GIHanson Blog

The Twilight Highlight Zone - Episode 7

Ben Hanson — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

We've reached the first milestone in a long journey. Jeff Cork and I have been recording our thoughts on every episode of the classic Twilight Zone series, and today's episode marks the end of the first season. Be sure to tune in next week for our recap/awards show of the first season we're calling "The Franklins", leave your ideas for categories in the comments below.

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This podcast covers the following episodes...

31. The Chaser

32. A Passage for Trumpet

33. Mr. Bevis

34. The After Hours

35. The Mighty Casey

36. A World of His Own

Listen to our earlier episodes through the links below.

The Twilight Highlight Zone - Episode 5

Ben Hanson — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

If you haven't noticed the flood of similar titles in the blog feed by now, Jeff Cork and myself are producing a podcast experiment where (on a weekly basis) we are discussing and reviewing every episode of The Twilight Zone. Why? Because we are weird and it is a good show. Listen to the audio below to hear us cover the next five episodes and please weigh in on our big debate in this episode by using the comments section below. I hope you enjoy!

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This episode covers the following episodes of the show...

21. Mirror Image

22. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street

23. A World Of Difference

24. Long Live Walter Jameson

25. People Are Alike All Over

Listen to our earlier episodes through the links below.

The Twilight Highlight Zone - Episode 3

Ben Hanson — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:07:00 GMT

We're back with another podcast that covers the next five episodes of The Twilight Zone! Listen to the audio below to hear Ben Hanson and Jeff Cork discuss and review the sci-fi-heavy block of episodes 11-15.

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11. And When the Sky Was Opened

12. What You Need

13. The Four of Us Are Dying

14. Third From the Sun

15. I Shot an Arrow into the Air

Be sure to leave your thoughts and personal reviews of these episodes in the comment section below!

Click on the link to listen to our podcasts on episodes 1-5 or episodes 6-10.

The Twilight Highlight Zone - Episode 1

Ben Hanson — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:33:00 GMT

Well, here's something that you didn't expect: Jeff Cork and I decided to watch every episode of The Twilight Zone and record our discussions. Every week we will post a new episode of the "Twilight Highlight Zone" that covers and reviews the next five episodes of the classic show.

Since this is our first episode of a hopefully recurring series, we are eager for feedback. Let us know what you think and feel free to follow along with us as we tackle every episode of the show, which is available on Netflix Instant.

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This episode covers the following episodes...

1. Where is Everybody?

2. One for the Angels

3. Mr. Denton on Doomsday

4. The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine

5. Walking Distance

Tune in next week to hear us talk about the next five-episode block! Also, we will work on getting this audio up in an easy-to-follow iTunes feed.

My Top 10 Game Informer Videos Of 2012

Ben Hanson — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:58:00 GMT

This blog is a little big self-indulgent, and I apologize. There weren't any massive projects like the Smash Bros. documentary or the History of Volition (which I feel guilty about not delivering) but I hope that you've enjoyed Game Informer's video content throughout the last year. As with last year's round-up of videos from 2011, I want to emphasize the editors and developers in these videos and not my camera work or editing. So here are my top ten videos from 2012!

10. Ted Price Talks About Developing Spyro the Dragon

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It was a whirlwind trip to Insomniac, with Dan Ryckert and I only having four hours or so to talk about, play, and shoot interviews about Fuse for our cover story. As a Spyro fanatic, I'm glad I squeezed in enough time with the generous Ted Price to talk about the early days of the studio and the insane transition as a company from their FPS Disruptor to the first Spyro the Dragon game. With Dan playing Fuse, this was one of the rare interviews where I'm the one both running the cameras and asking all of the questions, my childhood self would have melted.

9. Interviewing The Sound Designer For Metal Gear Solid

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The audio director for Halo 4 is one of the most passionate developers I've ever met. We spent over an hour interviewing him on the music of Halo 4 (watch him play some of the classic Halo songs on his piano) and the sound design of the game (watch him play with his audio toys), but speaking to him about his past work on the Castlevania and Metal Gear Solid series was an honor. Interviewing a Japanese developer is relatively rare for our cover story studio visits, let alone one with such a prestigious resume. It helped that he was unbelievably nice and eager to talk. He even played the Metal Gear Solid theme on his keyboard for us but repeatedly asked me not to use it in the video.

