New Year  

A bunch of random thoughts and updates...

- My friend, science-fiction author Tom Maddox, is working on a new novel. He's been giving me sneak peaks and it's shaping up really nicely. Tom's been a writer for a *long* time -- he was one of the original cyberpunk authors and is a contemporary of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (not to mention our industry's very own Marc Laidlaw (Valve) who also started out as a science-fiction writer before turning to games). I've known him for many years, and we had the opportunity to work together on a couple of projects at Radar.

In any case, it's been extremely interesting to be able to witness the birth of a novel and I wish Tom the best of luck. Simultaneously, his work with Radar is all wrapped up so if you're in need of an experienced writer who has also delved into interactive narrative, feel free to contact me and I'll put you in touch.

- Despite some softness in the opening hours, I have become fully addicted to Fallout 3. As a huge fan of the originals and a big fan of Bethesda, I was really looking forward to seeing how they modernized and re-interpreted the gameplay to make it relevant to a mainstream gaming audience. Looking at the metacritic and sales figures, I'd say they've definitely managed to strike a chord with players. I'm about 30 hours into it and still enjoying it, although I'm approaching the Washington Monument and I'll say the difficulty curve has just skyrocketed upwards, which is a bit jarring. In any case, this is likely the first 100+ hour open world game that I will see to the end.

In playing Fallout 3, and thinking about most of the games that have resonated most deeply with me as a player, I'm beginning to realize just how fundamental the promise of "reward through exploration" really is as an underpinning for compelling gameplay. Fallout 3's RPG mechanics allow the game to make the reward aspects really literal, moreso than other open world games like GTA4, where your rewards for exploring the world are more anecdotal and have more to do with optimizing your navigation of the environment than they do with collecting loot and grinding. But, it appears that many of the action games that resonate most deeply with players manage to satisfy some innate need to explore and discover. Particularly, the promise of exploring abandoned spaces and the possibility of discovering loot that's been left behind (buried treasure!) is extremely compelling, and seems to really pull on an inherent need we have. Maybe it has something to do with reptilian brain survival and resource gathering, and the fact that most of us have very little opportunity, in our daily lives, to truly discover new spaces, particularly physical ones. The allure of archeology becomes more apparent to me...

- Just saw "The Day the Earth Stood Still". What a truly horrible movie, and the perfect example of how a good high concept can be destroyed by poor execution. The director had all the necessary pieces to make a successful film -- big budget, high production values, capable cast, etc. -- yet somehow the film just falls flat. Weak script and poor editing are the likely reasons for this. The film suffers a bit from the same issue as the Spielberg "War of the Worlds" (granted, a much better film) -- the 'heroes' do nothing to earn their own salvation.

Oh, and this is my first post of 2009, so Happy New Year!