Welcome to the inaugural post for our blog devoted entirely to covering Game Developers Conference 2008! Like Paris Hilton, we're ready to bear all the juicy bits that pass our way during this week of games, the people that make them, and the parties that make suffering through all those technical keynotes worthwhile. This is a brand new approach for us and we're excited about bringing you our coverage in a unique way. We'll have blog entries throughout the week, as well as screenshots and other cool treats for you to play with. Check back often through the week!

3:00PM Friday Feb. 22 - Tracy Erickson

Roaming the Show Floor

Wading through booths without babes

Most of my time this week has been spent in scheduled appointments, many which haven't even been on-site at GDC. The local hotels must make a killing off of all the companies renting suites and ballrooms to hold their events. It was only this morning that I was able to take a gander at what was going on in the exposition hall. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't much to see.

Nintendo had the most on display with Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Fit playable. Additionally, the booth had three DS games from third party partners: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword from Tecmo, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates courtesy Square Enix, and Spore Creatures from Electronic Arts. Everything in the booth will be out in the next couple months, so it wasn't terribly thrilling getting to play around with these near-complete games.

A round of Super Smash Bros. Brawl made it very clear that there's no real innovation going into that game. Instead, Nintendo is obviously aiming to cater to the hardcore players upset that Wii hasn't brought them anything worthwhile. It looks good, mind you, but it's largely more of the same that was on offer from Super Smash Bros. Melee--more characters and new stages. Only online play truly distinguishes it, but we'll have to wait and see how well that turns out.

The DS titles look solid, even if they can't quite match the pizzazz of the PSP stuff available for play in Sony's booth. In addition to the games I played in the company's private lounge earlier this week, a few more were in their public booth: Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2, Warriors Orochi, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Crisis Core got a good chunk of time from me and it was well spent. The game plays great and I'm eager to see how it's received when it launches in March. Between it and God of War: Chains of Olympus, PSP is going to have a killer spring.

Not much else really happening on the floor. Demos of Sacred 2 on both PC and Xbox 360 were running in cdv's booth, some N-Gage titles on display in Nokia's space, and a lot of middleware on show. Sacred 2 looks fantastic on PC, but there's a lot of work needing to be done on Xbox 360. It has a bit of an inferiority complex in relation to PC, as the visuals are far worse on the console and it chugs along barely. At least the controls seem to be working well for the controller.

N-Gage is appearing to gain momentum, despite a rather poor reputation. The game look great--some nearly PlayStation 2 in quality. Whether Nokia can overcome the hurdle of negative perception will remain to be seen.

6:00PM Thursday Feb. 21 - Tracy Erickson

The PS3 Side of the PlayStation Blog Lounge

Games expansions, Hot Shots Golf swing mechanic, and Voss Sparling Water

Not a whole lot of PlayStation 3 stuff going on during GDC this year, most likely because Sony is planning on blowing it's wad later in the year during E3. A few games were playable in the company's private lounge, however, including Hot Shots Golf 5 , Gran Turismo 5: Prologue , and a number of network downloadable titles.

Echochrome was the first stop, simply because it was the most intriguing of the bunch of PlayStation Network titles on display. Using five laws of perception, your goal is to get a mannequin through courses modeled after Escher paintings. The controls are incredibly simple, only involving the left analog stick/directional pad to shift the perspective. Sounds easy, but man is it so hard. The tutorial succeed in walking you through the basics, yet the start of the actual game proved pretty difficult. echochrome possesses a lot of originality, although that could end up being lost on frustrated gamers who can't finish puzzles.

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue , which is meant as a taste of the full fifth installment of the racing series, played a lot like the Gran Turismo HD demo. A handful of tracks and cars will be offered in this "budget-priced" racer (at $40 it's the same cost as a PSP game, so not exactly cheap). I found it unremarkable in the sense that it met every expectation of quality that I had--amazing graphics, physics, and handling. It's Gran Turismo after all.

Hot Shots Golf 5 was playable, but I didn't get an opportunity to try it first-hand. Instead, I watched a pair of journalist attempt to master the contextual swinging mechanic used in the game. This PlayStation 3 outing for the golfing series does away with a swing meter and you have to gauge the power of your shots based on how far back your club goes. I don't like it and I think my colleagues had a difficult time of it too. I'm told there's an option to switch to a swing meter, thankfully.

