Sam Fisher is a walking, talking action movie cliche in Splinter Cell: Conviction. The super secret agent set free from all of the restrictions placed on him by his controlling agency, using his skills for selfish reasons, driven-by-passion and revenge, et cetera, et cetera. Luckily he's a cliche that we'd really like to play as, or our delicate sensibilities would be offended.

As Cameron puts it, Pandora is really the garden of Eden, and humanity is here looking for apples. Behind all of the special effects wizardry and lush visuals, the story is really a heavy-handed tale about humanity encroaching on the wilderness and how stepping into the shoes of those we encroach upon will change or perception and potentially our actions. Still, very pretty world. I'd pillage that for resources any day.

The latest in a series of developer diary videos starring Ubisoft's Patrice and friends looks into progression, one of the most important aspects of AC2. There's a lot more choice is character progression than there was in the first game, allowing you to tailor your Ezio to your liking. And speaking of tailoring, I love the additional armor sets, and I suspect cosplayers will love them too. There's only so much you can do with the all-white cloak ensemble.

The developers here touch on one of my biggest gaming pet peeves in the video - enemies that don't react to being hit. If I hit someone with an axe, they are going to stagger, get wounded, and possibly die. At least I am assuming this, as I've yet to test that. I can't stand games where you swinging away at the enemy and they don't react until they suddenly fall down dead. I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to feel like I am actually beating someone to death.

Okay, that might have come out wrong.

I love videos like this, personally. As much as I enjoy playing the games themselves, I find the stories behind the formation of the companies that create them fascinating. Having a deeper insight into how and why Cryptic Studios formed and the motivation behind the creation of Champions Online might not enhance the gameplay, but it can make you look at their creation in a slightly different light.

While this clip does go into some of the technical side of creating a game for 256 simultaneous players at once, the main thing it does is talk about how awesome it is going to be, and how big of a leap the 256 player mark really is. I think we've established that already though, haven't we? Until I am actually in the middle of a firefight with 255 other people around me, the game still remains a pretty yet slightly above average shooter.

The game seriously makes my head ache. I made a study of Dante's Divine Comedy in High School, probing deep into the themes, his representation of hell and how his work has been integrated into the more popular perception of hell. To see it turned into an action title just makes me dizzy. What's worse, the game actually looks like something I would really want to play. Crecente went into great detail about the game and our expectations last week, and this clip just punctuates his thoughts.

Perhaps it's simply the fact that I feel the work should be treated with a certain amount of reverence and weight, and seeing impishly cute assistant producer Tracy Espeleta talk about how brutal the game is just makes the whole thing seem adorable.

I remember being terrified of the Bermuda Triangle as a child, with documentaries on the subject with spooky music and deadly-serious voiceovers by the likes of Leonard Nimoy and Robert Hatch. The same sort of documentaries that made me terrified of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Amelia Earhart, who I am sure was a lovely woman undeserving of such a terrified reaction. This was all before video games, of course, which completely desensitized me to violence, leaving me prepared to fight the alien hordes should I ever get sucked into a parallel dimension.

Swedish developer Starbreeze obviously loves the Riddick property, and not just because the first game, Escape from Butcher Bay, put them on the map. They seem to truly get the franchise, perhaps on a deeper level than movies' writer David Twohy does, as evidence by the second movie in the franchise. Witness their love for the Riddick character transform an update to their original Xbox title into the full-fledged sequel we'll be getting our hands on in April.

The video takes us through most if not all of the gameplay mechanics for the new 50 Cent game, covering weapons, vehicle combat, online multiplayer, and close-combat kills. What it doesn't do is justify the existence of a video game in which a drug dealer turned raper and his posse take on the population of a small country in the Middle East. The whole concept is made even sillier by the members of the Swordfish development team, whose English accents only add to the surreal feeling surrounding the title.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 should be hitting store shelves later this month. Maybe then I'll finally be able to believe it's a real game and not some elaborate prank.

From this installment of the Deadly Creatures development diaries, we learn that while the scorpion is a powerful brawler, the tarantula is a stealthy ninja, using jump strikes, stealth pounces, and web-jumping to make its way around the small-scale game world. This bothers me, mainly because it combines my great love of ninja with my great fear of spiders. This shall be the truest test of my ninja love. The kiss of the spider ninja.

Brian does a fine job of detailing Skate 2's new online features despite being obviously uncomfortable in his role of straight man to Cuz, who comes off as so annoying that he's almost enough to make me not want to buy the game. The ability to create your own spaces and share them online with other users is definitely nifty, as is the mini-game that rewards the most hideous falls - the only one I can ever see myself winning. I just wish I hadn't spent the entire video muttering "shut up, shut up, shut up" under my breath while rocking back and forth in my chair like a patient in a psychiatric ward.

The Warden is loosely based on Haldir - the well-coiffured elf who overacts his way to death in the Battle of Helms Deep (movie version). A tank character at heart, the Warden can create long combo chains to deal huge amounts of damage or destroy multiple opponents. At least one of his combo moves seems to be shouting really loudly at his opponent. I like to imagine that he is saying something like "Yo momma's so fat, she tried to fit Grond with batteries."

The Runemaster is based on the character of Galadriel - only without the crucial 'resembling Cate Blanchett' perk which could be devastating if deployed against the right opponent. Rune masters can hurl around intricate looking magic composed of glowing runes or work as a healer - but not both at the same time.

The diary is the product of all the designers and coders who are working on the title & is intended to illustrate the kind of decisions and creative choices that go in to making a game.

Or rather, it will be - at the moment there are only two entries. The first — "What shall we do?" — looks at how the sequel came into being, and how the team decided on the North African campaign as the focus of the game (spoiler: it involved palm trees).

Next is "Blood, Sand... & Map Editor" which looks at how the map designers took real-world locations and turned them into playable environments. Honestly, its more interesting than it sounds.

Theatre Of War 2 Developer Diary [Battlefront.com]

It's about giving the player the opportunity to play the game he wants to play the way he wants to play it.

I'm told that the Lionhead Video Diary Six has been wrapped and submitted to the Xbox Live marketplace folks for processing and eventual upload onto the Xbox 360 service. The Msoft folks tell me it's the best one to date and that it will focus on "Art and The Hero". Wonder what that means?

So consider this post the equivalent of making a funny face after eating some food and saying, "This tastes funny. Try it."

The Goblin Man of Normandy [NFC]

The diary starts off with Senior programmer Alan Wright talking about the magic of Fable 2. There's no spellbook in the game, instead you set spells to a quick list. Wright's favorite spell is the lightning spell, which causes the victim to flash in and out of a skeleton model as he's being electrocuted.

The diary goes on to show some behind the scenes footage of Microsoft's GDC keynote, with a special appearance by Cliff Bleszinski who demands "10 percent more dog" in Fable 2, and gives some time to Molyneux to talk about offline multiplayer in the game.