It's becoming a bit of a GDC tradition for me. Last year I met with Bioware's duelling doctors to talk about science fiction (they were stumping for the PC version of Mass Effect, but were happy to sidetrack). This year Evan Narcisse was kind enough to let me tag along with him and meet with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk again. The results of the conversation can be read in the feature, "So What's Your Story?" 

But one point I wanted to isolate from the interview. There was a moment where I asked about out a major difference between Mass Effect and the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins. In Bioware's last game players had the power to shape conversations in real-time, controlling Commander Shepherd's voice over with a nifty conversation wheel. Dragon Age, on the other hand, uses the old school multiple choice method for conversations. Characters talk to you, with actors reading their lines. Then you pick from a handful of responses, which are never read aloud. In Dragon Age you're once again the silent protagonist. For some time I considered this a step back. That is, until I brought the issue up with Zeschuk and Muzyka. They said the choice was deliberate.

Here's the conversation:

Muzyka: In Mass Effect, you’re playing the role of Commander Shepard and that’s a defined role. There’s various ways you could play Commander Shepard. You could alter the appearance, you could have male or female. But, it’s still a character who is Commander Shepard at the end of the day. In Dragon Age, there’s six origin stories and right there, you have six very different entry points into the fiction.  From there, we want the voice to be your voice as a player. That’s a philosophical difference, I guess, in how we approach the narrative flow and the way that we’re delivering story. That doesn’t mean we favor one over the other. We think they’re valid ways to convey story and we’ve adapted the story we tell in Dragon Age to really embrace that, to allow for the diversity of options. We’re making it so it’s a text response for you but having much richer responses back from the non-player characters you’re talking to, so that it reflects the weight of what you said. It also factors into the replayability, too.

Zeschuk: You get better precision over what you say. The number of dialogue selections behind the scenes in Dragon Age are two or three times more what you actually see on the screen…

Muzyka: More probably.

Zeschuk: Yeah, lots more. Depending on who you are–your origin, male or female, your circumstances–you’ll see a certain set of [dialogue selections] and others will be excluded. So, it’s actually more contextual and they’re more precise. You wind feeling that you have better control over what you want to say and it maintains a consistency. As you play, it actually moves along faster. You feel just as much that you’re in a conversation, but it’s a different type of conversation.

Mastrapa: It’s the difference between first-person and third-person.

Zeschuk: Yeah! That’s actually the essence of the difference.

Muzyka: Because with Commander Shepard, you aren’t … well, you are Commander Shepard but you’re third-person Commander Shepard. You still are him, but it’s just a different tone. In Dragon Age, YOU are the Grey Warden, whatever your name you’ve chosen and the story is told through your eyes. We found in some very early trials that to hear yourself speak [the dialogue] didn’t really work for a narrative flow. So, with the voiceover response back from the non-player characters and the range of choices you get, if anything, it’s much bigger. It’s a different kind of game with a different story on it.

What we're talking about is perspective in the literary sense. Not the perspective of the camera, but the perspective of the story telling. In literature the first person narrative is told by one person (usually the main character), the third person story is told by an omnicient narrator. I'm still wrapping my head around the idea that a video game can be presented in a third-person perpective (with an over-the-shoulder camera) but still take a first-person approach to storytelling (helping you inhabit the role of the protagonist by keeping them silent and allowing you to read those lines in your head. Does this way of looking at storytelling make The Twilight Princess and Half Life 2 more similar when it comes to story, even though the way that those games play are so divergent? 

I only took a couple meetings at GDC this year, but one appointment I managed to keep was a brief sit down to take another look at CrimeCraft -- a massively multiplayer shooter being developed by Vogster. The last time I met with Casey Dickinson and Matt McEreney from team Vogster they stopped by my house here in Minneapolis to give me a first look at the game. By a great and convenient coincidence they were showing the game on the same laptop that I use for gaming a hefty Dell XPS M1710. I noted then as I do now that while top of the line back in 2006, the laptop isn't exactly what you'd consider a powerhouse any more. The game looked good in December and it looked even better last month at GDC on the same PC.

A little refresher if you didn't read The Five: CrimeCraft is clan-centric, 3rd person shooter. Players pick up quests, jump into fights to earn XP, satisfy mission objectives and collect loot. The maps are built for fast multiplayer. These aren't dungeon crawls, but deathmatches or objective based fights against other players or AI bots. The game will work on the subscription model, with additional fees by way of microtransactions for outfits, XP bonuses etc. I got some hands-on time with the game -- played capture the node online. The setting was a broken down factory converted into a grow house for drug dealers. I mentioned that one area looked alot like that coke factory from Robocop, but now that I think about it the better reference point is the secret weed farm in Pineapple Express.

