I got my first ever pair of Sauconys yesterday. It’s like running on little puppy kisses. On bubbles of pleasure. Sigh.

Happy Feet, the game I’ve been working on for over a year, came out a couple of weeks ago. After thinking about penguins for the past 14 months, I’m very pleased to finally see the end product on the shelves. Two weeks ago, on the night that the movie came out, we threw a fantastic wrap party, on top of Place Ville-Marie overlooking Montreal, the whole crew dressed in penguiny black and white. Our giant inflatable penguin mascot was there for the occasion as well.

As we were debating what to do with him now that the game was done, we were approached by another group who offered to buy him off us. As it turned out, our prospective buyers represented the Canadian Anti-Doping Agency. Ever since Lance Armstrong ran the New York City marathon earlier this month, I’ve been thinking about writing a post about doping in sports. I ended up renting the penguin out to them for one year in exchange for 20$ and a DVD about doping.

The next night, I went to see the theatrical release of the movie for the first time with three of my best friends. Then I came home, looked around my home office and took down all the photos of penguins, Antarctica and leopard seals collected over the past year. The year of the penguin had come to a close for me.

The odd thing is, for the past year, Happy Feet’s been my personal project most people know nothing about. Now that it’s out of my life, it’s taken a life of its own out there in the world. Now that I’m done with it, I’m starting to see it going by on buses, I see penguin-shaped treats at the grocery store, I see penguin toys at Burger King and Happy Feet lingerie at La Senza.

It’s like my little penguin’s all growns up, and it’s awesome to see him doing well in the world.

(See the movie, it’s fantastic!)

A couple of weeks ago, the Scotsmontonian and I played all the way through Justice League Heroes in three days. I found the gameplay engaging without being innovative in the least. Think Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance with superheroes. A solid, honest game that does the job, without revolutionizing anything.

Its big plus is the coolness of the heroes you get to play. For superheroes, you just can’t beat the player fantasy of being Wonder Woman, Superman, or Batman. The big minus is that for most of the game you don’t get to choose who you play, and end up having to be Zatanna and the Martian Manhunter at times. Eh. There are seven playable characters in total.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance, on the other hand, has a seemingly endless number of playable characters, including my Marvel favorites Thor, Iron Man, Elektra and Daredevil (though the latter is still locked after about five hours of play). However, in a game where some of the fun comes from upgrading and strengthening your character, do you really want to spread your effort across twenty of them, including some like Spider Woman or Ms. Marvel?

Gameplay in MUA is very similar to JLH, with satisfying melee and ranged fighting mechanics, as well as a decent variety of upgrades. However, MUA suffers from some annoying UI problems, such as the “unpause” button being different from the pause button, and “Accept” being on the circle. Also, the character customization system can only be used by one player at a time, forcing one to wait while the other spends level-up points. AnnOOOOying…

The graphics are much better in MUA than in JLH, and in fact the opening cutscene is probably the best I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, the high amount of detail on the characters actually ends up being a disadvantage, as they blend in excessively with the detailed background.

Overall, each game is fun and worth a try, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend playing both, unless you’re a huge superhero fan like I am. In this duel JLH comes out on top, but it’s by no means a crushing victory.

My favorite quote of the Montreal International Games Summit 2006 (roughly paraphrased):

About booth babes being banned from E3: “Remember that video of Wonder Woman getting thrown out of E3 last year? In my opinion that’s the real cause of the show’s downfall. You don’t mess with superpowers”.

- Brenda Brathwaite, during her excellent Sex in Games talk. I almost proposed to her right there.

(other summit impressions to come later)

The article for which I was interviewed appeared on page A4 of the Montreal Gazette today. Thanks to lightspeedmom for pointing it out, I would have missed it!

Of course things are always written in much less nuanced way than they are meant, but I’m generally pleased with it. Roberto the reporter made the whole process a lot of fun. There’s also an interesting article about the ever-charming Alex, another local producer, on the same page.

(Welcome, Gazette readers…)

Here is an interview I did for a new Web site aiming to incite people to consider a career in the games industry. It’s in French, and my title and job description are wrong (they have me as a technical art director), but hopefully this will soon be rectified.

Ever go on a date or job interview (some might say the two are the same) and realize after the fact that you had broccoli in your teeth the whole time? That’s how this feels for me.