With GameCock getting acquired by Southpeak Interactive last month, it's no surprise that the formerly independent publisher's games aren't exactly getting a high profile release.

Nonetheless, myth-based shooter "Legendary" has come out and, according to Variety critic Chris Dahlen, it's a very mixed bag:

“Legendary” has the heart of a great monster mash-up: It throws together mythical beasts that span the globe, from the Greek griffon to Jewish golems to Slavic pixies, and marries them to a cornball story about the rediscovery of Pandora’s Box. Though it brings gusto, wit and a sharp eye for horror cliches, “Legendary” is still at its core a clunky, mediocre first-person shooter that’s likely to vanish under the mountain of topnotch actioners shipping this month.

Apparently the game is full of stuff like this: "No sooner does an innocent civilian or a gung-ho soldier greet Deckard than a giant tentacle sweeps them away — or a bus lands on their head." As Chris writes, it's "schlocky haunted house logic," but it's hard to deny that kind of thing has its gut level appeal when it makes you gasp.

Full review: Legendary

It's been a short and unfortunately none-too-successful run for GameCock, the brash/abrasive independent game publisher that will probably be remembered more for its obnoxious publicity stunts for the disastrous "Hail to the Chimp" than the games it managed to put out (basically just "Chimp," "Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball," and "Dementium: the Ward," the latter of which wasn't too bad).

Any independent company counting on a small release slate of original titles  performing well is in a very precarious position financially. The company was primarily funded by one wealthy private investor, CEO Mike Wilson told me, though he would never admit who it was. That's one more ingredient in a formula that probably fell apart after "Chimp," which GameCock promoted the crap out of, got terrible reviews and bombed.

So now GameCock has been bought by small publisher SouthPeak, in a deal that includes literally no up front money. I delved into SouthPeak's most recent SEC filing to find out just what SouthPeak had to pay to buy Gamecock and found out there are two payouts:

-7% of the revenue from the sales of GameCock games in development that Southpeak releases

-a warrant to purchase 700,000 shares of Southpeak stock

So basically SouthPeak releases whichever GameCock games it wants (it is already committed to "Legendary" and "Mushroom Men," which are set to come out in the next couple of months) and only has to give up 7% of the revenue. If they don't sell well, it doesn't have to pay GameCock's current owners very much. It's almost all upside.

As for the stock options, I checked with a SouthPeak rep the exact value is a very complex formula that has to do with how and whether SouthPeak stock rises in the future, presumably in part thanks to GameCock if everything goes well. SouthPeak stock is currently trading at $2.35, so even if it goes up soon and the formula is calculated to benefit GameCock, it's hard to see how those warrants could be worth much more than a few million dollars. After all, SouthPeak's entire market cap is only $4.5 million. It doesn't have that much equity to give away.

A deal this risky indicates that GameCock must have been in pretty desperate straits and basically just needed someone to take over distribution of its games ASAP.

MTV has an interview with SouthPeak CEO Melanie Mroz in which she indicates she's not clear whether she'll keep the GameCock brand or whether Wilson will be joining her company.

I always had a tough time figuring out what "Hail to the Chimp" was in the previews I attended: a soft political satire framing a bunch of mini-games where anthropomorphic presidential candidate collect clams? Tres bizarre, but the guys from Gamecock and Wideload always seemed enthusiastic -- not just because they had been drinking -- and so I assumed there was probably more depth to the gameplay and actual humor than I was seeing.

Apparently not, according to Variety critic Leigh Alexander. As Leigh wrote on her own blog, "I like to think that I have the ability to see something good in everything... Alas, I can't remember the last time I disliked a game nearly this much." It' s a pretty brutal review, but her points are well backed up. Clams falling from the sky as players try to "hack the vote?" Greasy haired armadillo's with Mexican accents? Yeesh.

Here's a good excerpt from Leigh's review:

There's really nothing at all electoral about the minigames aside from stage names like "The Watergates" and "Political Machine." In many cases, the 16 different games overlap so much that it's hardly worth choosing one over the other -- all of them have a polar bear, sloth, hippo and other animal candidates competing to collect googly eyed clams, which inexplicably represent votes, or voters, or something like that.

And you can read the whole thing here.

When you see a bunch of adults dressed up in furry hippopotamus, woodchuck, and polar bear costumes, it probably means one thing: GameCock is in town.

The indie publisher came to L.A. on Super Tuesday to promote “Hail to the Chimp,” its political-themed animal party game that comes out this spring. I found their bus parked behind the LA County Museum of Art, where they were doing a few last demos before preparing to crash the John McCain party at Hollywood bar The Cat and the Fiddle.

GameCock CEO Mike Wilson – wearing the same “Ski Iraq” t-shirt I saw him in at last summer’s E3, but looking a lot less plastered – showed off the game with two folks from developer Wideload. The gameplay is pretty basic – beat down your opponents and collect “clams” to win votes – but it’s quite ambitious in terms of on- and offline four-person competitions, high-end graphics, and a huge amount of satirical wrap-around content from its faux-news network, GRR news, hosted by a Woodchuck. A commercial for Oprah as a killer whale named Orcrah was a favorite of mine. (GRR has an extensive Web presence already. I particularly recommend the history of the network.). I’ll also admit I was surprised to find out the game uses Unreal Engine, since I think I’ve yet to see an Unreal game that didn’t feature guys with biceps bigger than my head blowing away everything in sight.

GameCock has apparently taken its game character furries to a few states in conjunction with caucuses/primaries in Iowa, South Carolina and now California.It’s mostly for promotion, obviously, but they are also running a voter registration site called Cock the Vote and are planning to do some more work with Rock the Vote – which seems like a good way to earn back karma after ruining Ken Levine’s acceptance speech at the Spike Video Game Awards.