Vacation and Beyond

July has been a fairly relaxing month, and unfortunately it is over and gone...taking with it the better part of August as well. I spent a majority of July on holiday, essentially working maybe 1 week out of the month. The family and I took a long overdue road trip to Southern California for 2 weeks, stopping in San Fransico and Lodi \ Sacramento. We also visited Lego Land in San Diego. The drive, as always was beautiful. Oregon and Northern California are both equally stunning, and the weather for the most part was picture perfect. There were still some remenants of the large Forest Fires in Central - Northern California so the air quality wasn't the best there, and once we were down in the Los Angeles area the weather was just fantastic.

We managed to catch a showing of The Dark Knight, and as expected...it was awesome. Once we returned from vacation we made it a point to watch the 1st one (Batman Begins) and it is clear that Christopher Nolan has his finger on the pulse of what makes Batman an interesting character. I just hope he does not fall apart when executing the 3rd movie.

I am still working the daily guitar ritual, 30 - 40 min at least per day. I am finally starting to see some dividends from that, as my playing is clearly improving. I recently ordered a pair of FX pedals for my Fender G-Dec 30, and that should keep things fun and interesting. Some of the songs I have been working on: Back in Black (AC\DC), Satisfaction (Rolling Stones), Tears in Heaven (Clapton), Goodbye Blue Sky (Pink Floyd), Smooth (Santana w/ Rob Thomas), Settle for a Slowdown (Dierks Bentley). There are probably a few more in there that I'm just forgetting about. I guess the point is that I am having a lot of fun playing, and there's even a few songs now that I can play in time w/ a band on (no small accomplishment...trust me).

Work continues on Project Origin, and there should be a number of big announcements regarding it come September. Summer is about gone, and I have been running 100 mph trying to get as much outdoor activity as possible, while still working on the website. Hopefully I will be able to find some time to finish that off soon, after all the basic construction and graphics are all done at this point...so it's just a matter of taking some screenshots from various titles I have worked on and then gathering up any personal work I feel like putting up. If only it were as easy as just typing it!

Back to it, only 5 days until the start of College Football !! - GO TROJANS!

Laughing Octopus - FTW!

8 + hours into Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and all I can honestly say it has been a great long while since I have played a game with such a consistent level of polish across all maps and features. I just finished the Laughing Octopus fight last night. The sequence leading up to the fight and the fight itself were 3 - 4 hours of pure gaming pleasure. The character models, texturing \ surfacing and animation is easily the best I have ever seen. Characters have so much detail, and it goes beyond just textural detail. The design and actual models are absolutely stunning and would likely remain stunning, untextured! Animation is subtle and expressive, and the camera work during cutscenes is 1st rate.

Other features of note: I-pod (easily one of the most simple but inovative feature I have seen in a game recently) Other games may be able to play music, but they went through the trouble of getting an actual I-pod into the game! Snakes Movement and CQB moves are awesome. Running around with the Operator and the Knife is awesome and lethal. The weapon modification system is deep, and fun. I love tricking out my weapons (I wish the sound supressors would last forever)

Cut-Scenes are, at times both wonderful and long winded. Characters tend to have a flare for dramatic pauses a little to much, extending conversations that could otherwise be brief. Iteractive elements within cinematics (addition of pressing the L1 and X button to reviel alternate angles and images) is a nice tough in an attempt to breath a little bit of interativity into these lengthy sequences.

Bottom Line: at 8+ hours in I would still give this game a 9.0 - 9.5 and say that if you own a PS3 it just seems crazy that you would not buy this game!

DO IT!

Wall - E is slightly Bore - ing

I took the kids to see Disney \ Pixar's latest offering, Wall-E last week. Let me preface what I'm about to say with the following: I am a HUGE Pixar fan. I have loved virtually every movie they have ever made, and I consider them one of the driving forces in 3D technology. They consistently deliver a product that is stunning visually, and solid in terms of story and character. They understand how to tell a compelling children's story. Even Bug's Life, which is my least favorite of the Pixar films was a well told and animated story.



Ok, so now that I have proclaimed my love and admiration of Pixar I can safely say that Wall-E was a mixed back of stunning visuals and lackluster story. I found the characters, while entertaining and at times endearing, were sadly trapped in a bland story filled with boring plot points and poorly established antagonist(s). The movie was also surprisingly thin on humor. Still, even with its flaws this movie was breathtaking visually, and was probably better than 90% of the 3D animated features you'll likely see this year. I tend to hold Pixar to a high standard as far as what I expect out of them, and sadly this years offering failed to deliver on my expectations.



As far as 3D feature films go, this year's champ is currently Kung Fu Panda (IMO). That movie had the perfect balance of humor, action, visuals, and story. Which is what Pixar has become known for, and few other studios ever accomplish.

Hulk Smash!

