Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is nearing its release date in both North America (April 15) and Europe (March 28).
However, some gamers may be forgiven for wondering whether to splash their cash on the Prologue or simply wait until the full version of the game, Gran Turismo 5, is released.
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue follows a similar concept as the game Gran Turismo 4: Prologue, which was released in Japan and Europe about a year before Gran Turismo 4. It gave gamers a significant taste of what was to come but fell short of being a full game.
However, those holding their breath for Gran Turismo 5 proper had better have a decent lung capacity. According to Sony America associate producer Chris Hinojosa-Miranda, the game is unlikely to arrive much earlier than this time next year.
In answer to a fan’s pondering on the Official US PlayStation blog as to whether or not to buy the game, Hinojosa-Miranda said, “To further clarify, GT5 is still about a year away. You should just decide now to buy it [Gran Turismo 5: Prologue], enjoy it, go online and race against anyone and everyone, rank number one worldwide, get the girl (or guy), and become the most popular kid in town. The end.”
Earlier this month, Electronic Arts announced that it was taking its unsolicited offer for Take-Two Interactive direct to the shareholders in a hostile bid to gain control of the company after the board rejected its advances.
Analysts were mystified as to why Take-Two would turn down the offer from the megapublisher, which weighed in at $26 a share, or some $2 billion, especially when it would have meant a 64 percent premium for shareholders over Take-Two’s share price before EA went public with its offer.
Once the offer went to the investors, Take-Two asked them to hold on to their stock until it advised what they should do with it–and today, it’s asking them to not sell to EA.
Take-Two has released a statement listing 10 main reasons why it doesn’t want the deal to go ahead, most of which the publisher has previously expressed. These include the its initial assertions that “EA’s offer price is inadequate and substantially undervalues the company,” that the EA offer is “opportunistic” and “had been timed to take advantage of the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV,” as well as the fact that “the EA offer does not reflect progress in the company’s revitalisation efforts.” As for new reasons, the company’s financial advisors, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, agreed with Take-Two executives that the offer price was inadequate. It was also noted that EA’s offer would be taxable, and is “highly conditional.”
The Take-Two shareholder advisory concluded that the offer was “contrary to the best interests of Take-Two’s stockholders.” Accordingly, it recommended that those with Take-Two stock not sell to EA.
The company also took further action to make a hostile takeover more difficult–following on from its taking up a severance plan for executives and other employees in the event of termination following a takeover. Today, among other things, it also changed the date and time of its annual meeting to April 17 at 6:30 p.m. (EDT), adopted a stockholder rights agreement, and established a “poison pill” clause that would allow for the creation of new shares in the company if any individual shareholder acquires 20 percent or more of the company in the next 180 days. The poison pill would also be triggered if an investor currently over that threshold acquired an extra 2 percent of the company.
In addition, the Take-Two board will be “exploring alternatives” to a takeover by EA, which might include a business combination with third parties (or even with EA itself), remaining independent, or “other strategic or financial alternatives that could deliver a higher stockholder value than the current EA offer.” It said it has already received “indications of interest” from other third parties, although “no substantive discussions have yet occurred.”
Take-Two’s chairman of the board, Strauss Zelnick, commented, “We are effectively working toward a process to review all available options to maximize this value, either as an independent company or in combination with a third party, and are open to beginning informal discussions starting now. Our stockholders’ interests would hardly be served by accepting an offer from EA at the wrong price and the wrong time.”
Michael Pachter, senior analyst with Wedbush Morgan, called Take-Two’s decision a mistake. He maintained his surprise at Take-Two’s continued rejection of the EA offer, and expressed his doubt that it would get any better suitors.
“We think the board has virtually no chance of finding a better offer,” Pachter said. “The EA offer has been public for 31 days, and we believe the company is not in discussions with any other party. This deal, in our opinion, makes more sense for EA than for any other company, primarily because of the synergies from consolidation of the two companies’ sports businesses. No other company is in the position to realise those synergies, which we believe are substantial.”
Instead of refusing the offer and closing negotiations, Pachter thinks Take-Two could have extracted a higher offer from EA in return for the prospect of a friendly takeover as opposed to a hostile one. He added, “We think that Take-Two’s position that the company will have greater value after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV is naive at best, and disingenuous at worst… The absence of other offers in the interim suggests to us that EA values Take-Two more highly than any other interested party, and we are confounded that Take-Two’s board believes that other parties will be willing to pay more than $26 after the release of the game.”
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Nearly two years ago, 50 Cent and Genuine Games stupefied the gang-banging crowd with 50 Cent: Bulletproof for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Though it was promptly pistol-whipped by critics for its myriad shortcomings, Bulletproof reached certifiably platinum status, selling nearly 1,030,000 copies in the US across its two platforms, with an additional 72,000 units sold of the 2006 PlayStation Portable overhead shooter G Unit Edition. (Sales data comes courtesy of the NPD Group.)
Numbers such as those are difficult to dispute, so it comes with little surprise that Vivendi is prepping an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 follow-up, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. Speaking with MTV, Vivendi Games producer Aaron Blean said Blood in the Sand will feature the rapper-turned-media mogul in a “Three Kings meets Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels crime-story” semisequel to the original urban gangster shooter. Though story details are still under wraps, Fiddy will reportedly battle “a cabal of international gangsters on a far-flung, bullet-riddled adventure.”
