Games 'n Stuff

Games "these days" are shorter than they have been since the 90s (with the exception of JRPGs which still clock in huge amounts of time due to grind). And regardless, I'm not prone to give the review engine any slack; the corruption of the system has been obvious for a while if you took the time to look into it and stuff like this and especially the Kane and Lynch incident* really blow it out into the open.

*For those not familiar, Eidos bought a lot of advertising space on GameSpot for Kane and Lynch 2. Then the guy writing the review for K&L2 gave it a moderately harsh review. Then Eidos threatened GameSpot due to all the money they'd given them. Then the guy got fired. The end.

Oh, I'm not denying that the review 'engine' such as it is is corrupt as hell. I'm just saying that even the well-meaning reviewers are hindered by the inability to review more than the first 10 or 15 hours of gameplay at best.

Honestly, in hindsight ME3 had a lot of flaws even aside from the ending. Most of it was gilted over with decent character writing, but the ending was hardly the only weak plot point of the franchise (killed [the Rachni Queen]? Oh look, there just happens to be another one, because coming up with another way to give Grunt some screentime would be too haaaaaard!). It was just the worst, and the only one that isn't worth forgiving.

Especially since that has the absolute best renegade interrupt in the entire series.

Yes, that link is a spoiler. If you don't get that me providing a link in direct response to someone talking about the second to last mission of a game might lead to a spoiler, then uh... yeah. Let me know. I've been running out of people to point and laugh at.

From what I've been reading the writer behind the ending was also behind that particular character. And the dream sequences for that matter, which could have worked if there'd been more to them than "kid runs and laughs, kid is curled up crying, kid catches fire". If the kid is supposed to be representing Shepard's doubts then why not bring in characters who've died because of the reapers over the trilogy?

It's pretty amusing to think that every single aspect of the game I hated is because of one bad writer bossing people around and demanding to do the most important aspects of the story himself.

edit: They're listening to all consructive critism.

If I didn't have such a big emotional investment in the series this would be hilarious.

This post has been edited by Ou des on Mar 22 2012, 03:03 AM

I'm starting to see the humor in it. It's dark humor, but it's there...

So...who wants to sell their soul to another sci-fi game? :V

It's (going to be) free! And it's pretty! And it has a dynamic open world like Tabula Rasa was supposed to and the shooting doesn't look like shit.

Specifically this one

Except it's in NDA/Fight Club beta right now and I can only share public knowledge, like the servers are up for only 2 days a week for four hours at a time (but that may change soon due to cryptic twitter clues) *checks under the table for Tyler Durden*

I have two invites, and 3 other forumites should also have two.

Found a Kingdom Hearts 3D stream. My day is set.

This person I know has been playing ME3 very slowly and he just told me something shocking.

He wanted Kai Leng to be a squad member.



I don't know if I can associate with him anymore.

Clearly someone who appreciates a character with a dark and broohahaha I can't even finish. Drop 'em like a bad habit and move on.

In totally awesome news...

While I would worry about it being picked up by a different company, I've played some of Cthulhu Saves the World, and it's fucking hilarious. It's not going to be the same kind of game as the first two. I can accept that. I just really want to play it.

Due to the shitstorm over the ending Bioware decided to release a free DLC for the ending. Yay.

Unfortunately they won't actually change anything just add new dialogue. Boo.


They also haven't asked Jenifer Hale to reprise the role of female Shepard, Wait, what? So they're not adding any new lines for female Shepard, and probably male Shepard too, which means we're still stuck with that abysmal Brat AI ending.

Lets see...

Argh. Well la de fucking da to that.

What assholes. They won't change a damn thing with that stupid ending.

Well maybe they'll add ... a Fourth Colored Explosion.

This post has been edited by Ou des on Apr 6 2012, 12:05 AM

Honestly, while I thought the ending was complete bullshit, it's their game and they can do whatever they want with it. It would be nice to get some of that shit cleared up, even though I'm pretty sure it's not going to touch on one of the things I've been wondering about that I haven't seen mentioned much. I'm not going to say anything like "ugh, I'm done with bioware" 'cause this was pretty much the only franchise of theirs I've played (I do have Dragon Age Origins, but I still haven't got around to playing it yet...), but their involvement with other games isn't going to do anything good for me, especially when "artistic vision" just means "we think it looks bitchin'" to them. (I'm sorry, the part with the Normandy served no purpose at all to the ending except to look cool. I'll fully admit that it did, but it also made no god damned sense.)

While I'm mildly curious as to what they plan to add, I'm probably going to read the breakdown online long before I get around to placing whichever disc it was back in there to rewatch the ending.

Y-you mean that's NOT what it means? ._.

Only if you want to believe my last picture of Anne Sirena was full of artistic vision, along with my 5000 hit pic.

Final shot of the new ending will be Kai Leng eating cereal against a backdrop of Casey Hudson shrugging. Or possibly giving you a middle finger. Because... art. And lots of speculation.

Really, they need to realise that it wasn't just that it was badly explained, it's that it was bad outright. People were already likely going to speculate on the changes you make in the game itself. Props to it being free DLC, but unless it's a hell of an explanation I can't see this extended cut helping things.

Bioware retrospective: ME 1 and 2 were great, and ME 3 had some good elements, but... yeah, there were issues throughout. Dragon Age: Origins was fun, but then they apparently got high and completely forgot where they were going with the series. Past that, they had one good KOTOR game, which they utterly flubbed the sequel for. The only game in their library that I can recommend without reservations is Jade Empire, and that's 7 years old. (Speaking of which, it's cheap on XBLA, if you haven't played it).

I'd been blaming EA for some of the problems but honestly? Bioware has a history of screwing shit up. They've made some solid gameplay, but they can't make a series for shit. I'm looking at the mess of ME3's ending, and all I can say now is "At least it isn't KOTOR 2".

Perspective done, initiate bitching circuit.

In the past two years, I've seen ONE "triple-A" title that I actually thought was good, and that was Skyrim (and that was a giant "screwing around" simulator). Other than that, it's been a giant disappointment competition, and I'm pretty much done with it. I can get far more enjoyment for far less money from small games developers than I can from the big names, so guess who's getting my money from here out and who's not.

Uh, Knight? Kotor 2 was Obsidian. And it was rushed quite hard by the publisher (Lucasaaaaaaaaarts!) to come out at the same time as one of the shitty, shitty prequals and thus the ending wasn't quite finished.

Don't get me wrong, blaming Bioware is a good start! But Kotor 2's unfinished state is sadly ob Obsidian (Even though I do like the story more then 1's).

Okay, my bad. In that case, Bioware just doesn't have that many memorable games in their catalog, period... though I guess Neverwinter Nights and Baldurs Gate II are points in their favor. Those were still both over a decade ago.

The only other Bioware games I own are KOTOR 1, which I never bothered to install and only got because of Steam sales, and the Sonic RPG on DS which I found to be nigh-unplayable. And looking up the ending on youtube it was also a pretty godawful finish to that game's story anyway.

So yeah, Mass Effect is more or less the only thing I was interested in by them and the ending has pretty much killed any replays I might have had in mind. Can't really say I'd be boycotting them when I've not really had much interest in what they've done anyway, largely because I'm not much of a PC gamer outside of point and clicks.

At this point, I'm "boycotting" EA, Ubisoft, AND Activision... pretty much because it costs me nothing. None of them are making anything I care to play anymore.