I could go on about this forever. In fact, I already have in Kieron’s workblog comments, as have other people too. Stuart makes the good point that such discussion is just people like me trying to justify having fun with games, which is possible also true. I’d say it’s just a biproduct of passion for a medium and the talent it takes to create each game.

Am I the only person that gleefully reads John Carmack’s blog posts and thinks "That was utterly fascinating. I have no idea what he just said, but it was fascinating even so." It’s like brushing your fingertips over a stunning sculpture without even beginning to understand how you’d go about carving it.

Anyhow, I’m getting a similar feeling reading this group blog on game AI. Only partially penetrable by mere mortal minds, but interesting even so. (via Grand Text Auto)

Kindly let me dissuade you. It’s not the worst job around, but chances are you’ll hate the game you’re testing after a week of playing the same level repeatedly. I was a tester for a year and the only game I enjoyed testing was a multiplayer RTS.

Testers are generally under appreciated, under paid and usually the only place QA will get you promoted is into QA. Very rarely, you’ll get a shot at some sort of Assistant Production role but that’s about it. Personally, the people did make up for it though - working with gamers makes for great lunchtimes. Anyhow, here’s your link - an interview with test house VMC Labs.

Next Gen continues to churn out some great articles. They recently spoke to Cliffy B from Epic about Gears of War. Say what you will about the often colourful Cliff, he’s definitely got some interesting game ideas. I met him briefly at E3 2000 too and he’s just a lot of fun to talk games with, cool guy.

One thing this interview doesn’t mention is that he’s tried to integrate some of his ideas on what makes a good horror game into Gears of War, having played a bunch of horror titles and often been disappointed. So it’s a gorgeous yet gritty third person tactical horror shooter title with a professionally authored sci-fi script? Sign me up.

A CG Batman movie rendered to look like it’s done in Lego! Even better, Batman is voiced by Adam West and Mark Hamill voices The Joker. Fun stuff indeed, the Lego fight scenes in particular. (via 4cr)

It’s another Brukheimer job (read near the bottom) and, interestingly, series creator Jordan Mechner is going to write the script. It could actually be pretty good with those two behind it, though maybe that’s just wishful thinking given how terrible most game movies are.

Going by the "I missed it so you probably did too" principle, this is two years old but nonetheless excellent. A couple built the massive Star Destroyer Lego set over 10 hours and strung together 5000 shots of them doing it to make stop motion fun. (via digg again)

This insanely fiddly construction effort reminds me of a great Photochop from Fark of an IKEA guide to building the Death Star. Laughter guaranteed. It’s
saved at work, must dig it up and repost it here tomorrow.

With this and Google Video, they’ve just taken another big step towards… well, being even bigger. I’m playing with Google Earth now and it’s pretty cool though I’ve yet to try the actual useful features such as route planning. When you zoom in it takes a while to stream in the data but I just zoomed in from a picture of the globe down to a playing field in Kingston, Jamaica. Neato.

I can’t help but like Will Wheaton. There’s a nice interview on Slashdot with the former Star Trek fangirl pinup who’s now a voice actor, writer and geek. Good for him. Mildly amusing Trekkie trivia about the Engineering Bay:

The huge cutaway view of the Enterprise is filled with little graphical
inside jokes, like a hamster wheel where the engine should be, only two
restrooms at opposite ends of the ship…

I wish, dearly. Some ex-Shenmue developers form a new company and suddenly that means a sequel is on the way? Tenuous at best.

Someone at work pointed out this great look at just how much legal trouble Batman would be in from his recent big screen antics. Use of excessive force, illegal stock dealings and plenty more. Spoilers aplenty though. (From Overlawyered)

Ingenious. It uses a small compass and LCD overlay to show you how many laps you’ve done in the pool! Another one of those ideas that’s so good, yet so simple when you think about it. The designer is going to clean up, that’s for certain.