After warning gamers that their upcoming action title, Saboteur, might not make it to retail shelves this year, Pandemic Studios has come through and officially announced that it will be released this year after all. Details after the jump.

Square Enix is reportedly taking legal action against a lone French retailer for allegedly selling pirated Square merchandise. la société SAKURA, the retail store, operates in Paris and online, specializing in Anime/Manga/Japanese gaming merch.

This week is like multiplatform game week. Pretty much everything that drops this week for both the handhelds and the home consoles are multiplatform: Wanted: Weapons of Fate, The Wheelman, Legends of WrestleMania... Looks like the only console to get some exclusives this week is the DS. But enough chitchat. Let's get right on to the release schedules!

It doesn't even have to be a real dog. Apparently, killing a dog in a video game is disgusting enough. This is according to the Animal Rights Club of the Academy of Notre Dame, who is protesting the canine killing spree in Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, DS), saying that killing animals should not be a form of entertainment. Wow, the game nitpicking doesn't stop.

This November, all of the events that happened in Ubisoft's various Tom Clancy universes will come to a head in EndWar (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360). That's not all, though. EndWar is just the tip of the iceberg.

In a recent interview with Gameplayer, EndWar's lead AI programmer, Vinh-Dieu Lam, said that the upcoming RTS "acts as a basis for future tie-ins." Details in the full article.

Word went round last week that Splinter Cell ConViction (Windows, Xbox 360) was sent "back to the drawing board" after a piece from the latest issue of Xbox 360 World magazine started the whispers. ConViction was delayed to 2008, 2009 last year, but we've heard little since. Ubidays 2008 has come and though Beyond Good and Evil 2, Far Cry 2, and Raving Rabbids managed to sneak some teasers our way, not much word has rolled out from the latest installment to Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series.

If you're wondering just what's going down in the upcoming Paris Games Developer Conference this June 23 and 24, then we've got a news update regarding the ever-so-important keynote: LittleBigPlanet creators Mark Healey and Alex Evans will be delivering it. They'll be talking about quite a lot of things (besides their own game). Check out all the details in the full article and see what this means to you.

If you think you've gotten an eyeful from last year's Ubidays event sponsored by French video game company Ubisoft, then make sure to set your calendars this May 28 and 29 when the Ubidays event makes a comeback. Ubidays 2008 will be held in the heart of Paris' world-famous Louvre museum and will feature some of the biggest titles that the company has to offer gamers in the coming year. For more details, check out the full article!

Ubisoft once again aims to take their Rainbow Six franchise to new heights with the expected release of the game's latest installment, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, scheduled for release in March next year. Gamers who are fans of both the game and the novel of critically acclaimed political thriller author Tom Clancy will be glad to know that the game's release date will coincide with the novel's 10th anniversary.

Wish to know more? Read on after the jump.

 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is about to be released for the PS3 on August 21, and we can't help but be excited to find out how the game will look like on Sony's shiny black console.

To help appease Ghost Recon fans' curiosity, Ubisoft Paris' Lead AI Engineer Olivier Didelot talked with Kotaku about the challenges that were presented in developing a game for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 simultaneously.

Didelot clarified that GRAW 2 for the PS3 is not a port of the Xbox 360 version, because the game for both platforms were developed side-by-side with Ubisoft Paris and Red Storm studios working on the Xbox 360 version, and Ubisoft Paris and Shanghai developing the game on the PS3.

Since PS3 hardware is different and required them to come up with ways to tackle game development, GRAW 2 for the PS3 is actually an original development. Furthermore, the differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 prompted Ubisoft in making sure that the GRAW engine will enable cross platforming.

This then allowed Ubisoft to develop the basic features of the game and optimized it according to the demands of the specific version they're dealing with. Didelot did not expound on each consoles' difference, but he explained:

For an engineer, the two platforms are critically different, with different strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, we feel that there's a real difference in the philosophy behind it. The very primary differences, in the way the processors are designed & combined or the way the memory is handled make them very different challenges for engineers.

Despite the differences however, the AI code is exactly the same for both consoles. Didelot said that the differences lie in how the AI code is handled by the hardware. If there were any discrepancies between the two versions, he assured that it will be invisible to the players.

GRAW 2 for both systems will have teammate's AI use voice feedback to help players out in locating enemies, while enemy AI will present considerable challenges by making full use of the terrain in attacking.

That certainly was a handful of useful information, straight from Ubisoft's Lead AI Engineer himself. For PS3 fans waiting for the game, why not check out the PS3 demo? Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2's PS3 release is just around the corner, but it won't hurt to experience the game in advance.