As we like to say, when we are actually sober and NOT disregarding other people’s opinions, “tastes may vary”. And they may vary a lot. Styles vary, also. Big time. So I tend to find it a bit strange when two big bad ass producers, like Bethesda Softworks, and the younger, much fresher, not yet infested with the “my idea is better than yours” syndrome, Splash Damage, decide to join forces, in an attempt to… well, to do some stuff. What stuff, we have yet to discover. They probably don’t have a clue about it, either.

It’s useless to mention what Bethesda is famous for, but I will restate what it will be Infamous for. Fallout 3. The game that, according to my awesome Nostradamic predictions, will suck so much ass that even the greatest ass sucker in the world will have to bow down and let others do his job. As for Splash Splashidy Splashie, their recent title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, along side with their very deep friendship with id Studios, says it all.

They obviously intend to do some serious business regarding the gaming industry, but the actual details regarding their future project will not be revealed as soon as it may seem. Let’s just hope for something big, something nasty, and for the love of God, please, no more Oblivion crap. Fallout 3: Oblivion Copycat is enough to fail for ten years to come, already.

Arigatou, 1UP.

From the funny, yet unstable land of rumors, come this little piece on Primotech – the guys there ranting something about Crysis being showed working on X360, behind closed doors, at this year’s GDC. Who would be interested in such a release? Well, prospective publishers, of course.

If this is true (which I really doubt so far, not until we get some real clarifications), then it seems that EA was not really interested in such a project, since I guess they would have got first bids on it. Considering the low revenues that Crysis brought back for the PC, it’s no wonder.

It was known for sometime that Crytek was planning on showing the graphic engine CryEngine 2 working on Microsoft's console, but probably just for certain developers that be interested in using it for future titles. So Crysis on X360 is still a rumor, but rumors usually have a seed of truth somewhere in their stomach.

There I was, getting my hopes (and other things) up that Blizzard will be allowed to carry on with its own franchises, after the merger with Activision will be complete. Well, me and the others who thought about that were tremendously stupid, to say the least.

Having a nice chat with some hungry for gossip analysts, Bobby Kotick, Activision’s almighty CEO, pointed out the “possibility” that Call of Duty, Infinity Wards’ awesome FPS, could receive the MMO treatment in a near future.

He started by taking a look at the MMO market as we see it today, and what he saw was a bit grim: after the dreaded World of Warcraft launch, most other companies that tried to fit in the market only managed low-selling titles, canceled titles, or failing titles. Of course, with some little exceptions. Now Kotick looks down into Blizzard’s yard, hoping that his team(s) will learn a good deal from their veterans, plus the fact that Activision has a chance to “borrow” some of Blizzard’s subscriber base.

In short, Kotick kinda said: “Fuck Blizzard’s projects, ours are more important.”

A huge sigh of relief is in order, I believe, now that the prolongued silence has been broken on the PlayStation.Blog. As you can see below, the upcoming SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation for the PlayStation 3 looks light-years better than the disgusting screenshots which are still lingering on the game's official website. Although, truth be told, it's still not as good looking as we've come to expect from a future PS3 title.


Along with these screenshots, David Seymour (the game's Design Director from developer Slant Six Games) offers a few more info on SOCOM: Confrontation, but leaves the best for EGM magazine's cover story in their May issue. Still, one thing he specifically wants to tell the fans, again and again and again (yeah, he actually wrote it three times), is this: "There is an option to use classic SOCOM camera! It looks and feels like the original classic camera!". Great, now how about a release date, other than that elusive "2008"?

Eidos' regiment of engineers blew the cover off Battlestations: Pacific, the sequel to last year's action-strategy WWII game Battlestations: Midway. Inside we found the first set of screenshots that you can see below, along with the usual game synopsis. Which goes something like this...

"The game features a massive U.S. and Japanese single player campaign that offers a unique blend of action and strategy. Players must plan their moves carefully on huge open-world arenas and fight in the air, above sea and underwater to relive some of the most hard-fought battles in WWII history. With the newly added Japanese faction, players will also gain insight into what could have been, should Japan have gained the upper hand against the United States. Battlestations: Pacific also features five new innovative multiplayer modes to strategically plan and battle against friends with all new maps and units.

 (...)

 Continue reading 'Battlestations: Pacific Announced For PC, X360'...

On the same day that EA was revealing Red Alert 3 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Vivendi also made a similar, albeit shadowed announcement, about another supposedly-hardcore RTS game heading for all three supposedly-hardcore platforms: World in Conflict. As one of last year's top strategy titles on the PC, World in Conflict was previously known to be in development for the Xbox 360, but this week a PS3 version was also confirmed.

Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of World in Conflict are now set for release in autumn 2007, effectively meaning that the Xbox 360 has already been delayed almost one year from its initial date. But looking on the bright side, this way the devs (Swordfish Studios, overwatched by Massive Ent.) will hopefully have enough time to do a proper port, controls-wise.

Other-wise, World in Conflict will be reinforced with new content on the consoles, for both its singleplayer campaign and multiplayer mode. And this yet-to-be-detailed "new content" will also be made available on the PC, in the form of an expansion. More info about the latter should be interecepted soon.

Holy grenade, NovaLogic is still alive and kicking! I could've sworn they were dead for the last three years (in my eyes for sure), ever since I stopped caring about their increasingly crappy Delta Force games. But maybe - just maybe - taking a huge break will turn out for the best.

For now, it seems that NovaLogic is working on something called Delta Force: Angel Falls (or "Black Ops" according to other reports), as teased on the company's front page; good thing we have CryoCopy to freeze it in place, otherwise it redirects you after a couple of seconds. The splash image has a clear "2008" splashed on it, (mis?)leading us to think that we might be sniping our asses once more by the end of this year. Just like good ol' times. But on what platforms, through what virtual locations, and for what purpose? Such details, sadly, still elude us.


The Delta Force had better be strong with this one!