So what happened?

In short, working on this consumed all of my time. Now that UNCHARTED 2 has been released and I’ve stopped traveling the globe to support it, I should have more free time. In theory. I’m still doing a ton of work every day on the game, not to mention my duties updating and getting stats up to snuff over on NaughtyDog.com.

That also means that’s left me with nearly no time to enjoy any gaming, resulting in a ridiculous backlog going back to 2008 that I have yet to start to crawl out from under. But I will this December… somehow, I will.

I’ve also been playing around with a Samsung SSD test unit recently, which as been giving my already blazing fast 1TB RAID array some good competition in gaming performance. I’m working on some videos and posts about that, which I’ll start posting really soon, as SSD is some amazing tech.

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Mirror’s Edge
Today I managed to get through Chapters 4 and 5 in Mirror’s Edge. Neither of these chapters felt particularly hard, although they did serve to advance the storyline a bit. Although the climax in Chapter 4 was meeting up with Ropeburn and then watching him get assassinated, the real highlight was the long getaway sequence underground in the subway system.

In Chapter 5 it’s clear I’m chasing whomever Ropeburn was supposed to be meeting with before he was killed. Not sure who it is yet, but they’ve got some heavy support as chasing them took me right into one of the more overwhelming firefights I’ve yet encountered. I keep thinking I can get to the point where I can sprint for 30 seconds and get the “Vrooom!” achievement, but I never do. Seems pretty difficult, at least at my skill level.

Guitar Hero World Tour
Started up the game to do another one of the three song sets. Although it’s not really, I could see being forced into multiple song sets from the get go could be somewhat frustrating or annoying. I don’t mind it, but I do enjoy the option of being able to select individual songs in a particular venue or genre.

I’ve only been playing guitar tracks and by myself so far though. I should probably make the effort to not play this alone sometime.

Q.E.D.

Sunday, November 30, 2008
Gears of War 2
*** Warning — Spoilers! ***
DMoTsunami and I made some progress, getting up through Act 4, Chapter 3, in today’s session — not a whole lot of progress, but a respectable amount and we’re certainly getting closer to the end. Even when sometimes it’s total overkill with detail work, I’ve been enjoying the scale and aesthetic of the environments so far. Visuals is something the Gears of War series is known for and it still feels that way. Obviously it’s probably a lot of fun (and work) when you’re working in this highly stylized fictional environment. We also finally made it to perhaps the second most central plot point in the game — beyond eradicating the Horde, saving humanity and saving Jacinto — the one where Dom finally gets closure in his search for Maria.

This is another point in the game’s story where the theme is serious and adult, similar to Tai’s suicide earlier in the game. Clearly are both events not only serious in nature, but they are supposed to evoke emotional responses. Tai’s suicide was sudden and quite unexpected — we’ve been conditioned to think that Cogs, and all other manner of testosterone fuelled space marines, are virtually indestructible and not prone to weakness of body or spirit. While I didn’t shed any tears at the situation, this was a clever subversion of trope we’ve all come conditioned to accept without reason or questioning, in this genre and especially in the Gears of War franchise. A fact not so subtly illustrated by Ben Carmine saying “he survives everything. Doesn’t he?” Beating the dead horse somewhat, but that’s just a pretty subjective opinion on how overt you need to have points hit home. Of course, the ironic counterpoint is that the Carmine family has done anything but survive in the Gears of War games — although that’s a tragedy of a different nature.

Moving on, however, to Maria. Dom’s search for Maria has not only been one of the key plot points for the game as it progresses forward, but it was an integral part of the marketing machine both to pique interest and presumably also to silence naysayers that Gears of War didn’t have a story. During this part of my playthrough, that thread of the story comes to its conclusion as Dom finally finds Maria amongst the enslaved. Even though you think Dom has found resolution in his quest, the writers throw in a twist in an attempt to ratchet up the emotional intensity yet again. In this case, we saw Maria through Dom’s eyes and he was seeing her as he remembered her and it wasn’t until a cue from Marcus did Dom see that Maria had been entirely “processed” for lack of a better word, and was basically not even human anymore. As a result, as Marcus turns away, Dom does the compassionate thing and ends Maria’s life (off screen). The scene is certainly positioned to be a turning point for Dom, perhaps launching him into a different state of mind as you follow him and Marcus through the end of the game, presumably looking for vengeance.

