News: Project Natal "full line-up" at E3

“Very strong” software support pledged. Microsoft plans to show “the full line-up” of Project Natal software at E3 in June. That’s according to Entertainment & Devices division CFO Mindy Mount, who told the Jefferies Annual Global Technology Conference (thanks IGN) to expect “very strong first and third-party developer support”. “Needless to say, we’re putting some of our best people on coming up with great game ideas for this, and we’re going to have some great stuff,” Mount said. Read more…

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News: Project Natal "full line-up" at E3

Why M-Rated Trailers Must Stand Behind a Swinging Gate [Esrb]

Age gates on trailers are a delay, not a barrier, a figleaf that does no more to stop kids from seeing violent content than the third-base line stops a foul ball. How many have claimed birthdays of Jan. 1, 1902? But you may have noticed that we’ve added them to our hosted trailers for M-rated games. Increasingly, the industry and its marketing operations expect that third-party hosts of this content respect the gate. And on some level, it helps send a unified message that everyone’s serious about keeping inappropriate content away from minors. Anyway, Ars Technica took a look at how and why trailers get the birthday-check. There’s no required rating of trailers like there is for games, so the relevant acronym is not the ESRB as much as it is the ARC. That’s the Advertising Review Council (which is also part of the Entertainment Software Rating Board). For five years the ARC guidelines have held that marketing for M-rated games (or those expected to be M) go behind the age gate. But it doesn’t stop there. “If a third-party site wants to display a trailer for an M-rated game without placing it behind an age gate, our guidelines require that the publisher request that the trailer be removed and/or that they provide an edited version more suitable for a general audience to be used in its place,” the ESRB’s Eliot Mizrachi told Ars. He acknowledges that these third parties are not accountable to the publishers, so the ESRB can’t hold publishers accountable for what they do. So it sort of gets back to my original point: That the age-gate isn’t about controlling minors’ access as much as making the statement that minors’ access should be controlled. M-rated Video: The ESRB and Video Game Trailers [Ars Technica]

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Why M-Rated Trailers Must Stand Behind a Swinging Gate [Esrb]

The "10 Minute Solution" to Fitness Now Includes a Wii [Fitness]

What’s the difference between Activision’s 10 Minute Solution fitness game for the Wii and established fitness titles like Wii Fit and EA Sports Active? About $40-80. With Wii Fit and EA Sports Active selling like reduced-calorie hotcakes, it was only a matter of time before Activision got in on the game, but what can Activision offer that the other two don’t already cover? How about a budget price? Activision Publishing and Anchor Bay Entertainment have joined forces to create 10 Minute Solution, a casual fitness title based off the popular brand of exercise DVDs, and while the branding might catch the target audience’s eyes, the $19.99 price tag could capture their hearts. After all, the fitness genre is a hop-on point for gaming, and what better way to ease soccer moms into the hobby by giving them a title that costs the same as an exercise DVD? It sure beats spending $99 on Wii Fit Plus with the Balance Board, or $60 for EA Sports Active with accessories. 10 Minute Solution will feature a series of 10 Minute routines, oddly enough, with activities falling into either cardio boxing, mixed games, and aerobics categories. Rather than playing along with an on-screen trainer, 10 Minute Solution plays like a game, and even supports the Wii Balance Board, giving gaming newcomers a cheap way to extend the life of the popular peripheral. “Our legions of 10 Minute Solution DVD users will tell you these simple 10 minute exercises work,” said Julie Cartwright, SVP Marketing at Anchor Bay Entertainment. “We are ecstatic to be partnering with Activision to do something progressive in the fitness gaming space.” And I’m sure Activision is ecstatic about partnering with you. We’ll see if the discount gambit pays off when 10 Minute Solution hits stores later this year. For those of you unfamiliar with the 10 Minute Solution series, here’s a clip from the Knockout Body DVD, in which we see a physically attractive woman exercising in a set made up to look like a house.

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The "10 Minute Solution" to Fitness Now Includes a Wii [Fitness]

Warner Bros. & TT Games Extend LEGO Licensing Agreement (Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy)

LEGO Systems and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has announced a worldwide license agreement for TT Games Publishing to continue developing the highly successful LEGO based videogames across multiple platforms. Operating as part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of WBHEG, TT Games is the publisher and developer behind the award-winning hit LEGO videogame franchises including, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman: The Videogame and LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, which have sold close to 50 million units worldwide.

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Warner Bros. & TT Games Extend LEGO Licensing Agreement (Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy)

Introducing Monday Night Combat’s ‘AmmoMule’ [Clips]

Uber Entertainment’s gunning for a macho future where class-based FPS death is televised live, with sponsorships. No doubt taking a page from Bud Light’s fake “Grooler” and “Foozie” we have something that keeps your ammo fresh and your bacon crispy. If you can’t get enough of shotgun shells and fried meat and need something to tide you over until the game drops for Xbox 360, Uber sends along this here wallpaper , full of buckshot fatback goodness.

