Forge is an awesome addition to the Halo 3 package. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, but it gives very creative people an outlet to express them self through the game. One such player and Flickr user, Rit Dye, has used Forge to astonishing effect. It is sort of an optical illusion and plays on the 3D space but the end result is nothing short of amazing.
Next Generation beat me to it with an expose on whether or not this has been the greatest year ever for games released. They have fancy charts and graphs and came up with the hard fact that, overall, this is the second worst year since 2001 in terms of actual reviewed games. They go on to point out that while this seems to contradict the feeling that we have had a great year, we have other cause to celebrate. The industry has been able to sustain a four console race, bigger games and sales, and the presence of online across most platforms is all quite admirable.
The only thing I would add to their in depth report is what I noticed as a trend on Metacritic. On all current generation consoles, their top ten list has been dominated by new releases in the last four months. With the exception of Gears of War and Oblivion, the Xbox 360 has eight new titles in the top ten since August. The PS3 top ten list includes five games from the last few months. Super Mario Galaxy is the second highest rated game of all time.
Next Generation speculates that the last generation had a similar spike about a year after their release only to peak three or four years into the life cycle. If in two years, we have another peak in game quality and the top ten lists are all replaced with new games, gamers have very bright future. It also means that someone is probably working on possibly the greatest game of all time right now.
This week's Fun Friday does not include a video. To change things up, I'm quoting an article that I found on Digg earlier this week that actually had me rolling. In an article that cited the top ten hot computer driven careers, they included video game developer. So far so good, I wholly agree with that. Even though times are tough, the industry as a whole is having tremendous success. However, there was a link to becoming a tester that was full of wisdom such as, Is your Play Station controller soldered to your hand? Did you buy a Wii before anyone else? Do you like nothing better than spending hours in front of the TV playing Halo? Instead of playing those games for fun, why not play them for a paycheck? Get paid to pay video games!
Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype! One of the hardest things for gamers who become tester to learn is to stop "playing" the game and actually test it. But the article is not done yet. Since the job is mostly fun and games, how much could this unbelievable job pay? Because video game testers are considered entry-level positions in the gaming industry, they are often offered jobs on an as-needed basis rather than a regular nine-to-five position. But this doesn’t mean the job doesn’t pay well, because it can—anything from $10 to over $100 an hour. Pretty good for a video game job!
The emphasis is mine, but wow. I must be working at the wrong company if other testers are making nearly ten times what I make.
