MobileSyrup

Do you think you can spot a deepfake video? Could your likeness be used against you in the near future? How are deepfakes actually created? We tackle all of this and more in the latest episode of The Tech Effect. Check it out over on our YouTube page! https://lnkd.in/egyjfv5J

I absolutely adored Fear the Spotlight from Cozy Game Pals and Blumhouse Games. It's a stunning retro horror throwback with pitch-perfect pacing, an immaculate atmosphere and a surprisingly touching story about teenage companionship and trauma. After spending 85~ hours with something as big as Metaphor: ReFantazio, it was especially nice to have this four-hour horror experience. But most impressive of all is the fact that this was made by just two people! What an incredible debut, and I can't wait to see what's next from both Cozy Game Pals and Blumhouse Games.

One of my highlights from IndieDevDay in Barcelona was an excellent talk on video game preservation from Hit Save! president, director of communications and board member (and fellow Canadian!) Amanda Farough. According to a 2023 study by The Video Game History Foundation, 87 percent of classic video games released in the United States aren't commercially available today. To put that into perspective, it's even easier to watch silent films than it is to play old video games. That's rather alarming! With that in mind, Amanda gave an insightful presentation on the importance of game preservation across the board and what we can all do to play our part in shaping the future of this incredible art form. I'd only known a bit about these kinds of preservation efforts (shoutout to University of Toronto Mississauga's Syd Bolton Collection of 14,000 retro games and consoles), so I ended up learning a lot from this talk, and I hope others can as well! Here's an overview of the panel with some key takeaways on MobileSyrup:

Last weekend, I had the great privilege of travelling to Barcelona for IndieDevDay. The three-day event welcomed over 15,000 people and featured more than 200 exhibited games, dozens of workshops and panels (including several with the wizards at Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios), a job fair and more. All in all, I was thoroughly impressed by how it mixed both consumer and industry professional programming to offer something for everyone. On a personal level, I saw a ton of promising indie games (more on those here: https://lnkd.in/gKpzZE7i), befriended two wonderful Canadians (shoutout to Amanda Farough and Natasha Ukolova! 🇨🇦 ) and even got to meet with BG3 composer Borislav Slavov, whose work I absolutely adore. But what I also took away from IndieDevDay is how much I wish we had something similar in Canada. I've long written about the lack of consumer gaming events in Canada, especially relative to our *massive* national games sector, and seeing how a team of just six (!) people put on IndieDevDay only reinforced these feelings. Beyond being a great event for Europeans, this is definitely something we in Canada (and other markets) should look at for inspiration. I dug into all of this in my latest column on MobileSyrup. A HUGE thank you to Daniel Santigosa Rodriguez and his team for inviting me and Geneviève Sorel for suggesting me. It was a truly amazing experience!

Outside of PS5 Pro coverage, I haven’t written much this week as I’ve been in Arizona for a few days for something I’m looking forward to talking about more soon. That said, it’s been great to see my fellow MobileSyrup Brad Bradley Bennett absolutely crushing it with all of his Apple coverage this week. Taking on all of those phones, watches and other gadgets and software on your own in a week is no small feat, and MobileSyrup is especially unique in that we get all of the relevant pricing and availability for our Canadian audience. To that point, Brad even biked all around Toronto today to pop into various Freedom stores to find out some of this info. We’ve been basically half a team for months now, so it’s always especially impressive to me when I see my colleagues continue to kill it. Check out our website for all of Brad’s great work (and more)! https://lnkd.in/exNYFbgE

Ending a busy week on a great note with one of my favourite features I've ever done. I had the immense privilege of speaking with the wonderful Jennifer Hale! I was fortunate to get to talk to Jen last year for my big Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 20th anniversary retrospective, but that was naturally focused on one game. This time, it was wonderful to talk about her entire career, especially with regards to how she's most recently spent it reconnecting with her Canadian roots. To that point, we had a great chat about her roles in both X-Men '97 and the '90s Spider-Man series, how Mass Effect was ahead of its time, the special -- and often unrecognized -- talent of the many Canadians she's worked with (including, but certainly not limited to, BioWare) and the ongoing gaming actors' strike over concerns surrounding AI. Spider-Man: TAS, KOTOR and Mass Effect alone are literally three of the most important pieces of media of my life, so it was truly special to get to interview someone who played a big role in them all. I also really appreciated her great insight into the whole AI conversation. More on MobileSyrup!

Since I was only at PAX West for a day and a bit, I basically speedran the show to try to see as much as possible. Thankfully, I got to go hands-on with several games and see a bunch of others -- nearly 20 titles in total. From a pair of Square Enix games to a couple of Canadian indies (shoutout to Toronto's own Mighty Yell and Sticky Brain Studios! 🇨🇦 ) & even a new Zelda, there was a lot to be excited about. I wrote about my favourites on MobileSyrup!

I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that Astro Bot has quickly become one of my favourite games of all time and one of the greatest PlayStation games ever released. It's both a loving celebration of decades of gaming history and one of the most immaculately designed, creative and *joyful* experiences I've ever played. I had a smile on my face the entire time. Immense love and respect for Team ASOBI for delivering such a special experience. Outside of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, this is my favourite game of the year.

In one of my favourite MobileSyrup interviews to date, I had a wonderful chat with Canada's own Rod Fergusson at Fan Expo. We had a wide-reaching conversation about his impressive career, including his current work on Diablo and overseeing pretty much the entire Gears of War series. He gave wonderful insight into how his "Canadian-ness" helped him foster positive work cultures during all of that, what he's most excited to see from Gears of War: E-Day from his old team at Vancouver-based The Coalition Studio, the power that gaming has to bring people together and much more. (The way he lit up through jet leg about The Pop Shoppe was a particular highlight.) It's so great seeing a Canadian playing such a big part in these massive franchises, and I love how he hasn't lost sight of his humble Ontario upbringing. 🇨🇦

It might be a shortened week, but it's going to be a particularly busy one for gaming features on MobileSyrup. Kicking it off with this profile on Jeff Mundee, the CEO of Fredericton-based Reframe Games! 🇨🇦 🎮 After an impressive stint in Vancouver working on such massive games as Dragon Age, Dead Space and FIFA, he returned to Fredericton both to teach and to help grow New Brunswick's gaming scene. From Reframe's work on games for change to helping kickstart the provincial support group InteractiveNB, he's been doing some really great work. It was great to spotlight a dev from outside of Quebec and Ontario for a change. There's lots of cool work being done in the Maritimes, in particular, that doesn't get nearly enough love. (I'm trying to broaden my own Canadian games coverage in that sense, so developers in other provinces, feel free to reach out sometime!) Thanks to Jeff for the insightful chat!