"Quite literally, we want every single fight to feel like a boss encounter."

-"PoP" brand manager Brady Watkins

Other than that, Ubisoft reps weren't saying much. Perhaps they're explaining more at the company's big event in Paris today?

No matter how it played, I could say this within the first few seconds of seeing it: the rain blew me away. The way the droplets gathered on a soldier's helmet, the environmental downpour -- whether it's actually dynamic or not is a moot point; it looks the part.

My strong gut reaction to the rain is actually why I wanted to sit down and check out "Brothers in Arms," even if I'm awfully tired of World War II shooters.

"Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is what finally convinced me that I was, for the most part, done with World War II shooters. The setting is played out. But like anything, it can be reinvented, and it's possible Gearbox Software could be the ones to do that here. I've heard good things about "Brothers in Arms" before.

My time spent with "Brothers in Arms" was on the PC, but with an Xbox 360 controller. Gearbox also had the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions on display, though, and from my vantage point, there wasn't a notable difference between the three versions.

At first glance, there wasn't much arguing that Gearbox was doing much different. It looks like World War II shooter, and while a very, very good looking one, it's your standard World War II shooter, nonetheless. But then I started playing around with the squad commands, and realizing the additional strategy available to you.

For example, in my first combat scenario, my squad was pinned down behind a truck. I told them to hide behind some sand bags to take pot shots at a group of enemies trying to mow us down with a chain gun. I hid behind some cover around the corner (yes, this one has a cover system, not just a "crouch" button) for a better view.

Above the head of the guarding enemies was a green circle essentially representing the health of the "group," but also representative of the health of each enemy. As you take down individual enemies, the health (or strength) of the group begins to collapse, and the game gives visual cues on when it makes sense to charge in because they're vulnerable.

This was just one instance. I'm told this is common through the rest of the game. I can't tell whether this will end up blurring some of the experience or make large-scale combat more enjoyable. I'll need to spend some more time with it before deciding that.

What I can say at this point, however, is that it looks and plays good. Gearbox appears to be introducing some new elements to the gameplay mix that are compelling enough to warrant a second look as we near the game's August release date. I'll be anxious to see how the mechanics manage to hold up over time.

Plus, I really want to see that rain again.

***

Have a hot tip? Is there a topic that Multiplayer should be covering and isn't? Maybe you know some rival rain I should check out. Drop me an e-mail.

Instead, I mean to convince you that I had good reason to think I knew about the coolest stuff in the game. I'd run through levels. I had used the game's mighty content editor to create all sorts of wild costumes and level props.

And yet I was floored five times during my brief opportunity to play the game with "LBP" technical director Alex Evans. Here's what impressed me:

1) How Enemies Work -- I kept hearing that each new "LBP" press demo would finally reveal the game's enemies. But in each demo -- including the one I went through last week -- they were not in there. I asked Evans about this; what he told me made me realize I had been expecting the wrong thing. The developers at Media Molecule aren't focusing on giving players pre-made enemies.

Instead, Evans said the game will ship with five or six artificial intelligence brains. He wouldn't tell me what the AI behaviors would be, but explained that a "LBP" user would be able to apply them to their creations in the game's editor. Whether or not the AI brains will drive your creations effectively depends on your designs. For example… did you put wheels on the giant attack-llama?

2) Gaming's Most Impressive Screenshot Tool -- You can take in-game screenshots in "Little Big Planet." Hooray. You can then take those screenshots and apply them to objects. That's actually… promising. While using the game's content editor I made a few beams and struts. Then I hopped my character on top of them to pose for a screenshot. I took that shot and applied it as a sticker to one of the beams or struts. I had created an optical illusion, my character standing on top of a beam that looked like an image of him standing atop a beam. Think about how you could use this feature to mess with people: making solid walls look like empty space and fooling them to crash right into them.

3) How "LBP" Music Can Turn Levels Into Rhythm Games -- "Little Big Planet" users can place sound objects in the levels they create. The object Evans showed me was a little speaker. We were able to attach it to a block that was resting at the beginning of a level we were making. You can assign music that will play from that speaker when a user's character walks past it. The music from that speaker can be set to play from any point in the track. I proposed an idea to Evans that he said was 100% do-able: I could line a level with speakers, one set up every few steps -- and set them all to play the same song, but queued up from different parts. Doing this, I could make it so that if a player ran through my level at a certain pace, he or she would hear the song play perfectly. Running at the wrong pace would cause the player to hear the song play in a choppy fashion.

4) Just Add Water -- The game features an impressive content editor. It integrates all its objects within a certain style of calculated physics. Objects teeter and roll with mathematical precision. But there's one element that's not in the game yet -- liquids. I can't flood a level with water and watch how that affects everything I generated. Instant non-purchase? No way. Evans told me liquids are possible: "If people want that, we can do it."

