. That really kind of spoiled the whole thing for me. I played about halfway through the game before I completely stopped. I think the sequel that is inevitably going to get made will be pretty good...though I think they have kind f locked themselves into the whole genetic memory story thread. There is some really great stuff in that game, but the story, and combat really kind of killed it for me. The combat is still not that great of an improvement over the POP stuff. It is decent, but it feels like it could be so much better if they would just give the player more control over the character.

I have been slowly chiseling away at Mass Effect as well. Every time I play Bio-ware games I am amazed. That is one freaking talented group of people over there. It took a bit for me to really find a groove in that game, but it has really impressed me. I loved KOTOR, but to me the lack of control in the combat really took away from being in the moment. I felt like I was just putting in a lunch order during the fights. I still played the hell out of the game, but it left me wanting more. So in comes Jade Empire, with more control over the combat. It was pretty good, though it still didn't feel as good as their story and RPG elements. WIth Mass Effect I finally feel in control of my character, which in turn makes me forget how long it is I have been playing. The work they did in this game is nothing short of mind blowing to me. The sheer scale of the game and the complexity of making the various choices within the story not only work, but actually be compelling, is amazing. I had a lot of moments while playing this game that remind me why I love the medium.

Mario Galaxy. Hmmm...this was a tough one for me. There is some great stuff in this game, though it took me a while to really get into it. Even after I got quite a ways in I was till not totally engaged in the game. It is great design. Great levels, some of the best art on the Wii, and pretty awesome sound and music...but it just never really got me totally hooked. I think it is because I just don't care about the why. I mean, the freaking princess is abducted...again. I have to go after her captor, Bowser, again. You think with a franchise this big they would at least put a little effort in the why. I mean, think of how much it would pay off right?

Oh wait...the game sells millions even with the vapid story. As it has been pointed out to me every time I say it, the game is not about the story. It is about the platforming and crazy new mechanics and worlds. But c'mon, at least give me a compelling reason to care about pushing on through the adventure. Besides the collection of stars that is. Maybe that is just me though, since almost every other designer I talk to thinks this game is the second coming. Still in the end, they are all kind of right. It is an extremely well put together game with a hell of a lot of creativity in it. I have to give props to the team for that!

I have played a ton of other games as well but I just really don't feel like writing about all of them right now. This whole time off has made me a bit lazy. :) Ok, I think my writers block is gone now. Actually it's not...but I am hoping to fool myself into believing it is. Not a very clever ruse I know...but let's hope it works.

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone!

...

2007-11-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

2007-11-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

FAMITSUUUUUU!!!!!

2007-10-19T14:30:00.001-07:00

I commented in the last post about the Japanese version of God of War 2 coming out pretty soon so I thought I would follow that up with some pretty cool news I just got from my friends over at Capcom that God of War 2 just got reviewed in the latest Famitsu magazine. the scores were pretty damn good...something the whole team is excited about. (10,9,9,9 = 92.5% - take that Edge magazine!! :) The game also got a "Platinum Hall of Fame" award...I have no clue what that means but it sounds good so I thought I would mention it. I always thought we would do ok, but I really did not expect a score like that.

So I want to give a big thanks goes out to the GOW2 team as well as all the people over at Capcom who worked like crazy to get the localization freaking spot on! Great job everyone!

I have some scans from Famitsu, but no real translation. I was able to get a small excerpt from the article so I will post that now, and update when I get more.

"Wild combination of action and puzzles. Very responsive controls. This game will give you the highest entertainment. Just playing the game it is easy to feel like the character. The combat is kind of tough, but there are lots of checkpoints to help you."

I have no idea where exactly this is said in the article...but I imagine it is somwhere int he image below.

Other than that there is not too much else to report...this is just a little update! And I will try and check out UT3 since John has so graciously offered to hook a brother up with that hotness. (Thanks man!)

Heading out to the VGL show tonight where hopefully I will get a chance to catch up with up a bunch of people and hear some great music. I heard that The silent Hill Designer is going to be there...which is sweet since I love those games. Oh there is also this little known guy Nolan Bushnell...you know...Pong and all that game industry pioneer type stuff. I am pretty excited about tonight...it has been a while since I have emerged from my work cave.

Oh and I am going to carve out some time this weekend to play some Bioshock...who knows...maybe I will even finish that bad boy??

Here is the link to the Japanese website that Capcom put together for all of you who are interested.

Cory

You will be assimilated!

2007-10-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

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

Curious in Illinois

2007-08-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, reading that back, that title kind of sounds creepy. Maybe next time you comment use a different handle so my next post won't sound like the dirty version of a Tom Hanks movie. I thought I would post my answeres to the questions the poster fomr my home state of Illinois posed. I have been in writing mode lately, so I figured I would use some of that writing momentum to get back into the blogging habit. Not sure if I will be able to keep up the pace I am setting here, but I will sure as hell try.

Here is my fairly long winded responses to the questions about my gaming habits/likes/dislikes.

What game systems do you own?
Right now I have a few PS2’s, (One I bought, and my old debug for playing GOW2 discs at home when we were in production) a PS3, a 360, a Wii, a Gamecube, (Cause the new Zelda is more fun for me on GC) an Xbox, (To play Morrowind and KOTOR) a PSP, a DS, a GBA micro, an Astro City arcade cabinet, and my home PC. At one point I did own an Ngage…but that was very short lived as it was fairly lame. Many people at work made fun of me for getting the side talking taco….even though the one I got did not require side talking.

Man…I never realized how much I have until I listed it out like that. I really need to get a life outside of games.

What games do you own?
There are waay too many that I own to list them all out. I buy a ton of games; I am a pretty big geek. It is a wonder that I have ever had sex really. I try to play everything in the action adventure genre, no matter what it is. And then I also tend to buy a bunch of the newer big games regardless of the genre. I have a stack of about 15 games that I need to work my way through.

What is your favorite genre? (I made this one up on my own...that's just how I roll)
I like story based games or games with strong sense of character development. Not that I have anything against other more ‘pure gameplay’ games, I just prefer to have a strong reason of who I am and why it is I am doing things in the world. That being said I really don’t have a favorite genre. I like adventure, action adventure, survival horror, and RPG’s. Not too into music games until a little game called Guitar Hero came along. Before that I had only played a little beat mania, amplitude, and this freaking rad dancing game called Bust-a-Groove. (That game was sweet)

What is your all time favorite three games, and why?
I really don’t have one favorite game, so I decided to talk about three…but even then that is too limiting. There are just too many games that I love!!! But I will name just a few here.

First, Future Wars for the Amiga. (Pictured above) This was a traditional point and click adventure game from Delphine Software (Another World, Flashback) about a guy, who I think is basically a janitor, who gets caught up in a time traveling adventure to save the earth from certain destruction by the hands of an alien race. The story sounds cheesy now, but when I first played this game it was just amazing to me. when asked abotu my favorite games I say this one all the time because it was really one of the first games that hooked me and had me staying up for two days straight playing until the end; I was that into the story and the sense of discovery the game gave me. There was no voice acting, just text and music, but the game had me hooked. This was way before the internet so their wasn’t any gamefaqs.com or strategy guides…so it took forever to figure some of the more obscure puzzles but I loved every minute of it. I still draw some inspiration from the way that certain scenarios made me feel…the sense of wonder these relatively simple graphics evoked in me.

Second on the list is a little adventure game called Grim Fandango. I was debating whether or not to put two adventure games on the list, but freaking Tim Shafer is damn awesome that I would be an idiot to leave off this freaking masterpiece. I wanted to put Day of the Tentacle, or even Full Throttle...but int he end I think this game grabbed me the most of the three. This game was truly in a class all its own. Some of the puzzles were a bit annoying, but all in all, this one was of the most satisfying and unique experiences I have ever had with a game. The writing was brilliant, the art was fantastic, and for the most part the play was great! I can still go back and play this one every so often, just as I do with Day of the tentacle and Full Throttle. One day I hope to be 1/50th as talented as Tim…one day.

The number three slot in this somewhat verbose list is the sweet FPS Half Life. I almost hate calling it an FPS, because when I think of most FPS’s great character development and great story really don’t leap to mind. But Half life really changed my perspective on all of that. I was actually working on an FPS when the Half life demo came out.(Requiem: Avenging Angel) It freaking blew what I was working on out of the water. The demo for Half life was better than our entire game. The level design was unbelievable, the core mechanics were fun and offered the perfect mix of familiar with ‘new’, and the presentation was top notch. Valve started something that everyone in the industry has been imitating ever since.

Cool little side note on that, one of the level designers on that game (Requiem) with me went on to be the Lead Designer over at Tim Shafer’s Double fine studios…he was the lead on Psychonauts…I am very jealous of him. :)

There are so many other games I love that I don’t even think these are my top three. This is the top three I can think of right now…but in an hour the list will change.

What games inspire you?
I think that every game inspires me in one way or another. Some really great games inspire me to get back to work and push harder to make what I am working on better. Really bad games inspire me to get back to work so I don’t end up releasing something that makes people mad they spent 50 or 60 bucks on my game. This is why I buy all my games…so when I get a Spiderman 3; I know what it feels like to feel cheated having spent the money on game that really feels unfun and unfinished. I actually like the second one, but three just did not live up to my expectations of the series.

As for specific games that have inspired me in the past….I would have to say there are so many that I will just name a few.

1. Indigo Prophecy was great…especially that beginning section in the diner. I played through that opening like 5 times trying different things to see what would happen. It’s a slower paced game, but I love the storytelling. I like the way they handled dialogue trees in this game, it felt pretty good. The whole 3D David Cage (The game director) tutorial in the begining was a bit much though...it is kind of wierd to have a game version of yourself teaching people the mechanics of the game. But hey, maybe that is just me. I would not be able to supress the urge to punch myself int he face, or slam my own head in a door, if I had a 3d game representation of me.

2. DMC 1 and 3…you gotta’ love these games. Not that great of story telling, I don’t dig the mission structure, and I am not all that into Dante as a character, but the mechanics of this game are just freaking solid. This game has great animations and interesting enemies and bosses to fight. I don’t really care about the super insane difficulty of the game, that kind of gaming is just not my thing. Some people are all about ‘Dante must die’ mode, which is cool, but it is just not for me. I usually want to enjoy the experience, not get my ass handed to me by it. I love the air combat in this game as well. There is just something cool about how long you can keep Dante and an enemy in the air with the combos. Their effects are always top notch as well; I have noticed that most Japanese games have really cool ‘inventive’ effects. I think that western developers tend to reference a lot of Japanese games for effects. I could be totally worng on that one, just something I have noticed over my years in this business. I also dig the new style system they implemented in the third game.

3. Shadow and Ico…I don’t need to go into why since I already talked about that in the previous post. Needless to say that every time I play wither of those games I feel like I am not working hard enough.

4. Resident Evil 4…this game has it all, great level design, pacing, atmosphere, sweet bosses, and gorgeous art. This game was an all around masterstroke for the Resident Evil series. I was never a huge fan because I hated the survival horror design conventions. I couldn’t stand that the only way to convey fear and tension was to make the character move like a tank, and have characters attacking from off screen. And the puzzles always felt random and out of place. This series drove me nuts….cause I love the horror genre…but the game was just too frustrating to play. When RE4 came out, it freaking blew me away. That is until I wasted all my ammo getting to the Gondolas and I had to go back to an earlier save and play smarter. I still thought the game rocked, but I was pissed that I was so dumb. Anyway, this game kicked me in the pants and made me wish I was working on a horror game. It also made me take a second look at how I approach certain design decisions.

5. Medal of Honor…the first one. I mean, storming the beach at Normandy was freaking unbelieveable the first time you did it. This game raised the bar for immersion I think. I know that I still look at these games a lot to see how they are handling the narrative through real time NPC’s and events. It really is wonderful stuff. The later games in the series got a bit derivative, but I have high hopes for Call of Duty 4 and Airborne…we will have to see how it all pans out.

6. Marvel vs. Capcom 2...I just love this game. even though I am probably the worst of all the people I play it with, it is still fun. the game is fast, and sometimes confusing, but always a blast to play. The cast of characters is diverse and huge and for the most part the combat in this game is amazing. I don't think I will ever get tired of this game, it allows sloppy players like me to have fun in a way that Street fighter just can't do. I like most of the Street Fighter series, but most of the guys here I play with are just so damn good at it that I just dont have fun. And I really don't have the time to dedicate to getting better.

Ok…that is all I have for today. I am going to get back to the other four documents I am trying to finish. No more slacking for me today. Have a good weekend everybody!

Cory

God of the Colossus

2007-08-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

So many people have stopped by to check this interview out that I thought I would do another post where I answer some of the same questions, only about Shadow of the Colossus. I don’t imagine a western developer weighing with their take on a Japanese developer's game is as intriguing or exciting as when the situation was reversed. But what the hell…It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, right? Plus I am such a huge fan of their games that I love any chance to talk about them.

I am also going to do a post after this that answers the questions the curious gamer form Illinois posed in the comments. That will be coming soon, until then; here is my interview…with myself. This seems to be a growing trend…me interviewing myself. Which is lame, I know, but it seems no one else is interested in asking me questions.

Q: Have you finished Shadow of the Colossus yet?

Yes. When I first picked the game up, we had an early copy floating around the office, I played through a large portion of it in one sitting, but then things got kind of hectic at work so my play time had to slow down a bit. After a month or so I got the retail copy of the game and started over, playing sporadically over the course of a few weeks. Then I stopped for awhile, went back to it, and got to the final boss which proceeded to kick my ass. I knew exactly what to do, but I kept falling off when I would finally get tot the head. After a few times of that I frustrated and stopped, knowing I would come back again at a later time when I was fresh and finish it off. What I didn’t know is that wouldn’t be for like 8 months. But now, I can say I have finished the game and I loved it.

Q: What was your first impression of Shadow of the Colossus?

Unlike my first experience with Ico, Shadow grabbed me right away. With Ico my first experience did not grab me right away, I needed to step away from that game and come back to it to really appreciate what it was they were doing with the development of the relationship between Ico and Yorda. Once I did I was blown away with how much the ending of that game affected me as a player. It was quite possibly one of the strongest moments I have ever seen in a game.

With Shadow I was more prepared for what to expect, and I was immediately pulled into the experience. I was in awe of the scope and scale of the world. It felt like my little playground. The presentation and art style really sparked something in my imagination and I immediately felt connected to this world. It took me a while to find my first Colossus since I really did not understand the whole gleaming sunlight off the sword mechanic. I kind of wandered around on the horse for a long time marveling at the scope of the world. I found the forest, and got off Argo and walked around a bit. I played with calling the horse mechanic, which was really simple but it was doing something on such a subtle level I almost missed it. During all of this exploration I was establishing my relationship with Argo. As cheesy as it sounds, we were discovering these things together. When I would run him at full speed towards an upcoming cliff he would come to a skidding stop. He was telling me his limits, which served to flesh him out as a real character to me. Perhaps I am overanalyzing this, but I really do think this kind of interactive character development that Ueda and his team do is second to none. Very few games can get you to care about a bunch of polygons without using words.
Finally Argo and I stumbled on an area that looked like I could platform on. So I got off Argo, and left him down below as I ascended up into the unknown. As I was climbing up I was struck with mixed emotions. It was the first time I felt a small hint of concern for leaving Argo behind, as well as being the first time that I really felt that I was onto something. For the first time in a long time, I really felt like I was exploring in a game world, and it was amazing. Making the final jump up I knew something big was about to happen, but I was totally unprepared for what did happen. Seeing that first colossus has been burned into my brain. The music swelled perfectly as this gigantic colossus lumbered out through the fog. I was feeling the same sense of discovery that the character was feeling. That same sense of discovery I had when I played the original Tomb Raider, or when I was wandering around the various areas of Morrowind III. This sense of discovery was immediately followed with a smile when I realized I could run up to this thing and actually climb on it.

The mechanics for the climbing were perfect, simple and somewhat intuitive. I say somewhat because the grip meter took me a bit of time to really adjust to but once I figured it out it was no problem. That is the thing about this game; so much of it is about the players’ discovery of not only the world and its characters, but the mechanics and play as well. There is a patience to the design and pacing that, to me, is hard to do right. If you do it wrong it makes the game feel boring and uneventful, but if you do it right it is really something spectacular. The Shadow/Ico team has a sensibility, a subtly to their approach that may take a little patience to see but is so unbelievably worth it.

Q: Perhaps this sensibility opened your eyes, right?

Yeah it did. I think a lot of people would say that God of War is a bit more of the in your face ‘Hollywood’ movie style presentation, which for the most part is considered a western style of presentation. Although I don’t think that is totally accurate since there are so many great eastern films that have the same intensity and over the top quality. I mean, look at Hard Boiled; I wouldn’t say that is very ‘Hollywood’. It’s a style all its own, one which westerners immediately began incorporating or copying.

What they did with Shadow, the sheer simplicity of their approach really made me take a harder look at how I approach various aspects of making a game. I don’t think I will ever make a game in the same way that they do, because that is really just not my style. But there is so much I learned, and am still learning, from what they do.

With God of War, we want the player to always feel like they are experiencing something new, and that everything you are doing is clearly part of the bigger picture. In that respect, we will tend to try and find clever ways to guide or lead the player without them knowing that is what we are doing. Essentially we are leading the player along by a thread, once which we try hard to be as invisible as possible. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it does not. With Shadow and Ico, there is a sense of cutting that thread and empowering the player to freely explore, while still remaining on a somewhat straight narrative path. It’s not sandbox but, especially with Shadow, it kind of feels like it. I loved that. Even though our games are not that similar, there is something to be learned there.

Q: Has Shadow of the Colossus inspired you in any way?

Very much so. I mean the opening of God of War II was partially inspired by what I saw in Shadow. We knew we were not going to be able to do the full on climb on the Colossus thing, but the sense of scale, the whole David vs. Goliath thing they captured so well in Shadow, was something I wanted to achieve in the opening of the game. But I wanted to do it with our own sensibility, our own style.

Another thing they did so brilliantly is, with very few words, they made me care more about a character than I ever have in a video game. In that regard, I am so completely inspired. I hope that I can evoke the same emotional response that they did with Yorda and Argo in all the games I do in the future. To me that is the holy grail of games right now…getting players to feel something other than fear or anger.

I have to say that as much as I admire those guys, and feel I have so much to learn from them, I don’t think I could make the same type of games they make. Perhaps it is because I have such a ‘western-short-attention-span-need-some-ridolin’ mentality? Probably not though, I love to play their games, but I love to make a very different type of game. You know…the type that punches you in the stomach in the first five minutes, as opposed to one that slowly creeps up on you. Both are very effective, the latter is especially effective when handled in the way Ueda and his team do it.

Ok...I need to get back to work now. Stayed tuned for more.

cory

Ico of War!

2007-08-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

So no luck for me on the GOW PSP, but it was my own fault. I got too busy with other stuff and did not realize that it was over and done with. But it is still cool though, it fetched a pretty penny for the modder as well as for the Child's Play charity...so all is right in the world.

In other news, we got a translation the other day of a Famitsu interview with Fumito Ueda, the Director of Shadow of the Colossus, about his impressions after he finished playing God of War 2. It's great to hear a Japanese game maker's perspective on the series so far, especially when it is from someone whom I respect so much. If you are a fan of God of War, or Ico or Shadow, then you should give it a read. The translation was done by a friend of Eric's, Andrew Alfonso, so a big thank you goes out to him!

Aight'...check it!

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Q: Have you finished God of War 2 yet?

A: Yes, of course I have. However, at first when I was playing God of War 1, I thought "This kind of game is rather cool". The player's character is on the screen, and he can move on both the X and Z axis. Also, it's the type of game where you have to be up close and personal with your opponent, and it's quite interesting but there have been so many games that have the same style that I was sick of it. So, I had kind of a negative image about the game to start off. But as I progressed through the game it really opened my eyes and I was like "wow this game is pretty cool!". The guys who developed this game have such enthusiasm that I really felt like they were saying "dude I want you to see all of this awesome stuff!" on purpose. Usually with sequels the tension and excitement goes down but I felt with God of War 2 that was the complete opposite, and the excitement factor was definitely higher than the first game.

Q: What was your first impression of God of War 2?

A: The way the game first grabbed me was pretty awesome. The way the game started off, it made me think about how in Japanese games that would never happen. It wasn't a matter of "how many explosions can we have on the screen in a short amount of time", but it definitely felt like a Hollywood movie. The way that everything was changing and expanding, I had never thought of that, I had never gotten tired of it, it constantly pulls in the user into the game's universe. Everything from the combat, to the programming, to the way of thinking is totally different from a Japanese game. For example, when you see the stage where you're flying (ed. note flying pegasus stage), and you see another stage, the more someone says they're two different games, the more varied the game becomes. The game's contents change, and if too many elements are thrown into a game you can quickly lose the interest of gamers, and it'll end up costing you. When I talk about Wanda and the Colossus (Shadow of the Colossus), the whole game is consistently based around the system of "the climb and the battle", and if you really say that we only made that kind of system, then it really was a success. However, when making God of War 2, because of the ideas, the programming of the stages and the numerous ways of capturing gamers, it became something really different. Each part was specially created, and the parts were all consistent with each other. That's a really extravagant way of creating things. But having so many different elements in a game makes me feel a little uncomfortable, and it's expensive too. If it was me, I guess I would use things multiple times.

