Sunday, September 30, 2007

Books!

Aight, these are the books I've bought recently. Ain't I'm cultivated?

The Darkness stuff is for a compilation of yet another 'The Darkness fan package' that I'll put up on eBay. More as a test rather than trying to earn money on it. Will start for 1 euro, and go from there :)

The Darkness fan package
Dungeons and Dreamers
Library of the motivated - Part Deux

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Nikujin

Now, I wont lie to you. This game is hard. So hard. So very very hard. In fact, despite being one of my favourite games, I’ve never actually completed it. You have unlimited lives, but you restart at the beginning of each level every time you die.

Bottomless pits, ninja assassins, leg-breaking falls, bamboo spikes, suicidal powder-keg lugging nutjobs and even a wannabe Musashi are just a taste of what will kill you over and over again until you finally master that level, where you promptly die again and again on the next one.

It’s a punishing game, but thanks to an update, the game is now continuable from the start of the furthest level you reached."
Wow, he wasn't kidding. This game was hard and really amusing. I would call this for a platform puzzle game, and it can sometimes take quite awhile before you realize how to progress. But knowing how to do it, and being able to do it isn't always the same thing ;)

I wasn't able to complete this in one sitting like I did with Knytt: Stories, but after coming back a second time I finally managed to complete it. Highly recommended!

Nikujin (.lzh archive)
Nikujin Review
Knytt Stories!

Friday, September 28, 2007

I bought something on a whim last Wednesday

(Note: This shelf is not mine but from another
coworker, but the heads looks the same)

So at the release day, I walked into a store, and everyone there was of course buying Halo 3. If you hadn't booked you couldn't get a copy of course, but apperantly they had one Legendary Edition available for some weird reason (perks of wearing a Starbreeze t-shirt?) and offered it to me.

So there I was, someone who've not had any high hopes for Halo ever since playing through the first iteration of the series, and being offered a hard to come by Legendary Edition.

The advertisement campaign up until release has been the biggest one made for any game... ever. The first 24h of Halo 3 release in the US brought in $170 million, and that's just the first day, and just in the US. It even exceeded Microsoft own expectations.

So back to where I was, the biggest game releases ever made, and the biggest entertainment launch in history (even bigger than Spiderman 3 and the Harry Potter books), and I was offered a rare Halo 3 Legendary Edition. Of course I had to take it!

If nothing else, I can always resell it on eBay for atleast twice the price next month instead.

I've signed myself up to play through the game in 4 player coop mode this Sunday, and the other guys are currently having a Halo marathon (no Bungie reference intended) and playing through the first and second game in coop. Now, I need to figure out where to place my head.

Nega-review: Halo 3
Halo 3: The Biggest Entertainment Launch In History
Halo 3 might not be soo bad after all - Part 2
Halo 3 might not be soo bad after all

Making progress in Adobe After Effects 4

15 sec category:
  • 1st place on WCM: $150 - Dopefish
  • 1st place on WHO: $150 - Yakooki
  • 1st place on AoCM: $150 - FireboltPR
6 sec category:
  • 1st place on WCM: $100 - teh_taco
  • 1st place on WHO: $100 - Dopefish
  • 1st place on AoCM: $100 - Dopefish
    (+ $50 for being a runner-up in the 6 sec WCM category)

First of all, hooray, I'm rich! :D

And now to clear something up so there won't be any misconceptions. This is the first time I'm using After Effects, and when I started out I never thought I would've a chance of winning to begin with. I'm learning myself After Effects through the VideoCopilot, so alot is inspired by that, and the sound effects are even from the VideoCopilot Designer Sound FX.

Now when I've said that, I feel it's important to point out that my 6sec WHM promo clip, is almost a complete rip-off a tutorial from the VideoCopilot Riot Gear DVD. To establish the point, here's a picture comparision of the two:

When I made this one, I never intended to submit it, since I want my work to be as original as possible, and as you can see, this is almost a copy with a few differences. Before submitting it, I told this to the admins through PM, but they liked it and told me to submit anyway.

I wrote this in the movie description aswell, when I submitted it, but I guess that's kind of lost right now. So the point being, I'm not trying to claim this as being completly original from my side, and I'm not trying to hide that either.

That's all I had to say. Now I'm going to wait with claiming my price until the dollar raises in value again and I can go off living like a king!

