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Joystiq is reporting that a large slice of the catalog for anime distributor Starz will be coming to Xbox Live. Some of their titles are already available via the service, while others will be placed into circulation in the coming months. High profile new content includes the stellar Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Series 1 and 2), Read or Die, Macross Plus, Tokko, Virus, and X.

In advance of the Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft threw a press conference today introducing their newest products to the people of Japan. Highlights from the event include the announcement that an updated version of Rez will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade, and that Ninja Gaiden 2 will be an Xbox exclusive when it releases next year. Other announcements include Lost Odyssey's delay to February 2008 for a US release, more titles for Xbox Live including Every Extend Extra Extreme, Ikaruga, Trigger Heart, Exit and Omega Five, two new Xbox controller colors (blue and pink), and the announcement of a new title developed by Tri-Ace and published by Square/Enix: Infinite Undiscovery.

In advance of the Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft threw a press conference today introducing their newest products to the people of Japan. Highlights from the event include the announcement that an updated version of Rez will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade, and that Ninja Gaiden 2 will be an Xbox exclusive when it releases next year. Other announcements include Lost Odyssey's delay to February 2008 for a US release, more titles for Xbox Live including Every Extend Extra Extreme, Ikaruga, Trigger Heart, Exit and Omega Five, two new Xbox controller colors (blue and pink), and the announcement of a new title developed by Tri-Ace and published by Square/Enix: Infinite Undiscovery.

With the 60GB version now 'sold out', the 80GB version of the PlayStation 3 is quickly going to be the only option for consumers in stores. Besides the hard-drive size, though, the two systems have another fundamental difference: the 80GB unit handles backwards compatibility with software and not hardware. What games work on the two console versions is now a bit trickier. To aid in your comprehension, Joystiq notes, Sony has released a handy online game checker to let you know how your library will fare. Over at Curmudgeon Gamer, they have an examination of a game library looking at both a PS1 collection of titles and a group of games from the PS2 era. Assuming this random sampling to be in any way indicative, it looks like there isn't much difference between software and hardware compatibility for PS1 games ... but PS2 games might not have an easy time of it.

Last weekend the dark horde of nerddom descended on Seattle, entering the heart of the 'Emerald City' to gorge itself on the music, culture, and humor of gaming. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) once again brought together fans of the influential webcomic for a festival that, without even trying, seems to be taking the place of old E3. Though they were expecting around 30,000 people, the word was that by early Sunday they'd already gone through some 40,000 badges. There were DSes everywhere, concerts at night, a packed exhibit hall, and benchmark comic strips created by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins adorned almost every wall. Despite all the people and the noise, somehow the event had a community feel to it that was hard to understand ... and even harder to describe. I'll try, though, along with impressions from games on the show floor and the incredible music of folks like Jonathan Coulton and the Minibosses. Read on, and All Hail Ball. The Early Weekend

If you missed my discussion of Friday's events, it's understandable; it went up this past Saturday. Suffice it to say that Wil Wheaton's keynote speech was the highlight of the evening. His praise of social gaming, and the relationship-building power of the PAX-goer's favorite pastime resonated incredibly well with the packed theatre. The after-action report on his blog says it all: "My keynote went perfectly, and the audience (and the gaming press online) responded to it in ways I never dreamed possible. I didn't think there would be slightly more than 5000 people in the room when I spoke ..."

The first Penny Arcade Panel featured a lot of middlin' questions, highlighted by the incredible singing power of Jerry Holkins. A description of his performance is in my weekend update, but the real surprise didn't come until after the questions were done. The end of the panel turned ugly when the PA gents left the stage for Uwe Boll to have a chance at the mike. Gabe said later that weekend that he was surprised by the crowd reaction. "You can tell when a crowd is angry, and this was the first time I've felt that at at PAX." The unapologetic Boll was screamed at fairly mercilessly by the attendees.

Other events from the early weekend included a discussion of modern storytelling in videogames. Luminaries Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island), Dave Grossman (Sam and Max) and Nate Fox (Sly Cooper) came together to jaw on a topic near to their hearts. The group discussed linear stories vs. sandbox-style gameplay, user-created content, kids games, and the importance of theme even if your core story isn't all that great: "Grossman [said], 'Well, story isn't just about dialogue and narrative, right - I mean really you want to learn something about the human experience. I think that if I weren't doing adventure games I wouldn't think of myself as a narrator, but rather as the hand of fate. I'm going to kind of let you run around and do what you want and everything. Just to let the player go around and do what they want - they can feel like it's the good hand of fate or the bad hand of fate, but not that they're completely being controlled.'"

The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the Penny Arcade videogame currently in development, was a visible presence at the show all weekend. The Friday unveiling of a new game demo to the media at a special Q&A event was followed by a weekend's worth of running through the game for attendees on the show floor. Most everyone got to see the title, and hear the news that it will be coming to Xbox Live alongside its PC distribution avenues. The opening, grim, text still makes me smile: "Four gods wait on the windowsill / Where once eight gods did war and will / And if the gods themselves may die / What does that say for you and I?"

PA Panel II

While the first PA Q&A panel was entertaining just to hear Holkins and Krahulik talk, the second panel actually had a number of insightful questions, touching statements, and funny moments. And, thankfully, there were no stoned guys rambling about their paranoid fantasies at the microphone; always a plus. Long queues formed at the two microphones to question the gents, and here are some highlights:

• Paul Barnett, Design Manager for the Warhammer Online Massively Multiplayer game, drew applause for his short advertisement during a trailers reel before the event started. He used his clipped British wit to compare Warhammer to World of Warcraft like so: If you're going up against the Beatles, don't try to be the Beatles. You'll end up looking like the Monkees. Instead, we're going to be Led Zeppelin.
• A question about the changes to the primary characters over the year led Mike Krahulik to discuss his influences, such as Stan Sakai. He's essentially 'never finished' with the characters, and we can expect to see further changes to his art style in the coming years.
• Drawings of Gabe and Tycho in ping pong outfits prompted readers to ask if we would ever see that as a project down the road. They're enthusiastic about it and would love to do it, as up until now readers have just seen a few simple images. To further tease us, they described the backstory to the piece: Set in the 80s, a cold war US is still facing down Russia. A little-known clause in the UN charter states that table tennis can be used to decide grudges; the loser forfeits their country. The US table tennis team is slain, and so a group of four people at ping pong camp (including our protagonists) are drawn into international excitement.
• A question about the appeal of the Halo franchise has the gents noting that the series has grown on them considerably.
• In negotiating the price for the XBLA version of the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, they feel they'll have a good deal of leverage as regards pricing (and content as well).
• Several great ideas for projects and future PAX ideas are mentioned, including support of a nerdcore show currently touring the area and an Indie Games FreePlay area.
• When asked about origins of the hobos in Precipice of Darkness, Tycho notes that the game is a 'hobage' of different sources. The Achievement for 100 hobo kills? Hobicide.
• A reader challenges the two to a thumb war, which Jerry wins quite promptly by kicking Gabe in the nuts. He declines to continue, saying he 'values his beanbag.'
• When asked to endorse some games on the exhibit show floor, both gentlemen put their weight behind Eye of Judgement and Sega Rally.
• Someone notes that the current in-the-works game is very much a 'Tycho' game ... lots of words. He wonders what kind of 'Gabe' game they'd like to make. Mike ponders the concept of a brawler, or perhaps something not unlike Turtles in Time.
• The idea of making sure the ball comes back to PAX every year, 'to recharge' is brought up. It could then be sold on eBay to help fund the annual Child's Play charity. They both really like this idea.
• A reader asks what the 'worst thing' either of them have ever done is. Mike tells the story of a time when he set a trap for his family's cat in the backyard, and ended up stringing up the pet by the neck into a tree. It survived, but he has always felt terribly. Jerry, on the other hand, equivocates. When Mike gets tired of it, he tells a story of Jerry drinking a glass of Chai and finding a bug near the bottom of his glass ... which he then upended and finished after fishing out the bug.

Warhammer Online

Having had a good look at the game at Gen Con, I used my PAX chance to talk to the folks at EA Mythic to dig a little bit deeper on one of the game's claims to fame: Realm vs. Realm combat. Just hours before I spoke to the folks at EA, a team from their company had announced professions from the High Elf and Dark Elf factions for the very first time. I tried to glean just a little bit more PvP-specific information about these races for you, but it was not to be.

Just the same Ryan Barnard (game designer) and Eric Correll (producer on the game) were very forthcoming. The pair was happy to discuss different elements of their signature game feature. For example, new players will have the PvP-focused game introduced to them gradually at low levels. There's a soft introduction, beginning that portion of the title's seamless integration into the overall gameplay. Open-world PvP in specific parts of the starting zones will most likely be their first exposure. Quests will lead them to RvR areas, and eventually will direct them to the instanced 'Scenario'-style missions. Throughout the game, the portion of land that is focused on these activities starts small, but eventually dominates gameplay; the RvR 'city capture' system is Warhammer's 'end game'.

Warhammer Online's unique systems, like the Tome of Knowledge and the Public Quest, also touch on RvR. The Tome will explain elements of Player vs. Player combat, and will record your successes in battle. RvR Public Quests, meanwhile, are currently undergoing retooling. They want them 'right', and currently have taken them all out of the game to make sure they're just so; they hope to have them back into the game by launch.

This feel of 'rightness' is something they're aiming for in their scenarios as well, with the goal of integrating these instances not only into PvP progression, but the ongoing story of the game as well. Each is themed to the area they're in, and tells the tale of a specific conflict between the Order and Chaos armies.

Introducing players who might not otherwise participate in RvR into the fundamentals of that gameplay style is also something the team is focusing on. While they acknowledge that some people just don't want to play against other players, they see folks who are hard and fast about that rule as the minority. They're looking to make PvP a core part of the game, and as such they'll be approaching it differently than a primarily PvE focused game might. This affects multiple game design elements, all the way down to the 'hook' of Public Quests, which gets folks who might not even ever group thinking more favorably about gaming with others. Racial pride is also a factor; by priming characters from low levels to be 'pro-Dwarf', or whatever, players will be more likely to come to their society's aid. They're all steps in a chain, the team hopes, to changing outlooks soured by less focused titles.

On the other side of the equation, the end-game city capture system sees factions sacking the racial homes of their opponents. Though reluctant to use the term 'end game' specifically, the team members were happy to admit that it will be the focus at max-levels. RvR combat will funnel players towards the opposing side, hoping to push the 'antagonists' back to their city walls. They also pointed out, however, that there are other elements in play at that high level. PvE content and public quests are still around, though diminished, and they have plans to further expand both sides of the max-level content once the game is released.

Organized Play, as featured in Guild Wars and now World of Warcraft, is not something they're currently planning for. They'd love to eventually do tournaments for RvR teams at some point, but they're so focused on getting it out the door in a timely fashion that it's not particularly on their radar. As they put it, "we hope we have that problem".

The cutting edge of their work is, obviously, on the Elves at the moment. They're still working to tune the scenarios and open-world play for the Elven areas, and are always working to ensure that classes are balanced and the 'fun' is present.

This cutting edge blends well with some of the surprises that the team had in store for them when masses of people finally entered the Beta. Probably the most surprising for the RvR team: their carefully crafted points of control battlefield objective system, which requires holding targets in open-world PvP, are almost completely being ignored. While they worked hard on this mechanic, the players are more interested in the actual act of combat when in an open-world environment. Scenario tactics are welcomed, but outside of those instances the two sides really just want to enter the fray. The team hopes to have them in the game in some capacity, but they're going to undergo heavy retooling before that happens.

As we wrapped things up, we discussed the reflection this decision has on their overall attitude towards the game: if it's not working, it needs to go/be fixed/tuned/rehashed/whatever. Killing what you thought was going to be the end-all be-all is not outside the realm of possibility, even this late in the game. RvR, and the game in general, has to be fun. No exceptions.

Fury

I'll be honest: Fury came at me from nowhere. I'd read about it before coming to the show, knew that it was approaching an Open Beta, and that it was a free-to-play PvP title. That was just about all I knew when I sat down to play and chat with Fury's lead designer Adam Carpenter.

When you're trying to quantify Fury's gameplay type, it's better to think less about online RPGs and more about first-person shooters. Fury has essentially taken the swords and sorcery milieu and dropped that whole cloth into an FPS schema. In each match, players spawn in, rush out, and slam into each other in extremely fast altercations. Everything is fast; from character creation to combat can be just a few minutes.

