4mm Games is developing "online worlds that will define social gaming", according to the company's website. The studio is teaming with CEA Autumn Games in a multi-year partnership that will encompass multiple titles and platforms.

"4mm Games has a pioneering vision for the future of interactive entertainment," said Alex Collmer, CEO and co-founder of CEA Autumn Games. "We believe the 4mm management team combines a unique blend of design, technological prowess and cultural understanding in a way that that will speak to a broad audience, and we look forward to working together to create blockbuster entertainment."

Nicholas Perrett, former general manager of Image Metrics, will be the new studios chief executive officer. Paul Coyne, former VP of NBC and SVP of Warner Music group, will be the executive vice president of 4mm. King will be the studio's president and Foreman the chief technology officer.

"I was hugely honored to be approached by talent of Jamie and Gary's caliber to co-found 4mm Games," Perrett said. "It is an utterly unprecedented time in the history of video games, as the web and new business models disrupt the existing value chain. We are excited to create a new type of business to deliver groundbreaking content with global appeal to a consumer who lives online."

The Midnight Club: Los Angeles South Central Pizza Hut Showdown will give the budding diabetic an opportunity to enjoy an entire year's worth of free pizza.

That actually translates to $599 worth of Pizza Hut gift cards or the equivalent of a free "Pizza Mia" every week for a year, which may be different from your definition of "an entire year's worth."

All you need to do is download the South Central map expansion and race really fast. Post the fastest time on the game's leader boards and you'll be swimming in sauce, melted cheese and the topping of your choice for the rest of the year. The whole thing kicks off on April 14th, but you'll need to register ahead of time. Further details and legal stuff at the official site.

Rockstar Social Club Events [Rockstar Games]

Turns out the sudden appearance of the "South Central" content for MCLA wasn't actually meant to go live on Live. That means, according to Microsoft, that you should delete it, should you already have it.

Why? "Achievements won't register and could cause you problems with your Midnight Club: LA game saves" according to the Community Manager for Xbox EMEA. That and it looks like some of things given away for free weren't meant to be. Oops!

Midnight Club 3: LA Marketplace Content - Don't Download It Or Delete it If You Have! [Windows Live]

The titles are all selling for $40 and coincidentally include Call of Duty World at War, which Gamasutra recently pointed out was getting a price drop to $50 from Activision.

The sale starts on Sunday for Call of Duty: World at War, Shaun White Snowboarding, Madden 09, Animal Crossing, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Midnight Club.

The "South Central Upgrade Map" opens up L.A.'s southern charms for free early next year, giving Midnight Clubbers access to landmarks such as Exposition Park, the USC campus, Shrine Auditorium, Crenshaw Plaza, and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. And Randy's Donuts! Wait, make that _____'s Donuts for the legal team.

Rockstar's also releasing the "South Central Content Pack" which doesn't come free. It will add new character competitions, races, cars (including SUVs) and new music to the standard package. Price? Rockstar's not saying. But we'll definitely be hitting the streets of South Central with the windows up when those free goodies roll out.

Rockstar Games Announces South Central Upgrade and Content Pack for Midnight Club: Los Angeles

New York, NY – December 12, 2008 – Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce the massive downloadable upgrade and content pack for Midnight Club: Los Angeles, the latest installment of its critically acclaimed and genre-defining Midnight Club franchise. The content will be available early next year for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.

The "South Central Upgrade Map" provides players with a whole new area of the city, about one-third the size of the original map, and will be available for free. This area features L.A. landmarks such as Exposition Park, the USC campus, Shrine Auditorium, Crenshaw Plaza, and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and stretches south to the 105 Freeway. In addition to the free new city area, players will be able to purchase the "South Central Content Pack" which includes new character competitions, races, cars and music available in a single complete package. The new vehicles include a variety of cars and a motorcycle. Also making an appearance for the first time in Midnight Club: Los Angeles will be SUVs, a longtime favorite of the series' fans.

"This downloadable content hones in on a very iconic area of Los Angeles," said Jay Panek, Midnight Club Producer at Rockstar San Diego. "'This South Central download features staples of the area, from the landmarks to the types of cars, and we think it really helps enhance the overall L.A. feel we set out to recreate."

Game Informer described Midnight Club: Los Angeles as "just what the doctor ordered: a fun, fast racing experience with enough content to keep you playing for months." The addition of South Central will enhance the overall experience and extend the game even further.

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Midnight Club: Los Angeles provides a seamless, breathtaking environment for everyone who loves to compete. With no load times, no tracks, and no rules, the game allows players to race at breakneck speeds through an unbelievable recreation of Los Angeles in fully customizable, licensed cars.

The racing experience in Midnight Club: Los Angeles is extended online at the Rockstar Games Social Club (www.rockstargames.com/socialclub), where players are able to enter tournaments, share in-game photos, rate other people's rides, track stats with other gamers, and listen to and purchase music from the soundtrack.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is currently available for the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 and is rated T for Teen. The “South Central Upgrade Map” and “South Central Content Pack” both require players to have the full version of Midnight Club: Los Angeles for Xbox 360 or PLAYSTATION 3 and an Xbox LIVE or a PlayStation Network membership to download. For more information, log onto www.rockstargames.com/midnightclubla

Until we actually go update the thing — it's now out for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 — we're going to assume that means a less frustrating computer controlled opponent. And, if so, praise be to all that is good and holy in this universe.

