Episode 6
This Week in Video Games #6 with Mike Casazza
Thursdays at 6:30pm PT
This week on the show, Michael and Andrea faced off in “Halo 3 ODST,” talked about the latest video game news, showed Jimmy Fallon breaking a silly video game record, chatted with Mike Casazza of Galaxy4Gamers and broke down the Top 5 Gaming Busts of the Decade!
SPECIAL DEAL: Use code “THISWEEKIN” at Galaxy4Gamers.com for $20 worth of credits FREE!
Showtime
The game is “Halo 3 ODST,” our second first-person shooter in the row. Andrea objected…but it’s not really her decision, is it? (Answer: No.)
Andrea lost (quickly!) and thus wore the hat of shame for the rest of the show…Don’t worry, we’ll pick a Wii game or something for next week to keep things fair!
News
StarCraft II breaks sales records
Blizzard’s sci-fi strategy game StarCraft II has officially become the fastest selling real-time strategy game of all time, after selling 1.5 million copies in the first 48 hours.
Michael discussed some of the hidden Easter Eggs you can find within “StarCraft II,” including a playable arcade game version of their classic game “Lost Vikings.”
Jimmy Fallon has broken a gaming record you never knew existed. It’s awesome and, more importantly, funny.
God of War: Ghost of Sparta Novemeber Release
“God of War: Ghost of Sparta” arrives for the PSP on November 2nd, and pre-order customers get what’s being called “the ultimate DLC pack.” The game looks to top its predecessor, “Chains of Olympics,” with 25% more gameplay and more enemies.
(But it’s only coming out in China??!?) WEAK.
EA prepping “Dead Space Sabotage”?
After scanning through patent and trademark databases, domain registrations and more, Superannuation has discovered that EA may be planning something titled “Dead Space Sabotage.” There are already plans for a sequel to “Dead Space” for early 2011, as well as an animated feature film (“Dead Space Aftermath”) and a graphic novel (“Dead Space Salvage”). No word yet on what form “Sabotage” will take.
Top 5 Gaming Busts of the Decade
5. Lair/Heavenly Sword
This one has to be a tie because both PS3 launch day exclusives not only flopped, but sucked. “Lair” had amazing graphics, an epic story and gameplay that Sony promised would blow us away with the “sixaxis” controls. Problem was it was buggy and unresponsive, repetitive and just generally… not fun.
“Heavenly Sword,” another big time launch PS3 exclusive that boasted amazing graphics, an epic story and supposedly innovative gameplay but it too suffered from repetitive gameplay and while the motion capture by Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame was epic, the story was just as crappy and ridiculous as the gameplay, which was half Quicktime Events and all repetitive.
Both sold miserably.
4. Shenmue
It cost $20 million and took 5 years to produce, but “Shenmue” was a very good game… on the Dreamcast. It actually sold pretty well, but SEGA literally needed 2 copies of it to sell for every Dreamcast owner in order to break even on all the money spent on development. Instead, the Dreamcast failed and SEGA never tried to put out another system.
3. Psychonauts
“The best game you’ve never played” is often said in reference to Psychonauts, the excellent but terribly
marketed genre-bending game. It failed to sell even 100,000 copies… on multiple platforms, and caused Majesco to vow that the $18 million it lost on the game would dissuade it from making further big budget games.
2. Eternal Darkness
I was going to put “Daikatana” because it came out in 2000 and was a terrible game after being ridiculously hyped despite several half-baked development cycles. But I had to change that to “Eternal Darkness,” released in 2002, just because this is the GREATEST game no one ever played.
I’m partial to horror games and I forgot this one on the greatest horror games list, but it rocks the face with innovative controls and really cool “gotcha” moments like when the game makes you think it’s turning off and you lost your save progress. It was critically hailed, but unfortunately was on the GameCube and failed to break even for Silicon Knights.
1. Duke Nukem Forever
This game, in development for over 15 years and re-developed for so many different consoles it was hard to count, sold 0 copies. Not one copy ever sold. That’s because “Duke Nukem Forever” was killed last year at the last minute, probably for being crappy and never having any possibility of living up to the hype.
“Duke Nukem Forever” was the game that the industry pointed to when it mentioned “development limbo hell.” The butt of every joke, it never sold a copy after millions and millions of dollars and several different developers were involved.
More News
At the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, Ed Fries, former VP of Microsoft who helped sign Bungie and get the Halo franchise rolling, showed off a classic retread of the popular series: “Halo 2600.” He actually created it as a real Atari 2600 cartridge game, limiting himself to 4 kilobytes of data.
Electronic Arts announced a new game that takes this concept a step further. Simply called “Create,” this new multi-platform release hopes to harness the imagination of players in every aspect of the game.
“Create’s core idea is that imagination unlocks play,” said the game’s producer, Justin Manning. “We wanted to do something more open ended, where players control the outcome, not the game, and what they bring into it is as important as what the game offers.”
GH Warriors of Rock has new Soundgarden album bundled with the game
Long-time Soundgarden fans may want to pick up “Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock” this fall. Activision announced the band’s first album in over 10 years, “Telephantasm,” will be packed in with the first million launch units in North America.
Telephantasm will also be available exclusively with “Warriors of Rock” for one week, prior to the album’s retail release on October 5. Activision also said the album tracks will be available for download to play in Warriors of Rock day and date with the launch of the game.
NFL players sue EA over Madden likenesses
A former football player is suing Electronic Arts on behalf of 6,000 other retired athletes, claiming that they have not received any money for having their likenesses featured in “Madden NFL 09.”
Alpha Protocol sells despite being canceled
“Alpha Protocol” got terrible reviews, got canned as a franchise by Sega for “sluggish sales” and sold… really well! What? It sold 700,000 units – close to 1 million, for XBox 360 alone.
Interview with Michael Casazza, President of Galaxy4Gamers
Galaxy4Gamers is an online LAN tournament site. They have tournaments for various skill levels, and you can create tournaments for people of a similar skill level, all the way up to professionals.
During the interview, Michael admitted that he once considered paying for gold in World of Warcraft. Oh, the humanity!
Casazza also announced a special deal: Use code “THISWEEKIN” at www.galaxy4gamers.com for $20 worth of credits FREE!
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Haitham Al Humsi
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Andy
