You know the Flash game The Fancy Pants Adventures, right? Well EA 2D has shaken hands with Borne Games in order to bring a super-sized version of the classic game to the downloadable marketplace in 2011. If you’ve never played it, here’s a direct link.

Next up EA Partners has joined with Vanguard Games in order to develop and release Gatling Gears, a new twin-stick shooter. It’s from the same group of people that created Greed Corp.

And lastly there is the partnership with Trapdoor to bring the sci-fi stealth title Warp to consoles next summer.

While people are still wary of signing deals with big companies like this, the exposure is going to be huge for these games. We’ll keep an eye on their development going forward.

When EA and Hothead Games announced that their successful action-RPG DeathSpank would be receiving a sequel episode in DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, we wondered how the game would actually play as it was so soon after the release of the original. But the developer and publisher are promising the same great gameplay, enhanced by new additions and environments. DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue is now officially available on the Xbox Live Arcade at 1200 Microsoft Points and on the PlayStation Network for $14.99.

As DeathSpank, players will take on the quest of finding six mystical thongs that are “corrupting the universe.” The absurdity continues yet again as gamers embark to new destinations, including outer space and even the North Pole where they’ll battle an Evil Santa. If you manage to purchase DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue this week, then you’ll also obtain two pieces of downloadable content for free: the Snowy Mountain Dungeon and a new sidekick named Tankko (who is apparently half-man, half-spider). After the initial week of release, players will be able to download the dungeon DLC at 240 MSP on XBLA, 2.99 on PSN, and the Tankko character at 80 MSP on XBLA, $0.99 on PSN.

“We took all of the things that people loved about DeathSpank and cranked it to 11. DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue is a great new experience. We’ve added more crazy weapons, areas and enemies of course and more thongs!”

- Vlad Ceraldi, Director of Game Development at Hothead Games

Check out the DeathSpank website for more details.

[Hothead Games.]

Trailer:

[Source: GamesPress]

Taking on the role of DeathSpank — the “Dispenser of Justice”, “Vanquisher of Evil” and “Hero to the Downtrodden” — players will join in on the life-long journey to discover “The Artifact.” Best of all, local co-op introduces the help of Sparkles the Wizard — who has a separate skill-set from DeathSpank’s weapon-based attacks. Experience hours of loot-infested action injected with witty dialogue and worthy puzzles.

For more on the EA-published action-RPG, check out the trailer and press release below.

[Check out the official DeathSpank website.]

Press Release:

Guildford, UK. – June 22, 2010 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and leading independent developer Hothead Games^TM announced today that the upcoming downloadable action-RPG, DeathSpank^TM, will be released on July 13th for PlayStation^®Network and July 14th for Xbox LIVE^® Arcade. Gain quests from a colorful cast of characters, and vanquish evil with fast and furious action as DeathSpank scours the world for a mystical artifact. DeathSpank will feature local co-op gameplay, allowing friends to team up on the same console as both DeathSpank and his trusty, magical sidekick, Sparkles the Wizard. Developed under the direction of The Secret of Monkey Island creator and industry icon Ron Gilbert, DeathSpank combines Gilbert’s unique humor and wit with fast, addictive action-RPG gameplay, making for a hilarious and massive epic quest for justice.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA Mobile and POGO are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. Xbox and Xbox Live are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.“PlayStation” is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

[Source: GamesPress]

But Shank made it into the IGF Showcase on its own bloody merits and I got some time to play through the demo, aided by Jeffrey Alaga who suggested various ways I should bludgeon my foes.

Jeff was the main artist on the project, and his lengthy background in animation, comics and television directing truly shine in the game. The setting is stylized and waiting to get coated in blood.

The gameplay includes three main forms of blood-letting: your shank, your guns and your chainsaw. Used in various combinations, you unleash messy combos that aren’t for the squeamish.

In addition to your main attacks, you can also use a ground and air grapple, which are ways to tackle your opponents while jabbing your shanks into their chest. Did I mention it’s not for the squeamish? Climbing and running along walls execute automatically, making movement a simple act. The level ended with a giant behemoth of a boss, who’d smack you down from trying to grapple him and you were forced to pound him with grenades, and leap onto his back while he was weakened. It’s a brutal fight that wasn’t necessarily easy, but ended with a satisfying cut scene that showed our hero jamming a grenade in the man’s mouth and shooting it from afar. The demo did its job in leaving me wanting more, I’m curious to see what’s next.

The demo level was the same one revealed in the PAX demo, so there wasn’t anything new to see. I discovered they had plenty they weren’t talking about, though. This included the story (“It’s a classic revenge tale”), the length (it will be a “full experience”), and what the other levels outside of the dusty town and the meat plant were. This leaves plenty of surprises for them to reveal in the future.

There’s something to be said for the level of action in the game. I had popped my voice recorder on the counter as I played so that I could capture and remember what Jeffrey had to say, but the entire recording was a mashup of violent stabbing sounds and bloody screams. But that’s the main thing to take away from the experience anyway: there will be blood.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to embed the video but the gameplay trailer is truly something to behold. Therefore, I encourage anybody over 17 and even remotely interested in the title to check out the new gameplay trailer here.

What: Coming out of last week’s exciting announcement of a publishing deal with EA Partners to bring Shank to XBLA, PSN and PC this summer, Klei Entertainment released a video of its upcoming 2D cinematic brawler today, showcasing new levels, new moves and new bosses coming to the game.