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Introducing Monday Night Combat’s ‘AmmoMule’ [Clips]

EA Cuts Deal To Publish Shank, Deathspank [Ea Partners]

Electronic Arts today announced a deal with the developers of Shank and Deathspank to bring the downloadable games to multiple platforms. The publishing deals are part of agreements that Klei and Hothead Games recently signed with EA Partners. While no specific release dates have yet been announced, Shank will be coming to the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this summer, and the current deal includes bringing Deathspank to the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010. Both Deathspank and Shank were showcased at last year’s Penny Arcade Expo and Shank is currently a finalist for “Excellence in Visual Art” at this year’s Independent Games Festival. Taking place in a stylized, modern-Western setting, Shank tells a classic betrayal story directed through a sophisticated cinematic lens, with addictive action gameplay found in classic 2D side-scrolling games, according to EA. In Deathspank, designed by Ron Gilbert, players take on the role of DeathSpank, the Hero to the Downtrodden, a Vanquisher of Evil and Defender of Justice as he fulfills his life-long destiny and searches for a mysterious and magical item only known as “The Artifact”, according to EA. Both deals were finalized under Jamil Moledina, Outreach Director, Business Development at EA Partners, and former executive director of the Game Developers Conference. “This is something we have been working on for a very long time,” Moledina told Kotaku. “Our mission at EA Partners is to work with the best talent across the game industry, and we are thrilled to extend our expertise to the leading creative developers in downloadable indie games.” “The opportunity at the indie development level is extraordinary. There is an opportunity in downloadable games in creativity and freedom to innovate because the don’t have to sell a lot of units and can be more impulse purchase.” Shank developer Jamie Cheng, CEO of Klei Entertainment, said Shank was a work of passion, something that nearly didn’t work out when last December a publisher they had lined up backed out. “We spent nine months creating this and the engine,” Cheng said. “We showed it to the public. Demoed at PAX and I thought people would like it, but I had no idea people would love it the way they did.” He said he was very happy with the deal to publish the game through EA Partners. “They allow us creative control on this game, they trust us to make the game we want to make and get them to a wide audience,” he said. Ian Wilkinson, CEO of Hothead Games, said they decided to work with EA Partners on Deathspank because they “needed more traction” in the digital download space. “We want millions to play this game,” Wilkinson said, “not a million.” Both the deals and Electronic Arts decision to so aggressively expand into digital downloads by bringing big games to the space were, in part, made possible by last year’s tremendous success with DICE’s Battlefield 1943. EA CEO John Riccitiello told our Stephen Totilo at the time that the game’s commercial and critical successes led to EA reexamining that market . Battlefield 1943 resulted in EA delivering a great game that was highly profitable and fun, he said. “We’re learning from that and there will be more like that.” Speaking with Kotaku yesterday, Moledina reaffirmed the game’s impact on this renewed effort. “It played a role in building momentum for this,” he said. “The success of Battlefield 1943 helped prove that you can field a triple-A product game in the impulse category and achieve extraordinary unit sales and do it with a great deal of passion.” You just need to make sure you start with a great game, he added. And a good place to look for some of those great games include places like Penny Arcade Expo, Indicade and the IGF. While Moledina said he couldn’t go into the details of these two latest deals, he did say that there is a desire for EA Partners to be able to publish more than just the single game from each studio.

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EA Cuts Deal To Publish Shank, Deathspank [Ea Partners]

Rumor: Screens From Unannounced Justice League Video Game [Rumor]

Is DC Comics’ Justice League getting a video game adaptation to go along with the possible George Miller-directed , big budget feature film? It sure looks that way. While the big screen version of Justice League may be experiencing a bumpy ride in its trip to theaters, it appears, based on a batch of screen shots sent our way by an anonymous tipsters, that the video game is already in production. While the majority of the shots feature game environments, logos for characters like Batman and Wonder Woman can be seen in some. The Flash and what appears to be Wonder Woman appear in others, as do shots of Superman’s home of Metropolis. The screens were taken from an ex-Shiny Entertainment artist’s online portfolio, the development studio behind movie-to-game adaptations like The Golden Compass and The Matrix: Path of Neo. The developer, part of Double Helix, has also been pegged to a game based on Warner’s Green Lantern film . There are plenty of screens here, which appear to feature environments based on Justice League mainstays Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Superman.

