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  This story is part of 1UP’s Game Developers Conference coverage.
  For more, visit our GDC 2008 hub page.

We love a good presentation, and they’re even better when they’re funny. Formerly a designer of bosses on games such as Maximo 2 and God of War II, Scott Rogers has since sold out to work on licensed drivel as THQ’s creative manager. Despite this, he was still able to muster enough soul to give an informative and entertaining talk, which sadly featured no pictures of Tony Danza in its whiteboard-esque presentation.

Most of the talk focused on how to make good bosses, with tips on preventing the player from “whacking them in the crotch” to providing “a gentle hand on the player’s butt,” in addition to dynamic difficulty and mid-boss health supplies, and other helpful boss-construction tips, such as making them more memorable by tightly integrating them with the story.

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Last week’s 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit was the first major game industry trade show of the year. In the slim three days that the event ran, a number of wild news stories popped up, so we thought we’d bring together everything you need to know, along with some random quotes we heard while wandering around Vegas.

An early D.I.C.E. keynote by, of all people, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, warned the game development industry against falling into the trap that Hollywood did long ago. While much of Verbinski’s speech was a bit fire and brimstone, he also was hopeful, saying the developers “haven’t even scratched the surface of what is possible… this is the time for madness, for brilliance!” He pointed to Guitar Hero developer Harmonix as an example of a group whose idea was ignored or written off as crazy but who ended up persevering and proving that their game was viable.

“I think [Steamworks] is great for the Valve guys. They did the right thing, which is get those tools out there — don’t charge for them. That’s not the market. Their market is to sell stuff on Steam and make a percentage. And it’s a brilliant market. Someone should buy those guys for a couple billion dollars while they still can.”

-Mike Capps, Epic

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Ever wonder what Dennis Hopper thinks of his role in the universally reviled Super Mario Bros. movie? Fifteen years after the fact, the Academy Award-nominated actor finally spilled his guts on last night’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien. When asked if he regretted any of the nearly 150 films he’s been involved with, Hopper responded with this anecdote about his son Henry:

“I made a picture called Super Mario Bros., and my six-year-old son at the time — he’s now 18 — he said, ‘Dad, I think you’re probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros.?’ and I said, ‘Well Henry, I did that so you could have shoes,’ and he said, ‘Dad, I don’t need shoes that badly.’”

Not exactly a glowing endorsement from the Hopper family, but what would you expect from a movie that’s currently sitting at a 6 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes?

Image courtesy of GameSetWatch.

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With Jay Mohr once again hosting the show, three games walked away from the 11th annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) awards last night with 12 of the 26 total awards. Along with the top spot for Game of the Year, Call of Duty 4 took home the honors for Console Game of the Year, Action Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay. The Orange Box started its run with being named Computer Game of the Year, and then added to that with three more trophies specifically for Portal including Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering, and Outstanding Character Performance. While not garnering any “of the Years”, BioShock took home four awards that speak to its high production values with nods for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design, Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition, Outstanding Achievement in Story Development, and Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.

After the big three cleaned up, Rock Band was the only other title to receive multiple awards with Family Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack, and Outstanding Innovation in Gaming. The remaining winners for the big “of the Year” awards follows below:

Massively Multiplayer: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
Strategy/Simulation: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Sports: Skate
Adventure: Super Mario Galaxy
Racing: Motorstorm
Role-Playing: Mass Effect

While it lacks the drama of last year’s uproar over the omission of Resident Evil 4 due to Capcom not being a member of the AIAS, this year’s list still offers plenty to wonder about. Nintendo fans may be licking their wounds over Mario not winning Game of the Year, but Halo 3 fans face the double whammy of not only losing the Online Gameplay award to rival Call of Duty 4, but being completely left off the winners’ list at all. They’re not alone as several other favorites from 2007 received a snub including Forza 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, World in Conflict, Metroid Prime 3, and Guitar Hero III.

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