An Open Letter to the Western World (RE: Paris)

In the aftermath of the recent attacks in Paris and Beirut, my heart goes out to the survivors and the families of the victims. Islamic State, which has taken responsibility for the attacks, has perpetrated yet another horrible and vicious act of terrorism, which will no doubt be retaliated against.

But, from the reactions I'm seeing, they have already won.

Terrorism, is, by definition, the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. It is the act of terrorizing other people. Make no mistake, they want us to be afraid. Because our fear is the best recruitment tool they have. Because fear breeds hate. And the hate that fear breeds has a wider target than the fear it stems from. Even before the identities of the attackers were confirmed, internet comment sections and watercooler discussions were filled with fingerpointing and calls for all Muslims to be expunged, regardless of who they are or what they want. After each act of terrorism or mass shooting, regardless of who the culprit turns out to be, too many members of the western world voice mistrust or hatred of the entire religion.

With so much hate directed towards them when they have done nothing wrong, done nothing at all but be born into, and continue to follow a major world religion, is it really any wonder so many young Muslims from the western world have gone over to IS? When our culture treats them as terrorists, treats them as evil by default, how can we still be perplexed when they decide the whole world is against them with the lone exception of a solitary hate group?

We have all fallen into IS' trap. We are right where they want us, doing exactly what they want us to do. They want us to equate all who follow Islam with them. Because when we do, it makes many Muslims feel like IS is the only place that will have them. Our fear makes us hate them, which makes them hate us, which in turn causes them to commit acts for IS that cause more fear. In my field this is called a positive feedback loop - one achievement makes subsequent achievements easier. Only in this case, the "achievement" is war.

By acting exactly as they expect us to, we have continually made IS closer to its goal. They played us like a fiddle, and everyone, whether they know it or not, is dancing to the tune.

That tune has to stop. It has to stop now. We have to look IS in the eye and say "We are wise to your game. And we are no longer afraid." We have to respond to their attacks, not with fear, not with hate, but with only compassion for the victims. We have to stop viewing People of Arabic descent as Arabs first, People second.
If we are to defeat IS, either militarily or politically, we must first defeat our prejudices. Because our prejudices are directly feeding them new blood.

So it's time to stop. No more fear. No more blind hate. If you must hate, do it with open eyes. Hate the leadership of IS directly. The religion is not to blame, it has been twisted. The average IS foot soldier is not to blame, he has been duped. It is IS' leaders, and their propaganda machine, that are to blame.

So let's stop feeding that machine. If we give it love instead of hate, it will surely choke.

Enough with the command-line tools!

There's a large subset of the game development industry (and any software creation, really) that thinks "nobody but me is going to use this, and I know how it works, so I don't need to do any documentation or make a UI for this."
I don't like this way of thinking. It's naive to think that, if you make something really cool or useful, that others aren't going to want to use or license your tech and use the same tools you used to do so. It's even more naive to think that down the line, when you want to re-use or expand upon your code, you'll remember exactly how everything works. I could take a look at something I wrote 3 months ago, sans comments, and only have a vague idea of how it works.

And even the best developers fall victim to this. Valve software, who have in the past have made their games very mod friendly, have a directory full of hard to use, barely documented command line tools, which effectively lock off some of their coolest engine features. In some cases, such as their material system, it was necessary for the community to use, so some of the more code-minded members reverse engineered the material tools and created gui-based tools to use them. In other cases, such as their flowmap technology introduced in Left 4 Dead 2, there is literally no support in the tools. By reports, Valve uses a plugin for the software Houdini to generate the textures that store flowmaps. Houdini is commercial software, so its understandable that they can't release that with the free SDK. But their custom plugin could have been, and the community could have then reverse-engineered it to work with other, more accessible softwares.

But I'm sick of seeing bad tools that are bad simply because people thought "Eh, nobody else will use it". By the simple virtue of me seeing it, that has been proven untrue.

So make your tools under the assumption that you're releasing it, fully compiled, to the public in some way, shape, or form. It will take a teeny bit more effort to make the GUI and write the documentation, but when other people potentially use it down the line, they'll get more out of it, and, more importantly to you, your workflow will be boosted by the fact that you have an easier to use process for whatever it is your tool does.

Another Apocolyptic Story

AN: I spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the world. Is that healthy? I don't think it's healthy.

It was, he reflected, quite ironic. The hyperbole, he meant. Every day people would overreact over small things, saying it was such a terrible thing to have happen, that they had the worst day ever, that it was the end of the world.

They weren't prepared for the actual end.

But then, who among us would have been? He mused. Who could have seen it coming, the sudden military action, unexplained disappearances, threats of war… Entire countries and their largely innocent populations being wiped off the map like spilt milk from a countertop. ICBMs coming to life and stretching from their hidden underground tombs, reaching for the sky as bombers awoke from their steel cradles. More nuclear material than any single group could have even have estimated having been harnessed for weapons, now hurtling towards each major population centre as the world's superpowers raced to eliminate their enemy before the mutually assured destruction hit them, so they would have the brief moment of victory before being engulfed in the white shroud of fission.

