Another week, another batch of news, and another few days of me making minimal progress on my review backlog, while dragging my feet with my novellas. Let’s talk about them there video glumps!
Providing more onto the pile of Microsoft poorly trying to fix itself after effectively building themselves a ship out of stone, they recently announced that Xbox 360 will also have self-publishing. A bizarre idea that I can easily respond with a, “This would’ve been peachy a year ago, fellas.” Honestly, the system is leaving as people look to the future, their massive collections being mostly useless, so they would not very much wish to increase their volume, no?
Though it is hardly the only bit I’m scratching my head at this week, as Batman Arkham Origins, the fairly underwhelming prequel to the highly successful Arkham series will be getting multiplayer. For those who haven’t rolled your eyes like this is 2009, when it was Multiplayer or die in many studios’ eyes, this actually doe sound neat. It is made up of eight player matches, but the kicker is that the mode is 3 v 3 v 2. With two rival criminal gangs going against each other while Batmans and Robin be the Batmans and Robin. Although, like clockwork, this feature is not going to be in the Wii U version because screw you small audience… it’s really not much of a stretch.
Rule one of video games, know how big you need to aim to justify the addition of something. Aim low so your earnings can be all the sweeter when they happen to be high. Or in other words, be like Vanillaware, whose most expensive project of the nearly released Dragon’s Crown cost them a whopping million dollars… I didn’t forget a number, it just cost a million. And seeing as how in Japan alone it sold 300,000 the massive tits and thighs are probably the best thing that Vanillaware ever chose to do. Proving that massive funbags truly do sell copies.
Speaking of low hanging fruits, nostalgia is one, and Capcom is looking to aim for the niche JRPG fan market who played Breath of Fire yonks ago by, after about a decade, making Breath of Fire 6! …A browser, phone, and tablet RPG that looks like Maple Story and to be very tap based… At least it’s not going to come out until 2014, so they might be working really hard on- screw it, the game’s probably going to be undermining a series Capcom no longers cares much about and just wants to get extra money. I can’t really blame them for that, seeing as how normal it is for them to do things like, I don’t know, Street Fighter X All Capcom, a cool sounding premise that is just a Japan-only card based game… Next!
“Whore of the Orient!” Shouts a random man in my brain. “That game by ex-Team Bondi staff, or in other words, LA Noire’s spiritual successor.” Yep, the game managed to have some footage seep out of the ether, and it looks… to be a 2015 game. Actually, there is fully functioning gameplay available, likely as a proof of concept than anything, seeing as how laggy and janky it is. I’m guessing it was not made to go public yet, but at least we know the game will likely be finished unlike, I dunno, Devil’s Third? Remember that game? Yeah, I figured so.
But I do remember a pair of stories I talked about, along with the rest of the industry. First is Atlus’ parent company going through Civil rehabilitation, or Japanese Bankruptcy. Namely that bids are coming in, and Sega may be purchasing Atlus. A notion that inspires a raised eyebrow, mostly because I thought Sega was not doing so hot themselves. That, and they recently bought Relic due to THQ’s now mythical demise due to how it happened more than three months ago. Still, would be a decent enough fit, assuming they let Atlus keep on doing their thing.
Number two is regarding that Prey 2 title, namely how Human Head Studios is still working on it, and development just encountered some troubles along the way. Or in short, Arkane is not making Prey 2. A bit concerning as to why the rumor from the long-long ago was pretty convincing to most, but hey, now we’ll get a Dishonored 2 sonner, I guess. Now to wait until *insert next big event* to see it resurface as a Gen8 property about space and aliens! And by jove, we don’t have enough of those… throw in a few cyborgs, please.
Now to get back to work on the three or four reviews that will be coming later this week, seeing as how I decided to play two games that I beat in three sittings. Yay, content!