Entertainment Electronics Blog

After ten years, two cancellations and a whole lot of sweat and tears, fan-made King’s Quest sequel The Silver Lining will finally see release next month.

According to an email received by 1UP minutes ago, developer Phoenix Online finally received the blessing of King’s Quest rights holder Activision to release the game.

The game — titled The Silver Lining — will be released episodically starting July 10 with a debut chapter titled “What is Decreed Must Be.” The remaining episodes, according to Phoenix, will all be released this year.

The Silver Lining is a fan-made follow-up to the legendary King’s Quest series of adventure games from Sierra Online, which saw eight titles released between 1984 and 1998. The project — initially conceived as the ninth game in the series — began development nearly a decade ago.

Development halted in 2005 when rights holder Vivendi sent the team a cease & desist notice. Thanks to outcry from fans that included a letter-writing campaign, Vivendi relented and allowed the project to continue, albeit without the King’s Quest title.

The rights to King’s Quest were later inherited by Activision, who then halted the game’s development yet again earlier this year. Things looked bleak for the project until today’s announcement.

The game’s official website is here and the brand new trailer is embedded below.

Among the offerings present in Capcom’s E3 booth is Ghost Trick, a brand-new DS adventure game from the makers of the Ace Attorney series. If you’re expecting a rehash, think again — in a way, this game is Capcom’s way of avoiding the rut that adventures often fall into, the exact rut that some have accused Ace Attorney of traversing after five games.

“Adventure games on consoles tend to break down into a ‘try every option until something works’ process,” producer Hironobu Takeshita told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. “There’s very little gameplay and very little for the player to actually think about. With this game, you get hints along the way for what to do within each four-minute vignette, but it’s still up to you to figure out the trick involved. You have to come up with the right answer at the right time, and it’s something you have to think over and deduce by yourself. That’s how we kept this from being a typical ‘try everything’ adventure.”

“You’re constantly getting the positive feedback of finding the answer locked within these four-minute dramas,” adds Shu Takumi, director of Ghost Trick and the main man behind the Ace Attorney series. “I think it’s the same sort of feeling as what you get when you finally unravel a mystery.”

In Ghost Trick you play Sissel, a recently-deceased man who uses his ghostly ability to possess items and try to prevent murders from happening. Each stage of the game begins four minutes before the murder’s pulled off, and Sissel must form a plan of action with the items at his disposal and pull it off at just the right moment to keep the would-be victim from getting offed. “The thing that really impressed me was the text part of the game, the conversations between characters,” Famitsu wrote in their preview. “There’s a real wit and tempo to them, and it makes Ghost Trick as fun to ‘read’ as it is to ‘play.’ The text, by itself, is the motivation that fueled my desire to keep playing.”

The story’s one aspect of it, of course, but Takumi also wanted to keep the game as quickly-paced as possible to keep people from getting bored. “We aimed to keep things proceeding at a speedy pace in the first half of the game,” he said. “The story starts to go more in-depth in the second half before breaking out some major twists, and it’d be nice if a lot of gamers feel compelled to play through to the end.”

What sort of gamer is Takumi shooting for, exactly? “This was the case for Ace Attorney as well, but I’d like people who don’t play games too often to give this a try,” he responded. “We tried to keep the game as simple as possible for that reason. For example, you’re only able to perform one type of action with each object you can possess — in the beginning, we were going to allow multiple actions that you chose from depending on context. We decided it’d be better to go in a direction that didn’t make the game complex to control. We could have made the game more complex, but considering that we want gamers to enjoy the story here, it’d be pointless. It’s a hard thing to balance correctly.”

Ghost Trick is due out late this year in the States, but it’s hitting Japanese store shelves next week, and Takumi couldn’t be more proud. “We had a really good environment set up for this project,” he concluded. “I was directing an incredibly talented team, and we had the time to really work on this game until we were truly satisfied with it. It’s a game I have supreme confidence in.”

Metal Gear Solid Rising, revealed in all its slice-and-dice glory at this year’s E3, is not your typical MGS. For one, Hideo Kojima isn’t directing it. He was the guy at Microsoft’s press event, yes, but he’s actually the executive producer on Rising — the real trench work is being handled by creative producer Shigenobu Matsuyama and project manager/director Mineshi Kimura.

“Rising was meant from the start to be a game created by a new generation of designers, and Kojima told us not to worry too much about previous MGS titles,” Matsuyama told Famitsu magazine this week. “Outside of the basic framework, we’ve got total freedom,” Kimura added. “For a game creator, being someplace where you can make whatever you want is the best thing you could hope for, even with all the responsibility it creates.”

