Topic: Retromentary

[couchmonkey]

Anyone catch the article on Retro Studios on IGN?  It's actually probably the best thing I've read over there in a couple of years.  There are a couple of pages that I pretty much skipped, but the history is interesting, and there's some cool info and concept art from their cancelled games.  It's on Insider but it seems to be unlocked for the time-being.

It sounds to me like Thunder Rally really should have been completed.  It was near completion, it had a fairly mature style, and it may have filled in the Cube's weak spots in early 2001.  Oh well!  A Mario Football game would be interesting too, but I think the writer (who did a little too much editorializing) is making too many assumptions to think that the company would go back to one of it's cancelled games for it's next project.  With so many old employees gone, I'd think a brand-new project would be way more likely...except of course for more Metroid.

I'd personally like to see Retro do something else, though.  Metroid is great, but I'd rather see something brand new than a constant stream of Metroid sequels.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"It's actually probably the best thing I've read over there in a couple of years."

That's cuz it's not really IGN's!!!

[ruby_onix]

IGN wishes they could write stuff like this.

All we ever get from them is "OMG, I'm in sooo deep. I know stuff you only wish you knew. But I can't tell you because I have an NDA. Even though I dropped out of college. LOL! Rest assured, there's a super-megatun coming and it has something to do with the letter Q. Ha ha ha. OMG Nintendo just cancelled it! It had so much promise! This sucks, I could run Nintendo better than Nintendo does. I don't respect Iwata's claim to power anymore. At least Yamauchi had that 'birthright' thing. What has Iwata done for me lately? Nothing, that's what."

[joshnickerson]

Wow! Great Matt impression!

[MysticGohan24]

Hehe, and Craig is a fat bastard, no really...he is

They all seem abit bias toward anything, Craig sounding pro PSP, I wonder why he covers DS and GBA, it's rather rendundant and ironic, irony ensues.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Quote
Originally posted by: MysticGohan24
Hehe, and Craig is a fat bastard, no really...he is

They all seem abit bias toward anything, Craig sounding pro PSP, I wonder why he covers DS and GBA, it's rather rendundant and ironic, irony ensues.

Where the hell have you been the past two years, Captain Obvious!?

EDIT: I just saw the article; haven't read too much of it, but I know I'm going to be visiting N-sider.com more (never saw it before...lol).

[couchmonkey]

Ah, it's not IGN, that explains a lot!  I wish I could find a multi-platform site that doesn't...erm...suck.  I want to know what's going on on other consoles without seeking out a different, quality fan-site for each one.
But back to the article itself.  I thought it was pretty nice, I was really impressed with the sheer amount of research that went into it.  Too bad they couldn't get more comments from people.  It's sad that companies force their employees to be so tight-lipped about projects, even when they're ancient cancelled projects.

[ruby_onix]

By the way, here's the link to the N-sider article.

Also, here's the short version for people who don't like to read.

Jeff Spangenberg founded "Iguana" and made Turok for Acclaim. Turok saved Acclaim from bankruptcy, so Acclaim fired Spangenberg and took over Iguana.

Nintendo had liked Turok, so Spangenberg formed "Retro" and teamed up with Nintendo for financial backing. Retro paid top dollar to recruit top people from all over the industry, who were all coming up with a bunch of grand ideas.

Every now and then Miyamoto would drop by to see how they were doing, and would then insult them by saying "Hey, this is a great big pile of NOTHING you've got here. So when are you guys supposed to start work making actual videogames?"

One day, for no apparent reason, Nintendo dropped Metroid on them, and said "There, now get to work youse lazy bums!"

Nothing was coming together, rats started embezzling money and leaving the ship before their free ride ended, and things were basically falling apart, so Nintendo stepped in, bought out Spangenberg, replaced the entire upper-management, told everyone to get to work on Metroid, and laid off everyone who wasn't. They fired Tommy Tallarico, even though he was working on Metroid.

Retro completed Metroid Prime, and it turned out awesome. Then they made Metroid Prime 2.

Spangenberg went on to form Top Heavy Studios, and made The Guy Game. Top Heavy Studios is getting sued for having underage nudity in The Guy Game.

[Bill Aurion]

"Jeff Spangenberg founded "Iguana" and made Turok for Acclaim. Turok saved Acclaim from bankruptcy, so Acclaim fired Spangenberg and took over Iguana."

So this is the reason why all the Turoks after the first one sucked so bad!  =O

Good job, Ninty, for turning Retro into Grade-A meat! ^_^

[couchmonkey]

That Spanenberg is a really interesting character!  That was probably my favourite section of the article, along with all of the concept art.

Ha ha, underage nudity, eh?  1. Top Heavy should have been a lot more careful.  2. Don't get stinking drunk and take off your clothes for nerds with video cameras on spring break, kids!