It looks like everyone's dishing out there own version of "Gamer's Day." Sega's own rendition, however, may be the one to stand out from the rest, since its multi-genre, multi-platform, and multi-franchise collection is studded with highly-anticipated hopefuls. So aside from Iron Man and upcoming game adaptation of The Incredible Hulk, Sega laid out teasers for fans of Aliens, Total War and the stealthy action title, Alpha Protocol.

 

2K Games' BioShock is still riding waves of success, being top pick for various gamers around the world. The Swedish are no exception either, for the first-person shooter from 2K Games Boston and Australia steals number one spot for their all platforms chart - well the Xbox 360 version, that is.

It also managed to squeeze through four popular PC, MMO games in the region, which include NCSoft's Guild Wars expansion Eye of the North, Creative Assembly's Medieval II: Total War expansion Kingdoms, and Blizzard Entertainment's two-hit combo - World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - in that order from second to fifth.

BioShock's Games for Windows version settled into sixth place, while Insomniac Games' Resistance: Fall of Man and Revolution Studios' Motorstorm also found a place in the top ten titles, having grabbed a solid seventh and eighth respectively. 

Counter-Strike 1: Anthology from Valve Software at ninth closed the PC game count to six in PC-dominated charts, while PS2 title Guitar Hero 2: Rock the 80's from RedOctane concluded the top ten games. In essence, Guild Wars: Eye of the North topped the PC list, Resistance: Fall of Man trumped the PS3 list, BioShock rocked the Xbox 360 chart, and Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess was king of the Wii mountain.

In the handheld scene, Nintendo's Pokemon Diamond was favored in the DS list, while WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2007 from THQ crushed competition in the PSP chart. Here's the top ten in the Swedish multi-format charts:

1. Bioshock (360)
2. Guild Wars Eye of the North (PC)
3. Medieval II Total War Kingdoms (PC)
4. World of Warcraft (PC)
5. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
6. Bioshock (PC)
7. Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
8. Motorstorm (PS3)
9. Counter-Strike 1: Anthology (PC)
10. Guitar Hero 2 Rock the 80´s (PS2)

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]

Creative Assembly, creators of the Total War series, leaped centuries from Medieval: Total War to enter the world in the where swords and melee combat were replaced by muskets and firing lines. Empire: Total Earth, most likely to remain a PC-exclusive RTS, was formerly announced to take fans of the series into the age of fighting sails and gunpowder.

CVG sat down with Creative Assembly's James Russell (lead designer) and Mike Simpson (studio director) to unravel their latest offering to the Total War franchise.

Introducing the new title, James Russell said, "Empire: Total War's set in the 18th century and the time of the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution and the French Revolution." He claimed that fans of the series will be able to experience the employment of combat tactics, strategic formations, and the training of unique units within the era.

Like former Total War video games, the Empire: Total War will grant players access to authentic battle formations and strategies, such as lethal firing lines and the cavalry-stopping square formation. The use of cannon will provide budding strategists with the opportunity to rain death from above. Buildings can also be occupied by infantry and torn down with cannon fire.

No longer limiting itself to a single continent, Empire: Total War will allow Total War strategists to enter theaters in the Caribbean, in North America, Central America, and India to add to the already-visited theaters of the European peninsula and the Middle East.

But perhaps the biggest feature in Empire: Total War is the inclusion of real-time sea combat, a feature lacking in previous Total War titles, despite the integration of naval combat units. James Russell said the visit into the 18th century prompted the dive into naval warfare, since it was the age that naval warfare really advanced to a grand scale.

This avenue, and most features mentioned above, were already explored before by Eidos Interactive's Imperial Glory, however, and the video games' mediocre welcoming left the gunpowder warfare concept with a slightly less invigorating appeal. Will Empire: Total War break open the hatches and blow away skepticism? We'll find out when it delivers broadsides some time next year.

Though Creative Assembly, the developer behind the Total War series, believes that there's no doubt developers could create a great real-time strategy game on consoles, the devs were sure that the recently announced Empire: Total War won't be coming to any console in the near future. "It would be very, very difficult to make anything close to Total War on consoles," Mike Simpson, studio director, told CVG in an interview.

"You'd have to change too much about it to make it work," he continued. Apparently, the likes of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, and Battle for Middle Earth have all been ported to consoles, but were reflected by PC strategists as plain ports tweaked for gamepads. None were especially noteworthy in the blockbuster department.

Simpson also held this sentiment:

There were a few RTS games developers ported to consoles - and they did it really badly. ... Then pretty much the whole market said 'whoa - you can't do RTS games on consoles'. But it's because they were ports - bad ports.

Although the industry hasn't created a great console RTS, there's still hope that it might. Simpson said that all developers need to do is to plan an RTS from the ground up as a purely console game.

 

Sega and The Creative Assembly just announced Empire: Total War, taking the widely popular and much loved Total War series to the next level. Not only will the campaigns be worldwide, but there will also be full-blown naval battles that fans have been praying for.

Set in the 18th Century, the Age of Sail, Empire offers a lot more than its predecessors. For the first time in the series, rifles and cannons will now be available to add some "oomph" in combat. Players can now recreate scenes they see in historical movies, lining musketeers up as they stand against foes in a battle for survival.

Another breakthrough for the series is the introduction of full 3D naval battles, something that hindered previous Total War games from being complete. During the time when greater powers are starting to expand their horizons, we can expect access to various types of ships they employed during the era.

