Atari, the undead game company, is still around despite claiming bankruptcy for the second time in its existence earlier this year. Apparently Atari is adamant about remaining in the video-game business. They have looked at the option of being bought out by another company but so far there apparently haven’t been any takers.
The only reason I even noticed that Atari is still around is because of recent reports that Atari is now selling off some of their franchises. The games up for grabs are the driving simulation series Test Drive, the RTS series Total Annihilation and Rollercoaster Tycoon. It seems Atari is buying a bit more time by selling off these series.
My humble opinion is that Atari should perhaps finally give up. If they couldn’t find a buyer for their company before this, then I have serious doubts anyone will want to buy them after they’re done selling off all their few, lucrative franchises. Seems though, no matter the obstacles, like Solomon Grundy, Atari will find a way to rise from their grave.
So, last week I finally got my Wii U and yesterday I finally bought Injustice: Gods Among Us. I haven’t had much real play-time with the console although I’ve played around with it a bit. One thing that I’ve now discovered playing around in Nintendo Land is that I just really hate touch-screens. I’ve never been a big fan of them to begin with, but now that there’s one right on the controller, I find myself really put off by the concept. I keep using the stylus because I don’t want my sweaty fingers messing up the screen.
In addition, while I like having a big sturdy controller for my game console again, I have to say that I also don’t really care for the whole “game playing simultaneously on the little screen” idea. Also, I’m beginning to think the controller is quite energy inefficient. I’ve kept the volume button off, switched off rumble features and at least one game I’m able to black out the screen, but I think the Wii U controller is just doing a lot of things a controller shouldn’t be doing, especially when inactive. By comparison you could get a lot more gameplay time out of your Wiimotes by switching off the speaker and rumble-feature. I hope the first time I had to recharge the controller was just because I was playing with an incomplete charge.
Apart from Nintendo Land none of my other games greatly use the touch-screen though, so I’m happy for that. I was a little disappointed that for New Super Mario Bros. U, I wasn’t able to just use the big honking controller in multiplayer, but instead me and my sister had to whip out the Wiimotes (which is just as well, it’s a Mario game after all). New SMBU is actually pretty cool and even quite a bit different from New SMB Wii, though I haven’t quite decided if it’s better or not. I have this strange sensation that SMBU might turn out to be shorter than SMBWii, but at least I’m intending to try out most of the levels with the alternating paths.
Well, of course Injustice is the first big game I’ve gotten for the system and I’ve been eagerly waiting for it ever since Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. My first impressions were a little mixed. Even though for this game I was able to use the WiiU controller like a regular gamepad my left arm got incredibly sore from playing through arcade(/battle)-mode for the first time. I might have just been positioned a bit awkwardly, but at the same time there’s a bit of a leap for my index fingers to make between the L&R and the ZL&ZR buttons. I’m gonna play through the arcade-mode again to see if I get the same or if this is just me getting used to playing a new, semi-difficult fighting game again. If I do, I’m switching to the Classic-controller. The button layout seems also a bit unconventional for a fighting game, but I don’t wanna go switching it around yet. However, I’m rather used to the face-buttons being just standard attacks and the fact that A doesn’t seem to do much of anything (I’ve only played with one character so I might be wrong) is really cramping my style. However, I’m actually sort of grateful that after all these years NetherReal Studios (former Midway) have dispensed with the block-button in the favour of a normal back-block.
I’m also not wild about some of the character redesigns. Some look okay, but the whole game has this weird dark look about it which is a bit of a downer. I was expecting something a bit more colourful. Batman and Superman look particularly awful for some reason – Batman’s taken a note from Christopher Nolan’s films and made his mask look all angly and weird; and Superman looks like he’s in his 50s (despite that it’s still Tim Daly of the animated series doing his voice). On the plus side, there’s a lot more characters than in MK vs. DC and there’s some nice comedy in the sequences where you can make your opponent fly all over the battle-ground, so at least they weren’t too serious. I haven’t played the Story-mode yet so I don’t know how all these heroes are even able to give Superman a decent fight (nevermind Doomsday or Ares), but I look forward to finding out. Also, whoever’s doing Joker’s voice in this game gets my seal of approval. He’s a bit gravely but his laugh is spot on.
