GameSlice - Geoff Keighley » DICE

Bonus Round from DICE, Episode 2 Now Live

Geoff Keighley — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:23:01 +0000

Over at GameTrailers you can now watch part 2 of The Bonus Round from DICE 2009 with N’Gai Croal, Mike Snider, and LittleBigPlanet’s Alex Evans. In this part we continue our discussion about downloadable content, user-generated levels, and the future of the gaming industry.

This week we will be filming another episode of Bonus Round at GDC 2009 in San Francisco. I think you guys will be excited to see who is scheduled to appear. I’m happy to confirm David Jaffe’s blog post that he will be appearing on this episode.

[Bonus Round from DICE, Episode 2]

Bonus Round at DICE Episode 1 is Live

Geoff Keighley — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:44:57 +0000

This week The Bonus Round heads to DICE 2009 for a conversation with Mike Snider from USA Today, Alex Evans, co-creator of LittleBigPlanet, and ex-Newsweek journalist N’Gai Croal. In this first part of our conversation we discuss the state of the console war, get into downloadable content, and even discuss how fans impact game designers via Twitter. This is a great 4 part discussion with three smart guys in the business. Our discussion about DLC is especially interesting with some real fresh thinking put forward by our panelists.

[Bonus Round at DICE]

Watch GTTV from DICE 2008

Geoff Keighley — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:17:48 +0000

Head on over to GameTrailers to watch the latest episode of GameTrailers TV from DICE 2008. You’ll see me chatting with Bethesda’s Todd Howard (who reveals there was a surgery mini-game removed from Fallout 3), id’s Todd Hollenshead, EA’s Glen Schofield, and Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi.

Lots of great exclusive reveals this week as well, including Boom Blox Bash Party for the Wii, a new trailer for The Conduit, and the world premiere of the DLC for Call of Duty: World at War. We also break news on the show by revealing Split Second, the new racing game from Black Rock Studios, the creators of Pure. Although the trailer is CGI, I love the concept of a racing game with environmental destruction — especially if they can pull it off at a decent frame rate.

If you watch this week’s episode carefully you’ll also pick up on a big exclusive for next week’s show: The world premiere of the trailer for The Pitt, the new DLC for Fallout 3 set in Philadelphia. That one premieres next Friday, March 13 when I host the show from Obsidian Entertainment to discuss ALPHA PROTOCOL.

[GTTV Episode 204 - DICE 2009]

GTTV Heads to DICE for Call of Duty and Resident Evil

Geoff Keighley — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:20:37 +0000

Make sure to check out this week’s GTTV from the DICE Convention in Las Vegas. It airs this Friday on Spike. We have an all-star group of guests and some big exclusives including:

- Todd Howard from Bethesda who chats with us about the success of Fallout 3. Find out which mini-game was removed from Fallout 3 before release. Todd also updates up on the next Fallout 3 DLC and shares some exciting news about it.

- The world exclusive first look at the downloadable content for CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR. We’ll show you three of the maps in action for the first time anywhere. WORLD OF WAR is still topping the Xbox Live charts and fans are going to love the new maps.

- If you’re a fan of Burnout, you’ll definitely want to see the announcement trailer for SPLIT SECOND from Black Rock Studios, the creators of the E3-award winning Pure. This is another example of GTTV breaking news about a game before it’s even officially announced to the public!

- We’ll debut the first trailer for the sequel to Steven Spielberg’s BOOM BOX on the Wii, entitled BOOM BLOX BASH PARTY.

- We’ve got a brand new trailer for the Wii exclusive first person shooter THE CONDUIT.

- Also, I catch up with id’s Todd Hollenshead about Rage, Doom 4 (or as he corrects me, the game only known as “DOOM”), and Quake Live. Todd gives some very interesting hints, especially about Doom 4 and confirms when you WON’T be seeing Rage.

- And finally, RESIDENT EVIL 5 producer Takeuchi-san joins me to world premiere a couple boss battles from the game. You only have a week left to wait.

DICE Panel on Game Journalism

Geoff Keighley — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:05:54 +0000

On Friday I’ll be in Las Vegas for the annual DICE Summit, which I guess amounts to the “TED” or “D” conference for gaming. While I always attend every year, this year I’ve been asked to speak on a panel about “game journalism.” As of late I’ve avoided immersing myself into many of these discussions (like this one on Slate, or this symposium) because, dare I say, I would rather see folks doing more to change the state of journalism than lamenting it 10,000 words at a time. And I’ve been especially weary of talking about it at DICE, where a few years ago the “game journalism” panel included one editor of a single-platform magazine stating that their job was (to paraphrase) be a “cheerleader for their platform, and to make the reader feel good about owning that system.”

But this discussion should be an interesting one. It’s going to be moderated by Ted Price from Insomniac Games, who is one of the nicest guys in the business. (But he promises me there will be lots of drama and intrigue on our panel!). And I’ll be joined by some of my favorite peers, including Blog.Newsweek.com/Levelup’s N’Gai Croal, USA Today’s Mike Snider, and Seth “Schizzel” Schissel.

Instead of talking about the STATE of game journalism, maybe we should talk about WHAT game journalism even is in the wake of Neo-Gaf, The Wii, and MetaCritic. Why that’s a great name for a panel isn’t it! (For the record I can’t take credit). Does a game journalist even matter anymore? Sometimes I feel like the enthusiast magazines end up being nothing more than a mechanism for screenshot delivery, and today it’s still hard to get mainstream publications to write intelligently about the business.

Who deserves the blame? The journalists? Our editors? Or the game publishers/developers? I’m sure the DICE audience (which is largely comprised of developers/publishers) will lay the blame squarely at our feet, but I’ll argue that I think publishers and developers should look in the mirror too. Great journalism is about great storytelling, and far too often the game industry is so secretive and NDA-focused that some of the best stories never get told. And Ted is the king of the no comment…he’s very good at it, as you may remember from our Resistance 2 episode of GTTV last year.

I’m looking forward to the discussion.