‘The most ambitious Myst experience’ the company has ever created

GameTap, the first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network from Turner Broadcasting System, made it official to the world that Myst Online: Uru Live will open its doors tomorrow, Thursday, February 15. Published by GameTap and developed by Cyan Worlds, Myst Online: Uru Live is the most recent addition to the company’s original labels.

This latest installment
of the best-selling Myst franchise introduces all-new Ages and puzzles while fusing the social concepts of a traditional massively multiplayer online game with mystery and problem-solving facets. Rand Miller, CEO of Cyan Worlds and co-creator of Myst said: “Myst Online: Uru Live’ is the most ambitious Myst experience we’ve ever created. By developing an interactive, online world driven by intrigue and exploration instead of violence, massively multiplayer online gamers now have a choice unlike any of the other options.” (more…)

Might take a little longer for some multiplayer action.

Okay, so everyone knew Halo 3 would arrive this fall, but Bungie’s finally confirmed the third (and seemingly final, at least for this storyline) entry in the Halo series will be available in fall 2007. The news springs from the first of likely many marketing promotions planned for the game.

There’s some sadface.gif to go along with this news, however, as Bungie’s started indicating the beta may be pushed back a bit. Still hitting in the spring, mind you, but now they’re saying it could be “late spring.”

“There are still many details of the Halo 3 beta to be finalized but one thing we did want to confirm is that the beta will not be starting next week. Crackdown will be available in stores starting Tuesday, 2/20, but the Halo 3 multiplayer beta start date is still being finalized. We’re still aiming for a Spring release, but it could be more like late Spring.”

Source: gametab.com

Confusing comment, to say the least, coming from Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer

It’s true that every console had a price drop or several price drops in its lifetime and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is expected to have one as well. Or, isn’t it? According to Steve Ballmer, CEO at Microsoft “every console has had a price decrease
in the first few years,” emphasizing on these words twice but not saying anything concrete about their console:

“I think every console in the world has had a price decrease sometime in the first few years. I don’t know whether we’ll have a price decrease in the first few years, and I don’t want to comment on that, but I will highlight for you that every console has had a price decrease in the first few years.”
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Silent Hill Arcade, Tekken 6, and a lot of wacky games.

Unlike in the good ol’ US of A, Japanese arcades are still thriving. And every year they have an expo to show off all the new arcade games and arcade technology called the AOU expo. Not unlike the console space, the theme (well, what seemed to be the theme anyway) this year was “touching is good.” Yes, that’s right, our pal the DS has influenced even the arcade industry.

Most of the touch screen games were quiz games, but there were games like Konami’s Otomedius, a Parodius/Gradius fusion starring half naked girls who always seem to be blushing (more impressions here), and a rogue-like dungeon crawler by the name of Eternal Knights that also made use of the touch screen. As for games with more traditional inputs, Sega had the mysterious gun fighting game 2 Spicy and the much anticipated and super goofy Die Hard Arcade EX available to play (more on that here), in addition to a hose of Japan-centric games and, of course, Virtua Fighter 5.

Bandai Namco showed the first video of Tekken 6 (you can watch it here), which honestly didn’t look too hot, and also had playable versions of Mario Kart Arcade GP 2, Wangan Midnight 3, and an 8-player network shooting game called New Space Order.
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Video game designer David Jaffe says that “ten years from now there will be one console”

In the beginning, there were those Game and Watch devices. Later on came the Tetris, then the NES, the Game
Boy, the PlayStation and before we even knew it, the market was filled with consoles ever more different. Nowadays, there are many companies that make gaming systems like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Sega and each console has a different and intriguing feature to catch the eye of the consumer.

Now, game developer David Jaffe says that all the games should be ported to one universal console, as the result of a nostalgic moment he had some time ago. I know he’s a game developer and all, thus meaning he knows what he’s talking about, but how on earth are any of the big companies going to drop out of the race when the game industry has never been more flourishing?
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Capcom cartographers prepping six new multiplayer maps for Xbox 360 action game, free download of collector’s edition map.

Capcom has already confirmed postlaunch support for its Xbox 360 action game Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, but today the publisher announced that it is going to be offering more than a few bug fixes and presentation tweaks. Over the next few months, Capcom will release seven new multiplayer maps for Lost Planet, one of them free and the rest divided into three map packs for sale on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
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Extreme combat golf game to feature violence and Mooninites.

It’s common knowledge the moon rulez #1, but later this year gamers will find out just how much through an Aqua Teen Hunger Force video game coming to the PlayStation 2. The Last Boss blog caught our attention with news of the game from G4’s The Feed. Instead of hopelessly trying to explain the concept, we’ll let Aqua Teen Hunger Force creator Dave Willis can speak for himself:

“It’s extreme combat golf. It’s a golf game, but it’s also laced with violence… you actually do play golf, but you’re battling the villains and some of your clubs might have a sawed-off shotgun. Carl’s gigantic crabs are lurking in the sandtraps, and the Brownie monsters, and obviously the Mooninites. It’s sort of a racing, violent golf game.”
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Car junkies, get out your drool rags. The Forza Motorsport 2 team today revealed the first list of cars scheduled to appear in the upcoming Xbox 360 racer. Part one of the six-part series concentrates on European exotics, with rides from Porsche, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Ferrari.

Developer Turn 10 and publisher Microsoft Game Studios also announced the European release date of the game. Like its North American counterpart, Forza 2 Motorsport will hit Europe in May 2007 because the team “felt it was only right for Forza Motorsport 2’s online community…to release the game on a global level simultaneously.”
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Only adds Hard and Super difficulties, but doesn’t cost a thing.

We still don’t know when Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Blue Dragon will end up on our shores (summer’s a safe bet), but Microsoft and Mistwalker have rolled out the first round of downloadable content on Xbox Live today, says Joystiq.
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The appearance of the Wiimote has changed the definition of gaming

Less than a year ago, people around the world first picked up a Wii Remote and realized Nintendo was changing video games forever. Using the Wiimote’s motion sensitive feature, the realistic game play of Wii Sports turned parents and grandparents into gamers and launched a new Wii-based party and made a fitness machine out of it to.

Nintendo
has built on the momentum with the arrival of Wii Play, a collection of nine new games in the Wii Sports style that lets players fish, play pool or shoot targets with the motion-sensitive Wii Remote. Wii Play joins Wii Sports as the party-game centerpiece at family get-togethers and grown-up game nights. To emphasize the multiplayer nature of the game, Wii Play comes packaged with a Wii Remote.
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