Category Archives: D3Publisher Europe

D3Publisher sends word that six of its best and brightest are making the jump from UMD to PC PlayStation Store. The games are:

• Cube ($9.99)
• Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords ($14.99)
• WTF: work time fun ($9.99)
• PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient ($9.99)
• PQ2: Practical Intelligence Quotient 2 ($14.99)
• Dead Head Fred ($14.99)

The first two games – Cube and Puzzle Quest – will be available starting September 18, with the rest arriving in October.

Check out the full press release after the break.

By Nathan Grayson

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It’s all happening. Shaun the Sheep! Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers! Both at E3 thanks to D3 Publishing.

In addition visitors to the company at the show will get their hands on Bangai-O Spirits, Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2, BEN 10: ALIEN FORCE The Game (?), Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.

Fair enough. Press release after the link.

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As you can see on the OFLC’s site, D3′s Dark Sector’s received a 15 rating in Australia following cuts made to the action title.

The game was denied release in Australia in February as it contained, according to the ratings body, “violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 years to play.

No release date as yet, but someone somewhere’s probably breathing a sigh of relief.

Thanks, PALgn.

IGN’s posted E3 line-ups from a decent list of companies on its Big E3 Games List, so the “excitement” for this year’s show officially starts here. W00t.

Notables in there are Resident Evil 5, Crysis Warhead, Mirror’s Edge, LOTR: Conquest and Killzone 2. Expect there to be a race among sites for the next month to get people to admit what they’re showing in LA.

This year’s E3 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 15-17

Herr Nelson informs that there’s a Dark Sector demo up on Live now. Do youself a favour and give it a try. The D3 action title deserves at least a look, and now you can do it for no money.

In the Q&A session after today’s London showing of Atari’s Alone in the Dark, the game’s producer, Nour Polloni, confirmed that the game would take around 15 hours to play through if you didn’t stop to take in the scenery.

The French developer said that it would take approximately twice as long for the completists in the audience.

Polloni was speaking after a lengthy presentation of the game at the Everyman Cinema Club in Hampstead this afternoon. Read our live blog of the presentation here.

Says so here. This is a game we’ve still yet to play, but we’re assured by the legions of people that treat us like lepers because of this that it’ pretty good. Apparently the expansion includes Bard, Rogue, Ranger and Warlock classes, as well as an undiscovered area containing 25 quests. It does not get better than that. It’s out this “spring”. Which is sort of nowish.

Here. The Americans are getting D3′s PS3 and 360 action title on March 25, while Europeans have to wait until an unfixed date in April. We’ll soon be able to see why Australia banned it, at least.

According to this, D3′s Dark Sector has slipped slightly from the “end of March” into April. The sci-fi action game still has no fixed release date. That piece also says that a demo is likely, but that final details are still being confirmed.

Here. Dark Sector’s multiplayer is broken up into two distinct game types, Infection and Epidemic. In the former, one payer takes on the role of protaganist Hayden, the others as up to nine bad guys. In the latter, players are divided into two equal teams.

Read more through the link. D3′s sci-fi action slasher’s out at the end of March for 360 and PS3.

In an email sent to CVG, Digital Extremes CEO James Schmalz has been quick to nullify remarks made by producer Josh Austin yesterday that the PS3 version was “just not running as good as 360,” and the developer had “serious discussions about what we were going to do”.

“Never once did we feel we could not pull off the PS3 version of Dark Sector,” he said. “As with all PS3 games, it takes skill and time to optimize and we spent a great deal of time doing that. As development drew to a close, it did take one final last optimization push to get the PS3 version performing as well as the 360 version. Never once did our engine team think it could not be done, it was simply a matter of priorities in finishing a game.

“At no time did we ever think, ‘It’s not going to be optimized enough, so let’s talk to D3 about canning it.’ That is just not true.

“I hope you guys enjoy Dark Sector. I’m really glad you have liked what you have seen so far.”

Good luck with that, Josh. Check out our chat with the sci-fi slasher’s associate producer, Dave Kudirka, from yesterday.

Dark Sector’s powered-up protagonist ethic has put it in competition with Vivendi’s superb-looking Prototype, Digital Extremes’ Dave Kudirka has told videogaming247.

“There are a few action titles coming out in this first quarter that we’ll be competing with, but Prototype is definitely the title that appears to have generated comparison to Dark Sector in the online community,” he said. “I think the attractive monster-as-hero convention is the strongest connection between the two titles. And names like Devil May Cry, Metal Gear, and Grand Theft Auto always cast a big shadow, especially when you’re bringing a new IP to the table.”

Dark Sector recently hit headlines at getting banned in Australia for its violence level, but a dynamic difficulty setting, HUD-free gameplay and the “best death screams ever” are enough to lift the title above the rest of the slasher crowd, Kudirka said.

“From the outset of planning Dark Sector our goal was to immerse the player into the game as much as possible and now that technology allows us to do extremely realistic cut scenes in-engine along with a myriad of other tricks, we think we have gotten as close as possible to that goal,” he said.

Dark Sector ships for 360 and PS3 at the “end of March”. Hit the link for all of Dave’s answers to our questions.

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Speaking here, Josh Austin, producer for Digital Extremes’ Dark Sector, has said that towards the end of the game’s development period the team almost binned the PS3 version because they couldn’t get it up to muster with the 360 SKU.

“This is the PS3 version,” he said here, showing off the game. “It looks just as good as the 360 version, which we’re very happy about. Towards the end we started having some serious conversations about what we were going to do, but we ended up pulling it off, so we’re very proud of that.”

He added, by way of explanation, “It was just not running as well as the 360.”

Sci-fi action slasher Dark Sector’s shaping up very nicely, thank you very much, and will release globally in March. We’ll have more on the game for you later today.

Treasure’s Bangai-O Spirits is to be handled by D3 in America, the publisher just confirmed. The DS shooter is slated for the second quarter.

As reported this morning, you’ll be able to create levels and transmit them to other consoles through headphones and proper Spectrum-style squeaky noises. It has to be awesome. No news on a European release as yet. Press release after the link.

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Whoops. Australia’s trigger happy censor board – the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) – has refused to grant a rating to D3′s Dark Sector.

The sci-fi action game contains, according to the OFLC, “violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 years to play. The finishing moves and most violent game play includes decapitation, dismemberment of limbs accompanied by large blood spurts, neck breaking spurts, neck breaking twists and exploded bodies with post-action twitching body parts. These moves are relatively easy to accomplish and once the player has mastered the moves and is able to get close to his foes, these violent moves can be executed.”

In Australia, the maximum age rating for game is 15. You might want to sort that out, Australia.

D3Publishing’s Dead Head Fred has won the first Writer’s Guild of America video award given to a game. The PSP title’s script was penned by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, and developed by Vicious Cycle. Press release here.

We missed this, again showing are ace press release-reading skills. At the bottom of this announcement was confirmation of a sequel to Puzzle Quest, the funny game Tom Bramwell likes and we keep meaning to play. No release date, details, etc.

Adam Roberts, formerly Vivendi UK boss, has moved to D3 as managing director.

“These are very exciting times for D3PE with Dark Sector shaping up to be one of the key action titles of 2008,” said Roberts. “A wealth of exciting new titles on both current and next gen over the coming months and a talented team will cement D3PE’s position as one of the fastest growing game publishers in Europe. D3PE will become a force to be reckoned, and I am delighted to be part of it.”

Action title Dark Sector’s doing the PR rounds at the moment, and we should have something on it for you soon.