Le Nirvana du joueur

Level Designers: How to get a job in the industry?

2011-11-12T14:55:00.003-05:00

How to get a job in the industry as a designer?

This is a question that people ask me all the time when I tell them I work as a game designer.

This is actually a hard question to answer.

When I first started in the video games industry, there wasnt a really clear way for me to get in as a designer because:

There weren't a lot of programs in school to learn the craft of level design.
Most programs were really expensive, if you would find them, and most were targeted towards artists learning to model or sketch...
there was a limited number of companies in Montreal
There was a limited number of software packages to create content as there are today( UDK for example)

The only way I could see to get in the industry was to become an AI programmer through different programs in school and work as a programmer until I could do the switch to design which was my ultimate dream. Adding Philosophy studies to my studies as well to have a different set of tools for a future employer to consider me.

Yes this combination of majors might sound weird and unusual, but philosophy is about reasoning about things in life and programming is about logic and structure kinds makes sense in some ways. Most importantly though, all designers Ive met in my career have really different backgrounds. I havent met a lot of designers who came from the same path to reach their goal.

Having different skills is actually a bonus for companies to hire someone different that will bring a new perspective on the game they are working on. Architecture,English Litt, Psychology, Computer Science, Maths, Arts are some of those skills that designers have.

In the last 2 years, we have seen a lot of game design programs be added to different universities and professional schools teaching the basics of what you need to learn. Even some high schools and primary schools are getting interested in those programs since children are excited about those and learn more easily while they are having fun and using technologies to learn. This is good news for the future of game development.

So yes, those programs are good ways to get in the industry, but you must also do more! Since more and more people will get the education, the market will get smaller to get in as companies need some talent they also need people with experience, who have done some games... Couple of things to do to differentiate yourselves from the rest:

An easy one: have a passion for games, play them all the time, play all sorts of games and get to know ingredients and mechanics that those games are using for future references and learn the language if possible.
Learn to work with some of those game packages out there that lets you create levels free and usually come with tutorials. Unreal kit, farCry2 kit, Unity, XNA, etc... Make levels using those and even games since those packages are easy enough to create new things without having programming skills or art skills since they offer material to start with.
Learn and use 3D programs such as Maya and 3D Studio Max to create levels, objects...you will need to use them to create basic levels and gameplay when you get hired anyways
Learn to use Illustrator and Photoshop which will be needed to create visual documents for your future maps
If you create a level, also write up a level design document which includes moment to moment gameplay explanation that will show your reasoning and you thoughts behind each area. Dont create useless areas because it doesnt show the focus of your design and seems loose.
(again)Play games relevant to the company you apply at. (mostly for interview moments)

Another way to get in a Design role is to get a job as a Tester/QA in a game company. As you work in this job, apply yourself in doing your job as best you can, work hard, learn from others(since you have access to all the different roles), use the tools the designers work with during your time off (if you have any), ask questions, talk to designers about their job, ask the company if you can do more and help the designers (some basic tasks designers dont have time to do such as placing collectable items for example, will put you in a good spot to learn tools and get seen by other designers and most importantly the leads). Well written documents and working efficiently in your tasks will show your professionalism and your willingness to achieve what you want.

A lot of great designers come from a Tester position before becoming a full fledged designer.

Learn, Apply yourself, Play games, Play games, Show your knowledge and make maps to show your potential!

Everybody wants to be a designer or thinks he is a designer(by the thinking that everybody has ideas) so it is hard to get in or even being recognised as a designer, but it is feasible to get in if you work hard.

(Be prepared for your interview as well...maybe a next post)

Good Luck.

Choices in Games

2011-10-30T22:28:00.010-04:00

I love games where you have choices to make that will matter in your experience of the game.

Yeah, that doesnt say much about what I really like since all games have some choices that players need to make to progress. There are different types of choices and I'm really interested in only 1-2 of these types when I play games or when i work on some.

Sports games let you make choices every second that will determine your success during the event you are involved. Hockey,Soccer and football games ask you to pass,shoot,hit,block,etc to determine your next move and asking you to react to the AI doing the same. Im not really interested in this one.

Other games give the players a blank slate and ask them to create something where the different elements must interact and survive to progress. Such games may include SimCity, Spore, civilisation (in some regards), etc... This is an interesting one for game designers because designing them is all about excel and balancing. i like playing these games but never good at them since i would need to really understand the system and i dont tend to play them long enough to do so. Im not really such a designer but i respect them a lot.

Other games give players the choice to play some mini-games or side missions that extend the game by many hours, offer players options to play the type of missions they like the most and reward them with the economy in place. Such games include Assassins Creed, GTA, Fallout,etc... This type of choices interests me a lot when the missions in place will tell players more about the story, the world they play in and go deeper in the philosophy of the game. This is something that I love to develop but on a bigger scale that i will talk soon.

Second to last type of game choices that I want to talk more deeply about is the one that includes games where players have the choice to decide how they approach their goals. Action Stealth games offer that type of options to player to come into a space where players can use stealth to go around the mission, use your guns to kill everyone in sight or use squadmates to go about to deal with your objectives. I enjoy those games that will give you options throughout their games, but I usually dislike it when they turn around and make you do the next objective a specific way that you might never have played before and will just result in many failures which results in frustration and these games might end up in the bin. Its fair to ask players to do it one way, but please offer other options if something goes wrong and not just end the players experience, developpers can increase the difficulty at this point or something else to make it an harder experience than it would have been if the player would have succeeded in the first place. At least, players will not feel like their experience just stopped because they didnt player the one way the designers intended it. Such games as Splinter Cell, Assassins Creed Brotherhood do that which is annoying i find. Other games like the Deus Ex, Thief series usually give a lot of different of this type of choices going in action,stealth, exploring around, hacking and even social aspects where you can avoid harder situation by trying to convince NPCs to let you pass or give you different elements to make it easier. Developping these games becomes a blasts because you build the world with options and often players will come up with crazy ways to figure things out and its great to see those. Also, it offers players a lot of replayability options when they want to replay to game. Players will often get new elements of the story by exploring the environments and searching through the world which is great if you are interested in the philosophy of the game and the story. Players also create their own narrative by deciding how to explore the game. I enjoy playing and mostly creating those games. Deus Ex offers so many ways to play the game, but in every boss fight you have to play the action way only ... so if you only decided to upgrade your hacking skills and stealth gameplay, well you are in for a good surprise in these fights...

The last type and the most interesting one for me is the choices that players make which will change the story of the game, the story for players and possibly the mechanics that players can use to succeed and progress through the experience.In this type, there can be some distinctions as well. Some games like some versions of Star Wars, Fable, Infamous offer players with the choice to be on the evil side or good side of the story. Choosing these give everyone the opportunity to live that fantasy that most got from watching the Star Wars movie for example,but not you get to experience it for yourself. The fact that choosing the path of your choice lets you see what it means to be such a character and see how NPCs in the world will react to your actions, using different powers and choosing the fate of different stories and characters within the main story lets players really live it. It changes the game for them and they experience the personal repercussions of actions that you wouldnt take in the normal world but the game reacts to your choices and changes the story as you go through your decisions. Other games use another system which is less black and white and let players have a bigger array of moral choices that seems to be more related to real world situations, give back more to players because they get somewhat touched by those small decisions that might become emotional decisions of a certain morality and in which players will see their decisions change the world the game lives in and will certainly change the way they feel about the game and the video game medium.Obviously some decisions might not only be about what is good or bad, but how you want to interact with the characters or events in the game. In games such as Bioshock,Farenheit, Heavy Rain, Deus Ex (in some ways),etc... offer some of this type of choices which is really what I want to do in a game. The story changes as you make your decisions about the different interactions in the game of challenges that come up. Different outcomes to your decisions will change the game and how you see yourself playing the main character. Some are harder decisions to take: do you harvest the little sister or do you help them?(yes there were issues with balancing) doing the first option, you might feel wrong but players are going probably for personal gains and becoming a stronger character, but the story will let you know how awful it is to do so, the powers you get will be different and the story changes in some aspects until the end comes. Do you make sure that all proofs have been removed after the murder? which is a different kind of choice, but it will then be harder to play as the police officers and find proofs and changes the game as well. Do you kill the other character to maybe save your kid or do you try to find another solution to the problem. This will make the game harder but the moral decision here is hard to take. Which way will you talk to main characters to get what you want in main quests or side quests? What type of characters are you as a player and we can see following these players and see what they are capable of in the setting of a game. These are really special and important to me and that is what I like or would like to do in the games I make where your actions will really change the way the game progresses or even end depending of how you played it and how you really thought of the available emotional decisions you had to take to accomplish your task. Making people think about what they are doing and what they actually did to NPCs in the world and how these actions or decisions had real impacts in those characters lives...

The reason why I wanted to talk about this subject today "Choices in games" is that some games pretend they are actually doing that, but in the end the choices you make dont changed anything in the game you are playing, but they try to reinforce that your changes really do have an impact or try to push strongly (and ineffectively) that the "moral" choices you took had a big impact in that world(in the game). Unfortunately those games fail so hard for me because they didnt try hard enough,but wanted to fake that they did ... im sorry, but that makes the game fail in the end even if you gave me so many options to play the game ... the end HAS to be good as well ... you dont need to let me choose my ending thats not what I desire... I desire an ending to my journey through my choices in the game. So let me choose my ending through my choices that you will actually care about enough to track during the many hours i enjoyed your game. Make games that matter and give options to players to change the way they play it and the decision they make actually matters. One example of this is unfortunately Deus Ex HR and the DLC Missing Link where you have to press button A or B to decide your ending ... thanks about that now I can get a different video at the end or a different speech ... it doesnt change the way you play it or even the options available to you in the end.

obviously I like other games as well and not all of them actually need moral choices, but id like to see these ones more and more and try to touch more people. Look at the japanese game Catherine where you get to answer different questions about relationships which changes the way the game plays and the story unfolds. The game is all about action puzzles but they found a neat way to make the players actually interact with the story and it gives a great experience depending of what you think about some aspects of love relationships.

News and updates

2011-09-25T02:45:00.003-04:00

Hey I've been travelling a little this summer so i havent had time to continue my Level Design talks, but I'll do so at some point soonish.

So ive been to Hawaii and to Chicago this summer for two different reasons.

Hawaii to relax after a long crunch period on Space Marine and to lie down on beaches and discover the amazing scenary of Maui. It was a great time and everything there is amazing and relaxing so it was just perfect :)

I went to Chicago mainly to go to Lollapalooza which was celebrating its 20th anniversary of existence. This festival is just the best festival ive ever been to.
Its so well organized with fast water filling stations, stages facing each other to make sure that people at the main stages will never have to wait, the variety of food options was just really impressive from organic farmer market options, to vegetarian products to normal fast food but with many options too!
Also the little shops, merch tents and shade areas were everywhere.

It was soooooo hot in Chicago and it was hard to go through the 3 days with that temperature, but I made it and it was painful at some point, but the festival ended in a muddy field thanks to the torrential rain that pourred during the last hours of the festival and during the Foo Fighters' show.

Obviously, the groups were there as well ;) There was so many bands, so many were really good and it was hard to see all the ones I wanted to see so I had to walk around a lot and I missed part of shows to see some bits of others. I discovered a lot of new bands and im adding them to my discography :)

Moreover, I left the great company I worked for the last year, Relic Entertainment, and decided to join Slant Six Games to work on Resident Evil. That should be an interesting time ... such a great IP to play and work on...just amazing :)

so i will write again in the coming month to continue my Level Design series.

Nevermind - 20 years already!!

2011-09-25T02:21:00.005-04:00

On a totally different note...

NEVERMIND is now 20 years old!

wow what a great album it was and it's still great today by most standards.

When I first listened to Nevermind in 5th or 6th grade, i never expected that music like that existed.

It totally changed the way I was listening to music and mostly the type of music i was listening to.

It totally changed me.

I was listening to Rap (MC Hammer,...) and some pop french singers from Quebec before this incredible happening...then I discovered Nirvana! Then I got interested in Grunge and the groups that created music around that genre.

To this day I still listen to Nirvana once in a while on my ipod and whenever a radio station plays something from them I really enjoy that time in the car. It still feels fresh to listen to them even though its been 18 years now since Kurt died :(

Everytime I see a kid or teenager with a Nirvana shirt, I smile and Im happy that this generation too is enjoying the music I grew up on. This music feels immortal and I hope it stays in the minds of the coming generations for ever.

I've got so many things from Nirvana, still buying books about them or magazines with old interviews from Kurt and the band or new talks from Novoselic or Grohl. I'm buying the deluxe editions of all the "new" releases to hear anything that I havent heard before from them.

Everytime i visit Seattle it feels special and it will always feel like a mystical place for me.

Im a huge fan of music and I attend a lot of concerts each year, but I wonder if my interest would be that big if it wasnt for Nirvana and what it brought me as a kid...

Level Designers: What do they do?

2011-07-04T02:33:00.013-04:00

Level Designers: What do they do?

In missions/objectives oriented games, the level designers are the developpers with the best opportunity to create a bond with the players by offering them an experience they will remember for a long time and possibly create emotions that are stronger than anything else they will experience in any other form of entertainment. If level designers succeed, players will come back to the games they enjoyed and play their sequels or other games from the same studio. One of the main attraction to work as a level designer is that your work will be directly experienced by players because this is really what they see,play, enjoy or hate.

Level designers are ultimately responsible to create the gameplay, make sure the game is fun, create a unique experience, make sure the players feel involved and find ways to deliver the story that was created; through different means that we will explore here.

How?

To be able to bring all those qualities to a game or a level/map, level designers have to be creative to find what to do in the context of the story, but they also have to work with pretty much every other department to be able to combine the script, art, sound, lighting,game mechanics and AI to really create something memorable.

Creating the gameplay, the technical steps

When level designers(LDs) start to think about the next level to be created, they will have to read the script of the area to be designed, take out the most interesting details and organize a general thought of what can be done. As a level designer I usually do some research on the web to find ideas of interesting structures(Castle,Fortress,Army bases, etc...), natural formation and outdoor environments that will give me different ideas to create something that is architecturally sound, could be made and could represent something fun to play. Obviously, I will adapt the areas to create gameplay that makes sense for the game.

LDs usually create the space in 2D on paper (thats what i do first) or in professional drawing programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator or some go directly in 3D using SketchUp to draw and organize a space fast to form a general idea of the gameplay and show other people on the team. Documentation should be kept at a minimum(1-2 pages), precise and to the point, with indications of whats going on and combined with a list of required mechanics or elements that will be used.

Creating the space in 3D once the sketch was approved or once you feel it will be working using all the mechanics that you will need will be your next step. You dont have to create something beautiful but mostly functional. What does this mean? You want to create a feel for the space, appropriate widths and heights for the rooms, then block out the rest of the game space using even cube if its works. You should have dimensions set for cover objects, corridors, space dimensions for combat or walking around so that you wont have to redo or measure every cube every time. Then Play! Just walk around see how it feels. It needs to look like everything would fit in your universe and not out of proportions.

If the space feels right and you actually have interactive objects or enemies working, place them in the space you just created it will help you to flesh things out better. You should be able to feel the space. Play, fix, play and fix again until all is perfect. It might be a long process, but you'll get it or ask people to test your level...it's good to use others opinion.

Creating the gameplay, the fun and unique experience

[Note: I dont pretend to be the best or know it all, since I learn every day new things, techniques, new ways to make everything i do better by working in collaboration with the best game developpers in the world. Everyone on a team can bring something new to the table because everyone has a different background in this industry...there are no 2 people with the same background in the game business]

As you create the spaces for your level, you will obviously be thinking about the gameplay and what will make the level fun and unique and we will explore some elements that will make it so. The process of finding what will make this special is thinking about the universe your game is set in, thinking about the different mechanics available to you and thinking about combining some to create something new, fresh and shows a progression from other levels set before, prototyping scenarios or gameplay features that could be implementing/reused by others, but also talking to other members of the team from different departments to see what they can deliver to you to make your awesome level even remotely possible. If you're thinking about making a scary level with shadows all over the place to scare the player or let him believe that bigger things are coming ahead, but the team doesnt have the technology or doesnt plan to develop anything for it, then you would need to change some of the details you wanted or be creative with your tools to have something that will have the same effect. So the goal here is to create a wishlist of things you would need and talk to the appropriate people on your team to make it happen.

To create the gameplay to be fun and unique will depend on the type of games that you are making and what the narrative wants to convey, but there are "recipes" or little touches that can make your game better and less linear for players to experience.

Through the progression of your game, you will be using different mechanics for the players to use and progress. There is always a limited set of those mechanics so it is useful that as the game progress you combine the different mechanics as the player gets better at the game to try and make the gameplay different even if you are using two mechanics that were used before, but seperately. Now you can use a combination of both to increase the challenge or make it a new experience. (an example from Prince Of Persia would be to use the freeze mechanics to freeze waterfalls so you can go up to a new area then have the player unfreeze the water to pass the next obstacle and refreeze to grab ledge made of water.)

To let players choose how to act in a given fighting space, you will need to have the space constructed in a way that they can see the enemies before they see them, they can see what the enemies are doing, they can see the main objective of the space clearly and they can see the different ways into the space. As an example in Deus Ex, you can use a ladder to go on a higher level than the enemies then get the drop on them or you can access a shaft which will let you sneak behind the enemies and kill them that way or you can blast through forward and use different cover objects to protect yourself and kill them. The important thing is to be able as a player to see the options available to make a good decision for yourself and later try something new if it didnt work the way you wanted to play the level. If you want the player to feel insecure, scared or you want to surprise them so they have a fast reaction to something going on, then you wouldnt want to show what is ahead and make it more small corridors or dark until you decide to throw something at them. It all depends how you want the players to feel in a given area or moment of the game.

When creating multiple fighting areas, you can use the following "tricks" to make a space feel different to a player even though you are using the same shapes as before, but having the player coming from a different way into the space will offer a new perspective: a) Have the player come from the first floor of a two story space into a space where the enemies are on the same level as them. b) Have the player come the first floor of a two story building, but this time with the enemies on the second floor shooting down at the player. This time the player will feel scared, will have to move around fast to get into cover, will also feel more stressed by this situation since he doesnt have a good vantage point on those enemies and the player wont be certain about the number of enemies around, what they are planning, what kind of weapons they have or where they are located. c) Having the player enter the same space from the second level where the enemies are located below him and doing their own patrols or interacting with the environment will have a different impact on how the player will proceed. The player will feel a lot more powerful since he can see the units, their patrols and he will be the one deciding how to prepare and when to start the attack on them. d) another decision to take into consideration when create a fight scene is to decide if the enemies know about the player coming so they are already alerted and prepared( behind covers, their ai in shoot on sight mode,...) or having the enemies relaxed and doing patrols or random interactions will have a huge impact on the players take on this space. e) Having the enemies set in different space planes will also create something new for players even if its the same space built. By that I mean have the enemies attack on an horizontal plane so on the same level where the player can shoot left and right to kill everyone versus having the enemies attacking on a vertical plane where the player will have to shoot up and down will be a different experience.

Setting up your encounters differently in each encounter, having a good progression(not sending all your units in a melting pot), having a distinct feel to each wave and using the environment to its maximal potential are good ways to make the game more enjoyable in all its small arenas. Consequently, when players are fighting your encounters they must be able to come up with a strategy of their own to defeat the waves you throw at them. They can do so if they see the options easily in the environment which give them the advantage, but most importantly here they must be able to make out which units are coming their way. They must be able to distinguish them and analyse which weapon or mechanic to use to pass the challenge coming their way. Hence, you should not really send on the small plane of play melee units which run towards them and units shooting at them since they will panic and wont be able to attack the more dangerous units shooting from distance. Unless the space is made such that the range units would be elevated or separate themselves from the group easily or if the units have a really different color type,doing so would not be advisable in early levels anyways. Moreover, organising the encounter using units that go together or complement each other is a good way to show off the variety of enemies and also shows their relationship to each other in your universe. Combining units that make sense together is a good progression idea after you have shown these units using their unique ability individually to the players.

How to end your encounters? There are some elements you always want to have that will tell the player that it is same to go on since the encounter is over such as always having a big finale using your biggest unit thrown in at the end (like fireworks), having a door open up in a closed area with no one coming or setting the last couple of guys coming in reinforcement through a door that was closed before, activating an interactible object to "green" at the end of the fight so players know they have to interact with it to go on, having an special event occur that kills the last enemy or destroys an element that was preventing the player to go forward, having another character call in on the radio letting you know the space is safe or having a light come on to show the player the way out.

