PS3 Fanboy

We have a love-hate relationship with Activision-Blizzard; we love Blizzard and their games, but really rather hate Activision. This confusing dichotomy was further cemented today with the announcement that the company is streamlining their output by holding on to a few key Sierra franchises. Namely, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Prototype, Ice Age and an as-yet unannounced property, leaving Tim Shafer's Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, WET, and Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena abandoned at the side of the road.

However, there's still hope for these games if another publisher swoops in and picks them up. Actiblizz will also be shaking up its Sierra-based internal development studios, with plans to "realign staffing at Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios" (Prototype and Bourne) and to explore "options regarding Massive Entertainment and Swordfish Studios" (Wold in Conflict and 50 Cent). For the full skinny check out the Yahoo Business report.

It's sad to see interesting games like Ghostbusters and, particularly, Brutal Legend get poor treatment in favor of dead franchises such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. It's a world gone topsy-turvy, where EA are developing interesting and innovative new IPs and Activision is "streamlining" anything that stands out in favor of safe, boring franchises.

[Via Joystiq]

Thanks to this fairly recent Ghostbusters gameplay footage, we certainly aren't afraid of ghosts anymore. The game looks pretty nice and we hope it jump-starts the classic franchise back to life -- a lot of lesser movies and TV series' have been getting brought back, after all. What's interesting, but not in the video, is the use of Sixaxis for the PS3: apparently, you use it to control the trajectory of your ghost-bustin' stream. Of course, crossing them is a bad idea unless you're facing the final boss, we'd imagine.

While multiplatform development may have stunted some of the features of the upcoming Ghostbusters game, we have to admit that it looks pretty sweet. Joystiq's Zack Stern had some time with the game and revealed that the video game takes place two years after the events of the second film. It's 1991, and your character becomes the fifth ghost-busting Ghostbuster. The generic design of the main character is intention, apparently, to put more emphasis on the film's original motley crew.

Fans will be glad to hear that Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis are contributing to the game's script. The gameplay seems to revolve around the proton pack and the game's incredible physics engine. Sounds like we may see some Valve-inspired Gravity Gun-esque sequences.

PS3 will benefit from being the lead development platform for the game. The game will take advantage of some SIXAXIS controls, such as being able to stun ghosts by shaking the controller (something that reminds us of last year's Folklore). With the care and effort being placed in creating an original game based on the Ghostbusters universe, we're going to be cautiously optimistic about this one.

We're not entirely sure why the devs for the multiplatform title Ghostbusters are setting themselves up the bomb with a flamebait remark like this, but apparently the PS3 version of the title is getting hampered thanks to the development on the 360. To soften this surefire console spit-fest, we're using an exciting kitty image, because everyone loves kittens for some reason.

Terminal Reality has made headlines for saying that if they were allowed to make the game solely for the PS3, they "could double the amount of objects on screen that you're seeing," commenting also that "we've reserved one whole processor on the PS3 for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound whereas on the 360 you have part of one processor to do that." Take it however you want, but we know who we're gonna call this October. It's been way too long since that joke was even slightly relevant.