Freelancer Of The Fortnight

Jonny's interview

I have been named ‘Freelancer Of The Fortnight’ by industry body Journalism.co.uk. You can read the interview at: http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/537076.php

GamePeople Review – DJ Star

GamePeople – Silent Hill: Origins

We Want Your Job! – GamesMaster Issue #214

We Want Your Job!

Pestering the jammiest jobsmiths in the business.

This issue, it’s more ‘Rhi want your job’, as we talk to Heavenly Sword and Overlord writer, Rhianna Pratchett.

GM: Hi Rhianna, tell us what you do in the gaming industry.

RP: I’m a freelance script writer and narrative designer. That means I help game studios create and develop stories for their titles. I also write the dialogue (mainly from scratch, although occasionally I edit and polish dialogue written by the developers) and sometimes assist with casting and directing voice actors.

GM: Game scripts are notoriously longer than film scripts. How do you keep focused with such long projects?

RP: Very often you’re working on a level by level basis, with each of those levels slotting into the overarching story. That way it doesn’t feel quite so big and it’s easier to keep focused. It’s only when you get to the end that you realise how much you’ve written. Overlord II has about 50,000 words of dialogue. It’s about the size of two screenplays.

GM: Did growing up around Terry help shape your imagination and creativity? What influences do you draw on for your projects?

RP: We share the same sense of humour and way of looking at the world. As for influences, I believe that a writer takes their influences from everywhere – From movies, books, music, friends, family, politics, travel, news stories and from just living life. For a writer it’s rather like saying ‘where do you get oxygen from?’ However, a couple of my writing heroes are William Goldman (who wrote, amongst other things, The Princess Bride) and Joss Whedon.

GM: Do you play your games when finished? Are you ever disappointed if something isn’t translated to screen the way you planned?

RP: Time and budget constrains mean it’s often not possible to do everything you want to, which can be disappointing. Out of all my games I’ve played the Overlord titles the most (often during development.) Because I’m writing so much, I can’t always remember what I wrote in the past. So I sometimes find myself laughing at my own lines, which feels a little crazy. Although I put that down to our fine team of voice actors.

GM: How is it working with the likes of Andy Serkis? Is Hollywood the next step for Rhianna Pratchett?

RP: Andy was great to work with on Heavenly Sword. He was a wonderful asset and an awesome King Bohan. I think he had much more of a genuine impact than most Hollywood types who get involved in games and just phone-in their lines. As for me, I have an agent now, so who knows where that could lead. I don’t want to ever completely leave games, though. They’re my first love.

GM: Finally, any tips for youngsters looking to get into the biz?

RP: Network! Go to events like Develop or the Animex Games Festival (or if you fancy further afield shows like GDC) and get to know all you can about the industry and the people involved. Visit sites like www.igda.org and www.gamasutra.com which contain fantastic advice and articles about all aspects of the industry. Google is your friend.

CAPTION: Next stop Hollywood? “I have an agent now, so who knows where that could lead…”

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:

1: My laptop – for working on the move.
2: Tea – calming in stressful situations.
3: Red Bull sugar-free – for kick-starting mornings.
4: Movies – my ideal background music.
5: World of Warcraft – great for killing things!

BBC Radio 6 Interview – Steve Lamacq

Jonny interview

Click the above picture to hear my interview with Steve Lamacq for the Good Day/Bad Day segment on BBC Radio 6 – broadcast date 18/06/09 at 16:45.

VIVA NEW VEGAS! – GamesMaster Exclusive Bethesda Interview – GamesMaster #213

VIVA NEW VEGAS!

Fallout relocates to a post-apocalyptic Sin City!

This month Bethesda revealed plans for an all-new Fallout game entitled New Vegas. The game is being developed with help from Obsidian, the developer behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. “It is not a sequel to Fallout 3. It’s simply another Fallout game in that universe,” Bethesda’s Pete Hines revealed. “It will be the same sort of role-playing game experience seen in Fallout 3,” he added. Here, we get the lowdown from Pete and lead designer Emil Pagliarulo…

BETHESDA TALK FALLOUT 3

Their lips are sealed about New Vegas but they will chat about our favourite game of last year!

GM: Fallout 3 swept our annual GamesMaster Awards for 2008, did you ever envisage such a huge fan following and cult status?

Pete: Not really. Maybe just because we never let ourselves be distracted by thoughts of that kind of thing. We’ve developed a really good culture here where we focus on the things we can control and trying to make the best game we can. You get your head in the clouds thinking about already being a success or taking anything for granted and it all can go wrong in a heartbeat.