Making progress in Adobe After Effects 3
Making progress in Adobe After Effects 2
Making progress in Adobe After Effects

Unreal Tournament 3 CE features mod tutorials

"Their CE version comes with a ten hour video tutorial about game mods, a history of Unreal Tournament and behind the scenes stuff for the game."
For an extra $10, Midway is packing in an art book detailing the game's vehicles, characters, weapons and environments, as well as a bonus DVD featuring "in depth" Unreal Engine 3 Toolkit video tutorials, an Unreal Tournament retrospective, and a look behind the scenes at the making of UT3.

This special edition is expected to be available in the US on November 19 alongside the regular, non-tin version, while Midway adds that both will also be released in the UK, Europe, South Africa, Russia, Australia and "most other territories."
Interesting games coming out this November

Bioware hired machinima artists for Mass Effect

In their effort to create the most cinematic title gamers have ever seen, the "Mass Effect" development studio, BioWare, has hired people who make movies out of video games — not the film directors who brought the world "Doom" and "BloodRayne" movies, but the people who actually turn games into virtual movie sets: machinima makers.

"There are times when you reflect on the works you do and say, 'Yeah, this kind of is pushing the limits and it's bringing something new,' " Paul Marino, one of those machinima makers, told MTV News in a recent interview.
'Mass Effect,' A Game With An Unusual Cinematic Touch

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Interesting games coming out this November

  • Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) - 4 November
  • Assassin's Creed (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) - 9 November
  • Army of Two (Xbox 360, PS3) - 15 November
  • Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii, DS) - 16 November
  • Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360, PC) - 16 November
  • Mass Effect (Xbox 360) - 23 November
  • Kane & Lynch (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) - 23 November
  • Haze (PS3) - 23 November
  • Haze (Xbox 360, PC) - 30 November
Alan Wake, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Duke Nukem Forever won't be coming out this year.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Assassin's Creed - Templar Trailer

Creative Director of Ubisoft Montreal speaks out

"I think next-gen consoles need to live up to their technological promise through compelling gameplay, not just more graphics. It's actually very easy to scale a game from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3...but it's still the same game! As creators of interactive entertainment, we need to evolve from a technology-driven industry into one focused on player experiences."
Q&A: Ubisoft dissects Assassin's Creed

Monday, September 24, 2007

Update on 'that CPL FPS game' Severity

Dallas, TX - June 14 2007 - The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) announced today that it has licensed the Severity game title to Escalation Studios. The new Dallas-based studio is headed by Tom Mustaine, a former managing partner of Ritual Entertainment and a member of the CPL Advisory Board.

Escalation Studios, is already in discussions with a publisher and expects to announce more details on the Severity title later this summer.

Severity is a multiplayer first person shooter (FPS) focusing on team-versus-team and one-versus-one play modes. Additionally, the game offers unprecedented support for gamers worldwide playing in online and live competitions both casually and professionally.

The CPL will remain involved in general design, to ensure that the game is one of the first to have the league’s new official designation of “E-Sports Ready.” The league plans to hold tournaments for the title once the playable demo is released.
Escalation Studios Licenses Severity!
CPL to co-develop a FPS multiplayer game

Sunday, September 23, 2007

50 things about ICO and Shadow of the Colossus

1. Yorda had a haircut done the day before the master was due

2. The team went horse riding to get Agro's animations right

3. Fumito Ueda visited the Great Canyon to research Shadow of the Colossus

4. Originally ICO was meant to be released on PSone because then the PS2 didn't have many good games

5. ICO's concept was inspired by a Japanese TV commercial with a lady holding the hand of a child, walking through the woods

6. Yorda was the one to wear horns

7. She was also going to have cursed runes on her hand

8. ICO's story was to be very different. Yorda was a princess trapped in a small room and the boy a slave worker in the castle who found the room and helped the girl escape

9. Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair was used as background music in the original ICO pilot movie, which was used to pitch the game to Sony

10. It also became the inspiration to ICO's theme song, You Were There

11. You Were There is sung by a boy, Steven Geraghty

12. Staff members used to wonder why they were working on Yorda's strange movements (strolling around, following birds) because they didn't affect gameplay in any way

13. Ueda went for these because according to him "we are all attracted by the quirks of girlfriends"

14. Many more of these "quirks" were planned but time was an issue

15. Ueda had never been to a castle prior to ICO so he based the queen's castle in the game on the work of artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi

