Hitman posts (Subscribe to this feed)
IESB: Writer hired on for sequel to Hitman movie
Ward is no stranger to adapting games for film, as he recently penned Kane & Lynch, set to star Bruce Willis and begin filming later this year. Hey. Ward, do us a favor? Before you get to work, make sure you watch a decent film about a hitman first, 'kay?
Livingstone: Kane & Lynch 2 aimed for Sept., more Hitman, Tomb Raider en route
And also, apparently, great for sequels, as Livingstone confirms work on the next Hitman game, a sequel to Kane & Lynch currently targeted for a September release date and -- big shock! -- a re-imagining of Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider series. "The next Tomb Raider, I think, will surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise," Livingstone notes, stressing the relevance of game characters in mainstream media these days. Incidentally, he more than intimates that Eidos Montreal is working on Thief 4, though now we know that to be a fact -- the "worst kept secret in the industry," in fact.
Square Enix buyout of Eidos approved
We imagine Square Enix's first order of business will be to start work on Final Fantasy X3: Lara's Shadow, in which Yuna, Rikku, and Lara work together to solve a mystery surrounding a sunken ship. Also, they try to find Tidus again.
Square Enix explains why it wants Eidos

Meanwhile, and surprising no one, 20-percent Eidos shareholder Warner Bros.* says it's putting its support behind the deal and honestly, it's kind of hard to blame it.
*Did you know Time Warner is our parent company? Well, now you do.
Source -- Warner backs Square Enix's bid for Eidos
Source -- Square Enix Cites "Major" Eidos Franchises
Hitman Reborn! downloadable demo

1. Download the demo zip file.
2. Extract the contents of the zip file.
3. Connect your PSP to your computer using a USB cable.
4. Go to the PSP/GAME folder.
5. Copy NPJH90007 folder into the GAME directory. Make sure there are no sub-directories in this folder.
Check out our demos site:
demos.pspfanboy.com
[Image Source]
Video comparison shows Dead Rising taken down by Hitman
So yeah, we're not even touching this. Not with a twenty-foot damn pole. Some user at GameTrailers compiled this video, featuring a comparison between Dead Rising: Chop 'Til You Drop and the PlayStation 2's Hitman: Blood Money. The point? To show up the supposed lack of NPC zombies in the former, by comparing it to the achievements of a two-year-old game on a technologically inferior system.
The Dead Rising footage used is a touch selective (we've seen screens with a far greater number of zombies), but like we say: we're staying out of this. It isn't going to end well.
Gallery: Dead Rising: Chop 'Til You Drop
[Via Go Nintendo]
Former Hitman, Kane and Lynch creators launch Reto-Moto
In a rather incestuous twist, it turns out that Reto-Moto was actually established in 1997, and was the former parent of IO Interactive before it was handed off to Eidos in 2004 as part of a £20 million acquisition. It looks like Thomas Wolfe was wrong; you can go home again.
Tomb Raider comes to online video slot machines. Finally!
The machine isn't based directly on the games, unfortunately. Instead, it promises to "faithfully capture the gripping excitement and suspense of the original movie" with "a glossy 5 reel 30 pay-line multi-faceted package." Fans of the movie will be happy to know that the "randomly triggered Super Mode" and "Global Adventure Bonus" have been faithfully captured here. The Secret of the Sword joins a similar Hitman slot machine in the annals of
Download free Drillbit Taylor and Hitman goodies

Right now on the XBLM, you can grab a free Hitman the movie gamer picture pack and theme as well as a free gamer picture and theme from Owen Wilson's comedy Drillbit Taylor. Like we said, all four sets of downloadable goodness are free and are (surprisingly) quite well done. Especially the Drillbit Taylor pack. You'll have to download to see, but for some reason those gamer pictures make us crack up.
Former Hitman devs creating 'high end' casual games
Casual games are not everyone's cup of tea, as evidenced by our controversial inclusion of PopCap puzzler Peggle among Joystiq's top ten titles of 2007. There's no denying, however, that these often bite-sized diversions are as popular as they are addictive, reason enough why many startup studios -- such as newly formed The Game Equation -- swing that way. The Denmark-based studio, established by a pair of programmers who worked on the Hitman franchise in a previous life, aims to develop for the "high end of the casual games industry" with titles that remind them of what it was like playing games when they were youngsters. That's sweet, but what exactly does that mean?
The company has pair of puzzle games available already named Deep Blue Sea and Constellations, though at first glance there certainly doesn't appear to be anything particularly evolved about either of these efforts, entertaining as they may be. What is interesting is that in creating the match-3 puzzler Deep Blue Sea, the studio brought on an honest to goodness film and theatre composer, Rasmus Hartvig, to create the game's music, though given the dev's experience with Hitman, a series known for its dramatic scores, The Game Equation's aural emphasis is not wholly unexpected. That's all well and good, and we like good music as much as anyone, but the studio will need to pull out some considerably bigger tricks before we buy into its incongruous idea of high end casual games.
Ebert actually kind of likes Hitman (the movie)
Ebert even goes so far as to give the movie, which earned $21 million in its first five days, 3 out of 4 stars, which is, admittedly, the same score he gave to Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. (In other news: Why do we still pay attention to a man who gave three stars to Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties?)
Critics: Hitman film more like Hit-meh
One of the few decent reviews comes from Daniel M. Kimmel, who says "There's enough intelligence behind it that you don't feel you're just waiting to hit the reset button," which is a video game metaphor so belabored we feel compelled to dismiss his opinion out of hand. Of the negative reviews, our favorite comes from Dustin Putnam who says "Abysmal in the extreme, Hitman is 100 minutes of soul-crushing nothingness." Wow, is it too late to pre-order tickets?
GameTap offering free Hitman games and retrospective in November
- Now - Hitman: Codename 47 is available for free play.
- Nov. 8 - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin available for free. GameTap begins Hitman Retrospective on their Watch channel.
- Nov. 15 - Hitman: Contracts available for free.
- Nov. 21: Hitman movie starring Timothy Olyphant premieres in theaters.
Variety confirms Hitman getting 'hard R' rating
Variety says both a source close to the project -- they wouldn't be Variety if they didn't have one of those -- and a Fox representative both confirmed that "director Xavier gens is still on board, and the movie will absolutely come out with an R rating." Now we wait and see if the violence is reasonable in keeping with the Hitman games (which the scenes shown in the trailer make us doubt) or if it'll all be over-the-top action insanity making us question what Hollywood has done to the "silent assassin."
Rumor: Hitman movie watered down for PG-13

Our friends over at Cinematical put it this way: "See, here's how I know Hollywood is a lunatic bin: Whomever hired Mr. Gens for this job had to know two things: 1) The director's first film -- Frontiere(s) -- is so amazingly and powerfully violent that it
[Via Cinematical]

















