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Let’s Play Trapped Dead! ep. 1 p. 3

Meant to post this up awhile ago. I attempted, but Youtube failed. And then Diablo 3 happened.

Alright, kids, let’s review:

  • To select a character, left-click.
  • To select multiple characters, right-click and drag.
  • To use a medkit, select the character with the medkit, equip the medkit (you can only equip one item at a time), and then left-click on the character you’d like to heal.
  • To attack an enemy, select the character, equip the weapon, and then right-click the enemy.
  • To select multiple enemies to attack continuously, select the character, equip a gun, and then hold shift and right-click-and-drag. Or was it right-click-and-drag and then press shift? I attempted both, and neither worked for me.

Stupid control scheme is stupid.

Here’s Jarenth’s post.

Posted by  |  May 21, 2012 | Categories: Let's Play | Tags: | 3 Comments »

Torchlight 2 Beta Weekend

Torchlight 2 is having their beta stress test this weekend. No, that is not a joke, though it sure as hell sounds like one.

For those of you unaware, Torchlight 2 is an action RPG in development by Runic Games, a company formed from some of the guys behind Diablo 1 and 2. Torchlight 2 has quickly been set up by its developers and fans as the “anti-Diablo 3,” since it has offline play, modding capabilities, and features stat points and skill trees while Diablo 3 has a radically different skill system.

(Of course, one could argue that Diablo 3 is more true to the Diablo way since Diablo 2′s skill system was radically different from Diablo 1, but that’s a story for another day.)

Anyway, the TL2 v. D3 dichotomy has become the biggest flamewar in the gaming community today, and most of the fans and haters on either side don’t seem to be aware that a lot of people are actually interested in both games.

And it seems Runic isn’t aware of that either, because they’re having their beta weekend immediately follow Diablo 3′s release.

I don’t know what to say.

Actually, I do know what to say: Are you serious, Runic? Deny it all you like, but your game is very similar to Diablo 3, and considering how much of a juggernaut that franchise is, this is practically the equivalent of an independent war shooter having its beta weekend immediately follow the release of Modern Warfare 3. This is a game you do not go up against under any fucking circumstances.

The first Torchlight was essentially Diablo 2 with three characters, one town, and no multiplayer. It was fun, but it got repetitive very quickly. Torchlight 2 looks more promising, but I simply can’t find myself as interested in it as I am about Diablo 3, a game that’s been coming for over a decade. I would have jumped at the opportunity to play the Torchlight 2 beta, but if given the option between that and playing more Diablo, I’ll go with the latter.

(I actually won’t be playing either this weekend, as I’ll be on a canoeing trip, but that’s neither here nor there.)

The bottom line is that the Torchlight and Diablo fanbases are not mutually exclusive, and you can’t simply ignore the release of your direct competitor, especially when it’s Diablo Fucking Three.

The more I hear and read about Torchlight 2, the less it seems like an attempt to make a good game with its own identity, and the more it seems like a love letter to the people who are still bitter about Diablo 3′s DRM. This beta event in particular seems like a middle finger to anyone who wants to play both games. I was planning on buying your game, Runic, but if this is how you’re going to play it, I might hold my money back.

So to anyone who thinks Blizzard has joined the Dark Side and has lost its way, you should probably give Torchlight 2 a look. To everyone else, I recommend Diablo 3. It’s a fantastic game, and I plan to explain why in the next few weeks. And if I fail to deliver on this promise again, I give you full permission to drag me behind the shed and beat me with a stick.

Posted by  |  May 17, 2012 | Categories: AAA Games | Tags: , | 10 Comments »

Preablo III

So, Diablo 3 comes out tomorrow, as you all probably know at this point.

Diablo 3 has to be the most controversial subject in gaming right now. It’s arguably one of the most widely anticipated games ever at this point, and yet there’s an overwhelming number of former Diablo fans expressing rage, disappointment and disinterest in the game because of its required Internet connection and real-money auction house. It’s caused any forum thread regarding Diablo to turn into a battlefield of fans vs. ex-fans, one side saying Blizzard is stupid and evil now and the other side saying they’re butthurt over nothing.