Swordfish Studios (Cold Winter) will be handling development duties for the project, and the development outfit has licensed Epic Games’ near-ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3 to aid it in that process. Taking cues from Epic’s Gears of War, gamers will primarily be dropped into the shoes of 50 Cent while being accompanied by a second character, with G Unit entourage Tony Yayo, Whoo Kid, and Lloyd Banks thus far named as selectable for the rapper’s partner in global defense. As with Gears, co-op play will be available locally or online.
MTV also reports that Blood in the Sand will feature more than just the first game’s shoot-’em-up gameplay, as both land- and air-based vehicle missions will be factored into the game. Like Bulletproof, however, the game will feature a variety of promotional media, including exclusive first-looks at videos and movies featuring the oft-perforated artist.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is expected to hit consoles this fall.
MIAMI–James Blake is sliding around on the clay court at Roland Garros Stadium like he’s skating on ice. A perfectly timed slice shot from Roger Federer is heading his way, aimed at the rear corner of the court. Blake speeds his way across the baseline, plants his front foot with his sneaker skidding across the clay, rears back with his racquet
It was almost four years ago that Digital Extremes announced it was working on Dark Sector, a third-person action game now available for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Better action games have come and gone since then, regardless of which console you own, but the good news is that those same games have left their mark on Dark Sector, which borrows liberally from Gears of War and is at times reminscent of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Dark Sector’s story isn’t nearly as interesting or told nearly as well as that of either of the aforementioned games, but if you step into the boots of elite black-ops agent Hayden Tenno solely for satisfying combat, then you won’t be disappointed.
The prologue mission is a great way to familiarize yourself with basic gunplay controls.
The single-player game starts off promisingly with a moody black-and-white prologue mission set some 20 years before the events of the other nine levels. Getting comfortable with the controls used for gunplay and for getting in and out of cover should take you no time at all as you battle your way through it, and it won’t take you long to realize that the enemies you’re facing are smart enough to employ a lot of the same tactics that you do in the interest of self-preservation. The story gets underway with a bang as well–a few bangs, actually–but as you progress through the game, the story rarely feels like it’s moving along with you. Characters come and go without giving you any reason to care about them, you travel between locations killing everything that moves without really knowing why, and new abilities are frequently added to your formidable arsenal without explanation. Dark Sector’s lack of good storytelling shouldn’t hamper your enjoyment of the game too much because cutscenes are infrequent and brief. Nonetheless, it’s unfortunate that a protagonist as fun to play as Hayden doesn’t have a great narrative to back him up.
To simply refer to Hayden as a killing machine would be to downplay just how overpowered you can feel at times while playing as him. The skills with conventional firearms that you learn in the prologue mission stay with you for the entire game, but even as increasingly powerful weapons become available to you, you’ll find that you spend far less time using them. That’s because throwing the glaive that grows from his right hand early on is a more elegant, powerful, and satisfying way to dispatch foes than any gun. Initially, the glaive is used simply as a projectile weapon that comes back to you like a boomerang after every throw, making enemy decapitations and severed limbs a rare treat. However, when you gain the ability to add aftertouch to your throws, it becomes an even deadlier projectile that you can steer around corners and over obstacles to butcher enemies in glorious slow motion. The PS3 game supports an option to steer the glaive by moving the motion-sensitive Sixaxis controller, but the right analog stick does a better job. Applying aftertouch not only makes slicing up enemies easier, but also affords you a front-row seat for the kill because you get to see everything from the glaive’s perspective. Decapitating enemies this way never gets old, though some of the glaive’s other uses definitely do.
The glaive isn’t just an awesomely powerful weapon; it’s a veritable Swiss Army knife that can be used to unlock doors, open ammo crates, and pick up items that would otherwise be out of reach. The uses for Dark Sector’s answer to Link’s boomerang don’t end there, though, because with a little help from the elements your glaive can be used to light torches, create columns of ice, and even put out fires. By hitting specific items scattered throughout the world, it’s possible to imbue your glaive with electricity, ice, or fire for a short time, at which point using it to kill enemies becomes more satisfying than ever. Nevertheless, that’s rarely the reason why you’re afforded access to an element; more often than not, the elements are needed to overcome environmental obstacles or to solve simplistic (though occasionally challenging, timed) puzzles. For example, sheets of black goop stretched across doorways have to be burned before you can progress, and mechanically sealed doors can be opened only with an electric charge. Puzzles like these crop up a little too frequently in Dark Sector and, given that you don’t even have to think about them after the first occurrence, it doesn’t take long for them to feel like chores that you have to complete before you’re allowed to progress and have fun playing with enemies again.
Killing enemies with the glaive is a lot more satisfying than using a gun.
Dark Sector’s impressive combat sequences are also broken up with exploration, which becomes a necessary evil as you realize that searching every nook and cranny of an area before progressing to the next is the only way to find ammo, currency, and weapon upgrades. Money can be used to buy new weapons on the black market, which is conveniently located under every manhole you come across. It’s important to buy and upgrade both a pistol (which you wield simultaneously with the glaive) and either a rifle or shotgun at some point, because weapons that you pick up from slain enemies function only for a short time before they’re automatically disabled. There’s a reason they do that, but going into it here would risk spoiling one of the story’s very few twists for you. Weapons on the black market are extremely expensive, so despite the range of options to choose from, you shouldn’t expect to own even half of them by the time you reach the boss at the end of your first play-through.
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