Archive for Naughty Dog

War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Feb27

Ars Technica — the awesome technical website — put together an equally awesome video interview with me about the making of Crash Bandicoot as part of their War Stories series detailing how various video games were created.

You can check it out here:

This interview gets into the nitty gritty of various problems we faced and overcame at Naughty Dog in our quest to realize the goal of making one of the first 3D Platform Action Adventure games. When we started, no one had ever made a Character Action game in 3D and we were forging boldly (insanely?) into new territory. We were young. 3D graphics were young. The Playstation was young. Gaming was young (or at least younger than it is now). So Jason, I, and the rest of the team had to figure everything out from scratch and just try to make the best game possible.

Speaking of teams, the one at Ars did an awesome job animating and editing my detailed story so that it actually makes sense!

And on 3/26/20 Ars cut a second episode from my footage for their “Extended Interview” series:

Check out the full Ars article here. or the second one here.

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The series begins here: Making Crash Bandicoot

For more articles detailing the making of Crash Bandicoot, click here.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Ars Technica, Crash Bandicoot, Game design, Naughty Dog, Programming, pt_crash_history, Technical, Video Games

The Last of Us Part II – Release Date Reveal Trailer

Sep24

It’s been a while since we heard too much about The Last of Us part II, but rest assured that Naughty Dog has been plugging away full steam on what promises to be a second epic installment. So, today (9/24/19) they announced that the game will be available next year on February 21, 2020 and we got this juicy new cinematic trailer:

Ellie has grown up, and is making choices of her own, plus, after some degree of absence, we’re reminded that that Joel still has her back too. Looks gorgeous, creepy, and hyper violent.

Any which way – can’t wait!

TLOU being hands down the best story based video game of all time and a personal favorite of mine means this is right up there as my most eagerly awaited announced game.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, The Last of Us part II, Trailer, Video Games

The Last of Us II – E3 Gameplay

Jun11

E3 — and my birthday — of courses brings us more The Last of Us part II footage:

The whole boxed by lesbian kiss at a dance aspect is quite interesting, and perhaps new territory for video games. I mean, my all time favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first lesbian kiss on TV (back in S5’s 2001 episode, “The Body”), but I can’t think of a video game treading in this area. The subject convergence of media is here!

And while the small amount of gameplay we do see looks classically TLOU, the melee combat — which by all reports is influenced by some of my all time favorites (Dark Souls & Bloodbourne) — looks a LOT more intense and detailed. I’ll be interested to see how much of that is scripted and how much is under player control. I happen to be about halfway through replaying Dark Souls (I) in it’s remastered form so I’m deeply steeped in some of the best melee combat ever.

Also, as good at TLOU looks, even in remastered, it’ll be exciting to see the made for the PS4 from scratch, particularly given that it’ll take advantage of the extra PS4 Pro horsepower for sure.

Any which way – can’t wait!

TLOU being hands down the best story based video game of all time and a personal favorite of mine means this is right up there as my most eagerly awaited announced game (also pretty psyched for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but that will only have cryptic and nonsensical story. haha.)

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Lesbian, lesbian kiss, Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, The Last of Us part II

Blood & Guts

Oct30

Halloween and today’s Sony announcements bring us more The Last of Us part II tease:

Definitely going for some seriously disturbing Walking Dead style violence. Although the clinician in me must make the observation that if you were hung twice by the neck by your body weight and you did manage to survive, you’d almost certainly have a crushed trachea for your trouble.

Any which way – can’t wait!

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, The Last of Us part II, Trailer, Video game

Naughty Dog News

Dec03

The Playstation Experience has gifted us with a couple of big items from Naughty Dog. Namely the sequel to the best story game of all time, The Last of Us. Personally, I’m SUPER excited about this as given my taste for the dark I just adore TLOU.

And more Uncharted 4 (in the form of a huge DLC):

Aren’t we the lucky ones?

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, The Last of Us part II, The Lost Legacy, Uncharted

The Evolution of the Platform Game

Aug18

I made this little video for a presentation and it was kinda cute, so I figured I’d post it here. I tried to chronicle both the changing graphics and the consistencies in gameplay across the sweep of 35+ years.

Most of my lifetime and platform game protagonists are still swinging from ropes — not that that’s such a bad thing!

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, Platform Games, Video Games

Uncharted 4 – My Review

Jun06

Title: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

System: PS4

Genre: Story based Climber/Shooter

Developer: Naughty Dog

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Date Played: May 2016

Rating: Best looking game ever made!

Of course I had to play and review Uncharted 4. It pretty much goes without saying. My collector’s edition box came on launch day and I finished it over the next week. It probably took me about 20-24 hours as I take my time and I’m very thorough. I collected about 95% of the treasures and almost all the journal entries/extra convos etc. So let’s jump into it, topic by topic:

Story 8/10 and character 9/10. The UC4 story itself is superficially generic, involving the return of Nathan Drake’s long lost brother Sam, which precipitates Nathan leaving his “retirement” and (temporarily) Elena. Nathan is thereafter thrown into pursuit of the “biggest pirate treasure in history,” an adventure that takes him to Panama, Louisiana, Italy, Scotland, Madagascar, and (largely) Captain Avery’s nearby pirate island and its requisite “lost city.” There are also a couple flashbacks to the Drake boy’s younger days. Mostly the story is an excuse for modern pirate adventures and more importantly, character development between Nathan and Sam & Elena. This development, basically constructed from constant back and forth between the (usually two) party members seamlessly accompanies nearly all of Uncharted‘s gameplay.

Elena, like my wife, lets Nathan play video games

In fact, Drake is almost never alone, and for good reason. This “buddy system story telling” at Naughty Dog was born out of Jak & Daxter. The idea with Daxter was to provide the “witty repartee” to help liven up the game, an idea we basically got from Disney movies and their endless string of comedic sidekicks. They intervening 15 years has seen the concept grow in sophistication, but the core idea is the same. In UC4, the dialog is not just funny (although it often is), but genuinely character building.

UC4 isn’t as somber, emotionally wrenching, or deep as Naughty Dog’s other similar-genre hit, The Last of Us (TLOU), but the level of character interaction between Drake and his family does bring out real warmth and personality. Basically, the game lives up to being a Raiders / Die Hard type summer blockbuster. It’s kinda about the action, but really excels because you care. Please note that this depth is rarely present in video games (does Call of Duty evoke any emotion?) or even summer blockbusters where creators too often believe 40 minutes of slamming through buildings develops character.

So while UC4 is not the story/character masterpiece that is TLOU — it’s also a lot lighter hearted.

That Sam is just a bit more selfish than Nathan is telegraphed by his slightly shiftier features

Voice Acting & Animation 10/10. Taking into account the current state of technology, video game character rendering just doesn’t get better than UC4. I’m sure Sony’s eventual PS5 and Naughty Dog’s eventual PS5 title will improve on it, but barring that, the characters just look and move superbly. The voice acting is really stellar too, particularly given the sometime “cheese” factor of the pirate story. The quality of the writing and delivery sell it time and time again.

The Drake brothers have very strong forearms

Graphics 11/10. The elephant in the room. No, the titanosaur argentinosaurus huinculensis in the room is how gorgeous the game looks. UC4 isn’t the most stylized game ever, but for hands down gorgeous “realistic” graphics there is no better looking game yet made. It’s even better looking than Witcher 3: Blood & Wine (which is pretty gorgeous). The UC4 graphics aren’t really that naturalistic either, as the color and detail are pumped up in a sort of HDR hyper-realistic way. It’s just not that obviously stylized. My good friend Erick Pangilinan (he’s the art director!) describes it as “hyper reality but very balanced in terms of detail. Every camera shot is very directed in terms of gameplay clarity and artistic composition. Following a lighting color script was also key to tie in the mood and story beat.” The textures and lighting and everything else are just so ridiculously pretty, which because of a technique called physical base rendering allows the materials to respond to light properly, making them consistent and realistic (and therefore more awesome).

Let us not forget the amazing view distances, epic scenes, crazy mud/water/everything else type effects. Oh, and the animation, which while not 100% lifelike is about 98% — and therefore about as good as has ever been done. Plus did I mention all the insane shaders and little details. The look of the game, it’s stunning slickness, and jaw-dropping beauty actually makes it more fun to play. Seriously, even the corner of some cave is gorgeous. Frame rate is 30 hertz in Single Player. They couldn’t really squeeze this crazy look into 60 on the PS4. It doesn’t bog much, so gameplay isn’t affected. Sure it would be a little more fluid at 60, but there are a lot of uglier games that run at 30 (or less).

Yeah, that’s what the game looks like

Controls 9.5/10 and core mechanics. I’m a control guy. I programmed most/all of the controls for the Naughty Dog games before Uncharted 1 so I know a little bit about video game control :-). The UC4 controls are great, particularly the climbing controls. Basically, the controls break down into a couple types: Running/jumping/climbing, shooting, hand to hand, and vehicle. I’d say the basic “moving drake around” and climbing controls are 11/10. Some of the new mechanics, like the grappling hook, slides, and piton integrate spectacularly. The way in which Drake reaches for handholds and you can subtly feel them out: perfect. The shooting and “hiding” controls are maybe a 9/10, as is the driving. It all responds well and some elements like the slipping and sliding of the jeep in the mud are crazy good. Occasionally I’d pop out of stealth oddly when trying to shift positions. The hand to hand fighting is more like a 7/10. It’s fine, and the animation is gorgeous, but it doesn’t have the visceral contact quality of say, Bloodborne, where you can confidently fight multiple opponents at the same time. There is an increased emphasis on stealth gameplay, possibly coming over from TLOU. I liked hiding in the grass and quietly taking guys out, and to this UC4 adds pulling and kicking guys off ledges and out of windows. All are quite satisfying when you pull it off.

