Castle Magus

Full headline blah blah Dreamwidth's asininely insufficient subject line length yadda yadda: "This YouTuber is crafting an alternate Command & Conquer mythos populated entirely by the weirdest guys on the internet"

For reference: Jordan Peterson and Alex Jones.

Yeah, those videos are pretty great. Those guys, especially Peterson, completely fit right in. The cutscenes in the original games were crazy enough, but they only got weirder from there, before finally reaching the apex.

I'm sure the videos will be brought down via copyright claims from Peterson and Jones soon enough, though, so watch them while you still can. (They're each under a minute long, for the most part.)

I don't feel absolute schadenfreude over this news necessarily, but I do think it's good that this crappy game thankfully won't be seeing the light of day at all.

This new game is going to suck so incredibly hard, of that I have not the slightest doubt. Seriously the fact that there's even a question at all of "Will it have single-player?" is terrible, even if that question ends up being a reluctant "yes" on the part of EA. And the fact that it's going to be a F2P game... ugh. Just ugh...

"'We need to kind of wash the stain of C&C 4 away,' said lead designer Samuel Bass." How is making a game that is shaping up to be even worse going to wash away the stain of C&C 4? Well, I suppose making a game that is even worse would make C&C 4 not look as bad by comparison, so I guess that's one way of going about it, maybe.

In any case, I most definitely Do Not Want™. And I used to be a huge fan of Command & Conquer, too. Welp, it's just yet another example of a once great franchise that EA has pissed down the drain.

Requiescat in pace, Command & Conquer. You will be missed. :(

I was pretty sure this game was going to suck the first moment I heard about it.

Well, as it turns out, I was right.

"You'd think ... that Westwood would still be around, making smash hits in every genre they touched, but sadly, it was not to be. Bought by Electronic Arts 1998, aside from Command & Conquer and Dune games the studio's output soon dries up, the Westwood name split across two studios which released things like failed MMO Earth & Beyond and under-appreciated action game Nox.

In 2002, shortly after the failure of Command & Conquer Renegade, Westwood was severely downsized by EA, and a year later the studio itself was closed, those remaining staff absorbed into EA's other studios.

It's a shocking demise for a developer that during the 1990's was, pound-for-pound, perhaps the most successful Western studio going around. What makes it especially sad is the waste of Westwood's expertise in its years under EA's ownership."

I own Command and Conquer: Renegade. It's not great, but it's not nearly as bad as people like to make it out to be. I also own Nox, which was a half-way decent Diablo-clone, from what little I recall of it, though I never got very far into it. Anyway, I think the key point to be taken from the above, and from the article in general, is that everything was pretty much coming up all roses for Westwood Studios... until they got bought by Electronic Arts.

( The usual anti-EA rant behind cut for the uninterested )

Anyway, to get back on the subject of Westwood, since I got off-track there, as I usually tend to do when the subject of EA and all the companies they have ruined over the years comes up...

As is pointed out in the article, while everyone mostly remembers Westwood for Command and Conquer, it wasn't just a one-trick pony. It is notable for things like the amazing Legend of Kyrandia series as well. Here's a little fun-fact. The guy who did the voice for Brandon in all three games? Kane. And while I'm on the subject of the Kyrandia series here, I am absolutely appalled that these games are on neither GOG nor Steam yet, or seemingly anywhere else for that matter, aside from the used markets like eBay or Amazon Marketplace or whatever. Hopefully with the new cooperation between EA and GOG that will be rectified soon. Not that many (or any, for all I know) of the former Westwood guys will ever see a dime from it, of course. (EDIT 2) Finally, the Kyrandia games are up on GOG now, so that's good. (/EDIT 2)

Also, the Lion King SNES and Genesis games. I honestly had no idea until now that these were made by Westwood Studios. That just makes me even more sad that they ended up getting wrecked by EA.

Hmm, guess I won't be getting C&C4 after all. How disappointing.

I started a new game of Command and Conquer 3, with the intention to lead up to a playthrough of Kane's Wrath that I got a while back but never got around to playing.

Once again, I can't get over the first mission for GDI, which takes place in the "North Carolina Badlands."

I mean, seriously, check this out:

(EDIT) Image embed removed and replaced with link. (/EDIT)

That area is pretty much exactly where my hometown of Madison, NC is located.