A few other things were on show for previous-released PlayStation Network titles--downloadable content for Warhawk, PixelJunk Monsters, and Pain. The fact Sony is already gearing up with new additions to these great games shows how serious they are about offering unique content on their network--something that has been lacking on Xbox Live Arcade. With the new Community Games initiative, though, things could get interesting . . . kind of like when I grabbed a bottle of sparkling water in the lounge thinking it was still and it sprayed all over me :/

5:45PM Thursday Feb. 21 - Tracy Erickson

PC Graphics Mutating Thanks to New NVIDIA Cards, Technology

NVIDIA outlines new PC tech to making gaming affordable, more powerful

It doesn't take a genius to see how consoles have pushed PC gaming to the fringe. Xbox 360 has been particularly good at pulling PC gamers away from their desks and onto the couch (now we just need to figure out how to get them in the shower). How to reinvigorate the PC market is the million dollar question and NVIDIA thinks they have the solution. Speaking with company representatives this afternoon, NVIDIA is dedicating its resources to make PC gaming more accessible and economical for the average consumer.

The company is set to launch Hybrid SLI, a technology that basically runs two GPUs simultaneously--one embedded on the motherboard and the other discrete, a traditional card attachment. Having one GPU on the motherboard running tandem with another card-based GPU allows what's called GF Boost. Upwards of a 40% increase in performance occurs when both GPUs are active--that's pretty significant. The real surprise is that this tech is inexpensive. Buy a $50 motherboard with an on-board GPU and pick up a card and you've just built gaming-capable PC for a third of the cost. That's a potential kick in the seat for PC gaming--cheap and powerful.

Of course, NVIDIA has a new high-end card slated for launch to replace the advanced 8800 Ultra. Since 768MB of memory seemingly wasn't enough, the new 9-series card carries a whopping gig. It'll be possible to run the dual-GPU card in quad SLI giving you four GPUs for gaming (or other stuff, but that doesn't matter). I didn't get to see the sucker in action, but I'm sure it's capable of cloning a human or something along those lines.

11:41AM Thursday Feb. 21- Chris McGuire

SEGA unveils Aliens: Colonial Marines

It looks like we will all have the chance to follow in the footsteps of Sigourny Weaver by battling those pesky aliens. SEGA revealed today the squad-based first person shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines, which will be available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in late 2008. The announcement comes after an agreement between Twentieth Century Fox and Gearbox Software.

10:50AM Thursday Feb. 21-Tracy Erickson

Microsoft Explains Community, Zune Gaming

And no, Gears isn't going portable anytime soon

“We're big believers in the community,” opened Microsoft's Dave Mitchell in a meeting we had this morning on the company's new Xbox Live Community Games platform. More than just downloadable games through Xbox Live Arcade, this new focus enables young and unestablished game developers to try their hand at creating titles and sharing them with peers. As we reported yesterday, trials of a handful of these community-developed games are available now on Xbox Live.

What does it really mean for us, though, the gamers? Mitchell contended, “As gamers, it means we're going to have a greater variety of games—we're looking at about a thousand titles before year end between Xbox 360 retail, Arcade, and Community.” That's a hell of a lot of games.

Opening up Zune for games extends that even further. Mitchell touched upon how Microsoft plans on shipping development kits this spring with the hope that a few titles come out before the end of the year. Those games will be built off the same tools used for Xbox 360 games, interestingly enough. Thankfully, no risk of a red ring there though.

10:40AM Thursday Feb. 21-Daniel Espinoza

Core Physics Software Free for PC Developers

Havok anounced yesterday that it will offer the PC version of its award-winning physics and animation software product - Havoc Complete - for free download in May 2008.

Havok's physics software is featured in over 200 AAA games. Best-selling titles featuring Havok physics include: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Guitar Hero III, Bioshock, World in Conflict, and The Orange Box.

For more info, click here.

10:00AM Thursday Feb. 21-Daniel Espinoza

Nintendo Honored with a Game Developers Award

Nintendo was honored with a Game Developers Choice Award at GDC this year. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass won for Best Handheld Game of the year. The game continues to show a strong presence in the market, with more than 1.1 million copies sold since its Oct. 1, 2007 release

Nintendo received nominations in three categories: Best Games of the Year (Super Mario Galaxy), Best Handheld Game of the Year (The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass), and Best Game Design (Super Mario Galaxy). The awards were presented the night of Feb. 20, 2008.

7:28PM Wednesday Feb. 20-Tracy Erickson

PlayStation.Blog Lounge Invites Bloggers to Blog on PSP Games

Bloggity Blog Blog Blogaciousness Blogerty

Aside from Microsoft's big Gears 2 announcement this morning, the big publishers have been rather tame during GDC. Sony usually holds a bunch of events, but this year they've opted to host a PlayStation.Blog lounge at a hotel near the convention. It's great because they've got some games set up and you can come and go as you please. Today, I went in to check out the PSP demo stations which included God of War: Chains of Olympus, Secret Agent Clank, flOw, and Patapon.

