With the popularization of indie titles over the past couple of years, many people have taken a stance of elitism regarding indie games. With both feet in their mouth, they’ll say that independently developed games are nonpareil to others, and pretty much say “If you’re not indie, f*ck you.” Mega64 took note of this- and turned it into yet another hilarious video.

Mega64 was hired to make two promos for the Independent Games Festival Awards at GDC, and the video you see above was one of them. The Mega64 crew went around punching those dumb Halo lovers, and stupid Madden fans. Ugh- they make me sick! Everyone knows that you’re supposed to only play indie games! If I see you with a laptop playing anything other than World of Goo, I WILL END YOU!

For those of you that played and completed Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, you probably remember the sly message after the credits, saying “The Quest Continues Fall 2009.” Insomniac Games made good on their promise, announcing Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time, the last of the PS3 trilogy, at GDC this past week. At the time, all we received was a short description, a title, and a logo. As of now, we haven’t even seen any gameplay for it- but we do have this brand new teaser trailer, courtesy of GameTrailers.

The trailer, as you see above, has a mysterious voiceover explaining the concept of time, and the people that seek to control it, one of them probably being Dr. Nefarious from Quest for Booty. As you near the end of the monologue, a Lombax is revealed as the mysterious voice, which probably hints to their possibly pivotal part of A Crack in Time. This trailer also gives an official time frame for the game, so you can look forward to it hitting the Playstation Network in fall of this year.

If I was at GDC, then I could say that I was at the Nintendo keynote, but instead, I’ll just report some news that I found as if I was. The Wii’s Virtual Console service will soon include arcade games as well as the myriad of other retro platforms it supports. The four available now are:

* Gaplus (Namco Bandai): 600 Wii Points
* Mappy (Namco Bandai): 500 Wii Points
* The Tower Of Druaga (Namco Bandai): 500 Wii Points
* Starforce (Tecmo): 500 Wii Points

Space Harrier and Solvalou are on the way as well. Although British arcades when I was wee didn’t have obscure games like this (at least not the ones near me), I have hope that the addition of arcade games will allow the Virtual Console to be even more comprehensive.

The image you see above comes straight from the Asian Xbox Live Marketplace site, where intrepid net-surfers found a product page for the upcoming Gears of War 2 DLC, titled Dark Corners. You remember Dark Corners, right? The DLC that gives you.. stuff.. with the, uh…darker…

Yeah, no, I’ve never heard of it either.

According to Kotaku, the advent of said GOW2 DLC at GDC is right in line with GameTrailers TV’s Geoff Keighley Twitter, where he said that we could expect some new GOW announcements at GDC. As Kotaku also points out, the GOW2 Snowblind DLC is being released at the end of March, so it wouldn’t make sense for Dark Corners to be another set of maps. It’s likely that GDC will herald an extension of the Gears campaign instead. I guess we’ll find out soon, when either Microsoft or Epic makes the announcement at GDC. And make it as garish as possible, guys- anything less than pyrotechnics, and I’ll be disappointed.

Bioware are set to be delivering a lecture at the 2009 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco about the level design process of Mass Effect 2. A detailed description of the level design process is to be shown, and “graphical examples of a level” will be used to back this up. Of course, this mean we’ll be getting new Mass Effect 2 info along with it once everyone pours out of the conference hall. Hit the jump for the full details, but don’t expect anything necessarily interesting unless you’re into game design.

The Iterative Level Design Process of Bioware’s MASS EFFECT 2
Speaker: Corey Andruko (Project Manager, BioWare), Dusty Everman (Lead Technical Designer, BioWare)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Production
Secondary Track: Game Design
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: All

Session Description
This session examines the BioWare Mass Effect team’s new level-creation process, which is focused on maximizing iteration for quality while minimizing rework and cost. This approach to building levels strives to integrate the Design, Art, and Production teams such that the highest-risk level-creation issues are addressed early in the development cycle. Lessons learned from Mass Effect lead to a detailed description of the new level-creation process, and graphical examples of a level illustrate its progression through the necessary phases. The discussion also examines how BioWare is currently implementing this process using elements of Scrum and Lean Development.

Takeaway
Attendees will: – Gain insight into some of the major issues the development team encountered while building Mass Effect at BioWare; – Get a detailed look at the Mass Effect team’s new approach to creating levels while avoiding these issues; – Find out how this new process is working for the Mass Effect team; – Learn about new pitfalls the team discovered that can potentially be avoided on future game projects.

Intended Audience and Prerequisites
This lecture is intended for producers, designers, or any game developer involved in planning, specification, or content creation for game levels. An understanding of modern video game development workflows is recommended.