This is the underpinning of developer Auran's outlook: fun, fast, and free. Instead of grinding through a PvE component, Fury characters are built entirely around a series of abilities and equipment available at character creation. Each character can play whatever role you want them to in a given match, and their role can be changed freely between altercations. Want to act as a support class in one match? You put on your gear that aids healing type abilities, load those healing abilities into your hotbar , and go. Want to act as a ranged DPS class? Swap those healing bits out for the appropriate gear and powers. Players will never have to whine about not having the right class for a fight, as everyone has flexibility.

Gameplay itself, character abilities, focuses on colors. Your ability bar is full of various attacks, and they are themed around different colors. Each player has a small gauge on their screen to help ascertain how many color points they have built up. These points are gained by using 'low level' colored abilities. A basic blue attack, for example, might give you one blue point. As you move through combat, your gauge will fill with colored points. Higher points unlock the use of more powerful abilities on your hotbar, which in turn use up your points. Fascinatingly, each ability color has a diametric opposite; red points counter blue points and players with red points in their bar will actually be less effective with blue abilities. This led the designers to create special point-manipulating abilities; in the middle of the fight you can switch a player's point colors. You can also steal points, leading to the 'change-their-color-steal-their-points' combo move, leaving your opponent defenseless and cold in the world.

Each color has a sort of 'theme', with green abilities having a sort of nature-y feel to it, while blue abilities being sort of icey. There are ranged and melee abilities in all colors, so there won't be any particular demanded role for a color ability. For most players the only real constraint will be up to what abilities you have on hand as a result of previous accomplishments. While most common abilities will be available by default when you purchase the game, new powers will be unlocked via achievements as you succeed in combat. Achievements include everything from taking the most objectives during a match, to killing the most people, to healing the most ... and your rewards are appropriate for what you accomplish.

Rewards on the equipment side are a bit more random. After completing a match, random loot is generated for the party, and people /roll for it. That's pretty much 'the way it is', going right around the usual sort of arguments at pick up group might have when dealing with looted gear. Gold is equally distributed, of course, and both items and gold are commensurate with your success in the just-completed mission.

It's worth noting here that Fury will have a for-pay option, allowing you to slap down a subscription fee if you want ... but it will have nothing to do with the quality of your in-game items. Money is only given to the Auran folks for the addition of convenience and depth. I should say there is some overlap with items: one of the for-pay conveniences is the ability to roll on three items instead of two. A for-pay player has a bit more in the way of item space, some options for purchasing things from vendors, and other simple things that makes the game just a little bit easier for having forked over your cash. Depth, in this case, is all about in-game ladders. While free players will compete on ladders of various types, paying players will have a long list of different ladder types to participate in. Server, guild, and individual progress will all be tracked for various rewards and bragging rights.

Those bragging rights will come in the form of an online representation of your character's escapades. Kill counts, 'flag' steals, and other metrics will be tracked on an official page for your character, and viewable by anyone. Guilds with an interest in going deeper into min-maxing can make use of the human-readable stats that will be generated locally by the client in a text file. Officers can collect these document to see which builds are working, which aren't, and where the group as a whole needs to focus.

The game build playable on the PAX show floor was already five months old, and showed it. There were server problems a few times, and the game looked more than a little bit jaggy. Even through the cruft, though, there was a lot of promise showing through. The settings were gorgeous despite the outdated rendering model, and the fun factor of actual play was very high. Fury is a simple, brutal combat game, and it makes no pretensions about it. With the promise of free online play for the price of a PC game title, this seems like a pretty nice package. It's definitely not going to be for everyone; there's none of the painstaking polish of Guild Wars, or the deep PvE experience of World of Warcraft. For folks looking for a quick, focused good time Fury may just be what you're looking for.

Jonathan Coulton, Frontalot, Minibosses Concert

I'm sure many of you could have told me how transcendent Jonathan Coulton's music is, but when I entered the theatre on Saturday night for the triple-headed mega-show I was something of a Coulton newb. I'd heard Code Monkey, of course, but I'd never made much of an effort to seek out his music. Whether it was his intent to really reach the audience that night or not, he made a convert out of me. His haunting lyrics about superficiality, squid, cybernetics, robotics, technology, programming, and zombies were funny, touching, and thought provoking. I asked a friend who followed his music to confirm for me that he usually doesn't play terribly large venues. I had to ask because it was only really apparent during the few moments when he paused to take in the size of the audience. He was really, very good. Coulton had easily the largest crowd of the night, with his mass dwarfing even the groups on hand later for MC Frontalot and the Minibosses. His final song for the night, re: Your Brains was tremendous to experience in the midst of thousands of hand-waving flesh-craving growl/singing faux undead. Both Frontalot and the Minibosses put on amazing shows as well, of course, showing off their polished shows and firm grasp of their material. Frontalot was in rare form, with several new songs of his most recent album. Just the same ... Coulton was the show of the night for me, and it was a privilege to be able to see such a great act in person.

The Games And Panels of PAX

There were so many events and games, demos and panels, at the event that I couldn't make it to every interesting experience. Thankfully, other sites can pick up the slack.

The panel on licensed games explored the pros and cons of using someone else's IP to make a title. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" was seen as the primary problem, with the high cost associated with such a deal a close second.

"Pitch Your Game Idea" is always a very well-attended panel, and this year was no exception. Dozens and dozens of people lined up to present their game ideas to a panel of industry veterans. They were then 'cut', American Idol style, working through less solid game ideas towards the pearly center. There were apparently a surprising number of women there, and the contestant that won was one of them. Her simple, Pong-like concept had a graphical background that became more complicated as the game went on.

That showing would have been a relief to the folks at the very well attended "Women in Games" panel. The event focused around the challenges of entering the industry, and the issues associated with working the day to day grind once you're in.

A number of folks had hands-on time with titles I didn't get to, including Haze, Tabula Rasa

Last weekend the dark horde of nerddom descended on Seattle, entering the heart of the 'Emerald City' to gorge itself on the music, culture, and humor of gaming. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) once again brought together fans of the influential webcomic for a festival that, without even trying, seems to be taking the place of old E3. Though they were expecting around 30,000 people, the word was that by early Sunday they'd already gone through some 40,000 badges. There were DSes everywhere, concerts at night, a packed exhibit hall, and benchmark comic strips created by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins adorned almost every wall. Despite all the people and the noise, somehow the event had a community feel to it that was hard to understand ... and even harder to describe. I'll try, though, along with impressions from games on the show floor and the incredible music of folks like Jonathan Coulton and the Minibosses. Read on, and All Hail Ball. The Early Weekend

If you missed my discussion of Friday's events, it's understandable; it went up this past Saturday. Suffice it to say that Wil Wheaton's keynote speech was the highlight of the evening. His praise of social gaming, and the relationship-building power of the PAX-goer's favorite pastime resonated incredibly well with the packed theatre. The after-action report on his blog says it all: "My keynote went perfectly, and the audience (and the gaming press online) responded to it in ways I never dreamed possible. I didn't think there would be slightly more than 5000 people in the room when I spoke ..."

The first Penny Arcade Panel featured a lot of middlin' questions, highlighted by the incredible singing power of Jerry Holkins. A description of his performance is in my weekend update, but the real surprise didn't come until after the questions were done. The end of the panel turned ugly when the PA gents left the stage for Uwe Boll to have a chance at the mike. Gabe said later that weekend that he was surprised by the crowd reaction. "You can tell when a crowd is angry, and this was the first time I've felt that at at PAX." The unapologetic Boll was screamed at fairly mercilessly by the attendees.

Other events from the early weekend included a discussion of modern storytelling in videogames. Luminaries Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island), Dave Grossman (Sam and Max) and Nate Fox (Sly Cooper) came together to jaw on a topic near to their hearts. The group discussed linear stories vs. sandbox-style gameplay, user-created content, kids games, and the importance of theme even if your core story isn't all that great: "Grossman [said], 'Well, story isn't just about dialogue and narrative, right - I mean really you want to learn something about the human experience. I think that if I weren't doing adventure games I wouldn't think of myself as a narrator, but rather as the hand of fate. I'm going to kind of let you run around and do what you want and everything. Just to let the player go around and do what they want - they can feel like it's the good hand of fate or the bad hand of fate, but not that they're completely being controlled.'"

The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the Penny Arcade videogame currently in development, was a visible presence at the show all weekend. The Friday unveiling of a new game demo to the media at a special Q&A event was followed by a weekend's worth of running through the game for attendees on the show floor. Most everyone got to see the title, and hear the news that it will be coming to Xbox Live alongside its PC distribution avenues. The opening, grim, text still makes me smile: "Four gods wait on the windowsill / Where once eight gods did war and will / And if the gods themselves may die / What does that say for you and I?"

PA Panel II

While the first PA Q&A panel was entertaining just to hear Holkins and Krahulik talk, the second panel actually had a number of insightful questions, touching statements, and funny moments. And, thankfully, there were no stoned guys rambling about their paranoid fantasies at the microphone; always a plus. Long queues formed at the two microphones to question the gents, and here are some highlights:

• Paul Barnett, Design Manager for the Warhammer Online Massively Multiplayer game, drew applause for his short advertisement during a trailers reel before the event started. He used his clipped British wit to compare Warhammer to World of Warcraft like so: If you're going up against the Beatles, don't try to be the Beatles. You'll end up looking like the Monkees. Instead, we're going to be Led Zeppelin.
• A question about the changes to the primary characters over the year led Mike Krahulik to discuss his influences, such as Stan Sakai. He's essentially 'never finished' with the characters, and we can expect to see further changes to his art style in the coming years.
• Drawings of Gabe and Tycho in ping pong outfits prompted readers to ask if we would ever see that as a project down the road. They're enthusiastic about it and would love to do it, as up until now readers have just seen a few simple images. To further tease us, they described the backstory to the piece: Set in the 80s, a cold war US is still facing down Russia. A little-known clause in the UN charter states that table tennis can be used to decide grudges; the loser forfeits their country. The US table tennis team is slain, and so a group of four people at ping pong camp (including our protagonists) are drawn into international excitement.
• A question about the appeal of the Halo franchise has the gents noting that the series has grown on them considerably.
• In negotiating the price for the XBLA version of the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, they feel they'll have a good deal of leverage as regards pricing (and content as well).
• Several great ideas for projects and future PAX ideas are mentioned, including support of a nerdcore show currently touring the area and an Indie Games FreePlay area.
• When asked about origins of the hobos in Precipice of Darkness, Tycho notes that the game is a 'hobage' of different sources. The Achievement for 100 hobo kills? Hobicide.
• A reader challenges the two to a thumb war, which Jerry wins quite promptly by kicking Gabe in the nuts. He declines to continue, saying he 'values his beanbag.'
• When asked to endorse some games on the exhibit show floor, both gentlemen put their weight behind Eye of Judgement and Sega Rally.
• Someone notes that the current in-the-works game is very much a 'Tycho' game ... lots of words. He wonders what kind of 'Gabe' game they'd like to make. Mike ponders the concept of a brawler, or perhaps something not unlike Turtles in Time.
• The idea of making sure the ball comes back to PAX every year, 'to recharge' is brought up. It could then be sold on eBay to help fund the annual Child's Play charity. They both really like this idea.
• A reader asks what the 'worst thing' either of them have ever done is. Mike tells the story of a time when he set a trap for his family's cat in the backyard, and ended up stringing up the pet by the neck into a tree. It survived, but he has always felt terribly. Jerry, on the other hand, equivocates. When Mike gets tired of it, he tells a story of Jerry drinking a glass of Chai and finding a bug near the bottom of his glass ... which he then upended and finished after fishing out the bug.

Warhammer Online

Having had a good look at the game at Gen Con, I used my PAX chance to talk to the folks at EA Mythic to dig a little bit deeper on one of the game's claims to fame: Realm vs. Realm combat. Just hours before I spoke to the folks at EA, a team from their company had announced professions from the High Elf and Dark Elf factions for the very first time. I tried to glean just a little bit more PvP-specific information about these races for you, but it was not to be.

