april-fools-day posts

Duke Nukem Forever is current set for release sometime in 2011 but could the long awaited first person shooter actually be released on April 1, 2011, otherwise known as April Fool's Day? Maybe. A now former producer at publisher 2K Games admitted some time ago that at one time the game was set to go gold on April 1, 2010 in order to make some fans think it was a joke.

With the game now in the hands of Gearbox Software, the idea of April 1, 2011 as a release date has been at least considered. GamerZines quotes Gearbox's Steve Gibson as saying, "It came up and we were like, 'man, that would be really neat'. But also, honestly, if you think about it, some customers would really believe it was a joke, and then what?"

Another thing that was considered was to announce Duke Nukem Forever's completion similar to how Apple announces the release of one of its new products. However there were concerns that retailers could leak the release date beforehand.

As an April Fool's Day joke, Blizzard released a couple of StarCraft 2 videos featuring the Terratron - a gigantic transforming robot. Here are the videos showing the Terratron in action. The first video is featured above and the second can be seen after the jump. They're more than meets the eye.

Download HD StarCraft 2 Terratron Transform Trailer (23 MB)
Download HD StarCraft 2 Terratron Attack Trailer (23 MB)
Check out all StarCraft 2 downloads

We have been waiting to see what Valve might be doing for April Fool's Day and we were not disappointed. The official Team Fortress 2 web site has posted up their "all new" unlock for the Sniper character class. The Jarate. And what is the Jarate? Well all you have to do is look above this post to get all of the details.

We have never heard of the ancient art of throwing jars filled with urine at your enemies but now that we think about it, it could be a very effective method. And it could only come from the character class that hails from Down Under. How much you you want to bet that some mod maker is coming up with a Jarate mod right now?

Oh . . .dear . . . God.

You know, April Fool's is supposed to be fun, joyful. Sure we all get fooled every once in a while but no one gets hurt. But Cryptic Studios went way over the line for their April Fool's 2009 gag.

Star . . . Trek . . .Babies . . .Online.

Oh there's just not enough words to describe the horror we felt in seeing the site for one of our most anticipated MMO games get defaced by images of small cute Klingons, Vulcans and Gorns. "Shudder". Our skin is crawling just thinking about it.

We know it will never happen. We know that tomorrow things will be back to normal and the Star Trek Online site will be free of these images. But in the back of our heads, a single though goes through: "What it it's real?" We feel dizzy . . . .

THUD!

Some April Fool's gags are funny but also blatantly obvious. Others are a little more subtle, Such is the case with today's "announcement" by Microids for Syberia 3. The press release for the third game in the cult favorite adventure game series looked, at least at first, like the real thing.

That is until you actually read it. It states the game will allow "those playing on PC and those playing on PS3 to collaborate online, thanks to a simultaneous data exchange and sharing mode on the two platforms." Uh-huh. It also states, "Only PS3 players who have collaborated with PC players, and vice versa, . . " can actually finish the game. We emailed Microids' PR contact who admitted the truth: "Well... I do have to confess this is an April Fools joke..." Well played Microids . . . well played.

Some companies like to play pranks for April Fool's day, while others like BioWare release entertaining videos. This video for Dragon Age: Origins uses true-to-life graphics and plenty of bloodshed.

Download HD Dragon Age: Origins 'April Fool's Day' Video (105 MB)
Check out all Dragon Age: Origins downloads

Yet another clever April Fool's gag has been released by a game developer today. This time it's Bohemia Interactive who claim to have abandoned plans to release their military shooter sequel ARMA II with a farm simulation called (wait for it) FARMA II.

As the post on the developer's message board states, "Cows, dogs and sheep will be powered by an improved version of the state-of-the art dynamic AI system originally used for infantry combat. Players will be able to develop their farms, establish a Kolchoz and dominate the food market in Chernarus, a fictional post Soviet country." The screenshots that accompany the "announcement" do look good enough for us to be interested in seeing more . . . if this were real.

If you watch even a little TV every day you might notice that there are about 10 gazillion shows featuring some type of competitive dancing. Blizzard knows a good thing when it sees it and for its World of Warcraft April Fool's edition decided to bring that trend to their MMO space.

The new "Dance Battle System" is all about popping, locking and grooving as the game searches for "Azeroth's best dance crew." Using a custom interface, players can form a crew and perform all sorts of dance moves in the arena where Azeroth's version of Slater from Saved By The Bell will give you the good or bad news. The odd thing is there are MMOs out there that are planning to add dance-offs to their games. So Blizzard might think about making this a reality.

StarCraft II SMASH!

That seems to be the theme of this April Fool's update on Blizzard's StarCraft II web site. The upcoming sci-fi RTS sequel will have a new unit in the game when it is released (if this was Earth Bizarro): The Terra-Tron. As the unit itself says in the voice sample: "Hell . .it's morphin' time!".

Bascially Terran bases can be "morphed" together to form the 100 foot tall behemoth that apparently has guns all over his body along with laser-saws, rocket launchers and more. We are not totally sure on this but we have a feeling that this unit might throw off the game's entire balance structure :).

Blizzard always seems to get into the April Fool's Day spirit and the 2009 edition is proving to be no exception. The official web site for their long awaited action-RPG sequel Diablo III "reveals" an all new playable class for the game: The librarian . . . er, make that the Archivist.

The page goes into detail about the new class, complete with gameplay footage via Flash-based movies moving showing the libr . . . er, Archivist doing his thing against enemies with spells like Shush and the Quest Bolt. Screenshots show other abilities such as "Book Vision" and the character's Radial Dialogue Tree. It's not the best character in the world but I'm sure we could work with it if Blizzard decides to make this joke a reality.