Penthouse Lady: You are behind Call of Duty 4, right?
Robert Bowling: Uh, yeah. I'm the Community Manager for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warefare and Infinity Ward, which is the developer.
Penthouse Lady: Right on.

Phew. Good thing that wasn't all awkward. It sure could've been. These clips are from GDC and will never get old. Never.

In Bed With The Pets [Das Gamer via videogaming247]

When we sat down with the game to check out the new menu at GDC we asked our Harmonix guide just that. He said that albums were a very important goal for the game and that Harmonix was in the "process of finalizing albums."

It sounded to me like one of the hang-ups might have been figuring out pricing and how to deal with people who have already bought chunks of albums through Harmonix created music packs. But it's definitely on it's way and soon. So take heart.

The store lets you sort all of the games' music by a selection of categories, view original album art for the masters recordings, listen to song previews and check out some extended information about specific songs, like the difficulty rating for each instrument.

We had a chance to check it out in Harmonix suite during the Game Developers Conference earlier this year and were pretty impressed. The menu allowed you to sort by artist, song, genre, album, pack and the difficulty of the song.

Selecting the Music Store from the main menu brings you to a slick interface that allows you to quickly look at new releases, a list of songs available for purchase, song packs and, eventually, entire albums for sale. The front page of the Rock Band Store will also include a sizable box that can show off cover art for the latest album, pack or song and an place where Harmonix can add a message to gamers.

Hopping into the list of songs, gamers can quickly sort by a number of options. When a song is selected on the list, located on the right side of the screen, box art for the music swings down on the left side. It can also show the album name, genre, year it was released and other information.

Hopping into an actual song will bring up an option to preview a snippet of the music as well as a break down of the song's difficulty for each instrument. It will also include a listing of which DLC pack the song is part of.

When Mark and I checked it out at GDC we were very impressed with what we saw, the store will not only help gamers sort through what is increasingly becoming an unmanageable selection of songs, it also looked really damn neat.

We're proud of the mature plots that we build into our games. They're really appropriate for the type of story we're trying to convey. And romance is part of that. It's part of life. It's part of an interaction — a healthy relationship with other people.

Bioware Talks Video Game Romance In The Post-'SeXbox' Era [MTV Multiplayer]

The group covers a variety of topics, including the responsibility of a game journalist, the role of the reporter versus that of a critic, the impact that the emerging casual game market is having on game journalism, and one question from an anonymous contributor about the pay structure of gaming sites. One of the most interesting discussions, though, surrounded the influence giving a score to a game has on not only the game, but whether people will read the article:

"I hate game scores," Crecente said. He cited a film reviewer's quote that if you put a letter or score on a review, no one will actually read it. Keighley agreed that the score-driven culture bothers him because the industry views the score as "objective." "You never hear someone say [that] about a music album," he noted.

On the other hand, I'd think that the game score means a lot to the game industry, since that number (or letter, thanks to 1UP) may be what makes or breaks someone's interest in the game. Those scores are also a factor for advertisers when looking around at what games and publishers to support. Having that score could potentially be what gives other games from a publisher or franchise a future. The rest of the discussion is definitely worth taking a look at.

Best of GDC: The Game Industry Confronts The Press [Gamasutra]

But the entry in the series that Street Fighter IV is largely modeled after, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, was the one that I actually spent the least amount of time with.

Regardless of my familiarity with that entry, jumping into a game of IV was like riding a bike. Sure, the bike was being kicked at by those already more experienced with the newest Street Fighter, and I was saddled with Crimson Viper for my first taste—she's overpowered at this point if I can take take on serious players while reading her move set from the cabinet—but much of the timing felt comfortably familiar.

And while timing, move sets and character rosters may have shifted considerably over the past seventeen years—each properly numbered sequel has its own inherent "feel"—there was much about Street Fighter IV that appealed to the gameplay nostalgic within.

It's hard when seeing Street Fighter IV in person for the first time not be wowed by what proper 3D could do for the series. Seeing Dhalsim, my default, with realistically rubbery extremities helped put aside my 2D purist moaning. Capcom's smart camera work for some of the game's more dramatic moves—say a Final Atomic Buster from Zangief or Houyoku Sen from Chun-Li—add a level of reward for pulling off a successful "ultra move."

The 3D engine adds some lovely effects to many of the characters super moves. Chun-Li's jellyfish-like projectile, for example, looks, well, even more jellyfish-like in three dimensions. Gorgeous lighting effects from Viper's electric attacks cast spooky blue light upon herself and her opponents. Dhalsim's fireballs, however, look wispy and meek.

As I find myself playing more Street Fighter III: Third Strike than anything else in the series these days, it was harder to adjust to the newer, more offense oriented play style. But coming to grips with a lack of parries and adjusting to the new Revenge moves, which add an exciting layer of strategy to IV, I found myself almost dreading going back to III's rules.

One thing I did like about Street Fighter III was its wacky cast of characters, regardless of how clunky characters like Q or flat out bizarre fighters like Twelve turned out to be. But that doesn't mean I'm not a fan of the meat and potatoes offerings on hand for IV. I hope Ono and crew do look beyond the second game in the series for inspiration. Whatever happened to Geki, anyway? And can we get a decent version of Poison to play around with?

