The view from one.

Best Applicant of all Time

2008-07-27T00:00:07Z

Just follow the instructions:

http://brightonnewmedia.org/pipermail/bnmlist/2002-April/005549.html

Electric Nude

2008-06-16T11:14:53Z

You may have caught this on Digg...
....one of my all time fav tunes - it loses none of its sadness in translation. This is beautiful.

Doesn't start until 1:10.

Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

.....^_^.......

2008-03-20T11:43:16Z

Awesome games still seem to be seeping out after the pre-xmas blast that was one of the best in living memory. So a quick round up of the great and greater I've been playing.

Rock Band (360 import) - Been spending many lunchtimes bashing out on the drums. I never played (but appreciated) Guitar Hero since I already played for a number of years - so the drums section of Rock Band finally lets me indulge in sweet ignorance. There seems to be a swing to everyone wanting to play Weezer's Say It Ain't So though. Since our copy is a US import a lot of the songs are quite shit and unheard of, so I'm not sure if theres some originals in there as well. But heres hoping they throw in a few Aussie classics for our official release.

Super Smash Brothers (Wii) - The best (er....and only) foursome I have had in some time.

No More Heroes (Wii) - So fucking bad its great. Terrible to look at, repetitive and bloody violet decapitations aplenty. The guy takes a dump whenever you save the game and the light-sabre ripoff of a weapon (ie : A florescent tube) that you charge up by wanking it. Also has a cool mini-game on the menu where you get to play with a kitten. ...WTF is this game trying to accomplish? I didn't really care in the end I was having to much fun laughing my ass off at the stupid cut-scene dialogue. "I'm just here to kill you. I dont want the recognition or the rewards. I just want to be number 1!"

God Of War & Echochrome (PSP) - PSP has its moments. Both of these are 9/10 moments.

adchopper @ 2008-03-08T09:49:00

2008-03-07T23:34:33Z

Recently met Yug from Australian Gamer when he came out to do an article about work. Although I had nothing to do with the interview being a lowly junior and all, he seemed like a nice enough bloke during general chat, but seemed to be prowling for any bits of information he can get being a journalist and all. But his article on Unleashed was pretty cool, with my favorite section being .....

"Without knowing too much about the single player part of the game, I want a copy of it for the Duel Mode alone. Right up there with Wii Sports and Rockstar presents Table Tennis, this looks to be one of those really easy to pick up and play multiplayer games and I can’t wait to play it with the help of mates and alcohol – never was there a better combination of factors to help test the merits of the multiplayer mode in a game....."

Also got a chance to go to Game On yesterday during work. The highlight being meeting Al Alcorn the creator of Pong! Very nice guy, lots of stories, and always laughing. Some of the more interesting stuff he spoke about was:

-Pong ripped off another 'game' and they got successfully sued for it.
-How E.T. killed the Atari 2600.

-Worked for Apple and helped develop and create MPEG and Quicktime in secret after Apple had pulled the plug on the project calling it ridiculous    ".......Why would anyone want moving image and sound in a digital format that can be copied?"

-Later designed the modern Pokey Machine. "The hardest game I have had to create because it had to tick 3 important boxes:
                1) People are lossing money on it and you can't make them angry.
                2) Gamblers generally don't know how to use a computer.
                3) They will be drunk while operating it.

It runs until July 13th.

Cause I wanted to laffffff.......

2008-02-28T11:47:03Z

What's Red and smells like Blue Paint...
...Red Paint

Whats black n runny?
Kathy Freeman

Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella?
Fo' drizzle!

Why did the scarecrow win an award?
Because he was out standing in his field.

Skeleton goes to a bar, and asks for a pint, and a mop.

What's the hardest part of learning to roller blade?
Telling your parents you are gay.

What do you call cheese that isn't yours?? nacho cheese!

Knock knock.
Who's there?
The police. Your wife and children have been killed.

