Monday, March 18, 2013

Fez Getting Ported to Things


Obviously, Fez is about the experience, man, and not the money.  No sir.  And when the timed exclusivity expires, I'm sure we won't see the game hit Steam because who cares if "the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us.", because money doesn't matter!  No amount of money, no tens of thousands of dollars, matters!  Because it's about the -game-, goddamnit, because this is Indie Gaming.  It's about the principle of it all, which means standing up for the little guy who gets ignored when it's not profitable to help them!  So, seriously that settles it.  You won't be seeing Fez on any other platform even after the exclusivity runs out, because it's purely about making sure everybody gets the full experience of the game and not like....most of the experience.  Minus the ending.  The whole experience.
 -Me from this post. (July 19, 2012)

oh no, that wasn't sarcasm and I've been proven wrong whatever shall I d-of course it was fucking sarcasm

Alright, while I'd love to just sort of post that and be smug and get off of here, I can't exactly do that.  At least, that's not what I want to do, except I kind of do and it's confusing so don't worry about it.  It would be fun and funny to me to do that, I guess, but it's not helping anything.  Not that sitting here and actually talking about it is actually helping anything, but, well....alright, let's try again.

Fez is hitting Steam on May 1st which is completely and totally a sealed deal barring last-minute delays or what have you.  It is, for the moment the only port that is scheduled.  It is not the only port that's in some sort of process of being a reality however.  In reality, Fez will likely be seeing a port to just everything without a Nintendo logo on it (though that can't be discounted either) in the window of 'eventually'.  Mentioned specifically are Mac and Ouya versions as 'definite', a Linux port as "part of vague plans, but plans nonetheless", ports to Sony's consoles hinge on him 'working something out' with Sony, and an iOS version is "highly probable".  None of which is surprising in the least.  Mac and Linux versions, specifically, are practically expected at this point, what with the whole Mac thing being a Mac and Steam going more towards Linux, where PS3/Vita versions (PS3 at least) should be highly considered because of the previous exclusivity to 360.  And iOS being what it is is certainly something that I doubt anyone can really resist as a possibility since that market promises so much profitability.  It....rarely delivers, but it is so tantalizing.

Something that's interesting is the already mentioned lack of Nintendo support.  Obviously, it's likely a bit late/difficult to throw this up on the WiiWare shop or whatever the Wii has, but the Wii U and the 3DS are things and both of them likely should be powerful enough for Fez if an iOS/Ouya version are seriously in consideration as well.  With the Wii U specifically, it's been said that Nintendo are doing their best at being Indie Friendly, yet we have barely seen anyone taking advantage of that.  Specifically with Fez, there could be a lot of neat things done with the Wii U Tablet (Not calling it the Gamepad, sorry, it is a tablet) should they choose to go that route (of course, they wouldn't put any effort beyond the porting, just saying they -could-) and, in general, they kind of seem to want to put the game everywhere.  While the Wii U's audience is currently fledgling, it is also a Nintendo console which means that it's just a matter of time before it gets somewhere between 'solid' and 'oh my god are you kidding me', so getting in now just seems like a smart play for the long-term.

What's reassuring is that the build of the game that'll go around should very likely be the build that includes the patch that cuts out that nasty game-ending bug that plagued the 360 version and was not patched out because 'money'.  So if, for some reason, you have any faith in them fixing this version should a problem arise, or you don't care about gaming politics or whatever, you can probably buy this free of worry.  Clearly I am not very enthused at the prospect of buying the game, but first and foremost, it's because I'm just not interested in Fez.  Obviously, being that I ranted about it and such, I think it's a shitty thing what Polytron did if moreso in the handling than the reasoning, but I've gone out there and stated times before that I don't really -get- boycotts or anything like that.  If you -want- something, just buy it and leave the bullshit at the door.  -Not- buying Fez has a more direct impact on Polytron than not buying the next Call of Duty from Activision, but in the end it's very likely that you're not going to send a message either way, especially with the shotgun strategy for Fez here.

That's not to say that I cannot enjoy my small victory here in pointing out how full of shit Fish is.  Since I very obviously am.  It's not even a personal thing, I just find it amusing.  If anything, it's just another reminder that there's not really as big of a gap between Indie and 'the man' when it comes to these types of attitudes that we don't like and attach to 'the man' to further demonize it.

Regardless of anything, that's pretty much all there is here - Fez hitting Steam on May 1st, everything else but Nintendo things at some point(s) thereafter.  So if you're looking for a (hopefully) bug-free version of the game, ready your purchasing methods at your buying point of choice!

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