StuffWeLike

Thanks for Ruining Star Trek

Yes I am a Trekkie and as such I hate when companies/people screw with the franchise. No this post isn’t about the new J.J. Abram 2008 film, this is about a little developer called Perpetual Entertainment. Most likely you’ve never heard of this company before. They’re the developer behind the upcoming Star Trek MMORPG. Formed in 2004 Perpetual has received over $9 million in funding and has yet to release 1 game.

In the business world usually you need a product to stay a float and now in the age of casual games releasing cost-efficient video games that sell thousands of units is a possibility. But no Perpetual has tried to make the most epic games without having any skill set to back them up.

Apparently a company can survive for a long time with $9 million of funding. Massively Multiplayer Online games take a long time to develop. Even more time is needed if the company wants the game to be good.

It appears that Perpetual was purchased by an undisclosed company. This unknown company has said that they want to make Star Trek more casual gamer friendly. Does that mean it’ll be a cheap free to play MMO game like the crappy Pirates of the Caribbean Online?

Thankfully one real developer is making a new Trek game to be enjoyed this Holiday season! Thanks to Bethesda Softworks PS2 and Wii owners will be able to enjoy Star Trek: Conquest similar to last year’s Star Trek Legacy. However the price of Conquest will be $19.99 for the PS2 and $29.99 for the Wii version.

Bethesda’s definitely offering this game for bargain bin value. Whether you want to look at that as a good thing or a bad thing is up to you. Personally I see it as a crap hitting the fan.

It has always been difficult to find good Star Trek games and the problem doesn’t seem like it’ll go away anytime soon.

Open Web Awards – Nominations Now Open

Open Web Awards

All this week long StuffWeLike is one of 24 blogs participating in the Open Web Awards! We want you to nominate your favorite web products before Tuesday December 4, 2007. The top nominations will go on to another round where you can vote on your favorite choices. The winners will be announced at the Open Web Awards in San Francisco.

To nominate a web product simply write a comment listing the product in one of the appropriate categories:

Applications and Widgets
Social News and Social Bookmarking
Photo Sharing
Video Sharing
Music
Mobile
Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

Deus Ex 3 announced, teaser revealed, pants wetted

I’ve always maintained that Deus Ex is the greatest game ever made by man, and with good reason. It was thought-provoking, immersive, intelligent and its unique game mechanics were plain perfect. While its sequel never lived up to its predecessor’s timeless glory, I still liked it for just being. I’m in need of underwear right now, because Eidos has just announced Deus Ex 3. That’s right, folks – Deus Ex is back with a vengeance!

Of course, Ion Storm saddeningly dissolved a long time ago, so this is Eidos’ Montreal studio’s first game, and that’s a blazing inauguration. Gamasutra reports the company’s structure, their goals and other details not concerning Deus Ex. What I found to be interesting was that Eidos mentions that the new studio will have tightly-knit, multi-discipline groups (at the most 80 people) working on a single project. Also, their development cycles will reportedly last 24 months, as opposed to the much lesser numbers of their competitors.

Eidos also released the teaser for Deus Ex 3, which you can find below. It’s as ambiguous as you’d expect from a teaser, and depicts a bio-augmented foetus, along with some mysterious words from a narrator. There are also a series of pictures that run damn fast. There’s a list of what they are at Wikipedia, if you’re that interested. (UPDATE: We have just learned that the guys at Shacknews have spent a good portion of their lives taking screenshots from the series of images. They have 20 images here right now, and I have no idea if those are all the images or not.)

While this is all excellent news, I have a strange fear in the back of my mind that this may get “consolized” as well, just like (*shudder*) Invisible War. Also, the fact that Montreal is facing a development cycle, no matter how long, hints at the same. Deus Ex, the beautiful game, in its unadulterated form is one that can only be reasonably played on the PC in its entirety. I hope that Montreal tries to recreate that, rather than tossing this legendary franchise into the unwashed masses of multi-console video games.

Blog Nothing Day

If you run a blog be aware that Blog Nothing Day is tomorrow November 26th! This isn’t necessarily an official blogger holiday. The “founder” wants to show his support for the writers in Hollywood by not blogging on his blog and he asks that other bloggers follow pursuit.

Will StuffWeLike follow the crowd? No, not intentionally. We’ve practically already taken a vacation from blogging over the Thanksgiving break and now things are finally getting back to normal.

CSI New York Season 3 Part 2 (Region 2 DVD) Review

CSI New York 3.2

As the newest CSI New York half season set, 3.2 provides some longer storylines to keep things fresh. While CSI is famed for closed in single episode storylines, the second half of the third season provides some interesting story arcs. You have a few nods to previous episodes such as Gary Sinise’s character, Detective Mack “Mac” Taylor, after arresting a dirty cop before. This story continues as he is investigated for being suspected to push a suspect off a rooftop in handcuffs off a roof even though he insists the man jumped. Plus there are a few other long storylines to give more depth to supporting characters.

The best episodes of the set are “Sleight Out of Hand”, about a magician performing tricks over three nights and people dying the same way as the trick. Plus the season finale where a group of men break into the lab for a heist. This gives Gary Sinise a good excuse to do a thinking man’s Bruce Willis in a Die Hard impersonation. Out of the 3 discs in the set, there is only one episode which isn’t really worth watching, which isn’t bad by anyone’s standards. In terms of the DVD set, only one extra is included. It is a visit by one of the cast members to a real training facility where members of law enforcement see faked crime scenes and dead bodies. It lasts for quite a while in running time but is really a one or two watch maximum. Overall, CSI New York 3.2 is a great set. While the extras are not great in number it is is a very entertaining set and easily worth a place in anyone’s DVD collection even if not a normal CSI fan, or trying to recover from CSI overload.

Verdict: +