Last night was Game Engine 2, which was the closing program for this year’s New York Video Festival. It brought together various talents from all sides of the video gaming spectrum, from people who make games of all different kinds, to people who enjoy them in their own special ways.
First off, before things began, I found “video game player of the century” Billy Mitchell in the lobby, surrounded by admirers. Billy is the first person ever to play a perfect game of Pac Man; he got the highest possible score of 3,333,360 after six hours of intense game playing, in which he never died, didn’t missed a dot, and reached the “last level” in which the machine runs out of memory and the screen becomes messed up.
The guy’s quite the character. First off, he’s over six feet tall, rather lanky, has a wardrobe that seems to only consist of buttoned up long sleeved shirts that’s tucked into his jeans and American flag neckties, plus has a huge 80′s glam rock mullet. He’s actually a bit of a celebrity nowadays; he’s been interviewed everywhere from EGM to 1UP, and ever since I first heard his story, I knew I had to meet the legend. I shook his hand was even able to ask a few questions; I had to see if he really was as arrogant as he comes off in all his interviews. The guy’s proud of his achievements, there’s no doubt about that (he holds plenty of other video game records, and as we spoke, a video of him breaking a million points on Donkey Kong was playing in the background) but he was pretty friendly. Though when I mentioned of the spiritual journey I took to the arcade in which he set the Pac Man record, and that being able to play that same exact machine was a dream come true, I don’t think he knew I was being a bit facetious.
Anyways, he wasn’t at all cocky, just confident…. very confident. Plus he even gave me a bottle of his hot sauce; Billy’s real job is president of Rickey’s World Famous Louisiana Hot Sauce.
As for the event itself, it was hosted by the guy who writes about video games for the Daily News (sorry, I missed his name) and the head of New York-Tokyo, Takeo Baba. Here’s bascially what went down…
Things kicked off with a reel which began with one of those classic Intellevision commercials starring George Plimpton as he compared Intellevision sports games to Atari 2600 sports titles. It then immediately cut to footage from today’s games. I’m assuming the montage was supposed to illustrate just how far video games have evolved over the past 20 years, but the choice of games were rather poor. It’s not to say that they weren’t technically impressive, they were obviously light years ahead of the primitive blips and blocks that the aforementioned commercials proudly featured. It’s just that every game was an Xbox title, so it came off as a lame Microsoft commercial. Plus the fact that most Xbox games look quite similar didn’t help. The strange thing was that the package was “courtesy of Microsoft and Sony” but there was just one lone PS2 game, and it was shown at the very end with very poor image quality (and was Hot Shot Golf 3 of all things).
Next was a series of presentations from various independent game makers from New York City (and the segment I was looking most forward to). First up was Marc Fernandez who spoke of his past experience working on high profile titles for RockStar and his recent move into independent game development via the world of cell phone gaming (hmmm…. sounds familiar?). The game’s called Pax Athletica and is apparently some kind of multiplayer role playing game that’s built around sporting events. Looks pretty interesting actually, and it comes out next month for Verizon Wireless. I have to admit when I first heard his connection to RockStar, I instantly wrote him off, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy.
Second was Scott Vogel, a guy who used to be the producer of Pi and Requiem of a Dream, both films which I totally dig, and now he’s making a game called 211: Master Thief. He spoke of the similarities between making movies and games, and how excited he was to use the medium to tell stories. Even the game looks super early (he said it’s about 18 to 24 months off), and it’s really too soon to judge, it still looks like a pathetically generic Grand Theft Auto clone and Vogel just came off as another Hollywood guy (even though he technically isn’t) who just wants to cash in on gaming market and has very little clue about video games in general.
The third speaker was Eric Zimmerman, who’s easily the top game designer working in the New York scene today. Not only am I big fan of all his work, but his books and personal advice has been a tremendous aide when it’s come to teaching my class. I’m a strong believer in much of what he says and this was my first chance to hear his views in an open forum. Zimmerman described the challenges of being a game designer in New York City (which I can definitely attest to) and the very nature of what it is to be an independent game maker in this day and age.
He touched upon the three main things one needs to content with when making games: economics, technology, and culture, plus he spoke of how the gaming industry is indeed turning into Hollywood. Games today cost millions upon millions to produce, and 90% of all game released do not make a return on their investment, which has caused publishers to become increasingly conservative. Zimmerman called upon not only game makers to step things up when it came to content, but game players as well when it came to making choices on games to invest their time and money in. It was simply amazing to hear Zimmerman speak, and I wish more people in the industry would take some time to hear and read what he has to say, because as he explained tonight, he simply loves video games, and it shows at every single level, whether it be in his essays on design, or the titles that gameLab produces.
The last speaker was Keith Halper who’s involved with Kuma War which take events from the news and translates it into an interactive, gaming experience. Every week or so there’s a new level that allows players to go through what really happened, or lets them do what they think should have happened, and from different sides of the fence. As one might expect, the events in Iraq makes up the majority of the levels, and granted that allows for plenty of assets to be reused, it’s still quite an undertaking, Still, using the current war as a backdrop for war left a bad taste in many people’s mouths (more on this later). Halper, much like Vogel before him, came off as a callous businessman who seemed more intent on talking about all the “relationships” his company has than the art of actually making a game.
