Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

AGDC: The Super Heroes' Journey: Storytelling in MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2

Taking a selfish break from the business tracks to feed my internal fanboy with "The Super Heroes' Journey: Storytelling in MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2", which comes out today:

"Building a strong narrative for video gaming's largest army of super heroes
requires a unique fusion of writing techniques, tools, and production
strategies. Join Lead Writer Evan Skolnick and Narrative Designer, Jonathan
Mintz, as they take a deep dive into storytelling for a modern, large-scale
Action RPG. You'll learn how they worked with the team to plan the narrative,
develop the game's characters and world, and integrate story with gameplay
They'll share best practices for creating and organizing the wealth of content
that modern games require - along with some hard-earned tips about pitfalls to
avoid."

I wanted to attend this session not just because I'm a franchise fan. I was curious how the team was going to tighten the gameplay and cutscene storytelling depending on who you pick for your teams (a challenge in the first title), while ratcheting up the mechanics (a la the fusion mechanic) and maturity level, complexity, and player choice and cost.

Secondly (and work-related), I was curious as to how the narrative design informed the tools and production pipeline (more on that later).

Evan Skolnick, lead writer, and Jonathan Mintz, Narrative Designer were the session speakers, and did a stellar job of speaking, keeping content moving, and answering questions.

Vicarious Visions had a roughly 120-person development team for the project, which took
2.5 years to make, and adapted ~~Disney's~~ Marvel's "Secret War" and "Civil War" arcs.

It sounds like VV and Marvel did a good job of adapting Marvel's "What If" trope to the stories, and have better represented the two sides of conflicts so that no one's "wrong" and the player can honestly "choose a side".

VV has done some smart stuff with handling in-game conversations, and I really dig in concept the implementation of their dialog tree.

I had a pretty good sense of what the Narrative Designer's role was, based on conversations with Jonathan after MUA1, but the team has really refined the role, and genuinely leveraged the Narrative Designer and Lead Writer roles in a collaborative division of labor whose sum was greater than the parts.

On the tools side, they created an Excel tool for the Writing Workbook, for the mission designer, lead writer, and narrative designer. More than just a project plan, this has a very slick multi-purpose XML output, used to create text-to-speech placeholder audio, VO scripts, gameplay pacing, descriptive text cues, etc. Very nice process.

They also used that data to prioritize mission scope, complexity, and features to avoid headaches (or at least as many). Coming out of a formal requirements background, I was impressed with their application of prioritization to mission structure.

Surprisingly, there was a very nice mini-post mortem as part of the presentation -- very cool, given the game shipped today.

Aside -- I also got to chat with DB Cooper, one of the best voice over professionals in the business (and one of the most accessible and gracious), and AGDC is one of the places I get to see her in person each year. She's good peoples. Even better to run into her since a con call made me miss her session (damn you, toy job that keeps me employed!).

Labels: AGDC, AGDC09, comic books, events

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum ships Tuesday (tomorrow), and since it looks like the best Batman video game ~~since …~~*, it feels like I should call it out, and in particular, this deal from Toys “R” Us.

While buying the title at TRU gets common folk a $20 gift card, Rewards “R” Us Members get a $30 gift card instead -- if you are a member and pick up the game between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. tomorrow (which is also Tuesday). The program is free, and you can enroll here.

TRU is also doing “buy one, get one half off” on Wii and DS titles this week. So, if you’re a mixed household, you could get Batman, then 6 hours later use your $30 for Imaginz Paramedics and Imaginz Emergency Intubation (caveat: these are not really games; yet).

As an FYI, if you buy Batman at Best Buy, you get a DVD two pack of Batman the Animated Series movies (Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and Mask of the Phantasm). I … may already own these.

If you go this route, check the videos carefully. It's probably fine, but I've done these DVD offers in the past, and passed on them because the two-pack versions didn't have the special features (interviews with Bruce Timm, voice sessions, etc.) that really made the purchases valuable for me.

* To be fair, 1989’s Batman: The Caped Crusader on the Atari ST and Amiga was really good. It was probably published by Ocean Software and/or Data East, depending on the platform. It's been a long time.

