richie

Squeidos-X

So Eidos and Square Enix are now in cahoots. Considering both these guys are huge players in the industry, this merger is considerably underwhelming. It was actually made even more underwhelming when it was announced that Squeenix were not going to change the way was Eidos was working (at least in the first year). Personally, I was hoping for a radical name change along the lines of “Squeidos-X” or “Eidarenix”, but no…

When I originally heard of the buy-over, I originally thought, “Nice! Maybe we can have some cool Squeenix/Eidos crossover titles.” However, when I started to think about the possible franchises I was underwhelmed yet again! I mean seriously what do Eidos have to offer in the way of franchises?

Well there is one big one, Tomb Raider, but all the recent ones have been bug-ridden, Lara-raping, soulless ca$h-ins. (Perhaps with a bit of backing form Squeenix we may see a version of Lara that has actually seen a proper QA cycle). Arguably their next most famous franchise would be the Hitman series. Fronting this series is the ever-identifiable Agent 47 playing Luigi to Lara’s Mario. There is the controversial Kane and Lynch, which was again quite average, though as I recall Gamespot quite liked it. The biggest beast has to be Championship Manager for all those database dribbler soccer football nuts, however that really won’t translate to USA/Asia that well, nor does it actually star a character, or does it even really classify as a game. We also have Pony Friends, which for some reason was a huge seller last year proving that the people who own DS’s are actually just 12 year old girls. Finally we come to the “franchise” that Cunzy and I love, Timesplitters; hands down the best FPS on the consoles: hundreds of characters, story mode, multiplayer, map creator, arcade modes, challenges, more than you could ever want in a FPS, especially on a console (from 10 years ago >.>).

Now you compare all of this to the plethora of Square characters, from the Final Fantasy series alone. Never mind that most of the games are extremely high scoring.

So let’s pretend there will be some sort of Smash brothers mish-mash of characters (Ehrgeiz 2?), who do we have in it from Eidos:

Lara Croft (Tomb Raider):
Special move: Jumping left and right while firing pistols.
Fatality: Fatalititties

Agent 47 (Hitman):
Special Move: Sneaking around wearing other peoples clothes.
Fatality: Pushing people down stairs.

Kane/Lynch (Duh…):
Special Move: The payoff.
Fatality: Gamespot writer walk-out.

The Manager> (Championship Manager):
Special Move: A glorified spreadsheet and a random number generator.
Fatality: Endless torture, and save game bigger than the internet.

A Pony (Pony Friends):
Special Move: Something pink, possibly with ribbons.
Fatality: Squatting above the games industry pushing out a steaming pile of Pony Scheisse.

Lady Jane (Timesplitters):
Special Move: Shot in the back.
Fatality: Premature closure (We miss you Free Radical).

THE NEMESIS (Resident Evil 3 [see Europe]):
Special Move: Identifying those sparkly things in the night sky.
Fatality: Puts his arm/tentacle/willy through your face.

One of the possible benefits from this merger is that perhaps… PERHAPS… we might get some of those Japanese only Squeenix titles since they now have an established distributor over here. And maybe Squeenix will move away from exclusive Nintendo and Sony titles get more Xbox 360 titles on the go.

All in all it is VERY clear that Eidos will be nothing more than a subsidiary pushing out half-assed under developed games, whist being back-ended by Squeenix as nothing more then a platform for the western market. Which is all fine by me.

Richie XXX

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