Update | Galleon - Islands of Mystery Update

Being the crafty little news hounds that we are it came to our attention that the Galleon Website has recently been updated with new details about the suposedly "fast and brutal" combat system.

To answer some questions Mr. Gard got in contact with Computer and Videogames to reveal all and tell us when to expect the title that just keeps us waiting...

"We're looking at a Q4 US release, that's the idea," said Gard when we spoke to him earlier today. "We're hoping, hoping to get the European version in there. The Xbox version will be coming first, then GameCube, and probably a PS2 version coming later next year as well, but we can't say for definite because the translations are out of our hands."

When asked for the reason for the delays, Gard answered "it's just - oh, bloody hell - it's just been incredibly difficult. It's taken enormous will power for us to keep going; it's been a huge struggle for a long time. Our biggest problem is that we're too small. Too small, not enough people, we don't have enough cash - it's like a spiral of impossibility because once you've started down the route of being incredibly poor, you can't get more people.

"With a small amount of people, the only thing you can do is take more time, and that tires everybody out. You can imagine the sheer stress of that. It's just been a really hard job. There's less than ten people here now, and that's just crazy."

When we asked how close the game was too completion, though, Gard was positive. "It's nearly ready. You can play it and everything, and it's good. It's basically there. We had a big hold up at the beginning of the year because people needed to see a higher frame rate than we'd achieved; that was a big technical challenge requiring a large rewrite. So now we've got the frame rate sorted out, we're just putting on the polish."

By Gard's own admission, there has been a fair amount of "gritting your teeth", as he puts it. "Once you've gone so far down the path, you can't give up, just can't. So many people have lost confidence that it's ever going to come out, and so we can't let that happen, not after all that we've put into it."

"We know that what we're doing is something different, better than what people have been playing for a long time. It would just be such a damn shame if it didn't come out. No support, man - we're getting dissed for being late, it's so harsh!"

Asked about what he thought of Eidos's much derided recent Tomb Raider game, Gard, the creator of Lara Croft, laughed. "I don't know about that - you've played it haven't you? It crashed after ten minutes when I played it, which is a bit of a shame really.

"It seems like a bit of a foolish thing to have done. The problem is that the games industry is run on financial quarters, but you just can't release a game that isn't finished. So wha
t are you going to do?

"I've actually got a certain sympathy for them; it's not the guys in the development team's fault. There's a physical limit to what you can get done without adding enormous amounts of cash."

We'll have more on Galleon soon.