Synaptic Sugar

Image above: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Copyright (C) 2009 Electronic Arts Inc.

The project I’ve worked on for the past year at Double Helix Games has now been released: it’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the multi-platform game tied to the movie by the same name. I can honestly say it’s been an interesting and educative experience, from which I’ve learned a lot.

Reviews of the game so far have been mixed, some recognizing its merits as well as its flaws, others unmercifully bashing it. Amongst the various observations there have been some which were quite superficial, one review even going so far as attacking Dennis Quaid (who plays General Hawk in the movie) and the rest of the movie cast specifically for the quality of their voice acting in the game; which would be an opinion any reviewer could be entitled to, if not for the fact that neither Mr. Quaid nor the rest of the cast (with the exception of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1)) lent their voice to our game. If anything, this critique should probably be a testament to how good a Dennis Quaid the actual voice actor who plays Hawk in the game is.

Another funny remark has stated how the accompanying soundtrack is “ripped off” the movie, when in reality it was specifically composed for the game and skillfully executed by an orchestra (anyone could have confirmed that with minimal research). In my opinion it is in fact one of the best features of this game. In addition, I’m still looking for this mysterious “lava level” some reviewers mentioned; I certainly cannot remember it being part of the product at any point during the development.

Granted, The Rise of Cobra has some flaws, which clearly could not and did not go unnoticed; however, my personal opinion is the game still manages to offer a good dose of fun, particularly if played in co-op with a friend at Advanced or Hardcore difficulty. And I believe fun is half the battle.

(1) see game credits.

When you want to explain to your customers how the name of one of your products should be pronounced, at least take care to make sure you are getting it right first.

Another year is gone; the last six months ran by especially fast. New year resolutions: to try and do all those things we never have time for, and generally make the best of the time we have. A happy new year to everyone, in the hope that it will be even better than the one that’s leaving us.

And here are finally some of the details that were missing from my previous post. It’s taken a while, but I have at last moved to a different city, where the sun shines less hot but no less bright; I like this region quite a lot, and I can see many improvements over my previous location. It is here that, a while ago, I started working as Gameplay Programmer for Double Helix Games, the Foundation 9 Entertainment game development studio that was born from the merger of veteran studios Shiny and The Collective. As imaginable, the people I’m working with are smart and very talented and I’m more than honored to be part of such an active and energetic team; I’m looking forward to learning as much as possible from all of them and gaining more experience in the game industry.

I’m already helping with the development of a game that is, as of yet, unannounced. All I can say is that I do like the ideas that the designers are placing together, and how it’s coming along; I may be able to talk more about it after it’s announced to the public, something that should happen in the near future. For the moment, I will just remind you that Silent Hill: Homecoming, another game developed by Double Helix and published by Konami, will be released soon and you should check it out.

And so it begins. New job, new city, new everything, now very very soon. It’s the result of quite some time spent in preparations, and that partly explains the lack of posts here in recent times. A whole new world opens now, and I believe in cases like this it’s customary to do the following:

• thank the people who made this possible: check;
• toast to the future: check;
• post about the news: in progress.

I’m aware I’m not disclosing many details, but that is part of my habit. I hope to return to this blog more often in the near future though, to get closer to the frequency and variety of posts that it had before, and maybe soon offer a broader vision of what’s going on. Come visit me again and maybe we can chat over some coffee.