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>> What's going on, everyone. Welcome to PreGAME. I'm Jeff Bakalar.
>> I'm Mark Licea. What's going on? How are you? We have a very special guest in our show today. Dan Ackerman.
>> Hello.
>> Fresh off the boat from GDC 2010.
>> I didn't take a boat because of all the rain and the wind. They shut down all the airports. Obviously all the flights got canceled.
>> Was it a problem getting back to New York?
>> I took a Greyhound, so it was fine.
>> No, you did not.
>> Yeah. It's a great way to see the country.
>> You're full of it.
>> No. I'm totally serious.
>> There's no way you took a Greyhound.
>> What I do is I put all my stuff in a big handkerchief and tie it at the end of a stick.
>> Like Pee-wee Herman hitchhiking.
>> And he tried to cross the country. But I really took the Adirondack Express.
>> That is so cliche, seriously. All kidding aside, thanks for being here, Dan. Dan just got back from GDC 10. We're going to do a little wrap-up. We also have a very cool game to demo today, Metro 2033. Yes, Luis Gigliotti is here today. And he's going to show us Metro 2033. He's the executive producer for THQ. Really exciting stuff. But we'll get to that. First thing we do, Dan, is headlines.
>> Ooh.
>> So, Dan, you were at GDC 10, right?
>> Yes, I was.
>> You were not.
>> Yes, I was.
>> You were, you were. So what stood out there? I mean, we have a few things we want to talk about. But I want you to generalize the show for us: what was good, what was bad. And then we'll get into some specifics.
>> Unlike shows like CES that we go to every year or even E3 that are big kind of media shows, the Game Developers Conference is really not a big press show. It really is more for game developers and producers and people in the industry to get together and talk and go to like a lot of panels on like, you know, how to do 3D modeling and stuff like that. So it really gets kind of hard core. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago that like, you know, [inaudible] like ourselves started hanging out in large groups kind of ruining the show for everybody else.
>> Really. You think it's ruined now?
>> It certainly is not at cozy as it used to be. But this is a show where you could just walk down the street and run into, like, CliffyB and just have a conversation with him. He's not like E3 or something where, like, they're all surrounded by like a phalanx of, like, PR people and security guards. So it's definitely very loose.
>> All right. Well, you wrote a lot while you were out there. I want to get to Mafia II first
>> Ah, yes.
>> Because this is something that you and I got to see a couple of weeks ago.
>> I'm a big fan of the original Mafia game, and I've been looking forward to the sequel, which looks pretty groovy.
>> Is it just Grand Theft Auto in 1950?
>> Well, Mafia I was Grand Theft Auto in 1950. But it was one of the better versions of it.
>> Right. So you did actually get to demo the game?
>> Yes.
>> So now -- so you had some hands-on. You know, from what we saw a couple months ago, has it improved? Has it --
>> Is seems about the same, which is about the same as what I saw even about a year before that. But, at the same time, you know what? It's got some really cool kind of period details. You know, it's got the same kind of -- it's got a really big city, probably even bigger than the fake New York in Grand Theft Auto IV. You know, it's got some interesting storytelling and scripting, like they're really putting some effort into kind of the acting and the storytelling; because it takes one guy 's life over the course of like ten years.
>> Right.
>> Starting with kind of a Godfatheresque beginning where he's coming back from the Army and kind of gets sucked back into the family business just like Michael Corleone did.
>> There you go.
>> And, you know, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be pushed back from the spring to the fall.
>> Oh, really?
>> So it's going to take a little while longer. But, you know, for something that is basically a GTA clone, the original was really good; this is really good. Made by a bunch of Czech guys, the original one was. Then 2K bought that studio and they now call it 2K Czech.
>> Yeah.
>> So it's interesting that this is not really America in the 1940s and '50s as seen by Americans. It's almost an idealized Eastern European Cold War view where everything is all about kind of like hot dogs and muscle cars and Playboy Magazine.
>> Right. Which they actually license out.
>> Which are all things in the game. You know, it's interesting to see kind of a foreign take on an idealized 1940s, 1950s big American city is.
>> So Mafia II, as we find out about it, obviously the biggest part of the show, hands down, has to be Play Station Move.
>> Well, especially because Nintendo didn't have a big press conference. Microsoft was really barely there at all.