What do you call a dinosaur that's just been bummed?
A mega-sore-arse

What do 9 out of 10 people enjoy?
Gang rape

Whats the difference between maddy mccann and a porsche?
I dont have a porsche in my garage.

Whats the difference between the pope and maddy mccann?
The pope will die a virgin.

...I feel so bad after that last one :(

Sorry......................for not putting in any LJ cuts...cant be bothered!

2008-02-14T11:14:41Z

Big thks to all that made the effort to get down to G-Town for my engagement and sorry if I didn't get much time to spend with you. But it meant alot to me so thk u. :) Still waiting on photos but I'll post when I get them.

Finally had a play with the much hyped Wii Lightsabre the other day. It played well enough with SWU but is let down by a few issues. The biggest thing is that it is to heavy. The thing is a fucking mini-brick. I only used it on the duel mode going best of 5 rounds, and my wrist had enough after four. Its baulky and fat and doesn't really feel the way a sabre would in my mind. Theres also the possibility that it could do some really damage if it flies out of your hand in the midst of a jedi fighting fit. Pressing the button just below the rim activates the 'light of the sabre' and it extends from the bottom up, but thats about all it does. Also its not made by Nintendo which a lot of sites are trying to gloss over. Its being made by a third party and therefore sales come before polish. Only for the hardcore fans I reckon.

After going public with the release date earlier in the week, EA have been whoring "SPORE" to all random tech-perverts around the place. Obviously wanting to create a mutant reptile is high on everyones list. But our lead designer told me an interesting story the other day, after he spoke with his friends in EA. Apparently during previous in-house showings to sales reps, execs, etc of all the people who have played it, the very first creature EVERYONE creates is... a giant penis.
He said this was only a common trait only amongst the males of our species that played it. The females weren't thinking dick when they had a chance to mold some digital putty. So let me retrace - Obviously wanting to create a giant, 2-eyed, Penis with sharp teeth is high on ever male's list. Comes out Sept. Im already there.

PS: Whilst on the topic of Spore, Maxis and Will Wright - one of the coders that used to work in the same company as Will told me a cool story about The Sims. We were discussing a recent article in Gamasutra on Will and the making of the Sims and it seems that it wasn't the full story. The article goes on the say that Will created The Sims through blood sweat and tears, blah blah, etc. But the game actually started life as an AI simulator that was running on a crusty mainframe in an old office. Coders would work on it if they wanted to test new code before implementing it. Graphics on it were limited and simple at best, more like pixels representing entities to show movement and behaviours via text messages. But over time, the program kept being added to, at which point and at some stage - someone seen something in it - all they had to do was figure out a way to make it fun to play with. That somebody was Will Wright. The rest is history as they say.

Also.......someone finally said sorry on behalf of the country - it should have been done along time ago.

I dont call them the evil empire for nothin'

2008-01-25T11:26:48Z

IBM responds to overtime lawsuits with 15% salary cuts

"The good news for those workers is that IBM now plans to grant them so-called "non-exempt" status so they can collect overtime pay.
The bad news: IBM will cut their base salaries by 15% to make up the difference"

I know this probably doesn't affect Australian employees, but fuck...they do themselves no favours in the "great company to work for" stakes.

Bye 07

2007-12-24T00:08:53Z

Have a great xmas to everyone, stay safe and enjoy the new year. If Im lucky I might see some of you in 08. Otherwise not much news....

The scene: High profile games publisher parts company with high profile developer over their decision to discontinue development of high profile franchise for xbox. Having sent a team to the states to give a pitch on what direction we would like the franchise to go in - said publisher sends out entourage to Melbourne for the week to check out studio. We were briefed a week before hand having spent the last month creating the design for the new game. The rules were fairly simple - dont bullshit them - if they think your designing on the fly they will kill you with a thought and grind on you until your out of answers. Stick to the pitch. Also, dont switch off - the word was that these guys dont earn six figures for nothing and were always probing - they catch you in the kitchen and start talking to you about the weather, they will pick up on every little thing you say.

