Attention all Starcraft fans!!

{mosgoogle}It looks Blizzard has done it again with their infamous tendencies to delay titles into eternity.  As many of you have already a few weeks back, Blizzard has officially announced the indefinite delay of Starcraft Ghost.  This title was geared up to be their first foray into the world of console gaming.  After numerous delays and a change in developer, the title is now in development limbo.  It has been so long since the original announcement of the game, that the number of people that actually care about its fate are few and far between….or so it seems.  I must confess that I am one of those few.  In fact, I think I may still have a presell deposit at one of the local EBs.  I think I should look into that.

Being an avid fan of the original Starcraft, I was psyched to hear that the series would be making its way over to the consoles.  With Nilistic at the development helm, things were looking to be quite promising from the get go.  After playing the game at E3 2003, I knew this game would be on my wishlist.  Following E3, news on the title was fairly sparse.  Another E3 came and went, but it didn’t seem like the title was progressing very far.  Meanwhile, gamers around the world were enjoying solid 3rd person action games in the form of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater and Splinter Cell : Chaos Theory.  You’d think that this would’ve pushed Blizzard to polish off the title and get it on store shelves, but instead they switched developers.  Nilistic had fulfilled their contract duties and had to move on to their next project.  Swinging Ape productions was then contracted by Blizzard and eventually absorbed into their company as their console development team.  By the time the game was shown at a 3rd consecutive E3, everything had been rebuilt from the ground up.  Swinging Ape had incorporated online play and the use of more vehicles, but the actual feel of the game felt very lackluster compared previous showings of the game.

For those of us that are currently not engrossed in the addiction that is World of Warcraft, a new Blizzard title is long overdue.  I don’t even care if it is on PC or console.  However, I don’t think another Diablo will satisfy my gaming appetite right now.  Anything short of a new installment in the Starcraft series will be viewed as disappointing in my eyes.  Blizzard should be embarrassed about the debacle that is Starcraft Ghost.  Does it really matter if you bring it to next-gen platforms?? Not really, since the install base will be paltry compared to current systems.  Why spend more money on next-gen development right now?  Do you even have Xbox 360 SDKs right now?  How does it make good business sense to throw more money into this 4-year old project?  Just finish the darn game and release it at a greatest hits price point.  This could be your way of saying, “Sorry for f**king up what was supposed to be a groundbreaking game.”  Close this shameful chapter of your business operation and start working on Starcraft 2!!  Millions of gamers and Koreans in general will be overjoyed.