And what for? He wondered, taking a swig of cheap scotch - the closest one at hand. Why must such short-sightedness happen? He had seen it time and time again. Any difference, no matter how small, how insignificant, being used to pry people into separate groups, and then those groups being shaken into a frothing rage at the mere mention of their former partners. Each group thought themselves superior to the other, more intelligent, more righteous.

How wrong they were.

Everyone had left now, warned of the imminent threat, to search for a basement or a school desk to hide under. Likely, he thought, more than a few had grabbed a nearby acquaintance for a final 'rendezvous' before the bombs hit. Instead, he sat alone, on a borrowed chair, on the roof of his building. Funny how he thought of it like that. His. He didn't own the deed. But then, in a few minutes, such papers wouldn't matter any more. A gentle breeze caressed his face.

He took another swig and stared out at the landscape before him, the concrete and steel and glass, the water and trees and grass. The beauty of it all, once the people were cleared out. They should have made more buildings like that, open and interesting, and intertwined just ever so slightly with nature, instead of walls.

But it was too late to fix that. Too late for regrets.

The story of his life.

Swig.

He could see the  bomber now, a speck on the horizon accompanied by an escort of three smaller specks.

"It's time then, is it? Think you can still press the button, knowing what you're about to do? What you're not going to be able to go home to?" He stood and took another swig of alcohol. "Are you ready to kill a million people with a single press of a button?" He paused, and muttered. "Has someone already done the same to your family?" He took a final swig and tossed the empty bottle over the precipice. "ALRIGHT THEN! I HAD A GOOD RUN!" His time came too quick. "I'M READY FOR YOU!" He didn't want to go. "PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON!" He didn't have a choice. Nobody did anymore. He sensed, rather than saw, a change in the specks in the sky. The bomb had dropped. Soon it would be only burning light and searing heat. He closed his eyes.

"Farewell, old friends."

The bomb blossomed, it's flower of heat and smoke blooming into the sky, engulfing  the centre of the city. The initial flash over, he opened his eyes and raised his arms to greet the oncoming shockwave with an embrace.

There was a loud roar

And then,

Silence.

Feburary 18, 2013: A retrospect

Last year I committed myself to doing something that terrified me. Something that could have potentially ruined multiple friendships.
Yet something necessary.
A year ago today, I did it, and got the best case scenario.
The day afterwards, I wrote this.

The time has finally come

To bite the bullet and hope it doesn’t explode in my face

Long have I awaited this day

-Too long, long enough

Dreaded it, craved it.

A simple answer is all I seek,

To know which way to turn on the path forward.

Where to plant my feet on my next step.

She leans, waits.

-Perhaps she already knows.

I grow cold as the words spill out, and I know there is no turning back

It is time to face the consequences, whatever they may be.

I know it won’t turn out perfectly for me.

If it could, it would have already.

-But I need this, to erase one last regret.

Better to regret doing it than not

However painful the outcome may be.

She smiles sadly, and answers.

The best I could have hoped for.

Everything risked, but nothing lost.

A few quiet words exchanged afterwards, I say my thanks

Though I can’t remember If they left my head.

The feelings fade, knowing now nothing will come of them.

But she will always be more than just a friend. She will be the friend who gave me what I needed most,

Not because of something she did

but

Simply because of who she was.

Because

On that day, I stopped being a coward.

Stopped hating myself for what I failed to do.

Knew I could do it again.

Because I did, I bit the bullet.

And it didn’t go off.

An Open Letter to My Valentine

Dearest Valentine,
I have a few women in my life. They are all genuinely awesome people, and I care for all of them. I am glad to be able to call them my friends.
But they are not you. You are more than a friend. You are the the one person I will be in love with for life, that state of true, mutual attraction that reaches the top of a hard-to-define scale so many poets have tried to describe.
We enjoy each others company. We get each others jokes, share each others woes, and just being around you makes me feel at ease, like the world is truly a place where miracles can happen.
I long to be with you, to hold your hand in mine, to see the smile upon your beautiful face as you look upon mine.
You are the Kyoko to my Sayaka, except straight, 'cause I'm a guy.
You are not the Juliet to my Romeo, because that play was just depressing.
And yet... I do not know you. Or if I do, you have yet to reveal yourself.
If it's not too much trouble, could we meet sometime soon? I know we have our entire lives, but every moment spent without you seems an eternity.
(And I don't know about you, but it'll take me somewhere between a week and 12 months to realize you are who you are, so I'd like to get on that as soon as we can manage it. Let me know when you're free and I'll find some time in my schedule.)
I write this in the hopes that one day you will look back and read it. I know I'll have many other opportunities to say it, but I want to say it now as well because it cannot be said enough.
Happy Valentines Day. I love you.

