BitSnark

The powerhouse development teams behind the PS3’s Motorstorm and Sony’s Wipeout series are due to become one under the same roof. Given the collaboration that Evolution had with Sony Liverpool on optimising the PS3 hardware for the silky smooth Wipeout HD, it shouldn’t really come as a massive surprise that a merger is due to occur.

Gamezine.co.uk has the full story:

http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/game-types/driving-and-racing/evolution-and-wipeout-team-merge-under-one-roof-$1259070.htm

SCE Europe has confirmed to the gaming press that a demo for the PS3’s much-hyped FPS sequel Killzone 2, will arrive shortly on the PSN in the ‘normal manner’. By this I assume that we’ll get it after the US, as a regular download minus any preorder incentive.

Whilst the actual date has yet to be confirmed, just the mere confirmation of a demo makes me feel all warm with anticipation as it’ll give me the first indication as to whether or not this will be the game that actually puts Guerilla Games on the map for all the right reasons.

Roll on February.

Being the good sports that they are, Capcom have announced their UK slate for the first quarter of 2009:

Flock (Xbox Live Arcade / PlayStation Network) – February (To be confirmed)

Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3) – February 20th

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii) – February 27th

Neopets Puzzle Adventure (Wii / DS / PC) – February 27th

Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3) – March 13th

MotoGP (Wii) – March (To be confirmed)

Bionic Commando (Xbox Live Arcade / PlayStation Network) – March (To be confirmed)

Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 within less than a month of one another?

Happy days indeed 🙂

With the unfortunate dissolving of Free Radical Design after the somewhat over-hyped and under-performing PS3 FPS Haze, it seems that NDA agreements went out the window and the exiled ex-employees were free to talk about the projects that they had been working on – namely Star Wars Battlefront 3 and Timesplitters 4.

Star Wars Battlefront 3
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With work underway on this title since the announced collaboration with Lucasarts back in 2006, it was generally considered that this title would be a tentpole release for the studio this year, capitalising on the eponymous licence and the popularity of the Battlefront series of games.

It’s still quite possible that this would be moved to another developer (possibly Rebellion, who were responsible for the PSP Battlefront iteration) given the sizeable fan base that exists for the series, but any such announcement would be a long ways off, and given the skeleton crew that Free Radical has left, it’s unlikely that it would be developed internally by themselves.

Timesplitters 4
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When the Free Radical closure was announcement it was always Timesplitters 4, that would be at the forefront of gamer’s minds as they ranted on forums about how ‘This shit sucks’ as the game that was most wanted but will never be. The pick up possibility for this game is slim to nothing unless Free Radical are bought out by another company and then are able to successfully restucture.

Even then, the hypothetical company in question may simply feel that the franchise has had it’s day and may not pursue it (given the previous title’s lacklustre sales figures).

Not exactly happiness and roses is it?

More as and when info comes in about these projects.