Odds And Ends: Tuesday News Roundup
(Updated throughout the day.) New Star Wars: Battlefront movies, Nightmare Before Christmas slips, Far Cry SDK released, Creature Conflict delayed, N-Gage rumbles with WWE Aftershock.
LucasArts has released a pair of new trailers for Star Wars: Battlefront, Pandemic Studios' forthcoming multiplayer Star Wars shoot-'em-up, showing of a couple of planets we haven't seen before - Rhan Var and Tatooine - and should take up about a minute of your time in total (er, you know, after you've downloaded them anyway). You can get hold of them, along with a bunch of other trailers showing off the other planets, from here.
The European release of Capcom and Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas PS2 collaboration has slipped until 2005, Capcom Eurosoft confirmed today, although there's no news on a new release estimate for now. Announced last year, the Nightmare Before Christmas game is a blend of action and puzzling, and had been on track for release this autumn. There's also no word on what caused the delay, so we'll resist the temptation to play around with the title in search of an amusing soundbite.
Ubisoft has released the long awaited development kit (SDK) for Far Cry, giving mod authors the chance to toy around with Crytek's CryEngine using the assembled documentation, samplers, exporters, plug-ins, source assets and such. Hopefully the results will look as nice as the game itself, which is one of the most visually delightful first-person shooters in recent memory. Far Cry is on its way to consoles next thanks to Ubisoft Montreal's Far Cry Instincts, although developer Crytek recently signed a deal with Electronic Arts, so we're not sure exactly what to expect next from them - perhaps a working version of that 1.2 patch that was pulled the other week. You can download the SDK if you're so inclined from here.
Cenega sends word that Creature Conflict: The Clan Wars has been delayed until February 4th, 2005 "due to a slight increase in the time needed to produce the game everyone is hoping for". Well indeed. In development at Hungarian firm Mithis Entertainment, Creature Conflict is a cartoony 3D action game, which apparently includes a monkey with a nuclear bomb. Hurrah.
Nokia's N-Gage is set to get its own wrestling title in the shape of WWE Aftershock, the platform holder announced today in conjunction with THQ and JAKKS Pacific. It will support wireless Bluetooth multiplayer and should be out in Q4 2004. It'll be in 3D with various camera angles and loads of the right wrestlers. "We are thrilled to offer a WWE title to N-Gage users," said Nokia's Pasi Polonen, "it's like winning the World Heavyweight Championship belt!" Well, we wouldn't say it's that contrived...