Happy Birthday Miyamoto-San!

On the 16th of November, 1952, one of the most important figures of the entertainment industry and one of the pioneers of electronic gaming joined the world. Thank you Mr. Miyamoto for everything you've created for us! O tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu Miyamoto-San!

Blog editor

I've searched for a good blog editor, something that integrates with the browser and post content from a webpage directly to my Blogspot blog.

So here's what I'm using right now:
ScribeFire - Fire Up Your Blogging!

ScribeFire,an extension of Firefox ®, enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into their blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize their ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser.

Well, let's see how it works, I'll post some feedback on this soon.

Morning music - The Fountain OST

Hey! Mornin' everyone! Just another day at work, writing on a game concept and doing some research...all this while enjoying (again) an excellent soundtrack: Clint Mansell - The Fountain.
For anyone who hasn't listened this yet, you can play the whole album for free on Deezer.
In other words I'm still pissed off by having the RROD on my Xbox 360 and no warranty left. I'm making all sort of plans in order to buy myself a brand new Xbox soon enough. There are more than 5 must play titles on the 360 that I didn't even tried to play so far. Need Xbox! Now!
Click here to listen to Clint Mansell - The Fountain

Online game shops

Since finding games at good prices in Romania is an extreme sport, I've decided a long time ago to start buying games from online stores from abroad. A very good idea! Most of my games collection is composed from online ordered titles. This year I've ordered games from all sorts of online stores (checked shipping rates, packaging, delays, security, etc.) and it seems that these are the best I've tried so far:

- a Canada based store and an e-Bay Power Seller, excellent prices, good bargain bin deals and low cost shipping. The packaging is very good so your ordered games are safe on the trip. The store has a large variety of games for all the major consoles (no games for PC platform though) and since the PS3 is multisystem (PAL and NTSC) by default, you can buy any NTSC game you find for your European console.

Store link

- an UK based store with low cost shipping, just 2.25 Euros per item. Sometimes you can find better deals here instead of Videogames Plus. If your console was bought from Europe, you can freely buy Xbox 360 and Wii games from here, they will match the console's PAL standard protection. Free shipping for UK deliveries.

Store link

- also an UK based store with tons of deals and available titles. Good shipping rates for the entire Europe, updated website and good pre-order prices. Free shipping for the lucky UK residents. :)
Store link

Be sure I'll give a big shout in case I found another reliable games store.

Cheers!

Raoul

.back

Hi ppl, just a quick update with some major things that happened in the last year:

• I quit my job at Gameloft and joined Vivendi Games Mobile as Lead Game Designer;
  
• got a PS3 and a DS from my friends and co-workers as a birthday present, finally bought an LCD during the last year's holidays so I can enjoy some HD gaming;
  
• started and finished developing my next project after Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles and that's: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for mobile platforms;
• finally sorted out alot of personal affairs;
• just came back from the most chillin' vacation in the past years, Thassos Island in Greece, where we had a great time with our friends Alex and Dana.
• didn't had time to play as much as I wanted but I've enjoyed some of last year's good titles like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed and this year's GTA IV or MGS IV;
  
• went on a trip to Belgium during the last year's holidays, visited Amsterdam and had a bussines trip in Paris in February.
• I've been in the U.K. some weeks ago for a job interview, unfortunately I wasn't the lucky one this time so... end of story. Maybe I'll post some more impressions regarding my short trip to UK or the job interview... Anyway, visited a few places this year, maybe more to come.

Not easy days at work lately.  I'll let you know when the time is right.

Be back soon!

Raoul

Blah! March 25th Rebirth!

