After blasting wave after wave of 8-bit space aliens on your screen, it's time to take a look at what's it like on the other side. Taito has recently unveiled several screenshots of its upcoming Wii title which resurfaces the 30 year old Space Invaders franchise with Space Invaders Get Even. Take a look at the screenshots, as well as some of the details of the game in the full article.

In able to successfully render the realm of Lucas Arts' upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game, three different physics engines were used. In a video we have for you, the developers talk about how Havok, Euphoria, and DMM take part in making the world of the Star Wars unlike any other game under the franchise.

It's another day and that simply means another update for video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl courtesy of the good guys over at Smash Bros. DOJO.

After talking about piranha boss fights and Havok Physics engine utilization, let us focus for now on one of the many items available for players: Superspicy Curry. Like its name suggests, this particular dish is super hot and should not be eaten under normal circumstances.

But of course, you can use it to your advantage when your in-game character is up against Sonic, Diddy Kong, Yoshi, and others. Here's how the dish can help you during battles:

It's so spicy, flames shoot out of your mouth! Is this funny? Is it a joke? You just keep spitting out flames. This is different from the flames of a Fire Flower, because you continue spewing these flames as you perform attacks. You can do combos one would normally never think of. I’m not sure if it's painful or fun.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is expected to arrive in North American shores on December 3.

   

 

Here's a bit of a surprising news update regarding the highly-anticipated beat-em-up from Nintendo that features characters from various franchises, Super Smash Bros. Brawl - and it's about the game allegedly using Havok for a physics engine. This news comes from the title being sighted in the Havok company website's list of games utilizing its products.

So what does this have to do with the game itself, you ask? Well, for one, Super Smash Bros. Brawl using Havok as a physics engine means that we're pretty much going to see some intense interaction with not only inanimate objects in the game, but also characters. Examples of this happening are ragdoll effects, or the ability to play around with 3D rendered bodies and see them fall and drop in unscripted, random poses.

While this could also be construed as a visual bonus, it could also mean that the game's mechanics (projectile trajectories, jumping or falling) could be drastically different from what we've been used to in the previous iterations of Super Smash Bros., as it deals with things bouncing and falling around realistically.

But before we jump to any conclusions, it's worth noting that the list doesn't immediately specify which Havok product is being used in which title - and the company itself has other products other than its Physics engine. Another thing that should keep us from worrying is that the other games listed along with Super Smash Bros. Brawl are very high-quality ones, so we know it's in good hands. So let's not fret, and place our hopes on Nintendo making it as good a game as it can be.

Develop Magazine's Industry Excellence Awards broke records after gathering 500 games industry executives last night. Among them, 17 different companies and individuals claimed the 18 awards over 15 categories.

A panel of industry experts voted for the best in different categories to reward various creative achievements in game development - from visual arts to innovation. The diversity of the list gives us nothing but a positive outlook, and assurance that the market won't run out of good games if these guys are around.

Here's the list of winners that deserve our cheers:

• New Console IP - MotorStorm (Evolution/SCEE External Development)
• New Handheld IP - Crush (Zoe Mode)
• Best Use of a License - Lego Star Wars II (Traveller's Tales)
• Visual Arts - Rare (for Viva Piñata)
• Audio Accomplishment - FreeStyle (for B-Boy)
• Publishing Hero - Sega
• Innovation - Real Time Worlds (for Crackdown)
• Tools Provider - Havok
• Best Use of Online - Eden Studios (for Test Drive Unlimited)
• Services & Outsourcing - Babel Media
• Recruitment Company - Datascope
• New UK Studio - Realtime Worlds
• Handheld Studio - Rockstar Leeds
• Business Development - Blitz
• Independent Developer - Traveller's Tales
• In-house Developer - Ubisoft France
• Development Legend - Ian Hetherington
• Grand Prix - Sony

We're not sure about the exact criteria, but a good guess would say Sega earned the "Publishing Hero" award for having plenty of titles in all flavors under its belt. With Rockstar Leeds' big games in its arsenal (GTA: Liberty City/Vice City Stories), it's no surprise why the company is branded the best "Handheld Studio."

Sony's Grand Prix Award is due to 12 months of extensive support for internal and external developers to create cutting edge next-gen games.

Just wondering: any of our readers actually old enough to remember this early-to-mid-'90's cartoon? (Or, anyone been watching Boomerang recently?)

