Make it right or the fans will squash you like bug.

April Fools passed by without much incident (or did I just miss the hoopla?)  but there’s been news of late that I wish was a joke, and some genuine welcome surprises. Unfortunately, this is is one of the former.

Sony Pictures is working on adapting seminal PS2 game Shadow of the Colossus into a movie, as confirmed by both The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz Blog and Variety’s The Cut Scene blog . There’s no expected release date yet, and the project is in the earliest stages of development.

Here come the bad news: the attached screenwriter is Justin Marks, whose only released film to date he worked on is Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. The small ray of hope in this is that Hollywood really sees some potential in this guy and has already entrusted Marks with some real geek fantasy in-development projects like Voltron, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Masters of the Universe. I just hope Chun-Li is him getting started and that Shadow of the Colossus is the last possible adaptation he does, after steadily getting better at the craft.

Shadow of the Colossus had a truly EPIC sense of scale and it does excite me to think about seeing an enormous mountain of a Colossus come to life in properly-done CG on some ginormous IMAX screen.  The camerawork in-game and even the soundtrack had a very cinematic quality about them so those are a natural translation to the big screen. But there was also no real spoken dialogue in it, save  Wander calling his horse Agro near, so already there is a conflict of narrative devices there. Look around for fans reactions to the movie news and you’ll see I’m not the only one quite unsettled here.

Slashfilm reminds us that Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) once called the game “a masterpiece.” It’s my hope that a director like him who appreciates and understands the vision of the game will be able to whip the “film” into shape, save it from becoming just another “game movie” flop.

• via The Cut Scene [Variety], Risky Biz Blog [The Hollywood Reporter],
  Kotaku, Slashfilm

Uniqlo teases some new game shirts

UNIQLO, otherwise known as The Gap of Japan, is hinting at another round of videogame-themed t-shirts, coming up in March. Most definitely coming to Japan first, the company teases us with silhouettes of six classic games.
Their previous game-themed shirts for Metal Gear Solid were a little too obscure for my tastes, but who am I to complain − geek is the new cool and everyone knows it.

• Uniqlo via Offworld and Kotaku

Michel Ancel says sequel game is in pre-production.

[UPDATE] Ubisoft officially confirmed the game with a teaser trailer! May 28, 2008

Click here to view the embedded video.

Knighted video game designer Michel Ancel revealed in an interview with JeuxVideo that a sequel to the critically- acclaimed commercial failure Beyond Good & Evil is currently in pre-production. A team of 10 to 12 people are working on the game, and for some head-scratching reason Ubisoft is not yet giving the full green-light for the project to go into real production phase. BG&E may have been a commercial failure but scour the nets and you’ll find legions of fans that are still joining the party after finding the gem of a game in bargain-bins– and those remaining copies are fast drying up; should you want yours, I suggest running to your nearest retailer (bonus hint: it was released in 2003 for the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and Windows PC).

Anyway, make this game Ubisoft! No dilly-dallyin’! Re-release the first BG&E (so the rest of the world can play the increasingly hard-to-find title) with a coupon for the sequel, bundle the first game when the sequel comes out, whatever, just don’t let it die in a basement somewhere, ‘kay? The way I see it is, even if you move it to production now, it’ll still be 2 years too long for us players to get to it in stores, so chop-chop, I say!

Imagine, a remake of the first game on the Wii, like Capcom did for Okami (just make sure to do something more than just shake-motions like you did for the Prince of Persia 2 remake for the Wii, Ubisoft! — I can see it now, the Dai-jo-wielding, the picture-taking are perfect for the Wii-mote), and the sequel on all current-gen platforms – Wii, PS3, Xbox360 – plus the PS2 (since it looks like it’ll be around for another 5 years).

As adventure games go, BG&E is one of the finest I’ve played, and just to give you an idea, let me say this: when I upgraded from my Gamecube to the Wii (otherwise known as “Gamecube 1.5″) I traded/sold/gave away all of my ‘cube games except BG&E and Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. Sure the story’s been done before (uncovering the workings of a government conspiracy beyond measure) but sneaking around as a journalist with a camera and infiltrating restrticted areas hasn’t been this much fun since trying to get into the girls’ changing room! I kid, I kid (for that you’d have to play Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – you’ll know what I’m talking about). Plus, in BG&E you get a walking, talking pig as a sidekick! (watch the trailer below – no pigs in it, though – and a link to a thoughtful review from way back when in 2004.)

