Wayne Santos

Whole Day Inside

Toronto pretty much looked like the picture to the left for the entire day. This wasn't that big a deal to me, having grown up in Edmonton where 30 degrees below zero is pretty much a given at some point during the winter. It was also not a big deal to the Wife, surprisingly, because all the movies and my horror stories of walking to school in deep snow had led her to expect that all of Canada was one continental sized, never-ending episode of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. This weather merely confirmed her expectations.

However, for most of our friends and neighbors here in Ontario (Best Friend, Tactician and Math Genius excepting who also hail from Edmonton) this was pretty severe and much chaos ensued from drivers totally unprepared for winter driving conditions, despite the fact that they are Canadian and have lived here all their lives. Apparently to the life-long residents of Toronto, the current weather is quite a big deal, and despite the fact that the snow still hasn't reached--at least for me--alarming levels, they are pretty much in awe of the weather this year. Oh these Eastern Canadians and their delicate sensibilities... how quaint.

Aside from that, a day spent gleefully cooped up at home resulted in the completion of grinding for all Final Fantasy IX characters, who are all now level 99. The only thing left to do now is finish off a couple an optional boss, and the game will be done. After sitting in my collection for 8 years, it will finally be done.

Also the biggest blog site about videogames, Kotaku, has made it known that they are looking for a Weekend Editor. I figured, "What the hell," and let them know I was available. Guess we'll see whether or not they can use me...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Mean Streets Of Toronto, RPGs

posted by Wayne # 3/08/2008 11:47:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 06, 2008

More Work

Aside from still playing Final Fantasy IX and writing GameAxis stuff, I also finally solidified an agreement to be a new contributor. I'll be writing articles for a website called The High-Def Digest, which I've been frequenting for a while now. They have the best reviews of Blu-Ray discs, and unlike other websites during the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war, they played a mean games of Swiss Neutrality and refused to endorse one format over the other. As as a result, it was a refreshing island of rationalism in a sea of frothing, boiling format fanboy hate. I'm looking forward to writing for them since I've enjoyed their content so much over the last year.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/06/2008 11:37:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Routine Continues

Ran errands around the neighborhood, tried a new restaurant, wrote GameAxis article, wrote children's novel, played Final Fantasy IX, and that's about it...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, Novel Writing, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/05/2008 11:55:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, February 29, 2008

More Quiet Work

Just another day in which a snow fall was avoided by hiding indoors, a GameAxis article was started and finished, more writing to the children's novel was eked out and some Final Fantasy IX was played.

This, apparently, is what happens you're "settled down."

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 2/29/2008 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Articles Done

And it's back to Devil May Cry 4 to finish assorted secret missions.

Labels: Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 2/12/2008 09:39:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 11, 2008

Still Writing

Articles being churned...

Labels: Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 2/11/2008 11:38:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Back To Writing

It's that time of the month again when articles are due.

Labels: Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 2/10/2008 11:37:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 28, 2008

First Big Feature

It took a while, but today, IGN finally put the first of a two part feature on their Insider section that I wrote. Whoo hoo, not an interview, not a news piece, but an honest to gosh old fashioned Gamer's Rant by yours truly. Hopefully this won't be the last. Unfortunately, no one can read it unless they have a subscription to IGN Insider, but here's the introductory link.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 1/28/2008 11:38:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 11, 2008

Still Writing

And of course, I've finished up Uncharted on Hard and am now working through it at the hardest difficulty level, Crushing, which is... Really, DAMN Hard... Also, in a total surprise move, the whammy bar on my Fender Strat Rock Band controller has died. Time to put in that order for a replacement. Good thing it's still under warranty...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 1/11/2008 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Back To Work

Oh hey, I'm supposed to be writing articles for a monthly videogame magazine, aren't I?

Labels: Journalism

posted by Wayne # 1/10/2008 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Just Another Saturday

Finished an article, played Rock Band.

Labels: Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/08/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Quiet. Occupied

Finished off the GameAxis articles for the month, and started on some stuff for the kid's comic. In an effort to keep the momentum going (just a little over two weeks now!) here is a video of songs that appear in Rock Band. It's not quite up to date, but it still covers the majority.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/04/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Another Boring Day

Wrote articles. Did some shopping in the neighborhood. Downloaded new stuff off the Playstation Store. Oh, and I forgot to mention the Wife bought this for herself yesterday:

For people that don't know their Final Fantasy-lore, the creature on the left is known as a "Tonberry." It is a cute little lizard thing that wields a tiny butcher's knife. This seemingly harmless creature is the bane of any encounter in a FF game simply because it has an obscene number of hit points (think 9999) and slowly advances towards you with each turn as you try in panicked fashion to pummel it. If it should manage to get within striking distance of your character, it pokes you with that little knife which means instant death. It is the Wife's favorite FF monster. She could not resist when she saw this, and bought it a funky vintage gaming store on Bloor and Spadina. I think she scored major points for a) being a girl and b) being a girl that actually KNEW what this was...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, RPGs, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/01/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Another Low Grade Work Day

Finished up a comic script, started on another article for GameAxis. That's about it...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Comics, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/30/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 29, 2007

One Of Those Quiet Days

Not much happening except the completion of an article, start of a small script for a short comic strip, and some hope for the Blu-Ray format that Warner Brothers might defect, which, if it were to occur, would pretty much end the format war. Oh and Guitar Hero III is suffering from a large number of defective guitar reports. Karma against Activision for attempting to kill the Soul of Rock continues and I'm shamefully enjoying it.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Guitar Hero, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/29/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Fighting For Reasonable Wakefulness

Today we took a stand against advancing sleeping hours and actually tried getting up earlier, which was mostly successful. We might even try something similar today 'cause we're Just That Wild N' Crazy.

Once again, writing continues. I finished up an article for IGN which I'll be sending them tomorrow, and sent off my resume to GamePro, who, it turns out, are looking for Freelancers. So I dropped them a line, showed off some links with GameAxis and IGN and will see if they bite. It would be nice to do even MORE game writing, since this will feed my bottomless habit of questing for game knowledge and bitching about games on the internet anyway...

Speaking of games, once again, I continue my love affair with Rock Band. Here's the latest list of songs, with songs in bold being original master tracks.

"Are You Gonna Be My Girl" - Jet
"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
"Blitzkrieg Bop" - Ramones
"Brainpower" - Freezepop
"Celebrity Skin" - Hole
"Cherub Rock" - Smashing Pumpkins
"Creep" - Radiohead
"Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Detroit Rock City" - Kiss
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult
"Enter Sandman" - Metallica
"Epic" - Faith No More
"Gimme Shelter" - Rolling Stones
"Go with the Flow" - Queens of the Stone Age
"The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
"Here It Goes Again" - OK Go
"Highway Star" - Deep Purple
"I Think I'm Paranoid" - Garbage
"In Bloom" - Nirvana
"Learn to Fly" - Foo Fighters
"Main Offender" - The Hives
"Maps" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Mississippi Queen" - Mountain
"Orange Crush" - R.E.M.
"Paranoid" - Black Sabbath
"Reptilia" - The Strokes
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
"Say It Ain't So" - Weezer
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" - The Clash
"Suffragette City" - David Bowie
"Tom Sawyer" - Rush
"Vasoline" - Stone Temple Pilots
"Wanted Dead or Alive" - Bon Jovi
"Wave of Mutilation" - Pixies
"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who

I'm particularly happy about Gimme Shelter being on there. The Stones. Yeah. And only three covers so far, not too shabby at all. Bring it on. And now, back to that children's novel.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/21/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, October 19, 2007

Anniversary Tonkatsu

Today was spent in a remarkably Japanese way. Never mind the fact that we woke up at our usual obscenely late hour that would probably have qualified as morning in Japan anyway, the Wife decided that since we'd been satisfying many of her Asiatic cravings (such as proper Dim Sum) It was now time to do the same for me. Although I don't actually many Asian cuisine cravings, one thing in particular I developed a fondness for in Singapore was a dish known as Tonkatsu Curry, which is essentially breaded, deep fried pork cutlet with rice and some of that unique Japanese curry that does NOT kill my tongue for hours afterwards the way normal Singapore spices do. Back in Singapore, there was a little restaurant in the basement of the big Japanese department store Takashimaya, and they happened to have Tonkatsu Curry as their house specialty, offering it both as a dish with rice and as a sandwich. It was VERY tasty, and I'd obviously not had any of it since coming back to Canada. It turned out that further into the downtown core was a restaurant that had Tonkatsu, and they even offered Japanese curry as a side order, it just never occurred to them that this particular combination was, in fact, an actual dish in Japan. So though they were mighty confused about my wanting both, when we arrived, they did indeed serve it to us. It wasn't as good as the stuff in Singapore, but then you have to make allowances when you eat Asian food in the West.

Other than that, the Japanese theme continued with playing some Gran Turismo Prologue (now that the demo for this game is finally available in Japan; thank you internet, and thank you Sony Playstation Store dummy account) and it's good. And HARD. It would probably help if I had a steering wheel, but we'll worry about some other day.

The only other thing of note is that I finally have an IGN article out that you don't have to be subscribed to IGN Insider in order to read. Whoo hoo, I'm finally in the free, "normal, mainstream content" channel. The article is essentially just my impressions after finally getting a chance to play Rock Band on the Playstation 3, a particular concern for me since I obviously have one, and I wanted to see whether or not the game was going to be butchered on the PS3 the way Guitar Hero III has been (it looks like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get, Neversoft/Activision have pretty much given The Finger to owners of Sony consoles past and present) and it turns out... IT'S NOT! Whoo hoo, Harmonix still has a place of respect and affection in their hearts for Sony consoles, so I was relieved when I tried it... and it didn't suck.

The full article is here.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Icky Couple Stuff, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/19/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 15, 2007

Another Quiet Day

Aside from starting on another IGN article, all that occurred was messing around with a demo for some Japanese horror game (which still managed to creep me out despite the fact that I had no idea what was going on) and bought some donuts. Yup, exciting stuff...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/15/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Sony Day

So today we actually got up before noon and managed to navigate to the southeast portion of downtown Toronto to find "The Carlu" an old, deco building from the 30's, that has had its 7th floor--formerly a concert hall--renovated and restored to its former Art Deco glory. Today, however, all the deco was playing host a metric ton of silicon in the form a legion of Playstation 3s, some Playstation 2s and even a few Playstation Portables set up by Sony Canada to show off their wares for the upcoming holidays. Or most of them, anyway, with Assassin's Creed being notably absent despite its upcoming November release. This was a much quieter--and thankfully less accident prone--affair than the Microsoft X '07 event I attended a couple of months earlier. For one thing, this was media only, so since the power didn't short out (as it did at X '07) there was no confusing morass of humanity as gamers who had dreamed for months of playing Halo 3 pushed journalists and camera-men out of their way in their frenzy to get their hands on a controller and drool in opiate-like bliss as they proceeded to shoot people in the head with sniper rifles and then "teabag" them (the 360 multi-player, FPS version of a victory dance, that involves crouching over your opponent's head so that your virtual testicles dangle over his virtual face. This, I am told, is a sign of l33tness in multi-player console gaming, and all the cool people do it. This is also why I don't play multi-player games on consoles.).

