The Expert Bias: Reviewing for a New Culture

Lost Planet Movie Confirmed

MGS actor and Hollywood writer David Hayter said, a few weeks back, that a deal to bring Lost Planet to the big screen was "not entirely confirmed yet". Is now! Variety are reporting that the project's a done deal, with Warner Bros. to distribute, former Marvel pictures boss Avi Arad to produce and Hayter to write. Capcom will be contributing at least some, if not all of the money for the movie, though there's no word on a release window. Expect more info at Capcom's E3 event tomorrow.

Capcom making Lost Planet movie [Variety]

Lost Planet The Movie By Solid Snake Is Just Shy Of Confirmed

The voice of Solid Snake says that the film adaptation of Capcom's Lost Planet is this close — you can't see, but my fingers are but a hair's-breadth apart — to being confirmed, pending a deal with Warner Bros. That deal, David Hayter says, is "just closing" but "not entirely confirmed yet" according to a report from IGN.

It's good news for Lost Planet fans — and not just because of Hayter's screenwriting nerd cred based on his X-Men and Watchmen scripts — because the man cares deeply about the source material.

"There is gap in Hollywood between people who write good movies and those who appreciate good video games," Hayter said. The man with the trademark voice says he tries "to make an effort to take the essence of the game, keep as much of that as possible, and still put it into a proper film structure." Yes, yes, but will it feature bug shooting? 'Cause bug shooting is key.

AX08: Solid Snake Discusses Lost Planet [IGN]

There's One More Unannounced Blizzard Game

Sure, they've laid Starcraft II and Diablo III out on the table in recent months, but is that all Blizzard got? No, it is not all they got. Speaking at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, Rob Pardo has told OnlineWelten that "there is still one unknown project" under development at Blizzard, being worked on by "another development team". Ooohh, whatever could it be? Your guess is as good as mine (and may well centre around an MMO), though it's probably not as good as my dream, which can best be summed up as Lost Vikings vs Capcom.

Interview with Rob Pardo [OnlineWelten, via Shacknews]

Prototyping Challenge: Shade

Great, now you folks have me wide awake at 3 in the morning my time, hunting for clues like an over-the-hill Encyclopedia Brown. The Blizzard splash page has updated once again, revealing what certainly look like a pair of glowing eyes peering through the broken ice. Is it Diablo? Arthas? Or is it Hurley? The reason I ask is because the latest secret image has appeared in the CSS of the page, bearing the number 16. That makes the sequence so far 4, 15, 23, 16. Fans of the television show Lost know those numbers, along with the numbers 8 and 42, as the numbers that keep popping up throughout the show on lottery tickets, prescription bottles, etc. Will the next two numbers follow suit, or is Blizzard throwing us another curve? If it is the Lost numbers, what does it mean?

And where did those Vikings get off to? I cannot seem to find them anywhere?

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun SPLASH! *boom* Ah-ah! He'll save every one of us! It's day three of staring at Blizzard's slowly evolving splash page and fighting over whether or not they're going to announce Diablo III, and while it certainly could still be the return of old shard-head, several popular theories have now been blown out of the ice water. The new rune there on the bottom? That's the Protosss symbol from StarCraft, leading me to believe that they are going a similiar route to last year's showcasing of the various properties over the years before revealing the new one, which would mean all the speculation based on the symbols means absolutely nothing now.

They've also uploaded another portion of the puzzle-piece picture, this time numbered 23. With 'W' being the 23rd letter of the alphabet, the popular theory that the picture numbers would end up spelling out Diablo 3 is also shot, unless they've got Barbara Walters announcing it. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Diobwo 3!”

Limbo Of The Lost Devs Protest Innocence

If the Blizzard web page were a real world location it would be completely surrounded by Kotaku readers, as evidenced by the fact that we've received a ton of tips pointing us to the new splash image at said site, seen above in all its pristine glory. It appeared over the weekend as if willed by magic (CSS), teasing visitors who found themselves staring into its icy depths.

So what the hell does it all mean? Ice with barely legible runes certainly sounds like Wrath of the Lich King, though outside of some hidden features or perhaps an official release date I can't imagine why they'd tease that. Many of you seem to think it's Diablo III: Diablo on Ice. Me? I'm going to go for those bearded bad boys who come from the land of the ice and snow, World of Lost Vikings. Hopefully we'll know by this weekend, when the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational does Paris. Until then, let the speculation fly!

Spoilers: Limbo of the Lost's Terrifying Ending

Ok, so don't hit play if you don't want to spoil the ending of Limbo of the Lost, the game accused of grand theft assets from a lot of different games. Reader Ryan M. tipped us off to the two videos, the one above and the one that implies that there could be more Limbo in store; over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Kieron Gillen notes that "The pianist is possibly the scariest thing I’ve seen in my life." I'm simply left speechless.

