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Cross-platform game publishers Aspyr Media, and Wideload Games, the new development team comprised of Alexander Seropian and former Bungie Studio employees, have revealed the developer's first title: Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel without a Pulse".

The game, delivering "a stirring tale of one man's hunger for love, justice...and brains", is a third-person action title built on an updated version of the Halo game engine. Players will assume the roll of Stubbs, the wisecracking Zombie, as he attempts to overwhelm the ultra-modern city of Punchbowl, PA, in his personal quest for truth, justice, revenge, and, eventually, true love.

Equipped with his rotten carcass, the ability to turn his foes into fellow zombies, and the use of weaponry confiscated from the enemies he possesses in his plight, Stubbs needs to work his way through numerous, highly-original indoor and outdoor environments reminiscent of 1950's sci-fi movies. During his conquest, Stubbs will face off against such classic 1950's anti-heroes as "mad scientists, rural militiamen and the world's deadliest barbershop quartet".

The advantage of being a zombie is that players can rely on Stubbs' rotting body parts for offensive weapons. Amongst the hero's personal bag of tricks are explosive gut grenades, a remote-controlled severed hand, and flatulence powerful enough to overtake any of the platoons in this original new title. From Aspyr's press release:

“To us nothing has the sweet smell of success like rotting Zombie flesh,” said Alexander Seropian, President of Wideload Games. “We fell in love with the Stubbs game concept because of the unique player experience and the potential of the main character. We are really enjoying bringing this concept to life… or un-death, as the case may be.”

"Wideload Games is delivering an experience unlike any other. Who else could create a game featuring an undead hero who eats brains, tosses his own innards like cherry bombs, and still makes time for the ladies? Those guys are absolutely nuts and we couldn't be more pleased," said Michael Rogers, president of Aspyr. "Stubbs the Zombie will give gamers a new appreciation for the walking dead."

Stay tuned to IMG as we'll keep you updated on our continual search for brains. I mean gaming news.

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Aspyr Media

Wideload

Stubbs the Zombie

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Right on schedule our British friends at Feral Interactive release yet another batch of Feral Friday news. This week the news focus on three of their upcoming products; Chessmaster 9000, Commados Battle Pack and Bionicle.

The top news is that Chessmaster 9000 is now so close to completion that Feral dares to put out pre-orders for it on their own store. Chessmaster 9000 is the first Chessmaster to make it to the Mac since Chessmaster 6000 back in 1998, and thanks to the porters at Zonic this will be the best looking version of it ever with a fully aquafied interface.

As for the Commandos Battle Pack, the two strategy games are progressing as they should, and there's now a mini-site up to feed people's curiosity of this new entry in the Mac gaming database. The Battle Pack will include the highly praised Commandos 2: Men of Courage and Commandos 3: Destination Berlin.

As for LEGO's action adventure game Bionicle, things are looking well as well. There is a new mini-site up for this title too, and all curious about the title should head over there. The game is so far in the development cycle that there's already a pre-order for this title as well.

For more information, you should all head over to Feral's news page to find more information and link to the brand new mini-sites.

Feral Interactive

Zonic

Bionicle

Chessmaster 9000

Feral Interactive

Commandos Battle Pack

Feral Interactive: News

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Yesterday Wideload Software announced its very first title called Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel without a Pulse". The game, which uses an updated version of the Halo engine will be published by Aspyr in the summer of 2005. IMG recently sneaked in a few minutes with the ever-busy Alexander Seropian to briefly talk about Stubbs, his new company, and more.

To check out the interview, please follow the link below.

IMG Feature: Stubbs Q&A With Wideload's Alex Seropian

Aspyr Media

Wideload

Stubbs the Zombie

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Continuing the run-up to the full scale release of the massive multiplayer space game: Vendetta Online, RPGVault.com has posted a second Q&A session with the team of developers.

If you haven't heard of Vendetta Online before, here's a blurb to bring you up-to-date: Vendetta Online is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) in development by Guild Software Inc. Players become spaceship pilots within this universe, flying between space stations and other locations in the galaxy. All combat within the game is fully realtime, rather than taking a turn-based system usually associated with MMORPGs. Players may fight one another, fight NPCs, participate in groups, or potentially even engage in large-scale Guild combat.

The Q&A gives an insight to how the team felt while making the game, and how they feel now that it is nearly finished. Here's an extract:

Jonric: What are one or two of the most memorable, fun moments you've experienced while play-testing?

