For those not in “the industry,” as we call it (to our everlasting shame), GDC is the annual gathering of the supernerds; the be-all, end-all mecca for the men and women who actually crank out these special, magical treasures we shamelessly refer to as “product” in marketingland. Last week, Capcom crashed the 2008 Game Developers Conference in a big way. While coders were getting their code on across the street at the Moscone Center, a few Capcom staffers set up basecamp at the St. Regis Hotel, ensconced in a lovely suite that contained both flavors of Bionic Commando as well as the first two Street Fighter IV arcade machines to hit the US. It was three days of pizza, video games and high energy. More follows, so come along with me to reminisce about last week…

If you follow this thing we call “the intarwebz” on your wi-fily connected mobile pocket computron devices, you’ve undoubtedly seen some of the gazillion stories, screen shots and videos that have run about Bionic Commando, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Street Fighter IV in the last week. Why look, here are a few now! All this coverage came about via the magic of public relations, which, in the games industry, means: “Let the gamer media know what hotel you’re in and when the food is showing up.” I kid. Sorta. But show up they did, and impressed they were. Suddenly, I’m typing like Yoda.

Everyone’s favorite gaijin producer, Ben Judd-san, along with Lars from GRIN (the Swedish dev team producing the game), rocked demos of Bionic Commando and Bionic Commando Rearmed. Both games showed very well, and everyone who got a chance to see the gorgeous new “park” level in Bionic Commando or play some co-op in BC Rearmed were pretty damn impressed. Personally, Bionic Commando and Strider are two of my all-time favorite Capcom games, and I’m superstoked to be lucky enough to be in the middle of relaunching the Bionic Commando brand.

For about a week leading up to GDC, I had been having minor heart palpitations, as I went through the protracted drama involved in securing the actual SFIV arcade units. Not to pull back the curtain too far, but there was a moment in time when I was worried that the SFIV machines would not even arrive in time for GDC. Great googly moogly, that would have been a serious disaster and I most likely would have been drawn and quartered en suite by a host of pissed-off gamer dudes. Yeesh. But, thanks to hard work by folks home and abroad, the first Street Fighter IV cabinets to grace US shores blasted through customs in Oakland and arrived at the Capcom offices on Tuesday afternoon, were immediately loaded onto a rented U-Haul and driven at full speed (which was about 52 miles per hour in that particular truck) to San Francisco.

The reception to SFIV was honestly surprising. While we were expecting folks to be interested in the game, we were unprepared for the sheer amount of nostalgia and warm feelings that the new game engendered in those who got the chance to play. Ono-san, the producer of the SFIV project, told us that GDC finally and absolutely confirmed his beliefs that Capcom had made the right decision in staying 2D instead of moving to 3D fighting. Reactions from many people I talked with, including Kotaku-ites, Gamespotters, OXMzes and 1uppers were all pleasantly and happily positive. *whew*

As Seth blogged earlier, we put on an invite-only tournament which ended up cramming 40+ people into a room clearly only designed to hold about 15 people comfortably. Guys (and a lady or two, but mostly dudez) jostled for position while Seth, in full-on EVO glory, yelled at people to take their spots and sign up on the brackets. From 5 PM til about 9, there was an unbelievable, undeniable, palpable sense of the energy that lit up everyone in the room. 10 pizzas were consumed, the bar was pretty much drained and many, many fireballs were hadokened.

I heard more than a few times that evening (I’m pretty sure that Sterling from Gamespy said it first), “Wow, this feels just like an arcade in ‘91.” Rad, that’s just what we’re hoping to bring back over the next year or so. This is a feeling that we hope that we will be able to bring to some of you in the US over the next year, either at public events like Comic-con, at media events like E3 and CES, or via a series of super-secret, community-only events that will hopefully begin taking place at random locations around the US later this year. More on this later, but remember that the first rule of Street Fighter club is…

Personal random GDC geekery: playing Rock Band with Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix at 3 AM in a private suite and freaking out like a teenage girl at a Hannah Montana concert. Telling Mark Rein from EPIC that Gears of War 2 and SFIV seemed to be the most buzzed-about games of GDC, only to have Mark say “I haven’t heard anything about Street Fighter IV.” Letting the lead designer and executive producer from the awesome-looking Prototype check out SFIV in our suite. Walking in to a random bar and finding friends from Sony Online Entertainment, 47 Communications, Brash Entertainment, Atari, PC Gamer, PC World, Gametap and more already there. Good times!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Bionic Commando Rearmed, Street Fighter® IV, Bionic Commando. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.