Alternate title: Expansion for game no one wants likely attempting to package features promised in original release.
Or... Alternate title: *yawn*
So, Diablo 3 is getting an expansion... why? Does Blizzard think anyone wants to play this piece of shit? Perhaps I underestimate the... patience? Of the fanbase. A famous man once said "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
For me, all I know is that Fail-ablo still doesn't have the promised PvP content, I haven't been motivated to play it in months and none of my friends play it either... My hope is no one will buy this crap, my expectation is it will sell well enough... but far less than Diablo 3 sold.
Not much more to say at this point... but I felt the need to type out my frustration at even knowing this game still exists.
Oh well... Maybe they will make it NOT SUCK!
Keeper3, no they won't...
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Mass Effect 3 DLC
Subtitle: How I learned to ignore a shitty ending.
Sooo... it's been a while since the debacle of the Mass Effect 3 Sadly Shitty Ending (MESSE, pronounced 'messy'). I've gotten over it at some point, and decided to have a look at the DLC... including the extended ending.
Yes, that's right. I was so pissed at the ending that I didn't even bother to check out the extended ending until now.
So below, I shall give a paragraph on each DLC and then a conclusion, is ME3 better with or without DLC? Does the extended ending make the pain lesser? Is the DLC just an extra turd on the shit sandwich of the MESSE?
Let's see.
First off, let us speak of "From Ashes", day one DLC. It's not good enough for what they charge, simple as that. It should have been part of the main game... but this article is more about the later true DLC packages.
Omega; this one is ok, but overpriced. Aria wants to take back Omega, you help her and meet an old friend of hers... who then dies. You kill Cerberus for two, maybe three hours... kill a few odd reaper themed enemies in a rather alienesqe scene... that's it. Skip it.
Leviathan; I won't spoil this one at all, it's a must see for those looking for more story and background... It also has an amusing change up in that you need to do a bit of sluething to work out what to do. Skip it if you aren't looking for story. Note: one negative that has annoyed me since finishing this DLC is that other than some unique war assets the DLC does not seem to affect the main story. Some dialogue simply doesn't fit with what you learn from the DLC.
Citadel; this is an odd one, I loved this DLC. It's easily the best one for me, but it is also completely skippable. It's so much fun to have all these characters coming back, my favorite is a brief encounter with Wrex post-genophage cure... having a drink at the bar with Wrex, all the while he's requesting bags of ice for some... relief. Very amusing, but totally fan service.
See, there's a problem with the above that's becoming more and more evident... the DLC, good or bad... is skippable. If I never played them would I miss them at all? Then again, the argument could be issued against the game itself... But ME3, wether the MESSE is considered or not, is a great game. The DLC on the other hand feels, at best, average.
Is that EA's fault? The Devs? The market? I dunno.
Still, watching Wrex whine about having to make babies so much made me laugh out loud. If you enjoy the character interactions of Mass Effect in general, then the Citadel DLC is the only one you need. Otherwise, skip all of 'em.
Oh, and the extended ending... hoo boy. It's improved the ending a lot... but it's just not a good ending. It's still kind of insulting that despite all your choices you get it all boiled down to red, green, blue.At least it's free I suppose.
Despite the ending and weakness of the DLC; ME3 is still one of the best games of 2012... but it's a low note compared to ME2... and a poor ending to the trilogy.
Keeper3, Who really wanted multiplayer shooter action in an RPG anyway?!? Fuckers!
P.S. I really REALLY hate all the 'checking' that the damned game does every time it started, like it needed to check my DNA and do a rectal temperature measurement to make sure I'm the PAYING CUSTOMER on their records or some shit. Oh, and I hate Origin too.
Sooo... it's been a while since the debacle of the Mass Effect 3 Sadly Shitty Ending (MESSE, pronounced 'messy'). I've gotten over it at some point, and decided to have a look at the DLC... including the extended ending.
Yes, that's right. I was so pissed at the ending that I didn't even bother to check out the extended ending until now.
So below, I shall give a paragraph on each DLC and then a conclusion, is ME3 better with or without DLC? Does the extended ending make the pain lesser? Is the DLC just an extra turd on the shit sandwich of the MESSE?
Very, very MESSE.
Let's see.
First off, let us speak of "From Ashes", day one DLC. It's not good enough for what they charge, simple as that. It should have been part of the main game... but this article is more about the later true DLC packages.
