By John Walker on March 18th, 2013 at 9:00 am.
Last week BioShock’s Ken Levine appeared at BAFTA to give a presentation on “the mission of Irrational Games”, and of course to talk about BioShock: Infinite. This was followed by being interviewed on stage by the very lovely Mr Simon Parkin, for an hour. Why am I telling you? Because you can now watch the entire thing, just below this sentence.
I think what we can most learn from this is that BAFTA needs some new chairs. And their wifi password. But also, a ton of great discussion about the process of creating games, and the philosophy of Levine’s process.
18/03/2013 at 09:06 CaspianRoach says:
I dozed off when the guy started asking him about his life. Are there any topical questions after that?
18/03/2013 at 11:45 Low Life says:
There’s this nice slider that allows you to skip to any point in the video, it can be quite useful at times.
They talk about 5-10 minutes about his early life, then 15 minutes about his career; rest of the video (like, from 1h 5min forward) is mostly Q&A with the audience.
18/03/2013 at 09:08 Jambe says:
For more Levine-chat, one might check out the Irrational Podcasts. Last one was in April of last year, but I liked them all. Well-produced and interesting; I especially enjoyed the Guillermo del Toro two-part interview.
18/03/2013 at 09:12 int says:
Yes that one was amazing. Makes me want a del Toro-Levine movie and game!
18/03/2013 at 18:40 RagingLion says:
I would also highly recomend that series of Podcasts. Some great deep thoughts on the creative process among other things.
19/03/2013 at 20:17 protospork says:
I discovered those podcasts and listened through all of them right before the last one came out. Still waiting for an update :(
18/03/2013 at 09:10 Kobest says:
Can’t really watch the video from work, but from all the interviews and such, I just hope Bioshock Infinite will introduce some new things apart from the usual System Shock 1-2 routine i.e. alone in a hazardous environment, being guided by a voice, and so on.
The townfolk of Columbia sure seems like a good addon though! Looking forward to get home from work, fire up the computer and spend some time in Columbia on 26th March! :)
18/03/2013 at 10:23 Low Life says:
From what I understand Elizabeth will be at your side pretty much the entire time, so it’s already breaking the mold in that sense. And yeah, not everyone on Columbia is out there to kill you either, which seems nice.
18/03/2013 at 11:59 Arbodnangle Scrulp says:
BAFTA is UK slang for “fart”.
“I did a bafta!”
18/03/2013 at 14:26 cptgone says:
you baftard!
btw did you know your nick is slang for burp colander?
18/03/2013 at 13:13 Gamboni says:
There’s what sounds something like a barrel organ playing Girls Just Want to Have Fun in the background of the beach scene at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efv9Mgwk8SU&feature=player_embedded#t=2214s. This game is going to be special isn’t it.
18/03/2013 at 14:26 cptgone says:
(reply fail – nothing to see here. sorry!)
18/03/2013 at 14:26 Hoaxfish says:
To me at least, all these “companion piece” things that come with Bafta’s awards are much more interesting to the industry than some of the screaming monkey school of awards we see elsewhere.
18/03/2013 at 16:42 sockpuppetclock says:
great, when is his autobiography going into print?? has the official ken levine wiki gone live yet???
18/03/2013 at 17:10 Viper50BMG says:
Got 20 seconds in and have to ask: Do Britons always say “www” as “wuh-wuh-wuh”? Across the pond we say “double-U double-U double-U” and it takes longer, but doesn’t sound nearly as strange.
18/03/2013 at 18:18 Rikard Peterson says:
A shortening that takes much longer to say than its original form amuses me.
(But saying “world wide web dot rock paper shotgun dot com” would probably be confusing, so… I remember reading a suggestion in the early days of the internet that w should be pronounced as “wub”.)
18/03/2013 at 18:22 Low Life says:
I’m not British so I can’t comment on that, but I usually say “WAAGH! WAAGH! WAAAAGH!”.
18/03/2013 at 19:15 napoleon_in_rags says:
I can’t express how freakin’ excited I am for this game.
18/03/2013 at 20:18 Drayk says:
I can’t believe I just watched the whole damn interview… It’s was interesting though. Can’t wait to try Bioshock infinite.
19/03/2013 at 16:20 KenTWOu says:
Not enough hours with Ken Levine, I want more!