Light-hearted Friday OT thread

[llandz]

Is your son working in Albany?

No, Santa Monica, CA. I know Activision has one of their studios in Albany. My son works in the main headquarters.

 

[orangefog]

No, Santa Monica, CA. I know Activision has one of their studios in Albany. My son works in the main headquarters.

Oh cool, I only ask, because I am in the Albany area and I have been wanting to see if I could get my son in for a tour and talk to some people about their careers working on video games.

 

[JDubbin]

1.) The Legend of Zelda series (Ocarina of Time is off the charts good)
2.) Assassin's Creed series (nobody else is a fan?)
3) NBA 2K
4) Mario Kart (Wii)
5) Jeopardy (it's a whole different ball game when you actually need to ring in quickly and actually answer correctly)

 

[cto]

Not even Video poker at the casino?

I have never played ANYTHING at a casino.

 

[cuseattle]

I have never played ANYTHING at a casino.

You are one smart lady.

 

[realorange]

Despite constant entreaties from scores of Facebook friends, I have successfully avoided it.

Ah, but Facebook is one of the addictive games itself. One I have studiously avoided and my wife wishes she had and now finds it near impossible to back out.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

1.)
4) Mario Kart (Wii)

Man, if I can just win the Mirror Leaf Cup I'll have won them all, and the best I ever get when I race is silver.

 

[JDubbin]

Man, if I can just win the Mirror Leaf Cup I'll have won them all, and the best I ever get when I race is silver.

Haha the Mirror races are brutal, it is rewarding to get the full the Gold across the board though

 

[llandz]

Oh cool, I only ask, because I am in the Albany area and I have been wanting to see if I could get my son in for a tour and talk to some people about their careers working on video games.

He just started at Activision, so I don't think he can do this as he is just learning his way in the company. Maybe in the future. More likely in Santa Monica though. They are a very secure facility in Santa Monica gates, etc. If your son has questions about college programs or anything I or my son may know things. He went to USC engineering undergrad and grad for their game programming degree. He did look at RPI, but they were just starting their program and were very disorganized when he applied, although that must have been 10-12 years ago. They did not even know what they wanted with the application. Most schools wanted some game programming examples etc. but RPI did not know yet. USC is the top and my son now says Utah is very up and coming. There is also Digipen in Seattle. They are probably the top 3. My son is strictly programming, and then there is the art/graphics side also. The ones who go into programming know several programming languages before they even get to college, and most have made some sort of game already. They are serious gamers. It is a tough business. Many who he went to USC with are already out of the business. He has worked for Disney, and 2 start up game companies. The most recent start up he was involved with is called Gigantic and will be out on Xbox and Windows 10 probably in September. At Activision he will be working on all of their games as he is in what is called central technology. But I know he will be in charge of the online marketplace for Call of Duty no matter what else he is working on.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Haha the Mirror races are brutal, it is rewarding to get the full the Gold across the board though

I figure that's got to unlock a new character or something.

 

[Cowtown]

Geez, having been born and raised through the Cold War, I always thought Missile Command was the ultimate Cold War game ...

Ms Pacman, Galaga, Tron, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Tetris

 

[Cowtown]

Ah, but Facebook is one of the addictive games itself. One I have studiously avoided and my wife wishes she had and now finds it near impossible to back out.

Geez, yes. One of the reasons I dumped my /B account is I kept getting inundated with all the Farmville nonsense from others playing the GD game. I think there were a few others too, weren't there?

 

[cuseclappy]

Super Mario 3
NHL 94
GTA V.. if you havent played the newest one on ps3 or 4.. youre missing out.. its amazing, visually and creatively

 

[tee1222]

Speaking of Activision...River Raid, y'all. River Raid.

 

[HoustonCuse]

Super Mario 3
NHL 94
GTA V.. if you havent played the newest one on ps3 or 4.. youre missing out.. its amazing, visually and creatively

GTA V is amazing. People who aren't familiar latch on to some of the unsavory aspects of the story and gameplay as if they've never watched a gangster movie, but put all that aside and it is a master achievement in many areas of simulation, programming, and story. Everytime a new GTA comes out you think it can't be topped and then they bring out a new GTA! I can't wait to see what GTA VI will be like.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Some really good games mentioned in the prior posts, will try and add to the list here.

Call of Duty games for the most part are fantastic games. I agree about world of war getting a Pacific theater of war arc (finally) was great to see. The original Call of Duty games for PC are absolutely amazing as well, if you haven't played them I highly recommend it.

Assassins Creed 3 set back during the American Revolution was fantastic. Obviously that period of time has almost zero in the way of video games (for obvious reasons) so as a history fan it was awesome to see (the game itself being very good was icing on the cake.

Often overlooked but the early medal of honor games were excellent titles. Medal of Honor Frontline for the PS2 was so much fun to play and extremely underrated. They ended up re-releasing it a few years ago with one of the new call of duty games (which wasnt that great). I am actually playing it again right now and it still holds up despite being over a decade old.

Red dead revolver and Read Dead Redemption - Surprised no one mentioned these two, great games. red dead revolver was so unique for its time, just a great game.

I own all the Grand Theft Auto games but I have to admit after a month or so I usually find myself moving on to a different game. The story arch is usually good but its so much fun to just take off and start doing your own thing in the open world map that I end up burning myself out after a while. Also the newer versions of GTA seem to have to many side things going on, its become a bit cluttered, I didnt buy GTA to play tennis or do yoga etc.

if were talking older titles I loved Golden Axe what a great game. There was a super nintendo game where you could pick a character I think one of the names was Hager or Hagar or something like that and battle across a doze plus levels to rescue some kidnapped girl. I always forget the name of that game but it was a classic. Use to have an arcade version of that years ago at Tullys/Ground Round I spent hours playing that thing. Play Station 2 had a series of like 2-3 games where you played as an acutal miniature green army guy (like the plastic toy). Sounds stupid but the games themselves were an absolute blast. Might have to dig out my PS2 just to give it a play again.

 

[andyw715]

Spy Hunter.

 

[sabach]

Yep, but once you had to move around with the double ship it was hard not to lose one. You had a better firing spread but also took up more space. I'm pretty sure you could only have so many shots on the screen at once as well, which put a premium on accuracy especially as you moved to the higher levels and everything except you got faster.

And after you hit the alien that was holding your ship you had to make sure you didn't shoot your own ship as it was coming back down to you to form the double ship.