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Who needs to be at PAX? We’re bringing it to you! Disney is letting PAX Prime goers go hands on with its upcoming title TRON: Evolution, allowing them to get a taste of the game’s free-running, combat, and the light cycle in action.

While this doesn’t quite match playing it, we’ve got a video of the game in action for you to watch in the comfort of your chair. If you’re standing, sit down. I can’t imagine why you’d be standing up and reading this though, unless it’s on your phone, and chances are you can’t watch this video anyhow.

The demo at PAX is the same thing I played pre-E3, and while it showed promise (I had fun with the combat, based on Capoeira) , but need a bit of polishing. If you did attend PAX (or you’re there now — why are you reading this?), then let me know what you think of the game. It’s out for PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 on December 7, a few weeks before the film, TRON: Legacy, hits theaters.

Following the announcement that it would be bringing Swords & Soldiers to PlayStation Network, indie developer Ronimo Games has revealed that it’s coming to PC as well.

The PC version of the game will ship with all of the features you’ll find on PSN, including online leaderboards, crisp “HD” graphics, along with a new soundtrack. Additionally, PC owners will get the benefit of Steam Achievements as well as a cursor-based mechanic. Because, you know, PCs use mice.

Swords & Soldiers was originally released on WiiWare, and took advantage of the Wii’s motion control and pointer mechanics. The PS3 version of the game will feature a dual analog scheme, but Ronimo is mum on PlayStation Move support.

Military personnel looking to pick up Medal of Honor this October will have to do so off-site. The Army and Air Force Exchange Services has announced that the game will not be stocked in any on-base GameStop or other post exchange in U.S. military bases worldwide. The reason is because of the inclusion of Taliban fighters in the game’s multiplayer, naturally.

The commanding general of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services explained that this is done out of respect for the men and women who have fought against Taliban insurgents. I don’t particularly oppose the move, especially since there are still other means for soldiers to purchase the game. Nonetheless, I find it curious that the top brass would think soldiers who live day in and day out through so much would be unable to handle some this. Kind of selling them short, don’t you think?

Video Game Pulled Globally From Military Stores Over Taliban Inclusion [Kotaku]

Criterion’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit looks gorgeous and super fast. That was expected. It’s the amount of trash-talking that you’re going to end up doing with your friends that’s going to take you by surprise.

The developer has create a unique game hub which it’s calling “Autolog.” This hub not only keeps track of what you’re doing, but what your friends are doing, and how they’re progressing. The game is designed to constantly keep you up to date on player progress — game progression, records being set — and then shove it in your face. The idea is to get you to keep playing, the incentive to always be number one among your friends.

The idea is rather brilliant, and it looks like it’s really well-implemented in Hot Pursuit, but it’s not a new one. I always think of Bizarre’s Geometry Wars as the gold standard for how leaderboards and score-keeping should be done — it’s a game that (unless you look for it) doesn’t shove world leaderboards in your face, instead presenting the scores of people you care about: those on your friends list. It’s making these rivalries and high score goals immediate, tangible, and unavoidable that always kept me wanting to play “just one more game.”

If Hot Pursuit can do for racing what Geometry Wars did for me, I’m expecting some long, long nights ahead of me when the game ships in November. Cue “Eye of the Tiger.”

Telltale Games has announced what it’s calling “the Citizen Kane of poker games,” and it might be right — Poker Night at The Inventory sounds like the best thing ever.

The game will star Penny Arcade’s Tycho, Max of Sam & Max, they Heavy from Team Fortress, and Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad. They’re going to — get this — play poker. The game features fully-voiced characters, and will used Telltale’s dynamic dialogue system as the character trash talk each other, tell stories, and react to the game in progress.

Poker Night at The Inventory will be available on Steam this fall for both PC and Mac, and will cost $4.99.

PAX Prime 10 is less than two hours away, and the show floor is filled to the brim with doodads and whatchits for your sick, sick pleasure. To get you further pumped, the Piki: Geek blog has posted two sets of photos of exhibitor hall booths in various stages of construction. For some of us (i.e. me), this will be the closest we get to living the dream. For the rest of you, enjoy the show, bastards.

Cory Barlog is officially one of my favorite videogame personalities. David Jaffe was already up there, along with Mark Rein, and a few others. To me, these people are known for their brutal honesty and undeniable personality. Working in this industry and meeting such people is the best part of it, even better than playing games a day earlier than everyone else.

