In part two of my interview with Bioware CEO Ray Muzyka and VP, entertainment Greg Zeschuk, we talk about why movies are a key part of the development of the studio's fictional worlds, how they can ensure those movies are good, and how the recession and success of Nintendo is impacting their business plans.

For background on my interviewees, see the introduction to part one.

(the screenshots are from Bioware's upcoming game "Dragon Age: Origins")

Ben Fritz: In terms of the different media connected to these worlds, you obviously developed the games and you’re very involved in the novels… But I know Avi Arad has optioned “Mass Effect” as a movie. What’s your approach to working with a producer like that on one of your properties?

Ray Muzyka: We’re not going into detail on that front right now. I don’t if we’ve explicitly confirmed any of that stuff [they haven’t]. But if we were…

The one thing that’s true, regardless of how our ideas are manifested, is quality is the key. They’ve all got to be awesome and equally satisfying to different audiences in different ways. That’s something we’re unrelenting and uncompromising about. We want to work with the best people in the world on something that’s actually going to be seen as a landmark event. So people can feel it’s a good value for their money, entertaining, and emotionally engaging.

Greg Zeschuk: Another way to see it too is we work with folks who get the properties. Not just get how much the potential return is. That’s one of the important factors. People we build relationships with have to have that same feeling we have. It’s tough finding folks like that.

RM: We’ve been very lucky all the people we have worked with and are working with, past and future, are in that mold. They get it. They’re passionate. I love that. I love the passion.

GZ: I think we’ve reached a transition point media-wise where there’s an understanding that the right games can transition well to other media. There’s some, like light shooters with no story, probably not so much. It’s going to be hard to make something great in other media off a property that’s not founded in a strong world.

Our stuff would probably translate well. What’s interesting is we talk to folks from all over, Hollywood and elsewhere, it’s always amazing to find folks who have played our games. It’s like, “Wow. We love your movies and you love our games.”

RM: Translating our games to cinema is an active goal for us. It’s something we’re actively pursuing. We haven’t necessarily confirmed all the stories. But, having said that, a lot of the stories that have come out have been pretty much on spot.

BF: Still speaking theoretically, of course… If you guys are world builders, as more and more of the same tools are being used to make special effects and animation in movies, is it an active goal for you to be involved in producing those other media?

For a blog about the the business and culture of video games and their intersection with Hollywood, the guys in charge of Bioware are really well situated. They run a hugely successful RPG [role playing games] developer that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006, along with Pandemic, for $860 million. They've worked on one of the most successful licensed games of all time, "Knights of the Old Republic" (with an MMO sequel in the works) and created several hit original properties, one of which, "Mass Effect," is currently in development as a film. And they've got a huge original property, "Dragon Age: Origins," in production that's one of the few bets the newly slimmed EA is taking. (All the screenshots in this post are from "Dragon Age" because, hey, they're new)

In other words, they're at the forefront of the storytelling in video games, cooperation with old media, and the business of developing for the mass market. That's why I was really pleased to get to interview Ray Muzyka [left], the CEO, and Greg Zeschuk, VP of entertainment, for half an hour at the Game Developers Conference.

I think our discussion turned out to be really interesting, so I've transcribed most of it and broken it up into two posts. Today: Our discussion of storytelling in video games, in which I ask them about the relative importance of character development vs. mechanics and they shoot back that it's all about world-building.

Tomorrow: We talk about the process of making movies out of Bioware games and how modern economic realities effect their development process.

Ben Fritz: What I’ve noticed in playing your games and what’s obvious in “Dragon Age” [I saw a demo just before the interview] is their scope. When you’re trying to make a game so massive, do you cut back on the size if you feel like you don’t have the quality? Or is the quantity so important that you first need to get it to the size it needs to be? How do you balance those two things?

 Ray Muzyka: We try and define possibility space want player to engage in and what’s the scope that accommodates that.  We have to make that commercially successful at the same time, so we have to balance the commercial and artistic goals. But, we don’t want to compromise the artistic goals. We aim pretty big. Our ambitions are pretty crazy sometimes. The size of this game is kinda crazy in some ways, because there are a number of permutations and the replayability of it all.

It’s a good endeavor because in the end we trust our fans for supporting us. We’re building a platform more than anything. We’re trying to launch a landmark fantasy event. It’s dark heroic fantasy. It’s a platform for future engagement with our fans: Downloadable content; achievements surfaced on the community site; creation of user-generated content with the toolset we’re releasing. It’s a long multi-year plan.

Greg Zeschuk: There’s another dimension that’s interesting in that honestly we don’t know how big it’s going to be. Because the actual act of discovery is a big part of the development process for any first iteration of a game. Anything big especially, you have to make the tools and all the stuff that allows you to create everything. Then at the end you build it and go, “Hmmmm, how big did it end up being?”

We do set goals, but we tend to overshoot them because everyone’s really ambitious and then we trim a bit. That’s the place where we can really nail the quality. Over the years, what we’ve done is tried and establish an overall quality bar. If something dips below, we used to try and build it up. Now we tend to just excise it.

It isn’t dissimilar from a film where you’re editing. The last sequence of our development process involves editing the game content into the best mix in a sense.

BF: Where do you start, I’m curious? I spoke Monday night to some developers from Ubisoft ["Prince of Persia" producer Ben De Mattes, "Far Cry 2" creative director Clint Hocking] and they said it’s mechanics, you start with mechanics and build a character on top of that. To me that means, no surprise, the character often isn’t as compelling.

On the other hand, if you do character first before you know if he or she works as a mechanic, maybe you’re in the wrong medium. Which do you guys start with and then how do you balance when there’s a conflict between the creation of a compelling character vs. what would make the best player mechanic?

RM: First we build the world. Then we get everything situated. The character and mechanics are elements that need to be consistent with that world. I don’t think we build them separately. It’s all an integrated whole.

With all the meetings, demos, and random conversations I've been having at GDC (it's kind of cool to be in an environment where I can hardly go a minute without running into someone I know, who knows me, or who sees my name tag and wants to talk about my blog or rant about certain employment decisions made recently by certain newspapers), I didn't make it to a single speech or panel -- allegedly the point of GDC! -- outside of Iwata's keynote until yesterday afternoon. But I cleared my schedule because, really, how could you miss an opportunity to hear "Katamari Damacy" and "Noby Noby Boy" creator Keita Takahashi give a presentation titled "All About Noby Noby Boy?"

He did not disappoint. The man is just as off-kilter, wacky and hilarious as you'd expect from his work. And he was very frank from the get go in admitting that "Noby" hasn't sold too well (an impossible-to-categorize downloadable PS3 exclusive original IP? Who'd have expected that?). Watching him talk feels makes me think of Andy Warhol talking about one of his movies: The work defies almost every convention of the medium and when the creator talks, you get only more confused, not less. It seems like he understand what he's doing even less than we do.

Nonetheless, it's almost impossible to not be entranced by his ridiculously naive and pure love for his game. And to not wonder whether it's all an act -- Performance art with the video game industry (and even the fans who play his games?) as a canvas.