The fighting / shooting gameplay isn’t immensely varied. There aren’t that many enemy types. Basic mercs, armored mercs, sniper mercs, maybe a few other similar types. This ain’t like Dark Souls III with tons of highly varied fantasy monsters (I love me some fantasy monsters). So enemy variety gets a 3/10. Enemy AI is excellent though.

You can actually slide around in that mud!

Gameplay balance. Naughty Dog describes Uncharted as a “summer blockbuster you play” and this is fairly accurate. It’s a slightly throwback Spielberg-style Indian Jones / National Treasure blockbuster at that. But the actual gameplay is divided between exploring, climbing, puzzle solving, driving, moving along the plot, and a mixed stealth & gun fighting gameplay were you beat up on clusters of mercenaries. The balance between these activities has been slightly adjusted from previous Uncharted games. The driving (boat and jeep) has been added, but the percentage of climbing seems to have been increased and shooting reduced. I really prefer climbing / exploring to fighting in this particular style, so that’s all good by me. Also, it seems that there is more “moving the plot along” stuff, by which I mean relatively trivial things you “do” (like dragging a water bucket down to the puddle to fill it up) that is needed to move along the plot. Interestingly, these tasks, as mundane as they are, do add to the verisimilitude. They almost “feel” like puzzle solving, even though the game usually tells you exactly what to do. That being said, there are half a dozen real puzzles in the game, along the lines of a more complicated Raider‘s map room. You can either “puzzle” them out or google them.

The climbing can really get complicated

It’s also worth noting how this balance is different than in TLOU, which has a lot more stealth, no formal puzzles, and a much less “forgiving” hit and recovery system. TLUO also has collecting materials and crafting useful “tools” like grenades, shivs, healthpacks, etc. and a rudimentary RPG system where you can level up weapons and certain abilities. I really like collecting and “leveling”, and it gives you a reason to explore the gorgeous environments, so one of my biggest “beefs” (in the context of a fabulous game) with UC4 is the scarcity of pickups. Basically, there are the treasures, and these are pretty few and far between and often rather hidden. Naughty Dog deliberately uses this as a differentiation point from TLOU, but I miss collecting. There is also very little weapon progression in Uncharted. You grab what guns are at hand. They all kinda work. I usually take whatever has the most ammo, generally staying away from the grenade launchers and the like. There are some bigger guns toward the end like the RPG and Gatling gun, but they don’t have significant strategic use. Overall, the choice of weapon in Uncharted is far less relevant than it is in TLOU, where the varied characteristics are almost mandatory choices for different encounters. Only on a couple occasions in UC4 do you actually NEED to be using a high impact weapon (shotgun) or a sniper rifle. And there exists no choice of knife, bow etc. All stealth kills are by hand (or foot).

Interestingly, while UC4 still has levels in a dim sort of way, it pretty much eschews the whole boss concept. At most, there is one at the end. And there are big set piece levels like the truck chase, but there even the single boss isn’t exactly like Bloodborne or Dark Souls III‘s 15-20 massive traditional bosses. This isn’t a game about repeatedly dying so you can figure out a difficult series of reactions to lethal moves.

Pirates love puzzles!

Sound 10/10. The sound is just seamlessly there in UC4. There is just a LOT of it, and it just sells this giant adventure as you’d expect. The music is right on style. Don’t underestimate how much work this was.

Nathan likes to be “on time”

Technology 11/10. It’s easy to just say that UC4 is the best looking video game ever, and that the animation and control, and shaders are perfect (given the current state of PS4 tech). They are, but a lot of people had to work really hard to make that happen. And the kind of tech that squeezes that much performance out of the same hunk of hardware that all those other PS4 games run on is impressive — which means impressive programmers. Some Naughty Dog programmer(s) had to code all those cool rope and jeep and mud physics, allow for the ridiculous shader passes, sit there with the artists and work out the luminous shadows and lighting, blend all the different joints, wrangle the data so the load times are barely there, etc etc etc. Most PS4 games have abysmal load times! The power of current machines and engines has sometimes allowed all that vast amount of code to slip onto the perceptual back burner, but I’m sure it’s just as hairy as it was twenty years ago in the Crash Bandicoot era. Which brings up:

Holy Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion — gear climbing!

Crash Bandicoot revival. Idea 12/10. Execution 9/10. Just having a bit of Crash in here was so cool and so apropos — particularly given the Indiana Jones nature of Uncharted and obvious reference of the boulder level. It also must have been a helluva lot of work. Crash‘s code and assets are incredibly complicated. I don’t even know if they emulated it or recoded it. I suspect the later as per the 1 point execution ding, which is that the “feel” is just slightly off. The game inside the game looks and sounds pretty much exactly right — except maybe for Crash’s spin which looks a little weird — but the control is just slightly funny. I even went back and popped in the real deal to check. True, this is Crash 1, and Crash 1‘s controls are significantly stiffer and harder than Crash 2 and 3 (where reworked logic and the analog stick vastly improved them), but it still feels just a tiny nitpicky bit different. [ update 6/6/16: Neil Druckmann tells me that one guy recoded the whole sequence (using the original art/sound assets). No wonder it’s just a touch different, but amazingly impressive getting it so close. ]

Multiplayer. I haven’t tried it. Not usually that into death-matches, but that’s just me. I like co-op.

Overall 9.5/10. Uncharted 4 is a spectacular game, and any PS4 owner that doesn’t play it better be the kind that only buys sports games or have a severe allergy to pirates. It’s a solid 20 hours of ridiculously high production value fun. It’s spectacularly polished. It’s the best looking video game yet made. It’s a romping good story and better than most blockbuster movies (which kinda suck these days). It’s just not quite as much a ground breaking masterpiece as TLOU which is the best “story game” made so far. Nor actually to my taste does it offer as much fantasy creeptastic evil challenging monster killing gameplay as equally masterful but less polished Bloodborne. But that last game is far more niche and I’m a dark fantasy lover, so consider me weird. UC4 is like Back to the Future in terms of its mastery: perfect execution and awesome entertainment, just not the deepest thing in the world.

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I guess he had "fear of heights" surgically removed

I guess Nathan had “fear of heights” surgically removed

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Adventure game, Nathan Drake (character), Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment, Uncharted, Uncharted 4, video game review

Naughty Dog at E3

Jun10

What would E3 be without a Naughty Dog trailer?

Oh, and there’s another one too, The Last of Us remastered!

By: agavin
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Tagged as: E3, Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Uncharted 4

Naughty Dog News

Dec08

There’s a bunch of Naughty Dog news in the air that I thought worth commenting on. First of all, at VGX 2013 Naughty Dog was awarded Studio of the Year! Awesome! Well deserved. Congratulations dogs!

Then, in the flurry of ThanksGavin activities, I must have missed the trailer for the upcoming The Last of Us downloadable pack (Left Behind), which had a bunch of new single player levels. I’m very excited about this even though the trailer is… minimalistic 🙂

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6V0HNNHQK4]

And another teaser from the DLC:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1lVLzYER14]

And finally, it has been officially announced that Uncharted will be coming to Playstation 4. While this is hardly a surprise, it’s still awesome news and I’m sure — like me — all of you fans can hardly wait.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SnJPTkrD7o]

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Pixelvolt Interview

Sep25

Periodically I was asked by Pixelvolt to answer a few interview questions.

Check them out here for the latest in Indie Game News!

I’m also posting the interview here for posterity:

Pixelvolt: Many enjoyed the Crash Bandicoot trilogy more than Super Mario 64 or DK64. How do you think the Crash Bandicoot franchise did against Nintendo’s heavy hitter platformers?

Andy: Crash Bandicoot was in development during the same period as Mario 64. We started in 1994 and first saw our rival at E3 in May of 1996, only 3 months before we shipped. Basically that meant that Mario had no influence on us (although it was to later inform Jak & Daxter). Doing platforming in 3D was hard, and both games took different approaches. Our aim was to try and bring the Donkey Kong Country style gameplay into 3D as faithfully as possible. Mario went for more open puzzle solving and exploration (Miyamoto called it a garden or sandbox). I personally like ours better because it’s more straightforward to play with less thinking involved (more twitching). I don’t like my platform games to involve too much thinking – I do plenty of that at work.

Pixelvolt: Were there any N64, GCN, or Xbox games that you enjoyed playing?

Andy: My favorite N64 games were Goldeneye, Zelda, and Banjo-Kazooie.

Pixelvolt: Do you have a personal favorite out of the Crash Bandicoot games?

Andy: Crash 2. It’s better technically than Crash 1, has a bigger more flexible move set, and the play is very balanced. It’s hard but not brutal. Crash 3 is great too, but I think it relies a little too much on gimmick levels (jet skiing, flying, etc).

Pixelvolt: Naughty Dog has always been great at pushing the limits of hardware. Can you give us some details from the development of the Crash series and the Jak series and just how far things were pushed – and how they were pushed?

Andy: Crash 1 was all about forging into the unknown. Everything was new. The gameplay was totally new. We had no model for how to do it in 3D, and it took 6 months of unplayable test levels before we developed some that were actually fun. On the technical side, the sheer volume of data was overwhelming for the computers of the time (1994-6). We had to do all the tool processing on big Silicon Graphics workstations. I actually had 8 gigs of memory in my desktop machine by fall 1996! Imagine that, the memory alone cost $75,000! With Jak, the seamless loading was hard. We had been heading in this direction with Crash, which featured a very sophisticated streaming system and extremely short load times (3-4 seconds!), but with Jak & Daxter, we had this early mandate to eliminate loading entirely. It was hard but very cool in a subtle way. Very few games do it even now.

