Crispy Gamer News

It’s almost time to fire up the ol’ Ecto-1 again, Ghostbusters fans. Terminal Reality’s upcoming video game take on the classic comedy flicks has been lost in ethereal plane for some time now. First, the game was set to come out last year via a publishing deal with Activision. The game even got a huge push from the publisher at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Then, in the wake of the massive Activision/Blizzard merger, the game was surprisingly cut from the Activision lineup. Eventually, it ended up with a new home over at Atari, but with no firm release on the calendar other than sometime in 2009.

That all changed yesterday, though the news didn’t come out of Atari, but rather Sony Pictures, who is gearing up for the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters film debut. In a release sent out yesterday, Sony Pictures announced plans to bring the film to hi-def Blu-ray on the week of June 16th. The Blu-ray disc will be released, according to Sony Pictures, in time with the “simultaneous launch of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, the highly anticipated videogame from Atari, celebrates the film’s 25th anniversary, with an all-new adventure from by the film’s original writers.”

“This great franchise is one of the crown jewels in the studio’s library,” said Lexine Wong, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Senior Executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing. “With Ghostbusters 25th anniversary upon us and the forthcoming release of an eagerly anticipated new video game, this is the perfect opportunity to release this exciting new edition on Blu-ray Disc.”

So, come the week of June 16th, gamers will finally get their hands on Ghostbusters, and both Activision and Atari will know for sure just how smart it was to cast off and pick up the eagerly anticipated title. For fans, all they’ll have to remember is “Don’t cross the streams!”

The Independent Games Festival has named the finalists for its 2009 Independent Games Festival event taking place later this year as part of the Game Developers Conference. The finalists were culled from 226 entries, a 30 percent over last year’s entrants. More importantly, this year’s finalists come in all shapes and sizes - from web games to PlayStation Network games. The selections were made by 40 industry professionals and journalists whose egos are already too big to mention here.

It brings me great joy to see such personal favorites as Mightier and BrainPipe getting the nod, but makes me very sad to see games like Minotaur China Shop and Hinterland excluded from this list.. Oh well.

As always, all of the finalists games will available in playable form on the GDC show floor, and will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Innovation, Excellence in Design, and the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, as well as a prize from sponsor Direct2Drive. Full list after the break.

(more…)

Welcome to the first Rundown of 2009. Are you ready for 2009? I hope this year won’t suck as bad as last year. Now onto today’s light news stories: Street Fighter IV controllers, and update to A Murder of Crows, a new Elebits game hits retails, more MySims games announced and the release of Saint’s Row 2 for PC - all after the jump.

(more…)

Nielson released some interesting numbers for consoles played in 2008 (Jan. to Oct.) that reveal the PlayStation 2 as the most popular. Based on the percentage of of all console-gaming minutes played, the PS2 scored 30.2 percent, beating out the Xbox 360 (18.3 percent) and Wii (13.5 percent). Meanwhile, the last generation Xbox (9.1 percent) beat out the PS3 (7.7 percent) and GameCube (4.4 percent). “Other” (we assume mobile phones, PSP, DS and other devices) managed 16.9 percent.

Another report from Nielson also showed that World of Wacraft was the most popular PC game, raking in an impressive 671 minutes per week. Other popular games included Warcraft III (328 minutes), Half-Life 2 (288 minutes), Spore (268 minutes), and PopCap Games’ (133 minutes).

U.K. newspaper the Independent ran a story over the holiday weekend that Microsoft is considering a massive layoff of 10 - 16 percent of its workforce. The report is based on a report last week filed on the Fudzilla blog. Microsoft has no comment on the story. According to that blog report the layoffs could come as early as January 15, ahead of a week ahead of the company’s announcement of the December quarter results. No further information on what divisions might be feel the heat, but with an estimated 90,000 cuts i’d imagine EVERY division will share in the pain. Of course it’s all unconfirmed rumor at this point.

The developers of Kivi’s Underworld don’t lie when they say that this game is a casual hack and slash game. It is so casual, in fact, that it sheds off the trappings of the genre in favor of grinding through a series of challenging dungeons.. with very little. Instead of doling out weapons and armor, players grind for potions and power-ups that serve as limited time specials that help you weather the perils of each and every area you’ll have to explore. Kivi’s Underworld is like the naked, abandoned brother of Depths of Peril; frugal in its approach, but abundant in challenge, and action, and replayability.

You play as Kivi, or one of his companions, as you get toe-to-toe with the growing threat of dark elf forces, stirring from their slumber, ready to bring about the destruction of the lumen people. You can do this as a fighter, a fire mage or 20 other classes available in the full game.

The demo for Kivi’s Underworld offers way more gameplay than it should, but it gives players willing to look past its rough graphics and simplistic gameplay system enough time to form an impression. For me, this game from the makers of Depths of Peril is more interesting for what it isn’t than what it is.

You can learn more about the game and download a playable demo by checking out the Soldak Entertainment web site.

Good Old Games, the DRM-free online source for classic PC games, announced that it has added several of Revolution Software’s adventure games from the popular Broken Sword series. The first games to be available on the site include Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror and Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon. Also available from GOG and Revolution Software are the classic point-and-click adventure games Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress.

All of these games retail for $5.99 each and are fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. Find out more at gog.com. It’s as good a way to ring in the new year as any, my friends. Now if only they would bring Gothic 2 into the fold..