Q: Perhaps the amount of volume kind of opens your eyes, right?

A: Even more than before, the modulation, and even though you push, it's still advantageous, I think. However, I think the service is a little excessive. However, talking about the flying stage I mentioned before, it's a little bit hard to put into words but I got this really old feeling when I played it. You can't really fly around like you could in newer games, and you could only attack on the Z Axis... But, even though the game design isn't totally new, the powerful imagery doesn't make me feel like it's an old game. With the CS Attack, the tension and the imagery's power is vast, I think. You could easily say that it copies a game like Made in Wario with its numerous mini-games, but it's a type of game where you can enjoy the varying tempo. Not only that, but the game also has a wonderful sense of direction.

Q: As for the graphics, from the way it looks like it's done by hand, did it surprise you?

A: I think the way that Japanese people handle it is a little different. It's only my impression, but perhaps Japan would say it's a little low poly? It's a minute detail of course, but usually in Japan we use textures to cover up for the low poly, I think. The edges of the polygons aren't all that conspicuous so it has that soft look to it. On the other hand, God of War rather than use textures they use polygons to represent their characters, so it seems very hard to Japanese people. So, like a rock's hardness, that's how God of War looks. So in God of War II, even if you arranged ICO or Shadow of the Colossus' objects in that game, they wouldn't match at all, since the way we made all three games are different.

Q: Do you think there's a relation between the way the game looks and how late it came in the PS2's lifetime?

A: Yes, perhaps. With PS2 games, right now you can get a lot of power out of the system. In God of War 2, there's almost no loading time, and how fast it reads your save games is really fast. That's because you only have to look for procedures on one hardware, which makes things easy.

Q: So everything rests on a higher foundation then, and that's why everything looks so good, right?

A: As for the ideas, even though they are very common, the way everything is represented makes it interesting and fun to play, I believe. And yet, the action, puzzles, graphics, everything was realized on a higher foundation, that was my impression. From the start, everything was put in with care, and nothing was really neglected. Basically, like how a Japanese game carries itself. But with japanese games, the really interesting parts are kind of sparse....

Q: It's not fresh but...

A: That's right, the attacks, system and ideas have been done before, I think. However, when you try to play the game, you have a usual sense of tension, but the graphics and the reactions become better and better. Perhaps, starting now, Western games are advancing quickly, you know.

Q: Has God of War 2 inspired you in any way?

A: Well there are certainly a lot of ideas and such in the game, and they're all really fun things. I haven't had a lot of time to think about it though. If there are things that I can really absorb from the game I think I will absorb it, but God of War 2 is such a high value game (ed. note: I don't know if it means that it's valuable or if it was expensive to make.) that I don't think I can really copy it. Perhaps with this kind of game, we'll leave it to the Western designers to make them, hah.

Q: Why would you do that?

A: Well, I think it'd be kind of difficult to do things like that. The reality is that costs to develop a game is different between Japan and Western studios. One year ago I observed how things were going with God of War 1, and I was really surprised by the number of people on staff. With one team they made a lot of programs that couldn't be used more than once. It's the kind of trouble I hadn't thought of. Also, everything took a lot of time too. Perhaps they were implementing a lot of elements into their game. When you have a lot of stages, the player won't get bored and it's really interesting. However, with Japanese style, when you apply that kind of thinking, I don't think it'd be cheap at all. I don't think our schedule or budget would be enough for that kind of project. However, budgeting and scheduling is difficult, but more than that, focusing on the scope of the game is important. Within our team, and within a workable scope, the best ideas will eventually win out and be something we can work with. Up until now I've held that idea and I've made games with it. However, right now when I play God of War 2, I think that if I don't think things clearly and with a level head, I may create something that's only halfway finished. That's the kind of impression I get.

----------

Sweet!!!

Well that is all for today...hopefully everyone got a chance to vote for the Gphoria thing...we will have to see how all of that goes. In then end it really doesn't matter all that much, but it never hurts to get some recognition for the teams hard work on the game.

Cory

sweet psp loving!

2007-07-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-07-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

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

Inside the Actors...err...Developers Studio

2007-06-26T01:34:00.001-07:00

So, I did a few posts over at the playstation blog. Well actually I answered some questions for one, and then wrote up a little diddy for the other. There was a little hub-bub about the first post, which was the inspirations for me to write the second. (Though I was always planning a real post) I then saw a posting on Joystiq about the first post, which cracked me up as well as inspired me to write this post. Confused yet? I am.

Anyway, I couldn't sleep tonight, and since I can do pretty much what ever the hell I want over here on this blog, (made clear by my poor grammer) I decided I would write up my own interview with one of the greatest characters on TV. How I imagine it might go if the great JL interviewed me. I am sure none of this is really all that funny, but it's almost 2am and I can't sleep, so right now anything is funny to me.

I did one of these things on my modblog site a looong time ago with Connie Chung. I don't think that one was very funny either.

Be warned, it's a long one and it may not have much to do with games.

(The opening credits roll showing a montage of images moving slowly across the screen. This cross dissolves to a shot of the audience clapping with little enthusiasm. The camera pans over and pushes in to a seated James Lipton.)

Lipton: Welcome all of you wonderful…and devoted…fans of me. We have gathered together today to discuss a topic of which I know very little about, but I am told…by my shows producers…that Mr. Cheech Marin was unable to attend this weeks edition of Inside the Actors Studio…so now we will be sitting down with a…Mr…
(Examines one of the many note cards stacked in front of him)
…Cary Balrog. Oh my…was that you in the Lord of the Rings. I do love those films. Hobbits are such funny people.

The camera pulls back to reveal Cory Barlog sitting in the chair next to James Lipton)

Barlog: Barlog.

Lipton: It’ a funny word too. Hooobbit. Say with me…Hoooobit!
(Lipton lets out a giggle)

Barlog: Yeah it’s a funny word. But it’s Barlog. Cory Barlog.

Lipton: Well I’m sure that doesn’t matter much Mr. Fiery bad guy who killed Gandalf.
(Laughs, mostly for himself)
Well…let’s get right to it, shall we? You’ve…worked on some pretty bad things haven’t you?

Barlog: What? What do you mean?

Lipton: Well I certainly haven’t a clue; it’s just what the note card says.
(Shows the note card to Barlog)
See?

Barlog: Wow, you’re right. Ok. Yeah, I suppose you could say that some of games I have worked on in the past have been less than stellar. I mean, I worked on a game that starred the Insane Clown Posse. Not so sweet.

(Lipton plays to the audience and looks overly shocked and appalled)

Lipton: Yes…not so sweet indeed. I have no idea who this Clown Posse is that you speak of but I am sure that they are, in fact, insane.
(Lipton smiles and looks very proud of himself)
Well let’s talk about your accomplishments, which no doubt must have been substantial, otherwise you wouldn’t sharing the stage with someone of such a monolithic stature…such as myself. You say games, do you?
(Lipton sits back and ponders for a moment)
Let’s talk about one of your shining achievements, the strongest horse in your stable, the game of chess. Tell me, what was going through your mind when you created that one?

Barlog: What? Chess? I didn’t create chess.

Lipton: Really? It was checkers then?

Barlog: Nope, can’t take credit for checkers either.

Lipton: Othello? Mmmm…
(Lipton stares longingly off into space)
…I really do love that play.

Barlog: No.

Lipton: Uno then?

Barlog: No.

Lipton: certainly Hungry Hungry Hippos then?

(Lipton throws his index card in the and exhales dramatically)

Lipton: Well for someone who claims to be the ‘game’ man you certainly haven’t made any games I have heard of.

Barlog: Well I make video games. More to the point console video games for Sony.

Lipton: Well…they make good TV’s, don’t they? A little out my price range, though. The old Zenith works just fine for me, thank you very much. Plus I really don’t believe this whole color thing is going to catch on.
(To the audience)
Just a fad with these kids...with thier rock music...and big pants...and...What was I talking about?

Barlog: You’re probably right. And you were talking about what I worked on.

Lipton: Yes, exactly. Don't tell me what I was talking about. I'm James Lipton. I interviewed Tom Cruise for God's sake. So, Just what is it you have done Mr. Smarty Pants?

Barlog: As you said before, I have had my hands in some products of questionable quality, but more recently I have had the good fortune of working with a very talented group of people on a couple of PS2 games. I was the animation lead on God of War...

(Lipton gets really excited now)
Lipton: Oh yes...Gears of War, I have heard of that one. So you're that cliffyb then?

Barlog: No, I'm not cliffyb, he is far more photogenic than I am. Gears is a pretty fun game though. I worked on God of War. Anyway, after doing animation on God of War 1 I got offered to take over the directing job for David Jaffe (the series creator) on God of War 2.

Lipton: What a clever title. Did you come up with that by yourself?

Barlog: No, there were a few of us who worked on that one.

Lipton: I wouldn’t doubt it…
(Litpon take a dramatic pause)
…and what is this God of War about?

Barlog: It’s the story of Spartan warrior who takes on the Gods of Olympus to exact revenge for the torment they have put him through his entire life.

Lipton: I was once offered the part of Spartan warrior. It was long time ago, in an off Broadway production of 301. It was story about the Spartan who got food poisoning the night before the Persian invasion...and missed out on the whole battle. It would have been wonderful.
(Lipton takes a beat)
I…would have been wonderful.
(To the audience)
Wouldn’t I have minions?

(A deafening silence rings throughout the room)

Barlog: I would see that.

Lipton: Yes, I know you. So now you are a director? You were once a lowly animator, an now a great director?

Barlog: Well I wouldn’t say animators are lowly. I loved being an animator; in fact I still kind of miss animating.

Lipton: And yet you are a director now? Odd, isn’t it?

Barlog: No, not really. I am also very far from being a great director. Like 3000 miles to Graceland, far. Like really far. I have a long way to go before I can even be called an ‘average’ director.

Lipton: Kevin Costner.
(Lipton takes a dramatic pause)

Barlog: Yeah, Tin Cup was pretty good too.

Lipton: Indeed. He once sat on this stage with me. He is a great man. I mean anyone whose films average 3 hours has to be a great man, isn’t that right class?
So tell me, what was it like directing this war game?

Barlog: It’s actually a third person action adventure game, but that doesn’t really matter. It was a pretty tough ride for the first year, since I really had no fuicking clue what it is I was doing. But I had a very good and very patient team, so I finally got into the swing of it.

(Liptons’ eyes glaze over as he sits with a somewhat demonic grin on his face)

Lipton: FASCINATING!!! That reminds me of when I scaled the great pyramids of Giza. When I reached the summit, considerably out of breath because I had a big lunch the day before, I had visions of a great society. My mind touched the stars and I imagined a society of people who built fantastic monuments in glory of themselves, much like this great monument I have constructed to honor me. My desk of supreme power…
(Taps his 35 dollar Ikea desk)
…and minions…whom I berate often...and order to do my bidding.
(Lipton motions to the audience)
Thank you, minions. Your dedication to this cause will not go unrewarded, when the end time comes, you will be spared.
(Back to Barlog)
Have you…ever…built a monument to yourself?

Barlog: Uhhh…a monument to myself? I think I once built a diorama of the Taj Mahal out of sugar cubes for history class. I thought I would be really good at it, you know? I mean I was in art classe4s, I liked to draw. But man it was a pretty sad state. I think I got a ‘C’ on it. Of course that may have been due to the fact that I added a few features onto the Taj Mahal that were not included in the original plans. I thought it wouldbe cool if it were even bigger. That, and we didn't have the internet and I completely slacked off and forgot to check out the books I needed. I had to pretty much wing it.

Lipton: Wonderful! Such a poignant and yet altogether pointless answer to such a serious and well thought out question. I can see why the media very rarely takes people in your field seriously.
(To the audience)
If I made cd’s for a living I certainly would think a little harder before answering questions, isn’t right minions?

(A few forced claps)

Barlog: Games.

(Litpon looks confused)
Lipton: What?

Barlog: Games. I make video games for a living. Some of them come on CD’s, but now they mostly come on DVD’s. Some are even coming out on blu-ray now.

(Long beat)

Lipton: I’m sorry I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about this wonderful macaroni I had earlier today. Macaroni and cheese I believe it was called…have ever had it? It’s WONDERFUL!!!

Barlog: Yeah, I dig on the mac and cheese. I haven’t had it in a while, but I can get down with it. Maybe we should talk about the games a bit more? I wouldn't mind talking about God of War:Chains of Olympus, or maybe even the other project I am working on now. We haven’t announced it yet, but I figured I would just tell you what it is…it’s…

Lipton: (Laughs) I am certain I would not be interested in that. In fact it appears those 4 double bourbons I had before the show seem to be catching up with me, so it seems our time is up.

Barlog: What that’s it? You not even going to ask me my favorite swear word or anything?

Lipton: No. Those questions are reserved for the ‘real’ famous people…like Mr. Cheech Marin…an actor extraordinary range and accomplishment. A performer with more talent in the left half of his moustache than I am sure you have…in your entire body.

Barlog: yeah, he is pretty good.

Lipton: So good night Mr. CD maker…
(Lipton plays to the camera)
…and until next time…remember that if you don’t see the brilliance that is me…then you are obviously totally blind. Be good to yourselves.

(The camera pulls back as the end credits play)

And there you have it.

God, I need to get a life. It really is amazing that I am employed.

The King of Kong

2007-06-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

I think I am the worlds worst blogger. I have let my updates fall pretty far behind, but honestly I don’t have much I can actually update about. I would love to go on and on about the day to day things I am doing on my new game, but unfortunately I can’t talk too much about it.

I can say that I just distributed the story and gameplay outline to the team, which is a huge milestone since this thing has taken a lot out of me. I am pretty damn excited about it though, I think it is going to rock the freaking house. I am very biased of course, so take that with a grain of salt.

I got to check out some new mechanics this week as well. Things are moving along pretty quickly so I am always having that feeling of running to keep pace. It is definitely the most hectic pre-production process I have been in. Though I guess the producers would say we are in “actual” production now, but I still feel like I need some more pre-production.

Oh, if you haven’t seen the trailer for this movie, check it out. It is a documentary about the two best classic game players in the world battling it out for the Donkey Kong championship title. It looks freaking awesome…if for nothing else than the wicked mullet the current champ has. Nice.

We are gearing up for the big E3…well not big E3…more like the little E3 next month. God of War: Chains of Olympus is going to show there. It should be pretty cool as the game is coming along great. The ready at Dawn guys were in the office today hanging out with Eric Williams. (Lead combat designer on the GOW 1 and 2) I really can’t wait for this game to get finished. I think in part so I can just focus on one game, but also so I can have GOW in my pocket anytime I want to rip some limbs. That is one great advantage to overseeing a project that an outside developer is doing, I removed just enough that I will want to play the game right when it is done.

Speaking of playing, I have been playing some of Tomb Raider anniversary lately, and having a great time. It took me awhile to figure out the settings with the new ps3 firmware, but once I did it looked great. The game still suffers from fairly simple combat, but the puzzles and the new time slow sure shot mechanic are pretty cool. If I have the time I want to finish that one.

Earth Defense Force…freaking blast of a game. It gets old after awhile, but for the price it was a great time. I give some big ups to the developers of that game for really embracing that 50’s b-movie style. I actually had more fun playing that game than Destroy all humans…go figure.

I think I am going to do a post or two over at the playstation blog, so keep an eye out for that.

Also..to the guys from Brazil that made the cool GOW video...I have a question so let me know how to get a hold of you.

cory

this one is in Drop 'D'

2007-06-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today is a sad day. Well I guess it would be more accurate to say that this week is a sad week. On Wednesday I will be attending a good bye lunch for one of my extremely valued co-workers, and I would like to think good friend…Mister Derek Daniels. That is not him pictured to the left…that is the result of putting the name Derek Daniels into the Google images search engine. That Derek Daniels is actually the acting Director of the Quaker Peace Movement…it looks nothing like him so I thought it would be appropriate. He actually did a blog post that breaks down his sordid history and how we ended up working together…I won’t rehash that I will just link you to it. I have worked with Derek for a long time…and while our early efforts in the game production world were pretty damn sucky…the later ones more than make up for it. Plus he is just a blast to work with. I hate to see this great team changing...because I hate change. I am a luddite like that. Well maybe not a luddite, since that really deals with fear of technological prgress and change, but I am defintely adverse to losing the good people. There isn't a word for that...so I will just call that a luddite as well. Because I can.

So now I am just going lament a little about how sad it is to see him, and several others move on from Sony to bigger and better things…like Spongebob Squarepants. Just kidding…I don’t think anyone is going on to work on Spongebob. But alas they are indeed leaving, and that fills my heart with sadness. I know that each of them are going on to work on something great, and I am happy for that. I just wish they weren’t breaking up the band. So to all of the extremely talented peeps who helped make God of War 1 and God of War 2 the best that it could be…you will be missed.

On a much more upbeat note, things are progressing forward quite nicely with the new project. We have finished the story and gameplay outline as well as the rough level design overview. That is a huge freaking relief to have that all worked out…though now is the time everyone will tell me we don’t have the time or the manpower to finish it. But that is how it usually is in the beginning…a long negotiation of figuring out what the game is an how it could possibly get done.

I also got to see some cool mechanics that have been in the prototype pipe for the last few weeks. Always good to see things that you can actually play with this early on.

The PSP game is moving along nicely as well. I am going to be playing through the latest build tomorrow to check out all the new stuff.

As for that CVG rumor…I would have to say that there isn’t much truth to any of that…that is really the first I have heard of that. If we do get started on a GOW for PS3 you can be sure I will be screaming about it from the mountain tops the first chance I am allowed. Until then…I am plugging away on my RPG opus ‘A Family Ties game’. It is going to be so freaking awesome…awesome to a level that will actually transcend awesome and become something entirely different… freakin LA LAWsome!

ok...I am tired from a wicked bout of insomnia last night so I am going to end this now.

NEW ADDITION! Check this freaking sweet link out. Appearently they are working on GOW 3 in Brasil!! Too funny...I am credited as a producer again!!!

cory

Now with Retsin!

2007-05-18T10:29:00.001-07:00

The first week of work after my vacation is now almost in the can. It was definitely a shock to the system to come back after such a relaxing bit of time off, but it was also good to get back into the swing of things. My vacation was really an illuminating experience on so many levels for me though. I came to understand a lot about my career and work in the last two weeks. The time really opened my eyes as to where I am and what I need to do to keep doing the things I love. Prior to taking off I was feeling pretty frustrated and creatively stifled, which is really not a good place to be when you are trying to lay the ground work for a project. But now, thanks to some really great conversations with various people over the break, I feel freaking great! It is amazing to me how much clarity you can get from stepping away from things for a few weeks. I think I need to do that more often…not all the time…but definitely more often than I have done in the past.

I went down to San Diego on Tuesday night to do the Sony gamers day event and chat a bit about God of War: Chains of Olympus. Seems like everyone is pretty excited about the game, which is good since I am busting at the freaking seams about this game. I really think it is coming along beautifully. As is par for the course for me, I ended up hanging out Tuesday night and kicking a few back with some friends I don’t get to see too often, leaving me wrecked for the next day. But since I normally look like I haven’t slept in days, it was hardly noticeable.

I also go to check out this Game Deconstruction Group last night. This is where a group of USC game development student’s breakdown different games and everyone chats about various aspects of the game. There were a bunch of people from the development community there as well so it was nice to get to meet and chat with everyone; it’s always good to hear about what everyone is working on. (Plus I got a free copy of F.E.A.R. for ps3..sweet! Thanks again for that!) I wanted to go to the last one they did about Gears of War, but I was working. They were doing God of War 2 last night so it was good to get for that one. These guys that broke the game down were pretty freaking sharp too! Three of them had come in for focus tests of God of War. It was pretty cool to see someone really break down the game in detail and hear what others had to say about it. I think they are going to do a deconstruction of flOw next time since the GOW2 thing went longer than they expected. Hopefully I will have the time to go back to check that one out.

I have a story meeting to get to, so I am going to cut this short.

cory

Hanging Chad!

2007-05-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

So much drama lately, huh? I have been doing a bit of relaxing and enjoying the beginning of my vacation away from work. I decided to check on the latest happenings in the games world and came across now infamous Sony Europe 'goat' stuff and the crazy coverage of Jaffe speaking out about the CAC reviews. It made me really think about the way things work now, and frankly it disappointed me a bit. I personally don’t’ think that developers commenting on reviews are whining, that is just such a stupid argument. Maybe it is hard for people who have never created something, and put it out there for the world to shit on, to actually understand. I don’t really know. I do know it is no easy thing to creatively put yourself out there, and when the public opinion turns against you to stay quite and just take it. Sure, sometimes that is the wisest course of action, but I have always respected those who still speak out, even in the face of harsh criticism. The industry needs more people like that, regardless of how it gets spun. Though the Uwe Boll thing about boxing his critics is probably taking it a bit too far.

