life

The MTV Game Awards is this weekend in Berlin, Germany and we’ve been invited to attend thanks to our nominaton for the “Let’s Play Together Award” for Best Multiplayer Game. Regretfully, we won’t be able to make it out to Berlin for the live show, but we’ll be recording a little video tomorrow morning to show our appreciation and thanks to all of our German players who voted and supported the game in the awards, just in case. So if you’re part of our German game community, be sure to check the show this weekend, more info here www.mtvgameawards.de.  

My Fallout 3 character. (Feral Mask + Chinese Spy Uniform)

Over 60 hours of gameplay later, and I’ve finally finished Fallout 3 this weekend; Holy hell was that an amazing game. You can definitely beat it in half that time, but I savored the gameplay, and completed every main and side quest before beating the main story line - as well as maxing out my character at the level 20 cap. I love the amount of detail and thought that went into every aspect of this game. Bethesda did a great job of really immersing you in their world and I’m kind of depressed it’s over. I still need to find a few bobbleheads and do a few random achievements, but for the most part it’s over, and I’m gonna miss it. 

Although, thankfully I can get back to living a productive life now that it’s over, not to mention focus on finishing up Gears of War 2 (on the last level) and Mirrors Edge (on Chapter 6).

Hopefully I can finish them both up before Friday, because my entire weekend is being spent in Vegas. I’ll be flying in to attend the first ever LIVE tournament for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at the MLG’s National Championships. There will be over $340,000 in cash prizing up for grabs overall this weekend - which will promptly be blown on hookers and blow immediately following the event. So be sure to drop me a line if you’re in Vegas or competing in the tournament. I’ll be held up at the Hard Rock where the event is taking place, so stop by and say hey. We can get together and gamble our life savings away in a horrible drunken rage. 

Friday went by pretty quick today. It kicked off with our standard weekly Leads meeting, where all dept. leads sit down and talk about what’s happening in their individual deprtments; but once that was wrapped, I headed to the lobby to meet up with this years World Series MVP and Phillies pitcher, Cole Hamels. Seen above (on the right) with one of our resident baseball fanboys and animators, Chance Glasco (left).

For being the most highly sought after player in league right now, after securing the MVP award at the World Series recently, he’s an extremely down to earth guy and a most importantly a huge gamer as attested to by his wife who confirmed he’ll disappear for days only to reappear fully bearded from a week of uninterrupted gaming. A life style I can relate to.

Although, from talking to Cole, it seems those game-a-thons are few and far between, especially when preparing for the World Series. He said gaming during the season is typically reserved for the early hours of the morning after games, when him and fellow team mates jump on. So if you’re playing between 11pm - 2:30 am and hear an abnormal amount of baseball talk, then you know why.

We gave him a tour around the studio while he was here, and it was especially interesting when we were showing off some of our Motion Capture. Cole started talking about how he’s done it before, but not for a game. He uses Motion Capture to record and analyze his pitching form, so that they can determine how to further improve his pitching and prevent injuries.

It was a good visit. It’s always nice to meet fans of the game, especially if were fans of theirs. Cole admitted he’s not alone in his COD4 addiction, saying he typically parties up after games with fellow team mates like Adam Eaton or teams they’re facing that day like the legendary Ken Griffey Jr. 

Just goes to show, you never know who you’re going up against when you log on. 

I implore you to vote.

I don’t care who you vote for.

I don’t care which propositions you vote on.

Democratic, Republican, Independent, or None of the Above.

Vote.

Tomorrow (Nov. 4th) is Election Day here in the United States, which means we’ll all be taking a bit of time out of our day to go down to our local polling stations and provide our feedback and cast our opinion on who and how our country should be ran. In addition to voting and casting our opinion on important propositions in our individual states.

I understand that’s it’s easy to be cynical about politics and regardless if you feel neither of the major parties deserves your vote, still go to the polls to vote on important issues and propositions on the ballot.

While the Presidential candidate is obviously the most important decision at the polls, there are countless propositions you can give your opinion on. Whether you care about advocacy for the homeless, early childhood education, equal rights, or any other issue affecting our nation. It’s important that all of us give our feedback and opinion. 

Don’t know where to vote? Visit http://maps.google.com/vote

To locate your nearest polling station. Polls open at 7 AM tomorrow morning and close at 8 PM. 

