Stories for December 29, 2007

Greetings again. Sorry for the dry spell...holidays and all, doncha know. Anyways....

- Disney's Avalanche Software studio will deliver a tie-in game for next year's Bolt (which was once known as American Dog).

- If Fallout 3 lives up to their commercial expectations, ZeniMax (Bethesda's corporate parent) has every intention of acquiring the dormant Fallout MMO property from Interplay, for development as their fledgling online studio's second MMO title. What will be the first? Elder Scrolls, of course.

- id/Raven's Return to Castle Wolfenstein II (don't expect that name to stick) is still on track for 2008, and it looks terrific.

By the way,

I'm up for answering questions related to the subject of this blog, if anyone cares to pose any. Just leave them in the comments, if you please, and I'll do the best I can.

Stories for December 19, 2007

- Like Dark Mirror before it, PSP "exclusive" Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow will receive an enhanced PS2 port at some point in the future. So will Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Silent Hill: Origins (these two are old news, I know), and God of War: Chains of Olympus (this one isn't such old news).

- Had all gone according to Midway's plan, BlackSite 2 would be arriving in Summer 2009. Of course, Midway's plan didn't include BlackSite 1 being a critical and commercial failure, so scratch that one for now.

- Rare intends to create at least a couple more XBLA games (Microsoft was pleased with the quick turnaround on Jetpac Refuelled), at least one of which will feature Mr. Pants, Banjo-Kazooie 3 will arrive in 2008 (barely), and the Killer Instinct 3 tease seen in the 2007 Rare Christmas Card is not a joke in the slightest. They really aren't working on a Jet Force Gemini sequel, though.

Howdy, Surfer Girl

Howdy, Surfer Girl. Perhaps you and I could compare notes sometime, seeing as how we definitely have similar info and perhaps the same source on at least one story (we also both seem to like the words "things," "akin," and "component"), though one of us saw fit to share the scoop 6 days earlier than the other.  ;)

Stories for December 15, 2007: Of Dinosaurs and Light Cycles

Disney's next task for it's Propaganda Games division is a sequel to the studio's nearly-complete Turok reboot. Not exactly shocking, but more quality dino-slaying is always welcome. The really enticing story, however, is what Propaganda will be tackling after Turok 2.

Disney's film division is finally building steam for the long-awaited movie sequel to the pioneering cult classic Tron, with a director, writers, and producers lined up, and Jeff Bridges just waiting for the call to climb aboard. It looks like Disney has big plans for Tron, and are hoping to breed a blockbuster of Pirates-caliber. Of course, a movie this big is going to have a tie-in game, and Disney has already selected Propaganda to helm the project.

It's rumored that the internet will be a key element, or perhaps even the focus of the new film's plot (which may or may not disregard the events of Tron 2.0), and this will hopefully translate into some really interesting online elements for the new game. There's some huge potential for this project, and though it's a couple years off, I'm already eagerly anticipating Tron's return.

Stories for December 13, 2007: My Lord of the Wings Commander

- MySims has done well enough for a sequel of sorts (or few, seeing as how this is EA we're talking about) to get the greenlight.

- EA will have a game based on the film version of The Hobbit, once that movie actually comes together (so, probably not until Winter 2010).

- On a related note, The Lord of the Rings: The White Council is not cancelled. It has been placed on a long hiatus for "extensive retooling," but you can still expect to play it on the current generation of consoles.

- Wing Commander is coming back. And no, not another XBLA game with a tacked-on WC motif. This one is going to be huge.

Stories for December 12, 2007

- Gran Turismo 4 Mobile is not coming out in 2008. More than likely, it's not coming out at all. Also, while it won't be coming out on PS2 as originally planned, Kazunori Yamauchi still wants to make something of his pet project Gran Turismo for Boys. To my understanding, Yamauchi is considering starting it over from scratch as a game for PlayStation Network and/or PSP.

- Halo Wars will be released on PC about a year after the 360 version. I can also guarantee that Halo 3 will be released on PC eventually, but we'll all be considerably older by the time that happens.

- Dead Rising 2 will come after Lost Planet 2.

- Capcom will release a new flagship Mega Man game on the consoles by 2010. This game will be the first in yet another new division of the franchise, instead of directly continuing any of the others. The early ideas for the game show some enormous ambition; expect something big. In the meantime, Capcom will continue milking the cow and release another half-dozen titles in the Mega Man Star Force series.

Stories for December 9, 2007: Blizzard things

- The multi-platform tie-in game based on the upcoming Warcraft movie is being developed by the Blizzard "team 3" that used to be Swingin' Ape Studios. This is the "totally awesome" game that some Blizzard employees were referring to as "Hydra" at the Austin GDC earlier this year. Also, StarCraft: Ghost is not secretly still in active development at the moment, but it's the next thing on this team's to-do list after the Warcraft movie game is finished.

- The "next-gen MMO" that Blizzard has been hiring for is Diablo III, which probably won't go into actual development until well into next year. This will be the third time the game has entered production. It's going have both an MMO component (expect something more akin to Guild Wars, and less like World of Warcraft), and a traditional single-player component. There should be a fancy cinematic announcement trailer at some undetermined games industry event during 2008.

Stories for December 7, 2007: Medal of Honor in for some changes

Activision's Call of Duty 4 has sold 3 million copies in only a month's time, and has been awarded outstanding, 90%+ reviews almost across the board. Meanwhile, EA's Medal of Honor: Airborne sold about a half-million units before completely dropping off the charts, and was met with tepid 75%-ish reviews from most critics. This so-so reception followed a fairly troubled development cycle, which saw the game go over-budget, switch engines halfway through development (from Renderware to UE3), and suffer a nearly year-long delay (after which many players still think that the game feels rushed).

Medal of Honor peaked commercially with 2002's Frontline, which sold well over 7 million copies, and EA is acutely aware of the franchise's dramatic decline in popularity since that game. They know that the series needs a serious shot in the arm. Thus, the next core game in the series, which has been in development at EA Los Angeles since mid-summer, will be distinctly different from it's predecessors. In case you haven't already guessed, yes, EA is taking a page from Activision's playbook, and will be bringing Medal of Honor into the modern era, with the next core game set in, surprise, the Middle East, a few years in the future. In an amusing twist that creates some familial continuity with the other games in the series, the player character will be the grandson of Jimmy Patterson and Manon Batiste.

The game, which doesn't have a concrete subtitle yet but is being referred to internally by the simple codename "Medal of Honor X," will be coming to 360/PS3/PC in winter 2008. There will also be unique versions coming to PSP, DS, and Wii, which will be handled by EA Canada and their resident Team Fusion. Expect an official announcement and first peeks in March or April.

beginnings

Greetings. I shall go by, for the purposes of this blog and none other, the name "skaterboy." (Lame, I know, but it's the best I could do on short notice, as I just decided to do this. I might change it later.)

Here there will be exclusive videogame news tidbits, as well as stories about unreleased games you might not have heard of. These will be different stories from surfergirl's, as we have different sources.

Oh, and also, a promise from me to you: No politics here. Ever.

See ya.