Unfortunately, the scene just didn’t resonate with me the way I suspect the writers intended it to. I have to give them a bunch of credit for trying to tackle exponentially more complex mature themes in their game, I just think in many ways, the overly macho slaughterfest of a game makes it difficult to wholeheartedly believe these displays of emotion. Really, the precedent was set with the first Gears of War, so you can’t really expect much as the writers try to move the game out of the hole it’s already dug itself with regards to story and emotional connection. The more I think about it, while it may not have worked with the overall story or universe, I would have preferred Dom and Maria get reunited here — save the tragedy for the third game/act, once we’re had more time to feel elated about their reunion and therefore having time to build the emotional connection needed to respond to the tragedy of loss.

Or something.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Mirror’s Edge
I still haven’t had enough time to dedicate to playing through Mirror’s Edge, as much as I know I want to. I just completed Chapter 1, which isn’t much. The story is just getting started and we’ve gotten foundation on which I’m sure the rest of the story is going to be built around. That is the conspiracy surrounding the death of this Robert Pope and the framing of Faith’s sister. We’re already seeing how some of this is going to play out — the duality of sisters at opposite ends from each other, Faith the one on the fringes, breaking the law and her sister Kate, a cop, on the side of the “enemy” by virtue of employment. It’ll be interesting to see how the story may or may not exploit this to provide insight into how the gameplay mechanics are they way they are.

Beyond that, I still haven’t fully gotten a hang of the controls yet, but I’m picking it up quickly. I’d really like to get to the point where I could be a bit more fluid with Faith’s movements as I try to navigate and evade in the world. I guess that part is all about practice, practice, practice.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
I played a couple of matches of this to try it out since it was just released. I’m barely competent at fighting games, but I still find them quite fun and this is no exception. I really need to read up on the move list and what not of what makes this “Super” because without it, because I didn’t quite get to anything that felt radically different just by fooling around with it. That being said, when I played, it still felt satisfying. Will have to play some more after I pore over, but not memorize, the move list.

Soulcalibur IV
I picked this up again, mostly to check out the character customization features. This is way deeper than I anticipated, although I should have guessed given the detail some people have managed to pack into created characters. Crazy.

Friday, December 5, 2008
Gears of War 2
Well, DMoTsunami and I completed Gears of War 2 tonight. There were definitely some highs and lows as we rushed to the end of the game. Skorge is one tough dude and it was a shame that the way to finally dispatch him was through a reaver fight, but you have to say, flying around on reavers was pretty fun. It was nice to turn the tables and ride a Brumak and decimate a ton of Locust as you gave them a taste of their own medicine. It was also a way to see the upgrades to the Unreal Engine since by having a camera that was pulled out farther than the normal third-person view, they were able to render many, many Locust swarming around trying to take you down. It definitely felt… empowering. Unfortunately the end was a little anticlimatic, although it was an improvement over the ending boss battle from the first Gears of War. Don’t get me wrong, that was a pretty tense fight even on Hardcore, but you felt like you wanted something bigger and seemingly overwhelming to fight at the end. I think this was part of the reason a Brumak fight was included in the PC version of Gears of War, along with the fact that you just never got to fight one of them.

