Matt’s Somewhat Serious Bit
The months of September, October and November signify what is generally known as the holiday rush period, whereby publishers release more than half of a year’s games in a mere 12 week period. Wallets are bled dry, reviewers and retail monkeys are sent insane and many games are sold. However, year after year, there are always a number of losers – companies whose product is lost in a sea of sequels and licenses, perhaps the greatest example being Ubisoft in 2003, with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Beyond Good & Evil and XIII all falling victim to the holiday curse.
Something was different this year. Electronic Arts, perpetuator of the annual sequel and license fest that takes place every holiday season fell significantly short of their targets this year. Activision’s latest entry in the Tony Hawk franchise limped out of the gates, and the sequel to True Crime failed to grasp the attention of critics or consumers, with bargain hunters being able to grasp a piece of New York City for as little as $AU25 just 4 weeks after release. Ubisoft’s latest Prince of Persia game, The Two Thrones, which reviewed quite well, failed to repeat the success of Warrior Within (which was ridiculed by many), and has been spotted for up to 50% off, just 3 weeks after release. Of course, there’s also Microsoft, who all but abandoned the first Xbox and undersupplied the Xbox 360 – I’m sure there’s a bit of disappointment in the Redmond offices at the moment, but not nearly as much as there is in Australia, where an anaemic Xbox line-up and no sign of the 360 lead to a very sombre gaming Christmas.
The biggest failure of the holiday season - still not really worth , either
There were two fairly clear cut winners this holiday season. Nintendo defied expectations across the world, with a band of puppies leading the charge in the West, while a combination of the dogs, a bit of brain exercise and some animal communication took Japan by storm, with the DS setting sales records in the Land of the Rising sun before eventually running out of stock. Meanwhile, Sony managed to hold its ground in the West with an ageing PS2 and the PSP both selling quite well, despite the PSP not toppling the DS as many expected. Here in Australia, Sony’s peripheral based games such as EyeToy Play 3, EyeToy Kinetic and Buzz! The Music Quiz showed that Aussie gamers don’t mind tinkering with the odd gimmicky peripheral – an early sign of possible success for the Revolution down under?
You'd be happy too if you sold 13 million units of your console in 12 months - twofold if many believed you'd fail
Publishers refuse to learn their lesson about the holiday season, continuing to load the end of the year up with high profile titles that are doomed to failure. Many games – Resident Evil 4, God of War, Zelda: The Wind Waker and Super Mario Sunshine have shown that you don’t have to launch at the holiday season to succeed, especially in the case of an already established brand. There’s no reason that Activision or Atari couldn’t have held the releases of True Crime: New York City or The Matrix: Path of Neo back to March or even June – heck, the games would have probably greatly benefited from such a delay.
It’s kind of funny to think that with all of this garbage about games exceeding Hollywood revenues and copying Hollywood production models that publishers do not follow studio release schedules. The Northern Hemisphere Summer is an almost untapped time for game releases – we PALGN staff end up sitting on our arses with nothing to do between June and September because nothing comes out! Hollywood releases their biggest movies in the Summer and capitalises on the holiday season with the DVD release, so what’s stopping publishers from releasing some big hitters in the Summer, and slicing a few bucks off the price to stimulate interest in the product for the holiday season? A lot of games sell about 50-70% in their first two months of sale, whereas high profile games with budget re-issues tend to get flatter long term sales. Of course, there is the potential for the audience to become complacent and “just wait for it to fall in price,” but it’s just like movie goers and the “I’ll wait for the DVD” – you’re always going to have a large number of suckers who can’t wait any longer to purchase your product.
Biggest hit of Summer 2004 in the theatre and biggest hit of Winter 2004 on DVD - would it work for games?
The best part of it all is that we reviewers would have steady work all year around, rather than having to cram out 4 reviews a week for 12 weeks in a holiday rush.
Cross Media Mania #2
When anyone thinks of Mortal Kombat in other media, they immediately think of the two movies, Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Unbeknownst to a lot of people, there was also a short-lived live action TV series called Mortal Kombat Conquest.
These DVDs contain best final episode of any show, ever*
Conquest was something of a prequel to the first Mortal Kombat movie, following the adventures of Kung Lao and his two students Siro, a former bodyguard and Taja, a former thief. The trio are guided by the Thunder God, Raiden and basically roam Earthrealm and Outworld fighting whatever evil crosses their path, including the evil (and imprisoned) Shang Tsung and a bunch of other one-shot villains. Many characters from the game made cameo appearances in the show, including Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot, Quan Chi, Kitana, Mileena, Rain, Reiko and Reptile. Some of the personalities of the characters have been altered slightly to allow for a more entertaining show – Raiden likes to joke around and cause mischief, something of a contrast from his deadly serious demeanour in the game series.
Are you John Connor?
The show was actually quite popular, but due to high production costs and the fact it was screened on cable network TNT, Mortal Kombat Conquest only lasted one season. The final episode is something of a classic, with Shao Kahn and his Outworld goons coming out in full force. The finale is actually available on R4 DVD (Set 1, Set 2), so I won’t spoil it, but will say that it is essential viewing for any Mortal Kombat fan.
Mortal Kombat Conquest also launched the acting career of Kristanna Loken, who would later play the Terminatrix in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
*kinda
License to Thrill #2
A strong relationship between Sega and Disney in the 1990s lead to many high quality games being produced for the Megadrive. Eventually, Disney decided to go after British developer Virgin for development of Disney's Aladdin, based on their animated film due out in the same year. Under the employ of Virgin at this point was none other than David Perry, who would later be the Founder and President of Shiny Entertainment. Dave Perry was lead programmer on a lot of Virgin’s games in the 90s, but Disney's Aladdin is arguably his best.
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Aladdin made parachute pants famous long before MC Hammer
The Megadrive version of Disney's Aladdin was an action/platformer where players would have to guide Aladdin through the streets of Agrabah, the Desert, the Cave of Wonders, and through his other adventures to rescue Princess Jasmine. Players could also take on the role of Aladdin’s simian pal Abu in his own mini-game. The game followed the movie very closely, but was also packing excellent cartoon-like graphics with quality of animation and pixel art not seen on home consoles at the time. Disney's Aladdin was also a real joy to play (although quite difficult), and earned many high reviews at the time of its release.
It’s a real shame that Disney’s standards for licensed products really fell through the floor since the PlayStation era – though the same can largely be said about their cinematic output (apart from the Pixar films).
From the Bowels of the Internet #4
Ever get forced to buy a sticky second hand, cartridge-only game with a tattered front label and the name of its former owner written on the top in permanent pen? What about renting games that are scratched to hell with no manual? Are you a reviewer who gets sent those promo copies and never gets a manual? Are you an incompetent tit who loses his manuals or uses them as a toilet paper substitute?
replacementdocs is a website which is dedicated to the archival of game manuals. Basically, the site takes in user contributions consisting of scanned versions of game manuals, maps and any other paraphernalia which is included in the game box. It might not be the real thing, but it’s good enough, and as close as you’re going to get without buying the game again.
The views expressed in the Easy Mode article are those of Matt Keller, and are not shared by PALGN, its affiliates or its advertisers.
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