Does it make me a bad person that I'm considering stopping playing Project Sylpheed, just because their Achievement design is so insanely bad, despite the fact that the game itself is basically kind of fun? 

Ultimately I think it helps put things in perspective... there are games I'll keep playing on the 360 just to get the Achievements (my recent binge on Achievements in Viva Pinata, for example), and then there are good games that I play on other, lesser, non-Achievement generating systems.  I've finally gotten around to playing Baten Kaitos on the Gamecube (via the Wii back-compat), for example.  So I guess I just need to hold games with insanely bad Achievement design to that standard -- would I be playing it if it were merely on the PS3 or Wii?

To give you an idea of just how bad Project Sylpheed's Achievements are... you have subobjectives in each mission... which are never told to you... you just find out at the end of the mission how many you completed.  Some, but not all, of them are magically tied to Achievements... and you can't replay a mission to get better subobjectives.  Missed one in back on mission 8?  Have fun replaying the entire campaign to hope you discover a subobjective that happened to be relevant.

There is no way a rational, sane-minded human being could have thought this was a good idea.  Even if you think Achivements should be punishingly hard, this is just an awful way to do them. 

Achievements are really good when they're good.  But so many games seem just do the most soul-crushingly bad things with them for no apparent reason.  Project Sylpheed actually has some decent design sensibilities otherwise, and almost kind of scratches that Wing Commander itch for me that has gone so very, very long without being scratched.  (Note to EA -- Wing Commander Arena ain't gonna cut it).

I should stop writing this rant before I get even more torqued up about lost opportunities and go to sleep...

I was at the SMU Guildhall today (neat place) representing Ensemble in the recruiting department, talking to programmers about to graduate, that sort of thing.  While I think I'm not really enough of a "people person" to be a great recruiter, I do enjoy talking about the Ensemble philosophy and all the very cool things about working here.  It was also a lot of fun to just meet some of the students -- ranging from folks just moving on to their Master's degree in a normal sort of collegiate progression, to folks to left their old careers to try and get trained up on gaming.

Proof of why I'm totally awful at recruiting though: I didn't even think to bring business cards so I would up writing my email address, etc on random sheets of paper from a legal pad.  At least I didn't have to worry about coming off as overly slick! 

Overall I'm still not sure I'm 100% sold on the utility of specialist game schools, even very good ones like Guildhall, versus spending the same time just building indy games on your own and really immersing yourself in all the freely available information out ther.  Both require a lot of motivation though, and that's definitely something I admire.

It's hard to think back to when I was just straight out of college, diving into work at Looking Glass.  It feels like a lot longer ago than the 14 calendar years of time...  ah, nostalgia. 

Not much time for updates lately -- things are heating up a bit at work as we prep for some big milestones in the fall. 

Of course, the release of games like Civ 4: Beyond the Sword isn't helping matters either.  It's about to get really bad in August when games like Metroid Prime 3 and Bioshock hit, so I guess I should enjoy the relative calm while I can.

Bully was quite a gem when it came out last year for the PS2 but it had one glaring flaw: it was for the PS2.  Well, sounds like that may finally be addressed:

According to http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=172613 Rockstar is releasing Bully: Scholarship Edition for the 360.  I can't wait.  It's a good enough game I don't mind a second playthrough, and actually achievements might give me just enough motivation to actually do a lot more of the side quests this time around.

One of the things I loved about the game was just the sense of place that it had, so returning there will be interesting in it's own right.  Only now it will be in high-def, and with Achivements.  I'm sold. 

I have to admit I'm pretty excited about the Harry Potter book release this week.  Yeah, I know, so is half the Western world... but I really just lose myself in the books and love the world that J.K. Rowling has created.  Enough that I even went out of my way to buy two versions of the latest EA Harry Potter game -- Elise wanted to try the wand UI on the Wii, but if I was going to seriously play it there is no question that it would be the 360 version.