If those aren't enough, The Creative Assembly is also widening the scope by making Empire: Total  War worldwide. A slew of new factions will be making an appearance, giving you the choice of playing Napoleon or spearheading forces in the east.

Epic land combats will undoubtedly be present, but some nifty features have been added to enhance the experience and make battles faithful to its time. For one, soldiers can now garrison in buildings. Taking cover will also play a major role to avoid certain death from raining bullets and devastating cannons.

Empire: Total War has been secretly in the works for over a year now, but development is still in early stages. The Creative Assembly is aiming for a 2008 release. Still a long wait indeed, so check out the artwork to pass the time.

  

 

According to an official press release handed over by the friendly neighborhood mailman, PathEngine, makers of the self-titled pathfinding and movement SDK, announced Release 5.10 of their SDK. Sporting a ramped up graph search core and improvements in performance for dealing with dynamic obstacles, the SDK was licensed to at least three more parties.

In addition to 3d-io and Dongguk University of Korea, the SDK has been "proudly" announced to be licensed to Creative Assembly, the makers of the phenomenal Total War strategy series. In fact, it has been explicitly stated that the SDK will be incorporated in the UK and Brisbane-based developer's as yet unnamed project for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Creative Assembly has currently just polished up their Total War Kingdoms expansion for the latest installment to the Total War series, Medieval II: Total Wars. Does that mean there's a totally new Total War title heading for the next-gen console? We'll keep you posted as developments come up.

Before we even begin talking about Aussie and it being the games capital of the cosmos, let's talk basics first, shall we? The other night, the Game Developer's Association of Australia (GDAA) presented awards to exemplary games and companies across the industry as part of their annual event. Aside from that, the group also released new statistics on the current status of the local industry.

So what do you want first, the list of winners or the statistics? Well, let us save the best for last and go with statistics first. During the last few years, Australia's local game industry has been booming and has finally become an important integer of its economy.

According to the association's official report, "Australian game developers now directly employ 1600 people, including 1350 permanent staff, and generate annual revenue of $110 million - over 90 per cent of which is export earnings." They added that the sector is actually labeled as high skill and high wage, with employees earning more than the average wage across the country.

Given those, it is then important to know how GDAA view the industry. Without saying it directly, GDAA implied that 2006 belong to Pandemic Studios with the latter grabbing the four of ten awards. The list of the winners is as follows:

• Best Game - Destroy All Humans 2 (Pandemic)
• Best Console Game - Destroy All Humans 2 (Pandemic)
• Best PC Game - Medieval II: Total War (The Creative Assembly)
• Best Handheld Game - MX Vs ATV: On the Edge (Tantalus)
• Best Mobile Game - Madden 07 (Firemint)
• Best Gameplay - Medieval II: Total War (Pandemic)
• Best Graphics - Medieval II: Total War (The Creative Assembly)
• Best Audio - Destroy All Humans 2 (Pandemic)
• Best New Start-up Company - Endgame

IGN Entertainment's Direct2Drive digital retail store announced today that they have inked a deal with Sega to digitally distribute the award-winning Total War series of games, including The Creative Assembly’s long awaited sequel, Medieval II: Total War.

With this new distribution deal, Sega is joining the long list of leading game publishers that are currently using Direct2Drive to bring their games to consumers. This steadily growing list underscores the increasing investment the videogame industry is making in digital distribution.

Direct2Drive has been allowing gamers to conveniently purchase and download top-selling games since 2004. It builds on the tried and tested operational infrastructure of FilePlanet, IGN Entertainment's download site. Direct2Drive also makes use of IGN's HitPoints program, which provides full digital game downloads for IGN and GameSpy subscribers.

As predicted by the QJ crystal ball of prophecy (otherwise known as "our sources"), Medieval 2: Total War has arrived right on time. When Sega says it's November 14 for North America, it damn well should be November 14 for North America. No room for misunderstanding and miscalculations there. Hey, it is TOTAL war, after all.

For US$ 49.99, you get all the war-mongering you can satisfy yourself with. The game has polished their war-beaten battlefield rendering system and improved it by tweaking out the clone armies of the past games in the franchise and has charged in with a more realistic animation system. Imagine: 10,000 troops to command, hundreds of unit types, weather effects in real-time, and the whole chaos of war.

March through the Middle Ages and form your empire as you strategically want to to unfold. Build your castles and cities, fiefdoms and baronies, bathhouses and brothels (oops) and whatever you deem so. Unleash the Lord (or Lady) in you. Build your own empire. And if ever the game gets a bit tricky, always remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

SEGA said the magic words today that every Medieval II: Total War fan wants to hear: the PC real time strategy (RTS) game has gone gold. And then SEGA said the other set of words that gamers really care about: the final release dates. Medieval II: Total War will march across the European continent starting November 10. The campaign will then cross over the Atlantic to North America on November 14.

Medieval II: Total War, from The Creative Assembly, is set between 1080 – 1530 AD which is not the most peaceful era in the Medieval World. Actually it was pretty turbulent. The goal of of the game is to become the greatest power of the Medieval World. Screw Gandhi and the Nobel Peace Prize. The only way to get there is the violent way.

Medieval II: Total War has already chalked up impressive pre-release victories by earning rave reviews from PC Gamer, Gamestar, PC Zone, and PC Powerplay. To celebrate the arrival of Medieval II: Total War we present the final batch of screeshots: