EA Delays Star Wars Project & Shutters Visceral Games

OF MIDICHLORIANS...

     Everyone's least favorite company EA has brought us a double dose of great news today- not only is Visceral Games being closed, but their current Star Wars project is being "revamped and moved to a different studio."

     EA's Executive VP Patrick Söderlund released this news in a game update post, including the unfortunate shuttering of the developers behind the tremendous Dead Space series, which declined in popularity after EA started implementing its own monetizations and the like- and thus diluting the sci fi horror roots that made the first game so damned good. 

...AND MICROTRANSACTIONS

     Through game test concepts and feedback through development, and after hearing "what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace," EA's decided to make these changes.  EA claims to be "reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore."
     They say they wanted to pivot the way the game plays in a broader, more varied experience, allegedly offering players "more agency" in a way that will give us a greater depth and breadth to the exploration of the Star Wars universe.  Though that might sound great, it also sounds like it really means the core of Visceral's initial plot and design will be plucked from its dying body and replaced with an emotionless, dead loot box heart- presumably to be filled with vast and shitty Midichlorian-filled load of microtransactions and a multiplayer focus.

THE FORCE ASPHYXIATED

     This doesn't bode well for the Star Wars game as it sounded like the game was "shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game," under Visceral's good hands, but now it may be becoming something much closer in alignment with EA's push towards a "games as service model."  Meaning it might wind up like Battlefront, being all hype and no substance, and completely riddled with preposterous microtransactions for every little thing, of which we can only expect more of this same old shit from with the release of Battlefront 2 soon.  It's the same thing for Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, Star Wars: Force Collection, and Star Wars: Force Arena, they are cheap games designed to siphon money off of players instead of creating a unique and memorable story in a beloved franchise.  All the really good Star Wars games have been cancelled or shut down- Star Wars: 1313,  the mobile game Star Wars: Uprising, the Untitled Darth Maul Project, and the amazing potential of Disney Infinity.
     So when EA says, "We want to take the time to get each game right, to make it unique, to make it amazing," I don't believe it.  When the game arrives we'll see if they really want a good story and experience, or if it follows the path of the Dead Space games, getting worse with each new installment, getting worse with each step away from a great single player experience, and closer to the large multiplayer messes.  We even know that Dead Space 3's original plan was great, and EA flubbed that up in the name of the almighty dollar, proving that they've become the money-hungry monsters worshiping a Marker with a big green S spray-painted on its front.

     A team from EA Vancouver will lead devs from EA Worldwide in picking up and working where Visceral left off.  The Star Wars game was expected to release in the late fiscal year end of 2019, but has been delayed and awaits a new anticipated release date to be announced at another time.

     On a lighter note, here's a fun, old Star Wars: Tiny Death Star post.

     Source [ EA ]

Dead Space 3: More Facebook Haikus

     Just two crappy things I posted on their Facebook Haiku "challenge"-

Stopping the markers
A soldier and engineer
Necromorphs should fear

Regenerators!!!
Weapons are running empty
Time to run like hell

Dead Space 3: A Valentine's Sonnet for Facebook

     Dead Space 3 is having some Valentine's poetry stuff over on Facebook, and here's what I'm going to contribute-

How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways.
I kill thee with ripper blade and plasma core
Kinesis can pull, limb from socket tore
For the undead Necromorphs give us chase
I kill thee and revel in every way's
most bloody deed, by gun and laser sight
I kill thee freely, stalkers thrive at night
I kill thee surely, wasters rise from graves
I kill thee- a mission I didn't choose
In old beliefs, Unitology's faith
I kill thee- with double bolas set loose
The Marker's lies, I kill thee with stasis,
circuits, pulse rifle, and planet cracker
I shall kill thee once again after death


     It's been super busy at work so this is all I could do in such a short time, and the I couldn't get stasis to rhyme with death, but - oh well- it's good enough for now.

Dead Space 3: Initial Thoughts

     Considering this game is getting heavily mixed reviews- I am hesitant to do an actual review.  Besides the fact it's been a hectic week for work and life has been eating up a lot of my gaming time.  So far I've only played for a couple hours and I'm only in Chapter 5.

This is exactly what I'm currently using.

     Some of the things I like already- 1) Universal Ammo clips.  Now I don't get limited in gun selection by necessitating hunting down specific ammo types.  I like certain weapons better than others, and only being able to use my favorite weapons a couple times sucks.
     2) Workbench Upgrading/Crafting System.  This feature is wonderful and I'm only in the early stages of it's use.  I've already upgraded the Evangelizer and Negotiator preorder guns.  They started awesome, and I've added only more awesome to them.
     3) Suit/Rig Universality.  I can, for the most part, now use whatever suit I think looks the coolest, where in the other games I had to choose suits I didn't like for specific features I needed.  It's now mostly located in the RIG itself so I can choose based more on look- which is why I'm using the Witness suit.  I prefer it's look over the other preorder suits and the N7 armor.  Makes me wonder if the Mass Effect armor(or any other suit) has hidden bonuses???  Also- where's the Dragon Age armors?  Mass Effect 2 I got the Blood Dragon armor, which was quite useful for me- so why hasn't it (or something similar) to Dead Space?

     A few things I don't like- 1) How ridiculous enemies are.  I walk into an area- EVERY enemy know exactly where you are, and armed enemies always have immediate sights on you.  The only benefit is you can trace that laser sight back to their location.  In many, MANY cases enemies seem to always be spawning surrounding you.  I wonder what prompted this- because when I slow go and clear everything out quite methodically, they end up both right behind me and another wave directly in front of me- it ends up meaning I'm forced to take damage from at least one side.   
     2) Cover/ducking.  No matter how much I cover, I still get hit with bullets.  Behind solid walls.  Not just short barriers.  I've even encountered multiple enemies gettnig stuck in walls near doors.  They become invisible and can hurt you but no amount of shooting can damage them.
     3) The Story and Dialogue.  Something seems wrong about it.  Like they took all the Scientologi... ooops- I mean the Unitologists and made them all single minded idiots.  Where are all the Unitologists that saw some of this stuff and decided, "Hey, these people are F***ing dumb!  I don't want to be an undead monster." 
     Really- there's got to be at least a small resistance group that was once a set of believers, that are now rebelling.  Or, with all the crazy technology, why aren't there more governmental super weapons out attempting to obliterate some of the Unitology outposts?  Then of course there's what seemed to be a General at the end of the Prologue.  Uhhh... people don't become that high ranked because they give up hope and quit. 
     4)  Ellie.  What the EFF did they do to her!?!?  Seriously- I know it's the future and you needed a new eye, but good lord woman, ease up on the plastic surgery!  I didn't even recognize her at first. 
    
     I am enjoying the game regardless- I'll be attempting multiplayer sometime in the next couple days to see how that fairs.  Looking forward to seeing Carver's side of the story as well as finishing Isaac's story.  There's also the fact that I need to find a Ripper soon.  Necromorphs don't mow themselves to bits you know.  Dead Space 3 remains an action-horror hybrid I enjoy playing.