Has "The Grinder" Been Left 4 Dead?

[Mr Khan]

Joelcool7 said:

DarkCronos said:
there's a facebook fan-group about HVS which has some HVS staff in. according to some peole in the group the project was canceled near conduit 2 final stages, due to resource cuts.

That would make sense, also they may have simply put the title on hold till Conduit 2 launched. But as we all know Conduit 2 did so horrible that their is no way Sega would publish Grinder. In fact the hit HVS took from Conduit 2's overwhelming failure probably put the final nail in their hardcore coffin. The studio wanted to create some high quality titles based on their own IP rather then pushing out licensed shovel ware, but I think they have realized that they are incapable of producing the high end software needed to survive in the industry.

To be honest while Conduit wasn't anything ground breaking it sure as hell wasn't terrible. I never purchased Conduit 2 simply because I played the demo at PAX and it was horribly glitchy and such. I didn't want to take the risk by buying Conduit 2.

Seriously I think HVS should have been acquired by someone. They have some great ideas they just need some guidance and they need the financial and backing of a major publisher to create some great games. Its sad to see they may never break free of their shovel ware licensed software dependency. I would really like to see them become a real quality developer and I think Grinder could have helped them do that.

Its a shame that Conduit and Grinder both failed. If High Voltage had the finances I would say they should self publish and continue creating new IP with the aim of breaking free of licensed shovel ware. But in reality the failure of Conduit 2 is the final nail in their coffin!

No. Conduit 2's failure was intended from Sega from the start. The game was sent out to die, though i'll grant it was only so-so, it was pushed out with far less fanfare than Conduit 1, which was the inferior game by a good stretch. The fate of both games was sealed after Sega decided that The Conduit underperformed