Labels: action, brawlers, comic books, shopping deals, stealth, Unreal Engine 3

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Comic-Con 2009 (the games)

Comic-Con is arguably the meca of all things pop-culture (far more than "just" comics), and just like the last few years running, video games will be huge this year.

Links to the Comic-Con goodness from at least a few sites are to the left (including the listing of games-related panels and happenings), and below are some of the things I care in particular about.

Stan Lee is going to be in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 ("MUA2", which, to review, I'm phoneticizing as "m-oo-ah-tu"; Marvelites get the gag). It's about time Mr. Lee was in a game. Dude rocks. 86, and far more interesting than Hugh Hefner. I'm a big fan of the first game, too. There's a panel. Mr. Lee will now be on said panel.

The Iron Man 2 game will have an original script from Matt Fraction, current Invincible Iron Man scribe (and a writer I like), so it's not going to be locked into the movie. And it sounds like they've learned from some of the gaffs in the first game. SEGA will be showing other stuff, with only Bayonetta currently getting me excited (review: hair suit, not hirsute).

As far as more Marvel, be sure to check out the panel on Sunday: "Marvel: The Next Generation of Marvel Video Games: Ultimate Alliance 2, Super Hero Squad, and Iron Man 2". Nice guy Chris Baker will be moderating, and cool producer dude Todd "TQ" Jefferson will be on the panel. Super Hero Squad is a brilliant expression of the Marvel U., this upcoming Wii game looks to be an accessible brawler blast, and I'm working through my anger issues of not having been auditioned for the project. I'm just saying ...

I'm curious about Capcom's Spyborgs game. Sounds like they did a re-tooling, and it sounds compelling.

Electronic Arts is bringing a boatload o' titles to the con. I'm particularly interested in whether they can pull of Dante's Inferno (next up, The Ten Commandments the Movie the Game), and there's a panel. I think Dead Space Extraction (Zorsis's baby) may be a fantastic example of how to take a next-gen title onto the Wii (oh, and there's panel).

Astro Boy is a licensed game based on the movie that I hope does justice to the franchise, but it's being done by High Voltage Software, who -- since they did Hunter: The Reckoning on the original Xbox for me (yes, I'm saying it was for me) -- will always get my vote of confidence.

LucasArts will be making a number of "World Exclusive Announcements" (thank goodness, because the "Local Exclusive Announcements" are lame) at the convention, and while some people already know what they are, let's wait for the announcements, shall we? PR people gotta eat, folks.

Microsoft will be making an waves with an unannounced project at the (for them) atypical venue. I have hopes. I have wishes. I have knowledge. And, dammit, I have to sit on my lips.

Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) -- I'm sure -- will not disappoint. I'm hoping Valve shows something that shuts up the "this game is coming out too soon after L4D1 so why can't it be DLC" whiners. Oh no, quick follow-ups to time-sucking great games! Whatever shall I do?

There's a "What's next" session for the Halo franchise, and it'd be refreshing if there was some genuine information, but I'm thinking this may feel like a sponsored session talking about how much money they're making from current franchise milking.

There's a "Writing for the Computer Gaming Industry" panel, but Susan O'Connor's not on it, so I bite my thumb at them.

Capcom has a panel about their games, and they have another panel -- "Capcom: Fighting Games". They have two panels. There is a panel just about Capcom's particular fighting games. We've reached that level of granularity at the cons. Discuss. (Oh, and there's a third panel, just for Lost Planet 2, which I would attend if I could, to see what they say / show for the Multi-Target 2 engine. Oh, and another another Capcom panel about how to break into the game industry. Sheesh, who's Capcom snuggling up to?)

I want the game industry to get out of its bubble and learn more from other industries. The "State of the Animation Industry" session is one such area of discussion from which we could benefit.

"Beyond the Gaming Medium" shows what the more creative folks can do to create new opportunities inspired by or spun off from games.

The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" panel is going cover the franchise spectrum, including games. They should so show the Vanilla Ice clip, and say absolutely nothing about it. Eastman (but not Laird) will be there.

Dynamite is doing a panel, and I suspect BOOM! Studios will be lighting it up, too. I'm a big fan of scrappy little comic publishing studios made big, and I'm watching these two guys to see when they move their licensed and original IP into games. It's happening.

Will there be a new Darkness video game? The Top Cow panel makes it sounds like there will be, but let's wait and see if they're just lumping in past and future projects in the abstract.

