Christian Allen's Corner

Zombies, Guns, and Realism: Why The Walking Dead needs me...

Anyone who reads this blog (i.e., my mother and Chinese comment spammers) knows that I have an affinity for Zombie fiction, and one of my biggest pet peeves is unrealistic or incorrect portrayals of firearms in media.  I’ve previously ranted about slide lock syndrome in Hollywood, and incorrect weapon advice for dealing with the Zombie menace.

This weekend, the two elements combined into a perfect storm for me, in the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead.  In one single scene, multiple firearms gaffes ruined my suspension of disbelief and my immersion in what is an otherwise excellent Zombie-themed TV show.

This is a plea to AMC and the producers of The Walking Dead to get a new, qualified weapons advisor for your show.  It won’t cost you any more than you are already paying, and it will help keep viewers like myself who actually know what they are looking at when it comes to firearms and zombies.  You spend so much time building interpersonal drama, tension, and excitement, with meticulous detail when it comes to makeup and effects.  And then you piss all over it with shitty, lazy firearms representations.  I would expect better from a SyFy channel Friday-night special movie featuring Debbie Gibson and the bottom-rung Baldwin.

Take a moment to watch the following clip (SPOILER WARNING:  Do not watch if you haven’t seen the episode!):

http://www.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/videos/the-walking-dead-talked-about-scenes-episode-207-sophia-is-found

Let’s take one issue at a time:

1. LACK OF RECOIL: 
   
   I could list these individually, but it colors the entire scene.  Notice that when Glenn and Daryl are firing their shotguns, there is ABSOLUTELY NO RECOIL!  It appears (though I can’t be sure) that Glenn is firing a Mossberg 12g, and Daryl is toting a Winchester 12 or 20 gauge, but regardless of the size of the gun, they should be experiencing SOME recoil, unless they are supposed to be firing Hollywood blanks.  All your weapons advisor needed to do was to teach the actors how to recoil with each shot in a semi-realistic fashion.  It is actually easier to do with a pump-action shotgun than with other weapons, as the act of “pumping” the action with the recoil is smooth and natural, as opposed to your actor’s actions of firing (with no recoil, perfectly still), and THEN working the action.
   
   Of course, this isn’t limited to shotguns, as Andrea shows absolutely NO recoil when firing her Beretta 92FS…
   
   SOLUTION:  Teach your actors how to recoil realistically, even when firing blank rounds or digitally adding in firing effects afterwards.
   
   
2. MOTIONLESS SLIDES: 
   
   The close-up shot of Andrea unloading from her Beretta 92FS clearly shows that the slide is not cycling between shots.  This is underscored by the lack of recoil or her reacting at all to firing (and this omission could have possibly been covered up if she had done that).  Once the viewer sees that the weapon is not functioning, the lack of recoil and obviously post-added digital muzzle flash becomes even more apparent.  I can see this is not a lack of hardware, as Shane’s Glock has a functioning slide.  Perhaps the actress didn’t want to fire the weapon, or the footage of her aiming had the correct emotion but not her firing? 
   
   SOLUTION:  If the actress doesn’t want to fire a blank gun, at least get her a $100 airsoft gun that has some movement in the slide.  If the shot of her not firing is great, and she wasn’t shooting, then digitally add in some slide blur movement.  It’s not rocket science.
   
   
3. INCONSISTENT MUZZLE FLASHES:
   
   Several of the weapons being fired obviously had Hollywood blanks loaded, most notably Daryl’s shotgun.  You could tell because of the slow burning ejection of powder flying out of the barrel when he fired (and since he didn’t show any signs of recoil, holding it perfectly still while firing).  Other actor’s weapons obviously didn’t have any powder in them at all, as the discharge was only marked by a quick “flash,” obviously doctored post-shooting in after effects, using the standard “muzzle flash” effect.  It couldn’t have been more fake if you just added lense flares to the barrels of the guns.
   
