Prototype 2 Screens

The opening moments of P2.

Prototype 2 (PC): Turmoil

I will likely post a stream of Prototype 2 screens in the coming days. It launched yesterday for PC and I love the fact I can just hit F12 and produce a picture-perfect grab of whatever I'm looking at. Or using FRAPS or Bandicam and a button press automatically takes a pic after a set predetermined period.

The game finished downloading late last night -- early this morning, really -- so I haven't played anything beyond the main title screen. (I just wanted to be sure it booted up okay.) I'm not sure if I'll enjoy Prototype 2 as much this time around -- I reviewed the 360 version -- knowing that the studio is essentially closed.

This isn't a unique feeling to Prototype 2. I tried going back to TRON -- developed by the now-closed Propaganda Games -- and it's difficult for me to play more than a few minutes. I start thinking about the people that made the game that may have struggled mightily after the studio closure. Those with families to support; trying to make mortgage payments or car payments or rent. I'm sure some landed on their feet right away or got jobs in other areas of the tech sector or gaming. I want to go back and play L.A. Noire again, but after Team Bondi collapsed, it feels somehow wrong to be playing the game. This is obviously something tripping in my own brain; some intensive game therapy might be required.

It's always the last games as well. I've had no problem going back to the likes of Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction or Turok, but there's some kind of mental block when it comes to the last game a studio produced. I don't get physically ill or anything like that... I just don't feel good about it.

Deserves some additional thought....

Radical Wants Me to Fund Their Next Title

Last night I was fooling around in Prototype 2 with the RADnet content and when I selected a "free" download option I was presented with this screen:

Wait. How many MS Points do they want? I had to write it down and count the digits.

4,294,967,295. Or about 4.3 billion MS Points.

I did some quick math to figure out the actual cost because who knows, the next piece of RADnet content may be worth it.

A single MS Point works out to be about $0.02 (CAN). More math. The total cost to grab that content is $66,571,993.00. So either that content will tear a hole in the space-time continuum because it's so awesome or Radical Entertainment wants me to personally fund their next project, which is so not happening!

Or that's just the method being used to make sure the content isn't available until a certain date. Or it's a technical glitch.

I like my first guess.

EDIT: 8:01PM, May 1, 2012 - Clarification from Radical and Activision (thanks, Steve!):  "Given that the DLC isn’t available for purchase yet but it is still listed when you use a VIP code, 66 billion is the default amount it tries to charge you to make sure no one can buy it." Basically, as part of the press, I'm special! To further clarify: "Regular gamers with the Radnet edition will not see this at all. Only you and a chosen few who were lucky enough to get VIP codes."

The Door Is Raised On The Embargo Garage

So, my review of Prototype 2 is now live -- right here! -- and after re-reading the text, I'm struck by something.

I love writing, but after about midnight my desire to write drops off considerably and I was still writing well after that. "Sleep!" replaces "Write!" quite easily but I pushed myself through to get the review finished (more or less) and uploaded before the embargo lifted at 6:00AM (Pacific) this morning. The embargo was originally scheduled to end on launch day, which would have afforded me a couple of days to write the review. And catch some more of the grammar and puctuation issues, such as the "it's" error in the opening paragraph.

Stuff like that bugs the hell out of me. The "it's" will weigh on my mind all day. Something so obvious should have been ironed out before I uploaded the review. But as my eyes droop and the minute hand has started to swoop upward once more and the hour hand is sliding toward the "2", my ability to see errors and or other problems wanes.

And with no editor, or even an extra set of alert eyes to scan through the review, I rely on my own skill with words to communicate how I feel about a game. But running against the clock...

Maybe coffee would have warded off the worst of it, but when I was done I wanted to just drop into bed and fall asleep. I didn't want to wrestle with caffeine. I do, after all, want to be able to function during daylight hours. (I'm at an age, where I can't easily brush off fatigue.)

At any rate, the review posted and I'm tired. But not too tired do some more editing on the review. (The score still stands.)

Prototype 2 - CRISIS!

Punch-Out!! was developed by
Vancouver-based Next Level Games

Well, it's not so much a "crisis" as it is a question of "ethics" as it pertains to reviewing Prototype 2.

I don't think it's ever been a secret that I'm a booster of game development in Vancouver (British Columbia). I'm glad that games get made here, and a lot of them are good or even very good. I don't think it has ever clouded my judgement when it comes to reviewing titles that get made here, but with Prototype 2 I've at least asked myself the question because of a recent multi-part feature I wrote that focused on the history of Radical Entertainment, the developers of Prototype 2.

