5 posts tagged “ubisoft”

I've been meaning to write this blog post for two weeks now.... I guess it wasn't the most instantaenous thing in the world to suddenly convert all my feelings into a convenient block of text. Here I am, two weeks on and sitting in my flat; unemployed and waiting for stuff to happen. Good stuff to happen. I mean, seriously good stuff. I'm quite excited by it all, but I think I'm probably not the only one playing the waiting game after the fallout of our studio's closure. There's people waiting for dole, people waiting for interviews, people waiting for job confirmations, e-mails, phone calls. It reaffirms the notion that this big floaty rock is one big waiting room. Waiting for what? I could go all profound, but meh. It's too early.

Ever since the Chapter 11 bankruptcy announcement for Midway as a company, we've been erring on the side of caution. Anything could happen, right? The company was still operating as normal, but the Chapter 11 thing was like a silent dread-spectre hovering over all of us. The cause of this was through some allegedly shady dealings between Sumner Redstone and a bloke called Mark Thomas. No one knew who he was, and he tried to reassure everyone that it was all fine. Alarm bells rang though; it seemed quite, quite dubious. All of a sudden, the company was sold to him for a paltry $100,000 and then a magical legal process ensued where all deadlines for debts accelerated their deadlines for payment. Midway didn't have the funds at the time to pay them, and thus Chapter 11 became part of our legal vocabulary. It was all fine though - we'd still be operational; at that point, we were working on finishing up with Wheelman. The great thing about that was that I (and others) were putting in a lot of latenighters to get the job done, so we were practically too busy to worry about Chapter 11. We just got on with it.

The Ubisoft deal was pretty flawless in its execution, and a necessity to get the game out and marketed to its fullest potential. Some saw this as a sign of weakness on Midway's part, but it turned out to be quite a sweet deal. It gave the company more breathing space and we were happy to see a shiny Ubisoft trailer up on Gametrailers getting some good feedback. Perversely, some people considered the game to be better once Ubisoft was involved, rather than Midway. The company name was unfortunately synonymous with disappointment, cheap and tacky... was it deserved? I'm not sure... it wasn't as if any of us in the studio were skimping on our workloads. We were passionate about what we did, and we all enjoyed playing videogames. I know, it's a cliche, but it's one which runs throughout the industry; people who work on videogames will more likely or not love playing videogames too.

I don't want to think that the Midway taint somehow carried through to the erratic review scores which Wheelman received. Although we saw many, many nuggets of positivity on gaming forums, the journalistic view was distinctly Marmite - they either totally "got" it and enjoyed it, or hated it. People were perhaps expecting a bit too much from the "GTA4 Meets Burnout!" strapline from a past preview. Maybe they were annoyed they couldn't shoot a cop in the face - and doing it as Vin Diesel, no less! The IGN review was a definite shocker though. The studio suddenly turned from a festival of back-slapping to one of numb shock. Countless e-mails filtered throughout studio inboxes during the next few weeks. Positive. Negative. Positive. Negative. It was quite literally a rollercoaster ride of emotions. The game was selling well in its opening week though - I think a lot of the guys were quite happy in that respect. Sadly, we also learned how Metacritic worked in not only influencing peoples' minds to a possible purchase of our game, but also how they consider some review scores to have more of a weight to them; a weighted average. How fucked up is that? Unsurprisingly, the IGN review score was weighted, and the Metacritic score dropped like a stone.

Straight after completion of Wheelman, the studio didn't sit on its laurels. We got back to work on a new IP called Necessary Force, and it was a very exciting prospect. Set in the future, our game would put you in the shoes of a street-toughened cop who would have morality choices during his investigation. You would piece together evidence, make connections, go looking for new suspects and interrogate them. Work had already begun modifying the Wheelman engine to a much more gritter and impressive-looking result; the concept guys began producing beautiful renderings of the cityscape, characters and vehicles, while the designers were busy with documentation and possible scenarios. I spent the time producing graphics and concepts for the cop's PDA unit, which would be an integral part of the evidence gathering and manipulation. We had a lot of nice ideas for the game - for instance, the morality system affected the weather and time of day too. If you were a bad-ass cop, the days would feel shorter, and it would rain more often. This was also linked to a system where the city would systematically be cleaned up - more desirable pedestrians, graffiti taken off walls and newer, more optimisitc buildings taking the place of the run-down buildings.

Soon we got to a point where the game could be pitched - at the same time, we had a 60 day notice through from the London office. A legality in the UK, we had to be informed 60 days in advance of a possible closure. The timing of E3 couldn't have come any better. I helped produce the Necessary Force booklet, the logo and any other materials which were needed for the presentations. A lot of companies were booked in to see the game, and we had high hopes that some good will come from it. Post E3, we were told there were several interested parties, and the next stage would be meetings and due diligence procedures by those companies to assess the studio. Throughout all this time, I admired the fact we still worked on the game, and we still got on with the task in hand like a well-oiled machine. Not many people left the studio, we all had high hopes for the title. For me, I was at a low point until I saw the game in a darkened meeting room. It looked amazing, but not just that - a press of a controller button and it would start to rain - but not just rain, but turn surfaces wet, create flooded puddles and atmospheric drips and dribbles from building ledges.

We continued working. It was quite a good feeling to see the game evolve to the point where it had a pretty much playable section which involved all the disciplines of the game - bar the evidence collecting. We had a suitable aural soundtrack of cityscape ambience, our antagonist had a voice and the world was teeming with life. We had monorails travelling on huge overhead networks, massive water pumps dotted around the massive sea wall. We had sleazy prostitutes hanging outside equally sleazy strip bars, tramps lying half-dead on dirty mattresses... it was a proper world, and I feel we were all proud of what we had achieved given the time. One thing is for sure - the threat of losing your job is a strong motivator.

Studio representatives from across the country were treated to this secondary demonstration - our cop would get into his Police Interceptor, which was akin to a beefy muscle car with sirens and an engine which sounded like the devil. A call from dispatch would inform him of a perpetrator driving erratically after fleeing the scene of a crime. That would give you the opportunity to give chase, driving through old derelict warehouses, the tight streets and finally skidding to a halt outside an alleyway. The perp gets out the car and flees down the alleyway, you follow in pursuit. We had a neat mechanic of jumping over fences and dodging obstacles where if you hit the action button spot on, you would climb over things without too much trouble; do it successfully and you'd have more chance to capture the criminal. After this, a brawl takes place followed by you throwing the perp through a wooden fence. The chase continues through an abandoned and crumbling building full of obstacles which need to be negotiated in the same way. Eventually you come out onto the roof and are treated to a panoramic view of the city, before jumping down to a lower building's roof and brawling once more with the perp as you are both bathed in the light of the animated neon sign.

This was shown behind closed doors to many people - including the guys from Edge, who gave the demonstration a glowing write-up. The Edge thing also span from another piece of good luck - the Game Horizon conference was in its usual digs at The Sage in Gateshead. It would be a short taxi ride to the studio for anyone wanting to check out the game in action, and Edge wanted to see it. Maybe they were guilty about their 4/10 Wheelman score, maybe they were concerned and wanting to help the studio out. Either way, the write-up was a lovely thing to read and experience in those uncertain times. It's weird how tangible the morale was in the studio - like a symbiotic creature, you could sense and experience the highs and lows; you contributed to them and experienced them. I was one of the more optimistic, glass-half-full types of people who worked there. Sadly, the truth was that the glass was in a constant flux of being half-full and half-empty.

After all this, Necessary Force wasn't picked up, although it actually helped safeguard the studio's future for that period of time. It showed the studio wasn't entirely worthless as just a studio. We had an IP, we had a chance. A hope. As one hope dissipated, another materialised - we had a chance with a studio I can't name. No, I really can't name it. It was a big studio though, and our boss managed to get us a space to pitch to this studio for a project which would secure our future. It was another boost to morale, and even though we lamented Necessary Force not getting picked up immediately (some of us, myself included, still had hope), we got to work on this new chance. This is what I will always remember and admire about working at Midway Newcastle - we just got our heads down and got on with it. I've never worked for a more industrious and proud bunch of people, and for that moment in time, I was proud to be part of that team. Honestly, 100% proud.

