411 Games Fact or Fiction 7.20.09: Bioshock 2 Delay, God of War Movie, Crackdown's Disappointing Sales

Posted by Drew Robbins on 07.20.2009

Is Dana White & UFC doing the right thing by lashing out at EA over their MMA game? With Bioshock 2 delayed, is Uncharted 2 the game to beat this holiday season? Is the thinning holiday release schedule actually a good thing? Is a God of War movie reason for excitement? 411's Theo Fraser and Trace Aber debate these and other topics this week in 411 Games Fact or Fiction!



Welcome to another edition of 411 Games Fact or Fiction. Last week, our contestants finished up with an incredible score of 1 for 6, so lets meet this week's competitors looking to top that astounding effort.

Theo Fraser - "Smokin'" Theo Fraser is the man put in the unfortunate position of scrounging up Nintendo related news each week in his column, Nintendophiles. Give this man a read; because you know he has to wade through all kinds of crap at the rate Nintendo's quality is degrading.

Trace Aber - Because the knowledge that the PS3 has an inferior online setup didn't hurt enough, Trace has a whole column dedicated to the superiority that is Xbox Live. Living Live goes up on the same day as Fact or Fiction, so be sure to check it out after you've absorbed the wonderful knowledge of this column.

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1.) With the delay of Bioshock 2, Uncharted 2 is the clear frontrunner for the hardcore this holiday season.

Theo Fraser: FICTION - First of all, the loss of Bioshock 2 this year is a big blow to me, I was THIS close to clearing my entire schedule for the rest of the year just so I had enough time to re-enter Rapture and soak in the whole experience. Alas, it was not meant to be. So with Bioshock 2 out of the way, the competition has been given a new lease of life, and Uncharted 2 certainly looks to benefit from the delay. But does it really automatically become the clear frontrunner? What about the other contenders? I honestly can't make up my mind on Assassin's Creed 2, I wasn't a fan of the first game, but then again we're not really talking about my preferences per se, we're talking about sales in general and public perception of these titles, and Assassin's Creed has established itself as a profitable franchise so the sequel will likely sell incredibly well. With Assassin's Creed being multi-platform, it also has a larger reach than Uncharted 2 and therefore potentially has a larger fanbase. And what about Red Steel 2 on the Wii? If Ubisoft can deliver everything they've promised, core gamers on the Wii will finally have something worthwhile to shout about. But personally speaking, my vote for hardcore frontrunner is easily Modern Warfare 2. The Call of Duty series was always a hit with the hardcore crowd, but CoD4 really shot it into the stratosphere, especially the online component. There's no doubt in my mind that Modern Warfare 2 is THE big release for the remainder of 2009. And at the end of the day, core gamers are going to be spoilt for choice come Christmas.

Trace Aber: FICTION - I'm going to have to agree with Theo here. Uncharted 2 is clearly going to be a big title this season but I don't think it's going to be nearly as big as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, with or without the Call of Duty name tag. I think if Bioshock 2 wasn't delayed then we would have a close race between that and MW2, leaving Uncharted at a distant third. Then again, anything can happen between now and the holiday season and who knows what the promotion machines will come up with? By the holiday season we could see an entirely new landscape in terms of hype, because I haven't seen too many Uncharted 2 ads but I have seen plenty of Modern Warfare 2 ads. If Uncharted is going to make a dent in MW2's sales, they're going to need to hype it up and hype it in a big way.

Score: 1 for 1 Modern Warfare 2 does look pretty awesome…still need to play the first one though.

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2.) Dana White is doing the UFC Undisputed brand a disservice with his lashing out at EA's own MMA game.

