Category Archives: Games

Arrival in Houston

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Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. We’ve been busy getting ready for our big trip to Texas as well as buying presents for Christmas. At work, I was moved onto a new project: NFL Head Coach. They are about to start finaling and I’m going to be working on getting them through the process. It’s tough since I just finaled Madden Next Gen, but I think I can be a lot of help. NFL Head Coach is another football game, but instead of being the player you are the coach. It’s more of a strategy game than an arcade game like Madden.

Abby was counting the days until we leave for Texas. Each morning she would ask, “How long until we leave for Grandma and Poppa’s house?” Well, the past two days were spent traveling from Orlando to Houston. We are staying with Jennifer’s parents for the next week through Christmas day. We spent the night in a hotel in Mobile, Alabama and traveled through the Katrina hurricane damaged areas of South Mississippi and Louisiana. It was amazing how much damage was still visible from the Interstate. We saw some crumpled “Golden Arches” and a lot of miscellaneous garbage on the side of the road; and, of course, a ton of downed trees. Mississippi was worse than Louisiana, but then we didn’t go down to New Orleans. We took I-12, which bypasses New Orleans and goes directly to Baton Rouge. Once we passed all that, we hit all the damage from Rita in South Louisiana and Texas. There were a ton of blue tarps which reminded us of Orlando two years ago.

Anyway, we safely made it to Houston and we are glad to finally not be in the Sequoia anymore. Within fifteen minutes of being here Emily had already broken one of Grandma’s nativity scenes. For dinner, Christiana and Mike came over and we all had dinner together. I brought out the Xbox 360 and showed them Madden and Mike and I played some Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

We left Austin’s bed at home so we had to go out to Target and get him another one. We also stopped by Best Buy so I could get a 512 MB card for our camera. I swiped the one we had previously so that I could use it in my new Palm pilot. I’ve been using it as an MP3 player, my PSP has gotten too bulky. My Palm pilot worked great and I listened to all the Podcasts I was behind on all the way from Orlando to Houston. I caught up on This Week in Tech, Security Now!, and Inside the Net. There are still several hours that I still need to listen to in order to officially “catch up”. I got behind while I was finaling Madden Next Gen.

Abby’s 5th Birthday

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Last Saturday was Abby’s 5th birthday. We had a simple party at our house, inviting Abby’s friends from school and the neighborhood. The new play gym got a lot of use during the party. It was so nice outside, that we opened up the back doors and just freely roamed from inside and outside. Abby got several Barbies. We were amazed that no one gave her the same one, though. Right now we just can’t believe that we have a five year old running around the house.

Yesterday was the Madden Next Gen and Xbox 360 Launch Event at work. The Jacksonville Jaguar’s Cheerleaders and mascot were there and they had Madden Next Gen up on the big screen. The family came up and we ate some food and Jennifer got to finally see the game I worked on for so long. She also got to meet some of the new guys I’m working with on my new project.

I also purchased an Xbox 360 from work yesterday. They raffled off the right to buy the new console and I was one of the lucky ones to win. I spent last night playing Need for Speed and Halo 2. Today I moved our wireless router upstairs so that I could plug the Xbox into it and play games online. I just finished playing two games of Madden online, which I’ve never done on the console version of the game before. It was pretty cool and very addictive.

Restaurant Test

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I was correct. I got the call from work today that a major bug that was found with our game. So, I have to go back into work tomorrow in order to get that issue resolved. Hopefully it won’t be too long and I can get out of there at a regular time.

Hurricane Wilma was pretty weak in our area. There were just a few dead limbs down on the ground at that’s about it. Once it blew through the skies were blue and it turned real cold (for Florida).

Jennifer braved the storm to take Isabelle to the doctor. The diagnosis was an ear infection and we got some antibiotics and are keeping her nose clear. Hopefully she gets over it soon. She sounds so pathetic when she coughs.

I was able to get a reader for my camera’s memory card so I’m now able to extract my pictures. Today’s picture is of Isabelle from a couple of weeks ago (before she got a cold).

