Wheelman posts

It's looking like Warner Bros will be the sole bidder on some of Midway's assets as the once major game publisher sells itself off. The LA Times reports that no other publisher made bids to buy Midway's properties. That means Warner Bros. will almost certainly buy two of Midway's dev studios in Chicago and Seattle along with game IPs such as Mortal Kombat. Two more Midway teams in the UK and San Diego are not part of the Warner. Bros. offer of $33 million.

However the bankruptcy court will have to consider some creditor's claims about the Midway sell-off. That includes Tigon Studios, the Vin Diesel-founder game company who claims Midway still owes them $200,000 for their work on Midway's last game Wheelman.

Several weeks ago Midway announced plans to hold an auction to buy their assets and development studios. They already have a $33 million bid from Warner Bros. Interactive for their Chicago and Seattle based developers and the Mortal Kombat game property. However the same cannot be said of Midway's San Diego and UK based offices.

With a deadline looming, the UK based developer, Midway Newcastle, has decided to make a last minute attempt to get publishers to get interested in their team. Develop reveals the details on their new open world action game called Necessary Force. The developer has even launched a web site for the game containing a teaser trailer. The game itself is about a play-by-his-own-rules style of detective but studio head Craig Duncan insists " . . we don't think anyone's managed to capture the essence of those choices and consequences in games."

Will these actions be enough to get someone interested in keeping the team alive? It's certainly an interesting way of setting themselves out from the crowd.

While Wheelman may turn out to be the last game published by Midway Games, the movie version of last March's action-driving title is now moving forward into production. Variety reports that John Singleton has been picked to direct the film adaptation with Vin Diesel set to reprise his game role of an undercover agent who takes on the guise of a getaway driver.

Paramount Pictures will handle the film's production which does not yet have a start date. Diesel became a movie box office draw again thanks to the huge opening of the film Fast and Furious last month. We hope the Wheelman movie turns out better than the game which got only mediocre reviews.

Midway continues to feel the effects of its recent declaration of bankruptcy. The game publisher is going though the motions in bankruptcy court and GamePolitics reports that the company's current majority shareholder Mark Thomas made a filing to the court that sheds a little more light on what might be going on with Midway.

While much of the document has been redacted Thomas claims that Midway will be out of money by late June and there are no games in the pipeline that will be released before that date (Midway got Wheelman out the door with the help of Ubisoft late in March). That may mean the end for This is Vegas, the long-in-development open world action game from Midway internal developer Surreal Software.

Midway's current financial problems (it's currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection) has taken the game publisher through the court system. Now Variety reports that the government-appointed trustee that is going over the bankruptcy proceedings is not happy with some previously reported bonuses that are being given to key Midway executives and employees.

Those bonuses included the selling of their just released Wheelman game to Ubisoft. More bonus money is available if the team can sell off the Mortal Kombat franchise or submit plans to reorganize. Bonus money is paid even if Midway is liquidated. The trustee and the group of unsecured creditors trying to get their money back from Midway slammed the company for these actions.

The report goes after the bonus plan for giving out money for a deal that was made before the bonus deal was written up (the Wheelman sale). In addition they stated, "Selling 'Mortal Kombat' or submitting/completing a reorganization plan are the main jobs of Midway employees now, not something special for which they should be incentivized." They also called the amount of the bonuses, which is worth a total of $3,755,000, 'outrageous' Variety reports that a new 'key employee incentive plan' will be filed by Midway on Tuesday.

The team at Midway's UK based development studio just shipped out their Wheelman action-driving title last week (with a last minute publishing assist from Ubisoft). However, the team is already working on their next game. Play.tm reports that the team will be using some of the tech they developed for Wheelman for an open world style of game as their next project.

According to a statement from Midway's Simon Woodroffe, " . . . our long term plan is to reach the point where we can be genuinely competitive with the big open-world games... the gorilla in the room!." The problem with that plan? Midway itself. The publisher is in the middle of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It's possible that in order to pay off creditors Midway might sell off or even shut down its remaining studios.

This trailer shows off some of the high-flying action players can expect to see from Wheelman, a game featuring Vin Diesel's voice and likeness. Players take the role of Milo Burik, a getaway driver who is forced to add to his skill set with over-the-top action.

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The last full week in March brings a number of major PC retail and downloadable titles down the pike along with a big downloadable expansion:
Stormrise - The Creative Assembly releases this original sci-fi RTS game for publisher Sega featuring battles on a future Earth between technological and biological-themed factions. If you just have Windows XP and DirectX9 installed, you can ignore this game; it's one of the very few that's a Windows Vista-DirectX10 exclusive.

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Vin Diesel. The actor has made some really poor movie role choices (Babylon AD anyone?) but he clearly loves games. He's got two games due out in the next few weeks from his production company Tigon Studios. One is Wheelman, the Midway produced action-driving game that has just gone gold and will ship to stores on March 24. The other is The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena with Starbreeze developing and Atari publishing in early April.

But according to a article at Destructoid, those project pale in comparison to what Diesel wants to do next: an MMO title called Barca BC that will have the player live the life of a Carthaginian soldier in 200 BC fighting alongside Hannibal in the Punic Wars. Diesel knows it takes a long time to develop an MMO game (he estimates that it could be another four years to make the game a reality) but he insists, " . . . it is something that is something very high on my priority list of games we're working on." We believe you, Vin.

Mark Thompson, Lead Mission Designer for Wheelman, walks players through a mission type called "Recover the Documents," where players will be able to ride on motorcycles all across the city into otherwise inaccessible areas like the subway. The ultimate goal is to avoid collisions and attacking foes to steal some documents. There's plenty of mayhem and destruction to cause along the way.

Download HD Wheelman 'Recover the Documents' Trailer (167 MB)
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