Check out these awesome Russian gas masks I found on eBay. They’re identical models to the ones we used in the game for the (above) Russian SMG character model. With a little color altering, they’ll be perfect. So why do I have them? Well, I’m working on a little side project, and I plan on creating a character bust from scratch, using real world materials. I figured, since all of our characters are based on real world soldiers and gear. I could easily re-create a bust using the actual gear it was referenced from. 

I figured I’ll just throw it all on this Indiana Jones bust that’s been creepily lingering around my house since I impulse bought it (also off Ebay)…. you know what. I really need to stay the hell off eBay and quit buying creepy shit on impulse. 

Regardless, I’m confident that all these random assortment of junk things off eBay, WILL result in something awesome when it’s finished. Essentially, I’m protoyping to see how cool a character bust of a real world character actually is. I mean, typically busts are cool for sci-fi stuff or fantatsy stuff, because it’s something you never see. So it’ll be interesting to see how cool this will be. If all else fails, at least I’ll have materials for a bad ass COD4 halloween costume in the wings. Although I’d much rather go as Green Man….
  

Unrelated to the busy, but still related to the prototype side-project. I also scored some of the real-world medals the Prestige Icons are based off. Including the Navy Commendation Medal and the Liberation of Kuwait medal.

The two medals which represent Prestige 1 (left) and Prestige 5 (right). I hope to mount these and add custom labels with the corressponding Prestige Level and include a message encouraging them to stop being pussies and keep prestiging for a few select community members. Essentially, they’ll act as prototypes, as if they look good and have a good response from the two I’m planning on sending them two, it may light some fires to get more produced. However, these I’m just doing by hand, and for the fun of it. Would any of you be stoked to receive one of these unexpectedly in the mail? 

Once I get it all done, I’ll be sure to post pics and details on how it went. I’m finally feeling up to par again as of today. The past week and a half I seriously thought I was dying. Constant headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, and fatigue. It was horrible. Essentially determined to be from an excess of sugar…. fyi Skittles and Dr Pepper for breakfast, lunch, and dinner will apparently kill you. So unless you have the will power of a 5 year old when it comes to sugar additictions like me, then you should be fine. Sadly though, for the time being until I get to a real doctor (not the Urgent Care fucks that looked in worse shape than me), then I’m officially giving up my Dr. Pepper (*sobs*). I almost don’t want to live in a world without it…. but I’m pushing through.  I’ll know next week for sure why my body hates me. I just want to give it what it loves, is that so bad?

Alright… I’m done. Off to enjoy a delicious h2o beverage and flavorful snack from mother nature. (shoot me)

(fyi: Cpt Hammer is my PartnerNET gamertag, not my secret XBL account)

Just got finished jumping into some of QA’s playtests of the new gametypes. While they’re ensuring there are no bugs to be found, I wanted to jump in and test out how fun the playlists were. Hardcore HQ is a lot of fun because it’s a lot more fast paced than normal and HQ’s are falling a lot faster. Not a lot of waiting around in this gametype. Not to mention it’s a lot more tactical when you’re not just spamming the HQ with nades. I think I’ll be playing the Hardcore Ricochet version of Hardcore HQ a lot. 

We played several games of Second Chance Search and Destroy, which essentially just adds 1 respawn per player. A small addition, but makes a big difference in the tactics you use. Plus, it wasn’t as frustrating to be taken out early in the round because you get a second chance to do some damage. No more dying early and waiting around the entire match. The only problem I can foresee with it is the occassional spawn kill if someone gets past your defenses and gets in a position to kill your second wave of respawns before you get him out. Other than that I actually prefer Second Chance over standard Search and Destroy. I found myself missing the second life when we were playing standard. There were a few UI (user interface) bugs, but those can be taken care of really easily, just need to shorten the name of the gametype. 

Still on the fence with Sudden Death Sabotage, what do you guys think of that. It essentially just turns into Team Elimination because no one has any respawns, so everyone starts camping and never goes for the bomb. In a way, I like that, because it’s a sneaky way to get Team Elimination into the game with an extra twist, but on the other hand the rounds end really quickly. I’m worried this one might not make the cut, but we’ll see how the rest of testing goes this week.

