Activision drop massive licenses

From Gamespot

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot

Posted Jul 29, 2008 3:42 am GMT

Earlier today, Activision Publishing announced a streamlining of its Vivendi Games operations, saying it would be bringing into the fold five of that company’s franchises: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ice Age, Prototype, and one unannounced game.

An Activision representative later confirmed for GameSpot that those would be the only Vivendi Games franchises coming out of the publisher. That leaves a number of high-profile projects in limbo, including Double Fine Productions’ Brutal Legend, as well as Wet, Ghostbusters, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, World at Conflict: Soviet Assault, 50 Cent Blood on the Sand, Zombie Wranglers, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, as well as several Xbox Live Arcade titles.

“The only franchises that Activision Publishing will release are based on Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and one other game that has not yet been announced,” the representative said. “We are reviewing our options regarding those titles that we will not be publishing.”

Activision Blizzard has other publishing arms like Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Value that were not covered by the press release and could be among the options being reviewed. As of press time, representatives from those companies did not return requests for comment.

A scheduled Comic Con International panel on the Ghostbusters game was abruptly cancelled last week, with no explanation given to attendees. However, the game was on the show floor in playable form.

So, they’ve ditched games that are interesting and have made a lot of people get very excited so they can peddle the latest iteration of Spyro and Crash? I worry about this industry sometimes.

Playtime Barnsley – more piccies

I have added some more piccies of the opening to my gallery

Mythos on ‘hiatus’. Robbo cries bitter, salty tears.

Last week or so, it was reported that Flagship Studios (comprised mainly of ex-Blizzard North employees, who made the wonderful Diablo II) had laid off practically all their staff and were barelling down the one way street to closureville.  This came out of the blue to me really, as I thought they were doing ok. Looking back at it, Hellgate: London was something of a white elephant in that it was massively hyped, cost a fortune and sold bugger all. Third/first person dungeon crawlers are not big business it seems (well duh). They hoped to make their money from people voluntarily subscribing to them for better loot, access to different content and other such things but it seems that model didn’t work as well as it does for the Korean MMO developers.

The upshot of this was that the absolutely wicked free MMO they were developing (which would be the Mythos in my blog title) had it’s servers shut down on friday, with the official line being that it’s “on hiatus”. What this really means is that it’s shut down indefinitely, probably permanently.
Mythos was all but Diablo II with it’s cute, pseudo-anime clothes on. Y’see, I f**ing love Diablo II. I f**king love loot whoreing. I f**king love smushing enemies by the means of RSI inducing mouse button mashing so the fact this never made it out of closed beta before being left in the balance makes me very very sad indeed. I played the closed beta thanks to a mate lending me his account and it was immense fun and it was FREE! And now, nothing. Dungeon crawlers (Nox, Diablo, Sacred, Divine Divinity, all those and more) are niche as you like, so I suppose we should have seen a free one relying on voluntary subs falling into the infinite pit of development hell coming really. Bah.

Playtime Barnsley now open

We have officially launched the new store in Barnsley and I have posted a few piccies of the characters who came to help us tell the good folk of Barnsley….

Watch out - he breathes fire....

E3 Blogola!Mii’s come to Xbox Live!!! Wait a sec…

I don’t know what top think really. Sony have Home coming sometime before the next Ice Age (and, personally, I couldn’t give a rats scrotum) and the Mii thing on the ever disposable Wii (sorry, not disposable ‘mainstream’) has proved a hit with the weak minded and casual gamer crowd, so now Microsoft has waded in with Xbox Avatars in the completely refurbished Dashboard update.

Microsoft unveils new avatar feature coming as part of a major system update later in the year.

By Luke Anderson, GameSpot

Posted Jul 14, 2008 8:15 pm GMT

After being leaked previously, Microsoft’s head of live software and services John Schappert took to the stage during Microsoft’s E3 press conference and officially announced that Avatars would be coming to Xbox 360 with a new system update this fall. The major upgrade will see a completely redesigned dashboard complete with new tabs including “Community” and “My Xbox.”

Avatars will allow 360 owners to create their own virtual self, complete with an assortment of hairstyles, clothes (including pants, shirts, and hats), and accessories. While Nintendo’s Wii had Mii avatars at launch, and Sony’s Home avatars have been announced coming to the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 avatars seem to be a balance between the stylised look of Miis, and the more realistically proportioned Home avatars. The currently signed-in account’s avatar is displayed next to their gamertag and achievement points in the My Xbox channel.

Schappert then introduced a video from the team at Rare, who explained some of the features of Avatars including a supposed “limitless” amount of new clothes and fashions. The new Community channel will let you to see your online friends’ avatars in a virtual space, rather than the list view currently in the Xbox 360 dashboard.
A new “Live Party” feature will let owners chat and interact with up to eight friends in a party group. In addition, a new photo-sharing option will allow friends to share photos between party members. Xbox Live Arcade titles such as the upcoming Uno Rush will also feature support for Avatars. Avatars will be available when the new system update goes live this fall.

Gamespot E3 link

I may have to go with my first thought before the conflict set in which was “what a load of bandwagon jumping cobblers”. Oh well. I’ll write my thoughts about the new dashboard when my brain has processed the video.

Fallout 3. Oh my.

Very cool and classy trailer, even if the meat of the game looks bog standard FPS fare. Stylish FPS fare, though.

Fallout 3 Trailer at Gametrailers.com

Duke Nukem finally coming to XBLA!

In this ever suspicious world it’s easy to claim photoshoppery but I’m going to be cautiously optimistic and say “real”. The 1337 points is a little joke on the QA or whatevers part.

Kotaku Link

Steve Robbo’s Tragic or Awesome?! Vol1

Personally awesome, but then I wear World Of Warcraft t-shirts so my personal tastes are questionable at best. What we have here are decals to stick to your walls so you can recreate those awesome videogames of yesteryear like Super Mario Bros or Donkey Kong.

So, is it Tragic Or Awesome?!

(Ed – Old school retro is cool but so is this!!!)

Star Wars: Force Unleashed

We saw this on Wedneday at an Activision preview event and it is looking awesome.

First impressions – the tech looks really good and the scale of some of the early levels – outstanding. You will be able to play through the whole game just using force powers to overcome enemies, or just the lightsaber – or a combination of either which should add replay value. There is no multiplayer though – it is essentially designed for the player to play through this part of the Star Wars story line.

Overall – cant wait!!!

I :WUB: Rock Band, BUT…

So I’ve had Rock Band a while now but I recently lost my saves (don’t ask!!!) so I had to start Rock Band again.

Being the slacker that I am it took me till last weekend to plough my way through Medium and by the time I got to Tom Sawyer by Rush (utter prog balls), I reckoned myself a pretty well coordinated drummer. Run To The Hills and Won’t Get Fooled Again fell before my mighty tub thumping skilllllllzzzzzz and so, with swelled head and confidence welling up inside of me, I moved to hard.

And then wept salty, bitter tears as all my so-called mighty tub thumping skilllllllzzzzzz we’re proven to be the equivalent of a labotomized chimp on valuim. Waves Of Mutilation has a kick drum/snare off beat that my brain refuses to acknowledge and therefore makes my arms and leg realign themselves after about 4 beats. The drum kit nearly went through the TV, I tells thee. And probably will the next time I try Celebrity Skin.