I’ve received my first rejection letter, and in only three weeks! Of course, it looks nothing like what’s above (though I wouldn’t mind getting that either), but all in all I’m actually quite pleased with myself. What I got in the mail wasn’t a form letter, but rather a personalized letter from the editor. He didn’t have any real criticism of my work either, simply saying that it just didn’t grab his interest, and wishing me luck with it elsewhere.

Overall, this is a good thing. He wouldn’t have wrote me out a personalized letter if he thought it was terrible, and since he didn’t offer any criticism he must’ve thought it was good, but not good enough for him to publish. That means that it IS publishable material, just that he personally didn’t like it enough, and that I have a decent-to-good chance with it elsewhere.

I’ve already got a couple other places in mind to send it to, so I’m going to shop it around a bit more and see how I fare.

Saturday marked the final North American stop of the Metal Gear Solid 4 World Tour 2008, and game creator/director Hideo Kojima was scheduled to show up at 4pm for a two our signing session along with Ryan Payton, Yumi Kikuchi, and Kenichiro Imaizumi. With the knowledge that I could get a Kojima autograph, I decided to join Patrick, Julian, and Chris in the waiting game.

It all started out at around midnight, when we did the first location spot check. Granted, we were crazy, but we didn’t want to be the first guys in line. That entails a whole different kind of responsibility that we weren’t willing to assume, and we really only wanted to be in line as long as we could. The office is only a couple blocks walking distance away from the Metreon, and so we walked down to check for the early stages of a line forming, and upon discovering that there wasn’t any we came back. At 1am we did another spot check, and again returned to the office, where we got a few hours of precious sleep in.

At 5am, we ended up doing our last spot check, upon which we discovered that there were already nine people there and quickly got in line. The group that had already formed was full of some really nice people, but I couldn’t help but notice how under-prepared I was for the event–some of them had camping chairs ready, and they were definitely wearing some thicker jackets than I was or had blankets. Being unaccustomed to overnight line camping, I just had a hoodie, my DS (with a game I’m doing a review of in it; yes, I worked while I was there), and a book (Altered Carbon, a good sci-fi read). In the very unlikely event that I do something like this again, I’m coming packed for bear.

Those guys at the front of the line had been there since 2am, a fact they pointed out with pride to anyone who asked. They also fought tooth and nail (and believe me, they had to at some points) to make sure that everyone knew they were at the front of the line. For a significant stretch of the day, one of the good-natured guys, a huge black fellow wearing camo who was incredibly nice but had a fantastic stern glare, held up a hand-written sign that simply read, “START OF LINE” with “WE GOT HERE AT 2AM” written beneath it.

At around 7:30, we needed to make a food run. Across the street was both a Mel’s and a Denny’s, and we decided to go to Denny’s. Mostly because the food at Mel’s always looks and smells so appealing, but is ultimately incredibly disappointing and borderline terrible, whereas Denny’s is consistently somewhat awful. But when you hadn’t eaten real food in 15 hours, you’ll pretty much eat anything, right? So Patrick, Julian, and I made our way there while Chris stayed behind to hold our spot, and await the fruits of our return, because apparently Denny’s does to go food (I really had no idea). It was a little while after we got back that things started to get real crazy.

By 10am the line was already most of the way down the 4th street side of the Metreon. The day before, I had stopped by the PlayStation Store to see if they had any plans for the event, and it turns out that they of course had no idea how they were going to do anything. The complete lack of planning started to show around this time. The Metreon opened its doors, and of course the crowd in line began to surge inside the building. It wasn’t until a significant portion of the line was already inside and waiting that the PlayStation Store manager came out and indignantly informed us that we weren’t allowed to wait and had to move it back outside. For reals man, it’s not like you didn’t see the line, it would’ve helped if you actually tried to look like you knew what you were doing.

So the Manager Jerk pushed us all back outside, all the while with an attitude of bitter resentment that would continue throughout the day. As the day went on, more and more people showed up, and at this stage some crowd control methods were called for. Despite the fact that the Manager Jerk knew where the front of the line was, several of the people at the front reportedly had to enter the building and double-check that everyone working knew where the line began. This had to happen again once they finally managed to get some ropes up to keep the line orderly, as there was again confusion by the Powers That Be about what part of the line was the front and which was the back. All throughout the day, I had heard horror stories about how the LA event was botched by the group behind us, who didn’t even make it inside the building and drove all the way up and got in line at around 5:30am just to make sure they didn’t get screwed out of it again. I was hoping that wasn’t going to happen this time.