Reviews are such a maddening thing for the people who actually create things. I mean, you work your ass for years on something and it lives or dies by the reviews. Though, this is not always the case as many games and movies have received terrible reviews, yet been a commercial success. But as a creator, the reviews still affect you. How could they not? I have worked in this business for almost 8 years, and for a large portion of that time all the games I released were welcomed with scathing reviews. Granted these games sucked, I know this, but that still eats away at you a little. It is like people calling your child ugly. I can’t imagine that most people would respond too kindly to that, eve if their kid is not winning any beauty pageants.

Why can’t developers comment or even disagree with review scores? This makes no sense to me at all, it never has. If you put a game out that gets some harsh reviews, and you have the audacity to comment or disagree with them, you get the “whiney” card pulled. What?? How is it whining to disagree with another person’s opinion of your game? When you think about it is a brilliant trump card for the press, and this kind of “sour grapes” defense is used all over the place. It makes them come off as the rightous intelligent observer while you come off as an embittered Al Gore demanding a recount. They get a forum to completely decimate, sometimes professionally and constructively - sometimes not, something that you have spent a considerable amount of time and energy on. If you do as Jaffe did and share your thoughts on their “thoughts”, you get treated as if you are whining like a child. How stupid is that? It is not too dissimilar to that whole Wii debacle I had a few moths ago I guess. I know that being in a visible ‘public’ position means that you are held accountable for the things you say…and I am totally fine with that...but to me it really seems like a one way street here. With developers being held accountable and some members of the press (not all mind you) running off and making up whatever the hell they want. Not so sweet.

Whatever…in the end a review is an opinion. So when people comment on it, developer or non-developer, they are providing an opinion of an opinion. It is not whining…hell it’s not even news…at least to everyone else except some of the vultures circling above who realize they can spin it as whining.

Im gonna go play a little EDF 2017 now...

cory

This station is now the ultimate power in the universe!

2007-04-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well my schedule has picked up considerably since I last posted, leaving me little time to update as frequently as I would like. I actually have a little time here and there, but when I have it the last thing I want to do is sit at the computer. Plus I can’t really talk too much about most of the things I am working on now, so it is not much fun. But it is good to see that God of War: Chains of Olympus is finally fully out of the bag! Well maybe not fully out of the bag...but it is out there now. I can't really give you any more info than is already out though, but more info will be coming soon I promise. That game is shaping up nicely though...hopefully all of you were able to sign up for the free demo offer so you will get a chance to play the game when the demo is done.

This week has actually been one of the more hectic weeks as I am preparing for a nice little vacation. I hadn’t planned on it, but I am so very thankful it is happening. Since I spent a large portion of my break prepping for the current game I am working on I am not going to do any work, or even think about anything work related on this one for a full two weeks. (maybe I will take some time to play through some of the games that Totilo reccomended as well as my newly acquired copy of Planescape:Torment. Sweet) My god my brain really needs this. Lately I have been feeling like everything is moving in fast forward…like one of those old keystone cops movies. It will be good to slow the ride down for a bit and catch my breath so I can come back and make the push I know is coming.

Today Mark Ryden put up one of his prints for sale, an event I have been looking forward to for some time. He usually only puts out one print a year with a very limited number (500) so they are very hard to get. I got lucky last year and picked one up, a cool print called Rosie’s Tea Party.(pictured above) This year he was releasing one to promote his Tree show he has going around galleries. I was up at like 6:30 this morning refreshing his webpage like crazy hoping to catch the buy button the first moment it came up. I even had my mom (down in San Diego) working on this one. The button came up around 8:45 this morning, but the traffic quickly crashed the servers several times. Neither of us made it past the “add to cart” page. After about an hour or so the site went down completely and I had to get to work. So my mom took the reigns and kept an eye on the site. IT came up a few times over the next few hours but always quickly crashed. It seemed all hope was lost and that it was not meant to be. I was getting ready fro lunch when I decided to open the page up to see what it said, and in place of the buy button was a message apologizing for the bum servers and saying to send an email to the store with your info and they will take them on a first come first serve basis. I guess they still had a few hundred of the 500 left, so both of us sent an email in hopes of getting one of the last few. About two minutes after we sent them in the page refreshed with a “Thank you, this edition is sold out.”

Damn, no such luck I guess. They said they would call people today to let them know if they got it. By 6pm I had no call, so I was pretty much resolved that I got no love. But then an email shows up in my inbox like mana from heaven saying I got a print. Sweet…that was a nice way to cap off the day. Plus, my mom was able to get one as well…so we are both happy.

After that sweet victory it would have been nice to just call it a day and go home, but I still had a bunch of script notes to take care of so it was back to the grind for me. But I still got out of work at around 8:15 tonight, so I can’t really complain too much.

God of War II sold like 833 thousand units in the first month…good god that is crazy. That is like more than three of my previous games lifetime sales combined. Thank you all so much for supporting this game!!! I hope we can keep it up…then maybe we will get to make another one!

Let’s see…what else is new…I am going to go speak at CSU in early may. That should be fun. I got to go talk with a few classes at USC over the last few months and that was a blast. I always have a good time doing that kind of stuff. It gives me a chance chat with people without the fear of something I said ending up as a negative punch line on Kotaku.

Ok…I am going to watch a movie now.

cory

It is 5:01...and you are listening to Los Angeles...

2007-04-10T23:15:00.000-07:00

It has been a while folks, but I honestly haven’t been that compelled to write on the blog as of late. I think mostly because things have cranked up pretty heavily at work. It’s weird, in the beginning of a project you are supposed to (or at least I think you are supposed to) have the creative ramp up. The point where you have died down to zero from the last gig, and then you slowly throttle up to full speed and find your pace. But right now I feel like I have gone from a dead stop to full speed, like I am trying to hold on to the tail section of a rocket as it blasts off to freakin’ space. The strange thing is I have a lot more confidence in what I am doing now…I mean I know what it is I want to do. But trying to get it 'done' seems to be getting in the way.

Imagine this…it is like trying to write a term paper while running a mile in the rain with your coach pacing alongside you screaming for you to “move faster!” Perhaps I am over dramatizing it a bit…in fact I know I am over dramatizing it a bit. But you get the point.

I think I am just experiencing a little creative block or something. But at the end of the day this is a job, so being creative ‘on call’ is part of that job. Sometimes that is so much easier said than done. Only 24 hours ago I felt pretty damn good about everything we are doing…but what goes up must come down. I guess I am still good with where things are at right now, but there is still a ton of work. And some major points of where the story is going right now are starting to lose their luster. Perhaps I am allowing the excess noise to get in the way you know? Yeah maybe that is it…I just need to step back from things and take a look from a different perspective and I will see it.

Man that sounds convincing to me. Maybe it will work?

Nice, I haven’t written in a while and all I am doing now is bitching like I just skinned my knee playing kickball. That is lame. I mean the game is doing really well out there. People seem to be enjoying it. Well except that cat from the action-button site…he was not loving life when playing GOW2. Though it seemed the content of the review spoke fairly well of the game…at least what I could understand of it. That thing was more of an incoherent ramble than my post-alpha, late night, sleep deprived posts. Though I am sure it got their site a bunch of traffic. Smart move when you think about it. That is why Kotaku probably picked up on it…I loved the write up about the review that says people should read it “if only to see just why God of War II is so shit.”

Sweet. Perhaps not every gamers cup of tea, probably not the greatest game ever made, but ‘so shit.’ Maybe I am just biased but I really don’t see it as shit. But this is coming from a site that is the gaming equivalent of the freaking “Bennifer report!”…so whatever. Well maybe that is not entirely true since I do read the site form time to time and it has some good stuff. But I just wanted to find a way to throw the Bennifer thing in.

I suppose I should feel much differently than I feel now. I should be stoked. Aside from the usual smattering of haters, which you will get no matter what you do, most people are into the experience. I think we finished a great game, a game we are all so freaking proud of, and I am now full speed into another project. Things seem to be going pretty good right now. I should feel pretty damn sweet.

But I don’t. Instead I feel this insane case of writers block, or creative block…whatever. Like there are so many great ideas dangling from a string right in front of me, only someone just hit me in the head with a hammer, and I can’t make out which of the twelve things I see is the real idea. It’s there…I just gotta’ make sure I don’t get hit with a hammer again.

In other non-self indulgent news, Tim Moss, our director of technology has started a blog. After a few years of using my blogging as a weak punch line for his own amusement, he has finally succumbed to the world of the blog. (I think he even said that he was disappointed in the Wii…get HIM!!!) I imagine it is because he has a lot more free time on his hands right now…though that will all change when his kid arrives.

I honestly do not know how anyone does it here. How they can do this job and have a family. I am so completely consumed with the work that I can’t imagine how I would balance this job with trying to see a wife and kids. I can’t even have a freaking pet! I had fish…but even they required more time than I was willing to give. How freaking sad is that?

“Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffin’ glue.”

I am sure this is just me though, since there are so many people here that have families as well as pets. They make it work…and god bless em’ for it cause’ it is so not happenin’ for me.

Ok, I have rambled on for long enough, I am going to go to sleep. Tomorrow I will wake up and all will be right in the world.

cory

Thats a wrap!

2007-03-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty busy lately getting the next game we are working on up and running so sorry for the lack of communication everyone. We still have a lot of work to do but I think I am finally getting my head around this thing. Not that I fully understand it yet, because I am far from that, but I have made some good progress.

We had the God of War II wrap party on Friday, which was a freaking blast. The team was on the tail end of their breaks and it was good to see everyone from the team enjoying themselves even if it was under somewhat inebriated circumstances near the end of the evening. We got the first week sales numbers which were pretty freaking amazing. It is very strange to work on a game that outsells most of my other games in the first week. I still look back on the game and nit-pick several things about it but overall I am very happy with what we ended up with. It is a little sad to reach the end of God of War 2, but also very liverating to know that we are comeltely done with it and people are digging it. Though to be honest I did stop looking at reviews recently since I am so swamped with work and reading them just puts me into a nit-pick mood again.

Also sorry about that whole website confusion…we had some silly routing issues that were never checked out and a bunch of stuff got screwed up. My bad on that one folks. I am proud to see someone who follows this site found the secret first…though I am bummed that it was all messed up when you found it (edit.) GodModeGod. (Sorry..my bad!) Stay tuned for the reveal of what it is all about.

Thank you again for all the kind words and feedback about the game. I have finally caught up on everything and rather than respond in a bunch of comments I thought I would just write a post. The European version will have two different SKU’s, unfortunately the US version is the only single two-disc version. If you want both discs you will need to get the two disc edition in Europe. I have put some calls in about the PAL demo and when I get it I will be sending it out to everyone who is on the PAL list.

Let’s see what else is new…sadly not too much. Prepping for the next game is taking up almost all of my free time. I did get to pick up S.T.A.L.K.E.R this weekend but it took me forever to get it up and running. You know, as much as I dig playing PC games I think I am going to cut down on the number of PC games I play. It seems that I usually spend a day or so just trying to get the damn things running. Then I find out that my machine is unser spec for the game to run smoothly with at least some of the cool looking options on so I end up thinking about an upgrade. No good. I think I will be sticking to console games for awhile since it is just easier. I will say that the drama I had with S.TA.L.K.E.R was mostly due to my own machine though. The CPU kept overheating when I was trying to install it. I needed to open up the box and clean it out…then it worked like a charm. That is until I loaded up a game and realized that I have to turn almost all the options either off or really low just to get a decent frame rate. Boo for that. But I spent some time tinkering and found a somewhat happy medium…total time from opening the box to actually playing…6 hours. Not too much fun. I start lacing up the boxing gloves when it gets that 'unfun' :)

This is not to say “GOW developer gets a PC game, gets disappointed” or anything. Because that is so comepltely not true. I just don’t have the time like I used to spend fiddling with things just to get a game to run.

I have been playing a little bit of Dawn of Sorrow on my DS as well…I really like that game. Sometimes Castlevania games are hard for me to get in to right away, which cause me to stop playing. But I always end up picking them up again and finding that groove. I found that groove on the plane back from GDC. I got to a point in the game that had me thinking about what free time I can steal to sit down and play some more. That is definitely the sign of a good game to me.

I am still not playing much of my Wii though. I went back to Trauma Center and tried making sure the lighting in the room was solid...it did feel better, but I still suck at it. The DS version was more about the fun...this one feels like it is just harder. I got a lot further into the game but there was a point that I just stopped. I might go back to it, but that game was kicking my ass. I haven't had as much time over my 'mini-vacation' to play the new Zelda, which bums me out. I want to see all the cool things people keep talking about. Maybe I will do that tonight?

We got our copies of the soundtrack CD today so that was cool. I have been listening to the master recording they sent me when we were in production so it will be nice to finally have a real CD.

I just realized that this is my first official post about the next game I am working on…crazy. It is definitely good to have that first one out of the way, but going on to a new piece of hardware kind of makes me feel like I am hitting the reset button all over again. Which may be a good thing since I think it makes me work twice as hard, which in turn makes the game that much better!

So there you go. Hope all is well with everyone and you are enjoying the game!

Cory

...cause it's G...D...C...oye...oye...oye...

2007-03-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

It's dynomite!

Ok well maybe not dynomite exactly...but good times.

So sorry for the lack of updates everyone but I have been taking a hiatus from the computer as my break comes to a close. I have just finished up the last of the GDC (game developers conference) stuff and now I am chillin in my hotel room waiting to go to the Video Games live show tonight...which should be pretty freaking sweet. I have been wanting to make it out to the show for a year or so but have always been busy when the oppurtunity arose...but not this time baby!!!

GDC was ok...the lectures and roundtables still dissapoint me a bit...at least for design. They are all so general and really feel like lite version of talks. I never feel like I walk out of here with any new really useful info. but it is great to get a chance to chat with all the friends I haven't seen in so long due to my development hiburnation, so that works out nice.

I went to the Sony party on wednesday night and had a freaking great time. They had probably one of the best musical line ups that I have ever hear at a sony party. This amazing dj named Mike Relm did a wicked set that blew my mind...he did some video mixing that was linked to his scratching...totally amazing. I was totally spellbound for the whole set. He also had some wicked beat juggeling skills and a sweet song selection. They also had Cut Chemist come by and tear it up on the wheels of steel...which is always great. I have seen him a few times and everytime I am just blown away. then I drank a little too much...well maybe not then..it was more like the whole night. But I didn't get sick or get arrested...so it was a good night.

The launch event is coming up...we are doing that little shindig at the playstation store in SF at midnight on Tuesday...or is it called monday at midnight? Hmmm...not sure...it is basically the first few minutes of March 13th. Should be a good time, I am going to take photos and post them up when I get home.

Not too much else has happened...I am going to be doing the tourist thing here is SF over the weekend, checking out the sites. I really want to go see the rock...not the wrestler...the prison. I wnet there as kid but I don't remeber it much. I think I am going to head out to a party some of the 1up and EGM peeps are throwing as well. I think that will be fun, though I really need a vacation after this vacation...I am worn out.

No answer for y'all on the PAL demo situation...I havent been the office but I will find out what I can and let everyone know.

Ok I gotta go get ready for this show now.

Cory

almost made it to 300 comments...crazy. :)

Enough Already...

2007-02-24T16:01:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-02-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2007-02-20T23:48:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-02-12T00:23:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2007-02-07T12:09:00.001-08:00

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!

My work here...is done.

2007-01-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Well maybe not "here" here...more like there...my work "there" is done...if the meaning of "there" is "God of War 2"...then that is what I mean. Anyway, today is Sunday January 28 and it is safe to say that all of the primary work for God of War 2 has been completed. There are still bugs to be worked out as the game goes through the final bit of Quality Assurance (QA), but for all intents and purposes I am done with everything I can do on the project. My break between projects begins on Monday, though I will probably go into the office to take care of a few last minute things. If definitely doesn’t feel done to me, most likely because it was so abrupt. I was on a very funky sleep schedule for the last week of the project working through the nights several days in a row…but its all gotten done. I have to give many thanks to the sound guys Phil, Todd, Paul, Mike, Paul for putting in some great work unders ome pretty tough conditions. I also need to thank the cinematics sound guys (Mike and Chris) who drove up on a moments notice from San Diego and stayed up all night working on the movie mixes. The game sounds freaking awesome!!

As far as the billion questions Mr. (or Mrs. Anonymous posted)…you wouldn’t happened to be a journalist would you? I will try to answer some of them, but forgive me if I miss a few I am still trying to recover and get back on a regular sleep cycle.

The weapons switching is a single button (R2) and it is fast and easy. There is no animation delay and you can switch from the Blades of Athena in mid move to The Barbarian Hammer, do a big hit, and then switch to any of the four magic’s to hit the creature some more, and if you like (and the creature is still alive) you can switch back tot he Blades of Athena to do the final kill move…all while keeping your combo going. While everyone on the internet loves to say “Hey that is such a (insert game here) rip-off” or “They stole that from (insert game here)”…what they don’t realize is when someone does something cool in a game…everyone notices it. When I play a game and they do something cool I look at how they did it and file that away to use later. That isn’t to say that everything about the games we make is just found or borrowed from some other game, but when something really works well there is no reason not to use it. Some call it stealing; I call it realizing when something works. I’m not sure how much you can compare our weapon switching to DMC, my guess is all the DMC purists will say that DMC’s is better…whatever. The whole point for us was to give the player the freedom to switch whenever they wanted while still maintaining the easy to use accessible controls. So when the game comes out you will have to let me know if we succeeded.

As for the usage of the original magic’s from God of War 1…we were not able to get the full “everything you had from the first game crosses over to the second” functionality we originally set out to do. There just was not enough memory for that, but we did add some cool stuff for the second play-through of the game in the form of Urns that you find that allow you to assign a power or fiunctionality to whatever model you choose. So if you want to use Poseidon's Rage again you can, you just have to find the Urn that gives you that power hidden somehwere in the world of God of War 2.

This is a nicer shot of that Gamestop post the other day. This is going to be the cover for the Hardcore gamer magazine that comes out at the end of the month. They are gonna be giving some info on Atlas, so check it out!

In regards to the demo, it has been out in QA for a while now and is on target to get finished and pressed in the beginning of February. I have the list of people that will be getting demos and they should be the first to go out! So keep an eye out for a posting about that.

The website should be up soon, I looked at the final comps of that on Friday and it looks sweet. I think it could be up in as little as a week or so.

All right I am going to go relax a little bit and maybe play the rest of Gears of War. I am finally got into it a little and am at the Berserker boss. Man…one hit kill boss…that cliffyb is hard to the core. And I am playing on casual mode too. Yeah I know…but I like to get through a game once before I have it kick my ass on difficulty. Anyway…I am going to take some time and post again tomorrow…maybe with some more pics.

cory

The final blurry days...

2007-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of cool images I just got from marketing showing some of the gamestop promo stuff that is starting to appear. It is a pretty firm reminder to me that we are almost done with this long, long journey. Well there's that and the fact that we are shipping our disc to FPQA in the next 24 hours...if everything goes right. I got home around 1:45am or so this morning (which is nothing compared to the hours the rest of the team is putting in) after our marathon two day playtest we just finished. It went really well, with great responses and test scores all around. The game seems to be pretty tight...we just made some last minute adjustments to fight difficulty and the overall economy of the games upgrading system. Of course I would love to have another playtest...maybe even two...but that is not in the cards. I am confident that we have got everything shored up though. And the game length has stay right around 15-17 hours...so that is pretty freaking sweet! I slept into day so I could be ready for the all nighter session I have tonight going over the whole game for the final sound mix approval. The really cool thing is all the final movies will be in with their sound mixes as well...so this will be my first playthrough seeing everything as it should be. I was supposed to sleep until 3pm or so but I just couldn't get back to sleep...to anxious. I am sure everything will work out fine, but knowing that after today I will not be able to go in there and make changes is pretty scary. This usually happens to me with whatever I am working...but this time it is on such a large scale that my brain just wont shut up...I am going over every detail constantly to make sure there wasn't something I missed. (I am sure there will be many things I missed)

What else is new in the world of God of War? The demo's are getting closer, unfortunately I still don't have a rock solid date for them yet..they need to go through QA and then manufacturing so I would rather not just throw a date out without really knowing. But when they are ready I will post something and let everyone know about it.

I think I am going to be starting my hiatus soon...still working out the specifics on it. I will need to get back to work pretty soon so I can't start fleshing out the next project I am going on. I think it is going to be a pretty big one...but nothing is set in stone so I won't talk about it too much now. But I will give you a hint...the duff sisters have agreed to play a major part in it, and it is an MMO, and it has all the teen stars of today in it, with guns, and orcs...cause really...orcs just make a game better...am I right? Actually I really haven't even wrapped my head around the whole thing yet, so there isn't much to talk about anyway. As much as I didn't want to, I think I will end up working on it over the break just so I can get a head start and hit the ground running. I think it would be impossible for me not to be working it out over the break...though I really want to try and step away from all that stuff at LEAST two weeks. Here's to hoping I can do it!

