God of War III looks amazing. I can’t stress that enough, and I’m still impressed even after having completed the game for review. But according to the game’s director, Sig Asmussen, there’s plenty of room for improvements, which we’ll see in Sony Santa Monica’s next title. 

“Well, I think our studio will use this engine again,” he told me today, “and it’ll get better. And I think we’re probably about 50- or 60-percent at it right now. I think there’s a lot more we can do with it.”

What improvements could be made? For one, Asmussen says the game’s animation system could be tweaked. In fact, he says they already have the tech. 

“I think individually our animations are incredible,” he said, “and our animators are incredibly talented. But I think we could make our system technically better, in the way we blend animations. And I’m pretty sure that we already have the code to do that, and we just didn’t implement it in God of War III because it came in real late.”

He also points to other obvious engine improvements, including lighting, seamlessly transitioning from cut-scenes to gameplay, and more. 

While this might seem like a “captain obvious” — of course it’s working to improve its engine — looking at God of War III, it’s exciting to imagine what could come next. My head, it has exploded.  

As expected, the Mass Effect 2 universe will continue to expand beyond free downloadable missions. Earlier this afternoon I watched game project director Casey Hudson plow through the game’s first chunk of paid DLC, “Kasumi’s Stolen Memory,” that looks to incorporate a new character, a new SMG, and even a unique way to play this April 6th.

The content, which can be launched at any point during the narrative, can be divided into two themed swathes. The first half is exploration-based. The space Rogue Kasumi is seeking an item of value that is tucked deep in a bent rare-item collector’s vault. To get access, Shepard must travel to the collector’s house party, mingle, and discover where exactly that vault actually is. The second half is an escalating series of battles against mechs and soldiers after discovering the object.

Kasumi is, of course, a recruit for the suicide mission (or even after). And the best part is that she hits with fresh moves — the hippest being “Shadowcloak,” the space version of a “backstab.” But  more compelling than the addition of a thief and new moves is the fresh art. The rare item collector has a host of historical items in his house and vault, each lovingly crafted by BioWare’s artists. But The mansion, even the formal wear are all newly-created assets as well.

During the demo Hudson said the DLC was “some of the best stuff we’ve done.” I agree. It’s a fresh look at something within the Mass Effect universe and a different spin on what can be done. I couldn’t get a sense of the pacing during the demo, but I could at least tell the dialogue and action won’t leave you feeling blue. Look for it in April.

Zeno Clash developer ACE Team knows us all too well. Apparently, we let the latest trailer for Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition slip into inbox obscurity, which is unfortunate. We were informed that the video features hot pig-on-foot action, which is not unfortunate. Hence this write-up of said trailer.

Jump straight to the one-minute mark if you’re only in this thing for the animal abuse. Otherwise, I urge you to watch the full thing; it’s a good trailer, especially for those of you who are relatively unfamiliar with what Zeno Clash is all about.

On-rails light gun action is what you’re getting with this PlayStation Move game called The Shoot. It’s called The Shoot because you’ll find yourself traveling through mock movie sets. Think of an updated Virtua Cop that takes you through generic film lots and you’ll be on the right track. We saw a science fiction-based “set,” and we were told that others are coming. In the end we’ll see a “Wild West” set and a haunted house/horror one among others.

I played this game last night over drinks. It’s a fine game to play when your drunk, actually. It uses one Move controller. You point it at the screen to aim, and the underside T trigger button fires. The game is best known for the crazy motions you’ll have to perform to do special moves. Jabbing down at the ground throws a shockwave. Jabbing the controller up does a rampage-ish attack. Leaning your entire body from side to side dodges projectiles. The most entertaining move requires you to twirl your entire body around in a circle to trigger a sort of slow-motion mode that makes it easier to shoot enemies. I was in the company of friends, piers, and hot women, so I was really hesitant to do the spin. It turns out that I’m not alone.

Senior producer James Hawkins admits that some that play are hesitant to do the motions, though he also feels its likely due to the setting.  He thinks that letting loose would help people appreciate the game more: “With all of the moves, you’re getting a bit more than the standard rail shooter, where you would shoot five times, reload, shoot five times.”

The game is still early. I played the entire two stage demo, but Hawkins told me that I’ve only seen about 1/5 of one stage, and that there are 5 stages in all. I was told about secret stages and more special moves, but those will be revealed at a later time.

