GamesRadar gave the game the full ten out of ten marks, declaring it to be “A 10 hour experience that constantly delivers cool new areas to explore and diverse monsters that are a joy to fight.” Destructoid was similarly effusive, also awarding the game ten out of ten and remarking, “If you’re looking to show off the power of your console, this is your new showcase – it’s an experience that simply can’t be missed.” 1Up gave “GoWIII” an “A” rating, describing it as “the most consistent and varied of the trilogy, and when it’s at its best the first two can’t touch it.” GameSpot likewise awarded it close to full marks – nine out of ten from them – saying it was “A brilliantly paced, meticulously detailed adventure that thrills and satisfies until the very end.”

Nine out of ten was also awarded by TheSixthAxis, which noted that “There won’t be a developer on the planet that isn’t looking at what’s been achieved here with envious eyes.” IGN UK upped its mark to 9.4/10, calling it “Simply breathtaking, on a scale that puts most Hollywood blockbusters to shame. Attention to detail is so meticulous it’s virtually impossible to fault.” And finally, computerandvideogames.com chimed in with the comment that it “sets the mark for all-out action brawlers with unrivalled brutality, gore and epic scope.”

The message is clear – buy, buy, buy!

“Natal is a wonderful additive to this experience. It really does add to the “Fable” world,” he insisted. When asked how, Molyneux dodged the question. “I can’t give you specifics about that, but it’s been a real joy to put some Natal stuff in there.” At the same Conference, Molyneux also noted that President Barack Obama was the inspiration for the ruling dynamic featured in the game, and added that “Fable III” features the “British man hug”, as opposed to the full-body American man hug. “Americans really do love a bit of grand,” he commented.

Moving swiftly on, Molyneux also took the opportunity to announce the casting of John Cleese in “Fable III”. The legendary British comic will be providing the voice for the main character’s butler, a kind of cross between Alfred from “Batman” and Jeeves from the famous PG Woodhouse stories. “We were inspired by the idea that people kept saying we were making this game with “Monty Python”-esque humour,” he noted, “so we got John Cleese as your butler. We have recorded a vast amount of AI dialogue and having John Cleese big you up in a slightly sarcastic way is absolutely wonderful. He is an absolutely fantastic character.”

“2010 will be the biggest line up of high quality, blockbuster titles and exclusives ever witnessed from Xbox,” he claims. “Xbox 360 is the best entertainment value today, and it will continue to be in the future when we launch Project Natal – as it will work with every Xbox 360 sold and those sold in the future. We’re always looking for ways to enhance our current generation hardware offerings, whether that is through software, cutting edge services over Xbox Live or innovations like Project Natal.” McGill says that Xbox fans have lots of exclusives to look forward to through the rest of the year.

“We’ve got a great portfolio of games launching this year and through our commitment to game add-ons, these game experiences don’t just stop at the end of the disc but expand indefinitely… From the beginning, Xbox has always had a very deliberate strategy to focus on core gamers and then expand the market. If we do this right, we’ll continue our growth as a platform with something for everyone, whether it’s the best AAA market, downloadable fun for all with Xbox Live Arcade and Game Add-Ons, or a selection of on demand HD TV and movies for the whole family…. I can’t comment on sales forecasts. However, I can say that we’re coming out of a vert strong year for Xbox.”

Zampella and West, who headed the team behind last year’s phenomenally successful “Modern Warfare 2” were fired from the studio under mysterious circumstances, with Activision alleging they were planning to leave the studio to set up their own organisation and supposedly searching for documents to back up this allegation, while the duo has launched legal action against their former employees with their dismissal conveniently coming just as they were due to receive large royalties from their “MW 2” success. Now, Electronic Arts CFO John Schappert has added his opinion to the mix, expressing disappointment at finding two of the industry’s top minds being weighed down with legal mumbo jumbo.

“I’m disappointed on a couple of fronts,” Schappert commented while at GDC. “I’m disappointed because I think Jason and Vince, on the human side, are two great guys. I know them personally, they’ve done great things, and I think they’re two of the best creative leaders in our space. And to think they’re going to spend their future dealing with litigation and lawyers rather than crafting the next great experience… I don’t think that’s a win for them, I don’t think that’s a win for our industry. I think that’s a disappointment.” Schappert also added a simple comment that, “I hope that they find a way to continue to make games and focus on that during this period.”

CEO Jukka Makinen and Jaako Haapasalo told computerandvideogames.com that they simply did what they said they would. “We said we would support “Shattered Horizon” with free content after the game was launched,” Haapasalo explains. “Now “Moonrise” is out, we’re already hard at work on the next content update – which will also be free… It has to do with how we view multi player games. Launch time is not the end of the development effort, but rather the beginning of a fruitful relationship with the player community. We continue to sell “Shattered Horizon”, and we continue to develop “Shattered Horizon”. The result is a better game for our customers, and people are always willing to pay for true value.” Makinen takes up the theme. “We are not opposed to selling additions in principle,” he says, “but there are right and wrong ways to go about it. With multi player games, for example, you don’t want to split the player community with artificial fence prices on additional content. A paid update, if we ever do one, should not leave you feeling left behind if you don’t get it, or leave you feeling isolated if you do, but should instead feel like a natural and unconstrained choice to pay more if you want more.”

