Late Night Consoling

Rockstar is making a ping pong game for Xbox 360.

IGN editor Douglas C. Perry announced yesterday on the IGN message boards that he had received the exclusive news of a "[360] game you would never, ever have expected," and promised that today IGN would have "the first details, news, screens, and an interview with the company's president." He tantalizingly asked, "Can you guess who it's with?" He also claimed to be "still amazed by the subject matter" at the time of writing the post. So anyway, yeah, it's a ping pong game developed by Rockstar for the Xbox 360. To its credit, the screenshost do look quite pretty, though they are clearly not actual gameplay shots given the camera angles and content. Rockstar president Sam Houser noted that the game is perfect to "showcase what we believe the key characteristics of the high definition era of console gaming will be"--that is, "using higher resolution graphics and hugely advanced animation systems to impart physical and emotional information to the player, so that the control and tactics of the game are more real and more diverse than on current-generation titles." One does feel the urge to ask, as did several Shackers in today's chatty threads, why isn't this on Revolution?

Fortunately for 360-owning ping pong lovers out there, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis will sell for $39.99, or $20 under the standard $59.99 MSRP for Xbox 360 titles. The game is being developed by Rockstar San Diego, the studio behind the second and third Midnight Club games as well as Red Dead Revolver (PS2, Xbox).

Some months ago, Microsoft's J Allard (where'd that guy go, anyway?) claimed that he thought of a Revolution-like controller idea years ago, but ditched it due to a lack of response. Now various sources are reporting that Microsoft has received a patent for a technology that may be similar to Revolution. Upon closer inspection, the patent (U.S. Pat. #7003427) in question does not seem particularly akin to Revolution, but rather to Sony's EyeToy PS2 peripheral (Allard's claimed invention may be an entirely separate patent, or it may not have one). It is a system of two or more cameras that are able to interpret positions and movement in a 3D space, which may very well take advantage of the upcoming camera Microsoft plans to offer for Xbox 360. Though the "exemplary operating environment" described in the patent is a full PC, the description suggests that it could also be used with "a variety of computer system configurations," and also makes reference to control devices such as "microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish [what?], scanner, and the like."

The patent was filed on August 25, 2004 and granted just last week. Microsoft does a great deal of research that's not necessarily intended for actual production. However, with Nintendo's upcoming Revolution controller and Sony's EyeToy and alleged "Revolution killer," the company may be looking to give the Xbox an answer to its competitors' movement-tracking technologies.

Back when Majesco was attempting to move into upper-end console publishing, the company got its hands on a few high profile upcoming projects. When it became clear that was no longer a feasible direction, Majesco dropped a few of those projects, including Starbreeze's comic book adaptation The Darkness (X360, PS3). Today, 2K Games announced that it acquired the publishing rights to the game and it is scheduled for release some time next winter. Starbreeze has plenty of credibility in the movie to game adatpation department, going from relative obscurity to worldwide renown after developing the well-received movie tie-in The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (Xbox, PC).

The comic series, published by Top Shelf, is about an arcane power called The Darkness, which is passed on from father to son along one bloodline. It allows its wielder to manifest creatures or objects in his service, though any creations turn to dust at dawn. Platinum Studios and Dimension Films are currently developing a film based on the property, due out next year. - Press release.

You may recall that last week Ubisoft put up a countdown on the official Rainbow Six website with a countdown ending on March 6, ie 3/6/06. While that date is still three days away, it turns out that the "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" listed on Ubisoft's site is in fact an Xbox 360 Rainbow 6 game. EGM by way of 1UP has pre-emptively revealed Rainbow Six: Vegas, and it's for unspecified "next-gen consoles" (Xbox 360 and PS3, anyone?) so unfortunately I guess they're not actually going with Rainbow 360. Consider me disappointed. There really isn't any information available unless you go out and buy the April issue of EGM, but 1UP does have a screenshot. Ubisoft will presumably have more details when the game is officially announced on Monday.

The promised demo for Relic's upcoming WWII action title The Outfit (X360) is apparently all ready to go, it's just a matter of Microsoft putting it up on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It was scheduled to go up today, but according to a THQ representative it is likely to be available some time this weekend.

Idle Thumbs reports that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is running a rather surprising event this weekend. In the true spirit of the game's colossal colossi, the company will be allowing gamers to play Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) projected on to the side of a large building. Sadly, today's event in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens has already passed, but there are still two more. On March 4, be at Birmingham Victoria Square from 6pm-9pm, and on March 5 be at the London Design Museum from 6pm-9pm. Please, somebody go to this.

Lucasdelirium has an interview with composer Peter McConnel, responsible for the score to games such as Psychonauts (PS2, Xbox, PC), Grim Fandango (PC), Full Throttle (PC), Sly Cooper (PS2), and many more.

Next Generation has reprinted Famitsu's list of the All Time Top 100 games as voted on by Japanese gamers. Suffice to say, it's an incredibly uninspiring list. Don't read it if you don't really, really like RPGs.