Movie : Hot Fuzz

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.