>> Right.
>> Sony was one big company that had a big press conference. They had an outside spot where hundreds of people went and they had all the cameras and big presentation. We all knew it was going to be that motion controller. And it was. They're calling it the Play Station Move; looks kind of like a Wii MotionPlus sort of, except it's got a little light-up ball at the end. And you know what? I give him a lot of credit for throwing it out there and letting people play with it.
>> And you got to play with it?
>> I did.
>> Similarly feel like --
>> I'm going to come up at some point in this video clip right here.
>> So this is your first look?
>> Does it feel like a Wiimote for the Play Station?
>> It feels like the Wiimote. It's a little bit more accurate, almost like the Wii MotionPlus. The games all seemed more like demo games than real games. They very much reminded me on the iToy, the original iToy from many years ago.
>> For the Play Station 2.
>> Where you use your hand to like, you know, wash the windows and stuff, except now you're washing the windows but with a thing in your hand.
>> So the Eye -- the Play Station Eye is required.
>> You need a Play Station Eye and at least one wand or move controller. You can have multiple move controllers. And a lot of the cool games seem to need two. Like if you're fighting, then you need one in each hand. Or if you're pulling a bow and arrow, then you need one for the bow, one for the bow strings.
>> Right.
>> And then there's also like a nunchuck-like secondary controller called the fat controller.
>> Fat controller. I like that. So if you don't have two of those controllers, can you still play the games that require the two controllers?
>> I think that you need two. Because there's going to be a specific set of requirements for each game, which was kind of confusing. And we have yet to figure out what kind of bundles they're going to offer. The only bundle they mentioned was the camera and one controller as a bundle.
>> Right.
>> But, obviously, they're going to have to find some way to get people other controllers and the subcontroller, which I really only saw in use in kind of a SOCOM demo where you're kind of moving around with the e-panel and subcontroller and then aiming with the regular move controller.
>> Okay.
>> There was some multiplayer games we saw where you can just pass one regular controller around and that's all.
>> Sort of like with the Wii.
>> Yeah. Did they announce any games that are going to specifically work for the PS Move?
>> Well, they showed a bunch of games. I'm not sure if these games will ever really come out. But one was called The Shoot where you're shooting things on kind of a rail shooter, and I think there's something [inaudible].
>> That's what you were playing.
>> And we played Move Play, I think it's called, or something like that. It's sort of like their iToy style game. And SOCOM 4 is going to be able to use it, but it'll also use a regular controller. And there were a couple of fighting game demos, but I'm not sure how far towards actual shipping products those are. But the first three I mentioned are all real titles that should actually come out.
>> All right. Well, more on move. I know they're going to be in town next week again. So maybe we can go check that out again. Civilization V: Tell us what you know, think, love, hate about that.
>> You know, for PC gamers, obviously it's a big deal. I'm not a big realtime strategy guy. But, you know, people love this stuff. And Civ IV, everyone said was kind of the climax, was kind of the ultimate version of that kind of game. So to come back and sell another one, they have to come up with some new stuff. If you're into this kind of stuff, the big move is that they went from -- the map went from a square grid to a hex grid.
>> Oh, that's right.
>> So, you know.
>> Big steps.
>> Everybody's big joke was now with more hexagon.
>> Yeah, right.
>> You know, otherwise, it looks like they stole some of the ideas from Civilization Revolution, which was the console version just in terms some of the interface and having those kind of larger than life, like Abraham Lincoln, you know, getting up in your face and stuff.
>> All right. Well, there you have it. GDC 10 wrapped up in a tight little ball for you, our viewing audience. Dan Ackerman, thank you very much. What I want to do now with you, sir, I want to check out a new trailer for a game called Brink. You've heard about this?
>> Yes, yes.
>> Very --
>> At Bethesda, right?
>> Right. And, you know, the marketing for this is kind of strange.
>> I got some sort of a mysterious poster in the mail months ago, but I didn't really understand what it was all about.
>> What am I looking at? Anyway, you've seen actual game play footage, right?
>> This is just a trailer.
>> This is just a CG trailer. Let's run the trailer. We'll watch it together. We'll talk about it, and then we'll see where it takes us. Let's see it.
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>> It remind me of Borderlines.
