Just last week, one of our Senior Character Artists, Hanno, and I hopped on a plane to head over to Cologne, Germany, to work at Europe’s biggest videogames show, gamescom. It turns out that we absolutely had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

This was the first European show for Hanno and myself, as we had never been to the Leipzig Games Convention in the previous years. We weren’t prepared at all on how huge gamescom was – not only in importance, but in sheer physical size. There were four different halls at the Koelnmesse where games were being shown and EACH hall was about the same size of an airplane hangar. The PlayStation booth was probably one of the biggest booths we’ve ever seen and was split into four main sections representing racing games, family games, social entertainment and an 18+ area.

We were looking forward to going to Germany since we were hand-carrying over something really special with us – a fresh set of Blu-ray disks that would allow anyone at gamescom to have the first hands-on gameplay ever with the single player campaign of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves! After we got all of our stations setup, we took some photos of the booth and over the next two days had the chance to take even more photos and video to give you an idea of what it was like for us down on the show floor.

We kicked off the week attending the PlayStation press conference, which was filled to capacity and then some, where SCEE President Andrew House introduced a brand new trailer for UNCHARTED 2 which we put together just for gamescom. Then, Hanno and I spent the first two days of the show with a very full slate of back to back interviews with European press and some US press. You can read some of the interviews here.

We also set aside some time for behind-closed-doors meetings with press, which we used to demo a brand new area of the game where Nathan Drake and a Tibetan companion, Tenzin, must work together to explore and overcome a variety of obstacles inside a frozen cave deep in the Himalayan mountains. We caught a few articles about these demos here.

The rest of the days, gamescom was open to the public and hundreds of thousands of people attended to check out all the games being shown. As you can see from the gamescom Flickr page, there were TONS of attendees throughout the public days.

Over the weekend, we were extremely proud to learn that we were awarded the gamescom 2009 Award for Best Console Game! There was some tough competition at the show by some excellent games coming out this year and early next year, so winning this award means a lot to us at Naughty Dog.

Of course, this won’t be the only time we’ll be giving our fans a chance to get hands-on time with our single-player campaign. First, PlayStation Canada is bringing UNCHARTED 2 to the Fan Expo in Toronto, Canada, this weekend and those in attendance will get the chance to get some hands-on time with our game. Then, the following weekend, PlayStation and Naughty Dog will be at the Penny Arcade Expo 2009 in Seattle and we’ll be bringing the single-player campaign code with us as well!

We hope to see you at either show!

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We’ve seen plenty of games news coming out of last week’s Comic-Con in San Diego, not least from Naughty Dog, who have been showing off Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

A panel of developers and the game’s leading actors – Nolan North, Emily Rose and newcomer Claudia Black – discussed the making of one of the most anticipated titles of this year. And courtesy of Chris Morrell over at PlayStation.Blog.US, you can watch it here.

Entertaining stuff – I can’t remember seeing any motion-capture or voice actors who put so much enthusiasm into their characters and the games they work on.

Naughty Dog will be at GamesCOM and I’m going to be pressing them for new info on the one game I’m most looking forward to. What would you like to know?

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You might have already seen a few bits of news around the ‘net and rumours on forums about this, but here’s the confirmation we’ve all been waiting for from the Uncharted developers:

Nathan Drake Heading to Hollywood

Posted by Evan Wells // Co-President, Naughty Dog

News in Hollywood travels fast! I am happy to confirm that it is indeed true, Sony Computer Entertainment has signed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a movie adaptation of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and it will be produced by Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner. We have been working with Avi and the folks and Columbia for quite some time and look forward to sharing additional details on the film in the short future. Obviously we designed the game to be a cinematic experience and we too can’t wait to see it on the big screen.

So, who do you think should play Nathan Drake?

I loved Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, so can’t wait to see the game recreated on the big screen. But as for the question “Who should play Nathan Drake?”, wow, that’s a killer! Nolan North is the actor who plays and voices Nathan in the Uncharted games, so he could be great choice. What do you guys think?

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To make sure you didn’t miss any of the “must sees”, here’s a quick look back at some of our favourite trailers and photos we’ve posted this week from the show.

E3 Game Trailers

(To see more video, check out our Viddler page)

EyePet

Fat Princess

Gran Turismo PSP (mmMMMmm… shiny…)

Heavy Rain (more…)

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Today I caught up with Neil Druckmann and Richard Lemarchand, co-lead game designers of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, to find out more about one of the most asked about games in the comments, and not only did they talk me through the section of gameplay we saw at the SCEA press conference, they showed me a brand new trailer that offers morsels of insight into the game’s storyline.

What came as a surprise is that Chloe Fraser, the female lead in the first game, is back along with Sully and Elena Fisher – a new addition to the series that we heard about some time ago.

The story begins with Drake finding a clue to the location of Marco Polo’s lost fleet. It leads him to the valley of Shangri-La and the possibility of an even greater treasure – the Cintamani Stone, regarded as the Holy Grail of Buddhist mythology that is said to give incredible powers to whoever discovers it. However, a Serbian war criminal called Lazarevic is also searching for it…

As the Jak and Daxter series, also created by Naughty Dog, pursued a darker direction with its sequels, I asked if Uncharted is following a similar path. “We’re exploring darker themes but we don’t want to lose that light-hearted feel,” replied Druckmann. “In the first Uncharted, Drake was kind of thrown into his hero role, but with the sequel we tried to think of what a modern day treasure hunter would be like, who he would associate with and what would motivate him.”

“It gives us the chance to explore different shades of the character,” added Lemarchand. “And the two female characters add to that in the ways that they mirror each other. Chloe has always been a morally upright character whereas Elena is wilder, with more of a thirst for adventure and self-preservation. She is from Drake’s world.”

To bring the characters to life, the actors performed both motion capture and voices, and they acted their scenes on a specialised set as opposed to a sound studio. “It really helps with that off the cuff humour that Uncharted is known for to have Nolan North, the actor behind Nathan Drake, improvising on the set and adding his personality and improvisations,” explained Druckmann.

“I don’t really know why more developers don’t work this way,” Lemarchand added, “but by doing so we feel we aren’t squandering the charisma and talent of our actors. They’re all passionate about the game and their input really helps.”

One of the often mentioned highlights of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was its incredible water physics, so I asked the guys which little details we would all be talking about this time around. “We think we did lush jungle and realistic water really well last time,” said Lemarchand, “and while they’re still there, snow and wind effects have been a big emphasis this time.”

“It’s the little details that you don’t always notice that really immerse the player,” said Druckmann. “For example, in the helicopter gunfight that you saw at the SCEA press conference, the leaves on the trees are actually swaying and rocking in relation to where the chopper is and the rotation of the blades.”

So what did you guys think of that helicopter scene at today’s press conference? I was totally blown away.

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