Bigpoint has announced plans to release a browser-based “tactical space combat and adventure” MMO based on Battlestar Galactica this autumn.

Battlestar Galactica Online will be playable on Syfy.com for a 30-day trial period, during which players will sign up as a human or Cylon, and is based on the Unity engine.

“For the first time ever, we’re relying completely on Unity in order to offer our users fantastic game graphics right in their browsers,” Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz said.

Read more…

Nintendo has announced that the Hanabi Festival returns to Virtual Console starting this week, and that Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is among the games due out during its latest run.

The Hanabi Festival is Nintendo’s way of flogging retro games previously only released in Japan through WiiWare, and is named after a Japanese fireworks festival.

The latest Hanabi kicks off on Friday 12th March, and will include Rondo of Blood (originally only released on the PC Engine in Japan), Milon’s Secret Castle (NES), Ironclad (NeoGeo) and Lode Runner (NES). Exact dates for those games are TBC.

Read more…

DICE may adapt Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to the Mac.

“We’re currently investigating the possibility of making BFBC2 available on Mac,” Tweeted Karl Magnus Troedsson, executive producer.

“Mighty hangover after a legendary release party for BFBC2 last night,” he later added.

Read more…

The MMO market is still very similar to the days before World of Warcraft according to Vigil Games creative director Joe Madureira.

“A lot of people have entered the fray and failed miserably, but I don’t think that core of the way MMOs play, or the business model in general – for the most successful ones – it really hasn’t changed that much. At least not in the US,” Madureira told our trade-only sister site GamesIndustry.biz.

Madureira’s Vigil Games is currently working on a Warhammer 40,000 MMO for publisher THQ.

Read more…

Electronic Arts has announced that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 will feature The Ryder Cup and will support Sony’s new motion controller.

The title’s set to come out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and iPhone, with Tiger Woods representing the US team and Rory McIlroy representing Europe.

read more

Hit Syfy show Battlestar Galactica is set to receive the MMO treatment by browser-based developer Bigpoint.

The series adaptation will be making its way to browsers “this fall” and has been built on Unity’s engine, which was also used to make Cartoon Network’s free MMO FusionFall.

read more

THQ digital distribution has stretched to Europe today with the launch of the E-Shop.

To drag you away from Steam, THQ will offer anyone pre-ordering promising shooter Metro 2033 a free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla. What’s more, the first 6000 people to pre-order Dawn of War II expansion Chaos Rising get the Librarian Wargear Pack for nothing. Nadda.

THQ’s E-Shop is available in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, according to the little flags at the bottom of the site.

Read more…

Blizzard has said World of Warcraft heading to consoles is “unlikely” – a line we’ve heard almost annually since WOW-time began.

Producer J. Allen Brack decapitated this year’s hope-head after wheeling out a familiar cart of reasons why not: console lifecycle, patch flexibility, keyboard design – pretty much the same reasons Paul Sams outlined to Eurogamer in 2006.

“It’s unlikely that WOW comes to the consoles,” Brack told G4TV.

Read more…

Valve has said that Left 4 Dead owners on Windows and Mac will be able to join forces or go head to head cross-platform in multiplayer.

It’s all thanks to the new Mac version of Steam, due out next month, which will be supported by the Mac-ification of the entire Valve catalogue, including both zombie shooters.

Thanks to Valve’s “Steam Play” feature, Windows players who also have Macs don’t have to worry about forking out for a separate version either. As the Left 4 Dead blog points out, “if you own Left 4 Dead 2 for Windows, then you already own it for the Mac.”

Read more…

Valve has confirmed its not entirely secret plans to bring Steam to the Mac, and revealed the extent to which the Apple platform now weighs on the studio’s thinking.

Steam will launch on Mac in April, and Valve’s games – including Counter-Strike, the Half-Life series, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 will be ready then too.

But Valve will also make its future games available simultaneously on Windows and Mac, starting with Portal 2 this Christmas.

Read more…