Pre-PAX East: How to get into the games industry, with Major Nelson

Xbox Live’s Director of Programming, known by legions of gamers as Major Nelson, spoke to a conference room packed with eager college students today at the Microsoft New England Research and Development center (aptly named NERD) near Kendall Square.

Of course, everyone there was a nerd, and when this many nerds get together, we get excited. Major Nelson, real name Larry Hryb, knows that well. He was excited too.

Major Nelson knows what we want

He began by telling us how he got started working with the Xbox Live team. “Everything I did leading up to this kind of prepared me for this role,” he said. “I was brought on the team specifically to have a dialogue with the community.”

He’s done a good job, too. Through Twitter, podcasts and majornelson.com, Hryb has spent the last several years becoming the public face of Xbox Live. He’s a necessary and beloved intermediary between the aggressive Xbox community and the suits at Microsoft.

“I wanted to have.. a real, honest conversation, that was open, and had a real level of transparency,” he said.

Hryb was part of the small team that came up with Xbox Live Achievements, for better or worse, and he had a large role in 2008′s massive New Xbox Experience (NXE) interface update to the Xbox 360. What made the NXE so important to Hryb was the fact that it was the first time a home console had been completely revamped with a software update.

“At Microsoft, we learned the power of software,” he said.

He also had plenty to say about Microsoft’s upcoming mobile plans. Though he couldn’t give us too many details, he hinted at some things that sound pretty worthwhile.

“Think about how you can stay connected to the community,” Hryb said in response to a question about Xbox Live functionality on Windows phones. “We’re really forcing the team to think about how to do gaming the right way.” He suggested that in the future, a puzzle game you play on your phone could have an effect on your FPS experience on Xbox Live. “You got your Bejeweled in my Modern Warfare!” “You got your Modern Warfare in my Bejeweled!” It should be noted: I definitely made up that example.

When asked about the possibility of a web browser for the 360 (“The PS3 has one!”), Hryb quipped, “Have you tried it on the PS3?” He confessed that they’ve got it working “in the lab,” but that it’s not something they would ship. Instead, he said, they’re concentrating on delivering “optimized,” bite-sized “best of the web” experiences, like the 360′s Last.FM, Facebook, and Twitter widgets.

“Granted, [Twitter's] maybe not the best app,” he confessed, eliciting a collective wry chuckle.

As far as being in Boston goes, Hryb said he “would love to have an office here.” He knows that a team works better when they’re not geographically separated. “There is a tangible value to having people in a single place like this.”

All these people want to work in the games industry. NONE OF THEM WILL. Actually a lot of them probably will.

Following his talk was a panel discussion that included such industry personalities as Michael Cummings, Darius Kazemi, James Silva, Kent Quirk, Dan Scherlis, and Major Nelson himself. The panelists focused on how to get hired in the game industry (although they somehow failed to address the very important role of game journalists- what an oversight, right?).

“We get it. You play games,” said Scherlis, production and social media guru. “That’s not a differentiator.” He said that game companies are looking for people who are truly passionate, and have more varied experience than simply a life spent playing lots of video games.

Networking expert Kazemi wanted to stress that experience with games is, indeed, important, however. “The number one thing that I want students to be doing when they are students is to make games,” he said.

That’s how indie developer James Silva, of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1 fame, got his foothold in the industry. In addition to helping you get a job, he said, developing your own games has the advantage of allowing you to maintain the purity of your ideas.

“We’ve all played games that have had their visions compromised,” said Hryb. That can happen when a team of hundreds gets their hands on an idea, but indie developers- and students developing their own games- retain the ability to control every aspect of their games.

“It is a bit of a God complex,” said Silva. “I kind of worry about that.”

Hryb also instructed aspiring game developers to consider creating games for less obvious, relatively untapped markets. “My mother’s a gamer. She’s 72 years old,” he said. “She just plays a different kind of game.” Namely, Mahjong.

Overall, the panel stressed that all programmers should learn design, every artist should learn programming, and most of all, everyone should love what they do (and do what they love). The message sounded familiar to me, as most of my journalism professors like to stress the importance of having numerous skills and being an all-in-one package, of sorts.

As the panel wrapped up and a few bits of swag were distributed to audience members, folks began to trickle out of the conference room, heading to other floors to mingle and network with the multitude of Massachusetts game companies in attendance. Attractions included mega sized Rock Band, free food and less-free booze. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wasn’t getting carded (I’m fresh enough over the legal drinking age threshold to still feel a tingle of excitement at this).

And hey, in case you’re reading this, shout out to Caleb Epps from Harmonix, Terrence Masson from Northeastern, Dustin Burg from Ska Studios and Chris Dahlen from Kill Screen. See you all this weekend at Hynes Convention Center!

Past Deadline Review: “Halo 3: ODST” is better the second time

There is a very small middle ground when it comes to last fall’s Halo 3: ODST. Although the game was well received by some, many long time Halo fans were disappointed by the apparent lack of content and innovation in ODST. These are people who, like myself, stuck with Halo throughout the years despite ever increasing criticism of series’ seeming inability to evolve in a gaming world filled with sprinting, cover systems and insanely fast paced gameplay.

laser eye surgery in the future is actually a lot more dangerous

I think many of the now disillusioned and bitter fans should go back and try again. ODST, like every Halo game since Combat Evolved, was built up to the point of mania months before its release. Bungie encourages this degree of hype, seeming to bask in it as the tiniest imaginable bits of information to trickle down to starving fans. In this case, they may have standby’d themselves.

