Video Games and Being in the Same Room as Peter Molyneux

It has been a very long week for me (in a good way) and I can’t believe that just eight days ago I was still at my family’s home playing Modern Warfare 2. I spent a good portion of this week participating with two other programmers in a seventy-two hour video game development competition and although we didn’t win, a huge amount of effort was put into creating the game we did make and we were all very pleased with the final product that came out of it.

Not bad considering we were three coders who’d only recently pretty much self-taught themselves XNA. The main highlight of my week was something much greater than this however and something that will undoubtedly stick with me for the rest of my life.

I was privileged enough to actually be part of the audience for a two hour talk from legendary games designer Peter Molyneux. I still can’t quite believe it myself but the experience was amazing. He talked about his history in the games industry, a great deal about innovation in video games and there was even part of the talk which we’ve been clearly and strictly told we’re not allowed to talk about at all. Of course Molyneux is rather reputed for making exaggerated statements about the games he is working on and he said himself in the talk he is aware of this and that he tells the people who interview him that he gets carried away, sometimes comes out with stuff he doesn’t think about and considers it simply part of his nature as an enthusiastic games designer. Personally although I understand the issues people have with Molyneux’s grand promises which don’t always pan out, I’d rather have an enthusiastic designer working on my games than a less enthusiastic one and it was Molyneux’s enthusiasm which made him so compelling to listen to. The talk was interesting, inspirational and at one particular point very, very impressive (but I’m not allowed to talk about that). One of the things Molyneux seemed most enthusiastic about was affecting people through video games, whether those people be the characters in the video games or real-life people. It was amazing to be able to have the chance to listen to such a highly reputed game designer and one who was so passionate about the work he was doing.

As for the actual games I’ve played this week I played all the way through Bayonetta and got a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I went in expecting an absolutely insane game and yet it still managed to surprise me with its off-the-wall characters, story and cutscenes. While somewhat “mashy” the combat was always satisfying, especially on normal difficulty where the enemies had enough health to provide battles long enough to feel particularly entertaining. My main quam with the game was that even though I was playing with a new disc and a new 360 I did still experience screen tearing at various points but that didn’t affect my experience with the game too much. Perhaps the thing that surprised me most about the game though was the strength of the story in the game. Right from when it was first shown it was obvious Bayonetta was going to be “mad Japanese” and its sense of craziness is made apparent right from the first cutscene and is always a joy to behold. However, although the lore of Bayonetta didn’t catch my attention greatly for the first few chapters of the game, I came around and I felt by the last few chapters the game brought across something rather special. Unless you have an aversion to “mad Japaneseness”, hack and slash combat or slightly lengthy Space Harrier homages I’d recommend Bayonetta for the 360 to anyone interested.

I finally opened up my copy of Dragon Age: Origins for the 360 this week and as eager as I was to jump in I must admit I didn’t enjoy my first half hour or so of the game anywhere near as much as I thought I would. My problems with the game essentially boiled down to some serious graphical issues around the start of the game which were very off-putting, however I will be venturing back into the game ASAP to get a proper taste of what it has to offer and I’m expecting my experience next time round will be much more fun.

Once again I feel I could build almost infinitely upon the wall of text before you but to stop this blog from turning into information overload for now I’m going to say thank you for reading and put an end to this madness. Oh and before I say goodbye I’ll leave you with this extremely well-edited Modern Warfare 2 montage. Goodbye.

-Gamer_152    

It has been a very long week for me (in a good way) and I can’t believe that just eight days ago I was still at my family’s home playing Modern Warfare 2. I spent a good portion of this week participating with two other programmers in a seventy-two hour video game development competition and although we didn’t win, a huge amount of effort was put into creating the game we did make and we were all very pleased with the final product that came out of it.

Not bad considering we were three coders who’d only recently pretty much self-taught themselves XNA. The main highlight of my week was something much greater than this however and something that will undoubtedly stick with me for the rest of my life.

I was privileged enough to actually be part of the audience for a two hour talk from legendary games designer Peter Molyneux. I still can’t quite believe it myself but the experience was amazing. He talked about his history in the games industry, a great deal about innovation in video games and there was even part of the talk which we’ve been clearly and strictly told we’re not allowed to talk about at all. Of course Molyneux is rather reputed for making exaggerated statements about the games he is working on and he said himself in the talk he is aware of this and that he tells the people who interview him that he gets carried away, sometimes comes out with stuff he doesn’t think about and considers it simply part of his nature as an enthusiastic games designer. Personally although I understand the issues people have with Molyneux’s grand promises which don’t always pan out, I’d rather have an enthusiastic designer working on my games than a less enthusiastic one and it was Molyneux’s enthusiasm which made him so compelling to listen to. The talk was interesting, inspirational and at one particular point very, very impressive (but I’m not allowed to talk about that). One of the things Molyneux seemed most enthusiastic about was affecting people through video games, whether those people be the characters in the video games or real-life people. It was amazing to be able to have the chance to listen to such a highly reputed game designer and one who was so passionate about the work he was doing.

As for the actual games I’ve played this week I played all the way through Bayonetta and got a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I went in expecting an absolutely insane game and yet it still managed to surprise me with its off-the-wall characters, story and cutscenes. While somewhat “mashy” the combat was always satisfying, especially on normal difficulty where the enemies had enough health to provide battles long enough to feel particularly entertaining. My main quam with the game was that even though I was playing with a new disc and a new 360 I did still experience screen tearing at various points but that didn’t affect my experience with the game too much. Perhaps the thing that surprised me most about the game though was the strength of the story in the game. Right from when it was first shown it was obvious Bayonetta was going to be “mad Japanese” and its sense of craziness is made apparent right from the first cutscene and is always a joy to behold. However, although the lore of Bayonetta didn’t catch my attention greatly for the first few chapters of the game, I came around and I felt by the last few chapters the game brought across something rather special. Unless you have an aversion to “mad Japaneseness”, hack and slash combat or slightly lengthy Space Harrier homages I’d recommend Bayonetta for the 360 to anyone interested.

I finally opened up my copy of Dragon Age: Origins for the 360 this week and as eager as I was to jump in I must admit I didn’t enjoy my first half hour or so of the game anywhere near as much as I thought I would. My problems with the game essentially boiled down to some serious graphical issues around the start of the game which were very off-putting, however I will be venturing back into the game ASAP to get a proper taste of what it has to offer and I’m expecting my experience next time round will be much more fun.

Once again I feel I could build almost infinitely upon the wall of text before you but to stop this blog from turning into information overload for now I’m going to say thank you for reading and put an end to this madness. Oh and before I say goodbye I’ll leave you with this extremely well-edited Modern Warfare 2 montage. Goodbye.

-Gamer_152    

So can we play your game? Maybe beating it will somehow make me feel less jealous about the fact you got to be involved in a super-secret Peter M talk.