Tonight is the night that the skate wrap party is taking place. This is only my second wrap party and my first EA one. Nokia held one for Shadow-Born but it turned out to be the lamest thing ever. Nokia's idea of a "good time" was to schedule a two-hour block of time at a pub. That two hour block happened to be 4-6pm on a Friday. Lots of people weren't able to attend. Nokia just bought us some drinks and appetizers.

EA does things a little bit differently. We've taken over most, if not all of a restaurant/bar downtown. They even printed out real tickets for the event. I already have my taxi voucher so that I can get home safely, sober or not so sober.

It should be lots of fun!

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For the upcoming dreary and grey Vancouver fall and winter, I've decided to spring into action. I think all of us have felt kinda "bleh" when it's all rainy and dark on the west coast. While moving to Hawaii would probably solve that, I've decided on a cheaper alternative.

I've decided replace the lighting at my desk with a full spectrum light bulb. While I don't think I fall under the classic definition of suffering from SAD, there are some days when I only feel like eating one doughnut because of the lack of sunlight.

If you think about it, modern human beings are outside a lot less compared to our early ancestors. In the winter, we get up before the sun has fully risen and spent all day inside at work. When it's time to leave, the sun has already gone down, and we arrive at home in darkness. That can't be good but here in Vancouver, we do this months at a time.

So, as an experiment, I purchased a 15W full spectrum bulb which gives off the equivalent amount of light from a regular 40-6oW bulb. These type of bulbs are said to closely recreate the same lighting conditions as if you were outside at noon on a clear day. Such bulbs also emit light that covers all wavelengths of the visible spectrum.

The first time I turned on the lamp, it was amazing how white the light was. I'm not talking about brightness but just how pure the light was. Looking around, I was shocked at how "yellow" the lighting was around the studio. In sharp contrast to the full spectrum bulb, everything else was bathed in this "yellow" glow.

The benefits of using this new bulb are supposed to be less eye strain, more attentiveness, better emotional well-being, and better sleep patterns at night. That's quite the list for a single bulb but it certainly can't hurt to try.

Of course, the bulb burnt after the second hour it was on, well short of the 10 000 hour rating. I phoned the distributor and they're sending me a replacement in the mail. Today, I had to go back to my regular lighting which seems quite different now.

I'll let you know if I become the cheeriest guy at the studio.

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At least in North America, today was the first day that the general public could buy Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. Even though, at least in my opinion, skate. and THPG come at skateboarding in completely different directions, both the media and the gaming public have pitted each game against each other in some fierce competition. In reality, I hope there is room in the marketplace for two skateboarding games, one offering a more realistic experience while the other goes for a more over the top style.

It's interesting to note however, that there has been very little marketing for THPG. Behind Guitar Hero, I would guess Hawk has been Activision's best money-maker. Given that, you'd think that Activision would have cranked up the hype machine right up to a feverish pitch to coincide with this week's release date. At least to me, this appears to have not happened. There is the obligatory web site but that's standard. Activision also released a demo (which didn't include a lot of anticipated features). They apparently aired one commercial during the Monday Night football game. A few web sites got to play THPG but these previews were published at the tail end of the summer. It's actually almost eerie how quiet things have been in the Hawk camp for the last several weeks. For something that's the perennial blockbuster, why go silent for weeks before and including launch?

It's possible that Activision is trying something new and keeping the hype to a minimum and just letting the game (and the demo) speak for itself. I'm not a marketing guy but something tells me that's not the reason.

The most interesting thing about all of this is the lack of reviews for THPG. The standard operating procedure for game development is to release review copies of a game to web and print publications days or even weeks in advance of the launch. The reason for this is to have these reviews ready for consumers to read on or before the big day. So if on Tuesday, I read that game XYZ got seven reviews with 9/10, I'll lean towards getting XYZ since reviewers have played it and liked it. It's usually a good idea to get your game out early to reviewers because for the most part, it will help sales.

So back to THPG now. As of early Wednesday morning, there are no reviews of THPG anywhere online. You can check Metacritic and GameRankings but neither site has anything. The word on the street is that Activision did not send out any review copies to any reviewers. Now they might have but embargoed the reviews until later this week. I really don't know what this means and all I can do is speculate which I won't do here. Is this a good sign or a bad one? Who knows at this point?

All of this could be moot by next week however. If seven days pass and THPG sells 100K copies on next-gen then no one will really care about reviews. Or the reviews will come in (and they will) and nothing but praise will be showered upon THPG, thus leading to massive sales.

What happens, this is a very interesting week and I look forward to every twist and turn! In the end, I hope there's room for everyone up top.

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The archives to the right have been once again updated by hand. It's easy to do but quite tedious. I really need to write some sorta perl script or something to automate the process. In any case, you can now revisit "tooth extraction week".

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After finishing the fantastic BioShock, I've put a new game in my Xbox 360. Entitled The Darkness, you start off as a low-level mobster trying to make sense of a hit gone bad.

Early on the in the game I acquired an Xbox achievement worth ten points that was unlike any other achievement I had seen. Achievement points are awarded in every Xbox 360 game and are given for completing specific game tasks. They usually are handed out for passing a level or killing a certain amount of enemies.

This time around, however, was different. Early on, your avatar visits his girlfriend at her new apartment. Jenny gives you a message left by a friend of yours and you're to call him. After you read the message, Jenny motions for you to sit on the couch with her because she wants to watch some TV. If you sit down with her it turns into a fairly realistic simulation of what it's like to sit on a couch and watch TV with your girlfriend (or so I've been told... ha!). You start off sitting side-by-side but as time goes on, she'll lean over and you guys hold hands. Then she'll put her head on your shoulder and she'll give you a kiss.

Now all this time, you're able to press the "A" button to get up and leave. Now if you remain on the couch, however, Jenny will eventually mention how tired she is and she'll fall asleep on your lap. Aww... cute. Anyways, once she's asleep, you'll be awarded the "Romantic" achievement, worth ten points and described as "real men stick around for their ladies". If you get up early, you're just a dork and you'll get no such points.

I've received hundreds upon hundreds of points for winning car races, killing Nazis, discovering treasure, and all sorts of crazy stuff but this is the first time I've gotten points for just being a good boyfriend.

Incidently, the TV watching portion is pretty neat too. When Jenny turns on the TV, she puts it on a channel that's showing To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck. Because this movie is in the public domain, the developers were able to include the entire film with the game. So, it's entirely possible to watch the whole movie in Jenny's apartment.

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So what you're seeing above is the signage for my chain of lobster restaurants in the fictional city of San Vanelona, which is the setting for the game skate. In the early summer, one of the artists came around asking some of the programmers if we wanted our names emblazoned on some city signs. I said yes of course.

We couldn't choose what our names would be associated with but we were able to give suggestions. I think I chose some sorta fruit stand for whatever reason. That seems pretty stupid now. I'm glad they gave me a lobster restaurant instead because I love lobster. I also like how it's simply "the place for lobster".

So if you're ever skating along the cobblestones of the Old Town district, keep an eye out for San Van's best place for lobster!

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