A few highlights:

-Takahashi's goal with "Noby" is for players to work together to get the girl to extend to the end of the solar system (if you haven't played the game that won't quite make sense; just roll with me). But with the game's limited sales, that will take 820 years at the current rate of growth.

-He's hoping to compress that a bit with an in-the-works iPhone version of "Noby Noby Boy." But he later revealed that has only been in the works for a week and he has no idea if/when it will come out. I'm going to guess that's not how Namco Bandai would have liked the game to be announced.

-One of his favorite ideas for the game he had to abandon was to give real, physical prizes to the first, 10th, or 1000th (etc.) players to achieve major goals, like extending the girl past Mars. The prizes included a "Noby Noby Boy" scarf knitted by his mother and a six foot doll made by his sister (I'm so sorry I didn't snap pictures of the photos he showed us in time). "If I can deliver an actual gift to players, this might make them think there is an actual 'girl' or 'boy" and believe, as the girl says, that if you chain the solar system everyone can be happy," he explained. Now it makes sense, right?

-He also considered making "Noby Noby Boy" dolls, like the ones pictured on left, "every day" after the game was was done to send to players. But he didn't feel there was a secure way to send them, or the scarf or doll, to players who earned them without addressing privacy concerns.

-That almost didn't stop him. "I thought it could be fun even if it went to the wrong address," he added. "Then they could sell them online and I'd buy them back and try to deliver them again to the right person."

-What is "Noby Noby Boy?" Here's how the creator describes it: "'Noby Noby Boy' is a ticket to go to a festival to change the solar system."

"That makes total sense," you're probably thinking. "But why would anyone make a game that's a ticket to a festival to change the solar system?" Takahashi has an explanation:

I felt constrained and cramped. In the last two-to-five years, the world has become cramped. It's difficult to explain. IT doesn't have to do with the recession. It feels contrained from a different perspective... Something is tying me up. It feels like I'm being constrained by systems. It might be [publisher] Bandai [Namco]. But it feels like there is something more constricting in the world.

"Noby" means to "not feel constrained, be liberated" in Japanese. Another meaning is "dilly dallying." I think that fits the game. It's a wonderful word.

Got it?

-Takahashi's concluding advice to his fellow video game makers at GDC? Forget your players, forget any rules, and just come up with something crazy you love. In other words, imagine you're John Lennon in the '70s. Or as he put it (in excerpts):

I think there's a great potential to games and that's why I'm dissatisfied with that is existing today... If we love video games, then we have to think about them much more and feel more and enjoy them more.... Perhaps we are hiding behind the rules of games and relying too much on past experience... Perhaps we have to ignore the players and companies and just create games we like...We shouldn't be afraid of being criticized or what the result will be. That method will create things that are fantastic or fanastically awful. But even if they're fantastically awful, they still have value. 

Well, maybe Takahashi is naive and insane. But in an industry that perhaps doesn't think outside of the box as much as it should and at a conference focused in large part on processes and techniques, I'm really glad we have a genuine 100% right-brained hippie (I hate the word, but it fits) in the mix.

I think it's a safe bet more readers of this blog have heard of "Pure" than "Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force." The former is a major franchise launch and the first game from Disney Interactive Studios' Black Rock racing studio. The latter is a Nintendo DS spin-off from the popular kids' online world. "Pure" has 55 reviews on Metacritic. "Elite Penguin Force" has two.

According to Graham Hopper, we may have our priorities out of whack. The senior VP in charge of DIS noted during an interview yesterday that "Elite Penguin Force" has been his company's number one selling title (in units, not revenue) since its November debut. It's not exactly sexy, but it's based on a huge franchise (and even connects to it, with currency earned in the game available in "Club Penguin" on the Web), it's on the world's most pouplar videogame device, and it's a $30 title in an economic environment where value sells.

Like many publishers, Disney is finding that consumers are flocking toward value titles and only the very best known, best selling high end franchises, Hopper noted. As a result, games like "Elite Penguin Force" and "Phineas and Ferb" (another DS title, this one based on a Disney Channel show), which is DIS's number two title currently.

It's a very tough environment as Disney attempts to break into the AAA franchise world, Hopper admitted, particularly during the crowded fall when his company launched "Pure." Though it got good reviews and sold decently to predisposed fans, Disney was hoping it would break through to a broader audience. "If I had it to do over again, I would have released 'Pure' at a different time," he explained. "Relative to other racing titles we did well, but I would have loved for it to transcend the genre."

He has higher hopes that "Split Second," (left) the next title from Black Rock, will do next. Due in early 2010, it's a "Burnout" style arcade action racer set in a reality show where players set off explosions to mess with competitors. And while it's tough to make judgments based on the early build Disney showed, "Split Second" definitely appears to have major adrenaline and less of of the gearhead-targeted tricks and engine customization present in "Pure."

However, Hopper also noted that Black Rock has two teams working. So don't be surprised at all to see Disney give "Pure" another shot in late 2010 or 2011.

By now you probably know the winners of the Game Developers' Choice Awards ("Fallout 3" for game of the year and writing, "Dead Space" for audio, "Prince of Persia" for art, "World of Goo" for downloadable game, "God of War: Chains of Olympus for handheld, "LittleBigPlanet" for everything else). The ceremony was relatively fun and a great opportunity for an underappreciated creative community to celebrate its work together.

But having been present at numerous awards shows in Hollywood, I couldn't help but notice some key differences tha indicate, well, this still ain't exactly the Oscars:

-Numerous nominees who weren't present. If "Grand Theft Auto IV" had won any awards, there wouldn't have been anyone from Rockstar here to accept. If "Gears of War 2" had won, Cliff Bleszinski wouldn't have been there to bound on stage.

-At the Oscars, there are seat fillers who jump into chairs if you so much as go to the bathroom. At the GDC's, empty seats abounded. I had a good half a row to myself.

-The number of female award winners: ZERO. The number of women who appeared at all: Two, one of whom runs the conference and one who was there to look pretty and escort winners offstage

-When you win an Oscar, you go to the Governor's Ball and numerous studio-sponsored parties and are mobbed by agents, producers, and well-wishers. Apparently if you win the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the from Independent Games Festival Awards (the "indie" ceremony before GDC Awards proper), you end up at lame "Rock Band"-and-beer parties in someone's apartment. As I discovered when I was at just such a party last night and Erik Svedang, the creator of "Blueberry Garden," and several of his pals showed up:

Let's hope for the industry's sake that winners will have somewhere better to be in the future.

All signs point to Infinity Ward doing its first public reveal of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" tonight, most likely at or around the Game Developers' Choice Awards.

I've heard from several sources that some kind of "MW 2" reveal is coming this week. There's buzz here at the show and on Twitter that a reveal of something big will come tonight. There's a crew from Infinity Ward, including their head PR guy, in town. And this website just went up.

The interesting question is: What will it mean to "announce" a game that Activision executives have discussed publicly and Infinity Ward's head PR guy regularly twitters about? The first showing of gameplay footage? A trailer? A release date? Key details unveiled?

