World Premiere: Too Human Combat video

G4 has uploaded a world premiere combat video of \’Too Human.\’

Kung Fu Panda demo now avialable

The Kung Fu Panda demo is now available on LIVE for Canada and the US. The demo will be available in other regions on or about the time the movie is released in that Xbox LIVE region. Prepare for Kung Fu action awesomeness! In this demo, adventure as Po and unleash his legendary skills against Tai Lung\’s forces. In the full game, play as Po on his quest to become the Dragon Warrior, and the Furious Five, the masters of Kung Fu. Play single player, or play with friends in multiplayer modes.

FINAL FANTASY XI 2008 Edition coming May

Square Enix today announces the forthcoming release of FINAL FANTASY XI 2008 Edition (PC/Xbox 360), available from 23rd May. The 2008 Edition contains all four expansion packs, Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan and the latest expansion pack Wings of the Goddess. The game is also the first ever cross-platform massively multiplayer online game, you\’ll unite with other warriors as they save their world from utter destruction.

Tecmo Bowl kicking off on DS

Nearly a year ago, Tecmo teased gamers with news of a new installment in its original football franchise, Tecmo Bowl. All the publisher said at the time was that the game would arrive in 2008 and that it was “not going to be on the platform you’re thinking of right now.”

Are you adequately prepared for some American sporting events?

It appears people weren’t thinking about the Nintendo DS, as Tecmo today announced Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the handheld. Based on the Tecmo Super Bowl games of the 1990s, Kickoff will include series staples like an arcade-style approach to the gridiron and cutscenes to emphasize big plays. The game may not have an NFL license due to Electronic Arts’ exclusivity deal with the league, but Kickoff will feature a default 32-team league and customizable squads that allow users to choose colors, emblems, names, and more. Gamers will also be able to create their own playbooks.

The DS debut of Tecmo Bowl will use the system’s Wi-Fi abilities for local and online multiplayer matches, and the touch screen can be used to control players. Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff is scheduled for release this fall and has not yet been rated.

Wii Fit Hands-On

Grand Theft Auto IV may be hitting all the headlines, but in the UK at least, Wii Fit is putting up a fight with Rockstar’s crime sim for chart domination. There has been some discussion over whether it can actually be called a game, especially since Nintendo is marketing it as a tool for fitness, but Wii Fit’s designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, maintains that it is also a fun game to play with friends. With that in mind, we got up off our gaming couch to limber up for a few hours of Wii Fit to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

If you’re overweight in real life, expect to see your Mii suddenly adorned with a big beer belly.

The package, which retails for £69.99 in the UK ($138.16), consists of the Wii Fit disc and the new balance board peripheral. The balance board, which is a white wireless pair of electronic scales, measures shifts in weight in order to monitor things such as balance, movement, and pressure. Before it can do that, it needs to be set up to recognise your weight, height, and body mass index, which it can then monitor over time to help you reach your fitness goals.

The setup process is a little bit lengthy, but in traditional Nintendo style there’s an element of play involved in finding out just how unhealthy you are. The first step is to choose or create the Mii character who will represent you in the game. This character is then dropped into the Wii Fit menu system and will act as your avatar when you play through the main game. Before that, though, there’s some history, mainly about how the world’s posture has been deteriorating. Nintendo puts that down to two things: a lack of exercise and age-weakened muscles. As you’re warned of fat accumulation and something called metabolic syndrome, the onscreen balance board begins to shake in fear, but there’s no need to worry, it assures you–as long as you play Wii Fit every day that is!

After the doom-and-gloom medical warning, it’s on to the actual calibration of the machine. Wii Fit uses your height, date of birth, and weight to work out your BMI, against which you’re categorised as either underweight, ideal, overweight, or obese. With that taken into account, your Mii character changes to reflect your current BMI, growing a belly for “overweight” or “obese” or shrinking down for “underweight.” You can also choose to see your actual weight in stone or kilograms, although only the narcissistic among you may choose to reveal such information. Thankfully, you can password-protect your stats to keep them out of the view of nosy friends.