Next up was footage from Metal Gear Solid 3. It was advertised that the video was specially produced for the event, and I was hopeful that new footage would be shown. MGS 3 is one of the games I’m really looking towards this year, plus all the trailers thus far have been simply superb. Unfortunately, those were all edited by the game’s creator, Hideo Kojima, but not this one, and it really showed, resulting in a game that looked somewhat unremarkable (it’s amazing how powerful editing can be). And aside from a few new shots of Snake doing his big jump from the plane, there was no new footage whatsoever, though it was still nice to see what I’ve more or less memorized in my head by this point projected on a huge screen, and with the sexy Snake Eater song full blast. Plus as advertised, there were some taped comments from Kojima, including a special message for the event’s audience. He basically said “Wish I could be there since I really like New York, the game is coming along great, please look for it later this year!”
The world’s first referee dedicated towards video gaming spoke next. It was actually Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, which keeps track of each and every world record related to video games. He described what it takes to be a champion game player, which is mostly a clear mind and good health; apparently, most gaming masters don’t smoke or drink, but then again, the same goes with most nerds, so this news ain’t exactly mind-blowing. Then he introduced Billy Mitchell on stage who explained that a combination of sheer willpower and an unwillingness to take ?it can?t be done? for an answer is how he’s been able to achieve so much greatness. He mentioned how wherever he goes, people always recognize him and want to talk with him (Mitchell says this in every interview, and it always sounds a bit b.s.), along with the time 3,000 people in Japan all stood in line for hours to shake his hand after he was awarded the title of video game player of the century by Namco at a special ceremony (he award is visible in this photo here, and it was even present in the lobby). And finally, Mitchell reveled that the sole reason he went after the Donkey Kong record was because some person from Canada named “Mike” told him it wasn’t possible, which really pissed him off. “I’m not gonna let some Canadian tell me what I can’t do!” So 9/11 isn?t the reason why he wears that American flag tie all the time, its his hatred for Canadians. Mystery solved!
Afterwards was a performance by two guys who compose and play music on Game Boys (the old “Brick Boy” models no less). As a big fan of video game music, not only was it nice to such hear such music live, but among an appreciative audience. They were both outstanding and tore down the house.
Next was a short making of video featuring Sudeki. The point of this one was to show an example of Western game makers using Anime as a main source of artistic inspiration. Too bad the game does it horribly. Then again, I find 99% of everyone’s attempt to create Anime or Mange here in America absolutely headache inducing.
Right after that were a few clips from the Machinima Film Festival. Machinima is basically movies made entirely within a video game environment; people take preexisting game engines, like from Quake or Unreal, and apply their own characters and environments to try tell an original story. The key word here is try. Almost everything I’ve seen from Machinima has been ultra lame. I suppose I should be more supportive, but I can’t ignore the fact that it’s all amateurish, art school caliber melodrama (or just pointless running and shooting, just like the video game it’s based upon, but with slightly different characters and Limp Biscuit).
And the last piece was a live performance starring game characters using a modified Quake 2 engine. Three guys assumed the roles an anchorman interviewing a presidential candidate with his running mate. The questions asked were all ones from the audience and the whole routine was totally improvised, which turned out to be surprising funny. Most people shouted questions like “What about the war?” or “How you going to defeat Bush?” whereas Mitchell could be heard asking “Who has the world record in Dig Dug?” So maybe the guy is that narcissistic after-all.
The night ended with a brief Q&A with all guests on stage. The first question was directed at the Kuma War guy and in regards to the possibility that his game might be “gentrifying” the war. Halper just went on and on about his past experiences with hit games, and knowing what sells, and how he’s worked with “all the big boys”, and how that every game is ultimately made by the people who play it, and yada, yada, yada…. basically he avoided the question and looked like a major tool. But the audience wasn’t buying, then even more irrelevant fact and figures were thrown about, and it soon turned into an all out political debate, the kind where no one’s listening to each other and is ultimately just masturbatory, which thankfully had it’s plug pulled.
I asked the next question, which was for Zimmerman regarding the serious lack of any sort of game design community within New York City (I mentioned that all the students in my class who are serious about making games have already made up in their minds that to do so, they’ll need to move elsewhere) and what can be done to rectify this situation. While he was happy to hear that I’ve decided to stay in New York to make games, he did remind me that it’s quite the challenging task (once again, I know this truth all too well) and cited several reasons why there is virtually no design and development in the city, some which I’ve know for some time now, and some which I wasn’t aware off. I also cited my fears regarding how many schools are now teaching game design, but doing so in a manner which at least I feel, does not benefit the student or the industry as a whole, so which he also agreed and felt the main reason is due to a lack of understanding of game design really is, as both a philosophy and a profession.
The Q&A ended with a few other questions, including one rather angry woman regarding the absolute lack of females playing games. She seemed nonplussed to hear that women actually do play games. It may not be as apparent, and while most games have a male slant, they are out there. Walter Day took the opportunity to mention that in his latest edition of the Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Champions, there will be separate listing for female champions, which for some reason got a negative reaction from some in the audience. Billy Mitchell even asked, “You don’t think women are good as men?” but most people don’t know they it was a playful jab between friends and simply added to the hate. Day tired saving himself by saying that it’s what women wanted, but it only made things worse. I wanted to ask him about his thoughts regarding the superplay scene, but never got the chance since he was too busy trying to prove that he wasn’t some sexist.
And finally the last question was for Billy Mitchell regarding his technique when it came to beating all those games. His answer? “Learning what everyone else was doing, and not doing it.”
EDIT: I took the liberty of passing along a slight abridged version of my account to the various forums I frequent. Check out what others are saying at Game Critics, Insert Credit, IGDA NY, IGDA NJ, the Cryptic Press/Yaytime! Forum, and Gaming Age.
