We've all heard the term before. In an industry full of buzz words, half of which are empty pieces of marketing hype, the word "vaporware" has endured, probably because there's so much call for its use. Usually the scenario goes something like this: you hear about a great new game, a game you would gladly sell any number of your relatives for; this new game has every feature you've ever dreamed of, as well as a bunch that never even occurred to you. You say, "Great! When can I get it?" Your Reliable Source says about two months. So you wait. For two long, dreary months. Sixty days later (sixty-two if you're cautious) you invade your local software store, corner a nervous-looking employee and cry, "Where is it, man?" Looking like he's about to soil his work clothes, he explains that the development team ran into some snags, and it will be another two months or so. With slumped shoulders, you walk home with an empty "what is the point of my life?" feeling. You wait another two months. Then another. And then another. By this time, all the software store employees know you by name; when they see you in the doorway they just shake their heads sadly at you and go on about their business, selling copies of Virtuoso to 13-year-old crack heads. You wander back home, eat a pound of raw hamburger, drink a bottle of Morose Cola, and watch the colors of your wallpaper fade.
Flash forward about nine months. It's still not out. Every month you read the magazine articles about how the game will rule. You haven't bathed in six weeks. Your hairline has receded three inches. You've taken to biting other people's nails. The local software shop has just sent you another sympathy bouquet, along with a coupon for $5 off Rise of the Robots. You take the money you saved from not buying this cool game that doesn't exist, and buy a rifle with it. You spend an enjoyable afternoon gunning down a few dozen kids from the neighborhood. Then you spend the rest of your life in jail.
At least that's the way it always seems to happen with me.
We've all suffered the indignities of waiting far too long for a prematurely promised game. (Some of us just take it better than others, that's all.) The only comfort we have is the knowledge that we're not alone in our anxiety. If you're not happy about how late a game is, think of what the game company is going through. Every month a game is delayed means more money spent on production, more money spent on advertising, and no revenues from the project. There are two ways a company can deal with this situation. If they're flaming idiots, they can cut the project off and release what they have finished in the hopes that no one will notice. (Have I ever mentioned that I hate Sierra for what they did to Outpost? I do. And I'm not bitter.) Or they can take the responsible approach and weather the storm, hoping that the end result will be popular enough to make up for the amount of money spent to complete the project.
You'll be happy to know that Activision has taken the later path with their (still) upcoming magnum opus MechWarrior 2. This game has been in production for two and a half years now. I think it was officially announced shortly before Reagan got shot. Since the beginning, the eager eyes of the gaming world have been fixed on this project, only to see it get stuck in the developmental mud. But MechWarrior 2 isn't as mired as most people think. With some fresh blood infused into the development team, work has been progressing steadily for the past six months. Once again, the MechWarrior 2 project has forward momentum. It even has a release date. July. July 1995. Hey, would I lie to you about something like this?
You may ask yourself, "How did this come to be?" (You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.) The answer here is nothing but good news. Activision hasn't backed down from the original goals they set out to accomplish with this game. No feature has been dropped to allow the team to complete the game. All the flashy bits that were talked about circa 1906 will make their way into the completed version. Apparently, the deciding factor wasn't the team's goals, but your computer. When work was begun on MechWarrior 2, the low-end target system was a 386. The designers had to face the question "How do you get a 386 to do what we need it to?" The answer was painfully simple: you can't. But now the minimum system is a 486 (meaning that you'd better hurry up and get a Pentium), which allows the team to get on with all the bells and whistles. Put simply, there's nothing stopping them now.
Now if we could just get the same news about The 11th Hour and Harvester . . .
