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Archived News:
This press release
announces the next expansion for SOE's MMORPG, which will mark the 13th (or
baker's dozernth, for the superstitious) add-on since the game's launch. The
game will be available by digital distribution only, about one month from today. Here's
a bit: SAN DIEGO, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Online Entertainment LLC
(SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced EverQuest®
The Buried Sea(TM), a new expansion for the Massively Multiplayer Online
Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), EverQuest. EverQuest The Buried Sea will only be
available via digital download beginning February 13th, for the suggested retail
price of U.S. $29.99.
"As the new producer on EverQuest I am very excited to have this tremendous
opportunity to work on such a storied franchise, as well as be part of a
development team that has delivered successful expansions time and time again
over the past eight years for our many loyal EQ players," said Clint Worley,
Producer, Sony Online Entertainment. "As the thirteenth expansion for EverQuest,
The Buried Sea will continue to challenge players with two new worlds to
explore, ship-to-ship combat on the open seas against swash-buckling pirates,
and a variety of new missions created especially for this expansion."
EA Celebrates
UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 With Exclusive Release of Officially Licensed
Videogame is the HTML-challenged announcement revealing development of this
club soccer/football game. The release focuses primarily on the Xbox 360
edition, but the game will also appear on PS2, PSP, and mobiles, and for the PC
in European territories. Word is: "UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 will be
released on March 23, 2007 in anticipation of the real-world tournament that
culminates in the UEFA Champions League Final in May."
The Adventure Company announce plans to bring Broken Sword: The Angel of Death in
North America next month, though the latest installment in Revolution Software's
adventure series will be renamed Secrets of the Ark: TORONTO, Canada,
January 12, 2007 – The Adventure Company, the leading publisher of PC adventure
games, today announced that it will publish SECRETS OF THE ARK, the North
American release of ‘Broken Sword: The Angel of Death’ for Windows®. The game
will begin shipping in North America in February 2007.
As the fourth installment of the Broken Sword franchise, ‘Broken Sword: The
Angel of Death’ has been renamed to better appeal to the North American
adventure gaming market, and to reflect the mystery at the heart of the
adventure – the Ark of the Covenant.
Game Summary
Be enthralled, challenged and drawn into a dark world of conspiracy theories,
daring adventure and ancient societies as you unearth the blueprints to the
World’s most ancient weapon hidden within the lost Ark. After reluctantly
battling dragons, Mayan gods and becoming a Knight of a long lost Holy Order,
unwitting hero George Stobbart settles down to the life of a mundane 9-5 desk
job. Who would have thought that a mysterious and beautiful woman would enter
his life; a woman whose sudden disappearance draws him into a desperate search
for a nefarious artifact of great and terrible power known as ‘The Angel of
Death’ – its primitive blueprints hidden inside the Ark of the Covenant.
Moses was the last to unleash this deadly weapon on the ancient Egyptians during
the Exodus with terrifying effect – it was the most horrific of the Great
Plagues. Uncannily, it seemed to be able to kill selectively, leaving the
Israelites unharmed. Later, when the Ark was stolen from the Israelites, the
killing recommenced and continued until the Ark, along with the secrets of
Moses’ awesome weapon, was lost…
Features
• Built upon an entirely new engine, Secrets of the Ark
promises a greater level of detail and realism to characters and game world
• Cutting-edge proprietary Virtual Actor System enables the
player to read character emotions and develop close relationships with the
heroes and diverse cast of characters
• Hollywood style globe-trotting featuring extremely rich
and varied environments from around the world for players to explore
• Challenging but logical puzzles
• Intriguing and gripping story based on a mixture of fact,
fiction and conspiracy theory
• Authentic ancient artifacts and historical references
blur the boundary between fact and fiction
Publisher
Lighthouse Interactive reveals an updated release date for SunAge, Vertex4's
upcoming RTS game (thanks Frans). The site now carries an April 2007 release
date, representing a small delay from the previously posted date of Q1 2007 for
EU, Russia, Aus/NZ, and Turkey.
Stray Bullet Games
Press Release outlines their general plans for an upcoming massively
multiplayer online game. The game will be built on middleware technologies based
on an original IP, but there are not many more details like a release date at
this point, as word is: "Due to the stage the project is currently in, Stray
Bullet Games will not be releasing additional details on the project in the near
future but we look forward to bringing you more conceptual art as it develops."
The accompanying bit of concept art and the following quote do indicate this
will follow a familiar fantasy setting: With this new project, Stray
Bullet is committed to creating a fully-realized, ongoing online conflict that
combines furious action with tactical and strategic game play. In the game to
come characters, guilds, and global factions will engage in meaningful,
exciting, and fun mass combat. To realize this vision the team is drawing upon
our experience, the lessons learned developing and supporting Shadowbane, and is
looking outside the MMO genre to strategy and tactical games for inspiration.
The Funcom
Website has word that Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, is now available via
Steam. Word is: "As a special two-week promotion to celebrate Dreamfall’s
achievements, it will be made available for a limited-time price of $29.95, a
$10 savings from its regular price of $39.95."
