Fight Night Round 4 ready to rumble

Fight Night Round 4 is now available in retail stores worldwide. Developed by EA Canada, Fight Night Round 4 is the first title ever that will allow players to pit “Iron” Mike Tyson against “The Greatest” Muhammad Ali. The game represents both pugilists when they were in their prime - ad in Tyson’s case - when he was relatively sane.

Besides featuring Tyson and Ali, Round 4 offers a new physics-based gameplay engine, an all new career mode called Legacy mode, and 48 boxers including Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton. Each boxer’s likeness boxing styles have allegedly been re-created to reflect their real-life counterparts’ strengths and weaknesses in the ring.

Fight Night Round 4 is available for the PS3 and Box 360.

Grand Slam Tennis released

EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis is now available in North American stores and will be available worldwide by June 12, 2009. Developed for the Wii by EA Canada, Grand Slam Tennis offers all four Grand Slams and is the only game to feature Wimbledon.

The game features a Grand Slam Career mode, licensed stars and venues, and - most important of all - offers Wii MotionPlus support.

In Europe, Grand Slam Tennis will be exclusively bundled with the Wii MotionPlus accessory - sorry North America, you’ll have to buy it separately or pick up a copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010. Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii has been rated “E” by the ESRB and “3+” by PEGI, and has an MSRP of $49.99 USD in North America.

BioWare Opens Montreal Studio

BioWare is opening up a studio within EA’s Montreal, Canada Studio system, according to GameDaily. The studios’ first order of business? Mass Effect 2. The new digs will be populated by about 30 developers - half of which will be moved from BioWare’s home studio of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Not much to go on other than a new studio opening and that it is working on the sequel to BioWare’s popular Xbox 360 action-RPG.

“We’re really excited about it, and we think it’s going to be a huge opportunity to tap into the talent base in Montreal while supplementing our existing teams in Edmonton and Austin, which are doing some great stuff on all the other projects BioWare’s working on,” noted BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka.

Muzyka said that the company’s various studios are working on several “super secret projects” beyond what has already been announced — Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. With GDC coming up later this month, expect to hear more about these games..

EA Cancels Vancouver Studio Plans

As I look at sales data for November, i’d like to say that I share the widely held notion that the interactive entertainment industry is recession proof, but recent activities within the industry give me pause. Take, for example, EA’s decision to cancel its plans to open a new studio in Vancouver. Two days after the company lowered expectations for revenues and earnings in fiscal 2009 and announced some serious belt tightening, the company revealed that it would not go forward with plans to open up a facility in Vancouver that would have housed the studios behind the Need For Speed and FIFA franchises.

“These are challenging times, they’re uncertain times for our industry and across the board,” EA spokesman Colin Macrae told The Globe and Mail newspaper this week. “We continue to be firmly rooted in Vancouver.”

While EA may be firmly rooted in Vancouver, it is cutting an undisclosed amount of jobs in its Canada-based development studios and most assuredly, many of its game products that it planned to work on in 2009. Disappointing sales of games like Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space and other holiday game release probably didn’t help - or its stock sliding to a seven year low.

If there is a lesson here it is a familiar one for other sectors: no company is safe in these very uncertain financial times.

3 on 3 NHL Arcade Revealed

EA Canada is trying its hand and some original downloadable content. The EA studio announced today that it is working on an EA Freestyle inspired hockey game for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network called 3 on 3 NHL Arcade. 3 on 3 NHL Arcade is being billed as a no rules, fast paced, arcade-style hockey game where exaggerated representations of 40 real-world NHL stars use brute force and power-ups to keep the action fresh. Sounds fun. In addition to standard ranked matches, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade allows three players on one console to play three other players on another console anywhere in the world.

3 on 3 NHL Arcade will be available as a download in February 2009 on Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network for 800 MS Points and $9.99, respectively. Check out the screens below:

EA Sports Reveals Tennis Title

Electronic Arts announced today that an all-new tennis video game is in development at EA Canada in Vancouver under the EA Sports label. The unnamed EA SPORTS tennis franchise will be available first for the Wii in 2009, followed by other platforms, and it will be the first EA SPORTS game that uses Nintendo’s upcoming Wii MotionPlus accessory for the Wii Remote. This means that EA is making promises about how responsive and reactive the game will be.

EA also announced that this game will be the only one to feature the All England Lawn Tennis Club — home of The Championships, Wimbledon. EA sports promises innovative ways to play, both as or against the greatest players from the past or present, letting you control the ball and work the court like you never have before in a tennis video game.

A web site has already been launched for the game at www.easports.com/tennis. EA is showing off its wares this week at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.

EA Reveals FaceBreaker

EA Canada, the same studio now handling the Fight Nights series after EA shuttered EA Chicago, is giving fight fans a more comedic and arcade experience with the freshly announced FaceBreaker. Decidedly comic in its presentation, FaceBreaker will inevitably be compared to the classic Sega boxing hit Ready 2 Rumble, though decidedly more next-generation.

FaceBreaker promises arcade-style boxing, a cast of larger-than-life personalities, flashy showmanship (like literally tying one hand behind your back and fighting your opponent), and blows that cause visible damage using a technique EA calls real-time facial deformation technology. Using FaceBreaker‘’s Photo Game Face, you”ll also be able to scan your face into the game and watch as your friends and the artificial intelligence show you what you might look like after a mugging.

Some of the characters that you encounter include a stereotypical Latin lover named Romeo and a buff Russian demolitions expert with a penchant for fighting dirty named Molotov. EA didn”t says in its announcement today how many fighters the game would offer, but I suspect all of them will have the same kind of comic appeal of these two oddballs.

Finally FaceBreaker is all about fighting using a variety of hits including haymakers, face shots and body blows combined with timing to deliver a perfect barrage of punches. Gain the momentum, use the right combos, and you”ll be able to knock your opponent out with a super punch.

Details are still light on this arcade-focused boxing game for the time being, so stay tuned for more info as it becomes available. FaceBreaker will be released sometime in 2008 for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii.