In today’s Georgia Straight is my latest “Trigger Happy” column. This week, I look at some of the recent video game adaptations of movies, from The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (awesome) to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (also awesome), from Watchmen: The End is Nigh to Star Trek: D-A-C (both okay). I even touch on Wanted: Weapons of Fate (also okay) and Terminator Salvation (ugh). And more!

The summer blockbuster season is upon us, and these days big movies get big video games. I find that the most successful movie-based video games are those that don’t try to rehash the film but instead use the celluloid story and setting as inspiration.

Here comes the Flip, Canada. Just in time for summer vacations, when you’re wanting to get video of your kids with ice cream dripping down their arms, or you’ve got a chance to grab bribery-quality footage of your best friend trying to water ski for the first time, the entire range of Flips, the simple to use camcorders that have revolutionized the camcorder market, are finally available north of the 49th.

Pure Digital, the company that designed the Flip, first entered the Canadian market last summer with only one unit, the Flip Ultra, and it was available exclusively at Wal-Mart.

In reviewing the gadget for the Straight, I wrote that the Flip “will change how the average person shoots video.” But despite how much I enjoyed the Flip Ultra, I also complained that it could not shoot high-definition video.

That’s all changing now, as Pure Digital is making its four models of Flip – two of which capture high definition video – available in Canada at the major electronics retailers, as well as online at ca.TheFlip.com.

A couple of weeks ago I met with Scott Kabat, director of marketing for Pure Digital. He was in Vancouver talking to media about his company’s launch plans. Pure Digital is being acquired by Cisco Systems.

“The genesis of the idea [for Flip] was around addressing the big obstacles that currently exist in the traditional camcorder category,” he explained.

The average person with a camcorder rarely uses it because until recently, they were bulky, heavy, required cumbersome battery packs, and are slow to start up.

Flip cameras, on the other hand, start up instantly, record with the push of one button, and are small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. Easy to carry around, easy to access, easy to use.

Plus, Flips solve the problem of having a shoebox of tapes in your closet that you never get around to loading onto your computer because they plug directly into your computer’s USB port. Kabat says that Pure Digital is as much a software company as a hardware manufacturer. “We’ve got as many software engineers as hardware engineers,” he said. “We believe that’s part of the way we can differentiate ourselves from other guys who are going to shout, ‘Hey, we have a cheap, small device too.’ The experience of sharing is the payoff.”

It’s true that Pure Digital has benefited from the growing YouTube phenomenon. Kabat agreed that the trend to capturing shorter videos for sharing online has helped the Flip become as successful as it has, with two million units sold in two years.

You’ve always been able to directly upload your Flip videos to YouTube and other video sharing sites. Now available to Flip users is the ability to easily e-mail video to friends and family. But rather than embed video in an e-mail message, Flip provides a service that places the video online at a privately hosted Web page, and sends a link to that page to your recipients.

Using the on-board editing software, you can create highlight reels, add credits, set your video to your own personal soundtrack. Anything you want to do with your video, the Flip makes it easy to do. And you can order DVDs of your videos directly from the Flipshare interface.

Kabat explained the limited launch of Flip in Canada last summer was a result of the time it took to meet the regulatory requirements of bringing products into Canada. “We really wanted to come full-bore. So we got our feet wet with the English only product and now we’ve got everything. It’s a big commitment on our part.”

The four Flips take care of pretty much any camcorder need: standard or high definition, battery power or rechargeable, capacity or slimline design.

There are two models of Ultra, both of which support AA batteries or can be used with a rechargeable battery pack and both of which can store up to 120 minutes of video. Suggested prices are $179.99 for the standard model and $249.99 for the UltraHD.

The three-ounce Mino and MinoHD are designed for the more fashion conscious. Slimmer and sleeker, the Mino units use a sealed-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery and can hold up to 60 minutes of video. Suggested pricing is $219.99 for the standard, $279.99 for the MinoHD.