   SOLUTION:   Use better blanks, or better digital effects.  I work in video games.  I know that people expect more spectacular muzzle flashes in guns than actually exist.  That’s cool.  But at least be consistent.  If one gun is spitting slow-burning gunpowder, then have them all do it.  If one gun is having a quick-flash digital effect, then have them all do it.  But, for the love of guns, don’t mix the two!

In conclusion, I love The Walking Dead!  This show is awesome, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and pulls no punches.  Its setting, characters, and makeup effects are top notch.  Now, if only you could find someone who could ensure the same quality for your firearms-related effects and acting, you would be on top of the game.

Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing.  Maybe a former Marine.  Maybe someone who has trained individuals in firearms handling.  Maybe someone who has done this in media before. 

There has got to be someone with all those qualifications…

hmmmm…

Maybe me?

 

America, step up and get real!

A popular movement springs up of grassroots organized Americans that rally against corruption in politics and tax-funded bailouts of failed corporations who sponsor our congressional overlords.  The corporate-funded twenty-four hour news networks launch an immediate attack against them.  They state that these groups are a threat against America.

Politicians join the chorus of corporate-sponsored news organizations to decry these Americans gathering to speak out against the lobbyists, the corrupt politicians, and the corporations who take huge tax-funded bailouts while the rest of America suffers…

The twenty-four hour news networks, which make their money based on the schism in America, are quick to attack or support these protesters.  They make their money based on views to their sites and shows; and assault the antics of the protesters or the background of the supporters…

Everything I just wrote applies both to OWS and the Tea Party.  Why can’t America balls up and realize that the Red/Blue debate is bullshit.  Congress is corrupt.  The ruling party is happy to take millions of dollars and pass laws that except themselves from behaviors that would put you in jail.  They are the problem.  Lobbyists pay them off and they are fucking you, whether you are the 99% or the 1%.   The .001% is fucking everyone, and you are buying into it, whether you are a Tea Partier or an OCW’er. 

They are playing you both.  Do you really think that they believe that Pizza is a vegetable?  Do you really think that they think we need hundreds of military bases overseas?  Do you really think that they aren’t gerrymandering all of the districts so that the two parties can stay in power?  When is the last time you saw as serious third party?   The two parties are playing you.  They are working together.  Their split of platforms  doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not meant to. 

Stop fighting against other Americans.  Start fighting against the system.  Raise your gun.  Raise your drum.  Hoist your Peace Flag.  Hoist your Gadsen Flag.

Let’s all stand together against corrupt asshole politician congressmen who take millions of dollars from unreportable SuperPAC’s to vote against the will of the people, in order to enrich their own pockets.  We can argue later whether people making $250,000 a year need a tax increase, or whether Social Security is a viable enterprise.  Let’s get the corrupt fuckers who are getting richer and richer off of your dollar out of office, whether you make a million or you make twenty grand.

Then maybe we can begin healing and coming together. 

We are the %100.  They are the corrupt fucks living off of your blood, sweat, and tears.

 

 

Project Zomboid

I'm sure I'm behind the hype, but I wanted to give a shoutout to Project Zomboid. PZ is a indie game project that takes hardcore zombie survival and applies it to old school isometric design.

They are a small team and have had some crazy setbacks, but are rocking and rolling, and even their pre-release alpha is fun to play and is already inspriring modders, which anyone who knows my background knows that modding spawns awesomeness (or at least game designers).  For the past few months, I have put aside Fallout: New Vegas, Batman Arkham City, and Battflield 3.  They are all sitting in a pile next to my 360.  I have been meaning to finish/play them, but I keep "wasting" my time with Project Zomboid.

PZ is balls out straight up hardcore.  You will die.  The interface can be clunky, and if the team asks, I would be happy to help with some accessibility issues, but other than that, this game is true to what it sets out to be and I admire it's purity and straitforwardness.  