8. The E3 2012 Show Floor Tour

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The editing isn't great and the shooting was a bit manic, but I think this video does a good job of capturing the spirit of the trade show and how often you run into friends and current co-workers when roaming the floor. It was a fun time, and Dan Ryckert and Ben Reeves show that off while walking around and cracking wise.

7. Why Firaxis Loves X-COM

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown ended up being my favorite game of the year, so I look back on our trip to the studio for the cover story very fondly. Filming this interview with the leads on the reboot talking about their love of the first game in the series clued me in that I must have overlooked a classic. I'm glad that I can now have this impassioned conversation with the other new fans of Enemy Unknown.

6. Why Mass Effect 3 Is Game Informer's Game of the Year

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I'm a sucker for Joe Juba's maniacal laugh, and this video contains an unhealthy amount of it. All of the editors were in top form, with Bryan Vore chastising Bioware for their handling of Tali's face to Kim Wallace creepily defending Kaidan as a romantic partner. The game was a lot of fun and it comes through in this discussion that devolves into a screaming match.

5. Zombie/Survival Genre Roundtable Discussion

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I love it when developers are willing to talk about another studio's game on camera, I also love listening to Tim Turi light up when talking about survival games. When visiting our office to show off Dead Island Riptide, we asked the developers to sit down with us in the dining hall of the nearby ACME Comedy Club to talk about DayZ, Minecraft, and the rise of the survival genre. The conversation went in some interesting directions and developer Alex Toplansky seemed skeptical that we were even going to post it by the end, but I loved it.

4. Does The Public Know About Wii U?

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I wanted to do a "man on the street" series of interviews on the Wii U for a long time, so I finally grabbed a camera and walked outside our office months before the console was released. After sheepishly walking by a couple of strangers I realized that I would feel like a crazed ass randomly harassing these people, so I called for the big guns: Ben Reeves. His "street comedy" is what made the video and we spent an afternoon wandering the streets of Minneapolis just talking to random people about Nintendo and the Wii U. It was a fun editing challenge and I want to clarify again that I appreciated these people talking to us and we didn't want this video to be just an opportunity to point and laugh at "non-gamers".

3. Game Informal

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While I only produced three "episodes", I had a blast shooting and cutting together something I called "Game Informal" that had editors discussing what they had been playing recently. It was loose, fast, and fun. Continued production of the series didn't work out, but I hope to keep the spirit alive in future content. Also, Jeff Cork is an extremely funny person.

2. Creating the Top Score Podcast

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This feature on the creation of one of my favorite podcasts from Minnesota Public Radio was one of the more ambitious projects of the year. Carving out time from a full schedule for three days of shooting and a lot of editing wasn't easy, but I hope that fans of the show appreciated it. The highlighted musician was originally going to be Skyrim's Jeremy Soule, but his appearance was canceled and Inon Zur was a great replacement. The video ends with engineer Sam Keenan and host Emily Reese spontaneously playing the Super Mario Bros. theme, this led me to ask the two of them to compose the music for a lot of Game Informer's video content. So this behind-the-scenes feature ended up being much more influential than you'd think, also it was a lot of fun to shoot.

1. Bedtime Stories - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

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I wasn't sure what to put as my number one, but nobody can argue with babies so f--k it. I should thank Kyle Hilliard and his great wife Ashley for going along with my really weird idea of barging into their apartment and filming their baby. Kyle had no idea what game I was going to ask him to summarize and tell to his daughter until the cameras were rolling, and he did an admirable job vaguely recalling details from Zelda. I like to keep fans of Game Informer on their toes, so I don't know if I'll ever do anything like this again, but I wish that I would have taken a less boring approach to the crayon animations in the video. But I hope you enjoy!

Alright, well that's it! There were many other videos that almost made the cut, from playing Mario Party with Andrew WK to talking about the sound design of the original SSX, so I'm sorry if your favorite didn't make it on the list. Please let me know in the comment section below what your favorite video from the last year was and what kind of content you'd like to see in the future. Thanks!

Game Informer's Deleted Scenes from 2012

Ben Hanson — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:33:00 GMT

Nobody likes to be on camera. Well, very few people in the Game Informer office actually enjoy being on camera. But I'm consistently blown away by how funny my co-workers can be, even when cameras are rolling. Below is a small collection of snippets from videos throughout the past year that were unusable, mostly because the editors didn't know the cameras were rolling. I should point out that I asked for their permission to post these and that I only started collecting these snippets in the last month or two.

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Short but sweet.

