Fun Friday: Wall-E Edition

Everyone in THQ QA got to see Wall-E today as after successfully getting the game to retail on like every platform known to man, including the 2600. The movie was fan-freaking-tastic. I loved every moment. Andrew Stanton is a genius in my mind, and while Finding Nemo is a tough act to follow, he absolutely crafted a beautiful film. There is minimal dialogue, so the animators deserve a tremendous amount of credit for bringing these robots to life. Every movement is filled with expression that require no words, even in Eve, who's only facial expressions come from her eyes.

Things to watch out for include: the Mac startup sound effect (even though I prefer PC, I still loved this), Pong, and John Ratzenberger's voice, of course.

Fun Friday: Awesome Quote of the Week

Warren Spector may wish for less 100-hour long games, but Todd Howard, Executive Producer for Bethesda and most recently, Fallout 3, said quite the opposite in an interview with IGN.

That I’ve never really grown out of my love of the 100 hour adventures of my Apple 2 days. The ones I would go to bed dreaming about solving. I crave moments of discovery in games, the moments of “can I do this?” and the sense that I have found something no other player has. I want my games to have that. I want length and depth and hint books that can kill a child if dropped on them.

I added the emphasis because that is the most hilarious thing I heard all week.

Confession Time

I played, no, I take that back, I experienced Wii Fit today. I still don't think it's a game. But, I enjoyed it. I saw its merits. I heard a voice in the back of my head that said, "Buy this." Oh no. Damn you Miyamoto.

Spore Creature Creator Rocks

Prior to trying this demo, I had no interest in Spore whatsoever. Will Wright is a genius but the Sims games have never kept my interest. Now I'm considering the full version of the Creature Creator and the game when it comes out. I haven't spent a lot of time with it but here's my first rough creation. He looks cute and adorable, until he rips your face off! The possibilities here are truly amazing and endless. Of course, my first creations were all phallic, but wasn't everyone's?

There Is Hope

Kaiden will be one moth old this weekend. Time has seemed to fly by but I am loving every minute with my son. On the other hand, I'm a gamer and that part of my life has suffered terribly.

It may sound selfish but I have probably put in only about eight hours of gaming in the last month, mostly in Penny Arcade Adventures and my progress in GTAIV has come to a screeching halt. For a gamer who was regularly putting in three or four hours at a time with a 360 controller in my hands a few times a week, this has been traumatizing. I was starting to feel that my pastime was slipping out of reach as I took on my new role as Dad.

But Kaiden fell asleep early tonight and I was reading through some old articles that I had bookmarked a while back. One of those articles was from way back on May 11th called "All Grown Up: A Gamer Comes to Grips With Adulthood" and has rekindled my hope that gaming will eventually return to my life.

The newborn phase was exceptionally difficult, but before long Kaz got in tune with the patterns of life in his new family. He needed his diaper changed less often, didn’t want to eat on a constant basis, and actually started sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time. It seemed like when we weren’t looking, my wife and I suddenly had a little bit of room to breathe.

Obviously, it will never return to the same level it was, but it's encouraging to learn that there is hope. Plus, I will eventually share many moments gaming with my son as he gets older. That is, when I'm not teaching how to do a Cruyff soccer move or how to build a potato launcher.

Fun Friday: I Love the World Edition

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Not much else to say here but how awesome this is. I thought it was cool when they did it for all of the Discovery Channel shows, but this takes it to another level for me.

Two Of My Favorite Things

MLS expansion team, the Seattle Sounders, have landed a shirt sponsorship deal with Microsoft. I think this is cool. As Kotaku mentions, it may not have worked out for the Dreamcast and their Arsenal deal, but Nintendo was sponsoring Fiorentina long before that, so it can't be a curse. I also think that Sony had the PlayStation logo on Lyon or Marseille's jersey in France, I can't remember exactly. I'm just glad the MLS has joined the rest of the word and is putting sponsors on the jerseys.

On the other hand, I hate this: Guitar Hero will feature during Colorado Rapids halftime show. This doesn't even make sense to me. I don't see the connection or relevance. But then again, it is the MLS, and they still thinks that a two division, season ending tournament is the best way to determine the champion. Go figure.

Mentors Rescue

I remember doodling my own levels for NES games as a kid. I also remember entering a contest that appeared in an early issue of Nintendo Power where I attempted to design a game based around insect creatures (I didn't win). Unfortunately, nothing had seemed to survive the last twenty years for me to look back on for some frame of reference. That is until recently.

Since buying my house, my dad decided that there was no reason for any of my old stuff in his garage needed to stay and could be stored in my new garage. Amongst that pile of stuff was an old board game from 1989 called HeroQuest. I had totally forgotten about the game until that point and quickly remembered how much fun I had with the game at the time. After opening the box, some yellowing sheets of graph paper and note paper fell out of the instruction booklet.

Here, I had stumbled onto a map and quest I had created for the game. I guess, you could say it was one of my first complete game designs. The action revolved around saving your captured mentor from the evil Verag and seemed to rely heavily on my Zelda influences (the player needed to find the "Sword of Power" to defeat the end boss). I also included quite a few traps and enemies, I must have been feeling especially diabolical for an eleven year old at the time.

This game still seems to hold up and is easily customizable and seems to be a descent tool to explore level design. I think I may have to dust it off and design some updated levels for this game.

Wii and DS: Made for Each other

This was news a long ways back (give me a break, I bought a house and had a baby). It was revealed that the Wii version of the Ghostbusters will use Wii-DS Connectivity to enhance game play. Essentially, the DS would be used as the famous PKE reader that was used in the movie. I love this design decision and implementation. This is much better than having Tingle drops bombs on unsuspecting foes.

Even longer ago, I attended the Wi Summit in Hollywood hosted by Nintendo and they went over this functionality for the Wii. The presentation was mostly boring but it sparked an idea while I was nodding off.

I've played a few card based games on several platforms, such as Uno on Xbox Live, but was disappointed that there was no way to play with friends in the same room because, obviously, every one's cards would be on the screen to see. With the use of the Wii-DS connectivity, the game could deal the cards to each player's DS and then each player would only be able to see their own cards.

It seems like a simple idea and I'm surprised that some developer has yet to take advantage of this feature in a meaningful way until now.

Baby Kaiden

If you thought Tim Schafer's baby was cute, wait till you see my son! He arrived early last Thursday morning, healthy and vibrant. I am still reeling from "new baby fog" but hope to find a posting rhythm soon. Life is beautiful!