UFO: Afterlight Review

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            UFO: Afterlight

Review by SteerpikeApril 2007

No, Dammit

The UFO series is a collection of tactical strategy games influenced by 1994’s X-COM: UFO Defense, one of the best and most important PC games. Like its forbear, UFO is part big-picture military and logistics management, part small-squad tactical combat. Czech developer Altar Games has tried to fill some pretty big shoes—shoes so big, in fact, that no one else has dared attempt it. “Potentially the next X-COM” is a loaded statement. And if “potential” were all games needed, the UFO series would be awesome.

2003’s UFO: Aftermath was solidly okay, but no more. 2005 saw UFO: Aftershock hit close to the mark, but it was too easy, too repetitive and hobbled by bugs. Rather than patching Aftershock, Altar left it crippled and moved on to UFO: Afterlight, producing an odd Sims-in-space mutation of a strategy game that, despite some interesting ideas, can’t overcome the ruinous information management, humdrum tactical encounters and poor design decisions.

The primary issue they fixed is stability. This installment is crashless and largely bugless, the opposite of previous installments.  But though they repaired that one perennial series gripe, Afterlight also retains too many of the classic UFO problems—boring tactical, convoluted interface, lousy organization. And while I applaud the developers for their willingness to explore some new play styles, they don’t really add much to the fun level.

Simply put, I don’t enjoy playing this game, which was not true about either predecessor.

General Mars-pital

Aftershock and Afterlight both tell the story of what happened if you lost the first game in the trilogy.  Midway through that one, the Reticulan Empire, busily invading Earth, offers to transport humans to a safe haven and end the war. Take the deal, lose the game. The sequels have humanity beaten, near extinction, and without hope for the future. Some of the population was transferred to space stations called Laputas, whose story was told in Aftershock. But most survivors of the Reticulan bombardment of the Earth—a few million people—are stuffed into freezers and carted off to Mars. A skeleton crew of scientists and engineers remain thawed to terraform the planet and defrost everyone once it’s habitable. That’s your job in Afterlight.

Turns out, though, that Mars is like the most popular and vied-over planetary body in the galactic supercluster. Approximately five gazillion species of alien, mutant, robot and combinations thereof have staked a claim, and what was meant to be a fairly routine scientists-only gardening job turns into a bloody battle for the planet. You’ve only got about thirty people, and, of them, few have combat training.  Mars can’t yet support all of humanity, so the folks in the freezers are nothing but a vulnerable albatross.

Your talent pool must therefore wear many hats. Engineers and scientists are also soldiers. You might pull a mechanic off the line for a mission simply because you lack the knuckle-draggers—or because the mission calls for an expert who can, say, repair a water main (the aliens are constantly blowing up your water main). And if that person dies, his spot in the workshop remains vacant and your production suffers. Losses anywhere along chain are felt throughout your entire war machine. Moreover, these people are people. They know each other, they intermarry and breed. They have histories and moods and best friends, and they get dejected if they lose them.

While this sounds like a cool idea, it also means that you can’t name your troops like you used to, a seemingly insignificant subtraction that dramatically diminishes the fun. They feel less like your troops. Despite occasionally interesting (and hilariously mistranslated) background info, I really never identified with any of the shallow characters in Afterlight. And it’s so irritating to manage daily lives that the whole “pull so-and-so out of the lab to do a mission” thing is more tedious than scary.

As you play, you get to watch Mars slowly turn green thanks to your terraforming efforts. Strategically, your job is to oversee territorial expansion, fight and negotiate with the many enemy factions, manage the income of various resources, assign jobs to your people and direct R&D. The tactical side of the game is fought in a time-shifted combat environment that puts your spacesuit-clad, pocket-protectored Urkels in direct conflict with those who want a piece of your planet.

Afterlite-Brite

The stylized, colorful, cartoony look of Afterlight is a big change from its gritty predecessors. Afterlight has a much brighter, more vivid world than the other UFOs, and while the graphical change is jarring at first, it actually works really well in the context of this game. Graphics in general are excellent, with bold, confident designs that belie Altar’s talented art direction. This game engine has been in service for a long time and still works well for the genre. Since I’m guessing this is the last UFO game, Altar really got its money’s worth from the codebase.

