Click here to go to the archives main page.
Other popular tags: Sony, Xbox 360, PS3, Activision, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, Wii, PC, fail, DLC, Xbox Live, Modern Warfare 2, Xbox, Girls, journalism, Review, video, Ubisoft, Valve, Xbox Live Indie Games, gaming, Kotaku, DRM, UK, DS, Left 4 Dead, PSP, XNA, Disregarded Demographics
John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts has recently spoken to Gamasutra regarding a variety of topics, but most interestingly; the Nintendo Wii. Riccitiello expressed disappointment with the Wii’s sales, especially with regards to its current US price point. “If they maintain $199 and don’t innovate, they’re going to have a hard time competing” Riccitiello said, as well as pointing out that the Wii has the possibility to pick up previous PS2 sales, if it lowered its price.
The problem with the Wii is that it seems people don’t tend to buy many games, getting Wii Sports or Wii Fit is sufficient for most players. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have a much more dedicated fanbase, meaning that they’re more likely to shell out on games.
Dead Space: Extraction is EA’s latest attempt to crack the Wii marketplace and the first spin-off title for the Dead Space franchise. Although it was released on September 29th, DS:E has sold a meager 9,000 copies in September. They only had five days to sell those 9,000 copies (NPD’s figures go through October 3rd), but that number includes pre-orders and the first five days of sales.
In an interview with Edge Online, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divinich suggested sales of 20,000 plus for October wouldn’t be out of the question. Still, at that rate EA’s probably taking an enormous loss on the title. A supposed EA-Visceral employee has sounded off their disappointment along with a promise of repercussions for the company’s future Wii development. It’s almost a given that we’ll see a major price drop on DS:E by Black Friday.
UPDATE: Looks like EA have rectified the mistake made earlier today. The three games now come out at £14.99 total and it only took them seven hours to notice. Surely a company as big as EA can sort out such a damaging mistake quicker than this. Even when you look past the monetary losses (especially for a company as successful as EA) the embarrassment alone would be encouragement enough to get it sorted out as quick as humanly possible.
In regards to the money, I really do wonder how many people would have actually downloaded these games had it cost them a single penny. I’m wagering not very many at all. Unfortunately still no response direct from EA themselves, maybe they are just too embarrassed to comment. Read more →
Now that I’m back from my adventures I can finally gather together all the stuff we collected at PAX that we will be giving away over the next few days. Click on the pic above for a larger version.
In there are, amongst many other things; 8 T-Shirts (possibly more, I’m still doing laundry), 2 pairs of Deca Sports gloves, a MAG beta code, 2 Hello Kitty MMO beta CDs, 3 comics, far too many stickers, 2 copies of LoTR online: Mines of Moria, a couple of paper craft GTA:Chinatown cars and 11 Xbox Avatar PAX T-shirts.
Any idea how we give these away?
Dead Space is a new IP from the small, family-run publisher EA. It’s a third person survival horror set on a rather rusty spaceship. During the campaign you take the role of the silent Isaac Clarke as he travels through the planet-cracking, monster-infested ship, The USG Ishimura. Isaac and his team have been given the job of fixing whatever caused the Ishimura to drop out of contact with its corporate owners.
Each level takes the form of an area of the vast ship, with the start and end usually being the tram station. At each stop Isaac has three or four jobs to do out of a fairly unimpressive list: collecting items, pressing buttons or meeting someone (or something). Once done, it’s on to the next stop with a light smattering of story to try to keep things interesting.
As you travel through each level, you slowly begin to learn more about the fate of the crew; a fate closely tied to the other creatures you meet on board. Referred to as Necromorphs, the grossly deformed figures come in your usual survival horror range and will be your main enemy. Not to worry, as your trusty collection of engineers’ tools allow you can quickly dispose of your enemies, one limb at a time.
Over the past few days I have been struggling my way through EA’s most recently copied created IP, Dead Space, for an NG review. After a thrilling and frightening first hour or so, the game began to become a bit of a chore. By the 5 hour mark I was hoping this was a minor hitch and things would soon improve, but after a couple more hours of arduous battling against the game, I’m almost at the point of giving up.
What went wrong? How did a game, praised by nearly every corner of the videogame world, drive me to this point? I’ll go into much more detail about the game in my review, but here are some bullet points describing a few ways Dead Space fails to engross or amuse and in some cases, actively frustrates me.
Dead Space has an impressive polish, but it soon wears off leaving it’s repetitive core, bugs and interesting design choices on display.
Yesterday I bought Dead Space and thought it was awesome. Great graphics, stunning audio design and an overall exceptionally polished experience. Today, I’ve played 3 hours more and I’m struggling to stop myself trading it in for Saints Row 2. It’s become monotonous, bland and downright annoying to play.
Curious to see if things pick up and are worth slogging on for, I started looking around for other people’s take on the game. I was under the impression from all I had heard before buying that it was basically like BioShock but really scary. It was at this point I realised something rather unnerving: most of the reviews are just crap.
I knew a game review is no work of art, but I had always defended harsh criticism of them claiming that they are at least fair. Due in part because almost all the reviews I read were from Destructoid, who it turns out are the exception rather than the rule. The same can be said for indie blog Ripten, who wrote one of the few reviews that seemed actually honest. It was well balanced, and overall very positive, thought did mention that “six hours in, I was ready for it to be over, and my interest in the narrative began to wane”.
From reading a dozen or so of the more popular site’s reviews, they all seem to read almost identically. Here are nearly all reviews of Dead Space in 5 short sentences:
The game is scary. Here is a bit of generic story. The graphics are good. The sound is good. It is the best game ever.
None of the reviews make mention of the tedium of the missions, all of which seem to require you to go to a location, do something, then return back the exact same way you went. Game Informer’s review, for example, mentions not a single blemish in the game, except for “mundane” levels and “a poorly executed asteroid shooting gallery”, neither of which are important enough to dent the game’s 9.25 final score.
Gamespot’s review just doesn’t mention any of even the mildest bad points (on either of the 2 page review), resulting in a glowing 9.0 from them. GameDaily (who I’ve called out before) simply brush off any bad points by saying that Dead Space is simply “too good”. How can a game be too good to critique important aspects such as bland and repetitive missions?
Just as I was losing hope, I spotted a review from Variety (I know who they are). They gave one of the lowest scores the game has yet received. Variety also isn’t even a videogame site. And yet against my expectations, the review is a glorious deconstruction of Dead Space. It mentions all of the important factors as well as an honest explanation of the games flaws.
This was followed up with the most recent Zero Punctuation review. Often, I have dismissed ZP as simply entertainment (see the Braid review “no connection between the story and the gameplay” for just how wrong he can be), but in this case he picks up on exactly what is wrong with Dead Space; something professional game reviewers seem to have completely missed.
When Variety magazine and Zero Punctuation are offering more detailed, accurate and balanced reviews than the largest videogame-specific outlets out there, we have a problem. Granted it’s a problem we know exists, but I had no idea it was quite this bad. Reviews shouldn’t be “this is what PR people would say about the game. Go buy it”. They should be REVIEWS.
If I can stop myself from trading it in, the NG review of Dead Space will be up within the next few days, hopefully providing you with all the details the other reviews somehow forgot.
Shoot off their limbs
Atmosphere is impressive
Oh Shit! That’s not dead!
iTunes