For those too young to be sentient back in the rolling '90s, the premise of the Hanna Barbera "SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron" has a couple of hotshot pilots turned vigilantes take down the unfriendly skies in an advanced aircraft which looks similar to an F-14 (duh, TomCAT). Taking Top Gun and the A-Team under its wing - or claws, the edgy, flashy cartoon scored surprisingly high in the ratings, although it sadly only lasted a couple of seasons.

Sigh. Those were the days. Still, the show, for all its unbelievable premise and camp (hard-edged casualty-filled camp, but camp nonetheless), resonates with its fans, though - you should see the IMDB forums. Or me. Where do you think I got my love for Ace Combat and Warhawk (besides Top Gun)?

It's got a megacity full of vicious criminals and their lemmings, it's got high-tech gadgets, sky-high dogfights, and street-dirty brawls - oh, for heaven's sake, this cartoon ought to be a game! Wait - it is! It was an SNES game! And, given that there were games like the flight shooter Turn 'n' Burn: No Fly Zone and the Mega Man X series which carried parts of the concept, and carried it well... the SWAT Kats SNES game by Hudson Soft ended up a fade-to-black generic shooter.

... Do you hear that? That must be the sound of ejection seats popping. Maverick is not pleased with his afterburn. (Okay, to be fair, the SNES game was a fair challenge, but still uninteresting in the end.)

Alright, so this article isn't going to be a RE-GEN; I'm just skimming here. Need more time to throw a SIXAXIS around before a full RE-GEN can be made out of this. Same principle applies, though: next gen power, next gen promise. And this time, full exploit of the show's premises and mechanics, no short-changing due to "limited processing power." Some of us kats would hate it if such a promising license was re-botched on the re-gen.

Speed of Heat after the jump.

 

From the folks that will be bringing you the Develop Conference and Expo on July 2007, Tandem Events organizes a double event dedicated for the games graduates of UK. GamesGrads is slated to occur on April 24 and April 26, on Manchester and London respectively.

GamesGrads is a full-blown game career fair to be supported by numerous game industry names, including Havok, Microsoft Game Studios, Disney Interactive Studios, Rare, Lionhead, Juice, and Rebellion. They are many more other developer studios that have yet to confirm details on their attendance. Ali Wynn, an organizer at Tandem Events, was proud to say that the developer response to the event was "great." She also added:

We've got some high profile studios actively looking to recruit games graduates taking part and so far hundreds of graduates registered to come along and meet up with them, showcase their work and hopefully secure a career in the games industry.

Game industry students interested in attending GamesGrads should look up the official GamesGrads website and register there. All registrants will be entered into a draw to win an iPod Video and a Super Pass for the Develop Conference and Expo 2007 to take place once again in Brighton.

Word from site Develop is that Codemasters has already licensed the new Behavior tool included in Havok 4.5, which made its debut today at the GDC. Havok 4.5 is a modular suite of artist tools and run-time tech that includes Havok Physics and Havok Animation, as well as the new Behavior element.

"For the next generation of games platforms we really wanted to push the boundaries in terms of realism and characterisation, but we needed to do it without compromising our timescales," said Gavin Cheshire, vice president of Codemasters Studios. "Havok Behavior allows us to create a huge range of behaviors for our next generation characters and do it in a way that makes the most of both our creative and programming resources."

Codemasters plans to use Behavior in a number of upcoming next-gen titles, details of which have yet to be revealed.

 

The Havok engine has been used to make some of the big name titles on our market today. Crackdown, F.E.A.R, Dead Rising, Company of Heroes, Lost Planet, and Oblivion are among the games that have used this physics engine. The developers Havok.com must be really pleased with how their creation has grown since it's first release at the Game Development Conference (GDC) 2000.

Two weeks from now in San Francisco at the Game Development Conference (GDC), they will be showing their latest version of the engine: Havok 4.5. While it is optimized for the next-generation systems, that is not what the people at Havok.com want to show off. They are very proud of what they believe will be the key feature in this update, the behavioral engine.

The behavioural engine, in a nutshell, is basically WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). In terms of design, instead of having the artists and the programmers going back and forth over a creation, the rendition and movement will be WYSIWYG, allowing the artists to have an easier time in terms of design within the game engine.

A Havok spokesperson said, "I think that it's a competitor in the market, but we've been having an extremely good time from a commercial perspective." Check back for more news about the Havok engine and GDC.