Morning all, and welcome to a quick and dirty round-up of all the news semi-fit to print that just happened to occur over the course of the weekend. You know, that time period where we drink ourselves into a 48 hour stupor that pretty much always ends up with you face down on the couch, screaming into a pillow in the hopes that the sheer force of volume and rage spewing from your body will somehow will the pain, grogginess, and two-day-old Chinese food out of your body? No? Never had this happen before? Man, you guys are missing out.
Anyhow, here's all the news that took place over the course of my usual weekend screaming fits, including news about Diablo III's upcoming release, the fate of UK retailer GAME, and some tidbits about another years-late movie-to-game adaptation that probably nobody actually wanted. Enjoy!
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The general mantra of Blizzard regarding Diablo III and its oft-delayed release is that it'll come "when it's done." Now it's coming "when it's almost done," if this late Friday announcement from the company is to be believed (it is).
Posting up official word on the Battle.net blog, the company let it be known that the sticky wicket that's kept Diablo III from moving on to life at retail is the PvP feature, which the blog described as not "living up to our standards." So, for the time being, PvP is actually being excised from the game in order to help get the single-player and co-op functionality out to retail sooner, given that both those aspects of the game are very nearly done.
Once the PvP is complete, Blizzard plans to release a patch that will turn the functionality back on. Of course, all of this messaging stopped short of actually announcing a release date for Diablo III, because lord knows that would just be way too easy at this point. Still, with PvP apparently out for at least a short period, one can surmise that the release date can't be too far off.
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We've reported previously about the fiduciary woes currently plaguing UK retailer GAME, who I was not-so-gently informed by the Kingdom-dwelling population of Giant Bomb is not only one of the biggest video game retailers in the UK, but rather the biggest by a fairly wide margin. In my defense, I've been to your country twice, and one of those times I was in Nottingham for 48 hours. So it's not like I've really had much time to soak up your retail culture to the fullest extent possible.
Anyway, while the previous word signaled some serious doom and gloom for the retailer, apparently that doom and gloom took hold yesterday. Following a report from MCV (which sourced The Sunday Times), GAME has reportedly contracted financial firm Rothschild to help sell the company outright. The report says that GameStop may have some interest in the Spanish arm of GAME, but that the UK section of the company may end up going into administration.
GAME had been wrestling with credit issues for quite some time, issues which came to a head just a few weeks ago when it became known that the retailer would not be stocking a number of high profile products, including titles like Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter x Tekken.
Based on the comments from the last time I reported on this, I'm guessing most UK players won't be too terribly sad to see GAME go. My question is, who picks up the slack if GAME goes away entirely? Aren't there hardly any specialty game shops in the UK nowadays?
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I've been hearing occasional snark-filled whispers about the possibility of a video game based on the cult crime movie The Boondock Saints for a while now, and apparently those whispers have proved true.
Those who were in attendance at a small announcement event at South by Southwest this weekend got their first look at the game, which is in development at Critical Mass Interactive, who are the makers of this game and also some other stuff you've maybe actually heard of, albeit in a purely mercenary capacity.
The teaser shown at the event effectively showed nothing, save for a couple of character models based on the avenging brothers of the film's story, played by Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus respectively. Joystiq says the actors will be voicing their characters in the game, as is David Della Rocco. No word on Willem Dafoe possibly returning to voice the psychotic gay FBI agent of the first film, but I wouldn't put any money on it happening.
Considering what a catastrophe the sequel, Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, was, the fact that this is a developer better known for loaning out members of its team for contract work than any of its own, original projects, and the fact that franchise director Troy Duffy's decision making over the last two decades has largely been defined by his raging cocaine habit, I'm maybe going to remain skeptical about this one for the time being.