Press Release – Page 17

Uru Goes Episodic

The canceled series is yet again back to puzzle us all.

Today GameTap is launching “Familiar Voices,” the newest episode in “Myst Online: Uru Live.” Players can now continue the journey that has featured to date – all-new puzzles, content and Ages as seen in recent episodes “Scars” and “A New Light.”

“Since launching in February, Myst Online continues to be one of our top titles at GameTap,” said Ricardo Sanchez, vice president of content and creative director for GameTap. “One of the strengths of the game is the commitment of the community, whose interaction and feedback has a direct impact on the direction of these new episodic segments.”

In “Familiar Voices,” the newly-elected D’ni Restoration Council (DRC) releases its first Age – Jalak. Though Cate Alexander has been elected to lead the DRC, there still remains a power struggle within the Council which begins to spread throughout the cavern. Rumors of a war continue to grow, but a voice from the past returns to offer new hope.

During this latest episode, the never-before-seen Age of Jalak will be released. Jalak features an ancient arena that was once used for D’ni competitions and will allow players to compete and even create their own games.

To keep up to date with the latest news and art assets for “Myst Online: Uru Live” and to play the game for free visit www.mystonline.com.

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]

Far Cry 2 announced, teaser site launched

Farcry 2 Logo

Far Cry was one of those games that ushered in the new era of video gaming, which encompassed everything with glossy graphics, overused bloom, hackneyed plots and large corporations. Of course, there were lots of good things too, like advanced AI, realistic graphics and so on. While Crytek, the prodigal developers are busy working on Crysis, Ubisoft has announced the sequel to Far Cry.

There was already info and some screenies floating around the internet about this game, but yesterday, Ubisoft laid it down and hard. Apart from the game’s title, Far Cry 2, we know nothing more about the game. Well, not much at least. It is being developed by the Ubisoft Montreal studio and is scheduled for a Spring 2008 release, but we know how that goes. It will be coming out for the PC only, as of now.

Ubisoft has also released a teaser site for the game. The site, being a trailer, doesn’t show much. What it does show is an awesome Savannah backdrop, which hints at the game’s next exotic setting. The next explosive screen shows the game’s logo, as well as lots of jungle music in the background.

It should be noted, that during the transition of screens, a presumably African man can be heard saying “Dawa ya moto ni moto!” According to “Claws_The_One” from the game’s official forums, it means “The remedy to fire is fire”. As you can guess, it is a proverb from the language Kiswahili, spoken in some parts of Africa. If you didn’t get it, replace it with “An eye for an eye.”

And to finish off, we’ll give you something from the press release:

“Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics and of advanced artificial intelligence,” declared John Parkes, EMEA marketing director at Ubisoft. “We are confident that Far Cry 2 will have the same impact again on the FPS genre landscape.”

While I would have preferred Crytek handle it, this looks great!

Blizzard working on new, unannounced title

Blizzard dropped a bomb when they announced StarCraft II. It looks like Blizzard is doing it again. During a discussion with Gamasutra, Blizzard’s senior vice president of product development, Frank Pearce said that a team of 40 people is working in “team 3”.

The diplomatically chosen revelation was found in the following context, straight from Pearce:

“Our global headcount is 2,700, and most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”

Pearcesaid further that Team 3 is working on “something really awesome” (they always say that) and that he couldn’t give any hints. Gamasutra has confirmed that this is not the vaporware Starcraft Ghost, though.

Blizzcon starts 3rd August, which is not far away, as your friendly calendar will tell you. Is it possible that this new game, under construction by “Team 3” will be announced there? Most likely. What is this new game? Nobody knows for sure, though most fingers point towards Diablo 3. We’ll just have to wait for Blizzcon.

[Via Gamasutra]

60GB PS3’s to vanish by end of July!

PS3 as we know it, is going.

This news comes like a slap in the face for those who cheered when Sony announced a price cut for the Playstation 3. David Reeves, president of SCEE has announced PS3’s will no longer be available after stocks are sold out. Apparently, the price cut was to sell these remaining stocks out of 60GB PS3’s! Way to go, Sony.

Sony will be releasing an 80GB version of the PS3 on August 1st with a copy of MotorStorm bundled. This new version will be priced at $599, which was what the 60GB version was priced at, prior to the price cut. So the equation works out like this:

Sony makes a $599 console and cuts its price to $499. Then it makes a new version of the PS3, priced at $599 and sells out the original PS3, which should be priced at $499. So essentially, the price cut was nothing more than a practical joke from Sony. Anybody who fell for this joke and wants the PS3, my advice is, grab one while stocks last.

[Via gamesindustry.biz]