Robert attended the GDC this year, he was able to ask Reggie the questions which were posted yesterday - and though the show seems to be intensifying, at least from an outside perspective, it doesn't sound anything like the shows I've been to. He mentioned to us in passing that IGN has a booth, a place members of the press can swing by to get a statement on the things being shown there. Damn if that didn't sound like a hell of a job.

As for Sega, it's just been a very long process of realizing that they are no longer the company we had so much psychic investment in. It's difficult to ascertain just what organs of the original company still function in "Sammy Sega Holdings." It's almost inconceivable today that the console world once consisted of an uneasy peace between Nintendo and Sega, one that could spark at any moment into armed conflict. Our theory is that they are punishing us over and over again for not buying enough Dreamcasts by arming their hedgehogs and making Billy Hatcher.

I was terrified that their pox had mutated, and some altered strain was now burrowing to the core of PC gaming. When I heard they had acquired European PC developer The Creative Assembly and were transforming the modern classic Total War series into God knows what, I immediately began to draft a letter to my congressperson. The success of Total War surprises me, because there are things about it that epitomize the unapologetic nicheness a game can embody on a personal computer. It turns out that Spartan: Total Warrior, the console hybrid version announced this week by Sega, has been in development for three years over there and is being worked on by a new internal team. They already had it underway. So you can hate Sega if you want, that's our recommendation, you just can't hate them for any alterations to this particular franchise. The video doesn't look terrible.

That's beside the point, anyway - what I'm interested in is new product from the internal teams that startled us and provided such amusement. There's a revitalized interest from "Sega" in their Shining Force property, and they've hinted without any real information that Phantasy Star is returning as well, so I'm hoping that something resembling a bold idea from them surfaces at E3. I'd like to recommend a game that says Sega on it without shame or fear if possible.

I get the sense from Gabriel that he finds the idea of LEGO Star Wars somewhat sacrilegious. I'm intrigued by it, honestly, as it amounts to a kind of sanctioned parody of the hallowed series. There's a demo of it out now, that's where that earlier link went. I've always loved those interlocking bricks and their tiny, perpetually jubilant dudes, to my mind this pairing represents a Flawless Victory. To know him better I tried to imagine how I'd feel if some renegade Danish cabal went and snapped together a Lego version of Dune or something, and my rage was so fierce it was picked up by seismograph. So I guess I sort of get it.

(CW)TB out.

i'm so high on cruel