I got to know some people that work there and made some casual acquaintances -- people I'd stop and chat with outside the context of visiting a game studio -- so is my judgement clouded by that? Having met some of the people that poured so much time and effort into Prototype 2 is my reaction to playing the game somehow being affected by that? That's a question that a full-time Managing Editor or Editor in Chief would be examining to see if I should be reviewing Prototype 2. But The Armchair Empire lacks those roles.

If anything, I fufill both those roles.

However, the question -- can I review this with any objectivity? -- has made me think seriously about what I think about when I'm playing games.

For the most part, I'm pretty good at blocking out anything approaching Real Life. I'm not thinking about the demands of my day job, my mortgage, and all those day-to-day horrors that tend to stalk a mind that thinks too much. I'm not thinking about Radical Entertainment or the fact my commute takes me passed their building every morning -- they really need to fix the lighting for the "RA" -- or the fact that maybe I should be getting to bed right about now. Video games don't help me forget the pressures and stresses I'm feeling, but they do a great job pausing them.

So, I'm reviewing Prototype 2 secure in the knowledge that I can give an honest evaluation of the title. When I'm playing games, I'm in the moment and my focus is on the game and not on much else.

"A Radical 20 Years" -- DONE

In case you missed it on The Armchair Empire, all four parts of the Radical Entertainment 20th anniversary feature have now been posted:

• Part I - Founding
• Part II - The Middle Years
• Part III - Trials & Tribulations
• Part IV - The Next 20 Years

I've noted this before, but overall I'm relatively happy with the way the feature turned out. I obviously would have loved input -- any input at all -- from co-founders Rory Armes and Ian Wilkinson. The latter in particular because he spent 16 years with the company. That's a whole line of untapped information and history that I just didn't get access to even though I fulfilled the requirements he laid out in our one and only chat. Never got a call back after repeated calls and even a letter that was mailed to his office. At least with Armes, I was gently told he wasn't interested.

Assistant: Rory will not be participating in interviews at this time.
Me: So, when will he be participating in interviews?
Assistant: (muffled words) Rory will, uh, not be participating in interviews.

Be that as it may, it's too much energy to hold a grudge. The article could have been much richer for their participation no doubt. I'm just thankful that at the very least Dave Davis was forthcoming enough to shed some light on the early days.

I'd also like to thank, in no particular order, Eric Holmes, Dave Fracchia, Matt Armstrong, Tom Legal, Ken Rosman, Kelly Zmak, Chris Ansell and Steve Cherrier for giving me some their valuable time and sharing their insight. Thanks!

Dam's a'Burstin'

The other day I wrote about being completely blocked up when it came to finishing my feature on Radical Entertainment's 20th anniversary -- I've posted Part I! Read it! -- but on Sunday night, the damn burst.

As fast as I could type, the words poured onto the page, I cut and pasted quotes from the interviews I conducted, and screenshots and pictures materialized -- and it all stitched together. To be sure, there's still some fine tuning involved but it doesn't feel like I should tear the articles apart and start again, which is what I was encountering previously.

Even the capstone -- my little post script where "I" appears -- tumbled off my fingers.

Were the words there all along and they just needed time to percolate in my brain long enough to form into something coherent? Something good? Like sausages? The component parts don't always make sense but grind it all together and fry it with some onions... that's makes for good eating. Or reading, in this case.

That's my hope at least.

I mean, I like reading it. Onions or not.

Against the Clock

For the last couple of months I've been focusing a great deal of my attention on writing a feature on Radical Entertainment's 20 year history. Everything was coming together, despite the lack of any involvement whatsoever of co-founders Ian Wilkinson and Rory Armes, and I felt really good about the whole thing. But something has lodged a Godzilla-sized block in my writing brain.

I've gutted and re-written the feature a few times now but that hasn't deterred me from continuing -- writing through it, sifting the interviews, sorting the facts, etc.

But this is writer's block on a scale that I've only encountered one other time. I was 14 and desperately scrabbling for a satisfying ending to a short story that jumped around like a flea on meth. No matter how many plot lines I ran down, it never came together the way I wanted it to. There was always something that could have, should have, been better. Which is kind of what I think is happening to me right now. I'm not sure if it will ever be good enough.

