No photos allowed — so use your imagination…

Taku Murata, the general manager of Square Enix’s R&D division took the stage at GDC and made it very clear that his English was not very good. The packed house didn’t seem to mind one bit — of course those unable to understand Japanese were equipped with translation headsets, so that may have had something to do with it.

So there I sat, in the back of a jam packed room with my recorder jammed between my ear and the headset (no point in recording Japanese), as I feverishly jotted down the highlights you can read below. Read more…

The tenth floor of the St. Regis hotel offered up a Street Fighter IV journalist-only tournament, complete with an open bar and enough pizza to satisfy the great E-Honda.

Upon entering the hotel room you are greeted by a loop of Street Fighter II playing on a large wall mounted plasma, two linked arcade units, and plenty of journalists trying to cram in as much practice as they can before the tournament officially kicked off. Read more…

Now that the Game Developers Conference 2008 has come and gone, we here at Ripten are taking a look back on the past week using the magical art of photography. Hippity-hop to check out the gallery. Read more…

Our very first installment of Ripten Radio sums up the high (and sometimes low) points from this years Game Developers Conference.

This particular edition features the following Ripten super studs: Dan “90%” Landis, Jon “as seen on Ripten TV” Zungre, Emily “like a banshee” Balistrieri, and myself — for the purpose of this event known as: Chad “my feet still hurt” Lakkis. Enjoy it after the jump. Read more…

Work began on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King back in 2006, before details on WiiWare had even been confirmed. Fumiaki Shiraishi, the lead programmer of the project, was itching to try a game on a smaller scale, and pitched the concept to Toshiro Tsuchida, who decided to produce the project.

They both appeared at GDC yesterday to give audience members an insight into how and why the development process was different from your typical Square Enix blockbuster. Read more…

“Sorry about that. I’m a bit nervous so I just broke out into song,” joked Masahiro Sakurai, the designer of the Smash Bros. series, after regaling us with a few bars of the chanting trailer soundtrack. He gave an in-depth and very articulate look at the process of developing the latest installment’s character roster.

The line-up was pretty well finalized as early as 2005, with the exception of Sonic, who was added just last year. Characters were selected for their individuality, unique abilities, and balance of both the fighting and game series representation. Read more…

Our second installment of Ripten TV highlights the Star Wars Force Unleashed GDC session hosted by Haden Blackman. The presentation outlined many aspects of the teams growth as well as the struggles and successes during the development of the game. Have at our impressions after the jump. Read more…

Yesterday Steve Theodore of Bungie Studios sat down with Isamu Kamikokuryo to discuss how he got into the videogame art business and where his inspirations lie. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the new FFXIII trailer and concept art he had to show us, but we can point out some of the highlights. Read more…

Dave Jones Roxxorz our Soxxorz with APB

Well, I have to admit that I’m a little high off of that presentation. Dave Jones is a breath of fresh air for MMO design and it tastes good. He had a lot to say, and said it with strong belief. To find out what Dave (from the developer of Crackdown) had to talk about and his next game, the All Points Bulletin MMO, follow the jump. Read more…

Sony had a rather comfy-looking booth on the GDC show floor, with large 1080p screens and leather couches, perfect for sitting around and playing Devil May Cry 4 or Echochrome. Behind these were rows of PSPs with God of War: Chains of Olympus, and the charming surprise Patapon. Read more…

As you may have noticed, Day Three exploits are going up a little later than usual. Unfortunately, we had a run-in with the Blaznatz chewing up our bandwidth, so we were unable to get a good connection. Damn him and his chainsaw bayonet…

We’ve decided to combine our day three info with day four, which would officially make this Ripten’s GDC 08 Coverage: Day Seven. Read on for all the goodness. Read more…

Takao Sawano, who works at Nintendo with Shigeru Miyamoto, gave a great lecture on how Wii Fit came to be– it turns out it was “in the center of Miyamoto’s brain as a concept even before the console was released.” Read more…

I heart Havok’s ragdoll physics and now they’re even better. Check out a video of their new tech after the jump. Read more…

When the North expo hall opened at 10 am today, I was the second person to hop on a balance board and get my feet on Wii Fit. Read more…

Cliff Johnson’s 1987 Mac game, The Fool’s Errand, was featured at GDC today in a panel entitled “Stories Best Played: Deconstructing the Best Interactive Storytelling.” The game was an example of how to tightly integrate storytelling and gameplay. Read more…

Independent games make me excited. The unrestrained creativity of game developers trying to break into the industry can be a dynamic and explosive thing. So I had to check out this years GDC mobile awards to see what the best had to offer. Read more…

A few minutes ago at the Microsoft keynote, Peter Molyneux officially showed off the online co-op of the upcoming Fable 2.

Unfortunately for him, however, his in-game friend happened to murder Peter’s wife right in front of him. Oh yeah, Peter Molyneux is a red-headed chick with some nice boobs, which came as quite a shock to me. He looks much different on camera. Read more…

Cliffy B has just announced at GDC 2008 that Gears of War 2 will in fact be released in November 2008. Read more…

Unlike most sequels, the Game Developers Conference Day 2 did not suck. The Ripten crew actually did stuff today! Amazing! Read more…

Our first edition of Ripten TV features a review of a free energy drink at this years GDC. Will it taste good, and more importantly, will it live up to its six hour promise? Find out for yourself.