Some of my ideas made it into the final pitch which I was happy about, some of my better/weirder ideas didn't. But I happy to be included in the design process so early on.

Overall it was more intense than I had imagined. It felt like a cross between and interview and an interogation. For 5 hours their lead designers grilled us over everything possible. Why would you chose 30 fps over 60 fps, co-op or multiplayer - which one woud you choose? why are difficulty levels harder in the UK than in the states, why dont FPS's sell well in Asia, etc.... Occasionally I was in over my head as some of the questions relating to design implementations and were extremely difficult.

Their two guys presented themselves well, very well spoken and dressed and they seemed to be playing the good cop/bad cop. During a break I googled abit more about these guys from their business cards - lecturers at collages in the states, members of Mensa America, one was a robotic engineer in his spare time, the other was reigning regional champion for the Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) autocross class and tested high performance vehicles. Of course these were just things to fill in their spare time - their real job was making sure their games get completed and make money - and break the balls of game studios to see if your good enough. A good experience but not something I would like to go through everyweek. Wont find out if we won the contract until the new year. Stay tuned.

The worlds first unofficial 'unleashed' tournament was held on Friday over some beers. Having being paired against a coder from another team who had never played the game before - I was quite confident of success. I had my tactics ready, knew which characters were the strongest. I was aiming for top 4 since the QA guys were considered favorites. Well it didnt go as planned and was beaten 4-5. I fell in the
Sarlaac pit 3 times before roasting in the coders lighting balls as he thrashed around with the wand and nunchuck. I blame unbalanced game mechanics, but nothing says N00b like a sore loser. Yes I am. Fucking coders....

I like lists - not everyone does. But here are mine for 07.

Best games:
UR MR GAY - Nintendo dont always hit the target, but Galaxy was a bullseye. Im not sure if it was intentional, but they appeared to have fixed an issue that apparent in Mario 64. The fact that in a 3D world you could see to a horizon point seem to take away expectation of the 2D side scroller - you could see enemies. Galaxy handled this problem by making the playing areas spherical or by using tilting.
Crysis - Shame most of you will never get to play it.
Skate - RAD!
Call Of Duty 4 - Oorah!
The Orange Box
Assassins Creed
PGR4
BioShock

Vibes:
Sky Blue Sky - Wilco
In Rainbows - Radiohead
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
Icky Thump - White Stripes
Interpol - Out Love To Admire
Digitalism - Idealism
Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set - The Moon Looked On

Flicks:
Sunshine
Bourne Ultimatum
Transformers
Sicko
Hot Fuzz
The Host
28 Weeks Later
300
Eastern Promises

adchopper @ 2007-11-16T23:09:00

2007-11-16T12:22:34Z

Since the character Sylar was introduced to Heroes I had figured that Eli Roth was doing some acting in between his torture porn movies.
Much to my surprise I have only recently found out that Sylar is played by some guy named Zachary Quinto. Surely I'm a complete toss-pot and am being taken for a ride and that it is clearly Eli's "stage" name. These two have to be the same person:

Eli vs Zach

...Will he make a good Spock in the next Star Trek movie? debate!

adchopper @ 2007-11-08T21:59:00

2007-11-08T11:01:58Z

The damn possums that live in our roof are having sex. This time they have gone to far!
If I'm not getting it, no-one in this house will get it!

Pray you get the job.

2007-10-23T11:05:33Z

Heres an interesting tale I read on our forum at work.....

