Things And Stuff: Thursday News Roundup

X-Men Legends is the latest high profile licence on its way to N-Gage, Nokia announced this week. Legends will see players create, customise and control their favourite X-Men in squads of four, with a variety of single-player missions alongside the usual four-player Bluetooth multiplayer. N-Gage Arena will be used for high scores and downloadable missions and sub-games. The game should be out in the first quarter of 2005.

Actor Thomas Jane will provide the voice, but not the likeness, for the antihero of THQ's adaptation of The Punisher. In case you haven't heard of him, Jane plays The Punisher on the big screen, although THQ will be hoping the game - in development at Red Faction firm Volition - will do a bit better than the film, which has been largely ignored by punters since its cinematic release in the States. Mind you, we're still wondering if the game, which was on display at E3, will make it past the censors uncut; as we noted in our first impressions, it's incredibly vicious at the moment. Think teeth on kerbs. Eek.

From gi.biz: Publisher Electronic Arts' Japanese division has entered into an agreement with LucasArts which will see it launching the firm's massively multiplayer PC title Star Wars Galaxies in Japan this December. LucasArts is set to fully localise the game for the Japanese market, while EA Japan will be handling all the operations of the title in that territory, including hosting and customer support. The game, which was operated in North America by EverQuest publishers Sony Online Entertainment, will be shipped in Japan along with the Jump To Lightspeed expansion pack, in a move similar to Square Enix' decision to bundle existing expansion packs for free with Final Fantasy XI when it launched overseas. The Jump To Lightspeed expansion adds space exploration to the game and will allow players to own their own ships; it is expected to arrive in North America this October.

EA's hip and happening Sims spin-off, The Urbz, which is due out on a host of platforms including the Nintendo DS, will feature a soundtrack produced by the Black Eyed Peas, including nine tracks from the group's upcoming album Monkey Business. Each track will apparently be remixed by the Peas' Will.I.Am into, er, simlish. Yeesh. Members of the band will also appear in the game as musicians who produce instruction for players trying to improve their social standings. "The opportunity for us to get involved in something like this is definitely hot. A lot of our fans play video games. We play video games... It seems natural for Black Eyed Peas' music to be used in a video game--especially this one," said the man with the odd name.

Music supervisor and DJ Jason Bentley will oversee the score for PS2 and Xbox title Destroy All Humans, which Full Spectrum Warrior/Star Wars Battlefront/Mercenaries developer Pandemic Studios is handling for THQ. Bentley has previously worked on stuff like The Matrix film trilogy. For Destroy All Humans, he'll produce techno remixes of old 1950s songs.

CDV has delayed Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars until the first half of next year, according to reports. The game was originally announced way back in early 2002. Unfortunately there's no news on why the game's been delayed, but CDV has apparently pledged to release a demo by the end of the year.