We did all we could for the new pitch and we gave it our all. We had to - our futures depended on it. As we did this, I noticed small cracks start to appear. Some studio members moved onto other jobs, significantly a bunch of designers moved up to Dundee to work with Ruffian. It was hard to not ignore their empty seats, their inactive computer terminals. Looking around the studio, it was depressing at times. I worked late on that new pitch, though I saw the late-night enthusiasm start to wane... understandably, people have families, homes, kids. Me? I was the bloke who lived on his own in a flat, so I was quite happy to spend as much time as possible in the studio. Someone came to take out the temperamental vending machine, and I knew it could soon be over for us, so I made the most of it. One night, I chatted to our incredible studio boss regarding the situation and what he thought of it over some fish and chips. It felt strange, but at the same time it felt good to get things from the horse's mouth. He did the best he could possibly do for the studio - he worked insane hours, talked to as many people and contacts as he could. We understood when during studio meetings, he would add the caveat of "no guarantees". We knew nothing was guaranteed, it was actually a guarantee in itself that nothing was guaranteed.

You could tell he had a heavy heart on the day he told the studio that the new pitch fell through - we were up against two other companies, and the truth was that although we had produced the best pitch out of the three, the larger studio didn't want to take the risk. Our boss then proceeded to tell us that now was the time to start work on our CVs, our portfolios... use the time wisely to get the best opportunities out there. He even mentioned that we can do anything that afternoon - stick around, play games, go home to see loved ones. We all thought we had the best chance at this pitch. It felt like the most obvious route. I even imagined the sign of that new company on the considered offices down the road. I saw in my mind's eye what could have been, and maybe we all believed it. The truth was that we tried our hardest - our absolute hardest to survive, and it wasn't enough.

They caught us totally off-guard. We had expected that the closure would be on Friday, and everyone was working to that point. A week after we were told of the failure of the "big pitch", Tuesday 14th July would be a day I will never forget. As lunch neared, our secretary noted on the security cameras that Matt Booty - the bigwig Midway CEO at the time - was outside the studio "with a bunch of people". The news filtered through the studio like wildfire accompanied by assorted reactions - mostly of the "oh fuck" variety. Everyone's Twitter and Facebook entries suddenly took a turn for the worse. We knew it was coming. Michael Caine slid a bit too far to grab that pallet of gold, and the bus was slowly skidding into the scenic Italian ravine. None of us knew it would happen on that specific day, although the timing couldn't have been any more perfect - it was the day before payday.

There was talk behind closed doors, giving us all a chance to get trinkets and documents together. There was frantic backing-up of files which were intended to be backed-up later on in the week. The anticipation was electric but not unsurprising. Maybe that was the thing - we had anticipated this moment for so long, that it didn't seem that new to us as an experience. They all filtered out of the boardroom and we all met up in the middle of the studio like we normally did with studio meetings. Matt Booty loomed over the other members of his posse - some of the Midway HR-types, a group of unfamiliar people alongside them. He went through the speech he probably rehearsed in the taxi on the way to the studio - we did a great job on Wheelman, we were considered the best studio in the Midway family - but this was obviously not enough. He added that he was there to close the studio that day; the people next to him were the insolvency suits from London who would be actually doing the closing.

We remained as respectful as possible, until it was brought up that there would be no pay headed to our bank accounts. No redunancy. No holiday pay. Nothing. Understandably, some people got quite angry about this - some stormed off in anger to continue to backup and safeguard their future careers and portfolios. Some of us asked why we were not getting paid when the London office was reportedly cash-rich. After all the work, the praise, the highs and lows of it all... it came down to this. I felt relatively at ease knowing that we could all finally stop worrying about the studio, although this brought up a whole lot of questions regarding our personal situations. Some people in the studio depended on that payment - mortgages, kids, wives... it means nothing to a suit. The atmosphere was rather tense, made evenmoreso when the insolvency guy piped up in the softest voice I've heard. Obviously this bloke wasn't suited to speaking to large crowds of fuming developers. There's always that cliche that a company is only as good as the people who are part of it - the lifeblood of the company. In that given moment in time, we weren't anything to these people. We were human detritus which needed to be filtered out of a saleable asset.

The insolvency bloke handed out RP1 forms to fill in. Like every single horrible form you've filled in during your life, this was full of stupid questions and pitfalls. Some people left with the forms to fill in later, but I wanted to fill it in there and then. I didn't want to fill it in again, and never wanted to look at it again. As me and a workmate were in the foyer going over the form with the aforementioned softly-spoken gent, out of the corner of my eye I saw a locksmith enter the building and begin examining the locks to the front door. They were changing the locks as we were there. Accompanying this locksmith was a squat, middle-aged, balding prick whose job was to make sure none of the employees would leave with any office property. He made some charmless small-talk to one of our effects artists as he left with all of his stuff in the stereotypical cardboard box.

Back in the office, this arsehole made even more of a horrible noise by shouting "30 minutes!" like a disgruntled landlord of a busy pub. This was his building now, and he wanted everyone to get the fuck out. I packed up my monitor and made sure to let that arsehole know it was actually mine when he questioned me, to the point that he actually backed away. Maybe this guy does have some kind of soul after all. While this was going on, hands were being shaken, documents were being exchanged. Snippets of chatter supplemented by one word - pub. Like refugees, we scattered out to form a dishelved line towards the local; the beer garden was already half-full of deflated ex-employees. Considering what had just happened, there was still laughter and joking. We still chatted about "what had just happened" and our plans for the future. It was heartbreaking seeing everyone slowly filter away from there... wondering what would become of us as individuals now that our team which was such a solid and incredible machine had been disassembled like a piece of flat-pack furniture.

What really annoyed me was we were planning on giving our boss a send-off on the Friday - we had planned a collection, a big card, gratitude in spades. All the work he did... after that day, he was still working for us. Job days were being organised and companies were coming up to the North East to check us out and consider recruitment opportunities. Even though I had a kind-of-shaky plan B, I was told to go to these job days "just in case". I went to the Bizarre Creations one the next day in the same pub we lamented our sorrows, and there was a lot of people there. Again, we felt like refugees surviving on free tuna sandwiches, but I think the guys from Bizarre were charming to chat to and were genuinely pleased to be of help. Thankfully plan B worked out on the day after, and on the orders of my future boss, I stayed at home instead of going to the Sony Recruitment Day. There's been more job days since then, and we've even got an action group up on Facebook.

Personally, I've been saving since I knew that there would be no guarantees - I've spent the past fortnight living frugally on savings and working on bits and pieces for the new start-up company I'll be working with in August. Other people have been pro-active in their search for new employment - Necessary Force definitely did us no harm for reputation, in fact the new start-up company was helped along by the concept work produced in Necessary Force. It's going to be great working with some of the guys from Midway Newcastle - at least we're saving a bit of the North East's development community... for this is the thing. Midway Newcastle is no more, and a third of the games industry of NewcastleGateshead has fallen by the wayside. I remember when Edge did a very optimistic feature on development in the North East of England - I felt happy to be a part of that, I really did. I think that it's been a shock to people that the company died - I know many people are disappointed that Necessary Force won't be coming out any time soon. I quite like the fact it's this mystical thing which hasn't really been seen, and only experienced - and enjoyed - by Edge, the only journalists to see the game in action.

The epilogue to all this is kind of strange. We heard horrible rumblings which I can't go into detail about, but they only strengthens how despicable it was to not pay us when we were expecting it. Those RP1 forms will mean that we get some kind of monetary compensation back for all our hard work, but only after 8 weeks of waiting for those wonderful legal procedures to take effect. There's been other forms of action too - one of which could be a Phoenix-esque rise from the ashes of Midway Newcastle, but it could be doubtful. After all the heartache we've had to endure, I'm thinking some of us just don't want to be played any more.

One thing is for sure - I am proud to have been part of a strong team of incredible people. The studio was genuinely a nice place to work and reside. I felt it had evolved from a shaky start to a powerhouse of development, talent and experience. It's a crying shame that it ended the way it did - and in the worst possible way too. I think the only way to truly get over it is to consider it the end of one chapter leading to the beginning of a new chapter. I just hope everyone I worked with finds a job, security and happiness.

They deserve it.

It's official - Wii Fit is now a part of my life. Every day at around 7PM, I jump onto the Wii Balance Board and get my BMI reading. The picture above was the first BMI reading I got from it, and I was kind of shocked. Obese? Me? Overweight, yep. I am that. Not obese though. Obese? Thing must be broken. Yet I look down and see the developer belly which was hewn from countless late-nighters and an infinite conveyor belt of takeaway meals. Actually, the way Wii Fit shows you your BMI is kind of horrendous if you're weight conscious - your Mii is on screen and thin to start with, but slowly expands as the BMI increases. The end flourish is a comedy sound effect which does nothing to help the fact that there's a cartoon version of yourself on screen looking pretty fat and miserable.