Just the same Ryan Barnard (game designer) and Eric Correll (producer on the game) were very forthcoming. The pair was happy to discuss different elements of their signature game feature. For example, new players will have the PvP-focused game introduced to them gradually at low levels. There's a soft introduction, beginning that portion of the title's seamless integration into the overall gameplay. Open-world PvP in specific parts of the starting zones will most likely be their first exposure. Quests will lead them to RvR areas, and eventually will direct them to the instanced 'Scenario'-style missions. Throughout the game, the portion of land that is focused on these activities starts small, but eventually dominates gameplay; the RvR 'city capture' system is Warhammer's 'end game'.

Warhammer Online's unique systems, like the Tome of Knowledge and the Public Quest, also touch on RvR. The Tome will explain elements of Player vs. Player combat, and will record your successes in battle. RvR Public Quests, meanwhile, are currently undergoing retooling. They want them 'right', and currently have taken them all out of the game to make sure they're just so; they hope to have them back into the game by launch.

This feel of 'rightness' is something they're aiming for in their scenarios as well, with the goal of integrating these instances not only into PvP progression, but the ongoing story of the game as well. Each is themed to the area they're in, and tells the tale of a specific conflict between the Order and Chaos armies.

Introducing players who might not otherwise participate in RvR into the fundamentals of that gameplay style is also something the team is focusing on. While they acknowledge that some people just don't want to play against other players, they see folks who are hard and fast about that rule as the minority. They're looking to make PvP a core part of the game, and as such they'll be approaching it differently than a primarily PvE focused game might. This affects multiple game design elements, all the way down to the 'hook' of Public Quests, which gets folks who might not even ever group thinking more favorably about gaming with others. Racial pride is also a factor; by priming characters from low levels to be 'pro-Dwarf', or whatever, players will be more likely to come to their society's aid. They're all steps in a chain, the team hopes, to changing outlooks soured by less focused titles.

On the other side of the equation, the end-game city capture system sees factions sacking the racial homes of their opponents. Though reluctant to use the term 'end game' specifically, the team members were happy to admit that it will be the focus at max-levels. RvR combat will funnel players towards the opposing side, hoping to push the 'antagonists' back to their city walls. They also pointed out, however, that there are other elements in play at that high level. PvE content and public quests are still around, though diminished, and they have plans to further expand both sides of the max-level content once the game is released.

Organized Play, as featured in Guild Wars and now World of Warcraft, is not something they're currently planning for. They'd love to eventually do tournaments for RvR teams at some point, but they're so focused on getting it out the door in a timely fashion that it's not particularly on their radar. As they put it, "we hope we have that problem".

The cutting edge of their work is, obviously, on the Elves at the moment. They're still working to tune the scenarios and open-world play for the Elven areas, and are always working to ensure that classes are balanced and the 'fun' is present.

This cutting edge blends well with some of the surprises that the team had in store for them when masses of people finally entered the Beta. Probably the most surprising for the RvR team: their carefully crafted points of control battlefield objective system, which requires holding targets in open-world PvP, are almost completely being ignored. While they worked hard on this mechanic, the players are more interested in the actual act of combat when in an open-world environment. Scenario tactics are welcomed, but outside of those instances the two sides really just want to enter the fray. The team hopes to have them in the game in some capacity, but they're going to undergo heavy retooling before that happens.

As we wrapped things up, we discussed the reflection this decision has on their overall attitude towards the game: if it's not working, it needs to go/be fixed/tuned/rehashed/whatever. Killing what you thought was going to be the end-all be-all is not outside the realm of possibility, even this late in the game. RvR, and the game in general, has to be fun. No exceptions.

Fury

I'll be honest: Fury came at me from nowhere. I'd read about it before coming to the show, knew that it was approaching an Open Beta, and that it was a free-to-play PvP title. That was just about all I knew when I sat down to play and chat with Fury's lead designer Adam Carpenter.

When you're trying to quantify Fury's gameplay type, it's better to think less about online RPGs and more about first-person shooters. Fury has essentially taken the swords and sorcery milieu and dropped that whole cloth into an FPS schema. In each match, players spawn in, rush out, and slam into each other in extremely fast altercations. Everything is fast; from character creation to combat can be just a few minutes.

This is the underpinning of developer Auran's outlook: fun, fast, and free. Instead of grinding through a PvE component, Fury characters are built entirely around a series of abilities and equipment available at character creation. Each character can play whatever role you want them to in a given match, and their role can be changed freely between altercations. Want to act as a support class in one match? You put on your gear that aids healing type abilities, load those healing abilities into your hotbar , and go. Want to act as a ranged DPS class? Swap those healing bits out for the appropriate gear and powers. Players will never have to whine about not having the right class for a fight, as everyone has flexibility.

Gameplay itself, character abilities, focuses on colors. Your ability bar is full of various attacks, and they are themed around different colors. Each player has a small gauge on their screen to help ascertain how many color points they have built up. These points are gained by using 'low level' colored abilities. A basic blue attack, for example, might give you one blue point. As you move through combat, your gauge will fill with colored points. Higher points unlock the use of more powerful abilities on your hotbar, which in turn use up your points. Fascinatingly, each ability color has a diametric opposite; red points counter blue points and players with red points in their bar will actually be less effective with blue abilities. This led the designers to create special point-manipulating abilities; in the middle of the fight you can switch a player's point colors. You can also steal points, leading to the 'change-their-color-steal-their-points' combo move, leaving your opponent defenseless and cold in the world.

Each color has a sort of 'theme', with green abilities having a sort of nature-y feel to it, while blue abilities being sort of icey. There are ranged and melee abilities in all colors, so there won't be any particular demanded role for a color ability. For most players the only real constraint will be up to what abilities you have on hand as a result of previous accomplishments. While most common abilities will be available by default when you purchase the game, new powers will be unlocked via achievements as you succeed in combat. Achievements include everything from taking the most objectives during a match, to killing the most people, to healing the most ... and your rewards are appropriate for what you accomplish.

Rewards on the equipment side are a bit more random. After completing a match, random loot is generated for the party, and people /roll for it. That's pretty much 'the way it is', going right around the usual sort of arguments at pick up group might have when dealing with looted gear. Gold is equally distributed, of course, and both items and gold are commensurate with your success in the just-completed mission.

It's worth noting here that Fury will have a for-pay option, allowing you to slap down a subscription fee if you want ... but it will have nothing to do with the quality of your in-game items. Money is only given to the Auran folks for the addition of convenience and depth. I should say there is some overlap with items: one of the for-pay conveniences is the ability to roll on three items instead of two. A for-pay player has a bit more in the way of item space, some options for purchasing things from vendors, and other simple things that makes the game just a little bit easier for having forked over your cash. Depth, in this case, is all about in-game ladders. While free players will compete on ladders of various types, paying players will have a long list of different ladder types to participate in. Server, guild, and individual progress will all be tracked for various rewards and bragging rights.

Those bragging rights will come in the form of an online representation of your character's escapades. Kill counts, 'flag' steals, and other metrics will be tracked on an official page for your character, and viewable by anyone. Guilds with an interest in going deeper into min-maxing can make use of the human-readable stats that will be generated locally by the client in a text file. Officers can collect these document to see which builds are working, which aren't, and where the group as a whole needs to focus.

The game build playable on the PAX show floor was already five months old, and showed it. There were server problems a few times, and the game looked more than a little bit jaggy. Even through the cruft, though, there was a lot of promise showing through. The settings were gorgeous despite the outdated rendering model, and the fun factor of actual play was very high. Fury is a simple, brutal combat game, and it makes no pretensions about it. With the promise of free online play for the price of a PC game title, this seems like a pretty nice package. It's definitely not going to be for everyone; there's none of the painstaking polish of Guild Wars, or the deep PvE experience of World of Warcraft. For folks looking for a quick, focused good time Fury may just be what you're looking for.

Jonathan Coulton, Frontalot, Minibosses Concert

I'm sure many of you could have told me how transcendent Jonathan Coulton's music is, but when I entered the theatre on Saturday night for the triple-headed mega-show I was something of a Coulton newb. I'd heard Code Monkey, of course, but I'd never made much of an effort to seek out his music. Whether it was his intent to really reach the audience that night or not, he made a convert out of me. His haunting lyrics about superficiality, squid, cybernetics, robotics, technology, programming, and zombies were funny, touching, and thought provoking. I asked a friend who followed his music to confirm for me that he usually doesn't play terribly large venues. I had to ask because it was only really apparent during the few moments when he paused to take in the size of the audience. He was really, very good. Coulton had easily the largest crowd of the night, with his mass dwarfing even the groups on hand later for MC Frontalot and the Minibosses. His final song for the night, re: Your Brains was tremendous to experience in the midst of thousands of hand-waving flesh-craving growl/singing faux undead. Both Frontalot and the Minibosses put on amazing shows as well, of course, showing off their polished shows and firm grasp of their material. Frontalot was in rare form, with several new songs of his most recent album. Just the same ... Coulton was the show of the night for me, and it was a privilege to be able to see such a great act in person.

The Games And Panels of PAX

There were so many events and games, demos and panels, at the event that I couldn't make it to every interesting experience. Thankfully, other sites can pick up the slack.

The panel on licensed games explored the pros and cons of using someone else's IP to make a title. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" was seen as the primary problem, with the high cost associated with such a deal a close second.

"Pitch Your Game Idea" is always a very well-attended panel, and this year was no exception. Dozens and dozens of people lined up to present their game ideas to a panel of industry veterans. They were then 'cut', American Idol style, working through less solid game ideas towards the pearly center. There were apparently a surprising number of women there, and the contestant that won was one of them. Her simple, Pong-like concept had a graphical background that became more complicated as the game went on.

That showing would have been a relief to the folks at the very well attended "Women in Games" panel. The event focused around the challenges of entering the industry, and the issues associated with working the day to day grind once you're in.

A number of folks had hands-on time with titles I didn't get to, including Haze, Tabula Rasa

Last weekend the dark horde of nerddom descended on Seattle, entering the heart of the 'Emerald City' to gorge itself on the music, culture, and humor of gaming. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) once again brought together fans of the influential webcomic for a festival that, without even trying, seems to be taking the place of old E3. Though they were expecting around 30,000 people, the word was that by early Sunday they'd already gone through some 40,000 badges. There were DSes everywhere, concerts at night, a packed exhibit hall, and benchmark comic strips created by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins adorned almost every wall. Despite all the people and the noise, somehow the event had a community feel to it that was hard to understand ... and even harder to describe. I'll try, though, along with impressions from games on the show floor and the incredible music of folks like Jonathan Coulton and the Minibosses. Read on, and All Hail Ball. The Early Weekend

If you missed my discussion of Friday's events, it's understandable; it went up this past Saturday. Suffice it to say that Wil Wheaton's keynote speech was the highlight of the evening. His praise of social gaming, and the relationship-building power of the PAX-goer's favorite pastime resonated incredibly well with the packed theatre. The after-action report on his blog says it all: "My keynote went perfectly, and the audience (and the gaming press online) responded to it in ways I never dreamed possible. I didn't think there would be slightly more than 5000 people in the room when I spoke ..."

The first Penny Arcade Panel featured a lot of middlin' questions, highlighted by the incredible singing power of Jerry Holkins. A description of his performance is in my weekend update, but the real surprise didn't come until after the questions were done. The end of the panel turned ugly when the PA gents left the stage for Uwe Boll to have a chance at the mike. Gabe said later that weekend that he was surprised by the crowd reaction. "You can tell when a crowd is angry, and this was the first time I've felt that at at PAX." The unapologetic Boll was screamed at fairly mercilessly by the attendees.

Other events from the early weekend included a discussion of modern storytelling in videogames. Luminaries Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island), Dave Grossman (Sam and Max) and Nate Fox (Sly Cooper) came together to jaw on a topic near to their hearts. The group discussed linear stories vs. sandbox-style gameplay, user-created content, kids games, and the importance of theme even if your core story isn't all that great: "Grossman [said], 'Well, story isn't just about dialogue and narrative, right - I mean really you want to learn something about the human experience. I think that if I weren't doing adventure games I wouldn't think of myself as a narrator, but rather as the hand of fate. I'm going to kind of let you run around and do what you want and everything. Just to let the player go around and do what they want - they can feel like it's the good hand of fate or the bad hand of fate, but not that they're completely being controlled.'"

The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the Penny Arcade videogame currently in development, was a visible presence at the show all weekend. The Friday unveiling of a new game demo to the media at a special Q&A event was followed by a weekend's worth of running through the game for attendees on the show floor. Most everyone got to see the title, and hear the news that it will be coming to Xbox Live alongside its PC distribution avenues. The opening, grim, text still makes me smile: "Four gods wait on the windowsill / Where once eight gods did war and will / And if the gods themselves may die / What does that say for you and I?"

