Activision Acquires Budcat Creations

[Doctor Setebos]

http://image.colonyofgamers.com/news/budcat.jpg

Activision has revealed that they have purchased Budcat Creations (http://budcat.com). What, you've never heard of Budcat? They're the developers behind the seminal Guitar Hero 3 and Guitar Hero World Tour games you know and love: at least, the PS2 versions. They also worked on the PS2 versions of EA Sports' Total Club Manager, as well as the PS2 version of Psychonauts. They were also responsible for their very own original Wii title, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy. Sure, most people may consider them nothing more than a tiny little Iowa-based developer that deals in nothing but ports. But the fact that Activision has deemed them worthy of a purchase says something about the company.

The developer is expected to stay at their Iowa City location.

Source - Edge (http://www.edge-online.com/news/activision-publishing-acquires-budcat)

[Spigot]

I think you mean that they were responsible for the PS2 and Wii versions of Guitar Hero 3 as I'm 99.9% positive that Harmonix did the PS2 version of GH1 & 2.

[Doctor Setebos]

I think you mean that they were responsible for the PS2 and Wii versions of Guitar Hero 3 as I'm 99.9% positive that Harmonix did the PS2 version of GH1 & 2.Good point. I updated the OP to specify that they were responsible for GH3 and GHWT.

[Spigot]

Good point. I updated the OP to specify that they were responsible for GH3 and GHWT.That's more like it.

Good for them though. I heard some good things about Blastworks.

[Doctor Setebos]

Good for them though. I heard some good things about Blastworks.I've actually owned it for a good solid month now and haven't even cracked it open yet. I found it at Target for $10 and couldn't pass up the clearance price.

And I probably won't be playing it anytime soon, either, since I'll be picking up Tales of Symphonia tomorrow. :(

[quidmonkey]

Another one bites the dust.

[crazyD]

Blast Works is an excellent game, especially since it is pretty much cheap as free these days. Kind of like a shmup meets Katamari Damacy. Brock should do one of his Turning the Spigot things for it.

[Spigot]

Blast Works is an excellent game, especially since it is pretty much cheap as free these days. Kind of like a shmup meets Katamari Damacy. Brock should do one of his Turning the Spigot things for it.I need to play it first before I can to a TTS on it. That said, I'm hoping it'll come from my game guys at some point in the near future.

[JayVe]

Blast Works is excellent, with a built-in editor that rivals the one in LBP. It allows you to build in full 3D, enemies, ships, scenery, bullet patterns, bosses battles, boss monsters, boss battles where the camera zooms out, the music changes, the ship rotates 90 degrees turning your horizontal shooter into a vertical one and the boss is comprised of multiple parts that break apart and change bullet patterns. Oh, and you can put all this stuff into levels.

Atop that, Blast Works has something called the Blast Works Depot (http://blastworksdepot.com/games/blastworks/), where creators upload and share their work. You'll find LOTS of designs inspired by other games (http://gamercreated.com/games/blastworks/1722), movies (http://gamercreated.com/games/blastworks/1432), and shows (http://gamercreated.com/games/blastworks/5045).

Check out this video of a user-created level.

NMmfNbBQgd4

[Variable Gear]

Another one bites the dust.
Yeah, it's a sad day for Budcat fans. I can't believe they're going to be making more PS2 GH games. :(

[JayVe]

Yeah, it's a sad day for Budcat fans. I can't believe they're going to be making more PS2 GH games. :(

According to this article (http://www.incgamers.com/News/14256/Activision-Buys-Budcat), Budcat already has other Wii titles in development, and one of the reasons they were purchased was to "strengthen development on Nintendo platforms"