Omega; this one is ok, but overpriced. Aria wants to take back Omega, you help her and meet an old friend of hers... who then dies. You kill Cerberus for two, maybe three hours... kill a few odd reaper themed enemies in a rather alienesqe scene... that's it. Skip it.
Leviathan; I won't spoil this one at all, it's a must see for those looking for more story and background... It also has an amusing change up in that you need to do a bit of sluething to work out what to do. Skip it if you aren't looking for story. Note: one negative that has annoyed me since finishing this DLC is that other than some unique war assets the DLC does not seem to affect the main story. Some dialogue simply doesn't fit with what you learn from the DLC.
Citadel; this is an odd one, I loved this DLC. It's easily the best one for me, but it is also completely skippable. It's so much fun to have all these characters coming back, my favorite is a brief encounter with Wrex post-genophage cure... having a drink at the bar with Wrex, all the while he's requesting bags of ice for some... relief. Very amusing, but totally fan service.
See, there's a problem with the above that's becoming more and more evident... the DLC, good or bad... is skippable. If I never played them would I miss them at all? Then again, the argument could be issued against the game itself... But ME3, wether the MESSE is considered or not, is a great game. The DLC on the other hand feels, at best, average.
Is that EA's fault? The Devs? The market? I dunno.
Word.
Still, watching Wrex whine about having to make babies so much made me laugh out loud. If you enjoy the character interactions of Mass Effect in general, then the Citadel DLC is the only one you need. Otherwise, skip all of 'em.
Oh, and the extended ending... hoo boy. It's improved the ending a lot... but it's just not a good ending. It's still kind of insulting that despite all your choices you get it all boiled down to red, green, blue.At least it's free I suppose.
Colours are pretty...
Despite the ending and weakness of the DLC; ME3 is still one of the best games of 2012... but it's a low note compared to ME2... and a poor ending to the trilogy.
Keeper3, Who really wanted multiplayer shooter action in an RPG anyway?!? Fuckers!
P.S. I really REALLY hate all the 'checking' that the damned game does every time it started, like it needed to check my DNA and do a rectal temperature measurement to make sure I'm the PAYING CUSTOMER on their records or some shit. Oh, and I hate Origin too.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Simcity 2013
Subtitle: Online only? WHY?!?
This isn't a review; just a quick discussion. I heard a few months back about a new simcity game coming out. I was interested, I liked simcity back in the day. I have fond memories of several games from the sim series.
Simearth.
Simant.
Simcity; on the commodore 64 and PC
Simcity 2000
Great games. I wasn't terribly excited about the new simcity, I've simply played too many of 'em to expect something amazing or revolutionary... but I was interested.
Then... I heard it was online only.
Yeah, no.
I mean, come on! Simcity is a big sandbox game, literally! What's the point of being online while you build a city? Where's the need for the multiplayer aspect? The only reason I can see it happening is the stupid move to more 'social' systems in games. There's already a simcity style game on facebook, and it's free! NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS SOCIAL INTERACTION!!! More than likely it's just a façade, a lie to cover up the main goal of DRMing the game via a login screen.
THEN! Oh boy, then... the release was utterly bungled to the point where they've started to rip out features in an attempt to keep the servers online.
I wish I could say I wasn't expecting it, but let's face it... when was the last time one of these online only games that are really single player experiences actually came out without having an awful release?
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. No fucking way I was going to buy another game with a completely unnecessary online component. And everyone that did needs to wake up and realise their mistake.
It's time to demand our money back, fuck EA and fuck this trend of forcing us online to play single player games.
Keeper3, Fuck EA; it's just that simple.
This isn't a review; just a quick discussion. I heard a few months back about a new simcity game coming out. I was interested, I liked simcity back in the day. I have fond memories of several games from the sim series.
Simearth.
Simant.
Simcity; on the commodore 64 and PC
Simcity 2000
Great games. I wasn't terribly excited about the new simcity, I've simply played too many of 'em to expect something amazing or revolutionary... but I was interested.
Then... I heard it was online only.
Yeah, no.
I mean, come on! Simcity is a big sandbox game, literally! What's the point of being online while you build a city? Where's the need for the multiplayer aspect? The only reason I can see it happening is the stupid move to more 'social' systems in games. There's already a simcity style game on facebook, and it's free! NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS SOCIAL INTERACTION!!! More than likely it's just a façade, a lie to cover up the main goal of DRMing the game via a login screen.
