It all started as a (well founded) rumor. It ended with an official announcement. So, yeah, basically we’ll get more Bioshockin’ services in the fall of 2009, according to the girls at Take Two. Just as promised, actually, because they stated before their hungry desire to release one Bioshock title once every two years…

What we know so far is that the game will, indeed, be manufactured with great care and no trembling hands by the newly formed 2K Marin Studio, where a bunch of Bioshock developers gathered not to be pissed off by the lesser beings inside Take Two that like to share useless opinions with the rest of the world. Even though it was first rumored that brainmaster Ken Levine will not work on this project, Take Two confirmed that, well, he will, either it is his choice or not.

While Bioshock was a great game, maybe more popular than great, it still reeked of casual putrefaction. Hopefully, more little sisters, Japanese ones, this time, will fix the obvious flaw of respawning like a retard, that made the game look much too easy. And silly.

Scoopz0r.

- The 360+ MB Crysis patch 1.2 is finally up for download. But it has issues. And also some dedicated (albeit beta) nVidia drivers.

- "We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II", says Blizzard via Blizzplanet. Well, they have no plans for announcing the next Diablo game today, either. But that doesn't mean it's not there...

- Dark Sector has just gone Gold, and is now ready for releasing in North America this March 25 on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

- Capcom dismisses Resi 5 date rumours, the ones placing the release of Resident Evil 5 in October 2008 (just before Gears of War 2). So it might only come out in early 2009.

- Huxley, that MMOFPS nearly gone vaporware, was featured this week in an IGN preview saying that Webzen plans to release the PC version by the end of 2008, followed about six months later by the Xbox 360 version (which will take place 50 years later, but will still have "cross-platform interaction" with the PC version, oddly enough).

- Each game from the Orange Box package - Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One + Two - will be available as separate PC titles at retail on April 9, as confirmed by Valve on Joystick. Too little too late.

- Europa Universalis III: In Nomine announced for this summer (or some time before it). It's like an expansion for another expansion, since it will require the Napoleon's Ambition add-on, and the idea for it was born on Paradox' forums. Sounds... promising...

- Various WiiWare games were announced lately, but the vast majority of them look like pure, double-distilled shit. One exception is LostWinds (which we covered last month), and another one will hopefully be Lit - a 3D horror action-puzzler coming from WayForward (Contra 4, Shantae), which I found out about on Gamasutra.

- The U.S. Air Force wants 300... Spartans? Moonkins? Nope, PlayStation 3 consoles. Awoo! Awoo! Awoo! They're supposedly "conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors", and the PS3 is perfect for playing while on-duty their top-secret research.

A noteworthy announcement just came in from Codemasters. Together with developer Blue Omega Entertainment, they offer the first details and screenshots for a third-person action-shooter called Damnation (apparently based on a former UT 2004 total convertion mod of the same name). It will be the first in a planned franchise that will make its debut on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in late 2008.

They are billing it as a "shooter gone vertical", seemingly due to its huge, open environments, each covering miles of distance and thousands of vertical feet. "These massive streaming landscapes will form the battlegrounds for a post-industrial conflict between humanity and an unstoppable arms dealer hell-bent on total world domination", the story goes. Visually inspired by iconic elements of American history (not America again!), Damnation also promises to feature frenetic combat, daredevil acrobatics and high-octane vehicle-based stunts ("from motorbikes capable of launching across seemingly infinite chasms, to huge, armour-piercing marvels that will induce mayhem with every huge shell"), with up to 3 hours of actual gameplay... per level! But no, I have no idea how many levels there will be.

More details after the screenshots.

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Price cut rumors are always welcome, particularly when they come true. And for this one, we'll only have to wait a few more days to find out if it's bogus or not. According to this fresh TechRadar story which already spread all over the webs, the price of the Xbox 360 will be cut by €50 on 14 March in Europe. They say the reduction will apply to all Xbox 360 SKUs, and that they confirmed the story with "numerous UK retailers" - none of which agreed to go on record, though.

"This effectively means that the cost of the Xbox 360 Elite system on Amazon will be in the region of £240 (ed. - €313) and the basic Arcade system (without a hard drive) will cost in the region of £150 (ed. - €195)", TechRadar predicts.

Indeed, that would put the price of the lower-spec Xbox 360 Arcade bundle below that of a Wii console. But the numbers are still wildly fluctuating - from £150 on TechRadar, to £170 on MCV, and down to £140 for the Arcade bundle (from what MCV seems to have seen back on TechRadar... weird). Only time - and Microsoft - will tell what's the right price.

You have to just love the guys and gals at Gamasutra. All the info they provide comes in such huge detail, that I seldomly forget to read some piece of news from top to bottom, either because I am in a middle of a wanking session, either because I get bored reading quotes from the developers.

Anyway, here is some interesting stuff. Dudes behind titles such as Fallout or Medal of Honor have teamed up in an attempt to show recent crappy developers ze finger, forming WhiteMoon Dreams, a new and, hopefully, stupendous studio, which focuses its interest on Wii, PS3, and X360. For starters, they work on a title for a certain Japanese publisher.

Great news, indeed! The guy pulling all the strings will be Jay Kootarappallil (pronounced “koeiwruweoiudiojfsod”), which, at some point, used to be a technical art director for EA. Now why does it seem familiar to me that EA dudes have all the money?

