Quite a number of announcements were made by Sony in this year's Game Developers Conference. While most are probably talking about the fact that there are 2.8 million PSN gamers, developers have been going crazy at the new PhyreEngine from Sony Computer Entertainment. For more on this, be sure to check out the full article.

During the Game Developers Conference 08 in San Francisco, the company Havok has released version 5.5 of its renowned game engine of the same name. The announcement was done by no less than Managing Director David O'Meara.

There have been many changes to the engine that promise to make gameplay experience more immersive. Know all about these changes after the jump!

In able to successfully render the realm of Lucas Arts' upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game, three different physics engines were used. In a video we have for you, the developers talk about how Havok, Euphoria, and DMM take part in making the world of the Star Wars unlike any other game under the franchise.

Eden Games haven't said much about its upcoming Alone in the Dark: Near Death Investigation (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC), but German magazine PC Games was able to visit the developer's studio and learn more. Check out what they found out at the full article.

Develop Magazine's Industry Excellence Awards broke records after gathering 500 games industry executives last night. Among them, 17 different companies and individuals claimed the 18 awards over 15 categories.

A panel of industry experts voted for the best in different categories to reward various creative achievements in game development - from visual arts to innovation. The diversity of the list gives us nothing but a positive outlook, and assurance that the market won't run out of good games if these guys are around.

Here's the list of winners that deserve our cheers:

• New Console IP - MotorStorm (Evolution/SCEE External Development)
• New Handheld IP - Crush (Zoe Mode)
• Best Use of a License - Lego Star Wars II (Traveller's Tales)
• Visual Arts - Rare (for Viva Piñata)
• Audio Accomplishment - FreeStyle (for B-Boy)
• Publishing Hero - Sega
• Innovation - Real Time Worlds (for Crackdown)
• Tools Provider - Havok
• Best Use of Online - Eden Studios (for Test Drive Unlimited)
• Services & Outsourcing - Babel Media
• Recruitment Company - Datascope
• New UK Studio - Realtime Worlds
• Handheld Studio - Rockstar Leeds
• Business Development - Blitz
• Independent Developer - Traveller's Tales
• In-house Developer - Ubisoft France
• Development Legend - Ian Hetherington
• Grand Prix - Sony

We're not sure about the exact criteria, but a good guess would say Sega earned the "Publishing Hero" award for having plenty of titles in all flavors under its belt. With Rockstar Leeds' big games in its arsenal (GTA: Liberty City/Vice City Stories), it's no surprise why the company is branded the best "Handheld Studio."

Sony's Grand Prix Award is due to 12 months of extensive support for internal and external developers to create cutting edge next-gen games.

About a few months ago, Saber Interactive is a video game developer based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. They focus on first person shooter games. It released the game Will Rock in 2003, and is currently developing another game called TimeShift.">Saber Interactive's TimeShift for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC got pulled into the proverbial wormhole for some major design revamps. Aside from several tweaks to the game's mechanics and graphics, the team was also going to integrate the Havok 4.5 physics engine, which was hoped to bring out even more of the game's potential.

Now, in case you're wondering how the title's looking in light of its overhaul (and previous trailers), we've pick up a new gameplay trailer for your viewing pleasure - and it's just in time for E3 2007.

Currently published by Sierra Entertainment, TimeShift is expected to launch this Fall. Keep an eye out in case we hear more details.

Now when LucasArts thought they had one fixer-upper to leverage their terra-forming shooter, Fracture, they probably didn't see this one coming. Midway's take on John Woo's classic "Hard Boiled", Stranglehold, features Massive D (D for Destruction) that allows the player to not only wear away the enemy's cover with bullets, but also take them out with falling objects from above.

 

In the IGN blogs for Stranglehold, senior game designer Patrick Curry described their attempts to litter levels with so many of these "gags," so players will be able to experience total Woo-esque action that only a game sporting a Havok physics engine could deliver. Since the game's revelation at E3, they've started work on the Hong Kong Marketplace, and their ideas started from their design of that map. Curry explains in general detail:

The first thing we did was make all of the neon store signs hanging in the Market destructible, so when you shoot them they’ll crush anyone below. Then we did the same to air conditioners, precariously hanging out of windows. And then we got crazy and using our Havok goodness, made signs that swing and take out multiple enemies at once. It was a really fun time in our project, getting to try out all the new tech toys we’d made, and see the fruits of our labor in the form of crazy enemy deaths.

Now they've gone all out, taking turns in designing their own nifty traps within levels to give any player enough options for solving the enemy swarm problem - not that they're much of a problem anyway. Some of the designers, in fact, have become quite adept at designing hidden "gags" that they've become masters at it.

