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Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Most Impressive Physics Engine You’ve Never Seen

The effects of a real life high-speed collision on a car are catastrophic. In video games, however, things are different. Technical ceilings, licensing hurdles and other factors have long conspired to keep car damage relatively superficial; a pre-canned layer beneath the surface, peeled back gradually whenever the game detects the player should be seeing a few token dents and scratches.

When’s the last time you played a racing game, or perhaps an action game with a driving component, and marvelled at the realism of the crashes? For every one that gets even mildly close there are handfuls more that suffice with the bare minimum of slightly crumpled panels and scuffed paintjobs.

Surely it doesn’t have to be this way? No, it doesn’t.

And earlier this year a small start-up company called BeamNG proved it.

Watching BeamNG’s debut reel is a little like the automotive equivalent of the first time we all saw NaturalMotion’s euphoria engine in action way back in 2006, in that tech trailer of the Indiana Jones game that never came to fruition. Just like euphoria gave us tumbling bodies that look like real tumbling bodies, here were car crashes that looked like real car crashes.

This is soft-body physics.

You may have come across this video before; it chalked up two million views in just three days when BeamNG published it back in March. Perhaps you saw their second video, released in July, or the pair of single crash clips they uploaded just days ago. Or perhaps you’re a Rigs of Rods aficionado, an open-source driving sandbox game loved by fans for its soft-body physics (although they’re not as good as those on display in the videos here).

Where you haven’t seen these amazingly realistic vehicle collisions, however, is in a big budget commercial racing or driving game.

In October 2011 the Rigs of Rods team decided the potential for the sort of soft-body physics on show in their game was too great to ignore. They began work on a new a new physics engine from scratch. It was built upon the same physics concepts, just more refined and optimised.

The BeamNG team illustrate to us in a little more detail why they chose to focus on real time soft-body physics and how they differ from the norm.

Soft-body simulators are way more CPU intensive and do not like tweaks that get them away from physically correct behaviour.

“There are basically two types of physics simulations,” explains the BeamNG team, who’ve asked that their responses be attributed to the entire group rather than individual crewmembers. “Rigid body simulators and soft-body simulators.”

“Rigid body simulators are the dominant physics simulation paradigm as they are less CPU intensive and easier to ‘tweak’ for special behaviours. These systems simulate objects as a ‘whole’, where each different category of an object needs some programmer to code its behaviour. The artist is allowed to tweak some parameters of the programmed behaviour of each object.

“Soft-body simulators are way more CPU intensive and do not like tweaks that get them away from physically correct behaviour. They simulate objects as the sum of their parts where the object’s behaviour is emerging from the behaviour of all its parts. If the programming is clever and correct, the same system can simulate a wide gamut of different object classes.”

So basically, the artist is free to design whatever they wish and the design itself will define the object’s behaviour. The team explains that, due to the freedom that a soft-body simulator provides an artist (because they don't need to find a programmer to code any behaviour of a new type of vehicle), soft-body simulator games tend to foster highly engaged creative communities around them.

[T]he way physics is being done in today's games is too simplistic and artificially touched up.

“The accurate physics and freedom that a soft-body simulator has, as well as the inspirational and creative communities that emerge around them, are what originally attracted us to the field,” continues the BeamNG team.

“In our opinion, the way physics is being done in today's games is too simplistic and artificially touched up. In most games, it has nothing to do with reality anymore and more with ‘appearing’ physically correct. The underlying physics are tuned until the artists are pleased with the results.”

BeamNG assembles its vehicles from around 50 separate parts.

So what’s going on under the hood here? How does it all work? The team explains.

“First, we have only very simple entities that are simulated in our physics core. These are mass points, nodes in our parlance, and the connections in between them, beams. That's it. We do not have one line of code describing how a car should behave.”

We’re told to try and compare the concept to this construction toy. The balls are the mass points and beams are what connect them.

“In addition to the basic node and beam entities we have special entities that simulate more elaborate behaviour. Some examples of these are, hydraulics which are beams with the ability to expand/contract, and engines which are nodes with the ability to create rotational forces.

“So, when you want to simulate a car, you build a frame of nodes and beams, plus hydraulics and engine, that looks like the shape of a car. Similarly when you want to simulate an airplane you build a frame that looks like an airplane. The same applies for all other things that you could think of: bicycles, boats, ragdolls, etcetera.

“The traditional approach to above would require to have specially programmed code for each type of object class... Each of these different object classes would require a person with domain knowledge, car physics, airplane physics, to describe in code the whole object's behaviour.”

Perhaps what seems most stunning is not that a small team of four could put together such fascinating tech in the first place, but that in 2012 there’s still a hole in the industry big enough for them to do so. The game industry pursues realism tenaciously, and yet today’s games still do not feature cars that behave, flex under stress or deform as realistically as this.

The BeamNG team explain that the film effects industry and the motor industry have used this kind of simulation for some time, but their simulators are non real-time and require hours to calculate just one second of action.

“Concerning the game industry, while the whole mass-spring idea initially seems very simple, it's extremely difficult to make it work correctly in real time,” continues the team. “Mass-spring systems have very bad stability, they tend to explode, and are very CPU intensive. Also it is very hard to make them work for stiff materials, metals, in real time.

“Hence the majority of their usage is for calculating ‘soft’ materials like cloth.”

The team also expresses that it’s exceptionally difficult to calculate collisions in real-time for stiff mass-spring systems and keep them stable in the face of extreme collisions.

[I]t is natural that most of a game company’s efforts will be spent on ‘how things look’ rather than ‘how things move’.

“Think of a jet hitting a solid wall at MACH-1,” is their example. If you can't picture it, check out this controlled crash test of an F-4 Phantom hitting a concrete block.

“It requires an enormous amount of knowledge, experience, time and effort to solve all of the above problems efficiently,” they continue. “So it is reasonable for game companies to choose the more direct, proven and good-enough approach of rigid-body for vehicles and soft-body for cloths and other special cases.

“In addition the wide held rule of the gaming industry is that looks are the major selling point for games. So it is natural that most of a game company’s efforts will be spent on ‘how things look’ rather than ‘how things move’.”

Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles going forward, at least for developers of games that rely on real-world vehicles, will be the car manufacturers themselves. It seems like a double standard, factoring in what Hollywood does to cars regularly, but automobile manufacturers have historically been very strict about what they’ll tolerate when it comes to video game damage. We ask the BeamNG team if they would suspect this as a factor in preventing their engine being standard in all car-based video games or will things gradually change?

The BeamNG team suspect that the truth is more complicated and that it mostly has to do with expectation management.

“Concerning Hollywood, they have a preference of depicting extreme car crashes for which the viewer's expectation is that the car should indeed be totalled,” explains the team. “[We] don't think that car companies worry about these scenarios because it is naturally expected for a car in these situations to be totalled to meet with the user experience.”

These traditional damage models are in essence interpolations between predesigned car states.

“In a game, vehicle interactions with the world are not always so extreme as in movies. So if a player scratched a car on a wall and the game wrongly reacted by totalling the car it could create the expectation to the player that the real car would behave the same as the simulated car in the game. The general situation becomes worse due to the artificiality of the traditional game damage models. These traditional damage models are in essence interpolations between predesigned (damaged, undamaged) car states.

“So for a car company to be sure that no such ridiculous situation as the one described above would happen, they would have to go and check all the possible actions and damage reactions of the whole game. This isn't so easy to do exhaustively, so the simple solution for the car companies is to just forbid any car damaging.

“In our physics engine we can simulate realistically enough a Euro-NCAP suitable car, so that it won't be that far from the expected behaviour. On the other hand, if we'll be allowed to have such a car fall from 200 metres is a different story!

“Though at the moment, we are not portraying any licensed cars, so what car companies will allow us to do is currently irrelevant for us.”

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can chat to him about games, cars and how many of the latter he's smashed into other cars on IGN here or find him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.


