Title: Psi – Ops
Developer/Publisher: Midway Games
Platform: PS2/Xbox/Windows
Original release date: June 14th, 2004

Price: Used $4.99 via Gamestop

Originally released in 2004, Psi-Ops was a game for the Playstation 2 that was very underrated. Sure, it was a third person shooter as opposed to first but the various psychic powers that the game’s protagonist, Nick, uses throughout the game make it ridiculously fun. This is one of those games for when you have a couple of bucks laying because you’ll be able to find it at your local Game Stop for just $4.99.

Anyways, upon entering the game you’ll be tasked with a mission and some baddies which you’ll encounter to the end. This is the basic outline of the game: pick up various weapons, collect keycards and other items, and of course kill people. This may seem like it would get repetitive but the fact that you’ll pick up 6 different physic abilities throughout the game makes it a lot of fun. Hell, just running around and throwing people around using telekinesis (which you’ll acquire pretty early on) is a ton of fun.

The story is definitely there and you’re sure to be engaged, if you are willing to sit through the numerous, lengthy cut scenes.

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Do you remember NBA Jam? The basketball title that made its debut on consoles like the SNES and had a pretty good run until Midway dropped it back in 2004? Well, fans of the series will be happy to hear that we may be looking at a possible reboot of the series but this time in the hands of EA.

News comes to us from ESPN who says EA Sports has secured the rights to the NBA Jam franchise from Midway and will be tasking their Vancouver development studio with a new title. Unfortunately, if ESPN is correct, we will only be seeing it on the Wii as it’s apparently an exclusive title. Bummer.

Alternatively, other sources are hinting at a possible XBLA and PSN title. All hope may not be lost.

Midway’s been in deep water for some time now but finally Warner Bros. has picked them up and acquired all of their assets. But one question remains, what will the studio be called?

It was previously thought that Midway would just cease to exist and now operate under the Warner Bros. brand. However, Midway exec Geoff Mogilner was quoted to have said the following:

The name and the mark are owned by Warner Bros. and it is up to them to figure out the branding strategy.

Well Warner Bros., as long as you come out with a new Mortal Kombat game, we’ll call it even.

Read (Joystiq)

When it first began, DLC seemed more like an experiment into how much extra companies could charge for new content than anything else, but these days it’s almost a guarantee for any major release. Though it might not have gotten the acclaim of most other titles in the series, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe performed well enough to warrant some DLC of its own.

Unfortunately this won’t ever see the light of day due to the financial stumblings of Midway and their buy-out by Warner Bros. Ed Boon posted a render for sorceror Quan Chi onto his personal twitter account with the commentary “Excited about MK9 and WB, but wish we could have released DLC for MKvsDC”. Due to the abbreviated nature of twitter there aren’t any more details but with a huge roster of Mortal Kombat characters who hadn’t made the cut we’d probably have seen a fair number of fan favorites added to the list.

Not too long ago buzz began circulating the internet that suggested Midway’s San Deigo studios were in the final stages of being purchased by Warner Bros. Unfortunately for them, they have recently released a statement that Warner Bros. will not be picking them up.

And, to make things worse, they said that they have just 60 days to find a buyer before going completely out of business. Common you foreign investors, Midway needs your money help!

Read (Joystiq)

If you’ve been following the happenings at Midway you’ll know the company is in dire straits,  facing bankruptcy following the failure of Wheelman to pull in the money they needed to keep things going. Recently Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment swooped in with a $33 million dollar offer to acquire most of the company, including of course the Mortal Kombat franchise, undoubtedly the only reason to really put up the cash to acquire the company.

Larry Kasanoff has filed a lawsuit on behalf of himself and his company, Threshold Entertainment claiming that in 1993 Midway granted him the rights in perpituity to the film and TV license for the series. Unfortunately for Kasanoff the clauses in his contract don’t actually grant that; his argument says that they ‘amount to the same thing’. He goes on to claim that Mortal Kombat is much more a product of Threshold than Midway since they claim that the characters in the video games were simply flat, stock archetypes who were developed into actual characters by the production company in the various films and tv series. That of course ignores all the inconsistencies between the depictions of the characters in their films and television series, not to mention that the film takes a certain degree of  story-related artistic license. In the film both Kano and Shang Tsung are killed, while as established in game canon by Mortal Kombat II (released two years before the film) Kano was a captive of Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung was still living.

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The once high and mighty development studio Midway is facing imminent closure. Though they weren’t the first company to put blood and guts into video games, they were the first ones to accomplish it in so stylistic a manner that others followed suit soon after, with Mortal Kombat’s ‘fatality’ becoming something of a gamer buzzword. Unfortunately they’ve been on a steady decline for some time and the lukewarm reception of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe and the absolute flop of Wheelman have pushed the company to the grim precipice.

Many of the branches have already been They’re not going quietly into that good night- their Newcastle studio has revealed their last hope at getting a financial backer who can help them pull out of their slump. It’s an open-world action game called Necessary Force, set in the film cliche of a maverick cop in the city who makes his own rules. They’re looking to explore the ‘troubled morality’ of the situation with the game and feature the sort of choice/consequence idea that’s becoming increasingly popular these days.

The website for the game is up and features a trailer which looks good so far, though it seems to be long on rendered environments, concept art and cutscenes and short on actualy gameplay footage, but it does look good. Will this be enough to get someone interested in the studio? Can a non-fantastic open world title that lacks the familiar GTA branding succeed?

Game publisher Midway has received an offer from Warner to acquire the bankrupt company, its assets and all its debts for $33 million. If successful, Warner would take over many of the popular license like Mortal Combat.

However, the deal will not include Midway-owned studios in San Diego and Newcastle. Midway confirmed that the offer has been made and will have 30 days to consider. The company also noted that several other buyers might be interested, although no formal offers have been made.

The internal Midway team responsible for the Mortal Kombat series is looking to leave the company, according to this Kotaku report.

The team, whose latest output was Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, is currently in talks with other publishers to relocate. Apparently, all this stems from Midway failing to pay out bonuses for meeting the game’s sales targets.

Midway representatives claim that the unsecured creditors committee is holding up the payments. The company recently announced that it plans on selling the franchise, though no further announcements were made.

Video game companies are now discovering the buzz-building benefits of social tools like twitter; instead of generating a full-blown press release or waiting for a magazine to publish a new issue they can give a little hint that something is going to be happening soon. Then hordes of gamers and journalists alike will hover on their websites, clicking the refresh button every few moments in the hopes of glimpsing the update.

Midway’s community manager said “A sweet new demo of an early-stage game just arrived in my office. Color me excited.” Another Midway representative confirmed that it’s for an unannounced title which they are describing as “awesome”, though I doubt anyone can recall when a game company described one of their upcoming titles with any less bombastic phrasing.

With heavy debts looming Midway is likely hoping to generate significant interest in this new title as soon as possible to keep themselves afloat.