Wii Fit has helped me in the past two weeks or so to a much more nicer BMI of 30.15 - I yearn for the day when I'm not in the painfully red obese oblong and am sitting in the pink glow of being overweight. It's still not a good place to be, but a hell of a lot better than obese. I've been on the thing often as well as complimenting the workouts with some running again. Ah, I've missed the running. I am determined to lose this gut though. Half my wardrobe now is unwearable - I've got slim-fit hipster jeans slowly getting covered in dust, and shirts which don't button up the way they were designed.

I was extremely lucky to pick up Wii Fit though - I somehow managed to get to PC World the exact moment they got stock in (and ironically it was after a 3km run..!) and now I'm getting serious with some rhythm boxing courtesy of a trainer Mii who sounds a lot like Jason Stratham. It's crazy I come out of those workouts with a sweat on, but it all helps. I've also cut out completely the chocolate and sweets. Biscuits? None of that sweet cakey nonsense for me. I've forsaken my treats for a gutless body. Is it natural to be doing this? I guess I just don't want to bounce as much these days.

I went for my annual visit with my optician at the weekend - although my optician has now become a Scottish fella with worse eyesight than me. Could this even be possible? He managed to put myself at ease with all the wacky things which are currently happening with my eyes. I have floaters - one main one for each eye - which drift into vision sometimes to say hello. I hate floaters. I also have the joylessness of seeing light sources shimmer in a next-gen-bloom-kind-of-way - it was a nice novelty to begin with, walking home with a dreamlike sheen over all. Now? It's kind of bloody irritating, evenmoreso when I was out running one night and not only were the lights all shimmery, but there was mist about - which only seemed to make the effect much worse. Oh, and the glasses constantly steaming up through my exertions too. So, yep. I hate my vision.

Mr. Optician also told me of the things to expect if (when?) one of my retinas decides to detach itself from the back of the eyeball. My old optician told me that I should expect a "curtain effect", though the new optician was a lot more descriptive - expect plenty more floaters than usual (like shitloads more) followed by flashes of white light and then the dreaded curtain effect. When that happens, I should phone them up without hesitation. I've been told that this is what you would expect if you are short of sight. On the good news side of things, he did mention that my eyesight hasn't changed that much - although his final test (a new one I didn't experience last year) proved I may soon need *two* sets of glasses - one for reading and one for normal everyday activity.

Getting old sucks. So does the prospect of spending money on spectacles - although my healthcare covers £200 of it all, so I decided to get a new pair anyway and also a pair of sunglasses in lieu of the pair I lost when I was training for the GNR a few years back. I did feel like not taking my vision for granted when I left there, so I decided to watch Watchmen at the wonderous Tyneside Cinema. Verdict? Really enjoyed it, although I've not read the book in a while so maybe when I re-read the book, I can get angry with the film like half of the critics out there. There were some very brilliant bits in the movie though, and there was some pretty impressive gore too, especially the scrap in the alleyway. People who have seen the movie will know exactly what I mean.

What else? Wheelman is going to be out next week! I'm quite excited about this - feedback on the demo has been majorly positive. There are still the naysayers out there, but we've got the majority and that'll do us. The game should be out the 25th (I've seen 24th somewhere though...) in the US and the 27th in the UK. To celebrate this, Ubisoft have produced a brand new trailer which - quite frankly - kicks serious booty -

Now Ubisoft produce some lovely trailers - they have a knack of marrying mainstream music with the action (check out these trailers for Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed and try and tell me otherwise, oh doubter of things!) and the above is no exception. I think it puts Wheelman firmly in the "fun" department. "Look, it's not a seriously gritty thing like GTA4. It lets you shunt cars, spin 180 and shoot shit and leap from car to car with gay abandon!". This trailer has got a lot of positive feedback, though I think it's interesting that the Midway logo has been toned down somewhat - you can see it at the end, but you need to squint a bit.

I think that says a lot about the company in this day and age. I can imagine the marketing men of Ubisoft getting together and realising that the Midway logo is a negative than a positive. This is sad news, though perhaps unsurprising given the slow descent which has been happening. Vin's also interviewed very, very briefly for GameTrailers TV (Note the caption for the interview doesn't mention Midway Newcastle) and it's pretty much telling that Vin doesn't really seem to know too much about the game. I've crunched on that motherfucker for over a year, the least he can do is know a bit more about it.

Vin recently appeared on a French chat show for Fast and Furious, and looked kind of unsettled when Wheelman was shown on big screens and one of the hosts handed him a controller. The result? Vin bouncing off walls and spectacularly ending the demonstration slamming into a roadblock. Thankfully a cop car exploded and the audience went crazy. Thank god for that exploding cop car, or else it would have looked kind of stupid. The host then showed Vin "how it should be done". Vin tried to rescue the situation describing the "Reverse Cyclone" (It's actually called The Cyclone, Vin) by getting up out of his chair and turning on the spot while shooting an imaginary pistol.

So, yep. I get the feeling that Vin would rather talk more about the new Riddick game than Wheelman - that's the impression I get. Has Wheelman changed from the original vision of a straight-laced GTA clone - in Vin's eyes? Is he pissed off that you can do all that fun arcadey stuff? I'm extremely glad we didn't go down the GTA4 route of chore-like gameplay and the seriousness of it all. GTA San Andreas had parachutes and jetpacks. What happened?

I think Wheelman will do well at retail - I think there's been that turnaround we've all hoped for when the gamers of the world realise what we're not trying to be. "GTA4 Meets Burnout" seems like a good description. It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks - review scores (the ones I've heard of have been very favourable), the game's release, sales figures and that possibility of a sequel. If we get to do a sequel, I wouldn't mind at all - it'll be great to see where else we can take the franchise and add the things that we wanted to, but couldn't.

It'll be interesting to see if Vin's on board too - or at least care enough for a sequel. Maybe if we have an unlockable Riddick skin, he'd be interested.

Edinburgh was a lovely place to visit. Extremely lovely in all ways - lovely people, lovely places, lovely architechture, lovely dramatic mountainous vistas. It's something I've not really done before - gone out to a place by myself. You look at holidays these days and they seem so catered for the couple; the luckless loner doesn't even get much of a look-in. Still, it was another eye-opener in that I can do more independant stuff like that without too much bother. My first act to total independance was leaving home to live by myself down in Wales - don't get me wrong, I cried for a little while when I settled down in the semi-crumbling bedroom I slept in for four-and-a-half years. It seemed plain wrong just to disconnect myself like that, but it was truly something important and I recommend anyone to do it - although I was more motivated by finding one of Mum's many cats pissing and shitting all over my clothes after being trapped in the tumble dryer.

So it was my first time in Scotland and it was just nice to be there. The train journey wasn't that big a deal, really - one-and-a-half hours later and I was there - and the way Edinburgh is laid out, it's a very tourist-friendly place. I spent the first two days there doing the whole tourist thing - I went on ghost tours, underground town tours, visited the castle (which was pretty special for many reasons), bought souvenirs and took many photographs which you can oggle on my facebook (when the thing can actually load up so I can post a link...). There was a weird feel to the place - like a really low light which was doing some weird things to some of my photos. Good things, mind you.

So get this - in Edinburgh Castle, there's a tour which tells you the story of the Honours of Scotland - or the Scottish Crown Jewels. You can go through a twisted, linear corridor full of education, mannequins dressed in period gear and Cromwell trying to steal the Honours as they were hidden away. Now the crazy thing is that the penultimate thing you see are replicas of the Honours - touchable versions of the crown, sceptre and sword. Around the corner? The actual Honours guarded and surrounded by a glass case - how crazy is that? You get the tourist speil and then the real thing. I liked the Castle for it had a lot of things to see and do including the One O'Clock gun which fires across Edinburgh every day except Sundays. There are more things I needed to see as a tourist, but I'm definitely going again this year for my birthday, so I'm very much looking forward to it!

I also met up with a bunch of Midwayians on the weekend - the Saturday was a pub crawl, although some of the pubs seemed to be quite dead and lifeless. We had some Polish pubs, some old man pubs and finally ending with a visit to a rather terrible nightclub called The Citrus Club which also featured one of the worst toilets known to man. You don't want to know. To be fair, the thing started well in The Guildford Arms - one of the oldest pubs in Edinburgh, and one which has some beautiful exterior and interior ornate detailing. We were celebrating not only the closure of Wheelman, but also celebrating the depature of a veteran of Midway Newcastle. I was sad to see him go this week, but he sounds like he has his life nicely planned - something involving holing up in an exotic part of the world where living is cheap and mortgages are laughed at.

Oh, and Wannaburger. Such a lovely discovery on my trip - they do killer burgers and some very lush milk shakes. Recommended!

