As I had one, I decided to use my old CRT screen I had in the room so I played some old school games that I started long ago but never finished. One of my game of the year that moved me for real! The 3D in battles is quite hard to see to be honest, but the 2D used during dungeons or exploration is just one of the finest I’ve ever seen. Regarding the gameplay it’s the best of both worlds, old school J-RPG with some Zelda elements in the sense that each one of the three characters can use some tools to progress in dungeons, to solve puzzles or to gather some information in town and it works perfectly fine. The battles are really classic with a turn based system but the interesting feature is the possibility for the characters to use special abilities (learned at some different moments in the scenario) which gives a much appreciated strategic aspect to it. The story is quite interesting as well with some unexpected twists even now and you want to know what will happen next. And last but not least the soundtrack is awesome. I’m a very passionate guy when it comes to the music of the games that is a key element of any game and I didn’t talk about any of it yet because before playing Wild ARMs in May I didn’t remember any of them in the other games I played. In my opinion Japanese composers are way better than western ones and that is the reason I’ll use. Anyway, Michiko Naruke is a genius for tracks such as Battle M-Boss, Wh-What?, Adlehyde Castle without forgetting the intro theme To the End of the Wilderness just to put my favorites. One of the greatest games of all time for me and that was a tremendous experience.
Then I wanted to play the sequel still on the same platform but what a disappointment in every aspect. The game fully uses a 3D engine except for the characters during the exploration phase that are using nice 2D sprites. The battles are slow but really slow and using the exact same system as the previous one. The story is not engaging at all and uselessly complicated with a lot of different characters that come and go. So I didn’t reach the end of this one because it’s not worth it (but I bought the game anyway… that’s my collector’s side).

Mother (NES – HAL Laboratory – Nintendo – 1989) – Mother 2/EarthBound (SNES – HAL Laboratory in collaboration with APE, Inc. – Nintendo – 1994)

This is a truly masterpiece of Japanese RPG. As of writing this, I’m still not done with Mother 3, but I played the two before and they are amazing. The first one is set somewhere in a fantasy Western and you take control of Ninten and his friends. As a game of the late 80s you don’t really have much information on what to do and where to go so you can end up somewhere unexpected with powerful monsters and die or miss some key stuff while you’re at it (the latter is also valid for EarthBound true story). Biggest issue if you don’t have the booklet is that you have no way, before using them, to know your PSI powers’ effects. The good old days where booklet were actually useful. Besides the peculiar setting, what strikes here is the way the designers (and particularly Shigesato Itoi) chose to deal with death and I loved it for a change. When you beat an animal you “tame” it, when it is a human being it “turns back to normal” giving you the information that something is going on. When one of the characters die, s/he is “unconscious”, it is not something new for this one but it needs to be put in the context of back in the days. They thought that the target audience would be children and they adapted to it in a way they won’t be shocked and they did a terrific job here. But that doesn’t mean the game is easy, oh boy, not at all. And I’m lucky I played the GBA remake (thanks to a fan translation) where you can grab a ring (the “Easy Ring”) at the very beginning of the game and it makes the game really easier. The work on the audio part is also amazing because both the NES and the GBA have a poor audio chip but they made it audible. The interesting part for this is that the music changes depending on the kind of “monster” you fight. Animals, human beings, robots and aliens, cars and trucks, boss fights of course, and last but not least, hippies that have their own wannabe-hippy music. The story in itself is pretty unclear as a game of 1989 but if you just dive into, it is an amazing experience.
The second one is pretty much the same but bigger and better (except for the music as I prefer “Pollyana” music theme). In this one without the booklet, you can know the effects of your PSI powers. It is in this game that you take control of Ness (that will make an appearance later in Super Smash Bros. Melee). In this one also the overall goal is pretty clear as you need to recover in a certain order 8 melodies before being able to go further. It is also a good experience and the game is even more difficult than the first one from my point of view (for the info I played it mostly on my BlackBerry Playbook tablet and it worked just fine, the touch screen for an old-school J-RPG is perfect).

Resident Evil 4 (GameCube – Capcom – 2004)

I’ll be fierce on this one as from the experience I had with it, it is everything but the masterpiece it is claimed to be. I’ve never been good at gaming but I’ve always been able to finish most of the games I started but not this one, even in Easy Mode. I played as far as the Krauser battle but gave up after this one for several reasons. The game is actually unforgiving unlike most of the games in the same genre. The checkpoints are way too far from each other and you have to re-do the exact same scene, at least you can skip the cut-scenes but that’s way too archaic. Then for this very Krauser fight, you have a time limit of 2 minutes or so and even when you do beat him, the timer still goes on which is realistic but you have unskippable cut-scenes that show you that the previously-locked doors are opening!!! And you stupidly run out of time because of this. Anyway I can see the quality it definitely has like the fun of exploring the different environment and how powerless you feel when surrounded by huge or numerous infected people and almost out of ammo. The atmosphere is absolutely great (especially in the castle) but the game is absolutely NOT a masterpiece. It bears too much frustration and archaic mechanics to reach this status.  This was also my last game of 2012.

