THE LOWS
Andy Chalk: Dawngate is dead
EA pulled the plug on Dawngate at the start of the week, a particularly surprising move given that it's been in one form of beta testing or another for the past year and a half. I suppose this could actually be seen as a "high," since a willingness to shut it down at this stage in development is surely preferable to just shoving it out the door and hoping for the best, but it's unfortunate that something couldn't be done to salvage the game, especially since some players clearly seemed to be enjoying it. It's also obviously not good news for the people at developer Waystone Games, which is reportedly being disbanded.
Samuel Roberts: High prices
It’s hard to figure out what’s happening with Ubisoft’s holiday titles vanishing from Steam this week (and not appearing on the UK Steam store at all). While opening two clients to play one game is never ideal with both Steam and uPlay, having the option to buy the game on Steam is ideal for a lot of players, and not selling through Steam is a break of form for Ubisoft. Hopefully they’ll return to Valve’s service soon.
Phil Savage: Fallout 4
An obvious choice, and not even a particularly notable one. Of course the Fallout 4 trademark was a hoax. This happens constantly, to the point where I've long since stopped paying attention to trademark discoveries. It’s always a hoax. And yet, yes, there's still a part of me that wanted it to be true. I'm ready to see what Bethesda will do next. An open-world post-apocalyptic RPG made with current-gen hardware in mind? Yeah, I'd like to see that happen.
Oh well, there's always next year.
Chris Thursten: Oh god where did the year go
Endless Legend might be my favourite thing this week, but the circumstances in which I discovered it are quite the opposite. We’ll be beginning the process of judging our Game of the Year soon, and that means going back and considering a lot of games that I might have missed when they came out. I’ve heard a lot of people say that 2014 was a little weak, release-wise, but the staggering task ahead of me speaks to the opposite. I’ve still not started Wasteland 2 and I’d like to return to Divinity: Original Sin; I’m half-way through my first Shadowrun Returns campaign and don’t feel ready to move on to the Director’s Cut of Dragonfall yet. That’s just RPGs. I still need to finish Alien: Isolation and Shadow of Mordor and, oh wait! There’s Legend of Grimrock 2. And Jazzpunk. And The Banner Saga. Maybe I should give Metal Gear Rising a look? What about Luftrausers?
And so on. And so on. And so on.
Tom Marks: The Glove is coming off
The Black Glove’s kickstarter is finally over, falling woefully short of its $550k target. Even the belated support of big names like Ken Levine couldn’t save what looked like a unique and clever concept, striking many of the same chords with me as the first time I saw Psychonauts. Raising the $220k it managed to is an impressive feat in itself, certainly proving there is a not insignificant amount of interest in the game, but setting such a high bar on an all-or-nothing platform is a dangerous game to play with a brand new IP from a team with no stand out names. Their video proved to me that they had the chops to get the job done, and The Black Glove looks like a game I’d love to try, so the thought that it may never see the light of day is a discouraging one.
