Joystiq

Spend a virtual evening with Will Wright

Justin McElroy — 2008-03-11T15:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture

Do you love Will Wright? Like, really love Will Wright? Do you love Will Wright so much that you could listen to him talk for a half hour about things that are only tangentially video game related? It's for the special fan like you that we present "An Evening With Will Wright," a talk held at an off-site bar during last month's Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco.

We were there, so here are some simple instructions if you want the full virtual experience: get yourself some mini hot dogs and french fries (the victuals at the event) and some free booze. You'll probably find yourself irritated at the people talking over Will Wright and wanting nothing more than to have fists so large that you could simultaneously punch all of them in the face. Trust us, that's part of the experience too. Part 2 is right after the break.

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Joystiq interviews DeathSpank's Ron Gilbert

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-03-03T17:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Adventure, RPGs, Interviews, GDC

Described as "the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG gameplay of Diablo," Ron Gilbert's episodic endeavor also formed part of our recent GDC interview with Hothead Games. Though the Orphans of Justice still have quite a bit of growing up to do, we quickly quizzed designer Ron about Deathspank's upcoming lampooning of adventure game heroes, as well as the series' inevitable downward spiral in quality after the, uh, 600,000th episode.

How much can you say about DeathSpank at this point?

Ask and I'll say "no comment" if I can't. [laughs]

You initially said that you had this idea for the game and went from publisher to publisher until you finally got Hothead to say, "Okay, we're gonna make it." How did that come about?

Well, I started working with them on the Penny Arcade stuff for several months or so, and I thought "You know what, I'm gonna run DeathSpank by them." They're doing the Penny Arcade game which is very funny, and the sensibilities of the Penny Arcade game I think match very well with Deathspank. I sent the design off to them and they really liked it, which was really good to me because I think they saw in the humor of the game, you know, what was going to be really interesting about it. That was the thing I was having a lot of trouble with at other publishers. Also, I really wanted to do the game from the very beginning as an episodic game. Larger publishers, EA, Activision, all these people, are just not set up to do episodic games. I was kind of being pushed by a lot of people to turn it into a very large game, which I didn't want to do, and since Hothead is really focused on episodic, I think that just worked out really well.

And from Hothead's perspective, what did you see in this game that made you want to work on it?

Joel DeYoung, producer of Penny Arcade Adventures: Well, it's hilarious. We think it's going to be a funny game and, like Ron said, we are focused on episodic and this is very well aligned with what we're already doing with Penny Arcade. We just think it's going to be a great game.

How does the gameplay compare to that found in Penny Arcade Adventures?

Ron: It's a little bit different in a couple of areas. The RPG that's in Penny Arcade is kind of a turn-based, almost Final Fantasy-like RPG. The RPG in Deathspank is much more like Diablo or Zelda. It's all action-based, and it's about collecting items and growing your character in those ways. The adventure game part of Deathspank is probably a lot more of a hardcore adventure game. People who have played Monkey Island are really going to recognize the intricate puzzle structure that goes into Deathspank.

We've spoken to a lot of adventure game developers here at GDC, and Erik Wolpaw told us that he hates adventure games because the puzzles are so obscure and ridiculous. What do you think about that?

Well, I would say what he really hates is bad adventure games, because I think in good adventure games, the puzzles aren't obscure. In good adventure games, the puzzles really make sense. They dovetail into the story properly, the kind of things where you have to figure it out, but when you do figure it out, you don't feel like the game design just screwed you over. You kinda feel like, "Oh yeah, I should have seen that." That's kind of the right feeling to have when you solve a puzzle. So, if he's hating adventure games, he's hating bad adventure games which, you know, isn't a bad thing.

How much of the quality of an adventure game do you think is entrenched in the puzzle design? Do you need good puzzles to be considered a good adventure game, or could you get away with no real puzzles like in games like Fahrenheit? Those are closer to interactive films, I suppose.

Well, you know, I'm pretty dogmatic about that. I think an adventure game is about the puzzles. I think if you take away the puzzles you don't necessarily have a bad game, but you don't have an adventure game. I think because of my history with that stuff, I have this classic definition of an adventure game and it's about puzzles. It really is.

How far ahead are you planning DeathSpank in terms of number of episodes? Have you figured it out yet?

We're gonna do a million episodes.

A million?

One million.

How many of them will be good?

[laughs] Yeah, we're gonna run out of ideas after 600,000 so...

The shark is jumped at about episode 592,000.

I don't know how many episodes, certainly I think that one of the reasons I wanted to do it episodically is that the character of Deathspank just has so many little stories that need to be told. I didn't want to do a really large game, because I'd really get to tell one story. I'm just going to keep doing those as long as people enjoy them.

When we first saw DeathSpank on Grumpy Gamer, he was part of a satire on gaming. Is the game itself going to take on the industry?

Yeah, I mean the whole character, right from his name, is a parody of adventure game heroes and how ridiculously seriously seem to take them. I definitely want to make a whole lot of fun of all those things in the game.

Any idea when we'll see more or when the game might be done? Will it be done this year?

We haven't announced any release dates yet.

Thank you so much for your time, Ron.

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Joystiq interview: Penny Arcade Adventures

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-03-03T11:00:00+00:00

Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Adventure, RPGs, Interviews, GDC

It's fair to say that quite a lot is expected from Vancouver-based developer, Hothead Games. The group not only has to deliver a series of downloadable and episodic adventure RPGs in regular intervals, but also appease a fanbase so large and rabid that it can click your website to death -- accidentally, if you're lucky. On top of all that, the poor developers are occasionally dragged into a tiny room for the sole purpose of being poked by a plethora of questions regarding their upcoming games.

Penny Arcade Adventures producer, Joel DeYoung, and Hothead creative director, Ron Gilbert, had to endure just such a prodding during GDC, the results of which can be viewed after the break. Appropriately enough, our interview's almost as long as the title of the series: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

Gallery: Penny Arcade Adventures

How far along is Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness?

Joel: It's very close to done, we're beta on Episode One right now, and because it's episodic and we're gonna release episodes every few months, a lot of the work and content on Episode Two is already done. We've already started started work on Episode Three and so the team is split in working on them in parallel.

Do you have a maximum number of episodes already planned out?