Anyhow, riding in a helicopter and nearly indiscriminately using the Hammer of Dawn on the lambent brumak just felt slightly underwhelming when you look back at the other staged fights you had. I just didn’t get the same sense of tension and anxiety, but, it still felt pretty rewarding to take it down in the end. I think part of what happened is that you’re just thrown into this situation where you have to take the brumak down that you’re just reacting and, at least on hardcore co-op, it didn’t really provide for the adrenaline to kick in. Still, it’s a step in the right direction and finishing the game felt both satisfying and got me pumped to play some more — on Insane. Especially since I never unlocked the “Friends with Benefits” achievement even though, as best as I can recall, DMoTsunami and I played through every bit of the game together. So, I definitely need to get that.

Saturday, December 6, 2008
Mirror’s Edge
I completed Chapter 2 of Mirror’s Edge in this sitting. I’m feeling a bit better with flowing between running and doing all the parkour moves, but I still don’t have it so well that I can string a good segment without running into something and stopping me in my tracks. In this chapter, I’m running after someone from Faith’s past, trying to catch up to him to get more insight into the conspiracy surrounding Pope and my sister. It’s pretty clear this guy is going to figure fairly significantly later on in the game, just based on how much the cut scene dialogue decides to keep Jackknife’s history a mystery. Speaking of cut scenes, it’s beginning to bother me a little how much the animated cut scenes are breaking from the immersion provided by the rest of the game, no matter how cool the animated style is. We’ll see how it feels as I progress through the game.

In Chapter 3, which I also completed, we first meet Lieutenant Miller. Again, given what you know, he seems to fall into a pretty stereotypical insider helper person who will eventually be forced to stick with what his job is, rather than betray the system, no matter how much he helps you. Beyond that, this was probably the most visceral chapter I’ve encountered so far — DICE really piled on a ton of action back-to-back here. It’s not just even jumping between the large cranes, even though that’s a moment where you’re not sure if you’re going to make it. There’s a part where I got stuck a little, on a rooftop where three guards were dropped off by helicopter and, if you didn’t get it just right or rushed, you’d be killed pretty quick. This was the first time where I felt I would try to do the disarm move every time, as that was the quickest way to dispatch the guards. After much trial and error, I pretty much got it perfect and it felt pretty good to get it down like that.

The real achievement in this chapter, in terms of getting you all wrapped up in the action, was the portion where you’re running through all the scaffolding while the helicopter is firing at you. I liked how the intensity was at a high through this entire sequence, so much so that when you encountered the lone officer at a corner of the building, that you could only react by instinct and attack and basically push him off the scaffolding to fall to his death. That was, in a word, just a brilliant piece of pacing because you couldn’t get the feeling of anticipation that was going to happen, it just happened and afterwards I could only think, “Did I just do that? Wow.”

Q.E.D.

Yeah, I know it appears a little egotistical to be talking about this, but after years of working on the agency side, where you are the transparent, nearly anonymous “spokesperson for X company,” your work is never or hardly ever recognized in the credits. It’s status quo and there’s no expectation to be credited otherwise — it’s basically your job to be the invisible facilitator of information exchange. So it’s ok and all good, but also all the more reason to be a little excited once you do you show up in the credits!

There’s a few more games I worked on coming down the pipe in 2009, but who knows if the new publishers will as nice as Ubisoft to include anyone from before the Activision-Vivendi merger in the credits.

[S-L-O-W-L-Y catching up on my backlog of gaming log entries. Rest assured, I played something nearly every week, I just got backed up writing about them.]

Monday, November 24, 2008
Guitar Hero World Tour
A good friend dropped off a copy of Guitar Hero World Tour (the guitar pack) for me, so of course I had to try it out. I spent most of my time checking out the depth of the “Rock Star Creator” customization Neversoft put into the game. Although I prefer somewhat edgier, more hip — dare I say somewhat indie rock — aesthetic in Rock Band to the design choices Guitar Hero makes, I was quite impressed with how far the customization went. The character creation is somewhat limited and the band logos were done in the same way as Rock Band (layering art, shapes and text), however without a restrictive guitar license, it allowed Neversoft to allow players to customize their instruments to quite a deep level. Ok, at least their guitars as I haven’t checked out the bass, drum or mic customization.

