EA’s car-mayhem franchise said to be “action arcade style” set in fictitious Crash City.
Early last week, the Australian Classification Board offered up tantalizing information that EA would soon be returning with a new, multiplatform installment in its vehicular carnage-heavy Burnout franchise. The listing was light on information, unfortunately, and it was not clear if Criterion Games would be returning to the franchise that it created, or what direction this new game would take.
While many of those questions remain, at least a few may have been answered, again courtesy of Australia’s game-rating board. Joystiq reports that it has received a summary of the game’s rating information that was submitted by EA to the ACB.
According to that breakdown, Burnout Crash will be “an action arcade style game set in the fictional world of Crash City. The aim of the game is to cause as much damage as possible to traffic and buildings by crashing a car into them.”
Given that description, Burnout Crash sounds as if it will be a return to the menu-driven challenges of 2004′s Burnout 3 and 2005′s Burnout Revenge. Prior to moving on to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Criterion shifted to a more dynamic, open-world format for 2008′s highly regarded Burnout Paradise.
EA had not responded to a request for comment on the Australian rating summary as of press time.
Capcom spin-off reprises horror action game with Frank West in the starring role; Xbox 360, PS3, and PC title to feature new enemies, missions, combo weapons.
Capcom’s crossover fighters have shown it is no stranger to the Marvel Universe, but now the publisher is taking a page from the comic company’s “What If?” series. Capcom today announced Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, a stand-alone spin-off that answers the question, “What if Frank West had been present at the Fortune City outbreak?”
Set for release this fall on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, Off the Record offers an alternate storyline to last year’s horror action game, with photojournalist West–the star of the original Dead Rising–getting the scoop on a zombie outbreak in the Las Vegas-like Fortune City. In addition to the combo weapon feature introduced in Dead Rising 2, Off the Record will bring back the original game’s photography feature, where players gain experience for snapping pics that are judged for their horror, drama, brutality, and erotic content.
As for new features, Off the Record includes new missions, enemies, combo weapons, environments, items, and vehicles. The game will also feature technical improvements like reduced load times and better network performance for online play. Capcom is also promising “enhancements” to the save system and co-op modes.
Legendary skateboarder says fresh series entry “probably” coming sometime next year; developer/publisher not named.
In early February, Activision announced that it had put the Tony Hawk skateboarding series on hold, saying that no new franchise entry would arrive in 2011. However, the birdman will crash back onto the scene in 2012, if comments from Hawk himself prove accurate.
In an interview with PixelatedGeek, Hawk was queried as to whether or not gamers can expect more Tony Hawk games in the future. He responded, “We’re going to do something probably for next year but I can’t give too much away.” Activision officials have said they still see potential in the franchise, saying in December that Tony Hawk has the staying power of Michael Jordan.
Meet John, he is a man with a mission who refuses to die!
Sony launches a very clever viral campaign about Little Big Planet 2 focusing on the actual people responsible for building & developing the game.
“What would be your dream job? How about designing video games that are exploring new creative possibilities and pushing the medium to its limits?
No other medium has the creative possibilities and imaginative potential of video games – right now we’re seeing new generations of game designers ripping up the rule book and using their energies and imaginations to stretch the platform’s capabilities and explore uncharted ground.
Gamers who honed their craft as hobbyists and invest their creations with great passion, wit and wonder. And who doesn’t want to play games like that?”
First of short series to debut on Machinima.com next week, one week before next game in franchise launches.
It looks like April will be a busy month for Mortal Kombat fans. On April 19, the latest game in the series, titled simply Mortal Kombat, will debut on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The eagerly awaited next installment in the franchise–which just went gold–will see the return of the gruesome fatalities and hardcore violence that the series is known for.
Now, it appears that the prior week will also have something new for Mortal Kombat fans. Hadoken.net reports that at 4 p.m. PDT next Tuesday, Machinima.com will stream the first episode of a live-action series of shorts based on the Mortal Kombat universe.
The event will apparently be available via the network’s YouTube channel, on a page currently marked as private. However, the screening was tacitly confirmed by series director Kevin Tancharoen via his tweet.
The live-action series, first teased via an eight-minute film released last June, features a reimagined Mortal Kombat universe and will feature such characters as Reptile, Baraka, and Sonya. It will be produced by Warner Bros., which is also publishing the game.
The company promised that the series will “take gamers deep into the history of warriors they know and love such as Scorpion, Johnny Cage, and Liu Kang.” Black Dynamite and Spawn star Michael Jai White will reportedly play Jackson “Jax” Briggs in the series.
Game and book publishers teaming up to create transmedia properties across “multiple mediums,” plan to translate more offerings from game library into novels.
THQ is a big fan of transmedia. The game publisher is currently helping with a SyFy channel miniseries that will bridge the story between Red Faction Guerilla and the upcoming Armageddon. It also recently backed Homefront: Voice of Freedom, the novelization of its already-platinum shooter Homefront.
Now THQ is taking another step forward in its transmedia efforts. Today, the company announced that it has inked a deal with book publishing giant Random House Publishing Group to develop all-new intellectual properties. The agreement will see a creative team assembled from representatives of both companies that will create “a rich IP universe” that will manifest itself in “a collection of games and books.”
