By the end of Lich King, nearly all the major mechanics that Blizzard introduced during the course of WOW evolution had come into play: Badges, the dungeon finder, dailies, reputation hubs, tier acceleration, split difficulties, split raid sizes, profession currencies, separate pvp/pve tracks, achievements, and more…
In many ways, The Burning Crusade was my favorite endgame. Not only was it fun (and hard), but it was a time of heavy design experimentation where the Fel Reaver’s share of new gameplay ideas were introduced…
In this detailed post series, I discuss the evolution of the five World of Warcraft endgames from both a player and game design perspective. We start with Vanilla…
I wasn’t originally going to play Mists of Pandaria, but once I zoned into the gorgeous Jade Forest it was hard to stop…
A series of questions and answers about the origin of Jak & Daxter…
Fifteen minutes of official gameplay footage…
August arrives, and with it another teaser. This continues that cool creepy vibe driven by the bluegrass soundtrack.
Since I’ve created thirteen video games and written two novels I’m often asked how the process compares between the two. This is a complex topic, but here goes one stab at it, focusing on the generation of the idea. The…
One of Crash’s more dedicated fans used the action figure toys to create this crazy little stop motion fan film set in the Crash Universe…
Life for the Barbarian in Diablo 3 Inferno mode is brutal. Close in, you have to take the hits, and the hits are hard…
I played through all five classes in beta and decided to level the Barbarian first. Herein lies my detailed chronicle of the 1-60 level experience and thoughts on Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno…
E3 has bought us an extensive new gameplay video for Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic survival game, The Last of Us. Aside from the recently released Diablo III, this is my most anticipated upcoming game, and I suspect I’m not alone.
The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s new game in development, has a cool new trailer. Check it out!
Only three days to go until D3-day, and in case you don’t know what that means, this little video from Blizzard does a nice job summarizing the game.
Blizzard has released Wrath, an animated short by directory Peter Chung (Aeon Flux) depicting an ancient battle between the angels of Sanctuary and Diablo. Pretty cool.
The geek watch countdown! The new Diablo III commercial.
Finally, the Diablo 3 beta invite showed up in my mailbox. Unfortunately, by the time I got it downloaded and installed I was headed to Vegas for the weekend, but as soon as I returned, I fired it up, rolled a toon, and cranked through the 1.5-2 hours it took to defeat the Skeleton King and “finish” the beta. Then I rolled another class. Then another.
I reflect on Crash Bandicoot and Naughty Dog. And also offer some interesting perspectives on the games industry, drawing from my experiences – finally going on to talk about what I’m doing now, as a novelist – and how creating worlds has always been one of my great passions.
The second round of the crazy Naughty Dark Contest now has three special prize winners! Unfortunately, my broken wrist has slowed down my mailing speed, but I’m finally getting some of this off my plate.
The video interviews of myself and other members of the Jak & Daxter team talking about the game 10 years later.
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96 of 100 tickets! |
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