Overheard at the "Prince of Persia" concept video presentation at the May Ubidays event in San Francisco:

"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?

Before I even sat down to check out the long-anticipated, long-delayed "Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway" on the PC, my jaw dropped.

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.

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I don't mean to brag when I say that I had already played "Little Big Planet" a few times before trying out the malleable PlayStation 3 platformer again last week.

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?

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"Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" is finished, announced series creator Hideo Kojima at Konami's press conference in San Francisco last week.

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?

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If you have the courage and haven't eaten any food in the last half hour, then you can search the Internet for proof that, in his last self-titled Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game, Sonic the hedgehog fell in love with and kissed a human woman.

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.

As he launched into a 30-minute demonstration of "Gears of War 2" yesterday at Microsoft's showcase event in San Francisco, game designer Cliff Bleszinski volunteered an update on the length of the series.

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.

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At Microsoft's press event in San Francisco yesterday I had a chance to play and/or watch most of the biggest Xbox 360 exclusive games of 2008.

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].

Whether you would enjoy "Skate It" on the Wii depends on how you feel about Wii games that can be played using what I can best describe as motion-mashing.

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.

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When BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka took the stage yesterday at EA's spring showcase event at the Supper Club in San Francisco, he first told a crowd of reporters that this month's PC version of "Mass Effect" is, "our best game to date."

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)