It’s been talked about, but finally today, Take-Two Interactive announced that it has struck a deal with Universal Studios to bring Bioshock to the big screen.
The movie will be directed by Gore Verbinski, who previously directed the Pirates of the
id Software has announced that it has begun work on DOOM 4 and is also in the process of recruiting new team members to help with the next instalment.
“DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software.
Hardly shocking - but I’m for once going to remain non-cynical on this one. I may even be slightly positive about it.
Yes, plainly EA has identified Nintendo’s inventive and astounding success with Wii Fit and the Balance Board, and has a case of the Me-Toos. It wouldn’t be EA if it hadn’t. However, as well received as Wii Fit has been, there have been complaints and weaknesses, especially in the Western market, and it seems to me EA may well be the company to put that right.
“We also need to make sure we’re delivering something that’s truly exercise. I’ll call [Wii Fit] more eastern fitness, where it senses weight and balance, like Tai-Chi. It’s more about holistic fitness.” The wise words of Peter Moore, ex Xbox boss, current EA Sports President.
It seems to me that if there’s something EA’s good at, it’s producing mass marketable games that get ever so slightly better with each iteration - and that’s not something that seems to conflict with the concept of a fitness game, nor is it something Nintendo is likely to manage itself.
The game will release on the as yet unused EA Freestyle label, and it’ll be a great test of EA’s true development metal, and new innovation-friendly stance.
The fourth in the new series of PoP games has been officially announced, and the first details revealed in a recent issue of Edge. That’s the full article link there, so get cracking.
What do you mean ‘you can’t be arsed’?
OK, OK, here come the bullets.
- It uses an advanced Assassin’s Creed engine
- It’s going open-world
- It’s going heavier on the fantasy, less on the Arabian theme
- The Sands of Time and related abilities are all gone (no rewinding)
- Combat is massively altered, with a one-on-one style being adopted
- An Okami-like manipulation of the world is promised, in realtime
To be perfectly honest, as a staunch Sand of Time fan, all of that sounds absolutely dreadful. There’s genuinely not one thing there that makes me happy. I can see the appeal of an open world and all that, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like everything that made SoT fantastic has been gradually dropped over the space of the next three games.
Still, as is always the way in games, someone else will come along and do everything Ubisoft were doing, only better and more imaginatively. We saw Lara utterly dethroned by the original PoP, and now my sights are firmly set on Mirror’s Edge to claim the next-gen platforming throne.
Sega has revealed some details regarding Gearbox’ new Aliens game, Colonial Marines, due later this year on the three key platforms.
The press release, to be honest, makes a lot out of nothing, dishing devilishly generic details like the game featuring ‘an alien assault more intense and horrific than ever before’. Thanks guys. Seems there’s a couple of proper writers on the project, and it’s going to do its best to recapture everything that made Aliens a success in the first place.
The interesting stuff concerns the multiplayer, and rather than rewrite it, I shall simply perform the magic of cut and paste because it’s 5:55pm.
Aliens: Colonial Marines will feature a story driven single-player mode and an all-new four player co-op mode allowing players to share the chilling experience with three friends. In co-op mode, each player will assume the persona of a United States Colonial Marine and have a distinct role to play in the completion of every mission. Additionally, more multiplayer modes will be revealed later in the year that will complete the Aliens video game experience.
On a related note, Microsoft were pleased to announce that the Xbox 360 version has sold 100,000 copies (20%) more than the Playstation 3 version in the UK, since the game’s release last Tuesday, 29th April.
Yes, it’s happened again.
Following the infamous Hot Coffee incident in the last GTA (a deleted scene involving interactive sex between the protagonist and his fully clothed girlfriend which earned the game withdrawal from many shop shelves) a ‘deleted’ level in GTA IV has been discovered, entitled Hot Coughing.
Clearly a borderline topic cut at the last minute (or perhaps a cheeky middle finger from Rockstar North to the suits), the missions sees the player receive a groin injury and encounter ambulance chaser Jerk Thompson at the local hospital.
Jerk is predictably pushy, and verges on the gay side of homosexual - something tells me it’ll be fun to watch this one play out.
After a wait of suitably Valve-like proportions, the first major update for Team Fortress 2 went live today.
The update includes a new map type - Goldrush - and three achievement-based unlocks for the medic class - one for each weapon.
I could tell you all about it, or wax on about the gameplay implications, but you may as well just read about it, then play it.
Oh, and the whole shebang goes free for this weekend only, so if you’ve not yet bought TF2, now’s the time to jump in.
In an interview with PC Play, Crytek President Cevat Yerli has said his company will no longer develop PC exclusives.
“PC gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won’t have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive any more.”
Crytek will be the latest in a long string of traditionally PC oriented developers to either expand into the console arena, or move away entirely. Maxis, Epic, Irrational… PC exclusives are dwindling (in volume, not necessarily quality), while the consoles are muscling in on traditional Windows territory in a big way. Games that previously would have seen the PC as the lead, or only platform, are now arriving 6 - 12 months late, or not at all.
It seems that piracy really is beginning to take its toll on the platform, which is a shame given that consoles are only just beginning to catch up with features the PC took as standard ten years ago.
Still, I can’t help but feel the PC will always have something going for it.
Doug Lobardi has told Eurogamer that there’s to be no more Portal until 2009, in Valve’s usual quest for brilliance.
“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colours,” he said. “I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.’
Here’s hoping there’s a full length commercial release on the cards. I can wait til 2009 for that.