Now, as our review has already outlined, Patapon is pure brilliance so I'm just going to tell you to buy it. It's not just one of the best games for PSP, it's honestly one of the more unique games I've ever played. The same can't exactly be said of Chains of Olympus, but that's because it isn't aiming for originality so much as pure fun. If you're hoping for God of War on PSP without any compromise, this is it. Brutal action, amazing visuals--it's all there.

flOw surprised me more than any of the other PSP titles, mainly because I had already known how good Patapon is and I expect Chains of Olympus to be money. flOw looks to make the transition from PS3 to PSP remarkably well. The controls are spot-on and visually it goes pretty far in matching the look and feel of the original. Some jagged edges on the microorganism appear since it isn't a high definition game, but hey it still looks great. After spending 20 minutes playing it, I realized there must be something I like about it. It's just entrancing.

Secret Agent Clank was a bit harder to get into. I get the impression it's a one of those portable titles that isn't so portable. Sit on your couch and spend an hour romping through the game instead of taking it out on the town. There's a lot going on in the game from button-pressing stealth mini-games to tons of cool gadgets like "bow tie-a-rangs" and pens that shoot out blinding ink. A lot remains intact from Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, which really is probably a good thing. Clank's secret agent skills are laid atop a foundation of action-platforming that plays beautifully. I just wonder if it's a console game in disguise on PSP.

Anyway, come back tomorrow and I'll have a round up of the PS3 titles on display.

7:09PM Wednesday Feb. 20-Tracy Erickson

Gettin' Freaky on the Phone

Screen cleaner anybody?

While I'm sure some developer is mulling over the concept of a phone sex game (Majesco are you reading this? Phone Sex Operator Tycoon--consider the idea a freebie), this post isn't about that. Mobiles will be getting a totally cool game late this summer called Freaky Creatures. What's so rad about it is it actually features cross-platform play with PC users. Abandon, the developers behind the game, have created an entire line of figurines, a PC game, mobile version, and full web portal.

Basically, you buy a figurine pack that includes a cute little monster and USB flash drive with the game client. Install that on your PC and you can use that same creature in the game. You can totally customize the creature with a slew of weapons, colors, and accessories. Then, you battle other creatures online. All of this can be done--amazingly enough--on your phone too. Any and all of the customization and battling can be done right on that handset. It's utterly brilliant.

Now, the creatures are a little on the kid-friendly side, but that doesn't prevent it from being a great concept. The ability to play with creatures and developed them on PC or mobile opens up a previously unexplored avenue for gaming. That and it allows you to say you're getting your freak on the phone.

1:02PM Wednesday Feb. 20-Tracy Erickson

Gears in Motion

Microsoft and Epic working on sequel slated for November

Well, I was totally wrong: Gears of War 2 is official. Following a number of important, if not exciting announcements from Microsoft, came the unveil of Gears of War 2. Ear-shattering screeching and the din of a chainsaw accompanied the announcement.

Vice President for Live, John Schappert, touted the company line for Microsoft this morning, outlining enhancements to the tools provided to developers to create titles exclusively for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows.

New initiatives announced included Xbox Live Community Games, Zune development, and improvements to Epic's Unreal Engine 3 specifically geared toward Xbox 360 development. While the enhanced features touted for Unreal Engine 3-enabled games weren't all that interesting, the Community Games effort will offer truly unique grass-developed titles. Basically, this is what Microsoft promised it would deliver when launching Xbox Live Arcade. Better late than never, I suppose.

The announced opening of Zune for game development is intriguing, if not surprising. Rumors for some time have been flying that J Allard's handheld would be transformed from a simply music player into a multimedia device that focused on gaming. The real question is who will be making games for it, especially since Apple is in the process of sending out development kits for iPhone—a device that is similar in terms of interface and form factor.

Ninja Gaiden II was only one of two real big games shown during the presentation. Tomonobu Itagaki, who's reputation as a bad boy tends to shadow his games, presented a previously unseen level called “The Temple of Sacrifice.” New recorded gameplay videos were revealed that enable you to record your fights against demons and upload them to Xbox Live for others to see. It's basically building off of what Halo 3 did with vids. Stores will start getting the game on June 3.

