Saboteur (Xbox 360, PS3) won't be making a splash on Q1 of 2009 as originally expected. Pandemic and EA's freedom-fighting action-adventure title has been pushed back to the next fiscal year. Read up on it more after the jump.

Yay for more destruction! Pandemic Studios has announced that they're prepping an update for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Called the "Total Payback" update, it's set to add more features to the game.

Two more titles will be added next week to the list of Xbox Originals available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Metal Arms. Get the details from the full article after the jump.

Fans of Electronic Arts and Pandemic Studios' Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and PC) rejoice! The game has finally been dated for launch. In addition, the developers have also released a new trailer of the upcoming video game. To find out more and see the video, head on over to the full article.

EA Montreal General Manager Alain Tascan revealed today that they are having problems with some groups of people who are rather affected by the subject matter Army of Two (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) tackles. He said, however, that they are not trying to make any political statements. The rest of the story after the jump!

Pandemic Studios and BioWare are currently on the hotseat after Electronic Arts' shocking acquisition of both development studios, and we're fortunate enough that they're giving answers to fans who aren't very happy. In an interview, Pandemic made it pretty clear that the partnership with EA won't hinder the developers from being creative.

According to Pandemic chief production officer Greg Borrud, nothing is changing in how Pandemic develops games or what games they choose to develop. He also adds that the acquisition will not break the company's "core pillars of building big brands", regular game events, or their ability to attract the best talent in the industry.

Co-founder and president Josh Resnick continued, saying that EA probably wanted to buy them because of Pandemic's "ability to be creative... and to really stretch our limits and innovative, and to really focus on creating blockbuster original IPs." He stressed out that new and original IPs will be coming without restrictions from EA.

What Pandemic can learn from the partnership, as Resnick sees it, is how to have a powerful marketing organization and make franchises go forward by spinning out many games. Pandemic CEO Andrew Goldman and Borrud agree that passing technology around is another positive draw to the US$ 860 million deal with a publishing giant like EA.

Aside from having access to support from Electronic Arts, Pandemic big wigs say nothing much will be changed in the development pipeline. Hopefully, we won't be seeing annual Destroy All Humans! titles or titles like Mercenaries 09 any time soon.

 

Not too long ago, back in March, we found out that Warhound from Techland was 50% complete. Roughly four months have passed, and huge improvements have already surfaced. Looking at the newly released factsheet for this open-ended FPS tells us that the game is being tweaked into perfection.

It must be said: the amount of features that Warhound offers is overwhelming. We don't want you to miss every single detail, so here's what went through the press wire.

Unprecedented freedom of choice in an FPS:

• Tackle missions in the order you choose, create your own path through each mission's objectives
• Plan your tactics and equipment load-outs
• Buy satellite photos, recon data and other intelligence about the battlefield situation
• Pick a deployment time and location, then pay for the means of getting in and getting out

Character development:

• Train your character in several skills, including climbing, repair, and weapons proficiency
• Skills are earned and developed as in the real world - for ex., shooting ranges improve accuracy, running tracks and climbing walls boosts cover and movement skills
• Develop and use skill specializations to gain advantages in combat; new skills offer fresh opportunities for advancement through the mercenary ranks, and new ways to complete missions

More on this after the jump!

Here are a few more chunks of info about Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360), the much-awaited next-gen iteration of the highly popular and much-loved Fallout franchise. The following details were revealed at Bethesda's recent Fallout 3 press event and come to us courtesy of Joystiq:

• In the Fallout 3 universe, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Fallout: Tactics never happened.
• Fallout 3 will feature a day/night cycle as well as changing weather.
• There will be no multiplayer mode. No demo is currently planned.
• Players can collect 21 collectible bobbleheads throughout the game
• Fallout 3 will feature 20 licensed songs from the '40s. Players can listen to these songs through radio stations accessible via the PIPBoy as well as radios that players can come across in the game world.
• Travel between locations can be done via subway tunnels. There will be no drivable vehicles.
• Bethesda is still considering the addition of downloadable content as well as player-created mods.
• The game will have 9 to 12 different endings.
• Almost all NPCs in the game will be killable. There will also be children, but Bethesda has yet to decide if they will also be killable as in the previous Fallout games.
• Players will once again be able to hire mercenaries for extra firepower. As in Fallout, players will not have a lot of direct control over them.
  

Joystiq also mentioned that the Fallout 3 demo showcased in the press event included a loading screen that showed a metric of "corpses eaten." When asked, executive producer Todd Howard declined to reveal anything about it. "We're not talking about that stuff," said Howard.

While the possibility of it being a joke is there, we still wonder what a corpse's rad levels are.

Fallout 3 is currently slated for release in Fall 2008.

Prepare to step back into the boots of a hardened Mercenary in this world premiere trailer video of Pandemic's Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. We give you a sneak peek on what to expect with this highly-anticipated sequel to the game that gave you the license to blow up anything - literally anything - in your path.

The trailer itself is in true Mercenaries style: loud, brash, and has loads of explosions. The next-gen bells and whistles are obvious here, with smoother, better-looking character models and even more impressive explosions. We get to see the three members of the team, each doing what they do best: Steal vehicles in mid-flight, blow stuff up, throwing grenades into tank holds, blowing MORE stuff up, performing hazardous stunts with expensive-looking cars...did we mention making a lot of stuff go boom?

The Mercenaries are back, and it's time to get paid. Watch out for its multiplatform release (PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360) sometime this year - we know we'll be!

Speaking with Eurogamer, Scott Warner revealed that once Pandemic Studios were done with Mercenaries 2 anything is possible - even a handheld version of the game. Here's Scott Warner's words:

At the moment we're only concentrating on the versions of the game we've announced, but I'd love for us to work on a handheld version of Mercs! Anything's possible!

What has Pandemic Studios currently busy at the moment is Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which is being custom built for next-gen consoles, the PC, and the PS2. After they're done with that game, we just might see more Mercenaries for the PSP or the DS.

Mercenaries 2 is set to feature fully destructible environments and is set to look a lot like Venezuela.

This combination of destruction and Venezuela is something that the aforementioned country doesn't seem to like - heck they even asked Bono to do something about it.

Anyhow, all the mercenary focus on next-gen platforms (and Venezuela) should end by Winter, as Mercenaries 2: World in Flames game is set to be released by then. Will we see a PlayStation Portable version of Mercenaries? We certainly hope.