Late Night Consoling
by Chris Remo, May 17, 2006 8:15pm PDTHey hey hey!
- According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Fear Effect game property owned by Eidos will be dusted off for both a video game sequel and a Hollywood film adaptation. In 2004, Uwe Boll acquired the movie rights to Fear Effect for production by his studio Boll KG, but it appears that the good doctor is no longer slated to sit in the director's chair for this one. Mindfire Entertainment has optioned the rights, with action director Stanley Tong set to direct. Tong is best known for directing several Jackie Chan films--Supercop, Supercop 2, Rumble in the Bronx, and Jackie Chan's First Strike--and not quite as well known for helming 1997's Mr. Magoo with Leslie Nielsen. Mindfire CEO and producer Mark Altman describes Fear Effect as "'Mission: Impossible' meets 'Silent Hill.'" The movie will follow the same plot as the original Fear Effect (PS1) from 2000, though it will be set in the near future rather than an alternate world. Little is known about the upcoming sequel, which will be the third game in the series; it is likely to be aimed at Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A previous attempt at a third game, Fear Effect: Inferno, was cancelled by Eidos in 2003. Kronos Digital Entertainment closed its doors after failing to find a new publisher for Inferno, so it is unlikely that the upcoming title will be in the hands of the original developers. The defunct studio developed both Fear Effect and Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix (PS1), Its first project was contributing various visual effects to Sierra/Dynamix's Phantasmagoria (PC), which it followed up with 1997's isometric shooter Meat Puppet (PC) (I, uh, actually played that).
New Fear Effect Game, Film
[ps3] [xbox360] - With Nintendo's upcoming Wii the only remaining next-gen console not to have an official price point, we'll no doubt be hearing endless speculation from analysts and publishers leading up to Nintendo's announcement. That speculation has begun anew in the wake of E3. Prevailing thought, along with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's promise that the machine would not break the $300 price point, has pegged the machine at a commonly agreed upon upper limit of $250. According to Forbes, Justin Post of Merril Lynch expects the machine to go for $200. Outspoken marketing VP Scott Steinberg of Sega, which has two announced Wii games in production, believes that the console will come in under $200, however.
How Much Will Wii Pay?
[nintendo] - Activision recently announced that it has acquired the lucrative video game rights to the Bond license. The rights were previously exclusive to Electronic Arts, but the publisher abandoned the license due to a stated shift towards in-house properties. According to GamesIndustry.biz, Activision will be paying a hefty $70M up front for those rights. Prominent industry analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities estimates that based on the known information, Activision expects average annual sales of $80M-$100M from game sales over the course of the seven year deal. That figure may have to be a bit higher by the time Activision actually starts releasing titles to hit the average, however. Shacknews learned from licensor MGM that there will be no Bond games based on the upcoming Casino Royale film.
007 for $70M?
[ps2] [ps3] [xbox] [xbox360] [gamecube] [nintendo] [ds] [psp] [gba] - Activision sent out what appears to be a stealth announcement of a special edition of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 2 for Xbox 360 (the press release is dated May 12, but judging from other sites' reporting as well as my own inbox, it wasn't sent out until this week). The new release contains the original game, a voucher for the recently released Skirmish Map Pack via Xbox Live, a DVD with "making of" footage as well as historic interviews and commentary. A suggested retail price was not given. Call of Duty 2: Game of the Year should be on store shelves now.
Activision Suddenly Announces New COD2 Edition
[xbox360] - Two different sites offer their opinions of how Nintendo's upcoming Wii controller works. XGaming has a "Bold Nintendo Wii Prediction" describing a combination two technologies rather than one new one, whereas Anandtech believes it operates by way of an infrared field from the system's sensor bar. GameSpot chats with Thumb Wars writer and director Steve Oedekerk (w: Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty, d: Ace Venture: When Nature Calls, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist) about his upcoming animated film Barnyard, which is getting a game adaptation by Blue Tongue and THQ. E3 previews are still winding down. If you're interested, check that out at Game Informer, GameSpot, Eurogamer, IGN, GameSpy, and surely others. And hey, if you missed ours, here it is.
Misc. Q&As/Features
Dear Esther Mac port confirmed
Killing Floor hits a million sales, discounted on Steam
Jam Live Music Arcade announced for PS3, Xbox 360
Metal Gear Online to quietly die this summer
Mad Riders: Techland's ATV racer coming to PC, PSN, XBLA
Notch 'can do' $13 million for Psychonauts 2
Shack Giveaway: Mighty Switch Force (3DS)
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack preview
Alan Wake 2 would be 'much quicker' than first game, says Remedy
Darksiders 2 releases June 26, pre-order bonuses announced
Comments
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=64848
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What are some good SNES puzzle games that are two player that chicks (or other dudes who enjoy some puzzle competition, like Brain Age) will enjoy?
The two I play often with my GF is Tetris Attack (by far the most played, but it's running it's life out after huge consumption of enjoyment) and Bust a Move. But what other games are there that you guys can list for me?
Please, I'm in a huge need of some vagina after a hard competitive game of Tetris Attack and so far it's become sparse, so I need something new to rekindle our sex/gaming desires! Help a shacker out!
Where is my Mercury bolt?
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http://www.forbes.com/digitalentertainment/2006/05/11/nintendo-microsoft-sony_cx_kt_0511wii.html
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a co-worker ran past me and did the 'Hey hey hey!' shuffle this morning.
Now I read LNC and you have the same title.
I need to unplug teh matrix.
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I have released an alpha version of the closed captioning mod for Quake4.
Here's the readme file: http://gamescc.rbkdesign.com/mods/readme_q4cc_v0.5.txt
GameCC] is looking for programmers, artists and captioners to help us finish this project.
-Reid
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What about the Phantom? *cough*
Seriously though, bring on the Wii. If it was $500, I'd still buy it over a PS3.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/r/rockstargamespresentstabletennisxbox360/20060516-devinterview.htm
What's interesting is
1. A demo's coming on Live and
2. They talk a little about their new custom RAGE game engine.. who knows how it will carry over to GTA4, being a much different type of game, but interesting to read what they are doing with it now. Physics, AI, animation blending...
Stanley Tong over Uwe Shit Boll any day!