Source : ign[dot]com

Watch the Dexter Season Premiere

If you've seen Matt Fowler's IGN review of the Dexter season premiere, you know he was quite happy with it, finding it a big return to form for the series - a sentiment shared by many of here at IGN, myself included. But if you haven't seen the episode yet, what are you waiting for? You can watch Dexter: "Are You...?", right here, right now!


Source : ign[dot]com

Boardwalk Empire: "Bone for Tuna" Review

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

So after three episodes, this has really become Bobby Cannavale's season. And let's face it, in "Bone for Tuna," we all knew there was no way Rosetti was leaving Atlantic City, for the second time, as anything other than bitter and angry. No matter how much Nucky tried to repair their working relationship. As Nucky put it so well, Rosetti could find an "insult in a bouquet of roses." And Cannavale is just crushing it. The way Rosetti not only gets offended when tells him something he doesn't know, but also when people who state the obvious is terrifying. And it was fun to see the fat corrupt cop get incinerated at the end since we all probably had him marked for death when he spoke out of turn in the diner at the top of the episode. Well, as fun as seeing someone burned alive can be. "You think you have friends. They're all dogs with bones."

"Everyone's a person though, right? How else are they supposed to take it?" Rosetti has a point, although taken to a psychotic extreme. Nucky's finding out the hard way that you can't remain cold and detached from a business that takes people's lives. Killing is personal, and now Nucky's repressed anxiety is manifesting itself in dreams. Now, I'm not a huge fan of dream sequences. Often they're a cheap way to show us what a character is thinking. In fact, I usually just deem most of them to be time fillers. And your enjoyment of this season will have a lot to do with how invested you are in Nucky's loneliness. Which is not an easy thing to care about when we're presented with people of great power. Nucky's obsession with Billie Kent is helping us empathize a little here since he's mistakenly fallen for a woman who simply can't give him what he needs. So he's actually making things worse for himself.

I do enjoy how much Nucky has Rosetti pegged though. "Are we starting with this now?," Nucky says right at the moment when Rosetti might be spiraling into one of his fits over a monkey comment...that Nucky actually said to diffuse a possible misunderstanding. So for Nucky nothing's personal and for Rosetti everything's a slight. And I have a feeling that, when all is said and done, Nucky's going to start to creep down to Rosetti's level, possibly even entering a state of rage. Of course, knowing how Rosetti is, Nucky should have known that him not being there to see Rosetti off would cause trouble. But, like I mentioned, he's distracted these days. Nucky's numbers might not come close to Harrow's "63," but he's still feeling the ill effects of an increased body count.

Harrow's scene with Nucky was great; telling Nucky that he blew out Manny's left eye for Angie, not Jimmy the soldier. I was also reminded of Eli's "How the f*** are you still alive?" from last week concerning Micky's hair-brained idea to start spreading the rumor that he killed Manny. Over in Chicago, Van Alden was having a harder time than usual bonding with the "Brotherhood of Bulls*** and Blarney." It was easy to tell that a raid was going to go down, as soon as the other salesbullies mentioned the speak easy, but I thought Van Alden was actually going to be the one to call it in, as payback on them for the ink prank. But no, he got caught in the raid himself. Actually taking more offense to the corrupt booze officer who asked for a bribe to let him scram. It's funny to watch for when and where Van Alden's "morality" rears up. Especially considering that he's now living a fake life and taken a new bride in Sigrid.

I don't particularly like not liking Margaret, so I was happy to see that she didn't make a giant scene in front of the Bishop regarding prenatal care. I expected a haughty lecture in front of unappreciative bores, but instead she actually acted a bit devious and played Dr. Landau for a fool. In the end, she just needed to present her case in front of someone who outranks Landau, and give the credit to Landau so no one thinks they're being upstaged by a woman. So I was happy to be able to leave this episode without being frustrated with her. Plus, she and Nucky were able to act nice and be civil with one another during the award ceremony. With even a slight undercurrent of caring.

On the less interesting side of "Bone for Tuna," Lucky and Lansky are still beefing with Joe Masseria. Not a lot of time was given to this story, and when you add to that the fact that viewers will have to remember back to last season in order to place the lesser Masseria storyline, it doesn't add up to anything interesting. On a more intriguing note, having to do with Rosetti naturally, Rosetti's infatuation with Gillian was nice touch. As gentle as he is around her though, I don't see this ending well. I just don't think anything can end well when Gyp wants something. Because that just means there's a possibility he can't have it. And then watch out!

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!


Source : ign[dot]com

XCOM Shooter May Now Be Third-Person, Downloadable

A new rumor suggests that 2K’s XCOM shooter may have changed perspectives. According to a tip sent to Kotaku, the long-delayed title may now be a third-person shooter instead of the first-person game originally revealed.

 

The information comes from a survey allegedly sent out by 2K to gauge interest in the title, reporting that XCOM is still “being developed by the same people who created BioShock 2" – namely, 2K Marin. The survey includes a few screenshots – some of which can be seen above – and suggests that the game would have players commanding a team of agents, “which you can order around the map to perform various actions.”

The survey also asks players how they’d feel about the game being released as a $30 downloadable title instead of a $60 retail game, and refers to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions but does not mention PC. The shift prompts comparisons to Ubisoft's I Am Alive, which similarly transitioned from a retail title to downloadable late last year.

Not to be confused with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which will hit stores this week, XCOM was originally announced in 2010 as a “re-imagining” of the strategy franchise, putting players in the shoes of an FBI agent “trying to wipe out a mysterious threat.” It was said to be coming in 2011 during E3 2010 and was shown off at the convention, looking promising.

XCOM was later assigned a release date of March 2012 and shown off once again at E3 2011 with a “changed formula.” It was later delayed to 2013, and after months of radio silence, 2K once again delayed the title in May of this year, pushing it to “fiscal 2014,” which means any time between April 2013 and March 2014.

The change to a third-person downloadable title hasn’t been confirmed, but we’ve reached out to 2K and will update with any comment they provide. In the meantime, XCOM fans can look forward to the more traditional, strategy-based XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on October 9th. For more on what Enemy Unknown has to offer, read our hands-on impressions and keep an eye out for our review very soon.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.


Source : ign[dot]com

The Best of Tim Burton

There are very few mainstream directors working today whose style is as immediately recognizable as Tim Burton's. He is a man obsessed – and many would say, possessed – by the macabre, the romantic and the grotesque, sensibilities that entwine themselves through the DNA of his every project, no matter how innocuous the subject matter.

But Burton has been regarded as a ‘one for the studios, one for me’ kinda guy, and arguably his smaller, more personal efforts triumph over the larger blockbusters. Of late, the underwhelming combo of Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows have left us wondering if the director can still capture his particular brand of dark magic in a bottle. Fortunately, the upcoming stop-motion pic Frankenweenie proves that not only is the master of the macabre back, he’s still got plenty of bite.

Here, we celebrate the best of the wild-haired maestro.

Mild spoilers ahead. Please note, we've limited this list to Tim Burton's directorial efforts.

5: Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie (2012), while small in scope, is indeed a triumphant return to form for Burton. It's also immediately familiar, an amalgamation of ‘Burtonisms’ from a number of his previous works: a black and white palate, stop-motion-animation, a rousing Danny Elfman score and a plasticine Winona Ryder looking uncannily (and slightly unnervingly) like a young Lydia Deetz. Even our hero’s hometown feels familiar, evoking Edward Scissorhands' whitewashed '70s-style suburbia. For Burton loyalists, there are a ton of nostalgic delights to be found in the shadows.

Like Burton's earlier Ed Wood, Frankenweenie is a loving tribute to the horror features of yesteryear,  peppered with characters modeled on iconic horror creatures and clever visual nods to creature-features. Frankenweenie is a film rich in detail - unsurprising, considering it took 33 animators to produce five seconds of film per week - and crafted with real cohesion. Most importantly, at Frankenweenie's heart is a very simple and touching story about a boy's love for his dog, that will resonate with anyone who's ever owned - and lost - a pup of their own.

