by: Tech21 | February 26, 2001
HitmanHQ has uncoverd a few nifty rumors
(thanks to Oliver)
about the Hitman release delays and
various other corporate hanky-panky. All of these rumors were lifted
from Fatbabies.com.
Please note the dates on these rumors - they are somewhat old. And
remember, these are rumors, not facts, so don't say you weren't
warned.
8/29/00 Eidos Gets Hit
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Hey! I think my gameplay is good, dammit!
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We’ve heard Eidos Interactive recently passed quietly on the rights to
Hitman 2.0, PC single-player only, as Eidos was disappointed in Hitman 1.0
and its delays. While Eidos is moving forward with their own franchise of
Thief 3, management spoke of hitman but felt it was not up to par in terms of
gameplay - graphics alone don't make a game. Eidos is adamant about keeping
the 3rd person action market, and is keeping a close control over development
of such products.
9/5/00 Eidos & Io-Interactive
Eidos developer IO-Interactive is apparently working on the only remaining
PC product the company will publish. It is said Eidos Interactive will soon
bail out of the PC biz and focus solely on the console market.
In a related rumor, EA had signed Io to develop a pirate fighting adventure
(PS2) for them, which caused quite a stir in the Eidos camp. Eidos producer
Jonas Enroth apparently had a huge fight over at Io about them seemingly losing
interest in the development of Hitman. His thoughts are they wish to move on
to the EA camp sooner rather than later. However, IOI was said to be pissed
over Eidos’ insistence on pushing Thief 3. Hitman, meanwhile, is still over a
year late.
10/3/00 Eidos Gets Tough
We’ve received word that Eidos management has demanded Hitman be finished
within 4 weeks time or Eidos will not provide any further milestone payments.
Apparently Eidos was extremely disappointed with the demo that was released
only 2 weeks ago. The developer has reported consistent badgering by Eidos
producers to get the game out "or else."
10/9/00 Hitman Insanity!
Well, we found out what it meant when Eidos management told the developer of
Hitman what it meant when they said, "Get the game out in 4 weeks 'or else'."
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Ahh. The unseen evils of game publishers.
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Word is Eidos has threatened to release Hitman within 3 weeks regardless of
the state of the product. The current bug count stands around 100 A & B bugs.
A bugs, of course, being those dreaded crash bugs. B bugs being non-fatal
but still severe "you can’t finish the level" or "the main character disappears
for no reason" bugs.
After the developer released a demo of Hitman in late September, Eidos failed
to support the release and claimed it was not a representative of the final
product. Feedback from the gamers is that the game is lacking strong character
control and has skimpy gameplay. There’s a lack of understanding of what
to do and how to play the game. But Eidos doesn’t seem to care, as they plan
to release it regardless within 3 weeks. Tally ho!
10/27/00 Io-Interactive's Hitman
Word is Io-Interactive parent company Nordic Film Entertainment has had to
step up and fund remaining development for the Hitman: Codename 47 project.
This is due to publisher Eidos refusing to provide additional payments to
Io as a result of the long overdue development of the game.
Hitman currently runs a blistering 20 frames per second on a high end PC with
a state of the art graphics card.
Feedback from the release of the demo is that the control of the game is
extremely confusing and difficult, and it’s said that is one of the reasons
why Eidos has slashed the Hitman marketing budget.
1/4/01 Eidos Feuding with Cnet
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Biased game reviews? What next?
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Apparently Eidos has been extremely upset with the poor review given by
Cnet Gamecenter for their Hitman game. Adding insult to injury, Eidos regularly
has had huge ad buys on Cnet, and as such they expected a glowing review.
No such luck. But supposedly Eidos PR is applying pressure on the Cnet
folks to change the score of the review. Will Cnet give in?
Poor sales and customer complaints of horrible interface and controls have
caused Eidos management to cancel Hitman 2 and instead release a mere add-on
pack. None of the core engine code will be changed, only the level designs.
Hope that Eidos doesn't try and market this as an entirely new game...
because it looks like it is headed to be another piece of Shitman.