I admit I really want to like this game despite it being a relatively straighforward movie knockoff.  You get to wander around Hogwarts in a fairly non-linear fashion throughout the game and there are lots of rewards for just exploring and being immersed in the game world.  Of course it's all closely tied to the movie, which will never quite be the same as the version of the Potter-verse in my head... though I've now seen the movies enough times that as I re-read the series I can't help but put the movie characters back in.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that...

Well, I finally hit 70 with my main World of Warcraft character.  It was kind of exciting, because there is a lot of content there in the game that I can only just now start to participate in.  But my actual first response was to create a new character -- Horde PvP, as far away as you can get in the game from what I've done so far.  I just really enjoy the leveling up game, and while WoW has many proxies for that activity (gaining gold, gear, reputation), somehow it isn't the same.

Also, this music video from Blizzcon is possibly my favorite thing from WoW ever.

http://media.worldofwarcraft.com/blizzcon/iammurloc/iammurloc_en.html

The boys have been forcing me to watch the "Viva Pinata: Party Animals" trailer (downloaded on the 360 -- I love the whole Bringing It Home thing).  That reminded me that I was having fun with Viva Pinata, but never really finished it.

So I broke down today and decided to just cheat (ie, look on the intertubes) and power through the remaining Achievements (at 720 / 1000 currently).  Some kind souls at QT3 turned me on to PinataIsland.info, which has a nice wiki for the game.

As it turns out, there's a ton of cool stuff that I could have figured out if only the game had reached out to me a little, met me halfway. 

For example...

-- (minor spoiler warning)

...  you can learn which fertilizer goes with which plant by seeing what fertilizer type you get when you use a Taffly on that plant's fruit (which generates fertilizer).  That's cool stuff, and seems internally consistent.  But because the game gave me so little opportunity to see that consistency (much less happen on finding out the whole Taffly-fertilizer thing aside from pure chance) I never had a chance to feel like that sort of exploration would be reasonably rewarded.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the game and it's one of my favorite quirky titles.  But it is very clear to me there is a lot further they could take it for VP2.  It's one of the few games that really everyone in the house enjoys when I play, and the core "run a crazy fantasy garden" is a very compelling experience with a lot of room for further expansion.

I made the mistake of trying to watch the Microsoft E3 presentation on G4 last night.  Could they have timed the commercials any worse if they had tried?  A painful experience.  Fortunately I learned my lesson and caught the other two conferences via the internet. 

Virtual, slimmed-down E3 may not be as good as past years but the ability to download the HD trailers on Xbox Live and watch the whole thing streaming definitely scratches that itch a bit.

Though man, I have no idea how I'm going to find the time to play all these games this fall.  GTA4 and Bioshock alone would probably eat most of my holiday months, not to mention Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Mercenaries 2, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, Ratchet & Clank Future... man, it's just going to be crazy.  In a good way.  :)

E3 Mania is almost upon us... while I miss the old gaudy spectacle of a show, this year there is a lot broader coverage of the "main course", the presentations by the big 3 console manufacturers.  G4 is covering them on TV, they are downloadable on Xbox Live / PSN (no luck for Nintendo), and online streaming.  Good times.  I know what I'll be watching tomorrow evening... though I'll have to decide whether I can get a higher quality stream online or low-tech standard def cable...

OMG.  This is the funniest archived forum thread I think I've ever read.

http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/

Well, assuming you're into Dwarf Fortress.  It's a succession game of DF from the Something Awful forums, and I was literally falling over laughing reading it on my laptop over the 4th.  Of course, trying to explain to my wife what a "Dwarf Fortress" is and why an internet thread about it is the funniest thing ever is not easy, even when explaining to a fairly tech- and game- savvy woman like Elise is.

The damn thread made me reinstall DF and lose many hours to it again... it's really a blessing that the game has an awful interface and not even a minimal bar of graphics because if it did I might not ever play anything else.