I can understand producer Yoshinori Ono's wishes to bring Street Fighter back to the masses after the dwindling appeal of Street Fighter III. As someone who could never compete on a competitive Third Strike level, my best fighting game years well behind me, I appreciate what Capcom is trying to do with IV. It appears to have a welcoming surface, full of big, bright, memorable characters with an impressive depth for hardcore veterans.

My hands-on time with Street Fighter IV, painfully brief as it may have been, certainly made the wait for the console versions that much more distressing. It may not have been exactly what I wanted, as far as a jump from Street Fighter III, but it turns out I may have been wanting the wrong thing. This is a solid fighter, one that I'll be keeping even closer tabs on than before.

"You can roll this around a map and it's like this clean blank canvas for combat," he said. "When it's driving around it works as a mobile forward spawn point and when you spawn into it you get additional equipment."

Jobe said the APC will also be able to deploy a piece of equipment that is "like the mother of all bubble shields" and is a couple of hundred feet wide.

Enemies won't be able to shoot into it but allies will be able to shoot out and when a Warhawk gets too close to it it came become unstable and explode.

While the APC won't have a weapon of its own it does have a turbo boost, Jobe said, which can turn the entire vehicle into a giant missile of sorts.

"I've had kills before where I've launched through a Warhawk in an APC," he said.

The booster pack will come with a new battlefield which has ten layouts and it will also include new layouts for existing maps.

While Jobe was hesitant to peg a specific date, because the pack is still being play tested, he did say that he hopes to get it out by the end of next month of the first half of April.

While Operation Broken Mirror won't come with new gameplay modes, Jobe said they are talking about creating some and if they do come they will likely be released as free patches.

"I'd hope we would add new game modes, game modes are things I don't think gamers should have to pay for," he said.

I also asked Jobe about the possibility of a single-player campaign being released for Warhawk, which was once meant to include single-player play, either as an expansion pack or episodic content.

"We made a conscious strategic decision to go multiplayer only, If we were to go single player we would probably address it in another product," he said. "As a player I don't know if I would want to play single player through episodic content. I'd be hesitant."

Jobe added that Incognito isn't just 100 percent Warhawk nowadays either.

"Right now we are working on some exciting things," he said. "But we can't make any announcements."

My experience with Street Fighter 2 CE was born entirely in my time first hanging out at arcades and then running one in the 90s in Maryland. I loved the game so much that my time spent playing it is what likely lead to me being fired from the job. I slathered more attention on our big-screen SF2 box than I did every other machine in the place, combined. I regularly replaced the cherry switches and springs on a weekly basis.

But I couldn't have told you who the game's producer was, what sort of lore was buried in the creating of such an indelible franchise or how they came about with the idea of the characters in the game.

That being said, read on.

The first thing I noticed when I saw the game, was the 2.5D effect of the graphics. Described on paper, it sounds immensely off-putting, but in action it manages to pull Street Fighter into the modern age without sullying the gameplay at all. This is done by essentially making both the background and characters 3D but forcing the characters to move on a 2D plane. What you're left with is the best of both worlds.

More importantly, the game's look seems to have returned to its origins. Sure the graphics pop, really pop, but they're very reminiscent of II and not as SNKey as I felt Street Fighter III had become. I know, blaspheme.

While the controls haven't entirely returned to the grandeur of Street Fighter II, they have mostly returned. The same can be said of the attacks. Sure you have to still use two buttons to throw (so annoying) and taunt (so unnecessary) and there are revenge, super and ultra moves, but at it's heart this is a game that strips away the unessentials and returns to what made the Street Fighter franchise so addictive: Timing.

This isn't just my opinion. When I spoke with producer Yoshinori Ono he said that there was a concerted effort to refocus the franchise with this title. Street Fighter had become too filled with moves and had lost its way, he essentially said. What the game was always about was timing, much like real martial arts, not flashy moves.

Playing the game, after years spent ignoring the increasingly annoying character-driven Street Fighter III spin-offs, was like returning to a childhood home to find that it was, in fact, larger, not smaller than you had remembered it.

The game's timing, which plays at about the speed of Street Fighter II Turbo, has been tweaked, deliberately, and I believe the hit boxes (which invisible surround the characters) shrunk, but that just gives me an excuse to relearn the game. There also seems to be a slightly longer delay after pulling off a move, or whiffing one.

In fact, I can honestly say that the only thing about this early build of Street Fighter IV that disappoints me, so far, is that it probably won't be showing up in arcades across America and that's because there aren't arcades across America anymore.

Because while I was initially skeptical about the 2.5D art direction, now I'm a total convert. SFIV's graphics dropped my jaw in a way that hasn't happened with a fighter since the original Virtual Fighter. Even when you don't have the pleasure of actually playing, the game is pure eye candy high fructose corn syrup concentrate.

The Hadoken
Ken and Ryu's hadoken attack is, quite honestly, the most gorgeous video game animation I've ever seen. Highly intricate, flame-like energy erupts out of nowhere, darting in front of your eyes momentarily before it is gone, as if nothing special ever happened. And the only thing you can think is, "Wow, Crecente's bitch move is really a delight on this cabinet." (That's before crushing him 4-0 with Abel, btw). These visual effects masterpieces aren't limited to that one move, either, as Crimson Viper's jet boot sends out a glorious circle of flame around her figure that looks like the lovechild of fire and pure bliss.