Fable 2 was the second title shown, with Executive Producer Peter Molyneux showing how to earn money in the game. An Xbox Live Arcade gambling game will launch before the full game letting you accumulate wealth and transfer it into the game later on. Molyneux also outlined the innovative addition of cooperative play—a true first for the role-playing genre.

Of course, Gears of War 2 was announced at the end of the presentation; however, only a teaser was shown in the form of Cliffy B wielding a fake chainsaw bayonet. Oh yeah, a little teaser trailer was shown too. Not really much else was shown of the game. And that's that. More stuff to see, so stay tuned.

10:50AM Wednesday Feb. 20- Tracy Erickson

King of Anthologies VII: Visiting SNK Playmore

Company shows off a slew of fighting collections and hints at Xbox 360, PS3 games

Just returned from a meeting with SNK Playmore, which you may know as the purveyors of countless installments of King of Fighters games. Of course, that's a large part of what the company had on hand. A row of half a dozen flat panel televisions running the various anthologies and iterations of the series made it clear that an update is in order. King of Fighters XII is on the way, interestingly enough, for next-generation platforms. C'mon, we know that doesn't include Wii, guys.

Some of the other stuff on show included Samurai Shodown Anthology, SNK Arcade Classics, Vol. 1, and Metal Slug 7 for Nintendo DS. Lots of games, just not any truly new ones. That's fine, as SNK is doing a fantastic job of putting in tons of extra content and options. Plus, most of their anthologies are coming out on PlayStation Portable, which is the perfect platform for it. Being able to play retro games on a portable is absolutely brilliant.

Okay, gotta cut it short and high tail it to Microsoft's keynote.

10:48AM Wednesday Feb. 20 - Chris McGuire

Emotiv Launches Development Platform for its Headset

Emotiv opens API and development tools to enable widespread integration of brain computer interface technology into video games.

Click here for more details.

Eye-Com & NeuroSky Partner to Demo New Gaming Headset

In tandem with Emotiv’s announcement of a brain-controlled video gaming headset, Eye-com & NeuroSky demonstrate neurological and ocular control technology with their own gaming headset.

Click here for more details.

10:46 AM Wednesday, Feb.20 - Daniel Espinoza

Logitech Unveils Official Wheel of Gran Turismo

Logitech has announced the Logitech Driving Force GT racing wheel today at GDC. Featuring powerful force feedback and an innovative 24-position realtime adjustment dial for on-the-fly control of the brake bias, traction and damper settings, this wheel gives gamers the most accurate and authentic PS3 racing experience.

“The Gran Turismo series has always been designed for racing enthusiasts,” said Kazunori Yamauchi, President of Polyphony Digital. “The Driving Force GT racing wheel was designed to perfection by our team, specifically for the next generation of Gran Turismo.”

Check out the full story here.

Emotiv Unveils World's First Brain-Controlled Video Gaming Headset

Emotive Systems, the pioneer in brain computer interface technology, has revealed the Emotiv EPOC, a neuroheadet that allows players to control gameplay with their thoughts, expressions and emotions. The device was unveiled during a live interactive demonstration at GDC.

The EPOC is the first high-fidelity brain computer interface (BCI) device for the video game market. It is a lightweight, sleek and easy-to-use wireless device, featuring sensors that detect conscious thoughts, expressions and non-conscious emotions based on electrical signals around the brain. The device processes these signals and enables players to control their in-game characters expressions or actions and influence gameplay using their thoughts, expressions and emotions.

Check out the full story here.

10:00 AM Wednesday, Feb.20 - Daniel Espinoza

Pandemic Studios Adopts Audiokinetic's Wwise

Audiokinetic Inc., a leading audio solution provider for the video game industry, announced that is audio pipeline solution, Wwise, will power PC and console titles developerd by Pandemic Studios.

Check out the full story here.

8:55 AM Wednesday, Feb.20 - Tracy Erickson

Second Day, Second Chances

Microsoft revives a dying game and too many others we can't talk about

For a show that hasn't even hit it's busy streak, Tuesday was ridiculous for me. I had a ton of appointments and most of them I can't even talk about. Trust me when I say that it's not so fun to see some of these games and be forced to not say a word about them.

Earlier today I had a meeting with Disney interactive where the company offered a first look at -------. Yeah, I can't talk about until the end of the week, which honestly sucks because it's a totally cool game. In fact, I spent a good 20 minutes writing a nice little blurb about the game until I remembered that I couldn't say anything about it until Friday. I probably can't mention it in passing. Something about the first rule about fight club . . . whatever.

