Medal of Honor (Xbox 360, Multiplayer Beta) – The most ‘beta’ version of any (released) beta I’ve played, so much so that I was surprised that EA had thought to release it in this condition.

The controls and movement were pretty standard (read: a lot like COD:MW2) but shooting however felt a bit inaccurate and unresponsive. Most of my (many) deaths went as follows: 1) walk/run around the map, 2) see a momentary flash of red from the damage indicator, 3) see your player character on the floor, dead.

Every single time I got killed, there was an obvious freeze between catching the first bullet (seeing the damage indicator) and then suddenly being on the floor; it almost felt like the game lagged every time I died. And it did happen every single time. It made for a very uncomfortable, awkward experience.

On the plus side, it looked quite nice (after one respawn, my gun texture decided to not appear, leaving a bright, white gun taking up space on the screen). Hopefully the Beta version will get an update before the game releases, otherwise it could be rather damaging to sales.

Lucidity (XBLA, Demo) – A nice little puzzle game from the LucasArts team that did the Monkey Island 1 update. You steer little Sofi on her ceaseless march through a beautiful dreamscape, utilising various puzzle pieces (abilities) to navigate over, under and round danger.

It looks lovely, the animations are beautiful and there seems to be plenty of challenge and replay value, but I found the controls to be quite fiddly considering there are so few buttons and the way of holding and selecting new puzzle pieces left me feeling a little confused. One for a rainy day and excess MS points perhaps?

Lazy Raiders (XBLA, Demo) – A puzzle game where you rotate the world to move the eponymous lazy tomb raider, Dr. Diggabone, around the map. Rotating the map is fast and responsive, perhaps a little too responsive actually as I found myself getting a little dizzy and disoriented during some of the more frantic moments.

Axel & Pixel (XBLA, Demo) – I’ve played Samorost (which apparently is completely unrelated to A&P, I was surprised to learn) and while this idea worked fine as a little interactive curio on the web, I really couldn’t get into this offering on XBLA. It felt like a point & click adventure minus the thinking and when you consider that I’ve also been playing Monkey Island 2 this week with it’s great puzzles, unforgettable characters and hilarious dialogue… Well, there’s not a lot more to say is there?

There won’t be any spoilers here today, but I think as the weeks go on I might start going into specifics about the things I’ve been up to. Rest assured that any spoilers will be clearly marked, so don’t worry about that!

This week (especially as I’ve played quite a lot), it will be a more general post but eventually I hope to talk at length about my thoughts on the games I play, looking at various aspects from the animation and visual style, through to the controls and gameplay/level design. Hope you enjoy it!

Oh and this list is just the fully-released games I’ve played this week. There’ll be a post a bit later about the various demos and trials I’ve finally got round to testing!

Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360) – I finally got round to picking this up just before I went for the interview in Edinburgh. I’d been meaning to get it for ages, but figured I really HAD to at least make a start before going to chat to the guys at R*.

I have found it to be a fantastic DLC package. It’s difficult to sound unbiased, but I loved GTAIV and Episodes from Liberty City is no exception. The characters are as brilliant and colourful as always, although I must admit I haven’t connected with the characters in the same way as I did in IV, in particular the two leads. I know many don’t agree, but I loved Niko as a protagonist; perhaps it’s unrealistic of me to expect to experience the same level of connection with two characters that you don’t spend nearly as much time with over the course of the episodes.

Despite this, the mission design is brilliant and far more fantastical and bombastic than most of the missions from the original game; loads more “blockbuster” action than the grittier, slightly more ground experience of IV (the base-jumping in particular is great fun). New experiences, characters, weapons and missions for an already great game? What more could you ask for from GTA DLC?

Monkey Island 2: Special Edition (XBLA) – There’s not really much to say about this one. It was a brilliant game when I played it on the family’s 386 back in the day and it’s just as good now. The updated graphics are beautiful (it looks way better than The Secret of Monkey SE released not long ago incidentally), the voice acting is great and it’s a fantastic price to boot!

It took me a little while to get used to the new control scheme (there’s the default choice of directional control, where Guybrush’s movement is linked directly to the left stick or the updated point & click controls of MI1:SE), but overall it’s a better, slicker system that also makes inventory navigation much easier.

LIMBO (XBLA) – This game is brilliant. I don’t even want to say too much about, you really should just play it. A puzzle platformer with real style and grace. It’s a grim, bleak game that plays out like Braid’s darker, twisted brother. One of the stand-out things about it is just how good the game feels; the beautifully balanced controls, subtle animations and simple gameplay all work together to create a wonderfully tactile experience. Play it now!

Alan Wake (Xbox 360) - I’ve finally got round to starting this, having been quite excited by everything I’d seen in the (long, protracted) run up to release. My early impressions are very good. I’m only just into the third chapter, but so far it’s proved to be an enjoyable romp and the story is intriguing enough to keep you playing, despite little niggles (such as having to go into menus to listen to the manuscript extracts you find dotted around the world).

