…because apparently ‘Sabotage’ was “trite, overused, and generic,” while ‘Velvet Assassin‘ captures the heart of what the developers are trying to accomplish with the game. At least that’s how Sascha Jungnickel, the Creative Director at Replay Studios puts it.

Tim Hesse, Executive Producer at Gamecock adds that ‘Sabotage‘ just didn’t do the game justice anymore and thinks that Velvet Assassin “sums up every aspect that makes this game great.”

The World War II stealth-action game puts you in the role of a lady named Violette Summer (inspired by the true story of British Agent Violette Szabo), and you’ll be going deep behind enemy lines to Nazi occupied Europe to kick some Third Reich ass. Replay Studios boldly promises that the game will have “one of the most unique perspectives ever brought to gaming” along with a ground-breaking stealth combat system.

The game is due out later this year on PC, PS3 and the 360.

In DICE’s parkour first-person action game, Mirror’s Edge, you’ll be using the city as your personal playground - you’ll be moving quickly, from rooftop to rooftop, jumping and sliding over and under cranes, fences, and other obstacles that are between you and where you need to be. And you’ll be taking down whoever gets in your way by pulling off some fancy kung-fu close range combat moves. There is some gunplay involved, though those moments are said to be short and only last until you empty a clip.

The game was unveiled to the gaming press behind closed doors at GDC’08, and the impressions that have been popping up have been generally fairly positive. Below are a few snippets from sites that were present and saw the game in motion.

Gametap: “One of the coolest aspects of the demo was how the aesthetics of the city play into helping you know where to navigate. While white is the predominant color, highlights of red come into focus as you get closer; the red signifies a place that Faith can climb or jump to.”

Continue reading this story..

If you’re looking for a little variety to your daily shootouts, then it’s definitely worth taking a look at what kind of games the Open Source space has to offer us these days. And we’re doing just that. From Monday through Sunday this week, we’re bringing you this series of what we think are seven great first-person shooters - all open source, all 100% free to download and play. Seven days, seven games. Today is day #5 and the game is:

#5: World of Padman

A backyard prepped for battle.

World of Padman initially started out as a mod for Quake 3 and became a stand-alone download once the engine went open source. The game is full of some seriously wacky looking (and super tiny) characters, puts you in the shoes of one of them and drops you into some equally wacky gameworlds. You’ll be doing battle in places like kitchens, backyards and attics, all while being the size of a mouse.

The weapons at your disposal range from from the Nipper (basically a blaster), to the BOOM-BOOM Betty (pretty much a rocket launcher), to Bubble G. (shoots out small colored balls at a high rate). Continue reading this story..

I have to say I’m actually really digging the cartoony style that Battlefield: Heroes has going for it. It immediately leaves the impression that EA is taking a very light hearted, goofy approach with this one, and the newly released trailer above makes sure there’s no mistake about that.

Five screenshots, some which you might have seen before as magazine scans lurking in the dark corners of the interwebs, have been sent out as well. Check the Battlefield: Heroes gallery for those.

The most specific release window we’ve heard of remains to be “summer 2008.”

[See also: Battlefield: Heroes gallery]

SouthPeak Games is taking on the rather ambitious task of freshening up 3rd person hack-and-slash games with their newly announced X-Blades by putting you in control of a blond little anime-styled hottie named Ayumi, a heroine who is both “stunningly seductive” and “tenacious”. The player will have to make his/her way through a number of locations and bad guys using pistol blades, magic spells, acrobatic abilities and “a healthy dose of cinematic flair.”

X-Blades features a special combination of cinematic style, beautiful animation and relentless high-speed gameplay. With full anime-style cut scenes, the story unfolds revealing demonic hordes and spectacular landscapes, all ripe for exploration and frenetic supernatural battling.

SouthPeak CEO Melanie Mroz said the “3rd-person ‘hack-em-up’ genre needs a fresh perspective and X-Blades is poised to deliver it,” and that the “unique anime-style backdrop combined with high-octane, multi-discipline combat gameplay really pushes X-Blades into brand new territory.”

The game is being developed for PC and “next-gen” consoles, which we can assume means PS3 and 360, and will be released late this year.

