NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Okay, LucasArts, I trusted you. I really do.
Knights of the Old Republic was one of the best console RPG's ever. KOTOR 2 was still an great game, even though it was unfinished. Mercenaries was just a joyous romp through massively destructible environments. Republic Commando was a great game, albeit a bit short with uninspired multiplayer. And Lego Star Wars, I mean, come on, who can hate a Lego game with lightsabers?
But I should've known.
I should've seen the signs with KOTOR 2, riddled with bugs and lacking a real ending. I should've realized that licensed video games, especially when they come out at the same time as the movie, tend to suck. I should've remembered all of the other Star Wars Prequel games and how much they sucked.
But I wanted to have a good lightsaber combat game. Not a FPS with some melee in it, like the Jedi Knight series. I wanted Ninja Gaiden with Lightsabers!
But no, you shovel Star Wars Episode III on me.
Shame on you, Lucas Arts. Let the developers FINISH their games!
Knights of the Old Republic was one of the best console RPG's ever. KOTOR 2 was still an great game, even though it was unfinished. Mercenaries was just a joyous romp through massively destructible environments. Republic Commando was a great game, albeit a bit short with uninspired multiplayer. And Lego Star Wars, I mean, come on, who can hate a Lego game with lightsabers?
But I should've known.
I should've seen the signs with KOTOR 2, riddled with bugs and lacking a real ending. I should've realized that licensed video games, especially when they come out at the same time as the movie, tend to suck. I should've remembered all of the other Star Wars Prequel games and how much they sucked.
But I wanted to have a good lightsaber combat game. Not a FPS with some melee in it, like the Jedi Knight series. I wanted Ninja Gaiden with Lightsabers!
But no, you shovel Star Wars Episode III on me.
Shame on you, Lucas Arts. Let the developers FINISH their games!
posted by Wraithy at 5/09/2005 08:39:00 PM
1 Comments:
Well, it's like this. A LONG time ago -- two years? certainly one -- the release date for the game was cast in stone. Companies never like to slip release dates on tens-of-millions-dollars software projects, and games are no different. The situation for this game was probably worse, since the game's release date was surely (probably contractually) tied to the release date of the movie. So the shipping date is fixed.
It's now engineering's job to (a) produce a schedule that will produce a winning game in the time they have and (b) manage the development process so that the game, as designed, comes out at the end of the process. So, what you're describing means that either (a) they built a plan to produce a crummy game and executed it correctly or (b) they built a plan for a great game, but screwed up on the execution of the plan, such that, as deadlines loomed and milestones started getting missed, they had to jettison features to stay on schedule. My personal bet is on (b).
So, yeah, it's too bad. But I don't think you can cast the situation in terms of evil management not letting noble engineering do the right thing. For a project costing as much as this one did, you've got to stay on schedule and meet your milestones, or something bad, like what you're seeing, is gonna happen, and then nobody's happy.
Does this increase the perceived relevance of your software engineering class? It should... :-)
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