Activision is stating that, in the absence of any new Grand Theft Auto content, the genre will be left “wide open” in 2010 for a new True Crime game to sweep in and dominate. As Activision Publishing executive Mike Griffith told investors this week, “This is a big open world action game that looks to be especially strong – and should benefit as this year’s competitive window in the genre is wide open.” Of course, all of this talk hinges on the presumption that True Crime rivals the GTA franchise in both quality and popularity. Moreover, Activision may be taking an unwarranted view of this year’s competitive window, as other much-hyped open-worlders such as Red Dead Redemption are also slated for release in the coming months. Needless to say, one should approach Activision’s bold claims with a healthy dose of skepticism.

The avatar-based virtual world in Sonyland that is PlayStation Home has reached ten million users according to Sony. Besides being yet another social community, the behemoth explained that Home, which is still a top priority, is an opportunity for developers to “showcase their products and creativity to their core audience,” which is not a bad idea to say the least.

In commemoration of this achievement, or rather, trophy obtained… two new areas are available, those being based on Naughty Dog’s Game of the Year award-winning Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Insomniac’s beautiful platformer Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time. Business manager Dan Hill of SCEE said that PlayStation Home is quickly becoming the preferred meeting place between its users and developers and that “every new game space enhances the overall experience for consumers, offering more variety, more choice and more enjoyment from a PlayStation Home session.”

Today, Capcom announced that they will be releasing a demo for Lost Planet 2 on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Demo, which will be released for Gold Live members on August 19 and for Silver level members on August 26, will feature a battle against a gigantic “G-Type Salamander Akrid boss.” You will be able to bring along up to 3 friends to take on the enormous monster, utilizing strategies such as cutting off it’s legs or being swallowed alive and fighting your way out. Many new features have been added to Lost Planet 2, including Vital Suit robots that up to three players can ride at once, new support weapons which allow teammates to boost attack and defense abilities, the ability to share thermal energy with injured teamates, and a new Dash feature which allows players to sprint for short distances.

Capcom seems to be extremely proud of their new game, which runs on the MT Framework engine (an updated version of Resident Evil 5’s engine). Not only do they boast that you can bring along your friends to complete missions, and that the environments are wonderfully varied, but also they tell of an interesting feature that changes the story dynamically based on the player’s decision (a la Mass Effect). Though the full game’s release is quite a ways away, it is already shaping up to be a worthy succesor to the hit Xbox 360 original.

The new developer diary above gives us some sound examples of how to keep the tension high.
Covering half the screen with a puzzle and forcing players to alternate solving the puzzle and fending off the obscured horde of Necromorphs works well. More fun is had with alt-fire, using weapons to solve problems like gaping holes pouring out bad guys. Switch your rivet gun to alt-fire by twisting your wrist and then nail the door shut.

When a brand new IP changes gameplay types very quickly between sequels there is a pretty valid fear of the new game not carrying on the same type of fun or appeal. As far as we can tell that’s not a concern with Extraction. See for yourself when Dead Space Extraction shambles limbless onto the Wii September 29th.

The following passage appears in Apogee’s response to a suit filed against it last month by publisher Take-Two Interactive:

On October 22, 2007, Apogee, Take-Two, and 2K Games entered into an agreement in which Apogee granted 2K Games the exclusive right to develop and publish a new videogame based upon Apogee’s Duke Nukem franchise… The new game was given the working title of “Duke Begins” and is not the same game as the DNF game…

The original development schedule for the Duke Begins game provided that the game was to be completed and commercially released by mid-2010…

Take Two and/or its subsidiary 2K Games halted or otherwise canceled all development work by the third-party game developer on the Duke Begins game in April 2009… without Apogee’s approval or consent…

When Apogee confronted Take-Two and 2K Games about the… cancellation of the Duke Begins development work… Take-Two and 2K Games simply denied it… Take-Two and 2K Games are taking such actions with a goal of pressuring Apogee to sell the Duke Nukem franchise rights to Take-Two for less than their true value.

Courtesy of GamePolitics.com, here is the full court document.

Now that we’ve been waiting forever for Duke Nukem Forever (no pun intended), we have yet again more Duke Nukem to wait for. Only time, and the court apparently, will be able to give us a final answer on whether or not our hero will return to “kick ass and chew bubble gum.”