Call Of Duty
Finest Hour - The Contract on Gamasutra offers what is for most of us an
unprecedented look at the complete contract between a game developer and
publisher. The contract, for Spark's console CoD game, has become public due to
its inclusion in the filing of a lawsuit, and Gamasutra has enlisted a few
attorneys to explain and comment upon the proceedings. If you are the bottom
line sort, this
page has the milestone budget that totals out to $8.5 million.
A new World of
Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Website is live as a Flash home to the
imminent expansion for Blizzard's MMORPG (thanks Frans).
Gas Powered Games' upcoming RTS game is on display in another new Supreme
Commander movie, available in medium and high resolutions. One or both are
available from 3D Gamers,
GameSpot, and
Worthplaying. A new The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar movie
shows off Turbine's upcoming Tolkien-inspired MMORPG in two resolutions. One or
both clips can be found on
3D Gamers,
GameSpot, and
Worthplaying. Finally, the Burn
Website (thanks Frans) offers three new trailers showing off the
action-packed gameplay from Destan Entertainment's upcoming first-person
shooter.
Insects
Infestation Forums have the release of version 1.0 of the Insects
Infestation Half-Life 2 modification. Word is: "Being an alpha version means
there’s still plenty of development to be done. We hope there’s enough here to
show you how much potential the mod has, and we hope you join our forum
community to help make it the best mod it can possibly be."
Finally caught up from my mail disaster today (*pant* *pant*). I hate setbacks,
but what are you gonna do?
Ubi Bringing Driver Parallel Lines to Wii/PC? speculates that Ubisoft's
acquisition of the Driver franchise and developer Reflections
( story) may result in PC and Wii editions of the driving game
sequel. A port has not been officially announced or referenced by Ubisoft, but
TVG points out: "the fact that the Wii and PC versions have been designated an
'M for Mature' rating by the US-based ESRB, leaves little doubt that it's on the
way."
Gravity Enters Into
License and Distribution Agreements for Ragnarok Online 2 in China, Taiwan,
Macau and Hong Kong (thanks Frans) reveals development of a sequel for
Gravity's MMORPG sequel. The story is about the Asian distribution deal,
inadvertently revealing the unannounced title, and thus contains financial
details about the arrangement, but the only tidbit about the game other than its
existence is the implication that it will come out some time this year.
More
Info On The Crossing on FiringSquad has details from the latest print
Games for Windows magazine on The Crossing, Arkane Studios' upcoming
Source-engine first-person shooter. According to their interpretation of GfW's
cover-story on the game, The Crossing's story will be centered in Paris after
the fall of the French government with crossovers into a parallel universe where
the Knights Templar are running the show. They also shed a little light on the
game's "cross-play" feature, and say the release date will be sometime in 2008.
Over a year ago ( story)
WeÂ’ve been killing PC gaming
was the headline accompanying announcement of Microsoft's plans on redressing
its neglect of the PC gaming sector with a commitment to its revival, describing
an 18-month drive to build a Games for Windows program. Mysterious at first
( story), it soon became evident that a significant part of this
initiative would be centered around Windows Vista, as it was announced that Halo
2 for the PC will be a Vista exclusive ( story) (presumably not
due to Vista's "better file management" ( story)). Subsequent
speculation that DirectX 10 will be a Vista exclusive was confirmed
( story), leading some to question whether the real plan was to
revive PC gaming with Vista or to inspire Vista sales by leveraging PC gaming.
If entertaining such thoughts was making you feel like a cynic, take comfort
that these feelings are echoed by those in the know, such as WildTangent's Alex
St. John ( story), the original DirectX evangelist, and id
Software's John Carmack ( story), who have each recently raised their own
concerns about this. St. John's criticism actually centers around the
difficulties for developers large and small with Vista's integral Games Explorer
and its security functions, while Carmack confirms the emperor wears no clothing
in verifying that the Vista exclusivity of DirectX 10 is indeed just a
contrivance to force gamers to upgrade: ItÂ’s a tough thing for Microsoft,
where, essentially, Windows XP was a just fine operating system. Before that,
there were horrible problems with Windows. But once they got there, it did
everything an operating system is supposed to do. Nothing is going to help a new
game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from
Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really arenÂ’t any for Vista.
TheyÂ’re artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really
nothing about the OS. ItÂ’s a hardware-interface spec. ItÂ’s an artificial thing
that theyÂ’re doing there. TheyÂ’re really grasping at straws for reasons to
upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more
years without having a problem with it.
THQ.de now offers another new trailer from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of
Chernobyl, GSC Game World's upcoming first-person shooter, the German "In den
Schatten" clip is a 52.78 MB download. Also, the abrupt ending to yesterday's
Europa Universalis III movie turns out to be the result of an problem,
the complete version of the clip from Paradox's upcoming RTS sequel can be found
on 3D Gamers.
We have a mail server outage from the middle of last night that's not expected
to clear up until later today, so it's quite possible that recent mail directed
here has not yet been received yet. Sorry about that.
R.I.P.:
Robert Anton Wilson.
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