"The people at White Elephant offer us a sample of bi-dimensional arcade shooter with satellite view, which despite its serious and over-elaborate story, provides only mind relaxation and a ghostly smile cornered here and there. Well, if we bring in the case of those into regular dosages of Sunday afternoon type of games. This is its mission, and this is what it's doing with serenity and conviction. Further on, it's just a matter of taste whether the offer, generally vapid, manages to palpate the players' mind. Figuratively speaking, of course."

Although it may not be befitting to be promoted as a "top story", this game put together by the Russians over at White Elephant deservers at least some kind of mentioning, and it's being presented in more detail in this new RIP 3: The Last Hero review, signed - as usual - by Vaal.

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Carmack Hopes To Do Orcs & Elves For The Nintendo DS // UPDATE

For many of us, it was quite a shock when id Software's coder extraodinaire, John Carmack, decided to return to his old days of low-tech programming and made a role-playing game for mobile phones. The name of the game - as I'm sure you known by now - is Orcs & Elves, and it was released by Verizon in May 2006. Since then, it went on to receive several "best of" awards, including IGN's "Best Wireless RPG of E3 2006", "Best Mobile Game" at the Games Convention in Leipzig and "Best Story" for IGN's 2006 Wireless Awards.

Having enjoyed such a successful departure from their usual first-person shooters (need I name them?), it seems that id Software now hopes to build on this success and take Orcs & Elves onto other platforms. More specifically, on the Nintendo DS handheld consonle.

Chris Kohler from the Wired blog Game|Life sat down with Carmack earlier this week, and they got to talking about the DS Lite sitting on his nightstand...

"We're hoping to do a DS game version of Orcs and Elves", Carmack confessed, "moving over and enhancing the cell phone game on there, which would be our first real direct entry back into the Nintendo world."

Apparently, their relation with Nintendo hasn't been too close, ever since they had to dumb-down (i.e. politically-correct) Wolfenstein 3D for the SNES. No Natzi swastikas, green blood, silly stuff like that...

John Carmack: We've never had a close, good relationship with Nintendo from like way back, when we had some back experiences really early on...

Chris Kohler: Like when they made you put rats in...

John Carmack: ...Wolfenstein stuff...

Todd Hollenshead (id CEO): ...green blood...

John Carmack: ...and we were always just kind of peeved at the whole Nickelodeon censor arrangement with Nintendo. So we've kept them at arm's length for many console generations now.

Let's hope they can finally get over it and make the call to Nintendo. If not for the sake of Orcs & Elves on the DS, then at least for something else on the Wii. That would be a perfect platform for Carmack to try out his wicked ideas.

UPDATE: id Software was awarded two Technology Emmy Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 8, 2007.

"The Pioneering Development Work in 3D Game Engines award was won by John Carmack, co-founder and technical director of id Software, for his cutting edge contributions to rendering technology as the lead programmer on Doom. id Software, a quintessential leader in technology development, was awarded a second Emmy for the company's technological leadership in rendering breakthroughs with the Quake technology."

The company's official website has more details on this. [10.01.2007, 17:49]

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The New E3, Formerly 'GamePro Expo', Now 'E for All Expo'

Entertainment for All Expo... E for All... E4... yep, this sure is a better name for the future replacement of the once-glamorous E3 Expo, than the previous title "GamePro Expo" suggested by IDG last year. Although I still think that "Booth Babes for All" would have been a much more catchy name. Regardless, it's official, and it's pretty much final: a few days ago, the International Data Group (IDG) announced that the official name of its newest event will be "Entertainment for All Expo" - or "E for All Expo" - and confirmed that it will be held during October 18-20, 2007, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The new name was chosed from among over 3000 entries submitted on the GamePro.com website, and the winning entry was proposed by a certain Dante Padre bloke from California. When asked what inspired his name submission, Mr. Padre said:

"This show seems to be about inviting everyone to participate; they even asked gamers to create the name. Unlike other industry-only events, this show is for everyone. Now everyone will have the opportunity to experience the excitement, the entertainment, and the early look at the industry that's only been available to insiders before."

