When I do have time I will update this section with a more in depth biography. Until then here is some brief information on myself.
I was born (1984) and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I grew up a gamer at an early age. For my 5th Christmas my parents purchased the brand new Nintendo Entertainment System and that is what sparked my life long passion for games. Several years later we received our first computer, a 486 dxII 66mhz, which opened up an entire new world of gaming. This ancient machine, though state of the art when we got it, was where I was able to take part in the revolution of First Person Shooter games. Quake online would consume hundreds of my childhood hours, later to move on to Warcraft II which probably took up twice as many. Remember the Kali and Khan days anyone? IPX Network, Mplayer, MSN gaming zone? Yep I was on there, and I was only 14 or so, hehe.
Of course this is all a big build up to the game that I have lived and breathed for nearly 7 years, Unreal Tournament. I have been playing Unreal Tournament competitively since the day it came out, in fact even before it came out, in the demo. UT easily has sucked up thousands of hours of my life, all very well spent if you ask me. :-) It would come to be the reason I would be able to succeed in my dream of being a game developer. UT gave me the chance to see the world of gaming in so many respects. Having played some of the best players in the world, even world champion gamers like fatal1ty (and beating him might I add :P) I was able to grasp the concept of competitive gaming (and more importantly what makes great gameplay and balance) while still remembering my feelings as a simple fan of a game. Before you say that the UT franchise has crap balance and gameplay, I'm speaking solely of the original Unreal Tournament. I consider the current renditions, UT2003 and UT2004 to be complete crap gameplay wise (graphics are nice though).
All of this had eventually lead me into Computer Science at the University of Alberta, which I studied for a year and decided it wasn't exactly the part of game development that I wanted. I wanted to be creative and create stunning visuals...worlds that blow players away, like UT maps. This lead me to leave the University of Alberta after a year, and move to the United States where I attended the Art Institute of California - Los Angeles at age 19. Only 19 years old, living in a country on my own, giving up my entire life in Canada to pursue my dream of making games. It was a crazy and tough decision, but ended up being the best one of my life.
Graduating from the Art Institute of California - Los Angeles in June 2006 with a bachelors degree in Game Art & Design I found myself in a great position with multiple job offers. For me, it's all about creating games that I can be proud of and that is no doubt why I signed up with SCEA Santa Monica to work with the God of War team, a team that pushes the quality of technology, art and design further than any other team I know of on the PS2.
God of War II was recently released and if you haven't played it, you're truly missing out on the best game ever made for the best selling console of all time.
-John
