It is the thing that all Xbox 360 owners fear - the dreaded "red rings of death". Yesterday afternoon, that evil technological spectre finally visited me five minutes into a pigeon-hunting spree in GTA4, and I involuntarily yelped like a woman. Two rings, yep, but two rings are the precursor to three rings. It's like discovering a cancerous mole and realising that you may not have as much time on this planet as you expected. Okay, so maybe a bit of a drastic metaphor but to someone like me who plays his 360 with an almost religious fixation, it's just as damning. I checked the xbox.com site and realised I had somehow forgotten to register the thing when I bought it in February 2006. See? It's had a good innings. There were some suspicious hiccups and burps, sure, but I shook them off. Now the thing is that there are things on the interweb which tell you how to avoid getting these rings again - it's an overheating thing, so they recommend hoovering the vents. There's more complicated and tech-savvy options including cracking the thing open and replacing some silicone gel to part of the circuitry, but fuck that. Even though I enjoyed dismantling technology to see how it worked when I was younger, I'm 33 now and I just want to shoot virtual pigeons again. I can play my 360 but the dread of knowing it could quite easily switch back to two - or even three - rings is a bit too much to bear.
So I migrated to my dusty Wii and started to enjoy Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption again. I forgot just how gorgeous and fun playing that game is - for a sci-fi geek like myself, there's a lot of fiction and scanning the lavish environments for the purposes of back-story. The thing is this - when I play my Wii, I really feel confident that it's not going to spontaenously combust. I also like the fact it's as quiet as a mouse compared to the mini-cyclone generated by the 360. I also discovered yesterday that you could download DS demos via the Nintendo Channel (this isn't actually that well signposted in the channel itself) so I marvelled with being able to play Ninja Gaiden on that spunky little handheld (does that sound dirty to you?). If it's one thing Nintendo are extremely good at it's providing a solid gameplay experience. Their online aspect still leaves a lot to be desired, but they're slowly catching up.
I now look at my 360's shame-laden facia with a derision often associated with finding onions in the ingredients list of a favourite pasta dish. It's going to cost me money to send the thing off to be repaired, and money is something which I have more respect for. Maybe the DIY option is the way to go. My warranty has evaporated (even though ex-Xbox bloke Peter Moore kind of admitted they had a shonky product and extended the warranties for those who bothered to register their consoles) and it may bring back those childhood memories of appliance dismantlement. Saying that, I could end up with a pile of electronic components and the uneasy feeling that I should have got it repaired properly.
I've gotten considerably less busy on Wheelman - I think the overwork I did this year has more than paid off and now I'm here on a Sunday in my pants updating my blog while I enjoy the outside world being sporadically doused in rainfall. There are still tasks to perform and I've gotten very adept at reporting bugs on our internal bug-tracking system. You may have read that Wheelman's release date has been delayed until Q1 2009. When this was announced internally, I was in two minds over it. In one mind, I felt a bit deflated that I put in a lot of extra work to try and prevent this delay. The other mind was one of relief and that the game would get the attention and polish it needed. Some gaming blogs cited that as a criticism when they saw the game at E3, but they've not been on the shop floor and seen just how amazingly quickly the game has evolved and form before our eyes.
On Friday I enjoyed a quick Wheelman session where I was being chased by cops - and it was pretty reassuring that the game has become something more confident. I had early reservations about how our traffic would be unpredictable in the way it avoided you as you screamed down the Barcelona streets, but now it's not only predictable but it also has a feeling of intelligence about it. The melee system is a great thing when used against police, though what is even better is that airjacking during a pursuit can actually aid you in evading the cops. Picture the scene - I have four police cars on my tail and my car is pretty banged up. Ahead of me lies a pristine vehicle just ripe for the jacking. I position myself behind the vehicle and leap out of the remains of my old vehicle. As you do this, the police speed past (probably in shock that someone can leap from one car to another with such precision and awesomeness) and getting into the old vehicle tossing the driver out means that I can quickly turn 180 degrees and use the freshly-filled focus gauge to boost the hell out of there.
It's discovering tactics like this which will only help our cause. The vehicle melee is very much like that of a fighting game - the amount of movement of the analog stick determines how hard you hit the car, you can use your pistol to shoot out tyres and make the opposing vehicle more unstable and - this is the doozy - the Mortal Kombat-esque "Finish Him" move will give you an impressive exploding car and police diving out of the airbourne wreckage. It's not just the driving which has gotten more confident though - the on-foot combat is improving nicely too. We've got a new lead desginer in who worked on Crackdown (and placed all 800 of those non-pigeon-shaped-orbs) and he's currently refactoring the on-foot missions so they're a lot more interesting and involving now. The on-foot combat isn't the main meat-and-bones of the game, though it's good that there's just as much care and attention associated with it. We've also got... achievements! Even though we're still developing the thing, I still get that giddy feeling when that achievement pop-up appears on screen. I had to notify one of the lead coders that the achievement notification needs to move from the default position - possibly the top right of the screen where not much actually happens. I wouldn't have noticed this if I haven't been playing the game inbetween waiting for stuff to happen on my PC and after-hours R&R.
