Zero Punctuation tries to be helpful this week by beating Turok with blunt vocabulary and attempting to help other first person shooter developers not make the same mistakes. The six minor points Yahtzee lays out ask shooters not to be cheap imitations of Halo, which itself is a cheap knock-off of ... oh, let's avoid finishing that sentence for the sake of being able to turn on the car tomorrow morning with reasonable knowledge it won't explode.

This week's NSFW review of that game with dinosaurs, Turok, is embedded all cozy-like after the break.

After vowing to triple spending on game development in 2007, Disney has announced Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals, a follow up to last year's Pokemon-inspired RPG that's expected to ship for the Nintendo DS this fall. In the same breath, Disney also confirmed that the original title has shipped more than a million units globally and was the best-selling third-party DS game in North America last year, no doubt making the return trip to the well a no-brainer for the animation powerhouse.

Like the original, Beyond the Portals is being handled by Japanese developer Jupiter, and will include a number of additions including a new "three-dimensional perspective" and an online battle system. As surprised as might be otherwise, some of the new game announcement's thunder was stolen by Disney CFO Tom Staggs, who last summer casually mentioned that Spectrobes "warrants a sequel in the games business." Still, be careful what you wish for, as Disney marketing guru Craig Relyea calls the game "part of our plan to expand the series in the coming years."

The transition between video game and film is typically no different than one of those trap-laden corridors Ubisoft's princely protagonist dashes through on a regular basis. Though we yearn to say otherwise, Disney's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time film hasn't shown to be particularly adept at running the gauntlet. Coupling mega producer Jerry Bruckheimer's involvement with director Mike Newell's promise (of having his assistant play through the game) leads us to believe that the crew has fallen into the very first pit and succumbed to one of those spinning blade thingies.

Still, we'd best give them a chance to finish shooting in Morocco this June, which Variety notes will have a positive effect on the North African film business. Scenes for the Jeffrey Nachmanoff- and Jordan Mechner-written project will also be filmed at the UK's Pinewood Shepperton studios. Cross your fingers and hope for something more than a literal explosion of bullet-time sword fights, churlish chariot chases and liberal lingering on Farah's faucets.

Sure, you love Rock Band, but shelling out the $170 for the requisite game and peripherals isn't even an option if you're a Wii or DS owner. Enter Disney Interactive, who think they can bring peripheral-free rhythm gaming to Nintendo systems with Ultimate Band.

No, the Fall Line Studios-developed game won't feature Mickey, Donald or other familiar characters (unlike some other Disney-fied rhythm games) but it will feature a "deep song list, dynamic venues, and customizable characters" according to the press release. The Wii version will let players use the Wii remote and Nunchuk to play drums, guitars and "front man" while the DS version will also let players "create their own original songs ... and apply creative mixing effects." The portable version will also include support for Disney's DGamer online social network. Look for both versions by the holidays.

Also see: THQ's Band Mashups for the Wii

We were planning on accompanying this post with a poll asking how many of our readers regularly watch Hannah Montana, but we're pretty sure we can guess the results of that questionnaire -- half of our readers would fess up to watching the pre-teen pop queen, and the other half would be bold-faced liars.

Fine, you don't have to admit it -- but if you have a friend (wink, wink) with an Xbox Live account, that friend (nudge, nudge) can now download episodes of Hannah Montana as well as a plethora of other Disney channel programming on Live Marketplace. It's just like having that dreamy Zac Efron live inside of your Xbox 360 hard drive, ready to serenade you at your behest, just one ashamed button press away from your Veteran career on Call of Duty 4.

[Via Gamerscore Blog]

Motorstorm, DiRT, that game with Ivan "Ironman" Stewart -- these are among the elite of off-road racing titles, having set the bar ridiculously high for other games to follow. Disney, however, has its dirt-encrusted sights set higher by announcing Pure, an upcoming off-road racer that it claims will "redefine the off-road racing genre."

