THIS! IS! Well, you know...

It's not that I've forgotten about this blog. Honestly. I started writing a few posts since the last one, but I always abandoned them with a twinge of guilt. Hence, the blog post about Colleen Lachowicz, Mists of Pandaria pre-launch, games to look forward to this fall etc won't ever see the light of day, more so because they're not really that relevant anymore.

 Not to say I was thrilled in dabbling in political propaganda and mud-slinging (US, republican propaganda and mud-slinging, no less), or that the Pandaria pre-patch didn't change WoW drastically, or that Guild Wars 2, Dishonored, Pandaria itself, Borderlands 2 and upcoming Halo 4, Assassin's Creed 3 or (insert drooling sounds here) Star Citizen don't all look amazing. It's just I had other, more personal projects to see through, and when work kicks in high gear in the fall as well, on top of computer hardware woes and building a new desktop...let's just say when the going gets tough, I will always choose to be a gamer first, writing about games second.

So, quick recap: WoW: Mists of Pandaria expansion has gone live for a month now, Guild Wars 2 is out (and seemingly on the decline already), City of Heroes has permanently gone offline, Old Republic has gone Free To Play (annoyingly, "F2P"). Dishonored and Borderlands 2 are both out and both have already met with both critical and commercial acclaim.

So, yeah...We're looking at three major releases left for the fall, however, you'll excuse me only going into detail on one of them. Halo 4 and Assassin's Creed 3 really don't need more help getting known, do they?

Today, I want to talk to you about Chris Roberts.

Name doesn't ring any bells? That's ok, you were probably too young when Chris was on the rise. Here's a quick history lesson, courtesy of wikipedia.

Born in Redwood City, California, USA Roberts grew up in Manchester, England. He attended the same school with the computer music composer Martin Galway. As a teenager, he created several video games for the BBC Micro, including Stryker's Run.

Origin Systems

Roberts returned to the United States in 1986. He soon found a job at Origin Systems, where he created Times of Lore, published in 1988. The game's interface had a strong influence on other Origin products such as the popular Ultima series. A similar game system was used in Roberts' next release for Origin, Bad Blood (1990).

Wing Commander was published later in 1990 and was highly acclaimed. Wing Commander (and the franchise it spawned) soon became Origin's most successful product, eclipsing even the Ultima series. Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and was not released until 1993. He returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes.

Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts' residence at the outskirts of Austin, Texas was aptly named "Commander's Ranch", a reference to the Wing Commander series he created.

Digital Anvil

Roberts left Origin in 1996 and founded Digital Anvil along with EA PC national sales manager Marten Gerald Davies, Origin producer Tony Zurovec and his brother Erin Roberts. The fledgling studio set up shop in Austin and for several years worked quietly, inking a publishing deal with Microsoft in 1997.

Roberts had stated that he desired to produce films as well as games with Digital Anvil. The 1999 feature film release of Wing Commander directed by Roberts himself, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and featuring visual effects from Digital Anvil failed to attract either critical praise or financial success.

Digital Anvil's first finished game was Starlancer, released to a generally warm critical reception in 2000. Developed externally at Warthog, the game was produced by the Roberts brothers, and featured only some contributions by Digital Anvil. The company was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects to Ubisoft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his ambitious project Freelancer, even though he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001. The game was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans, but was received fairly favorably.

Point of No Return Entertainment/Ascendant Pictures

After leaving Digital Anvil, Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment, planning to produce films, television and games. However, no projects materialized from Point of No Return. Roberts founded Ascendant Pictures in 2002 and served as a producer for a number of Hollywood productions including the 2004 adaptation of The Punisher, The Jacket and Lord of War.

Cloud Imperium Games Corporation

In 2011, Chris Roberts founded Cloud Imperium Games Corporation to work on a new game that will be a successor to his previous games like Wing Commander and Freelancer. A teaser website for his new game launched on September 10, 2012 at http://robertsspaceindustries.com/. As of September 11th, 2012, entering "42" at the password prompt on this page takes the user to a page with a lengthy note from Chris Roberts to his fans. It also allows the user to register for an account. The website also contains a counter that counts down to 10 AM ET on the 10th of October 2012. On this date he announced his new game, Star Citizen.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I want to talk to you about. A man with a vision so vast, the technology had to catch up to it to realize it instead of the sad normality, ie, the other way around. 

I'm not going to drool about Star Citizen (much). It's the game I have been waiting for years, someone to get the feel of exploring the universe with the adrenaline of flying a spaceship, commerce, dogfights into one big blender and blend till it becomes creamy thick awesomesauce. This is the one game to define PC gaming for the next few months, in my humble opinion. The sheer scope and passion behind it is, frankly, breathtaking, and it's a passion shared by creators and fans alike. The crowdfunding has, at this time, met and exceeded its goal of 2 mil with two weeks to spare, and if you'd like the game you'd better go over there and reserve a spot right now while there's still some cheap seats left. Not everyone can afford the 10,000$ pledge, after all.

Please, do not ignore this game. For your sake.