The music, on the other hand, sounds like it came out of a porn movie. Bowng-chika-bow-wowng does not evoke an environment of pressure and fear and seems out of place in this sci-fi drama.  Obnoxious voice acting doesn’t help matters either; all of the characters are annoying, but later on teenagers (the offspring of your main staff) join the active squad. I got really sick of hearing “Shya!  Like, that’s a totally bogus alien.” You know what I’d like to hear from a soldier acknowledging an order? “Yes, commander,” not “Again?! *sigh*”

Afterlight doesn’t introduce any really revolutionary concepts to the genre. This is good because the first line of the manual warns you not to read it (seriously). Controls in general are the same as the previous titles. The camera is still fussy and hard to manage, particularly if you allow the game to set your perspective.  And while some controls are intuitive, most are not, requiring too many clicks of mysterious iconic buttons to produce the effects you want, particularly in tactical encounters. Altar has always struggled with interface design and never gotten it right.

Tied into this is the issue of information management. Strategy gameplay all comes down to information—there’s a ton, coming in from all sides, and in order for the game to work, the interface must categorize and present it elegantly. In Afterlight, that doesn’t happen. Breaking news pops in from the perimeters of your screen and vanishes, disappearing before you can click the accompanying info button. You need to switch windows, sometimes more than once, to compare data that should be side by side. Facts that should be at your fingertips are often buried in a labyrinthine menu system not at all improved from those of its predecessors.

Example: suppose one of your characters has finished a training exercise. Your HR person pops on and says, “One of your characters has finished training.” Great. Which one? These people have names, you know, names I can’t change. How about, “Rita has completed Advanced Suit Handling. Her spot has opened in Tactical Training, and she has returned to work in the lab.” And that’s just a status update—in this game, even information of vital importance (you know, stuff like, “we’re being invaded,” “base under attack,” etc.) flies in and vanishes with no elaboration. The buttons to drill down for more information on an update disappear so fast you’ll rarely get to them in time, making the strategic view feel like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Ultimately, learning to manage your information flow and play effectively becomes an onerous task, and you feel lost for a long time.

Making Mars Safe, One Bullet at a Time

The tactical game is a little better, including a few new controls for your people and better use of interesting landscapes and maps.  In Afterlight, you tend to visit the same places over and over again, which gets boring after a while, though at least you appreciate the value of crucial strategic locales in your theater of war. Once again, the game is time-shifted, allowing you to pause, issue orders, and then start the clock when you’re ready.

Combat is more challenging and remains so throughout the game.  Some of the enemy factions are quite heavily armed, and some are even proficient with psychic weapons against which you initially have no defense. Just when you think the game is getting plateauishly easy, something that hurt Aftershock, a new alien with a giant rocket launcher turns up. You will lose people if you’re not careful, though another problem with the these-people-are-your-people thing is that casualties usually lead you to reload rather than suffer the consequences.

Over time, you’ll research a selection of spacesuits appropriate for various mission parameters. However, changing a character’s spacesuit also causes him to lose all of his equipment. I’d like to have been able to create a database of standard loadouts and just click once rather than dozens of times to equip each person.  You can outfit several teams differently, which is handy; so rather than manually arming troops for each specific mission’s objectives, you can make templates and just send the one that’s appropriate.  It’s really for equipment, though; you’ll use the same squad on pretty much every mission so as not to disrupt base activities like research.

Environmental hostility is a cool addition to the game. Mars is an unpleasant place, and you can’t safely visit all regions all of the time. This changes with solar activity, the day/night cycle and seasonal weather, and it can be very cruel. If a vital province is invaded during a solar flare, your troops will get cooked without the proper spacesuits. The alternative is to wait it out or risk the exposure and hope you finish fast enough that it’s survivable.

