11.10.09

The day a lot of gamers have been waiting for was practically here.  A midnight launch was planned with special appearance of IW developers.  It was a night for Infinity Ward to celebrate their 2 years of work officially hitting retail; and the studio was gracious enough to let us, the general public, join in on the celebration.

Scene

As I walked onto the Pico Blvd Best Buy, there were still a line of people pre-purchasing their copies of MW2.  The majority of the crowd at this location were that 18-24 male demographic.  But, unlike the behavior one might experience in any online game, everyone was nice.  They were being fans of the game and enjoyed themselves by downing a near limitless supply of free energy drinks.  A lot of cheering whenever MW2 was mentioned over the loudspeaker and when someone won a raffle prize.

The ground level parking lot had been converted to a “fan-fest” area to entertain the public.  There were 2 military vehicles; an armor personnel carrier and I’m guessing a mechanized artillery vehicle.  There were also stands for vendor Monster energy drink and a local radio station pumping tunes and raffling prizes.  The crown jewel though was the geodesic dome tent housing MW2 kiosks, and more importantly the devs who were signing autographs.

Inside the dome

Inside the green-lit tent were people playing MW2 multiplayer, a statue of Ghost, and devs signing autographs.  As mention before in a previous post, I don’t need these events to be extravagant.  Just an opportunity to take a picture and say thank you for making this game.  Pretty much like what any sports fan would do.

Take pictures I did.  The Infinity Ward devs were very fan-friendly.  They were all, let me sign this, pass it on, made sure everyone at the table signed.  The devs thanked me for my support yet it should be the other way around.  C’mon, if you ever saw Kojima or Miyamoto walking down the street you’d be thanking them for creating their specific franchise.  Also, those stories about people going up to Tim Schafer during E3 `09.

This was the highlight of the night.  A camera full of pictures and a MW2 cover autographed by devs of Infinity Ward.

Midnight

The crowd was finally able to purchase their game.  Understandingly, it took some time for each transaction.  But upon exit it was all smiles.  I did notice a l ot of Prestige Edition were walking out the door.

The devs were hanging out and enjoying the atmosphere.  Inside the dome, one dev mention we enjoy playing this game as much as you guys.  So it wasn’t surprising to hear “see you in the office tomorrow.”  This was one of my favorite video game related events I’ve attended.  Thank you to Infinity Ward and co. for putting on this event.

 
 
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pictures from inside the geodesic dome tent


General launch pictures


 

The T-Mobile Brick of the Night

Fellow GB amateur photographers here’s my brick shot of the night and hopefully we can all learn from this.  As mentioned on MB’s blog post, I like taking pictures of couples bc I’m a wannabe Death Cab for Cutie video director.  About 11:30 pm the local radio station raffled one of the major prizes; an Xbox 360 MW2 LE console.  I believe the second number called was the winner and he had that million dollar smile from ear to ear.  

He picked up his box and went back to his significant other.  She was ECSTATIC.  Squealing with excitement, she threw her arms around his neck, and swung him around.  I took a picture of this high-action sequence and thought I at least caught the tail-end.  But, no such luck.  

The crowd cheered as he won.  Nice.  Someone shouted, you don’t need to wait anymore... you can go home and play the game now.

The two were a good-looking bunch with genuine enthusiasm.  A high-action shot I really wanted to capture and one of those times I’d rather be using a SLR than my point and click.

Back to more practice for me. 

Warning: This is just a dream.  It is my imagination gone wild most likely from eating two Whopper Jrs and listening to a Bombcast right before bedtime.  Second, I have not played MGS4.  So there may be moments like “dude that already happened.”  My apologies for those moments.  You will get dumber and you will be bored.  You have been warned.

 
The dream starts with me being in an office and that I would be playing a demo of what was going to be on the show floor.  (Which show?  I don’t know)  Oddly, I already got a good idea of the details in the demo since I have already read a “preview article” in a gaming magazine.  (I did mention consuming 2 Whopper Jrs and a Bombcast right?)  Oh, I should mention Kojima did not oversee this title.  Yep, we finally get that first Metal Gear w/o Kojima-san.

The game begins at twilight; the setting is a coastal town.  You are wearing the uniform as seen in Peace Walker.  You physically look like an entirely different person but you share some facial features with Solid Snake.  If Solid had a son you would be it.  You have 2 computer controlled allies accompanying you.  One is a Spec Op, who looks similar to the guy staggering in the beginning of MW2’s infamy trailer.  Second, is the mohawk wearing mercenary as seen in MW2’s first released trailer.

This first cut scene is twilight transitioning to night and the Spec Op telling me what the plan is.  Standard mission briefing.  That’s it.  End of cut scene.  No longwindedness.  [Personally never had a problem w/ long cut scenes]

Here’s the scenario.  It’s night time.  Imagine the environment is the wheat field scene at the end of Gladiator and Maximus’ abode would be a town that resembles Williamsburg, VA.  There are a tiny amount of spotlights moving about and very little guards.  

