I’m not ashamed to admit that the soundtrack for the REAL Transformers movie (not the crappy Bay films) was a key influence in my teen years so a few months back when the rumors that the theme song for the film – “The Touch” by studio musician Stan Bush was inbound for free it actually served as the straw that broke my back and convinced me that I needed to pick up the GH:WT band bundle.

Well the day has arrived and the song is now available on the download services along with the theme song to Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits. The GHOT:WH (gotta love acronyms!) theme is composed by members of the Vicarious Visions dev team and is free as well.. but it can’t hold a flame to Stan.

Fans of The Touch can also participate in an online torunament starting today at 4PM EDT and concluding at 8pm EDT Sunday, May 31. Prizes for the competition include autographed Stan Bush CDs including a new remastered version of the song. Now if only they would bring some of the other songs like “Instruments of Destruction”, “Dare”, “Hunger”, “Dare to be Stupid”or “The Transformers (Theme)” to GH as well… my Transformergasm would be complete!

Check out a music video for The Touch after the jump!

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Activision line up for E3 2009 is chock full of win. The full review has something for everyone showcasing remakes of classic games and sequels with fresh IPs for E3 return to its glory days. Speed demons can hook up with Blur and Tony Hawk: Ride to get their adrenaline rush on. Gamers will wax nostalgic over the updated re-envisioned Wolfenstein, the granddaddy of the FPS, then take a look at it’s latest progeny Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat 2.

Music fans have new bands and features to bump and grind to with Guitar Hero 5 and can explore new genres with DjHero. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is ready for show and sci-fi buffs can get their fill with Singularity and PROTOTYPE. I’m putting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in with sci-fi because I can’t quite make the leap to call them superheroes. Get the full list complete with details on each game after the break.
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I just knew some litigation was going to come of this.

It looks as though Duke Nukem Forever publisher Take-Two isn’t going to let the recent closure of the game’s former developer Apogee Software, Ltd.’s 3D Realms go without some form of retribution for its near 12 years of slacking. Bloomberg initially broke news of the publishers’ grievance stating Apogee/3D Realms “breached an agreement to design the latest installment of Duke Nukem” claiming Apogee/3D Realms “never produced the game and instead closed its studio on May 6, terminated development of the game and fired employees who had been involved in the Duke Nukem project”. Take-Two insists that “Apogee continually delayed the completion date for Duke Nukem Forever”, and ” Apogee repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC Version of the Duke Nukem Forever”.

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If there’s one thing I’ve come to depend on Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli for, it’s asinine quotes about piracy. You may remember when he declared that for every legitimate buyer of a PC game, there were 15-20 pirates.

As if that ludicrous statement weren’t enough, he decided to weigh in on the recent Pirate Bay ruling. In an interview with MCV sister site Develop, Yerli said,

“I was really happy [at the ruling], to be honest. I feel it is the beginning of something and a step forward. I think we’re going to see either more tracking sites shut down, or more severe punishments for those involved. Frankly, piracy is the reason why retail games are falling in popularity.”

Now, I’m not discounting that piracy presents a problem for the industry. But is it really as insurmountable an obstacle as Yerli suggests?

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While we mourn the loss of 3D Realms as well as the joke formerly known as Duke Nukem Forever, it seems there are a handful of former employees of 3D Realms who refuse to go quietly into the night. Game assets from what we can only speculate as the final push for DNF are now being leaked onto the internet.

While I’m not sure if their (former employees) motives are sincere, I am getting the feeling there are some former bosses and/or publishing associates who are rather irritated right now.

To give fair warning, some of these are NSFW (not safe for work):

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“… dogs and cats, living together… mass hysteria!!”

As I quote the fictitious, yet venerable, Dr. Peter Venkman, it seems Sony Entertainment is currently attempting a coup of sorts towards bringing the upcoming Ghostbusters: The Video Game within its exclusive ranks. With just over a month until the game’s imminent release, this bit of news will come as a shock to many anticipating its release via the “other” platforms – namely the PC, Xbox 360, and Wii.

According to gamesindustry.biz, Sony acquired the game from Atari and has simultaneously revealed (as of today) that the game will launch on the Playstation 2 & 3 platforms exclusively with a PSP version to follow later. Officially, there is no word as to the fate of the other platform versions that were originally to be launched the same day. Speculation has it that Atari will still retain the rights to publish the game for the remaining platform versions, albeit, launching at a much later time.

Personally, I’m not sure what to think of this bit of news. The game has certainly changed hands (both developer and publisher) more than I can recall. The project would surely have died if Atari had not stepped in and secured the publishing rights last year. However, I can’t help but view this recent acquisition as anything but “dealing under the table”. When first hearing this news, I was given a strong visual of Sony and Atari representatives touting trench coats; both exchanging a briefcase full of cash in some dark alley late at night. Am I overreacting? Perhaps. But I sincerely doubt I’m alone here. It just seems so last minute given all the teasing we’ve had from trailers, demos, etc. added to the knowledge that it would be coming to our favorite platform very soon. The candy dangling in front of us has certainly been yanked away.

Nonetheless, I am still hopeful and looking forward to playing this game on PC. For now, it seems, I will be watching this game from the sidelines. My new multi-core Intel processor was also looking forward to crunching away at some neato physics calculations powered by the Velocity physics engine.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is still slated to hit shelves around June 19th. However, gamers will only see the box sitting in specific sections of «insert favorite game store here».