Joel: We haven't announced how many episodes we're gonna release, but we do have to plan a fixed number of episodes. Each episode has its own story, bu the story arc runs the entire length of the game series and so it definitely has a beginning, middle and end.

Ron, what have you been doing for the last few years? We've been reading your ramblings on Grumpy Gamer, but what have you done outside of that?

Ron: For most of the last couple of years I've been doing two things: I do a lot of consulting with companies, which is how I hooked up with Hothead, because I'm doing consulting on the Penny Arcade game for the adventure game aspects of it. The other thing I've been doing is just working on the design for my DeathSpank game and pitching that to different publishers which, once again, led me to Hothead since they're gonna be publishing and funding the game.

So it has nothing to do with that Monkey Island money finally running out?

Ron: [laughs] There was no Monkey Island money to run out, so no.

What exactly does your job entail at Hothead? What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Ron: Two basic things. As creative director, I work with the other designers, just brainstorm with them and look over their designs and provide support where I can. And for the Deathspank stuff, I'm the designer for that and also leading that project. We're in pre-production right now, so I'm working very closely with the artists, getting the whole look and feel of the thing figured out.

How was the connection made between Ron and the Penny Arcade game?

Joel: Well, at PAX back in 2006 we announced we were doing the game, and Ron actually sent us an e-mail. We were a bit cagey about what style the game was -- we said it was a "comic adventure" -- and so he said, "If that means it's at all an adventure game or even close to an adventure game, then I'm really interested in working with you guys on it." So, he jumped at the opportunity for sure.

So you guys didn't just say, "Hey, we can put Ron Gilbert's name on our game!"

Joel: Well, it's great having Ron associated with Hothead and having him on as our creative director, but he's really brought a lot to the process of helping our design team. And frankly, Mike and Jerry at Penny Arcade understand how you structure a story for an adventure game.

What's it like working with Mike and Jerry? They're obviously familiar with games; they write about them, they make fun of them, but they're not really known for designing them.

Joel: Well yeah, they're not game designers and they've never made a game before. They're absolutely insane to work with, they're very creative guys. We'll sit around at their office around the whiteboard, brainstorm out the story, the structure, the way the adventure game stuff's gonna work. It's been a real eye-opening experience for them I think, seeing the process of making a game from beginning to end. They do see a lot of games, they talk a lot about games, they know a lot about games but, I think it was eye-opening for them seeing how unfinished games look throughout the process. That being said, they have definitely been involved day-to-day. Jerry has not only written all the dialogue, but every word in the game has had his hand on it. And Mike did a lot of the character design and environment design and they work on a daily basis with our people at Hothead.

Ron: They're both really great people and I think the brainstorm meetings we've had with them have been some of the best brainstorming I've been involved with. They really understand the whole brainstorming process and how you churn ideas through really really well. So, it's been wonderful to work with them.

That's an interesting way to approach game design, isn't it? Getting people who aren't already entrenched into the development scene, acting like a fresh pair of eyes.

Ron: I think there's a little bit of that. I think with Mike and Jerry, they're very very creative. And Jerry is such an incredibly good writer, and that's something that the game industry really needs more of -- really really good writers. So, it was really great to be able to work with him and yeah, he does kind of bring a fresh perspective to things and how they approach things with the comic versus games.

So, why choose episodic for this series of games?

Joel: Well, for several reasons. It's really the best way to tell a story in a lot of ways. Because, you know, we're pretty familiar with TV shows and having self-contained stories, but having a larger story arc. But it's also just getting the game into the hands of the gamers earlier and being able to hear their feedback and respond to that. I'm sure we'll get lots of feedback from the Penny Arcade fans after Episode One comes out, and we will listen to that and incorporate that into future episodes. It's also very difficult these days -- you buy a game for fifty bucks, and it's forty hours of gameplay and it's actually really hard to make it through the whole thing. And episodic, I think, is just reflective of how a lot of hardcore gamers or formally hardcore gamers now have busy lives and aren't able to actually play a game. I've picked up some big AAA games recently and they look really great, they're really polished, it's just almost a daunting feeling that I'm gonna have to work through this and finish it all. And as you know, a lot of games don't get finished. We think episodic lets people have a chance at having a self-contained experience that they can get through.

Ron: Yeah, I think the number one thing for me and why I'm interested in episodic, is I want people to see the end of my game. I think for a lot of games the endings are just not seen by most players.

Or they're just not very good.

Ron: Well, I think they're not very good because ... who puts the time into them? I think a lot of developers know that 15% of the people are actually going to see the ending, so why build an arc towards things? Why spend time and effort, technically and creatively, on the ending when 15% of the people are gonna see it?

Do you know how long it'll take between episode releases? Do you have a fixed schedule?

Joel: Yeah, definitely there's a fixed release schedule. It's tentative right now, but we're talking about one every four months. Because, you know, this is a new model for us, and it is quite tricky with all the project management scheduling, making sure we're officially overlapping the work on all the episodes.

I imagine deadlines are a huge issue when it comes to episodic games.

Joel: Absolutely. People know it's going to be coming out regularly, they're gonna expect that it comes out on time at a regular interval. I think Telltale's done a great job of saying, we're gonna release episodes of Sam & Max every month, and people that are fans of the series look forward to the release day very much.

Do you think the constant pressure of deadline after deadline -- you have to finish the game and work within your allotted amount of time -- spurs on creativity?

Joel: Well, it's always a struggle making video games. You always have deadlines, you always have these pressures, but you also don't want to release something too early. Certainly in the case of the Penny Arcade game, we know the fans are very particular about their games, and we think they'll be really critical of this game, as they should be. So, it's important to us to make sure they get an authentic Penny Arcade experience and something that's really high quality. While we certainly have our own pressures to get it out as soon as possible -- we want to get this in people's hands -- we've always said we weren't going to release this until we really felt it was ready, and frankly, until Mike and Jerry really think it's ready. One philosophy we have at Hothead is to get the game running as soon as possible and then take the time to step back, see what's good, see what's maybe not so good, and take the time to iterate. We've really done that with this first episode.

Ron: I think with episodic games, you have something else going on in that a lot of creative work is really done upfront. It's not that, you know, we're making a game a month or a game every three months. There's a whole lot of work, so I think that creativity isn't really cut short because it's episodic since a lot of work is done upfront. I think with the episodic stuff, at least for me designing the Deathspank games, is it really focuses me. It really says, "You know what, I need to put the important things in this game and not the unimportant things." I think in some ways that's a good thing creatively.

