loonyblog.

CNN: Sleepy bear can’t stay awake.

Hard hitting journalism, just the way you like it.

WARNING: This post blatantly violates the rules.

As you make your way through the magnum opus that is GTA IV this week, be sure to listen to the voices of the various people who run in terror from your waves of destruction…one if those could be yours truly.

Yup, about a year ago (when I was still living in New York, obviously), I recorded a pedestrian voice for GTA IV. Sadly, this perk of working for Take-Two disappeared when I left for the lesser coast, but I’m glad I managed to sneak in there at least once.

In any event, I’m just one of many, many, many, many, many pedestrians in the game. You could play for a hundred, even a thousand hours and never once encounter me. But hey, it’s still cool, right?

So if you happen to bump into a neurotic jew who sounds like he’s just left his therapist in your travels around Liberty City, there’s a good chance that’s me (or one of the other dozen identical characters, that for all I know are actually in there). And if you need further proof, just check the manual. I’m in there, buried among the other thousand pedestrian voices. How cool is that?

Incidentally, this pretty much cemented my respect for actors of all kinds, but particularly those who do V/O work. That’s some hard stuff right there. All I did was stand in a closet and yell for about twenty minutes…I can’t imagine how weird it would be if I actually knew what I was doing.

This list of signs that you may not be a hardcore gamer is an entertaining read. And pretty accurate, although I’m pretty sure I’m still hardcore. Totally hardcore.

The list:

• You prefer playing against the computer: That’s pretty much been the case with me since Quake 1. Pass.
• You only play when your girlfriend is out: I usually play when Heather goes to sleep, but I do play a lot while she’s home and awake. My girlfriend lives in Mexico, so that’s never an issue (kidding). Pass.
• You believe that winning isn’t everything: Yeah, that’ll be the day. I prefer games with an ending or else I feel like I’ve wasted my time (this is a major reason why I don’t play multiplayer games). Pass.
• It’s been days, not hours since you last switched on your console: More like minutes. Pass.
• You’re the oldest person trading in games at GameStation: Okay, maybe. But is it my fault they’re all youngins at GameStop? I assume that’s because everyone in Marin my age or older can afford to buy their own games and doesn’t see the need to sell stuff back. Sigh. Fail.
• You like your Xbox 360 and your PS3 equally: I prefer my 360 slightly more thanks to achievements. But my PS3 is my default DVD player, so…Fail.
• You fondly remember a ‘golden age’ of gaming: I remember several golden ages. The early 90s, the late 90s…I remember the golden age of the Quake community…okay fine…Fail.
• You avoid playing on the Wii because it’s too much effort: I avoid playing games on the Wii because most of them are crap. But I love a good Wii game. Pass.
• Your FPS experience consists of spawn, run, die… spawn, run, die… spawn…: Only in multiplayer, and I don’t play those, so…Pass.
• You find the idea of videogames based on board games perfectly acceptable: I take offense at this one. Videogames based on board games are awesome. Turn-based anything is awesome. Sigh. Fail.
• You’ve pre-ordered GTA IV but don’t mind if it doesn’t turn up on launch day: Well, I work for the company, so I haven’t pre-ordered it, but I’ve accepted that it’s gonna be a couple of weeks before it gets here. I have coworkers who can’t wait and are actually paying for it. The heck with that. I can wait. Fail.

That’s six to five in favor of hardcore. See? I still got it. Totally hardcore.

No shockers here, but this article from Wired makes it official. The theories typically come down to water, which I previously discounted, but after hearing how far Mario Batali goes to replicate Italian water in his restaurants, I’m starting to think there’s some truth there. I definitely think the oven “gestalt” has merit though. Places with older brick ovens do have better pizza, no question.

But really, a lot of the time the fault lies in the recipe. You wouldn’t believe what passes for pizza out here. The best I’ve found is Red Boy Pizza, but even they look at you funny when you walk in and ask for two slices.

Their response? “Two slices of what? Cheese?”

Oy.

Apparently this has been added to reruns of the recent James Woods episode of Family Guy:

Frankly, I’m amazed Stewie made it through the whole thing. Hell, Joe Rogan couldn’t make it through it! I only made it a couple of seconds, and that was plenty.

Good lord, the rumors are true…Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It’s real:

It’s also completely absurd. But strangely compelling. I’m a firm believer that the fighting genre is long dead, and the idea of a Mortal Kombat without fatalities sounds kind of silly to me…but at the same time, Sub Zero versus Batman? Superman versus Kano? Dude, I’m there.

