Described as Monkey Island meets Diablo, DeathSpank is Ron Gilbert's latest creation that blends two genres together in a game that incorporates best of both worlds. With the wacky humor that you'd expect from the Monkey Island creator, and the never-gets-old hack-and-slash gameplay from Diablo, DeathSpank looks to be a fun action adventure, where you can cleave through skeletons for coins and still take a moment to engage in a random conversation with a crazy old man who wants a spicy taco.

Who's Making This Game: Hothead Games is designing the game and has yet to announce a publisher or a platform that the game will be playable on.

What The Game Looks Like: In our meeting with Ron, he talked about how much he liked 2D art and that it had a certain charm that 3D art lacked. Because he also wanted the exploration element that a 3D world offers, DeathSpank is an interesting mix of the two. The world is in 3D, but all the objects within, like chicken coops, houses, trees, and fences, are all distinctly 2D. This gives the game a unique feel because it kind of looks like you are wandering through a watercolor pop-up book. Continue Reading »

Who was there: Insomniac's Weapons 101 panel at the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo was hosted by Brian Allgeier, creative director at Isomniac Games, who was the sole speaker.

What They Talked About: After a mock start where Allgeier showed off an intimidating slide that featured a detailed grid on weapon-balancing characteristics to make the audience think the panel was going to be a GDC-style run through the actual process of balancing weapons, he switched over to pictures and video of the upcoming A Crack in Time.

The focus of the panel was to run the attendees through the process of creating the weapons in the series. Allgeier shared the three pillars the team has used as the basis for weapon creation: comedic, strategic, and fantastic. The pillars weren't much of a revelation for anyone who has played the games over the years, but Allgeier backed them up with a run through some key weapons that have appeared in the series. Continue Reading »

Considering how well Deca Sports sold, it looks like Deca Sports 2 is about to sell like hotcakes once it is released later this month. It's been awhile since we've seen the game, so we stopped by the Hudson booth at the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo to get some hands-on time with the new additions. The variety of sporting events is what stood out, and even though the gameplay is incredibly simple, there's plenty of fun to be had. Who doesn't like synchronized swimming?

What's New: All 10 sports...

The last time we had a chance to see SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 was at a PlayStation Gamers' Day event in April where we were able to get a quick look and feel for the portable game, as well as its new features. At the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo, we were able to meet up with Sony once again to take a look at this third-person shooter on the PlayStation Portable and check out how it plays on the new PSP Go.

The campaign that we played through was set near a ski...