kon Network | Animekon | Playkon | TVkon | Scikon | Wipefest | CryoCopy |
Play. Die. Respawn
King's Bounty: Princess
An expansion to bury Heroes V deeper still
An expansion to bury Heroes V deeper still
    | If any of you grey-haired gamers remember a game called Saboteur on the ancient Spectrum or Commodore, then forget about it: the Saboteur revealed over the weekend is nothing like it, whatsoever. This one is developed by Pandemic Studios, who - as you may know - have various secret projects currently in development, mysteriously codenamed Project B, Project Q, Project Y and Project Z. To be quite honest, we don't know which of these is actually being titled Saboteur, since there are currently no solid details posted on Pandemic's website about either four of them. What little we have come to know is thanks to the Game Informer magazine's April issue, whose cover heralds an "exclusive first look at Pandemic's Saboteur - A game where everything isn't black & white". In it, they also confirm that Naughty Dog's PS3-exclusive game shown at E3 2006 (trailer) will be titled Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, as recently revealed (by mistake) in one of Naughty Dog's employees' online portfolio. Game Informer also says that Saboteur will be "an original take on World War II", while other reports describe it as a stealth action game (set during World War II indeed), in which you'll take the role of a saboteur in the French resistance. A speculative release date currently points at 2008, though we should know more (including target platforms) in just a couple of weeks on the official Saboteur website - "Set to explode on Thursday, April 5". TVG also notes that the website has been online since the beginning of March, and that Pandemic actually registered the Saboteur trademark back in October 2005 - almost a year and a half ago! Development on Saboteur should therefore be pretty advanced by now, but even so, the game we're most looking forward to from Pandemic is Mercenaries 2, recently confirmed for the PC, PS2 and Xbox 360 as well, aside from the known PS3 version. The multi-platform release of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is set for this year's holiday season. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) European PlayStation 3 Compatibility List Revealed Early Sony Europe has just issued a press release announcing the launch of the European PS3 compatibility website, a few days earlier than expected. The list of PAL PS2 games playable on the PlayStation 3 both confirms and denies some of the recent rumours, which claimed that major PS2 hits such as God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami and Metal Gear Solid 2/3 would not be playable on the PS3. According to the newly updated PAL PS3 compatibility website, some of these titles will be fully playable, while others will have "noticeable issues", or won't be playable at all. Here are just a few examples we hastily picked up from the list:
If your favorite PS2 games are still nowhere to be found in the list, rest assured that "[Sony] will be adding additional titles to this list in future firmware upgrades", even though most of their resources will be allocated for developing new services and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, rather than delivering PS2 backwards compatibility. In order to play the PS2 games listed so far, users will need to install the latest PS3 firmware upgrade (version 1.60), which will be available at launch from midnight on March 22 through the PlayStation Network, from PlayStation.com, or, for those unable to access the Internet, on a disc obtained from local Customer Services. Sony's communique goes on to detail the other features included in the v1.60 firmware upgrade:
(N.B. Archive text, links removed) Not just Tomb Raider: Anniversary, in fact, but a whole bunch of other Eidos titles for the PC will also be released through Valve's online distribution service, Steam. The first agreement between the two companies also covers complete franchise sets of classics such as Tomb Raider, Commandos, and many of the Hitman titles, some of which are already available on Steam, we were informed. Over the weekend, Eidos released its first wave of titles online, comprising the full Commandos series, most of the Hitman games, along with Just Cause and the recent Battlestations: Midway, all for the PC. Pricing information was not immediately available in Valve's communique, but a quick look on Steamgames.com reveals the following available games - together with their steaming price tag:
Demo versions for some of these games - namely Battlestations: Midway, Hitman: Blood Money and Just Cause - are also available for (free) download via Steam. Over the coming weeks, Valve will announce additional games from Eidos' catalogue for online (re-)release, including Championship Manager 2007.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary is currently set for release during May 2007, for the PC, PlayStation 2 and PSP platforms. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Give a gamer an Xbox 360, and he'll want a black one. Give him a PS3, and he'll ask for rumble. Give him a Wii, and he'll either say he needs DVD playback, or a hard drive; or both (and then some). Well, Wii fans may be getting their DVD (movie) playback in late 2007, as announced in November, but Nintendo are still not ready to confirm an external HDD for their console, despite recent rumours claiming that such an extension is already in development. The rumours about a Wii hard drive apparently escalated after a Japanese gaming magazine reported that Nintendo held an executive meeting in Japan recently, to discuss the new hard drive. But when questioned by GI.biz on this matter, a Nintendo of Europe spokesperson dismissed the report as being "pure rumour and speculation" (ed. - though not explicitly false...). The only peripheral confirmed by the company a few days ago is a Nintendo DS headset, supporting online voice chat between players of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl. These two DS games are set to launch in North America on April 22, and according to Gamespot, "a Nintendo representative would only confirm the headset as being released roughly alongside the new Pokemon [Diamond and Pearl] games". GameStop seems to support this claim, as it currently lists the Nintendo DS headset with a price tag of $14.99, and an April 23 release date. And while we're at it, here's a brief description for the two new Pokemon DS games coming next month:
(N.B. Archive text, links removed) Mar 19, 2007 We don't usually bother to write about tops like these, since most of the time they're either pointless or just plain wrong, but this time we'll make an exception. The reason is that the "Top 25 PC Games Ever" compiled by IGN over the past few days holds quite a few surprises, without being "wrong"; or pointless, for that matter. The first place (X-COM: UFO Defense) and third place (Star Wars TIE Fighter) in particular might come as a shock to some, but when you really think about it - given you actually played them - there's not much reason for them to be ranked any lower than that. As a personal favorite of mine, I was thrilled to see X-COM: UFO Defense (better known as UFO: Enemy Unknown) take the top spot. As IGN puts it, "It may be old as hell and you may have to actually disable DirectDraw to get it to run these days but there's still no PC game that can compete with the mighty X-COM. Conceptually it's one of the finest strategy games to ever appear on any system." The other 24 titles, you can see below, or read a bit about each of them on IGN:
It's interesting to note that a couple of last year's PC games have already secured a spot in IGN's hall of fame - namely Company of Heroes (ranked #14) and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (ranked #16), even though some of you may think that Oblivion is not the best choice from Bethesda's Elder Scolls series (do I hear Daggerfall?). Overall, the most imposing PC developer seems to be Blizzard, whose games were picked three times by IGN in this Top 25: StarCraft (#6), World of Warcraft (#17) and Warcraft 2 (#19) are all there, even though IGN said it would only pick one title from each series of games (apparently they considered World of Warcraft as part of a different series than the Warcraft strategies). I'm sure there are more oddities you could spot in the above list (as could I), but subjectivism aside, it's a pretty solid list that you can use whenever you get sick of today's run-of-the-mill games, and long for some good old quality entertainment. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Mar 19, 2007 I haven't given this much thought until today, but it's quite ironic that one of gaming's best known titles (at least to the "outside" world), now over 20-years old, is returning time and again on mostly every new console, with the same addictive gameplay. And the lesson it keeps on teaching us is that it doesn't take jaw-dropping graphics to make a great game: a brilliantly simple idea is fine, too. That idea was born in 1985 as Tetris, and it has remained basically the same ever since, with its latest incarnation being Tetris Evolution (screenshots). As announced today by publisher THQ, Tetris Evolution has just shipped for the Xbox 360 in North America. As the first next-generation incarnation of the addictive puzzle game, it features both the classic gameplay we all know, as well as some additional modes and options to keep it fresh. Such is the ability to download and customize themes, backgrounds, skins and icons, which is said to be a first in the Tetris universe. In addition, all new gameplay modes include "Go Low", "Eraser" and the cooperative mode "Hotseat" where multiple players can manipulate Tetriminos within the same matrix. Tetris Evolution allows up to four players to engage in competition on a single console or contend via Xbox Live. The new online ladder system also enables players to track their overall skill level and accumulate Xbox Live achievement points to increase their Gamerscore. All's fine and well, except for the price THQ expects players to pay for this Xbox 360 edition: $29.99. That sounds like a rip-off if you ask me... so don't ask! As a final trivia, THQ's communique recollects that ever since Tetris debuted in 1985 on the PC, all the game's versions have sold more than 70 million units worldwide. Not bad, for a casual puzzler. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) We were barely starting to get excited at the prospect of playing Super Mario Galaxy in 2-player mode, after the game's website reportedly updated the number of players from one to two this week, and now we can take that excitement and shove it where the sun don't shine. Because, as we discover on Nintendo Revolution, the Wii has just been hit by one of the worst news possible:
