Wow — this is a story I did not expect to be able to blog about, but I’m glad I can. Several months after Activision stopped production on True Crime: Hong Kong, Gamasutra is reporting that Square Enix has stepped forward to pick up with United Front Games where the project left off. They will resume development and change the name, and release it at some point in the future.

Time to reload.

Eric Hirshberg told Gamasutra, “Our team has worked very hard to find a solution where everybody wins. Square Enix gets the benefit of the tremendous investment we’ve made in the game thus far. United Front Games gets to stay together and complete their vision. And gamers get to play a great game. We couldn’t be more thrilled.”

This is rather unorthodox — not many games get cancelled and then come back months later — but I agree that this is an “everybody wins” scenario, which is also something of a rarity. United Front Games gets closure on a project they worked very hard on. Square Enix gets a game with a lot of built-in  awareness and maybe the start of a new franchise for themselves. Fans finally get to play the game that had them so excited (and they’ve been very vocal — if not downright irrational and nasty — as I tried to discuss the realitites over in my Facebook group). And of course, even though Activision’s plans changed and Eric felt the game just wasn’t as good as it needed to be, Activision gets a little something back on their healthy investment. Square can now assess the quality (Square Enix’s Lee Singleton said “When we first saw and got our hands on the game we fell in love with it” so clearly they’ve assessed it!) and can give the game the time & resources needed to get it where it needs to be.

How about that? I really didn’t think this would happen — it was possible, but not really probable, in my view — but I’m glad it did.

I have helped perpetuate a lie. As a lifelong gamer, I have been guilty of keeping the myth alive that “there are no games for Macintosh.” I have teased my wife — a Mac user from back in the SE days — that she totally has the high score in Photoshop.

I have done all this even though I am a Mac user. Not only do I use a 15″ MacBook Pro to create every week’s podcast and cover remote events (with a custom skin and everything!), but I spent most of my editorial career using Macs to write and create magazines, edit video, and (gasp) play the occasional game. For the last few years, I’ve played World of Warcraft on both PC and Mac. In fact, most nights when I watch TV, I’m also logged into WoW on my personal 13″ MacBook Pro, running battlegrounds or collecting herbs or leather or some other accessory activity. What can I say? My PC laptop is long in the tooth and wasn’t designed to play games. I may not want to always admit it, but my MacBook Pro…can kind of do anything.

Today Apple announced updated MacBook Pros with quad-core processors and new tech and all that stuff. Well, it’s time for me to do some penance. I just found a stash of Mac OS X games here at work, and I’ve got three prize packs of six games each to give out:

The original genre-defining Call of Duty and its expansion, United Offensive

Activision Anthology brings all the Atari 2600 classics, while True Crime: Streets of L.A. lets you roam the city as an undercover cop

Two FPS classics from Raven: Heretic II and Hexen II

All these Mac editions are admittedly older (I love the fact that the box stickers say you have to have a DVD drive to install and play, as in “not a CD drive, but one of those newfangled ones”) but they are sealed and are OS X native (many require OS 10.2), so you should have no problem running them on either old or new Macs.

As I said, I have three bundles (each containing  all six games) to give away. If you want to win one, answer me this question:

Mac OS 10.2 was the first version of OS X publicly marketed with its “big cat” codename. What was that name?

Please don’t post the answer in the comments! Instead, send your answer in an email (one per person, please) to freestuff@oneofswords.com with the subject line “Mac Games” before Monday, March 7th at 11:59 Pacific time and I will pick three winners with the correct answer at random on Tuesday the 8th. Please include your name, address, and phone number (just for FedEx if something gets lost). Full details about how this works, who is eligible, and all that stuff are in my Contest FAQ, so please give it a look.

Good luck!

UPDATE: Plenty of folks knew the right answer — Jaguar — but only three people should expect a visit from the FedEx truck this week: Tim Breen of Foster City, California; Kyle Lathorp of Lansing, Illinois; and Denis Dubois of North Bay, Ontario. (We almost had a winner from Denmark but the shipping information was incomplete — sorry, them’s the rules.) Thanks for entering!

More giveaways are underway — check here for the latest loot.

