I spent more than an hour listening to legendary video game designer Warren Spector (Ultimate: Underworld, Deus Ex) answer questions of a small group of video game journalists in an afternoon conference call. The game of focus today was Disney Epic Mickey and Spector gave us incredible insight into the research that he did creating this Nintendo Wii-exclusive game.

I feel as if I expertly captured the conversation in my interview, Warren Spector on Disney’s Archives, Rejections and Advice from Pixar. What’s more, I went the extra mile to put together a custom image to run alongside the interview – it looks as if Mickey Mouse is Mr. Warren Spector. That’s the power of Photoshop.

In addition to expanding my reporting to G4TV.com here in Los Angeles, I got a chance to pen a review and a holiday-focused video game feature for GamePro.com in San Francisco. This came about after I met their reviews editor while seated next to him on my flight to a press junket in Montreal. Game Pro Magazine made its debut in 1989 and launched its website a decade later, so it was an honor to be part of a publication I grew up reading.

I lived in Philadelphia county my entire life prior to moving to Los Angeles in 2009, and I consider myself a frequent traveler – 28 states and 17 foreign countries and counting. But I never made it a few hours north to visit Canada. Well, my back-to-back trips to Montreal occurred this past month – a year after I began living in the much-more-distant LA. No matter, I got to check out two games two weeks apart and, in between, visit my family in the Philly area and Penn State during Halloween to boot.

Reporting in Montreal on Homefront, I stayed in Le Westin and met up with fellow video game journalist friends to tour the new city. I came prepared with jokes like “Hey, let’s catch a Montreal Expos game” and arrived with the goal of trying everything “Canadian” in Canada. This included eating “Canadian Bacon” and drinking a “Canada Dry.” Both definitely tasted more Canadian. I’m pretty sure of it. You can check out my coverage of Homefront’s single-player campaign on Gaming Target. I really like the backstory and, if the gameplay comes together, think it’ll resonate with players.

Of course, THQ Studio Montreal is a big, brand-new and expensive studio, so the food was tiny (either that, or I’m really getting big in this photo), and WiFi wasn’t working despite my best efforts to get a signal.

I didn’t tell my family I was dropping in – I flew from from the Montreal airport, connected in Toronto and made my way to Philadelphia. From there, I caught a van to where I live and simply rang the doorbell. I made sure the van dropped me at the start of the block to make sure my mom and dad were surprised – and they were. My dad said, “I saw you had something under your arms [my suitcase], so I thought you were selling something and I wasn’t going to open the door.” Almost backfired on me, but it went off without a hitch.

In addition to catching up with my folks and my sister and her family, I got to visit Penn State with friends for the first time since moving to LA. It was Halloween weekend and I know I won’t make it up here as often as I did when I lived just three-and-a-half hours away, so this time the visit meant a lot. It’s probably also the last time I can crash in an apartment building with people I know. The sad truth of having to book a hotel room in a city I called “home” throughout college is finally upon me.

Here are two amazing panoramic Penn State photos that I took, one at noon and the other at night:

Back to Montreal, this time to write about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I stayed at the Delta Montreal hotel – three blocks from where I was put up two weeks ago. In that time, it got much colder in Canada… lucky we were indoors except for the very short walk to the Eidos Montreal studio. There, I got to interview lead writer Mary DeMarle.

Now to spend some time back in Los Angeles…

The fall video game season is always hectic, and I’ve been experiencing the run-up firsthand with ample coverage opportunities. First up was a Medal of Honor press junket that EA held in San Francisco. I flew there, checked into The Clift hotel and walked down to the Marines’ Memorial Club, a historic building built in 1926 and bought by the nonprofit Marines Memorial Association in 1946 as a living memorial to veterans. The Marines’ Memorial has a hotel, theater, restaurant, library, museum, military history bookstore and of course a memorial. This was the perfect venue for the reboot of EA’s Medal of Honor series, which is looking to incorporate a more true-to-life military hero’s story compared to rival Call of Duty.

At the Marines’ Memorial Club, I was also to interview DICE senior producer of multiplayer Patrick Liu.

I also got a chance to chat with Medal of Honor creative director at Danger Close, Rich Farley, and talk about the developer’s commitment to authenticity.

