It's not very often that you get to witness games spruced up by mainstream game designers who emerge in the independent scene. But then finding crusaders that promote game story in the industry aren't a dime a dozen, either. Although Last of the Patriots 2, a sci-fi action adventure game centered on story and character-driven plots, won't blow you away with stellar graphics, it's got the guts to tackle deeper issues involved in soldiering and war. More details of GTA 4 level designer Paul Davis' game at the full story.

Dedicating to the avid gamers' world of game music devotion, the GCDC 2007 to start this coming August will also be seeing a live performance by the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague on popular game soundtracks from Starcraft, Final Fantasy IX, Ragnarok 2, Stranglehold, Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater, Secret of Mana and The Abbey Turrican 2.

Conducted by Andy Brick, the orchestra will also perform popular classics in medley form in salute to the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga as pioneering game platforms for the game industry, as stated by an official press release.

The performance will be held at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on August 22, 8 p.m. and won't be an official part of the GCDC 2007 opening ceremony. Also to appear at the concert is Japanese star opera singer Izumi Masuda, singer Conny Kollet from Germany fame, and Konami-sponsored percussionist Rony Barrak.

Kollet is popular for her performances at the Symphonic Game Music Concert, of which this concert will be the fifth of the series, although many will know her for her rendering of the title song for SpellForce: The Breath of Winter.

Rony Barrak will be performing his version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Snake Eater together with the FILMharmonic Orchestra. Masuda, despite being an opera singer, is more inclined to pop-opera pieces, and could be identified as the same one who rendered the song "Distant Worlds" from Final Fantasy at the concert "VOICES: music from Final Fantasy." Tickets are already being sold as of this moment.

Eidos Interactive and Valve Software are poised to slap those who claimed "the PC is dead" back to the age of the Commodore 64. With their agreement of a team-up for the online distribution of Eidos titles, the PC games industry just started to give the next-gen consoles a run for their money, using means to avert piracy.

Eidos Interactive, the UK-based world-class publisher for titles such as Tomb Raider, Commandos and Championship Manager, will now be distributing its new line of games and their bestsellers over Steam's online digital distribution network, including Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Championship Manager 2007. Other titles to be distributed include Hitman titles, Battlestations: Midway, Just Cause and the entire Commando series.

Gabe Newell, Valve Software's co-founder and president, was happy to extend their services to a major PC games publisher, toward an online community that is overly loyal to the PC platform. Steam is the premier distribution network for Valve Software, where they have been distributing games such as Rag Doll Kung Fu and Counter-Strike: Source. Tom Marx, development manager at Eidos, replied:

Eidos is delighted to add Steam to our extensive digital distribution network. Steam represents an opportunity to distribute our games electronically to millions of gamers around the world. It also provides us a direct connection to these extremely active PC influencers who frequent Steam as a source for new content and information. As a result of being a spotlight feature on Steam this year, we expect to see sales of Tomb Raider: Anniversary benefit across all channels.

Give us a moment here: it's been two decades since the "bread box", and this announcement that a company loyal to the Commodore in name and spirit will bring the magic back just caught us by surprise. Wait, that was an understatement. We swear time stopped for five minutes. Really.

Commodore 64: was that a classic or what? Avid gamers should remember this platform as the first gaming computer ever - the big daddy-O device that spurred the game industry. We know only some of us are classic gamers at heart (okay so maybe only the older ones).

But even well established game publishers honor the C64. Just ask Rockstar Games about the opening sequence for their game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Commodore Gaming will be bringing back the "Commodore" name and brand to the computer market, with gaming PCs that may rival those of Dell's AlienWare line and VoodooPC's luxury gaming sets. This move is tied to honoring the single best-selling PC in the history of the computer industry, even while Commodore Business Machines, the original company, is no longer around to witness this moment.

 

While details haven't been revealed as to what the new Commodore will be sporting, Bala Keilmann, CEO of Commodore Gaming, did promise "very exciting aspects" of the new systems to be unveiled at the next CeBIT coming this March 15.

The Commodore 64 sold 22 million units since it was released in 1982, putting it as the only computer model to reach that level of sales in history. But shortly after the modern Amiga 4000 and 1200 in 1992, the joint companies of Amiga and Commodore went belly up in 1994.

If they pull this the way we think they are going to, the term classic gaming is going to need a whole new definition.

Children of the 80's will soon have one more reason to rejoice as one of the most popular games of those years will soon be getting a second chance at life. As announced by Myriad Interactive, they have recently acquired the license to the looks-like-chess-but-not-quite-chess classic title, Archon. (No. This has nothing to do with those glowy, naked folks in Starcraft.)

Originally developed by Free Fall Associates in 1984, Archon was the product of their early partnership with the then-new publisher, Electronic Arts. As it turned out, Archon proved to be such a hit when it was first released on the Commodore 64 and the Atari home system, that it spawned the sequel Archon II: Adept in the same year. In 1985, an unofficial, fanmade sequel started circulating and was known as Archon III: Exciter, but an official sequel didn't come until 1994 under the title Archon Ultra. Unfortunately, this last title didn't achieve the level of success that its predecessors did.

Archon was inspired by the holographic chess games that can be seen in Star Wars movies, and was successful mainly because of its innovative gameplay. It looks like chess, but that's where the similarities end. The board is divided between the Light and the Dark sides, and the likes of Valkyries, Unicorns, and Archers populate the Light Side, while pieces such as Trolls, Dragons, and Manticores man the Dark Side.

With such a large gap in time between the last Archon game and the upcoming one which Myriad is bound to produce via Mercury Games, we can't help but wonder which platform they'll be resurrecting this game on, and how they'll be transforming the 8-bit wonder into a next-gen hit.

Upon seeing this mod, the first thing that came to mind was what this was all for. And then a few seconds later, we realized just how hardcore this mini Commodore 64 actually is. So without further ado, we introduce the Picodore 64, a mod made by Jason Winters. And yes, just in case you were wondering, it's a fully-functioning Commodore 64 with a matching mini-Atari joystick. Now, how cool is that, having the grand daddy of home video games (not to mention PCs) in your hands?

As for more details on this modified little cutie from 1982, its creator tells all:

I had an old PSOne LCD screen lying around and I thought I'd make a C64 laptop. Actually, it's more like a C64 PDA! It measures 6.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches (15.5 x 16.5 x 4 cm) when closed. It can run from an AC wall adapter or 6 NiMH AA batteries. The keyboard is hacked from a portable folding keyboard for a Jornada PDA which outputs RS-232. I'm using a PIC 16F88 to decode the signals and re-encode them to PS/2 ... There is an internal amplified speaker as well as connections for audio and video output on the back. There's a serial connection for a disk drive and an SD card slot in the side for a 1541-III but I haven't been able to get that to work yet. I also have a connection for a userport/joystick. The joystick in the picture is a hacked Atari keychain joystick.

Again. Hardcore, baby.