Lynx couldn't wipe that goofy grin off his face

Primesuspect told me before we got out to E3 that we had an interview with Valve Software set for Wednesday.  As a huge fan of Valve, I was naturally excited.  What that sneaky little editor-in-chief failed to tell me was exactly whom the interview was with.

On June 3rd, we got to interview Valve’s VP of Marketing, Doug Lombardi.

We had much to talk about, as the Icrontic community is deeply involved with Valve games.  The first topic was focused on Valve’s most recent announcement, Left 4 Dead 2. We had some hands-on time with the game prior to our interview.  While fun and definitely a worthy addition to my game library, we couldn’t help but wonder why this was being called a sequel.

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The Pandemic elevators. They're world famous.

In the middle of the chaos of E3, Brian and I were invited out to Pandemic studios on the West side of LA. It was a nice break from the frantic action of the Expo to relax and enjoy a one hour commute in standstill freeway traffic amongst honking motorists. Living the dream.

At Pandemic I tried my hardest to not act like a child in a candy store… and failed. It was my first time ever setting  foot in an actual game studio, so I couldn’t help it. The Pandemic gas mask logo was plastered everywhere, there were shelves of unique merch and promo material for Star Wars Battlefront, Mercenaries, and their other titles, and they had massive TVs and developer consoles all over. I just giggled to myself and wore a huge goofy grin. If my life was played on Games for Windows Live, I would have seen the message ‘Achievement unlocked!’ and it would have been worth 1,000g.

We got to sit down with the majority of the key leadership on The Saboteur in a casual round table discussion format. With us was Trey Watkins, the director of The Saboteur, art director Christopher Hunt, and lead programmer Fidde Persson. We were able to ask them anything about the game (though they couldn’t answer all of our questions due to PR restrictions), and it was immediately apparent to me that this is a team that is very passionate about their project.  They’re excited about what they have achieved so far, and can’t wait to let the public see more of the game. (more…)