At work they raffled off the right to purchase an Xbox 360, since they will probably be in short supply when the new console comes out on November 22nd. I’m not guaranteed to get one when it comes out, but hopefully I will get one before our trip back to Texas so that I can show my parents and grand parents the game I worked so hard on this year.

We also went out to dinner tonight to Carrabba’s Italian Grill. All five of us. It’s usually difficult to take all the kids out to a nice restaurant, but they all did really well. Abby colored on the kids’ menu and Emily played with some dough that the waiter gave her. They ate all their dinner and did such a great job that we were amazed. We’ve attributed it to our eating breakfast all the time. We think it’s teaching them the right way to act in a restaurant.

Lazy Sunday

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I didn’t have to go into work today! The phone was silent, so everything must be going fine at work. Although, it’s Sunday, if something goes wrong, it probably won’t happen until tomorrow.

We didn’t do much today. We just hung around the house. I played several games of NFL Street 2 and Abby and Jennifer went to the nail parlor and go get their nails painted. Abby came back with orange toe nails with white ghosts on them.

Isabelle is still not feeling well. We may take her into the doctor’s office tomorrow.

For those who are following the news on Hurricane Wilma. It’s going to the south of us. We will probably get some wind and a lot of rain, but that’s about it. They canceled Abby and Emily’s school for tomorrow, though. I was looking forward to finding out what it was like with a quite house.

I’ve lost the cable to my camera, so I can’t take any of the new pictures off. I’m having to post a picture which is a couple of months old. I’m going to go to Best Buy tomorrow and see if I can find a replacement cable.

The Astros lost again in the second game of the World Series. They came back and tied it in the ninth after giving up a grand slam, but they gave up a home run in the bottom of the ninth. The series goes to Houston for the next three games. The rain and the cold in Chicago has looked like miserable playing conditions. At least Minute Maid Park has a roof.

I finished The Drawing of the Three today. Even though I’m having a great time with The Dark Tower series, I decided to pick up The Da Vinci Code for my next book. A movie is currently in production and I would like to have the book read before the movie comes out. Dan Brown became popular with this book, but I read Digital Fortress and Deception Point before reading this one. I enjoyed both of these books and since this one has had so much press (both good and bad) I’m sure I will enjoy it as well.

Jennifer’s Baby Shower

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Today the neighbors threw Jennifer a baby shower. I came home early from work to watch the kids and she walked next door for dinner and socializing. She had a great time and we received several new outfits for the baby. Jennifer is counting down the minutes until the baby arrives. She’s definitely ready. She said that it was nice to get out of the house, away from the children, and have a chance to talk with the neighbors.

Now that Abby is out of pre-school, Jennifer has been desperate to keep Abby and Emily occupied. Abby and Emily individually are good and play well. When you get them together and then throw Austin into the mix, it’s total chaos around the house.

This past weekend I picked up The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance. I was looking for a game that I could play on my GBA while sitting around the house because I haven’t had much luck making it up to my computer in order to finish Half Life. So far it has many elements which are throw back to the old Nintendo Legend of Zelda, but with better graphics.

Today’s picture is of Austin patiently waiting at the back door to go outside and potty.

Xbox 360 Unveiled

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Abby had a rough day today. Somehow while playing with Austin, she bumped her tooth and it pushed it up a tiny bit and her gums are all bruised. Jennifer is going to call the dentist tomorrow to check whether or not she needs to bring her in. Another funny incident was when Abby exclaimed that Austin had tinkled on the floor. Jennifer looked over to where she was pointing and Austin was licking it up. Jennifer thought that was odd and it turned out that Abby had spilled juice on the floor and was blaming it on the dog.

Today Microsoft unveiled the system that I’m working to bring Madden to for launch: the Xbox 360. They debuted the system with a special on MTV, which was pretty stupid. You can check out another concept video for Madden NFL 06 Xbox 360 on MTV’s site.

Too Cold for the Park

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I had the day off from work today and so we decided to go to the park this morning even though it’s been pretty cold here the past couple of days. The high temperature today was 58 degrees, which obviously isn’t cold for most of the country, but it’s cold for here in Central Florida. Also, it’s pretty cold when last week the high was in the 80’s all week long. Anyway, we were there for only forty minutes before it became too cold and we headed to Chick Olé for some indoor playing.

