Entertainment Electronics Blog

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.

We’ve heard next to nothing about the Shadow of the Colossus movie since we heard last year that Justin Marks, writer of the spectacularly awful Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, was working on a script. We still have no concrete details about it, but Marks was tapped for a quote in an LA Times story (via CVG) about the popularity of 3D films and was credited as writer of the Shadow of the Colossus film.

“3D continues to speak to the elimination of the middle creatively,” he said in the story. “If you don’t have an action tentpole that can conceivably be thought of in 3D, you may as well make small indie movies because the studios aren’t going to be that interested.”

Given that statement, it’s hard to think that he would then go and work on a SotC movie that isn’t in 3D. And with 3D being all the craze, surely Sony would want to go all out with a new action movie. It’s not confirmation of anything, but given the current trend, 3D seems like a safe bet.

Somewhat lost in the controversy surrounding Infinity Word is the fact that another Call of Duty will be out this year, this time from Treyarch. That game is set to be revealed this week later this week over on Gametrailers.
The announcement will be accompanied by a teaser trailer that will put to rest the speculation that has surrounded the game for several months now. With Activision now ready to move on from World War II, word is that Treyarch is tackling the Vietnam War.

That speculation was bolstered back in February when Activision put out a casting for major characters from the real-life Military Assistance Command Vietnam, which was active from 1964 – 1972.

As described in the casting call, the four characters are the “fiercely patriotic” leader Frank Barnes, the “physically fit” Joseph Lewis, 15-year veteran Jason Hudson and Russian-born martial arts expert and CIA operative Kristina Ivanova. It’s rumored to be similar to films like Platoon and Apocalypse Now.

We’ll know more when the trailer air this Friday. The game itself will likely be out in November.

Tony Hawk: Ride wasn’t particularly well-received, but it appears that Activision is gamely moving ahead with a sequel. In a recent tweet, Tony Hawk suggested that his next project was already underway.
“Just met with [Robomodo] about our next project and it’s already much better than I expected. Details soon. Chicago is not warm,” Hawk wrote.

At the recent Spike VGAs, Hawk expressed confidence that Ride could be “a flagship for other games.” Asked whether additional games might utilize the PS3 Motion Controller or Project Natal, he said, “Why not?”

Whatever form it ends up taking, we’re definitely in for more Tony Hawk games. Keep that skateboard peripheral ready.