So you can outfit yourself with a high definition camcorder for under $300.

“We’ve never gone out there and shouted, ‘Hey, this is the cheapest camcorder around,’ because our objective has never been to beat everyone on price. But our philosophy has been, ‘Give people what they ask for.’ Strip out the extra things that confuse you and keep you from using it. Simplicity, coupled with quality and affordability.”

In fact, the cheap unit cost means that I am more likely to use the Flip when I’m at the beach, or boating on the lake. I’ve spoken with teachers who are excited to get Flips for their schools, because it means students can get more involved in creating and editing video without breaking budgets.

Kabat quoted an e-mail he recently received from a customer: “The best camcorder is the one you have with you.”

The Ultra HD is my model of choice. It can be recharged from my computer’s USB port using the rechargeable battery pack, the buttons provide a bit of sensory feedback so it’s easier to use, and it comes with an HDMI jack so I can stream the crisp video directly to the nearest flat panel television with an available HDMI cable.

Coming later this summer is the ability to personalize the design of your Flip Mino for free. You’ll be able to upload your own image or graphic, or use a pattern generator, and your design gets painted onto the camera itself. You’ll be able to make your design available to others, too, and you’ll earn a commission when it gets used.

Whichever model you decide best suits your needs, everyone should have a Flip in their repertoire of electronic gadgets. Welcome to Canada, Flip. We’re glad to have you here.

Cross posted at the Georgia Straight.

Eidos announced on May 11 that its Montreal studio was in development of Thief 4, the highly anticipated follow-up in the acclaimed franchise) that made stealth a video game strategy. This is the second game in development for the Montreal shop that opened in 2007. The first, Deux Ex 3, is just as acclaimed a franchise and just as highly anticipated.

The pressure’s on, it seems, for Eidos Montreal. The studio, which was opened by general manager Stephane D’Astous in February 2007, was staffed up and working by May. The shop moved into its permanent offices in October, already hard at work their first game.

“Right now we have a very good grasp on Deus Ex,” D’Astous told me in an interview at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre the day after the Thief 4 announcement. D’Astous was in town to attend the inaugural GDC Canada conference and did not try and hide his excitement about his studio’s first two projects, even as he admitted that working on the Deus Ex and Thief franchises was ambitious.

The development teams have already established forums to solicit audience feedback. The game designers are asking gamers to share what they’ve liked and what they’ve not liked about the earlier games in the Deus Ex and Thief franchises, and what they would like to see in the new games. Said D’Astous, “I want my guys to read what the fans are telling them.”

D’Astous, who spent time as an industrial designer at Quebec aerospace and transportation company Bombardier and supervised the development of flight simulators, started working at Ubisoft Montreal in 2003 when the company had 450 employees. His title was director of operations and project management and his job description was “to reach 2,000 people as soon as possible without losing control.”

It was an interesting time at Ubisoft. With a mandate to grow so dramatically and so quickly, it required creative strategies for recruiting people from other industries and walks of life.

“When you need to quadruple your size in a short time frame,” D’Astous explained, “you need to take risks.” At that time, the list of management-level candidates with experience working on AAA video games was short. D’Astous widened his field of search for candidates and refined his filtering and interview techniques, and was pleased to have recruited as many qualified and talented people as he did.

I jokingly asked D’Astous how many of those people followed him from Ubisoft to Eidos, and he laughed. He said that the titles being worked on are so appealing that “people were knocking at the door, ready to drop anything they were working on to join the team.”

In addition to the two development teams, D’Astous is responsible for Eidos’ quality assurance team, which was moved to Eidos Montreal last year. The major Eidos titles – Batman, Tomb Raider, Just Cause – are being tested at the Montreal facility to have better control over quality testing. D’Astous admitted that the decision to move the QA department from London, England to Montreal was, in part, influenced by tax incentives provided by the Quebec government. But, he said, saying that the tax incentives were the only reason was oversimplifying. The real estate and operational costs in Montreal are also, he said, lower than anywhere else.

