[quote]In a release issued this morning, Sega announced an agreement to acquire and publish next-generation game content from Canadian developer Silicon Knights. The Ontario-based developer is known for such recent games as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Eternal Darkness for the GameCube, as well as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for the original PlayStation. No titles or release dates were mentioned.
“We intend to establish Sega as a leading publisher on the next generation of game hardware, and only the highest possible quality of Western-developed content will get us there,” said Simon Jeffery, president and COO, Sega of America. “Silicon Knights has a rich history of developing great games that push hardware technology, so we expect this relationship will result in a powerful, new, and highly commercial franchise.”
“Silicon Knights believes that the next generation [of] systems will be the catalyst propelling video games as the dominant form of entertainment in this century,” said Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights. “We are very excited to collaborate with Sega on a next-generation project, because we share a vision–to take the medium of games to new heights and move people as never before.”
While the announcement did not identify which next-gen platforms it would be developing for, Silicon Knights is almost certainly developing a game for a console other than the Nintendo Revolution. Nearly a year ago, the shop announced it had ended its agreement to develop exclusively for the GameCube. Nintendo itself described that the deal’s end was designed to allow Silicon Knights to “pursue its vision of video game entertainment with other companies.”
The deal marks the second major next-gen development deal for Sega in nearly as many weeks. Earlier this month, the company announced it had purchased the Creative Assembly. The UK-based studio of the acclaimed Total War PC strategy series is now focused on the current-gen action game Spartan: Total Warrior, “as well as developing new ventures for next-generation platforms,” revealed Sega. [/quote]
Silicon Knights may be a less well-known studio, but it looks like Sega is getting more and more serious about its presence in the Western market…
Oh God No.
Silicon Knights haven?t made a good game in their life’s They are also some of the poorest programmers around. The ED and TS game engines were utter rubbish (much like the games). In fact the only good thing I can say about SK , is they have a great Sound Dept.
Also they take longer than RARE to make a game (and that’s saying something). But at least with RARE it ends up looking and being a good/decent game
Twin Snakes, I don’t think it was ever meant to be something that pushed the GC to its limits or something, they ported the original MGS and they did it in a very nice way too. It wasn’t as technically accomplished as MGS2 but then again, it couldn’t be without major changes in the levels and what not which would render it too different from the original as to be consider the same game/story. They also propably had a budged much smaller than a from-scratch-metal-gear game takes…
As for Eternal Darkness, I thought it was considered quite a good or even a great game. I looked it up and only saw good ratings from the biggest websites. Most of them also comment the nice graphics - which from screenshots look very nice to me too - so I don’t see why you’d think they are rubbish. Unless it runs with like 10fps or something…
You clearly live in a different planet from mine, Team Andromeda.
This is fantastic news!Eternal Darkness was a great game I only was able to play for about an hour and well I don’t need to tell you about Blood Omen right?I’m a huge LoK fan and Silicon Knights were the ones who started it all.Granted the concept was a little different back in the day…
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Twin Snakes, I don’t think it was ever meant to be something that pushed the GC to its limits or something, they ported the original MGS and they did it in a very nice way too. It wasn’t as technically accomplished as MGS2 but then again, it couldn’t be without major changes in the levels and what not which would render it too different from the original as to be consider the same game/story. They also propably had a budged much smaller than a from-scratch-metal-gear game takes…
As for Eternal Darkness, I thought it was considered quite a good or even a great game. I looked it up and only saw good ratings from the biggest websites. Most of them also comment the nice graphics - which from screenshots look very nice to me too - so I don’t see why you’d think they are rubbish. Unless it runs with like 10fps or something…[/quote]
Conkers shows how a Remake should really be done. That’s just a N64 remake, but it’s one of the best looking X-Box games there is. So you don’t need to chage the desgin or levels to get good graphics.
ED Had a brilliant story to it, some great ideas (like the mind tricks), and a simply superb music score ,and voicing acting.
