Every following year I have found myself busier and busier at the conference and this year is no exception. Between work, attending sessions, having meetings and attending various get together events of varied sizes, scopes and importance, I’m going to be hard pressed to find a time to relax a little or even sleep. This is making the rest of this week look awesome and terrible simulatneously. But no matter what, it’s going to be a worthwhile experience for me and for everything I do these days, especially since I’ve joined Naughty Dog.

Keep an eye out on my Twitter or the Naughty dog Twitter to see what I’m up to at any given moment. In a slightly longer, and less immediate, format, you can check out this blog and NaughtyDog.com for updates throughout GDC09 as well.

If you’re at GDC, drop my a line through the many ways you can contact me and feel free to add me as a friend on myGDC if you’re on there.

I’ve taken the liberty of copying my schedule for the below… even though I have a couple of conflicts yet to be resolved, looks like it’s going to be quite the full week at the conference!

Hope to see some of you there. Hope I survive the week…

Photo courtesy of the Game Developers Conference

I didn’t get much time to walk around the Game Developers Conference expo halls on my last day in San Francisco before my flight took off that evening. However I did check out the games exhibited as part of the Independent Games Festival in the North Hall.

There were a few familiar sights, like Band of Bugs and Castle Crashers — both titles that are due out on Xbox Live Arcade in the future — and there were a bunch that I’ve never heard of, mostly because they were small indie studios or student entries. In the very last aisle of the booth space something caught my eye and I just had to try it even though I, quite certifiably, suck at rhythm or music games. Yes, it was Opera Slinger a one level game created by ten students at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. Even though I probably looked like the most shameful nerd sitting in front of the computer trying to sing while stay quiet enough to not draw attention, I got completely wrapped up in the game and I ended up talking about it to anybody who would listen for the full week afterwards. Those folks probably don’t like me anymore.

Still, go check it out. It’s only one level but it’s got a bunch of songs. They’re all classical music with rock opera lyrics all based on the game’s narrative and you’re judged on your ability to hit the right general notes for each song. Kind of like Karaoke Revolution meets rock opera with a plot… or something. Sure the core gameplay isn’t terribly original, but it’s wrapped up pretty nicely, has a good tongue in cheek feel to it and it’s even a free download!

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Burnout Revenge
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Tomb Raider: Legend
Top Spin 2
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
Saint’s Row
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting
Texas Hold ‘Em Poker
Dead Rising
Ninety-Nine Nights
Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2
Sonic Riders
Over the Hedge

This is a bit different than the initial list of games I had seen, but still far from a disappointing turnout. The titles on display was sweetened even more so when a couple people from Capcom came by just minutes before the event started to deliver the most recent build of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting.

Anyway, the event was great and I was really glad to meet some people I had only corresponded with on e-mail, or occasionally on the phone. Of course, as I had mentioned before, I was also looking forward to meeting Splincir and ludcrouspeed again. I spent a while, probably far too long, talking to TekunoRobby and Vark from GAF there too. They will not have heard the last from me, that’s for sure!

The next morning (at 6:30 AM no less) I hopped into a car with some coworkers and Peter Moore to bring him to a breakfast we were hosting in San Jose with guys from Joystiq, GamingSteve, Kotaku, Gizmodo and GamerAndy. This was the first time I met most of these guys, as working with bloggers is someone else’s area at work. I think the breakfast went well and lots of interesting things were discussed, but I’ll let the bloggers at the table post or podcast about it. One of the guys I work with, John Porcaro, posted pictures of the breakfast at Gamerscore Blog, the Xbox marketing team blog.

Mere hours after the breakfast was over, I was on a plane headed back to Seattle ending my whirlwind two city tour.
Update:
Here are some links to posts or podcasts from the guys who went to the breakfast.
Joystiq
GamingSteve
Kotaku
GamerAndy and his impressions from the showcase are here
Gamerscore

Back in early October 2005 we had a similar set of events, one in New York and one in San Francisco, which allowed us to put a bunch of people in one room, give them the rundown on the new Xbox Live and the Dashboard and set them loose to play a good number of games on preview. This event is something pretty similar, in fact the New York component of the event happened late last week already.

I’m looking forward to it as I’ll get to meet a few editors and writers of websites I haven’t met in person yet, a couple people from GAF (TekunoRobby and Chittagong) and a couple people I’ve met before from the TeamXbox and GameSpot forums (ludcrouspeed and Splincr). Frankly, it’s nice to put a face to someone I’ve talked to online for a while now.

Either way, the event will probably be pretty fun, meeting people and getting to play some preview games — especially if the list of anticipated preview builds I saw late last month turns out to be accurate. As always, I’ll be taking pictures both for work and personal purposes, so I’ll put some up on here when I get a chance.

Also, I should be able to drop by the EB Games by my work to pick up Me & My Katamari and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion this morning before I head to the airport. Oblivion will have to wait, but I’ll have some Katamari fun (R.I.P. Katamari Damacy website) if I manage to stay awake on the plane.