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Sega: game not over for Aliens: Colonial Marines, Aliens RPG
The big, green gooey eggs containing Sega's long in development Aliens: Colonial Marines and Aliens RPG are going to hatch -- just not soon. When we asked why the games were absent from this year's E3, Sega replied, "Aliens vs. Predator will be the first to ship out of our triplet of Aliens titles; hence it was shown at this year's E3. We'll have more news to share about the other two games in the near future so stay tuned." Rumors of both titles being jettisoned out an airlock have been swirling since earlier this year.In addition, Gearbox Software prez Randy Pitchford has confirmed to Kotaku that Colonial Marines lives on in now-gen console and handheld form on DS. Pitchford told the site that Gearbox is not developing the portable title, lending more credence to purported footage of a WayForward-developed Colonial Marines that leapt out of the darkness last month. We've put word into Obsidian, developers of Aliens RPG, for confirmation of that title's status.
Borderlands planning on October release
Gearbox has confirmed its casual E3 mention to Joystiq that it plans to release Borderlands this October. A company representative told us today that it's looking forward to breaking new ground this fall when the "role-playing shooter with strong co-op and split-screen gameplay" is released. The rep also confirmed that the post-apocalyptic action game will launch simultaneously on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.Borderlands had been banging around for a while, then disappeared for an awkward period of time before ultimately reemerging – think: butterfly – with a new art style, which freshened up the title and removed it from "Fallout clone" territory. We'll have our E3 impression of the title up soon.%Gallery-51471%
E3 2009: Borderlands teaser trailer provides first glimpse of gameplay
Life's tough in the lawless lands of Borderlands. You have to watch out for machete-wielding maniacs, gigantic saw blade-wielding death machines, and the pincer-equipped beasts that roam the lands looking for human blood. But, hey, as deadly a place as it is, at least it looks damn good.You can catch the new trailer past the break.%Gallery-51471%
Rumored video of Aliens: Colonial Marines for DS surfaces
What's the real deal with the Aliens franchise, recently? Ask Sega -- except don't, because you're pretty unlikely to get a straight answer from the company regarding the whereabouts of Aliens: Colonial Marines or the Obsidian-developed Aliens RPG. This new video, which can be seen after the break, is even more mysterious. It appears to be a 2D side-scrolling Aliens game developed by WayForward -- the people making A Boy and His Blob -- and Gearbox, developer of the console and PC version of Colonial Marines (if it still exists, that is).Could this be a DS version of that same title, or is this something completely separate? Is it in development, or scrapped? The video description says it's a canceled project that was completed and shelved due to financial trouble at Sega. We've reached out to Sega for comment, but we're not counting on finding out much. [Via Destructoid]
Gearbox eyes undiscovered design talent with 'COGS' program
Gearbox Software, developer of Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines, is offering a unique opportunity to talented gamers with aspirations of actually designing games. Dubbed "COGS" ("Contractors of Gearbox Software"), this summer program will let selected applicants work alongside Gearbox staff on titles currently in production.The company is seeking applicants who have designed levels, mods or gameplay, but who are not currently employed at a development studio. Submissions can be made via Gearbox's cogs.gearboxsoftware.com site and are being accepted through May 20. The program itself begins June 15, with the company stating that those who make it through may find themselves with an extended apprenticeship -- or even a full-time gig.
Gearbox Software is hiring, Aliens: Colonial Marines still in development
Aliens: Colonial Marines, one of the three Alien titles allegedly in production, has had a lot of ups and downs over the past six months. First we were unclear whether layoffs at developer Gearbox Software would affect the title, then we were assured it was to be released in Q1 2009, then we were tipped it was supposedly canceled -- so what's actually going on with the game? Well, we're still not really sure. Shacknews noticed that over on Gearbox's website, the company is recruiting for "all projects," and furthermore, the Alien project was listed at time of press as "in-development" (currently it lists development as "TBA," having updated that specific page on the website as of today). We contacted Steve Gibson, marketing director for Gearbox, to ask about the recent news and if Aliens: Colonial Marines is still being developed by the studio. "Neither Sega nor Gearbox have ever announced any status changes. We're not making any announcements at this time beyond that we are recruiting for all projects," he told us this morning. While not directly confirming the continued development of the game, Mr. Gibson's answer leads us to believe that, as the game has never been officially canceled, the studio is still working on it. As you're likely used to hearing around this time of year, we're just going to have to wait 'til E3 to find out for sure what's going on.
