Late Night Consoling

Confirming longstanding rumors, the latest edition of the IGN Weekly video show has word from Incognito Entertainment that its upcoming PlayStation 3 flight combat game Warhawk will be a download-only title available through the PlayStation Store. The show features interview segments with various members of the Warhawk team.

Notably, it was also confirmed that the game has also lost its single-player component, which was apparently not up to the same level of quality as its multiplayer. At a certain point in the development cycle, the team chose to dedicate all its efforts to crafting a strong online experience, which will include numerous gametypes including standbys such as deathmatch and capture the flag, and a new territory-based gametype. "Single-player just really wasn't up to par," said Warhawk director Dylan Jobe.

Warhawk will support 32 players online and will include a dedicated server option for those who wish to run their own Warhawk servers. The game's Sixaxis motion-based controls, first showcased during last year's pre-E3 Sony press conference, will be an option for players rather than a requirement.

Incognito developers pointed out that the cancellation of Warhawk's single-player campaign leaves the studio with a large amount of unused content, hinting that expedited additional downloadable content is likely to be in the works. "One interesting and good side effect of making the decision to go multiplayer," said technical art director David Wright, "is we have a pool of assets of other vehicles, of other towns, of other things that we can pull from and actually use to offer--if Sony wants it, if it's successful--expansion packs."

New screenshots are expected to be released next week; prior shots are available here. Warhawk is slated to be released for PlayStation 3 later this year.

Team17 has long been known to be creating a version of its popular and longrunning Worms franchise of turn-based strategy shooters to Xbox Live Arcade, and today Microsoft revealed the the game finally has a solid date. Known simply as Worms, it will be next week's Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday's release, available on March 7 at 1:00am Pacific time.

Worms features twenty single-player scenarios and multiplayer, both online and same-screen, across three environment types. As in past games in the franchise, Worms features a random terrain generator. Standard Xbox 360 features such as leaderboards, high definition graphics, and Achievements are also present. Screenshots are available here.

Worms will be available for 800 Microsoft Points ($10).

Bizarre Creations' obviously-in-development Project Gotham Racing 4 (X360) was inadvertently announced last year when automobile manufacturer Peugeot disclosed that the winner of its Peugeot Design Contest 2007 would have his or her design produced as a concept car and featured as a vehicle in PGR4, slated to release in late 2007 or early 2008.

Peugeot has now announced the results of that contest, which saw 4,029 entries from 113 countries. The winning car, Mihai Panaitescu's Flux, is currently being integrated into the upcoming Xbox 360 game by Bizarre. Renders of the Flux are available here. This month a full scale concept version of the car will go into production for the Frankfurt Auto Show in September.

"We are excited to work with Peugeot in helping to visualize the future of Peugeot vehicle design. The Flux is a perfect fit for PGR4," said Bizarre managing director Martyn Chudley. "We were impressed with the innovative and the extreme car designs submitted. We hope that Mihai Panaitescu will be excited when he sees The Flux faithfully created on the Xbox 360. We look forward to adding a lot of 'Gotham' to its chassis!"

Capcom sent word that the update and patch for Lost Planet (X360), originally announced as being available by March 9, has gone live a week ahead of schedule. All of the updates promised last month are included, with various bug fixes and usability improvements implemented. For the full list of changes, check out Capcom's update notes.