The title update also adds "support for additional leaderboards for tournaments on the Rockstar Games Social Club, broader multiplayer match searching, and upgraded streaming and performance" specifically for the Xbox 360 version.

It's really too bad our illegal street racing skills weren't up to the challenge. Sprinting through Sunset Boulevard in a Mazda RX8, then through the Hollywood hills in a late '60s Ford Mustang Boss 302 showed that, while we were thrown a couple of "REP" points here and there, we have a long way to go before actually having a respectable racing reputation.

Fortunately, we looked pretty good, even when finishing fourth.

That's largely due to the game's deep car customization system, not our (or our in-game driver's) physical beauty. In Midnight Club: Los Angeles' garages, you can spend your hard-earned dollars on new performance enhancements for your ride. Using real world name brand aftermarket parts, you can upgrade your acceleration, handling and speed via the purchase of new electronics, air intakes, nitrous tanks and more.

You'll also be able to tap into your vanity's performance, decking out your car with new paintjobs, new headlights, new doors, even new interior components. Tired of that dull stock steering wheel? Throw a MOMO on it! Those interior changes can be gawked at via the cockpit view camera choice.

I turned a rather attractive stock Aston-Martin V8 Vantage Roadster into a hideous purple and orange glowing beast, complete with vertical doors and every garish accoutrement I had access to. (I had access to everything, via unlimited God-mode funds.)

There's also a rather substantial "vinyl editor", one that let's players create a look unlike any other. It looks to be on par with custom exterior editors found in titles like Forza Motorsport 2, with default stickers and customizable primitives at your editorial disposal.

In the Midnight Club: Los Angeles' garage, you'll also be able to choose your driver's "special moves." These special moves, as described by Rockstar themselves, are as follows.

* Zone allows you to slow down time in order to take sharp turns or weave in-and-out of traffic like a champ!
* Agro will give your car added strength and the ability to damage opponents faster, or sometimes knock them completely out of the race.
* Roar sends a shockwave that clears your path by pushing cars off to the side of the road.
* EMP is an electromagnetic pulse that shuts down the engines of the cars around you, bringing them to a complete stop.

We tried out the EMP, the latest addition to the line-up of super moves. Fortunately, the electronics shorting blast radius doesn't affect your ride, so, after creeping up on a cluster of opponents, we fired it off. After seeing the tail end of opponent's rides for a good portion of our races, we took great satisfaction in watching them spin out — perhaps a bit too much, as we went hood first into a building right after.

It might've been the sightseeing that distracted us, actually. Midnight Club: LA's edited down versions of Hollywood, Santa Monica and downtown LA look almost exactly like the real thing, minus the rage-inducing traffic the city is known for.

There are dozens of recognizable landmarks, with stylized versions of the Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills and the Santa Monica Pier chockablock with detail, including billboards of licensed products like iPods and T-Mobile Sidekicks, as well as landmarks like The Comedy Store and even the hotel we were in during our demo.

The city looks so startlingly realistic that I tried to find my way to my neighborhood — not quite the stuff of street racing — but was unsuccessful. While the feel of LA is certainly intact, the roads have been carefully redesigned for a more fantastic driving experience.

Oh yeah. The driving. We took part in a quartet of races, some initiated by simply finding competition on the streets and flashing our headlights. We then sprinted off to a the starting line, having the option to actually race to the starting line. This pre-race race will net you more REP points, used to gain access to higher level races, but is totally optional. The sprint to the starting line can be skipped if you so desire, but we found the spontaneous thrill of beating our competition to the meeting point was worth it not just for the extra points. At the very least, it's a nice warm up.

We tooled all around town through our four races. Our first formal race, Sand and Surf, took us from the beaches to the freeway. Mulholland and Beverly saw us driving through the winding hills of Hollywood before heading down to the Valley. Macarthur Cut took us from downtown to the LA River, a misnomer of a racing venue that might be familiar to fans of Terminator 2's more epic chase scenes.

Each felt unique and frenzied. Midnight Club: LA's dynamic camera, which switches to an over-the-shoulder style view when hopped up on nitrous or coming off a slipstream drafting high, combined with tire-spinning peel outs makes for a white-knuckled rush. It's somewhat difficult to see what you're actually racing toward, it's so fast. Our decked out cars may have had something to do with the feeling of untamed car control, and we'll blame our many crashes and last place finishes on that.

What we didn't get to tackle were Midnight Club: LA's motorcycles or the LAPD, both back in the newest iteration. We'll just have to wait until the game is released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this year to do that. The game hits October 7th in North America and October 10th in Europe.

Some kind soul has summarized the rumors that wound up in the December issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Here's the list of the best:

* Death Jr. sequels are coming to consoles and the PSP next year.
* Midnight Club is hitting the Xbox 360 next year.
* Soul Calibur 3 will be going to the 360 next Spring.

The mag also touched on the recent reports of a GTA sequel for the PSP. (Something a mole tells me is dead-on.)

EGM rumors - Dec 2005 (sequels, sequels, SEQUELS!) #1 [Gaming-Age Forums]