Dividing the fighting spaces is important. As I said before it is good to show players what is coming ahead, but dividing the spaces into distinct areas with different functions will make your players understand the space better and how to overcome the challenge will make the experience less frustrating than have a big clustered area that will be confusing to advance forward. Usually, I am dividing the space in 3 areas. The first is located at the entrance(for the player) of the area where there will be some cover objects or a way for the player to move forward from the door to let the player BE in the space and begin the fight when he is ready. Let the player in. In the first area, he will have the options to rest, move around, acknowledge the enemy movements and decide to engage the way he desires. The second area is usually the no man's land where the fight will mostly happen and where it is more dangerous to advance to since the enemy will see the player and attack, but faster to progress to the objective or exit of the area. The third area will represent the main objective, the exit or where the enemies are located or entering the space. Accessing this area as fast as possible will let players advance and avoid more fighting which will be rewarding, but is more dangerous. This doesnt necessarily make it more fun, but will make the space less frustrating to players since he will be able to understand what is going on.

A good way to find new ideas to make the levels feel unique and fresh is to do research with other games, getting inspired by other mediums such as music, movies, books and boardgames where you will find good ways to combine with your existing ideas and there is nothing wrong with getting inspired by other things you do in life. ;)

Creating the gameplay, delivering the narrative and making the player feel involved in the story

Usually games have a story to tell which is divided throughout the levels. Elements of the story can represent dialogs between characters or with the player, movies showing a scene that players have to see to understand the story which will fill the gap of the dialogs in game which takes place somewhere else or at another time, a way to introduce some new units doing something in the world, music which gives an insight into an event or a character, sounds representing the landscape or the emotion of a character or a city after an event or even showing an event happening where the player is right now; the main goal is usually to push the player to some emotional responses that will make him engaged in the story and the universe.

There are many ways that games use to deliver the narrative and most of designers are still pushing to find more interactive ways to make the players involved so its in constant evolution and researched constantly in hope of finding the ultimate ways to reach players, but here is a small group of those options that are used:

Cinematics are used to present the story in a non-interactive way to the player who will be able to watch the story unfold so he will understand the events going on around him or that happened as a prequel to the current events. Using a cinematic to tell a story is useful because you can show exactly what you want to the player using your camera with the perfect angle to show the events and using all the processes the movie industry is using to create their masterpiece. Doing so you ensure(to a point) that the player is watching what you want him to watch and listen to what you want him to listen. Unfortunately, using cinematics in games also means you are removing the controls from the player and that breaks the immersion aspects of the game. Moreover, in most games in the last couple of years, there is an option for players to skip the cinematics entirely so they can continue playing the game without pauses which renders your efforts almost useless in the end. So use them, but its better to find another way more connected to the game.

Scripted sequences with camera cut are used to present an element of your story using a camera cut that his happening as the player enters a space or after an action the player has performed. This process is useful because it will show the players something they will find interesting and it will give them the right angle to look at the event, but once again we remove the controls from the players hands to show something. This is less problematic than using a cinematic because it breaks the immersion on a smaller scale since it is only for a couple of seconds and the player's character stays in the same space. I find it useful to show off new units(the first time they appear) and skills to players so they know who appeared and what they can do so players can find a new strategy to beat the unit. Also, it is great to use to show a special moment such as a destruction of a structure opening a space or showing the way to move forward.

Scripted sequences without camera cut are used to create movements in the space, as a destruction in the space, a special event that only happens once in a while or to create a moment of tension. Basically, it is anything that is animated and we want to show the players movement in the space without stopping the player from playing the game. As an example, an helicopter flies-by shoots at some structure which explodes and falls in front of the player to block his path. Using this technique you dont break the immersion in fact you help put an emphasis that the world is alive around the player, but you cant make sure that the player is looking at the event directly so he might only can the last glimpse of the action which is sad if you wanted to create a wow moment. Some players will see them and the others will never understand what happened behind them ... why is there a platform blocking the way now?

Music is used as a way to create emotions in players while they are playing. It can create tension as in Dead Space, it helps to relax as in Flower, it tells that there are enemies around in the fight as in Space Marine, it helps to create a momentum in games and etc... Using music is an essential part of the games and creates a lot of immersion and emotion in players. Music is an excellent way to keep the tension in a space where nothing is happening and without any enemies which creates a bigger impact on the player in the end.

Sound FX are used throughout games to help direct the players to the next area, the next objectives, to move the player towards an event happening close to him, to attract players basically where you want them to move and to distract them. Used marvelously in Dead Space. Sound FX can be used to keep the tension high even if nothing is really happening in the space which is a great way to surprise to player in the end as done in Dead Space.

Lighting can be used to light up an area obviously, but can be used to attract the players where we want them to go or look at so we can pretend they will look at it and we can send enemies there or use a scripted event in that direction or hope they find the path to the next objective/area following the light. Dynamic lighting can be used in stealth games to show players enemies coming towards them or useing shadows to hide themselves from enemies or show them an event using the light and without showing the real action as in Splinter Cell 3 which is a lot cooler than showing something that might not look as good technically if shown in front of the player.

Speech between allies in the space or using radio communications is another interesting way to tell the story without breaking the immersion and helps to create a sense that the world is living around your player's character and current location. If the player is playing with the volume on, he will hear what we are trying to communicate to him so there is no problem with the camera not looking in the same direction or anything like that. So speech can be used to tell elements of the story, which way to go next by giving directions using elements in the map or pointing out enemies coming towards the player or attacking the allies around him. Some people think that giving a voice to your character might break the illusion that the player is playing himself in a space, but i believe its way better since it gives some personality to your character and can create so much more to the universe and the player's experience.

a Living world is an important aspect of more and more games lately because it creates some activity in the world and it helps to create a believable world to the game. It consists of having non-playable characters interacting with each other, NPCs interacting with their environment, NPCs interacting with the player when he passes by, having objects react to natural elements (such as water,wind) or using ads in a space shows that there is normal life around. Deus Ex is a good example of this. This will help for immersion in the world, but also tells a story about what kind of world the player is in.

Maps and markers can be important to help player's move in the space so they should not be stuck and get frustrated by not finding the way to the next objectives. Moreover, if we use names of places on the map it also adds to the believability of the world. Markers can be used as a point in the space or part of the HUD to show the way or some used markers as bread crums to show every step that the player has to take to get to the next space. I think the markers should be integrated in the story or the technology used as part of the game.

Point of interests should be used as much as possible in every map or part of a bigger space to show player's the way to go. They represent a big structure seen from a huge distance, look interesting and high poly enough to attract the player towards them. They should be placed centrally in the space so the player sees them as soon as they enter the space. It should serve as a main plot of the story as well.

So all these elements are helpful to create a great story, to show players a universe full of life and real enough so

they are immersed in the game and will remember the game for a long moment. To get all these elements in your

map or game you will have to talk to a lot of people on the team and make sure to follow your request otherwise

you might end up not having them which will change the way your map ends up. Good communication is key.

-------

Everything i talked about in this post are things you should think about as a level designer. There are many other things that level designers will have to do, but these are the things that you need to make sure you have planned to create a memorable map or game. Good communication, good planning skills and research are essential skills that you need to be relatively good at your job as a Level Designer.

Hope it helps. I will have more posts in the coming weeks with pictures, drawings and more examples of things I have done in the past to illustrate all these things above in case it was not clear enough.

Whats next ? Level Designer, what ?

2011-04-29T02:56:00.002-04:00

I decided today to try and create a 'project' over the next weeks/months that will answer the questions:

What is a level designer?

What do you need to become one?

What do you do on a daily basis?

What are you doing throughout game development as an LD? (in detail)

other questions i think of

i will try to build examples, a light program maybe, sketches, ... to show what i do during a project. if it helps anybody thats great but mostly doing it for me.

ive never really done that before so it might be shit at first, but ill try to take some time to do that in the mist of all the things im actually doing for my own leisure. Hope it will get better as i write it as well.

I will post everything here as they are done.

Obviously i cant really show all the things ive done during those past projects ive worked on since some i couldnt get anything approved to use.

we'll see ;)

Catherine, Portal 2, Little Big Planet 2

2011-04-29T01:55:00.004-04:00

I havent played a lot of games recently but those 3 have been the most fascinating ones I found and loved to play for totally different reasons and here's what captured my attention for each of these classic games.

Catherine (japanese version, ps3):
--------------------------------------

yeah i dont understand the Japanese language but i really wanted to try this game out so I ordered it from Japan.

The game is divided in 3 really distinct units that could potentially taken apart and made for different art platform.

The main story is told through an japanese anime, with a lot of expressions, great colors, interesting developments and is telling the story of the main character through his love interests Katherine (his girlfriend), Catherine (girl he meets in a bar and sleeps with) and interaction with his colleague friends at work talking about love and what to do in certain circumstances. incredibly well done, I could understand most of it with that language barrier.

The interaction in the bar where you move around, talk to your friends and answer back(not sure what i was answering), talk to people in the bar, drink some alcool, play a rapunzel arcade game, receive and send messages to the 2 C/Katherine, watch pictures they send and listen to television news. Wasnt as interesting since i could understand anything

The nightmare puzzles during your characters sleep which is really where the game takes place. The goal of each puzzle is to get your character on top of an environment made of small boxes. You can move left and right, push/pull boxes which will create a path to go up like a staircase. By pulling/pushing boxes you create a path but you also change the environment that collapses around you and time also destroys the boxes below you. Many different box types (exploding, spikes, slipery, desintegrating,...) help you on your journey to the top and resolve your nightmares. It might seem boring or repetitive if you havent played but adding element of time, surprises, boss fights, etc... make this game one of the best ive ever played. Its never the same, always fun, and can be played in chunks of 15mins if wanted or hours.

ive never been good at puzzle solving or puzzle games which i always find too hard or the answers ridiculous sometimes but this games makes you feel great when you finish a puzzle you been failing a couple of times. it feels you did a mistake when you fail and not that the game tricked you or cheated which makes it so much more edifying when done. Its great and I felt intelligent playing it and finishing it.

Its a long game, funny, new and interesting to watch. Play it when it comes out this summer in north america.

----------------------

Portal 2 (PC)

----------------

(might have some spoilers)

following on the steps of the first one it follows the story of the same character(player) and introduce a friendly english robot who will help you out exit the testing facilities...

I enjoyed the first game for its mechanics, puzzles, the dialogue with sarcasm and jokes and the way it was playing the players mind.

The second iteration has more of everything. The dialogue and voice acting is just excellent and so professional. Always making me laugh while I was playing even when the main enemy was toying with me, my mind and the environment/puzzle to try and keep me prisoner and testing its new tricks. Only few games or movies made me laugh out loud as much as Portal 2 did throughout the couple of hours that it lasts. Sarcasm, congratulations (sometimes just to take it back a couple of minutes/seconds later), references from the previous games where you created a lot of damage to the facility and your nemesis and so much more.

Portal knows its a game and toys with the idea quite a lot. For example, you are asked to talk and respond to questions at the very beginning by pressing the 'Space' key which makes you jump and the response is "at least you can jump, it might be helpful". So the game teaches you different mechanics at the beginning but it doesnt feel like a boring training at all since the interaction makes sense and is part of the game.

Throughout the game you will learn and use new mechanics or gameplay elements that you will use to solve the many different puzzle each really unique from each other. The new gameplay elements are a welcomed addition to a game that could potentially feel repetitive if it wasnt for those.

Bits where the main characters were not interacting with me felt a bit boring to me where the only funny things lie on the walls as posters explaining security procedures which are a funny bunch as well.

Great game, now playing coop which is also a blast.

-------------------------------------------------------

Little Big Planet 2

----------------------

LBP2 wins for best presentation in a game Ive ever seen. From the details of its cinematics that must have taken a long time to do because they had to create all these creatures and effects and move everything slowly and film it with their engine; the story is funny, has a lot of characters, dialog is simple but entertaining, the sets are just amazingly detailed; the mechanics are plentiful where each world/level has a different mechanic that is never used after, is fun but feels that they should have use more of each mechanics instead of switching to a new one directly; make for a diverse and amazing looking game.

The art style that the game uses is his own. It looks great, its fresh, its new, its detailed and impressive, it shows emotions and objectives through cinematics and dialogs. Obviously its not pushing for realism and thats one other thing that is good with this game

Offers the capacity to create so many different types of games. The editor is done to let people create games on their own with more facility than the first one with easy ways to create any type of games that exists out there.

i enjoyed but did not finish it due to some playstation red ring occuring at the time i was playing it.

Wow its been so long ... Now : Kinect

2011-04-29T01:04:00.002-04:00

wow its been so long since my last post!!
i guess a lot of time spent at work, shows, trips, playing some games slows me down on my writing time.

anyways lets talk about Kinect a little bit.

So I got a Kinect System for Christmas ... yeah i really wanted one to play games that would come out and it would be so fun to play with this new controller which ive been using my whole life but not in that way anyways. So yes I mean this body of mine.

I had tested this new technology for a couple of months already before wanting it for Christmas and putting it on my list to have. So i knew what could be done with it, its contraints which ive been experimenting for a while at that point and I knew that awesome things could be potentially done with it.

Obviously I got Adventure and Dance Central, the first came with the system and the other one was the best game offered at the time... well it still is ... which is the sad thing about it all.

So Adventure was a day of playing and then shelf time :(
its repetitive, you have to jump (which i believe is not appropriate for everybody for reasons like bad knees for many people, living in an appartment, cant play at night or morning due to noises it makes to land after a jump), its just not really fun unless you are drunk with a lot of people i guess which i havent done yet.

Dance Central is great. Still playing it every other weekend with friends.
Why is it good ? the interface is easy to understand, learning moves for a guy who likes to dance but not so good at it is great fun and testing it in a club setting after gives opportunities for a good laugh, options to slow the motion down and practice with commentary to help out the less fortunate movement wise, good songs, good diversity of moves, learning curve is slow and easy to progress and get a feel for the moves, difficulty modes for each songs provides different moves instead of getting more picky for scores.

of course a couple of things can be better such as the feedback for something you are doing bad colored red but ... and hard to do move and look at whats the next move.

anyways this must be the best game on the Kinect so far.

I was hoping for more games to be released or use the system in diverse ways but so far only mediocre games have come out if any after the original slate of games and those that come out are dancing games which is a shame when companies try to take advantage of whats doing well and trying to make a buck without really going for quality and originality.

I have some hope that some companies will put out proper games and mostly original ones using this tech...waiting to see whats next and also trying the new game from Rez creator Children of Eden.

hope companies put the money out and let the creative people find ways to use the tech to entertain players in new ways.

Best Breakfast place ever

2010-10-11T16:14:00.003-04:00

Lola (downtown Seattle)

----------------------------

Lola is the best place Ive ever had a breakfast at.

It is located in downtown Seattle on 4th street in the hotel complex of a great looking and surely expensive hotel. The whole lobby of the hotel is amazing, moderne with great chairs and sofas to wait for a table.

Anyways the food is the most important thing here.

Every element in the plate is fresh, made for you, is chosen based on its quality and not just to sell and make money from (it feels that way) and is just soooo delicious.

So Ive had the Lola breakfast which included baked potatoes like you have never seen them, 2 eggs from free range chicken perfectly done to your taste, choice of bacon and sausages... i was offered half of both which is what i got!!!

So lets talk about the bacon first... it is the most succulent thing that you will ever eat that is called bacon or has it in its name! 3 really thick slices of the best bacon ive ever had were placed in my plate for me to love. It was juicy, well baked,crispy, none of this fat bacon that is still uncooked.

The sausages (2) were perfectly cooked. They tasted so good, they were big sausages, delicious and they made you want more even though there was no way you could eat anymore.

It was a perfect breakfast which I dream about sometimes :)

i also got an orange juice which for once was a real fresh pressed juice ... unlike other restaurant pretend to have ... just like home! :)

hmmmm enjoy!

Pecha Kucha!

2010-10-01T12:14:00.002-04:00

So ive been to the last two of the Pecha Kucha conferences in Vancouver
These events are extremely interesting and everytime I hear those people talk I am impressed with how people are soooo creative and pursue their dreams until they get it done!

So the Pecha Kucha events are organized everywhere in the world once a month and it seems that Vancouver is the most popular or fast growing one. Pecha Kucha was invented in Japan and it consists in some people giving 4-5 minutes presentations of their accomplishments or talking about their companies and what they do to realize their dreams. They are talking over slides that are shown on the screen for 20 seconds each.

It is really impressive to listen to these people talk from their respective fields, so people come from different background and do different things, the only common factor between those presentations is that they have accomplished something for themselves or others.
Helping others or the planet are main themes in a lot of presentations.

So yesterday, I took some notes about some of the cool stuff going on...

check out Miss604 blog which is talking about a lot of different events in town and some ways to help different organisations.
Here is now : this guy organises different art galleries in town and next in Portland for one day only. So he goes to an abandonned building and put arts from local artists and shows them to the world.
In the house festival : this is really great and strange but every months or more often that women organises different events in people's houses who have donated their house for a day where people will present their own shows such as dance, painting, food, music, ... seems awesome anyways
Ethicaldeal.com : check it out
Bloodied but unbowed: check out this movie about the Punk scene in Vancouver and how it all started here. that presenter was really interesting and she really follows the music scene around here.

So many interesting people creating different designs to live better for them and others. Some students are building crazy good looking houses for people in need and come up with awesome architecture designs.

Im impressed by all those people who pursue their dreams!

Next Pecha Kucha is Nove 14 in Vancouver i believe

Restaurant

2010-10-01T11:45:00.004-04:00

Stepho's Greek Taverna (1124 Davie st)

---------------------------------------

Stepho's has been recommended to me by a friend who used to live in Vancouver and it was said to be the one restaurant that I needed to go to and experience the food and service.

Since February Ive seen lineups at this restaurant everyday until 9pm which is crazy(!) ... so I thought! How come this restaurant has lineups all the time (and pretty much the only restaurant in town that attracts so many people)? With a fast service and low cost that might be a reason why but I had to try for myself ...

So on a rainy night in Vancouver, I decided to go with a friend and thought that surely people wouldnt lineup outside in such a weather... but I was wrong! After a 45 min wait outside, we finally got in only to sit and wait another couple of minutes and smell the food ... it was painful ;)

Then we got a table and looked at the menu. Everything looked so good how could we decide on something when we were so hungry at this point... so many choices we couldnt get to try all we wanted which means i need to go back at some point!

Anyways, I got the premium red house wine ... not sure about that premium description though... housewine is housewine i would say.

As appetizers we got a plate of hummus with pita bread from the oven and a plate of olives and Greek Cheese. The hummus was delicious and oily hmmm so I ate a lot of it but needed to leave some space for the rest of the meal.

The olive plate and Greek cheese was good as well even though i dont really like Greek cheese normally I ate some and it was good mixed with the different types of olives coming with this plate it was a great combination.

For the main plate I got lamb on the bone and my friend got the half chicken plate.

The portions were really big and full of colors thanks to the vegetables. I think the vegetables were really impressive in their own homemade sauce it was actually really good and helped the plate to live up to my standards ;) It is really rare that I care so much about the vegetables but this time it was perfect. Big potatoes and rice(meh) accompanied the lamb as well. The lamb itself was so tender and juicy and easy to get from the bone. It was melting in my mouth as I was eating it. Hmmm yummy :)

The chicken plate I heard was really good as well but I cant describe it so well as I didnt taste it.

The service was really friendly, fast and good in general.

This restaurant received so many awards in the last years which can be seen on the walls of the place. The interior of the restaurant is really charming with his columns everywhere it feels you are in Greece somewhere. Lighting is low so you feel alone in this beautiful place.

i recommend it even if you have to wait in line for a while it is worth it :)

Restaurants (continued)

2010-05-02T18:09:00.002-04:00

As every other Saturday I am trying new restaurants around town.

Yesterday I wanted to go to Lucy May Brown but ... its dead now so I walked to La Gavroche which is a french restaurant (again) where you will need to reserve if you want a table and not be seated at the bar between books and wine bottles.

La Gavroche (1616 Alberni street)
----------------------------------------------
Setting: This is a really small restaurant which feels friendly and familiar. Unless you are at the bar like me and sitting next to a computer and an employee purse Lollll

Service: Lucky for me the service was perfect. Every employee working there came to talk to me during my dinner so it seemed like i wasnt assigned a waiter but everyone pitched in to deliver a good experience for me. And that was great :)

Menu: The menu has a lot of options and I was at a lost for a couple of minutes since I didnt know where to start and so many options to choose from. You have special prices for 4 services or 5 services with or without wine pairing. Choose from anything in the menu for that. Or you have many already selected and arranged dinner options that fit each other with or without wine pairing and all wines are listed with their items so easy to select a wine that fits your meal.

I decided to get the 4 services (which was a 5 services in the end since you get a trou normand sorbet)

Before the meal : With bread comes the butter (obviously) and some pate :)

I chose a red Ch La Targue (or something like that ...it was a Bordeaux anyways) wine which i finally had two glasses of in the end. it was a good wine.

First I chose the Steak Tartare with fries and pickels and crackers. It was my first time eating a steak tartare so i wasnt too sure what to expect. The good thing about this meal is that the owner comes at your table and prepares it in front of you and the way you want it !! Spicy?, he asked ? I dont know never done that before, I said. He said yeah it should be ;)
It was a good experience to eat it and it was big enough that i ran out of crackers and i was getting full so i didnt eat it all.

