There are now over 1 million gamers who have played Geometry Wars, the Bizarre Creations XBLA shooter of choice. With the release of the sequel, Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, the number of players has simply taken off, says Bizarre. Great news for a great game!

"It's still a very important milestone for the Geometry Wars franchise and one which we're very proud of here at Bizarre."

Great news from Bizarre today, folks. It seems that all of us get to be Microsoft's Valentine Sweetheart, as we will be getting a free PGR4 download pack on February 14. Two download packs will be available that day to be precise, one is the free challenge pack, which is free, and one is the premium challenge pack, which is 400 MS points. The free challenge pack includes a new car, and two new game modes -- tourist mode and free roam mode. The premium pack includes seven new cars, plus a new World Challenge Arcade mode, which gives you 20 arcade events in 3 chapters. Great stuff, even for the premium pack cost! Check the link for the full car list.

From our "I can't believe it's not butter" department, this breaking news just came across the PR wire. Bizarre Creations, the purveyors of Project Goth Racing series, as well as Geometry Wars and more, is no longer an MS stooge. They have been acquired by none other than Activision, the fast-growing publisher that is gobbling up dev houses left and right. Could we now see Call of Duty and Marvel Comics inspired themes in PGR4? May be! Click read more for the full info.

*Update: Someone reminded us that Microsoft owns the PGR name, which means there will likely be a brand new racing game the next time Bizarre comes out of the gate with engines revving.

PRESS RELEASE

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sep 26, 2007: Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATVI) today announced that it has acquired U.K.-based video game developer Bizarre Creations, one of the world's premier video game developers and a leader in the racing category, a $1.4 billion market that is the fourth most popular video game genre and represents more than 10% of the total video game market worldwide.

Bizarre has released a few new PGR4 screens, and these show actual vehicles in motion. The bikes and cars look fantastic, this game is going to be hot as long as the frame rate holds up.

The first images of the fourth installment in Bizarre's Xbox360 racer, Project Gotham Racing, have been leaked. These images are from an European gaming magazine, and as you can see, it looks like Bizarre did away with the paltry 600p that PGR3 had. ON ther other hand though, Bizarre still has a bit of work to do before the graphics are complete, it still looks very much like PGR3.

Here is the translated info from the magazine as well, click read more for all of it, there is a lot.

In career mode, you choose the event from a large map similar to "tree" in Ridge Racer, The driving model has not changed fundamentally, but drifting is a little easier to pull off. The "pit manouver" is harder to pull off now on an enemy driver. There will be online creatable tournaments and cups. There wil be over 200 courses, yes, we said 200. There will be added weather effects in PGR4 as well -- puddles on the road while raining, tracks in the snow when it snows.

The highly anticipated music and ryhtym game by Bizarre Creations is now available on XBox Live. EA and Bizarre have teamed up to bring this great game from Pogo.com to the the Xbox360. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

Chertsey, UK – April 11, 2007 – Find your rhythm and get ready to set off the biggest round of fireworks, as Boom Boom Rocket™, the first Xbox LIVE® Arcade game from Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), explodes onto Xbox LIVE Arcade today. The game is a hypnotic rhythm music game conceived by EA’s Pogo.com™ casual games design team and developed by Bizarre Creations, the developer who brought fan-favorite Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved to Xbox LIVE Arcade. Boom Boom Rocket will be available for 800 Microsoft Points, first launching in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and is rated 3+ by PEGI. The game also will be available in the near future in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

Well folks, not that this should come as a surprise to anyone, but Project Gotham Racing 4 has been confirmed as in development for the Xbox360! The information comes from a Peugeot contest in which the winner of a vehicle design contest will have their design featured in the fourth installment of the popular racing game. Of course, this could simply be a typo, but we doubt it considering Famitsu hinted at Project Gotham Racing 4 being in development recently and MS is supposedly going to officially announce the game at X06 in mere weeks. Great to hear nonetheless.

It seems Bizzare UK, the developer of the hugely successful Geometry Wars for XBLA, is going to be converting three popular German board games for use on the Arcade. Settlers of Catan, Caracassonne and Alahambra are all slated for the conversion process. To find out more about these games, check the link.

GameSpot UK recently sat down with Gareth Wilson, project manager at Bizarre Creations in Liverpool, to get a handle on just what it took to bring PGR3 to market. On top of that, he does shed a bit of light into Bizarre's future plans.

We told you a few days ago that Sega and Bizarre creations are working on a new next-gen title. Well now that game has been revealed. The Club is a third person shooter that is due out on the next-gen systems sometime in 2007. This game is said to bring back the "classic" Sega arcade gameplay, and revolutionize the third person action genre. Then again, Sega did write the press release themselves. Click on read more for the full press info and some artwork.

PRESS RELEASE

LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO (5th May, 2006) – SEGA Europe Ltd. and SEGA of America, Inc. today are proud to announce The Club (Working Title) for Next-Gen consoles in 2007. The Club is the next project from award-winning UK based development powerhouse, Bizarre Creations, the studio behind the definitive next-gen racing game, Project Gotham Racing 3. Bizarre Creations are once again in partnership with SEGA having already enjoyed past success with the beloved Metropolis Street Racer.