Irish Coffee, April 13th, 2013

Promise kept! Little short today, but rife with videos, so prep your short attention spans. Absolutely gorgeous day in Charleston, and I'm going to get out of the house if it kills me. And, considering the intensity of the summer sun and my pasty French/Irish countenance, it just might. There shan't be a post tomorrow, but I shall return Monday morning. Oh, and if you haven't, check out my latest contribution to VentureBeat. TO ARMS! (Sorry, I watched The Hobbit last night.)

Sit on your hands and wait. Maybe, if you’re lucky enough, the gods on mount Gamelympus will smile upon you, and release a reboot of your favorite franchise. That was a fact of life for starry-eyed gamers as few as five years ago, but is no longer the case. Major developers and publishers, you’re officially on notice. If you don’t give us what we want, we’ll take matters into our own hands. Case in point:

That’s right, a new school Road Rash with all the trimmings. Just watching the forty-five seconds of gameplay from the beginning of their Kickstarter video put me at half mast. It seems I wasn’t alone in my cries for a reboot of this deserving franchise. I watched in horror as undeserving IP was given the new-gen treatment, all the while wondering why no one was willing to scoop up the giant pile of money that could be had with something as simple as an HD re-release of the Genesis classic.

And, for once, there’s a Kickstarter project to which I will contribute my hard earned dollars. Look out gaming world, there will be a character named Ned or Mr. Ned or King Nedrick in Road Redemption (though they really could have spent a little more time on that title). Duke Nedrick? I'm open to suggestions.

But more important than the half role of quarters in my pocket or the fact that a deserving concept is being rebooted, is the fact that Road Redemption perfectly represents the changing landscape of game publication. Designers no longer limited by platform or technology are creating the games that they want to create and that gamers actually want to play. And Road Redemption looks pretty damn good in spite of its lack of AAA money. It’s certainly no Battlefield 4, but it doesn’t need to be. All the elements of Road Rash are present and accounted for, as are the technological advancements to improve core gameplay.

The road looks pretty rough for major game developers and publishers (see what I did there?). They can scoop up indie studios all day, but in the gaming world of 2013 new developers are cropping up like weeds. Rend one from the ground and two more appear in its place. And let’s not forget about the modding community.

That is a multiplayer test of Sleeping Dogs for PC, a game that fans (myself included) thought was deserving of a multiplayer mode. So they made one. 

Gamers are crafting the future of gaming, and that’s fucking awesome. And if all of this was too upbeat for your Saturday morning, you have to understand where I’m coming from. Summer has arrived in Charleston, SC.

BRING IT, DAYSTAR!