Theo Fraser: FICTION - I'm not the world's biggest Dana White fan, but I can totally see where he's coming from in this whole debacle. A year and a half ago, EA stated they didn't want anything to do with something that wasn't "a real sport". And now they decide an MMA game is in their future. Clearly, White's gonna be pissed about that. In terms of him ‘threatening' current UFC competitors about lending their likenesses to EA for their game, again that doesn't seem such a big deal to me. UFC is THE MMA company right now, of course White wouldn't want his competitors appearing in a rival video game. My only concern in this whole situation is that he is utterly burning his bridges. If the THQ deal ever fell through, he won't stand a chance approaching EA again. Also a word of warning to White; stop giving EA's MMA game free publicity! The more you talk about it, the more curiosity and interest will develop for it, and then you really will be doing a disservice to the Undisputed title. But, ultimately, none of this should affect the UFC Undisputed brand. Fans just care about getting a good game; I doubt that the little label on the box telling us who developed and/or published the game is going to affect sales. EA, THQ…it doesn't matter. UFC Undisputed gives fans what they want, and the 1,000,000+ sales in the title's first month on store shelves tells me that THQ did something right. So far, the brand is doing fine.

Trace Aber: FICTION - Love him or hate him, Dana White has a good point and is doing what I'm sure 2K Sports wanted to do. EA has been strong-arming the competition for a while now and it's about time somebody did something about it. As Theo said, EA had their chance at MMA game and dismissed it, going as far as to say it's not even a real sport. A few months later, they want to cash in and I think it's good White is giving them a taste of their own medicine. Of course competition is a good thing, but EA isn't making this game because they care about MMA. Hell, they probably still don't see it as a real sport, and instead are making this game for the sole purpose of money. When they made Undisputed it was made with the intent to cater to the MMA fans of the world, and I feel for a first outing they did a good job. I don't have high hopes for this EA game, even if they manage to get big names on it. Which leads to the main point, none of this matters if Dana White allows people who signed onto the game into the UFC. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Score: 2 for 2



- Don't threaten EA with words, threaten them with this guy...definitely more effective

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3.) You are actually interested in the God of War movie.

Theo Fraser: FACT - Although, this is a classic example of where the term ‘faction' would be appropriate. Yes, I'm ‘interested' in the God of War movie, because it has the potential to be all kinds of awesome. Throw a load of money at it for all the special effects (and I'm talking MA-HOO-SSIVE hulking beasts and screen-filling armies and all that crap). The script is written by David Self, who worked on Road to Perdition, and a ‘huge name director' is apparently on board for the project (although whether or not this refers to Brett Ratner, who has since left the project, remains to be seen), so there's definitely some high calibre staff involved. The script also apparently stays very truthful to the game, which is always a good sign. But dare I get my hopes up? I don't think I need to mention the sordid history of video-game movie tie-ins. It's pretty bleak, to say the least. If Mr Uwe Boll even so much as THINKS about getting involved with the film, I will personally march over to his house and castrate him on his front porch. You can hold me to that. Thankfully, series creator David Jaffe seems to think likewise, and even told Boll to his face he didn't want him to direct it. So maybe we're safe. I shall remain sceptical but ever hopeful. As for who would play Kratos, I've seen some really funny suggestions, especially in the world of wrestling, with Bill Goldberg and Tyson Tomko being two names thrown around. Tomko's got the right facial hair I guess!

Trace Aber: FICTION - I have only played the God of War games a little bit, so I'm not nearly as hyped as I'm sure some people are. But, that being said, it doesn't matter how big of a fan I am, there is no way I can get behind a movie video game. Sure, there may have been one or two decent video game movies, but it seems like too much work for this to be translated into a good movie. Even with the supposed big names involved, I don't think they can do this game justice. Then again, I'm still bitter about how terrible the Super Mario Brothers movie was.

Score: 2 for 3



Switch!

4.) Summer of Arcade is quickly becoming one of the best annual gaming events.

Trace Aber: FACT - Mostly because I'm not too aware of other similar gaming events and also for the fact I absolutely love the Live service. Hell, I even write a column about it. Microsoft is smart in doing this during the summer though because a lot of the time summer is a pretty crappy time to be a gamer with very few blockbuster titles coming out. With the Summer of Arcade, it's possible to get quality gaming each and every week and do so at a cheaper price. You can end up getting the entire catalog for the price of a normal game or two, which is always worthwhile in my book.

