In this episode, the guys discuss Riot Games reportedly canceled an unannounced platform fighter, Fallout getting nominated for 16 Emmy Awards, and a player coming back after a 11 year, 5 month ban to continue the same argument from 2013.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This episode is a little late due to the holiday, but at least it’ll give everyone something to listen to when there’s no episode next week due to Jonah Falcon and Paul S. Nowak heading to E3.
In the meantime, the gang covers the following news:
Along with the usual Reader Feedback, the crew this time asks the readers to ask some questions, instead of the other way around. Let us know what you want to know.
This week we’ve got the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect and we thought we’d do a quick review on a couple of the titles we picked up. We’ve dug up some history on the Game Com Handheld, comment on some community feedback and hit the news:
This week’s question of the week, have you ever caved into the peer pressure, press and “sold out” signs to pickup a piece of hardware, software or other device?
One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.
Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.
“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)
This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)
A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.