A First Year's Rant

The following is an archive of a Facebook Post I made following certain unsavory comments.

It has come to my attention that some of us, I won't name names, have been saying that others are "Bad Game Devs" behind their backs.
Not only is this shit-talk, it is BULLshit-talk.
Come now, are any of us truly "good" game devs? Is anyone good at this when they first start? Did Newell and Lombardi know the first thing about developing a game when they founded Valve? Did Romero, Hall, and the two Carmacks know what they were doing when they started id? Bungie founder Alexander Seropian? Gavin and Rubin of Naughty Dog?
No. They got where they are, where their companies are, in this industry through trial, hard work, dedication, and a whole lot of error.
Nobody starts out good. They have to carve their way through.
Now, I consider myself a decent level designer when it comes to Additive-space BSP-based engines. And I should be, since I started doing level design in general at 10 or 3, depending on how you define the practice. Were my scribbled floor plans from when I was 8 any good?
There's a damn good reason I completely restarted my Half-Life mod three times before settling in to it, why those earlier revisions no longer exist in any form. There's a reason I ultimately scrapped it. Even now, settled in to Source as I am, the team I'm on have just gutted two of our areas to restart from scratch. Because we learned from working, from making mistakes in those spots and applying the lessons we learned to the others until the broken parts were too unseemly in comparison.
I have been working with those tools for 7 years and I'm still learning. I'm still improving.
I'm still not up to snuff.

We're all still first years. Are ANY of us ready for a job in the industry? Hell no!
Will those of us who tough it out and stay for the next 4 years be among the best batch of new blood flowing in when we're done? Hell yeah!

But none of us are good game devs yet. Do not presume to be any better than your peers. We are all equals here, so get your heads out of your asses. If the student is willing to learn, should the master turn them away?

And for those of you who have been accused of being below these bloated heads, I present to you a challenge:
Beat them. Prove the worth I know you have. Aim to make your group's GDW game the best of the year.
I know I will. Jeff out.

What is it about?

What is it about?
It's a tough question. A long answer.
What is it about? It's about Life. The Human condition.
It's about happiness and dispair, satisfaction and remorse, love and hate, violence...and peace.
It's about never giving up on the things you care about, protecting them with all your being.
It's about the lengths people will go to to do just that.
It's about how someone's actions and someone's spirit don't always match up.
It's about moving on when someone you feel you need doesn't return your feelings, because there's someone so much better waiting for you down the road, even if you don't realize it.

It's something that saved my life. It may seem odd, even foolish to you that I say that. You weren't there. You didn't feel what I felt. That...sense of resonance, from inside a dark place, that assurance that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
It's about knowing that no matter how bad things get, as long as you carry on, it's not the end. That you can prevail against all odds, against all naysayers, and make a difference.
It's about the powers we all have in a world that wants to tear us apart.

Yes. Most of all, it's about Hope.

Hope.

[Backlog] Writing: Wastelander - Part One

The following is from my catalog of un- or privately- published short stories. This is an experiment in first-person writing based on the Fallout series created by Interplay and now owned and developed by Bethesda.

I walk down the deserted streets, hunting rifle in hand, scanning the road ahead for scavenging opportunities and hostiles. My eyes settle on a shop with boarded up windows and a faded sign reading “Pawn”. Creeping closer, I notice that the door isn’t secured; I should be able to enter with no problem. Suddenly, my foot descends onto something squishy. I look down and see a man staring up at me, eyes glazed over. I bend down to feel for a pulse; as I expect, he’s dead. A quick search of his roughly sewn pockets produces a piece of bent piping and a single bottle cap. Pocketing the cap, I straighten, then freeze; I hear the sound of footsteps echoing from a nearby alley. Training my rifle at the opening, I steel myself and wait.