Obviously, IDG conveniently found a perfect explanation for the "E for All" name as well:

"The new name highlights the show's focus on entertainment and its openness and accessibility to the public. Building on momentum and pent-up demand that has grown within the consumer audience for all things related to computer and video games, event organizers anticipate its mid-October dates will launch an early holiday shopping season for the industry. The new name also reflects the cross-pollinization between traditional and digital entertainment - the reason behind establishing the show in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world."

The annoucement goes on to say that "E for All" will offer consumers the opportunity to test-drive the latest in games and gadgetry, as well as purchase products they enjoyed over the course of the 3-day event at on-site retail facilities. Additional attractions are in the works, including high-profile videogame tournaments; job fair / networking opportunities; family-friendly offerings; and the acclaimed Video Games Live concert. The Expo will also take advantage of soon-to-be-expanded LA Live area adjoining the LA Convention Center and Staples Center.

The show's new website is EforAllExpo.com, where a notification reads that "Registration for this event will open in the Spring of 2007".

Remind me to take a holiday in October, I fear for my mental well-being.

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Subversion, From The Makers of Darwinia And DEFCON

Introversion rocks! I have come to believe that they're the reason why the saying "keep it simple" was invented. They always seem to keep it simple in their games, and in turn, their games always end up being superb strokes of genius: Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON, bar none. And hopefully their fourth game will be equally original and enjoyable. However, we are already being warned that it may take a couple of years until they get it done. As revealed last month, Introversion's new project is called Subversion, and over the last couple of weeks, the indie developer began sharing some info on its forums.

So, without further ado, behold the first non-screenshots from Subversion. Don't let them fool you, though. As lead designer Chris Delay explains in this history of Introversion's past games, the first batch of screens (dated January 9, 2007 in our gallery) are actually samples of his creative experiments from more than four years ago! He first began fiddling with ideas for a project codenamed Subversion in July 2002, and for a few months, he was absolutely convinced this would be Introversion's big hit second game. But since then, the second (Darwinia) and third (DEFCON) games have already been launched, so Subversion will be their fourth... unless they come up with another quickly-doable bright idea in the meantime. Chris goes on to explain:

"This game has been bubbling away in the backs of our minds for years, and has been an ongoing late night topic for us ever since we pushed it aside in 2003. In that time it has changed and grown and solidified and matured into something quite beautiful, and we're finally in a position to be able to do it justice. It's going to take us a couple of years, but as a company we're getting bored of keeping everything secret for so long, and the decision has been made to open the process up to the world. Our next game will be developed in the full glare of the general gaming public, and we hope you enjoy the process as much as we do."

And in full public glare they're doing it, alright! Just as 2007 begun, Chris posted another update, after the first weeks of actual game development on Subversion. He provides four new screenshots (see the batch from January 10), and this time they're brand new, showing how their "procedural City Generator" currently works. What's that for? Well we still have no precise idea, but I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be just another city builder.

"These screenshots represent the first weeks work in writing a procedural City Generator. Just a few incredibly simple rules govern the growth of roads in these prototypes. By making small changes to those rules, you can vastly change the result. Encouraging roads to run North-South or East-West results in Manhattan style street grids, whereas encouraging roads to circle population centres results in lovely radial street patterns. These are obviously very early prototype shots but I wanted to show the incredible power (and beauty) of procedurally generated content, even at this early stage."

And to top it all off, they even give us a first trailer with the procedural thingie in action. Short and certainly sweet, in a geek kind of way. (One scroll-up later...) Whoa, nuf' said! We wish them speedy development and a productive new year.

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LotR: The White Council And PS3 Coded Arms Cancelled?

Barely has 2007 begun, and a couple of cancellation rumours are already flying high and low. The first one was picked up by QJ.net via the German website GameFront, and it predicts that Konami's first-person shooter for the PlayStation 3, Coded Arms: Assault, will be shipping no more. The game was supposed to come out in Spring or Summer of this year, but rumour has it that Japanese magazine Famitsu fears for the worst.

No reason, apparently, or even the slightest speculation as to why would Konami cancel it. But the Coded Arms: Assault page is apparently gone, and a quick search on Konami's website reveals no trace of any Coded Arms title on the PlayStation 3. Then again, the website only lists Hellboy as the sole PS3 title (no Metal Gear Solid either), so we might as well disregard that altogether. Could it be that the publisher caved in under the criticism received by Coded Arms: Assault, after the game's showing at TGS 2006?

