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Origin adds seven more publishers, Alan Wake on the way
Make way, make way! EA needs space to trot through the seven publishers joining its Origin digital distribution service. Sure, chances are you only recognize one, maybe two, of these names, but it's important when the company is trying to make a show against Steam.The seven new publishers include Remedy Entertainment, which will add Alan Wake after the Steam exclusivity window, slong with Focus Home Interactive, Iceberg Interactive, Strategy First (Disciples, Jagged Alliance), Macro Games, Selectsoft and Legendo Entertainment.EA currently boasts 9.3 million registered Origin users, with a million daily active users.
Jagged Alliance 3 due in 2011 from bitComposer
Jagged Alliance fans have been waiting since 1999 for a new game in the tactical role-playing series -- well, those Jagged Alliance fans that are still fans after all these years, anyway. bitComposer Games has acquired the rights to the series from Strategy First, announcing plans to release Jagged Alliance 3 sometime in 2011. The last time anything newish was released from the franchise was last year's DS port of the first game. Though bitComposer has taken over development on the series, the announcement doesn't make it sound like the new studio plans to make drastic changes to the Jagged Alliance formula: "Jagged Alliance 3 will build on the strengths of its famous predecessors and, set against the backdrop of a gripping story, will again deliver the much-loved combo of turn-based strategy gameplay with roleplay elements." [Via Gamasutra]
Jagged Alliance DS: a time capsule from 1994
Empire Interactive sent out new screens of its Jagged Alliance remake today, causing a unique variety of nostalgia. We're used to stuff like Mega Man 9 and Retro Game Challenge giving us the feeling of being back in the 80s, but we have as yet experienced very little nostalgia for mid-90s PC gaming. We think it's the awkward, semi-realistic character portraits that so effectively take us back in time. Speaking of awkward character portraits, is it just us, or does that guy kind of look like a bearded, bronzed John Ritter?Even without the warm feelings we have for kinda-ugly games of the past, Jagged Alliance DS could be good news for DS gamers looking for tactical strategy without a fantasy-RPG setting. According to the accompanying press release, JADS is coming out sometime this spring for $30.%Gallery-30513%
Jagged Alliance cuts into the DS next year
Rumored M.I.A. since former publisher Strategy First canceled all of its DS titles, the Jagged Alliance port for the DS has returned with a release scheduled for 2009! Have a look at the game's soldiers of fortune in the gallery below!Strategy First is still helping Cypron Studios (Command and Destroy) handle development for the project while Empire Interactive, as GameFly predicted, is taking over publishing duties. So long as this eventually ships, that's fine with us!For those of you who were to busy playing console releases to mess with PC titles in the mid-to-late 90s, the Jagged Alliance series comprises of tactical RPGs featuring player-controlled squads of mercenaries, each unit possessing different skills and personalities. Think of it as X-COM, but with more character and less aliens.On a negative note, as excited as we are to see this PC classic finally coming to the DS, the port's graphics, though more detailed, somehow manage to look less appealing than the graphics from the original Jagged Alliance for DOS, which was released in 1994!%Gallery-30513%[Via press release] Are you a strategy nut? Check out our coverage on titles like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Age of Empires! We even put together a collection of strategy recommendations for crazies like you!
Hope for long-lost Jagged Alliance DS?
Way back in 2005, Strategy First announced a DS version of Jagged Alliance 2 Gold, which became increasingly vaporous as time passed. Gamefly now lists a Jagged Alliance game coming October 9, from publisher Empire Interactive. It may be a sign of renewed life for the Pocket PC Studios-developed port, or it could be the work of a new development team to whom the rights were granted after prolonged inactivity.Jagged Alliance is a military strategy game series that originated on PC in 1994, involving player-controlled squads of mercenaries. Not only do the mercs have different skills, they interact differently with one another when teamed up. The player's actions lend a reputation that also affects the mercenaries' willingness to work.[Update: Eric pointed out that Strategy First officially cancelled all their projects. Either Empire has picked up the pieces or this is an unrelated project.]
Boeing looks to combat sim for war games
Air Assault Task Force, ever heard of it? Neither have we, but apparently the little known combat sim has not escaped the attention of Boeing, which has enlisted developer ProSIM to create a custom version of the title to be used as a "hyper-realistic ground combat simulator" for use in war games. With the ability to obliterate countless virtual lives, Air Assault Task Force puts the notion of games as killing simulators into perspective, but since the game is played from the cold comfort of an overhead tactical display, it makes everything a-okay.According to Boeing, the title will be used in conjunction with tutoring software that the firm is currently developing, adding that the final product will "watch" a player as he plays, making suggestions along the way and after the fact, most likely on how to be a more efficient killing machine. That is until Matthew Broderick hacks the network and sends us all to the brink of global thermonuclear war. If you need us, we'll be in the Joystiq bunker. We have a bunker, right?