                A tattooed face emerges, with a Mohawk dyed bright purple. The man is covered in dirt and flecks of blood, his clothes torn, and he has a Stent model assault rifle in his hands. Definitely a raider. I squeeze the trigger and send a .32 round into his frontal lobe. Cries come from inside the alley, and I rebolt my rifle. He wasn’t alone. A trio of raiders, two male, one female, dash out guns blazing. I fire, hitting one of the men in the arm and throwing off his aim. Again, the other male crumples, an oozing wound in his chest. Again, and I bite nothing but brick. Again, and the woman is on the ground bleeding, still firing her Shanxi 17 pistol at me. I try to load another round into my chamber, but end up with nothing. The rifle’s empty, and I have no backup magazines. No ammo. The rifle hits the dust, and I pull my sidearm, a 10mm N99. I plink three rounds each into the two of them, and a bullet whizzes by me from behind.  I turn firing, only to see another 15 or so raiders. Too many to take on alone. I backpedal, firing blindly at the swarm. I see one toss a grenade just in time to hit the deck, or maybe too late, as I summersault from my chest to my back from the force of the blast. Getting up, I make a break for it, firing behind me with no idea what I’m hitting. Click. Eject magazine, reload. I register a turn in the road too late to make it, maybe too late to stop. I can either try to stop and face the raiders or run out of space to put my feet. I make a split-second decision to give jumping a shot; What’s the worst that could happen? I die anyway? Hitting the ground hard and stumbling, I whip around just in time to put a lucky shot into the head of one of my pursuers. Another makes the jump, and my perception of time slows down. Pause. Calculate the odds. Time enough for three shots. Chest, Chest, Leg. I fire, my entire world moving in slow motion. Bang. Miss. Bang. Hit. Bang. Miss. Doesn’t matter. He can’t chase me because he’s dead before he hits the ground. I turn and dash only to feel a searing pain in my leg. I fall, blood gushing out of the wound. I roll onto my back and unload on the raider who shot me. More are still coming behind him. I pull out my only two frag grenades, which I had hoped to save for selling. Toss. Wait. Blast. Toss the other. They know to keep their heads down this time. Putting pressure on my thigh to slow the bleeding, I crawl into the first unbarricaded door I see, careful to leave no blood trail for them to follow inside. I collapse against a battered reception desk, panting heavily and holding onto the cold metal of my 10mm for dear life, waiting for bullets or men to fly through the door. They never come. Instead, I hear the shouts and whoops of the raider gang fade into the distance. Lowering my pistol I heave a heavy sigh of relief. I take a moment to check my pip-boy to ensure it wasn’t broken by any of the explosions or falls, then pull off my shirt, cold sweat clinging to my back. Unsheathing my belt knife, I begin the process of cutting a new set of tourniquets.  I wrap one around my leg and pack the others into my right-hand pocket, then carefully stand up. A bit shaky, but I should be fine as long as I find some antibiotics soon. I reload and check my gun, then limp further into the dark confines of the unmarked building that has become my salvation.

I only hope it doesn’t also become my doom.

On Deadlines

I'll make this simple.
I don't. Like. Deadlines.

I really don't. I'd rather have a serial killer looming over me than a deadline. At least with the serial killer there's a chance that they'll miss or you won't be their target. With a deadline, it's a sure thing.
You can sometimes use deadlines to motivate people, of course, but I always get the sinking feeling when a deadline draws closer that whatever my assignment is, won't be finished in time.
Nobody else I work with ever seems to share this feeling. "It's fine," they'll say "We've got plenty of time."
Well, no, no we don't. By the time I'm stressing about a deadline, there's next to no time left compared to the scale of the project and the amount of time a day that can be spent on it. But it's no big deal to anyone else, for some reason. I've even had a team member abandon a project on the final day, after assuring everyone else that his work would get done, then not doing it. I ended up having to be the one scrambling to finish it, of course. We did not do well on that particular venture.
But of course, it's fine as long as I'm the one holding the bag, right? Not your problem.

So if you ever work with me, and we have limited time, don't slack off. I prefer to have time to breathe at the end of a project, time to relax or add that one last optional feature. And if you leave me alone to the wolves, you won't like it when I get back.

Stand back! ... ... CLEAR!

[This post was originally supposed to be made at the beginning of the month. Dunno why it didn't get published]

Greetings to my small (And, according to the traffic stats, comprised of a single russian using google chrome) audience.
So, it's been quite a while, eh? Have a seat by the campfire, and let me tell you what's been going on with ol' Jeff. Since my last post, 3 months or so ago, I've started attending school at a small technology university. The atmosphere here is great, and I've met a lot of like-minded individuals, at least some of whom I will work with in the future to create magic. I've also been stuffing my face at the all-you-can-eat buffet provided by my residence meal plan.
Oh, and before I forget, I've started another blog on wordpress, this time for school. I figured I should use a different service, so I don't get confused and post personal stuff on there, or school assignments here. That sounds like something I would do.
Aside from that, I've been trying to find some time to work on the Hazard Course in what little free time I have. For some reason, the team hasn't gotten fed up with my new absenteeism and fired me yet. I guess I must be valuable to them or something, despite the level designers being the biggest part of the team, and thus making me more expendable.
All is, of course, quiet on the romantic front, (I have a blog, so that's probably not hard to guess.) and I think that's how I like it. More manageable than the alternative, which in my experience consists of a single action; feeling like crap. Of course, neither of these scenarios actually has any romance involved, but, the chances of taking a third option have always been pretty slim, no?
And that's been the monthly quota of joking self-deprecation filled. Which means I won't have to do any on my birthday, which is coming up in the near future. And by near future I mean before November.