In development for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, the game is currently being dragged through the mud at Disney's Brighton, England studio Black Rock, formerly known as Climax Racing, a studio known for such racing franchises as Moto GP and ATV Offroad Fury. Even with this experience, however, we're not exactly sure how Disney's plans reshape how we think about off-road racing, though it might have something to do with what it calls "breakneck racing" and "jaw-dropping aerial tricks," all of which are apparently being overseen by stunt guru and ATV filmmaker Wes Miller. Still, we've read these sorts of claims before, and while the initial bath of media looks interesting it's a good bet our jaws are in no danger of hitting the floor just yet.

Turn-based strategy and relentless disc flinging will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade this week, with Commanders: Attack of the Genos and Discs of Tron scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. Sierra Online's Commanders pits you (a commander, we suspect) against an invading army of genetically modified miscreants who, at the very least, are polite enough to wage war in turns. Fifteen missions, fifteen specialized units and a "retro-futuristic" setting can be had for 800 MS Points ($10).

As the title succinctly implies, Discs of Tron is primarily concerned with opponents hurling Tron discs at each other, very often while standing on discs within Tron. The disc-less download, which sports enhanced graphics and "CD-quality sound," will require you to discard 400 of your MS Points ($5).

Midway's Discs of Tron, the second Tron arcade game to hit Xbox Live (the first arrived a month ago) will debut next week, according to a press release from Tron license holder Disney. The game will feature upgraded visuals and audio, although a "classic" option is reportedly available.

Although concepts from the game are 25 years old, you will reportedly not be able to digitize yourself into the virtual environment -- you'll just have to make do with the Xbox 360 controller. So sad. You can take on Sark yourself on February 13.

As anyone who's been to Walt Disney World can tell you, it's a dangerous place. Around every corner there are hot dogs that not only cost $9 but would likely lead to an early grave and one wrong turn can lead you to fake Mexico where a charming local will try to trick you into smuggling "Disney Magic" into fake Germany. It's rough. Luckily, Disney is rolling out the Disney Magic Connection, a new portable tour guide that runs on Nintendo's DS to help keep newbies out of such tight spots.

The system is GPS equipped so you can use it to see where you are in the park and the best way to get to some of the most important attractions (the restrooms). Sadly, you can't use your own system (magic doesn't come standard on the DS), but you probably wouldn't want to take it into the wilds of the park anyway.

[Via Engadget]

Loyal readers who peruse our humble site on daily basis, please take a moment before this post starts to imagine the confluence of events that would need to occur for you to ever hire a former high-level Atari executive to your video game company? Now, explain this: Disney Interactive Studios has hired former Atari executive Jean-Marcel Nicolai as the senior vice president of global production; in his position he'll head Disney's external and internal projects. For those just tuning in on the drama: Atari's got problems.

In case you're thinking Nicolai was just a random executive at Atari, he was actually responsible for external product development, production support, technology development and managing five internal studios as VP of product development and chief technology officer. So, Disney hired the guy responsible for a lot of Atari games over the last few years. In trying to place this on the Disney Interactive "wall of weird," we don't know if this goes before the company telling us Turok will feature dinosaurs and its E3 press conference, or after.

With THQ still riding the wave of financial fortitude created by its adaptations of Disney Pixar's Cars and Ratatouille animated features, the company has unsurprisingly confirmed plans to give the film studio's next feature, WALL•E, similar treatment. Versions of the movie-made-game, which centers on a story of a robot named WALL•E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) and his journey of self discovery, should begin to populate store shelves for every platform under the sun in time for the film's summer release.

This game is the second title, following last year's Ratatouille, to stem from a new four game deal between THQ and Pixar, meaning that we expect these two will remain in bed together over the next couple of years at the very least. THQ hasn't shed many details on how the WALL•E games will play out, though given previous releases, we expect a handful of levels lifted from the film, partnered with mind numbing icon collecting and actors delivering lines with all of the enthusiasm of a cheese sandwich. Excited yet?

