Sunny.

So apparently spring has begun, kind of. The sun was shining at its brightest in months today and it was beautiful. I love this gorgeous weather, it’s just so peaceful, and it feels like everyone is happy again. I went to drink a cup of coffee with a good friend of mine and on the way I witnessed a wedding. A happy couple, their faces beaming as bright as the sun that was watching over them up there in the sky. I could only guess how perfectly happy they were. Their wedding, planned on the first real day of spring. They would remember that day forever. How they stood there, thinking about how the sun was there only for them. It was beautiful.

Also kind of depressing, though. I believe that spring is the best time for love. Valentine’s Day is just a couple of months too early, when it’s still cold and dark outside. Spring is where it’s at. The sun, the birds, everybody is happy and most important of all, together. Especially then it haunts you the most that there is not that special one in your life. Call me melancholic or emo, but that is just how it is. I’m not crying myself to sleep, but in my last blogpost I told you guys about how I was going to make a leap of faith and everyday when I wake up I am reminded of how I didn’t do it. And I think that I’ve missed my chance.

It’s the paradox of spring, I think. The time when you should be happy, and you always am. But it makes that glaring hole in your life, the part that makes you just that little bit unhappy, so enormous that it stares you in the face wherever you go. But who knows what will happen tomorrow, when the sun comes up? What paths of fate will cross that day? We can only guess and it’s not up to us to know, but that’s what makes life beautiful, isn’t it? The unexpectedness of life. I don’t even know if it’s a word but now it is.

Let’s just see what unexpectedness tomorrow brings, I can only guess…

Silent are the birds

It’s still raining. Will it ever stop? I am not even sure anymore. When a new year begins, I always hope it’s sunny on the first day of January, but I know that will never happen. The spring doesn’t kick in until late March here in The Netherlands and I honestly cannot wait for it to start. I cannot wait for nature to begin anew, I cannot wait for myself to begin anew.

I recently quit my study, Gameart. I decided that it was way too specific for my taste and when I envisioned myself over four or five years I saw myself at places I could not reach with that education. Fortunately, it was really easy for me to switch to my current one, Interaction Design, to be precise, for they are both quite alike. While Gameart focuses on the visual aspects of (video)games, Interaction Design looks at the matter from an entirely different perspective. They look at the interaction between man and machine in its entirety and it doesn’t focus on games alone. I really like this broader view of the matter so I am happy I made the switch. I did not have to start all over again, it was possible for me to just follow the Interaction Design lectures straight away without having to catch up on anything, for which I am very thankful.

All this school stuff, it takes quite the toll on my social life. It’s not that I don’t have time for anything at all, but it’s a combination of that and the fact that I don’t really feel like doing anything when I come home from school. I hate it though. It’s not only my social life, but it’s doing the things that I love I just cannot find time for anymore. I used to write, a lot, and in retrospect I haven’t written anything substantial in the past eight to nine months. I don’t draw as much as I used to and I haven’t seen the insides of a cinema in months. I don’t see my father as much as I used to, which is a shame really. It’s not that I don’t want to, but after I come home from school at five or six in the afternoon, I have too much to do to go over and in the weekends I am just too tired. Oh, spring, please come soon.

I have the feeling that the first scent of spring will solve a lot. There is a chance that I’m going to take a leap of faith next week and create my own spring, or so to speak. I can’t say too much about it but I’ll probably write about it if it all works out. I don’t want to sound melancholic, because I am not, I am quite happy with my life to be honest, but I do think there is something missing in my life at the moment and I think it’s my own duty to fill that gap.

Looking outside it is dark. I see vague distorted lights and some black figures that resemble trees. The outside world is entering my room through a thick layer of rain. It would be great if it stopped. It would be great if the sun started shining and in the most cliché way possible, the birds started singing. I won’t wait for it, not this year. I will make it happen. Let’s begin anew. Let’s create a beautiful spring.

More thoughts on the PSP2/NGP

In my previous blogpost I already touched a few issues I have with the recently announced PSP and I want to elaborate on some of them and bring a few new ones to the table. Let’s start with that.