Impatient as ever, I had to go check out the game play. I only played the first two songs, which really was two songs plus an encore because I forgot that is what the Guitar Hero franchise does. I picked the Sweden playlist with “Beautiful Disaster,” “Obstacle 1″ and “The One I Love” as the encore. I don’t think any of the songs had one of the sections where the notes where strung together so I could use the touch sensitive pad on the guitar controller neck, so I didn’t get to see how that worked. I quit after that, but I’ll be back to finish the game off over time.

Friday, November 28, 2008
Soulcalibur IV
Although I had jumped at the chance to snag Soulcalibur IV from an Amazon Gold Box deal this week, it hadn’t arrived in my possession by the time it was loaded up at a day-long post-Thanksgiving occasion. I had to try it out. Of course, playing in a group situation meant I wouldn’t get a chance to go over the character customization features, but I’ve seen just how involved it can get. Either way, I guess this was a preview of sorts… once we actually got an extra controller so two of us could square off.

I’m really no good at fighting games. Really no good. I don’t know if I’m just not patient enough to learn the timing or I don’t really spend too much time memorizing the moves, but I’m probably just a hair above the average button masher. Actually, I would try to learn the moves, but having sat through the command list in Dead or Alive trying to learn some of the moves, I realized I’m hopeless at really remembering most of the moves without some real focus. This isn’t Street Fighter II Turbo, where it seemed just a little bit easier to remember them for me. Maybe it was just because I was young and now I’m old and senile.

I’ve also never played a game in the Soulcalibur series before either, so weapon based fighting is somewhat new to me, but it sure was fun.

Saturday, November 29, 2008
Gears of War 2
The other game DMoTsunami and I have played through in co-op between us was Gears of War. That means we just had to get together to play through Gears of War 2 in co-op as well. Unfortunately DMoTsunami was a little impatient with me and finished the campaign the first weekend after he bought the game, leaving me in the dust. We managed to set aside quite a bit of time and made some righteous progress in the game, making it up to Act 4 tonight, completing “Tip of the Spear,” “Denizens” and “Gathering Storm.”

Initially, I wasn’t impressed by Gears of War 2, I’m not sure if I was just expecting a greater leap in graphics and gameplay based on the GDC 2008 presentation or maybe it was something else. I’m definitely not prejudiced against the game, so there had to be some reason. Unfortunately I never figured out what it was that gave me this initial impression. As I kept playing through the game I was impressed by little things here and there — the entire scope of the game, trying to imbue a sense of purpose and solid narrative to the game.

So far I’ve been paying close attention to how linear the campaign may feel, given that the environments are pretty narrow and the story is pretty linear. I’ve been impressed that, to me, it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as it could be. I haven’t really gotten a sense where I’m just being pulled through each level and environment, even though there is no room to explore or anything. I would’t expect there to be, this isn’t a sandbox game, but if you really look at the level design, there are a lot of choices on where to position yourself, but you’re essentially in a space that ranges from maybe 20 meters to 50 meters wide at most.

The co-op campaign has been fun, a little improved over Gears of War so far based on how you do have to work together more when the paths split you up, rather than just splitting you up for a different type of fight or perspective over the combat. It’s good, but the game doesn’t force you to do quite as much teamwork in an action oriented way as it seems Resident Evil 5 may be trying to do based on the gameplay footage I’ve seen. We’ll have to see when that releases to know for sure. Also, while I haven’t finished it, there’s aspects of Army of Two like the aggro system that seem to feel like a more integrated portion of core gameplay as well.

Hopefully I can finish Gears of War 2 soon, it’s definitely been fun to play so far and game length hasn’t seemed much of a problem despite how for we got in one day.

Mirror’s Edge

I’ve been looking forward to playing Mirror’s Edge since I tried the demo way back on November 1 — the combination of fast paced running and platforming, along with a pacifist subtext to the game and combat really piqued my interest and I wanted to see how well DICE managed to combine all of these ambitious elements and pull off a compelling game.