A bunch of totally not cel-shaded Borderlands images
We really aren't going to get into a semantic discussion about Borderlands' new art style, so feel free to call it cel-shaded or illustrative, it's all marketing-speak bullet-points to us at this stage. Thing is, the game looks totally different than it did back in the day. We're just curious to see what Borderlands looks like in action now, and we'll hopefully have that chance at E3, commencing in just a little over a month. Check out the gallery below for new images (for the internets, at least), and be sure to click the hi-res button in the gallery to embiggen.%Gallery-51471%
A better view of Borderlands' new look
Click to embiggen (redirects to Borderlands site) It's not much, but here's the first complete image of Borderlands' new art style. Gearbox claims the image is "completely in-game as you will see Borderlands when you play it." To see more images of the game you'll have to pick up the June issue of PC Gamer or ... well, you can probably guess other places to find them. To see what the game used to look like, check out the gallery below:%Gallery-50284%
Borderlands decides on new 'pretty impressive, even shocking' art style [update]
As we recently reported, Gearbox's Borderlands has been running dark for a while and has now emerged with a whole new art style. The latest issue of PC Gamer apparently has images of the Mad Max simulator's new art direction, which appears to be an illustrative or cel-shaded style -- say goodbye to Borderlands' previous Fallout 3-esque motif.Gearbox states on its community boards that the change was made to make a more "visually interesting experience." Allegedly, the gameplay hasn't been affected by the new art style -- not that we'd know, considering we've never actually touched the game, which is supposed to come out later this year.[Via Big Download]Update: Gearbox Studio head Randy Pitchford has sent out a statement (posted after the break) that the game's art style is not "cel-shaded." We've also learned that web-ready images will hopefully be available for consumption by the internet on Monday, and the game should be on display -- possibly playable -- at E3.The PC Gamer cover [above; in full after break] features "an in-game screenshot with no post process," giving us an idea of the new art style and rendering tech.
Rumor: Sega pulls funding on Aliens: Colonial Marines, Aliens RPG
Sega has allegedly pulled funding from both Obsidian's Aliens RPG and Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines, sources have revealed to Joystiq. Supposedly, 20 people were laid off from Obsidian yesterday and more could soon lose their jobs. The layoffs also affected the team working on Alpha Protocol, another Obsidian-developed, Sega-published title. Without the Aliens RPG, Obsidian is apparently on the ropes, our sources say. As for Gearbox, Sega allegedly stopped paying the developer for its work on Colonial Marines for "a while" -- production has since ceased. At this point, it's unclear whether Colonial Marines has been "halted" or "canceled," which Gearbox president Randy Pitchford – in response to a previous rumor – called an "inaccurate characterization." This rumor comes less than 24 hours after Sega announced Aliens vs. Predator and refused to answer questions about the previously announced Aliens titles. Sega turning off the money tap wouldn't exactly be shocking, given the company plans to lay off 560 people and already lost $119 million in the first three quarters of its fiscal year. Requests for clarification from Sega and Gearbox on the status of the titles have not yet been returned as of press time. An Obsidian representative responded with "no comment" to our inquiry. If you're one of those let go, or have any further information, please feel free to contact us.
