"The clever guys over at Penny Arcade are poised to hit the game industry running with their inaugural attempt at moving from writing about games to making them. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One is creeping ever closer to release. Penny Arcade and Hothead Games have announced that the title will run a modest $19.95 for PCs, Macs, Linux boxes, and the Xbox Live Arcade." writes ArsTechnica.
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As the folks at Telltale Games are sure to tell you, one of the tricks to successful episodic gaming is releasing content on a regular basis. Vancouver-based Hothead Games appears to be in agreement, with Penny Arcade Adventures producer, Joel DeYoung, telling that the developer's tentative goal to release a new episode every four months.

"Yeah, definitely there's a fixed release schedule. It's tentative right now, but we're talking about one every four months," DeYoung explained in a GDC interview. "[It's tentative] because, you know, this is a new model for us, and it is quite tricky with all the project management scheduling and making sure we're officially overlapping the work on all the episodes."
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As the footage from a former Rare employee shows work on Perfect Dark 2 was done in 2007 before being scrapped as well as Kameo 2. Additionally, MundoRare has some exclusive information to share regarding Perfect Dark 2. According to our own sources, PD2 was indeed started in 2007, but by late 2007, it wasn't greenlighted; it was a prototype instead. Chris Seavor from Conker and Killer Instinct fame was in charge of the project. By early 2008, the PD2 team was cut down to a 3-man team, effectively putting the game on hold. At the same time, our sources revealed that back then, it was "overwhelmingly unlikely" that PD2 would no longer be set in the PD universe. During early 2008, the game (which evolved into something that wasn't PD2) was still in its early stages and with an uncertain future.
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Kotaku:

Here's the list, which eschews games like Fable and Assassin's Creed in favour of some games with a more...Japanese fare.

Idolmaster
Idolmaster Live 4 U
Viva Pinata
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Perfect Dark Zero
Bullet Witch
Fight Night: Round 3
Rainbow Six: Vegas

Each of those games will go for ¥2000 (USD$21), which might be a challenge for Microsoft, since you can find some of those games used for under ¥1000 (USD$10). Then again, others will be bargains!

As with everywhere else, Games on Demand will launch in Japan on August 11.
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"There have been plenty rumors about Perfect Dark coming soon for XBLA... well... we can confirm that Perfect Dark is indeed on it's way to XBLA. This is not a rumor, it's coming! Not just that, there is a very large announcement coming from Rare soon (ahem in line with E3). We last heard that it wasn't known if they would go ahead and make this announcement but as time progressed, it looks as though it's all systems go. Expect a major surprise from Rare this June"
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From the dystopian corridors of BioShock's subterranean "paradise" to the Strogg-infested space stations found throughout the Quake franchise, First Person Shooters have found countless ways to establish themselves as rich, enjoyable experiences, capturing the hearts and trigger fingers of gamers worldwide.

Even if it's just blasting away wave after wave of demons in Blood, or perhaps saving mankind from itself as you traverse Half-Life 2's City 17, the FPS genre has proven itself time and time again.
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Speaking to VideoGamer.com at Develop last week, Rare senior software engineer Nick Burton, an employee at Rare for over 10 years, has revealed that when talking about the studios' owned intellectual property "there's a good chance of seeing any of it again".

"You might see Killer Instinct, you might see Battletoads. Or as I said the other month Killer Instinct meets Battletoads in the GoldenEye universe!" joked Burton.

The titles the Microsoft owned studio is currently working on is something that's constantly debated on internet forums, and speculation isn't helped by Rare's constant teasing. Do you remember the Rare 2007 Christmas card that hinted at a new Killer Instinct? Burton was all too happy to reveal the story behind the card.

"You'll probably have to rephrase this, we're just fu!$ing with you!" he joked. "Have you not noticed a theme in our Christmas cards? We do it every year! It's just sometimes people don't notice it because it's that subtle.

"Ryan (Stevenson, senior concept artist), when he was doing it said, oh I'm putting Killer Instinct in that, I am. The conversation was, put Battletoads in as well! Or Snake Rattle and Roll, come on do it! We have a reputation for teasing. Sometimes we do it for good reasons and other times it upsets people. We're English, we're allowed to!"

Burton wouldn't be drawn on confirming the existence of a new Killer Instinct title, but say that "you could pick anything in our back catalogue and then turn it into something new".
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Speaking to VideoGamer.com Rare senior software engineer Nick Burton has revealed that he believes the studio's 360 titles could well be remembered by today's gamers in the same way a generation looks back on N64 classic GoldenEye.

When asked if Rare is releasing games now that will have a similar effect on these people as older games did with an older generation of gamers, Burton was confident that they would.

"I think that already happened," stated Burton. "It's funny when you get fan mail. We do. We get quite a bit. Some for old stuff, quite a lot for new stuff.

"Whether we have as many of them or more, you'll have to ask me in 10 years time. But then again the market's much bigger, it's much more diverse, there's many more games."

When asked directly if the games Rare is putting out on the Xbox 360 could be this generation's GoldenEye experience, Burton replied: "Could be, yeah. It would be a different experience from GoldenEye without a doubt."
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Speaking to VideoGamer.com at last week's Develop conference in Brighton, Rare senior software engineer Nick Burton hit out at reports suggesting Xbox 360 launch titles Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero bombed at retail.

"One of the things that I always find funny is when people always quote Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero as being flops at the launch of the 360," said Burton. "In the industry if you break even you're lucky, you're in the minority. If you make a decent amount of money you're really in the minority. You're in the top percentile. Those two games made a lot of money. For the install base they sold phenomenally well. Kameo is still selling now."
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Speaking to VideoGamer.com at the Develop conference in Brighton last week, Nick Burton, a senior software engineer at Rare, has assured Xbox 360 gamers that there's plenty more to come from the console.

"You never can push them as far as they can go. The reality of the peak performance of the console is yes, you could look to a generation beyond where we are now and think, yeah, I could use that power. But the reality is in 360 and the PS3 and the latest generation PC graphics, the amount of power in the GPUs is such that you're more bound by your creativity and the aesthetic you're going for than you're really bound by polygon pushing power," said Burton. "You're probably actually more bound maybe by art authoring and the amount of data throughput that, just the amount of memory you'd need, but I don't think 360 has reached its limit."
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