Well okay

This makes me feel a little better about Quake Wars. Carry on.

Oh come on SplashDamage!

So I get another email from Gamestop about yet another release delay for Quake Wars. Now, instead of July they are putting an ETA for the game on the first of August. Quakecon starts the first weekend of August suggesting that we won't even see this game in time for Quakecon.

I can appreciate wanting to have the game just right but this is the third push back in time as well. I know, I know "When it's done" and all that rot but I'd still like to play it before the machine I upgraded is obsolete once again.

I was so despondent by this news that I went out and bought BF2142 to at least have SOME type of game to play with my friends online. EQ2 is losing it's luster for me so I had to do something.

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.