One of the major gaming-related stories hitting the web yesterday was the news that Adam Beach (from Windtalkers and Flags of our Fathers) was currently in talks to star in a movie based on the Turok franchise. Naturally, this caused quite of bit of excitement among gamers who were somehow aching to see some dino-action on the big screen. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looks at it) Variety’s Ben Fritz has stepped in to dissipate some of the hysteria. For starters, it looks like DIsney is not making the movie at all, leaving the project in the hands of Classic Media, which controls the rights to many old cartoons and properties and released an animated Turok film awhile back. Without a major studio involved, it’s far less likely that a full-fledged feature will make its way to theaters. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of a straight-to-DVD film, but the point is: don’t get your hopes up. Really though, I can live without a Turok movie. Now a Dino-Riders movie, when is someone going to get on that?

Via Variety

One would think that after the second and third Jurassic Park movies flopped, no one would go near a dinosaur laden flick again, but according to rumors, unfortunately that is not the case.

According to MTV Multiplayer Blog, hunky Adam Beach (Windtalkers, Flags of Our Fathers) is set to play the hero Turok in the upcoming movie which will hopefully be based upon the comics instead of the games, but you know Hollywood. Considering the fact that Turok was originally a Native American in the comics and the games pre-Buena Vista, this is hopefully the direction they would go especially when you factor in Beach’s heritage. However, Buena Vista also has a large hand in the movie market, so it could indeed be a movie version of the latest and shameful Turok game instead of the highly cool N64 original.

Says Beach:

“We just finished the animated movie and now we’re going into the feature film movie [which should lens] hopefully in a couple years. We’re about to set up meetings to develop a script and put it out there. I’ll have to beef up, and be a good guy, and save the world!”

Hopefully, if the rumors are true, it will travel along the lines of Iron Man and be just freaking awesome as hell, but I seriously doubt it.

Via: MTV Multiplayer Blog

Looks like one of the gaming world’s favorite places to get the inside scoop on gossip, rumors and other nonsensical gaming related fallacies is retiring. I am talking about Surfer Girl of course, and even though in her last post, she stated that she did not not want coverage on her departure, I just could not help myself.

Here are her final words pulled directly from her site:

• Please don’t devote coverage to this–focus on any of the plethora of more important things such as QoL issues.
• Industryites, bad QoL situations will not get better by telling no one about them.
• What was the point of this blog? Force folks to pay attention to important things going on in the real world and encourage them to become activists for social and political progress. I probably failed miserably, but at least I tried.
• You cannot honestly be surprised that Doom 4 was announced, can you? I’m guessing you are the kind that will be shocked when things like Call of Duty 6, Diablo III, Hitman 5, Onimusha 5, Max Payne 3, the non-wagglefest starring those Rabbids, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3, Sniper Studios’ Capcom title, Dynasty Warriors 8, NBA Street 5 and Turok 2 are announced.
• Yeah, Boom Blox is one of the best games to hit a Nintendo platform in years and some folks at NoE/NoA lotcheck think so too.

Whether you liked her or not, it is always sad to see another gamer becoming disenchanted with the industry. What ever her reasons for leaving it, we wish her all the best.

Thanks for the heads up: Videogaming247

As Jonathan reported yesterday, no new Xbox Live Arcade games were released today, thanks to Grand Theft Auto IV’s release yesterday. The day after Halo 3 was released we also saw an XBLA release of Jack Squat, so today’s lack of any releases doesn’t come as much of a surprise. After a rocky start to the whole Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday campaign, we’ve had just four weeks (not including today) since August that didn’t bring any new games – and that was due to new games becoming Arcade Hits, Undertow being temporarily released for free, or Halo 3’s release. So I won’t go too hard on Microsoft.

What you can find new on the Xbox Live Marketplace today is a totally free Dr. Pepper theme! Please, hold your applause, because there’s more. A bunch of Turok themes have also been released (although they’ll run you the ridiculous standard price of 150 Microsoft Points each), a free F-16C -PJ Emblem- download for Ace Combat 6 owners, an Alone in the Dark trailer, and some sort of Raving Rabbids invasion of Chessmaster Live that will run you 150 points. I have no idea what it’s all about, but I’m jealous that Chessmaster gets it and not Spyglass Board Games.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled GTA session.

Another week is upon us, and while we are all sitting around marking the days off our calenders for GTA IV, some other games are being released next week and they deserve to be mentioned just as much as any car-jacking, hooker humping, free for all video game on the market.

I have broken the lists down by Console, Handheld and PC. If any of these release dates change it is not my fault – blame the publisher not the messenger. This list also does not take into account any new DLC for the week,  just retail releases.

Nintendo DS: Cory in the House, High School Musical 2: Work It Out, MLB 2K8 Fantasy All Stars, Rhondo of Swords, Teenage Zombies

Nintendo Wii: Dream Pinball 3D, Emergency Mayhem, Okami, Summer Sports: Paradise Island

PC: Dancing with the Stars, Europa Universalis: Rome, Final Fantasy XI: Vana’Diel Collection 2008, Jack Keane and The Dokktor’s Island, Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis, The Sims 2: Double Deluxe, The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Design Stuff,
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Turok

PS2: Nothing

PS3: Gran Turismo 5: Prologue

PSP: Nada

Xbox 360: Zilch

Now too much going on the PlayStation Store for PC this week; there’s a bunch of new videos, a wallpaper and a theme accompanying the main attraction: a demo of R-Type Command. You can also download the R-Type demo through your PlayStation 3 if you feel so compelled. It might be hard to find, though, under that mountain of content that was released today on the PlayStation Store.

