Kotaku: fasa studios

FASA's Dev Culture Was "Destroyed" By Microsoft

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:00:00 MDT

The name "FASA Interactive" will be familiar to anyone who loved them some Mechwarrior back in the day. Sadly, they're no more, having been shut down by Microsoft, who bought the company in 1999. Bought then, allegedly, ruined.

FASA founder Jordan Weisman has said that once Microsoft bought the studio, things changed.

When Microsoft bought FASA Interactive and incorporated it into Microsoft... the two reasons they bought us was, one, they wanted the catalogue of intellectual properties and, two, they felt that we had developed a really good development culture. And the reality is that, pretty much from the day we moved to Redmond, that development culture was destroyed.

I don't think the studio ever really had a chance. It was destroyed right in the beginning.

Well. Not much more to add to that, really.

Microsoft "destroyed development culture" at FASA - Weisman [GI.biz]

Shadowrun "Cracked" For Windows XP

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:40:30 MDT

Fortunately for Mitch Gitelman and FASA Studios, recently released pride and joy Shadowrun looks like it's now unofficially available for play not just on the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, but Windows XP as well. Circumventing the other franchise killing executive decision—to limit the game's Windows audience to Vista only—warez group Razor 1911 has released a crack for Shadowrun that makes it playable on Windows XP and without DirectX 10 support.

The report from The Inquirer also states that the crack is rather simple, requiring only a few files to be rewritten to get the game working under the older Windows OS. Michael McWhertor

Vista-only game cracked [The Inquirer]

Shadowrun Goes Gold, Green

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:40:21 MDT

FASA Studios' first-person shooter stab at the Shadowrun franchise has finally gone gold (for the PC) and "green" (for the Xbox 360). The game is due to ship May 29th to North American gamers, with Europe getting it just a few days later on June 1st.

While FASA's choice of genre was the cause of much Shadowrun fan ire, impressions of the game have ranged from positive to post-orgasmically glowing. I, Mike Fahey and Mark Wilson have all spent time with the Windows Vista and Xbox 360 versions of Shadowrun at different points in the game's development, so make sure you check out our impressions.

Now we cross our fingers and hope those rumors of FASA's post-release demise were unfounded. Michael McWhertor

New Shadowrun Screens Emerge

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:40:19 MST

The official Shadowrun site has updated with twenty (TWENTY!) new-ish screens of the upcoming FASA Studios shooter for the Xbox 360 and PC. I think it looks and plays hot, but I don't have that Shadowrun RPG baggage...er, preconceptions... um, expectations many fans of the series are saddled with. Don't give up hope, Shadowrunners, this is a fun game that will bring new gameplay to the FPS genre.

Watch for a new trailer for the game to hit the Web tomorrow. Michael McWhertor