I imposed a deadline of early March to get the feature posted. And it's early March now and the feature still doesn't seem presentable.

Maybe part of my problem is that a certain level of panic has set in -- and that's a very bad thing. Writing under pressure is one thing, writing in panic is another. I can handle the pressure aspect but the panic... it's a killer.

Even with all that sitting in the back of my head, I'm inexplicably optimistic that it will all come together! It's an emotional roller coaster! You can bet that when I'm "finished" I'll be doing cartwheels. And maybe I'll have just the slightest taste of bile in the back my mouth.

1241 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC

I've been doing a lot of research and interviewing for my upcoming feature on Radical Entertainment. They're celebrating 20 years so it's kind of big milestone, especially in the world of game development.

In the process of gathering information and doing interviews, I've become somewhat fascinated by the early history and the stories behind the Who, What, When, Where and Why of things associated with the company.

Most recently this happened while trying to run down information and a picture of the original building at 1241 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC. There are plenty images of the building there now -- a modern residential apartment -- but it has taken me a long time to find any of the original building. I finally found one!

1241 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC (circa. ~1910)

The description found in the "Self-Guided Walking Tour - Yaletown" describes the building:

"Rooming houses such as this one offered inexpensive, convenient lodgings for the many single working men who crowded into Vancouver in the early 1900s. Completed in 1910, the building was designed by architect J. Pearson for David McCall, a CPR boilermaker. The double-entry stair and the wooden cornice and brackets are original, but the gingerbread curlicues were added when the building was renovated for office use."

When I first started doing interviews, there was a legend, myth, story, whatever, that the original building where Radical Entertainment got its start was a brothel at one point. I have yet to actually confirm that rumour but because the building "offered inexpensive, convenient lodgings for the many single ... men" it's not outside the realm of possibility that some section of it was a bawdy house or offered those kinds of "services."

The old building was demolished some years back and the residential apartment building that replaced it doesn't have the same kind of character as the original building.

Radical is (obviously) no longer at that same site. The company moved many years ago to their building on Terminal Avenue, close to the big golf ball of Science World and just south of the Vancouver Pacific Central Station. The trains arriving and departing the station can be seen from the north-facing offices. It's a faint echo of the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) origins of the original building. I like that bit of synchronicity.

"Video Kids Strike it Rich"

In the process of doing the research for the Radical Entertainment feature, I've been finding all sorts of interesting stuff related to the company. The most basic thing -- and I knew this prior to researching the feature -- was that Distinctive Software, founded in 1982 by Don Mattrick and Jeff Sember, played a crucial role not only in Radical's past but game development in Vancouver, period. Nearly all game development in Vancouver, BC can be traced back to Distinctive Software.

That's why it's interesting to stumble upon a clip of Mattrick and Sember in the CBC television archives. The show aired March 30, 1983. It's a neat bit of history:

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/media/the-arcade-age/video-kids-strike-it-rich.html

One aspect I noted right away is that both of them are wearing suits. Quick name a game developer that wears a suit, even during a television interview? That's right. You can't. Even the execs go about things casually.

Upcoming Feature Close to Flowering

One of my pet projects that has been germinating since E3 is finally starting to really grow.

It was after a demo of Prototype 2 that I fully realized that Radical Entertainment has been around for 20 years. I wanted to know a little more of the history of the place and the Wikipedia entry was woefully uninformative. About the same time I was reading Harold Goldberg's "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" which chronicles some really interesting gaming histories, like Trip Hawkin's bold moves with Electronic Arts and the crippling emotional problems that spun out behind the scenes of 11th Guest. I got to thinking about writing a comprehensive history of Radical Entertainment.

So, I started doing some digging, making calls, and sending probing emails. At least one of the key figures in Radical's history has been stand-offish -- waiting to see just who else would agree to be part of the story and offer some insight into the company's last 20 years. Suddenly in the last few days there's been a surge of progress. Things are in the works. It's not "finished" by any means but hopefully -- my fingers are crossed -- this feature will break right before the launch of Prototype 2, the company's 35th title to see release. (Past titles include "Mario's Time Machine" (1993), "Independence Day" (1997), "The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" (2005), and "The Simpsons: Hit & Run" (2003).

Maybe the best part of this Feature is that I'll be seeking the help/advice/guidance of an actual Editor so the whole thing makes sense and comes together as a coherent story.