GM: Some of us in the office have invested over 100 hours into Fallout 3. How do you sleep at night!

Pete: I said long ago that our ultimate goal was a global decline in productivity. So the more people that spend untold hours playing the game, the better we sleep at night.

GM: With regards to the Fallout DLC, are you going to keep this world you’ve created and visit different areas on the globe? What does the future hold?

Pete: Well obviously the first one is a virtual reality visit to Anchorage, followed by an actual visit to what’s left of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The third continues the story after the main quest in the Capital Wasteland, so we do like to mix it up both in terms of where you are, and what you’re doing.

GM: How much of a risk was it acquiring the Fallout franchise from Interplay? Was there a plan set down on where to take Fallout beforehand?

Pete: Really, it boiled down to “we loved that series and we want to revive it and make another one.” People ask a lot about how far you’ve planned this series or that one, but ultimately the focus has to be on the next thing you’re doing because if you botch that, there may not ever be anything else.

As far as how risky it was, Fallout was probably pretty high on the “risk” chart. Picking up this beloved franchise that was so revered and making another game in that series and putting ourselves up for all that ridicule and speculation…that was no easy undertaking. I’m glad people like the game. It makes going through all of that worthwhile.

GM: How were subjects in the game such as slavery approached during development? Do you think humanity would resort to that if the Fallout scenario was played out in reality?

Pete: Well the fun of Fallout is that it’s not just what would happen after a nuclear war, but what would happen after a nuclear war in this alternate universe where things are a bit “odd” as it is. We wanted to stay true to as many of the mature themes as possible, without them being distracting. So things like drug use, violence, slavery, prostitution, etc….we felt it was important to include those things without them distracting from the game. We wanted to use things like slavery to give you a chance to define who you are…a good guy, or a bad one? Help the slaves, or profit from them? The way slavery is portrayed in the game is believable enough that you think it could really happen like that. The more things we do to help you suspend belief, the more immersed you become. And the more sleep you lose. And the happier we are.

GM: We’ve stumbled across UFO’s and many other secrets in Fallout’s world. Is there anything that’s gone over the public’s head and you’re disappointed hasn’t been made more of?

Emil: Now there’s an interesting question. You know, in a game like Fallout 3, a big game that gives the player 50 hours of play or so, there’s always going to be stuff the player misses. And as developers, that’s one of the challenges – showing the player something new at, say, hour 30.

There are two systems in place in Fallout 3 that really sort of ensure that players will discover some fresh stuff really late in the game – the random encounters, and conversations. With each of these, we knew we put in some really cool nuggets, but we also realized players may very well never see them. Such is the nature of a system like that. And that’s a really difficulty, necessary thing for a designer to do, to create work you know someone may never see.

Here are a couple of specific examples: there’s a random encounter where a UFO blows up in the sky overhead, and rains down debris… including an Alien Blaster you can find and use. We actually discovered through playtesting that the weapon tends to get lost out there in the Wasteland when it falls, but Dogmeat is the perfect way to find it; if you see an explosion in the sky, you just tell him to find you a weapon, and he’ll likely bring it back.

In the conversation system in the Citadel, you can overhear two Brotherhood of Steel guys talking, and one of them is trying to perfect his “Olde English,” because he figures it’s more knightly; the other guy, of course, makes fun of him. So really, it’s stuff like that I hope players experience, but there’s no guarantee.

GM: Is there anything at all you’re disappointed with? What didn’t make the final cut that you’d have loved to have seen on a personal level?

Emil: I can’t really say there’s anything I’m honestly disappointed in, but I do have to wonder about some ideas we had in pre-production that we ultimately cut. Originally, the Enclave didn’t only take over Project Purity – they also took over all of Rivet City. And this happened while you were at the city, so your task was to help lead Doctor Li and the citizens of Rivet City out of a secret escape route, and escort them to the safety of the Citadel. It was sort of the game’s “escape from Bespin” experience.” It wasn’t meant to be but part of me still wishes we had the time to pull it off, simply because those kinds of large-scale, reactive world moments are so memorable for players.

GM: Some glitches have been found and exploited by players, such as the cap glitch. How difficult is it to eradicate errors like these in a game world as huge as Fallout’s?

Emil: Maybe more difficult than anyone can imagine, to be honest. On the surface, they may seem simple to find and fix, but they aren’t. However, we don’t use that as an excuse. We examine our process, and constantly improve on it. That was the case moving from Oblivion to Fallout 3, and it’s already the case as we work on the Fallout 3 DLC.