He's got at least three more games under his belt, and yet Warren Spector is already planning his exit strategy, according to a recent interview with Eurogamer. The 52-year-old game designer believes that he will work on a maximum of five more games during his career, "more likely probably three given how long they take."

In the interview, Spector also discusses Deux Ex 3, which will be the first of the series which Spector will have no input on. Although he has not been in direct contact with developer Eidos Montreal, Spector expresses concern over the Deus Ex franchise, claiming it to be "delicate" and hoping that the third title might in some way correct some of the mistakes made in Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Though no details are given about Spector's newest project -- which is being developed for Junction Studios owner Disney -- Spector does state that the hardcore gaming community will undoubtedly lash out in response to the eventual announcement, and he anticipates claims that he has sold out. According to Spector, it will be "glorious. Just glorious."

After reviewing concerns about its Xbox achievement choices, Propaganda games says it'll consider removing the "team kill" award after the Turok launch early next year. Although CVG reports in its headline "Turok dev to scrap team kill achievement," the quote from Propaganda VP Josh Holmes is actually, "We are currently looking at readying a patch or solution for it if it does become an issue when the game releases" (um, looks like somebody forgot to read the story before writing the headline). That's not a definitive statement that Propaganda will nix the controversial achievement, but merely acknowledgment that the developer will consider doing so after the game releases.

Actually, a few statements made by Holmes in the interview are a little frightening. For example, he says that the team kill achievement -- which gives ten points for killing one creature, enemy, teammate and yourself in a single round -- was originally created as a joke because they found that players in their first Turok match met all the criteria. That's not exactly a confidence builder.

In a show of confidence, Touchstone (read: Disney) and Propaganda games are making a pre-order demo available now for Turok -- a full two months before the full game's Feb. 5, 2008 release. The disc has "approximately 30 minutes of gameplay from Turok" and is available at Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart.com and Game Crazy. Although there doesn't appear to a release date change for the PS3 version, the pre-order demo is currently only available on Xbox 360. The PC version of Turok will begin stalking reptiles sometime in Spring 2008.

The demo disc also includes a "premium item" and at this point.... we have no idea what that means. Our short time with Turok at E3 did impress us, so we're looking forward to getting another chance to experience the hunt two months before launch. No word if a PS3 demo will be distributed some other way, but we're just happy that Propaganda and Disney had some sense to release next year instead of dropping Turok like a cow into the raptor pit of this holiday season.

[Via Press Release]

[Update: Avast ye readers! We've picked our winner at random, one Mr. Victor Franco, for the second half of his comment in which he rightly pointed out "tis a good prize." Arrrrrr, that she is.]

Full disclosure: We've had this sword holed up in our secret underground lair since last February, when we got a look at Disney's mainstream-oriented Pirates of the Caribbean Online (at a swordfighting event). We don't know about your underground lairs, but ours is short on storage space so it was with a heavy sigh that we met the news that Pirates Online would not see a Spring 2007 release (we gotta get rid of this thing!).

Well, we waited it out, and Disney sprung the release date of Pirates Online on us this morning (surprise ... it's today) so we went digging through our lair and – voila! – found the sword. It's a replica of Captain Jack Sparrow's cutlass, made from stainless steel, complete with a wall mounted frame and numbered limited edition plaque (#65 out of 3000 if you must know), with an estimated value of $240 or so.

If you want this collectible cutlass, all you've got to do is leave a comment on this here blog post in your best pirate speak. You can leave as many comments as you like between now and tomorrow afternoon at 7pm ET, at which point we'll select one winner at random (no automated systems or we'll know; you gotta use your fingers). Last point, those fingers need to be 18 or older and live in the good old US of A if they be wantin' to handle this here cutlass.

Click here for the official rules, if you're into that sorta thing.