Morning Caffeinated! -- Wii U, Black Mesa, and deadline day

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 14 2012. Topics include: Wii U, Deadlines and more deadlines. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!

John Keefer

September 14, 2012 8:45 AM

Good morning, Shack. It's the end of another week, and it is ending on somewhat of a high note. The Wii U launch date and price were announced yesterday and, unless you slept the day away, you were probably inundated with stories and features about Nintendo's new console (staying with Shacknews first, I hope).

Nintendo Land may have an attraction

Aside from Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101, I'm not sure there is anything I'm even remotely interested in at a $300 price point. I'm surprised that, after the success of the Wii as a family-based unit, Nintendo is apparently not sticking with its family theme. That price hits families a lot harder as a home entertainment system, but as gamers, we expect systems to take a chunk out of our wallets. I guess Nintendo wants to focus on its core, since families on budgets will be less inclined to splurge on a vanity item such as the Wii U at that price. It will be interesting to see how the console does when it launches on November 18 in time for Black Friday. We'll know if things like Nintendo Land and Nintendo TVii are enough to tease families into dropping the cash for a gift that not everyone may want to use. Andrew pointed out to me that Nintendo has always been one for the gimmicks. Some succeed (Wii, DS), and some don't (GameCube, Virtual Boy). Which one will this be? * * * * * Today is deadline day for many projects we have been tracking. First, Black Mesa finally launched at 8:47 a.m. Mountain Time (the time the original Half-Life started for the uneducated), and is one of the first projects to get the Steam Greenlight from fans. (We have the download, by the way.) Also facing a deadline today is Planetary Annihilation, although the only mystery now is whether the 42,000-plus people that donated will come up with their pledges for the game. Uber Entertainment's project hit every one of its stretch goals, fueled by a late surge of pledges to see Galactic War and a full symphony musical score added to the game. And as a bit of icing on the cake, Uber hit its last goal of $2.1 million--with six hours to go--to make a full documentary chronicling the game's development. Finally, Obsidian has used its web site to tease their upcoming RPG with vague quotes and cryptic references over the last four days, and it seems the general consensus from fans is that this could be a Planescape: Torment game entitled Eternity. There have also been clues that it could be a Kickstarter project. We'll know for sure when the official announcement is made at noon PT (if their countdown holds true). I'd rather have a new PlaneScape game than Dungeon Siege 4, if I had to choose. * * * * * Random bits & Quick hits: Bethesda and Ubisoft continue to push Dishonored and Assassin's Creed 3 very hard as release dates approach for both games. I've found the developer documentaries really interesting, but I know they weren't aimed at me since I had already planned on playing both games ... If you haven't entered our Firefall founders giveaway yet, you still have time until Sunday night. Remember to follow the rules ... Blizzard is hopping into the "way-back" machine for the next Diablo 3 patch, with features spawned from Diablo 2. I'm still not going back, though. Flashback: All this talk about Wii U got me thinking about the original Wii and playing with my kids. My son would beat me in Wii Sports bowling, but I could beat him and my daughter in Boom Blox. The Wii really was a good family console.

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September 14, 2012 8:45 AM

John Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated! -- Wii U, Black Mesa, and deadline day.

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 14 2012. Topics include: Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
- Keefinator
  
   reply
  September 14, 2012 8:56 AM
  
  I have done these now every day (except yesterday and weekends) for the last three weeks. I have my own thoughts obviously, but I wanted your feedback: Every day or once/twice a week?
- Navy Spitfire
  
   reply
  September 14, 2012 9:05 AM
  
  You messed up the link to the Obsidian website...
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    September 14, 2012 9:09 AM
    
    ?? I get to the obsidian site fine. But forgot to make it open in a new browser window.
- Grape Flavor
  
   reply
  September 14, 2012 9:22 AM
  
  :( Sad to see you guys are taking a pessimistic tack with the Wii U.
  
  And I'm not sure what you define as "gimmicks". Motion controls and touchscreens are here to stay, and what was "gimmicky" about the 'cube? That was as vanilla a console as they come...
- Conan
  
   reply
  September 14, 2012 9:26 AM
  
  Zombi U is worth checking out; I'm mildly surprised at the lack of interest there, even with zombie oversaturation.
  
  They've got 3-4 decent exclusives for the launch windows along with solid ports of some of the bigger games of the season like AC3 - it's not amazing, but from what I remember that's better than the 360's launch lineup.