Instead there were simply a bunch of media people--almost entirely not from the game press arena--the likes of MTV, and, if you can believe it, Toronto's own Naked News team, though the reporter on hand was heavily clothed. MTV was doing the Completely And Utterly Expected by just "happening" across Rock Band--the game they are publishing in partnership with developer Harmonix and distributor Electronic Arts--and covering the hell out of it as if it was some wonderful, random find. The Naked News team, I think, was surprising the hell out of everyone by simple virtue of the fact that their reporter wasn't actually naked. But this all beside the point, which is THE GAMES.

Rock Band

I can't actually talk too much about this, or at least, my "newsworthy" finds, since that's all been written up for IGN and is now sitting with them. But having played the game (and not gotten kicked off this time! Because I had other games to look at!) a bit more now, I can safely say that it still kills. It may not that magical "first time" experience of Guitar Hero (then again, even GH didn't have that for me since I'd already had a few years under my belt of playing in the arcade) Guitar Freaks in the arcade), but there's still something special about sitting down at those drums, or strapping on the Fender Strat and rocking out the Pixie's Wave of Mutilation. The game is fun, it's really that simple. I can talk about the character creation system, or the upcoming downloadable songs, but it all boils down to indefinable Something that separates a competent game from a great one. This is still shaping up to be my favorite game of the year.

Eye of Judgement

Or, as PennyArcade dubbed it, "The Judgemental Eye" is one of those games I am rapidly beginning to suspect is going to what some call a sleeper hit, and what others call crack cocaine with a light dusting of PCP for flavor. The premise of the game is that you buy it with the whacky new accessory called the Playstation Eye, which is essentially a redressing of the old PS2 Eyetoy, which is essentially a redressing of a webcam. When you set up your camera as your "eye of judgement" you spread out a grid on a cloth map, and start playing a Magic The Gathering style card game, the difference being a) the camera allows you to play online with other people, b) the camera allows you to play against the computer, c) the camera reads the properties of your cards and then, much like the Holochess game in Star Wars: A New Hope, conjures the image of your card's creature right there, on screen, sitting on top of your card, at which point, it proceeds to execute your command and attack the neighboring card with appropriate explosions, oscillating balls of magical energy and all that other pyrotechnical stuff Magic the Gathering card players formerly had to imagine. Despite the fact that I have no interest in card games, I enjoyed this, hell even the Wife enjoyed it, and I can see how this bizarre little product could end up drawing in the Magic the Gathering crowd, who might have formerly ignored the PS3. The fact that this card game was actually dreamed up by Wizards of the Coast, inventors of Magic the Gathering--not to mention the fact that they're repeating past history and already manufacturing "booster packs" of card decks to rake even MORE cash--merely adds to the geek cred of this monstrosity. It will make money, a LOT of money is my current sneaking suspicion.

There are other games as well like Haze--a first person shooter that may do well--and Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction which will probably do very well. All in all, an interesting range of games for a system that only recently dropped to US$399, as long as you're willing to sacrifice your backwards compatibility with PS2 games to get it at that price.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 10/10/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, October 05, 2007

Taking It Easy

Friday was yet another quiet day, with the exception some busy-ness on the freelance front. First, after the interview with Jonathan Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter--and that interview isn't up on IGN just yet, but probably by next week--I got the obligatory heads up from Sony Canada. It's funny how when you say "I'm with IGN," that just blows the doors wide open on access to anything in the game industry. I could really get used to this after all the "I'm with GameAxis," lines which were inevitably replied to with "Game-wha?"

Anyway, the point of this, is the heads up that I was given was an invite--presumably for the media only--to a much bigger Sony Media Day that's going to be held at some swanky, restored concert hall that had its heyday in the 30's deco period, and has been renovated back to its former, pre-WWII glory. Not knowing whether this was going to be a big deal or not, I threw the invite back at IGN and asked them if they'd be interested in once again having a "Canadian correspondent" pick up some slack on their behalf since none of them are crazy enough to live in the Great White North. It turns that they're VERY interested, and so I will be going to this event on Wednesday. However, considering how many games there are on hand, it's going to be a bit busy what with all the questions, playing games (and getting kicked off Rock Band. Again...) and making sure I get all the details, so it's going to be hard for me to do all that and get some pictures. Fortunately, I have already cleared it with Sony Canada and they have allowed me to bring a guest, so The Wife will be attending to gawk at the geekiness, and take pictures since she knows how to use the camera way better than I do. This frees me up to tackle the games and ask questions without worrying about whether I got the shot or not.

Gonna' be an interesting Wednesday. Looking forward to it.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/05/2007 11:20:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Nearly Done

Just putting the finishing touches the last of the GameAxis articles for this month. And, of course, now conducting my weekly ritual of checking the Playstation Store online to see what new goodies are available. So far, nothing too hot...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/04/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Broken Bones & San Vanelona

I started transcribing today which is, of course, No Fun At All. I love interviews, and I love big, meaty answers with substance, and I got that from yesterday's interview, but of course, it means a lot rewinding, relistening and retyping, since I'm one those journalists that rips out a digital recorder, puts it on the table and then just lets the guy GO. This, obviously, means a LOT of answer to get through. But it'll be worth it.

But now let's talk about the game to the left, Skate, developed by Black Box in Burnaby, BC, owned by, of all people, Electronic Arts, the Company That Can Do No Good. Except that miraculously, this time, somehow, against all my expectation, they have made something very good.

The story behind my sudden enthusiasm is a lesson in hype. Recently on the Playstation Store, free demos of both the latest Tony Hawk game, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and this game were made available. I downloaded both of course, but immediately started up the Hawk game, remembering how much fun I'd had with the first two, then recalling with minor sadness the gradual downward spiral the series had experienced over the years, getting needlessly complicated and clumsy to the point where I just ignored it. I thought maybe they might have recovered.

What greeted me upon trying that demo was a dark, gritty, somehow mean-spirited demo that calculatingly portrayed skaters as rebels fighting for freedom on the streets. It was an obvious, shallow attempt to "celebrate" skating as a cool, anti-authoritarian, completely non-commercial movement, that just happened to be filled with some of the big names in skating, and the now traditional, almost clunky Tony Hawk control system that hasn't changed too drastically in the 8 years the game has been out, except to become even more ornate and unwieldy. A dark, gritty, New York-esque, crumbling sprawl from out of a decaying 80's is what greeted me, with hard-nosed gangs of skaters that fought for territory and even each other as they struggled to "Skate because they couldn't do anything else." Throughout the entire demo, I kept getting the nagging suspicion that someone was whispering to me, "This is cool, this is anti-establishment, this rebellion, JUST LIKE YOU, brought you to by Activision. Activision, purveyors of fine software for cool kids, just $59.99 at a store near you." It smacked of an incredibly obvious attempt to be "commercially subversive," and I kind of resented it. It didn't help that the game itself was just as Not Fun as I'd remembered previous versions that followed in the wake of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Then thinking I was going to end up deleting the demo within minutes--'cause let's be fair, this is ELECTRONIC FREAKIN' ARTS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, MERCHANTS OF SWILL--I booted up Skate, confident in my expectations that this was going to be an even more incompetent, badly conceived, clumsily executed, poor man's rip off of the Tony Hawk games.

I was so damn wrong it's not even funny.

I went into this game with zero expectations. Actually that's a lie, I went in with full on NEGATIVE expectations, I was already hating it from the moment I saw that "EA HD" logo on the screen, because that logo has already become synonymous with unoriginal crap destined to be recycled for the next 20 years and people will STILL buy it.

Skate wasn't that. It wasn't anything remotely like that. I played the demo. The control system was new, fresh, fun and brilliant. It was one of those moments where you lay your hands on the controls, see how they've done it, and question "Why in God's name have we never done it like this BEFORE?!" Somehow, Black Box pulled a Guitar Hero in that, despite the fact that is obviously NOT the real thing, they have managed to create a control system that mimics to a certain degree some of the basic mechanics of skating. When you want to crouch, you pull back on the right analog stick, to jump, just flick it up. To jump to the right, flick up from that couch slightly to the right. None of this hit "X" to auto-skate/crouch, and then release to ollie followed by steering the left stick around to maneuver in the air. Suddenly, just like a real skater, when you were in the air, the only thing standing between you and a bail was your own skill, a little luck and gravity.

Also, the demo took place in a sunny, fictional, California city called San Vanelona, a combination of San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona. It was a bright, beautiful town, perpetually drenched in sunset light, and it looked the kind of place you'd actually want to live. It was also, unsurprisingly, filled to the gills with advertising from actual skate companies and Adidas, who are major brand sponsors, and yet, somehow, because this is EA, I expected no less and it didn't bother me; they, at least, were being honest with their crassness.

I played the demo, enjoyed the controls, played some more, and somehow ended up playing that demo every single day. This was the first time since I'd started messing around with Playstation Store demos that the intended purpose of the demo worked; instead of me playing through it thinking "Glad that showed me what a stinker THAT title is," I was hungry for more. I saw the gates locking me into the skate park with that whole town outside, and I wanted to explore it.

So when the game went on sale, on the same day as Halo 3, I surprised the EB Games clerks by buying Skate instead of The Big One, since they had lines of people wanting that.

Since then, I've been enjoying the game like no one's business. The Wife loves it because she finds the constant abuse of the skater (which looks painful in the EXTREME) to be a source of never-ending hilarity. She's actually cried tears of laughter at some of the accidents I've gotten my poor bastard skater into, and feels that so far this is one of the best purchases we've made based on sheer entertainment value for viewers.