Rare is one of the industry’s more beloved studios. Or rather, it was once upon a time. Nowadays Rare is little more than a footnote in Microsoft’s gaming division. A very, very expensive footnote. Microsoft expected the studio to churn out multi-million selling hits that they peppered Nintendo with, but games like Viva Pinata and Perfect Dark Zero are a far cry from what Microsoft expected sales-wise. And so, Rare quietly retreated from stage center and have since been “that” studio people know about but don’t expect much out of. This has a lot to do with the studio itself being so secretive, using the Nintendo strategy of keeping its games close to heart until they’re absolutely sure nothing will go wrong. That’s all well and good but its not exactly conducive to the creation of hype and general excitement.

Peter “Euro-Head-Honcho” Molyneux wants to change all of that. In an interview with GI, Molyneux outlined some goals he had for Microsoft’s European projects and regarding Rare, Molyneux said, “one of the things I really want to do is help Rare have more of an identity. And make sure the people at Rare are seen more within the industry…I just want to give them the confidence to tell the world what they’re doing. I hope you’re going to see more from Rare and I want to help them get well known. But you’ll definitely still recognise a Rare game.”

Super. Now let’s see Rare actually show me a new game and remind me of my childhood reverence.

You would think that the opening of the show they would kinda take it easy and hold off on showing their hand, but you would be wrong. Right out of the gate Microsoft comes out swinging with Rock Band: Beatles. Showing of some in game stuff, talking about songs and such. They have Giles Martin, the son of Beatles producer George Martin, on stage to talk about all the remastered tracks for the game. Then, why the hell not… Bring out Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, letting us know that Xbox will get the exclusive track “All You Need Is Love” and the proceeds from the sale will go directly to Doctors without Boarders. Oh and while we’re at it here is Paul and Ringo and have them talk about the game. So they do. Naturally they like it, like they would say anything else. “The game is good. We look great!” Very subtle guys.

Next up after a little more fluff from Xbox suits, Tony Hawk. Tony is here to try and convenience you not only that you should buy his new game, BUT also pay (an as of yet unnamed price) for his faux skateboard controller. Tony Hawk Ride is the newest addition to the Tony Hawk branded games. I will admit that I have owned pretty much all of the TH games recently, but most were bought at a huge discount and I never really did much but fuck around in them. The “board controller” for Ride does look sweet, however I have an issue with a couple things. One being its durability. This thing better be sturdy as hell to absorb all the jumps, falls, and sheer amount of weight applied to it over the course of the game. Second, if this is going to be more “sim” than the rest of the games, how scaled huge is the learning curve going to be. If you suck as a real skater because of some balance issue or lack of dexterity, where will that leave you as a player in this game?  I guess this will remain to be seen.

Never backing down, Microsoft’s next reveal is a live demo of Modern Warfare 2. We are treated to an in-game story sequence of climbing a icy mountain with none other than Soap Mctavish. Once you reach the your destination the action starts. It’s almost white out conditions so you are forced to use some sort of radar enabled silenced weapon to take out your foes before they even see you (or you see them). Needless to say it is action packed, loud, detailed and pretty awesome looking. November 10th can’t get here fast enough.

Steadily building on the momentum set by MW2, who should come out next but Yoshinori Kitase and MotomuToriyama from Square Enix, to talk about Final Fantasy XIII. Then they drop the live demo of FFXIII running apparently on an actual 360. It is a translated version of the video shown before, only it’s being played live. They tell of the innovations that FF has made over the years and what you can expect from the latest installment. The demo is beautiful complete with a summon of Odin. It looks totally amazing and I for one cannot wait for this to come out. Surprisingly enough they announce that FFXIII will targeted for release in Spring of 2010. Here’s hoping.

Next up on the stage is Donald Mustard from Chair Entertainment and Cliff Bleszinski from Epic. They announce that they have been working on a new title called “Shadow Complex” for XBLA. Dropping names like Castlevania, and SuperMetroid and being a game that is not only about explosions and action but also about exploration. I looks very slick and could be very cool. Slated to come out over XBLA summer sales push we may find out very soon how much fun this game really is.

In rapid fire several game trailers and quick demos are given. I will run through them quickly as they will probably be covered later anyway. First was a game that is near and dear to me that is getting a sequel, Crackdown 2! The city is sick and you are the cure, or something like that. Who cares the first was fun as hell and the second promises to be just as good. After that was something that probably NO ONE expected. A man speaks about talking to his grandma about praying for the world… Zombies are shown… then the satisfing engine rev of a chainsaw, and the hilarity of a frying pan kill. What could bring all these together? Only Left 4 Dead 2!! That’s right the sequel to probably one of the funnestmulti player games on the 360 in years, and its coming out THIS November. More of everything is promised in the second installment. Gabe says this one will last longer as a “platform” with more updates and a better version of the “AI Director”. Sold! Next is the reveal of the recently totally revamped Splinter Cell: Conviction. I have never been a big fan of the games they always seemed to tedious to me (strange considering my love affair with MGS games). However this one has sold me and I will be looking forward to its release. Finally Dan Greenawalt comes out from Turn 10 Studios introduces us to Forza 3. Described as ”The definitive racing game of this generation.” Not being a big fan of racing games, this one is low on my interest meter but never the less it looks great.

