Telltale Games have teamed up with LucasArts to bring some new stories from the legendary Monkey Island! Telltale will be bringing Guybrush Threepwood, evil pirate LeChuck, and many other characters from the classic point and click adventure back to the PC in the same episodic format that worked so well for them with the Sam & Max games.

I doubt they’ll ever compete with the genius writing of Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman in the original Monkey Island series, but i’m glad LucasArts have at least chosen to partner with pretty much the only people out there that are still waving the flag of the point and click genre.

More info at telltalegames.com

I saw this article over at bbc.co.uk in which Develop 100 have announced their top 100 software development studios, and it just got me thinking… is anyone actually all that surprised that Blizzard – the 11.5 million World of Warcraft subscribers/$1.34 billion annual turnover – software development juggernaut is top of the software developmer list? It’s becoming more and more apparent with each expansion that WoW has become a licence for Blizzard to print money. Then you add on the profit potential from the upcoming release of Starcraft II and Diablo III, and the Guitar Hero money from Activision‘s side of the business, and you could probably heat the whole of Activision Blizzard’s head office with rolls of $20 bills, and still never run short of cash!

You can read the article in Develop 100 here.

Duke Nukem Forever

And lo, it came to pass, the fabled mythical Duke Nukem Forever was finally laid to rest on the 7th day in the month of May, in the year of our lord 2009…

Games developer 3D Realms has had to close it’s doors, and after a staggering 12 years in developing the aptly named Duke Nukem Forever, it’s looking like it’s finally the end of the road for the plucky software developments. The only comment from 3D Realms so far has come on the company forums from webmaster, Joe Siegler, saying “It’s not a marketing thing. It’s true. I have nothing further to say at this time.”

Duke Nukem Trilogy developers Apogee Software were quick to point out via twitter last night that it “is officially not affected by the situation at 3DRealms.” and “Development of the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned”.

3D Realms’s publisher Take-Two have decided not to stump up money to keep the somewhat mythical development of Duke Nukem Forever going, stating “Our relationship with 3D Realms for Duke Nukem Forever was a publishing arrangement, which did not include ongoing funds for development of the title.” Take-Two do however retain the rights to the title, so it’s not impossible that Duke may rise once again from the ashes in the future!

Johnny Lee is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, and has been doing some pretty incredible work using a standard Wii Remote controller, a few dollars worth of electronic equipment, and a whole lot of genius! The video above shows him demoing a couple of his projects at TED (the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference).

View more of Johnny’s work and projects here.

E.A. annouced it’s European pricing for Rock Band this morning, at a price point most people must have assumed was a late April Fools joke… Sadly it wasn’t. You see, for some bizarre reason, instead of one pack called ‘Rock Band’, in Europe we get 2 packs.

Pack 1 – Rock Band the Game – GBP 49.99 / EUR 69.99.
Pack 2 – Rock Band ‘Instrument Edition’… which doesn’t actually CONTAIN THE GAME… Just the drum kit, guitar and microphone – GBP 129.99/ EUR 69.99.

So, that’s GBP 179.98 / EUR 139.98 for whole game as sold in the USA for $180 US!!

Sorry, But

F. U. – E.A!

There’s NO WAY in HELL i’m paying DOUBLE the US price for the same game.

Go join the the UK E.A Rock Band Forum and tell them what you think.

There’s also a petition running here.

Sorry things have been a bit quiet this week, i’ve had a few days off (and developing a Guitar Hero addiction!) Anyway, here what you get if you crossbread Halflife 2 and Super Mario Bros…

[youtube 1p0Yap5iG6o nolink]

You can download the map here