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Gaming Not-So-Quickies
A couple of gaming world quickies for you here. Nothing ground breaking; I've just had these bulletins sitting in my inbox marked as unread until I'm finally getting around to posting about them just now.
Switching To Decaf
Global Warming, Melting Peat Bogs, Impending Disaster
Switching To Decaf
Of course, by now most everyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows how Rockstar Games was at the middle of the finger pointing session pertaining to the recent Hot Coffee debacle. In case you have, in fact, been trying out the cave-dweller lifestyle, I'll briefly recap. The Hot Coffee disaster centered around some disabled but not entirely inaccessible program code in both the PC and PS2 versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The code in question was a sex minigame that would have happened after CJ takes one of his girlfriends on enough successful dates to get "invited in for coffee." I've not seen this minigame myself, but I'm lead to understand that there's nothing graphically explicit, but the point of the minigame is to bounce around a number of different sexual positions to finish your girlfriend off before you finish yourself. "Nice guys finish last," if you recall.
The minigame ws wisely axed before the game went gold, as it was certainly a controversial piece of tail bundled up in what was already a title begging to cause some sociopolitical hubub. Problem is, they never took the minigame out of the game; all they did was disable it. This was until a group of mod authors discovered the forbidden beverage and wrote a mod called Hot Coffee for the PC version enabling the minigame.
For a while, Rockstar tried to blame the so-called "hackers" for the immediate flames this ignited. The official claim was that the mod authors wrote the whole minigame and that Rockstar was in no way responsible for it. However, after a resourceful truth seeker found that the minigame could be accessed on the PS2 version through the employ of Gameshark codes, Rockstar could no longer evade the shitstorm. GTA:SA was re-rated Adults Only by the ESRB, causing "family-friendly" retailers (i.e. practically every franchised vendor in the goddamn world) to pull the game from their shelves on self-righteous principle. Their publisher stopped printing the game to disc until they could re-release a version that is copulation free. America has spoken: screwing hookers and then clubbing them over the head to get your money back is enough, thank you very much.
All in all, the whole thing is a complete disaster for Rockstar. Without having the actual numbers in front of me, I only feel confident saying that this debacle is costing them and their publishers millions of dollars to make amends for. Between this and thier upcoming game Bully, which puts players in the shoes of a ruthless school bully, which is already taking taking heavy fire in the US and the UK, you'd think there wouldn't be a PR firm on the planet who would take these guys on...
Anyhow, the point to this trip downnausea nostalgia lane is simply this: Rockstar has now posted NoMoreHotCoffee.com, where gamers (and parents who need sexy diagrams drawn for them before they actually put any effort into learning anything about the games they buy for their juvenile delinquents in training) can download a patch for the PC version of the game which completely removes the offending program code. Go grab it, or your delicate sensibilities might be threatened by a black man's trouser snake!
The minigame ws wisely axed before the game went gold, as it was certainly a controversial piece of tail bundled up in what was already a title begging to cause some sociopolitical hubub. Problem is, they never took the minigame out of the game; all they did was disable it. This was until a group of mod authors discovered the forbidden beverage and wrote a mod called Hot Coffee for the PC version enabling the minigame.
For a while, Rockstar tried to blame the so-called "hackers" for the immediate flames this ignited. The official claim was that the mod authors wrote the whole minigame and that Rockstar was in no way responsible for it. However, after a resourceful truth seeker found that the minigame could be accessed on the PS2 version through the employ of Gameshark codes, Rockstar could no longer evade the shitstorm. GTA:SA was re-rated Adults Only by the ESRB, causing "family-friendly" retailers (i.e. practically every franchised vendor in the goddamn world) to pull the game from their shelves on self-righteous principle. Their publisher stopped printing the game to disc until they could re-release a version that is copulation free. America has spoken: screwing hookers and then clubbing them over the head to get your money back is enough, thank you very much.
All in all, the whole thing is a complete disaster for Rockstar. Without having the actual numbers in front of me, I only feel confident saying that this debacle is costing them and their publishers millions of dollars to make amends for. Between this and thier upcoming game Bully, which puts players in the shoes of a ruthless school bully, which is already taking taking heavy fire in the US and the UK, you'd think there wouldn't be a PR firm on the planet who would take these guys on...Anyhow, the point to this trip down
Global Warming, Melting Peat Bogs, Impending Disaster
Blizzard North is dead. Long live Blizzard North.
If you're not hip on the scene, let me fill you in. Blizzard North was the office of Blizzard Entertainment's that was responsible for Diablo, Diablo II, and its expansion Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Each of these titles was absolutely phenomenal and you could even argue that these games were all direct predecessors to the MMORPG. If you look at a game like World of Warcraft good and close, you'll probably find that it has more to do with the Diablo franchise in terms of gameplay than it does with the Warcraft franchise.
The way the story goes is that those employees who are surviving the closure of this studio are being shipped down to the Irvine, CA office to work on an as-yet-unnamed project. Some suppose that it's Diablo III. I'm not so sure. Diablo II ended with a door wide open - two of the three great demons were put out of commission for good, and the last had just gained his full power. It was a powerful position to move forward with. But then Lord of Destruction came out and closed that door with a mere expansion pack. What could have been an amazing sequel was dispatched as though it were a mere footnote to the story.
I'm not sure what it is they're working on, but I'm pessimistic that it's Diablo III. It seems to me that story is closed and done with. It's written into a corner and when that happens you need to be either very careful or very reckless to proceed. Usually it's the latter and, given Blizzard's true committment to putting out quality product, it seems less likely they're going to try to continue the franchise.
Sigh. Alas. Blizzard North, we will miss you.
If you're not hip on the scene, let me fill you in. Blizzard North was the office of Blizzard Entertainment's that was responsible for Diablo, Diablo II, and its expansion Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Each of these titles was absolutely phenomenal and you could even argue that these games were all direct predecessors to the MMORPG. If you look at a game like World of Warcraft good and close, you'll probably find that it has more to do with the Diablo franchise in terms of gameplay than it does with the Warcraft franchise.
The way the story goes is that those employees who are surviving the closure of this studio are being shipped down to the Irvine, CA office to work on an as-yet-unnamed project. Some suppose that it's Diablo III. I'm not so sure. Diablo II ended with a door wide open - two of the three great demons were put out of commission for good, and the last had just gained his full power. It was a powerful position to move forward with. But then Lord of Destruction came out and closed that door with a mere expansion pack. What could have been an amazing sequel was dispatched as though it were a mere footnote to the story.
I'm not sure what it is they're working on, but I'm pessimistic that it's Diablo III. It seems to me that story is closed and done with. It's written into a corner and when that happens you need to be either very careful or very reckless to proceed. Usually it's the latter and, given Blizzard's true committment to putting out quality product, it seems less likely they're going to try to continue the franchise.
Sigh. Alas. Blizzard North, we will miss you.
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