The new Hulk movie is out, and all I can say is HULK SMASH! This movie, while not quite as well rounded as Iron Man, was still thoroughly awesome. Watching this movie makes you realize just how far off base the first Hulk movie was. From the opening montage (which briefly explains the Hulk's origin) to the chase sequence through the Costa Rican town, you could clearly see that the people involved with this movie had a rudimentary understanding of the Hulk's character and what makes him cool

Edward Norton did a servicable job as Dr. Bruce Banner. He had a lot more charisma and likablity than Eric Bana, and Liv Tyler was good as well. The actor's performances were quite good, but ultimately you could tell they were simply doing the best with what they had to work with. The story between action sequences is really where the Hulk seams to struggle some. It lacks some of the whit, charm, and romance of recent offerings from Marvel (Iron Man, Spider Man). Maybe not totally devoid of the aformentioned, but certainly lacking. Still, these sequences are merely moments to catch your breath between some of the most awesome action sequences you will likely see this summer. The sequence at the university was very exciting, and the final action scenes in the city were spectacular.

There were a lot of things this film got right, and most importantly they managed to bring more character to Hulk himself. Gone is the mindless looking baby faced Hulk from previous film, and in his place is a semi-lucient beast who by the end of the movie is clearly the good guy, and is aware of that. The movie closes with a brief cameo of Tony Stark, informing the general that they are forming a team, clearly a reference to the Avengers movie in the works. Marvel is at the top of their game, in terms of movies, and here is hoping that the success continues. As a huge fan of comic books, I can honestly say that nothing is more exciting than seeing a childhood hero, a character you grew up reading, alive on the big screen

Any last words? Hulk Smash!

Metal Gear Solid

"Unfortunately, killing is just one of those things that gets easier the more you do it" - Solid Snake

June 12th, Metal Gear Solid 4 arrives on the PS3. Early videos for this title didn't excite me much, but as we have come closer to the release I have managed to get a little bit excited about this game. I missed the last Metal Gear Solid (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater). I am pretty sure I was deep inside the Molten Core, earning -50 dkp when it came out. So the last Metal Gear Solid game I played was Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty which was quite possibly the worst bait and switch job in the history of video games. You played Solid Snake for two maps in that game, and then you are forced to spend the next 12 hours (give or take) playing some long haired emo kid in a stealth suit. Honestly, if I wanted to play Final Fantasy I would have thrown it in the Playstation 2! There were not even any chocobos in the second chapter. So maybe 1/2 of the reason I skipped out on Snake Eater was because I was still a bit hung over from Sons of Liberty, which wasn't a horrible game...but definitely had some serious character flaws. From what I've been told, Snake Eater more than made up for the flaws in Sons of Liberty and was an excellent game. I am hoping that this next (and supposedly final) installment of Solid Snake will live up to the hype, and I'm excited to get in there and start playing it. Looks like I'm going to have to put GTA 4 on hold for a while (I am only at about 52% complete).

It will be interesting to see how the public receives this game. The playstation 3 desperately needs more exclusive titles, and for the time being this game has the potential to help that situation out. Either way, I am excited. Solid Snake is easily one of the coolest video game icons \ characters ever envisioned. Even if he is, at times, unnecessarily broody.

Zero Point - Creation

This is where it all begins, the first post. Maybe I should start with a little introduction. My name is Kevin Deadrick and this is my blog. I have worked in the game development industry for over 13 years now. The last 8 of those years have been at Monolith Productions, Inc in Kirkland WA, working on titles like AVP2 (Aliens vs Predator 2), Tron 2.0, and F.E.A.R: First Encounter Assault Recon. Currently, we are grinding away at the sequel to F.E.A.R, Project Origin.

Life is not all work though, or at least it should not be. I enjoy a large number of activities outside work. Obviously, I love games (what developer does not) and I am currently working my way through GTA 4 on the xbox 360. This game is absolutely mind blowing in its scope. I love getting in the helicopter or on a bike and just cruising around the city, looking for new places to see. I am at 46% complete and I have been playing for 28 hours! That is some serious game.

I also enjoy music a great deal, and I have 3 guitars. I have an acoustic that is a couple of years old, a Les Paul that's about 20 years old and in dire need of refurbishment, and a Fender Stratocastor that I just bought recently, along with a new Fender amp to replace the aging Electra amp I had rotting in my office. The fender amp (GDec-30) is absolutely awesome. It has a huge assortment of tweaks and presets and up to 50 user stored settings. Apparently you can buy pedals for it also....I will have to look into that. Anyhow, songs I have been learning recently: Should I Stay or Should I Go (the Clash) - Good fun to play and pretty easy, Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2) - Simple but challenging, One (U2) - really fun to play, what a great song, War Pigs (Black Sabbath) - about 1/2 way through learning this one, and Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) - another truly awesome song w/ a lot of cool riffs.

Finally, I have undertaken the monumental task of getting my online portfolio (of which this blog is part) up and running. It's still currently under construction and doesn't look like much yet. I've just started dealing w/ the CSS markup.

And that, is the first post.