It's looking very likely we'll know before the day is through.

And assuming I'm right, the industry folks in attendance and the core gamers keeping track are sure to go crazy, since "Modern Warfare," which has sold well over 10 million units, is the most successful action game of the current videogame generation (and "Call of Duty" overall is the most successful franchise). To call this year's sequel "highly anticipated" would be as much an understatement as calling "Watchmen" "eagerly awaited" amongst comic book readers.

(Does this mean I was wrong to write "No major announcements of sequels we all know are coming [like "Gears of War 2" last year] are expected?" If this counts as an "announcement," then I guess so.)

Update: I was right. Although calling it a "reveal" is using the term generously. It's more like a green hued enigma that puts the "tease" in "teaser trailer." Oh, and "Modern Warfare 2" is coming out in the same early November time frame (Nov. 10 this year) that "Call of Duty" 3, 4, and "World at War" did. Shocking!

Paramount's "Star Trek: D.A.C." game will be all-out, top-down, multi-player space battles.

That's the word from three of the folks behind it, whom I just sat down with at GDC. I reported a few weeks ago that the downloadable game will come out along with the movie and will be a top-down space action title.

But unlike most movie games, it turns out, this one doesn't replicate the story of the film, or even tie into it. There's no single-player campaign. "It's all multiplayer, team-based battles," explains Ben Hoyt, a senior producer with Paramount Digital Entertainment, which is publishing "D.A.C." (And no, I didn't find out what that stands for). "It's designed to be quick and fast-paced. There are multiple ship classes and battles and several different game modes."

Up to 12 people can play the PS3 and 360 downloadable game, which features battles that are inspired by the movie, but not seen in it. Some of the starship designs, as well as the music and sound effects, are taken directly from the film, though.

"Star Trek" fans will remember that the movie was originally supposed to come out in December, but got delayed to May. That's good news for people looking forward to the game,which has been made on a tight schedule. The studio chose to make a downloadable game, rather than a disc one,  so that it could get a high quality title in time for the theatrical release (Just as Warner Bros. did with "Watchmen"). But even that would have been very difficult to get done by December, given that they've been working long hours to get it complete for May.

"We had it structured to develop the game for December," recalls Dave Baranoff, who oversees interactive for "Star Trek" director J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot. "But the push of the movie sealed the deal that we would be able to get out a quality game title we all believe in."

Those extra five months won't only help with polish, but have may have played a role in some of the major gameplay decisions. "Going in we said it was going to be a certain way, but luckily we ended up with time to explore and come up with some different things," notes Josh Glazer, Chief Technology Officer of developer Naked Sky.

"D.A.C." marks something of a step forward for Paramount. The only games it has self published previously are iPhone titles. So it's negotiating its first distribution deals with Sony and Microsoft  for this title.

It's also, in a bizarre corporate twist, a licensed game for Paramount, even though it's releasing the movie. When Viacom split into CBS and Paramount, CBS held onto the interactive rights for Captain Kirk et al. So Paramount is actually licensing the property from CBS, much like traditional game publishers usually license properties from studios like Paramount.

But there was one potential barrier bigger than CBS, Sony, Microsoft, or any release date standing in the way of "Star Trek: D.A.C.": J.J. Abrams. As with most movie-based games, the director, along with producer Bryan Burke and others involved in the project, have seen designs and given notes along the way. But the game never got an official greenlight from the director, and thus the studio, until there was a playable version that Abrams came in to try and approve.

"That was a scary meeting," admits Hoyt. "It was do or die for the game." 

Obviously it was "do." Gamers will find out whether they agree with Abrams' call in May.

P.S. Electronic Arts announced today at GDC that it's developing a "Star Trek" mobile game tied to the movie. But after initially offering to show the title, it backed out. So I don't have any more information than the fact that it's in the works

Updated with screen shots, finally.

This evening at the Game Developers Conference, Ubisoft hosted a small roundtable discussion (moderated by former Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal) for press with three of its top creators from Montreal, along with the studio's CEO Yannis Mallat. The game creators who spoke were "Far Cry 2" creative director Clint Hocking, "Prince of Persia" producer Ben Mattes, and "EndWar" creative director Michael De Plater.

It's a rare and cool thing to see a video game publisher put people involved in creating their games -- and not executives (well, only one) -- front and center. In an industry that doesn't promote its creative talent enough, especially in casual forums where ideas can flow and journalists can have casual discussions with artists, Ubisoft did something I'd love to see others do more.

Hocking had some particularly interesting comments about what what video game creators don't need to learn from Hollywood. Mallat, on the other hand, expressed his strong belief that movie and video games production are merging -- Although his specific points about Ubisoft Montreal's work on the "Avatar" game were the same talking points you hear about any movie-based game. Mattes, perhaps tellingly, ended up talking almost exclusively about the role of A.I. partner Elika in his game (to me, she was the most interesting part of the game, in how she worked and how she failed).

Transcribing the entire roundtable -- let along the very long post-panel small group discussions -- is a bit beyond my capabilities. But I did write down some of the most interesting quotes from the evening for Cut Scene readers to enjoy:

Yannis Mallat

Michael De Plater

Clint Hocking

Ben Mattes

Before we gave ["Prince of Persia" partner character] Elika personality, she was a mechanic. She was what keeps you from dying.

The one thing I would beat my chest about is that we succeeded in creating an A.I. character [Elika] that you don't hate.

I find it interesting that some people say the game is too easy, but they don't point the finger at Elika.

[Talking about why there's no "dying" in "Prince of Persia"] The second you see [Elika's] hand grasping, you know you failed. You can make of that what you will.

There have to be ways to not punish players while making sure the guys on NeoGAF have enough to sink their teeth into.

[Talking about how the Prince and Elika grasp hands to swing past each other when hanging onto a pole in the game] That was an animation that was done to solve some bug we had the week before E3. It become one of the game's most touching moments.

If I were to do it again... I'd say we should take the mannerisms that make these people interesting and break them down into interactivity.

This week the Cut Scene will be reporting from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, one of two major industry events (along with E3 in June). GDC offers a great opportunity to mix serious artistic panels discussions on which developers discuss their craft with speeches by industry luminaries and interviews with publishers talking about their products and strategies.

I hope to bring some of that all to Cut Scene readers this week. I'm sure there will be plenty of surprises, but here's some of the content I know you can expect:

"But will there be news?" some may be asking? Probably not a lot. No major announcements of sequels we all know are coming (like "Gears of War 2" last year) are expected. The one big hope for a major announcement will of course come at Iwata's speech. Nintendo fanboys are undoubtedly salivating at the prospect he might talk about the long-rumored "Kid Icarus" update or the next "Zelda" title.

Jamil Modelina, who ran the Game Developers Conference for five years and helped turn it into a major event that arguably matched, if not surpassed, E3, has landed a new gig at Electronic Arts. He's now outreach director, business development for EA Partners, the unit that distributes and markets games like "Rock Band," "Crysis," and "Orange Box" for outside developers and publishers. Given Jamil's background, you can bet he's not the guy negotiating with MTV or Valve. Instead he's looking for cool new developers with cool new games and, just as he used to convince them to speak at his conferences, convince them to distribute their games through EA.