I myself am really digging the game for a variety of the reasons. There's that control I mentioned before, but there's also the fact that unlike Tony Hawk they've really toned it down, and brought the game more to the level of a simulation. Tony Hawk games had gotten to the point where skaters were routinely grinding across an entire series of rooftops before careening off at sonic speed to bounce of flagpoles and eventually the tips of skyscrapers. In other words, Tony Hawk games had turned skate games into a ridiculously exaggerated parody of the sport. Skate made something as basic as grinding off a stair handrail difficult and just aiming for it, doing your ollie and STAYING on it was a major accomplishment in and of itself.

On top of that, there is an AMAZING online component to this game. You can play modes where you simply have a time-limit and try to score the highest within that amounted time by doing tricks, you can play with others at a designated spot, battling to see how can pull off the stunt at a dangerous location, or you can race to see who gets to a certain position first. You can play "ranked servers" in that your accomplishments go towards determining your overall score within the entire Skate community, or you can create your own "unranked server" to just mess around with friends.

But what I really love about this game is the built in video-editor. Skate is constantly caching roughly the last 30 seconds of whatever you're doing, so that if you pull off a spectacular grind, or an even more spectacular accident, you immediately jump into "replay mode" and choose the exact length of your "skate clip" choose camera angles, drop in effects like B&W or sepia tones, change the speed for slow motion at critical junctures, and save your video. Then, at the press of a button, you can upload your video for the entire Skate community to see. In just a few short days I've seen some AMAZING tricks viewed directly from an in-game menu that connects you to the internet. It even has a feature called "SkateTV" where you can check into other games as a spectator, and see how other people are doing real-time, or even check in to see what the currently highest ranked skater who happens to be online is playing at that very moment, to see how he does it live.

The game's not perfect, obviously. You can't do handplants, a glaring omission, and for some reason, in character creation, you're stuck with a male, they decided that girls don't skate. Another irritating point is that you're stuck to your board, so if you see a flight of stairs, you can't simply get off your board and climb them, you either go looking for a ramp, or get up enough speed to ollie over them.

But these are minor issues, and, as horrified as I am to say this, you can bet that Electronic Arts will address them.

In the inevitable sequel.

Which I now know I will get.

If I had to review this game--which I'm actually kind of now regretting I didn't get the chance to--I'd give it an 8.5 The game is a jewel with a few rough spots here and there that is already fun to play, but shows immense promise for a sequel. But I'm going to stop writing now so I can get back to playing. The Wife is cruising around San Vanelona right now on my behalf, looking for a gnarly ramp...

Labels: Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/27/2007 11:22:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Journalist Day

We're almost back to normal human being hours, in that this time we got up at around the same time farmers normally do. Had a fairly productive day in that I went down to the Toronto HQ of Sony and was offered orange juice, bottled water and an obscene amount of food. Sadly, no games were offered, but I suppose that would fall under a compromise of journalistic integrity.

Can't talk too much about what happened, suffice to say that I now have to transcribe a 38 minute interview with the guy who created this:

And now I'm going to face plant a few more cars...

Also, the Wife has been so tickled by the various crippling mutilations I've subjected my character to in Skate that she was prompted to create this:

In short, I still suck.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/26/2007 11:46:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Cheating Time Travel Post

It's not actually the end of the day chronologically speaking, but the body clock says it is now Officially Late and so the post time on this blog post reflects that. First, I have now ranted ad nauseum about my take on the Games As Art debate with a truly monstrous essay that crossed the seven page mark when written in MS Word. The rant, however, is not on GameAxis, or even IGN, and instead is now gracing the blog of Ragnar Tornquist, a recent buddy of mine and creator of The Longest Journey and The Longest Journey: Dreamfall. Anyone who's curious to read this thing--and you do so at your own peril--can find it here.

Also, it looks like there is an interview with a truly interesting and new game developer on Wednesday, and tomorrow, fates willing (and mobs of Halo fans notwithstanding) I will pass through the hordes of Xbox 360 fans desperate to "finish the fight" with this:

Labels: Games, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/24/2007 11:52:00 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Worky Sort Of Day

Started on a new article for IGN, sent out some writer-ly related e-mails clarifying details of other articles, and spectacularly failed to find any of the rare weapons I was looking for in the bowels of a Persona 3 dungeon.

Just another day in the life of a geek, folks...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism, My Life, RPGs

posted by Wayne # 9/18/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Another Boring Tuesday

Today was spent with a little bit of Persona 3, a lot of writing an IGN article, a little bit of watching Superman Returns--which STILL kicks ass to me--and some shopping around the neighborhood. Not much going on today, but tomorrow, if no trucks laden with precious gaming get overturned on their way to various game stores:

Labels: Games, Journalism, Movies, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/11/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Caught On Film

I got a note from the guy I'd hung out with at X '07 that he'd posted his thoughts on some of the events, and he decided to include some of the footage he shot. To the left is a screen capture from said video with me holding the Fender Strat that will go into both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Rock Band. In addition, however, he managed to catch on film my "Vanna White" impression of showing off the various features of the guitar, as well as some footage of The Hive's Main Offender being played with me on bass.

This is me showing off the guitar.

This is me not screwing up too much on Main Offender. Bass meter is the far right.

If you want to save this stuff, just right click on the above links and "save as."

Big thanks to "TrackZero" and the Evil Avatar website for the images.

Oh, and just to keep the Rock Band-mania going, WITNESS THE POWER OF ROCK!

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, Rock Band

posted by Wayne # 9/09/2007 11:57:00 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Day Of Errands

Just another quiet, pleasant day in the Annex. Bank stuff was done, groceries were picked up, walks down the street occurred, advice was dispensed about how best to play God of War II (I loaned to the Upstairs Neighbor, he's no longer getting any work done) and dinner was had in the backyard with all the neighbors to welcome Upstairs Neighbor.

Also, while walking down Bloor, we happened to walk past a used CD/DVD store and saw, brand new, in the window, this:

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that we would pick it up, since the Wife is a huge fan of Go/dzilla/jira, and at $17 for a brand new DVD of the remastered version I'd heard about, this was impossible to resist. I don't think I'm going to be seeing this on Blu-Ray anytime in the near future anyway, so bring on the rubber-suited, model busting goodness.

I'm pretty happy with this particular version, since not only did they remaster it--as best they could, considering the deteriorating, surprisingly NOT archived state of the original--they also include the original 1956, bastardized American version with Raymond Burr as a reporter commenting on the carnage, and there is a pretty in depth commentary from some "Godzilla experts" and give a fairly detailed account of not just the production of Godzilla, but the post-war society and mindset of the Japanese that created one of the most famous rubber-suited monsters of all time.

Now to settle in for a busy next few days. The animated series requires some gearing up for writing scripts, the magazine still has one last article owing, there's the monthly installment of the comic book to crank out, and IGN has suddenly written in to pretty much say yes to ALL the article ideas I've thrown at them, so it's time to get some more game writin' in.

Damn, when did I get so busy?

But first, more Persona 3.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Friends, Journalism, Movies, My Life, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/05/2007 11:47:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, August 31, 2007

I Already Typed Up My X '07 Experience Once

And I don't feel like typing it again.

So instead, I direct you to this.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Gaming Industry, Guitar Hero, Journalism, Rock Band

posted by Wayne # 8/31/2007 11:12:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

X '07

I am tired. I will write about X '07 on Friday when I make a similar post for GameAxis. In the meantime...

A Ferrari was available for spins around the block. I took one. He was accelerating to over 100 km an hour in seconds. I thought I was going to die.

More pictures and comments when I make my proper post about this on Friday.

And yes, I played Rock Band. Multiple times.

And it was BEYOND awesome.

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 8/28/2007 09:37:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 27, 2007

Monday At Home

A little bit of writing here and there, but mostly, today is the day I prepare myself for my fateful visit with Dark Scourge of Gaming, Microsoft. They have an event for the press called "X '07" and I got an invite to go down and check it out on the western edge of downtown. Time to keep my bile and cynicism about the company in check and play nice-nice with the PR folks while scarfing down free food and taking their swag.

More on that tomorrow after I've returned.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 8/27/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, June 01, 2007

Damn. Didn't See That One Coming.

I am now well and truly in full on vampire mode, having gotten out of bed as the sun was almost completely set.

I am also now amazed and somewhat bummed out over the fact that Ron Moore has announced that Battlestar Galactica will--as Edward Olmos hinted--be ending as of the fourth season. This is a bit weird for me since I love the show, but am only half-way done, since I watch the DVD collections rather than the actual broadcast episodes. On the other hand, this is a pretty logical progression since--in novel-like fashion--Moore has been advancing the characters and stories with irreparable changes and the whole "we're looking for Earth" thing kind of needs to be addressed. Still, better to end it with people loving the show than just let the momentum run out and turn your fans against you, a la the X-Files back in the day. It's a gutsy move, and I'm really curious to see how this will go, since I had thought they wouldn't be able to tell the entire tale in four seasons and would need at least a fifth to pull it off.

In other news, the second story for the Liquid City anthology has been done, sent off to the artist and he says he's going to start on his roughs within a week. What was supposed to be my "easy" 10 page story once again ballooned into something 17 pages in length, but with the artist looking it over, there may be room to cut things down. Man, I remember there was a time when I could actually tell a story in less than 8,000 words, and now I've gotten to the point where it's nearly impossible. How the hell did that happen?

There's also a little bit of work to be done for IGN, as the editor I was previously in contact with has moved on, and after pitching an idea to the New Guy, he decided to run with it, so I've got to start doing some prep work on that. And the last of the articles for GameAxis needs to be put away for the month, so I guess I'd better start tidying that up as well.

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, Journalism, Liquid City, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 6/01/2007 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Gamerz Rite The Guudest!11 ZOMG LOLZ!11

Today I got my free copy--or should I say login name and password for a PDF download--of The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. It is supposed to be a reference book for aspiring game journalists that provides the same kind of definitive rules as Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but specific to the needs of game journalism, which, unlike its much older ancestors has little in the way of standardization, or public respect.

It's an interesting read, although I think that anyone who's already established in the industry will find the majority of the content not that useful. The bulk of the book consists of a glossary that explains most of the terms commonly used in gaming, such as "1-up" and the merits of using the word "console" versus "system." Just about the only thing that I walked away with from that particular section was the fact that all these years, I should have been writing PlayStation, not Playstation. The other, more arbitrary decision is the guide's stance on using "videogame" versus "video game." I think that for the most part, this book will be most useful to two kinds of readers; those who are new to writing in general, and writing about games in particular, and those who broke into game journalism with a profound belief that neither grammar nor structure are necessary for game journalism because that kind of stuff is for nerds. Since game journalism tends to be far more lenient about people that "break in" than counterparts in news journalism, film journalism and music journalism, I suspect there are far, far more of this second type of reader than the game industry would like to admit.