The first Penny Arcade trailer you guys released was met with a bit of a lukewarm reception. Was that too soon?

Joel: Well, possibly. Looking back on it, we definitely wanted to show people we were very excited about the 2D look and the sort of vector graphics style cutscenes that we have in the game and how you're customized player shows up in there. But we also didn't, because it was very early, we didn't want to give the wrong impression that it was a strictly 2D game, so we threw in bits of 3D. Definitely, we were at a very early stage with not only the look of the characters, but the rendering approaches we were using -- the toon shading wasn't in at all and so forth -- so I think some people might have misinterpreted what that means. It simply means that when the next trailer released, people were able to see the progression we were making along the way.

I was looking at it yesterday, and you have these really neat transitions from 2D to 3D. Did that present a notable technical challenge?

Joel: Absolutely. Even just aesthetically, trying to bring a 2D comic IP into 3D games is a challenge. It's two very different art styles, and we wanted to make sure that it was very seamless. So, there's aspects of it in the 3D world. When you run to the edge of an area, a little comic panel appears and the whole thing slides over. When you're watching the 2D cutscenes, you see them in comic panels and you can see the other panel (non-animating) that's coming next and then one panel freezes, it slides over ... We wanted to just have those themes go through the entire game to make it seem as seamless as possible.

Why did you decide to make the game into an adventure RPG? When you read the comics, they don't immediately lend themselves to any specific genre.

Joel: Yeah, it's true. I think the story, being set in an alternate universe -- it's in the 1920's, it's kinda H.P. Lovecraft style -- It's a story that Mike and Jerry have wanted to tell for a long time. In terms of the style of game, we think that people who are fans of Penny Arcade are pretty hardcore, and we believe that there are a lot of RPG fans that are also fans of Penny Arcade, so we wanted to definitely get those RPG elements in. But, the adventure stuff comes from the fact that this is a very story-focused game and it's about telling that story in the way that only the Penny Arcade guys can. You know, we've all got a soft spot in our hearts for adventure games, having played a lot of the old adventure games (it's why we're so happy to be working with Ron), but we believe that for today, to bring adventure games back if you will, we wanted to add something extra to it.

It's kind of an unusual game for XBLA in particular, since most of the games are action-based, pick-up-and-play titles. In this one, you have to immerse yourself in the story and RPG elements. Do you think it'll be tough getting the attention of Xbox Live Arcade gamers?

Joel: We think there's a lot of people that are Penny Arcade fans and that really like Xbox, so a lot of them are gonna have Xboxes. The thing about Live Arcade, certainly it has been pretty focused on arcadey-type games and this is definitely going to break new ground, but we think Live Arcade is a great service because it's focused on digital distribution. More and more people have broadband, more and more people want to be able to just be on their couches and download a game directly to either their PC, which they'll be able to with this game, or to a console. So, we're very excited about the platform and we're excited to be breaking some new ground with it as well.

Any other target platforms under consideration aside from XBLA and PC?

Joel: We've always said that we want the gamer to choose the platform they play this on and not have the game impose it on them. We don't have any extra news to announce at this time, but there's probably going to be some stuff coming up about being able to get this in other ways as well.

So, Gizmondo version?

Joel: [laughs] We'll have to see, we're doing that after the Amiga.

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See the Battlefield Heroes debut trailer

Justin McElroy — 2008-02-29T09:30:00+00:00

Filed under: PC, First Person Shooters, Online

We saw this trailer for Battlefield Heroes at an a EA/DICE party during GDC and it was enough to get us really, really excited for the game. Trust us on this one. As much fun as this looks in the video, it looks twice as good when you actually see it in action.

After seeing the trailer (and the reaction from the hardened, cynical journalists at the shindig) it was pretty much understood amongst the Joystiq crew that Battlefield Heroes was going to be "a thing." Do you and your friends have a similar understanding yet? Is this trailer not enough to put you over the edge? Have you no soul?

Gallery: Battlefield Heroes

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Game Developers Choice Awards on G4 tonight

Scott Jon Siegel — 2008-02-29T06:30:00+00:00

Filed under: GDC

In case our live coverage of the Game Developer Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival Awards wasn't enough to sate your appetite for GDC's prestigious ceremony, G4TV will be showing coverage of the event tonight.

A 30-minute recap of the two-hour event will air tonight at 8:00 PM EST (5:00 PM PST), as part of a special episode of G4's X-Play program. If you miss it, the episode will re-air several times on Saturday, March 1, Sunday, March 2 and Monday, March 3. Check out the episode guide for the full list of times.

For those with a distaste for digests, the award shows' organizers will be hosting full-length streaming video coverage of both events on their respective websites sometime in the next week. We'll keep an eye out for when those streams become available.

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GDC '08 breaks attendance record, press may need invite next year

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-02-29T02:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture

As many who attended GDC recover from illness (thanks to days of rain and the plague-ridden in attendance), CMP Media says its 2008 conference broke a record and hosted 18,000 game industry professionals (previous attendance was somewhere around 16,000). Highlights included, well, we've covered all that already. GDC will be back at the Moscone Center in San Francisco again next year, blissfully later from March 23-27.

Attendance could also take a tiny dip next year as Kotaku reports GDC may become invite-only for those seeking press credentials. Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference, tells the site that CMP hasn't nailed down details on how it's going to work, but they are looking at an "invite model for press access." Moledina is worried about maintaining the show's atmosphere and wants to make sure GDC maintains its core goals.

Read: 2008 GDC breaks attendance record
Read: GDC, DICE, E3 could all be press invite only

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Joyswag: Win our GDC swag

Andrew Yoon — 2008-02-28T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Joyswag, GDC

So, we amassed quite a bit of swag from Game Developer's Conference. For those of you that didn't swindle some away from us at our Video Games Live meet-up in San Francisco, here's your chance to get in on the action. One winner will take it all!

GDC swag bag (pictured above)
PlayStation t-shirt collection (all size L, includes one In-Shirt XMB shirt)
Nyko peripherals (secret, random selection!)

