Sam & Max Season 2

Sam & Max Season 2 Diner

After a brief hiatus Sam & Max are coming back for more with their upcoming Season 2 episodic-gameplay!

“Season One was a great success, but it’s just a starting point for us,” says Telltale’s CEO Dan Connors. “The episodic model presents so many opportunities to innovate and engage the audience in brand new ways. Just wait until you see what Telltale and GameTap have in store with Season Two.”

“GameTap and Telltale successfully proved the idea that games can work in a TV show format,” said Ricardo Sanchez, vice president of content and creative director for GameTap. “The Sam & Max episodes continue to be among the top titles played at GameTap and we expect that Season Two will be an even bigger draw.”

Sam & Max Season Two will feature the same quick wit and bizarre scenarios Telltale’s team and Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell delivered the first time around—and more! “We’re keeping the general structure and gameplay, and focusing on telling farther-reaching, crazier stories,” says Telltale’s design director Dave Grossman. “You’ll see some changes to the world, too; improvements that were born out of player feedback and our own desire to make the most fun games anyone has ever played.”

Some of these changes are evident in the first Season Two render, released today, which is set in Stinky’s, the diner down the street from Sam & Max’s office that remained closed for the entire first season. Additional game assets, including glimpses of brand new characters and environments, will be revealed at San Diego Comic-Con starting tomorrow at the panel, “Episodic Games and Comics – Made for Each Other” (11:30-12:30 in room 1AB).

Xbox 360 Comic-Con Coverage

Xbox 360 300

Microsoft will be covering Comic-Con 07 via Xbox Live!

From July 26 to August 7, Xbox LIVE and Xbox.com/comiccon will feature full access to all of Warner’s Comic-Con featured game trailers, show panels, movie and TV trailers and sneak peeks, celebrity interviews, show exclusives and customization themes for Xbox LIVE. Plus, action film and comic book fans will have access to an array of exclusive themes from 300 and DC Comics available for download.

Additionally, 300 fans who are attending Comic-con this year are in for two special treats.  Warner Bros. will be hosting a special screening of the movie at Petco field for 6,000 conference attendees, all of whom will be entered to win one of ten custom limited edition 300-themed Xbox 360 Elite consoles.

Xbox 360 300 side2

“The Scourge Project” is the latest game to use Unreal Engine 3

The Scourge Project

You’d think developers would be disheartened after all the Silicon Knights/Epic Games hullabaloo, but you’d think wrong. Instead, Epic has been swimming in publicity since. Also, they have caught the eye of the Spanish Tragnarion Studios. Tragnarion will be utilizing the might of Unreal Engine 3 for their newest title, which was also announced today, named The Scourge Project. As you can probably guess, it’s going to be an FPS with co-op elements embedded.

Carl Jones, the head of Tragnarion said:

We’ve been amazed at the speed and quality of results on Unreal. We’ve only had the engine for a couple of months, yet we’ve already been able to build a great-looking, fully playable prototype, which we’ll soon show to publishers, featuring our innovative narrative system for multiple players and our unique co-op focused game play mechanics. Every single feature we want is easily implemented in Unreal – for all the major high-end platforms.

This is looking to be a splendid game, complete with emphasis on team play, slick graphics and well, the Unreal Engine. And for people like me, who are supporting Epic, here’s what Mark Rein had to say:

When we saw the demo that Tragnarion produced, we were really impressed with the progress they had made in such a short time. The high quality visuals, innovative game features and co-operative story have come together in only a few months. It made us very proud to see how quickly they were able to learn Unreal Engine 3 and we can’t wait to get a look at this title again in a few more months.

And he’s damn right. Tragnarion has done a fine, quick job there. This is one of those games that would be worth tracking. The game will be released some time in 2008, for the PC, Xbox 360 and the PS3. Hopefully, the Unreal Engine won’t cause any problem-induced delays.
Check out the game’s trailer below:

[Via Gamershell and GameDaily]

Sum 41 vocalist almost got deported for “threatening the President”

Sum 41

The subject is Deryck Whibley, the lead vocalist in the Canadian pop/punk band Sum 41. In a single from his newest album, Whibley sings ill of ‘ol President of the States. Looks like not everyone took that in the right spirit. An anonymous writer actually tried to get Whibley deported back to Canada, on charges of being a potential assassin. That’s right, folks. A punk singer being a potential assassin.

In Deryck’s own words:

He went to the House minority leader in the States, who tried to have me deported, trying to say I’m threatening the president.

The song in question, “And now the president’s dead/Because I blew off his head/No more neck to be red/Guess to heaven he fled.”

I’d complain about the quality of lyrics rather than the very loosely implied message, but that’s just me. Can you see the work of the “potential assassin” up there? He writes songs.

The song is included in Sum 41’s latest album, Underclass Hero, which was released yesterday.

[Via MSN Canada]