There are a couple of games in the Wii Sports package that I'm not too crazy about, and Wii Boxing happens to be one of them - although it can certainly be a blast in multiplayer, as long as no one gets hurt for real in the process. However, when it comes to choosing between boxing on a classic console or PC, and boxing on the Wii, Nintendo wins by K.O. straight from round one. So if you happen to enjoy Wii Boxing more than myself, then I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that Electronic Arts is planning to bring the Fight Night series to Nintendo's uppercut-sensitive console.

EA hasn't announced any actual game yet, but Doghouse Boxing recently published a very lengthy interview with EA Sports producer Michael Blank, and in it they also punch upon the topic of a Wii version for Fight Night:

"We're talking about it right now", Blank admits. "We're contemplating and we definitely feel there are some exciting things we can do with the Fight Night franchise and the Wii. When you play Wii Boxing it is a very simple experience and I think that is what they designed it to be just to let you know that you can throw punches."

If they do bring the franchise to the Wii, they obviously won't stop at simply replicating the Wii Boxing control scheme with better visuals. Instead, Blank explains that they will try to implement their own system, adapted for the Wiimote:

"With Fight Night we have an amazing simulation of Boxing and so we need to take those Wii controls and tailor it to what the Fight Night consumer might want to experience. We are looking at it right now and I am sure you will [see?] something some time in the future on the Wii."

Since the project can only be in its early phases of development, it's likely that the Wii version will be part of the Fight Night Round 4 edition, which could take another year to complete, according to Blank's estimates.

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Hero, Insecticide, Mushroom Men, Fury Signed By Gamecock

Game-what? Did they just say "cock"? And there we were thinking that nothing could make us chuckle anymore after the Wii... Well, funny names aside, Gamecock Media Group announced their cocky entrance on the games publishing scene yesterday, and they have already revealed five titles they will be publishing in North America: Hero, Insecticide, Mushroom Men, Hail to the Chimp, and Fury. Their official website also hints at an upcoming sixth title, which will probably be announced very soon. Some of these you may have heard about by now - especially Auran's MMO game Fury - though most of them are something of a novelty for us, so we'll quote a few words about each of them.

Hero (website) is an action-RPG developed by Firefly Studios (makers of the Stronghold strategy series), slated for release in Spring 2009 on the PC and an unspecified next-gen platform. Hero promises to be "the first game to take you into a real dungeon, one where a shadowy evil has come to feed on despair. This a dungeon at war - not a place with bags of gold just lying around! (...) Master melee, ranged and magic skills and 'Close combat' a totally new, brutal mode of fighting as you battle your way through vast crowds of monsters. Fight alone or have a friend drop in to survive - and maybe even save - the darkest society imaginable!"

Insecticide (website) is Crackpot Entertainment's first game, expected to ship this holiday season on the PC and some handheld platform(s) - again, unspecified - and they also hope to bring it to other media such as television or film. Insecticide is an action-adventure with a unique visual appeal (reminds me Psychonauts and Beyond Good & Evil), "a hard-boiled, fast-shooting detective game set in a festering future city where bugs have evolved as the planet's dominant race. A murder at a powerful company leads police from the Insecticide Squad on a bug hunt through the city's seedy underbelly, and into a mystery of epic proportions."

Mushroom Men (website) so far looks like the most interesting project from Gamecock's line-up. It's being developed by Red Fly Studio, by a team whose members worked on games such as Anachronox, Deus Ex, BloodRayne and Star Wars Galaxies. The target platforms are a handheld and a next-gen console, with a release date planned for spring 2008. "Mushroom Men shows gamers the mundane world from the surreal perspective of a three-inch-high Mushroom Man. Unnoticed by humans, a war rages between the spore factions. As a brave Bolete Mushroom Man, players are given the opportunity to wreak havoc by transforming common household trinkets and trash into weapons and tools."

Hail to the Chimp (website) doesn't look like a title worth writing about right now. And as for Fury, if you don't already know what Auran has in mind for this frantic combat-based MMO, feel free to inspect the game's website - it's a lot more revealing than any of the above.

