Well, a few of them. It's GDC time again, and while hardly anything ever happens, people still continue to complain that nothing's happened. A few interesting announcements have been made however and here are some of them:

Gears of War 2

I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming. Your mother probably knew it was coming. Well for those who live under rocks, it's finally actually been confirmed, and with a November 2008 release date no-less! Judging from past releases on the 360 you can probably guess that that'll be a worldwide release, or at least with regions other than the US following very shortly. Unfortunately there's not actual footage to speak of yet, other than a pretty bare teaser trailer, but this Unreal Engine 3 demo, using Marcus and the Gears of War gameplay engine, should give an indication of what Epic are up to.



Bangai-O Spirits

A new Treasure shoot 'em up for the DS actually comes in the form of an old N64 game. It was originally only released in Japan, then released in the US whenit was ported to the Dreamcast. It's only currently confirmed for the US, but with it's 3rd port will it make it Europe finally? We can always hope...

The game's apparently renowned for its rewarding Players for causing as many explosions at once as possible, and is sure to be the insane bullet-fest Treasure games usually are. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about this port is a feature which will somehow convert custom levels (Created with the game's level editor), high scores and replays into audio files and allow you to save them to a PC to distribute them over the internet. Sounds crazy.

Tales of Vesperia

In an incredibly strange turn of events Namco Bandai are bringing the next new instalment of the Tales series of RPGs to the Xbox 360 instead of the PS3 or Wii. Set in a completely new world the game promises a brand new graphics engine, which apparently makes it indistinguishable from modern animé (And I must say, some of the screens look like they've literally been drawn onto the screen), along with new additions to the series' battle system such as bigger environments, more freedom of movement and timing-based finishing moves. Looks like one to keep an eye on, especially if you're wanting more RPGs for your Xbox for some strange reason.

While they were at it Namco Bandai re-confirmed a 2008 release date for the new Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Complete with awful new subtitle) along with a new monster capturing system, which lets you capture over 200 monsters to use in battle alongside you. Hopefully it won't just feel like a half-arsed Pokémon game

Disgaea 3

On the other hand, one series which is sticking one of the Japanese consoles of choice, even in America, is Disgaea. The PS2 games were popular in America and Europe as well as Japan, with people often praising the strategic turn-based gameplay as well as the decision to keep to 2D sprite-based graphics for all the characters and enemies. Having not actually played the first one yet, despite buying it a while ago, I can't comment on it yet, but at least PS3 owners have a game to add to their lists.