That design approach isn’t the only thing new with this MGS — something made obvious when you see all the ass-kicking that takes place in the official E3 trailer. “Our aim here was to produce an MGS different in style from what’s come before,” Matsuyama commented. “Even in stealth sections, we wanted a sense of speed, the sort of speed that Raiden is capable of. Our main emphasis during development is less on stealth and more on the swordfighting action.” (Not that stealth maniacs should be alarmed that Rising is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. “You can choose, to some extent, how you want to play this game,” Kimura noted. “You can proceed along stealthily like other games in the series, or if you think you’re up for it, you’re free to plunge right into crowds of enemies.”)

Kojima Productions, as you’d expect, isn’t talking much about the plot quite yet. When asked if you use the sword the whole game or switch characters midway MGS2-style, Kimura demurred: “Unfortunately I can’t talk story details at the moment, but in terms of the gameplay system, we’re retaining the stealth aspect while pushing the swordfighting as well. Take what you will from that.”

“There’s really a lot you can do with your sword here,” Matsuyama added. “There are little games you can play, such as seeing how many times you can slice something you’re juggling in the air, sort of like keepie uppie with a soccer ball.” Except with people, right? “People aren’t excluded from that,” he admitted, “but there’s a difference between attacking cyborgs or robots and attacking human beings. This is true in other MGS games, but we don’t encourage gamers to kill everything in sight. At our core is the idea that there’s a certain virtue to simply disabling your enemies instead of killing them. We’re trying a lot of new things in this game, but that’s one aspect we wanted to keep.”

There’s a method to all this swordfighting madness — where you strike is just as important as who. “Being able to cut off anything you want is one of the core concepts of this game,” Matsuyama explained. “It’s not like you score a ‘hit’ no matter how you hit your opponent — you can change the angle of your attack to aim for and slice off certain parts of his body.” Kimura went into some more detail: “There’s a strategic element behind this system because depending on which sections you slice off of cyborgs or robots, you’ll earn different rewards. In the media we’re showing off now, you can see Raiden cutting off the motion system of a cyborg soldier, removing the battery and absorbing its energy — that’s how Raiden can heal himself and earn other powers.” (Meaning that the Raiden we’re seeing here is the one from MGS4, when he went all ninja-cyborg? “That’s correct,” Matsuyama said. “Timewise, this game takes place between MGS2 and MGS4, although this certainly isn’t the Raiden you saw in MGS4. He looks a little more…I don’t know, villainous here? You’ll be learning how he made the transformation into the character you saw in MGS4 in this game’s story.”)

The sword mayhem here is both deep and complex, but it’s not like you can cut through absolutely everything. “You can slice through some parts of the environment, such as columns and walls,” Kimura explained. “We could’ve made it possible to cut anything in the game, but that would’ve made it too ’sandbox’ and hard to play. That’s why we put that limit in. You aren’t able to slice up every part of an enemy’s body at will, either — some enemies might be wearing heavy armor, and it’ll be your task to weave your sword between the cracks, so to speak, as you strike. It’s a new form of gameplay we were aiming for, and the ability to so freely control your sword makes it possible.”

There’s no doubt that Matsuyama and Kimura are aiming high with Rising — “I’m hoping we can create a new standard for Kojima Productions,” as Matsuyama put it — and it’ll be interesting to see how the project grows and matures from this initial showing.

Ubisoft revealed Project Dust at their E3 press conference earlier this week, the new game from Out of this World creator Eric Chahi. But in a new Q&A with Chahi released by Ubisoft, Chahi reveals Project Dust is taking inspiration from another classic PC game: Populous.

“Project dust is the spiritual heir to Populous,” Chahi explains. “The game is set in an extreme version of Planet Earth where nature unleashes her power in a much more violent way than what we are used to.” This includes tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions (which, sadly, kind of sounds exactly like the real Planet Earth these days), and the game is about using powers to harness these disasters and their elements to help the people of the planet survive.

“In this kind of God game, users will play with powers to manipulate the world around them,” Chahi further explains. “Ground, water, lava, fire, plants, and trees — model the world like a child playing sand castles on the beach. With such powers, players will help their people resist, expand and migrate so they can accomplish their quest to find a safe place.”

But Populous isn’t the only inspiration behind Project Dust — Chahi also sites a 1999 trip to the Yasur crater in Vanuatu, and also Rez “because music is an important part the universe of the game.”

Project Dust is coming in spring of 2011.

Word out of THQ is a Saints Row movie will arrive alongside the next game in the series. U.K. gaming site CVG overheard THQ vice president of core games Danny Bilson discussing plans for the upcoming film at an E3 meeting.

“What we have coming on Saints Row — and we’ll announce it in December — is the most robust transmedia play on any game ever done,” explained Bilson. “We will have a movie with a major filmmaker that will be tied to our content and we will be ideally day-and-date with that movie.”