4: Beetlejuice

Kids loved the ‘80s comedy classic Beetlejuice, although very few would dare say his name three times afterwards, so repulsive (and terrifically manic) was Michael Keaton’s central performance. The tale of a recently deceased couple’s encounter with a sleazy scare consultant is Burton at his sardonic best, delivering the kind of sharp-edged piss-take of American suburbanites he would return to time and time again.

Beetlejuice is also one of Burton’s more bizarre efforts, his vision of the afterlife at once horrific and hilarious, and ripe for some of the most memorable sequences in Burton history ('Day-o' and the sandworm spring immediately to mind.) And while Keaton undoubtedly steals the show, the rest of the cast is excellent; from Winona Ryder’s 'one big dark room' emo teenager to Catherine O’Hara’s shrill artistic visionary. Brilliant, surreal stuff.

3: Batman Returns

The sheer inventiveness of Burton’s second Batman outing is overwhelming, as if Burton had shrugged his shoulders and said 'screw it' after the slightly more tempered 1989 original. Batman Returns' Gotham City is a schizo-never-never land, populated with sideshow freaks who choose to exhume their issues by donning rubber suits or building penguin armies. It’s an unadulterated and utterly unique take on the Batman universe, and fascinates despite an unapologetic departure from the continuity of the comics.

While Batman Returns may not be remembered for its entirely cohesive narrative, it is remembered for its brilliant characters - Danny DeVito is indelible as the cackling Penguin, and Michelle Phieffer's purring Catwoman fast-tracked many kids into an early puberty. Further, it’s a visual wonder, with an aesthetic so quintessentially Burton; gothic architecture, shadowy alleyways, melancholy snowstorms and all.

2: Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands was Burton’s fist movie developed on his own, and remains his most haunting. The movie is an intoxicating blend of Burton’s aesthetic style and the most crystallized expression of a theme that was to be repeated throughout his later work; the outsider struggling to fit in.

As Edward, Johnny Depp is an exercise in pathos, his sweet-nature spiked with moments of frustration and rage at his inability to be normal (“hold me?” “I can’t.”) Of course, his uniqueness is what makes him so special, and therein lies the obvious comparison to Burton himself, who has always perceived himself as an outsider - a troubled artist - looking in. Topped off with one of the more heartbreaking scores from Danny Elfman, Edward Scissorhands is a triumph.

1: Ed Wood

Ed Wood is one of Tim Burton’s most sweet-tempered films, focused on the notorious ‘auteur’ of the ‘50s, Edward Davis Wood, Jr.  Burton had found something of a soulmate in the famously eccentric wannabe-visionary; like Burton, Wood was obsessed with cinema, finding pleasure in every frame – albeit completely without taste. The black and white film never mocks, rather, joyfully plays tribute to Wood’s bizarre character and career.

As the titular Wood, Johnny Depp proved to the world he was more than just a soulful dramatic actor, turning in the kind of freewheeling, all-in performance that foreshadowed Jack Sparrow. But it's Martin Landau who ultimately steals the show as ‘ex-boogeyman’ Bela Lugosi, the melancholy, egotistical horror legend who spent his final years starring in Wood's disasters. This is Burton at his most introspective, Burton at his most nostalgic, and Burton at his best.

This is our top 5, let's hear yours in the comments.

Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. You should talk to her about games, horror movies and the TV show Freaks & Geeks on IGN here, find her on Twitter here or meet the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.


Source : ign[dot]com

The Best of Tim Burton

There are very few mainstream directors working today whose style is as immediately recognizable as Tim Burton's. He is a man obsessed – and many would say, possessed – by the macabre, the romantic and the grotesque, sensibilities that entwine themselves through the DNA of his every project, no matter how innocuous the subject matter.

But Burton has been regarded as a ‘one for the studios, one for me’ kinda guy, and arguably his smaller, more personal efforts triumph over the larger blockbusters. Of late, the underwhelming combo of Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows have left us wondering if the director can still capture his particular brand of dark magic in a bottle. Fortunately, the upcoming stop-motion pic Frankenweenie proves that not only is the master of the macabre back, he’s still got plenty of bite.

Here, we celebrate the best of the wild-haired maestro.

5: Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie, while small in scope, is indeed a triumphant return to form for Burton. It's also immediately familiar, an amalgamation of ‘Burtonisms’ from a number of his previous works: a black and white palate, stop-motion-animation, a rousing Danny Elfman score and a plasticine Winona Ryder looking uncannily (and slightly unnervingly) like a young Lydia Deetz. Even our hero’s hometown feels familiar, evoking Edward Scissorhands' whitewashed '70s-style suburbia. For Burton loyalists, there are a ton of nostalgic delights to be found in the shadows.

Like Burton's earlier Ed Wood, Frankenweenie is a loving tribute to the horror features of yesteryear,  peppered with characters modeled on iconic horror creatures and clever visual nods to creature-features. Frankenweenie is a film rich in detail - unsurprising, considering it took 33 animators to produce five seconds of film per week - and crafted with real cohesion. Most importantly, at Frankenweenie's heart is a very simple and touching story about a boy's love for his dog, that will resonate with anyone who's ever owned - and lost - a pup of their own.

4: Beetlejuice

Kids loved the ‘80s comedy classic Beetlejuice, although very few would dare say his name three times afterwards, so repulsive (and terrifically manic) was Michael Keaton’s central performance. The tale of a recently deceased couple’s encounter with a sleazy scare consultant is Burton at his sardonic best, delivering the kind of sharp-edged piss-take of American suburbanites he would return to time and time again.

Beetlejuice is also one of Burton’s more bizarre efforts, his vision of the afterlife at once horrific and hilarious, and ripe for some of the most memorable sequences in Burton history ('Day-o' and the sandworm spring immediately to mind.) And while Keaton undoubtedly steals the show, the rest of the cast is excellent; from Winona Ryder’s 'one big dark room' emo teenager to Catherine O’Hara’s shrill artistic visionary. Brilliant, surreal stuff.

3: Batman Returns

The sheer inventiveness of Burton’s second Batman outing is overwhelming, as if Burton had shrugged his shoulders and said 'screw it' after the slightly more tempered 1989 original. Batman Returns' Gotham City is a schizo-never-never land, populated with sideshow freaks who choose to exhume their issues by donning rubber suits or building penguin armies. It’s an unadulterated and utterly unique take on the Batman universe, and fascinates despite an unapologetic departure from the continuity of the comics.

While Batman Returns may not be remembered for its entirely cohesive narrative, it is remembered for its brilliant characters - Danny DeVito is indelible as the cackling Penguin, and Michelle Phieffer's purring Catwoman fast-tracked many kids into an early puberty. Further, it’s a visual wonder, with an aesthetic so quintessentially Burton; gothic architecture, shadowy alleyways, melancholy snowstorms and all.

2: Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands was Burton’s fist movie developed on his own, and remains his most haunting. The movie is an intoxicating blend of Burton’s aesthetic style and the most crystallized expression of a theme that was to be repeated throughout his later work; the outsider struggling to fit in.

As Edward, Johnny Depp is an exercise in pathos, his sweet-nature spiked with moments of frustration and rage at his inability to be normal (“hold me?” “I can’t.”) Of course, his uniqueness is what makes him so special, and therein lies the obvious comparison to Burton himself, who has always perceived himself as an outsider - a troubled artist - looking in. Topped off with one of the more heartbreaking scores from Danny Elfman, Edward Scissorhands is a triumph.

1: Ed Wood

Ed Wood is one of Tim Burton’s most sweet-tempered films, focused on the notorious ‘auteur’ of the ‘50s, Edward Davis Wood, Jr.  Burton had found something of a soulmate in the famously eccentric wannabe-visionary; like Burton, Wood was obsessed with cinema, finding pleasure in every frame – albeit completely without taste. The black and white film never mocks, rather, joyfully plays tribute to Wood’s bizarre character and career.

As the titular Wood, Johnny Depp proved to the world he was more than just a soulful dramatic actor, turning in the kind of freewheeling, all-in performance that foreshadowed Jack Sparrow. But it's Martin Landau who ultimately steals the show as ‘ex-boogeyman’ Bela Lugosi, the melancholy, egotistical horror legend who spent his final years starring in Wood's disasters. This is Burton at his most introspective, Burton at his most nostalgic, and Burton at his best.