Via the ever-lovely GameZine.

The 11th IGF kicks off submissions today, giving you until November to tweak your sweet indie game into something we’ll be talking about for months after you win that $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Finalists will be announced January 5 and playable on GDC show floor. Prizes in a variety of categories will be awarded on March 25 in a ceremony paired with the Game Developers Choice Awards. Check out this year’s winners here.

Indie developer Silverlode Interactive accosted me outside the press room at GDC to show me their new MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy) game, SAGA. The game looks interesting enough, and given the fact that it’s essentially free, it very well may be worth your time. I checked out the beta yesterday, and I have to say that I have no idea what I’m doing. There seemed to be plenty of people who did, however, so maybe I just missed something.

Either way, SAGA has just entered open beta for the public, so you can give the game a shot for yourself. Full press release after you click the link at the end of this sentence… wait for it… okay, now!

SAGA Enters Open Beta

Silverlode Interactive opened its servers to all players for SAGA– the persistent world MMORTS.

Provo, UT – February 26, 2008

The World’s First Collectible MMORTS entered Open Beta testing on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008. All players who sign up at www.playsaga.com will receive accounts, allowing them to create nations on the Beta servers. For the duration of the Beta test, all game features will be unlocked and available to testers. At release, a full unlocked copy of SAGA will cost $19.95; however, promotions will be available during the open beta period to purchase the full version of SAGA at a reduced price.

During the stress test conducted on Saturday, February 23rd, the servers performed excellently, with no crashes or other server issues. The SAGA servers are expected to support up to 20,000 players per realm with thousands of simultaneous users. Should a greater-than-expected number of players attempt to login to the world at the same time, a login queue will be implemented and additional realms will be brought online.

Go now to www.playsaga.com to check out SAGA Open Beta!

About SAGA – SAGA is a persistent world RTS in an epic fantasy setting. Players collect troops, build armies, conquer new lands and build up kingdoms, complete with resource collection, city building and peasant management. SAGA’s features include massive armies, multiplayer questing, guild wars, espionage, and an auction house for trading troops and spells.

SAGA has no subscription fees. Players pay as little or as much as they decide, by purchasing ‘booster packs’ of random troops and spells, which are traded and customized to create the strategic army of choice for each player. Visit www.playsaga.com

SAGA Screenshots

22 Photos

 

During GDC, the Ripten crew was privy to an exclusive invite-only shindig presented by the good people at D3Publishing. What did we do? Well, we sat down in front of some system-linked Xbox 360s and proceeded to tear the shit out of each other in a few rounds of Digital Extremes’ new game, Dark Sector.

Steve Sinclair, Project Lead for the game, ran through a bit of the single player with us first. He showed us what is essentially the tutorial, the events leading up to Hayden (Dark Sector’s main character) getting infected with awesomeness, and then skipped around to later levels to show us some upgraded bad-assery.

As you probably know by this point, Dark Sector is synonymous with “giant throwing star thingy that looks like it’s from Krull” — a reference to Hayden’s main weapon, the glaive. Later in the game, you can enter a bullet-time-like mode where the glaive flies through the air in slow motion and you get to steer it around like a UFO.

You can use this time to appropriately slice and dice your enemies, literally. Body parts are sent airborne in the process with a playful amount of gooey redness, just enough to make Jack Thompson weep for the children. Josh Austin, the game’s producer (and the guy holding the controller), said there is even an achievement for cutting off two heads in one throw! Slightly more understandable now as to why it’s banned in Australia, eh?

So after our appetites are adequately whetted (with the thirst for blood, no doubt), we are handed controllers and sent off to kill each other.

The game controls much as you would expect a third-person, over-the-shoulder shooter to control. It does feel slightly slower than, say, Gears of War, as if the character is a little floaty. Maybe I was just used to playing other games, but it didn’t matter — I got used to it in 5-10 minutes.

There were two multiplayer modes available: Infection and Epidemic. Infection pits one buffed-up Hayden character against a group of normals — regular old hazmat-suited soldiers. Whoever takes down Hayden becomes him in the next round. Epidemic is team-based, with one Hayden on each side. He serves as the team’s VIP — protect your Hayden while trying to kill the other team’s Hayden.

Both game types are fairly straightforward, but they offer something most other multiplayer games don’t: bots! Both game types can house up to 10 players, but if you don’t have (or want) enough actual people to play with you, you can fill out the remaining slots with AI-controlled fodder. This is a great feature, something I never understood why it wasn’t implemented in more games.