I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with the console and maybe my next purchase will be a game that actually needs an analogue stick to play…
It’s been a long time coming but Wednesday is the day I’m finally gonna get a Wii U. I’m getting the Nintendo Land pack-in set along with New Super Mario Bros. U and Injustice: Gods Among Us. It should come as no surprise that I loved New Super Mario Bros. Wii but I also loved Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and I’m waiting eagerly to play this newest DC fighting game. Beyond that and the Let’s Plays I’ve done, I really haven’t had the energy to play much of anything. I play a little bit of older games from time to time, but I think the Wii U will be the kick in the butt I need to finally get my gaming feel back on.
Shockingly, I have not been able to drag myself to the movies once this year. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching movies – I’ve just been focused on older films and stuff that’s already come out. I finally plan to kick off my movie watching season this year with Iron Man 3. I think I got a little lazy last year, because my friend had free tickets, so apart from Skyfall, I didn’t have to pay to see any movies myself. I will endeavour this year to go see at least one or two movies which aren’t sequels, comic book or novel adaptations. The good thing about not having gone to the cinema in a while is that the trailers will give me some choices to consider.
Most recently I acquired the original Karate Kid, Forrest Gump and High Anxiety on DVD (yes, I still buy DVDs – I just don’t care to pay extra for Blu-Ray). High Anxiety was good, but is not gonna make my Top-5 Mel Brooks movies list. However, I’ve never seen the original Karate Kid, so expect a new Original vs. Remake blog in the future (and for anyone pondering, the remake is good but I still wanna see the original for comparison’s sake).
Section 3: Formula Ones & The Bull-Shit Mill
Robert Kubica, circa 2010
I haven’t posted a lot of stuff on Formula One as of late, since there really isn’t anything worth commenting on. Everyone still seems to think Webber is leaving Red Bull at the end of the season*, people keep going on and on about the tyres this year** and people seem to think Heikki Kovalainen is finally coming back to Caterham*** .
The only rumour even mildly worth my interest is Robert Kubica’s possible return to F1. Last year, he already announced that he would probably not return since his original arm-injury, which forced him out of the sport in 2011 and 2012, hadn’t been healing properly despite multiple surgeries. A rumour is going wild right now about Kubica maybe testing for Mercedes GP. This begs the question however, what about the f***ing arm-injury? Is it healed? Can Kubica operate an F1 car? Robert has been on the road, but in the World Rally Championship. The physical strain of an F1 car is in a league of its own by comparison, so I’m having a hard time imagining Kubica just miraculously healing and driving in the Formula Ones again.
Pleas note though that nothing would make me happier than to see Robert in the cockpit of an F1 car again. The guy was one of the most talented drivers on the grid. All I’m saying is that I don’t want to get my hopes up when it turns out Kubica’s arm is preventing him from racing.
* I still don’t see why he should or why would Red Bull want to let him go. ** I already moaned and groaned plenty about this when Pirelli became the sole tyre manufacturer for F1, so I don’t really want to do the whole song and dance again. *** Did the money just fall from the sky all of a sudden or did Heikki literally pull it out of his ass?
Section 4: Top-10s & YouTube & Stuff
So right now, my He-Man Season 2 Reviews are coming along. A lot smoother than last year, though writing scripts is still a drag and I end up repeating the same words a lot (I’ve probably done that in this blog too, haven’t I). I really like the selection of episodes I have this year, though a part of me would have wanted to make a Top-10 and Bottom-10 list for the second season to pick up some of the slack.
