God of War Collection for PS3 announced

Sony Computer Entertainment America is bringing the old God of War games to the PlayStation 3 with the God of War Collection. Scheduled for release this holiday season, God of War Collection promises enhanced versions of both God of War and God of War II on a single Blu-ray Disc at full 1280 x 720 resolution.

Originally developed for the PlayStation 2, the game have been remastered with anti-aliased graphics running at 60 frames per second for a smooth gameplay experience on the PS3 system. This new Blu-ray Disc compilation will also bring PlayStation Network (PSN) trophy support to the franchise for the first time for both games. God of War Collection will retail for $39.99 MSRP.

You can learn more about this compilation pack at www.us.playstation.com.

God of War: The Lawsuit

Sony Computer Entertainment America and Eat, Sleep, Play founder David Jaffe are apparently being sued for God of War. A copyright infringement lawsuit was quietly filed in February of this year in the U.S. District Court in California by Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Barrette-Herzog who claim that the popular PS2 and PSP games infringe on their works. That work includes The Adventures of Own: Owen’s Olympic Adventure, a screenplay by Bissoon-Dath; and Island at the Edge of the Living World - a map that was submitted with Bissoon-Dath’s screenplay created by Jennifer Barrette-Herzog.

The plaintiffs are alleging that these works were sent to Sony Pictures and agents who did business with SCEA sometime in 2002. Somehow, the plaintiffs made some sort of connection between their properties being used by David Jaffe to create God of War.

Having not read the works in question its tough to judge if there are any discernable similarities. The plaintiffs claim that God of War shares a number of similar plot elements, characters, themes, settings, mood, pacing and dialogue with their works. Of course because both works are heavily based on Greek mythology it is not surprising that there are tons of similarities.

SCEA, in an August 29 response to the court,  denied the plaintiffs’ claims and asked the court to be reimbursed for its legal costs. We’ll keep you posted on how this all goes, buy my guess is that it won’t go much farther than it already has…

Source: Game Politics

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Recap

Microsoft was loaded for bear at its E3 press conference, taking shots at Sony in a number of ways - from its new Xbox Live interface to the fact that it has poached many of its former exclusive franchises. The irrepressible John Keefer filed some notes here, but here’s my take on Microsoft’s E3 presentation.

The show started out with a brief opening from Microsoft’s VP Don Mattrick who gives props to last year’s hits and moves on to highlight this year’s best and brightest. Some interesting cooperative play in Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 was shown off, with teamwork that seemed seamless and effective. after the presentation Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi announced the RE5 would be released on Friday, March 13th in North America and Europe, and March 12th in Japan. Remember the days when we had to wait a year or two to see a Capcom game on this side of the world. Those days are mostly in the past for this company.

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2007 Game Critics Awards GotY Winners

The 2007 Game Critics Awards were announced today, revealing the top 10 very best games of 2007 as chosen by this year’’s crop of judges from leading publications including Games for Windows Magazine, EGM, GameSpy, Newsweek, Wired and many others. This is the very first time that the Game Critics awards have been given out Game of the Year awards; the group usually reserves that distinction for E3.

This year’’s judges for the Game of the Year awards began the process by submitting ballots listing 10 of their favorite games of the year. Judges were then given 100 points to spread out across their favorite games, which were then compared and audited by two outside sources. The end result is what you see below:

2007 Game Critics Awards: Game of the Year
BioShock (464 Points)

2. The Orange Box (387 Points)
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (361 Points)
4. Rock Band (349 Points)
5. Super Mario Galaxy (323 Points)
6. Halo 3 (232 Points)
7. Mass Effect (213 Points)
8. God of War II (103 Points)
9. Assassin’s Creed (88 Points)
10. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (87 Points)