PA Panel II

While the first PA Q&A panel was entertaining just to hear Holkins and Krahulik talk, the second panel actually had a number of insightful questions, touching statements, and funny moments. And, thankfully, there were no stoned guys rambling about their paranoid fantasies at the microphone; always a plus. Long queues formed at the two microphones to question the gents, and here are some highlights:

• Paul Barnett, Design Manager for the Warhammer Online Massively Multiplayer game, drew applause for his short advertisement during a trailers reel before the event started. He used his clipped British wit to compare Warhammer to World of Warcraft like so: If you're going up against the Beatles, don't try to be the Beatles. You'll end up looking like the Monkees. Instead, we're going to be Led Zeppelin.
• A question about the changes to the primary characters over the year led Mike Krahulik to discuss his influences, such as Stan Sakai. He's essentially 'never finished' with the characters, and we can expect to see further changes to his art style in the coming years.
• Drawings of Gabe and Tycho in ping pong outfits prompted readers to ask if we would ever see that as a project down the road. They're enthusiastic about it and would love to do it, as up until now readers have just seen a few simple images. To further tease us, they described the backstory to the piece: Set in the 80s, a cold war US is still facing down Russia. A little-known clause in the UN charter states that table tennis can be used to decide grudges; the loser forfeits their country. The US table tennis team is slain, and so a group of four people at ping pong camp (including our protagonists) are drawn into international excitement.
• A question about the appeal of the Halo franchise has the gents noting that the series has grown on them considerably.
• In negotiating the price for the XBLA version of the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, they feel they'll have a good deal of leverage as regards pricing (and content as well).
• Several great ideas for projects and future PAX ideas are mentioned, including support of a nerdcore show currently touring the area and an Indie Games FreePlay area.
• When asked about origins of the hobos in Precipice of Darkness, Tycho notes that the game is a 'hobage' of different sources. The Achievement for 100 hobo kills? Hobicide.
• A reader challenges the two to a thumb war, which Jerry wins quite promptly by kicking Gabe in the nuts. He declines to continue, saying he 'values his beanbag.'
• When asked to endorse some games on the exhibit show floor, both gentlemen put their weight behind Eye of Judgement and Sega Rally.
• Someone notes that the current in-the-works game is very much a 'Tycho' game ... lots of words. He wonders what kind of 'Gabe' game they'd like to make. Mike ponders the concept of a brawler, or perhaps something not unlike Turtles in Time.
• The idea of making sure the ball comes back to PAX every year, 'to recharge' is brought up. It could then be sold on eBay to help fund the annual Child's Play charity. They both really like this idea.
• A reader asks what the 'worst thing' either of them have ever done is. Mike tells the story of a time when he set a trap for his family's cat in the backyard, and ended up stringing up the pet by the neck into a tree. It survived, but he has always felt terribly. Jerry, on the other hand, equivocates. When Mike gets tired of it, he tells a story of Jerry drinking a glass of Chai and finding a bug near the bottom of his glass ... which he then upended and finished after fishing out the bug.

Warhammer Online

Having had a good look at the game at Gen Con, I used my PAX chance to talk to the folks at EA Mythic to dig a little bit deeper on one of the game's claims to fame: Realm vs. Realm combat. Just hours before I spoke to the folks at EA, a team from their company had announced professions from the High Elf and Dark Elf factions for the very first time. I tried to glean just a little bit more PvP-specific information about these races for you, but it was not to be.

Just the same Ryan Barnard (game designer) and Eric Correll (producer on the game) were very forthcoming. The pair was happy to discuss different elements of their signature game feature. For example, new players will have the PvP-focused game introduced to them gradually at low levels. There's a soft introduction, beginning that portion of the title's seamless integration into the overall gameplay. Open-world PvP in specific parts of the starting zones will most likely be their first exposure. Quests will lead them to RvR areas, and eventually will direct them to the instanced 'Scenario'-style missions. Throughout the game, the portion of land that is focused on these activities starts small, but eventually dominates gameplay; the RvR 'city capture' system is Warhammer's 'end game'.

Warhammer Online's unique systems, like the Tome of Knowledge and the Public Quest, also touch on RvR. The Tome will explain elements of Player vs. Player combat, and will record your successes in battle. RvR Public Quests, meanwhile, are currently undergoing retooling. They want them 'right', and currently have taken them all out of the game to make sure they're just so; they hope to have them back into the game by launch.

This feel of 'rightness' is something they're aiming for in their scenarios as well, with the goal of integrating these instances not only into PvP progression, but the ongoing story of the game as well. Each is themed to the area they're in, and tells the tale of a specific conflict between the Order and Chaos armies.

Introducing players who might not otherwise participate in RvR into the fundamentals of that gameplay style is also something the team is focusing on. While they acknowledge that some people just don't want to play against other players, they see folks who are hard and fast about that rule as the minority. They're looking to make PvP a core part of the game, and as such they'll be approaching it differently than a primarily PvE focused game might. This affects multiple game design elements, all the way down to the 'hook' of Public Quests, which gets folks who might not even ever group thinking more favorably about gaming with others. Racial pride is also a factor; by priming characters from low levels to be 'pro-Dwarf', or whatever, players will be more likely to come to their society's aid. They're all steps in a chain, the team hopes, to changing outlooks soured by less focused titles.

On the other side of the equation, the end-game city capture system sees factions sacking the racial homes of their opponents. Though reluctant to use the term 'end game' specifically, the team members were happy to admit that it will be the focus at max-levels. RvR combat will funnel players towards the opposing side, hoping to push the 'antagonists' back to their city walls. They also pointed out, however, that there are other elements in play at that high level. PvE content and public quests are still around, though diminished, and they have plans to further expand both sides of the max-level content once the game is released.

Organized Play, as featured in Guild Wars and now World of Warcraft, is not something they're currently planning for. They'd love to eventually do tournaments for RvR teams at some point, but they're so focused on getting it out the door in a timely fashion that it's not particularly on their radar. As they put it, "we hope we have that problem".

The cutting edge of their work is, obviously, on the Elves at the moment. They're still working to tune the scenarios and open-world play for the Elven areas, and are always working to ensure that classes are balanced and the 'fun' is present.

This cutting edge blends well with some of the surprises that the team had in store for them when masses of people finally entered the Beta. Probably the most surprising for the RvR team: their carefully crafted points of control battlefield objective system, which requires holding targets in open-world PvP, are almost completely being ignored. While they worked hard on this mechanic, the players are more interested in the actual act of combat when in an open-world environment. Scenario tactics are welcomed, but outside of those instances the two sides really just want to enter the fray. The team hopes to have them in the game in some capacity, but they're going to undergo heavy retooling before that happens.

As we wrapped things up, we discussed the reflection this decision has on their overall attitude towards the game: if it's not working, it needs to go/be fixed/tuned/rehashed/whatever. Killing what you thought was going to be the end-all be-all is not outside the realm of possibility, even this late in the game. RvR, and the game in general, has to be fun. No exceptions.

Fury

I'll be honest: Fury came at me from nowhere. I'd read about it before coming to the show, knew that it was approaching an Open Beta, and that it was a free-to-play PvP title. That was just about all I knew when I sat down to play and chat with Fury's lead designer Adam Carpenter.

When you're trying to quantify Fury's gameplay type, it's better to think less about online RPGs and more about first-person shooters. Fury has essentially taken the swords and sorcery milieu and dropped that whole cloth into an FPS schema. In each match, players spawn in, rush out, and slam into each other in extremely fast altercations. Everything is fast; from character creation to combat can be just a few minutes.

This is the underpinning of developer Auran's outlook: fun, fast, and free. Instead of grinding through a PvE component, Fury characters are built entirely around a series of abilities and equipment available at character creation. Each character can play whatever role you want them to in a given match, and their role can be changed freely between altercations. Want to act as a support class in one match? You put on your gear that aids healing type abilities, load those healing abilities into your hotbar , and go. Want to act as a ranged DPS class? Swap those healing bits out for the appropriate gear and powers. Players will never have to whine about not having the right class for a fight, as everyone has flexibility.

Gameplay itself, character abilities, focuses on colors. Your ability bar is full of various attacks, and they are themed around different colors. Each player has a small gauge on their screen to help ascertain how many color points they have built up. These points are gained by using 'low level' colored abilities. A basic blue attack, for example, might give you one blue point. As you move through combat, your gauge will fill with colored points. Higher points unlock the use of more powerful abilities on your hotbar, which in turn use up your points. Fascinatingly, each ability color has a diametric opposite; red points counter blue points and players with red points in their bar will actually be less effective with blue abilities. This led the designers to create special point-manipulating abilities; in the middle of the fight you can switch a player's point colors. You can also steal points, leading to the 'change-their-color-steal-their-points' combo move, leaving your opponent defenseless and cold in the world.

Each color has a sort of 'theme', with green abilities having a sort of nature-y feel to it, while blue abilities being sort of icey. There are ranged and melee abilities in all colors, so there won't be any particular demanded role for a color ability. For most players the only real constraint will be up to what abilities you have on hand as a result of previous accomplishments. While most common abilities will be available by default when you purchase the game, new powers will be unlocked via achievements as you succeed in combat. Achievements include everything from taking the most objectives during a match, to killing the most people, to healing the most ... and your rewards are appropriate for what you accomplish.

Rewards on the equipment side are a bit more random. After completing a match, random loot is generated for the party, and people /roll for it. That's pretty much 'the way it is', going right around the usual sort of arguments at pick up group might have when dealing with looted gear. Gold is equally distributed, of course, and both items and gold are commensurate with your success in the just-completed mission.

It's worth noting here that Fury will have a for-pay option, allowing you to slap down a subscription fee if you want ... but it will have nothing to do with the quality of your in-game items. Money is only given to the Auran folks for the addition of convenience and depth. I should say there is some overlap with items: one of the for-pay conveniences is the ability to roll on three items instead of two. A for-pay player has a bit more in the way of item space, some options for purchasing things from vendors, and other simple things that makes the game just a little bit easier for having forked over your cash. Depth, in this case, is all about in-game ladders. While free players will compete on ladders of various types, paying players will have a long list of different ladder types to participate in. Server, guild, and individual progress will all be tracked for various rewards and bragging rights.

Those bragging rights will come in the form of an online representation of your character's escapades. Kill counts, 'flag' steals, and other metrics will be tracked on an official page for your character, and viewable by anyone. Guilds with an interest in going deeper into min-maxing can make use of the human-readable stats that will be generated locally by the client in a text file. Officers can collect these document to see which builds are working, which aren't, and where the group as a whole needs to focus.

The game build playable on the PAX show floor was already five months old, and showed it. There were server problems a few times, and the game looked more than a little bit jaggy. Even through the cruft, though, there was a lot of promise showing through. The settings were gorgeous despite the outdated rendering model, and the fun factor of actual play was very high. Fury is a simple, brutal combat game, and it makes no pretensions about it. With the promise of free online play for the price of a PC game title, this seems like a pretty nice package. It's definitely not going to be for everyone; there's none of the painstaking polish of Guild Wars, or the deep PvE experience of World of Warcraft. For folks looking for a quick, focused good time Fury may just be what you're looking for.

Jonathan Coulton, Frontalot, Minibosses Concert

I'm sure many of you could have told me how transcendent Jonathan Coulton's music is, but when I entered the theatre on Saturday night for the triple-headed mega-show I was something of a Coulton newb. I'd heard Code Monkey, of course, but I'd never made much of an effort to seek out his music. Whether it was his intent to really reach the audience that night or not, he made a convert out of me. His haunting lyrics about superficiality, squid, cybernetics, robotics, technology, programming, and zombies were funny, touching, and thought provoking. I asked a friend who followed his music to confirm for me that he usually doesn't play terribly large venues. I had to ask because it was only really apparent during the few moments when he paused to take in the size of the audience. He was really, very good. Coulton had easily the largest crowd of the night, with his mass dwarfing even the groups on hand later for MC Frontalot and the Minibosses. His final song for the night, re: Your Brains was tremendous to experience in the midst of thousands of hand-waving flesh-craving growl/singing faux undead. Both Frontalot and the Minibosses put on amazing shows as well, of course, showing off their polished shows and firm grasp of their material. Frontalot was in rare form, with several new songs of his most recent album. Just the same ... Coulton was the show of the night for me, and it was a privilege to be able to see such a great act in person.