The combat mechanics are excellent and provide a great deal of tension and strategy as to how best to dispose of your attackers. Said enemies do have a habit of sneaking up on you though – they seem to have mastered the art of near-silent running!

I should make a quick mention of the graphics, which are excellent and the incredible atmosphere the team at Remedy have managed to create. I am finding it quite creepy at the moment, but I am a big wuss when it comes to scary films/games, so your mileage may vary.

I’m definitely going to be talking more about Alan Wake as I play more, so stay tuned!

Blur (Xbox 360) – I finished blur’s singleplayer game quite a while ago, but  I’ve still been diving into the multiplayer now and again. The races are fast and furious and the turnaround time between events short enough to make it incredibly compulsive; it’s very easy to have “just one more go”.

As he says, “believe it or not, these guys spend a lot of time making the games you love, and they have a lot of knowledge to share.” Now, I don’t know if I could make such claims of myself, but it’s definitely a noble idea – I’ve long believed that games developers (and not just the famous, high-ups that you’ve probably already know about) should get a bit more recognition for the hard work they put in to make the games that you play!

It’s still early days (you can already find me on the Artists page) but the site needs more blogs and more input! The more the better! If you’re involved in games development and you’ve got a blog, you should get yourself over there and submit your site for listing. If you don’t have a blog, maybe you should consider getting one? GameDevBlogs.net also has a presence on Twitter, so get going!

If nothing else, it should ensure I keep my blog more up-to-date! ;)

Twitter is incredibly flaky in this regard; 99 times out of 100 it claims Twitter is over capacity. Apparently the maximum image size limit allowed is 800k, but I rarely get it to upload unless the image is somewhere in the region of 200k (a.k.a. hideously compressed).

Get it sorted please Twitter!

Anyway, here it is in action:

Should you wish to follow me on Twitter, you can do so here: http://www.twitter.com/asphaltOnline

I am aware that this post might come across as a shameless, shallow attempt to gain more followers, but it’s really just so I can show off my new background, honest guv!

Oh and the Rockstar website does have some awesome wallpapers and avatar images by the way. If you’re into that sort of thing, you should definitely visit the Rockstar Downloads page.

A little late to the party I admit, but I’ve only just got hold of my post and this May copy of EDGE magazine. There’s a rather large feature on the upcoming PlayStation Move controller and games, and who should appear on page 68? Why, it’s none other than yours truly. Hello!

At last, my plan for world domination is finally in motion! Shame they didn’t think much of TV Superstars! 8)

Thanks to @MrTom for the heads-up all those weeks ago!

Sometimes I wish people that wrote about games would consider the practical implications of what they’re talking about. Brad has already responded to some earlier commentators saying that you needn’t try and school him on the technicalities of games development whilst at the same time dismissing the excuse of production out of hand anyway.

Of course, the technical requirements that he knows all about seem to be limited purely to creating a new model for females. Yep, that’s it! That’s all you need to do to create a female avatar. Err… no. Far from it.

Adding an additional gender affects the entire game’s development pipeline at a fundamental level. Just thinking about it for a few minutes immediately raises a number of issues, and it becomes clear very quickly that it’s not just the customisation and clothing as Brad has suggested. What about the animation? What about the additional programming and design work? What about the new skeletons, rigs and skinning for the new avatars? The modelling of new characters and outfit pieces is actually the least impactful part of the entire pipeline!

Let’s talk about animation for a minute. The game is promoting itself as a game where free-running/free-flowing movement is a priority. The animation has to look great otherwise the illusion of this incredibly physical universe will be broken. If you add another sex into the equation that essentially doubles the amount of animation work needed (otherwise someone would no doubt be complaining that the female avatars are ‘too manly’ and ‘not representative’ enough).

“At whatever point in the development process the decision had to be made, Splash Damage decided that having female models was less important than having the other features that were included. There is no denying this — the developers have said it themselves.”

I don’t doubt that at some point the question of female avatars was raised and knocked back and I don’t doubt that other features were considered to be more important, but that is the business of game development. Not every feature that you’d love to include in your new game is equal in the land of deadlines, budgets and manpow– people-power! Adding a female avatar would have fundamentally hindered the overall vision and scope of the project or seen it released incredibly over-schedule and/or over-budget.

A number of commentators on Brad’s blog have suggested that games developers should “make the effort and [...] spend the time and [...] treat everyone with respect.” Perhaps this particular commentator thinks money, time and highly experienced staff can be grown on trees?

It’s not about sexism, it’s not about inequality, it is not about lazy developers. It would be awesome if we could have female avatars in Brink, but I bet there’s a whole bunch of other great features that exist (and a whole load of polish work that goes towards making a AAA-title) because they made the call not to include them. I’m not saying it’s an easy call but games development is a careful balancing act, and at some point you need to rein in your project otherwise you’ll go bust.

