September Wrap Up

“DRM = Bend Over & Lube Up”

September saw the release of Will Wright’s highly-anticipated ‘sim –everything’, Spore,  and things didn't go exactly to plan for EA.  Any hopes that the game would be judged on merit alone were quickly dashed once the gaming community got wind of Spore’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) policy.

First came the news that the game’s DRM software limits the user to installing the game on three machines which, after a fair amount of misunderstanding, incurred the wrath of many PC gamers. The game’s Amazon listing soon became the unofficial host for the 2008 “EA Hate Convention” with indignation at anti-piracy measures reaching an all time high. EA’s response – that people could call customer service so long as they have a decent “excuse” for needing more installs – surprisingly did little to quell the surge of anger  and the publisher later announced it would relax the DRM policy. As if the collective anger of PC gamers wasn’t enough, Spore also attracted the attention of the friends of Jesus.  Apparently, some Christian commentators see Spore as an affront to the well-established fact that the world is less than 10,000 years old.

"This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s talent or the quality of “Halo Wars”

Following some pretty accurate rumours, Microsoft confirmed the closure of Age of Empires developer, Ensemble Studios.  Most recently, Ensemble has been working on Microsoft’s upcoming RTS title, Halo Wars, fuelling speculation that the game is not exactly up to standard. Microsoft responded quickly with a statement claiming the decision was “fiscally rooted” and in no way related to the quality of Halo Wars.

That was not the end of Halo news in September, however, as Bungie started teasing the gaming community with a series of cryptic messages. Seemingly referring to the Halo universe, the messages were soon followed by a mysterious countdown on Bungie’s official website.  Rumours began to circulate that the developer was about to reveal a brand new Halo title, but when the countdown ended we were simply shown a trailer for, what appears to be, some new Halo 3 campaign content. The trailer, having been examined with a fine-toothed comb was found to contain the phrase “Maddie, where are you?” leading some sites to speculate that it was a reference to missing child, Madeline McCann.  Bungie, after dropping the bombshell that Halo is a work of fiction and thus unlikely to feature real-life child abduction, denied the rumours.

"Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you'll suck forever."

Mild disappointment was the flavour of the month, as the big titles came and went without the kind of widespread rejoicing the publishers expected. First up was Stalker: Clear Sky (the rebellion against full stops in game titles begins here) which, despite GSC’s best efforts, turned out to be worse than its predecessor.  Star Wars: The Force Unleashed left us carbon-frozen  and Spore turned out to be less-evolved than we’d hoped. Who would have thought an EA Sports annual update would be the most exciting title of the month?

Next Month

October is set to be the month of Ubi, and we’re looking forward to finding out more about its upcoming AAA titles. We got the chance to have a glimpse at Far Cry 2 and we’ll see if it’s Ubi 1 Crytek 0 as the Montreal team aims to impress with the open-world Africa-based shooter. We’ll also have a hands-on with Prince of Persia which could be something pretty special, especially given that it’s based on the same game engine as the technically-stunning Assassin’s Creed.  With more details on EndWar and Naruto coming too, stay tuned for some big previews.