The Games And Panels of PAX

There were so many events and games, demos and panels, at the event that I couldn't make it to every interesting experience. Thankfully, other sites can pick up the slack.

The panel on licensed games explored the pros and cons of using someone else's IP to make a title. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" was seen as the primary problem, with the high cost associated with such a deal a close second.

"Pitch Your Game Idea" is always a very well-attended panel, and this year was no exception. Dozens and dozens of people lined up to present their game ideas to a panel of industry veterans. They were then 'cut', American Idol style, working through less solid game ideas towards the pearly center. There were apparently a surprising number of women there, and the contestant that won was one of them. Her simple, Pong-like concept had a graphical background that became more complicated as the game went on.

That showing would have been a relief to the folks at the very well attended "Women in Games" panel. The event focused around the challenges of entering the industry, and the issues associated with working the day to day grind once you're in.

A number of folks had hands-on time with titles I didn't get to, including Haze, Tabula Rasa

Last weekend the dark horde of nerddom descended on Seattle, entering the heart of the 'Emerald City' to gorge itself on the music, culture, and humor of gaming. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) once again brought together fans of the influential webcomic for a festival that, without even trying, seems to be taking the place of old E3. Though they were expecting around 30,000 people, the word was that by early Sunday they'd already gone through some 40,000 badges. There were DSes everywhere, concerts at night, a packed exhibit hall, and benchmark comic strips created by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins adorned almost every wall. Despite all the people and the noise, somehow the event had a community feel to it that was hard to understand ... and even harder to describe. I'll try, though, along with impressions from games on the show floor and the incredible music of folks like Jonathan Coulton and the Minibosses. Read on, and All Hail Ball. The Early Weekend

If you missed my discussion of Friday's events, it's understandable; it went up this past Saturday. Suffice it to say that Wil Wheaton's keynote speech was the highlight of the evening. His praise of social gaming, and the relationship-building power of the PAX-goer's favorite pastime resonated incredibly well with the packed theatre. The after-action report on his blog says it all: "My keynote went perfectly, and the audience (and the gaming press online) responded to it in ways I never dreamed possible. I didn't think there would be slightly more than 5000 people in the room when I spoke ..."

The first Penny Arcade Panel featured a lot of middlin' questions, highlighted by the incredible singing power of Jerry Holkins. A description of his performance is in my weekend update, but the real surprise didn't come until after the questions were done. The end of the panel turned ugly when the PA gents left the stage for Uwe Boll to have a chance at the mike. Gabe said later that weekend that he was surprised by the crowd reaction. "You can tell when a crowd is angry, and this was the first time I've felt that at at PAX." The unapologetic Boll was screamed at fairly mercilessly by the attendees.

Other events from the early weekend included a discussion of modern storytelling in videogames. Luminaries Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island), Dave Grossman (Sam and Max) and Nate Fox (Sly Cooper) came together to jaw on a topic near to their hearts. The group discussed linear stories vs. sandbox-style gameplay, user-created content, kids games, and the importance of theme even if your core story isn't all that great: "Grossman [said], 'Well, story isn't just about dialogue and narrative, right - I mean really you want to learn something about the human experience. I think that if I weren't doing adventure games I wouldn't think of myself as a narrator, but rather as the hand of fate. I'm going to kind of let you run around and do what you want and everything. Just to let the player go around and do what they want - they can feel like it's the good hand of fate or the bad hand of fate, but not that they're completely being controlled.'"

The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the Penny Arcade videogame currently in development, was a visible presence at the show all weekend. The Friday unveiling of a new game demo to the media at a special Q&A event was followed by a weekend's worth of running through the game for attendees on the show floor. Most everyone got to see the title, and hear the news that it will be coming to Xbox Live alongside its PC distribution avenues. The opening, grim, text still makes me smile: "Four gods wait on the windowsill / Where once eight gods did war and will / And if the gods themselves may die / What does that say for you and I?"

PA Panel II

While the first PA Q&A panel was entertaining just to hear Holkins and Krahulik talk, the second panel actually had a number of insightful questions, touching statements, and funny moments. And, thankfully, there were no stoned guys rambling about their paranoid fantasies at the microphone; always a plus. Long queues formed at the two microphones to question the gents, and here are some highlights:

• Paul Barnett, Design Manager for the Warhammer Online Massively Multiplayer game, drew applause for his short advertisement during a trailers reel before the event started. He used his clipped British wit to compare Warhammer to World of Warcraft like so: If you're going up against the Beatles, don't try to be the Beatles. You'll end up looking like the Monkees. Instead, we're going to be Led Zeppelin.
• A question about the changes to the primary characters over the year led Mike Krahulik to discuss his influences, such as Stan Sakai. He's essentially 'never finished' with the characters, and we can expect to see further changes to his art style in the coming years.
• Drawings of Gabe and Tycho in ping pong outfits prompted readers to ask if we would ever see that as a project down the road. They're enthusiastic about it and would love to do it, as up until now readers have just seen a few simple images. To further tease us, they described the backstory to the piece: Set in the 80s, a cold war US is still facing down Russia. A little-known clause in the UN charter states that table tennis can be used to decide grudges; the loser forfeits their country. The US table tennis team is slain, and so a group of four people at ping pong camp (including our protagonists) are drawn into international excitement.
• A question about the appeal of the Halo franchise has the gents noting that the series has grown on them considerably.
• In negotiating the price for the XBLA version of the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, they feel they'll have a good deal of leverage as regards pricing (and content as well).
• Several great ideas for projects and future PAX ideas are mentioned, including support of a nerdcore show currently touring the area and an Indie Games FreePlay area.
• When asked about origins of the hobos in Precipice of Darkness, Tycho notes that the game is a 'hobage' of different sources. The Achievement for 100 hobo kills? Hobicide.
• A reader challenges the two to a thumb war, which Jerry wins quite promptly by kicking Gabe in the nuts. He declines to continue, saying he 'values his beanbag.'
• When asked to endorse some games on the exhibit show floor, both gentlemen put their weight behind Eye of Judgement and Sega Rally.
• Someone notes that the current in-the-works game is very much a 'Tycho' game ... lots of words. He wonders what kind of 'Gabe' game they'd like to make. Mike ponders the concept of a brawler, or perhaps something not unlike Turtles in Time.
• The idea of making sure the ball comes back to PAX every year, 'to recharge' is brought up. It could then be sold on eBay to help fund the annual Child's Play charity. They both really like this idea.
• A reader asks what the 'worst thing' either of them have ever done is. Mike tells the story of a time when he set a trap for his family's cat in the backyard, and ended up stringing up the pet by the neck into a tree. It survived, but he has always felt terribly. Jerry, on the other hand, equivocates. When Mike gets tired of it, he tells a story of Jerry drinking a glass of Chai and finding a bug near the bottom of his glass ... which he then upended and finished after fishing out the bug.

Warhammer Online

Having had a good look at the game at Gen Con, I used my PAX chance to talk to the folks at EA Mythic to dig a little bit deeper on one of the game's claims to fame: Realm vs. Realm combat. Just hours before I spoke to the folks at EA, a team from their company had announced professions from the High Elf and Dark Elf factions for the very first time. I tried to glean just a little bit more PvP-specific information about these races for you, but it was not to be.

Just the same Ryan Barnard (game designer) and Eric Correll (producer on the game) were very forthcoming. The pair was happy to discuss different elements of their signature game feature. For example, new players will have the PvP-focused game introduced to them gradually at low levels. There's a soft introduction, beginning that portion of the title's seamless integration into the overall gameplay. Open-world PvP in specific parts of the starting zones will most likely be their first exposure. Quests will lead them to RvR areas, and eventually will direct them to the instanced 'Scenario'-style missions. Throughout the game, the portion of land that is focused on these activities starts small, but eventually dominates gameplay; the RvR 'city capture' system is Warhammer's 'end game'.

Warhammer Online's unique systems, like the Tome of Knowledge and the Public Quest, also touch on RvR. The Tome will explain elements of Player vs. Player combat, and will record your successes in battle. RvR Public Quests, meanwhile, are currently undergoing retooling. They want them 'right', and currently have taken them all out of the game to make sure they're just so; they hope to have them back into the game by launch.

This feel of 'rightness' is something they're aiming for in their scenarios as well, with the goal of integrating these instances not only into PvP progression, but the ongoing story of the game as well. Each is themed to the area they're in, and tells the tale of a specific conflict between the Order and Chaos armies.

Introducing players who might not otherwise participate in RvR into the fundamentals of that gameplay style is also something the team is focusing on. While they acknowledge that some people just don't want to play against other players, they see folks who are hard and fast about that rule as the minority. They're looking to make PvP a core part of the game, and as such they'll be approaching it differently than a primarily PvE focused game might. This affects multiple game design elements, all the way down to the 'hook' of Public Quests, which gets folks who might not even ever group thinking more favorably about gaming with others. Racial pride is also a factor; by priming characters from low levels to be 'pro-Dwarf', or whatever, players will be more likely to come to their society's aid. They're all steps in a chain, the team hopes, to changing outlooks soured by less focused titles.

On the other side of the equation, the end-game city capture system sees factions sacking the racial homes of their opponents. Though reluctant to use the term 'end game' specifically, the team members were happy to admit that it will be the focus at max-levels. RvR combat will funnel players towards the opposing side, hoping to push the 'antagonists' back to their city walls. They also pointed out, however, that there are other elements in play at that high level. PvE content and public quests are still around, though diminished, and they have plans to further expand both sides of the max-level content once the game is released.

Organized Play, as featured in Guild Wars and now World of Warcraft, is not something they're currently planning for. They'd love to eventually do tournaments for RvR teams at some point, but they're so focused on getting it out the door in a timely fashion that it's not particularly on their radar. As they put it, "we hope we have that problem".

The cutting edge of their work is, obviously, on the Elves at the moment. They're still working to tune the scenarios and open-world play for the Elven areas, and are always working to ensure that classes are balanced and the 'fun' is present.

This cutting edge blends well with some of the surprises that the team had in store for them when masses of people finally entered the Beta. Probably the most surprising for the RvR team: their carefully crafted points of control battlefield objective system, which requires holding targets in open-world PvP, are almost completely being ignored. While they worked hard on this mechanic, the players are more interested in the actual act of combat when in an open-world environment. Scenario tactics are welcomed, but outside of those instances the two sides really just want to enter the fray. The team hopes to have them in the game in some capacity, but they're going to undergo heavy retooling before that happens.

As we wrapped things up, we discussed the reflection this decision has on their overall attitude towards the game: if it's not working, it needs to go/be fixed/tuned/rehashed/whatever. Killing what you thought was going to be the end-all be-all is not outside the realm of possibility, even this late in the game. RvR, and the game in general, has to be fun. No exceptions.

Fury

I'll be honest: Fury came at me from nowhere. I'd read about it before coming to the show, knew that it was approaching an Open Beta, and that it was a free-to-play PvP title. That was just about all I knew when I sat down to play and chat with Fury's lead designer Adam Carpenter.

When you're trying to quantify Fury's gameplay type, it's better to think less about online RPGs and more about first-person shooters. Fury has essentially taken the swords and sorcery milieu and dropped that whole cloth into an FPS schema. In each match, players spawn in, rush out, and slam into each other in extremely fast altercations. Everything is fast; from character creation to combat can be just a few minutes.

This is the underpinning of developer Auran's outlook: fun, fast, and free. Instead of grinding through a PvE component, Fury characters are built entirely around a series of abilities and equipment available at character creation. Each character can play whatever role you want them to in a given match, and their role can be changed freely between altercations. Want to act as a support class in one match? You put on your gear that aids healing type abilities, load those healing abilities into your hotbar , and go. Want to act as a ranged DPS class? Swap those healing bits out for the appropriate gear and powers. Players will never have to whine about not having the right class for a fight, as everyone has flexibility.

Gameplay itself, character abilities, focuses on colors. Your ability bar is full of various attacks, and they are themed around different colors. Each player has a small gauge on their screen to help ascertain how many color points they have built up. These points are gained by using 'low level' colored abilities. A basic blue attack, for example, might give you one blue point. As you move through combat, your gauge will fill with colored points. Higher points unlock the use of more powerful abilities on your hotbar, which in turn use up your points. Fascinatingly, each ability color has a diametric opposite; red points counter blue points and players with red points in their bar will actually be less effective with blue abilities. This led the designers to create special point-manipulating abilities; in the middle of the fight you can switch a player's point colors. You can also steal points, leading to the 'change-their-color-steal-their-points' combo move, leaving your opponent defenseless and cold in the world.

