What’s good gamers, I recently got in contact with one of the PR/Marketing Specialist at Tecmo, a  Ms. Aileen Viary, who was kind of enough to answer some of my questions about their upcoming title Quantum Theory. Luckily for me she did, check out the interview:

1. D.S.P.:  How long has Quantum been in development?

A.V.:  Over a year, the game was first announced at Tokyo Game Show in October 2008.

2. D.S.P.: What is Quantum about?

A.V.: In short, Quantum is about Syd and Filena scaling this organic, living tower to find the answers that lie at the top. Syd and Filena both have their own reasons for scaling the tower, but the story remains mysterious and is unraveled during the ascent.

3. D.S.P.: What was the reason for the name change from Quantum Theory to Quantum? Does it add any significance to the story?

A.V.: The game’s name is actually changed back to “Quantum Theory.” The name’s meaning is something the director or producer would have to answer, but I would say that it might have to do with how energy interacts with its surroundings within the living tower. The mysterious storyline is related to the mysteriousness of the title.

4. D.S.P.: According to producer at this year’s past E3, Quantum was on tracked to be released in early 2010. However, seeing how a lot of titles are being pushed back until early next year, is Quantum’s release date still a reality?

A.V.: As of today, it is still set to release in early 2010.

5. D.S.P.: How hard is it too develop Quantum on the PS3?

A.V.: This question would have to be answered by our dev team in Tokyo. Check back later.

6. D.S.P.: Some consumers are calling Quantum a Gears of War clone. How does the development team plan to separate Quantum from the Gears of War series to make it its own game.

A.V.: Of course, this question has to go to the development team for a more refined answer, but from what I remember from E3, they are taking elements of fantasy, melee, and the female character to create a stylish art nouveau, dark fantasy, action-shooter game. Also, there are parts when the environment (living-tower) moves as Syd scales the tower.

7. D.S.P.: How long will the campaign mode be?

A.V.: I believe we’re looking at 10-12 hrs for single player campaign.

8. D.S.P.: Will there be a multi-player mode?

A.V.: Yes, there will be online multiplayer modes.

9. D.S.P.: Will Quantum have trophies?

A.V.: Yes

10. D.S.P.: Will Quantum have a Home space? If so, will the Home awards be attached to the trophies?

A.V.: To be decided.

11. D.S.P.: Can consumers expect to see more of Quantum at this year’s Tokyo Game Show?

A.V.: Yes

Once again I would like to thank Ms. Aileen Viary for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions, it is greatly appreciated. Quantum Theory is being developed by Team Tachyon and published by Tecmo exclusively for the Playstation 3.

Release Date: September 9, 2009
Studio: Focus Features
Director: Shane Acker
Screenwriter: Pamela Pettler
Starring: Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover
Official Website: 9themovie.com

Plot Summary: A new era in animated storytelling begins on 9.9.09. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton (“The Corpse Bride,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) and Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted,” “Nightwatch”) join forces to produce wunderkind director Shane Acker’s distinctively original and thrilling tale. “9″ stars Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Crispin Glover and features the music of Danny Elfman.

When 9 (“The Lord of the Ring’s” Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they’ll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them.

It looks like Valve isn’t ready to stop supporting Left 4 Dead just yet. Valve announced today that they will be releasing their second DLC pack titled “Crash Course,” which will feature new content for both the single player and multiplayer modes.

The DLC will be released in September and it will be free to download for PC owners and Xbox 360 gamers will be charges 540 Microsoft Points. Its a pretty fair price when you compare it to the price of other DLC add-ons for other games.

Official Statement from Valve:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the next major downloadable content (DLC) update for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D), the #1 new game title on Xbox 360 and PC in 2008

Entitled ‘Crash Course,’ the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, ‘Crash Course’ bridges the gap between the end of the ‘No Mercy’ campaign and the beginning of ‘Death Toll’ in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale

While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of ‘Crash’ is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game’s existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.

‘Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools,’ said Gabe Newell. ‘We’re working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product.’

Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide.

Left 4 Dead: Crash Course is targeted for release in September and will be available free of charge on the PC and for 560 Gamer points on Xbox Live.

For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Intel(r) Threading Building Blocks Integration Now Available to Unreal Engine 3 Licensees

Intel Joins Epic Games’ Integrated Partners Program
CARY, N.C., August 4, 2009 – Epic Games, Inc. today announced that Intel(r) Threading Building Blocks (Intel(r) TBB) 2.2 has been incorporated into Unreal Engine 3. The newly released version of the popular parallel programming abstraction has been integrated with the 64-bit Unreal Editor, and as part of this collaboration, Intel has joined Epic’s premier Integrated Partners Program (IPP).

Intel TBB 2.2 is now available to publishers and developers licensing Unreal Engine 3, making it easier than ever for studios to leverage Intel’s scalable memory allocator for multithreaded computing. As with all new engine features and enhancements, Epic’s distribution of Intel TBB is available to Unreal Engine 3 licensees at no extra cost.

Intel TBB is an award-winning runtime library that simplifies the writing of multithreaded applications. Just as the C++ Standard Template Library (STL) extends the core language, Intel TBB offers C++ users a higher level abstraction for parallelism. To implement Intel TBB, developers use familiar C++ templates and coding style, leaving low-level threading details to the library. It is also portable between architectures and operating systems. With Intel TBB, developers get the benefits of faster programming, scalable performance, and easier to maintain code.

“Bringing Intel into the Integrated Partners Program and integrating Intel TBB into Unreal Engine 3 ensures our licensees are within reach of the best development tools available,” said Dr. Michael Capps, president of Epic Games. “This partnership will help minimize the work required to author multithreaded applications for Unreal-powered games and, in the long term, provide developers with greater access to Intel Tools.”

“Intel is committed to providing the very best tools for parallel programming like Intel(r) TBB and our new Parallel Studio suite,” said James Reinders, marketing director and chief evangelist, Developer Products Division, Intel Corporation. “By integrating Intel TBB in the Unreal Engine and sharing it with their licensees at no additional cost, Epic is facilitating parallelism to spur greater multi-core innovation among game developers.”

Check out this clip from the new season of Robot Chicken. Finally somebody realizes that a whip is both deadly and stupid. A whip doesn’t kill somebody, but rather it hurts them.

Sony has put the order in to have 1 million Playstation 3 units for Q3 this year. This is a good sign because the more product you have out there the more you can sell but, more so the demand of the product has to be higher in order for demands to be met. Sony must continue on these positive strides to reclaim their green light position.

This actually represents a double jump compared to the last three or four months in terms of production of the Playstation 3 units. To be able to manufacture more consoles something behind the scenes must be different and that means less parts, slimmer version, lower price model for supply and demand, all the signs point to Sony wanting too make a serious comeback.

Now this year’s Gamescom is rumored to be huge with this 3 hour long press conference and tension is building up. One things for sure is that this may be the stage where the PS3 Slim is shown for the first time even a price cut and if this holds true, please believe that Activision along with several other companies will be toasting and, popping bottles in their conference rooms. This will also give Sony more lead way when it comes to the relationships and content between third party developers which is extremely important.

Today there’s already a sign of a price cut even though only by 50 dollars but, according to Amazon.com the 160gb Playstation 3 price has been cut so good things are happening everyone so be patient.

Stay tuned for more updates

SOURCE