Hell has frozen over

Folks, if you've been a fan of Nintendo since the SNES era or you enjoy RPGs, you recall a quirky little RPG called Earthbound on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.  This game alone was a fan favorite and many gamers call for this game to be released on the Virtual Console service.  Though games like the Donkey Kong Country trilogy(Now taken offline), Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy III and Mega Man X made it to the VC, Earthbound didn't and with the Wii phasing out, the chances are slim.

But in a recent Nintendo Direct, Nintendo decided to blow everyone away with the announcement of Earthbound coming to the Wii U Virtual Console in both North America and Europe.

Nintendo's irreverent sci-fi RPG, is coming to the Wii U Virtual Console sometime this year in North America and Europe, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed during a Nintendo Direct presentation today.

The impetus for the game's western release was outcry from fans in the Miiverse social platform. The game has been out on the Virtual Console service in Japan for some time.

Iwata promised that more information on EarthBound's Virtual Console debut will surface in the coming months.

Keep your eyes peeled, ladies and gentlemen.  And be sure you have a Wii U for this since the original SNES cart is extremely expensive.

Works Cited:

Polygon

NPD February 2013: A moment of silence for Lucasarts

Before we begin another late NPD report, let us bow our heads down in memory of Lucasarts, who put out some good and bad Star Wars titles across consoles and the PC.


Ask any fan of Star Wars: There’s a new Moff in town. Although Disney acquired LucasArts on October 30, 2012, Disney has made some sweeping changes gradually, such as cancelling the long-running Cartoon Network television show, The Clone Wars, as well as the upcoming live-action comedy Detours in mid March. Now, after over five months, Disney executed Order 66 on their recently acquired videogames studio, LucasArts, and its 150 employees.

This has been sad news for fans of Star Wars TV, but it’s even worse for fans of videogames, who had been anticipating the tactical game Star Wars: First Assault, as well as Star Wars 1313, a third-person action adventure that would have been a darker, grittier look at the universe that gave us Ewoks. But all is not lost.

Disney will be licensing out the Star Wars property to other companies…much as LucasArts did with Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 (Bioware and Obsidian), LEGO Star Wars (Traveller’s Tales), the currently running MMO The Old Republic (Bioware), and others.


In fact, as many have been quick to point out, the last game of note that LucasArts had published was 2008’s The Force Unleashed (which I loved), and their last game proper was Star Wars Kinect (which I laughed at). LucasArts, however, will always be revered for many of its past works, including Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series.

A legacy indeed lost.   But in the aftermath of the shutdown of Lucasarts, Activision and Raven Soft have released the source code for Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.  You can download both of them here and here.

And now for the moment of truth.  The February NPD.

At number 10: Madden NFL 2013 by EA for the 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U and PSVita.  And Superbowl already ended

At number 09: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time by Sony for the PS3 and PSVita.  You can't keep a good thief down

At number 08: Far Cry 3 by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3 and PC.  Hope you're gearing to explore the island if you missed this title

At number 07: Just Dance by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3, Wii and Wii U.  Bet ya can't top Michael Jackson

At number 06: Aliens: Colonial Marines by SEGA for the 360, PS3 and PC.  Because even a major screwup by Gearbox still keeps people buying.

At number 05: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance by Konami for the 360, and PS3.  This game, is a TOOL OF JUSTICE

At number 04: NBA 2K12 by Take 2 Interactive for the 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP and PC.  Wait, a PSP title is on the list?  That's a rarity

At number 03: Crysis 3 by EA for the 360, PS3 and PC.  Seems Electronic Arts is showing a major Domination right now

At number 02: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 by Activision Blizzard for the 360, PS3, Wii U and PC.  Wait.  They're not number 1?  Then who is?  Well that goes to.....

At number 01: Dead Space 3 by Electronic Arts for the 360, PS3 and PC, but at around 605K

Nice numbers, but a slow month since the holidays came to an end.  But what about hardware?

360: 302K
PS3: 263K
Wii U: 66K

Nintendo Ecosystem(Wii U, Wii, DS and 3DS): 455K

The 360 continues its dominance despite falling numbers.  The PS3 remains steady while the Wii U is slowly playing catch up with its numbers with 70% of em being deluxe consoles.  Maybe Nintendo should phase out the Basic consoles and stick with the Deluxe consoles.  Overall, Nintendo seems to be doing fine across the board, though it will be awhile before the Wii U shows its true colors.

