Posted 2/20/08 by Editer

One of the superstars of game design, Sid Meier is bringing his first game to the Xbox 360 later this year with Civilization: Revolution. In a fascinating GDC roundtable, Sid was interviewed by Noah Falstein (a superstar in his own right—co-designer of Sinistar and one of the first employees at LucasArts Games). I'll have an extended report on the session next week on Xbox.com—I could fill the whole blog page with Meier’s stories about the history of his games and his thoughts on game design, but then TriXie would beat me over the head with a Double Double with Cheese at tonight’s Eat & Greet session.

Meier said that Civilization: Revolution is a unique opportunity for him because it lets him approach the Civilization idea from scratch. “What are the things I would have done differently with Civilization? Starting with a blank slate, this is an opportunity to go back in time with a lot more experience and tackle the idea. It’s been great to see a lot of the ideas I wanted to put in the original Civilization come to life.” A lot of thought has been put into emphasizing the entertaining parts of the game: “We’re seeing how much of this is fun, how much is work.” The game will emphasize the fun and not the micromanagement. ”There are so many cool things about a Civilization game that we wanted to give them all an opportunity to be important without boring you.”

In Civilization: Revolution, he says, “Everyone hangs on your word: You are the king.” You can pick your own strategy, and there are many different ways of winning the game that are all interesting and viable. Do you want to go for a technology victory? Domination? Economic victory? There’s a rush to the finish that’s unique to a Civ game. It has a faster pace that’s “very compelling and very fun to play.” The game features new unique units and a variety interesting terrain types. And the goal is to make every decision interesting. “You really want to go back and see what would have happened if you’d gone a different direction.”

We can’t wait, Sid.

Posted 2/20/08 by Major Nelson

The community is buzzing about the seven Xbox LIVE Community Arcade games that are available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. I want to make sure everyone understands this is a special and limited-time opportunity.

·         This is a free preview for all Xbox LIVE members. So call Grandma and tell her to download The Dishwasher!

·         The games will be available to download from right now until midnight Pacific Time on February 24. Yes, that’s this Sunday.

·         The games will expire at midnight Pacific Time on March 9. That doesn’t mean that they will go from free to available for purchase. It mean they disappear. So play ‘em while you can!

Posted 2/20/08 by SoozyQ

As the Inside Xbox Editor, it’s my mission to make sure GDC goodness ends up on your Xbox 360. Here’s what you can watch on Inside Xbox right now:

·         CliffyB and Gears of War 2:. Yes, it’s the chainsaw moment. Destined to be a classic.

·         Xbox LIVE Community Arcade:. Major Nelson shows you how to download the 7 community-created games from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

·         Community Confidential:. TriXie is joined by CPaladino and DirtyDiva to talk about GDC and tonight’s Community Meet N Eat in San Francisco.

Go check it out.

Posted 2/20/08 by TriXie

If you live in the Bay Area, we hope you will join us tonight for the Community Meet 'n' Eat at the In-N-Out Burger at Fisherman’s Wharf. We’ll be there from 7-9 pm PT, so come by, have a burger and say hi. PiX3LMonkey will be shooting video, DirtyDiva will be taking pictures, and CPaladino, Don Gorgon, e, and myself will be chowing down on burgers. If you ask reeeaaaal nice Major Nelson might even autograph your napkin, so bring a Sharpie ;)

Hope to see you there!

Posted 2/20/08 by PiX3LMonkey

This is my first GDC and there is so much to see. I’ve been taking tons of pictures and you can check some of my favorites in the GDC Photo Gallery. My personal fave is the one of CliffyB relieving our own Major Nelson of a vital appendage. Check it out!

Posted 2/20/08 by Video Monkey

I’m under the gun (if Major Nelson had one, it would be pointed at my head) editing video from the keynote. The pressure is on to deliver fast. Someone needs to bring me a drink.

Posted 2/20/08 by Major Nelson

The Microsoft 2008 keynote is over, but you can listen to the entire thing… from John Schappert’s Madden geek cred to CliffyB’s chainsaw. Click here to download the keynote. Now I’m off to shoot some video with PiX3LMonkey… stay tuned.

Posted 2/20/08 by Editer

10:31: LIVE Corporate VP John Schappert just hit the stage with “As the new guy here at Microsoft, there’s the expectation that I’ll come out here with a gaming tattoo or a give away a truckload of HDTVs.” Alas, neither happened, but the audience is digging his retrospective on his years in the industry working on products like Desert Strike and Madden ’94.

10:35: Much applause to: “As of 2007, Gaming is now bigger than the music industry, on a global basis.” At least seven Xbox 360 titles sold over one million copies last year: Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, BioShock, Madden 08, Assassin’s Creed, and Mass Effect.

10:39: The Xbox 360 community has now unlocked over one billion achievements.

10:41: The Halo 3 community is uploading over 100,000 pieces of content on a daily basis. That’s 30% higher than the daily uploads to YouTube.

10:46: XNA’s Chris Satchell hits the stage. XNA Game Studio democratized game development. About 800,000 downloads of the XNA development software – 20 to 30 times the number of developers in the game industry. Hilarious profile of James Silva, developer of “The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai,” one of the finalists in the Dream/Build/Play competition. Silva takes the stage to show off the game.

10:56: Satchell announces that community games can now be distributed through Xbox LIVE. Democratizing game distribution: Create, submit, review, and play. When you submit a game, your peers in the XNA Creator’s Club will review the game, and if it passes muster, over 10 million people will be able to play your game. Show some initial games featuring jelly cars, chainsaws and zombies, rocket balls, and, of course, samurais vs. dishwashers. These games are available now on Xbox LIVE as free trials.

