Rahul Shirke

New PS3-exclusive Rockstar game announced

Rockstar

Michael Shorrock, the Director of 3rd Party Relations at SCEA has announced not long ago that Rockstar Games, the controversial developer behind games like the GTA series and Bully has signed up with Sony to make a new PS3-exclusive franchise. As you may know, Rockstar and Sony have had a sweet relationship, so this is definitely something worth checking out.

Shorrock conforms that he’s not talking about LA Noire and that he’s not drunk. Note that he keeps saying ‘franchise’ and not ‘game’, which means that he could be hinting at a multi-game series. Allow your mind to go wild now and come up with all sorts of speculations. What could the infamous Rockstar Games be devising now?

Here’s an interesting chunk of what Shorrock said:

We have had incredible success with the GTA franchise and are happy to continue to offer those titles on our platforms, and even more excited about what’s to come from the current and future relationship between our companies. Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc and this deal lets them do just that.. This is really a win-win situation for both companies.

I don’t like the way he said win-win. It doesn’t suit Sony. But otherwise that sounds rather good, because a lot of fans have been waiting for something that only the PS3 can do. We wonder what Rockstar has up its sleeve!

No more information has been disclosed, because of a pesky deal. But just you watch out, because leaks and rumours are rather common when game property is as hot as this.

[Via Playstation.blog]

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

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]

Guy gets awesome Halo tattoo

Halo Tattoo

The leg itself may not look like much, but the tattoo is one hell of a beauty. The tattoo is of a difficulty level in Halo, the Legendary difficulty level. Some might call it geeky and fanboyish, and may even compare it with the blasphemous Zune tattoo, but I say it’s a piece of art. It looks awesome and the logo was just made for tattooing. Quality art.

[Via Kotaku]

Fully-working, actual-size Warthog is for real.

Warthog - Mini-Size

I will not hesitate to say now that I had underestimated Microsoft’s words when they claimed to take Halo 3’s marketing to the extreme. Bungie has revealed that the “live-action Halo 3 trailer” is actually the first of a series of Shorts that will be directed by Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp is also the director for the slowly-progessing Halo movie, expected to be released in 2009.

The thing above, designed by the awesome folks at Weta Workshop is a fully-functional, true-to-scale model of the Warthog. When I mean fully-functional, I mean working like the real deal you play in the games. It’s a mean-driving 4×4, it ~~can~~ should be used off-road and it actually has a machine gun at the back. To quote Bungie representative ‘Frankie’, “Goddamn. It’s a Warthog.”

The Weta Workshop is famous for developing physical and special effects for several high-level movies, including the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong, the Chronicles of Narnia and of course, the upcoming Halo movie. And you thought Peter Jackson was the only connection between LotR and Halo.

The Weta Workshop is based in New Zealand, meaning that you will most likely not be able to touch this sweet baby. Of course, some of the lucky ones actually get to drive this thing. Without a freaking Xbox. Click on the thumbnail below for a very high-res photo.

[Via Bungie Weekly Update]