Impulse lines up Ubisoft game trio

Stardock has added three titles from Ubisoft to its online distribution platform today, which we have been told “will be released very soon.” The new games hitting Impulse today include Far Cry 2, Assassin’s Creed and Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East. When they are released, all three will be downloadable from Impulse.
Far Cry 2 will cost $19.99; Assassin’s Creed will cost $19.99 and Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East will cost $19.99.

We’ll let you know when these games are available on Impulse. Additional titles from Ubisoft will hit Impulse this summer.

Game Developers Choice Award Finalists Announced

The ninth annual Game Developers Choice Awards finalists have been announced this morning, with Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet leading with seven nominations and Jonathan Blow’s Xbox Live Arcade title Braid following closely with five nominations.

Other nominees include Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Fable 2, Far Cry 2, World of Goo, Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV and many others. The Game Developers Choice Awards are held annually in tandem with the Game Developers Conference in March.

The full list of categories and nominees after the jump:

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Crytek to Purchase Free Radical

While an official announcement is due today, early word from Free Radical scriptwriter Rob Yescombe is that Crytek will buy the troubled UK-based development studio behind the wonderful TimeSplitters series and the mediocre Haze game. Speaking to 1UP, Yescombe confirmed that the developers of Far Cry and Crysis had purchased the company for an undisclosed sum.

“After seven long weeks of uncertainty, I can confirm that Free Radical is now out of the woods.” he said “We’ve been bought by a really, really good company. I’m so excited I’m lost for words. It’s the smoothest deal we’ve ever done. It all went through quickly, efficiently, fantastically…”

While there is cause for celebration, hopefully today’s announcement will reveal what happens with the employees that were let go in December. Will they return to work or will Crytek simply say “what’s done is done” and move forward? We don’t know but we’ll be following this story closely throughout the day as it develops.

The Rundown: Jan. 27, 2009

Welcome to another scintillating edition of The Rundown. Today we highlight new downloadable content for Fallout 3, the release of Coraline and Afro Samurai, cuts to EA’s UK PR workforce and more. Check it all out after the jump.

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Ubisoft Q3 Sales Top $650 Million

Despite the rough world economy and word of layoffs and restructuring from different game companies, it looks like not everyone has been hurting after all. Reporting to investors on its third quarter earnings, Ubisoft announced that its earnings have actually gone up by about 13 percent over the same quarter last year, raking in a total of about $658 million USD in sales .

Talking to MCV about the news, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, “I think everyone was holding their breath a little going into the holiday season but in the end the video game industry did well, showing software sales growth in the UK of 23 per cent and consoles sales growth of 14 per cent and that is good news. At Ubisoft, we were confident that we had a line-up that offered games of quality to a diverse audience.”

The company’s solid performance was primarily credited to the success of new additions to the company’s different franchises, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Far Cry 2, and Prince of Persia. Also, Ubi announced that Shaun White Snowboarding was the number two sports game in the United States for the quarter, with 2.3 million units selling worldwide.

Kym Worthy and the Evils of Video Games

I touched upon this yesterday in The Rundown, but today let’s analyze the particulars. This week Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy released her list of Top 10 Violent Video Games Played By Teens. The list, which is actually a rehash of the Mature rated section of games from the National Institute on Media and the Family Video Game Report Card for 2008, feature’s a who’s who of the most popular “M” rated games in North America. The link between “teens wanting to play these particular games” is tenuous at best, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

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The Rundown: Dec. 15, 2008

2008 is slowly fading to black. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Here’s today’s news..

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