PAX Prime. Next Week. Panels & More.
It is that time of year again where 70,000 gaming fans converge onto the streets of Seattle and cause extremely long lines at Subway. Yes, it is PAX Prime again, and like the last couple years, I’ll be on panels again. I’ve been lucky enough to attend every PAX and speak at the last three.
Getting Past Forums: The Future of Community
The days of throwing a forum on a website and calling it ‘community’ are over. Facebook Integration, YouTube Uploads, Twitter Updates, User Generated Content, and more are causing the way we think and participate in the community to change at an incredible pace. In this panel we talk to various community managers about how community has changed since they started and where they think the next steps will be. Join Kimi Matsuzaki (Senior Community Developer, Ubisoft/Red Storm), Gabriel Graziani (Senior Community Developer, Ubisoft), Evan Berman (Community Manager, En Masse Entertainment) J Goldberg (Community Manager, Volition), James Stevenson (Senior Community Manager, Insomniac Games), Collin Moore (Community Manager, Sucker Punch Productions).
Serpent Theatre
Friday 3:00pm – 4:00pm
A Panel on Panels: Creating the Comic Inspired Cutscence of inFAMOUS 2
Come and see how Sucker Punch Productions creates our distinct comic inspired cutscenes. Starting from the script to storyboarding to inking to composite and post production. We are going to cover it all. You will get to see some never before versions of cutscenes. Here is a trailer on the style we are going to be talking about, inFAMOUS 2 2D Comic Cutscene. We will also have some special treats for those that show up, so this isn’t something you want to miss! Join Dave Malloy (Video Production Creative Lead), Jance Allen ( Composimator), Mike Haney (Senior Artist), Edward Pun (Digital Penciler), and Collin Moore (Community Manager) for an hour of fun.
Pegasus Theatre
Saturday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Be sure to stop by both panels, especially the Sucker Punch panel since we are giving away one of a kind t-shirts for our upcoming release inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood.
For all you out of towners, or first time PAX attendees, I’ll be making a little guide for PAX and Seattle. So look for that later tonight.
Journey Beta
thatgamecompany has been making amazing games for the last couple years, but Journey takes them to a whole new level. Parts Shadow of the Colossus, Zelda, and a little music game and you get an idea of what they are doing with Journey. Visually it is striking! The sand, the flowing landscape, your scarf, the characters. Everything is inspiring to look at. For those lucky enough to get into the small beta, you know exactly what I mean. Those that aren’t, you will just have to wait to play it. I was only able to play the single player due to a crash bug, but it is a beta and wanting feedback and bug information. thatgamecompany really have something special with Journey.
2010 in Review: Video Games
Even though I work in the game industry I don’t get to play as many games as I would like. Sometimes a game will just grab my attention and won’t let me put it down until I beat it. There is a common theme in the games I enjoyed in 2010, lots of retro flavor. Here are some of my favorite games of 2010.
Darksiders was released in January and I jumped on this late in the year after hearing a number of great responses from friends. Being called a mixture of Zelda and God of War, Darksiders was a pleasant reminder that games don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be great. I’m happy that JoeMad finally has a game out as well!
While I think this technically came out in 2009, it became one of my favorite games in 2010. 1 vs 100 was just fun, no pressure, easy way to spend an evening. It is sad that Microsoft pulled the plug on it, and I’m curious why they did, but I’m guessing Chris Cashman wanted too much money!
There is a growing theme in my favorite games of 2010, simple and fun, and Joe Danger falls right into that category. Excitebike with some platforming in a wonderful light hearted 3D environment, Joe Danger was a blast to play. Amazing that the game was created by four people.
A new Pac-Man? Really? Pac-Man DX takes the classic mechanics and turns them to 100. Faster, crazy psychedelic graphics, various modes, and crazy tense soundtrack. Pac-Man DX is a must buy!
LIMBO falls into that amazing mixture of classic mechanics and brilliant art direction. A game that no publisher would ever greenlight, it shows what an amazing concept with brilliant people can produce.
Super Meat Boy reminds me when I was younger playing on my NES wanting to swear and break my controller. An absolutely brutal game, yet when you complete something you feel like you have accomplished something. A great feeling in todays market where you have a checkpoint ever five seconds.
BioShock Infinite. Why I moved to Boston.
Last year I moved from the lovely Seattle, Washington out to Boston, Massachusetts for at job at Irrational Games. Leaving Seattle behind was difficult as my entire family is in Seattle, all my friends, all the great friendships I have developed while living out there, and a great game development community, but the project was too good to pass up. And now I can publicly show everyone what exactly made me move 3,200 miles away. BioShock Infinite.
Please check out the official website at http://www.bioshockinfinite.com as well as head over to http://www.IrrationalGames.com to learn all the news about the game.
Resident Evil 5 Demo
Capcom released a demo for Resident Evil 5 in Japan a couple days ago. With the help of the guys and girls at NeoGAF were able to figure a way out to burn the demo to DVD and play it over here in the US, and that is what I did.
The demo itself is fairly short. You have two areas to play in. The game feels very much like Resident Evil 4, but with pretty graphics. It was a little odd getting used to the controls on the 36o controller as I played Resident Evil 4 on the PS2. The game is very action heavy in the demo, with lots of reloading and trying to fend off countless enemies. I haven’t tried it co-op yet, but it seems to be pretty cool with the branching areas and teamwork moves similar to Army of Two.