Amazon is Samba de Amigo's friend today
Amazon's Deal of the Day is one of those games we've wanted to try, but felt the investment was too risky: Samba de Amigo. Maybe you experienced similar trepidation: at $30 or even $20, it would be a terrible disappointment if the Wiimote/Nunchuk controls failed to accurately imitate the Dreamcast's maraca controllers. At $10, however, the risk is minimal and the potential reward -- a candy-colored world of super-happy cartoon monkeys and exciting music -- seems worth it. Besides, it is a music game that has Ulala in it, and is therefore by definition better than 90% of the world's music games.%Gallery-20601%
Aliens: Colonial Marines, Alpha Protocol slated for Q1 '09 release
No, we don't believe it either, but at least Sega has confirmed that the nebulous development of Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines is still ongoing. According to a release list issued to UK site VideoGamer.com, Sega currently has the xenophobic first-person shooter pinned to the first quarter of its 2009 release calendar -- though the article questions whether said calendar is Gregorian or fiscal.Joining Colonial Marines in the Q1 '09 release window is Obsidian's Bauer-esque spy RPG, Alpha Protocol. We've contacted Sega of America to clarify these dates and confirm the other titles on the list, including House of the Dead: Overkill (February), Sonic and the Black Knight (March) and Bayonetta (a vague "2009").
Status of 'Aliens: Colonial Marines' muddled in Gearbox layoffs
The development status of Aliens: Colonial Marines is currently about as convoluted as Weyland-Yutani's interest in the xenomorph. Following reports that the title had been canceled, developer Gearbox's president, Randy Pitchford, has stated the game has not been "canned."Originally, Shacknews reported that Gearbox let go of about 15-25 employees, with the site's sources claiming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway's poor retail performance and the "stoppage of work" on Aliens were the reason for the layoffs. Pitchford reiterated to the site that it was an "inaccurate characterization" that production on the game had been "halted." Questions about Aliens: Colonial Marines' quality and condition have hung over the title since E3.
Hell's Highway demo burns up the XBLM
Newly available on the Xbox Live Marketplace is a Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway demo that (unlike the game's title sort of suggests) doesn't involve Satan or let you pave roads. The demo requires roughly 1.32GB of hard drive storage and should give you a taste of the look, feel and amount of violence the retail version of Hell's Highway has in store. Go ahead and give the demo a try because, really, what's the worst that could happen? A few gigs of your hard drive lost, a few hours of your life wasted and the corruption of your gaming soul?
From disgust to joy: new Samba de Amigo trailers
This Samba de Amigo trailer starts off badly. And by "badly," we mean terribly. For the first 34 seconds, it's just a bunch of bratty kids hamming it up with some of the worst having fun acting we've ever seen. The occasional glimpse of the game and that chimpanzee from an earlier video helps a little, but it's still fairly risible.Then, the trailer totally turns it around, instantly grasping victory from the jaws of defeat. How? Because the chimp, for some unspecified reason, starts breakdancing. Suddenly, this becomes the best videogame trailer of 2008. Hit the jump for a second video featuring the simian handing out a thrashing to (and then planting a kiss on) Dad.Source: Chimp beats puny manSource: Chimp breakdances%Gallery-20601%
Metareview: Samba de Amigo
It was one of the biggest hits on the Dreamcast, and possibly the most joy-filled games ever (it actually made us like Ricky Martin). It has Ulala. It has sombereros. It has a trailer featuring a monkey. By all accounts, we should love Samba de Amigo like our firstborn. Do the gaming press agree? IGN (75%) feels the game is more suited to a casual audience: "In the end, I think this is a really good game for casual gamers. I showed it to some non-gamer friends this weekend and they had a blast just playing on easy. I had to practically rip the remotes out of their hands to get them to stop. But here in the IGN office, fans of the original Samba pick up the remotes, crank up the difficulty, and find the controls to be almost unworkable. This monkey is still a charmer, but his Wii controls need refining." NGamer UK (6/10) is not so keen on the responsiveness of the controls: "That old Samba magic is still there, but the challenge is in beating the controls, not the game. This should have been way better, given the console's strengths." [Nov 2008, p.56] Eurogamer (6/10) also points out the below-par controls, but acknowledges that the game can still be fun: "Apart from the obvious fact that party games have moved on an awful lot since Samba De Amigo first appeared, there's no denying that the control system just doesn't quite translate as well as it might have - and that can only hurt its appeal in the long run. There's still a decent amount of daft fun to be had out of this joyous little game, but it's definitely best sampled in small doses." %Gallery-20601%