I flew back to Los Angeles for the weekend to spend a wink of time at the beach, then flew to San Francisco again on Monday (this time staying in the W Hotel) to play a game from THQ called Homefront. Also a military first-person shooter taking aim at Call of Duty, Homefront uses speculative fiction in its 2027-set story. By then, North Korea rises to the top of the Axis of Evil and threatens an economically devastated America on its own soil. Much of this intriguing “What If” plot doesn’t seem too far off. You can read my preview of Homefront and check out the interview I did with Erin Daly, lead multiplayer designer at developer Kaos Studios.

I flew back to LA on Wednesday to attend an event on the Disney lot in Burbank, where the movie studio was showing off a nearly complete Tangled and 20 minutes (non-consecutive minutes) of Tron: Legacy as presented by the director Joseph Kosinski. I liked Tangled – it had a good cast and memorable songs, and the story of Rapunzel is one fairytale that Disney hasn’t touched for this generation. To top it off, there were some unfinished seconds in which scenes would turn into either primitive CG or moving sketches. It was pretty neat to see how things progress in the art department with these work-in-progress rough cuts.

Tron: Legacy looked stunning as well, even though it’s further from its debut compared to Tangled. Director Joseph Kosinski cautioned us on the unfinished nature of his movie and the fact that he hasn’t gone to the Skywalker Ranch yet to complete the audio. No matter, I liked what I saw and even got a picture in front of a Tron lightcycle before moving on to the after-party (and playing the Tron Wii game – why I’m there in the first place) on the lot.

It started raining on the Disney lot, so the event wrapped-up unexpectedly and the life-sized Tron statues were covered with plastic. Looks like Tron has lots of high-tech capabilities, but comes with an “I Cannot Get Wet” label. I snapped a photo of the before and after.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the latest game in Activision’s billion-dollar video game franchise… or at least it will be when it launches this November. Before that highly-anticipated release date, the company invited us to check out the multiplayer component to its upcoming game, including the new gambling mode, Wager Match. No, it’s not gambling per se, you’re betting the just-as-valuable (to gamers, at least) experience points, or XP.

Held in the California Science Center, this video game press junket gave me a chance to interview online director at Treyarch Dan Bunting (as seen in the video below). It also gave Alex Roth and I a chance to write up a CoD Black Ops multiplayer mode preview on Gaming Target.

The day after the Call of Duty: Black Ops event, I previewed another shooting game, albeit one with a much different implementation. Jakks Pacific was hosting a small demo of its lineup – including Big Buck Hunter Pro for Nintendo Wii – at the Hooters in Santa Monica. Although this wasn’t a game with a million-dollar budget, it was actually a lot of fun because I took a friend for a lil’ sharp-shooting competition.

On the morning of Monday, August 2, I woke up to read hard news stories that quoted Paleontologists, saying the Triceratops and the Torosaurus have always been the same dinosaur, baby- and adult-sized respectively. Many articles ran the shocking headline: “The Triceratops May Not Have Existed.”

Knowing this possibly dubious dinosaur is a staple of sci-fi movies and videogames and remembering the groundswell of outrage when scientists demoted Pluto to dwarf planet status, I decided to write and pitch an article to G4TV.com: Games That Didn’t Know The Triceratops Never Existed. From Cera of The Land Before Time movie-games to T-r-i-c-e-r-a-t-o-p-s in the word-finding Nintendo DS videogame Scribblenauts, I had a lot of fun writing this unique spin on the current events news topic. Best of all, it was made popular on Digg.com and attained 48 reader comments, making expanding my portfolio to G4TV.com a success.

During my post-E3 trip back home to the Philadelphia area, I had LASIK eye surgery at Kremer Eye Center in nearby King of Prussia. If the “Kremer” name sounds familiar, it’s because Dr. Frederic Kremer performed the first LASIK procedure in North America in 1993… or because Philadelphia radio stations are littered with disc jockeys touting its success at almost every commercial break (or at least they were doing it when I lived in the area).

In addition to no longer needing glasses, I was able to tie my new perspective back into my video game reporting. Specifically, I was able to put a new spin on the Nintendo 3DS coverage that everyone on the planet was already writing about in the same way following E3 2010. I came up with how “Nintendo 3DS is Like LASIK for 3D Video Games” and compared it to PS3’s too-expensive 3D gaming push.

“First and foremost, you don’t need 3D glasses to see the graphical effects of Nintendo 3DS. Having just gotten LASIK, the last thing I want to do is put on another set of glasses anytime soon. Besides being an annoyance to wear, find, sync and avoid stepping on, the 3D glasses are really expensive at $150 a pop. So, while playing games like Killzone 3 on PlayStation 3 and seeing it jump out at you from a 52-inch Sony-made monitor is exciting and seems like the wave of the future, I’m not ready to wave my credit card in front of a wave-and-pay card reader just yet.