That being said, my exuberance to play the game didn’t match the amount of time I had available to really get started and all I managed to complete was the tutorial and prologue. Not much of a start and much of it was just a rehash of the demo, but I shall focus my time on working through Mirror’s Edge real soon.

Q.E.D.

After three weeks of getting up early for naught, I finally was able to wake up and record a podcast.

Since you’re back for more, you’ll find that this episode of the XABY Radio podcast, Nayan, Josh, Eric, Segata and I discuss our recent game purchases, what we’re playing and we discuss interesting Christmas and/or gift giving stories, to keep with the holiday season.

We also talked at length about Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, although I remained largely silent for that entire conversation because I haven’t ever played either of those games. Although with Chrono Trigger out on the Nintendo DS, I will definitely be playing some of that game in the near future. I also talk a bit about my recent near-completion of the Mirror’s Edge campaign. Since the podcast was recorded, I finished Mirror’s Edge and, after I try out a few of the time trial and speedrun levels, I know I have quite a bit more to say about the game. I just needed some more time to ruminate about it and I didn’t finish the game before the podcast like I had wanted to.

Don’t forget to listen nearly all the way to the end where I talk about my dad taking out pimps (in Grand Theft Auto III).

Download Episode 5 – Christmas Wishes

Subscribe to XABY Radio in iTunes

If you haven’t checked on the interwebs yesterday or just happen to live under a rock and only read my blog via satellite beams to your tinfoil hat, then you just might have missed that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was revealed.

Well, the fact it exists, the title, some details from a future article, a magazine cover and a video have been revealed. So basically not very much has yet been revealed, which means the next twelve months are going to be awesomely busy for me.

Yep, this is the game I’ve been working on since I joined Naughty Dog in June 2008. It’s actually pretty exciting that the news is finally out and it’s a relief I don’t have to be all coy and secretive about it. Although not much else can be said for now. You’ll just have to wait and see for the Spike VGA awards on December 14 to be aired to see our world premiere trailer and then for the January 2009 issue of Game Informer to hit subscribers and newsstands in mid-December to learn more about the game.

Otherwise you won’t hear a peep from me.

In the meantime, here’s what you can check out so far.

- I’ve written a blog post for PlayStation.blog that talks about all of yesterday’s activities
- Game Informer posted the cover image and details of their January 2009 issue
- GameTrailers posted a promo advertisement we made for the 2008 VGA Awards on Spike (SD | HD)
- I noticed that someone made a Wikipedia page for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

You can view all of the coverage, as I find it by my own hand, across the Web on Naughty Dog’s delicious page under the “uncharted2″ tag.

If you’re really lazy, I’ve also embedded the VGA promo spot we made below.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Halo 3
DMoTsunami and I met up again to continue plowing through the Halo 3 campaign, still on Legendary of course. We’ve moved along in the story and now we’re surrounded by the Flood as we try to get, well, rescue Cortana. I hate the Flood. I think that goes without saying and I’m probably not alone. This chapter took us a while to complete as we often found ourselves a little too outnumbered and outgunned for our strategy, or lack thereof. We still managed to get through almost all of it fairly uneventfully until we hit that dreaded player disconnect issue that completely prevents us from getting the chapter listed as completed and the achievement for the level.

LE SIGH.

This disconnect issue means that DMoTsunami and I will be replaying yet another level in its entirety yet again.

Animal Crossing: City Folk
I know I shouldn’t have. I know it would be a recipe for disaster. As I stated just a couple of weeks ago, this series should really just be renamed the Tom Nook Mortgage Simulator. Kind of feels like real life, being stuck in debt nearly forever. However, I booted it up just the same. Well, after updating my Wii firmware and downloading the Wii Speak channel which will likely not get that much use, but hopefully I’ll get to try it sometime.

