Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Disappears into 2011

It’s not really that surprising, but news has been broken that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has been pushed back into 2011.

The game’s existence was rumoured last year or so, and only officially announced within the last few months.

It was originally scheduled for a release for sometime near the end of this year, but according to G4tv, the game’s been purposely held back to avoid the competitive market at the time of the year [Call of Duty, Medal of Honor]. It’ll see a release in Q1 2011.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot:

"Due to a very competitive environment, we decided to move the game out of the Christmas quarter, and into the March quarter. It will also provide additional time to our development teams to realize their vision."

I for one don’t really like to see games that are announced, released in the same year, so I think it’s not a bad idea if it’s pushed back a few months. It ensures more of a quality product, I would think. Also not every game is bunched into the same quarter, so you get games coming out in all parts of the year, so we don’t suffer from “drought”.

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Source: Ubisoft Delays Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Now Coming In Early 2011 [G4]

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Disappears into 2011

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Info Overload

I tend to let these things collect, and end up doing one big megapost as it were, instead of doing little ones.

There’s been a lot of information going around about the latest in the Assassin’s Creed series, called Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It all started out as I recall with a teaser on Facebook.

"It is the time of our rising. A new age enters and a great battle looms. Templar destiny is at hand and waiting for you."

After some box art was leaked, then a viral website with a teaser video opened up this week after some people received letters from a Dr. Warren Vidic, one of the characters from the series.

“Dear [Whomever],
Hello and welcome to the new era of Abstergo Industries. I am Dr. Warren Vidic, the head genetic researcher and lead on the Animus Project. I would like to extend to you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will ensure your place in history. An offering to you to welcome a new dawn of man. Take this image and answer my call. A great battle looms to finish the past and begin the future. JOIN US…and see a new era rise.

Dr. Warren Vidic”

 

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is not really a sequel in the series, but mainly a spin-off, or a continuation of the story in Assassin’s Creed II, with Ezio making an appearance again. Rome is a location thought to be in the game, and Ezio is said to enlist help from the Brotherhood of assassins, which you can recruit. The singleplayer is said to be 15 hours long Also a new multiplayer will feature as well.

It’s a collaborative effort by several Ubisoft studios, and will be available for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 by the end of the year.

By the way, you might be interested to learn that there is an Assassin’s Creed II: Game of the Year Edition coming out this month, on May 21st.

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Sources:

Teaser Website
ShopTo outs Assassin’s Creed II: Game of the Year edition [VG247]
Next Assassin's Creed viral website opens for business [D’toid]

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Info Overload

The Replacements: An Online Video Game Manual Archive

You know the other day that Ubisoft was talking about doing away with printed video game manuals? I just happened to come across this post on HBG [Hot Blooded Gaming] where they talked about this online archive of video game manuals that have been scanned.

This is nothing new and other sites, even abandonware ones like Abandonia, have scans of manuals and box art for some of their games, mainly old classics, but I decided to check this one out anyway.

This site isn’t new either, but it has scans of games both old and new. And it’s not just for PC games, but many other consoles too. There are plenty of manuals on here that I’ll be taking a look at though. I’ve bought some games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy second-hand, which didn’t come with a manual – only the disc.

I still have a lot of my old game manuals hidden away somewhere. Among the ones I treasure dearly, as I said before in my other post regarding this subject, include Red Alert 2, No One Lives Forever, Unreal, Mortal Kombat 3, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. I’ve even got one for Fade to Black. The funny thing is I lost the game somehow; not the manual. I think one of my ex-friends might have stolen it.

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Source: The Online Video Game Manual Archive [HBG]

Resources:

replacementdocs.com

They just don't make manuals like they used to [TTLG.com]

The Replacements: An Online Video Game Manual Archive

Ubisoft Wants To Get Rid of Game Manuals

I have such good memories of game manuals. Whether it was Unreal, Half-Life: Opposing Force, No One Lives Forever – I could spend hours reading and re-reading these little booklets. Some of them were huge, like that of Homeworld. Didn’t enjoy that so much.

The manual for Red Alert 2. The guy pictured reminds me of my Geography teacher in high school.

First Ubisoft created waves with their new DRM methods. Now they want to do away with game manuals. Their excuse is that they’re going green and want to stop printing game manuals. All fair and well I suppose. I mean, a lot of games have manuals in PDF format on the game’s DVD nowadays anyway. And they’ve been doing that for years as far I remember.

"No more manuals? Ubisoft announced last week that they will be ditching the trend of printing instruction manuals for new games under the 'green' initiative.”