I was Hayden in the first round of Infection, and I got two kills before being gang-banged. After that it turned into an every-man-for-himself type of deal because everyone wanted to be Hayden. There was very little team play, but I think that’s just because everyone I was playing with was a selfish bunch of dicks. Then again, where’s the motivation to team up and take this guy down if your best bud becomes your enemy? It really is just an exercise in kill-stealing, but it was fun.

In Epidemic, my team was slaughtered repeatedly until I got my turn as Hayden. Once that happened, we won 5 rounds in a row before I was dethroned by a backstabbing insta-kill (sneaky bastards!). Steve showed me where to get a freeze power-up for my glaive, which I then used to “ice” one of my opponents. Ha, see what I did there with the words and stuff? Needless to say, Epidemic was the favored of the two modes.

Overall, the game looked fantastic and felt pretty solid. Steve and Josh both stressed that the single-player game will be constantly evolving, giving you more powers and more things to do. “Never stop learning,” they say. That’s what keeps people interested and driven forward. As for the multiplayer, it will ship with just the two modes, but more are being considered.

Dark Sector is scheduled for a March 25 release on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and I’m itching to play it again.

Dark Sector Screenshot Gallery

19 Photos

 

Sony has surprisingly announced that Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, will be resigning from his position this week on February 29, 2008.

Kaz Hirai, former head of Sony Computer Entertainment America who is now filling the shoes of the previously departed Ken Kutaragi, will assume Harrison’s duties along with his current responsibilities.

Not the first big name to leave one of the industry’s major hardware developers, Harrison has been at Sony for pretty much the entire life of the PlayStation brand and has been a very visible face for the company in the last couple years.

While there is no word on the catalyst for this move, maybe it should not come as such a surprise given some of Harrison’s recent comments at GDC concerning his frustrations with certain voices inside Sony.

Speculation aside, while there is no word on Harrison’s reasoning, Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that he may be joining Atari in the near future. Press release in full below.

SCE WORLDWIDE STUDIOS PRESIDENT
PHIL HARRISON RESIGNS
SCEI Group CEO Kazuo Hirai Assumes Responsibilities

Tokyo, February 25, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS), will resign from Sony Computer Entertainment Group as of February 29, 2008. Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of SCEI, will immediately assume responsibilities as president of SCE WWS, in addition to his current duties.

Prior to the launch of the original PlayStation®, Phil Harrison joined Sony Electronics Publishing, Ltd. in 1992, which later evolved into Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and since then, he has made a tremendous contribution to the company playing a strategic role in the launch of four PlayStation platforms, as well as building strong relationships with game developers and publishers throughout the world. Since his appointment to the position of president, SCE WWS, Harrison applied his considerable skill, knowledge and expertise to lead SCE Group’s first party game development as well as aggressively pursuing the development of new online entertainment experiences.

“As one of the founding members of SCE, Phil played a key role in the development and growth of the PlayStation business and our industry,” said Kazuo Hirai. “It is sad to see him departing from SCE, but I wish to express my gratitude for his many invaluable contributions and also wish Phil the very best of luck in his future endeavors.”

“The past 15 years at Sony Computer Entertainment has been the defining journey of my life so far,” said Phil Harrison. “I am grateful to all the PlayStation family for their incredible support, guidance and friendship. It has been a privilege to serve as part of the team and be inspired by them on a daily basis. I am so proud of everything PlayStation has achieved and will continue to support its future in every way I can.”

Source: SCEI, NeoGAF, Gameindustry.biz

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.

The controls were fluid and familiar for the most part. I was the first to step up and try out one of the new characters (Abel) however, I wasn’t “able” to pull off very many of his moves, and with limited practice time, I quickly switched back to the familiar Ken/Ryu approach.

In terms of visuals, the game was flat out beautiful, and there was no need to jog your memory for a comparison to the original, since it was looping on the plasma just a few feet behind you (a stroke of PR genius).

The arcade unit itself is set to be distributed in Japan, and while those in the US can purchase the Japanese version right now on the AOU website, Chris (head of Capcom PR) told me that they are working to bring it to the US on a larger scale. In terms of completion, Chris shared with me that the current build we were playing was about 55% complete, with the major differences over the 50% build being primarily UI related.

GameTap’s Jared Rhea was kicking ass and taking names early on during the practice period, as he and his Street Fighter counterpart (Zangief) proved difficult to dethrone. My money was on Jared to win it all.

As the night went on, the arcade joystick became one with pizza grease, and the competition grew stiff. I managed to make it to the third round of the single elimination bracket before getting my ass handed to me by Mike Jones.

While I didn’t take away the 1st place trophy for best Street Fighter IV journalist in the US, I should have won something for moving the arcade unit at least six inches each time I performed a move — they really should have bolted that puppy down.