The producer jumps in and says so what you want to do is sneak through the wheat field, get to point B, and then finally onto point C.  

Game starts, and I’m controlling my character through a patch of dirt road onto the knee high wheat field.  Immediately you can tell this in a non-Kojima g ame.  The camera is a fixed 3rd person view and the “stealth gameplay” frustrations were gone.  It was very easy to sneak around the wheat field and avoid detection.

There was an interview in the “preview article” that said they wanted to get away from those “stealth” gameplay frustrations a la what Ubisoft Montreal did with SC: Conviction.

I’m just moving along, and I get kind of sick playing it sneaky so I got sloppy and triggered an alarm.  So what’s making this Metal Gear next-gen?  

Next-gen graphics

 
I didn’t mention about graphics before on purpose because this situation was the best place to explain it.  The game looked really good.  It’s one more step towards photo-realism but still looks like a game.  Another “preview article” interview stated close to photo-realism graphics is common place in that generation but they decided to make it look a little gamey for their art direction.

One of the major next-gen component was the number of objects on screen.  So I had just tripped the alarm and spotlights were moving around like crazy.  A SWAT-type van rolls in and a squad of about six soldiers (who resemble the PMCs in MGS4) comes out to battle with us 3.  

Here’s what it looks like on screen.  Squad of six jumping out, drawing out assault rifles and then firing.  My 2 allies firing back.  Nice muzzle flash art effects.  Extremely high details.  The field of wheat is individually rendered; rolling, flowing, moving vegetation.  All this happening on one screen!  Locked at 60 frames per second!

No slide show.  No chugging.  I know because I physically moved my face right up to the screen to examine all the details.

Additionally, this Metal Gear was in an open world setting or one really big level.  There were no transition screens to load from 1 scene to the next.  You can actually see far away into the town; a little bit like Crysis.  Our 3 whilst taking care of the first squad, in the distance you could see another SWAT van coming and that was in real-time.  Instead of a countdown timer, you can visually gauge when to escape or to start shooting better before things get out of hand.  

********************
I fired off a few rounds.  I could’ve easily stayed and enjoyed the gunfight but for unknown reason I, instinctively and trained from previous MGS when triggering an alarm, started to high-tail it and escape.

Next-gen AI

Your computer AI is one foot in the door of Skynet.  They can take care of themselves.  They were smartly moving close by back when I was sneaking in the wheat field.  Won’t do stupid things like get stuck or trip an alarm.  When attacked they will tactically spread out and defend themselves.  The enemy AI was excellent also.  Operated like a real military squad.

The producer jumps in and says in escape scenarios you can try to escape as a squad or you can do it by yourself.  As a squad we would’ve been performing standard military procedures and repelling.  [Fire some rounds, run towards partner, tap his shoulder, turn around and fire]  Since I chickened out, the producer said you can do that too, just make your way to point B and your allies will rendezvous to you at the point.  Not teleporting, he will in real-time actually maneuver to point B.
 

********************
This is where dream/game gets a little weird.  Point B is on the outskirts of a Ralph’s supermarket.  Merc arrived but Spec Op didn’t.  I guess the first wave of opposing force took out Spec Op.  Instead of Octo-camo we have an equipment that allows us to disguise to fit in any scenario.  Similar to “the uniform” gear but ever-changing.  

The producer said we want to shift away from the stealth genre and more towards infiltration.

We went into the nicely detailed supermarket and I went to the back row/meat section.  It goes into a short cut scene where Merc was shouting at me that I should’ve followed orders or Spec Op wouldn’t have died.
 

Next-gen scenario generator. It’s the new “moral choices” concept.

The producer jumps in and says the Merc is screaming at you because one of your ally died.  He said it wouldn’t affect the endgame but would affect the next level and so on; which he didn’t state.  Basically, Heavy Rain may have pioneered the different scenarios if character dies, but we are the model of cause and effect in video games.  My game would be different if it was Spec Op that survived instead or if all 3 of us were there in the supermarket.

 
******************** 
I did not want to hear Merc’s words anymore so I started running towards the exit and outside.  The night manager was there and because I was running I raised suspicion and he started to report it to the authorities on his chest microphone.  Producer said had I walked out, suspicion would be low and nothing would’ve happened.

End of dream.

Odd to end it on an archaic gameplay mechanic of “let’s wear a disguise and don’t raise the suspicion meter past red.”  

What was weird was that I woke up with actual feelings and emotions of having fun from playing this fictitious game.  That feeling of desire to replay a level because it was so much fun.  

The game looked great, the AI was extremely satisfying, and the controls were spot on.  This was a next-gen Metal Gear on a next-gen platform.  It felt like a hybrid of Modern Warfare and Metal Gear.  Just not a pure shooter and not too stealthy.  I didn’t write everything down since this is already a long piece of nonsense.  But a few points.
 
