Yves Guillemot and Jade Raymond couldn’t be happier. Why wouldn’t they be, considering a certain robed and hooded Santa, complete with a spring-loaded dagger for his ring finger has been stuffing Ubisoft socks with millions of dollars over the last three weeks? The first part in a trilogy involving all sorts of medieval (and futuristic) hijinks, Assassin’s Creed has crossed the 2.5 mn. units sold milestone - recording worldwide sales of 1.51 mn. units for the Xbox 360 and 0.95 mn. units for the PlayStation 3 - making Ubi so damn happy that they have revised their initial financial forecasts and sent them packing straight into orbit.

Announcing that Assassin’s Creed had earned the distinction of becoming the fastest selling new videogame IP in the US ever, Ubisoft now claims that it will sell a minimum of 5 mn. units of the game in 2007-08 instead of the previously estimated $3 mn., with sales targets being raised to €840 mn., an increase of €15 mn. from their previous target. So much for all those “crystal ball gazers” who jumped the gun and screamed from the rooftops about what a phenomenal failure the game was. Hope you got enough quarters for the suicide booth, fellas!

In more good news, if you were worrying about sprunging the house for enough money to buy Tom Clancy’s EndWar, Brothers in Arms 3: Hell’s Highway and Far Cry 2, don’t worry, you won’t have to. The bad news is, the games have now been delayed to the 2008-09 fiscal year, which means you can probably expect to see them sometime around next Christmas, if you’re lucky. We know we’re not, considering we’re still got our keisters parked waiting for Altair to show up around here.

Well, so much for waiting for The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena to release anytime this year. Speaking to Pro-G, a Sierra Entertainment spokesperson has confirmed that the game, which is a reinvention of the highly acclaimed Xbox / PC shooter with better visuals, 40% extra content and online multiplayer over Xbox Live, has been delayed to 2008. Neither Starbreeze Studios, which just wrapped up and released The Darkness a month or so ago, nor Sierra Entertainment have given a reason for the delay. (sigh) Another day, another game gets delayed. Looks like Valve has spoiled all developers silly, with them changing release dates more often than they change their shirts.

Riddick for PS3 and Xbox 360 moved to 2008 [Pro-G]

Well, freaking finally! After almost a month of waiting for the game, Microsoft India has finally started to ship the much awaited Starbreeze Studios blockbuster, The Darkness, over here in our little, big corner of the world. Developed by the same gods that made the unforgettable awesomeness that was, and is, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Darkness (in case you have been living under a rock) tells the story of young Jackie Estacado, a mob underling, who wakes up on the wrong side of bed on his 21st birthday and ends up sprouting vicious, supernatural snake appendages from his shoulders. Under the power of the consuming Darkness, Jackie embarks on a massive killing spree, killing himself, mafia whackmeisters, Hell’s minions and himself some more in an attempt to seek retribution.

Oh yeah, Microsoft also happened to release Vampire Rain along with The Darkness, but then, who gives a flying fuck about Vampire Rain? Now be a nice kid and run to the nearest Xbox 360 store to get your copy for a sweet, sweet 1895 bucks or if you are terribly lazy, like we are, and prefer your copies door-delivered in the next day or two, head on over to the official Microsoft Store at eBay India to order your copy online. Did we mention that they ship for free? Oh yeah, we sure did… sweet interweb goodness.

PS: If you are, perchance, looking for a PS3 version, sorry pal, tough luck! It ain’t available here yet, and most probably won’t be for a long time now.

Peter Moore has just said in his speech at the ongoing Microsoft E3 conference that Splinter Cell Conviction will be an Xbox 360 exclusive. Wait, what. So does that mean no PC version of the game? What the hell is wrong with Boobisoft? Tying a Splinter Cell game as an exclusive for just one console doesn’t make sense at all, especially for a franchise like SC! Oh well, stay tuned while we bring you more information on the news as it breaks.

Well, we all knew this was going to happen, a brand spanking new, kickass trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots at this year’s E3 as well. But what’s really set the PS3 owners into a frenzy right now is the announcement by Patrick Seybold, Senior PR manager at SCEA, via the Official PlayStation.Blog, that the latest trailer for the game will be available for download from the PlayStation Store soon after it is aired at the official Sony Press Conference. And yes, it will be in HD and in 5.1. And here we were wondering why the PS Store was shut down for some time last night…

As if God of War: Chains of Olympus wasn’t a great reason to get the PSP if you didn’t already own it, here’s another. Sony showed off the next in line to last year’s best selling Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, Logan’s Shadow at Gamers Day 2007. Continuing from the events of Dark Mirror, Logan’s Shadow sees Logan’s team disbanded and his hot, sexy Asian partner, Lian Xing, missing. Not knowing whether she is in trouble or is a double agent, Gabe heads off to the Middle East to uncover the truth. Although the game is supposed to take away rolling, it adds a number of new gameplay mechanics, including blind-firing, human shields and 360-degree underwater combat in what is probably the best looking game available for Sony’s handheld platform yet. Of course, a lot of the favourites from Dark Mirror, including grenades and sticky mines will also make a return. Check out the awesome new trailer for the game while I go back and start playing Dark Mirror all over again!

First, you gotta kill a few people. Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you’ll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs.
So you can see who’s sneaking up on you in the dark?
Exactly!

Meet the ultimate badass - Richard B. Riddick. Escaped Convict. Murderer. After two movies and a game that redefined and raised the bar for a title that was based on a movie, Vin Diesel’s likeness will once again grace a game. In case you are wondering whether videogame lover Diesel has announced the remaining sequels in the Riddick trilogy and a barrage of new games for it, hold the phone! It has now been confirmed that Escape from Butcher Bay is getting the next-gen treatment as The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Based on the scavenger ship on which the new levels take place, Dark Athena will come packing with 40% extra meat, a cool new multiplayer mode and the PC’s Developer Commentary and would be gracing the Xbox 360 and the PS3 later this year. Stay tuned for more information as a new trailer and gameplay footage is rumoured to be released later today. And there you were, wondering why TCoR: EfBB wasn’t backward compatible on the Xbox 360. Time for the furious Furyan to pick up those curved blades and stalk the victims from extremely detailed shadows. We wonder who’s handling the port, now that Starbreeze is completely stuck up on The Darkness!

Update: We have more on the story from GamesPress, and here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth:

With The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, players will not only be challenged to survive Butcher Bay, but will also engage in a new single-player experience and, for the first time in the Riddick universe, take action in intense multi-player combat. The game introduces the ominous Merc-ship Dark Athena, which sits silent like a marauding spider, awaiting helpless prey in the dark reaches of the galaxy. Players must face a large, bloodthirsty operation led by the dreaded Captain Revas and her slaves-turned-controllable combat drones, storm though death-defying events and fight fierce enemies in a battle of malice and gore.

via [Kotaku]