Pixelvolt: Was it hard to leave Crash Bandicoot behind, and do you think there is a chance that Naughty Dog will save Crash from his most recent outings and produce another game?

Andy: Naughty Dog doesn’t own all the rights to Crash; Activision owns most of them, so it’s difficult for that to happen just from a legal perspective. Still, a fan can always hope.

Pixelvolt: What were some of the immediate allowances that were enjoyed most when switching from Crash to Jak?

Andy: No one would ever call the PS2 an “easy” machine to program for, but there were certain niceties compared to the PS1. Z buffering was a big one. On the PS1, you had to sort all your polygons and make sure they didn’t overlap. The PS1 really freaked out when polygons stretched off (or into the screen). Another more amorphous advantage was the huge step up in raw processing power, which made it possible to stop worrying about individual lines of logic (as much).

Pixelvolt: How did it feel among your video game peers when CTR: Crash Team Racing was being developed? With Mario Kart 64 having thought up the kart racer genre, was it awkward? Many gamers enjoyed CTR much more than MK64; how did this reaction make everyone feel after it was released?

Andy: Obviously, CTR owes a big debt to Mario Kart, even if the graphics are better looking and more detailed – but I also think – and this is one of the game’s big triumphs, that the handling and gameplay we achieved was really first rate. The combination of steering, power sliding, powerups, and the like was really very, very fun (not that Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing weren’t too).

Pixelvolt: What do you and ND think of the current state of Crash Bandicoot. Since Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, almost all the fans agree that the quality has skydived; what do you and the original development team think of the situation?

Andy: I try not to look at anything Crash related after Crash Bash. It’s all kind of sad because even the basic art design isn’t “correct” with the standards of the Crash character.

Pixelvolt: Did you learn anything from video game development that is assisting with your writing at all?

Andy: As a serial creator (having made over a dozen major video games), it was interesting how similar the process was to any other complex creative project. Video games and novel writing are both very iterative and detail oriented. They use a lot of the same mental muscles.

Pixelvolt: What do you plan on doing next? Do you plan to do anything in addition to writing?

Andy: I just finished up adapting Untimed (my time travel novel) as a screenplay. And I’ve got three different new novels in the works. The one I’m working on at the moment is background notes for an epic fantasy series. I’m trying to create an entire extremely detailed world so that’s a lot of fun.

Pixelvolt: Do you ever think you’d consider returning to game development?

Andy: I might someday. I have a cool dungeon crawler idea I’ve wanted to do for years. But right now, I still get to build worlds, characters, and general IP. I can do it faster and without as much stress. I miss the sheer exposure the games got as the whole business is on a much bigger scale than publishing. I’m immensely proud of all my games, but I also think Untimed is as good a novel as my favorite, Crash 2 is a game. Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Buy, read.

Pixelvolt: What were your thoughts on Jason Rubin and THQ? I know a lot of ND/THQ fans thought he did a great job, despite everything working out the way that it did.

Andy: Jason had a real uphill battle there and very little time to fight it. He’s one of the most talented people I know, so I have to imagine that he did as good a job as humanly possible.

Pixelvolt: Tell us about your books. You’ve been a huge reader for quite some time. When did you decide you were going to leave the gaming industry and pursue writing full time?

Andy: I’m a lifelong creator and explorer of worlds. As far back as first grade, I remember spending most of the school day in one day dream or another. I had a huge notebook stuffed with drawings, story bits, and concepts for an elaborate Sci-Fi/Fantasy world I cobbled together from bits of Star Wars, Narnia, and Battlestar Galactica. By fourth or fifth grade, not only was I losing myself in every fantasy or Sci-Fi novel I could, but I was building Dungeons & Dragons castles and caverns on paper. Then from 1980 on the computer. Over the following decades, I wrote dozens of stories and created and published over a dozen video games all set in alternative universes. And as an avid reader (over 10,000 novels and who knows how many non-fiction volumes), it was no surprise that I eventually decided to write some books of my own.

Pixelvolt: Would you ever consider having any movies or games made based off your books? If so, would you oversee any of the development?

Andy: Uh, big yes. As I mentioned, I just finished adapting Untimed into a screenplay. That was a lot of fun and took far longer than I thought, including at least six major drafts. Untimed is a focused story of about the right scope for the big screen, and it’s fairly short (75,000 words), but I still had to cut at least a quarter out of the novel and learn to adapt the story telling to the new strictly audio-visual medium. Now I just need to figure out how to sell it and get it produced. Haha. Film, unlike novels, is a very collaborative medium.

Pixelvolt: What are you currently playing?

Andy: I’m still playing a bit of WoW. I have on and off since launch and used to be a serious raider in the Vanilla, BC, and Lich King eras. I played The Last of Us when it came out from start to finish and that was hands down the best story-based game I’ve ever played. Really, really emotional and intense. My two games of the moment are really different: the new Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion with my five year-old (I loved the Genesis original) and Bioshock Infinite. That’s an awesome game too. The control and character isn’t quite as good as TLOU, but it’s really engaging, and I’m totally drawn in by the 1912 alternate America and its in-depth and surprisingly accurate depiction. Speaking of 1912, my first novel, The Darkening Dream, is a fantasy set in 1913, so if any of you are curious, think Bioshock Infinite, minus the floating city and plus a 900-year-old vampire, crazy Egyptian gods, and some nasty succubus on preacher action.

This interview was originally posted here.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Jak, Jak & Daxter, Jason Rubin, Mario, Mario Kart, Naughty Dog, Pixelvolt, Silicon Graphics

UK Playstation Mag Interview

Jul08

The below is an interview I did earlier this year:

Andrew, give us a bit of background about yourself before the days of Naughty Dog. (growing up, interests, coding background)

I grew up in the simultaneously cosmopolitan and suburban area of Northern Virginia (just outside of Washington D.C.). I was the right age to catch the first big wave of gaming in the late 70s, early 80s. I played all the arcade classics as they came out and eagerly pestered my dad for an Atari 2600. This was a time when there was tremendous experimentation and creativity going on. New video game genres were invented all the time.

In 1980 my science teacher brought into class a Heathkit H8 her husband built. We were given a single mimeographed sheet of paper with the BASIC commands. I read this and then wrote out longhand a draft of a text-based RPG where you wandered around and fought orcs and trolls for gold and tretchure (I could program, but I couldn’t spell). During lunch I typed in and debugged the game, editing my paper copy as needed. It may seem overly ambitious to try and recreate D&D as one’s first program, but you have to make what you love.

This was taken just after Jason & I moved to California in 1994

At the age of twelve, I met Jason Rubin in class (we were both bored and loved games). Seeing as I was a great programmer and Jason a great artist (by middle school standards), an instant partnership was formed. We sold our first professionally in 1985 (at fifteen). This partnership continued all the way through school and beyond. Our company, first called JAM Software, was soon renamed to Naughty Dog (1987). We made and published six games before the original Crash Bandicoot.

Since Crash Bandicoot: Warped, the third title in the franchise and Naughty Dog’s final main instalment in the series, gamers have felt that Crash Bandicoot has lost its magic. As someone who was there at its creation, how do you think the series could be revitalised?

Crash needs a total reboot. There is an opportunity to reset the history and go back to his creation story and the original conflict with Cortex. In that context, one could reprise classic Crash 1 and 2 settings and villains. At a gameplay level, it would make sense to use a more modern free-roaming style, ala Banjo-Kazooie, but with state of the art graphics. There are very few (almost none) true platform games being made today and it’s a shame, as the mechanics were really fun. I would concentrate on Loony Tunes style animation and really addictive action oriented gameplay. That’s what we did with the original Crash and there is no reason it couldn’t be done today — but it would look every bit as good as early Pixar cartoons.

Given the current Crash games, people forget that he was once cool. Our Crash had a certain whimsical edge to him. Sure it was goofy, but it wasn’t dumb. Crash has a deliberate touch of post-modernity, not unlike other cult favorites like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s thematically very different, but the same kind of self-referential meta-cultural quality is there.

What do you make of Crash Bandicoot today? Are you sad that he’s gone from PlayStation Icon to yesterday’s mascot? (Maybe also talk about your opinion of non-Naughty Dog Crash endeavours, did they fail?)

I don’t pay much attention to recent Crash games. For me, He’s like the hot high school girlfriend who put on 50 pounds. I just can’t look.

Post Naughty Dog Crash games fall down not only in being too goofy, but in gameplay and balance. We tried very hard to make every level and every segment of every level evenly paced, addictive, and engaging. Every pile of boxes, every set of enemies, was carefully placed to try and build a rhythmic pulse to the gameplay. Crash was about being frantic, but at the same time relatively free of frustration (although some Crash 1 levels were too hard). There was a lot of layered depth so that you could merely finish the level, or you could try to maximize your performance in terms of collection, speed, or both.

The latest game in the Jak series was the PSP spin-off Daxter in 2006, which was developed by Ready at Dawn. Do you think the Jak series should be resuscitated, or is it best left in the past? (perhaps speak about what it had going for it, how you feel the series progressed in terms of quality, if it needs to be brought back)

There is a lot of opportunity in the Jak franchise as well, but fortunately for the little orange back-talker, Naughty Dog (aka Sony) still owns the rights. Who knows, he might surface again.

What was it about Sony and Playstation that made you feel that it was the perfect brand for Naughty Dog to partner up with? (relationship with Sony over the years, why you felt it wouldn’t harm Naughty Dog’s future)

In 1994 when we started, Sony didn’t have a mascot character. So we set about creating one on the theory that maybe, just maybe, we might be able to slide into that opening. I’m still surprised it worked.

