Posts by Furyo

Apparently SOPA is now "indefinitely delayed" which in political terms means dead but you get to keep a straight face.

Just finished it today. That was a really well crafted SP experience, with some down turns with a few issues in readability in the latter chapters, and a bit of frustration as a result.

Loved the

Quote

Portal gameplay cameo

at one point, and the

Quote

God of War Hydra like final boss.

Sorry I was under the impression you were talking about something else. yeah a light press will get you a small jump, but the difference isn't that much that you'd see any difference gameplay wise

Political games happen in all companies, but the way to look at it is "It's a lot easier to deal with it when you work on kick ass games and make 3 to 4 times as much as you would in France" And yeah, in practical terms, you do get to work on much better games, and the pay is an order of magnitude better too. Regardless of where you go, for instance, I was making twice as much at Crytek as the best offer in France I ever got. And the cost of living is about half that of France as well... It all adds up.

Montreal really doesn't. That's the biggest assumption I see people make about Montreal. Montreal is historically a very english oriented city, where the English speaking Canadians held all positions of economic and political power until 1976 when Quebec voted a law to make French a lot more important and protected. Since then, the city really is a 50/50 deal, with large parts of the city where one would never think of speaking French at first, or English at first in other parts. It's the only truly bilingual city I know, far beyond Brussels for instance.

I know a few dozen english speaking Canadians and Americans (and others like Klein) whose French basically revolves around Hello how do you do, and they live in this city with no problems. And I don't mean "just get by", they properly made this town their home.

Anywhere else in Quebec? yes absolutely, French is mandatory.

Quote from Skjalg

I played it in 3 player coop with warby and zacker and I hated the "hold the button down for higher jump" style. Especially how the physics always managed to fuck things up all the time. That game was just an endless amounts of "almost getting it to work 9/10 times" then the 10th time it worked and you can move forward. But then I only played it for an hour before I turned to something worthwhile.So even though the artwork in the second one looks really awesome I'm not gonna try it.

You don't "press longer to get higher". If you refer to how boosters get you higher, it's by pressing the jump button as you land on the booster (mushroom)

Also, on the subject of Boston, New England has been a second home. I used to live in Connecticut for a year when I was 17, and since then I have been lucky enough to visit or live in 37 of the 50 USA. That's a lot more than most Americans. So the US is a second home to me, or at the very least is a lot closer to being home than places that are right around France. I feel closer to home, and fit in a lot more, in Boston than I would in Stockholm, or even Frankfurt. A huge reason for that is mastering the language of the people around you. And yeah, one aspect of settling down I have now accepted is that I no longer want to live in a place where I don't speak the native language fluently. Thankfully, that leaves a few still

Sometimes, the sheer distance between countries is nothing like the distance to home.

You make it sound like I'm a total nutjob thanks

Yeah I plan on settling down, but so far there's always been a place that was more inviting than the one I currently stayed at, for various reasons. I've never been in a situation where I left somewhere I wanted to live for the rest of my life. You need to realize that moving is something I've done all my life. And so has my family. It's not like there's a place I fit in more than others, especially in my home country, so the projects I work on lead me to new interesting places.

France? Great country to live in, shitty place to work in. In this industry, you're lucky to get a permanent position, and even when you do, you'll very rarely earn more than minimum wage. France used to be a great country to work in games, back when money was flowing left and right and you could sign permanent contracts everywhere like you do in Montreal, but the situation is quite the opposite now. So settling for that? No thank you. As many French friends used to say when we worked in Montreal together: "If I wanted to go back to France, I'd have to quit the industry to earn enough for my family"

Canada? Great place all around, minus the cold (and long) winters. And for how long exactly, no one is certain. When the tax credits stop rolling, so will the studios. Labor being very cheap in Quebec (for games), this prompted studios to grow enormously, and most games end up with teams of 250 - 500 strong, where your own work and its interest is divided as more and more people are added in. So you ship projects every year, but is it a satisfying job? And if it's satisfying for one project, how will it be when you get sent to the next one? When the answer is no, you get to ask yourself the next question: Why stay then? You can earn a good living in Canada. That's not the issue. But if you want to learn a lot more about your craft and all you do is ship the same game every year for 5 years, how does that help? Especially when you crunch every year through the best months of the year...

So you move, you adapt, and you get to work on some of the greatest games with some of the best talent in this industry. When I look back on this time of my life, I can assure you I'll be happy to have done and moved as much as I have. I've lost count of the times I've heard someone telling me they hated their job, but didn't want to move because "the grass is never greener, it's the same shit everywhere". I certainly don't want to become that person.

