Category: Games

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David Jaffe Calls the Past

Today a bunch of my friends and former coworkers launched (okay, prelaunched) a new social-focused games site called Bitmob. One of the first bits of content is this interview with David Jaffe (creator of the God of War series) that pisses me off for two reasons:

One: The “random facts” interview theme is something I’d been wanting to pitch to some outlet for awhile but hadn’t gotten around to yet, and now it’d look like I’m ganking their idea. Jerks.

And two: Jaffe relates this little vignette that would make such an awesome premise for a story that it makes me angry I didn’t think of it:

I once called my childhood phone number — about five years ago — just to see what would happen. The phone picked up — no one said hello — and on the other end I heard two little kids playing and calling each other Philip (my brother’s name) and David (me, duh). Did I call the past? I still wonder. And no, you can’t take the idea and use it for a movie or book. It’s mine! Mine I tell you!

Isn’t that great? Check out the whole article, it’s a fun read.

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Personal Recommendations, From Me to You

I’m kind of slow sometimes.

People often ask me for recommendations for things like games and books and music and other things we humans need to survive. So a couple weeks back, I spent an afternoon putting together a huge collection of lists of my favorite games, music, movies, books, and even food…and then promptly forgot to mention it here on the main page.

So, hey, lookie there in the left-hand sidebar! It’s a Favorites page! It has all sorts of recommendations of stuff I happen to enjoy a whole lot. I hope you’ll find them useful. If not, feel free to leave a comment on that page. As long as you’re okay with me telling you how wrong you are.

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New Previews: InFamous and MAG

1UP has just put up two new previews of mine. One is for the gritty super-slash-antihero game InFamous from Sly Cooper developers Sucker Punch. And the other is the 256-player (!!) first-person shooter MAG, from SOCOM devs Zipper. Both games look great. Check out the previews and see if you don’t agree.

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Beyond Good, Beyond Evil

[I’m surprisingly busy with work for this time of year — thankfully — so here’s another reprint: In My Day #106, originally published in The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, Issue #106, July 2006]

If you’ve been playing along with the OPM home game (that is, our staggeringly awesome podcast — tune in at radiopm.1up.com today! [Edit: :( ]), you know that a few of us here have been bitten by the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion bug. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why this game is so compelling. I mean, sure, it’s enormous, and sure, it’s real purty, but we’ve seen other big, beautiful games that haven’t captivated our interest (and that of millions of other players) like Oblivion has. But I think I figured out what that special something is that keeps people talking about the game: freedom.

Now, “freedom” is a buzzword that’s been thrown around since GTA3 made “sandbox” games the Hip New Thing. But consider what that means in the context of GTA: You can be a bad guy…or you can be a really bad guy. I mean, you can follow along the main story and steal cars and carry out hits and whatnot, or you can do all that plus run down pedestrians and beat grandmothers over the heads with baseball bats. What you can’t do is be a hero. (Well, you can be a goody-goody, law-abiding citizen, but that pretty much entails walking down the sidewalk and looking at architecture. Not exactly the most entertaining experience.) Continue reading “Beyond Good, Beyond Evil”

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A Ziff-trospective, Part III: Oakbrook Terrors

West of Chicago, there’s a spot where interstates 294, 290, and 88 all come together. Just west of that interchange, on I-88, is a toll plaza. If you look to the south as you’re driving by, you’ll see an extended-stay corporate hotel. And behind that hotel you’ll see a low, sprawling orange building with a glass canopy over the entrance.

If I were to estimate the amount of time I spent in that building…well, let’s do it now. I went to work there every day for almost four years. Call it 7500 normal working hours. Now add an extra 40 to 60 hours a month to account for deadlines, for around 44 months. Yeah, that’s about what I expected: ten thousand hours is a pretty fair estimate. To do that all at once you’d have to work for about 14 months straight. Without stopping to sleep.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. Some of my fondest memories happened in and around that building. I made some dear friends. I learned some important lessons. I met my wife during this time. I laughed a lot. I ate some really spectacular take-out.

But you stay in any place long enough, you’re gonna get a little crazy. Continue reading “A Ziff-trospective, Part III: Oakbrook Terrors”