Each color has a sort of 'theme', with green abilities having a sort of nature-y feel to it, while blue abilities being sort of icey. There are ranged and melee abilities in all colors, so there won't be any particular demanded role for a color ability. For most players the only real constraint will be up to what abilities you have on hand as a result of previous accomplishments. While most common abilities will be available by default when you purchase the game, new powers will be unlocked via achievements as you succeed in combat. Achievements include everything from taking the most objectives during a match, to killing the most people, to healing the most ... and your rewards are appropriate for what you accomplish.

Rewards on the equipment side are a bit more random. After completing a match, random loot is generated for the party, and people /roll for it. That's pretty much 'the way it is', going right around the usual sort of arguments at pick up group might have when dealing with looted gear. Gold is equally distributed, of course, and both items and gold are commensurate with your success in the just-completed mission.

It's worth noting here that Fury will have a for-pay option, allowing you to slap down a subscription fee if you want ... but it will have nothing to do with the quality of your in-game items. Money is only given to the Auran folks for the addition of convenience and depth. I should say there is some overlap with items: one of the for-pay conveniences is the ability to roll on three items instead of two. A for-pay player has a bit more in the way of item space, some options for purchasing things from vendors, and other simple things that makes the game just a little bit easier for having forked over your cash. Depth, in this case, is all about in-game ladders. While free players will compete on ladders of various types, paying players will have a long list of different ladder types to participate in. Server, guild, and individual progress will all be tracked for various rewards and bragging rights.

Those bragging rights will come in the form of an online representation of your character's escapades. Kill counts, 'flag' steals, and other metrics will be tracked on an official page for your character, and viewable by anyone. Guilds with an interest in going deeper into min-maxing can make use of the human-readable stats that will be generated locally by the client in a text file. Officers can collect these document to see which builds are working, which aren't, and where the group as a whole needs to focus.

The game build playable on the PAX show floor was already five months old, and showed it. There were server problems a few times, and the game looked more than a little bit jaggy. Even through the cruft, though, there was a lot of promise showing through. The settings were gorgeous despite the outdated rendering model, and the fun factor of actual play was very high. Fury is a simple, brutal combat game, and it makes no pretensions about it. With the promise of free online play for the price of a PC game title, this seems like a pretty nice package. It's definitely not going to be for everyone; there's none of the painstaking polish of Guild Wars, or the deep PvE experience of World of Warcraft. For folks looking for a quick, focused good time Fury may just be what you're looking for.

Jonathan Coulton, Frontalot, Minibosses Concert

I'm sure many of you could have told me how transcendent Jonathan Coulton's music is, but when I entered the theatre on Saturday night for the triple-headed mega-show I was something of a Coulton newb. I'd heard Code Monkey, of course, but I'd never made much of an effort to seek out his music. Whether it was his intent to really reach the audience that night or not, he made a convert out of me. His haunting lyrics about superficiality, squid, cybernetics, robotics, technology, programming, and zombies were funny, touching, and thought provoking. I asked a friend who followed his music to confirm for me that he usually doesn't play terribly large venues. I had to ask because it was only really apparent during the few moments when he paused to take in the size of the audience. He was really, very good. Coulton had easily the largest crowd of the night, with his mass dwarfing even the groups on hand later for MC Frontalot and the Minibosses. His final song for the night, re: Your Brains was tremendous to experience in the midst of thousands of hand-waving flesh-craving growl/singing faux undead. Both Frontalot and the Minibosses put on amazing shows as well, of course, showing off their polished shows and firm grasp of their material. Frontalot was in rare form, with several new songs of his most recent album. Just the same ... Coulton was the show of the night for me, and it was a privilege to be able to see such a great act in person.

The Games And Panels of PAX

There were so many events and games, demos and panels, at the event that I couldn't make it to every interesting experience. Thankfully, other sites can pick up the slack.

The panel on licensed games explored the pros and cons of using someone else's IP to make a title. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" was seen as the primary problem, with the high cost associated with such a deal a close second.

"Pitch Your Game Idea" is always a very well-attended panel, and this year was no exception. Dozens and dozens of people lined up to present their game ideas to a panel of industry veterans. They were then 'cut', American Idol style, working through less solid game ideas towards the pearly center. There were apparently a surprising number of women there, and the contestant that won was one of them. Her simple, Pong-like concept had a graphical background that became more complicated as the game went on.

That showing would have been a relief to the folks at the very well attended "Women in Games" panel. The event focused around the challenges of entering the industry, and the issues associated with working the day to day grind once you're in.

A number of folks had hands-on time with titles I didn't get to, including Haze, Tabula Rasa

Joystiq has the word that the epic space RPG from Bioware, Mass Effect, now has a ship date attached to it. The date? November 20th. "The preview videos have been yummy, the conversation system looks amazing, even our time with the game was nice -- now if we could only get a straight answer on those weird frame-rate hiccups we keep seeing. We hope that'll all be cleaned up by November when we'll be partaking in turkey and then sitting our tryptophan overdosed selves down for hours of Mass Effect. Who would watch football after dinner when there's a galaxy to save?"

It should come as no surprise that the level of hype BioShock reached in the last month has had some aftereffects. The game itself is really good; few are disputing that. There were, however, some problems. Next Gen has a few words with Ken Levine on BioShock's troubled launch looking at the broken Big Daddies, the allegations of a rootkit, and the 'widescreen issue'. There are other issues still floating around, of course: despite rumours Levine has now confirmed there will be no PS3 version of the game, and one problem may just be starting as big media finds out about the Little Sisters. 'The Boston Patriot-Ledger ... argues that BioShock is "testing the limits of the ultraviolent gaming genre with a strategy that enables players to kill characters resembling young girls." Despite the shock-inducing lead, the article goes on to give a more or less accurate description of BioShock's choice between saving and harvesting the creepy Little Sisters ... The conclusion tries to draw a link between BioShock's violence to a stabbing death allegedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but the connection is pretty weak.' To close on a good note check out 1up's profile of Levine's career, or download the BioShock score ... which is beautiful.

It should come as no surprise that the level of hype BioShock reached in the last month has had some aftereffects. The game itself is really good; few are disputing that. There were, however, some problems. Next Gen has a few words with Ken Levine on BioShock's troubled launch looking at the broken Big Daddies, the allegations of a rootkit, and the 'widescreen issue'. There are other issues still floating around, of course: despite rumours Levine has now confirmed there will be no PS3 version of the game, and one problem may just be starting as big media finds out about the Little Sisters. 'The Boston Patriot-Ledger ... argues that BioShock is "testing the limits of the ultraviolent gaming genre with a strategy that enables players to kill characters resembling young girls." Despite the shock-inducing lead, the article goes on to give a more or less accurate description of BioShock's choice between saving and harvesting the creepy Little Sisters ... The conclusion tries to draw a link between BioShock's violence to a stabbing death allegedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but the connection is pretty weak.' To close on a good note check out 1up's profile of Levine's career, or download the BioShock score ... which is beautiful.

With the whitewashing of Wikipedia now an easily-reviewable record, it's been noted that games-related organizations are not above tweaking their public image online. Joystiq notes that EA, for example, is unabashed about removing founder Trip Hawkins from their entry. More ominous edits from the Entertainment Software Association are reported by GamePolitics. The organization, which you may recall backing the recent raids on mod chippers, has made a concerted effort to cast mod chips in a negative light. " In one paragraph, someone at ESA deleted a nuanced discussion of mod chip legality, replacing it with a flat assertion that mod chips are illegal. Less than a minute later, a lengthy section on the positive uses of mod chips was deleted, as was a notation that the US Supreme Court has not yet dealt with the DMCA. Finally, a sentence stating that mod chips are legal in Australia was removed."

An anonymous reader writes "Wrath of the Lich King is official! BlizzCon is in full swing, and celebrants there are already enjoying the Northrend-themed imagery. For a look at what's going on, Joystiq has a liveblog of the opening ceremony up. Games For Windows magazine, meanwhile, will feature WLK its next cover. The post on the 1up site has a number of details on the next expansion, including the introduction of the Death Knight, the first new class since WOW's launch 'World of WarCraft's first Hero Class is a plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid that works a little something like this: When players hit level 80, they'll be able to embark on a quest (similar in difficulty to the Warlock's epic mount quest, back before the level cap was raised to 70) that unlocks the ability to create a Death Knight character. The Death Knight starts at a high level (somewhere around 60 or 70, though Blizzard isn't certain yet), so you won't have to grind your way back up all over again. It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.'."

Joystiq reports that publisher Codemasters has announced an alliance with the GameTap service that raises the profile of the all-you-can-eat gaming buffet considerably. The service will offer titles like DIRT and Overlord for-purchase download, of course, but the real news is that current and future Codemasters titles will be available directly via the service. That is, if you have a subscription these games are free. "Beyond the games mentioned, potential superstar title Clive Barker's Jericho and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty will be part of that future day and date deal. All these titles will also be available to purchase through GameTap's digital store, but seriously, the cost of one game will get you four months of GameTap service. We continue to be impressed with GameTap's expanding services and ridiculously affordable price, not to mention their free ad-driven gaming space."

Happily, the internets were wrong. Via Joystiq comes the happy news from Bungie that not only will we be able to play the Halo 3 campaign in online co-op mode, but up to four players at the same time can enjoy the experience. "Acting as a team is a fantastic new twist to the Campaign gameplay - something that works as well on foot, in close confines as it does on the battlefield, with large scale vehicle mayhem. Scared of Jackal snipers? Send out a scout to see what dangers lie ahead. Terrified of an open field? Flank your enemies and swipe their rides. The combinations and scenarios are endless - and you'll be able to enjoy them time and time again in Saved Films of your co-op exploits. We mentioned that we've been having a blast. We have a lot of stories. Many of them would require that we explain some of the reasons replay will be a big factor, but not quite yet. Soon, we promise." For more on the game, 1up is running the only preview out there of an entire single-player campaign level called 'Tsavo Highway'.

Thursday saw the release of the Heavenly Sword demo on the PlayStation network. Kotaku has impressions from the play experience and GamesRadar offers up some helpful tips to make the most of the short playtime. From Kotaku's rundown: 'Seven minutes, and it ends just like that. No big boss fight to try out, no giant plot revelation, no finding an ancient artifact. Just, "here comes more enemies, see you in two months!" You know that feeling you get when you're about to sneeze and then can't? Exactly the feeling I got here. As for aesthetics, the graphics were solid but the framerate was erratic at times. Sound was excellent no matter which language option I chose in order to stretch out my playtime a little by pretending I was a different guy from another country. By far the best aspect of the whole demo for me, the music was completely top notch. Very atmospheric and brilliantly arranged. ' Back at Kotaku, Brian Crecente received a longer version of the demo than the one publicly available, and is now playing through it live over the internet.

Joystiq reports that the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 has been permanently dropped in price to $179. Additionally, Bob Barker style, you get five free movies too: "Appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego, the announcement was made amidst promotion for the HD-DVD releases of the film 300 and the cheerleader epic, Heroes. Not content with just a twenty dollar dip, Microsoft has extended Toshiba's 'Perfect Offer' promotion to Xbox 360 owners, awarding five free movies with purchase. The hard part now is choosing between Casablanca and The Dukes of Hazzard. Naturally, the Xbox Live Marketplace wasn't left out in all this news as 300 will be making its way to the service in HD on August 14th, while free content for Heroes will arrive sometime before its HD-DVD release."

For the first time since 2004, there won't be an XO event in Europe this year. Gamespot suggests that Microsoft's annual press event is superfluous this year, as last year it fell directly within the timeframe of the Halo 3 launch. "Speaking on the E3 podcast of Microsoft fan site Squad XP, Xbox Live marketing manager Aaron Greenberg flatly said that 'There's not a real X07 this year.' And while Microsoft's official spokespersons refrained from comment, last night Xbox Live director of programming Larry 'Major Nelson' Hyrb posted a small note (pictured) on his heavily trafficked blog morosely confirming X07's demise."