The Backgrounds
We were only able to preview 3 stages at Capcom's GDC event, but if their quality was any indication, you'll have motivation to squint your way through the hadokens. Here's where we see the 2.5D really pay off in an interesting way. Instead of just stacking 3D buildings on a 2D plane, which would look fine, the backgrounds actually have a roundness to them that enhances the effect. In other words, as you advance forward, your perspective will actually change. As you approach your opponent, alleys will open to reveal inner activity, or buildings will rotate as to offer a glimpse of what's hidden on what could have been an unseen side.

The Characters
The characters were the only visual point over which I heard any criticism, and it's obvious why. While the models themselves, for the most part, look excellent, the game's entire art direction becomes confused when you examine the faces. While it's obvious that designers are hoping to keep the game light by including funny expressions and bug eyes, it's just not quite congealing with the rest of the world.

And while I could continue about the visual style forever (I haven't even touched on the subtle ink splatters or dynamic lighting), I should probably end this little article so you have some steam left for Crecente and McWhertor's impressions to come.

But if nothing else, SFIV is a testament to two things: HD gaming, and the viability of 2D games in a 3D-obsessed marketplace. I expect long lines when these machines are imported to US arcades.

Not only is this the first developer-powered award show to make it to mainstream television, but everyone who attended was entertained by some extremely funny acceptance speeches. Tune in and enjoy.

G4 To Show Game Developers Choice Awards Tonight [Gamasutra]

Jamil Moledina, executive director of the GDC, also issued the obligatory "we're oh so happy about it" quote:

"Every year, the GDC's goal is to deliver tailored learning and networking opportunities for the diverse groups of people who make games... This year's conference not only exceeded our historical attendance record, but also surpassed expectations in terms of content quality and deal-making productivity."

GDC 2008 Breaks Attendance Record with Over 18K [Game Daily]

Ugh, I wasn't really a huge fan of the original and didn't really have a whole lot of interest in checking it out... but after Tarzaning across a level and using my bionic claw to toss barrels at people and people at barrels, I quickly changed my mind.

The first thing you notice when you pick up the XBLA/PSN title (I played on the 360) is how pretty it is. Just because a game is 2D and harkens back to the bitastic days of old, doesn't mean that it has to be ugly. Capcom managed to give the game a high polish and still include echoes of the classic.

The thing I found most frustrating about the original was that moving diagonally with your claw was never very easy for me, it didn't feel fluid and it was easy to get it wrong. Not so with the remake, I was able to cruise up and down levels in record time with just the claw. And they didn't make it too easy, just smoothed out the process and precision of the controls.

The game really makes use of the HD real estate, but still has levels that feel like they belong in the original. You still can't jump down, you have to drop, you still can't jump up, you have to use your claw. But this time, for me at least, it seems to work better.

I know it's blasphemy to even hint at the fact that a remake of an arcade classic could in anyway be improved upon for a console, but from what I saw in the very early build of the game, Bionic Commando Rearmed might very well do that.

Aoyama explained that a "debate raged for several weeks" until the team came up with what they felt to be a better direction, the play history list.

Aoyama explained, ""instead of instituting some play limit...this allowed parents to monitor and discuss how much their children were playing...this is why you can't erase the play history on the console."

It's interesting to see how two companies making similar products tackled a problem (limiting play time to please parents) in such a different manner. Nintendo hoped that the list would provide constant check-up on children, initiating a parent to child dialogue. Microsoft, on the other hand, went with the more straightforward, less child-trusting approach (the even Iwata initially supported).

Which is better? I love the philosophy behind Nintendo's parental controls, but I'm betting that for most American families, Microsoft's are flat-out more effective. Thoughts?

I wondered how they would change the jewel matching style gameplay to make this game different from its predecessor and they certainly didn't disappoint. Besides the obvious visual differences in the interface, the style of puzzling has changed as well. The round pieces have changed to hexagonal ones and extra challenge has been added by the movement of the hexagons once you have matched up your three or more. Instead of dropping straight down, your columns slide diagonally, and depending on which piece you move, the columns will fill in either from the left or the right. Gravity will have a bearing on the various movements of the pieces as well making you have to think in several directions at once.

One of the things I asked about was whether the AI was going to be improved over the seemingly punishingly difficult AI of the original Puzzle Quest. I was told that the developers had heard players issues and it was something they were working on. So hopefully this time around, our enemies from space won't have the same kind of luck that will allow them 5 minutes worth of amazing moves while we just sit and watch our health go down.

Like the original Puzzle Quest, Galactrix has an overarching storyline that ties all the puzzle battling together. In the far future, the entire galaxy is run by four mega corporations. It's not long before one of these corporations starts deadly experiments that go awry and threaten the existence of the universe. The player must puzzle battle these enemies of the universe and save us all.

There wasn't much more information given in the short demo that I saw but I could tell from what I did see that D3 definitely has another addicting hit on their hands. The changes from the original game are enough that new players will find it exciting and seasoned players will take to it immediately without feeling like they are just playing the same game over again. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix will be coming to the DS, PC and XBLA later this year, ready to fly its way into your heart and not let go.

As I'm sure you're all aware Valve threw a little party during last week's big show (We weren't invited. I blame our butchering of their song.) and during the tail end of it they brought up Jonathan Coulton to play a set. At the end of his last song he invited the Rock Band folks up on the stage to play Still Alive on their game, a really neat way to announce that the song was coming to the game.

