Frédérick Raynal is making a new game!

"Who?", you ask. Well Frédérick Raynal (pictured here with his medal for the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) is as close as I have to a gaming hero. Little Big Adventure 1 and 2 (no relation to Little Big Planet) and the Dreamcast game Toy Commander are among my very favourite games of all time. He also created the original Alone in the Dark (though he isn't to blame for anything that has happened with that since). His Adeline Studios were bought by SEGA and became No Cliché in 1997 and after the amazing Toy Commander, and a budget spin-off called Toy Racer (which retailed for about £5), a new survival horror game called Agartha was sadly cancelled and No Cliché were no more. For whatever reason, he hasn't been able to make a game since then. Raynal worked as a consultant at Ubi Soft and helped with the design of the charming DS game Soul Bubbles, but that was all he did for video games in the best part of the last ten years. Until now!

This morning I read a news story on Eurogamer which reveals that there is a new game (format and genre yet unknown, but it isn't LBA 3) coming out this year. I suspect it will be a low-budget DS game or a download title, but if someone has given Raynal the money to make a big new game, then his track record suggests it will be awesome. Does anyone else remember when all the best games were French (Michel Ancel's Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, for example)? What happened Ubi Soft? Hopefully this new Raynal game will make up for all the Imagine Tom Clancy rubbish.I am going to be following this one with interest.

Check out Raynal's personal website for a full gameography here. Also, come back in the week for my report on Rock Band night!

Because it's Rock Band night (oh what a night)

The excitement is almost too much for me on the morning of my first "Rock Band Night". For weeks now, I have been stockpiling tracks (many by bands I don’t even like) in order that people might come into my house and make fools of themselves. The big night is now upon me and around fifteen people will be crammed into my living room around a set of tiny plastic instruments to sing the hits of Lady Gaga (thanks to a recent track pack) as well as all the Weezer and Tom Petty Microsoft Points can buy.

I am really interested in how tonight will go. Will we all stop playing the game and just sit around drinking? Will it get competitive? Will anyone get angry and smash a plastic guitar? Will anyone be moved to tears at the sound of a beautiful rendition of Blink 182's I Miss You? The answers to all those questions (and many, many more) will be provided in due course. I will write a full, sleazy expose on the night’s events for this blog... hopefully with photos. I am personally looking forward to the singing (both giving and receiving, as it were) as it has the biggest potential for foolishness by far. To the probable annoyance of my neighbours I’ve been practising 5-Star, expert grade Michael Stipe impressions on REM’s Losing My Religion and I can’t wait to unleash that bad boy to a (hopefully) appreciative audience. What I don’t want is a person to leave during it, or for a neighbour to ask "is everyone OK?" upon hearing my whining through the floor.

So what will we be playing? Well I can answer that. I own Rock Band on the 360 along with the Beatles (pictured above) and LEGO variants, so there is a lot to play with. Maybe three people will want to play through the whole of Rubber Soul with me. Probably not. Anyway, watch this space if you want to read about some anarchic, fake music craziness.

Namco show off new four player Pac Man!

I love Pac Man: Championship Edition, the downloadable Pac Man variant released in2007 on XBLA. It’s one of my very favourite download titles in fact. So, when I saw this new four player arcade version earlier today, I got excited. I don’t know when or where this game will be in the UK (if it even makes it over here), but it could possibly be released on XBLA at some point in the future... I hope.

If you don’t understand why I am excited, do yourself a favour and download the demo version of Pac Man C.E on XBLA now! Or, if you prefer solid media, treat yourself to the excellent Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, also on 360, which is available at retail.