gdc-2009 posts

The Game Developers Conference generated a lot of news and features, especially for the PC platform. Let's look back at Big Download's coverage of GDC for the past seven days:
Exclusive Features

• GDC 2009: Big Download coveraged the OnLive press event (along with exclusive reactions from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell) and we have some GDC coverage of games like America's Army 3.0, CrimeCraft, Majesty 2 and Mount and Blade: Warband. We also have coverage of the new features shown at GDC for Unreal Engine 3.
• Red Alert 3 Uprising Review: We have our final verdict on EA's downloadable RTS game.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac column takes a look at Parallels 4.0 which allows people to run Window games on the Mac.
• Boot Disk: Our retro games column returns with a look back at the original X-Com: UFO Defense
• Independent Minds: Our indie games column takes a look at user interfaces in games
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes takes at look at (shutter) cheating
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free games takes a gander at the puzzle game Blocksum.

The 2009 edition of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco may be over but articles from the event are still coming in. While we had our own correspondent there out sister sites Joystiq and Massively were also at the annual event that brings game creators together to talk shop.

Naturally Massively's GDC 2009 coverage was all about the MMO genre. They have posted up hands-on coverage for games like Aion, an interview with the Fallen Earth team and more. Joystiq's GDC 2009 coverage did include a lot of console specific news and previews but they did catch up with some PC games including some time with our new favorite game title Stalin Vs Martians. Look for even more GDC coverage from us and from our sisters sites in the days ahead.

Anyone who knows anything about the Postal series can anticipate some of the creative and crazy things this GDC 2009 presentation video shows. This video reveals some pre-beta gameplay footage of Postal 3. If the game will be anything like its predecessors, it will be an open-world game where players can spontaneously go into a murderous rampage, except this time they'll be do drive-bys from Segway scooters.

Download HD Postal 3 GDC 09 Gameplay Video (89 MB)

This Batman: Arkham Asylum presentation given at GDC 2009 provides a brief overview of all the unique gameplay elements players can expect from the game, including how Batman needs to stealthily take down the bad guys to avoid detection.

Download HD Batman: Arkham Asylum GDC 09 Gamplay Presentation (211 MB)
Check out all Batman: Arkham Asylum downloads

It's rare indeed to see something one has never seen before. Sometimes this is due to inattention; one can only keep abreast of so many developments in a day, after all. Sometimes the ratio of tried-and-true gameplay to genuinely novel is overwhelmingly in favor of the over-iterated. For whatever, reason, I missed out on Mount & Blade the first time around, and that's a shame, but I'll have the chance to atone when their new expansion, Warband, comes out later this year. Regardless of your experience with this title, I found it completely fresh and invigorating, and if you'll keep reading, I'll tell you why.



Alternatively, you can check out the two GDC video presentations (also available in HD) at the end of this article.

When I was contacted by the PR firm handling Paradox Interactive (the fantastic TriplePoint PR, located right here in San Francisco), I got pretty excited. Partly because I'm an excitable boy, partly because I was coming off an intense sugar high, but mostly because I knew I'd get a chance to check out Majesty 2, out this Summer.

For those of you who might not remember the original Majesty, created by Cyberlore Studios in 2000, the game was called the Fantasy Kingdom Sim. You played the role of an omniscient ruler, managing your kingdom. However, you have little direct control over your units, instead using your abilities to guide them to complete your tasks. You build various structures to grow your kingdom -- a marketplace, blacksmith, temples, guard towers, etc. -- and your subjects make use of these buildings on their own. While it may sound as though the lack of control might be frustrating, in reality it provides a different sort of experience that's enriching on its own. So how does Majesty 2 improve on the original? Read on!

We love time travel stories at Big Download. However, they can also give us a headache when we think about them too much. Seriously, the whole "grandfather paradox" dealie keeps us up at nights. So when word got out of a new indie RTS game was being revealed at GDC this week, we decided to stock up on Tylenol.

The game is called Achron (not to be confused with the classic PC strategy game Archon) and its developers at Hazardous Software have offered up a YouTube video showing how the game uses time travel in its RTS gameplay. Clearly the graphics need some work but the gameplay ideas behind it (making units and then sending them back in time to go after enemies before the units were made) are pretty cool. Until you start thinking about all of the causality issues . . . then we reach for the pills. You can check out more videos at the game's official web site.

This presentation given at GDC 2009 provides a run-through of features and gameplay players can expect from the RPG Mount & Blade: Warband. Continue reading after the jump to see early gameplay video footage from the open world sandbox RPG.

Download HD Mount & Blade: Warband GDC 09 Presentation (27 MB)
Download HD Mount & Blade: Warband GDC 09 In-Game Footage (149 MB)
Download the Mount & Blade demo (380 MB)

This past week a panel on making levels in Mass Effect 2 was held at the Game Developers Conference. That's not news, of course. What is news is that the panel revealed some very (and we mean very) early gameplay footage from BioWare's upcoming sci-fi RPG game sequel.

Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead was certainly a big departure from the Half-Life universe that the developer had created before but it paid off in spades. According to a Shacknews story, Valve's Michael Booth revealed in a GDC panel this week that the game has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide.

That's a lot for any game (and that figure includes both PC and Xbox 360 numbers) but that may only be part of the story. As Shacknews states, the 2.5 million copies mentioned are only for retail sales. It does not include the sales of the PC version that have been made directly via Valve's Steam service. Valve is pretty notorious for not including specific sales figures for their games that have been sold via Steam.