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You'll notice that a lot of these clips involve Tim Turi, this is because he is funny and is kind enough to be in a lot of our videos.

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I have no context for this. As you can hear, this is all triggered by me yelling "Hey, you two!"

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The ongoing feud between Dan and Joe is occasionally put on hold for some odd bonding.

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This is just stupid.

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"What's that?"

Alright, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the collection and that you have not lost respect for Tim Turi. He is a good, odd duck.

The XCOM Cover That Never Was

Ben Hanson — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:20:00 GMT

Today marks the release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown from Firaxis, and I wanted to let fans of the reboot and the original game in on something that happened behind the scenes when Game Informer unveiled the game for our February cover.

Game Informer's editor-in-chief Andy McNamara is the main point of contact when it comes to designing the magazine's covers. He works with the publishers and developers and offers advice on what kind of layout works well on a wrap-around cover design, but he likes to give the artists behind the game as much freedom as possible to create something that shows off their project in the most interesting light.

Back in the early phases of the XCOM cover, I heard that we were having a difficult time coming up with a cover design that showed off the strategy game. Before going on a cover story trip to shoot videos, I like to do as much research as possible, so I had been playing a bit of the original X-COM in my free time. While playing the old PC game I was struck by the design of the "enemy movement" screen.

I captured the image, photoshopped it a bit, and sent it off to Andy to see what he thought. He liked the idea and had our 2K contacts forward the mock-up to Firaxis.

Much to my surprise, the talented art team at Firaxis (led by Greg Foertsch) took a stab at the concept. Leaving behind the cartoon look of the original game's cutscenes, they converted the classic image into something that fit with the reboot's style. We received permission to post this image based on the disclaimer that it was not finished and that the team at Firaxis wasn't happy with the image, but here it is.

Click to enlarge.

After thinking it over for a while, Andy decided that having a bald space marine on the cover was misleading since the core of XCOM is about dealing with the alien threat and not the drama of a central male protagonist. The idea was scrapped and we eventually ended up going with the first image on the page of the Sectoid alien in the street.

The point of this blog wasn't to proclaim myself as a genius of design, but to give fans of the original game a glimpse at an updated version of the classic image and to thank the team at Firaxis for going along with an idea from a lowly video producer in Minnesota.

Game Informer's New Soundtrack

Ben Hanson — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:25:00 GMT

One of my favorite podcasts is Top Score, a show produced by Minnesota Public Radio that features tightly edited interviews with game composers. The show is hosted by Emily Reese and the technical producer is Sam Keenan. I love the show so much that I decided to make a video feature highlighting their work. Check it out below.

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At the end of the video profile I snuck in a clip of Sam and Emily winging a performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme that blew me away. Emily frequently mentioned that Sam was a great musician and his acoustic rendition of that song stuck in the back of my mind for months.

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Listen to one of Sam's tracks underneath Andy McNamara giving a demo of the tablet app.

There's a common trend in videos that cover video games to embed a mindless techno track underneath people speaking. I've never been a fan of overwhelming viewers with auditory information, but I like to highlight the music of the game being discussed in some of my videos by embedding it underneath the conversation. Every once in a while there's a video that doesn't pertain directly to a game, and I scramble to find appropriate music. I've used Keaton Monger's music in the past, but I was on the hunt for a more subdued and less digital soundscape. I sent out an e-mail to Sam Keenan and he provided thirteen tracks within a month. Using acoustic guitars, pianos, violins, Emily Reese on the trumpet, and more, Sam created an incredible variety in music that he was kind enough to let us use.

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Going forward, if the music in one of Game Informer's videos catches your ear, odds are that Sam Keenan's name will appear in the credits at the end. This blog is a thank you letter for his generosity. I hope the viewers will come to enjoy his tracks as much as I have. You can learn more about his work and listen to/purchase additional music of his at his official website. Let me know what you think of the music choices in future Game Informer videos and show him and MPR's Emily Reese some love by listening to the Top Score podcast.

I've Decided To Endorse Jurassic Park Builder

Ben Hanson — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 18:49:00 GMT

Every day in the Game Informer office I have to listen to Jeff Marchiafava ask Jeff Cork how big his Tiny Tower is. I am forced to overhear Joe Juba rave about and talk new strategies for Dungeon Village. I separated myself from that helpless pack, proclaiming myself to be a "true" gamer that cares about gameplay and not just mindless clicking to watch numbers improve. I spent two hours in Game Dev Story and enjoyed it, but did not feel a single itch to keep playing. I downloaded Pocket Planes and was immediately turned off by the UI. I was above the free-to-play sim genre. Then the developers over at Ludia found the way: Jurassic Park. Why did it have to be Jurassic Park?