Jamil left GDC's parent company CMP in August under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Apologies for the slow posting this week as I'm preparing for a big family wedding on Saturday. Meanwhiles, here's the big news I'm behind on posting:

-I reported back in July that there would likely be a price for the Xbox 360 this fall. Then earlier this month, ArsTechnica reported that the price cut would likely be to $200 for the Arcade, $300 for the standard (formerly known as "pro"), and $400 for the elite. I said that sounded about right for me. Now Joystiq has a Radio Shack flyer that confirms those new prices are coming September 7. Which is good timing, given that temporary 360 exclusive "Rock Band 2" comes out later in the month. Given the slowdown in sales for the 360 this year, it seems like a price cut is necessary. Now Microsoft is in the much stronger position of having one version even cheaper than the Wii and it's highest quality version the same price as the PS3, while its standard version is nicely positioned between the two.

-NPD, working with Chart-Track and Enterbrain, makes its data a bit more interesting by providing year-to-date sales for the top 5 games in the U.S., UK and Japan. Not clear whether they will provide this quasi-global data on a regular basis, though. Data is below. No surprise that "GTA IV" is #1, though NPD's 6.3 million is still far below Take-Two's self-reported total of 8.5 million as of May 31, revealing the limits of NPD's incomplete reporting (since Take-Two is a public company and we can probably assume we're being honest. It's also notable that "Wii Fit" is the one game to actually sell even better in Japan than the U.S. "Guitar Hero III," meanwhile has virtually no sales in Japan. I guess the Japanese like funky peripherals that let them improve their balance, but not become a rock star.

-Jamil Moledina, who has led the Game Developers Conference for five years and helped it grow into an event that's now arguably more important to the industry than E3, has left his job with the ever mysterious intention to "pursue other interests." Meggan Scavio, who already had the job as "event director" of GDC, is now in charge.

-The FTC has, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the OK to EA acquiring Take-Two. Now the only question is whether their upcoming private talks will lead to a deal.

I'll be back on Monday, with some fresh reporting coming next week.

Today brought earnings from Viacom (owner of MTV, owner of Harmonix), Electronic Arts,  Sony, and United Business Media (owner of the Game Developers Conference). If you're interested in all the fun details, just click on those names and you can read Variety's entire story (except for UBM, which we don't cover).

But I thought it would be worthwhile to note a few interesting little details from those earnings for Cut Scene readers:

-Viacom says "Rock Band" has now sold 18 million track downloads. That's up from 15 million as of June 30, which means it has sold 3 million in the past month alone.

-Sony's videogame unit is finally in the black with PS3 sales and PSP sales growing and costs for PS3 production falling. Most impressive, however, was PS3 software sales. During the quarter Sony sold 22.3 million game copies, up from just 4.2 million in the same quarter last year.

-There was no mention of "Boom Blox" sales in Electronic Arts' earnings announcement. Though it touted 1.6 million units of "Battlefield: Bad Company" sold and said "UEFA Euro 2008" had a strong launch, EA didn't say anything about "Boom Blox" sales or even tout its good reviews. In a recent interview with John Riccitiello, he said that the game performed as expected and should sell solidly well into the holidays, but it doesn't seem like a strong vote of confidence to not even mention the game when touting achievements during the quarter. (See update below for more info)

-United Business Media, the conglomerate that owns and operates the Game Developers Conference, said GDC revenue was up 16% this year, which certainly fits with the packed feeling at the show and the general sense I and others have that that it's on the rise while E3 is on the decline.

Update: According to GameDaily, I missed in EA's conference call where they said "Boom Blox" has sold 450,000 units so far, which is a perfectly respectable first couple of months for a Wii-exclusive original game. So ignore my somewhat dire analysis above.

The slog through all the previews I did in and around GDC is almost over. Today, the two games that Warner Bros. Interactive showed off...

Lego Batman (Fall)

First things first: This game is a lot like "Lego Star Wars." And I mean a lot. Imagine "Lego Star Wars" with Batman characters and, well, that's exactly what this game looks like.

And the gameplay? It's mostly the same. Simple fighting. Build bridges, steps, tools, etc. out of Lego pieces lying around.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it? "Lego Star Wars" was eminently fun and the whole point of "Lego Batman" is to bring that fun to the world of the caped crusader. So along with Batman and Robin (the only playable heroes I saw, though I'd bet we'll see Batgirl in the final version as well), we get the entire "rogues gallery" -- villains like Joker, Penguin, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Killer Croc, etc. In a nice twist, and one that makes sense since there are so many cool villains in the Batman world than heroes, the entire game can be played through in either hero or villain mode, with concomitant heroic or dastardly goals.

There are also some tweaks to the action. The developer from Traveler's Tales (now owned by Warner Bros.) who as there noted that they put a lot of work into the hand-to-hand combat in "Lego Batman," since it's not all about light sabers and blasters as it was in "Lego Star Wars." In addition, Batman has a batarang that can be thrown at different targets in an arc, kind of like Link's boomerang in "Zelda."

The temp music was from the score written by Danny Elfman for the 1989 "Batman" movie. A Warner rep said they haven't decided yet if that will be the final music in the game. If it is, I can only hope it won't repeat so often because I got sick of it in about 20 minutes of playing.

Speed Racer (May)

Kotaku said the game looks a lot like "Wipeout," and it's hard to disagree. Though it also plays kind of like "Burnout," with slo-mo takeout moves, called "car fu," when you slam into an enemy from behind.

It's a pretty basic Wii and DS game that's being made fairly quickly to hit the film's release date (with a PS2 version coming with the DVD in the fall). But it has 15 different tracks (three tracks in five stadiums), each of which can be played three ways and 20 different "Speed Racer" characters. Leads Emile Hirsch, Christine Ricci and Matthew Fox provide their likeness and voice, though since there's not really a story, the v/o work seems limited to pretty standard taunts during the race.

It's the first third party game, and I believe the second game besides "Mario Kart," to use the Wii Wheel -- basically a round piece of plastic that turns the Wii-mote into a steering wheel.

One cool feature: The developers at Sidhe Interactive got the Wachowski Brother's f/x team to provide fully built out drawings of the tracks that we only see portions of in the movie for the game. Some of those had to be significantly scaled back to fit in the game so it didn't take 20 minutes to drive one lap, but it's still a really smart tie-in to the film world.

I also played a DS version, which allows up to 6 person multi-player (as opposed to two-person split screen in the Wii version) and, oddly, has even more tracks than are on the Wii. Though it would seem like you'd use the touch screen for "car fu" take downs, in the same way that you use the Wii Wheel, developers found that was really hard to make work in a simple way and stuck with a button-based mini-game instead.

GameSpot reports that attendance at the Game Developers Conference this year was 18,000-plus, up from about 16,000 last year. Based on the crowds I saw -- especially on those damned annoying elevators at the Moscone Center -- I'm only surprised it wasn't bigger.

