Gamertell

Three of the developers of the Metroid Prime series (Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Mathews) have signed a publishing contract with Electronic Arts, which announced the official opening Armature Studios with the trio.

The new company’s goal, according to a press release, is to develop unique console games that may one day change how games are played. Armature Studios is also accepting resumes for all departments, from the art to audio and production departments. I did try to contact the company to ask if they were currently working on a project but they are…

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During the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft announced a new video game sharing feature for Xbox Live that will allow gamers to play and rate community developed games. They can also share theses games with any of their Xbox Live friends.

Microsoft believes that the new “open distribution” service will be a boon for community game development, allowing any level developers to almost instantly reach 10 million Xbox Live users. With the announcement of this new service, seven games created using XNA Game Studio 2.0 have already been announced…

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Canadian-based Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) has invested the sum of $1 million dollars in Silicon Knights, the creators of the upcoming Too Human  or the development of a videogame prototype.

So far the only words coming out of Silicon Knights is that they have described the unknown projects as a third-person action/psychological thriller. This brief description could point to a possibly sequel to Eternal Darkness, which was developed by Silicon Knights for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002. However, there is no conformation on this as of yet.  Silicon Knights is expected to begin work on its next title after the May 2008 release of Too Human and be completed in 2010 for all next-gen consoles.

The OMDC is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture that facilitates economic development opportunities for Ontario’s cultural media industries including book publishing, film and television, interactive digital media, magazine publishing, and music industries is now looking towards the multi-billion dollar industry of video games. Silicon Knights, which is based out of Ontario, Canada, is one of two companies to be supported by the OMDC. The other company to receive the exploratory funding was Digital Extreme; the makers of the upcoming title Dark Sector.

The funding by the OMDC is meant to help developers showcase their new ideas and attract additional funding from publishers. It is hoped that by providing critical support at the prototyping stage of development, that OMDC can help Ontario based developers retain a larger share of their intellectual property and to demand higher royalty payments.

Read [IGN] Also Read [News Wire] Site [OMDC] Site [Silicon Knights]

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Midway and Surreal Software is looking to bring a new twist to the popular open-world genre with the release of This is Vegas. Filled with plenty of gambling, parties, fast cars and even faster women, gamers will try to reclaim Vegas from megalomaniacs with fat pockets who are trying to transform the adult fantasy playground into something more family friendly. The only way to stop Vegas from becoming Mayberry is to use Vegas as your own privet playground.

This is Vegas is meant to be a lighthearted, satirical and comedic game instead of the usual…

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Considrering Blizzard Entertainment is making tens of millions of dollars each year with World of Warcraft, the company should at least be spending some of that cash on a new game or, at the very least, something that isn’t centered on the Warcraft universe. Thankfully, it looks like Blizzard might just be doing just that with the rumored development of Starcraft Online.

Developed by Blizzard in 1998 and originally released for the PC and Mac, Starcraft has remained hugely popular in the United States and abroad (especially in Korea). It was only last year (2008) that Blizzard announced a Starcraft sequel was in the works for the PC. This came after…

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A demo for Conflict: Denied Ops, the fifth game released in the series and first for next generation console, is available now for download through Xbox Live Marketplace. The free demo will feature both a single-player and two-player co-op modes.

Like other games in the Conflict franchise, players will have the ability to switch between either of the two CIA paramilitary operatives: Lincoln Graves and Reggie Lang. Locations will take gamers all around the globe including South America, Africa and…

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By far one of the best and most addictive online multiplayer games out there is, Team Fortress 2. Released by Valve Software last year as part of the hugely successful Orange Box, Team Fortress 2 had been in development for nearly ten years.

Even with that much development behind it, the cartoon-style FPS still didn’t come out swinging when it was released. With only a handful of maps and game types, plus a number of bugs, some might have complained that there wasn’t enough to support a growing fan following. Thankfully, Valve has finally released the first series of expansions for the game…

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Fans of Namco Bandai’s Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, will get the chance to add new aircraft to the already impressive squadron through downloadable content on Xbox Live, starting Thursday, January 31st.

The new aircraft, most of which are European, will feature new design skins while others have been featured in previous games within the franchise. One of the planes will be offered as a free download, while four will cost 200 Microsoft Points and the last one costs 400 MS points.

The six new aircraft will be able to be played in both the campaign and multiplayer modes. These aircrafts will add to the last update that was in November of 2007. There were 5 downloadable planes then. 

The new aircraft available for download include…

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Call of Duty 4 has proven itself to be as unstoppable a force as the SAS team you play within the game. Activision today announced that more people around the world purchased the fourth installment in the Call of Duty series than any other game in 2007.

Citing data from the NPD Group, the publisher claims it has sold more then 7 million units of the game since it launched in November of 2007. Developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 4 was released across all platforms and was one of the…

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Ubisoft has proven is it not a one trick pony. Already the third largest western independent developer, Ubisoft looks to strengthen its position within the gaming world in 2008 with another strong lineup of highly anticipated original games, continuing franchises and multi-platform titles.

With the success of Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft is riding high after a groundbreaking year. Sales jumped 44 percent during Ubisoft’s fiscal third quarter with $625 million in sales. With last years success, Ubisoft is projecting that the company will make somewhere around $1.2 billion in total sales in 2008 and…

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