As my favorite movie of all time, I've spent a lot of time playing Jurassic Park games. The Lost World for the Playstation was my first game for the system, and I've spent more time with it than any Mario game. I can't say that I loved the experience, but there were aspects of TellTale's latest game that impressed me.

I often find myself defending Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis as the greatest Jurassic Park game ever made. This is where Jurassic Park Builder for iOS hits me in the gut. It is a mobile and streamlined version of the Operation Genesis experience. Straddling that simplified line between SimCity and Tomagotchi, I've become wildly addicted to the experience of slowly expanding my very own version of Jurassic Park.

You receive missions from characters such as John Hammond, Alan Grant, Ian Malcom, and Kelly Malcom. I'm tickled that they include everybody's favorite scientist Dr. Wu but have zero representation from Jurassic Park III. Your mind will shatter if you try to cram this game into official Jurassic Park canon, so just sit back and enjoy. The missions have straight-forward goals like "build a new road" or "feed a carnivore" and completing these objectives gives you gold and experience. You build up the ability to create new structures and research how to clone new dinosaurs. The game rewards you for checking back on it every ten minutes or so and you will quickly run out of things to do if you stick around for too long. That said, the game continues to occupy 30% of my conscious mind at all times. I went on a bike ride yesterday and pulled off the trail four times so that I could collect gold from my Pachycephalosaurus paddock.

The most memorable aspect of Operation Genesis was the constant threat of dinosaurs breaking free and eating your visitors. The iOS game constantly hints that something could go wrong at any minute but, at level seven I have yet to see chaos erupt. There are no UI references to fence repair or anything that would lead me to believe this danger is a large part of the game, except for the ability to build a static security tower. It could be a late game twist, as I have yet to discover T-Rex DNA.

The sound design is the weakest part of the game, as I constantly hear a T-Rex roar despite not having created one. It seems like the developers just took all of the dinosaur sound files from the film and have them perpetually and play at random throughout the game. And, in case you were wondering, it looks as if they didn't get the license to the classic soundtrack from John Williams. Without spending a cent of real money on the game I have created seven different dinosaurs, including raptors. The brontosaurus (which never appeared in Jurassic Park) is available but it would be a hell of a grind to create without paying for in-game currency. I was expecting the worst, but am pleasantly surprised with how few pay-walls there are in the game.

God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs, God creates man, man destroys God, man creates the world's most addicting game about dinosaurs. This game came completely out of the blue and has consumed my iPhone's battery. It doesn't do anything exceptional for the genre, but if you have an ounce of love for Jurassic Park you might as well give it a shot. The worst case scenario is that the game consumes your every waking moment. My addiction to Jurassic Park Builder has taught me never to write off a genre. Except for third-person shooters, they are dumb.

The Pokemon Art Gallery

Ben Hanson — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:31:00 GMT

There is a lot of horrific art out there. As an art minor I'm ashamed to say that I've wasted too much of my life staring at it. Luckily, The Light Grey Art Lab in Minneapolis did not dissapoint with their recent Pokemon Battle Royale Exhibition.

This small art gallery opened its doors on April 20th to a new exhibition that features 151 paintings, prints, and drawings of the original batch of Pokemon. Contracting with 151 different artists from around the country was no small task, as the small team behind the project had to keep everybody on the same page regarding things like art sales and (most importantly) which artists get which Pokemon. Each contributing artist had to write down their top five choices for which of the original 151 they would like to adapt to their style. Talking with Chris Hajny about the behind the scenes process, he said that the least desired Pokemon were "the rats" (Rattata and Raticate) and Machoke and Machamp.

Machoke by Zac Gorman

With an iPod playing classic Pokemon music in the corner, I wandered around and admired each piece of art, hoping that my favorite Pokemon were coupled with agreeable artists. As an insane fan of the Pokemon series, I couldn't have asked for more. It was one of those Truman Show-esque moments where you feel like your environment was hand-crafted to fulfill everything you've always wanted from the local art scene. This wasn't just simple fan-service, the contributing artists knocked it out of the park. Nobody phoned it in, banking on simple nostalgia to ensure a crowd. Some of the work was faithful to Nintendo's original concepts (like Pikachu) and others were taken into a whole new and interesting direction. From the frightening to the comedic, the show had you soak in a wide variety of art styles and interpretations.

