brutal-legend posts

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is known for giving out opinions and quotes that can ruffle some feathers and hurt some feelings. In a new interview for Edge magazine, Kotick is at it again. In an portion of the interview on the Edge web site. Kotick slams the way Electronic Arts handles its internal developers, saying, "EA will buy a developer and then it will become 'EA Florida', 'EA Vancouver', 'EA New Jersey', whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that's what makes them so successful.'" To be fair to EA, they have in fact been renaming developers so they have unique designations (Visceral Games, Danger Close, etc).

Eurogamer has reported on other excerpts from the Kotick interview where he slams Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio. Activision once held the rights to publish the console-only game Brutal Legend and in his one meeting about the the game he was told by his execs, "He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. We're going to cancel it." He also slams the founders of Infinity Ward, Vince Zampella and Jason West, once again. The creators of the Call of Duty franchise were fired back in March. Kotick claims, "We're a public company, we've got ethics obligations, and the things they did were... I would go to jail if I did them."

Developer Double Fine's last game was the console-only title Brutal Legend (a game that really, really should have been made for the PC as well in our humble opinion). When a sequel for that game got canceled, Double Fine decided to do something different. Our sister site Joystiq reports that Double Fine's head man Tim Schafer has revealed the company has four smaller scale games in the works and all have publishing deals.

Speaking at the Develop conference this week, Schafer said that some of the games will be for retail release while others will be downloadable only game titles. Schafer also said that some might be released this year although he quickly backtracked on that comment, saying, "I see you writing that down. ... That was not a ship date." Let's hope that at least one of these four games is slated for the PC.

We were not happy when we learned that Double Fine's next game, the long-in-development music-themed action game Brutal Legend, would not be released for the PC. However, Double Fine's web site still creates the occasional fun Flash based mini-game. This week, the site has a new game designed to give you the chance to help Tim Schafer.

No you won't be helping the legendary game designer with creating new games but you could help him find material for this week's Game Developers Choice Awards. Schafer is hosting the awards on Wednesday night at this year's Game Developers Conference and this simple graphical Flash adventure game will give you a way to asist in gathering stuff needed for him to host the awards. Which is fine and all . . . but, still can't we get Brutal Legend to the PC.

On Monday we posted up a feature of all the great 2008 released console only titles that should, in our humble opinion, also be released for the PC. Today we have a sequel to that feature as we go over a number of upcoming 2009 console only games that have yet to officially announce a PC port.

As you can see there are quite a few console-only titles due out in 2009 that would be perfect for PC gamers including perhaps the most obvious choice; Ensemble Studios' last game Halo Wars. Some of our picks are admittedly fanciful but who cares? We still want to play all these games on the PC.

Click on the image above to continue reading 2009 console games that should be PC games.

If you have been waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who will be hosting this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards...well, you need to get out more. However, we can tell you that actor-funny musician-panda voice guy Jack Black will be taking on the hosting duties for this year's event which the cable TV network will broadcast live on Dec. 14.

Black's appearance as host is almost certainly timed to work with some world premiere game footage of the long delayed Double Fine title Brutal Legend (Black is one of the voices in the game). Other games that will have new footage shown at the event include the game adaptations of the movies Terminator Salvation and Watchmen. New footage will also be shown of Mafia II, the Illusion Softworks open world crime action game that we haven't seen in a long time in any form. More surprise announcements are supposedly in the works. As we have previously reported, Sims and Spore creator Will Wright will receive the first ever "Gamer God" award from Spike TV at the event.

So have you been wondering why Activision Blizzard decided not to take on most of the merged company's products from Vivendi Games this year? In an conference call with analysts on Thursday following the release of their latest financial numbers, the company's CEO Bobby Kotick said those games simply did not have sequel potiential.

The old Activision certainly has exploited games like the Tony Hawk and Call of Duty franchises but most of the Vivendi Games properties didn't have that kind of feel, with Kotick saying, "With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform, with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of, over time, becoming $100 million-plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us". Activision only took on a few of the Vivendi Games titles, including the upcoming open world action game Prototype and an unannounced title.

However those Vivendi Games left out in the cold by the Activision Blizzard merger have found new homes, including The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Dark Athena which went to Atari (which is also rumored to have gotten the Ghostbusters game). Still awaiting a home; Double Fine's Brutal Legend and Massive Entertainment's World in Conflict: Soviet Assault.

While we and the rest of the gaming world wait to see what fate will befall Brutal Legend, legendary game designer Tim Schafer has decided to give us a nostagia treat on the official Double Fine web site. Schafer has made a trip to his vaults and came up with the original design document for his acclaimed 1989 adventure game Grim Fandango.

The design doc, which is provided via an PDF file, is 72 pages of goodness for anyone interested in game design. It's packed with puzzles, designs, art sketches and more stuff that's didn't make the final product. The main character of Manny Calavera is still there and the game itself still takes place in the Land of the Dead but the design doc has a number of other characters with named like The Pizza Demon and Giraffe Lady that didn't make it into the final LucasArts published game.

Earlier this week Activision Blizzard announced that they would not be taking on a number of games from the now likely-to-be-former Sierra Entertainment brand. We have already heard that Massive Entertainment isn't worried about their future World in Conflict plans. Joystiq has also heard via an unnamed Sierra rep that the Ghostbusters game is "absolutely not cancelled" although it's likely to switch publishers.

And what of Brutal Legend, the long awaited next game from Tim Schafer's Double Fine team? A post on the developer's web site gives a clue inside a picture showing a bug. Putting a cursor over the bug's body brings up a message saying simply, "Brutal Legend is fine." Again look for the game to move to another publisher in the near future.

It's been expected ever since the merger was first announced but now it's official: The new Activision Blizzard (made up of the former Activision and Vivendi Games) has finally given some details on just what they plan to do with all of the game projects under Vivendi Games' Sierra Entertainment brand. Basically the company's Activision Publishing brand is keeping only a few franchises on Sierra's list; Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro and the upcoming Radical Entertainment open world action game Prototype. One other former Sierra game that Activision will publisher has not yet been revealed.

This means that a ton of previously announced games under Sierra Entertainment won't likely be published by the new Activision Blizzard including World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, WET, the Ghostbusters game (shown in playable form at San Diego Comic Con just this past weekend) and Brutal Legend. It's currently unknown if the games will be cancelled or sold to other publishers

The press release also says that the status of two of Vivendi Games' internal development studios, Swordfish and Massive, are being evaluated including the possibly of them being sold off. Two more Vivendi development studios, High Moon and Radical, will have some kind of staff adjustments although it's not clear exactly what that means yet. Two more former Vivendi brands, Sierra Online (which published downloadable games for the PC) and Vivendi Games Mobile, could also be put up for sale. We will likely get more info on this situation in the weeks ahead.