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Moral Kombat
Lorne Lanning will be amongst the interviewees appearing on Spencer Halpin’s upcoming documentary Moral Kombat, described by Halpin as ‘an inaugural in‐depth look at the “interactive entertainment” industry as it elates to the controversial subject of violence in video games.’ A list of other interviewees, as well as further information can be found on A+E Interactive.
Filmed entirely in high definition, the full‐length, million‐dollar documentary uses green screening to present interviews in front of game footage. Halpin has published the film’s trailer on YouTube, and it features scenes from Abe’s Exoddus and a short quote from Lorne.
Sources: Dean Takahashi, A+E Interactive
You might have missed Oddworld
You might have missed ‘The Games You Might Have Missed’, episode № 6 129 of X‐Play, which was first broadcast on G4TV on 4th December, and which reviews some of the year’s critically acclaimed but commercially less‐visible video games, including Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath. Its next airdate is 11 a.m. ET/PT on 29th December.
Scott Easley remembers Oddworld
Scott Easley, one of the original eight Oddworld Inhabitants, has been interviewed by German gaming site Game Face about his work as a technical director on Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and, more broadly, his views of computer animation.
Sources: Game Face
Odd vs. God podcast
Gamasutra has published a podcast of the ‘Odd vs. God’ session that took place at the Game Developers Conference 2006. According to Gamasutra:
Over the course of the hour, Lanning speaks with Jaffe on a variety of development issues, including creating concepts and getting them through the green light phase, production and maintaining good relationships with the team members, the future of games as a medium, and life as a designer.
Sources: Gamasutra
Technology impedes meaningful games
Lorne Lanning is continuing to voice his beliefs that the need for video game developers to continually rewrite their technologies is preventing them from releasing titles that can be as culturally important as works in other media can be.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the recent GameCity festival, Lorne reiterated his praise of Nintendo’s Wii for its ‘evolutionary’ technology, and points to the Video Game Voters Network as evidence that the video game industry is not producing the interactive equivalents of the original Star Wars trilogy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall that consumers want.
What we have is some really great games, but how many people are walking away from our games and never forgetting them for the rest of their lives because it showed them something that wouldn’t get elsewhere? Something that influenced lives the way that Apocalypse Now [did?]
The second part to Matt Martin’s interview with Lorne will be posted on GamesIndustry.biz tomorrow.
OddBlog meets Lorne & Sherry
Max and Xavier of The Oddworld Library were fortunate enough to meet Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna, the co‐founders of Oddworld Inhabitants, during the inaugural GameCity festival in Nottingham. Our report on this rare privilege can now be found amongst OddBlog’s Specials.
Citizen Siege film announced
Oddworld Inhabitants’ next project will be a CGI feature film of their new property, Citizen Siege. Lorne Lanning will direct the film, which will be animated by Vanguard Animation, the independant film production company founded by John H. Williams, the producer of the Shrek films. It will attempt to pave the way for other computer animation studios to create CGI films for a mature audience by demonstrating there is an audience for them.
The announcement was made during Lorne’s keynote speech at GameCity in Nottingham, U.K. OddBlog attended the presentation, and we will have a special report on it soon.
The Oddworld Library relaunches
The Oddworld Library has relaunched. New to the site is Xav’s The Oddworld Cinema, which contains a vast archive of Oddworld video files available to download. Several technologies driving the site have been updated, and most sections have received some kind of visual upgrade. For more information, read the latest editorial on the Bulletin Board.
Lorne in October
Lorne Lanning will be making a couple of appearances this October.
The first will be as a panelist at Future Play 2006, in a presentation entitled ‘North American Indigenous Imagery and Identity in the Game World.’ Future Play is an exposition exploring the technology, artistry, impacts and applications of future game development over a three day period, and this panel presentation will take place from 10·30 a.m. EDT on 10th October at the London Convention Centre, London, Ontario, Canada. His fellow panelists will be Beth A. Dillon, Dr J. R. Parker, Andy Schatz and Donna Woldanski.
The second appearance will be in Nottingham, U.K., where Lorne will be delivering the keynote speech at GameCity, a city‐wide festival of interactive entertainment. This talk will help shine light on the convergence of the film, television and game genres, and on the intrinsic challenges of using games as a medium for activism. GameCity lasts from 25th to 29th October. Expect a more precise time for Lorne’s speech in the official press release soon!
In addition, Lorne has penned the introduction to one of Stephan Martinière’s upcoming art books.
Video Game Culture Clash
GameSpy has written an article about why it’s so difficult for a western game company to make a game that’s also a hit in Japan. They asked Lorne Lanning’s opinion about this, and he has some intresting answers.
Sources: GameSpy
d’artiste: Concept Art
Oddish pointed out that Ballistic Publishing’s latest book, d’artiste: Concept Art, contains some Oddworld Pictures on pages 104 & 105. Two of those images are rare ones.
Sources: Oddish
New Oddworld.com coming soon
Oddworld.com has a new splash page announcing that a new version is coming soon. By the looks of it, Oddworld Inhabitants are definately heading to the movie industry and are still alive.
EXPOSÉ 4 available
The Limited edition of EXPOSÉ 4 published by Ballistic Publishing is now available. It contains at least one Oddworld artwork: “The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot”, proof can be found on this picture of the page gallery. The book also contains a couple of very nice non‐Oddworld artworks done by Raymond Swanland (1, 2, 3, 4 & 5)
Oddworld Universe back
Alcar has put Oddworld Universe back online as archive material at the moment, so don’t expect any updates until Oddworld Inhabitants announce their next project.
Sources: Atusiya
Odd vs. God (4)
Watch Impress has posted a fourth report from the GDC’s “Odd vs. God” session where Lorne Lanning interviews David Jaffe. It’s in Japanese but has nice pictures (1, 2, 3 and 4).
Sources: Atusiya
The Oddworld Library grand opening
At long last, it gives me great pleasure to announce that The Oddworld Library has officially opened to dedicate the day when all four wings were joined together.
For the first time, OddBlog, TOGG and TOA have been joined by the project that birthed them all, the six‐years‐in‐the‐making Oddworld Encyclopædia! Currently small in stature and size, the work will grow steadily over the next few weeks to encompass more and more Oddworld knowledge and information.
Odd vs. God (3)
IGN has posted a third report from the GDC’s ‘Odd vs. God’ session where Lorne Lanning interviews David Jaffe.
Sources: IGN
Odd vs. God (2)
GameSpot has posted another report from the GDC’s ‘Odd vs. God’ session where Lorne Lanning interviews David Jaffe.
Sources: GameSpot
Odd vs. God
Next Generation has posted a short report from the GDC’s ‘Odd vs. God’ session where Lorne Lanning interviews David Jaffe, God of War’s creator.
Sources: Next Generation
TOGG returns
The Oddworld Graphics Gallery returns, now hosted on The Oddworld Library’s server. Xav and I are both as pleased as popberry punch to now have all wings of the Library home and together. So please continue using this fantastic creation of Xav’s!