It may not have registered in your radar when Realtime Worlds reacquired the license for the cops-and-robbers MMORPG All Points Bulletin weeks back. But rumor has it that APB will be pitched to Rockstar Games as Grand Theft Auto Online. More details after the jump.

Rumors, good or bad, are fun to muse over. When talking about rumors, Quartermann is a hot topic since Electronic Gaming Monthly's (EGM) rumor monger has a reputation for precise predictions. The latest batch of Quartermannly things involves the absence of Crackdown 2 and a mysterious mixed martial arts title from Electronic Arts. Head over to the full article if you want to learn more.

Crackdown was a surprising, if not a sleeper hit for the Xbox 360. Not only did it offer an awesome sandbox city to play in, but some awesome physics mechanics to go along with it as well. Plus, you get to throw cars. Now, no other than Shane Kim himself is saying that there might just be a sequel to the game in the near future. Check it out in the full article.

Develop has recently announced the list of finalists nominated to receive awards offered by the Develop Industry Excellence Awards. Set for the region of UK and Europe, the awards will be held during the Develop Conference & Expo to be held this year at Brighton. Again.

 

Top of the nominees list is Realtime Worlds (Crackdown), bagging a whopping seven nominations. Evolution Studios (MotorStorm), Rare (Viva Piñata), SCEE Studio Liverpool (Formula One Championship Edition), and independent developer and publisher Introversion (DEFCON) get three nominations a-piece. Other nominees include GSC Game World (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) from Russia, EA DICE (Battlefield series) and Avalanche from Sweden, Opera from Norway, and Fishlabs from Germany.

Some of the big names nominated for the 2007 awards night include Eidos Hungary, Ubisoft France development studios, Eden Studios, and Kynogon. The fate of these nominees will be decided by a panel of almost 100 industry experts who choose only excellence over anything else. Stuart Dinsey, publisher of Develop magazine, stated:

In a period which has seen the launch of two home consoles, the continued improvement of Xbox 360 and PC software, and the mobile games market emerge as a genuine creative and commercial alternative to the more traditional games platforms, only the most excellent titles have any chance of standing out from the crowd.

Two other special awards, Development Legend and overall Grand Prix, will be given away in the awards night on July 25 to be honored to individuals, companies, or titles deserving in the eyes of the magazine's editorial staff.

Independent Game Developer RealTime Worlds (RTW), the people behind Crackdown, has signed a deal with Dare to be Digital 2007 and is now a key sponsor for the event. Dare to be Digital is a games design competition for students held annually in the UK.

RTW will be providing both financial and logistic support by providing source persons and speakers for the duration of the 10-week competition. In addition, RTW will be showing some exclusive "behind-the-scenes" footage from Crackdown at Dare ProtoPlay where competitors will feature their entries.

Here's what RTW CEO and creative director David Jones had to say regarding the event:

Talent is a key factor behind the success of every game, and Dare to be Digital makes a big contribution to spotting and developing high quality talent for the industry each year. I have been closely involved with Dare to be Digital’s organisers, Abertay University, for many years, advising them on course structure, lecturing to students, and benefiting from already having had many Dare graduates join RTW over the years.

I am delighted to take that involvement and commitment to another level through this sponsorship and through becoming a Patron of Dare. We are employing 150 people at our Dundee office and would like to expand to near 200 by end of this year. Partnering with Dare will help attract more talent to our production hub in Dundee. We also have plans to work with Dare on our international expansion.

This event, which began in 1999, has grown and become one of the premier game developer competitions for students in the UK. So far, 12 teams have already committed to joining the event and are heading to Dundee, Belfast and Guildford in early June. Be sure to keep checking back here for more news on this competition.

Major Nelson has announced that the downloadable content packs for Crackdown are now available for download on Xbox Live. That's both the free "Free-For-All" pack and the premium "Getting Busy" bonus pack, the latter of which is available for 800 Microsoft Points. Both downloadable content packs are not available in Japan, Germany and Portugal.

A word of warning to those who download the packs, though. Reports of games getting reset (as in all your hard work so far goes "poof!") because of the DLC packs have been running rampant around the internet. Crackdown developer RealTime Worlds has acknowledged that they are aware of the situation and are currently working on a fix or, barring that, a workaround.

Keep checking back here for more updates on the issue.

 

DLC providers of the future, take heed. Realtime Worlds has succeeded in creating a perfect example of how Downloadable Content">downloadable content should play out in the future. You'd be wise to take their stand, as it is bound to be the standard by which future DLC will be judged.

How can we throw around words like that so lightly? Well, if you've seen the preview of the Crackdown update, you'll understand. Since it's a long update though, let us give you a couple of pointers on their upcoming DLC package.

Now, the DLC will come in two versions: "Free-for-All" and "Getting Busy." With the free DLC, you essentially get a host of bug fixes (yay for better orb finding!) and The Keys to the City, a debug mode that allows you to spawn all sorts of cheats from infinite ammo to super strength. You'll also be allowed to impound any car you see on the street, and there's even a list that'll tell you which cars you haven't taken to your lair.

For people willing to pay for the "Getting Busy" pack, you'll be getting three new vehicles, additional modes for solo and cooperative play and a ton of new equipment (Rocket Launchers FTW!) in addition to everything that comes with the "Free-for-All" package. If you're interested in seeing just what else the Crackdown has to offer, don't hesitate to check out the read link for more. It's a doozy.

Play-Asia's offering a nigh irresistible deal for those (very, very few) who probably don't have Crackdown yet. From an original listing price of about US$ 45, it's been cracked *ahem* down to US$ 30. The deal, unfortunately, would end in five days, so you better start begging your mom for her credit card number.

If you do end up cracking up, err, down to this offer, that's just right in time for the coming downloadable content for the game. The offer isn't as "free" as the "300 videos" contest, but hey, a US$ 15 price cut from the original cost makes it a steal.

Do you know from what video game title the screenshot above came from? Well, it's from Crackdown and those buggies don't belong to the NPCs that just dig driving around in a rather mysterious way. Truth of the matter is, one developer from RealTime Worlds uploaded that image.

It was actually taken from an upcoming Downloadable Content">downloadable content for the game. It should be remembered that Producer Phil Wilson had already hinted about this in the past including a free DLC "Reset Gangs" option that will allow players beat the hell out of a criminal over and over again.

Wilson also mentioned that there's going to be an additional game mode for Crackdown. It looks like that these buggies are part of that new mode. The developer didn't provide any information whatsoever but it appears that it'll be a racing-mode of some sorts.

We will update you as details about this surface. In the mean time, just go back to the game and continue doing your Pacific City clear-out operations.

Grandpasmurf let us know of this funny thing the folks at Acidmods noticed when playing Crackdown. Apparently, some of the NPCs in the video game drive around in invisible cars, and the occurrence is frequent enough to be captured on film.

Below is a video showing off just what happens. According to Acidmods, this is probably caused by the failure of the graphics processor to keep up with the game. On the one hand, it's rare that a game is so awesome that a console can't keep up with it. On the other hand, it's pretty shoddy how RealTime Worlds didn't remedy this with a patch or some such.

Still, in a game where you can jump onto buildings and perform incredible feats of super strength, something like invisible cars should probably seem commonplace anyways.