Whatever the reason, I'm sure we'll find out sooner than later what the project's official status really is. So let's move on to EA's ambitious - yet secretive - role-playing game set in Tolkien's ubiquitous fantasy universe.

Initially unveiled as "Project Gray Company" in April 2006 (story), and later nailed down as The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, this was supposed to be an epic next-gen RPG for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, developed by EA's Redwood Shores studio under Steve Gray's supervision. But according to 1UP, it might never happen. When questioned for details, Electronic Arts gave them a "no comment" reply, and other publications were equally unsuccessful in finding out what's going on behind the curtains.

It's true that the game's dev-team went through some changes recently, so the most optimistic scenario would be for The White Council to be delayed until 2008. Unless there really is no hope of ever seeing it in action... We shall see.

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Xpand Rally Xtreme, Sam & Max Ep. 2, Tortuga Demos, More Downloads

Playing a bit of a catch-up with the stories we missed around the new year's eve, I found myself adding a whole bunch of downloads today, including three demo versions, a couple of patches and several trailers. Starting off with the demos, we have Xpand Rally Xtreme, Sam & Max: Season 1: Episode 2: Situation: Comedy (this is getting ridiculous), and Tortuga: Two Treasures. I'm guessing the most prominent of them is the 330 MB single-player demo for Xpand Rally Xtreme, Techland's ucoming rally sequel. We still don't have a solid release date for the final version, but the game has already been out in Poland, and in Germany from what I hear. So the English version shouldn't be too far away now. In any case, the demo contains two racing tracks - Malaysia and Italy - with both the arcade and simulation modes enabled, as well as two cars to choose from.

Telltale are also giving us a taste of a sequel of their own. The Sam & Max: Episode 2 - Situation: Comedy demo is here, and for just 70 MB, it even includes all content of the full second episode of this first re-born season, which you can activate after purchasing a license key online.

And finally, we also have a 330 demo for Ascaron's Tortuga: Two Treasures seafearing game. This one should be out in March 2007, although it's not uncommon at all for CDV to delay their titles again and again...

Moving on to the rest of today's downloads, there's a FIFA Manager 07 patch #1 for the English DVD version of EA's footy manager, a DEFCON patch v1.3 (not compatible with the Steam version, as usual), and new trailers for the following 8 games: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Nanostray 2 (DS), Dungeon Runners, War Front: Turning Point, Silent Hunter 4, LotR Online: Shadows of Angmar, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and last, but certainly not least, Crysis. Enjoy!

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PS3 Ships 1M In US, Wii Sells 1.2M In US, Xbox 360 Sells 10.4M

A few days ago, Lazard Capital's analyst Colin Sebastian estimated that Nintendo's Wii had beaten their earlier 1.2 million sales estimates, and that Sony's PlayStation 3 might have sold just 700,000 units. Well, we now suspect that at least one of these figures was... how should we put this... wrong! Although Sony's supplies of PS3s were indeed lacking (to say the least), the company claims to have eventually shipped 1 million units across North America, in the six weeks following the console's launch from November 17, 2006. And mostly all of them were not only shipped, buy also sold out - thus making Lazard's 700,000 units figure somewhat of an underestimation.

If Sony's claims (reported by GI.biz) are accurate, that would mean that the PlayStation 3 actually hit the 1 million mark faster than both the PS2 and the original PlayStation.

"SCEA went to great lengths to help meet demand for PS3, including airlifting systems into North America on a weekly basis to ensure a steady stream of units were available to consumers throughout the holiday season," said SCEA boss Jack Tretton.

On top of that, it now seems that Nintendo's advantage in terms of sold Wii consoles isn't all that crushing anymore. At least not in North America; and assuming that at least the "1.2 million Wiis sold" estimation was accurate to some degree. In any case, pretty soon we should have a clear picture of how well each console sold in North America last year, once the official NPD charts are made public later this week.

In the meantime, GI.biz also reports that Microsoft has managed to shift an impressive 10.4 million units of the Xbox 360 console to date, and that Epic Games's Gears of War has sold over 2.7 million copies - making it "a Halo-like franchise", according to Robbie Bach's statements from CES in Las Vegas this week. GamesIndustry also notes the following facts about the Xbox 360:

"The console is now available in 37 different countries, with 160 titles on shelves, with Bach promising the machine will benefit from 300 games by the end of 2007."

