This has turned out to be a big teaser rather than a fan’s tribute to the Mudokon: Gravity Crash developer Just Add Water announced today that they are working on what sounds like multiple Oddworld games.

Here’s what they have to say about the new partnership with original developer Oddworld Inhabitants:

It’s with a huge amount of pride that we can announce that for the past 12 months we have been working extremely closely with the fantastic people at Oddworld Inhabitants, from what started off as brief discussions in June 2009, to now working on multiple projects, across multiple platforms.

“To work with the team at Oddworld has been amazing; being able to tap the minds of Lorne Lanning, Sherry McKenna and others has been fantastic,” said Just Add Water’s Managing Director Stewart Gilray.

“It’s almost symbiotic in that when something moves forward on any of the projects we just start chatting about new items, or what if we do this,” Gilray continued. “We’re all extremely excited to breathe life into the Oddworld universe and indeed to let it breathe life into us.”

I have very fond memories of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysey on the PS1 and while the pessimist in me wonders whether Oddworld is a series that won’t work in modern times, the optimist in me is just looking forward to venturing back into Oddworld once again…

Ignition will feature an “interactive comic-style game” that gives fans of the Dead Space series a “unique perspective on the events leading up to Dead Space 2″ whilst introducing newcomers to the storyline.

“[Ignition] is the first of many exciting game extensions we have planned for the launch of Dead Space 2,” commented EA’s executive producer Steve Papoutsis.

Ignition will supposedly have four different endings which each unlock a suit for Isaac to be used in Dead Space 2, which is released in January next year.

Via VG247

Warner Bros and NetherRealm Studios today announced that they are working on a new Mortal Kombat, scheduled to release in 2011 on the 360 and PS3.  The game will take place on a 2D plane with 3D graphics and will include 4-player tag team fights for the first time.  Creative Director and series veteran Ed Boon stated that

This game really is a response to what players have been demanding: mature presentation, reinvented 2D fighting mechanic and the best, most gruesome fatalities ever!

I have to agree with Ed that this series reboot, simply titled “Mortal Kombat” looks great, but crazy trailers speak louder than words however so without further ado.

My fellow writer Balaam feels Fifa 11 isn’t a big a leap from Fifa 10 as EA are suggesting, but I remain optimistic. EA have released information about some of the changes being made to the Fifa series and what will be included in the next Fifa game.

Their flagship change seems to be the “Personality+” system, which is “the evolution of individual distinctiveness that sees a footballer’s abilities on the pitch mirrored authentically in our game, creating individual personalities.” What this means is that players will garner individual attributes depending on their styles of play and their real-life personalities: for instance, Rooney will run around like a dog chasing a tennis ball.

“We have reached a level of sophistication within our game engine where footballers in our game will behave and perform as true individuals.” That’s the opinion of Executive Producer Kaz Makita.

Here’s the details about Personality+ in full:

Personality+ distinguishes individual footballers from one another by utilizing a database that evaluates and grades each player’s skill-set over 36 attributes and 57 traits. The EA SPORTS FIFA franchise utilizes a network of 1700 scouts, editors and reviewers positioned around the world to evaluate each player, creating one of the world’s most comprehensive databases to drive its market-leading football engine.

Personality+ plus will be integrated everywhere in-game. Elite players are now empowered to showcase their world class skills. Real Madrid’s Kaka will deliver crisp, creative passes, Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta will utilize tighter turns and close control to dribble through defenses, Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney will hold off defenders and strike shots from distance with pace, and top-flight defenders like Giorgio Chiellini of Juventus will anticipate, predict and react to offensive players to win back possession. New body types and player models will further distinguish each player on the pitch.

In addition, goalkeepers have also been injected with Personality+. The real-life personality of the keeper, whether acrobatic or traditional, will dictate his style in game. Dive attributes will determine the keepers with the ability to reach for further shots while reflex attributes determine reaction times, so a keeper like Petr Cech of Chelsea FC will be able to showcase world-class skills.

It really does sound good on paper.

EA are also introducing Pro Passing which will make the way you pass the ball in Fifa 11 more controlled and personalised. Pass accuracy will be “determined by a gamer’s ability on the control pad, and player skill, situation and urgency on the pitch, yielding a deeply rewarding passing system.” There is going to be the ability to play swerving passes too, as well as do things such as apply backspin to lofted through balls.

These changes, plus the traditional graphical airbrushing, game mode tweaking and other things – EA are letting fans of the game express their opinions as to what should be included in Fifa 11 – EA are going to be unveiling new game modes and other new features at a later date.

As an added bonus to their new feature press release, six screenshots have been released along with what are presumably the three player images (who will feature on the front of the box this year) showing off: Wayne Rooney, Karim Benzema and Giorgio Chiellini.

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The internet’s a great place sometimes: someone has scanned the 10-page inFamous 2 spread from the July edition of GameInformer. Great news for people like me who live outside of the US – there’s a lot of content in those 10 pages.