This past week was unprecedented — a stunning amount of Activision news broke, and on this show, we pick up the pieces. Kat and I analyze Activision’s internal transformation, GH’s extended vacation, True Crime: Hong Kong’s cancellation, Spyro’s revitalization, Beachhead’s “in-game integration,” Bizarre’s evaporation, Black Ops’ British nomination, Bumblebee’s stealthy hybridization, and a release date for First Strike DLC on — wait for it — Sony PlayStation. Dan also reveals the worst 16-bit games he ever reviewed, while Kat tries to determine the difference between fantasy novels and pornography.

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Co-host: Katrin Auch, light gun enthusiast, graphic designer, bassist, photographer, table refinisher, media maven, frame painter, videographer, and inventor of Headshotmas

Soundtrack: Yameen – available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and all online music stores

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Activision sent me some footage of Monday’s big E3 event, and Kat mixed it with the stuff she shot behind the scenes with me that afternoon. Kat rocks.

I know a lot of people were very curious to see it for themselves and were disappointed that it wasn’t streamed like the press conferences were, but…well, a press conference is a lot easier to stream, and as you’re about to see, this was anything but a press conference!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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True Crime: Hong Kong

Website: http://truecrime.com
Release Date: Fall 2010
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Developer: United Front Games

Click here to view the embedded video.

What You Need To Know:

1. You play Wei Shen, an undercover cop infiltrating Hong Kong’s criminal underworld. Trouble is, you still have to act like you’re on the wrong side of the law, so to keep up appearances, you’ll have to keep your morality…flexibile.
2. This is the first open-world game to take place in an Asian city.
3. It’s expected to earn a Mature rating easily. You’ll use the environment to do very nasty things – I saw someone get electrocuted against a fuse box during combat. I also saw someone beat up and thrown into a trunk. That wasn’t a mission – that’s just something you can do.
4. Big Hollywood talent is lined up to play the characters, including Sammo Hung, Tom Wilkinson, and James Hong. Pharrell Williams (N.E.R.D., the Neptunes) is on board to wrangle the soundtrack.

What It Doesn’t Have: Any ties to the previous games. The undercover-cop-facing-moral-challenges setup is similar, but the stories are different, not to mention the combat, engine, controls, and just about everything else.

What You Might Not Have Heard Yet: True Crime: Hong Kong is being created by United Front Games — the folks who just released ModNation Racers on PS3.

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…well, it was all of the following:

Huge
Ambitious
Roughly two hours long
Roughly 10 artists long
Ridiculously huge
A celebration of the musical talent currently working with Activision on its games
Surprising
Late to get underway due to soundcheck running long
A good place to get complimentary candy and beer
Unexpected
A nice way to clearly and directly promote games and make the musical acts relevant to them
Successful

You weren't supposed to take pictures, but I snuck one in

The final talent roster was eerily close to the announcement that went out this morning, but had even more famous folks packed in. In addition to a giant video wall, laser and pyro effects, and the aforementioned snacks, the audience was treated to live performances by Deadmau5, David Guetta, DJ Z-Trip and Usher (all supporting DJ Hero 2), Jane’s Addiction, Maynard Keenan, and Chris Cornell (Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock), N.E.R.D and Rhea (True Crime: Hong Kong), a very talented pole dancer who shimmied her way halfway up a 60-foot phallic symbol (also TC:HK, in honor if the game’s fictional Club Bam Bam), Tony Hawk and Andy Macdonald (Tony Hawk: Shred) and last but not least, Eminem, Travis Barker, and a surprise cameo by Rhianna (Call of Duty: Black Ops).

Did I mention the gospel choir that sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Maynard? I may have forgotten that. I also forgot the live orchestra that played “Black Hole Sun” with Chris Cornell and played the score to Black Ops live during its level demo. All the music was accompanied by gameplay footage, trailers, demos, or little snippets of info throughout the evening (like release info — GH:WoR in September, DJ Hero 2 in October). As big and loud and party-like as it was, there was still some context to the evening’s entertainment.

