Mark Iddon - A Multiplatform Monkey

So GDC 2008 has come to an end in San Francisco (which once again I didn’t attend?!). Not strictly multiplatform news, but hey, it’s good to know what’s up and coming on the gaming front anyway! Having recently integrated a PS3 into my world (alongside the Xbox, DS, PSP and Macbook!!) I’m feeling all kinds of love for using it as a media centre where I’m watching movies, Youtube (it gives me web access dontcha know) and killin’ loud mouthed American kids in games of Warhawk!

With IP TV becoming a powerful force on the horizon, Microsoft getting into bed with British Telecom (in the UK) to deliver IPTV via it’s Xbox 360 and PS3 deploying its Play TV set up; gaming and the hardware used to play these games is going to become an important part of the multiplatform landscape, more important than in the past.

Anyway, here are a couple of great sites with some fantastic coverage of this years GDC.

Eurogamer, as always, has great editorial coverage of GDC with links to photo and video content.

Gametrailers.com also has extensive video coverage of the event including game demos and interviews, worth a look about if you are wanting to get a quick fix of up and coming games.

Things that have impressed me have been some of the technology demos of up and coming gaming engines (see Far Cry 2 below), I’m also excited by Microsofts XNA platform, which without getting too geeky is a new way for users to create games that then become available to play on the Xbox 360 via download. This is great news and could mean there is an easy and cost effective way for people and small development teams to get their games onto a major gaming platform.

There is all sorts of other great stuff, some of which I’ll link to below.

Far Cry 2 has a mind blowing demo of how the game will handle weather effects and even details such as vegetation growth?? Worth a look anyway.

XNA. This is a seemingly boring little interview, but the repercussions from this are going to be great for gaming. Also worth checking out some early games created for this new platform here.

Also you can’t talk about GDC 2008 without mentioning Gears Of War 2. Gears Of War was a massive game released for the Xbox 360 last year, there are rumblings that a movie is in works for this too and the second game in the series is looking to ramp up the narrative aspects of this game beyond guns, killin’, big muscles, more guns and testosterone… Yeah, good luck with that one!