Joystiq

4:48 PM - Mike Bilder, head of Midway's Chicago Studios talks about an asbsolutely sick video of John Woo's Stranglehold. . A downloadable demo is coming for 360, PS3 and PC in the next month. Final game in August. Hard Boiled and Strangehold will come on a single Blu-ray Disc in the PS3 special edition.


4:50 PM - Another video demo shows a parking a garage absolutely filled with bullet holes and wrecked cars. Some nice bullet time effects. "You'd walk through hell to get them, too, right? ... Welcome to hell." Some nice hard boiled dialog.

4:52 PM - The action is now in an imacculate office building ... or it was before the protagonist started shooting everything! Glass breaks realistically and things explode and shatter real nice.

4:56 PM David Zucker, Midway Prez and CEO is talking about their unified development environment. Yawn. Now he's talking about Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar. Un-yawn.

4:57 PM - Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Zombie Ninja Pro-Am is a golf kart racing sim for the PS2. Wha? Coming in October to PS2.

4:58 PM - The Wheelman "coming soon." More details later this summer. Five exclusive Nintendo titles in 2007. Cruis'n, Game Party for Wii, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, The Bee Game (YES!) and Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the DS

4:59 PM - Ultimate Mortal Kombat DS has wireless play. Otherwise it looks like ... Mortal Kombat.

5:00 PM - Black Site Area 51 trailer. "The closer you get, the more you look with your own eyes, the more you can't help but see." More explosions, this time with aliens. "This war followed me home." Political! Coming September 2007.

5:01 PM - Black Site is Unreal engine powered. One of the goals is polish. They're trying to create "A beautiful thrill ride."


5:04 PM Developer-guided video talks about squad tactics. "We wanted to avoid constantly giving them orders and going through menus." The game contextually figures out what you want to do based on what you point at; just click one single button. Writer from Gears of War is the primary writer.

5:05 PM - Going through all the characters. Seems like stock characters, nut the voice acting and writing isn't bad. Very natural back and forth dialogue in the middle of gameplay.

5:08 PM - A morale system affects not only what the squad says, but how they act. Low morale and they hide more, higher more and they jump out and attack.

5:09 PM - Mark Rein of Epic Games comes on to talk Unreal Tournament 3. Last year it was the first game running on the PS3 demo. This year, it's coming exclusively to PC and PS3 in November.

5:10 PM - PC version mods can come over to the PS3. "We think it will enhance the console gaming experience in a way no one has ever seen before."


5:12 PM And the conference ends abruptly after a quick video demo of UT3. All right ... that was ... efficient!