Limbo Of The Lost Creators Made It Themselves

Last week we posted a story about Limbo of the Lost, a PC game from Majestic Studios, who have been accused of lifting large portions of other games and placing them directly into their own. While comments from the developers themselves don't seem to be forthcoming, CVG managed to dig up this little gem from an interview in a local paper with the three person dev team from back in early May.

Mr Francis, a former landlord of The Pilot pub, Upper Stone Street, and now a mature student, said: "It is a sort of comedy come horror. A bit like Monty Python meets Evil Dead. "Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home."

Seems like comedy come horror is amazingly appropriate for the situation they now find themselves in. Hit the link for a feel-good story that, in retrospect, doesn't feel quite as good.

Pub pals pin hopes on US game success [Kent Messenger via CVG]

To recap: PC adventure game Limbo of the Lost has been busted stealing art assets from nearly every PC game released in the past ten years. The list of games it stole from - and the way it used said stolen assets - is hilarious. Almost as hilarious as some of the entries in a competition held over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, to see who could come up with the best "mocked up screenshots for other levels that might have appeared in Limbo of the Lost". Who'd have thought Majestic would manage to steal something from Peggle. I've included a few of the entries here, but really, you should check out the full catalogue of entreies over at RPS. Good times.

Compo Of The Lost Gallery [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Somebody Wants To Make A Lost Planet Movie?

Yesterday's episode of Evil Avatar's podcast featured as a special guest David "Voice of Solid Snake" Hayter. They got chatty, they talked Metal Gear, but something else they talked about was Hayter's other line of work: as a Hollywood writer. Over the year's, Hayters worked on movies like X-Men 1 & 2 and the Scorpion King, and he's even at work on the upcoming Watchmen flick as well. Seems he's also in discussions with both Capcom and Warner Bros to write a screenplay for a Lost Planet movie. Interesting choice, Capcom. Can't say I enjoyed the game too much, but the setting could work as a flick, especially if it's pitched at the Chronicles of Riddick end of the budget/market.

Evil Avatar Radio Ep. Eleventy One - David Hayter [Evil Avatar]

To a certain extent, copying in this industry is inevitable. It's a creative industry, built on ideas, and ideas are mostly built on ideas you like that other people had. A nicer way to describe it is the "creative process". But straight-up stealing assets? To the point where almost your entire game - architecture, UI, the works - is built upon other people's work? Less accepted. PC adventure title Limbo Of The Lost, by Majestic Studios - a real, commercial title (hence the legal issues) stands accused of just this, with an original discovery that some locations in Limbo looked awfully familiar to those found in Oblivion leading to discoveries of other parts of the game lifted straight from Morrowind, Silent Hill and Thief, just to name a few. Needless to say, Bethesda's lawyers are now involved. Tri Synergy - the US publishers of the title - have also told us they've "discontinued distribution" of the game, didn't know about the similarities, and are "just as shocked as everyone else" following the revelations.

Limbo of the Lost stole from Oblivion, Morrowind, UT2K4, Diablo, Silent Hill, more? [Bobby1234SI @ NeoGAF]

Capcom To Announce "Or Something Like That" Soon?

Bionic Commando Wii? Unannounced. Lost Planet Wii? Ditto. "Or Something Like This?" Will be announced soon. Via a Q&A with Capcom's Christian Svensson. Read on:

Question: Are we going to see Bionic Commando, Lost Planet or something like this on the Wii?

Svensson: Possible... the "or something like this" part we could talk about in a couple weeks perhaps.

We cannot wait to learn about "Or Something Like This." It sounds like a fantastic game.

Capcom To Announce New Wii Game [N-Europe via Infendo]

Lost Odyssey DLC Hits On Friday

Some Lost Odyssey DLC was released in Japan last month. For 400 MS Points, they got a new dungeon with one new boss and one new item. Nothing to really set your goodness gracious great balls on fire, then, but it's better than nothing. Good for them. So when do we get it? Yeah, the headline gave it away. It'll be available this Friday, May 23. Same stuff, same price.

Unleash Your Inner Akrid In Lost Planet Colonies

Bionic Commando, Lost Planet Comic Books Comin'

Capcom has partnered with Devil's Due Publishing—apparently I'm out of the comic book publisher loop—to introduce a series of comic book titles based on properties like Bionic Commando and Lost Planet. The video game publisher already has a line of comics based on the Street Fighter universe published by Udon, who in turn is providing artwork for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

The press release, via the official Capcom blog, hints that additional and unannounced Capcom books will be revealed at the San Diego Comic Con this July. It does not, however, indicate if we'll get backstory that explains why Bionic Commando has sausage-filled limbs. My own theory is that he was bitten by a radioactive hot dog while on a field trip, giving him the proportionate strength and speed of a frank that plumps when you cook it. That's totally speculative, though.

Press release follows.