Infogrames Entertainment, the parent company of Atari, announced Tuesday that will totally acquire Cryptic Studios, a leading publisher of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

“This acquisition is a critical step in the implementation of Atari’s strategy to become a leading online game developer and publisher,” said Atari spokeswoman Amy Wisel.

Cryptic is currently developing three unique MMO franchises, planned for release over the next three years on PC and next-generation consoles, including Champions Online to be released in 2009 and Star Trek Online to be released in 2010. A third game currently in development will be announced in the near future.

Cryptic employs about 150 people. Its revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30 totaled $17 million.

LOS ANGELES — The biggest underdog story of E3 was by far Atari. As a company that’s been through every kind of trouble imaginable in the last few years; management changes, financial troubles, and struggling through complicated ownership situations with their French parent company, Infogrames, Atari managed to put out a well-rounded display of their game development potential.

Winning E3′s Best in Show for DS and PSP, N+ led the charge to highly acclaimed gaming. Based on the award winning flash-game N, N+ is a uniquely addictive platformer experience.

As a ninja trying to obtain as much gold as possible during your average one and a half minute lifespan, N+ has 300 puzzling levels to explore, plus some hidden unlockable ones. Each level of N+ has a door to the next level, gold coins to obtain, and various robotic bombs and missiles to explode a player as often as possible. Luckily for N the ninja, he has remarkable regenerative capabilities that allow the player to restart the same level where they most recently had a tragic death.

In addition to the faithful translation of the original online game, the DS and PSP versions also have a wide array of multiplayer capabilities. With 100 cooperative levels and 50 competitive levels, N+ also had the ability to download new maps from the N server as well as design new maps with the integrated level editor. The ability to share levels over the PSP and DS wireless connectivity services is new to the N universe.

N+ is coming to handheld systems worldwide on August 12.

Atari’s big PC title came in the form of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition; an updated version of the role-playing game released in October 2007. In addition to updated features like more than 5000 rerecorded lines of dialogue and a new character differentiation system for non-playable characters, the enhanced edition also includes a multilingual game disc which allows any language combination of voice-over and subtitles, the official soundtrack CD and a short story by The Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski.

The Witcher, based on the novels by Sapkowski, has won more than 90 awards and has sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide since its release in 2007. The player takes on the role of the renowned monster slayer Geralt of Rivia in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. A unique feature of the game is the way that each decision made may not directly affect the game until hours later. The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher is set to be released in September.

On a different note, RACE Pro is an ultra-realistic simulation racing game coming from Atari in November for the Xbox 360.

RACE Pro’s new ‘Hot Seat’ feature gives a different meaning to multiplayer racing. Each player drives in the ‘hot seat’ for a short period of time before they have to pass off the controller to the next player. This unique feature accelerates the pace of the game and makes multiplayer a more communal experience.

Atari went out of their way to produce as realistic a racing game as they could. RACE Pro features more than 15 real life tracks that span all continents across the globe. Players can win official championship titles using a wide variety of realistic car models. Participants earn their skills as a true racer would in real-life; through intense training, scoring key wins and receiving big sponsorship deals.

Hailed by many as being better than 2K’s 2008 tennis title Top Spin 3, Smash Court Tennis 3 was Atari’s big sports game release. Coming out in August to the Xbox 360, Smash Court Tennis 3 allows players to compete against or alongside some of the biggest names in the industry such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Justine Henin.

Smash Court Tennis 3 allows the player the ability to compete in the tennis world on more than a dozen courts and championships in five different modes; Arcade, Tutorial, Exhibition, Pro Tour, and mini-games.

Players can play with their local or online friends via Xbox Live. Smash Court Tennis 3 has already been released on the PSP.

Coming this fall is the newest installment of the Deer Hunter franchise and, as the Atari producers said, the most addictive. Deer Hunter Tournament is to be released for the PC and, for the first time, the Xbox 360 later this year.

European game publisher Infogrames has gobbled up the last scraps of their misbehaving adopted love child, Atari.

By buying up all outstanding shares of Atari stock, Infogrames has completely absorbed a company they already controlled as their American distribution arm. The move comes in the middle of disastrous financial times for Atari, which recently stopped developing its own titles in favor of full-time distribution.