Personally, I’m not happy about the required online connection, but I’ve preordered the game regardless and am very much looking forward to it. I don’t like that you have to play on an online server even for single player, but I understand why they’re doing it (anti-piracy, more incentive to buy auction house items, etc.) and I’m confident that it won’t ruin this game for me, especially since I’ll mostly be playing multiplayer with friends anyway.

I played Diablo 1 when I was three years old. It was the first RPG, as well as the first graphically violent game, I ever played. Everyone in my family played it, and we all had fun. Diablo 2 was a rare example of a game that both my brothers and I all played obsessively. My brother Neil, who normally doesn’t particularly care for games, played Diablo 2 for hundreds of hours, getting multiple characters to level 80+ and literally decking them out in the very best items in existence without using cheats.

I’ll admit I felt nostalgia tingling through my spine as I played the Diablo 3 beta during the open weekend. As pitiful as it may sound, this franchise has played a prominent role in my life. Furthermore, I’ve loved every single Blizzard game since Warcraft 2, so it seems unwise for me to skip this latest installment.

If you’re abstaining from D3 because of its always-on DRM, I respect that. It’s your choice, whether you base it on principles or a lack of a reliable connection. Hell, it took me awhile to decide whether I’d be buying the game myself. I wouldn’t dare take the choice away from you.

But you are not a holy crusader battling the forces of evil. You are not a courageous protester standing up against corporate injustice. You’re just a guy (or girl, of course) who’s decided not to buy a game because it doesn’t let you play offline. And that’s fine, so long as you don’t talk about it as if Blizzard is “evil” and anybody who’s buying the game is stupid, wrong, and/or “part of the problem.”

I understand it’s easy to get upset about the fact that its required online connection won’t stop Diablo 3 from selling incredibly well and being loved by critics and gamers. I’m against the always-on DRM template, and I don’t like that it’s being used in a game I’m so interested in. But this won’t become the norm for every game, no matter how well Diablo 3 does. Even if it’s adopted by EA, Activision and Ubisoft (and I doubt all three of them will put it in every game they release) there will still be plenty of other studios who don’t use it. Thanks to Steam, Desura, Kickstarter and so on, there are plenty of avenues for independent developers to release high-quality games with no required connection.

It’s easy to hate anybody who supports Diablo 3, but consider where I stand. Diablo 3 is a game I’ve been looking forward to for years. I played through the beta and enjoyed it thoroughly. I don’t like some of the choices they’ve made regarding it, but my internet connection is generally reliable enough for it not to be a huge problem, and from my perspective it seems like a game that will be worth every dollar I spend. This doesn’t make me “weak-willed;” I’ve done my research, weighed the pros and cons, and concluded that this game is worth purchasing despite its flaws. It’s not ignorant; it’s what you’ve done for literally every game you’ve spent your own money on.

It’s easy to preach about “the principle of the matter” until you realize that if you were truly 100% against the idea of a publisher trying to keep control of its product after it’s been sold, you would have stopped buying games as soon as they added serial keys. The truth is that everybody draws a line at some point, and you shouldn’t hate us for drawing our lines a bit farther down the road than you.

In short, if you don’t buy the game, that’s fine. Just don’t patronize those of us who do.

Posted by  |  May 14, 2012 | Categories: AAA Games | Tags: | 14 Comments »

Trapped Dead! ep. 1 p. 2

Here’s part 2 of episode 1 of our zombie conga line smacking adventures:

I can actually attack now! Except mostly not really, because the amount of ammo they gave me is so miniscule compared to the massive number of zombies we fight that I left most of the killing to Jarenth and his mighty baseball bat.

This game could have benefited from more weapon ammunition, at least in multiplayer. Perhaps even the infinite stockpiles you find in Left 4 Dead 2. I know it’s supposed to be about tense survival, but when you expect us to kill that many zombies it’s a bit unreasonable to expect the professor to use such few bullets.

In single player you control both characters simultaneously, so it makes sense to hold the professor back and only use him in emergencies. But in multiplayer, each player controls one character. So whoever gets stuck as the professor (i.e. me) is going to get bored.

Then again, examining the ways this game could be improved is like analyzing Duke Nukem Forever. Where does one even start?

For any who are curious, Jarenth is posting each episode on BSOA as well. Here’s the link for today.

Posted by  |  May 11, 2012 | Categories: Let's Play | 3 Comments »

Let’s Play Trapped Dead! ep. 1 p. 1

Well, here’s my third attempt at a Let’s Play.

