turok posts

Yet another major game developer with PC ties is closing its doors. Our sister site Joystiq confirmed today with publisher Disney Interactive Studios that it was closing its in-house development team at Vancouver-based Propaganda Games.

Formed in 2005, the developer only released two games, both of which were released to the PC platform; the 2008 first person shooter revival of the Turok franchise and Tron Evolution, the movie-based third person action game that was released just last December to poor reviews and sales. The writing was on the wall last fall when Disney Interactive cut half of the studio's staff and canceled another long-in-development game, Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned.

It's always a good day to sell PC games on the cheap and today retail web site GoGamer.com is doing just that with its latest 48 Hour Madness sale. From now until 3 am ET on Tuesday they have several PC games that are cut down to the bone in price.

Among the games on sale today are the PC version of Turok, Red Orchestra , Tomb Raider Anniversary, and Rise of Nations Gold Edition. Each are currently selling for $7.90. In addition, the PC versions of Lost Planet Colonies and Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway are on sale today for $9.90 each.

There's more bad news on the game industry layoff front today as Gamespot reports that Disney Interactive has let go of a number of its team members at three of its internal developers (Propaganda Games, Avalanche Software and Fall Line Studios).

According to the story, less than 30 team members were let got from Vancouver-based Avalanche, the developers of 2008's FPS Turok. A Disney Interactive rep stated there are still two teams at Propaganda and hinted that a sequel to Turok is still in development. Meanwhile the Salt Lake City-based Avalanche Software and Fall Line Studio have been consolidated into one group with less than 20 team members lost in its wake. Apparently there were no job losses at Junction Point Studios, another Disney Interactive dev team that's headed up by Warren Spector.

The bad news of game publisher layoffs may be continuing today as Kotaku is reporting via unnamed sources that Austin-based Aspyr has let go of over 12 part-time employees as well some unspecified regular full time team members. The article also states that more layoffs at the company may be in the works. When reached an Aspyr spokesperson would not comment on the rumors.

Aspyr has been in business for quite some time and is best known for porting a number of PC games to run natively on Mac platforms. They have also published a number of PC games including ports of Turok and Guitar Hero III as well as the US release of 1701 AD.

With the conclusion of this year's G-Phoria comes the announcement of the G-Phoria 2008 winners. Not many PC titles are represented, as 2007 appeared to be quite the year for console gaming. Still, many winners, such as "Most Original" Portal, weren't console exclusive, so could be seen as just as much a victory for PC gamers as console owners.

Given its longevity in an era where most gamers want the next big them, Call of Duty 4's awards in the "Best Shooter" and "Best Multiplayer Game" categories are testaments to the appeal of modern warfare. More humorous is the dubious honor of "Game Most Deserving of an Uwe Boll Movie," which was awarded to Turok.

The full list of G-Phoria winners can be found by visiting the official G-Phoria website.

The Native American known as Turok has a bad attitude and a thing for killing dinosaurs. His fictional exploits began as a comic book and later turned into a popular over-the-top first person shooter series from the now defunct first version of Acclaim. This year Disney Interactive (under their Touchstone Games label) revived the Turok franchise as a more serious "M" rated sci-fi shooter (it was released for the PC via publisher Aspyr). Now comes word via MTV Games that a live action film version of Turok is in the works.

The film version is being pushed into being by actor Adam Beach (perhaps best know for his brief stint as a detective on the TV series Law and Order: Special Victims Unit). Beach provided the voice of Turok for an direct-to-DVD animated movie that was released around the same time as the Disney Turok game (although the DVD was based more on the original Gold Key comics). Beach, who is of Saulteaux decent, stated to MTV that . . . "we're going into the feature film movie [which should lens] hopefully in a couple years. We're about to set up meetings to develop a script and put it out there." While it sounds like plans are still in the very early stages it should be interesting to see if Disney will team up with Beach to make a game based on Beach's movie.

The reimagined Turok failed to capture the hearts of gamers when it launched on home consoles earlier this year (Metacritic average of 67). The Unreal Engine-powered FPS title has you looking to take down a war criminal ... on a dinosaur-infested planet.

Developed by Propaganda Games and optimized for PC by Aspyr Studios, the PC game gives players access to all the content available in the console version: a single-player adventure and multiplayer modes for up to 16 players. The PC version adds keyboard and mouse support, a "no-duh" requisite for any PC shooter. The downloadable Velociraptor Pack will also be available for Windows-based PC "soon."

Expect Turok on store shelves today at $49.99.