I've always been academically fascinated by EVE Online -- any game with an economy robust enough to have its own crises is worth noting -- but its mechanics have always seemed remote, obtuse, and cold. Besides buying, selling, and trading, what is there to do, really? The answer to that is "play Dust 514," CCP's recently-announced FPS-strategy hybrid.

After the break, you can find a video of not only the new trailer for Dust 514, but CCP boss Hilmar Peturrson's presentation. "Dust battlefields will dictate who controls specific planets inside the EVE MMO," explains Peturrson, offering the clearest and most concise description of the game I've heard yet. To hear Peturrson tell it, EVE's various contractors and companies will be the ones funding Dust mercenary forces on the ground, the ultimate goal being that "these communities will meld over time." The presentation closes with a bit of cheek -- "While the fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying" -- and the promise that someone "exceedingly clever" will figure out what the title means.

CCP Shanghai seem to have an exceedingly ambitious project on their hands. I'm not sure how multi-platform guild management is going to work, but I do know that CCP is taking the concept of the MMO in a direction I've never considered before. Most believe that neither MMOs nor real-time strategy games could possibly work on a console, but CCP seems determined to prove them wrong.

[Via GameSetWatch]

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Even though GDC 2009 is done and gone, we couldn't let The Conduit slip by. This first-person shooter is going to surprise a lot of people when it finally drops. We were able to talk with the guys at High Voltage about this Wii summer 2009 release, getting some new details on the story and the surprisingly good graphics of this title.

In the video you'll learn about the graphics engine that makes The Conduit shine. They say that they've pushed the Wii to the limit, and we believe that. You'll also get an in-depth look at the control and customization options in the game. They've left it up to the player to decide how the game controls -- very impressive. Finally, we get just a touch of the backstory of this FPS, set in the near future in Washington DC.

High Voltage was tight-lipped about the multiplayer aspect of The Conduit during this interview, though. We're glad to say that we'll be finding out more in how that will work in the very near future, so look out for that. From what we've seen, The Conduit is definitely a game that you'll want to play multiplayer. 

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Located on the show floor of GDC 2009, amongst the random booths, famous people, and piles of swag, lies the place where all good Reverend Anthonies go: the independent games booth. Filled with numerous spectacular indie games, many of which appeared to have great potential, one game in particular caught my eye. Of course, it was a children's game, but that's besides the point.

Winds of Orbis: An Active-Adventure focuses on getting kids off their rear quarters and onto what appears to be a DDR pad with a few extra buttons. Since it's virtually impossible to describe via text, I'd like to invite you to take a look for yourself, and watch the video after the jump to see what I'm talking about. Even if children's games aren't your thing, you'll definitely want to check out CTZ as he struggles to "read or understand simple suggestions or the way the world works."

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I can't be the only one who, as a kid, liked to build things just to knock them down. Sure, the school therapist may have thought I had issues, but come on... knocking things down just feels good.

That seems to be part of what Volition was thinking with its upcoming PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title, Red Faction: Guerrilla. Set on Mars in an open world where just about everything you see is destructible, Red Faction: Guerrilla looks to bring the fun and excitement of leveling back into my life. 

At GDC last week, I had a chance to chat with the tallest man in gaming, Volition's Luke Schneider. He tells me a bit about Red Faction: Guerrilla's destruction, and gives me a few tips on how to take out San Francisco's Moscone Center with a few well-placed rockets. You know, if that's something I wanted to do.

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EA's survival horror took home top honors at the 7th annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards Show, taking place at GDC 2009 in San Francisco last week. Aside from the Audio of the Year award, the game took the Sound Design of the Year trophy as well.  Another big winner was Wataru Hokoyama, the composer of the PS3 game Afrika. He won both the Rookie of the Year and the Music of the Year awards.

These awards honor outstanding creative, technical and artistic audio achievement in the world of interactive entertainment, says the press release. The awards are voted and judged upon by the G.A.N.G. community consisting of over 800 members in over 30 countries.

Below the jump you'll find other categories and their winners, including World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (best cinema and vocal song) and LittleBigPlanet (best instrumental and interactive score).

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Okay, so I made that last part up. But my feet hurt bad after the week-long event last week. San Francisco is great, but parts of it are uphill, and those uphill climbs go directly against my laziness and lack of fitness as a  blogger.

A press release says that GDC hosted over 17,000 "industry professionals" at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. And outside it. And in nearby hotels and bars and Denny's late at night after we drank too much. 

Stepping back and looking at it, I think it was a pretty good show. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and Metal Gear Daddy Hideo Kojima both gave keynotes, over 500 keynotes and lectures took place, mobile games made a big mark, Fallout 3 was given the Game of the Year Award, and Destructoid hosted a few hip parties that had great turnouts. And speaking of Destructoid, we ran some great coverage of the show. You can't be disappointed after all of that, can you?

