Showing posts with label kinect star wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kinect star wars. Show all posts

Sunday, 10 June 2012

What Noonan did next…

I couldn’t have asked much more than to progress from one good open world title to another. Wheelman had it’s fans, and Crackdown 2 recently broke 1 million sales with it’s praises being sung by fans of the franchise and genre alike. I also contributed to Kinect Star Wars, which is well on the way to hitting the 1 million mark.

During the last two years I’ve worked on some great pitches and prototypes. Unfortunately a lot of this won’t see the light of day, and that’s a shame, as it’s some of my best work. I wish Ruffian all the best with it’s current and future projects.

However, it’s time to move on.

I’m moving away from the country I was born, from the family that brought me up, from the friends that I spent my free time with and the companies that kept me afloat financially. Thanks for the opportunities, but it’s time to leave for foreign shores.

My days at Ruffian will be coming to a close sometime in the next month or so – I’ll be around for a bit for anyone who wants to buy me a drink or give me a high five...

Out with the old, in with the new.

In August I will be starting at Ubisoft Montreal to work on Watch Dogs, a game that got a more than positive response at E3.

Lookin’ good…

I will try to document my move away and settling period through my youtube channel for the benefit of friends, family, and most importantly, myself.

…and yes, this is why my UDK projects (Shootan and On The Run) have seemingly been put on hold – getting a new job and moving country kinda gets in the way of hobbies. I might get back to them when I’m more settled over the pond.

Wish me luck!

Sunday, 8 April 2012

2011 – Thanks for playing!

I’ve yet to comment on 2011 coming to a close, so I’ll do it now.

2011 was an interesting year - I learnt skills in areas I didn't even know were available to me, gained a lot of experience using multiple game engines/technology, and on top of that played a metric fuck tonne of games.

Unfortunately there were no releases from me/Ruffian in 2011 and there’s nothing I can talk about regarding future projects. That being said, Kinect Star Wars just saw its release, and I did a little bit of level design work on that.starwars_kashyyyk0 It seems to be getting average reviews from games press with some more favourable reviews from generalist media. The Internet is ablaze with talk of the dance mode – I think it’s rather amusing.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes...

Last year my plan was to finish a horror game each month - I failed miserably, but did manage to complete my other task, which was to finish the half-life anthology for the first time (wee write ups of these are linked below).

someplaceelse0On top of that, I managed to play some other Half-Life mods such as the rather special, “Someplace Else” – a mod that manages to make Xen fun (yes, it’s possible), and I finally got around to playing Portal, and bloody good it was too!

…which brings me to this year’s challenge; I’m going to play through Half-Life 2, both it’s episodes, and Portal 2. I plan to start some time next month.

A couple of quick thoughts…

  • Loving online games (Gotham City Impostors, Killzone 3)
  • Loving my iPad (the GTA III port is great)
  • Loving cheap games on Steam (especially the Christmas offers)
  • Loving my Playstation Vita (Lumines is akin to crack)
  • Not loving my Nintendo 3DS (but Resident Evil: Revelations is great)
  • Loving LoveFilm (catching up on old classics)
  • Not loving Netflix (but the anime selection is worth the subscription)

I’m currently developing a UDK game under the amusing working title of “Shootan”, updates can be found via the label here.