Wii Fit then issues you your first balance test to work out your athletic ability and Wii Fit age. This involves shifting the emphasis of weight between each leg so that, for example, 60 percent is on your right leg and 40 percent is on your left. The more accurate you are at doing this repeatedly within the 30-second limit, the greater your athletic ability and the lower your Wii Fit age. While playing the game among a number of people, we didn’t see anyone attain a Wii Fit age lower than their actual age, and it usually indicated that our physical ability was around 10 years above our actual age.

Thankfully, Wii Fit lets you set a goal for your weight loss or, depending on your condition, weight gain. Wii Fit will advise you of how far you have to go to reach your target BMI, and you can set a weight-change plan to work towards this. The game can recognise if your weight change is unhealthy and will advise you to stick to a plan of changing your weight by only a few pounds every couple of weeks. Nevertheless, you can review your weight-loss plan every fortnight if you want to change your goals, while the game keeps a tally of the amount of time you put into the exercises with the FitPiggy–a piggy bank that collects all the time you’ve spent working out in the game. New games are unlocked at 10-minute intervals, so you don’t have to play for long to open up more challenges.

You can choose either a male or a female trainer. It’s uncanny how everyone always picks the opposite sex…

Guiding you through the game is either a male or a female training instructor, whom you can view from different angles in order to fully grasp the moves they perform during exercises. The instructor will also dish out tips based on the feedback the game gets through the balance board. This includes advice to straighten your spine in the yoga class or to slow down during the repetitive muscle exercises. There are four types of exercises in Wii Fit: yoga, muscle workouts, aerobic exercises, and balance games. Each of these categories has four games opened at the start (with the exception of muscle workouts, which has five), and the more you play, the more you can unlock.

The aerobic exercises and balance games are the most traditional gamelike challenges in Wii Fit, although the game does advise you to push yourself in the yoga and muscle workouts categories for the most efficient fat burning. Aerobic exercises include hula hoop, step basics, jogging, and two-player jogging, the latter of which can be played cooperatively as long as you have two Wii Remotes. By putting the remote in your pocket and jogging on the spot, Wii Fit is able to monitor your burn rate and advises you how fast to run to minimise the strain on your muscles. The step basics mode is great fun, testing your sense of rhythm by having you play a basic version of a dance mat game. Jumping on stage with a bunch of other Miis, you have to move on and off the balance board in time to the music, with an onscreen guide showing you when and where your feet should be.

The balance game section contains nine quite tricky games to test your balance, four of which you can play from the off. Two are skiing based: one a slalom and one a jump. Another is based on football, in which you need to move your body to header oncoming balls and miss the pandas and football boots. Table tilt is a fiendishly difficult take on Mercury Meltdown, where you must use your body weight to tilt a maze to get a ball to fall through a hole. It can be incredibly difficult to do this during the later stages with more than four balls onscreen, but it’s strangely addictive and very taxing on the legs.

The muscle workouts are where Wii Fit really gets taxing, and with regular use it should have a noticeable effect on your physique. The standard gym favourites are present from the start, including press-ups, twists, and lunges, and you can choose to do a different number of repetitions each time you play. Again, the balance board measures your shift in balance and can tell when you’re doing a proper press-up–half-baked efforts will go unrecorded and will result in a lower overall grade. Likewise, the board is very accurate at measuring your wobbly legs as you struggle to adopt the tree position during yoga, and the clear scoring system can make it quite a competitive game to play against your friends.

As well as aiming to improve your overall fitness, Wii Fit highlights your balance and weight distribution, so as to reduce everyday wear and tear on joints and muscles.

The monitoring system keeps track of your daily progress, marking the days you’ve played as well as any change in your BMI and centre of gravity. The game places an emphasis on good posture, so as well as tracking your overall health, it aims to improve your centre of balance to minimise the stress of everyday life on your body. Graphical representation of the data also makes it easy to see how you’re progressing towards your goal, and you can even add exercises done outside of Wii Fit, such as running, swimming, or just plain walking–perfect for those with an active lifestyle…and dirty cheaters.