Oh and to the anonymous poster who wrote about the Typhon story...I think you might have written me a message on myspace a couple days ago as well, sorry for not responding...Keep an eye out for the game though, as I think you will be pleasantly surprised when it comes out. :)

'aight...gotta go to work.

It's coming...

2007-01-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

I came into the office today to play through what will be our final submission to QA for the demo. I was checking the sound mix and making sure everything is good to go...we are still tracking down a few sound volume issues but for the most part the demo is done and ready to go out. I am really freaking excited to finally get this game into some fresh hands and hear the feedback on it. So to celebrate this monumentus occasion I thought I would post a copy of the demo cover art for your enjoyment. It is a pretty sweet image...one of the concept artists (Andy Park) whipped this image up awhile back and I am a huge fan of it.

We are still on track to get the demo out in the early part of next months so when I get the word that the demos are in I will post something and let you guys know that your discs will be showing up soon!! Sweet...Christmas in February.

Let's see...what else is new? Well we are going to have all of our final movies and sound mixing done this Wednesday and then the full game will be going through its last round of QA stuff...so in only a few short days I will have reached the point where I really can't change much. I think that is going to be hard for me. As much as I need a break and some time off...and to just let this thing go...I know it is going to be hard to know that I can't make any more tweaks or changes. You have to let it go sometime...but since this is my first...it makes it that much harder. Hopefully Old grandma Hardcore will play the game on titan mode and cuss up a storm...thus giving me, and the rest of the team, a true sense of accomplishment! :)

Speaking of Titan mode...no that is not a rumor. We still have four difficulty modes in the game, (3 available right away and one unlocked after beating the game) but we have really tweaked the higher difficulty levels...so much so that God mode no longer felt the "hardest". So now we have "titan" mode...and let me tell you it is freaking hard...doable of course...but hard. The demo only has one difficulty available, but the final game will keep those of you who appreciate the challenge buys for awhile I think.

I think I saw someone ask a question about DEMETER in the comments...unfortunately Demeter is not in the game. I wrote a story originally that had her and her daughter Persephone and several other gods in it, but it never really felt right for what we wanted to do with God of War 2. But there might be something in the game in relation to an earth based magic though...so you had half of the info right. Keep an eye out for more info on that. I think we have a cover story in next months Hardcore Gamer magazine that will talk more about where you get this magic from.

As the project begins to wind down I find myself starting to think about all the games I have missed out on because of the crazy crunch to get this game done. And then I think of the time off I will probably get between this and whatever it is I am going to be doing next. (cough, cough) And to show how truly freaking nerdy I am I actually wrote up a list of all the games (some I have started and some I have not) I want to get to now that I am looking down the barrel of a sweet vacation. I broke it down by system even...man I need to get a life outside of games....though honestly doing this stuff actually makes me happy so I guess I don't need to get a life...I already have one. Just one that most talk show hosts, politicians, nutritionists, and Zealots would not approve of. Who cares...fuck them it my world right? I will just embrace my pseudo Howard Hughes like love for "shut in" gaming goodness and hope that over the break I do this so much that I am bored...and itching to create again. That is really what I need to do...I need to get bored so I can reignite that creative flame (cheesy I know) and prepare for another huge, in your face crazy gaming opus. Perhaps I am giving myself too much credit with the "opus" part but oh well...that is how I roll.

Anyway...here is what I got...feast on my nerdyness:

Xbox360
Oblivion (Need to Finish)
Gears of War (Need to Finish)
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Splinter Cell: Double agent
LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2
Lost Planet
Just Cause (Need to Finish)
Call of Duty 3
Dead Rising
Tomb Raider: Legend (Need to Finish)
Hitman: Blood Money (Need to Finish)
G.R.A.W. (Need to Finish)
Condemned: Criminal Origins (Need to Finish)
Saints Row (Need to Finish)

PS3
Resistance: Fall of Man (Need to Finish)
Tony Hawk: Project 8

PS2
Bully
MGS3
GTA: San Andreas (Need to Finish)
Final Fantasy XII (My god this is one going to take forever)
DMC3 (Need to Finish)
Silent Hill 3

Gamecube
Zelda: Windwaker (Need to Finish)
Zelda: Twilight Princess

PC
W.O.W. + some Burning Crusade loving
Titan Quest (Need to Finish)

Jesus that is a lot of games I need to play. There really is no possible way I am going to be able to finish them...but I am going to try and polish off some of the big ones that I have been jonesing to play. (Like MGS3) We will see. I will probably be posting a lot more during that time and lurking around the forums to see how the game is being received...god I hope it is good.

OK enough for today...I am going to go check on the build and see if we have everything sewn up and ready to go.

Cory

UPDATE FOR THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!

2007-01-15T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ok so here is a little shout out to all my PAL brotha's and sista's....in order to spread the God of War 2 loving evenly around to the masses I have just gotten confirmation that we WILL in fact be doing a PAL demo of the sweetness that is God of War 2...so rest assured my European brethren...you will be rocked by the demo of God of War 2!

All of you who sent in demo requests from far off lands (far off from L.A. that is) will be rolling with a brand new sweet PAL copy of the demo...why...because you freaking rock...and don't let anyone tell you different.

So stick that in your pipe and le' smoke it! YEAH!!! (Currently I am striking the sweet "Zelda" I just opened a chest pose!)

Hopefully that will bring a little belated christmas joy to everyone!

ok...back to work for me.

cory

"No, man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is." -- John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction"

GOW 2...Grandma approved!

2007-01-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

So today will just be a mini update as I am worn out and not all that enthusiastic about sitting at the computer for much longer. I am as tired as I look in the IGN video :) It is funny how many people say that to me now…though I looked a hell of a lot worse around alpha and beta. I really need to start sleeping more. Not sure how much of an improvement it is going to be even when I do sleep though…I think I am one of those perpetually tired looking people…like Vince Vaughn and Susan Sarandon. We are members of the “Oh god I am tired” club. It’s a pretty sweet club…we have a secret handshake and everything…though we are usually too tired to do it.

Did some tuning of the final boss this weekend and make some huge leaps forward. We have been struggling with this boss for awhile trying to figure out what to do with him. We have this huge collection of ideas that never really felt right to us…but finally we hit a moment of clarity and really honed in on what the fight should be about. Derek (The combat guy tackling the Herculean task…and no that is not a hint as to who he is...the boss that is not Derek. I suppose he is quite Herculean for a vegetarian.) and I decided to just step back and rethink a few things and really just throw away things that didn’t work. Once we stripped the boss down and got out all the clutter it was like “Oh shit…there it is. I can see it now.” I love those moments. Not only because they mean we are close to being done…but also because they really feel like a nice victory. And right now we really needed that victory with all the last minute chaos going on. But the good news is the End Time is near!! And when it comes I hope that you are all as into the game as we are. Except for bruceleethree on the IGN boards…he is obviously disappointed in what we have done. J Just kidding bruce...I think it is cool that you stood up and said what you said…but hopefully you check the game out when it comes out so you can see what we have done with it.

About the demos…there seems to be a lot of people posting their email addresses saying send the demo here. Just to clear things up…I am not sending out a digital version of the demo. It will be a NTSC disc that will be sent out to the peeps who responded a while back when I posted about it. Sorry to all who are hoping to get one now, but I am already waaay over the number I originally set out for. For the people who are hoping for a PAL demo, I am really, really sorry but with the time frame we have in front of us there just is not enough time to get both a PAL and NTSC demo done. I would love to do that, but I really want to ship this game on time. So many apologies to my non NTSC homies but you can revel in the fact that you most likely use the metric system…which while I do not understand it…I know it is far superior to the Scientific American system. So there you go!

Hmmm…this is turning into a bigger post than expected…oh well I shall continue on. I suddenly got inspired to buy a little present for myself last week. I honestly thought it would take much longer than it did to arrive…but Saturday morning I took delivery of my sweet new Astro City arcade cabinet with Marvel Superheroes.

This is a really sucky picture of the actual cabinet. My camera phone is wicked ghetto...I thought it might be good but alas it is so very not.

This is a much better photo of pretty much the same thing...the "suck" has been removed.

I am looking to pick up Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which is the main reason I bought the thing. That freaking game rules. I still suck ass at it, but who knows maybe I will get better from the countless hours that both I and my buddy Ralph Macchio will be spending on it. Who better to learn the ancient arts from than the Karate Kid?

The cabinet is pretty damn sweet, but the one downfall is that it smells like red curry. Not like a little bit either…a freaking lot…which is pretty dope if you loves you some red curry I suppose. While I enjoy the red curry…it is not so great to have the house smell like it. I will have to do some serious disinfecting and scent removal.

Not much else going on really…perhaps that is a little sad now that I think about it. But our game is going final soon so I will have more time to have a life I suppose. I think I will play a few rounds of Marvel before I retire this evening.

Man I so lied...this was way more than a mini update. I must have channeled the power of the double "K".

Cory

The End Begins...

2007-01-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

...in 62 days!! Today’s image is our new mascot for the Santa Monica Studios. Sadly, Beta, the “Chuck Norris” of mascot cats has passed on in what is being called a freak accident involving a hedge-trimmer, a 73 Dodge Dart, and a middle-aged Tae Kwon Do expert with an overbite named Floyd. He had an overbite and his name was floyd...it wasn't some guy who had an overbite he had named floyd...that would just be weird. The details are still sketchy at this time, but we have The Scooby team looking into it. Meanwhile life must go on, so we brought in our second in command in the mascot world, “Almost Final” the Dog. You may not know it from looking at this deceptively cute canine, but “Almost Final” trained under world renowned sensei and master blues guitarist Steven Segal in the ways of Aikido. I once saw “Almost Final” Tear a man limb from limb using only a pair of toenail clippers and a sippy cup straw for cutting in line at the Jamba Juice. Never get between “Almost Final” and his morning hit of wheat grass…it is not pretty. As you can see “Almost Final” is a big God of war fan. I think it is the first canine in history to participate in Video game cosplay…but don’t quote me on that…and never make fun of his slightly edgier “crossplay” Sailor Moon outfit.

So here we are just days away from another milestone for God of War 2 and the studio is buzzing with sounds many bugs being closed. I am not sure what exactly it sounds like when a bug is closed…but whatever that sounds it…it is being heard quite a lot.

We are going to be breaking off the demo code pretty soon and tuning the final tuning pass on the demo level so that is pretty damn exciting. It means that those of you who emailed earlier about the demo will soon be holding your sweet copy of the God of War 2 Demo…looking all bad ass and glistening in the sun…the demo…not you. Of course if you choose to oil yourself up before playing the demo that is your business…I am not here to judge. No firm date on when that stuff will go out yet but rest assured that when I know…you will know.

IGN is stopping by for a visit tomorrow to check out the latest stuff so that ought to be fun. I still wish we had more time before we show stuff…but I am going to feel like that all the way up to the street date…and probably many weeks beyond that. Such is the nature of my OCD I guess. Anyway it will still be nice to get some fresh eyes on this thing and see what their reaction is. Let’s hope it is a good reaction J I believe they are going to put it up pretty quickly but not 100% sure as to when so keep an eye out.

I need to get to a character tuning session now so I will end this update here, but I will probably come back to it later in the day to blab on about some more cool stuff that is going on in the wonderful word of carnage and brutality.

Another funny thing of note…some of the titles I use have yielded some funny results on the visitors. I saw that someone entered a google search string of “Don’t date an Beta male” and ended up here…hopefully that person is still checking in on the blog as I will be starting a ten part series on “the beta male and you.”

Word

Cory

Happy freaking New Year!

2007-01-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

Wow…lots of stuff to cover today. I will try and answer as many questions as I can as well as update the progress of all things God of War 2. With Beta behind us and the final disk just a short distance away things are quite hectic around the God of War ranch.

First let me comment to all about the release issue. It was no easy decision to push the date back, and we weighed all the options before pushing forward with that plan. I know it sucks…I know this because I play a ton of games and I too hate it when they get pushed back numerous times. But when the game I have been waiting for comes out and it is good, then I am thankful they took the extra time to make it good instead of shoving it out the door just to make a buck. I don’t want to do that as I think it is freaking lame. Of course we are not pushing it back so much that you could call the game "God of War 2: Forever" or anything. Anyway we pushed the date back to March for the sole reason of making sure this game fucking rocks. Hard. I hope when it is released that you all share that same sentiment.

As for the cut scenes…yes…we are having both high resolution cut scenes and in game cut scenes to progress the story along…so no worries there. I know I am biased, but I really think the cut scene work on this game is such an incredible step forward from what we had on the last game, but I will let you all be the judges on that one when the game comes out. Please come back and comment on stuff …good or bad. I love to hear feedback from people.

Let’s see…the demos! Well good news is we are working on the content for that stuff right now…which is looking pretty freaking sweet in my totally biased opinion. We are doing a final asset lock on the 12th of the month and then finishing the final balancing and tweaking and sound mixing and then we are good to freaking go. There is still some time left, but the end is in sight and let me tell you it feels fucking great to see that. We have worked pretty hard for the last two years and I know I am eager to get this thing out in front of people. (And take a vacation) When we finish the final tuning and then manufacturing on the demos I will make a post about when they will be sent out. My free time is not too abundant these days so I can’t really go through the list and let everyone know who is getting a demo…but rest assured that if you sent an email in that you will be getting one. There was a little mess up on my part the first day, but only two people were affected and they sent in like four other emails after so it is totally cool.

We had a playtest over the Christmas break which went pretty well. The game still has some balancing issues that came to light which we are resolving now but overall it went good. We also found a little issue with the clarity of the story that I am working out but nothing too major. Other than that the team is working like mad to get the last minute touches and polish in on the game…we are on our last of the big late night pushes until the 12th. I am sure there will be some more late nights after that though.

Well I want to sit and just write a bunch more about what is going on and such but I think I need to get back to work.

UPDATE:

Here is a link to the God of War 2 Kratos action figure being done by NECA...it is really freaking sweet! These guys rock the house that rocks the house.

WE MADE BETA BITCHES!!!!

2006-12-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

Sweeet! God of War 2 is officially beta now. I searched on google images for the word beta and this image came up in the top three…so this is now the god of War 2 Beta mascot…beta the kitten. Don’t be fooled by the innocent exterior this is actually most vicious kitten to ever live. It has already killed 57 people including a local orphan boy that looked at it funny. You don’t mess with beta…ever!

We are burning some discs for everyone to take home over their holiday break and play. So it will be a God of War 2 Christmas for some…hopefully they will all come back with a ton of good notes and we will spend all of January fixing up and polish the game to make is super mint!!! I can’t wait to finish this thing and get more people playing it.

As for the idea that we pushed back so why don’t we add some levels…we pushed back to make sure everything we have now is as tight and clean and fun as it can be. We are using that extra time to make the game solid not to add more stuff to it and release a buggy game. So no luck on that….and for the special edition…I think it would take way more than a few weeks to do that so I don’t see that happening right away.

As for the demo we are still looking to finish that thing up in Jan. as well so I will keep you posted on the status of that and make a big post when the demo’s get shipped out to everyone. It will be friggin’ sweet.

Ok I am out to lunch now.

cory

GOW2...sweet...like Monkey's in Space.

2006-12-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well here we are on Beta day…things are moving right along but we are still tracking down some progression stoppers on the disc. Hopefully we will be able to iron out these latest bugs and get a disc burned that is super clean. I think we have until Friday to ensure we have a really clean disc, this way we can get a solid playtest over the holidays.

I am really looking forward to the next playtest since we really haven’t had a playthrough that has been bug free enough to have players use the same saves the whole way through. I need to see how players are upgrading and what they are getting at what point in the game to get a good snapshot of the overall item placement and economy. I am feeling pretty good about the pacing right now, but that tends to change from playtest to playtest. But with this one I think we will be much closer to what the “entire” game needs to feel like, then it will just be a matter of polishing and nitpicking several little elements and fights. This is the fun part of the game’s development. The part where everyone on the team gets to playthrough what we have been slaving away on for the last two years and see the fruits of their labor. It is always good to get the notes from the team as well in regards to what they liked, what was too hard or too easy or just plain not fun. January is going to be a tough month, but I know we will pull it together and come out on top with a freaking great game!!!

But right now I know we are all just looking forward to our holiday break. The team is exhausted from this last push. I feel like a freaking zombie most of the time and I definitely need the cool down time to recharge the creative juices…cuz seriously right now I am hanging on by a thread.

Oh the holiday party was really good as well. I drank a little too much and luckily made it home thanks to the super sweet L.A. cab system. It was a rough next day…even though we were able to come in after 1pm.

Got a PS3 recently, but haven’t really been able to check it out much. I hooked it up, but after that I only had the energy to check out the first level of Genji and then go to sleep. The game looks great, but it really doesn’t feel as good as I was hoping. I will have to give it another go over my break…but first I wan to sit and get some time with Gears of War and see what all the hubbub is about.

Well I need to get back to work but first I will try and answer some of the numerous questions you posed in the last post:

Will Icarus wings be in the game?
Hell yeah…that is how we roll…Daedalus style.

Will the Icarus wings be remodeled?
What we now is final and looks freaking sweet. Not sure what you saw but it was most likely older.

When will the full website be up?
No clue on this one. I can find out but things are so busy that I am sure I will forget to ask about that.

Barbarian Hammer…info on the weapon?
This will be a weapon that Kratos will take from the Barbarian King if you can defeat him. I can’t say too much now, but I can tell you it is pretty sweet. Granted I am fairly baised. I can tell you that when you take these weapons from enemies, you keep them for the rest of the game.

Is it true that you are in fact Bionic?
Yes. This si not something I normally talk about but yes I am in fact bionically enhanced to rock the fucking house. While my bionic enhancements were far cheaper than siz million dollars they still cost a pretty penny. I also make that cool nahnahnahnahnah sound when I walk, run, jump, and climb stairs.

Is there going to be a Chimera in the game?
Sadly no…we worked on that one for awhile but in the end we found that we just did not have the time to get many of the characters we originally planned for the game up to the level we wanted them…and when we needed to readdress the scope of the game a while back it really did not seem sensible to have so many enemies.

Ok…so there you have it….a little informal Q&A for y’all to tide you over a few days until the next update when I shout from the mountaintops “WE MADE BETA BITCHES!!!!” I could not answer all the questions since some of the info is still unreleased…so sorry if your question did not get answered.

Aight’…peace out.

GOW2...tightening up the graphics on level 3!

2006-12-10T17:04:00.000-08:00

8 days to our beta disk and things are shaping up rather nice. We are still scrambling to get things together and "tightened up" which is causing us to put in some more late nights but the good thing is we have our company Christmas party tonight so the team will get a little break from the grind to toss a few back and eat some good food.

Today Nate and I went through and tuned the last of the fights based on our last playtest noptes and then wnet through and did all the save point names and area announces. That stuff seems simple but man is it hard coming up with short names for locations of the game. I had a handful in mind already but there were a few that threw us. We were doing a lot of the old "shift-F7" in word trying to find clever words for things. But we got it done so I can cross that task off my list. New week I need to go through all hte in game messages and make sure they are all good to go. Not the most exciting part of the job, but it is none the less important.

We had a big breakthrough with our Pegasus stuff this last week as well. Eric and Thomas put some stuff in that really locked the melee combat. I mean it is like a billion times better than it has ever been so I am eternally grateful to them for thier perseverence on that stuff.

Well this is not much of an update but I got to go start getting ready for the party since cocktails start at 6:30 and I am not one to ever be late for cocktails. Though I don't imagine I will be telling anyone to go fuck themselves in the grotto tonight.

I will see what I can do about getting that video up but I can't promise anything as I am sure I will get caught up in so many things and forget to do the legowrk on the video thing...so when I sit down to do my next update I will do so empty handed.

Oh one other thing regarding the whole release date rumor...as far as I know the game releases in North America first and then europe but from what I understand the time in between releases will be REALLY short. Not sure exactly how long but it I don't imagine it being months or anything.

allright...for real this time. I got to get ready because I really don't want to be late for the opening band they have playing tonight...based on my last posts and fascination with swedish rock bands of the 80's sony has gotten the all swedish rock cover band "Fjords!" They play songs from Europe, Ace of Base, Abba, and Hoven Droven! Maybe Dave will get up and bust out a keyboard solo?

word.

cory

It's the fiiiiinal countdowwwn!!!

2006-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so today is December 4th and we go beta in 16 days. We still have a lot of work to do, but nothing I don't think we can't complete. It is going to be a rough next few weeks, but there will be a nice mini break for the holidays to recover from the final rush to the "almost" finish line. After the holidays we will be doing the final gameplay tuning and orb/economy balancing as well as finish up any last minute stuff we were unable to get to for beta. We still got a wild ride ahead of us.