In news that's more relevant to the actual focus of this blog, I've been playing a bit of the Battlefield 4 beta. Now, having never played any of the other games in the Battlefield franchise, this means I'm really very crap at it. But I manage to kill between 2 and 6 people every 800-ticket match, as well as assist in a lot of point captures, so I'm not totally useless. I'm still on the fence about buying the full game when it comes out, partially because the Battlefield franchise, like just about every other modern military-themed FPS out there, isn't exactly known for its strong singleplayer, and I am primarily singleplayer focused. The other main reason is Origin, EA's craptastic steam alternative. Now, to play the beta, I had to sign up for it, so my soul has already been sold. But something about keeping it on my hard drive just doesn't sit well with me. It's mostly because the interface is just so much bloat. It starts off on the store page, rather than your games library (I suspect as a not-so-subtle hint that EA wants more money from you) and when launching the Battlefield 4 beta (the only thing I have on Origin at the moment) it simply launches the battlelog site in your favorite browser. The site acts as your character options menu and a server list. What, EA, too cheap to integrate server browsing into Origin? Don't even want to let Dice put one in their game? What is this? It also makes me question whether or not I'll be able to play my hypothetically-bought copy of Battlefield 4 offline if, say, EA goes under, or I, god forbid, go out into the country (where my parents live, for instance) for a bit. Origin does appear to have an offline mode, but will it work with Battlefield 4? Hell if I know.

Anyway, I'll try to get my time management in order, keep abreast of any developments in the industry (or my personal life), and keep the updates a little more frequent than every 16 months. Until th

Is game development a 'real' job?

I get the impression that most people think game developers are lazy programmers who know nothing of the world but their code.
This isn't true.
I'm of the philosophy that good game developers have to know not just the how, but the why- Why something is designed a certain way, why it works like that in real life. To simulate false worlds, we need a broad understanding of the real one; Not just programming and art, but physics, history, politics. We need to know the ins and outs of the physical world and human culture. To create realistic places, an understanding of architecture is required, in addition to light engineering to ensure such designs are plausible. To write a fantastic story, human motivations must be understood and utilized.

In short, to create a new world, you must fully understand the one you have now. I've sometimes said that a level designer takes all the programming, all the art assets standing on their own, and turns them into an actual, playable game. In a similar sense, all developers do this, but using the building blocks of the world to create their parts.

And this isn't all practical knowledge, either; There's a healthy dose of philosophy in there too.
You remember Pokemon, right? Of course you do. Each generation of Pokemon has had a different underlying philosophy, from the simple exploration of a new world present in Gen I's Kanto Region, to the environmental messages present in Gen III's Hoen games. Generation IV went even further, with the library in Sinnoh's Canalave city containing tales on the subject of creation and the duality of man. Pretty deep stuff for a kid's game, isn't it?
(Maybe that's why so many parents and "activist" groups were so adamant about banning the series back in the 90s.)

Now, of course, that's not a catch-all example; a lot of games are designed without thought or deeper meaning. And you don't need to include a philosophical standpoint in a game to make it entertaining. But my point remains, you need to be a lot broader than just the ability to make a game - to truly design one, and create one, worth the time and money it takes, you need to know not only how to program it, but what makes it fun, and how the world you're creating works in relation to the real one. So we're back to the thesis;  You need to know philosophy, history, politics, science, architecture, a vast array of knowledge from a vast array of disciplines, each building on one another to create a fuller understanding of how everything works and fits together.

So not only is game development a real job, it's many.

Review: 007: Agent Under Fire

About a week ago I stopped by the local used game store and found a copy of 007: Agent Under Fire for the Gamecube. Now, having played the game before it, The World Is Not Enough (N64), (Based off of the movie of the same name) and being an owner of the game after it, Nightfire (GCN), (Not based off the movie of the same name. If there is a movie called 'Nightfire') I figured I'd pick it up and add it to my game collection.

Oh dear god what have I done.

Okay, first off some background that I didn't know at the time. Agent under fire is actually what became of the planned PS2 & PC versions of TWINE. I guess they took too long, or too many liberties, and it kind of morphed into an original game instead of an alternate-console version of a movie game or something. It's also worth noting that the game itself is from just over a decade ago and uses a modified Quake III engine.

Neither of these things is a valid excuse.

It was pretty terrible. I'm not going to say it's the worst thing I've ever played, I've played a lot of crappy mods in my time, but for a commercial game, there are more than enough questionable design choices to put it down below par. Now, before I go and rip right into it, there are a couple things I feel I should mention: I am a James Bond fan. I enjoyed playing TWINE on the N64 and Nightfire on the gamecube. This means I SHOULD have a positive bias for the game, instead of a negative one against it. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to look the other way and ignore the poor quality of a game bearing the Bond name and the EA logo. I didn't even do that for Ricochet, and Valve is my favourite developer.

Okay, explanation done, into the things they did wrong.