This "feature" was rumoured more than once in recent months, but now our hopes and dreams have finally been shattered to pieces by Nintendo's official confirmation on Eurogamer. The news follows just a couple of days after GameSpy announced they will provide multiplayer technology for the Nintendo Wii, enabling Wii games to offer community features such as "friend rosters, advanced matchmaking capabilities and comprehensive rankings data". Pokemon Battle Revolution will be the first game to use this technology when it launches on June 25 (it was already released in Japan), and it will have similar multiplayer features to those found in games using GameSpy's technology on the Nintendo DS. "Nintendo has taken this step as we believe it's the right thing to do", said a Nintendo UK spokesperson, despite the fact that "GameSpy's technology does allow for features that could span multiple games". I'm sure that the vast majority of gamers would rather have a unified friends list for all their Wii games, instead of having to create a separate one for each game... typing in those tedious 16-digit Wii IDs... with the Wiimote, to top it all off. Jesus Christ, Nintendo sure blew it this time! Oh well, here's something to cheer you up (unlikely): the Opera browser for the Nintendo DS will be released in North America on June 4. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) As we get closer to the summer of 2007, the games lined-up for release on the Xbox 360 will become more and more resounding, cultimating with an avalanche of really big ones during the pre-holiday season. The most hyped game is still Halo 3, as expected, and after last week's GDC, 1UP has some new hints about a possible September 2007 release for Bungie's second Halo sequel. Unless Project Gotham Racing 4 will step in to take his place, leaving Halo 3 for November. Whatever the scenario, it's unlikely that Microsoft would launch Halo 3 in October - since that's when Grand Theft Auto IV is supposed to come out. And the month of December also seems to be taken by Lost Odyssey. Following a similar reasoning based on their talk with Microsoft's Shane Kim (Corporate Vice President), 1UP concludes that Mass Effect could be released in July, between Shadowrun and Blue Dragon in the neighbouring months. So with these assumptions in mind, the monthly Xbox 360 hit-releases for the rest of 2007 could look like this:
Other notable entries in the Xbox 360 line-up for the second half of 2007 are Bioshock (August), Stranglehold (September), Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (November), along with plenty more action games such as Assassin's Creed, Battlefield: Bad Company, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Half-Life 2, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Unreal Tournament 3, whose release dates are still vaguely set for "(Q4) 2007". Backtracking to the beginning of 1UP's talk with Shane Kim, their discussion actually started from BioWare's upcoming Xbox 360 RPG, Mass Effect - one of the centerpieces of Microsoft's RPG Panel at GDC 2007. An interesting thing they found out is that Microsoft actually tried to buy BioWare (currently owned by Elevation Partners), but they were turned down. 1UP also confirmed with BioWare's bosses that the studio is indeed developing for the PlayStation 3, as recently rumoured. So if we add these two bits, we can hope that Mass Effect will be ported to other platforms, as well. One day... It would be a real shame not to bring it to the PC, at the very least! (N.B. Archive text, links removed) A whole new chapter in the Lineage II saga is about to begin next month, as The Chaotic Chronicle comes to an end, making way for the new Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne. The bridging link between these is the upcoming free content update known as "Interlude", whose most prominent feature is the opening of a new zone called Since the guy went through the trouble of writing it, there's little more for us to do here than to copy-paste the entire thing below. But not before we point you to our Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne gallery, where you'll find some new screenshots depicting the exotic landscapes and creatures from the Primeval Isle. And now, sit back and read...
(N.B. Archive text, links removed) With just a couple of episodes still left from Sam & Max: Season 1 (currently at episode 4), the devs from Telltale Games are looking forward to releasing the entire package at retail this summer, thanks to the newly announced partnership with publisher JoWooD. Today's communique estimates that the complete Season 1 will be available worldwide starting from August 2007, and although a final price for the package was not revealed at this time, they did say that the game will be available "in the five main languages". In the meantime, Telltale will continue their collaboration with GameTap to launch their episodes online as they finish them. The latest one available is Episode 4: "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", with Episode 5: "Reality 2.0" set to follow really soon, and the final Episode 6 to complete the first season hopefully this spring. If you're still not famliar with the series' eccentric detective duo, JoWooD also gives us a brief round-down and a history of how Steve Purcell's Sam & Max comics ended up like this:
UPDATE: A follow-up press release issued just now by The Adventure Company announces that they, too, will be publishing the retail version of Sam & Max: Season 1. If you're from Europe, though, keep looking for JoWooD's logo on the game box. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) | Top stories Filter news Search news Latest comments
|
Pages: 
Saboteur Stealth Shooter Revealed, Fr...
add first comment
Previous page
Home | News | Trailers | Games | About us | Contact
Copyright © Playkon 2008