Now that Helene and I have been in Edmonton for three weeks, the question I get from my family and most of my friends is, naturally: how do you find it?
It’s a question I haven’t had the chance to fully figure out yet. Edmonton is definitely not a city that makes a strong first impression, compared to say, Shanghai or even San Francisco. And work-wise, I’m still new and figuring things out, and most definitely in my “honeymoon period”.
But with that in mind, how is it? It’s pretty good. Prettyyy, pretty good.
Work-wise, I have to admit: BioWare is a good studio. I’m impressed by the stories I hear of working there, and by the people I work with. It’s not all rosy and some projects are difficult, but people here, from HR to programmers, all care deeply about making good games. They want to work together, and they’re absolutely open to working out problems. There’s a laid-back yet hard-working energy at play in the studio. I like it, and I feel I get to contribute to a great studio.
City-wise, well… As my colleague and (new) friend Dorian puts it: “I expected to hate it, but to my surprise, I’m rather neutral towards it.” Neutral is a good description; it really ain’t that bad. I expected a big Western Canada Laval, but Edmonton is (thankfully) more complex than that. People are very, very nice here, and seem open-minded and curious. The city does have an overabundance of shopping centers, and there isn’t all that much to do in the evening, but we’re finding our own comforts and settling in surprisingly quickly.
Sure, there’s the -40 C weather and the unbearably long roads without sidewalks; but there’s also the little shops on Whyte Ave., and the people such as my next-door neighbor who set up his telescope on the night of the lunar eclipse so everyone entering the building could get a peak at it. In all my years of living in Montreal, I never knew my neighbors. That has to count for something, right?
I can’t say I prefer Edmonton to Montreal, because I don’t. But it seems to me that the combination of work and the city might actually be worthwhile. Combined together, they’re giving me a purpose and a sense of belonging that I find quite appealing right now.
Let’s see how it turns out once the honeymoon period is over!
Posted under BioWare, Edmonton by Daniel on 22.02.2008
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Yesterday (February 11th) was my first day at BioWare. Yep, that means I’m officially employed again! Whew, it was about time.
Obviously, my first day went by in a blur. It’s amazing to see how busy I am already, and it took all of 4 hours for me to get sucked into meetings and critical questions for the project. That’s alright, though… After one month of inactivity, it’s good to be back in the thick of things.
I don’t have much of an impression yet, given that I’m still learning the inner workings of BioWare, and the dynamics of my new team. All I can say is that, as far as first impressions go, BioWare made a good one. The atmosphere in the studio is friendly and relaxed, but when people focus on work, they do so with intensity and dedication. It feels good to be part of this.
More on work later! As it stands, it’s time for me to go to work for my second day. No rest for the wicked, as they say.
Posted under BioWare by Daniel on 12.02.2008
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Helene and I have arrived safe and sound in Edmonton, where we’re now busy getting settled in.
Our cat, Xishi, had the toughest week of all of us, given that she spent a whole day terrified as movers took away all the furniture, then had to share my parents’ apartment with two cats. And if it weren’t enough, she had to go through a Montreal-Edmonton flight, where she spent six hours in the cargo hold, at a temperature around 9C.
So I felt pretty terrible when I picked her up, but as soon as we put down her cage in our new (temporary) appartment, she got busy exploring the place like nothing happened. I think she’s the most hardcore traveller of the three of us; she did the same thing after an exhausting trip from Shanghai to Montreal.
So anyway, Edmonton, here we are! It’s time to see what we can make of this city. I start at BioWare next Monday, and the time in-between will be dedicated to trying to make ourselves at home here.
A HUGE thanks to my buddy Chris, who welcomed me here with open arms, and had a killer recommendation for late-night pizza!
Posted under Edmonton, Travel by Daniel on 05.02.2008
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You can say I’ve been with Katamari Damacy since Day One. It first showed up on my radar in March of 2004, when it became something of an underground hit sensation at Ubisoft Shanghai, no doubt having been discovered by a Chinese colleague with his finger on the Japanese game market pulse.
“This is exactly the sort of game that will never be released in North America,” was the general consensus of everybody who played it – and almost invariably fell in love with it. Myself, I was amazed at how this was possibly the first game I was playing with absolutely no end goal in mind – something not even the very open-ended The Sims and Animal Crossing can truly claim. Once I discovered the “infinite mode” in the first game, I would load up a map, and stop only when I had rolled up everything. It was that charming and pleasant.
At E3 in 2004, I was delighted to see a Katamari Damacy stand at the Namco booth. A Namco representative explained to me that they were considering releasing it in the US, but were unsure. I gushed about the game to the stunned Namco employee, and my secret fantasy is that I somehow helped tip the scales in favor of an American release. The guy then invited me to play their demo, and stopped short of explaining the controls when he saw me roll away with wanton enthusiasm and skill. “Wow, you have played before.” You bet I have.
Katamari Damacy was simply the best game I played on PS2. When I saw it was coming to X360, I was jubilant, and when the reviews rolled in (hah!), I didn’t care that it was “more of the same”. The sequel, We ♥ Katamari, had been exactly that, and I had loved it dearly as well.
Except, well, it is more of the same, and this time I can’t quite get into it. Part of it is that although it’s a game almost identical in game mecanics to the original, it’s not quite the same in spirit. What drew me to the first game was not so much the act of rolling things up itself, but rather the sheer novelty of it, the charm and the wit in the game’s visuals, and the delightfully upbeat soundtrack. In other words, it was something new and crazy and weird. Which is not what you get when you boot up the third title in a series.
In terms of change, the one major innovation in Beautiful Katamari’s gameplay is not for the better. The King now asks you to roll specific objects in priority over others in your balls, and this detracts from the spirit of exploration of the previous titles. No longer are you simply strolling around and admiring the objects you run into; you’re now gauging all of them for the desired quality, and are reluctant to go in a rolling spree if the objects are not the desired type.
And so, despite my fondness for the Prince of all Cosmos and his universe, I feel I’ve grown out of our relationship. After I finished Katamari Damacy, I didn’t so much want more of the same thing, as I wanted other games that would surprise and delight me, and show me gaming’s immense potential. In that respect, a Katamari sequel is somewhat besides the point. (And to Katamari’s defense, it did spur many game developpers to dare more in their design.)
What I hope is that Beautiful Katamari reaches a whole new audience on the X360, and that many people experience the sheer novelty I experienced booting up the first game in 2004. As for me, it is, I guess, time to move on.
So goodbye, Katamari, and thanks for the memories!
Posted under Gaming by Daniel on 01.02.2008
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