How would you rank Burton's films? What should be on here that isn't? Let us know in the comments.

Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. You should talk to her about games, horror movies and the TV show Freaks & Geeks on IGN here, find her on Twitter here or meet the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.


Source : ign[dot]com

Iterative is Not a Dirty Word

Iterative. It’s a term that’s often used with some measure of distaste, but the truth is there’s a whole lot to value in games that don’t necessarily switch up their gameplay.

To be clear, there are games that are derivative (like Mutant Mudds) and games that iterate on a core gameplay mechanic that didn’t really work the first time (like Final Fantasy XIII-2), but we’re talking about the practice of taking a refined core and adding new bits and bobs. And that has a history of paying off. Working with a pre-defined gameplay style, and in some cases within the exact same engine as a previous game allows for experimentation and innovation in other areas that can pave the way to the next big thing.

The Need for Speed series is soon to see its 17th main entry (excluding World and Nitro), and has been through at least three distinct eras of iteration, each with their own highs and troughs. In retrospect, the entries that proved most influential and innovative were the ones that released a year or less after their direct predecessors, keeping the core gameplay near-identical while focusing on gimmicks elsewhere.

The best thing that came out of the ill-fated 3DO?

Take Need for Speed II (1997) and Need for Speed III (1998). The latter shipped with a standard racing mode that almost mirrored the features of the older game, but it also added the ‘hot pursuit’ mode which would go on to influence countless games and define the cop chase gaming trope for the generation and beyond.

Similarly, NFS Underground (2003) laid a solid foundation for Underground 2 (2004), which helped pioneer the open world racer and undoubtedly influenced an open world push in other genres as well.

The much more recent Hot Pursuit (2010) consciously takes the decades-old approach to racing pioneered in the original 3DO game as a base, adding the best features from the smorgasbord of following titles and wrapping it all up with a modern sheen. However, it also had an eye on the future with Autolog, the social stat-tracking feature that played a huge role in fostering what we now call asynchronous multiplayer. None of these industry-shifting innovations would have been possible without constant iteration, a process that can establish a solid baseline upon which to build and test innovative features.

New Super Mario Bros is a pretty fresh example. Sure, the concurrent development of both a 3DS and a Wii U iteration of a decades-old gameplay style has had pockets of the community frothing at the ‘stache with rage. But let’s not forget that Super Mario Galaxy 2, almost universally lauded for moving the series forward with innovation (and often contrasted with the New Super games as a series that ‘does it right’), borrowed much from its iterative and super-successful cousin NSMB Wii. Galaxy 2 employed a simplified straight-line stage progression, side-scrolling old-school homages and comet medals – a play on Galaxy’s prankster comet system that took direct inspiration from the hidden star coins of the New Super series.

So while each entry into a series can appear to be ‘more of the same’ (and in many ways they may be), that does not discount each title’s ability to contribute significantly to the industry and culture. New Super Mario Bros 2’s coin rush mode, to take just one example, might appear to be tacked on but the idea provides an incentive for dedicated players to learn the ins and outs of every single stage, playing them repeatedly and driving a constant dialogue between gamers.

This tactic is prescient of the indirect social approach Nintendo appears to be making as part of its upcoming home console. It’s an effective tactic, as evidenced by the myriad wiki entries and coin run videos online, and by the fact that according to Nintendo’s Japanese NSMB2 website, which has a live counter, more than 151 billion coins have already been collected worldwide.

A proven and refined game style that is stable, predictable and guaranteed to sell, in other words, is the perfect avenue to test the waters of a new direction. There’s every possibility that in ten years one could look back at NSMB2 as the first step towards the new breed of platformers or even of socially-enhanced single-player experiences.

Of course, there are positive examples of iteration that barely need to move forward at all. Take Professor Layton for example – a game that nailed the perfect gameplay to deliver its content in its first outing – which needs only to deliver new content (puzzles) with each iteration to make for great successive experiences.

Then there are franchises like NBA 2K and WWE, games that are necessarily more of the same because all the gamer really wants is fresh details. Of course these gamers generally have a specialised interest in the genre, and so a slow progression of the gameplay is less of a deal-breaker.

Disenchantment with an iterated franchise really only seems to occur on a large scale, somewhat incongruously, in the most widely popular games.

Call of Duty (and shooters in general) iterated for several chapters before hitting an enormous goldmine of mainstream success in Modern Warfare. The kind of innovation in that game, however, is only possible on a foundation of gameplay forged by iteration and it simply can’t be reproduced year after year.

In the case of CoD, the innovative online suite and attractive setting were merely a dressing on top of already in-place systems including online player rankings and classes, or even gameplay features like iron sights. The slew of features developed and refined in previous games made solid bedrock for the new elements (which could easily have failed if attached to a different game) and the combination results in what feels like a huge revelation of innovation, but is actually just a tipping point.

The period of iteration that follows seems unadventurous by comparison, as developers search for a way to keep the processes that were successful last time but also find something new. Meanwhile, gamers who have been spoilt by a huge new thing – be it Modern Warfare or Mario Galaxy – are often so quick to dismiss the games that seem like ‘more of the same’, that they overlook the function those games have in driving the direction and innovation of future experiences.

Tim is a games writer based in Melbourne. If you’d like to read the same article with new levels and cooperative multiplayer you can find him here on IGN. And why not join the IGN Australia Facebook community while you're at it?


Source : ign[dot]com

Sony Exec: “I Feel Great About What’s Coming”

The PlayStation brand is in an interesting period of flux right now. PlayStation Vita is failing to pick up significant momentum, but PlayStation 3 -- led by a new, hard drive-heavy model -- is slowly closing the worldwide sales gap with Xbox 360. And a slew of PlayStation-exclusive games, long the strength of the brand, are on the horizon even as Sony has significantly truncated its roster of first party studios in 2012, from 15 to 12.

I recently got the opportunity to speak with Sony’s John Koller about all of these topics and more, and SCEA’s Vice President of Hardware Marketing had plenty of interesting things to say.

On the precipice of 64 million PS3s sold worldwide, Koller admitted that the company is “very pleased with the PlayStation 3,” reiterating the company’s stance that Sony intends on staying “in the PS3 business” for “quite a long time.” Discussing fresh upcoming IP from the likes of Naughty Dog and Quantic Dream in the form of The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls, respectively, Koller declared that “the development spigot is very strong for the platform.”

Interestingly, Koller points at the fierce loyalty Sony has from its consumers as a reason why PlayStation 3 will continue to be successful. “When you look at the consumer for the PS3, it remains someone who’s a fairly heavily engaged gamer. There’s a lot of research showing that the PS3 consumer spends the most time of any consumer on the console. The PS3 consumer also spends a lot. They spend a lot of time and they spend a lot of money. It’s a consumer that’s very valuable. For us, we certainly regard them very highly.”

Koller also noted that while they pay attention to their primary competitor’s sales numbers in the form of Microsoft’s Xbox 360, it’s not something that dictates their decisions. “We certainly do look at [Xbox 360’s sales] numbers… From an internal standpoint, we’re very aware of what’s happening in the market and what’s happening with PS3. We pay attention. But we set out a strategy well in advance of month-to-month or week-to-week numbers that flow back in, either globally or even locally from retail accounts.”

With the new PlayStation 3 on the market, I inquired with Koller if he was afraid of some consumer confusion. After all, adding multiple new SKUs is one thing, but making them more expensive than what was already out is another thing entirely. “As far as customer confusion, we haven’t seen that. What we have done is try to educate based on not only the design of the new chassis, but also the size of the new hard drive. That’s becoming increasingly important. We see both new consumers coming to our platform as well as existing consumers that have purchased a second one. They’re starting to tap out the amount of digital space they have.”

Koller also refused to talk about PlayStation 3’s successor when asked if PS3 and the next PlayStation will live side by side on the market.

