Midway Newcastle

1. I’m not a student anymore.
2. I don’t live in Middlesbrough anymore.
3. I now live in Newcastle.
4. Newcastle is good.
5. I’ve got my first real job.
6. The job is in the games industry, and it’s a nice job.
7. I get free drinks.

Good news, it seems, comes in one big lump.

I now work at the Newcastle studio of Midway – home to the peerlessly brilliant Robotron, the increasingly crap Mortal Kombat series, and the recently released, John Woo-inspired Stranglehold (which I won’t comment on for now). My job title is Junior Designer, and I do a lot of mission scripting in the Unreal 3 engine, which despite its monkey bus driver-like quirks [often taking a while to respond, crashing a lot], I’m very pleased to be using. Kismet, the engine’s new visual scripting system, is good stuff.

We’re currently working on the game of The Wheelman – an upcoming and fairly typical-sounding Vin Diesel film, and therefore a pretty high-profile game featuring guns, cars, explosions, mild language and baldness. Especially for a first job, it’s a nice, big and interesting project to be part of, and after a Summer of worrying about possible unemployment and disapproving parents, I’m chuffed with how things have worked out.

Things finally feel like they’re on the right track.