Theo Fraser: FICTION - Don't get me wrong, I fully take into account the usual Summer dry spell, and I do applaud Microsoft for saving these big releases until now. This year's line-up doesn't quite match last year's (which included the awesome Bionic Commando: Rearmed) but it's still something to get excited about. The Summer of Arcade is a cool concept, but one of the best gaming events of the year? I'm not sure it's worthy of that accolade. I guess the Nintendo equivalent would be the Hanabi Festival for the Virtual Console, which brings super-duper rare Nintendo gems to the West for the first time via VC download. It was this that brought us Europeans Super Mario RPG for the very first time, and for me that was like 7 Christmases come all at once. Then again, this latest Hanabi Festival hasn't given us much to be excited about either. Still, this Summer of Arcade, great event as it is, can't match up to the events that send the industry into a frenzy, such as the conventions like E3 and TGS or even the big Holiday release line-up.

Score: 2 for 4



- Not going to lie...this game is one of the top reasons I'm going to end up getting a 360 this year

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5.) You are surprised that Realtime Worlds only broke even with the sales of Crackdown.

Trace Aber: FICTION - I don't know a single person outside of my then 11-year old brother who was excited about Crackdown. I played it for a little bit and was not impressed, and apparently neither was the rest of the world. And, to be entirely honest, I feel like the only reason they broke even is due to the Halo 3 beta test. I'm more surprised they didn't lose money.

Theo Fraser: FACT - I do agree with Trace; I didn't hear people going crazy about Crackdown in the run up to its release. However, those Halo 3 multiplayer beta codes were like gold dust and I know for a fact that many people bought the game PURELY to get their hands on them. That's insane, but that's fanboys for you. And anyway, I'm sure they wouldn't have been disappointed; by all accounts, Crackdown is a great little game. Garnering very positive reviews, it was the highest selling game in North America for the month of February 2007. Taking all that into account, you'd expect a game like that to do a lot more than just ‘break even'. Of course, I'm not sure of the exact amount of money Realtime Worlds spent on Crackdown, so if they used a ridiculous amount of cash, then that changes the story a bit and it's no surprise they didn't make much of a profit.

Score: 2 for 5

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6.) The thinning holiday line-up is actually a good thing.

Trace Aber: FICTION - I think it's always a good thing when there's too much to chose from. Sure, you can't get everything you want, but all that means is when summer comes and there's nothing new coming out, you can get the games you couldn't and by then they're much cheaper. Of course, given the current economy, it's not hard to see why people would rather have a thinning line-up other than ten or fifteen huge games coming out. But, when it comes down to it, I'd rather have more quality titles to chose from.

Theo Fraser: FICTION - Good thing for whom? Consumers? No. Sure, as Trace says, it's good for the wallet I guess, but nobody ever complains about being spoiled for choice when it comes to the games industry. There's no such thing as ‘too much of a good thing' in this sector of the entertainment business. While there's still a ton of great releases this Winter, the fact of the matter is that with the delay of some highly anticipated titles, gamers simply have less options and are thus restricted. That's not a ‘good thing' in my book. On the flip side, it's definitely beneficial for publishers. There aren't quite so many games vying for your hard earned cash, so the sales potential for the games that WILL be on sale this holiday season increases dramatically. If you were only going to buy one shooter this Christmas, and Bioshock 2 was going to be your pick, you may be swayed towards picking up Modern Warfare 2 to fill the gap until the Big Daddies arrive early next year. So to conclude, it might be a good thing for publishers , especially those promoting ‘second tier' titles that may have been overshadowed by the bigger players, but it's not such a good thing for us gamers who now have a little less to look forward to in the coming months.

Score: 3 for 6

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Until next time…

Theo and Trace finished with a respectable 3 for 6 score. Thanks to both contestants for joining me for this week's Fact or Fiction, even though they didn't give the expected love for Uncharted 2. Be sure to check back next week for more 411 Games Fact or Fiction action, by which time I will hopefully have completed Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. First impressions, fun, but even Jak 2 thinks this was an unnecessary turn to the dark side!