What does March bring for the gaming industry from the 1st day to Wondercon?  We'll find out later on.

Works Cited:
Forbes

The Skullgirls victory and the surplus in Duckberg

Last month, Lab Zero announced a Kickstarter push for the upcoming fighting game Skullgirls.  The Mane 6 development team, who is planning on a new fighting game courtesy of Lauren Faust, would be getting the fighting engine should the Skullgirls Kickstarter reach $725,000.

Well, the results are in, and as of yesterday, the Kickstarter has ended with

$829,000

As a result, Mane 6 will be developing a whole new fighting game.  But not just that, the following are also added to the game.

• First Character: Squigly
• Second Character: Big Band
• Third Character: By Fan Vote
• Fourth Character: By Fan Vote
• Fifth Character: Robo-Fortune
• Squigly's Stage
• Squigly's Story
• Big Band's Stage
• Big Band's Story
• Fan-selected Character #1's Stage
• Fan-selected Character #1's StoryMode
• Fan-selected Character #2's Stage
• Fan-selected Character #2's StoryMode
• Bonus Stage: River King Casino
• Bonus Stage: Glass Canopy
• Voice Pack: "Republican Double"
• Voice Pack: "Robo-Fortune"
• Voice Pack: "Female Announcer"
• Voice Pack: "Salty Parasoul"
• Voice Pack: "Drunk FGC Commentator"
• Voice Pack: "Valley Girl Painwheel"
• Voice Pack: "Saxploitation"
• Voice Pack: "Anime Peacock"
• Voice Pack: "Real Soviet Announcer"

Impressive, isn't it?  And it took a connection between Bronies and this game.  Skullgirls is due out later this summer, but if you are a backer by donating $25-36 or more, you will be able to test drive the game early this summer.

Now while the county of Sim City is facing a nasty deficit, another county is having a surprising surplus: Duckberg.  One week ago, Capcom shocked gamers on the 360, PS3 and Wii U with the announcement of Duck Tales Remastered.  Developed by Wayforward, supervised by Capcom and the Walt Disney Company.



That's right.  The same WayForward responsible for Contra 4, Adventure Time: Hey Ice King Why'd you steal our Garbage, Shantae, the Mighty Flip Champs/Milky Way/Switch Force series, and even the best Aliens game this generation so far "Aliens: Infestation," is responsible for the remastering of Duck Tales.

But if that wasn't enough a majority of the old voice cast from Duck Tales will be returning, such as "Alan Young" the voice of Scrooge McDuck and "June Foray" the legendary voice of Magicka DeSpell.  But there is more to Alan Young than meets the eye as his acting career expands beyond the legendary voice of Scrooge.

The full voice cast of the original DuckTales cartoon will reprise their respective roles for the newly announced nostalgiapocalypse DuckTales Remastered, Capcom senior vice-president Christian Svensson revealed in a Capcom Unity forum thread yesterday.

"We have ALL the original voice actors from the show," Svensson said, including Scrooge voice actor Alan Young, who "still came into the studio and did his thing like a pro. The voice work really adds a lot to the package."

"Scrooge's voice actor," as a quick aside, is a man named Alan Young, who's been in the entertainment industry since the 1940s. Before he endeared himself to the hearts of millions as a penny-pinching old duck, Young's original claim to fame was as Wilbur Post, the star of Mister Ed. We wonder if Young knew at the time that talking animals would become a running theme for his 70-odd years in show business?

 My message to Alan Young: Thank you for coming back on for Duck Tales.  A lot of your fans will be enjoying this remake, coming out this Summer.  Oh BTW, a PC version is also being planned from what I heard.

Works Cited:
Kotaku
Joystiq

Sim City: What went wrong?

Early this month, Electronic Arts released the newest Sim City for the PC.  Taking a page from Diablo 3, Sim City requires an Internet Connection to run as the game allows for players to go online and create their city.

But, like with Diablo 3, something went wrong.  The boys at Kotaku started with this message:


Maybe you were hoping to fire it up after a long day of work. Maybe you've been waiting for this game for years now, and you were psyched to finally check it out.
Maybe you didn't mind the whole "online only" thing, because you keep your computer connected to the Internet 99% of the time anyway, and who really needs to play PC games on an airplane?
So you sat for an hour or two and ate dinner or something as you waited for SimCity to download and install. When it hit 100%, you were stoked. Finally.
Then... something went wrong.
Maybe the servers just wouldn't authenticate.
Maybe your friends list wouldn't show up.
Maybe you got this message:

The message?