John Bergman
Managing Director (overall game design & coordination)
I think some of the most fun I've had has been in cooperative PvP (nation vs. nation) events. In the early days, we had a simple "capture the flag" adaptation. Now, it's rather more complicated (raids on enemy convoys, border patrols, faction gains and losses, etc.), but either way, it has resulted in a lot of fun, defending one's teammates while taking out the objective.

Waylon Brinck
Graphic Artist (game design, mission programming, art)
The most memorable moment, for me, was in testing some new AI behavior. I spawned 60 of our "seeker" bots, drones that are little more than a camera with locomotion. They all simultaneously decided I was their enemy, and began swarming my ship like a school of minnows, flying at me then dodging out of the way at the last second. It was a lot of fun hunting them all down.

Guild Software

Strategy First

Vendetta Online

RPG Vault: Vendetta Online Team Q&A #2

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Aspyr's games project status page has been updated, revealing that Call of Duty: United Offensive and Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword have both reached final candidate status. Final candidate is the stage in a game's development immediately after the closed beta stage, with only a few bugs left to iron out.

Call of Duty: United Offensive is the second chapter of the Call of Duty franchise that introduces 13 new single player maps, 11 new multiplayer maps and modes and the ability for players to use vehicles such as tanks, jeeps and motorcycles. A copy of Call of Duty will be required to play this expansion pack.

Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword, brings the calculating, strategic style of Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield to new environments in and around the Mediterranean. It features eight new campaigns in locations from Italy and Croatia to Greece, five new multiplayer levels - Chemical Factory, Ferry Boat, University, Italian Alleys, and Jungle and three new multiplayer modes to play with. A copy of Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield will be required to play this expansion pack.

For more updates on the status of Aspyr's game projects head over to the link below.

Aspyr Game Project Status

Aspyr Media

Call of Duty: United Offensive

Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword

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Aspyr Media's internal development team have posted patches for the popular Star Wars-themed role playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, as well as Homeworld 2, the real time strategy title set in space.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which takes place four thousand years prior to the first of the Star Wars films, sees players traveling between seven enormous worlds and interacting with new Star Wars characters in the ages-old battle between Jedi and the evil forces of the Sith. As with all Star Wars-themed game titles, the fate of the universe rests on player's shoulders.

The 1.0.3b patch fixes a screen resolution issue, and addresses a leftover bug from the PC code that crashes the system when trying to save and load a game simultaneously - pressing F4 and F5 at the same time, which is easier to do with Powerbooks than it sounds.

Homeworld 2 continues the struggle of the nomadic exiled Hiigaran tribe as they get chased around the galaxy by a renegade clan from the eastern fringes of the galaxy. The sequel chronicles the travels of Hiigaran leader Karan S'jet on his mission to see the clan's Mothership survive the battle against this new foe and return the exiled group home safely.

Bringing the application's version number up to 1.1.1, the update fixes problems with multiplayer gaming over the internet, fixes the random startup crash issue, and adds additional support for mouse speed settings.

Both patches are being hosted by IMG's sister site MacGameFiles, and can be accessed through the links below.

MGF: Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic 1.0.3b Patch

MGF: Homeworld 2 1.1.1 Update

Aspyr Media

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Homeworld 2

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Our resident desktop guru has posted a new desktop, this time featuring, what else... Halloween. Here's what he had to say about his latest creation:

Ghost Master from Feral Interactive has been out for almost a year, but with Halloween happening this weekend I was reminded by a faithful viewer that I never created a desktop for this title. That all changes today. In this week's feature I wanted to create a wallpaper that captures the spooky feel of the main entities of the game.

IMG Desktops: Ghastly

Feral Interactive

Sick Puppies

Ghost Master

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Blizzard Entertainment has announced that they will close down all current World of Warcraft (WoW) beta servers today at 3:00 PDT in preparation of the open beta. After this Blizzard will release a new version of the game that you will be able to download while waiting for the open beta of this highly anticipated MMORPG to begin.

From Blizzard's WoW Community site:

The closed beta test is coming to an end. This Friday, October 29, at 3:00 PM PDT, the closed beta servers will go offline as we prepare to run another stress test. All active closed-beta accounts will remain active, and closed-beta testers will be receiving an email with instructions on what to do to continue playing in the stress test.

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft

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