Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: 06/01/2005

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Monday, June 27, 2005

MTV/Midway partner up; Sony on Xbox 360? Halo goes to the movies ...

MTV and Midway partnering up
Sony develops for Xbox 360?
Video game movie updates (including Halo)

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NEWS:
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MTV and Midway partnering up
- So, MTV announced a relationship with Midway Games to "market, jointly sell in-game advertising and collaborate on soundtrack development for three upcoming games". MTV gets to play in the royalty sharing structure, and the first game announced will be L.A. Rush.
- So, what's interesting about this? Maybe it's that Sumner M. Redstone owns majority of voting shares of both Viacom and Midway. Maybe it's that he put his daughter, Shari Redstone, on Midway Games' board (she's been on the Viacom since 1994). Maybe it's that he's the CEO of Viacom, and through his National Amusements Inc. owned 82% of Midway (and recently acquired 1.2 million additional shares).
- Have you seen In Good Company? See it. Anyway, there's a scene where Carter (Topher Grace) suggests to Dan (Dennis Quaid) that they do a cross-branding advertising partnership between their hostily overtaken sports magazine and another of their parent company's subsidiaries. Quaid's reponse: "Isn't that cheating?"
- And Sumner? He said, "And I am also delighted to report that the independent special committee of Viacom's board which oversees relationships between Viacom and Midway recommended board approval, and that this recommendation was accepted by the full Viacom board."
- Right ...
Sony develops for Xbox 360?
- Sony Online Entertainment acquired The Matrix Online from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. As part of the deal, SOE has an exclusive long-term licensing agreement that let's SOE to develop a DC Comics MMORPG for PC and "next generation consoles" (Q42007).
Video game movie updates (including Halo)
- According to Variety, 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures got the movie rights for Halo. Both film studios will split the costs/film distribution (Fox for international and Universal for domestic). Rumor has it the script is penned by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), and for half of Microsoft's sought-after $10 million.
- Tecmo and Constantin Film with Hong Kong action dude Cory Yuen started shooting DEAD OR ALIVE.
- 20th Century Fox has signed Vin Diesel to play Agent 47 in the film of Hitman.

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Lego Star Wars

Hey, I'm playing a lot of Lego Star Wars for Xbox.

Yeah, it's a kiddie game, and yeah, it's got the weird mix of mind-numbingly slow and "how-the-hell-could-they-expect-a-child-to-do-this", but overall the game is pretty slick. You get to play as Lego versions of all sorts of characters from the new trilogy (yeah, I know, but Yoda is Yoda, etc.). And, yeah, Darth Maul and Grievous are playable.

Whoever thought to combine Star Wars and Legos is absolutely brilliant -- like the guy who combined chocolate and peanut butter. If you like chocolate and peanut butter. If you don't, then it's like combining Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto (yeah, I said it, ya pinko commies).

Hey, there's politics in my Star Wars ...

Anyway, check out Lego Star Wars. Look, maybe if enough of you buy it, they'll make a Lego Star Wars of the real trilogy ...