Nintendo hasn’t announced a price for its smaller, but more cost-efficient 3DS, but keep in mind that we didn’t need a new $4,000 3D HDTV and, additionally, the three members of Gaming Target demoing Killzone 3 were wearing $450 worth of glasses, none of which were made by Gucci. That’s $450 for just three people. How Super Bowl parties of the future are going to be effective in 3D is anyone’s guess. BYOB and BYOG.”

As the cheapest 3D display you’ll buy and the first 3D camera and first Augmented Reality device you’ll likely pick up, Nintendo 3DS has some advantages. I’m not convinced that 3D video games are going to catch on (or at least catch on right away), but the tech guy inside of me loves its other new features.

E3, the annual video game summit in Los Angeles, was a little different in 2010, mainly because I didn’t need to book a flight and hotel. For the first time in eight years, I didn’t have to spend two days traveling and a week living out of a suitcase. I now live in LA, so the only thing between me in Burbank and E3 2010 at the Los Angeles Convention Center was traffic. Still making the all-too-familiar six-hour flight from Philly to LA was Nicole Kline, Gaming Target’s new Senior Editor. Alex Roth, another new writer for the site, and my roommate/reviewer Kenny Esbenshade rounded out the crew Gaming Target had attending this year’s industry-only expo.

I picked Nicole up from the Burbank airport and went out of my way to rig together a sign with her name on it. More than once, she has commented on being jealous of my name being held up at airports by drivers who take me to the various video game press junkets. Writing her name on a piece of paper and attaching it to marshmallow skewers (left over from camping on the 2009 roadtrip) did the trick. From there, we went to the PlayStation Blog reader meet-up, then Microsoft’s strange “Natal” event at the Galen Center. At this unveiling, Microsoft changed the codename of its motion-controlled gaming device to the just-odd-sounding Kinect – even stranger was the fact that they had us dress up in white robes with LED shoulder-pads. Microsoft made up for it the next day at their press conference.

The first set of media briefings occur the day before E3. I attended the Microsoft press conference in the morning at the Wiltern Theatre where the company showed off Kinect a little more. Kinectimals seems like a cute Nintendogs-like game, only with a tiger. Neat, but not exactly my speed. Kinect Adventures and Joyride seem like fast-paced alternatives that are better suited for the thrill-seeking gamer inside of me. Rafting down a river with a friend (pictured) without a controller – or a paddle – looked like a lot of fun. Dance Central, from the makers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, also appears to be a launch-window winner. On the traditional gaming side, Halo: Reach is going to be an obvious top-seller. Microsoft wrapped-up by unveiling the Xbox 360 Slim model, which is black, smaller and, more importantly, quieter. Best of all, the company will be mailing every member of the press in attendance one for free. That makes up for all of the “Red Ring” system failures we’ve experienced.

EA and Ubisoft’s press conferences followed at the historic Orpheum Theatre and Los Angeles Theatre. Both were about action-packed games. EA showed off Medal of Honor, Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm, then capped off its lineup with the Bioware MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Ubisoft had comedian Joel McHale helm its press conference and demoed a lineup that was all over the place: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Shaun White Skateboarding, Rayman Origins, Michael Jackson for Kinect, a concept game called Innergy that uses your heartbeat to manipulate the game and a laser tag game called Battle tag. I doubt the non-traditional last two will see the light of day (or get a big marketing push to make you realize they released), but it’s nice to know Ubisoft is thinking outside of the box.

The eve of E3 concluded with an unforgettable Activision event: Usher, Will.i.am, Tony Hawk skating up & down ramps, Tool’s Maynard performing Bohemian Rhapsody, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden singing Black Hole Sun, Jane’s Addiction, N.E.R.D., and Eminem with Rhianna.

Tuesday morning, the first day of E3, was jam-packed because press conferences and the start of the actual expo overlap. Nintendo had its E3 2010 press conference in the morning at the Nokia Center. That would be extremely convenient because it’s right next to the LACC. However, Sony had its press conference out of the way at the Shrine Auditorium afterward. No matter – both were worth going to. Nintendo unveiled its 3DS system, which is a dual-screen portable like the Nintendo DS, but one that has a glasses-free 3D display. Kid Icarus, a long-lost Nintendo character, is returning for the 3DS, while Donkey Kong (and his nephew Diddy) are making a comeback on the Wii. Another forgotten name among video games is Mickey Mouse. Disney’s digitally absent mascot will make his way to the Wii this fall courtesy of legendary game designer Warren Spector. Even with all of that, the return I was most excited about at the Nintendo E3 press conference was GoldenEye 007. Growing up with a Nintendo 64 as teenager, my friends and I used to stay up until all hours of the night to play GoldenEye 64’s addictive multiplayer mode. I’m being cautious, but hopeful about this “remake.”