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Source: Ubisoft Says No More Game Manuals [Slashdot]

Ubisoft Wants To Get Rid of Game Manuals

Ubisoft DRM Assassinated: Playable Assassin’s Creed II

                                                         

                                                 “HAHA! Your turn!”

I have it on good authority that there is a playable, pirated version of Assassin’s Creed II. Only afterwards did I read online on multiple websites that  the hacker group known as Skid Row has cracked Ubisoft’s controversial, “unbeatable” DRM.

They even left a message:

"Thank you Ubisoft, this was quite a challenge for us, but nothing stops the leading force from doing what we do. Next time focus on the game and not on the DRM. It was probably horrible for all legit users. We just make their lives easier."

There’s a modified exe file and crack which allows a player to play the game without a constant internet connection. This all on torrent sites worldwide, and has been since last week. It took less time than even I suspected.

It’s not the first time that Skid Row tried. They attempted it a while back but Ubisoft denied that it had been cracked. There were also some attempts by hackers to attack Ubisoft’s servers which caused further complications and downtime for legitimate players. Not sure if this was Skid Row or not.

Jim Sterling of Destructoid summed it up perfectly:

“Ubisoft has absolutely no sympathy from me, and if this hack truly works, then it only stands as proof that excessive anti-piracy measures never work. All it does is give the publisher a power trip over the more loyal consumers while pirates just sit back and wait for the latest way around the restrictions. Ubisoft bred a lot of bad blood with customers over this stupid idea, and now it runs the risk of previously loyal gamers, as well as hardcore pirates, screwing with its games.

I am certain we'll see a lot of retaliatory piracy in this case too. Ubisoft has nobody to blame but itself.”

So then, it’s up to you: buy the game and play it legally with all the difficulties that come with it, or pirate the game and get the crack so you can play it offline as intended.

I of course do not condone that sort of thing, and ask you to please spend hundreds of Rand on the game, and be frustrated because you can’t play it due to having an insufficient connection, or no internet at all.

Come on. Be legal. Deal with it. At least you bought the game and supported the developers and publishers, even though you can’t play it.

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Source: Ubisoft's controversial 'always on' PC DRM hacked [CNET]

Ubisoft DRM Assassinated: Playable Assassin’s Creed II

Splinter Cell: Conviction – PC Version Delay, No Demo [News]

                                   “Take this, you PC gaming scum!”

The PC version of yet another game gets sh1t upon, it seems.

Yes, the oft-delayed Splinter Cell: Conviction is going to be delayed once again – on PC. Instead of the “set in stone” release date of April 13, the game has been pushed back two weeks, and will now come out on the 27th of April, 2010. Apparently the listing on Amazon has confirmed this, and Big Download received confirmation from Ubisoft on the matter.

The Xbox 360 version of the game is still on track for April 13.

To add insult to injury, the PC version of the game won’t receive a demo either. The Xbox 360 version will.

Ubisoft community developer Li Kuo on Twitter:

"Sorry guys, tomorrow's demo is for X360 only. There are no plans for a PC demo."

And not to mention: this is a Ubisoft title. What does that mean, you ask? Ubisoft’s new rubbish DRM, requiring an always on connection, optimised for first world countries, and nobody else. That’s what.

Why, Atom*?

* God of Violent Video Games

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Sources:

- Splinter Cell Conviction PC's release gets a two week delay to April 27 [Big Download]
- No PC demo plans for Splinter Cell Conviction [Big Download]

Splinter Cell: Conviction – PC Version Delay, No Demo [News]

Ghost Recon Short Film Going to be Made

Ubisoft made a series of short live action films based on Assassin’s Creed II last year before the game’s release on consoles, of which I managed to catch one or two. Now they want to do the same with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. And the film is going to be directed by Academy Award [Oscar] winners, Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy. The film that won the Oscar was a short film by the name of Logorama.

Ubisoft will reportedly spend somewhere around $10 million to make this 20 minute short film, a prequel to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which is being written by Tim Sexton, who had something to do with a little film called Children of Men, which has been regarded by some as one of the best science fiction films of the last ten years.

So, the effort put into this and the resulting quality should be pretty good.

There’s been no word on when the movie will come out, but the game will be out by the end of the year sometime, so 2010 would be my guess…

P.S. I need some new Ghost Recon images to use in my posts, I know. There should be some new screens in OPM sometime soon. Do us a favour and upload some… anybody?

