On Thursday, September 1st, 2005, the first video trailer for my upcoming game title, Bad Day LA is going to make its worldwide debut. It will be released through gaming website IGN. The trailer is a fast paced, action-filled romp through some visually intense and darkly funny disaster scenes pulled straight from the game’s animated sequences.

What: Bad Day LA Trailer Debut
Where: http://pc.ign.com
When: September 1st, 2005

Be sure to check it out and pass the word!

For your web pleasure…

(Image by Kin, Bad Day LA concept art)

I am a frequent reader of a column by writer Fred Reed. His views on many things having to do with life, politics, and the world in general are usually spot-on, humorous, and very much in line with my own views. One of his recent posts echoed the tag line for Bad Day LA (“Are you prepared?!”), so I feel compelled to share it:

August 14, 2005
Washington, DC—

It’s getting stranger, I tell you. Riding the subway from Vienna Station to Franconia-Springfield, at every stop the woman driving the train said in an over-elocuted voice, “A-ten-tion, customers. This is a Metro Safety Tip. Pay attention to your surroundings. Look up from your newspapers and blackbirds [it sounded like, though nobody seemed to be carrying any sort of bird at all] every now and then. Report suspicious activity to Metro employees immediately.”

Then—I can’t stand it: “Let’s be pre-pared, not scared.”

Seriously. Is this the world we live in now? I get the distinct feeling that no one in the Whitehouse has ever seen the film Brazil. It really is getting stranger.

Read the full article here.
You can check out Fred’s full site here.

Team Xbox has a nice interview with Bad Day LA art director Ken Wong. Many of you are familiar with Ken Wong because of his work on many of my twisted tales properties including Oz and Grimm. From the interview:

What were the most difficult challenges you had to face in order to create the game art?

Ken Wong: Rather than technical problems, the biggest challenge has been the cultural divide. American and I are English-speaking westerners in Hong Kong, while most of the BDLA artists are in our Guangzhou studio in mainland China, where they don’t speak English or receive much US culture. So it’s been very challenging firstly just communicating with them, and secondly trying to explain to them some of the more esoteric jokes in the game. To overcome this, I’ve focused as much as possible on using images for communication rather than words. I think they still don’t get the jokes, though.

You can read more about Ken’s adventures in art directing in the full article.