We really like what we’ve seen of Wii Fit, and it has enough charm to be both a fun game and a real way of getting more exercise. There’s clear scope for the balance board too, as it’s another relatively simple peripheral for the Wii with a lot of potential uses. We’d have loved to see some sort of online integration for Wii Fit, with daily tips or the ability to compare progress with friends, but it’s still great fun to compete against people locally. Look out for a full review of Wii Fit when it launches worldwide later this month.

-If Its Games

Aussie game charts: April 21-27

Wii owners pounced at Mario Kart Wii last week, giving it enough momentum to leap straight into first place in the overall Australian game charts for the week of April 21-April 27, according to data trackers GfK Australia. The game was officially on sale for four days during that period and shipped with the Wii Wheel.

The other game to ship with a peripheral last week–Time Crisis 4–comes in just below Mario Kart Wii at number two. EA playground is back in the charts in third spot, pushing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for PS2 down to number four. Last week’s top-dog–Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games on Wii–has fallen four places to five, while the DS version trails behind in 10th position.

In other charts news, The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff remains at the top of the PC chart, despite falling out of the top overall 10 last week. The Sims 2 also continues to sell strongly, moving up two places, to number four.

All sales stats, including console-by-console breakdowns, can be found below:

Top 10 Full-Priced Games

1. Mario Kart Wii, Wii

2. Time Crisis 4 bundle, PlayStation 3

3. EA Playground, Nintendo DS

4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, PlayStation 2

5. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Wii

6. High School Musical, Wii

7. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?, Nintendo DS

8. SingStar Legends, PlayStation 2

9. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?, Nintendo DS

10. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Nintendo DS

Top 10 PS3 Games (over A$60)

1. Time Crisis 4 bundle

2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

3. Assassin’s Creed

4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle

5. Army of Two

6. SingStar bundle

7. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2

8. FIFA Soccer 08

9. Condemned 2: Bloodshot

10. MX vs. ATV Untamed

Top 10 Xbox 360 Games (over A$50)

1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle

2. Assassin’s Creed

3. Halo 3

4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2

6. Army of Two

7. MX vs. ATV Untamed

8. Lost Odyssey

9. Bully: Scholarship Edition

10. Viking: Battle for Asgard

Top 10 Wii Games (over A$50)

1. Mario Kart Wii

2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

3. High School Musical

4. Super Mario Galaxy

5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle

6. Mario Party 8

7. Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party

8. Sega Bass Fishing

9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock double pack

10. My Sims

Top 10 PC Games (over A$20)

1. The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff

2. The Sims 2: Free Time

3. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

4. The Sims 2

5. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage

6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

7. Assassin’s Creed

8. Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s WrathThe Sims 2: Teen Style Stuff

9. The Sims 2: Pets

10. The Sims 2: Open for Business

Top 10 Nintendo DS Games (over A$40)

1. EA Playground

2. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?

3. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?

4. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

5. Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training: The Hundred Cell Calculation Method

6. Professor Layton and the Curious Village

7. Hanna Montana

8. Pokemon Diamond

9. New Super Mario Bros.

10. Nintendogs: Dachshund and Friends

Top 10 PS2 Games (over A$50)

1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle

2. SingStar Legends

3. Buzz! The Mega Quiz

4. Buzz! Junior: Dino Den

5. Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz

6. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

7. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008

8. Crash of the Titans

9. MX vs. ATV Untamed

10. V8 Supercars 3 platinum

Top 10 PSP games (over A$40)

1. God of War: Chains of Olympus

2. The Simpsons Game

3. Crash of the Titans

4. MX vs. ATV Untamed

5. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories platinum

6. Jackass: The Game

7. Need for Speed ProStreet

8. FIFA Soccer 08

9. Medal of Honor Heroes 2

10. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008

All data supplied by GfK Australia.

