GDC Travelogue Day 4: Wait, the Game Developers Conference is Actually for Game Developers?
Thursday, Feb 21
7:30 am - As I ride into the city I’m struck by just how unpolished GDC is. Now, I don’t say that as an insult, what I mean is that this convention is not, unlike so many others, about media coverage. Sure, there are plenty of PR folks around and they’d just love to tell you how great their new games are going to be, but they don’t have the same power as they do at events like E3. This week is really about people who love making games, and that’s so refreshing when most gaming journalism is dominated by shiny new demos and glossy press packs. Uh oh, guess I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I’m turning into a softie.
11:00 am - My last appointment was with a Warner Bros. rep who was showing off LEGO Batman. I don’t know how those bastards at Traveller’s Tales do it, but every time I hear about a new LEGO game I just can’t wait to play it. It’s like some kind of brightly colored drug that takes me away to a special happy place.
2:30 pm - This was the weirdest press conference I’ve ever seen. Epic brought a bunch of us in to show off the new Unreal Engine, and starting off, everything was great. They displaying some Gears of War footage as rendered with the new engine, and then a cool demo of having a swarm of enemies onscreen at once and a wonderful little trick that earned the nickname of the “meat cube” from those who saw it.
Then, everything went horribly wrong…
For the next 40 minutes, Epic showed off some kind of weird social networking game featuring an eerily cute Asian girl in many different outfits and poses. Once they had dressed her as they wanted, they started up a dancing game featuring the new avatar. It was all kind of creepy, and everyone in the room wondered if we were supposed to feel dirty watching it. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to write…
Oh, and I’m convinced they were pumping cigarette smoke into the room, apparently the plan was to confuse and disorient the journalists, and then kill us with cancer.
3:30 pm - Heading to LucasArts, oh boy…
7:00 pm - LucasArts session is over and man am I ever pumped to play Force Unleashed and LEGO Indiana Jones. Fracture looks pretty good too, but the other two games stole the show. The Force powers in FU alone are so impressive I don’t even know why you’d ever want to use the lightsaber.
In another cool note, I met Game Informer’s own Nick and Bryan on the bus trip back from LucasArts. Nick paid me quite a high compliment, calling me one of the few articulate members of the GI Message Boards. 
8:00 pm - I just left “Street Fighter IV Happy Hour” and it was a blast. Capcom held a tourney for all the journalists (I got there too late to sign up) and as everyone had more to drink the room got more boisterous and the action got more intense. I had a Jeff Gerstmann sighting while I was there. I couldn’t read his badge from where I was, but he had a media tag, so obviously he’s writing for someone now. Of course, I’m sure he could have just called the show planners and told them who he was and they would have given him whatever he wanted. At any rate, I’m glad to see he landed on his feet.
11:00 pm - Finally home after my longest day of the week. I also went to a party for Prototype but it blew so hard I’m not even going to waste time talking about it. Hopefully the game goes better than the party, bleck.
Thursday Games Recap
White Gold (Preview Coming Soon)
Precursors (Preview Coming Soon)
LEGO Batman (Preview Coming Soon)
Recoil: Retrograd (Preview Coming Soon)
Supreme Ruler 2020 (Preview Coming Soon)
Star Wars: the Force Unleashed (Preview Coming Soon)
Fracture (Preview Coming Soon)
LEGO Indiana Jones (Preview Coming Soon)