But as for now...the game is looking great. We had another full game playthrough last week and the gameplay time was a little higher than last time. In fact the playtesters did not even finish in the alotted time we had for the playtest. The grouping we got this time was more leaning towards the casual players. I thoiught they were going to be a bit more fo the casual hardcore players, but it didn't turn out that way. But there was still a lot I learned from watching them play and work through the various combat scenarios and puzzles. the good thing is we are pretty locked on all the games puzzles...there really isn't much we need to do with them besides finishing up the final implementation and art...which is sweet since there is still many combat scenarious that are in need of some attention to get them to 100%.

Let's see what else is going on...amidst all this chaos of making beta I had to move into a new apartment. I was bidding on a townhouse but the deal just went south and I decided to cancel it and go with the renting for a year or so more. The market out here still sucks anyway so it is for the best. The only problem was I had to find an apartment, pack and move in basically 24 hours. That...freakin....sucked. But in the end it got done and now I don't have to worry about it. Though I am feeling like I rasn myself down so much last wek that I am getting sick this week. I feel the beginings of a cold...that drowsy stuffed up thing. I hate that.

Ok enough about that boring crap...more about God of War 2. Ariel edited together a collection of footage from God of War 2 for the Sony gameshare show in London and we screened it for the team on Friday. She did the thing in a night and it looked freaking great. It really did a lot to fire the team up for this last push. Well at least I hope it fired the team up since it got me psyched. We used a piece of music that was recored over in the chezch republic (or something like that) last month. Very cool live choir and orchestra...really gives a sense of power to the movie.

Saw some more progress ont he GOW Kratos figure last week. They sent the painted version of the sculpt which looks great. We are getting pretty close to finish it up. Hopefully it will be comepletely done by the end of the month so I can show off some pics.

Finally got to play some Gears of War this weekend. Not for long mind you, but at least I got some time with it. Spent about 30 minutes playing and it does look good, but I am not totally sucked in yet. I am sure it will get better, but it feels a bit generic right now. Could just be that I really didn't get to sit and focus on playing it though, or it could be the whole prisoner who has to save the world thing is a bit too Tango and Cash for me. Ok well maybe not Tango and Cash...I was just looking for a way to force a Tango and Cash reference in there because Tango and Cash RULE!!!! I do like the idea that you can choose to skip the tutorial section...that is really sweet. I also really like the one button cover system though...clean and simple. Seems many of the designers hate it because they never know what you are going to do...it made sense to me though. After about 5 minutes I felt fairly comfortable with it. The Grenade throwing thing is a little odd for me though. I keep throwing them short. Anyway...hope to get to play some more. Probably after this game ships. :)

Also...just a reminder for the other who commented...the demos will not be out until the end of January at the very earliest. We are focusing 100% on making the game great right now...so the demo will be the first task when that is done. But I think it will be worth the wait though.

aight...gotta get to work now.

P.S.

Europe rocks...I was in a tribute band before I was in the game biz...this is a recording of one of our more rocking shows. We rocked that county fair like nobodys buisness. Asses were kicked. Thats dave Jaffe on the keyboards kickin the mad solo. hahahahahahaha...

The unbearable lightness of Beta...

2006-11-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

I am alive muhuhwahahahahahahaha!! So after a little blogging hiatus due to an increasing amount of work on the game I have decided to stick my head up for a minute to give a little update on the progress of God of War 2.

First…sorry about the lack of clarity on the demo’s…those will not be going out until we finish the demo…which will not be until late January at the earliest. So keep an eye out for a post that will let you know when the demo is done and ready to be shipped out.

And now on to the updates about the game….we had our first full game playtest recently which went pretty well. Our average playtime was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours…so that is good. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to polish this thing up, but seeing it in it’s completed from was really good for us. I got to see a lot of the areas that felt good on their own, but in the context of the whole game they felt a little off…so lots of good tuning notes. This was also the first time anyone has played through the game and experienced the entire story, so I got a lot of good notes on clearing up loose ends and reinforcing things that were a little unclear.

Nearly all the game art is in the game in some form or another and is looking fucking fantastic…now the artists are working to finalize and optimize everything. It is a tough time for everybody, but it is also a very exciting time in the development of the game since everything is finally coming together and starting to look like a real game as opposed to the small fragments we have been working with for so long.

We are working pretty long days from now until the end of Beta (end of Dec) so my updates may not be as frequent but I am sure you all will understand.

I got to listen to some of the entries in the God of Noise battle fo the bands thing…pretty cool stuff. I haven’t listened to them all yet, but I think I will have to get on that since the selects need to get made soon.

We are also getting closer to finishing the sculpt for the Kratos action figure…which looks freaking sweet! I can’t wait to see them finished. Not sure when that one will be coming out but imagine it will sometime near the games release.

Also about the guest speaker…he was going to do something last week but due to our schedules getting more hectic it did not happen…I am sure he will do something soon, but I don’t have the time right now to arrange it. So it will just be a random surprise.

All right I need to get back work now.

cory

High fives

2006-10-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

So we have done it! The God of War 2 team has made alpha and now, after Sensi Steven Segal went around the office in the "high five" pose (pictured to left) and congratulated everyone, the team is enjoying a few days off to relax and recharge for our push to Beta and finally Gold. It was cool that Steven decided to take a break from his rigorous touring schedule with his band Thunderbox to stop by and give us "High fives". We like "High fives" and especially like reciving them from the ass kicking hand of Steven Segal. We are forever indebted to the 'mojo priest' as he is referred to in some circles of the music world. I believe that Clay Aiken and the last surviving members of Menudo also run in those same circles. I probably shouldn't say anything bad about him as he can kick my ass up and down the street six ways to Sunday.

Anyway, the alpha build went smoothly, much smoother than our alpha build for God of War 1...Though I am not sure if that means anything. I am sitting down today and playing through the game as whole...So that should be fun.

I once again ran around the office with my sweet cam...Though I still didn't get to get as many pictures as I wanted to...That whole alpha thing kept getting into he way. So here is some random images of the team on Alpha day!

This is Jason. (Tech Artist) What can I say about Jason that the Weekly World news has not already said? He is the guy we call when the game breaks and we can't figure it out. He and the other tech artists do their damndest to make sure everything is running smoothly with the tools. I imagine that sometimes that is not always the most fun job. As seen in the picture Jason's passion for peace is only rivaled by his love of unicorns. They are pretty much his favorite animal, mostly because of thier prefferred skill being magic and all. Jason likes Magic. But not that creepy movie about the dummy...that movie scared him as it scared us all.

This is Adam (combat designer) and Joel (AP) discussing why Night Elves suck and the benfits of "Magic Missle". Actually they are probably scrambling to get one of the creatures or bosses to work on the alpha disk.

This one is a little far away...it seems I try to keep my distance from everyone when taking photos because I half expect them to grab the camera like Sean Penn and clock me one in the jaw. So anyway...this is Wade (Effects guy) and Artak (cinematics animator) arguing over who they think will be americas next top model. Well that and making sure our Alpha presentation of cinematics is the best it can be. In the foreground is Tim (animator) who was misatkenly said to be the lead animator on a DMC board in response to my last post about him and Jason playing DMC3. A post that made me laugh since they used the word pwned or pwnage or something like that. I still can't understand why people who like DMC hate God of War so much. I personally am a fan of DMC...though the begining of the first one had some horrible camers in first room of the castle...and that whole slide on the bodies thing ala Legalos in DMC3 is kind of lame. Otherwise it is a cool game...can't we just all get along?

This…is the empty desk of one of our designers Johnny. Johnny was unable to be in the office during the alpha push because he got in an accident...on his 'Big Chief' edition scooter. Yeah I think now is the time to say that we have some bad luck…or dare I even say curses going on with this project. Since we have started several designers have gotten into automobile accidents, which only seems to compound my stress with this project. Johnny has a leg/ankle broken in three places and has to have some crazy surgery. His presence was missed. Sweep the leg Johnny! In the background you can see Jo (designer) feverishly working on some level implementation and psychically sending her thoughts of healing via the power of crystals to Johnny.

This is Michael (Lead Level Designer) Nate (Designer with the pink shirt) and Fabrice (Programmer and all around french guy) troubleshooting some problems with the build.

This is Chris (Environment Artist) and Lois (Environment Artist whose name I most likely got wrong or spelled wonrg...because I suck) working on tightning up the graphics on level 3. Now that right there...that was really funny...but only if you have seen the dope commercials for Westwood college school of game design. This is by far the most realistic depiction of game design I have ever seen. Seriously, it is scary. It was like they put a hidden camera in our office and then just aired the resulting footage. If you go there...you will go far...and have tight graphics on level 3.

This is a shot Mark (Camera guy) scrambling to get the millions of things he has on his list done for the alpha burn later int he day. He along with Paul (designer) are the only ones doing the camera for this game, which is a massive task for them to take on. Big ups to them.

And here is what all of our hard work and sacrifices have yielded...the sweet ass alpha disk you see here. What you see is not only important because of the year and a half of blood sweat and tears this team gave, but it is also the alpha disk of my first game directing experience. Big milestones all around. Here's to me not fucking it up...so far that is.

We still have a lot of work to do in order to get the game into shape for all of you to play...so stay tuned for more updates on the progress. I might even post some videos...if I can figure it out.

ok...I am going to go play the game now.

Oh one last thing...I will be having a guest speaker on the blog in the next few days so keep an eye out for that as well. I think you might have heard of him too...so it should be an interesting post.

Hey Hey Hey...

2006-10-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Is that Alpha I see? SWEEEEEEET! Yup...3 days away...just 3 days away from alpha and a nice, albeit short, break for everyone. You can't see it, but right now I am doing the Rerun dance...and surprisingly I am really good at it. I got the moves.
Things are shaping up nicely I think. There were a bunch of us in yesterday trying to get the last of the content finished for the deadline. So I figured I would go a little nuts with the phone cam this weekend...but most of the pictures I took were crap...which leads me to believe that it must totally eb the camera. Since I really can't be that bad of a photographer. Perhaps I will break down and purchase a "real" digital camera so I can continue to do the photo updates as they are fun for me. I think rerun would agree that the purchase of a digital camera would be a good thing.

It is a little hard to take photos of myself working...so I just took one of Kratos. I know what you are saying...do you ever do any "real" work around there? To be honest...no. I mostly talk...and since I really don't view talking as real work...I classify myself as a sorta worker. On sunday Nate and I were trying to polish up the last of the enemy placements in the game...getting those last minute brilliant ideas in the game. It sounds so much better when I call them last minute brilliant ideas. Let's hope they turn out to be brilliant. Most likely I will be going through and changing every fight post alpha, when I get more people playing the game all the way through.

This is James (animator) and Derek (combat designer) hard at work on a sunday. These are some dedicated guys whom I give mad props to for doing what it takes to make this game great! James is actually showing off his "crane technique" to Derek. Unfortunatly my camera is really slow at the picture taking and I missed James accidentaly doing a Steven Segal on Derek's head.
Actually they are working on the final boss encounter here and from what I have been seeing it is coming along great.

This is our art wall...it is images that fans have drawn and images of that cominc Dax the Destroyer...a charcter who bears a striking resemblence to Kratos. This is where we go when we want to be inspired or remeber why it is we are working so much...we do it for the guy in the lower left of the image...yeah....we do it for him. This one's for you!

This is Tim (animator) and Jason (combat designer) hard at work playing DMC3. After that they were doing little things like finish a boss, fixing creatures, and genrally making sure all the stuff you are all going to play next year is freaking AWESOME!!!! These guys are the magic men...the music makers...the dreamers of dreams. Yeah...going a little overboard on the quotes today...but thats how I roll.

This is another shot of the art wall...with my favorite image of all time...Kratos about to stab Sora from Kingdom Hearts...cause Kratos is crazy like that. He will kill anyone. Someone else sent in an image of Kratos battling Peter Jennings. I framed that one and it now resides in my private collection.

Seriously though...I think fan art is awesome. I used to draw a bunch of stuff and send it in to the magazines hoping they would publish my ode to whatever game I was into at the time. Alas I was a really really bad artist...so I got no love on the fan art. But in the immortal words of my friend Beck...fan art is "where it's at."

This is Eric (combat designer) He doesn't like photos...something that I can relate to...so took a photo of his dope Herculoids collection. Eric really doesn't have anything decorating his desk...and if you knew him you would know that is normal for him. So we were all surprised when his full set of Herculoids toys arrived, granted he did not buy them to decorate his desk...they were a gift. Though it wasn't surprising that the show they were modeled after was seen by like 14 people, Eric is super OG like that.

I had never heard of the Herculoids before...but the rhinocerous and the gorilla rule...so I am a fan now. Eric was in getting all the cool stuff sewn up with the hero. I was able to see and play with some of the new specials and moves for Kratos this weekend. I was worried about being able to get all the things I wanted to get in the game...but I should have know better than to doubt Eric or Bruno. (The animator working on the Hero)

This is Todd...he is a sound guy. He was also in a boy band many years ago that went horribly wrong...he still will break out into a boy band pose every once and awhile as if to punctuate a really important point. Right here he was telling me that everything he is doing is already "alpha!" There is actually some cool soudn stuff going in now...but traditionally most of the sound work doesn't get going until we get into the "Beta" phase of the project. Which is no good for the sound guys as they get slammed with a TON of stuff at the last minute and end up killing themselves trying to get it all in and perfect. This is probably why todd's boy band never really got off the ground.

Well that's all I got today. You should chjeck out the God of War myspace page with our God of Noise contest on it. If you are in a band...or know someone in a band you should defintely check it out as the prize is getting your track on the soundtrack of the game. Should be some pretty good exposure...that is unless I fuck up the game.

Which I don't plan on doing. But who plans on fucking up though right?

ok...time for the leads meeting.

cory

roundhouse kick to the alpha!

2006-10-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

ALPHA!!! YEAH!!!! Well...we are not there yet, but this image (to the left) is a depiction of how much ass we are kicking right now. You see we, the team, are chuck norris, and the game...it's the wolf. (Ok so its probabaly a dog, but wolf just sounds cooler) And rigth now the wolf is getting a front kick the chest. Sweet. Not that I advocate violence against animals or anything. But we are kicking the wolfs ass right now.

So I thought I would do something a little different today and give you a little pictoral walkthrough of alpha. Well not exactly a walkthrough, more like a bunch of photos I took with my crappy phone camera that serve as a rough throughline for my blog post today. I am sure it will be fun. Plus it gives me a chance to use my totally overpriced phone with its lame built in camera for a second time since I purchased it last year. The quality is pretty bad on the pics so you will have to use your imagination on this, but I will do my best to narrate this journey. So without further ado...my little bit of insight into our daily...ummm....day.

This is an attempt at taking a cool photograph by putting the PS2 controller in the forground...not a very successful attempt though. It is also an attempt to tart up the crash screen we see a lot...make it prettier. Not sure that worked all that well either.

This is the screen we see a lot during the development process. It's the crash screen or as I like to call it the 'Time to take a break screen.' sometimes it gives you helpful information as to why the game refuses to work. Then other times it just says "????" Those times...are the sweet times.

This is the back of Nate's head. Lately I spend most of my day here at his desk tuning the various levels of the game. So I basically spend the whole day looking at the back of his head. Saying things like "what if we add this guy...and then spawn three more of this guy" or "wouldn't it be cool if we..." Then he sits there cursing me and watching videos on you tube, like that sweet David Hasselhoff video "Jump in my car". He fucking loves that video. I think it is because he identifies so completely with the "Hoff." This is probably because at one point in thier lives they both had cars that talked to them. I'm pretty sure he hears the song in his head even when he is not watching it, which is like all the time. Just kidding...he doesn't curse me.

This is a shot of the studio as everyone is in high gear finishing up the game. I got to see the final boss level in the game the other day, which has nothing to do with this picture but I thought it looked prety freakin sweet so I figured I would bring that up. I wish I could show you a screenshot of that, but alas then you would have nothing to open up on Christmas day. and I don't want to ruin Christmas. Well not exactly Christmas...as we are releasing several months AFTER Christmas...that was just a metaphor.

This is another shot of the various craftsman hard at working making God of War 2. I know what you are saying...those all look like normal people. I though God of war 2 was made by a workshop full of elves in funny little felt costumes with bells on them. But alas that is only our european games that use the elf workshops. though I have always thought that Hot Shots golf was made by elves. Elves with big heads who eneter every room running and sliding like a figure skaters on crack...the faint sounds of applause always follow.

This is Todd...or rather the back of Todds head. You might be noticing a pattern here. You might think that most people are ignoring me...and to be quite honest you may be right. But I would like to think of it as the rest of the team "pacing" thier interaction with me. That just sounds better. But seriously, Todd is another guy I tune the game with. Right here you can see we are tuning a super bad ass section of the game that is so freaking exciting that we had to pause it so we could take a break and recover. And so Todd could watch videos on youtube. He loves the bollywood video with Little Superstar bitchslapping fools. It rules.

This is a shot of the final boss in the game...I got a little excited while taking the photo so you can't make out the details, but trust me...it freaking rocks. It makes me say "Next gen who?" Not that I am not excited to check out some next gen stuff...but I think the stuff we are doing is great...great like whipping out the proverbial "Legendary Creature" card!

Ok enough with the Chuck Norris references...it's old now. Well maybe not totally old for me. It still makes me laugh. But I am simple and easily amused...and I still believe that Chuck Norris's Tears can cure cancer....but he never cries...so the world will never know.

Maybe tomorrow I will take better pictures that even include peoples faces. That would be cool, though it is pretty dependant on people not telling me to go away when I whip out the super bad ass photo phone!!!

'Aight...going to go playthough the game and make some notes.

word.

Let's...do...'dis...

2006-10-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

Hello blog. It’s been awhile since we last spoke. Things have been hectic as usual; we are less than two weeks away from our alpha date. This would definitely qualify as one of the tougher times on the project to date. We have to have everything that is going to be in the game done to about 50-70% completion. Sounds fairly simple, but it is soooo not. The good thing is we are in a better position at this point (in relation to alpha date) that we were on God of War 1…so we got that going for us. But unfortunately that news does little to ease the pain of the long hours. Actually I may be over dramatizing it a bit…the hours are long but not terrible. It is more the amount of time we have been putting in the hours that wears you down. In the end though it will all be better for the game so it is worth it.

We had a nice early night week last week. Everyone got to go home at a decent hour and recharge for this last push to alpha. This really helped, but it also gives you that taste of normalcy, which really makes it hard to go back to the late nights.

SO let’s see…what is the haps. I got everyone’s emails for the demo and I have a running list. Not sure about all the non-US peeps, but I will see what I can do. I am all about sending them, just got to check with the “man” and make sure I can do that. Anyway…new with the game…we are working on a few bosses simultaneously and getting those into tip top shape. The one cool thing about the last few weeks to alpha is that every single day I am seeing something new get in the game in a close to final form. That is truly what keeps me going through all of this.

I have been doing some fight tuning with Nate the last few days, though I haven’t been able to do as much as I would like due to the numerous interruptions for meetings and last minute documentation and such. But we were working on a fight that would take place late in the game yesterday so I started bringing over people to test it out and make sure it wasn’t too hard. After the first few people we started getting a large group of people stopping by and trying the fight out. Now at this stage it is hard to get the exact tuning of a fight since we don’t have the final tuning on the blades, weapons or magic…but right now I am just trying to get the right vibe for each fight. The vibe for this specific fight was to make it hard, but also to engage you enough to want to go back and beat it if you died. Now it was crude, with several annoying little bugs, but in the end I think we achieved that. It was also great to have a group of people, who have been slaving away on this game for the last year and a half, sitting around and laughing and challenging g each other to finish the fight. It is moments like those that say something about the work we are all doing…that even though we should be tired of this game…we are not. I just hope this will translate to all of you as well.

Another cool thing to see was the further implementation of one of the weapons. Eric (Combat guy) had some great ideas for control mapping on the weapon and I finally got to see how other people would use it while they play. I think this new addition will really add a lot to the weapon.

I have been working with Charlie, our Visual development director, on the box art for the game the last few days. I think we have found a really good direction to go in so now he is going to go in and take the thumbnails to a more finished look.

I have also been working with Ariel (Editor and AP) to fine tune our cinematics and trim out all the unnecessary fat. This is hard. Because when you write the script for the story you think you are only putting in what is absolutely necessary to tell the story properly. So going in and trying to find ways to trim the movies down, after having already trimmed them down like 20 times before, is tough. That is the beauty of having an outside opinion of a good editor. They can look at the material that you are so close to and give you an objective opinion on what is really there and what is needed to convey the point. Though she is not totally an outside opinion since she also did some work on the script with me and the other writers…but hey beggars can’t be choosers right?

