The new year is here

Here we are with the new year and that means back to work and holidays are over. That also means back to the Irish weather. This type of weather is easy to explain, it is cold, it is rainy and windy and there is no snow here.

On the other hand Berlin where I made a short holiday for a couple of days last week has lots of snow and frozen rivers and lakes and of course it was freezing cold.

2009

2008 is almost over only a few hours left. 2008 was a rather good year, many good games where released like Metal Gear Solid 4 (one of my top 5 games of the year), Little Big Planet, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Mirrors Edge,Wipeout HD and many others.

It's also going good with the job, even if I did spend the second half of the year with Guitar Hero :). I was send for 4 weeks to California to work there at Neversoft. And the weather was amazing there still after several month I got tan. The only downside was the earthquake. Good thing it was a short one and nobody got hurt, but still a scary experience. With more tasks beside of testing 2009 should be a even better year.

In regards to games and movies there are already plenty on my list for next year. Killzone 2, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, and a new Tim Burton movie called 9 will be in cinemas later in the year.



Happy New Year

Vienna calling

Finally after almost one year again for some holidays in Vienna. So that means one more flight after I went yesterday already to Liverpool and back for some business, the 30 minutes flight was a bit of a joke after my last flight that was around 9 or 10 hours long :) . At all that was a lot of flying around this year with the trip to L.A. and now Liverpool and Vienna. Guess I will try to relax a bit for the rest of year after my holidays, after all there are more then enough games coming out in October and November. That includes Little Big Planet or as I would like to call it Little Big Awesome. Too bad I could not play it so far and I still try to get one of those Beta Codes, but at least the game will come out soon.

In the mean time there is still WipEout HD, Brothers in Arms Hells Highway and Burnout Paradise so that should be enough until the LBP release. In regards to WipEout HD, this game is a real must have at least for all people who played at least one of the WipEout games and liked it. My personal favorit mode in the game is the Zone. It`s like a 3D playable Audio Visualization at least thats how the textures behave and besides of that it gets faster with every Zone and the prize is only 18 Euro. The only thing is that some reviews for the game are a bit strange, like that there are no new features, tracks or ships, but somehow for me that`s the most appealing part. I didn`t play a WipEout game since the PS1 times and I fellt like home once i went into a race. I never played a PSP WipEout so the tracks where new for me, but having the ships from the first PS1 game was really great and somehow it was like I had the game in my memory (besides of the new and better graphics). Besides of the graphics it was for me like a travel back in time.

So buy WipEout HD on the PSN and have fun with it until Little Big Planet comes out, after all you might get some ideas and make a WipEout racing game IN Little Big Planet, who knows there are many possibilitys. :D

On the road again

Good old holidays, nice to have them. After several months working quite a lot, including the one month in California (at Neversoft), it feels really good to have some days off. To make it short see the list below for the full official Track list of Guitar Hero World Tour.

311 - “Beautiful Disaster”
30 Seconds To Mars - “The Kill”
Airbourne - “Too Much Too Young”
The Allman Brothers Band - “Ramblin' Man”
Anouk - “Good God”
The Answer - “Never Too Late”
At The Drive-In - “One Armed Scissor”
Beastie Boys - “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”
Beatsteaks - “Hail to the Freaks”
Billy Idol - “Rebel Yell”
Black Label Society - “Stillborn”
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - “Weapon of Choice”
blink-182 - “Dammit”
Blondie - “One Way or Another”
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - “Hollywood Nights”
Bon Jovi - “Livin’ On A Prayer”
Bullet For My Valentine - “Scream Aim Fire”
Coldplay - “Shiver”
Creedence Clearwater Revival - “Up Around The Bend”
The Cult - “Love Removal Machine”
Dinosaur Jr. - “Feel The Pain”
The Doors - “Love Me Two Times”
Dream Theater - “Pull Me Under”
The Eagles - “Hotel California”
The Enemy - “Aggro”
Filter - “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
Fleetwood Mac - “Go Your Own Way”
Foo Fighters - “Everlong”
The Guess Who - “American Woman”
Hush Puppies - “You're Gonna Say Yeah!”
Interpol - “Obstacle 1”
Jane's Addiction - “Mountain Song”
Jimi Hendrix - “Purple Haze (Live)”
Jimi Hendrix - “The Wind Cries Mary”
Jimmy Eat World - “The Middle”
Joe Satriani - “Satch Boogie”
Kent - “Vinternoll2”
Korn - “Freak On A Leash”
Lacuna Coil - “Our Truth”
Lenny Kravitz - “Are You Gonna Go My Way”
Linkin Park - “What I've Done”
The Living End - “Prisoner of Society”
Los Lobos - “La Bamba”
Lost Prophets - “Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)”
Lynyrd Skynyrd - “Sweet Home Alabama (Live)”
Mars Volta - “L'Via L'Viaquez”
MC5’s Wayne Kramer - “Kick Out The Jams”
Metallica - “Trapped Under Ice”
Michael Jackson - “Beat It”
Modest Mouse - “Float On”
Motörhead - “Overkill”
Muse - “Assassin”
Negramaro - “Nuvole e Lenzuola”
Nirvana - “About a Girl (Unplugged)”
No Doubt - “Spiderwebs”
NOFX - “Soul Doubt”
Oasis - “Some Might Say”
Ozzy Osbourne - “Crazy Train”
Ozzy Osbourne - “Mr. Crowley”
Paramore - “Misery Business”
Pat Benatar - “Heartbreaker”
R.E.M. - “The One I Love”
Radio Futura - “Escuela De Calor”
Rise Against - “Re-Education Through Labor”
Sex Pistols - “Pretty Vacant”
Silversun Pickups - “Lazy Eye”
Smashing Pumpkins - “Today”
Steely Dan - “Do It Again”
Steve Miller Band - “The Joker”
Sting - “Demolition Man (Live)”
The Stone Roses - “Love Spreads”
Stuck In The Sound - “Toy Boy”
Sublime - “Santeria”
Survivor - “Eye of the Tiger”
System of a Down - “B.Y.O.B.”
Ted Nugent - “Stranglehold”
Ted Nugent’s Original Guitar Duel Recording
Tokio Hotel - “Monsoon”
Tool - “Parabola”
Tool - “Schism”
Tool - “Vicarious”
Trust - “Antisocial”
Van Halen - “Hot For Teacher”
Willie Nelson - “On The Road Again”
Wings - “Band on the Run”
Zakk Wylde’s Original Guitar Duel Recording

