'Project Gotham' game sticks with Glu

The folks from Glu Mobile swung by our New York office the other day to give us a quick preview of some of the company's upcoming cell phone games. Glu, for those who don't know, was formerly known as Sorrent, one of the early companies focusing strictly on cell phone games, which are improving with each passing year.

The big news for Glu is that it's scored a license for Microsoft's Project Gotham Racing series. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't authorize the release of any screenshots, but we did play the 2D version of the game and it didn't look half bad. It's due to come out next year around the same time that Microsoft releases PGR4 for the XBox 360. While we didn't see the 3D version (for phones that offer so-called 3D graphics processing), we've gotta assume it's going to be a whole lot more impressive than the 2D version.

Glu is excited about a few other new titles in its portfolio, including the classic arcade game Centipede, which features unlockable new themes and weapons, and Stranded, a Lost-inspired adventure game that's already out in England and doing well. The game, which is chapter-based and features about eight hours of gameplay, should appeal to hunter-gatherers becasue that's basically what you do in the game: hunt and gather. Stranded should hit some U.S. carriers' phones in the next month or so, and Centipede will show up in January. We also caught a glimpse of the upcoming Deer Hunter 2, which is also due out next year. The Glu reps said its current Deer Hunter has done extremely well, with more than a million downloads. Not surprising, considering the budget-priced Deer Hunter for the PC and its sequels were best-sellers for years.