WHERE IS TWO WORLDS 2?

Just who decides when to release a video game?  I am fairly confident it has nothing to do with the developers and equally confident that the full blame lies with the publishers.

The reason for my new rant at the industry is the sheer and incredible stupidity of the people behind the release of Two Worlds 2.

This game has been delayed many times already and was supposed to be coming out today.  I had pre-ordered this off Amazon as Game no longer seemed to be listing this.  When I pre-ordered it I was advised that it was supposed to be launched last Friday (24th February) but then was advised via email that it had been put back a week to today, the 4th March.  I was not too fussed.  Bulletstorm and Killzone 3 were coming out last Friday and so it made sense to delay it.  With little coming out this week of note I was looking forward to getting it.

This morning, however, I received yet another email telling me that it had been put back a week to the 11th March.  OK, this in itself is still no personal disaster for me - I have plenty of games to play through and other things to do, but for the game itself it is plainly stupid as the long awaited and much hyped Dragon Age 2 is released on that very same day.

Now releasing an RPG game up against 2 first person shooters is not the end of the world.  There will always be those who fancy something different, but to push it back right into the release window of one of the most eagerly awaited RPG's this year is either staggeringly stupid or supremely arrogant.  I am more inclined to think that this is the former.

It seems that Two Worlds 2 is destined to fail.  Even though the game had already been delayed for a UK release it seems that there are dark forces at work preventing it getting released.  The shipment for the UK release was damaged resulting in a further delay and one wonders whether the loss of a wide general release may actually be the precursor to the game not actually coming out at all.

As a fan of RPG games this would be a crying shame.  The first Two Worlds was something of an acquired taste, but I really liked it and so was looking forward to the sequel

OK in this case of Two Worlds 2 some of the blame for it's delay is not entirely down to the publisher, but the original delay in getting it into the UK was.  This game has already been released in Europe in November last year and the US since January this year on the X Box 360.  How hard could it have been to release at the same time in the UK?

What's more, the game is ONLY available through Amazon in the UK.  You cannot go onto the high street and buy it!  How incredibly stupid is that?  If I was a developer who had worked hard on the project I would be spitting fire at how poor the release had been handled.

What remains now is whether the game will ever surface in the UK and perhaps more interestingly whether Amazon will take it upon themselves to inflate the price just before they dispatch the game since they have the monopoly on it's release.