Beyond Good and Evil 2 Trailer

Michel Ancel didn't disappoint. His recent revelation that Ubisoft hadn't yet greenlighted the sequel to Beyond Good and Evil that he has been in pre-production on for the last year whipped fans into a frenzy. They finally had confirmation that the long awaited sequel was in the works and it came with the caveat that it might not actually come to fruition.

All that is in the past now though, as Ubisoft, as expected, officially revealed the first trailer for the game at its UbiDays event.



Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot introduced the clip by stating that the trailer was rendered completely in the game's engine, which means this is going to be one purty game.

It's interesting that they chose to only show Jade (the heroine of the original) from the back, which leads me to believe they probably haven't nailed down what she'll look like now that the visuals are much more realistic. In the original game, Jade looked a LOT like a cartoony version of Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. They'll have their work cut out for them to keep her from looking too much like Alyx while still being recognizable as Jade outside of the context of the game. Green lipstick helps.

No date or platforms have been announced but 360/PS3 are a lock based on the HD graphics of the trailer. Wii fanboys had been hoping it would be an exclusive to the little white box based on the fact that the original game reportedly sold best on GameCube, but it looks like it isn't meant to be. I wouldn't put it past Ubi to re-release the original on Wii, Okami-style though.

Splinter Cell 5 Catches a Major Delay

As one long awaited game finishes development, another gets sent back to the drawing board. It's been so long since there has been any news on Splinter Cell Conviction that I completely forgot about it. In fact, the last news on the game was the announcement that it and Haze (which comes out this week and scored an enthusiastic 4.5/10 from IGN!) had been delayed until 2008.

The word is now that the title will be rebuilt from the ground up and won't see release until Christmas...2009. Possibly Spring 2010, a full 2 years away. Wow.

Ubisoft Montreal certainly has a lot on their plate with the new Prince of Persia coming this Fall as well as the inevitable Assassin's Creed sequel. Something tells me we'll see AC2 before SC5.

As with Beyond Good and Evil 2, the full scoop will likely come at next week's UbiDays event in Paris.

[via CVG]

Beyond Good and Evil 2 In the Works

Upon reading that headline you likely either shrugged your shoulders or had to pinch yourself to see if you were dreaming. It is, in fact, true though. Beyond Good and Evil (and Rayman) creator Michel Ancel has disclosed to French magazine JeuxVideo, that he and a small team have been in pre-production on a sequel for the past year. That's the good news.

The bad news is, Ubisoft hasn't actually agreed to greenlight the game yet, so all the work Ancel and his team have done so far could just end up a giant could-have-been.

I hope Ancel is confident that the game will end up in production because I really don't care to hear about how the game was *this close* to being made before being backburnered. That's just mean.

We're in the midst of the now apparently annual "Gamer Days" that publishers started holding last year in the wake of E3's downsizing so maybe it will be confirmed at Ubi's aptly named UbiDays event. The E3 of old is gone, but publishers still like to announce stuff in May.


[via Destructoid]

Prince of Persia Gets the (Re)Boot

Eurogamer has the first online details about the new Prince of Persia game, revealed in the pages of French gaming mag Joypad (presumably unrelated to US blog Joystiq, which only sounds like a French site).

This untitled new entry will be a total reboot of the series in the same way that Sands of Time was. I find this relieving because that is the only game in the series I finished. I tried Warrior Within and actually liked it for the most part, in spite of the controversial image makeover applied to the Prince, but I got fed up with constantly being forced to replay large sections of the game due to a weak checkpoint system. The Two Thrones was reportedly a return to the quality of the first game but having not finished the second game I couldn't bring myself to play the third. I probably would have if they had ported it to 360 during its first year drought, but I guess we'll never know. In any case, starting over with the series next-gen debut after giving it a much needed three year break is a wise move.

The big news is, the Dagger of Time is no more. Ubisoft feels the time manipulation element has been beaten into the ground at this point, which is, truly, an understatement.

The other big news is that the game is going to be...don't flinch...cel-shaded. Yes, the Prince will now be a little cartoon boy with blond hair and giant eyes who....OK, not really.

The game will have a hand drawn look to it, but be more like a graphic novel than a cartoon. I personally like cel-shading and it should work really well with the fantastical nature of the game. Assassin's Creed looked amazing but we don't need a Prince of Persia game that looks exactly the same.

Eurogamer names a bunch of games as providing inspiration for various elements in the new title and it reads like a Game of the Year reunion: Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Twilight Princess, Soul Calibur, Metal Gear Solid. Rock Band. OK, maybe not that last one. I don't think there will be any Godsmack songs on the soundtrack this time out.

If Ubisoft Montreal can successfully synthesize the best elements of those games into a Prince of Persia title, I dare say they'll have one hell of a game on their hands.

The game will be formally revealed at Ubisoft's UbiDays event at the end of May so much more details, videos and maybe even gameplay impressions are right around the corner.

[via Eurogamer]