Note that protagonist Cole McGrath from inFamous 1 has had a Sam Fisher-esque restyling – he looks more movie-star now. Whether this will impact the whole “real person with superpowers” thing is left to be determined… The scans also show us New Marais, the new area for Cole to fling electric bolts around.

If you want to read what’s on the pages in full, right-click the images in the gallery and open the images on separate tabs so you can zoom in.

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Darius will be able to use his “Nano forge” ability to rebuild the environment as well as destroying it this time around and, while all the classic Red Faction chaos remains, this looks to be a much more focused, possibly linear game.

As a big fan of the Red Faction franchise I am looking forward to this one but I am weary about taking the franchise in a more linear direction after all the open world fun we had in Guerrilla.  Expect more info from E3.

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Five screens of Motorstorm 3 have leaked today, they seem to depict a collapsing San Francisco.  There is more than a hint of Split/Second in the screens and it shall be interesting to see exactly how Evolution Studios explain the collapse of major cities within their loose fiction.

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Unfortunately it’s a Clone Wars MMO. Bad times.

SOE are going to be releasing a brand new massive multiplayer online game based on the Clone Wars part of the Star Wars franchise. Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures will be a more kiddy-friendly MMO, the kind that is free-to-play and based on the kid’s television show rather than the geniune Star Wars films.

You will get to play as either a Jedi, Padawan or Clone Trooper – characters such as Obi-Wan, Anakin Skywalker and Master Yoda will feature. This MMO will have a stronger mini-game focus, with lightsaber duelling and speeder bike racing as the epicentre.

“Clone Wars Adventures is the ultimate destination for fans of The Clone Wars series and will bring the action and excitement of the show to players online so they can experience The Clone Wars universe firsthand,” SOE President John Smedley stated.

There will be a monthly subscription option too, but there’s been no mention as to what you’ll get with that.

Literal game-changer, then…

EA have announced a “re-invention” of the NBA basketball game series – NBA Elite 11 will have “an all-new technology base, a new control scheme and a real-time physics system.”

NBA Elite 11 is due out in October. I like that EA are taking gambles like this: if it pays off, we get better games.

Electronic Arts announced today that NBA Elite will be the new moniker of the long running EA Sports NBA videogame franchise. NBA Elite 11 will revolutionize the way basketball simulation games are played, with an all-new technology base, a new control scheme and a real-time physics system. Currently in development for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, NBA Elite 11 will be available in retail stores this October.

EA Bright Light, developers of The Half Blood Prince game will behind the tie-in.  Their quirkily named VP and head of production Jonathan Bunney has commented that “The final Harry Potter adventure has given us the opportunity to make a darker and more action-oriented game than we have before”.  From the trailer below, it looks like the final installment’s step away from Hogwarts means that EA Bright Light have made a third person shooter and I have to admit, it doesn’t look half bad.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 The Video Game will try hard to squeeze its title onto the box of every major and minor game platform this Fall.

The Japanese are going to be getting the game this year, but what about us Westerners in Europe and the US?

Well, Nintendo have announced that the next generation of Pokémon games, Black and White, will be released in Europe and North America next Spring.

The Japanese release date is in September this year, so it will be a while before Westerners will get the game – the same thing happened with Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, which was released to the rest of the world months after the Japanese got the games.

The two Legendary Pokémon recently announced to feature in the new games, Zekrom and Reshiram, will be on the covers of their respective boxes.

EA have been working on adapting the Need for Speed franchise into a racing MMO and the date July 20th has been confirmed as the date of release. On the 20th, EA will release a free client which will allow players to play Need for Speed World for free for the first 10 XP levels.

Preorder the game and you can start playing a week earlier with an XP gain boost along with access to future beta events in the future and the ability to reserve an account name pre-release, so no-one else will take the name you want the most.

EA will be releasing a “Starter Pack” on the 20th which will set you back £14.99 but give you access to 50 XP levels, some power-ups and a limited edition car. You’ll also get £14.99 worth of SpeedBoost, the NFS World currency, if you buy the Starter Pack.

Are you going to play it? You won’t have to pay to try it, which is something…

It’s more likely promoting some Prince of Persia-themed LEGO pieces that will accompany the film (the mini movie is arrated by Jake Gyllenhaal who plays the Prince in the film) but we can speculate: a LEGO game for the series certainly isn’t out of the question.

Ubisoft clearly don’t want the franchise to go away any time soon: the most recent game, Forgotten Sands, is officially game number fourteen in the series…

It’s an unofficial rumor, since there’s annoyingly no named source but we

TheSixthAxis’ source claims that the two games will be in a double pack and we’ll be seeing it in Q1 of 2011.

Sony have obviously declined to comment when asked.

What makes this rumor more believable is that not only is a Shadow of the Colossus movie coming soon, but the God of War Collection was effectively the same thing: two PS2 games from the same developer upscaled and bundled together.