THEN! Oh boy, then... the release was utterly bungled to the point where they've started to rip out features in an attempt to keep the servers online.
I wish I could say I wasn't expecting it, but let's face it... when was the last time one of these online only games that are really single player experiences actually came out without having an awful release?
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. No fucking way I was going to buy another game with a completely unnecessary online component. And everyone that did needs to wake up and realise their mistake.
It's time to demand our money back, fuck EA and fuck this trend of forcing us online to play single player games.
Keeper3, Fuck EA; it's just that simple.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Sexism in Gaming
A little preamble, for those who actually read this blog, and I know you're few and far between (possibly I'm only writing for myself and I'm ok with that), I normally add in a little extra bile... a little trolling ala' Zero Punctuation. Not this time; I think we need to carefully consider this topic... and by 'we' I mean gaming men.
Anyway, on with the show.
Ok, so... sexism. I feel that in general women in the west have it pretty good. I won't say that men and women are equal, because we're not there yet and that I think complete equality is impossible as when you get right down to it men and women cannot be truely equal across the board.
Let's look at the physical, men tend to be bigger and physically stronger on average, women get to carry the babies.
Let's look at our brains; women tend to have better educational outcomes where equal opportunity exists. Women are more emotional whereas men are generally more aggressive.
You could easily come up with a lot of other differences, many of them minor some of them not, it makes achieving true equality like trying to get all of the air bubbles out from a sticker making it completely flat against your intended target surface...
You'll never quite do it.
That isn't an excuse to give up pursuing equality in society; it's a suggestion that at some point, the effort and conflict that will be necessary to press out yet another relatively small bubble from that sticker may well not be worth it... though that point is likely many years down the road.
In my mind, a lot of the issues still facing women and feminists are in the way some old ideas die hard... a good example is the idea of a "women's job" such as nursing or teaching. I hate this, because it means people doing important work requiring long educations, care and lots of time are treated poorly and ignores the idea of equal pay. Fuck that. Pay them a reasonable wage, and give them some resources for goodness sake. And just the idea of calling something "women's work" puts one in the mind of some old 1950's movie, you start seeing things in your mind's eye in sepia tones.
So in short, at some point feminism is going to need to be focused on maintaining relative equality rather than some new fight but it's not there yet. There is work to be done and minds to be changed.
And thus, now we come to gaming finally.
In the last 12 months we've had, in no particular order:
S&M leather clad murder nuns
Lara croft RAEP
A busty zombie munched bust
Likely some fighting game with excessive boobage
...what the fuck guys.
Of course, sex sells, we know this, and the scenes showing Lara croft fighting off that guy attempting to grope her in the new game could actually work, showing you why her desperation is increasing and steeling her resolve, but when you look at the trend it becomes another note in a disturbing song.
I'm not against the use of rape in a story, so long as it's reasonable and realistic. You can't have it happen and not affect the character, it can't be a crutch or the victim just some sort of motivation for the protagonist. It shouldn't feel out of place or crowbared in, it should make all players feel uncomfortable... Including such a violent aweful event in your story is a risk, and it should be treated respectfully.
But that other shit? Drop it. The statuette for the Dead Island expansion is just plain stupid. I mean, if they had a busty chick in a English flag bikini on the box there would have been grumbles of sexism, but it's hard for most to ignore the violent and sexist theme of that statue.
And this is the thing, it goes back to my concern of old ideas dying hard... "Gaming is a guy thing". This must still permeate the triple A dev houses... it's old thinking and it's wrong.
Stop it.
Now.
I want to play games with the ladies, I want to meet women that share my hobby, you make shit like this and you'll scare them off... and that's ignoring my own distaste of all this stuff. Call it enlightened self interest.
Oh, and those arseholes that accuse all women that complain that they're just trying to 'ruin' gaming? They can go eat a dick, because that's the only action they'd ever get if they said IRL what they type on message boards.
Fuck, I play games to play games, not to be exposed to all this puerile bullshit.
Now, having said all that, we shouldn't stop all references to sex in games, if games are to be an artform then we need to allow the artists to do what they want. I just want the stupid teenage pandering to stop. As an example, there has been some complaint about the cyberpunk 2077 trailer, I can see why some have complained about it. It looks a bit like the hitman absolution trailer, but I'd point out that unlike leather clad nuns with RPGs and machine guns in an otherwise normal looking modern setting, a sexy fembot/cyber prostitute actually kind of fits in that setting. It may be offensive, but at least it makes sense and isn't just pandering.