Sony’s press conference was up next and, like Microsoft, the company unveiled a motion-controlled device. PlayStation Move for PS3 looks closer to what the Wii has to offer than Xbox 360’s controller-free Kinect. Its wand-like remote just adds a light on the end and there’s even a nunchuk-like device to go along with the Move. The wand shape was perfect for games that involved casting magic spells, sword-fighting and golfing. Three industry cameos took everyone by surprise: PlayStation’s humorous “figurehead” (at least in commercials) Kevin Butler appeared for comic relief, Valve CEO Gabe Newell (who did a mea culpa after disparaging the PS3 in 2007) announced that Steam is in the works for the Sony’s console, and Twisted Metal designer David Jaffe rolled in inside a Sweet Tooth ice cream truck. He announced a new Twisted Metal game for PS3.

On to the actual E3 event, our first day was filled with appointments with Nintendo (hands-on with 3DS, Zelda for Wii), MTV (to play Rock Band 3), Activision (hands-off with GoldenEye 007, Call of Duty: Black Ops) and Bethesda Softworks (a Rage demo). The night wrapped with me, Nicole and Alex attending Bethesda’s annual party at the Saddle Ranch on Sunset. Day two had more in store: Valve showed us Portal 2 in the morning, Sony gave us a tour of its lineup in a private loft that overlooks South Hall, and Square-Enix gave us a booth tour, which included the promising return of action RPG, Deus Ex.

The final day, the one that always ends two hours earlier than the others, wrapped-up with reporting on everything that THQ, Konami, Microsoft, Sega, Namco and EA has to offer. EA had the widest range, from sports to MMOs (like Star Wars: TOR) to shooters (like Dead Space 2 and Bulletstorm, the one I’m looking forward to the most).

E3 2010 turned out to be a very different experience. I wasn’t traveling as far, yet I was in charge of a lot more people (four total) and trying to coordinate appointments on-the-fly. Overall, the reporting of me and my staff was a success, with the results turning into a “hits bonanza.” Even if I’m not fully convinced about all of the motion-gaming and 3D graphics that were being pushed at this year’s convention, people were tuning into the site to see what we thought. Look for more coverage over the course of the next couple of days at Gaming Target.

George, my Roadtrip 2009 buddy and Philadelphia-based friend, flew into LA so that we could spend the week discovering Los Angeles. Our 15-day adventure across America ended here in LA on August 23, 2009, but George only got a chance to spend a dozen hours here before jetting back to Philly and most of those hours were spent catching up on sleep. I, on the other hand, have been here for a little over six months, but I have been traveling the country to report on video game at press junkets. This was the first opportunity to see much of LA for the both of us.

After picking George up at Burbank Airport and having him eat at In & Out Burger for the first time, the remainder of the day was spent at Griffith Park. We decided to hike the hills first because it was going to get dark very quickly. After taking in the magnificent views of the city and the nearby Hollywood sign, we wanted to see how far we could get to the sign from where we were at. But, it got darker sooner than we had expected and the “Beware of Rattlesnakes and Cougars” signs made us want to hasten our way back to the main road. Getting lost in the dark put a kink in that plan. Poor cellphone reception and no data for GPS maps didn’t help the matter. When we got back on the right path, we headed to the Griffith Observatory. Because of the time, we were among the last to see Saturn through the observatory’s massive telescope before the line was curtailed. But I feel like we accomplished a lot for the first half-day.

Day 2 started at 6:45 AM because it was jam-packed with activities at Catalina Island. We grabbed a packed-lunch at Ralph’s, boarded the 8:30 AM ferry out of Long Beach Downtown Landing, which cost $66.50, and spent about an hour getting to our destination, Avalon, Catalina Island. By the time we were able to exit the ferry, we only had about 15 minutes to get to Descanso Beach Ocean Sports. That’s where, before 10 AM, kayaking with a life vest, wet suit and snorkeling gear included, cost $45 for 4 hours. After that time, the “not-so-early-bird special” expires and the package costs $52. Needless to say, we hustled down Crescent Avenue mighty fast.