Sorry Brad, there is nothing “disturbing” about deciding to go for a male-only cast, it doesn’t say anything about the studio’s attitude towards women… It just makes sense. Common, business sense. And at the end of the day, you have to consider the business implications otherwise there’d be no games developers and you wouldn’t get to play games like Brink. Ever.

And where is it that I will be going? Well…

Heck yes!

That’s right folks, in July I’ll be heading up to Edinburgh to go and work as an animator at none other than Rockstar North, the studio that brought you GTAIV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, to name just their recent hits! I don’t even know what I’m going to be working on at this point, but I do know that it’s going to be awesome.

This really is like a dream come true. It certainly makes me feel like all the hard work I’ve put in (particularly the past 16 months of Animation Mentor – which have nearly killed me) have been totally worth it. Talk about a confidence boost, eh?

It’s all happened rather fast but I’m really excited about starting. Fortunately I’ll be allowed to finish my current term at AM before I start (it was after all, the main reason I decided to leave Cambridge). In fact, I will be working alongside former SCEE colleague and AM chum Andy Davis, who is a fantastic animator!

As you might be able to tell, I’m quite excited. Many thanks to Jim Jagger for offering me an interview and to Facebook for putting links to my reel and CV on his News Feed ;)

So again, this is old news by now but I’ve only just got round to writing about it (I am both easily distracted and incredibly slow at composing blog posts), but LittleBigPlanet PSP won!

All the incredibly hard work SCEE Cambridge put into transferring the fabulous world of LBP onto PSP paid off! The game was nominated for both Best Handheld and Best Use of Online and whilst FIFA10 took home the gong for Online, we beat back some tough competition to take home the award for Best Handheld.

The other nominees were: Gran Turismo, LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Professor Layton & Pandora’s Box and Scribblenauts. You can read more about the event on the BAFTA website.

Congratulations to all the guys and gals at SCEE Cambridge – it was certainly a nice milestone to round off my time at the studio!

I guess now I can say that I’m a BAFTA award-winning games developer?

GDC was a few weeks ago now and things have been rather busy but I thought I’d quickly mention that the game I’ve been working on at Cambridge Studio for a while has finally been announced! TV Superstars is a party game where you play yourself, taking part in a number of different TV shows in the hope of making it big and becoming a world famous superstar. It utilises the new PlayStation Move motion controller (which you can learn all about on the PS EU blog) and you’ll be using the PlayStation Eye to actually put your face in the game!

Eurogamer has a brief bit about it in their PlayStation Move Hands On article.

And yes, that is me in the promotional screenshots 8)

The Choice

I say “this week” but this is something that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now. I feel like I didn’t get enough out my last term at AM due to a number of factors, not least because things at work have been ramping up and because AM Term 4 covered stuff that I hadn’t really done before. I was really happy with my pantomime piece but I was really disappointed with my dialogue shot; it just didn’t turn out as I’d hope. Juggling 20-30 hours of animation studies on top of a 40 hour working week for 12 months really took it’s toll on me, hence why I opted to take a Leave of Absence at Christmas and recharge my batteries for 3 months.

But soon enough, there was the invoice for AM Term 5 sitting in my inbox and I had a choice to make: try and juggle my normal working week with the most difficult term at AM (multi-character dialogue shot) or take a risk; do the course full time, treat it like a full time job and really nail it. Although I’ve spent weeks stressing about my decision, at the end of the day I think I probably knew all along that this was definitely the right decision.

The Plan

Naturally, there’s no way I could afford the tuition fees for the course alongside rent in Cambridge and living costs whilst not taking an income, so I will be moving back to my parents’ place in Enfield for the duration of the term. It is incredibly comforting to know that my parents are willing and able to help me achieve my dream and I am eternally grateful for the contribution they have made/are making to my career.

At this point, the plan is basically throw my all into this term and really make the most of it. I’m intending to treat it like a full time job and do a full time job’s worth of work each day. This should allow me to continue to have a “life” and it will be much better for my health! At the same time, I will be putting together a new show reel (currently in production) and I will be applying for jobs in the hope of securing employment by the time I finish Term 5 at the end of June.

The Risk

The risks should be fairly obvious. There is no back-up plan; if I can’t get a job when I finish AM, that would be… awkward. At the same time, I’ve been in full employment at Sony now for over 3 and a half years and I’ll have been studying Animation Mentor for 18 months by the time I’m done. I feel like I’ve got enough experience, released titles and passion to go anywhere I want. I ought to be very employable. I certainly hope somebody out there thinks so.

The Move

So what of Sony? Well I’ve had an awesome time over the past 3 and a half years, worked on some major titles with loads of amazing, passionate and creative people. I will be desperately sad to leave Cambridge and all the good friends I’ve made since I’ve been here. The massive support, camaraderie and fun I’ve had at the studio can’t be underplayed and I can only hope that wherever I end up will half as good as my time at Cambridge.

And I guess that’s about all I have to say for now. If anyone is looking for passionate, experienced character animators to start work in early July, let me know.

Thanks for reading!