Rumour Mill: Second Run of Mill

After a successful first outing of the Rumour Mill, I'm back with another installment. Now I must warn you, there could be spoilers ahoy in these here rumours, so if you are the type of person who likes to go into a movie or game with the least possible amount of information about it, then I must tell you to look away now.

Far Cry 3 Out of Africa?

After it was confirmed in PlayStation Magazine by Kevin Shortt, Far Cry 3 has been a hot topic on the net. It was one of those confirmations that everyone was expecting, but as it was confirmed with relatively little fanfare, details, speculation and rumour are mounting. IncGamers reports, contrary to earlier info, that Far Cry 3 will not take place in Africa. There source said that, "We're still in very early development and we have no idea where it's going to be set, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be in Africa." I'm highly skeptical about this source after Patrick Redding, before Far Cry 2 was released, said that "There are still things we want to do with the African setting, and I think it's safe to say we'll continue to explore it. That said, we might find something new and compelling about the Antarctic setting that wants us to make the next game there, but honestly, we're still at the preliminary stages." If I was a betting man, I'd say Africa is still the location of choice for Far Cry 3. They built all those fancy fire mechanics why waste it on one game?

Donald Blake In Thor? First Glimpse at the Script? Loki in Avengers?

These are just some of the questions arising from Ain't It Cool News at the moment. Variety reported today that "Thor, scripted by Mark Protosevich, Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller, centers on a partly disabled med student who discovers his Norse god alter ego, the hammer-swinging Thor." In Marvel lore, that disabled Med student is Donald Blake. Thing is, Ain't It Cool News were told by a TRUSTED source that Blake would not make an appearance in the Thor film. Does this mean they are taking his story and applying it to a different character, or are they doing something completely different? The fate of Blake seems rather uncertain at the moment. Meanwhile, another source has approached Ain't It Cool News with some information on the script for Thor and the potential crossover of Thor villain, Loki, in The Avengers movie. The source is currently UNTRUSTED to AICN so there input should be treated with a pinch of salt; if any of this is true, they gain some credibility. The source gives up these potential spoilers from the script, detailing how some of the movie will go and the aftermath (Loki's future involvement):

• The film starts with the 6 warriors (Thor, Loki, the Warriors 3 and Sif) in Asgard, OdinHopkins on the throne, etc.

• Loki is adopted, hence the black hair.
• Loki kills his dad, usurping the throne, Thor is cast out to Earth.
• Thor lands in a desert, and is promptly run over (literally) by Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgard, a PhD cosmology student and her Norwegian professor, who have gone out to study though telescopes a strange cloud in the cosmos.
• When they realize that Thor is who he says he is, Stellan, who has grown up with Norse mythology, can't quite deal with it and goes out on a drinking binge.
• The script closes with a 5-page battle. The fighting styles for Thor and Loki are, as you'd expect, markedly different, Thor being very much about raw strength, Loki being much more about motion, grace and intelligence. The closing battle will be the first thing they film.

Avengers:

• Loki is one of, if not the key [Avengers] bad guy.
• The [Avengers] film opens with 20 minutes of Loki basically entrapping/brainwashing Banner, and in so doing gaining control of the Hulk for his own nefarious deeds. This spurs the Avengers into existence.

Like I said, these are just rumours from an UNTRUSTED source, but they do give us something to think about regarding Thor and The Avengers. The source could be on to something with Loki's involvement in The Avengers, as Marvel President Kevin Feige said that Loki has the ability to appear in multiple Marvel stories.  With that in mind, a role in The Avengers might not be too farfetched. A 5 page battle between Thor and Loki also sounds pretty damn cool and epic to me. Probably the best way to judge any credibility from these rumours stems from Stellan Skarsgard's mention. While it was rumoured he'd signed on for the film months ago, nothing official has been announced since. If we were to hear Skarsgard has been confirmed as a Professor then there just might be something to these rumours.

Hooray for PC Gamers

Lately the PC has been getting screwed with the whole Modern Warfare 2 online fiasco and the announcement, a few months ago, that EA would no longer be looking at making sports games for the PC, while they also lost their Crysis exclusivity due to rampant piracy. Now PC gamers could finally be getting 1 up on their console competition. bit.tech.net has added an extra comment to an Edge Online story about Deus Ex 3. The original Edge story focused around Square Enix confirming they would do some of the cutscenes for the game but bit.tech, when reproducing the article, added that an unnamed source has told them, "It has been confirmed that the game is a cyberpunk prequel to the first game though and that it won't be getting a console release due to the complexity of the game." This has long been the hold the PC has over consoles; the keyboard gives you so much more freedom as a gamer and developer than the controller does and allows for far more complex control schemes. This rumour is being treated with some seriousness as the developers said they want the game to get back to its roots, and the original Deus Ex was a PC exclusive. A quick glance at Gamespot does stifle this rumour a little bit as they are listing the game as in development for the 360 and PS3 as well as the PC. I never played the Deus Ex games and had no interest in the 3rd, but some loving for the PC is always nice.

UPDATE: Since this piece was first written about a week ago there's been time for an update on the Deus Ex 3 PC rumour. Not long after the rumour hit the net a spokesperson for Eidos  came out and kind of denied the rumours saying that  "Only the PC version has been announced so far... I dunno where that website is getting its info from!" and bit.tech's stance has since changed to "Eidos has previously hinted that it might not be getting a console release." So now the question of whether it'll be a PC exclusive still hasn't been answered, right now it's only been announced for the PC but it could quite possibly still get a console release. Way to clear up the speculation Edios.

Well there you have today's biggest rumours, what do you think? Do you even care for these projects? Do you have any rumours of your own? Tell us how you feel by leaving a comment.