Aliens all come equipped with their own weapons, some of which are interesting, but once again basic human weapons seem to work best. Your scientists research advanced rifle technology, producing a weapon cleverly called “Rifle” that holds you through most of the game. As your alliances with other factions materialize and dissolve, you may get access to alien soldiers with special capabilities. Your scientists will become adept at researching alien technologies, and your troops adept at killing specific extraterrestrial species.

Tactical makes better use of elevation, but more often than not that turned into an unfair advantage for my side. The vast majority of encounters can be completed by putting your squad on top of a cliff and simply lobbing grenades down at the enemy, who always seem to conglomerate below. Ultimately, very few tactics are necessary to dominate in tactical encounters.

UFO: Uninspiring, Feeble and Ordinary

I assumed that Afterlight would be an evolutionary improvement on Aftershock, as that game was on its predecessor, but it’s not the case. It is not fundamentally broken, but it’s a lot less fun to play than its predecessors. It is loutish and hard to manage; many of this game’s more unique ideas simply work better on paper than in play, and some things, such as interface and tactical controls, have actually devolved. In a word, it’s boring.

Trying to make a game mimicking X-COM is like trying to remake Citizen Kane: a very dangerous idea unless you’re absolutely sure you’re doing it right. From one point of view, Altar deserves credit for trying; from another, they’ve had three chances and missed with each. In my Aftermath review, I quoted Bill Harris, who said this about the 2003 game: “It seems that everything I like about this game is everything they copied exactly from X-COM, and everything I don’t like is anything they changed.” And it holds true throughout the entire trilogy.

The UFO series has been pretty successful in Europe, less so in the States, and will probably come to an end with Afterlight, if for no other reason than all three games essentially sing the same tune, and four would be pushing it. Recently, a rumor started floating around—based on a leaked document, now vanished—that claimed Irrational Games was working on a new property called …  X-COM. The veracity of the rumor is anyone’s guess; Irrational is owned by 2K Games, which does in fact possess the X-COM IP, and Irrational founder Ken Levine has described that game as his “first love.” Irrational, with a credit list that includes System Shock 2, Bioshock, Freedom Force and more, could probably do something really amazing with the X-COM franchise.

I bring this up because X-COM still lingers in the hearts of gamers, thirteen years after its release. Some people don’t bother to mince words and just call it the best game ever. Gamers the world over would thrill to play a soup-to-nuts remake of X-COM, updated with modern tech but otherwise essentially the same. In trying to mimic X-COM but also leverage original ideas, Altar’s UFO series has succeeded only in highlighting its shortcomings—shortcomings particularly egregious in this disappointing installment. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Altar Interactive Publisher: Cenega Release Date: March 1, 2007

Available for: Windows

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System Requirements

Windows XP/2000 DirectX 8.1 (DirectX 9.0c recommended) 1GHz CPU (2 GHz recommended) 512 MB RAM (768 MB recommended) nVidia GeForceT 5700 or ATI Radeon 9500 (nVidia GeForceT 6600 or ATI Radeon 9700 Pro) DirectX 9.0 compatible sound card (Sound Blaster X-FiT sound card recommended) 4 GB free hard disk space DVD-ROM drive

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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33 Responses to Goons Loom at Infinity Ward

  • Meho

    So, you make your company a billion in profits in two months. Next thing you know, you’re investigated for insubordination, sued and sacked. Also, your team members are threatened by men looking like thugs yet not wearing uniforms. I guess Pandemic studios are now happy they were acquired by EA and not Activision. They just lost their jobs after making two moderatly successful games.

    Seriously, breaches of contract and stuff, yeah, I can get behind that but having people threatened and reporting “insubordination” sounds like some proper gestapo shit. One would think that after making the fastest selling entertainment product in history, Infinity Ward would be given SOME credit by their Activision Overlords, but I guess Bobby Kottick was serious about the air of fear and uncertainty he wanted to prevail in the Activision cubicle farms. A fascinating story, can’t wait to hear the rest!!

  • Andrew

    Harsh.