Other stuff Disney had on hand was it's ambitious new DGamer portal. Kind of like Xbox Live but for Nintendo DS Disney games, it basically tracks “honors” (read: achievements) and allows you to create a Mii-like avatar for games. It all runs in the back of the Disney.com portal. While it launches in late spring with the Nintendo DS version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the company hopes to extend it to a bunch of other games and platforms. This is absolutely huge for Disney and really, games as a whole. Microsoft really hit something sweet with Xbox Live and Disney is the first to really pick up on that. Kudos to them for trying to build on that.

After Disney, I hit up D3 Puublisher and saw a handful of games that I can't talk about. Let me just say that one in particular is much anticipated. Wait until next week when it's announced and you'll see.

Ending the day's showing was Silicon Knights' Too Human. After nearly a decade of development—much of which was conceptual—it's looking surprisingly good. I was able to get some hands-on time with it and it's amazingly deep. Think of it as Devil May Cry meets Lord of the Rings with a dash of Norse mythology. Playing as the cybernetic god Baldur, you basically go around kicking ass. There's five playable classes, each with a skill tree that branches into three tiers. On top of character development there's an overwhelming loot system that has you collecting all kinds of weapons, armor, and magical runes. As one of the team members at Microsoft put it, “We're really hoping to get people smitten with loot lust.”

To be honest, Too Human is more about the action—at least, I want it to be. The game features a whole combo mechanic that rewards you for stringing together attacks with damage modifiers, extra experience, and special kills. Between the incredibly deep combat system and wealth of role-playing elements, Too Human is seriously looking better than any previous showing. I mean, it actually looks like something worth playing.

Right now though, about the only thing worthwhile in my mind is sleep. Microsoft's keynote in the morning starts a big day. Also expecting some cool things from SNK Playmore, as well as Sony Computer Entertainment for both PSP and PlayStation 3.

2:22 PM Tuesday, Feb.19 - Daniel Espinoza

Avatar Reality to Unveil New MMO Blue Mars

Avatar Reality Inc., a new development entity dedicated to the advancement of online community buildling, announced it will provide a sneak preview of its upcoming MMO Blue Mars during GDC.

Check out the full story here.

2:00 PM Tuesday, Feb.19 - Chris McGuire

Aeria Games Partners with MochiAds

Aeria Games And MochiAds partner to to bring over 1000 free online games to Aeria's online gaming community.

The Full story is here.

11:00 AM Tuesday, Feb. 19 - Daniel Espinoza

Softkinetic and Virtools Team up

Softkinetic, leading 3D gesture recognition company, and Virtools, premier 3D interactive real-time engine provider join forces to provide developers with tools to create immersive and intuitive gameplay experiences.

Check out the complete story here.

11:34 PM Monday, Feb. 18 - Tracy Erickson

Rumors and the Week Ahead

Not terribly much went down the first day of the conference, which are dedicated mostly to mobile gaming. It's a much more intimate group attending Monday and Tuesday. It's as though the gaming industry has a bad case of the Mondays and simply wants to wait until the middle of the week to show up en masse. Wednesday is when things really start picking up, mostly due to Microsoft's scheduled keynote in the morning.

Rumor has it that a sequel to Gears of War is primed for announcement, although it seems more likely that the company will introduce a number of enhancements to its lauded Xbox Live gaming service. Don't totally count out a new game announcement or two, yet it seems a bit premature to expect a Gears of War 2 announce when E3 2008 appears better for timing.

Mobile Gaming Not Standing Still

Lots of discussion on mobile gaming today, the oft forgotten branch of the industry that has been relegated the role of a red-headed stepchild by hardcore gamers. First of all, there are very few red-headed people in the mobile industry. Second, mobile games have enormous potential for innovation. Conversation with Nokia Producer Scott Foe is evidence enough of the pristine potential for mobile games. His upcoming Project White Rock capitalizes on the cool social nature of the phone in a way that anybody can pick up and play. Foe's long-awaited title will finally be debuting later this week.

Others movers and shakers in the mobile industry, such as Dom Lim who heads the US division of top Korean publisher Com2us, are pushing for new ideas and innovation. Microtransactions for mobile games have exploded in that nation and company is hoping to spread the contagion here. A buck here for an extra level or fifty cents there for a few new items--makes sense, doesn't it? A lot of hurdles exist before that's possible and companies like Com2us are on the forefront of that push.

Of course, GDC has a lot more in store beyond mobile games. Tomorrow I'll be meeting up with D3 Publisher to check out their PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 action game Dark Sector, as well as Microsoft to see two high profile Xbox 360 games, and a number of other mobile games publishers. Come back tomorrow as we'll have more info on those games on other cool bits for you then!