My first attempt was playing Unreal with a friend of mine watching and co-hosting. It sucked. I learned a few lessons there: don’t choose a game you don’t know will be interesting to watch, don’t use Livestream Procaster to record footage for an LP, etc. We went on for awhile before we concluded that nobody gave a shit. Oh well. Count your losses and move on.

My second attempt was Magicka with three friends playing cooperatively with me and co-commentating. It had better potential, but also sucked. More lessons I learned: make sure to include audio from both the game and Ventrilo, and more importantly, don’t make an LP with people who just want to play the game and don’t really give a shit about making an LP that’s entertaining for other people to watch. We only made one episode before we tossed that idea aside.

Now I’m playing Trapped Dead with buddy and fellow internet blogger person Jarenth from Blue Screen of Awesome. It has in-game audio and our voices, we both deliver commentary and hopefully funny banter, and we’re playing a game that we found downright fascinating in an eerie sort of way.

Trapped Dead is an absolute mess. In single player it’s a tedious, frustrating mess; in multiplayer it’s a hilarious, bewildering mess. The control scheme is bafflingly unintuitive, and every input command has an obnoxious delay. In single player you have to play as carefully as possible to overcome these issues, which makes the game akin to pulling teeth. In coop, however, the challenge is alleviated by giving you an infinite number of respawns, turning the game into Zombie Conga Line Smacker 2011.

More episodes should be coming in the next few days. Helpful comments and criticisms are appreciated as always. And since everyone on Youtube tells me to subscribe all the time, I guess I should tell you the same.

Posted by  |  May 9, 2012 | Categories: Let's Play | Tags: | 3 Comments »

Game-Story-Art: A Gamer Survey for YOU

Heather Young, wife of web-personality-who-I-can’t-seem-to-stop-mentioning Shamus Young, has made a survey of sorts on her blog. She’s compiled a list of different reasons for why people play games, and she wants to know why YOU play games and what you think of her list.

She’s made the list in collaboration with her husband and with James Portnow of Extra Credits fame, and as people have commented she has edited and added extra entries to the list. So far it is as follows:

  • Escape
  • Story
  • Goal
  • God Complex
  • Aesthetics
  • Comfort
  • Achievement
  • Reflex
  • Explore
  • Compete
  • Social
  • Bonding
  • Risk
  • Zen
  • Self-expression
  • Craft
  • Optimization
  • Empowerment
  • Novelty
  • Fandom

Please, go read the post yourself to see what each one of those means.

I really like the list. It reminds me of that BrainHex thing I wrote about awhile back, but it’s considerably more subdivided.

I might as well copy and paste my own response:

I probably have enjoyed games for most of the reasons you’ve listed, but as for what makes me tick the most?

Well, my four general favorite genres are platformers, stealth games, shooters, and brawlers. I think the reason for all of these comes down to what some have called “kinesthetics” and others have called “game feel.”

I like platformers because I like the feeling of nimbly running and jumping across complex environments. I like stealth games because I like the feeling of quickly and cleverly backstabbing an unsuspecting guard. I like shooters because I like the feeling of running across the battlefield and blasting the enemies to smithereens, and I like brawlers because I like the feeling of bashing down (or slashing, or using whatever weapon the game gives me to down) a cavalcade of mooks. Above all, I love the feeling of being in fast, intense situations, and of being fast, smart, powerful and capable.

This is probably a combination of Aesthetics and Empowerment. Those two would probably be highest on the list for me, though Self-Expression would likely be third (I spend HOURS adjusting my characters’ cosmetics and sometimes make up backstories for them).

As for what I don’t like: Risk, as you’ve called it. I HATE when luck is deliberately made a deciding factor in what happens. When I lose, I want to know it was my fault so I can improve myself and do it right next time. If I die because the d20 landed on a 1, I’m going to feel cheated by the designers of the game.

Anyway, I’ve posted this here so that anybody who hasn’t already seen it can do so.I love these sorts of analysis and categorization systems. It’s not that I feel the need to classify myself; I just find it very fruitful to examine the inner workings of one’s own mind.

Post a comment over there and let her know what you think.