Cosplayers began to show up throughout the day, including a guy about 7 people back who donned a Naked Snake outfit complete with face paint. Out of the people that I saw though, the best costumes belonged to a group who had unfortunately shown up too late to nab autographs (though they hung out by the window looking in the entire time, so here’s hoping they were seen). The group consisted of an Old Snake, complete with awesome looking Octocam suit and a wicked sweet ’stache; a crocodile head helmet wearing Naked Snake with a slice of watermelon; a decked out Frog soldier; and a really good Meryl Silverburg, who for some reason seemed disgruntled at having her photo taken. PROTIP: If you cosplay and don’t like posing for photos, you’re doing it all wrong.

Around 2ish I want to say, Manager Jerk showed up again (having reared his ugly head several times earlier to make sure we were all standing and lining up against the wall properly or something). This time, he came with a couple ladies bearing wristbands for us all, proclaiming that without a wristband you weren’t getting in. Finally, some order, if not a bit late. He ended up trying to screw a couple of the guys that had been there since 2am out of wristbands because they weren’t in line the precise moment that he came by, but they did get theirs after a lot of complaining–unfortunately, I heard that there were a few others who didn’t manage to get wristbands later on, despite complaints. In addition to wristbands, Manager Jerk also brought a series of draconian rules that he proclaimed loudly:

- Kojima will only sign the gunmetal grey special edition PS3s or a supplied slipcover, nothing else. The store had no gunmetal grey PS3s in stock, nor did they have any limited edition copies of the game.
- You aren’t allowed to pose with any of the guests, nor could you ask them to pose for you
- You have to be in and out ASAP
- You cannot look directly at Kojima, nor can you speak unless directly asked a non-rhetorical question**Apparently, Kojima would sign anything you asked him to sign (I saw posters and limited edition copies of the game signed), but I decided not to press my luck and ask for a DS signature (hey, he was a producer on Lunar Knights). I blame Manager Jerk for not knowing what was going on, and also the dude who asked him to sign a pack of Marlboros. I mean, really dude, WTF?

At around 3:30pm, a car came up to deliver Kojima and group, and the line surged down to look on to see him wave and smile. There weren’t many people who actually stayed in line at this point, and I was thinking to myself that it would have been the perfect time for some less scrupulous types to try and sneak their way to the front, but apparently that didn’t happen, or I didn’t see the fights. I think the weirdest thing that happened to me the entire day was that someone came by asking for where the line ended (at this point, it literally wrapped all the way around the building and was over 500 people long), and then ended up chatting with me for a bit when he recognized me for my Super Smash Bros. Review. That’s the first time something like that’s ever happened! I wish I remembered his name, but I blanked out on it due to sleep deprivation as soon as he left. Sorry dude!

Finally, at about 4pm, we were let into the building where we were pushed through a signing gauntlet that began with Kenichiro Imaizumi, moved on to Hideo Kojima, and ended with Yumi Kikuchi. Sleep depraved, I didn’t really do much besides thank them and tell them that I loved Metal Gear, and then I headed out and collected a rad MGS4 dogtag, and then it was over.

Looking back on the ordeal, it was certainly a crazy but awesome experience. It was fun, and I’m glad I did it, but I’m not sure I could do something like that again. In the end though, it was totally worth it, and I’m proud to have gotten a Hideo Kojima autograph by waiting in line for 11+ hours. Special thanks go out to Patrick, Julian, and Chris for setting this whole thing up and making sure I tagged along!

* All photography by Chris Lovos
** Not really true

But of course, I didn’t want to just write stories (though I would be quite happy doing that), I wanted to write interactive, visual stories. I wanted to combine my love of games (the career path I had already chosen to walk) with my love of writing. An unpublished author doesn’t stand much of a chance–even though I am technically published, but yeah, college press doesn’t count–so I didn’t really get a second glance when I did the Game Developers Conference career walk.

Since then, I’ve managed to fall into this job, and for that I am eternally grateful. I get to write professionally all the time, and while it’s not really the sort of writing I had wanted to do, I’m quite pleased with it nonetheless. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve given up on writing fiction though.

Thanks to some advice from a colleague, I’ve decided to take my hobby a bit more seriously. I’ve dragged out a short story I wrote a couple years ago (as part of a series I’m still writing today) and polished it. Today, I finally submitted it for publication, and am now waiting on a response, something that takes eight or so weeks. Rejection is part of the business though, and while I understand that, I’m very confident in my work. Nonetheless, I’m prepared to send it elsewhere if necessary.

Here’s hoping it won’t be necessary!

My job is basically one half project manager and one half air-traffic controller. I am primarily responsible for site-wide promotion of our content, which entails everything from making sure that the topslot carousel has the biggest and best stories in it to keeping the various “picks” lists up-to-date. Outside of that, I map out and project manage our game launch centers and some editorial events and features. That all together is a full-time job, and one that essentially makes me on-call for important things, but on top of that I find the time to volunteer myself for previews, reviews, and the occasional feature. What can I say; I love to write and I love games. But with all of that, I’ve never really produced something all the way that had a full video component and I could really take charge of every aspect on. Today that changed.