Unfortunately, my predicted winner lost in the final round to Dan Boutros — and it broke my heart to hear Jared’s first hand account of a “combo gone bad” later that night at the Will Wright party. Dan was then treated to a special guest match up against the games producer, Yoshinori Ono, where he once again emerged victorious.

No one walked away empty handed, as Capcom gave us all a sweet SFIV grab bags direct from AOU. All-in-all, it was a fun filled event, and thanks go out to Capcom for putting it together.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

(Click the images again to enlarge)

GDC 08 - A Pictrospective

109 Photos

 

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“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.

After describing some of these choices, Sakurai continued on to discuss how they unified the look of all the characters as much as possible by using intermediate colors, textures, and lighting. Not only does this help make Link and Mario feel natural side by side, but it gives the Smash Brothers team interpretations a lot more detail than the regular models.

He gave special emphasis to their Pit, who, not having had an update in about 20 years, was really fun to design. “Please don’t tell me this isn’t the Pit you all remember, because it is,” he said, even as he pointed out the “pretty cute” Grecian footwear, and the spinning bow attack “sort of like Darth Maul in Star Wars.”

Next he elaborated on how he designed the moves for each character. It starts with brainstorming, which he assumed was the easiest part. There are four parts to each animation: standby, windup, strike, and follow-through. He said they don’t have to be super realistic, because it’s supposed to be more about fun for the player.

To show his team the vision he had for each move, Sakurai posed 4″ Microman action figures and took 30-50 shots per character. He showed lots of side by side pictures with Wario and the figures, Pit and the figures (with twisty tie bow prop), Sonic and the figures (with added visual effects for his spin move), and others. Even for characters like MetaKnight who aren’t really shaped like a standard human being, he said that it was better to have the action figure tool than to just use a text explanation.

“To build the characters you must synthesize the intent of the originals, Smash Bros. game design, and character moves,” Sakurai explained, leading up to his discussion of parameters. He did all the work on this part of the game, which involved refining performance again and again to get the character speeds, throw distances, and other numerical issues just right.

“Hitting the mark here may well be the most important thing…” and he explained that it was very important to go back to the original games and “sniff out” the reasons why, for instance, Mario jumps and falls quickly, while Samus floats. The answer is that Samus needs to aim and shoot while she jumps. Sonic is actually quite slow until he gets going, which is why players feel such intense speed once he’s topped out.

He played a bit of the game for us (showing Snake stick a butterfly bomb to Pit’s face and remote detonating it, getting a funny screenshot of Pit’s wings poking through Snake’s back during a grab animation) before ending his talk by reiterating how important it is to market your game effectively. Descending into “dojo update hell” was a necessary task for his dev team, and he wrote the daily updates himself.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl ships for North America, in case you somehow forgot, on March 9th!

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.

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.

David Jones began by stated that he’s not really making an MMORPG, because MMOs don’t always have to be RPGs, nor do they always have to be fantasy or sci fi, since that limits your audience.

He wants to get away from the geeky stigma and root games in the contemporary world that people can understand right away without needing a niche culture passport. In fact, he says he’s not even sure most MMOs are “massively multiplayer” at all, considering that most of your time is spent in 5-25 man raids.

A dedicated server for a game, this Jones considers the most exciting part. Instead of asking what kind of MMO he should make, he thinks of what game he can make with a dedicated server. New audiovisual effects are great for artists and composers, but he feels like adding the dedicated server is a serious asset for designers.

So on the back of Crackdown, Realtime Worlds’ first release, David Jones wants fewer constraints and more freedom, because “the true beauty of our medium is in the players’ imaginations, not the designers’.” He also boldly says, “I like to leave the story to books and movies, they do it so well.” This is clearly evident in Crackdown, since nobody plays that game for its narrative; it’s all about the crazy times with crazy super powers.

So what’s going to be in this new game of his, APB? Well for starters, one hell of a character editor. And not just a character editor, but an everything editor. Not only can you pinch and pull each facial feature, grow the hair, put on weight, pop out veins, add freckles or fresh/aged scars, but the decal system in this game is fantastic.

You’ve seen decals in racing games before, but in this game the system extends to tattoos, clothing, cars – all your stuff. You make a clan/gang (instead of a “guild-” part of his replacement of geek with chic agenda) and create your own completely unique look.

Everything is scalable and (he hammered this point home) high quality, as if an actual artist designed it. None of that cheap decal that looks like you slapped some paint on your shirt; tattoos look like tattoos and clothing looks like cloth. Basically everything from the music you hear in your car (which supports custom soundtracks and even matches music/music style with others you play with) to the jeans hanging off your ass (if you so choose – your boxers don’t have to show) is ridiculously customizable.