Update: It seems MCV has confirmed (from Atari) the game will be released for Xbox 360, DS and Wii “later this year”.

Update: Atari has just sent out a press release with clarification that Sony exclusivity is for PAL regions only. You can check it out after the break.

… and there was much rejoicing in the west.

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Tom Ohle, long time wordsmith and all around great guy, takes some time on his new public relations blog to talk about how PR nightmares’ evolve and how crisis communication disrupts public relations.

Tom takes time to discuss the process of crisis communication in the PR industry using the example of last weeks rumors of The Witcher related game cancellations and major changes at CD Projekt Red.

One of the best examples from his after-action illustrating the interesting role that good PR reps at game companies play:

This is one of the greatest dilemmas in a PR rep’s day — you have journalists, many of whom are friends, asking you to respond to rather unsavory accusations, and you can’t give them a straight answer. Then the stories — rightfully so — turn to “Company will not deny the rumors, leading us to believe they’re true.” And now, as a PR rep, you’re in a position you don’t want to be in: other people are controlling your messaging for you. It sucks to watch people drag your name through the mud… even consumers who see only one side of the story start to change their opinions of your company. And even if you have a chance to eventually address the rumors formally, a number of those consumers are bound to miss the news update, and their opinion of your organization may have been negatively affected forever.

Tom worked on a lot of big titles for some companies some of you may have heard of, but I first met him when he was representing Bioware and later at E3 2006 when his small PR company – Evolve PR – picked up a little known( in the US anyway) Polish game company called CD Projekt Red and their new as yet unsigned game – The Witcher – based on some obscure but supposedly famous Polish Author’s fantasy novels.

Sometimes its hard to deal with people on a regular basis while covering this industry and not remember that they are often in difficult situations. We work hard to cover the news and give a voracious reading audience information about their and our personal favorite games but we seldom stop to think about the impact we have on companies we report on or developers that are effected by these negative reports. While the role of a “journalist” is to report facts, this isn’t an industry that will bring about world peace or the fall of nations and it makes me wonder if sometimes our reports don’t do more harm than good in pursuit of readers, ads and a click-through.

Looks like we’re having a celebrity deathmatch in U.S. District Court in Seattle. This Tuesday, Valve filed suit against Activision Blizzard.

Apparently the complaint stems from a 2002 dispute over Sierra licensing Valve games without the consent of Valve. As we all know, Sierra was merged with Activision last year. Earlier this month, on April 6th, an arbitrator awarded Valve $2,391,932.

Valve said this was less compensation than they were seeking, but they agreed to be bound by the arbitration process.

As is usually the case, one of the parties wasn’t pleased. In this case, Activision challenged the award, saying that Valve was overpaid by $424,136 in the past. Valve responded saying that that Activision didn’t properly raise the issue in front of the arbitrator.

Activision reportedly cut Valve a check for $1,967,796 last week. That amount is the total awarded by the arbitrator less the disputed $424,136. Apparently, Activision has said that it would not pay the rest, and that if Valve went to court, Activision would countersue. Valve apparently ignored this warning, and has filed a suit in US District Court in Seattle.

Download the PDF of the complaint.

Thanks, GamePolitics

According to the LA Times, Konami has ended production of its upcoming game, Six Days in Fallujah. The game was originally slated to be a shooter that placed players in the events of the Iraq battle of 2004.

Six Days in Fallujah was being developed by Atomic Games, and was designed to give players a view of what the soldiers in Fallujah experienced. There were a number of Marines involved in creating the game, which is not surprising considering Atomic Games’ background as a producer of combat simulation software for the US military.

Unfortunately, a firestorm of criticism from groups that are both anti-war and pro-military ignited. Critics blasted Konami for attempting to ‘capitalize’ on a war that was still fresh in the minds of those who were there, and the families of those who gave their lives there.

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Reports are coming out across the net that the highly promoted and anticipated console port of Atari and CDProjekt Red’s The Witcher: The Rise of the White Wolf is in limbo. While the studio itself has not officially commented it appears, based on comments from former CDProjekt employees and discussion on the Polish message boards of The Witcher website, that claimed a large portion of the project teams for not only the console port but two other CDProjekt games have been let go in the last few weeks.

Apparently there was also another unannounced Witcher game in the works as well as the sequel to the initial Witcher title, called only Witcher 2 at this point in the conversations, that suffered as a result of an unstable financial situation. Global economic issues are credited with the reasons for the company had to release so many staff members and suspend so many projects.

According to a press release from CDProjekt’s French development partner Widescreen Games confirming the suspension/cancellation of the White Wolf console port these rumors appear to be less rumor and more unconfirmed fact. Its unfortunate to see such a promising studio and great intellectual property affected by these sorts of financial issues. Reportedly the Witcher 2 product will be multi-platform and not merely a PC version so hope exists that console owners can enjoy the game series like their PC buddies in the near future – I just hope it doesn’t require a dumbing down/retelling of the core story that eats into the new title’s storyline.

Thanks to the guys over at GameBanshee for being the tip of the spear in reporting this one. Its a sad day for Witcher and CDProjekt Red fans to be sure.

UPDATE: It appears as though there is a semi-official comment over on VG247 from CDProjekt’s Joint CEO Michal Kicinski regarding the status of these projects and the work stoppage on the part of Widescreen. It seems the story is still evolving though no “official” statements have been issues by CDProjekt or US Publisher Atari on this subject.