Rebellion Developments, the studio behind the PSP games Star Wars Battlefront, Alien vs Predator and The Simpsons Game, is now stepping out of its shell and moving on to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, starting with a sequel to Eidos Interactive's Shellshock. More in the full article.

 

Developer Rebellion Developments and publisher Reef Entertainment recently teamed up with Rotterdam, Netherlands Chief Marketing Office to feature the video game Free Running in Rotterdam's City of Architecture 2007 event. Why is this exciting, you ask? Be informed that it projected a gameplay of the title through the world's possibly biggest TV.

This happened because accordingly, the Free Running gameplay vid was the first prize for the lucky winner of the regional heats leading up to the premiere last Saturday, April 14. That means the dude got to play the game while it was projected to the building.

The show took place at the heart of the city, specifically on Nedlloyd building, one of the largest structures in Rotterdam overlooking the waterway. Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley mentioned that they are happy to be a part of the City of Architecture event. According to the official, the joint venture also made perfect sense. Kingsley explained,

The CMO are communicating Rotterdam as a youth oriented city and playing an urban-sport focused videogame on one of the City's key buildings actively engages with and encourages the young people of Rotterdam to get involved with new and exciting projects. It was an opportunity not to be missed.

Many fans have described Free Running as a Tony Hawk video game but without skateboards. It involves running around and dealing with obstacles in your path in an acrobatic manner. It is actually considered as a sport and an art developed by Sebastien Foucan.

The Game Connection organizers appear to be expanding their influence as of late, as news circulates regarding the event's very first advisory board. The Game Connection event, for those asking, was established to help provide a meeting place for both publishers and developers, which is in turn hoped to give both groups a better chance at creating and planning future video game projects.

This announcements signifies the growing support the gaming industry now provides for Game Connection, which was also part of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco last March. As for the advisory board's roster:

• Svetlana Gorobets – International Licensing and Acquisition Manager –  1C  (Russia)
• Patrick Pligersdoffer – CEO –  Cyanide  (France)
• Ed Dille, – CEO – Fog Studios (Canada)
• Chris Charla – Business Development Director – Foundation IX (United States)
• Kurt Busch, – Product Development Director– Konami (United States)
• Sébastien Motte – Product Planner –  Microsoft (United States)
• Jason Kingsley – CEO –  Rebellion (United Kingdom)
• Harald Riegler – Managing Director –  Sproing (Austria)
• Alexander Fernandez – CEO –  Streamline Studios (Netherlands)
• Colin Gordon – CEO –  Valcon Games (United States)
• Gilles Langourieux – CEO –  Virtuos (China)
• Bill Mc Intosh – CEO –  Torus Games (Australia)
• Olivier Masclef – CEO –  Widescreen Games (France)
  

As Kurt Busch said regarding his assignment in the advisory board.

As interactive entertainment production becomes even more globalized, the ability to identify these opportunities becomes even more critical. I am honored to have been asked to join the board as I believe the Game Connection events build positive relationships across the industry, regardless of a company’s size, market or language.

In line with this announcement, we're also letting readers know that Game Connection organizer Connection Events is set to hold future conferences in Tokyo, Lyon, and San Francisco respectively:

• Game Connection Asia: Sept.  24-25, 2007: Tokyo - Japan
• Game Connection Europe: Dec. 4-5-6, 2007: Lyon - France
• Game Connection America @ GDC: Feb. 18-22, 2008: San Francisco - CA, USA
  

Exhibitors and service buyers interested in making it into these upcoming events are advised to visit the Game Connection home site. Stay tuned for further details.

UK-based video game developer Rebellion Developments, famous for the PlayStation 2 game Sniper Elite, has announced that they have just acquired Awesome Studios, more commonly known as Ignition Entertainment's development studio in Banbury in Oxfordshire. In line with this announcement, Rebellion CEO and Creative Director Jason Kingsley had this to say:

This acquisition takes the Rebellion headcount to 280 full time members of staff. We're fully booked with work until later in the year so these additional highly talented staff will be a valuable addition to the team.

