[This episode is unedited, so be prepared for some naughty language.]
This week has some stunning news items, causing an overstuffed, long episode, so big even Jordan’s wife chimes in, and Jonah and Paul argue hotly over the last item. The Gaming Flashback for this episode is Super Star Wars.
This week’s huge news:
- EA gets exclusive license to publish Star Wars games, powered by Frostbite 3 engine
- Uplay causing problems with Steam version of Heroes VI expansion Shades of Darkness
- The Sims 4 officially announced by Electronic Arts
- Michael Biehn hints at Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon sequel
- Doritos Crash Course 2 coming May 9, still free
- Spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness hitting crowdfunding on May 6
- Gearbox dismisses Aliens: Colonial Marines lawsuit as “beyond meritless”
Also some listener feedback, plus this week’s Question: “What was your Golden Era of videogaming?”
EA Committed
It’s clear publishers like Electronic Arts hate to take risks on video games. They’re not alone in their opinion, look how many sequels we’ve got for the holidays compared to new creative titles like Little Big Planet, or how publishers push out sequels to hot titles until we can’t take it anymore; how many Guitar Hero titles will arrive before we scream “enough!”?
Had to re-write the message … lesson learned: don’t rush into rebooting your computer.
I also noticed that I skipped an episode 🙁 …
@EA gets exclusive license to publish Star Wars games, powered by Frostbite 3 engine
Yay, quick profits, here we go! Sure, it’s easier to license an IP rather then keep a studio. There is however the issue of quality: would people like “Call of X-Wings”?
Jonah, the name of the studio was Westwood. They did all C&C games up to and including Renegade. Not sure how many of the devs remained with EA though, after the studio was aquired.
@The Sims 4 officially announced by Electronic Arts
The time of CD key for EA has passed :P. This time they’ll be putting DRM first, but drop the MMO-like requirements. I expect an on-line DRM, but with much less bandwidth requirements. Think of Assasin’s Creed as opposed to Diablo III.
Don’t you dare edit the “fucking seasons”!
@Michael Biehn hints at Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon sequel
Could be a lot of wishful thinking, if you ask me.
@Spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness hitting crowdfunding on May 6
Is there a success story that involves an old IP that the publishers forgot about and crowd funding? So far everything I heard of are just projects in development, so I’m asking: was something similar to this released?
@Gearbox dismisses Aliens: Colonial Marines lawsuit as “beyond meritless”
The lawsuit is meritless. Unless there’s a written document, signed by all parts involved, that the game will not contain human opponents, it won’t stick.
Yes, what they did is bad. Yes, we don’t learn the lesson. We never do. Yes, we’ll most likely still pre-order games.
@QOTW:
Hard to name a particular generation. I liked the ’90s in Romania, with their NES clones and pirated cartridges. The whole experience was new, and there were so many games to play!
I also liked the 2001-2005 period. It’s then when I turned to the PC.