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This week, Nintendo has released details of its upcoming plans for Comic Con 2011. Despite its name, the event has featured more and more games over the past few years (what with all the crossover activity) whilst still maintaining a healthy focus on the storied heroes and villains of comic world. This year’s showing from Nintendo promises to be quite a big deal, as it will have plenty of games available to play including: Super Mario 3D, Mario Kart 3D, Kid Icarus:Uprising, Star Fox 64 3D and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D amongst others for 3DS. Gamers looking to have a first public preview of Wii’s swansong will have the likes of Kirby and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to dig their claws into. Comic Con runs from July 21-24th at the San Diego Ballroom, so if you are lucky enough to live near the area, definitely go check it out.
Another tantalizing titbit of information has been obtained about a future Wii U game, with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, announcing that Assassins Creed on Wii U will not be a port of the forthcoming PS3 and Xbox360 game, Revelations. When asked if the title was slated for a Wii U release, Guillemot replied: “No, not Revelations. For the future.” This (somewhat cryptic) message, clearly states that Revelations will not be appearing on Wii U, whilst also hinting it has grander plans for a future instalment of the series. This makes a welcome change from Wii getting games “for the past,” (i.e. games that are years behind their Microsoft and Sony counterparts) and are generally released as scaled down experiences, befitting the hardware available on Nintendo’s current home console.
Staying with Ubisoft for a minute comes the news that it, along with Sony, will become the latest developers to have a forthcoming “pay to play” online pass for their “core” titles on PS3 and Xbox 360 titled Upay Uplay. Gamers who pick up these titles second hand will have to buy a pass for $10, a lá Mortal Kombat, which will enable them to use the online features of the respective game they own. Sony has already announced that they, too, will be introducing a similar service called PSN Pass, which will likely be implemented in all first party PS3 titles starting with Resistance 3 later this year. Although Sony is yet to release exact details of the money making scheme, it seems likely that second hand buyers will be levied with a similar fee to enjoy the online experience. Now, in essence I do not have a massive problem with this concept, but it should be one charge for a developer’s entire library of games for the life of the console; not every single game they release, as (especially in the case of E.A.’s sports titles) this is a little overkill in my opinion.
Yay, paying even more for games you already own!
Onto news a little closer to home, Silicon Knights, the developer of the cult classic GameCube game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem has continued its “love–in” with the Canadian Government. Silicon Knights has received grants from various Canadian governmental funding and tax subsidies since 2008, and has recently been given another substantial grant. This will enable it to almost double its staff whilst making current positions safe and allowing itself to self publish. Silicon Knights is currently working with Activision and has partnered with Microsoft Game Studios to produce the critically panned Too Human. Here’s hoping this funding will help it make a return to form on Nintendo’s consoles where it found success in the early 2000’s with not only Eternal Darkness, but also the co–developed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for GameCube.