    I’m a little wary calling out anything too early but Activision isn’t exactly know for it’s good closure policy of studios, and removal of staff in the past.

    What transgressions they’ve done as publisher-owned, slightly-more-independent-perhaps CO’s – who knows? Will we ever know? 🙁

  • ajax19

    Now that is how you handle insubordination.  Send in security and throw their asses into the brig (i.e., fire them).  I reckon this will be a long and ugly process as most HR-related matters are.  As an attorney, I have had the (dis)plesure of reviewing various HR complaints and matters in my day.  Needless to say the things people do at work simply boggle the mind.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    It is awfully shocking that Infinity Ward, of all studios, would be made an example of with goons and firings. They’re kind of a golden-egg-laying goose.

    Unless of course West and Zampella were actually doing something wrong/unethical/illegal, in which case I’d have to side with Activision. But if some of the tweets are true, and A/B is just trying to bring a rogue studio to heel, there are gentler ways to do it.

  • Meho

    The plot, apparently thickens:

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/activision-holding-back-mw2-royalties

    “Website BingeGamer (via VG247) was told by a collection of unnamed sources that not a single penny of the $1bn generated by MW2 has been seen by Infinity Ward. ”

    This is still filed strictly under rumours and speculation but, if it’s true, then it’s fucking bizarre. I mean, I know IW are part of Activision, yet you’d expect their contracts to involve some bonuses on top of the salary should their games do well..

    “The report also states that the “insubordination” IW bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella appear to have been sacked for was caused by secret discussions with rival publishers.”

    Because in corporate America the only secret discussions allowed are those between the senior staff at your company.

    OK, some more linkage:

    http://www.bingegamer.net/2010/infinity-ward-has-not-received-royalties-for-modern-warfare-2/

    Also, just for completion’s sake, a now legendary tweet by Tim Schafer regarding this situation:

    “Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It’s just how the beast communicates.”

  • Meho

    So, what do we know after one day?

    Activision has indeed sacked West and Zampella. Infinity Ward is supposed to be working on DLC for Modern Warfare 2 as we speak. There will be a Call of Duty title in 2010, made by Treyarch. There will be another Call of Duty title in 2011 although it is not yet clear who is going to be the developer. Infinity Ward is now temporarily headed by Activision’s employees Steve Pearce and Steve Ackrich but Activision also announced that a newly formed studio, Sledgehammer Games will be handling future Call of Duty games and will be “extend(ing) the franchise into the action-adventure genre”. Sledgehammer is headed by former Visceral Games executives Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey, which, upon playing Dante’s Inferno, I am not sure is the greatest idea ever…

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    1UP says: “In addition, they have formed a new business unit dedicated to publishing an annual Call of Duty game.”

    Isn’t that just so Activision?

  • Andrew

    Oh! Oh! I can name them! Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: 2010 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: 2011! 😀

    Oooh, wait, but we need other genres, wow! so much chance to have the “Call of Duty: ” namers busy for ages 😀

    Sigh.

  • Mat

    That’s abit unfair, Andrew.

    Aren’t you forgetting “Call of Duty: Modern MMO” and “Call of Duty: Panzer Tankz Mini Kartz Racer!”?

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Kotaku’s really trying to help Activision out: new titles and box art.

  • Toger

    I’d play the Wolveriiiiiiiiines version! 😀

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Hey, the Keeping The Peace version has my childhood neighbors on the cover!

  • Meho

    Modern Gwarfare has practically infinite potential for cross marketing!!!

  • lakerz1

    Call of Duty: Corporate Clusterfuck

    LOL

  • Mat

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/infinity-ward-bosses-suing-activision

    This isn’t looking like a story that will go away anytime soon.

  • Meho

    No, it won’t. More info:

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1074524p1.html

    and

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1074657p1.html

    Choice quotes:

    “The lawsuit states that in the wake of Modern Warfare 2’s success, Activision refused to honor the MOU or the Emplyoment Agreement with West and Zampella, and instead launched a “pre-textual investigation against West and Zampella to create a basis to fire the two co-heads of Infinity Ward before the first Modern Warfare 2 royalty payment.”