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Sources: Heat Vision – Big Download

Ghost Recon Short Film Going to be Made

Assassin’s Creed II DLC, Bonfire of the Vanities, out Today, PC DRM Issues

The second DLC for Assassin’s Creed II, Bonfire of the Vanities, should be out today. It was announced earlier this week, for Thursday the 18th.

This DLC as well as Battle of Forli was cut from the original game.

I’m just happy that the DLC will be included in the PC release, which comes out mid-March. Yippee!

For the bad news regarding the PC version, I was just reading that game will require Ubisoft’s new and all ready flawed constant internet connection DRM “solution”, that is suited to people living in a first world country and with easy, cheap broadband access - which South Africa doesn’t have for the most part.

If you aren’t connected you can’t play, and if you lose the connection you get kicked out of your game, to the main menu, and lose all your progress since the last checkpoint.

Sucks to be us. And as a lot of people say, this solution isn’t going to make piracy go away, it’s just going to make it worse.

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Source: 1up – CVG (Computer and Video Games)

Assassin’s Creed II DLC, Bonfire of the Vanities, out Today, PC DRM Issues

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to Have Optical Camouflage

Presidents Day

You remember the teaser trailer for GRFS released recently? Well, there was one part which looked pretty cool, and that was a squad of ghosts materializing out of nowhere.

This is what Ubisoft calls Optical Camo, and despite it seeming as though it’s a blatant copy of what was seen in Predator over twenty years ago, or more recently in Crysis, Ubi claims that this among other things is based on real technology that is currently being researched and developed.

Kimi Matsuzaki, otherwise known as UbiKimi on twitter (probably), had this to say:

“Despite popular belief, we didn’t design this after a certain bespectacled wand-wielding boy’s accoutrement. We are, and remain, loyal to the Ghost Recon brand value of authenticity.

In general Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is based on the very real Future Soldier Initiative 2030, which is a U.S. Army R&D program run by the US Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center. Optical camo, like other technologies in Future Solider, is a near-future reality, and this is why we chose to include it in GRFS.

We plan to discuss our references and inspirations in the coming months, so that you can see that we’ve done our homework in order to bring you a plausible future war scenario. In terms of optical camo, there are actually numerous research and military programs on it.”

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier should be out this year for the Xbox 360 and PS3, with a PC version coming later on, and handheld console versions planned as well.

By the way: how cool would it be to get a hold of that Optical Camo tech in real life one day?

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Source: VG247

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to Have Optical Camouflage

TrailerBlazer - Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Teaser

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

I had a look at this on The Verge the other night. It’s the teaser trailer for the upcoming Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. which will be out later this year.

The trailer starts off with these words: “Technology evolves. Threats evolve. Yet war…is constant. The solider of tomorrow must rise to meet these new threats.The future depends on it.”

This intro has instantly been compared to Fallout’s key phrase “War. War never changes.”

From there the trailer shows a bit of fancy graphical stuff, similar to what you’d see in Modern Warfare 2’s briefings, with a few glimpes of stuff and fluff, including some Predator-esque camouflage which sticks in my mind. Oh wait, Crysis all ready did that.

But no real gameplay was seen in this short teaser which clocks in at just about 1 minute long. But it’s early days yet.

TrailerBlazer - Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Teaser

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier WIP Box Art

Here we have Ubisoft’s work-in-progress box art for the upcoming Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

Details about it include Russian or Eastern Orthodox architecture (St. Basil's Cathedral is a popular example) in the background, and in the foreground you can obviously see one of the “ghosts”. He looks a bit similar to the ghosts from Advanced Warfighter 1& 2 with the eye-piece and such.

Seeing as this is “Future Soldier”, I guess it will have the play mechanics of previous titles, but not only set in the future, but you’ll be able to use futuristic weapons, possibly prototypes of weapons not in mainstream use by armed forces, which is what the first Ghost Recon did, as far as I remember. Don’t quote me on that one – it’s just wishful thinking.

As for the game’s possible Eastern setting: I don’t want anybody out there saying, “Oh it’s just copying Modern Warfare or Modern Warfare 2. I’ll have you know that Ghost Recon came along long before Modern Warfare did, and part of that game took place in similar places. Try 2001, before it was cool.

Anyhow, like I was saying, this is WIP box art, or Work-in-Progress, and is likely to change over time.

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Source: Cinemablend

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier WIP Box Art

Assassin’s Creed III Set in Rome, Continues Story of Ezio

For the first time in the series so far, the next title in the Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed III, will be a sequel to Assassin’s Creed II, continuing the story of Ezio.

