Quote:Starcraft: Ghost delayed, Nihilistic no longer on the project
[UPDATE] Blizzard slips a short announcement of the game's delay into the news mix; apologizes to gamers and promises a "great game."

In a brief statement made public last Friday evening, Blizzard Entertainment (the lone division not affected by layoffs at parent Vivendi Universal Games) officials addressed delays to Starcraft: Ghost, the console iteration of Starcraft. The game was being developed by Nihilistic Software under the supervision of Blizzard Entertainment.

Admitting that the company was "very committed to StarCraft: Ghost as a major part of our lineup," Blizzard president Mike Morhaime went on to say that the delay would allow the company to "polish the game until it meets the high standards that our customers have come to expect from Blizzard products." The game was originally scheduled for a 2003 release, but it suffered a delay that pushed its release to 2004. Now the game will miss its 2004 release date as well.

Morhaime continued by saying Blizzard was "sorry to disappoint players with a delayed launch, but [we] are confident that we will deliver a great game with the additional development time."

In addition, Blizzard confirmed that Nihilistic Software, the studio that had been working on the project since its inception, is no longer connected with the project--news that first appeared on enthusiast game site HomeLAN.

[UPDATE] Blizzard commented further on the news today, addressing both Nihilistic's contribution to this point and the need to ensure that gameplay expectations on the part of gamers and Blizzard would be met.

"We appreciate the work that Nihilistic has done, and we look forward to expanding and evolving the strong foundation that they helped us establish for the game," a Blizzard spokesperson said today.

Concerning the game's progress to date, the source said, "It's still too early to discuss what changes will be made to StarCraft: Ghost, but we can say that after an extensive review of Ghost's development progress, we determined that, given the gameplay expectations for titles in the tactical-action genre, we needed to modify the game's design prior to release."

Asked if Blizzard would ever resort to bringing the title in-house, the spokesperson said the team was "currently evaluating the project in-house, and will release further details after we have evaluated the project further. We do not have a timeline as to when we will be able to release these details, but our focus will be on evaluating co-development options for completing StarCraft: Ghost."

And finally, responding to the degree to which the competitive retail landscape contributed to Friday's decision, we were told that "there are a few factors as to why we made this decision; however, it boils down to the fact that we wanted to ensure that StarCraft: Ghost lives up to the standards that we set for all Blizzard games."

Quote:Its a dropship of course. Two big engines, that long two-rail tail... maybe the size threw you off? It doesn't really look big enough to hold tanks...

Quote:i don't really remember anything at all from starcraft...aside from some of the units and the races. i don't really even remember the story, let alone images from the cutscenes, so i'm kinda with DJ on this one
and maybe that marine is russian, he's wearing red armor afterall. maybe there'll be some blue armored marines running around the game that have american flags, or eagles on them. maybe the bad terrans are the russian ones and the whole point of the game is to investigate their nuclear arms program... oh man, the possibilities are endless.

Quote:The Terrans are ex-prisoners, remember... their government was called the Confederacy and used the Confederate flag... so why not a communist symbol on a Marine's armor?

Quote:I always presumed they never sucked them up like Marines, They pick them up like them ships in Halo and drop them,The Tank would be attached to the bottom held by a clamp.

Quote:Actually the red guy is with the Terran Dominion, The Omega squadron by the looks of it, Notice all them greek omega symbols.

As for being Communist ,Marines tend to like to put bumper stickers on their armour,Though I wonder if he was a UED remnant who joined the Terran dominion?

Quote:If Starcraft 64 extra missions were canon? That means Alexi Stukov is alive possibly helping Raynor in search for revenge on Duran for not only killing him before but helping in the destruction of the UED fleet and Admiral Dugalles death.

Quote:Damn they better have bombers in starcraft II, Why have air units without bombers?None of the Terran space vessels were well suited for destroying buildings Wraiths and Battlecruisers kind of blow agiast ground,Valkries cant even attack ground.The Zerg had the Gaurdian the protoss ships did good with team work the carriers did good damage on buildings and if you had a Cossair and Orbiter it did excellent.