Everything felt right about the controls, it wasn’t I’m standing, squatting, laying flat on the ground.  It would intuitively switch between stances with the press of a button.  The music was also good too.  The escape theme had little elements of techno that easily get you in the mood of the escape.  The music wanted to differentiate from the past Metal Gears.  

On a night of fast food and GB shenanigans, I theoretically played a Metal Gear game that was fun.  A fun Metal Gear?  I did say it was a dream. 

  
      

 

 Los Campesinos! in concert.

 
Wow, watching LC! in concert for the first time was as mind blowing as listening to their music for the first time.  Their high energy music easily translates in the live form.  I was a little worried bc I was sleepwalking during the opening acts.  But as soon as LC! played it flipped on a switch and I was immediately  taken over.  After the show, some of the band will usually stick around.  Gareth will sell you t-shirts and some will chat with the fans.  They are beautiful people both figuratively and literally.
 
If you can catch the rest of their U.S. tour I strongly recommend it.  Also, since a whole lot of the Giant Bomb community lives in the UK they are touring back across the pond in the month of October.
Los Campesinos! concert: 5 out of 5 stars.
 

The video game connection.
I liked how my following of Los Campesinos! intertwined with video games from time to time.  It started with discovering them from gamer Alex N.  It was pretty cool when people tweeted about LC! music at Microsoft's 2009 E3 presser.  Yeah, Turn 10 didn’t pick some song from Oasis or something like that.  They used You! Me! Dancing! from Los efffing Campesinos! and it blended perfectly with the Forza 3 trailer.

I’ve been a fan of McWhertor’s material ever since Ryan mentioned his appearance on Bonus Round with the dude.  I like his style and type of humor.  Some good articles were when he had to do some damage control for the dog’s near death experience with the Wii and when he wrote about the cosplay theme stripper show.  One of the comments were along the lines of "Michael what have you done with our website”

So on the night before E3, Kotaku threw their annual pre-E3 party at the Golden Gopher.  It was nice to let industry types and their fans enjoy a little socializing before video game industry’s biggest event of the year.

Lines: You learn A LOT of stuff.

People might hate lines but I love them.  I love being invisible and just let all the chitter-chatter flow around me.

That “yeah E3 is actually here” moment was the conversation between Infinity Ward devs talking to a Microsoft executive about what are you going to be presenting?  What’s going to be on your show floor?  We have to go do so and so tomorrow.  Yeah, E3 is here man.

Other then that just some technical talk about DX 9, tools, and programming business. 

Inside

Once inside it was nice and packed.  Always a good sign for events like these.  Off the top of my head of the celebrities there, Carlos Ferro (Dom), Seth (final boss in SFIV), sexyvideogameland, and some Destructoid guys.

The party was really nice.  You can see a lot of industry types just relaxing the night before the biggest and busiest week of their life.  Props to the dj for playin CSS Alala.  And a big thank you to Michael McWhertor, Meat Bun, and Kotaku for putting on a nice event.


Practice makes perfect so here’s a bunch of photos of people I don’t know.





Ok, totally going Kojima's E3 trailer-after the credits-surprise-style here.





























Alright.  Not much of a surprise to everyone else but totally a surprise to me when I exited and saw them in line.  Yes, I do get star-struck seeing these celebrities so I just took the picture of the fun-loving bunch and scurried away.  My nervousness is due to the fact that I've been reading their stuff since GS was back in Chicago and Greg K was showing coverage of a launch party at some Chi town bar.  So they are celebrities to me.  That and I've been skimping on the night shifts at the hospital to raise my courage.

EDIT: Gizmo was right, last picture did not need caption.

Art exhibitor Nucleus held a premiere for a Street Fighter art gallery this past Saturday (4/25).  There was videogame art, cosplay competition and a SF4 tournament; the usual premiere thing.  Not much to write about so I’ll just post photo galleries instead.


You see the cosplay, that’s the kicker right there. 

I’m not into cosplay.  Have nothing against it; just never grabbed my interest.  But, the cosplay was the highlight of the premiere.  There were quite a few and they were quality quality stuff.  Some like Evil Ryu and Fei Long were really good.  But Cammy… WOW!

I couldn’t get better pictures due to my angle and high action but thank goodness for youtube right?  

My jaw dropped, from my angle all I saw was Cammy's legs on guy’s shoulders, ass, and crotch in duder’s face.  Man!  Cosplayers and high school band members get all the action in life.  Bra-vo!  Bravo!

So big props to all you cosplayers, Harajuku girls, and people who dress up in the world.  You have courage to do all that and I admire the passion you have in your craft.







LA videogame scene




you can get a professional view of the art exhibit on Nucleus' website