I encourage any gamer who enjoys zombies, rpg's, or The Sims...check this shit out.  And get ready to die.

 

Doublethink

A grassroots group of Americans, fed up with using tax money to bail out giant corporations and politicians being bought off through corrupt politics by lobbyists, rise up to protest, demanding tax reform.

Talking head pundits, from the “other” political spectrum, who are paid by a giant conglomerate, with ties to a shadowy foreign billionaire, demonize them and insist that they are dangerous to America, and work to expose the “true” organizers of the movement and their corporate funding. 

Meanwhile, talking heads from the “opposite” spectrum hail them as true Americans, pining for justice and freedom.  The “controversy” on the national news networks drives ratings and increases profit for these companies, who themselves give millions to the same corrupt politicians who the people are protesting.  Americans remains polarized, fighting amongst themselves, while the corporations and corrupt politicians continue to get richer.

 

 

 

 

Now, am I talking about the Tea Party or Occupy Wall street?

 

“the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.”

-Doublethink.

 

Sit on your Joystick and spin...

So Joystick Division has an editorial on how old games don’t stand up to the test of time, and the point of the article is that because they don’t, video games can’t be art. 

Now, I am completely sick of the “are games art?” discussion.  Like I have said in the past, it doesn’t fucking matter to me, no matter what old-assed movie critics say.  Likewise, I don’t really give a shit what some failed movie student says.  I’m really getting sick of movie folks trying to justify how awesome they are by bagging on games because they are embarrassed by porn and Transformers.

That being said, the thing that prompted me to respond to this post was the statement that old games don’t have relevance because they are dependent on technology, and because of that, games aren’t art.

First off, fuck you.  This is complete bullshit.  Yes, Tennis for Two is outdated.  So is Birth of a Nation.  Would the average person want to sit down and experience either?  No.  Comparing Ikari Warriors to Citizen Kane is stupid and unfair.  Citizen Kane came out over one-hundred years after the equivelant of Tennis for Two, the modern Zoetrope.  Have you sat and absorbed the "art" of a Zoetrope movie lately?  I bet not.  You even mention Half Life 2 in your article stating that technological advances have not reduced the impact of the game, thus undercutting your whole stupid article.  Just because an art form is an art form doesn't mean people will make good art.  Again, go watch Transformers, or maybe Avatar.

A great amount of vitriol is reserved for Ikari Warriors in this article, based on the fact that the author received a PS3 version and “had a lot of trouble taking it seriously.”  Well, since I have an original Ikari Warriors cabinet in my garage, alongside my Galaga, Bad Dudes, and T2 cabs, I think I can speak to that, especially since as a fan of the Ikari Warriors arcade I am one of the fools who purchased the disastrous PC port.

Ikari Warriors on the PS3 is not the original creator’s format.  It is intended to be experienced on the arcade by people with quarters.  Come to my house and play it in my garage, and bring some money.  I promise that the experience will be different that playing the port on your PS3.  How do I know this?  I love Galaga on an arcade cab.  And I hate it on the Xbox 360.  On the 360, the controls don’t work well, and I find myself driving towards the achievements in the game rather than experiencing the game or trying to get a high score.  Ikari Warriors PC had the same effect.  Functionally it was the same.  But the medium affected the experience.

The author brings up current cave paintings as an example of “art is art” and because they are paintings, everyone appreciates them.  Well, let’s do an experiment.  Let’s take the Sistine Chapel, whitewash it, and replace the images with stretched out replications of cave paintings.  Then you can walk into the chapel, and appreciate the “art” that are cave paintings.   Based on your logic, I’m sure the experience will be the same….right?

Again, I don’t care what is considered “art.”  This may taint my views.  I never watched Citizen Kane in my formative years.  I was much more influenced by Stratego and Battletech, and later Starflight and Wasteland than Gone with The Wind.  Does any of that affect which is considered art?  Is a Battletech novel art but a Mechwarrior video game not?  Does it matter?