I met with Jo (level designer) and Michael (Lead Level Designer) about some last minute tweaks to some puzzles in one of our levels. It was good to finally see these puzzles get worked out. We had designed the areas such a long time ago, at a point where we were creatively drained, so there were a few puzzles that we just said “Ahh…we will figure this out later.” In hindsight I realize it was not the best of ideas, but both of them came through in a pinch and put together a couple of pretty cool puzzles. I also got to see Jeremy’s (Level designer) implementation of a puzzle in his level. It is something that Michael pitched to me a week or two ago and it sounded pretty cool, but with these things it is so hard to tell if something is really going to be fun from just a pitch. Finally getting to see it and play it proved that it is going to be fun. We just need to work out a few details about it and then it is ‘in there like swimwear.’

I saw the first rough sculpt of the action figure and it is coming along really nicely. I can’t wait to see the final product…and for all of you to see it as well. I think you will be pretty psyched…if you like that sort of thing. If you don’t, well we have God of War handguns as well…maybe that’s your thing? Or how about our God of War Flamethrowers? The kids seem to love this one.

Well it is Saturday at 9:20am and I got to start getting ready to head into the office.

Dude...you got a little Arzt on you.

2006-09-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sep. 21st 2006.

Man, where the fuck has all the time gone? Only a few more weeks until this baby is alpha and I am just sitting here at my desk going over the millions of things we have done and trying to make sure I haven’t missed anything. That…and wishing I had more time to put in a few more cool things. But to be honest I think I was able to get everything I wanted in the game. Even with the stuff that I have cut through out the development I still look at what we do have and realize that this really is the best of the ideas. At one point we were going to do an Atlantis level, which actually had some cool ideas in it but in the end it just really cluttered things up. Who knows…maybe if we do get to do another game the level, or some of the ideas from it, will appear?

The Video Games Live show is tonight at the Hollywood Bowl…and I really wanted to go. I was set to go for a few weeks, but we have a drop on Friday for our Monday Tuesday playtests so I gotta be here tonight. Damn. I missed that show last year because I was prepping the game…so that bummed me out. And now this year I was gonna’ get to do the red carpet/meet and greet thing they do before the event…which would have been freakin sweet. Lots of people there who were instrumental in some of my favorite games. Would have been nice to hang out and chat with them…but alas this is the reality of game making. Not much time for the ‘fun’…waaaay too much work to do. But when the game is done there is a little time for fun…so I guess I got that going for me.

We are working out the details of our demo right now…what it will be and when we will get it out there. I will try and keep you all posted on that.

Yesterday was pretty exciting…I did a redesign on our Final boss encounter to spice it up a bit more and really make it hit hard. I think it is definitely in a much better place now. Still got a few more things I want to do to it, but it feels like it is going to be far more epic than its original incarnation. Nothing like switching it up in the eleventh hour of the eleventh hour…hmmm…that really doesn’t even make sense.

Well I have a playthrough of all the playtest content this morning…hopefully all that goes well and it…well…works. If things look pretty good today then we are in good waters…maybe I might even get to duck out and go to the show tonight. But if they doon’t go well this morning then it will be a rough road to Monday. Keepin my fingers crossed for the goods to come through this morning.

The producer just dropped off some marketing samples of the Audio CD covers and packaging materials. Sweet stuff. I like that we are going to release an actual CD of the soundtrack instead of just going solely with downloadable. Even though I Download a ton of stuff from itunes it is still cool to have an actual physical product every now and then.

Ok…I’m out. I am still working out how we are going to do this whole demos for the OG blog readers thing. Maybe just have everyone who wants in on the demo send me you name and address and credit card number (just kidding) to this email address. I will keep a running tab of this and when the demo’s are ready I will have ‘em sent out. Now I am not sure how many I can send out so if I get a thousand emails I might not be able to send a demo to everyone. Who am I kidding…there aren’t a thousand people who read this blog. Anyway…I know the handful of true OG readers so I won’t leave you all high and dry. But like I said we still don’t know when the demo is going to be available so you will have to keep checking back here for the 411.

So send the deets to this email: m0nk3yfr3sh@hotmail.com

yeah...before you say...that is a fucking dorky email. Like one step away from 1amDarthV8d3r or trans4mrzR00L or some shit like that. I am a dork. I know this.

speaking of OG...I wonder how the hell Grandma hardcore is doin. I think I will go check her site out and see what she is playing.

Time is ticking away...

2006-09-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

God of War 2 is just below a month and a half from Alpha so the pace has picked up considerably around here. A little crazy...but a controlled crazy. A healthy crazy if there is such a thing. There is a whole lot more art going in and the game is really starting to take shape. This is the hardest of times, but also the most exciting for me because everything is finally coming together.

We have been plowing through our first level of the game the last few weeks and things are shaping up there nicely as well. I got to see a few more areas with art in them yesterday and they look great. There is definitely a lot of pressure, both self imposed and external, for us to top our first level from God of War 1 (the hydra level) and I can honestly say that after seeing the pieces together last week I am confident we are going to top it. It will be sweet! But what do I know...I am incredibly bias. We will have to wait and see what y'all think. Not 100% sure yet, but we might do this level as a demo level. So as I promised earlier all the hardcore peeps that have been following this blog from the beginning...the OG...will get a copy of the demo. How's that for freakin' sweet?

Kratos new abilities and weapons and nearing their alpha level of completion as well, pretty soon he should be complete and ready for us to tweak and tune. It really is fun to boot up the game and find a new move set or ability checked in the game. It's like Christmas...only several times a month.

And the animation...oye vey the animation. I am a tough critic on myself, and pretty tough on others as well when it comes to animation. My recent foray back into the world of animation did not yield the greatest results right out the gate...but that's how it goes when you step away from something for too long. But fortunately we have an incredible team of animators that are working their guts out putting together some of the best I have have ever seen. The animation in the last game was pretty decent, but the animation in this game is just amazing.

My lead level guy Michael just finished up the design/layout of our last level the other day, which I am sure is a major relief for him. This last one was a tough one for us as we wanted to do so much with it. But thankfully Michael wwhittlee to widdle down our ideas into a solid cohesive level. If everything goes according to plan this should be a really cool experience a really good finale' to the game. Well from a level perspective that is because right after this level you have the final boss encounter of the game which Derek, Nate and I have been working on. We got a solid base with it, now all we need to do is work out the final details and I think we will have a great epic ending to the game.

I did a write up the other day about our bonuses section detailing out the progression, menu screens, unlockables, enemy placements, etc. Not the funnest part of the job let me tell you, but the end result will be fun so it's all good I guess. I am also working out my global game tuning document which is a MASSIVE help to really tracking everything I am doing with the gameplay progression. I should have started this document sooner, but the structure of our level WAD breakdown was not complete so it would have been fairly rough. The WAD breakdown will still most likely change, but it is definitely fleshed out in greater detail now. I am going into work today to try and finish up the paper layout and start absorbing the games fight progression as a whole. Until now I have had my rough overall plan as I have been tuning individual levels. But now thanks to the miracle of this thing called 'planning' I will know it all!!! Strange how that works out.

I was going to post a screen shot, but I am writing this from home since I almost never have a free minute at work to do this. But when I get in if I can drum up something new I will post it.

'aight...lights out...time too work.

Playtests, Euros and Caps oh my...

2006-09-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

We have another playtest today; we are testing the first third of the game. Unfortunately we are not testing the complete first third, but it is close enough so I should be able to get some good info out of this playtest. The game is moving along nicely but the alpha deadline is steadily approaching…relentlessly even. I am confident we will make it, but we are cutting it close. I guess it is not to dissimilar to the first God of War. We really cut that thing close.

We had a bunch of folks European press in the other day which was a good time. Appearently God of War is huge in Spain....sweet! I got to show them the latest stuff we are working on. Well not the latest, what they got to play was actually two or three months old. It is definitely hard for me to let people play the game when I know what we have is so much better. But the old builds were the only stable ones so it iwas best to let them play that. I did a little presentation beforehand…a presentation for which I was woefully unprepared. We were so busy working towards our milestone and playtest that I did not take the time to properly prep for it. It didn’t go horribly…most likely due to the fact that the euro journalists were jet lagged and probably couldn’t follow my speedy americanspeak.

1up show was also in the studio so I got to hang with Matt a little and chat about the game. Not sure when it goes up on the site but keep an eye out for that one.

I am turning 31 tomorrow. Wild. It is not that I feel like I am getting old or anything, but I have this sinking feeling of “where the hell did all the time go?” I feel like I should have done so much more by now. But I am very happy with where I am now. I love the work I do and I would love the city I am in if it were a little freakin’ cheaper to buy a house. You can’t have everything I guess. Life will be even better I think when this game finally goes out the door…at least it will be a little more relaxing for me. I feel like my heart rate is up from the moment I get up to the time I finally fall asleep at 2am. While it is stressful I don’t think I would want it any other way. I think I would go crazy if I wasn’t constantly being creatively challenged. But who knows…maybe I will be done with story based games in a few years? :) Just kidding Dave.

I picked up a copy of Saints Row the other day...actually one of my few pre-order experiences. Still not a fan of the going to the game store thing, but I have to admit that it was quite painless. They gave me a call the day before to let me know I could come in and pick it up, which was sweet. But I would still rather download a gamestraight to my system as it would be a hell of a lot more convienent with my hectic schedule. At any rate I am hoping we get out of work early today so I can come home and pop a few caps...or in true Saints Row style...pop a fuckin' few motha'fuckin' caps. Wow...It is amazing how I seem to continually surpass the level of nerd I think I am. Oye...

All right I need to get dressed and get into work so I am not late for my own playtest. I imagine that would be a bad thing.

Once more, with feeling.

2006-08-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

Let's see...since the last update we were in the recording sessions for the last of our VO. That was Thursday and Friday of last week. I had what could only be described as a moment of geeky happiness. It is not all that big of a deal, but for me it felt like I had achieved something cool or made another step, albeit a small one, as a director. I realized this momentary feeling of accomplishment when I was directing one of the actors – breaking down the story behind their character and explaining what I wanted out of the gameplay moments. Now I am a fan of the guys work; I have seen several things he has done and have always been impressed. Not saying he is pacino or deniro impressive...but he's good people. Anyway It really isn’t that big of a deal, but for me it was a great moment of accomplishment. Here I was giving direction to an actor that I totally respect about a game that I am directing. It was pretty damn cool. I am sure to most other directors it is really no big deal, but to me it was a cool moment…a moment of really doing something. There have been a lot of cool moments….a lot of firsts for me….but I had not had one in a while so that one really helped pick me up and get me 'back into the game' so to speak. The performance turned out great too, I thnk it will really add a lot to the gameplay his character is involved in. At first I brought him in because I recognized him and was a fan of his work but I was a bit worried that I might be making a similar mistake that I made early on…going with a 'name' without knowing whether or not they would work out or be difficult to work with. Trust me when I say...that sucks ass. Not only is it diffcult when doing the work...but you look like the biggest asshole int he world for pushing to get this person. Just all around bad times at ridgmont high. But thankfully…and that is a BIIIIG thankfully…like massive weight off my shoulders thankfully…it all worked out. He rocked. So keep an eye out for future updates when I can actually tell you his name, and the names of some of the other peeps we got to do the voices.

I also got to relax a bit and watch a few things this weekend that really got me thinking about the concept of the creative visionary – the rare person who is able to see the complete picture before they ever start working on something. Watching some of behind the scenes stuff about Joss Whedon really cemented the idea to me that he is a creative visionary. I mean this guy has created some really great work.. I was watching season 6 of Buffy…for the first time, I never watched the show on TV…when I got to the “Once more, with Feeling” episode and was blown away. He wrote the script for the show, the music and the lyrics…and performed on the demo CD. CRAZY! It really made me feel lazy. I know I have a ways to go before I will have that kind of creative clarity. There are some things with the game that I see the whole picture…that I know exactly what I want and I am able to convey that to everyone. But then there are still other things that I do not have the perfectly clear picture, and I kind of have to feel my way around in the dark a little before I see the whole thing. I know I can get better at that…and I know I can get to that point where I see it all clearly in the very early stages of production. That will be a good day.

Thanks for all the feedback guys…we are moving forward on the action figures. Not sure as to when they will be released or anything, but we have a collection of some great ideas we are working with now so stay tuned for more updates on that. Maybe I can get some pics posted of the early molds or something…that would be cool…kind of a work in progress sort of thing.

Gonna go into an iChat with Jaffe in a few minutes to talk about various aspects of the game so I am just killing a little time before that. I have a pretty full day today since I was out yesterday at another of our V.O. sessions. I got back in the office at 7:30pm last night and was running around trying to meet with as many people as I could, but still there is much that did not get done due to my absence yesterday.

I am also going to a Gamestop managers show at the end of September to show off the game…so that should be fun. I actually like demo-ing the game and getting to see the excitement on peoples faces when I rip off someone arm or stab minotaur in the head. I guess that says something kind of scary about me…and I the rest of society….but whatever. But it’s just a game, no matter what that no talent ass clown Jack Thompson says.

“Nobody shoots another person in the face unless they are a hitman or a video gamer.”

What an idiot. At any rate it will be nice to be able to show off the latest after having worked so crazy hard. The only downside is we are going alpha shortly after that so missing those two days will most likely have me working like mad to catch up. Well…not much of a positive outlook for my sleep in the near future.

"You mean Coitus?"

2006-08-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

Ok so after a long few weeks of being a little bithcy...well more than a little bitchy...a lot bitchy....I feel better now. Not fully recharged, but at least in better spirits.

So whats new on the God of War 2 front? Well let’s see…I am almost finished with one of the characters I am animating…wish I could say who but we are holding off on revealing him until later in the year. It is nice to be doing a little animation now, but it is definitely overwhelming to be worrying about the rest of the game all day, then take three or four hours each night and try to focus on animating. I definitely wish I did not have to do it, but I suppose it is less painful knowing that the only alternative was to get rid of the characters…and that is no good.

I am going into the recording studio a few days this week to do the final recordings or all the voice actors. We have working feverishly to ensure that what we record now will cover nearly everything we need to support all the cinematics as well as the in game puzzles and such. It is amazing how much you don’t think about when writing the script for a game. Well maybe it is just me who forgets all the little details that are needed, but next time I will be a lot more attentive to that stuff.

We are doing a playtest at the end of the month for the first third of the game..which is something we desperately need to do. We have been planning, building and rebuilding the first third of the game over and over in an effort to make it perfect…and I think we are finally getting closer to what we need. It should be a pretty crazy beginning if everything goes off the way I am planning it. The first 45 minutes of the game need to be turned up to 11 in order to really stay true to our desire to have that action opener a’la James bond or Indiana Jones. This is a great thing to have, but man the pressure of trying to live up to that is definitely a lot bigger than I had originally though it would be. But I see a dim light at the end of the tunnel…I see the work coming together, even if only in rough form…and I am now more confident that we will have a really great experience.

I had a meeting about potentially getting some God of War 2 figures, which seems pretty freaking cool. Although I really don’t purchase figures all that often so I am not sure how others will respond to the idea of God of War figures….what do you think? Would you guys buy ‘em? Which character would you like to see?

Anyway…not much of a post today…I am a little hazy from exhaustion right now so I am going to just get back to work and do a little tuning with my buddy Todd Papy...sweet!

Sad day

2006-08-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Okay…so I am going to go in a different direction today, so roll with me. This is not going to be a game post today…just not feeling it. I just found out today that one of my friends died almost a year ago. Man that really threw me. Not only for the fact that I am so completely out of touch with most of the people I know, but also the fact that he was only 29 years old. My friend Russel Foltz died in a motorcycle accident on August 14th, 2005…and I am just finding out today. I can’t even comprehend the level of suck I have attained. So I am just going to type a little and see what comes out…maybe help myself feel a little better about it.

I met Russ when I was living up in Northern California working at 3DO. I moved up with my girlfriend at the time, a girl whom I had only known for three weeks when I asked her to move up to SF with me. I wasn't exactly that strong in the sound judgment department...but in retrospect if I had it to do all over again I would have made the same choice. We met a desert party called Dune. It was a crazy Rave way the fuck out in the desert…we found out later that a kid got a little too messed up and walked off a cliff. His body wasn’t found for a week and a half.

So anyway, we set off on this adventure into the unknown. I had just left the movie biz and was beginning anew in the games biz with a company called Cyclone Studios. (owned by Trip Hawkins now defunct 3DO) We looked for a place up there for a month and just when the corporate housing was about to run out we decided to rent a three bedroom house in Foster City. It was nice…more than we needed and definitely the wrong neighborhood for us…the a-typical suburb environment. At first it seemed to be all good. My girlfriend got a job at a beauty supply place and I went to work on my first game. We would go out to some parties here and there and eventually ended up with a small circle of friends, mostly from my girlfriend’s new friends and co-workers. They were all really good people but it was a crazy time. The really sad part is I can’t exactly remember how we met Russ. I am pretty sure his friend Burl started dating one of our friends. We all went out and partied, tore things up a little too much. We all went through a lot together…many good times and many bad times. I know for a while there I was in a pretty dark place and Russ was always there to pull me out. He was a solid guy. He never asked for anything and was always willing to do anything you needed. If you had a little too much to drink and you are 45 minutes from home? Even if it was four in the morning he would jump in the car and come get you. And not once would he get pissed or try to hold that over your head. He was freaking great dancer too...I know that sounds gay...but whatever. That guy could freaking pop and lock like rice krispies. It was cool to watch, it was like his bones were liquid. Okay...a little too far with the trippy woodstock feel...but for real though...He was doper than Napoleon Dynamite.

At the time we were all kind of self-absorbed jackasses…well maybe that’s a little harsh…but we were just all about enjoying life. I remember I got this new video camera and was getting into video editing a little so I took a ton of footage of everyone hanging out, spinning records and such, then edited it together with a bunch of music. I remember when I showed it to everyone Russ said…’man we are a bunch of self absorbed jack asses…sitting around watching videos of ourselves.’ It was mostly cause I missed doing something film related…but I did find out I am a pretty lousy editor. Not that great of a camera man either. But it was a cheap ass camera so whatever. Even though it was totally lame I still kept all that footage on my computer. Now I am glad I did.

I worked like crazy, but when the weekend came we all went out and cut loose. It got to the point that we never really asked if we were all going to hang out…that was pretty much a given…it was more like “What are we going to do?” We would have a bunch of people over at the house spinning records until 4am…or until the cranky old guy next door threw something at our window telling us in a not so subtle way to keep it down. I don’t blame him though. He thought he was getting this whole leave it to beaver quite suburb life, and then the dumb ass raver kids moved in next door and screwed it all up. Even when things got really bad with all of us, the core group of us still stayed together. Russ even drove down to L.A. with me when I had to move.

I rented a big ass Uhaul and he and a few other people helped me pack everything up. The grumpy old guy was throwing a fucking party the day I left. Then he drove this behemoth while I drove my car. I was too freaked out to handle that beast and he was totally cool with taking the helm the whole way. And that thing had no AC and only AM radio. Now that is a fucking friend I tell you…cause no AC in July is booty out here. I didn’t have an apartment in L.A. so we had to find a storage space and unload all my crap into it. I remember when we found the place it was like 105 degrees or something crazy like that, and he never complained once. I was bitching like a spoiled girl about how freaking hot it was. But the whole time he was keeping positive.

He told me a story once about when he was driving home from a friend’s house one night. He was crossing over from the east bay on the bridge…it was like 3am and no one was on the road and he comes up on an overturned car. He said it looked as if the accident just happened. There was no one around so he pulled over and went over to the car. There was a woman in her thirties in the car, she was conscious and in shock. He called the cops then talked to her for a bit and reassured her, then helped her out of the car. She seemed to be okay minus a few cuts and bruises so they went over to his car and waited for the cops to come.

Now I am sure most people would have stopped when they came across that sort of thing, but I know that with him he never even gave it a second thought. IT was freaking automatic with him. He was just a good person. And it’s sad that he is gone, because there is a shortage of really good people. I know everyone says that their friends and loved ones when they die, but it is true…for me at least.

I lost touch with a lot of my friends after I left SF, mostly because the last few months there were really tough, and part of me wanted to just forget about all that. But now…after having found out about his death nearly a year afterwards…by email…I really wish I had chosen a different path. I wish I had stayed in touch with all those guys and at least gotten to tell him how much he helped me. I can only hope that when he passed he wasn’t alone, that someone else just like him stopped and was there with him. Even if it was just so that he heard someone there with him before he died.

Ok. I think I am all done with that now. Rest in peace my friend.

Fear does not exist in this Dojo DOES IT??

2006-08-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

-
NO SENSI!

So no more E3 huh? I know it is a bit late but hey…things have been pretty busy here. I was a bit sad to hear of the demise of E3. I am not the biggest E3 fan when I am actually there…it is loud, slightly nauseating and often times smelly. But there are a ton of cool games to see and it is always great to catch up with old friends and drink a little bit too much. But I am still bummed that I didn’t know that this years E3 was the last one…if I had I would have tried to enjoy even more. Oh well…such is life. I am sure there will some other event that will allow us all to get together and share the horror stories of development and drown our sorrows in booze. :)

Anyway…enough of that crazyness. We just finished up another milestone and playtest. It went really well I think, though I am still a bit despondent that we keep getting focus testers who want to work in the games biz. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people who want to get in the industry it’s just they do not really represent our audience completely. We do internal playtests with the people that work here, which provides great feedback…but from a designer/industry angle. The main thing I am hoping to get out of the playtests externally is how the average gamer, one who loves to play games but is not necessarily looking to design them, responds to the game. But there was still a good collection of feedback that helps us fine tune various aspects of the game.