"So my girlfriend just had a job interview this morning down on Morgan st, for a traineeship at a place making wedding dresses. She is getting into clothing making and it would have been great experience.
She meets the lady there, who instantly spots the Jessica Rabbit tattoo on her arm..
Little Old Lady: "So that tattoo… Are you in some sort of group, or are they for personal reasons?"
Asher: "Umm. They're personal. I get them done for me."
Little Old Lady: "Ok, so you're not a gothic person on the weekends or anything are you?"
Asher: "Yeah, actually, I guess I am."
Little Old Lady: "Oh. Does that mean you have any strange religious beliefs?"
Asher: "Well, I believe in myself, that's about it."
Little Old Lady: "Ok. Well we have a prayer group here every morning, would you be joining us for that?"
Asher: "I would probably ask to be excused."
Little Old Lady: "Well we have a few more girls to interview this morning, so we'll inform your Employment Agent. Bye now."

...it goes on, but suffice to say she didn't get the job.
....damn work choices :P.

adchopper @ 2007-10-18T16:44:00

2007-10-18T06:47:03Z

Its going clockwise.....I cant make it go anti-clockwise!!! ....this is seriously disturbing me.

Which way does it go for you?

UPDATE: OK it does seem to work as they say. Seems to help if you do your 12 times table.

Who's getting Orange Box this Wednesday?

2007-10-14T07:21:06Z

For those of you primed to rush out for the Orange Box this Wednesday - heres some 2D Portal action to tie you over until then. I wasted most of my working Friday playing this - Cant wait for it in FPS format.

adchopper @ 2007-10-07T21:12:00

2007-10-07T11:16:11Z

Anybody have the complete season one of Flight of the Conchords?
Would mean alot if anyone can help.......thks.

Origami 101

2007-10-04T10:54:08Z

The best paper transformer I have seen today. I envy this person's ability to create something this complexed and detailed.

adchopper @ 2007-09-16T21:22:00

2007-09-16T11:44:10Z

Well the Argentina v Socceroos match was great. Unfortunately we lost just and the MCG beer was crappy. But I had great seats and the game was lively. Looking around the pitch was quite awesome, so many great players I admired. But most were there to see one player. If you don't know about him then heres all you need to know in less than 2 minutes ---> Here and Here.

Leo is worth $170 million - more than the combined value of every Australian player that was playing, including the bench. Is he worth that kind of money? I doubt it, but it was great to see him play less than 100 metres away and not on the end of a tv at 5 in the morning. The highlights from the game are HERE and if you forward to 2:15 you can see why at only 19yrs, Leo is on his way to being the best player in the world. But it was a good night . Another dream fulfilled.

Finished up work on Friday. Thank you to everyone who went out of their way to say goodbye and cheers for the chocolate thingy cake. I spent the afternoon talking with Loz about the whole thing. She seemed to think I was taking things to calmly. All I know is that I'm going to miss it.

Watch your mouth.....

2007-08-28T18:59:48Z

As declared by Asafa Powell on the BBC website as he sought to explain why he failed to win the Men's 100m in the World Championships:

"I felt Gay coming on my shoulder and that's when I panicked."

I know, I know......I'm immature.

Mofies....

2007-08-25T18:59:29Z

I saw the trailer to IAmLegend recently and it took me by surprise. I had no idea that a new version of this story was being made, and being a fav book of mine from days gone by I'm really looking forward to this. Whether they stay true to the vampire aspect of the storyline will be interesting, but the trailer gives nothing away.

Also, does anyone know anything about "Cloverfield"? If you saw Transformers in the first few weeks it was showing, you would have seen the trailer for it before hand. Apparently the effect heavy film is filmed entirely on handhelds, but I cant find much about the storyline. This clip was supposed to be some viral advertising for the movie when it first appeared, but it doesn't seem to fit with the movie being a "new monster" or parasite film.

And finally, for those of you unlucky enough to play Postal (or Postal 2) the movie seems like it will be just as bad. If its true to the game then in the first 5 minutes someone will get a golden shower and a cat will have a shotgun shoved up its arse.

This is talent....

2007-08-19T12:15:47Z

Found possibly the lamest music video (and song for that matter) of the year. Ladies and gents I present - "The Hunger"

If someone can tell me what the storyline is to this video.....something about the afterlife and vampires and egypt.

