A new generation of FORMULA ONE games will come to high definition consoles and PC later this year as Codemasters® today announced that F1 2010 will be released this September for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and PC Games For Windows®.

As the official game of the 2010 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™, F1 2010 will include all of the official teams, drivers and circuits from the coming season. F1 2010 will feature the return of seven times FORMULA 1 Drivers’ World Champion Michael Schumacher, the introduction of several new teams, and the brand new Korean International Circuit that will host the 2010 FORMULA 1 KOREAN GRAND PRIX.

The September launch will see F1 2010 become the first official FORMULA ONE game to appear for Xbox 360 and marks the return of FORMULA ONE to PC after an eight year absence. The arrival of the HD editions of FORMULA ONE follows Codemasters’ extremely successful launch of F1 2009 for Wii and PSP, which became a top five best seller throughout the past holiday period. In F1 2010 gamers will take on the full, expanded grid in a variety of game modes including GRAND PRIX, Championship, Time Trial and an extensive, innovative Career mode. F1 2010 will also feature a highly advanced damage model, fully dynamic weather system and extensive competitive multiplayer options.

In production at Codemasters Studios Birmingham, F1 2010 is being developed using the EGO Game Technology Platform, Codemasters’ proprietary tech that powered the critically acclaimed, million-plus selling Colin McRae: DiRT 2 and Race Driver: GRID. The award-winning technology has been further developed to accurately recreate the unique aerodynamics and handling of 200MPH+ FORMULA ONE cars. The tech combined with Codemasters’ unprecedented access to FORMULA ONE teams and drivers will ensure that F1 2010 delivers the most authentic FORMULA ONE racing experience yet. F1 2010 will be released September 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Games for Windows.

A lot of Battle.net 2.0’s community features appear to be locked down at the moment. Are you quite nervous about rolling out a lot of the new community features? Do you think the community’s going to be quite shocked by it?

Dustin Browder: I’m always nervous about everything we do, to be clear. I guess you’re asking if I’m especially nervous. Well, I know that we have a lot more development ahead of us on Battle.net. The multiplayer game, I think, is in a pretty strong space – I hope – and the community’s going to test that for us, and that seems to be going well. Battle.net does have a little bit more work ahead of it in terms of this content patch coming, but they’re also going to be working right up until the very end. We will have a day one patch, a required day one patch. So that gives them a little bit more time to sort of get their ducks in a row.

In addition, we view Battle.net this time around a little more as we do WoW. We hope to be doing constant content development going forwards, so there are certainly features – tournament features, e-sport features, for example – that are planned after launch. But obviously, we’re very concerned about what the community thinks and we want the community to be happy with the service. We’re going to keep working on it until the community is happy with the service.

You mentioned a day one patch there? Is that public knowledge? Is that just for StarCraft?

Dustin Browder: I don’t know if that’s public knowledge or not.

Bob Colayco: It’s been pretty standard. It’s not just us; everyone does it.

Dustin Browder: Yeah. It’s certainly something that we’re doing this time around because the beta is going to be running. We’re certainly going to have a balance patch if nothing else.

Bob Colayco: If you think about the logistics of printing million of boxes, and millions of discs, and getting all that distribution out to all parts of the world, there’s a big chunk of time there that can be utilized by development to improve the game. It only makes sense to use that time somehow.

Dustin Browder: It’s pretty normal. They’ve been standard issue for WoW for some time. As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I’ve got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer.

Obviously we’ll do everything we can to make sure it’s as small a patch as possible, to make sure people can get into the game and get started playing it. That’s our biggest concern with the patch: to make sure it’s the tiniest thing we can make it so it’s really quick once you install the game.

Are you actually going to be removing or adding any units before you launch?

Dustin Browder: I don’t know if we’ll add or remove. We could very easily add or remove. I certainly hope not to. I don’t foresee removing. I could see changing or adding significantly if it came to that. Our numbers now are positive and things seem to be going well, but as we’ve seen many times in the past, the community will often surprise us with tactics and strategies that we simply didn’t see coming. If we get to a point in a few weeks or a month where we say, ‘Oh my God, the Immortal’s a really huge problem. We need to change him dramatically or drop him,’ that is a change we’d be willing to make at this point.

Is the Campaign actually finished yet?

Dustin Browder: It’s not finished. I’m doing a play-through right now on Hard difficulty, and I have pages of notes. But yes, all the missions are in, all of the game mechanics are in and working, and all the audio is recorded. We’re down to fixing, polishing; lots and lots of difficulty tuning is going on. We have multiple strike teams around the studio playing through at multiple difficulty levels, giving us tons and tons of feedback. We’ve been bringing in a lot of new users and having them run through our game, or at least the first part of the game, and watching where they get stuck. But yeah: all the missions are at least at some level complete.

How does it feel to finally get it all in one place?

Dustin Browder: It’s pretty exciting. I’ll be a lot more excited when it’s actually done. We’re obviously working a lot of hours right now trying to get it complete. We’re working a lot of hours for tuning. It’s a pretty exhausting experience all the way round. I’ll be happy, and I’ll give that little cheer, when we actually put it in the box.

You’ve got a release date in the first half of this year, right? So you’ve got quite a lot of leeway, I guess. You’ve got four months to actually ship. You’re completely confident on actually hitting that release date, right?

Dustin Browder: I don’t know [lots of laughing]. I’d really love to say yes, I got to tell you, brother. You never know what’s going to happen. You never know when something’s going to jump up and bite you that you didn’t expect. Yeah sure, today it’s looking great, but who knows tomorrow? Certainly I’d be super-excited for that to be the case. I can’t tell you how enthusiastic the team is at this point of getting this game out of the door, not only to get the game into the hands of our fans, but also so we can go home. But at this point we really want to get it out in the worst possible way, and any delays are going to meet with our righteous fury. But there’s no way to know for sure, dude, what’s going to happen at this point.

[article from: vg247.com]

The first downloadable content for Aliens vs Predator will shortly be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC platforms. Featuring 4 new maps for different multiplayer modes, previously only available in the Special Editions, this downloadable content will challenge all three species for the fight of their existence.

Two new Multiplayer maps for six different online modes (Deathmatch, Predator Hunt, Infestation, Species Deathmatch, Mixed Species Deathmatch and Domination) :

• Docks: The caustic alkali waters of BG-386 put an end to Weyland-Yutani’s planned shipping activities.
  
• Machine: As well as processing exotic ores, the BG-386 Refinery provided electrical power to the colonists at Freya’s Prospect.

Two new Survivor maps in which up to four Marines battle to stay alive against increasing swarms of Aliens:

• Outpost: The site of the original Weyland-Yutani colony on BG-386 was abandoned, and soon reclaimed by the planet’s voracious jungle plant life.
  
• Hive: Deep in the heart of the Freya’s Prospect Refinery lays the Xenomorph Hive.