Summing up the character editor portion with toons of some industry greats, including Shigeru Miyamoto in mushroom boxers and an old school Mario t-shirt, drove home the fact that not only could you make whatever you want (within the constraints of a realistic world – no aliens) but you could just make yourself.

At this point I was thinking, well that’s great, but what’s the game? Well, you plop a couple hundred players into a big city (from high rise to waterfront), give them some sandbox tools (physics, guns, vehicles) and ask them to choose sides.

Players pick to be enforcement or gang and will receive missions accordingly from their bosses. For example, we watched one mission that sent gang members to hijack a truck. Although the truck driver is some NPC, it gets interesting in that instead of “Artificial Incompetence” going after you, the game will assign other players to try and stop you through some dynamic matchmaking magic. This way, every mission is automatically different because you’re not just grinding the same MOBs.

Speaking of the grind, Jones declares it a “broken hook,” adding, “…it’s called a grind for a reason.” He has played lots of WoW, but he played it “like a programmer” by just hitting the sequence of buttons that works and repeating and repeating. So how do you keep people playing when there is…ahem…NO LEVELING? Apparently, it’s all about pimping your character; “visual progression, not spreadsheet.”

The other important thing that will keep people coming back is having great core gameplay. For this, he refers to Counter-Strike, calling it, “the best online game ever.” He bet that many people in the audience were compelled to play it for 100+ hours because, as he said earlier in the talk, “Multiplayer gaming is really where it’s at.”

To illustrate one way to balance out noobs vs. hardcore veterans, he showed another example mission where four novices (in rather plain t-shirts and minimal gear) are sent to steal TVs. The matchmaking system finds one badass guy who’s been playing for six months and sends him in. This makes him feel like a badass, and gives the noobs a sense of (false) hope that maybe they can survive. Yeah, this hope is crushed when he pulls out a rocket launcher. Death, however, is not so bad – just an inconvenience of a short distance and the time taken to hop-skip back.

In-game Character Model

One great thing about MMO’s is that they are never complete, and take inspiration from their players. This can be seen in a feature asked for by APB’s QA team; a videocamera. One player can be the videographer while the rest make costumes and stage elaborate theatrics in the streets – with blocked off roads to stop AI from driving through the middle of the set. Other players can still crash through and aspiring actors will stand around asking to be let in the movie, but creative people will be able to have even more fun in APB.

More importantly, players can design their experience with the game themselves. “Watch, listen, embrace,” is Dave Jones’ mantra for supporting players, and that sounds absolutely rad.

No news on a timeframe, so it’s probably best to wait until a later date to start shopping for your new PC. I hope that what he told us about the specs not being so crazy is true, because I gotta play this game.

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.

A lot of stuff happened over the past two days. Everything will be explained in more detail by the peeps that were there, so don’t bust my balls if I don’t deliver the full monty right now.

We got a sneak peak at a bunch of upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games, courtesy of the XNA dev tool. There were a few titles that actually haven’t been announced yet, so stay tuned for that.

We also met with the Zeitguyz team for Recoil: Retrograd, and saw quite a bit of Havok stuff (which you can read about here).

Jon ran off and did a bunch of interviews while Chad and I went to the Microsoft keynote. A lot of good stuff was talked about there, including Ninja Gaiden II, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, and XNA 2 — er, just XNA. Sorry, I got on a roll there with the 2s.

We got some coverage of the IGF and Game Developer Awards, had a Q&A with Sid Meier, saw new footage of Mercenaries 2, Prototype, and The Force Unleashed, saw RealTime Worlds’ new MMO, hung out with the peeps from X-Play, and had a quiet evening with Will Wright.

Of course there are other things we did, too, like your mom. Oh, snap! Seriously, though, we attended quite a few events and will give you the complete story shortly.

In the meantime, rest easy knowing that I was only once almost run over by a speeding fucktard in a BMW, and Chad was kind enough to half almost attempt to save me. Thanks Chad!

We also had a kind soul offer to taxi us back to our hotel for just slightly more than the cost of taking an actual taxi, but this ride had the added thrill of almost getting us murdered. The dude was kind, but very strange. He called us “country bumpkins” and never really answered me when I specifically asked whether or not he was going to kill us. I take that as a definite “maybe”, but perhaps he just didn’t do it because he knew we were expecting it.

Moral of the story here, kids, is that you should never cross the street — ever, and under no circumstances should you get in someone’s car before asking if they are going to kill you. Wise words from your good pals at Ripten.