Ultimately the relationship with Sony was a really great partnership. Sony is a quality driven company, and we were a quality driven studio. Naughty Dog products are fully commercial in the spirit of early 80s George Lucas and Steven Spielberg efforts. We believed in mass market pulp that through sheer quality rose above its commercial pulp sentiment. This jived well with Sony’s culture, which was driven to high quality products with the broadest appeal.

In 2004 both Jason Rubin and yourself left Naughty Dog. Considering the company was, and still is, producing high quality games, why did you leave? (perhaps talk about your time at ND, memories of working on certain games, where you think you brought the company, what state you feel you left it at, and where it is now)

This is complex. At the simplest level, when Jason and I sold Naughty Dog to Sony, the deal structured the working relationship for the next four years. Highly unusually, this actually played out according to plan and to the total satisfaction of both parties. We intended to make threes games, and we did: Jak 1, 2, and 3. In addition, by 2004, Jak X and Uncharted were well underway.

As the company grew, Jason and I groomed senior guys who were capable of running the teams. Namely, Evan Wells, Stephen White, and Christophe Balestra. By Jak 3, Evan was the game director anyway, so it was time for them to fly by themselves. And fly they did, as the post Andy & Jason Naughty Dog games are probably even better.

The two biggest Naughty Dog Ips since your leaving would have to be the Uncharted series and the upcoming title The Last of Us. As someone who is now on the outside looking in, how do you view both of these franchises? (Do they keep in line with what you hoped ND would achieve? Do you wish you were still working at ND in order to help develop these kinds of titles?)

Uncharted is in every way a Naughty Dog series. It follows from, and improves upon, the things we were working on with Crash and Jak, taking them to the next level. Evan was an instrumental co-creator of all the Naughty Dog games since Warped, and he was both steeped in and a major contributor to the games from 1998 on. He and the rest of the gang kept heading in the same direction, they just raised the bar on execution even further.

For a long time, Naughty Dog games have been about integrating narrative and gameplay. We wanted to draw people into the world fully and give them a rich story without detracting from a game’s most important quality: fun gameplay. Uncharted took this to the next level with storytelling that’s better than a lot of movies, while retaining intense playability.

Now I’m also really excited for The Last of Us, as apocalypses and teen girls who fight are two of my favorite things (in fiction).

With talk of the PS4 on the horizon, what do you think Naughty Dog is capable of on next-generation systems? (technically, narratively)

I think NDI will just keep taking it to the next level. Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us already look so good it’s hard to imagine where there is to go, but I expect not only will things look even more real, but the machines will have the power to include more and more enemies (or whatnot) on screen. We could see zombie games with a couple hundred zombies (not necessarily from NDI).

Finally, tell us about Flektor and your new passion for writing novels, Andrew. (also, perhaps mention how/if working in the games industry fuelled or influenced your passion for writing)

As a serial creator it was interesting how similar writing a novel was to making a game. Video games and writing are both very iterative and detail oriented. They use a lot of the same mental muscles. My latest novel, Untimed, is about a boy name Charlie, who falls through holes in time. A clockwork man is trying to kill him, but there’s an eighteenth century Scottish girl who can bring him back home – assuming they don’t destroy history by accidentally letting Ben Franklin get killed.

Untimed (http://untimed-novel.com) is very much in the same broad fun spirit that characterized Crash and other Naughty Dog games. I return to one of my favorite mechanics, time travel, which I forced into Crash 3 and Jak 2 (no one complained). Creating the world was very similar to what you do with a game. I had to balance the pros and cons of time travel for my heroes. If your characters are too powerful, there is no jeopardy. So I had to invent all the restrictions and deal with the issues of paradox. In many ways, this is like balancing a video game control set. There are differences of course: games are about fun, and novels are about character and dramatic tension, but the fundamental creative process is similar.

By: agavin
Comments (29)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Crash Bandicoot, Heathkit H8, Jak, Jak & Daxter, Jason Rubin, Naughty Dog, Playstation, Sony, Uncharted

The Last of Us – My Review

Jun26

Title: The Last of Us

Studio: Naughty Dog

Genre: Zombie / Survival / 3rd person shooter

Played: June 15-25, 2013

Summary: Masterpiece (even if I weren’t biased)

With The Last of Us, the trajectory Naughty Dog has been pursuing for over a decade reaches for and achieves new heights. This synergy of world building, gameplay integration, emersion, and story telling really began with Jak & Daxter. True, with Crash Bandicoot, we made inroads in all but the last (anyone remember the “Crash, can you find my battery?” plot of Crash 2?). Crash focused on integrating addictive gameplay with a consistent, coherent, and lavishly produced setting (I’ll include character in this setting), but it didn’t have any true story or drama.

The Jak franchise introduced a more elaborate narrative and characters with more complexity, particularly in Jak 2 where we started integrating the cinematic segments in a more interwoven fashion. The Uncharted franchise took this to new levels, essentially becoming Indiana Jones type movies that you played, but TLOU climbs yet another step further, delivering characters you care about , true drama, and intense cinematic language while preserving a completely coherent style and intense gameplay. Everything about the game serves to reinforce the overall tone: the pathos of two people trying to heal in the face of great horror.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQpdSVF_k_w]

The art design is fabulous. Again, even though the Art Director (Erick Pangilinan) is one of my best friends (obviously biasing me) this is objectively true. It’s certainly one of the best looking games to date. There is a deliberate choice to heavily light — stylistically overlight — the entire game. While there exist some dark underground parts, for the most part, the lighting is luminous. Intense white light (think Minority Report) starkly bathes this ruined vision of America. No gloriously decayed texture is left hidden. Closeups of characters show every stain and frayed thread in clothes worn for months (perhaps years?). This is a world of contrast. Lush greenery has reclaimed much of the urban landscape, yet crumbled concrete, rusted steel, and burned out cars litter the scenery. As do sordid blood stains and desiccated corpses. There is a sense here of great violence, and desperation, much of it in the past. Little details abound. Shrines to dead loved ones. A tiny grave marked with a teddy bear. Family photos. Rarely does it look cloned or stamped (although that door with the weird seal is everywhere) . Nor, despite a strong and coherent visual style, is it repetitive. As we move from the Northeast to the Heartland to the Mountains the scenery — and even the seasons — keep changing. Weather is used to great effect. The rain in early Boston sequences is stunning, as is the chilling lakeside blizzard late in the game’s second act.

The view took my breath away

The minimalist string music compounds the game’s haunting atmosphere. While the game is full of detail, it’s in the broad sense, fairly stark — as the bulk of the scenery is ruined and deserted. This lends the whole world a quality of emptiness reinforced by the matching sonic starkness. The sound effects are harsh and solidly naturalistic, emphasizing both the natural (bird noises) and the discordant tone of decayed materials (like rusted garage doors opening). To this background soundscape is added the grim punctuation of the combat sounds. Every grunt, sneaker squeak, bolt action, and gurgling last breath is vividly apparent.

There is a minimalism to the interface that fits with the overall tone. The title screen is a single frozen camera shot of a window. The menus are barely styled and contain only exactly what they need. The art is simple and iconic. Not only does this work from a stylistic point of view, enhancing the serious tone of the game, but the controls are direct and to the point, easy to use, preventing you from getting distracted by mechanics. With TLOU, it’s the story and characters that matter, not the mechanics of saving a game. Many elements traditional in modern titles are toned down or absent. Achievements? Not part of this world. Secret collectables? The game has them — in the form of Firefly pendants — but they are understated mementos of the dead, not the bombastic collectables typical of the genre.

Minimalist interface

Technically the engine steps out of the limelight and just delivers — and delivers in spades. Bugs are minor and few and far between. I never crashed or got stuck. There are some frame rate problems in the biggest and widest of shots (and they do look gorgeous) or sometimes with the flashlight or “hearing mode,” but this never hurts the gameplay. I noticed a couple extremely minor graphical glitches. Mostly stuff just works, often combining multiple disciplines in classic Naughty Dog brilliance. The animation, particularly in interaction with the backgrounds and other characters, is a triumph of both art and programming. It’s perhaps the slickest, most lifelike, ever used in a game. The AI is first rate. The environments feel wide open and vast, and they have a certain non linearity, yet because of the nature of the game you must be contained, and it’s done very artfully. Rubble fills stairwells, broken down vehicles block alleys, collapsed bridges deter overzealous exploration. So much of what makes this game look so great is the amazing synergy between art and tech. The rain, the water, the snow, the glowing light effects, the realistic shadowing and flashlight. It’s all solidly in both realms.

Hunger games much?

Different elements of the gameplay work well together. The game’s phenomenal pacing is made up of story cuts, intense combat, sneaking, and scavenging. This last, which is surprisingly satisfying, is sometimes done in the heat of battle — or at least when hiding from deadly foes and desperately looking to bolster ones supplies — and sometimes an end all onto itself. These quieter moments, after a brace of nasties are defeated, or in an abandoned section of city, are welcome relief. The game rarely has enemies sneak up on you once a section has been identified as safe, so these provide a nice break in the tension. The crafting itself is simple. There are a 4-5 resources and similar construction costs for pairs of items. Healthpacks and molotov cocktails share resources, as do shivs and weapon enhancements. Everything is in short supply and desperately useful. Pills can be used to upgrade your character, but you must chose in which manner. Spare parts upgrade guns and the like. The weapons are nicely differentiated, each with it’s own strengths and weaknesses, and they get noticeably better when upgraded. The shortage of ammo always prevents any weapon from being overpowering. Even the assault riffle, gained in the last level, isn’t too fearsome against your body armored opponents.