But it's worth remembering that's only registered attendees. That doesn't include what I'll kindly call the GDC "ecosystem," or some might call the hangers-on. Those are all the publishers, developers, technology companies, etc., that didn't exhibit at the show but did demonstrations and meetings in just about every available hotel suite -- and in several cases for me, hotel bar -- within a five mile radius of the Moscone.

GDC exec director Jamil Moledina told me that the business meetings going on around the show have grown significantly and I certainly saw that in fully force. In my two-and-a-half days up there, I probably spent more time in hotels near the Moscone than actually in the Moscone. Including all those people, I wouldn't be surprised if GDC "attendance" was closer to 20,000. Compare that to about 5,000 people at the newly downsize E3 and it's clear that in numbers, if not yet prestige and influence, GDC is taking off as the industry's biggest event.

Even back in the day when I haunted arcades, I wasn't much of a "Street Fighter" fan. I wasn't smart enough or coordinated enough to memorize and implement all the crazy combo's, which resulted in me getting my ass kicked repeatedly.

Visiting Capom's suite at GDC was a nice flashback to those days. Not only did I not really know what I was doing as I sat down to play "Street Fighter IV," but I was visiting the suite at the same time as some folks from Destructoid. Really nice guys but, as anyone who has visited the site knows, it's for hard core gamers. Which means it's by hard core gamers. Which means I got a nice flashback to the '80s as my ass was handed to me repeatedly, in the form of E. Honda or Guile falling on his ass.

(There's a photo on the left of two people playing against each other.)

I should have known I would be in trouble when I admitted to the guy sitting next to me I wasn't sure of all the controls (there were some on the machine, but they were in Japanese) and his response was "Guile controls the same." My seemingly logical response was "The same as what?" And the exasperated enthusiast game journalist replied "as in 'Street Fighter 2.'" As in "Duh." As in "How could anyone come to the Capcom booth and not remember how the controls worked in "Street Figher 2?!"

The game comes out this summer at arcades in Japan. It hasn't yet been announced on consoles but, you know... it'll probably hit 360 and PS3 by the holidays or sometime in 2009. Possibly in conjunction with the new "Street Fighter" movie.

So what was "Street Fighter IV" actually like? Pretty much the same as the "Street Fighter" I remember as a kid, except awesome hi-def graphics and more stuff going on in the background. To be honest, I'm probably not the best person to critique the game, as you may have picked up, so since I've picked on them a bit, I'll refer you to Destructoid for a more in-depth analysis.

Also on display was the new "Bionic Commando" game. Actually the two new "Bionic Commando" games -- the XBLA and PSN game "Bionic Commando Rearmed," which is essentially a tweaked version of the classic, and the new 3-D version for next-gen consoles.

I only got hands on "Rearmed," which certainly looks good and will be a fun throwback for those who loved the old version. I didn't get to play the 3-D game, but it looked in many ways like your standard abandoned city / jungle shooter. But with the big addition of an extendable bionic arm, of course. I was definitely impressed at how much work the developers put into making it work. There's a great mix of auto-aim, to make sure players don't miss the thing they're trying to latch onto, with manual adjustment to get an object right where you want it. Physics make objects, or the hero, move faster or slower based on the weight of the object he's holding onto. And there are some great fighting combos based on latching onto an enemy and pulling yourself towards him, or him towards you.

In other words, it's the standard game industry thing -- the same old shooter we're used to but with one big new feature. However, it looks like that feature might work extraordinarily well, which is certainly more than you can say for a lot of other action games.

(I should note that my "Bionic Commando" demo was, perhaps inevitably, repeatedly interrupted by screams and yells from the Destructoid guys' "SF IV" matches.)

Now that I finally have the EA-Take-Two drama behind me (for the moment) and have finished writing two feature stories for this weekend's weekly Variety (one about the "Lost" game and one about IAC's InstantAction -- I'll link to them and provide some more info as soon as the stories are posted), I can finally get back to GDC. No, there's no big news I missed, but lots of demos I checked out that I haven't yet shared.

First up: Cartoon Network's FusionFall. Like its competitors Disney and Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network is investing in Web gaming in a big way. It already has dozens of casual games on its website and is launching a social gaming service called MiniMatch.

But its biggest project is "FusionFall," a massively multi-player game that launches this summer and encompasses all of its kids (i.e. not Adult Swim) shows and characters. That includes current shows like "Ben 10" and "Foster's Home" along with classics like "Dexter's Laboratory" and (personal favorite) "The Powerpuff Girls."

Like everyone else getting into this crowded space, Cartoon Network is trying to carve out a niche that will help it stand out from everything from "World of Warcraft" to "ToonTown." Paul Condolora, the senior VP in charge of online, told me that while the network is committed to making at least parts of the game online, it's not yet sure if there will be a subscription element or if it will make money in other ways like advertising and micro-transactions. One promise though: They won't follow Disney's lead with "Pirates Online" and surround the game with banner ads for those who don't pay.

Integrating famous characters into MMO's has always been a challenge and the typical solution, used in "Pirates" and "The Matrix Online" and (I believe) "Star Wars Galaxies" is to have the Jack Sparrow's and Morpheus types show up only occasionally to hand out missions or rewards. But Cartoon Network is betting (correctly, I'd say) that kids want more opportunities to interact with their favorite characters, even if playing as them in an MMO context is unfortunately (after all you can't have three Dexter's run into each other in the woods). So while players have to create their own characters, they can collect miniature versions of 32 different network characters, all of whom give the players different abilities. In addition, players pick one of four characters -- Mojo JoJo, Ben 10, Dexter, or Eddy -- as their guide at the beginning of the game.

Though it will have classic questing modes, "FusionFall" also has something new in an MMO -- platforming. I'm not exactly sure how it will be integrated into the gameplay, but in my limited demo it  worked just as well as any other standard 3-d platformer. The appeal is obvious, since a simple platforming level is a lot more accessible and fun than a quest if you want to play for 20 minutes at a time. Game is being aimed at 8-14 year-olds, rather than really small kids, which will let the designers include a modicum of action and violence, at least.

Game has something of a Japanese anime look, which is the designers' compromise as they integrate dozens of different shows all with their own artistic style.

The most amusing part of the demo, however, may have been how enthusiastic and downright immature (I meant that in the best way possible) the designers were. "FusionFall's" executive producer  Chris Waldron told me they all like to play as Mojo Jojo (the monkey villain from "Powerpuff Girls," pictured right) as their guide because, let's face it, he's the coolest character Cartoon Network has going. And he compared the game's story, which brings all of the characters of the Cartoon Network universe together to stop a planet-wide threat, to DC's classic "Crisis on Infinite Earths."

Sure, spending millions of dollars on a downloadable MMO aimed at kids is a product of pure business analysis, which is why everyone's doing it. But comparing it to "Crisis" is the kind of geekiness I think any gamer can get behind.

I never thought I'd be posting the "Gears of War 2" trailer again so soon, but looks like I have to, since I learned something new and cool about the game.