The conversation turned to the PlayStation Vita, to which I pressed Koller bluntly on its poor sales, and what seems to be an insistence from Sony that Vita is doing just fine contrary to evidence suggesting otherwise. “It’s selling on target, so everything that you’ve heard from our execs is true,” he said. “We certainly entered the next-gen version of the dedicated handheld market with eyes wide open. We knew that this is a very challenging market. There’s certainly competition from tablets and mobile and other things that provides a challenge to the entire dedicated handheld market, not just something that we would enter.”

“But we did then and we do now feel very confident and very bullish on the platform, for a variety of reasons. First is, again, going to what I mentioned on the console side, the content. The content coming to Vita, not only this holiday… [but] what we’re seeing over the next few years for Vita keeps that development spigot hot.”

One of the major strengths of PlayStation Vita, according to Koller, is how ubiquitous the user base is with that of PS3’s most hardcore players. “We haven’t gone into the numbers publicly,” Koller admitted, “but I can tell you that a significant majority, as in most, of the Vita consumers are also PS3 owners. When we look at that, those are people we know very well. That’s a PlayStation Nation consumer who tends to be a loyalist. They buy multiple platforms from us. So we know their purchase behavior. We know the games they like. We know what makes them tick.”

At this point, discussion of the PS3’s ecosystem crossing over with the Vita’s came up. I often argue that Vita and PS3 are crossing over too much, removing reasons for folks to pick one up if they already own a PS3. “We try to keep unique experiences on each,” Koller said, later noting that “we did certainly have issues during the PSP years when we had the exact same games on both console and handheld. That’s something that’s a difficult thing for us. It’s difficult for a gamer to wrap their head around. If they think, ‘the only difference is when I’m taking this game on the road,’ that’s not the difference in platforms.”

Koller brought up Assassin’s Creed III’s upcoming launch on PS3 side-by-side with a totally different game in the form of Liberation on the Vita as the desired future of content for both platforms. “That’s what we drive towards. When you look at games that are coming up, we try to offer unique experiences between the two platforms. Usually, we’re successful in that.”

The conversation turned to Sony’s vaunted cross-buy program, which gives consumers a free copy of the Vita iteration of a game when purchasing the PS3 version. The critically-acclaimed PSN game Sound Shapes is one such title that does it. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale will do it in November, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will do it in February. The question is, will all first-party games and other exclusives now do it automatically?

“It’s still game-by-game,” Koller answered. “We look at it as, ‘what are the games that have the best opportunity for this?’ Certainly, this holiday season there’s going to be a lot of Vitas sold. There’s going to be a lot of opportunity for that Vita consumer to say, ‘Do I want to continue buying more games for this device?’ For us, that’s critical. Getting them to continue to experience new experiences, new ways of playing like an All-Stars, is important. That’s why we offered that. We’ll look at it case-by-case. Certainly, it’s been met very positively. That was something that we wanted to see. We wanted to see if consumers were interested, and the answer has been screamed back at us: ‘yes we are.’”

Koller also confirmed that -- like PS2 and PS3 before it -- Sony intends on supporting the PlayStation Vita for a full 10 years. “We’re in year one, so we’ll be supporting it for some time. But yeah, it does have its own 10-year life cycle. All of our platforms do… it’s a marathon, not a sprint. We expect long-term success from all our platforms.”

Even though Koller is best-known for his perspective on hardware, I couldn’t help but ask him about Sony’s software, especially in terms of the truncation of Sony’s first party roster this year from 15 studios to 12. Sony only shut down a single studio from 1994 to 2011, but three in 2012. But why? And will it affect the future of Sony exclusives?

“What we’ve tried to do is focus all of our assets and resources on that objective of putting out the best content to help move platforms,” Koller said. “Any move we make… it’s done with that in mind. It’s a focus question, and that’s what gets me most excited on the platform side. I know that we’ve got the biggest and best internal game studios in the industry. I feel great about what’s coming.”

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.


Source : ign[dot]com

Check Out This Very Cool New Hobbit Banner

Another day, another sweet new piece of artwork from this winter's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This banner helps you know who's who among the dwarves in case you weren't sure.

Click for the hi-res version! The Hobbit opens December 14.


Source : ign[dot]com

Hotel Transylvania, Looper Top the Weekend Box Office

It was a record-breaking weekend at the domestic box office as Hotel Transylvania dethroned Sweet Home Alabama as the best-ever September opening. It's also the biggest opening to date for a Sony Pictures Animation film. The acclaimed sci-fi thriller Looper also had a strong debut with a second place finish.

Fellow new release Won't Back Down flopped in 10th place, while fanboy fave Dredd 3D fell out of the Top 10 after just one week in cinemas.

Here are the weekend estimates via Rentrak:

  1. Hotel Transylvania $43 million
  2. Looper $21.2 million
  3. End of Watch $8 million
  4. Trouble With The Curve $7.5 million
  5. House at the End of the Street $7.2 million
  6. Pitch Perfect $5.2 million
  7. Finding Nemo 3D $4.1 million
  8. Resident Evil: Retribution 3D $3 million
  9. The Master $2.7 million
  10. Won't Back Down $2.7 million

Source : ign[dot]com

Doctor Who: "The Angels Take Manhattan" Review

Note: Full Spoilers for the episode follow.

"I always rip out the last page of the book - then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings."

As an immortal cosmic adventurer accustomed to ricocheting in and out of people's decidedly mortal lives, it was an understandable gripe for the Doctor to grumble.

But for fans who have come to know and love the Ponds, it was also a fittingly poignant foreboder for an episode we've long known was coming - an adventure that would write Amy and Rory out of the show for good.

And, as Steven Moffat had so excruciatingly and consistently teased, in a 'heartbreaker' which not everyone would make it out of alive.

The Angels Take Manhattan had its minor narrative quibbles (more on those later), but still stood strong as a heartfelt, emotional end for the TARDIS' longest serving companions (since the show's noughties' return at least), and the best episode of the season thus far.

A pitch-perfectly atmospheric film noir teaser set the scene with style - as the city that never sleeps, the Angels had set up scary shop in New York with a temporal battery farm that could sustain them like never before.

When Rory was Angel-napped back to 1938, Amy, the Doctor and a returning River/Melody fought past temporal distortions and chilling cherubims to save him - just in time to see his future self die old and alone.

Despite the Doctor's assertions that you can't change a history you've already acknowledged, Amy and Rory stood destiny in the face, flipped the bird, and sacrificed themselves to create a paradox with the power to change everything.

It was only fitting that as the Who monster so closely tired to Amy's own story, it was the Angels that contributed to her own (kind of) demise. While they weren't at their scariest (though the creepy J-Horror giggle of the cherubims was a nice, new touch), they were the best choice in helping deliver a definitively final (albeit bittersweet) end.

Unsurprisingly, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were as excellent as we've come to expect, bouncing from rompy humour to heartbreaking drama with ease. While the idea of a suicide pact isn't exactly the most jovial of potential exits, their decision to jump into the unknown together encapsulated their relationship - no matter the danger or the potential pitfalls, as long as they made the journey with each other, everything would be ok.

Kudos also to Matt Smith, who managed to break my already fracturing heart with his grief-stricken, surprisingly selfish reaction in the face of Amy's immediate sacrifice. Thanks to The Power of Three, his emotional connection to the Ponds has never been more heartfelt, and the importance of his travelling companions never more stressed - so it'll be interesting to see how he's handling things come Christmas time.

Admittedly, it left a few nitpicky questions - if the only thing stopping the Doctor seeing the Ponds again is the TARDIS' inability to land in New York, why couldn't he just drop into Connecticut and drive/fly/bike over the state line? If Melody can use her Vortex Manipulator to get her parents the book, why couldn't the Doctor simply borrow that? And bugger Amy, Rory and the Doctor in all this - will nobody please just think of Rory's dad, Brian?!

Intriguingly though, there's every chance these questions - and more - will be answered in the series' latter half. Fan speculation suggests the episodes we've seen already have aired out of chronological order, and then we have River's comments that the Doctor's become almost too invisible suggesting series arc-related plot points we haven't even thought about until now.