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Virgin's New Games Download Service, 'A World of My Own'

Virgin has abandoned the "hardcore" (i.e. non-casual) gaming scene many years ago, and to see them back in the news this week is, for me at least, quite exciting. They aren't here to reveal any new games, however, but to announce a new games download service they say will revolutionize the way we download PC games. Unlike today's simplistic digital distribution services, such as Steam, Virgin Games and Game Domain International (GDI) will introduce a new 3D "virtual world" platform, called A World of My Own (AWOMO).

According to Virgin's charismatic boss Sir Richard Branson, not only does AWOMO promise to feature faster download speeds, but it could also replicate the kind of success enjoyed by iTunes:

"This is a really exciting development for us, as it gives us the opportunity to do for PC Games what iTunes has done for music. The GDI technology will revolutionise how the mass market will play games, and will give them more choice for less money."

The first tests of Virgin's and GDI's 3D PC games platform have already been completed, and several publishers recently attended a demonstration of this new technology in action. The Koch Media Group, Europe's largest PC games distributor, is the first to embrace AWOMO, and they're now in advanced negotiations for the platform's launch later this year. Roger Bennett, former director of ELSPA (the games industry association) was also mighty impressed with what he saw, saying:

"After twenty one years in the computer and video games industry, I can honestly say I have recently seen in operation the most unique technology that can bring the most potential value to the industry."

Virgin Games and GDI intend to launch their AWOMO platform later in 2007, with a large selection of games available in order to meet the huge international demand expected.

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Following last week's scandal that sent shock waves throughout the EVE Online community, and through the gaming world at large, the devs from CCP stood by their promise to return with more details in response to "recent allegations of developer misconduct" (though both "recent" and "misconduct" are something of a euphemism). In a follow-up topic titled "t20 and Hellmar speak on recent events", Community Manager kieron directs the angry mob of players to a couple of dev-blog entries confessions - the first one authored by CCP's t20 (the scapegoat), and another one by Hellmar (Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO) - regarding the abusive handout of very rare BPOs (blueprint originals) by CCP staff to other players, most notably from the game's largest alliance, Band of Brothers (BoB).

In his confession, t20 admits to the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints during June 2006, but claims that he acted alone, in a doubtful attempt to clear his co-workers and corp/alliance mates of any (alleged) wrongdoings.

"Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true. I'm here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue - which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community - can be put behind us, I hope for the better.

The blueprints in question will be returned to CCP and reintroduced through a new raffle in the future. Specifically, these are:

- Flameburst Precision Light Missile Blueprint

- Phalanx Rage Rocket Blueprint

- Havoc Fury Heavy Missile Blueprint

- Bloodclaw Fury Light Missile Blueprint

- Spike L Blueprint

- Sabre Blueprint"

(our marking, for those who know how important this one is)

Naturally, many players are still not satisfied with just returning the blueprints, claiming that t20 is not the only CCP developer guilty of breaking the rules (he just got caught), and poiting out that BoB made billions worth of isk (EVE's currency) by using the fraudulent blueprints. Here's what one commenter writes in the aforementioned topic:

"A quick profit calculation based on this post yields a total benefit, over the course of 8 months, of around 14 billion isk. Or, to put it another way - approximately one mothership. To be clear - that's just from the Sabre BPO."

Hellmar's post in the CCP dev-blog is also worth reading, as it offers a more detailed story about the incidents leading to this scandal, and explains what measures the studio is currently taking against their own employers who are caught cheating:

"We now have resources dedicated to performing audits of dev activity on Tranquility (ed. - the "live" EVE server) with much more frequency than before. This, combined with additional layers of security, and the non-negotiable penalty of employment termination upon conviction of such acts, represents the full extent that we will go to deter dev misconduct."

Had they come forward with these responses and measures last summer, most of this scandal could have been avoided. But some players feel that all this is too little too late, and nothing more than a last-minute attempt of damage control. Since kieron's follow-up topic already boasts over 100 pages (!), there are obviously more issues that have yet to be resolved, but there's now a new thread in which kieron will try to provide players with answers. So you might want to check that, as the scandals drags on.

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Instead of the final version that we expected to ship this month, CDV presents us with just a chapter from their upcoming Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle, in a 430 MB demo verion. More commonly konwn as Runaway 2, the adventure sequel is once again being developed by Pendulo Studios, and it will follow the same couple of characters - Brian & Gina - as they travel around the world in their quest to... do exciting and funny things in exotic locations. Or something.