2012 was also my year of indie gaming. As an indie developer myself (work in progress as of now) it is nice to see what people can do either with no or few financial means or by reusing existing engines. Dear Esther for example is a very nice experience but not as astonishing as I was expecting it to be. It is beautiful and the narrative means (to write on the walls or to put some photographs on the ground) are great ideas but nothing more.
Dinner Date is nice but very confusing and I reached the end without actually knowing it but the amount of different choices you have are great and way better than Heavy Rain.
I finally got to play TRAUMA as well that I followed from when it won a prize at IGF 2010. I quite liked it even though it is confusing as it lacks a clear goal definition. Basically you do what you do without knowing the order or the amount of “signs” you need to find. It becomes frustrating as you try to click everywhere in the screen but the idea and the concept behind are nice.
I also played Super Hexagon as I’m a big fan of Terry Cavannagh’s previous game VVVVVV. This minimalist action game is entertaining and fun but way too hard for me. As I wanted to try it on different platforms, I bought iy both on Steam and iOS to check how the mapping was actually efficient on a touch screen. Once again this is a terrific job but frustrating in a good way.

Hotline Miami (PC – Dennaton Games – Devolver Digital – 2012)

Last but not least, my game of the year 2012. Made with Game Maker Studio, this game is a masterpiece and is completely outstanding. This is a definition of pure fun. I loved it so much! You are a guy having weird dreams and accepting jobs from your phone receiver and you just kill people. With a top-down perspective, you need to strategically study the pattern of the bad guys and strike! But everyone dies in one hit so you need to be quick and quiet as using fire arms will alert other people. Graphically it has this retro flashy flavor that I really like. I’m completely amazed by this game as I was very, very skeptical at the beginning because of this very gratuitous violence it shows. But the gameplay mechanics behind it, are perfectly polished (I witnessed only one functional bug in my playthrough) and when you die it is always your fault. But it is very special and some people won’t like it for sure but I loved it and this motivates me even more to make games on my own.

Metro 2033 (PC – 4A Games – THQ – 2010)

I started with Metro 2033 as it seemed promising and not another Call of sequel. The game is nice with a lot of different situations but the story is a bit smoky and the ending comes out of the blue but I had fun playing it.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (PC – Infinity Ward – Activision – 2011) – Battlefield 3 (PC – DICE – Electronic Arts – 2011) – Battlefield Bad Company 2 (PC – DICE – Electronic Arts – 2010)

Then I continued playing other FPS (the first 6 months of 2012 were almost exclusively about FPS) and I started with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 which was like the other ones with a lot of action, not frustrating and I’ll do the same next year and play Black Ops II. But even though the story is a no brainer I find it more engaging than the next one I played which was released also at the end of last year: Battlefield 3. The story is shitty but making London’s tube exploding was badass! After that I remembered that I skipped another game in the Battlefield series: Bad Company 2 so I decided to play it. I was a bit disappointed because the first has really funny dialogues and the characters are really well done but you can feel that the sequel was made for the sake of making a sequel. Well, too bad I’m moving to something else.

Medal of Honor (PC – Danger Close Game – Electronic Arts – 2010)

Then I played the worst one of them all: Medal of Honor 2010. Tasteless, full of bugs, ugly and so boring that I didn’t even want to watch the final cinematic.

Dead Space 2 (PC – Visceral Games – Electronic Arts – 2011)

For the next game I wanted to play, I wanted it to be scary and good, what better choice than Dead Space 2? It’s the exact same as the first one but bigger and better. The story is nice and you’re curious of what will happen next and you want to continue to explore the rooms and corridors to know more about the background. Very good game.

RAGE (PC – id Software – 2011)

Then I browsed my Steam library and checked the other FPS I wanted to play, so next one was RAGE which is very enjoyable and funny. The story was cool (except the ending) and gameplay wise the missions system and the open world was a nice addition and I really enjoyed visiting this world.

Deus Ex (PC – Ion Storm – Eidos Interactive – 2000) – Deus Ex Human Revolution (PC – Eidos Montréal – SQUARE ENIX – 2011)

Then I went back to something more retro and started to play the first Deus Ex that I couldn’t finish because of a compatibility issue. The ten hours or so I spent were really amazing and I was delighted. It is really a must-play game. The setting is great, the gameplay is great and you do have choices and what you have an impact on the rest of the game. Then I went directly onto the last one: Deus Ex Human Revolution and man, I enjoyed it as well. First the game looks nice and with my retro tastes it was a shock and the setting is really well done. But until a certain mission in China I wanted not to kill anybody but this very part had me so upset that I decided to do it.

