Described as a "small, laser-focused production and publishing company based in Austin, Texas, (also with one very lonely desperado in London) from an unnamed group of industry veterans/outlaw refugees," Devolver Digital is the home of Mike Wilson and Harry Miller, two of the co-founders of Gathering of Developers and Gamecock, according to a report from Big Download.

Mike Wilson told Big Download that Devolver is "basically acting as the production company for the XBLA game, since we are not an official MSFT publisher yet." Devolver will, however, be publishing the PC version of Serious Sam HD.

Gathering of Developers-Gamecock founders return as Devolver Digital [Big Download]

This three-minute, 28-second extended version of the last Velvet Assassin trailer we saw skips the Winston Churchill-ish speech and focuses on the music — Hollywood Undead's "Young." I can't say that that does the game any good since the lyrics have even less to do with World War II spies than Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Most of the footage is recycled, but you will see the fabled taint-stab, the frolicking morphine vision and probably more over-the-shoulder shooting scenes than you'll actually see in the game (Velvet Assassin is supposed to be a stealth game, not a shooter).

But what really bugs me about this trailer is that it feels like a me-too of the Gears of War trailer that used Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World," only crappy — like the Assassin's Creed me-too that uses "Lonely Soul" from Unkle.

Oh well, enjoy it anyway.

And if I seem a little snippy and a lot late on my usual posting time, I apologize — my house got burgled :(

Sir Winston Churchill's famous June 4th, 1940 speech, commonly referred to as "We will fight on the beaches", was one of the defining speeches of the World War II era in which Velvet Assassin takes place. I just can't help thinking they chose the wrong image to coincide with the end of the speech in this trailer. Now I'm going to have the image of a portly British statesman spilling out of vintage women's underwear for the rest of the day. Should make lunch entertaining.

Velvet Assassin is due out next month for the Xbox 360 and Windows PC.

The ESA may have increased their fees to ridiculous levels over the past few years, but that hasn't stopped SouthPeak Interactive from signing on with the industry trade organization.

"Our industry needs a strong and active trade organization and we are pleased to support that effort," said Richard Iggo, Vice President of Marketing for SouthPeak Interactive. "We look forward to participating in the many programs and opportunities provided by the ESA."

Ironically, SouthPeak is the company that purchased Gamecock last year, the company that heralded the death of the ESA's E3 trade show in 2007 with a massive parade of sweaty journalists.

An unconfirmed rumor also names Wilson as possibly the person behind the last-minute offer to buy Hardcore Gamer. The New York Times quotes mag owner Tim Lindquist as saying that an unnamed suitor "who had recently sold his video game business" dropped by an hour before the auction was due to close and offered a bit more than Lindquist's asking price.

The deal for the mag, rights and associated domain names, isn't quite done yet, but is expected to be finalized this week.

Reached for comment Tuesday afternoon, Wilson was first coy about the possibility that he sold his game publishing company to SouthPeak only to jump into the video game journalism business.

"Awesome rumor! I hope (the magazine I own is) Tiger Beat!"

But later said that he did talk to the magazine.

"I did talk to them and would love to help the guys find a way to stay in business, because they do it just for the love of it, and you know I have a serious soft spot for dedicated indies. But I did not and am not buying them."

But is Wilson perhaps part of a group picking up the magazine? Wilson declined to say.

He did say that he's currently currently entertaining offers for SubstanceTV.com and that he's busy putting on a charity burlesque event in Austin, Texas for Valentine's Day.

We only have the rest of the week to wait to see if he is a part of the upcoming mag deal mentioned in the New York Times.

Naturally, you can’t get through the whole game injecting yourself with morphine – there are only so many syringes you can find in a level. The morphine bullet-time is mostly just a way to get you out of trouble when all else fails (and it is not so effective if more than one guy sees you). The developer has other interesting ways to kill people in mind for the player – such as the taint-stab (yes, taint-stab), the skull-shank, and the ever-popular “sneak up, pull pin on Nazi’s grenade, sneak away, boom!” attack.

You play Velvet Assassin as Violette Summer, who’s not really Violette Szabo from the real-life Allied spy corps, mostly because the daughter of the murdered spy didn’t sign off on the project. Developer Replay Studios did try to entice Tania Szabo into at least seeing the game, they say, but she just wasn’t interested.

Maybe it’s for the best – Violette Szabo died horribly; how fun can a game be if you know you’re going to end up raped and executed at the end? With Violette Summer, there’s some ambiguity as to what happens because she narrates the gameplay as a flashback from a hospital bed. She could be dying, she could be sick, she could be captured – we won’t know up until the very end when Violette finishes her story.