But one part in particular that I found interesting was the theoretical bit towards the end. Here they make a stand on "reviews" versus "criticism" and they break it down into a fairly simple line of division. Reviews are pieces that talk about what something IS. Criticisms are pieces that explore what something MEANS. The book goes on to state that most reviewers tend to fall somewhere in the middle, leaning heavily towards the review aspect and throwing in another element, which is personal taste. The guide believes that while having a personal opinion is obviously something is important, it should not be the final destination of a really good piece, as, at least in film, it is the critical aspect that separates a thoughtful exploration of a game from a merely gushing/acerbic holler. It likens this difference to what readers see when they read a review by Harry Knowles ("That scene was awesome! THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME!") versus Roger Ebert or Pauline Kael ("That scene was an interesting play on both societal concerns and anxieties, as well as a reference to cinematography of the German Expressionist era, working on two levels to engage the audience."). Obviously the feel that game journalists are too much of the former and there aren't anywhere near enough of the latter.

Of course that brings up an interesting question, which is, "Do we need that kind of reviewer yet?" I'm firmly in the camp that games are an art form, albeit a new and still emerging one. For the moment, games are still viewed as a shallow, vacuous (and dangerously influential) entertainment for the masses, with no social, cultural or artistic value. That should be a familiar line to anyone who was there at the birth of film, comics or rock and roll, and as time has proven, that perception eventually ends up being discarded as the form matures. I think games too, will have to start being taken very, VERY seriously when two inevitable factors kick in. 1) The academics get into it, something that is already happening, and 2) The people who grew up playing videogames are entrenched in every level of society, including political policy making. Perhaps, for example, Fredic Wertham and his anti-comic study Seduction of the Innocent held sway in the 50's when comics were still perceived as new and threatening, but try telling any psychiatrist today that comics are responsible for the evils of the world and they'll say you're wrong and tout videogames as far more dangerous. However, give it another 30 years, when every decision maker has grown up exposed to--if not playing--games, and you'll see them saying games are harmless and the real danger is all that crazy Neural Simulated Reality the kids are plugging into.

By the time it gets to that stage, hopefully there will be less superstition surrounding games and more critical thinking. But the thing I'm wondering is, how do we move NOW into that transition where game journalists are sort of third party advertisers, and into a position where they are regarded as thinkers that contribute insights to games and their impact on society? What's it gonna' take before we get that Lester Bangs or Pauline Kael that this style guide holds up as the paragon that we should be shooting for? Do we need some gonzo journalist to start writing for Wired in the same way that bangs did for Rolling Stone Magazine?

Labels: Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/29/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, May 18, 2007

The Boring Friday

Work continues with another GameAxis article down and off. Just one more to go, but that can wait, since it's a news article and that needs to be kept "fresh". For now, I'll just divert my attention to other stuff like another comic script for Liquid City, and some preliminary work that needs to be done on The Job With No Name. With any luck, it'll be at least somewhat good stuff, and I'll be able to move onto The Next Phase.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Creating Comics, Journalism, Mystery Job, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/18/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

More Work

Stayed at home, avoided the thunderstorms that washed across Toronto and wrote an article for GameAxis.

That is all.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/15/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

One Article Down

And... a whole bunch of other stuff to go...

Oh well, busy weeks are good weeks.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/08/2007 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007

Resurfacing Momentarily

Because this is going to turn into another one of those boring weeks for posts. It's a work week in that I still have the GameAxis articles to finish, still have the Top Shelf anthology script to finish so the Wife can start on it, still have a second script to start on for Sonny Liew's anthology (looks like the artist I approached within the group is interested in doing it) still have a script for the next month's installment of the kid's comic in Singapore to start on, and oh yeah... I was writing a novel, wasn't I?

In other news, the Wife finally got her first Canadian freelance job, and this is a Good Thing, because not only does it mean rent/food/utilities money, it is also critical to her self-esteem since she now knows that her work in Singapore wasn't just a fluke and she can stand with the best of 'em professionally even in North America. I have been telling her this repeatedly of course, but nothing decimates her considerable sense of inferiority more than the sweet, sweet smell of ink on a check that doesn't bounce.

We are now also the proud owners of Bram Stoker's Dracula (the super-bit version), Mystery Men and finally, one of my more recent, all-time-favorite comedies, Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, which, I am surprised to discover, was actually filmed largely around the Ontario, Greater Toronto/Mississauga area, rather than New Jersey, as I had assumed. Hell, all of the college scenes apparently took place at the University of Toronto. Now I know why I found those buildings suspiciously familiar when I first saw them...

This time around, I'm going to watch it more closely to see if I can find those innately Canadian commercial icons (like Shopper's Drugmart) that are supposed to sneak into some of the shots if you're really paying attention.

So yeah, back to work...

Labels: Journalism, Movies, Writing

posted by Wayne # 5/07/2007 11:22:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

It's Up

And it feels good.

It's a little surreal, though ultimately meaningless if you're not a gamer. But I've been faithfully reading IGN on an almost daily basis for years now. As far as I'm concerned, they're just about the best place to go for a more casual approach to games, comics, movies and DVDs. Most of the geeks I know will, at some point, reference a review or product that has been covered on IGN, it's a geek staple. So it strikes me as almost unnatural that the Geek Capital of the Internet now has a piece credited to me for the entire planet to see. Unfortunately, the only people who can read the interview in its entirety are those that are subscribed to the premium content service of IGN known as IGN Insider, but for anyone that wants to at least read the intro, here it is.

And now, back to comics...

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Writing

posted by Wayne # 4/24/2007 08:39:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, April 23, 2007

Thunder & Lightning, Very Very Frightening

Today was all about the work. I've been working away at the script for the anthology, and for once I have a title. I'm loathe to say what it is here since I don't want to give away too much at such an early stage, but it's nice to know that that's one less Usual Concern sitting on my shoulder as the story comes together.

I have to admit, it's nice to be working on a script like this. It's in my comfort zone, that being lots of dialog and fairly adult themes and situations, not in the naked sense, so much as in the "this is the kind of thing kids would find boring" sense. Well, unless they're particularly thoughtful, poetic children. I'm still very much into writing and finishing Lost In Loveless but this being my first attempt at a children's novel, it's not as easy or "reflexive" for me to get the story out as it is for something like this.

Also, the Wife managed to have that most rare of experiences, watching an actual bolt of lightning hit a tree. She happened to be standing right at the window, watching a torrential rain storm that seemingly came out of nowhere (that is if you don't follow weather reports, the way we don't) when an actual, Zeus-like bolt of lightning descended from the angry heavens and struck a tree just across the street. The tree actually exploded into sparks and then a vast chunk of the tree fell away from the main structure and buried a couple of cars that were parked directly underneath. The fire department and police were called up, yellow tape was set around the perimeter, a blockade was set up to keep cars from using the street and even a CityTV news van pulled up to get some shots, presumably for Film At Eleven. We watched all this on and off from the window and it was quite fascinating.

And lastly, this won't do much good for people that don't have a special subscription called "Insider" but my very first North American video game based gig will--according to the editor I've been working with--go live on IGN as of tomorrow. It's no big deal now to say that this first interview is with adventure game developer Ragnar Tornquist whose games I have mentioned in glowing terms here in the past, and whose blog has a link here as well. For those of you that do subscribe to IGN Insider, it's a pretty comprehensive look at how he got his start in the industry as well as his thoughts on adventure gaming in particular and gaming in general. The editor over at IGN seemed pretty happy with it, so I guess it's a safe bet now that I might get more work out of them, which would be very cool.

But for now, at least I can say I did it. I'll have my article up on one of the biggest, most heavily referenced game-based websites on the planet. At the very least, that means I don't suck.

Labels: Creating Comics, Gaming Industry, Journalism, My Life

posted by Wayne # 4/23/2007 10:45:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Bock, Bock, Bock, Ba-CAW! And More God of War II

This arrived in the mail today and I am a giddy little geek. There's just something deliciously evil about taking beloved toys and using stop-motion animation to make them do horrible things to each other. It kind of reminds me of summer days as a kid when instead of going out and playing in the streets like normal, well adjusted children, I'd be using our ancient VHS camcorder to make live-action movies, or primitive stop motion features using Justice League and He-Man action figures.

Except of course that what you find in Robot Chicken is hilariously brilliant. As opposed to my spare, Hemingway-esque, incredibly poignant dialog that went along the lines of "PAY IN SPADES, KALIBAK! WHA-POW!!"

If you don't know, Robot Chicken is a series of stop-motion animated shorts by Seth Green (aka Oz of Buffy the Vampire Slayter fame and Scott Evil, Dr. Evil's son in the Austin Power films) and Matthew Senreich, editor of Toyfare magazine. Basically the show is no-holds barred insanity that goes above and beyond the clay-mation hijinks of Celebrity Deathmatch to go into strange, perverse areas of pop and geek culture. Only in Robot Chicken will you find a parody of Final Fantasy VII where the characters are now working in a fast food restaurant, and only here will you find out exactly how deep Ted Turner's psychosis and love for Captain Planet goes. But don't take my word for it. Witness for yourself...

I'd seen various Robot Chicken shorts over the last couple of years, without knowing that's what it was, until that particular Captain Planet sketch compelled me to find exactly who the hell these lunatics were. Now that I have it for my very own, I feel all giddy inside.

God of War II continues to be played and it is a marvel of a game. The further I get into it, the more and more impressed I am by the brilliance of the actual design. Too often these days, a game will make me go "Wow" for reasons other than the actual game itself, such as the graphics, or the quality of the story or cutscenes shown. While God of War II undoubtedly has the best graphics that the PS2 will ever see, what amazes me the most about this game is how much it feels like watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the very first time. You're left with your mouth hanging open at some of the setpiece action/game sequences, and when you see them, you think "That did NOT just happen! HOW COOL IS THAT?!" and you just can't wait to see what happens in deeper in the game, which usually tops whatever it is you've just seen anyway. I can't remember the last time I had this much fun with an action game. It's just BRILLIANT. It's not done yet, since the Wife insists that not a minute of gaming goes by at which she's not present, so I play it in chunks when she's not working, and we're both unbelievably impressed. After this, the upcoming Tomb Raider: Anniversary in June is going to be somewhat anti-climatic. Especially considering I'll probably still be screaming "YEEEEEEEEE!" over Guitar Hero: 80's Edition which will arrive a few days later.