In all, it comes down to entertainment.  I like to be entertained, whether it’s from something that I can immerse myself in or something that makes me think, or a device that expells lead at supersonic speeds (and that's a whole 'nother discussion).  If you want to sit around and feel superior because you don’t appreciate or like something, I guess that makes you an expert and me just a consumer (or a designer).  But if I have one of my rare free hours and I can choose between partnering up with my Ikari partner, rescuing Ronnie from Ninjas, or enjoying Shia Labeouf’s latest masterpiece, I know that I’ll be on the joystick instead of the remote.  Enjoy your art.  

 

A very flattering article...

Stumbled across this today, a very flattering article on a talk I gave in Raliegh, NC on breaking into the games industry (basically a modified version of my recent GDC lectures). Interesting being called a "professional gamer."

http://www.my-creative-mentor.com/?p=1320

 

My Ghost Recon & Halo Beretta

Just got in my custom-engraved aluminum grips for my Beretta 92FS 9mm.  A tribute to the Ghosts & Noble Team.

I disagree with Will Wright...Games ARE a good medium to tell stories...just maybe not YOUR stories...

I respect Will Wright.  He is one of the first game developers to really be a "game designer," helping form the foundation of what I do for a living today.  The games he contributed to were really formative to me, especially SimCity, which I actually used as a class project in middle school, doing a paper on efficient city planning.  I have had the opportunity to meet Will Wright at GDC a few times, even sharing a smoke with him.  One cool dude.

However, I find myself having to disagree with him on his recent statements regarding telling story in games.  A CNN story quotes Wright saying ""Games are not the right medium to tell stories.  Video games are more about story possibilities."

Wright goes on to say that while he has experience games with strong storytelling focus, like Metal Gear Solid, those are "not the kind of game he likes playing."

Wright is now working on an interactive television show where fans vote to craft the narrative.

So...now is the point where I have to publicly disagree with one of my heroes.  I posit that games ARE a good medium to tell stories, possibly just not the medium in which Will Wright wants to tell stories.

Of course, the types of games that Will Wright has traditionally made are obviously not good for linear storytelling (SimCity, Sims, Spore, etc), because they are "god games" where the player controls the world.  But that aside, some of the most formative storytelling memories I have growing up have come from video games.  The robot uprising in Wasteland, the fact that the Ancients in Starflight were Enderium, the struggle against Kuritan agression in Crecent Hawk's Inception, becoming the Avatar in Ultima IV, the decision to save or blow up Megaton in Fallout 3...fuck, the first way I experienced Stephen King's The Mist was in a video game...and the video game version was WAY more impactful than the book (although the revised movie version totally fucked with my head, please don’t ever watch it if you don’t want to kill yourself).

I understand the frustrations with storytelling in video game development.  I have often muttered the words "I wish I was a movie director," after a scoping meeting.  The timeframe and technology needed to pull off what I want to convey from a storytelling perspective is often a limiting factor on a game project.  I often joke that a movie director who says he wants his protagonist to jump over a car doesn't get the response "we don't have time to build a car, how about a crate?"

And again I agree that building a god-sim game with a linear narrative would be hard.  But if you want to tell a specific narrative, don't build a god-sim game.  God of War and Uncharted have awesome fucking narratives.  IMHO, and respectfully, Mister Wright, don't dump on the power of narrative in games just because it is not a good medium for telling the story that YOU want to tell.  I may not be Will Wright, but I am happy to use the video game medium to tell good stories.  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

 

 

 

 

"I'm a game designer..."

So I’m sitting here, watching Kick Ass, and skimming Kotaku.  After reading of the latest FoxConn tragedy, I see a post called “I’m a game designer.”

This title intrigues me.  I’ve always had an interesting time when someone asks me what I do.  To be honest, I didn’t read the whole article on Kotaku.  I started to, but after a few paragraphs of fancy writing and Hawaii references, I skimmed the rest, thinking about writing this post.