Thus, during the “flashbacks,” if Violette screws up and is about to be caught, the game allows you to shoot up morphine and run around in a hospital nightie – it’s not that she botched her mission, she’s just misremembering how it went and she needs a shot of the good stuff to recall exactly how it happened.

Gameplay is meant to be stealth, not action – so if you’re playing “the right way,” you ought not to be running and gunning. I’m not even sure you could get by in this game doing that because Violette dies after like three shots and there don’t seem to be that many ammo caches throughout the levels.

There are plenty of opportunities to increase your stealth, though. As you crouch, creep, or run (if you’re feeling bold) through levels, you’ll come across areas where you can affect the environment to up your chances of going undetected or of scoring an awesome stealth kill. For example, I crept into a hallway lined with floodlights. The blue tinge around Violette’s body faded, telling me I’d lost my stealth on account of being in the light. I could have risked it and run down the hallway because there wasn’t a Nazi in the way – but running creates noise, which can attract nearby Nazis and I could hear one whistling to himself somewhere nearby. So instead, I followed the cable running from the floodlight back behind me to a control panel. I pressed the action button, which shut off the light and then snuck down the hallway.

At the end, there was a door. I peeked through the keyhole and spotted another Nazi – but he wandered away into another room, leaving the radio (uh… gramophone? Whatever it was…) turned on. I snuck into the room and waited for him to come back so I could stab him without his buddies seeing (and hide his body – if the NPCs see bodies, they’re on to you), but he never reappeared. The PR rep gently suggested I try screwing with the radio and sure enough, an option appeared to let me shut it off. As soon as I did, the Nazi in the other room swore and started walking back into the room, swearing about the cheap thing being on the fritz. I took my chance and taint-stabbed him, dragging the body under a work table before creeping into the next room for my next kill.

After playing through that one level, my biggest beef was that if you dragged a body while crouching, you automatically stood up after letting go of the body. So you had to press another button to re-crouch; not very efficient. Other than that, obvious gripes about not having all the dialog recorded yet and Violette’s box-pushing animation being a little too sexy to be practical, I was actually pretty pleased with my experience.

But Velvet Assassin didn’t stop there for me. We went on to try the Warsaw ghetto level and I got a chance to examine the second thing that stuck with me: the visual style. Now, the build I saw was still early alpha, so textures weren’t all there and lighting wasn’t finished – but even with the kinks, I got a real sense of the “dynamic lighting” Replay Studios is so proud about. It was especially apparent when comparing the Warsaw level to the intro level in the French countryside.

Groups of levels are set in locales which look and feel distinct from one another and different from what you’d see in real life. The architecture is somewhat realistic (the developer got a hold of old aerial photos of Warsaw to recreate as much of the pre-bombed city as they could), but the lighting and coloring in each level creates a distinct sense of atmosphere. The French countryside had a lot of orange colors in it, creating a tense, cautious feeling. The later Warsaw level had more reds and blacks – evoking a sense of horror at the atrocities of war.

That was the biggest thing that struck me as I played Velvet Assassin: Replay Studios, a German developer, is not pulling any punches when it comes to representing the horrors of Nazi occupied territory. They’re not being over the top with the violence, or reducing the enemies to mindless hate-killers with bad dialog. Subtle scenes and story exposition hidden in levels (letters in drawers, NPC dialog, etc.) simply remind you that 1) you’re in one of the worst wars in recent history and 2) the bad stuff being done is being done by other people with families – people you’ve got to kill to succeed in your mission.

The Warsaw level was particularly hardcore. As I crept through the deserted streets strewn with furniture that had been thrown from windows as last-ditch attempts at barricade the roads, flashes in darkened windows and distant pops of gunfire and screams told me that the Nazis were still rooting through the town, looking for survivors and killing them. I turned a corner and came upon an execution ground – the blood still bright red on the brick walls, the bodies of women and children slumped against them with their hands tied behind their backs.

War is hell. William T. Sherman wasn’t kidding.

The moody feel to the levels adds a layer of emotional depth to Velvet Assassin that I wasn’t expecting to see in a Gamecock game. Not to diss on the publisher – but when I think of Gamecock, the last thing I think of is “serious war story.” But Gamecock says Velvet Assassin is very much a Gamecock game because of its uniqueness; and they’ll do what it takes to nurture out-of-left-field games like this, presumably even after being bought by SouthPeak Interactive.

That’s why we won’t be seeing a demo for Velvet Assassin, sadly. The developer wants to use that time to keep on polishing the game. And Velvet Assassin is going to need it, if some of the subtler stuff is going to get fixed.