Tonight we aired a three-hour live gameplay marathon of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and I’m quite proud to say that it was my baby. In fact, as I type this out on my phone while waiting for the train home, I have only just been able to remove my makeup. Wait, what? Yeah, I had to wear makeup for the camera, as I was basically the host.

The idea came up around Monday. Kevin VanOrd, the reviews editor put in charge of Conan, had briefly mentioned the possibility of a marathon, and I was all for it–our viewers love them, they pull in huge traffic, and they can be a lot of fun. Once he received a cursory approval, I went full steam ahead with it, marshaled the resources, and made it happen.

I’ll admit that producing it wasn’t as particularly massive undertaking as you might expect that sort of thing to be. We’ve pretty much got the art of creating this sort of thing down to a fine science, and I work with some of the most creative and talented people in the industry. So it’s not like I had to rig cameras and figure out how live streaming works or anything like that–mostly it was an issue of finding and committing the resources. That’s not to say it was an easy thing to do either though. This week was already crazy enough (I had a preview to write and two other live video appearances) and it made it that much more stressful, but in the end I managed to keep it together and get it done on time.

Hosting the event was kind of a surprise to me, as I hadn’t originally planned on it–it just sort of happened that way. The plan was to have Kevin on, but I felt like we needed someone to be up there with him and ask user questions, and he didn’t really want to be alone on stage. In a meeting with Ryan MacDonald, the man in charge of all video-related things on the site, he just sort of threw out there that I should do it, and though I wasn’t necessarily sure I had the chops to do it, I was totally down.

I’ve only had a few on-camera experiences, and I know that I say “umm” and “you know” and “good times” way too often, but overall I don’t think I did too bad of a job. Going into it, my plan was to be very conversational, very much the smartass, and know nothing about the game–the last one because I wanted an outsider’s perspective on it. I think I stuck to my guns on that pretty well, and anyone who knows me should be able to vouch for that as that’s how I really behave. I mean, I asked a teabagging question and rambled on about riding sweet mammoth mounts!

Anyway, I wish that we could have answered everyone’s questions or shown off some endgame content, but Kevin had only played for about 3 days and was only level 19. Overall though, I’m quite proud right now that I was able to take a casual comment and run with it like I was, producing a full blown (albeit a one-off) video feature like that in less than a week.

I think now I’ve finally earned the right to call myself a producer.

*This is not a euphemism–you almost got sick** playing it twice.
** This is a euphemism.

I have some pretty odd taste in music, to say the least. Ask anyone who’s really known me, and they’ll tell you this straight up. The fact of the matter is that video games have literally been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and many facets of my life are entirely derived from or revolve around them (I volunteer my personal time to write professional previews/reviews about them for Christ’s sake). Because of my utter fascination with them–something that is entirely mysterious to me to this day but that I know for fact is not at all about escapism as you might imagine–one thing that really stood out to me all throughout my childhood was their music, and that’s stuck with me to this day.

Honestly I’m not really sure what drew me to it so much. My brother, while nostalgic about some of it (though he probably wouldn’t admit this), went through the usual phases of music and eventually mastered the ways of the Pretentious Indie Dick. But me, I never really did. It’s not like I tuned out the rest of the aural world out there–I probably couldn’t name more than a handful of them, but I’ve heard and would recognize most of the greats–but I never really went looking for anything else.

When we got the Internet in high school, I discovered two things: they actually sold video game soundtracks in Japan like proper albums (!), and there was an entire underground community of people that were either like me or shared my seemingly bizarre taste in music. So, on a 56k connection I began my collection of video game soundtracks. Today, I have God knows how many albums (they’re for the most part poorly organized, something I intend to fix but is really tough to find the months of time necessary to do) and a total of 192.59GB of (legally purchased, RIAA) video game music. Some are for games I’ve never played or never intend to play, a lot is encoded in 128kbps, and most I don’t find the time to listen to more than once or twice a year.

I’ve seen Nobuo Uematsu play live at the Dear Friends concert in San Francisco three years ago, and I’ve been to Video Games Live (this year, actually). While I did enjoy those events overall, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I literally can’t stand the fawning masses that make up the majority of the fandom that go to those types of things on a regular basis. Maybe I’ve just mirrored my brother’s growth and become the king Pretentious Indie Dick of video game music; maybe I just see myself in those kids, even though I was and still am not enough of an extrovert to be like them, and I despise what I see. I don’t really know, though I’ve never really been one for self-loathing so I’m leaning towards Option A–my hatred of Tommy Tallarico for, among other things, turning video game music into a commercialized wank-fest backs that up too.

