loreology: wights

If you’ve got a memory like an elephant, the old saying goes, then your noggin’s in good shape. Mine, when challenged under the gun, tends to shoot blanks. I’m a research kind of guy, not a living, breathing almanac…. Each week “Loreology” will unravel the mysteries behind something in gaming that I may have known once and completely forgot, or something that I should probably know and cram up into my nearly full brain cavity.

 

 

This Week: The Wight Stuff

 

I never knew if these guys sported a rib cage like some skeletal graveyard reject, wavered insubstantial like the spirits of the past or looked like something else strange and unearthly. What were wights? I remembered that barrow-wights from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” were corpses with corrupt souls that bound them to the world to continue with their evil deeds, and wights in the D&D Monster Manual had this vicious power to drain the life essence out of their victims and turn them into fellow wights.

 

Turns out the word wight comes from Middle English and means “living being” or “creature.” Perfectly generic to confuse us even further. A wight can also label a being from one of the Nine Worlds in Norse mythology, especially a nature spirit or ancestor. The English Channel’s famous Isle of Wight, by the way, has nothing to do with our creature wights, though that would be a crazily disturbing sight if it did, like something straight out of 28 Days Later.

 

Wights are a fascinating part of fantasy history that aren’t as fleshed out (no pun intended) than some of their famous elven and faerie brethren. Dwarves, goblins, dragons have become canon in fantasy literature; not the wight. They’ve only shown up as bit players on the fantasy stage. And that’s probably the way they like it, left to their own horrible devices in secret lairs beneath the earth. It’s enough to make a Balrog envious.

Patriotic Gaming

Since this is the week of the Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day, I thought I would discuss a topic with a patriotic theme. It also goes along with my current project—Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. As we celebrate the birth of the United States, we can remember those brave men and women who made our freedom and liberty possible.

 

There are many games out there that let players take the part of an American fighting man in a variety of conflicts. However, the most common is World War II. In addition to having a good time, players can actually learn some military history as they play titles such as the Medal of Honor or Call of Duty series. Battlefield 1942, while not a historically accurate, let players re-enact major battles from WWII using not only infantry and tanks, but also planes and even battleships! From the naval point of view, while Battlestations: Midway provided an opportunity to command fleets of ships and squadrons of aircraft, a decade earlier, the Great Naval Battles series by SSI did the same but with more strategic and simulative gameplay. Then of course there are the air games such as Blazing Angels of recent release. However, veterans of computer games will remember Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe by Lucasarts and Microprose’s Aces of the Pacific. Finally, there are the RTS games such as Company of Heroes and the older but more tactical Close Combat series.

 

While all of these games are great, none is more immersive than the Brothers in Arms series. It is like playing through the HBO series Band of Brothers. While I was writing the strategy guide for Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, I had the opportunity to travel to the Gearbox offices in Plano, Texas. I was impressed by the amount of detail and history that went into their games. As you are in the game walking down a street, that is what that street looked like in 1944. You are not just playing a game, you are experiencing history from the point of view of those who made it. Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway follows this same pattern. While some new features have been added to make it even better than the previous releases, the game still pulls you into the storyline and gives you a first person history lesson on what the 101^st Airborne paratroopers went through during Operation Market-Garden in September of 1944 as they tried to secure the bridges over rivers in Holland.

 

Though Hell’s Highway won’t be out until later this summer, honor America by playing a patriotic game of your choice. Even if you have to wipe off the dust before you play it, pay tribute to the good ole USA by playing.

 

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July. (for our French readers, have a great Bastille Day later this month.)

 

 

the secret life of a strategy guide writer / 05

Last time: I gave a glimpse to what life is like on the road, visiting a world-famous developer or two. This time we reveal how some of the world’s most famous developers live.

Part 5: Raising the Bar

Of all the developers I’ve visited, Valve Software up near Seattle Washington has to be up there in terms of impressive working environments. Slotted in on two floors of a skyscraper with spectacular views, the place is a shrine to everything Gordon. The place is decked out in stained concrete, and the ceiling’s exposed duct-work has a real “Aliens” corridor look to it. Step into the foyer, and you’re greeted not only by a receptionist, but a five-foot high valve (what else?); a gift from Gabe Newell’s brother.

The really cool stuff adorns the walls of the conference room though; not only are there massive posterboards showing most of Gordon’s antics, a complete retrospective of Valve’s games, and the latest in conference telephony, but there are fan-made Miniguns latched onto wall slats, furry Headcrabs peeking out of ceiling pipes, and a modded PC clad in only the finest rusting metal, complete with Lambda logos.