After they finished the crowd went crazy, a Harmonix developer told me the next day. The crowd was so excited, in fact, that one of them burst from the masses and jumped onto the stage. Walking up to the 360 that was home to the song, he plucked out a memory card, plugged it in and started fiddling. At which point one of their larger of the Harmonix guys walked over and asked him if he needed help with something.

"I'm just grabbing Still Alive, everyone needs to be able to play this," he said, if my source's memory serves.

The developer plucked the controller from the rotund man's hands and deftly deleted the song, which he had already managed to grab, from the card. Better luck next time.

The Harmonix guys thought it was even stranger that he later bragged to Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos about it. Personally, I think it's super weird that he happened to have a Memory Card on him.

This year, we heard a really funny joke involving a possible 2008 game release. So funny it made out sides hurt! That fantasyland release day joke was?

In this 15 minute chat we talk about the death of the PC gaming market, how GDC has evolved and what type of character he plays in WoW... among other things.

powered by ODEO

The real treat however was a little surprise waiting on a DS in the corner, Metal Slug 7! I hot footed it over to the corner of the room and practically wrestled the girl playing it to the ground in my attempt to check out the game. It looked great, played better and had everything you could possibly want from a Metal Slug game. So if you are ready for a new Metal Slug experience, look no further than Metal Slug 7, coming soon to a DS near you.

What with all the new fangled HD TV's coming out every day, it was just a matter of time before someone came up with a 3D TV. Meaning one that can be viewed through polarized lenses giving us that good old time 3D movie. While the impact of this kind of TV on games may seem obvious, it wasn't as obvious as you might think. The focus of this demo was not to show off the 3D aspects but its effect of one of my biggest pet peeves of multi-player gaming, the split screen.

On display was a large Samsung DLP TV showing a racing game utilizing Texas Instrument's Duel View Technology. At first glance the image was a little confusing, looking something like a double exposed film of two different cars running a race track. But, with the addition of some Geordi LaForge-esque wrap around glasses and a little switch box, all be came clear. By utilizing the 3D technology, the screen was able to display each player's car and track full screen by layering the images on top of each other. Once wearing the glasses, the images were separated and each player could watch his own track full screen. By touching a little button, one could switch back and forth between images. Another TV was running a similar example with Halo.

It was a very exciting and interesting use of the technology, especially for gamers who like me, despise the split screen method. The ability to show things in this 3D manner is something that will be built in to all upcoming Samsung DLPs and has been available on some older models since Spring of last year. The Dual Screen technology however, is something that will have to be built into the game by the developers. Is this something we might see put into regular use in the future? I certainly hope so. While it does seem a bit of a novelty at first, I could see this catching on if the price was made right. Now your friend will never know you are waiting right behind that rock to frag his ass to hell.

The DS version will be making use of the microphone to solve puzzles by blowing out torches and also included will be a cooking mini-game featuring the infamous monkey brains scene. Something tells me you won't be seeing THAT in Cooking Mama 3.

With all it's various in-jokes and trademark LEGO humor, I think that LEGO Indiana Jones will be a sure fire hit with fans of the genre and kids alike. I wasn't really on the LEGO Star Wars tip when it came out, but there is no doubt that LEGO Indy will be a permanent part of my game collection when it comes out this summer.

While the above pic may not be of the best quality, we got a few individuals snaps that are much better looking. They're behind the jump, front page visitors, because I'm pretty sure that pic of a pants-less Miyamoto is not safe for work.

Seriously, man. Put some khakis on!

Since Portal is essentially a first person puzzle game, the team initially thought it would simply end on what they thought was appropriate, a puzzle more complex than anything the player had seen before. That solution, they said, was a pain.

Their first proper boss fight attempt, when GLaDOS was just a translucent shimmery cube, was the "Giant Laser" battle. Players had to direct lasers back at GLaDOS to destroy it. It wasn't fun and the lasers were just too difficult to aim.

Boss battle attempt number two, their "Mortal Kombat" stab, was full of intensity. Missing flying, turrets spawning, an out of place firefight than belied Portal's slower paced, cerebral gameplay. It also sucked, according to Wolpaw.

Attempt number three was a chase sequence. But the pacing was horrible and there was no opportunity to communicate to the player.

Around this time, Wolpaw said the Half-Life 2 Episode Two guys excitedly said to the Portal team "Our final battle is gonna have 100 Striders, you're going to get to drive a car and fight dozens of mini-Striders. It's gonna be awesome! What are you guys gonna do?"

With a tiny team on Portal, they simply couldn't match a boss battle that epic, and they ultimately created the time limited incinerator set piece as the final fight.

The Portal team's limited resources also forced them to "trim the narrative fat" elsewhere. Swift talked about a proposed scene involving "The Rat Man" the fellow escaped test subject whose writing and sketches appear in the game's later levels.

As far as Portal's other co-star, the Weighted Companion Cube, its origins lie in addressing player frustration with finishing the "box marathon" level that features the lovable crate. Wolpaw said that he was inspired to give the Cube a little personality by what he'd been reading in de-classified government interrogation manuals. "They're great," he said, pointing to findings that people in isolation become emotionally attached to inanimate objects.

Wolpaw had advice for those trying to write a "funny" game—"God help you." He related his previous experience with Psychonauts, on which he was one of the game's writers. Upon name dropping the cult favorite, Wolpaw was met with a huge round of applause. "More people just clapped than bought the game," he joked.

