I should have been a pair of ragged claws

After wrapping up core development a few months ago, Civilization Revolution (CivRev) is finally being released in the US this week on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo DS. I have been thrilled by the response to the demo on various message boards; CivRev is quite a different game than most console experiences and it was never completely clear to us how the public would respond. Thankfully, most have understood what we've tried to with the series and embrace it as its own thing rather than Civilization 5. I've been particularly proud of the responses of players who have never played a strategy game like this before. The sort of wide-eyed "there can be games like this?!" response makes me feel like we helped expand what people think of games by a little bit. Developing CivRev was quite a challenge for me because it was the first time that I was a lead in charge of other developers, the first time I developed a console title, and the first time we used Scaleform's GFX

This post includes complete, fun-negating spoilers. Do not read if you haven't seen Wall-E yet! The first two thirds of Wall-E (until the Captain starts talking) is amazingly great. Pixar's greatest work, including the Incredibles. They have effectively a silent movie with a robot on a destroyed, garbage-filled Earth that is compassionate, warm, and endearing. Before Wall-E, Lucas owned robots. Wall-E makes R2 look like a 8-bit hack. His bazillion-points-of-articulation eyes, insanely clever physical design, and his collection, organization, and adoration of unique human garbage makes him brilliant. Pixar excels here because I believe robot humor is all about making you think the robot is a human, then doing something unexpected to remind you it's not. Pixar's creativity shines brightly through constant surprises. The first 2/3rds played out beautifully because they relied on the roots of Chaplin movies; an instantly beloved protagonist and inventive physical comedy. My