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PsychoSy
05-07-03, 03:17 PM
Some recent morsels on the gaming front.

Vampire: The Masquade - Bloodlines has ditched the Unreal engine for the Half Life 2 Engine. Bloodlines will combine first-person action with role-playing elements, and it is being developed by Troika Games, the studio that was responsible for the 2001 RPG Arcanum, and which was also founded by RPG veterans Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, who helped create the Fallout role-playing game series.

Inforgrames, publisher of Unreal Tournament 2K3 and Enter The Matrix has announced that, effective immediately, their name will change to Atari. The French-American developer & publisher has been using the Atari moniker for some time. The Atari name has changed hands many times over the years because the corporation and arcade departments were seperate entities. When the corporation went bust, JTS bought it from the Tramiel brothers while Time Warner bought the arcade division until selling their entire interactive division to Midway Games prior to the AOL merger.

Hasbro Interactive snagged the corporate rights from JTS in the late 90s and used it to revamp classic titles in 3D such as Asteroids and Centipede. Hasbro Interactive was then sold off to Inforgrames. Midway Games had renamed the Atari arcade division when they bought it in the mid 90s and recently closed the vintage facilities in Milpitas down earlier this year.

Sega is set to merge with either two Japanese game gurus. Originally, Sega was given a merger offer by Namco but talks derailed shortly after. But earlier this year, Sammy Corporation announced interest in Sega and issued an offer and it has forced Sega to forgo merger talks until they get to fully scrutinize Sammy's assets sometime this month. Namco has since put pressure on Sega demanding that they make a decision within 9 days. My money is on Sega taking the Namco deal.

Konami of Japan is teasing gamers at its website with a "Hungry For Some Snake?" tagline along with a picture of a snake wrapping itself around a map of what appears to be Russia complete with the Caspian Sea. They also have a countdown to E3, too. Look out Sam Fischer...Konami looks poised to show some Metal Gear Solid 3 footage!!

Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Tides Of War has shipped for the Xbox. This souped up version of the PC game supports X-Box Live while the PS2 version doesn't support any online modes.

Famitzu magazine is reporting that Tecmo is developing Dead Or Alive Online for the X-Box. DOA Online will be a compilation of the first and second games of the series. DOA 1 will have the graphical quality of the Dreamcast version while DOA 2 will sport enhanced graphics of the X-Box. Rumors state it'll be in playable form at E3.

vampireuk
05-07-03, 03:18 PM
Great news with the Vampire: The Masquade, I have to pick up the original copy sometime. I've always been meaning to get it:D

eL_PuSHeR
05-07-03, 03:31 PM
Do you mean Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption? Check your spelling... :D

sytaylor
05-08-03, 01:49 AM
Originally posted by PsychoSy
DOA 1 will have the graphical quality of the Dreamcast version while DOA 2 will sport enhanced graphics of the X-Box. Rumors state it'll be in playable form at E3.

DOA1 was a saturn game, DOA2 was a dreamcast game that has already been ported to PS2 and Xbox. DOA3 has been in development for some time. :)

patm
05-08-03, 04:09 PM
DOA3 is a game that only came out for Xbox. DOA2 was ported to PS2 as DOA2 Hardcode. DOA4 is the newest version in development.

St Lobus
05-08-03, 07:01 PM
I'll be the first to say I love DOA 3. It's a gorgeous game, lots of fun with 4 peopel tagging in and out against each other, and has some neat characters like Ein and Hayabusa. But, I will also say it's not really anything too different than DOA 2, which is also fun. This next Dead or Alive will hopefully have some new fighters and fighting styles added.

So, I'll agree, Dead or Alive 3 is still in development. :)

saturnotaku
05-08-03, 08:24 PM
See I disagree. DOA3 is one of the (if not the) cheapest fighting game I've ever played. It was hardly any fun at all. About all it had going for it was eye candy and DOAX surpassed that by a long shot.

I sure hope DOA 4 will have a better fighting engine.

PsychoSy
05-09-03, 12:49 AM
Tekken 4 was a huge letdown - just a rehash of Tekken 3 with slightly better graphics and a few characters getting a sex-change. DOA3 disappointed me in all the categories Ed mentioned and it basically boils down to who is faster as reversals. It's a damned turtlefest.

Until Tecmo and Namco remove their heads out of their asses and offer something innovative and less of a rehash of former attempts, the only fighting games worth owning are MK Deadly Alliance, Virtua Fighter 4, and Soul Calibur 2.

News Update

Sega decided not to merge with Sammy. Today was their deadline to answer Namco for a merger but something worse happened - Namco pulled their offer after Sega backed out of the Sammy deal and basically told Sega, "When you're done crapping, get off the pot and present us with an offer. Until then, you're wasting everyone's time playing the waiting game..."

Yikes! :angel:

sytaylor
05-09-03, 01:19 AM
Originally posted by PsychoSy
Tekken 4 was a huge letdown - just a rehash of Tekken 3 with slightly better graphics and a few characters getting a sex-change.

That is all that game, and its myriad of sequels has ever been :p

DOA2 (or DOA3 on the xbox, its pretty much the same thing), i quite liked, it takes some of its que's from virtua fighter and lsips in its own lil style. No soul calibur though