This Is Hardcore: Takedown Takes Off
It was touch and go there for a while - which I like to say because it makes me sound like I'm a hotshot heart surgeon from California, hero to all, lover of many ladies, astonishingly high wage and once-in-a-generation talent - but Takedown, the game formerly known as Crowdsourced Hardocore Tactical Shooter has met its Kickstarter funding goal. It passed the $200k target with hours to spare, wrapping up at $221,833.
Next, project lead Christian Allen (of GRAW-fame) will present his Rainbow Six/Ghost-Recon-inspired squad shooter to big-boy investors, in the hope that the crowdsourcing success will lead to them throwing the big fat cheques necessary to make development a reality at it. I'm still a mite troubled by that - what kind of game do Kickstarter pledgers get if the investors say no?
Anyway, bridges to be crossed when they turn up, I guess. Meantime, congratulations to Christian and the team on emerging victorious from round one. I'll admit, I didn't think this one was going to make it - we posted about it twice and going on comments the project didn't seem to be enrapturing people in the way Wasteland 2 and Doublefine's were. Very curious to see where it goes next. I'm also curious to see what people coughed up $2500 to become a player model in the game. What if they're incredibly ugly, with weeping facial sores and teeth that could chew cheese through a tennis racket?
(With apologies to anyone with weeping facial sores or teeth than can chew cheese through a tennis racket. You are beautiful no matter what they say. Words can't bring you down.)
Oh and Takedown has joined Brian Fargo's Kicking It Forwards initiative, meaning 5% of its eventual profits will be put into funding other folks' selected Kickstarter projects further down the line. That is a jolly nice thing to be doing. Using someone else's photographs as concept art, not so much. When you haven't actually started development but need something to catch people's attention double-quick I can understand that creating assets is a tricky business, but that was not cool - at least they've now taken those down.