For all my workmates in California who did a amazing job even with the brutal hot weather.

Games Convention Unleashed

The Games Convention is starting today and actually I have planed to go there this year, but as sometimes with plans they don`t work out. So yeah, instead I will be in the office and work, but I guess I will check the news quite often to see whats going on there. I really hope they show a new Heavy Rain trailer (they should select Dublin as setting it`s raining almost every day here) or even better some gameplay footage. The worst thing will be, that I still couldn't`t get my hands on Little Big Planet and as it looks right now, I will have to wait until the launch day to play this really nice looking game. Also I was looking forward to meet people I didn`t see since ages. I was in LA when the E3 was there, but also at this time I was in the office working. They really should make those Events during weekends and not during the week to make it easier to go there :D

Well at least one good thing is that the Star Wars The Force Unleashed demo will be out tomorrow. I already finished the full game several times due to working reasons, but I guess I will still download the demo to play at least a part of the game relaxed without checking always if somewhere is a bug and just enjoy the game and unleashe the force. Plus I usualy play the finished version of the games at home once I get a retail version just to enjoy it at least once.

It`s not like that it wouldn`t be fun to work on them or they are bad games, but after all it`s work and you are stuck with one single game day after day for quite some time. It`s sometimes a bit tricky, on the one hand you would really like to work on the game, maybe even help to improve it besides of the text and say to friends the first time “I did that.”. On the other side if you work on a game series or franchise you really like, may it be Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, God of War, Silent Hill, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero or whatever other game, at the end you can be a little dissapointed. Especialy when it comes to franchise you loved and liked for years. As example. For me FF12 is not a bad game, but I could think about a lot of things that could have been better, like the story and character development. In that case I would think about the way parts of the story in FF8 where explained by going back in time and playing actually there (more or less in a dream sequenze), while in FF12 it`s only text and dialogue in the present. For me personaly after finishing the game at least 7-10 times that would have given the characters and the story at all more depth, if the game really shows the previous history of the characters. For me having something to do with games that are new or where I hardly know the previous games, like Kung Fu Panda, Kingdom Hearts 2 or Guitar Hero, is somehow different even if in both cases the developers are doing a great job.

Also I know people who are usualy like "You get paid for playing games, that`s the best job in the world". Actually it is, for me, while it might not be that way for a lot of other people even if they don`t know it. As technical tester you might start at 9 or 10 am and finish several hours after midnigth and that for several days. Weeks, months in a row, while testing day after day the same game. The industry needs new an fresh people and I don`t want to discourage someone, but it is all to often that I meet people who think that any job in that business would be a walk in the park and that includes people I meet at different workplaces so far.

And for new Level Designer or people who want to become one, I guess Little Big Planet should be a good start :)

And I`m not responsible for grammar issues, typos and so on. Responsible for this is my laptop with US keyboard and I`m only used to desktop keyboards, plus they are usualy in German and it`s late and dark :D

Long time no see

Pictures say more the 1 000 words. Well maybe not. Thats the lovely Santa Monica Pier in, well Santa Monica in Los Angeles. I had the pleasure to fly there and work around L.A. for 4 weeks on a project (including the possibility to feel an eartquacke for the first time and a quite strong one too). I was the most time in the office, but sometimes I could get outside and discover a bit of L.A. and stuff like that and I have to say the people in the area there are really nice and also the weather, absolutly no rain in the 4 weeks unlicke Dublin with rain evry 4 hours or something like that. :)

Even that I was quite busy the last month with several projects, I don`t expect that I will have time for holidays before the nice winter time to go back home to Vienna for a couple of days. :D