Slashdot Mirror
Pondering EA's Move Towards Hardcore
The site GigaOM is picking up its games coverage again, and kicks off with an article speculating on just what EA was thinking when it purchased BioWare and Pandemic. On the face of it, the move doesn't make much sense. BioWare is a great development house, but from EA's perspective their games are 'small potatoes'. "So why did they spend so much? The acquisition includes several titles for the Wii and DS already in development, and those may have breakout potential. There's tremendous gamer buzz around BioWare's upcoming RPG Mass Effect, but in all likelihood, it'll do similar numbers to the studio's million-plus-selling Knights of the Old Republic -- a hit, but not a huge one. There are rumors that BioWare is developing a 'Star Wars'-themed MMO, but if that's what inspired the purchase, the mystery only deepens: Sony Online's (SNE) MMO Star Wars Galaxies was a disappointment in relation to cost and anticipation, and that was released at the height of the buzz over a movie franchise that's since become old news."
Now admittedly I've only played the demo of Bioshock, but it doesn't really seem all that innovative to me. Yes, the plasmids are a nice idea, but they're really just another name for the nano augmentations of Deus Ex, or the psychic powers of System Shock 2. The ressurection chambers, from what I know of them, are straight out of the System Shock games. The storyline I can't really comment on, but a hidden Utopian society gone bad that's technically advanced in some ways but not others is something of a common idea in sci-fi.
I'm not saying that it's not a good game and well executed (and I'll most likely be buying it soon), but so far I'm not aware that it's in any way ground breaking. Of coure, that may be a failing of the demo; despite being a 1.5GB or so download it only lasts about 30 minutes.
On the other hand while I've never played any of the Madden games, I do agree about the Sims - especially the near endless procession of expansions.
It's official. Most of you are morons.