Take-Two announces Close Combat FPS and RTS titles

"Gathering", one of Take-Two's daftly named publishing labels, sends word that it has united with Destineer Publishing (okay, that clearly tops 'Gathering') to bring two new Close Combat games to PC and Xbox; Close Combat: First to Fight and Close Combat: Red Phoenix.

(Side note for completists: We were going to mention the Mac versions above, but if we did that we'd get literally several emails whinging that we don't cover enough Mac stuff, which will tire our eyes and probably leave you with less to read today as a result. In short: Macs cause drowsiness.)

Exciting times, then. The first of the two CC games, the aptly named First to Fight, ought to be out before the end of 2004, and is actually a team-based first-person shooter created, says Take-Two, under the auspices of active-duty United States Marines, "who, just weeks before, were being shot at in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The quote there is from Destineer president Peter Tamte, and raises a number of interesting questions. "Are we being hoodwinked into believing a rather limp April fool's gag?", for one, "If so, why did they send it to us on the 2nd?" for another, "Can they possibly be serious?" for a third, and, from our friends in Washington: "What is this AFGHANISTAN of which you speak?"

Whatever, we'll soldier on. The other title, Red Phoenix, is a real-time strategy title loosely based, it says 'ere, on the best-selling novel Red Phoenix by Larry Bond, and it ought to be out by early 2005. Both games are being developed by Destineer and Atomic Games, and we expect to see them both at E3.