Bad news for King’s Quest fans who were looking forward to the episodic releases of the fan-made sequel The Silver Lining, which were supposed to start in Spring 2010. It isn’t going to happen. It’s never going to happen, and it’s all Activision’s fault.

See, The Silver Lining Development Team, which was made up of fans of King’s Quest and members of Phoenix Online Studios, have been working on The Silver Lining since 2002. It was to be a sequel to the original game. And it was almost ready to be released, in five episodes, to fans. But Activision now owns King’s Quest, after acquiring Vivendi, which had acquired Sierra, and wants the project wiped from existence.

This isn’t the first time The Silver Lining has been shut down. When Vivendi Universal got its hands on King’s Quest, it sent out a cease-and-desist in 2002. However, fan response and some kindness on Vivendi’s part allowed the project to continue under a special, non-commercial agreement. Activision, however, won’t agree to any non-commercial agreement…

Last year we reported that Sierra Entertainment was “ramping up the development of new products”. Unfortunately, it appears that “ramping” has tipped the other way. Apparently, the new merger of Activation Blizzard with Vivendi has led to the end of Sierra, one of the greatest computer game creators in the last century…

Prototype, a much-hyped and much-anticipated game being developed by Radical Entertainment, will not feature any online multiplayer. The unfortunate news comes from Radical’s Tim Bennison who spoke with Team Xbox. Previously, the game was supposed to have online multiplayer functionality but it has been scrapped as the developers found it difficult to integrate it.

Bennison said they had envisaged Prototype as a single-player game but the…

It sucks to be Sierra these days. One of the early stars of the PC gaming scene gobbled up by Vivendi, which has now, in turn, been gobbled up by Activision.

With Activision’s executives now having the final say in what Sierra can and cannot develop, they will have to show their new parent company that their ongoing projects are justified, or so close sources have told Variety‘s gaming blog, The Cut Scene…

The Tribes series of games were only moderately successful, but acquired a cult status with quite a few players still playing games in the online sci-fi shooter game series. Leaked alpha-level game videos hint at the return of Tribes-esque gameplay. The videos were serendipitously discovered by Shacknews.com, as they were available through unprotected website links more »

Sierra announced a new Tomb Raider spin-off Wednesday (August 22nd, 2007) titled WET which is scheduled to be released sometime in 2008. The game will contain “seamless integration of intense gunplay, death-defying acrobatics and exciting swordplay, framed by breathtaking art direction and unparalleled animation quality.”

Andre Emerson, executive producer for the game, details the characteristics of Rubi (the stripper-esque name of the new heroine) in this interview…