Game Development Insights

I am sure by now most of you Wii owners would have had grown tired of beating the living daylights out of the ever-smiling Miis in Wii Boxing, causing you to set that title aside just for the occasional bout. What better way to get your pugilistic dose in a more realistic environment than getting some form of Fight Night Round 3 on the Wii? Gabriel Montoya, producer of Fight Night Round 3, has dropped the ball that a Wii version could very well be on its way and is being discussed by the suits at EA. He claims that they have a very positive feeling about this, combining the realism of the game with the Wii’s capabilities.

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Who would have thought that Archon’s release on the Atari 8-bit computer three and twoscore years ago would have brought about a whole legion of fans who fell in love instantly with the concept? After all, Archon was a game that played like chess, infused with strategic elements and intense arcade action which spawned a host of games that owed their gameplay to Archon itself. For gamers who have not heard of Archon let alone seen it, it consists of Black and White factions who meet on a chessboard, duking it out in a battle. Depending on the color of your side and the square where the battle takes place, one side will have home ground advantage while the other will be weaker than usual. The underdog always never wins, but there are occasions where the tables are turned. History lesson aside, Myriad Interactive has announced that they have reached an agreement with Free Fall Games, giving them rights to the Archon license.

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Square Enix producer Hiromichi Tanaka has recently dropped the bomb that he has been working on a spanking new MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista platforms. Square Enix and Xbox 360 doesn’t sound like a possibility a year ago, but apparently things are not always what it seems. Tanaka also added that development of the said MMORPG for the PlayStation 3 is also a possibility. This breaking news brings us back ten months ago, where Tanaka said that such a project was not in the works, and back in April last year he also mentioned that the project will be a PS3 exclusive.

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World War II is definitely a blemish in our history, but in the same vein it offers a rich source when it comes to storytelling. Electronic Arts will be returning to the era where the first atom bomb was used by bringing more Medal of Honor gameplay to both the Nintendo Wii and the PS2. There are already a deluge of such games, but apparently the market is large enough to cater for yet another release. Known as Medal of Honor Vanguard, this new electronic shooter will feature the battles that involved the paratroopers who were part of the 82nd Airborne Division, bringing you, the gamer, as close as possible to reliving the action on the shores of Sicily as well as deep inside enemy territory in Germany.

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Don’t you just love capitalism and the commercialization of nearly everything good and noble? Most websites that started off with no sponsors have since bowed to the gods of advertising, selling pixels of their soul for the very ingredient that makes the world go round. Counter-Strike, a Half-Life mod that took the world by storm more than half a decade ago (has it been THAT long already? Gosh!), will come with in-game advertising in version 1.6. According to Valve and IGA, both companies issued a joint-statement that they will be sitting down at the table to discuss mutually beneficial opportunities (read: moolah in their pockets) in the near future.

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If you’ve been looking to get a job in making games and you live in the UK then it might be worth considering a visit to the London Game Career Fair, which is to be held on Tuesday 3rd October and Wednesday 4th October at the Cafe Royal in Regent Street.

The event is being sponsored by EA, but other games companies expected to put in an appearance are Eidos, THQ, Blitz and job agencies such as Datascope and OPM. The show is open to anyone from current games industry employees (be sure to avoid your companies stand!) through film and animation people to graduates, so there’s bound to be something of interest for everyone.

Check out the events website here to register, then get your CV updated, finish work on the game demo you’ve been tinkering with, brush your hair and get along there and prove your worth!

Scottish game developer DC Studios is to close it’s doors after the commercial failure of it’s game State of Emergency 2, making 29 staff redundant. Mark Greenshields, boss of DC is hopefully that some part of the company can be salvaged, but for now the layoffs are an unfortunate necessity.

State of Emergency 2 was originally being developed by another Scottish developer, Vis. When that company went down DC stepped in and purchased the rights to the game and continued it’s development. The original game sold very well, despite being panned by critics, mainly due to it being published by Rockstar around the same time as GTA3. The sequel was released last year by publisher Southpeak, but failed to achieve the sales of its forebear.

DC Studios also have an operation in Montreal, Canada, which is unaffected by these events.

Publisher Take Two has been facing a few financial woes recently, which appears to have taken it’s toll with the news that internal development group Rockstar Vienna has been closed down. Whilst some staff have been offered jobs elsewhere in the Take Two family of companies, it’s thought that most employees will end up being made redundant.

Formerly neo Software Produktions GmbH, the company became Rockstar Vienna in 2003. The best known output of the studio is probably the ports of the Max Payne games to console.

Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog and head of Sega’s Sonic Team has announced he is to leave Sega to set up a new developer going by the name of Prope. He’s also going to be taking 10 members of Sonic Team with him. He’s not cutting ties with Sega completely however, since they are putting up 10% of the companies initial funding as part of their “Independant Game Creators” program, a scheme which Sega hope will bring them some hot new development talent.

The word “Prope” is a latin word which means “beside” or “near future”, which is said to reflect the new companies ideals which are to establish closer links between the developer and gamers, presumably the hope being that this will bring some new exciting ideas to market.

Yuji Naka was leading the development of Sonic on PS3 for Sega, but there’s no news on how this title will be affected. Similarly, there’s no news yet on what Prope’s first title will be either.

Yet another high profile developer has been snapped up by a publisher this week, with Microsoft shelling out to buy Lionhead, creator of Fable and The Movies.

As we reported a month ago, Lionhead have recently made a round of redundancies after their latest titles failed to live up to expectations, so the sale to Microsoft will probably be a good thing for the company in terms of stability for future growth. No figure has been disclosed as to the cost of the sale, but given the afore mentioned difficulties Lionhead faced it’s assumed that Microsoft may have landed themselves somewhat of a bargain.

One of the big reasons for the sale is likely to be Fable, which was one of the biggest selling XBox games and is due a sequel, so obviously Microsoft will have wanted to safeguard the future of this particular title.
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