    “”West and Zampella were interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room; Activision investigators brought other Infinity Ward employees to tears in their questioning and accusations and threatened West and Zampella with ‘insubordination’ if they attempted to console them.”
    ”

    Anyway, after reading the court document, I’d say it’s ironic that West and Zampella are fighting to retain control over Modern Warfare brand even though I imagine they are sick to death of it by now…

  • ajax19

    It’s not so much ironic that they are fighting to retain control over Modern Warfare brand even though they are likely sick to death of it by now, but rather very tactical.

    According to the court papers and West and Zampella’s side of the story, this MOU gives them control over “Modern Wafare” and rights to certain royalties that were due in the next few weeks based on the sales of MW2.  Control over MW is their biggest bargaining chip here.  They file a law suit asking for that and the money and then when it comes to time for settlement talks they use their (alleged) leverage over one leg of Activision’s admitted three-legged stool as a way to get more money from them. 

    They are suing for $36 million worth of damages, if they “agree” to give unfettered control of the MW series to Activision, they stand a better chance to see more of that $36 million.

    Complains in law suits are often like this.  They ask very everything and anything, because it’s much easier to amend and pare things down than to amend and try to add things be it damages or additional claims.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I honestly wouldn’t have expected THIS level of greed, even from Activision. I mean seriously, the game made TWO BILLION DOLLARS, people. There’s enough to go around.

    Infinity Ward is wholly owned by Activision, but I imagine all of its employees will probably quit in the next several months. I also wouldn’t be surprised if West and Zampella start a new studio and hire them all back. Doubtless all employees are bound by non-competes, but those are notoriously difficult to enforce, especially in the games industry.

  • Mat

    The overriding feeling I get from this is is that, not for the first time, Activision are just swinging around their weight like some 500lb Gorilla, and whoever gets caught out by it.. well, tough luck.

    This whole situation just smacks of arrogance. Arrogance that they’ve become no strangers to in recent times.. such as slapping a £55 RRP on Modern Warfare 2 in the UK (that thankfully few if any retailers actually stuck with).

    With all this re-structuring (read: milking) I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s afew concerned faces at Treyarch, too.

  • Bowbe

    Ok…aside from all the nerd rage that the “awesome” management of Infinity Ward got fired by their owner corporation lets analyze a few facts.

    Infinity Ward was successful at creating a pretty good fairly engaging and scary single player game. That grossed an estimated 1.5-2.0 billion dollars in the first two months of release. About the third month we realize that the monolithic statue that is Infinity Ward has feet made of clay (about January 2010) when their various patches for the multi player FAIL to stop all sorts of hacks/cracks/cheats that absolutely ruined the game.

    In November 2009 the entire games industry is hailing them as the 2nd coming (again). Their reviews are 9.5+ on every site.

    Now its March 2010 and metacritic fan ratings push the game to a 5.5.

    This same management everyone has hailed were also grossly negligent in releasing multiplayer that was hacked/cracked/and full of about as many horrible cheats as I have ever seen in more than a decade of online gaming. The managment that allowed their code to be accessed by hackers to “look for bugs”. The same hackers who have destroyed the multiplayer experience. I’d fire them too. They really aint worth that much $ in the grand scheme of things and if they broke contract or NDA with another company/entities they DESERVE what they get.

    As for that billion plus it is just a gross. As someone who works in games publishing let me clarify how this works. 60msrp. Retailer keeps $30.00 of that to keep the lights on in their store. Microsoft and Sony have licensing agreements for their perspective consoles that pay them around 1/3rd of the profit up till a game makes “platinum” status then the rate goes down. Its like a movie studio. So of the $30.00 left over after Walmart, Microsoft/Sony get $10.00. Uncle Sam/the Queen/your National Tax Collector gets $10.00 in varied corporate tax, leaving Activision/Blizzard $10 to divvy up as they chose to the creative studio (Infinity Ward). So a big chunk of change but not a Billion dollars. More like $167 million. A very decent chunk of change for sure. But when you consider blizzard/activision gets to keep about $32 million a MONTH from World of Warcraft, its not that impressive.