Loved the first one, I thought it was the best platformer to have come out in a long while in non Nintendo games. Picked it up tonight and found the exact same game I already loved plus some great new features, and artwork and camera work that is clearly well above the first game. Get it now.

I'll just echo what Martin and others have said, companies will do everything for you, they are the greatest help you can think of when you start there. It's a family issue for you and no one but your family should weigh in on that.

Get yourself some experience in Stockholm, no country will sponsor you for a visa yet with your lack of experience. Even within Europe.

With that said, I have moved 5 times internationally in the past 6 years, so you're welcome to ask me any question you might have on visas, relocation, customs, cultural aspects of Canada, the US, and western Europe if you so wish

Crap, can you let me know where that is so I can fix it?

Funny that Nolan North clearly is doing the voice over once again for this trailer. I wonder if he'll also make the game. The character reminded me a lot more of Sam Fisher in Conviction than Nathan Drake

Lol, illegal workers don't have visas, that's why they're illegal

The quota is reset every April 1st. So what happens is you generally have until around May 15th each year to submit an application to have an H1-b visa, before all 65K have been allocated already. So what companies do is they stockpile these visas ahead of their hiring, then after the hiring is done, they drop your name and application along with the "reserved" visa they managed to get earlier that year.

If they don't use them, they're lost, and if they didn't manage to secure one before all 65K have been allocated (and as I said above, not given to candidates, just allocated to companies) then they're out of luck and have to wait until the following year.

As for me, it looks like I'll start there on January 9th, depending on when I can get the consulate in Paris to stamp my passport.

True, I should make it a button instead of pure text

The green card lottery isn't a show and it's not for visas;)

The reason I got mine faster is it's a H1-b and not an o-1 like Thiago, Philip or Bram. The o-1 has no quota but requires a huge application that proves you're among the very best in the world (awards, interviews, recommendation letters). It also doesn't require a degree, making it the only option for people who didn't study past high school.

The h1-b only requires that you show you have the required skills and a degree, but it's difficult to get because of the yearly quota of 65k a year for the whole USA. And those go very fast

Just heard that the visa came through ! I still need to set up an interview at the consulate in Paris for them to stamp my passport, but other than that, I'm now good to join Irrational ! Bring on Bioshock Infinite !

Who's next in line for a visa in the Core?

Thinking back on it, the feeling I got from Portal 2 was far greater than Batman. It was also better crafted all around. Yet while the humor was the best part of the game to me, I didn't want to play it after I got through all the achievements. I guess the story took over the gameplay experimenting a bit too much in SP.

yeah Arkham City is my pick for game of the year. That's the only game I've wanted to continue playing after I had completed it. I moved on to Uncharted 3 recently, I'm around the boats and I still can't quite put the finger on it but I'm not all that excited with the game. I suppose the leap from 2 to 1 was just too big and I feel a sense of deja vu coupled with an even stronger linear story and levels. Uncharted 2 was always kinda slow to start and picked up every chapter from the arrival in Nepal to the end, but it hasn't quite happened yet for me this time around.

I've also noticed how much less combat there is this time around in general. You've got a few set pieces around fight arenas, but for the most part the linear progression through the world is void of enemies for very long stretches which never happened in 2. And you were given multiple ways to get from A to B in more than a few occasions, and I still haven't found any this time around either. Good puzzles, actually that's one area that got improved greatly I think.

Also tried Assassin's Creed Revelations at my brother's, and well, there comes a time when too much is too much Ithink. No amount of new gameplay techniques can incite me to continue playing, when I was never using half of them anyway and the game will let me go about my business without them. Story is an after thought, or so it seems this time around, and while it continues to look splendid, the same feel that crept in with Brotherhood where I felt I just had too many things to take care of remains. AC2 was for me about the story and I would play the entire game never thinking about side quests, Brotherhood had me doing both types equally since the story was just lacking a lot except for some key missions (climbing the castle, the end) and Revelations has me not even caring what happens next.

1 year cycles....the games really start to show how limited the time is.

But he's finishing the game either way, even as a freelancer. Just means you won't get the regular team making these games anymore. He'll most likely start his own spin off and still get Sony to publish or something along these lines.

Thanks guys Very little has changed since you guys tested it, I only changed a couple of things that could create bugs and fixed the lighting here and there. Nothing new for you guys I'm afraid