38 Over

For those of you who haven't herd yet the newly founded 38 Studios has been officially shut down, and every employee laid off effective yesterday May 24. Many of you probably don't know who they are, but 38 studios was responsible for developing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which was released just this February. It took a lot cash to develop the game, as it's truly huge, and on staff were some very seasoned and well recognised talent doing things from writing to design. Unfortunately though Kingdoms of Amalur was released at a poor time. Appearing on the coat tails of the mighty Skyrim and competing with the heavy weight Mass Effect 3, the game was more or less lost, unseen, or just overlooked by most. In the end it didn't sell well enough to keep the studio afloat, and now 38 has closed it's doors.

I'm very discouraged by this, because Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a game I've had my eyes on for months, but just haven't had the time to play. Now that the developer, 38 Studios, is gone I'm worried about being able to get my hands on a digital copy. Especially if EA as the publisher takes the rights and forces the IP onto origin. If that happens I'm more or less never going to get the game on my PC.

I don't think this is a good sign when a studio produces a game that gets a meta critic score of 80, but has to close because that game doesn't sell well enough.

----Strife Out----

Thirty-seven

If any of you are trying to fruitlessly play Diablo 3 like me, I feel your pain.

It's pretty damn ridiculous how the demon sawn Activision has managed to thoroughly corrupt Blizzard Entertainment. I men honestly their version of piracy control is doing one thing and one thing alone, pissing me off. I'm a customer who spent his hard earned cash on their game. Then they choose to fail at preventing piracy by keeping me from even playing a single player campaign.

I guess expecting Blizzard to include off-line and LAN support, and not to take after big brother Activision is just to much to ask.

----Strife cannot sign out, because he can't sign in----

Dishonored Hour

Well on the coat tails of Bioshock's delay a bit of good news comes in. Turns out the game Dishonored is going to be released on October 9, which in my book is similar to getting a consolation prize. I still don't know if it's a title that I'll really take interest in, but I'm watching it. With any luck it's end up being one of my favourite unexpected games this year.

----Strife Out----

The Infinite Delay

For those of you who haven't herd the highly anticipated Bioshock Infinite has been delayed until next year 2013. Ken Levine, the master mind behind the game and the original Bioshock, says the reason is how the game simply isn't the bioshock that it's supposed to be yet. In addition infinite won't be making an appearance at E3 this year, so the team can focus on finishing the game instead of preparing for a media event.

Personally I'm both relieved and troubled by this event. While I was looking forward to playing Bioshock Infinite this October, I was wondering where I would find the time with other releases like Borderlands 2 landing in the same time frame. Now that it'll be dropping during the early year lull (February 2013) or gaming dry spell, I'll be able to devout much more time to it when the game comes out.

I love the game Levine makes, and this delay is acceptable in my book, if not discomforting. I actually almost never have a problem with delays, just so long as they don't escalate into Duke Nukem Forever territory. If that happens, no one wins.

patiently waiting.
----Strife Out----

AC3 Real Time

As a long standing fan of the Assassin's Creed series I'm looking forward to the third instalment coming this holiday. It's also nice to finally see the game's real time visuals. I must say that I love the new version of the hidden blade that turns into a dagger, and the snow effects look pretty damn good. Here's to hoping things turn out well for this next, and hopefully last, game in the series.

----Strife Out----

The Weekend Stuff

Yeah I'm kinda slow on this. It's not like I mean to be, it's just that I'm crunching on the next season on EoP!

On a side note I didn't expect to piss off so many people with this episode.

----Strife Out----

TES Online

This was announced yesterday, but none the less it's worth talking about. Bethesda has finally made an official announcement about The Elder Scrolls Online. Details are scarce, but it's slated for a 2013 release window, and it will apparently run on both Windows and Mac. Judging by the time frame for when it happens, which is the second era long before any of the single player games take place, things will apparently be in turmoil and a the daedric prince molag bal will be involved along with three player factions.

I'm remarkably sceptical about this game, primarily because it's clearly aiming to dethrone the MMO giant World of Warcraft. Back before you could venture across the world of Azeroth the warcraft series was my favourite, but then it found super popularity. Once that happened the things that made me love the series started to dry up, which is what I fear will happen with TES if it finds the same success online.
With an entire studio (Zenimax Online) devoted to this game I'm afraid I'll have to watch another of my favourite franchises go down the same path, and lose everything or change in ways I just don't care for.

Fear the future of this game my friends, for more reason than one.

----Strife Out----

Sixth Times the Charm

I hope you guys have at least heard about this. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was announced and I'm asking when this train is going to stoooooooooooooooooooooooop!
I have plenty of grievances for the CoD series, but some of you might be surprised to hear that I don't hate it. I've actually played through most of the games, and I do enjoy the single player campaign in each title. Actual effort goes into the story and presentation, even if things are predictable. All of my convictions for the games though come from how the series is being milked like a money cow.
The games are showing an extremely radical voluminous intensely acute over exploitation, and I'm starting to cringe as I watch the series dies on it's feet... Even though I still play the games once they're cheap as hell.

----Strife Out----

TES V: DawnGuard

For those of you not in the know yet, Bethesda has just announced their first DLC for Skyrim entitled "Dawnguard". Nothing else is known about it, and we'll all have to wait till e3 this year to find out more.

I'm both excited and disappointed, because I know that I won't be playing it until it's been out for a month on the 360. It's only now that the Microsoft exclusive DLC arrangement is coming back to haunt the loyal PC gamers like me.

----Strife Out----