Posted by  |  April 21, 2012 | Categories: Links | Leave A Comment »

Crafting a Forum RPG Ruleset

I apologize for my posting schedule being rather unsteady lately. I’ve been preoccupied by various things as of late, one of which is an RPG ruleset I’ve been working on for a little forum that I won’t be linking to today.

It took me until now to realize that crafting a forum RPG ruleset might actually be a worthy topic of discussion on a gaming blog.

Activity has been down at this nonspecific forum lately, and I figured I’d do some sort of event to make people post again. And of course, this event would have to involve games, because remember who you’re talking to.

I’m sure I could probably just look up some forum RPG template online, but fuck that, I want to flex my creativity glands.

Anyway, the first thing I did was come up with some base stats. Every RPG has to have base stats, from D&D to Fallout to Diablo to Final Fantasy. You’ve got to cover the baselines for a character’s abilities to determine what they’re good at and what purpose they ought to serve.

I gathered the usual list: Strength, agility, intellegence, endurance, etc. Then I started to feel like I was ripping off of Fallout just a bit too much, so I decided I’d change up the names to give it a sense of newness.

After some fiddling with a thesaurus, I came up with stats corresponding with the letters ABCDEF: Aptitude (Intelligence), Brawn (Strength), Charm (Charisma), Discernment (Perception), Endurance (couldn’t think of another E-word) and Finesse (Agility). Strip the name changes away and this is precisely Fallout minus Luck, but whatever, at least it has the illusion of being original.

Then it was time to devise a combat system.

Messing with grids is fine in a tabletop setting, but in forums it can get very confusing. But I didn’t just want a scenario where anybody can attack anybody. I wanted some sense of spatial location so that the players could use strategic placement and teamwork.

I ultimately came up with a 1-dimensional line in which a limited number of party members (probably 3 or 4) can occupy one block. You can attack adjacent blocks with a melee weapon, and you can shoot two blocks away with a ranged weapon (or more, depending on what weapon type you have).

So if we were using D&D classes, a decent general setup would be this:

Like Fire Emblem, if everyone lined up in one row. Sort of?

Looks face-slappingly simple, I know. The idea is that it would become more complicated and more interesting once I introduced more elements.

Then it came time for the actual meat of the ordeal: the numbers. I had to come up with skills, weapons, attacks, special abilities, and numbers to account for all of those. And to make it more complicated, I decided early on that I wouldn’t restrict everything to classes like in D&D and so many others. I wanted a more freeform character creation system like the one in Fallout, where you can feel like your character is your own person with his own unique talents.

Eventually I ran into a few roadblocks that caused me to rethink the entire system.

1. This is a small forum consisting largely of non-gamers and casual gamers. A lot of them probably have never played a number-crunchy game like this, and would feel rather intimidated if I dropped this all on the table.

2. I don’t have experience with this sort of thing. The only tabletop game I’ve played is Dungeons & Dragons. (Well, two if you count editions 3.0 and 3.5 as different games.) Granted I’ve played quite a bit of it, but I’ve never DM’d a campaign, save for a few silly one-off sessions, much less created an entire ruleset on my own. Balancing a classless system is hell, especially when you’re only one guy who hasn’t made a game before. Best not to jump into the deep end with the sharks when you haven’t tried swimming yet.

3. A forum RPG consists of much more than combat. In fact, combat would most likely be a very small part of the actual campaign, which would largely consist of dialogue, exploration and problem-solving. Unlike most major video and computer RPGs which are mostly about murdering and looting, forum RPGs are much more about actual roleplaying. If I want my game to be any good, I should divert my focus away from the combat and toward, you know, everything else.

So I decided to drastically simplify the entire concept. I scrapped the combat system, took the ABCDEF base stats and ran with them. In the game I’m currently envisioning, all the dice-rolling is limited to those attributes. Each one functions like a skill in D&D, where you’ll roll a stat check whenever you try to solve a problem. Accomplishing tasks would result in leveling up the associated stats.

“I use Brawn to break the door down!” “I use Aptitude to hack the computer!” “I use Charm to take off her bra!” Etc.

This stone kills all three birds. There’s no number-crunching to tangle with, it’s easy for me to keep up with and manage, and it’s simple enough for non-gamers to jump in and play.

Then I realized that if a stat is only used when a player chooses to use it, Endurance and Discernment are rarely ever going to be used because those are very passive attributes. Endurance would be used to calculate hit points and environmental resistance, while Discernment would be used to see if the player managed to hear a distant noise or spot a creeping predator.