  • Bowbe

    Likewise since West and Zampella were dumb enough to allow their code to be distributed onthe net I wouldn’t trust them to put out another game that wouldnt be just as messed up as this one was. There were high school kids playing MW2 two weeks before it came out for peets sake. Whent hey logged in after “buying a copy” all their perks were still there. All their points were still there. Now invariably when you play you will see hundreds of players with prestige 10, earned through boosting. The boosting service is SOLD FREELY for about 2000 microsoft points or 3 months live subscriptions.
    My point is, Activision’s strongest case is that someone willingly let a flagship game of their Christmas lineup be hacked and passed about for free diminishing its value and that its value continues to diminish. Someone has to staunch the gouts of blood because quite honestly, folks who prefer a clean multiplayer game will never trust Infinity Ward again. If West and Zampella couldnt or wouldnt find the person(S) responsible for all that out and destruction of their lucrative multiplayer IP then Activision has every right to punish them financially and legally for ruining their good name. You notice the hacking and cracking is very difficult on WOW, it is strictly enforced and checks and balances are put in place to protect the fans. Infinity ward didnt do this or has thus far failed in its obligation ot the fans. Someone has to pay. Simple as that.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    We’ve all seen that pie chart, Bowbe, but I doubt the studio leadership was fired for shipping an exploitable game.

    Are you actually suggesting that Activision fired senior management because of problems with free DLC? Or that Activision cares that there is cheating in the game? Activision sees no revenue from online play. They could care less whether or not it works.

    You’re free to be an apologist for Activision if you like, but your analysis of WHY Zampelli and West were fired doesn’t seem very plausible.

  • Bowbe

    What isn’t plausible about shopping your parent companies Itellectual Property to hacker sites to look for bugs? Thats pretty cut and dried and thats what they did. That would be me posting up chapters of a book for WOTC/Hasbro on a torrent account while also submitting it for publication. You do that in any job you get fired. I’m not apologizing for Activision, I’m pointing out issues of corporate and leadership related negligence that will get you fired.

    Gay bashing. Infinity Ward had two instances of that with this game, once with the youtube vid, 2nd with the in game “joke” about don’t ask don’t tell. Did I think they were funny? Sure because I have a sense of humor. If you work for a big ass company (Bank of America being one) and make a similar joke even on your facebook page outside of work guess what? Fired. Thats corporate culture now like it or not. Unless your a rapper that is.

    Activision may not “make” the dough off the online play as you say but lets call an apple an apple shall we. How many people actually bought the game PURELY to play the 10 hour single player game? 1/10th of the sales maybe? You buy COD games for the online experience. Their negligence ruined the online experience and tell me it hasn’t been ruined after you’ve been buried in three dozen care package strikes. COD MW1 didnt have those issues. This one is rife with them. If your sitting with friends and 8 out of 10 of them agree the online blows and you were on the fence about buying it for yourself are you still going to buy it for full price? No, you’ll pick it up used and Activision certainly doesnt get any $$ off a resale. Check your worship of Zampelli and West at the door please.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Please. I didn’t know Zampelli and West existed until last week. As for the grammatical wasteland that are your comments, if you worked in game publishing then you would know that once a game is bought it’s bought, that its tail is going to be about six weeks, shorter for a game like this because door busters see around 85% of the profit on Day Zero and Day One. You’d also know that as consumers, gamers are mind-bogglingly stupid, and will cheerfully buy games despite warnings of issues just because they’d always planned to.

    Given that Zampelli and West are now suing, insisting that Modern Warfare is their IP, I’m guessing that they probably didn’t knowingly damage it. But who knows? Maybe Activision, a company that has spent the last five years exploiting franchises, closing studios, firing people without reason, arbitrarily raising prices, making stated company policy that an atmosphere of skepticism, pessimism, and fear was desirable at their wholly owned subsidiaries really is the affronted party here. Time will tell.

