Former Bungie employees have founded a new studio, after their departure from Bungie, called Certain Affinity. Today they proudly announced PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade game Plunder...
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DarkZero Writes: "Pirates are usually bad, they make people angry. However, when Certain Affinity - a team made up of ex-Bungie guys amongst other people - reveal they are making 'Plunder,' a game about Pirates we can only be happy as a result.

In the most recent issue of EGM ¿ where the game was first unveiled ¿ the company comment that the title has many influences from the Settlers of Catan board game, but the game instead will mostly consist of tile based RTS elements. In the game players are tasked with steering a ship and capturing land, but to make things more interesting you'll be able to attack enemy ships, and earn upgrades as you attempt to pillage as much as you can. Then, as you advance, your ship grows stronger and she will become a formidable opponent for preyin' on other ships of the seas. Furthermore, just like all of the best pirate stories, curses and other traps will also be involved."
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Funcom is the latest company to announce that it has adopted the market-leading lighting technology Enlighten from Geomerics. Enlighten will be used in the The Secret World as well as the highly anticipated expansion of Age of Conan. The new look of Age of Conan, with Enlighten technology incorporated, was first demonstrated publicly at GDC Europe and Gamescom in Cologne.
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Craig Morrison, the producer of the MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures:

"A small team is working to make our technology to work on Xbox 360. I think we can say that the technical challenge of the conversion of our technology and our engine was more difficult than we initially expected"
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Shacknews writes;

Players of Funcom's Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will soon be able to bring their own faces and voices into the mature PC MMO thanks to a three-way collaboration between Big Stage Entertainment, GGL Global Gaming, and developer Funcom.
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Nominations for the 2009 Nordic Game Awards have been announced, with both Mirror's Edge and Age of Conan Hiborian Adventures leading the nominations in the same two categories.

EA DICE's divisive Parkour-ish FPS is nominated for Artistic Achievement and Best Nordic Game, the same two categories that Funcom's Age of Conan: Hiborian Adventures stands in.

As well as these two categories, the event will be offering an award for the Best Nordic Children's Game and the Best New Nordic Talent.
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Yesterday Strategy Informer reported that Funcom posted a $23m loss, CFO resigns, and Conan numbers under 100K, which lead us to question the development of the Xbox 360 version. Based on this bad news, we contacted Funcom to see if development of the Xbox 360 version was still ongoing.
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Gamer.Blorge:

"Everyone has been talking about the MMOs coming to the PS3 in 2009. However, the MMOs coming to the Xbox 360 have been getting zero hype. There definitely are a couple games slated to hit the system in 2009. One of them is Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Despite the rumors of its demise this game is still in development.

Sony has been hyping the company's MMO lineup recently with 2009 in full swing. Some of the titles that have been shown are: The Agency, DC Universe and Free Realms. Personally I am fairly excited about DC Universe because the game is directed by the famed DC Comics artist, Jim Lee."
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Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison has confirmed Funcom is still working on an Xbox 360 version of the MMO.

"There is a small, dedicated team working on the Xbox platform at the moment," he said, speaking in Eurogamer's live text interview.

"We still plan on having a 360 version of the game at some stage but I'm afraid I can't go into specifics beyond that at the moment," Morrison said.
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In an email to MTV, Age of Conan product manager Erling Ellingsen said that despite last week's staff cuts the MMO's 360 version is still very much in development.

The note in full:

Our aim is for this to not affect development of 'Age of Conan,' or any of our other games, at all. We are sticking firmly to our plans. The Xbox 360 version of the game is still in production, but as before we are not committing to any specific dates. I wish I could give you more information, but I can't at the time being.

Age of Conan was released back in May for PC. The 360 version is due next year.

By Mike Bowden
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