• Review at Idle Thumbs
• news via JeuxVideo(orig source) and Kotaku

Trailer for Beyond Good and Evil from Ubisoft

Click here to view the embedded video.

Beautiful Katamari might be go to PS3, but for now only on Xbox 360

Just a small update. There was much confusion of Beautiful Katamari showing up on various promotional material that it will appear on PS3 and even the Wii. In fact it’s been covered and corrected many times over that Beautiful will indeed be only for Xbox 360. 1up brings clarification that a new Katamari game will be coming our way soon to the PS3, according to Beautiful Katamari director Jun Morikawa at the Tokyo Game Show 2007. Likely not an exact port of Beautiful to the PS3 but some variation (and the name probably won’t be the same). Morikawa also “hinted at” a Wii version. So once again, PS3 version, definitely. Wii version, maybe. All I can say is yes, more please — at least until I get tired of it (which isn’t now).

In related news, 1up also has a preview of Beautiful Katamari on the Xbox 360 from TGS2007 and cites, among other things, the 1080p eye-popping factor and fun minigame sections during the reduced loadtimes. Online/downloadable content will apparently be a big focus of the game as well. Read the full preview here.

• via 1up.com

Norn is a new non-playable race in Guild Wars: Eye of the North expansion

After nearly 2 months of previews and cover articles in print magazines around the world, and interview/sneak-peek features at gaming websites, NCsoft and ArenaNet have finally announced release details for the first (and probably only) expansion pack for Guild Wars as we know it: Eye of the North hits store shelves on August 31, at $39.99. That’s the price for North America, while it’ll be €34.99 for those in Europe. It will also be available through the PlayNC online store system as a download that day.

While the expansion covers the already-known continent of Tyria that was first introduced in the original Guild Wars game (the “Prophecies” campaign, as fans know it), Eye of the North will focus its eye on the northern part of that continent (durr. i couldn’t help myself, my first pun-in-a-post) — an area that will introduce 150 new skills, and of course more dungeons, items and weapons. And don’t forget the 4 new races in the storyline, some of which should be playable in GW2.

If you haven’t been keeping track, the game is the only way for

“[...] players to carry the legacy of their characters into the upcoming Guild Wars 2. The Hall of Monuments will allow players to preserve their accomplishments and titles from Guild Wars, Factions, and Nightfall, which can then be claimed in Guild Wars 2.”

which is to say that although GW2 will kick ass in its own right, they really want us to buy the expansion first, and then buy GW2.

Well, I’m at their mercy – bought every iteration of GW so far and will probably keep doing so, even though my in-game time’s been reduced to 3 hours a month at most. Somebody wanna go PvE with me so I can finish these campaigns? Hit me up! my game ID is Vikael Colsway.

'We heart Katamari Damacy' soundtrack cover

If there’s anything that gets me back to gaming, it’s wacky and charming games like Katamari Damacy. Ever since its first release three years ago, it has turned into a series, milked by Namco (now Namco Bandai) with 2 sequels, both of which I have played. Admittedly, while I go against creator Keita Takahashi’s wishes of keeping the game contained to one fling, I join many fans that think it’s just too good of a thing to pass on more Katamari.

So after the rumors and musings have been gone around on the wires for some time, Silconera posted a company fact sheet apparently confirming that the latest game in the series, Beautiful Katamari, will be an Xbox 360 exclusive title. This is more info that seems to be in line with what N’Gai Croal of Newsweek mentioned only a day before.

In any case, I can only hope that it is not true. Main reason being that I don’t have an Xbox 360. (collective gasps in horror)

Yes, it’s true, no Xbox 360 in my game room. Maybe this will finally be the last straw — it’s been hard enough holding out on Guitar Hero II with the 360′s downloadable tracks and all. Now there’s a game with a big enough difference between platforms, albeit a bit unfair in console age(PS2 versus 360).