Also things with IGN are moving, albeit slowly. A few more contractual formalities have been worked out (translation, they lost the signed contracts I sent and needed them again), and we're now just about ready to start. Of course, I can't actually talk about what I'm going to be doing. But I will say my first article involves dealing with someone I already know and have a lot of respect for, so this will be fun and easy.

And yes, Lost In Loveless continues to be written, but... really what can you say about that? "I wrote more book." Whoo. How exciting....

Labels: Games, Journalism, Lost In Loveless, My Life, Writing

posted by Wayne # 3/22/2007 11:08:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, March 16, 2007

Work, Movies and Velma

As you can see, the Wife suddenly got motivated to finish the sketch of Velma that she did in black & white way back when we were still in Singapore. I don't remember Velma looking quite this slinky, but I sure ain't gonna' complain about it.

Other than that, this was another delightfully boring Friday where we didn't hit the town and do all kinds of urbane, cosmopolitan things. Instead, I finished up my articles for GameAxis for the month and then after that, powered through Tetsuo The Ironman, which is another Japanese WTF film that I simply cannot describe. Except to say that only the Japanese would decide to give a man a giant drill as his new genitalia, and only they would be curious to see what it would look like were he to use it on a woman.

'Nuff said...

The other movies that were viewed were all existing ones in our collection, simply because I'm slowly going through all our films now that we can watch them in widescreen and high definition, just to see what they look like. Today was bits and pieces of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (okay, I admit it, once again, the Spock dies scene moved me to tears, dammit...) and The Matrix, which, since I hadn't seriously looked at it in years, actually had improved. I mean, I liked it a hell of a lot before, but in light of recent "science fiction" efforts like The Island, The Matrix is a freakin' masterpiece in that it does manage to combine some amazing action with some actual intelligence and a really, REALLY interesting idea.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Clash of the Titans.

Tomorrow, The Last Unicorn and how you can help Peter S. Beagle...

Labels: Artwork, Journalism, Movies

posted by Wayne # 3/16/2007 11:35:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Another Quiet Day

The only things that happened of note were that I finally got around to watching Rubber's Lover, a WTF movie if ever there was one. Kind of a Japanese combination of David Lynch with Stanley Kubrick's clinical inhumanity. And screaming. Lots of screaming. And rubber suits. And people's head's exploding. And more screaming.

And in other news, I finally got around to filling out all those scary legal documents from IGN. I suppose it's just for record keeping purposes, but I felt a bit weird filling out an American W9 Taxpayer Identification Number contract when I don't actually pay taxes in the USA. Still, they sent it out to me, so I signed it, despite the fact that somewhere in the fine print, the signature is supposed to acknowledge that I am a lawful citizen of the USA. Uh... yeah. Sure. Just gimme' the job and I'll make freakin' Apple Pies come out of my mouth when I belch, whatever it takes...

Labels: Journalism, Movies, My Life

posted by Wayne # 3/14/2007 11:26:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, March 12, 2007

Boring, But Productive

Today wasn't particularly exciting which, I am sorry to say, is EXACTLY how I like it. You know you're getting old when you look forward to a Drama-Free day and I'm definitely a big fan of those. Aside from the usual trip down to Bloor for a grocery run, the only things of note that happened today were that I was a good little chipmunk and cranked out more of the articles for GameAxis that are required for this month. Also, I got this in the mail:

And not the poster either, the movie. This was one of those random eBay moments where I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen the movie in years and actually remembered it quite fondly as one of the few genuinely good fantasy films of the 80's. Whether or not the lens of nostalgia has anything to do with that now remains to be seen. I'll pop it into the PS2 (this is our sole DVD player now) in a few days and see whether the carnage is as spectacular as I remember it, or whether Peter Jackson has now made it impossible for me to enjoy any fantasy film effort made without the help of WETA Digital Effects.

Oh, and it is official. After getting an e-mail with some very scary looking legal documents that I need to fill out, I will be doing my first gig for IGN. This may not mean much to most, but to me, having spent years relying on these guys for my gaming news, it feels like I've finally punched a hole into video game journalism legitimacy, assuming such a thing can be said to exist in such a wonky field. Still, to the game geeks that care, and to the gaming publications that are in North America, being able to wave a reference as monolithic (reviled or not) as IGN definitely means that I ain't some amateur fanboy writer who thinks he can put a few words together and then tie it into a l33t bow with a juicy phrase like "pwned" or "OMGWTFBBQ" and actually have a certain standard of professionalism.

Or it could simply mean I've sold out. Whichever, I'm happy with both.

Labels: Journalism, Mean Streets Of Toronto, My Life

posted by Wayne # 3/12/2007 11:59:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, February 22, 2007

More Stuff In The Mail

I'm quickly beginning to realize that internet and credit card access pretty much connects you to whatever toys you're into, without necessitating you having to live in a big city with access to all the amenities provided by metropolia on that scale. To whit; despite the fact that Suspect Video and Beguiling are just a few blocks away, the winter weather still makes a leisurely stroll down to these areas unappealing at best.

However, thanks to Amazon and other mail order services, it's all pretty much irrelevant. There's no particular drama for me, though the Wife continues to be thwarted in her attempts to get her scanner. Today, her laser printer arrived--a big ol' thing weighing in at 60 pounds--despite the fact that she ordered that much later, so I suspect if a few more days goes by and the scanner doesn't turn up, she's going to bite the bullet and order it again, hoping this time it'll actually survive the trip.

On my end, I was messing with my new toys, the first things I've ever ordered with my very own credit card. The big one was a movie I've been meaning to watch for the last few years since the Wife first mentioned it. It's a precursor to the Japanese horror ambassadors like The Ring and Juon, and this one was called Kairo, which--surprise, surprise--got recently remade into an American horror film called Pulse. The story (and in particular the continuity, with people suddenly appearing in different clothes for no apparent reason and no perceptible jump in time) was disjointed, but on eof the things that seriously creeped me out about this movie was a serious use of dark and camera movement to creep you out. There were no long haired ghosts crawling around in this one, and none of the typical jump scares or gore as typified by American horror. Instead, the film relied on causing excruciating amounts of tension by letting you see shadows and things moving here and there, but rarely letting you actually see anything. Basically the director relied on the truism "It's what you DON'T see that scares" to in order to achieve his goal, and it worked.

I now also have the Southpark movie (something else that was, you guessed it, illegal in Singapore!) and will be viewing it shortly. It's terribly appropriate to be watching this film now, considering its plot. My only opportunity to watch it in Singapore, years ago, was aborted by the fact that it was on an extremely bad pirate copy burned to CD, and the disc jammed up about a half hour into the movie, so this will be a much more pleasant viewing experience.

And the IGN assignment is tentatively on. I'll have to see about more details and nail down deadlines and the exact scope of the job, but I told "I'm interested" and they said, "Great," so I guess it's on.

Labels: Journalism, Movies, Musing, Neat-O Gadgetry

posted by Wayne # 2/22/2007 11:42:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Semi-Work Day

Things were kind of, sort of done, although no real actual writing was accomplished. A bit of shopping, an interesting prospect of continuing work on an existing project (heck, at least that'll pay the rent...) but most intriguing of all, an offer of a freelance job. From IGN--#1 gaming geek site--of all companies. Of course, I'm going to say yes. After reading these guys for years, it'll be nice to actually add them to my resume. And who knows... If they like the work, maybe they'll give me more. I only pray future work (should it happen) doesn't entail E3. I've had quite enough of that, thank you very much...

Also, the Wife now has a silk screen for making T-Shirts. For people that absitively, posolutely gotta' have limited editions or collector's editions, this means that I'll be wearing T-shirts you will never, ever see anywhere else. The Wife is also spending most mornings by the window, mumbling "Mail truck... mail truck..." in anticipation of a Really Big Ass Scanner that should have gotten here by now, and somehow ended up being beaten to the punch by knitted sweaters that were mailed from the same place on the same day. I guess even the postal service doesn't want to hold onto knitted goods any longer than they have to, but maybe they're scanning shots of their bottoms at drunken office parties, much as photocopiers have done in days of yore.

And on a less happy note, I've just realized that it's been well over a month since I had a serious sit down, thrash session with Guitar Hero 2, since The Rest Of Our Stuff is still not here. It amazes me just how much I miss that damn game.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Guitar Hero, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 2/21/2007 11:03:00 PM 2 comments

Thursday, February 15, 2007

100% Legal

The cats have been taken to the vet, gotten their rabies vaccinations, gotten the paper that legally declares them vaccinated, and that same paper has been faxed off to Canadian Customs & Inspections. A quick phone call to verify it confirmed that the cats are, indeed, completely legal immigrants to Canada and no one is going to ship them back due to paranoia about them frothing at the mouth.

Also, my GameAxis duties are complete for the month and I can get back to gami-... I mean, finding fulfilling, meaningful work to contribute to the economy and good stuff like that.

Unfortunately, I've also found out that due to fact that my license expired while I was over in Singapore, the province of Ontario is going to make me start all over again, which includes having to acquire and hold onto a student license (here called a G1) for ONE FREAKIN' YEAR. I can cut that down to eight months, however, if I take a driver's course. Man, so much for just taking a driver's test and hitting the road...

Thank God we live near the subway...

And I also just found out today that prostitution in Toronto is ALSO 100% legal. I don't know where this came from, but now that I realize all those community papers tend to have an ads section filled to bursting with every kind of Lady Of The Evening imaginable, I've got a good mind to start taking those pages and using them as wall paper for a Wall Collage O' Lust. Mind you, prostitution is also legal in Singapore but they don't seem quite as... proud of the fact... as Toronto is.

Labels: Journalism, My Life, Them Crazy Kitties

posted by Wayne # 2/15/2007 11:06:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

And For Valentine's Day...

I did nothing but work on GameAxis articles and hang out with the Wife. Oh, and play a little bit of Devil Summoner. No kids, it's not just married life, I've always been this boring. Just more bitter back in the single days.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 2/14/2007 11:46:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Work Day

Except for a trip for some groceries in the afternoon and wrestling with the internet (looks like this wireless stuff is a bust during the day, though it stabilizes at night) it was pretty much all about writing for GameAxis.

Mental note to self: Work on a comic or novel. SOON.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 2/13/2007 11:49:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 15, 2007

Caller ID Is There For A Reason

Mental note to self:

The next time the phone rings in a your Old Friend's home, do NOT just arbitrarily pick up the phone and say "Hello, [Old Friend's Last Name] residence, the mistress isn't in, how can I help you?"

