paramount-digital-entertainment posts

Are you ready to go ballistic? Are you ready to hear Kenny Loggins' music going off in your head all the freaking time? Then maybe the new Top Gun game is for you. The downloadable flying action game from developer doublesix is now available to purchase on Steam for $14.99.

That's right; you can feel like you are part of one of the iconic 1980's movies where you get to refer to people by their call signs like Iceman and Goose (oh, poor Goose). in addition to multiplayer, the game has a single player campaign with a new story written by the movie's screenwriter Jack Epps Jr. as you train at Top Gun before going out into actual combat. You can even buzz the tower if you want. Ah, the 80s.

Do you feel the need for speed in the danger zone? Paramount Digital Entertainment hopes so. The game publishing division of the movie studio has just announced a new flying action game based on the classic 1986 action flick Top Gun. The game is due out this summer for both the PC and Mac platforms.

The game itself, developed by Doublesix, is basically an expanded retelling of the movie's storyline as you play Tom Cruise's part of Navy fighter pilot Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell as he enters Tom Gun Academy to try to become the best pilot you ever saw (ah, that line is from The Right Stuff . . . sorry). One of the original movie's screenwriters, Jack Epps, Jr. has been brought in to expand on the film's storyline and dialogue. All of the movie's characters should be making appearances.

The game itself will come with a campaign mode, a single player Horde mode (shoot at endless waves of enemy fighters) and five multiplayer modes for up to 16 players. This is actually the second new game based on a Tom Cruise movie coming out this year. It was previously announced that a Days of Thunder racing game is also due out this summer.

Gallery: Top Gun Screenshots

It's odd that earlier today we reported on the start of the real online NASCAR racing season next week but today word comes through our doors of yet another stock car racing game that has a legendary (some might say infamous) history. Paramount Digital Entertainment, the folks behind last year's downloadable title Star Trek D-A-C, have revealed plans for another high end downloadable game, Days of Thunder.

Yep, the camp classic 1990 movie about NASCAR racing that features Tom Cruise's silliest character name (Cole Trickle) is headed to both the PC and Mac this summer. This is clearly designed as a fast paced arcade game rather than a serious racing sim with four single player modes and multiplayer for up to 12 players. There's an emphais on car damage in this game; take too much on your ride and you will need to pit. And you will either race with or against the cars driven by unseen versions of Cole, Rowdy Burns or Russ Wheeler (ah, Cary Elwes . . . we loved you in Saw). Developed by Piranha Games (the same folks who are doing the upcoming Mechwarrior revival), this title should be available sometime this summer.

It wasn't looking like the previously announced movie tie-in game Star Trek D.A.C. was going to be released for the PC platform. However TrekMovie.com has now confirmed that the downloadable top down space shooter will indeed be made available for us PC owners. The release date for the PC version, as well as pricing, has not been announced.

TrekMovie.com also has some new screenshots from the game (which we have reproduced here) showing off some of the visuals created by developer Naked Sky Entertainment. The game will allow players to either join the Federation or play as the nasty alien Romulans in three gameplay modes that support single player, online and co-op.

(By the way, we still don't know what D.A.C. stands for)

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, summer movies of 2009 is set for release on May 8 when Star Trek heads to theaters. The new adventures of the original crew of the Enterprise (with an all-new cast) has generated ton of press months before the release.

Now comes word via fan site TrekMovie.com that an upcoming game based on the movie is in the works. The site has posted up a flyer (reproduced here) that will be included in the Blu-Ray release of the Star Trek Season One TV series. It shows a game being announced called Star Trek D-A-C with a picture of the movie's version of the Enterprise firing at alien ships. The flyer shows a May 2009 release date and a logo for Naked Sky Entertainment. The developer's previous game was the 2006 released downloadable title Roboblitz (one of the first games to use Unreal Engine 3). It also shows a ParamountPictures.com/games URL that, for the moment, just feeds into the main web site address of the movie studio.

So what exactly is this game and why has Paramount decided to basically publish this game itself instead of working with another publisher? Stay tuned.