Of course, I didn’t know that’s how I’d feel until after Barlog and Jaffe spent four and a half hours pointing out sexual references, and telling funny stories about their time developing the God of War games. But it wasn’t just these two — the whole of God of War game directors met, for an off-kilter round table discussion slated for your home theater this holiday season.

Hosted by G4s Allison Haislip, David Jaffe, Cory Barlog, Stig Asmussen, Ru Weerasuriya, and Dana Jan — the game directors of God of War, God of War 2, GoW3, GoW: Chains of Olympus, and the upcoming GoW: Ghost of Sparta, respectively — talked about everything from their inspiration to create their games to who would make the best Kratos in a supposed God of War movie. (They didn’t agree, but my vote goes to either Old Spice Mascot.)

Jaffe, known for his outspoken personality, unintentionally stole the show, but his comrades asked for it. For the first hour, every question posed by Haislip was met with a turn of the head and a quiet stare in Jaffe’s direction. It wasn’t until Jaffe got fed up with answering everything that the rest of the team, besides Barlog inputting every witty quip he could, really opened up.

Quite a bit about the God of War franchise came out that night. How Kratos was originally envisioned (Martin Riggs plus Russell Crowe); why his skin was so pale (the unfinished original artwork for Kratos, uncolored with nothing but primer, looked perfect according to Jaffe; what God of War was originally pitched as (Clash of the Titans directed by Ridley Scott); and why Kratos is so likable (”While destroying everything around him, [Kratos is] inadvertently better,” said Barlog. And he’s the ultimate badass)

But perhaps the most interesting bit, which so many people are curious about, is why every game had a different game director. Each had their reasons for stepping aside, but it also gave each new title a fresh start. As Asmussen pointed out, “the first time [directing] is the hungriest.” Both Jaffe and Barlog left to pursue personal ventures, while Weerakjniya gave up his directorial role to run the business side of Ready At Dawn Studios.

Barlog was an absolute treat. Some of his memorable comments include “I build a big level because I can build a big level! Aren’t I awesome?!” and “Athena: ‘I’m gonna take your visions away’, then later, ‘nobody can do that sucka!’” And when Jan was asked how he kept enemies fresh, he told a story of Jaffe’s Napkin O’ Monsters, a restaurant napkin with every character in the God of War series. According to Barlog, “Jaffe draws like a three year old.” Yes, that’s how the night progressed.

Also discussed was the ludicrousness of the series. “Death doesn’t really mean anything,” Jaffe pointed out, as everyone dies yet Kratos himself died twice and escaped Hades. One comical debate compared Kratos to Bruce Wayne. Both fight for revenge and vengance over the anguish of their lost families, but Jaffe couldn’t wrap his head around how Kratos remained so angry.

“Peter Parker lost uncle ben, and he’s still cheery,” Jaffe joked. “Get over it.”

On their inspirations, the entire team agreed when Jaffe said “go play games you haven’t heard of,” pointing games to Ico and Onimushu. “That’s the hallmark of God of War,” Barlog said jokingly. “We take unknown games and completely rip them off.”

Other unknown tidbits about the series?

• The main selling point was always the brutality and violence, because Jaffe knew it would sell.
• Jaffe’s vision of Kratos is as a man who puts work before everything else, and pays with his family for it.
• Most everything in the game, from the environments to characters, are highly romanticized and not historically accurate, because otherwise it would have looked like crap.
• The idea for huge environments and enemies was to evoke a sense of wonder (which clearly worked wonders).
• The supposed God of War movie has been in and out of production for years, and Daniel Craig turned down the role of Kratos a year ago. (Probably to keep his hair.) One unnamed actor did sign on, and all Jaffe would reveal is that he played in a recently released sequel (the third part of a trilogy) that flopped.

The directors left the audience with an important lesson to learn from Kratos.

“Take what you want, and damn the consequences,” Barlog said. “If you want it, take it. And if you love it, people will follow you.”

Because it heard how much you love them, Activision has announced a slew of retailer-specific pre-orders for its upcoming GoldenEye 007 game for the Wii.

GameStop customers will get a code to unlock “Invisibility Mode” for split-screen multiplayer, which sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Each player becomes invisible for a set amount of time, allowing jerks to sneak up on one another. Head into Best Buy for your pre-order and get a “Tag Mode” for splitscreen multiplayer. It’s “the classic playground game” with “a twist” — tagged players can’t kill another player without first tagging someone else.