In the last couple years or so, I’ve done a lot to expand my horizons and taken a strong liking to Indie music. I guess I’m just in the right scene, but I’m fortunate enough to have friends who are big enough into it to know what’s good and I simply trust their recommendations. My co-worker Mindy in particular is big into the concert scene and, although I’ve been out of it for a while and had to flake out on the last couple because of one reason or another, whenever she asks me if I want to go I just say yes–usually without even knowing what I’m getting myself into. For example, I’m going to see Sons and Daughters with her and was later informed by another friend in passing that they were surprised I was into Rockabilly. I am? Whatever, she hasn’t let me down yet and I’m just along for the ride.

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The inside of the PlayStation Store was decked out in complete Final Fantasy VII regalia, complete with large speakers that pumped out the Crisis Core soundtrack–which includes a number of iconic songs from the hit classic remixed. At the far side of the store from the entrance was the small booth set up for taking photographs for the Shinra IDs and printing them up, and on the other end of the register area in the corner was a veritable shrine, dedicated to all things FF7. This shrine included a number of original concept art pieces and storyboards used, along with some of the character figures. Flanking this gallery on either side were Cloud and Sephiroth themselves in the form of their pricey Masterpiece Arts figures. Cloud came armed with a couple pieces of his Advent Children sword, the First Tsurugi, and Sephiroth of course had his seven-foot-long (in scale) sword the Masamune.

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And of course, it’s not a Final Fantasy event without the cosplayers. The one outfit that I saw most frequently was the uniform of the Shinra Department of Administrative Research, a.k.a. the Turks. Presumably, this is because all you need to do to be a Turk is wear a black suit and tie with a white shirt. I did catch a Sephiroth, however (he was totally going shirtless under his jacket; must’ve been cold in that wind), and an Advent Children Cloud. They weren’t mock fighting though, and I’m not sure if I can decide if that’s good or bad.

Click for full-size

Of course, there were plenty of copies of the game on-hand for purchase. They even had other, non-Crisis-Core games there for sale, I’m told! If you couldn’t make it down to the Metreon, don’t worry–I’ve got your back. Check my Flickr page for all the photos I took, and whether you were there or not, make sure you read Kevin’s review of the game, watch his video review, and check out GameSpot’s Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII launch center!

When I started at GameSpot and discovered that we had a house copy of Rez, I snatched up the game box (the special edition one with the Trance Vibrator, still enshrouded in its velvet casing as God only knows where that’s been–Alex’s pants, perhaps?) and put it on my desk. I’ll admit it was a tad bit for some gamer cred, but mostly because it was something that I’d always wanted to own, but never did. I never did play it though (mostly ’cause I didn’t find the game disc), and when I learned that an HD version was coming out on XBLA, I decided that I would wait to play that version.

Well, today was that day for me–I got to play Rez for the first time. On the final level. With Tetsuya Mizuguchi sitting right next to me. I’m pretty sure that I died in record time, much to everyone’s disappointment, especially my own. He’s a great guy though and took it in stride, and we all joked about how we’d just pretend it didn’t happen.

He showed me how he likes to play with Trance Vibrator support (mind out of the gutter! He puts the controller under the ball of his right foot) and did a quick run-through of Level 2, in which he tried to pass the controller off to me again but I politely declined. He ended up dying at the boss, something he attributed to jet lag, but of course I have no room to judge: I failed almost instantly at perhaps his most famous game because I had never played it before. Needless to say I was a tad bit embarrassed having met one of my idols in such a way, and confessed to having never played it. I suppose I should be lucky that he didn’t simply frown and dismiss me from his presence.

He was on a tight schedule though and had to leave, but I did manage to secure the one thing from him that I had desired most, beyond the opportunity to bask in his presence to see if I couldn’t somehow absorb some of his genius through close proximity:

Yay, I’m one signature closer to my goal of getting all of my heroes’ (the ones who have developed for the Nintendo DS, at least) signatures on my DS! In case you’re wondering, the silver sig on the right is from Mr. Castlevania, Koji Igarashi.

Things to do:

• Redo the footer so I can eliminate the Meta widget in the left column
• Take some photos around San Francisco that I can use for the headers (instead of the defaults, which aren’t really bad but they’re not mine)
• Flesh out the CV, Reviews, and Stories pages
• Decide if I want any more widgets on the page, and by this I mean Last.FM or my Xbox Live GamerTag (exclusively, I don’t want to add weird shit and make this like a terrible MySpace or something). I like the minimalism I have going, but while it’s certainly good for low pageloads, the amount of whitespace I have going on is a tad excessive.

So until then, I’ve got a semi-broken looking blog.  Oh well.  Not like anyone ever really reads it anyway.