posted by Chris on February 13, 2008 1:40 PM in Games
The much-anticipated Spore has finally gotten a release date (September 7th, 2008) and the ever-erudite N'Gai Croal has conducted a series of fantastic interviews of the creator, Will Wright. They discuss what is taking the game so long to produce, going into how the game has evolved from a massively single player experience into a full-featured social networking game. For what it's worth, Spore is looking even more incredible than before. Not to overhype it (mainly because it is already incredibly overhyped), but from this interview I can tell Spore is going to redefine the way we play games. Will is a brilliant speaker and it's always a treat to hear him talk enthusiastically about something he loves: game design.
Check out the interview here, over at Newsweek.
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posted by Chris on May 8, 2007 4:11 PM in Geek Culture
Today Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing posted his very first podcast (aww), which just so happens to be an interview with me about The Weekly Geek, how we got started and what our blogging process is. There are some good tips in there for people who are interested in starting their own blog, and if you haven't checked out Ian's site yet and you are at all interested in internet marketing, you're missing out.
The sound on the podcast is a bit quiet, but that's my fault. Just crank it, man! CRANK UP THE ROCK (marketing talk).
In the interest of full disclosure - I work for Ian's company as my day job
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posted by Chris on October 4, 2006 10:18 AM in Geek Culture
As you horrible people may or may not know, The Geek and I once did The Weekly Geek on an actual radio station, and back in the day we interviewed a bunch of completely awesome people. These interviews have been uploaded and are well worth a listen. I'll put them on the rss feed and the iTunes feed over time, but if you want to download them now, feel free! Here are The Weekly Geek's interviews, for your listening pleasure.
We have much much more to upload, including a couple years worth of old radio versions of the show, so stay tuned! Tuned to the Internet, I guess.
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posted by Chris on August 11, 2006 8:59 AM in Podcast
In 2004 (or was it 2005?) The Geek and Frodo interviewed Porkfry from Penny Arcade fame. Along with being a full-time badass, Porkfry is a game tester, and gives the rundown on how to get into the game industry, and what sort of horrors await you once you get there. Kids throwing rocks at each other was also a topic of discussion.
Download it here!
-Frodo
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posted by Chris on August 3, 2006 10:10 AM in Podcast
In 2004, The Geek and Frodo watched a brilliant man peddle his comic book Robots R' Cool, Zombies R' Jerks in the special features of Comic Book: The Movie. That man was Devin T. Quin, and he was basically begging to be interviewed by The Weekly Geek. This is that interview. Enjoy.
--Frodo
Download the Interview Here
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posted by Chris on July 25, 2006 9:31 PM in Podcast
In 2005, The Geek and Frodo interviewed a Jeff Rowland over the phone on KCWU FM in Ellensburg, WA. You may know Jeff Rowland as "The Guy Who Made Snakes On A Plane Ridiculously Famous Before It Was Even Released" but that's pretty long to try to say on a regular basis. It is well known that the reclusive billionaire genius is often drunk, always surly, and incredibly profane. This will serve as a record of that fact. Prepare yourselves. Here is the famous interview with Jeff Rowland from Wigu and Overcompensating. Enjoy.
--Frodo
(download it here. mp3 format. It's worth it, trust me.)
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posted by Chris on October 30, 2005 2:04 PM in Podcast
This past week, I was lucky enough to be flown up to Vancouver BC by our friends at Nintendo to meet the guys at Next Level Games, creators of Super Mario Strikers for the Nintendo Gamecube.
Now, I am from the Seattle area anyway, so it wasn't too tough for them to fly me out to Canada, but it is still amazing to be able to fly to one country in the morning and be back from said country in the evening. Whirlwind trip, woo! I felt like a little kid who just won a contest in Nintendo Power by sending in the best crayon drawing of Mario eating a mushroom or something. Next Level Games has some pretty nice studios, all in a loft in old town Vancouver. The studios are set up in a very open format, with the producers, programmers, artists, and even testers sharing a big open area. This actually makes a lot of sense, considering it would therefore be easy for an artist to yell over their shoulder if something needs to be tweaked, or for a producer to throw heavy objects at a tester who isn't doing his job properly. Well, maybe in that situation it wouldn't be so good for the tester. After a fancy tour and breakfast, we sat down in Next Level's awesome break room with their GIGANTIC HDTV and got to play the game.
Note to self: avoid playing games against developers of said games. They will most likely school you. Hard.
The game itself is very good, certainly more polished than the version we got to play at E3. The gameplay is also very different from other Mario Sports titles. Nintendo specifically came to Next Level to create a unique experience, and they got a team that seems very passionate about playing games and making them. In Super Mario Strikers, you see Toad with a scowl, angry-face Mario and sassy ass-slapping Peach. Yes, that's right. Peach slaps her own ass. There is an electrified fence all the way around the soccer field, which you can body check other players into, giving them a jolt and causing them to scream horribly. The developers mentioned that they surprised the voice actors they had to work with, because they had never had to make Peach scream horribly, or Toad grunt as if he were exerting himself kicking a ball. And it's true, the visceral sound effects make for a more emotional experience, which is something they really pressed at the meeting. They wanted you to know that they really focused on making Super Mario Strikers more mature, more emotional, more passionate than other Mario sports titles. That may sound silly at first, but when you actually play the game, you notice that attention to detail.
The thing that really sold me on the game, however, was knowing that these guys have been playing this game non-stop for over a year, and they are still playing it every single day, cheering and trash talking like they just picked it up. A game with that kind of replayability, especially when you are looking at people who's job it is to play the game, is worth checking out. I had the opportunity to interview Game Designer Mike Inglehart and Producer Ken Yeeloy, which you can download here. They were very eager to discuss their game, and I think I asked them some fairly unique questions. Download it and enjoy it!
Overall, my impressions of Super Mario Strikers are positive. I think that Nintendo was wise to bring in new blood for a new Mario Sports title, and as long as they market the game correctly and try to seperate it from the other Mario Sports titles, I think that it could be a big hit. There are tons of modes to play through, and Next Level even got to design their own original playable character for the game. Now that is trust.
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The much-anticipated Spore has finally gotten a release date (September 7th, 2008) and the ever-erudite N'Gai Croal has conducted a series of fantastic interviews of the creator, Will Wright. They discuss what is taking the game so long to produce, going into how the game has evolved from a massively single player experience into a full-featured social networking game. For what it's worth, Spore is looking even more incredible than before. Not to overhype it (mainly because it is already incredibly overhyped), but from this interview I can tell Spore is going to redefine the way we play games. Will is a brilliant speaker and it's always a treat to hear him talk enthusiastically about something he loves: game design.