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“Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God… And I absolutely hate the fucker.”
If you had watched the 2000 sci-fi film Pitch Black, you may remember this line. It gives you a small peek into the harsh upbringing and violent streak of one of the best anti-heroes in the gaming world – Richard B. Riddick. This was also the first time that the character of Riddick was introduced to the world. Four years after Pitch Black a second movie called “The Chronicles of Riddick” was released and this time it was accompanied by a game based on the lead protagonist of the movie – Riddick. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay released on the Xbox and a little later on the PC. The game turned out to be sleeper hit on the Xbox and even though it was highly acclaimed on the PC, the sales were pretty low. The lack of any kind of promotion for the PC version, save for an odd trailer probably was one of the reasons for the low sales. I wasn’t even aware of the game and happened to pick up the game on an impulse. I came to know it was a movie-based game and I was initially skeptical considering how movie based games always turned out to be mediocre efforts and were mere cash-ins, but I was absolutely blown away when I started playing the game. The game turned out to be a lot of fun and had a great blend and balance of various gameplay elements supported by a good story, amazing voice acting, a great atmosphere and superb visuals. To date it remains one of my favorite PC games of all time.
For a series that was left practically dead after the horrifying Angel of Darkness, Tomb Raider has been revived so well by Crystal Dynamics that it’s now got people who’ve never played the games hopelessly falling in love with it. Having first taken the spunky, extremely well-endowed Lara out for a spin in 1997, and having gone back to where it all began with Anniversary, this deranged, maniacal, slack-jawed Tomb Raider nutcase has seen it all. Having made Legend and Anniversary the best damned games in the series, Crystal Dynamics looks set to pull out all the stops in the upcoming Tomb Raider: Underworld, which already has a quite a bit of fans going “Drake who?”
We sat and dug through the first preview on the PLAY magazine, and we’ve got all the dirt on Lara’s latest adventure. Directly continuing from her adventures in Legend, Tomb Raider: Underworld (as the name suggests) will see Lara explore vast labyrinthian areas around the world, in addition to doing all the monkey stuff that she does in one of the largest, lush areas seen this side of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. While it is not entirely sure how the story will tie in to Legend’s and all that is hinted at in Anniversary, fans might want to look closer into Lord Richard Croft’s words in Anniversary, and at the deeper connections between Jacqueline Natla and Amanda Evert (as in why do they look so much like each other and why Amanda’s operation in Bolivia has crates with Natla Technologies logos on them) to figure out where the story is heading in Underworld.
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.
With so many games jumping on us like hungry zombies from 28 Days Later, we’re usually happy if a game gets delayed a bit, giving us some more breathing space to rob a bank and refill our wallets. But not so with Assassin’s Creed. After spending years just admiring the lovely Jade Raymond, we can’t even stand a single day’s delay as far as this medieval stabby extravaganza is concerned.
Obviously, then, we’re not happy with GameSpot Australia’s report that UbiSoft’s AAA Game of the Year contender (we hope) will get its release date pushed back one week beyond the American and European dates. In a statement issued to retailers, UbiSoft writes:
Due to manufacturing and freight difficulties during this time of year, Ubisoft Australia & New Zealand were unable to receive their full allocation of Assassins Creed stock required to fulfill all Day One orders.
Bad news, considering most of India’s gaming shipments come from the Australian PAL territory. We’re burning up the lines trying to find out more information about our local release, so stay tuned.
Azangara is a pretty neat arcade adventure game. You play the role of a sombrero wearing hombre, on the run to gather hidden treasure from castles in the long lost land of Azangara. The dark castles are littered with an assortment of monsters, puzzles and traps that make your life harder. Find keys to doors or force them open with crowbars to reach an exit while collecting as much as booty as you can on the way. The whole point of the game is to explore enough of the castle to gather all of the collectibles to get a high score.
More bad news for our resident Devil May Cry fanboy. Releasing a couple of new screenshots for the stylish slasher title at the Gamer’s Day convention, developers Capcom surreptitiously dropped the bomb that the game, initially scheduled for a Fall 2007 release, will now be pushed back to February 2008. While no reasons have been confirmed for the delay, most believe that this is a direct result of the multiplatform title trying to ship simultaneously for the Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC.
Devil May Cry 4 is set to feature both Nero and Dante as playable characters, with hotties Trish and Lady confirmed to make appearances. The game is also touted to have a number of new gameplay features including the Devil Bringer, an Exceed System as well as a completely revamped combo system. We’ll leave you to enjoy these new screenshots as we try to coax our good friend out of ending his miserable existence, even as our wallets let out a little sigh of relief. As if it wasn’t enough that he’d just had his heart broken with the Perseus Mandate demo. Poor little guy.
Hit the jump to check out the new screenshots.
With Capcom dropping the goods on Dark Void, their upcoming sci-fi action adventure game, at the latest Gamer’s Day event, the first trailer for the game has silently made its way through to GT some time back. All set to make its appearance on the PS3 and the Xbox 360 sometime next year, this God of War-meets-Lost Planet-meets-Battlestar Galactica game promises a good round of third person shooting, GTA-esque hijacking and flying gyroscopic flying contraptions and jetpacking across treacherous floating platforms in space. Hmmm… I’m sold, I suppose.
A bit about the developer, before we start
Aliasworlds Entertainment was founded in 2001 by a group of independent developers: programmers, artists and designers. We formed the company to produce FUN, high-quality games. So, Gold Sprinter is our first creation made following this credo. We hope you’ll like it. We work hard to make games that you will enjoy.
Developer : Aliasworlds
Publisher: Alawar Games
Snowy The Bear’s Adventures was the first in line of a franchise of games from developer Aliasworlds.. The game puts you in the shoes, or rather feet of a happy and cheerful polar bear who throws snowballs and fights off monsters and has a ball doing so…
With more and more confusion reigning supreme on the home console front, I still think the PSP is one of the best purchasing decisions I’ve ever made in my life. A face that got reinforced ten times over, thanks to Ready At Dawn’s spellbinding God of War: Chains of Olympus demo.
Reggie’s already got the dirt on the dirt on the demo, and since I really can’t add much more to it without sounding like a hyperventilating, pheromone oozing teenage girl on her first date, I’ll just shut up and post screenshots we’ve managed to lift straight off the game. Feel free to kill yourself after seeing the framegrabs and wishing you hadn’t blown a staggering twenty thousand bucks on a lousy 21″ HDTV instead of spending it on a PSP. Or a DS. Or two thousand donuts. Or twenty high quality blowjobs… Hit the jump to take a look at what could very well be the killer app for Sony’s handheld platform, especially if this too happens to have a mini sex game.
So it didn’t answer any of the questions that Legend threw up, but Tomb Raider: Anniversary was a shining beacon as far as the franchise was concerned, thanks in full to Crystal Dynamics’ brilliant efforts. With PC, PS2 and PSP owners getting their action a long time back, Eidos had announced that the game would be made available to Xbox 360 owners as DLC on Marketplace sometime near the end of the year.
As of yesterday, though, all that has changed. People who were hoping for a retail release, like yours truly, will be happy to know that Eidos will release the retail version of Ms. Croft’s adventures on the Xbox 360 come October 23rd in the US, followed by a European release three days later. A DLC pack, split into two pieces, the first of which will contain the first two major areas and Croft Manor, will be released over Xbox LIVE in November and will require a retail copy of Tomb Raider: Legend to run.
That’s right, one more game that threatens to make me go flat B-R-O-K, broke, in the next three months. (sigh) Check, please!