Jynx by Jaime Zollars

One of the minds behinds the exhibit was telling me that they've received angry e-mails that their favorite Pokemon from the later generations weren't included, but overall the creators say this showing was a success. Opening night had kids, adults, and Ash Ketchum cosplayers filling up the small studio space and inspecting every artistic detail. Despite the success, the creators aren't planning another Pokemon show any time soon. They definitely want to keep sprinkling in game-themed exhibits in the future, however, and hope to arrange an indie game art show and a fighting game-themed exhibit down the road. We are at a point in gaming history where something once as far-fetched as a Pokemon art exhibit is happening just down the street in your hometown, games are a crucial aspect of our modern culture and it is nice to see them given such an interesting and well-crafted tip of the cap from the Light Grey Art Lab. For those of you in the Twin Cities area, the exhibit will be open until May 11th. I cannot thank them enough, as well as the contributing artists for their spectacular work.

Venonat by Teagan White

I'm tempted to post all of the images from the exhibit in this blog and share me thoughts on each, but to spare you the hassle I strongly recommend that you just check out the Light Grey Art Lab's website where they have a majority of the 151 art pieces for you to browse. You can even purchase a print, so choose wisely.

Blastoise by Kris Anka

Kabutops (top) by JP Coovert.

My Top 10 Game Informer Videos Of 2011

Ben Hanson — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:05:00 GMT

Well I hope you aren't sick of the whole "Best of 2011" topic. Instead of presenting my favorite games of the year (which will be in the February issue of the magazine) I thought it would be fun to rank my favorite Game Informer videos from 2011. Now in a way this is self-serving, I am the one that produced these videos, but I want to emphasize the people and the subjects in the videos more than any production value on my part. Without further ado, here are my favorite videos of the year.

10. E3 2011 Show Floor Tour

This is one of the most frenetic videos of the year, mainly thanks to the insane music from Funtastic Power, but it captures the vibe of E3. This was my first year attending the show, after years of following every kernel of information I was thankful for the opportunity to dive head-first into the bedlam. There's an unhealthy amount of street comedy from Ben Reeves, but I love the cameos from Tim Turi and Phil Kollar.

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9. Composing Skyrim's Theme

Skyrim was my first cover trip and I was incredibly nervous, I distinctly remember my hand shaking as I clipped the microphone onto Todd Howard for his interview. It wasn't until I shot a series of videos with Bethesda's audio director Mark Lampert that I felt like I had captured something that I was proud of. This was the public's first aural glimpse of Skyrim's incredible theme, and I remember pumping my fist with excitement after getting this on tape. Once back in the Game Informer office I listened to the new Elder Scrolls theme again and again. Yes, the video could have used more B-roll, but I'm glad that fans of the series enjoyed the music and interview as much as I hoped they would.

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8. Battlefield 3's Sound Design

I'm not a fan of first-person shooters, but last year I thought I would try the demo for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was immediately blown away, the gameplay was good but absorbing the sound design from that game was a religious experience. Once we decided on the Battlefield 3 cover story, I knew that the audio team at DICE was my first priority. Stefan Strandberg was a fascinating interview, and I'm very thankful that EA and DICE let me use some of the "home movies" they shot while recording the sounds for Battlefield 3.

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7. Behind The Scenes of Video Games Live

This video was my first real labor of love at Game Informer. I contacted Tommy Tallarico out of the blue and he was incredibly generous with his time, allowing for a lengthy interview and backstage tour. I was also awestruck by the fans of gaming that were willing to let me shove a camera in their face while they were waiting for to receive Tommy's autograph. Tommy Tallarico is an eccentric yet enthusiastic guy, and I can't thank him enough for letting me use footage from the Video Games Live concert DVD in this video.

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6. Designing the Asari in Mass Effect

The Mass Effect cover trip was the first one that punched me in the nerd-gut. I'm a huge fan of the series and visiting Bioware was a dream come true, especially considering they were so willing to share incredible concept art from when they were designing each of the alien races. The initial designs for the Asari are the most interesting, but I recommend learning the story behind all of the races in our series of videos.