To enter, simply tell us what was the most important story of GDC (here's an overview). Gears of War 2? Xbox Live Community Games? Uh, pictures of our food? The comment must be left before Saturday, March 1st, 5PM EST. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected in a random drawing. Grand Prize Winner will receive this GDC swag collection (MSRP: approximately $100). Click here for complete Official Rules. Eligibility is restricted to the legal residents of the 50 United States (including DC). You must be 18 years or older to enter.

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BioWare founders: 'We're not done yet'

Michael Zenke — 2008-02-27T19:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Features, PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, RPGs, Interviews, GDC

Right after our demo of the PC version of Mass Effect, we had the chance to sit with BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk for a quick catch-up on recent events. The two men were overjoyed to talk about Mass Effect's success and critical reception, as well as the uplifting effect the EA buyout has had on the company.

The impression the two give are of guys who have just been given a chance at the brass ring. Their comments, intimating that BioWare itself is now a micro-publisher, praising their new co-worker's common sense, hint at a new era of opportunity for the company. We've already posted the audio from the interview, but for a full transcript of our discussion just read on below the cut. You can get a better sense of Ray and Greg's cheery outlook, see them again discuss the reason Mass Effect on the 360 had the UI it did, and watch them stonewall on a question about their in-development MMO title.

The bottom line, unsaid in the interview itself, is a clear message: "Fans shouldn't worry. We're not, and neither should you." Here's hoping that they've got the right of it.

Gallery: Mass Effect (PC)

Thank you both for your time. Mass Effect is obviously a fairly landmark title for BioWare. The technology you've made in this game, I imagine, is going to show up in other games.

Ray Muzyka (RM): We have a great, great team, they really, really care about making great experiences and have passion about quality.

Can you give us a sense of how you feel about Mass Effect's reception?

Greg Zeschuk (GZ): Really good, actually. The sales have been excellent. In the context of last fall, the competitive landscape was crazy. I think there was one week where like ninety games were released great games were released at the same time. I think we did really well. I think we're the sixth or seventh best-selling game on the Xbox; we're also one of the top couple IPs created in the year. Just that, right there, we're extremely happy. For many years BioWare has made a lot of great games and actually created franchises out of other people's properties - thinks like Star Wars and the Baldur's Gate series. Finally we have one that has a really big impact - we made Jade Empire and that was really successful, but Mass had a ... massive impact. The PC one is coming out and we're really happy about that, and we have a nice technology base for future projects.

RM: We're not staying static, you know? We're taking the PC version and we're really targetted it, maximizing it, customizing it to make it just tuned to the platform, that's really important to us. We laid a great foundation on the 360 and we feel very proud of that. We're very happy with the commercial and critical acclaim, but we can still make it better.

Speaking on that point, how come the turnaround was so quick to the PC? There was a little bit of a lag there with Jade Empire, and I think a lot of fans were expecting to have to wait longer than May to see that on the PC.

RM: Well, partly maybe as a response to that, we knew the fans were pretty excited to see that when we did the Jade PC version, like geez how can we ... We were focused pretty much on the 360 version so it was an exclusive development. Near the end we thought, let's satisfy the PC audience too because they're very important constituents for us.

Was the decision made before the 360 version came out to port it to the PC?

RM: I don't know when the exact timing was, we were exploring the idea at the time but I don't think we committed to it until the game was out on the 360. We're always exploring ideas, figuring out what it would take. Watch it, announce it.

We've seen how the game was technically refined, were there any ways in which the game's story was refined in the move to the PC?

GZ: We've got some things, I'm not sure if we really have talked about those things yet. We may have something in our back pocket. The main focus for us was to improve on what was already in Mass Effect; the story was so well received. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was perfect, there are always things you can tweak on. So the focus was let's put some effort in, let's put some effort where we think we want it devoted.

That was onto things like readjusting the controls, give the PC audience the opportunity to try the more run-and-gun action opportunity, better resolutions, better interface. Things are just a bit more streamlined on the PC - personally that's where we grew up games so we're still very dedicated to those kinds of games, right?

We don't ever want any BioWare game to come out on any platform and for someone to say "oh, that's just a quick little throw-together version." We're very particular about doing it right, about doing a good job. So really, you get this much effort and you want to put most of that effort into the user experience in terms of how interface and things works. How they interact with the game.

RM: It's about talking to fans too. We played it - probably finished it three or four times before we shipped the 360 version.

GZ: Oh yes.

RM: Little bit of this, try that ... but ...

GZ: We played the beginning of the game about 50,000 times.

RM: About a hundred times, yeah. I dunno how many times. When we finished the game I did one play through I was probably about 95% plus. I know I didn't do some of the things but I tried to visit every world. It took me about 50 hours to go through and do all that; you certainly didn't have to do that. You can get through much faster if you just shoot through the game's core story. The amount of content that's in the game is just a huge amount that's already there. A lot of people haven't seen it yet, it's a very big universe. You can really side all the side permutations, new worlds start to open up, and you can do a lot of different things. It's all how you want to play it.

You mentioned the UI improvements to the game, which are pretty fantastic. As a big fan of the 360 version of the game my only big criticism was the UI. Can you speak to why some of the components we saw in the PC version of the game weren't available in the Xbox version?

GZ: It's interesting. Sometimes we just are doing so many things when you're working on it that you don't even notice anymore.

RM: You get used to it.

GZ: Yeah, you get used to it. Like we said, we both played it a lot. We're both really pleased to get all the items, all the guys.

RM: I noticed it when I maxed out my items a couple of times.

GZ: Yeah. I think it's weird. An interesting thing happens when you build a game; you're experience the same thing over and over and over - you get used to it, and on top of that Microsoft has really strong usability and playtesting facilities.

RM: We made a lot of changes based on that, like a lot of changes.

GZ: And the interesting thing with Mass Effect and the interface is that this stuff didn't come out because people have to play so long that they had to get to the item management stuff.

RM: And, of course, the PC version is after the fact. So we're actually listening to the feedback and trying to make the game better. That's plain and simple what we're doing.

GZ: We catch most of the stuff.

RM: You know, we were exploring PC as an idea, but to really crystalize as as an idea it took what you're now seeing to be what it is. We're taking the feedback, press feedback, fan feedback, usability testing feedback, team feedback and we go "Aw geez, we didn't realize ..." and we can fix that. We can make it better.

