News Tidbits for March 31, 2006
Well its been a couple days since I last posted some tidbits, but the news has not been stagnant. I also thought that I should probably post a bit about how these particular topics make the list. I am pretty sure most folks who read this site are familiar with any number of pure gaming news sites. I mean these range from the big ones from Gamespot, IGN and Gamespy to the blogs from Joystiq, Kotaku and Worthplaying. So why come here for a few tidbits on any given day, well its for commentary and the fact that I try to choose tidbits that have some meat too them for rumors, analysis or for a possible rant. Today is a great day for rumors, but others may wish to give a little rant 
Anyways, just thought I would give a bit of information before rolling into our tidbits for today.
- In our first tidbit, The state of Georgia has taken steps to really entice game development (and other entertainment) companies to do business in the state with a tax credit for peforming the work in the state. The credit is unique in that it covers money spent on things like animation and sound effects with the final product of the work being commercial distributed outside the state. Me thinks that Georgia is trying to lure companies from California and Texas and I say good for them...
- Sony Online Entertainment and Ralph Koster have gone thier seperate ways. Mr. Koster was the chief creative officer for SOE and was a leader for the original development of Star Wars Galaxies. According to the article, Mr. Koster is based in Austin, and that is an excellent segue into our next tidbit...
- Speculation continues to run rampant about the relationship between SOE and Lucasarts, and with the news above and the fact that Bioware have opened a studio in Austin. Could this mean a Knights of the Old Republic themed Star Wars MMO? As a self appointed Star Wars Fanboy, I can only hope. It is a prime area for a game in that it allows for jedi on both sides of the good and evil line and is pretty much open from a story perspective... Only time will tell..
- To tie to our Bioware rumor, Neverwinter Nights 2 (not developed by Bioware) had its website go live a few days ago. There are some screenshots to help entice folks for the upcoming game. The original had mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it. My hope is with the success of Oblivion from Bethseda that other single player games will do well this year...
- Okay an unrelated item here is about GameTap where you can play a ton of older pc games through your broadband connection. I am sure we have all seen the commercials. The subscription fee dropped to $10 from its original rate of $15. This looks to be a great service for retrogamers or folks with older PCs to play a ton of different games.
- An industrious person (Adrian Werner) posted a great summary of what they believe to be the best of 2006 with respect to PC games. The games are shown on the Gamespot Forums and only include a short blurb and a screenshot from the upcoming title. I think its a great overview of what we know is coming for the PC this year. I would love to get off my kiester and take what he started with and turn it into a full list of games with links to thier websites, and who knows I may darned well do it.
- Finally a couple great demos came out this week, the first being for the PC version of Blazing Angels. The other is for Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. So enjoy some free looks at a couple titles, I know I am interested in...