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5. Joe Mad's Drawing Process

You may sense a trend as we near the top of my list: I love when developers come across as candid human beings during interviews. This video of Joe Mad from Vigil Games is a perfect example. We were nearing the end of our Darksiders II trip when I asked Joe Mad the worst words an artist can hear: "Could you draw something for me?" Thankfully he wasn't too annoyed and ending up sketching a great drawing of Death from the sequel to Darksiders while we asked him questions about his drawing process. And just in case anybody is wondering, this drawing is now framed above my desk.

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4. The Notch/Todd Howard Conversation

I was worried that all of my videos from E3 2011 would fall into the all-too-common rut of handheld and distracted interviews with developers on a noisy show floor. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to connect different developers that were all in the same convention center, and thankfully Bethesda let us shoot this interview in a small, dark room in the back of their booth. The video itself was a bizarre experiment, I knew that Notch (creator of Minecraft) was a huge Elder Scrolls fan so I thought that a completely off-the-cuff chat with the director of that series would be lead to some interesting topics of conversation. My sincere thanks to the masters of video over at 2 Player Productions for wrangling Notch and to Todd Howard and the Bethesda crew for going along with this interview about nothing.

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3. Designing Battlefield 1942

I have a soft spot in my heart for the history of games, so when Battlefield 3's multiplayer lead designer cornered Matt Bertz and I in the hallway while on our Battlefield 3 trip with design documents from Battlefield 1942, I knew that I had to sit him down for a quick video. It was a bit of a ramshackle interview, but I'm glad I was able to set the camera up in time to see the Battlefield nostalgia ooze out of Lars Gustavsson. It's this kind of passion from developers that leads to the games we all love.

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2. History of Volition

I should have known that the scope of this video would snowball out of control, it all started because I really wanted to talk to Volition about the first Red Faction. Luckily Jeff Cork and I ended up interviewing Mike Kulas, one of the co-founders of the studio. Jeff asked him one question and Mike talked for 45 minutes straight. Normally this would be a problem, but Mike gave a perfect and fascinating history of his studio. Not only that, but he also had old pictures and videos ready to go to help illustrate the story. The video took a lot of time to put together, but I'm really proud of the complete story that it tells. After posting the video on the site, Mike Kulas e-mailed me and explained that he was retiring as president of Volition and that Jeff Cork and I had asked the perfect question at the perfect time in his life. At the time this interview was filmed, he was the only person at the studio that knew he was stepping down and he was in a reflective mood. Occasionally I'm tempted to create another full video on the history of a studio, but I know that I'll never come across an interview situation as serendipitous as this one.

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1. Smashed

I wish that more of my top 10 videos from this year featured the Game Informer staff, but I hope that this massive video from the Guinness World Record attempt back in March makes up for that. Above anything else, Smashed is a crash course on four distinct personalities from the Game Informer office: Dan Ryckert, Jeff Cork, Tim Turi, and Ben Reeves. While crudely shot in a lot of places (I'll blame sleep deprivation) I'm proud of this video and the way that it captures the spirit and real people that work in our office. I was so excited about the footage that I ended up editing this video over my summer vacation. I hope it stands as a love letter to people that make up our office and the Game Informer community at large.

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Well, that's it! Thanks for reading my list. I'm sure I forgot about some videos that I loved from this year, so let me know what you enjoyed this last year and what kind of content you'd like to see more of in the future.

A Year at Game Informer

Ben Hanson — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:03:00 GMT

I was tinkering with the sea of scattered equipment in Game Informer's make-shift video storage room when Matt Miller told me that I'd be going on the next cover trip: "They're making an Elder Scrolls V, it's called Skyrim."

I was plucked out of a world where the"big get" was sitting down to interview the mayor of a small town in Minnesota and placed in a job where I had to debate with Bethesda's Todd Howard whether or not the video tour of his studio should be shot handheld or with a tripod. That first trip was eye-opening. Working in an office filled with talented, intelligent, and hilarious writers was shocking, but seeing an hour-long demo of an incredible game that the outside world didn't even know existed was when the bizarre nature of my new job sank in.

November 3rd was my one-year anniversary as a video producer at Game Informer. Time has flown by and I haven't written as many blogs as I had hoped, but I thought it would be nice to give an update with my thoughts on the last year.