After that I got the cesar salad, which is also made at your table in front of you with ingredients of your choice (well you have some options anyways) This was also a really big portion which i couldnt eat all of it. It was only the second service and was really getting full at this point.

Then I had a surprised sorbet (trou normand) for appetite to come back ;)

It took a bit for the 5 Spices duck magret to arrive which was good since i needed a breather.
The duck came with some vegetable i couldnt really name, a tomato and a carrot. Also, it had duck breast obviously and the carcasse with some meat in it plus it had big pieces of stuffing (which i didnt like). This meal was good but not the best sauce ever. I would get it again though if I wanted duck next time. I recommend it.

After all of this I was full...really full, but dessert was going to arrive at some point.
I got the Creme Brulee which was really good (not as good as the Faux Bourgeois though). The top was definitly well done which a really tick sugary element lol. It also came with a really good kind of cookie or sugary cracker.

It took me 2 hours to eat there and thats incredibly long for me since i usually eat really fast.
The music was great there which made the atmosphere really relaxed and made me enjoy it a lot even though I didnt have a great spot to sit at.

I recommend to go if you like french food and good service.

-------------------------

Restaurants

2010-05-01T21:06:00.003-04:00

I enjoy discovering new restaurants and this tradition continues in Vancouver ;)

Here's a list of restaurants i went to so far and how much I liked them ...
(will be updated as i try new ones)

Les Faux Bourgeois Bistro (663 15th avenue east)
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I was told this French restaurant had the best creme brulee ever so I had to go there and taste it and I love this kind of food anyways so...

The restaurant is located in an easy to access and park your car area.
The staff was french, but I still got a good service from them ;)

Ordered a really good red wine glass of Chateau Rouselle Bordeaux 05 which was the best wine I got so far in Vancouver where good one is rare i find.

I started with the French Onion Soup which was really good with plenty of cheese and good bread. Salty just the right way too.

Then I went on with some Escargots (snails) which was served with garlic oil and some hard baked bread. it was good but would not really get them next time.

I tried the Canard Confit (Duck) has my main meal which was served with potatoes and green beans but the sauce didnt do anything for me. I wouldnt get that one next time.

Dessert was next : I obviously tasted the Creme Brulee and it was soooooo delicious. I dont know exactly what made it so tasty and smooth and vanilla flavored but hmmmmm i would go back just for that.

Enjoyed the overall experience.
Reservations needed if you want a table and not sit at the bar like i did.
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Glowbal grill & satay bar (1079 Mainland st)
----------------------------------------------------

This restaurant has a good selection of satays and some options to select them by the piece or selection of the chef ...

I enjoyed 2 pieces of satay : - Salmon
- Something else that i didnt really order tasted like pork

these were delicious and i would have gotten more if I only new before.
The ribs satay looked delicious too hmmm

I also got the Onion Soup which was a great selection too. Lots of cheese, good bread. (not as good as the one at FauxBourgeois)

Good wine by the glass.

As my main meal I had a big piece of steak. When I got it, I thought it was an amazingly big piece of steak which was great. It was served on a wooden cutting board which I found strange and was sitting over a couple of green beans. The steak was tender, but it wasnt as good as a plate at a Hard Rock Cafe for example.

Didnt get any dessert since the bartender didnt really offer me anything or the card ... oh well!

like the satays would go back for that but not so much for the steaks.

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Cactus Club Cafe ( 357 Davie Street)
-------------------------------------------

There are a couple of locations in Vancouver but I went at the Davie location.

Atmosphere: I enjoyed the atmosphere here, half lounge/bar, half restaurant. It had a darker lighting, romantic, really like the photos on the walls and the structure of the restaurant also.

Service: Best service Ive had in Vancouver so far. The waitress was awesome, super friendly, always there to offer something, fast with refill from the other employees. Im really critical for service and it was a perfect one.

Menu: the menu as a great selection of every kind of meal and it is the restaurant chain of Chef Rob Feenie, so I had to take one of his creations of course :)

Started with a good red wine glass (cant remember which one)

Starter was a really generous portion of cesar salad which was delicious
Main menu: I took the Rob Feenie's Hunter Chicken which was served in a mushroom sauce. This was the most delicious and original chicken recipe Ive ever tasted. hmmmmm great :)

My dessert was a lava chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream. I can say that it didnt ruin my dinner ... great chocolate :)

favorite service, great food.
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Subeez Cafe (891 Homer street)
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i was disapointed overall for this place which i was told was good.
Maybe the sandwiches are good I might have to try them at some point, but ...

The red wine I got was okay.
I started with the Mushroom soup which was good.
Then I chose the Maple soy Salmon which was not great but was alright

I was sitting at the bar and the service was not so great.

not a lot to say when i dont quite enjoy ;)
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Templeton (1087 Granville)
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Great brunch restaurant :)

This restaurant looks like an authentic 1950's style dinner. It is a really small place so you will have to either eat at the bar or wait a little bit in line for people to leave. There is a line up usually on Sundays so arrive early or be patient cuz it is good and youll want to wait.

They might have the best milkshake ever which is a generous portion of fabulous drink. There are a couple of different flavors but i always get strawberry ( or cherry lol i cant remember) but you can get root beer flavored milkshake. It is so big that it could potentially be a meal for some.

The breakfast are delicious and gigantic ... 3 eggs, sausages, really good bacon, good bread and potatoes! hmmmmm

The staff is also super friendly and i enjoyed them a lot.
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Brix restaurant and wine bar (1138 Homer street)
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This is the first restaurant I tried since it was right by my place.
Also I decided to go there because it offered some duck from Quebec ;)

You enter the place through an alley which gets you in the garden area of the restaurant where you might be lost like i was bc you have to go through it then enter the restaurant to be seated.

I got a seat outside in the garden under a roof . This place was a great place for a romantic dinner because the atmosphere was really appropriate for such meals. The place is heated if its cold outside so no problem there, being in an alley is kinda strange but you get accustomed to it also.

The service was great. The guy who would fill my water glass was so fast and im sure he was spying on ever sip i had since he was always around. lol

I got a really good red Syrah wine glass.
I ordered a soup as the starter but it was a bean soup which wasnt liquid enough ... was rough in my throat and did not like it at all.

Fortunately the Duck breast from Lake Brome which was served in a blueberry sauce with tomato ragout, wild mushroom and spinash was a great meal.

For dessert, I didnt get anything because i was full even though now I regret not having this good looking Chocolate Pot de Creme (chocolate mousse) hmmmm oh well

i had a great time at this restaurant
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Earls Restaurants (they are everywhere)
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Everytime I go there I like it. Ive been there 3 times until now and always get a good meal.

The combo soup,salad or sandwich is the best deal and most people take that.

The earls own wine is not good i hopefully will never get that one again.

I tried the clam chowder soup and different home soups and they are always tasty and good.

For meals:
I tried the chicken caesar salad which is really big and good.
The Cajun Chicken Cheddar sandwich is good.
The salmon was alright i found with a high price i wouldnt consider it for future choices.

Never tried the dessert since i usually go at lunch
good eat at low price
---------------------------------

The list is long for japanese restaurants where i eat but cant remember the names, but the sushi is always good and really not expensive here in vancouver.

For a good poutine (30 flavors): La Belle Patate (1215 Davie)

Oh man I shouldnt have written this before i eat ... im so hungry now !!!

Music Shows

2010-04-18T00:44:00.008-04:00

Ive seen a couple of shows since im in Vancouver, ill discuss a little each of them :)

***Update***

Japandroids with No Gold @ Lifetime Collective
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Lifetime Collective is the smallest venue Ive ever been to. It looks like a small warehouse or really small lounge.
I didnt know much about Japandroids(heard a couple of samples of some songs before) and nothing about No Gold.
Show started an hour after it was supposed to so it was really a long wait and I was getting sleepy. Then No Gold started and i found out a really interesting band: funny, changing rythmn, easy listening, good beats and really friendly musicians.
Then came on Japandroids... first time since im in vancouver that i actually see Vancouver people actually move during a show and when they move they move! it was a non-stop trash and mosh pit pretty much everywhere in that small venue. Incredible i would say ;)
It was a lot heavier than I expected. I danced around to the music with people I just met and I had a blast. They played a pretty long show playing all songs on their new album + old ones.
Anyways i enjoyed the evening once it started and now have another band to follow around.
Plus i met a bunch of really fun people who I talked to during the evening :)
-------------------

Stars with Hey Rosetta! @ Orpheum
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The Orpheum is the most beautiful music theater ive ever been to. Covered in gold, paintings on ceilings, greek columns, marbre all over the place... its like a palace for music kings.
Usually the place is used by orchestra, but that day was Stars and Hey Rosetta! playing.
Unfortunately I was sitting down on the balcony level and it seems that those who build the theater made it beautiful and all but not so practical since the inclination of the balcony levels is not high enough for everyone to see correctly so you had to stand up to actually see the scene down there because when there was someone sitting in front you could see much.

Hey Rosetta! was a really impressive band they only played approx 20min but that time was worth it to me and people next to me also. They were entertaining and the sound was good thanks to the acoustic of the place.

I didnt know much about Stars, but they revealed to be a good listening even though I wouldnt bother to buy an album. It's calm and relaxing to listen to.

Korn @ Queen Elizabeth Theater
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Old Songs, Old Singles! :)

I wasnt expecting much from Korn since I hadnt listened to them in 10 years and last saw them during their Family Tour back in Montreal a while ago.
They ended up pleasing everyone including me by playing all the best singles and songs from earlier albums. Changing the background to the album covers of their next songs made people happy about what was going to happen next. People were dancing to the songs, standing up and having a good time to those old songs and bringing back great memories of the past.
Interesting fact about the singer: Jonathan would inhale Oxygen through a mask after each song and a sip of energy drink
great show!

Metric with Nico Vega@ Showbox Sodo (Seattle)
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Nico Vega: Big Surprise and so much energy from the singer. she was jumping all over. Also, they have great songs live!

Metric: Energetic! Crazy! Fun!
what can i say about metric really ... Emily is just a fantastic front(wo)man with a great voice, a superb aptitude to captivate the crowd and bring it to her world. She is playing keyboard, singing, jumping, dancing and talking to the fans. All the songs they played were good and dancing prone and the fans were dancing to the beats and having a great time.
I saw metric in montreal at the beginning of their tour and it was not has energetic as the Seattle show... maybe the enthousiastic fans made a difference, maybe Emily felt more in shape,... i dont know what happened but it was definitely worth the travel to Seattle. Go Metric Go! Hope they continue improving and creating music that more people can enjoy.

Crystal Castle @ Gossip Nightclub
-----------------------------------------
Noise, Crazy people, Crazy singer
I love Crystal Castles albums. I cant say I like all their songs since the songs are so different and some are more noises than beats, but during a show it becomes all noises ... maybe the acoustics of the club wasnt great or soundcheck was not done properly but ...
I enjoyed it but couldnt say it was one of the best experience at a concert ;)

You Say Party We Say Die @ Rickshaw Theater
---------------------------------------------------------
Great Band, Dancing, shortened, ironic ...

After 3 opening bands, YSPWSD came on stage and the party started!
The Rickshaw located in the dodgy area of Vancouver is a small venue with some character.
There wasnt a lot of people at the show, but this doesnt mean its not a good band ... people should listen to this great band. So they started playing and it was fun. I was really into it, until the ironic event happened during the 5th song of the show ... so while we were partying, the drummer collapsed on the ground without anybody noticing it even the band continued playing until the sound guy ran to the stage to rescue the poor drummer who was knocked out.
The show stopped, the drummer wasnt moving for 15 minutes until the ambulance arrived.
They announced that people should leave and so I did. Its sad that it happened ... just read that the drummer had a brain hemorrhage and is now on life support with poor prognostic ... :(

got the news that he died after a surgery that did not help after all.

Jonsi @ Vogue
--------------------
Genius, Relaxing, Moving, Energy, Incredible Visuals, Outstanding Performance

This could be words used to describe this fabulous singer, musician and his music.
It could be described as Sigur Ros++ since Jonsi (singer from Sigur Ros) created here the same quality we would wish for from a Sigur Ros album, but he adds energy and beats uncommon to his other band. Also, the presentation of the concert added so much to the musical performance with animated videos projected on many different screens and each screen showed a piece of the puzzle to this great story he was telling us. Burned stage, animal life, rainy night, art pieces created in front of the audience.
The band playing with so many unusual instruments such as a suitcase used as a bass drum, playing guitar with violin bow, etc...
The songs really take a different twist live and they are all playing diffently than on the album and it propagates emotions to the crowd.
One of the best shows Ive ever been to ... I even wanted to go back the day after, but word of mouth had to happen and the next show became sold out really fast!
To be enjoyed absolutely!

Charlotte Gainsbourg @ Vogue
--------------------------------------
Good songs from her albums, great songs from her father, most boring performance ever

I didnt know what to expect going to a Charlotte Gainsbourg show... she's an actress I figured she could act and create a great performance, but that did not happened. Charlotte seemed like someone who was really shy, unsure of herself and unable to move an inch through her performace except during a song taken from her dad's catalog and in the encore.
Holding the microphone in one hand, other hand in her pocket, looking at the floor in front of her and not the crowd... this was a receipe for disaster and it was! More insulting was the fact that at some point she got a chair and actually sat down ... really and did this is at a moment when I thought it couldnt be more dull :(
Fortunately, her main guitarist Nicole was moving, seemed to have some fun and tried to entertain the crowd a little bit. Great band though behind her and great songs from Air and Beck who wrote her albums.
Just an unfortunate spending.

Soon:
LCD Soundsystem @ Malkin Bowl
Melvins @ Rickshaw
Our Lady Peace (Clumsy Set) @ Vogue

Great artist with stories

2010-04-17T20:01:00.002-04:00

Im currently working with Sean and found out that he was doing great drawings and telling everyday stories through them.

look at his blog its interesting to me anyways :

http://seankaremaker.blogspot.com/

hello Vancouver

2010-04-17T18:51:00.004-04:00

Ive been visiting Vancouver for 3 months now (already!) and here's what i think of it as of now.

So far I've visited most of downtown area, a little bit of Burnaby, Granville Island, Squamish and drove through a portion of south west Vancouver.

Downtown
--------------

I live in downtown Vancouver and i love it! (Yaletown)
This is certainly the most fun area if you are into music shows, bars, shopping, nightclubs and good restaurants, but its also really loud on weekend through the early hours of the night.
Ive been walking a lot trying to visit and see as much as possible.
Granville street and Robson are the streets with the most activities and traffic at night since a lot of people are going out at night even on Sundays so everyday is a day where you can go out and have some fun! The hardest part of it all would be to select the bar/nightclub that you will like... which will not be a trivial task. So many of them right next to each other doesnt help a lot, maybe you can look at people going in and you'll figure it out...

Vancouver Art Gallery
-----------------------

Here you can find the Leonardo Da Vinci human body drawings covering all possible muscles, bones and their reason to be there. This is an incredible exposition since it shows how clever Da Vinci was at that moment in history where the only information about the human body was found by actually doing dissections on dead body at night. Moreover, you will be amazed at how much detail he could draw using ink that you couldnt erase ... so its a one time think... dont screw up otherwise you start all over and with all those details im sure he wouldnt want that.

Really interesting to see.

Stanley Park
--------------
Stanley Park on a sunny day is one of the best things about Vancouver ... enjoy a day biking, hiking, getting a tan at one of the beaches and going to the Aquarium. The park has those huge trees that you can only find in Pacific Northwest area. The waterwall is a great place to bike around the park next to the water, beaches and mountains. On the beaches you will have great views of the water(obviously), boats and the best part of it all the high mountains with snow on the top while you get a tan in the hot sun. On the beaches you will find big tree logs that you can use to sit on or relax leaning on them. Each beach has a variety to it some with volleyball nets, kids games or restaurants.

Aquarium
-----------
The Aquarium is a must see visit because it has some of the weirdest fishes, reptiles, and animals that live in the area and tropical settings. You will get to see astonishing black and white Dolphins that were rescued after being trapped and injured in nets. You can listen to some trainers who will talk about those dolphins and entertain the crowd playing with the dolphins who do great tricks. Those dolphins cant be released in the wild since they would not survive with those injuries they have so they are taken care of here and used as research to help understand more about them.
Also, you will be able to see a family of Belugas who seem to be enjoying their pool swimming around, playing with each other. You'll be able to learn more about them as well.

Throughout the aquarium you will see things you never saw before and maybe touch a see star ... its a great place to go. I enjoyed it for a couple of hours before leaving for third beach.
Going there on a sunny day is a better option since you will be spending a lot of time outside.

Gastown (Chinatown)
---------------------
I visited Gastown/Chinatown the other day and it was a stressful time I found.
Why? Because this area includes the infamous approved drugged/poverty district of vancouver... pretty much a dodgy area i would say... it doesnt feel safe at all with fights occuring, drug dealing and other such activities.
I walked around avoided certain areas as much as possible, the best thing to visit is the free garden but not really worth the walk i found.
Walked there at night yesterday to get to a music venue that was located in the middle of that dodgy area... I survived but ...

Granville Island
-------------------
I went to Granville Island during the Olympics so obviously there was a lot of people there. Next time I go might be a really different experience, but I found a great micro-brewery, good fish & chips, good restaurants and a good art institute (Emilie Carr). Nice to visit and you can get there by boat-taxi which is a faster and cheaper way to get there.

Kits beach area
------------
Kitsilano beach area has a lot to offer from the beach itself with volleyball nets laying around, the huge pool, restaurants, Space Museum, Vancouver museums.
It was really windy when I went so it was so great, but the view was really nice with those nearby snow covered mountains and the bike trails is used by a lot of people and you can pretty much go anywhere using it.

SouthEast-ish Vancouver/UBC area
------------------------------------
The area around British Columbia University is the next best thing after the downtown area Ive visited so far. The area feels like a calm suburb with really great looking houses and grass around! This could potentially be a great place for families since it looks good and safer than some areas in gastown... The University with its museum, soccer fields, japanese garden and great architecture needs to be visited. I need to do it too ;)

Burnaby
----------

I travelled to Burnaby twice. The first time to go see the Vancouver Whitecaps playing the Seattle Sounders at the Vancouver stadium. It was a boring game ending in a 0-0 draw, but still got to see some soccer action with an MLS team. The way to Burnaby is not so beautiful and you really know when you leave downtown Vancouver heading east to go to Burnaby since everything looks older and poorer which looks a lot like Hollywood Blvd in L.A.
Today I went to 2 soccer shops outside Vancouver: The soccer shop, which had great selection, but the staff was really not friendly so it was not a great place to go. Then I found in Burnaby on Eastings Saveco Sports which is smaller, feels more like a family shop and the owner was really friendly and we had a talk about Holland and having a hard time selling those shirts. is it that holland fans dont buy merchandise or they keep their old jerseys and never change them ?

Squamish
------------
I went to Squamish to visit but mostly to do some marketing research not so long ago.
Squamish is the Outdoor activities capital of Canada where you can pretty much do any outdoor sports you want in a great natural setting. The mountain called the Chief is one of the highlight of the area where you can do some hiking, moutain climbing, jump off the cliff, skiing (?). In the area, you can bike, kayak, kite surfing, skating and any other outdoor activity you can think of. People we met there were really interesting and friendly. You can get all the gear you desire in the area with great local shops to really get the info you deserve to know about everything.
Worst place I went to was the Activity Information Center where we were really poorly received (thats the least i could say) and left almost as fast as we arrived eheh.

well this is it for the places i visited so far ...

Ubi Vancouver, trip through Canada, Olympics

2010-02-14T12:08:00.003-05:00

So I finished working on Splinter Cell a couple of weeks ago. Its finally coming out and will be great!

-----------------------------------

I decided to go start another project which is located in Vancouver working for Ubisoft there at the old Action Pants Studios.

To get there I decided to cross Canada by car all alone during Winter ... which is a long trip and when I arrived they considered me crazy to have done so since usually during winter you can get pretty big storms in the prairies but this year it was actually calm.

so anyways, the trip took me 5 days (10-11 hours drive per day plus stops to eat at lunch) through a multitude of vary different landscapes. In Ontario, I had to go through a lot of small villages on the main road and there was a lot of circular paths and a lot of trees around. It was a good two days of travel just for Ontario and I thought that that was boring ... until I got to the prairies (manitoba and Saskatchewan)

prairies: a flat land colored in white powder + some foggy sections that I couldnt see anymore further than 100 meters ... which is getting things worst since usually its pretty boring but now i couldnt see anything! funny thing is that they made the speed limits at 110 km/h so we can get out faster of these provinces ;)

so nothing really interesting here, i went around winnipeg which was the only big cities worth it on my path in Manitoba; to keep going fast .

