Jeff Gerstmann is Still Alive

MS also announced the availability of several XNA demos on the Xbox 360. You can download and play them right now. Engadget has written up a fairly succinct story on how to download the necessary objects, so head over there for details on that. I definitely recommend playing The Dishwasher, it’s great. Haven’t tried the others yet, but hey! They’re free! Catch ‘em all, people!

So apparently Gears of War 2 (a sequel to a popular shooting video game) was finally officialized today for a November release on the ol’ Xbox 360. Good to finally get that out of the way. I haven’t seen the teaser trailer yet.

What else happened at the Game Developers Conference? Well, let’s see…Ryan, Alex, and I recorded some videos using Ryan’s laptop, but he didn’t have the sound configured correctly. That means you can make up your own words! You can see the videos on Ryan’s media outlet.

Went and saw a couple of interesting talks. Rob Pardo of Blizzard had some interesting things to say about how to balance a game and, generally speaking, the important pieces of designing a multiplayer game.

Also caught a Q&A session with Sid Meier that was pretty cool, but it was a bit more focused on the past than the future. I think most people going to see Sid Meier speak are probably at least reasonably familiar with his work, and I guess I would have rather hear him talk more about theory and how he approaches game design. The parts of the session that delved into that (like the bit about how he feels that designers should know how to program and how that lets him implement wild, untested ideas without burning up anyone else’s time) were the most interesting to me.

But neither talk was exactly newsworthy, in case you were looking for some big revelation to cause controversy and light up the message boards. That’s fine. By and large, GDC isn’t supposed to be a hugely newsworthy show in the traditional sense, because it’s supposed to be a place for developers to talk to other developers about developing the games we play. So I couldn’t help but feel slightly out of place, even though I do like to know more about what goes into making games from the people that make them, rather than hearing carefully spun PR stories about the process. With more and more media showing up at this thing and taping or broadcasting their shows from GDC, I fear that it all loses a bit of its original meaning.

Then again, if all goes according to plan I’ll get to see Street Fighter IV tomorrow, making GDC one of the most important gaming trade shows in North America in my book. And on top of that, it was great to get out and see folks that I haven’t seen very much of in the past few months or meet new people and just, like, talk about games. In the past, those conversations went more like this:

Someone: Hey man, what’s up?
Me: Not much, hey I need to go write something!
Someone: …

The new editorial thing for 2008 (for me, anyway… I freely admit that some people have been doing this for awhile now) is taking a breath, deciding what the most important and most relevant stuff is for your audience, and then presenting that info in a way that’s meaningful to your readers, rather than bombarding them with as much stuff as you can possibly get your hands on and making them sort through it themselves. That’s not editorializing. That’s an assembly line. Perhaps the print mentality of filling a limited space with the most important stuff possible isn’t quite as dead as I previously thought. Though, obviously, the print delivery mechanism is still totally played.

Except similar “GDC related” updates tomorrow, only maybe the videos will have sound this time. Or not, I don’t know.

PS: Congratulations are due to Jason Ocampo, who mentioned that he bought a new car and will be picking it up this week. I’ve been in the market for a new ride for some time, but I can’t quite pull the trigger on one because I rarely see cars that I like enough to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on them. Take me for a spin in it someday, and if I break down and buy a Lexus IS-F (my current favorite even though it’s probably going to cost more than I want to spend on a car), we’re racing.

After an exhausting morning of watching the Rob Pardo session and taking an early lunch, Ryan and I are standing in line for a Q&A with Sid Meier. That’s going to start at 2:30. The line for this is way longer than the session in the adjoining room, which is about Halo 3’s matchmaking.

I kind of want to go to the Halo thing, but I think I’m going to stick with this.

2:09 - ryan says his new favorite thing for 2008 is dudes with noserings, mostly because we just saw a dude with a nosering, and it’s 2008. There’s also a guy wearing a big floppy hat, like he just stepped out of a rave. From 1996.

2:17 - we’re sitting down now. A person from 2K just told us that this is the best session at GDC.

2:19 - an ineffective dude is standing up front, trying to get everyone to crunch together to make room for more people. He is, in a word, ineffective. I may have said that already.

2:23 - “try to imagine CliffyB at 50.”

2:25 - this appears to be just about as crowded as the Rob Pardo talk was.

2:26 - “that guy develops videogames… annnd brews his own beer.”

2:27 - people are motioning around for seats in a way that makes them look like they’re in a gang or having a silent auction. Are they bidding on Sid Meier?

2:30 - this thing’s going to start. Whichs brings us to the end of another live blog! Bye!

So I’m sitting here in this Rob Pardo (Blizzard) session, which will start at the top of the hour. So I am LIVE FROM THE SCENE! Here is a live blog!

11:50 - me, ryan, and alex just recorded a quick video with ryan’s laptop.

11:52 - the gatorade tiger I drank this morning is really working its way through me quickly.

11:54 - there are a lot of great ponytails in this room.

11:56 - a gentleman sitting behind us just complimented me on my musical endeavors. Yes, the new midnight brown album is stil in the works. It’s just slow-going at the moment.