Ultimately, The Angels Take Manhattan succeeded in an already uphill battle by honing in on the romanticism of the Ponds' connection to the Whoniverse and each other, bringing Amelia's journey full circle with a flurry of poignant touches, and definitively writing them out in the most bittersweet way imaginable.

As far as final pages go, it's one we're happy to leave unripped.


Source : ign[dot]com

Doctor Who: "The Angels Take Manhattan" Review

Note: Full Spoilers for the episode follow.

"I always rip out the last page of the book - then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings."

As an immortal cosmic adventurer accustomed to ricocheting in and out of people's decidedly mortal lives, it was an understandable gripe for the Doctor to grumble.

But for fans who have come to know and love the Ponds, it was also a fittingly poignant foreboder for an episode we've long known was coming - an adventure that would write Amy and Rory out of the show for good.

And, as Steven Moffat had so excruciatingly and consistently teased, in a 'heartbreaker' which not everyone would make it out of alive.

The Angels Take Manhattan had its minor narrative quibbles (more on those later), but still stood strong as a heartfelt, emotional end for the TARDIS' longest serving companions (since the show's noughties' return at least), and the best episode of the season thus far.

A pitch-perfectly atmospheric film noir teaser set the scene with style - as the city that never sleeps, the Angels had set up scary shop in New York with a temporal battery farm that could sustain them like never before.

When Rory was Angel-napped back to 1938, Amy, the Doctor and a returning River/Melody fought past temporal distortions and chilling cherubims to save him - just in time to see his future self die old and alone.

Despite the Doctor's assertions that you can't change a history you've already acknowledged, Amy and Rory stood destiny in the face, flipped the bird, and sacrificed themselves to create a paradox with the power to change everything.

It was only fitting that as the Who monster so closely tired to Amy's own story, it was the Angels that contributed to her own (kind of) demise. While they weren't at their scariest (though the creepy J-Horror giggle of the cherubims was a nice, new touch), they were the best choice in helping deliver a definitively final (albeit bittersweet) end.

Unsurprisingly, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were as excellent as we've come to expect, bouncing from rompy humour to heartbreaking drama with ease. While the idea of a suicide pact isn't exactly the most jovial of potential exits, their decision to jump into the unknown together encapsulated their relationship - no matter the danger or the potential pitfalls, as long as they made the journey with each other, everything would be ok.

Kudos also to Matt Smith, who managed to break my already fracturing heart with his grief-stricken, surprisingly selfish reaction in the face of Amy's immediate sacrifice. Thanks to The Power of Three, his emotional connection to the Ponds has never been more heartfelt, and the importance of his travelling companions never more stressed - so it'll be interesting to see how he's handling things come Christmas time.

Admittedly, it left a few nitpicky questions - if the only thing stopping the Doctor seeing the Ponds again is the TARDIS' inability to land in New York, why couldn't he just drop into Connecticut and drive/fly/bike over the state line? If Melody can use her Vortex Manipulator to get her parents the book, why couldn't the Doctor simply borrow that? And bugger Amy, Rory and the Doctor in all this - will nobody please just think of Rory's dad, Brian?!

Intriguingly though, there's every chance these questions - and more - will be answered in the series' latter half. Fan speculation suggests the episodes we've seen already have aired out of chronological order, and then we have River's comments that the Doctor's become almost too invisible suggesting series arc-related plot points we haven't even thought about until now.

Ultimately, The Angels Take Manhattan succeeded in an already uphill battle by honing in on the romanticism of the Ponds' connection to the Whoniverse and each other, bringing Amelia's journey full circle with a flurry of poignant touches, and definitively writing them out in the most bittersweet way imaginable.

As far as final pages go, it's one we're happy to leave unripped.


Source : ign[dot]com

How I Met Your Mother Creators on Setting Up the Final Pieces

How I Met Your Mother’s Season 8 premiere ended with a big moment for the series – Ted and the still-unidentified Mother seen at some point “a little ways down the road” waiting at the same train station, presumably about to meet.

If you’re worried they’ll be a swerve, and she’ll walk away before Ted talks to her or some such, don't fret. HIMYM creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays recently spoke to the press about Season 8, with Thomas firmly stating, regarding that train station, “That’s the moment we’re gonna meet the mother. We can honestly say that. That’s where it happens. We’re moments away.” Said Bays, “That moment is something we’ve been building to for a long time and we’ll see more of that moment as the series goes on.”

Bays noted that back in Season 6, Ted said, “When I met your mother, it was the day of a wedding,” and added, “We specifically at that time made it the day of a wedding, not at a wedding. I think a lot of people were a little misled by that, which I feel a little bit bad about. But it’s not actually at [Robin and Barney's] wedding, it’s at that train station.”

Said Thomas with a laugh, “We like jumping to endings and then not telling you the middle. It’s very sort of awkward storytelling when you think about it, but we enjoy it! We’re gonna fill in all of the blanks on that day for sure. That day is the biggest day in the history of the group, obviously, and that’s where the series is heading. We’re getting close now.”

Just how close is still being figured out, since it’s still not clear for sure whether Season 8 is the final one for How I Met Your Mother or if it will be renewed for Season 9. But as Carter and Bays explained, for now, they are moving forward as though this is the final year. [Click the link below for more on the unusual situation the show is in]

How I Met Your Mother Creators on the Potential for Season 9

Asked again about whether the show might bring in the mother before the very end and continue with her as a character, rather than introduce her at the very end, Thomas replied, “That’s one of the biggest questions of the series and people ask us all the time. I feel like I haven't come up with a good way to dodge it yet, so I’ll just say, 'I’m dodging that!' It’s certainly something we’ve talked about and considered. But I don’t wanna say whether we’ve committed to it. Wait and see.”

Bays and Thomas said that through the eight years of the show, their plan for how HIMYM would end hasn’t changed. Said Thomas, “It’s the same plan. It’s the same plan we’ve always had. So if you hate it when you see it, just know that we committed really early to it. We were 29!”

As for what else is to come before that ending arrives…

Romances of Doom!

Right now, Ted has reunited with Victoria (Ashley Williams), Barney is engaged to Quinn (Becki Newton) and Robin has begun dating "Crush" (Michael Trucco) . But because of the way How I Met Your Mother works, we know all these relationships are doomed. Which is why the showrunners don’t mind spoiling that coming soon is what Bays joked is “the break up month!” for all those couples.

As Thomas noted, “We’ve shown you the end of all these relationships. We know that Ted doesn’t marry Victoria, we know that Barney doesn’t marry Quinn. So we’re showing you this sort of path of carnage of these relationships. I think ultimately the challenge was can all three of these breakups be completely different from each other? Can there be a funny one, can there be a dramatic one, can there be this? And I think we’ve done it. That’s the goal of breakup month – to show you three completely different disillusions of relationships. I think everyone, including the guest cast – like Michael Truco, Becki Newton – everybody got to be great in all of it. We’ve shot all of that now and we’re happy with it."

Meanwhile, “[November] sweeps will really heat up that progression of Barney and Robin getting back together and I think we’ve come up with a fun, weirdly appropriate way to reunite them in a whole new way that I hope that everyone will like. It’s a weird way to get them back together, but it’s really fun.”

New Kids on the Block

Thomas Lennon popped up in the season premiere as Victoria’s fiancée, and Bays and Thomas revealed he’d be in at least one more episode. In addition, his fellow The State alum, Joe Lo Truglio will be introduced as the partner to Martin Short’s character, Garrison Cootes, at Marshall’s law firm.

As for "Crush", while he was briefly seen back in Season 6 and in the premiere, future episodes will establish that he’s what Thomas described as, “sort of a struggling, cable access chef. He’s really awful and searching for his perfect chef catchphrase.” Added Thomas, “We don’t want to give away too much away about the character, because we kind of have a little reveal about him. His relationship with Robin will delightfully implode during breakup month.”