While the projects being developed at Eidos Montreal have only recently been confirmed, D’Astous said that the studio was opened with the intent that the first two games to come from the developers would be Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4. “Our business plan, in a nutshell, was to reach 350 people within three years.” Essentially, adding a development team every year.

Which begs the question as to what the third game is going to be. D’Astous said that he hopes to announce the third title by the end of the year. “Initially it was supposed to be an original IP,” he said, but a second option would be to take on another property in the Eidos portfolio. A third option would be to take on development of a project for Japanese game publisher Square Enix, which just completed an acquisition of Eidos.

D’Astous said that his team at Eidos Montreal hasn’t been working on ideas for an original IP, but if they decide the third project will be original, he’ll hire a core team to generate ideas. Developing games from new intellectual properties is supported by a recent restructuring within Eidos, said D’Astous. A new position of chief content officer was created to oversee the generation of new game concepts throughout the company. The job of the CCO, said D’Astous, is to collect ideas from all the studios and decide which of the ideas will received funding to be developed into prototype. The current CCO has asked all studios be prepared to pitch at least two new ideas every year.

The restructuring at Eidos, D’Astous explained, has also given the individual studios more autonomy. “We’re taking more responsibility,” he said. Before, once studios had completed development on a project, they handed off a master disk and moved on to the next project. Now, marketing and promotion for products is done by the studio that created the game.

How this will change now that Square Enix owns Eidos is not clear, but D’Astous is sure that the development cultures can learn from each other.

As for Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4, D’Astous is equally sure that his development teams are equal to the challenge. “I have a talented senior staff that understand the franchises, want to bring something new to the table . . . while also respecting the old fan base.”

D’Astous has structured his development teams so that they are smaller in size with longer cycles of production, something he said is an advantage. “We have a team that is human-sized, and we’ll give them sufficient time to do their work and to reach the full potential of the game.”

“We only have one chance to properly make the next Deus Ex,” said D’Astous. “And the expectations are high.”

[Cross posted at the Georgia Straight. ]

There’s a great profile of film writer and director Sam Raimi in today’s New York Times.

Raimi, known to cinephiles as the creator of the Evil Dead films, was an unlikely choice to direct the Spider-Man films.

There are some great anecdotes about Raimi’s past, many of them told in the Times profile, but my new favourite is about his first job interview with Amy Pascal, then president of Columbia Tristar, and Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia Pictures, in which he tried to convince them he should direct the film about the web slinging superhero.

Manners, I’ve always believed, go a long way. Here’s proof.

From the Times:

Mr. Tolmach recalled that halfway through their first meeting Mr. Raimi, who is famous for his formal manners and for sometimes wearing a coat and tie on the set, looked at his watch, got up and started to leave. “He said: ‘I was given an hour, but now I’ve used up my time, and I should leave. Thanks very much.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you sit down again?’ ”

Ubisoft’s new Vancouver studio, formerly Action Pants, today announced its first game, Academy of Champions.

Academy of Champions is a Wii exclusive soccer title (football for you purists), intended for children and families, that will be compatible with the Wii Balance Board and the Wii Motion Plus accessories.

Featured in the game as a coach is the legendary Brazilian footballer Pele, who has been assisting with the development of the game.

“Soccer is a sport that is universally celebrated by all citizens of the world,” said Pele in a release from Ubisoft. “Working with Ubisoft to continue to promote the sport has been a wonderful experience. It is a thrill to continue to inspire a new generation of fans through an entertainment medium that introduces them to the exciting world of soccer.”

Also featured in the game is U.S. soccer superstar Mia Hamm. She becomes a team member to players who start the game by enrolling in a sports academy. Players then work to improve their soccer skills and recruit new team members.

Academy of Champions is scheduled for release later in 2009.

[Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight’s tech blog. ]