Factor 5 lives on

I can exclusively reveal that the renowned developer Factor 5 (´Turrican´, ´Star Wars: Rogue Squadron´, ´Lair´) is still in business. The studio is neither bankrupt, being liquidated or has been taken over.

The team has been reduced, though, and the projects developed for now defunct publisher Brash, like ´Superman´, are currently on hold. But development is continuing on other titles. While I was initialy told that an announcement was forthcoming soon, I am now being informed that Factor 5 may not have anything to announce publically until later in the year.

But, it seems, Factor 5 is able to survive on its own following the lay-offs and work on the announced Wii titles is continuing.

´GTA´ developer warming to Wii

Here is a brief update. In relation to some exclusive information I gave you some time ago, my guess regarding Silicon Knights was wrong. Just to make up for it, though, I can reveal that publisher Take 2 and developer Rockstar are warming to Wii.

When developing the DS game ´Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars´, they were very happy with Nintendo's third party support and are considering a `Grand Theft Auto´ on Nintendo's newest. I had asked them last year whether a GTA on Wii was a possibility and they had categorically ruled that out. Now, it simply hinges upon the success of ´GTA: Chinatown Wars´. If the DS title performs well enough, Rockstar will be swayed by its success and bring the franchise to Wii as well. Whether they would invest in an original installment running on a dedicated graphics engine is another question.




On a personal note, please excuse the recent lack of updates. The Falafelkidkid is a lot of work and it is hard for me to find time to write decent articles. I have a number in the pipeline, though, including a lengthy examination of controversial developer Nibris (`Sadness`), which should be online within the next two weeks. So please stay tuned.

Marvelous Entertainment teases game with Zelda symbols

The Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment ('Harvest Moon', 'No More Heroes') has published a website showing a mysterious countdown clock bearing symbols from the 'Legend of Zelda' series.




The clock itself is in triangular shape and there is a completed Triforce logo at the top with incomplete ones in the two lower corners each. There is an unfamiliar feather dangling from the clock and the entire object rises and falls gently.

One revolution of the Zelda clock is thirty seconds, at which point it briefly glows and the second digit returns to its starting position the way it came, counter-clockwise. The main digit remains at the top, pointing to the completed Triforce logo.

The seconds counting down will end sometime early next Friday, January 23rd. When setting my internal clock forward, though, the countdown expired on September 28th 2009, at 14:13:55. Then, the numbers disappear and the (mis-spelt) message "comming soon" appears in their place.

The flash animation is called ´prepre_watch.swf´ and the source code embeds it with the command ´?update=20081228_2018´. Altering the values does not seem to make much difference, however.



I must admit that I have no idea what this could mean. It is very unlikely that Nintendo would outsource either the development or the publishing part of a Zelda game to any third party. If at all, this would have to be a spin-off.

I guess that we will know more by Friday. By then, a similar countdown on a SEGA server ends, teasing the involvement of Takao Miyoshi from one of SEGA's internal studios and showing Mario symbols.

EDIT The Sega game has been revealed as a WiiWare title.

The game is called Pole’s Big Adventure and is supposed to mock 8-bit games released on the Nintendo Entertainment system around its heyday. So that means the title will be on Nintendo’s WiiWare, pricing for Japan currently is 500 Wii Points.

The game is supposed to have inside jokes in each level. The teaser site had a mushroom and apparently in Japanese that is slang for a male’s penis. Now you add pole and a mushroom that grew when you touched it with the mouse, you are going to get a game with alot of dick jokes.

The Marvelous game turns out to be Hero 30, an old-school RPG for the PlayStation Portable.

Source: Marvelous Entertainment, Sega Nerds, IGN
Thanks to: Kotaku, Joystiq, Some Guy