'Drug Wars' offers fresh start for Merchants of Brooklyn
by James Ransom-Wiley 
on Jul 2nd 2009 7:55PM
If people can clean their hands with a simple name change, then why can't games? Paleo Entertainment recently
re-dubbed its bargain-priced shooter,
Merchants of Brooklyn, as
"Drug Wars." Currently exclusive to Steam,
Merchants of Brooklyn suffered an
embarrassing release in mid-March when an alpha version was mistakenly sold in place of the final code and apparently failed to recover
any credibility. Its
Metacritic score of "36" ranks near the bottom of all 2009 games to date.
"Drug Wars," on the other hand, ranks
decidedly better with a "No Score Yet" rating.
The new name wasn't exactly pulled from thin air (well, at least not this time), as "Drug Wars" was adopted from last month's free, beta-release multiplayer update by the same name. Paleo is clearly shifting focus away from the original single-player campaign -- which has since been "
reworked" -- and toward the Drug Wars multiplayer mode. Of course, the fresh start also means building a player base from scratch. Currently, we
count three -- and a fourth player who "can't find it to play it." Sounds like this is one of those
cold kinda wars, eh?
Keep that fire burning, Mr. Elite Neanderthal Fighter. Keep that fire burning.
