...In San Francisco next week!

I'll be in San Francisco next week attending GDC and giving a talk with my coworker Jason Booth.  Excited to see old friends and eat yummy burritos!  If you going to GDC come by and see my talk!

Prototype Through Production: Pro Guitar in ROCK BAND 3

DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 1:30- 2:30 Room 134, North Hall
DESCRIPTION: How do you go from an insane idea like Let's teach non-guitarists how to play a real guitar in ROCK BAND 3 to a genre changing product in 20 months? We will detail the process used to rapidly prototype this concept and evaluate ideas, through initial prototypes to user testing and final production. We will discuss our need to re-invent music notation for guitar, and how we applied traditional game-play metaphors and techniques to the process of teaching. We will also detail the complex interdependencies created by designing and manufacturing your own hardware, which is both freeing and terrifying at the same time. The Pro-Guitar mode in ROCK BAND 3 ended up going far beyond our original goals, and we will explore how pushing past those goals exposed inherent limitations in our model.

...Busy February!

Ok January sucked and was crazy snowy.  February has turned out to be pretty amazing weather and otherwise.  Don't believe me?  See pics for proof!  I'm currently hard at work on my GDC talk for next week - updates about that soon.

New Years!:

Bryn and Naoko playing live:

Party at Dean and Christina's:

Doomriders and Sweet Cobra:

Dancing twice at Heroes Night:

Saw the end of the Freedom Trail:

...Full list of 2010 Reviews

To recap here are my recommendations for 2010:

Music

Movies

Games

Books

Here's the full list of everything!

Recommended items in Bold.

Music:

Call Me Lightning - When I Am Gone My Blood Will Be Free
Daft Punk - Discovery
Eyehategod - Dopesick
Footloose - Official Soundtrack
Grinderman - Grinderman 2
INXS - Kick
Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East
Led Zeppelin - Presence
Squirrel Bait - Squirrel Bait
The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
Tron Legacy Soundtrack
Chambers - Old Love
Weekend - Sports
Total Abuse - Mutt
Off! - First Four Eps
Black Cobra - Bestial
Slayer - Hell Awaits
Middian - Age Eternal
Castrovalva - Castrovalva
Castrovalva - We Are Unit
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine 2010 Reissue
Girl Talk - All Day
High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Earth - Bureaucratic Desire for Extra Capsular Extraction
Kylesa - Time Will Fuse Its Worth
Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder
Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
No Age - Everything In Between
Torche - Songs for Singles
Cancer Bats - Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones
Ida Maria - Fortress 'Round My Heart
Sleigh Bells - Treats
Fugazi Live Series: Volume 1
Fugazi Live Series: Volume 2
Fugazi Live Series: Volume 4
Floor - Floor
Isis/Melvins - Split EP
David Bowie - Station to Station
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Melvins - The Bride Screamed Murder
Against Me! - White Crosses
Trash Talk - Eyes & Nines
The Cure - Disintegration [Deluxe Edition]
David Cross - Bigger and Blackerer
LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
Def Leppard - High 'n' Dry
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Van Halen - 5150
Doomriders - Black Thunder
The Ghost of a Thousand - This Is Where the Fight Begins
The Method Actors - This Is Still It
Crime in Stereo - I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone
High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine
Black Breath - Razor to Oblivion
Universal Order of Armeggedon - S/T
Doomriders - Darkness Comes Alive
The Thermals - The Body, the Blood, the Machine

Movies:

True Grit
Tron 2.0
Black Swan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inside Job
The Social Network
Catfish
The Town
Machete

Jackass 3dPiranha 3d
Scott Pilgrim vs. the WorldBest Worst Movie
Inception
Toy Story 3
Casino Jack and the United States of Money
Iron Man 2
Kick-AssA Prophet
The Crazies
Shutter Island

Books:

Dressing the Man

The Power of Eye ContactThe 4 Hour Body
How Music Works
Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga
Grifftopia
The Little Book That Beats the Market
The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet
Sex at Dawn
The Skinny on Real Estate InvestingThe 4-Hour Workweek
The Design of Design
No Country for Old Men8 Steps to a Pain free Back
Got Fight?
101 Things I Learned in Business School
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Perfecting Sound Forever
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
George Lucas Blockbusting
In Defense of Food
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

Games:

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
Nba 2k11
Angry Birds
Game Dev StoryEA MMA
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Super Meat Boy
Dead Rising 2
Halo Reach
Dead Rising: Case Zero
Monday Night Combat
Limbo
Red Dead Redemption
Starcraft 2
God of War 3
Heavy Rain
Bioshock 2

...2010: My favorite music

Here's a list of music I got in 2010 that I enjoyed and would recommend.  Man I bought a bunch more than this but a ton of them were on the cusp of being reccomendable...Note a lot of these didn't come out in 2010:

1. Doomriders - Darkness Comes Alive
• Dunno how I missed this in 2009 but it's pretty much what I look for in hardcore.
2. Floor - Floor
• Imo this is even better than Torche.
3. Trash Talk - Eyes & Nines
4. Grinderman - Grinderman 2
• More consistent than the first.  How is it that I like this but not Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds?
5. No Age - Everything In Between
• On here for the first 2 songs.
6. Black Breath - Razor to Oblivion
• Yeah I realize this is from 2009 and they released an album this year.  Haven't heard it yet though so it'll have to wait until next year.
7. Fugazi Live Series: Volume 1
8. ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
• Ok in case you're wondering where the last 10 years of Melvins albums came from, listen to this.
9. Call Me Lightning - When I Am Gone My Blood Will Be Free
• These guys like the Who; I like the Who.
10. Tron Legacy Soundtrack
• Ok ignore this...I'm a big Tron fanboy.

Honorable Mentions:

• The Ghost of a Thousand - This Is Where the Fight Begins
• Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
• The Cure - Disintegration [Deluxe Edition]
• NIN - Pretty Hate Machine 2010 Reissue
• Girl Talk - All Day
• High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
• Off! - First Four Eps
• Daft Punk - Discovery
• Eyehategod - Dopesick
• Footloose - Official Soundtrack
• INXS - Kick
• Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East

...2010: My favorite movies

Here's a list of movies I saw in the theaters in 2010 that I enjoyed and would recommend:

1. Inside Job
• Fantastic documentary that ties together all the events and players that lead to our current economic situation. 
2. The Social Network
• David Fincher can turn most anything into a thriller.
3. Inception
4. Toy Story 3
5. True Grit
6. Black Swan
7. Best Worst Movie
• Came out of this movie in a really good mood.  It's a documentary about the culture that surrounds a movie that is really bad but really good.
8. Piranha 3d
• This one might not be so great to watch at home, but in the theaters it was a blast.
9. Catfish
• Documentary about a facebook relationship that was never what it seemed.  Try and see this without reading anything about it.
10. Jackass 3d

Honorable Mention:

• Machete
• The Town
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Shutter Island
• Tron 2.0
• The Crazies

...2010: My favorite games

Here's a list of games I played in 2010 that I enjoyed and would recommend. This list does not include 2 games from my company Rock Band 3 and Dance Central that I would consider top 10 :

    1. God of War 3

• The most incredible, dynamic levels I've ever played.

    2. Dead Rising: Case Zero

    3. Dead Rising 2

    4. Red Dead Redemption

• Really well acted.  The time period really suits open world gameplay.

    5. Starcraft 2

• I haven't ever played a game so many hours and sucked so bad.

    6. Halo Reach

    7. Game Dev Story

• I love simulation games.  I've always wanted a sim-game based on running a game company....

    8. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

    9. Monday Night Combat

  10. Limbo

Honorable Mention:

• Angry Birds
• EA MMA
• Bioshock 2