We are in the full ‘crunch’ for our alpha push. There is a ton of work to do, but I am confident that we will be able to get it all done before our alpha date. I am about halfway through on of the characters I am animating on right now. It is definitely a lot tougher than I expected…working all day and then trying to get a few hours of animation done at night. I am trying to make up some time on the weekends, but it is definitely exhausting. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep the pace up, but I can seek solace in the fact that the animating part will be over in a month or so. I used to miss animating but under these conditions I don’t think I will be missing it for long. It is hard to change tracks so quickly with my brain but it is definitely a lot more relaxing than the rest of my day. I like being able to sit down and put my headphones on, crank some massive attack and just shut out everything else and work. When I write it is hard to listen to music, and since writing was the only real reason to work on the computer for this project I have been missing that ability to shut everything out. It kind of recharges me a little. So I guess in that respect it is pretty damn sweet. Man I am fucking rambling on like Joe Pesci in JFK. "Who did the President, who killed Kennedy. Fuck, man! It's a mystery, it's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' shooters don't even know, don't you get it?! Fuck, man!!"

I love that movie, and many days I find myself getting worked up like Joe Pesci. That can't be good for my health.

Not much else going on. Well that isn’t entirely true. There is a ton going on but most of it is either boring or I can’t talk about it. I know that makes me sound self important…so take heart that most things fall in into the boring category. Though I can say that I think I am becoming a bastard…well maybe not a complete bastard. Maybe a partial bastard, though regardless of whether or not it is partial or full...it's still not a good thing. I am sure there are many members of the team that want to hit me over the head with a bag of hammers these days....which is probably not a good thing. It could just be the sleep depravation taking its toll…but I am sure there is a little truth to me getting more cranky. Perhaps I am ‘manstrating.’ That was dumb. It seemed funny in my head…but it just sort of fell flat when writing it. Perhaps I should delete it. Nah…that wouldn’t be keeping it real.

Thanks for all the well wishing comments from everybody…and don’t worry about all the mentioning of cuts. Cutting things is a natural part of the development cycle. Even with the little things I have to drop here and there the game is still going to be nearly everything I wanted. Sure there are a few little levels here and there that had to get trimmed out to place a larger focus on other things, but for the most part everything is in tact. I just hope everyone gets a psyched about it as I am when they play it. I have no idea if we will get the same response as we got with the first game but I do know that we are going even further with everything this time so here’s to hoping it all works out.

One of the combat designers…Derek Dangles…wrote a funny post comparing game designers to porn stars. It made me laugh…mostly the fact that he compares Jaffe to Tara Patrick. It’s simultaneously hilarious and frightening. I shutter to think what porn star I would be compared to. I hear what he is saying though. I think it stretches beyond just game design though. I think there are so many talented people involved with Film/TV/games/etc…that work like crazy but don’t get the recognition of the chosen few. I mean think about the sound guy for the porn shoots…I am sure he gets even less recognition that the unknown porn stars. I have no clue what my point is….at this point I think it is safe to say that am incoherently babbling. I think I need to take another Xanax (Is that how you spell this…hmm…no idea.) and go look at some concept art. Sweet.

Oh…and I am through with video games. I am going to move to Tibet and raise Al Paqua and write a book of poems about toast. Perhaps I will also seek out a Sensi (maybe the sensi from Krate Kid. He rocked) and train in the ancient art of Breakdance fighting. That would be so freaking sweet. I can just imagine kicking ass and looking slick at the same time…like busting out some flares and combo’ing it into the kick worm into some crazy moonwalk jabs…sweet. I would so take Chuck Norris down…him and his thighmaster!!!

Sweep the Leg Johnny!!! Ok well maybe that isn't the right scene for that quote...but its a funny line so whatever.

Im done with story based games bitches!!!

2006-07-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

heehee

I am feeling kind of scattered today...So I decided to do another daily breakdown of my day…mostly because I wanted to see where the hell most of my day goes each day. It seems like I blink and it’s already 9pm. It's a little long...and in truth it may be boring as shit to most people…but hey that has never stopped me before. So check it.

10:30am – Arrive in the office a little hung over from the night before and check some email. I do a quick scan for all the emails that can be responded to in as few words as possible so I can get those done first. This way I can get to my first meeting on time. I am checking out some sound tests for the voices of one of the Sisters of Fate and some other Voice over sound tweaks.

10:38am – Checked my voicemail to find a message from Paul the PR guy. He wants to talk about one of the answers I gave in a written Q&A I did yesterday. I was behind on a bunch of Q&A’s so I decided to bang out a bunch yesterday thinking “Oh this will be easy.” Man that is a freaking full time job…it takes forever. So I imagine in my haste I did not go back and edit out some of the objectionable content that usually pops out of my head when I go into the stream of consciousness writing thing I roll with.

10:45am – Found out the question from Paul the PR guy…my answer was none too sweet. That’s what you get for trying to rush through those things. But I will try and carve out some time later in the day to give it another go. That is why I like the phone interviews more. They take less time and my lazy ass doesn’t have to do all the writing.

11:35am – Just got out of the audio meeting with Phil (Sound Masta’) and got some great stuff done. I think the stuff is going to work…which is a massive relief for me as I have been really concerned that some of my choices were going to come back and bite me in the ass.

12:00pm – Going to a cinematics meeting with Jackie (Cinematics Lead) to check out the latest work for some of the scenes. We are a lot further along now so things are really starting to take shape. The animation is looking great too. I love the prep work, but seeing the game really take shape like this is so freaking exciting.

12:40pm – Cinematics meeting done so now I go to an impromptu meeting about the Barbarian King boss final mini-game with Mehdi (Lead Animator), Sean (Animator) ,Derek (Combat Designer), and Angie (Animation coordinator). We were trying to all get on the same page as to how we were going to kick it up a notch and make it freaking awesome. After much discussion it seems like we have a plan and I walk away with confidence on that one. I pass Nate (Designer that I am tuning the game with) and tell him we should take some time to tune today for the upcoming playtest. Need to make sure I have no more meetings. Steve (Producer) has just asked for ten minutes to have a meeting. Gotta go.

1:24pm – Just got out of the meeting that turned out to be with Stig (Art Director), Steve (Producer), Ken (Art Lead), Aaron (Design Coordinator), Michael (Level Design Lead) and Joel(AP). The meeting was about some more level art overages in our schedule. I am having a lot more of these meetings the closer we get to alpha and we realize that there is just too much stuff and too little time. But I have cut so much out of this game already so the meetings are getting progressively harder, since I really can’t cut anymore out of the game without really hurting it. This one was not as bad as the others though since the solution that Stig and Ken were able to come up with allows us to keep a really great sequence in the game, which made me super happy. I made the call to go ahead with not cutting…it is a riskier plan and if I am wrong I might fuck a few things up…which as we all know is never good. It is in fact really bad, since we will burn even more days trying to finish the sequence and if we come up short and don’t end up finishing it…other things will suffer in the game. Not an easy call to make, but I weighed the options and I feel pretty strongly about the sequence so I made the call to keep it. I hope we can make this work! I have a 2:30 meeting with Adam (Combat Designer) to generate some animation lists for the characters I am going to be animating. I am taking on three characters in order to prevent them from ending up on the cutting room floor…which would just make me sad. So it is going to be some fun nights and weekends fro the next few months. I gotta order some food now otherwise my fat ass will just wither away. Still haven’t sat down to tune the game with Nate, I really need to do this. Where does the time go?

2:09pm – I am sitting here racking my brain to come up with a creative way to acquire one of our relics. I am writing an email explaining each of the relic acquisitions and I have gotten to the one that has completely changed…and I got nuthin’. I want it to be something cool, but it is a pretty small space I have to work with. These are the tougher parts of the job…when I have a limited time to work with and I have to come up with something really cool…like NOW! But still…nuthin’. Ok…enough slacking. I am going to just write the idea I have even though it sucks…perhaps the act of writing it will shake some sort of brilliant creative idea loose in my head. Doubtful…but nice to hope for I guess.

2:29pm – Okay finished the write up for the relics…I put a couple of ideas in there…the one I like will most likely freak everyone out. But it will be cool. Well at least I think so…but what the hell do I know? My 2:30 is supposed to start soon, but my lunch has not arrived. Boo for me. I won’t be eating until later now. Oh well. Still no tuning of the game…grrrrr...off to the 2:30 animation/design meeting.

4:23pm – Just got out of the lengthy animation/design meeting for the three characters I am going to be animating on. I think we have a good plan for them and the animation doesn’t look all that difficult…so that is a relief. It is still going to be hard finding the time for the animations while trying to get the maximum amount of tuning time for the game. I still haven’t been able to sit down with Nate and get any tuning done. Another meeting I was supposed to be in at 4pm was cancelled while I was in the animation/design meeting. Sweet…more time to get other stuff done. But alas…I am foiled again. Aaron just came up to tell me I have a meeting to brief one of the designers on the functionality of this combat puzzle for one of the hallways. Ok, off to do that now.

4:53pm – Just got out of the debriefing thing which did not go so well. I am feeling very frustrated today and Eric (Lead Combat Designer) and I got into it a little. We do that sometimes…we fight like little bitches, but we end up making up. I chalk it up to the stupid AC being broken and it’s hot as hell in this office, but tensions are a bit high right now. Oh well…we will hug and make up in no time and move on. I think I might actually have some time to sitr down with Nate and do some gameplay tuning…sweet!

4:56pm – DAMN!!! Paul the PR guy just reminded me about the rewrite on the interview questions…I should really finish that up before I go to the tuning so I can be uninterrupted for at least a few hours. I think I am just going to refer to him as Paul the PR guy from now on. It’s like a superhero name. Well ok…maybe it doesn’t sound like a superhero name…it actually sounds like a name that would be laminated to the side of a Van or something…like a plumber or something like that. Back to writing.

5:05pm – Finished my lame answer. I am not all that happy with it but I really don’t have much left in me to put into that. I need to break away and get some tuning done. The playtest is in less than a week and a half. And alpha is in…oh god I don’t even want to think about that. I need to medicate myself now or I am going to snap at somebody today…or they need to fix the air conditioning. Eric and I are cool now…so I go that going for me today.

6:26pm – Played through a few areas and discussed the fights with Nate, but only got about 30 minutes of actual tuning in before I had to head off to a daily review of one of our levels early in the game. It has really shaped up nicely…the big thing is to get it in front of Stig to make sure that the projected number of days to do the art is still valid. The level is feeling great so I hope I don’t have to cut anything out of it.

6:35pm - Tried to give Dave (Jaffe) a call today to talk about some stuff but I was so busy all day that I only got a chance to get on the phone a few minutes ago so I think I missed him. Nate just stopped by and said to come over and check out the latest fixes he did so I think I will go do that. I ordered dinner tonight. There really is nothing sadder than eating dinner at work. It’s totally necessary sometimes to get what we need to get done, but that doesn’t make it any less sad.

8:08pm – I Just got finished with a good tuning session where I was finally able to play through the entirety of one of our min bosses. We still have some more work to do, but man that was fun. While we were playing through one of the cinematic animators we were interviewing came by to say hi and tell me that I was a ‘legend’ around his parts or something like that. That was weird cause I seriously was like…really…for what? I don’t think that has ever happened to me…so it was simultaneously sweet and strange. I am sure I am going to be getting shit for it but oh well. We should definitely hire that guy…he’s got good taste. :) I am going to head back to play through a bit more and try and tweak some stuff. Hopefully all my enemies will work tomorrow. Eric is doing an overhaul on the reaction system for the creatures some a lot of them are broke which makes it hard to tune the fights. But Eric is the man…even though we fight like Jan and Marsha Brady. He’s Jan of course.

Oh I got to see some of the new bloom FX stuff Tim (Lead programmer) did….it is freaking sweet. Chris (Level Artist) and Timo (Level Artist) added it to their levels and it just looks gorgeous. I have said it before and I will say it again…we have some of the best fucking artists in the business.

I was just able to use a Mod Squad reference…the day is shaping up nicely. That’s the old school mod squad not that Claire Danes crap. Word.

8:30pm – I m going to go back to tuning, but I really don’t feel like coming back here and finishing this up when I am done so I will just cut it off for now. All in all a fairly productive day…but I think I could have gotten more done. Need to spend less time writing my blog. :)

A...B...C...Always be closing...ALWAYS BE CLOSING!

2006-07-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

So much to update today. The SpikeTV game head show about God of War II and Sony Santa Monica aired this weekend. I didn’t even find out until this morning, so I missed it. That is pretty much par for the course for me when it comes to anything but game production related stuff. It’s like everything else that is not related to getting this game done just falls to the back of the line…waaaaay in the back. I don’t know if that is so good, but its how I roll.

So hopefully they will air it again so I can check it out…though some people are saying I seem so serious and sleepy. I was definitely sleepy, I don’t think I had more than three or four hours of sleep the week that they came. Not so swift, got to get better at getting more sleep.

The show had the first look at one of our bosses…The Barbarian King. You might recognize him from one of the cinematics in God of War 1…he was the guy that had his head cut off by Kratos when he made is ill fated deal with Ares to become the ‘ultimate’ warrior. So now he is back under some pretty crazy circumstances to try and get some revenge against Kratos for you know…taking his head off and all. It’s pretty freakin’ sweet. So if you haven’t checked out the game head thing…check it out.

We are about two weeks off from our next playtest/milestone so that is kicking us in the ass a bit. We are growing closer…in my mind too close…to the alpha date. I came in today feeling like we still had a ways to go until alpha but in the leads meeting this morning the reality of our alpha date really hit me. Man we got to kick it up a notch. That is the thing about game development…even when you get more time…there is never enough time. There a like a million things to get done and each time you do one thing, you discover ten more things that need to get done. It’s nauseating really. But somehow in the final hours we always manage to pull a freakin’ rabbit out of our hats….I suppose that is a true testament to the fact that this team is absolutely unfreakinbelieveable!

I have been looking to buy a house for the last year or so…it takes awhile since I don’t have much time to actually look…and am constantly disappointed as the absolute ridiculousness of the housing market in L.A. I just don’t understand how anyone can afford to live here right now (well ‘buy’ here right now) unless you are willing to buy really far out or in the freakin’ ghetto. I really don’t want to do either of those things so I am looking at totally over inflated prices on these houses. The only thing you can do is suck it up I guess…but man it is going to hurt. I just spoke with the finance guy today to get an estimate of my monthly commitment (mortgage, taxes, ins..) and my heart just sank. I mean the place is barely 1k square feet. It’s nice, and the area is great, but it is no mansion or anything. But I guess that is the way it goes here in L.A. The only way you are going to get something that fulfills everything on your wishlist is to leave…or to just be freakin’ rich. The latter is a much tougher proposition, which makes me sad as well but I don’t think we will go into that right now.

Ok…enough about my sad housing hunt. Thanks for the feedback on the strategy guide everyone. I am still mulling over which way I am going to with the guide but your feedback gave me some good food for thought.

Someone mentioned something about the movie…about whether or not we would be involved. I would love to be involved…but I know for sure that will not happen. Dave and Shannon have some involvement I think…I don’t know the specifics…but the studios really do not have much need for game designer input on a film project. I can’t say that I wouldn’t love to be involved though but I have my plate full with God of War 2 and my Webster vs. Diff’rnt Strokes PSP game!

And finally today I leave you with a couple of screenshots showing our first God of War II boss battle (well not first in game layout...just first announced) which you afre free to use for good or for awesome. This is still fairly early stuff so it is not 100% represenative of what it will look like in the final game.

You get to fight him on horse back...

...and on foot...but he grows freaking HUGE! Why you ask? Well you will have to check out Andy and his crew of fucking 'rock stars of the gaming mag world' over at Game Informer in thier September issue for more info and screens.

hammertime.

We ain't found shit!

2006-07-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

Word up. Things in development-land are going quite well these days. We have another playtest at the end of the month and we are cruising through a large chunk of work that needs to get done for it. We should have our first boss done…well not DONE done...but ALPHA done…by the end of the month which is good as we have many others to get through. There are more bosses in this installment, but because of that there is an exponentially larger amount of stress for us as well. Bosses are a tough nut to crack. Especially when you are trying insure the greatest variety in the gameplay and prevent the whole cookie cutter mentality that some games fall prey too. But in the end I am sure it is going to make the game feel so much more epic.

Dave is on the blogging again talking about his love of iChat. I hate iChat. It works really well…and it is pretty simple to set up….so my hatred is not really all that rational. Well maybe it is rational to me, but it does not stem from iChat being poorly designed. I just hate using it. I like the face to face meetings. But it seems to serve us well for the production needs so I will suffer through it and bust out my +3 ‘I Don’t care’ card.

I have been looking at some mock ups for the GOW2 strategy guide. I myself do purchase many strategy guides…not because I am hardcore or old school or anything like that…far from it…mostly cause I am too lazy to read them. That and I usually just go on to gamefaqs and grab the quick hint if I am stuck. I have picked up a few but mostly if they have an accompanying art book or a large section on the art of the specific game. The signature series MGS3 guide Brady did was freaking awesome. The art book they included had a wealth of great concept stuff complete with the art notes. I love reading that stuff, it is that kind of material that makes it worth the purchase for me…but maybe that is just me. I would be curious to know what would make any of you purchase a guide if you normally do not get them.

Ok I need to head out to a cinematics meeting to check out the latest renders form the high res cinematic house.

It's a sledgehammer!!

2006-07-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

I’m not going to write much now except to say I am a total fucking idiot. For the last few weeks I have been posting and thinking…”hmmm…no one is commenting on the posts…maybe I am finally so trite and boring that I have lost the three people that read it?” But I was at dinner tonight with my sister and parents…my mom said “I posted on your site but you didn’t publish my post.”

And I was like “What are you talking about? It just like…goes up...right? I don’t have to do anything.”

And she's like "I don't think so...cause I posted a while ago and it didn't go up. Its probably something you have to set."

Then…as if the sky opened up and a bolt of lightning suddenly rushed down from the swirling storm clouds and split my head open...I suddenly realized…I clicked that moderate comments button when I was fooling around with the blog a while back…at the time it didn’t appear to do anything so I just left it. But oh boy it did…So went on tonight to see if it was possible that I could be that stupid and under the moderate comments section there were 30 comments waiting to be moderated. IDIOT!!!

That is how I fuckin’ roll... sorry about that y'all...such a noob.Schooled by my mom no less. Thought I was keepin it real yo...but she was keepin it realer!

Anyway, I will write some more later and respond to the comments throughout the day tomorrow.

It was quite and emotionally trying week for me at work...but I will get into that later...right now it is time to take some xanax and pass the hell out!

YEAH!!! That is awesome...I am typing this blog entry in word…and word has a little ‘you misspelled this’ squiggly line under xanax…the suggested correction…anal. Ok…not even close. Bill Gates is weird.

oh...and this is the link to my myspace page...its still pretty lame but feel free to add me as a friend so I dont look like a complete internet loser. Actualy adding me as a friend will do nothing to change that fact...I will still be a loser...but I love it!!!!
cory

Video games in da house!

2006-06-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

"Seriously the house of represenatives is filled with insane jackasses."

John Stewert is great...I love that guy. Good story about how utterly stupid this whole legislation of video games is getting. Just nuts.

playtest is going well today...finding a lot of stuff that needs fixin...and that is a good playtest. But is still stresses me out and makes me sad. wierd how that works.

--hammertime

you want a toe? I can get you a toe dude...

2006-06-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today is Thursday June 22nd and we are 1 day away from our next playtest. I think I have a pretty good handle on this whole playtest thing now, so it is not as stressful as the others have been…the playtest part that is. There is still a bunch of stress related to the finishing of this game. We are still months from alpha, but it is not far from my mind. It is pretty hard to get far from my mind as I am reminded of our dwindling number of days every few hours by various members of the team. :)

So the playtest….we are putting two new levels through the ringer as well as on of our bopss encounters…the first to be play tested. It is actually a pretty big deal but since it is the first time it will be played I am not expected anything too great. Bosses usually take a few passes to really hone in on the fun. We worked on the Minotaur boss for like 5 months or something crazy like that…it might have been more but the last project is getting a little foggy…difficult to see through the haze of GOW2 stress. Anyway, the team has been putting in some hours getting the levels ready. It’s funny how things work in games. You spend a large amount opf time before a deadline feeling like you are just treading water, it seems like things are getting done but the game is still in pieces. Then…like a college student cramming for a final…the team works a mad week before the deadline and everything comes together and all is right in the world. Now that isn’t to say that people are not doing anything the whole month…far from it. They are making all the pieces and the last week is everyone putting those pieces together. I think no matter how many times I go through it…I will still get freaked out the week before the deadline thinking we are never gonna’ make it. ‘Me of little faith’ I guess. Sometimes I think I feed off the feeling of uncertainty...like working without a net or something.