The next project is currently in a state of pre-production flux. I've come off the few tasks of Wheelman left; one of which I was particularly pissed off about, but kind of understandable considering we were working like trojans. I've taken up running again in a determined mission to lose some weight. It's been rough, though - taking any break in regular exercise, it's difficult to get back into it. I managed 3 kilometers on Sunday, but I'm sure with practice I'll be back to my svelt self. I have many shirts and jeans which no longer fit me, and that saddens me. I feel a lot healthier too - the trap of falling into the whole takeaway food thing when working late nights meant I had quite a few health issues which have thankfully taken a back seat. There's talk that we won't be crunching like crazy people for over a year.

The Ubisoft thing is an interesting prospect - it's being called a "strategic alliance" by the PR teams, and although the naysayers are spitting predictions that this is a death knell, it's not. Check out who makes movies these days - there's many studios getting together for creating movies and pooling their resources. The economic climate these days ain't good as we are constantly reminded by the news, so this is more a shrewd decision than an act of desperation. There's some definite positives to the deal - Ubisoft can put their marketing clout behind the game and give it an audience it deserves. It does sadden me that there's people out there who want to get the game now "It's an Ubisoft game" rather than "It's a Midway game". Yep, this is what we're up against. I don't read comments these days, though when I mistakenly read them, it's deflates the soul ever so slightly.

Don't read the comments, kids.

The "PS3 Is An Ass To Develop For" story which was picked up by Kotaku after a podcast interview with our executive producer didn't make for easy reading for me either. I'm not sure how I feel really about that. Maybe it was a planned move to get more publicity by invoking the rage of both 360 and PS3 fanboys in a single swoop (over 30,000 views of this story already), but I'm hoping there's no real lasting damage to this. As part of the development team, we're always told about keeping confidential over many things - the Ubisoft deal being one of them. I had prods and pokes from some ex-workmates from old companies, and I had to be all mysterious and sage-like. I also know that Midway PR do scope out this blog and I've been positive about Wheelman - not because it's the "done" thing in the eyes of the company, but because I believe it's a genuinely exciting title. It just saddens me when detrimental stuff happens which shouldn't ever happen in our position at this moment in time. We need to be winning back the hearts and minds of the gaming public, not turning them away.

Shaun also appears in the latest Major Nelson podcast! I listen to the show regularly, and although Larry Hyrb seemed rather enthused by it (and a bit surprised, grr), his co-host "e", wasn't that keen. I will have to bother him with Xbox Live messages until he sees sense.

I've been getting on with my own thing at work for "Project 2" - essentially a lot of research and development. We've got a lot of planning already done and I'm really stoked by some of the concept art and character art which has been created already. I've been grabbing recent showreels of motion graphics studios and the like to get a bead of what's fresh and new in the world of graphic design - they invoke inspirational bubbles which turn into concept sketches and ideas. I really want to do something special with the front end of Project 2 because I wasn't that enthused by how the front end for Wheelman turned out - you'll see in the demo. There was a recent presentation of Project 2 along with a pretty incredible mood video which was put together by a lot of different art disciplines. I've only just started to get back into the swing of mock-up design and have a good idea how the front end can progress... but that mood video. Ohmy. You could have put that on gametrailers.com and it wouldn't have looked shabby all.

Speaking of which..... new Wheelman gameplay footage!

There's also some 3D screenshots knocking about - my particular favourite being the bike chase for the way the sunlight glints off stuff. Please check out this stuff and download the demo on Xbox Live and PSN when it becomes available sometime this month.

The fact I now have extra time on my hands means I can now concentrate on some side-project stuff including The Cult of Karl video. I'm currently working over the animatic with some finished artwork and realising that the video should be in the sexy form of 16:9 whereas it's been produced in 4:3 - big mistake. I've had to re-position all kinds of transitions and the like, though I feel great working on it again - it's been in cold storage for too long. The strange thing is that when I work on animated stuff, I feel like I belong in that discipline. This brings me nicely onto one of the things I wanted to share since I visited rllmukforum.com for a brief visit (and they are these days, although I hear that the mods have since cleaned up the acts of the arseholes who frequent there) and one of my PMs was a question regarding...

"How did you get into the games industry?"

Well, it's been a bit of a strange journey - I've been passionate about videogaming for some time since the days of the Atari VCS. Yep, that makes me feel rather ancient, but I'm glad that I spent my time exploring virtual worlds. I also enjoyed the interfaces of later games on newer systems - I think I had a thing for pixel art and I practiced that on an ancient Spectrum game creation tool called the Skateboard Construction Kit. I know, a weird thing to indulge in, but it got me into tiling stuff together and learning more about pixel art. I think I appreciated loading screens too and how artists could be more creative with restrictions. At this point, I also hooked up with a school friend called Andrew Nibbs, and we would spend time in his basement after school working on videogames. I'd do the graphics, he'd do the code. It was quite a pleasant set-up as I fondly remember the huge toasted doorsteps graced with butter accompanied by generous mugs of tea that his mother would bring us. I guess that was the first development house I worked for..!

I then did the whole education thing - I still believe perhaps I should have cut down a bit on the education, but it did mean that I was trained up in that work ethic of 9-5. I did a graphic design course followed by an BA(Hons) Animation course. I think this is why I feel the way I do working on The Cult of Karl video - I had the mindset that I would be an animator when I left that course. I remember when we were took on an outing to Annecy in 1997 to check out the animation festival they had there. It was quite enlightening in that we had many companies like Dreamworks, Pixar and the like who were extremely eager for talent. Sadly we were in our first year of animation, so we were definitely not prepared for it. The sun shone with optimism and we were all happy to think to the future where we'd be in Annecy again with portfolios and hopes... it wasn't meant to be though.

When we arrived back in Annecy in 1999 with our portfolios and a lot more animation knowledge (although we could have had more considering the place I was taught wasn't that much cop), we discovered that no-one was hiring at that time. Omniously, the rain clouds hung about during our visit and our portfolios became handy make-shift umbrellas as we trudged through the puddles. Thunder cracked above our heads and our hearts were full of dread. Thankfully my big break for the industry came when I was given a phone number by one of the computer teachers who worked at College. It was a phone number with the name "Gavin Morgan" which I ended up phoning in semi-desperation and demanded to know if there were any vacances for me. The company I phoned up turned out to be Jester Interactive, and the guy who picked up the phone thankfully wasn't Gavin Morgan - so I got a job there as a Trainee Artist working on a game for the Dreamcast called Hellgate.

The crazy thing is that I soon ended up jumping from the position of Trainee Artist to Lead Artist. Now this is quite crazy because I kind of protested this as a bad thing - the leap from the bottom of the rung to the upper rungs of the hierarchy of art-related jobs in the games industry was stellar at best, but ill-advised at worst. I felt I was pretty inexperienced and realised that being a Lead Artist meant I had a lot more admin in my life, and a lot less actual artwork. I did have my hand in a lot of disciplines though - I animated cut scenes, helped out with world creation, singularly created the front end for the game and generally got on with any other minor jobs there. At that point I wasn't too good with communication with other artists which soon lead to me being demoted back to Artist - a move which I didn't feel that angry about because it felt like a good thing to do.

I worked at Jester for some time on several projects - some of which were canned to the depths of the unknown when the company had a bit of an identity crisis. I also worked on Music 3000 - which was a time where we had a lot of fun creating content for the title. I did all of the front end interface design including some of the "skins" which were used to decorate the interface with. I think that was a happy studio at that point - the studio stereo was cranked up with sweet tunes and we got on with it. The last major game I worked on there was TT Superbikes, where I had become a Lead Environment Artist responsible for a lot of the architectural detailing of the track. This was quite a rewarding job as it was a challenge to recreate reality with polygon limits (the game was on PlayStation 2), although when the game was done, I resigned. I think one of the reasons for the resignation was the management's distrust in us as a workforce - there was suspicions and the place didn't feel like a good atmosphere to work for. So I left.

Next up, I worked with Tim Wright (aka CoLD SToRAGE) - the ex-creative director of Jester - for a company he started up called Checkmate Solutions where I'd work on the interfaces (graphical and UI design) of some eJay products - music creation software. The office was a full and energetic place on my first day, but this was all a bit of a lie - half the office was there just to hoodwink some grant agency to give Tim some money. Did this surprise me? Nope. This was the wonderful world of games development, and little tricks like that didn't really shock me. "Ah, business as usual, then". It was pretty hard work in that payment wasn't that regular - we'd have milestones to achieve and if we achieve those milestones, the company got paid. I probably got paid half of what I should have been paid due to all this, so I ended up having to become freelance for a year to supplement my meagre wages.