GM: Art wise, how much fun and love went into creating the monsters in Fallout? Guide us through the creative process.

Emil: Creating monsters or enemies is always a lot of fun. It’s a guilty pleasure, really, and one of the things that makes me remember how lucky I am to be doing what I do. When I go home, and my kids ask me what I did that day, and I say something like, “I helped design a Super Mutant,” it doesn’t even seem like reality.

For Fallout 3, it was an interesting process, because we weren’t so much creating creatures from scratch as we were updating a lot of the original Fallout creatures. That process started with us determining which creatures or enemies we wanted to have, and how they would be represented in the game. Those initial designs then went to our concept artist, who would crank out iteration after iteration, until we had the versions we liked. And then came the biggest challenge, really – creating those creatures in the game itself. And again, it always came back to us wanting to update the original designs. How do we make a Deathclaw that feels just as scary as it did in the original Fallout? Is this a good change to the Sentry Bot?

In the end, the monsters of Fallout 3 really are an excellent example of every design discipline working in unison. Design, art, programming, animation – it’s all represented in every creature we do.

GM: How hard was it to programme V.A.T.S. combat? Are you pleased with the end result and how it differs from combat in Oblivion?

Emil: Like anything, getting V.A.T.S. to the state we wanted it was a matter of constant playtesting. For us, it was very much about the feel of the system, and how it flowed naturally from run-and-gun combat and any other aspect of the game. It’s really kind of surprising to me how close the end product is to both the initial design, and the initial concepts we did.

Ultimately, I think the system epitomized the Bethesda development ideology of “keep it simple,” but before we arrived at the streamlined system we shipped with, it certainly experimented with more complexity. We had discussed doing an entirely new interface for throwing grenades, for example. And, at one point early on, you could target every explosive environmental hazard in V.A.T.S., from cars to fire extinguishers. But in the end, these added layers of complexity didn’t really improve the player’s experience; they really just served to slow down the combat experience and the game as a whole, so we went back to the simpler, cleaner, and must faster implementation.

I’m incredibly proud of the V.A.T.S. system we shipped with. It was a labor of love for a lot of talented people, and I think it changes the way players think about gun combat – in first-person shooters as well as RPGs. So not only did we create a cool new system, we also challenged some traditional ways of thinking and playing in other genres. That was sort of the unexpected cherry on top for us.

GM: Is it worth doing a Fallout 4 after creating such a massive world? Where do you go after Fallout 3?

Pete: If it wasn’t worth doing we wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to acquire the license. There are lots of things left to do with a franchise like Fallout.

GM: What was it like working with vocal talent like Liam Neeson? We can’t imagine him being anything other than a perfect gent!

Pete: Our internal joke is “it turns out Liam Neeson is a really good actor.” He’s incredibly nice, and incredibly talented, and was so good at taking the context of his lines and getting into his character and what he was doing and feeling at that moment.

GM: There was obviously concern when the game was leaked before release, but no official comment was made at the time. How do you view the piracy situation now, in hindsight?

Pete: My views haven’t changed. Piracy still sucks and still hurts us as a business. Period.

GM: Finally, any exclusives for our readers? Future Bethesda projects, perhaps?

Pete: You heard it here first: Bethesda will have future projects. J

Thank you very much for your time, folks. Good luck with all your future projects!

We Want Your Job! – GamesMaster Issue #213

We Want Your Job!

Pestering the jammiest jobsmiths in the business

The games industry machine has many cogs in its inner workings. Fancy working in the public relations sector? Roxana Etemad of Eidos gives us her advice:

GM: Hiya Roxy, tell us about your job and what it involves.

Roxy: I am UK PR Manager at Eidos which means I always have loads going on and it’s also a lot of fun. My day to day work changes all the time but mainly consists of planning coverage and speaking to journalists, organising press events, managing my PR agency and, of course, the less fun stuff…PR planning, scanning coverage and reporting.

GM: How many people do you deal with on a daily basis? Is it hard keeping everyone happy?

Roxy: Eidos is a great place as everyone is always ready to help each other out, so there is a lot of support when you need it. The great thing about my role is that I get to deal with everyone in the company whether it’s with Marketing, Sales, Brand or even QA and development. It’s great because you see all aspects of different roles in gaming and gives you a brilliant insight into what everyone does.

GM: What qualifications did you need for the job? University education? Good people skills?