Secret Agent Clank Updated Hands-On - Boltaire Museum

We previously covered Secret Agent Clank after a pair of encounters with the game at last year’s Tokyo Game Show and, more recently, this year’s Game Developers Conference. Now that we’ve got our hands on a preview build, we can add to that coverage with some updated impressions of the first three levels from Clank’s solo debut. In this preview, we’ll start with the introductory level, which adds some crafty espionage work to the series’ trademark jump-and-blast formula.

High Impact Games has utilized a friendly auto-targeting system that will spare you from cursing the PSP analog stick.

The beginning of Secret Agent Clank lays out the story that will guide the events of the rest of the game. We see Clank sneaking about on the roof of Boltaire Museum, an artificial history museum dedicated to all things robot. He demonstrates some of his newfound spy skills by using a fancy gizmo to silently cut a hole in the glass ceiling. Before he can lower himself in, Clank sees what appears to be Ratchet being whisked away by guards as an alarm blares obnoxiously.

A short while later, we’re shown a news broadcast running footage of Ratchet proclaiming his surprising lack of remorse, followed by an anchor wondering how a galactic hero could fall so low. Clank is unsure if it’s an impostor or not, but a quick retinal scan proves it’s the real Ratchet who’s been arrested. If that is the real Ratchet, what could possibly compel him to turn toward a life of crime?

Thus begins Secret Agent Clank. The first level has Clank trying to break in to Boltaire Museum to investigate this suspicious crime. He begins outside, attempting to dodge spotlights as he makes his way closer to the building. Should he be seen, a pack of robotic dogs will come running after him. Clank doesn’t have much of a problem with the dogs; though he doesn’t have any weapons from the get-go, his punch is powerful enough to take out these attack hounds without much worry.

Clank soon makes his way into the museum, where he has to deal with towering guards. Though massive in size, they’re slow movers and don’t see anything beyond their limited flashlight range. Clank can take them on directly, but the game awards you extra nanotech points for every section you pass through without attracting attention. One of the ways you can lay low is by hopping on a pedestal and pretending to be a statue when a guard walks by. It’s almost required to take the sneaky approach at first, but it becomes easier to cause mayhem when Clank discovers his first weapon in a conveniently placed agency drop box–the tie-a-rang. These razor-sharp projectiles are as easy to throw as letting the game auto-target an enemy for you and hitting the circle button to release.

Shortly after picking up his first weapon, Clank finds a blackout pen, which shoots a pile of goo onto alarm lasers. This helps Clank sneak around more effectively. Another means of keeping quiet is the ability to execute a stealth takedown on the museum guards. This is done by running up behind them, hitting square, and correctly mimicking a quick four-button sequence. These little quick-time events act as an appetizer for the final chapter of the Boltaire Museum level, which is the rhythm minigame where Clank has to break-dance his way through a dense web of lasers. While most rhythm minigames tend to feel out of place, this one works surprisingly well when you see the timing required for Clank to pass through these beams of light.

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Take-Two shares wobbly post-GTAIV launch

From the day Electronic Arts first went public with its bid to buy Take-Two Interactive, the takeover target and owner of Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Rockstar Games has been consistent with its response. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick reiterated the opinion that EA’s original $26 per share offer undervalued the company’s worth when rejecting said offer during a shareholders’ meeting last month. However, he also said the Take-Two board would be open to entering discussions with after GTAIV went on sale April 29.

GTAIV came out this week to critical acclaim and record-setting sales, prompting Zelnick to tell the New York Times in a statement that the reaction to the game “vindicates our strategy of waiting until the launch with regard to EA’s offer.” On the day of the game’s release, Take-Two stock nudged upward $.16 to close at $26.63.

That gain was quickly wiped out as Wednesday trading saw the stock fall to $26.24, and this morning it suffered another hit as Kaufman Brothers analyst Todd Mitchell downgraded the stock from “Buy” to “Hold.” According to a Reuters report, Mitchell lowered his assessment on the belief that EA was ready to play hardball and even walk away from the Take-Two deal entirely if its current offer of $25.74 per share (lowered to compensate for a Take-Two poison pill provision) was not accepted.

