Sid Meier, a legendary game developer and creator of titles such as F-15 Strike Eagle, Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon and Civilisation, amongst many, many others, knows a thing or two about game design, so when he speaks or writes on the subject, game developers aught to listen. And when Sid Meier starts talking about mistakes he's made while developing a game, leading to valuable lessons from which future game designers can learn, those selfsame game developers have to listen.
Case in point: in an article appearing in Game Developer Magazine in January this year (2009), Meier speaks about a mistake he made on a game called Covert Action, in which he tried to cram two disparate and separate games (essentially two types of games) into one product, as Meier says:
gamrReview's Xavier Griffiths: "Movie tie-in games have a reputation for being notoriously bad and shoddy, doing both a disservice to the original film and videogames as a medium. More often than not the movies that get adapted into videogames are high octane, action-oriented summer blockbusters and the aim is simply to extract as much money from the market as possible. Realistically no one expects games based on trashy films such as Catwoman, The Cat in the Hat, or Eragon to be good in the first place, but what about games based on films that have garnered recognition for the highest award in cinema?"
Gaming Update's CM Boots-Faubert takes a look at the newest list of online game servers that game giant Electronic Arts is shutting down, with a focus upon the online Achievements and Trophies that gamers will need to work on if they want to unlock them before the April 13th shutdown.
What the heck is wrong with EA. Some of those games aren't even two years old. Hardly even a year and a half some of them.
And they only JUST put that simpsons game on psn and xbl, and they're pulling the plug already?
Yeah I'm glad I got that as a PS plus game because I'd be pissed if I bought that
EA need to change their business tactics, it's obvious they are bleeding money even with all the sports franchises they hold.
The 28th of December hails the fourth instalment of Electronic Theatre's special The Twelve Games of Christmas series; every day for the twelve days of Christmas Electronic Theatre will be running through the best releases of each month of 2009. We're here to remind you of the games you should be looking out for in the 2010 January sales so that you can find the gems that you've missed. Today, being the fourth day of Christmas, is the turn of April 2009.