Sitting in the theatre now for Mizuguchi's address, which is called "Inspiration led Creativity". Going to attempt this "live blogging" lark. Should be a hoot!

10:51 - Getting started. PR lady is saying the "tm" at the end of every product she announces. Charming.

10:54 - Mizuguchi gets going. The address is in english, which is easy on my ears! His talk today is all about "making games fun", and how adding a dash of creativity to games can make them so much better.

10:56 - Miz loves Pong. 30 years ago, when he first saw it, he lost it. He was 11, listening to the Beatles and playing Pong, and he was loving it. Pong, Pong was good, but with the music, it was awesome.

10:59 - "Wow...what is Sega?" he said when he first saw an Afterburner cabinet. This is turning into the Mizuguchi life story, except it's being told in broken english, which is just making it all the better. Very adorable.

11:01 - Texturing was where it was at. We're at the Sega Rally days now, Toyota execs were FREAKING OUT at the quality of graphics, but sad that it was a rubbish game. Needed more work. Cut to a vid of Sega Rally. Man, takes me back. Big inspiration behind Sega Rally was that he wanted to drive in the desert, drive there like a pro racer and do a fuckton of drifting.

11:06 - "DO YOU REMEMBER HANG-ON?". Yeah man. Says racing games were getting boring, though. By DC/PS2 era, graphics and sound were getting better, but "it's my past now". Decided to move on..."I love music", and he says he watches musicals! He loves Stomp. "How can I make a game to feel like that? What's fun? Dancing, fun, passion, dialogue". So from Stomp, came Space Channel 5. Ulala is on a giant screen on stage, and Miz is impersonating the bad guys and the captured humans. So fantastic.

11:15 - Talking about how they got Michael Jackson in Space Channel. Miz originally said "no" to MJ, the game was too close to completion. But Michael said "give me some love!", Miz compromised and offered MJ the role of a captured human, MJ loved it. Now he's impersonating MJ. More fantastic. And now he's doing the trapped dogs. So great.

11:20 - Now onto making games more emotional. "How can we make love?" Oh Miz. "There's a simple way to make love...simple, easy if you know how"...oh Miz...I'm blushing. Talking about Bauhaus now, synthesis of music and vision. Synaesthesia (??) is mentioned. Must be getting near Rez, then. Is talking about raves ("techno-rave parties") he went to in Europe in the mid-90s, about moving colours changing people. Yeah, Rez.

11:26 - Rez is playing on the big screen. Sound is busting out from an auditorium sound system. If you could play Rez like this you could die right then and there and die a happy man.

11:29 - This really is Miz's life story. I'm waiting for somebody to throw a big red book at him. Now we're onto his departure from Sega, his love of the PSP. "Rez was deep...too deep...let's make a puzzle game with music!". Hehe..."yeah, we made a Lumines sequel...[sigh]". Doesn't sound too proud of it. Well, at least you're honest about it. It had "Gwin Stebanee" in it, seems, which makes her sound hotter.

11:34 - Still on Lumines II. So, you got bored of racing games, but not of music puzzle games? Interesting. Hoobastank are playing now, and I'm looking for a rusty knife to gouge my ears out. I'm not seeing how creativity influences games here. I'm seeing 17 licenced clips from Lumines II.

11:43 - The Miz life story crawls on. 99 Nights is showing. Funny, it's not too inspirational. Or creative. Getting away from the original focus of the talk now, I think.

11:50 - His final inspiration: a sponge. It's where the future lies. Not really getting his message, since I don't think his english is up to it, but it's something about finding the core things that everybody wants in a game. "We have the future", then pause. Awkward pause from the crowd as people arent quite sure he's finished> when it becomes clear he has, cue applause, orderly leaving of the theatre and a dangerous-looking seafood and chicken buffet. Luke Plunkett

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