For real? In a new year where Nintendo's WiiWare project draws dozens of mainstream and independent developers and where former mainstream developers unite to erect new indie studios, is the independent developer scene still as cut-throat as it was last year? Ninja Theory's Nina Kristensen, co-founder and chief developer, believes it is. More at the full story.

There are certain crossover stories that just don't seem to make sense at first glance. For those of you who may be confused about Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Midway's Ed Boon's has this piece of advice: play the game's story mode and things will make sense.

That's not all the Boon had to say about the game, though. Cross over to the full article after the jump for more information and a video interview.

Ubisoft announces today that Xbox 360 and Wii owners, as well as those with a Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2, will be able to enjoy a new CSI video game this coming Fall 2007. The new game will be known as CSI: Hard Evidence and is being developed by Telltale Games. The PC version ships with the console versions.

Staying true to the CSI franchise, Hard Evidence continues on the crime-solving brand of experience the public has first come to love on TV. The game itself follows the story of Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows, and the rest of the Las Vegas crew in solving crimes with the help of sophisticated lab equipments and realistic techniques. Other features are:

• More Crime-Solving Action: Break down the evidence and bring suspects to justice in five all-new, bizarre crimes. Unravel longer cases, search bigger crime scenes, and uncover hidden evidence in unique locations like never before.
• Go Deeper into the Evidence: Master new forensic tools and find more evidence than ever. Use the new Garage Lab to examine large pieces of evidence like cars and trucks. Recreate gunfights with ballistic lasers, uncover shocking secrets with video analysis, and much more.
• The Ultimate CSI Experience: Experience your very own CSI episodes as you piece together clues with the real CSI actors. Take part in dramatic interrogations, create grisly crime reenactments, and explore atmospheric crime scenes inspired by the show.

There is still no mention how Wii players will be able to use the motion-sensing controllers but Ubisoft has mentioned that CSI: Hard Evidence has been made compatible to the Wiimote and Nunchuk. What we have below are screenshots from the Xbox 360 build and the trailer video for all versions.

See the game's video after the jump!

LucasArts and Telltale Games announced today that they are collaborating once more to come up with a new installment to the LEGO Star Wars video game franchise. The new game will be called LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga and will be released Fall 2007 on platforms PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS.

Well, the game is not new in the traditional sense. The movie series' Episode 1 to 6 used to be divided into LEGO Star Wars I and II. LucasArts mentioned that this is not a simple re-compilation as it also includes new characters and features as well as revamped levels. TT Games Director Tom Stone commented,

LucasArts was an amazing partner on LEGO Star Wars II, and working with them on The Complete Saga continues to be a great experience. We're also thrilled to be focusing on next-generation consoles and creating content that plays to the strength of each system.

Speaking of which, the 360 and PS3 versions will both have online capabilities that will allow cooperative two-player, drop-in and drop-out gameplay. The DS and Wii versions, on the other hand, will be focused on the platforms' unique control schemes. All versions will feature 36 Story Mode levels.

Lastly, Telltale mentioned that the Prequel Trilogy characters can now be mixed and matched with those from the Original Trilogy. That means we will finally be seeing the ultimate chick from the mother-daughter tandem of Princess Leia and Amidala, albeit in Lego form.

In league with Blast! Entertainment's Sean Brennan's views on steep development costs, even TellTale Games, makers of the hilarious Sam & Max episodes, agrees that game development just got too big for itself. Sean Brennan, CEO of Blast!, spoke at the Northern Exposure 07 conference and said the high costs were just due to "ego tripping and copycat mentality."

 

Kevin Bruner, executive of TellTale Games, also shares this view with Brennan. "We believe that games are too expensive right now. A lot of not only episodic games but games in general are not priced appropriately. We also think that games are too big," Bruner said.

In his speech entitled "Why Episodic Gaming is Good for Developers," Bruner explained at the Nordic Game Conference the advantages of diving into the episodic business model, much like what Valve Software adapted for the Half-Life franchise. For developing a single title each month, TellTale requires a smaller budget, short term goals, smaller overhead, and gains the ability to interact with customers regularly.

"I think the industry is creating one type of content, which is the thousand-page novel. If you went into a bookstore and every book was a thousand-page novel - not everybody wants that," he explained. He also added that if a game company takes two years to create a game and "screws up," there's no way to correct the mistakes - developers just move on.

To him, it is becoming apparent that the game industry is steering toward one type of game: "the 50-hour first person shooter type thing." Games have become too restrictive and too costly, giving a narrow selection of games for customers to choose.

Bruner believes the Nintendo Wii and casual gaming is cluing the game industry that gamers are looking for something different. TellTale Games focuses on telling stories than marketing action, and he thinks if customers were offered games of similar caliber, they would respond more favorably to such games.

Episodic PC game Sam & Max is being rumored to make an Xbox 360 appearance. It began when a listing for a 360 Systems Programmer appeared on Telltale Games' official site the other day.

A couple of the position's specific responsibilities include migrating core components of a PC game engine to the Xbox 360 as well as modifying and supporting existing art and production paths to accommodate Xbox 360 production. Telltale added that the applicant should also possess a love for adventure games.

Online site Gamespot tried contacting Telltale and was able to speak with one representative. No magic beans were spilled, but the employee admitted that they're continually evaluating new platforms:

We do not have any official Xbox project announcements to share right now. We're huge supporters of digitally distributing episodic content, and this has been working very well for our current Sam & Max series on the PC. For a potential Sam & Max Xbox project, we'd certainly look closely at a downloadable digital solution like the Live Arcade.

We just reported the other day that the fourth episode of the game was just released over at GameTap.