Piloting two yellow Ocean Kayaks, we saw several seal lions and fish as we tried to get as far around the island as possible before stopping for lunch. After every bend, we kept saying, “One more turn,” so much that we must have gone one-fourth of the way around Catalina. Of course, we were tired and running out of time, which after a quick stop for lunch and an attempt at snorkeling, complicated paddling back. Also not helping the situation was the fact that we were paddling against the current. In the nick of time, we made it back at around 2:00 and even though the snorkeling wasn’t very clear, we did get some fun HD video with George’s new underwater camera.

Zip-lining was the final and most expensive excursion at $94 per person. It was also the most adventurous and fun. The rather new Catalina Zip Line Eco Tour had us sailing above canyons at speeds of 45 mph in some cases and dropping from 300 feet off the ground and 500 feet above sea level. As George and I traveled 1,100 lineal feet from the five zip stations, we ended back at Descanso Beach. But, not before taking HD video of each other’s launch and landing. In between that, we were even able to carry the HD cameras while zipping across the lines. Without a doubt, we clutched our videocameras as much as we clutched the harnesses and it made for unique shots of the thrilling experience.

Tired from the full day Sunday, Monday was a little less over-the-top. We went to eat lunch at Langer’s Deli near Echo Park (as Bay Cities in Santa Monica is closed on Mondays), visit Santa Monica and Venice Beach and have dinner at the sushi restaurant Wakano across from my apartment complex in Burbank. Slowly but surely, Tuesday through Thursday ramped up the activity level again: a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, a full day at Six Flags Magic Mountain, getting my California Driver’s license and celebrating that accomplishment while simultaneously celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Friday was dedicated to driving to and exploring San Diego, the first time in the city for both of us. The first thing we did there was check out the world-famous San Diego Zoo. We saw panda bears, polar bears, giraffe, camels, elephants, zebras, koala bears… the list goes on. Next, we ate a late lunch at Filberto’s, a Mexican fast-food chain that isn’t in LA and certainly isn’t on the Taco Bell-dominated east coast. After watching the sun set at La Jolla Beach, we went to go indoor rock climbing, another first for both of us.

You need to be exceptionally trusting of the your rock climbing partner, as they’re the safety hanging in the air from the rope and falling to the ground with an immediate trip to the hospital or worse. Luckily, George and I have known each other since high school and, all of the “Yeah, sure, I probably won’t drop you” joking we did aside, we weren’t going to bail on each other when we needed to hang tough. Following some vital instruction, we set out to climb various-colored path difficulties and felt good afterwards. Although tired from this fun, but strenuous activity, there was a two-hour drive to Burbank before we could rest and take it easy for George’s last full day in Southern California.

In between posting my God of War III review and watching episodes of The Pacific on HBO, I got invited to preview a first-person shooter in San Francisco. That’s where Capcom had journalists flying in to check out Lost Planet 2 in nearby San Mateo. Because the one-day event was south of the Bay City, I didn’t get a glimpse of The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz or any of the other iconic landmarks. I was lucky enough to see these famed places once before in a 1996 family vacation and, knowing that this is the unofficial capital of videogames, I’m sure I’ll be back in San Francisco several times this year.

I did get to check out Capcom’s North American headquarters, however, and I met a lot of the people involved with the company along with fellow videogame journalists. We literally broke bread with the staff at a bruschetta-filled dinner, which was a nice change of pace from the cramped office demo rooms, like the one in which I tested out Grand Theft Auto-like MMO APB earlier in the week, or uncoordinated expo halls, like this month’s 3D Gaming Summit. In addition to networking, I got a chance to question Capcom Community Manager Shawn Baxter about the upcoming first-person shooter. The video is embedded after the break.

My most recent trip was to report on UFC Undisputed 2010 in Las Vegas. At the Ultimate Warrior Gym, I got to tangle with my videogame journalist brethren and learn the basic moves of this full-contact sport from some of the stars of MMA. Learning kicks and punches in the cage, a bunch of different, bruise-resulting pins on the mat and punching and blocking maneuverings in the ring was fun and put us in touch with what happenings in the videogame. But the best part had to be the morning workout. Performing an exhausting number of move sets with two dozen videogame journalists, who were either overweight or underweight, was a sight to see and an experience I’ll never forget. Read my UFC Undisputed 2010 vs 2009 comparison here and watch my video interview with THQ’s Director of Production William Schmitt after the break.

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