GTA

I don't have too many opinions about this game. Mainly, because I haven't played any game in this series at all, nor really plan to. What may surprise some of you, is that I don't play it because of the potential violence and nudity, but because these games are too open ended.

I'm not a person who likes to be dropped into a virtual world where I have to construct my own goals and see if I can accomplish them. I instead want the game to present me a series of challenges. Yes, games like Grand Theft Auto, Elder Scrolls, and Tony Hawk, additionally do present challenges, but these games focus so many resources into making an immersive world that the actual challenges presented end up being stale. That's just my opinion, as I know many will disagree since those are all top rated games.

Harmonix

Guitar Hero, Rock Band, SingStar - which game do you support?

SingStar's success in Europe as well with the initial launch of 200 available songs in the US PS3 release kind of scares me.

I mean, yes, I'm excited that the music game genre is now mainstream, and that there are many viable options. However, Harmonix, is the company that made it happen. They are the ones with the creativity. They are the ones that create music games because they want people to have fun. They want the non-musician to experience music. They want you to have fun. Making money is only secondary to them. They made music rhythm games before guitar hero, before the sudden popularity of the genre. They are the ones that took the risk. They are the ones that found the format that 'click's with the anti-gamer. So the next time you have the option to support Harmonix vs RedOctane vs a random internal Sony studio, Choose Harmonix.

Ok, well some of you might be confused.

Before Guitar Hero was made, Harmonix, had 2 'niche' music rhythm games, Frequency and Amplitude. RedOctane on the other hand, became a specialist in hardware. During the DDR craze, if it wasn't for RedOctane, there wouldn't be any dancepads with a lifepsan greater than 2 weeks. I do respect RedOctane very much for the role they played in making DDR popular and accessible to the US.

So, with Harmonix now having experience making music games, and redoctane acquiring a specialty in making hardware specifically for music games, it only made sense for them to join forces and make guitar hero - which they did. And then they made guitar hero 2.

But then, they split. Harmonix wanted to continue their dream of giving the 'ultimate' music experience, while redoctane, seeing real money for the first time, didn't want to abandon the guitar hero label. So, they split. RedOctane was acquired by Activision, and unfortunately, Activision didn't have the same mentality as Harmonix. They don't care for the players, they just care about the money. They don't want companies like Harmonix to succeed. They specifically made sure their PS3 controllers wouldn't work with Rock Band. (The only reason they didn't do this for the xbox was because it was infeasible without making gh2 controllers not work too.) If you can only afford one game between guitar hero 3 (or any other future guitar hero, also note that future guitar heros are very likely to copy and include drums and singing too) versus rock band, get rock band. Support the company with the vision. Not the one (well the one who's publisher) is only caring about the end profit.

Oh yeah, Before SingStar was Karaoke Revolution. Guess who made karaoke revolution, yeah, Harmonix did. Support the company that wants to bring a music experience to everyone, not the one who has the most lobbying power among the music labels to license their songs.

Dev PR

My opinion might change, now that I have 'dev' status, but I can't stand dev posts that try to justify decisions with faulty arguments. If you want an item to be more rare, just say so, "We feel the power level of this item warrants an arena rating requirement." And people will understand your decision.

What not to do:

Quote from: Drysc
The non-set items are there to fill out the arena sets, they're essentially placed there specifically so that arena players have a reason to participate in other aspects of the game. We want to see their faces around, we don't want them just standing on top of the battlemasters all day.

So, with them being arena items intended to fill out the current top-end arena set, and our increase to rating requirements all around, it's actually very logical.

First thing, This is so NOT logical, and devs shouldn't make their player base feel like they're stupid.

Furthermore, I don't like the attitude that players should do things that they don't want to do. C'mon, those players already had to spend 100+ hours to level up to 70 in order to just play arena, and you don't want them to play what they enjoy most about your game? I really do have a love-hate relationship with WoW.

Phad See Iw

Yum, my favorite dish. I can eat this forever.

However, even though I like Thai Kitchen, nothing compares to the Phad See Iw at Lynnwood's Talay Thai (I hope that's the name of the right restaraunt).

I guess I'll soon have the luxury to experience the thai cuisine in SF, I hope it's up to par!

Side Question: with the recent scare and rise of rice prices, are my favorite rice noodle dishes going to get more expensive?

Violin Virtuoso

It's interesting how I keep on mentioning that a video game designer is my dream job, and it is, but when I was growing up, I even more badly wanted to write video game music. I even interviewed the US squaresoft branch sound technician for a high school english assignment once.

Now that I've become quite rusty with my music skills, those dreams have dampened quite a bit, but I'm excited as ever to be a game designer. I guess we all have multiple dreams and at different points of times, different ones become our 'daydream' so to speak.

Maybe some day, I'll be a violin slash piano virtuoso that designs AAA games and teaches Discrete Math at MIT...

Flagship Studios

Well, I got the Game Designer job!

So seeing how I'll be moving in a week and a half, I guess I'll try to put more blog posts up, and let everyone know how I'm doing.

If you're curious what I'll be working on:


Most of my time will be on Hellgate: London, there's a small chance I'll be working with Mythos too.

Journals

J's Sunday School Lesson has definitely inspired me to start a journal, and how it could be a great way to let your descendants get to know you, as well as being able to re-live your own memories in more clarity in the future.

And thinking about journals, has had me thinking about blogs, and how maybe I should actually tell people about this one. Well, If I move to SF, then I'll probably make this public, so people can catch up with what's going on with me.

Which then leads me to, should i put blog entries into my journal? Links to these youtube and gametrailer clips are probably not going to exist 30 years from now. Well maybe, but might not be the easiest to access. Well, irregardless, i think this blog has much more context when you have the video clip references.

Pitch Correction

Hmm, maybe this will finally inspire me to write music again. I'll actually be able to record them with my own voice... hah!

Well technically I guess it was always possible with single track pitch correction... I guess I'll just have to work on being able to sing 2 notes at a time to fully take advantage of this.



also at http://dvice.com/archives/2008/04/miraculous_dire.php

Space Shooters

I don't know why I love space shooters. Maybe because it's a very straightforward and simple premise... I don't know

Anyways, I'm very excited Ikaruga has come out on XBLA. It has such an elegant mechanic that adds so much depth to the genre. No other shooter has accomplished the great feeling of 'overcoming insurmountable odds' as much as Ikaruga. (You can be immune to one color of bullets at any time and switch anytime)

I still have no idea how I ever achieved my personal record of 6 credits to beat this game back on the Gamecube. Now, I rarely can survive the beginning of lvl 4...