Those of you who have watched it already know that about halfway through, the two overmuscled 'roid poppers on-screen put their chainsaw guns together and start pushing back and forth. I was talking to two people last night who are close enough to the development team at Epic to know and they confirmed for me that this will be a mechanic in the game: When somebody tries to chainsaw you, there will be a way to push back with your own chainsaw gun and potentially fend them off or, possibly, end up chopping them into a bloody pile of flesh chunks.

I can't imagine Jack Thompson will be thrilled, but I'm already psyched. Here's the trailer again for those who haven't seen it:

There's been a lot of speculation in the videogame press about what exactly EA Blueprint is. All we have known for sure so far is that Neil Young (pictured right), the former head of the Electronic Arts Los Angeles development studio, moved north to to head up a new division. A widely cited report on Gametap (currently down so I'm linking to 1Up's follow-on for the moment) said it would be focused on applications for social networks like Facebook.

But last night at an EA-sponsored event here at GDC centered around a fantastic speech by Will Wright (a bad photo I took from the event is on the bottom right), I spoke to Young and learned a lot about the new division he's heading up. He also spoke a little bit about his new job on stage while introducing Wright.

Here was Neil's basic introduction to Blueprint: "We focus on creating [intellectual property] in new ways for our media and finding smart ways to spread it across the media landscape."

In other words,, social media games may be a part of Blueprint, but it's a whole lot more. Here's what I gleaned:

-Blueprint will be focused on creating new intellectual property. But not primarily through the kind of AAA titles that EA does best. "It could be live events, it could be on the Internet, it could be clothing," Young threw out as examples of how EA Blueprint could begin, or extend, the life of its properties.

-EA Blueprint has development staff working under it. That includes the team at EALA developing games in conjunction with Steven Spielberg ("Boom Blox," an untitled game about a secret agent and an android, and one we know nothing about) and Maxis -- though I assume not the teams at Maxis working on "Sims" games, since that's a whole separate division at EA.

-Blueprint will also be working with teams outside of Electronic Arts. In other words, if somebody has an idea that they want to take to EA but it's not ready to be a huge console or PC title, Neil Young is probably now the go-to guy.

-Even when it does make games, Blueprint won't be focused on $20 million events. "We want to find a new way to make games with smaller teams," Young explained. The Facebook game mentioned by Gametap is probably one example of that.

-EA Blueprint is part of the EA Games division. Young reports to Frank Gibeau.

This is a fascinating play for EA, but one that makes sense as the publishing behometh tries to find ways to create new intellectual property within a company structured around major franchises like "Madden NFL" and "The Sims," along with Hollywood licenses. If Blueprint works, it's a way for EA to take much less expensive risks that, if they work, can then permeate throughout the company.

Those familiar with Hollywood will recognize this model. It sounds a lot like an independent film division at a major studio. Just like Blueprint, labels like Fox Searchlight and Disney's Miramax have the freedom to invest in riskier, more cutting edge ideas so long as they keep budgets tight. And every once in a while, they create something like "Juno" or "Scream" that blows up and becomes a major property for its parent company.

It also looks like Blueprint may be a way for EA to work with talent from other media, including Hollywood. That would explain why the Spielberg team at EALA is in the division, and it makes sense that Young, who's as well connected in Hollywood as anyone at EA thanks to his tenure in LA, would be in charge.

Lots more to come in the story of Blueprint as we start learning what exactly it's working on soon, no doubt.

Yesterday afternoon I got a look at some upcoming releases from Disney Interactive Studios and also spoke to the division's head Graham Hopper about its growth strategy and challenges.

Graham was able to clear up a bit of confusion about what's going on with THQ and Disney/Pixar games. As I noted on Tuesday, it was a bit surprising that Disney Interactive got the rights to make a game based on 2010's "Toy Story 3," as THQ still has one more game after 2009's "Up" left in its contract with Pixar. Hopper confirmed that while his unit got the rights to make a "Tory Story 3" game, THQ still gets to make one more title based on a Pixar movie under its contract. We can assume that will probably be whatever Pixar makes in 2011.

Hopper wouldn't make a commitment one way or another as to whether Disney Interactive will take over the Pixar license after the THQ deal expires. It's widely expected in the industry that it will, for the simple reason that most Pixar games (with the notable exception of "Ratatouille") are big successes and with all the emphasis that Disney putting on games, why wouldn't it prefer to make them in-house?

"We're a growing organization and Disney already as a company produces more content than we can make into games," he noted. "We would only do [a Pixar deal] if we could really deliver. We will re-examine that in a few years."

Hopper also said that "Turok" is selling "better than we had anticipated," though it's hard to know what Disney anticipated since this game was its first stab at the M-rated market. But handheld games based on Disney Channel properties and "High School Musical" games on numerous consoles continue to be big sellers, giving DIS some financial stability as it attacks other genres. There's a third "HSM" game announced for this spring and Hopper confirmed that more will be coming soon (no surprise there).

Finally, look for Disney Interactive to be investing in or acquiring more development studios in the near future. Last year it acquired Warren Spector's Junction Point, joining other recent purchases like Propaganda Games, Black Rock, and Avalanche. "We've said we are spending $180 million to $200 million on development this year and then we're moving up to $350 million, so that money has to go somewhere,"  Hopper told me.

I also got a look at some of Disney's upcoming titles, which include a mix of its bread-and-butter and an new genre:

-"Pure" is the first game from Black Rock, the British racing game developer (formerly Climax Racing) that Disney acquired in 2006. "Pure" features four-wheel ATV's, seemingly an odd choice at first, since they aren't as cool-looking as cars, but they allow for some great high-speed aerial tricks, which is what the game's all about. It features an interesting and fairly intuitive system for gaining the power to do crazy stunts on the ATV while high in the air, which needs to be balanced with the need-for-speed to win the race. And it has 16 person multi-player, which is pretty intense. Also of note: Even though it doesn't seem to go naturally with Mickey Mouse, Hopper confirmed that "Pure" will be Disney-branded and not go out with the Touchstone label like "Turok" did. There's a fantastic screenshot from "Pure," which comes out in the Fall, at the top of this post. And if you want to see a trailer, we just posted one on the right in the "video game trailers" widget.

-"Prince Caspian" is, of course, an adaptation of the film based on the classic C.S. Lewis "Narnia" novel that comes out in May. Developed by Traveller's Tales, just like the "Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' game, it's another inoffensive hack-and-slash game, but with a slightly less linear approach. The first level is entirely new to the story. Designed to add some action early on, it bridges the gap between "Wardobe" and the new book/film. The rest of the game follows the plot of the film, and even directly uses some digital scenery from it. But it gives players the freedom to pick missions on each level in whatever order they choose and has a wide variety of playable characters, including minotaur, centaurs and giants, beyond the four protagonist siblings. I'm guessing most gamers will be happy to play as a mythical beast rather than a bunch of pre-pubescent kids.

