Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed has no voice chat on Wii U
Earlier today, Joystiq reported that Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed won’t have voice support. The Wii U will have voice chat, but it won’t be a standard feature. You’ll have to buy “third party, officially licensed” headsets to plug into your WiiPad to communicate with people through the Wii U. Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed seems like a strange story to lead off tonight’s report with, but this could indicate what the general online experience will be like for the Wii U. One would think that if you can’t talk through the in-game channel, you could talk to your pals through a party chat. Right? I mean, Microsoft has been doing it for years. It should be a standard feature. There still hasn’t been much talk of the Wii U’s online structure, and I think it’s alarming since the Wii U is due out in week.
However, Joystiq contacted Nintendo and found out that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Mass Effect 3 will have voice support. At least voice support will be there for the high-profile titles.
[Source: Joystiq]
Old School RPG cancelled
Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall have cancelled Shaker, their “old school RPG” project that launched on Kickstarter on October 3rd. Funding has only been open for about 20 of its 30 day timeline, but, Shaker has only received barely 25% of its $1M goal. On the their Kickstarter page, Brathwaite and Hall admitted that their pitch lacked the “traction” to gain the backing it needed to go into development. They do, however, have plans to go back to the drawing board and come back with something stronger.
“In game design, mercy killing is the law,” they said.
In another report by VG247 this weekend, Chris Avellone of Obsidian was already noted to be concerned about “Kickstarter exhaustion.” Avellone says that we have yet to see a big success or fail stories as far as finished Kickstarter projects go. He believes that the first high-profile failure may open peoples’ eyes and really have them question the whole Kickstarter process. Though Shaker did sound like an interesting project, perhaps we’re all realizing the pressure of being a backer. It’s possible maybe we’re all, collectively, understanding the difference between concept and finished product.
[Source: VG247]
PAX Australia comes to Melbourne
PAX Australia is confirmed for Melbourne from July 19-21 in 2013 and 2014. Registration is now open at the PAX Site. If you know a few things about video game convention parties and Australians, you’re going to want to be there!
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