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Jurassic Park: Trespasser remake aims to make good on long-lost promises
Fifteen years later, Jurassic Park: Trespasser still seems to bring out the dreamer in game developers. It's largely forgotten today, but there was a time when the 1998 first-person shooter published by Electronic Arts aspired to be the ultimate technical achievement. Developer Seamus Blackley dreamt of a perfectly seamless, immersive world with intelligent dinosaurs – an idea that still has the power to spark the imagination with its insane technical ambition. Despite assurances prior to release that the game would revolutionize PC gaming, Trespasser was critically panned and commercially ignored. Today, the dream of that revolutionary title lives on through a group of dedicated fans unwilling to let to die. The architect of that effort is Larry Ellis – an Australian working part time at a local distribution company, with the rest of his hours devoted to the long forgotten licensed game. Utilizing Crytek's powerful CryEngine, he recently captivated the internet with a series of gorgeous updates to the original Trespasser jungle environments. Ellis' ambitions, however, are far greater than a simple remake. The part-time designer has grand ambitions with plans to recreate the game's entire world – Isla Sorna – and within it, inject new missions, objectives and more. Utilizing technology that lies at the bleeding edge, Ellis aims to make use of both Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra to live up to the game's original vision for a unique control scheme. Ellis' project seems almost crazy in scope - a one-man attempt to make good on assurances made by a company he has no affiliation with nearly two decades ago. Perhaps it's an impossible dream, but it's hard not to cheer for an underdog with so much passion.
The original Xbox could have been named one of these wacky acronyms
Had Seamus Blackley and his hardware team not vetoed the anagram-based suggestions made by Microsoft's mad men, the original Xbox could have been called the Microsoft FACE – which stood for "Full Action Center" – according to a list of rejected names for Microsoft's debut console provided to Edge by Blackley. Or, alternatively, the Microsoft O2 ("Optimal Ozone"), MEA ("Microsoft Entertainment Activator"), OM ("Odyssey of the Mind") or any other number of ridiculous things. Blackley said that, while "Xbox" was originally an internal shortening of "DirectX Box" used in email threads, it was the only contender to survive the four-stage naming process. Out of the entire list, we think the most historically interesting option was Microsoft TSO, which meant "Three Six Zero." Sound familiar?
Atari team rejoins to make mobile titles
Seamus Blackley is one of the co-creators of Microsoft's original Xbox console, and he put together a really interesting team of old-school Atari game developers recently to make mobile games. Blackley's new company is called Innovative Leisure, and while the website isn't anything more than a groovy logo, the devs he's got on board make for a pretty impressive list: Ed Rotberg (who made Battlezone), Owen Rubin (Space Duel), Rich Adam (who worked on Missile Command), Ed Logg (the creator of Astroids and Centipede), Dennis Koble (who programmed Shooting Gallery), Bruce Merrit (creator of Black Widow) and Tim Skelly (who is also an old school game dev, though not with Atari). The company is completely separate from Atari (which already has a pretty significant presence on the App Store), but the team has some money already and is reportedly working on prototypes and ideas for a first game. It should be interesting. The mobile gaming market is filling up fast, but there's no question that these guys know how to make solid and interesting arcade games. We'll have to see what they can do with iOS and other mobile platforms.
Xbox co-creator brings together Atari 'dream team' for mobile gaming startup
A new mobile gaming startup that's yet to release a single game isn't the sort of thing we'd normally cover 'round here, but the story behind Los Angeles-based Innovative Leisure is anything but ordinary. The man behind the company is the co-creator of the Xbox, Seamus Blackley, and he's brought with him eleven industry veterans that he calls "the dream team from Atari," including the likes of Van Burnham, Ed Logg, Rich Adam, Tim Skelly, Owen Rubin, and Ed Rotberg. While those names may not be familiar to everyone, you'll surely recognize some of the games they were responsible for: Asteroids, Centipede, Gauntlet, Missile Command, Battlezone, S.T.U.N. Runner, Major Havoc and Space Duel, to name a few.Speaking with VentureBeat, Blackley describes mobile devices as "the new arcade" and 99 cent games as the "new quarter," adding that he's aiming to carry on where Atari left off, "focusing on innovation in gameplay." To help with that, the company has secured backing from THQ, which has reportedly agreed to an initial slate of ten games, seven of which are now in development (with only the iPhone and iPad mentioned as supported platforms so far). Unfortunately, details remain light beyond that, with Blackley only offering late summer or fall as an estimated release date for the first titles. In the meantime, you can find more of the backstory at the links below (THQ's press release can also be found after the break).
Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley starts new game studio
After helping birth the original Xbox way back in 2000, Seamus Blackley left Microsoft to get back to game development. He put that dream on hold in 2004 when his studio, Capital Entertainment Group, folded, choosing to soldier on as a talent coordinator at Creative Artists Agency. Beyond negotiating deals for famous names like BioShock creative lead Ken Levine and Flower devs thatgamecompany while at CAA, Blackley most recently helped ex-Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West navigate that debacle's dangerous waters. But now, it seems, Blackley is changing jobs once more. Variety reports that he'll be heading up his own game production company, with virtually zero details given about the move. The change is still fresh enough that Blackley has yet to alter even his LinkedIn profile, for instance. For now, the games team at CAA will now be headed up by Ophir Lupu and David Stelzer, who were already working with Blackley's command, as well as Greg Essig retaining his role as a "games agent."