Second only to the fantastic interaction with Game Informer's community, the highlight of the job thus far has been traveling the country/world and visiting some of the most talented developers in the industry. You know in The Price Is Right during the showcase showdown when they reveal the vacation? That's what it is like every month when I hear about our next cover story. I'm the kind of dork that loved to study for tests in school, and I get that same cheap thrill when reading about the studio's location and history and playing their past games in preparation for the big trip. I keep a notebook and scribble down ideas for possible video content to pick up when I'm there. I'm not trying to imply that every trip involves drinking something with an umbrella sticking out of it on a beach, but the monthly trips are a dream come true for a workaholic and gaming nerd like myself.

Overall, I'm proud of the amount of video content that I've produced. Some are most certainly better than others, and I'm working on raising the quality level as time goes on. A large factor in that area is that we've hired a new video guy named Jason. Some people were confused or thought that he was my replacement, he has been and will continue to be a huge asset to the fledgling video department at Game Informer. His specialty is in live-streaming and video tech, which nicely counter-points my love for shooting and post-production. His addition has freed up some of my time and has stopped me from drowning in a sea of deadlines and half-finished videos.

So what does the future hold for Game Informer videos? Jason and I have heads full of ideas and there are plenty of big things in motion. On the smaller scale, I hope to provide you all with more video previews and other fun videos shot in and around the office. I love seeing comments like "It's so great to finally put a face to so-and-so's voice!" All I want to do is connect visitors to our site with the genuine opinions and personalities of the editors in the office. Both so that they feel part of a porous online community and that they better understand where the editors are coming from when reading previews and reviews of a game. This is why I'm especially proud of shooting and editing the Smash Bros. marathon documentary, it is an honest glimpse into the atmosphere and personalities in the office and it takes a couple of bricks out of the wall between editor and visitor. I hope to continue this trend in the future, and I'm always open to ideas from the community about what kind of video content you'd like to see. Please send me an e-mail at hanson@gameinformer.com or send me a tweet @yozetty with request or complaints, I hope that our newly revamped YouTube channel has curbed some of the complaints about our quirky video player.

I really hope that you've enjoyed the video content that I've produced in the last year. There will be a lot more content and surprises in the future, including a nice reboot of Replay. My first year at Game Informer has been a delightful learning experience. Friends and co-workers have moved on and new ones have joined, but the positive atmosphere at the office remains. It can be stressful but I'm beginning to feel at home in this new, crazy world. I hope to be here for a while.

The Video Initiative

Ben Hanson — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 04:03:00 GMT

One of the most common phrases in video production is “Let’s do that one thing...” Whether it's the Cribs-style tour, the NOOO!!! pullback shot, or the cheesy 1950's PSA parody, there are always comfy cliches to fall back on. I don’t plan on using that phrase here at Game Informer, my prime directive is to create unique video content for the site.

Over a year ago I heard Andy McNamara on a podcast talking about his plans for the future of Game Informer. He mentioned that he was looking to expand the site’s use of video. Being a video producer in the Twin Cities (especially the kind that listens to gaming podcasts) my ears immediately perked up. I salivated over the idea of producing videos for Game Informer, but I just kept my nose to the grindstone and kept slowly plugging away at my career. A simple retweet from Phil Kollar let me know that Game Informer was officially looking to hire a full-time video producer, I dropped everything and leaped on board.

Well, I now find myself with a camera in hand and a world full of opportunity in front of me. There are big things in the works for Game Informer’s video front, but I won’t let any of the classics slip away. I will still be putting together the episodes of Replay, “Reiner and Phil”, Quick 15, and all the rest. Some of these shows will get a face-lift very soon, and we are going to be rolling in several new series alongside them. GI Grudgematch and the freshly-named Peripheral Vision are the latest to be incorporated into the “Game Informer Network”, but I hope to start up others as well as to create stand-alone video features.

This is where you all come in. Reading the positive response to my first video for Game Informer was the most satisfying experience of my career, I cannot thank the community enough for the kind words. I want to involve the fanbase as much as possible, I’m on the hunt for feedback. What kind of video content you would like to see from Game Informer in the future. More shows? Video features? By the way, we’ve heard your complaints and I promise that a faster and vastly-improved video player will be implemented very soon. Please let me know any ideas for video content that you may have, feel free to send me an e-mail at hanson@gameinformer.com or contact me via Twitter (@yozetty). I’m just a Game Informer fan that happens to be on the payroll, so let me know if you want to talk videos, games, or video game videos. Thanks!

I mentioned in my bio that I made a lot of idiotic game-related videos in the past, so I put together a quick montage of some of these old (and painfully bad) videos. Each clip uses a different song from a video game. If you can name each game that the songs come from I will send you a game of your choice.

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