When all the eJay stuff was done and work had kind of dried up, Tim let me go and I concentrated on the freelancing - although I was actively seeking full-time work. From there, I got some lucky breaks doing tutorials for magazines as well as learning about how important it was to network and communicate with people - a guy I sent an e-mail to regarding how much I loved his work called Derek Yu, actually hooked me up with an LA company called Say Design, where I would be working with them on Flash animation, graphics and mock-ups for web-based games. While this was going on, I would be going to interviews to various development houses for work as an Interface Artist and after some interview failures, eventually Midway Newcastle took me under their wing in 2006 for which I was extremely grateful for. So far I've worked on Rush on the PSP as a GUI Artist and Wheelman on 360/PS3/PC, where I evolved into a Senior UI Artist. I've learnt a great deal about different disciplines - working in a larger studio means that there's more departments and more communication to take part in.

So anyone who wants to work in the games industry - I'll give you some handy pointers. Play videogames. Play them as often as you can and get passionate about the games you are playing. Make mental notes about what impresses you about those games you play. Also get onto videogame news websites and sites like gametrailers.com, where you'll get the latest info on games. Soak it in. The passion is an important thing which will help you greatly. This has been a very videogame-orientated post; I think I've managed to get a lot off my chest - hopefully more when I start losing all this weight...

Oh, and I am quite tempted to get a PS3 now I have experienced the lovelyness of Killzone 2. Maybe it's time to forgive and forget Sony for their moments of insanity. Maybe.

This blog has been drifting about my consciousness since last Monday after touching down at Newcastle International with memories of the mass gathering of the gaming populace of Europe - Leipzig 08. The last trade show I attended was ECTS 2002 in London when I was working for Jester Interactive - it was a bitter-sweet affair as ECTS 2000 was so much more memorable and for a Dreamcast obsessive like myself, the stuff of dreams. It was during the time Sega were in denial regarding the imminent death of the console and this was supplemented by an infamous e-mail by Peter Moore (yep, him with those guns) who reassured us all that everything was fine and we should all just keep developing for the Dreamcast. In the case of ECTS, I was the obsessive gamer whose nose involuntarily bled with joy at the sights of magazine features made flesh - I was the carrier of the swag and the drinker of the PlayStation2-flavoured Kool Aid. Leipzig 08 would be a different matter for me entirely...

Now the thing about travelling to Leipzig is that for anyone reading this, they would probably consider it no big deal to hop on a plane and travel to Germany. For me, it was due to the fact that this would be my first time on a plane. Yep, you read that right. A man of 33 years of age not ascending to the heavens and looking down on the planet with godlike vision. It was no fault of my own - I was brought up in an environment where holidays for us involved travelling down to the nearby beach. On foot. There was one special occasion where we ended up in a caravan at the foot of Snowdonia, though air travel? Forget it. As I type, my dear old Mum is still hasn't flown. She doesn't even know how to drive a car, bless her. Maybe I've taken after my Mum in that respect of not trying things straight away and sitting on my laurels. This was an opportunity I couldn't miss though.

I did almost consider dropping out. There's a part of my brain which is to blame for my virginity in many things - the "don't want to rock the boat" part of my brain. When I was offered the job at Midway Newcastle, those devious synapses snapped into attention and I almost refused the offer. Thankfully I've learnt to reign in that indecision and doubt and just went ahead with what my heart told me. Get out of this flat. It's killing you slowly. It was a big deal moving, but in hindsight I'm glad I did it. Same with buying this place. I almost balked out of getting a mortgage at the interview in my local bank. I'm here now and feel a lot more secure and a lot less stressed. I rammed down those uncertain thoughts and responded in the positive - I was going to Leipzig!

This meant I had to bone up on air travel though - I asked the advice of many people and got some very handy hints. "Chewing is important to keep your ears from popping" commented one workmate. "Taking off is fantastic!" mentioned another. On forums I was advised to limit myself to 100ml liquid containers, not to take the piss at the security terminals and simply enjoy it. I bought my first ever suitcase! I grabbed some euros! I received homework from work! Yep, homework. Leipzig wasn't going to be a holiday - it would be four days of working at the Wheelman stand as part of the Midway stand. We had reams of documentation to read up on about the game. We also had practical tests where we would have to talk through the first mission of the game - Frantic - to our producers, who posed as inquisative members of the press in case any of them wandered into our stand. The thing is that we weren't really the types of people who would normally demonstrate games to strangers, but by the end of the boot camp I think we were more than prepared for it. One downer was we were playing an old build of the game from E3 - so there was some bugs which had to be skillfully avoided while playing the game. They're fixed now, but it was hard to concentrate on playing the game and talking to people about the game when you had to avoid wayward traffic which appeared to make a beeline straight towards your car.

The whole process of airports was something of a new thing for me. It was exciting and interesting but I wasn't actually scared about flying - I just wanted to know what to expect so I felt a bit more at ease. Thankfully there was a bar at Newcastle International, so a quick double Gin and Tonic (the lass behind the counter was unsurprised at my joy that they only did doubles) and I felt a bit more ready for it. It was weird to see grizzled travellers go through the motions while I was floundering - at security I took everything out of my coat pockets and then put my coat on top of it all only to be told by the security guard that "I could have just took my coat off and put it in the tray". Remembering the advice not to be a smart arse, I let it pass and soon found myself in the departure lounge looking out onto our plane to Charles de Gaule Airport in Paris.

Christ, it looked small.

I wasn't too phased by the size of the thing - jumbo jet or small passenger plane, I just wanted to get up there and see what all the fuss was about. One thing which was a neat surprise for us all was that the plane wasted no time in bombing down the runway and taking off and when we shot up into the air, it was a moment I'll never forget. I was transfixed with what was outside my window as we drifted through the low-laying wisps of cloud. I turned once to look at the interior and felt a bit strange seeing it at a very definite angle of 45 degrees. I quickly turned back to see the ground disappear in a transition of ghostly whiteness while I rapidly chewed to keep those wayward ears of mine in check. Emerging through those clouds to a fresh new sun-bathed world was quite the thing. I have vertigo but only when I'm clinging onto ladders - but this felt like I was totally safe. I often compared it to travelling on train - you don't really consider you're travelling on a train, you sit there and accept it. In the same way, I was accepting we were thousands of feet in the air and heading towards Paris at quite some speed.

That was something else I couldn't quite get my head around - when the plane banked, everyone stayed in their seats. The sensation was quite an interesting one - looking out of my nearby window and seeing nothing but cloud, then looking out of the other windows and seeing nothing but sky. What also wasn't lost on me was that 2 hours later we were in Paris... I mean, that completely freaked me out. I'm so used to land travel and seeing scenery zip by horizontally to give me indication of movement and yet here I was looking at exotic French candies and the confused signage of Charles De Gaule. It was quite something. We had some dinner in a faux-pub in a dingy part of the airport, where I was forced to order salad with my Croque Monseiur. Salad, as we should all know, is the devil incarnate. It's the garnish which shouldn't be. It's like a creepy uncle sitting on an armchair watching Match of the Day while slowly scratching his crotch. If I had my way, salad would be banned and replaced with chips.

The second flight was just as long in a plane which was even smaller, though already I considered myself something of the flying expert now. I almost didn't even pay attention to the classic display of safety and emergency measures by one of the air crew. It was strange looking down on the patchwork countryside littered with towns and lakes of Germany and feeling like you were hovering over a different country. We touched down at the modest airport just outside Leipzig and I had one thought in my mind - this was the most countries I had ever been in the space of a day. Mum would be proud! We were met at the airport by Sascha - one of the two drivers who were responsible for carting our tired asses from airport to hotel and from hotel to venue. The SUV was decorated in Midway logos of titles at the show including our own blessed Wheelman logo I have learned to grow to love with repeated exposures.

We had practically spent almost all day travelling, so we made ourselves comfortable in our hotel rooms - which were very nice indeed. Again, it was the first time I had stayed in Germany and also in a swanky hotel. The Westin Leipzig definitely ticked all the right boxes except for one - tea and coffee-making facilities. In all the hotels I have visited on my travels, there was always a kettle, some tea bags and some biscuits. Not here. A well-stocked mini-bar and some tasty European treats but no sign of that stalwart of all things British. It was mentioned that this is the way in Germany, so I better get used to it. I am something of a tea addict - growing up I drank nothing but tea and after scoffing at people who drank "the posh stuff" like Earl Grey and Lapsang Souchong, I succumbed and delighted in the myriad of assorted tea tastes.