>> Nothing worse than a CG trailer. I hate them. I think if you don't have actual game plays put into your trailer, you're -- it's ridiculous. In fact, in England, there was a case where they were doing the TV commercials with this kind of footage in it for games, and they -- and there was some complaint. I guess it was taken off the air because they were not actually representative of the product you were buying.
>> I agree. It is definitely misleading.
>> Like you could make this look like anything.
>> Exactly. And then you can see the game play and it will look completely different.
>> I've only seen very little, little game play of Brink, actually. But what they are trying to get across here is that it's basically Parker -- how do you pronounce it? Par core [phonetic].
>> Par core.
>> Right. Free running, mix it with first-person shooting. So think of Mirror's Edge and something like maybe Borderlines.
>> Mirror's Edge was that interesting experiment that didn't really work out.
>> I enjoyed Mirror's Edge. You didn't like Mirror's Edge?
>> But it -- history has come to see it as a critical commercial failure.
>> Okay. That aside, obviously they're making a big point about people being very acrobatic; see the lot of tucking and rolling. You know, there was a lot of sort of, you know, constant running and chasing. So that's definitely the message that they're trying to send. The game play footage that I've seen which we can't show right now is just basically, like I said, Mirror's Edge. You're basically running and there's no -- there's that smooth transition when you jump over obstacles. So you're not really -- you know, notoriously, first-person shooters are a bit clunky when it comes to --
>> When it comes to that kind of acrobatics.
>> -- the acrobatics and stuff. So they're sort of just saying, All right. Well, that's what separating our version of the game. So that's the trailer.
>> I think that's what was kind of fun about Mirror's Edge is it balanced running and jumping with shooting and doing all these other crazy acrobatics.
>> Right. What that's going to lead to, ladies and gentlemen, is our talking point of the day. Dan's going to join us. Let's get right to it.
>> All right. So what I want to bring up, and I think Brink really brings up a good way to talk about genre mixing. A lot of games now, you know, nothing's only an action game now. Things are, like, I'm a role playing first-person shooter realtime strategy stealth, you know, action game. All right. You're all that.
>> With Facebook Connect.
[ Laughing ]
>> What do you guys think about games that sort of take two genres that maybe normally wouldn't belong together and sort of mesh them up? The first game that comes straight to mind -- I know you love this -- Borderlands. It takes that first-person shooter and that RPG. And I think they have, you know, a fair amount of both elements. And, in my opinion, it sort of came out good. I know Mark really liked the game, too, right?
>> It's a really good game. I feel like there's a lot of iterations where genre mixing is successful as opposed to not. One of the examples that we gave, my personal -- yours, as well -- is Brutal Legend.
>> Yeah.
>> Which just the idea of it sounds almost counterintuitive.
>> Had those real types of strategy elements and the God of War type action, that seems like it contradicts itself.
>> I'm not going to lie. That was definitely one of the most disappointing mesh ups.
>> It didn't really work, especially when you got to those big battles --
>> Yeah.
>> -- where you had to kind of like figure out where to put your units and stuff. You're like, what? I was just having fun, man.
>> And I'm just trying to rock and roll.
>> I'm just trying to rock out.
>> When -- you know, it's funny. Every time we saw that game early, every time people --
>> They never showed you that part.
>> They never showed that. That was the last thing. It was always action, Jack Black's funny action, Ozzy's funny. So that's interesting how they sort of decided to hide that fact about the game.
>> Yes.
>> And maybe the problem with that game was it was trying to bite off more than it could chew, whereas games that are simple like Braid that mix the classic 2D side scrolling adventure with puzzles.
>> Sure a the sort of time-controlled puzzle.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, for sure. And that worked out great.
>> Definitely.
>> Absolutely. Even a game like BioShock is now considered a genre sort of bender; because it does have that first-person shooter element, and it also has RPGish things going on there.
>> RPG like. Kind of like Mass Effect is a little more RPG; but, at the same time, like a third-person shooter where you've got, like, the cover mechanic and everything.
>> Yeah.
>> That's a good mix-up of stuff.
>> What would you like to see? What's -- you know, I'll give you a second to think about it. What's something that you would like to see two genres that come together? Like I said, with Brutal Legend, the whole real -- I don't like realtime strategies to begin with, let alone in a console game, let alone when you're trying to mix it up with action.