16. Deserted cars near rice fields and semi-built up areas in the Japanese countryside were the things which at first inspired ICO's castle

17. The team intentionally avoided using the maximum graphic specs in order to give ICO something different and make it stand out

18. Fumito Ueda started working on Shadow of the Colossus even before his first game was released in Europe

19. Shadow of the Colossus was at first called NICO, a pun on Japanese word "Ni" meaning "Two"

20. ICO is a pun on Japanese expressions meaning "Let's go"

21. The team was considering calling Shadow of the Colossus "Dragon Hearts" and "Dragon Peace" before the story was even planned

22. [SPOILERS] Fumito Ueda's own interpretation of ICO's ending is that Ico is dreaming of meeting Yorda once again. The second water melon ending is another dream Ico has

23. [SPOILERS] His interpretation of the ending in Shadow of the Colossus, on the other hand is that Wander sires the line of horned children

24. Ico was given horns because it was not easy to make a distinction between the two characters from a distance

25. The Japanese name of Shadow of the Colossus, "Wander to Kyozo" doesn't refer to the main character's name. It was used to show what the game's about - to wander around and colossi

26. In ICO's two-player mode, Yorda can carry bombs

27. She can also swim, if prompted to by using bombs to drop her into water

28. Amusingly, Fumito Ueda was so modest, he failed to have an English acceptance speech ready at the Game Developer Choice Awards 2006, clearly not expecting the game to win the "Game of the Year" award

29. Yorda is 16 years old

30. Shadow of the Colossus was featured in the movie "Reign Over Me". Reason for choosing it was "You could see where someone who was dealing with 9/11 would be engrossed by a giant that keeps collapsing over and over again"

31. Fumito Ueda decided to go for a video game career when he thought "how wonderful it might be to be someone who touches others through his creations"

32. He filled 11 roles in the development of his first game, ICO

33. One of them was to design the logo and draw the box art himself

34. He also single-handedly created the pilot movie in three months using Lightwave 3D, which he taught himself

35. When the team published an advert on Weekly Famitsu Magazine looking for staff to work on Shadow of the Colossus, some 500 applications were received

36. 10 people made it to team

37. Only 1 of them satisfied Ueda's standards of quality

38. All of the animations in Shadow of the Colossus were drawn by hand

39. Someone from the team mysteriously added an early model of Mono in a scarecrow pose in the door to the secret garden in the demo. It's mostly strange because the garden was only reachable by using a jumping glitch in that build

40. More than 24 colossi were designed for Shadow of the Colossus

41. A squirrel was added to the ending in Shadow of the Colossus in PAL territories. It was also added in the Japanese 'PlayStation the Best' version

42. There were some songs which were composed for Shadow of the Colossus but never made it in the game. They can be found in the original soundtrack CD

43. The bridge in Shadow of the Colossus spans through half the game world, making it the largest bridge in any game yet

44. In ICO, the caskets in which horned children are imprisoned have little slits. They're not for the children to look outside considering they would be facing the opposite way.

45. Ico's language is a deformed version of Japanese, intended to sound familiar to Japanese players

46. Yorda's runic language is written by substituting backwards Japanese Romaji and spoken backwards Japanese

47. The language in Shadow of the Colossus is the same as the one Ico uses but it's been more deformed by adding in Romanisation and Latin dialect to make it sound more ancient

48. [SPOILERS] Wander's shadow, when being sucked in the pool in the ending of Shadow of the Colossus, can still whistle for Agro

49. [SPOILERS] The baby in the same ending is controllable. You can press any of the face buttons to make him wiggle around and cry

50. Fumito Ueda's job application letter to Sony included a picture of a cat

50 things you probably didn't know about ICO and Shadow of the Colossus

Halo 3 might not be soo bad after all - Part 2

Halo 3 might not be soo bad after all

Making progress in Adobe After Effects 3

I didn't manage to make proper 3D projection of the panorama, but it still turned out pretty decent. There's plenty of room for improvements, like dust particles falling down from the ceiling when the wall breaks, and some camera shake added to that aswell.

Also, there could've been more work on the panorama itself so it doesn't just look like a static picture, perhaps some light flickering. Anyhow, these two clips are my submissions to the Machinima Entertainment Promo Contest.

