Shades of KOTOR II

Again with the story in games: Rise of the Argonauts is apparently a pile of shit. That's disheartening, because all of the articles I read about it years ago talked about a lot of interesting things that more developers need to consider, such as innovative combat systems, new ways to "level up", and using dialog in quests to just as great effect as a sword. I remember reading a story about how this game got pushed back a year, and then like a couple weeks later it was slated for release. This game screams "pushed out the door way ahead of its time" from every pore, and I tend to have a lot of sympathy for games like that, considering Knights of the Old Republic II is probably my favorite game of all time.

What probably happened is that Codemasters needed some revenue, was hurting bad thanks to the shitty economy, saw how much money everyone else was making this holiday and went "GAHHHHH US TOO WE WANT ON THE GRAVY TRAIN SO BAD" and forced it out. Probably didn't have much choice, my guess is it was either try and make some money back on this game or shut the doors and cancel it anyway.

They even got screwed from that angle, as their "have to release it now" emergency date just happens to fall on the tail end of the biggest release schedule in game history. It being the rush job that it was, they didn't even have the time to wind up and let loose the hype machine, so all things considered this game is probably going to sell five copies then drop down to twenty bucks new, where it will languish in bargain bins for the rest of this generation.

Why is it that games with interesting ideas and so much potential are rushed along to destruction by their parent publishers, while Capcom gives shit like Spyborgs all the time in the world it needs to start from scratch?