For starters, the first thing that hit me was the poor UI. You cannot navigate the menus using the anolog stick. Your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to use the control pad. It is MANDATORY. You also have to manually save your game; In most Gamecube games I've come across they do that automatically after each level once you've opened your profile.
What's an FPS without guns? Answer: Boring. Unfortunately, so are the guns in AUF. Most of them are highly nerfed from both a gameplay and realism standpoint, the bigger guns tend to have tiny reports instead of beefy blasts, and everything is as inaccurate as Fox News. Speaking of innacurate, the P2K (Or, as it's known in real life, Walther P99) has 6 rounds. (12 with the "Golden Clip" unlock) 6. Rounds. The PPK (Generally rebranded as the PP7 in Bond games) has 7 in it's standard .32 chambering. You want to know what the P99 has? 12 if you're using .40 bullets, and 15 if you're using the more common 9mm round. There is literally no reason to have it only hold 6 shots except to make it less useful to the player. Especially when it does a tiny amount of damage and has basically no reserve ammo. And has no suppressor in the first level. (Okay 007, you're going to covertly infiltrate this facility by making as much noise as humanly possible) Some of the other weapons are untrue to their real life versions as well, such as the AK-47 that does a miniscule amount of damage and fires very quickly or the Mp5 that can't hit anything. Aside from that, the animations are pretty undetailed, but I guess that's a factor of the era the game is from.

Your highly perceptive enemies, on the other hand, have no trouble using weapons, firing from the hip while moving with more accuracy than you get ever, all while shooting you in the face with their infinite ammo supply. Did I mention that each hit knocks the camera around? Hard to shoot them in the head (the only sure way to kill them in 5 shots or less) when they do that. Especially with the small hitboxes. They have pretty bad voice acting too, and only a few lines, none of which are context sensitive in terms of gameplay when they really should be.
"Get back here!"
"I'm standing still, dumbass."
Oh yeah, and they're psychic. Once they detect you, they track you through walls, shooting the entire time, only pausing to take cover. And they detect you a lot, at least when they're not having brainfarts, because they can hear the light footsteps of a highly trained secret agent from metres away unless you're crouching.

And nobody is going to crouch-walk much in this game, at least not the GCN version, because there's no toggle for it, and the position of the X button makes it hard to hold down while having fingers free to reload or shoot. Also, you can't strafe while aiming, which means you can't lean out of cover to line up a perfect, satisfying shot. Or aim at all, really, without being stationay and standing, because you can't aim from cover. There are also a couple of jumping puzzles that don't really work because of the floaty-yet low height jumping. Blame the level designers.

Who themselves have a lot to answer for. Clipped off railings prevent you from hopping down, things that should probably be breakable aren't, the levels are completely linear, and basically everything you interact with has the same flashing button texture. From a combat perspective, it's pretty poor as well, relying heavily on enemy spawns to provide gameplay. In the final level, there's actually a part where they rely on the old (and terrible) practice of infinite spawns to push the player towards their goal. Which is between the player's position and the spawnpoint.

The gadgetry you use to progress through the missions is decent, I guess, though the selection process for that is crap; It appears to be random, and you have to complete the draw animation and the holster animation before you can cycle to the next one. Which is logically bad, because for some inexplicable reason 80% of the gadgets are housed in the same mobile phone. "Let me just put my phone in my pocket and take it out again a few times, then I'll cut you free of this submarine before it submerges and drowns you." You also get a neat jetpack that lets you fly an incredible 6 feet up on a full tank of gas.

Finally, the story. It's a decent (if cliched) concept, a cloning conspiracy, but the writing is just...bad. The two writers (Citation: The credits) must have subscribed to Carmack's philosophy on plot in game; "It's expected to be there, but it's not that important" The cutscenes and dialog are cliched and cheesy where they're not blatantly sexist to an extent that is less Bond and more 10-year old boy who just discovered where babies come from. The character that SHOULD be a useful and strong asset, CIA Agent Zoe Nightshade, is constantly being captured, (one instance uses the classic 'dun-dun-DUN' stinger to further emphasize how unseriously this is being taken) and used as a sex object more often than an ally. (There's one instance where R, the vicarious narcissist who names every gadget after Q, uses a holographic emitter to project a nude copy of her into a shower. After she [SPOILER ALERT] dies two levels prior. [END SPOILER] Then you have your villans; Bloch and Malprave, neither of whom really have any motivations behind their plot besides world domination, or any real backstory. Bloch also has the unfortunate habit of being a totally unoriginal and repeditive guy, helpfully reminding you periodically that You're a dead man mister Bond, in between bouts of maniacal laughing. (Bloch is, of course, a user of the tried and true Muah-ha-ha method.)

I'm not even going to get into the multiplayer. It's only worth mentioning because it exists and it's bad.


