February 2008

GDC 08: Scott Rogers on Awesome Boss Battles

Published on: 25th February, 2008

This story is part of 1UP’s Game Developers Conference coverage.   For more, visit our GDC 2008 hub page.

We love a good presentation, and they’re even better when they’re funny. Formerly a designer of bosses on games such as Maximo 2 and God of War II, Scott Rogers has since sold out to work on licensed drivel as THQ’s creative manager. Despite this, he was still able to muster enough soul to give an informative and entertaining talk, which sadly featured no pictures of Tony Danza in its whiteboard-esque presentation.

Most of the talk focused on how to make good bosses, with tips on preventing the player from “whacking them in the crotch” to providing “a gentle hand on the player’s butt,” in addition to dynamic difficulty and mid-boss health supplies, and other helpful boss-construction tips, such as making them more memorable by tightly integrating them with the story.

D.I.C.E. 2008 Round-Up

Published on: 15th February, 2008

Last week’s 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit was the first major game industry trade show of the year. In the slim three days that the event ran, a number of wild news stories popped up, so we thought we’d bring together everything you need to know, along with some random quotes we heard while wandering around Vegas.

An early D.I.C.E. keynote by, of all people, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, warned the game development industry against falling into the trap that Hollywood did long ago. While much of Verbinski’s speech was a bit fire and brimstone, he also was hopeful, saying the developers “haven’t even scratched the surface of what is possible… this is the time for madness, for brilliance!” He pointed to Guitar Hero developer Harmonix as an example of a group whose idea was ignored or written off as crazy but who ended up persevering and proving that their game was viable.

“I think [Steamworks] is great for the Valve guys. They did the right thing, which is get those tools out there — don’t charge for them. That’s not the market. Their market is to sell stuff on Steam and make a percentage. And it’s a brilliant market. Someone should buy those guys for a couple billion dollars while they still can.”

-Mike Capps, Epic

EA CEO Declares Garage Studios Dead

Published on: 8th February, 2008

Prefacing his keynote with the admission, “deep down, probably more than anything else, I’m a business guy,” EA CEO John Riccitiello delivered a sobering look at the coming years for the industry. It began with his pronouncement that the days of starting a studio in your garage are done for good. He went on to recount the familiar litany of all the pressures applied by the rising cost of development from the challenges multiple platforms present to the need to have upwards of a 200 person staff to make a AA title. And it all led to his summing it up saying, “If you’re a small studio doing a title every year… you probably find yourself in a pretty dangerous situation.”

Not bad rhetoric when you’re potentially the white knight ready to ride in and save the day. And for those in the audience thinking along the same lines, he went on from there to explain how consolidation was inevitable and they (EA) had learned from their mistakes how best to handle it. The specter looming over every story about big publishers absorbing developers is that ultimately the games will lose their creative edge, and become nothing more than by-the-numbers attempts to cash-in on a successful formula. Lately, the counter-spin goes that only be coming in under the publisher’s wing can a developer find the safety necessary to take creative risks.

Blizzard Canceled Games For the Greater Good

Published on: 8th February, 2008

As part of the opening remarks at the 2008 DICE Summit yesterday the Blizzard executive team of CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime, Senior VP, game design Rob Pardo, and Executive VP, business development Frank Pearce gave some interesting insights into their company’s success. Particularly of note was the role canceling titles in production plays. Morhaime explained, “We just cancel the ones that aren’t going well.” Sure, when you’re weeding out marginal projects before they get to the shelves that helps ensure that the ones that do get there are top-notch. But it’s a lot easier to say that when you’ve done the Diablos, Warcrafts, and Starcrafts.

