The Full Circle 360 News Report 09.12.08

Posted by Joe Roche on 09.12.2008

As Mark Twain said, the rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated. After a successful wedding and honeymoon The Full Circle has returned from a three week trip to the scrap heap in a major way. This week we've got news on Velvet Assassin, Dead Space, studio closings, and strange rumblings coming out of an even stranger source. We'll also talk a bit about the effect of Xbox 360 price cuts and close it all out with a wrap up of the summer gaming season with the Hot Button.



Is it possible that everyone could effectively wipe their memories clean and forget that this is the first time you're seeing The Full Circle in three weeks? I think I've made my case for why I was gone for so long so I won't bore you with the details but as a quick aside things are going very well, life has slowed down to a normal pace again and I plan on getting back to doing what it is that I love to do – namely writing for this website and being trashed by Sony fans. I am writing this on the 7th anniversary of 9/11 which seems bizarre because somehow it feels like it's been longer then that. I'm also writing this column four days after the incidents of 9/7 and if you're a Patriots fan like I am you know exactly what I'm talking about.

On a semi related note I realize that gambling is illegal in most places but if you're the type of person who puts some money down on football games this weekend you should be able to buy a boat. I think Vegas might have hired a new guy to do the lines because they don't make a lick of sense. Now that I've brought everyone down a few pegs allow me to reintroduce myself the only way I know how – by bringing you all around the Full Circle, starting now.

Velvet Assassin 09



I know I've talked about Velvet Assassin before in this space because it's one of those games that I was looking forward to being released heading into the holiday season. Unfortunately it appears that we will all be waiting until early 2009 to check out the mildly anticipated Replay Studios stealth action game. For those who don't know the game is based loosely on the real life story of WWII secret agent Violette Szabo and had been operating under the working title of "Sabotage" before getting the change to its current title. All we know about the game is that you are Violette Summer operating behind enemy lines in WWII trying to sabotage the German war machine. Frankly it seems like an interesting take on a tired subject which is what gave me some hope that it'd be an interesting game. I guess pushing it to 2009 keeps it from being lost in the Christmas shuffle with Gears of War 2 but it might also mean that the game sucks and Replay Studios needed more time to make it work. I guess only time will tell.

Ensemble Closing Down



In what has to go down as the strangest story of the week it appears that once Halo Wars is released the studio behind the game (as well as Age of Empires) will be closing their doors. It appears that Microsoft has decided to close down Ensemble Studios for financial reasons, promising to consolidate the studio into a different development studio that has promised to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars. Microsoft has also said that most of the Ensemble employees who are not picked up by the new studio will fill vacant spots around the Microsoft universe, so if you've got a family member working on Halo Wars they'll still be able to get you a Christmas present this year.

GameStop Expo Rumors



Was I the last person to find out that GameStop held an expo in Las Vegas for their employees recently? Is this something standard that other employers are doing now because I've got to say if this is going on then I might have left the retail sector too soon. I'm pretty sure when I was folding tee shirts in Sears in high school there was no long weekend retreat with Mr. Roebuck to play blackjack at the Venetian. Anyways during the GameStop Expo it was revealed, or rumored depending on who you ask that Microsoft will be releasing a 60 GB stand alone HDD for $99 that will come bundled with an Ethernet cable and 3 months of Xbox Live free. Not a terrible deal if you ask me, though you should keep in mind that this rumor came out of an event that might not even exist.

Dead Space: Banned



Dead Space is one of those games that could have the opportunity to catch a lot of people by surprise. I know that it seems foolish to think anything released by EA could be under the radar, but I get the feeling that Dead Space has the chance to be this year's BioShock. Of course if you live in Japan, Germany or China you won't be able to test my theory because as it turns out the game has been outright banned in those three countries. This isn't like Australia telling Bethesda to go back to the drawing board with Fallout 3 to make it more marketable, no sir these countries have told EA thanks but no thanks – you're game is not welcome here period, end of story. I will admit that Dead Space looks pretty violent and graphic – and if there is one thing we can all agree on it's that Germany, Japan and China are three countries known for their aversion to violence.

Demo Updates



This week we got word that a few highly anticipated demos will be hitting the Xbox Live Marketplace pretty soon. I should preface that by saying these demos are of games that I am highly anticipating and I can't speak for anyone else. The first demo to be confirmed came without a definite date but Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has said that there will be a playable demo of Left 4 Dead in the near future. This demo is going to feature part of the single player campaign, as well as an opportunity to try out the online co-op as that will be a major part of the game.

The second demo that has been confirmed for a September 18th release is for Lucas Arts under the radar title Fracture. The game is being developed by Day 1 Studios. Everyone who has had hands on time with the game seemed to enjoy themselves and I can't wait to try my hand at the earth shifting title next week.