The only criticism I have is that it took a while for acts to switch places on the stage. But then I started thinking about it…there were SO MANY acts, all with their own gear (I think I saw four drum kits backstage), so really, it’s a miracle they got things switched out as fast as they did. And everybody used that gear — Jane’s Addiction did two songs, Usher did at least three, Eminem did six, including “I’m Not Afraid” and “Lose Yourself.” I think Kat will have some behind-the-scenes photos showing the mountains of road cases. Things got underway late and there were some gaps in-between (filled ably by a DJ), but this was basically a complete summer festival show in two hours.

We got video of some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, but I’m not sure what we’ll be able to show. Understandably we couldn’t tape the performance itself, but Activision did hire a camera crew to do exactly that. I will mix what they got with what we got and hopefully have a video up soon.

The week has just started.

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Activision put out a press release this morning that…well, it says a lot of stuff about a lot of musical artists contributing about a lot of different games, so I figured it would be good to break down the highlights.

• Soundgarden will debut an unreleased song, “Black Rain,” exclusively on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
• Usher will be “involved in an upcoming DJ Hero 2 project.” Deadmau5, David Guetta and DJ Z-Trip are all contributing to DJ Hero 2 as well
• The soundtrack to True Crime: Hong Kong features Pharrell Williams (N.E.R.D.) and up-and-coming R&B singer Rhea
• Call of Duty: Black Ops “features an edgy new track” from Eminem’s upcoming album Recovery. I am not sure how that track is featured

We know that Eminem is performing at Activision’s event tonight, mostly because he said so. Kat and I are heading over to the arena to check out what is going on this afternoon, but I don’t expect to be able to do any sort of live reporting until tonight.

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BANG! Talent!

The recently redesigned website for True Crime: Hong Kong not only reveals that the game has gained a subtitle, but also offers an impressive list of voice actors. Notable names include Sammo Hung (Martial Law), James Hong (Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China), James Liao (24, Prison Break), George Cheung (Lost, Rambo: First Blood Part II), Byron Mann (Ryu from Street Fighter!), Dustin Ngyuen (21 Jump Street), and Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins, The Full Monty).

In addition to noting that more cast members will be revealed later, the site currently has “coming soon” markers for music talent, so I’d expect there will be some recognizable names there too.

Voice actor nerds, unite — which of these names make you smile? I have a soft spot for James Hong. “I only do eyes!”

Before leaving San Francisco and GDC, I had a little extra time with United Front Games‘ Jeff O’Connell to talk about the films that helped inspire True Crime and its admittedly pretty brutal combat sequences. Kat lovingly stitched it together in video form.

Click here to view the embedded video.

GDC 2010 was host to several parties, but the True Crime party quickly became one of the most infamous. The idea was to create the boss’ fictional Triad nightclub in a hotel in San Francisco, complete with mood lighting, booze, and girls. And some of those dancers…well, the Pilates is paying off, let’s put it that way. But they weren’t the only people working hard to bring Club Bam Bam to life. Here’s a quick look behind the scenes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Live from somewhere vaguely near GDC 2010 in San Francisco, it’s another road show for the podcast. With some prodding from the MegaMailbag, Kat and I talk about her first time playing Blur, MW2 milestones, Dan’s shameful love of power pop, undercover cops in Hong Kong, the Nolan Bushnell biopic, why GH Metallica isn’t exportable into GH5, in-game advertising, and, um, the rant from last week. Better still, I got to talk with Stephen van der Mescht from True Crime developer United Front Games, and he talks about beer. All this and Blur multiplayer beta codes, too!

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Special Guest: United Front Games‘ Stephen van der Mescht, executive producer, True Crime

Soundtrack: Yameen – available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and all online music stores

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Click here to view the embedded video.

And last but not least, Kat’s gamertag:

We recorded this one on wireless lavalier mics to a video camera, then dumped the video track and just worked on the audio in Soundtrack Pro. Then I tried some noise reduction to get rid of the ambient sounds of the room we were in, and I think it turned out okay…but it’s going to sound a little different. (Also, I apologize for the distortion on the UFG interview whenever I spoke…clearly, I need to back off from the mic with that system!) We’re trying all kinds of recording methods; whichever one is the easiest is the one we want on the road.

After yesterday’s quickie wrapup of Activision’s financial report, a few people wrote privately to ask me why I didn’t mention True Crime. The answer is “because I am distracted by multiple shiny objects.” I was focused on the stuff that was being freshly confirmed by that call; by contrast, True Crime’s website is already up and running with several trailers.

