In February of 2008, Infogrames announced Airborne Rangers, a subscription-free online shooter for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Web, iPhone, and mobile platforms. We haven’t heard from the game since.

Some insight on the game’s development came from the game’s producer’s LinkedIn page. Ash Monif’s page lists the title in question as a cancelled project. Too bad that there was no formal announcement that the game was canned.

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Danish developer Deadline Games, who worked on the recent Watchmen: The End is Nigh game, are, like a lot of businesses these days, in financial difficulties. According to a recent interview with Danish ComOn, Deadline Games CFO Christian Pedersen-Bjergaard said that the company needs to land a project soon or it will face bankruptcy.

The recently announced Faith and a .45 co-op action game is currently on stand-by, as a publisher still hasn’t been found. According to rumors circulating the developer, the project might be cancelled as early as next month if the developer can’t get a publisher on board.

The game was showcased at GDC a few weeks ago without much luck or interest from publishers or investors.

Retailers have been listing the upcoming Resident Evil Archives for a June 2009 release. The game will be a compilation of the remade Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Zero.

There’s no real information other than that. It’ll cost you $29.99, but if you already have the Gamecube version of the games, then there’s no real justification to buy it. There may be Progressive Scan support included in the Wii version, but outside of that, it’s just a re-packaging.

Read (GoNintendo)

Microsoft will be running a promotion that will allow Xbox Live silver members to play Halo 3 online for free until Monday morning, in celebration of the release of the recent Mythic Map pack. The offer, which ends on Monday, April 13, at 9AM PST, is only for Halo 3 — other games will still require Xbox Live Gold to be playable online.

A few months have gone by and EA has released a few more details about the upcoming patch, 1.5 for Battlefield 2.

Features
- Additional support for Windows Vista.
- Added Highway Tampa as a required map.
- Added a new map called Operation Blue Pearl.

Gameplay Tweaks
- Changes made to both the J10 and F35B to make them more balanced. Please note that the J10 is a superior dogfighter to the F35B and as such these two aircraft will never be equally matched.
- AA targeting tweaked to make it more effective.
- Added checks to prevent “runway grieving”.
- Various changes made to prevent cheating.
- Tweaked the hit detection, hits will be more accurate to the model.

EA also mentions that a beta of the patch will be available at the end of this month, but they also promised a beta at the end of November. Then it was December. And so on. Although now it seems that there is work being done on the patch.

You might think that writing a review of Monopoly would easily be regarded as a total waste of time.  It’s not like everybody reading this hasn’t played it in one format or another for the better than fifty years that it’s been in existence, right?  Well, maybe not EVERYBODY reading this—there’s always those one or two folks who’ll surprise you that haven’t gotten around to Monopoly yet.

But this review isn’t JUST for them.  Because the recent release of Monopoly on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, among others, has new and interesting features that bear discussing.  First, you may well be amazed to learn that there have been over a DOZEN different releases of Monopoly to home game systems.  The game features multiple boards, including futuristic properties, the original classic, a board devoted entirely to sugary treats and another exclusively comprised of types of cheese.  You’d never believe that you could build a hotel on Roquefort and charge a hundred bucks to take possession of it.  I guess that’s just the kind of thing Monopoly’s always been—whether you were out to buy Baltic Avenue, Times Square, or the Death Star, it was always about the possibilities.  Certain “house rules” variants are also in play, allowing you to somewhat tailor your Monopoly experience.

Oh, and even more interesting, this version of Monopoly includes a version called The Richest.  The Richest is actually a fairly complex game played without cash.  Instead, players engage in a series of minigames that allows them to determine how many of their tokens are placed on the Monopoly board.  If the property you land on is unclaimed, you take possession.  If the property is owned, you must hand over one of your properties in exchange, or possibly more if the property is part of a monopoly or if it’s been developed.  The winner is the person with the highest value land portfolio at the end of a set number of rounds.

