wheelman posts

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.

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Vin Diesel. The actor has made some really poor movie role choices (Babylon AD anyone?) but he clearly loves games. He's got two games due out in the next few weeks from his production company Tigon Studios. One is Wheelman, the Midway produced action-driving game that has just gone gold and will ship to stores on March 24. The other is The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena with Starbreeze developing and Atari publishing in early April.

But according to a article at Destructoid, those project pale in comparison to what Diesel wants to do next: an MMO title called Barca BC that will have the player live the life of a Carthaginian soldier in 200 BC fighting alongside Hannibal in the Punic Wars. Diesel knows it takes a long time to develop an MMO game (he estimates that it could be another four years to make the game a reality) but he insists, " . . . it is something that is something very high on my priority list of games we're working on." We believe you, Vin.

Mark Thompson, Lead Mission Designer for Wheelman, walks players through a mission type called "Recover the Documents," where players will be able to ride on motorcycles all across the city into otherwise inaccessible areas like the subway. The ultimate goal is to avoid collisions and attacking foes to steal some documents. There's plenty of mayhem and destruction to cause along the way.

Download HD Wheelman 'Recover the Documents' Trailer (167 MB)
Check out all Wheelman downloads

Midway's financial problems are causing the once might game publisher to think about selling off its biggest IP; the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise. In court documents found by NetDockets, the company is offering " 29 eligible employees" bonuses if certain milestones are met

One of those milestones has been met by selling the publishing and distribution for Wheelman to Ubisoft. But Midway is also offering bonuses if they can sell off the Mortal Kombat franchise or submit plans to reorganize or even liquidate Midway. If all the milestones are met, Midway's lucky 29 employees will share in a total bonus package of $3,755,000. We wonder how the rest of Midway's employees and the company's creditors feel about that. Oh, and Variety reports that an unnamed game designer for Midway (who is almost certainly Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon) is getting slightly over $1 milliion in bonuses for the past six months.

[Via Joystiq]

Rumors hit the Internet last week that Midway was going to give up their almost-done Wheelman game to Ubisoft. Today our sister site Joystiq got the official heads-up from Ubisoft today with their spokesperson saying, "Yes, the deal with Midway has been finalized and we'll be shipping to retail on March 24th." An update to the story after it was posted stated that Ubisoft will now handle the "sales, marketing, and distribution of the title in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland and the United Kingdom." Midway will handle the distribution of the game in other European countries while continuing to develop the game and holding onto the IP rights.

Midway's recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy meant they needed to reorganize their finances and the new distribution deal for the long-in-development action-driving game "starring" Vin Diesel was perhaps the quickest way to accomplish this. Ubisoft will release the game to stores only four days after Midway's previously announced release date of March 20. There's no word yet on the specific financial numbers of the deal.

Midway's announcement this week that it was going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection may have some of the publisher's upcoming games going to new publishers as a way to continue operations. Kotaku is reporting rumors that Wheelman, the long-in-development driving action game, could be headed over to Ubisoft as a result of the Midway bankruptcy. Neither Midway nor Ubisoft will officially comment on these rumors.

Meanwhile, what about the Unreal/Unreal Tournament shooter franchise from Epic Games? The developer signed a long-term deal with Midway to publish both older and new games in the series, including an already announced expansion pack for Unreal Tournament III. Will Epic be forced to look for another publisher because of Midway's financial difficulties? Big Download contacted Epic Games' VP Mark Rein but he responded with a short and simple "No comment" to our inquires about the matter.

Midway also has This is Vegas from their Seattle-based dev company Surreal Software in the works and before their bankruptcy announcement they announced plans for a new Mortal Kombat game which presumably would be developed at their home office in Chicago. Midway also supposedly has two other secret games in development for a 2010 release. Meanwhile GamePolitics has posted up a list of all the creditors Midway currently owes money to as part of the company's Chapter 11 reorganization.

In a move that was highly expected, financially troubled publisher Midway has announced that it has decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has been under massive economic pressure for some time and today's move was called the "....next logical step in an ongoing process to address our capital structure."

Midway will continue to run its operations as usual through the Chapter 11 process. The company did not announce any layoffs today and it's not known how this new move will affect their two announced upcoming games, the action driving game Wheelman and the open world action game This is Vegas.

Matthew Booty is a busy man. He was named an an interim CEO of Midway Games last spring and then given the permanent title of President and CEO last October at the now struggling game publisher. Now Midway's latest press release announces that Booty has been named as Midway's Chairman of the Board. He takes over from Peter C. Brown who has resigned from the board for "personal reasons."

Midway's current financial struggles have been reported on extensively so we won't go over them here again. However we will remind folks that Midway has a mid-February deadline before its current debt holders can call in their money. That's a month before their planned release of their long-delayed action-racing game Wheelman.

Midway's big bid to turn things around in 2009 has hit yet another snap. The publisher announced that their long awaited driving action game Wheelman has had its released date pushed back yet again. Originally due for release this fall and then pushed back to a mid-February release the publisher will now ship the game on March 20.

Midway also announced a revamped version of the Wheelman web site has launched with more info, screenshots and media about the title "starring" actor Vin Diesel. Midway also announced a demo for the game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions that will be released before the game ships. Big Download has confirmed with Midway's PR rep that a PC demo is also planned but at the moment there's no word if the demo will be released before the game ships to stores. In the meantime Midway has also released three new screenshots from the game that we have added to our gallery.

As Midway prepares to release its next major game, Wheelman, next month, the financially troubled publisher is still trying to keep some people from calling in their debts. This week Midway announced that it has secured a new deadline of Feb. 12 with the "holders of the $75 million principal amount of 6% Convertible Senior Notes due 2025 and $75 million principal amount of 7.125% Convertible Senior Notes due 2026."

Previously Midway had an agreement with the owners of the 7.125% Convertible Senior Notes to extend the deadline until Feb. 19 so on the surface it seems like Midway has actually lost a full week. Wheelman itself is not scheduled to be released until Feb. 16.