To make matters worse, on Twitter, I mistakenly called True Crime a new IP. I was quickly reminded by gamers with memories that there were two games on the previous generation of consoles; it’s even more embarrassing if you consider that I wrote a GamePro cover story on the first one. Chalk that one up to my outlook on the game: other than the fact that you are playing an undercover cop, everything else is new. Characters, location, mechanics, the works. Please note this game is is simply and definitively titled True Crime, and executive producer Stephen van der Mescht from developer United Front Games calls it a “complete reboot.” So I’ve kind of aligned my thinking with the newness to the point where I count it alongside the other new-new games launching this year.

More evidence of True Crime’s new newness will be coming soon. But I didn’t want True Crime to think I had intentionally snubbed it, because if True Crime thought that, True Crime would, without hesitation, kill me.

Today Activision held a conference call to discuss its quarterly earnings and announced several games that will be coming out this year. I sat in on the call and my eyes glazed over on all the fiscal discussion, but I woke up when they started talking about new games. So, I’m only posting about the stuff that I think really matters. Accepting that the call was going to say “we turned a profit” and “MW2 is crazy popular” no matter what, let’s dig into some of the juicier bits and what I personally took away from them:

What Was Said: A new Call of Duty game will be released late in 2010.
My Take: Surprise! But still, this is one of those weird things where Activision had not yet actually announced that a new COD game would be coming out in 2010. You, me, and everybody else on the internet assumed it would happen because there’s a historical pattern…but it’s not actually official until Activision says “it’s official.” So, it’s official.

What Was Said: Activision will release only two music games this year: a new Guitar Hero title, and a sequel to DJ Hero.
My Take: Thank goodness. Like a lot of people, I felt overwhelmed by the number of Hero titles last year. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy playing them, but I prefer it when a new Hero game is more of an event. So as a fan of “less is more” in this case, I’m glad that’s exactly what we get this year, one GH game and a sequel to DJ Hero. I just started playing DJ Hero myself (check my gamercard for my progress) and it’s humbling to go from playing GH on Expert to DJ on Medium. But I’m enjoying it, and I’m eager to hear what they build on for the next game.

What Was Said: A Spider-Man game is on the way this year.
My Take: Several people have been wondering how Marvel’s new relationship with Disney would affect Activision’s games. So at least this confirms that a) Activision and Marvel are still working together and b) it’s Spidey in the spotlight this year. I’ve seen a few screenshots of what they’re working on for this game…I liked what I saw and I’m both intrigued and a bit surprised. (And just because I’ve heard some confusion, Iron Man 2′s game will be published by Sega. Agent M over at Marvel.com has the scoop.)

What Was Said: A James Bond game is coming out this year, too.
My take: Twitter’s @MitchyD noted that this Bond game announcement comes even though there is no Bond movie this year. That’s correct. So that begs a question: what do you expect from a Bond game that isn’t based on a movie? Chime in below.

What Was Said: Shrek Forever After will ship in May, followed by Transformers: War for Cybertron and Singularity.
My Take: Mmm…not quite. Shrek is good to go for May, but Singularity is actually shipping in June. The statement on the call was a list of upcoming games starting with a May release, so I understand how it could sound like all those games were coming in May, and that’s what some outlets are reporting. But I just checked, and Singularity is slated for June. Just FYI — as I’ve said, clarity is my goal here.

What Was Said: The Tony Hawk Ride board took longer to develop than expected, which left less time to work on the software. A new TH Ride title is planned for this year.
My Take: Everything didn’t come together on Ride as planned, and the reviews made that much clear. But as someone who has the skateboard controller in his living room, I’m glad to hear that the part that is feature-complete is the physically larger and potentially more expensive part. Software is much easier to improve; I’m glad to hear I won’t have to upgrade the board for the next game. And I am curious to see what lessons were learned from last year. As an old arcade rat who played Top Skater and Air Trix, I like the idea of a physical board controller, and I just want the execution to live up to it.

UPDATE 2/11:
What Was Said: True Crime is gonna be a biggie.
My Take: To make up for leaving it out of the main infolanche, I tackled this in its own follow-up post.

Thoughts?