When summarizing this week’s Video Game news there is really only one story that you can talk about, and that’s the chaos that’s currently going down between Activision (read: The Evil Empire of skepticism, pessimism, and fear) and Infinity Ward (read: Those guys who brought you Call of Duty and took the piss with their online PC stuff). Yes it seems that there’s trouble in the empire, as the heads of Infinity have been fired due to “insubordination” and they are responding with a lawsuit of several million which they claim ownership to through unpaid royalties. Seems if you want to lose your job all you have to do is make the highest grossing game of all time and then demand the money you earned from it. Tough break guys.
Although it’s easy to demonize Activision over this (and believe, it’s easy to demonize Activision over almost anything) there is rumours scattering that IW were seeing other publishers behind Activision’s back and might have tried to run off with them. All we can say for certain? They’ll definitely run off with them now. I have a feeling Activision didn’t realize it was the talent at IW that led to the good games. Perhaps they don’t care. Now that they own the franchise, maybe they think the series will last forever. If they do, I’d like to point at Medal of Honor and laugh, seriously Acti, you don’t have a clue how this works do you?
But now for some good news, actually scratch that, GREAT news. Valve have announced Portal 2, the sequel to perhaps one of the best games of the past decade (despite not making my list, if it had been a list of the best rather than per year it definitely would have). We’re not only getting a set of new characters and puzzles, but also a co-op mode! I can’t even begin to imagine how fantastic that could be, so I’ll leave it up to the amazing talent at Valve to do it for me.
More announcements this week came from Sony, who are bringing us SOCOM 4, a continuation of the SOCOM franchise, marking its leap from PS2 to PS3. I don’t know much about SOCOM but I’ve been informed it was the game to play on your PS2 online. Can SOCOM 4 live up to that? Probably not, the franchise doesn’t seem to be that special and with online now a feature in almost every game it’ll have a hard time selling itself. What’s even more baffling is why Sony are trying to crowbar another online FPS into its repertoire when they already have the stupidly fun MAG, a game with a genuinely interesting gimmick, clogging up the market. Way to compete with yourself guys.
And in news about “could-be-announced-soon” I’m waiting on baited breath for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition! Oh my I would love that, I tried playing Monkey Island 2 on an emulator, but lack of voice acting made it feel a bit deader to me. If this happens it’s a day one purchase from me, and a big “YEARG!” of joy too. Come on LucasArts, let’s see the monkey, I can’t wait.
March 7, 2010
#1
You know.. This week was also the release of Battlefield:Bad Company 2 which is a sequel to one of the funniest shooters with online play I’ve played for the 360. So wheres that I mean that was released this week shouldnt it at least be mentioned? I got it and am about a quarter of the way done with the campaign. So you trash talk infinity ward and not care about the other games? Which by the way they do great work with C.O.D. so in my opinion I could care less about their pc market. I am actually displeased that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is not mentioned at all good or bad news its like it never existed. Can I get some feedback on why?!?!
March 7, 2010
#2
Because it’s a game release. There’s not much news in a release “A game went on sale”. It’s not really interesting and everybody who cares (like yourself) knows about it. It would border on advertisement. I talk about game announcements and affairs because that to me is news, something new has turned up. Just to be clear, I’ll probably never cover game releases unless something interesting happens with a launch (e.g a product recall, failure with online ect).
Also, I happen to be a big PC gamer, so I disliked IW treatment of the platform. I’ll trash talk them, but it’s mostly in jest, I don’t really like their games but I respect them as being good at what they do.
March 7, 2010
#3
Sucks about IW getting fryed for something like that, the guys have talent, Activision are heading the way of EA, ifnot worse.
Portal 2 made my day to be honest, the first one was simply amazing.
March 7, 2010
#4
Im sorry but when I hear about “Videogame news” I actually like to also know what games came out and when they did. Just my prefrence of gaming. But I see now thats not going to happen. Sorry if I dissed you I didnt mean too. Just in my opinion of gamming news I kind of like to know what was released. Anyway isnt a little prejudice if you dont like IW games to begin with so you expose that they are weak in PC genre right now? Just saying..
And on a final note about Activisons Medal of Honor was great on the PS2 it was the perfect begining shooter for me and easy to pick up unlike COD or Socom. It did lack in alot of things but as a kid then it was good for a starting player. So even they have or at least “had” their own style.
March 7, 2010
#5
Haha, I’m not here to be impartial, this is an opinion column after all. I may add a list of the weeks releases from now on, if it can be easily researched.
March 7, 2010
#6
http://www.vgreleases.com/ – this is a great site for video game releases. I agree it could be a good idea to include the hottest releases for the week in the editorial, but ultimately I’ll leave that decision up to Lewis since it is an opinion column.
Big Shell has a good suggestion that it’d be nice if we can have a section of the site dedicated to listing upcoming releases. I’ll put that down for the future plans! But for now, check out the link I mentioned too. I hope that helps.