The "White Knighting Chronicles" or "Squares trying to more Square" or gaming thread

White Knighting in videogaming strikes once again.

(btw, White Knight Chronicles was a fun game as long as you bought the second game which also came with a remake of the first game which is interesting considering there was only a two year gap between the first game and second game's release. And the first game bombed and they did all that work for the second game to bomb even harder even if it was an enjoyable for the most part single player MMORPG while borrowing stuff from one of the only two good Final Fantasy games since VI, FFXII)

Anyways gaming below....

First off the bat you have two incidents that I find amusing happen at GDC:
You have people resigning over the hiring of female dancers at a IGDA industry event. Frankly, I don't understand the hubbub over this but you have to pay dues to be part of them and people weren't happy that they spent cash on female dancers. Now admittedly, it probably wasn't the wisest move after having a women in game development panel earlier in the day but I just dunno. Even with an open bar, people won't be sticking around when it's a sausage party hence why it's a standard for any industry to hire females to liven up the party.

Second incident is that Notch and Mojang is being accused of hiring female dancers at an after-hours party at a nightclub and people being faux outraged by it. Now this does come with a caveat as last year, you had a girl sexually assaulted with a dude pulling his penis out and rubbing it next to a girl and security being afk. Not on Mojang but rather non-existent security but it did happen under their name so what ever. Anyways, Notch and the promoter claim that no girls were payed to be there dancing and having fun in the VIP area but that will never stop people from making fools of themselves on twitter ie stuff like this

I've helped run parties before all the way from house parties to business parties and these people just make me laugh. I forever hope that none of these people ever go to a nightclub.

Alright, on to actual gaming news:

Telltale Games finally gives some info on their Fables series after two years of wondering. It's titled A Wolf Among Us staring Bigby Wolf and out this summer. The splash page on Telltale's site looks okay but it kinda looks off compared to Mark Buckingham's artwork but that being said, I hope this is good as I love Willingham (even his artwork for TSR) and the universe that he shaped.

Another one bites the dust as hot on the heels of Riccitiello getting the boot as EA's CEO, another prominent president, Yoichi Wada, stepped down after Square-Enix released their financial report. Don't envy for the person getting that job as other than them buying Eidos for a song and expanding their toy business, they've been screwed up for this whole generation with slow releases, wasting time and money on an engine that was hardly ever used and botching announcements of games that aren't even in the planning stages (looking at you, Versus). It's a Herculaneum task to be sure. Too bad Iwata and Fils-Aime hasn't fallen on their swords yet.

And speaking of their financials and Eidos, though Crystal Dynamics claims that the new Tomb Raider had the best week one sales of the series, Square isn't happy with the sales of the new Hitman, Sleeping Dogs (though the game wasn't bad, they should have left that one to rot after Activision cut it loose from it's low sales) and Tomb Raider. Of course, I would like to point out that this is another feather in the cap of people who say that the videogame market is in a spot of being unsustainable with it's small consumer base and ballooning budgets as gamers want better and better graphics but scoff at any attempt for the manufacturers to increase said base as it's not directly "gaming based" even though it is. And don't mention to gamers in anything that the publishers try to improve their chances of getting into the black with DLC and expansion packs as gamers don't like that either.

Jason Rohrer makes a game, buries it in the desert and then gives people pages of random coordinates so they can try to find it. It's E.T. all over but this time for fun. I actually like this guy and his games (his Castle Doctrine game is fun in it's alpha state)

Ouya is about as worthless as everyone expected

New version of N is announced titled, N++. Nice to see some humility from these d-bags and I'm game for another version of N.

Vlambeer talks about the upcoming Hotline Miami sequel

On one hand, it's an established IP. On the other, it's not exactly a decent selling IP even after THQ dumped tons of cash into advertising the second game in their final throes but Crytek US reiterates that they will in fact be bidding on the Darksiders IP at the auction in April

Epic released another tech demo for UE4 that is supposed to run on a single 680

It's announced that MineCraft has hit the 6 million mark on the 360. Who ever at MS that gave the nod to moneyhat a version of the sandbox deserves a raise. Everyone in marketing should be taken out back and shot for not having a branded MineCraft 360 console promotion this past Christmas.
Internet old but still cool

Creative Assembly (Total War series) announce that they are making a MOBA titled Total War: Arena. Sign up for the beta here

Blizzard's foresight, it's lacking. Jay Wilson admits that the auction house in Diablo 3 was a mistake

Microsoft goofed up again (how can this specific error happen over and over again?) by accidentally throwing up the cover art to the upcoming expansion pack for Far Cry3

Was going to do a quick writeup on Luigi's Mansion but I screwed up and spent a whole week trying to find a copy of it in a store instead of just ordering it from Amazon. I did find a single sad copy of Fire Emblem on a shelf of Best Buy, first one I've seen in a store since it was released.

Would talk about Bioshock Infinity but I would just ruin it outside of saying it's pretty but really shallow. IMO, in the end, it still ends up as a mediocre story wrapped up in an even more mediocre FPS than Bioshock 1 .And considering the highscores it's got, I'm obviously in the minority.

Grasshopper is now working on two financial failures at once as they released artwork for what is obviously a new No More Heroes sequel. More than likely, I'm going to enjoy every minute of those megabombs while still wondering how they can make games while releasing a bad selling game after bad selling game

That's about it this week from The Dude

posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 01:22 PM

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