>> I'll tell you. I like classic adventure games. Call me crazy, but I like a nice slow-paced explore stuff, talk to people kind of thing. But when you mix in a little bit of like third-person action shooter or even first-person, you know, shooting, then you get to break up sort of the monotony of just like staring at a wall looking for a clue and stuff, almost like Myst meets some sort of action game.
>> That kind of happened with -- I want to say it happened with the Tomb Raider.
>> It was never -- but you never really were walking around.
>> Right. That's puzzles. That's not quite like oblivion almost where you're in a town and you can go anywhere you want and you can talk to people and create relationships.
>> Right.
>> So I think having that sort of game is really interesting. But to get your adrenaline flowing occasionally, you do need some short bursts of action. Heavy Rain kind of did that where you spend a lot of time just kind of wandering around looking at things, thinking about things, talking to people; and then you had moments where you really had to be kinetic and timing focused, otherwise bad things could happen.
>> What two genres or three, four, what do you want to see in something?
>> I don't know.
>> It's tough.
>> I don't know if I have a specific genre. I just think it's so easy now because we have these clearly defined genres for gaming and we know what works and what doesn't. So people could just pick out what they like about certain aspects --
>> Sure.
>> -- and then just put them into games. I think that's what we're seeing now. But something specific? I don't know. I mean, I like RPGs. I like fighting.
>> A fighting RPG?
>> Well, I mean, that's kind of what a lot of RPG games are.
>> But there are a lot of things like that, aren't there?
>> But when you run into somebody in an RPG, you don't switch into that, like, kind of side view and go through the, you know, two out of three match.
>> That would be interesting, sort of like all of a sudden this adventure game turns into Mortal Combat.
>> I always wanted to see a good prison, like --
>> With fatalities.
>> -- like a prison realtime strategy game.
>> What's that?
>> I always wanted to see a good, like, prison realtime strategy game.
>> Prison.
>> It's kind of like you get the different gangs and the different factions and stuff in the prison with the guards are a faction.
>> I think RPG would work well in prison.
>> Right. But then you could mix in RPG elements, too; but then you also have to get your faction together and, like, commit resources and research, you know, how to make moonshine and shivs and stuff.
>> And where to hide cigarettes.
>> Dan Ackerman, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here today talking to us about all the good things you saw at GDC. You can find Dan every Monday -- well, Monday you tape live Digital City.
>> Okay. 3:00 p.m. eastern.
>> 3:00 p.m.
>> You can follow me on Twitter, Dan Ackerman. And there you go.
>> We'll have all that obviously in the show notes for today's episode. Dan Ackerman, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for coming in, buddy.
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>> All right. ^*All right, everyone. It's time for our live demo. I'm very excited. Metro 2033 is the game from THQ executive producer Luis Gigliotti is here. What's going on, Luis?
>> Good. I'm doing well.
>> You're doing well?
>> How are you guys doing? Yeah, yeah.
>> Doing all right. I'm really excited to check out Metro 2033. We're going to jump right in to the game right now. And if you want, just give us a little briefing on what exactly the story in the game is. It comes from a Russian novel, correct?
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> So, yeah. Tell us all about that and how that came to fruition.
>> Well, it's based on a Russian novel called, you know, Metro 2033. It's written by a guy name Dmitry Glukhovsky.
>> Cool.
>> It's actually the fasting selling novel in Russian history, which is --
>> Ever?
>> Yeah.
>> Really.
>> It's not a well-known fact, but it is. He actually wrote a little bit, a couple chapters. Put it on the Internet, it had like three million hits on it and decided, hey, let's write the book. It's so popular that it's currently being translated into 22 different languages; and it's coming out all over the world, including here in the U.S.
>> Wow. So it was released on the Internet for free, and then it became a best seller afterwards.
>> Yeah, exactly. It was pretty amazing. So, basically -- and the cool thing about it is that Dmitry is actually part of the dev team. He's not, you know, somebody that comes every quarter and just kind of looks at the progress. He's actually part of the dev team. So it's one of the reasons why the game feels like such a good cohesive vision.
>> So now, right now this is an earlier section of the game. Explain to us sort of the environment here and what we're looking at.