GZ: Sometimes people play games in ways you don't expect, too. It's really interesting.

RM: I love looking at fan feedback, usability, press ... we actually do like Metacritic ourselves, we go through every review that's listed and track the scores - harsh ones as well. There's value in every opinion, right? It's just feedback. We want to try to separate ourselves from it, one of our core values is humility. How can we take that and go "maybe we don't like the way that's written but what's the idea he's trying to say?"

We actually do analysis of the most frequent points of feedback. From like 200 reviews, some crazy number. The PR team and Mass Effect team pulled it together, "What can we do better?", it's a blue print for improvement. Intellect mediated by intuition, it's inspired by - you have to feel it inside, that's a quote we heard from someone - I think Bono said it once. You have to do the analysis but you have to feel it too. You have to be inspired and take your passion and apply it.

I know you can't talk about specifics at this point but can you give us a sense of how much downloadable content is planned for the game?

GZ: A fair amount. We have the first one, bring down the sky, announced. It's a big part of what we want to do at BioWare. Obviously we did a good amount of it in Neverwinter Nights and that actually worked out really well for us, it's something we're very interested in. Before we jump to the next thing we want to see how the first one's received - again we've got some plans, we've got some ideas of what we want to do, but we want to get some fan feedback on the first thing and sort of keep self correcting. Obviously we chat with Microsoft alot because they know the whole layout of the land when it comes to downloadable content. We also want to make sure we're giving people stuff that's cool and makes sense.

So there aren't any plans to expand the PC version and the 360 version in different directions?

RM: No. I mean, we don't have any announced plans to do that, but it's an interesting idea. The potential's there but we haven't announced any future plans, what the future of DLC is, we're still developing those plans. That's an interesting idea to consider.

How has the acquisition by EA affected the company? How do you think it's going?

RM: Really, it's going extremely well. We went into it cautiously optimistic because we knew John [Riccitiello], we'd reported to him for a couple of years at BioWare/Pandemic and we have a lot of respect for him. We got to know Frank, we have a lot of respect for him. Those are our two bosses, basically, and really it's more of the same - you know, BioWare is very ambitious as a studio. The thing I find really refreshing about EA - we've both commented on this - it's very transparent internally. People are willing to share things, it's a very open culture internally if you're part of EA, and it's a very ambitious culture as well.

Confident, but humble at the same time. Sort of. It's the new EA - it's very ambitious, and it's exciting to be part of a group that just wants to advance. We feel very well aligned with them, with the rest of EA. It's a different EA than it was a few years ago, I think. With John and some of the leadership changes, Frank [Gibeau] and Kathy [Vrabeck] and Peter [Moore] and Nancy [Smith] - some of the presidents and John as CEO - I think we feel very well aligned with them as a studio. We view games as commercial art, and that's very consistent with the way EA is viewing it. You hear the word quality alot now.

GZ: And you see evidence of it.

RM: You see evidence of it, there's some good stuff in development. Going to the global publishing marketing meeting is like "holy". There's a bunch of not-in-house stuff, but phenomenal, it's all gameplay it's like beautiful.

GZ: We've been shocked, shocked at the amount of common sense we're having to deal with. That's one of the great experiences - getting to a situation where you can see the goal lines ...

RM: And they're smart, people across the board are very smart, rational but you have to have a good case if you want to move ahead in a direction. You have to persuade everybody.

A few weeks ago, right after DICE, Frank had made a pretty vague comment that said "Mass Effect will be our franchise for a very long time." A lot of our readership took that to mean that EA would one day gobble that up, maybe after you guys finish the trilogy. Turn it into something else.

RM: A different way to view it is: we are EA now. That's how we embrace it.

GZ: He's E, I'm A.

RM: We are a part of EA. We are EA. We're still the same guys. We're BioWare and our team is still the same at BioWare. So BioWare is going to maintain its proud identity, we're ambitious as a studio, we're a good brand and we're going to retain that striving forward - but we're part of EA. The fact that Mass Effect is a BioWare property, it's also an EA property. We're developing it but we're developing it as part of EA. I think that's what he was referring to.

GZ: The fundamental thing, the exciting thing about the new company structure is also among the way the game studios work, creating franchises. We manage it, it's actually our marketing team internal to the studio in Edmonton, for sales, for the global rollout, for PR, it's all our team. It's actually interesting because even moreso than before we have control, directive over the whole publishing machinery with our games. This is the first time we've seen that - we've done that in partnership but we're driving it.

RM: We are a publisher now, we're a developer integrated with marketing and sales, and that's exciting to be a part of that. Another way to view this is: we plan to be doing this for a very long time. BioWare does. I mean, I'm genuinely excited about where the industry is at and what we're doing as a studio. We're at what almost seems like the most rapid point of change in the industry in thirty years. What's the next thirty years going to look like? That's a good point to be at. You know, it's a really interesting - if you're going to be doing things with your life you might as well be doing interesting things? And I think this is like one of the most interesting times for our industry - just imagine the possibility space of where we're going. Just where we've been is phenomenal but ...

GZ: Just the last few years it seems like the change has been massive. It really has.

RM: We're not done yet, we have a lot of stuff we want to do as a studio. We're ambitious too.

It looks like we have time for just about one more question, so I'm going to jump the rails a bit. There have been a lot of rumors recently about what you're doing in Austin, and ...

GZ: Are you asking us to set the record straight?

If you'd like to tell us what you're doing in Austin, we'd love to hear it.

RM: Well, not yet.

Right; can you give us a sense of when we might learn what you're doing in Austin?

GZ: I don't think we can say that either. We do talk in generalities ...

RM: We have an idea, but we can't say.

GZ: The interesting thing about it is that the team's up and running. It's actually an extremely experienced team, a lot of veteran designers ...

Damion Schubert.

GZ: Yeah ... a lot of people who have made great MMOs in the past, and so it's a wonderful amalgam of BioWare culture in terms of workplace and all these people focused on building stuff, but then a really good sense of what's important about our games combined with technical knowledge on the MMO side. We're actually up to quite a few people now.

RM: It sure is fun to see all the rumors and stories that people have.

GZ: Yeah, keeping writing about them, we like that.

It's always entertaining for us too. Thanks a lot for your time, gentlemen.