There has been a problem with the first PSP that is magnified by the new one in quite an extreme way. You see, the PSP was, especially for its time, an absolute powerhouse. I remember as the day before yesterday I first saw Ridge Racer on the crisp, clear screen of the PSP-1000. It was absolutely a thing of beauty. There were other games on the PSP that were absolutely astonishing as well later on in the handheld’s lifecycle, like God of War and Metal Gear. I use these games as an example for a reason, because they are all handheld counterparts of their big Playstation 3 (and at the time, PS2) brethren. And therein lies the problem. What happened with the first PSP is that developers aimed a shrink-ray at their AAA-console titles and released them on the PSP. You cannot blame them one bit, because it’s the easy way to go and the PSP was absolutely able to make games like God of War look almost as good as their console equivalents. The point is, though, it brings nothing new to the table.

What Nintendo did with the DS, is create a unique selling point; the two screens (and the touch-screen for that matter). What this most importantly meant was that every game that was to be released on the DS (or whatever revision after that) had to be adjusted (or even created from scratch) to use the DS’ qualities in an original fashion or, for that matter, use them at all. It’s true that not every developer made the best use of the touch-screen or the two-screens and most of them just tacked on some features like a map-screen in racing games, but the point is that they had to do it.

Another Code, Ghost Trick, Nintendogs, Brain Training, Professor Layton. All games that were made for the DS and what it could do. Can you, dear reader, give me just one example of a game made especially for the PSP that made special use of its unique features? I would be amazed, for the PSP didn’t have any. The analog nub was not a special feature, not only because it didn’t really work at all, but because it was just mimicking the D-pad. With the PSP2, Sony does exactly the same, creating a device that can do nothing special or unique.

What? They have a touch-screen on the back? Their screen is also touch-sensitive? Of course, that is true, but then you don’t get what I am talking about. It’s about what you as a developer HAVE to use. You don’t have to use the backpad, you don’t have to use the front touch-screen. With the DS, you have to make use of the two screens, you can’t just have only one screen functioning. With the iPhone, you have to use the touch-screen, because otherwise you cannot control the game at all.

The gaming landscape is changing rapidly and Sony is completely ignoring it. The time that consumers want to be amazed by AAA-titles on their little portable screen is over. A handheld is made to be played in short bursts and the best developers for the DS understand this perfectly. Just take a look at the list of games I posed a paragraph earlier and you will see what I mean. Sony did not understand at the time that big-screen gaming is only for, well, big-screens. You don’t want to play Uncharted on a 5″ screen, I don’t care how sharp, crisp (or whatever marketing term you want to use) it will be. It’s made for the big screens. Consumers don’t want their AAA-titles shrink-rayed for a handheld, they want games especially tailored for playing on your little portable that you can play for a few minutes while riding the train or waiting for the bus.

I would like to pose one last example to illustrate what Sony is absolutely failing at. A few months ago, Apple announced a service called Game Center and illustrated this with a tech-demo from Epic Games: Project Sword, a medieval Oblivion-esque epic RPG. The same day, Epic released a tech demo for the iPhone called Epic Citadel, where you could roam around a deserted castle, just taking in the beauty of the environment. It was amazing and the press just couldn’t stop discussing what the final product would be. Everyone drowned in amazement (not in a positive way, mind you) when the actual game, Infinity Blade, was not an epic exploring RPG, but a simple hack ‘n slash title that was based around (mini)boss battles. I just couldn’t stop smiling. Yes, they understood it.

A few days ago, with the announcement of the PSP2/NGP, Epic Citadel was shown once again, this time running on Sony’s new portable. It was upgraded with actual civilians walking around and snow falling. They ended their presentation by saying that this was just a glimpse of the epic RPG that would be released somewhere next year. No, you fabulous idiots, you just don’t get it do you? Infinity Blade was created for a portable platform. Short, 5 to 6 minutes bursts of smooth and amazing-looking battles. Now they want to bring a complex, epic experience to the small 5″ screen of the PSP2? Oh wow.

I think I have made my point. Sony tried to innovate by making exactly the same device as a few years ago. Normally I love paradoxes, but this isn’t one. It is a contradiction, and one that I hope will be slapped into Sony’s face in the upcoming months before they realize it’s too late. I’ll just wait and see….and play on my 3DS.

