Microsoft Game Studios has finally released the list of big guns designed to take on Sony and Nintendo up until 2009.

The following list are European release dates unless otherwise noted:

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One – May 21st

Ninja Gaiden II – June 6th (US: June 3rd)

Too Human – August 29th (US: August 19th)

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise – September

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts – November

Gears of War 2 – Christmas

Fable 2 – Christmas

Various other snippets of news became available as embargoes were lifted throughout the day.

Ninja Gaiden II has been confirmed to be the franchise’s swan song. There will be no more Gaiden, as expressed by the game’s developer Itagak:

Personally I think we were able to create the definitive 3D game in this series so I’m not planing on making any other games in the series, so I hope fans treat this as a swan song for the franchise.

When asked if there was any possibility of a new PS3 Ninja Gaiden, Itagaki answered “that would be ridiculous.”

Too Human’s “ambitious” 4 player co-op mode has been reduced to a two-player experience in order to make the game run smoother.

And even though most of the Banjo Kazooie 3 media was released ahead of schedule, Rare’s design head, Gregg Mayles, has provided further insight into the gameplay mechanics amongst an outcry that BK3 has forgotten it’s roots in an interview with Kotaku:

We’ve kind of taken a step back from that and tried to make it a simpler, cleaner approach, obviously with this new mechanic in place. I guess we’re all hoping for a clean start, that’s what I think it’ll do.

It’s kind of, ‘There’s your old Banjo games, let’s put those in the past, you can remember how good those were, this is Banjo for the future.’

Source: MCV
Image Source: Shacknews

Tags: arcade_adventures, european_release_dates, game_studios, Microsoft, microsoft_game, precipice, rain, trouble_in_paradise

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