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.”

Planted in the middle of Miyamoto’s Wii conceptual diagram (along with Wii Play and Wii Sports brainstorms) were ideas stemming from the fact that Miyamoto just enjoys measuring his weight and collecting the information. Of course, to make the product have wide appeal, there needed to be more to it, because who weighs themselves in the living room?

While the software team was taking care of that area, Sawano and his team were hard at work designing the peripheral that would become the Wii Balance Board. His idea to have two scales came from seeing Sumo wrestlers weighed that way, since one scale wouldn’t be enough to measure over 330 pounds. Not that we are all huge, but just that charting the weight shifting between feet could be an interesting way to proceed. He showed pictures of various prototypes, including raw shots of the strain gauges, of which there are four in the final product.

“Connecting the Wii Remote is a clumsy solution, don’t you think?” is how Nintendo President Satoru Iwata responded to their already heavily tweaked prototype when they first presented it. So much for cutting costs! Now the Balance Board is a self-contained wireless device. The decision to widen the board to account for a shoulder width stance during exercise also added more cost. Luckily it seems that since the game is selling so well in Japan (over 1.4 million copies since it was released last December) third parties may be interested in developing for the peripheral as well, so we’ll have more to do with our new toy. One such title already released in Japan by Bandai Namco in January is called Family Ski, which features a more fleshed out skiing game. Sawano rolled footage of a Japanese comedian having a great time while pulling off jumps and navigating moguls.

Wii Fit hits Europe April 25 and North America May 19. Might wanna start jogging around the block so the Miis don’t leave you in the dust on Wii Fit Island.

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

The first time I played Max Payne 2 and shot a criminal off a building I had myself a moment. I died, came back to life, had 5 babies, got married, died again and came back to life. It was quite an emotional day.

At this year’s GDC, Havok is showing demos of two abosolutely new engines and my heart is racing. Check out a video of their new cloth physics offering.

Thanks to PS3 Attitude for the video.

Host Andy Schatz said of the indie game development scene, “The weather here is just fine,” and added that being an indie developer is not (always) just another stop on the road to the big time.

To prove it, he presented awards for the finest indie games of last year as selected by a jury of game industry greats. Check out the full list of winners after the jump!

Thankfully, the entire GDC awards ceremony (including the Game Developers Choice Awards) will be broadcast for the first time on G4, so you will be able to check out the whole thin. But if you don’t feel like watching it, here is the full list of winners for your pleasure.

Best Student Game – Synaesthete, by DigiPen Institute of Technology

Technical Excellence – World of Goo, by 2D Boy

Excellence in Visual Art – Fez, by Kokoromi

Design Innovation Award – World of Goo, by 2D Boy

Excellence in Audio – Audiosurf, by Invisible Handlebar

Best Web Browser Game – Iron Dukes, by One Ton Ghost

Best Strategic Game - Desktop Tower Defense, by Hand Drawn Games

Audience Award (voted on via the IGF website) – Audiosurf, by Invisible Handlebar

Seumas McNally Grand Prize – Crayon Physics Deluxe, by Kloonigames

The results of the IGF Mobile Awards can be found here.

The View From the Front Row

Chad just phoned me from the front row of the Microsoft keynote at GDC 08 where the word seems to be that Gears of War 2 will be officially announced at the end of the keynote.

An Italian press release has hit the web and Patrick Steen was able to grab it from the NeoGaf forums. Once translated to English, it reads:

“Gears of War 2” is the sequel to the best seller, with 4,5 million copies sold, which redefined the tactical/third person/action game genre. “Gears of War 2” follow the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Team in an epic saga of survival, defeat (?) and punishment. Developed by Epic games as an Xbox 360 exclusive, “Gears of War 2” will be available from November.

We’ll let you know when Gears of War 2 is officially confirmed, but it looks like it’s going to be soon.

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

We met up in the press room to get our schedules straight (again), eat muffins, and get our daily recommended allowance of Mountain Dew. Jon Zungre drew first blood by attending the Independent Games Festival Mobile Awards, making us all look bad with his go-getting initiative.

When Jon got back, we headed over to the D3 Publisher’s GDC 2008 Press Event. While we were there, we got some hands-on time with the Dark Sector multiplayer, which we can’t talk about, and got demoed three more upcoming games.

The first and only game we are allowed to talk about was NARUTO: Ninja Destiny for the Nintendo DS. It was surprisingly solid for a handheld 3D fighting game. Look for our full impressions of the game later this week.

The other games we were shown were Bangai O Spirits and an as-yet unannounced game that we will spill the beans about next week, so be sure to check back for that. We were treated to some cheesecake and cupcakes before heading back out into the recently nerdified San Francisco. We had a few things to see, so we split up from here.

