Splinter Cell: Conviction - Ubisoft's working of the Sam Fisher franchise - gets a throrough going over by the dev team in the first developer diary for the game.

The team outlines the difference between the old style and the new, and talks about their catchy PEV philosophy: "Prepare - Execute - Vanish"...

Okay Hollywood, we get it. You now love all things videogames. But even the most ardent gamer with an open mind towards film adaptations may sheer away from licensing "Asteroids" and trying to make a movie out of it.

Not so Universal - who apparently were just one of four - count 'em one-two-three-four studios bidding for the rights to make a film out of the old 2D vector game.

The Hollywood Reporter, er, reports...

The rock steady crew at EA has advised the release date for Battlefield 1943 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will be July 9th (US time). If they release the game world-wide simultaneously (no reason not to) that will likely mean July 10th for Australia.

A PC version is scheduled for "September".

The game will come in at a reasonably light 560MB. Here's the relevant spiel from the presser, which also promises "endless hours of social gameplay". So probably no tk-punish feature...

Pricing may still be TBA for Australian versions of DJ Hero, but if you thought you were getting any change out of $200 you may wish to start thinking again.

The $RRP for the game in the States? $USD120. Which thanks to the US economy being in the toilet comes out to $148 and change as of the time of writing. Scary fact - the Aussie dollar only recently strengthened, so it could be a lot worse.

It's safe to assume our DJ Hero $RRP at launch will not go under this point (say $150 in nice round figures). If it does, I will eat a bar of soap while playing Guitar Hero (and upload the video).

However with the announcement of the UK's recommended retail - which our pricing usually follows closely after conversion - it may be that $200 is a closer mark. Eurogamer is reporting Activision has told at least one retailer the recommended price for the game in the UK is GBP107.99. Most retailers are likely to hit up punters at launch for around 99 pound, just to put off the psychological factor of shelling out triple figures. This - in Australian dollars - is just over $200 at the time of writing...

It's not easy being number one. Just ask Electronic Arts. After ruling the games industry for over a decade, a few reversals and a timely merger by the opposition saw Activision assume top spot like it was theirs all along.

It doesn't take much to get toppled, and the first real test of Activision Blizzard's top dog rating may come this Christmas, if Janco partners analyst Mike Hickey's comments - circulated to partners - are to be taken seriously.

Hickey - who previously predicted Modern Warfare 2 would be the biggest selling game of 2009 (if not the biggest entertainment launch of the year) - has communed with the spirits and identified a cluster of risks that could "compromise" Activision's end of year sales bonanza.


1. StarCraft II may not launch in 2009

Hickey believes it is "increasingly probable" StarCraft II will launch in "fiscal 2010" period. It seems Hickey is basing this on comments made by Blizzard to Kotaku (...) stating the beta period will run for 4-6 months - meaning a Christmas window would be very tight...

The upcoming "There is Only War" update for Dawn of War 2 is going to be made available in beta form to existing Dawn of War II owners, starting in a few hours from now. The beta program will run until July 13th US time.

The catch? You'll need to do it through Steam...

Earlier this year when OnLive started talking up the vision of streaming gameplay to your PC, most people were impressed with the vision (if perhaps a little dubious about the ability of the company to deliver). Industry legend Dave Perry...not so much. Perry had been working on his own game streaming service, Gaikai (pronounced "Guy Ky") and now OnLive was threatening to steal his thunder.

At the same show (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco, while OnLive was talking up its tech, Perry started showing a tech demo of the service behind closed doors, and then backed it up at E3, where OnLive was nowhere to be found.

Perry has now put up a video demonstration on his blog, (www.dperry.com). In it, he launches several games and applications from a menu screen that includes tiles for World of Warcraft, Spore, Photoshop, EVE Online, Mario Kart 64 (Dave Perry is an emu fan!?), Lego Batman, Call of Duty 4, Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and Need for Speed Pro Street.

He then fires up Spore - which he states is the full game, not a cut down version. Perry is running the game in a Window, which is a lot easier proposition to render than full screen HD. Then he moves to Mario Kart 64 - which should theoretically punish any server lag from the streaming server to his PC. Perry weaves through traffic without any noticeable response delay - although when he later fires up Pro Street either his reflexes are off or thereis.

Perry then opens World of Warcraft followed by EVE Online. WoW logs in and loads almost instantly - certainly faster than on any PC I've seen it on before. EVE too is up and runnign with minimal downtime.

He closes out the presentation by demoing Photoshop CS4 extended. It loads in roughly five seconds, which for anyone who uses the app knows is crazy. He promises he will "try and get Adobe to look at this as a potential model for software". Good luck with that DP...

This is literally my first trip out to the Atari offices, and it's definitely larger than I imagined. Upon arrival I'm ushered into the media room equivalent of my dream lounge room. In the centre of the room are two chairs with swivelling bases and a small coffee table. On two walls are massive HDTVs connected to dev consoles - one is showing the Wii version of Codemaster's take on Formula 1, the other playing the menu screen for Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Around the room are life size figurines of Lara Croft and Kane & Lynch, but the real winner - the piece I contemplate stealth KO'ing my gracious hosts for - is a framed canvas for Metal Gear Solid, signed by Hideo Kojima. I'm considering a sneaking mission of my own...


Why do asylums always look so creepy?

Hudson Hawk-esque capers aside, even a MGS canvas couldn't hold my attention as long as Batman: Arkham Asylum. I waltzed in the room and I'm immediately asked the all important question "Do you have a preference? PS3 or Xbox 360?"

It's already on the screen on the 360, so my decision is made for me. The game loads straight to Batman escorting The Joker into Arkham Asylum, a sprawling island correctional facility. I'm immediately reminded of the beginning to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - except this time you're X to the Z, not V to the D...

Head through for our full first look!

Studio president of Bungie, Harold Ryan has revealed in an interview with the Seattle Times that Natal could be in the mix for Halo Reach, the Halo title coming after Halo 3: ODST.

Well, kinda. The full quote below essentially says Reach could be played with it - something you should be able to do with most games with varying levels of success.

Bungie also received an early look at the "Project Natal" motion-sensing controller Microsoft is developing for the Xbox. Studio President Harold Ryan said he's enthusiastic about the device and it could be used in "Reach," another version of "Halo" expected in the fall of 2010. "I absolutely think 'Reach' could be enabled with it," he said.

Also on the motion control front, word on the street is the new Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 on Wii has finally nailed a proper swing mechanic (using Wii Motion Plus). A whole stack of large outlets have been raving about how accurate the control is...

This is something we're behind the ball a little on, having picked up on it from SneakyGreenGuy in the comments from our SCII multiplayer wrap:

Blizzard has confirmed that there will be no LAN mode for StarCraft II multiplayer. The company has released a statement outlining why...