At first I thought it was abit of joke, but then as I dug deeper I found the directors MySpace page - here.

Dresscode 101 : Lesson 15 - Unless your a 17th century caribbean pirate or raising money for charity, dont wear a bandana.

...anyway it got better, from here I found the singer of "The Hunger" MySpace page - here.

This guy has a whole album of shit. Have a listen to "Eyes of Fire" to see the talent that is yet to be untapped.

Im addicted.

Such is life - Up and Down....

2007-07-23T09:27:09Z

A high and low 2 weeks.

High:

Sitting in BT's city offices Tuesday week ago, Steve handed me the Wii wand and said "Now you relise you cant tell anyone about this...well for the next 12 hours at least. Actually your getting to play this before 150 journalists at E3 when it opens in 12 hours time." This of course was their new IP that was being announced at E3. It was a nice moment for all my hard work over the last 6 months. I spent a few
seconds just reflecting on the strange situation I found myself in.

At the start of the year I un-installed every game on my PC in an effort to finally finish off draft 1 of my portfolio - To much Civ4 time was killing my productivity. That included not only the site but all the content as well, it was draining work in between shift work, but I got it done around mid-june. Since my closest friends and most of the guys I work with (and those good folks who read this) don't appear to have much interest in game design (sorry to those I have bugged in the past) - I didn't know where to turn to get some honest feedback. I end up sending it onto BT in the hope I could open the lines of communication to get some professional feedback on my maps - next thing I know I'm having a phone interview (which went badly :\ ) and then to my surprise was invited to their studios in Melbourne.

The offices were fanatastic. The walls were covered with art for their latest IP, the pods dect out with 22" inch mons, general geek paraphenalia and an assortment of game design posters and art. The lunch room had a large plasma with every console of the last 10 years plugged into a large switch box out the front of it. The also had a Wii development box that was given to them from Nintendo. This looked uber cool - A small black box with a few flashing lights and a couple of buttons - looked like something put together in someones garage. A pool table and some old school coin-ops filled out the rest of the room. They also had a large bookshelf with thousands of game titles from every console and system you I could care to remember. Im not sure if this was just for looks or not, but I spent a long time looking through it. Very envious indeed.

The interview toook place in their conference room, which contained more plasma's and consoles and a U-shaped couch around a long table. They spoke with me for about 2 hours about designing, games and different technical aspects of game design. Finally, as part of the interview got me to play their new baby.

So here I was at the end of a job interview being tested on my game playing ability - or more to the point - I had to give my own opinions on what was wrong and right with the game. Thye seemed to enjoy watching me play this game for the first time, just to see my reaction. A few previews have since popped up after E3, but I dont want to say to much more about it at this stage. According to the guys only one person outside the company had played they game in question prior to me playing it - Matt Casamassina from IGN and his preview can be read here. But the game is down for release next March and is the exclusive cover for the August edition of Hyper magazine. It is also the first Wii game to be designed by an Australian games company. In all it was great fun.

Anyway after finally pulling me away from this cool game, which I wanted to keep playing, they sent me on my way with a game design test which I spent a few days doing before sending back. They still have "a shit load" of interviews to still get through as it was pointed out to me - but Im not holding out to hear back from them. In all it was a fun experience, but I still didn't get want I wanted initially - feedback on my damn site! Funny how life works.

Low:

My beloved Socceroos failed badly in their first Asian Cup. I wasn't expecting them to win the cup like most of our national media suggested, but I figured they would have put up a tough fight to try and get there. The team was clearly unfit going into it and the timing wasn't the best (the off season), but clearly they weren't interested to start with anyway. The preparation the FFA spent on the team was reported to be around the $1 million dollar mark. Clearly the money could have been better spent.