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Halo 3 outtakes: Full Metal Jacket & ranting lesbian space marine

Michael Zenke — 2008-02-27T18:29:00+00:00

Filed under: Features, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, First Person Shooters, GDC

The audio track of GDC is an under-appreciated gem of the conference. Though many of the sessions are highly technical in nature -- discussing the use of software tools and compositional elements -- enjoying the music and the auditory experience of gaming hardly takes a degree. I sat in on one of these sessions, "Halo 3: An Audio Postmortem", and was rewarded greatly. Not only did I have the chance to listen to Jay Weinland, C. Paul Johnson, Mike Salvatore and Marty O'Donnell speak on the process of composing for Bungie's titles, but the audio team brought hilarious outtakes for us to listen to.

Read on below the break for a few words on composing audio for the series, Adam Baldwin's Halo-style take on Full Metal Jacket, and comedienne Debra Wilson's take on a angry, ranting, foul-mouthed, lesbian marine. Even better: the Wilson outtakes have apparently never been made available outside of Bungie's studio before.

Gallery: Halo 3

Jay Weinland began by exploring the transition from the Xbox to the Xbox 360. Halo 3 was their first title for the platform, and as a result they made some substantial changes to their workflow. Software tools they'd put in place for the previous games continued to be developed, improving their tools and adding options. They also had the chance to make use of technology advances when moving from the original console to the 360.

The console's multi-thread processor was divvied up among the game systems, and almost an entire two threads of the chip were dedicated to audio elements. There is also an onboard audio chip, which gives the developers access to "free decodes" of audio data. As a result some 320 independent voices can be piped through the system at the same time. The problem they were running into was that they couldn't make best use of the system because of rendering issues. They ended up actually using "32 mono, 32 stereo, 12 4.0 and 8 5.1 voices" over the course of the game to ensure that players had a quality experience.

To keep us interested Weinland then went on to play two clips from Halo 3 audio sessions. First we have Adam Baldwin's riff on a speech from Full Metal Jacket:

Then we have the angry, ranty stylings of Debra Wilson:

After the clips the team went on to make use of a great big room (called the "stripey room") inside the game engine to show off the audio fading system they use. Close-up sounds have a lot of detail, but as the source of a sound fades into the distance the quality decreases until the sound is just a mono clip. The room in the game is made of up striated bands consisting of every material in the game, to ensure that the sound designers can judge aural elements against wood, metal, etc.

The change was quite striking, as up close you'd hear elements like the bullets in the chamber / shell casings hitting the ground. Far off, the mono sound would fade into the background noise often heard as window dressing in the multiplayer maps. They also dropped a Mongoose vehicle into the room to show what the change in quality sounded like for consistent noises - a marked improvement over previous Bungie titles.

Composer Martin O'Donnell, well known for his work on the Halo soundtrack, finished out the session by demoing his composition software. Essentially he and Mike Salvatore create musical pieces than can be formed into a cohesive whole by simply overlapping and interlocking pieces. By setting a drumbeat going, or a single high note, he sets a mood that can then be modified through the addition of other compositional elements.

This software allows for the level of variety needed in a videogame environment, ensuring that (except when it's dramatically appropriate) the musical landscape will be a varied as the firefights you'll encounter in-game. O'Donnell's cardinal rule is "do no annoying", and by mixing and matching in the studio (and on the fly) the composers can create all new experiences for players that enjoy the dramatic series music.

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Zero Punctuation seeks Drake's Fortune, snorts some GDC

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-02-27T16:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Action, Adventure

Wow, Yahtzee needs to visit the States more often if spending such a small amount of time for GDC brings on this level of devilishly delightful hate. This week Zero Punctuation takes on -- some will say quite unfairly -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Every little possibly insane nit-pick thing is leveled against poor Uncharted, including the fact that it's the best game for white supremacists ever. The issues are quite silly for a game that is currently one of the few jewels in the PS3's crown, but Yahtzee is in top entertainment form -- he even makes a rare appearance au naturel (like as a human, not naked).

Included after the break with this week's NSFW review of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is ZP's video presentation at the Game Developers Choice awards.

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Bangai-O Spirits on DS features unique 'Sound Load' technology

Scott Jon Siegel — 2008-02-27T01:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Nintendo DS, Action

As we reported last month, classic Treasure shooter Bangai-O will be getting a second life on the DS as Bangai-O Spirits, due for North American release in the second-quarter of 2008. The former Dreamcast game is being published by D3Publisher, and we learned during a special GDC event that it will feature one of the strangest uses of the DS's microphone that we've heard of in a while.

The "Sound Load" feature on Bangai-O Spirits will allow users to share custom levels, high scores, and replay videos as sound. Sound. When the mode is active, the selected data is converted into an audio track, which is played through the speaker of one DS, and can be intercepted by the microphone of another, where it is read and turned back into game data. The sound files can even be uploaded to computer, for easy sharing of content over the internet. We're as amazed as you are.

Bangai-O Spirits will also feature competitive and co-op multiplayer for 1-4 players through local wireless. For more information on the game, do check out DS Fanboy's colorful overview. We've also appended a gallery of new screenshots (which don't quite capture the game's hectic and explosive gameplay).

Gallery: Bangai-O Spirits (DS)

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GDC Quest Quiz V: Ragnar Tørnquist

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-02-26T21:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Adventure, GDC

We did a terrible thing at last week's Game Developer's Conference. Aside from our usual barrage of photographs and "reporting," a select group of attendees had to endure a particularly inane and utterly pointless line of questioning -- just for laughs. This is what happens when you hunt down several adventure game connoisseurs and challenge them to solve a typically obnoxious adventure game puzzle.

The Player
Ragnar Tørnquist, designer of The Longest Journey and writer and director of Dreamfall, Anarchy Online and upcoming MMO, The Secret World.

The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.

The Inventory

(1) perforated parasol
(1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
(1) sealed manila envelope
(1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue

Check out Ragnar's thoroughly realized reasoning after the break.

The Solution
Ragnar: Well, obviously, robot bears like macaroni. That's something everybody knows, so luckily, there's that to begin with. Knowing that, however, I'm guessing the robot bear has a very short sort of scanning range so, in order to get close enough to taunt it with the Tim Schafer statue (it's gonna maul you!), you have to find a way to draw its attention. Do I have to use all the inventory items?

