Bornakk posted a poll on the forums the other day asking what everyone's favorite April Fool's joke from Blizzard was, and surprisingly (to me, anyway -- I thought Tauren Marines would win for sure), the Molten Core Atari game is winning. There's no question that the bears joke was great (it does make sense), but I thought the game looked a little boring. Blizzard fans disagree, however -- people like the pixelated versions of the old MC bosses.Which brings us to the question of whether Blizzard could actually do this. Boffo says he'd shell out $10 to play this game, while other people say they'd spend as much as $30 to actually see it on retail shelves (or, more likely, as a download). The game looks like a version of Asteroids more than anything, and the trailer (on purpose, probably) don't really make it clear what the rules are. But it looks simple enough to put together -- maybe a weekend's work by a dedicated coder with some MC runs under his or her belt.
Instead of a release, though, it'd be more fun to see this implemented as a minigame somewhere. We already know that Blizzard is planning to do some mobile work, so maybe they could release this as a fun distraction for the iPhone while planning something bigger. Incorporating it into the main WoW game somewhere would be a fun possibility as well. I can't think of any other time when a Blizzard 4/1 joke actually made it into real life (Two-headed ogres aren't actually playable yet), but they might as well start here, right?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-03-2008 @ 4:47PM
Bob of the North said...
I'd like to see it go full circle. Design it as a Roguelike game, with enhanced graphics instead of just ASCI. Maybe a variation of Angband
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4-03-2008 @ 4:50PM
peaglemancer said...
$10 says this is a web game within the month.
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4-03-2008 @ 4:57PM
Ryan said...
Actually the inspiration for this mock game seems to be from a game called Venture seen here:
http://www.klov.com/V/Venture.html
The game existed in arcades and on the Intellivision Game system back in the early 80's and was one of my favorite games at the time.
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4-03-2008 @ 5:04PM
Marc said...
In all honesty, I'm surprised that they DIDN'T make it playable. Ask the guys from Homestarrunner.com because they make old Atari games playable online all the time. Can't be that hard.
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4-03-2008 @ 5:14PM
mswindell said...
There is a pretty solid Atari homebrew scene over at Atariage.com, and I wouldn't be suprised to see one of the guys over there take this idea and run with it.
4-03-2008 @ 5:12PM
Feoremar said...
"I can't think of any other time when a Blizzard 4/1 joke actually made it into real life (Two-headed ogres aren't actually playable yet), but they might as well start here, right?"
Pandaren. :|
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4-03-2008 @ 5:13PM
Sean Riley said...
Count me in with the guys who'd like to see this show up as a Gnomish invention in the game proper. The idea of a gnomish video arcade in Azeroth is hilarious and entirely fitting. It gets extra points if it runs off steam and losing occasionally causes the machine to overheat and explode, killing the player.
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4-03-2008 @ 5:28PM
themann1086 said...
Playing a video game inside a video game?
I'd so do it, even though it sounds nerdtastic.
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4-03-2008 @ 6:34PM
Sean Riley said...
It's happened already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tringo
There's a fairly big precedent for this kind of idea.
4-04-2008 @ 8:01AM
Raze said...
"Playing a video game inside a video game?
I'd so do it, even though it sounds nerdtastic."
You don't play too many video games, than. Nintendo titles do it all the time, to the point that it's a little overdone.
4-03-2008 @ 5:30PM
Tiforix said...
It reminded me more of Berserk (for the Atari 2600) than anything else.
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4-03-2008 @ 11:11PM
jbodar said...
How did I miss this comment? Oh well, I guess great minds think alike. :)
4-03-2008 @ 5:38PM
Jake said...
i would way rather see the bard made into an actual character, and i no a ton of other people who were actually incredibly disapointed that it was just a joke
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4-03-2008 @ 5:46PM
Dras said...
Wasn't Starcraft announced on 4/1?
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4-03-2008 @ 6:19PM
Feoremar said...
March 31rst, actually.
4-03-2008 @ 6:27PM
Shrimpkebab said...
Pandaren was an april fools joke. Check it out http://www.battle.net/war3/pandaren/
But it made it into warcraft 3 frozen throne as a playable hero.
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4-03-2008 @ 6:56PM
Marco Polaris said...
Don't forget the Goblin Tinker was announced as a patched-in neutral Hero on April 1st during the same year that two-headed ogres were announced. It both amused and saddened me that more people believed the 2-headed ogre story was true than the tinker one.
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4-03-2008 @ 8:01PM
John said...
They should hook up with those atariage guys, or someone, if they put that on an atari 2600 cart I'd buy it, I'd play the heck out of it too (for like a day), 10 bucks if it's just a cart, but I'd pay 20ish if it was boxed with a manual and other stuff.
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4-03-2008 @ 8:08PM
Lockpain said...
Blizzard could create a new button on WOW menu panel entitled "mini games" and make this their first.
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4-03-2008 @ 8:10PM
Shadowcid said...
I was under the impression that they were trying to parody the game Adventure ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_(Atari_2600) ).
The graphic style and map layout sure looked similar... anyone care to prove me wrong?
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