News Snatch: Puppeteer Dated, Square Enix Has Plans, BioShock Board Game And Nissan Makes Things Nicer

Puppeteer has a new trailer and a release date of 11th September, it will have a RRP of €39.99 which is about £33, so expect it to be around £29.99 after the retailers do their usual discounting.

I know many of you are old Amiga gamers so your interest may be tickled by a new CD that will be released in May entitled Paula Agnus Denise.

It contains nineteen remastered Amiga and CD32 theme tunes, five of which have previously unreleased, including Shadow Of The Beast, Turrican, Project X, Apidya and the always awesome Megablast by Bomb the Bass which was used as the theme to Xenon II: Megablast.

The compilation will be available on CD and digital download, for more information click here.

Those of you who are not au fait with the Amiga may be wondering why the CD has such a strange name. Paula, Agnus and Denise were the names of the chips on the motherboard of the Amiga, back then CPU’s had sensible names rather than the SuperActionMaster FreezeToast 4000 v2.6 type of naming convention we get today.

Deadpool has been completed and Activision have rewarded the talented chaps at High Moon with a big party and some lovely cake.

No, wait, my mistake, they rewarded them by showing them the door.

Joystiq received a statement from the company;

“Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process. With the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate. Approximately, 40 full-time employees will be impacted globally. We are offering those employees who are impacted outplacement counseling services.”

Although this is sad news at least thy staff from High Moon are still alive, Joystiq recieved another statement from Square Enix which is rather more ominous.

“We can confirm that Square Enix’s Los Angeles office has eliminated a number of positions as part of the corporate restructuring announced last week.”

Eliminated a number of positions? Did they hire Agent 47? Well no, they appointed Yosuke Matsuda as the new head of the company and he has plans.

“I plan on reviewing all Square Enix duties, business and assets on a zero-based budgeting standpoint,” he said.

See, told you he had plans.

“Due to the radical change of environment,” he continued, “I’d like to fundamentally review what works and what doesn’t work for our company, then cast all of our resources towards extending what makes us successful and thoroughly squeezing out what doesn’t.”

SimCity fans can download some free DLC in the shape of the Nissan branded LEAF charging station.

“Plopping down the Nissan Leaf Charging Station will add happiness to nearby buildings,” gushed EA, “Adding the Charging Station will not take power, water or workers away from your city. Zoom in to the streets of cities and players will start seeing a percentage of their Sims from all wealth classes driving the electric vehicles.”

Can anyone tell me how an electric car charging station requires no power, surely that can’t be a simulation? Perhaps it’s fuelled by product placement…

A Bioshock Infinite board game is in production and is set during the same series of events as the video-game. Players will take on the role of the Founders and Vox Populi factions as they battle for Columbia.

Rumour has it that to complete the game you must stick your own head up your bottom and vanish in a cloud of bewildering nonsense, leaving other players confused and slightly let down.

Obvious news doo doo doo doo do-do, obvious news doo doo doo doo do-do, OBVIOUS! NEWS! Newsthatisobvious! A-bing-bong-bing-bong…

• The announcement of the PS4 has “roused investor interest” says Pachter!
• PS4 demand will outstrip supply on launch says Gamestop!
• New hardware will be better than something designed eight years ago says Nvidia!
• UK Retailers (who make a killing selling pre-owned games) don’t want pre-owned blocked on Next Gen!
• The controller for the Next Xbox isn’t all that different from the current controller!

And Finally, yesterday marks the last day of weekly DLC for the Rock Band series and to celebrate 281 consecutive weeks of DLC (!), the team at Harmonix have created a video telling the story of the game.