Then on the 4th day ... Alberta!!!! I was happy to get in this province since it means mountain coming soon... then I got to Calgary which is a big city and host of the other Canadian winter olympics. I stopped to see the installations of the old olympic park where they had the bobsley and luge competition ... a lot of people were there skiing around etc ... This was the first mountain before the Rockies!!

Rockies: and then after slowly exiting Calgary I could see then mountains in the distance and i was soooo happy to see them after 4 days of flat land this was awesome. Got a couple of pictures on the way there and while driving through the mountains. I stopped at Banff and Lake Louise to visit (this was my first real stop since the beginning of the roadtrip).

Banff: this village looks incredible, i love how the houses are made (wooden stuctures), right over them you see the biggest mountain ever (well for canada). its an amazing view... i would stay here for a while too bad i dont ski or snow.

lake louise: after that i stopped at lake louise where a lot of competitions took place back at the olympics, at this time of year the lake is frozen and people were playing hockey on the ice, but this area must be incredible in spring time when the lake is clear blue and mountains are covered in snow all around wow! i had a good time here also, village is not as great as Banff though.

then i stopped to sleep in Golden right in front of the mountains was my room awwwwww :)

the fifth day i arrived in Vancouver and here i am before the olympics for a couple of months!
-------------------------

Olympics
----------

they have just started and the city is being overrun by tourists (ok im a tourist at this point).
there are so many free events to see and participate in which includes music shows all over the place from the best Quebec's singers/groups to all different groups of canada ;) Places where people can watch the games together have been assembled around the different Pavillion and they offer so many screens to look at which is great. Go Canada!

i am going to a olympic hockey game soon. ive been walking around in downtown district where most events occur (and where i live) and people are excited in the streets ... even protesters are excited to cause some damage to some property but anyways ...

so ill be working on this new project and trying to be over excited by all that is happening around in the city until after work hours ;)

Uncharted 2, The Saboteur, Splinter

2009-10-25T09:13:00.002-04:00

I was so excited that Uncharted 2 was coming out that I bought it the day it came out, finished it in like 2 days (which i never do anymore for a lack of time) and thought it was simply an incredibly fun and beautiful game!!!

Sometimes you are so excited by a product coming out, but in the end they let you down and made a crappy game after all with the marketing making sure everybody bought it anyways ... wont mention any big franchise here ;)

This was definitly not the case with Uncharted... which was absolutely amazing graphicly: walking in the snow which glues itself to Drake's feet and legs, the extraordinary backdrops where you get views of the whole area which is jawdropping.

The story is good and don't want to skip any part of it even though we know some plots will arrive well in advanced since like all treasure hunting games/movies there is always somebody trying to screw you to get the gold ... but nonetheless it is great and one of the best presentation of any games out there including the camera shots and how it's "filmed".

The characters are interesting (except the bad guy) they are unlike most games like the first one was, but it seems that the company has trouble making believable female characters compared to the male counterpart. For example, Drake has some scars that tells a story about him, there is some kind of personality in his body/face, whereas the female seems to be bland, and all shiny with not a lot of definition there is something missing I think.

The acrobatic gameplay is really fun, there is some movement and events happening during the different moments in the game, it's not only go up this area, there is a feel of urgency, the elements move around as we can see in the first 10 min of the game and the building collapsing part. its fun and unexpected.

the shooting sections of gameplay are better done than in the first game where some parts were frustrating. here we dont get that sensation, i like how they tried to give us a lot of different scenarios and different elevation which changes how we handle things. shooting mechanics work, had some troubles to get from cover to cover sometimes something that has to do with the controls.

puzzles were a little to easy but thats better than a hard one I have to get on the net to find the solution to ;)

great experience that i would replay again if time permits. really good reference for any games on cinematic aspects and how to present a story.

----------------------------------

The Saboteur is coming out on December 8!!!!!! Finally it comes out I'm so glad they made it ... those people were really great to work with and I'm really happy for them. Last time, I played the game design had finally been tweaked to make it a lot better than when I was working there.

the game is getting a lot of coverage from the different medias and events and im waiting for players response when the game comes out.

So glad!

---------------------------------------------

Splinter is coming along nicely. A lot of coverage has been done at the last couple of events where we showed a second map. the different medias seem to really enjoy it.

It is a beautiful game which plays really well. With the extra time we got we are making sure the experience will be fun and new to everyone.

hope people enjoy it when it comes out in a couple of months :)

VFest Toronto

2009-09-01T19:38:00.003-04:00

I was at the Virgin Mobile Music Festival in Toronto this week-end located at the Molson Amphitheater next to Ontario Place.

It was a great festival in a venue that I'd never visited before and I was impressed by the architecture. Its an outdoor venue but not all of it ... since part of the seats are covered with a roof and the section 300 and grass areas are not. There are walls to hold the roof structure, but it gets windy everywhere. The floor section is really small, but makes the first sections that much closer :)

So the tickets I had were for the floor (100 level) and the 200 level seating so I was really close to the stage at all times.

There were 3 stages ( 2 of them quite far from the main stage ) but because of the schedules and their distanced location I didnt really got to see other stages but I only missed one of the groups I really wanted to see (Von Bondies). The fact that there was only one stage was kinda bad since we had to wait for the stage to be set for the next act everytime unlike at Osheaga in Mtl where the two main stages are side by side and we dont have to wait between bands.

Here are the bands that played and some comments about them ( if I remember them ):

Saturday
---------------------

Mates of State : first band playing at the festival they had a good first song and I was into it, but then 10 min later I was bored and wanted something different since it was all of the same

Lights : She was young, full of energy, kinda shy, shes talented and has some good songs, but ...

Grizzly Bear : I was waiting to see them, I was told it was a good band, but maybe my expectations were way too high cuz I was bored except for one song that was a little bit like Wolf Parade on the piano and all ...

Sloan : I had heard some of their older songs and I thought I liked it back then ... and I really
enjoyed their music now it was a lot of fun and they were enjoying themselves even though the singer couldnt play his instruments so they invited other people to play with them ... funny too.

Paolo Nutini : Scottish, weird posture, weird faces, screaming a lot, zzzzz music but people seemed to enjoy it on the floor dancing with their Scottish flags

Franz Ferdinand: Last time I saw them in Montreal I loved them, but for some weird reason I never listened to them after that show ... it never happened to me before and I still dont know why. I was expected a great performance from them and ... they delivered everything I was hoping for !! They kept playing some great songs ... in fact all their songs were major hits. I loved their energy, singing, interacting with the crowd and everybody was dancing. Great Performance at the festival ... one of the best.

Pixies: I already saw them before, but i dont remember where exactly, but they produced an amazing show also with rythmic songs like the good old days of alternative and grunge ... a band I'm really happy I saw again and wish to see them another time in a full show.

Ben Harper : I left before his show ... didnt really cared

------------------------------

SUNDAY
-----------------

Coeur de Pirate: A lovely girl from Quebec with her band doing good songs that nobody could
understand, but delivered a good performance. A little shy since nobody really
got what she was singing about.

Datarock: Electronic music, red jumpsuits, extreme energy, jumping all over, playing many
intruments, good!

Mew: Bad music, really bad voice ... awful live anyways

Mutemath : didnt know at all the band, thought they were really good ( but playing after Mew
might be a reason I liked them so much lol ), people seemed to like them too so...

Cold War Kids: Dont remember them that much ... but I dont remember them to be good or as
good as other bands

N.E.R.D. : HipHop with 2 drums ... a lot of energy, not my style but was good live, brought
people on stage for most songs, good opening band

Our Lady Peace: This was a band which I loved the first 3 albums (mostly the first one though), but then they made some boring albums and still do which they should stop doing and just play their old material which is soooo good and grungy. So the show reflected that: old songs made people sing, dance and enjoy them, but half of the show was new stuff which should have never been invented ... ;)

PET SHOP BOYS: I knew the name but never really listened to them ... them being from the 80s or something ;) but they were excellent live! keywords to describe the show: Electronic, singing Robots, Cubes, Sports, Adidas, costumes, crazy videos, entertaining a lot, good songs. Excellent show !!!

Nine Inch Nails: This was one of their last performances ever (4 left). Ive been listening to them since their first album(20 years ago) and Trent has delievered great albums one after the other, trying to change his formulas, live they've always been incredible with stuff that you would never have seen before with screens effect and ... This show was more than any Ive seen from them before minus some of their technical scenic material since it was a 20 min stage construction. They gave a solid 2 hours finally to this festival and their career in Canada anyways. He sang so many of their greatest hits which are energetic and transmits it to the crowd who showed up for this last performance. Changing to more calm songs at times to relax a little bit even though after a while Trent's voice was a little bit irritated he kept singing for our pleasure.

The show started great and at the end of the first song the mic and its support was thrown off stage by Trent as he does sometimes ... the show was set to be a great one!! During the second song, Trent destroyed his guitar on his synthetiser right in front of the crowd and thousands of pieces flew all over the stage and some in the crowd... technicians had to give him another guitar and had the change the now destroyed synthetiser as well LOLL great start of the show !!!
Songs after songs they gave us the energy that we needed after such a long festival. During the show other guitars or instruments were trashed all over the stage for the fans pleasure and surely Trents own.

It was a great festival overall and a great time I had in Toronto for 3 days.

A lot has happened

2009-08-15T13:30:00.004-04:00

A lot has happened since I last posted ... I quit my job, went in Europe for 2 weeks and started at a new place...

So unfortunately I had to leave this great place that was Eidos and leave good friends for many reasons that made my stay on Deus Ex unbearable. That is not too say that the game in the end will not be an awesome beast that everyone will want to buy cuz I truly believe that the people who really create it will be able to achieve such of a complex game (like Deus Ex 1 was).

I really enjoyed the work I did as a Living World Specialist for them and I really wish I could have continued my tasks, but ...

This is all I'm going to say about it since all that happened after was great and positive :)

-----------------------

Europe

--------

So I decided to take some time off (2 weeks) and relax (as much as travelling in multiple cities can be) to see the world and experience something new since the opportunity to take some time off in this industry dont happen often.

I quit my job, buy a plane ticket and the next day I was on a plane to Paris without any sort of planning on my end ... my only plan was to go to Germany (frankfurt, Munich, Berlin), Amsterdam and Paris. Details like the when, where to stay, how to get there, etc... were not planned at all... all I had was a backpack and a will to explore and have fun!

I flew during the night to arrive in Paris at 10am. From there I wanted to get to a train to Frankfurt ... so I looked around and searched for a train ticket ... unfortunately I had to wait all day in Paris to get a train that wasnt filled up ... so I visited a little bit the 18 and 19th arrondissement of Paris in a really hot sunny day...ended up not drinking enough and kinda got sun sick ... a great way to start a trip ;)

Got on my train to Germany at 5:30pm and got in Frankfurt at 9pm and headed to a youth hostel.

No I dont speak German at all ... knew only 2-3 words. Fortunately for me, Germans are REALLY nice and speak English (most of them anyways) AND are happy to help tourists who are looking for their way... YES people actually came to me to help when I had a map in hands or I looked lost :D

Frankfurt which I visited for 2 days didnt had a lot to show, but I enjoyed the different types of architecture and old churches. My hostel was a great place to stay also.

Left by train to go to Munich 2 days later. Arrived in Munich and walked around a little bit without a map to discover by myself for the first night before entering my new hostel which was as crappy as ever with a welcoming flow of piss in front of the main door!! LOL

I stayed 3 days in Munich visited a lot to see as much as possible all the history that Munich had to tell about hitler and his movement, etc... I went to visit Neuschwanstein Castle which was one of King Ludwig II unfinished castle and who inspired Walt Disney to create his iconic Disney castle that you see in all Disney movies. This was a great site to experience.

It is unfinished but all rooms that are finished are just amazingly well made and most things were new inventions at the time. The visit didnt really last long since it is a big castle but only two stories are completed. I met fun people on this tour and we had a long time to talk since we had a 2 hour trip to get to the castle and another 2 hour to come back, but it was worth it and talking to other people about thier experience during their own trip was cool since I was all alone in Europe at least I could speak to someone here.

Also, I went on a tour of Hitler and Third Reich in Munich which showed us all the areas where they met and told us all that happened in Munich which was the capital of that movement. I took some time to go to a lot of bars, pubs, beer gardens to experience their incredible Municheen beer hmmmmmmmm :) Best beer I tasted in Europe by the way...

Then I went to Berlin where a lot has happened also (world war, Berlin Wall,...) There was a lot of history here to hear, to look at (the wall is still present in some areas), but Berlin unlike other cities in Germany has been rebuilt but modernly so we cannot see all the great buildings that were pre world wars, but it feels fresh and modern though. During my stay I took some time to go to a concentration camp which was a strange area to visit.

Left after a couple of days to get to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is different from what I had visited before since its a city built by men on some docks. I really liked how the Dutch created their city since the different canals makes it fresh to look at and offers a lot of ways to get lost like I did a couple of times with the many circular streets that go around town hehehe. Its a different language, but feels like it is still some kind of German language ... so I couldnt understand people and unfortunately people speak English but will not help you as the Germans did before so ... I had to find my way around town hence me getting lost sometimes trying to find my far away hostel. I had the opportunity to join a free tour of the city which was really interesting.

After a couple of days, I went back to Paris for three days before going back home. Visited almost all major attractions of Paris in one day which was sometimes incredibly hot sunny day then extremely rainy with a friend I met there. I was really happy to arrive in Paris since after more than a week and a half I could understand people around me and talk to them in French...even though some faked that they did not understand me and asked me to speak in English and slowly ... damn Parisians!!! But the fact that I could listen around was a great plus in this city. The second day I visited placed I didnt have time to go to the previous day like the Sacre-Coeur church in Montmartre where I attended church for the first time in more than 18 years, but there was something so great about this place and the fact that my feet hurt so much at his point that I stayed for something like 45 min.

I had the best ice cream ever in Paris and some great meals in some small restaurant around. The best meal I had during my trip was at a french restaurant in Amsterdam though.

Then I tried to come back to Montreal through Charles de Gaulle airport... I was unfortunately stuck during more than 3 hours in line at the customs since some Marocans whose flight was cancelled had decided that they were angry about it and blocked off all entry to everyone ... and since in France workers tend to go on lockouts as soon as possible well the customs officers didnt do anything and waited from 3am to 10am to do anything ... well in fact they called the police who came in mass, but decided not to do anything either ... until 10am !! at this moment they huffed and puffed and pushed people until they all were out of the customs lines ... finally I could go home ... well when everyone in line would be through which meant waiting in the airplane for more than 2 hours ... finally got back home :)

-------------------------------

This is becoming a long post ... but almost done here!

So I came back on Sunday and Monday I was starting at my new great job :)

YES I am back at Ubisoft Montreal on a great and huge project that will sell an incredible amount of copies due to its future status of game of the year when it comes out next year!!!

Just took over the map of another designer this week and starting to make magic again :)

Im happy to be back at Ubi with a positive attitude!! Im meeting so many people that I worked with before and friends I had not seen in years that Im really happy about this new adventure.

I will post later to talk more about my conviction that this project will be great.

have fun during this end of summer hot sunny days!

Michael Jackson ...

2009-06-27T13:04:00.002-04:00

So now everyone knows that MJ is no more.

I just want to say that I think it's a sad thing that such a great pop star dies at a young age of natural causes, but mostly sad because nobody seemed to care too much about him until he passed away. I guess that always happens, but doesnt it feel right though ... now I hear his music all day on most radio stations and people buy his CDs which is a great thing since he made so many great songs and mostly hits. Making songs to make a difference in the world.
Of course, he had a lot of problems and people really focused on those in the last couple of years forgetting what he had done and now we can't even show our appreciation to the king of pop.
Now we will always remember him for his music which stays with us on different formats ;)

Lets just keep in mind for next time that we should not take anyone for granted since life can be short and stop at any moment for anybody.

Back from E3

2009-06-27T12:35:00.002-04:00

So I've been back from E3 for a couple of weeks now, but I've taken the time to do a recap yet so here goes.

As I said before it was my first time at the BIG event and I was really enthousiastic about it to say the least. I had a lot of fun there talking to a lot of interesting developpers about their games, experience and our games, Deus Ex and Thief, playing the demos on the floor, meeting with old friends from Pandemic (and playing Saboteur) and representing Eidos Montreal, but I was way too hyped about E3. I liked it, but playing demos isn't really my thing. Fortunately, there was not as many people as other years so we could walking around easily and play games almost instantly without waiting except for Zelda and God Of War 3.

I played great games though such as God Of War 3 which was just incredible. Watching it while waiting was something and kinds ruined the surprises, I thought, but playing it was a whole different thing. It was thrilling, exciting and I really felt powerful while playing. Its bloody, disgusting and wow! ;)

Also, I played Ghostbuster which was great to first play it and no lines to get to it. I bought the game when it came out and it felt like a Ghostbuster movie but with me playing in it. :)

Moreover, I played Brutal Legend ... we'll see if the story makes it good, cuz I was a little disapointed by the game in itself.

Played Saboteur, obviously, at Pandemic and watched the demo being played at the event and I'm really impressed as to where it as gone to... it looks better than ever, some cut features have been reborned (which is great news) and the missions are fun to play. By the way cinematics look really good also.

Games I loved include: Splinter Cell, Batman, Saboteur, Ghostbusters, God Of War, Modern Warfare 2(looks amazing) and Alan Wake (game of the show for me)

Had a great time on the rest of the trip with the Pandemic guys, at the beach, going out and doing most of the things I missed from Los Angeles.

I met a lot of great people there and mostly the guys from Deck13 (http://www.deck13.com/english/index.html) check out their stuff done with a small team of developpers in Germany.

take care

Going to E3 + updates

2009-05-28T13:43:00.002-04:00

Havent done updates for a while...

Ive been too busy with our current milestone on Deus Ex which is a huge thing for us and all looks great at this point.

Kinda put on hold the idea of iphone games for now since needs more research on my side for programming tasks and our little team doesnt have that focus yet. So maybe at some point ... lol

Ive designed a level on paper (for now) to be created using the Little Big Planet assets and engine, but to create something cool and fun using the ps3 version of the engine will take a longer time than expected since the tools lack precision for platforms etc...
--------

Im going to E3 with a colleague.

This will be my first E3 and I'm so excited about it.
Last year I was working in L.A., but there was no real E3 ... this time is the real thing :)

Happy to finally live this experience. I will try to get a glimpse of the most games possible.
Ill try to check out the Saboteur demo to see where its at now with Tom French as presenter.

I'll be representing Eidos in some ways ...

Hope E3 will be as awesome as it used to be.
Will spend the rest of the week around L.A. and going back to all the things I'm missing here in Montreal... including E3 parties and crazy lounges ...

I'll come back after E3 to post about it.

2 days before leaving for Los Angeles ... wow so soon :)

Games and exciting stuff

2009-02-28T20:09:00.002-05:00

I'm starting some personal projects which will be quite exciting I believe :

After playing most of Little Big Planet, I will be making some maps for the game which will let me be creative again. I havent worked on a map for a while now so it will be great to come back to map design and since this game lets people do almost whatever they want, I will be able to take some old concepts I had for a game and hopefully be able to use these tools to create some exciting stuff :)
I am starting to check out the IPhone SDK to see what can be done on the platform. I might be starting to create a game on there soon (even though we need a Mac to develop with the SDK it seems). This will also be a huge comeback to programming which I havent really done in 5 years (not counting scripting)... i've seen some games on it and great things can be accomplished. Might need an artist though ...

so this is it for whats coming on my side outside of my normal work hours ;)

I've been playing some great games lately and here's some thought on them :

Little Big Planet

----------------------------

Obviously I've played LBP as stated above... I didnt want to play at first since making maps didnt really interest me ( doing it all day is enough), but I tried to play it for the game being a platformer and I finally bought it since it was so much fun.

Been playing with my girlfriend who enjoys it a lot a little bit at a time. Its a lot more fun and sometimes easier with someone to play with since if I'm bad in some sections I can be saved by the other player ;) Also, you get to collect more stickers (etc) since some challenges need to be done by 2-4 players... sucks that some challenges need more than 2 players since I only have 2 controllers ... who really have more than this on their ps3 ???

Anyways collecting shit to use later to design map is an incentive to be more careful while playing and makes it more amusing to try and get the most out of them.

The themes of each map are great and really different makes the playthrough that much more fun. The ingredients used are so diverse that the challenges are never the same between levels. The artistic direction is great and I love most of the themes. The game is quite challenging in the latter levels which may get frustrating. Playing with friends might make it frustrating when one character gets ahead of a challenge and cant see whats ahead since the other cant follow ... and I usually the one behind :(

Great game, great buy!

Flower

--------------

Flower is a beautiful, relaxing and fun game to enjoy when stressed out. The graphics are simple, colorful, pleasant to the eyes and what I like the most is the difference between the effects/painting we get before the levels which reflect the real world and offers some kind of narrative to the game.

The sound track is calm, relaxing and resonates well with the gameplay and surely helps it ... without it the game would not feel the same at all. The music feels a lot like Flow which I loved when I played last year.

