Gamertell

More than a year has passed since Ubisoft announced that it had acquired the rights to develop a game based on NBC Universal’s popular television show Heroes, which is currently nearing the end of its third season following the airing of “Villains” earlier this week (November 10, 2008).

With next to no information about the game being offered since the original July 2007 announcement, it should come as little surprise that Ubisoft has now backed away from the game entirely. Company PR director Jaime Cottini informed MTV Multiplayer that the rights to a Heroes game have reverted back to NBC Universal.

The game’s cancellation may well be a result of…

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North American residents have been enjoying various gaming-related goodies available from Square Enix’s online store since August 2007 but European gamers have been forced to import or rely on unofficial retailers in order to get their hands on the same merchandise. Until now.

Square Enix Ltd. has announced that the “Square Enix Official Online Merchandise Store” is officially up and running and usable by residents of United Kingdom, Germany and France. The company is also aiming to add access for additional European countries (namely Spain and Italy) in the near future.

In addition to an unsurprisingly heavy focus on Final Fantasy merchandise, the store currently features a selection of products based on…

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With the New Xbox Experience (NXE) just over two weeks away from a worldwide launch on November 19, 2008, Microsoft has prepared a selection of Developer Diaries to bring you to up to speed on what you can expect to find tucked away in the mandatory system update.

New developer diaries focused on certain features of the NXE will be released each week, with a selection of six already accessible on Xbox.com. Current topics include the new Avatar system developed by Rare, Netflix support, Themes 2.0 integration and the…

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Riddick, the six-foot-tall Furyan with glowing eyes, will be placed in gamers’ collective hands once again come Spring 2009, thanks to Atari. The publisher announced this week (October 30, 2008) that it will be handling publishing duties for Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

Currently in development at Starbreeze Studios and Tigon Studios, Assault on Dark Athena had previously been pegged as a remake of Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay with some bonus content thrown in for good measure. However, Atari has now confirmed that, while this is still true, the game will also include a brand new full-length campaign as well.

As if that weren’t enough…

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Nearly a year after its Japanese launch in December 2007, and half a year after its North American launch in July 2008, Square Enix’s Chocobo-centric rogue-like role-playing game for the Wii, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon, will finally be made available across Europe and other PAL territories on November 7, 2008.

Featuring character designs by Toshiyuki Itahana (Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles), Chocobo’s Dungeon follows Final Fantasy staple character Cid and his trusty Chocobo companion as they find themselves in a mysterious village full of amnesiacs.

Players are tasked with guiding the Chocobo through a series of randomly generated dungeons in order to track down the villager’s lost memories…

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The Conduit, High Voltage Software’s (HVS) science fiction first-person shooter for the Wii, has been garnering a great deal attention from the “hardcore” gaming community since its unveiling earlier this year (April 2008), but it has taken until now (October 29, 2008) for its publisher to be confirmed.

After receiving offers from a large number of publishers, HVS finally settled on Sega to handle publishing duties for its premier Wii release. HVS CEO and founder Kerry Ganofsky suggests in the announcement press release that Sega shares his company’s vision for The Conduit.

The game…

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Following the mid-2007 unveiling of a collaboration with 20th Century Fox to produce a movie based on The Sims franchise, Electronic Arts has now confirmed that it will be translating another of its videogame properties into a feature movie — Army of Two.

Released in March 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Army of Two takes place in 1993 and follows military infantry units Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios as they take on a series of increasingly dangerous private military contracts over the course of more than a decade.

Universal will be handling production of the movie, with…

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In the face of months, if not years, worth of anticipation from fans for Fallout 3, developer Bethesda Softworks is understandably “anxious” about the first wave of reviews for the game. Will the game live up to the hype fans have created for it, or will it fall flat?

A Bethesda PR spokesperson told Edge that the company is never really sure how reviewers will respond to its games, ensuring that developers are always anxious during the launch period. He goes on to say that the first few reviews had been reassuring, including the 10 out of 10 score issued by the Official Xbox Magazine in the U.S.

The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 currently has a 93 out of 100 “Universal Acclaim” rating on Metacritic and…

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Are you an Xbox 360 owner looking for a sneak peak at the upcoming eighth installment in the Tomb Raider series? If so, you need look no further than the Xbox Live Marketplace, which, as of yesterday (October 28, 2008), is now hosting a free downloadable demo of Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider: Underworld.

According to a press release issued by Eidos Interactive, the demo, available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish flavors and weighing in at 1.27GB , offers players the chance to explore a portion of the full game’s second destination, the western coast of Thailand, complete with “crumbling ruins, steep coastal cliffs” and a selection of “state-of-the-art gear.”

As for the game itself…

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Following a short delay as a result of religious controversy involving text from the Qur’an appearing in the game, Media Molecule’s highly anticipated Playstation 3 exclusive, LittleBigPlanet, has finally launched across North America and is being backed by a series of official servers which should allow users to share and trade their custom content with others.

Unfortunately, Kotaku has been in contact with Media Molecule in order to confirm that the company has been forced to temporarily close the game’s servers down after only eight hours of up-time in order to avoid “glitching issues.” It is hoped that any issues will be resolved and the servers powered back up very soon.

In happier news…

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