"A couple of our designers have become masters of gags, and when we need something totally over the top and Woo-esque, we bring them in and let them go nuts. It’s totally amazing what they’ve come up with!" blogged Curry. When you do pick up this game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, expect to send baddies flying from gas leak explosions, bowling down pachinko machines and squished flat like the critters they are.

Just wondering: any of our readers actually old enough to remember this early-to-mid-'90's cartoon? (Or, anyone been watching Boomerang recently?)

For those too young to be sentient back in the rolling '90s, the premise of the Hanna Barbera "SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron" has a couple of hotshot pilots turned vigilantes take down the unfriendly skies in an advanced aircraft which looks similar to an F-14 (duh, TomCAT). Taking Top Gun and the A-Team under its wing - or claws, the edgy, flashy cartoon scored surprisingly high in the ratings, although it sadly only lasted a couple of seasons.

Sigh. Those were the days. Still, the show, for all its unbelievable premise and camp (hard-edged casualty-filled camp, but camp nonetheless), resonates with its fans, though - you should see the IMDB forums. Or me. Where do you think I got my love for Ace Combat and Warhawk (besides Top Gun)?

It's got a megacity full of vicious criminals and their lemmings, it's got high-tech gadgets, sky-high dogfights, and street-dirty brawls - oh, for heaven's sake, this cartoon ought to be a game! Wait - it is! It was an SNES game! And, given that there were games like the flight shooter Turn 'n' Burn: No Fly Zone and the Mega Man X series which carried parts of the concept, and carried it well... the SWAT Kats SNES game by Hudson Soft ended up a fade-to-black generic shooter.

... Do you hear that? That must be the sound of ejection seats popping. Maverick is not pleased with his afterburn. (Okay, to be fair, the SNES game was a fair challenge, but still uninteresting in the end.)

Alright, so this article isn't going to be a RE-GEN; I'm just skimming here. Need more time to throw a SIXAXIS around before a full RE-GEN can be made out of this. Same principle applies, though: next gen power, next gen promise. And this time, full exploit of the show's premises and mechanics, no short-changing due to "limited processing power." Some of us kats would hate it if such a promising license was re-botched on the re-gen.

Speed of Heat after the jump.

As director of product management at Havok, Jeff Yates explained the intricate details of the Havok physics simulation tool that they delivered to titles such as Half-Life 2, Dead Rising, and MotorStorm, including the insight of how the gears turn for the technical side of the game industry.

 

For two and a half years, Havok has been developing software development kits for use in physics engine and animation development in games. With the official launching of the SDK back in mid-2004, they've had seen a lot of progress with their animation and physics features as the years rolled by.

So it wouldn't be surprising that in an exclusive interview with game dev's haven Gamasutra, Yates got a little bit technical about next-gen console technology and competition against PhysX">AGEIA's PhysX hardware physics accelerator for the titan PC.

Havok, as you must know, delivers software solutions to physics simulation, which is something that next-gen consoles require as of this moment. Many other game developers license the use of the physics SDK to simulate real in-game physics in the most complex and hardware hungry of titles (Half-Life 2 for example).

Software physics is handled by the CPU and its cores, although new solutions have GPUs taking the processing load off the CPU. Havok delivers their physics engine solutions as customers require of them, often catering to the different hardware slapped into the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. After all, they've built their solutions with cross-platform features and consoles in mind.

Click on Full Article to read more on Jeff Yates opinions on next-gen console tech and development, plus PhysX on PCs.

 

From the folks that will be bringing you the Develop Conference and Expo on July 2007, Tandem Events organizes a double event dedicated for the games graduates of UK. GamesGrads is slated to occur on April 24 and April 26, on Manchester and London respectively.

GamesGrads is a full-blown game career fair to be supported by numerous game industry names, including Havok, Microsoft Game Studios, Disney Interactive Studios, Rare, Lionhead, Juice, and Rebellion. They are many more other developer studios that have yet to confirm details on their attendance. Ali Wynn, an organizer at Tandem Events, was proud to say that the developer response to the event was "great." She also added:

We've got some high profile studios actively looking to recruit games graduates taking part and so far hundreds of graduates registered to come along and meet up with them, showcase their work and hopefully secure a career in the games industry.

Game industry students interested in attending GamesGrads should look up the official GamesGrads website and register there. All registrants will be entered into a draw to win an iPod Video and a Super Pass for the Develop Conference and Expo 2007 to take place once again in Brighton.