Unable to create your city at this time.
Please claim a city again

 It's like a total repeat of the Diablo 3 debacle of 2012.  But the next day, it got worse.

If you try to play SimCity on the U.S. servers right now, you probably will. It's a little different from the image we saw last night, and the server issues we saw all throughout yesterday, but the problem remains the same: people who bought SimCity can't play it.
Right now it's 8pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time, or 5 hours ahead of Eastern), and the servers that were supposed to reopen at 7pm GMT are still not open. It seems like you can play on some European servers at the moment, although that doesn't help anyone who has already started cities on regions with their friends on the U.S. servers.

 Now as someone who has played Diablo 3, I did encounter a similar problem during the launch date, but it wasn't as severe as this.  I think this is what happens when you overhype a game to heck and back.

Finally, players were able to play Sim City, but at the costs of some features that EA had to disable.

We are continuing to do everything we can to address the server issues. In the meantime, so that we can give you as good an experience as possible, we are in the process of deploying a hotfix to all servers. This includes various improvements and also disables a few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements and region filters). Disabling these features will in no way affect your core gameplay experience.
We will continue to let you know as we have more information. We know it has been said before, but we do appreciate your patience as we complete this latest update. Getting you playing is our absolute highest priority.

So now players can play Sim City online, only it doesn't feel like online.  And with Diablo 3 during its problems, players still had access to Achievements.  And the funny thing was, EA promised not to repeat Diablo 3's mistakes when it took a potshot at the game.  Here it is, courtesy of Kotaku


But what of the debacle of the Diablo III launch and the fury of players who couldn't play a game they wanted to play solo because Blizzard had trouble keeping its servers up and error-free?

"We've got experience from Spore and Darkspore," Katserelis said, citing other recent Maxis games. "EA is an on online company. We're definitely watching what's going on at Blizzard, and we're putting in backstops and checks to try to prevent those kind of things from happening."


Yeah that turned out very well.

And as a result, the entire internet community went up in flames over Sim City.  Even Jim Sterling of Destructoid ripped into Electronic Arts over blaming the fans for loving Sim City too much


In what has to be the most incredible display of PR spin seen in a videogame crisis, an Electronic Arts spokesperson has claimed SimCity's notoriously awful DRM setbacks are a result of the game being just too gosh-darn enjoyable to quit! No, this isn't an Onion article.

"What we saw was that players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave the game, which kept our servers packed and made it difficult for new players to join," explained senior producer Kip Katsarelis on EA's forums.

The remark has already led to SimCity being renamed to SpinCity (thanks to Hollander Cooper!) in celebration of an almost impressive bit of damage control. SimCity is now the game too fun to work, and it's all your fault for wanting to play it so badly.

Amazing. 


Amazing indeed.  I can't recall if Diablo 3's PR department was like this.  But this kind of spin is perfect, if you're a Fox Newscaster.

Although EA promises to fix up Sim City and are giving out free games to those who bought the now-broken online game, the damage was already done and EA CEO John Riccitello resigns in shame.


John Riccitiello, CEO of game publisher Electronic Arts, is stepping down from his position.
Former EA CEO and board chairman Larry Probst will take over while the board searches for a new replacement, EA said.

Riccitiello, who was first hired as CEO of the massive publisher in 2007, has faced criticism from investors and fans over the past few years as Electronic Arts has gone through all sorts of financial difficulties. In December, Riccitiello was listed as one of "eight CEOS to fire in 2013" by the blog 24/7 Wall Street.

Riccitiello always portrayed the image of an exec who actually plays games. The bosses at Activision or Microsoft wouldn't talk about the games they played. But Riccitiello would happily chat not just about his experiences with EA's own but about the competition's. And if you got him talking about, say, EA's Mirror's Edge, he'd express design ideas about how to make it better.


So now that Riccitello is no longer CEO and board chairman of EA, what iwll become of EA as Larry Probst takes over temporarily?

You can read more about the Sim City debacle right here

Though I wonder if we will learn from the Sim City calamity?  Naaaaah.  I bet someone could mess it up next.  Maybe the next X-Box.

Works Cited:
Kotaku link 1
Kotaku link 2
Kotaku Link 3
Kotaku link 4
Destructoid
Kotaku link 5

NPD January 2013: ZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZzzzzzzz wha?

Am I late on the NPD again?  Oy vey.  I think that Playstation 4 video caused me to nap again.

