This is an experimental round-up of a few bits of news that I want to put up but are a bit too vague or widely reported elsewhere for me to bother formatting each of them its own entry. Rather of like a mixture between the Sunday Papers and Bubble & Squeak.
Everyone loves comedy, and everyone loves violence, so surely combining the two would cause mass-enjoyment for everyone? Well that's the idea driving PlatinumGames (Formerly Seeds, formerly Clover studios) to create MadWorld, a violent kill-a-thon featuring copious amounts of white, black and red. If the look and tone of this new E3 trailer is anything to go by the game should be good fun, adding one to the rather short list of Wii games to look forward to next year. And they say games are a bad influence... Man Darts anyone?
Recent projections for CAPCOM's 2008 fiscal year suggest they aim to release Resident Evil 5 by the end of the year. They expect the game to sell around 2.3 million worldwide, not surprising considering the succes of RE4 across the globe. With the 2008 fiscal year ending on 31st March 2009, could we see a Zombie-infested Africa before Christmas, or will CAPCOM forego the holiday sales to ensure the game is fully polished? Wallets across the world hope the latter...
After being spotted in the wild on a location test in February, the arcade version of last year's SEGA Rally was revealed at an event in London yesterday, dubbed SEGA Rally 3.
Technically this is essentially the PC version of SEGA Rally (Revo), running at 60 frames per second rather than 30, on a new high-spec PC-based arcade board called Europa-R.
The structure of the game differs from the console version by offering a return to a more traditional format of 2 laps on 3 tracks (Tropical, Canyon and Alpine) within a time limit, with a bonus track (Lakeside) rewarding a high level of success. This is in addition to a quick race mode against up to 6 AI cars or opponents, depending on how many cabinets are present.
Most interestingly for fans of the series however, is the third mode, which introduces remakes of the four original tracks from Sega Rally Championship 1995, with remixes of the original music and the original cars available.
ArcadeHeroes.com went to the unveiling and have posted impressions and some rubbish videos showing two linked twin cabinets.
In an interview with Kiziko, Shane Kim (boss over at Microsoft Game Studios) gave a fairly big hint that the next iteration of the Project Gotham series, developed up till now by Bizarre Creations would be developed by Forza creators, Turn 10.
Kikizo: One thing I am hoping that you can speak to, since I am a fan of Gotham - obviously the IP stays with you but Bizarre has moved on now, what do you think the future of that franchise might be?
Kim: That's a great question, you know, we have a great internal racing studio in Turn 10, the creators of Forza Motorsport. And our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing. We don't have anything concrete there, and I do think that after four versions of PGR, it's really important for us to take a fresh creative approach to it and to really think about what we want the next version of PGR to be if we do that.
What could this mean for the franchise? Well for a series so routed in providing a tight arcade experience and Forza 2 displaying some of the most incredible driving physics ever seen it's hard to see what could go wrong. Between this and Forza 3, racing fans could have a lot to look forward to on the 360.
In an interview with next-gen.biz, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten lays out some new policies, amendments and projects being undertaken to revitalise the digital distribution service which once led the way, but has started to show cracks.
Previously, Microsoft have emphasised Xbox Live Arcade's core purpose as being to provide smaller pick-up-&-play type games, with the presence and popularity of games which only vaguely fit that description seeming like almost an embarrassment to them.
Newly formed PlatinumGames (Formerly Seeds), made up of ex-Clover staff such as Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) and Atsushi Inaba (Viewtiful Joe) have announced a four game deal with SEGA across various platforms, one of which is still a complete mystery.
The first title, Bayonetta, will be an action game in the vein of Devil May Cry, for the 360 and PS3. The game will follow a recently reborn witch as she battles angels with various witch-like powers and an array of guns attached to both hands and feet.
The new main character is also a girl. Probably...
After recent rumours of a new DS Castlevania, Konami have finally announced what we all already knew; A new DS will be making its way to the DS by the end of the year. Titled Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the game will introduce the new Glyph attack system. What that actually means is a complete mystery for now, but from the sounds of things it will involve combining something to do special attacks, with over 100 different possible combinations.
Order of Ecclesia will also include far more outdoor environments, ranging from Forests to Oceans, as well as the traditional areas of Dracula's castle. As you can expect the game will also include the usual insanely large weapons, and legions of dead/undead/living creatures for you to destroy, and the team seems to have gone back to the more traditional Castlevania artstyle for the character designs.
I just thought I'd bring this to the attention of anyone on Warehouse8 who doesn't yet know what the 2008 Game of the Year will be. In the words of the press release, it's "an all-out battle to protect 50 Cent’s assets". I present to you, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.
It's been rumoured from the day the bad news was broken, but Codemasters have now confirmed that they have with immediate effect acquired SEGA Racing Studio which was announced to be closing a couple of weeks ago.
Codemasters are calling the move one that will "accelerate growth for Codemasters Studios." The historic but recently lacklustre UK company has a history in racing simulations with the Colin McRae and TOCA series, and are heavily pushing the upcoming middle-of-the-road Race Driver: GRID.