>> Yeah. Well, this is a -- Exhibition, which is our hero, RTM's home station. All the Metro stations are different in the game. Yours is, you know, a fairly friendly station as far as postapocalyptic subway stations under Moscow can go.
>> Right.
>> There are all kinds of other stations. Some are taken over by extremist groups, neoNazis, old school communists. Some of are just overrun by mutated creatures. But, in your station here, it's a great place to kind of explore around, interact. Here you're in the armory. And what's really cool about the armory is where you get not just postblast weaponry and ammo; but it's also a good place to come and -- you know, there's trading posts where you can get preblast ammo and weapons which are important in the game, because preblast ammo are actually your currency in the game.
>> So now, obviously, something bad has happened. There's been some sort of fallout. Everyone's forced underground.
>> Yeah.
>> And right now we're basically gearing up to move to another metro.
>> Now, what's basically going on is that this is 20 years after the blast.
>> Okay.
>> And the metro system under Moscow was actually retrofitted during the Cold War to house people in case there was a nuclear war. And about 40,000 people managed to get underground. And RTM was just a little baby when it happened. But it's been 20 years, so a whole new generation has actually been born underground. And what's really been happening is, in this station, your station and some of the other ones that are -- they're just trying to create some semblance of humanity, you know, some semblance of normalcy. Some people thing they're going to be there forever. Some people think that, you know, they're about to, you know, all be extinct. RTM, our hero, he's kind of a dreamer. He kind of dreams about a life that he never really lived outside and actually collects postcards and stuff of preblast Moscow, preblast New York. And it's kind of one of the reasons that he's kind of separate from, you know, his way of thinking and the rest of the population, but there's some other reasons that make him really special in the game.
>> And this game seems very story driven. Like how did you see the original novel being translated over to a game, and what made you choose the genre? Because it's essentially first-person shooter?
>> Yeah. You know, oddly enough, this was one of those rare occasions where the author and the team came to us. You know, because the author's actually part of the dev team, they said, You know, hey, look. We've got this incredible piece of fiction. We think it's going to translate. They love first-person shooters. It's what a lot of those guys background comes from. And as soon as you start hearing about the story, it just starts making sense. And it's one of those products where you really benefit from an incredible piece of fiction as a foundation.
>> For sure.
>> But it's, you know, it also has a lot of areas of the fiction that would just translate perfectly into a game.
>> Yesterday you were nice enough to have me over to check out Metro 2033 in 3D. And that just blew me away. And just I want you to definitely tell us how the game was designed with 3D in mind from the ground up.
>> Yeah, that was it. Right. So, you know, from a developer's point of view, I've been in development for a long, long time. And you're always trying to innovate, right? You're always trying to do something. So this is one of those projects where we were able to partner with NVIDIA, you know, up front and say, Look. You know what would be awesome? You know, 70 percent of this game is played underground in the subway system and the Metro system, and there's that claustrophobic feel to it. Wouldn't this be amazing if it had a 3D aspect. And not just the typical 3D. Let's do this right. Let's innovate. Let's bring 3D to that next level.
>> For sure.
>> And being able to partner with NVIDIA from day one it means we were able to utilize the, you know, their hardware and really, really take the next level. So it was twice the work, you know, from a art context standpoint; because everything in this game, you know, is modeled in 3D to take advantage of the actual, you know, 3D aspect of it. Every asset, even the particle system. When you walk into the game, there's mist and dust flying by you. You saw it yesterday.
>> It's unbelievable, yeah.
>> And not only that but we had to work with NVIDIA closely because, you know, even the placement of assets in the level matters.
>> Right.
>> When you're actually not half-assing your 3D effects.
>> And like I was saying yesterday when we saw it, I was really blown away at how well it was done. You know, we've seen a lot of that NVIDIA 3D vision stuff that's been done after the fact.
>> That's it.
>> And, you know, it's just so blatantly obvious from the get-go that it was done obviously from the ground up. And I mean, you know, just as a compliment to you guys, it just looks unbelievable.
>> Thank you. We're really proud of it. Again, you hit it on the head. The differences is, if you think of it as an afterthought, like, wouldn't this be cool if we could do it 3D now, you're going to end up with that kind of, you know, ah, I've seen this all before. But when you're doing it from the ground up and you're saying no, we're going to -- this skew we're going to build everything to take advantage of what we can do with 3D. So, like I said, everything from the actual building of assets to the placement of assets to, you know, everything from the particle effects system, every aspect is actually there to take advantage of it.