Especially do NOT do this when the other person on the line is Old Friend's mom, who, after a few moments of shocked silence asks, "Who... IS... this?!?"

And then reply with an abashed, "Oh... hello Mrs. [Old Friend's Last Name]... er... how've you been?"

"WHO... IS... THIS?!"

Fortunately after revealing who the moron was, she immediately went back into friendly mode (I was the always the nice, but disturbingly odd young man in Old Friend's life, who was either destined to have a nice, odd life, or else bury several busloads worth of children in my backyard in her mother's opinion, I suspect), and I brought her up to speed on what I was doing, who I was married to, but not why I was referring to her beloved daughter as Mistress.

Mouth, meet foot. I knew you two were meant for each other...

Oh, and I managed to get my articles in on time. A quiet, productive day with a little bit of work and a little bit of humiliation. Perfect...

God, I'm such a schmuck...

Labels: Friends, Journalism, My Life

posted by Wayne # 1/15/2007 10:33:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

"WE'RE NOT WRONG... wait, we are? Oh... then.... YOU'RE STUPID!"

What an odd morning.

After arriving at the GameAxis office, I was told that a story I'd posted on the GameAxis blog had been pulled by the editorial team at the request of Singapore Press Holdings. For those of you that don't live in Singapore, SPH is company that runs the local newspaper. It is also owned by the government, in the same way that SingTel, the local phone company is also owned by the government, and the Television Corporation of Singapore is also owned by the government, in addition to Radio Corporation of Singapore which is... you guessed it, owned and operated by the government. Recently SPH actually bought out the company that publishes GameAxis.

The reason I mention all this is because last week, in the blog post which is no longer there, I wrote a story about how the local newspaper ran two articles in the same paper. One story in their technology section called Digital Life, called the Playstation 3 the must have Christmas gift of the year and urged people to buy it. The other story, in the "Home" section of the newspaper, claimed that the PS3 violated voltage standards for Singapore and so any retailer that was caught selling the console would be fined by the government.

Yes, you read that right. The newspaper told people to buy the console, but told retailers not to sell it. In an amazing second round of even greater confusion, the two articles were written by the same person.

At this point you might be thinking "That's incredibly stupid," and if you thought so, you'd be thinking exactly the same thing that I was thinking, which is why I wrote the story pointing out this amazing contradiction. I also pointed out that said contradiction was based on a factual error, because the Playstation 3 comes built-in with a universal voltage convertor and can thus safely operate anywhere in the world without bursting into flame, unless Singapore is operating on some unique Cold Fusion generator that I'm not aware of that requires a canister of hydrogen be present and attached to all consumer electronics.

So I--and the rest of the GameAxis team--were a bit cheesed when we were told that the story had to be pulled now our new "owners" had heard about it and weren't entirely happy with the criticism. They also said that they wanted an e-mail out of me explaining why I would tell such a hideous story.

Unfortunately for them, I don't think they have much knowledge of the game industry or how things work around here. Most of the points of contention they wanted explained were wholly on my side. For example, one of the points I mentioned in my article was that since journalist had written a glowing article reccomending the PS3, it must have been one of the "illegal" consoles. SPH didn't take kindly to this and insisted that the console they used for review was completely legitimate as they had received it from Sony itself.

Sadly, what they weren't aware of was that Sony gave them PS3 models from the Taiwan/Hong Kong region, which, according to their definition, made the consoles illegal. They had, in fact, just admitted to using contraband technology as they had quite precisely defined it in their article.

Suffice to say after the e-mail was written and a few other people made some relevant points to it, it was sent off and the basic message was "You're getting mad at us for telling the truth." After it was sent, we didn't hear another word from them again.

I suppose we could lie and say that the PS3 doesn't have a universal voltage convertor, but then Singapore would be the only country in the world that believes this, and I think the country is more interested in not looking ignorant than it is about having one magazine apologize for pointing out they were wrong.

Still, I can guess I can add them to my list of People Gunning For Me. Just a couple of months ago I annoyed the Media Development Authority (owned and operated by the government) and now it's the press. Man, I just can't play nice anywhere...

Labels: Journalism, Singapore Stupidity

posted by Wayne # 12/19/2006 08:39:00 AM 1 comments

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Observation Of The Day

"The only thing a man loves more than his penis is his car, because that will always be bigger."

--The Wife & I

Also, I just finished writing up an article for GameAxis about a comic book artist named Sonny Liew. This one is a particularly gratifying and at the same weird article, for the simple fact that Sonny's actually a friend of ours, and for about three years, we lived across the street from him. So while on the one hand it was a lot easier to get material because it was a simple matter of just flat out asking him, on the other, it's very strange to be writing about someone you personally know and realizing that there are kids out there that wish they were in the same position he is, and will be hanging off every nugget of wisdom he drops in his interview.

It is a difficult thing to think in fanboy terms of someone if you became friends with them first. Oh well...

Labels: Comics, Journalism, Random Blargh

posted by Wayne # 12/14/2006 10:19:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Round 7: FIGHT!

I am now patiently neglecting the 7th draft of the Script That Wouldn't Die in favor of writing a daily blog post with no substance, insight or value of any kind. Go me. With any luck, there will only be a few more revisions left on this script, though I was kind of hoping that it would have been mostly done by now. At first this program was supposed to have been done by the end of November. Then it was supposed to have been done by December 21st. Now I'm told it likely won't be done until the end of January, which is spectacularly inconvenient for all concerned since I took on the job under the assumption it would be finished before 2007 and now it looks I won't be around by the time it actually goes into editing and voice over.

On the other hand, I am now left with only a few articles to write for GameAxis and a part of me feels weirdly sad about that. It's a good magazine. It's not perfect, but I'm actually pretty proud of the job we've done, and I'm going to miss being a part of the team.

On the other, other hand the occupation of playing games because someone is paying me to review them has now changed to playing games for other reasons entirely which I can't yet talk about. I'm going through The Longest Journey: Dreamfall for a second time, this time paying attention to names, putting more thought into character details and relationships and generally just getting a better, more critical understanding of what is happening in the story. The first time I played was purely for pleasure and was unbelievably fun. This second time is for more creative reasons, and is proving to still be immeasurably fun, but also a lot more interesting now that I'm actually thinking about what's going on, and actively pursuing all the references scattered throughout, such as the many allusions to Australian Aboriginal dreamtime, something I'd completely missed the first playthrough, which is now making many more things in the game much more significant thematically.

Too bad they don't have any "Game Studies" classes in the same way they had Film Studies when I went to university. I'm pretty sure I would have kicked serious ass in such a class.

Labels: Journalism, My Life, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 12/13/2006 09:33:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

When You Lack Trauma Or Drama In Your Life

This happens. Yet another day where I went to the office, wrote some articles (am now churning out my take on the Playstation 3 console) and thought about strange things like art and people and choices and consequences and other assorted things. Okay, granted, I could probably also make a post with a bit more interest to it if I just put in the effort, but I'm feeling lazy and only want to report to talk about things that actually happened, since that's a convenient cop out, and nothing really happened.

I'm going to try and enjoy this little bit of downtime, since there's a move imminent and I've already been warned ahead of time that the Video Game Documentary That Wouldn't Die has once again, zombie like, reared its head for yet another round of changes. Oh well, this too shall pass...

Labels: Games, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 12/12/2006 10:13:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 20, 2006

Finally, I Did Some Work

A full day at the office (time's a wastin' on getting the next issue of GameAxis out) was rounded out by another meeting for the Video Game Documentary That Obstinately Refuses To Just Roll Over And Die. Followed by going home and writing more stuff for the travel show series.

See? I CAN be productive.

But I still squeezed in some Final Fantasy XII. Over 100 hours clocked in, and nowhere near being done...

Labels: Games, Journalism, RPGs, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 11/20/2006 10:13:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Blogger's Working Again! Whee!

I seem to occasionally go through these stretches where even though I can write and save posts, Blogger won't actually let me publish them. The last four days was another one of those stretches. Bah.

Not that I have anything particularly interesting to say today either. I still need to finish off another script, have an article for Maxim coming up, and there are a bunch of games that are going to be needing reviews. Plus Bully is IMMENSELY fun and there's Guitar Hero and FFXII on the horizon.

Yes, I admit it. I am sad. But I am a sad person that is enjoying himself quite a bit, so I can live with my state of pathos rather than enjoy some virtuous, highly respectable misery.

Labels: Games, Journalism, My Life, Television Production

posted by Wayne # 11/01/2006 07:20:00 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Another Work Night

With a script that needs to be out by tomorrow, another that needs to be finished the day after that, and a few more reviews that need to be trotted for the magazine, plus TWO production meetings that need to be attended tomorrow, a possible OTHER script for the video game documentary depending on how one of those meetings goes tomorrow, a Woody Allen movie on Saturday afternoon, plus the possible acquisition of two more Playstation 2 games...

OH AND DID I MENTION I'LL HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR A FREAKIN' YEAR NEXT THURSDAY?!?

We're going to be going to Thailand for a few days to celebrate. I'm reeeeeeeally looking forward to that. Unless I still have to work on a script or something even while I'm there, which would suck.

Y'know what? People who say that productivity is cool are idiots. It's a lot easier to be in your happy place when you're a lazy bum with nuthin' to do.

Sigh. Back to work...

Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Journalism, Television Production, Travel, Writing

posted by Wayne # 10/11/2006 08:09:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Very Busy

The video game documentary is getting indescribably busy right now, and the magazine is starting up for yet another cycle of reviews and features. Being this productive is incredibly weird...

Labels: Journalism, Television Production

posted by Wayne # 10/04/2006 10:54:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Press Conference

The highlight of the day was going over to the Uber-Pretentiously named "Red Dot Museum" which used to be the HQ for Singapore traffic cops until they moved somewhere else, and it got taken over by the Media Whores. Basically designers, advertising people and anyone else that tries to use art to make people buy things has taken up residence in the place, so it seemed like the perfect place to hold a press conference announcing that that a government group known as the IAH, or Infocomm Asia Holdings, has managed to acquire the rights to distribute two potentially big online games in Southeast Asia and Australia.

That in itself was spectacularly boring, but the cool part was I got interview Bill Roper, the creator of Hellgate. This may not mean much to most people, even most gamers, but it should when I say he's also the guy that created Diablo, and broke away from Blizzard because he wanted to make more Diablo games and... well, at the moment, Bilzzard can't do much of anything outside the monstrously successful World of Warcraft.

