| have become comfortably numb

The night Roger Waters took over Vancouver

By Angela Espinoza,
Arts Reviewer

ll alone or in two’s, folks

from all over coiled

themselves around what
truly was Rogers Arena on the night
of December 10. As the promptly
stated 8:00pm edged ever nearer, fans
icing over in their anticipation began
banging on the doors and windows.
As if a dam had broke, people flooded
into the arena from all sides; in the
blink of an eye, everyone was in their
seats and yet another set of everyone
was buying merch.

From a speaker came a voice

demanding the crowd identify
which one of them was Spartacus.
The screams and cheers of “I am
Spartacus!” were soothed by a lone
trumpet building up to an explosion
of red fireworks shooting up from the
stage. An overtly cheery Roger ran
out, stealing the trench coat from a
lone mannequin and before you could
say “Yeah”, had a pair of shades
placed upon him. At that moment,
and for the rest of the night, the 67-

year-old Roger sang just as he did
thirty years ago. Marching men rose
from behind, carrying giant flags of
the hammers as searchlights began
swarming around the room. The stage
was surrounded by a flurry of further
fireworks, and then, a plane suddenly
fell and crashed, bursting into flames.
This was all within the first five
minutes.

“The Thin Ice” was played along
to pictures of fallen soldiers and
family members from various wars,
starting with Roger’s father. For the
unaware few, The Wall is partially
based around the theme of war’s
consequences, and the live show has
been styled to play more heavily
upon these themes. The pictures then
began to melt into a sea of blood by
“Another Brick in the Wall, Part I’,
transposed with footage of children
with empty eyes and shattered homes.
Another searchlight appeared before
“The Happiest Days of our Lives”,
and amidst the graffiti covered wall,
a giant Schoolmaster appeared,
starring down the audience as he
pranced about menacingly, followed

eventually by children running
out and screaming at him with the
audience in adorably fake English
accents.

As “Mother” came about, Roger
opened the song by introducing his
‘experiment’ to have his current live
self sing along with footage of “that
poor, miserable, f—ked up young
Roger from all those years ago”. Near
the middle point, a large, frightening
moving statue of Mother appeared in
the back — her burning red eyes and
shaking head taunting the audience
for the remainder of the tune.
“Goodbye Blue Sky” was played with
a video of planes dropping bombs
in the shapes of various corporate
images and religious symbols, to the
audience’s delight. “Empty Spaces”
was paired with beautifully graphic
hyper-sexualized and ultra-violent
animation taken from the 1982 film.

As you can tell, the show went on
like this, one spectacular performance
after another. By the middle of
the show, the wall separating the
audience from Roger had been built,
one brick at a time. This act stresses

 

Burd.

how important the show is as a
whole; we don’t need to physically
see Roger to know he’s with us for
the ride. Three weeks later, and still
I’ve never felt such disbelief towards
seeing anything. The beauty and
complexity of the live show layered
on top of the album is an experience
burned permanently into my skull.
When a DVD version of the show is
eventually released, I beg all of you
to see it.

 

Roger Waters

 

| want to make video games

...and I’m going to

By Simon Staszkiewicz

t started when I was six years old,
fighting with my brother for my

turn to play Super Mario Brothers.

A few years later my dad told us that
he sometimes set the clock ahead

an hour and sent us to bed early so
he could play too. Fast forward to
my final year in high school where
my computer programming courses
were my GPA boosters; it was there,
after creating a fun little tank game
for a final project in programming
class, that I decided that a career in
video game programming would be
awesome.

It only took me four years to
realize it that I should have pursued
that. I’ve talked to a few industry
professionals since then and I’ve
learned a few things that I thought I
should share:

There are three main kinds of
“game makers”. There are designers,
programmers, and artists. Obviously
this is quite a generalization, but

it’s important to realize that finding
your place in the industry starts with
deciding what path you want to take.
Suffice it to say, there are many

different kinds of jobs available in the

video game industry and you should
study up on what you want to do.

Programming is a safe choice because

if you’re finding it very hard to find a

job in the video game industry, you’re
still very employable as a programmer

elsewhere.
Employers are looking for
somebody who’s passionate about

games. That passion will separate you

from the competition. Marching into
an interview for a position as a junior
programmer with EA or Ubisoft
and telling them that your only real
experience with games is your time
spent with Farmville and Sudoku
puzzles is probably not going to
impress anybody. Let it shine through
that you love games and that you’re
proud to be a gamer.

If you’ve never made a game
before, you should do it. Now.

alae a
a)

WORLD TIME
Bats ‘

i PLAYER GAME

#2 PLAYER

TOP -

 

Working with a friend, or going it

alone, you should take the time to start

a side-project. It can be as complicated ~
or as simple as you like. The idea is

to get a sense of whether or not you
enjoy actually making the game. If

you find yourself still just as interested

GAME

A

as when you started after a few days,
you can say with confidence, “I want
to do this for a living.” The next step
is planning out your future in such a
way that you can confidently say “I
am going to do this for a living.”