My quick thoughts on the PSP2/NGP

I have absolutely no idea why people are saying things like ‘Sony wins once again’ and why this debate even exists at all. I’m quite aware that I’m being a hypocrite by entering this discussion but it’s utter nonsense.

What we’re witnessing here is an almost perfect replica of the situation in the handheld gaming industry 5 or 6 years ago. The DS and PSP were announced and the international press decided that the DS was the end of Nintendo. We all know what happened next. What strikes me as odd is that it seems that Sony doesn’t learn from it’s mistakes and releases an almost identical handheld in terms of target market right now.

I personally have no intention of buying the PSP2/NGP at launch simply because I know the fate of my old PSP-1000. It hasn’t been touched in a year, because there are simply no games on it that I even remotely care for. On one side this is a personal problem, but on the other side it isn’t. You see, there was an enormous lack of something during the original PSP’s lifetime and that was innovation, not in terms of hardware, but in terms of software. Not for one second will I state that Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training was my favourite game on the DS, but it did something that no game on the PSP ever did: sell a shitload of consoles. The Professor Layton games helped as well, nintendogs, etcetera. Correct me if I’m wrong but if we look objectively at the PSP’s database, we see that there are no real system-sellers. Of course, we have games like God of War, Metal Gear and perhaps even Gran Turismo, but we know all those already from earlier installments on the PS2 and even the original Playstation. You know as a company that you’ve made a brilliant piece of hardware when new quality IP’s simply burst out of the ground, as with the DS. The PSP just lacked these kind of new IP’s.

Now we all know that history isn’t always a flawless blueprint of what will happen in future, but still. What does the PSP2 offer that the old one didn’t? It has a sexy screen and it’s super powerful, but that’s called evolution. The PSP was as good as the PS2 at the time and the screen was supersexy by 2004′s standards. It has some slide pad on the back that is used in a way that Sony used to hate; as a gimmick. Climbing in Uncharted? Looks really uncomfortable and unnecessary. It feels really tacked on and that is a shame. It’s the same with the touch-screen on the front and the two camera’s. The touch-screen serves no real purpose because it isn’t an essential part of the handheld as it is with the DS and, yes, the iPhone. The touch-screen is half of what made the DS the multi-million seller that it is now, the same goes for the iPhone. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of the touch-screen here on the NGP until I saw someone rubbing it to make Nathan Drake jump over a tree, which looked ridiculous and if I may add, really pace-breaking.

The iPhone is a brilliant multimedia-machine because it can do everything, basically. It’s a phone, a great mp3-player, a gaming device, a fine internet machine, you get the point. The DS is great because it doesn’t anything of that, just like the 3DS. It is what it’s supposed to be and Nintendo is really aware of where it should be in the current videogaming market. The new PSP just kind of floats inbetween the two, and that’s not a place where anyone can comfortably be. I’d love to be proven wrong but I have the feeling that Sony is walking the same steps they did with their first portable. We all know this won’t be the end of Sony and their cross-platform gaming platform seems interesting but probably not sufficient to battle real innovation. If you have no appealing games, I sure don’t want to be play them anywhere on anything. I don’t want to play them at all.

Bob’s Nieuwjaarsconference 2010-2011

Ik bevind mij in een oorlogsgebied. Waar tot voor kort bernbommen en grootschalige explosies nog een ver, op paradoxale wijze sprookjesachtig iets waren, is dit nu mijn realiteit. Elke minuut een ontploffing, een oorverdovende knal. Je bent er op voorbereid en toch schrik je er elke keer weer van. Het einde is nabij. Nog maar een paar uur.

Een jaaroverzicht is ook te vinden op vrijwel elke nieuwswebsite, dus dat is niet zo interessant. Een jaar is immers 365 dagen, een rondje om de zon, dat is alles. Wij noemen het jaar, voor het gemak, c’est tout. Toch kan het interessant zijn, daar iemand toch even die dagen heeft afgebakend, om even na te gaan wat er de afgelopen 365 dagen is gebeurd en hoe dat invloed heeft gehad op mij en anderen.