Hardcore Ricochet is the answer to my prayers. Team Killing is non-existent and you no longer have to say “my bad” to a team mate you accidently blow to hell with a badly placed grenade. If you fuck up, you’re the only one hurting for it. Not to mention you never have to worry about having a team mate shoot an RPG into the ground at the start and killing everyone in Hardcore Search and Destroy. That alone makes this entire playlist worth it to me. 

Things are looking good. I’m still working hard on that upcoming Xbox Live promotion I told you about. Getting some final thoughts from our Art Driector on the Ads I designed for it, and securing the rest of the details. 

On a more personal note, I finally got my automatic office defense system online and operating… 

… and by that, I mean big ass NERF cannon; Which I have mounted on a mobile defensive position (aka office chair) for maximum effeniency. This battery-operated, belt fed, automatic rapid-fire dart cannon is exactly what I needed to the turn the tide of the war in my favor. You see, there’s been ongoing skirmishes with the radicals in IT for quite some time now…. around the time they covered my Master Chief in Peanut Butter while I was out of town for GDC.

Dare’s a war a’comin… pik yer side!  

It was awesome putting together this bad boy late last night after work. I felt like I was 8 years old again, sitting on the floor with one of our producers assembling and test firing it. Some toys you’re never too old to get a kick out of. If the day ever comes I think other wise, kill me…. preferrably death by NERFing. 

Back from PAX! This weekend was insane. With just under 60,000 gamers, nerds, and the like converging on Seattle this past weekend; I was seriously in sensory overload. By far, the best part of PAX was the people. I met sooo many amazing people this weekend, hung out and just played / talked games. It was great to meet everyone, especially those from the community. Such as when I met up with TJ, one of our PS3 community members, (see:above pic) and hung out on Saturday. We hit up the show floor, checking out the booths and even inadvertently won a SOCOM: Confortation mini-tournament. I added the prize to the gaggle of swag the show had to offer:

… and that was just from the first day. The good stuff (including an exclusive Fallout 3 poster) came the next day. Fallout 3 was definitely the game of the show, with an incredible booth, complete with post-apocalyptic “booth babes”:

The game looks amazing, and is probably one of my most anticipated games to come out this year. Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead were both playable and looking fantastic, along with Gears of War 2, Spore, Mirrors Edge and quite a few more. It was cool to hear Call of Duty 4 being referenced when people were demoing games, such as:

Player: “What are the controls?”

Dev: “It’s just like Call of Duty 4, sooooo.”

When your game is being referenced as a standard for ANYTHING, you know it did something right!

After getting burnt out on the crowds of the show room floor, they had a console free play room I ended up crashing in for a few hours on Saturday night when I saw a lone Mario Kart-er looking for a challenge. That is exactly why PAX is so amazingly awesome. There is nothing like walking into a random room and sitting down to a four player game of Mario Kart with complete strangers and feeling like you’ve known them your entire life. PAX was filled with moments like that, thanks in no small part to the power of Twitter. The iPhone twitter app, Twinkle, exploded over the weekend with the amount of PAXers tweeting at the expo. I realized half of my tweets from over the weekend didn’t even publish to twitter because of Twinkle crashing, but the Near By feature was awesome for meeting up with fellow gamers around PAX. Sunday night was the craziest randomhappenstance I’ve had in years, by the end of the night our crew of 2 grew to 12 and ended in our hotel room. After taking a midnight wander through downtown seattle looking for a late night cheese burger, we ran into two fellow twitter addicts in the elevator which decided to join us. We got to a near by hamburger joint to find it closed, about the same time 3 PAX enforcers from New York were seeking some grub of their own. So the eight of us decided to seek food together and wound up at a local bar / grill called Taphouse Grill a few blocks from the convention center where we added a traveling musician from Bejing, China and a fellow PAX attendee who was hanging with him to the group. All in all we ended up eating a great dinner and then hung out in the hotel room talking games, movies, music etc. until 4 AM before we headed to the airport for a 7 am flight. Again… moments like this made PAX what it is, and why I strongly believe it is FAR more important as a gaming event than E3 has turned into. It’s about the gamers, the fans, and just geeking out something we all have a huge passion for.