Anyway, Time for the top 10 Software

At number 10: Fifa Soccer 2013 by Electronic Arts for the 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, 3DS and PSP.  Just remember that we own the name for Football

At number 09: Skylanders Giants by ActivisionBlizzard for the Wii, 360, PS3, 3DS and Wii U.  Where in the world is Spyro the Dragon?

At number 08: Assassin's Creed III by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3, Wii U and PC.  Also be sure to check out the new DLC "The Tyranny of King Washington."

At number 07: Halo 4 by Microsoft for the 360.  I wonder what Master Chief would sound like if he were voiced by Jon St John?

At number 06: Devil May Cry by Capcom for the PS3 and 360.  Guess a redesign didn't bring down Dante.

At number 05: Madden NFL 2013 by Electronic Arts for the 360, PS3, Wii U, PSVita, and Wii U.  Wait a minute.  This game ain't number 1?  That's sounds Anti-American.

At number 04: NBA 2K13 by Take 2 Interactive for the 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP and PC.  Great, now when is GTA 5 gonna come out, Take 2?

At number 03: Just Dance 4 by Ubisoft for the Wii, 360, PS3 and Wii U.  I think my legs are getting sore from all that dancing

At number 02: Far Cry 3 by Ubisoft for the 360, PS3 and PC.  I actually dare Lara Croft to survive this feral adventure.

And at number 01: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 by ActivisionBlizzard for the 360, PS3, Wii U and PC.  Actually, this game is more patriotic than NFL.

Furthermore, with the exception of Devil May Cry, there weren't any new releases that made it that high.  A disappointment in the industry compared to last year. 

Hardware is also in, for the 360, PS3, Wii U and Vita.  Unfortunately for the latter 2, it doesn't look that good.

X-Box 360: 281K
PS3: 201K
Wii U: 57K

The Wii U is hovering where the GCN was in January 2002. ETher it's doomed, or we're acting like Fox News.  The PS3 and 360 are still hanging in there.  While the Wii and 3DS aren't listed, they're doing decently between 100K and 150K per system.  And rumor has it that the Vita has around 35K.  Not looking good for Sony's handheld ether when Nintendo and the cellphone companies are eating out of Sony's hands

February looks like a not-so-quiet month with Metal Gear Rising due out.  Will Konami rise up?  Or will they fall down?  Stay tuned later on.

Works Cited:
NeoGAF

Good-bye 1up, GameSpy and UGO

There's alot of people who want to hear me talk about the Playstation 4.  And while I do have some criticism directed at it, I have something else that caught my attention.  The shuttering of 1up, GameSpy and UGO, all apart of the same group that's with IGN(Which is also facing layoffs)

The move, according to a statement, is so that the publisher can focus on its two "flagship" brands, IGN and AskMen. It will no doubt be a sad shock to those who have frequented these sites for many years.

"Given the state of the market and the economy, it simply wasn't feasible to run multiple sites all focused on video game content," wrote IGN's Casey Lynch, the poor sod who has to relay the corporate message like it's a good thing, and take the heat from disappointed readers around the world.

"Layoffs and site closures *CENSORED* suck. It reminds us that this is indeed a business, and not just a fun past-time that kids tumble into an office to type about," he added.

"I choose to remember all the heart, soul, blood, sweat and beers that went into creating 1UP and GameSpy, and all the hard work, love, and devotion that those we say goodbye to today poured out for you and this industry while at IGN, 1UP, and GameSpy."

A tragic move by Ziff Davis.  Which means we'll be having less review sites to trust.  So, for the rest of this post, the final message of all 3 websites that will be no more.  1up, GameSpy, UGO, thanks for all those years we had.

1UP.com's final message

As of today, 1UP will be entering the sunset into which all former websites eventually must ride. This comes as huge disappointment for me -- not because I'm editor-in-chief of the site, but because I've been with it since the beginning. That's nearly 10 years of my life invested in this website through all its ups and downs... and ups... and dooooowwwwwns. 

It's been a fantastic (almost) 10 years. Even in its most frustrating and even dispiriting moments (there were some pretty dark times before IGN bought us in 2011), 1UP has always been fueled by the sincere enthusiasm of everyone writing for the site. Dozens upon dozens of people have moved through the various doors of our assorted offices, and each of them brought passion and talent to their work. I'm proud to have been a part of something so much larger than myself, and to help guide it as gracefully as possible to its slow halt since taking over the role left behind by my predecessors, Sam Kennedy and James Mielke. 