"Hearing macho tough guy dialogue is annoying enough, but hearing the same joke fifty times, a couple of which may actually be funny can be much worse," Wolpaw said. He called the playtesting of Psychonauts "psychological torture", his comedic script met with silence when being pumped out of 40 monitors in the QA section at Double Fine Productions.

When the two had wrapped up their session, taking questions from the audience, the discussion quickly moved to plans for Portal 2. Swift and Wolpaw mostly dodged the question, with the latter saying "I'm just trying to bask in the moment... without people bugging me about it."

It was as always, a treat to watch. It was also, as always, something that leaves you perhaps with less of an idea of what he's on about than before he started talking.

Check out the clip which shows the talk in all of it's more than 30-minutes glory and stay, at least, until you get to his now infamous Russian Space Minute.

While the bass is a little bit on the easy side, the lead guitar, drums, and of course, singing are all the perfect level of challenging to make it fun. I'm already a HUGE fan of the song so playing it on Rock Band was a real treat. I can't imagine a single person with the game not wanting to pick this up when it hits the consoles.

I was a little bummed to discover that while the original singing is there and can be cranked up enough to cover your truly awful singing voice, there is no modulation for your voice while you are singing. So you can harmonize with a computer, but you can't sound like one... and we all know how awful that is.

While the internal, companywide development platform was originally understood to be built for PlayStation 3 development (specifically, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy versus XIII), it is being designed with multiple platforms, including the Xbox 360 and PC, in mind. Murata also confirmed that a version is being readied for the Wii, which is still very early, but we don't expect it to kick out visuals on par with the PS3.

APB does have persistence and progression, if done a bit non-traditionally. But customization is one feature that APB has in spades.

Jones kicked off the early look at APB with a preview of character customization. One of the design goals for APB was to "let the player make their own action figure", putting character generation in the hands of the user and giving them the ability to make their avatars look totally unique. While deep character customization has become a staple of the MMO, APB's version may feature the broadest set of tools yet.

Jones walked us through a sped up version of the creation process, outfitting his avatar with unique identifiers—facials scars, veins, freckles, tattoos, realistic looking hair, a massive wardrobe. Using a system that might look familiar to serious Forza Motorsport 2 players, APB looks to one-up what Turn 10 Studios has done, with a decal system that has some stunning customization chops. Not only can users manipulate primitive vector shapes, they can apply shaders, textures and pre-made hi-res images to their designs, making for extremely realistic decals. These decals can be applied to anything the player wears, even to his skin, with a realistic tattoo look applied to the player generated content.

Clothing is also fully customizable, with attention paid to fit, layering and even things like tucking or untucking one's shirt.

That unique identity extends not just to your own character, but to your clan and your car as well. Car customization works just like avatar customization, so the decals a player has emblazoned on his jacket can also be applied to your ride.

Jones showed footage from the game, featuring characters fresh to the world—one thug was on an early mission, stealing a TV set in the default noob outfit of white t-shirt and jeans—and characters who were longtime APB vets. The MMO features "dynamic matchmaking" as Jones called it, essentially setting up player versus player missions on the fly. A three-player group of Gangsters were tasked with scoring some loot, then driving it to a safe point to complete their mission, a standard Grand Theft Auto-style mission set up. The moment the Gangsters crossed the line and broke the law, an APB was sent out to the game's Enforcers, the cops to their robbers.

What followed was essentially the MMO version of a Counter-Strike round, with players either driving their respective vehicles or engaging in a third-person firefight. The pair of Enforcers, two player pairs, responding to the all points bulletin eventually tracked down the bad guys, blocking them into an alleyway.

Jones said that these dynamic matchmaking battles in APB wouldn't necessarily pit players of the same level against each other. He showed a clip of a group of new players, with just a single pistol between the four of them, being matched with a very high level Enforcer. He quickly took them down, but not before destroying their low level car with a rocket launcher. Who doesn't like rocket launchers?

What we saw of APB was really exciting stuff. The team looks like they may have something special that appeals to gamers who would traditionally scoff and MMOs, but something that isn't just Crackdown Online or EverQuest In The Bad Part Of Town.

The final feature that Jones showed, was APB's ability to generate great machinima. With a group of wildly customized characters that looked like Cloud and Barret from Final Fantasy VII taking on a Cactuar and something impish, but not immediately recognizable to this FF noob. A turn based battle ensued, which quickly ended when "Cloud" summoned a decked out flaming car, done, of course, to hilarious effect.

We have dozens of screens of the game in motion at GDC, including the mock Final Fantasy VII cinema, in the gallery below. Be sure to check them out.

A number of specialty arcades and stores, we were told, have already ordered the arcade machine from importers directly. Unfortunately, Capcom is still trying to find a distributor with the reach to get it into arcade. The big hang-up, it seems, is that nowadays most U.S. arcade distributors deal almost only with redemption ticket games.

Microsoft just responded to our request for comment with this statement:

Xbox LIVE Arcade has long been known as the premier destination for digitally distributed original and classic games - making it a very appealing platform for game developers. We don't disclose details on our business contracts, but what we can tell you is that we work closely with all of our partners to provide the Xbox 360 community with the best entertainment possible while making publishing a title on XBLA an attractive prospect.

