To be honest with you guys, I totally dug Alan Wake. Like I mentioned in my review, that game was a breath of fresh air, something different in an industry inundated with first person shooters and movie tie-ins. Unfortunately, games don’t move copies on the adoration of one man alone, and Alan Wake has had a disappointing showing in its debut month, shifting only 145,000 copies to date. While there are many reasons that games don’t sell, I’m kind of puzzled by the fact that Wake got left behind. The game reviewed fairly well and was backed up by a decent marketing push, but it still barely managed to crack 100,000 copies.
Of course, one good reason could be Red Dead Redemption, which sold an outstanding 1,513,000 in May alone, more than ten fold what Alan Wake did. That sort of number boggles my mind, especially considering that it’s in the typical video game sales “dry season”. Big name games don’t usually sell that well until the end of the year, so kudos to Rockstar on once again proving that they know how to make damn fine games and sell them well. We can expect that number to go up again once the holiday season hits, so don’t be surprised if Red Dead ends up being one of the best selling titles of the year.
Despite Red Dead’s success over Alan Wake, Microsoft has still maintained that it is interested in ongoing downloadable content for the game, something that could help boost sales and even get us a sequel. One game that isn’t going to be coming back, however, is Alpha Protocol. While the game was by no means terrible (Anthony had a good review for it), it didn’t sell enough for SEGA to justify a second showing. I guess the story that May tells is that new IPs are still a very tough sell in the industry, despite the fact that core gamers clamor for new, original properties. Red Dead is more of a reboot than anything, but it’s still a successor to a previous game with a similar name.
What do you guys think of May’s somber news? Are you thrilled for Red Dead or sad for Alan Wake and Alpha Protocol?
There’s a new Kid Icarus game coming to the Nintendo 3DS, and most of us are understandably excited. Aside from an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Pit has sadly been absent from the gaming scene since the NES. While we’re excited to just have him back in our gaming systems, Masahiro Sakurai the game’s lead designer, is using Uprising to address what he feels is “an overriding problem with a lot of game design.” The full quote goes like this:
Against my better judgment I traded in my old, perfectly functional 360 and picked up the new hotness. I did this for a few reasons, mostly having to do with the new “S” model’s higher storage capacity and built in Wi-Fi. The prospect of having a game console that didn’t sound like a jet taking off also appealed to me. Using GameStop’s trade in deals, I only ended up paying about $100 for the whole thing, so all in all not a bad exchange.
This past Monday, the demo for Crackdown 2, the forthcoming open-world super-hero cop game, dropped on X-Box LIVE, and most of the GamerSushi crew have been getting skills for kills. One new thing that the trial introduced is the notion of “Demo Achievements”, a system where you can unlock specific goals before the full retail version comes out and they will be applied to your Gamerscore. While this is 360 centric, I do think it brings up a neat idea that Sony can probably start emulating in their demos.
Ever since we’ve been able to use the internet to connect our consoles to each other, cooperative play is becoming more and more popular. I’m all for this, as I enjoy taking on waves of baddies with my friends just as much as I like shooting them in the face in a competitive match. There’s just something about co-op play that is altogether different and more satisfying than a straight-up Deathmatch game, but maybe that’s just because I’m a team player.
Of all the games in the PlayStation 3’s library, Heavy Rain is the first one that comes to mind when I think of the potential of the PlayStation Move. The game is largely based on have the player make gestures using the controller’s sticks or Sixaxis, so using the wand to manipulate the on-screen action isn’t too far-fetched. As intriguing as Heavy Rain would be with motion control, the urging from Sony to have developers Quantic Dream upgrade the game to be compatible with the their new device has delayed the long-promised downloadable content (DLC) chapter indefinitely.
This news could possibly be the death knell of Metal Gear Solid: Rising for me, even though I’ve seen nothing of the game since last E3. According to rumors, the game, subtitled “Tactical Lightning Action”, will be out sometime next year, and no one has phoned David Hayter yet! For those of you who don’t know who this man is, he’s the guy who’s been providing the gravelly-voiced delivery for Solid Snake for the last twelve years. He’s also a Hollywood screen writer with credits for X-Men and X-Men 2 in addition to the Watchmen draft that stodgy Alan Moore gave his approval to.
This will surely be good news for those of us who fondly remember SEGA’s last foray into the console business as it has just been announced that the Dreamcast’s library of titles is being made available on the PlayStation Network and the X-Box LIVE Arcade. The Dreamcast garnered over 650 titles during its lifespan, which started on September 9, 1999 with Sonic Adventure.
Admittedly, I’m probably not the best person to debate the merits of transferring video game franchises into an animated format, but I guess that Halo: Legends sold well enough to encourage other publishers to take a crack at it.
E3 2010 is a mere two weeks away, and the excitement for gaming’s annual gala is building to a fevered pitch. If you listened to our 