So I reduced the stats to ABCD: Aptitude, Brawn, Charm, and Deftness.

It was at this point that I realized my game no longer resembles Fallout so much as it does Echo Bazaar. I’m alright with this. Now I need to think of a name. And a setting, and a story, and characters.

Say, does any of this interest any of you? If not I’ll go back to complaining about old games.

Posted by  |  April 9, 2012 | Categories: Projects | 26 Comments »

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Hmm…

I think…

Well I didn’t…

Hm.

Would it be weird if I said I sort of enjoyed this game?

I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as its predecessor, mind you. It doesn’t come anywhere close to standing up against that shining gem. I wouldn’t call it great. I don’t think I’d even call it good. But I had fun with it, sort of, sometimes.

Gameplay-wise, it’s alright, I guess. Stripping away the skill points and simplifying the augmentations basically just made it a somewhat clunky stealth shooter with some serious balance issues. I heard people complain that ammo is overly scarce, but I maxed out the melee augmentations and could tear everything apart with my mighty laser sword. The game threw in giant robots to make things harder, but there’s a certain augmentation that allows you to take control of machines by smacking them with whatever melee weapon you want, so they really only made the fights easier for me.

Still, though, it was kind of impressive to see what Ion Storm could do with the tiny map size limits that they had. Some of the levels actually feel kind of complex, about as much as some of the smaller areas of Deus Ex 1. And while the restrictions did mean that a lot of the exploration and combat was far less interesting than what we’d had before, the game still allowed me to roleplay a Jedi ninja hiding in shadows and stabbing guards with a lightsaber, so I have to at least give it credit for that.

However!

I already linked to the Errant Signal episode on Invisible War. Here, I’ll just put it down below.

I agree with a lot of his points, but there are two things he says at around the 13 minute mark I have to object to.

“One of the things the game manages to do …okay is the story.”

I disagree with that…

“Narrative was never one of Deus Ex’s strong suits, so the bar was never set that high.”

And I strenuously object to that.

MILD SPOILERS OF BOTH DEUS EX 1 AND INVISIBLE WAR AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There’s a sequence in Deus Ex 1 in which you accompany a young woman named Nicolette DuClare to search the abandoned mansion where she used to live. See, Nicolette is the daughter of Elizabeth DuClare, who was a leading member of the Illuminati. As a result, the mansion is absolutely filled with secret stashes, trap doors, and emergency levers and buttons. As you search the mansion Nicolette makes comments about her childhood, how she used to see strange men in suits all the time, how her mother was always on edge, etc.

It was basically a character study, a window view into the life of a child whose mother is involved in a global conspiracy. And it was fascinating. It really fleshed out both the character of Nicolette DuClare and the world she inhabited. And this is sort of indicative of the game as a whole; it’s huge and it has quite a large cast of major characters, and yet the world feels rich and all those major NPCs have depth and diversity.

In Deus Ex: Invisible War you meet Nicolette DuClare. She’s one of the leaders of the Illuminati now. She delivers some plot exposition and then sends you to your next quest objective.

That’s it.

There aren’t many characters in the game that actually feel fleshed out in any meaningful way. Once again, there’s quite a sizable list of them, but most of them seem like one-dimensional cardboard cutouts placed into the level to move the story forward. Some of them are written fairly well, but you never really get any time to know them. This, to me, was the most disappointing thing of all in Invisible War: It just doesn’t feel like a world filled with people in the same way its predecessor did.

I suppose you could blame this on the game itself being significantly smaller, but if you have a smaller game, give it less major NPCs so we can have the proper time to get to know them. That’s what Human Revolution did, and that game has some of the strongest, best developed characters I’ve seen in awhile.

Invisible War didn’t satisfy me, but like I said, the game did amuse me to a degree. Like a bag of chips. I really can’t bring myself to hate it, though I suspect that’s because I had such low expectations to begin with, but somehow it still ended up disappointing me.

I don’t know if I can ever look at Deus Ex again now that I have this stupid sequel in my memory. Can I really just pretend none of that stuff happened and that JC Helios instituted the Heliocracy and everything was lovely? Or is it not that simple?