With expectations running high, ODST was doomed to disappoint. Fans who weren’t expecting what they got- a detailed, excellently produced, balanced, and interesting expansion to Halo 3- didn’t do enough research and saw too many TV ads. The pacing of the campaign, called plodding by some, I call deliberate; the atmosphere, likewise, is brooding and intriguing. The combination makes for a game very unlike its contemporaries in that players are asked to fill the role of the lost, stranded soldier, outnumbered in a war torn metropolis, and experience the parts that make them wonder what that soldier must be thinking and feeling in addition to what he will be shooting at next.

It requires a certain attitude to fully appreciate what Bungie has done. I would challenge fans who were unpleasantly surprised by ODST‘s campaign to try playing through it again with a different mindset. Notice things like the way the story, especially the subplot heard through the various audio logs scattered around the crumbling city, parallels Dante’s Divine Comedy (hint: the logs are identified in your VISR menu according to which of Dante’s 9 circles of Hell they correspond to- read more here, it is very much worth it). The bottom line is, the best parts of the campaign can’t really be experienced like a normal Halo game.

safari zone is the only place to catch the elusive Tauros

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to talk about my favorite part of ODST: Firefight! Team up with other players and struggle to survive wave after wave of enemies with limited ammo and health packs, while being subjected all the while to ever shifting sets of variables that force players to think up new strategies after every single round.

Four waves of randomly generated enemies, followed by one wave of heavily armored Brutes and Brute chieftains, make up a round. At the end of each round, ammo and health packs are dropped into the map, and a new variable- in the form of skulls that cause enemies to drop less ammo, throw more grenades, and be more cunning- is added to the mix. After three rounds, a set is completed, and more new skulls are turned on. This may sound confusing, and it is. And on Heroic difficulty, which I recommend for four experienced Halo players to really stretch their legs in, one set can take more than half an hour to complete.

I know this game came out four months ago, but it took me almost that long to actually get on a message board and find three other people to play with. Prior to this I had played with my girlfriend in split screen and with real life friends over Xbox live. However, I have found through experience that yelling at my friends for wasting all the rockets shooting at drones does not go over well. I have no such qualms about yelling at strangers.

Firefight: the best thing since THIS?! you betcha.

The biggest downfall of Firefight is the lack of a matchmaking, lobby browsing, or another in game system of finding strangers to play with. Posting on a message board and waiting for three people to respond is, admittedly, way more effort than should be required to team up with fellow players. And to top it off, it’s borderline maddening trying to connect with players who won’t quit or get disconnected in the middle of the match, sending everyone hurtling back to the main menu, crying all the way. Lagging out after an hour and a half of careful strategizing and cautious progress is enough to burn you out for a week or two.

Find three other compatible connections, however, and the resulting game will be well worth it. Tactics and communication are key to surviving past the first few rounds. Lives run out fast. Heavy weapons must be kept track of, and each player needs to stick to a specific role, from recon to ammo scout, especially on larger maps. Every match with different players will force you to examine your strengths and those of your teammates so you can tweak your strategies accordingly. Everyone on your team will die a lot.. at first. However, once all four players find their roles in the squad and get into the rhythm of the game, frustration turns to satisfaction and the points rack up.

will "Reach" include Firefight? if Bungie knows what's good for them.

Firefight is at its best when you’re playing with a full squad of experienced, intelligent players over Xbox Live. Unfortunately, unless all your friends are Halo geeks, connecting with other players will require too much time and effort to be practical most of the time. Because of this, Firefight will, for most people, remain something that could have been great. If you experience it the right way even once, though, you’ll discover what amounts to the freshest Halo experience since Combat Evolved‘s multiplayer in 2001 forever changed the way I play games with my friends. It is so good that I just wrote about 700 more words than I originally intended to. If Bungie remembers to include Firefight in Halo: Reach with a matchmaking mode, I’m pretty sure I would never have to play another Call of Duty game again, and that would be a relief.

Red Eye Review: Modern Warfare: enemy UAV is airborne

My roommate is addicted to CoD4. He plays it every night.

I am not addicted to CoD4. I only play it when he plays it. That’s the only reason I’m playing it right now.

All I have to do is advance to General. That means that I only need 264 more points, which means that I’m playing one more game.

I think I’m only playing one more game, until fucking choklitSTARFISH starts spawn killing me with grenades from across the Bog. This guy needs to be taught that the only thing he has going for him right now is luck, and that luck rarely lasts more than one round. So I stay in the lobby when the game ends and wait for the next one to start up.

I prove my point by going 14-8 on Strike while he gets stuck at 0-1 before quitting halfway through the match. A silenced P90 nets me a helicopter and a 9 kill streak. I’m going to assume it was my perfectly executed revenge that caused him to quit, rather than the fact that it’s 3 am.

fking Evil Caesar

My roommate (the one with the problem) went to bed an hour and a half ago. He has class tomorrow. I wouldn’t have even started playing this tonight if it hadn’t been for him, so why am I the one up trading kills with a guy who chose to name himself after a Limp Bizkit album?
I know what it is about this game that makes me need to keep playing it almost a year after its release. The always rewarding cycle of level up, unlock new perk / weapon, repeat, etc. is addictive like drunk WoW, and the massive number of possible perk, weapon, and attachment combinations make me want to try every strategy I can think of.

I can pretend it doesn’t exist when no one else is playing it. In fact, I’ve gone months without putting the disc in my 360. I’ve got better things to do. I’ve got better games to play. I never finished Persona 3, and I’m still only on chapter 7 of Dead Space.

It’s my roommate’s fault. He should be spending his time more wisely.

I think it’s time for an intervention.