Another advantage of the move of the release date is that we avoid the November rush of titles (many of them sequels). We have such videogame behemoths as Gears of War 2 (which has a rumoured special edition version bundled with - yep - a life-size Lancer - perhaps) and Fable 2 as well as the supposed announcement from EA of their next incarnation of their ongoing Need for Speed franchise - Need for Speed Undercover. Check out the trailer...
I've been keeping tabs on this title as when it was announced there was a tingle down my spine. Not because I was excited for a new Need for Speed title - more likely that it was because it had a certain Wheelman-esque tone to it. The racing focus from previous games has been now centered around missions involving driving, although there's no mention of on-foot. I'm guessing there won't be on-foot as the game's going to be mostly fuelled by what you see above - cut-scenes with real-life actors and probably some heavy Burger King product placement. Maybe we'll get missions revolving around Burger King? I'd like missions where I can drive my car through their restaurants throwing Wii Fit money-off vouchers at the patrons within. Check out that November date on the trailer too...
Still, Wheelman is a new IP and bringing it out at the beginning of next year is going to benefit everyone. This Is Vegas - another Midway title - has gone the same way, though again - it'll benefit us all. This has been the longest I've worked on any videogame and I think that our effort will be present on screen for all to see. My motivation is proving those naysayers wrong. Those people who insist on spreading their negativity and opinions in an effort to discredit the game without giving it a fair chance.
Friday night was a bit of a wash-out - we had a bit of a night in at a workmate's place (he used to be my ex-housemate too!) so it was a night of drinking, group-commenting on America's Most Dangerous Car Chases 3 and watching people play videogames with a soupçon of testosterone (especially Fight Night and bloody football) followed by aforementioned ex-housemate in fighting mood after a quantity of booze was quaffed. I cut my loses and slipped out the back door without them knowing while walking home thinking how I could have spent the night being a lot more productive. I wasn't even that drunk. I think that's a reason why I decide to stay in most nights - besides the obvious monetary benefits, I'm now occupying myself with creating artwork and other little pet projects. There's been a bit of a sea change in my heart recently as life has gotten mundane and boring. I wake up and go through the motions - the same shower, the same oggling of BBC Breakfast while slurping tea and munching on breakfast. The same walk down the hill... These pet projects help me justify my existence and make me think less about the things which get me into some horrible mindsets which I once had to endure. The sacrifice for this is social life, but meh. You can keep that.
One of these pet projects is some fan art for Shadow of the Colossus - it's almost done, though I need one more step to achieve and it'll be lovely. Here's step 1, step 2 and step 3. I'm doing this for a friend of mine who kept me in digs when I was thrown out by my maeloveant ex-landlord, so I'm going to use this painting as a guide for an actual 100% bonafide real painting on canvas. I was going to show you the progression of time through the use of an image with the three versions of work-in-progress, but the GIMP is so fucking lousy at being an art package - you can tell it's been crafted by non-artists - I gave up. All I needed to do was copy one element to another layer, but noooooo. Too fucking easy. No wonder people use Photoshop (mostly illegally too). Fuck GIMP.
*deep breaths*
Why is it that people have to fuck around with stuff to make it more complicated than it actually needs to be? DeviantArt v6.0, step forward! Complicating things for the sake of complication so it now takes my journal .css templates and breaks them undeservingly. Facebook, step this way! There's a "new" Facebook waiting in the wings and, yep, it's more complicated than normal. They've added these needless features which it doesn't deserve. MySpace! More guff than you require! Winamp! It fancies itself as the new iTunes so it ends up gorging on so much digital lint, it's embarassing. Even my stalwart favourite, thesixtyone.com, has been messed about with by its creators. We now have some stupid "as it happens" news ticker which means nothing to anyone. The same can be argued for food. I remember when food was simple and straight-forward. Now? They're all manner of faff added to food to give it some kind of mythical appeal. LEAVE IT ALONE. I don't want sodding onions in my food. Fancy some tomato relish and egg mayonnaise in your breakfast roll, sir? No. Give me a fried egg. Give me a sausage. Some baked beans. A hash brown. Right, now go away. Leave me to add my own garnish. Garnish! I don't want your leaves ganging up on my food like a bunch of vegetarian hoodies! Just give me a burger! Two buns! Maybe some bacon! Cheese! Nothing else!
