I just got my second Xbox Red Ring, leaving me out of the Read Dead Redemption multiplayer action for the foreseeable future. Given that I got the first one as soon as I stuck Rockstar’s last opus GTA4 in the tray I’m wondering if they’re overclocking the console in a similar manner to which Chains [...]

Those around me will no doubt by now be sick of talk about the diet I’ve been on for the last few months. For the record, I’ve always had a distaste for what I call the “Game Developer Physique” sported by so many of our contemporaries, so any slip towards that abyss I consider a [...]

The other day the fancy laptop turned out to be not so fancy after all and crapped out on me after just a few months, so in the interim I’ve been using the iPhone for surfing duties and comandeering MJ’s computer while she busies herself ranking up on Call of Duty 4, (it sounds great [...]

Still on my pixel art trip, I created this out of fridge magnets the other day. Coincidentally, one of the guys at work forwarded this page by SNK Playmore illustrating their methods for pixel art creation, (which they refer to as “Dot Art”.) While I’ve always been a fan of Capcom’s games, I do appreciate [...]

Here’s the product of a rainy Sunday afternoon – a twist on the original purchase here. I took bad when we first moved from pixels to the anti-aliased imagery of photoshop because of the loss of control, so it’s nice to see pixel art becoming a decorative retro-style all of its own.

On a recent road trip down to NYC for the long weekend, MJ and I were customarily delayed a little extra at the border control due to my non-Canadian status. The conversation with the patrol officer went a little like this: Officer: What is your status in Canada? Me: I’m on a work permit. Officer: [...]

I’ve been criticised in the past for my practice of taking over-long bathroom visits, as well as the variety of entertainment I’ll take in there with me to make those extended stays more productive – ranging from books and magazines to my DS, ipod, laptop, and even the guitar. The truth is, I can’t think [...]

…for not screwing it up. In the likely event that I’ll change this sometime, here’s my XBOX avatar as of January 20th 2009, for posterity.

After months of studied deliberation, (as well as being sidetracked by the new condo), I’ve finally taken delivery of my first ever laptop – the new Sony VAIO VGN-FW190 – with this being its virgin post. It was becoming painfully obvious that my old PC just wasn’t cutting it for a supposed game developer, (I’ve [...]

Nothing’s been posted for a while because I’ve been on holiday, first in Scotland for a friend’s wedding then off to Sweden, (it seems so much closer to the UK now that I live in Canada), in the search of design inspiration. I did, however, find Sweden to be rather lacking in cutting-edge design, though [...]

The big news this week: Marie-Jo and I have finally jumped through all the legal hoops required for a freelancer/foreigner mortgage and have purchased our first joint home, right in the heart of Montreal’s Plateau – not bad considering we only began looking less than three weeks ago. It’s still over a month before we [...]

Summer is here in Montreal and it’s hard to spend any free time at home in front of a desk, unless it’s to upload a fantastic picture of back home sent from your parents’ latest outing. Anybody thinking of holidaying in Scotland would be wise to get there ASAP while the two weeks where it [...]

Mass Effect PC is released today in North America – go pick it up! I wish I had a PC that could run it. In fact, I wish I had a PC that could at least run Battlefield 1942 :-(

[Last night, on the way to see Iron Man at the movie theatre with Marie-Jo:] Me: Can I just take 5 minutes in HMV beforehand? MJ: We only have 30 minutes to eat :( We’ll have to get in line and… Me: I won’t be long baby. I just need to pick something up. MJ: [...]

I had hoped to post about the fantastic leaps forward in ingame animation brought about by the highly publicised (in the gaming press anyway) integration of NaturalMotion’s behavioural/physics-based Euphoria middleware in the recently released GTA4. However, I was one of the unlucky few whose copy would invariably freeze during the opening stages of the game. [...]

Phew. It’s around 1.30am and I’ve just finished uploading the latest theme for the site, doing away once and for all with the busy-ness of yester-year. I’ve been taking a graphic design nightclass lately and have been feeling creative, so now I can get back onto other projects. In other news, I’ve begun to really [...]

I hate Air Canada. They’ve delayed my flights and lost my luggage with such predictable regularity as to be considered clockwork. I even joined a Facebook group calling for a government inquiry into their low quality of service. But now all is forgiven, if only my next work trip involves Executive First.

A lot has been said over the past few weeks concerning the sexual content of Mass Effect, most notably the controversially unresearched Fox TV spot below. As a former member of the dev team responsible, (who directed a portion of the motion-capture actors involved – though full cutscenes weren’t my gig), I can perhaps speak [...]

A spot of reminiscing was had this week after I spied my first ever project, Tom & Jerry: War of The Whiskers, (hey – we’ve all got to start somewhere right?), on the latest list of original XBOX games made compatible for the XBOX360. It brought back both good and bad memories to throw it [...]

In light of Kotaku’s recent gallery of games industry work desks I thought I’d add my own to the mix, taken late last year to accompany my testimonial on the Eidos Montreal website. As you can see, I run a tight ship… I’m sure the sterile environment will change over time as we’d only been [...]

During a recent trip to Turkey, I revisited the archaeological site of Ephesus over a decade after holidaying there as a child and was surprised to the extent at which time has clouded my memory of the ancient city layout. Nor could I recall, (until later reminded by my parents), a night spent in the [...]

Last week was spent on an Eidos collaboration effort in Copenhagen, Denmark at IO Interactive, makers of Hitman, Kane & Lynch, and the amazing parody of American jingoism, Freedom Fighters. The Danes were incredibly welcoming and we came away with not only an understanding of K&L’s 1000+ NPC crowd system, but also an appreciation of [...]

Mass should be released tomorrow, but I’m currently somewhere in Turkey so I’ve put this post on a timer. Not so much of a lie, more of a mistranslation this time. The other day I was thumbing through several old magazines scattered around the studio when, lo and behold, I find my own ugly mug [...]

So after nearly three years looking forward to it, I’m gonna miss all the hype and press surrounding the launch of Mass Effect due to being on holiday in Turkey – (no bad thing :). Thankfully I managed to catch this just before leaving – certainly looks a little inconsistent with the animation style of [...]

Here’s a fantastic pic of my BioWare buddies dressed as TF2′s Red Team for Halloween. Creative, yes, but by no means original…

I wrote a post just a few weeks ago complaining about “back home”, but it’s easy to get homesick when your friend sends you pictures of his recent camping trip in Glencoe, Scotland. The Canadian Rockies are majestic, the NY Adirondacks are incredibly fertile, but there’s something about the Scottish Highlands that’s just classic fairytale.

It’s not at all related to games or animation, but I just found this site claiming to relate local news from my hometown of Dundee, Scotland, in the local dialect. While it’s far from regularly updated, they do have an iFrame displaying the local weather from an external site, which I’ve stolen and handily embedded [...]

So, the third major overhaul to this site arrives today, along with something of a change of delivery. New Look The first and most obvious change is visual. This was inspired by the upcoming Apple iPhone, and the entire site has been formatted to work with the dimensions of the screen based on the initial [...]