The gameplay is working fine, is quite simple since you only have to collect flower petals to open up new areas of the game and cause flowers to grow in areas where nothing could and you control your petal using the motion control of the ps3 controller which is working as it should even though sometimes I get to fight to do a 360 degree.

fun game and great for you when charged with negative energy (lol)

Locoroco 2

-------------

Yesterday, I booted up my psp for the first time in at least a year to play Locoroco 2. I really enjoyed the first one when it came out (not the ps3 version) and this new game takes back the great control and gameplay from the first iteration. It offers the same kinda of gameplay, but adds some new elements which make the game better in every way. The levels are still small so there is no problem playing a level or 2 during a Metro ride and be able to save and power down the console when needed.
Fun, cute and refreshing (as was the first one)

see ya soon

Some games...

2008-12-30T11:16:00.002-05:00

Alone in the Dark (PS3)
--------------------------

I've been playing this game for a couple of hours yesterday ... oh my god ... how can you rerelease a game like that with so many bugs!!!

The camera is constantly going through walls while in first or third person view and its hard to change and stay in a given view since sometimes the game switches you for no reason... it sucks a lot while you are aiming and shooting to be switched to third person view!

The world at times looks just awful nothing looks real in these moments (textures, objects).

The controls ... really hard to follow a path in third person view and stay on a path worst when you are on a ledge ... and the worst is when you are on a ledge, dropping near a electrified water and they start a cinematic spline when you drop and try to not walk in water (instant death) so as soon as it start ... let go of controller otherwise you will be dead coming back to the game.

There are some good things about the game ... the fact that you can combine different items together is pretty awesome (fire bullets!!!) and lighting a cocktail molotov... the way you look at the inventory is great too... looking inside your coat to retrieve your items.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 ( ps3)
----------------------------------
still my favorite soccer game out there... even though Fifa is coming closer and closer to the realism of PES, there is still a lot to do about control, intensity of players and animations areas.

Control on the ps3 controller is so much better since you can use in PES the arrows to control your character and the controls feel a lot better on PES. Fifa is hard to control and I fight a lot with my controller for the player to do what I really want him to do.

anyways play a soccer game any one you like but play this great sport ;)

Call of Duty : World at War (xbox360) - single player
-----------------------------------------

Finally a great Call of Duty from Treyarch... Its their best title yet ... not better than COD4 but still getting closer.

I really enjoyed the presentation this time which includes the war reels they are using to present the story, the narration is great and mostly on the US side using kiefer Sutherland's voice as the main officer who tells you what to do the whole game (on this side of the story) and many events are inspired from COD4 (like the almost dead perspective), but they do it too much I think, but the first event on the Russian side is sooooo great that you really want to take revenge.

I enjoyed pretty much everything about the game and I finished it in one sitting ... kinda small game though .... which is my only complaint.

enjoy this game if you have the time.

New position : Manager Living and Breathing World team

2008-12-30T11:06:00.002-05:00

Yes I've got a new position on the Deus Ex team : Manager of the Living and Breathing World team.

What is that exactly ? Yeah I know kinda hard to tell since its the first time that people hear that title or team name ;)

So I'll be in charge of the overall quality of the game regarding the realism of the living aspect of the game ... I have to create events, situations that are believable for NPCs to engage in and make sure that all seems like a real area where people would live in.

Make sure life is all around the player.

It will be a great task to manage since the game will be huge :)

see ya and hope youll enjoy Deus Ex when it comes out

Game Idea #8 : Comics

2008-12-30T10:45:00.002-05:00

Game Idea #8 : Comics
-------------------------------------------
High Concept:
The story would be represented as a comic book and the first images would be the setting for the general story of the game, but the rest of the panels would be empty until the player decided what to do in the last panel.

Platform:Nintendo DS, PC

Why it needs to be made:
Customize your own story in a new setting for a game : comic book style. Players would create, change and enjoy the outcome of their decisions and come back to them if they wanted to.

Description:
The story would unfold everytime the player would interact with the last panel with an image in. It would be a puzzle or an interaction with another character that would fill up more of the story. Depending of the choices the next panels would be drawn accordingly to the choices. As in Heroes, the future can be changed by going back to panels and making the changes if player wanted it and the story would change. There would be a lot of variations to the story.

Final thoughts:
This type of game could potentially be used to all kinds of different settings and game types and it could probably bring both community (comic book fans and game fans) together and help both medium to love one another ;)

Smashing Pumpkins : The VIP experience

2008-11-08T09:35:00.002-05:00

Smashing Pumpkins is one of my favorite bands of all time and I had the chance to live the VIP experience with them in Toronto thanks to ILoveAllAccess.

The Pumpkins were playing at a small venue, Massey Hall, in Toronto for two days with two totally different shows ... 24 different songs (3 hours) per show in this 20th anniversary tour of their existence.

I decided to get the special VIP pass which promised : a meet and greet with the band, a photoshoot, a snack + free drinks, souvenirs + audio of the show + a ticket in the first 10 rows of the theatre.

I was so happy to have this possibility to meet them finally after all those years of contemplating their music and "dancing" to it. But at the same time, I hoped it wouldnt be a cheap and cheezy greet from distance from musicians who didnt really cared about their fans ... after all they have done so much would they be friendly and down to earth...

The answer is : YES!!!

This was the best experience Ive had in my concert goer and one of the most incredible event of my life ... seriously! Cannot be beaten!

So how did it went ?

The show was at 8pm (no first act) and we had to be there at 5pm to start our wonderful to be evening. We met Jeff our great host who gave us our shwag bag which included ticket, shirt, discount, (future mug), keyring, VIP pass to be worn at all times.

Then he told us that we could see the band's soundcheck ... what !?! Yes ... so we went in while they were rehearsing their songs and we sat down in the first row. We saw Billy comment on every mistake the band members made (mostly the new bassist Ginger) and what direction they should take for that song etc... First glimpse into the way they do it !

Then Billy stopped the soundcheck to come and greet us with the help of Jimmy!!! We lined up to get something autographed by them, we could talk to them 1 on 1 while they were signing and taking our picture, they were so opened and seem to enjoy our company and they were so calm.

The band had to finish their soundcheck before 6h so they had to pause the signings and finish the last 15 minutes of sound check before coming back to us. Then I finally got to talk to him since I was one of the last ones ... that was stressful (to meet and talk to one of your idols) and during the photoshoot I could smile since i was too stressed lol.

After that, Billy and Jimmy decided to answer all our questions so they sat there on the edge of the stage to provide us with truthful answers and I was surprised at how calm and opened they really were. We had a lot of insights into their brains like that. I asked a question about Melissa Auf Der Maur :)

After that we went downstairs for a pre-party at the bar with free drinks and a good snack! I met and talked to so many great people who loved Smashing as much as I did if not more and it was awesome. Jeff was a great host and really great to talk to. Then at 8pm he told us that we still had a show soon... oh yes thats true ... we had a show ... after all that (incredible evening) the main event wasnt even done.

I got my ticket out and found out it was in the very first row and right in the center of the stage!!!!! thanks ILoveAccess :) wow I was right there with the band playing in front of me with less than 2 meters away Billy was singing and walking in front of me. Great place to take pictures and videos of the night. Obviously thats what I did he he.

Great show for 3 hours with Billy having fun on stage with his bandmates.

only regret ... i didnt go to the second show who's setlist was a lot better than my show ... but it was soldout and my plane was leaving at 12pm...

new games played ...

2008-10-22T13:55:00.002-04:00

Dark Sector :
--------------

I played this game for a while, but I really didnt find anything special about it ... I guess I wanted another kind of adventure... the setting of the game changed so many times during its production and now its kinda ... not what I expected.

So I didnt like the story. Maybe its the way its told, maybe the subject I didnt care about and cinematics werent that interesting. I felt bored during those moments.

Using your hand weapon is not really useful since its hard to aim precisely and the range it has makes it hard to hit somebody plus it doesnt do a lot of damage. Also, to throw it harder you have a 1-second delay that you have to guess and release the button otherwise it throws normally which gets frustrating at times. You need to use it and combine it with elements such as fire, electricity and ice to move forward in some areas...

I would only shoot if that was possible using weapons taken from enemies, but wait ... you cant after 5 seconds and you have to drop it ...zzzzz

I quit during a boss battle since I was frustrated at some inconsistence with the freezing aspect.

Dead Space:
--------------

I just started this game and it is awesome!! The atmosphere makes this horror game just one of the best thing since Bioshock or Event Horizon (movie) from which it takes a lot of elements.

Sound design and music scares me and hints at the direction from which monsters are coming ... they are everywhere!!!

While playing in the dark you will feel immersed incredibly and you will jump all over the place... monsters are scary, fast and jumping all over the place to get you or other humans that are still alive. The diversity of monsters and the way to kill them is new and worth looking at and experiencing.

Sometimes it might be hard to know where to go next since you are scared, there are a lot of doors and paths and the map kinda sucks ... but the path is shown to you when you press a button so Im using it a lot, but also exploring a lot to get items that are thrown around.

Love the way they are telling the story using audio logs (bioshock) and videos, even though I dont like the green interface that pops for the video cuz I feel its hard to look at sometimes with the camera and hides whats in front of you.

great experience.

Yakuza 2 (ps2)
-------------------

I just started this one. They are using Shenmue's engine and worked on it since then ... and it shows because they have a lot of npcs on screen in the cities which are illuminated, interactive, contain a lot of interior stores and npcs reacting to the weather and doing stuff without to many repetitions in the npc models.

the story starts really slow in cinematics, but then action starts.

good fighting system which has to be mastered which gives special attacks when done right ;)

will need to continue playing it.

Ratchet : Quest for ...
-------------------------

As always this new Ratchet is great... i like the humor, the weapons, the flow of the game.

obviously its more of what the ps3 version was so if you didnt like it then ... you wont like this one either.

Uncharted : Drakes Fortune
---------------------------------

Replayed a little bit of this game which I loved the first time I played through.
Wanted to remember how much I liked it the first time and its one of the best title on the ps3.
The animation system makes the characters believable. It contains a lot of animations that react to the environment pretty well. (i.e. inside the nazi sub)
Level flow is well done and its hard to get lost which always happens in such games. Moreover, the frustration of falling and dying all the time (i.e. PoP, Tomb Raider) is almost not present here since the levels are made to avoid those areas and the animations take it into account when you jump and react to whats around.

game to buy!

Book : Wizard of Oz

2008-10-22T13:50:00.003-04:00

I just finished the book "The Wizard Of Oz".

The movie is good, but like all adaptations the book is better.

A lot of details are different from the movie including the areas they visit, the different characters, the way the story is told has a better flow and contains more action and is a lot more
violent.

just wanted to say that its a must read ;)

Back...little reviews

2008-09-25T13:33:00.003-04:00

Finally got my internet connection back at home ... so will be updating soon with game ideas.

For now here are some thoughts on some games i've played lately:

Braid :
This is a great platformer. I liked the art direction which is always good for the eyes, the story is innovative from a Super Mario perspective (save the princess) and the music could be listened to at any time to reflex ... it fits so well in the universe. Some of the puzzles are really hard when you dont look carefully or try something you would have never thought you could do (which makes the game clever and refreshing) and when you get the puzzle you feel great about yourself. Every world is different and new. I really liked the world where you use your shadow to solve puzzles. The last world (world 1) is so different from the game since its action oriented and makes sense to finish the game... overall i really enjoyed!

Star wars Force Unleashed (ps3):
The story is awesome ... worth playing the game just for the cinematics and story that links all movies! All levels that include vegetation graphically are just badly done. There are a lot of graphical bugs in the game. The bosses are great to play against (hard and all different), but way too easy once you find their weakness (especially darth vader). Anyway its cool to fight all those jedis. The powers are cool and its fun to be this dark side jedi. Gameplay might become redundant pretty fast. Ending is great! if you like Star Wars you'll like the story of the game ... at least!

Bionic Commando Rearmed (360):
Great graphics. I like the hacking mini-game since the puzzles are unique and randomized. I know the levels were taken from the original and they didnt change them at all but ... they should have... I die so many times because the levels with spikes under the jumps or dying zones makes me angry ... levels are too hard because of the bad controls. I'm playing on the 360 so I dont know if the controls are as bad on the ps3, but they dont seem to give me the right output for the arm when I press diagonally or ... Dpad sucks so much on the 360 compared to ps3 that makes those levels almost impossible. With so littles lives (3) at start, its too hardcore for me ... I would really enjoy the game if I wouldnt die so easily and stupidly!

Vikings Battle for Asgard :
Good hack and slash (button mashing anyways). I've finished the first area and since everything after is just the same ... i stopped. I had fun during most of the game except the stealthy part at the end of the first area where you need to get the amulet powered on in the village where thousands of soldiers are waiting to kick your butt. Since there are no real stealth mechanic, the player will sufer trying to get to the spot unnoticed ... which is almost impossible ... frustrating since the hud doesnt help nor the third person view. Enjoyable for a while anyways.

thats it for now. next on the list : viva pinata 2, ratchet call for booty, mercs 2, mega man 9, eden, echochrome, ninja gaiden 2 and Dark Sector ( wow too many games to play at home...)

MGS4 ( Spoilers alert )

2008-08-21T09:58:00.002-04:00

I am currently playing Metal Gear Solid 4 and it is just amazing ... well i'd say it gets really great at Shadow Moses and following that. Before that mission the game is good but its a normal stealth shooter with a good story that tries to tie every game of the series together.

Anyways, Shadow Moses is the site of a nuclear weapons disposal facility in MGS (ps1). In this iteration of the series, you go back to Shadow Moses to find REX which is a huge Mech that you have to retrieve before the bad guys.

There are so many cool things about that area in the game which makes it the best part of the game so far. You start as Snake trying to get inside the facility as played in the first game including the ps1 graphics, gameplay and even the remapped controls on the controller. This is just amazing and never done before and you get to think back about the experience you had at that time many years ago. Inside the facility you get to experience a combination of the new experience MGS4 offers and all the screams, sounds and map design of the ps1 game... it is just awesome. It also includes conversations with Otacon about the ps1 game and other characters coming in to discuss the past.

After a fight using a Mech and a new mechanic (which will be used later in a different way) to fight a boss, you'll get to fight Mantis again ... which offers some great dialog lines from your friends who try to help you defeat the boss using old tactics from the ps1 era "try to change your controller to port 2... what ? there are no more ports on the ps3!?!?!" They offer some great insights of strategies used on the first game and they make fun of the consoles (ps1 vs ps3) breaking the fourth wall ... so you're playing a game, but they keep talking about console technology and make many reference about the old games which is so funny and just great to hear. Your video input changes to "Hideo2" ... lol

I just loved these parts of the games and I hope the rest is as good as this while trying to tie all story elements together from all previous games of the series. :)

Quick update : Eidos Montreal and ...

2008-07-24T13:00:00.004-04:00

So I'm now working at Eidos Montreal on Deus Ex 3 project.

Coming back to Montreal is kinda weird after an incredible year in sunny Los Angeles with all its beaches, entertainment, and stuff to do; I'm now back home with rain every day...

Its great working for a new studio (we're making our first title) since we're developping everything from scratch : from work methods to the game engine... its cool to be part of that :)

One year ago, I heard the studio was opening and would create this game, I would never thought I'd work on it, but now I'm here. Even though I left a really cool project in L.A. and a great team, I'm pretty sure this new game will be kick ass for everyone to enjoy.

I hope Saboteur will come out great! Hope Pandemic will be able to close this huge game and get a good review ;)

I have no internet connection at home so I'll be posting my ideas in a couple of weeks only.

see ya then.

life changes, no time to update

2008-06-18T23:44:00.002-04:00

sorry i stopped updating for a couple of weeks (should bring back those ideas soon), but a personal event happened in my life and I had to move back to Montreal.

i had to leave pandemic studios because of that reason and now I will have to start a new adventure with another studio (i need to work obviously) in montreal.

i will update with news as soon as I start my new job and the game ideas will come back as soon as possible.

i'll be looking for appartments, getting furniture and stuff for a couple of days so until then have a nice week ill see you soon.

Farcry 2, Shawn White snowboarding, PoP

2008-05-29T13:25:00.002-04:00

I was looking at the trailers and presentations of the games at Ubidays.

I am just amazed at how these games look awesome.

when I was on Farcry we had all those big promises we wanted to deliver on and it actually came through...by looking at the latest game footage this game is a must buy title... destructions, fire, even the animals look right and hopefully the story holds up. I'll play it for sure.

Shawn White Snowboarding looks amazing. You can see the whole mountain with quality graphics, you can take or create your own paths in the mountains, there will always be people on the mountain with you and your friends to challenge you or snowboard around you and you can even get off the snowboard, snowball fight your friends and take a video of it all ... NICE!

What can I say about PoP ... they're changing the look of the previous games to some cell shading... and it looks good :) The enemies seem weird and the effects from shadows to actual characters will be awesome if the final game looks anything like the current trailers.

anyways lots of games coming out from ubi that actually look fun.

Game Idea # 7: the Painter

2008-05-26T21:02:00.002-04:00

Game Idea # 7: The Painter
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
Take pictures, paint them, get evaluated, print and share with friends...

Platform:

Nintendo DS, PC

Why it needs to be made:
Who has not dream of being a good painter or just better at drawing, painting and show off their talents to friends.

Description:
In this game, you'll be able to take pictures, download them or use the ones provided taken from a library of world famous areas, still pictures of objects,fruits; and then paint a version of them which will give them a new style. The player will be evaluated using some algorithms that will evalute the quality of the copy and give some style points. Players will be able to share with friends online by sending what they did on a website or directly to their friends who will be able to take that copy and make a copy of their own. Players will be able to take pictures with a camera and then import them in the game. There would be a tutorial that will give the basics of painting to new artists.

Final thoughts:
Create paintings that will make other people jealous of your skills and your pictures will never look the same anymore.

Game Idea #6 : The Museum

2008-05-20T12:27:00.003-04:00

yes i'm a little late for last week's post, but had a lot of things going on... there it is now ;)

Game Idea #6 : The Museum
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
This game is about visiting a museum where the main displays would be famous paintings and players will be able to enter the universe of these paintings and play a game in that universe. Those paintings would be taken from the most famous painters and we could get DLC with a different set of paintings or different painters. Meet other people and teachers who would tell you about the paintings.

Platform:
any consoles

Why it needs to be made:
This game would be a great "art show" for those people who never really looked at famous paintings or never had the chance to see and know why those are so special, they will learn something new for sure and will be able to play a game in a lot of different settings depending of this weeks series of painting. This game would celebrate many different styles of art styles for everyone to enjoy. Plus it will be a way for people to interact in a setting/lobby where they can discuss something new and get more information about these art pieces.

Description:
The player would enter the museum in which it would be kind of a lobby for players and art teachers to interact with each others and talk about those paintings if they want to...players could play unconnected without all those other players, but the teachers would always be available to tell them about the paintings if the players ask for it. So players would walk around the different levels of the museum including different art styles and from these levels they will be able to enjoy the paintings. The other main goal of the game is the games themselves in the paintings... these would not just be "something more" they are the other half of the game and i'd say more about the games themselves. So players would interact with the painting and would be grabbed by the painting and brought into its universe. There will be different types of games like mini-games, more artistic games, shooters, casual games, etc... they would all be a different style since it all comes down to the paintings themselves. As an example, one game inside the "Mona Lisa" could be a painting game where players would have to change the paintings to what they want this famous painting to be...and it would stay like that until someone else would change it, for example.

Final thoughts:
Learn, interact with players and art teachers, PLAY unique games and DLC to change the different paintings and collections available.

Sharkwater : the documentary

2008-05-14T13:12:00.003-04:00

This is a MUST see documentary about sharks... I mean even if you think you dont like sharks... you will after this movie.

Its a documentary, but it could be viewed as a true story movie based on Rob Stewart's experience with the sharks and trying to protect them.

It's an excellent story filled with awesome underwater footage taken from the Galapagos, Costa rica, Guatamala's shores; with action including gun fights, boat fights and a great personnal story trying to rescue sharks and defeat the black market.

Everyone should see this movie and your view of sharks will change forever ... without sharks your life will truly be changed forever and so is our planet's future!

http://www.sharkwater.com/

Game Idea #5 : Acrobatic airplane battles

2008-05-10T13:37:00.003-04:00

Game Idea #5 : Acrobatic airplane battles
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
In this game you control an airplane and you need to do some acrobatics with it and beat the score of your opponent (online or same screen). You'll be able to get some score based on the different types of acrobatics you are doing (loops, free falls, etc...), the difficulty of the acrobatics, and the closenest to obstacles you get to. The game will be a versus game and your highscore on every level will be displayed on a highscore board for everyone to see.

Platform:
XBLA, PSN

Why it needs to be made:
I used to play Triple Action on the Intellivision system with my cousin and we weren't playing the real shooting the opponent aircraft, but we were just doing acrobatics and trying not to crash on the ground or on each other. We had so much fun every time, but that wasn't the real goal of the game. Playing an acrobatic aircraft will be thrilling, fun and really different than ordinary airplane simulators where you need to get from point A to point B ...