But well done to Emerton, Culina, Milligan, Carney and Carle who couldn't really be faulted. Anyway the 2010 World Cup qualifiers start next year and myself and robby have tickets to the game against Argentina in September - so hopefully I can forget about their weak performances sooner rather than later. I have a bad taste in my mouth after this.

Soundtrack to my life this month --> New Interpol, Smashing Pumpkins, Keane, Crowded House and The National.

Thk u Michael Bay.

2007-06-28T04:30:46Z

$20. 2 tickets. Cinema 1. Transformers. Priceless.

Did they test these on mice....

2007-06-22T19:19:56Z

Back on the patches again and yet another attempt to give up the ciggies. But this time time Im wearing the uber strength ones. Apart from feeling light headed and forgetful for some reason - like on Tuesday after going shopping, I put all the frozen meat into the cupboard instead of the freezer, until Loz rectified my mistake a few hours later when she arrived home - I thought I would try leaving on the patches overnight while sleeping, which I usually dont do. I have heard a few stories about people having nightmares while doing so, so I thought I would check it out for myself.

Anyway the first few nights were nothing strange, dreams about the fishing boats and crown casino weren't that exciting, only I was finding I was remembering the details of them alot more. Keep in mind Im someone who doesnt remember my dreams.

Anyway come the z's Tuesday night, I was in a field at night sitting on a wooden scaffold out in the open. Then out of the long grass these wolves appeared and started circling it. Although they had bright red eyes and and looked like they were blood hungry lucifers, they were infact people I used to know - to be precise ex-girlfriends. Anyway I didnt escape the scaffolding tower and sat there like a little bitch. I woke up disturbed to say the least. Something going on subconsiously there.

The next night I dreamt I was a professional footballer playing in the world cup against Brazil. OK this is more like it. But no, I wasn't playing for Australia because I was wearing a bright blue basketball guernsey and was speaking French. The only other players I recall being on the field with me were Kaka and Ze Roberto. They too were speaking to me in French, not Portugues. Then I noticed a beer tent at one end of the pitch instead of a net - it was filled with priests. I also had a big nose and hairy chest. In fact, Im not sure if it was even me. I woke up feeling like I just ran a marathon.

Then finally last night I was in a dark room at Area 51 with no table or chairs. Anyway this lady enters the room and tells me she is head of intelligence. So happens to be a female collegue I work with. Anyway she said she was taking me to my new job and starts walking me down the hallway. Next thing I knew I was doing my new job at Area 51. And what kind of job would Adchopper be doing at Area 51 - mapping distant star systems gathered from recovered UFO's, working with the leading minds of our generation on anti-gravity combustion engines? No I was a fucking janitor. I was cleaning the kitchen area and scientists kept throwing lettuce at me. I woke up soon after depressed and ready to snap someones neck.

Anyway, no more patches while sleeping for me, frankly I preferred not remembering my dreams.

Not sure if its a Chipmunk though...

2007-06-21T16:59:08Z

This gets funnier the more I watch it....

Wasn't Mugabe the name of a gremlin?

2007-05-17T23:10:53Z

Most interesting post I have read in the last 24 hrs.

The U.N. just elected Zimbabwe to chair the Commission on Sustainable Development. BTW, Zimbabwe's inflation has risen to 3,731.9% up from 2,200% and the average life expectancy is 35.

--> Good. And North Korea should chair the Human Rights Commission, Iceland - The Rainforest Commision, Iran - The Women Rights Commission, China - The Freedom Of Speech Commission, Saudi Arabia - The Commision For Promoting Alcohol Consumption.

Hail the 64

2007-05-09T12:01:09Z

My day was made all the more enjoyable on learning that 2 of my all time fav c64 games are coming to PSP. Mission Impossible (Aaah another visitor. Stay awhile, stay FOREVER!!!!) and Boulderdash. Boulderdash with multiplayer seems an intersting addition though.
Surely Last Ninja and Wizball can't be to far off.