14 DAY TRIAL // This week was for directing blood thirsty and dumb minions around the landscape in an effort to spread evil. In one word, it was all about being an Overlord, which we reviewed. But there are other pieces of news that you might be interested in.
On Monday, we were all into Sony and its exclusives. Apparently, a movie based on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is being planned just as the Among Thieves sequel is being prepared by the father of the PlayStation 3, while Sony is so infatuated with its own brand that it believes the PlayStation Portable Go, which has a price tag of 250 dollars, is expensive because of a brand premium that gamers are expected to pay.
Tuesday brought around dire news for Starcraft II fans as Blizzard shockingly announced that the upcoming game would not be supporting LAN play as the company was focusing on filtering all multiplayer through Battle.net, which was being redesigned. Petitions and angry fan letters ensued. Capcom also stepped on the toes of some fans by announcing that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be delayed to the end of July.
With fans ready to take up pitchforks and assault Blizzard’s headquarters, Wednesday was dominated by the impressive number of people who signed the online petition requesting, in moderate fashion, for the inclusion of LAN in Starcraft II. In addition, analyst Michael Pachter offered some bold predictions, with a Wii HD expected in 2010 and World of Starcraft in 2011.
The Starcraft II LAN saga continued on Thursday with Blizzard saying that all multiplayer for Starcraft II would go through Battle.net, as piracy hurts not only sales but also the experience that players get from the game. And if the controversy was not enough, an analyst also pointed out that the four-to-six month beta could mean that Starcraft II might not arrive in 2010, which might hurt Activision's financial results for this year.
Friday brought some news on the single-player missions of Starcraft II but Blizzard again managed to put some fans on the defensive by talking about lava levels flooding every five minutes and killing everyone. Sounds a bit like Mario. In the meantime, Ubisoft let slip that Splinter Cell: Conviction might be a bit on the short side, clocking in at about 12 hours.