Time torn asunder again

First a vortex opens and out pops Romero, now another one opens up and American McGee shows up from 2001 for some reason.

"GameTap, the first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), announced today the latest addition to the GameTap Originals line-up, American McGee’s Grimm. The title cements GameTap’s leadership position as a digital publisher and pioneer in episodic games. The 24 episode series will debut in the spring of 2008."

24 episodes? Let's play over under on how long it will actually last. I'll guess under four episodes. This is the guy who made Bad Day in L.A. people. His time is over and done. I hope he proves me wrong but there are not any celebrities in gaming anymore and it's not a bunch of romanticized garbage anymore where you can make a big game and then drive a Ferrari. I don't know what vodoo American might have put on Gametap to sign up for this but I hope he posts the recipe online. It somehow made Gametap think it was 2001 all over again (before or after 9/11 hasn't been determined yet).

If you aren't doing something for WoW or were smart enough to work for Blizzard in some other capacity and hopefully ask for stock options then you are just a second fiddle in a pool awash with pasty programmers working long hours for little reward except another tick mark on your resume.

Or even worse some jerk blogging on a website about gaming. Gawd those pussies are the dregs of society.

Let's discuss this CoH expansion

Gamespy has an article talking with the developers of CoH about the expansion that they are working on for the game. Like most everyone I enjoyed the hell out of CoH but admittedly I got into the game late.

Now of course they talk about new units and blah, blah, blah, but here's where I completely disagree with everything and if I'm wrong though then fine I'm wrong. But g'dammit, the liberation of Caen?!

"The Commonwealth's push from D-Day into Caen is one of the key moments for the Battle of Normandy and we wanted to tell that story. Not just from the point of view that it offered fantastic mission opportunities -- brutal city fighting, massive tank battles -- but it also allowed us to focus on the British, Canadian and Commonwealth troops that played such an important role."

Now okay Caen might be important but here's some important things to remember about Caen:
1. Monty was supposed to capture it in about a week not months.

2. His claims that it was part of his overall part of the operation is false and complete horseshit since the original Normandy plan never called for a long protracted battle like it became and besides which it allowed a lot of German units to redeploy pretty easily against American units to the south or to reinforce the port cities that were needed for the overall operation.

3. The really important part of the operation didn't really occur until nearly July with Operation COBRA that allowed Patton to cut loose in August.

4. If you want a really fun battle on the Western Front that could be ferocious, cover the battle to close the Falaise Gap with the Canadians on the north and Patton's Third Army to the south.

5. No scratch that, do the whole damn Battle of the Bulge.

6. In fact, screw the Western Front and go Eastern Front. The only people who don't seem to think that would be good are the people at Relic. The Eastern Front was where the war was fought, the rest was window dressing. T-34s versus Tigers, German Wermacht versus Russian wave attack units; gawd it would be glorious.

More delays

Email came in saying that Quake Wars is now delayed another month. Wish it wasn't but perhaps they found some problems and are fixing it. Or perhaps they are sadists and they know how this fills most of us with murderous rage.

Quake Wars and spawn camping

Personally I am indifferent about spawn camping and those who whine about it just need to accept that sometimes shit happens. I am intrigued though by this tidbit from the Quake Wars site from the devs about how they are trying to limit spawn camping:

Yes, newly spawned players are temporarily invulnerable, unless they choose to open fire.

"The Strogg team do have energy shields as team doors/walls that will kill any GDF players/vehicles attempting to move through them, but the main change is in how spawning itself occurs. Players actually spawn in mid-air above the battlefield and descend to earth, the GDF slowed by a parachute, the Strogg by an energy shield that acts as an air-brake. You have some control over your horizontal direction and speed of descent, so you can steer towards where you want to land. This means that players are much more dispersed when they spawn, so even when their spawn-invulnerability wears off, they're too far apart to all get caught in the same airstrike/artillery salvo/panzer stonk.

"As the objectives and territories change hands, teams gain new spawns. There are also capturable spawn points, which can be recaptured by the enemy (although that doesn't mean the enemy start spawning there instead). By default you'll spawn at the spawn point nearest the front line, but you can select from the available spawns on the command map in the Limbo menu (sometimes your team's heaviest vehicles are only available back at your start base).

"I think people are going to really enjoy getting to grips with the Strogg Spawn Hosts - they add some interesting gameplay considerations. Strogg Technicians can create Spawn Hosts from GDF casualties. If a Strogg player goes up a Spawn Host and hits Use, they claim it. Then, when they're killed, they spawn from the Spawn Host, presumably nearer the frontline than the default spawn. GDF Medics can destroy Spawn Hosts with their Defibrillator pads (and should do so, whenever they can)."

So, that's pretty interesting especially how medics will not only have to do their normal medic duties but also work on taking out those Strogg spawn points.

Welcome to 1998!

Why am I welcoming you to nine years ago because somehow, in some way, a rift in space time occurred resulting in new news about Daikatana. Now why would a phenomenon that up until now was considered only a theoretical possibility decide to send back to us something as awful as this game rather than say the fetus of Hitler or bin Laden so we could abort them can only lead to one explanation: The future hates us and somehow John Romero has taken over the universe and is doing this out of a vengeful spite. We can save the future people. I know we might have missed our chance a few years ago after Doom 2 but we can stop the future from happening. Find him, make it impossible for more Daikatana news to appear.