Roxy: I have a degree in Communications and Audio/Visual Production. Coming up with PR stunts and ideas was my favourite aspect of the degree and helped me decide what kind of career path I wanted to follow. A tip for any budding PR peeps – you have to love the field you are handling PR for. You can’t do games PR if you don’t have a love for games. A career in videogames made complete sense to me – I have been hooked on gaming since I was 7 years old playing on my Atari 2600 with my dad…in fact things haven’t changed much as now I play on Xbox Live with him!

GM: Are you into games yourself? How much do you have to learn about each product before presenting it to the media?

Roxy: The great thing about my job it seeing how games develop over time, and playing early versions of our games to present them to press. Once you have mastered the level you want to show, you are ready to rock-and-roll, ‘til you realise you have to be able to speak and play at the same time which takes a little practise. At home I try to play as much as I can but unfortunately it involves having to boot my husband off a controller, which is a challenge!

GM: Finally, any tips on getting into gaming public relations?

Roxy: Although a degree isn’t essential it will provide you with the tools you will need to start out with, which I found very helpful. You need a lot of drive and have to be an outgoing person. Great communication skills are essential, both written and verbal and, of course, you must have a passion for whatever field you choose to get into. Last thing – a PR person is only as good as their contacts, you must always be building and maintaining relationships with people. You never know when you can help each other out!

CAPTION: Battleships? During the interview, Roxy couldn’t help but level an entire fleet of ships with one well-placed shot. Yowza!

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:

1) My Blackberry – I can’t survive without it! I tend to be out of the office often so it’s the only way I can keep tabs on what’s going on.

2) Business cards – I have three different versions each with different game artwork on the back which is so cool – at the moment I am on the Tomb Raider Underworld variety.

3) Magazines – I receive magazines on a daily basis and I love going through them to see what juicy coverage we have within the pages!

4) Deadlines sheet – The sheet helps me plan in asset drops, exclusives and when we can announce exciting news!

5) Rolodeck – I have had the same one since starting in the industry. I have the same info replicated on my PC but I always end up using the rolodeck, I guess for sentimental reasons!

Wise Seals Dream Move – VIZ #186

Dennis Wise was in celebratory mood last night after being named the new manager of Chelsea – on Football Manager 2008.

“It’s brilliant news for Dennis,” said delighted wife, Claire. “He had been up all night getting Chester City promoted to League One in his dressing gown before he applied for the Chelsea job. It’s great to see all his hard work finally paying off.” Wise faced an agonising five minute wait before the game reloaded itself and offered him the position of head coach, with a transfer budget of £100million.

Guus Hiddink was sacked six games into the season after an 8-2 home defeat to Wigan Athletic and a 12-6 cup exit at the hands of Plymouth Argyle. Wise is expected to spend £82million of his budget on Rory Delap from Stoke City, before sliding the bars about a bit on the training regime page for ten minutes, checking Facebook and going back to bed. Wise is expected to win the Premier League by the end of the week.

There was good news for another ex-Newcastle United star yesterday when Titus Bramble completed his protracted £61million transfer to Barcelona, also on football Manager 2008.

Titmarsh Closer To Nuclear Capability – VIZ #186

– By our War Correspondent, FENTON SOUPSPOON

Fears that global peace could be compromised grew last night after it was revealed that ALAN TITMARSH has been taking steps to further enrich his stocks of uranium.

Despite international opposition, reports have emerged that Titmarsh has been amassing the ingredients to build weapons of mass destruction in his garden at Foggy Bottom. There were calls for him to abandon his project after Titmarsh launched an unprecedented attack on his former Ground Force labourer Tommy Walsh.

In an angry speech, Titmarsh told viewers of his early afternoon ITV chatshow: “The devil-dog Tommy Walsh must die. I will not rest until I have wiped the devil-dog Tommy Walsh off the face of the earth.

“The rivers of Basildon will run red with the blood of the devil-dog Tommy Walsh. So shall perish all the enemies of Alan Tichmarch who are no more than a poisonous nest of wasps,”" he added. The inflammatory outburst was accompanied by blurry video footage apparently showing a missile being launched from behind a greenhouse on Titmarsh’s allotment.

This latest development in the long running saga of the lightweight presenter’s development of an atomic warhead has sparked alarm amongst the anti-nuclear lobby. “If Titmarsh has developed the ballistic capability to deliver an atomic warhead, the consequences do not bear thinking about,” said CND president Beardsley Weirdsworth. “It’s not just sabre rattling any more. This time, he means business,” he added.