First Person Shooters are getting ever more involved. It's no longer sufficient just to ape Doom or Half-Life, and FPS titles at this year's E3 bear that out. Kotaku has a look at the fascinating title Haze. It has a deep story for a shooter, with the main character forced to make a difficult moral choice in the course of his work. Haze also introduces a number of interesting game mechanics, such as the ability to feign death in an attempt to trick your enemies. Joystiq, meanwhile, spent time with the most gorgeous-looking PC game of the year: Crysis. "Crysis is a joy for its subtleties, and for its complexities. We watched as [executive producer for Crysis Rob] Letts haphazardly caused enough commotion for an enemy combatant to fire a flare out over the tree tops. A minute later, reinforcements arrived by boat and by jeep. Some time later, over the ridge, troops who had spotted the flare earlier where still on alert. Letts spoke of a basic set of variables (the whos, whats, and wheres), which when applied to a dynamic environment, provide the player with ever-unpredictable 'action bubbles.' While there is a narrative structure to Crysis and a series of well-documented twists (two major environmental upheavals that change the nature of gameplay), Letts seemed most proud of the 'sandbox' nature of Crytek's tactical shooter."

Heffenfeffer writes "Those excited about the $100 price cut that the 60 GB PS3 recently received should act quickly — according to an interview from SCEE president David Reeves: 'All they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.' When asked if the 60GB PS3 would be no more after the fire sale, he confirmed, 'In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.'" Meanwhile, the EU won't be getting the 80GB system at all. Instead, they'll be getting a new starter pack bundle pack with two games and an extra controller for the same cost as the current system on its own (£425, or $862). Update: 07/13 17:17 GMT by Z : Okay ... it's really challenging to understand what's going on when Sony as an entity is saying two different things. Despite the above coming from a Sony executive, it looks like this is completely untrue. Says a Sony of America spokesperson: "SCEA has reacted with puzzlement to the European perspective, suggesting that there may have been an incorrect interpretation. The spokesperson said, 'Those quotes from David Reeves are not accurate.'"

In a sea of sequels, there are a number of original titles standing shoulder to shoulder with already-classic games. Two of those being demo'd at this years E3 are Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Bioware's Mass Effect. After the demo shown onstage at the Microsoft event, folks were understandably underwhelmed with Assassin's Creed; though the stalking and chase mechanic seemed fascinating, combat seems overly simplistic and numerous bugs caused some hiccups. Just the same, the idea behind the game remains tantalizing, and we still don't know what the deal is with the sci-fi background. On the other hand, despite an equal amount of hype and hope, Mass Effect looks to be meeting every expectation. Finally Bioware is letting folks play the game hands-on, and there are still few frustrations to be found. From Joystiq's analysis: "We were shown the basic in-game talk interface: get near another character and hit the A button to start talking. You can direct the flow of the conversation, by selecting your responses with the left thumbstick, choosing from a radial menu. For instance, if someone is telling you about an attack, you can pick things like 'Too bad they didn't kill you' to 'I'm sorry' to 'Really? What happened?' They aren't exactly what your character will say, they're more like the gist of it ... It reminded us a bit of the chat in the Indiana Jones games, although those gave you the actual lines that Indy would spout out. Conversations are crucial to Mass Effect, and end up providing you with information and shape your relationships with those characters."

LucasArts has been focusing of late on a tight integration between technology and story. Their two big E3 offerings are great examples of this philosophy, with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed probably the better known of the two. There was apparently just some footage shown at the event, which will be rebroadcast tonight during the show Entertainment Tonight. IGN has a slightly longer writeup on the game, looking into the idea of "kicking ass with the Force". The other title LucasArts was showing this week, Fracture , uses over-the-top terrain deformation technology to imply certain things about its future setting. From Joystiq's coverage: "We saw a bangalore grenade launcher, that sends a grenade rippling through the ground like you would see Bugs Bunny dig in Looney Toons. The ground above it would raise a little, and the explosive would eventually pop its head out of the ground to claim its victim. A vortex could be created which acted just as its namesake implies, and also seen was a gun that created a large boulder from surrounding terrain and hurled it like a bowling ball. We also saw an extreme use of terraforming with the the magma spike, which shot a column straight up into the sky. If you're standing on it, you get a new, higher platform. If you destroy it, the remnants serve as a hindrance to incoming traffic."

LucasArts has been focusing of late on a tight integration between technology and story. Their two big E3 offerings are great examples of this philosophy, with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed probably the better known of the two. There was apparently just some footage shown at the event, which will be rebroadcast tonight during the show Entertainment Tonight. IGN has a slightly longer writeup on the game, looking into the idea of "kicking ass with the Force". The other title LucasArts was showing this week, Fracture , uses over-the-top terrain deformation technology to imply certain things about its future setting. From Joystiq's coverage: "We saw a bangalore grenade launcher, that sends a grenade rippling through the ground like you would see Bugs Bunny dig in Looney Toons. The ground above it would raise a little, and the explosive would eventually pop its head out of the ground to claim its victim. A vortex could be created which acted just as its namesake implies, and also seen was a gun that created a large boulder from surrounding terrain and hurled it like a bowling ball. We also saw an extreme use of terraforming with the the magma spike, which shot a column straight up into the sky. If you're standing on it, you get a new, higher platform. If you destroy it, the remnants serve as a hindrance to incoming traffic."

The Take Two event was dominated by a live demonstration of Grand Theft Auto IV . Though little more than jacking a car and a bit of driving was shown, it seemed to make an impression on journalists at the event. Other titles shown at the conference include Civilization Revolutions, Bioshock, and All-Pro Football 2K8. From Joystiq's take on the GTA demo: "Two Rockstar devs take the stage. The music is a placeholder, so they ask that we not mention it. They've never shown a game to an audience this large before it's release. They remind us that it's a work in progress, so we'll be nice. Something tells us it will impress regardless. The titles shares all key players from earlier GTA games. This consistency should ensure that the title meets expectations. With GTAIV, they're looking to "create the defining next generation action adventure." They show Niko starting in Star Juntion (Times Square). This is not a rags to riches story, 'it's a rags to slightly better rags story.'"

The big three hardware makers aren't the only ones to offer events with uncomfortable seating this week. Activision was probably the winner of the 'most confusingly run event' award, as their welcome demonstrations of Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero III, and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground were interspersed with walk-ons by folks like Stan Lee, Slash, and Tony Hawk himself. Jamie Kennedy apparently MC'd, with lackluster results. THQ's event, meanwhile, offered several kinds of sweaty men and uninterested female models, while also showing off new products like Conan, Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon, and De Blob. Throughout, the company pledged heavy support for the Wii. Midway's event was much more to the point, with news of a downloadable Stranglehold demo coming in August, the title Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Prom announced, and a bit about Blacksite Area 51. There will be a demo for that game too.

This year's E3 is substantially different than events of the past, with an easily navigated show floor just one of the signs of the changing times. There are a number of questions up in the air as to what the new face of E3 means. Hideo Kojima (creator of the Metal Gear series) went on record at the Konami conference saying that he considers the new format a waste of time. Game|Life's Chris Kohler has a piece up on this subject, and he says that the new E3 is all about the status quo: "Yes, there were press conferences. But when Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all decide to only show their 2007 games (for the most part) and hold back on announcing huge news (entirely), you know something's up with the venue. At any rate, gamers hoping for some kind of shift in momentum, no matter which direction, didn't get their wish. This year's E3 is all about maintaining the status quo. Typically, it's been the 'battle of the press conferences' to see who 'wins E3.' This year, everybody surrendered."

The EA focus on family-oriented content, casual games, and expanding the gaming audience echoed the statements made at the Nintendo press conference earlier today. Next Generation has an overview of the EA press conference, which highlighted titles like Boogie and EA Playground. The company's cellphone game lineup also received some attention, and will feature properties such as Madden, Harry Potter, and Bejeweled. EA's ultimate goal is to 'lock up the 200 million casual gamers'. The presentation ended with a long Rock Band session; it was revealed that Metallica will play a heavy hand in the game's lineup. Other tracks shipping with the game at launch include: The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," David Bowie's "Suffragette City," Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," Rush's "Tom Sawyer," Nirvana's "In Bloom," Stone Temple Pilots' "Vaseline," and Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly."

Sony had a lot to prove coming into this event, and kicked off on a high note. The PlayStation 2 is still selling units, and the PSP's numbers are apparently up as well. They followed that with the news of a new version of the PlayStation Portable. It's slimmer, lighter, has a longer battery life, and the ability to connect directly to your television to display video and games. There was a good deal of discussion about upcoming PSP titles, some of which are connected to a PSP bundle. Pushing out the PS3, they show several PlayStation Store titles, included the fascinating-looking Echochrome . Moving onto the Home service they discussed cellphone and website tie-ins to the Home service, as well as the ability to launch games from directly within the Home environment. Referencing the price cut, they reveal sales have already gone up. NCSoft, Epic, and Ubisoft are all referenced as heavy backers of the PlayStation, with a tantalizing statement suggesting that user-created mods for Unreal Tournament will be coming to the console via the Playstation Network. A lengthy Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer and a statement that the game is only for the PS3 (still to be determined), due early in 2008, cap off the third-party section. First-party titles show all of the highlights of Sony's portfolio with the LittleBigPlanet trailer emphasizing creation rather than play, and their Heavenly Sword highlight showcasing the game's story for the first time. A new sandbox title with a morality component was announced, InFamous, as was a new chapter in the Gran Turismo series. The press conference wrapped with a gripping trailer for Killzone 2, completely running in real-time.

There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs dominated the opening of Nintendo's E3 conference. Fortunately, the event had more than just business to discuss. They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks. They showed off a number of third party titles to prove the outside-the-company commitment, such as a Soul Calbur and Medal of Honor (which will be playable online) designed specifically for the console. Hardcore gamers were the focus of the early portion of the conference: Smash Brothers Brawl has a launch date of December 3rd in the US. They heavily hyped online play, with several EA titles and a Pokemon-like Dragon Quest title. Mario Kart for Wii will be launching early next year, will be playable online, and will have a Wiimote driving wheel housing packaged with the game. With the hardcore discussed, the attention shifted to mass market games. A new channel, 'Check Mii Out' will allow for a HotorNot-style voting mechanism and contests to make the most realistic celebrity Mii. There was much discussion of the Nintendo approach to expanding audience; Super Mario Galaxy was brought up as bridging that gap, as a second player can 'assist' the primary player in various ways. Galaxy will be launching on November 12th. Targetted more directly at this 'outside the norm' group was WiiFit, which uses a dedicated device called the Wii Balance Board. It allows for a daily exercise routine, can track data over time (and compare it to other family members) and includes some simple minigames like a soccer heading game. The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal to make videogaming one of the pre-eminent forms of entertainment, across all age groups.

The tone from Microsoft tonight was one of celebration and anticipation, as they ran down their successes since the 360 launched and hyped their lineup between now and the end of the year. Peter Moore framed the discussing by recalling the blockbuster holiday season of 2004, which was driven by the Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Halo franchises. Moore stated that 'the only place to play all three games' this year is the 360. In addition to showing off other heavyweight titles like Mass Effect (which is due in November), the company had a few new announcements: They'll be releasing a version of the movie trivia game Scene-It with a quartet of special controllers, for a standard game price. They've partnered with Walt Disney and its associated companies to bring their family of movies to the Xbox Live service, with many titles already available tonight. CliffyB officially revealed Gears of War for the PC; it'll have additional content as well as co-op gaming via Live for Windows. Resident Evil 5 will be coming to the system (the only game from their conference not releasing this year). The event was capped by a live-action short piece meant to show what a Halo movie might look like, the announcement of a Halo 3 special edition 360 sku set to launch alongside the game, and a new trailer showing a bunch of Halo 3 in-game footage. For further details on the event, click below for other sites' liveblog coverage.

Joystiq reports that the charming sports custom of having game elements sponsored by a corporation or product will now be coming to Xbox Live Achievements. "A quick skim down the list of achievements for EA's upcoming NCAA 08 Football shows sponsored goals such as the 'Old Spice Red Zone Perfection' and 'Pontiac 4th Quarter Comeback.' Each achievement is accompanied by a logo for the company in the achievement's image. We can only imagine the possibilities for future Xbox 360 games. Halo Around the Collar, sponsored by Tide? Mass Effect sponsored by the Axe Effect? Grand Theft Auto IV's Bounty Beatdown (great for sopping up blood spills)? The possibilities are endless." One would hope this will stay restricted to sports games.

Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.

