Finally, A Vampyre Story set for release end of 2007

It was a long wait, it was a touch fight, and we are still going to wait. But in the end, I think it's all worth it. The dream of Bill Tiller and his new Autumn Moon studio is coming to reality finally. A Vampyre Story release date in France and United Kingdom has been announced and is intended to be at the end of 2007. I can still recall when the game designer vowed to release the game, even if he had to do so on his own budget.



Well, his efforts seem to have been rewarded and the fans are eagerly waiting for the new 2D style adventure game. The French distributors are now targeting the end of year for the release. You can read the translation of the article here. The original French version is available here as well.

US Console Sales lead by XBox 360 in Dec

The Register writes about the game console sales in US last month, lead by XBox 360 with 1.1m unites, followed by Wii 604,200 and Sony 3 490,700. PS3 is still in the last place, and XBox 360 taking the lead among. This lead is most probably due to the lack of productions units for Wii and PS3. Why is the PS3 also less popular? Well I suggest you browse for the PS3 games and see which game is worthy of buying the $400 console. There is no killer app for PS3 yet, but they should be coming in 2007 or else Sony will be kicked out of this round.

The amazing thing is the sales of the old consoles however. PS2 reached 1.4m, 1.6m for Nintendo DS, and 953,200 units for PSP. How could people still buy the PS2 I wondered, and then I remembered the tag price for new consoles. The total console sales in December rose %59.2 from last year, totalling $1.6bn! Can you imagine. And my dad used to tell me video games are just for kids.

Read the full article here.

Telltale Vs Lucasarts

March 2004, the famous anticipated sequel to the Sam & Max Hit the Road was cancelled by Lucasarts for good, and and all other adventure game plans have been put on hold until further notice. A late comment came from Lucas officials late last year saying they will get back to the adventure games in 2015!

Fans went mad, petitions started on the internet, and even the Lucas employees who were working on the game felt frustrated. A group of the employees heard the cries, quit Lucas and started what's called today Telltale games back in June 2004. They have managed to acquire the license for the abandoned Sam & Max and already released two episodes which were well accepted by the fans.

Now, and after 3 years and a half, I thought of making this comparison between the small Telltale, and the Star Wars fueled Lucasarts. The first thing I tried was how often people Google for one over the other by using Google Trends.


Lucas are still in the lead, but as it is properly called Trend, you can see end of 2006 how Telltale closed up on Lucasarts. This was when Sam & Max Ep. 1 was released. A clear message from the fans to Lucas I suppose. Also, you can see below the difference from Alexa for Reach and Rank:


Daily Reach has still a huge gap between the two, though at every Sam & Max release this gap gets a lot smaller. If we look at Ranking it gets much more interesting. At Nov and Jan, when the two Sam & Max episodes were released, the 3 1/2 years old company, living on the forgotten and leftovers of Lucasarts beats Lucas in ranking! Now that Lucas are out of new Star Wars movies, and Telltale still gathering up their forces, there could be a real turn in situation here. I don't believe Lucas will start losing, no. But their sales may get affected now without new Star Wars fresh movies coming, and may really consider appealing back to the fans they turned their back to.

On the other, I take off my hat and salute all the people at Telltale for their continuous and hard working efforts that really seem to be paying off. They have won the fans heart and loyalty in a way that with every release, we customers face serious issues launching the game, and can still feel the sense of humor between fans and the company. How could a company like this fall I wonder?

Sam & Max episode 2 out today

Technically, it's the 5th of Jan in many areas of the world, and fans have already started spamming telltale blog with complains and funny comments about why the game, Sam & Max episode Situation: Comedy is not out yet. The company PR and officials are sharing the laugh as well, saying it's still not 5th in California.

The episode is the second of 6 as a whole that will end up the first season of Sam & Max Adventure game series. Sam & Max started as a comic in the 80s, and was later turned into a PC adventure game in 1993 called Sam & Max Hit the Road, and it was really a hit. You can see the intro cutscene below. Around 1998, TV Series for the dog and rabbit comic started before it was soon stopped. Fans kept looking for more of the funny two characters, but all hopes were gone when Lucasarts stopped the production of the Sam & Max Freelance Police game.

