TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY
Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.
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GTA IV Shorts: Cut Off
The people responsible for the tech side of porting GTA IV to the PC should be fired in a kiln, but I must admit the video editor they’ve added is a joy. Directing even the most aimless acts of violence into an obnoxiously slick Michael Bay spasgasm is one of the most rewarding creative projects I’ve taken on in games all year – up there with forging new life in Spore.
This is my loud, buzzing, shoddy first try. That YouTube link is actually good quality – you can add &fmt=22 to the URL of a video that was uploaded high-res to link the HD version now – but if like me you loathe the very principle of streaming video, here‘s the full 34MB download.
I honestly thought I’d care about directing, and The Movies certainly never inspired one in me, but GTA IV has turned me around. It’s because the raw footage has such force and impact to it, it’s always tempting me to find a way to better show it off. Suddenly tips I found boring in DVD commentaries are flooding back, and I’m immediately and enthusiastically dissatisfied with everything I make.
I think that’s the litmus test for whether you truly love doing something. Not whether you like what you’ve made – most of us never do – but when you spot the flaws in what you’ve done, are you despirited that you suck, or excited to get on with fixing them? Unfortunately I tend to hit the “record what just happened” key ten times every time I play GTA, and it takes so long to render clips into uploadable .wmv files that at some point during the creative process, you just have to say “Fuck it, that’ll do.”
Update: Steve’s much better one is up now. Cracks me up every time.
‘Supdate: Neither YouTube or CVG are working for me right now, but another great one of Steve’s went up on the new PC Gamer YouTube channel yesterday, and I’ve got a download link to one more of mine that’s not really good enough for official publication. Have a good Christmas.
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