Slashdot Mirror
FASA Studios Now Out of Business
PhoenixOne writes "Another chapter in the long and sometimes-frustrating history of the name 'FASA' comes to a close today, as Microsoft's FASA Studio has closed its doors. 'It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors. Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn't want people's attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.'"
I was getting sick of games instructing me on how to fill out Federal Applications for Student Aid anyways.
Oh, that's swell. I just spend a half hour composing a submission on this :o(
I felt ill when I heard Microsoft had acquired FASA Interactive, which meant all and future BattleTech video gaming properties (except those held by Activision) would have to come through the hands of a giant corporation which acquires properies which quietly die and fade away.
If I had just sunk some change into Shadowrun I'd be rather pissed right now. At least for me I spent most of my happy hours with the illicit BattleMech and BattleFort games written by Ralph Reed for the Amiga.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
FASA Interactive has long been dead, with no new Mech games for a number of years and certainly none on the horizon at any point after MW4. It's sad, that all traces of Battletech have been wiped off the face of the Earth - between the death of FASA itself and now its spinoff companies. I really wished someone would do something great with those properties - even Mech Commander wasn't such a bad game despite its flaws.
I really do wish someone would translate the original Battletech table top game into computer form, but with some concessions made for easy multiplay and quicker learning - i.e. something X-Com style.
Microsoft and FASA have destroyed both the Mechwarrior and Shadowrun franchises now. Glad to see FASA go before they could strike again. Now if only there was some way to get those licenses away from Microsoft and give them to someone who would actual create a good game rather than the button-masher of the week.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
back when I wrote SF and Fantasy gaming articles in the 80s.
Regardless of what happened since then, it's sad to see them go.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There's even some interesting metaverse things through Megameknet. And yes, all free.
Still the only RPG I've played where I spent 5 hours creating the character and 5 minutes getting him killed.
Well that's a shame, if they had released another dozen maps for Shadowrun on the 360 I would have bought it. I did the beta on the 360 and had a lot of fun with the game. Wasn't the best graphically but selling it for $60 with no single player mode and only a few maps was a really bad choice and hurt the sales in an already crowded FPS market on the 360.
Battletech on Sega Genesis, on hard, was one of the truly hard games I've played.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The TRUE Fasa died years ago. This is just a game studio that ripped off its name.
Give the Mechwarrior franchise back to the remnants of Microprose, who can give us a fabulous Mech game, like Mechwarrior 3. Mechwarrior 3 was nearly perfect. Mechwarrior 4 was too "Arcade-like"... and Mechassault is just a console shoot 'em up with Mechs.
Also, give Shadowrun to Bioware, so that we can have an awesome Shadowrun RPG. I couldn't even BEGIN to think of how wonderful a game Bioware could make with Shadowrun.
...hates how Microsoft buys companies and then destroys half their product lines?
It's not just FASA, I don't really know much about them. The one that really pissed me off was Access Software, which MS bought for the fricking golf game, incidentally destroying the Tex Murphy franchise.
I understand, and am resigned to, Microsoft buying and/or destroying competitors. What really pisses me off is when they decide to purchase and then sit on intellectual property, like I am sure they are about to do with FASA's licenses, simply because they think it won't make them high enough profits but are too fucking lazy to sell it, despite the fact it has nothing to do with any of their core business.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yeah, there are some funny comments about it already, but I would like to say how this is a bit sad for me. Me and friends played some seriously neat Mech games, with me acting as GM. We read all the books and noted the makes and models of the parts, and I'd invent "issues" that the techs needed to solve to make certain parts work with other parts, and garage facilities that they needed in order to implement various repairs. The players always had to be thinking about risking their mechs because of repair issues, and when they got damaged it spawned mini-quests to secure the necessary parts to make things right again, or mini-mini-quests for parts to fix the interoperability problems.
So although the main game revolved around mech pilots, I focused on the repair techs, ammo specialists, tankers, cooks, construction teams, radar ops, MASH units, etc. that made the expeditions a success, and threatened them and the adventures practically wrote themselves. Really good times.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
It is much more likely to die during character creation in HOL. Human Occupied Landfill is a hilarious game. We even actually played real sessions of it.
You start with what is officially labeled the 'chart chart'. And, before I forget, you have to have the supplement - Buttery Holesomeness - before you actually even have character creation rules.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
In addition to Traveller, West End Games' DC Universe RPG (not to be confused with the years earlier Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG) also featured death by character creation.
If you had Superspeed, and therefore were attuned to the Speed Force, there was a slim chance you would be sucked into the Speed Force before you even got to play the game.
Not like you couldn't just roll up the exact same thing minutes later.
Everybody remembers Battletech and Shadowrun but I was hoping FASA Interactive would produce more for Crimson Skies. It was the usual Fasa game: a really cool, well developed background and a clunky, heavy rules system.
The first computer games was pretty good, but I was hoping for more. There were even rumors of a movie, but I doubt this will happen.
I'll be pouring one out tonight for all my chummers at FASA
The incarnation of FASA that just died didn't even own the rights to Battletech, Mechwarrior, or Shadowrun (or Crimson Skies for that matter). Jordan Weisman kept the rights when he sold FASA Interactive to Microsoft, and when he founded WizKids they ended up with ownership. The properties were leased to FASA Studios and FanPro. All in all, this is probably a good thing. As long as WK can be convinced there's a market for Mechwarrior and Shadowrun video games, they'd most likely be very willing to find a new company to lease the rights to.
Frankly, my involvement in Battletech started waning when they were forced to discontinue the plastic models I was so fond of. Those little lead figurines were always hard to keep glued together, and paint never seemed to stick well.
Once my friends moved away, there wasn't even anyone around to get a good game going with. Then the whole clans thing, and all Mechs became so overpowered, kinda clinched it.
I still have all my books, and dozens of mechs I designed (100-ton Hatchetman with jump jets), just no place to use them anymore.