Daily News Spin — April 25, 2001 (Wednesday)

New Unladen Gaming column

Stardock's Brad Wardell talks about how good games sometimes cause headaches. Light Weight Ninja looks like it might be a surprise success, but Stardock hasn't planned for that.

That�s where the 'I�m in big trouble' comes in. The game has no marketing budget set aside. It wasn�t supposed to be a game worth marketing. At the end of last year, when we got together to budget out where marketing dollars were going to go, Light Weight Ninja didn�t get a penny.

You can read Brad's column here.

"What's wrong with modern games"

Gamedev.net lists the twelve things that are wrong with today's games:

What is so entertaining about death? Even putting aside the gore element and the perverse interest some game playing kids have in the realism with which bits of their victims catapult across the screen, death, from a game design POV is the crudest and most basic dynamic.

Thief proved to any who would doubt it, that sneaking past the guards is more rewarding than shooting them. Sadly very few games have taken the idea to their hearts? You would think games designers were desperately trying to push the barrier even further, but no, here comes a Klingon guard, (I know this, because like baddies everywhere he has the courtesy to yell "stop! intruder" at me before he shoots) I suppose I should shoot him with my phaser rifle... Sadly many first person shooters resemble tech demos wrapped around sub-pacman gameplay.

Not to bust on Gamedev.net too much, but the article lists Mortyr as a game that never was released and Max Payne as cancelled, both of which are incorrect. There are also typos in the article. We only bring this up because it's a bit ironic to see an article listing faults that is guilty of several glaring faults itself.

New Starships Unlimited demo

Tom loved it, so you know that it's no Deus Ex! You can download the new demo here.

More Columbine lawsuits

From Salon:

The families of several victims in the Columbine massacre have filed a lawsuit against companies that create violent video games and sex-oriented Web sites, claiming their products influenced the gunmen.

The suit seeks $5 billion in punitive damages from 25 entertainment companies. It was filed on behalf of the family of slain teacher Dave Sanders and other Columbine victims in federal court.

Companies named in the lawsuit include Nintendo of America, Sega of America, Sony Computer Entertainment and Time Warner Inc., which is now AOL Time Warner, and ID Software Inc. and GT Interactive Software Corp., creators and publishers of the game "Doom."

What is there to say at this point? Why not go after gun manufacturers also, if you want to single out products that help facilitate violent acts? The people who hold gun shows? TV manufacturers who provide the means for viewing violent games?

New games soon

Tropico may be in stores today, Cossacks has shipped, Merchant Prince 2 has gone gold, and Hidden and Dangerous 2 was announced.

Lord of the lawsuits

Sierra's getting sued again over Lord of the Rings. Mark's latest GameSpin column on GameSpy looks at the strange history of this Sierra game in development.

Inside.com broke the story. Here's the link.

3am

You know the Internet economy is in trouble when even porn sites are having problems. Meanwhile, ex-dot.commers are looking for work and have zeroed in on the porn industry.

Turbine, makers of Asheron's Call, have laid off some staff. We have no idea what this means as far as how Asheron's Call is doing in the marketplace. Microsoft has never released any information about number of subscribers, though the best guess is that AC plateaued at about 100,000 players.

Namco, Enix, and Square have agreed to cross-hold up to 5% of each other's stock and may partner on some future projects.

One of the oldest ISPs, PSINet, has been delisted and is teetering on the edge of doom. Just another sign of the Internet apocalypse.

The DVD version of the Dungeons and Dragon movie -- quick, try to make a saving roll against brain death -- will be packaged with a Baldur's Gate 2 demo.

MTV's Jackass show has inspired more dumbness. Monday a trio of teenagers filmed a stunt disaster. One filmed, one drove the Honda Civic, and the third tried to jump over the Civic as it drove at him at approximately 25-30 MPH. The scorecard reads: Two kids hauled off to juvenile detention and a third in the hospital with a broken leg and other injuries. You can see the video here. Wouldn't these kids be safer playing violent videogames?

Click here to read Monday's news