Syndicate (PC – Starbreeze Studios – Electronic Arts – 2012) – Blur (PC – Bizarre Creations – Activision – 2010)

After that I stopped first person perspective for a while after my Syndicate disappointment (what a piece of garbage to stay polite) to play a racing game that I enjoyed the demo very much: Blur. Bizarre Creations last good game and Mario Kart meets Need for Speed. But it quickly becomes unforgiving even though it’s not as imbalanced as in Mario Kart (except for the very first one Super Mario Kart which is perfect in the genre). Anyway I really enjoyed my time and had some big frustrations.

Tomb Raider Anniversary (PC – Core Design – Eidos Interactive – 2008)

I never really played a Tomb Raider before, I started some of the early ones, played the demo of Tomb Raider Underworld and didn’t like it. So I wanted to really play one and I found this one for really cheap on Steam. What surprised me the most is that my girlfriend was also interested in playing the game and we played by turn like one level each and she was quite good for a non-gamer holding a gamepad for the first time! Maybe it was the fact that the main character was a woman that she got more involved. Anyway it was a nice experience for a change. Then she went on vacations so it was time for something more hardcore.

Bulletstorm (PC – People Can Fly in association with Epic Games – Electronic Arts – 2011)

But I started to miss FPS already so I played another one: Bulletstorm. The idea is good but I didn’t finish it as I found the story not engaging even though the dialogues are funny and maybe I’ll come back to it but I felt doing the same thing over and over. I would describe it as a Devil May Cry in the first person perspective. It’s fun but doesn’t last.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC – Bethesda Game Studios – Bethesda Softworks – 2011)

According to Steam, I spent the next 33 hours on an RPG released in 2011: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I wanted to know what the buzz was all about. I understand now. It is engaging, motivating, and most importantly it is accessible. You don’t need to be an Elder Scrolls die-hard fan to jump into it and it is very much appreciated. It is a huge, deep, immersive and well balanced game. I had a blast even though I didn’t finish it and have a lot more to explore but not enough time.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (PlayStation 3 – UTV Ignition – Ignition – 2010)

It’s summer, let’s stay inside and play a wonderful game! Even though we can more talk about an experience because of the visuals for sure and for game about a specific story from the Bible, this is a very interesting one. But the game is structured as follows: you have 3D platform phases that are complicated sometimes because of the camera and the visuals also, then some fights against 3 different kinds of monsters that use a different weapon for each (which means that the weapons are following a rock-paper-scissors pattern) and then some 2D platform parts sometimes. But what strike first are the visuals, everything is flashy but so beautiful and goes according to the theme and the vision of the designer. Each level/chapter has its own visual atmosphere and representation that can be radically different (from pure and simple geometry to futuristic highway and city for example). The theme the designer chose to deal with was pretty challenging for a Japanese game as it covers the question of the homosexuality in the Christian religion and it is very well done! It’s not gross as it’s all subtle like in the Get Backers anime. A really amazing game that I strongly recommend.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (PC – Criterion Games – Electronic Arts – 2010)

I’m not huge fan of racing games (ok, this is already the second entry in this list) as I’m usually not good at them but I wanted to try this one as well as it was once again cheap on Steam. First I have to say that Need for Speed Hot Pursuit II (released in 2002) was my favorite in the series so I was skeptical about this reboot. But that was good. I needed to adapt my driving skills as the racing gameplay slightly changed from the previous racing games I played. In the end it is very enjoyable, the music is good and the racing feeling is still there. I didn’t like playing the cops in this one but there are already many races to do so I had a lot fun even without “using” this feature.

The Walking Dead (PC – Telltale Games – Telltale Games – 2012)

For the last entry in this category, I’ll talk about a story driven game. Once again I wanted to know what the buzz was all about. I was very, very skeptical for this one as people were saying that it was like Heavy Rain but better. In my opinion, Heavy Rain is not even a game as it is just a bad succession of QTE and its designer is the worst one in the industry even! But what a pleasant surprise! I really enjoyed it because I could directly control my character when it comes to moving him. The choices also are really tough and you have to make the decisions quickly so it’s even more stressful! And you have some unexpected turns of events sometimes according to the decisions you made and that’s really cool.

Voici un extrait :

Le nouveau Boeing 787 Dreamliner peut emmener 250 passagers. Ce blog a été vu environ 1 200 fois en 2012. S’il était un Dreamliner, il faudrait environ 5 voyages pour faire voyager autant de personnes.

Cliquez ici pour voir le rapport complet.

