Fun Friday: Thanksgiving Edition

It's been a great year. It's been challenging but great. I can definitely say that I am very thankful for many things.

• Firstly, I'm thankful for my growing family. I became a dad and a homeowner within two months. Both presented challenges but only the very best kinds. I'm also very thankful of my wife who is very understanding when it comes to my passion for games.
• I'm thankful for developers Blue Tongue, 5th Cell, Yukes and Rare for giving me the chance to work on some great titles.
• I'm thankful for the Xbox360 which this year has provided some of the best gaming moments I have ever had including the sensation of quietly executing a man from the shadows with a hidden blade, had Gandhi order a nuclear strike on cities of Genghis Khan, bitch slapped a mime while hunting down a giant fruit fucker, had my ass handed to me by an old school platformer (twice), had my garden decimated by hemlock, and survived the cornfields with three of my buddies against wave after wave of infected.
• I'm thankful that I work in a place where someone has a copy that week's highly anticipated release, saving me from having to buy everything that came out this fall.
• I'm very thankful that I still have a job and get to do all of this again next year.

This year was extraordinarily full of highlights. There were some very low lights in my personal life, thankfully only a few, but overall I think this can go down as one great year and I look forward to the next.

Fun Friday: Viral Marketing Douchebags Edition

I was originally going to post this video of what looked like some really dedicated Guitar Hero fans and a lot free time on their hands. But then it was revealed that it was a hoax and funded by Activision to be "viral marketing." Boo. I think the video response above successfully captures the sentiment of many. (Although, I will concede that the original video is still pretty cool.)

Fun Friday: Left 4 Dead Edition

Left 4 Dead comes out next week. I wasn't initially excited. Then, I saw this trailer. And then, I played the demo. Wow, was I wrong about not anticipating the enjoyment that comes with mowing down hundreds, if not thousands, of infected with three of your buddies. And yes, I said infected. These are not zombies; they can run. Zombies don't run. And Simon Pegg agrees with me.

Up and Away

Pixar has recently released a second trailer for next year's new film, Up. As most may already know, THQ has the exclusive rights to publish games based on the Pixar license. A couple of summers ago saw the release of Cars and we had the second best selling game of the year only falling behind Madden. We had over a billion dollars in sales that year (with the help of a couple of quality PC releases and the WWE license) and things looked good. Fast forward a couple of years and things are not looking as rosy for my company.

One of the things that has taken the blame for our shortcomings have been the performance of this license. First, Ratatouille underperformed last summer and then Wall-E suffered the same fate this summer. Ratatouille's failure was justified because it was about a rat and people might find that "icky." But when Wall-E did the same, people said, "WTF? He's a robot, how did he not sell?"

I don't think it was a over saturated kids and casual market that did these games in (it didn't help), but rather that Pixar is creating movies that are way over our designers' heads.

I'm not saying that the designers didn't understand the movies; I'm saying that the themes did not translate into an interactive form very well. In fact, it's debatable if anyone could have done it at all. Games as art is a current hot button topic in our industry and the themes that Pixar put forth would trouble the best minds our industry has to offer.

Cars was a no-brainer: it's a movie about a car, who races. The design document must have written itself (I'm kidding). On the other hand, can Ratatouille or Wall-E be boiled down to a simple platformer? Remy teaches us in Ratatouille that anyone can become anything the want, regardless if he's a rat or a woman or French (sorry, I kid again). And Wall-E teaches us the importance of conservation and loneliness and the need to be loved even if you are just a robot with a single directive. Up looks like it depicts the feeling that life has passed one by and you're running out of time to seize the moment. These aren't simple concepts and they most certainly aren't conveyed by collecting 100 trinkets while hopping your way through a linear level.

I think our biggest weakness when it comes to the Pixar license is that we attack them from a literal angle and just allow the player to replay through the story. What I'd like to see us do is allow the player to step into the shoes so to speak of these dynamic characters and explore some of these deeper themes. I don't want to play the movie, I have the DVD for that. I want our license to create an experience that can be fun for all gamers but evokes the weight of the emotions that each film brings to the screen. It won't be easy, but I think it's possible.

Dead Rising 2 a Possibility: OK, I'm Listening

All the major blogs have been reporting on rumors that Dead Rising2 is in development and it is being developed by western developer Blue Castle. The original has created two camps of people: those who absolutely derided the difficulty and save system and those who praised the game for the exact same reasons. I fall into the latter group and think it would be a damn shame if the western developers took a safe route and made the game more "casual."

Dead Rising Wii already has me angry enough but if the sequel is also neutered, well, I just don't know what I would do. If the original was not insanely difficult with an unforgiving save system nor placed tremendous stress on the player, we would not still be talking about the game today. If it was a straight-up, run-and-gun zombie killing affair, it would have been lost among the glut of all the other average action games that flood the shelves week in and week out.

But Capcom didn't want that. They took some chances and created an experience that few games have been able to duplicate or have ever done, for better or worse. So, the onus to make a choice is on Blue Castle or whoever may take over the duty of continuing story of Frank West - photographer, zombie-genocider.

Fun Friday: Ocarina iPhone Edition

I always thought I preferred a blackberry over an iPhone, but now I need to reconsider that stance. This is the most awesome app yet. Yes, it is even cooler than the Lightsaber app.

Good Times

As I've mentioned before, 5th Cell are pretty good game developers. Apparently they're quite fun as well. When designer Matt Cox went on vacation, he returned to find his desk"drawn to life."

Let's see, a developer with talent and who likes to have fun, maybe they should be a part of out new strategic plan. Unfortunately, the executives don't ask me for advice very often.

YES WE CAN!

This is a proud moment for our country and for my son's future. Thank you United States of America for restoring hope!

Gaming posts will now resume. :p

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!

That is all.