The Shoot will be released right around the Move’s launch.

With the reveal of PlayStation Move, the question on everyone’s minds is whether or not Heavy Rain will be updated to take advantage of the motion controller.

While Quantic Dream is quiet on the topic, we do know that the developer had originally designed Heavy Rain with a motion controller in mind. But taking it a step further, David Cage revealed to me that they went as far to design a working motion controller, specifically for the title. 

Designed for two hands, the controls were to allow for full interaction with the on-screen environment. While he didn’t go into any great detail, he calls it “very different” than Sony’s upcoming motion controller. Cage talks about this, he taps the back of both hands to visually describe the concept. I’m reminded somewhat of ARI, the fictional virtual reality device used by Heavy Rain’s Norman Jayden. 

The controller was eventually shelved, as Quantic Dream came to the conclusion that designing a device to work with one game “wouldn’t make sense.” As for whether or not he feels motion controls are the next step for what they’re trying to accomplish, he’s not entirely convinced, but is interested to see how it could work.

“I wouldn’t say it’s the next step,” he tells me. “It’s… something we will look at with some interest. We want to see if it’s possible to create something that’s not family entertainment or casual games, to see if it’s possible to use it in the context of a more serious experience.”

Lawsuits aside, I’m a huge fan of the Bit.Trip series. I may wish nothing but destruction on Gaijin Games, but hell if they don’t make some fantastic stuff.

Bit.Trip Runner, Gaijin’s newest game, was playable on the GDC expo floor. As the first Bit.Trip platformer and the first game in the series to not consist entirely of abstract visuals, I was very curious as to what I’d see once I put my hands on the controller.

These are my impressions.

Hrm.

Runner controls as well as you’d expect: the platforming is incredibly precise, and it’s surprisingly easy to make a distinction between the stuff you need to interact with and the considerable visual noise that comprises the background. Each jump and dodge results in a sort of 8-bit beep, and the obstacles are thrown at you in such a way that by successfully navigating the level, you also sort-of create a song. From a musical perspective, the game is more along the lines of the uberlinear Bit.Trip Beat than the more improvisational Bit.Trip Core, but it still sounds distinctly like a Bit.Trip game. When you’re doing well, you get into that same sort of aesthetic nirvana where everything — the visuals, the music, and your own control — feel as if they’re in a kooky, transcendental harmony.

Also, if you do anything wrong, at any point, you have to repeat the entire level. No checkpoints.

The game consists of 36 levels in total along with a few unlockable special stages. I couldn’t finish the level I attempted, so I can’t say how long they are, but I do know that about 60% of my time with Runner consisted of me replaying the first fifteen seconds of the level over and over and over again.

On the one hand, this makes a sort of sense: Runner is the series’ most visually referential work since Beat, and it’s understandable that the sort of trial-and-error gameplay that categorized so many of Runner’s influences should make an appearance here. Even beyond the aesthetic reward of doing well, the game gets incredibly tense once you start dodging obstacles with some level of effectiveness: given that one mistake will send you back to the start, I felt a constant tension that I’d never really gotten from the previous games in the series.

On the other hand, gone is that wonderful health system from previous Bit.Trip games, where a half-dozen small mistakes eventually turned into larger ones, eventually reducing all the visual sexiness from the screen until all the music and graphics were gone save for a few white dots and some minimal beeping noises. Gone is the sensation of finding yourself just one or two missed beats away from plunging into failure, desperate to do just a little bit better, to get that little bit of health back so you can go back to screwing up every once in a while. That rhythmic, elegant give-and-take that allowed the player to make mistakes while steadily learning the different beat configurations and patterns has been replaced with intense fear and a demand for pinpoint precision.

Not to say that one type of design is demonstrably better than another, or anything: the GDC expo floor is a stressful place to try any game, and it’s tremendously hard to get a feel for how the game will truly play when you’ve only got a few minutes with it. Once I start playing the full version at home, perhaps the constant retries will become an integral and compelling part of the experience. Maybe the frequent death with give the game its own unique, funky rhythm on par with the more forgiving experience of playing something like Core.

Either way: Bit.Trip Runner is unlike anything we’ve yet seen from Gaijin Games, and that excites me more than anything.