And The Rest: Friday News Roundup
MGS Twin Snakes completed in 70 minutes on video, Pandora Tomorrow PC patched, Eidos signs an ambiguous deal for a new game, Empire releases some budget games, and Sony whacks voice-overs into EverQuest II.
Although we don't generally mention the black art of speed running much around here, certain members of the EG team have been known to dazzle spectators by beating a hasty path through the first episode of Quake from time to time, and we all thought that Super Mario Bros. 3 video that did the rounds on the forum a while ago was stunning to behold. Which is why we feel we can get away with mentioning one man's insane 1 hour, 10 minute completion of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. On Extreme mode. With no saves or anything. It's utterly dazzling, although obviously we wouldn't recommend watching it unless you've completed the game yourself or never have any intention of playing it...
As predicted, Ubisoft has patched the freshly released PC version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow to version 1.1, adding lobby and server browser improvements, variable firepower settings, LAN support for anti-cheat solution Punkbuster, and a couple of other minor tweaks. The patch weighs in at a healthy 10.7MB.
Eidos has signed some form of deal with a company called Highway 1 Productions, which will apparently see the duo develop a third person, urban themed action game with an online component for PS2 and Xbox. The game will apparently be on display at E3 this May 12-14th in Los Angeles, and everybody involved is very excited/thrilled/delighted/blah blah blah. The confusing thing though is that Highway 1 Productions seems to be some form of publishing and development matchmaker, so we're not altogether sure what's going on. E3 should shed some light...
Empire has been in touch today to remind us that a bunch of Xplosiv PC budget titles made it onto store shelves today. Sadly though, the latest batch is rather hit and miss (hit: Divine Divinity, miss: Europe Racer, Microsoft Bicycle Series, Total Immersion Racing, Big Mutha Truckers). On the other hand, Empire also points out that it plans to launch a selection of Xplosiv PS2 offerings for a tenner each, and that bodes well for the future, even if the initial offering seems to be Big Mutha Truckers, Total Immersion Racing, Antz: Extreme Racing and GO-GO Copter. If you must spend 10 quid on an Empire product this weekend, we'd recommend the Space Invaders Anniversary PS2 disc...
Ubisoft has also been in touch today to inform us that EverQuest II will be the first MMORPG - nay, the first MMOG! - to feature voice-overs for non-player characters. According to the ever-bashful publisher's press release, that's 130 hours of dialogue and approximately 1.5 million words. A bit like some of our reviews, then. "Including voiceover for NPCs in EverQuest II is an incredibly ambitious project," says Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley, rather stating the obvious. But enough press release garbage - you probably want to hear what the NPCs sound like, and thanks to a new trailer of the game you can do just that.