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• The High Cost of Gaming: Free Radical, Creators of GoldenEye, Close Doors

  Making videogames doesn’t just require ingenuity, artistic talent across a swath of disciplines, taste, and creative vision. It also requires obscene amounts of money. Even 2008’s indie poster child, Braid, took an investment of $180,000 to actually finish and distribute via Xbox Live Arcade. Making games reliant on cutting edge technology (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and high-end PC titles) costs tens of millions of dollars and we’re starting to see the high cost of development start to take its toll on independent developers and big publishers alike. Just look at Cole’s round-up of the videogame-industry-death-toll to gain insight on just what high development cost coupled with a flagging economy can do. The latest casualty is particularly sad, however. Free Radical, the studio responsible for the excellent TimeSplitters trilogy, the underappreciated Second Sight, and the critical-commercial fiasco Haze, have reportedly locked their doors. The staff, according to multiple UK press outlets, has been barred from entering their offices without explanation. This news is tragic. Free Radical was founded by David Doak (pictured), Steve Ellis, and a number of other former Rare staffers responsible for GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. But Free Radical’s greatest contribution to videogame design was paying its staff overtime. Read More... Posted Dec 18 2008, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, perfect dark, goldeneye, timesplitters, haze, free radical, second sight, david doak, steve ellis

• The Strange Case of Hype

  When is a game review more interesting than its subject? When there’s hype. Free Radical, the first-person shooter developer responsible for the original Perfect Dark, the Timesplitters franchise, and GoldenEye 007, are releasing their latest, Haze, this week and it has seen a flurry of coverage in the gaming press and blogosphere. Not because of the game’s release after nearly a year of delays but because it’s getting slammed in western press outlets. Haze isn’t the first marquee Playstation 3 title to see this sort of attention. Factor 5’s much maligned Lair saw the same tar and feathering when it released last August. Lair was a legitimately broken game suffering from an ill-advised decision to implement a purely motion-control interface. Its lambasting by the media became a story in itself because of Factor 5 Julian Eggebrecht’s bombastic response to the criticism. Haze received fairly positive preview coverage in the press late last year when the game was originally supposed to release, preview coverage looking at what was touted to be a close to finished product in need of final polishing. But in the intervening months, as the game has been repeatedly delayed, an air of negativity has surrounded it in news coverage. Is the reason that Haze is getting poor reviews a news story because it’s confirming everyone’s expectations? Is it any different than the downpour of perfect review scores for Grand Theft Auto 4 became a news worthy story? The real question: does hype, positive or negative, create news where there may not be any? Read More... Posted May 21 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, perfect dark, goldeneye, factor 5, timesplitters, haze, hype, free radical

• Common: Rare Makes Bad Games

  Jetpac is not good. Neither is Killer Instinct, Kameo, or Captain Skyhawk. While we’re on the subject, you should also know that Perfect Dark is bad. Battletoads sucks. There. I said it. Rare makes bad games. They have always made bad games. Playing Rare’s games reminds me of having to sit next to the kid who always crapped his pants in kindergarten. You feel bad for them, you may even think they’re pretty funny, but that doesn’t mean you want to play with them. Banjo Kazooie 3 and Viva Piñata 2 will most likely also be bad. Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, battletoads, perfect dark, viva pinata, captain skyhawk, microsoft, killer instinct, jetpac, banjo kazooie 3, jet force gemini, rare, goldeneye