Starshatter Gathering Storm

Starshatter Gathering Storm has announced that it will release Starshatter Gathering Storm on September 3. The new real-time strategy game features a 3D game engine designed by the designers of Star Trek: Armada and Battlezone.

Starshatter Gathering Storm is set in a dystopian future with an attack on city-states, all based on real-world locations. In the game, players control the Starshatter Corporation, a massive, mechanized unit that must fight in a variety of ways. The player's objective is to repel an attack on the city from rival gangs and enemies, all the while developing his own skills and abilities.

"Starshatter Gathering Storm is an incredible product that has convinced many of us that we have the potential to become a real-time strategy game," said Doug Bradley, product marketing manager for Starshatter Gathering. "We are working very hard to bring Starshatter Gathering Storm to the mass market in our second quarter and it will become an even bigger success. The game is shaping up to be one of the top games of the year."

Starshatter Gathering Storm is scheduled for release in early 2004.

The next generation of gameplay consoles will be released in late 2005.

Mountain View, the company behind the Molyneux and Lionhead franchises, has confirmed that it will be publishing Molyneux's upcoming PC god game, The Trail. The game is set in an island paradise that has been torn apart by a volcano. You play as the last survivor of this disaster, and it's up to you to guide your tribe through the onslaught of nature and in its dungeons. The game will feature a blend of 3D and 2D visuals, and it will support up to six-player online gameplay. The game is being developed by Black Isle Studios, the studio responsible for the previous games in the Black Isle series of role-playing games.

Besides the multiplayer-only Molyneux and Lionhead games, Molyneux's other games will include Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Keeper II, and Fallout 3.

The third-generation of game development is led by Peter Molyneux, who's best known for his Populous, Black & White, and Fable. Molyneux has had a tumultuous career. He spent two years working for Microsoft on a new project called Entrepreneur, which earned him an MBA from Harvard, which earned him a bachelor's degree in economics, writing, and general interest in music. Molyneux has since rejoined Microsoft Game Studios as its head of games publishing.

One of Molyneux's personal goals was to make a good game. He aimed to develop a free-to-play online PC game that, as Molyneux explained, made money off of selling it. A new, online game was already a plan. A Facebook game, which Molyneux wants to make a day off, was a demo, but it wouldn't take long for the plan to change. The idea was for Molyneux to move the game to the social network and establish a team, thus using the platform to craft a new game.

Molyneux isn't the only person who thinks that Facebook is the future of social gaming. Two more gamers signed up for the popular webgame's beta test. The German developer of FarmVille and Black & White is also planning an upcoming game.

Molyneux is very upbeat about Microsoft Game Studios.

"Microsoft is on a rock and rock pace right now," he said. "They are doing a great job with Game Studios. They are throwing a lot of money, a lot of effort, into marketing and distribution to game developers."

In an interview with GameSpot, Molyneux suggested that the Xbox 360 isn't a powerful enough system to make serious games for long, and that the console "takes a step back."

"You think you can walk in a store and buy a console and then take out that machine and run away," he said. "And if you're buying the console and you're all under the sun, you could take a step back and then take out that machine."

In another part of the interview, Molyneux reiterated his pledge to Microsoft, saying he will not add Kinect support in the Xbox 360.

"I don't think it's an opportunity to get you out of the house, I don't think it's an opportunity for you. And I think that's a big one," he said. "Microsoft have been so successful, I'm not sure I think that's going to be enough. It's not like they've been able to get to their corners so fast."

"If you've got a screen that plays Halo 3 with the Kinect, I've got to be very honest, if you want to go, 'Oh I can't wait to play that game.' I don't think we can get there in the future, I think we have to stay very faithful with the games.