Gamehounds Podcast

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Morning everyone, it should be a fun day today with Nintendo and Sony responding to Microsoft’s quite strong press conference from yesterday. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened yesterday, let’s start with EA’s new announcements.

EA Announces Nucleus, shows off Rapture.

At its press conference this afternoon EA announced its new cross-platform community network called Nucleus. Like Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, Nucleus will offer many of the standard online gaming tools like allowing people to play together and for sharing scores, except it will work across all major platforms. According to EA, Nucleus is being built into all of its EA Sports title, Spore, and Battlefield Heroes (25 games by the end of the year).

EA also talked about Rapture, its gaming social network developed by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. According to EA, the network will have profiles that are very game focused and people will be able to build their own “social achievements” (custom challenges).
The idea of having an Xbox Live like community across ALL platforms is highly ambitious. I’m curious to see how it plays out.

Rapture was a nice idea that EA bought a couple of months ago from Sean Fanning. (The creator of the original Napster.) EA is really trying to be the one stop shop for all gaming needs.

More from EA: iD Software Partners with EA to publish upcoming game Rage.

EA and id Software just sent out a press release including the following quotes and further details. Rage is the first of id’s games to be developed from the ground up to run on the most advanced gaming hardware, both PC and HD consoles, through id’s new proprietary engine id Tech5.

CEO of Id Software Todd Hollenshead issued the following statement. “Rage represents a new direction for our games. Rage is a shooter unlike any other, developed on our cutting-edge new technology, and built to the exacting standards id is famous for. We’re excited to have the support of EA Partners to launch Rage on the world.”

EA representatives expressed similar enthusiasm and offered the teaser that more of Rage will be shown at QuakeCon 2008, running from July 31th to August 2nd in Dallas, Texas. We’ll be there.
iD originally had a deal with Activision. I’ll keep this brief: Someone’s pissed at Activision!

Lost Planet: The Movie, coming from Warner Brothers, written by David Hayter.

Warner Bros. and Capcom are traveling to “Lost Planet.” The studio will distribute a pic based on the hit vidgame that will be co-financed by the Japanese publisher.

David Hayter, who is coming off the Zack Snyder-directed WB pic “Watchmen,” will pen the screenplay.

Project is set to be announced today at the E3 videogame confab held in downtown L.A.

Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul will produce through Seaside Entertainment, the shingle they formed to produce fantasy fare.

“Lost Planet,” which was released in Japan in late 2006 and North America in early 2007, has sold over 2 million units. A sequel is believed to be in the works.
I love how Variety has no clue about video games. The picture they show is of the PS3 version though the Xbox 360 version was the one that came out “in Japan in late 2006 and North America in early 2007..”

Be that as it may, Hayter is a fan like us who just happens to be a damn fine writer. This should be interesting.

Coming Soon to theaters: Castlevania!! Without whips!?!? WTF?!?!

With that as the source material, where does this script go wrong? Where doesn’t it?! I understand that certain games may have an interesting concept (and a strong fan base) but are difficult to translate in their present state (Super Mario Bros. comes to mind). In the translation process changes are made (for good or ill), but Castlevania does not require such treatment. Yet here Anderson almost completely ignores the existing storyline in favor of plot so reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that I wondered if I was indeed reading a script for a Castlevania adaptation or a remake of Francis Ford Coppola’s film. Gone is the epic struggle that spans generations between Dracula and the Belmont clan. Gone are the monstrous inhabitants of Castlevania such as mummies, Medusa, and Frankenstein’s monster that stand in the way of Simon’s quest. Gone even is the signature weapon of the Belmonts, the Vampire Killer – a sacred chain whip that is used so successfully to battle the forces of darkness.

No words, just bitter anger. Paul W.S. Anderson is a hack of the highest degree. He deserves to be gang sodomized by rabid monkeys.

Dragon Age franchise WILL come to consoles.. eventually.

BioWare’s Greg Zeschuk told attendees at the Electronic Arts that the Dragon Age franchise will, at some point, cross the PC threshold and head into the realm of consoles. A vague release window like that isn’t reassuring to those hoping for a day-and-date multiplatform, but we don’t expect the wait for some sort of console Dragon Age game to last too long.

Heaven.. I’m in heaven.. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

Will Wright: Master of both language and math declares Gamers 38% god.

If you need proof that numbers can be twisted to represent absolutely anything, then Will Wright has you covered. His basic argument goes like this: In the span of 18 days, Spore Creature Creator users were able to top 1,589,000 species in about 18 days, a feat that took God 7 days to accomplish. So, by his math, users of Spore at operating at 38 percent of God’s capacity, or .38G. A closer look at his math is right after the break.

That makes us a little over a quarter of the god you are so for giving us this ability! I salute you.. or maybe pray.. not sure how that works with Gaming Deities.

Sony’s first E3 Strike: Free Gameplay modes added to WarHawk.

New Gameplay Mode “Hero”

This is a team-based game mode in which one member of each team is randomly selected to be their team’s Epic Hero. Players score points for their team by killing the enemy Hero or by killing enemies while they’re the Hero. The team that reaches the score limit first (or has the most points when time runs out) wins the game.
Sounds like fun, that’s a nice present for PS3 fans today. I hope Sony’s press conference has just as many presents.

Destructoid asks Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg if MGS4 is on it’s way.

You can imagine Microsoft is feeling pretty smug about yesterday’s “MEGATON ZOMG SQUARE-ENIX BE TRAITORZ” announcement that Final Fantasy XIII was heading to the Xbox 360, but in case your imagination wasn’t enough, here’s what Aaron Greenberg told reporters following the event:

We have a white board that lists all of the games people said we’d never get. That list is getting smaller.

At the very top of the white board, one has to guess that Metal Gear Solid 4 sits itching to be wiped off. FF XIII was a huge coup and a few people are feeling that Guns of the Patriots can only follow. When asked about it by MTV’s Stephen Totilo, Greenburg was coy, merely laughing it off and suggesting that it was “a question for Konami.”

Edie is already convinced it’s coming, I’m reasonably sure it is as well, but we’re not going to find out at E3. Wonder if TGS might make it happen.

It’s not too far fetched at this point kids.

That’s all for now, more as it comes in!

Hawkes