While not really a confirmation nor a denial, it does sound as if they are reacting to what our multiple indie developer sources told us was fact. We will be meeting with some of the XBLA indie development folks with Microsoft later today and will make sure to follow up with them about this issue.

Stay tuned.

Microsoft Cuts Indie Royalties in Half [Kotaku]

It's on! Masahiro Sakurai takes the stage.

After rolling the operatic trailer for Brawl, and a round of applause, Sakurai belts out his own version of the tune. He's got quite a voice!

Sakurai moves to the make up of the development staff, which required a new office set up in Tokyo. Folks from Game Arts, Nintendo and HAL Laboratories were brought on staff, including a few other unnamed temps. The staff level was about 100, but not all were full time.

He moves on to the Brawl character roster and how fighters were chosen.

Characters were chosen based on their individuality, saying they must stand out in the game. They had to consider developments costs and the time needed to include someone in the roster.

The decision to include Sonic the Hedgehog as a playable character wasn't made until 2007. Sounds like a pretty tight schedule!

Sakurai talks about four of the game's newcomers, Ike, Meta Knight, Zero Suit Samus and Snake. He points out that the suit-free Samus falls in the "supple martial arts" category. Mmmm... supple.

He says, fundamentally we had to use Nintendo's official character models. Putting all these characters in a game, side by side, requires a unified look. You can't for instance, put in someone like Bugs Bunny alongside photorealistic styles like what was applied for Link.

"We tried to reduce the sensation of things not fitting together by unifying the materials," Sakurai says.

But you couldn't modify the look of the Pokemon Trainer and Lucas too much toward some middle ground, or they'd look inappropriate.

Sakurai shows the "official" Mario design, a clean, soft, cartoony look. The Brawl version, he says, has scuffs and wear, details that were important to defining the look of the roster.

They weren't just trying to take advantage of the Wii's visual upgrade, the team simply wanted to add an appropriate level of detail. He shows the same process with Pikmin's Captain Olimar, the original version of which doesn't feature the same details like stitching that Brawl does.

One character that underwent "serious" changes was Pit. "This (a 2D cartoon version of Pit) became this (Brawl's totally new 3D model)" The team did twenty years of updating on Pit's look all at once.

Link's progression was much more natural, occurring over many games. A similar design evolution was applied to Pit.

Pit's makeover features golden head and arm bands, with a bit of anime and earnestness applied. They decided to make his scarf a different material than his toga for added character.

"I'm proud of the representation we gave Pit as a winged being."

When Pit's arrow of light is fired, it's controllable. "We made it so that his bow can be made into two parts, and use them as a sword. It's sort of like Darth Maul in Star Wars." His tights were added to give him a "youthful" image, but other costume pieces were targeting "nobility." Clearly, someone put some thought into this.

Sakurai says they gave Pit furry boots for a bit of a leg-warmer look. "We think they look pretty cute."

He moves on from "Graphics" to "Motion." In the beginning, Sakurai says that he based the move sets on what he'd like to see in Brawl. "Just thinking up moves is easy" but balance is required.

Standby, wind-up, strike and follow through are the typical motion components of a particular move. Link's "standard attack" is used as an example. Standby, he says, is the starting point of every standing action. Wind-up is the animation where the character draws back to attack. This gives the player (and his opponent) visual cues that actions are about to happen. It's simple, two-frame animation, but conveys a lot of information. Strike, that's the "meat" of attacking. Follow-through, which occupies the most screen time, and needs to look the least like Standby poses. Now you know how Sakurai breaks down a move.

The animation for Fox's up smash takes less than 3/4 of a second to play out. Realistic moves, Sakurai says, aren't always the best fit, even if you're animating a humanoid character.

How do you convey poses to animators? Sakurai used a Microman poseable action figure. Using these, he snapped photos of many of the poses that would ultimately become final animations. It's clear, even from these photos, whose animations these are, with Pit and Zero Suit Samus standing out.

He compares his Microman photos against the final version of Wario's moves. They look nearly identical. The same is true for Sonic's moves.

Now, Sakurai shows off the final animations that had to change drastically from their Microman originals, mostly to better convey motion.

He moves on to Pit's and Samus' poses. For the latter, he used a female version of Microman, which Sakurai says comes with multiple breast sizes. He unfortunately glosses over this quickly.

"For Snake, I really wanted the character to express weight." For Snake's weapons, Sakurai culled accessories and weapons from official Microman toys. He changed Snake's crawling animation from the Metal Gear Solid original, to give him a more imposing look, with shoulders raised.

Sakurai shows off many of the other characters, ones that don't have the build of a Microman toy, like King Dedede, Olimar, Diddy Kong and Meta Knight. Sakurai busts out one of the Micromen, he says in his "Ken" pose.

"One thing I'd like to point out though, is that there are no Street Fighter characters in Super Smash Bros." Consider us crestfallen!

Sakurai moves on to Parameters, the numbers of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. "Being in the brawl is more than just making the roster" his slide reads, adding that characters need to blend their own original series, Smash Bros and solid gameplay to be good adds.

Character essence, he says, is a key factor. Keeping these rules in mind is some of the most "unglamorous" work of game development.

He then compares the jumps of Mario and Samus, from their appearances in Super Mario Bros. and the original Metroid. Mario's is more realistic on its downward arc, while Samus' jump has more "float" to it. And you can't just explain that by saying that Metroid takes place in space, it has to be carried over to the game.