This video supports its showing at this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, Calif. March 11-13, 2010. As one of the 2010 Independent Game Festival (IGF) finalists (and recognized for its excellence in “Visual Art”), Shank will be on display at the IGF Pavilion during regular Expo Hall hours.

When: New video available Monday, March 8, 2010
GDC demonstrations running Thursday, March 11 through Saturday, March 13, 2010

Where: Shank game kiosk in the IGF Pavilion, GDC Expo Hall (South Hall), Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif. during the following hours:

Thursday, March 11 10am-6pm
Friday, March 12 10am-6pm
Saturday, March 13 10am-3pm

Sony wouldn’t talk to you. Nintendo wouldn’t talk to you. Microsoft wouldn’t talk to you. It was a major league game and the only place you were allowed to play was in your own backyard.

Of course, that’s all changed in today’s day and age. Indie games are rising higher than ever before and with it has come exclusive distribution channels, a wide variety of media outlets who are excited to play the latest indie game, and even a dedicated channel on the second most popular home console in the world, the Xbox 360.

Yep, today is a great day to make an indie game, but tomorrow will be even better.

With the skyrocketing costs of making games these days it’s no wonder that the big publishers (EA, Activision Blizzard, THQ, etc.) are focusing much of their development into either sequels of successful games (Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Madden) or on tried and true formulas for a great game (Mirror’s Edge, UFC, Dead Space). There’s actually very little innovating amongst the mainstream industry. I’d be willing to wager that most truly innovative titles get axed long before they are ever even considered to be financially viable at most large publishers. It’s just the way of the industry nowadays. Shareholders demand profits, and publishers know what makes money.

While this may seem like the worst possible scenario for gamers who love non-conformist titles and interesting plot lines outside of the good guy, bad guy/anti-hero scheme that’s ever so popular these days, this is actually leading up to one of the biggest revolutions in the history of this still very young industry.

Before I go any further with this I’d like to point out a few games that, within the last couple years, have already made a huge impact on the industry and millions of gamers:

Narbacular Drop: I’d be willing to guess that you’ve probably never heard of this game, or maybe you have… Whichever it may be you have certainly heard of, and most likely played, the spiritual successor to Narbacular Drop; Portal. That’s right, the Valve developed portal-based physics puzzle game which took the world by storm in late 2007 was very closely related to the indie game that most people never even heard of. In fact, Valve actually brought in the DigiPen team (the developers of Narbacular Drop) to develop Portal. This was a game that revolutionized the way we see FPS games as not always having to be about bald space marines and World War II privates.

Braid: The 2D platformer is a dying genre amongst the industry. It’s unfortunate too because there is a certain elegance built into the perspective that comes with it. There is no better illustration of this than Braid. Braid was released in mid-2008 with most people muttering a mere “huh?” at it’s existence. It’s true, the game didn’t sell overly well, but it’s style, message, and outstanding puzzles have lasted the tests of time. Braid was a fantastic indie game that had one of the most intriguing gameplay elements brought together with the best damn art style I’ve personally seen in a long, long time.

Audiosurf: People like music games. After three Rock Bands, and a gajillion Guitar Heroes it’s apparent that people like to interact with music in more ways than just listening. But Audiosurf did something different than both Rock Band and Guitar Hero and no, I’m not talking about adding a new instrument. Audiosurf takes the basic principle that everybody loves their own music collection and made that it’s main priority. With it you aren’t tied to some set list of songs that, more often than not, are crap (for me anyways). The trade off being that you aren’t actually playing the music through a faux guitar but watching the rhythmic beats through a track. It’s an absolute delight to play and, combined with the leaderboards for each individual song, adds a whole new dynamic to what already amounted to a fun, new, and interesting way to experience your old music collection.

Each of these games contributed to the industry in ways nobody could have imagined. They inspired and drove thousands of more indie developers to create their own experimental game. Likewise, they got the industry to sit up and take note of what the indies were actually doing. All of a sudden, the mainline publishers was no longer the innovators, they were the repeaters.

And so it shall remain as long as the big time publishers continue to take shareholder money, which they will. This inevitably will lead to a golden age of indie developers making games that can have both mass appeal and low costs. A neo-renaissance, as it were.

We are on the verge of a tipping point where indie games are not only contributing to the industry as a whole, but also driving it. They will be the ones who are proving what games and sub-genres are fun and can be profitable not the big-time publishers. They, ultimately, will be deciding what games you play in the future as the big publishers quickly attempt to just buy out or copy any successful indie platform and make it into a mega-blockbuster that will be the next Halo, or Mario Bros.

Of course, will the big time publishers ever stop innovating entirely? Absolutely not and I’m certainly not saying that. If anything, the big publishers will simply buy up tiny indie developers and fund them as indie studios, much in the same way Hollywood does so with their “indie studios.” These publisher-owned indie studios will be created for the sole purpose of figuring out what new gaming phenomenon will take the public by storm and more than a few times will they absolutely nail it. But, by and large, it will be the small time, true indie developer that will stumble upon something great.

After all, when you have a developmental force in the thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, each with their own ideas and experiments… well… there’s just no way to compete with that amount of creative force.

Goodbye dark ages of gaming! Hello renaissance.