Patience, everyone. Games get delayed. It happens.

Bobby Miller 16 Jul, 2009 at 6:19pm ET Article published in Gaming

If you keep delaying my release...

Like it or not, the Holiday season is approaching. It’s the time of year where gamers look at empty wallets while high profile games hit the shelves one after another. This year will be no different, but word on the street says that the release crunch just got a bit lighter.

PS3 gamers will be a little bummed to hear that their highly anticipated exclusive, Heavy Rain, has been delayed from this Holiday season to ‘2010’ according to an interview with Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere on gamesindustry.biz. Despite Guillaume affirming that development is on schedule, he stated that this move was made to avoid the crowding of Holiday releases. Such an environment is not ideal for a new IP release.

I cry shenanigans–I think Heavy Rain has enough notoriety behind it to do fine as a Holiday release. However, if extra time is what it’ll take do this ambitious title justice, then so be it.

Also on the Holiday chopping block is the sequel to everyone’s favorite steampunk-shooting, underwater-exploring, little sister-chasing FPS, Bioshock 2. Destructiod reports that Bioshock 2 will see a release in the “first half of calendar 2010” along with Max Payne 3, Red Dead Redemption and Mafia 2. Take-Two’s Ben Feder stated the reason for the delay was that the game simply needs more time over the burners. With as much as this sequel has to live up to, this is certainly a good decision.

Ah game delays, as gamers we should be used to this by now. As a Valve fan, I know this feeling more than anger, love, and happiness. It’s sort of like an Icrontic event, where everyone says, “Hey! I’ll be there this holiday season and it will be great!” And like clockwork, some fall off the wagon. However, I’m sure you will all agree with me when I say I’d much rather wait longer for a great game, then see a decent game sooner.

Comments

16 Jul 2009 ~ 8:16pm Idiot_Slayer Yeah I hate that Bioshock 2 is being pushed back.
OH but we all know that more development time doesn't always equal a better game.
16 Jul 2009 ~ 8:28pm Grimnoc I'm personally pretty happy that Bioshock 2 is being pushed back. The original timetable for releasing that game was ridiculously short, and the last thing I want is a great game being transformed into cash cow where sequels are released every year (and yet amazingly get worse and worse each go-round).
16 Jul 2009 ~ 9:38pm ardichoke Am I the only one who is not all that excited for this game? I have Bioshock... played a few hours into it... never finished it. Of course it didn't help that Windows somehow lost my most current save file which set me back over an hour of playtime. Quite frankly though, it just makes me want to play other, better FPS/RPG type games (see: Deus Ex).
16 Jul 2009 ~ 10:14pm Koreish Now Mass Effect and Bioshock are coming out about the same time. Looks like Starcraft and Arkham Asylum are going to have to last me.
17 Jul 2009 ~ 1:03am UPSLynx As long as there's an actual penalty for dying in Bioshock 2, then I'll be happy with it. Loved the first game, but was simply too easy as you could die anytime and just jump right back in like it never happened.

It was a dev-enabled God mode that was always on. What were they thinking?

Oh, that's right, co-developed on consoles
17 Jul 2009 ~ 3:38am Shorty I actually welcome this. So many games get pushed out to the public with some serious show stopping bugs. All due to timescales and publisher pressure.

I guess it's too much to hope that games are being delayed for quality reasons though. Maybe when games fail due to terrible press related to bugs that publishers are starting to get the hint. We will buy good product.
17 Jul 2009 ~ 3:53am Grimnoc Deus Ex....yum.

*Deus Ex 2 was such a disapointment for me.
17 Jul 2009 ~ 3:51pm Butters I played Bioshock when it hit $20.00, I'll probably do the same with Bioshock 2. As far as Deus Ex vs Bioshock, Deus Ex hands down. Bioshock had DX10 and other modern graphics features, yet left me wanting a little more out of the game. Deus Ex has my unreliable memory thinking it was legit on an nVidia TNT2 32mb, and I wanted to join the Illuminati afterwards.
17 Jul 2009 ~ 4:59pm ardichoke You know... I don't think I've played through Deus Ex in about a year and a half. Time to reinstall. As for Deus Ex 2... I personally don't think it's a BAD game... it just didn't live up to the original. Then again, when the original is as close to gaming perfection as I've ever seen, I have to say I'm not surprised.

As for Bioshock 2... yes, please put an actual death penalty in. I actually beat a Big Daddy to death with the pipe wrench simply because he was right next to the respawn pod and there was no penalty for dying. Any time you can do that in a game, it's broken.
17 Jul 2009 ~ 5:08pm GnomeWizardd I guess SC2 Wolfenstien and Diablo III will do
17 Jul 2009 ~ 5:28pm shwaip i predict d3 getting delayed. (also hoping so i can finish my phd on time-ish)
17 Jul 2009 ~ 5:40pm GnomeWizardd I so hope not, I am dieing for DIII
18 Jul 2009 ~ 6:58pm chrisWhite I have like ten unfinished games I'd really like to play one of these days, I'm not worried about the delays.