Jon and I went to see a new game called Freaky Creatures, an MMO game from Abandon Interactive. The concept was actually very cool, and even though all of the art and effects weren’t in the game yet, we walked away pleased. Look for our full impressions of the game very soon.

We headed from there to a press conference about the Emotiv headset, a device that reads your thoughts, emotions, and facial expressions. The event was almost a complete train wreck, mainly because the douchebags in the audience refused to disconnect themselves from dork headquarters — all those wireless signals in the room were messing up the headset’s reception. They promised us some hands-on time with the thing tomorrow, so hopefully we can get a better idea of whether it’s actually cool or just another expensive way to make me look more retarded.

While we were doing all that, Chad went to an ominously vague PC announcement, which turned out to be this. The invite did a good job of making it sound extremely important while also not saying anything at all. Those crafty bastards!

He then met up with a few others at the Sony Online Entertainment party. Apparently, Sony really wanted to solidify the competition they have with Microsoft by throwing an equally shitty, fallopian tube party — the female version of Microsoft’s Sausage Fest 2008. Packed with a bunch of old ladies, Chad fled the scene before the combined might of their mental undressings left him naked (the room was cold, too, so we couldn’t have that).

After that, we all took refuge in our overpriced dumpster that is somehow considered to be a hotel. As I said before, we don’t get to bite into the meat of the GDC sandwich until tomorrow (or technically today, considering what time it is), so things will only get better from here on out. If we somehow manage to stay awake and experience it, we’ll be sure to tell you all about it first because you are our very bestest friends.

If you had ever wondered what it would be like to meet up with a bunch of nerds and go to the Game Developer’s Conference, then wonder no more. We’re here to walk you through the ins, outs, and slightly-to-the-lefts of GDC day one.

The people at Ripten lucky enough to get out to the Game Developers Conference this year (Head Cheese Chad, Jon, Mike, Andrew, Emily, and myself) all met up at the San Francisco Airport on Sunday. Mike was kind enough to let a few of us crash at his place, even though he was supposed to spend time with Jessica Chobot. What a true friend…

We wake up late on Monday morning, obviously, and head into the city. Rays of light surround us and angels sing out in immaculate chorus as we stroll through the doors of the Moscone Center. We go to the Super Awesome V.I.P check-in area to get our badges, and we are instantly recognized.

Okay, so maybe I embellished a little. Nobody really paid any attention to us, and the closest we got to being recognized is when a guy asked which one of us was Chad.

There’s not a whole lot going on for press on Monday and Tuesday, as the main focus is on (surprise!) game development. It’s mainly just classes and lectures, so we spent a lot of the day going over schedules and talking about prenuptial agreements. We also get better acquainted with one another since this is the first time any of us had actually met in person. A lot of high fives and ass-grabbage ensues.

We eventually get around to checking out one of the tutorials and a completely non-mechanical flight simulator (more on that later) before heading over to the Zeemote party. We have our fill of rolled-up cheese and pot stickers (which I never heard of — basically, they’re like Chinese dumplings), and then play it casually cool as we skip out to the Microsoft Casual Games party next door.

Surprisingly, the Microsoft party was in the same size room as the Zeemote party, with the exception of being completely packed and lacking in the Lara Croft impersonator department. We stayed just long enough to say, ” Let’s get out of here.” and then did just that. Unfortunately, none of us got to try the “Casualtini” in the less than a minute we were in there.

To top off the night, our hotel room’s thermostat was broken, so we cracked a window. Unfortunately for Chad, we were on the seventh floor, so we dangled him out that window, Schwarzenegger-style, and demanded our monthly allowance of peanuts. Chad subsequently had us moved to the third floor and blamed it on the thermostat to save face, but really it was because three stories would hurt less.

Overall, it was a fairly mild day. Perhaps if I was a drunk or a budding game developer (or both!), I would have found the day much more entertaining. The event gets more interesting tomorrow but really ramps up when they open the expo floor on Wednesday. Look for our updates throughout the week on the exciting (or sometimes not so exciting) experience that is the Game Developers Conference 2008.

Also, let us know in the comments section how you feel about prenuptial agreements.

With GDC just around the corner, the rumour mill is running at full speed. Normally most of these rumours turn out to be nothing more than falsities or let downs, but this one seems to be carrying some weight.

Fable 2 Multiplayer has been long rumoured, but will we finally be seeing some solid information and end to the speculation? Tips from key industry insiders are all indicating that Peter Molyneux will be announcing at next week’s GDC that Fable 2 multiplayer will be coming, and giving us all some juicy information on the matter.