One aspect of the collaboration will be the creation of “world bibles” for THQ game series through the Random House Publishing Group’s IP creation and development group, Random House Worlds. No further details were given other than THQ would continue to try and bring its current IP library to “all existing book formats” with Random House’s assistance. Whether or not that means a WWE: Smackdown vs. Raw novel is in the works remains to be seen.
Beenox and Activision show off Spider-Man’s latest time-hopping adventure.
Following the success of last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Activision crowned Canadian developer Beenox as the primary developer on future titles featuring the Marvel Comics icon. The first game to be primed for release following the developer’s “lead spider developer” status is the recently announced Spider-Man: Edge of Time. While the game isn’t a direct sequel to Shattered Dimensions, it shares its predecessors multi-Spidey vibe, albeit with a new twist.
Whereas Shattered Dimensions offered an action adventure ensemble, Edge of Time changes the formula by putting a buddy-cop-movie twist on the action and throwing in some time travel for good measure. We recently had the chance to get a proper run through the game by Beenox and Activision reps, which showed off what the game is going to offer.
As we noted earlier, Edge of Time is not a direct sequel to Shattered Dimensions. The game features an original story that revolves around Spider-Man 2099 and Amazing Spider-Man teaming up to stop a chronal catastrophe that threatens their worlds and just about everything in between. The time shenanigans kick off in 2099 when an evil scientist travels back in time to change the timeline to something a little more conducive to the evil scientist lifestyle. Unfortunately, this requires some murder, namely the death of Amazing Spider-Man.
While Spider-Man 2099 tries to stop the scientist before he starts, the futuristic wallcrawler just misses him and winds up getting caught in a time bubble that protects him from the timeline changes that happen around him. The good news is that he retains his memories of how things should be and is able to contact Amazing Spider-Man before his death.
The bad news is that the two don’t get along, which gets the cross-time team off to a rough start. Will the pair find a way to get along and save the day? Probably, but from the look of things, it’s not going to be easy.
Programmer of original football sim sues megapublisher, claiming he was excluded from series’ massive profits. Since its inception, Madden NFL Football has grown into the biggest sports franchise on the planet. Since it was introduced nearly 23 years ago, the series has sold 85 million units and generated in excess of $4 billion in profits, helping publisher Electronic Arts lock down a monopoly on the NFL franchise until 2013.
The riches EA has reaped from the franchise have apparently angered Robin Antonick, who helped create the original Madden game back in 1988. Now, according to Reuters, Antonick is suing EA, accusing the megapublisher of withholding royalties and demanding a share of the massive profits the series has generated over the years.
According to Antonick, even though the Madden series has become much more sophisticated, it is still based on his original game, meaning he is due a share of the franchise’s income. He claims he hasn’t received any form of payment from the game since 1992, the year before the franchise was renamed from Madden Football to Madden NFL Football.
“Only recently, as a result of publicity surrounding the 20th Anniversary of the ‘Madden’ videogame did Antonick become aware that Electronic Arts did not independently develop subsequent versions of its Madden NFL software,” reads the complaint. “Instead, according to recent statements by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, the current generation of software apparently derived from software developed by Antonick.”
As of press time, EA had not commented on the matter.
Just Cause developer breaking into downloadable games with co-op shooter for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC this fall.
Avalanche Studios, the Swedish developer behind the Just Cause series of open-world action games, is branching out. The developer has already explored the free-to-play social gaming space with The Hunter, and now it’s trying its hand at downloadable games with a new intellectual property.
Sega today announced that it will publish the developer’s first downloadable game, Renegade Ops for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Set for release this fall, the cooperative shooter will see players commanding a variety of vehicles as they rain down destruction on a terrorist group headed up by the matter-of-factly named Madman Inferno.
Renegade Ops will let players form commando teams of up to four players online, though it will also support two-player split-screen on a single system. Although the game is being designed as a co-op-focused shooter, it will also include a single-player mode.
News outlet says Gearbox Software’s M-rated action game “takes sexism to a new level”; Women’s Media Center VP calls game’s depiction of women “extremely harmful.”
In early February, Fox News slammed Bulletstorm, questioning whether it was the “worst video game in the world.” Now, the Rupert Murdoch-owned news outlet is taking up arms against Gearbox Software’s long-awaited Duke Nukem Forever, calling it “awfully sexist.”
According to an article on FoxNews.com, 1996′s Duke Nukem 3D–”which made millions for its developers and transformed the entire world of video games–depicted women as strippers and prostitutes.” And now, according to Fox, Duke Nukem Forever is primed to “take sexism to a new level.”
To illustrate its point, the story says the game opens with a scene where Duke is seen receiving implied fellatio from twins in school getups. This is where Women’s Media Center vice president Jamia Wilson takes severe offense.
“It was offensive then and it’s even more offensive now,” she told Fox News. “These depictions of women are extremely harmful, especially to young women.”
Specifically, the scathing article’s main focus is on Duke Nukem Forever’s Capture the Babe multiplayer mode. This game mode–according to the Official Xbox Magazine (via Eurogamer) — has players carrying a character, the Babe, around. If she yells, players are given the option to slap her.