While talking to Jennifer’s sister on the phone today, Abby admitted that her fish were named “Nemo” and “Dory”, so that puts to rest what the name of the fish are. I suppose my arguments against naming them after herself and her sister actually were having an effect.

I finished Ratchet & Clank today. This game was okay. It wasn’t stellar, but had its challenging moments. What I didn’t like about it was that I had to collect a certain amount of money in order to kill the last “boss” creature to end the game. I got online and found a cheat in order to collect a lot of money so I could win. When you have to resort to that type of tactic in order to finish the game, then there’s a flaw in the overall design, in my opinion.

Today it was announced that Electronic Arts has paid ESPN for exclusive rights to their brand. This effectively deals a one, two punch to our biggest competition Sega/Take Two who had their ESPN line of sports titles for the past two years. The exclusive NFL license killed their football game and now our ESPN license has killed pretty much all brand recognition that they built up. All I can say is: “It’s good to be the king.”

Today’s picture is of Emily playing a little soccer (with a basketball) while we were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Houston.

The Shelf Life of PC Games

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We got out and did some shopping at Best Buy today. I’m about to finish Ratchet & Clank so I wanted to get the next game I was going to be playing. I received Half-Life 2 as a gift, but I hadn’t played the first one so I went in search of a “Collector’s” version of Half-Life. I was able to find one and found out the reason it’s hard to have old versions of PC games still on the shelves. PC games age rather quickly. I had a tough time getting the six year old game to run on my modern PC. When Half Life came out, 3D video cards were in it’s infancy. It’s funny because you usually don’t have the same problem with console games. If the console is still running, you know that a game bought twenty years from now will still run on that system. In fact, you still see the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo for sale in video game stores today even though both systems are over ten years old now.

After Best Buy we went over to Chuck E. Cheese. We usually try to avoid the place on the weekends and we were reminded of the reason why. It was crawling with people. And for some reason, they redesigned the place in order to cram it full of more people. Instead of having a place where you dine and a place where you play, it’s all inner mixed now. It made it real awkward trying to help Emily play Skee Ball and a few feet over a family is eating pizza. As you can see from today’s picture, Abby got her picture taken by a contraption which makes a “sketch” of the person posing for the picture. She was very proud of the picture and has made me hang it up in her play room.

Singing Through the Tears

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Today at lunch I went up to watch Abby sing at her school’s Christmas program. We were thinking that it was probably a good thing that we weren’t with Abby before the program started because the past few times that we’ve been there when she is going to sing in front of a crowd, she has a meltdown and starts crying. We figured if we weren’t there she wouldn’t have the opportunity of start crying. We were wrong. They walked out on stage and once they started singing and Abby saw us in the audience, the tears started to flow. Jennifer and I tried to show our encouragement from the audience and after the first song it started to work. Abby’s tears cleared up and she started singing with much enthusiasm. Afterwards, she was happy to see me and we told her we were very proud.

Very big news from work today. It was announced that Electronic Arts has signed an exclusive deal with the National Football League. This means that starting with Madden 2006 and for the next five years, Electronic Arts will be the only video game which will be allowed to use the real NFL teams, players, and stadiums. This is a very big deal and we were all very excited about it at work today. I’m sure our competition, ESPN NFL Football isn’t all that pleased at this moment. The question I’m wondering now is will they even make a football game for the next five years? We will have to wait and see.

Atomic Dinner

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Tonight I met some of my old Atomic workmates, Charles Morris and Tom Kent, who were in town for dinner and we waxed nostalgic about the “good ‘ole times”. I also talked about what it was like to work at EA. Sometimes it’s amazing that I’ve been with EA for four years while my time at Atomic was only two and a half years. Thinking back, it seems like my time at Atomic was much longer that it has been with EA. My time at EA has been a blur. Anyway, it was great to see them again and it is sometimes good to get a perspective from other people in the game industry.