The Gaming Table

Ubisoft on offense in novelist lawsuit, files to throw out claims

Ubisoft has filed a complaint to prevent novelist John Beiswenger from renewing his claims that the Assassin’s Creed universe stole ideas from his novel, Link. Beiswenger first sued Ubisoft in April, but dropped the lawsuit earlier this week because he couldn’t handle the expense of litigation.

Beiswenger dismissed the Ubisoft case “without prejudice,” meaning he can pick up the charges and pursue litigation at any time, and Ubisoft is looking to have the case found “frivolous and without merit,” Gamasutra reports.

Ubisoft’s complaint argues that Beiswenger’s claims of copyright infringement are based on “patently non-copyrightable elements.” His claims include “assassins” and “spiritual and biblical tones.”

Next Gears of War graces Game Informer cover, full reveal Monday

The next installment in the Gears of War franchise will be the cover of the July issue of Game Informer. The final name and cover art won’t be revealed until next Monday, during Microsoft’s E3 press conference.

-Derek

CD Projekt Red goes ‘Cyberpunk’ in new ‘triple-A RPG’

CD Projekt Red, developer of the Witcher series, is looking into the fictional future for its next game, announcing development of a new “triple-A” game based on the Cyberpunk pen-and-paper game by Mike Pondsmith. Players will build a character from a series of classes including mercenaries or the cyberpunk-standard “hacker,” load that character up with tech implants, and work through a non-linear storyline.

A new CDP team, made up of Witcher vets, is working on the game, and staffing up for additional help. There’s no release window yet, and it seems early in development, so don’t go buy a new video card for it yet.

-Derek

Dead or Alive 5 to use a DOA4-style four-point hold system

Ignoring any aesthetic peculiarities the franchise may be known for, the Dead or Alive series’ calling card is its hold system, which allows players to counter incoming attacks and turn the tide of battle in their favor, provided they’re skilled enough to do so.

Dead or Alive 5 will use a four-point hold system ala Dead or Alive 4 (high, mid-punch, mid-kick and low) rather than the three-point system (high, mid and low) used in Dead or Alive 3, director Yohei Shimbori revealed on Twitter. “Four-point holds work really well for game balance, but I was worried that beginners couldn’t pull off mid kick holds,” Shimbori tweeted. “But all of the feedback we got from players with the Alpha Demo gave me the final nudge to go with four-point.”

The demo in question, distributed as a pre-order bonus and included in collector’s editions of Ninja Gaiden 3, used a three-point grab system similar to Dead or Alive 3’s. It’s nice to know that Team Ninja still has time to think about DoA5’s design from a balancing standpoint in between implementing costume-specific breast physics and integrating helicopter missiles into gameplay.

-Derek

Start (farm) fresh in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning for 3DS

On the 15th anniversary year of the North American debut of Harvest Moon, Natsume will introduce a new 3DS edition of the farming game with features never seen before – you know, to keep the vegetation from growing stale.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning puts an emphasis on customization, allowing you to build your own character, buy and design furniture for your house, decorate the nearby village, and move stuff on your farm around … which can’t be good for the crops.

In A New Beginning, you start a farm up around Echo Village to revitalize the town and bring people and animals back. It’ll be out this year, and will be shown off as part of Natsume’s Harvest Moon celebration at E3.

-Derek

Skyrim reference ‘Hearth Fire’ being trademarked by Bethesda

Zenimax Media, parent company of Skyrim developer Bethesda Softworks, has filed a trademark for “Hearth Fire,” the latest in a stream of applications related to the game.Fusible picked up on the trademark, which is a reference to a conjuration skill book and part of the “2920” book series found in the lands of Skyrim. Feel free to read the book on the Unofficial Elder Scrolls wiki.

Other trademarks recently filed by the company include last month’s “Dragonborn” and April’s “FUS RO DAH.” The first… yes, the first… piece of Skyrim DLC, “Dawnguard,” will be detailed next week at the industry’s mega E3 trade show.

-Derek

Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf spotted on retail sites for Xbox, PS3

Over three years since its initial cancellation, it looks like The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf may be rising again. The game has been spotted in Danish retail listings, specifically a PS3 listing at CoolShop and both PS3 and Xbox listings at Blockbuster. Neither site has a release date listed, though each advises eager fans to place pre-orders now. (If you’re looking for a deal, go with CoolShop to save a cool 100 krone.)

Witcher fans will remember Rise of the White Wolf as the console-specific version of CD Projekt’s first Witcher game. It was slated to feature completely reworked controls for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, though the project was canceled in April of 2009. At the time, developer Widescreen Games complained of missed payments, while publisher CD Projekt claimed that all milestone payments had been made to Widescreen.

CD Projekt Red’s Summer Conference is slated to take place tomorrow, and promises a major announcement. That announcement, however, will not be Rise of the White Wolf, reports Eurogamer. CD Projekt told the site that it will instead be announcing its next RPG, which was revealed in recent job listings. That said, the company does have some Witcher-related “surprises” planned for this year and next year.

-Derek

Next Skyrim update adds mounted combat

Bethesda is making good on all of the features seen in the Skyrim sizzle video, like the Kinect stuff added earlier this month and those snazzy new kill cams. The next addition to the game will be mounted combat, the Bethesda blog has revealed. Finally you will no longer need to dismount before you punch that dragon to death.

There’s no word on when the update will be available on consoles right now, but if you’ve got the game on Steam, you can opt into the beta version and test out mounted combat inSkyrim immediately. For the full patch notes, hit up the source link below.

-Derek

GameFly to publish iOS and Android games, launch ‘GameStore’ for Android

GameFly is moving forward with its plan to “help good games get made” by not only publishing said games on both iOS and Android platforms, but by opening its own “expertly curated” marketplace on Google’s mobile operating system.

GameFly’s “GameStore” for Android is set to debut sometime this holiday season and will cater to both smartphone and tablet Android users, supplying games for both formats. The app will also support social discovery mechanisms such as friend recommendations and ratings/reviews from other users. Whether GameStore will exclusively stock GameFly-published titles is still unknown, but considering that the app will reportedly house “thousands of the best games,” we expect content from other publishers to be present.

As far as GameFly’s in-house publishing prospects are concerned, the company expects to release its first game sometime this summer. Mobile developers interested in being published by GameFly should send an email to GameDev at GameFly dawt com.

-Derek