By Jim Rossignol on February 9th, 2011 at 10:22 pm.
While rather less notable than TV fun-box expansion controller Guitar Hero being ended by Activision, it does seem a shame that True Crime: Hong Kong will never see the light of day. The city-based open world actioner has been canned by the publisher due to it not being deemed competitive with other open-world action games. We’d not seen much of it, admittedly, but one less open world game is a sad thing, in my book. Even if it did end up being a bit nob. (And yes, it was slated for PC.)
Sleep well, lost game. We never knew thee.
09/02/2011 at 22:25 Navagon says:
That’s a shame. It was looking more interesting than its direct competition.
09/02/2011 at 22:28 patricij says:
True Crime 1 was generally perceived as generally kind of meh, but I happened to review it and I found it quite good actually….the shooting and driving around bits anyway, I quite enjoyed being the cop..
09/02/2011 at 22:28 vash47 says:
What a shame.
09/02/2011 at 22:30 patricij says:
Desperate. Your turn.
09/02/2011 at 22:35 coldvvvave says:
Desperate.
09/02/2011 at 22:42 Teddy Leach says:
What a desperate shame.
09/02/2011 at 22:52 westyfield says:
The sound the developers will make rattling their cage will serve as a warning.
09/02/2011 at 23:31 Bennus says:
Warning: old men
10/02/2011 at 01:43 Bret says:
Old Men…
ARE THE FUTURE.
09/02/2011 at 22:43 Teddy Leach says:
I rather enjoyed the first game.
09/02/2011 at 22:45 SirKicksalot says:
Man, this project was a complete disaster. It started at Treyarch as an original and pretty different IP, then Activision gave it to United Front and turned it into a sequel.
I wonder how much was spent on it.
10/02/2011 at 01:01 circadianwolf says:
Yeah, wasn’t this the game from the “Activation says girl characters don’t sell” story, where the game’s protagonist was changed to a man after (manipulated) focus tests?
09/02/2011 at 22:49 7rigger says:
I quite liked the first one, but didn’t really enjoy the second. Why aren’t there more games like this where you play cop?
09/02/2011 at 22:53 Navagon says:
Place your bets on how much life Activision has left in it.
09/02/2011 at 23:01 Chris D says:
I suspect that until someone drives a stake through it’s heart, cuts off the head, burns the body and buries the ashes in consecrated ground, Activision will probably rise again.
09/02/2011 at 23:14 Navagon says:
Or it could live on like Interplay – in a cardboard box in a back alley some place…
10/02/2011 at 10:17 BAshment says:
Remember when EA was the big bad good times.
09/02/2011 at 23:18 Bhazor says:
Canceled you say? Why that’s a True Crime alright.
10/02/2011 at 02:25 Maltose says:
I see what you did thar. Actually, you beat me to it. :’(
09/02/2011 at 23:34 phenom_x8 says:
Never play the first but quite enjoy the second one!
I’d love making people get out of their car by shooting in the air (even GTA 4 can’t do that). Feels like hollywood!
09/02/2011 at 23:35 Tei says:
The world will probably use more and better open fps games.
But he! Maybe acti is moving to something else like baby seal culling, now that is stopping to make gamez
09/02/2011 at 23:43 Moraven says:
These 500 layoffs are after reporting Record Revenue, better than expected profits . Basically Activision has become a one franchise publisher, CoD, with Blizzard and (in the future) Bungie to make them look like they did something right.
“Despite ending development on its popular Guitar Hero franchise, Activision Blizzard announced it was the number one publisher in North America and Europe in 2010. ”
Lol
09/02/2011 at 23:52 kwyjibo says:
Not record revenues. Better than 2009, worse than 2008.
10/02/2011 at 13:23 battles_atlas says:
Thats how the game works. Aging, irrelevant behemonths using their acculmulated wealth to buy up the young talent and feeding off their output. See Disney > Pixar, AOL > Huffington Post.
09/02/2011 at 23:55 kwyjibo says:
It’s good that Activision finally have some quality control. But I’m disappointed that we won’t get a Hong Kong roam ‘em up, it’s a really interesting city, lots of variety and has a rich culture to mine. Here’s hoping another team picks up the bat.
10/02/2011 at 03:01 Sardaukar says:
Agreed. Didn’t play the first game, wasn’t even sure what the gameplay entailed besides, presumably, shooting people and driving things, but the Hong Kong setting had me interested.
10/02/2011 at 08:11 Inarborat says:
Double agreed. I’d kill for a modern open world game that isn’t New York City. Hong Kong is perfect for this type of setting.
Heh,
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/286085/previews/true-crime-hong-kong-2011s-most-polished-open-world/
10/02/2011 at 03:50 DOLBYdigital says:
I actually liked the first game. It had very solid shooting, driving, fighting and shooting while driving mechanics. It also allowed you to arrest people and search them if I remember and learn new moves at dojos. The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am hearing this is gone especially when it was coming to PC :(
10/02/2011 at 13:29 adonf says:
No fighting while driving ? Well that’s a shame.
10/02/2011 at 04:19 outoffeelinsobad says:
I mask my dismay, else my tears might drown the world.
10/02/2011 at 13:43 Delusibeta says:
So, how many franchises have Activision left? Tony Hawk (assuming that doesn’t follow Guitar Hero in getting killed off [EDIT] Scratch that, they just announced that it is indeed following Guitar Hero), Call of Duty and the Bond games (which they don’t bother to advertise). If Call of Duty crumbles before Bungie can release their game, Activision is screwed.