Monopoly is always fun for a few minutes, and the addition of this new mode adds to the replay value.  This is probably even more fun as a party game, but it’s not without its flaws.  Yes, it’s just Monopoly.  That’s it.  New versions aside, you’re not going to get much in the way of innovation here.  And worse yet, unless I missed it, there aren’t any online capabilities with this game.  How on earth can you NOT be able to play Monopoly online?  Isn’t that part of why we invented the Internet in the first place?  So we can play obscure board games with people in other lands?

Someone get Al Gore on the phone!

Anyway…it’s true.  This is Monopoly in all its glory.  New versions add to the fun, but the original is still the best.  There’s absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t enjoy five or ten minutes with this virtually any time you loaded it into your system of choice.  Chances are this won’t keep you up all night or playing for hours or desperate for another Red Bull to keep you sufficiently jacked up to play, but still—there’s plenty of fun to be had here.  Sure, it would’ve been better if I could’ve made it a party game any time I wanted by hooking up the broadband…but you can’t have everything, I guess.

What do you get when you get to drag a little purple blob around on a laser leash, letting it eat everything in sight but you?  You get The Maw, a strange little game for your Xbox 360.

On Xbox Live Arcade, for the shockingly low price of eight hundred Microsoft points, you too can take control of a stranded alien who befriends another alien race’s genetic experiment.  This experiment is the aforementioned adorable little purple blob with the endless appetite.  Better yet, once this blob eats things, it can take on the characteristics of that which it’s eaten.  For instance, at one point you’ll eat what look like komodo dragons made of lava called Gastros.  When you eat a Gastro, The Maw, the name for the little purple blob, gains the ability to breathe fire.

It’s a quick game, without a whole lot to it, and chances are you’ll probably beat this one in a weekend.  The graphics are nice enough for a downloadable action game, and the music is at least appropriate.  It’s not a great value for such little playtime–I regret dropping ten bucks on it–but if you do play it, you likely won’t have a terrible time with it.  Try the demo first, and see if you feel the need to go on.

Playfirst, Inc. has announced the official release dates of Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child, the third installment to the popular Dream Chronicles adventure game. PlayFirst PlayPass members will have exclusive access to the game for both Mac and PC download from Tuesday, April 14 and the title will be widely available on Thursday, April 16.

The upcoming release introduces a more open world experience for the series which for the first time, allows players to explore the game world in a non linear way. Through the introduction of a new nexus feature, players are now able to travel back and forth to various parts of the dream world as part of an ongoing quest which reveals critical clues and challenges.

The Dream Chronicles series traces the story of Faye whose overarching mission is to find her husband and child after they mysteriously disappear. Set in an ethereal dream world, Faye has trouble recalling the circumstances of their disappearance – a mystery which is gradually unraveled though a series of player quests and hidden object puzzles.

Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child is developed by KatGames and published by PlayFirst. Dream Chronicles, the first game in the series will be available for the first time on iPhone this April. Both Dream Chronicles and Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze are also available in major retailers. For more information on the game, or to purchase any game in the series.

(Source) Press

Activision has officially announced that Guitar Hero Smash Hits will be released to stores on June 16. It will be available on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.

The game, originally known as Greatest Hits, is a compilation title featuring 48 of the franchise’s best songs so far, with full band play from previously guitar-only titles.

Some of the songs include “Bark at the Moon” by Ozzy Osbourne, “I Love Rock n’ Roll” by Joan Jett, “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce, and more.

IGN reports that old school first-person shooter series Painkiller is coming back to hunt down more demons in the form of Painkiller: Resurrection.

The sequel (of sorts) is in development at Homegrown Studios and not series creator People Can Fly. Homegrown has so far released only Robert D. Anderson & The Legacy of Cthulhu.

Players will be cast into the conflict between Heaven and Hell, letting us, once again, blast through hordes of demons with tons of cool weapons, including the titular Painkiller, of course.

It will offer a two-player cooperative campaign mode, as well as multiplayer improvements and features aimed at the competitive gaming community.

Painkiller: Resurrection is due out on PC later this year.