Week in Review – 09/22/03

September 30, 2003

Another week has passed us bringing with it some fresh games, news and tidbits from our favorite industry. For some reason I spent a lot of this week in Pop Culture trivia. Why? I have no idea, however I have been reminiscing about many things that I should not know, yet I know a lot about. That’s neither here nor there, on with the week!

No work for you!

Tales from the horrid world of Corporate America saw lawsuits fly as former members of the Splinter Cell team for Ubi Soft left the company and signed with EA Montreal. While it has not been released as to why the five former developers fled Ubi Soft they are in fact suing for violation of the “non compete clause” in the contract. The clause stated that they cannot work for another development house in North America for a year after leaving the company. Personally I have come across this in real life. An internet company tried to get me to sign a Non Compete Clause Contract; I rose as fuss about it and never signed the paper. If you not familiar with what a Non Compete Clause, it hampers the employee from taking on work. This of course is a pain in the butt as it almost strips the employee of their ability to make a living, its total crap.

Nintendo Woes

Of course, as the “Frozen One” has been keeping a track on Nintendo, it has had its share of ill news as of late. Recently the price dropped on the Cube, again. This undoubtedly was done to try and sell more consoles. Developers are starting to feel the burn and have begun pulling titles from Nintendo. Atari has pulled Terminator 3 and Driver 3 from Gamecube, leaving two crap games that will never see the light of day on my beloved console. While these are certainly bad signs for Nintendo, they remain to have a loyal fan base and a library of first party games that continue to be big draws. When you have Mario on your team and control of the whole hand held market, you can afford to make a few mistakes.

Wireless

Nintendo and Motorola revealed a new device for the Game Boy Advance SP. The new device will allow wireless game play between the Game Boys for multiplayer support. The new plug in allows up to five players to hook up and play each other. The plug in itself looks odd from pictures I have seen. Expect this new technology to be ready to be implemented in the next version of the Game Boy.

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrom!

Electronic Arts and NASCAR have signed an exclusive deal that will have all NASCAR games be produced by EA exclusively for the next six years. That’s right, for all your beer swigging, speed freak fans out there, you are in good hands at least till 2009. By then who knows maybe they will implement a right turn in your beloved sport. The era of exclusivity continues. Good news, as EA makes great sports games, bad news as EA does not support Xbox Live anymore. If you want to race your pals via Live, get another game.

I would say it was a cool week. In SB news Pretz is geeking out of Call to Duty demo he has been playing. Then again the kid freaks out on just about anything. Cone has gotten his hands of Voodoo Vince and has been playing non stop with the Mrs. In my PS2 still sits Disgaea. So far that game could very well be the best game I have played in a long while. Even more so then Star Wars: KOTOR. See you all the next time my name gets pulled from the hat! Represent.