Still, it was a kick to talk him and ply his brain with questions about Chinese Gold Farming and how Blizzard has become a victim of its own success in terms of what projects it can now pursue.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 9/27/2006 10:01:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

More Meetings

Aside from the usual work at the magazine which mostly consists of tormenting the new intern ("BOY! WHERE'S THAT COFFEE?!?"), the only other activity of note was a monstrously long meeting to discuss the video game documentary.

Things are moving along and with any luck this thing will actually wrap up when it's supposed to, because between this, the regular magazine work, the extra stuff for other magazines like Maxim, and the travel show, I'm an incredibly productive little boy. Who has done NO story-telling whatsoever since the comic book got submitted to Slave Labor Graphics. Speaking of which, I wonder if they have it yet?

Labels: Journalism, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/26/2006 10:47:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, September 18, 2006

Monday Is Article Day

There are still a bunch of articles to write, plus some stuff related to the Gaming documentary. Bleargh.

Labels: Journalism, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 9/18/2006 10:36:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, September 07, 2006

What An Incredibly Long Day

And it's still not done.

Aside from having to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6 something a-freakin'-m to make sure I was there before 7:30 for the live broadcast (Which lasted the whole of five minutes), there was that meeting for the other documentary that ran a couple of hours. I hate meetings, I really do. Mostly because a meeting seems to be about talking and hoping to achieve an objective, whereas most people realize talking does absolutely nothing of the sort, and should be done strictly for recreational purposes.

After that I worked on the script for the other TV series, but didn't finish it, then nipped off to play Monster Hunter Freedom and now am back. And I still have to finish that script. And I haven't played Xenosaga at all today. And did I mention I'm operating on about two or three hours of sleep?

Oh well, back to that script.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Television Production

posted by Wayne # 9/07/2006 10:49:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

I Am Dumb

Instead of giving myself a few hours of extra sleep before an 11 am meeting to discuss another TV project, I boneheadedly agreed to appear on a 7:30 am broadcast of BBC in Singapore because they need more "professional industry observer opinion" on the state of Sony and it's delayed PS3 in Europe launch.

The tragedy of all this is that I don't even really want to be on TV, but they asked really nicely and said they really wanted someone who wasn't a suit to comment knowledgeably on it, so like a dunce I said okay.

Man, I should be in bed now. But I'm still not done with a second script that needs to be handed in by Friday...

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 9/06/2006 10:16:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Productivity Sucks

If there's one thing that really bugs me, it's keeping busy and doing stuff everyday. I really get off on being an idle slacker so actual deadlines, hitting milestones and all that other assorted managerial crap tends to get on my nerves, and yet that is exactly what is happening these days.

I find that between the regular GameAxis gig, writing episodes for one production house, having started preliminary research on a documentary for another production house, writing articles for Maxim, writing a comic for Kid's Company AND writing a comic for... no one in particular, I'm being depressingly productive and can look back on each day with a solid chunk of accomplished work.

Sucks, man.

I'm now in the process of sloooowly filling out the submission requirements for Slave Labor Graphics, who is the first target of Operation Please Print This Comic. I still have to finish up the cover letter, write up some character descriptions and then give a synopsis of the story (and let the record show that on this day, I did admit, "I know how it ends" so that if it should go to print and run on and on and on forever, no one will think "he made it up as he went along.") and then wait for the Wife to gather up the visual samples. She needs to produce character sketches as well as at least 5 finished pages to show that she's not just a pin-up artist and understands the concept of sequential art.

Sequential art sounds so much more legitimate than "funny" or "comic" books.

On top of that, some good games are coming down the pipeline and Guitar Hero (STILL!!) is not finished, though Cowboys From Hell by Pantera is edging closer and closer to actually being a playable song rather than a marathon of confused fingers.

Labels: Creating Comics, Guitar Hero, Journalism, My Life, Nowhere, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/22/2006 10:12:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Jump On The Bloody Bandwagon, Why Don't You

Finally got to play Dead Rising today, and it's probably the first Xbox 360 exclusive title that actually makes the system desirable. I also finally remembered to finish a short 6 pager script for a stupid story called Money Man that the Wife will illustrate. After that, I have no idea what will happen to it, though she has contacts with some smaller Indie comics publishers so it may simply end up there.

It seems like suddenly all the official bodies of authority in Singapore have realized--only in the last two months--that there's this industry called video games and people are actually making money out of it. Not only did a camera crew go down to the GameAxis office to shoot and interview my managing editor, not only did the BBC stick a camera in my face and ask me "What do you think of the PS3?" now one of my old production companies that I used to work for suddenly tells me they're doing a program on gaming based program and need a writer for it and I was pretty much a no-brainer for candidacy.

I keep wanting to throw rocks at their heads and holler, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST TEN FREAKIN' YEARS?!?"

Man, these guys are slow...

Labels: Games, Journalism, Television Production

posted by Wayne # 8/15/2006 10:55:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 14, 2006

The Writer Is Tired

Either I'm getting old or else the PSP withdrawal is finally getting its claws in, but the ride to and from the office today seemed EXCRUCIATINGLY long and by the time it was over I felt extremely sleepy.

Finished a feature for GameAxis which I can't talk about since the issue isn't out yet, finished some minor changes to a television script which has been largely approved (I reeeeeeeeeally like it when producers and directors are working on a tight deadline, then they only make changes when absolutely necessary rather than on sheer whimsy) and added a few more pages to Nowhere, which is now116 pages.

To think, before I started on this project I stupidly believed that working on a comic would make my narrative leaner and less verbose. OH WHAT A FOOL I WAS!

Now I'm going to bed to suck on my thumb go into fetal position and hug a decapitated teddy bear.

Labels: Creating Comics, Journalism, Nowhere, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 8/14/2006 10:47:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Aunty Beeb Ropes Me In

For those of you that do not have a constant and almost psychotic admiration for all things British constantly surrounding you because you don't live on a tropical island the British failed to protect during WWII (Thus somehow earning the eternal loyalty and envy of said island's residents, to the point where they desperately wish they were British and even try to fake the accent, something to this day I STILL don't understand), "Aunty Beeb" is a term of endearment those whacky British use to refer to the BBC, better known as the British Broacasting Corporation.

Having missed out on my Editor getting skewered for TV as a result of yesterday's encounter with Saurophobia, imagine my surprise when the same editor said "BBC is coming in today at three, but I'll be out at a meeting, try and keep them occupied until I get back."

This, I figured, I could do.

However, a little later, he dug out the Playstation 2 and cables and asked me to hook the thing up to the LCD widescreen sitting on the gaming table. He also said we needed a two-player game to show on it. When I asked why, he said, "Because they need to shoot a couple of people playing games."

Unfortunately, the only two player game we had that could run on the PS2 was the ancient Metal Slug (By ancient, I mean it was a side-scrolling 2D shooter in the same vein as Contra, and not looking much prettier) and so we had to make do with that. It's at this point that I the first alarm bells started ringing and I asked, "Okay, so if they need two people, then you're playing and who else?"

Of course, it was me.

I sighed, but I figured what the hell, it's only B-Roll, it's not like it counts for anything. However, because the alarm bells would not stop ringing, I went up to him later and asked, point blank, "Okay, so YOU as editor, that is to say, the face of the magazine who should do all PR stuff are talking, right? YOU. ME, as a writer, who is just a faceless cog in the machine and supposed to be a piece of background stay out of this, right? I don't have to say anything?"

And he just grinned and said something to the effect of "We'll just do whatever we have to."

So of course at that moment I pretty knew I was screwed.

When the BBC people did arrive, I sat down with one of the interns and we played the archaic Metal Slug for the camera. However, when the interviewer, some Chinese chick with an American accent (Though I'm still not sure whether it was legit or not) asked "Who will I be interviewing?"

My editor of course pointed at me, and said, "Him."

To which I replied, "WHAT? SINCE WHEN?!?"

And he just did one of those pish-posh motions with his hand as if I'd said "I'm not sure I want to eat this candy," as opposed to "I'm not sure I WANT TO BE INTERVIEWED BY THE FUCKING BBC..."

However the deed was done, and so I got suited up with the clip mike, sat down on a stool so as to prevent nervous fidgeting and then asked a bunch of questions (I can already see the BBC titles now when my image pops up; under my name it'll read "Game Journalist") about my opinion on the Playstation 3 and whether they will continue to dominate the console industry the way they have the last 2 generations.

Of course, I talked too much, and she frequently had to ask me not to give Tolstoy-esque analyses and keep it to 20 second soundbites, so after a half-hour of interviewing me, I'm pretty sure the only she'll go with is one of my final soundbites where I said, "Basically Nintendo and Microsoft have positioned themselves as Toyota and BMW. Sony has become Ferrari or Porsche, strictly for aficianados and connoiseurs who don't care about price."

I was also told I can probably be expected to be contacted again in November to get an "industry expert's post-launch analysis" of the Playstation 3 after it comes out.

Which will be a problem since I won't be able to freakin' AFFORD a PS3 for at least 6 months to a year, so I dunno how they expect me to speak knowledgeably about it when I probably won't actually touch one 'till 2008...

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Television Production

posted by Wayne # 7/26/2006 07:56:00 AM 1 comments

Friday, July 21, 2006

Unavailable

Felt a bit weird turning down a job offer today from a TV production house I've worked with fairly regulary, but it couldn't be helped. They had some kind of reality show thing happening and while they were looking for writers (Which wasn't a big deal) they were looking for researcher/interviewer/writers who could take appointments with prospective subjects for the program and do interviews during normal business hours of the work week (Which was a big deal). Since I'm actually at the GameAxis offices from Mondays to Wednesdays, this would have severely affected their production schedule considering how hectic and quickly these things move, and for me to say "Yeah, I know you're going into the shoot on Tuesday and edit on Wednesday, but if this guy is only available for interviews in the afternoon, I can't do it 'till Thursday" would have been incredibly unfair to them. Plus it would have given me an ulcer from all the stress worrying over how to squeeze a week's worth of TV work into two working days.

Oh well, while it's too bad I couldn't take the job, it's not going to really make me cringe with regret over lost opportunities either. The extra money would have been nice, but admittedly, I'm already busy with other writing, like the Maxim stuff that occasionally comes in, the kiddie comic (Of which I have a looming deadline for the 11th, which I'm pretty sure I can make for this next set of stories) the pilot episode for the animated series which is 90+% done, and then there's Nowhere, a new little 5 pager I want to write called Money-man, (Comic, not short story), a potential new other comic storyline to explore involving (AGAIN, at least for me) ghosts and, oh yeah, wasn't I writing a novel?