The Past Returns

How I Met Your Mother has had a ton of memorable guest characters over the years. So with the end in sight, might we see some more familiar faces again? Revealed Bays, “Yeah, we have a plan actually – and this might be a very expensive plan. We have a plan to bring back many, many people that we’ve had on the show. Not to completely steal their idea, but I enjoyed the Seinfeld finale, when you saw everyone that’s ever been on the show and we have a way to do that that sort of fits in with the universe of our show. So hopefully there will be a cavalcade of familiar faces going into the final episode.”

In the meantime, True Blood’s Joe Manganiello is confirmed to be returning this season as Brad, Marshall’s old friend. Said Thomas, “He went to law school with Marshall and he’ll come back as a lawyer and will feature into the trial [involving Marshall’s firm].”

How I Met Your Baby

Adding a baby to a long-running sitcom can be a tricky thing. So will that addition become central to Marshall and Lily’s storylines and How I Met Your Mother itself this season? Said Thomas, with a knowing laugh, “This is what I’d like to believe… We are tending to the fact that they have a baby more than some other shows have, I think, but I don’t feel like the baby takes over the show… It feels like they have a baby, but not like the show is all baby, all the time. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

Bays and Thomas noted that they were often using what Thomas described as a, “Really creepy, lifelike stunt baby. It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever touched – and I’ve touched some creepy things! So a fun game this season is pick out the creepy, fake baby if you want to do that sort of as a drinking game at home.

Robin Sparkles Forever!

As our time with Bays and Thomas was wrapping up. I had to ask the duo: If How I Met Your Mother is wrapping up soon, we have to see Robin Sparkles again, right?

Replied Bays, “That’s always hanging out there as a thing we want to go back to - I think one more time before we hang it up.”

Added Thomas, “We have an idea. The challenge is always to do it and have it be completely different than the others. I’d like to think that all three that we’ve done have been different and we have a way to do it that I think would be completely different from all the other three. So yeah, we want to do it before the series ends.”

How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays at 8pm on CBS.


Source : ign[dot]com

How I Met Your Mother Creators on Setting Up the Final Pieces

How I Met Your Mother’s Season 8 premiere ended with a big moment for the series – Ted and the still-unidentified Mother seen at some point “a little ways down the road” waiting at the same train station, presumably about to meet.

If you’re worried they’ll be a swerve, and she’ll walk away before Ted talks to her or some such, don't fret. HIMYM creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays recently spoke to the press about Season 8, with Thomas firmly stating, regarding that train station, “That’s the moment we’re gonna meet the mother. We can honestly say that. That’s where it happens. We’re moments away.” Said Bays, “That moment is something we’ve been building to for a long time and we’ll see more of that moment as the series goes on.”

Bays noted that back in Season 6, Ted said, “When I met your mother, it was the day of a wedding,” and added, “We specifically at that time made it the day of a wedding, not at a wedding. I think a lot of people were a little misled by that, which I feel a little bit bad about. But it’s not actually at [Robin and Barney's] wedding, it’s at that train station.”

Said Thomas with a laugh, “We like jumping to endings and then not telling you the middle. It’s very sort of awkward storytelling when you think about it, but we enjoy it! We’re gonna fill in all of the blanks on that day for sure. That day is the biggest day in the history of the group, obviously, and that’s where the series is heading. We’re getting close now.”

Just how close is still being figured out, since it’s still not clear for sure whether Season 8 is the final one for How I Met Your Mother or if it will be renewed for Season 9. But as Carter and Bays explained, for now, they are moving forward as though this is the final year. [Click the link below for more on the unusual situation the show is in]

How I Met Your Mother Creators on the Potential for Season 9

Asked again about whether the show might bring in the mother before the very end and continue with her as a character, rather than introduce her at the very end, Thomas replied, “That’s one of the biggest questions of the series and people ask us all the time. I feel like I haven't come up with a good way to dodge it yet, so I’ll just say, 'I’m dodging that!' It’s certainly something we’ve talked about and considered. But I don’t wanna say whether we’ve committed to it. Wait and see.”

Bays and Thomas said that through the eight years of the show, their plan for how HIMYM would end hasn’t changed. Said Thomas, “It’s the same plan. It’s the same plan we’ve always had. So if you hate it when you see it, just know that we committed really early to it. We were 29!”

As for what else is to come before that ending arrives…

Romances of Doom!

Right now, Ted has reunited with Victoria (Ashley Williams), Barney is engaged to Quinn (Becki Newton) and Robin has begun dating "Crush" (Michael Trucco) . But because of the way How I Met Your Mother works, we know all these relationships are doomed. Which is why the showrunners don’t mind spoiling that coming soon is what Bays joked is “the break up month!” for all those couples.

As Thomas noted, “We’ve shown you the end of all these relationships. We know that Ted doesn’t marry Victoria, we know that Barney doesn’t marry Quinn. So we’re showing you this sort of path of carnage of these relationships. I think ultimately the challenge was can all three of these breakups be completely different from each other? Can there be a funny one, can there be a dramatic one, can there be this? And I think we’ve done it. That’s the goal of breakup month – to show you three completely different disillusions of relationships. I think everyone, including the guest cast – like Michael Truco, Becki Newton – everybody got to be great in all of it. We’ve shot all of that now and we’re happy with it."

Meanwhile, “[November] sweeps will really heat up that progression of Barney and Robin getting back together and I think we’ve come up with a fun, weirdly appropriate way to reunite them in a whole new way that I hope that everyone will like. It’s a weird way to get them back together, but it’s really fun.”

New Kids on the Block

Thomas Lennon popped up in the season premiere as Victoria’s fiancée, and Bays and Thomas revealed he’d be in at least one more episode. In addition, his fellow The State alum, Joe Lo Truglio will be introduced as the partner to Martin Short’s character, Garrison Cootes, at Marshall’s law firm.

As for "Crush", while he was briefly seen back in Season 6 and in the premiere, future episodes will establish that he’s what Thomas described as, “sort of a struggling, cable access chef. He’s really awful and searching for his perfect chef catchphrase.” Added Thomas, “We don’t want to give away too much away about the character, because we kind of have a little reveal about him. His relationship with Robin will delightfully implode during breakup month.”

The Past Returns

How I Met Your Mother has had a ton of memorable guest characters over the years. So with the end in sight, might we see some more familiar faces again? Revealed Bays, “Yeah, we have a plan actually – and this might be a very expensive plan. We have a plan to bring back many, many people that we’ve had on the show. Not to completely steal their idea, but I enjoyed the Seinfeld finale, when you saw everyone that’s ever been on the show and we have a way to do that that sort of fits in with the universe of our show. So hopefully there will be a cavalcade of familiar faces going into the final episode.”

In the meantime, True Blood’s Joe Manganiello is confirmed to be returning this season as Brad, Marshall’s old friend. Said Thomas, “He went to law school with Marshall and he’ll come back as a lawyer and will feature into the trial [involving Marshall’s firm].”

How I Met Your Baby

Adding a baby to a long-running sitcom can be a tricky thing. So will that addition become central to Marshall and Lily’s storylines and How I Met Your Mother itself this season? Said Thomas, with a knowing laugh, “This is what I’d like to believe… We are tending to the fact that they have a baby more than some other shows have, I think, but I don’t feel like the baby takes over the show… It feels like they have a baby, but not like the show is all baby, all the time. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

Bays and Thomas noted that they were often using what Thomas described as a, “Really creepy, lifelike stunt baby. It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever touched – and I’ve touched some creepy things! So a fun game this season is pick out the creepy, fake baby if you want to do that sort of as a drinking game at home.

Robin Sparkles Forever!

As our time with Bays and Thomas was wrapping up. I had to ask the duo: If How I Met Your Mother is wrapping up soon, we have to see Robin Sparkles again, right?

Replied Bays, “That’s always hanging out there as a thing we want to go back to - I think one more time before we hang it up.”

Added Thomas, “We have an idea. The challenge is always to do it and have it be completely different than the others. I’d like to think that all three that we’ve done have been different and we have a way to do it that I think would be completely different from all the other three. So yeah, we want to do it before the series ends.”

