Week In Review: 03/13 Monster Edition

This week's offerings include some surprising news from GDC, the first of our Portal 2 features for the month, and a whole bunch of exclusive content. It's time for the Week In Review!

If you're an RPG fan, you probably didn't need to read Monday's Weekly Roundup to know that Final Fantasy XIII has finally reached our western shores. You're probably also not reading this, because you're too busy playing FFXIII right now. I can't blame you, and neither can most of the staff here at GI, who are just as excited about the game as everyone else. So excited that Joe, Ben, and Tim went to the local midnight launch, and asked the fans trivia. It looked like fun, though Meagan, Bertz, and Nick went to a slightly swankier launch party at GDC. Additionally, Reiner posted some thoughtful ideas on the diverging paths of western and eastern RPGs, while Joe called those complaining about FFXIII's linearity crybabies. Even more Final Fantasy coverage can be found at our launch hub.

And in case you missed it, you can read our review of Final Fantasy XIII, plus we posted our review of God of War III this week. But can either of these epic titles really outscore Calling? Joking aside, we also reviewed Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (and shared a way to pick up the DLC on the cheap), and two downloadable games featured in Impulse Weekly: Max & The Magic Marker, and Scrap Metal. And here's a bonus for you: Miller reviewed the D&D Player's Handbook 3.

Now let's talk exclusive content. This week's Replay was all about everyone's favorite dinosaur hunter, Turok. We also ran our full interview with Alpha Protocol's producer, Chris Parker (you can read our hands-on impressions in this month's magazine), and we posted our preview of Power Gig: Rise of the Six String. Before you groan at the thought of another rhythm game franchise, you should know this one uses a real guitar. We also had an Afterwords on Supreme Commander 2, and Bertz posted his opinion piece on Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer mess, while Annette penned a hat trick of original features: a list of the best genetically mutated characters in games, the top under-the-radar Xbox 360 titles you should check out, and GI's favorite gaming guilty pleasures.

If that's still not enough exclusive content to make you happy, we also had a video interview with Civilization 5 producer, Dennis Shirk, and we ran our full Making of Final Fantasy XIII interview, too. Plus, we had three new Portal features: A video interview with the students-turned-Valve employees that created Narbacular Drop; an in-depth look at the development of the original Portal; and a roundtable discussion with Portal 2's hilarious writers, discussing what it's like writing stories for Valve.

There was also plenty happening in the rest of the video game industry this week, thanks to this year's Game Developers Conference. You can find all of our coverage at the GDC hub page, but here are some of the highlights: EA teased new features for Madden 11 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, and we also learned a little bit about Rock Band 3, and Battlestar Galactica Online – if the latter doesn't allow me to play as Lieutenant Starbuck, I'm not interested...okay, maybe still a little interested. We also covered some intriguing information that came from the GDC seminars, including the Smithsonian's newfound interest in gaming, some new details about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sid Meier's thoughts on gamers, and the winners of the IGF and GDC Awards. The biggest news though, was the debut of Sony's PlayStation Move, the official name for its motion controller...it's called Move because you move while you use it. Brilliant.

But that's not to say you should judge this book by its cover. Instead, check out our hands-on impressions and detailed analysis of the Move, our interview with Sony's Scott Rohde about the new hardware, and finally impressions of how the motion controller works in SOCOM 4. We also have screens and information on all the newly-announced Move titles: Move Party, Motion Fighter, The Shoot, and Sports Champions. We also have some awesome previews of non-Move games: True Crime, Mafia II, ModNation Racers, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Puzzle Quest 2. Finally, it has nothing to do with GDC, but we also posted our preview of Blur's multiplayer beta.

Aside from GDC news, the latest NPD numbers came out Thursday, revealing a number of interesting trends. BioShock 2 topped the charts, and may have contributed to the Xbox 360 outselling the Wii this month. Modern Warfare 2 came in sixth, landing just shy of 10-million copies life-to-date, making it the third-best selling game of all time. Finally, Heavy Rain came in 10th, selling over 200,000 copies – but the game has only been out a week. That's great news for Quantic Dream and Sony, and may point to very strong March sales.

In other non-GDC news this week: It was announced Monday that Scribblenauts 2 not only exists, but will be out this fall. The sequel will introduce adjectives into the mix, so you can try even harder to manifest obscene objects. Speaking of sequels: Konami announced  3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures 2, making the world's most ridiculous name for a golf title just a little more ridiculous. We also found out that Portal 2 is heading to the Mac.

But there's only one #2 that GI is obsessed with right now. No, not that – get your mind out of the gutter. We're talking about about Bad Company 2, which is dominating the UK charts (EA's constant server problems would suggest it's popular here too, but I digress). One handsome (and shameless) GI editor wrote a blog post about Bad Company 2's multiplayer, and some of our community members have been posting about it too. But this week IW's Robert Bowling gave us a little reminder of how popular Modern Warfare 2 still is, and dated the new Stimulus Package DLC. DICE countered with its own announcement: BC2 will be getting its own DLC map pack on the same day – and it will be free (to be fair though, BC2's DLC will only add multiplayer modes to two maps players already have).

Meanwhile in DLC news, more Mass Effect 2 DLC has been revealed and dated (though this time it will cost you), and Ruffian Games announced future Crackdown 2 DLC will allow players to create and share in-game videos with friends. I wish all games had that ability.

Now I'm going to magically transition from DLC talk to trailers, with the announcement of a trailer for the new Army of Two: 40th Day DLC. We also posted the new trailers for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Brink, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and a trailer for Zeno Clash, which includes pig-punting...and we ain't talking about footballs.

Once simply a movie inspired by God of War, The Clash of the Titans now has its own game, and we've got the first screens. If something about that sentence has your blood boiling, please refer to this article. We also have screens for the newly-announced Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Green Day: Rock Band, MotoGP 9/10, and the upcoming Medal of Honor reboot.

And now the stories that just aren't cool enough for a segue: EA is expanding Sports Active with a weird belt; Sony is making a Facebook game that aims at not sucking; and Ubisoft's DRM problems definitely suck. Also, the PlayStation Home is getting streamlined, not shut down like our blatant April Fools joke suggested (once again, I refer you here). And finally, we posted a video of Super Street Fighter IV's final character, who utilizes a disturbing lube move that Dan has been obsessed with for weeks. Yep, I'm ending with the disturbing lube move.

That concludes this massive edition of Week In Review. For more content from our editors and the community at large, check out Blog Herding. See you next week!