In case people are wondering, Rebellion made several stints into the PlayStation Portable, with their most well-known game being Miami Vice: The Game (2006), which, alongside their Rogue Trooper (2006) PC title, helped push them for a "Developer of the Year" award at last year's TIGA event in the UK. In a strange bit of irony, they were also behind the notoriously mediocre Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and PC. Gamers will best remember Awesome Developments for their development of the PSP game Mercury, along with Pool Paradise for the PS2.

GamesIndustry.biz reports while CiRCLE Studio's closure has yet to be made official, a number of studios in the region - including Free Radical Design, Swordfish Studios, Rebellion and Eurocom -  have already begun talks with some of the studio's former staff.

CiRCLE Studios, which was founded by industry veterans Jeremy Heath-Smith and Adrian Smith, was reported to have gone into liquidation Tuesday.

David Doak, director of Free Radical Design, based in Nottingham, confirmed this, saying that CirCLE's closure "means that we are now talking to some ex-CiRCLE employees." Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley also revealed that they are currently talking to "some selected individuals who have sent in CVs direct to our Rebellion Derby [offices]."

According to GamesIndustry.biz, sources close to CiRCLE revealed that Birmingham developer Swordfish Studios is another interested party, demoing a new title at the studio the very afternoon that employees had been informed of their redundancy. Swordfish announced a new studio devoted solely to next-gen games late last year.

Recruitment firms are also said to be hovering over the studio, as is Pirates of the Caribbean developer Eurocom, a company situated in the same city as CiRCLE.

 We guess after everything has been said and done, PlayStation 3 will still be loved in Europe. We all know about the launch delays and launch announcements delays and every single bad press that has plagued Sony ever since. Despite all those, it has been reported yesterday that fans are still willing to welcome the console with open arms.

Like this group for example: some members of the UK development community talked with gaming site GamesIndustry recently and reflect on their views about PS3 and everything in between. Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson seemed somewhat hopeful as he mentioned that the delay is actually beneficial:

I'm excited by the amount of quality in the launch titles for Europe, and the five month delay has certainly helped from that perspective. Cost could become an issue later on in the cycle, and a good online system will be important, but for early adopters, it'll be all about the games.

While the first generation titles are already excellent, as far as Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley is concerned, the second wave of games will do it for Sony. He exclaimed:

It's not been the smoothest of run-ups to launch so far but the technology, once you get to grips with it, is fantastic. Most first generation games will have developers just getting things running well enough to satisfy Sony. In my opinion its the second wave of PS3 games that will begin to tap into its power.

Lastly, Team 17 Studio Director Martyn Brown mentioned that the Cell architecture is not a problem at all for developers, in contrast to most reports. He explained:

There was a lot of rumour-mongering prior to the PS3 development hardware arriving that it would require huge teams and untold complexities. There's certain elements of that which ring true, but only for titles that are wildly ambitious in terms of range and content detail, but as for day-to-day development, we've more or less taken it in our stride.

Earlier this week, Blitz Games CEO Philip Oliver picked up Best Player trophy at the fourth annual TIGA Awards ceremony, while the award for Best Developer went to Rebellion. Rebellion also got awards for Best Handheld or Console Game for their game Miami Vice.

Rebellion chief executive Jason Kingsley had this to say:

This year we've grown into one of the biggest independent studios in Europe with the integration of the famous Core Design and Strangelite studios, launched our second 2000 AD-based and double BAFTA-Nominated game Rogue Trooper, completed GUN: Showdown with Activision and most importantly Miami Vice with Vivendi, so it's been a very exciting time to say the least.

Other awards handed out at the ceremony included Best Console and PC game, which got picked up by Revolution Studios for Broken Sword – Angel of Death. The Beset Mobile Game award went to Scottish developer Dynamo Games for Championship Manager 2006.

And just in case you didn't know, TIGA is the trade association representing the business and commercial interests of games software developers in the UK and Europe. They've got about 113 members of which about 90 are developers. Most are independent, but a growing number are starting to get acquired and have become publisher-owned.

TIGA also has affiliate members who support and service the games industry. They're mostly outsource and middleware companies such as QA and localization specialists (important for those oh so delicate translations), as well as law firms and accountants.