-"D-Gamer" is a service Disney Interactive is developing that will essentially add kid-friendly social networking tools to Nintendo DS games. It starts with "Prince Caspian." Essentially, the game has an extra app that lets players create an avatar, collect items, and chat with friends. It's very similar to the community features on Disney.com and in fact uses the same technical infrastructure and lets kids communicate back-and-forth between the Web and DS. Creating a social network entirely for games from one publisher seems a bit risky, though if any brand has the consumer affinity to pull it off, it's Disney.

For my money, the Game Developers Choice Awards are the ones to celebrate, since developers pick the winners (sorry Spike), publishers don't have to pay to join an organization to make their games eligible (sorry Interactive Achievement Awards), and there aren't a never-ending array of silly genre-specific categories (sorry Spike and AIAS).

It's a weird experience to attend, since the ceremony has some of the trapping of a "real" Hollywood awards show -- video montages of nominees, a presenter in a tux, women in gowns to walk the winners off stage -- but it's held in a big ballroom with cheap audience seats brought in for the occassion, recognizable celebrities are entirely absent, and some of the winners accept in t-shirts.

Still, it was an eminently fun event. Most winners seemed genuinely thrilled to be recognized by their peers and there was a genuine feeling of comraderie in the room. The standing ovations for lifetime achievement winner Sid Meier and pioneer award winner Ralph Baer (creator of the first home videogame console) were also very cool. Given that this only the 8th GDC Awards, naybe this is what the Oscars were like 70 years ago.

It was also great to see a major awards ceremony where I wasn't upset at the outcome. With one very notable exception (sorry, "Crackdown"), I genuinely liked all the winning games and think most of them deserved their trophies. "Portal" (pictured above) and "Bioshock" were hands down the best games of 2007 (and some of the most innovative games to come along in more than a year), so seeing them each rack up three wins was awesome.

The winners were:

2007 GAME DEVELOPERS CHOICE AWARD WINNERS

Best Game Design
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham

Best Visual Art
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James

Best Technology
Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts)
Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring

Best Writing
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, Joe McDonagh, Susan O’Connor

Best Audio
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins

Best Debut
Crackdown (Real Time Worlds / Microsoft Game Studios)
Ramon Gonzalez, Violeta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Jose Guerra

Innovation
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

Best Handheld Game
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo / Nintendo)
Eiji Aonuma

Best Downloadable Game
Flow (thatgamecompany / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards, Nick Clark

Game of the Year
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

SPECIAL AWARDS

Lifetime Achievement Award
Sid Meier

Pioneer Award
Ralph Baer

Ambassador Award
Jason Della Rocca

Microsoft's unveiling today (as I predicted) of an open distribution service on Xbox Live for videogames created by amateurs with its XNA development tools is a big deal, if it works. The YouTube-ization of games, which started with modders in the '90s and gained a lot of momentum last year with the level creation and sharing tools in "Halo 3,' is an amazing phenomenom, since game development is an even more technically difficult tool for most people to master than filmmaking.

I have no doubt this could result in a flouring of videogame creativity, but I wonder what it will do for the types of games we get and how accessible they are. In a follow-up interview we did, Microsoft's Chris Satchell told me that numerous people using XNA have made titles that could appeal to women or kids. But it seemed instructive to me that the winner of Microsoft's first content for XNA users was a brutal slice-and-shoot actioner called "DishWasher: Dead Samurai." (pictured at right) It's exactly the kind of game that one hard core gamer makes for another.

XNA is easy to use compared to traditional development of AAA titles, but it's still not that easy. Certainly not as easy as, say, "LittleBigPlanet" looks to be (though that's only level creation, not game creation). That makes me worry a bit that the new Microsoft service will be mostly filled with games by and for hard core gamers. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it doesn't exactly fulfill the promise of the democratization of videogames.

For those who didn't read the story in today's Daily Variety, here are the relevant parts about Microsoft's news:

Wednesday at GDC also saw Microsoft unveil a YouTube-like distribution system for independently created games. In a keynote address, execs said the service will allow anyone who uses the company's XNA toolkit, which enables amateur designers to make casual games, to offer their finished product to Xbox 360 owners via digital download. Service will start beta testing in the spring.

"We already have had lots of games made with XNA, but nothing to do with them," Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's developer group, said in an interview. "This is the democratization of game distribution."

Company hasn't finalized plans for pricing. It's not clear whether all games on the service will be free or if designers will be able to charge for their work.

A suite of social media tools enabling users to share and rate games is expected. Microsoft will have active designers participate in a peer review process to ensure that submitted titles don't have pirated or obscene content.

If successful, the service could let amateur game designers showcase their work and launch their careers online, just as many filmmakers are now doing.

"This is a great way to give designers exposure and help them be identified by publishers," Satchell noted.

Online sharing of films of gameplay made in "Halo 3" is already extremely popular. Microsoft said in the keynote that approximately 100,000 videos from the game are being posted online each day -- about 30% more than the average for all of YouTube.

Later this year, Sony is releasing PlayStation 3 title "LittleBigPlanet," which will let users create their own levels. Microsoft's new service is the first to distribute amateur games onto consoles, however.

Microsoft also said XNA designers will be able, for the first time, to make their games for the company's Zune portable music and video player. It's the first sign that Microsoft is planning to make the struggling Zune brand its portable gaming solution. Device is more powerful than most cell phones, though not on a par with Sony's PSP or Nintendo's DS. It's not yet clear how Microsoft plans to distribute games for the Zune.

Amidst the hoopla about Microsoft's new distribution system for user generated games unveiled today at GDC, the tech giant also dropped the news  that titles developed with its XNA toolkit will be able to work (when properly downscaled) on a Zune.

(For an idea of how it'll work, just imagine a "games" button in the menu on the screens above.)

This is particularly intriguing, and got kind of short shrift amongst the other news today. But given that Microsoft is the only console manufacturer without a handheld device, I think it's particularly interesting. For now, Zune is Microsoft's answer in handheld gaming.

It's a fascinating strategy, since a Zune isn't nearly as powerful as a PSP or even a DS. On the other hand, it's has more processing power than most any cellphone in the U.S. This afternoon I got to try out an XNA-created space shooting game on a Zune and it was pretty damned good The graphics were fantastic, the controls on the touch-sensitive pad were great, and it worked fine. Of course the graphics for any XNA-created game won't be nearly as good on Zune as on an Xbox 360. But they idea that some 360 games would even work on a Zune is impressive.

Of course the real question is whether the ability to play videogames will motivate anyone to actually buy a Zune.

Ironically, when Microsoft's John Schappert started building the excitement for gaming on Zune and listing the device's featured -- "What if you had a device with a big screen, a touch pad, a hard drive, flash memory, a hard drive," etc. -- it never occurred to me that he was talking about Zune. My thought was, "Microsoft's going to make games for the iPhone? How crazy!"

Microsoft officially announced "Gears of War 2" will be coming in November at GDC today. Anyone who has been reading my blog knows how I feel about that.

