OK, Nordic Games, the jig’s up. You can go ahead and change your name to THQ II: The Rise Of Mecha-Bilson already, because seriously, you just purchased the publisher’s legacy. Sure, Gearbox snagged Homeworld, and the company’s modern heavy hitters found new, loving homes, but Nordic now (pending court approval) owns nearly everything else>. Red Faction? Yep. Darksiders? Oh, certainly. And oh man, Titan Quest? Sure, why not. Supreme Commander too. And hey, remember Full Spectrum Warrior? I must admit, I – along with my good friend, Basically The Entire World – had forgotten about it, but Nordic deemed the military tactics sorta-sim worth salvaging. Here’s the kicker, though: all those? Only the tip of the iceberg.

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Every dark cloud has a silver lining. It’s a delightfully optimistic statement, though in truth, it’s not always, well, true. (Note: I mean this in the metaphorical sense. I don’t claim to be an expert on clouds’ relative silver content, as I still believe they’re made of cotton candy.) Case in point: at first, it sure seemed like Darksiders dev Vigil Games would be getting some of said rain in its gothic Death mascara while everyone else found new homes in the wake of THQ’s collapse. But now, that dark cloud within a silver-lined dark cloud has found a different silver lining. On the wings of nanosuit-clad angels, Crytek’s descended to save the day. Or, well, most of it, anyway.

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Update: Helpfully, reader and probable Prince of Handsomeness The JG Man dug up the court form outlining details (including amounts, back-up bidders, etc) of each sale. You can peruse that here.

Original: Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After THQ’s attempt at averting a Humpty Dumpty sales situation failed miserably, the writing was pretty much on the wall. So now the grim reaper’s scythe has hacked the once-gargantuan publisher into itsy-bitsy pieces and scattered any remaining ashes to the winds. On the upside, pretty much every major THQ franchise and developer (minus Darksiders dev Vigil, sadly) landed safely in less-likely-to-kerplode homes. Also, Relic and Creative Assembly live under the same roof now. Can Company of Shoguns: Total Homeworld or some other dream team RTS be far off? Probably. It’s still kind of a silver lining, though, and anyway SHUT UP I’M SAD.

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Update: I got in touch with the Humble Bundle folks to find out more about how this out-of-nowhere partnership came about. See what they had to say after the break.

Original: I was incredibly tempted to begin this post with a joke about how the charity slider on this Humble Bundle is redundant, because THQ is already basically a charity. That would be mean, though, so I opted to– oops, I already did it. Hm. Shame backspace was never invented. Anyway, the latest bundle of densely packaged humility puts the spotlight on a decidedly non-indie THQ, but oh well. Indie’s a pretty terrible word when it’s used to write off great games because they weren’t coded by a half-person team in a garage-bedroom constantly beset by subarctic winds and ravenous wolverines. So, right then, let’s take a look inside.

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THQ, if you didn’t know (hint: you did), is in some rather deep water. Not only has it opted to delay a whole mess of games in the wake of Darksiders II’s not-quite-megaton splash, it’s also in a teensy bit of debt. By which I of course mean $50 million - using “teensy bit” as a term relative to all the money ever printed in the whole of human history. But things may not be quite as dire as they seem. Sure, another high-level exec – this time CFO Paul Pucino – has decided to skedaddle, but apparently someone with a fair deal of monetary sway might very well have THQ’s rapidly breaking back.

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Non-Americans, you can finally play Darksiders II. While we’ve no idea why at least the UK release was mysteriously delayed by a full week, other than THQ’s apparent absolute determination to spew money away at every opportunity, it remains a game that’s absolutely worth your pennies. To read my review of it, head yourself over here. Spoiler: I liked it a lot.

To hear John tell it, Darksiders II is a wondrous thing – a Frankenstein chimera of other games’ best bits, but infused with its own unique spirit and rippling apocalypse biceps. But, shockingly enough, all is not well in the land of War, Death, Strife, and Fury. The PC port’s been decried as incredibly barebones – with nearly non-existent graphics options, lousy menus, and the occasional irritating glitch composing its emaciated frame. To Vigil’s credit, however, it’s incredibly sorry about Death’s wardrobe malfunction at his big bash, and – at the very, very least – it’s trying to patch up the missing bits.

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Jim posted this yesterday, assuming it was a leak and that it would be pulled down quickly. He was right on both counts, the smooth little genius, but now the same trailer’s been officially released and awaits you below. Seeing as this is a video of a video game you might possibly play down the line, in watching this trailer you are, essentially, gazing into your own future>. You ever think of it like that?
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First there was ultra-bombastic supernatural sword-swinger Darksiders, and now there is two of it. The sequel, which was announced earlier this week, will features a different horseman of the apocalypse as its main protagonist – Death instead of War – and you can see a little of him in action below. I’m afraid the linked trailer quality for this one is in Super(bad) Grain-o-vision, as if filmed from a TV set in the 1980s, but I’ll try and update it with something a bit better if I manage to dig it out. EDIT: New vid up. Presumably it’s a leak of some kind, so go take a look before it gets zapped.
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