5) The Gifts That You Can Give -- Not only can you use "Little Big Planet" to create any imaginable gaming object that would fit in a 2D playing field, but you can also make the blueprints for any such object. Those blueprints -- really, the object itself -- can be uploaded to other gamers. Better than that: you can make the blueprints a collectible item in the levels you create. Better still: you can associate such objects with leaderboard requirements. So I can challenge the world to score a certain number of points in a level I've made and then automatically reward anyone who achieves that mark with a trophy object that I made myself. I wonder what I could force people to receive if they play my level poorly...

***

I learned all of the above at the demo last week. I should point out that I had a chance to play "LBP" again this week in New York City. But I turned down the Sony reps offering me that chance. I didn't think I could handle anything more -- not this soon.

"Little Big Planet" will be available for PS3s this fall.

The last adventure of Solid Snake is almost ready for gamers. It's been a long time coming -- more than four years of development -- but on June 12, "MGS4" will finally become a reality on PlayStation 3s worldwide.

Fans can stop worrying, though; this isn't the last "Metal Gear," explained associate producer Ryan Payton in an interview with MTV Multiplayer. "I think there's been some misconceptions that this is the last 'Metal Gear,'" said Payton. "This is really just the last chapter of the saga of the Solid Snake story."

But if this is Snake's story, what's up with the inclusion of Altair's costume from "Assassin's Creed"? And how did Kojima get Ubisoft and Konami to cooperate?

"The "Assassin's Creed" costume was one of the last things we put in the game," he said. "It was kind of a last minute thing [and] we were really lucky enough to have Ubisoft be so enthusiastic about this kind of cooperation. They worked overtime to get that costume into the game."

Kojima and "Assassin's Creed" producer Jade Raymond were introduced at E3 last year. The two met again during Tokyo Game Show and a mutual admiration for each other's work blossomed. Discussions started about a collaboration. This turned into Altier's costume being a bonus in "MGS4" at the last second.

"Normally, we don't do that," said "MGS4" producer Ken Imaizumi.

"It's very dangerous because of the code and bug checking," added Payton.

As top-tier third-party publishers, Konami and Ubisoft are technically in competition with one another. I wondered how Kojima and Raymond managed to convince their respective employers to find a way to make this creative exchange work.

"I think it's a testament to the Ubisoft Montreal team," said Payton. "Ubisoft -- which is a very dynamic company -- I just don't see them getting stuck in all that red tape. Rather than try to figure out some royalty sharing it was 'let's just do this, this'll be fun.'"

Fun aside, now that "MGS4" is completed, Kojima finds himself at the juncture he's talked about for years. Kojima can finally create a game that doesn't have Solid Snake at the helm. But with his iconic character out of the picture, Kojima has effectively removed a safety net for the future.

"[Solid Snake] was a burden [for Kojima] because of all those loose ends," said Payton. "So when you play "Metal Gear Solid 4" and when you get to the end, I think you're going to feel that 'wow, this is a nice closure.' All of the weird stuff that's gone on in the past, it's all coming to an end. All those weird questions -- everything is answered."

But, c'mon, Kojima has famously said he's putting Solid Snake behind him before. Payton said Kojima is adamant about moving on, even if it's uncharted territory.

"I think he is kind of nervous about it," he said. "You can't continue from this step. You can't start next chapter. We really do close up the story."

Next month, we'll find out how Kojima pulls it off.

This inter-species romance ends now.

A Sega representative demonstrating the new multi-platform "Sonic Unleashed" at a company event in San Francisco this week told me that "I promise there will be no humans making out with Sonic" in the new game.

He did say there will be "new humans" in the game. As long as they don't get to first base with Sonic, I think some (not all!) people will be happy.

Other "Sonic Unleashed" declarations from the same rep included:

• The revelation that the game's director was "not involved with the previous outing."
• The promise that the new game will be "expanding on titles people liked."
• The intention of the developers "to make Sonic new and relevant again."

Anyone sensing a theme? Can you guess which game Sega regrets making?

"Sonic Unleashed " features day and night modes of play. Night mode was not shown. Day mode is the classic Sonic-runs-fast gameplay in a 3D environment that often runs in the so-called 2.5D of "Sonic And The Secret Rings." The game moved fast but is hard to judge without a hands-on, given that "Sonic" games live or die by things like camera and level flow. Sega was only letting its own employees play the game.

Reporters were also told that, for the most part, Sonic's friends like Tails and Knuckles will not be playable in this game. The figure I heard was that gameplay would be "95%" Sonic-based.

He said it is not announced as a trilogy.

He explained that the decision to make a second game occurred only once Microsoft started receiving large retail orders for the first game and said a decision to make a third one would be made closer to the release of "Gears 2" this holiday season.

And then there could be a fourth, fifth, or sixth game after, he added.

This marked the second time in two days that a top figure on the "Gears" series said that the series shouldn't be thought of as a trilogy, so clearly it's a point the creators want to stress. Why? I'm not quite sure.

Maybe they know that I'm skeptical about trilogies.

There was no malicious intent behind the brief scene Super Mario getting his head blown off in the debut gameplay trailer of "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts And Bolts," a developer working on the game told me yesterday.