It was yet down by dull and boring gameplay (got worse as the game wnet on), and one of the worst control systems I’ve had to put with.
ED graphically was poor (apart from the colours, resolution). Simple characters models and environments , even basic stuff like not leaving any footprints in sand .
Something like D2 on the DC had better character models, way better backgrounds and more detailed textured mapping .
The only good game SK have made was Blood Omen , and that was far from brilliant
Perhaps not, but you do need a high budget (I misspelled that as budged in my other post, sorry) to do so. And since they are a smaller developer without the backing of someone like Microsoft, well…
AS for ED, I guess that’s just personal opinion, I’ve only seen good reviews of it… I think Abadd commented how good it was sometime ago too… Anyway… Budget means a lot to game devs, perhaps their next game is higher profile.
Perhaps not, but you do need a high budget (I misspelled that as budged in my other post, sorry) to do so. And since they are a smaller developer without the backing of someone like Microsoft, well…[/quote]
No need to say soory mate, My grammer is the worst there is.
True a massive budget does help but you?re forgetting SK was a 1st party Nintendo Team (when they made TS,ED). So they would have had a big budget to make the game
I’ve played through ED myself, and my feeling was that it was a very good game that had great potential, but that it had some very odd flaws in the fundamental gameplay design; the magic system, the combat system and many of the puzzles in the game tried some new approaches that didn’t seem to pan out as well as they could have. But yeah, it got very good reviews from most sources, and I did enjoy playing it myself.
On reflection, this probably wasn’t new-topic worthy material; I thought it was an interesting little development on top of other recent news, though. I was also kind of surprised that SK had moved more or less straight from Nintendo to Sega after ending their previous contract…
Out of curiosity, what did you think was bad about ED’s control system? I didn’t think that it was perfect myself, but it seemed far more intuitive than, say, the Res Evil games that had gone before it, which is probably the closest comparison…
In their defence, the reason that SK spent so long on Eternal Darkness was that they began developing it as an N64 game, and they had to completely remake it for GameCube when N64 support died away (bearing in mind that the N64 version was two-thirds or even three-quarters complete by that time). Rare did more or less the same thing with StarFox Adventures, which began life as an N64 game called Dinosaur Planet; and StarFox Adventures got worse reviews than ED, from what I can remember.
Well it’s good to see Sega finally starting to act like an international company again. I don’t think that Sega of America and Sega of Europe represent the future of Sega itself, but I do believe that they will play much larger roles towards building a profitable future for Sega.
Why don’t you think SOA and SOE represent the future of Sega?
That seems to imply that you think the future of Sega lies within SOJ… Yet you’re happy to see that Sega is acting like an international company again. Seems a bit contradictory, don’t you think? You want more western-oriented content, yet you don’t think SOA and SOE are the “future” of Sega.
Why don’t you think SOA and SOE represent the future of Sega?
That seems to imply that you think the future of Sega lies within SOJ… Yet you’re happy to see that Sega is acting like an international company again. Seems a bit contradictory, don’t you think? You want more western-oriented content, yet you don’t think SOA and SOE are the “future” of Sega.[/quote]
What I meant was SOA, SOE and SOJ are all equally important to Sega’s future.
Hahaha… Yeah. That’s more reasonable It just sounded like you thought SOA and SOE’s recent efforts were simply a bandaid over the problem, and that the real future lied in the hands of SOJ. It’s really going to take an international effort to pull Sega out of the hole it’s in right now.
Well it seems Sega is trying to keep up with EA and Take-Two and Microsoft with thier aciquistion sprees, thier able to do this I think thanks to the funds from Sammy, but at least thier able to keep up as a top publisher.
Sega’s output hasn’t been too great lately, so recruiting the services of more western developers, buying them out, and even setting up new studios outside Japan should help Sega find its footing.
It’s not like Sega is buying out its competitors or anything.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sega’s newfound desire to gain a more international presence was spurred on by Sammy. Someone needs to start seeing outside the box.
