The PSP is warming up to me again with many of the newer games that are appearing from Asia. From Loco Roco now to Patapon, a lovely, hyper-stylish title where you take on the role of God to the Patapon. You lead their charges fighting evil invaders via drum-based patterns and watch as little black squigglies attack and kill out of control red squirmies which sometimes resemble dragons, sometimes not. Now Sony, what is going on with Limbo!!!?!?!
February 18th in Perception announced a few days ago that it has begun legal proceedings in a Sydney, Australia court against Austrian publisher JoWooD, seeking compensation for damages in excess of EUR 8,000,000 ($11,878,759) it received during 2005’s very public breakdown in relations between the two companies over the mis-managed development of Stargate SG1. Though the license for the Stargate title has defaulted and reverted back to its original owners, both companies are still going at it apparently, with no end in sight. Interesting is that this time around the proceedings are taking place in Australia, it doesn’t look good for JoWooD, with Perception holding the home-field advantage. Can JoWooD survive losing this suit? My money is on no.
Press release after the jump..
SunAge, the real-time strategy title being developed by Vienna, Austria’s Vertex4 for over a decade, has finally gone gold and is starting to ship throughout Europe. Copies should hit the streets on November 30th in the EU territories, with a North American release following in early 2008. We can’t begin to talk about what a milestone this is. We first heard of SunAge years ago when the title was still being developed independently, without publish Lighthouse Interactive’s involvement. Highly recommended for those who can’t wait for the next StarCraft and need to get their RTS on.
Lighthouse Interactive and developer Vertex4 today announced that their dynamic sci-fi real-time strategy game SunAge has gone gold and is now shipping to major retail stores in parts of Europe. The street date is November 30, 2007. SunAge is an energetic RTS game that offers a unique experience, bringing modern innovation to the isometric style of real-time strategy. This PC CD-ROM game is Windows Vista compatible.
Gamers across the UK, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy can start looking for the game on store shelves at the end of this month. SunAge will also be available at various direct download websites*. Other European territories, including: Germany and France, will begin shipping SunAge to retailers in Q1 2008. In North America, SunAge will begin shipping to retail stores at the end of January 2008.
Erik Schreuder, CEO of Lighthouse Interactive said, “SunAge was one of the first games Lighthouse signed when it first opened its doors for business in 2005. Since then, the game has evolved from an indie developed game into a mature and refreshing new take on the RTS genre. It introduces some great new features and we’re convinced this will appeal to many strategy fans. We’re really excited to announce that SunAge has gone gold and it’s thrilling to see that it lives up to its promise.”
“After a lot of dedication and hard work, I am extremely proud to see that we have achieved our goal as a team. SunAge is now available for fellow strategy fans to enjoy,” said Roman Pfneudl, CEO of Vertex4. “The game has become so much more than I anticipated. The RTS community has supported us during the development process and made this experience even greater. We think SunAge has a lot to offer gamers who love to play real-time strategy games as much as we do. We hope you will enjoy it and we promise to keep on supporting the game!”
SunAge is the modern day answer for RTS fans who want the best possible overview on their troops, while trying to outsmart opponents in frantic battles where strategy and tactics are more important than ever. If you are a core real-time strategy gamer, SunAge is for you!
Toyata goes Viral, by placing a Toyota truck into World of Warcraft and overdubbing it with a humorous homage to Leeroy Jenkins. I wonder though, how many level 70 mages would drive a Tundra 4×4?
A 10 year old school boy in Moscow jumped to his death after his parents banned him from playing computer games. The boy, Andrei Smirnov (?) ended his life after receiving his punishment for bad conduct and poor performance at school. Local Russian experts naturally are expressing concern over the unhealthy dependence of children on computers and games in particular.
Sunage has gotten a new website and has released images of their US and EU boxart. Though the game, which has been in development for years in Vienna, has missed several release dates the release of box art is a positive sign that the struggling Austrian based developer is nearing a gold master. Now here’s to hoping they have some success and can continue to develop more real-time strategy titles.
Panzer Tactics DS, the lovable World War II strategy game that Europe loves to death, is close to release and with that comes the official trailer, unveiled recently that the Games Conference in Leipzig. Developed in Vienna, Austria by Sproing Interactive, Panzer Tactics DS is the first turn-based WWII strategy title for the portable console. Set in 1939, players can assume command of the German Wehrmacht, the Western Allies or the Russian Red Army. Players can also challenge friends via local or Wi-Fi matches over the Nintento Wi-Fi network.
Games That Matter, the production studio started by the ex-heads of Rockstar Vienna, has been acquired by Deep Silver. The announcement was just dropped in Leipzig, so, expect a press release soon. There have been no public updates on the two confidential “major console and PC titles” that GTM have announced their involvement in since we wrote about the company founding in January 2007.
Koch Media, a leading producer and distributor of digital entertainment products in Europe, acquires the Austrian games production company Games That Matter.
The company merges with Koch Media’s premium games label, Deep Silver. Games That Matter’s structure and goals remain the same: Deep Silver Vienna fully concentrates on high quality games, especially for consoles. In the center of all efforts are producing, successful publishing and establishing new brands.
Press release after the jump..
Read more of ”Games That Matter, ex-Rockstar Vienna production house, acquired by Deep Silver (Update 2)“
Brilliant! This LOLcats image reminded me of one of my favorite games growing up. Oregon Trail! One of my fondest memories in school was playing Oregon Trail on old PCs in the computer lab everyday. Oregon Trail opened many kids to the possibilities of learning through games, something I think has heavily influenced the serious games and educational games market over the years as these kids become adults. Don’t even get me started on Wall Street Kid for the NES, now there was an educational game!!
Memories: The Oregon Trail Shrine
Originally designed as a learning experience from a designer who wanted to learn Flash and JavaScript, The Human Brain Cloud is a brilliant stroke of simplistic game design and high-brow fun for those of us who still remember Scrabble nights with fondness. The ‘game’ starts out with a player typing in the first word that comes to their mind, allowing other ‘players’ to then begin associating other words with the original subject, creating a lovely (and large) mind map of words and bubbles. For instance, “pizza” might be associated with “cheese”, “Italy” or even “yummy” by other players, creating a sometimes humorous look into the inner workings of word association on the human psyche. Some interesting statistics have also popped up, as of this post, The Human Brain Cloud consists of 209644 unique words, 1934531 connections and 171984 humans , not bad for an experiment from a first time Flash scripter.
Brilliant: The Human Brain Cloud