Gears of War is a franchise, and between panels and announcements, we'll likely hear more on the great game, jury's-out movie, and "ok" comic book.

Other things?

Oh, there will be slave Leias at the con. Dozens of them. Money on it.

Labels: comic books, Comic-Con, Comic-Con 2009, events

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Where are you buying Wolverine this week?

One of the two comic book games to which I'm looking forward ships this week -- X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I've got a bit of a conundrum -- where should I buy the game?

The GameStop pre-order, which gives access to the "Weapon X Arena", sounds pretty sweet (now that I know the details).

But snagging the game at Best Buy gets me an unlockable costume that looks like an Astonishing X-Men(ish) version of the classic yellow costume. For me, being able to play through as costumed Wolvie, rather than Hugh Jackman, will add to the immersiveness, and feed my inner fanboy. (Of course, if the healing factor stuff gets borked because of the costume, I'll be peeved.)

Of course, if this unlockable costume was the brown costume for the heirsuit Canuck, that'd be a lock for me. Sadly, that costume doesn't appear on the table.

So, which one are you going to get? Let me know in the comments.

UPDATED: According to this IGN interview, the Best Buy classic blue and yellow, my favorite brown and tan, and the black X-Force uniform are all unlockable in-game. Looks like GameStop is going to get my money.

Labels: comic books

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Two games I want

There is one thing I want -- comic book games.

Actually, make that two things -- comic book games that don't suck.

Wait, wait; three things -- comic book games that don't suck that I can play right now.

OK, I have to wait for the third thing, but not for long.

And I am guaranteed -- guaranteed -- by people "in the know" that these two games will not suck. I'm holding them to that.

First, there's the "I'm - not - a - movie - tie-in - game" X-Men: Origins Wolverine (same name as the movie). You can watch gushing video from Marvel fanboys Raven Software (some of the better devs out there, and behind a ton of great games, including Marvel fare X-Men: Legends (my original Xbox caught on fire while playing that one); X-Men Legends II, the first MUA, etc.).

Second, because I'm a huge fan of the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I am sooo stoked for MUA 2 (pronounced "moo-ah-tu"; maybe not). While the cinematics and cut-scenes don't look as hot as the first MUA, the gameplay, "power fusion" gimick (mixing two super powered beings', er, powers to new, devastating effect), and its setting in the recent Marvel "Civil War" story arc should give me an excuse for countless lost ours, much geek joy, and cause my wife to wonder (yet again) why she continues to sleep with me.

It's all worth it.

Wolverine's bloodletting fertilizes lawns starting May Day, and MUA 2 hits this fall (sigh).

Labels: comic books

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Comic-Con 2008

Every year, Comic-Con becomes more and more the "everything" pop culture mecca.

I'm not going this year (not that last year was enough), but I will be watching for that peanut butter and chocolate mix of comic books and video games that I so desperately crave.

If I don't post Comic-Con-related shenanigans this week, be sure to check in on the convention-skewed offerings from Kotaku.com and IGN (they'll also be at the left side of the page for a week or two).

I'm sure Microsoft will be adding their Comic-Con specific coverage and Xbox downloadable goodies shortly (starting last year, they became great givers to the comic/geek/Adam crowd).

I'll add more links as I find them.

EDIT: Added the Xbox.com Comic-Con page.

Labels: comic books, Comic-Con, Microsoft

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

New models for MMOs

So, I'm bummed Microsoft and Marvel pulled the plug on the Marvel Universe MMO.

And I'm not just upset because I've Made Mine Marvel for more than two decades. It's not just because I'd like to see a quality, heavy backed version of City of Heroes with 50 years of backstory.

Naw, I'm bummed because the MMO space needs some innovation, and this franchise was a chance to see that happen.

But let's back up -- why cancel the game?

From Microsoft's Shane Kim:

For us we look at our priorities and all of the things we have to do. It’s a tough space. It’s a very competitive space. And it’s a space that’s changing quite a bit. …When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success. And then you have to look [and say]: ‘Can we change the business model for that? Is that really viable given how far we are in development? And so forth. Does Marvel want to do that?’ There’s a whole bunch of factors.”

Blergh.