Successful Price Cut



According to Kotaku in what should be a surprise to nobody the Microsoft price cut has caused a spike in retail sales of the Xbox 360. There are reports from different stores that reported as high as a 100% increase in console sales with up to six times more sales from September 5th – 7th compared to that same time frame the previous week. Naturally these numbers can only be taken with a grain of salt since there isn't any way that someone who doesn't feel like doing hours of research can do to verify them. However, you have to figure that the price cut is going to have a definite effect on the number of units being moved of the 360, and as we head into the holiday season might that be enough to convince Sony and Nintendo to come down on price points as well?

THE HOT BUTTON

This past Thursday the NFL regular season kicked off and I could not have been more excited, but it brings with it a few other less appealing side effects. First you have to deal with the sun going down earlier, the leaves turning colors and most importantly the weather getting colder…much colder. All of these signs point towards one undeniable fact – summer is over, bring on fall. As a sports fan this is good news, but as a video games fan it's even better news. When the summer season began I wrote a piece about my most anticipated games of the summer…and now that we have a chance to look back on the column I think we can all agree that this summer has sucked for Xbox 360 fans.

As a reminder the ten games that I listed as my most highly anticipated games of the summer were: Battlefield: Bad Company, Mercenaries 2, Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway, Tales of Vesperia, Madden 09, Civilization: Revolution, Soul Calibur IV, Unreal Tournament III, NCAA Football 09, and Too Human.

I know it's not a scientific evaluation but when you take a look at these games as they were rated through Metacritic you get respectively: 83, 75, XX Brothers in Arms hasn't released yet, 80, 85, 84, 85, 82, 83 and 65. Basically the highest ranked game on my list was Civilization: Revolution (85) and the lowest rated game was my most anticipated Too Human (65). If you were in college and those were your grades you'd be looking at a B-/C+ average (taking into mind that you have to discount the 10th score since it's unavailable at this time).

I'd love to say that my mind was just in the wrong place when I made those highly anticipated choices and that I missed some of the best games of the summer, but that'd be a lie. Other then NHL 09 which came out this week there isn't a game rated on Metacritic above a 90 that came out during the summer season. I'm not saying that the games I did get a chance to play this summer were lousy, I had a great time with Battlefield: Bad Company, and I'm still playing a lot of Madden – but I wasn't blown away by anything either.

Easily the most fun I had this summer playing video games came from getting the chance to relive my experience with the original SoulCalibur, and finally getting around to playing Gears of War. That's great for bargain bin shopping and the Xbox Live Arcade but doesn't speak very well to the summer blockbuster appeal of the video game market.

I understood heading into the summer that it would be a pretty slow time for truly great games. It's obvious that companies would rather put more polish on a game and release it for the holiday rush then worry about dropping something in June so that Little Timmy has a game to play during school vacation. Instead of those truly great experiences we wind up with good, but not great games during the summer because developers know we'll buy the games anyways – what else do we have to do during the summer?

Obviously I don't expect games in the high 90s to come around every day – it's simply not realistic to think that Gears of War, or Grand Theft Auto IV could come out every season. But when I look back on this summer of gaming I'm left feeling a bit flat, and admittedly I haven't gotten my hands on all the games that I would like to play I played enough to know that while the cold weather sucks the fall and winter can't come soon enough, because I finally moved up to HD after the wedding and I can't wait to play something worthwhile on this TV.

Punching Out

The Negative Edge by Tommy Coloma. Even though I've been gone for three weeks it's nice to know that Tommy still hasn't finished Lost Odyssey.

The Checkpoint by John Curry. Just the picture of Caveman Games brought back memories of a game that I had long since forgotten.

Nintendophiles by Mark Salmela. Wait Mark wrote Nintendophiles this week? Apparently he decided to hedge hit bets with two console columns to equal the awesomeness of my one.

The PC Centric Extravaganza by Chris Evans. If you do only one thing for me this week please check out the video that Chris posted called "The Combine Interview." I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The 10th Hour by Derek Robbins. Derek's list of the top video game villains is fantastic, but I am still waiting for an answer on why Bowser keeps kidnapping Princess Peach. You'd think he'd have moved on to a different harlot to steal after those plumbers kept foiling his plan.

The Hall of Shame by Vincent Chiucchi. Vincent is talking about Angry Video Game Nerd knockoffs, a column that deserves its own support group.

Working Title by Jordan Williams. I love that Jordan included the I block from Tetris in his Evil Henchmen column, that stupid thing only shows up when you couldn't possibly use it.

The Wonder Years by Owain J. Brimfield. And the Best Game of the Wonder Years is…something I can not possibly argue about since I was playing this game up until about two years ago.