Play was fast and fun. I spent very little time getting a hang of the third person controls. Popping around corners to shotgun enemies, chucking molatovs at my opponents as they camp/guard their node. My team ran a little defense too, clearing one warehouse of shooters then hunkering down (in a crouch) amid the narcotics.

Outside of combat I spent a little time wandering around the game's shared space -- a semi-futuristic city street. This will be the main social area, where players pick up quests, do their banking and shoot the shit while waiting for a match. The clan hideouts, the more private getaways, weren't yet ready for prime time.

Much work has gone into the look of the game. The character I was playing, a mix between Tank Girl and a trashy Eastern European model, had some new character animations (one emulated cigarette smoking, another a flip of the bird) and a more polished look about her. The game's environments, nearly always in the dystopian/urban/industrial vein, were handsome.

New assets for the game are slowly trickling in. We've added some screenhots and videos. And the game will be hitting beta pretty soon. You can sign up here.

Last week me and a dozen or so other games journalists attending GDC were invited to visit nearby Double Fine studios to have a look at Brütal Legend. You'll find my story, "Stranger in a Strange Land: The Intricate World of Brütal Legend" in the main feed for Crispy Gamer features. But there's some stuff that didn't make the story that I want to share with you. A special tidbit that (I hope) nobody else zeroed in on. Maybe I'm revealing a little too much about myself, but I've been thinking about Eddie Riggs' t-shirt lately. See, I've recently become enamored with the sub-genre of heavy metal called black metal. One of the defining traits of black metal bands is the way they craft their logos -- the text that makes up the band name is usually obscure in the extreme, hidden in gnarled flourish. It's like the bands don't want you to be able to learn and perhaps utter their hidden names. When the debut trailer for Brütal Legend hit the web last December I immediately noticed that Eddie Riggs was wearing a shirt emblazoned with the same kind of logo. I knew in my black metal heart that Tim Schafer wouldn't just slap a logo onto a t-shirt. There had to be something behind it -- a secret.

At Double Fine last week, standing in front of a wall plastered with the game's concept art, I posed the question. "What's the deal with the black metal logo on Eddie's shirt? Does it say something?" My suspicions were correct. But, sadly, my question will have to go unanswered. Turns out the shirt does say something. Something significant. I'll let Tim Schafer explain in his own words, "I can’t tell you what Eddie’s shirt says! It’s an important plot point. That would be a metal spoiler."

So unless you posess the arcane ability to parse black metal helvetica, we're going to have to wait to learn just what the heck Eddie Riggs' t-shirt has to do with the fire beast Ormagöden, the demon Doviculus and the price of tea in China. Considering the lengths Schafer has gone to embed his game with metal lore, I'm hoping the revelation will be worth the wait. Or at least worth a chuckle.

The last night of GDC was a time to take off or blow out. While many were skipping town, licking their wounds on flights to their respective homes the Destructoid crew decended upon Annie's Social Club for a night of hardcore karaoke. I'm bummed I missed that party because cheif 'toid Nick Chester has a damn fine set of pipes. Instead I slipped over to the Haight to check out a gallery opening at Giant Robot. In the tiny, treasure-packed shop four indie game designers unveiled their collaborations with contemporary artists. The ARTXGAME collective teamed Hellen Jo with Spelunky's Derek Yu -- the result was a trippy two-player beat 'em up made of paper cut-outs.

Up to four could play Anna Anthropy's retro-styled diversion. Watercolored backgrounds by Saellee Oh provided an undersea venue for four Atari 2600 era squids to swim, bounce and gobble fish. No score was kept, but a scrolling message across the bottom of he screen cleverly fed hints. Jonaton "Cactus" Soderstrom crafted the most challenging offering. A head-to-head, 2-player battler that pit armed cats against each other. The designer chopped and blended the art of Deth P. Sun then poured it into a petri dish. The player controlled cats swam about this plane gobbling birds and bunnies, while firing dash-like projectiles at their feline opponants. The game took a moment to absorb and was best played after digesting Cactus' improvised instruction manual.

Crayon Physics Deluxe creator Petri Purho tackled multi-player as well. The designs of Souther Salazar , like the picture-book interpretation of a backyard, helped Purho re-imagine Pong. Here two birds fight over a single acorn, attempting to snatch and deliver the nut to their respective squirrel. The deceptively simplistic game felt well tuned -- birds towing acorns were slowed just enough that their opponants had a chance to steal the nut and make a break for it. The game's quick back-and-forth scrambles provided the most fun of the evening. 