At present, there are gameplay mechanics that don’t quite work or aren’t integrated well into the game. For example, there’s a sort of RPG element where you can find hidden items in a level, thus earning XP. You can spend the XP on buffing your stealth skills or your gun accuracy and stuff – but the developer says the buffs won’t make gameplay too different and they don’t require players to complete these “side quests.” So in other words, it’s a cool idea that doesn’t exactly have a place in the game yet – something you’d definitely want to fix or cut before release.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this game. It probably won’t be the prettiest game on the market and there really isn’t much to the game besides sneaking and stabbing – no code-cracking mini-games or super cool gadgets (definitely not a Splinter Cell clone). Honestly, Velvet Assassin feels like it has more stealth than action – so you’ll spend a lot of time waiting. The steep punishments for being impatient (attracting more than two Nazis, getting sniped from two buildings over because you weren’t crouching, missing little details like the floodlight control box) might also get on a lot of people’s nerves. But the game takes its subject matter seriously, it doesn’t over-sex the heroine, and stealth is a genre of gameplay that usually gets crammed into shooters or the odd RPG segment instead of taking center stage. Even Hitman, Thief or other stealth-action games sometimes give into the “peer-pressure” of shooter action games instead of going all out on stealth.

Velvet Assassin ships sometime in “early 2009.”

"We are thrilled to be joining forces with SouthPeak to continue to bring great original titles from independent developers to market with a stronger sales and distribution reach,” said Mike Wilson, CEO of Gamecock. “We have followed each other's progress closely over the last two years, and combining our team with theirs results in a very strong and well-rounded force in the market."

The feverish coupling should have no effect on Gamecock's upcoming titles, with Legendary and Mushroom men still slated for release this quarter. Phew, I need a cigarette.

SouthPeak Interactive Corporation Acquires Gamecock Media Group

MIDLOTHIAN, Va.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—SouthPeak Interactive Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: SOPK; SOPKU; SOPKW; SOPKZ), one of the fastest growing videogame publishers, today announced the acquisition of Austin-based Gamecock Media Group.

Commenting on the acquisition, Melanie Mroz, CEO of SouthPeak, stated, “Gamecock brings us a solid slate of upcoming titles, including Legendary, Mushroom Men and Velvet Assassin and supports our strategy of working with independent developers. We are excited to give the Gamecock titles a bigger platform to succeed.”

"We are thrilled to be joining forces with SouthPeak to continue to bring great original titles from independent developers to market with a stronger sales and distribution reach,” said Mike Wilson, CEO of Gamecock. “We have followed each other's progress closely over the last two years, and combining our team with theirs results in a very strong and well-rounded force in the market."

SouthPeak expects to ship Legendary and Mushroom Men in the current quarter.

Replay has pushed back the game's European release to early 2009.

This is ostensibly to bring the launch in line with the US release but will of course have the handy side-effect of extending the development time by a couple of months and avoiding the Christmas rush.

Velvet Assassin slips into early 2009 [Eurogamer]

Legendary: Behind the Scenes

The Wii version of the game will feature several customized control schemes, as well as all-new story and challenge modes to make the game worth of retail release. Hit the jump for the full press release, along with two more screens worth of hot pirate vs. ninja Wii action.

BLAZING LIZARD’S PIRATES VS. NINJAS™ DODGEBALL ABOUT TO BE UNLEASHED ON Wii™

Intense Dodgeball Rivalry to be Settled on Wii Courts Everywhere This Winter

Cockpit, Austin, TX – August 28, 2007 – Gamecock Media Group announced today that Blazing Lizard’s Pirates vs. Ninjas™ Dodgeball will release on Wii™ this winter. The title features two ancient rivals, ninjas and pirates, along with several other teams, all looking to settle the score once and for all – on the dodgeball court.

“The competition between the Pirates and the Ninjas is so huge that battles are breaking out all over,” said Harry Miller, El Presidente of Gamecock Media Group. “We’re happy to bring this grand conflict to the Wii, and give players the chance to help determine who the ultimate champions are.”

Pirates vs. Ninjas™ Dodgeball will have scurvy thieves squaring off against crafty martial artists in large, detailed arenas. The game allows for up to eight players and offers a total of seven teams, including pirates, ninjas, robots and zombies plus three unannounced ball slingers. Each team utilizes its own unique techniques and strategies to try and ultimately defeat the enemies. Unique to Wii version, the game will offer all-new story and challenge modes, along with several customized control schemes.