*deeper breaths*
I guess this can be drawn back to the first thing I mentioned in this blog post - consoles. I remember when games consoles were just that - games consoles. You'd stick your game in, switch it on and you'll be playing... a game! These days convergence means that consoles are supposedly required by law to be everything and more. The Playstation3 is mostly more regarded as a Blu-Ray player than a games machine these days. The Wii and 360 are also guilty of this - fancy viewing your digital photos? Listening to music? Gah. These are little things to help bring in more casuals so it's probably a good thing, but this blog comes from the mindset of a crusty old vagrant who has been playing games since the Atari VCS.
Another project I've been working on is The Cult of Karl video. I've grabbed a trial version of Flash CS3 for my home PC and currently taking the animatic storyboards I've been sketching up on my trusty Moleskin while half-watching Top Gear repeats, and editing them together to the music of Mr. Chris Merritt. It's very addicting and exciting to see it slowly take shape because I have a love for animated music promos and I sometimes think I missed my calling due to the lousy anticipation which my old Animation degree course instilled in me and other students. I suppose I kind of fell into games development, but still had it in my mind as a thing I would most likely enjoy doing. The thing with working in the games industry as an artist is that you do get some free reign on things, but there's always a commanding art director to steer the look of your artwork. This music promo is 100% me - undiluted and I have total control of it. This is very exciting for me. The process is super-fluid and a lot of the imagery which currently resides on The Cult of Karl Facebook album comes from my mind as I've been listening to the tune during shopping trips and while in work.
I need to start crafting some vector-based elements for testing in Illustrator, get them imported into Flash and slowly flesh out the animatic until it's fully-fledged. After this, I'll need to get myself a YouTube non-porn account and upload it there. I think it's a great thing to do because it's my way of saying "Cheers!" to Chris Merritt for coming up with such a great tune. Also I'll be exorcising some demons as I attempted a music video during my final year of my Animation degree but failed to finish the thing. I'm determined to finish this thing and get it out there. I think a lot of animators these days are extremely lucky to have something like YouTube to showcase their portfolios and talent. When I was working on my degree, the internet was still in its infancy and YouTube was but a crazy dream along with Wikipedia. Now? It allows me to show you Mr. Merritt's new promo for Mimic (from the excellent Pixie and the Bear double album) -
Hopefully these pet projects will drive me onto bigger things - the last thing I need is artistic stagnation. I envy those on DeviantArt with a lot of time on their hands and a lot of talent. There's people who craft incredible digital paintings, create wonderful characters and intricate pixel art. I feel like I can do these things too, but I need to be a teenager again with a carefree abandon and no notion of morality or mortgages. Maybe my 360 red-ringing was a blessing in disguise, I dunno.
So that's all for today - I need to grab a cuppa, sit down and do some more Karl stuff. Stay tuned for the next update coming soon - I'll be revealing future travel plans to foreign lands! (I can't reveal where and when yet, needless to say I'm extremely stoked and also quite unnerved by it all).
[this is good] "LEAVE IT ALONE"
Can I get an Amen?
Ditto for this whole passage: "There's been a bit of a sea change in my heart recently as life has gotten mundane and boring...The sacrifice for this is social life, but meh. You can keep that."
Yup, it's like, do I bother trying to go out when it ends up making me feel less connected to my friends and less fulfilled and possibly leads me into the blues the following day. *Or* do I just stay at home and stick with the little "me" things that I'm use to and just sit here and type. I'm picking the second, better option, obviously.
"These pet projects help me justify my existence and make me think less
about the things which get me into some horrible mindsets which I once
had to endure." <-- Was the intended topic of my blog post this evening. Damn you're good!
"I'll need to get myself a YouTube non-porn account."
I didn't even know they had such things. Wow! I've learned something new for today. Hee hee. ;-)
True, true, red ring of death may be good for a resorting of priorities for a while. I say this as I'm cooking my second pizza for tonight, watching cable, writing my own blog post and, nope, not writing. Sigh...
And P.S. I didn't realize you had written a blog post today and as I started to write mine, I saw yours sitting here. Hhmm...synchronization is priceless, ain't it?
P.P.S. Did you realize that this link showed up under your post due to its content. Just an FYI.
P.P.P.S. Ah Vox and your shoddy comment box. How I have missed you!
Posted by: deloresdefacto | 08/04/2008 at 04:54 AM
[this is good] Those 360 Pros are making a lot of money out of poor 360 owners with shoddy Microsoft consoles... :(
Posted by: pickassoreborn | 08/04/2008 at 11:59 PM