“Choose from two charismatic characters: Mr. Smith, an Elvis impersonator who has suffered the misfortune of being turned into a vampire, or Welson, a femme-fatale witch hunter. Though his unquenchable vampire bloodlust, Mr. Smith has killed his entire family.” –September 28, 2009 press release
Author: Martyn Zachary
The Screw PC Crew
Beyond an excellent pre-emptive counter-example in Piranha Bytes’ forthcoming, PC-first Risen (thanks Richard), this year has been a veritable desert of simultaneous, cross-platform launches – what begun in 2008 in the form of GTAIV and Mass Effect continues full steam ahead this year; for instance, over the past few weeks, we’ve learned of PC delays for Borderlands and Assassin’s Creed II. Below, you can find a list of PC games delayed and/or intentionally scheduled after their console counterparts (with EU market launch dates for consoles and the PC, respectively):
Crimes Against Humanity
- Alan Wake
- Spring 2010 – TBA?
- Battlefield 1943
- July 8, 2009 – Q1 2010
- Braid
- August 6, 2008 – April 10, 2009
- The Force Unleashed
- September 19, 2008 – Q4 2009
- Resident Evil 5
- March 13, 2009 – September 18, 2009
Major Offences
- Assassin’s Creed II
- 20th November, 2009 – Q1 2010
- Colin McRae: Dirt 2
- 10 September 2009 – December 2009
- Mirror’s Edge
- November 14, 2008 – January 16, 2009
- Red Faction: Guerrilla
- June 5, 2009 – September 18, 2009
- Street Fighter IV
- February 20, 2009 – July 3, 2009
Technical Oversights
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- August 28, 2009 – September 18, 2009
- Borderlands
- October 23, 2009 – October 30, 2009
- Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X
- March 6, 2009 – March 17, 2009
Have you gotten used to the idea of the PC version always arriving late?
Slowdown Showdown: RSS Versus Twitter
If you expected highbrow SEO analysis, you may very well be in the wrong place: I can’t say I’m nearly hip enough to discuss the pluses and minuses of each platform – instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of the facilities of this blog: Firstly, our RSS feed is updated with each post made here, large or small, so if you want to keep in touch with everything, that would be the way to go.
However, if you would only prefer to be notified when we post original content – reviews, interviews, analyses and other major articles – then you could simply track us on N4G, where we try to get our original content submitted. You can actually help us out with that, as well as Diggs, by pressing the “Digg This!” or “Tips N4G” links below the post excerpts.
With our Twitter account, then, Nabeel especially attempts to keep on track of major announcements, more general industry-related news, various sales and discounts as well as other interesting things (such as Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation!). I do tweet too, if less so – more about adventures and the sorts – so you will be seeing a tweet from me too every now and then.
As far as our Twitter mark-up goes, we have chosen to codify each our personal posts: Following three separate twitter accounts, after all, is far too much to ask from you at this point. Therefore, when Nabeel posts, he uses the prefix [NB]. I’m tagged [MZ] and Richard is [RS], respectively. It doesn’t make a world of difference, but just so you know in case you want to talk to us separately via Twitter.
Finally, if you want to contact us separately for whatever reason, each of us has a firstnamelastname@ e-mail address; Check out the about page for the rest.
This is all just so you know!
P.S.
We got Plurk too. Just in case you dig that.
Max’s Brazilian Wax
Max Payne 3 so far: The main character’s identity removed. The location, look and feel changed. The gameplay mechanics altered. The original voice actor, James McCaffrey, replaced. Multiplayer added. Max Payne 3, Rockstar promises, has “…Max as we’ve never seen him before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever” 1)Rockstar Press Release, March 23, 2009
Changed, changed, changed utterly. Let us go back in time for a moment, back to the year 2003, and seek to recall the scenes that made the most sense, made the most out of its thematic elements in the second instalment, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: What about the part where Max escapes his sealed apartment block with the aid of some of its colourful inhabitants – or the lock-up bust, with Mona contained at the police station? Or the very beginning of the game, with Max waking up in the hospital, when you come face to face with the doctors and nurses?
References
ScummVM/GOG.com Freebies
We’ve done lots of adventure-related coverage for the past few months, including reviews on Downfall and the Blackwell series. This time around, I would like to bring to your attention some older commercial adventure games that you can access for no price tag at all!
Firstly. Yahtzee’s Chzo Mythos special edition versions are still free. Also available, for no dineros, on the ScummVM website, are Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Lure of the Temptress and Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back. There is some variation from game to game, but most do have downloads available for different language distributions and talkie/floppy versions accordingly.