After that I went back to Canada with the objective to find a job in Montreal as I love the city, because my girlfriend is here also and because it is the video games city as well. But as I’m French, and not a permanent resident yet, I needed a potential employer to give me a job offer letter so that I can start applying to a specific work permit (I used my Working Holiday Visa the year before already). So it was hard convincing people to block a position so that I can obtain my work permit after 6 weeks. Hopefully thanks to a contact from my previous job, I could apply, be interviewed and secure a job position at Babel Media to be a Linguistic Tester again and there goes my first change. I only waited 3 weeks and in order to validate my new work permit I had to leave the country and come back so I went to New York City for the first time by train with my girlfriend and it was amazing!

I started at the end of April, and as I had a previous experience at this position I was given the opportunity to move up so I did! And I’m very grateful for it as it was unexpected. And now here I am Senior Tester managing (with a lot of help from my team mates and especially the test leads, supervisor I work with) a team from 10 to 17 people (according to the number of languages covered). It’s both a lot of fun and rewarding and a welcomed second change. I’m currently feeling very good here and the perspective seems nice as well. Even though my developer self is tickling.

And I could realize this during the Montreal International Game Summit where I was once again a volunteer. This year I was completely interested by Execution Labs which is Jason Della Rocca’s (who is one of the most influential person in the video game industry) latest project. An incubator mixed with an accelerator to help start ups developing their game and putting it on the market while benefiting from the wide team of mentors they put together. I wanted to participate to this program so badly that I gathered a team of 4 people 2 weeks before applying. In the end we decided to push back the application and to get to know each other better and make a project on our own.

During this year I also realized that I was feeling very good with my girlfriend that I love dearly but shortly after I started my new job she had to go back home for the summer and it was stupidly hard to handle on my side as we were separated for 3 months. But she was extremely supportive and I’m grateful once again for that. This leads me to another change as I decided that it was time to start a therapy and boy it was about time. This is something very interesting to get to know yourself better and for me to put words on feelings and to understand how what I felt before can come back and what activates it.

Finally last but not least I moved in with my girlfriend when she came back in August and that is my biggest change for the whole year and in my life. We realize that we are feeling so very good together and getting along so well that now it is impossible to think that it could be possible otherwise. We love each other and it was the most beautiful thing that happened to me this year.

So what is this new position about? To understand it easier, it is better to know the hierarchy of a team. 1^st is the linguistic tester who tests the game, write bug reports (refer to my previous article about this position) and ask questions to the Senior Tester (2^nd) or the Test Lead (3^rd). Let’s focus on this 2^nd position which is what I am doing on a daily basis now. As the link between the testers and the Test Lead, I need to be able to answer most of the questions about 2 different topics: projects (which I still can’t talk about) and allocation (who is doing what, who is sitting where). As the ‘Tester’ in the name implies, I need to know the game as I will have to explain the features, the goal and the overall behavior of it. I don’t play it that much and thanks to my technical background I can easily see what a game is made of. I need also to check and vet the bugs that the testers entered before assigning them to the right person (linguist or developer depending on the issue). This leads to my second biggest task which is management and leadership. I was kind of scared at the beginning because I never actually led a team and I was more a follower than a leader. But before starting this new position, I was beginning to help other testers and to take some decisions to help my lead, and luckily enough I’m in a wonderful team and I can learn from other seniors or other leads or my supervisor also who have, in my humble opinion, a good way to manage people and lead them to the same goal. I really like it as I can feel now that my team is more likely to do the task I send or forward. This implies also that I need to communicate both verbally and by e-mail. This is intimidating at the beginning because you don’t know if your team will listen to you or not. But once you’re into it, that’s easier. This enables me also to help people improve which is rewarding when you see after a couple of weeks that your advice are remembered. I also learnt how to deal with different profiles because everybody is different and I need to adapt to different people. Sometimes it is easy sometimes I need to repeat.

My personal point of view about this position is that I’m now enable to explore and to improve new skills like leadership or management and hopefully, I’m more than happy to do that. I’m still surrounded by many different nationalities and it is still a pleasure to share many things about so much topics. And thanks to that last opportunity I’m now looking forward to new challenges and a new opportunity maybe? Who knows?

Un énorme merci à Emmanuel Viau pour m’avoir invité à déjeuner et pour avoir répondu à mes questions. C’était vraiment un bon moment qui ne nous a pas rajeuni (je n’étais même pas né quand il a fondé ERE Informatique !).

C’est donc ma première interview que j’ai préparée à l’avance. La mise en page est temporaire car je n’ai plus le fichier originel pour le modifier.

Je la traduirai d’ici peu.

N.B : le nom de la première entreprise de Laurant Weil était ILLEL et non ELI.

Voici un extrait:

Un cable car à San Francisco contient 60 personnes. Ce blog a été visité environ 1 900 fois en 2011. Si c’était un cable car, il aurait fallu à peu près 32 voyages pour transporter autant de personnes.

Cliquez ici pour voir le rapport complet.