Pirates vs. Ninjas™ Dodgeball is scheduled for release this winter. For more information visit www.gamecockmedia.com and www.piratesvsninjas.com.

The game starts out with the protagonist Charles Deckard at a museum, about to insert a mystical key into a mystical box...well, the magical box. The one you don't want to open? Yeah, he opens it, and in return it brands his hand with a mystic rune and unleashes doom upon the human race as we know it. It's a damn good thing that box came with that branding featuring, allowing the bearer to absorb mystical energy in order to heal himself, hurt mythical beasts, and solve puzzles, because otherwise we'd be completely screwed. Let's hear it for escape clauses!

Anyway, as soon as you are branded the museum begins to shake and break, fires breaking out, the earth heaving, tossing passersby to their deaths, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats, living together, etc. Your character gains some basic knowledge about his powers as he escapes while everything goes to hell around him. It's a common FPS mechanic...essentially placing you in the middle of a disaster movie where you can't get hurt, but it's done really well.

Things get even more exciting when you exit the museum, as we see some magnificent cinematics that effectively amount to the entirety of New York City doing the wave, streets, cars, people, and all as a wave of otherworldly energy floods the surroundings. Streets crack, people run screaming, and then the griffons show up and start tossing cars about.

You navigate a maze of cars, new paths opening as the griffons toss vehicles about as if they were really big birds tossing about cars, until you get to a place where you are completely stuck. Then some seriously awesome shit goes down.

Suddenly cars and wreckage get sucking into this swirling vortex, slowly coalescing into a massive giant built from spare parts, easily the size of the skyscraper he then walks through, opening up your new path.

From there things move into more familiar puzzle-solving FPS ground, opening valves to put out fires as you make your way towards the subway system, hoping to find a way to escape the city. My last moments with the game were spent shooting at fire-spitting lava dogs in the ruined subway tunnels of New York. Th guy waiting in line for the game behind me had moved from intently staring to uncomfortably rubbing against me, so I fled.

So the first 15 minutes of the game hooked me. I am dying to see what else happens over the course of the game now. Gameplay was fast and smooth, though I didn't get a chance to play enough to determine if I like the combat yet or not. So far it's just been standard pistol fare, so I've know idea what happens when the big guns come out.

Still, I can assure you that Legendary did manage to live up to the name several times during my brief encounter. I'm looking forward to playing more when I am not surrounded by touchy Germans.

In the meantime, the dev team has added new features, such as having up to five balls in play at once, an "old-school" dodgeball gameplay mode and an enhanced mode that follows traditional rules, but lets players — whether they be pirate, ninja, zombie or robot — use special moves.

You can check out our hands-on impressions of Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball to see the title sounds better or worse than the game's current dodgeball competition.

Even more exciting that the art book, Spark Unlimited is also releasing a 96 page graphic novel detailing Deckard’s fight against the Black Order, written by none other than Legendary comic book writer Mark Waid. See what I did there? It's a double meaning. Accentuated with a capital letter. Is the weekend here yet? Look for the graphic novel to hit around the same time as the game. Look for the box art after the jump!

“Gamecock is committed to providing gamers with original titles from the most talented developers,” said Gamecock’s ‘El Presidente’ Harry Miller. “With the growth and acceptance of digital download, gamers now have greater access to original titles. By partnering with GameTap, we have another chance to ensure that gamers can find and play great games made by independent developers.”

Both current and future titles will be made available for the service, from the intentionally buggy Insecticide to the sexy spy action of Velvet Assassin. If that doesn't interest you, then I offer the director's cut headline for this story, "GameTap Gets Stuffed With Cock."

GAMECOCK MEDIA GROUP SHAKES HANDS AND SIGNS DEAL WITH DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, GAMETAP

New Partnership Makes Available Original Titles like Insecticide and Stronghold Crusader Extreme for Purchase and Play!

Cockpit, Austin, TX – July 24, 2008 – Video game publisher Gamecock Media Group announced today that it has finalized a new partnership with GameTap, the Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.) network that is a leader in digital game distribution and broadband entertainment. The partnership includes the rights for the publisher’s titles to be available for digital download in GameTap’s online store, as well as for subscription and ad-supported play.

“Gamecock is committed to providing gamers with original titles from the most talented developers,” said Gamecock’s ‘El Presidente’ Harry Miller. “With the growth and acceptance of digital download, gamers now have greater access to original titles. By partnering with GameTap, we have another chance to ensure that gamers can find and play great games made by independent developers.”

“We are constantly looking for ways to expand our massive library of games by working with innovative publishers,” said Ricardo Sanchez, vice president of content and creative director for GameTap. “Through this partnership, GameTap will now feature some of Gamecock’s best titles, including Insecticide and Stronghold Crusader Extreme.”

