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5th Cell's 'Hybrid' to feature persistent online war
5th Cell continues to hold back details on its XBLA shooter Hybrid, but the developer has released one key nugget that recalls games like PlanetSide and Chromehounds. Hybrid will feature a "a persistent online world war" with "hundreds of thousands" of players on a "single, unified world server." As always, the war will be waged between the blue team (the Paladins) and red team (the Variants), as the two sides fight to control "territories and countries, leading to global domination" on what appears to be a world map cribbed from Risk. What was initially teased as "a completely new gameplay experience never seen before in the genre" is now revealed to be ... "an innovative new system unique to the shooter genre." Really? Oh, but it has a name! An "it came from marketing"–sounding name: "Combat Focused Movement." Just what is it? We'll have to wait for the first hands-on demo of the game at next month's GDC to find out. %Gallery-115142%
'Classic postmortems' unveiled for 25th Game Developers Conference
Beyond the plain ol' postmortems taking place annually at the Game Developers Conference, this year's event features a special 25th anniversary spin: "classic" postmortems. Famous developers will take the stage to speak about their classic games -- everyone from Pac-Man's Toru Iwatani to Doom's John Romero -- and an eager crowd will bask in the light of their classic game knowledge. 11 classics are being given the treatment, though we're putting Will Wright's Raid on Bungeling Bay talk at the very top of our priority list. Another highlight (among a list made up entirely of highlights) is Eric Chahi -- developer of currently in-progress From Dust -- speaking about the development of Out of This World. Check out the full, incredibly impressive list after the break and start planning accordingly. Or rather, clear your schedule. If you can't make it to GDC 2011, the postmortems will be filmed and made available via GDC Vault at some point after the event.
GDC giving Molyneux lifetime achievement award, tapping Schafer to host again
That's right, one of the most prominent game designers to hail from that magical land across the pond (Merlin and dragons, anybody?) is going to be honored at GDC 2011 with a lifetime achievement award. Peter Molyneux, best known for the creation of the "god game" genre (and child coercion), will be honored during the show's Game Developer's Choice Awards. Not a bad way to celebrate a career that's over 23 years in the making. In addition, Tim Schafer will return as host of the show. He will give a talk on March 2nd and, we imagine, go around the show with a desk on wheels, interviewing random attendees, Conan style. That's what we'd do, anyway.
3DS, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bleszinski talks at GDC
We're guessing Satoru Iwata will talk about the 3DS during his Game Developers Conference keynote. But it's even safer to assume that Nintendo's Hideki Konno will mention the system during his newly-announced GDC talk, called "The Development Process of the Nintendo 3DS". Konno works as producer for Nintendo hardware, and is also producing Nintendogs + Cats, so he should have at least a passing familiarity with the hardware. A third high-profile Nintendo talk has also been announced: Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe and Retro Studios' Michael Kelbaugh and Bryan Walker will present "We Hate You: Why Donkey Kong Country Returns was So Hard". Okay, it's actually called "Donkey Kong: Swinging Across Oceans" and it's about developing the game across continents. GDC also announced one more marquee presentation: Cliff Bleszinski's "Industry Lessons Learned and Applying Them to the Road Ahead", a wide-ranging talk about "Bleszinski's thoughts on AAA gaming, social gaming, and the connected future" as well as the importance of PR and marketing to game design.
Red Dead and Limbo lead nominees for 2011 GDC Awards
It's almost time once again for the industry's premier awards show that doesn't feature regular appearances by Jersey Shore cast members: the 11th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. The event's organizers have released the mercifully Mountain Dew-based-category-free list of nominees, which includes a number of potential merits for Limbo, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Check out the full list of nominees after the jump and discuss your favorites in the comments! (Oh, that's your pick for Best Visual Arts? Well, we can't say we agree with you, there.)
Nintendo's Iwata keynoting GDC 2011
Inquisitive Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will be keynoting the Game Developers Conference this year. The keynote is entitled "Video Games Turn 25: A Historical Perspective and Vision for the Future," and celebrates the 25th GDC, which takes place this March. Gamasutra notes that Iwata will speak "not only about how video gaming has evolved, but also his views on where we go from here." Of course, the stage also offers an opportunity to talk about new Nintendo products. Given the timing, we'd say it's the perfect place to showcase Nintendo's most anticipated product, the Vitality Sensor. ... But seriously, he's going to talk about the 3DS.
IGF announces 2011 Student Showcase winners
The 2011 Independent Games Festival has named the winners of this year's Student Showcase. Created by student teams all over the world, each of the eight titles will be featured and playable at the 2011 Game Developers Conference next month. The games also serve as finalists for Best Student Game at the IGF awards, which will be presented on March 2. The finalists cover a wide swath of styles and gameplay concepts, from ambient shooters to Myst-like adventures. And then there's the one about an octopus trying to make it in human society. See the list of nominees, with links to their IGF pages, after the break.