Hello!
Busy as always so no such free time to post here.
Anyway, let me tell you the latest noticeable news around my gamer life.
@Home: So, I've got myself an Xbox 360 gaming console which made me very happy and busy for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately I've got no time to play since I've already started working at one of the most expected games of 2007.
So, I've played Gears Of War like an addict, finished it twice and now I'm filling my time with Lost Planet. I had bigger expectations regarding Lost Planet...but let's say it's an enjoyable game. There is no comparison between Gears Of War and Lost Planet.
I'm waiting for the next weekend so I can play God of War 2 on my PS2. By the way, I've added a bunch of PS2 games in my collection and as always I've got no time to play them... This is really frustrating anyway.
@Job: Once again, working at an undisclosed project at Gameloft, a very challenging one though. This is a new franchise in development and we're working on the Nintendo DS version of the game. I cannot tell you more about this for now. Sorry, always wanted to start a Dev Diary on my current project but it's always confidential and I can't.

Talk to you guys soon enough. I'll go watch a very hyped movie, 300. Let's hope it will match my expectations.
Cheers to you all!

Alive again...

Hello everybody!
Yes, I'm still alive and moving. :)
So, a lot of things really changed since my last post in ...august...damn man...august... 3 months without a post...I'm really starting to believe that I'm paying this stuff for nothing...
Anyway, a short briefing:

@ Job - working like I'm Satan's helper in Hell, very busy schedule before the Winter Holidays season, currently working on an undisclosed project (yet) on a certain gaming console. What can I say more about this....hmm...it's a god damn hard life being a game designer but it really worths the effort. I'm very satisfied from this point of view even if the crunch time has already begun and we're in such a hurry with all the tasks...and I spend about 12-14 hours/day at the office. We'll surely make an awesome game. I've got a great team formed by very talented, passioned and hard working people so we cannot fail this.

@Home - I've started watching a couple of TV-Series in my tiny bit of spare time and I'm so into "Lost" but mostly "Prison Break" TV-Series. My girlfriend, Iulia, is very fond of "Prison Break" and that means I cannot skip any episode because she'll kill me...so each week I've got to earn my share of goodies by getting that episode downloaded asap. It's a hard knock life isn't it? :)

@ Weekends - mostly occupied by small household business and also it's bills pay day, luckily we've got Internet Banking now and it's much more easier. In the evening we're just spending time with our friends by going out, playing blackjack with them (for real money, that's quite dangerous), sitting @ home and watching some movies...stuff like this...boring but that's what we can afford right now in terms of time consuming activities.

As a final thought, I really enjoy being a Game Designer, I hope to finish the current project very soon and post more often in here. :P
Let's hope I'll have some good news pretty soon. Let's just hope so....
Peace, I'm out, too busy and tomorrow it will be another hard day @ work, so....see you all around.
Cheers from Bucharest, Romania!

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E3 is over, GDD submited, Gamespot rulz

Hello ppl!
E3 is finally over, a lot of good stuff was showed there this year. Today's topic is about websites like Gamespot or Gamespy because they got it all covered. Check the screens, videos and interviews regarding the latest hot projects in the gaming industry.
In the meanwhile I've finished all my GDD (Game Design Document) for the Game Designer job here and I've submited it today. Wish me all: Good luck! This should be the headline today since I was struggling for so much time to finish it.
I'd like to give a lot of credit and thanks to Gabriel Stancu, he's the guy who helped me out and gave me his feedback on all the stuff from the GDD. Thanks dude, I reallly, really owe you. Let's hope that everything will be just fine and I'll join the design team asap. Also without my girlfriend Iulia, who really harassed me every day reminding me to finish the test, I couldn't really do it. Thanks a lot, love!
This is not a very good day, since morning I got this feeling of having a bad day, it's 15:51 and I still can't get over that feeling...this seems to be one of "those" days that everybody has. (I hope so, I don't wanna be the only sad person).
Everything else seems to work just fine, my PSP games collection has grown with some new titles like GTA: Liberty City Stories, Twisted Metal: Head On, Splinter Cell: Essentials, NBA Live 06, Lord of the Rings: Tactics.
You can check my full games collection at Gamespot, just created a profile there, I'm growing in that community everyday. It's a good, full of content, easy to browse and cool website resource for the latest news about games.
My username is raoulparaschiv (Check my profile) and you can add me in your friends list if you've got a Gamespot account too.
That's all for now, I'll keep you posted about any updates in my videogame industry careeer and everyday life.
Cheers to you all and have a nice day!