I dare you to put one of these in your bedroom

Let’s discuss the gameplay. Technically TLOU is a 3rd person shooter, but it makes a number of stylistic alterations in service of mood that completely alter the feel. This isn’t your typical shooter where ammunition is plentiful, the character sponges up bullets, and healing is easy. You can only survive a handful of hits. The arrival of more than 2-3 mobs in close proximity is a near certain recipe for death. The healthpacks (potions) take some time to apply and are in short supply. Joel and Ellie do a lot of creeping around in the shadows. The key here is to avoid agroing too many mobs, and when you do, to lose them by getting out of the way. A number of mechanics serve this end.

There are a lot of shadows. Counters and obstacles are conveniently crouching height (this rarely looks forced). You can creep around fairly rapidly. Humans can see and often probe the darkness with flashlights. The infected are generally blind (or crazy) and so are easier to sneak up on — but clickers and bloaters are tough and can kill you in one bite. Joel (and Ellie) have quite the sense of hearing and can “hear” through nearby walls to spot the outlines of enemies. This is a little gamey, and the mobs apparently can’t do it, but in practice works quite well. One of the most effective strategies, particularly with the infected, is to stay in stealth at all costs. There are a couple of ways to kill silently (more or less). Humans and runners can be strangled or knifed (which wears out your blades but is quicker). The bow can be used to silently kill most opponents at a distance and if you’re lucky, you won’t break your arrows. Overall it is deeply fulfilling to wipe out a whole crew without them ever seeing you. This often requires replaying the section several times to learn the layout and careful looting of every possible supply.

Speaking of which, the looting, scavenging, and crafting mechanic is awesome. Everything is so scarce, ammo so valuable, and everything you craft so useful that a few items easily make the difference between life and death. It’s also extremely satisfying to evade some opponents, sneak around, craft an extra shiv or health pack and then kill them. You can augment the melee weapons to make them kill faster (very useful as while melee is satisfying, should a second or third mob show up while you are pummeling someone, it’s bad news). You can build shivs (essential for fast silent kills, surviving clickers, opening secret doors) or healthpacks or a number of bombs. The bombs come in three types. Molotovs, nailbombs, and smokebombs. Each have their use. The fire is great against infected. The nailbombs can be thrown OR left around as mines. I didn’t appreciate the smokebombs until near the end of the game, but they create a kind of dead zone that the human mobs won’t fire into and which can be used to kill them. Used sequentially and in tandem with the flame thrower they make a lethal combination.

Moments like these are genuinely touching

I have a few quibbles. The aiming can be difficult at times, particularly until you upgrade “weapon shake.” It’s few hard to land a head shot (or even sometimes a shot) before someone shoots you. When opponents are behind you or off to the side it can be frustrating to try to turn and strike them. There is some kind of quick turn around move. I didn’t master it (but should have). Some sections with lots of enemies are quite hard. There appears to be at least a bit of DDA (Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment) to help you get by if you die a lot in one spot. Actually fighting bloaters and particularly bloaters together with clickers can be VERY hard.

I’m betting TLOU required A LOT of tuning to reach its current fun factor, as it would be easy for gameplay involving so much hiding, creeping, and dying to be boring — but the elements combine to make it really fun. After the first chapter I learned to become methodical and search every corner for loot. Instead of being tedious, this served as a break from the tension and turned out to be incredibly satisfying. The melee is extremely graphic with a good amount of variety. It’s quite creepy hearing a guard gurgle as you strangle him or slamming an infected in the neck with a baseball bat “augmented” with taped on scissors. Everything serves the horrifying mood.

Uh oh!

And mood is one of the game’s greatest strengths. TLOU draws from nearly every post apocalyptic source and builds trope after trope into a satisfying, coherent, and perhaps more realistic whole. It’s prettier and less hopeless than The Road — and considerably more believable. No film could ever offer this scope. The sets (or CGI) would be far too expensive, the cast too enormous. Yet TLOU also strives to compete with film in terms of emotional engagement and character development. I’d argue it succeeds.

The longer form (it took me 18 hours to play through on normal difficulty) helps with the character part. I’m becoming of the increasing opinion that film is actually an unsatisfying format — offering far too little depth, particularly in this day and age when the 2-3 hours are mostly consumed by overlong effects driven fights. Some of TLOU’s vignettes should come off as forced, as they are drawn directly from tropes and fairly straightforward. One that comes to mind is when the hunter humvee murders two innocents while a hiding Joel and Ellie watch. However, in the context of the game and characters it was surprisingly effective. TLOU is a clear case where the whole transcends the sum of the parts. And hell, a lot of the parts are pretty damn good.

Can we say creepy?

Neil Druckmann (who I hired as a promising intern programmer a whole career ago) turns out an emotional script. Again, it draws extremely heavily from tropes. Everything any post apocalyptic survival story has ever had is here: hunters, cannibals, resistance leaders, a cure, friends who turn (into zombies), reversals, quarantine zones, etc. But in moments little and big the relationship between Joel and Ellie builds — so much so that the little downtime conversations are real gems. By the time the Pittsburg chapter concludes, Ellie becomes in your head someone really worth fighting for — and the remainder of the game — wow, it really delivers. I often feel (reading or watching) that the second half lets me down. Good as the first half of TLOU is, the second is several times better.

Really notable for me was the entire “winter” sequence. Coming out of a really emotional turn in Colorado TLOU employs cinematic language and plotting in a highly effective way. So much do we care for the characters, and so pretty is the game, that it manages to make 10 minutes of trudging through the snow exhilarating! And that’s only the beginning. I really liked the way the game cut back and forth between playable Joel and Ellie as it told the story from both perspectives. Although, I have a slight nitpick with the “arc” of the section villain, who starts out with some complexity and sympathy and turns monster without too much explanation. But such is the momentum of this story that it sails right over speed-bumps like this.

So basically, if you care about video games at all, play The Last of Us.

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By: agavin
Comments (79)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Crash Bandicoot, game, Jak & Daxter, Last of Us, Naughty Dog, review, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Video game

The Last of Us – Review Roundup

Jun05

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is nearly on us, and the review ban has been released, so I felt I’d round up a couple. Check out these reviews! They average 95, which is pretty unheard of. The most often repeated word is “masterpiece”!

[ NOTE 6/14/13: I started playing and the playable prologue alone is nearly worth the price of admission! ]

First the awesome launch trailer here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQpdSVF_k_w]

Then the review roundup:

Joystiq

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us is not a cheerful story, but it’s a damned good one.
- Read full review
Push Square

Jun 5, 2013

100

An assured, touching, and engrossing adventure, The Last of Us represents a watershed moment for the medium. The unlikely bond that blossoms between the title’s two lead characters is both heartrending and poignantly paced – but the release delivers much more than captivating cinematics. This is a meaty slice of survival action that masterfully depicts the horrors of life in a post-pandemic setting.
- Read full review
TheSixthAxis

Jun 5, 2013

100

Here the developers have carefully pieced together something rarely seen in the industry – a considerably more substantial, meaty take on the saturated third person adventure genre, and one that surprises at every turn without wrong-footing a player ready to invest serious time and emotion into the project. A real achievement, and one that respects you as an adult.
- Read full review
Telegraph

Jun 5, 2013

100

It would be disingenuous to suggest that The Last of Us is immune from blockbuster video game excess –the total number of kills at the final stats page will still run into the many hundreds– but it’s one of the few games to try and make some kind of sense of it without compromising its quality of action…In that, and so many other things, The Last of Us is a triumph.
- Read full review
PlayStation LifeStyle

Jun 5, 2013

100

It’s a hallmark of excellence in writing, design, and performance. Naughty Dog and Sony not only have a system seller on their hands, but a game that’ll define an entire console generation—a true classic that’ll be talked about and fondly regarded for years to come.
- Read full review
Guardian

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us is visually arresting, mechanically solid, maturely written and by turns heart-rending, tense, unnerving and brutal. Check your ammo. Grab your shiv. Just try your best to stay alive.
- Read full review
Gameblog.fr

Jun 5, 2013

100

There’s no denying it: The Last of Us hits almost every nail on the head. Its storytelling, its gameplay, its characters, and their journey in this bleak but almost sadly beautiful world that saw the downfall of the human civilization doesn’t ever really try to shortcut its way to genuine emotions, opting, on the contrary, for the hard but humanely faithful path. The ambivalence of the human soul, the spot on portrayal of conflicting morals and the tragedy of impossible choices are all beautifully written and played. Plus, the multiplayer is far from being a gimmick; quite the contrary, in fact. It’s very much a coherent and enticing experience on its own, with a brilliant meta-game idea, and a unique, multiplayer take on survival.
- Read full review
Eurogamer Spain

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us is what we expected and more, much more. Naughty Dog delivers the game that made our jaws drop at E3: adult, honest and with an incredible attention to detail.

All this publication’s reviews

Read full review
SpazioGames

Jun 5, 2013

100

A masterpiece, that breaks the self imposed barriers of gaming narrative and ensnares the player with intelligent gameplay and brilliant A.I. Anyone wanting to tackle the same themes will have to be compared to Naughty Dog’s work in the future, and it won’t be pretty.

