Red Star reignited, Raiden III release readied

When Acclaim Entertainment's bankruptcy came to light in September of 2004, it had a number of hot properties in development that met varying fates. The publisher's street racer Juiced was picked up by THQ and published in June of 2005. The comic-based 100 Bullets was scrapped, with the license winding up in the hands of D3Publishing of America, who announced the development of an entirely new 100 Bullets game earlier this month.

Then there was another comic-based effort, The Red Star, an action game set in an alternate-reality Russia where magic is a key component to military might. Players take control of three rebels in their quest to take down the country's dictator and rescue a fellow comrade. With no news of the game being picked up for a year and a half in the wake of Acclaim's bankruptcy, it appeared The Red Star had been quietly extinguished.

But now, almost two years after Acclaim went under, The Red Star is finally set for release on the PlayStation 2. A representative of XS Games today confirmed for GameSpot that the publisher has indeed picked up the rights to the title, and is tentatively planning on distributing it to retailers in early August. As for the Xbox version of the game, the publisher is examining the possibility of releasing it, but at this point, "it could go either way."

The representative also confirmed another recent acquisition in Taito's arcade top-down shoot-'em-up Raiden III. The latest installment in the classic arcade series is tentatively scheduled for release in August or September. According to XS Games' representative, Raiden III will carry a budget price tag, while The Red Star will be priced somewhere in between the budget range and a full-priced game.