Having read nothing about Animal Crossing: City Folk, I was surprised to find that I could essentially import my character on the Nintendo DS version of Animal Crossing: Wild World. After downloading a small application onto my DS via ad hoc WiFi and a short wait, my character, arne, appeared in my new, Wii-based town, turnip. Essentially it seems your name and your general appearance–that is, your face–are transferred over so you don’t have to select that anew. I might just keep him and his cute Animal Crossing face rather than go into town to get a Mii makeover.

Alas, the wonder of a new game didn’t last that long as already, I was thrust into finding myself a suitable house that Tom Nook would be overjoyed to sell to me, no doubt in return for some small favors and eventually just explicit payment of Bells.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Oh how tedious Animal Crossing can be when you’re trying to accomplish a particular goal. I just want to get my friend code so I can open my gates and take advantage of the internet connectivity of the game with a bunch of people on a mailing list I’m on. I’m still running the first sequence of tasks for Tom Nook so I can’t do that yet and apparently my application still hasn’t cleared.

Thanks for the info, Copper! Grrr….

Friday, November 21, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
I start up this game in an attempt to try to get a quick mission off with Dwayne or Patrick McReary, but Roman decides to be his usual bumbling self and interrupt me when I want to be focused on a mission. Not only that, but the joker just wants to go play some darts. I’ve blown off my buddy a couple times recently, so guilty conscience concedes and I go play some darts with Roman. Thankfully, I’m good at darts and the game is over on my third set of throws. Of course, I have to drive Roman back home and that pretty much takes up all the time I had set aside at the moment.

Saturday, November 22, 2008
Braid
I’m still missing one piece from World 2 on this, so I found out as I entered the game after a long hiatus. Instead of trying to figure it out, I just continued trying to plow through the Worlds for now. I’m up to World 6, even though Worlds 3 through 5 have no more than two or three puzzle pieces each. I do like how each World provides a new piece to the gameplay mechanics that you have to wrap your head around to fully understand how to complete all the levels and puzzle pieces.

To be fair, I still haven’t fully grasped all that the ring can do, beyond slow down time with some limitations. I got the first puzzle piece in World 6 and the nothing else before I quit. Which was not that much longer anyway.

I have a feeling that this game is going to frustrate me to no end before I complete it, but at least at that point then I’ll be able to refocus back on the celebrated story to be found within Braid.

Q.E.D.

These include:

• Gears of War 2
• Fable 2
• Left 4 Dead
• AC/DC Live Rock Band Track Pack
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• FarCry 2
• Mirror’s Edge
• Dead Space
• Tom Nook’s Mortgage Simulator… I mean Animal Crossing: City Folk

Seriously, I’m drowning or being buried or whatever your preferred saying is.

I really need to focus on finishing Grand Theft Auto IV however. I know that if I put that off and wait too long, I’ll start to forget the story and my next task, which is fatal in a story-driven open-world game like that.

Incidentally, I’m most looking forward to playing Mirror’s Edge, as I’m interested to see how they pull the story and mechanics off in the full game.

[Yes, I used the same photo again. Pfft!]

Sunday, November 9, 2008
Halo 3
In my continuing effort to clear the campaign on Legendary with my co-op buddy, DMoTsunami, we tackled another level tonight, The Covenant. Overall this felt like a fairly short level, but let me tell you, it was quite satisfying pummeling the Scarabs with my Scorpion tank from afar while DMoTsunami kept them busy in his hornet. I managed to down one from a well placed cannon shot. Then the rest was just typical run and gun through the level to the end and then back out again.

We tried to jump through the rings for the IWHBYD skull and I think we messed it up so we would have to do the whole thing over again, but didn’t realize. So we restarted from the last checkpoint which I think compounded the problem even more so. All in all, I think I wasted about 45 minutes of our time trying to get the skull before we gave up. I’ll do it later, although I heard that DMoTsunami went back and started the level from the mission start on Normal and got it for himself.

Bastard.

Q.E.D.