I've got to say that my feet still hurt, though. And this press release reminds that the 2010 GDC takes place on March 9-13. I need to get better shoes before then. 

America's Army 3 is going for bigger and better this time around. The sounds are more authentic, the lighting is more realistic, characters move like real soldiers, to so much more. You'll even need to know how to heal your teammates properly otherwise you might make things worse if you give them the wrong treatment!

Hit the jump to get a low down on America's Army 3.

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Last week at GDC, DICE threw a party to give us the first look at Battlefield Bad Company 2. DICE went all out with old school style post cards, little toy tanks and even an ice sculpture tank that shot out alcohol!

As for the game though, it really looks like more of the same. The demonstration started off with the Bad Company team from the first game somewhere in Russia. The Bad Company team went through a snow filled Russian town taking out enemies left and right.

The team eventually made their way to a truck which they used to get out of the area. The player was tasked to take out enemies coming after them from the back of the truck. Guys on ATVs, trucks and even a helicopter all chase after Bad Company, making for a pretty fun looking sequence.

After the jump, you can check out a new teaser trailer showing off the rock paper scissors battle system that the Bad Company is known for. Anyone looking forward to this? view full story + comments

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Shortly before attending GDC 09, I learned that Crytek announced the CryENGINE 3. I’m not a big PC gamer, so I didn’t really look into the announcement. It’s Crytek, so I knew it was going to be bigger and badder than ever … and you’d most likely need a rig like this to run it. Needless to say, I was quite shocked when I walked into my appointment with Crytek to see an Xbox 360 sitting on the ground running the CryENGINE 3.

Read on to find out how the CryENGINE 3 is going to make developing games easier then ever and what this means for PC and console gamers.
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Remember when we first heard about Project Offset, that gorgeous first-person shooter set in the realm of fantasy, and then proceeded to hear next to nothing about it since then? Well, it's not dead, thankfully.

Although the game hasn't been discussed by much of the press that attending the 2009 Game Developers Conference, it was shown off (still no in-game footage, though).

To be fair, the reason why Project Offset wasn't given much coverage is because what was demonstrated at GDC relates more to actual game development than it does anything else. You know, what the engine is capable off achieving, how easy it is to create some insane explosion -- stuff like that.

One of the tech demos, however, is worth watching even if you aren't on the development side of this industry. It's located after the break, and is essentially just a meteor storm wreaking havoc on a bunch of stone structures.

That may not sound like much, and it really isn't, but I'll take any excuse I can get to talk about Project Offset.

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One of the most bemoaned aspects of Dead Rising (next to the time sensitivity of missions, hard-to-read text and Otis) was the lack of a multiplayer component. Thanks to a probable slip of the tongue at a GDC panel on shader development with a specific focus on Dead Rising 2, we now know that Capcom is going to appease the complaintants with multiplayer of some kind in the sequel.

The mention came out of the same conversation regarding 6,000 onscreen zombies we reported on this weekend which, as it turns out, relates specifically to the multiplayer gameplay and may not be representative of the single-player experience. Laura Scholl, product manager of the mental mill shader which is being used by Blue Castle Games, made the comment in reference to a conversation she'd had with the developer regarding her product.

Of course, just because Dead Rising 2 will likely have multiplayer (and, I know, you're all shocked by this news) doesn't mean we have any idea what that gameplay could consist of. It's probably a co-op experience of some kind but will the main storyline be playable in co-op or just some alternate game modes? For the time being, we'll just have to wait and see.

Also of note is the knowledge that the game will have around 800 different "types" of zombies, with differing clothing designs. That ought to cut down a bit on the sense that you're killing the same undead dude over and over again.

[Via Kotaku]

On the last day of GDC 2009, we got a chance to talk to John Spinale about OnLive, a technology that, as Anthony Burch once said, "just confuses me in my head." Dedicated to rendering all your high-end graphics for you, OnLive will provide games to those who don't wish to spend $600 on their video cards alone, but still would like to "pwn some n00bs" within the comfort of their own home.

Check out the video after the jump to see the service running on its own (in a controlled environment, mind you). Don't forget to let us know what you think, and to check out the rest of our GDC 2009 coverage.

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Now a lead designer at UbiSoft montreal, Jonathan Morin was the lead level designer for Far Cry 2.

Considering how much damned fun I had with Far Cry 2 (as previously mentioned) and given Clint Hocking's suggestion near the end of his “Fault Tolerance” lecture, I ended my GDC 09 experience with Morin's lecture, “Player's Expression: The Level Design Structure Behind Far Cry 2 and Beyond?”

I'm trying to come up with some clever way of segueing into my summary of the talk which waits behind the jump, but hell with it – this is my last official GDC post. You know the drill by now. Hit the damned jump, already.

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