Wait -- "there’s basically one that’s successful"? Seriously?

And whether Kim's saying there's one successful financial model or one successful MMO in the
form of World of Warcraft (the interview is a bit vague), both assertions are a crock.

And it shows short-sightedness counter to the "Can we change the business model for that" question.

Companies need to leverage licensed IP to create innovation and revenue streams from the existing fan base, and create a cross-over hit with non-fans. Not just milk it shoddily when a movie based on the franchise launches.

So, how could you leverage a licensed IP -- aside from doing it non-craptastically?

Play to the limitations.

I'm guessing there are a lot of folks that all want to be the Hulk, or Wolverine, or the Punisher, or Spider-Man. But they can't all be Spider-Man (unless you want to do a Clone Saga thing -- and if you tell me you want to, I will find you and rip out your fingernails).

Same problem exists for my proposed Transformers MMORPG (still waiting for that call, Activision). Or the recently announced Hasbro / Electronic Arts G.I. Joe (which, really, you could take all of my Transformers ideas, and reskin them with the Joe equivalent -- with factions galore (COBRA divide among Cobra Commander, Serpentor, Dr. Mindbender, Tomax / Xamot, and Destro).

What if these limitations are a good thing? What if that's how you divide up your worlds? What if servers /farms are load-balanced across a geography (or even worlds) limited to one of each character (that's what, two thousand with Marvel? Rolled out over the course of years?), and you get your friends together and pick who wants to be what in your little click, and it's more accessible for folks who don't want to do massive WoW raids, but it also panders to the MMO hoard whores.

You could do the same with any of the big franchises (Marvel, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Sony's upcoming DC MMO, etc.) -- and this could actually increase your user base.

Say I want to jump into the Marvel MMO and play as Captain America. What, Captain America's taken on existing world servers? Well then, I'll take my shield and go start up my own instance with my friends who lost bets with me and get to tag along as anything from Rick Jones to D-Man.

But here's the big opportunity for IP holders -- Hasbro (and Warner Brothers and Marvel and everyone else who owns large-cast IPs) should be begging to do these games. Not in the craptastic - minimal - dollar - game - budgets - to - create - a - mediocre - game - across - a - billion - platforms - so - they - - can - milk - a - few - more - dollars - from - the - franchise - during - the - movie - tie-in kind of way. But in a market research kind of way.

Do people not get the goldmine a focused online game could bring? Does Marvel not see how they could mine surprising data as to how many people are playing as Frenchie, and how few are playing as Ben Riley? Don't toy manufacturers think -- in much the same way Hasbro in the 80s could introduce a G.I. Joe character as a toy or in the Marvel comic book or on the TV series -- they could now do so as a new playable character (or NPC) in the game, and find out if it floats or sinks with the fanbase? That they could allow for some "character customization" (that is really only a version of the remaining options available from their focus group efforts as they try to figure out whether the Buzzer redesign should be more Mad Max or more Village People)?

Marketing gold people. Marketing. Gold.

I've got other ideas for MMO mechanics, too. Like say you've got a level 35 Hulk, and you jump on a server and Hulk's already taken -- but you can jump into an unused character of the same class (bruiser, say, the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing), and take a slight "penalty" (say, to level 30), which let's you play as another character, incents you play more (rather than not at all, because your character's not available), and doesn't make you redo the grinding for the class you've chosen.

I personally think there's a lot more to mine from MMOs. We just need to tweak the models and memes -- like adding bits of this and that from other genres, vertical markets, and geographies (take a nod from Korea, for example, with their casual massive online games, or hard-core, constrained worlds games).

Marvel -- bring back Marvel Universe Online -- I know you must be itching to get into the game publisher biz.

Hey, how about a Captain Britain MMO? You could populate that solely with Captain Britains. I bet Alan Moore would love that.

Labels: comic books, innovation, MMO

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

EA's Marvel Fighting Game

To summarize (again):

Adam Creighton. Video Game Nut. Comic Book fanboy. Actor. Biz and Tech Dev Wunderkind.

So of course I was stoked about EA's Comic-Con announcement of their upcoming fighting game, currently referred to as just "EA's Marvel Fighting Game."