This time it’s set in Rome, Italy, and Ezio will “strike at the heart” of the Templars. New features in AC III include cooperative multiplayer. The game is said to be released this year.

In related, and perhaps slightly worrying news, Ubisoft says that the Assassin’s Creed series is going to see more frequent sequels. The same was said about Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia, and even… Driver.

If you think it’s too soon after Assassin’s Creed II to see a sequel this year, you’re not the only one. I think it should be made law that a worthy sequel to a game must be in development for at least three or four years. Yeah, I’m looking at you Infinity Ward.

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Source: TVGB

Assassin’s Creed III Set in Rome, Continues Story of Ezio

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to be Released 2010

It was one of the worst kept secrets of the past few months, but Ubisoft officially announced recently that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will be out this year. It’s currently in development at Ubi’s Paris studios, the same team who worked on Advanced Warfighter 1& 2, and has a release date set for “Holiday 2010”, which some interpret as November or December.

The game is said to feature high tech gear and weaponry, an will go beyond anything previously seen in the franchise.

There will be an exclusive multiplayer beta for the Xbox 360 later on in the year, open to those who preorder Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction for the Xbox 360. That game is going to be released on the 13th of April. It was recently, literally set in stone, when some individuals received a stone in the mail with the date supposedly carved into it. That’s all I know, because I didn’t get one. I’d probably just use it as a door stop anyway.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will be making its way to PC, Xbox 360, PS3, but won’t stop there: the game is also going to make an appearance on the PSP as well as the DS, and the Wii. It’s said that the title for the Wii will be different from the others. Just like with the Modern Warfare series and others, the Wii will get a unique title developed with the platform in mind. The slightly bad news is that the PC version may be released later than the console ones, particularly the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. They seem to be getting the preferential treatment. Don’t know where that leaves the handheld versions.

Most of the other Ghost Recon games have been released on the PC, except for Ghost Recon 2. It was going to be ported to the PC, but was cancelled in favour of Advanced Warfighter . This was the last title in the series I played and I disliked it because of its woeful AI.

In related news, there should be a Ghost Recon: Future Soldier trailer coming soon, probably today.

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Sources: Big Download - TVGB

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to be Released 2010

Rumblings: Ghost Recon Future Soldier Announcement Coming?

This all sounds like typical speculation, but it was spotted on Twitter that someone who is possibly working on the new Ghost Recon title, Future Soldier, says that a big announcement is coming next week.

"TGIF all! Looking forward to a Big announcement coming up next week! :)"

And people on the internet are convinced that this announcement will concern Ghost Recon in some capacity. I mean, it’s been in development for some time, and we’ve heard less about it than we did about Splinter Cell: Conviction at one point.

Some others have an idea it could be another Rainbow Six title. Remember Ghost Recon: Predator? What happened to that title, or has that become Future Soldier? Maybe there are two Ghost Recon games on the way…

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Sources: Twitter - Big Download

Rumblings: Ghost Recon Future Soldier Announcement Coming?

Video Game Delays: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ruse, Singularity, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Another year starts, and just as expected, the delays are coming in. It’s been said that Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Conviction has been delayed again, as has Ruse. For Conviction, instead of February 2010, it’ll now be April – for the time being.

And Singularity, a title by Raven and published by Activision, has also been pushed back later into 2010, while Star Wars: The Old Republic has been sent to 2011 without any supper.

Oh, and by the way, another title by the name of Elemental: War of Magic is going to come out later on in 2010 now. That’s also a delay right there.

I must say that Singularity in particular looks quite good, and more original than most Raven titles. And that’s saying a lot.

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Ubisoft

Ubisoft Delays Splinter Cell Conviction, RUSE

Star Wars: The Old Republic Delayed Until 2011?

Singularity delayed again?

Elemental: War of Magic now due in third quarter 2010

Video Game Delays: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ruse, Singularity, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Splinter Cell Conviction: Collector's Edition Available for Preorder

Splinter Cell Conviction has now received a Limited Collector’s Edition.

Ubisoft, the publisher, has confirmed this and the details of the contents of this pack have been revealed too.

The pack will include a Sam Fisher statue, a SteelBook case, a Shadow Armor multiplayer skin and early access to the SC300, SR2 and MP5 weapons.

It will also include access to the Infiltration game mode, and the soundtrack. The Collector’s Edition seems to be for the Xbox 360 only and retails at $69.99 on Amazon, but the standard edition of the game will be released on both Xbox 360 as well as PC.

