Blog Archives
E3 2015: What to Expect from Square Enix’s First Press Conference
The pre-E3 festivities began with a newcomer on Sunday night and will end on Tuesday morning (afternoon away from the west coast) with another newcomer. This time, it’s Square Enix who are making their E3 debut. While they won’t have the Tomb Raider sequel, they have a few other sequels that should excite gamers and the assembled press alike.
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Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Review: The Mummy Returns
As I finished up writing this review, I had to change the posting date of it. It read February 25th, 2015. I’ve had this review waiting to be written for a month-and-a-half. It’s hard to motivate yourself to write a review for a game that does so little to motivate you to play it. Basically, this game is the game that nearly ended et geekera. I had to overcome the challenge and finish the review but I couldn’t will myself to do it.
There are great games. There are terrible games. The worst thing that a game could be is perfectly average. Nothing particularly good. Nothing particularly bad. The only thing that it’s great at is making you go “That was a game.”
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is the “sequel” to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a game that is very well-regarded by gamers and critics. LCTOO is just a game. Nothing more, nothing less.
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From Failure to Record-Breaker: Tomb Raider Racks Up Franchise Record 8.5 Million Copies Sold
I want you to flashback to March 2013. I know it seems like forever ago. I didn’t have any grey hair then so it’s longer for me.
In an investor call at the end of the month, Square Enix effectively called the Tomb Raider reboot that had been out for all of three weeks a failure. They said that they had expected the game to ship between five and six million copies and only it moved 3.4 million. Square Enix made it sound like the Tomb Raider franchise was dead on re-arrival.
Over the following 24 months, Tomb Raider and the current-gen (PS4 and XB1) Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition sold another 5.1 million copies to bring the total units sold to a franchise record of 8.5 million copies sold. They’re touting the success of the Tomb Raider reboot in the run up to this fall’s release of The Rise of the Tomb Raider (a timed exclusive on Xbox One and Xbox 360).
So what happened for Square Enix to change their tune?
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Rise of the Tomb Raider to be Published by Microsoft
Just when you thought that the controversy over bought and paid for third-party console exclusives had regained new life with the announcement that Capcom’s Street Fighter V would have console exclusivity on the PS4, the story got bigger. Not only is the sequel to 2013’s hit Tomb Raider going to have timed exclusivity on the Xbox One but publishing duties will be handled by Microsoft Studios rather IP holders Square Enix.
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Are Marvel and Star Wars Coming to Kingdom Hearts 3?
It’s been over eight years since Kingdom Hearts 2 came out and things at Disney have changed quite a bit in that time. They’ve added a few new franchises and made three major corporate acquisitions, including Pixar, Marvel and LucasFilm. So what does that mean for the eventual Kingdom Hearts 3? The sky’s the limit.
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Murdered: Soul Suspect Review: Cold Case
When there’s a game that I’m interested in reviewing, I reach out to the public relations officers at the publisher of the game (or their contracted PR firm) to see if I can get a copy for review. More often than not, I don’t get a copy of the game. Usually, I can wait for a sale and pick up a copy to play it through but usually that’s not for several months that it gets down to a price within my budget.
In the case of Murdered: Soul Suspect, I was figuring that Steam’s Holiday or a spring sale would bring it down to a price where I would buy it. Then I got it for $15 from the Humble Store in early August. Two months after the game was released, I’m already getting it for some 70% off. While I know it was a big enough flop to force developer Airtight Games out of business, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?
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Square Enix Announces “Dive In” Mobile Cloud Gaming Service
Move over, Sony. You’re not the only ones who want a piece of the cloud gaming market. Square Enix is getting into cloud gaming but is cutting out the pesky console middle man. This fall, Square Enix will be launching a service in Japan that will let you stream games to your Android or iOS device called Dive In.
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Tomb Raider Sequel to be Xbox One Exclusive
It wasn’t but a few months after release that Square Enix said that they were disappointed with the sales of Tomb Raider. That didn’t stop them from trying to cash in with a next-gen re-release and the announcement of a sequel at E3.
The latter wasn’t a case of Square Enix realizing the error of their analysis or their finance team being able to make budgets and projected revenues work out. It seems to be a case of Microsoft stepping in to make the money work as Rise of The Tomb Raider was announced to be an Xbox One exclusive.
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Airtight Games Closes Weeks After Releasing Murdered: Soul Suspect
The pressure on developers to take big budgets and turn that into far bigger revenues has been crippling the games industry over the last few years. As budgets grow, innovation stagnates as developers and publishers have become far too scared of financial failure to try new things.
The latest victim appears to be Airtight Games. Having just recently released new IP Murdered: Soul Suspect, Airtight has closed its offices and is selling off its equipment four weeks after the game shipped.
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E3 2014: FF7 Minigame Coming to Mobile in Final Fantasy VII G-Bike
Final Fantasy VII might not be getting the remastering/HD treatment any time soon and doesn’t seem to be joining the earlier FF entries on mobile platforms, that doesn’t mean that mobile gamers won’t be getting a piece of the FF7 pie.
Later this year, Square Enix will release Final Fantasy VII G-Bike as a free-to-play game with microtransactions for gamers on iOS and Android. It’s based on the Golden Square G Bike minigame that is itself based on the Midgar Highway escape from Shinra headquarters.
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