Nonetheless, it's interesting how GDC has really become E3 for the first half of the year. Just as it uses E3 in the summer to hype its holiday releases and announce some games coming in the next year, Microsoft today used GDC to hype major Xbox 360 releases for the first half of the year like "Grand Theft Auto IV," "Ninja Gaiden 2" and "Fable 2," while announced "Gears 2" for the holidays. Several other publishers are showing off their big releases for the spring and summer as well (and I'll be writing about more of them in the next day or two).

I don't want to sound like a "Gears of War" hater, however. I'm just not that thrilled at the announcement of a game that any journalist who can do a basic amount of reporting knew was coming. But I played a lot of the original "Gears" and expect I'll play plenty of the sequel. Especially online. For those who feel the same way, enjoy the trailer for "Gears of War 2." Warning, you may think you're seeing a trailer for "Sin City," but with giant chainsaw guns:

First up at GDC this morning: 2K Boston chief Ken Levine's panel titled "Storytelling in Bioshock: Empowering Players to Care About Your Stupid Story." I flew out early in large part to see this, since to me, the storytelling in "Bioshock" -- from the setting to the dialogue to the music -- was the best I saw in videogames last year, if not longer (rivaled only by "Portal").

After flying out of LA at 6:45 this morning and making my way to San Francisco, i was a little late for this. But what I saw was really interesting, as Levine emphasized how different writing is for games.

"This is a new medium," he told a packed crowd of several thousand. "It's not storytelling it's narrative."

In other words, game designers can't necessarily draw the player through a story as if they were telling it to him or her.

"You want them to see everything and experience everything, but they may not," he noted. "You have to respect your audience," he added, even if means giving them the freedom to miss out on great story elements.

In "Bioshock" in particular, it was important to maintain the balance of questions and answers" "We call it the 'mystery balloon' because we're pretentious. Think of a balloon gradually going down. Your job is to tap it back up before it gets too low. The problem is if you make it too full, audiences will get frustrated." As an example of a balloon that's too full, he cited something most game designers know well: season three of "Lost."

Levine also discussed the importance of using storytelling to make up for the deficiencies of game characters. If characters aren't built up ahead of time, he explained, it's tough to be impressed when they appear.

"When we finally meet [deranged doctor] Steinman, he's just an A.I. with a machine gun and a medical mask, but players have been set up to invest emotion in the guy," he said. "At the end of the day these digital actors are not Brando."

Levine's last major point, which seemed to surprise many in the audience during Q&A, was that doing too much writing of a game ahead of time isn't necessarily advisable. Many of the most compelling elements of "Bioshock," such as the nature of the protagonist (including the infamous "would you kindly" line) and the opening scene, came together late in the development process.

As an example of how elements can change during development that have a radical impact on the story, Levine walked the audience through five different iterations of the Little Sister, providing concept drawings (pasted on the right from my not so great photographic skills) along the way:

1. a slug (Levine's comment: "Why would anyone want to protect it?")

2. a troll in hood

3. A dog in a wheelchair ("It is what it is")

4. An ugly, zombie-like girl

5. The distrurbed little girls we saw in the final game

During the Q&A, Levine also made an admission that I was very glad to hear, basically saying that all of "Bioshock's" meta-commentary about the nature of games, which comes out in the final confrontation with Andrew Ryan, doesn't change the actual gameplay in the last few levels. In other words, despite it's critique of videogame storytelling, "Bioshock" is still constrained by the limitations of videogame storytelling.

"We were writing checks about narrative that our game couldn't cash," he said wryly. "We rub people's face in it, then continue to rub their face in it for the rest of the game."

My story today about the opening of GDC also contains some details about a new TV show, called "Sacred Road," that will be unveiled at a panel at GDC on Thursday. It's the first ever animated series created using a game engine, in this came, "Brothers in Arms." The show is about Allied soldiers in WWII who run into zombies that the Nazis created from WWI corpses.

It will air on GamePlayHD, one of the Voom hi-def networks owned by Cablevision that are available on its cable system and also Dish Network. It's the first scripted series for the network, which has thus far focused on making-of documentary programming, competitions like "Madden Challenge," etc.

The show is being made by Blockade, a new production company focused on using game engines to bring down the cost and speed up the time of CG animation. Blockade is co-owned by Gearbox Software, convenient for getting your hands on the "Brothers in Arms" engine, and f/x house Rhythm & Hues convenient for getting your hands on animation talent like Bill Kroyer, writer/director of "Sacred Road."

Blockade's excited president is Brad Foxhoven, who used to run Top Cow Comics and John Woo's videogame production company Tiger Hill. He promises more animated shows made with game engines are on the way, possibly in partnership with publishers and including characters we already know (and possibly love).

Here are details on Sacred Road from the Variety story:

Blockade and GamePlay HD are using the event to spotlight their new show "Sacred Road." It's the first scripted series for GamePlay, one of Cablevision's high-def Voom networks.

Blockade, which is headed by Brad Foxhoven , former head of John Woo's vidgame company, and partially owned by f/x house Rhythm & Hues and vidgame developer Gearbox Software, is using videogame technology to produce CG animation at low cost.

"Sacred Road" utilizes the engine from Gearbox's WWII action game "Brothers in Arms" to produce many of its settings and movements, along with some motion capture and original animation.

"By reusing game engines and assets, we think we can substantially lower production time while keeping the quality high," said Foxhoven.

Series is about a group of Allied soldiers during WWII who face zombies created by the Nazis from WWI corpses. GamePlay HD has ordered six episodes, which are expected to air in the fall. "Sacred Road" is created by Rhythm & Hues vet Bill Kroyer.

"Since we started (in 2006), I've been trying to find a way to make a dramatic series with the same technology in games," said Mark DeAngelis, VP of programming and development for Gameplay HD. "There's no way we could have afforded an animated series of this quality with traditional methods."

Both Gameplay and Blockade are hoping "Sacred Road" will be the first of several series they'll produce using vidgame technology.

Tomorrow morning I head out to the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco for the rest of the week. If all goes well with breaks and wi-fi, I hope to bring you frequent updates on the news, interesting panels, awards and game demo's.

Meanwhile, I have a story in today's Daily Variety introducing our print readers to the conference, how it's changing and what it means. Cut Scene readers probably already know about GDC, but you may not know that 10% of the attendees this year will be from the traditional media business. That really underscores how much business is getting done at GDC. It's not just educational sessions for artists and programmers anymore. It also underscores that whenever the videogame biz gets together, people from Hollywood want to get involved. I expect a healthy contingent of producers, agents, executives, creatives, etc. to be up there.

Be sure to check back Wednesday through Friday for regular GDC updates. Stuff I'm planning to check out and blog about:

-Microsoft's keynote, which I presume will be about new tools in its XNA program to let "regular" people create or edit games. Though I'm pretty curious what the Xbox Live folks have hidden behind this curtain. (picture courtesy of Kotaku)

-The GDC awards

-Ken Levine's ("Bioshock) session on storytelling in games

-Ray Kurzweil's keynote on the future of games

-"Street Fighter IV"

-"Lego Batman"

-"Prototype"

-"Speed Racer"

-Disney's "Pure" and "Prince Caspian"