ANDRE MAGUIRE

I just got back from the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. It was my first time in Europe and man… so amazing!

I flew in to Copenhagen on Sunday 8/17 for a quick connection to Munich. I stayed the night at the Sofitel Hotel (swanky) and had dinner with the rest of the Midway crew. We got up early in the morning and hightailed it to Leipzig in the ol’ 6 series BMW. When I say high tailed it…I mean we hauled ass! 150mph on the autobahn is movin’ out lemme tell ya!

On the way we stopped in Nuremberg, had lunch, and visited the “Fascination and Terror” exhibition, an incredible presentation of Nazi history, its consequences, ending with the trails. It’s located at the former congress hall of the Nazi rallies. Very, very heavy. After that we drove into Leipzig and started getting situated for the big event. We met up with the other Midway folks there, had dinner, and talked about how everything was going to go.

We got started on Wednesday 8/20. The convention was held in the Leipziger Messe fairgrounds. We had a main booth for presentations, a spot on the main floor for demos, a press conference room and a special “Vegas limo”. The lovely Juli’ escorted the various press to our limo where Alan and I gave our spiel about This is Vegas. Everybody we met was super cool.

We stopped at around 3:00 and headed to the press conference room where talk show host Oliver Pocher interviewed the studio heads of Midway to talk about each of the games. Everybody left feeling like it was a huge hit. Attendance was high, so much so that many had to be turned away.

Thursday and Friday was even more out of control. The event was opened to the public and everywhere you went the place was packed! Everybody kept cranking out the presentations trying not to lose their voices. It had the vibe of E3 circa ‘99. It was a lot of fun.

I was a bit sad to have to pack up and leave on Saturday. Doing 3 days straight of presentations can be pretty hard at times but this one was a blast. Apparently the event may be moved to Cologne next year (both towns are confirming a 2009 event) but wherever it is, I hope to be there! I’ve got a slideshow of the trip up on photobucket (here)

Pics:

I’m back from product review in Chicago! Sometimes the reviews are small affairs, sometimes completely insane. The review was a bit on the smaller side this time. There is really cool stuff in the works at the Midway Studios and as many noticed at E3, MK vs. DC looks incredible! It has been quite the busy summer!

We are in the midst of doing our first true open world game, on totally new tech, in a gaming environment that has never been more competitive. The scope of this project is by far bigger than all the other projects we have worked at Surreal, combined.

It’s no secret that open world game development is challenging and at times, even…maddening. There is a theory that open world games are simply hard to make, so much so, that few studios make them at all. We have found this theory to ring true while working on This is Vegas.

During product review Matt Booty (interim CEO of Midway) wrote us an inspiring email that likened the feat of open world game development to going to the moon (enter JFK speech). (Yes, he has been watching the “when we left earth” episodes on discovery channel!). He drew comparisons in the inherit challenges of both and emphasized the importance of building a studio with specialized talent. It was pretty dang cool to get that after such a tough run!

Wee, I got a new mic setup! I’ve never really had “cool” gear before but lately I’ve been trying to finally get my act together. I’ve been recording with no more than a Shure 57 for years! A few weeks ago I picked up a Rode NT1-A mic and borrowed a Tube Preamp and Compressor from a friend of mine. It goes without saying my recordings have improved (at least in terms of sound) but, I’m pretty happy in that the new gear hasn’t really complicated the way I do things too much. Something I’d been wary of…

Anyway, I recorded “Wonderin”, a tune by Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks, with the new gear. I’ve been fascinated with the song “Wonderin” since it came out in ‘84. I remember waaay back when the song would come on MTV and I’d always think “what is up with that dude in that video!?!?!” Other bands like Def Leppard, Van Halen and Pat Benatar were the norm at the time. Neil stuck out! As I look back on it, I think that was my first introduction to Neil Young. It wasn’t until years later than I truly appreciated his music.

• Wonderin.mp3 (my humble little version)
• Wonderin’ original video (the real deal)

Lessee what else is going on? Ah! I got a new guitar! I’ve played guitar for 25 years now and I’d never owned a steel string acoustic guitar. Don’t ask me how that’s possible but its true. I almost went all out and got a Martin but I’ve always liked Guild guitars and Epiphone guitars too. I settled on the Guild, Its great, a lotta fun. Maybe someday I’ll end up with that Martin too ha. My next thing is going to be an amp. Fender just reissued the ‘65 Princeton Reverb a week ago. It’s a beut! Lil pricey but, thems the brakes I guess. Kinda hard to haggle too much over an amp that sounds this good:

• Fender Princeton Reverb demo Video

got a new neck and a flipped control panel on my telecaster as of yesterday!