Before the REALLY big guns come out, they let us see some of the new features of the 360 coming soon. Like Felicia Day talking about the FaceBook and Twitter integration into the 360 menu. Do pretty much anything you can do on your PC with them now on your 360. The big feature with this I could get behind is the ingame screen captures, however it only works with certain games at the moment. Netflix also announces that they will have streaming video in 1080p as well as allowing you to add movies to your instant queue through the xbox. Finally “Last.FM” will also be made a part of the 360 menu system. Giving you the ability to listen to their music library and make recommendations to friends and such.

Next came some of the bigger games of the show but I will come back to them. Real quick (because I will cover more on this later) Don Mattrick talks about making games work with out using controller AT ALL. Sizzle reel is shown of people doing just that. Then Kudo Tsunoda comes out and talks more about the latest innovation in camera tracking and gameplay dubbed “Project Natal.” Aside from the slight snafu with Kudo’s on screen avatar from 360, it tracks him quite nicely. A demo is shown exactly how it can track movements and distance and all sorts of things. Then Peter Molyneux steps on stage and begins to tell us about his new project called “Milo.” Which for all intents and purposes is a self aware AI locked in your 360 that you interact with through Natal. A demo is shown where a girl interact with Milo, and he knows who she is, how she feels and her mood based on her voice. She “walks with Milo, plays in the water with him, and even draws a picture for him which after “scanning” it in front of the camera he then interacts with in his virtual world. It really is remarkable, and truly amazing if and that’s a BIG IF, they can deliver on something like this. The up side is that it is said to work with all existing 360’s on the market right now. The possible downside is exactly how much of the HDD Milo will take up should he try to become a “Real Boy.”

Finally on the the BIG GUNS of the Microsoft press release. First of which was a live demo of the much anticipated ever delayed “Alan Wake.” My first reaction to this game brought back horrible memories of the recent Alone in the Dark debacle. It’s a dark setting, creepy things are happening all around the main character, Alan himself, and he has to apparently “use the light” to do battle with foes. However this game looks (even in early stages) more polished thanAitD ever did. After literally years of hype and wait it is still nice to see it working on screen, and if it delivers the full experience that the demo leads us on, I can see myself getting it.

Next on the stage was Joe Staten from Bungie, to do a live demo for Halo: ODST. (Here is were I start a flame war.) I really don’t care much for the recent Halo games, yeah I just typed that. Don’t get me wrong I was totally into the first one. It really did start the story driven FPS. However since then it really hasn’t innovated that much. Sure the multi-player experience is great, but the story and the mechanics that go along with it haven’t changed much since the first installment. So needless to say the demo kind of underwhelmed me. Great now I get to use two silenced weapons, and the “single pistol” is back. If that is all you are coming with, count me out. Then the big reveal of Halo: Reach. The game that took place before the first Halo. Absolutely NOTHING is shown of this one. Just a 2 min clip of a burning planet and some talk over the radio… no chills, no nothing from me.

Then probably the absolute biggest announcement to come in the keynote. Dan Mattrick is on stage and says something to the effect of the “console being complete.” When from off stage a shadowy figure approaches and a giant exclamation mark pops up on screen. Signaling only one thing. Hideo Kojima is in the house. Also meaning only one thing. Metal Gear Solid is coming to the Xbox 360. That is great news to kids that have wanted to play as Snake on their console of choice the 360, but wait what’s this? Metal Gear Solid: Rising won’t star Snake, it stars none other thanRaiden. Awww sorry kiddies. The tag line for the game is “Lightning Bolt Action” which to me means that it will be focused more on just that, “action” and not the sneak sneak of the previous installments. All in all it is still good news for 360 owners that they can play a MGS title again. Still given the speed of the 360 and the fact that I already own one, I will be playing the new game on my PS3 anyway. Oooh yeah that’s right, it’s not exclusive the the 360. Sorry.

So that is the show in a rather large nut shell. Microsoft definitely brought out the big boys and swung for the fences. It took shots at both the Wii (motion control) and at the PS3 (stealing part of MGS). In my opinion it had the better showing of the three. They set the standard that the other two would have to live up to. Again, 2010 and beyond looks to be a great albeit expensive future for gamers everywhere.