>> And how much more time does the 3D aspect tack on to the overall production as opposed to just making a regular game without 3D aspect?
>> Yeah. It does take longer. It takes, you know, everything from generating the assets to, like I said, when you have to really pay attention to exactly where you're placing an asset, that means it's not just an aesthetic decision. You have to take into account the technical decision and the aesthetic together. So it does. But, again, if you plan for it up front, you actually can manage that time.
>> So, right now, we're obviously on this hand cart. What's happening in the story right here?
>> This is cool. So this is after you've been hanging out in exhibition, when you can explore and have fun. But right now you've been asked to head to Rega, which is another station that's friendly to bolster trade. And on the way, you had to take a detour, which is always an ominous sign in any video game. And what's happening here, this is actually very important. See how they're all kind of passing out? This is the first time you get introduced to the dark ones, which play a pivotal role in the game and who you are as the hero in the game. And you see how they're all affected by it, and you see this affect going on. The one thing that makes RTM, our hero, different than everybody else in the world or the Metro system, he's immune to these attacks, these psychic attacks.
>> Right. So obviously there's something special about him.
>> There's something very special. And this is his first vision. And these visions increase in intensity and length, and they actually turn into interactive levels later on in the game.
>> Very nice.
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>> Uh, oh.
>> Yeah. So you can just imagine these poor people have had to deal with everything from hostile humans, neoNazis, mutated creatures that tear you limb from limb.
>> It's a good life.
>> Right. It's a good life. And all of a sudden, great. Now we've got these alien ghost specter other worldly things that don't even attack you physically. They attack you --
>> They could be fondling you.
>> Yeah. Who knows what they're doing. We're talking probes, the whole bit.
[ Laughter ]
So, you know, and what, you know -- and also quickly after this they start noticing that you, RTM, how come you're not affected by it? And so sometimes you're a hero; and other times, you can imagine, that can kind of be a little bit kind of like suspicious.
>> For sure. Attracts a lot of unwanted attention.
>> Exactly. So it really -- again, this follows the fiction of the book to a T. And, again, it's just an amazing story; because it's not your average postapocalyptic tale. It's not Mad Max. It's not -- the world blows up, now fight to survive or go find ingredient X, water, whatever's important. It really has a mystical side to it, and it's a very personal story. It's not a political story about why nuclear weapons are bad. It's really told, you know, from a personal standpoint of what it means to be a human being.
>> So now things are starting to pick up here.
>> Right, right. So you turn around. You wake -- they wake up -- one guy does, at least -- and all of a sudden, boom. Because you're sitting there too long, here come the tunnel rats.
>> Ooh. Sorry about that.
>> Never apologize for killing those things.
>> He is just a very ugly --
>> Yeah. Well, that's the thing. A lot of these creatures that have been subject to the radiation -- there you go. Quick tap, quick tap.
>> So these are like mutated people or just mutated animals?
>> You know what? No one really knows. If you look at them, if you could see, there's like -- what is that? That is like half pig, half dog, half kangaroo. Who knows what that is. And that's the whole point is, you know, what are these things? Who knows. Kill them before they kill you.
>> So if you read the novel, you'll be pretty much caught up with everything that's going to go on in the game?
>> Yeah. Except for there's a little bit of a difference. The novel obviously is a linear story. And so is the game, but the game has aspects of it that aren't linear. Like you can branch off into little side stories. The decisions you make in the game actually affect ending of the game. There's multiple endings. So the game actually has an incredible amount of replayability because that the book obviously doesn't have because it's literature.
>> Uh-huh.
>> It's not at interactive.
>> Kill it! There you go. Wow.
>> Whatever you do, be careful. Don't shoot out that light or it gets dark and really scary.
>> Apparently your [inaudible] are immune to friendly fire when they're asleep.
>> Well, one of them, they got it ripped out.
>> Yeah. You just -- were too slow on the draw, pal, and they just took one of your dudes.
>> Uh oh.
>> Oh, dude!
>> Oh, my God!
>> Hit him. Hit him. Don't worry
>> Uh oh. You failed.