I really like the bigger frets and thicker neck on my SG so I decided to switch out the neck on my telecaster for something similar. I ended up getting an early 70’s reissue neck to replace the old one. Took a couple tries to get it fitted. I ended up having to shim the neck a bit (piece of guitar string box) but it works great! I didn’t anticipate it but it also seems to make the guitar sound better. I think the wood or nut or something must be a tick better. <shrug>

Flipping the control panel was a bit more fun. I normally use the back pickup so I flipped the panel around so the selector switch is out of the way and the volume and tone are closer to my hand. Super handy! but also, you can do some pretty cool wah and tremolo effects with em there too. woot!

I’m off to Disneyland tomorrow with my niece Gabbie. She’s never been. It’s gonna be crazy! She has no idea what is going to happen so I’m pretty sure her little head is going to blow up.

We’re heading out kinda early so we can get situated and make the Fantasmic show. I’m bummed the small-world ride is still closed though. That thing is hilarious.

Weee!

Hey cool, check me out! I gotta post up on club.ign.com for This is Vegas! We’ll be doing a regular developer update there. I’m expecting it to pick up a bit of steam as we get closer to shipping.

Direct link: Get the Party Started

Welp, I’m back from our Gamers Day week in Vegas. It went awesome. I’m thinking I’m going to need another week to recover!

We stayed at the Red Rock Casino and Spa. That place is amazing! It’s about 30 minutes from the strip but it was cool because it kind of felt like we had our own private resort. As I understand it Midway had about ½ the reservations in the casino. I don’t think I ever saw another person on the floor I was on.

On Tuesday night we went to the Strip and kind of tooled around. We didn’t get too crazy though because our exec product review was the next day. We ended up at the Paris Casino for dinner.

This is Vegas was first in the lineup for Wednesday’s product review. Everything went well. We showed our Gamers day demos and an open world demo. It still impresses me how much we got done this last rev. We had a little glitch with stuff right at the beginning but we sorted it out and everything went great from there.

Alan and I ended up having to bail on the rest of product review right after we were done to do an interview with Ricardo Torres from Gamespot. Ricardo walked into the room and just said, “ok, impress me!” which kind of freaked me out! But then, after a few minutes of talking with him he seemed to be genuinely into the game. We ended up spending 2 hours with him and he played through the different demos multiple times. I’d say he got a good impression.

Thursday was all about Gamers day. Midway sectioned off one of the pool areas for the event. We had a really cool spot out by the main pool and cabañas with 4 kiosks. Wayne (Art Director) and Chris, Darci and Trevor (Production) demoed the game while Alan and I ran around and did interviews. Normally I stress out when I do press stuff, but everybody was really cool and it ended up being totally fun. We ended up going from about 6pm to 10pm, and then there was an after party that went till 3. It was epic! I cant believe I ended up a little ahead at blackjack in the end. Ha.

I’m pretty beat, but it was a great week for the project. Everything worked and we left feeling confident that the pressed liked what they saw from This is Vegas. I kinda cant wait to do another one!

Some press from the event:

• Game Spot hands on demo with Editor Ricardo Torres 
• Game informer preview  
• 1UP preview
• IGN preview
• GameSpy Preview

Pics!

We’ve been absolutely cranking at work! Tomorrow I’m heading out to Vegas!

Actually I’m going for work. Gamers day is on Thursday and we got demos! It’s pretty incredible how much stuff we were able to get done this last rev. Not only did we make a ton of headway on the gameplay front, we planned quite a bit better too. Less crunch, more polish, not too shabby! Woot! so, ya! …I’ll be showing off This is Vegas in Vegas till Thursday. It’s going to be a crazy week!

Man, I keep coming across these epic youtube channels with tons of instructional guitar vids on em. Its amazing to me that these guys have put together so much material but also, these guys are just insanely good! I swear I’ve learned more from these sites than I ever did when I was taking lessons in highschool and college. But then, they didn’t have no internets back in those days…

• Fretkillr: Really fantastic guitar player, singer and harmonica player. I just came across this tonight, for all I know he plays 10 other things too. The little guitar he plays is rad. Mine is fairly small too. Smaller guitars have a cool boxy sound that is a bit nicer for thumpy guitar pickin imo.

• Deltabluestips: This guy is amazing! He does a bit of singing and slide along with some crazy delta blues style guitar playing. He’s even got a little Stella guitar (like the Robert Johnson guitar) that a viewer just GAVE him just because he is so badass. How cool is that!?

There’s a preview up from Game Informer! Those guys are awesome and have always been really cool to us and the games we’ve made going all the way back to Drakan. When I was at their Studio this last fall they had just put out their “10 scariest moments in gaming” article and Suffering made the cut (so cool!). Game Informer Preview