In this one-level Runaway 2 demo, available for download locally, you'll be playing as Brian as he attempts to save his poisoned friend, Joshua. Traveling around the Alaskan wilderness, you'll be challenged to find just the right ingredients to create an antidote for Brian's traveling companion while avoiding the dangers all around. CDV also gave these additional details about this English demo:

"Though this demo introduces the fourth chapter of the game, puzzles have been reworked and the solution of the main enigma is completely different. Also, new dialogs have been recorded especially for this demo to offer players a completely unseen adventure sequence. Finally, the demo includes a few bonuses such as a superbly illustrated intro to present the adventure and players will happily find out in the menu option a video telling the story of Brian and Gina’s previous adventure."

The final version of Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle was supposed to be released today, but along with this demo comes word that CDV will only release it on March 12 in North America, and probably around that time in Europe as well. We're going to pretend this delay never happened, but only because there aren't many other PC adventure titles worth waiting for in the next couple of months.

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With all her bullets and her witcheries, it took Alicia (the heroine from Bullet Witch) over half a year to make her way from Japan to America. Initially released in the Land of the Rising Sun by up-and-coming publisher AQ Interactive, back in July 2006, Bullet Witch is finally ready to make its North American debut later this month. As announced by Atari over the weekend, this neo-apocalyptic action-adventure game will launch for the Xbox 360 on February 27, at a suggested retail price of $49.99.

"Developed by Japan-based Cavia, Bullet Witch is set on a bleak planet earth in the year 2013 with human kind on the brink of extinction and hideous demons creating a tidal wave of destruction and havoc. All hope of mankind's survival rests with Alicia, a beautiful witch blessed with magical skills and a swift trigger finger. Players take control of Alicia in her heroic quest to prevent the decimation of mankind through her fearsome weaponry and spectacular powers with which she can manipulate natural phenomena in her environment.

Bullet Witch includes numerous features inspired by American horror and Japanese fantasy monsters. Combining shooting and magic, Bullet Witch will take advantage of Xbox 360's advanced physics engine by showcasing massive environmental damage, explosions and destruction. Cavia has balanced and fine tuned gameplay features and made enhancements including improved camera rotation during battle, increased shotgun power, increased Will Power, enemies made more sensitive to attacks, improved enemy AI, and more."

"Balanced and fine tuned gameplay features"? Those maked bits sound more like dumbed-down, if you ask me. And what on earth is "Xbox 360's advanced physics engine", anyway?

Well, in any case, Atari's announcement also says that "following launch, players will be able to download additional Bullet Witch content via Xbox Live Marketplace, comprising five packs delivered every two weeks, each containing a new costume for Alicia and revised levels to play through, further adding to the gameplay experience". So, feeling bewitched yet?

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Not the autumn Tokyo Games Show, mind you, but "TGS" as in Taipei Games Show, from Taiwan - that's where TweakTown say they saw a black Xbox 360 being showcased a couple of days ago, and they got some photos to prove it. If this is the real thing, however, it would prove that last week's rumours about an upcoming all-black version of the Xbox 360 were only partially correct. There's obviously no doubt about the color, but some of its rumoured features - namely the HDMI port - seemed to be missing from the unit showcased at the show.

TweakTown also notes that there wasn't "any extended storage capacity from the HDD" either, implying that the 120 GB HDD rumoured last week was also bogus. So, basically, what we're left with is a simple color change, which will hardly be enough for Microsoft to seriously temper with Sony's PlayStation 3 launch in PAL territories on March 23. "If this is the real thing", that is.

As revealed last week by several sources (including the Official Xbox Magazine via MCV, and GamersReports), the Australian retail chain Myers had leaked Microsoft's plans to launch a black Xbox 360 console shortly after the PS3's launch in PAL territories - including Europe and Australia.

The new black model was said to include a 120 GB HDD, a HDMI port, and of course a black controller. The speculated launch would be in April, or even in late March, for a price of 749 Australian dollars (around $580 / €445). Add to that the upcoming HD-DVD drive, and you get just about the price of a 60 GB PlayStation 3 model. Coincidence?

