It’s a busy week for the Gist List, so without
further ado onto the highlights and lowlights in gaming this week:
Sierra
Closes Studios
Last week brought a lot of bad news to the employees of Sierra
Online, especially those at the company’s Oakhurst, California division that was
unceremoniously shut down by corporate management because it was "in an area of the
world where communication is difficult," according to Sierra president David
Grenewetzki. The Oakhurst facility produced some of the greatest adventure games of all
time, including Gabriel Knight, and most of the King’s Quest, Space Quest, and
Leisure Suit Larry series. For those that were fans of the Sierra adventure game of old,
this truly brought an end to the adventure game as we once knew it. And if the office
being shut down was enough of a bad omen for adventures, GameSlice has
more bad news to report: Al Lowe, creator of Leisure Suit Larry was told
to "clean out his desk" last week at Sierra’s Bellevue office, and Mark
Crowe, half of the team that created Space Quest, was also released from Dynamix,
a Sierra subsidiary. Indeed the Sierra of today does not at all resemble the company which
so many gamers respected through the 80s and early 90s.
Computer Gaming World
Have you seen the new April cover of Computer Gaming World magazine? All I can say is
this: What a disgrace to the entire interactive entertainment industry. Someone at CGW
decided to put an adult-film star on the cover with the tagline "Bite Me: Suck Down 3
New Horror Games." This is truly a disturbing cover image. When I purchased the
magazine this weekend in Los Angeles, people were looking at the cover and rolling their
eyes in disbelief. What was CGW thinking? I wrote them a letter about the cover that you
can read here. I’d be interested to hear your comments on it. CGW should be
ashamed of this cover which makes the entire industry look bad.
3DRealms’ Camera Caption Contest
Click to Expand: 3DRealms' George Broussard Gets a Dose
of His Own Medicine
[EXPAND]
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For a long time I’ve been admiring 3D
Realms’ Camera Caption contest on their site. Basically, they take images from
around the office and ask fans to contribute their favorite witty caption to accompany the
photo. Some of the entries are absolutely hilarious. (Check out the one with Apogee
President Scott Miller and a Celery Stick). However, the one that takes the cake for me is
this image of 3D Realms President George Broussard watching his Porsche being towed away
by a mechanic. The quote submitted by Tom Thurston said, "The Mechanic says to
George, ‘You’ll get it back ‘when it’s done’.’" For
anyone who knows anything about 3D Realms’ promise of "When it’s done"
release dates, this caption has an amusing ring of truth to it. You can check out the
contest here.
Duke and Rockstar
I always have a good chuckle when press releases from game companies are filled with hot
air, but I must say last week’s announcement by Rockstar games that Duke Nukem is
coming to a "next generation platform" is one of the lamest press releases
I’ve read. For starters, there’s nothing of substance here – No plot, no
details on the developer, the game concept, or even the platform it will be published on,
although it's widely speculated to be the PlayStation 2. Sure, a public company has to
announce new products relatively frequently, but at least wait a few weeks after signing a
deal so you have some information on the game to give out. As it is, this press releases
wasn’t worth the bandwidth it took up.
Recoil from EA
Although the demo of Recoil has been floating around the Internet for a few months, I
don’t think people have given Zipper Interactive’s Recoil a fair shot. Picked up
by Electronic Arts in their purchase of Westwood Studios last year, Recoil is a fun
action/arcade game with lots of interactivity and compelling gameplay. This
isn’t the game of the year, but it is an engrossing sensory experience with lots of
variety in weapons, enemies, and terrain. Aggressively priced at about $39, Recoil is due
on store shelves within the week and I urge you to check it out or at least download the
demo. Even since I picked this game out as one of the "5 Surprise Titles" at E3
last year I’ve been looking forward to its release – and now that it's out,
don’t let it pass you by.
The E3 Keynote
The keynote at the Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow used to be something special
– I remember when Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega, wowed the E3 crowd a few year ago by
announcing that the Saturn was "now available" on store shelves, almost four
months ahead of schedule. The E3 keynote used to really be a great way to start off an
exciting convention. But as of late the IDSA has really dropped the ball. Last year we had
NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw address the crowd, and this year author Don Tapscott (known for
his book Growing up Digital) taking up the reigns. What happened to getting someone
important in gaming to give the address? For a show about gaming, the IDSA is desperately
trying to put a more mass-market ‘digital’ focus on the show that will only end
up hurting its reputation.
Graeme Devine
at id Software
GameSlice is happy to send word that Graeme Devine, the man who helped found Trilobyte and
build the 7th Guest and the 11th Hour has now taken up residence at
id Software in Mesquite, Texas to help them with their future projects. Graeme has always
been one of the smartest programmers out there and we’re excited to see him
teaming up with id!
Finally...
Finally, how about a shameless plug for my latest Behind the Games feature at GameSpot?
Read SIMply Divine: The Story of Maxis to find out the whole story behind the company that
made SimCity one of the most popular PC gaming franchises. Read it here.
And that’s The Gist of It.
Your Ideas?
Do you have a suggestion about something that should be added to next week's list?
Is there a game that gist doesn't cut it or one that does it gist
right? E-mail gistlist@gameslice.com
and we'll consider your suggestion.
Thanks for reading!
Geoff
Keighley
Editor-in-Chief
GameSlice