Other than that, it was really cool to run into Felicia Day of Dr. Horrible / The Guild  (see: above), Wil Weaton, and several others while at the show (all of which are Twitterers). Last but not least, I ran into at least one Call of Duty 4 cosplayer:

In addition to scoring a PAX exclusive shirt of Wil Wheaton’s which has my new favorite personal motto:

Can’t wait till PAX 2009, and if you aren’t already GET ON TWITTER, follow me, let’s play some games. It’s great for keeping touch with what your friends and fellow gamers are doing and joining in. Go to Twitter, sign up, go to my Twitter, follow me, and let’s play some games. Come on…. everyone’s doing it man! PEER PRESSURE!

I’m flying out to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA tomorrow morning and will be hitting up PAX all weekend long until Monday. If you’re in Seattle and hitting up PAX be sure to drop me a line if you haven’t already and let’s get some food, drinks, and play some games. PAX Meet-up: robert.bowling@fourzerotwo.com

I was approached several weeks back to take part in a project to immortalize my DNA digitally on the International Space Station; The DNA will be sent into space later this year in October along with Richard Garriott who is leading Operation Immortality and storing the DNA along with digital records of man kinds greatest achievements.

I’m extremely stoked to be chosen to be a part of this amazing and one of a kind opportunity. The chance to immortalize my genetic gamer ability and superior, nearly non-human, eye/hand coordination for the purpose of breeding a future race of super human gaming beings is the most exciting thing I’ve ever been a part of.

I can’t wait for a great ancestor of mine to crash land on a uncharted planet after going through an electrical storm in space millions of years from now, only to discover it’s not the Earth he once knew…. but one completely inhabited by my clones.

Regardless if my DNA is used for a race of 402s or not, it’s pretty damn cool to be able to say I’m floating around in the great emptiness of space for all eternity. Nerd Heaven!

You can read more about Operation Immortality, and most importantly submit a video for a chance to be included in the project yourself over at www.pwnordie.com/promos/yourdnainspace.Be quick about it though, as it appears submissions are cut off this weekend.

My contribution to the capsule, besides my DNA, will be a collection of historical quotes throughout history (similar to those found in the game), to hopefully inspire my future clone babies to greatness.  I’ll post up a video of the whole DNA process once I return from PAX, I’ll be doing it tonight and sending it off to be digitized by their lab before heading up to Seattle.

As for work stuff, it’s been a busy week, sorry for the lack of updates on that front but things have been going great with the new playlists and we should have a great progress report / info next week! This week is being cut short by the Penny Arcade Expo, as I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning and be in Seattle all weekend and Monday for that, once I get back though, there will be lots of stuff to talk about.

Opening Night Extravaganza!!1!

TONIGHT

8 p.m. - Midnight

6650 Hollywood Blvd

Hollywood, CA

——–

I‘ll be heading down to the opening night festivities of the 4th annual i am 8-bit art show tonight in Hollywood, CA. Any Los Angeles locals planning on attending as well? If so, drop me a line, let’s meet up, check out some game art, and chat. It’s an awesome show, you won’t be disappointed.

For those who can’t attend, don’t worry. I plan on having the good ole’ Flip handy (that thing is becoming quite useful) and grabbing plenty of footage to let you guys share the experience with me.

Update: I went, I saw, I left. The crowd was outrageous so we bailed early. Sorry, no video tonight guys. I’ll be taking some when we return a bit later and can see the actual artwork instead of the backs of people’s heads. Way too crowded to actually enjoy any of the art, but I did score an awesome Mega Man 9 retro boxart poster.

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Sorry that there are no major game updates today guys. Most of my Tuesday was spent in meetings, which is a good thing because it leads to progress, but not very fruitful information wise from a blogging stand point. We talked a bit about our schedule in the meeting, so I’m hoping we can nail down some firm details on our update plans (i.e. new playlists and more) fairly soon.

Other than that, I just met up with two of our community members who are in Los Angeles on vacation. It’s always great to have community members drop you a line and stop by to say hey and chat a bit about games when they’re in town or the area. It was good to meet you guys (if you’re reading this). Hopefully if you’re in the area tomorrow we can finish that tour of the studio if time permits.

Meanwhile, everyone seems to be digging the AC-130 iPhone App / Game, so if anyone knows a good iPhone developer, send them my way or drop them the link. I’d love to talk with em’. That’s it for today guys, see you tomorrow!