As part of the new agreement, future titles, such as Legendary and Velvet Assassin will also be available on GameTap. All games will be added GameTap’s online digital retail storefront at launch and later added to the subscription service and ad-supported website.

Here are tons of new screens of both the Wii version, Mushroom Men: Spore Wars, and the DS version, Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi.

Gamecock also provided further info on the four different "nations" of mushroom creatures - put simply, there are two tribes of good guys, the Bolete and Morels, and two tribes of bad guys, the Amanitas and Lepiotas. Hey, wasn't "Amanita" a poisonous mushroom in Symphony of the Night? It must be a real, actual thing that exists outside of video games. Amazing!

Full details and new screens after the jump.

An ichorous green meteor plummets through the Earth's atmosphere, fracturing and showering the earth with glowing green space dust that affects all forms of life nearby. Some plant life — mushrooms and cacti — acquire sentience while, the meteor twists and mutates other life forms, transforming insects and animals into semi-intelligent, warlike communities.

Nations



There are four Mushroom Nations. Each of these Nations has its own unique body shapes, clothing and weapons. These nations can be simplified into two groups: the non-poison mushrooms Bolete and Morels (the Good Guys) and the poison mushrooms Amanitas and Lepiota (the Bad Guys).

Bolete Tribe



Boletes are dark brown and green. They are short and stout with primitive but powerful weapons. They are good melee fighters. As hunter/gatherers, they would prefer to live at peace with the land and their fellow Mushroom Men. They have a native/aboriginal-turned warrior theme. Pax, the main character of the Wii version, embodies the naïve view of the Boletes have of the world outside.

Morels



Morels are the intelligent elite of the Mushroom Men and look more sophisticated than the other nations. Their colouring tends be saturated and bright. Their weapons are technically advanced. They are controlled by logic and reason; though sometimes they let complexity get in the way of elegance.

Amanitas Empire



The Amanitas are extremely pale, almost white and are very thin and creepy looking. They tattoo rank insignia into their bright red caps as part of their military. Their war machine is extremely powerful. Their entire culture exists to support their dominating march across the face of the planet. Unlike the other Mushroom Men who piece together weapons and armour from discarded human refuse, the Amanitas manufacture their weapons and armour in advanced forges. Roman-style conquerors, they rule through force and fear.

The Lepiota Order



The Lepiota are a very pale greenish colour and tend to be a lot thicker in build and stature. Though they have poison spore powers, they mostly rely on their blunt melee weaponry and dark magic to enforce their aggressive push for dominance. Ruled by powerful necromancers, the Lepiota are extremely evil and vicious. Their religion focuses on old human technology. They build shrines in antique human hardware like old jukeboxes and mid-century automobiles ('57 Chevy and 70's era VW Bus). . Their drive for dominance shows in all facets of their culture. Only the elite have free will while others are all mentally enslaved.

Other Species



In addition to the Mushroom Men, several other plants and animals have been affected similarly by the comet. While initially neutral and independent, they eventually team up with one side or the other.

Los Cactos Mutantes



Stubby little spine-covered saguaro men roam the wastes. Cactos focus and use their spines in a fashion similar to the Mushroom Men's spores, launching aggressive ranged strikes and defensive barriers. By their very nature, Cactos automatically inflict damage when attacked, making enemies think twice before striking. They come in two varieties. Red, feral cacti are berserker beasts, incapable of reasonable communication or interaction. They operate in packs with a poorly-defined social structure. Green, intelligent cacti are the social equivalent of the Mushroom Men (and are therefore the ones who offer their allegiance to the Mushroom Men).

Kudzu



While they can operate as separate entities, Kudzu's true strength lies in their ability to merge and spread, consuming all in their path. Only vaguely humanoid, individual Kudzu Men are thick masses of sentient vines capable of locomotion. Due to their hearty regeneration rate, they recover from virtually any attack if given a few moments and some fresh soil/water. Early on, the Kudzu Men are very few and scattered, barely surviving the constant attack of the voracious herbivores in their region. Once the hero eliminates the herbivore threat, the Kudzu Men ally themselves with the Bolete and begin to spread, grow and expand. By the start of the Spore War, the Kudzu have regrown for a future encounter.

Mushroom Men – The Spore Wars for Wii & Mushroom Men – Rise of the Fungi for DS will be available across North America & Europe from October 2008. For more information about Mushroom Men please visit www.gamecockmedia.com. For more information about Red Fly Studio please visit www.redflystudio.com.