Valve employees don’t work in cubicles either; they’re segmented into groups known as “Cabals”, and each group of five or so inhabit an executive-office sized environment. Classy to be sure, and usually dark and cozy, with the prerequisite whiteboard daubings, incomprehensible calculations, and other evidence related to the team’s latest endeavor.

Next time, My journey around the nation’s premiere software developers continues with a dash around Maxis, the creators of Spore.

Just finished: Writing cunning tactics about surviving multiple quests in Fallout 3.

Currently: Journeying through the Critical Path of the insanely massive Fallout 3.

About to: Eat, sleep, work, and dream Fallout 3 for the next two months.

 

Food of the Game Gods: Part 3/4

So we’ve already checked out the on-site food options at EA Redwood Shores and Ubisoft Montreal. Now it’s time to visit Microsoft and see if their cuisine is as rich as their founder.

Where: Microsoft in Redmond, Washington

Why I was there: I traveled to Microsoft in early 2007 to get my first look at Shadowrun. Specifically, I was embedded with the (now defunct) FASA Studio for a whole week, working directly with the game’s AI/core designer, Derek Carroll. The FASA crew was awesome. Derek set me up in a nearby office with a debug unit and an HD set which he generously pulled from his own desk. But the hospitality didn’t end there. Everyday the crew invited me to join them for lunch, which often involved driving to one of the nearby (or not so nearby) restaurants in Redmond. Very few (if any) of the FASA team ate at Microsoft’s cafeteria just down the hall. But on Tuesday I had consumed a rather large breakfast and didn’t quite feel like joining the guys for lunch at noon. So later in the day I decided to wander down the hall and see what the cafeteria had to offer.

The Facility: FASA was located in one of many Microsoft office buildings scattered across the city, disconnected from the company’s main campus. This particular building (referred to as the Willows building) has a rather large cafeteria on the first floor. What struck me first was the muted lighting, lack of windows, and soothing colors on the walls. In addition to catching a quick bite to eat, it appeared it would have been just as easy to catch a quick nap; a much different vibe than the EARS cafeteria. The dining area isn’t huge, but big enough to find a table where you’re not rubbing elbows with a neighbor.

The Food: The Willows cafeteria offers just about what you’d expect. There’s a grill where you can order burgers and a variety of other hot, grilled, and/or fried foods. They also have a rather extensive salad bar with lots of fresh veggies. Oh, and don’t forget the table with baskets of fresh (and reasonably priced) fruit. I like the idea of visiting the cafeteria for a healthy mid-day snack…not that I ever did. After browsing for a few moments, I zeroed-in on a cool make-your-own-sandwich counter. Of course, I stacked my sourdough slices with meat, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers. I rounded out the meal with some chips and a soft drink. When I went to pay for everything I was shocked to find that everything cost me less than $5. That’s the cool thing about this place. Everything is so cheap…probably cheaper than taking your own lunch and definitely cheaper than eating off-site.

Alternatives: The FASA office kept a stocked refrigerator filled with soda, energy drinks, and milk…even chocolate milk. So if you were thirsty, a cold complimentary beverage was never further than a few paces away. But when it came to eating, the FASA crew always seemed to leaves the office. The first day we hit a Chinese restaurant off Redmond Way, affectionately referred to as “Dirty Chinese.” See there’s lots of Chinese restaurants in Redmond so they were assigned colorful codenames including “Clean Chinese” and “Sweaty Chinese.” On Wednesday we went to a tasty (but crowded) teriyaki bowl place where I had a great conversation with the game’s core designer, Sage Merrill. Thursday was pizza day at a distant restaurant I can’t remember the name of. Then on Friday everyone was too busy to leave the office so Chris Blohm (the game’s training/tutorial designer) brought food in from Thai Ginger, a restaurant that has since become one of my Redmond favorites. As you can see, the FASA crew gave me a first-class tour of some of Redmond’s best eateries. This would come in handy a few months later when I was sent back to Redmond to work on the upcoming guide for the new Metroid game.

Next week: Nintendo

Command & Conquer Kane’s Wrath Contest

Register to win a Command & Conquer prize pack, featuring a copy Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath for Xbox 360, a C&C hat, a “Welcome Back Commander” shirt, and a Scrin travel mug!  One winner will be chosen each day for 5 days starting June 30th, so be sure to visit Prima Games each day to see if you’re a winner!  Click here to see the official game page!

