The Good, The Bad and The Ugly News Report 08.10.09: StarCraft II Delayed, Guitar Hero Van Halen Updates, More

Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 08.10.2009

Plus, PC Batman delayed, Scratch: The Ultimate DJ Coming in 2010 and more!

Welcome to this week's edition of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly News Report. I hope you all excuse me if this edition is a bit shorter than last week, but my PC died earlier this week and I am borrowing my Dad's old, slow Laptop in order to make this report. I feel very uncomfortable typing on a laptop (I make like 300 typing mistakes per second) and pages take like a million years to load in this piece of crap. Hopefully I will have my PC fixed later this week (it seems to be a hard-drive issue) and I will be back to my regular schedule, which includes reviews of Shatter and Fat Princess for the PSN. Also this week I will be participating on Fact or Fiction, so check that out. On to the news!

Biggest News of the Week: StarCraft II Delayed Until 2010

Another of the big titles of 2009 got delayed until 2010. Blizzard officially confirmed that StarCraft II has been delayed until the first half of 2010 because the company needs more time to prepare the new version of Battle.Net that will launch at the same time as the game. Battle.net will be an integral part of StarCraft II and the primary anti-piracy measure Blizzard will be taking, eliminating local area play and forcing players to connect to the Battle.net servers in order to play.
[Credit: Gamespot.com]


UGLY: The list just keeps growing. How many more games are we going to lose this year? I understand Blizzard's reasons here, but other companies that are delaying titles because of extreme competition (also known as "Modern Warfare 2 Fear Syndrome") don't seem to realize that they are avoiding competition now and forcing competition later. The first half of 2010 now looks as the best time to be a gamer with so many titles coming out. That will give new IP's like Alpha Protocol and Brutal Legend a chance to capture attention this holiday season. Still, more than half of the games I was waiting to buy this holiday season have been pushed back.

Brutal Legend Lawsuit Settled Out of Court

The Brutal Legend lawsuit involving Activision, Double Fine and EA has been settled out of court, allowing Brutal Legend to meet the expected release date of October 13 2009. The details of the settlement will remain confidential, but it is understood that Activision received little or no compensation and only agreed to settle out of court in order to avoid losing the case in open court. The lawsuit came to pass when Activision sued Double Fine, claiming that in spite of Activision declining to publish the game after their merger with Vivendi Games (Brutal Legend's original publisher) they retained the rights to the game and that Double Fine did not have the authority to shop the game around and find a new publisher (in this case, EA).Double Fine had counter-sued, claiming unlawful business practices by Activision.
[Credit: Gamespot.com]


GOOD: Be it that Brutal Legend is one of the games I am looking forward to buy, I am happy that it is going to meet the release date and that Double Fine won in the end. There is no doubt in my mind that they would have won the case anyway considering that Activision had declined to publish the game in the first place.


PC Version of Arkham Asylum Delayed Until September 15

It has been confirmed that the PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum has been pushed back until September 15 2009 in order to integrate Nvidia's PhysX technology. The technology will allow objects to behave in a lifelike manner when attacked by Batman or any of the evil goons in the game.
[Credit: Gamespot.com]


GOOD: I usually complain about delays, but this one only will be a few weeks and will allow the game to be on par with the console counterparts, so there is not much to complain about. I have seen what PhysX can do in games like Fat Princess, so it will be interesting to see how well Batman's new adventure uses the technology.

Scratch: The Ultimate DJ Delayed Until 2010

Yet another one bites the dust. Scratch was supposed to be the first DJ game, but now will be delayed until early 2010. A new developer, Bedlam Games, is onboard to finish the project after Activision purchased the former developer, 7 Studios. Genius Products sued Activision, claiming that the publishing giant purchased 7 Studios on purpose to delay the release of Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, but an attempt by the lawsuit to prevent the release of DJ Hero failed.
[Credit: Gamespot.com]


BAD: To me this confirms that Activision has taken the title of "The Evil Empire" away from EA. First of all, I believe this was done on purpose to delay Scratch. Second of all, Activision tried to keep the Scratch source code and they where forced by the judge to return something that wasn't theirs in the first place. This essentially kills Scratch, because unless they release the game at a low price in order to screw with DJ Hero (unlikely) casual gamers and interested parties will prefer the more established and popular "Hero" brand.

Guitar Hero Van Halen Rocks December 22

More Hero is coming in 2009 with the official announcement that Guitar Hero: Van Halen will hit stores on December 22 2009. This will be the fourth Hero title released in 2009, with Band Hero, Guitar Hero 5 and DJ Hero being the others.

The complete Guitar Hero: Van Halen on-disc set list follows below:

Van Halen tracks:
"Ain't Talkin Bout Love"
"And the Cradle Will Rock"
"Atomic Punk"
"Beautiful Girls"
"Cathedral" (solo)
"Dance the Night Away"
"Eruption" (solo)
"Everybody Wants Some"
"Feel Your Love Tonight"
"Hang 'Em High"
"Hear About it Later"
"Hot for Teacher"
"Ice Cream Man"
"I'm the One"
"Jamie's Cryin"
"Jump"
"Little Guitars"
"Loss of Control"
"Mean Street"
"Panama"
"Pretty Woman"
"Romeo Delight"
"Running with the Devil"
"So This is Love"
"Somebody Get Me a Doctor"
"Spanish Fly" (solo)
"Unchained"
"You Really Got Me"

Songs by other artists:
Alter Bridge - "Come to Life"
Billy Idol - "White Wedding"
blink-182 - "First Date"
Deep Purple - "Space Truckin"
Foo Fighters - "Best Of You"
Foreigner - "Double Vision"
Fountains of Wayne - "Stacy's Mom"
Jimmy Eat World - "Pain"
Judas Priest - "Painkiller"
Killswitch Engage - "The End of Heartache"
Lenny Kravitz - "Rock and Roll is Dead"
Queen - "I Want it All"
Queens of the Stone Age - "Sick, Sick, Sick"
Tenacious D - "Master Exploder"
The Clash - "Safe European Home"
The Offspring - "Pretty Fly For a White Guy"
Third Eye Blind - "Semi-Charmed Life"
Weezer - "Dope Nose"
Yellowcard - "The Takedown"
[Credit: Gamespot.com]


BAD: I was looking forward to this game and chances are I will get it at some point, but much like GH: Metallica it will be when the price drops. I only purchase one GH title a year and that GH title will be Guitar Hero 5. Activision is killing themselves by creating their own competition. Why not wait until 2010? Van Halen sales will be greatly affected by the sales of GH 5 and Band Hero come Christmas time. The market will be overly saturated if we also count the release of The Beatles Rock Band which is looking all shades of awesome. This is part of the reason I believe the market for these type of games will eventually die, killed by oversaturation. I have been one of GH's biggest fans and supporters, going as far as not buying any Rock Band games, staying loyal to the "Hero" brand, but even I am feeling burned out of the genre.

The Reader's Voice

This Week's Question: What genre do you believe is more over-exposed?

That's right, with dozens of FPS released each year, the current wave of rhythm games and movie-based third person games, which genre do you believe is more over-exposed? Top answers will be a part of next week's column.

Goodbye

Well, with Mark gone I am sponsor-less. I encourage everyone to check the Top 5, Game POW and Lee Price's Retrominicominionlistonristerfusion column, which is quickly becoming one of my favorites, even if the name is confusing and hard to type. Until next week!