WarcraftMovies 6sec Promo
WarcraftMovies 15sec Promo
Machinima Entertainment Promo Contest
VideoCopilot - Graffiti Writing Tutorial
VideoCopilot - 3D Room Tutorial
VideoCopilot - Designer Sound FX
VideoCopilot - Riot Gear
Making progress in Adobe After Effects 2
Making progress in Adobe After Effects

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Star Wars: A Force Wrecking Ball

Star Wars: Unleashing the Force Part 1

Jon Blyth memorize S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development

"Also, marketing suggested that we take our rat monsters out - it seems rats are not very well liked in the US.

One interesting item we have in our original design document is called 'gravi-glove' - when equipped, it was supposed to drag physical objects around to your hand and let you throw them at targets. However, after Half-Life 2 was the first to announce a similar weapon, we decided to cut that to avoid possible similarities."
Looking back... S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Assassin's Creed for PC comes later

"In a news release today, publisher UbiSoft announced their fall/holiday 2007 line-up of games. One of those games is the long awaited third person action game Assassin's Creed. However while the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will be coming out this fall, UbiSoft has decided to push back the PC release of the game until early 2008."
Assassin's Creed For PC Pushed Back To 2008

Geomerics Enlighten

Geomerics Enlighten

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Making progress in Adobe After Effects

I'm still really crappy, but atleast it feels like I'm making some progression now, and this is starting to look really cool :)

I made a panorama with my mobilephone :)

Pilgrims Progress

Pilgrims Progress by James Dingle

Seven Minutes of Aquaria

Aquaria

Machinima Europe Nominations

Over 150 films have been submitted to Europe’s first machinima festival, Machinima Europe, organised by De Montford University.

Entries for the event, which is supported by the Academy of Machinima Arts Sciences, came from a large selection of countries including Canada, Austria, Finland, Croatia, Slovakia, Japan and Australia.

"We are very pleased with the number, breadth and global spread of the entries,” said Professor Andrew Hugill, director of De Montford’s Institute of Creative Technologies.

“The enthusiasm out there for the festival is contagious and it has been really exciting to see so many different countries involved in creating submissions."


Representatives from ‘Red vs. Blue’ creators Rooster Teeth Productions will also be presenting a special video for the event, which will hold workshops on machinima production as well as screenings of submitted films.

Machinima Europe runs from October 12th to 14th. More information can be found at the festival’s website.

Here's the full list of the nominations:

BEST DIRECTION
Faith Hope and Charity – James Thorpe (UK)
Stolen Life – Nanoflix Productions (Australia)
Fallacies of a Stranger – David Reidel (Germany)
Instinct – Werner Versluys (Belgium)
Pictures of War 2 (Before and Beyond Flight 19) – Steven Worsley (UK)

BEST EXPERIMENTAL
The Ballad of Black Mesa – Zachariah Scott (USA)
Kung-Fu Glitch – ENTTER (Spain/Sweden)
Duel – La-Interactiva (UK)
Cirque du Machinima: Cuckoo Clock – Tom Jantol (Croatia)
Mum's Gone to Iceland – Katy Fosk (UK)

BEST COMMERCIAL/GAME
Comcast Island – Planet Video (UK)
When the Postman Spits Twice – SL-Inworld Productions (Germany)
4 Commercials for mtvU – Oxhorn Brand Movies (USA)
Did That Break Your Concentration – Short Fuze Limited (UK)
You Hypocrite You – Mannea LLC (USA)

BEST SERIES
Pirates of Parallel Structure, Sopronouns, Passive Pete Awakens – Mark Marino (USA)
Pathfinders: Operation Husky, Operation Avalanche, Operation Neptune – Machinima Inc (USA)
The Grid Review (Episode 3, 7 and – The ILL Clan (USA)
BloodSpell: Episodes 11, 13 and 14 – Strange Company (UK)
Blink (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) – Brigit Lichtenegger (Netherlands)

BEST SOUND
Ausgedacht (Dreamed Up) – Machinima Studios (Germany)
Innocent Minds – James Dubose (USA)
The Ballad of Black Mesa – Zachariah Scott (USA)
Hark! Hear the Wails – Oxhorn Brand Movies (USA)
Blink (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) – Brigit Lichtenegger (Netherlands)

BEST STORY
Faith Hope and Charity – James Thorpe (UK)
Stolen Life – Nanoflix Productions (Australia)
Instinct – Werner Versluys (Belgium)
Pictures of War 2 (Before and Beyond Flight 19) – Steven Worsley (UK)
The Snow Witch – Britannica Dreams (UK/Canada)

