Gaming News - April 2006

San Francisco, CA (April 13, 2006) - Today Ubisoft announced that Open Season will be shipping mid- September 2006.

From Ubisoft:

Developed by Ubisoft’s award-winning Montreal studio, Open Season will allow gamers to relive the humor and adventure of the movie by creating a fun and immersive interactive world that conveys the same comedic storyline, zany characters and artistic images projected in the animated film.

“We have been working hand-in-hand with Ubisoft’s team to create a game that captures all the fun of Open Season,” said Mark Caplan, executive director, interactive at Sony Pictures Consumer Products. “Sony Pictures’ leadership in digital entertainment coupled with Ubisoft's award-winning development team is a great partnership that brings innovation to both the film and video game businesses.”

“Ubisoft is thrilled to be collaborating with the movie production team of Open Season to bring the humorous adventures of Boog and Elliot to the interactive world,” said Tony Key, vice president of marketing at Ubisoft. "Ubisoft is committed to making the best movie-based video games in the industry. We do this by partnering closely with our licensing partners and movie makers to create an experience that remains true to the spirit of the film but expands it far beyond the theater.”

Open Season is a riotous romp in the great outdoors, where the rowdy brood of forest animals turns the tables on a bunch of unsuspecting hunters. When a domesticated grizzly named Boog gets lured into leaving the creature comforts of home by a fast-talking mule deer named Elliot, he finds himself lost in the woods just three days before hunting season. Forced to “rough it” in the great outdoors, Boog goes native, rallying all the forest animals to take back their home and send the hunters packing. The Open Season video game will allow player to relive the movie experience by playing as Boog and Elliot. Game features include:

• Interaction with Beth, Shaw and all of the animal favorites from the Open Season film.
• Throwing skunk bombs, hurling rabbits, using acorn-firing squirrels and pulling outrageous woodland pranks to scare the pants off the hunters.
• Rolling in a giant snowball, riding the rapids on a floating outhouse, zipping through tunnels in a crazy mine cart ride and taking on more madcap adventures as Boog discovers how to go from mild to wild.
• Ability to challenge friends or team up in hilarious four-player mini-games.