All in all, Agent Under Fire is frustrating, poorly written and acted, and wholly unsatisfying. I realize that I'm being a bit harsh on a game from 2002, but there's no excuse for a GCN/PS2 game to play like a bad N64 game, and especially no excuse for the poor decisions and lack of effor throughout. I can only assume that the developers of Agent Under Fire went on to develop the PC version of Nightfire, which I hear was also poor quality, used Nightshade as a sex object instead of a capable person, and ran on the Goldsource engine. (They must have enjoyed Ricochet, though from the lack of crouch-jumping or intelligent AI indicates they never played Half-Life)

Well, at least I only paid 1/6 of the original retail price by waiting so long to buy it used. Slightly cheaper than going to the movies. Of course, don't let this review stop you from trying the game; I'm just one man, after all, and a lot of other reviewers thought it was quite good.

Short Story - In Caecitas Regula

The following is a short story I wrote for school. Enjoy.

The wind picked up, blowing the fine dust into Darby’s face yet again. Pulling his tattered scarf up over his nose and raising an arm to shield his eyes from the gale, Darby cursed and clutched the poorly stitched wound in his side. Oh, he was going to relish punishing the man who gave him that. Stumbling over a rock in his blind stagger, he fell. Inhaling the dry, somewhat crunchy ground, Darby thought back to three days prior. He had given food to a stranger, a seat at his campfire. But in the midst of Darby showing off his latest scavenged find among the smoke and the sweet smell of barbequed cactus wren, the man who had introduced himself as Daniel Robbins had suddenly lashed out. When Darby came to, the fire had been doused, His possessions had been stolen, and he had an oozing gash in his torso. He had trusted the wrong person, and now Darby had nothing but a single goal: Exact his revenge on Daniel Robbins.

As he followed the fading footsteps in the sand – more than one set, it appeared Robbins had a gang of thieves- Darby plunged a hand into his pocket and felt around, taking inventory as he searched for something to smoke; a ragged handkerchief, a few empty shell casings, and some lint. Nothing to sate a nicotine addiction, though. Bastards had stolen his cigarettes too.

            Eventually, the front gate of his destination came into view- the rusted gates of Somariah, a trading hub for the region. As Darby approached the settlement, he reflexively ducked as the glint of a sniper’s scope from the town hit his eyes. When no shot came, he slowly came back to his feet and continued towards the gate, where three guards were stationed. One, a middle-aged man with a shaved head and old-world military fatigues with their fair share of stains, cradled an assault rifle while running a hand through his thick beard as his companion, a sandy-haired twig of similar age, rubbed a cloth over the back lens of his weapon. The final guard, barely seventeen, if that, raised a hand in a friendly gesture.

            “Hey! Come on over!” A smile cracked on the boy’s face as Darby approached. “Welcome to Somariah. We just gotta fill in some paperwork before we can let yeh in. What’s your name and business, Ossan?” Ignoring the strange form of address – settlements of this size often made up or borrowed words from other languages for their own dialects – Darby approached the teen.

            “Darby Freeman. I’m looking for someone.”

            “Oh yeah?” The boy lowered his pencil. “Anyone in here, we’d know of. They got a name?”

            “Daniel Robbins.” The young guard poured over his ledger, eyebrows furrowed.

            “Hmm… Robbins…Robbins…” The boys eyes brightened. “Here he is! Yeah, he came in yesterday. Hasn’t left yet. If he does, I’ll let ‘im know you were looking for him, Ossan.”

            “Actually, I’m hoping to surprise him.” Darby said truthfully as the man with the assault rifle pounded rhythmically on the gate. An eye-level slot slid open and yet another guard peered out before closing the slot and swinging the gate open. “I don’t suppose you’d have where he is right now in that book, would you?” The sand-haired sniper turned and piped up.

            “Oyabun might know.” His gaze shifted from Darby to the younger man. “Nasser, why don’t you go in with him? We can handle things out here.”

            “Okay, Wells.” Nasser motioned for Darby to follow him. “Come on, Ossan. We’ll find your friend.”

The inside of Somariah was cramped and loud. Travelers wove around each other as vendors hawked their wares at the top of their lungs. A mixed smell of cooking food, petroleum, and humanity washed over Darby as he was caught up in the oppressive crowd.

            “So, who’s this Oyabun guy?” He asked over the bedlam.

            “I guess you’d call him the mayor, or the sheriff or something.” Nasser yelled back. “Keeps the order around here, knows everything that goes on. If I give him a description, he’ll be able to find this friend of yours.” An unshaven man in a stocking cap bumped into Darby, biting back his apology as his eyes widened. For a moment the two men stared at each other, the stranger in shock, Darby in confusion. Muttering a half apology and something about thinking Darby was someone else, the man disappeared back into the crowd.

            “What was that about?” Darby asked, turning slightly to allow an older woman more room to pass.

            “No clue, Ossan. We get all kinds here. Anyway, so what’s this Robbins guy look like?”