Mitchell reportedly told investors that he expected a maximum sale price of $28-$30 for Take-Two shares, and didn’t feel the potential reward outweighed the risk of EA pulling its offer from the table. If EA walked away from Take-Two now, Mitchell suggested the Rockstar parent company’s share price could sink by as much as $7.

Take-Two shares closed today’s trading down $.15 to $26.09.

Take-Two suggests PS3 GTAIV fix

Reports of Grand Theft Auto IV freezing up have been circulating message boards since the game’s launch Tuesday, but Rockstar Games has been tight-lipped as to the reason or the remedy, passing off requests for public comment onto Sony. While the majority of complaints appear to be coming from PlayStation 3 users, Xbox 360 owners with glitch-ridden game experiences have also voiced their frustrations online.

Take-Two representatives may not have been willing to go on the record about the issue, but the publisher’s tech support team does not have the same luxury when it comes to customer complaints. An inquiry into the Take-Two tech support site yielded the following array of suggestions on how to fix the problem. The 12-part response follows below:

Please run through the following, go through in order.

1) Delete the game’s install data. This is done via the PS3 options. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Game’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Game Data Utility’ Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, from the menu select Delete. This will delete the game’s install information.

2) Delete the game’s save files. To delete any save files you will need to do the following. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Game’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Save Data Utility’ Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, and from the context menu select Delete.

3) Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Settings’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Network Settings’. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this.

4) Disable the console’s information board. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Network’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Information Board’, highlight this and press triangle. From the menu select ‘Do not display’ Press X to confirm this.

5) Disable Media Server functionality. Scroll to Settings, now scroll up / down to ‘Network Settings’ select Media Server connection. Once this has been done press triangle and change the option Disabled.

6) Delete all of the system’s Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Network’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Internet Browser’, highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the ‘Tools’ option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach ‘Delete Cookies’ and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for ‘Delete Cache’.

7 ) Turn off the PS3 screen saver. Use the cross media bar to scroll to ‘Settings’, select ‘Display Settings’. Now highlight ‘Screensaver’ and set this to ‘Do not use’.

8 ) Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.

9) Once restarted please try the game again, you will be prompted to reinstall.

Once the game has started please turn off the following features:

1) The game’s auto-save. Press Start, Game, and locate the Auto-save option. Turn this off.

2) Turn off the game’s flicker filter. Press Start, Display and locate the Flicker Filter option. Turn this off.

3) Turn off the controller vibration feature. Press Start, Controls and locate the vibration option. Turn this off.

If that doesn’t solve the problem, Take-Two allows tech support users to reopen their cases within seven days.

As for Sony, earlier today, a representative with the company confirmed a ‘freezing’ issue with GTAIV on “a limited number of PS3s.” He added that Sony has received “an extremely low volume” of complaint calls to its customer service line, and that it is working with all concerned parties to pin down and fix the issue.

Microsoft has not yet responded to If Its Games’s inquiries on problems with the Xbox 360 edition of the game. If Its Games editors have yet to receive a response to a Take-Two tech support ticket filed for that version of the game.

Q&A: Dissecting Dark Sector

In late March, Digital Extremes and D3Publisher of America released Dark Sector for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A little more than a month after the release of his latest game, director Steve Sinclair took time out to assess the project’s various strengths and weaknesses for If Its Games. Along the way Sinclair gave some insight into where the developers got their ideas, how the project changed from conception to ship date, and what he thought of the game’s mixed critical reception.

If Its Games: The Dark Sector that shipped bears little resemblance to the game announced in 2004. Was the game extensively redesigned at some point during development or did the changes just come about gradually?

Steve Sinclair: The sci-fi demo was just a tech-demo. We had only rough ideas about gameplay at that point but we wanted to get a head start on the technology we were building. When it came to making the game itself, we wanted to ground it more and making it more contemporary seemed to work. We wanted to start the crazy super power evolution in a more familiar place.