2010 was een misschien wel heel belangrijk jaar. Een jaar waarin mijn leven een keerpunt maakte, of nee, waarin mijn leven juist scherpstelde op een doel. Het begin van een lange, zeer specifieke weg. In september begon ik aan m’n opleiding op de HKU, Game Art. En nu al, maar enige maanden later, heb ik al weer een hele andere kijk op wat ik aan het doen ben. Ik zie tientallen mogelijkheden, verschillende toepassingen van games. In kunst, in educatieve vorm, etcetera. Heerlijk!

De afgelopen weken waren de fijnste en mooiste weken die ik in tijden heb beleefd, maar toch vormen zij niet het hoogtepunt van mijn 2010. Het hoogtepunt was met een niet onverdienstelijke voorsprong 11 juli. Nee, mijn beste lezer, de WK-finale was niet mijn hoogtepunt van 2010. Op 11 juli 2010, om omstreeks een half uur voor middernacht stond ik in Rotterdam, in Ahoy om precies te zijn, op het North Sea Jazz-festival, bij het concert van Stevie Wonder. In de kleine twee uur dat hij optrad zat de zaal in een achtbaan van emoties waarbij het voelde alsof Stevie alleen maar voor jou speelde. Ik kan tot op de dag van vandaag niet geloven dat ik Stevie live, in het echt, heb gezien, maar van wat ik me nog kan herinneren was het ronduit hemels.

Maar zoals dat gaat was 2010 niet alleen maar blijheid en vrolijkschap (nee dat is geen woord, maar ik vond het gewoon leuk). Ook dit jaar zijn ons en mijzelf weer mensen ontvallen. Op persoonlijk vlak ben ik mensen kwijtgeraakt, maar ook de wereld is een paar grootheden minder. Het is afschuwelijk om te denken dat ik over een jaar weer terugkijk op 2011 en dan ook namen noem van mensen van wie ik nooit had gehoopt ze ooit te moeten missen. Daarom wil ik hier nog niet aan denken, zorgen voor later.

Er zijn mij mensen ontvallen, maar ik heb ook heel veel mensen ontmoet op de meest uiteenlopende plekken en situaties. Mensen waarvan ik zeker weet dat ze, op wat voor manier dan ook, een rol zullen gaan spelen in mijn leven en waarbij ik ook blij ben dat dat het geval is. Ik weet zeker dat als zij dit lezen, zij weten dat ze tot deze groep behoren en ik hoop ook met die mensen een goed nieuw jaar in te gaan.

Maar nu dat 2011 nadert met nog maar zes luttele uurtjes op de klok kan je gaan filosoferen wat er het komende jaar zal gebeuren. Ik hoopte vorig jaar nog dat Jezus terug zou komen, maar hij heeft het ook in 2010 weer af laten weten, de smiecht. Misschien in 2011 meer geluk. Wellicht onthult WikiLeaks een lawine aan documenten met daarin ontmoetingen met buitenaardse wezens of eventueel staat Rafael op uit zijn graf in een overvol Pantheon. Het leuke aan het leven is dat er zulke vreemde dingen gebeuren dat je ze zelf nooit zou kunnen verzinnen, en het is dan ook hopen op veel van zulks het komende jaar.

Wellicht is 2011 het één na laatste jaar van ons bestaan, dus laten we er ook nu weer een prachtig jaar van proberen te maken. In een tijd dat de complete wereld zich tegen elkaar keert is het zaak om samen te zijn en elkaar lief te hebben en dat is wat we ook in 2011 moeten doen. Ik zal hetzelfde afsluiten als ik deed op 27 december 2009, want ook nu geldt dit nog;

Denk op het moment dat de klok 12 uur slaat voor één moment aan de mensen van wie je houdt en om wie je geeft. Als iedereen dit doet moet het een prachtig 2011 worden.

Om 12 uur doe ik mijn kogelvrije vest aan en stap ik naar buiten. Ik luister naar de knallen en ik kijk naar de kleuren in de lucht. Een overweldigend concert van geluid doet de ramen trillen. En dan, na een paar uur, niks meer. Alleen maar rust. Een doodse stilte.

Een stilte voor de storm.

 

Unusual Thoughts

Look guys, a Stevie Wonder & Tom Jones duet!