Gearbox: learning PS3 tech reason behind Brothers in Arms delay
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has been in development for a really long time. But what was the main reason behind the lengthy development? Gearbox's Jeramy Cooke told MTV Multiplayer that focusing on the PS3 is what made development so difficult. Rather than simply outsourcing the game to a different studio as they've done in the past, they wanted to work on the game in-house. "In previous Brothers in Arms, we had farmed out the PlayStation versions to other developers who were PlayStation experts," he said. "So we had to build up all that expertise in-house to understand that platform."Hopefully, working on the game internally will help the game avoid the "port plague" which has hurt many multiplatform PS3 games. By having Gearbox work on the game internally, it should play more to the PS3's strengths. "There's just major hardware differences; you don't know if your Xbox guy has a hard drive but your PlayStation guy does, and you've got 8 cores on this machine and 4 and a half on this machine."
Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway armed and ready, deploying Sept. 23
No one ever said paving Hell's Highway would be easy, but Gearbox has wicked the final bead of sweat from its brow, relieved to announce that the next Brothers In Arms is complete and will ship on September 23rd. Today's definitive confirmation brings to an end a number of construction setbacks -- officially totaling umpteen -- that delayed the project for two years. That's right, remember when Hell's Highway was on your holiday 2006 list? While development was on par with real-world highway building, Hell's Highway is, unfortunately for its creators, not an actual roadway surface, but a World War II shooter -- a genre that has seriously diminished in relevance over the past 24 months (not that highways aren't also struggling -- gas is how much per gallon now?). The best thing about Brothers in Arms imminent release might be reassurance that we're one step closer to playing Gearbox's Aliens game.%Gallery-23910%
Samba maracas are unofficial, which probably means no bundle
Samba de Amigo ships out next week and we're still scrambling over the maracas situation. We once thought that a retailer's mocked-up bundle box was proof that a maracas peripheral would be bundled with the game, but that image was taken down and, in fact, Sega denied that a peripheral would be produced. And then that statement was seemingly excised from the original source. And then actual pictures appeared of some Wii maracas, along with standalone retail listings. It's been a bit confusing.It would appear that you'll be paying an extra $14.99 for the first set of maracas and not the second, because looking at the box, it is quite clear that these Wii maracas are not official Sega products. Gamestop lists them as being produced by Cokem International. That, and the fact that no retailer mentions a bundle (and the fact that Sega said they weren't making any) makes it very likely that you'll get a disc with Samba and nothing else.The good news is that it's basically just a bulb with a Wiimote-shaped slot (and hopefully some rattly stuff inside), and so it doesn't really matter who makes the thing.
Tesla readies new transmission, ramping production
To date, since production began in March, 27 Tesla Motors Roadsters have been delivered. Now the production rate is expected to ramp considerably thanks to a deal with BorgWarner to build the enhanced "Powertrain 1.5." The Telsa designed, single-speed gearbox is expected to help provide 30% more power allowing the Roadster to once again accelerate from 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds as it did with the original, flawed, two-speed transmission. It's also more efficient resulting in an extended, 244-mile range (221 miles currently) from a single charge. All Roadsters equipped with the interim transmission will be upgraded free of charge. Tesla says that it will now ramp production to 10 Roadsters per week, hitting 20 per week within a few months, and 40 per week by early 2009. Most of which we expect to find riding the PCH in total, luxurious, battery-powered silence.