But the evening was about more than gameplay. It was about the intersection of mediums -- about pairing like minded artists and experiencing the unpredictable results. Giant Robot was crowded with fans, creators and art collectors eager to witness these special moments. Jonthan Blow, Phil Fish, Erik Svedang and Martin Hollis were just a few of the game makers who piled into the gallery to try their hand at the games. 

Meanwhile art afficianados circled the tiny gallery soaking in paintings, drawing and sculptures inspired by gaming. My favorite, an incredibly NSFW, one-panel gag strip by Johnny Ryan was snatched up by a price-conscious buyer before I could slap down my credit card. 

There couldn't be a bigger contrast between The Cellar, the neon lit dive bar where indie-centric 10-bit party went down Tuesday night, and the perpetual scene in the W's lobby. The swank San Francisco hotel is spitting distance from Moscone, where the GDC takes place. I joked earlier that bizdev types regain hit points when they within the joint's walls. I think it goes further than that. They gain strength, earning buffs with every business card they collect and drink they comp. Meanwhile, at the indie party the scene was a uneasy, but refreshing, mix of dance floor exuberance (totally earned) and abject nerdery. So it was totally my kind of party. 

No diss to the denizens of the W. I couldn't pick out clothes like that if you put a gun to my head. As I overheard someone at the W bar proclaim, "this is where the real GDC happens." They were right, in part. The W is like one hemisphere of the GDC's brain. It's the left, money-making brain. All those indie game makers crammed into their subterranian night club represented the right, creative side. Both are complimentary, though sometimes at odds. And in many cases the crossovers are ill-expected. I spotted more than a few magnificent beards at the W tonight (and I wasn't looking in the mirror). And even someone such as myself, a bonafide bigfoot Jesus, can't help but network when in a temple such as the W. I too swapped business cards, talked shop, enjoyed a gifted drink or two. And by the grace of the networking gods I found a story or two. When in Rome, right?

There's this weird behavior that emerges whenever you're at a conference like GDC. It's the badge glance -- a furtive dash of the eyes South to figure out who you're talking to and what they do for a living. If lanyards were another four-to-six inches longer we'd all be staring crotchward every time we met another peer. As it is the moments are awkward enough. You feel those eyes sliding down your torso. Then there's that barely perceptable pause in the conversation -- when they digest your title and (in the case of the games journalists) media outlet. At this point there's a split second of doubt. Do they think I'm a loser? Have they even heard of the places I work for? That's when it happens. They clear their throat and speak up, "I'm sorry sir, this free coffee isn't for the press."

Their games couldn't be more different. Suda 51 (No More Heroes, Killer 7) makes pop culture freak outs. Emil Pagiliarulo, lead designer of Fallout 3, builds vast, intricate worlds woven thick with narrative. Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda works in emotional broad strokes, keeping story to a minimum. But during their GDC discussion "Evolving Game Design: Today and Tomorrow, Western Game Design" a similarity between the three game makers surfaced. All three men thrill at the moment when ideas happen. "Reading the design documents is the only time when it feels fresh," Pagiliarulo said. After iterating all those fun and creative ideas transform to a series of processes. Suda 51's best brainstorming moments happen in solitude. "I go into the bathroom and I try to poop," and that's when the inspiration happens. "I'm always getting tired of doing the same thing over and over again." Fumito Ueda describes game making as a diminishing process. "We try to recreate what we dream of." But some of the magic slips away during the birthing. "Rather than improve," on the original brainstrom, "we are taking away from the original." Even diminished the products of these three minds are wildly engaging. 

We've already flogged the "can video games be art" conversation to death. Now that we've determined the answer (yes, maybe, sometimes) it's time to move onto new arguments.  One of the topics of conversation coming out of the Indie Game Maker Rant panel this afternoon was the question, "What makes an indie game indie?" Phil Fish, creator of the upcoming game Fez, used the session to go on a five-minute tirade against the inclusion of Pixel Junk Eden in the Independent Games Festival competition. He argued that though Q-Games is technically an independent studio its size, cozy relationship with Sony and veteran status of Dylan Cuthburt ("He created Starfox!) all should disqualify the game makers from entering the competition. He has a point. But so do others that suggest that the indie game community is very diverse encompassing both VC funded studios and kids who hack games together on TiG Source.

Maybe the most interesting part of this discussion is the idea of an indie aesthetic. We've already got this kind of thing happening in cinema. Movies like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine are crafted to feel independent, but they're the product of major movie studios (both released by Oscar machine Fox Searchlight). Games are poised to experience something similar. As indie games become more popular the big guys will try to find ways to co-opt the indie vibe -- transforming the idea of independent game making from a ethos to a brand. Sounds a little slimy when you word it that way. Fish won't be the last to bemoan the big kids party crashing the indie scene.