As the news came out, it was a clear message Lucas are no more into adventure games, and have set focus on purely Star Wars sequels. Mass petitions started, and lots of people cried for help. A group of Lucas employees listened to the crowd, left the company to start their own. To be able to fuel their on going expenses, they made the games into short episodes, and it seems to be turning out good.

For now, enjoy the the two clips below:


Sam & Max Hit the Road (2003)


Sam & Max Freelance Police (2004) - Got cancelled

Bone Director's Cut

Following the release of the first two Bone episodes, and while the fans were busy playing and more often discussing the Sam & Max season, Jeff Smith and his team have had their hands full working on new updated versions of the two Bone episodes. Updated version is available for FREE to people who already purchased the game, and include:

1- New "Prophecy" cutscene at the begin of Out from Boneville, that will be related to the remaining of the episodes
2- Better and more clear ending of the first episode, as Mr. Jeff believes they rushed in the release and didn't make the ending as good as it should.
3- improved Thorn look and voice.

Rarely we see people revisiting their sold work to enhance it again, which shows to what degree they are taking care of the details of their story. Read their official post, and interview with Jiff Smith here.

Top 10 anticipated Nintendo Wii games

Here you will find a lits with some YouTube videos of the top 10 most promising games for Nintendo Wii in 2007. Enjoy!

PlayStation 3 Kiosks Freeze on purpose?!?!

Destructoid is writing about his experience in the PlayStation 3 Kiosk freezing nature, saying that on different occasions he has seen the PS3 kiosk shut down. When he asked about it, some told him it's because it keeps freezing. Later on a Best Buy employee told him the locking and freezing of the console is intentional by Sony. They have made the PS3 locking intentionally to disallow people sticking in the shop playing it all day long! A second sales person also indicated to him the same thing.

I am not sure how true is that. Is it a cover up story or a real awkward decision. If it's a cover up story, we should see full list of bug reports, and if it's true, then that means if your PS3 keeps freezing at home, the shop have sold you the kiosk version of it! So get back there and get your money back.

Monkey Island Cartoon...

Its now almost 10 years since the last worthy Monkey Island game sequel, and 17 since the start of the monkeying era. Since 1997, and the fans are eagerly waiting for a Monkey Island sequel. The cries were heard and a frustrating Escape From Monkey Island, by all means do escape it, was released. Most fans were let down, and to me, it was a like a clear message "Don't ask for a sequel next time!".

Still, loyal game fans are all over the net posting, creating fan sites and themes. We have seen the Monkey Island theatric play by high school kids, which was not bad at all. Later on, we started hearing about the Monkey Island movie, except that it was released by Walt Disney based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride that initially inspired Ron Gilbert to create the Monkey Island game. Still, even Ron himself admired the movie, and the fans loved it crazy, me included ofcourse. The last part of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is coming in 2007, and Lucasarts have clearly said they will get back to the old games by 2015! Thats a long wait for the fans.

Today however, I came across a great 2D animated Pyrats movie, with some 3D aid. It was so fun and amusing to watch. Reminds you of the Curse of Monkey Island drawing, though much more advanced. But it was also TOO SHORT! when I looked for the release date I found out this is only a short movie that was made by 5 French students over 7 months for the Annecy 2006 international animation festival. It was so much frustrating, but very promising at the same time. From what I see, they have created the characters and theme of the movie, and this all can't be done for 1.5 minute play and thats it. I think they must be trying to sell their skills to come with a full length movie later on. Check the site to see the movie. If Disney wants to get back in the 2D cartoon business, those are the people who they should be hiring.

Both Sony and Nintendo to release fixes for their consoles...

Its been a month almost since the release of the latest two game consoles in the market, and now the two companies, Sony and Nintendo, are already updating their consoles. Nintendo Wii have been report to have weak straps that blowout eventually, as it seems the company underestimated its new controller appeal to the fans.

Sony on the other hand have updated their firmware to address the resolution scaling problem that has many times been reported. Nevertheless, some say the new update does not fix anything.

Slashdot has more on the story.