As for the future, Makinen notes that a new game is in the works, but also adds that “We will continue to develop “Shattered Horizon”.”

Brower sat down with computerandvideogames.com to discuss his notable work on “Wow”. “One of our most important tools in “World of Warcraft” is actually silence,” Brower reveals. “You’ll notice the music doesn’t play continuously – and we have found that that’s very potent, because it just makes it all the more special when it comes in. Using silence allows the player to absorb the ambience of the space between the cues that much more – and it also allows us to reserve our larger cues for the bigger story moments.”

He notes that the game allows for a range of emotions to be reflected in the music score. “It’s been really enjoyable to approach “Warcraft”, because everything we do here we like to use the words ‘epic’ and ‘bold’,” he notes. “That certainly describes a lot of the “World of Warcraft” music. On the other hand, if everything’s ‘epic’ and ‘bold’, you need some contrast – it ceases to have meaning after a while, and in the worst case, you get annoying. We have sometimes tried to play against what you’re experiencing and what you’re seeing, being a little bit ironic with the score. One of my favourites is “Grizzly Hills” where the music is representing the surrounds pretty literally – its pretty pastoral. However, the quests you’re going on are certainly no less intense than in other zones. It allowed us to explore a different pallet completely – more of a kind of Americana sound.”

“I’d like to announce an update to the Xbox Live Terms of Use and Code of Conduct which will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles,” Xbox Live chief Marc Whitten announced on the official site. “Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox Live community.” “Expression of relationship orientation ok in Gamertags and profiles on Xbox Live,” Xbox Live’s policy head Stephen Toulouse confirmed on Twitter. “Special thanks to GLAAD and Microsoft’s LGBT community for guidance on the terms.”

The decision was made after Live bosses held a meeting with GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Not everyone is impressed with the new policy, however, with the community on computerandvideogames.com divided on the issue. “When I filled in my application on my passport, I didn’t include my sexual preference,” commented kimoak. “I didn’t when applying for a job, either. Adding this on a gamer profile online is something we don’t really need. It’s more trouble than its worth in my opinion.”

Speaking to G4TV, Brack said that while the team would theoretically love to move “Warcraft” over to the consoles, there are some very big roadblocks that make it happening any time soon, if ever, very unlikely. “I think there’s a lot of reasons,” he confessed. “There’s not one thing. One is, it takes a long time to develop an MMO. The lifecycle of consoles being what they are, you have to really time when your console’s going to come out, what its projected life cycle is going to be with when your game is going to be… which is challenging.” Some MMO’s have gone over to consoles, however, with Square Enix’s popular “Final Fantasy XI” being the most spectacular exception to the rule.

The chances of “Warcraft” itself making that transition are slim, however, according to Brack. “In the case of “WoW”, we talk about it all the time,” he admits. “How would we bring “Wow” to the console?” The problem, it seems, is “those technical challenges. There’s patching challenges, there’s the quality control that we have vs. the quality controls that, say, a Microsoft or a Sony or Nintendo has. All those things sort of raise the bar in terms of the challenges and then specifically in the case of “Wow”. “Wow” was designed to be a keyboard game and its control scheme and its camera control and the number of abilities that you have and the spells and how things work are very keyboard-centric. The idea of translating that to a gamepad is a very, very challenging proposition.”

A month ago, the government revealed six thousand responses had been received, the overwhelming majority of which were very much in favour of the rating being introduced (as it is in the majority of other countries in the developed world). The government is yet to reveal the results of the final tally, though Brendan O’Connor, the Federal Minister for Home Affairs, has lauded the large numbers of those responding. “It is good to see that this public consultation has generated so much interest,” the Minister stated. “The submissions received in this consultation process will assist the Commonwealth and other censorship ministers’ consideration about whether an adult classification for computer games should be introduced.”

A report will now be made for the Standing Committee of Attorneys General, the next meeting of which will be held next month. And there lies the recurring problem that Australian gamers are only too well aware of – South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson. Regardless of whether the public submission shows a result of 99% in favour of introducing an ‘R’ rating (as it did with the initial results in February), all the country’s Attorney Generals need to agree for the change to go ahead, and Atkinson has made it very clear where he stands on the issue. The question is, if the results are as utterly clear cut as the initial statistics suggest they will be – will Atkinson really be able to risk demeaning democracy to his own personal agenda?

Eidos has confirmed that the Game of the Year edition of the popular game will see the Caped Crusader venture into three dimensions for the first time, and spilled all in an interview with computerandvideogames.com. “It’s an exciting new area and we thought it would work really well for “Batman”,” developer Rocksteady’s head honcho Sefton Hill told the site. “I saw the tech just as we were finishing up “Batman” and I was immediately excited by it, especially as it worked on both console platforms and didn’t require people to buy any new kit. The opportunity came up for a Game of the Year edition, so we decided that we wanted to add something special that everyone could enjoy rather than just a rerelease with new box art.”

Hill says he believes that 3D “works really well” with the game. “We have the lead character positioned in such a prominent position on screen, even by third person genre standards,” he claims. “Some of the expensive technology required in the top end glasses makes 3D gaming not really much of a spectator or social sport, so there’s always going to be a bit of a barrier there. The good news with “Batman” is that you get two pairs of glasses in the box so you can watch a friend play and choose if you want the Batman or Joker themed specs.”