BEST STUDENT
Azerothian Super Villains (Episode 3) – Beckman Movie Productions (USA)
A Child's War – Global Kids (USA)
Waterlogged 3 – Nathan Clark (UK)
Machinima! With Officer Dan (Episode 1) – Amorphous Blob Productions (USA)
Domestic Violence – La-Interactiva (UK)

BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
BloodSpell: Episode 14 – Strange Company (UK)
Better Life – Indi (UK)
Hindenburg – Paul Carr (Japan)
Machinima Island (Episode 1) – La-Interactiva (UK)
Halo Unyielding Part 1 and 2 – ThatRandomCanadianGuy Productions (Canada)

BEST VISUAL DESIGN
Faith Hope and Charity – James Thorpe (UK)
Stolen Life – Nanoflix Productions (Australia)
Fallacies of a Stranger – David Reidel (Germany)
Pictures of War 2 (Before and Beyond Flight 19) – Steven Worsley (UK)
Blink (Episode 2) – Brigit Lichtenegger (Netherlands)

Machinima Europe nominees - commentary

Monday, September 17, 2007

Borderlands features 600,000 unique weapons

Borderlands will feature... 600,000 unique weapons. Count the zeros, my friends, then breathe in... breathe out... and relax, while Randy fills you in on the details.

"If you take every gun ever made in every game and add them all together, Borderlands would have more by over two orders of magnitude," he says, as he begins to spawn countless handguns, machine guns and sniper rifles onto the screen. Each one flies out and skids along the floor, stopping to reveal itself as unique to everything that's come before.

"We want you to always be able to find better stuff, to always be searching for a better weapon." Randy also reveals that the ballistic arsenal littering the floor is merely the tip of Borderlands' weapons iceberg, with plasma guns, rocket launchers and alien technology to be revealed at a later date.

"Every single weapon is procedurally generated," says Simon, picking up the reins from his colleague. "Weapons are cobbled together from different pieces of technology, so you can have a melee weapon that's a cross between a meat cleaver and a chainsaw. We use lots of different components for weapons that can be amalgamated in different ways, and each component brings with it its own set of pros and cons. No two weapons are ever the same."
Preview: Borderlands - CVG.com

Bethesda answers 25 questions about Fallout 3

11. What is being done to improve the AI as seen in Oblivion - wall staring, oblivious to people being killed around them, guards knowing when a character does something unlawful half a map away etc.? [anonymous]

First we’ve rewritten all the pathfinding systems, which eliminates the majority of the “NPC acts stupid” problems. We’ve also centralized the “crime” stuff into the factions, so in general, they behave better, or at least in ways that make more sense – either joining in or running away. We’ve spent a lot of time on combat AI, which is almost all-new as well, in that we are going into a game with guns and groups of enemies trying to find cover, angles of fire, and such.

12. Will we see anything similar to the sexual encounters possible in both of the earlier Fallout games? The first 2 games had all of that but they kept their ratings by fading out (as did Fable). There was one quest in F2 where you could lose a bet and end up as a supermutant's toy for the night (you got to keep the ball gag as a gift). Can we expect that kind of adult content? [anonymous]

Actual player goes off and has sex? Not right now, but if a situation called for it, I wouldn’t flinch at adding it with the fade-out. We did that in Daggerfall using the fade out. We actually did paintings for the scene and it never made it in Daggerfall, but I still have the paintings. In regards to adding a supermutant rendezvous with a ball gag, the marketing department has been asking for this to put on the box, but we just haven’t found the time.
Community FAQ - 20 questions

Top Ten Games Comparison

Warren Spector Top Ten (Twelve) Games
  1. Diablo
  2. Guitar Hero
  3. Half Life
  4. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
  5. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
  6. Suikoden
  7. Super Mario 64
  8. Tetris
  9. Ultima IV
  10. Warcraft II
  11. Ico
  12. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
My Top Ten Games List
  1. Quake
  2. Shadow of the Colossus
  3. Zelda: A link to the past
    Ocarina of Time
    └ Wind Waker
  4. Fallout
  5. Deus Ex
  6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl
  7. Super Mario Bros. 3
    Super Mario 64
  8. Shadowrun (SNES)
  9. Knights of the Old Republic
  10. Hitman: Blood Money
    └ Contracts
“Hobby Games: The 100 Best” or I Love Lists