How long will it take for Sony and Nintendo to catch up? Well, why don't we ask that question again in a year.

UPDATE: Yet another report from GI.biz brings word that Nintendo's Wii has sold nearly 1 million units in Japan so far, more than twice of what Sony's PlayStation 3 sold in the same territory.

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Enemy Engaged 2 Helicopter Flight Sim Sequel Announced

Try as hard as I might, I can't think of one single, solid helicopter flight simulator released for the PC in the past few years. The last notable entries in the genre probably date back to 2003, and even before that, helicopter sims weren't much of a playful attraction. But there have been a few good ones, and from them, (one of) the best was Enemy Engaged: RAH-66 Comanche vs. Ka-52 Hokum - or simply Comanche vs. Hokum.

Enemy Engaged may not be a very popular name by today's standards anymore, but fans of the genre surely rejoiced last year, when first rumours about a sequel began to surface. Well, today we received word from UK publisher G2 Games that Enemy Engaged 2 is indeed coming, and it's coming fast! If no stormy clouds are encountered along the way, the new sim should be out during 2007. Unfortunately, details are still scarce, but here's what we know so far:

"Enemy Engaged 2 is set to take the series even further with new dynamic missions and a complete overhaul of the graphics and audio to bring the game up to date with the latest and best flight simulations available."

Enemy Engaged 2 has been in development since early 2005. And since the first two sims in the series (Apache/Havoc from 1998, and Comanche vs. Hokum from 2000) were both developed by Razorworks Studios, we're assuming they will be making the sequel as well - although we're still waiting for confirmation on this one from G2.

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Slowly but surely, the light at the end of the hellgate is starting to shine ever so brighter, and by Summer 2007, Flaghship's over-hyped project Hellgate: London should be ready to step out of the shadows altogether. That, according to today's joint announcement made by co-publisher Electronic Arts and Namco Bandai Games America, which narrows the game's worldwide launch window down to "summer 2007". Here's what Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios (formerly from Blizzard), had to say about his studio's online action RPG:

"We are all committed to making Hellgate: London absolutely the best game possible," said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. "The anticipation surrounding the game is immense and we are looking forward to its launch being a truly worldwide event."

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. The player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

Hellgate: London is currently being featured on the show floor of the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 8-11 in Central Hall at the Microsoft booth (#7145) and Intel booth (# 7153) and in South Hall at the Dell booth (Level 3, #30363).

Also, let's not forget that the developer recently established a new Flagship studio in Seattle (headed by Fate lead-designer Travis Baldree) which began work on a casual online RPG called Mythos. This will supposedly be used to test their networking technology - the same one adopted in Hellgate: London. Let's just hope they get that right before Hellgate comes out.

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Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta Opens New Ways Of Entry // UPDATE

Just a few days into 2007, Halo aficionados are already being blessed with new ways of entry into the upcoming Halo 3 multiplayer beta. Officially, there are two new ways for their beta-dream to come true, but off the record... well, we'll get there in a bit. For starters, Gamasutra reports that fans can also get in the beta by either purchasing the Xbox 360 game Crackdown (next month), or by following a more complicated procedure of Halo 2 multiplayer playtime and timely registration on the Halo3.com website.

Naturally, buying Crackdown seems like the easy way out in, although it won't necessarily be the cheapest. Realtime World's upcoming GTA clone is a full-priced game, but just by paying the price, players are sure to be allowed into the Halo 3 beta. When the program launches this Spring, they will be able to use their Crackdown game disc as a "key" to download the beta through the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The other way to apply for the beta involves a so-called "Rule of Three" system, planned for the launch of the forthcoming Halo 3 website. Here's how it will work, in theory:

"By playing at least three hours of Halo 2 multiplayer between the Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007, at 12:01 a.m. EST and Feb. 3, 2007, at 11:59 p.m. EST, and then being among the first 13,333 to register at the website, players will receive the beta invitation."

Later this month, the most lucky fans who took a shot at registering on the Halo 3 website during December will already receive their invitation for the beta. And word is there are even more ways to get in! Highly unofficial and not recommended without prescription.

UPDATE: Forgot about the fourth way: getting into the army, fighting in Iraq and early-beta-testing Halo 3 on Christmas. Oh well, too late for that now.

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