Did Gerstmanngate Hurt Kane & Lynch?

While we may never know what actually happened, months have passed since the internet exploded over Kane & Lynch, GameSpot and reviewer Jeff Gerstmann. Now that the dust has settled what does Kane & Lynch developer IO Interactive think about the way it went down? Did it hurt game sales? Says Thomas Howalt, business development director at IO Interactive:

It sold well, we broke even and it's still selling. We had some really harsh reviews and there was all this noise about this thing with GameSpot and it sort of went over my head whatever people were fighting about. The web has it's own voice and it can be very loud... You know, what I see today is a lot of people picking it up, playing the free levels we put out. We get a lot of people playing online. You can argue are the graphics good enough, is it up there with the best? But it only takes two weeks and you're no longer the best looking game out. I've been playing games since Pong so I take these things lightly. In the end it's about sales and we have games like Freedom Fighters which is still selling.

Oh, it's always about the sales Thomas. Hence the problem.

IO Interview [Games Industry] [Pic]

The Force Unleashed hits the U.S. on Sept. 16, Southeast Asia and Australia on Sept. 17 and Europe on Sept 19., LucasArts announced today.

The game will have you playing as Darth Vader's secret apprentice and takes place in the era between Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. The game will have players assisting Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi.

"Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is one of the most ambitious projects LucasArts has ever launched. The combination of a great new Star Wars story with revolutionary new technology and game play means more fun than you've ever had in the Star Wars universe," said Peter Hirschmann, Vice-President of Product Development, LucasArts. "We can't wait until gamers get their hands on it this September."

LucasArts teamed up with Spike TV to air segments about the upcoming game during the channel's upcoming showing of all six Star Wars movies this weekend. The channel will be airing six different segments about the game "each with an exclusive announcement or new game play footage."

Hit the jump for the segment times, more box art shots and some details on the game.

This Is How You Will Play Games In 2029 (Possibly)

Today's Game Developers Conference keynote featured a uniquely distinguished individual. Instead of a background in coding or art design, Ray Kurzweil has been "inventing" computer products since the 1970s, pioneering such areas as the optical technologies you see in products from Xerox.

Today, with the aid of countless charts tracking the exponential growth of technology over the past 150 years, Kurzweil explained gaming in the year 2029. And no, we're not "drinking the Kool-Aid." Instead we've opted to siphon gallons of the stuff intravenously into our bloodstream.

The Force Is Not Strong With Emotiv's Epoc

We were a little skeptical meeting with Emotiv, makers of the Epoc PC peripheral that reads brain waves instead of button presses. But after watching their demonstrator lifting boulders with his mind...or more aptly put, attempting to lift boulders with his mind, all skepticism was put to rest.

Variety has a pretty epic story in their March issue that delves deep into LucasArts upcoming Star Wars game The Force Unleashed. Writer Frank DiGiacomo does not only an amazing job of shedding light on a hotly anticipated game, but also manages to lead the uninitiated on a quick tour of both the history of video gaming and the problems the emerging medium still struggles with. The story then quickly plunges into the making of the upcoming game and some of the issues the devs have run into while trying to blend new tech with old for the game.

The story does mention a few things interesting to the hardcore as well, like the fact that they had to play down the game's realism because if a person was really hit with a force blow it would be like being smacked with a cannon ball, and perhaps a bit too gruesome for the T-rating they are shooting for.

The article says that Force Unleashed, which is meant to tell the story of the time between Episode III and Episode IV by fleshing out Darth Vader, has a plot twist "almost as good as the "I am your father" moment from Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back." The game also contains surprising revelations about the birth of the Rebel Alliance.

Expert Weighs In On FPSBrain Gaming Enhancement Pills

We let you know about the first official gamer-focused performance enhancer on the market, FPSBrain, earlier this month. The product makes bold claims, promising a "remarkable increase in perception and reaction capacities." Now MTV has called in an expert to evaluate the product. The verdict: FPSBrain pills are basically like energy drinks without as much caffeine. But that doesn't mean that they are the epitome of health. According to dietitian Danielle Marzano, such a product could be detrimental if taken in high doses or mixed with energy drinks:

Star Trek Online: She's Coming Apart, Captain!

Kane & Lynch Sells Over A Million Copies

Middling review scores and a negative association with the controversy surrounding the termination of a Gamespot employee doesn't seem to have harmed the sales performance of the Eidos-published Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The IO Interactive action game has sold over a million copies since its launch in November, according to a report from Next Generation. That would mean sequel talk is more than likely, despite my predictions that everyone involved would like to avoid franchise talk like the plague. Guess that movie is still going ahead, too.

Also a big hit for parent company SCI? Pony Friends, which is, as far as we know, a harrowing pony war game.

Kane and Lynch Sells 1 mln [Next-Gen]

When site GameBump noticed that the official Kane & Lynch: Dead Men web site contained what appeared to be a series of five-star reviews for the Eidos and IO Interactive game, five-star reviews that weren't actually granted, reaction from quoted outlets and readers was less than positive. The German-language version even quoted our own hands-on impressions of the game, nestled comfortably beneath a grand row of five-stars. It all seemed so... distasteful.

Today, regardless of whether it was an innocent design decision or whether consumers were being intentionally mislead, the unwarranted "ratings" have been removed. All that remain now are the pull-quotes, a preview clip, some guns to let you know how shoot-y it is... and a couple of black eyes.

Official Site [Kane & Lynch]

Hitman A Miss With Movie Critics

Kane & Lynch Takes Great Approach to PS3 Development

PlayStation 3 no fun to develop on? "Ha!" say Kane & Lynch devs IO Interactive, "HA" they say. While most teams working on cross platform games have moaned about how hard it is to make the PS3 versions, IO Interactive succeeded with no frame rate drops on the PS3 version. IO's Morten Heiberg says:

It's a new platform for us. It's our first PS3 game. It's a challenging platform to develop on, but it's also one that has a lot of potential that's just waiting to be unlocked as people get to know it better and as developers get more skilled at utilizing the machine.