Similarly, simply believing that Sonic is merely a "really fast character" is an easy mistake to make. Sakurai boots up the Wii, playing Sonic, Pit and Snake on screen. He shows of Sonic's movement, saying that the weight of the character, combined with blazing fast speed, conveys his speed. He calls Sonic's double jump "gimmicky." So humble!

Taking the remote controlling Snake, Sakurai demos the Metal Gear Solid fighter and his move set.

"The more you play Snake, the more cunning your use of his weapons will become and that's how we designed it." He shows Snake applying bombs to Pit and Sonic, using the pan and scan photo feature to get a laugh out of the crowd. Everyone likes to see Pit with a face full of explosives!

Pit is now being shown. "Pit didn't appear in any other game before, but I think we've done a good job putting him in the universe and making him a good fighting game character," Sakurai says.

Sakurai takes a photo of Snake close quarter combat attacking Pit. "Look! It's Snake with wings!" he jokes.

He has Snake whip out his special cardboard box, then has Sonic snatch it away. GDC attendees think that's just hilarious.

Back to the talk. Sakurai tells the crowd that game designers must think before they act. "If you think before you act, you can reduce the workloads of your programmers and artists," the slide reads. Similarly, he warns not to fall back on the excuse "We'll never no before we try."

Sakurai skips to "Getting The Word Out." By this, he means, the Smash Bros. Dojo.

We developed homepages for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube Smash Bros. games before, but only in Japan.

He says that the Dojo is "possibly the grandest scale ever among official single game sites." It started in May of 2007 and has seen 230 updates. At its peak, it had 1 million hits in a single day, 5 million in one week. Sakurai writes the site himself, with visuals taken by other Brawl staffers. Nintendo decides when the updates go out.

To get the word out, production staff has to take part in selling the game. He says that the game wouldn't have the buzz it does if it weren't for the Smash Bros. Dojo.

Sakuari wraps it up with that sage advice, thanking his interpreter and exiting the stage. Unfortunately, there is no QA session, but if anyone has any questions about what was shown, please make requests in the comments. I'll do my best to better explain when not trying to frantically liveblog.

Thanks for checking in!

He added that it was a Nintendo initiative to avoid misleading consumers into thinking they can buy games that can be played entirely free when they cannot (whether or not this implies an initiative to begin charging for multiplayer content was unclear). To aid in a clear cost presentation, the blue WFC logo will be joined with a similar red logo featuring the line "Pay & Play."

While we were offered no additional details, we understand that the red stands for danger.

The graphics while nice, seem pretty generic in that space opera kind of way we are getting so used to with titles like Mass Effect. Nothing really stood out about them and they really could have been part of any modern space game. Frankly the parts of the gameplay that we did see just seemed to involve raising or lowering grounds to suit your needs and came off seeming a bit like a Mass Effect game with a Populous battle system. There will be a multiplayer mode but if the game continues as is, I doubt that will do much to sell the title. The consensus of the gathered media seemed to be one of general ambivalence so I hope that something can be done to make Fracture a bit more intriguing the next time we see it. I also can't help but think if we had seen this before watching the awesome Force Unleashed presentation instead of after it might not have come off seeming so inferior.

Huge laughs from the audience. Damn there are a lot of dorks in the audience...present company included. Through the hour-long interview, Meier divulged all sorts of not-so-secret secrets, admitting his geek fetish of still programming his own titles. Here were some of our favorite things he said, organized for your easy digestion...

On Casual Games
"The word 'casual' is kind of a tough game to pin down...I'm not that interested in doing simple games, but, if you look at the budgets, games we made 10 or 15 years ago are 'casual' by that measure."

On Civilization 1 Addiction
"We hadn't made a game up to that point that had that addictive quality...kind of scary when we first realized...here was a portent of the future, how games could really become something people really wanted to spend a lot of time playing."

On Railroad Tycoon And Games Of Yore
"A lot of what we did was trigger your imagination...we just did a little bit, but the player added a lot of the experience...imaginations are still around today."

On Why He Programs
"I'm more willing to waste my time that somebody else's time."

On How You Design Civ
"The temptation with Civilization is to throw everything into it...computers can handle that, but humans can't."

On What He Plays (Tact Edition)
"I guess it's like, you do something all day, you want a change of pace. I haven't really played any other strategies."

On Vocation
"My hobbies are [in] music, but there's no money in music."

On The Era
"It's kind of a golden age, I think, for gaming."

On Civilization Revolution
"It's really kind of a designer's dream to repair a path...go back in time with a lot more knowledge and a lot more experience."

On Making An All-Encompassing, Career Highlight Game Like Spore
"No."

Besides the few clips I'd seen floating around, this was the first extensive experience I'd had with the game. Now it certainly wasn't a "hands on" by any means, but we got to see a fair amount in the half hour presentation. In Force Unleashed you play Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice who has been sent by Vader to involve yourself in nefarious deeds. The game actually takes place between the two trilogies, nestled in between Episodes 3 and 4. There is a heavy theme of redemption and we are clued in that where we start in this game as characters may not be where we end up at the end. And of course, The Force Unleashed has plenty of one thing: The Force!