Description:
This game should be a 2D side scrolling game that includes some 3D obstacles to increase the level of difficulty and increase scoring opportunities. Every level will have a different realistic 2D background from different cities or areas such as jungles where we could have different type of flying experience. Online play and versus on the same screen will be the major aspect of the game where you'll need to score points based on your acrobatics as described above. You'll be able to view your score online and show everyone your best acrobatic moment which should be able to be saved and sent online for everyone to see. The fact that your opponent on-screen can potentially stop you from getting highscore by crashing into you is another danger of the game.
We could have different airplanes or helicopters that would behave differently and hence offer a different experience for players who have become accustomed to other aircrafts.

Final thoughts:
This would be a great 1vs1 game in which players would control for one of the first time an airplane where the goal is to do crazy stuff with. Playing a game to show off skills is usually something players are proud of and this game will offer just that to everyone who can master the art of acrobatic airshows!

Game Idea #4: Gino, the barber

2008-05-04T14:41:00.002-04:00

Game Idea #4: Gino, the barber
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
You play as Gino a junior barber who wants to become well known and be the barber for artists in hollywood. You start with nothing but a basement office and a razor. You need to build up your clients list, create different styles and live up to your dreams.

Platform:
Wii

Why it needs to be made:
Using the Wii to be a precise tool to use as a razor will make the player feel like he needs to be careful, creative and be the best as a barber.

Description:
In this game you will have to shave people and be sure not to cut them in any way to make your client happy and appreciate your skills. You'll get money from those clients with which you'll be able to buy furniture, a bigger place to do business, buy some catalogues of different haircut styles, better perfume for your clients, better advertisement to get more clients. Take care of your clients as best you can by shaving them, cut their hair, perfume them and make them just perfect for a special occasion. Manage your shop, create new haircuts and facial styles to use on your Miis, clients (in the game), people will rate you online with your new creations and be successful until you reach the top in hollywood and become the barber of the stars!

Final thoughts:
Players will experiement being a barber and use the Wii remote in new ways. In the wake of casual games for everyone and the doctors games out there, this game will be a skill game to become good at and creative people will like it as well as management games players.

Game Idea # 3 : Wrestling Management

2008-04-22T01:31:00.002-04:00

Game Idea # 3: Wrestling Management
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
Be the owner of a wrestling company, manage wrestlers, create stable of wrestlers, create the script, create THE EVENT, be the scenarist, be the entertainer of millions of fans.

Platform: Any consoles, PC

Why it needs to be made:
The best thing about the wrestling business or wrestling tv shows , for me, is the entertainment values attached to the event, to the sport... its like a soap opera, but with acrobatics, muscles ... Players will want to be part of this universe and create different scenarios with different outcomes possible depending of player's choices or reactions from other wrestlers in the game. Its never been made before!

Description:
You are the owner of the company, the wrestling networks, you hire wrestlers, create a scenario for them to play in. Players will choose a wrestler representing them. They will create a stable of wrestlers if they want to or go solo in a career mode going through all those scenarios that the owner created. Players will create alliances, betray friends to create other factions. This will create hype with the fans and more will come which will give more money to the owner to hire more wrestlers, create marchandise, etc... Players WONT wrestle in real time, the matches will be simulated. The only decisions that he will be able to do regarding matches will be to go help a friend in need or betray him or watch friends beat the opponent ... prior to matches training and mini-games will determine if the character is healthy, strong, ready to fight, etc...

Final thoughts:
Create great entertainment with explosives, lights, high acrobatic matches, creating alliances, creating hype, doing what the crowd wants or not ... be the wrestler/owner you always wanted to be. This management game wont have all those control issues that normal wrestling games have which are usually boring after a couple of matches anyways. Players will be responsible for the script of the show and will need to please the fans out there. This is THE wrestling game everybody is waiting for ;)

Game Idea # 2 : Soccer Drillz

2008-04-17T12:15:00.003-04:00

Game Idea #2: Soccer Drillz.
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:

I based this concept on my own experience as a soccer coach trying to find drills and exercices to show my players in practices. The concept here is to have a "game" that will provide examples of drills used by the greatest coaches around the globe, ways for coach to create new ones and share them on the internet, etc...

Platform:

Nintendo DS, Wii

Why it needs to be made:

There are no software that really have all those examples brought together to help coaches and even players to understand how to do those drills and be better at them. Using a software will help visualise the exercises which are usually only found in books which of course are static images with arrows showing movements.

Description:

This "game" will incorporate those exercices as said before with movement shown on screen (animated). Coaches will be able to draw on screen to create new drills, put some comments on previously saved exercises and send what they have created online to be viewed and reviewed by others who will share the knowledge. Also, I would incorporate soccer mini-games using the touch screen of the DS or the wiimote for the Wii that will use normal drills but in a game such as juggling with the ball, dribbling, etc... and we could add quizzes about the sport also to provide with more entertainment value to this learning tool.

Why it will be fun and useful:

It will make it easier for coaches and players to understand each other and show everyone how the drills are really supposed to be made. The software could show how technical and hard to explain skills should be done to everyone. Plus the mini-games will make it a fun software when the time to practice is over.

Final thoughts:

I believe this could be a good title to sell since soccer is a huge sport and there are many parents who try to teach their kids the sport without really knowing a lot of strategies or drills that other more experienced coaches will use.

Alpha Protocol

2008-04-16T11:38:00.002-04:00

I usually dont get excited easily from reading a game preview, but after reading Game Informer's preview of Alpha Protocol by Obsidian, I just want to play now!!!

This is one of these games that I want to play and work on. A game in which you can achieve pretty much what you want, the way you want, make decision that will affect your character and will change the flow of the game based on your decisions.

Alpha Protocol is a Third-Person Shooter/Stealth RPG in which you are a secret agent that needs to acccomplish missions accross the globe.

This description could be used for many different games,but in this one (since its an RPG) you get to customize your character by developping different skills throughout the game. You can become skillfull at shooting multiple target, get better at stealth to silently kill your enemy or ... every skill you unlock will open up a new set of skills that defines your character.

Moreover, you'll be able to accomplish "side" missions that will take place before your real missions in a given country and those side missions will provide some help or clue on the bigger ones. For example, you'll sneak in some communication towers to get some data that will make it easier for you to enter the real mission headquarter or something... plus you can decide to get the info any way you want (kill guard, bribe guard, sneak and hack the computer) and it will define, once again, who your character his.

if Obsidian can achieve all that plus a dialogue system from which you can actually have a different experience depending on your mood and choices, etc ... that game will be great and I will be waiting to play it from now on :)

check it out

Game Idea #1: Be the artist, tell the story.

2008-04-13T13:56:00.002-04:00

**this is the first game idea I came up with I hope to continue like this for a while.
Please comment about it if you want, add something to it in the comment section.

Game Idea #1: Be the artist, tell the story.
-------------------------------------------

High Concept:
I based this concept on the La Linea shorts. This series of small episodes (3-5 min) had a whining protagonist who kept demanding, the creator of his world, to draw something on screen to help him go through his day. In this game, the player will be the creator and help the character on screen to achieve his journey.

Platform:
Nintendo DS

Why it needs to be made:
This game focuses on players input to create a short story. Players want to be part of the games and create stuff with the emergence of user created content this game will let them use their imagination and see what happens with their input (drawings)

Description:
This game will be in 2D and plays on the horizontal plane. It will consist of many little levels each telling a story about the character's day. The user will have to draw on screen when the character on screen needs help to accomplish a task such as walking over a hole in the scenery, interacting with a character, cutting down a tree in the way. The world will be really minimalistic consisting of a couple of lines only and players will have to use their imagination to make something out the every situation.

Why it will be fun:
Creating stories with different outcomes everytime the player replays the game since he can draw many different things to help the character. Become an artist by drawing something on screen that will come to life.

Final thoughts:
I believe choices in games and user created content are the keys to creating great games that will be played by many. This game lets players be artist. Anybody can draw a line, a cloud, etc...

Game ideas every week

2008-04-08T18:58:00.004-04:00

------------------
update: i didnt read about all his ideas (only 4)... so I would not be scared to create a game to close to one of his ideas...
------------------

I just read Patrick Curry's blog on the 52 Games idea, http://www.patrickcurry.com/thoughts/?page_id=67 .

He designed 52 games in 52 weeks and I think this is a great and challenging thing to do as a designer. Great way to toy with your imagination.

I'm gonna try it and see what I can come up with ... it will be fun.

will begin this week or at the worst next week.

;)

Almost a year in California already!

2008-04-04T13:22:00.002-04:00

Viva California!

I've been in Los Angeles for a year already and it has been a great experience.
This year passed by so fast... it blows my mind how so many things happened in a year and it feels like I've been here only a couple of months.
Maybe its the fact that I had no winter season at all or the fact that so many things are to be done here which screws with my mind and makes me believe we're still in summer of last year or something.

We took advantage of all the free time we had to explore our new state, every weekend we had a blast doing something new or meeting with our new Quebecois friends from LA...

There are so many things to be done around here : Beaches everywhere, attraction parks, movie studios, beautiful cities to visit (san diego, santa barbara, newport, long beach, Las Vegas, San Francisco,...), playing volleyball with friends all year long, meeting people from Quebec living in LA from so many different backgrounds and line of work is so cool, interesting and different to me makes me enjoy this new life that I lived in the last couple of months.

The fact that I missed the worst winter ever in Quebec makes me feel happier about my decision to come to California :) What a great way of escaping the worst snow storms ever than to come here and live in the almost eternal sunshine !! Great experience and great choice.

Im not going home for a while just yet ;) Going back to Las Vegas this weekend to play and enjoy the great show 'O' from Cirque du Soleil! Going to Hawaii soon ... why not since I'm so close to these marvelous islands with Volcanoes, enormous waves and paradise setting :)

the only thing I dont like here is... the fact that I have no credit, no car and the bus system here is kinda bad, but cheap. oh yeah ... and I miss my friends who are freezing in Quebec...poor people :P

Ill enjoy the rest of this dream and hopefully I'll never wake-up!!!!

TV Shows

2008-03-24T21:04:00.002-04:00

I've been following a couple of interesting tv shows lately and i want a talk about them.
if you dont know them you can take a look at some of them online on their respected tv network website.

Terminator :The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX)
--------------------------------------------------

This is a follow up to the Terminator movies (after the second one I believe).

The story takes place a couple of years before the Judgment Day (4 years) and tells us the story of John and Sarah Connor trying to stop the evil robot company to be built (i forgot the name).

Whats interesting in the series is that you really get to know who the characters are and the writers did a good job of developping them a lot more than the movies. They explain their background, their skills and they really interact in a real world settings. John, Sarah and Cameron (friend robot) dont really run away (unlike the movies), but they attack, they have strategies and they investigate to find out how to prevent the Judgement Day and who is responsible for it.

There is a lot of action that hook you up, but we can see that John and Sarah are human too and not only some kinda of mercenaries. The writers show us that Cameron wants to become human or be part in their life and she doesnt like to be "just" a robot.

I followed the series closely and I'm kinda sad who it ended ... i hope they will do a follow up cuz otherwise it would be sad end to a great series.

---------------------------------------

Eli Stone (ABC)
------------------

Eli Stone is a great new tv series. I heard about it during the first Lost episode of this season and the trailer was weird and for some reason I wanted to see more.

Eli is a winning attorney in a well-known lawfirm and for some reason (i wont spoil) he gets some weird hallucinations during his normal day. He sees things no one can see and everybody around him are usually acting in his visions and he reacts to them, but obviously once they end, he ends up looking like a fool in front of everybody.

His visions are clues to solving some cases he has to take otherwise they wont stop... would he be a prophet ?

Once again, character development is awesome, story is interesting and unusual for a tv show in today's "im afraid of something new" tv format.

I dont know how it does in ratings but I'm following it every week and i hope it gets picked up for another season. I showed it to other people who are listening to it now even though they didnt see the first episodes.

Plus every episode is a new case and trial so you dont reaaally have to see the first episodes.

Watch it cuz its good and new !

------------------------

Lost (ABC)
------------

Yeah of course Im following Lost ... well I was before they decided to "pause" the season again and show me the rest only in late April... :(

This season could be really interesting, but its so long and nothing much happens in each episode... it seems that the hooks they had before after each episode was once good but now its ...oh all right this might happen next...then during the next episode they only do so much...

anyways this year is kinda boring... less boring than the Heroes second season though!

------------------

Two and a 1/2 Men
--------------------

Really funny show (fourth season i think) ... always makes me laugh ... Charlie Sheen is so funny.

new episodes started last week ... YES!

San Francisco : Feb 15 -19

2008-02-28T13:20:00.002-05:00

I was in San Francisco for a vacation trip from February 15 to 19. It was my first time there so I had a lot of places to visit.

I really enjoyed the city which looks a lot like some European cities in the mountains.
Everything is close together, you can walk everywhere, but the bus system is great and kinda cheap (reuse your ticket throughout the day) so no real reason to walk long distances if you can't climb those streets. They also have a great metro system that you can take to go from SF airport to Oakland, San Jose and further north which is great if you want to visit the towns in the area.

My hotel was in the Fishermans Warf area which is mostly where the attractions are and its a good place to wander around with all those little restaurants with products from the fishermans day.

I biked the golden gate bridge which is a fantastic way to discover the bridge, the fort museum and the towns beyond the bridge. It was a long biking trip, but it was worth it for long term memories ;) The towns we visited were really charming with good restaurants, shops, beautiful houses and the view on the ocean was great.

we visited the golden bridge, chinatown, financial district, metreon, golden gate park, haight and ashbury area, fishermans Warf and market street area.

it was a great time spent there, but after 5 days it was time to come back to LA...nothing more to visit really after 3 days.

It so different than LA which is huge and cut by highways everywhere.

On the last day I was in the Metreon area and everyone had their GDC passes ... oh I wish I could get to the conferences ... maybe next year :(

I saw a lot of game developpers I knew in the streets of SF that last day.

Interesting town :)

No More Heroes (Wii)

2008-02-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

I'll start by saying that No More Heroes is a must-play title not only because it's on the Wii and one of the only worth playing Wii titles so far (third party anyways), but because the concept is new, cool and retro.

Designer Suda 51 and his team have accomplished a great game with almost no comprimises from his own style and offers a game that is fun to play with a story that makes fun of the current state of the industry. Unlike his latest game, Killer 7, that was hard to get through without frustration and moments of "why are you doing this to me ?", No More Heroes his fun all the way and keeping the same kind of graphics that Killer 7 had which was a good element to it.

You are playing Travis Touchdown, who talks to the playing during the first moments of the game (kinda weird), who bought a lightsaber on the net and kills an assassin in the first moments of the game. Due to this action, he becomes the 11th assassin and gets in touch with an association of assassins which he needs to get on top of to become the top assassin.

You need to collect enough money to enter each assassination contest to become number 1. To do so you will have to accomplish some Jobs which consist of mini game such as "Get coconuts from trees", "Collect scorpions", "Wash grafittis", etc... and perform some smaller assassinations. These tasks are appreciated because it would have become repetitive if the game consisted of only killing the 10 assassins ahead of you.

You can ride around town using your over the top motorcycle to get to shops, your motel, Jobs, different collect missions and roll over some pedestrians. The town is mostly a way to get from one fight to another and is large enough for the purpose of the game.

Each fight you enter will have a different setting to run around killing minions, getting treasures along the way to the big fight ... the assassin. Each Assassin has a different pattern he will use to move and attack the player which is a great way for players to use their skills in a different way every fight and tends to be less repetitive than killing normal minions.

Suda 51 used a good control scheme using the Wii controller. To attack you will have to press 'A' to use your lightsaber, using the motion control only to perform finishing moves; and using 'B' to perform melee attack and grabs to accomplish a wrestling moves using the nunchuck and Wii controller. This scheme is a lot better, I believe, than having to move the controller all the time which would be tiresome and wouldn't give the same effect for finishing moves.

You will usually kill all enemies with finishing moves except for the main Assassins where Suda 51 is messing with the player by having a cinematic showing the last hit instead of letting the player do it himself. This is one of the ways, the designer messes with the player's mind during the game.

During the first 2 hours I thought killing all those guys was repetitive and would become boring, but I've played more and it became a game I couldn't stop playing because the story was good, the other weapons you'll buy offer any changes to the game that it's cool to watch yourself kill all these characters using moves out of Star Wars movie ;)

I loved the graphics that have a retro look found in the arcade era... icons, arcade game done for the game, Highscore board for top assassins, the music, etc ... all feel they were taken out of the 80s.

We can see he really enjoys playing around with players expectencies... during the story, but also at the end of the game where you have the choice of watching the "Ending", the "Real ending" or continue roaming around the city. Choosing the ending is quite unusual and they offer a different side of the story you'll see!

I think it was perfect to use the Wii to implement this game since its the first Mature game on the Wii, the best third party game they have and hopefully other will join in and make this console great for all kinds of gamers not only the casual ones, it offers a solid use of the Wii controller and its an artistic game found nowhere else.

hope you enjoy too.

Super Mario Galaxy - opinions

2008-01-11T14:06:00.000-05:00

I finished Super Mario Galaxy last week and I got around 60 something stars...

I didn't play the last galaxy, I went for the final boss instead.

Overall I enjoyed the game, I wanted to get as many stars as I could on each planet to see how they made the new parts available to me to get the next star.

They usually used a clever way to use that planet's theme to get us around to new areas.

Unfortunately I couldnt get some of the stars cause I really hated the races against blue mario...too hard compared to normal levels and you had to be just perfect controlling Mario.

I like the fact that levels were short and it a couple of minutes I could get a new star and be proud of what I had accomplished plus I could save and quit right after that if I had to. It was kinda a reference to Super Mario Bros 3 (which is my favorite SMB game) by its short levels and the themes used and the disguises we can use.

By the way, I like some of the disguises like the bee, the ice skates, but I didnt enjoy the spring mario.

Making the worlds spherical was kinda cool and new, but was disorienting sometimes when enemies attacked you, your controls were switched or my mind couldnt understand which way to push the stick anymore.

Furthermore, the swimming levels were so painful to play because they messed up the controls so I didnt know how to go up or down and the camera was pretty much always looking in the wrong direction or located behind objects. Swimming in 3D has been done better in many games, but Mario will have a better one next time.

I like the design of the enemies and mostly the bosses which were really fun to play. The most fun I had was in the 2D levels where gravity changed throughout the area and you had to go through this new type of puzzle trying to figure out where Mario would fall next.

The last Bowser encounter was underwhelming compared to the rest of the game.

Overall its one of the best games this year and one of the best Super Mario games released so far. Innovation was the key and using the galaxy system gave them the freedom to pursue any silly level design they wanted to include.

Difficulty in games

2007-11-27T01:34:00.000-05:00

I read David Jaffe's comments about difficulty in games : http://criminalcrackdown.blogspot.com/2007/11/aaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd-scene.html
and how he hates it when designers make a game difficult.

He says he doesnt want to be challenged when he plays games, he hates difficulty curves in games and how games should be all easy to go through and fun...

I'm really with him on this point, cuz I'm usually playing on Easy mode at some games if they're too difficult since I'm playing a game to have fun and forget about my bad days (or whatever) not be frustrated at the tv. I'm playing hardcore games when I need to, but ...

It's just weird hearing it from mr. Jaffe though ... who produced God Of War ... who had the most difficult and frustrating level in a game ever!!! I just hated that walking on the edge thing and going up that chopping moving column, anyways ...

Some games make it hard just to make it hard because some designers thought it had to be hard to be fun ... thats why we have difficulty settings for those "hardcore" gamers who want it hard in life and enjoy a big challenge (i.e. COD 4 on veteran setting).

Like I said before in my posts about this issue ... I want to have fun and I dont have enough time to play over and over the same areas because its just too hard !!!

So you are right mr. jaffe! (but you dont have to use those CAPS) ;)

All those games ...

2007-11-27T00:51:00.000-05:00

So many games came out lately ... Call of Duty 4, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, Rock Band and Mario Galaxy (which I didnt have time to play yet)... luckily I had 4 days to play them during Thanksgiving (U.S.) YES!

And these are like some of the best games that came out this year...

------------
Rock Band
------------
Rock Band comes from the guys (Harmonix) who did the first 2 Guitar Heros... but with drums and a microphone included (anyways you guys know this right ...)

This game is soooo good and I only played the guitar solo campaign so far.

Why is it sooo goood (even if I played the guitar only) ?

It feels just right (and a lot better than Guitar Hero 3... A LOT).
I'm playing at medium and I dont fail the songs and I enjoy them a lot.
I like the new presentation, I like the new way the power ups are shown(bar that fills up and you can use the whammy bar to get more bonuses, I like the second set of buttons on the guitar that you can press during solos and u dont have to strum during them, I love the new guitar (even though mine is broken ...have to return it ).

