finally, after waaaaaay too long i completed my challenge, man that took forever, but the important thing is

lvl 9 Raine solo mania Abbyssion!!!!

i finally feel like i completed Tales of Symphonia and can move on with my life. ok. not really. just started a new file today  ^_^   i love this game.

i wanted to make a video but i dont really have the equipment, maybe i
could borrow..........but i dont think anyone is going to want to watch
a 6-hour video (counting breaks and stuff)

i should of taken a screen shot....maybe i'll do it again later.....
(i'll add details when i have time)

For being the two largest videogame producing companies, EA and Activision sure don't have a lot in common.

EA is trying to become a major corporate company - which it already is, but its striving to become more easily comparable to the rest of the business world. This means more management and beaurocracy and red tape.

Activison, on the other hand, is merely a loose connector of 10-15 smaller studios/producers. They are lessed focused on management and documentation. This may seem good - but it also means less job security (since one studio could suffer severe cutbacks that would have been less noticeable in EA b/c they would be spread out across the country). It also means less mobility since the studios have their own identity to the point of rivalry. Not to mention i don't think their facilities are as nice as EA (see previous blog post)

However, Activision pays royalties and EA does not. That means that if your on an EA team that makes a game that sells like crazy - you don't see any of the extra money that you would have if you worked for Activision. Although i can't imagine their salaries are much different or everyone would leave EA right?

The speaker was the lead technical programmer for Spiderman 2.

The guy also went into a LOT of technical detail about teh new problems faced when working with the PS3! it was over my head but very cool - he said the graphics are going to blow the xbox360 out of the water (once they figure everything out). Also he said that the Revolution would be released this Thanksgiving!! He sounded pretty confidant in this assertion and bragged about how cool the revolution controller was.

Today was a great day.
I went to an interview/informational session (at my school) with EA games. It was really cool. They showed us some Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II trailers and behind the scenes stuff. Also their office is the best i've ever seen - its got basketball courts, soccer fields, beach volleyball courts, a 24-hour employee gym with a personal LCD screen and cable TV on EVERY arobics machine! Plus free vallet parking and only a mile from the beach (in L.A.) They also talked about the industry as whole - how the next gen consols are causing a major slump in sales and thus they had to fire 5% of their workers. But he said software engineers were still very much in demand.
I talked to the representative and I'm hoping to get an internship there this summer.
Also they're going to send me any EA game i want for free!