As seen <here> in the DtoidSanFrancisco blog, Fanime Con 2008 is taking place this (see 5/23) Friday through Monday at the San Jose Convention Center! It seems as if a few other Dtoiders may plan on attending, including myself and our very own lovable CTZ.

Chances are that if you are from Dtoid and you plan on attending, we need to kick it! Drop a comment or leave your number/email. We definitely should try to put together a last minute Dtoid meet up if we are going to have at least a few people there representing the robot.

I slept all day, what do you want me to do!? :(

I think it may come as no surprise that I'm not much of a journalist. Let's not mention the fact that CTZ and TopGear already covered most of the juicy tidbits of information in their respective posts. Sooo, rather than attempting to give you a half-assed recap of every game, I will simply link you to the pertinent information! (Hint: Commando3 comes with SF2 HD beta.) Instead, I can provide you with a recap of the event from my perspective as a gamer. I will try to give you as much information as I can about my two favorite parts of the spectacular Capcom Digital Day. (Hint: eating food and playing games)

So, without further ado here is my recap for any of you other fellow night-owls/vampires.
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After a terrible 2-hour drive from Sacramento to San Mateo, let it be known that I am now absolutely terrified of Bay Area traffic. When I pulled into the parking lot of Capcom HQ, I let out a sigh of relief and took a moment to thank a number of various deities for allowing me to live to game that day.

As I walked in the front door I immediately noticed the cold, grim, calculating stare that the guard at the front desk was giving me behind his thick glasses. I knew, one false move... and I would be forcibly removed from the premises. I timidly walked up the the table where they were presenting name badges, apologized for being late, and was shuffled off into an extremely crowded room to catch the tail end of the presentation.

THEN IT WAS ON!!!

I grabbed a cup of orange juice, downed it like I had been walking through a desert for the past two hours, and took a much needed leak.

THEN IT WAS REALLY ON!!!

I dashed back to the room as quickly as I could and of course by dashed, I mean walked briskly, and hopped on Street Fighter 2 HD right away! As I'm sure many of you have probably been reading everywhere else, it was sooo damned pretty! The characters and backgrounds all looked extremely well done, if that's not enough top it of by the fact that it was running in full widescreen 1080p glory. The game played exactly how you would expect SF2 to play and in conjunction with the amazing new visuals and sound/music, that is honestly a very good thing!

To my surprise, there was no one else playing. I grabbed the closest person and challenged them to a match. It happened to be a fellow from GameSpot. I got the chance to play against a guy from Capcom as well, of course he kicked my ass most rounds.. but nevertheless, it was pure win! Apparently GameSpot was capturing footage via live feed the entire time, so if you watch their newest footage... well anything but the black or orange colored Ryu and Ken is probably me. ^_^

Needless to say, I was the most excited to finally get my hands on SF2 HD, but there were a lot of other great games being played at the event as well.

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I would have to say that my favorites were definitely the new 1942 and Commando 3 for XBLA. I got the chance to play 1942 with a guy who I think was the Design Director (of course, don't quote me if I'm wrong.) while GamerTV took some gameplay footage and did an interview. I was also fortunate enough to try out Commando 3 with the same guy as well as the Art Director while Gamer.TV interviewed them.

Both titles were very solid co-op arcade experiences. 1942 definitely seemed to stick true to its roots. For those of you that may have never played it before, it is a WW2-themed vertical scrolling schmup in which each player controllers one of a few various planes. One of the key differences that should be noted was that the game is now presented in full widescreen which definitely adds a new level of challenge to maneuvering your plane through the stages.

Commando, a series I was completely unfamiliar with prior to playing Commando 3 at the event, was a 3-player co-op vertical scrolling schmup. There is definitely less bullet-dodging and more straight up action than a game like 1942. The game focuses on 3 soldiers on the ground, so you can imagine the gameplay experience is still going to be quite different even though it is essentially the same genre. I saw all the staples, weapon upgrades, super powers, and even an awesome boss fight were all implemented in the build that we played. Even vehicles were present in the game and could be operated by all 3 players at once allowing them to mow down everything in their path with relative ease.

For my short time with each of the games I actually had a ridiculous amount of fun and will most definitely be picking them up when they hit XBLA later this Spring/Summer. Of course, it helps that Commando 3 will be including a beta for SF2 HD! :D

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For fear of dragging this post on too long and because I didn't get enough time to do an honest recap of some of the games I will refer you to CTZ's reviews for the rest of the games.