At dinner in one of the hotel's restaurants, we caught up with some of the guys who already worked that day - the first day when the Conference was open - and we got a taste of what to expect. It was extremely busy and many, many people were interested in what Midway was offering - not just Wheelman, but also TNA Impact and the insanely popular MK vs DC Universe title. We learnt that Midway had two stands at the event - we had the sparkling edifice of the consumer stand along with synonymous booth babes and free swag - and we had the more serious Midway stand in the Business Centre part of the event. This dealt with all dealings with retail as well as interviews with press. I was impressed to find out it even had its own kitchen.

The next morning I was in a sense of confusion at breakfast - there was so much to choose from and I must have looked quite hopeless trying to work out what the hell to do. Did I need a tray? Of course not! That didn't stop me taking one in a sense of pure Britishness until I realised our tables were laid out with the civilized trappings of cutlery and plates. I eventually settled on the German equivalent of a cooked breakfast, though soon realised very quickly that sausages in Germany aren't all that great. The tough outer skin I wasn't that big a fan of, and the sausages had cooled to the point it felt like I was chewing down on severed fingers. Nomnomnom.

Our team formed up outside the hotel in our eye-catching red Wheelman shirts and soon piled into another form of transport which I would be experiencing for the first time - a limousine! This was a special limo for promotion of another Midway title - This Is Vegas. It was at the show but only in the form of a looping trailer. In the morning sun, I noticed a lot more of Leipzig - it's a strange place in that it kept on reminding me of Raccoon City in one of the Resident Evil films. All that skyscraper and tall buildings and hardly anyone on the streets. Graffiti of various (thankfully mostly appealing) forms took over a lot of the area along with the huge advertising spend of Sony's LittleBigPlanet - they had taken over an entire side of a building near our hotel with a massively impressive mural. I learnt later on that we were going to have our own Wheelman city-based attraction, but the plans to put half a Pontiac G8 poking through a building were put on hold by those pesky Health and Safety people who appear to be ruining the fabric of our lives entirely.

Another weird thing about Leipzig is this - the town feels empty and deserted and yet the venue is a very, very professional and adequate affair. In fact, it was more than adequate - it felt like it was made just for the purpose of fronting this annual affair with relative ease. We passed through the Business Centre and grabbed some water for the stand while oggling at the various meeting rooms, demo pods and varied munchies which decorated the tables. One of the guys who worked yesterday showed some of the freebies we were giving out - Wheelman high-visibility jackets and Wheelman licence plate holders to name but two. I suddenly drifted back to my time in ECTS and secretly yearned to have those freebies in a swag bag to take back home and needlessly fill up the empty spaces in my batchelor flat with anything but walled static. I shook this profound feeling off as we strode towards one of the four massive consumer halls.

It was very hard not to involuntarily let out a feeling of elation and excitement seeing the stands of other companies showcasing the games which we as gamers could be playing in months to come. Sony had a massive presence there and the LittleBigPlanet stand was unmissable - it was overpowering in its cutesy attraction. We strode on passing the massive EA stand, the huge Ubisoft congregation of titles, Rockstar's surprisingly modest no-bullshit stand and then - back out into the daylight. The morning sun was quite warm to me considering the same time yesterday I was enjoying cooling Northern breezes, though I quickly acclimatised myself as we continued like the cast of Reservior Dogs with intent and determination - into the next consumer hall. In the distance I could see our stand - it wasn't as overpowering as EA's or Ubisoft's stand, but still just as noticable and unique.

As we approached, we could see the Wheelman stand - our home for the next four days. The stand was like a circular monolith to the celebration of rotation - several spinning monitor screens managed to hypnotise people by keeping the Wheelman trailer from spinning with them; above the stand was an orgy of tyres and montage while a large life-size cut-out of Vin Diesel stood guard outside. Essentially, the stand was also designed as an oven for cooking human beings - as we found out as soon as the doors of Leipzig opened and the unmistakable foot-falls of gamers echoed around the hall as they made a beeline for the demo-pod of choice. Before this startling vision, I took in the whole ambience of our stand -  we had a portion of a TNA Wrestling ring with which a wig-adorning German announcer would whip up the crowds into a frenzy supplemented by an scantily-clad booth babe and the head of our Creative Director spread out across 16 television screens.Our pod of six demo stations soon became occupied and a team of three-four people including myself talked through the game to many, many people.

It was surprising how easy I got into the whole "selling the game" thing to people - it can be so easy to be unsincere about going through the storyline of Wheelman to someone for the hundreth time, but I really relished it. In my mind, we were salesmen and we were there to sell the game. On the first two days, we perhaps over-sold it - we were over-trained. This isn't a bad thing though as we came across as extremely knowledgeable regarding all aspects of the game. It was also relentlessly hard work. When I'm in the studio, I sit on my arse and move fingers on a keyboard and mouse. It's not really the most tiring thing in the world, though it was something of a rude awakening to be on one's feet for 9-10 hours keeping an eye on multiple monitors to point players in the right direction in the training mission.

This was something of an issue - our build of the game had no subtitles so we were constantly showing people where to go. A lot of the people who sampled the game were German and the ones who couldn't speak/understand English actually were able tor read English - which helped the next day with a freshly-subtitled build. In the mission, you're a getaway driver for an old flame called Lumi Vega (I'm getting flashbacks here...!) and you basically follow her directions; there's no map for the first mission to keep with the whole cinematic feel of the game though it's hard to hear Lumi when A) You don't understand spoken English and B) our wiggy announcer chanted "Midway!" repeatedly to the sounds of questionable Euro-dirge. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being super-critical here - just that it seemed to be going against our pitches.

It was a constant stream of people - I greeted them with a cheery "heeelllo!" and then asked whether they spoke English, then talked them through the plot and the intracicies of Vehicle Melee. Actually, that was one of the perks of the job - knowing that their faces would light up when we showcased stuff like Vehicle Melee, Air Jack and Cyclone. We were told that those were the things we needed to show to "sell" the game and it was very, very addicting to demonstrate Air Jack and see eyes light up. There was genuine surprise and it was a very powerful argument for those visitors to our booth who thought our game was another GTA-wannabe. "You can't do that in GTA" one of us mentioned to an inevitably surprised convert. It was relentless though - time seemed to stand still in that booth and as soon as one person or group of people left, we'd get more people. There's that couple of seconds of resetting the dev kit, grabbing some water to parch my dry throat and get back to greeting and selling the game.

We had quite a few people interested in the prospect of the game being released on PC, while an incredibly large majority of people - and I'm not exaggerating there - absolutely loved the game. I think the proof is definitely in the pudding. People have read about the title online and possibly read about some of the criticisms and putdowns from some so-called gaming news sites and forums, and it's only when you show and let them sample the game that the penny drops. We're not trying to be like GTA - it's a happy medium of different inspirations to form a cohesive experience. We're a tasty cocktail of GTA, Burnout and Pursuit Force, cherry-picking the coolest bits from other titles and inspired by some of the best car chases in movie history, and crafting a game out of it. The over-training actually paid off when a member of the press came into the booth and I instantly switched to Salesman Mode and even persauded him to stick around to check out the Air Jack and Cyclone - he was very, very happy to have stopped by. I think that's the thing - the nice surprise people get from expecting one thing and getting something totally different.

There were some much-needed breathers during some of the very successful signing sessions - TNA wrestlers Christian Cage and Christy Hemme were about to throw freebies into the crowds and sign stuff while we gave out autograph cards (I've become a keen TNA fan since catching it on Bravo - takes me back to my late night WCW watching sessions...!). Mortal Kombat's Ed Boon also popped down to sign things as the Midway announcer chanted "Ed Boon!" in a hypnotic rhythm. In that moment, I think I felt like I was very much part of Midway as a whole - it's easy to work in Midway Newcastle and feel like we're just one studio, but far from it - we're part of many studios and this trip was also a great opportunity to meet some of the guys from those other studios. We met with the German Marketing guys who were extremely welcoming and very friendly people. I met Mr. Hector Sanchez who's producing Mortal Kombat Versus DC Universe - which was strange because when we met it was like we already knew each other if only from checking out each others' Facebook page updates (Also his MKasts make for incisive listening!). I met Jason Jones from the London office -  I think he's an IT bloke, though I managed to rustle him up some freebies even if it meant me shamefully wrestling a free Rock Band t-shirt from a women for the benefit of Jason's niece.