How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays at 8pm on CBS.


Source : ign[dot]com

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Hawaii Five-0: Grace Park on Kono's Near-Death Experience - And What it Was Like Filming It

It's an understatement to say Kono (Grace Park) went through a lot on Hawaii Five-0 recently, as the Season 2 cliffhanger had her at death’s door - pushed into the ocean, bound and gagged, and sinking to her doom. Fortunately, she was saved by Adam (Ian Anthony Dale) in the Season 3 premiere, though not everyone was so lucky in that episode.

During my recent visit to the set of Hawaii Five-0, I spoke to Park about what the experience of being thrown in that scary, underwater situation was like – both for Kono and for the actress playing her. We also discussed Kono and Adam’s turbulent relationship and the addition of more women to Hawaii Five-0 this season.

Grace Park in Hawaii Five-0

IGN TV: Suffice to say, Kono just went through a traumatic experience. How does she come out of it?

Grace Park: That’s what’s really interesting, because when a situation like that comes about, you think, “How does this impact the character?” It is part of the job, but that doesn’t mean she’s Teflon and unflinching. At the same time, I think the bigger thing is Chin Ho losing his wife. That seems like it overshadows my situation, where I managed to live. If anything, it’s probably going to be one of those incidents that contribute to Kono’s overall character as a cop and her experience being a police officer. It’s those layers and layers of experiences that kind of embed themselves into someone’s psyche that eventually, 20 years down the line when you meet someone, they have the essence of cop.

IGN: What was it like shooting those sequences where she’s underwater? I’d assume that wasn’t very fun...

Park: Kono’s a surfer, so she’s great in the water - she’s grown up in the water. If you’re surfing some big waves, you will have been caught underneath, sometimes for a few sets, right? So what I’ve learned -- and I don’t even surf – is that the longer you can stay underwater, the more comfortable you are. Talking to some of the water men, like Brian Keaulana, he’ll tell you one of the first things you can do is learn to stay underwater for a long time. That way, you won’t panic when you’re underwater and the waves are coming and you are not going to get up there. I thought, “I can’t do that for very long.” But prepping for the underwater scene… I mean, I was so uncomfortable every time I read the script, because I would hold my breath as I was reading the script! I was so uncomfortable because I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing, as I’m reading my character and she’s bound and gagged in the water.

IGN: Would that qualify as the toughest thing you've had to do on the show?

Park: Funnily enough, I was more comfortable doing that, the idea of being bound and gagged underwater, versus having to be in a shore break again.

[Editor’s Note: During the filming of the Hawaii Five-0 pilot, Park learned firsthand just how much ocean water can pummel you in a shore break - where a wave breaks directly on, or very close to, the shore]

[Hawaii Five-0 showrunner/executive producer] Peter Lenkov asked, “Grace, how are you with this whole underwater thing?” I’m like, “Am I in a shore break?” He’s goes, “No.” I’m like, “You sure I’m not in a shore break?” “No you’re bound and gagged, and you’re sinking on the bottom of the ocean.” I’m like, “But I’m not in a shore break?” “No.” “That’s fine, that’s totally fine.” “You’re sure?” “Yes!” It was just so traumatizing in the pilot! [Laughs] Other than that, I was researching and prepping on that. I started learning how to hold my breath underwater and the breathing technique that you do to be able to be underwater for minutes at a time. I got up to, like, a minute, but I wasn’t practicing for that long. But that was more than we needed. The thing I was thinking was, “Well, of course she’s going to know how to do this.” So when you do go underwater -- and she knows she’s going to be tipped overboard -- when she goes under, you don’t sink to the bottom of the ocean. We had to try to get me to sink. They put lots of weights on me and we had to have someone underwater dragging me down and all this kind of stuff.

Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park

IGN: Wow, that has to add to the trauma!

Park: Right? Actually the trauma could have been during one take where I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t just say no. They’re like, “Are you ready?” I’m like, “Well, actually...” [Splash noise] They pulled me under, and I was kicking so hard to try to get out. I was supposed to have breakaway wrists and breakaway ankles, but they didn’t break away. So when I came back up, they were like, “That was really, really great, except we didn’t have your face on camera.” And I was just like, “I was trying to get out of the restraints!” But the weirdest thing was, I was kicking super hard underwater, and I didn’t have enough breath to stay under very long, but I was, like, zero panic. It was really weird because I had practiced already, so my body already knew, “Oh, you’re fine.” So that was really trippy, even though I had a lot of water and was coughing. So that’s the kind of stuff I knew about her character. She was already thinking when she was on the boat, and when I did the research diving with Ocean Ramsey, I kind of caught her out of the corner of my eye, and she wasn’t using her arms and legs to kick. She just did this kind of dolphin gliding thing in the water. So I tried it, too. I was like, “Oh my gosh!” You can move really fast doing that. It seems kind of like how fish move because fish don’t have arms -- their fins are kind of small -- but they move so fast. I figured that’s what she’s doing. Of course, it’s not on the screen because that’s not going to sell very well, but I figured that’s probably why she’s not as traumatized. There’s also always so much action, she kind of just rolls back into it.

IGN: I was initially going to ask you, “Is Kono's relationship with Adam going to continue this season?”, but the premiere answered that question in a big way. Those two began as almost a Romeo & Juliet thing, with her a cop and him as the son of a mobster. Is it going to be a little smoother now?

Park: I think that relationship -- just with the setup, like you said -- the setup is such that it’s never going to be easy or smooth. I think that their relationship is good. There’s a real attraction... They actually like each other. There’s a lot of possibility and potential there, but with the situation, you know… How clean is he? How good is he going to be at managing his father’s alliances and the rest of the business, because they’re not all gonna want to switch their ways? They have a good life, and they have it working pretty smoothly. So things could always change. I think as it unravels, we’ll see how it goes. Peter [Lenkov] has a few things up his sleeve, which I’m really excited about. I mean, it’s fine that it’s smooth, but they’re certainly not the type to just stay at home and watch movies and just eat pizza.

Ian Anthony Dale and Grace Park in Hawaii Five-0

IGN: That’d be an interesting episode though.

Park: [Laughs] For sure! People would be like, “What’s going on with that relationship? Shouldn’t they have guns and be kicking people?” [Laughs]

IGN: They’re watching Real Housewives or something.

Park: Yeah! [Laughs] I’m making a phone call. “Oh... be right there!”

IGN: Yeah. “Gotta do some cop stuff.” “Gotta do some mob stuff.”

Park: Yeah, that would be hilarious, actually. I did tell the other actor, Ian [Anthony Dale], “Yeah, Peter wants us to reflect on the nature of real relationships, and so he wants you to gain 25 pounds. He says I’m fine.”

Grace Park, Daniel Dae Kim and Scott Caan in Hawaii Five-0

IGN: [Laughs] You’ve been the constant female presence on this show, but this season you’ve got Christine Lahti recurring and now Michelle Borth as a regular.

Park: And Taryn [Manning] is coming back! Yeah, the thing is, it’s such a male-dominated show, on screen and on set as well. So it’s not a show where the women really bond with each other. I even think that has something to do with Lauren German’s character, Lori Weston, leaving, because they didn’t establish the females with each other. Not that we didn’t want it. I even asked for it right off the top. And by the end, we were having this great rapport, and I think they’ve learned now how important that is. To be able to have more of a female presence adds a duality and a complexity. That doesn’t mean we need to have them equal number, but that always changes things up. That’s why I think they didn’t keep Kono a dude. That’s why we didn’t just have five dudes. That would be a totally different show. Then we would have The Hangover... But I haven’t seen The Hangover, so I don’t even know if that’s accurate. [Laughs]

I think it’s just going to keep allowing every character like McGarrett or Danny to show other facets of their personality and their characters. People want to know more about the story, but they also want to know more about the characters they’ve been following for years.

Hawaii Five-0 airs Mondays at 10pm ET/PT on CBS.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.


Source : ign[dot]com