Sure, folks may be a bit put off by EA's previous comic book brawler, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, for its lopsided execution and poorly-done, non-transparent marketing tie-in, but nay-sayers should consider three things:

That game had potential.
It gave superstar artist Jae Lee a platform to showcase his awesome work.
The new game is being done by EA Chicago, and spearheaded by Kudo Tsunoda, the wunderkind behind Fight Night Round 3 and Def Jam Icon.

There was a preview of the game when it first aired on SpikeTV's Game Head, but I noticed clips showed up online today. They're not the whole picture that was in the full episode, but they do give you gameplay, CGI cinematics, and behind-the-scenes insight. Besides Tsunoda (who continues to look like he's channeling his inner Tomonobu Itagaki), there are sound bites from Liam Miller (Line Producer), Darren Bennett (Senior Produce), Josh Tsui (Art Director), Dave Pasciuto (Lead Environment Artist), and Nathan Turner (Lead Environment Artist).

For comic book fanboys, yeah, that looks like Ultimate Captain America in the gameplay, and possibly a variation of Ultimate (shirtless) Juggernaut, but (thankfully) with the traditional helmet.

The game's still a year out, but already looks great, and I can totally see EA Chicago rising to the high bar set by Raven Software and Activision with their Marvel Ultimate Alliance game. There better be customizations and unlockables out the wazoo.

And on the sour grapes side, I'm irked host Geoff Keighley got placed into the game, when I as a trained and skilled voice and on-camera actor can't get EA to give me the time of day. And Chicago is a union town; but maybe Canuck Geoff's SAG. Dunno. End Gripe.

Anyway, the vids:

World’s First Look at the Marvel Fighting Game:

The Hulk’s Destructive Gameplay:

Level Design on the Marvel Fighting Game:

Labels: announcements, comic books, fighting, Xbox 360

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Texas comic book video games

I like to blog about my passions. Even better, the intersection of my passions.

Like video games. And comic books. And Austin.

So I feel like I have to pimp 1UP.com's story about the Incredible Hulk movie tie-in game from SEGA.

Because it's a video game coinciding with a movie based on a comic book, and it's being done by two Austin companies. Amaze Entertainment'll be doing the PSP and DS versions, and Edge of Reality will be doing the console versions, and can probably update their cryptic Website text:
"We are also partnering with SEGA and Marvel to create an exciting new title based on one of Marvel's signature super hero characters. While it's too soon to announce details, the project is going to be very high profile."
I think they'll need voice work for the game.

(And yes, I know Amaze is headquartered in Kirkland. But they have an Austin office. And I know some of those folks. And they're good folks.)

Labels: announcements, comic books, companies

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Comic-Con summary (UPDATED)

I've got an initial summary of Comic-Con over on my Acting / Ramblings blog, with more daily summaries to follow.

Those will be soup-to-nuts kind of things, covering acting, comic books, film, cartoons, toys, and video games.

A lot of stuff happened on that last front, and I had some great conversations with everyone from NCsoft to SEGA, and played stuff from the Cartoon Network MMO to TimeShift, and saw hands-off demos for things like Iron Man.

I'll post summaries as it makes sense, but you can also get a ton of Comic-Con content downloaded from Xbox Live (for a limited time), and hit up the following sites / posts for more Comic-Con video game goodness:

UPDATED: Added links for MajorNelson.com (Final Comic-Con content), IGN, and Newsarama.

Labels: announcements, comic books, DLC, Halo, licensing, media intersection, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Going to Comic-Con

I'm going to Comic-Con starting tomorrow, and I hope to blog from the San Diego Convention Center.

I don't know what connection or my availability is going to be like (I am freaking stacked with opportunistic meetings while I'm out there), so if you're not seeing a lot of game-related updates here, you might want to check my acting blog, and follow my smaller, much more frequent updates on Twitter.com.

By way of preview, Kotaku.com lists sub-set of Comic-Con video game happenings, and the Comic-Con schedule has items tagged as "Gaming".

UPDATED: Looks like Xbox has got a poorly advertised "Bringing it Home" for Comic-Con. They're promising, "Go to Xbox LIVE Marketplace and watch the panels, see the footage and download themes and trailer. All for a limited time."

This is big and cool, so I don't know who dropped the ball on pimping it.

Labels: announcements, comic books, events

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.