Comic Timing

Check it out. There must be something in the air, but it seems like the whole comic/video-game thing is on a lot of people’s minds:

Comic List

Metropolitan Mayhem

In comic books it seems that super-heroes tend to congregate in large urban areas. This is not much of a surprise, crime statistics being what they are, but I have often wondered why every comic book city looks like New York. Or aspects of New York.

Again, the answer isn’t too hard to suss out. The whole super-hero thing pretty much originated in the big apple so it follows that they’d be drawing what was outside their window. But something happened along the way, the texture of the super-hero city became ingrained. It became almost necessary to have the tall buildings, dark alleys, and crowded streets to birth or house a hero. Which may explain why there aren’t many famous Los Angeles based super-heroes (yes, yes, Green Lantern, Coast City, yadda, yadda…GL’s mobility and interstellar duties made him “Earth-based”).

So it’s no surprise that the MMO City of Heroes has a tall building esthetic. But it also has swaths of park and shoreline that mix it up a bit. However, the genius of the game isn’t it’s environment, or even it’s gameplay. The real draw of City of Heroes is the character creation. The ability to customize your own super-hero is a rush for all comic fans and the level of detail offered is intoxicating.

The developers did a fine job of breaking down standard comic book powers into a few categories and then allowing for variations within those categories. And then the costumes! The colors, the styles! You could be a disco avenger or a speedo-sporting aquatic prince. Fantastic stuff.

City of Heroes did right by the creation system, without a doubt, and gave fans of both video games and comic books something to be proud of, super-heroes of their very own.

4-D Video Gaming—Part II

As I mentioned last week, I have been impressed by Disney’s Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters at Disneyland. There are similar attractions at Disney World in Florida as well as at Disneyland Tokyo. Disneyland just opened Toy Story Mania at Disney’s California Adventure. Therefore, in order to keep all of you readers informed on the latest in video gaming, I made the trek down to Anaheim along with my family to check out this new attraction.

 

Despite a record breaking heat wave in Southern California, and long lines, I finally climbed aboard the ride vehicles. Four people ride two by two, back to back. Each person has a cannon which is fired by pulling a cord and then releasing it. Riders don 3-D glasses and the vehicles stop in front of large screens where they play a variety of games. All of the games are based on carnival style games. Therefore, you will be shooting darts at balloons, launching rings at Little Green Men and rockets, firing balls at plates, and even shooting targets in a wild west town along with Woody.

 

Targets have different point values with those farther away and moving worth more than the larger and closer targets. Yes, I did say farther away. The games are 3-D, so your projectiles have to travel across the screen to get to the targets. Now you may be wondering what is the 4-D I mention in the title of this blog. That is what makes this attraction even better. When you throw a ring around a rocket, it takes off past you and a blast of air hits you as it goes by. Some of the targets are water balloons, and when they pop, you feel a splash of water.

 

Finally, each vehicle contains a video monitor located between each pair of riders. It displays your score for the current game, your total score, and even your percentage accuracy. Since this is the newest attraction, the wait for it is usually at least an hour or two depending on the day and time. If you get a chance to visit the Disneyland Resort, be sure to try out Toy Story Mania. It takes video games to a totally new dimension.

 

 

the secret life of a strategy guide writer / 04

Last time: I remarked on the giddy anticipation in a strategy guide author’s tummy, which later becomes an ulcer once the true enormity of the task at hand is realized. This time, I give a glimpse to what life is like on the road, visiting a world-famous developer or two.

Part 4: Home and Away

Writing a guide and playing an early version of a game to completion takes place in one of two zones; the first is the author’s home, where they’re crouched over a glowing television, typing furiously, and clad in only the finest K-Mart pajama pants. Some of the time though, a company wants you to visit them, and the project goes on the road. The author needs to be careful to ensure it doesn’t go off the rails.

When you’re traveling to a place by car, it’s simply a matter of packing up your laptop, hard drives, blood-pressure medicine, and high-definition screen capture unit. Oh, and another monitor. And keyboard. And clothing. If you’re flying to a developer in the middle of the Canadian tundra, or down in the sunshine and smog of L.A., everything’s crammed into suitcases, and you hope the airport’s X-ray machine doesn’t wipe your hard-drives (which it did during one particular fraught stay at Sega).