GS: Which aspects of Dark Sector worked the best?

SS: The Glaive and the Evolution powers… it seems players consistently enjoyed the different feel to using the Glaive and the evolution gave them something new to learn and master. Steering the Glaive around a corner in slow motion and tearing someone in half…great gaming moment.

GS: Which aspects weren’t executed as well as they could have been?

SS: We didn’t tell our story as well as we could have. Definitely took it in the crotch on that one, and its true. We didn’t have time to try it out on people who were fresh, who hadn’t read a script draft… so we glossed over things we should have spent more time explaining.

GS: Given more time, what extra features or tweaks to the gameplay would you have liked to have made?

SS: Most of the core game loop stuff works well but I certainly would have liked Hayden to be more agile… more capable of moving through the game spaces in varied ways.

GS: What did you think of the critical reception of the game? Were the reviews basically in line with what you expected, as far as overall score and specific praise or complaints went?

SS: Most of the reviews I agreed with, for sure. I don’t think you’ll find more harsh criticism of our work than from us. I found it telling of what is expected of a game now, seeing ‘this is tight and fun’ but the disappointment with the fiction and the sparseness of storytelling really cost us more than we thought it would. It’s not nearly enough to be damn fun; it needs to speak to escapism and immersion at a greater level than ever before. Makes sense to me; why else are you dropping $500 on the hardware when there are plenty of fun last-gen games?

GS: Dark Sector was the first “next-gen” game announced. How do you think the reception to it would have differed if it had released closer to the actual launch of the systems?

SS: I would to have loved to ship a bit earlier but I suppose the market size is quite small at launch. We might have had a ‘best looking game ever’ for a while though! At that point though, it was pretty much impossible to ship more than a tech demo.

GS: A number of reviewers mentioned similarities to Gears of War. How much inspiration did you get from Epic Games’ shooter?

SS: Camera and perspective are so similar. In 2004 we had been demoing a third-person shooter and we were planning ‘passive cover’–where the character would adapt to the cover automatically. When Gears came out we saw that it was working better than ours and we figured it was creating a convention in a way, and it would be a mistake to not do it similarly. We drew from it the same way a first-person shooter game has to look at Halo and consider what is convention and what you must do differently.

GS: People have also commented on the similarity between the Glaive in Dark Sector and that in the 1980s sci-fi/fantasy film Krull. Was that an influence on the game? What other films did the creators draw inspiration from?

SS: Surprising to most fans, Krull was a hindsight similarity. We were working on a magnetic ’stealing’ gadget. It was going to be one small part of a larger arsenal. As we messed around with its flight and so on, we thought: can we make it a weapon at the same time? It just stole the show when it ripped people in half and we realized that had to be the focal point… [Originally], it was going to be a marginalized gadget. But the design became iconic and it was something we knew people could latch on to… so we just kept folding our designs into some aspect of it. To the point where we added the off-hand pistol combat, so you can have the Glaive out nearly all the time. We discovered the Glaive about 9 months into development and iterated on it until the end.

GS: Another frequently mentioned aspect of Dark Sector is the level of violence in the game. It was actually enough to prompt a ban from the Australian government, but didn’t quite generate the level of media frenzy as something like Manhunt 2 did. In retrospect, did you go too far with the violence? Not far enough?

SS: A lot of this came from people play-testing the game. We had ridiculous amounts of violence in the prototype but when we set it up for the game, we toned it down. We didn’t want it to be a comic level of violence. So when we took that and put it in front of people, they were disappointed; they expected the chopping in half because of how the weapon looked and felt. So we endeavored to remove the ’subtle’ from the Glaive. The ban in Australia was surprising, especially after similarly–if not more–violent games had previously shipped before us but ultimately their rating system is slightly different than the one in North America which provides them with a wider reach to wield their censoring swords at will.

GS: Has the game’s Evolution Engine been licensed out to other developers?

