After demonstrating the latest additions to its multi-platform Unreal Engine 3 at Game Developers Conference, Epic has released a video to showcase said features.

The additions include a content browser for artists to easily find game assets, the multi-purpose Unreal Master Control Program architecture that allows users to track various online play statistics, and a new lighting feature dubbed "Unreal Lightmass."

Utilized by Epic and various other developers for games such as Gears of War 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum, Unreal Engine 3 runs on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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Famed World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has denied that it's in talks with Microsoft regarding the inevitable Xbox 360 successor, often referred to as the Xbox 720.

Word that Blizzard and Microsoft were in Xbox 720 talks emerged last week via GamesIndustry.biz, which claimed that Blizzard executive Rob Pardo dropped the tidbit during a "Lunch with Luminaries" discussion at Game Developers Conference.

"We aren't in discussions with Microsoft regarding any future consoles," Blizzard, also responsible for the popular Diablo and StarCraft series, told GameSpot today.

According to Blizzard, Pardo merely noted that "Microsoft occasionally bounces ideas off of us, with no specific reference to any possible future consoles."

The company, which is also working on a next-gen MMO, added that "this [consultation] should come as no surprise, as our games run on Microsoft's PC operating system."

Industry legend Peter Molyneux took to the stage at the Game Developers Conference on Friday to talk on the risks and rewards of experimenting in video game design.

The man behind countless classics at Bullfrog and Lionhead Studios--including Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Syndicate and Fable 2--explained how Lionhead turned its love of dreaming and experimentation from a vulnerability to a great strength.

Black & White: a chimera born of mad science
Molyneux began by describing the development of Black & White as "utter chaos."

Many ideas from this chaos were turned into game features--"that incorporated such things as the creature--okay, that was a plus. But also..."... Read more

It's a little mindboggling to think of how big BioWare has gotten over the past few years.

On the one hand, the company is developing two major RPGs in Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. That alone would be an impressive showing.

But on top of those titles, BioWare is also tackling a new Star Wars MMO--a project so daunting, and potentially lucrative, that it almost dwarfs the more traditional efforts.

At last week's Game Developers Conference, I caught up with BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. While I could have easily spent my limited time asking about just one of the projects, I tried to cover all three with a few questions apiece--starting with the old-school RPG being demonstrated next door. ... Read more

Throwing more fuel on the fire, BioWare has teased a few more details regarding Mass Effect 2, telling Shacknews that while the game will indeed make use of saved data from the original--so hold on to those saves--the recent teaser trailer was all true as well.

"How can it fit? That's a surprise," teased BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka.

In case you haven't seen it, that teaser concludes with word that original Mass Effect protagonist Commander Shephard was "killed in action." Of course, there's always the chance that BioWare is utilizing some Kenobi-style "certain point of view" logic here.

The sci-fi action-RPG sequel is due to hit PC and Xbox 360 in early 2010. Below is the relevant bit of our conversation with BioWare heads Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk:

Ray Muzyka: Everything we've said before about keeping your save games, keeping the continuity of the trilogy, is absolutely true... Read more

Update: Laura Scholl meant to say "multiplatform," not "multiplayer," while discussing the middleware behind Dead Rising 2, a mental images rep told Joystiq.

As for Capcom, the publisher told the site that it has "not announced much about the game at this point" when asked about possible multiplayer support in the sequel.

Original: While boasting at GDC that Dead Rising 2 is capable of displaying at least 6,000 characters on-screen in multiplayer, mental images product manager Laura Scholl inadvertently confirmed that the sequel packs multiplayer support, reports IGN.

That's a first for the series, as the 2006 Xbox 360-exclusive original only... Read more

A week ago, I had no idea I was only running Destruction 1.0, or that I was in need of an upgrade. But so goes the industry: just when you think your explosions are big enough, the Joneses come along with their fancy 2.0 mushroom clouds.

It's not a stretch to say the original Battlefield: Bad Company received attention mainly for its Frostbite engine, which allowed battlefielders to blast through brick walls and level buildings piece by piece. DICE's sequel predictably improves on the technology, while increasing the scale of said explosions. The Battlefield developer seems to be following the Gears 2 school of sequel design with this one--watching a ten minute stretch of gameplay last week, the "bigger, better" mentality was clearly on display.

Bad Company 2 continues the series' fictional war between the United States and Russia, a conflict established in the first title. This time the Russians... Read more

Several minutes of Mass Effect 2 work-in-progress footage shown at GDC have already leaked onto the internet. The footage includes an early look at some of Mass Effect 2's level design, as well as one short scene of dialogue.

We'll have more on the game in the next few days, including a chat with BioWare chiefs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. For now, check out the video below.

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Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has teased that he could announce a new entry in the stealth-action series in June during the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo.

"Maybe we can do some announcement during E3," he said today during a question and answer session held at a San Francisco Apple Store, according to GameSpy.

"I can't really speak specifically right now," he added. Kojima is known to have four unannounced projects in the works, with the first releasing as soon as this year.

Kojima was there to promote the recent iPhone release of Metal Gear Solid Touch.

He briefly teased "the next MGS" during his presentation at this week's Game Developers Conference, but did not offer any concrete details beyond its existence.

Once again taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center, E3 officially runs June 2-4, with publishers and developers undoubtedly making announcements all week.

"Mommy, I'm never going to not use a condom again," concluded Fable II designer Peter Molyneux's tale on the real-world implications of responsibility and ethics in games.

The Game Developers Conference panel, moderated by Rusel deMaria, was chock full of such insights. Molyneux was joined onstage by Sims creator Will Wright, ex-Microsoft VP Ed Fries, ex-EA COO Bing Gordon, and Oddword creator Lorne Lanning.

