Charting the Metacritic review scores of the new SimCity over time shows how out of step the early reviews were with what happened at launch. Continue reading
Filed under Bugs …
City of Heroes / Villains: Top 5 Under-Realised Systems
With less than a week to go before City of Heroes / Villains (CoH/V) shuts down, I thought I’d take a look at the five systems that I saw offering the greatest unrealised potential for this title. I’m not going to say that if these systems had been perfected it would have led to CoH/V being bigger than World of Warcraft, but it would have been another hook to bring in and keep interested players. Continue reading
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – Sigil Games Online
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was certainly a saga in development, but I doubt anyone involved in in felt pretty heroic by the end of their time at Sigil. Continue reading
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – RealTime Worlds
If you selected this option, congratulations – you decided to back RealTime Worlds! RealTime Worlds Game That Destroyed Them: All Points Bulletin (APB) Studio Launch Date: Early 2002 Studio Closure Date: September 2010 Invested In By: Private investors Estimated Money Blown: Over US$100m Cause of Death: Spending all the budget before the game had even launched, … Continue reading
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – Mythic Entertainment
If you selected this option, congratulations – you decided to back Mythic Entertainment! Mythic Entertainment Game That Destroyed Them: Warhammer Online (WAR) Studio Launch Date: 1997 (when it took the Mythic name) Studio Closure Date: 24 June 2009, when it became BioWare Mythic Invested In By: EA Estimated Money Blown: “south of US$100m” on WAR Cause … Continue reading
Marriwage Bwings Us Togethwer, Skyrim-Style
Skyrim made my Argonian Lizardwoman a lesbian. Or at least outed her to me, anyway. There were early signs: the dialogue in “A Night To Remember” indicated that my character’s fiancée was a woman, Evette San called her “the best man for the job” in helping her with her spiced wine issues, and there were … Continue reading
Crunch Time Is Wrong, But Gee This Game Is Fun!
GameSpot’s Andrew McMillen has an article up on the working conditions of game developers and why gamers should care. but unfortunately is misses its topic on a few levels and fails on its most important point – making gamers care. The first issue with the article are the games used to showcase extensive crunch times (“crunch” … Continue reading
The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap: Here Comes the New Stuff, Same As the Old Stuff
(All you have is my word that I haven’t made any substantive revisions to this document since January 30, 2011. Trust me. I’m a blogger. For a point-by-point recap of 2010, see either the January to June or the July to December articles.) 2010 was an interesting year for the MMO industry in that it … Continue reading
RIFT vs DCUO: The Little Things
I noted a while back that DC Universe Online’s uninstaller program didn’t work properly for some users and now, interestingly enough, it turns out that RIFT’s uninstaller program “may delete more files than it should“. This is a Bad Thing. What’s interesting is how both companies handled it. Sony Online Entertainment originally came back with … Continue reading
World Class Villains 