Last week we attended LOGIN in Seattle and had the opportunity to meet with NetDevil President, Scott "Scorch" Brown. In addition to an informative interview, which we'll be publishing later this afternoon, we scored four new exclusive screenshots. Check out the new media by clicking on the picture below.
The contents of the Special Edition of Jumpgate Evolution (at least in Europe) have been revealed by GAME, a major UK games retailer. The Special Edition is said to retail at £49.99 and contain the following extras:
*2 in game items - Stella Ensign (+2% Nation XP bonus for every mission completed) - Stella Citation (+2% XP bonus for every kill)
*Galactic Map
*Exclusive Artbook
*5 buddy postcards (7 day trial for each buddy)
*Quick start guide
*Official Jumpgate Soundtrack
*45 days free game time
Source: Kotaku
The lineup of ship types for Jumpgate Evolution was unveiled today, and we've got all the details. The basic ship types are Fighters, Gunboats and Commercial Cargo Ships, each coming with their own advantages and disadvantages. More details on the ships and their sub-types can be found after the jump, and images of some of the Fighters and Gunboats can be found in our updated screenshots gallery.
Jumpgate Evolution will be released this summer and NetDevil has released a new trailer called "As Darkness Falls" to get prospective players excited. The video shows gameplay action so you can see exactly what it will be like to don your pilot helmet, jump into your spacecraft and enter a battle. It can be viewed on the game's videos page.
In a related press release, Codemasters and NetDevil emphasized that gamers will be able to play Jumpgate Evolution on a wide range of PCs, including machines running minimum specs as low as an Intel P4 1.4GHz processor. They even say 5-year-old PCs should be able to handle the MMO. Full peripheral support will also be offered, from a keyboard and mouse combo to a joystick or game controller. Check out the press release after the jump for all of the minumum and recommended specifications to see if your computer will be able to handle the game.
Lastly, nine new screenshots were recently added to the official site. Check them out here. Also, there's still time to sign up for the beta if you're interested.
Just when you thought it was going to be hard enough picking between DC Universe Online, Champions Online and City of Heroes to get your comic book fix, Gazillion, a new MMO developer and publisher that was operating under stealth mode as NR2B Research, has announced its partnership with Marvel Entertainment to bring games full of the company's beloved costumed heroes to life.
As Gamasutra reported, Microsoft's Marvel MMO was canceled early last year, but it appears that hasn't stopped Gazillion from moving forward with multiple games based in that universe. Gazillion's first Marvel MMO will be Super Hero Squad, a casual game targeted at younger audiences. The second game will be Marvel Universe, which Gazillion is tight-lipped about for now. The announcement did mention it will be released on both PC and consoles and more information will be released in the coming months.
Gazillion owns four individually operated studios, including NetDevil, the developer of Jumpgate Evolution and LEGO Universe, and Slipgate Ironworks, which is developing its own MMO property. NetDevil's Scott "Scorch" Brown said Gazillion is helping behind the scenes with game operations, which frees up NetDevil to spend more time on development of its games. You can read the full Gazillion announcement after the jump.
As we recently reported, Jumpgate Evolution now has a June release date. That gives us less than four months of anticipation, but the team is still getting fans excited by releasing new media.
We've got some new screenshots and concept art in our gallery. You can check them out by visiting our screenshots gallery here and concept art gallery here !
While you check out those pieces of art, feel free to read Tamat's article on the game from the New York Comic Con if you missed it. He got a Jumpgate Evolution tour from Scott Brown, the president of NetDevil, and shares his impressions on the MMO.
On Thursday 19th February, Codemasters set up shop in San Francisco for a Gamers Day, to give the press an opportunity to check out some of their titles, particularly Jumpgate Evolution. During the event they announced that they're planning a Jumpgate Evolution launch in June later this year. Take a look at a snippet from the official press release below:
Codemasters® showcased some of the star players from its 2009 portfolio at its San Francisco Gamers Day event, held last night, Thursday 19th February. Featured titles included DiRTTM2, FUELTM, Operation FlashpointTM: Dragon Rising, Jumpgate Evolution®, OverlordTMII, OverlordTMDark Legend and OverlordTMMinions."
"Codemasters Online and developer NetDevil announced that Jumpgate Evolution®, the action-based PC Massively Multiplayer Online game that promises exhilarating space combat on a vast scale, is scheduled for take-off this summer.
Check out the new Jumpgate Evolution trailer after the jump.
It seems to me that most of the MMOs in development in past years have been mostly clones of their 
competition. This is extremely frustrating when one of the requirements of your job is to play as many of these games as possible. One of the reasons I'm excited about Jumpgate Evolution is because it seems to break that stale mold that has flooded the genre with redundantly repetitive products. Fortunately, during our first demonstration and live gameplay session at New York Comic Con, I learned this to be true. What's more, it’s more enjoyable than I previously thought it would be.
Our meeting with the Jumpgate Evolution team started with a bang when we realized Scott Brown, the President of NetDevil, would be giving us our tour. One of the first things he said to draw us in was about the kind of game JGE is striving to be. "What we're working on is both a full PvP and PvE MMO. You can play whichever way you want. One of the things we're trying to do is to not make you decide that you only want to do PvP or PvE. There are different parts of the game that have different rulesets, but both of which are complete games," said Brown.
In the fabric of Space-Time, there are an almost infinite amount of variables that make one either have a good or bad time. Douglas Adams referred to this as the "Whole General Sort of Mish-Mash," because everyone's experience was completely and utterly unique to them. That has the potential to bring both good and bad things to the table, but in the case of Jumpgate Evolution, there almost certainly is the potential to make everyone ecstatic. Not only will Codemasters
have a playable version of the game at the New York Comic Convention February 6th through the 8th, but they have also released new media detailing the pure artistry that has gone into this game.
Now that Jumpgate is moving closer toward its beta stages, there is an enormous amount of media and also players who want a piece of the action involved in this game. The detail involved in just these few screenshots can tell even the most casual gamer why so many people are interested. The graphics are crystal-clear, the scale is massive and the potential is extraordinary. There are numerous influences involved here, but Codemasters really looks like they have something special and completely unique brewing in their studio.
This game has no release date as of yet, and even the beta time frame has not been announced, but that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands of people every week make it a point to check the site multiple times for any updates regarding this possible masterpiece. The forums are crawling with activity, hoping to just catch a glimpse of what is to come, but alas, we will not know the true capability of this title until it is installed to our "Program Files" directory.
It's going to be an exciting year for Jumpgate Evolution as the development team prepares for launch. You can expect to enter this universe full of space battles in 2009, but in preparation the team will soon be making some changes to the official Web site and forums.
We are moving the US site and forums to their own space to allow us to integrate the US supporting systems such as the account infrastructure in preparation for Beta. This means that our US players will be prompted to create a new account, which they can do immediately after the forums are made live. All European operations will remain on these forums to cater to the EU supporting systems and the Beta invitation process, so players from Europe will not be asked to create a new account.