Activision says the above codes are “exclusive” to each retailer until the end of the year, at which point… I don’t know what happens. Maybe they lift an embargo on the entire Internet and folks on GameFAQ and other message boards can finally tell us the codes.

Finally, if you’re looking for something more tangible, Walmart customers get an Oddjob “Cheater” t-shirt, which is actually kind of awesome. I wonder what kinds of sizes they have available?

Recently Sega invited me over to its San Francisco offices to take a peek at the latest game in the Total War series: Shogun 2.

As a return to the original Total War game Shogun: Total War, Shogun 2 is the latest in the real time/turn-based fusion strategy game. Sega and developer The Creative Assembly were kind enough to show me the real time battle elements of the game, with the turn-based overworld stuff saved for something I have planned next week. Fans of the franchise will certainly want to pay attention.

You’ve seen the trailer, now follow the jump for my hands-off impressions.

Shogun 2: Total War (PC)
Developer: The Creative Assembly
Publisher: Sega
To be released: March 2011

Since this is a shogun game, taking place in 16th century Japan, the idea of Samurai is really important. Players will be asked to lead one of twelve fiefdoms in the quest for Japanese Samurai glory and control of the nation. Starting off in 1545 AD, players will be tasked to guide Japanese culture through wars, the influx of Western nations, Christianity, gunpowder, cultural strife, and more. All of these features, as well as the turn-based elements of the game, build around the core of the game: the real-time battles.

These battles are huge in scope and very tactical. Troops are organized by social and military types, and, interestingly, the enemy AI typically responds like traditional Japanese soldiers would. That is, they fight with a certain code of honor in which unit types fight like unit types, and there is no variation from that. Of course, you’re allowed to ignore those honor codes, which is always fun, screwing with different cultural norms. Controlling the units is as simple as clicking a group and dragging them to the selected spot. Since these units can only walk, run, or ride horses, they don’t move terribly fast, which creates a feeling of impending force. This a slow, powerful feeling RTS.

And boy, there are a lot of units. From noble samurai to lowly peasants, to archers and ninjas, there are over 30 different types of Japanese military units to use. These will change over time, as the change in culture and influx of Western influences will influence the state of the battlefield. There’s a lot to keep track of, and the way units are used and upgraded make a big impact on the field.

One of the biggest impacts is the morale of the units. As units charge across the field, they have a morale meter that indicates how they are feeling on the field. If they face a particularly powerful unit, and their morale may drop enough for them to run away in shame. There is actually a couple ways to win these real time matches, and one of them is to weaken enemy morale by out manning them, taking over their fortresses, or to defeat their general.

The generals play a big role in the battles, as a general-less army is severely weakened. When the general is around, he’ll often make a speech to his troops, and these can range from epic poetry to odd words about squirrels and the moon. Depending on what they say, the troops can respond differently, both good and bad. Either way, it’s good to have a general, as they have extra strength in the battle field, will often charge ahead, and can boost morale. However, is they die, troops morale will drop heavily, so it’s best to keep him around as long as possible.

Most of the matches are just battles on a battle field. However, other battles use the new naval battleships to blur the line between units. Shogun-era naval units were like giant floating fortresses, perfect for moving units along the shallow bays and rivers of Japan. Many of the battles will entail sending units from a ship to attack and overtake a Japanese fortress. These buildings have a staggered affect, in which units move from court yard to courtyard fighting. All of these elements will be in play for the epic battles.

The battles that I was shown featured some impressive bits of tech. Shogun 2 is capable of supporting around 56,000 troops on one screen. Up close, sure, they look a little jaggy, but considering each and every one of them are taking part in individualized fights, this is more than impressive. Considering Kendo martial artists did all the mocap for the game, coupled with artists and musicians who spent a year and a to get everything right for the game, there is a very high standard for accuracy here. The team at The Creative Assembly used primary and secondary sources as inspiration for all the elements of the game, as well as the assistance of Japanese and Western scholars to make to make this as accurate as possible. All the voice acting and terminology uses the proper romaji and Japanese language, and real steps have been made to making this the best representation of Shogun Japan as possible.

Over all, I’m pretty impressed with what The Creative Assembly has done. Even in pre-alpha, there are some pretty fantastic bits of tech here (hell, water runs off the roofs in a realistic manner during a rain storm, for example). Moving troops is a simple and thoughtful affair, and it looks like a very realistic take on ordering your troops about and lining them up. Coupled with the turn-based, Civilization-esque elements that I am not yet allowed to talk about, I think Shogun 2: Total War could very well be a major title for RTS PC gamers.