So, what are some of those games that didn’t make the grade? Most of them you likely never heard of. Names like Games People Play, Crixa, Denizen, Nomad and Raiko top the list. But then you also see the likes of Shattered Nations, a 3D game in a post-apocalyptic world where you struggled to help civilization survive. After its cancellation the team would go on to make Starcraft. And then there’s the legendary Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. While it might not have made their internal cut, its cancellation caused quite an uproar at the time. For a little perspective on the subject we caught up with 1UP Network PC Editor-in-Chief Jeff Green:

I saw WarCraft Adventures at least a couple times in the course of its development. As both a WarCraft geek and an adventure game geek, I was all over this game. It made total sense to me that they were doing it, too. The backstory to the WarCraft games had obviously been important to them, and this was a way for them to get the pesky strategy game part out of the way and just tell the story they’d wanted to tell. At the point it looked like the game might be in a little bit of “trouble,” they brought in Steve Meretsky as a kind of “script doctor”–which to me was in even cooler sign, despite the trouble, because Meretsky is one of the all-time great adventure game designers. So when they cancelled it, I was crushed. I cried like a little girl–a little girl who’s stuffed panda was taken away. And they were so close! It’s actually probably done somewhere, sitting on a hard disk in someone’s office at Blizzard. For years I’ve been saying they should just stick it on the disc of whatever game they have coming out next. They don’t have to document it or anything–just put it on there for people to find. But no. They have this whole “quality” thing going on. They think it will taint their great reputation if a less-than-perfect game comes out with their name on it. To which I say: So what! You’re trillionaires now! We know you’re great! You know you’re great! No one has anything to lose! Give us the damn game already! Please end my pain!

Pardo also talked about how the process keynote speaker Gore Verbinski detailed of refining Pirates of the Caribbean through storyboards sounded good, but doesn’t fit well in the interactive world of games. Instead, what they do is actually start implementing stuff until they get to point where they say “shit, that kinda sucks,” toss it, and figure out if they can reboot from some point. “It’s one of the things that makes us infamous for never hitting a release date, but it’s part of ‘gameplay first’,” he explained.

Call of Duty 4 Takes AIAS Game of the Year Award

Published on: 8th February, 2008

With Jay Mohr once again hosting the show, three games walked away from the 11th annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) awards last night with 12 of the 26 total awards. Along with the top spot for Game of the Year, Call of Duty 4 took home the honors for Console Game of the Year, Action Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay. The Orange Box started its run with being named Computer Game of the Year, and then added to that with three more trophies specifically for Portal including Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering, and Outstanding Character Performance. While not garnering any “of the Years”, BioShock took home four awards that speak to its high production values with nods for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design, Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition, Outstanding Achievement in Story Development, and Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.

After the big three cleaned up, Rock Band was the only other title to receive multiple awards with Family Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack, and Outstanding Innovation in Gaming. The remaining winners for the big “of the Year” awards follows below:

• Massively Multiplayer: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• Strategy/Simulation: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Sports: Skate
• Adventure: Super Mario Galaxy
• Racing: Motorstorm
• Role-Playing: Mass Effect

While it lacks the drama of last year’s uproar over the omission of Resident Evil 4 due to Capcom not being a member of the AIAS, this year’s list still offers plenty to wonder about. Nintendo fans may be licking their wounds over Mario not winning Game of the Year, but Halo 3 fans face the double whammy of not only losing the Online Gameplay award to rival Call of Duty 4, but being completely left off the winners’ list at all. They’re not alone as several other favorites from 2007 received a snub including Forza 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, World in Conflict, Metroid Prime 3, and Guitar Hero III.

1UP Yours: Kisses and Mud

Published on: 1st February, 2008

How do we add a new show member when he’s not even here? MAGIC. Before the fabled fourth chair is finally filled by the vacationing Shawn Elliott, Jeff Green gets it all nice and warm. The boys talk about Lost Odyssey, Universe at War, the joy of being manchildren, and how Valve is showing a little initiative with Steamworks. You know, just a little.

Also, we revisit your ideas for game settings and locations that are underused, Shane and Jeff are totally excited for that “Jumper” movie, and Garnett makes a formal request for an all-Boston version of Guitar Hero.

Really big show.