wheelman posts

It looks like some of the folks behind the now shut down Midway Newcastle studio in the UK have wasted no time in launching a new company for themselves. This time, however, it's not a game development studio but rather a company that creates art designs for game tiles.

Atomhawk Design is the name of the new company which has as its director Cumron Ashtiani., the now former art director for Midway Newcastle. The four team members listed on the company's official web site worked on Wheelman, the last game that came out of the studio just before Midway shut down. Atomhawk's site claims they are working with "a number of top tier clients across all areas of digital media" but specific companies and/or projects were not revealed.

Following the news on Monday that most of Midway's IP and two of its development studios are now the property of Warner Bros. Interactive comes word that one of Midway's two remaining studios is officially closing its doors. Midway Newcastle, the UK-base studio who released the action-driving game Wheelman last March (with help from Ubisoft) is now in administration, according to an article on the Develop web site. Over 70 team members are expected to be affected by the shut down.

Just a few weeks ago, the studio was trying to get publishers to acquire them by announcing a new title called Necessary Force, an open world action game. The efforts were apparently not enough to get anyone interested in buying the studio. Still up in the air is the fate of Midway's San Diego studio which is also living on borrowed time.

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.

Check out all Wheelman downloads

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.