Archived News:
A Rhode Island news report says 38 Studios is in financial distress, and the developer founded by former major league pitcher Curt Schilling is in discussions with the state on how to stay afloat. "We're always working to keep Rhode Island companies solvent, and that's what we're doing with 38 Studios," said Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. "We're working with 38 Studios on different issues. That's all I can report right now." 38 Studios moved to Rhode Island in September after securing $75 million in loan guarantees from the state. Their first game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, was released in February, but the story cites NPD data saying the game has sold only around 410K copies across three platforms. Thanks Strategy Informer.
Battle.net offers details on Blizzard's plan to offer Diablo III Starter Editions & Guest Passes for the action/RPG that's going live tomorrow (which means it's already live in territories where it's tomorrow already). They say the Diablo III Starter Edition will not be available without a Guest Pass until further notice, and that Guest Pass keys are included in all box copies of Diablo III. Here's what the Starter version will include:
- Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
- Level 13 cap
- Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
- No Real Money Auction House access
This trailer offers the entire Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha, a short prequel film for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Here's word on the live-action film's Hollywood bona fides and its connection with the next installment in the tactical shooter series: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha is the 25-minute prequel film to the video game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and follows the Ghosts as they are dropped deep behind enemy lines in order to eliminate one of the world's most sought-after war criminals.
Ghost Recon Alpha is deeply connected with the video game, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
• Characters: The main four characters in the movie are the same four playable characters in the video game.
• Storyline: The movie takes place immediately before a key turning point in the video game's storyline, a vicious attack against a major European city.
• Location: the location where the movie takes place will be one of the multiplayer maps available in the adversarial mode of the video game.
• Exclusive unlock: a secret code is also hidden in the movie, enabling access via Ghost Recon Network to an exclusive weapon unlock playable in Ghost Recon Future Soldier.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha boasts a line-up of top Hollywood talent.
Continue here to read the full story.
The Eidos Forums have word that Crystal Dynamics' reboot of Tomb Raider is delayed until the first quarter of next year, after being planned for release this year. Here's a statement from Darrell Gallagher, the Crystal Dynamics studio head: When Crystal Dynamics first set out to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise, there were two goals that we were extremely passionate about. The first was to create a modern Tomb Raider game that would surprise and excite gamers. The second was to make this the best game of our careers, something we would be really proud to be a part of. We truly believe that we have something very special on our hands and we can’t wait to share it with you.
Our priority now is to make sure we fully deliver the very highest quality game. In order to do this, we have decided to move the game’s release date by a few months, from Fall 2012 to the first quarter of 2013.
We’re doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve. We believe this is the right choice and I guarantee it will be worth the wait. The game is looking amazing and we can't wait to show it to everyone at E3 in a few weeks.
In news semi-related to the story above, SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS announces its financial results for their fiscal year that concluded on March 31st. The company explains its return to profitability thanks to strong performance of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Final Fantasy XIII-2, and its optimistic outlook for the future: "During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, the Group's results were favorable due to increased sales of console games boosted by our major titles, DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION (North America, Europe and Japan, in order of release) and FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 (Japan, North America and Europe, ditto), as well as continued expansion of content from growth areas such as the web and smartphones.
In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, we continued our efforts aimed at increasing profitability, including establishing best practices for the content in said growth areas, improving quality of our major online game, and strengthening our global structure. We are accelerating the reformation to generate a substantial earnings improvement in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 and beyond."
Gamepires announces that Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage has started its engines, and the driving combat game will be released globally via digital distribution on Friday. In the meantime, they point out the free public beta on FilePlanet, Gamer's Hell, and GameSpot has tallied more than 50.000 downloads to date, and is still available.
The Ubisoft Forums have patch notes for a new version 1.05 update that's now live fro Anno 2070. At this point the patch is available through the in-game automatic updater (thanks Gamer's Hell). The patch notes are very long, but they begin with a list of highlights: Continue here to read the full story.
Here's GfK Chart-Track's list of the top 20 full-price PC entertainment titles in the U.K. for the week ending May 12th. Things are pretty stable, as the top five and top ten remain the same with minor reshufflings. The all platforms chart is also quit, with the same top ten as last week.
Okay, yesterday was operation spin the bird, as I took my first stab at rotisserie cooking on the grill, and without wasting time on modesty, I have to declare the outcome an unqualified success, as the bird was spectacular. Actually, modesty doesn't enter into it, as the chicken did all the work, just as advertised. I brined the bird for a couple of hours, stuffed some garlic in the cavity and under the skin, added some salt and pepper and some herbs, and let him spin on the spit for a little under 90 minutes, so the chicken really cooked itself. The hardest part was getting it trussed, since I had never done that before, but it's a simple process that will get easier with practice. I could not be more excited at this new addition to the exports of Manstovia.
|
Twitter 