That said, I was wondering about something just now. When I was in high school, we had every year several days that were centered around a certain sport or exercise. You could choose what to do; tennis, golf, you name it. Obviously, most of these things were pretty dull and that resulted in most classmates not going and staying at home. Which was forbidden. You see, you had to go to these lovely events or you would be punished severely. Now what I, in retrospect, don’t get, is this; why is it that schools can decide that you have to do these things, that you must, while you are the one paying them money?

This probably comes out of nowhere, but think about it for a moment. I understand that it’s mandatory to come to class everyday and attend all lessons, because that’s quite the convenience if you want to graduate eventually. Aforementioned days though, are not a thing that just anyone likes, on the contrary. When we knew that these kind of days were coming up, we quickly decided to ‘go to the dentist’ or be ‘horribly ill’ that day. There were instances that when you actually showed up, you even had to pay (additional) money to participate in a certain sporting event. So you had to pay for something you hated to do, on top of what you had been paying your school (or what you’re parents had been paying your school).

So while I’m not sure where this rant originated from, seeing that I’m not in high school anymore, I still stand by statement.

There will probably be another blogpost in a few hours. For now, enjoy Stevie Wonder ft. George Michael! This is madness!

A Day in the Life of Me

This is not so much a blog post as it is a recalling of events that occurred in my life today. Basically, my day consisted of three things. The first one is my visit to the Zoo. The second one is me watching Zodiac for the first time. The third one is the unveiling of the real sequel to one of my favorite games of the last couple of years, Bioshock Infinite.

I’m not going to deny it, I don’t really like a certain part of my family. You see, my parents are divorced and my mom married another man. I do like him, his family though, not so much. For a reason unclear to me he decided to invite both his grandchildren to a day at our local Zoo, called Artis (in Amsterdam) and me and my mom came along. It was all fun and games for after five minutes I decided to take another route. I went on using my Sony DSLR to its full extent and at the end of the day I had taken an odd 450 photos. I will take a look tomorrow if there is a good one in there and I will probably post it on this blog by then.

While all of this was no really interesting but quite exhausting, I decided after we had returned home, to put in one of my newly-bought movies. Last week I decided to buy some new Blu-Rays for I had this giant list of movies I still wanted to see, but somehow I just didn’t get to buying them. Last week’s purchases consisted of District 9, The Hurt Locker, SE7EN and Zodiac, which I just finished watching. And holy mother of God, that was amazing. I really like David Fincher movies, like Fight Club, Benjamin Button and the aforementioned SE7EN. All of his movies are, if those are right words to put it, really tidy. Expertly directed and filmed, it all just feels like it should feel and that makes for a very relaxing viewing experience. This was also the case with Zodiac. The story involves around the Zodiac serial-killer, who sends cryptic messages to various newspapers and police forces while killing random people for apparently no reason. Zodiac stars one of my favorite actors of, well, all-time, Robert Downey Jr. and although his role isn’t that large here, he’s still brilliant. Now, while Zodiac is pretty dialogue-based, there is an ongoing feeling of utmost suspense, which is great. It takes almost three hours to get to the end but it never gets boring, it really keeps up its pace. I truly recommend it to anyone who likes movies in general. So, watch that.

Just after finishing Zodiac, I decided to take a quick look on the internet and to my not-so-great surprise I found out that Irrational Games, formerly 2K Boston, announced their new game today. I knew they would be doing this but I kind of expected them to disclose everything tomorrow. I was though, pleasantly surprised. Their new game is called Bioshock: Infinte (I am not sure if the colon should be there or not) and it is basically Bioshock in the sky. It takes place in a giant city floating in the sky and it has a Steampunk/Art Nouveau/Neo-Classicism/Art-Deco-style going on. It’s really hard to put your finger on but it looks great. It’s not a secret how much I love Bioshock (and its sequel for that matter) so this is the greatest news I got all week. The great thing about Bioshock was that after we (Steven, a friend of mine, and I) finished it, Rapture and its story stayed with us for many months after that. I can only hope Bioshock: (?) Infinte will have this same effect.

Not much to think about today, huh? Well, take your thinking time off then and pop in Zodiac or play Bioshock if you haven’t already. That’ll probably keep you busy until my next blog.