Interplay recently sacked the entire Black Isle Studios development
team. These are the guys who worked on Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape:
Torment, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2,
various expansions. To make matters worse, Interplay did this as BIS was
finishing up its work on Fallout 3, a game I (and others) have been
desperately anticipating for years. The reasoning behind this? It seems
to have been nothing more than a short-sighted cost-cutting maneuver for
withering Interplay. The publisher has apparently decided to change its
focus to console games... even though its current crop of games seem to
struggling. Both
Galleon and
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
have slipped their original release dates. Its only other game on the
horizon is
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, a sequel to a game that
hasn't even released! In the end, I believe Interplay has seriously shot
themselves in the foot. If the publisher is still around in two years,
I'll be surprised.
Some people hold the belief that a bad Fallout 3 is better than no
Fallout 3 at all. I can sympathize, I really can. Unfortunately, such a
sentiment is thinking with your heart and not your mind. I can never
forget the horror that was Dungeon Master 2. Guess who brutally mangled
that franchise? That's right, it was Interplay. The fact is, a bad
sequel is worse than no sequel at all. With a bad sequel, any reminiscing
about the glories of the original is tainted by creeping thoughts
of unmitigated disaster that followed. Don't believe me? Try asking
Highlander fans about Highlander 2. Watch them wince in almost physical
pain. And then try the same with Alien 3. "Alien 3? Never heard of it.
Now Alien Resurrection wasn't too bad, up until the end that is..."
RoboCop 3 anyone? Five minutes of that abomination and I was trying to
gouge my eyes out with a particularly pointy corner of my remote. (My
wife suggested the remote would be more useful changing the channel. Ha,
silly woman.)
I say, better to allow the Fallout series die than to let it suffer
the ignominious fate of a loathsome sequel farmed out by Interplay to some
half-assed development group that just doesn't care. And I say it with a
(radioactive) tear in my eye.
Permalink Filed under: Games
