Today, Patrick asks, who’s the most awesomest company you can work for in your field? Which company would be the equivalent of playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the 70s? Which would be like playing for them now?

I thought about it, and one of the first that sprang to mind was BioWare. There’s a company that in a bitch of an industry conditions-wise, manages to crank out top-notch games on their own terms, whilst succeeding in being a recognized leader in the area of quality of life. Of course, being in Edmonton, they could only ever hope to be the Oilers, not the Canadiens, but hey.

However, as you may know, BioWare was bought a couple of weeks ago by EA, arguably one of the most infamous games companies for quality of life issues. To some developers, this is like Luke joining forces with Vader. Yesterday Jonathan, a BioWare stockholder, received papers to sign related to the deal. We joked about his stopping the 860M$ deal by failing to return the signed documents on time, and thus becoming a grass-roots hero of game developers everywhere. We wondered how much of a loss he would be willing to take to nix the symbolism-heavy deal.

But no, BioWare will be absorbed into EA, thus motivating the question, if you define awesome by good conditions and quality products, who’s the awesomest NOW?

I’m working towards first playable these days (basically the first major deliverable of a game, where the first level is usually delivered at near-final quality). This weekend I dreamt that my game’s hero had been replaced by the ball from Metroid in my first playable build.

I know it sounds silly, but it was really scary.

I’m terrified to go to sleep.

Eidos Interactive (Tomb Raider, Hitman) is setting up shop in Montreal in March.

My friend Dr Wank, a psychology professor at the University of Ottawa, holds as his first maxim of human behavior that People are Stupid.

A lot of the history I’ve been reading confirms this, but this morning, a particularly sad example of it popped up in my feeds:

Radio station holds a contest to see who can drink the most water without peeing, for the grand prize of a Wii.
Yes, the obvious puns are made.
DJs make jokes about previous water intoxication deaths and responsibility waivers as contestant has bad symptoms on air.
People call in to warn about water intoxication risk.
Contest continues.
Contestant dies.

Q.E.D.

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)

So you want to make games by yourself. Oops.

I’ve been asked by a video games publisher to recommend someone to attend to a grass roots event in a great city next week, all expenses paid.

You must:
- Be a gamer, preferably a sports gamer
- Have a high-traffic blog
- Be Canadian

Apply within, serious inquiries only please.

Critics of this brilliant GTA-inspired Coca Cola commercial, who are calling it about 5 years behind the times, are missing the point. The commercial isn’t about GTA, but what it’s come to represent (the eeeeevilness of video games). And sadly, the debate around that is pretty contemporary.

(Merci Patrick)

via Patrick.