Independent Games Festival 2011 competition finalists announced
Out of nearly 400 entries, the 2011 Independent Games Festival has narrowed down finalists into six categories for another year's festivities, culminating in the actual awards presentation on March 2. Featured prominently in this year's awards are world creator Minecraft and the terrifying Amnesia: The Dark Descent, both taking three category nominations. Supergiant Games' Bastion and QCF Design's Desktop Dungeons each earned two. Aside from being granted free passes to this year's Game Developer's Conference (where the IGF awards show happens), finalists must present "playable versions of their game to all GDC attendees at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor from Wednesday, March 2nd through Friday, March 4th." That means, after winning the $20,000 grand prize, that team has to stay on the show floor and contain their explosive excitement for the next two days, while dullards like ourselves ask questions about this and that. The ultimate game? Perhaps! Head past the break for all the finalists broken down by category.
Epic Games to reveal new IP at GDC 2011
Cliff Bleszinski said recently that Epic Games would unveil a brand new IP at next year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This will be a brand new universe, unrelated to anything Epic has done before, according to Bleszinski. "Gamers votes with their dollars and they often like established IP, but those IPs came from somewhere, right?" he told EGM. "Call of Duty was crafted by the original Medal of Honor guys. Gears of War was crafted by the original Unreal Tournament guy. I look forward to creating what's next." We pinged Bleszinski ourselves to try and find out what platform Epic is aiming for, but he tells us there's "not much to say yet." The company has had a lot of success with Infinity Blade on iOS recently, and has also been rumored to be working on a Kinect title. GDC 2011 kicks off on February 28 -- we'll be there in San Francisco to cover any announcement for you.
Nidhogg, Hazard, and more nominated for IGF Nuovo Award
The Independent Games Festival has announced the nominees for the 2011 Nuovo Award, a special category within the IGF for "abstract, short-form, and unconventional game development." In other words, weird art games! "I think what we've decided now is that even more light needs to be shed on this particular sub-section of the ever-growing sub-section that indie games already occupy in the wider gaming sphere," IGF chair Brandon Boyer told Joystiq, "the bit where developers are truly pushing at the edges and limits of what games can and probably should grow to encompass, whether that's videogames that move off the screen and into the playspace of the participants themselves, or games that tackle documentary, more personal and otherwise autobiographical subjects, or games that simply tonally run counterintuitive to the kinds of emotions games usually elicit." The eight nominees include the following: Monobanda's Bohm, a game in which you control the life of a tree. A House in California by Cardboard Computer, a "surreal" adventure game about four characters exploring a house. Nidhogg, Messhof's two-player, side-scrolling versus fencing game. Dinner Date by Stout Games, in which you listen in on Julian Luxemburg's thoughts as you follow him through the agonizing wait for his date to show. Loop Raccord by UFO on Tape creator Nicolai Troshinsky, a game based on video editing -- you have to create "continuous movement" by stringing together clips from archive.org. The Cat and the Coup by Peter Brinson and Kurosh VaiaNejad, a "documentary game" from the perspective of former Iranian Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh's ... cat. Copenhagen Game Collective's Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now, a one-button game for up to eight players, with rules that players must enforce themselves (or choose not to). Hazard: The Journey of Life by Demruth, an abstract first-person puzzle game in which the world is constantly changing.
Independent Games Festival expanding focus to include handheld titles
As the Independent Games Festival enters its thirteenth year, chairman Brandon Boyer has announced a couple of significant changes to the awards format. This year, handheld games -- including those for DS, PSP and iPhone -- will be included in the main judging and be up for the same awards as non-portable titles. A new "Best Mobile Game" category is also being added to the IGF Awards suite; the separate IGF Mobile Awards of years past has, effectively, been rolled into the main ceremony. The next IGF Awards event is scheduled for March 2, 2011. Additionally, the field for the IGF Nuovo Award, which is given to more "abstract" entries, is being widened from five to eight titles. Finally, judging will be overhauled: 170 IGF member judges will evaluate the initial entries, recommending them for specific categories, which will then be judged by smaller, more specialized panels to determine a winner for each award. The Independent Games Festival runs from February 28 through March 4, 2011, during GDC 2011 in San Francisco. Submissions are now being accepted.
GDC breaks attendance record: 18k geeks in da house
The 2010 Game Developers Conference welcomed 18,250 industry professionals, many of whom also moonlighted as alcohol professionals during the evenings, to San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for another round of the annual meet-up. The record number surpassed last year's total of 17,000 attendees. Next year's show is already set to be tapped on February 28, 2011. A call for lecture submissions will go out sometime this summer. In the meantime, you can join the GDC circuit party and get your multi-core binary integration theory groove on at GDC Canada, May 6–7, in Vancouver.
Save the date: GDC 2011, Feb. 28 - March 4
This year's Game Developers Conference has barely started and already we're anticipating the inevitable sequel, which promises to feature bigger news, improved visuals (we're all working out for the next year) and dynamic crowd motion. According to event organizers, GDC 2011 will run from February 28 through March 4, 2011 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. That's five days of gaming bliss (six if you're a malfunctioning PS3). As much as we'd like to express further enthusiasm, we should probably get back to covering GDC ... 2010. Which is going on, like, right now.