Heard some more music this week and that got me pumped. I can’t wait to start hearing some of the tracks in the cinematics as well. That is still a ways off I think, but I am looking forward to it. Speaking of cinematics I sat with the cinematics dept. yesterday to go over the VO that was placed in the scenes. It was better than before but it still sounded different than when we recorded. I was on a conference call listening to the playback of the sessions…not the ideal conditions for hearing the nuances of a performance. The good thing is I know we have what we need to make the scenes work, so that is a slight bit of stress relived.

I am heading off to do the final tuning on the levels for tomorrow so that is all I have right now.

And steph…you are crazy with the myspace accounts…I love it. Stella the diabolical beta rocks. Oh yeah, I set up a myspace account…its dorky I know…but that is how I roll. And thanks to Steph I have lots of friends and a whopping 104 viewings of my profile. Man…I really am a popular guy. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to let the fame go to my head. Ha!

Holy shit...MCHammer has a blog...that is so dope. And he has pictures of him and Mr. T on it. SWEET! I am all over this one! He signs all his blog posts off with --hammertime.

tight!

I am going to rock out like that too.

--corytime

ok that actually sounds really gay...I won't do that anymore.

3....2...1....CONTACT!

2006-06-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

There are some pretty good news stories today. I ran across this one and it made me laugh. I can't believe this game is still in production...and shockingly it looks as if it will still be in production through the year into the next. Too Human had a cover story in EGM that claimed the game was 10 years in the making...but in reality it has only been in production for the 360 for a few years or so. But this game will have truely been in prodcution for 10 years if it slips to next year. Man...think about that...10 years working on the same game. I honestly don't think I could maintain focus and enthusiasm for that long. I would probably give up...because there is just no way the game could live up to the expectations of a 10 year development cycle. Or maybe it willl...maybe it will come out and redefine the gaming universe...I doubt it though...and anyone who sacrificed for that long will be terribly dissapointed.

Also another great little article about some gaming addiction detox center in Amsterdam. That is some serious gaming love that one must have to facilitate the need for such a place. But with all those stories of people dying from playing games three or four days straight, it appears there is a need for a place like this.

scary.

SpikeTV was in the office shooting some stuff for a show on God of War2...it should be pretty sweet. You will get to see some new footage of the game and some extra stuff as well as check out the Santa Monica studios. I am not sure of the air date...but when I know more I will let you all know. I think it is sometime in July.

cory

11:33

2006-06-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

Derek Daniels, one of the combat designers on God of War 2, did a really cool write up on why some games just feel better than others. He is actually doing a series of write ups about this...the latest one is on the jump. I love jumping. the combat guys make fun of me for my love of jumping in games...but I just keep on jumping.

If you have any interest in game design or understanding the games you play and why they are good I would recommend reading it. Plus, Derek is a vegetarian. I have no idea what that has to do with anything...but I typed it...and being someone who doesnt really believe in the delete key all that much..I'm sticking with it. So just read it, you're kids with thank you.

Or check out the comment battle Dave and I have going...but root for me 'cause I am gonna kick his ass. Then I will probably get fired.:) Sweet. time to sleep.

Day four on the floor

2006-06-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

Okay so the day count thing is getting kind of old...I think today will be the last of the day counts.

Ooooh I’m gonna’ ramble a lot today. It's day four (last time I swear) of my newfound smoke-free lifestyle and I am inspired to just partake in a little stream of consciousness rant. It may not make much sense…but that is how I roll. Like a rock star.

I’m with you guys when it comes to the ideas of parents regulating the media their kids take in. I am so not a supporter of organizations (private or governmental) or people trying to impose their belief system on the general populace. I am happy for people who feel that video games are morally reprehensible and they will never play them…that is fine with me. But when they try to push their own belief system on everyone I think it is truly a sign of our de-evolution. Jack Thompson is another in a long series of poster boys (and girls) for the downfall of our free thought and expression. I mean you Have Tipper gore, Sen. Lieberman, Jack Thompson…and so on. These are just sad little people trying to gain favor of the majority by pushing the blame to the creators of media and entertainment.

Now…I am no media lover when it comes to the news. But I don’t blame the media for stupid people. I mean there are so many uninformed people that are products of the “If it bleeds it leads” news media…but in the end it is because they are too lazy too seek out other sources of research to truly understand something. It is not the fault of the news…they are trying to gain a market share and stay profitable. So they forgo real journalism and focus on the big money headline stories about Brad and Jennifer and all that other drivel. But again…they are not to blame for stupid people.

The same is true for movies/TV/games. Are the makers of the entertainment responsible for what your kids watch? I can’t see how. Just as the makers of fast food are not responsible for you kid eating cheeseburgers every day. It is the parents who should bear the burden of talking about these movies/TV/games with their kids. When you hide, censor or otherwise attempt to prevent your children from seeing something…they will seek it out…and they will do so without the guidance and open discussion they should have from their parents. If they do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality…then the makers of the fantasy are not to blame. That is something that must be instilled by the parents. That would be like blaming those who wrote the bible because little jimmy, who can’t swim, decided to try walking on water out in the family pool. Well never mind the idea that if little jimmy can’t swim, so he probably can’t read…so that analogy is pretty shaky…but you get the point.

That isn’t to say that there are not things that kids should not see….but that is what a ratings system is for. I am totally behind the idea of the ratings system, when it works. This allows parents to make an informed purchase and gives them an understanding of what exactly they are allowing their kids to play. But if the parents are not involved with their kids life…if they do not communicate with them about the movies/TV/games they play…then we have the righteous Jack Thompson’s of the world riding in on their political white horse ready to blame everyone but the parents for the actions of the child. That is just lame.

Should we blame the classic gangster movies for the rise of organized crime? I definitely thought about becoming a mobster with a therapist after I saw sopranos…it was so appealing. Actually I did not think of becoming a mobster. And I have never played a game and then thought…I am going to go out and do that. This is because I was given a good foundation as to what is right and what is wrong.

In the end…it is all just a scape-goat. Blame whatever you can to explain something that you do not understand or something so horrible you don’t want to understand. Rock on…lets all do that. I mean human beings have been doing it since the dawn of man anyway. Hell that is how most religions were founded. Well that and fear I guess. But that is another story entirely.

Most likely I am totally off base here...but that is how I roll. All your base...are belong to us.

and on the third day...

2006-06-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Day three is about to come to a close. I haven’t had any cravings to smoke so that is good but unfortunately the nausea and dizziness still remain. A small price to pay to avoid some lung cancer. Though I have been smoking off and on for 15 years...so I could already have it. Oye…I am not even going to think about that.

I finished the recording session this morning feeling pretty good. I think we got everything we need…though we pretty much had to since that was the last session we had in the contract for this guy. But I remain positive that all will turn out good. We should be getting back the files from the session by Friday so I will know for sure then.

Hey Dutch…it is cool that you got the soundtrack even though you don’t normally get them. Rest assured that we are going to kick the ass of the first soundtrack. We have all the original composers from the first game and they are cranking out stuff now that just takes it all to the next level. Man that sounds like hype. I’m not trying to bullshit you or anything…but it is pretty good.

Well it is almost 6pm...I have a meeting with the visual development guys and then I will probably head home. I am so not an early riser. I had to wake up at 6am today in order to get into the studio for the session…and yet I was still late. I just don’t handle the mornings well. I have tons of respect for those of you who can wake up early and be productive…I am more inclined to staying up late though.

The ESA is going to sue Minnesota over some law that fines underage kids 25 bucks for buying M rated and AO rated games. Hmm…you think if they could catch them buying the game in order to fine them…then they would just be able to prevent them from buying it in the first place…right? The best part is that they require the retailers to post a sign in 30 point font saying that there will be a penalty to purchasing these games if you are under 18. Nice...I can only imagine how long the debates ran when it came to deciding on how big the font should be. 25? Nooo...much too small. Well how about 65??? are you crazy...that is just overkill. Either way…I have decided to sue California because they have created an environment that suppresses my right to the pursuit of happiness. It would make me happy to have a house, but california house prices are too expensive. Well I want something in L.A...so I guess I can't sue California as a whole. I will just sue L.A. Then I will sue everyone who is selling a house for an outragous price. Yeah...that'll be sweet. Sueing kicks ass!

Day two

2006-06-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

...of the ‘quit smoking’ crusade. The patch makes me nauseous. I tried to quit before, and found that I got really irritable and nauseous from the patch. I feel a little nauseous and dizzy now, but this time I am going to just deal with it as I really don’t want to have to quit again. The good thing is I had half a bottle of wine last night, and no desire for a cigarette. So I past the first mini test as drinking and smoking go together so well with me.

I just got out of a conference call with one of the actors who is voicing a character in the game. This guy is pretty well known and has done several movies that I am a huge fan of so it was a pretty cool experience to be chatting with him about the story behind and growth of the character. It is kind of dorky, but I had a real sense of accomplishment during the conversation…like I had finally accomplished something. This story that I and the other writers have worked so hard to craft is finally coming to life. To add to it, it is being brought to life by some pretty great actors. It really is pretty exciting. It really makes me feel thankful that I have the job that I have.

I have a music meeting in a few minutes to go over the latest tracks the composers have delivered so that should be good. Every time I hear new music I get even more inspired with what we are doing. I mean when you see a level that is near complete from an art perspective you really get a sense of the mood of the level, but when you get the music in there…you really see how the level is going to feel…or make you feel to be more precise.

All right…gotta go.

I want Guitar Hero 2...

2006-06-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

Now. I love the songs in the first one...but I want new ones. A little guns and roses maybe!! Man that would be a level of sweetness that would be beyond comprehension.

It has been awhile since my last post. I’m afraid that those few of you that follow this blog will just have to bear with me as I try to get better at documenting things in this blog.

BIG NEWS! I quit smoking today. I am rocking the Clear nicoderm CQ patch. Hopefully it will give me wicked nightmares when I wear it at night. That would be fun. Well maybe for a day or so..then it would just suck. I have been running myself into the ground lately and consequently have been getting sick a lot more. So I figured it was about time to give up the nasty habit. I have a quit a few times before…so I hope this time sticks. It will certainly make the next few stress filled week a whole hell of a lot more interesting. I hope I don’t piss too many people off with my ‘more than normal’ mood swings.

So let’s see. We are moving forward like a freakin’ freight train with the game. I was able to see two levels that have nearly 80% level of polish art on them and they look freakin’ sweet!! I need that little pick me up as things are getting even more hectic entering into the last months of the project. Well last months to alpha really. We still don’t ship until next year, but we have a huge task to hit our alpha milestone.

I did some re-recording of some of the voice over stuff last week. I was fully in the throes of sickness so waking up at 6:45 to make a meeting in the recording studio at 7:45 was rough. But we were able to get some good stuff so that made up for it. I just hope this all works out. I fought pretty hard to get some of the voices we have in the game…and I can sense the doubt about some of them working out. I still remain confident that it will work out…but if it doesn’t I am going to look like a supreme asshole. I know that sounds like a pretty revered title…but sadly it is not so good. So here is to hoping I don’t fuck it up.:)

We are heavily focusing on two of our bosses from the game right now. One of them is farther along in the process and nearly to the stage of fight tuning…which is awesome for me! I actually get to sit down and do some real work on the game. The tuning of the fights and play experience is really the true ‘hands on’ work for me. I do so many other things on the game that are important, but they are still all about the planning phase. So any time I get to sit down and get my hands dirty is a good time.

I haven’t been able to play to many games lately. Partly because of work, but also because I have been so exhausted when I get home that I just don’t feel like thinking. I just want to throw on a movie or TV show and collapse on the couch. I hope quitting smoking will give me some more energy. Man that is pretty fucking sad when you say you are too tired to sit on the couch and play a video game. Seriously…I think I will punch myself for that one.

Well my lunch is almost over and I have to do an interview at 2 so I will end this one here. I have a recording session tomorrow so I will try and do an update and chat a bit about that.

Oh…I saw Rent this weekend. Man…I have no idea what came over me in the video store. For some reason I picked this up thinking it would be good…but after about 20 minutes I had to just shut it off. Sometimes musicals are ok…and other times they make you want to rip you own eyeballs out with a cocktail fork. This was actually worse than the ripping of the eyes with a cocktail fork. It was bad. Sorry to all of those who liked it…but it was just a mentally scarring experience that I am sure will take me a long time to get over.

sweet jesus

2006-05-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Old Grandma hardcore has a new post on her blog thanks to the literary stylings of Tim. Check it out to read about the God of War 2 press event we had a few weeks before e3.

Man Grandma Hardcore is the epitome of hardcore gamer without all the trash talking on internet forums "you got pwned by chuck norris' roundhouse to the fucking head" bullshit. It was great to meet up with her and Tim. Hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of them in the future.

Out sick yesterday so I am back in the office today to what I imagine will be a veritable cornucopia of issues and problems due to my extended "vacation-like" absence of 1.5 days. I just hope the game hasn't turned into an RTS during my long stay away.

c

back in the saddle again

2006-05-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

So I am back at work today attempting to pick up all the pieces after that whirlwind week of E3. Now it is back to reality...we have a pretty short period of time left...well in game development terms that is...and still so much I want to do with the game.

I have a few emails to finish up and then it is straight to the level design meeting where we will break down the state of the game as it is now and make a plan for the final stretch. I guess final stretch is a bit of a stretch...since the street date seems so far away. But then time passes so quickly when you are busy that it is almost around the corner. Ok...I am talking in circles now. enough with that nonsense.

After the level meeting I am going to try and carve out some time with the combat guys to talk about our boss plan and get an update of where we are on the boss front. Bosses are hard...they take a ton of people a ton of time to get done...but man do they really pay off in the end. It is such a satisfying feeling finishing off a boss...both from a development stanpoint and a play standpoint. It is goin gto be great see some more of our bosses come together in the next few months.

ok...small update today...I gotta get to work. Maybe go have a smoke...then get to work. I should quit smoking. But that is just an empty promise right now...because it is my only way to counteract the stress. some people have food...or drugs...I have ciggarettes.

which when I step back and think about it is totally stupid. but oh well. I never claimed to be the smartest person in the room.

later.

It was the best of times...

2006-05-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

So it is Sunday morning and the chaos that is E3 is now over. It took me a few days to recover from the crazy week, but in the end it turned out pretty good. The game seemed to show really well and the booth was jam packed the whole time. I haven’t read too much coverage on it yet though. I am adding abunch of pics to this post...they were taken iwth my phone camera so they suck ass...but it was all I had at the time.

It was a very different E3 for me though. Usually I get to see a ton of games and then spend the rest of the time in the Gordon Biersch drinking with old friends…but not this year. I was running from interview to meeting the whole time. So I think I was only able to see a handful of games at the show- which bummed me out. I did not get to see the Wii at all…this also bummed me out as I got mixed reviews back from everyone I talked to. Some people really loved it while others were not so impressed. Hopefully we wil get one in the office when they come out so I will get a chance to try before I buy.

I think I will download the lost planet demo today and a few of the videos on my 360 so maybe that will make up for the lack of playing at the show. Anyway here is the list of the few things I got to check out:

Heavenly Sword (PS3): Sweet looking game. The controls felt a little unresponsive, but it looked great and moved very well. It reminded me of something but I couldn’t put my finger on it. ;)

Resistance (PS3): looks great, can’t wait to see more of this one. Games like this are more fun for me at home then on the show floor. There are too many distractions on the show floor to really enjoy this.

Tabla Rasa (PC): Someone told me to check this one out. It looked cool, and after a long day of press it was quite cathartic to just unleash some rockets onto a bunch of alien creatures.

Shadowrun (360): I did not get to play this, but I ran into a guy I knew back in college that is working on this game. I wil be keeping an eye on it now as it looks like a pretty sweet multiplayer game.

Too Human (360): No comment.

The new sonic game (360): No idea of the name right now, but the game was not all that good. The controls were twitchy so consequently I died a lot. Or maybe I just suck at sonic games. Either way…I was not converted to sonic-dom with that demo.

I went to the Sony party on Thursday night, which was cool. I didn’t drink too much but I did stay out a bit too late and was really regretting it the next day. Friday was a rough one.

I got a later start to the day and did my last round of interviews and was free to check out games for the last hour of the show. That is when I got to see most of the games I saw at the show.

You know what…European journalists rock. That isn‘t to say that US journalists are not cool too, but for this show it seemed the euro guys and gals were asking more questions beyond the usual “Give me the list of new features.” Or “tell me the story of the game…” I had a bunch of fun interviews where we talked about the future of cinematic gaming, the concept of conveying emotions through games, etc. It was nice to have a real discussion about things that I am really passionate about. A good break from the “Hurry up and give us the specs cause we gotta’ be somewhere else in 5 minutes” thing. But I suppose there is merit in both approaches.

On Saturday we went to a Mark Ryden book signing. This guys is a phenomenal artist so it was sweet that we were able to get in to see him. He had a guy dressed in a bunny suit that sat with him through most of the signings. nice.

Luckily we decided to go early to get a good place in the line because the line got very long, very fast. Plus he has a crazy system of rubber stamps he uses when he signs things so the line was moving quite slow. But all in all it was a good time and I got a couple of books signed. Sweet. I was feeling run down from the week so I decided to stay in for the night and relax. Kind of a lame Saturday night, but I work in games so that is pretty much par for the course. Hahahaha…just kidding. I bet cliffyb goes out all the time and parties like a freaking rock star.

Not much else. Going to meet my parents to celebrate mother’s day today o that will be fun. And we get tomorrow off so I think I will be coming home tonight and taking it easy once again. Even with a day off tomorrow I need to recharge…it is going to be a crazy next six months.

Oh I ran into Dutch on the first day as well….very cool guy. Thanks for stopping by man! It was nice to finally put a face to the posts.

Well I need to get ready for the moms day festivities.
later

Pre E3 GOW II impressions on IGN

2006-05-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

IGN did an article on thier look at the pre-E3 build of our demo. If you can't make it to the show check it out since they pretty much walk you through the demo. So it is just like being there.

Not really I guess. But it is better than nothing.

Lights out Modblog!

2006-05-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

So I am officially done with the modblog. It was fun while it lasted, but I am tired of the downtime and lack of image posting. So after a little help from some of the combat guys I have figured out this whole Blogspot thing. I am still working on getting the page the way I like it so bear with the slow construction process.

And because I can...I am going to post an image of the dopest lego thing ever. Well not ever, since it is totally missing B.A. Barracus. I guess they did not make black lego guys...which is gay.

Sweet...I have the power now!!!

Anyway. We should have our final disk within the hour and then it is all about beating the hell out of it. It seems we cut it pretty close most every year for our Demo. But in the end it all seems to work out.

ok...back to work.

so it begins again...again

2005-12-01T08:49:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a long time since I have posted on modblog due to thier crazy extended outage...so I have decided to say 'lights out' to the folks over at modblog and try out the domain of my favorite grandma gamer...Old Grandma hardcore!! Seems pretty nice over here so I think I will stay awhile.

so much has happened since my last post that I don't think my wee little hands can handle all the typing required to fully tell the story. So I will give the short short version.

The first real playtest of the game went really well, I experienced the first and second rounds of my true inductionn into the game directors postition - necessary cuts. It sucks...and it hurts creatively....but in the end it so much better for the gasme. I say that now because I have had plenty of time to process it and come up with great new stuff that will tie the whole game together...but man it stung the first time. I wouldn't say it's as dramatic as killing your baby or anything like that, but at the time it felt like I was selling out like David Caruso. In the end though it really does make the game a much better and more cohesive experience...so I am happy. Happy like a fuckin' clown. A french clown with that funny make up they have on and the silly little horn that you just want to ram down thier throat.

but I digress...The game is moving along swimmingly....man I can't believe I just used that word in a sentence....anyway all is good. I had a meeting with some of the legal and Voice over people about our voice cast for the game. I definitely have some high hopes for who I want to voice some of these characters...but I really think they will add to the completeness of the world. There are just some people who have incredibly powerrful and affecting voices....voices that just punch you in the stomach and steal your lunch money, you know? I want that. And then when you are at home playing the game on your couch or that discarded large wodden cable spool...and you will be laughing and crying at the same time...and without your lunch money. sweet.

The script phase of the game is very close to being done...and it has really shaped up nicely. Nearly everything I wanted to get into the story has gotten in - so that makes me happy like bush at nap time.

I am going to start tuning some new levels for our second playtest which takes place on dec. 20th. This one isn't as monumental...since the last one was my first playtest as a GD...but it is still pretty important.

My holiday was good...we hosted my sister and her husband and my parents at our place...and we rented a ninja to carve the turkey...which rocked. But then someone made a ninja joke and he flipped out and killed everyone. But we got better - and I stole his chucks.

Allright. I have a boat load of documents to write and my day of meetings is about to begin so I will say "lights out" for now.

word.