While Loli WhiteMoon Dreams wants to mainly focus on original, in-house, series, they do not bash the possibility of working alongside major publishers, in an attempt to boost some of their francizes. What can I say, good luck to them, and may your titles live long and prosper.

Gamasutra scoop.

When it comes to Fallout 3, there are certain things of notice: first, Bethesda got its hands on a license that virtually kicks ass: second, Bethesda has absolutely no idea how to create a RPG – and don’t make me prove to you that every fucking Elder Scrolls title was actually a FPS; third, there is a BIG Fallout community out there, demanding a game that will be at least as good as the Fallout 3 Beta (ed. - Van Buren), released by the former Black Isle guys so long ago.

Things are really sad when even the lead game designer for the current Bethesda FPS, casually named, I have no idea why, Fallout 3, says that the company itself doesn’t give a shit about the community’s suggestions. Sure, we will get 50% of Morrowind’s big sized world (unlike some other things that the developers have to offer), sure, we will have “open endings”, and other stuff that may actually attract casual players, but, Sir, we will certainly have no Fallout. Here’s what Emil Pagliarulo had to say:

That’s always the toughest question. You listen to the fans and respect their ideas, but once you start designing a game that they want to make specifically, then you can get yourself into trouble.

In other words, “we may get into trouble if we listen to you guys, create a hardcore game for the Fallout community to enjoy, and not listen to what our publishers tell us to do. And what cocks to suck”.

And certainly, the fact that Fallout 3 comes on various platforms, (probably) with optimizations as good as, let’s say, Resident Evil 4, also means that they don’t care at all. Go go, Bethesda, one more reason to hate you. And by that, I mean really hate you, I have a fellow priest that knows some incantations that will make your dicks smaller.

Read the rest of his bullshit here.

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 was so much more I wanted to stuff into that title, but basically this is the story: Larry Niven, the sci-fi author best known for his Ringworld series, is working on a completely new game, together with the folks from Alchemic Productions. It's called Free Fall, it plays out in zero-gravity, and it's not based on any of his other books. Dunno about you, but I'm starting to feel the itch, drooling at this very first concept art.


If you're thinking about the old Ringworld adventure games from the early '90s, you can drop that thought right away. Kotaku managed to speak with Alchemic co-founder Rick Ernst about the project, and from what they write, Free Fall sounds like a lot more action-oriented game.

"Desiring more involvement than simply handing over his books as source material, Niven is working with Alchemic to create an entirely new fiction for the game, which will center around a nation of miners and spacers that inhabit Earth's Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt. You begin the game as newly immigrated Earther looking to get a fresh start as a miner who soon finds himself embroiled in miner revolution."

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- New Red Alert 3 details have been discussed in the latest BattleCast web-show, including the revelation of the new faction: The Empire of the Rising Sun, "which was produced after a desperate Soviet leadership went back in time to erase Einstein, presumably to stop him creating the atomic bomb". One does not simply erase Einstein.

- Okami finally gets a firm release date on the Wii (or delay, from GameSpot's point of view): April 15. Cool, right on my birthday. But something tells me I'll still be busy air-punching my comrade in Super Smash Bros. Brawl at that time.

- IGN talked to Ubi about the new stuff in Assassin's Creed for the PC, such as four new investigation missions (archer assassination, rooftop race challenge, merchant stand destruction challenge and escort challenge). And they also got some new screens. The PC version is coming in early April, having slipped again.

- Dark Sector is also coming a bit later than expected, in April, with a demo "likely" to precede the final launch.

- A fresh new release schedule we received from cdv USA lists Sacred 2: Fallen Angel as coming in September 2008 on the PC and Xbox 360. Precicely, yet another delay. Also, Stranger releasing this March 17, Sudden Strike 3 on March 24, and Theatre of War on May 12 (it's been out in Europe since last autumn).

- Demigod, at least, is not getting delayed... yet. Gas Powered Games' new strategy game is "completely playable" and "fairly certain" for a 2008 release. Should be worth the wait, "heck [they] have a giant walking castle as a demigod"!

- A Grimm preview is up on GameTap (the very website that will be launching this dark episodic game in July), with quotes from American McGee, who seems rather frustrated by Disney's versions of the classic murderous fairy tales. "Look at Pinocchio, for instance. In the original story he kills Jiminy Cricket, his conscience. Pinocchio was a real jerk in the original story. But nobody knows that because they've only seen the Disney version."

- A game based on the TV show Dexter is in the works, through a partnership between Showtime Networks and Marc Ecko Entertainment. Right, as in Marc Ecko's Getting Up pile-o-crap from a couple of years ago.

- Sony Japan confirms Skype for PSP from March 18, plus new hardware and limited edition Bronze handheld. Any colour you like.

Another piece of weekend junk which turned out to be just that - junk - is a story about some supposed BioShock 2 artworks that popped up on some guy's blog. Given how cool they look, it's easy to see why they would be mistaken for "the real thing". But sadly the author of said artworks fanarts set the record straight over on That VideoGame Blog.

"The author behind these images [said] these are not official BioShock concept drawings. In his own words: “It was for a class at Art Center, the assignment was to design a sequel for a videogame or film. So I picked one of my favorite games from last year.”"

Taking into account that BioShock 2 prequel rumour from January, it would make sense to see (some of) its action taking place above the surface, so these arts do make some sense, even if they're completely unofficial.

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