Labels: Creating Comics, Journalism, Television Production, Writing

posted by Wayne # 7/21/2006 10:37:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 12, 2006

The End Is Nigh

Actually, all I really mean is the heavier than usual workload of articles from GameAxis is well over the half-way mark. Only a few articles to write now and that'll be it for this month. However I still have a Maxim article to crank out which I'm doing much more slowly but that's also over halfway done. Lots and lots of writing being done this month...

Labels: Journalism

posted by Wayne # 6/12/2006 10:57:00 AM 2 comments

Monday, June 05, 2006

Video Game Housekeeping

All I did today was play Titan Quest, write my review and then do some general maintenance in Oblivion, completing quests and doing some online shopping for The Sims 2; y'know, getting decent eyes, finding nice clothes, some better hair styles, skin tones... Your basic Replicant enhancement procedure...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 6/05/2006 10:07:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Getting Paid To Play

And by that I don't just mean video games.

It's a bit weird how the summer months always seem to turn into the good ones for creative work that you end up actually getting paid for. I'm still kind of shrugging my shoulders in a half-assed, "Finally!" sort of way over the fact that I'm writing a comic script--and getting paid for it--even if it's only 48 pages and primarily for kids, but I'm looking at it as a warm up for Nowhere, the comic that the Wife and I are quietly working on in the In-Between-Times of projects.

Then there's that pilot script for an animated program. Writing scripts for animation is a neat experience, so I'm always pleased when I get another project along the same lines. One of the nice things about a pilot is that you're at that stage where you can define the stuff, rather than just coming into an existing series and having to get up to speed on the rules and continuity of the program. I can do it, but obviously being there at the ground floor and creating continuity is more interesting.

And finally, GameAxis, the magazine I write for, is taking the tenuous step of going from a free to a paid publication in June. Strangely, this doesn't actually mean more work for me despite the increased page count, it just means less of my articles get editted out during the submission process. It's going to be interesting to see how it does in the stores. One of the bizarre things about GameAxis in its current incarnation is that few people know about it, the reason being that because it's free, regular readers who are aware of it will go down to their favorite gaming store or cafe and, when they see the new issue, help themselves to 5 or 20 copies to share amongst their friends, so the magazine tends to disappear within a few hours of going public, meaning that only a small, niche group that grabs up as many copies as they can in one go are actually aware of its existence. You ask anyone else about it that's not a hardcore gamer and they blink and mutter, "There's a game magazine in Singapore?" because they just never see it around.

Hopefully the next few months will change that.

Labels: Creating Comics, Journalism, My Life

posted by Wayne # 5/25/2006 09:04:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, May 19, 2006

The E3 Trip

Since things have calmed down somewhat, I can finally get around to addressing this.

There's not too much to tell about that beginning as I've written about that here already, but the actual E3 itself is... to put not too fine a point on it, total chaos. Arriving at the Los Angeles Convention Center and seeing the waves and waves of industry related humanity crashing on the doors was an intimidating sight. Heck, while I was waiting in line to get in, the president of Nintendo America went waltzing past with an entourage of lackeys that I found both impressive and disappointing at the same time, kind of like "Well, the president of fun shouldn't be so... corporate."

I have discovered one thing about the E3. Though I've been wanting to attend this event for years, now that I've gone, I never want to repeat the experience again. While it is insanely cool to be able to play games months or even years before anyone else does, the noise, the PR smog, and most important of all, the Marketing Frenzy all tend to kill the fun. I got a kick out of playing the games, and I got a real kick out of talking to the developers, who all seem to be real, genuine geeks that I can relate to. But the whole Booth Babe, Marketing Rep, "Hey, let's do dinner, hey here's my card, hey, let's catch up the next time I'm in town and see what we can do for each other..." All this stuff, while necessary cogs in the vast machine that is now gaming industry, really kill the purity of the whole enterprise, that being, these are games and should be FUN. The developers get that. The players get that. Everyone else around them does not.

So while I was very nearly catatonic with glee over messing with Heavenly Sword on the PS3, or Guitar Hero 2, and while it was righteous cool to talk to the Red Octane guys about Guitar Hero and tell them to their face, "You have no idea how happy that game made me," and while it was MINDBLOWING to see Will Wright actually demo Spore... All of this is also let down by the noise and static and sheer mean spirited greed that is the artifice and mechanism that frames these efforts.

I guess that's why I prefer to be a gamer and game reviwer rather than a software development public relations flunky. The job just seems irritating, thankless and not a whole lot of fun.

Speaking of games, it's back to Kingdom Hearts 2 for me. This time for 100% and the secret ending movie...

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 5/19/2006 08:49:00 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Still Busy

E3 articles are winding down, mostly 'cause the deadline for the issue is looming, but I can report that my birthday present from the Wife is the brand spanking new PC I am typing this on. Thank the gods, I can finally play more recent PC games, even if it's not at the highest possible graphics settings...

Labels: Journalism

posted by Wayne # 5/17/2006 10:39:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Still Busy

Back from E3, tons of articles to write, all is under control, but lots to do...

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 5/16/2006 09:04:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 15, 2006

Home Again

But no lengthy post, since I don't actually sleep on planes and so am feeling lagged out and in a disjointed in that curious way that comes from not standing or lying down for 16 hours, causing a strong urge to do either one.

However, I do have an interview by phone with Radha Mitchell of Silent Hill fame coming up in the morning, so I guess I'd better be somewhat fresh for that.

Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Journalism

posted by Wayne # 5/15/2006 01:34:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I went to the Nintendo press conference this morning, which, if nothing else, finally allowed me to be in the same room with Shigeru Miyamoto even if the space between was filled with 3000 other journalists.

The conference took place at the Kodak Theater on Sunset, usual home of the Academy awards. The theater itself had two massive screens on the left and right, flanking one monolithic screen in the center. There was also a massive sort of "slope" on the stage with the Nintendo logo on it and hatches built into the slope opened up to let people enter the stage all dramatic-like.

I have to admit that I went in being a skeptic and came out quite impressed almost filled with hope. The Wii, as stupid as the name is, has promise.

I was under the impression at first that its controller system, now pretty much thought of as the "Nunchuk" controller operated in a somewhat different fashion than it actually does.

The left controller is the one you use to actually move around, as evidenced by the thumbstick on the top. The right controller has various buttons, including a trigger on the bottom can be pulled. It's also designed to have its movements detected by the Wii console, meaning that by waving it around, you can simulate the act of casting a fishing rod or swinging a sword and that motion is replicated on screen. What I didn't know was that the left controller was also wired to do the same thing.

I was pretty amazed with the demonstration they had using a tennis game. Miyamoto himself was one of the demonstrators, using only the "wand" the controller on the right, waving it up in the same way a tennis player would toss a ball up in the air, and then swing down the same way to send the ball away. As the game progressed, the players kept--by pure instinct--using the same kinds of swings and body language that might occur if they were playing for real. Some other applications they showed off on other games included a Zelda game where players could use a combination of swing the sword and blocking with the shield to fight enemies, or in an FPS called Red Steel, pulling back on the wand put the game into sniper mode.

It's too early to tell, but there are tons of really interesting possibilities in this and I'm extremely curious to see how it all goes.

After that, there was an informal tour of Sunset and Beverly Hills that revealed, amongst other things, the Viper Room where River Phoenix died, the school with an auditorium donated by Michael Jackson that now has the Michael Jackson part of its named painted over, park where George Michael was arrested for engaging in lewd acts, the Playboy mansion and the hotel where John Belushi ODed.

Sleazy, star obssessive tours. Gotta' love 'em...

Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Journalism, Travel

posted by Wayne # 5/10/2006 02:16:00 AM 0 comments

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Jet Lag Is Reeling In Your Soul

At least, that's how William Gibson described it in Pattern Recognition. That the strange, slow lucidity you experience is the result of your soul still being back home while your body has moved too fast for it to catch up.

My laptop clock is still set to Singapore time, but it's actually past 7 pm in Los Angeles. I arrived on the same day I left, despite being the air for about 16 hours, an experience I had almost forgotten I loathe.

It was a weird thing coming into the USA after so many years away from it. The last time I was here was just as a kid, back in the 80s and 90s and the landscape and mindset was a far, far different thing than what it is now.

You noticed it slowly, but it made its presence known even as early as the transfer flight from Taipei to LAX. On the Singapore-Taipei leg, everything was normal and it was the kind of flight I've grown accustomed to over the years with lots of confused accents and people speaking to me in Chinese until I gave a very confused and Canadian "Huh?"

But as we hit the Pacific for the big stretch, we first got an announcement on the PA saying that American flight regulations strictly forbid the gathering of groups around the lavatory area, or anywhere else for that matter, especially around the pilot's compartment.

The knives we were given to eat our food with had metal handles, but reinforced plastic blades.

As we got closer to LAX, a video courtesy of the Homeland Security office played out instructing visitors on the admission process through the airports, explaining the thumb printing biometric and the camera situated at all immigration booths to take pictures of people coming into the country. Strangely enough, Canadians, it would seem, don't have to be subjected to this thumb print and mug shot, but Singaporeans do.

At the moment I'm sort of in the middle of Re-Culture Shock. The guys I'm with find it endlessly amusing that I boggle at the fact that cars on the proper side of the road again and the fact that I can mostly understand all the conversations around me. In a weird sort of way, I feel like I've just stepped into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with much better graphics. I did a double take when I actually heard people speaking Spanish while walking down the street. Of course if it had been GTA, they would have opened up with guns on me at that point...

Right now my initial impressions of the USA are that it seems super, hyper, mega focused on violence. Despite the fact that they seem really afraid of it right now, they just can't stop discussing or spectating it like an open wound they need to rub and poke. Just random clicking through the television reveals all kinds of horrible news stories and documentaries about terrible things Americans do to each other. There's a kind of morbid pride in it, the same way some Goth girls show off the scars of multiple suicide attempts.

I did not sleep on the plane, and I don't feel hungry, but I guess I should try and stay up and go to bed at a reasonable hour to help adjust to the lag. There's a kind of spaced out quality, as if the world jumps frames at random intervals, leaving things with a kind of unpredictable, stuttered rhythm.

Or maybe that's just the jaded traveler talking. I don't understand how anyone could think living out of a suitcase is cool. I already miss home and the Wife.

Labels: Gaming Industry, Journalism, Travel

posted by Wayne # 5/07/2006 09:18:00 PM 0 comments

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