Anyway, I’m also thinking about after the He-Man reviews. I have been thinking about redoing one of my most important Top-10s with new entries and full-on video footage. I’m of course referring to my Top-10 Nintendo 64 games list. The list is long over-due for an update. It’s not just a little dated in its style, but also a few entries on the list really need repositioning and at least one is going to be falling off completely. Like I said though, I’m thinking of redoing the list after the He-Man Season 2 Reviews, so for now the old one is staying online…
You may remember my blog from a while ago which declared Trip Hawkings (former EA CEO and the head of the doomed to failure 3DO console company) as an idiot who decided that licensing agreements were a bad thing. Mr. Hawkings may now have a challenger for the biggest dickhead in the industry, Microsoft’s creative director Adam Orth who doesn’t understand why having a console attached to the internet 24/7 is a horrible and stupid idea. Of course, in the event of the inevitable internet service break (we don’t live in The Matrix yet, Mr. Orth) people will still be able to play their Wii U’s and other game systems that don’t have this asinine feature.
However, it’s this defiant asshole behaviour that Orth has shown on his own Twitter account which just makes me lose my faith in console companies and confirms my belief that they are not overly concerned with consumer friendliness just as long as they make a shit-load of money. And as horrible as a PR flop as Mr. Orth’s juvenile Twitter posts are, I’m confident that Microsoft wont let this asshole go – because the company clearly hasn’t caught on why many people who bought the 360 are not gonna bother with the next Xbox. It was bad enough when I heard that games could no longer be shared or resold for the system which takes away two important features of gaming culture: being able to share games and sell off games you didn’t like so much but someone else might.
So congratulations Mr. Orth! You have proven the point that big gaming companies really don’t care.
Update (April 6th): I a weak effort to save face, Microsoft keeps insisting that nothing is confirmed and that some of the people Orth had a war or words with were his friends. If you choose to believe that the argument on Twitter was just a load of trolling, I suppose there is still a shread of hope for Microsoft to come to their senses on the always-online feature of the Xbox. As tends to be the way of the internet, I feel this whole incident will be forgotten in a very short while and nobody will have learned anything.
Disney has shut down LucasArts game studios and laid off all their employees. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for six months, you should know that George Lucas not too long ago sold LucasFilms and all associated properties to the Disney corporation. One of these, of course, was LucasFilms’ official game studio LucasArts (previously known as LucasArts Entertainment Company and LucasFilm Games). Apart from creating and releasing numerous Star Wars-titles, a long-long time ago, the company was also responsible for releasing some of the greatest adventure games of all time such as Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series.
The reason for the closure, in case anyone is curious, is that Disney wants to licence out the LucasArts and its own properties to different developers and is not so concerned with developing games internally. Being Disney, that makes sense, but I can understand why suddenly losing their jobs is gonna suck majorly for all the LucasArts staff. And yet, at the same time, I’m not really too sad about this move. LucasArts stopped making adventure games after Escape from Monkey Island in 2000 (cancelling sequels to both Sam & Max and Full Throttle) and the most recent ventures into adventure games they have made were back in 2009 and 2010 when they came out with the Special Editions of the first two Monkey Island games.
Not to mention that pretty much the only Star Wars games that I’ve given a considerable crap about since (Jedi Knight, KOTOR etc.) were all developed by other companies. So, I’ve been rather uninterested in the company’s current state. The only upside here is that the company will still technically exist as a licence holder for all the LucasArts properties. The good news, there may yet be hope for a sixth Monkey Island game if those guys over at TellTale ever get around to it – but this pretty much dashes any hopes of further Special Editions of older LA games into the wind.
So yes, for anyone waiting for the newest Star Wars title out there, my condolences, but at the same time I hope Disney wont let LucasArts’ other properties just sit and rot as they prepare for the inevitable merchandising wave of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII.
Atari, the undead game company, is still around despite claiming bankruptcy for the second time in its existence earlier this year. Apparently Atari is adamant about remaining in the video-game business. They have looked at the option of being bought out by another company but so far there apparently haven’t been any takers.
