Spanish developer Tragnarion Studios today announced The Scourge Project, a story-driven FPS game built upon co-operative squad play, where up to 4 players can play together. It will use Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, and is due for release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2008.

“We’ve been amazed at the speed and quality of results on Unreal. We’ve only had the engine for a couple of months, yet we’ve already been able to build a great-looking, fully playable prototype, which we’ll soon show to publishers, featuring our innovative narrative system for multiple players and our unique co-op focused game play mechanics. Every single feature we want is easily implemented in Unreal - for all the major high-end platforms.”

Mark Rein, VP at Epic said, “When we saw the demo that Tragnarion produced, we were really impressed with the progress they had made in such a short time. The high quality visuals, innovative game features and co-operative story have come together in only a few months. It made us very proud to see how quickly they were able to learn Unreal Engine 3 and we can’t wait to get a look at this title again in a few more months.”

The official website is already up, offering a description and some screenshots from the game, which are mirrored below:

Roger Ebert, the film critic who blew away the notion that “videogames are art”, is at it again. He has posted once more on his website, this time focusing on Clive Barker’s keynote address at this year’s Hollywood and Games Summit on June 26. An esteemed British novelist and video game auteur, Barker defended games as an artistic medium, which Ebert directly attacks by saying that “games could not be high art, as I understand it.”

His lengthy article on the issue takes individual statements from Barker and tries to counter them with his own opinions. He points out that “art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices,” which is actually quite a contradictory statement by itself, mostly because most of the great “art” out there urge you to think and are not direct with their meaning.

Ebert sums up his argument by saying that “we can debate art forever.” Yes, Mr. Ebert, we obviously can, but you have to make sense in the debate and not ramble about incessantly about unrelated things.

Following word that Silicon Knights, the studio behind Too Human, had sued Epic Games over Unreal Engine 3, alleging that Epic had failed to deliver features by set deadlines, Shacknews went to various developers for reactions to the issue as well as their experience with the engine itself. It is an eye opener.

First off, many developers and studios have had problems with the engine, with Josh Jeffcoat (Gearbox Software) going on to say that some parts of it are “dog slow” and that it has “issues”; however, he concluded that Epic was always honest with their work and that such limitations were there from day one. Another unnamed developer went on record, saying that Epic was late at delivering key features, but that it was upfront and honest about its doings.

Some other developers praised the company, having had no problems with them while some others criticized Epic for its tardiness. Many developers wished to stay off record, with Shacknews noting that many others have had negative experiences with the company.

Kalypso Media today announced Universal Boxing Manager, a boxing management simulation for fans of the sport. Here’s the deal:

Starting as a lowly hopeful, players are tasked with managing up to six different budding champs with high hopes of glory. As an eagle-eyed trainer it’s your job to sort the Ricky Hattons from the Ricky Gervais, buff them up in the gym, broker the right fights against the right opponents and reap the juicy financial rewards. Just as any good manager would offer, it’s also your job to play Mr. Motivator and power talk your charges to victory, or give them the hair dryer treatment should things go decidedly the way of Bruno vs. Tyson.

Easily accessible to even the most modest gamers, Universal Boxing Manager is a pick-up-and-play insight into the world of the boxing promoter, the perfect game to wile away a lunchtime. Alternatively, gamers looking for a bit more depth can tackle the career mode, and take responsibility for buying new equipment, hiring better medical staff and trawling through the 17 different weight classes to pick a champ or two from the roster of over a thousand unique boxers.

All fights can be watched in real time in an overhead view of the ring, with options to concentrate on healing or motivate your boxer between rounds, as well as advise him on tactics and where to expose his opponent’s weaknesses. From heavy to featherweight, Universal Boxing Manager will bring out a little Don King in all of us this autumn.

The game will be released this September for a lowly price of £9.99.

On Next-gen is word that gaming ad agency Double Fusio has carried out a new study that explores the effectiveness of in-game ads, concluding that they actually have influence over gamers’ buying decisions.

They surveyed the impact of 36 different kinds of in-game ads across 10 games of varying genres. The study implemented a methodology that included eye tracking in order to find out the effectiveness of the ad’s location, dimension and design. Here’s what they found:

• 75% of gamers engage with at least one ad per minute across most, but not all, game types; 81% of gamers engage at least every other minute

• Less-cluttered ads are three times as effective at garnering gamer notice than ads that are either cluttered or within cluttered environments

• While both contribute positively to ad engagement, placement of the ad in the primary camera plane (eye-level) is more important than large size ads

• Not all ads are created equal - dynamic billboards, around-game interstitials, sponsorships, and interactive product placements all offer different levels of user engagement and pervasiveness in the game

• The data obtained from the study forms the basis for a new view on gaming measurement, which will allow gaming media plans to be constructed in a way that is both comparable and additive to other media plans

The official website for Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes, the first game in the franchise for the PSP, has launched, offering information on the game, its characters, screenshots, artwork and more. There are also forums, unique “ninja missions” and a competition to win exclusive Naruto gear.

In an interview on semi-official Sony blog Three Speech, SCEE president David Reeves has said that they did consider a price cut in Europe, but that it was too early for it and would “annoy a lot of people.”