[See also: X-Blades gallery]

We announced recently that the US will be getting a special Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle to go with the games release. But what about Europe? Well, Sony not wanting to leave Europe out of the bundle loop, recently announced two bundles coming exclusively to Europe, though neither of them include a 80GB PS3 nor a game named Metal Gear Solid 4.

If you’re still reading, and done cursing Sony to the high heavens, be cool. Europe will be getting a GT5 Prologue bundle and a Blu-ray bundle which will include Spider-Man, 300, and Casino Royale. Both will come with a 40GB PS3 and they will be dropping within two weeks of each other, with the Blu-ray bundle dropping March 19th, followed by the GT5 bundle on the 29th of March. Each will be priced at 399 Euro’s.

Kojima releasing an official wallpaper with the release date stamped on it means only one thing - the June 12 (worldwide) release date is as official as it’s going to get. But if you want more, then know that Kojima has confirmed the date in a press release as well, along with some details on the Metal Gear Online Starter Pack and a pre-order program that will get you into the MGO beta.

MGS4 will launch with the MGO Starter Pack, meaning you can take the action online and duke it out with 15 other players. And if you pre-order the game beginning April, you’ll get a number of goodies along with a code that you can use to access the MGO beta that starts late April and play the game even sooner.

The goodies you’ll be getting include a Metal Gear Saga 2.0 DVD with a prologue recapping the franchise, a 20th Anniversary retrospective, character bios, and a collection of international trailers. The pre-order package will be available until supplies last though, so be quick about it.

Konami’s Chairman and CEO Kazumi Kitaue said the early summer release fits Solid Snake’s final mission well, since “blockbuster events and premieres are a tradition of the summer.”

[See also: Metal Gear Solid 4 gallery, Metal Gear Online gallery]

“Nintendomination” just doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon, at least not in Japan. It’s been over a solid year and Wii’s continue to be unavailable at many retailers, and when some stores do get them in, they sell faster than Sonic on crack.

Enterbrain reports that Wii once again dominated in Japan, outselling the PS3 at a ratio of 4-to-1 (or 23-to-1 in the case of the 360) for the month of Febuary. Software for the Wii also dominated the best seller list.

Here’s how the numbers stacked up: Wii sold 331,627 units, PS3 was a distant second with 89,131 units sold, and (like it always does in Japan) Xbox 360 brought up the rear with 14,079 units (ouch!).

With a total of 1,33 million copies sold, Super Smash Bros. Brawl dominated the software charts in February, and was followed by Wii Fit which sold 309,311 copies.

If you’re looking for a little variety to your daily shootouts, then it’s definitely worth taking a look at what kind of games the Open Source space has to offer us these days. And we’re doing just that. From Monday through Sunday this week, we’re bringing you this series of what we think are seven great first-person shooters - all open source, all 100% free to download and play. Seven days, seven games. Today is day #4 and the game is:

#4: War§ow

Jump tricks FTW!

If you want to compete with the best of them in War§ow, then you’d better get familiar with wall jumping, sliding, and bunny hopping. All three play a major role in the game and you’re likely to get your butt handed to you if you think you can just show up with a gun and shoot your way to victory. While keeping the gameplay fast and intense, knowing how to pull off ‘jump tricks’ successfully will save your life.

And that’s where the tutorials come in, which is another great thing in the game. Besides taking you through the default movement stuff, the tutorials also show you how to pull off the special jump tricks. And the tutorials show it all to you from the first person perspective, with a voice over and subtitles. Continue reading this story..

“PC gaming is currently suffering from some lack of creativity,” a programmer and story co-writer for Black Sea Studios’ soon-to-be-released RTS WorldShift, Mikhail Balabanov, told That VideoGame Blog in an interview to be published on Monday.

“…PCs evolve gradually while the consoles develop in leaps – each new console brings sudden significant improvements after a period with almost no changes in the hardware. This can give the impression that the PC scene is developing slower. But nevertheless, we still think that PC is the best platform for hardcore RTS,” Balabanov added when we asked what he thinks of the current state of PC gaming and how games like Halo Wars that are being designed for consoles from the ground up affect the RTS genre on PCs.

