Vivendi snubs Metal Arms sequel News

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News by Tom Bramwell

31 March, 2004

A planned Metal Arms sequel has been rejected by Vivendi-Universal, despite the critical praise lavished on the Ratchet & Clank-esque original, released to little commercial success during the Christmas maelstrom late last year.

Swingin' Ape�s art director Scott Goffman reportedly said: "Unfortunately it's true, VU Games is not interested in a Metal Arms sequel at this time. We have a ton of ideas for Metal Arms 2, including new character, weapon, and environment designs, so we're hopeful that we'll be able to come back to the Metal Arms universe sometime in the future.

"Meanwhile, we're working on several potential projects; I can't give any details at this time, but they'll definitely have the same level of action and quality that people loved in Metal Arms. Well, the few people that bought it, anyways."

While the all action gadget oriented shooter wasn't perhaps the most original title ever made, it had some great technology behind it, and may well have fared better had Vivendi perhaps realised that releasing new brands at the same time as 300 other games isn't the smartest move. As it is, the developer suffers once again, and we'd be surprised if we ever see this charming little brand ever again.

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Kami

31/03/04 @ 14:54

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A lot of titles in that period were criminally overlooked.

This doesn't surprise me. Though it is a shame...

Spanky

31/03/04 @ 15:02

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Bum!

Nice of the art director to give me his personal thanks.

Blerk

31/03/04 @ 15:03

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Is this the one that was on an OPSM2 demo disc a few months back? I thought it was terrible!

groovychainsaw

31/03/04 @ 15:16

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Its good, really, like a mini halo - you know, for kids

Spanky

31/03/04 @ 15:25

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Its harder than Halo! Looks nicer too!

/coat

Sid Nice

31/03/04 @ 15:30

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I agree with Spanky/ better and harder than Halo.

jellyhead

31/03/04 @ 15:34

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picked it up for �15 and at that price it isn't bad at all, a bit generic but worth a look.

Blerk

31/03/04 @ 15:35

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Did I play a different game?

sam_spade

31/03/04 @ 15:36

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Yeah, didn't get the buzz at all with this one. I thought it was a clumsily made third person shooter, with a slight comedy element.

krudster [mod]

31/03/04 @ 15:58

#10

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Absolutely catagorically nothing whatsoever like Halo!

Blerk

31/03/04 @ 16:02

#11

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Yeah, didn't get the buzz at all with this one. I thought it was a clumsily made third person shooter, with a slight comedy element.

And an absolutely shocking frame-rate to boot!

sam_spade

31/03/04 @ 16:04

#12

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/hugs Blerk

IronGiant

31/03/04 @ 16:09

#13

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It is a great little game but one that starts off meh and gets a hell of a lot better the further you get into it.. framerate is better, though not perfect, on the XBox.

Spanky

31/03/04 @ 16:13

#14

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Pff i dunno really how the qualification comes about for this being third person for all intents and purposes the wee robot on the screen is just taking the place of the gun floating about in an fps innit?! Halos 3rd person, i played it as several different floating guns...

Framerate, blimey i forgot it was multiformat, xbox was fine.

oh couldn't find my coat, someone pilf'd it.

kalel [mod]

31/03/04 @ 17:27

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It IS quite a lot like Halo, but it IS 3rd person, but not real third person, put kind of faux third person in a first person kind of way, and despite being pretty good, it is NOT as good as Halo.

KiLlerKnight

31/03/04 @ 17:34

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Fun game? Yes, pretty good, better than average. But better looking than Halo, no, and you don't even need glasses to see that, especially with the v-sync problem in the Xbox-version. And R&C looks better than the PS2-version of this game.
And Vivendi is just a wannabe-EA (but who not LOL). They don't know a crap about games (I remember they call Radical one of the leading developers in the world or something) and their 'great' LotR-games. But worse, they don't know a shit about marketing. They wanted to sell their division, but nobody is going to buy that for that amount of money, so they are now stuck with their own crap game-division.
Maybe Swingin ape should ask MS and made it a XBox-exclusive and a potential R&C/Halo beater.

Edited 1 times, most recently on 31/03/04 @ 18:35

volb

31/03/04 @ 19:42

#17

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[...] may well have fared better had Vivendi perhaps realised that releasing new brands at the same time as 300 other games isn't the smartest move.

I guess it must sound smart in a "lazy statistics-addicted market analyst" kind of way.

>As you can see on this diagram, the time period hereby referred to as the "Christmas season" generates [insert massive percentage here] of the video-game industry annual income, with the average household spending more than [insert probably correct estimate here] in electronic entertainment. We would be CRAZY not to release our best titles in this time frame.

Still, it just feels so familiar to hear the people at Eurogamer mocking that. Before you know it, your forums and comments will be buried under messages of people who say they cried watching Ico's ending or that Rez was a revelation, amongst other "Prince of Persia should have sold better" declarations.

Then again, maybe it's just fine by you, I don't know.

rock27gr

04/10/07 @ 19:19

#18

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What a geat game this was! IT's a shame a sequel will never be made.

Edge has a feature on it in the latest edition; I had lot's of fun with this game, much more than more critically apraised games, like the aforementioned Halo.

I wonder what happened tp Swingin Apes, last I heard they were working on StarCraft Ghost, but that's been cancelled hasn't it?

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