BlitzTech

24 February 2009 Blitz Games Studios is proud to announce that SEGA’s House of the Dead: Overkill is powered by its games development middleware, BlitzTech.

Developed by Headstrong Games (formerly Kuju London), the pulp horror reinvention is a prequel to the original games and combines arcade-style shooting with a retro-style; taking gamers back to the zombie-heyday of the 70s and 80s. With the unique handling of the Wii Remote™ controller, players will be able to take on the zombie hordes hand-to-hand as well as blasting them into oblivion in the traditional shoot ‘em up. Delivering schlock-horror zombie killing in a slick Grindhouse-esque style, the gore-fest retains the fast-paced and overwhelming claustrophobic terror of the classic franchise with added twists and features, exclusively for the Wii™ console.

With Blitz Games Studios’ BlitzTech engine under the hood, House of the Dead:Overkill maximises the joy of picking up the Remote™ and blasting straight at the screen.

Comments Steve Pritchard, Headstrong’s Development Director: “When looking for a development solution for the creation of House of the Dead:Overkill, we needed something that would allow us to do our job efficiently, simply and with results that would blow away our competition. BlitzTech gave us exactly that with its tightly integrated, cross-platform, networked development solution, where all of the dev components are arranged around an asset database, with each component sharing the same core interface and tools systems. It was critical to our progress for all team members to be using the same tools, so they could quickly and easily view, investigate and manipulate assets created by other disciplines; assets that, when checked-in, immediately propagated across the project.”

Adds Blitz Technical Director Richard Hackett: “We’ve been developing and using BlitzTech for years internally. In order to be able to provide the necessary high quality of support to an external studio, we had to establish workable systems and it’s a tribute to this effort that Headstrong were able to hit the ground running using BlitzTech. It is getting harder and harder for studios to justify the overheads and time required to develop in-house tools and technology, and with the latest console transition our continued investment in quality game development tools and customer support is really paying dividends. We have been able to evolve BlitzTech into an industry-leading middleware solution. ”

Concludes Steve: “Having used BlitzTech on House of the Dead:Overkill, we at Headstrong would not hesitate to kick off our next project with the same tools and environment, and this time we would look forward to exploring its cross-platform capabilities.”

For more information on BlitzTech log onto www.BlitzTech.com.

For more information on Blitz Games Studios contact:

Debbie Henderson, Assistant PR Manager

Email: dhenderson@BlitzGamesStudios.com

Web: www.BlitzGamesStudios.com

About Blitz Games Studios:

Blitz Games Studios is based in Leamington Spa and was founded in 1990 by industry veterans Andrew and Philip Oliver and now has more than 200 staff. Its six divisions encompass mature titles (Volatile Games), Serious Games (TruSim), family titles (Blitz Games), in-house technology (BlitzTech), casual games (Blitz Arcade) and its education outreach initiative (Blitz Academy).

About BlitzTech:

With unrivalled flexibility the BlitzTech games development engine and toolset middleware has powered over 25 titles, totalling over 70 releases covering eight platforms, including Sony PlayStation® 3, Microsoft Xbox 360® and Wii™ from Nintendo. The technology provides the competitive advantage to deliver quality titles capitalising on strong cross platform support and a highly streamlined development pipeline. Blitz Games Studios provides dedicated technical support for BlitzTech.