Lost Planet: Colonies
Bionic Commando
Plunder
Mega Man Star Force 2

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So, to wrap it up. It was an awesome fun time. I was so lucky to be invited out for the event and it was well worth the nightmarish two-hour drive. I got hang out with and meet a lot of awesome people, play games before everyone else, and even eat free lunch. Capcom was so considerate, they even had some pretty damned good cheese sandwiches for those of us that don't consume flesh of the living.

Until next time kids,
Azereki (Ass Ricky)


(Pictures stolen from TGG)

The Game Developers Choice Awards for 2008 took place on Wednesday the 20th and because I am too tired to post anything that requires significant work or thought right now, here are the results of the show. Below are the awards and the criteria by which the winners were judged in the order that they were presented. The few pictures I managed to take are at the bottom of the post, sorry most of them are so blurry... it was the best I could do with my camera phone. :(

Best Game Design
The Best Game Design Award recognizes the overall excellence of design in a game - including, but not limited to, gameplay mechanics, playability, play balancing, and level design.

Portal

Best Debut Game
The Best Debut Game Award recognizes the best game from any development studio which released its first publicly available title in the year 2007.

Crackdown (Cracktime)

Best Audio
The Best Audio Award recognizes the overall excellence of audio in a game - including, but not limited to, sound effects, musical composition, sound design, orchestration, etc.

BioShock

Best Downloadable Game
Best Downloadable Game Award recognizes the overall best game released on console or PC platforms specifically and solely for digital download - with an emphasis on smaller, more 'casual'-friendly titles.

Flow

Best Technology
The Best Technology Award recognizes the overall excellence of technology in a game - including, but not limited to, graphics programming, artificial intelligence, networking, and physics.

Crysis

Ambassador Award
The Ambassador Award honors an individual or individuals who have helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further our art.

Jason Della Rocca

Innovation Award
The Innovation Award recognizes the single game that demostrates true innovation, advances the state of the art, and pushes the boundaries of games as an expressive medium.

Portal

Best Visual Arts
The Best Visual Arts Award recognizes the overall excellence of visual art in a game - including, but not limited to, art direction, animation, modeling, character design, texture creation, and so on.

BioShock

Pioneer Award
The Pioneer Award (formely known as the First Penguin Award) celebrates those individuals who developed a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history - paving the way for the myriads who followed them.

Ralph Baer

Best Handheld Game
Best Handheld Game Award recognizes the overall best game commercially released on any handheld platform during 2007.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Best Writing
The Best Writing Award recognizes the overall excellence of storytelling in a game - including, but not limited to, scenario, plot construction, story, dialogue, and other major factors.

BioShock

Lifetime Achievement Award
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the career and achievements of a developer who has made an indelible impact on the craft of game development and games as a whole.

Sid Meier

Game of the Year
The Game of the Year Award recognizes the choice of game developers for the overall best game release during 2007.

Portal

As you can see, Portal and BioShock dominated with 6 out of the 10 total awards combined including Game of the Year. I'm sure this much was expected by gamers who played either of the two amazing titles last year.

All award descriptions were taken from the GDCA website.

As of today, Jan. 16, 2008, Sheik has been announced on the official site for Super Smash Brothers Brawl!

Use Zelda’s down special move to transform into Sheik! Once you do so, you’ll have access to a new character completely unique from Zelda.

Sheik doesn’t appear in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but we based her model on a design that was drafted up during the development of that game.

So, I officially have my Expo Pass for Game Developer's Conference 2008. The question I have now is: Who else is going? I definitely don't want to be wandering around the Moscone Center the whole time trying to find someone that looks familiar to talk to! Comment below and/or add me to your myGDC.

The original article is here. Curse was kind enough to provide the translation below.

The boy Hans Joergen Olsen were outside walking in the woods with his 10 year old sister when suddenly an angry moose attacked them.

- "My sister ran away, but I tried to scare the moose. When I noticed the moose wasn't stopping I started to run also. The moose chased me and after a while I had no strength left to run." says the boy to the Norwegian newspaper Avisen.

The moose head butted him in the back, but the impact was absorbed by his backpack. When he fell to the ground he did a trick he usually does on "World of Warcraft."

- "When you get to level 30 you learn the skill "Feign Death", so that is what I did, and after a little while the moose walked away" says Hans to the newspaper.

That is definitely one hunter I would want in my party. When things go wrong, he pulls aggro off the priest and prepares to take one for the team.