How did I end up in that situation? Well, the final two days were actually a lot more smartly used - instead of burning ourselves out over-selling the game, we'd show Cyclone and then if there was no-one in the queue, showcase those special moves. This also meant we'd have half a day to explore the booths so I spent some time grabbing swag for Jason. One horribly sickening thing I noted during my varied excursions through the halls of Leipzig was the phenomemon of "T-shirt". Massed crowds of swag-hungry gamers gathered in frenzied swarms at the stages of major booths as announcers shouted "T-shirt?" and threw out varied garments to be grabbed and wrestled to the ground. It was startling to see as I came from a more measured and civilized time where t-shirts were given freely and without a fight. Kudos has to go to Rockstar Games for their take on "T-shirt" - eight-player Midnight Club LA network race, winner gets a T-shirt. Simple. A sense of achievement and dignity was rewarded to those lucky winners. I still feel a tinge of guilt wrestling that t-shirt away from a crestfallen woman. She could have been grabbing it for her son, for fuck's sake.

I grabbed a modest amount of swag, though it was pretty inspiring to see many people walk around the event with Midway bags and the Wheelman painting I had seen crafted a mere month or so back in the studio. The Midway stand was kind of guilty of "T-shirt"-type antics, though it was perhaps a bit more generous than the sparse offerings of other stands. I would say that though, right?

I queued up for a few games - Pure was a nice surprise although they really needed to tell people how to pull off those amazing stunt when getting gnarly air. The longest queue wait was Mirror's Edge - it was strange because I had a secondary motive to try and score one of the rather fashionable t-shirts which sported the main character beautifully realised in Anime form. The wait in the queue was explained soon after an hour when we discovered "VIP"s were jumping the queue holding onto sweaty VIP cards. I struck up a conversation with some guys from the UK - a bunch of Irish lads who run a website called Citizen Game (there's actually another one based in the US, doh) and talked about my feelings of some of the games of the show and, of course, bigging up Midway and Wheelman. They mentioned they wanted to be the next Kotaku and I advised them that this shouldn't be said aloud - besides, Kotaku seem to have it in for Midway. Plus Brian Crecrete is kind of creepy with that beard.

I eventually got into the now-mythical booth and was pleasantly surprised by the game - it looked lush and played quite nicely although there was some little glitches and bugs which I'm sure will be ironed out soon enough. It didn't last that long for a demo though - about 10 minutes? I made sure I used this experience for the next day when we were trying to show as many people as possible the joys of Wheelman. As for the Citizen Game boys, they did mention me in one of their gargantuan podcasts, though I came across as a complete arsehole dissing LittleBigPlanet.

Okay, LittleBigPlanet. I love your look and style. I like your character design. I love the opportunity of creativity, but jeez - you're a bit spongy to play and your levels have a depth to them which meant when I played in a team of four people, we kept on mis-judging those horrible swinging girders due to the fact we weren't on the same horizontal plane as they were. Doh. This is a valuable lesson - never, ever trust Gametrailers scoring from their userbase. I was thinking about this yesterday night on my walk home through the sleeping truckers and the hiding bunnies of the industrial estate... it's okay to mark a film trailer because, well, you're watching it and that's all a film does - it entertains through visuals. Now a game trailer on the other hand... that's totally different. You can have the world's best game trailer but the game could ultimately fail to deliver when you get a controller in your hands to play it. That's how I felt about LittleBigPlanet - it has promise, but ultimately it wasn't all that filling. I speak the truth!

Killzone 2 was a nice surprise - it actually looked a lot nicer than I expected and played decent too. I think my rekindled Sony interest came when I was at the rather exceptional Sony Party playing Wipeout HD in Frenzy mode (soooo lovely) while listening to the best DJ set around and drinking Champage Red Bulls. Yep, the game which hooked me into the original PlayStation was working its magic again. The actual event took place on the Sony stand and was a hive of other games-related press and exhibitors with which I entertained with my expert dance skills and the fact these skills were projected up on a huge video wall for all to see. Sadly the free drink policy didn't cover free food, which was confounding and somewhat crazy to say the least, but at that point I felt like we - as a company - were all one big family. The post-party buzz in the Hotel bar afterwards only strengthened this resolve.

I didn't really get a chance to play many other games - Guitar Hero On Tour on the huggable DS was a nice diversion but was obvious that the unit was designed for kids as my fat, useless fingers testified. Lego Batman was very familiar to me as I played Lego Star Wars religiously, but it was great fun. The aforementioned Midnight Club LA was a solid racer with some lovely GTA4-fuelled visuals.. I only wish I had more time to play more games. I really wanted to check out the new Bionic Commando, Street Fighter 4, Diablo 3... *sigh* I did get to check out our so-called competition and was happy to report back to the troops that there was nothing to worry about at all. The four days were relentless hard work, but I ended up making new friends with some very, very lovely people. My one regret was that I didn't go out with Hector and the others on the second night, though my body and mind was in no right state of mind. One of the guys told me off and mentioned that this was "par for the course" although it sounded like some crazy adventure through dodgy bars, nightclubs and a torrential rainstorm. I think I eventually got the whole "work hard, play hard" thing even if I called it quits early due to the fact we were drinking on "school nights".

We even were priviledged enough to see the lifecycle of the festival from early birth to inevitable death as we helped pack away the dev kits and watched as teams of workers streamed into the now vacated stands with step-ladders, drills and the occassional fork lift truck. This time was spent reflecting on the event as a whole - it welcomed more than 200,000 visitors - a lot more than this year's toned-down E3 event in Los Angeles. I was fascinated by the way the event was like a living organism as people migrated from stand to stand for those bloody t-shirt giveaways and Guitar Hero-fronted live performances. It was an exciting mess of colour, noise and activity and I loved every bit of it. Interestingly enough, next year a rival event is going to be happening in Cologne - the argument for this event is that Cologne is a lot more connected than Leipzig. Even though Leipzig has a truly stunning facility, the city itself is sadly lacking in accommodation and, well, glitz. The happy-shiny LittleBigPlanet advertising was in direct contrast to buildings covered in graffiti set to be demolished whenever the time was right - which felt like never. Leipzig is a city stuck in a time bubble which seriously needs to burst for the event to compete. Midway will be attending the Cologne do instead of the Leipzig shindig next year and if they ask me to help out, I would do so in a heartbeat.

The journey home was a bit... weird. I got into the mindset of a seasoned traveller once again and now I was taking for granted all the cool shit which was going on outside my window. Saying that, the final journey home was pretty amazing - we flew over NewcastleGateshead (I could see work!) and the plane banked across and over the sea before drifting into land. I think I'm something of a addict now and it won't be long - like all addicts - until I'm on bigger and longer air journeys. I don't think I've suffered from jetlag yet, so there's always time. What is important is that I feel a lot more confident booking a flight and jumping on a plane. The novelty of being somewhere far away in a short space of time is quite seductive.

Work is still very much a large part of my life now regarding Wheelman's development - I've been crunching since the start of the year, so this final push to get the game to a submission stage means I still keep on doing what I always do. I think there is a core group of people who have crunched as much as me - evenmoreso. We have something to prove and we want to make sure our first AAA title will be as entertaining and accessible as we can make it. The game recently had another touch of graphical polish added to it, and Barcelona looks even more inviting as our skies look bluer and richer in colour. I think it's a good thing to distance ourselves from the cliche of next-gen brown. What is quite a nice feeling is knowing that we're now finishing up on the title - my schedule is considerably shorter than it was and it's great to see missions converge into a playable build from start to finish. There's still work to do, but I think there's an tangible current of excitement in the studio. We also have seen a sneaky preview of the marketing bits and pieces and it looks pretty super-sexy thanks to the artistry of the talented Pete Thompson in the concept department. I miss that department. All I have at the moment is programmer chat...

Not really had much time to do anything else really - as the huge month-long gap in blog entries can testify..! I'm finding spare time to continue my Cult of Karl work and hopefully I'll have an animatic ready to be put up on YouTube in time for the re-birth of the Gervais/Merchant/Pilkington podcast although the preview on iTunes left me a bit cold - they dusted off the old anecdote of slugs eating the glue from stamps again. I also hope Gervais and Merchant don't bully Karl like they did with their recent podcasts - it's horrible listening and feels like the pair are genuinely envious of Karl's popularity. Oh, and a masterstroke from Ben Folds - leaking his own album with a collection of fake songs he produced with his band in a day in the studio, yet the fake album is very, very listenable indeed!

One more thing - the 360 is back to normal. For the moment. I've been tainted by those terrifying red rings of doom though so I've been playing the 2D delights of Braid (the hype is very much jusitified) and Castle Crashers. I always feel a sense of regret for Microsoft droppng the ball with the 360 - not with the service and the games, but more for the console itself. I've never known a console like it to be so unreliable and uncertain. I still won't be getting a PlayStation 3 any time soon though - lest I forget I am still all mortgaged up. Strongbad's new Wii game was enjoyable although quite short, but I did giggle with glee at my own interactive Teen Girl Squad episode. I'll be cautiously considering getting other Wii games even though the Wii console will gladly take credit card details and nothing else.