“I’m a game designer.” The reason this post grabbed my attention is because it is so close to what pops into my mind when someone asks what I do.  Interestingly, as a designer, I am often hesitant to say what I actually do.  When someone asks, I carefully consider what my answer is, and my answer is usually based on who is asking and how much time I want to spend answering.

If the person asking the question is an INS officer, I respond “I work in software.”  It’s the truth.  It’s boring.  The answer is designed to be as lame as possible so I can get the fuck out of there.  I travel a lot, and spend a lot of time in customs/immigration lines.  I don’t want to spend even an extra second there. 

Back on topic..the average human who asks me.  You would think that because I work in a position that I strived of for years to get to, I would get a big T-Shirt with “Game Designer” on it.  Or maybe I would just introduce myself as “Hi, Christian Allen, I design video games, how are you?”

That being said, I don’t want to come across as modest.  Anyone who knows me would call bullshit if I said I was modest.  I don’t pull punches on what I have done.  I’ve made kick ass games.  I’ve worked on big IP’s.  I was in the Corps.  I have big guns.  I have the cutest daughter on earth.  I don’t fuck around.  Got something to say about any of that?  Didn’t think so.

However, just because I’m not modest doesn’t mean I want to always answer THE QUESTIONS.  THE QUESTIONS always come when you say you are a game designer.  Unlike the Kotaku article, my discussions about being a game designer usually follow a set pattern…

THE QUESTIONS usually go like this:

“What do you do?”

I design video games.

“Wait, video games?  Anything I know?”

Well, I worked on Ghost Recon…

“Ghost Huh?”

You might have heard of it, Tom Clancy’s Ghost…

“Oh sweet, Tom Clancy.  Do you know Tom Clancy?” 

Well, no, I don’t, I worked on Ghost Recon, which is a franchise…

“Oh, Clancy makes good games.  Must have been cool to work for Clancy.”

Well, I didn’t actually work for Clancy.  But I did design…

“Anything else I might have heard of?”

Well, I worked on Halo: Reach.

“Oh my God, you designed Halo!  I fucking love Halo!”

Ah, well I didn’t design Halo, I was Design Lead on Reach.

“Halo was the first fucking game I played on Xbox, that’s so awesome you made that.

No, I didn’t make Halo, I worked on Reach.

“Wait, you said you made Halo.”

No, I said I worked on a Halo game. 

“Ah, I thought you said you were a game designer.”

I am.

“So if you didn’t make Halo, what exactly do you do?”

Well, now I’m a designer for Warner Brothers Games.

“Warner Brothers makes games?”

Yes.

“So what do you do?”

I design games.

“So you program them?”

No, I don’t write code.  I design them.

“Ah, so you make the graphics.”

No, that’s the artists.  I design the games.

“Wait, so what do you do?”

I’m kind of like a movie director, but for games.

“Oh, so you write the games.”

Uhhhh, sure, I guess it’s kind of like that.

“Like Halo?”

 

A call to end slidelock syndrome..

Watching Inception this weekend, an all too common occurrence in movies took me out of what was otherwise an awesome experience.

Now, movie armorers, I understand your dilemma.  The director calls for a complicated gunfight scene.  Maybe the actor is in a moving vehicle, or many actors are in the same shot.  You only need the actor to fire one or two rounds to complete the scene.  Obviously, you only want to give the actors the exact number of rounds they need, even if they are blanks.  Safety is paramount.

But nothing kills a cool gunfight scene for me in a movie then when a quick cut shows an actor seemingly blowing off rounds as fast as he can, only to notice that after one or more shots the slide to his pistol is actually locked to the rear.

It's not like you have to specially modify the gun to keep it from locking to the rear, in most cases, all you need to do is take a dremel tool to the magazine follower.  It's not really that hard!  Hollywood, if you need my help, just give me a call.  I'll only charge a few hundered k to consult.