All this publication’s reviews

Read full review
Gamereactor Sweden

Jun 5, 2013

100

A masterpiece. Superb graphics, challenging gameplay, great story, believable characters and the eeriest clicking noise you’ve ever heard in a video game.
- Read full review
GamesRadar

Jun 5, 2013

100

Its storytelling is peerless, as affecting and multi-layered as it is grounded, underplayed and real. In terms of everything the modern action game has strived to be, The Last of Us is the full-stop at the end of the sentence, leaving no more to be said. Until next-gen. If this is our starting point for that, then the next five to ten years could be truly amazing.
- Read full review
Cheat Code Central

Jun 5, 2013

100

In an industry where big, epic, and huge are the normal, it is refreshing to see the importance of the little things. In fact, I believe this is The Last of Us’ strongest suit. You will play this game and feel the overwhelming storyline, like the characters, and, after you have let it all soak in, some of your favorite moments will be the small things; the things you didn’t have your hand held through.
- Read full review
Playstation Official Magazine UK

Jun 5, 2013

100

When such a talented developer hits these creative, narrative and technical heights, the result is a game that wouldn’t look out of place smuggled into PS4’s launch lineup. The acting is more believable than LA Noire’s hi-tech gurning. There are sneaky set-piece excursions that outdo even Metal Gear Solid 4 at its best. And tying it all together is an utterly mesmerising world instilled with a seamless sense of time and place. This is a work of art in which amazing sights and sounds fuel an emotionally draining, constantly compelling end of days adventure.

All this publication’s reviews

Read full review
VideoGamer

Jun 5, 2013

100

Ultimately, I defy anyone not to be moved when it comes to its conclusion and the huge questions it asks of both the player and the characters themselves – any game that achieves such a goal deserves high-praise. The Last of Us succeeds in the same way as the best movies do, challenging you more than you’ll ever expect, demanding that you think and discuss it weeks after it resolves. The fact I had the urge to pick it up again almost instantly is just added acclaim it has more than earned.
- Read full review
Edge Magazine

Jun 5, 2013

100

Naughty Dog has delivered the most riveting, emotionally resonant story-driven epic of this console generation. At times it’s easy to feel like big-budget development has too much on the line to allow stubbornly artful ideas to flourish, but then a game like The Last Of Us emerges through the crumbled blacktop like a climbing vine, green as a burnished emerald.
- Read full review
Eurogamer

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us is a deeply impressive demonstration of how it can and should be done. It starts out safe but ends brave; it has heart and grit, and it hangs together beautifully. And it’s a real video game, too. An elegy for a dying world, The Last of Us is also a beacon of hope for its genre.
- Read full review
IGN

Jun 5, 2013

100

Its unrivaled presentation in particular sets the bar even higher than the Uncharted trilogy already did, and its writing, voice acting and layered gameplay combine to create what is very easily the game to beat for Game of the Year 2013.
- Read full review
Destructoid

Jun 5, 2013

100

It cannot be said enough, however, that Naughty Dog’s new best creation is complete, and when I say complete, I mean it to pay the highest of compliments. I do not want more from The Last of Us: I do not need more. As the last line was uttered and the credits ushered in the close, I was done. The Last of Us had achieved everything it needed to achieve in order to provide me with everything I wanted…And it ended perfectly.
- Read full review
Giant Bomb

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us is not simply Uncharted with zombies, but it couldn’t exist without Naughty Dog having made Uncharted first, either. It’s a dark adventure, one rarely filled with laughs or joy. There are bitter pills to swallow along the way, and nothing is taken for granted, not even characters. People live, people die. Sometimes it’s fair, sometimes it’s not. It’s still a zombie game, but a sobering one. Take a deep breath.
- Read full review
The Digital Fix

Jun 5, 2013

100

It cannot be overstated that there is something exceptional at work here as masterful storytelling marries wonderfully with interactive experience, the high expectations that have built for this release are met and exceeded with consummate ease.
- Read full review
Machinima

Jun 5, 2013

100

Overall, multiplayer is light on modes and it may not expand on the core story-driven experience, but it’s still a thoughtful addition to a superbly executed package.
- Read full review
Digital Spy

Jun 5, 2013

100

With a hauntingly beautiful game world, stunning visuals, and a wide variety of ways in which players can approach combat, The Last of Us is another exceptional game from the team at Naughty Dog…However, it’s the studio’s ability to make this past-pandemic world and its contrasting cast of characters feel so believable and credible that really makes The Last of Us stand out from its peers.
- Read full review
Everyeye.it

Jun 5, 2013

100

The Last of Us brings you into a world where people die without grace, and explains to you the beauty of the extinction. It’s strong, unique, brutal and, ultimately, unforgettable.
- Read full review
Post Arcade (National Post)

Jun 5, 2013

100

Terror and beauty are potent bedfellows in The Last of Us, a masterwork of interactive entertainment conjured up by the master gamesmiths at Naughty Dog.
- Read full review
Eurogamer Portugal

Jun 5, 2013

100

I do not know if The Last of Us is the best game of this generation, given that it always depends on what you’re looking for in a game, but it’s a true example of how to create a credible world with authentic characters in which we end up investing a lot emotionally.
- Read full review
Eurogamer Italy

Jun 5, 2013

100

Despite a few issues, The Last of Us represents at the same time the complete maturity of the PlayStation 3 hardware and, above all, the perfect fusion between gameplay and narrative. Naughty Dog has created a masterpiece that will be a milestone in the video games evolution.
- Read full review
Vandal Online

Jun 5, 2013

98

This is the most ambitious project Naughty Dog has made so far. It’s not a new genre, but it mixes up some of them to bring something unique. It’s got nothing to do with Uncharted apart from the look some images may show, but still is one of the best games on PlayStation 3.
- Read full review
3DJuegos

Jun 5, 2013

97

Plenty of action and horror, Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic tale is an amazing game.
- Read full review
Meristation

Jun 5, 2013

97

The Last of Us is a really different game, mixing traditional adventure, survival, action, stealth and constant exploration. The resources are most important. The best graphics on PlayStation 3 are back in the hands of Naughty Dog, also the atmosphere, and two unrepeatable and unforgettable characters. Overwhelming.
- Read full review
Multiplayer.it

Jun 5, 2013

97

The Last of Us is a step forward for Naughty Dog in terms of narration, story and gameplay, maybe the last big shot for PlayStation 3 and a fine example of a “cinematic game” melted into a great gameplay. A must buy for every serious gamer.
- Read full review
Canadian Online Gamers

Jun 5, 2013

97

It is a deeply emotional story driven game with an addictive element making it difficult to put the controller down. It is game you won’t forget and one that ultimately raises the bar for the genre. In the end it’s simply a fantastic game, a fantastic experience, and one PS3 owners can purchase with confidence.
- Read full review
Gamer.nl

Jun 5, 2013

95

Quotation forthcoming.
- Read full review
GamingTrend

Jun 5, 2013

95

The Last of Us spells the manum opus for Naughty Dog on the PlayStation 3, offering us a unique experience that easily eclipses anything else we’ve seen on the system. This game is easily a contender for adventure game of the year.
- Read full review
PSX-Sense.nl

Jun 5, 2013

95

Quotation forthcoming.
- Read full review
LaPS3

Jun 5, 2013

95

Naughty Dog puts an end to the current generation with a game that explores the human interaction of two characters, Joel and Ellie, that are destined to get along in a shattered world that has been wonderfully represented thanks to its impressive technical aspects. The Last of Us, in spite of its small imperfections, is an adult title that no PS3 player should let go unplayed.
- Read full review
JeuxActu

Jun 5, 2013

95

With The Last of Us, Naughty Dog provides us with a hell of a masterpiece, which will continue to occupy the thoughts of gamers in the coming years, simply because it redefines the standards of survival Horror games. Instead of using and abusing horrific scenes as is the case with the competitors, the game provides a chronic stress that chews on your brains bit by bit punctuated by great epic scenes. The infected people are relentless and unforgiving, though a bit like the Clickers who will rip your head at the slightest sound. The listening system does not impact the challenge and finds itself an invaluable asset when things get really dirty. As one needs to seduce casual gamers, The Last of Us also has its own action scenes, hence the criticism from the purists of this kind of game. But can we really be skeptical when facing the nicest game of this generation of consoles ? No, we cant…
- Read full review
EGM

Jun 5, 2013

95

It’s easy to initially expect The Last of Us to be a game about killing zombies, surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, and exploring for supplies. Instead, it’s a game about two people, and the bond that forms between them—and that journey is far more exciting than any amount of infected monsters or food scavenging could ever provide.
- Read full review
Game Informer

Jun 5, 2013

95

The Last of Us is a deeply felt, shockingly violent game that questions what we’re willing to sacrifice and, more disturbingly, what we’re willing to do so save the ones we love. The conclusion offers no easy answers. You won’t forget it.
- Read full review
Playstation Universe

Jun 5, 2013

95

A thrilling, cinematic, movie-like action-adventure with the best videogame pairing ever conceived.
- Read full review
XGN

Jun 5, 2013

90

Quotation forthcoming.
- Read full review
The Escapist

Jun 5, 2013

90

The characters in The Last of Us are relatable without being entirely stereotypical, the story is driven by the characters, rather than the reverse, and the adventure sections, while nothing new mechanically, offer a great way to really delve into the world. Given the lack of truly innovative mechanics, and the reliance on well-known types of gameplay, like the all-too-typical “find a ladder to climb to the next section” adventuring bits, The Last of Us isn’t perfect, but it’s awfully close.
- Read full review
Metro GameCentral

Jun 5, 2013

90

A stunning achievement in both storytelling and third person adventure, with unforgettable characters and tense, brilliantly paced action.
- Read full review
IGN Italia

Jun 5, 2013

90

Naughty Dog managed to create a different kind of action game, one with a more dramatic, desperate and authentic tone than Uncharted. Joel and Ellie offer you a journey you won’t forget, just bring lots of bullets and keep your head down.
- Read full review
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Jun 5, 2013

90

The Last of Us has perhaps the best artificial intelligence I’ve ever seen in a game. The enemies, whether they are mindless zombies or clever human “hunters,” behave in amazingly realistic ways, forcing the player to think up equally smart strategies in each encounter.
- Read full review
games(TM)

Jun 5, 2013

90

It’s the relationships that really make The Last Of Us. It’s a technical marvel, a true triple-A with best-in-show production values, but it’s the beautiful combination of performance and story that elevates it clearly above the competition.
- Read full review
GamesBeat

Jun 5, 2013

90

The pacing becomes somewhat sluggish right before you hit the final act, but from there it moves at a 100 miles an hour. I didn’t leave my couch until well after the credits rolled.