To add further confusion to the rumour soup surrounding the game, a few days ago the Wikipedia article for Fable 2 was updated with some intriguing information, stating that XBOX Live will allow “a host to invite up to 3 other Fable 2 players into their Albion to train, finish quests and so forth.”

Ripten will be reporting from GDC all next week, so keep your eyes here for all the latest news as it breaks.

If you are a little bummed out about not being able to attend this years GDC, and you happen to be an XBL subscriber, you’re in luck.

The thoughtful folks over at Microsoft are bringing the event (their version of it, at least) into your living room starting February 20th.

Xbox LIVE members will gain access to the event starting on February 20th, and be treated to Microsoft’s keynote (A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community), breaking 360 news, never-before-seen gameplay, demos, screenshots, game trailers, show floor interviews, and other Microsoft related free high-definition content.

So prep your living room and make sure you have a clear line of site from your couch to the TV — but don’t forget to keep your laptop handy, because we here at Ripten will be offering you our own brand of GDC coverage as well, starting the moment the Moscone Convention Center doors swing open on February 18th.

According to a certain Nelson’s twitter profile, a conspicuous update hints at a special mid-week podcast, something that may turn out to be a major announcement from Microsoft’s gaming division. Conveniently enough, it’s happening right before GDC.

Coincidence? I think not. If you look at this podcast’s track record, every time there’s a mid-week show, something semi-big to big has happened: Elite announcement, extended 3-year warranty for RRoD, and the cheeky Peter Moore bailing out on MS for EA.

Let’s just hope the Major isn’t yanking our chain.

Source: Major Nelson

In an apparent lapse of concentration, Surfer Girl (or one of the few Surfer Girls as we presume) previously let the games of GDC ‘08 slip, or at least she made unconfirmed predictions. She has now removed all of her comments from the article, stating in an update:

Note to self: Don’t answer things when half-asleep leaves rooom for error.
Note to self: Don’t type things when half-awake leaves room for errorr.
Note to self: Proofread.
Note to self: Go back to sleep.

As with the nature of these things, any listed titles are of course rumours and Surfer Girl does not act as any sort of confirmation. And yes, we noted the irony in the spelling of “errorr” too. Get some sleep Surfer Girl.

However, nothing has changed from our predictions. The Final Fantasy XIII engine will be presented in a tutorial by Square Enix, and we’re hopeful that there’ll be extensive footage of this previously unseen game.

The Force Unleashed engine will be on show, along with a discussion on Far Cry 2’s procedural storytelling. Pandemic will be presenting Mercenaries 2: World in Flames’ destructible environment, and ID Software’s Rage engine has a high chance of making an appearance.

There will be a walk through of the Frostbite engine (Battlefield: Bad Company), in addition to three big Fable 2 announcements. You can also expect new footage of Sony’s HOME and XNA announcements from Microsoft.

There is a chance that you’ll see the first footage of Resistance 2, since Insomniac will be discussing the improvements they have made with their PS3 engine. However, if we don’t see the game at GDC, I’m certain we’ll see it elsewhere very soon.

It is unknown whether the public will get to see any of this, but at least you’ll hear about it from us.

Current and future UE3 clients will be eligible to witness these latest upgrades and enhancements within Epic’s expo suite at GDC.

The first presentation on February 20th will see Epic Games’ Programmer Martin Sweitzer dropping some programming edu-mi-cation on your ass, followed by an Unreal Tournament 3 postmortem two days later presented by President Michael Capps and Producer Jeff Morris.

You can look forward to GDC ’08 coverage as it happens here on Ripten.

Source: Next-Gen.biz

The MC of the event was Lil’ Miss Rebecca Havemeyer, who did a really great job of introducing each act, and even sang and danced a bit herself:

Texas doesn’t allow nipples, among other anatomical items, but amid the audience’s lamentation of the pasties we saw bathing girl, suspender girl, biker girl, cutie goth girl, girls in chaps, girls shakin’ it…

Many girls from Kitty Kitty Bang Bang:

Incidentally, these photos are all pretty blurry and horrible, so just imagine them as your drunk goggles for the evening. Seemed to be mandatory apparel.

After abstaining from a tequila shot with a pair of costumed company poster fellows, I watched as they hopped up on stage for a musical encore:

The refrain escapes me for the moment, but rest assured, it was about cocks. From there the evening descended further into drunken haze with the appearance of Magnifico!, whose lead singer rocked out in his body sock until something like 1 am, at which point it was past my bedtime. GameCock definitely knows how to keep us occupied until their games come out.