“We’ve only been on the market for three and a bit months,” he said. “Our thought process was ‘wait a minute, we’re actually not doing too badly - we’re not selling as well as Wii or DS - but seasonality-wise, compared to, say, PS2 at the same time we launched it in 2001, we’re actually doing quite well on a regional level’.”

He then went on to say that the UK is a unique market in the region, claiming that it leads to more intensive price wars. Also of note in the interview is the fact that he’s considering Q4 2008 - Christmas 08, specifically - as the real battleground for the console wars.

“I think each peak is crucial to maximise what you can do, but I don’t think this Christmas is necessarily the most critical one - I think that’s going to be Christmas 08. I see this more as kind of like a tsunami - it starts small and gathers speed, and eventually, after four or five years, it will start to take you over. At least, that’s the way we’ve mapped it out.”

Ubisoft today announced that it will release CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Hard Evidence for the Wii Xbox 360 this Fall. Marking the first appearance of the franchise on either console, the game will have players use the characters from the show to solve crimes using realistic techniques and lab equipment. Crime scenes will be taken directly from the show, including an all-new garage lab for analyzing large pieces of evidence, improved evidence finding, lab mini-games and more.

As expected, the game will be graphically enhanced for the Xbox 360; gamers on the Wii will be able to use the Wii remote to navigate through a crime scene and do other things within the game. The PC version will ship alongside the console versions.

More information on the game after the jump.
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Symantec has warned that an exploit is in circulation that could crash the Wii. The problem stems from Adobe’s Flash, which is used in the Opera web browser provided in the console, that can be exploited using specially crafted Flash video files (found on sites such as Youtube). It has been fixed by Adobe on 12 July, however the Wii browser is still vulnerable and they are advising users to be cautious about it.

The only demo released yesterday was GODS: Lands of Infinity, showcasing content from the Special Edition version of the RPG. It can be found on 3D Downloads, Gamer’s Hell and Strategy Informer.

There were two patches released yesterday. First up is an update to Colin McRae: DIRT, upgrading it to v1.2. It adds additional leader boards and addresses a bug that could result in corrupted save games. Grab it from 3D Downloads, FileFront, Gamer’s Hell and Strategy Informer.

The other patch was for Secret Files: Tunguska, updating the point-and-click adventure game to v1.03. Grab it from the official website.

EA today revealed that Wing Commander Arena, a 2D space shooter from Gaia Industries, will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday. It is a spin-off of the original Wing Commander franchise and will offer eight maps supporting three styles of play: team, free for all, and dueling. There will also be a single-player mode.

Wing Commander Arena will be sold at 800 Microsoft points.

Already released in Japan, Sony has announced details of the v1.90 firmware that will be available in other regions tomorrow. The major feature in this update is the ability to set custom backgrounds (wallpapers) in the XMB menu interface and the ability to add bookmarks in the built-in browser. Here’s the full list of changes and additions:

• Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
  
• Option menu now includes “eject disk”
  
• Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB
  
• XMB backgrounds
  
• Change the folder classification
  
• Emoticons
  
• Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz
  
• Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI
  
• Change PS3 video settings in-game
  
• “Bit Mapping” in the “Music Setting”
  
• Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick
  
• Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games
  
• Add bookmarks
  
• Web browser security function in the browser’s tool section
  
• Avatar moves during audio visual chat

Famed game designer Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy and the recently announced Nobi Nobi Boy, will be delivering the 2007 GameCity Vision statement on October 27 at Nottingham’s Broadway Media Centre.

Keita Takahashi, a formally trained artist, commented, “I haven’t had the chance to consider my plans for the day just yet but I’m definitely ready to enjoy myself! I’m hoping to share some of my works at the event so let’s hope everyone can join me in October!”

GameCity is a videogame festival that brings developers, students and lovers of interesting culture together in Indian restaurants. This year it’s taking place across an entire city in a huge variety of venues - from cinemas, to market squares, to restaurants, cafes and schools.

Although full details are yet to be announced, developers like Frontier, Traveler’s Tales, Free Radical Design and SCEE have already signed up.

GameCity 2007 happens all across Nottingham from the 24th - 28th October.

Get used to this: Eidos has announced that it will display in-game ads in ten of its upcoming titles, all of which will be supported by Double Fusion, the in-game advertising specialists. This deal, which was signed for three years, will see advertisement displayed in several formats, ranging from dynamically served to product placements.

“This is an exciting and innovative opportunity for Eidos, we’re delighted to be working with Double Fusion and we fully believe that our titles will offer the perfect platform for the right media partners,” commented Jane Cavanagh, chief executive, Eidos Interactive.

Frank Sagnier, Double Fusion’s European managing director said: “We are truly excited about this partnership with Eidos. The quality and breadth of Eidos’ portfolio of games represents an ideal opportunity for advertisers to reach many millions of consumers in an uncluttered and engaging environment. It further strengthens videogames as a primary medium of choice to reach the elusive 18-34 year old audience.”

The games which will carry these ads weren’t specifically mentioned, but it was disclosed that they will be key titles.

Confirmation comes from Sony that a playable demo of Heavenly Sword will be up for download from the EU PlayStation Store this Thursday. The final game is expected to ship on September 4.

The store update will also see additional content, including trailers from GT5 Prologue and Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction; some PS One games will also be added - Crash 2, Spyro 2, MediEvil and Wipeout 2097.