Read through the site's archives and you'll find some truly amazing content. In-depth interviews with legendary developers, insanely detailed explorations of the niche and obscure, brilliant coverage of the top news of the day. You'll find revolutionary video programs and trendsetting podcasts. Incisive reviews and comprehensive blogs. God, there's so much here we need to archive in case someone does pull the plug on the servers. 

But most of all, 1UP has always been fueled by passionate readers. No, you guys are more than readers -- you're participants. You've called in for podcasts, shaken our hands at trade shows and conventions, flagged us down on the street, berated us in comments, and chimed in to express your own take on the topics of the day. 1UP has played a huge role over the years in changing the perception and nature of the gaming press from broadcast to conversation. And the outpouring of memories and affection today on forums, on Twitter, and in our blogs has only served to reinforce the impact 1UP has had on countless people. You guys are awesome.

GameSpy.com's Final Message
GameSpy, as we know it, began in 1999. Today, 14 years later, it has reached the end of the road. We had a good run, and we want to sincerely thank all of you for reading and joining in discussions with us. It's been fantastic.

Just to be clear, we're not being shut down because PC gaming isn't a big, important, and growing thing -- because it is. That's not even debatable. It's not even because the GameSpy staff did a bad job of talking about it. Hell, from where I'm sitting we did an awesome job, particularly in covering the technical quality of PC versions of cross-platform games in our Port Authority features, reality-checking the hype of about-to-be-released big games with our Questions & Concerns series, delving into the nuances of MMORPGs, strategy, MOBAs, and simulations in our columns, regularly checking up on free-to-play games in Free Agent, calling out Microsoft's neglect of PC gamers, mocking Ubisoft's claims of a day-and-date PC release of Assassin's Creed 3, breaking the news on SimCity's lack of save/reload, and of course our amazingly bizarre The War Z interview.

Why is this closure happening, then? It's a business thing, and like most business things it's not easy to explain or understand unless you spend all day crunching numbers and paying bills. Which I don't. So here's the simple version that even I can comprehend: Ziff Davis wants to run an efficient, focused company, and managing several different sites that all cover videogames isn't exactly the model of efficiency. Even though GameSpy had its own unique voice that was separate and distinct from those of our sister sites, and there has always been value in that, it's hard to argue with that logic. Even if it does totally suck.

The silver lining is that the value of all of the voices and opinions of our staff and writers won't just go away. We'll still be out there talking and writing about the great things happening in the world of PC gaming, both at IGN and other places around the internet, because it's what we love to do. It's why we wanted to work at GameSpy in the first place. We hope you'll keep reading and watching and talking about PC games with us.

On that note, here's a list of the people -- and associated Twitter names -- who helped make GameSpy the fun and insightful PC gaming site it's been for the past year. I think you'll find there's more where that came from.

- Dan Stapleton, Editor in Chief

UGO.com's final message

Yo,
I've spent many years of my life trying to turn UGO.com into something entertaining for you guys. Hopefully you stopped by recently to watch one our funny videos. Or you found yourself debating one of our nerd culture lists, read a movie review or pondered the age old question "Who would win in a fight, a minotaur armed with a trident or a centaur armed with a crossbow." Could be you tried to win something off our homepage or you Googled "Hot Girls" and found a couple of pics you liked. I don't really care how you got here, just as long as you were entertained when you did.
Be excellent to each other,
Chris Radtke

Works Cited:
Spong
1UP
GameSpy
UGO

AlienGate: The Dark sides to Aliens Colonial Marines

Aliens: Colonial Marines.  It was suppose to be a game done by the same team responsible for the Borderlands games.  It was suppose to be a game of high quality.  But, what happened?


As for Aliens: Colonial Marines, as a total package this should be a solid enough shooter to appease all sorts of fans of the series, but it's also a retread of many outdated and familiar gameplay mechanics. Maybe some day, Gearbox will make an open-world thriller of a game based off exploration of LV-223 in Prometheus. But until that time, I believe that if nothing else, Aliens: Colonial Marines will at the very least be a decent franchise tie-in that continues the canon of the series.

So far, so good, according to Destructoid's Casey Baker.  It seems the game was labeled as a solid game.  But when the game finally came out, the reviews didn't take kindly to it.  Jim Sterling has this to say.


