Moving to India?

Well, there's a very good chance that I’m moving to India to work for a games company. I wonder what gaming will be like over there. I've already checked out the price of X360 games whilst I was there on holiday and they are pretty expensive. I'm only going to get about 30,000 Rps. per month and a game costs around 2500-3000 Rps. (new), that's about £29-£35. Price of living though is low so I should be able to cover my "hobby".

If I do end up moving to India I plan to blog every week or so just to talk about my life in India and gaming in India. Hopefully it will help others who are planning to move to India. The gaming in India will hopefully just be an interesting read.

Ok, so here’s the list of games which I’m currently interested in buying:

- Fable 2 - I really liked the first game, luckily I missed the whole hype machine and bought it the year when the Xbox 360 was released so I could enjoy it in peace.
- Mirror’s Edge – Looks amazing and the idea is very cool. The hard part will be playing that game without shooting one single bullet:P
- Left 4 Dead – I’ve been watching the development of this ever since it was first introduced to the public (before Valve stepped in and bought the company). I am really looking forward to this since I prefer to play with other humans rather than against them i.e. I’m not good against other human opponents :P
- Far Cry 2 – I thought the first far cry was really good but this new one just seems to be better. I just hope that there are no aliens.
- Red Alert 3 – I’ve been a fan of the Red Alert series since the first one. The good thing about this one is the cast... women... hot.
- Dead Space – I like the idea of just floating around space, with the undead. Also the animated comic strip has increased my interest in this game’s storyline.
- Quantum of Solace – A bond game, which is getting a lot of press coverage, it looks good and hopefully I’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed playing Goldeneye.
- Fallout 3 – Not actually too sure about this one. I enjoyed Oblivion’s gameplay and that’s why I’ve put it on my list.
- Gears of War 2 – Hopefully we’ll be able to get more of the storyline, in the last 5 minutes of the game :P
- Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts – Never really a fan of this game, I didn’t play the original games on the N64. In my opinion, Rare haven’t made a really game since the N64. So hopefully this one will be it.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 – I own a PS3 but I’ve only ever played it for about ½ an hour! After that I packed it away. I’m going to wait for the price to come down on MGS4 and then buy it but the thing is I haven’t played the other MGS games so I’m not sure that I’m going to enjoy it much.
- LittleBigPlanet – I’m hoping this game will force me to unpack my PS3 and replace the empty spot where the Nintendo Wii used to be.

That’s a pretty good list. More will be added to this list as time goes on.

Four years of pain equals to...

... a BSc in Computer with first class honours! Yep, after working hard, stressing and being depressed for four long years I've finally got some good news! It was a real shock when I found out what I got!

The day started as always, me waking up to the alarm and then me turning the damn thing off, this time though I noticed a message on my mobile phone. When I read it I thought "oh crap, the day of my pre mid-age judgment has arrived, this is either going to help me or screw me over!" I got up and ran down to the computer, which was stupidly scanning something and since it is Vista I can't tell it to stop. So I started up Firefox, whilst battling against the computer, and when I looked on the results page I had in red writing "You cannot view your results as you have outstanding payments." It was something along those lines and I was a bit annoyed! I rang the finance office and asked them what the deal is? Found out the Isle of Man Government, who are paying for my fees, haven't paid the last semesters fees. So they said that I'd be able to get me results tomorrow once they've updated my status. I couldn't wait for tomorrow, I checked a few minutes later to find that my results were now available to me. I quickly scrolled down to the bottom of the page where I found this:

The Board of Examiners has confirmed at a meeting held on 19 June 2008 that you be recommended to the Academic Board, via the University's Secretary and Registrar for the award of:

Bachelor Of Science in Computer Studies
With First Class Honours

What I thought next was "WOOHOO!"

Now I'm going to relax and think about where I'm going to go on holiday to with my uni housemates.

Kung Fu Panda... Awesome!

This movie looks awesome!!! If you haven't seen the trailer then check it out here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/kungfupanda/

Other than wanting to watch that awesome movie i'm about to properly start to apply for jobs.

More Job stuff

Yo fellow readers,

I've finally uploaded my new website on to the www and so you can all view it at http://www.ankuragarwal.co.uk. It's not quite finished, I still need to add a description for all the recent projects and also need to create and upload videos of the applications; I prefer to make videos as they are a lot smaller than the actual application!

Well i have decided to be a little more flexible in my hunt for a job since I’m only a graduate with a years experience in design. So the companies I’m going to apply to now are the ones which have created games that I’ve played and enjoyed. I didn't think the list was going to be that big but it turned out to be a very long list... so a lot more work to do! This has now widened my search to the whole of the UK, North America and Australia. I might learn Japanese so I can widen my search to Japan too; how long do you think it'll take to learn Japanese, a few months? :P

Well that's all for now

General Hank

P.S. Post a comment if you've read this, even if it's a hearty lol!

My X360 is blogging!

Hi all,

If you want to know what my Xbox 360 is talking about these days then check out its blog at http://www.360voice.com/tag/General Hank

Still working on my website, it should hopefully be done today. Also I've got to write up my CV and send it off to a few people to get it checked. Hmmm... What else is there? Oh yes I've thought up an awesome idea for a game but i still need to get the other real time graphics techniques done before i start on the game. Also need to get the physics and AI stuff done, looking forward to getting my hands dirty with some AI!

General Hank

The Job

Hello, none existent readers.

I've been having some relaxing times with no work, except for a bit of action script for my portfolio website. It's cool to just chillax with Xbox 360 and GTA4 :P.

Had a great time last Friday! It was the final fling at my university... good times... also bad because everyone is now leaving... boo!!!

Anyway, now i need to think about my future. I've decided that i really want to move to the USA, probably somewhere outside Seattle; Bungie, Valve, Microsoft and a few others are there so it seems like the best place to be if you're like me... a software engineer.


That's all for now

General Hank

Post Uni. work

Well it's nearly here, only one more module to do and then I've finished my undergraduate degree... hopefully. The hand-ins haven't gone smoothly at all and I'm a bit worried that I'm going to have to resit the year. No worry though if i have to then i will. I really want a first class honours degree!

Anyway here's the list of stuff to do once I've finished on 13th May 2008:

- Work:
- A simple demo showing a-star path finding.
- Fix the the RTG demo for Nvidia graphics cards.
- Add deferred shading into the RTG module demo.
- Get to grips with PhysX.
- Make a small demo demonstrating the use of PhysX.
- Research on good game engine designs.
- Create a game with all the knowledge from graphics, AI and PhysX.

-Play:
- Play Grand Theft Auto 4.
- Play Call of Duty 4.
- Relax with friends and think of better times when there was hardly any work :P


Signing off

General Hank