When creating the title one of the things the developers wanted was the ability to use the Force at all times. "When I hit a button, it better do something with the Force" was their motto and believe me there is plenty to be had. Wannabe Jedis can use Force Pushes to move objects and enemies, they can grab enemies and throw them around like rag dolls. In one of the levels, a TIE fighter construction facility, our character was picking up entire ships and hurling them at enemies, scattering them like bowling pins (there will be an Achievement for destroying TIE Fighters!). Lightning can be harnessed and used to shock enemies as well as turning them into powerful "Lightning Grenades." Just charge that enemy up with lightning and then throw their electrified corpse in the battle and watch the fun. The Force can also be used to solve puzzles and open doors whether that's actually manipulating the locks or just using brute force and knocking the thing down. The Force can also be combined with traditional light saber attacks to create deadly combos. The PS3 and 360 versions of the game will have 24 unlockable combos each. The destructible environments are filled with endless amounts of ammo guaranteeing you'll never be far away from something to manipulate and throw. A special "pay off" camera can also be employed so you can watch what happens to enemies as they skitter off and slam into walls.

But not all enemies can be just tossed about. Many of them have their own Force powers that can be quite something to reckon with. In one battle we watched as enemy Jedis turned the junk and garbage lying around to create powerful Junk Titans to protect them. At the end of each level you will be faced with the inevitable Boss battle, usually a top Jedi with their own over-the-top special Jedi powers that you will have to overcome. Many battles end with finishing moves along the lines of the button pushing endings of God of War battles. However missing a button here does not give you as stiff a penalty and players who get it right the first time will be rewarded with extra points that can be spent on weapon and Force power ups later.

The environments were rich and varied. Besides the TIE Fighter facility we were also able to check out a Clone Wars battle ground as well as the planet of Felucia which is overgrown with giant fungi. The environments, while not endless, certainly have plenty to explore and will be filled with all sorts of secret areas and surprises for those who want to take the time to do a little searching rather than plowing straight through the main game.

We looked a little at the Wii version of the game and as expected the graphics weren't nearly as rich. There will be extra locations and characters in the Wii and PS2 versions, but the overall storyline will remain unchanged across all the platforms. One thing the Wii version will have to itself though, is Duel Mode. Put together like a traditional fighting game, Wii owners will be able to choose from twenty different characters from the Star Wars Universe to battle against their friends. Two players can battle it out to the death while flailing their Wii-remotes about like light sabers. It should be noted however that the Wii controls are not one to one gestures, but have been adjusted to suit the gameplay.

Once the presentation was over the talk reverted to a Q&A which revealed a few interesting tidbits such as the fact that Darth Vader's voice in the game is provided by the guy behind the Chad Vader series of YouTube videos. One fellow asked if limbs would be able to be hacked of like in one of the earlier SW games and we were told that no, beheadings and limb removal would be a thing of the past. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be released as a "T" rated title across all platforms guaranteeing that pretty much everyone will be able to enjoy unleashing their mega Jedi powers on the world.

News of Microsoft's democratization of indie game development was overshadowed this week by an increasing discontent among established indie developers that the company was halving the royalties paid to them for future Xbox Live Arcade projects, several well-informed sources told Kotaku.

Several developers directly affected by the cut told Kotaku that the once generous royalty share of 70 percent given to them by the company was within the past few months cut down to 35 percent.

The move, some believe, may be tied to Microsoft's future reliance on the recently announced initiative to deliver games created using the company's XNA software package to Xbox Live users for a still undisclosed price.

At least one developer I spoke with said they were considering moving over to Sony and its Playstation Network in light of the cuts.

Microsoft has been contacted for comment, but has not yet replied. We'll make sure to update as soon as we hear word.

Update: Microsoft has responded, and you can see what they have to say here.

The gameplay started in a Tie Fighter hanger, our male protagonist looking down at the cleanly-textured room. Everything is understated, save for the size. It's so massive that I found myself mentally categorizing other games that had indoor environments with ceilings that reach 150+ feet in the air.

And it reminds you that force powers are truly the intended focus of the game. Because while our male protagonist was indeed holding a lightsaber, he opted not to use it all that often. Sure, part of the gameplay decision was for our benefit, but when levels employ so much vertical space, sometimes propogated with Tie Fighters floating by (ready to be plucked out of the air), the saber feels so tedious.

We watched as the jedi made short work of the Storm Troopers (effortlessly lifting them and ran into the spaceship's hallways (also some of the largest we've seen). The blast doors were satisfyingly bent open ala The Force and then new troopers got the taste of some lightsaber.

Then something really bothered us. We noticed that when the troopers died, green orbs popped out like we've seen in God of War. While we're sure these orbs are intended to fill the force meter, their fantasy-based nature really sucked us away from the hyperrealism of gorgeous floating Storm Troopers, grabbing on to any near object in attempt to save life and limb.

Even on the large projected screen, the game looked very nice. We can only imagine it scaled down to a more manageable, non-jumbotron size. Unfortunately, there was one pretty cool image that you'll never see.

In an early concept video, designers rendered a mock battle between a jedi and a rancor (large humanoid monster). After battling for about a minute, the monster swallows the jedi.

Needless to say, this didn't end well. The monster was struck with a lightsaber ulcer so bad that its body exploded. And despite a packed hall of hoots and hollers in response, the content was too spicy for the ESRB to designate a "T for Teen" rating.

And it makes us wonder how long it will be until we're choosing between uncensored version of games and their "radio" edits.