Salvatore Fileccia, the lead software engineer behind the upcoming vehicle-based Xbox 360 platformer, said his team has the utmost respect for the Nintendo icon.

He offered a simple explanation for its inclusion.

He told me that the Mario figure that gets blasted apart in the trailer was actually a custom vehicle created by one of the developers on the game using the Lego-like vehicle-building editor. As he demoed the game he had stressed that the developers had managed to create many Star Wars vehicles as well.

The Mario vehicle, which looks like a Mario statue, will not be in the final game -- though I can't imagine someone won't try to create one within hours of the game's official release.

Fileccia told me that he wasn't allowed to say much about what happened, but the impression I got was that Rare snuck it into the trailer and got themselves in some hot water. Either that, or this is an intentional buzz-builder. (You can see the scene online on many sites, including this one.)

Rare developers actually seemed quite eager to stress respect for the "Mario" franchise. When Fileccia began his demo of the game he said that "action platformers have gotten a bit stale" but then added "except for Mario." And when he and I spoke about the bit in the trailer he assured me that even though he hadn't played "Super Mario Galaxy" yet that it would be the first game he plays when he finishes making Banjo.

Rare, of course, used to be partially owned by Nintendo before being purchased by Microsoft in 2002.

(Image capture via NeoGaf)

And I heard some bold statements from the people who made them:

Game designer Peter Molyneux on his team's "Fable 2":

• "We have done everything we an do to make a story you can remember and will stick in your mind."
• "'Fable 2' has as many features as I've ever seen in a game." [After showing such features as cut scenes that can be interrupted by player-triggered farts, spotting a troupe of gypsies whose kids act out the plot of the first "Fable," and explaining that many regions of the game will change dynamically over time based on the player's actions.]

Game designer Denis Dyack on his team's "Too Human":

• "The game has the most content we've ever create. Even in the main menu, the Norn in the Well will probably talk for 30 minutes [if you don't press the start button.
• "I don't think anyone can experience everything that's in there." [After explaining that the game's five classes each have 50 levels, which take about 50 hours per class to achieve -- and noting that a single play-through of the game will only offer players enough time to get to the high level 20s.]

Game designer Cliff Bleszinski on his team's Gears of War 2":

• "A lot of people's memory of 'Gears of War 1' is gray pillars. We wanted to change that."
• "Thirty percent of ['Gears of War 2'] is underground. Cave games are cool, but this is not a spelunking game." [After playing a level that took place entirely above ground and involved Marcus Fenix standing on top of a massive truck, shooting down mortars, mowing down enemy miners, and engaging huge tank-sized bosses called Brumaks].

It's like button-mashing, but involves swinging the Wii remote.

Shake the controller any which way while playing "Skate It" for the Wii and good things happen.

"Skate It" adapts the controls of EA's 2007 game "Skate" fo the Wii's motion sensitive remote. Players hold the remote in front of them, imagining that it's a skateboard. Tilting it down or up tilts the boarder forward or back, rotating slightly left or right causes the board to turn, flicking the remote up causes an ollie (a jump), and various combos of tilting, flicking and rotating trigger basic tricks. Two buttons are used for grabs and acceleration.

I expected the controls to be challenging when I tried it Monday night at an EA event at the Supper Club in San Francisco. Visions of EA's "SSX Blur" and it's demand that I draw complex patterns precisely in mid-air flashed into my mind.

But "Skate It" is not that tough.

The game's producer Mike McCartney challenged me to do an ollie and a manual. I flicked and then tilted down. It worked perfectly the first time.

I started shaking the remote and found that good things happened no matter what I did. That's the quality gamers love or hate about a lot of Wii titles.

The game is pre-Alpha. It's early on. The skate park where the demo was set was a desolate version of the one in "Skate." The storyline justification for its emptiness is that a disaster just hit town. I asked McCartney if the development team was just accounting for the Wii's limited horsepower, but he said the idea came from watching YouTube videos about surfers who seek out hurricane-rocked waves.

The Wii version is a little more colorful than last year's game, a concession to the system's more casual audience. And it won't support video uploading, something McCartney said was less of a priority than getting the controls down.

The game's development team at EA Black Box started integrating Wii Balance Board support into "Skate It" a few weeks ago. A prototype implementation was demonstrated briefly by a developer. Steering and manuals are activated by leaning and pressing on the board with your feet, as you would on a real skateboard. Powerslides are triggered by a sharper lean -- or at least I read so in a preliminary schematic that was on display at the event.

Players using the Board will still need the remote for some controls. Also, players using the remote and not the Board will have the option to plug in the Nunchuk and do steering with the analog stick.

The Wii game and a DS version are set for release in the fall. No connectivity is planned between the two.

EA also announced this week that "Skate 2" is in development for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Then he threw in a nice note for those anticipating "Dragon Age," a PC role-playing fantasy game BioWare announced in late 2006 (at the time, slated for a late 2007, early 2008 release).

Said Muzyka: "It's looking really sweet."

What more do you need to know?

(Image from the Bioware.com)