Amusing Super Mario Galaxy message

How do we crack the subtle code contained in the image to discover the juicy gay treasure within? It's very simple, actually. Look at the text above, and pay attention to the letters used to spell out our vulgar convolution. Every letter of UR MR GAY has a little starry sparkle on it, while the other letters are blessed not in such a manner. Under the weight of such evidence, how can we not draw the conclusion that Nintendo is made up of hardcore homophobes who think we are all Mr. Gays?
UR MR GAY! Super Mario Galaxy artwork holds a mirror to your homosexuality

Video games from 1972 to 2007 in four minutes

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Knytt Stories!

Just completed the original campaign in one sitting of this wonderful little independent game. Really beautiful and atmospheric. The soundtrack was soo good I decided to upload it to filefront, where you now can download it from the link below.

EDIT:
Filefront is poop and won't accept the file, so I uploaded it to rapidshare instead.

Knytt Stories OST (Rapidshare)
Knytt Stories - Home
NotKnytt - Knytt Stories

BaronSoosdon: My Burning Valentine Tribute

My Burning Valentine remake

Chris Satchell interviewed about future of XNA

It’s often been said – not necessarily by yourselves but by people comprehending the XNA idea – that there’ll be some sort of community service for sharing these XNA titles, often referred to as a ‘YouTube for Games’. Is this something Microsoft is actively working towards?

It’s always been our vision since we’ve started. We use a music analogy – you know, it’s like we’ve given the instruments so they can go and play music now, but what’s the radio station where they can reach everyone? It’s cool that they can invite people around and play in front of them, which is sort of the Creators Club, but hey, they want to play to the world.

That’s the vision that we’ve always had. And yes, we’re actively working on how we would do that – the technologies required to make that happen. We don’t have anything to announce about it yet, but I think it’s really exciting, and to me that’s the next really big step – we’ve opened up the Xbox, we’ve given a cross-platform framework, we’ve changed the paradigm of game development to make it easier. Now we need to provide people a stage to play on, a distribution medium so that they can show off their creativity to everyone. That’s always been our vision and remains our vision.
XNAbling everyone: Part 1
XNAbling everyone: Part 2

Intel Acquires Havok

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 14, 2007 – Intel Corporation today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok Inc., the leading provider of interactive software and services used by digital media creators in the game and movie industries. Havok will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel.

The acquisition will enable developers in the digital animation and game communities to take advantage of Intel's innovation and technology leadership in the creation of digital media.

"Havok is a proven leader in physics technology for gaming and digital content, and will become a key element of Intel's visual computing and graphics efforts," said Renee J. James, vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group. "Havok will operate its business as usual, which will allow them to continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry."
Intel To Acquire Havok

Making of Shadow of the Colossus

I just found the most amazing article ever, about the making of Shadow of the Colossus. It goes in depth of how alot of the technical aspects of the game were achieved, and how they were able to make a game looking soo good while simply running off a PS2.

The Making Of "Shadow Of The Colossus"
NICO - Shaodw of the Colossus Prototype

Anniversaries!

Today I've been employed in the game industry for a whole year, and tomorrow this blog will have existed for exactly two years! :)

First day in Uppsala
Hello world...

Friday, September 14, 2007

David Jaffe and Adam Orth discuss Halo / MoH

"Here's a conversation on IM between myself and Adam Orth, designer at Sony who worked with me on TM:Black, Calling All Cars. He also worked on some of the Medal of Honor games over at EALA. Enjoy!"
Shit...did he just say FUCK HALO!?!?

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Braid coming for Xbox Live Arcade

"There has been some speculation, but we can now confirm that Braid will be released on Xbox Live Arcade. Our release date is in early 2008 (this will allow us to miss the insane rush of huge cames coming this Christmas, and release at a mellower time)."
Braid release announcement

Indie Prototyping, & Making Innovative Games

FASA Studios is no more

Dear Friends,

It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors. Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.

As a testament to the team's commitment to Shadowrun, we released three title updates to improve the product even after the team learned we were losing our studio. We have kept our Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job to aid and support you and will continue to do so while people continue to play our game. I am pleased that about half of us have found great positions elsewhere in MGS and Microsoft where they can share their experience and passion with the great people there.