            “About thirty, 5’10 with jet black hair and a triangular scar on his cheek.” Darby recalled, reaching into his pocket again for a cigarette that wasn’t there.

            “Should be enough for Oyabun to find ‘im. Wait here, Ossan. I’ll go get him.” With a grin, Nasser disappeared into a building. Darby sighed and leaned against the wall, staring at a stand selling fried rats and inhaling the meaty scent. Suddenly, two men leaned against the wall as well, one on either side of him. Turning to face one of them, Darby stopped as another pair in the crowd caught his eye. The man in the stocking cap was pointing straight at him, and next to him was none other than Daniel Robbins. Leaping towards Robbins, Darby was caught by the two thugs on the wall.

            “Well, well…well.” Robbins stalked towards Darby. “And here I thought I had killed you dead.”

            “Looks like you’re not too handy with that knife of yours.” Darby snarled.

            “I assume you’re here to take back the device?” Robbins pulled a box from his jacket, a strange-looking machine with gears inside stamped with letters.

            “That thing? Don’t even know what it does. Thought maybe a merchant might. I followed you here,” Darby growled, “because you knifed me. I assume these bastards are your little helpers?” One of the thugs holding him in place scowled and fingered his belt knife unconsciously.

            “They are. Helped me carry off your things, in fact.” Robbins grimaced. “I suppose I have to finish what I started, though, don’t I?” He replaced the device in his jacket and whipped out a sawed-off automatic. Darby elbowed one of his captors in the ribs, taking his belt knife and turning the thug between his body and Robbins in time to shield himself from a burst of gunfire. He stabbed the other thug in the gut, opening his own wound from the exertion as bystanders scattered with screams and cries for the town watch. The underling in the stocking cap pulled a knife and charged, only to be pettily disarmed with a quick twist on Darby’s part. Desperately, Darby threw his knife at Robbins as the other man launched another volley of bullets. The knife caught Robbins in the throat, as the stream of lead from his machine gun bolted into Darby’s chest. Both men collapsed.

            Warm, metallic-smelling blood leaked from Darby’s body onto the street. He made a shuddering gasp and coughed. Everything had happened so suddenly, so quickly. He had hoped to take his time in killing the bastards, hoped to get the drop on Robbins, not the other way around. The receding back of Robbins’ third thug was the only movement he could see, and the now distant screams of the townspeople seemed…too distant. Like they were happening in another world. And Darby realized they were, because he wasn’t in the same one anymore. Because he was dying. He had wanted only a single thing, to kill Daniel Robbins, and he had gotten it. He should have wished for something more worthwhile. Like one last goddamn smoke. Nasser was beside him now, shaking him, from the looks of it. But not the feel. Calling out to him, yelling something that couldn’t quite reach his ears. And the colour was draining from the world. Draining. And darkening. Fading to black until there was just one last thought left.

            Was revenge… really worth my life?

Black Mesa (Source) Hazard Course! / An update at last!

Hello to my loyal reading audience (comprised of approximately 1.3 people!)
I apologize for the lack of content lately, there hasn't been much of note going on for me besides development.

So I'm gonna take a moment to talk about that.

See, I'm one of the level designers for the Black Mesa Hazard Course, a community-made addon for Black Mesa recreating the original Half-Life's Hazard Course training maps. It's going pretty well, and we have every position filled except that of a dedicated texture artist (If you have any aptitude with making textures for the Source engine, feel free to apply! We don't bite too much!) Anyway, when we're done, it'll be free of charge to download, just like the mod it's made for.

Check it out. (Just don't forget that we're not part of the official Black Mesa team.)

Writing - The Window

Today in class I wrote this short piece. We were assigned to look at a picture of a window and write a page visualizing the person inside. This is what I came up with.

Inside the run-down house, well, more of a barn, really, there resided a man. Unshaven and poorly groomed, well, who has time to shave or comb, especially in a cracked mirror? Micheal ran gloved fingers over his check, scratching at the growth of two weeks. Moving closer to peer out a window, glass crunched beneath his boots, and the outburst of dust caused by the slight air currents he made elicited a sneeze. Placing his hand on peeling wallpaper and scouring the countryside for signs of movement, Micheal made a mental note to re-check the shed for anything that might be useful. Turning to disinterestedly inspect the faded floral pattern beneath his palm, Micheal thought back to the last raid. He had barely made it away from that lighthouse. If the dropships came to this hideaway, it was curtains for him. Striding over creaking floorboards to the kitchen counter, he picked up his submachine gun and removed the magazine. Pouring out the rounds onto the faux marble, he replaced them, counting. Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight round out of forty-five, and no reserve clips. If he couldn’t find so much as a quart of gas in the shed, he wouldn’t even have anything to improvise with. Inhaling the musty air, Micheal sighed, wishing he had never heard there was a rebellion, let alone joining it. Oh well, too late to turn back now. In all likelihood he would have had combat thrust upon him soon enough.