Updatingness
So I have been woefully negligent at keeping LJ up to date. Partially due to work, partially due to the fact that dr_tectonic and kung_fu_monkey are much more eloquent writers than I am and mostly due to me being just plain lazy.
Still working at iBeta, still can't talk about anything I've worked on, NDAs and all that. Our standard NDA states I cannot talk about a project for a year after it's release, although my boss has broken that one for me at least once. Ultimate Spider-Man was different, as that was an NDA with the client that said we couldn't discuss the testing of it ever, didn't say we couldn't talk about the fact that we worked on it. (Loopholes are fun.) I have worked on 3 projects and helped on 2 since starting back in December. None of which I'm overly enthused about anyway. The drawback about working in this industry is that I don't get as excited about video games as I used to, to the point that I'd rather not play them most of the time after I get home (with the exception of Guild Wars but that's not a console thing). That being said, I actually played a demo of a game this morning that I downloaded that will be in my collection, Overlord.
When I first saw screens and stuff of Overlord I was Meh about it. Not really interested, didn't look like my thing, so it dropped from my radar. Until last night, when I was looking over stuff available for demo download on Xbox Marketplace and the description and tag line for Overlord drew my attention. "Do you want fear, respect, gold and power? Take control of a horde of Minions and become the Overlord." I had to give it a shot. It starts out with a cinematic of these goblinoids (Minions) prying open a sarcophagus and putting a full suit of armor on someone(thing) and locking it into place. Then you gain control, and have to follow an evil Yoda looking thing who begins the tutorials on how to summon Minions. It was OK up to this point, kinda interesting, but not hooked yet. So you go through the tutorial and Evil Yoda tell you to follow him. Sigh. So you follow outside where a goblin/mignon dressed in a jester outfit is bouncing around and mouthing off to you. Evil Yoda then tells you to teach him that you are the evil overlord. OK, this is getting a little better, I can beat-up a mouth jester. Then he runs away. Feh. At this point EY finally tells you how to send your minions to do your bidding. I get to chase the not-so-mouthy-now jester around the field with a mob of goblins, while I just sit back and direct them. Now this is what it's like to be an Evil Overlord. No need to waste energy when they can do the dirty work. After this somewhat pleasant tutorial EY tells you to follow him again, unless you want to beat up on the jester some more. About 5 minutes later I decide to go ahead and follow EY to the Throne Room of your Evil Tower. Story happens, blah blah blah EY talking, wait, did you say "pesky heroes slew your predecessor."? So I'm not the original Overlord risen by evil to make mayhem? I'm a successor? I'm beginning to think that EY is actually a puppet master who likes to play dolls with Evil Overlords. But then the Jester is here in the tower, and you can summon him to you so that you can kick him across the room. WHEE!!!! He calls you various titles, all of them with dark themes, and then he calls me "Great Bully of Jesters". I stop kicking him, I like this title. It amuses me. The demo goes on from there about rebuilding the tower and defeating those wretched Halflings. I really start to enjoy it. A lot. Then dr_tectonic, goobermunch (who stayed with us last night rather than drive home very late with little sleep) and kung_fu_monkey discuss the game and determine that it is Pikmin meets Fable with an Evil slant. I don't pay too much attention as I'm sending fireballs to fields of wheat with Halflings hiding in it, or sending minions off to kill sheep (who according to EY do nothing but eat grass and wait around for me to kill). It's not the most graphically beautiful game I've ever seen and the controls are a little off, but what really got me was the casually evil yet conversational dialog. And that when my minions destroy a pumpkin patch, some of them grab pumpkins and turn them into jack-o-lantern helmets. This game will be mine.
Still working at iBeta, still can't talk about anything I've worked on, NDAs and all that. Our standard NDA states I cannot talk about a project for a year after it's release, although my boss has broken that one for me at least once. Ultimate Spider-Man was different, as that was an NDA with the client that said we couldn't discuss the testing of it ever, didn't say we couldn't talk about the fact that we worked on it. (Loopholes are fun.) I have worked on 3 projects and helped on 2 since starting back in December. None of which I'm overly enthused about anyway. The drawback about working in this industry is that I don't get as excited about video games as I used to, to the point that I'd rather not play them most of the time after I get home (with the exception of Guild Wars but that's not a console thing). That being said, I actually played a demo of a game this morning that I downloaded that will be in my collection, Overlord.
When I first saw screens and stuff of Overlord I was Meh about it. Not really interested, didn't look like my thing, so it dropped from my radar. Until last night, when I was looking over stuff available for demo download on Xbox Marketplace and the description and tag line for Overlord drew my attention. "Do you want fear, respect, gold and power? Take control of a horde of Minions and become the Overlord." I had to give it a shot. It starts out with a cinematic of these goblinoids (Minions) prying open a sarcophagus and putting a full suit of armor on someone(thing) and locking it into place. Then you gain control, and have to follow an evil Yoda looking thing who begins the tutorials on how to summon Minions. It was OK up to this point, kinda interesting, but not hooked yet. So you go through the tutorial and Evil Yoda tell you to follow him. Sigh. So you follow outside where a goblin/mignon dressed in a jester outfit is bouncing around and mouthing off to you. Evil Yoda then tells you to teach him that you are the evil overlord. OK, this is getting a little better, I can beat-up a mouth jester. Then he runs away. Feh. At this point EY finally tells you how to send your minions to do your bidding. I get to chase the not-so-mouthy-now jester around the field with a mob of goblins, while I just sit back and direct them. Now this is what it's like to be an Evil Overlord. No need to waste energy when they can do the dirty work. After this somewhat pleasant tutorial EY tells you to follow him again, unless you want to beat up on the jester some more. About 5 minutes later I decide to go ahead and follow EY to the Throne Room of your Evil Tower. Story happens, blah blah blah EY talking, wait, did you say "pesky heroes slew your predecessor."? So I'm not the original Overlord risen by evil to make mayhem? I'm a successor? I'm beginning to think that EY is actually a puppet master who likes to play dolls with Evil Overlords. But then the Jester is here in the tower, and you can summon him to you so that you can kick him across the room. WHEE!!!! He calls you various titles, all of them with dark themes, and then he calls me "Great Bully of Jesters". I stop kicking him, I like this title. It amuses me. The demo goes on from there about rebuilding the tower and defeating those wretched Halflings. I really start to enjoy it. A lot. Then dr_tectonic, goobermunch (who stayed with us last night rather than drive home very late with little sleep) and kung_fu_monkey discuss the game and determine that it is Pikmin meets Fable with an Evil slant. I don't pay too much attention as I'm sending fireballs to fields of wheat with Halflings hiding in it, or sending minions off to kill sheep (who according to EY do nothing but eat grass and wait around for me to kill). It's not the most graphically beautiful game I've ever seen and the controls are a little off, but what really got me was the casually evil yet conversational dialog. And that when my minions destroy a pumpkin patch, some of them grab pumpkins and turn them into jack-o-lantern helmets. This game will be mine.