Under the terms of the agreement, Infogrames will acquire the remaining outstanding equity interests of Atari (other than shares of common stock held by Infogrames or its affiliates, which would be canceled) for $1.68 per share, equaling $11 million. Infogrames is already the majority shareholder in Atari holding over 51 percent of its shares. Atari will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infogrames.

From Infogrames:

This agreement is an essential and positive development for Infogrames and its shareholders. It brings Atari fully under the control of Infogrames, delivering a platform for future growth in the US. This step closely follows a series of recent major restructuring actions implemented in an effort to reposition Atari, streamline its corporate structure and reduce its annualized costs, including costs related to being a US public company.

“Bringing Atari US and Infogrames businesses together will enable us to create a simplified global structure for our business as we seek to re-build a well-managed, cohesive and financially disciplined company,” said David Gardner, CEO of Infogrames. “This is a key strategic event for Infogrames that will benefit all of our shareholders. I believe that this transaction will generate significant benefits for the Group.”

Jim Wilson, Atari’s CEO will transition over to Infogrames.

“By joining Infogrames, we will have the opportunity to further transform Atari. As part of this newly integrated company, we will be better able to streamline operations and have a stronger platform for growth in North America,” he said.

Under the terms of the deal, Infogrames is also lending Atari $20 million to fund operations.

Atari has had an assuredly awful go of things lately.

After reports that majority shareholder Infogrames is bringing in former Sony Computer Entertainment executive Phil Harrison — and he would probably clean house — Atari let consumers know late Thursday that Infogrames has also offered to buy back all outstanding shares of Atari stock for $1.68, taking the company private and avoiding what could be a potentially embarrassing NASDAQ delisting.

In a statement, Atari said they received a “non-binding expression of intent to acquire the outstanding common stock of Atari, Inc. not owned by IESA (Infogrames Entertainment S.A.) and its affiliates.”

“A Special Committee of Atari, Inc.’s Board of Directors intends to undertake, together with its advisors, a thorough evaluation of the proposal,” the company said Thursday.

Atari needs a boost badly, and Harrison may be able to work some magic. The company has had several years of poor and poorly selling games — the abundence of poor games has lead to poor sales for their better games — and recently announced they would halt game production and focus on distributing and marketing their parent company’s titles.

One of my all time favorite PC sports games was High Heat Baseball 1999. It was behind its time and had sub par graphics, but it was a smooth playing game that was insanely customizable. It had replaceable graphics, importable stadiums (real Citgo sign for Fenway) and custom sound effects and player musical anthems you could add.

Around 1995, well before my High Heat days, I played hours and hours and hours of Hardball baseball. One of the first CD-ROM’s I ever owned — which came with my first 4X CD-ROM drive — was an Accolade game compilation that contained Hardball, Unnecessary Roughness football and Jack Nicklaus golf.

Hardball never had awesome graphics, but it, like many other PC sports games, especially at that time, was game you could truly make your own. You could add players, change teams, add yourself and your friends, add legendary players and change everyone’s skills accordingly.

The March 1996 edition of Computer Gaming World Extra, the free CD that came with issue 140 of the magazine, contains a demo of Hardball 5 as well as CRY.SYS, Space Bucks, 11th Hour, Age of Rifles, Fulltilt! Pinball, Heroes of Might and Magic, NCAA College Basketball and FPS Football 96 packed into a disc with patches, a comic strip and the obligatory AOL installation. It was a very typical magazine CD back then.

The Hardball series itself has been around since 1985, when Accolade put it on Commodore 64. It later ended up on Apple II, Apple IIGS, Macintosh, the Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Amiga, MSX, ZX Spectrum, PC (DOS in CGA and EGA), and eventually the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Sony PlayStation — if you believe Wikipedia.

Hardball 5 is one of the highest-rated PC baseball games ever made. Gamespot’s Hugh Foster called it “the most playable baseball sim on the shelves today,” in an early review.

It was also one of Accolade’s late titles before the Infogrames took over in 1999. Accolade is responsible for the Test Drive, Deadlock, Bubsy, Brett Hull Hockey, Barkley: Shut Up and Jam (AWESOME Genesis title) and Star Control gaming franchises among many others.

Download the Hardball 5 demo free from Blast Magazine