This week, TWD follows up on a couple stories we've reported on previously. Read the latest on Operation Rainfall and EA's acquisition of PopCap, complete with cute zombies. As an extra bonus, we've also included what might be one of the worst gaming analogies ever, as created by a developer of the upcoming X-COM game.

The Worst Gaming Analogy Ever?

Old school PC gamers like myself remember the X-COM series, a science fiction turn-based strategy franchise that hasn't been seen since the late 1990s. It turns out that 2K games has acquired the rights to the franchise and will be making a new X-COM game—cleverly titled XCOM—but not one that fans of the old series will recognize. It will be a first-person shooter. Naturally, series fans had a few complaints about that change, wondering why the original formula had to change so drastically. In response, 2K's Christoph Hartmaan stated that turn-based strategy games aren't hugely popular any more, then pulled out the following terrible analogy:

"I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same."

A modern Ray Charles would sound like Kanye West? Really? What about Cee Lo Green or one of the other popular modern Motown-style singers? But then, this analogy reinforces how 2K doesn't understand the point that fans of the early X-COM series were making. It's definitely possible to modernize an old gaming franchise without causing it to completely lose its identity. A turn-based strategy title could be given a quicker and more modern battle system, but it doesn't need to be turned into a first-person shooter in a market already crowded with FPS games.

Also, I stand by my opinion that Kanye West isn't fit to tune Ray Charles' piano. Feel free to hate on that one in the comments if you'd like.

EA Acquisition of PopCap Official

EA was recently rumored to be acquiring casual gaming giant PopCap for the impressive price tag of two billion dollars. The final price turned out to be a fair bit lower, but still a great deal more than pocket change. EA's official announcement on Tuesday stated that PopCap was bought for $650 million plus stock and earn-outs totaling up to $1.2 billion. That'll be more than a few copies of Bejeweled.

On PopCap's side, the merger appears to be amicable. PopCap promises that its creative corporate culture isn't in danger, and has even produced the following adorable letter to EA from the PvZ zombies:

Operation Rainfall Reports Good News

As we reported a couple weeks ago, Operation Rainfall is a campaign that has been dedicated to pushing for the publication of several Wii RPGs in North America. Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower are all Japanese RPGs being localized and released by Nintendo of Europe, but Nintendo of America has yet to announce that they're crossing the pond.

Late last week, the Operation Rainfall blog reported that an anonymous source within Nintendo had contacted them. This source claims that Xenoblade's North American localization is complete, and The Last Story's is in progress. Exactly how much these localizations differ from the UK English versions is unknown—perhaps Nintendo is carefully removing words such as "dodgy" and "crumpet." If this source is credible, that's great news for Op Rainfall and Wii RPG fans. Two out of three ain't bad at all. We'll just have to wait and see when Nintendo gets around to making an official announcement.

By Becky Cunningham
CCC Contributing Writer

*The views expressed within this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not express the views held by Cheat Code Central.*