Joystiq: Some people throw them away.

Okay, so what I do is I take the manila envelope and make a paper airplane out of it and stand a good way away from the robot bear. I use the paper airplane on the bear and get its attention, and now I have to use the parasol, of course, to lure it closer because the thing starts scanning but it's not getting any closer. I start doing that and the robot bear starts to move towards me. I place down the Tim Schafer macaroni statue, taunting it ... What's the fourth item I have?

A rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.

Okay, right. So, using the parasol, the bear is coming towards me. I ... I'm getting stuck.

You can't load an earlier saved game.

[laughs] Alright, the robot approaches the statue of Tim Schafer, and as everybody knows he's so charismatic, even in macaroni form, that the robot is going to spend quite a bit of time with the statue before it notices me again. At that point, I tie the rubber chicken around the robot's head, confusing it massively and making my way into the cave!

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The best of WoW Insider: February 19-26, 2008

Mike Schramm — 2008-02-26T20:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Meta (about Joystiq), MMO, Politics

Quite a week in the World of Warcraft, which Joystiq sister site WoW Insider covers like a Warcraft Adventures-style bedsheet each and every single day. We continued to get lots of great information about patch 2.4 (including big news from the new raid instance,The Sunwell), and Heroics made a nice return to the news, with all the new badge loot. Oh, and we even had a liveblog go down straight from GDC. Here's our best stuff.

News

GDC08: Live form Rob Pardo's talk about Blizzard's approach to MMOs
The Senior VP of game design lays out what the big plan is for Blizzard's biggest game.
PTR Notes: Patch note watch 2/20
New buffs and nerfs continue to drop from the Public Test Realm as Blizzard gets the next patch ready to go live.
2.4 PvP sets gold and rep requirements
What you'll need to do to get what you want.
Meet Lord Ahune
Blizzard is also updating the Midsummer Fire Festival, and so here's the new Headless Horseman -- epics for everyone!
Thrall gets a new Big Brother: US government wants to search for terrorists on WoW
Could Bin Laden be hiding in Elwynn Forest?

Features

What does the Warlock Lifetap nerf mean?
Lifetap got taken down a notch, but why is everyone up in arms about it?
Breakfast Topic: Heroic PuGs from hell
Everyone's been in a group like this, but being in a Heroic makes it even worse.
Know Your Lore: The story of the Burning Crusade
The expansion's lore is going to get wrapped up in the next patch, so here's what you need to know before we all go see the ending.
Dress yourself up completely in Badge Loot
Got Heroic Badges? Now you can gear yourself all out.
Hybrid Theory: What's a hybrid v2.0
Our column on hybrid classes returns with a new writer and a new outlook on what it means to step across lines in the RPG class trinity.

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GDC Quest Quiz IV: Erik Wolpaw

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-02-26T17:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Adventure, GDC

We did a terrible thing at last week's Game Developer's Conference. Aside from our usual barrage of photographs and "reporting," a select group of attendees had to endure a particularly inane and utterly pointless line of questioning -- just for laughs. This is what happens when you hunt down several adventure game connoisseurs and challenge them to solve a typically obnoxious adventure game puzzle.

The Player
Erik Wolpaw, co-author of the now-defunct Old Man Murray. He's written for games such as Psychonauts and Portal, and once accused the adventure genre of committing suicide.

The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.

The Inventory

(1) perforated parasol
(1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
(1) sealed manila envelope
(1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue

The Solution
"How is the pulley attached to the rubber chicken? See, this is why I hate adventure games. I think you're expecting a joke answer, and I'm actually trying to figure it out. OK, type 'quit.' That's what I would do. Go to the menu and type 'quit.'"

(Catch the rest of our interview with Wolpaw later this week!)

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Hands-on with Nyko's Winter 2008 peripherals

Andrew Yoon — 2008-02-26T17:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, GDC, Peripherals

Do you have really, really, really long arms? Good. Because the Nyko Wireless Nunchuck is perfect for you. It's one of the many peripherals we tested with Nyko in San Francisco. Surprises were few and far between. But perhaps that's a good thing -- we found that everything they offered worked as one would expect. The Wireless Nunchuck works just like the official corded variety, It may work a bit too well, in fact. We left the Wii Remote in one room, and ran across the office to find the Nunchuck still operated. Unnecessary? Yes. But a great display of how well this peripheral is designed.

The Cord Free accessory allows players to use their existing Wii Nunchucks and turn them into wireless ones. Once again, the range is excellent. There is one gripe we have about this peripheral, though. It makes the Nunchuck much too heavy.

The Perfect Shot from Nyko is a nice alternative to Nintendo's Wii Zapper. In fact, we prefer Nyko's solution over Nintendo's. Unlike the official peripheral, this cradle only carries the Wii Remote. This makes assembly much easier, and leaves your left hand free to hold on to the Nunchuck (wireless, or wired). We played Umbrella Chronicles and found that having the Nunchuck free made reloading a lot less disorienting. No need to have the aim cursor jump around the screen wildly -- just a shake of the left hand was all it took. Most importantly, the gun has a nice weight to it, making it feel well-constructed.

The Frontman series of guitars are, once again, rather unsurprising. The guitars feel much more than Guitar Hero than Rock Band (for many, that's a plus). Nyko is also manufacturing a series of guitar straps that'll also work on real guitars. Being able to toggle between Rock Band and Guitar Hero modes (on PS3) is a nice plus.

The Charge Base 2 is an interesting peripheral for PS3. It looks like a robot, but it's actually a cradle for up to two PS3 controllers (SIXAXIS or DualShock 3). It'll charge the controllers while they're in the cradle. It gets the job done, and its design certainly makes it a conversation starter.

Nyko had a ton of gadgets and gizmos to try out, and all of them seemed well constructed. This is certainly a far cry from the days where third-party accessories were mostly junk. Unfortunately, one peripheral was largely noticeably absent: the Wii Party Station. Unfortunately, it was quietly canned due to its unusually high production costs. Too bad. We asked for a sample prototype, but apparently, there's only one left in the world. What a find that would be for eBay ...

