Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies consists, according to the official description, entirely of the ‘Nacht der Untoten’ map that Call of Duty: World At War fans are likely familiar with. For an asking price of $13, that may be asking a lot. We’ll be testing it out shortly to see how much content one gets for 13 bucks.

In addition to single player Nazi zombie extermination, the iPhone version supports four players via Wi-Fi and two players via Bluetooth connection, promising a “silky smooth 3D environment” in which to gun down rotting Nazi officers. Achievements, leaderboard support and downloadable content in the form of new maps are all promised.

Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies [iTunes]

Among the unwanted, unloved IPs now obtained by the British developers (and 2000AD comics owners) are Ground Control, Evil Genius, Empire Earth, Lords of the Realm and Lords of Magic.

There’s promise in most of those, especially the first three, all of which were underrated strategy games that have decent brand awareness. Which is good for Rebellion, as they didn’t pick the rights up to stash them in a corner, with CEO Jason Kingsley saying “We have complete ownership of the IP from the past and going forwards, so yes we’re putting our plans together for new titles in each series. Exactly what and when is currently up for discussion.”

Hopefully those discussions are revolving around a new Evil Genius game, this time called “Mad Scientist”.

Exclusive: Rebellion CEO reveals plans for new entries in former Vivendi Games series [Big Download]

Seems Robert Ludlum’s estate was no fan of Vivendi’s The Bourne Conspiracy. Keith Boesky, who represents the interests of Robert Ludlum, says of the new deal with Electronic Arts, “We’re dealing with grown ups now.”

Ludlum Entertainment and EA announced earlier today that they had signed a deal to develop games based on the late author Robert Ludlum’s works. That was after Vivendi, now Activision Blizzard, handed back the rights to Ludlum Entertainment after the video game based on the second Jason Bourne movie.

So, why EA?

“EA came in the strongest, had the best take on the property, and they know how to grow the IP and have unquestioned worldwide market reach,” Boesky tells Variety. Electronic Arts and CEO John Riccitiello “know how to grow the IP and have unquestioned worldwide market reach,” which one might imply means that Activision does not. Which would just be mean.

Ludlum estate CEO Jeffrey Weiner agrees, saying “We feel we’re in a much better position now.”

According to a previous report from Variety, Vivendi had another Bourne adaptation in the works at Prototype developer Radical Entertainment, a game known as “Treadstone.” That has since been canned.

With the reliable Starbreeze Studios at the helm of all things Ludlum, which includes properties beyond Bourne, we’d think EA’s chances are pretty good of bringing up a new Bourne.

EA gets Bourne licence for a decade [The Cut Scene]

In addition to nabbing the rights to this Riddick game, Atari have also signed a deal with Universal – who own the rights to the Riddick franchise – to make further games based on Vin Diesel’s growly man, which if they’re anything like the first Riddick game, isn’t the worst idea we’ve heard this week. To cover development expenses on both titles, Atari paid Activision a flat, undisclosed fee.

Atari gets ‘Riddick,’ ‘Ghostbusters’ [Variety]

Yeah, it’s dead. Caught in the unflinching cogs of big video game business, mergers, and close downs, we hear. Victim of a flooded genre and a potential publisher with one too many shooters on its hands.

But don’t cry for Fifty. We hear the G-Unit-sporting rapper got his appearance cash, while Swordfish, the team behind the budding game, is likely to get sold off.

You gotta love this business.

Update, We Got it Wrong, Wrong, Wrong: Turns out that our internal sources were slightly confused and despite our best efforts we got it wrong. While I’m still waiting for some sort of official word from the companies involved, this is what we’ve heard: While 50-Cent: Blood on the Sand was indeed jettisoned by Activision, the project isn’t dead. In fact we’re told that it is approaching gold and that a deal, perhaps with THQ as publisher, is in the wings.

Update 2: Activision has responded:

“We have a policy of not commenting on rumors.

I can tell you that we announced back in July that we are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy – - Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age, Spyro, Protoype and an unannounced new IP. We will not publish other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and are currently reviewing our options regarding these titles.”

Sure enough, where a search for ‘Ghostbusters’ on Gamestop once returned this impressive array[via Google cache] of results, currently the only Ghostbuster-related item to be found on the site is this rather forlorn copy of the original movie on UMD.

Hard to say exactly what this means – both Terminal Reality and Vivendi have been adamant that the game will be published. The main confusion seems to be who by?

Neither EA nor Double Fine would comment on the rumour, but it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. After all Electronic Arts has been expanding their Partners division, landing top tier titles like Harmonix’ Rock Band, Valve’s Left 4 Dead and most recently id Software’s Rage.

And who knows, if Electronic Arts Partners picks up Double Fine’s Brutal Legend maybe they’ll snatch up Ghostbusters The Video Game too.

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Sierra’s sad swan song [Variety]

I really don’t know what Sierra even is these days…I suppose I should be disappointed anytime I hear that Sierra is being shut down, but it really doesn’t bother me. The company was horribly mismanaged for a long time, and it depresses me more every time I hear about a dumb decision being made than it does when I hear that someone did the right thing, even when it includes killing off a brand or reducing staff size.

Oh Sierra. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon. And when it is, we’ll remember you for Quest for Glory, not Magna Cum Laude.

Why Sierra Must Die [Edge]

This has presented [Sony Pictures Consumer Products] with an opportunity to reevaluate the game release marketing strategy to potentially coincide with the 25th anniversary of the original film in ‘09.

So if the game’s not out until 2009, who’s going to publish? One thing that is for sure is another year in develop should only help not hurt this game.

Ghostbusters game delayed to 2009, but who’s publishing it? [The Cut Scene]