SS: We’re talking to people about it. It definitely turned out far better than I expected and based on the critical acclaim to our visuals and performance on both systems, it would be silly not to consider licensing. Creating the Evolution Engine was certainly something that wasn’t easy and often not enjoyable… but we wanted technology that was balanced and was designed with a specific philosophy of development. Developing technology and a game at the same time is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy, but we’re extremely proud of what we accomplished and the engine is an amazing piece of technology now.

GS: Finally, when can we expect a Dark Sector sequel?

SS: I’d love to do one… in many ways I think we scratched the surface with the character and the Glaive. But there is nothing definitive at this point…

GTAIV breaks UK retail records

Wii Fit may currently top of the sales charts in the UK, but figures released by British sales-tracking body Chart-Track indicate that its reign will soon be over. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which launched on April 29 to widespread critical acclaim, has set new records for UK sales in its first 24 hours of release.

Analysts had stated that GTAIV was destined to be “huge” and that’s proving to be the case, in the UK at least. Figures from Chart-Track for the first day of the game’s UK release, which are based on point-of-sale data and retailer estimates, show that approximately 609,000 copies were sold for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 combined. This beats the previous record for day-one sales, which was set by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004 with 501,000 PlayStation 2 units sold.

GTAIV also broke system-specific sales records for software on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Fifty-five percent of the copies sold were destined for Microsoft’s console, with 335,000 units shifted in the first 24 hours. This beat the previous record of 266,000 copies, which was set by Halo 3 on 26 September 2007.

The PlayStation 3’s previous fastest-selling game in the UK was Sony’s Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, which sold 80,000 units during its first day of sales in March this year. GTAIV has “well and truly eclipsed” these figures, according to Chart-Track’s director Dorian Bloch, with an estimated 274,000 copies sold in 24 hours.

Chart-Track says that it will continue to analyse the figures after the public holiday in the UK on Monday, May 5. Bloch told If Its Games, “Unless there is a real problem, and the lorries can’t deliver the product, the first-week sales record is set to be trashed.” The record for units sold in the first week is currently held by GTA: San Andreas, with 677,000 copies.

Atari agrees to Infogrames buyout

Infogrames, still smarting from the rejection that it suffered at the hands of SCi Entertainment, has some success to celebrate at last. The company announced today that it had agreed to a deal to consolidate its American operations by buying Atari–in which it already had a majority shareholding–outright.

The two companies have been linked for some time; in 2003, Infogrames adopted the Atari name for all of its global commercial operations, having bought a majority shareholding in Atari earlier that same year. Atari restructured its operations in 2007 to focus on publishing and distributing titles in the US, whereas Atari Europe continued with game development and publishing.

The acceptance of the merger was announced yesterday after the US markets closed. The deal will let Infogrames buy all “outstanding equity interests” of its American subsidiary Atari, Inc. at $1.68 a share, giving the deal a total value of approximately $11 million. David Gardner, who became chief executive of Infogrames in January after a stint at Electronic Arts, said, “Bringing Atari US and Infogrames’ businesses together will enable us to create a simplified global structure for our business as we seek to rebuild a well-managed, cohesive, and financially disciplined company.”

Atari’s current management team will stay in place and “remain focused on growing the key North American gaming market.” Jim Wilson, president and CEO of Atari, indicated that the deal gave his company a “stronger platform for growth.” It also means that Atari will no longer face the threat of being forcibly delisted from the NASDAQ, an issue it faced up to in 2007, and was hit by again in 2008.

As part of the deal, Infogrames is committed to lending Atari $20 million “to cover expected capital requirements,” according to the company’s statement. Infogrames most recently loaned Atari $5 million as an advance on the royalties from future sales of its Test Drive series, as part of a deal to license the franchise. In 2007, Atari noted in an SEC filing that its total debts raised “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.”

The deal is still subject to shareholder approval, but it is not expected to be delayed. Atari expects to call a special meeting of shareholders to consider the merger in the third quarter of calendar year 2008.