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New Square Enix MMORPG Shifts Focus From PS3 To Xbox 360

Despite Final Fantasy XI's undoubted success as an MMORPG, I still feel like the Final Fantasy series truly belongs to the single-player realm. So when Square Enix first revealed plans for a new next-gen MMORPG some time ago (via a trailer shown prior to E3 2005), I was more than thrilled by the idea - especially after they denied the rumours claiming that this would be some sort of Final Fantasy XI sequel. Last spring, this original MMO was first and foremost being targeted for the PlayStation 3 and PC (Windows Vista), according to comments made by FFXI producer Hiromichi Tanaka in an Impress Watch report. But now the times are changing.

In a recent interview with Pro-G, Tanaka once again reminds us that they're working on a next-gen MMORPG, but this time he diminishes the possibility of a PS3 version, instead standing by the Xbox 360 and Vista versions:

"I'm still working on XI as it's on-going but we are also working on a next-generation MMORPG for 360 and Vista but PS3 is a possibility."

This statement still doesn't answer any of our questions from last year (such as what kind of MMO will it be), nor the one we have after Square's recent Unreal Engine 3 licensing deal: could Epic's technology be used for their next MMO? We may be inclined to think so, since Square's MMO has shifted from being a primarily PS3 and PC project, to one primarily developed for the Xbox 360 and PC. And so far this seems to be the perfect choice of platforms for a game based on Unreal Engine 3.

P.S. We sure hope that by "Vista" they mean "PC" in general.

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I never thought that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would actually come out before Duke Nukem Forever, and I still have my doubts. And apparently so does THQ. Although they did set a "final" release date for GSC Game World's radioactive shooter for March 23 in Europe (and March 22 in the US), now it seems like they might be backing away. That's right, again! Is anyone still keeping count of how many years this game has been delayed so far? (I stopped counting at 3)

Truth be told, however, even if the game will miss the aforementioned date, the worst-case scenario would be for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to come out one week later or, in any case, before the end of March. This is what THQ UK is still claiming, according to Eurogamer, even though they seem to have dropped the "23" from the "March 23" release date:

"What we're saying at the moment is March, but it's definitely not slipped outside of March," a spokesperson for the publisher told Eurogamer.

"03:2007" is also what the the game's official website lists at the moment, and there's no more trace of the previous countdown clock that was supposed to run out of time on March 22. That Zone sure is full of oddities... Oh well, if it does slip again, at least THQ won't have to compete with the European launch of the PlayStation 3 on March 23 - which could very well be the reason behind all this.

Objects in the radioactive mirror may appear closer than they are.

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No Killzone 2 At GDC 2007, Halo 3 Beta Comes First

Killzone 2 came *this* close (/tiny gesture) to stealing a precious fragment of Halo 3's growing hype. As Bungie's Xbox 360 multiplayer shooter draws ever so near to its highly publicized beta, the PlayStation 3 Killzone sequel suddenly stepped in the spotlight this week, when rumours surfaced that Sony would showcase a demo version of the game at GDC 2007 - thus beating Halo 3, in a totally irrelevant way. But before the speculations could really kick off, Sony cut them short with the following statement:

"No, Killzone won't be GDC at all," stated SCEA Manager, Ryan Bowling, in a conversation with IGN held [on February 7]. "The time for that game is coming and we'll have new information about it in the future, but not at GDC."

So it looks like CVG was wrong (again, some might say). Although, if you're still not convinced either way, all you have to do is wait until March 6-9, when the 2007 Game Developers Conference will take place in San Francisco.

Unfortunately for Sony, the longer they postpone the game's showing in a playable form, the harder it will be to match the kind of expectation they generated back at E3 2005, with that awesome (albeit pre-rendered) Killzone 2 trailer. Aside from that, all we have so far is the following game synopsis:

"Killzone PlayStation 3 is a military first person shooter that builds upon the graphical and gaming excellence seen on PlayStation 2. A non-linear, intense cinematic gameplay experience that combines elements from multiple gaming genres, Killzone PlayStation 3 thrusts players deeper into the conflict between the ISA and Helghast. Set in a rich and highly interactive gameworld, Killzone PlayStation 3 utilises benchmark facial and character animation, advanced physics, destructible environments, amazing sound and special FX, immersing players in the most intense and warlike gameplay experience to date. Combining on-foot and vehicle combat across air, land and sea, with both off-line play and a customisable on-line portion, Killzone PlayStation 3 revolutionises the first-person shooter for the next generation."

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