Posts by Furyo

  • Ratio of artists to programmers

    I've always had 1:1 ratios, or even more programmers than artists, but keep in mind that I've also worked with Ubisoft engines mostly. The one game I made with Source, we had to create our own 360 engine as Valve was also making their own at the same time, so we didn't license that one...

    Maybe this guy is talking about games made with licensed engines.

  • Assassin's Creed 2

    Quote from Gloglebag

    BTW why did the first game use shadowmaps and not like Mirror's Edge and Valve games precalculated lighting. I mean it had no need for dynamic lights and pixelated shadows looked pretty horrid.Also I assume the second game will be the same.

    Same technology, far from the same results for the second game. Game already looks prettier than the first one ever could.

  • Assassin's Creed 2

    Ubisoft last year announced that all its games from then on would now feature subtitles, particularly in an effort to help hearing impaired customers enjoy their games.

    http://kotaku.com/5047674/ubisoft-to-su ... heir-games

    As you can see this article says 2008 games, whereas I always took it to mean ALL games. I haven't heard or spoken to anyone regarding this and AC2 yet, and since he's mentioned in this thread, James Wearing would be the person to talk to I suppose. I'll make sure to let him know tomorrow when I get to work.

    As an example, Prince of Persia had subtitles.

  • Assassin's Creed 2

    Too bad Mass Effect is not shipping in 2009 though

    I'll give you more details on the Glider when I can, but let's just say that the entire team is focused on improving the game exponentially compared to the first one, and the glider is but a small part in the grand picture

  • Now Playing/completed thread 2009

    Just started playing one of my two Christmas present games from Ubi this year....R6V2

    One inane AI behaviour so far has made me shut down my 360 for tonight. I may go back tomorrow and put that behind me, but so far it just seems like a R6V1.5 through and through. Nothing too bad, even if you can smell the casual gamers oriented decisions around every corner

  • Assassin's Creed 2

    Quote from FrieChamp

    Sounds wicked! Say hi to Jamie Wearing, I think he is working on the audio for the game!

    Yeah I know James, been working with him on the glider for the past two weeks

  • Dead Rising 2

    I like that both games are just taking the piss and not meant to be serious survival horror games, yet the only thing that has piked my interest was the handyman part. If that's more than a gimmick and you can actually mix many different things together, this may get interesting.

  • Knowing - The movie

    Watched it against my better judgment based on David Jaffe's blog that stated it was underrated. I usually despise anything Nicholas Cage stars in, to the point where I turn my head away when his photo creeps up on a movie poster, and I wasn't surprised that this was yet another one that I could easily have forgot about.

    Then again as far as acting with a broomstick up his ass (read, without any emotions whatsoever) Keanu Reeves still beats him hands down.

  • The Emotional cost of bad reviews

    I think over the past few years we've been in a extremely fast growing industry where everything 80% or over would just sell period. It didn't matter much where you were in the 80-90% bracket your game would basically sell very well. And talking about Kane and Lynch the game did break the million barrier (which may or may not break it even, but that's for another discussion).

    The shift since Q4 2007 though has been that only the universally acclaimed titles will sell very well. That quarter was probably the busiest we've had in recent memory with CoD4, The Orange Box, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Halo 3, Mass Effect, etc etc and this was I think the tipping point. 2008 on the other hand showed the public was simply not following all these titles anymore, and almost all multi million sellers had 90+ scores. The same 80-90% titles you could get away with a year earlier never met expectations, whether it was Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Prince of Persia and multiple other Ubisoft titles. The only exception to that rule seems to be CoD5, but we all know we can safely chalk a good portion of its sales on brand power alone.

    I think this trend is going to continue this year, and with the credit crunch affecting our industry the way it has, you better come out with your best game yet or you will be crushed by the few heavily marketed releases.

    In that sense, I think reviews are both stronger than ever, and losing their importance. In other words, scores matter more than ever before, but the Metacritic average score rules them all, and once you get an average of 90% or above on your game, each individual review loses a lot of its importance. So just as only a handful of titles crush others, the same trend could apply to critics and I'll be curious to see how this evolves.

  • The Emotional cost of bad reviews

    My emotional cost of reviews only comes up as the sales stay down. Which in some cases is simply never to be seen. In the case of Force Unleashed, I'm sure that bonus would have weighed my emotions way down.

    Face it, reviewers will only ever review things subjectively. And guess what, maybe just maybe that game wasn't made for them in the first place. If it sells 5 million copies, somewhere deep down the game must have some sort of redeeming value.