Activision has released information on eight more tracks from the upcoming Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s. In addition the previously announced songs, the company has now confirmed that the following glam and metal ballads will be available: "'Hold On Loosely' (as made famous by .38 Special), 'No One Like You' (as made famous by Scorpions), 'Only a Lad' (as made famous by Oingo Boingo), 'Radar Love' (as made famous by White Lion), 'Ballroom Blitz' (as made famous by Krokus), 'The Warrior' (by Scandal), 'What I Like About You' (as made famous by The Romantics), and 'Wrath Child' (as made famous by Iron Maiden)." Would have liked "Dead Man's Party" or "Weird Science" better from Boingo, but you can't have everything.

The iPhone may have been the star at today's Apple event, but Joystiq points out that id software's debut of 'id Tech 5' is just as beautiful. There are no current details on the first title slated to use the engine. Just the same John Carmack had a few things to say, pointing out the technology's strong graphical and cross-platform performance: "What we've got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track. They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game ... We're going to be showing on a Mac, PC, PS3, and Xbox at E3, we'll have another Mac announcement at E3." Game|Life also points out that EA will be throwing support behind OS X, with releases of major titles like Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Today the embargo ended for news on Sony Online Entertainment's two newest Massively Multiplayer Online Games. One, entitled The Agency is slated for the PS3 and PC formats, and will feature a spies and mercenaries theme so far unseen in the Massive genre. The other is FreeRealms, a fantasy title deliberately aimed at non-traditional gamers. It will feature whimsical gameplay and offer users the ability to create their own content, another first for a Massive title. Gamasutra has an interview with Matt Wilson, the studio director of SOE-Seattle, discussing the inspiration behind The Agency . "I think our big inspiration to develop this game actually came from watching movies. If you pay attention to all of the summer blockbusters there are lot of movies that come out around the spy/espionage genre. Whether it's James Bond, or the Bourne series all the way from Mission Impossible or even TV shows like 24 or Alias, it is a really big genre of information that is out there."

Joystiq has up one of the first videos of Guitar Hero III , and links to an IGN article discussing the changes. As they point out, there are quite a few differences. The UI has been overhauled in several ways, which may or may not be to your liking. "The HUD has been completely revamped, with lights replacing the Star Power meter and a new chain counter that tells you how many notes you've hit in a row. According to this IGN feature, the timing has also been changed, which may explain the early Wyld Stallyns-level performance in the videos. It's hard to blame the team from Neversoft if the game's playing a little differently at the moment, as they didn't have access to the code (created by Harmonix) from the original two games. Besides, there's still time for tweaking." The changes don't bother me that much, but the twanging butchery of "My Name is Jonas" made my eyebrow twitch.

The Halo 3 Beta has been in the news just a bit lately, and with it the Halo franchise is again looming large in other formats. Director Peter Jackson is speculating that the release of the game this September may refocus attention on the movie, stalled as it has been since October of last year. Jackson still wants to make it, but only with Neill Blomkamp directing. The Halo comic, meanwhile, has been confirmed as an ongoing series. The comic will consist of several mini-series runs, with future adventures possibly featuring the return of Brian Michael Bendis (the mind behind the first series). As for the game itself, Beta code has uncovered several game achievements that will be earnable after launch. Trying to calm fans somehow disappointed with the Beta's graphics, Bungie's Frank O'Connor assures us the shipped game will look better. And finally for a broader view of the game N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo are at it again, dissecting the Beta experience with witty correspondence.

An anonymous reader writes "At Gamers With Jobs, Shawn Andrich speaks out against pointing the finger at videogames as a causative factor in a murder cases. He makes the excellent point that, though we may enjoy the metaphor, life is not a game. There is no simple connection between event A and event B. Our actions are dictated by experiences from a lifetime, and they should be addressed that way for good or ill. 'Life can't be framed up like a game of billiards. There is no easy eight ball, corner pocket shot to be made when trying to draw a line between cause and action ... Lasting, positive change will only come when we stop reaching for causes and start creating conditions that will support kids and teenagers who need it. We can't make anyone put the pin back in the grenade, but by supporting active, caring people who want to help, we might be able to influence some of those fateful decisions before it gets that far.'" GamePolitics on Joystiq has an editorial up looking at a similar question.

Three unrelated pieces of news floating around today all point to the ongoing collision of older medias and gaming. Most Exciting: Joystiq reports that the rights to make a Sin City game have been picked up by Red Mile entertainment. Despite their role as the creators of the Jackass game, that seems like good news. Less Exciting: The two Lego Star Wars games sold really, really well, and so it's not terribly surprising that Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has been announced by the folks at LucasArts. Next Generation has the details, saying the game will be released on the PS3, 360, DS, and Wii. The Wii/DS games will be redesigned for their unique control schemes, and the high-end consoles will feature online co-op play. Truly Confusing: Fox has picked up the movie rights for a The Sims movie. Given the way many people play The Sims, I can only assume it will be rated NC-17 and released straight to DVD.

claudia martinez writes "The Guitar Hero franchise is spreading its wings today with the announcement of Guitar Hero III, due to released across four platforms. This time around the title will feature boss battles and a new online multiplayer mode with world-wide leaderboards. Wireless controllers based on the Gibson guitar should be available for all platforms, and some of the titles already slated for the game have been announced. Tracks will include: "Paint It Black" (by The Rolling Stones), "Cherub Rock" (by Smashing Pumpkins), "The Metal" (by Tenacious D), "My Name is Jonas" (by Weezer), "Rock And Roll All Nite" (as made famous by Kiss), "School's Out" (as made famous by Alice Cooper), "Slow Ride" (as made famous by Fog Hat), and "Cult of Personality" (by Living Colour). More tracks from the 80s version of the title have also been announced with Poison, Skid Row, and Billy Squier rounding out the already impressive set list."

Via Joystiq, a link to the official Smash Bros. Brawl website, the 'Smash Bros. Dojo'. Currently being used by game director Masahiro Sakurai as a blog, the content has been a bit tame so far. Just the same, things are looking up. He's just posted a detailed list of the game's composers, and a sample of some music from the game. The list reads like a who's who of Japanese game music, with everyone from Akihiro Honda (Metal Gear Series) and Toru Minegishi (Twilight Princess) to Koji Kondo (creator of the Mario and Zelda themes) himself.

destinyland writes "Sony just announced a whopping 34 titles that are upcoming for the PlayStation 3. Despite record losses for the game group, their stock shot to a five-year high and they promised to eliminate 80% of their operating loss within one year. Analysts think that Sony's plan for that might include eventually lowering prices for the PS3." The 'Gamers Day' event featured a great deal of new information about Sony products and services, including the new PSP Store. Joystiq had some hands-on time with highly anticipated titles like LittleBigPlanet and Heavenly Sword.

destinyland writes "Sony just announced a whopping 34 titles that are upcoming for the PlayStation 3. Despite record losses for the game group, their stock shot to a five-year high and they promised to eliminate 80% of their operating loss within one year. Analysts think that Sony's plan for that might include eventually lowering prices for the PS3." The 'Gamers Day' event featured a great deal of new information about Sony products and services, including the new PSP Store. Joystiq had some hands-on time with highly anticipated titles like LittleBigPlanet and Heavenly Sword.

Last week Gamehead's Geoff Keighley interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto, and the well-known designer tossed off a mildly controversial comment. Keighley asked him if he felt as though he was losing touch with the American audience as a result of the popularity of games like Halo. GameDaily reports on Miyamoto's response: "I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play." Bungie took exception to that, and Frank Connor retorted in his interview with Joystiq: "Yeah, well. I just want to go on the record and say that Bungie is hard at work on a side-scrolling platform game featuring some plumbers -- I'm not going to say what their ethnicity is, it's none of anyone's business -- but we took that as a gauntlet, a sort of glove slap, and we're going to respond in 2D scrolling style. That's all I'm saying." We discussed that article, along with several other pieces of Halo 3 coverage, this past Saturday.

Yesterday in New York City Microsoft held an invite-only preview of the Halo 3 Beta, and passed out early Beta keys to a group of game journalists. The result is a barrage of coverage about this most-anticipated title. Notable features beyond basic previews include Dan Hsu's take on the game, Dean Takahashi's 'I got my butt kicked' perspective, the San Jose Merc's interview with Bungie Community Lead Brian Jarrad, CVG's hosting of the official Beta Movie, and Joystiq's interview with Frank O'Connor, Bungie's writing lead. From the 1up preview: "It's unmistakably Halo gameplay, despite the rearranged controls (which feel natural after 10 minutes), and all of the additions fit perfectly into the multiplayer universe we've come to love. The interface has been overhauled and is even easier to use, and you now have such niceties as being able to change your control layout at any point on any screen. While the visuals are rich and beautiful, it's the audio that's really impressed us so far. The rumbling throttle of unleashing dual SMGs makes them feel incredibly powerful, and the Spartan Laser tearing past your head is as scary as you'd imagine. Audio cues are more important than ever, and the better your sound system the more next-gen this will feel." More coverage below.

Joystiq mentioned earlier this week that two-time Slashdot interview subject Wil Wheaton, world-famous blogger and writer, is scheduled to keynote this year's Penny Arcade Expo. Other headlining elements of this year's geekstravaganza include a Tokyo Games Show trip for the Omegathon winner, and another year of the 'face-melting' Minibosses as the big musical act of the event. From Gabe's Post: "We'll actually be taking a lot of steps this year to make the Omegathon a more important and interactive part of the show experience. I can't say much more about those ideas right now but I can tell you what this year's Omegathon prize will be. I think each year we've been able to out do the previous year's prize and this year is no exception. The winner of the 2007 Omegathon will receive a trip for two to the Tokyo Game Show along with $5,000 in spending money. We'll be taking care of everything for you from airfare to hotel and giving you some cash to spread around once you get there."

Via Joystiq, the news on David Jaffe's blog is that Calling All Cars will be released soon via the PlayStation Network. The first downloadable title from one of Sony's AAA developers, this marks the start of what should be a string of high-profile games for the service. The initial post about the game 'going gold' appears to have been taken down but Jaffe reviews the reviews that have been released so far, and gives PS3 owners an idea of what they can expect. "Has it been worth the wait? Reviews are slowly coming in, but IGN is calling it 'Sony's first truly original, must-have title on the PlayStation Network' and claiming it bests just about everything on Xbox Live Arcade. Strong words; we'll see for ourselves [this] week."

Real Money Transfer (RMT) is a contentious subject among MMOG players, but not something usually addressed by major news organizations. Joystiq has up a post on the BBC's coverage of gold farming in World of Warcraft , with a reporter 'live from Ironforge' addressing the issue. "The BBC has taken a straight look at Chinese gold farmers in the World of Warcraft. We'd fear for our own jobs when MSM begin competently portraying game news — thankfully, gold farming is old news and has already been well documented in the last two years, so we feel relatively safe. The piece takes a look at your typical Chinese gold farming operation, with some nifty use of green-screen by the reporter being magically teleported into the game. At least it wasn't another WoW game addiction piece."

Joystiq reports that Chairman and group CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment Ken Kutaragi is retiring as of June 19th. The Sony reshuffling of executives late last year left Mr. Kutaragi out of the PS3 nitty-gritty, and one could imagine led to his decision to leave the organization. From SCEI's official statement: "[Mr. Kutaragi] stated that, in the six months since the appointment of Kazuo Hirai as President in December, the new generation of management, led by Mr. Hirai, has continued to develop. With the March introduction of PS3 in Europe completing the successful launch of PS3 worldwide, Mr. Kutaragi has identified SCE's Annual Shareholders' meeting in June as the ideal timing to pass on the torch to the new generation of management. Mr. Kutaragi will now apply his extensive technological knowledge and leadership skills to take on new challenges beyond the world of PlayStation."

The wait for 'catch-em-all' folks in the US is over; Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are out today. Joystiq and Kotaku have coverage of yesterday's launch party at the Nintendo Store. "There was a station set up to play the card game, manned by adults who were there to teach the game to kids. Finally there was a station where Junichi Masuda, the game director, and Shigeru Ohmori, the game design lead, signed autographs for those old enough to know who they are. It may have been meant to push Pokémon merchandise (the guys at the card station handed out thin packs of cards to every kid who came by) but it also meant there was something for everyone." 1up and Gamespot, meanwhile, are offering up reviews of the game. Both hand it the respectable score of 8.5, saying that it's still a great game experience but dinging the developers for not moving the series forward in any innovative directions.