This isn't going to be much of a write-up (I'll link to our website if we actually get a more complete view of things written up), but I figured some people may be curious as to what went on at GDC this year. Or at least what went on in the few lectures and things me and my roommate were able to attend. I'd let you rely on IGN or something, but they're such douchebags and their info isn't even all correct!
So we missed the Unreal Engine 3 demo on Wednesday because of a mix-up with our passes (I don't think I should elaborate on the legalities of it all, so I won't!) We started with a nice lunch, then headed over to the Gameplay Moves Forward into the 21st Century session headed by Peter Molyneux with help from someone whose name I can't recall (he's working on Black & White 2 with Peter and he's previously worked with Blizzard on all of their RTSs). The presentation was mostly a "hey, I'm sorry that Black & White lacked structure, but the second one is going to kick SO MUCH ASS I PROMISE!" claim by Molynuex. When that man claims something and then he shows you the progress, it's very hard not to drop to your knees and believe every word.
Black & White 2 kicks so much ass. We have video but if we host it our bandwidth will get owned faster than we'd like it to get owned. So if anyone else feels like hosting any of the video we took at GDC PM me. It's camera footage of a projector, it looks good on our TV but I'm really not sure how the quality would end up if we went through the hassle.
Either way, he showed us Black & White 2 which kicked complete ass, and since I'm lazy you'll have to ask questions if you want details.
He showed The Movies first, I forgot about that, but it looks neat as well. Not so much my genre, but definitely impressive anyway (for those unfamiliar, it is a sim game where you make movies).
Then it got even more interesting. Molynuex asked Mark Healey to get his ass out of the audience and set up a demo of The Room. The Room is an experimental thing which Healey developed to show off some new badass ideas, rendering, and physics. Think something that may be used as MC Escher: The Game. I don't know how else to describe the things that went on while he was showing it off.
From a first person perspective you could explore and interact with anything you wanted to in a room. Leading into other rooms were portals in mirrors. As he went through one portal into a hallway with pillars and such, he turned around to some sort of casket. When he lifted the lid off the casket a seemingly smaller version of the room he just came from was inside. By moving down into the casket he seamlessly transitioned back into the original room. The demo also included changing the size of things by putting them through portals and creating objects with an in-game dumbed down clay. I'm sure that all sounds a bit boring, but it was actually very impressive visually and technically.
We were disappointed, however, that Mark didn't have a chance to show his game
Ragdoll Kung Fu. Which, as you may know, looks like it kicks almost too many forms of ass. So we go up to the stage afterwards and ask him about it and he gets all excited. He was way nice and wanted to give us a proper look at it, so we headed out to the hall and pulled up a table and some chairs. He loaded it up on his laptop and showed us how it all worked, then he let us play. I may seem easily pleased right now, but holyfuckingshit that game kicks so much ass. Nothing but simple physics and simple controls and so many ways to beat ass (you can already play online or hook up 8 mice to a computer for multiplayer). Keeping all of that in mind, he also told us that he made the game in 2.5 years almost completely by himself (with help from 2 friends for some coding ideas).
Anyway, his name is Mark Healey and he deserves lots of money, so buy the game when he finishes it (which he says will be soon).
Then we checked out the Age of Empires 3 engine demo, which was honestly way more disappointing than the screenshots would suggest.
I'm actually too tired to write anything more tonight, so I'll mention some of what else we attended and if anybody cares feel free to ask about things.
We went to the Nintendo Keynote where the president of Nintendo talked about how DS will be set up for WiFi soon. He said it will be free and that the Revolution will ship with a similar free service for online gaming. He also mentioned that the Revolution will be backwards compatible. Some new Zelda footage, which looks badass, and some playing of some new DS games which included Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Electroplankton (I think?), and the seriously fucking cute Nintendogs.
The Half-Life 2 session was mostly technical stuff about their tools and engine as the guys from Valve showed off how they set characters up in game. The face poser and all of their tools are seriously kick ass, if you hadn't noticed already.
We saw Peter Molynuex again, this time doing a postmortem of Fable where he admitted mistakes, talked about what he liked and didn't like, and announced that they will be releasing Fable for the PC closer to how he wanted it to be. They're going to add another third to the game, give it its intended ending, improve parts of the world and even make it bigger I believe, and touch up the combat system and other little things. He also mentioned something else they were working on that will be for multiple platforms, but didn't say anything about it. When asked about it afterwards all he said was, "I can't really tell you much, but I will say that it's a game about you. You will be able to play parts of your own life." Then he said again, "that's all I can say," and he chuckled at our "ok crazy man!" look.
We finished that day with another look at Ragdoll Kung Fu at the experimental games thing where the crowd had never heard of it but they pissed their pants when he started showing it off.
That's most of what we attended. The expo floor was neat, got to play with some decent technology, but nothing really worth mention. Oh, yeah, that F.E.A.R. game sucks.