The drum part is really hard...even easy mode is hard.

The songs they have on there are really good (compared to GH3) even though they have 13 songs from unknown bands that kinda suck anyways ... you can download more songs :)

-------------------
Call of Duty 4
-------------------

This game has (one of) the best endings in video games ever ... I loved that last section which is soooo different than the rest of the game. And at that moment (youll know) ... it happened :)
(I heard there was an hidden level after the credits ... what?!?)

The game looks so good ... all those details the team had the time to put in ... wow !

There are a lot of good scripted scenes, the dialogues make the game, the story is actually good.

The weapons are good to play with and they feel right, I like to play the night scenes with the goggles, I like the missions with some urgency timer type of thing and I loved the ending.

I felt that there were a lot of spawning dudes if you would just sit there and try to kill them all, but would stop if you'd move forward faster instead.

I like the fact that its short.

The multiplayer rocks, I love it even if I'm not that good, but I like to upgrade and get more perks and weapons!

---------------
Mass Effect
---------------

I really enjoy the story in this one.

I love the dialogue trees and I like to be a Renegade :)

The indoor environments look good, I wish we could visit more planets even though there are a lot of galaxies around, the buggy is well okay... I dont really enjoy "exploring" the planets cuz you're really only going to 3 points on each planet ... right ?! oh well that gets old fast.

I like the fact that I can do a lot of sub missions or the story path and still act the way I want, but that gets me in trouble sometimes.

Being a combat dude only in the game, I feel I'm missing some electronic capacity to open safe or get information from computers even though my "helpers" have those skills, but I cant send them to do it ... kinda sucks!

The combat is okay for me cuz I'm a combat character, but I hear its horrible for other types of people ... ouch ! The combat still feels bad for me even though I have all of the weapons.

I'm still going to play further but I enjoyed the story so far and piss off other soldiers :)

------------------
Assassin's Creed (might contain spoilers)
------------------

I hear a lot of people hate this game, but I sure am not one of those guys ... I just love this game.

I love the story and I want to know more and whats going to happen next. I know I'm being used ... everybody is kinda telling me that I am, but ... I just want to go in the future world also and see what I can do there!

I really like the way they set up the cities, how you can climb all buildings and that looks soooo good ... the animations are incredible.

I dont like how people always suspect you when you're on the ground and you have to blend in and walk slowly, but then you can just climb up and be "free".

I like the ways I can kill somebody with my little hidden blade ... that feels soooo good when it works... I feel great after ;)

I like the spying elements you have to achieve before doing an assassination (except pickpocketing which is not fun) and the informer "sub missions" are a good change also from normal spying, but I like listening to what characters say.

I like to defend citizen and I love their rewards... it's soooo great to blend in using the scholars and they drive your character around without any inputs.

But the combat is not so great ... how they are all waiting in a queue to hit you, but the killing is still better than I expected, cuz when I was watching other people combat ... I though it was the worse ever ... I guess they were bad playing it ;)

*********
update
*********
i completed the game...the end is quite a big letdown ... why can't you finish your game better we listened to so many cinematics during the game and at the end ... nothing!?!? geez

The last couple of Assassinations and the way to the last level was so bad...why cant I hit the guy while he's on the ground while everywhere else in the game I could do it ?

So many soldiers to kill for the last battles it was no fun and on the way to the last level...so many guys spawning out of nowhere and right in my face, kinda clumsy.

like i said before i still loved the missions before the assassinations, i dont mind it that much that its all of the same even though more variety would have been welcomed.

---------------

Part of EA Games now

2007-10-26T12:50:00.001-04:00

I was part of Ubisoft when EA threatened to buy Ubisoft. They ended up buying only a portion of Ubi's actions. People were scared of all the repercussions that this buyout would entail.
People were afraid of EA's reputation for putting out sequels after sequels, long crunch weeks and bad working conditions. People didn't want to lose their "freedom" to create new and exciting games.

Now I'm part of EA Games after they bought us (Pandemic).

People had the same kind of fear and questions about EA's ways to do business. We met with EA's president and EA Games' director who answered all our questions as best as they could. It helped us understand what they wanted to do with us and how we would be an integral part inside EA.

Over the last year, EA has changed a lot, I believe. EA is making new IP an integral part of their projects throughout all of their developpers. Yes we will still have the nth iteration of Need for Speed and sports game, but people want them anyways. They have resolved issues with crunches or are trying to (EA spouse), they are doing new games (Army of Two, Boogie, ...) and they delay games that need it instead of pushing out unfinished games.

I'm hopeful that EA will bring something good for Pandemic (worldwide publisher, experience, ...), but we will see the repercussions in the next year.

Until then check out previews of Saboteur ;)

Braid : using time in new ways

2007-09-28T12:24:00.001-04:00

I discovered the game Braid yesterday while I was reading some other blogs.

I really liked Jonathan Blow's lecture at the FreePlay conference.

The main topics were "how (to do a great game) ? " and "why?". He talked about prototyping gameplay before implementing anything else (ok most designers do that now ...but some studios just wont allow any time for that).

Before taking the decision to pursue the game development further you should always make sure the prototype was really awesome by itself and that there isnt any other idea that you could think of that would make a better game.

At this point you should finish the game you started not matter what (most games in developement dont even come out).

Anyway the point of this post was about Braid so lets talk about it.

That game, http://braid-game.com/news/, looks awesome when he demoed it on screen.
It uses Time as its main gameplay feature set in different kind of worlds (a la Mario Bros.) where Time and objects act differently than before.

So unlike POP:Sands of Time you can rewind time or fastforward it for any amount of time. if you have played for an hour...you can rewind time until minute zero and everything will be placed as it all started.
So you cant die in this game, but the point of the game is more about how to find a way to finish the level using Time as the main element of play. So you have to manipulate Time to get through the different puzzles depending of the world in which you are.

I really liked the ideas used in the game and i'll play that when its out in Q1 2008 on XBL.

check it out!

BIOSHOCK!!!!!

2007-08-24T13:55:00.001-04:00

this game is simply awesome!

I cant stop playing it...at night until the wee hours and in the morning before going to work.

This is the first game in a very long time makes me want to play it that bad and curse when i have to stop and go to sleep.

The atmosphere is so dark, immersive and keeps you into the game. I jumped a couple of times out of my sofa due to some events in the game.

the story is really interesting and you just want to hear the next radio transmission or audio recorder that you find in Rapture.

there are so many rooms to explore which makes the experience seem less linear since you can explore if you want and get rewards for it.

there are so many choices in the game to be made : do I save the little sisters, which powers to equip and which upgrade should I use, how do I kill this next guy, etc...

GAME OF THE YEAR I say!!!!

there are some minor annoyances like the hacking of the safes (which are so ridiculously hard sometimes) and the fact that you never die but respawn around the location you die and come back with enemies as you left them; makes the use of first aid kit useless in some fights (against the Big Daddy).

anyways I just love that game!

update----------------------------------------------------

"SPOILER here"

I played the game twice to see how different the game is when you kill all little sisters or save them all...

well it sucks pretty bad... I mean the only difference is the ending cinematic and 2 lines of dialogue from the little sisters in their hideout!

For a game that says it's about player choices well the game doesnt provide those other outcome... if I kill all the sisters why am I still not buddy with Ryan or Fontaine !?!

So my second walkthrough has been a disapointment...unfortunately :(

kinda cool that if you dont kill the artist dude you'll see him later in the game ... kinda cool ;)

really liked the theater area for all the little moments we dont usually get in games or in shooters!
----------------------------------------------

Bioshock is coming

2007-08-15T14:10:00.001-04:00

Yeah ... Bioshock is coming in less than a week!!!

After playing the demo ... i want it soooo badly!!!

it looks awesome :)

Dead Rising

2007-07-30T17:06:00.000-04:00

Played Dead Rising this week-end finally... i bought it one month ago at EB Games.

I like it...i enjoy killing zombies with different types of weapons, i dont really like to take pictures but it helps for upgrades so i'll do it anyways, i like the skills you get and the stats upgrade is great and I like the fact that you can save and replay the game but keeping your stats makes it less painful to start from scratch.

the bosses are really hard to deal with since sometimes you have no weapons, they're too hard sometimes ... i beat the clown because I had the two japanese with me shooting at him while I was going for the close attacks. anyways it was too hard otherwise...

the fact that my game that EB Games sold me was all scratched so some areas are not accessible for me since the game crashes...damn company cant sell games that work!!

so i couldn't experience the story so much since i needed to get somewhere i cant access...

hopefully i'll be able to play sooner or later

i'm not gonna buy any EB Games games anymore

update ---------------------------------------------------------------

So I finally got another copy and finished the game.

Liked the fact that there were multiple endings depending of how you played the game.

Really didn't like the military portion of the game cuz they kept respawning in the mall after I beat them which was already difficult and long...

Hated the fact that I had to wait 12 hours before the helicopter came in at the end of the game and the thing I hated the most ... the fact that I had to capture 10 Queens to get the medicine ... damn this took me soooooo long and it's really not fun at all to go back and try to kill so many zombies just to get 1 Queen so imagine 10! damn ... Konami could have ended my experience of the game in a more fun way.

Also, the fact that I had to restart my xbox everytime the military captured me otherwise I would be brought back in the world with no weapons etc ( like GTA ) ... who really wants to continue these games without the great weapons you collected before?!

anyways ... i played the game from start to finish once (with many restarts ) and I wont touch it ever again... I had some fun with my SMG and bosses but couldnt really save people and do the real missions at the same time

Gears of War

2007-07-24T12:57:00.000-04:00

I just played through (im at the last boss battle) the game.

I really enjoyed it.

I liked the graphics : character models are great, the environment is well done (good covers and fits the architecture), the setting felt great. But I felt that sometimes they put a little too much gloss on some walls -> water on walls was too flashy i think.

the game is not only about graphics like some people have said...
- the cover system is great : it feels great and believable, all the options you have to move
to other cover spots or run or jump over obstacles.
- the protect your friend with the light gameplay is enjoyable yet not used for long (1 min)

-the diversity of enemies (even though sometimes they look like your friends when far
away)

-the different paths that you can take might give us a reason to go back to try out other
sections.

But... sometimes the AI is dumb : I hated Dom when he kept standing in front of the Berserker and kept dying over and over. I had to ask someone to play as Dom for that scene!!

I liked the game ... needs more huge bosses other than the spider thing.

:)

Far Cry 2 announced!

2007-07-20T19:58:00.000-04:00

Finally Ubisoft announced Far Cry 2.

This game will be awesome!

I saw parts of it since I worked a couple of months on this game...and it will be great!

Cant say much, I guess, for now ...

http://www.farcrygame.com/

Assassin's Creed

2007-07-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

I just saw Assassin's Creed gameplay footage at the E3...wow!

I want to play it now :)

I like how you jump from ledges to ledges sooo easily
I like how the animations are so fluid when going up on buildings and how the character goes from one ledge to another so easily while climbing sides of building.
I like how you can see so far from tops of buildings.
I like the different coounters you can perform in combat.

I don't like how the combat rolls out ... enemies waiting...it looks stupid!!!
I don't like the effect on characters (lighting thingy)

anyways...i hope its gonna be fun to play it.

More than meets the eyes!

2007-07-06T13:08:00.000-04:00

I was wrong!!! Transformers was a great movie after all.

A lot of explosions, good jokes, a lot of action, cheesy romance, and our favorite Transformers(well some of them anyways)!

Michael Bay actually did a good movie.

I didn't like the whole movie cuz some scenes could have been better.
The story was good except some "why would he do that" scenes.

The transformations were great, well made, almost believable ;)

go see it if you ever liked the transformers

Movie : Ratatouille

2007-06-30T12:01:00.000-04:00

Ratatouille : This movie is about a rat who doesn't like garbage food and wants to find good food for him and his family ; and Linguini a young man who was sent by his mother to get a job at the great Gusteau's restaurant.

There is only one way to describe the movie : Simply the best!!!

I think Ratatouille is simply the best movie Pixar has made so far ... the assets are really beautiful, the facial animations of all characters give the impression that they have emotions (we know exactly what they feel), the dialogues are really funny and they use a lot of humour through animations.

Theres always some comedic elements on screen in a corner of the screen even when there are long dialogues you'll laugh at whats going on around them.

people applauded at the end of the presentation!!

a lot better than the last Shrek!!

I loved it and hopefully a lot of people will go see it.

Transformers are invading!

2007-06-28T13:30:00.000-04:00

A Mighty Heart

2007-06-27T19:12:00.000-04:00

This is the movie that tells the story of Marianne and Daniel Pearl, the american journalist that was kidnapped in Pakistan.

We follow Marianne, Daniel, american agents and Pakistan police agents who try to find the kidnappers. Throughout the movie we are shown flashbacks of Marianne and Daniel life outside Pakistan, how they met and their overall life story. We are shown flashbacks of Daniel's meetings with his collaborators during the actual investigation so we know what really happened and if the police officers are the right path.

There are a lot of things that we don't know so we are on the same page as the police officers since we don't know who did what and how it all happened.

The scenes are actionned packed and everything is going so fast hence we are "involved" in the movie and it keeps you on your toes.

Angelina Jolie is good in the role of Marianne Pearl. Most of the actors offer good and believable performances.

The movie gives some insights of Pakistan fights against violent groups and its relationships with country around and the US.

I went to see the movie yesterday night. I really enjoyed it!

Go see it if you like movie that matters.

It's not a cheap way to cash out on a true story.

People leaving Ubi for ... Eidos

2007-06-15T13:51:00.000-04:00

And it continues ... people are leaving ubisoft mtl for other companies but this time Eidos seems to attract a lot of talent!!

its a known fact that in the recent months/year a lot of employees left ubisoft montreal to go explore the market which consisted of A2M and EA.

Ubi bosses didn't seem to care and wouldn't try to give any incentive to keep the best talent around...they only assumed that people would come back some day.

But now with the market expanding : Eidos is now in montreal and a lot of rumours mentionned other companies that could settle in; what will happen to ubisoft and its desire to have 3000 employees before 2010 ?

Eidos seems a good new option in Montreal given the fact that this company has a lot of new IPs coming in the close future and a lot of really good IPs out there (Hitman, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, etc...), they will attract talented people and it has started already!

Some of the best are leaving now!

All these companies give developpers a lot of opportunities to find a place they like and can relate to without leaving this beautiful city :)

Random stuff

2007-06-14T13:02:00.000-04:00

Sony vs Church : Wow this is scary ... if we can't use churches, historic monuments and known places in our games what will it look like ?

A lot of games are trying to make believable environments where the players will be immersed in something he knows or recognizes which makes the game (sometimes) that much more fun.

So what if every time a developper uses a known area there is someone who sues... what will happen to GTA for example ?

I think some people should focus on more important matters than that...

Ocean Thirteen : I enjoyed the movie it has some funny moments. It's always interesting to see so many talented actors in the same movie, but I think it's more of the same though... hopefully we won't have an Ocean Fourteen movie ... do something else guys.

Transformers - The video game : This game seems a lot better than the movie thats coming out soon...well okay its not that hard to be better than a Michael Bay movie...oups I said that! Unlike the movie that focuses a lot on humans (which the original Transformers didn't care to much about), the game actually give you control of a lot of our favorite Transformers and new ones and you'll fight against the other faction of Transformers. You can choose between Decepticons or Autobots and all of the Transformers have their own abilities + the transformation seems well done. At least it looks better than the last Transformers game... Also the designers brought back the real Megatron and Optimus Prime's voices unlike the movie which is good for the old fans. :)

Mr.Brooks: I really enjoyed this movie. I like how they presented Mr.Brooks personalities by using two different actors to provide a different view point of what they think. Great action and thriller sequences. You're always on the edge of your seat!

Pirates 3 : I liked the introduction scene, some of the fights were spectacular, Jack's personalities and how the movie present them and I like Johnny Depp's performance in this role. He's a really great actor and he's good in any role he plays in. I didn't like a lot of story elements in this new script, I didn't like the ending and how some scenes are "oh well yet again..." or " yeah right ..."

Xbox 360 : Finally I got an xbox 360 ... I played condemned and it has good moments where I'm actually afraid of what's next...but it has some "where do I go now" situation where I feel like I want to stop playing. The investigation gameplay is kinda too easy and doesn't bring that much more to the table. Anyways, the xbox hasn't failed yet ... hopefully its gonna stay that way.

Chulip (ps2) : I have to try this weird japanese game soon. In this game, the main objective is to kiss as many people as you can and mostly the sad people to bring joy and hapiness to your city. This is kinda weird but ill try soon :) The characters are so cute ... the graphics arent that great though and gamespot gave a 6.0 we'll see ...

Jade Raymond...and ubisoft's assassin

2007-06-02T02:22:00.000-04:00

For those who don't know who Jade Raymond is ... she's the producer of the fabulous game being developped by Ubisoft Montreal : Assassins Creed.

The game looks amazing and hopefully for ubi and gamers it will be fun...we'll see soon.

I never worked with Jade, but I've heard a lot about her in the newspapers and in discussions between developpers.

Everytime I say I worked at Ubi Montreal, guys ask me if I ever worked with Jade or if I know her personnally this is strange. People in the industry (mostly guys) totally flip out when they see her in interviews and pictures...they don't care about the discussions they watch and analyse her.

I think thats crazy... but is it really? Is Ubi using her appeal to promote Assassins Creed ?

I really hope ubisoft and Jade aren't using her image to attract people around the game. I heard that a lot of newspaper articles in Canada are focusing on Jade and how "the sexy and hot Jade Raymond is producing a game called Assassins Creed".

Journalists should really focus on the games ... we don't need to celebrate the fact that she might be (or not) a beautiful producer over the quality of a game.
I don't see how these articles help women become men's equal or help women get the respect they deserve to be where they are at.
Jade is one of the few women in the game industry and yet we focus on her face and body! I'm ashamed ... really!! When I hear people around me talking about her like that (in the industry), I feel bad.

I hope ubisoft will not promote Assassins Creed as a game made by the "hot" Jade Raymond, but on the fact that this game is revolutionary with new gameplay elements using crowds and etc...

Ubisoft as started a casual games department and I think the Jade thing is a totally opposite mentality than what they are trying to do...trying to attract people who don't play into the gaming industry.

The Sims : The movie

2007-05-28T19:08:00.000-04:00

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6171544.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;1

Wow ... what can I say ... a movie about nothing!!!

How can they make an interesting movie out of a game with no plot, where users (how can I say players) make members of their created family go to the toilet, then lets them burn the house trying to cook something and finally gets rid of the pool's ladder so that its character drowns!

Is Hollywood already out of ideas ? Is that why Uwe Bowl wants to do games now ?!?!

yeah okay... its original for them to make a movie adaptation of such an open game.

Movie: "Paris, je t'aime"

2007-05-27T01:15:00.000-04:00

Just seen this movie and I enjoyed it a lot.

It contains 12-15 5 minutes short movies created by famous movie directors and the common theme is Paris and love.

All the "action" occurs in different parts of Paris played by a lot of well known actors who play small roles but bring some good acting to the table.

All the movies resolve around the actors loving someone, something in Paris.

The movies are all quite different and using different aspects of film making.

Some movies are funny, others dramatic and 1 violent/funny cartoony movie.

anyway I liked it :)

EA buying Ubi ... (continues)

2007-05-27T01:01:00.000-04:00

http://kotaku.com/gaming/borg-it-up/ubisoft-still-on-eas-menu-263772.php

Just read part of the interview with EA's CCO Bing Gordon and it seems that EA might still be interested in buying Ubi...

"I think everybody is for sale. I think in general, successful intellectual properties
in all media are undervalued, especially in our media. There's been a lot of
acquisitions, but the thing about acquisitions is that the only time it works is if
you've got an intellectual property that can succeed without the people, or if the
people have a ten-year career path that they're interested in at EA."

I hope it won't happen (ok this topic as been discussed a lot in the past), I hope Ubi will stay as it is and not be controlled by EA...the companies offer different kind of products and have a different perspective on how to make games.

I like diversity.

What would happen to EA Montreal...seriously if Ubi is bought by EA ... they won't need those two in the same city.

Competition is good! Many companies around just means better opportunities, better options and better benefits ;)

American McGee vs Ubi Shanghai !

2007-05-21T20:29:00.001-04:00

http://www.americanmcgee.com/wordpress/?p=235#comments

This blog post from American McGee is quite funny I believe.

His new studio in Shanghai,Spicy Horse, is looking for people to hire ... and since Ubisoft is the biggest game development studio in Shanghai he's trying to get ubi employees.

It seems that ubi doesn't want to release his people "Ubi doesn’t necessarily *like* the idea of seeding outside development teams", so ubi responses to those "attacks".

"Several recent Ubi employees we’ve tried to lure away have reported a significant increase in benefits, salary, and position within the company. Ubi really doesn’t want to let people go…"

I think this is quite amusing that ubisoft is willing to give a lot away to keep his people... in Shanghai (!!!) at any price!