All this publication’s reviews

Read full review
Gamer.no

Jun 5, 2013

90

Naughty Dog has created a exciting and emotional adventure, packed with a great cast of characters, impressive voice acting and beautiful visuals. A varied selection of enemies offers a diverse challenge, and you often have to change strategies to get by without using up your resources. The multiplayer is functional and well done, but is eclipsed by the amazing single player adventure.
- Read full review
Gamereactor Denmark

Jun 5, 2013

90

The Last of Us is a stable and very decent action game, wrapped in an absolutely incredible presentation and story. When it comes to the narrative, The Last of Us sets a new golden standard that every game will be compared to for years to comes. It honestly feels as if Naughty Dog has raised the bar of what games as a medium are able to achieve in this area, and makes franchises like Call of Duty and all its wannabes seem decidedly laughable.
- Read full review
NowGamer

Jun 5, 2013

85

A brilliant and evocative story, superb combat mechanics and an interesting multiplayer component, The Last Of Us is one of this generation’s best.
- Read full review
GameSpot

Jun 5, 2013

80

Despite the many small problems in combat, there’s an undeniable tension. Vanquishing a horde of attackers is challenging, so you must fight intelligently.
- Read full review
Toronto Sun

Jun 5, 2013

80

Despite the occasional jarring juxtaposition between its story and its gameplay, The Last of Us is a landmark piece of interactive entertainment, proving that even action games can tell mature, thoughtful tales, with characters who don’t feel like an assortment of tropes and clichés.
- Read full review
Polygon

Jun 5, 2013

75

Naughty Dog commits to a somber tone that affects every piece of the game for better and worse. It achieves incredible emotional high points about as often as it bumps up against tired scenario design that doesn’t fit its world. Survival in the post-apocalypse requires compromise, but The Last of Us has given up something vital.

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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, reviews, The Last of Us, Video Games

The Last of Us – Red Band

Apr03

Naughty Dog and Sony released an awesome “red band” (uncensored) trailer for their upcoming post apocalyptic survival game, The Last of Us:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4pYIsaZqE0]

Looking cool! Damn, those people look realistic.

Find the previous batch of teasers here.

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Tagged as: Naughty Dog, red band, shooter, Sony, The Last of Us, Trailer, Video game, zombie

The Last of Us – Zombie Time

Feb05

Yes I know, they’re “infected”, but name change or no, it’s still Zombie Time! Here is a recent video with some infected – enjoy!

and, even better, this Story Trailer:

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Gameplay, Naughty Dog, Survival horror, The Last of Us, Video game, zombie, zombies

The Last of Us – 15 min of Gameplay

Sep08

Naughty Dog has just released a 15 minute gameplay video, so check it out while you wait for the game itself.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzLHYk11aVI]

It’s really interesting how the gameplay has evolved from Uncharted, and how faithful this new style is to survival films. Watching, it has that slow burn tension that is characteristic of Zombie movies. It’s incredibly cool how realistically responsive the AI mobs are to your presence and actions. Good stuff.

By: agavin
Comments (10)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Artificial intelligence, Gameplay, Naughty Dog, Playstation 3, Sony, The Last of Us, video

The Last of Us – August Teaser

Aug15

August arrives, and with it another teaser. This continues that cool creepy vibe driven by the bluegrass soundtrack.

By: agavin
Comments (10)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Games, Naughty Dog, survival, Survival horror, The Last of Us, Video game, zombie

The Last of Us – E3 Gameplay Coverage

Jun06

E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) has bought us an extensive new gameplay coverage 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.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Gameplay, Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, Trailer, Uncharted, Video Games

New Last of Us Trailer

May16

The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s new game in development, has a cool new trailer. Check it out!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=9NVfBfJHatc&annotation_id=annotation_51749&v=ShP5xn9Tz90]

By: agavin
Comments (30)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Dystopia, Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, zombie

PostDesk Interview

Mar16

An in-depth interview with Andy Gavin, creator of Crash Bandicoot and founder of Naughty Dog

Andy Gavin reflects and looks back on Crash Bandicoot, and Naughty Dog – calling Crash ‘…the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument’. He also offers some interesting perspectives on the games industry, drawing from his experiences – finally going on to tell us more about what he’s doing now, as a novelist – and how creating worlds has always been one of his great passions.

We interviewed Andy Gavin, the co-founder of Naughty Dog (with Jason Rubin) and creator of Crash Bandicoot. We asked Andy how he got in to the industry, about the inspirations, motives and ideologies behind Crash Bandicoot – one of the games industries seminal characters, and on on what makes a good videogame character. He also told us about the entirely different culture and ethos he built up at Naughty Dog – which meant putting the player first. We also asked him to reflect on his successes and ‘failures’ at Naughty Dog, about what he thinks of the company now and about his future plans. Today, Andy has turned his attention to writing – and is now an established novelist – so we also asked him about what he’s reading, and what he’s working on right now.

Just some of the highlights from this in-depth interview…

“Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game.”
“We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about… …we loved the word bandicoot.”
“I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.”
“Crash is a little like the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument. Then, years later when you run into her, find she’s a hooker with a crack problem’… ‘Naughty Dog on the other hand is the kid that grew up, got straight A’s at Harvard, then founded an internet company and made a fortune. Plus they still come home for the holidays and send Mom flowers on Valentine’s day.”
“My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds.”
“I don’t think the future [of games] will be better graphics – it’s not important any more. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilise game balance will be a challenge” …”new ways of paying will have a huge effect on the structure of games”
“One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition… Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projectswith a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.”
“Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control”

What inspired you to start Naughty Dog – how did you get in to the games industry?

In the 1970s I was hugely into fantasy novels, fantasy role playing games, and early video games. When I first encountered a computer it was only natural that I tried to make games. Back then, unless you knew how to program, computers were pretty much good for a blinking cursor. Then about two years into my programming career I met Jason Rubin. My programs were better than anyone our age, and his art skills (particularly on the computer) were better than anyone else’s. It was a match made in heaven and we started working on games together. In those early days we called the company JAM Software, but we renamed it to Naughty Dog around 1985.

“Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game.”

What were the aims behind Crash Bandicoot – what was the brief? Was it to create a character to compete with Sonic and Mario, and to create a mascot character for Sony – or something more?

Yep. At that time character action was one of the most popular genres, and one of our favorites. Jason and I wanted to take Donkey Kong Country style gameplay and make it 3D. We called it the “Sonic’s Ass” game. And it was born from the question: what would a 3D platformer be like? Well, we thought, you’d spend a lot of time looking at “Sonic’s Ass.” Aside from the difficulties of identifying with a character only viewed in posterior, it seemed cool. Although we worried about the camera, dizziness, and the player’s ability to judge. When it seemed likely that Sony didn’t have a mascot character of their own we jumped on that too. Essentially we planed for Crash to become exactly what it did – but the fact that we were successful still stuns me.

We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about… …we loved the word bandicoot.”

What was the inspiration behind Crash Bandicoot – where did the concept come from?
We wanted to do what Sega had done with the hedgehog and Warner Bros had done with the Tasmanian Devil and find some kind of animal that was cute, real, and no one really knew about. We bought a copy of Tasmanian Mammals – a field guide and flipped through. The Wombat, Potoroo, and Bandicoot fit the bill. We loved the word bandicoot. Personality-wise we felt he should be goofy and fun loving, and never talk.

What was the symbolism and ideology behind the mannerisms, attitude and behaviour you gave Crash Bandicoot?

As the machine didn’t really have the power to pull off giving Crash a voice that wasn’t lame, we needed to use animation to draw in the player emotionally. This jived with one of our main design goals, which was to make the animation better than had ever been seen in a game before. We wanted at least Looney Tunes level quality, if not Disney level. Animation is an emotional language and our top flight cartoon character designers showed us how to convey the whole range of human motion in the exaggerated vocabulary of traditional animation.

What was the reasoning behind the colours you gave Crash Bandicoot?

Simple, Crash needed to pop against the background so you could see him easily. Since he lived in a natural world of greens and grays orange was the hottest and most complementary colour. Real animals want to blend. Cartoons want to pop.

Crash Bandicoot is of a few games which has a real cultural impact and it’s created an extremely loyal group of superfans – a fan community which is still going strong, producing fan art, writing ‘fan fictions’ – some devoting much of their life to a character you created. What are your feelings about being behind a cultural icon?

It’s amazing that this happened and I feel very gratified to be a part of it. I chalk up one of the main reasons the game was successful to the character’s iconic quality. Crash is a sort of every-creature. While he has his goofy side, his natural enthusiasm and willingness to rebound from any upset (literally) make him highly endearing.

Crash Bandicoot Fan Art is very popular – this piece is by ‘ZoDy’ on an online community for artists called DeviantArt

Could you share any interesting facts or ‘secrets’ about Crash Bandicoot that even the biggest superfans may not know?

The original Crash Bandicoot has an entire extra level on the disk that is not accessible without a cheat device. It’s called Slippery Climb and was a monstrously big and difficult “climb on the rainy castle wall” level. It was cut because it was too hard and we didn’t have time to balance it properly.

What makes a good videogame character?