>> No, no. You're all right. You're going to hide here for a second.
>> Oh. There's more coming.
>> Here they come.
>> Creepy. Wow.
>> Yeah. ^M00:25:46 And you saw this in 3D yesterday.
>> Yeah. It's horrifying. It's so scary.
>> Now I suggest you haul ass down the hall and get to your buddies. Watch out
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>> Oh! Little flame thrower. There you go.
>> The ultimate equalizer.
>> Wow. Very intense stuff.
>> That's really cool. You know, the game has a really beautiful ramping to it. It's like a B chart, you know, from a film.
>> For sure.
>> You've got these exploratory parts that are -- that kind of create a little suspension.
>> Tell a little story.
>> Boom. You saw that, you know, sweaty palm action. Then it mellows out and action again. And it's really a well-ramped story.
>> Very cool. Wow. That was a lot of fun. Metro 2033. It looks really scary.
>> It is. It really is.
>> And this comes out today.
>> Yeah.
>> For Xbox 360.
>> And PC.
>> And PC. Very nice. And so, I mean, you guys were awesome enough to come by and tell us about the game. We're going to have a giveaway. So Metro 2033. We have two copies to give out. Very exciting stuff. What we're going to ask for is, you know, obviously, I think it's a big deal that Metro 2033 started out as a novel. And you said it's actually coming to the U.S.; it's being --
>> Yeah. It's been translated in over 22 languages. I think it's out in the UK, one of the English versions. But it should be here very, very soon.
>> All right. So we've got two copies. So we have two copies to give away, both for Xbox 360. People who are listening, we're going to give you guys a week. Write in and let us know what book you would like to see turned into a video game.
>> Yes.
>> And why. And obviously we'll pick the best two submissions, and you'll get your copy of Metro 2033. We'll announce those winners next week. But as soon as we get the winners, we'll send those out. I can't thank you guys enough for coming around.
>> Thank you for asking us.
>> Luis Gigliotti, executive producer, THQ. Next time there's a great game, you've got to come back and show us the ropes, man.
>> Any time. I'd love to come back.
>> All right. Very cool.
>> Thank you, man.
>> All right. Welcome back. Very cool stuff, Metro 2033. What a demo.
>> Get your hands on a copy.
>> Absolutely. PreGAME at CNET.com is how you can enter our contest. Make sure you do so. Finally on PreGAME, new and notable releases for the week of March 15th.
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>> All right. Everyone knows Metro 2023, today, PC, Xbox 360. Go pick it up or try and win one. But you might want to go buy one. Just let it be good, though.
>> It's going to be good. [Inaudible] to be good. Also coming out today, God of War 3, Play Station 3 exclusive. If you don't know what the game looks like, watch our last episode.
>> Easy enough.
>> Give you a nice little teaser.
>> Yeah. And, you know, we were lucky enough to talk to Todd Pappy, really informative. Awesome interview. And the demo that we showed is just some really awesome action. So you want to make sure you check that out.
>> And what would you say the percentage ratio of games that you actually complete as opposed to just kind of dabbling? Because you said God of War is one of the games that you're definitely committed to --
>> Oh, there's no doubt that that game's going to get finished. No doubt. Also today, Command and Conquer 4. We were talking about realtime strategy a little with Dan. That comes out on PC today. So if you're into it, go check it out. We've got some teasers next week, Just Cause 2. We'll have the 360 version in here blowing up stuff, parachuting, napalm, rocket launchers, all that good stuff. We'll also have a dev to talk to you about that. Next week we're also going to do an Alien versus Predator giveaway.
>> Very cool.
>> Play Station 3 copies of the game, we're going to give away, as well. Also down the line: Splinter Cell Conviction; Alan Wake; Super Mario Galaxy 2; and Metroid: Other M, etc.
>> Very cool.
>> So a lot of fun.
>> We're going to demo all those games on here.
>> That's it. I mean, you like games, you know where to be. Leave us an email, PreGAME at CNET.com is how you get in touch with us. We've answered everyone who's written in, so keep those coming. We love hearing from you guys. That's going to do it for us. I'm Jeff Bakalar.
>> I'm Mark Licea.
>> It's PreGAME, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. We will see you guys with Just Cause 2 next week. Later.
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