The thing is American McGee offers everyone, who wishes to join his company, an offer letter so the employees will get their raise from ubi, but he asks for a % of the amount received... lol!

This is his new business model he calls "Spicy Horse Salary Inflation Service"

found it funny ;)

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-05-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

I just watched Pan's Labyrinth on Dvd.

It was a good movie.

I liked the concept of the Spanish revolution taking place while the little girl lives her fantasy.
So we can see a huge contrast between the "real" life of military officers fighting the revolution and a child's way to see the world and escape it ... to another kind of life where she rules the world and nobody dies. This life is exciting without the risk of military and where the danger is not to pursue what you believe in.

Mixing fairy tales, brutal violence acts and horror movie elements was a great experience for me. It incorporates elements taken from Alice in Wonderland and Disney movies which I usually like so much.

I found the movie didn't go far enough in the fantasy elements which we don't experiment long enough in the movie compared to the revolution.

I wished the movie would last longer and some characters could have been used in more depth like the creature with eyes in his hands. It would have created more suspense and enabled the viewers to really appreciate all of them.

I loved it for the story, the many different messages of hope and the fantasy elements.

Vision doesn't sell copies ?

2007-05-15T09:08:00.000-04:00

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/96/19

After reading this article from Escapist magazine, I'm a little disapointed in the way they reflected on the subject. In fact, they only seem to say that people don't care about good reviews for new products, but will only buy old licenses that they know of.

I believe that it's an awful way to see the issue!

It's true that most mainstream gamers or people who play casually won't go on ign,gamespot and such websites to see the reviews...most people don't care about those. These websites are more addressed to hardcore gamers and geeks ( sorry but that's kinda true ).

Do you really think parents will go on these sites before buying a game ?

I believe that great games with new creative visions will appeal to a lot of people rather than an old license that sold x number of copies , for example Splinter Cell will sell mostly to hardcore gamers or people who have played all previous games of the series. Why ? Because new players will be afraid to play this complex game which evolved since the first one. So the number of copies sold will diminish after each iteration since some of those players will want something new.

Then, why doesn't great vision sell copies ?

I believe it's the way the publishers/developpers advertise their game. Usually developpers will present a trailer of their game to show off the potential, but the problem... it's shown on a website again, gametrailers, which is only seen by a bunch of hardcore gamers.

The games will also be advertised in specialized gaming magazines which is only bought by hardcore gamers!

We should take a look at how the movie industry advertise their movies. Movie trailers are shown on TV, in a movie theater in front of hundreds of people at each showing and in most talk shows! So the trailers are seen by a lot of different kinds of people that wouldn't have known about horror movie x, for example, if they don't usually care about those, but now they know that the movie is coming out and can talk about it to other people!

Nintendo took this approach for their new Wii console and it worked ... everybody buys the console even non-gamers. They show the Wii play commercial on all tv channels, in movie theaters before all the best movies between two movie trailers and they talk about it everywhere.

So the main issue for the videogame industry, I believe, is that marketing department should rethink the way they advertised our games. They should put more money and time on the games that bring something new than older licenses that will sell anyway because they are advertised with trailers on specialized websites.

Let's think about it before saying that vision doesn't sell! Let's hope the industry can find new ways to present the games that we really care about :)

Escapist article : Westernization by Zombification

2007-05-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

I just read last week's Escapist article "Westernization by Zombification"

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/96/09

The article talks about the game Dead Rising and how the developpers see the western "civilisation".

The article starts by explaining the history of monsters and why we invent them ..."Fiction is a mirror. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, it reveals the truth that reality obscures. Horror fiction in particular, for through its fictional terrors, we begin to see glimpses of what truly frightens us, the fears we'd prefer to hide."

The analysis goes really deep into sharing with us how japanese people see Americans and what they fear about them.

The game focuses on their fears : The danger of the American scientist who tries to change the environment and it results in a catastrophe that could destroy all of humanity, they see American's gluttony as one of the main problems of globalization, the menace of the guns that Americans carry everywhere they go and etc...

They created the main bosses in the game from American stereotypes gone mad... the clown with no children to entertain, the cop with no one to arrest, the hunters with nothing to hunt, ... they turn against the player and society at the same time.

"By fighting zombies, in other words, we're actually fighting ourselves."

"If the apocalypse is a revelation, Dead Rising's apocalypse reveals an America
immediately identifiable, but through a distorted mirror."

Interesting Article, I might say, in which we get a glimpse of how other culture see "us".

I think the article is kinda right in a lot of respect. I understand the fear that people can have towards guns being carried everywhere, I am too! There is so much violence out there, but I guess it's in the Constitution ... so it must be right ;)

(there's another interesting article in the Escapist : "Vision Doesn't sell copies, The short life of Clover Studio")

Eidos Montreal...

2007-05-10T19:43:00.000-04:00

Really big news coming from Eidos Montreal (new studio)

the studio will be operational starting in September with 30-40 people on staff.

The news : they're gonna make the sequel to the serie DEUS EX!!!!!!

Thats soooo cool!!

I'd be glad to work on that ... some day ...

:)

To end all "Rumours" there is the video of the interview : http://www.musiqueplus.com/modules/smartmedia/clip.php?categoryid=9&folderid=45&clipid=1595

Movie : Hot Fuzz

2007-05-09T17:45:00.000-04:00

Hot Fuzz is a really good movie : it's funny with great jokes, gruesome murders or "accidents", and a lot of action.

The movie is a mix between "Shaun of the Dead" and cops movies. It's written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright who wrote "Shaun of the Dead" who are back again. Simon Pegg reprises his role (kind of) of the last movie, but this time he fights real people instead of Zombies.

Nicholas Angel(Simon Pegg) is a police officer who's transfered from London where he's too good for the local police to a supposedly crime-free town, Sandford, until he arrives in town to become the new sheriff. "Accidents" happen in the city and Nicholas tries to investigate to he's reassigned to other tasks with another officer,Danny Butterman(Nick Frost), who's gonna become his best friend. They'll work together to fight crime!

This is great entertainment from start to finish and needs to be seen.

People in the movie theatre actually applauded at the end!

Go see it ... a lot of blood!!!

Xbox : Psychonauts

2007-05-08T15:56:00.000-04:00

Finally, I got to play Psychonauts for the first time ... again... the first time I went so far as to finish the basic training then I got lost and couldn't find the second part training.

This time around I really wanted to play it through. I got lost again, but this time I punched everything I could until something happened ... wow this wasn't so easy to find...something opened at some point and the story unfolded.

Finally I could start the real psychonauts and not just the camp area of the game where we almost never go to for the rest of the game.

It's been a while that I wanted to play this game that seemed so strange and never done before.

During the game you get new psychonauts powers by collecting different items. They are mostly all well used and necessary for the player to advance in the game. You get to collect many gadgets also to use like in an adventure game.

Also, if you get stuck in a puzzle you get to use your bacon item to get some information from the crazy scientist which is cool for average players.

So for the main game now : You need to travel between different minds to save those people from their own past. Each character has a mind of its own, gameplay of its own and bosses really different from each other all with a great story behind their tie.

The experience you get each time you enter a mind is really interesting and cool to play.
Its new and refreshing!

The part I liked the most was the Cops mind (looking for the milkman!) ... this was a twisted mind and this is the part where you really need to find gadgets to get through the whole level since people need those "gang" member gadgets to let you through.
Also I really like the bull fighting mind where you need to avoid the bull, fight wrestlers and fight the bull.

But the game is frustrating in some areas. It is frustrating to die over and over again in the fish level because you just don't know where to go and the air bubble moves too slow sometimes.
Also, it's really frustrating to fall 5 stories in the brain collecting level where rats run at you and explode in confusing gaz effect where you lose health because more come at you while you have no control of your character. This level is quite confusing since you don't see where to go ... fortunately sometimes there is a catlike character that appears to let you know that there might be a way there.

The last level is way too hard compared to the rest of the game with the boss shooting at you with fire arrows while you need to run fast since you'll drown fast ... so you need to really hurry up which never happened in previous levels and the bosses are just tough and bah!

The game as taken me something like 14 hours to complete which is a good length for such a game.

Try it ... its good :)

Film : Ne le dis a personne

2007-05-08T15:32:00.000-04:00

Film incroyable de Guillaume Canet

Synopsis : Huit ans après la mort de son épouse, un pédiatre reçoit un courriel anonyme contenant des images vidéo récentes montrant la jeune femme bien vivante. Le médecin obéit alors à son mystérieux correspondant, qui lui a fixé un rendez- vous avec la «défunte».

Ce film policier est vraiment un des meilleurs que j'ai vu depuis longtemps. L'intrigue est assez complexe et découvrir toutes les enigmes de l'histoire avant la fin est presque impossible.

Le réalisateur nous fait découvrir les multiples facettes des personnages ainsi que leurs interactions afin de nous faire vivre l'histoire. L'intrigue lie tous les personnages d'une maniere impressionnante et le spectateur doit trouver, parmis les quelques indices laissés, la vérité de toute cette histoire.

Le film comporte plusieurs rebondissements ainsi que beaucoup d'action afin qu'il n'y est aucun moment ennuyant. Le film passe tres rapidemment et il est tres pognant.

Allez le voir !

Marie-Josée Croze y joue nue encore une fois ...

Fracture - Lucasarts

2007-05-03T18:25:00.000-04:00

Well I've seen the trailer.

I guess I understand what they wanted to do : A game where players will be able to really interact with the environment and do whatever they want with it.

So everytime you play will be different and everyone will have a different experience.

Which is one of the things next-gen games will need to incorporate...but is this the good way?!?

Will this game be fun from start to finish or will it be only a gimmick that players won't use after 20 minutes of play ?

I can't say it's such a bad idea since Red Faction was a good game where you could destroy almost all walls to make your own way...but it felt ok after a while or unnecessary to do so.

They say you'll need the different types of grenades to solve puzzles...so I guess we'll have to use them to finish the game hence the gameplay will be throwing grenades for 8 hours?!?

The tornado effect seems interesting, but the big mesh/boulder coming out of the land seems...weird to say the least.

But what the hell with the Boulder Gun??? What!?

Character design...we've seen that before haven't we?

We'll see in a year what the game looks like and I'm gonna try it then.

Leaving Ubisoft

2007-04-27T21:08:00.000-04:00

I'm leaving ubisoft next week.

The last 3 years have been really great for me at Ubisoft. I met so many people with a lot of potential and talent.

I learned a great deal from everyone I've worked with from juniors to seniors they all had an impact on what kind of designer I've become.

Ubisoft gave me my first opportunity to work in the video game industry. I got to learn everything I needed to become a good level designer.

I'm leaving ubisoft to try some new things I've always wanted to do.

I've got ideas on my own that I'll try to develop in the next few years.

It's with a certain sadness that I'm leaving many friends who will be missed, but I am happy to go experience something new and totally different...and travel !

see ya guys ;)

Game Ramblings : Checkpoints

2007-04-06T08:35:00.000-04:00

Just a little rant about checkpoints in games to temporary save the status of players... I think it's great to have checkpoints in games.

Why ?

1- Because I don't feel like doing a 1-hour level all over again because I missed one jump at
the end and died.

2- Because I don't have time to do levels over and over again just because the designer
didn't care if I was a bad player ... and frankly maybe I'm not that good at some games
but I still play them because I like it ... but doing missions over and over again and hear
always the same dialogues and unskippable cinematics...that I can't take!!

3- Because I don't have so much time to play because I have other responsibilities hence I
can't redo missions over and over.

4- Because it's frustrating to have to redo challenges that I had finally passed, but then I fail
the next one and have to redo everything ... man this is painful ...

I understand that some games might have too many checkpoints in them which makes the game really easier since you only start back 2 feet away from where you died every time, but maybe developpers could implement some sort of mechanism where they would know that a certain player dies a lot in a certain area and would enable a checkpoint near this area so the player would only have to start from around this area and not from the start of the level or use difficulty settings to enable or not checkpoints so at the hardest difficulty there would be no checkpoints where as in the easiest settings there would be checkpoints everywhere.

Just my thought on this issue.

Game Ramblings : Game Overs...

2007-04-06T08:18:00.000-04:00

Lately I've heard a lot of people say that they liked to die in games or that they miss the old Game Overs in their games because they felt today's games were too easy and they wanted to do levels all over again.

Well I'm a strong believer that Game Over screens are of the past. The game industry has evolved since the 80's and this should be the first step towards that evolution...getting rid of those screens and all that "put another coin in the arcade please" mentality. The Game Over "feature" was used in the arcade to provide arcade game developpers to make money out of kids, but now it's useless to do so.

I've played a game recently that had those Game Over screens : Naruto Uzumaki Chronicles; and I just wanted to put the controller down and never come back to it because this is really want it seems to me that the designers wanted to tell me ... I've bought this game so please don't give me the option to let your game down...

I believe the game developpers must use other strategies to keep players playing their games. Instead of a Game Over screen let the player know they failed,but let them go back to the mission they were doing by using story elements or a different set of animation that lets the player know that they'll come back stronger later ... As an example, in Naruto, I'm fighting against Sasuke and I get beaten because I didn't hit the health button soon enough...so I get a Game Over screen right away...in less than a second...that's not fair for the player since he can't even know what just happened there...let Sasuke talk to Naruto (laugh at him, taunt him, etc...) or use a cinematic where naruto gets taken back to the village and at the hospital until he can recuperate.

I think we have enough ressources to put that kind of elements in our games and find ingenious ways for the players to feel we care about them and we have put the effort into the game he bought. It's not by letting the players down that the game industry will bring in more players that have never played before.

Critique : La vie des autres

2007-03-26T18:05:00.000-04:00

Petite critique du film "La Vie des Autres"
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Ce film Allemand a été bien recu par les Oscars cette année et apprécié par la critique.

J'ai bien aimé le film qui discute principalement de la RDA (de l'Allemagne de l'Est) ainsi que la suspicion que les membres du gouvernement ont sur tous leurs sujets dans les quelques années avant la destruction du mur de Berlin.

tout au long du film nous suivons l'histoire d'un membre de la police secrete allemande, la Stasis, qui espionnera un auteur important de l'Est qui semble blanc comme neige, mais dont le gouvernement suspecte, car selon eux personne ne peut etre aussi "propre".

Ainsi la Stasis installera des micros et cameras dans l'appartement et l'immeuble de l'auteur afin d'obtenir les renseignements necessaires afin de l'inculper de trahison si possible.

Le membre de la Stasis écouteras et completera son rapport pour ses patrons.

Ce qui est interessant dans le film cest qu'on en apprend énormément sur les rapports entre les 2 cotés de l'Allemagne, des problemes internes ainsi que de la mentalités des Allemands qui essaient de sen sortir ainsi que de vivre le plus incognito possible afin de ne pas se faire prendre.

En plus, tout au long du film, on voit les personnages changer selon ce qu'il decouvre les uns des autres, il y a une recherche philosophique sur la nature de leur vie et des vrais raisons pour lesquelles ils vivent ainsi.

Le film est en Allemand et sous-titré dans la langue choisie ce qui donne vraiment un cachet authentique.

J'ai bien aimé le film et je le conseille a tout le monde qui en a marre des films americains et qui veut voir un film dans lequel on apprend quelque chose et qui nous fait jaser.

Match Nul entre l'Angleterre et l'Israel 0-0

2007-03-26T17:46:00.000-04:00

wow ... que de déception pour les fans de l'équipe anglaise de soccer... les Anglais se sont contentés bien malgré eux d'une nulle contre l'équipe d'Israel en qualifications pour l'Euro 2008.

L'Angleterre est donc encore a égalité avec Israel au 3e rang de leur groupe de l'Euro 2008...

Il est incompréhensible qu'une telle équipe ne puisse compter contre un pays qui n'a rien fait sur la scene mondiale dans les dernieres années!!

Que font les Rooney, Owen, Gerrard et Lampard dans cette équipe ? Les attaquants ne font rien et en plus il y a Crouch avec qui les Anglais sont damnés ... que peut faire Bambi avec cette équipe ? Beckham n'étant plus la pour lui servir le ballon sur le front... il devra toucher le ballon avec ses pieds...ouf ca n'ira pas loin ca!

Justement, est-ce que l'entraineur McLaren va enfin rappeler le prodige Beckham afin de se qualifier a l'Euro ? jespere que oui sinon...

Critique : God of War 2

2007-03-25T20:57:00.000-04:00

Petite critique préliminaire de God of War 2 (PS2)
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Je n'ai pas terminé le jeu encore, mais c'est un de ces jeux qu'on se doit de terminer parce qu'il est tellement "addictive" qu'on ne peut pas s'arreter... en l'écrivant je veux continuer a jouer!!

Tout d'abord vous commencez avec tous les pouvoirs des Dieux ... Kratos (personnage principal) est tout puissant et affronte une statue énorme qui est maintenant "en vie", et pendant le combat, le joueur se doit de s'enlever lui-meme ces pouvoirs afin de pouvoir le détruire.

Cet effet est vraiment tres hot parce que le joueur a pu expérimenter tous les pouvoirs possibles dans les premieres minutes du jeu et en les perdant il voit vraiment qu'il était tres fort...apres ceci c'est certain que le joueur veut continuer le jeu et ravoir ces pouvoirs afin de battre les Dieux!

Tout au long du jeu, contrairement au premier de la série, il y aura de nombreux "bosses" a battre qui demanderont aux joueurs de trouver une nouvelle stratégie a chaque fois afin de trouver la faille dans les Dieux ou fameux monstres qui ont chacun 3 étapes de combat.

Le jeu nous permet grace a des "orbs" que l'on doit ramasser d'ameliorer les pouvoirs de Kratos autant la magie que les Dieux ont donnés au personnage que les capacités des armes. Pour ma part, je n'utilise que les chaines parce qu'ils ont des pouvoirs puissants, mais je manque a cause de ca probablement de nombreux autres avantages, mais bon...

Les differentes enigmes dans le jeu sont intéressantes bien que parfois assez dégueulasses comme dans le premier god of war en utilisant différents soldats en les decapitants afin de progresser dans le jeu ce qui nous demontre dans le fond le caractere de Kratos qui a beaucoup de compassion envers son peuple mais n'hésite pas trop a tuer afin de pouvoir progresser et de redevenir un Dieu et se venger.

Les combats sont encore tres interessants avec tous ces effets visuels qui epattent, les monstres aussi surprenants les uns que les autres me donnent beaucoup de tord pour avancer (ces maudites chauves souris qui lancent du jeu!!), les boss fights nombreux, difficiles mais ca donne tellement un bon sens de l'accomplissement lorsque battu font en sorte que les combats épattent.

L'histoire, les cinematiques tres bien faites, les emotions de Kratos, les enigmes, les combats et les pouvoirs font que God Of War 2 surpasse le premier.

Allez jouer ... moi j'y retourne!

Exposition de Disney

2007-03-25T19:36:00.000-04:00

Je suis allé a l'exposition de Disney au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal avec une amie.

Pendant plus de 3 heures nous avons pu approfondir nos connaissances sur Walt Disney, ses films et ses associés.

J'ai appris beaucoup de détails très intéressants sur chaque individu qui a participé a l'oeuvre de Disney par leur efforts, dessins ou idées qui ont pu faire en sorte que les films de cette compagnie sont aussi populaires à notre époque.

L'exposition comporte donc la biographie de tous les collaborateurs plus importants de Walt Disney, les dessins ou premières esquisses de scenes de tous les films les plus connus, certains extraits de films et explications de ceux-ci. De plus, l'exposition nous offre la chance de connaitre les diverses inspirations de Walt Disney en nous montrons autant en film, qu'en toile ou extraits de contes d'où Disney a pris l'inspiration necessaire afin de les adapter au public auquel il voulait s'adresser et afin que les Nord-Américains puissent connaitre ces grandes oeuvres.

Evidemment, les films comme Fantasia et quelques films de Mickey (noir et blanc) sont comparés à des extraits des films d'où Disney s'est inpiré.

J'avais vraiment pas connaissance que les films de Disney étaient autant inspirés d'oeuvres "connus" dans le monde...les vieux courts metrages de Mickey sont, en effet, vraiment inspirés presque tel quel a des films comme King Kong ou Frankenstein.

Cette exposition a été pour moi très inspirante et j'ai maintenant le gout de voir ou revoir les vieux Mickey Mouse dont je n'ai pratiquement aucun souvenir.

D'ailleurs, j'ai regardé la collection de Donald Duck et les films pendant la guerre étaient tres droles.

Allez voir l'exposition si vous aimez Disney ... pour 15$ par adulte ... ca vaut la peine d'aller au Musée.

Premier Message

2007-03-25T18:22:00.000-04:00

Bonjour a tous.

Eh oui c mon premier blog... je vais essayer de le maintenir le plus possible.

J'vais parler de tout ce qui m'interesse en passant par la musique, les jeux, le soccer et les arts.

J'espere que vous apprecierez ;)