New games, speaking engagements
Four and a half months since my last post. Wow. Sorry, been busy! Crunch will do that to a person.
In that time, two new games have been released that I had involvement. The biggest of the two is Forza Motorsport 3, the newest iteration of the acclaimed racing franchise from Turn 10. The game has done incredibly well since its release in late October, achieving an average of 93 on Metacritic. This is the highest rated game I’ve ever been involved with, and I am ecstatic about its reception.
The other recent release is Gearbox Software’s Borderlands, a hybrid role-playing/shooter with more than a hint of Diablo-style gameplay. It too has done well, floating around the 84% mark on GameRankings, and selling strongly. I spent some time on this project before I made the move to Raven.
There’s a demo available for Forza 3 on the Xbox Live Marketplace. No word on a demo for Borderlands yet.
In other news, I recently spoke to two groups of students from Flashpoint Academy in Chicago, discussing the basics of what game audio people do every day and how to get a job in this particular field (ProTip: hire a hitman, then apply for the mark’s job). I’ll be part of a panel of game audio professionals at the November 19th IGDA Madison chapter meeting (7PM at Roman Candle in Middleton), discussing some audio topic that is yet to be determined. So if you’re in the area, stop by!
I’ve also been spending a lot of time in Visual Studio lately. Programming is a new addition to my skill set, but I’m doing well so far. I’ve been able to add some interesting and useful audio functionality to the Unreal engine, and I’m learning and doing more amazing things every day.
That is all! I’ll try to update again before March!