61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

(RSS)

Absolute Sadness: Faith and a .45 Cancelled

Back before Unsolved Crimes came out, I wrote up a post about how it was one of three games that were going to help change the landscape of mainstream gaming. The other two were Ride to Hell, Deep Silver’s open world, 1960s biker gang fantasia, and Faith and a .45. All games in familiar genres, (DS-born adventure, sandbox, third-person shooter), but all games set in decidedly unfamiliar locales. Post-apocalyptic cityscapes, alien jungle worlds, and surreal cartoon countries are a dime a dozen in videogames, but how often do you see a couple of young criminals in love getting chased across Depression-era America? Just thinking about it makes me want to play.

That’s why I’m heartbroken. Deadline Games announced today that Faith and a .45 has been put on hold indefinitely due to publisher disinterest. I can understand why, unfortunately. It’s hard enough to launch an original franchise in the best of times, let alone in a year when developers are closing shop, publishers are consolidating, and players are spending their money on food and rent rather than entertainment. Faith and a .45 was more than just a fresh face in the shooter landscape, though. Even beyond its unique setting, Faith and a .45 is one of the only games I’ve ever seen made for a major console where love takes center stage as a theme.

Unsolved Crimes and the New Setting

The press release Empire Interactive sent around yesterday — announcing their new DS game, Unsolved Crimes — raised a couple of questions. First, who in the hell are Empire Interactive? Second, would it have narration by Robert Stack? The answers came swiftly. Empire Interactive made the Jackass videogame. Ugh. I also realized these are unsolved crimes and not mysteries. Also, Robert Stack is dead.

Humor and pedigree aside, Unsolved Crimes has an ace up its sleeve with an eminently cool setting: New York in the 1970s. The dank, crime-ridden NYC of thirty years ago is prime real estate for a game with both action and point-and-click adventure play. More importantly, 1970s New York is just downright uncommon for a videogame setting.

Excepting classic PC gaming’s diverse palette, videogame designers typically stick to the staples of swords-and-sorcery fantasy, science fiction, and real-or-specualtive militarism for its narrative and aesthetic trappings (when they don’t, they lean towards cartoonish abstraction.) But Unsolved Crimes is one more recently announced title that’s plumbing 20th Century America for new ideas.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.