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Rumor: Screens From Unannounced Justice League Video Game [Rumor]

Arc Rise Fantasia Is As Pretty As Eight New Pictures [Screens]

Ignition Entertainment is gearing up to release “the definitive JRPG for the Wii” this summer, and eight new screenshots show us how much that looks like a Namco Bandai Tales of Something title. That’s not a bad thing, of course. In truth, Luminous Arc developer Imageepoch’s first console title is looking quite lovely. Plus the Japanese seemed to really enjoy it when it came out last year, picking up 26,000 copies during the first week of release. I just wish RPG developers would go ahead and figure out which console is going to be the go-to for role-playing games this generation. First there was the Super Nintendo. Then it was the PlayStation, followed by the PlayStation 2. So far this generation it’s pretty even between the Wii and Xbox 360, with the PlayStation 3 slowly catching up. Will there be a clear winner?

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Arc Rise Fantasia Is As Pretty As Eight New Pictures [Screens]

Mile Marker 14: Shank [The Road To The Igf]

Tired of stodgy corporate games made by The Man and his minions? We’re playing the 31 best indie games for a change of pace —- and so we can judge them. Today, Shank. In A Sentence Shank is a fresh new take on the side-scrolling beat-em up, combining a gritty, Spaghetti Western meets animated graphic novel look and feel with a fluid combat system so easy to pick up that even the most hopeless button masher can pull of spectacular combo moves. State Of Completion Klei Entertainment is a studio that subscribes to the “when it’s done” method of announcing game release dates. A playable demo is making the rounds, and should be available at the Independent Games Festival in March, where players can see for themselves why it received a nod for Excellence in Visual Art. Thoughts With art direction from Atomic Betty director Jeffrey Agala, it’s no wonder that Shank was nominated for an Excellence in Visual Art award. From the buff, square-jawed protagonist to its lowliest cannon fodder enemies, the game oozes with character. The comic book panel cutscenes are impressive enough, but the game truly shines once it’s in motion, with animation so fluid you’ll think you’re watching a cartoon. But participating is so much better than watching, and the combo attack system in Shank is gloriously simple. There’s a button for each weapon in Shank’s arsenal – knives, pistols, shotguns, and special weapons like grenades and a chainsaw. The character switches between implements of destruction seamlessly, which makes for plenty of spectacular “I meant to do that” moments. It’s the most fun I’ve had moving left to right in ages. Answers We Demanded Kotaku: What was the inspiration behind your game? Jamie Cheng, Klei Entertainment : I think it was one of those paper-napkin kind of moments. Jeff (Agala, Creative Director) and I came up with the idea as we were discussing what we loved about games of the past, and it dawned on us that we could make a fantastic Double Dragon. More than that, we could take it to crazy levels with animators like Aaron (Bouthillier, Lead Animator), and direct the kind of story that we would love to experience ourselves. From there, the metaphoric dam broke, and inspiration from the amazing controls of “Prince of Persia,” to great story tellers like Tarantino, to fantastic art from “The Preacher” all came forth. My wife rolls her eyes as I continue to purchase games, movies, and graphic novels in the name of “research”. Kotaku: Why video games? There are plenty of ways for a person to express themselves creatively, why did you choose this way? Cheng: Maybe it has something to do with using both sides of the brain. I’m a programmer by trade, and I absolutely love it. That brought me down the road first to being a web-designer, which I hated, then to being a game developer, which I couldn’t get enough of. Obviously, playing games obsessively since I was 4 doesn’t hurt. I even slept-walked about games once, where I tried to have a weird conversation about a SNES game with my parents at 3am. The name of the game escapes me because it was in Japanese – some kind of tactical RPG with monsters. That’s when I was banned from playing games during the weekdays… On a side note, I think I would also have loved being a graphic novelist or a film director. But, if I went down one of those paths, would I be in a position today where I’m creating the work I love and being paid decently for it? Probably not. Kotaku: Who or what are your greatest influences when creating a game? Cheng: One of the strengths at Klei is our diverse background, so we all have different influences. These are mine: Pixar for their masterful storytelling and amazing ability to create worlds that are always surprising and wonderful. Bioware for the clarity of their vision and the quality of their games. Quentin Tarantino for his passion and the way his movies take influences from a crazy depth of knowledge and create something new. “Zelda: the Minish Cap” for the tightness in the design. Make sure to check out the rest of the Independent Games Festival finalists as we head toward the March awards show.

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Mile Marker 14: Shank [The Road To The Igf]

Deadly Premonition Drops to Retail Stores Today for $19.99

Ignition Entertainment announced today that Deadly Premonition is available now exclusively on Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft; it’s a third-person survival-horror action adventure game for $19.99.

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Deadly Premonition Drops to Retail Stores Today for $19.99

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