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.

Fun Friday: Oh No You Didn't Edition

Oh, yes we did! Of course it's been known for a while now but we are officially publishing 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and admitting it. Of all of the titles that the Activision/Blizzard merger left up in the air, this is the title we pick up. Oh well, at least we couldn't make it any more ridiculous than it already is.

Fun Friday: Go on Rooney! Edition

If there is one thing I love more than video games (besides my family), it's Manchester United. This should be obvious if you look at my Gamertag and Gamerpic on Xbox Live. However, my two passions haven't really intersected in about 6 or seven years. FIFA, as a series, has significantly changed over the years. It used to be quite arcade-like in game play, with a lot of "punching it in the old onion bag." As Pro Evolution has commanded a stronger following and therefore greater market share, FIFA has had to adapt. In doing so, they have built the game to be more realistic, but along the way, they lost something important: the fun.

Each of the demos for the current-gen FIFA titles have been unable to lure me back in. But this video does a good job of getting me excited for the possibility of 10v10 online play. Still, I'll have to hold out for the Pro Evolution demo, as they've finally snatched up some UEFA licenses, including the Red Devils.This year may the one that I finally pick up another football game.

Summer Has Finally Ended

Posting has been light as of late, but I'm glad to say that while Summer is officially over, so is our ridiculous summer in QA. Since, as a company, we try to submit about 90% of our titles between the months of June and September, needless to say, saying it was crazy is an understatement. But it's appears to be finally over. I helped get SmackDown Wii out the door in early August and it passed Nintendo of America first try with Wi-Fi (I don't think too many other publishers can say that). The two other projects I was working on our now out the door as well as of today. August saw us work some crazy overtime but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and Fall should be significantly less stressful.

On the other hand summer was as usual, light on releases, so I was thankful for that. I finally crossed the 15k GamerScore threshold thanks mostly to Civilization: Revolution and Lego Indiana Jones. Civ:Rev was a lot of fun and hope to back to again soon. This is saying a lot because I absolutely loathe real-time strategy games. This game was fun and accessible and did away with a lot of micro-managing. The game was deep enough for me to feel that my decisions, for better or worse, were actually affecting my society without burying me in data and options. Lego Indiana Jones was a blast to play even though I was uninterested in the Star Wars games after playing the demo. A lot of the achievements were a grind but most were cleverly named and the humor throughout the game kept me motivated.

Xbox Live Arcade also saw a lot of releases in August. I started playing Braid and absolutely loved it until a save killing bug popped up and wiped my data. Bionic Commando was awesomely retro and brutally difficult. Castle Crashers is beautiful and humorous, but the same bug popped from Braid and I'm waiting for the patch. Needless to say, I will be returning to all of these games soon.

I just picked up Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, mostly because the original was a guilty pleasure and they priced it at only $40, I could not pass this one up. The game was everything I hoped for: more adorable pinatas, more environments, more everything but the same addicting game play with a few new twists. However, a word of warning: watch out for Hemlock! After cultivating a healthy garden of pinatas (some of whom I had become quite attached to), I became afflicted with a massive outbreak of Hemlock. This weed spreads incredibly fast, attracts pinatas like nerds to boobs and makes them poop sour candy when they eat it. After about ten minutes my entire garden population was decimated; all of my pinatas became sick faster than I could help and when I ran out of money, Dastardos swooped in and killed them all. This was one of the few times I absolutely despised autosave.

In the end, I skipped Too Human and Force Unleashed. I'll probably borrow them from friends, but with the likes of Fable II and Fallout 3 coming out, who knows when I'll get to them.

Oh, and go buy de Blob if you own a Wii. It's awesome and I want to work on more games like this