Meanwhile, a team of UN weapons inspectors lead by Dr. Hans Blix failed to gain access to Titmarsh’s potting shed. Dr. Blix, whose glasses arms don’t reach his ears, told reporters: “Unfortunately, the shed was locked and Mr. Titmarsh told us that he had left the key in his other trousers.

“Our inspection was further impeded by sheets of newspaper which had been sellotaped to the inside of the windows. But we will return at a later date,” Blix continued.

However,fears were growing that the situation could escalate out of hand after spy planes spotted what appeared to be a 200-foot stainless steel gun barrel being delivered to Tommy Walsh’s Basildon workshop.

We Want Your Job! – GamesMaster Magazine Issue 212

We Want Your Job!
Pestering the jammiest jobsmiths in the business.

Boo! Hiss! The BBFC often comes in for lots of stick from the younger generation, but they really do have your best interests at heart. James Blatch from the BBFC explains:

GM: Hi James, Tell us exactly what your job is with the BBFC.

James: I’m a Film, Video and Video Games Examiner with the Board. My job is to watch/play submissions and recommend a category. On average The BBFC classifies a couple of games a day and I’m one of ten examiners on the games team.

GM: Many believe the job is just playing games all day and slapping a rating on at the end of the day?

James: Have you been reading my job description? Of course it’s a little more technical than that. We examine in teams of two, all non-linear material is watched in full; that’s cutscenes and accompanying video etc. We’ll play the game through, but because games have a repetitive element we will use level skips and game saves to speed our progression. Unless it’s really good, in which case we cancel all calls and work till midnight.

GM: There was a lot made of Tanya Byron’s review and the confusion over PEGI’s age classifications. Does this raise the case for the BBFC to take control with your instantly recognisable age ratings?

James: Our symbols have an incredibly high recognition rate, they are also trusted and well understood. After all what’s not to understand about ’18 - Contains strong bloody violence’?

GM: It’s risky business banning games, Manhunt 2 comes straight to mind. Do protection instincts instantly kick in with the gorier titles?

James: It’s not as simple seeing gore and reaching for the ‘Reject’ stamp. After all, Dead Rising was pretty bloody, as is Madworld. But we do look at what else is on offer for the player. Is it funny? Is it scary? Is it very mechanical and arcade-like? When we can find nothing else to distance the player from sadistic, unrelenting human-on-human violence, then yes, alarm bells begin to ring. That’s the reason the unmodified version ofManhunt 2 remains the only rejected video game in the UK. (A modified version was granted an 18 following a close appeal).

GM: How absorbed do you have to be with a game before deciding its rating? Do you get cheats to help with a quicker playthrough?

James: I will always try and play the game as if it’s out of the box at home. I terrified myself playing ‘F.E.A.R. 2’ the other month and that’s a good thing. It’s important to take these qualities of a game into account in order to come up with a well rounded classification decision. We often, but not always, get cheats (invincibility, all weapons etc), but we’ll only dip into these for progression reasons, after getting used to normal play.

GM: How well trusted are you to provide a rating, what exactly do you look out for? Is it a group decision?

James: Two of us examine a game and it’s up to us to flag up whether it needs further viewing. Our Director David Cooke will look in on an examination, particularly if it’s a big game that’s likely to be controversial. What do we look for? Violence is usually the defining issue, but increasingly strong language plays a part. Sex is still something most developers stay away from, but it’s certainly more prevalent now than ten years ago. With games at the junior categories, dangerous imitable techniques are our biggest concern. Young children like to copy behaviour. Some developers might not think twice about showing a child climbing into a washing machine, we however know it’s potentially fatal.

GM: Finally, any tips for youngsters who may want to join the BBFC’s ranks?

James: Convergence is the key here. Try to have a good all round appreciation of film, DVDs and video games. This enables you to put video games into a wider context. It stops them being marginalised and getting out of step with other media. I’m a firm believer that video games have come of age. GTA IV for instance, with its incredibly smart writing and high production values sits right up there with well produced movies, so it’s right for us to treat it in the same way that we would the latest Clint Eastwood film.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:

1: 360/PS3/XBOX controller. You should never be more than two feet from one of these.

2: Proper coffee. 15 years at the BBC and 3 years at the BBFC means I’ve had my fill of machine muck.

3: Pictures of my children, Emily, 5 and William, 3. Despite the upside to my job, you can have some pretty unpleasant viewing experiences, but this picture always makes me smile.

4: My favourite phishing email (purportedly from Egg). It concludes with the convincing line “??Please to be urgent with your securities to denial services”

5: A Lightsaber. It’s an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.