.::BIO::.
My love for video games began when I got a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas. I was 7 years old and although I had played games on Commodore 64 and Atari 2600, the NES blew me away. From then on I knew I wanted to work on video games.
In high school I made my first game. It was written in Hypercard on an Apple IIe. The game, itself, was similar to Asteroids where the player controlled a stationary spacecraft and pressing the arrow keys would add or subtract values to the x,y coordinates of all the other cards. Aliens would swoop in and attack--but if maneuvered deftly then the pilot (Mr. T) could negotiate his way out of the fray and into safety. Pressing the "T" key on the keyboard unleashed his special move--a gigantic "T" flashes on the screen--blinding the aliens--and they cry out "The chains! I see nothing!" and explode. The title of my game was Mr. T vs the Space Aliens.
My interest in sound recording was also developing at that time. I started taking guitar lessons and in July of 1995 I purchased a Tascam 414 4-track recorder. It didn't take but a few hours before I was recording stuff for my first band The Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gins.
After high school I attended Texas A&M University in College Station. While earning a degree in computer science (and a music minor) I was a student worker at the university's new recording studio (2001-2004)! I spent much time there recording and mixing my next band Lemming Escape Plan along with various other ensembles. I also had the pleasure of providing audio for two pieces featured at the A&M Visualization Lab's Viza Go-Go (2001, 2002).
After completion of my degree, I moved to the "Live Music Capital of the World" to form my next band. I taught classes in computer science, multimedia, and math during the day at a private school and gigged at night for the next two years. Recording and mixing audio had taken priority in my life, but I never lost touch with my inner gamer. Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Mario Tennis and my modded Xbox (with all the ROMs from my childhood) dominated my free time.
In February of 2007 a friend (who had recently moved to the Austin area) informed me that there was an opening for an audio intern at Midway Austin...here was my chance...how could I pass it up?!
Working on game audio for a living is a dream come true. Video games have been a lifelong passion for me and now I get the chance to share that feeling with a younger generation of gamers.
Favorite Games:
Current Gen: Metal Gear Solid 4, Pixel Junk Monsters, Street Fighter IV, Metroid Prime 3, Borderlands, Valkyria Chronicles, FEAR2
Last Gen: Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon Quest 8, Mario Tennis, Starcraft, Counter-Strike
Old School Consoles: Dragon Warrior & Final Fantasy series, Street Fighter II, Ogar Battle, Legend of Zelda, many Mario games, Kung-Fu, Zanac
Totally Old School: Jupiter Lander, Catastrophe, Space Invaders, Frogger
Participation Award (it's the green ribbon): Mr T vs the Space Aliens