We played with the PlayStation Move at the party last night, but at Sony's more intimate gathering at the W Hotel today it was easier to get a better picture of the peripheral. The main games on the floor were interesting, but the game we wanted to play? SOCOM 4, with the PlayStation Move.

This was the game that was aimed at hardcore gamers, and the guys from Zipper told us that they were able to get this build up in a matter of weeks; the tools Sony was providing its developers for Move support were intuitive. This was also the first time we were able to use the secondary, nunchuk-like controller to add analog movement to the Move. We were able to play the game for about 20 minutes.

Aiming the crosshairs with the Move worked well, and I didn't feel any lag. While I was new to the game, the firefights and encounters were a blast with the controller; there is something much more satisfying about aiming at the screen with a controller instead of moving an analog stick. This is a controller that's ready for more mainstream use in shooters, and the fact that Sony already has a high-profile release that uses the technology so well is heartening.

The d-pad allowed you to give commands to your squad, and you can send two groups of soldiers to different objectives. It almost felt like a real-time strategy game; you can set up some series covery fire if you're able to think that far ahead in the combat. "We're looking at gestures," we're told when ask about things like throwing grenades and the like. "[The Move] leads a lot of accessibility to a hardcore game like this."

The team at Zipper spent three months with the controller, and the work has paid off. Will we use the Move when we're playing online and care about our score? Maybe not. But it adds an extra layer of fun to the gameplay of a title that already looks mature. It took a little bit of talking to get behind the velvet rope to play this demo, but it was worth it. We're starting to see the promise.

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With Mafia 2, developer 2K Czech is leaving the optimism to Tony Bennett: this is not intended to be a rags to riches crime story. Don’t expect golden dreams to come true. This is the story of a man trying to keep his head above water, a man who returns to America after seeing the devastation of World War 2 Europe, and tries to make his way in an unforgiving city.

When the game opens, Vito Scaletta has just been granted leave from the war to return home to his mother and sister after his father passes away. Settling a $2,000 ($2K) debt his father owed now falls squarely on Vito’s shoulders, and he’ll need to accept any job from every wiseguy and hoodlum he encounters to make ends meet. It’s a deeply personal narrative, and to hear Denby Grace, the senior producer from 2K Czech, describe his team’s game, it’s more Sopranos than Scarface, more Godfather than Goodfellas.

The latest data from market research firm comScore shows Apple holding on to a quarter of the US smartphone market, which grew roughly 18 percent over the last six months. That makes the iPhone the number two smartphone in the US, though it still lags well behind number one RIM. Android-based devices are still growing rapidly in popularity.

Over the last few months, comScore data shows RIM and Apple holding pretty much steady, with RIM at 43 percent and Apple at 25.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, Palm (which includes webOS and PalmOS) devices and Microsoft-powered devices continued to decline. Android-based devices, however, continued to rise sharply, enough to eclipse Palm to take fourth place in the US market.

One complaint commonly leveled against the iPhone is that it can't run multiple apps at the same time. However, sources for AppleInsider say that Apple is finally planning to that will integrate with the established iPhone user interface in the next major revision of iPhone OS, expected to be available this summer.

Like Mac OS X on which it is based, iPhone OS is fully capable of running multiple processes at once. In fact, it does run multiple processes—iPod, Mail, voicemail and phone processes continually run in the background. What it doesn't do is run multiple third-party apps at the same time. Want to listen to Pandora while answering e-mails? Run a GPS tracking app while checking your tweets? Sorry, no can do.

Apple has given a number of reasons for enforcing this limitation. The company claims that multiple apps running simultaneously will run down the battery faster, or could lead to more out-of-memory errors as apps contend for resources of the iPhone. Also, since non-Apple apps can't run in the background, there's virtually zero chance that malware could run without a user noticing. Finally, limiting the iPhone to one app at a time keeps things simple enough for even the most tech-adverse users to understand how it works.

However, the latest rumor says that Apple has a "full-on solution" to the problem coming in iPhone OS 4.0. No specifics were revealed, so there are no details about how Apple has implemented managing multiple running apps. Remember, it took three major versions of iPhone OS before there was , and the interface ended up working extremely well. We expect Apple has likewise put extensive work into making running multiple apps as straightforward as possible while still offering reasonable levels of stability, battery life, security, and ease of use.

Cybertron isn't just the homeworld of the Transformers... it is a Transformer itself. It was the first Transformer. In War for Cybertron you get to explore the Civil War between the Autobots and the Decepticons as they blast their way across the planet. At GDC we were treated to a long demo of the game, and yes, it looks good.

The characters were given all-new designs, and some of them will in fact be made into toys. The game takes place before Optimus gains his "Prime" designation, and shows his early days of gaining the trust of the Autobots; we get to see just how he learned to be a leader on the battleground. On the flip side of things, the game explores how Megatron met Star Scream. "We also explore why Megatron keeps this guy, who is basically a back-stabber, around," we were told. This game is taking the Transformers lore back to basics, and filling in some serious holes.

Green Day: Rock Band has a release date, so you can finally exhale. The game is coming to the PlayStation, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii on June 8, for $59.99 on the two high-definition systems and $49.99 on the Nintendo Wii.

The game features 47 Green Day songs, vocal harmonizing for multiple singers, and you'll have the ability to export every song to Rock Band or Rock Band 2 for an additional $10. Joystiq is reporting that if you preorder the game from GameStop, you'll be able to export the songs to your hard drive for free. A $69.99 special edition version of the game will include the ability to export the songs as well, and will include previously released Green Day tracks from the Rock Band Store.

The story mode of the game will take you through Green Day's career, with images to unlock and videos to watch. For the hardcore Green Day fan this should be a day-one purchase. For everyone else? We're just going to have to take a look at how much Green Day we need in our rhythm games.

Harmonix has also announced Rock Band 3 for release this year, but has yet to provide any details.

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