But now, as the last of us say our goodbyes to each other, I’m saying goodbye to you on behalf of a group of talented and dedicated professionals who busted their humps for the love of the game. I am proud to have worked with and represented them to you and know that wherever they go, they will continue to kick ass.

Mitch
FASA Studio has closed its doors

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

My Burning Valentine remake

Snoman got my old texture and model files for My Burning Valentine, the Elwynn model change, and remade it for the most recent version of WoW.

Although, it's missing alot of fires, and the reason for that is since it was actually valentine prefabs changed into fires, so it's only burning during valentine :)

Elwynn Forest... burn it to the ground ;)
My Burning Valentine
Elwynn Forest... burn it to the ground...
Nogg-aholic Collaboration Movie

I made a panorama with my mobilephone :)

Click here for higher resolution!

EU wants to take control of your internet

"Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union, the bloc's top security official said on Monday.

Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.

"I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector ... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism," Frattini told Reuters.

The EU executive is to make this proposal to member states early in November as part of a raft of anti-terrorism proposals.

These include the screening of private data of passengers flying into the 27-nation bloc"
"Kill Bill", "Bomb Squad Training Manual", "Genocides in history" and "Preventing terrorism". Invalid searches, you're now labeled as a terrorist, please hold while authorities are on their way to your location.

There's alot of crap on the internet for sure, but restricting and censoring it is not the way to go, and anyhow, it would be as easy to use any other medium to promote 'terrorist' propaganda. Also, some read about bomb making and such for research, not because they want to blow up a schoolbus.

Web search for bomb recipes should be blocked: EU

Ryan vs. Dorkman 2

World of Goo

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Make Love, Not Warcraft wins Emmy Award

Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)

South Park
Make Love, Not WarcraftComedy CentralCentral Productions
Trey Parker, Executive Producer/Directed by/Written by
Matt Stone, Executive Producer
Anne Garefino, Executive Producer
Frank C. Agnone II, Supervising Producer
Kyle McCulloch, Producer
Eric Stough, Director of Animation

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

Monday, September 10, 2007

Blizzard and Microsoft Machinima Conditions

Regarding "Premium Access" Content:
We understand that many third party websites have a "free" method to see their machinima content, as well as a 'premium' membership service that allows for speedier viewing.

For clarity, please note that as long as the website that hosts your Production provides a free method to allow viewers to see the Production, Blizzard Entertainment will not object to your Production being hosted on that site, regardless of the site's "for pay" premium service plans.


What can't I do?
You can’t add to the game universe or expand on the story told in the game with “lost chapters” or back story or anything like that.

Siggraph '07 - Finding next gen: CryEngine 2

In this chapter we do not present one specific algorithm; instead we try to describe the approaches the German company named Crytek took to find certain rendering algorithms that work well together.

We believe this information is valuable for anyone that wants to implement similar rendering algorithms because often the implementation challenges arise when combining with other algorithms.

We will also describe briefly the path to it as that covers alternative approaches you also might want to consider. This is not a complete description of everything that was done on the rendering side because for this chapter we picked certain areas that are of interest specifically for this audience and limited ourselves to a presentable extend.

The work presented here takes significant advantage of research done by the graphics community in recent years and combines it with novel ideas developed within Crytek to realize implementations that efficiently map onto graphics hardware.
Siggraph '07 - Finding next gen: CryEngine 2 (.pdf)

Assault on Dark Athena Preview

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Preview (.pdf)

They - Weapon customization

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Movie #1 - Emotion "Lonely"

Sony Vegas 7.0e supports AVCHD

Sony added AVCHD support to Sony Vegas with their latest update 7.0e (which was released some months ago). The funny thing about the update though, is that it only support AVCHD cameras of the Sony brand. The 7.0e update contains no additional upgrades to the software other that AVCHD support (for the Sony brand cameras).

Sony Vegas 7.0e Update

Sony HDR-SR7 - Slowmo test footage

camera_test_01.avi

Cooking Skill +1 (Not for fat sensitive people)

Minced meat, smoked bacon mixed with chili & paprika creamé fraich
and some Béarnaise sauce for some healthy cholesterol

Sunday, September 02, 2007

It's that time of the year again :)

In two weeks I've worked for a year in the game industry, and this blog celebrate its 2nd year anniversary. Currently, I'm enjoying my vacation and some nice company :)


The Grudge and Melonhead