Nah, probably not. But I’m curious nonetheless. If only to see how they justify this bit of IP mishmashing. GameSpot offers some insight, but it’s still a little vague on the details (okay, so worlds are colliding, but how do you get from that to having them all fight each other in a tournament?).

WARNING: This post blatantly violates the rules.

As I mentioned over the weekend, I won’t be able to attend the New York Comic Con, which is a true shame. But at least there’s another bonus for working in the industry I’m taking advantage of that I can finally talk about…

As we’ve just announced, we hired Shepard Fairey and Studio Number One to produce an image for the Civilization Revolution marketing campaign. This was something I started pushing for as soon as the name for the game (which I’m somewhat proud to say I came up with, although let’s face it, it wasn’t the most original suggestion in the world). It just made sense to me…if you’re doing a game with revolution in the title, why not hire a professional propagandist?

In any event, the resulting image is awesome, I think…take a look:

Pretty cool, huh? If you swing by our booth at NYCC (#1157) you can pick up a free poster for yourself. Me, I’m holding out for the super nice lithograph version. Can’t wait to get that sucker framed. Maybe it’ll go in Alice’s nursery…

My daughter Alice Anne was named after her great grandmothers Ilse and Anne, but her name does have some other significance for me. Alice’s baby naming ceremony is this Friday, so we were writing a speech talking about who she was named after, but here’s some of the other things referenced by that name of hers.

Alice is…

…the protagonist of her eponymous adventures in wonderland (and through the looking glass) by Lewis Carroll, which have been my favorite books for most of my life (also one of my favorite Disney movies).
…the main character in Phantasy Star (spelled Alis) for the Sega Master System, the first Japanese RPG released in America, and one of my favorite games of all-time.
…a decent movie by Woody Allen, starring Mia Farrow.
…a very confusing Chess variant, that I’m clearly not smart enough to play (maybe she will be some day).
…the owner of the restaurant where you can get anything you want, in the song by Arlo Guthrie (which references a real person named Alice Brock).
…the name of one of the places in Australia (Alice Springs) where the wonderful movie Walkabout was filmed.
…the name of the sole surviving character (Alice Hardy) of the original Friday the 13th. Oddly enough, she’s also a major character in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
…the name of one of young Jason’s favorite pre-grunge bands (Alice in Chains).

…and so on. Alice is also a programming language, a song by Moby, a really small robot, a good, but slightly overrated video game, a tropical storm, three ships in the US Navy and one quarter of the name of a decent movie from 1969.

Basically, she has a lot more interesting name than I do. Look at all this stuff! All I get to say is that my namesake had some Argonauts and killed some skeletons.

What does your name mean?

There’s a sort of sick irony in the fact that I waited my whole life for a truly awesome comic convention to come to New York, and when it finally materializes, I’ve moved to the other side of the country. Last year I couldn’t attend (for reasons I can’t remember), but this year I have a much better excuse — it’s passover that weekend. It’s also Alice’s baby naming next Friday.

This stinks for several reasons…for one thing, my game is going to be there! If you’re attending, be sure to swing by booth #1157 to check out CivRev…we’ll have I believe eight stations running the game on both platforms, so just walk up and play.

Also, this would have been my first trip back to New York since moving out here last August. A free trip to NYC would have been awesome. I’d have paid to bring Heather and Alice out with me and everything.

But apparently nobody at the NYCC committee is Jewish, so they had to pick the one weekend in April that was completely off limits. Oh well.

THe funny thing is that it’s shaping up to be a really great convention. Neil Gaimain is attending, and will be doing a reading to benefit the CBLDF. And I love Neil Gaimain readings.

Ah well. I will be making my first trip back to the greater coast since Alice’s birth in a few weeks, but that’s just to Firaxis in Baltimore…I won’t be making it up to the city I love so dear. I’ve not sure when I’ll be back in NY…it won’t be too long, I hope. The last thing I want is for Alice to think she’s a California girl. Regardless of where she was delivered, she was made in Brooklyn, after all.

Anyway, if you’re going to the NYCC, enjoy it for me. I’m going to turn my attention to figuring out some excuse to attend the San Diego Con now.

The Onion: I Can’t Imagine Why Anybody Would Want to Stop Crying.

Actually, Alice isn’t that bad anymore. Now that she can breathe (surgery #4 was a success) she’s much happier, and tends to sleep for most of the night. But man, there were some days there that were just loaded with screaming, crying goodness.

And just to make the baby-related post complete, here’s your obligatory photo of the little angel (more of which can always be found at AliceBergman.com):