11:02: Shows the shooter game Zauri built using XNA Game Studio on Windows, Xbox 360, and… the Zune! The Zune’s touch controller looks to be a natural for gaming. You can play Zune tunes in the background while you play, and the Zune’s wi-fi support will even allow multiplayer gaming.

11:06: Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps hits the stage to show the next-generation Unreal Engine. The current engine was used to create Lost Odyssey, Gears of War, BioShock, and Mass Effect, along with other games. Tim Sweeney, CEO, comes out to give us a glimpse of the latest Unreal Engine technology. Now features Ambient Occlusion (that means better dynamic shadows), better character detail, high-density crowds (the Locust Horde shown with over 100 creatures running around), dynamic fluid (crazy-realistic water physics), new Matinee cinematic support; better organic object physics (a moving cube of meat attacking Marcus!); and improved destructible environments.

11:13: Schappert returns: By the end of the year, we expect to have over 1,000 games for the Xbox 360, not including the community games. GTA4 shipping April 2008, with the downloadable episodes available starting this Fall.

11:16: Tomonobu Itagaki takes the stage with Ninja Gaiden 2, showing the Temple of Sacrifice level for the first time.  Very fast action. Very amazing underground environments. Very very bloody—a holiday mix of red and green blood when fighting hordes of evil subterranean creatures. The game will record the action, and the best players will be able to upload their games to Xbox live, so other players can download those replays and see how the NG2 masters do it. (Applause!) Ship date announced: June 3, 2008 in North America.

11:27: Here comes Peter Molyneux to show Fable 2. He’s showing two new features. The first is money: You can get money in the game by gambling in pub games. He shows one of the gambling games, but it’s actually an Xbox LIVE Arcade game! You’ll be able to play this game a few weeks before Fable 2 ships, and the money you win will be transferrable to your character in Fable 2. (He mentions female characters can get pregnant, but there is no labor minigame.) The other new feature: dynamic co-op play. At any time, a friend can join in the world. While your friend plays co-op with you, any experience and gold they gain in your game will transfer back to their game.

11:37: Schappert’s back again, wrapping up talking about “Games by the people, for the people.” WTF? Mid-sentence,  it’s gone dark. Schappert leaves the stage. Blood flows across the screen… Hey, that’s Marcus Fenix.  He’s chainsawing a Locust. GEARS OF WAR 2! Holy crap, here’s cliffy B with a chainsaw gun. Gear of War 2 will be available in November, 2008.

11:41: Fini! Wow!

Posted 2/20/08 by TriXie

Tuesday night was big fun at the Too Human press thingie. The game looked beautiful but I was bummed to learn you can’t play as a chick. That doesn’t seem exactly fair. How long could it take to render a female? Anyway, being the Community girl, I was more interested in people than pixels and here’s who I saw: Geoff Keighley from Game Head, Adam Sessler from X-Play on G4, Ron Workman from Destructoid, Gamerscorebloggers Chris, Sara, and Nelson, Xbox.com alum Chris Lee who now works on Too Human, and Michael McWhertor and Brian Crecente from Kotaku. Brian and I commiserated over the San Francisco rain making our hair curly. Here’s a pic of him with his finger up to indicate that he was Number One on my recent Top 10 Cute Boys in Game Journalism list.

He said, “You’re not going to PhotoShop something disgusting on my finger are you?” No, Brian, but that is a brilliant idea for later!

Posted 2/20/08 by Editer

If you’ve followed the saga of Too Human’s development, you know it’s a game with a storied history. Well, after attending an extended preview hosted by Silicon Knights’ Denis Dyack Tuesday night, I’ve never been so happy to see a game take longer than planned, because the game we saw tonight pushed the Xbox 360 to the limit. With spectacularly detailed environments rendered in full 720p resolution, this third-person Cyber-Norse epic had something for just about everyone. Zoom the camera in for close-up combat and the game feels like one of those Japanese multi-enemy slaughterfests. Back the camera up and suddenly there’s a Diablo feel to the combat.

With guns and swords, action and RPG elements, an extended backstory, flashbacks and hops into cyberspace to break up the combat, and great features like an inventory that automatically discards your least powerful item when it fills up, I can see what took so long. So when is Too Human coming? Dyack would only say “soon,” and we believe him-- the gameplay segments that MGS’s Chris Lee guided us through felt very complete and polished.

Posted 2/19/08 by TriXie

First our flight was delayed 30 minutes. Then our plane was broken and had to be replaced—more delays. I made Major Nelson sad by making fun of his baby blue carryon bag. SoozyQ gave me some carrot sticks and my body almost went into vegetable shock. PiX3LMonkey and I got stuck in the way, way back of the plane, but luckily we were far away from the kid that puked right behind Major Nelson. Now we’re ensconced in the hotel (under construction with Byzantine hallways and elevator maneuvers). Next up, a different hotel to film this week’s Community Confidential for Inside Xbox and try to scam our way into the Too Human party!

In the grand tradition of our E3 blog we decided to bring it back for the Game Developer Conference. This GDC promises to be bigger and better than ever, so we're sending a team to San Francisco to bring you all the GDC news.

Meet your GDC crew:

	Major Nelson The Howard Cosell of Xbox: Larry Hryb
	Editer Xbox.com Games Editor
	SoozyQ Inside Xbox Editor
	Video Monkey Video Producer
	PiX3LMonkey Design Director
	TriXie Xbox LIVE Community Manager