ubisioft posts

Ubisoft is finally set to release the long-in-development Splinter Cell Conviction in late February 2010. While the game is being promoted as an "Xbox 360 exclusive" title it is still coming out for the PC as well and this week news has leaked out on two interesting developments

One came from a video from HipHopGamer.com where a man identified as "Adam" seems to reveal that a demo for the stealth action game is due out in January. Our sister site Joystiq could not confirm this news with Ubisoft; in fact they couldn't even confirm that "Adam" is from Ubisoft. So put this in the "rumor" column for now.

More certain news comes from the new issue of the Official Xbox Magazine which reveals the game will have a "prologue" co-op campaign. The four level campaign will have you and a pal controlling two new characters; Kestrel and Archer, in a storyline that leads up to the main campaign where you play Sam Fisher once again. Not only that but the game will have "Deniable Ops" mode. It's a series of challenges that use the four co-op maps plus two all new maps.

Yesterday we reported on the early release of a novel based on Ubisoft's upcoming spy game Splinter Cell Conviction. Now comes word that another Ubisoft game is being turned into a prose piece. Assassin's Creed: Renaissance is the title of the book that's based on the upcoming stealth action game series.

The book, written by an apparent first time author named Oliver Bowden, seems to be based on the storyline from Assassin's Creed 2, at least according to the summary from Amazon.com The paperback is due for release on November 26 while the PC version of the game is due out in the first quarter of 2010.

So will it take Jerry Bruckheimer to finally make a video game-based movie that we can all really enjoy? The jury will have to stay out on that verdict until Memorial Day 2010. In the meantime, IGN has the first look at the long awaited trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which will star Jake Gyllenhaal in his full on Gyllenhallness.

As expected the Disney-made movie has a ton of visual effects and Gyllenhall seems to have the acrobat moves of the Prince down. However, cool special effects and fancy footwork don't make a good movie and while Bruckheimer's films do tend to be crowd pleasers . . . well, this is a video game movie we are taking about.

So you have a video game that you want to see adapted into a movie? Do you simply use previously created trailer footage to sell a movie concept to developers? If you are Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia game series, that is not what to do. Instead he created his own trailer using game and cut scene footage from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Mechner has now posted up that trailer pitch he made way back in 2003 on his personal web site. He didn't put in footage of features in the game that would not be in his movie pitch (such as the Prince freezing or going fast-forward through time) but made an effort to make a trailer that would "convey the kind of movie it would be." It obviously worked since Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer bought the movie rights and the film is set for release on Memorial Day weekend of 2010.

Ubisoft's revamp of their Far Cry shooter franchise finally has a firm release date here in the US. According to GameSpot the publisher has confirmed that October 21 is when Far Cry 2 is due to ship to stores which is what other online retailers have shown for some time now. Europeans have to wait a few days for their copies; Far Cry 2 ships over the pond on October 24.

The open world shooter set in Africa will also get a special limited Collector's Edition. You can see the contents in the picture above. It will contain a behind-the-scenes DVD, an art book, a t-shirt and a map-poster of the game's 50 kilometer setting. There's no word yet on the pricing for the Collector's Edition for the US market.