The publisher has previously stated that Saints Row 3 is expected sometime in fiscal 2012 — sometime between April 2011 and April 2012 — so there’s still a little time to get the ball rolling on a movie. Let’s just hope that by “major filmmaker” they don’t mean Uwe Boll.

As for the game itself, Bilson said Saints Row 3 wouldn’t be shown at E3 this year. “We’ve spent an extra year rebuilding the technology for this game,” the core games VP revealed. “It is absolutely gorgeous and still completely insane.”

There was also talk of a huge merchandise push for Saints Row 3, including a collectible card game and books. “Most of these deals are already in place. I believe we’re going to announce this at the Spike awards in December,” Bilson said.

You can also expect some of the first footage of Saints Row 3 to debut on the Spike VGAs this December. Until then, if THQ manages to strike a deal with a movie studio for the proposed film, we’ll be sure to let you know.

You Don’t Know Jack — the cult classic trivia game dating back to 1995 — may be making a comeback.

Mike Bilder of series creator Jellyvision made a guest appearance on the Giant Bomb Podcast during E3 last week, where the deal was teased. This was later followed up by a cryptic post on Jellyvision’s website, which promises more news about the partnership will be coming soon.

Jellyvision’s intent to return to the traditional games business was first revealed in an August, 2008 press release, where Bilder said that the company would be “truly reincarnating You Don’t Know Jack” before moving on to “fully exploring” the interactive game show genre with new franchises.

We’ll have updates as soon as more information is available.

Looks like shooter fans will have to wait even longer to get their hands on Brink. Publisher Bethesda Softworks confirmed with VG247 that the Splash Damage-developed FPS won’t make it to retailers this year.
The multiplayer-focused shooter already missed its planned spring 2010 release, but now it’s being pushed back even further. Don’t expect to see Brink on store shelves until sometime in 2011.

Be sure to check out our latest E3 coverage of Brink to see whether or not Splash Damage’s shooter is worth the wait.

The newly announced publishing deal between Activision and Bungie has significant impact on both companies (and even Microsoft), but one company that hasn’t been mentioned much is Sony. After years of Microsoft exclusivity, this deal finally means we’ll be seeing Bungie games appear on the PlayStation 3.

The company’s press release mentioned “multiple platforms,” which led to speculation of PS3 development. It was confirmed by Sony senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold, via Twitter. “Congrats to Bungie,” he said. “Marrying their creative minds and incredible talent to the power of PS3 will be like giving PS3 fans Halo on steroids.” Of course, no jump to multi-platform would be complete without a little corporate cattiness.

It isn’t terribly surprising given the nature of the news — Activision is a multi-platform publisher, after all. Bungie broke away from Microsoft exclusivity in 2007, and Halo Reach will be the final piece of their deal with the console manufacturer. The press release seems to indicate that Bungie is developing one particular new franchise with Activision, but still has the freedom to make other games with other publishers as they like. If Bungie intends to launch any other new titles, Microsoft or Sony could court them for exclusivity.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is fresh out the gate, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier still has a few months to go, but there are apparently two more Tom Clancy games under development at Ubisoft. Eurogamer discovered as much when they translated a Dutch interview with Tom Clancy brand manager Michel Verheijdt.

“At this moment I’m working on two Tom Clancy games which have just gone in development,” Verheijdt told Control Online. “I can’t say anything about it, or I’ll have to send Sam Fisher after you.”

It seems likely that at least one of these unannounced titles will be a return to the popular Rainbow Six franchise, especially when you consider that it’s been over two years since we last heard from the series. As for the other mystery project, it’s just about anyone’s guess at this point. Sequels to EndWar or H.A.W.X. are both strong possibilities, as are entirely original games — or maybe we’ll finally get that Sum of All Fears remake we’ve all been dying to play. Keep your fingers crossed, Affleck fans.

We’ll keep you posted as the official details crop up.

Activision may be planning to shut down Infinity Ward after completion of the second Modern Warfare 2 map pack, reports CVG. “Continued defections from their Infinity Ward studio have created meaningful uncertainty around the future of their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise,” wrote Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey in an investor note. “We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise.” He may be referring to Treyarch and Sledgehammer, both of which have been tapped for future Call of Duty titles, but haven’t worked on a Modern Warfare yet.

Keep in mind that, for the time being, this is only speculation from an analyst. If it proves true, Activision will be putting the final nail in the golden goose’s coffin. Even as leadership has flooded from the studio, Activision has retained the Infinity Ward name; if they shut down the studio, even that will be gone. Don’t worry too much about the staff, though; we’re sure most of them can find jobs at some other studio.