  • ajax19

    I don’t think anything is “cut and dry” here.  I don’t think anyone is worshipping either of these guys either.

    The only thing we’ve seen to date are Zampelli and West’s allegations set forth in their complaint and the brief, vague comments by Activision about “insubordination”.  That term is incredibly vague and can mean just about anything in the corporate/HR world. 

    Given that this is now in litigation, rumor and speculation is all you’re going to get until more papers are filed.

    As for their claim for damages, the $36 million they allege includes far, far more than just the royalties they think they are owned.  It’s a combination of things.

    As for the value of MW2 and the money Activision made off it, Activision has already announced that the game was incredibly successful and one of the main reasons behind its success last year.  Regardless of the exact total revenue Activision saw as a result of sales (I’m sure it’s easily found in their public filings) it was a significant portion of their overall revenues.

  • Bowbe

    Haha Steerspike. The only point I was trying to make is that if a parent company wanted to axe these guys they have ample reasons to use as their excuses for termination, most of which would stick.

    Thats ALL I pointed out.

    Leaked versions of the game two weeks before release showing you have no control over your own in studio employees or you willingly leaked the game (Check).

    Inability to control the rampant cheating on multiplayer with 2 patches that did not work resulting in dillution of your IP(Check).

    Use of illigitimate 3rd party hacker sites as “sub contractors” to your IP (Check).

    If this was done without the knowledge of the parent company that (Also) could result in a clause for breach of contract.

    Negotiation in private with a rival entity (Allegedly in this case EA?) for re-entry into the EA fold? Didn’t these bozos pull a similar stunt with EA to break from EA and go to Activision in the first place? Thats the big stinker here according to a lot of other sites that are just as informed as the rest of us.

    The rest of us meaning… people who were not in the meeting. I cherish every time someone allegedly or directly affiliated with the “fired side” tries to win the court of public opinion with their lame twitter and facebook updates.

    Is Activision trying to get out of paying their 10% to Infinity Ward? Probably. In this economy anything is possible, especially where stock splits and shareholders are concerned. Certainly not painting them as good guys here, just pointing out several “grounds for termination”.

    You say cool stuff like “Do you honestly believe Activision cares about cheating” Maybe “Activision” doesn’t but the Blizzard wing sure seems to when it comes to cheating in their flagship product.

    You also swing around big numbers like 2 billion dollars and then when I point out the number they recieve is much smaller you go in with the “We’ve all seen that pie chart…” and “Doorbuster specials”. So which is it? They made 2 billion or they suddenly lost their ass on the first two days of sales while Walmart and Uncle Sam reap the reward of Infinity Ward’s valliant effort? Maybe everyone hasn’t seen that pie chart.

    Sorry dude but I’m not trying to sell a bunch of conflicting stories to win an internet argument with you. Note that when combing through my “gramatical wasteland” I again only point out reasons Activision could use to get rid of anyone affiliated with Infinity Ward that they wanted to, and all would be good and legitimate reasons in my book.

    Infinity Ward started with great IP and the potential of a great product with this one. Single player was amazing, but I buy COD games for the online play. So do a lot of other people. I ain’t the greatest at the game but I finish in the top 5 on most rounds and thats good enough for me. CODMW (the first) played for about 6 months solid, had few errors, but bad lag during certain times of the day. There were almost no cheats except for a few wierd places on a couple maps where you could walk the sky and the game was frequently patched and regulated. That was in the day of “good Infinity Ward” They were unshackled by those evil opressive bastards at EA and they were out to make a good name for themselves right?

    This new game was a mess from the get-go that benefitted from lots of hype, fat reviewer scores and millions of dollars in advertising. My friends and I played for about two months almost nightly till all the care package nonsense and the modded guns started showing up everywhere.