Video game characters aren’t especially subtle, but they are appealing. They need to be visually distinctive, with clear expression of personality traits. Visually, Crash is orange, big head, and gloves. Then on the personality side, playful, resilient, not the brightest bulb, but willing to go the extra mile.

Would you say that seminal ‘mascot’ characters like Crash, Sonic, and Mario are playing a less important or significant role in the games industry? Why do you think it might be the case?

It does seem that as games become more realistic they have less distinctive characters. Many current console games now are essentially military. The badass space marine is iconic, but not really distinctive. What makes one different from another?

“I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.”

Some say that Crash ‘failed to innovate’ over the years ‘rendering the character useless’ – what would you say to that?

It’s not fair of me to comment on the non Naughty Dog games. I feel that our four Crash games innovated relative to the speed of release (1996, ’97, ’98, ’99). We tried to really pack tons of new stuff into every successive game while keeping the best of the old. Fans knew that with our games they would really get their money’s worth. They voted with their wallets in huge numbers, and I’m sure the games are still widely played, probably more than any other PS1 franchise.

How much would you credit the sophistication of Naughty Dog technology to your background in LISP at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory?

I was always a technically ambitious programmer, but MIT and the addition of Dave Baggett to our team really helped us up the ante. Dave and I fed off each other, each convincing the other that the next impossible thing was possible. But Mark Cerny also played no small role in this ambition. While he only coded a guest module or two in each game he’s brilliant and he really pushed Dave and I to rise to the next level.

Why did you decide to leave Naughty Dog 2004?

This is a complicated question and there are several answers. A) My contract was up and to stay (on terms I wanted) I would have had to haggle out a new one (boring). B) I was burnt out after over ten years of 90-110 hour work weeks. C) And most important, we had been training our top guys (Evan Wells, Stephen White, and Christophe Balestra) to run full game teams. They were ready.

Since handing over the reins, are you happy with how Crash Bandicoot has developed over the years?

Crash is a little like the really hot girlfriend that you dumped because of an important at the time argument. Then, years later when you run into her, find she’s a hooker with a crack problem.

What do you think of the company now? Is it how you visualised it would be?

Naughty Dog on the other hand is the kid that grew up, got straight A’s at Harvard, then founded an internet company and made a fortune. Plus they still come home for the holidays and send Mom flowers on Valentine’s day.

Would you ever consider returning to the company?

I still have tons of friends there. I just dropped by the other day and I had a rush of nostalgia for all the excitement and the sense of being part of something huge. But Evan and Christophe have things totally under control. More than that, they keep the ship running better than ever. So they don’t need another officer at the helm.

My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds.

Do you think you’ll ever return to the gaming industry as a whole – or even create another video game?

It’s hard to say. My writing fulfils a very similar creative outlet, namely building worlds. There are still games I crave making (achem… fantasy games). Really I’d love to build the most incredible MMO ever (I’m a huge WOW and Diablo fan) but then I think about the $150 million budget, the six year development plan, and the 200 person team…

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the gaming industry throughout your career?

Ha. I can’t even begin to answer that. My career started when the Atari 2600 was king and continues to modern console games, iPhone, and Facebook games. But the really big thing that is changing is the move away from the packaged goods model where a complete game is sold for $40-70. Download only games with subscription and micro transaction models will soon be the norm.

What do you make of the games currently being released now, …including Uncharted – Drake’s Deception? What do you make of console gaming as it is today …and the games you find most interesting right now?

UC3 is a blast, I love it. I still love fantasy games. My favorites this year, having finally quite WOW (again, for now), are UC3 and Dark Souls. I really want to play Skyrim too, which I’m sure I’ll love. I got it release day too, but I had one novel to finish editing and a second to publish – I didn’t dare put it in the machine.

Zoë Ainscough couldn’t recommend Uncharted 3 enough in a review which appeared recently on PostDesk Gaming

“I don’t think the future [of games] will be better graphics – it’s not important any more. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilize game balance will be a challenge” …”new ways of paying will have a huge effect on the structure of games”

What do you feel the future of gaming will be – and how is it going to develop over the next few years? Will it rely on enhancements in technology – or are you seeing other trends?

I don’t think it will be better and better graphics. That will happen to some extent, but it’s not important anymore. Part of it will be new business models of allowing certain aspects for free and charging for others. Making this all work in a way that doesn’t destabilize game balance will be a challenge. Integration of even more elaborate social structure is another trend. I think that in the next few years we will actually start to see less of the incredibly expensive monolithic console games. As disks go away new ways of paying are going to rear their heads and this will have a huge effect on the structure of games.

Is this forming the basis for the future of gaming?

Across your entire career to date, what achievements are you most proud of? What was your biggest success?

#1 is founding Naughty Dog and establishing in it a kind of corporate culture and ethos that puts the player first. Really NDI is all about providing good value to the player. Value in games is wow factor, fun, novelty, and a polished entertainment experience that minimizes frustration. I’m also proud individually of each of my “projects.” This includes all thirteen major games I wrote, Flektor, my compilers, both my novels, and even my website:http://all-things-andy-gavin.com .

One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition… Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projects with a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.

What has been the biggest ‘failure’ that you’ve had to overcome in your career?

I don’t have what I consider any serious failures. More a lot of “lessons” of various degrees of severity. One of the biggest was difficulties in integrating with radically different corporate cultures after acquisition. Hint this had nothing to do with Naughty Dog or Sony which went great. Jason and I always put customer and innovation first trying to do ambitious projects with a very high level of execution. Sort of an Apple (with Jobs) model. Not all companies run this way. There are other models like “rip off the other guy cheaper.” This is valid, but we just never thought that way.

Has being a novelist always been an ambition of yours?

I’ve been an avid reader my whole life (over 10,000 novels and who knows how many non-fiction volumes). Mostly fantasy, horror, historical or science fiction. In high school, I won several national literary awards for my short stories and I was an editor and contributor to our high school literary magazine. In college, despite being a diehard science guy, I took creative writing classes (sometimes I was the only guy) and submitted stories to Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines (not that they ever bought any!). I wrote the stories for some of our games (don’t judge my novels by that, in the old days games couldn’t afford real stories). But the insane work output needed for Playstation games didn’t leave me the time to write and so it was with considerable zeal that I turned to it seriously two and a half years ago.

“My first novel, The Darkening Dream, was just published. You can find out all about it at the-darkening-dream.com and it’s for sale now.”

Tell us about your new books – and what are you working on right now?

I have three books in various stages of production. My first novel, The Darkening Dream, was just published. You can find out all about it athttp://the-darkening-dream.com and it’s for sale now. This is a fast paced historical fantasy about a bunch of teens who try to stop some really creepy supernatural chaps from maiming, killing, and destroying the world. The teens get in over their heads. Really over their heads. All of the magic (and there’s a lot) is based on real historical occult, which makes it much creepier than the made up stuff – because truth is stranger than fiction. My second book, Untimed, is a YA time travel novel about the crazy adventures of a boy no one remembers, who falls through a hole in time and finds himself lost in the past. It’s really slick, funny, and fast paced. I just finished editing it and am now figuring out who I want to publish it. Then I’m supposed to be writing my third novel, but instead I’m answering interview questions and learning how to layout a print ready file. J

What are you reading right now?

Julian, by Gore Vidal. This is a historical bestseller from the 60s about Julian the Apostate who is a really interesting Roman Emperor from late antiquity. It’s part of a particular a branch of investigation for my new novel. All of my books involve history in some way. One of my ambitions is to show that history doesn’t have to be boring, quite the contrary. Untimed bounces through four centuries and it’s lightning paced.

“Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control”

What are your plans and ambitions for the future?

In the short run (2012) I’d like to finish two more novels (gulp) and turn The Darkening Dream and Untimed into bestsellers. The writing part of being a writer is really fun and creative – although way more work than I imagined, and I imagined a lot. Creating worlds and stories has always been one of my great passions. I’ve been doing it my entire life. With novels it’s very intimate and you have nearly infinite control. There are limitations of the medium, POV, etc., but there are few technical tradeoffs and no budgets or meetings. Only time and imagination limit what you can do. This is why, despite the profusion of all sorts of fantastic new mediums, novels are still one of the beststorytelling devices. Most games are more about gameplay and fun than story – even if Uncharted has been changing that. Long form television (like high budget cable shows) is also very good now. I love HBO and Showtime dramas. They sport some of the best writing in film or television today. Film is really too short for in depth characterization, although the best of them rise above this limitation.

You can find more on Andy Gavin’s writing at andy-gavin-author.com, on his first novel at the-darkening-dream.com, and the second novel atuntimed-novel.com. The Darkening Dream is available on Amazon Kindle for $4.99 at Amazon.com and for £3.27 at Amazon.co.uk. [Prices correct at time of going to press]

The Darkening Dream is an “ominous vision and the discovery of a gruesome corpse lead Sarah Engelmann into a terrifying encounter with the supernatural in 1913 Salem, Massachusetts. With help from Alex, an attractive Greek immigrant, Sarah sets out to track the evil to its source,never guessing that she will take on a conspiracy involving not only a 900-year vampire, but also a demon-loving Puritan warlock, disgruntled Egyptian gods, and an immortal sorcerer, all on a quest to recover the holy trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel.Relying on the wisdom of an elderly vampire hunter, Sarah’s rabbi father, and her own disturbing visions, Sarah must fight a millennia-old battle between unspeakable forces, where the ultimate prize might be herself”.

This article was originally published here on PostDesk.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Games, Writing

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Jason Rubin, Naughty, Naughty Dog, Sony, Video game

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PostDesk Interview

An in-depth interview with Andy Gavin, creator of Crash Bandicoot and founder of Naughty Dog

This article was originally published here on PostDesk.

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