Once you stagger into your developer’s lair, you prepare to squish two weeks’ worth of work into one; your time at the company is incredibly valuable, and you need to be playing the game, speaking with the Testers, chatting to the Designers, and not waiting in the foyer for two hours for a guy to show up who’s actually on vacation. Then the room isn’t ready for you or the marketing department has double-booked it. There’s an out-of-date build. There’s no television for the game console you’re working with. You know, those sort of teensy issues to resolve. I once asked a gaming company rep if I could borrow a Memory Card to save a game I was about to play. The response was “what’s a Memory Card?”

But once you sit down and play, there’s nothing like having access to a team of dedicated professionals who can answer your gaming questions, and actually want to help you create a better guide. The distractions of home –- “what’s Gordon Ramsey up to now?” “Has my season pass of Ghost Hunters recorded?” “where are my pants?” — are gone, replaced by a creeping sense of fear that the game footage you’re taking will never end.

But it does, and next time, I’ll let you know how some of the world’s largest development studios stack up against each other. Who’s got the best foosball table? Who’s got a Starbucks inside their own office? And who’s living a gray existence in cubicle horror?

Just finished: Continuing a pillage across a continent-sized landscape, searching behind every rock, and rummaging through hundreds of corpses for that extra-special item.

Currently: Still writing cunning tactics about surviving multiple quests in a game I can’t mention.

About to: Start work on the Critical Path throughout this massive, sprawling, and massively entertaining game.

Food of the Game Gods: Part 2/4

Last week we took a look at EA’s impressive cafeteria at the Redwood Shores campus. Now we’re off to Canada to see what kind of culinary options our friends at Ubisoft have.

Where: Ubisoft Montreal, Quebec

Why I was there: My work on the Rainbow Six Vegas guide required a quick trip to Ubisoft to log some multiplayer hours and conduct a thorough Q&A session with the developers. Soon after arriving I met a few key team members, including my contact, Luc Duchaine; it’s always nice to finally meet the people you’ve been e-mailing forever. Luc gave me a quick tour of the office and then showed off some of the game’s innovative features, including a brief demo where he imported his face into the game with the yet-to-be-released Xbox Live Vision camera. After a few hours of morning gameplay, the hunger pangs began to set in. Luc was too busy to grab lunch with me, but he made sure I knew where to go…and more importantly, how to get back in the office.

The Facility: Ubisoft has no official cafeteria per se, but there is a small restaurant (Café Vienne) located on the building’s first floor; enter the building and turn left, opposite of Ubi’s reception desk. Café Vienne is a chain of quaint little eateries found throughout Montreal. Sporting red brick walls, a wooden floor, and a large windows overlooking Boulevard St-Laurent, Ubisoft’s Café Vienne has a cozy and relaxing atmosphere with plenty of small tables ideal for solo diners. On my visit, the staff was friendly and very accommodating…even though I didn’t speak a word of French.

The Food: Café Vienne serves a variety of gourmet coffees as well as fresh sandwiches and salads. While all the salads in the deli case looked great, I really felt like a sandwich. So I ordered a roast beef panini served on toasted ciabata. The roast beef was sliced as I ordered, and not pre-proportioned (or weighed) like in some chain delis; something I always appreciate. Overall, it was a good sandwich served with fresh lettuce and tomatoes. Just enough to whet my appetite before resuming my frag-filled afternoon.

Alternatives: There are more than a dozen of diverse restaurants surrounding Ubisoft, all within walking distance, making it easy for employees to get out of the office without wandering too far away from their desk. My time at Ubi was limited so I didn’t get much time to explore the local eateries on my visit, but recommendations are easy to come by; just ask anyone and they’ll be more than happy to point you in the right direction.

On my last evening in the city I came down with a severe craving for Mexican food; a common affliction for this native Californian. While wandering the streets near my hotel I came across a restaurant called 3 Amigos…yeah, like the movie. It’s a charming little restaurant on St. Catherine Street (between Guy and St. Mathieu) with some of the most memorable and kitschy décor I’ve seen outside the Madison Bear Garden. Despite my low expectations, the food wasn’t bad. Sure, it wasn’t the most authentic Mexican food I’ve ever had (a tostada salad with carrots and cucumbers?) but it’s probably about the best you can do in the entire city…and maybe all of Canada. Plus, the place is a big hit with the locals, as indicated by the youthful crowd and numerous awards hanging on the walls. So if you’re ever in Montreal and require a quick fix of chips, salsa, and a margarita, head on over to 3 Amigos. They’ll take good care of you.

Next week: Microsoft