Multiplayer raises the game's stock, but not by much. Certainly not enough to be worth the time of any Aliens fan, when there are cheaper, more professionally produced alternatives on offer. This feels like an amateur's dalliance, not a high profile mainstream release that's been in production since 2006 and heralds itself as an important addition to science fiction history. It works, just about, and it comes across as a game developed to attain that one lowly goal -- to simply work, to achieve the bare minimum quality required to escape being labeled unplayable. The result is something that is, indeed, playable, but nonetheless heartbreaking in its awfulness.

At first, Colonial Marines surprised this lifelong Aliens fan with its ignoble crudity. Then it angered me. Now ... I'm just very, very sad. I don't even feel like ending this with an obligatory movie reference.  (Score: 2.5/10)



Very disappointing indeed.  And it's not just Destructoid.  But other sites like IGN, Gamespot and Game Informer that cited a disappointing review, though EGM gave it a positive review with a whopping 90.

You can find them at Metacritic

But what about the Wii U version?  Well some say that game is the superior one.

However, what alot of people don't identify (again because of general concensus) is that the Wii U version (still very much on the way), done exclusively by Demiurge studio's, is the big version; the joint venture was banking on.

I know what you're thinkin right? "WTF!?, how stupid, no ones adopting the Wii U, what were they thinking?" and you'd be right if it wasn't for the fact that SEGA's industry analysis favoured the U version, in fact the entire joint venture did.
This is because that version ports to the new consoles by Sony & MS (in the future) and thus has the tightest longevity of the product. Instead of a few months in the dying period of current gen systems, they favour a product that will last (potentally) 2-3yrs and allow for sequals.

Moving on, alot if not all the pre-production of the title was handled by Demiurge studio's before they went onto work exclusively on the Wii U version from the ground up.

Sounds kinda fishy if you ask me.  But one tester claims the opposite.

“Oh wow. Yes okay. I was hoping someone would ask this. I have played the WiiU version. The one that is supposedly the best of all of them? It is not. It is the worst. It is a bit of a joke. The WiiU is basically the same game as the console version but with framerate issues, worse texture loading, and horrendously misguided minigames thrown in. You get a ‘scanner’ to scan enemies and get bonus points that aid your harming them. When you cut open doors (which happens a lot in the game) you have a game where you have to keep the heat ‘optimal’. They just add frustration, and take away even more from the fun. We don’t know if it will come out, Sega are conisdering canceling it, but right now its still going.”

The worst version.   As if the 360, PS3 and PC versions were bad enough, the Wii U version happens to be worst.  And you thought the mud on Gearbox software's face wasn't bad enough.  But it seems rumor has it that Gearbox pulled Aliens developers out to work on Borderlands 2


"Gearbox was taking people off the project to put them on Borderlands 1," he says of his time on the job. "This was before the big art style change happened on Borderlands. Our team was getting smaller by the month, making it very difficult to get the game made. Ironically several of the team members were ex-3D Realms people who were saying [paraphrasing] 'Finally, we're going to Gearbox to make Aliens, and we're going to ship a fucking game!' Hah."

According to our man with the inside track, it was later learned that SEGA actually canceled Colonial Marines, deciding to cut its losses after such a long development cycle. 

"At some point in 2008, SEGA temporarily pulled the plug on the game," he said. "They caught wind of Gearbox shifting resources (despite still collecting milestone checks as if the team were full size) and lying to SEGA AND 2K about the number of people working on each project. This led to the round of layoffs at Gearbox in late 2008."

Did Gearbox go too far in destroying the reputation of Aliens: Colonial Marines?  Were both SEGA and 2K games lied to?  Why is Randy Pitchfork of Gearbox software not talking about this game?  AlienGate: The rise and fall of Aliens: Colonial Marines.  What really went wrong?

Works Cited
http://www.destructoid.com/hands-on-with-aliens-colonial-marines-240418.phtml#PhlLvjdrhqOv3xzd.99">Destructoid: Hands on With Aliens Colonial Marines
http://www.destructoid.com/review-aliens-colonial-marines-244276.phtml#PTZTOwJi6Fw0LUDL.99"> Destructoid: Aliens Colonial Marines Review
TimeGate Studio Forums
DSO Gaming: Aliens Colonial Marines Tester Spills the Beans: SEGA were well aware the game sucks
http://www.destructoid.com/developer-gearbox-lied-to-sega-2k-over-colonial-marines-245986.phtml#PqUdHCCO4SV1wtbe.99 "> Destructoid: Developer: Gearbox lied to SEGA, 2K over Colonial Marines