Posted by  |  April 6, 2012 | Categories: "Old" Games | Tags: , | 2 Comments »

More on the Mass Effect 3 Ending Dispute

First: I already said this in my last post, but since some people felt the need to explain to me how Mass Effect 3′s ending sucks so badly, I feel the need to reiterate: I wasn’t, nor am I currently, trying to defend Mass Effect 3′s ending. I’m merely pointing out that many, if not most, of these fans involved in the Retake Mass Effect movement are acting immature, disrespectful and downright stupid. (Note that I’m not saying they are stupid — merely that they’re acting like idiots. There is a difference.)

Also, again, nobody post any spoilers in the comments section.

Okay, so I’ve been hearing some people claim they deserve compensation because “Bioware shipped a broken, defective product.”

Holy shit, really?

No, not really. From what I can gather from reading lots of comments while deftly avoiding spoilers, the ending is:

  • non-sequitur
  • illogical
  • stupid
  • unfitting with the themes and tone of the rest of the series
  • lacking any sense of closure or explanation of what just happened

If all those are true, I can absolutely understand why fans are angry and upset with Bioware, but they’re still making utterly baseless accusations. None of those point to a “broken and defective” ending, they merely point to a bad ending.

You can’t get your money back because of a bad ending. If you could, then Peter Molyneux owes a lot of people a lot of money for all three Fable games.

I know what you’ll say next: “Bioware promised us so many things about the endings that they didn’t deliver! They promised us our choices throughout the series would affect the ending and it wouldn’t just be A, B, or C and etc. etc.!”

I have yet to see these promises in any of the advertising or on the back of the box, so I’m pretty sure these were all things Bioware said they were working on during interviews. Here’s the thing, gamers: When a developer “promises” features during interviews, that does not guarantee anything.

And I’m shocked that so many presumably adult gamers haven’t grasped this yet, considering all the times we’ve had developers “promise” all sorts of features and fail to include many of them because of time or budget constraints, or simply because they decided on another idea they thought was better later on. I mean, fuck, have any of these protesters even heard of Peter Molyneux? That guy has based his entire career off of outright lying during interviews, promising the earth and then churning out half-assed products.

One more I’ve been hearing: “Bioware released a game without an ending.”

Is there ever a point when the credits roll? Does the game ever say THE END at any point, or imply that the campaign mode might have stopped? If so, then this is a game with an ending. It might be a bad ending, but it’s still an ending.

I’ve seen multiple articles deconstructing why the ending fails as a work of fiction. I haven’t read them, of course, since I’m avoiding spoilers, but I’ll just assume they’re correct. The ending might fail to provide closure or affirmation, but speaking from a literal standpoint, yes, the game does have an ending. Just a really, really bad one. You don’t get your money back because of that.

Frankly, I’m sick of seeing this. People like me point out how stupid a lot of the “protesters” are acting, and they get countered by people explaining that the ending seriously, totally sucks.

News flash #3: I wasn’t even discussing the ending! I was discussing the backlash!

“Your game fails on a fictional standpoint; therefore it’s a defective piece of software and I deserve reimbursement” is a completely absurd mentality. As a piece of software, Mass Effect 3 functions exactly as advertised. If it fails as a work of fiction, you throw it in a trash bin and move on.

If I published a book with a crappy ending, nobody would be beating my door down demanding that I rewrite the last five pages. That’s just not how it works.

Posted by  |  March 30, 2012 | Categories: AAA Games | Tags: , | 28 Comments »

The “Retake Mass Effect” Movement

Quick note: this post is 100% Mass Effect Spoiler-Free. This also applies to the comments section, so if anybody posts a comment with Mass Effect 3 spoilers, it will be deleted and I will get angry about it. Anyway,

As a wise website has said, Gamers Are Embarrassing. That’s not an insult, as far as I’m concerned — that’s a simple fact. Not all gamers are embarrassing, but for all the annoying sports fans, annoying film geeks and annoying bookaholics, somehow gamers take the cake with an extraordinary lack of self-awareness and cluelessness to the world around them.

They obsess over and lust after nonexistent characters, they incessantly harass women for being women, they rage out because a product they bought has decreased in price, and they accuse a $10 cosmetic in-game item of being an “unethical” business practice. It seems that every time gamers gain attention from the media it just makes me shake my head in dismay.