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GDC Quest Quiz III: Mike Stemmle

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-02-26T15:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Adventure, GDC

We did a terrible thing at last week's Game Developer's Conference. Aside from our usual barrage of photographs and "reporting," a select group of attendees had to endure a particularly inane and utterly pointless line of questioning -- just for laughs. This is what happens when you hunt down several adventure game connoisseurs and challenge them to solve a typically obnoxious adventure game puzzle.

The Player
Recent Telltale Games addition Mike Stemmle, co-designer of Sam & Max Hit the Road and Escape from Monkey Island, and designer on the ill-fated Sam & Max Freelance Police. He also worked on Afterlife, but he doesn't think you remember it.

The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.

The Inventory

(1) perforated parasol
(1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
(1) sealed manila envelope
(1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue

Peek hard at Mike Stemmle's Star Trek strategy after the break.

The Solution
Mike: The rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle is only useful for one thing so that's right out. That's just a red herring. The manila envelope ... I think you can use the perforated umbrella to open the manila envelope which will contain (probably) some pen and paper with which you can write down a logical conundrum -- and now I'm going back to the Star Trek stuff that I've been doing for the last two years -- which you can expose to the robot bear. His head will blow up when exposed to something like, "This sentence is false" or "I am lying."

Joystiq: Puzzle solved! And you get whatever happens to be in the cave. We haven't really thought about it yet.

Caves, you know ... I get very bored with caves. They're always an excuse to just do these extended cave interiors with pieces plunked together like that. Caves are out, man, it's all outdoors these days. That's where it's at.

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Highlights from the Game Developers Conference 2008

Ross Miller — 2008-02-26T07:59:00+00:00

Filed under: Features, Microsoft Xbox 360, GDC

The Game Developers Conference has come and gone. Five very hectic days and over 250 posts later, we've still not caught up on sleep (and probably won't until the week before E3). As much as we'd like you to read every single post, one by one, and adding polite comments to each and every one of them, we're pragmatists.

Join us in the next few pages for a primer on all things GDC 2008. Comments can be found on the last page (Update: comments have been turned on for every page, so go crazy!) as well as a very special image for some of our readers who feel a strong infinity with writer Ludwig Kietzmann. Read on as we recap last week.

Gallery: GDC08: The Experience

The Microsoft Keynote

While Sony and Nintendo shared keynote spotlight in 2007, Microsoft was the only console maker to deliver the big speech this year. So what did we learn from the Microsoft GDC keynote (photos)? For starters, the Xbox Live community arcade, offering titles from the XNA community to for play on the Xbox 360 or Zune. More information came from the Blogger's Breakfast later in the week as well as the XNA booth itself, which had a mysterious shroud up until the keynote and was later uncovered to reveal playable versions of Dishwasher Samurai and JellyCar.

Team Ninja's self-proclaimed badass Tomonobu Itagaki took the stage to announce a June 3 release for Ninja Gaiden 2 as well as show off some bloody disgusting (but in a good way) gameplay (photos, video). An Xbox Live tab appeared claiming a NG2 demo was "coming soon," but that turned to be just video of someone playing the demo. Lame.

Lionhead founder and nudist extraordinaire Peter Molyneux presented the latest Fable 2 build (photos), showing himself to be a woman (in-game) whose husband is untimely vanquished as a result of the new co-op mode. Also, monsters will no longer line their bellies with currency and drop gold upon defeat; instead, you'll have to earn your living through trade skills (i.e. jobs) or by gambling in a Fable 2 Xbox Live minigame.

The big reveal of the night came from CliffyB, lancer in hand, announcing Gears of War 2 (surprise!) was coming out November 2008 (photos, teaser trailer). You can watch us try to (unsuccessfully) get some other GoW2 details from Epic's Mark Rein, Tim Sweeney and Cliffy B. We did learn about Epic's new additions to the Unreal Engine, especially Mova's awesome contour facial capture system (interview) and the state of Unreal Tournament 3 mods for consoles (good for PS3, bad for Xbox 360).

Next: Baldur, Big Daddy and cake

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GDC08 Highlights: Baldur, Big Daddy and cake

Ross Miller — 2008-02-26T07:57:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Features, GDC

Playing (and being) Too Human

Elsewhere that day, Silicon Knights' boastful Denis Dyack held a press conference showing off the latest build of Too Human (photos) and, lo and behold, the framerate was consistent and the game looked much improved from previous demonstrations. Our hands-on impressions were decidedly mixed, however; as one commenter aptly put it, "the controls hindered Baldur's gait."

Besides Microsoft, the other keynote of the conference was futurist Ray Kurzweil who, among other mind-blowing points, confirmed that by 2023 we will be injecting ourselves with plasmids. Speaking of which ...

BioShockTacular!

One of the Big Daddies of the conference (yes folks, plenty more puns to come!) was BioShock, with total rock star Ken Levine drawing quite a crowd. Levine et al. showed off early footage of the game, advised to keep story simple, talked Steamworks and even sent a splicer to check up on us.

GDCA and IGF Awards

BioShock was a major winner at the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), walking away with honors for audio, visuals and writing (Ayn Rand woke from the dead to claim the writing award). Also announced that night were the Independent Games Festival awards, with World of Goo winning three nods and Crayon Physics Deluxe earning the Seamus McNally award. Cheer up, World of Goo fans, they already have a distribution deal for the Nintendo Wii. The best part of the award presentations were probably Mega64 and Zero Punctuation's hilarious videos.

Despite three accolades, BioShock didn't win Best Game. That award went to Portal along with design and innovation nods.

Portal: This was a Triumph

Remember last year when Portal was just a bullet point during the Experimental Games session? A lot has changed since GDC 2007, with almost everyone singing the game's praises. The night of their GDCA win, Valve revealed that Jonathan Coulton's Portal song "Still Alive" would be featured in Rock Band. Though we missed that performance (Coulton only hit 95% on vocals), we did happen to catch his concert on Friday where he, along with Leo LaPorte and Mahalo Daily's Veronica Belmont, managed to fail the song live on stage (video).

As one of the last sessions of the conference, designer Kim Swift and writer Erik Wolpaw delivered a Portal post-mortem (photos) for an overpacked crowd (did you see the line to get in?). Among other little details, the duo talked about the origins of the Weighted Companion Cube and the various final levels they tested.

Next: Spore, Street Fighter and Nintendo

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