One of the sometimes amusing things about working in the games industry is that often I'm sworn to secrecy about the projects I'm working on. skate. shipped in late September of 2007 and I've been still employed since then, so I must have been working on something.
The truth can be somewhat revealed in this press release by EA. The skate. franchise is coming to both Nintendo Wii and DS platforms. There are separate teams working on both the Wii and DS versions. Though each game is definitely not a port, there are a few bits and pieces of core skate. technology that's made it into Skate It for the Wii. I'm happy to say some of the stuff I worked on made it into the Wii version.
Shoved into the end of the press release, almost as an afterthought is this last line:
"Separately, Skate 2 is also currently in development for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system."
I can finally say I'm working on the sequel to skate. Other than that, I can't say anything about new features nor release dates. I can say, however, I'm excited about what we have in store for the game playing public. So there you have it.
Though I've been quietly rooting for them since the second round, I'd like to publicly throw my support behind the Pittsburgh Penguins in this year's NHL playoffs. Yes, I realize it seems like a shallow move to only now declare my stance after the Pens have played 12 playoff games (winning 11 of them) but hey, they play an entertaining style of hockey.
Well, I better not write too much more or else my thoughts will turn back to memories of the spring of 1994 and then I'll get misty-eyed.
Based on just a few questions that I answered over the phone, it took only a couple hours for a mortgage broker to tell me how much home I could buy. I was good for the high end of the range I asked for. Actually, he said I could borrow much more. That's kinda scary.
Anyways, for what I asked for, my monthly mortgage payments wind up being half my income for the month. That's no fun. That amount, however, is based on a 25 year term. If I go for a 40 year mortgage, it goes down about $300, which puts it into the "slightly more reasonable" category.
In a previous post just below, I mentioned how I thought it might be interesting if I mentored nerds in high school about what's in store for them in the near future.
Over the weekend, I was able to discuss the matter with my lovely sister, while we dined at a Mother's Day dinner. She was kinda skeptical as to how I might officially describe this "mentoring program" to school officials. She's right I suppose, as I can't imagine how it might go over if I march into a high school office and say, "Give me your three biggest nerds. It's mentoring time."
I think I need to start off by naming it something more legit, like perhaps, "life coaching for exceptionally academically gifted students". In any case, my sister said she'd run the idea by some of her friends who are high school teachers. No one can accuse me of not trying to give back to the community!
Last but not related, the archives have been updated to the right.
I realize that the archive links to the right are about a month behind. In the process of getting my computer fixed, I rolled back the state of my system to before I had Visual C# installed. I need that to make a quick fix to the archiving program I wrote. I'll install Visual C# again tomorrow and update the archives. Thanks for your patience!
In other news, who managed to catch Samuel L. Jackson in Iron Man?