Answering questions from deMaria and the audience, the luminaries offered numerous comments, including a comparison to Twinkies--"if the wrapper is attractive enough, we could just slip pure garbage in there," said Lanning--Wright's suggestion that "10% of development should be on the first-person shooter, and 90% should be on the rest of your life in prison," and Molyneux wondering about "the worst thing... Read more

Publisher EA showed off the Double Helix's toy, cartoon and film-inspired action game G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra at the this year's Game Developers Conference, and I sat down for a demonstration to see what Helix has done with the real American hero.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a third-person shooter in development for just about every major gaming platform. The game takes place just after the events in the upcoming movie, so you'll actually play all new scenarios rather than simply running through a scene-by-scene remake of the movie. Story details weren't revealed, but... Read more

"Unfortunately the game is really like an evil Gilligan's Island. They never escape."

Valve designer Michael Booth is taking a crowd of followers through the evolution of Left 4 Dead, step by step. For instance, it began as a series of boxes.

"This game started out as a world full of grey boxes, and it got pretty fun as a world full of grey boxes," said Booth of the all-important playtesting phase. "If you can make a world full of grey boxes fun, then you've got something good."

But how did Left 4 Dead become the 2.5 million-plus seller that it is... Read more

In an apparently overlooked tidbit from a GDC panel earlier this week, Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo revealed that the team at Bethesda is hard at work on more downloadable content for the post-apocalyptic action-RPG.

"I can say we're working on lots of DLC," he said. "Really fun stuff. Future Fallout, lots of stuff brewing up here...what famous landmarks can we destroy next?"

Bethesda has currently released two pieces of Fallout 3 DLC on Xbox 360 and PC. Each download is priced at $10 and each adds new quests, items and weapons. A third, "Broken Steel," arrives next month and picks up where the main game ended.

Thus far, the DLC has not made its way to the PS3 edition of the acclaimed game due to Microsoft's long-known PC and Xbox 360 exclusivity on "substantial" Fallout 3 DLC.

What do a showering woman and an underwear-clad demonstration of improper cooking technique have to do with off-road racing action? You'll have to ask Codemasters, because I've watched this five times and still have no idea.

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Maybe we'll find out when DiRT 2 hits PC, PS3, 360, Wii, DS and PSP in September?

It wasn't all mistakes and regrets for former World of Warcraft director Jeffery Kaplan during today's "The Cruise Director of Azeroth" panel at GDC.

The jam-packed presentation also saw the release of many World of Warcraft statistics, including the average number of quests completed daily, and the circumstances that led to the extremely popular MMO sporting, at last count, some 7650 different quests.

• Between 6/30/2007 and 3/5/2009, some 8,570,222,436 quests were completed in the World of Warcraft.
• Daily average of quests completed: 16,641,209

Kaplan, now working on Blizzard's next MMO, talked about designing the original release of World of Warcraft, saying that the first total quest target was 600. This number was a result of needing to compete with EverQuest's estimated 1200 quests... Read more

With a scant 40 minutes to address the gathered masses, former World of Warcraft director Jeffery Kaplan had a lot to cover in his "The Cruise Director of Azeroth" lecture.

The presentation saw an extremely candid Kaplan, now working on Blizzard's next-gen MMO, recognize and address the nine major problems with World of Warcraft.

But before getting into the nitty-gritty details, Kaplan made one thing abundantly clear: the WoW team is aware of the problems, and is actively working to fix them.

1. "The Christmas Tree Effect"

What this means, and this is kind of a weird one, but you show up to a quest hub, and your minimap is lit up like a Christmas tree... Read more

During a presentation at this year's Game Developers Conference, former World of Warcraft director Jeffrey Kaplan took a moment to address the lengthy exposition that plagues numerous games, including those developed by Blizzard.

"Basically, and I'm speaking to the Blizzard guys in the back: we need to stop writing a fucking book in our game, because nobody wants to read it," he explained.

"We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game," Kaplan, who left WoW to work on Blizzard's next MMO, explained. "We need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are."

However, Kaplan did offer consolation to his fellow developers. "If it makes us feel better, Shakespeare couldn't 3D model his way out of a paper bag," he noted.

Former World of Warcraft lead designer and current next-gen Blizzard MMO director Jeffrey Kaplan today detailed a behind-the-scenes system of drop percentages secretly added in the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

The system, called "progressive percentages," was cribbed directly from Blizzard's own Warcraft 3, which used it for critical hit mechanics. It relates to how and when quest items drop from creatures--an important issue to all WoW players.

Originally, Blizzard settled on a standard WoW quest item drop rate of around 35%, with no system in place that would tweak the percentage as players killed more enemies.

"We found that this had a lot of problems where players would run into streaks, and they only remembered the shitty streaks," said Kaplan. "So what we decided... Read more

Following up on the dry confirmation that more content is coming, Lionhead head Peter Molyneux has dropped a few new details as to what's in store for Fable II (X360).

The next downloadable add-on, "See the Future," should hit in the coming weeks, he told Kotaku. "It's a little bit more story driven [than the first DLC]," Molyneux explained. "It answers some of the questions, if you're a real fan of Fable...it starts to tease and hint at what it starting to happen in the world of Albion and what is happening... Read more

Following a tally of thousands of votes from various game developers and professionals, Bethesda's post-apocalyptic action-RPG Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, 360) was named Game of the Year at last night's Game Developers Choice Awards.

Bethesda's effort also came away with Best Writing award. Media Molecule's cutesy PlayStation 3 platformer was also heavily praised, coming away with four different awards for its Game Design, Technology, Innovation, and a Best Debut nod.

Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy netted a Pioneer Award for their work on advancing music games via Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and Tommy Tallarico received an Amabassador Award "for helping to advance the game audio community."

In all, 13 awards were given away. The complete list of winners follows... Read more