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Posted by Rich Edmondson

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Delay of Game!

MONDAY, JUNE 25 2007

I love cake... cake, cake, cake... it goes down... down to my belly.

Here comes the afternoon sugar rush. You hate to see a coworker leave but you can always count on cake to pick you up when you are feeling down. You can count on cake to make you think about going to the gym. You can count on cake to make every one say, "Hey, have you been eating cake? I see that you still have frosting on your face and shirt. How did you get it in your hair?" Personally, I like to get rough with the cake. I like to squeeze it, so I feel all the cakey goodness in between my fingers.

You know what else you can count on? Games being delayed.

Check out that segway. BOOM CITY!

You know, when I have a deadline at work, I can't miss it. My butt is on the line every single day. Those bizmarks think that they can take forever to finish a game, well I've got a few words for ye. I would much rather hear a developer say that a game will be done when it's done rather than keep pushing the release date back further and further. Sure, I learned my lesson, but that.... was a long time ago.

Doodly, doodly, doodly, doodly. I feel weird.

The year was twenty ought four, "Yeah" by Usher, was at the top of the charts, and presidential candidates were campaigning around the country. It had been many a fortnight since word from Microsoft had graced my wanting ears. Christmas 2003 they said. Poppycock! Then first quarter of 2004. Boulderdash!  When Halo 2 was delayed for roughly a year, I searched the internet every day to find some tiny nugget of information to satisfy my hunger for news of the Master Chief's return. Fade to black. Alas, I was slightly disappointed when the game was finally released. I guess it couldn't live up to the hype.

Delays can also be good for a game. Especially if a game is complete garbage and the development team can go back and fix a few bugs. Fixing frame rate issues and graphical glitches is one thing, if the story is bologna pits, then the game will still suck. You can only apply so many coats of polish to a turd.

On the other hand the anticipation generated in my shallow mind for a game is so insane that I just want to play it no matter what condition it's in. One of those games is Mass Effect, which is supposed to come out at some point this year. This game has been in development so long that their is a book based on the game's universe already on store shelves. Dark Sector has also been in development forever and is scheduled to debut early next year. Dark Sector was one of the first games to be announced for the Xbox 360 back in April of 2004. The game has gone though a complete redesign, and now it is basically Gears of War meets Resident Evil 4 (Check out "Pre-E3 2007: Dark Sector Hands-On" at IGN). I guess Digital Extremes had to wait for two excellent games to come out so their styles could be emulated. I was a huge fan of Fable when it came out for the original Xbox, but was also delayed a number of months. Fable promised a totally open-ended gaming experience but sadly it came up a little short. Fable 2, the much anticipated sequel, is poised to come out between now and the end of time.

A couple of announcements:

• A picture of the Rock Band guitar has been released. Rock Band will showcase my personal favorite guitar, the FENDER STRATOCASTER. I put a picture in but I think it is at the top.

• During the month of May the Wii outsold the Xbox 360, 2 to 1, and outsold the PS3, 4 to 1. I'm not part of that statistic because I can't get my hands on a Wii. That didn't come out the way I wanted.

• Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony, said recently in an interview with the Financial Times, "I think that the public would like the cost to be lower, there’s no question about that." He went on to say that the issue will be resolved by Christmas. Sony is already losing money on the production costs of the PS3 so it is a question whether they can afford to lose more money to try and boost sales.

• "There were 820,000 unique participants with more than 12 million hours of online H3 gameplay in its short test period, equivalent to more than 1,400 years of continuous play by one person. Also, Halo 3 was responsible for over 350 terabytes of data downloaded from LIVE."
From MajorNelson.com

• Manhunt 2 has been banned in the UK. THIS JUST IN! Manhunt 2 will become the best selling game of all time in the UK. The only other game to have this honor was Carmageddon. From what I remember, Carmageddon was the first game where you could run people over and your car left bloody tire tracks on the pavement. Sweeeeeet. Parliament doesn't fancy carnage, but nudity is on regular tv. Here in the states, we love destruction and mayhem, yet you've gotta pay a little extra for the goods. Our government finds it would be safer for it's citizens to watch a mans head explode in real time on the news than to catch a glance of a celebrity hoo hah two times tuesday. In the eyes of the U.S., the human body, mutilated and blown to pieces, good. The human body, intact and naked, bad. When I see death on the news, I feel sad, when I see a hibbidy dibbidy, I feel great. Granted a little too much hibbidy dibbidy hoo hah two times tuesday skibbidy bee bop, can be bad. How about a little from column A and a little from column B. Moderation people! I could go on forever talking about this, but I'll just leave you with this. If their is something that you don't agree with on tv, complain by not watching it.

DO WORK!