Sir Chimpalot May Be Safe After All

It's been reported over on 1up that Crytek, the minds behind the original Far Cry and Crysis, have picked up Free Radical, those lovely people who gave us Second Sight, Haze and more importantly the rather enjoyable TimeSplitters. For those who weren't aware, Free Radical were more or less finished back in December, meaning that along with the death of the then rumoured next Star Wars Battlefront game, TimeSplitters 4 would not be seeing the light of day. Whilst Free Radical being saved by Crytek is by no means a definite sign that we'll see TimeSplitters 4, we can all hope that it is a positive sign that the title is safe.

Fingers crossed.

***********

UPDATE

***********

Rumour confirmed on gamesindustry.biz. Now we play the waiting game to see if TimeSplitters 4 is still in the works.

******************

UPDATE No. 2

******************

It turns out that one of the conditions of Free Radical's assimilation into the Crytek family has resulted in a re-branding. News over on Videogaming 24/7 reports that the company will now go under the banner Crytek UK. Hey, as long as we still see TimeSplitters 4, I can live with that.

It's That Friend Who Now Needs Money

Okay, I was pretty disappointed last week after playing the Resident Evil 5 demo. The old style clunky controls really put a massive downer on what should have been a hype inducing experience. Demos are supposed to get you excited about a game, dammit!

Well, either Capcom read my blog or the rest of the gaming community felt the same, because it turns out that the retail version of Resident Evil 5 will come with a more western audience focused Gears of War style control system. In other words you'll be able to 'run and gun' if you choose to do so, but not to disappoint fans who are stuck in the past, you'll be able to play with the old school stop, aim and shoot mechanism in you choose.

I think that this is a truly sensible move on Capcom's part, the up to date controls will appeal to new gamers much more than the old style controls would have. I think that as with Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition's updated controls, this change of heart will do wonders for the franchise and ensure they get some healthy sales when the game is released.

Now if only they could put out a patch for the demo to show off those controls...

***********

UPDATE

***********

Just to save for any confusion, it would appear that it's not certain that the new controls are actually going to be a feature in the final game. We'll have to wait and see on this one.