Posted 2/22/08 by TriXie

GDC was an exciting ride from the first rev of the chainsaw to the final tequila shot. But things are wrapping up here in San Francisco and we’d better head home before we get arrested.

From all of us on the away team, huge thanks to those holding down the fort back in Redmond: Highbury Gunner, Dammy, KP, w1gg1n, Tecknixx, Xboxwebmonkey, Tecknixx, Jet City Gamble and GhostCatfish5.

-TriX out.

Posted 2/22/08 by TriXie

Thursday night was party night at GDC. First was Microsoft’s Women in Gaming event at Roe Restaurant. There were prizes raffled off, much networking, an open bar and a posse of awesome GamerchiX playing and winning Guitar Hero III challenges. Thanks to kiki kat, kirilith, asian goddess, chrissylas306, PMS Kitty, DirtyDiva, PMS Batgirl, momohine, eStalker, MechAngel and DangerDoll for volunteering to rock both the pink t-shirts and the wireless guitar controllers

After that was the XNA party at 1012, and contrary to my esteemed colleague’s contention I do remember quite a few things about the evening. There were developers galore dancing and drinking and carrying on. Some PMS girls were pole dancing upstairs and I saved American McGee from a crazed fangirl. We stayed until the bitter end when the lights were turned off and we were herded onto buses back to Moscone.

The XNA party is always the highlight of every GDC and this year did not disappoint.

Posted 2/22/08 by Editer

GDC goes on for one last day, but I have to jet back to Seattle at the crack of dawn this morning to wrap up this week’s episode of Insider Moves, our new game tips show on Inside Xbox. (Watch for it on Saturday on an Xbox 360 near you.) After dinner with a secret cabal of industry insiders, I made a quick circuit of the XNA party tonight, judged it to be suitably cool and trendy, and then headed back the hotel. With about a dozen of us from Xbox.com and Gamerscoreblog there, I can rest easy that someone will remember enough about the party to report on it today. (Though I’m guessing that someone won’t be TriXie.)

Posted 2/21/08 by Editer

Feelplus’s Ray Nakazato held a session today giving some insight into the development of Lost Odyssey, which recently shipped exclusively on the Xbox 360. There were about 100 developers and artists working on the game. Microsoft Game Studios, Mistwalker, and FeelPlus worked together on the game. Microsoft provided funding, and did project management, testing, and asset localization. Mistwalker did the story (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Kiyoshi Shigematsu), character design (Takehiko Inoue), and music (Nobue Uematsu, who did the music for Final Fantasy). Feelplus did the actual development.

Development took about 4 years, counting preliminary work at Microsoft before Feelplus was formed in 2005. For much of the early development, Feelplus had no Xbox 360s yet. Interestingly, a playable demo was actually released in Japan in November 2006, a full year-and-a-half before the game shipped.

The game’s visual director came from the movie industry, and used those techniques for the cut-scenes; he never looked at other games to see how they did it. The facial expressions were hand-animated, rather than using algorhythmic animation, and adjusted to match the English voice acting. There are approximately 30 short stories, written by noted novelist Shigematsu, in the game. Set over the course of the 1,000 years, these text stories lend more depth to the characters. Over 300 locations were created with full detail (Nakazato said that, in retrospect, they perhaps didn’t need to be so exacting with locations you’d just pass through quickly), and the game has over 300 cut scenes. Lost Odyssey was localized into nine languages, with about 300,000 words that had to be translated for each language.

Posted 2/21/08 by Video Monkey

There's more to this Video Monkey than just videos. Assisted by PiX3LMonkey, weve taken some amazing panoramas of the conference. There's a bunch more photos up also, so go check them out -- they're all here.

Posted 2/21/08 by SoozyQ

Even more GDC goodness is now up on Inside Xbox so head on over to your Xbox 360, get on LIVE and take a look. Here’s what you can watch on Inside Xbox right now:

·         Tour the Show Floor: Major Nelson in combat gear, this you have to see.

·         Keynote Highlights: Video Monkey worked his magic and edited down the keynote address so you can get to see all the best bits real quick. Not that the rest of it wasn't good, but we know you're all very, very busy.

·         Major's Minute: It's Thursday so it's Major's Minute. This week with a special guest from GDC.

Go check it out.

Posted 2/21/08 by TriXie

Thanks to the following people who made the trip to Fisherman’s Wharf for burgers last night:

NSmolney (XboxExclusive.com) , FriskyKitty, Hobowidashotgun, PeeFighter, Versellious 70, kiki kat (TheBlueSkittle.com), PMS Kitty, DaKing240 (350sync.com), e, ArchAngel 70, Moulain Man, Rampage 99, TEKUNOROBBY, Demifish, Falkinator, Sampsomonium, rookiehorror, s0n 0f nun, eleventeen, twonjosh, KNFROST, SenseiRAM (Xbox360Fanboy.com) Kugelblitz, shadowscion, pyotr dumas, zappjones, dragonz (Game Daily), vaddius, Jamie Gault, desynergy, ultraseamus, NIN 013, Ethan Cole 1, windozer, mechadragon, Andy 0482, Glop, IDAWW, Ba7M0nk3y, Fyregirl, and test tube adult (Editor in Chief of Engadget who complained to TriXie about not making “The List”)

And thanks to Gamerscorebloggers Sara, Chris and Nelson for hosting.

Posted 2/21/08 by Major Nelson

Thinking this should become my new publicity photo:

Posted 2/21/08 by Editer

Last night the day’s sessions were over, and it was party time! (Cue the Viva Piñata theme now.) The evening started at the In-n-Out Burger at Fisherman’s Wharf, where we had a fanatastic “Meet N Eat” with a bunch of cool community members—developers, game design students, and Xbox 360 fans. TriXie got everyone’s GamerTag, so I’m sure she’ll pop in with a full report when she sobers… I mean, wakes… up.  Fun was had by all—it was great to meet everyone, and I have a bunch of new friends to frag me in Call of Duty 4 now. (Hey, it beats being fragged by strangers.)

I had to cut out a bit early so that I could use my canny 007-like skills to work my way into the super-exclusive Valve party. Among the crowd was Gears of War 2’s CliffyB, who was still coming down from the fun of announcing the game at keynote earlier in the week, and lamenting the fact that the Fire Marshall forbade the use of a real chain saw to enter the stage. The highlight of the party was a performance by singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, composer of the catchy and addictive song “Still Alive” from Portal, which you have of course played (if not, hang your head in shame and go buyThe Orange Box right now!). You haven’t partied until you’ve heard hundreds of developers in an upscale club singing “All we want to do is eat your brains!” in perfect harmony.

Coulton performed a number of hilarious songs, including “Skullcrusher Mountain,” “Re: Your Brains,” and “The Future Soon.” But the clincher was when when he and a group of guys from Valve performed Portal’s “Still Alive” while playing Rock Band on the Xbox 360. Huh? How’d that song get in there? I think some downloadable content just got unofficially announced…

Posted 2/21/08 by TriXie

The Xbox 360 Community Meet ‘n’ Eat at the In-N-Out Burger in San Francisco Wednesday night was a blast. Great crowd, great food.

Thanks to all who came along. Post the burger bash, some partying was had. The final score: TriXie 0, Jack Daniels 4. Back to sleep.

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. Check for it later right here on Xbox.com and Inside Xbox.

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 II, 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 NGII 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

So keep your browser pointed here and make sure to check out our coverage on Inside Xbox too!