But this time, it’s sunk to a new level.

I think it’s literally impossible for you to have not heard about the controversy until now, but just in case you haven’t, Mass Effect 3 was recently released and had a massive hype and fanbase surrounding it. This third installment was said to end the trilogy of Commander Shepard, and while it does evidently end the story (I’m going by what I’ve heard, I haven’t played it myself) it doesn’t end in a way that the fans like.

Well, that’s a pretty massive understatement. Starting just a few days after the game’s release, angry fans started a  movement called “Retake Mass Effect.” They’ve joined together and demanded that Bioware make a new ending and release it for free, claiming that they are entitled to it because they bought it. They’ve complained all over the Internet, they’ve written petitions, and most famously of all, they filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. No, that’s not a joke.

I don’t even know where to fucking start.

I think the name of this effort is the most telling part: Retake Mass Effect implies that the franchise was ever theirs to begin with, and that it’s time to take it back. News flash, angry fans: Unless you work for Bioware or EA, the franchise was never yours to begin with. If you really want to take Mass Effect, you’d better have a lot of money and some good lawyers.

The idea that you’re somehow entitled to more content if the original content wasn’t to your liking is completely absurd. News flash #2: When you buy a product you are taking a risk. Sometimes the dice will fail you. It is not your place to decide when a company owes you more content, even if it “ruined the rest of the series” for you. Call it unfair all you like. Life is not fair.

I’m not saying you aren’t allowed to criticize, and I’m not saying you’re not allowed to ask Bioware for post-ending DLC or say that you’d buy it if given the opportunity. There is a huge difference between asking and making demands. Making a request shows politeness and understanding, and it implies that you know you’re not the one who owns the rights to the property. Making a demand is rude, insulting and implies a position of power that you don’t have in this case. It implies that you have the right to make decisions for the company, when you never had that right in the first place.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen an entitlement complex this egregious. These guys make Valve fans look reasonable and level-headed in comparison.

Yeah, I know what you’re going to say: “But they raised money for Child’s Play!” I know. Charity is great, and I’m glad to see something positive come out of this stupid, stupid controversy. But I don’t give them any points for it, because it’s obvious why they did it: they did it for leverage. They did because they thought media sites wouldn’t be able to criticize them because they’re “doing a good thing.” They did it for positive publicity first and any other reason second, and it’s clear as day.

It’s essentially the equivalent of a politician kissing a baby. He’s not doing it because he loves babies, he’s doing it so people will think he’s a nice guy.

Back off. I know what you're up to.

Bioware has made comments about retconning the ending and making a new one. I’m really concerned by this. Not because it destroys the game’s artistic integrity, but because it’s a sign to all the angry, entitled morons that their actions are justified. It will make them think that they can get what they want by throwing a tantrum and blowing things out of proportion.

I hate to say this, but it really seems like a slippery slope from here. What will the Half-Life fans do when Episode 3 doesn’t reveal who the G-Man is? What will Grand Theft Auto fans do when GTA5 doesn’t let you have sex with prostitutes? What will Duke Nukem fans do when the next game doesn’t let you watch women get raped by aliens?

I’m not trying to defend the ending, or claim that it’s good. I haven’t played the game yet. I know next to nothing about the ending. But frankly, I don’t care how bad it is. I don’t care if it ends with Harbinger giving the camera a middle finger. I don’t care if it ends with an impromptu non sequitur song-and-dance-routine. Nothing justifies this level of outrage and stupidity.

So you thought the ending was bad.

BIG.

FUCKING.

DEAL.

You know what you do about it? You criticize it. Criticize the hell out of it! Send an email to Bioware or post on their forum letting them know that you strongly dislike the ending to their game. If your friends are considering getting it, warn them that the ending RUINED THE SERIES for you. If you’re really pissed off you can get a blog or website of your own and write a few posts of angry ramblings.

And then you know what you do? You fucking deal with it. Find a new game to play. Read a book. Watch a movie. Go to a party. Smoke a hookah. I don’t care what you do, just find some coping mechanism that doesn’t make the rest of us look like a bunch of spoiled brats with no concept of how the world works.

Christ. You know why nobody takes gamers seriously? It’s because of shit like this.

Posted by  |  March 27, 2012 | Categories: Rants | Tags: , | 26 Comments »

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