Splinter Cell: Conviction will be available on February 20, 2010 in Oz, February 23 in the US, and February 26 in Europe.

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Splinter Cell Conviction: Collector's Edition detailed

Splinter Cell Conviction: Collector's Edition Available for Preorder

Video Game-Inspired Fan-Fiction Novels Coming Your Way

It seems as though video game-inspired fan-fiction novels are all the rage at the moment. There are three coming out by the end of the year that I’ve read about: Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance, Splinter Cell: Endgame, and the one I’ve heard most about, The Elder Scrolls: The Infernal City.

The first to hit will be The Elder Scrolls: The Infernal City, written by by Greg Keyes, which will be published by Del Rey on the 24th of November. There were recently hints in the novel’s blurb that alluded to a fifth Elder Scrolls game, and this blurb was subsequently taken down, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure that Bethesda would never drop one of their most successful franchises. There’s and excerpt from The Infernal City available online right now at randomhouse.com. It’s not bad, I guess. I had a read of it today.

The second one, following close behind, is Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance, written by Oliver Bowden, which will be published by Penguin on 26th November, just after the game’s release, which is scheduled for the 20th. It’s funny because there was initially a trilogy of books planned for the Assassin’s Creed series, including The Invisible Imam, but they were cancelled. There’s a description of the novel, Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance, on Amazon.

The third one I’ve read about is to be published by Berkley, and indeed based on another Ubisoft game- Splinter Cell: Endgame (not to be confused with EndWar, another Tom Clancy title, or Megadeth’s latest album, Endgame). This one is going to be released in December, and is based on the Splinter Cell series. In addition to this, there will be a novel based on HAWX, predictably called Tom Clancy's HAWX. They are both written by a "David Michaels" which is said to be a pseudonym used by many different authors.

When's the last time that Tom Clancy wrote a novel, anyway? It's just become a brand name.

The only novel that doesn’t have a tie-in title to speak of is the Elder Scrolls novel, it seems.

Video Game-Inspired Fan-Fiction Novels Coming Your Way

Ubisoft has Good and Bad News, and Assassin’s Creed II

So, it seems as though Assassin’s Creed II’s pre-orders are up 80% over the original, and from what I’ve seen, it seems justified.

Hell, on Amazon, you can pre-order Assassin’s Creed II for the PC and get $2.00 off. That’s right.

Assassin’s Creed: Lineage was recently the most viewed video on YouTube when it was released, and drove a lot of traffic and likely more interest in the series.

On the bad side of things though, because most of the year passed, and no Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft says that their sales fell by 52%.

Ubisoft has Good and Bad News, and Assassin’s Creed II

Ghost Recon 4 Named "Predator" and Ubisoft Trademarks "Assassin"

Earlier this year it was revealed that there would be a Ghost Recon 4 sometime in the future. Now this game has cropped up again, because it's been rated by the OFLC, and the name is Ghost Recon Predator.

I'm hoping somewhat that this isn't like the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games- at least the first one. That was quite forgettable in my mind. Now, I liked the original Ghost Recon a lot. There's a lot of joking around about the supposed unoriginality of the title and writers and commenters on the story are joking that it may feature the Predator.



I don't know about that though, because Mr. Predator is preoccupied with other projects like the several Aliens/Predator/AvP projects in development. It would be cool to go back to the jungle and swamp atmosphere of the original instead of the more urban environments of Advanced Warfighter, anyway.

In a bit of related news, Ubisoft has trademarked the name "Assassin", which would likely (not confirmed) have something to do with the Assassin's Creed franchise, seeing as there's a whole lot of "Assassin" there.

Ghost Recon 4 Named "Predator" and Ubisoft Trademarks "Assassin"

Ghost Recon 4 and Splinter Cell: Conviction Coming Sometime

In the latest Ubisoft sales report for the last fiscal year, two Tom Clancy flagship games were revealed and are now generating a buzz. The one is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, a game that was advertised a lot ages ago, and then went underground. That title is, according to Ubisoft, going to be out by December 2009, and like Borderlands, will take a new visual art direction. The other game is Ghost Recon 4. The report doesn’t say Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 4, although it would actually be 3, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t change later. It’s due for a 2010 release.

I hope they make a game similar to the first Ghost Recon- it was the best one, I don’t know why.

Sources:

http://www.gamerdna.com/Favorite/Gaming/New_Spinter_Cell_by_this_holiday_season

http://www.gamerdna.com/Favorite/Gaming/New_Ghost_Recon_announced

Ghost Recon 4 and Splinter Cell: Conviction Coming Sometime