That owl hoot outside signifies the end of this blog entry. I'll update more when I get a chance!

I'm playing catch-up with many, many videogames. This weekend has so far been full of the joys of new game purchases and playing through games that all the serious gaming fraternity cracked ages ago. One of these games is BioShock - from the makers of the scary-as-heck System Shock 2, BioShock shares a lot with this historical game. For a start, it's set in an oppressive atmosphere and you have deranged lunatics wandering about and mumbling/shouting stuff in your general direction. While hiding behind corners.

Me? Scared?

I used to relish seeing the looks on the faces of people who had yet to encounter Resident Evil on the PSOne. I'd always show survival horror virgins a perfectly normal corridor in a slightly sinister mansion and asked them to walk down the corridor. SMASH! Zombie dog jumps through the closed window and the person holding the joypad yells a random expletive. This is proof that scary videogames do just that - scare. Well, the good ones anyway. BioShock is one of those titles which will have you freaking out at times. The audio design is nigh-on perfect at sending chills down your spine, and the location is a brilliantly-realised underwater city built by a bloke called Ryan who also littered the place with Orwellian propaganda and a variety of interesting characters.

But I freak out when I play it in the same way I freaked out playing Doom 3 and Condemned. No wonder I gravitated towards my recent purchase...

Itsa Me!

"Maaaarriioo!". No freaks with hooks for hands here - just good ol' fashioned family-friendly fun. This is the thing - the hardcore who love their 360 and PS3 will diss the Wii for the lack of graphical grunt, but a lot of games I've played on the Wii exude fun in spades. Excite Truck had me yelling and hooting like a little kid - and although it's not as pretty as some more high-end next-gen titles, it has heart and soul. Mario is a lot like that too - a game where you know the developers have gotten together and vow to make your experience enjoyable and nourishing. Super Mario Galaxy is the new Wii title and I was blown away from the start.

Blown Away?

Graphically Super Mario Galaxy is beautiful. It has a very strange dream-like quality about it - when you begin the game heading towards the trademarked castle of Peach, the moonlight catches the crescent-shaped clouds. Stars rain from the sky and you realise you can use the Wii Remote to collect these stars. This is a trick which comes in its own very quickly and soon becomes second nature when playing. All hell soon breaks lose as Bowser comes along to capture not just Peach but the whole castle. Mario is blasted from the castle and lands on a spherical planet which adds to the dreamlike quality of the game.

The Importance of Rimming.

Every planet has a rim-lit process about it which is not seen much in videogames but this is the reason why it adds a unique flavour to the game. Everything soon becomes apparant - the game is scarily well presented and polished. The graphics are lush as mentioned, but the soundtrack is the best Mario soundtrack I've heard - all recreated with a full orchestra. This adds to the impressive space theme even more. Controlling Mario is also a cinch - the nunchuck is perfectly balanced to move him around, though it's a compelling new experience to navigate around beautifully-realised spherical worlds. The makers of Ratchet and Clank had some sour grapes about Nintendo's use of spherical worlds, cited that it was all their idea, before perhaps adding some marketing bullshit about how Ratchet and Clank "wouldn't be possible on the Wii, but is totally possible on the PS3". Hush now. You're out of your league here.

Developers Taking The Piss?

This outlines once more that it's totally feasible to come up with beautiful experiences on the Wii. I cringe when I see some absolute horrific visual dirge made available for the Wii from developers looking for a quick buck. I think the so-called limitations of the Wii are a reason why some developers - mostly Nintendo - try harder to come up with fantastic visual experiences. I mentioned Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption in an earlier blog entry, but it's another great example. What is the point in spending time working on a game which is derative and will paint your company in a bad light? It is annoying, especially for the developers who work on those games knowing that they can't go on forums and harp on about how great their next game will be. Speaking of which...

Me And Gaming Forums.

I used to post regularly on a gaming forum called rllmuk. Don't ask why it has a funky acronym like that. Anyway, I came to the conclusion not long ago that game developers shouldn't get involved with gaming forums. I've vowed not to read any more comment pages and forums from gamers - because some of them can be a bit too vocal and scarily obsessive with certain games. One of the posters of rllmuk slagged off Stranglehold. All well and good, you think. This guy is entitled to his own opinion. Sadly this bloke downloaded an illegal copy of the game and proceeded to rip the piss. Anyone who tried to combat his views - especially me - were greated with a "you've only played the demo - I've played the game!", although his view was skewed on the fact he didn't know if he had the final version and he based his views on an illegal practice. Soon the age-old argument of piracy came to fore and before you know it there were many people who were happy to defend this guy and piracy. So from that point on, I declined to post on that forum.

I've not posted for some time now and I'm glad of it. I would hate to hear the comments about the game I'm working on from that lot because they can be ruthless, tactless and just plain rude. The typical comment of ""[insert game here]" is shit" is far too common. I digress...

WAR.

Call of Duty 4 is an absolute blast. It's insane how intense and how much fun it is - and not just that, it's also brilliantly presented and the voice acting doesn't suck one bit. I think it's the first FPS I've played which is 60fps (a 60fps fps!) and it makes quite a difference. For a start, everything seems to be a lot more solid and real. The eye is tricked into believing what it sees and it adds to the immersion. The game looks incredible - probably the most realistic recreations of war-torn areas I've yet seen - and the introduction where you see through the eyes of a President who is about to be assassinated is scarily harrowing to say the least. It's a world away from Super Mario Galaxy, but the point is that videogames as a medium are a truly diverse one which can appeal to everyone.

Ubisoft's "Surprise!"

I also purchased Assassin's Creed - which is weird because I was having second thoughts about it. There's reviews flying about which are less than flattering about Ubisoft's latest AAA title - the fact the stealth system is broken and it gets repetitive too quickly. It does also look astoundingly beautiful for a next gen title and the plot supposedly revolves around you playing an assassin who has to take out a variety of targets through a mix of the aforementioned stealth, reconnaissance and Parkour. Unfortunately, they've done a Terminator 2. "What do you mean, Steve?". Well, Terminator 2 had you assuming Arnie would be playing the same role as in the original - an evil cyborg sent back from the future to murder a target. Sadly the trailer to Terminator 2 totally revealed everything - he wasn't evil after all! *phew* Assassin's Creed makes the same mistake.

Something's Not Quite Right Here...

On all the preview videos of Assassin's Creed, we're treated to some lush vistas and Altair (the main character) killing and jumping from building to building escaping guards. One thing looked a bit out of place though - the HUD. I'm paid to create such things, and it's hard not to see the futuristic look of the HUD. Targeted characters also display swish status displays and graphics and the screen sometimes glitches with code. So it's not really what it seems and my brain was wondering what could be going on. A virtual simulation? Could it be? Well, Ubisoft could have surprised us all and left out the HUD and the effects altogether. That would have been a brilliant unseen twist that some videogames are lucky to have.

I've also guessed the ending too.

When Opinions Collide!

Now there's a famous site called Penny Arcade which has a large readership and they trust what Gabe and Tycho - the two characters of the site - say about videogames. Recommendations from them are genuine things indeed. When Gabe defends Assassin's Creed then tongues start a-wagging - especially from the likes of rllmuk. He cited the reviewers of the game didn't have enough time to immerse themselves in the game and thus a low mark resulted. The doubters mention that Penny Arcade carry Ubisoft advertising and they've produced comic strips for Ubisoft games including Assassin's Creed. I've not had a chance to fully play the game, though this GameTrailer's review is a pretty comprehensive take on it - it also outlines the stealth glitch as well as a few others. I think Gabe's heart is in the right place but the world of videogames can be a horrible thing indeed. It can be full of more wrongs than right and the gaming press can be easily paid off to give huge scores to games - Halo 3 for example.

"Wha?"

Like Halo 2, Halo 3 was full of promise but didn't actually deliver. It didn't surprise and those reviewers who gave the game perfect scores must have skipped the last two levels in the game - the penultimate level being a frustrating fleshy hole of flood-filled disappointment and the last level was a much more unfair take on The Maw - the last level in Halo 1. Call of Duty 4 pisses all over Halo 3. As an experience, it's much more exciting. It's more polished and has a lot going for it. When well-respected magazines like Edge give Halo 3 10/10, then you start to worry. The worrying thing is that if you want to buy a game with confidence then you have to go into the gaming forums and see what people are saying about the game. Failing that, download the demo and experience it yourself. I don't trust many game reviewers these days, although let's end this very videogame-related post with video footage of a reviewer I do trust - Yahtzee.