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  • blog

    OnLive CEO Interview


    OnLive unveiled its cloud gaming service at GDC 2009 and came back to this year's GDC to announce that the company will start taking customers on June 17, 2010. The date, not so coincidentally, happens to work rather well with the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Upon launch, the company will function on the PC and Mac platforms. Subscriptions will cost $15 a month, with discounted plans hiding in the wings at the moment....

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  • news

    HardGrip Hands-On

    Rock climbing might not be the most obvious sport to replicate on all three major motion-controller systems, but that's what developer HumanSoft is attempting to do with HardGrip. The game was being shown in early form at GDC 10, allowing us to try it out using the standard Wii Remote controller. The game is also touted to support Wii MotionPlus, Project Natal on the Xbox 360, and the Move on the PlayStation 3.

    In our Wii demo, we were given...

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  • news

    Behind Borderlands' 11th-hour style change


    Who Was There: Gearbox software cofounder and chief creative officer Brian Martel, VP of product development Aaron Thibault, and creative director Mikey Neumann.

    What They Talked About: When it was first shown to the public in 2007, Borderlands had the same sort of dark, realistically grim graphics as many sci-fi shooters. Then, after a brief demo at 2K Games' E3 2008 press conference, the game disappeared from public view, leading to some concerns that it might not see the light of day.

    However, in early 2009, Borderlands resurfaced with a radical new look that its developer, Gearbox Software, called "concept art style." The change was a big gamble, given the fact that it called for scrapping months of expensive work and betting on an art style close to cel-shading--a type of visual not often seen in the first-person shooter genre.

    The gamble paid off big-time, with Continue Reading »

  • news

    Mass Effect 2's shooter shift examined

    Who Was There: As the 2010 Game Developers Conference entered the homestretch, BioWare lead gameplay designer Christina Norman reflected on the changes made to the company's latest sci-fi franchise in "Where Did My Inventory Go? Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2."

    What She Talked About: Norman began by noting that the original Mass Effect had a far more traditional role-playing game feel. In particular, the game's power wheel (where players select their abilities) allowed for access to up to 20 abilities, each of which was on a separate cooldown timer. She also pointed out that the game would...

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  • news

    Comedy in games no laughing matter

    Who Was There: A panel of industry humorists including DoubleFine Productions founder Tim Schafer (Brutal Legend, Psychonauts), narrative designer and scriptwriter Rhianna Pratchett (Overlord, Heavenly Sword), Telltale Games writer/designer Sean Vanaman (Tales of Monkey Island, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures) appeared, answering questions posed by A.V. Club writer John Teti.

    What They Talked About: After a full Game Developers Conference week of serious, high-minded discussion about business models, social media, and emerging trends, it was finally time for a humor-in-games panel to lighten the mood.

    Teti's first question to the panel was to ask...

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  • blog

    Spotlight On - TERA: The Exiled Realm of Arborea



    It's GDC 2010 in San Francisco, and that means lots of game companies are showing off new and upcoming games like TERA: The Exiled Realm of Arborea. The name is a mouthful, and so are the names of the game's playable fantasy races and its unusual fantasy monsters. It's being developed with a ton of lore and backstory written by developer Bluehole Games (the original developer of the Asian smash-hit Lineage series).

    Surprisingly, even though...

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  • video

    Deus Ex: Human Revolution Interview: Jonathan Jacques-Belletete

    We talk to Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, art director of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, to get an idea on the look and feel of the teaser trailer, the game, and what all those images really mean.

  • video

    Video Q&A: OnLive CEO Steve Perlman

    GameSpot's Sarju Shah gets the lowdown on the forthcoming game-streaming service that is set to launch on June 17 in the lower 48 United States for $15/month.

  • news

    Blizzard, BioWare, Valve, more chat about connected gaming

    Who was there: "The Connected Future of Games" panel at the 2010 Game Developers Conference featured some of the biggest names in the online business. On hand to deliver their thoughts on the impact of the connected experience in games were Blizzard senior vice president of game design Rob Pardo; BioWare role-playing game/massively multiplayer online group and senior vice president of EA Ray Muzyka; Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds; Valve director of business development Jason Holtman; and Nexon vice president of marketing Min Kim.
    ...

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  • news

    FFXIII director intends to keep series story-driven

    Who Was There: Director and scenario writer Motomu Toriyama from Square Enix went over the crystal mythos and shared his thoughts on the direction of Final Fantasy.

    What They Talked About: Motomu Toriyama began his 2010 Game Developers Conference session by introducing himself and then telling the audience that Final Fantasy XIII, which launched March 9, is selling well across North America and Europe. As a scenario writer for Square Enix, Toriyama joined the company in 1994, around the time when Final Fantasy VI was launched.

    Shortly after he began, he remembered meeting with the entire development team of 40 people, including the founding fathers of...

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