Believing in creativity, he hopes more developers will try to experiment and brave uncharted territories, and believes the concepts behind WorldShift have the potential to spawn an interesting sub-genre of RTS games.

The full interview will go live on Monday, March 3rd.

[See also: WorldShift gallery]

No, I’m not trying to ignite a fanboy comment war with the title. There’s just this interesting piece over at Next-gen.biz that asks the same question. Is Microsoft losing steam? It’s a long but interesting read and it brings up some pretty valid points.

The article goes over the history of the system, its triumphs, failures and mistakes, and looks at the situation at hand with the race between Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, while trying to offer up some tangible solutions for what exactly is going wrong with the 360.

If you’re looking for a challenge, count how many times RRoD is mentioned, multiply that by how many times they mention HD DVD, and then divide that by the total comments in the forum, and you’ll achieve nirvana. Just kidding! Check out the full article here.

I’ve recently discovered that a game called Eternity’s Child that’s coming to Wii’s virtual console from Alten8, and I think I’m in love!

The game tells the story of an orphan named Angel who’s wings were cut off to keep him from being murdered when he was a baby. The thing is, where Angel is from there were creatures who could fly, and creatures that couldn’t. The planet was flooded due to pollution and natural disasters and almost all the creatures perished. So here comes the drama, now the creatures without wings are hating on the creatures with wings, so they decide they should just start murdering them. Nice, huh? Now everything on the planet is going to hell, and creating robots to try and repopulate the world to try and make it seem a lot less empty doesn’t help much. More drama ensues because the robots have a murderous itch as well, and decide to start killing everything without prejudice. Twisted enough for you yet ?

Enter Angel again, who’s lived a hard life. First he’s orphaned, then his wings are cut off to protect him from death, then growing up he’s not one of the cool kids and constantly getting his ass beaten and picked on. Angel finally decides he’s had enough of it all and decides to get out of dodge and see if he can find anyone else of his species, in an attempt of finding acceptance and love.

Eternity’s Child is completely hand drawn, everything from the character models down to the animation, and it has 2 player co-op. The DS version will differ from it’s console cousin in the sense that it’ll have a different story and be a 3D platform game.

The games art style looks AMAZING, and it was actually slated to be an Xbox LIVE Arcade title originally. But due to Microsoft and their file size restrictions, Alten8 decided to move the game over to Wii’s virtual console.

There hasn’t been an official release date for the game but I can’t wait to get my hands on this baby! Check out some of the screenshots and make your own mind up, but between this and Ultimate Band coming to Wii, as I stated before, Wii’s game are starting to look really good.

[See also: Eternity's Child gallery]

It seems that SEGA is giving Condemned 2 the demo treatment, at least on the 360. The news comes from straight from Xbox HQ in a post published yesterday: “This free Marketplace demo gives you a glimpse into the incredibly brutal world of Condemned 2: Bloodshot. You begin outside the lowest, seediest dive in town and your situation goes downhill from there, starting with a rapidly escalating fight with some back alley-thugs that show you the ropes of the combat system.”

No date of when it might appear is given but whenever it does, fingers crossed it will include the awesome looking Fight Club mode as well.

As for a PS3 demo, no hints of it appearing on PSN yet, though I’d be hard pressed to come up with a reason why they wouldn’t release it on both systems. The game itself is due in a few weeks.

[See also: Condemned 2: Bloodshot gallery]

Looks like we’re not done talking about the communication options available in Mario Kart Wii, or more specifically, lack there of. Yesterday’s news about the game only having text chat available has now received a little update.

You see, not only doesn’t the game have voice chat, but its text chat is also very limited. Limited to a point where you’ll only be able to choose from a number of pre-determined phrases which can then be sent prior to each match. “I’m-a kick-a your ass-a!” ? Probably not.

But at least there’s some good Mario Kart Wii news today as well - the Battle Mode will apparently support up to eight players, as recently discovered from a screenshot.

But back to the text chat thing, Ninty really wants too keep the game kiddy-friendly, don’t they ? Though not allowing people to talk with each other seems a bit too excessive. They’ve reached a point where they’re removing options that every game should simply have these days, no ?