Project Awakened on Kickstarter: pledge some money to this

Let's start with the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1312036782/project-awakened

Okay, so who here likes Crackdown, Prototype or InFamous? How about games like Psi-Ops and Stranglehold? Then you need to know about this game!

Phosphor Games is a Chicago-based developer formed from ex- EA Chicago and ex- Midway Chicago guys who have worked on games like Psi-Ops and Stranglehold before Midway folded. Once reformed as Phosphor, they worked on games like Kinect Adventure and iOS titles like Horn, as well as doing some engineering work for Epic on Unreal 4. Awakened is an open world super hero game they've been trying to get made for years; it started life at Midway as Hero, and would've pre-dated even Crackdown in the "open world superhero" genre, but unlike those three games I listed above, Hero/Awakened lets you create YOUR OWN CHARACTERS AND POWERS. Big difference!

Here's a feature about the old version, Hero: http://www.1up.com/news/canceled-game-hero-infamous-meets-crackdown

But now that it's been reborn as Awakened (and moved to Unreal Engine 4), they're looking for cash to get the game made. These guys are the real deal, they're not amateurs promising things they can't deliver. Updates are coming fast and furious and they're showing off how all the systems work in development environments (so you can see how all the powers work, but with placeholder blue guys and stuff). This is an extremely ambitious game that deserves to get made from people who have been trying to make it for years now. Realtime Worlds is closed now, so is Radical Entertainment; we're not going to get any more Crackdown or Prototype games. Let's see if we can get Awakened made instead!

The game needs way more PR, hype and awareness. So I'm just trying to spread the word. They're asking for 500k and have so far received 130k, with, like, 3 weeks to go. Not bad, but could be better. Let's not let this promising-looking title die.

I've been watching this game way back since it was called Hero, it looks really interesting, I really hope it gets funded.

I've always wanted to play a sandbox super hero game, where you have a decent amount of customisation over your character. MMO's are the only games that come close to offering something along those lines and they're always restricted by typical MMO trappings and conventions.. which tend to suck. So this is an idea I'm definitely behind.

While it looks cool reading the Kickstarter page, a lot of what gets said strays into Peter Molyneux territory, so I would at the very least be cautious about whether they can meet expectations. Especially as even $1,000,000 doesn't sound like much funding for a UE4 open world game (Tim Shafer said Costume Quest and Stacking had budgets of $3.3 million), hopefully they will find extra funding elsewhere, even though they say "A game for players, funded by players" on the pitch.

Looks like a 'we don't have any solid ideas so we'll just let the player do whatever'. No thanks.