Ubisoft - living like a tester 3

It has been some time since I wrote something about the life of a testing staff here in Ubisoft Bucharest Red unit testing team. Truth is January was pretty busy month. Testing of 3 games, some translations and in addition I have been sick one week. Romanian winters are pretty cold.

Stories from Testing can be found under the tag Living like a tester

7:56 - Metrou line 2 at Victoriei finally arrives to the station and I wake up...yesterday was good party, but it somehow not going along with waking up at 6:30. Steping in to the metro and slumbering in standing position. Instinctively switching metro lines at Basarab an passing out again.

8:06 - Hey martin. From subwaysleep I am awakened by Virgil. Colleague of mine from functionality testing team. he is keeping me up all the way from station to Ubi. Thank you man, i owe you one.

8:22 - Surprise, surprise, on my desk is gray-black cube with smooth curves, HDMI cable and white controller with green X in the middle. Yes, you guessed right. Its XBOX-360 waiting to be connected. Andrei is helping me to set up the game and joking about the date of release.

9:09 - Starting GRFS. Intro animation is just breath taking. If future SEALS should work like this, I want to be be IN. Seeing map of target area with position of your mates right next to the scope, steering bullets, invisibility cloak. Thats how Ubisoft designers see the Future Soldier.

9:19 - Still watching the intro movie. Its just AWESOME...but everything has to end. "Hit START to continue" connects me to my online profile Zalmoxis and takes me to the Main menu.

9:30 - Asking Andrei if its OK to continue in writing the blog and mention all the features I encounter in game. He pointed me out to some press releases and trailers so I would know which things to mention and which not.

9:50 - Breaaaaak. Taking covrig  I bought on the way from Unu Mai to Ubi and 2 cups of water.

10:06 - Break over.

10:25 - Mail with specific phrases for games purchasing arrived. I am trying my best to put together words that sound really Czech.

10:36 - Translation completed. Sending the text to the team and getting back to play GRFS. This game has great potential and I like the augmented reality idea. I even think its already used, at least in army or some secret labs in Area 51. You just walk around and get instant information about objects and goals, directly to your goggles. And it astonished me soooo much that I even forgot about the FU controls for a while.

10:50 - Breaaaak.

11:00 - Break over. Finally I can play a little bit. Before I am send to the real action comes the tutorial. Learning how to shoot, how to aim, move and use grenades. Pretty advanced modding features are implemented, so I adjust my weapon a bit. First level, so not much to change.

12:11 - The game crashed for the 3rd time in the modding menu. I resigned and went to Lunch

12:13 - Standing in a line and thinking not about what I will have to fill my belly, but about how it all goes after 2 months. I know basic words in Romanian, so I am able not to be robbed by taxi drivers and order a food. Finally understand the lady from gym...

12:20 - Still in the queue...she was shouting at me past 3 weeks, and apparently it was because I came to the gym out off the service hours:-). finally obtained my curtains from local merchant, so no one can see how awesome czech guys looks even after really tough party...and sadly, I can predict what kind of food will they serve in canteen with probability converging to certainty. Yes, here it is: carnat cu cartof...again. I mean, it is a decent meal, sometimes even warm and always kicking hunger back to the trench...BUT AGAIN!

12:51 - It was a real pleasure to eat the carnat cu cartof with Virginia and Lukasz. HHH, I am just fooling you around. In the end the Pizza won it, and although in the canteen is kind of expensive I went for it. Filled my belly with Italian pleasure and ready to shoot all terrorists, kidnappers and villains all around the world.

14:30 - After 2 restarts and endless loading screens this "up to date" build lets me play the first mission. Haleluja! Haleluja!. I am not saying that playing 3D FPS on gamepad with little joysticks is bad idea. I am saying its the dumbest idea ever invented, its even worse than TV nova and Teleshoping. Teleshoping had at least Horst Fuchs and was funny. This think is nothing than frustrating.

After endless struggle to really get used to the controller and many, many and really many freezouts I finally made it to the 5th mission.

Sometimes even localization testers have a BAD day:-/

To be continued...