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.

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.

Though posts have become scarce around here lately, there’s always time for my roughly bi-seasonal column of reading recommendations. On this occasion I will expose what I’m currently reading or planning on reading this Summer; either way, the quality of the following books is apparent even before getting any close to the final chapters. Without further ado:

Death by black hole and other cosmic quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, 384 pages, published by W. W. Norton - ISBN-13: 978-0-393-06224-3 - this book is a collection of essays on the cosmos written by an astrophysicist who has the gift of being able to render complex concepts, such as the inner workings of black holes (or what is currently understood about them) or the Doppler effect, very clear without trivializing them in the process. And, as the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, he also knows what he’s talking about. I find his presentations always enlightening and at the same time very user-friendly.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development, by Fletcher Dunn and Ian Parberry, 476 pages, published by Wordware Publishing - ISBN-13: 978-1-55622-911-4 - for some reason I did not have a specific, introductory book on 3D mathematics, and although I have managed to live without one by studying information in other books and/or the Net, I’ve been wanting for some time to find all such information neatly collected in one spot. This book may be what I was looking for, as it spans from the basics of coordinate systems up to and including space partitioning techniques, and contrary to similar books on 3D math it explains the concepts rather than just presenting results. Moreover it intermixes formulas, figures and code samples (rather than relegating code to a CD for example) in a way that I find useful for keeping the focus on the matter that is being read at any given time.

More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs, by Scott Meyers, 336 pages, published by Addison-Wesley Professional - ISBN-13: 978-0-201-63371-9 - there is not much to say about this book than is not already known. If you really want to learn C++ (much beyond simply syntax), and you’ve liked the previous book by Meyers on the subject (”Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs” - wait, if you really want to learn C++, then you must have read that one and loved it by now), then this is for you, too. Covering more advanced techniques than the first in the series, it will be a useful addition to your library.

It’s hot outside, stay home and read a book. Unless it’s Winter where you live, in that case you can start over with my wintry recommendations ("Books for the Fall of Winter").

I made a reference to Canadian laws requiring contests to be open to participants without a purchase and/or through a skill test in a previous post, when I hadn’t heard of such laws yet and was wondering whether they indeed existed (see "Making it harder for Canada"). It turned out they do, and I’ve recently heard of another example: the entry fee for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft North American Arena Tournament. The tournament allows players of World or Warcraft to compete in regional player-versus-player battles for a chance to fight in the world championships and win real prizes and quite fair amounts of cash. In North America, like in Europe, the tournament requires participants to pay an entry fee of $20 (€15 in Europe - real money, not an in-game equivalent); however, because of said Canadian laws, the fee is waived in Canada, and that’s where Blizzard shows its creativity. Here’s an excerpt from the Official Rules:

The Entry Fee for the Tournament is $20.00 USD for the First Qualification Round of the Tournament, and $20.00 USD for the Second Qualification Round of the Tournament. Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in Canada to the video gaming culture in the United States on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper and mailing their essay to Essay Entry for The North American Blizzard Entertainment Arena Tournament, P.O Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623. Essay entries must be received no later than March 31, 2008 in order to be eligible. Essay entrants represent and warrant that the essay is their original work and does not infringe the rights of any third party. By entering, essay entrants hereby grant, without further consideration, all right, title and interest in and to their essay to Sponsor.

No conditions are imposed on the essays, so they constitute a sort of free-of-charge entry form (as per the aforementioned laws), and they’re asked to be kept short, but perhaps at the same time they can offer a little insight on how to strengthen Blizzard’s presence in Canada (the “Sponsor” in the above wording is Blizzard Entertainment) — and this way they can still get something out of it. I think it’s clever.

I don’t like to leave ends loose, so I’ll follow up to at least part of a previous post in which I mentioned the game Manhunt 2 and its troubles with national classification committees ("Blind supervision"). After having been successfully released in the US last October, although with a rating of “Mature” (which, if on one hand let Rockstar Games avoid the dreaded “Adults Only” rating, had imposed a necessity of censoring parts of the original game), the game in question seems to finally be able to see the light (of stores) in the UK as well.

You may recall from the previous post that the British Board of Film Classification had initially refused to give Manhunt 2 any rating at all, preventing it from reaching the stores in any form. Rockstar did not sit idle since then though, but when they submitted the revised edition to the BBFC they again rejected it, only to have the decision overturned by the UK Video Appeals Committee, forcing the case to end up in court; this didn’t seem to end well for Manhunt 2, as the High Court ruled in favor of the BBFC citing a misinterpretation of the law on the VAC’s part. In a, perhaps unexpected, turn of events, the VAC subsequently agreed to ignore the High Court’s decision and give the game an “18″ certificate, making it “adults only” but at least allowing its commercialization.

I’ve already expressed my thoughts on this kind of censorship and will not repeat them here. It’s worthy to mention how the case was born with the alleged influence the first Manhunt game had on the murder of teenager Stefan Pakeerah, a link that was denied both by the police, who identified drug-related robbery as the motive, and the judge presiding over the case in court at the end of the investigations, who placed sole responsibility on the murderer (moreover, Manhunt was owned by the victim, not the murderer); such a missing link was nonetheless advertised as solid and true by the media and a member of Parliament. However, if there was no such link, who should have been censored instead?