Late Night Consoling

Bungie revealed the dates that it will release the new Halo 2 maps to be included in the Multiplayer Map Pack. Four of 'em will be released a week from today on the 25th. They'll include the two free maps and two others that can be bought for $5.99. However, those two maps will be made available for free on June 28. Also on that date, five other maps will be available for download at $11.99 and the physical disc, which includes all maps, will be in stores at $19.99. At some point after that, presumably at the end of summer, all maps will be downloadable for free.

Remember how on Friday I said it was kinda funny how Nintendo has been so quiet about its next-gen plans? Well, reports from around the web suggest that Nintendo will not talk much about Revolution after all. I'm sure we'll get a few things, but Nintendo is always paranoid about their ideas being stolen and this seems to be the case yet again. Instead, a focus will be placed on Nintendo Online, their new online game service, and of course, the new Legend of Zelda, which will be in playable form.

There's no denying the phenomenal success of The Sims series and why it'd be a wise choice for EA to milk it for all its worth. That's what they're doing by taking the PC sequel and porting it to all platforms: all consoles, all handhelds (sans N-Gage), and to your cell phone. A new feature will be the ability to go into a third person mode and manually control your sim. Other improvements are "a new food creation system, tons of customization, split-screen two-player action, new characters, extended storylines, and a new social system where players won't just go through the motions to get relationship points." IGN has a huge conversation with the producer, Scot Amos.

Electronic Arts announced that it will officially unveil the next-gen version of Madden NFL 2006 during the NFL Draft taking placing this Saturday. During the first hour, a 60-second trailer will be played and it won't be repeated. In other Madden news, Donovan McNabb, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, will grace the cover for the 2006 edition.

It appears the next title in the Secret of Mana series will be called World of Mana, as evidenced by a new trademark by Square Enix. Nothing else is known about the title aside from the logo. This could be the name of the Nintendo DS title in development, although there's no way to know for sure at this point.

With VIS Entertainment going through some difficulties, officials for the recovery firm handling the company revealed that it has been receiving bids for State of Emergency 2. The company is currently negotiating with their preferred bidder and hope to have a deal done next week. No names have been revealed, but Bethesda is rumored to be in the hunt.

GameSpot chats with Brian Jarrard of Bungie about the new Halo 2 maps. IGN talks with the composer of Jade Empire, Jack Wall.