11:58 - ryan is spreading out across two seats. Such a dirtbag move!

12:00 - this thing is going to start soon, so I’m going to sign off! Thanks for reading this amazingly informative liveblog!

Ryan convinced me to use my headset and Skype account for evil last night, and end result is an hour-plus audio thang that some might call a podcast. Cruise over to his site and check it out.

I’m also happy that one of the other photos from this E3 hotel room photo session has gotten “out there.” Seeing this picture of me, looking deliberately helpless, on all sorts of “newsy” type sites was super hilarious.

A few quick things!

- If you are playing Audiosurf, put your account name in the comments of this here post and lets get a big friends list going so we can better compete. I’ve been getting beat on plenty of Midnight Brown songs. Losing on songs that I actually wrote hurts, people. “Gleex” is my Audiosurf account name.

From reading the Steam forums for Audiosurf, it sounds like some people are experiencing difficulties with the game’s stability. So far, my only issue is that the scoreboards get a little weird, probably a result of them getting hammered. Also, after using the Steam overlay, my mouse cursor tends to disappear from the game menus. Other than that, loving it. Weirdly enough, playing it with songs I wrote has me thinking about how I can make songs that work better as Audiosurf tracks. Some remixes may be in order.

- A couple of people have asked about Professor Layton & the Curious Village, a DS release that Level-5 developed and Nintendo published here in the States. It seems to have come out of nowhere and become a fast favorite with a lot of people. I’ve only gone through the first six or seven puzzles and I can immediately see why. It’s a brain-teaser-based adventure game with a terrific art style. I’ll probably have more to say on this once I’ve finished it, but so far, it’s very cool and completely charming. Apparently it’s going to become a live action movie in Japan, which sounds like a really strange idea.

-  Some folks have asked if they could download the Points! videos, and I believe the answer is yes. Try going to this page and scroll down a bit. In the right column, do you see a “downloads” section that has a 400MB divx file available to grab? Let me know, I have a feeling that might only appear since I uploaded the file myself. That file should play on your 360 and your PS3. Also, for those of you looking for an audio version to appear in podcast form, I’m thinking quite a bit about podcasting these days, and think there will be some sort of news on that front sooner rather than later.

[UPDATE] It sounds like you need to be signed up with Vimeo to download those files, so if you’re interested in that sort of thing, sign up for a free Vimeo account.

Now that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith has been officially announced, I was going to officially write about how I think it’s an officially awful idea. But these guys already took care of that.

So, the short version. If you don’t like Aerosmith, you probably won’t buy this game. But if they sprinkled the good Aerosmith songs in with other stuff in a full-fledged GH game, you’d probably buy it either way. It’s too divisive, even taking into account the considerable popularity Aerosmith has with old people and Alicia Silverstone fans.

Be sure to read the terrific quotes attributed to Steven Tyler and Joe Perry for some extra excitement. It hits up the kind of rush that I got from the Korn/Haze press release that Ubi put out awhile back.

OK, here’s the latest and least-greatest from the wonderful world of Points!.

Some notes:

Since the recording of this, I received my PS2 SingStar mics and have played a little SingStar PS3. It seems fine, but the SingStore won’t seem to show until I break down and create a European PS3 account.

I was hoping to elaborate on the whole "snarkfest" thing in a more coherent and meaningful way, but didn’t. I’ll address that a little more in-depth in the future, as its something that’s been on my mind lately.

I went in intending for this to be around 30 minutes long, but didn’t want to rush it, so I didn’t really look at a clock. Thus, 70+ minutes. Those of you who have said this should just be an audio podcast are probably right, though there are no headbands when you’re listening to a podcast.

It’s been bubbling around on magazine covers for a couple of days now, and today it’s been made official: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is in development for the PC, PS3, and 360. There are some more screens and info about a beta test later this year on the game’s official site.

I’m pretty excited, I think I’ve always ended up liking the Red Alert games a bit more than their regular C&C counterparts. The early days of GameSpot were plagued by copious amounts of the original Red Alert, which managed to sap productivity across several departments. Eventually, things got under control and people only started playing multiplayer matches after 5PM. Then I think we all got sucked into Quake II.

Anyway, RA3’s going to have a co-op campaign, and it sounds like it’ll be an extension of the single-player, not a handful of co-op missions tossed off to the side. That sounds like a great idea. A new third faction comprised of high-tech Asian forces will be in the game. That sounds cool. A few units are mentioned, too, including armored bears and intelligent dolphins. This already sounds awesome.

Now if they’ll just do the right thing and cast EALA’s own Greg Kasavin in a Russian-speaking on-camera role for the Soviet forces…

Good news, Audiosurf is coming out this week through Steam. If you pre-order, you save a dollar and get it for $8.95. On top of that, the game comes with Valve’s soundtrack for The Orange Box, which is a pretty cool addition.

Apparently it’s using those new Steamworks tools, too. The game will have achievements, much like the games in The Orange Box do. Very cool. I look forward to dusting all of you on various MSTRKRFT songs.