Analyst: Nintendo to conquer Europe

All looks rosy for Nintendo and its fans in the UK and the rest of Europe. Wii Fit is currently balanced on top of the UK charts (although GTAIV’s sales figures indicate that may not be for long), Mario Kart Wii snaked to the front of the pack at launch, and Super Smash Bros. has finally got a release date. To make things even sweeter, the Mario Factory has just been tipped by an analyst to oust Sony from the top of the heap in the region.

Despite a lukewarm response to Nintendo’s global outlook when it announced its most recent annual results and unveiled its projections for the coming year, David Cole of DFC Intelligence is projecting big things for the Japanese publisher in Europe. He points to the success of Sony’s casual-gaming products such as SingStar and the EyeToy range as the prime indicator for Nintendo’s upcoming dominance in the region in a report published this week.

He believes that “the Wii product line and control system are an evolution of what made the PlayStation 2 so successful in Europe,” and indicated that the move to Atari by Phil Harrison, who was president of SCE Worldwide Studios and seen by many as the standard-bearer for Sony’s charge into nontraditional markets, was a turning point. “In many ways this departure is symbolic of how the torch in Europe seems to be passing to Nintendo,” Cole said.

Cole also suggested that the recent launch of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for Wii is likely to push hardware sales to new heights in the region. As he puts it, “Soccer is arguably the most important game genre in Europe, and now the Wii has what many consider to be the best soccer game. This alone is likely to be a driver of significant Wii sales, especially among customers looking to upgrade from their PlayStation 2.”

Things are less rosy for Microsoft, in Cole’s view of the market. “In the long-term, DFC Intelligence believes the PlayStation 3 will be a fairly strong competitor,” Cole said. “The biggest loser in Europe is likely to be the Xbox 360.” Microsoft has seen its self-proclaimed fall 2007 ‘greatest holiday line-up in videogame history’ come and go with very little impact on the Xbox 360’s position in the European marketplace.

“To spur sales in 2008, Microsoft is being forced to lower the price of a system that is starting to look like a senior citizen as it approaches its third birthday,” he concluded.

Sony and Nintendo both refused to comment on the report, while Microsoft had not responded to requests for comment by press time.

Haney joins Tiger’s PGA Tour 09

Although they’re no death and taxes, annual installments in Electronic Arts’ many pro-sporting franchises are one of life’s near certainties. The publisher has already announced a number of its usual suspects for the 2008 season, including Madden NFL 09 and its collegiate counterpart NCAA Football 09, and today it officially teed up Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii.

Now you, too, can be as good as Tiger Woods!

This year, Tiger will be sharing the spotlight with his real-world personal coach, Hank Haney. Commentary from Haney is the primary new addition to the game’s single-player career mode, and according to EA, the dialogue will be customized to a golfer’s individual performance in a round.

EA’s Tiburon studio has also revisited the game’s online component. GamerNet will let players undertake various challenges directly from the links, such as longest drive or best approach shot, and it will also feature daily leaderboards. Tiger Woods 09’s online mode will also benefit from simultaneous play. According to the publisher, this new offering will let golfers play each hole at the same time, which it hopes will speed up matches and let players take a course at their own pace.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 is expected to hit the links on August 26.

EA-Land closing in August

EA had high hopes for The Sims Online when the game was first launched in December 2002. Billed as an experiment into mass-market massively multiplayer online gaming, The Sims Online proved to command nowhere near the attention of its inspiration–The Sims–with EA saying not long after the online game’s launch that initial sales were “disappointing.”

The game persisted, however, and appeared to be in for a revival earlier this year, when EA renamed the game EA-Land in February and said it would be making a number of changes to the title in the coming months. Those ambitions have now proven to be for naught, as EA has said this week that it will officially be shuttering the title as of August 1.

“It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA-Land experiment will soon draw to a close,” said EA in a statement on the game’s official blog. “Since 2002, EA-Land / TSO has attracted a very special group of players (of which you are one) and we certainly appreciate your participation in the EA-Land community. The lifetime of the game has drawn to an end, and now we will be focusing on new ideas and other innovative concepts in the games arena. We