Words can't describe how much I despise winter. I don't like cold, I hate driving in snow, I hate driving on ice even more, and the shortened sunlight hours slowly make me crazy. I'm no fun to be around, and my mind slowly caves in on itself as the outlook becomes bleaker and bleaker.
I think it's fair to say that this winter has been the worst I've experienced in my adult life. The lower-than-average temperatures, the incessant snow fall, and the never-ending clouds have made the usually mild and not-that-bad St. Louis winter an absolute daily horror.
Even now, we're experiencing a brief respite, with temperatures in the 60s, only to plunge back into the near-arctic 20s next week.
I hate this shit.
There are, however, two things that help staunch the emotional bleeding. 1) the big one, the beginning of Cardinals Spring Training, and 2) the resumption of decent releases in the gaming scene.
My Cardinals are looking good, as they usually do, and I'm beyond thrilled to see the pictures from Jupiter, Florida of my boys in action.
And, next week signals the kick-off of the spring releases, which usually runs March to May.
Of immediate notice is that next week, we get Thief, the following week, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the week after that, Titanfall (it's not an RPG, but I'm still very excited for it after playing quite a bit of the beta.)
Thief has gone through an interesting obstacle course since its announcement. It's from Eidos Montreal, they of the fantastic Deus Ex revival that yielded Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Those that have played through it, including myself, generally thought that, overall, it was lovely and worth missing a few meals and sexual opportunities.
So, when Thief was announced, most of us said, 'yay.' Eidos Montreal was the right studio to handle this.
Then, things started to get a little murky.
The game faced multiple delays after being announced in 2009.
Last July, studio GM Stephane D'Astous resigned, citing differences with the parent company, the increasingly notorious Squenix.
After that, over the winter, various press outlets started expressing concern over preview builds of the game.
Lately, though, more positive impressions have been trickling in, and we've gotten to see the entire first mission, in handy web video form.
I had a lot of internal back and forth on Thief, but ultimately, I decided to pull the trigger on the Steam preorder. The game certainly looks like a Thief game, and I love that there seems to be a lot of choice in terms of how to approach missions.
Thief hits Steam on Tuesday, 2/25.
Now, when games hit in this window, I'm typically of two minds about them. One thing about which I'm certain is that market analysis told the publisher this is when the game needs to release.
Bear in mind, release dates dictate development schedules, not vice versa. Yes, development problems can cause release dates to shift, but there is still going to be a ton of analysis done to determine what date maximizes the number of units shipped, and then sold.
So, knowing that, publishers position certain games in this early spring window for a reason. In the summer, games tend to sell poorly. In the fall, everyone pushes out their mega-huge releases. Late November is the grand-high HUGE release (Call of Duty), and then December and right after is typically the 'we fucked up, but if you still wanna buy it, here it is' window.
That early-spring window is what yields two possibilities, at least to me. 1) this is a solid title in which the publisher believes, but it just couldn't get out the door in time for Black Friday, for whatever reason, and this positions it far enough from Christmas for marketing to have breathing room to do its thing, plus it gives our Q1 financials a nice little boost. 2) this game kind of sucks, but it has a popular branding attached to it, and not much competition on that date, so we're just gonna hunker down, squeeze it out, and it is what it is. YAY PREORDERS!
Sometimes, you can use the review embargo as a metric. If it's heavily embargoed, that's usually not a good sign. That generally means the publisher has asked, 'how's the review? Oh, that bad? Okay, it stays embargoed until release day.' Typically, they'll lift the embargo for good reviews, so if you don't see any early reviews, that typically shows a lack of faith on the part of the publisher of the title in question.
As far as Thief goes, I'm feeling a lot better about it now than I was. I imagine I'll play quite a bit next Tuesday, then have some impressions to share on Wednesday.
Side Quests
- looks like you get a free copy of Wolfenstein with the preorder of a Doom beta key. I'm actually very excited for that.
- looks like we're on the homestretch for Wasteland 2's development.
- here's the Thief launch trailer:
So, are you picking up Thief next week? Why or why not?
Thanks for reading, as always!
-Blaine
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