Game Demos (free)

• R-Type Command Demo (also downloadable via PS3)

Game Videos (free)

• God of War Chains of Olympus TV Spot
• GT5 Prologue Weezer Video
• GT5 Prologue Mars Volta Video
• GT5 Prologue Thin Lizzy
• GTA IV Trailer 4
• Winter X Games ‘08 Play the Pros
• Wyclef’s “Fast Car” Music Video (limited time only)

PSP Themes (free)

• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

PSP Wallpaper (free)

• R-Type Command Wallpapers (x3)

As Jonathan reported earlier, the new (free!) map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 is now available for download from the PlayStation Store. You’ll get Facing Worlds and two other maps I couldn’t care less about because Facing Worlds is the greatest thing ever, courtesy of Epic Games and Midway. That sure is awfully nice of them, and it makes me wonder if we’ll get to see a similar pack for free on Xbox 360 once the game gets moved over to Microsoft’s box.

Turok also is getting the downloadable content treatment today, although it’s not free. $4.99 will net you five new maps (although that statement might not hold true if you don’t view changes in time of day as constituting a “new” map).

$8.99 is the asking price of the new flOw bundle, which simply includes the full game and its expansion pack. Nothing new about the actually content, but if you want to take the plunge with flOw, this is the way to do it.

For the next two weeks (until April 15) you’ll find Warhawk on sale for just $29.99, $10 cheaper than it normally costs. You can use that saved money to buy some of the downloadable content that’s been released for the game since last August, or maybe you can just change paces and pick up that flOw bundle.

Videos, themes, Rock Band tracks, and an update to High Stakes: Poker Edition are also new on the Store. Hit the break for the full list of content. Read the full article

Touchstone is pretty ecstatic that their latest addition to the Turok franchise has shipped a million units. They’re so happy in fact that they can’t wait for you to gobble up some DLC tomorrow. The “Velociraptor Pack” will be ready for download tomorrow and will feature five new multiplayer maps. Of course, when I say “new,” I really mean that two of them are just previous maps that are now set at night.

• Co-Op – A brand new Turok co-op map for 2-4 players. In this co-op map your Whiskey Company squad has been captured and is being held in a Mendel-Gruman facility designed for holding dinosaurs. You and your team have to break out and make it to the rescue chopper before the Wolf Pack troops decide to feed you to the captured raptors.
• Desolation – A brand new swamp-based map where simple structures are set up alongside a rock cliff to allow helicopters and transports into the area to bring in supplies. There are many hiding spots on this multi-level map which enables numerous quiet kill opportunities.
• Sentinel – Another new multiplayer map and one of the largest Turok maps to date. The setting takes place at the top of a mountain around one of Kane’s orbital defense arrays – the very base that shot down the Whiskey Company ship from orbit in the single-player campaign. Also, the presence of a few large dinosaurs on the map can make things very interesting during multiplayer combat.
• Inconclusive Tests – This time the Testing Grounds map takes place at night and offers a different view of the world that now contains more dark hiding spots. A word of caution — watch out for the raptors.
• A Rivalry Continues – As the name suggests, the struggle for the compound from A Heated Rivalry is not over and has extended into the eerie darkness of the night.

Well, at least the price seems right (400 MS points/$5). Touchstone also announced that the PC version of Turok should see release on April 22nd. Yes, that’s right, soon PC players will be able to enjoy Turok in all it’s derivative mediocrity as well. Via Press Release 

For the fourth month in a row, Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360 has reigned supreme atop the sales charts once again. A mere thousand units sold separated it from the number two game, Devil May Cry 4 (also on 360). Wii Play has been a mainstay since it was released, it would seem, and it comes in at number three. The Wii and PS2 versions of Guitar Hero III also managed to stay in the top ten, leading Rock Band on 360 which came in at number ten.

Despite another month of strong sales for the PlayStation 3 (superior to the 360 for the second month in a row) only a single game, Devil May Cry 4, was in the top ten. Are people still not buying Ratchet and Uncharted, or are people simply buying the PS3 to use as a Blu-ray player?

Seeing lost Odyssey make the list was a pleasant surprise, and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by Turok making the list. I didn’t find it to be anything particularly special (and Yahtzee seemed to agree) but whether it was nostalgia or the promise of being able to shoot dinosaurs, it sold just under 200,000 copies.

So, will Call of Duty 4 finally be unseated in March? We’ll find out in under a month, but something tells me that Rainbow Six Vegas 2 will certainly play a role in the matter.

February 2008 Software Sales

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) — 296,200
2. Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360) — 295,200
3. Wii Play (Wii) — 289,700
4. Devil May Cry 4 (PlayStation 3) — 233,500
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) — 222,900
6. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Nintendo DS) — 205,600
7. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) — 203,600
8. Turok (Xbox 360) — 197,700
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2) — 183,800
10. Rock Band (Xbox 360) — 161,800

It’s that magical time again; time for another hilarious review from The Escapist’s Yahtzee Croshaw. This time however, he’s taking a slightly different route with his review of Turok. Rather than focusing on the game’s individual flaws, he’s holding it up as an example of what’s wrong with first-person shooters in general these days. And I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s tired of the whole “zooming into the back of a person’s head to enter FPS mode” gimmick.

For a more, um, focused take on Turok, be sure to check out Chris’s impressions.