    Even in the beginning there were the “turn invisible cheat” in the Afgan map and “unlimited ammo cheats” and “hide down the smokestack and rack up a million kills cheats to get all your nuke patches and what not. Allowing prestige points in private matches? Wow, a booster’s paradise. Thats horrible game design right there. All that is on Infinity Ward and not Activision. They are the studio they designed it, put it out flaws and all as a finished product.

    Too cheap for dedicated servers with that “2 billion dollars” your talking about? Way to piss off the PC gamers and console gamers alike. I should have known something was up when the “online agreement” page flashes by faster than a booster on crack with all run/sprint/knife/akimbo shotgun choices selected. Is that crap Activisions fault or Infinity Wards? Probably a combo of blame in that reguard.

    We waited and checked status of updates/patches and all that came up was “oh we’re working on it,” all the hack tools were available for it before it even launched. Youtube has had daily exploits posted up. People send you messages to you in game wanting 2000 microsoft points or 3 months subscription to LIVE in exchange for 10th prestige.

    All the bells and whistles that should have made the game great are meaningless now thanks to the cheating. All that stuff you strive for as a gamer went up in smoke almost overnight once the non-stop care package exploits were in full swing. I don’t blame Activision for that. I blame Infinity Ward for allowing that to happen on ALL platforms of the game and will likely never buy a game from them or another entity run by Zampelli and West again. IW ruined its reputation with this gamer for sure. I can buy $60 worth of real bullets and have an awesome afternoon at my local gun club instead.

    You are right about one thing though. Gamers are dumb and will knowingly buy a game that is going to break their heart because they “hope” that all the bs will be fixed the next time they play, or when the next version comes out but just like Madden, it never is.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Now THAT’S a good response, Bowbe! I don’t agree, but I respect the use of logic and the lack of bile.

    Allow me to rebut…

    Blizzard can care about cheating until the universe dries up; the position on one game (where cheating might impact PAYING customers) doesn’t dictate company policy. I didn’t intend to imply that Activision doesn’t care about cheating regardless of game, only that they don’t care when it comes to MW2.

    Never argued that Activision couldn’t produce reasons to fire West and Zampelli. Particularly if they were talking to other publishers – which wouldn’t surprise me. Total breach of contract. I never said Activision was acting illegally. The only point I wanted to make was that if I were Activision, and I was faced with losing a studio that just made me *coughcoughcough*illion dollars (no need to incite you further), I might have approached with a different tone…

    along the lines of…

    “Hey, guys, I know you’re looking and I don’t want you to leave us.  How can we work this out?”

    Instead of sending thugs to the office and firing the leads.

    As for the litany of exploits you list, yeah, it’s a broken game. Most games that ship are broken. But the industry doesn’t care about quality – on account of the gamers are stupid thing. All they care about is dollars, and MW2 made a zillion of them. They’re not selling Toyotas, you know. No one dies if a game is shitty.

  • Mat

    The bug issue with MW2 is an interesting one for sure, particularly when you consider what the reaction to so many glitches and cheats would have been if this was Treyarch’s year on the job. I was late onto the World at War scene so barely experienced much of the multiplayer myself, but I noticed the game received one hell of a tough ride from the community about the bugs in the multiplayer. I can’t recall many if any of them being as high profile or consistent as some of the floods of MW2 glitches that have appeared.

    Infinity Ward didn’t come up with anything like Nazi zombies either, and if COD4 is any indication, are nowhere near as supportive of their products with DLC either as Treyarch.

    Still, I don’t really think this is about calling Infinity Ward “awesome” or siding with them against Activision for the sake of it.. or “nerd rage”. IW might have published a buggy as hell game (serves them right for being arrogant over not releasing a beta) but this is just one in an increasingly large number of PR balls up’s by Activision. As Steerpike says, there are surely other ways of dealing with stuff like this other than sending the heavies in and coming out with comments about “subordination” and the like. This is video games development, not an episode of 24.

    Just as an aside, I’ve pretty much called time on Modern Warfare 2 myself now, although that is less to do with the games bugs than it is to do with the simply awful “community” that follows that game around..

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