And that's where I draw the line, on the other hand if you want to complain about it, I won't accuse you of being a femanazi, I'll just disagree with you.
*sigh*
At least one good thing has come out of all this... the amount of outcry about this stuff managed to get some of it changed or stopped; let's hope this is as bad as it gets.
Keeper3; stop scaring away the ladies damnit!
Anyway, on with the show.
Ok, so... sexism. I feel that in general women in the west have it pretty good. I won't say that men and women are equal, because we're not there yet and that I think complete equality is impossible as when you get right down to it men and women cannot be truely equal across the board.
Let's look at the physical, men tend to be bigger and physically stronger on average, women get to carry the babies.
Let's look at our brains; women tend to have better educational outcomes where equal opportunity exists. Women are more emotional whereas men are generally more aggressive.
You could easily come up with a lot of other differences, many of them minor some of them not, it makes achieving true equality like trying to get all of the air bubbles out from a sticker making it completely flat against your intended target surface...
You'll never quite do it.
That isn't an excuse to give up pursuing equality in society; it's a suggestion that at some point, the effort and conflict that will be necessary to press out yet another relatively small bubble from that sticker may well not be worth it... though that point is likely many years down the road.
In my mind, a lot of the issues still facing women and feminists are in the way some old ideas die hard... a good example is the idea of a "women's job" such as nursing or teaching. I hate this, because it means people doing important work requiring long educations, care and lots of time are treated poorly and ignores the idea of equal pay. Fuck that. Pay them a reasonable wage, and give them some resources for goodness sake. And just the idea of calling something "women's work" puts one in the mind of some old 1950's movie, you start seeing things in your mind's eye in sepia tones.
So in short, at some point feminism is going to need to be focused on maintaining relative equality rather than some new fight but it's not there yet. There is work to be done and minds to be changed.
And thus, now we come to gaming finally.
In the last 12 months we've had, in no particular order:
S&M leather clad murder nuns
Lara croft RAEP
A busty zombie munched bust
Likely some fighting game with excessive boobage
...what the fuck guys.
Of course, sex sells, we know this, and the scenes showing Lara croft fighting off that guy attempting to grope her in the new game could actually work, showing you why her desperation is increasing and steeling her resolve, but when you look at the trend it becomes another note in a disturbing song.
I'm not against the use of rape in a story, so long as it's reasonable and realistic. You can't have it happen and not affect the character, it can't be a crutch or the victim just some sort of motivation for the protagonist. It shouldn't feel out of place or crowbared in, it should make all players feel uncomfortable... Including such a violent aweful event in your story is a risk, and it should be treated respectfully.
But that other shit? Drop it. The statuette for the Dead Island expansion is just plain stupid. I mean, if they had a busty chick in a English flag bikini on the box there would have been grumbles of sexism, but it's hard for most to ignore the violent and sexist theme of that statue.
Because this is EXACTLY why I play games.
And this is the thing, it goes back to my concern of old ideas dying hard... "Gaming is a guy thing". This must still permeate the triple A dev houses... it's old thinking and it's wrong.
Stop it.
Now.
I want to play games with the ladies, I want to meet women that share my hobby, you make shit like this and you'll scare them off... and that's ignoring my own distaste of all this stuff. Call it enlightened self interest.
Oh, and those arseholes that accuse all women that complain that they're just trying to 'ruin' gaming? They can go eat a dick, because that's the only action they'd ever get if they said IRL what they type on message boards.
Fuck, I play games to play games, not to be exposed to all this puerile bullshit.
Now, having said all that, we shouldn't stop all references to sex in games, if games are to be an artform then we need to allow the artists to do what they want. I just want the stupid teenage pandering to stop. As an example, there has been some complaint about the cyberpunk 2077 trailer, I can see why some have complained about it. It looks a bit like the hitman absolution trailer, but I'd point out that unlike leather clad nuns with RPGs and machine guns in an otherwise normal looking modern setting, a sexy fembot/cyber prostitute actually kind of fits in that setting. It may be offensive, but at least it makes sense and isn't just pandering.
And that's where I draw the line, on the other hand if you want to complain about it, I won't accuse you of being a femanazi, I'll just disagree with you.
*sigh*
At least one good thing has come out of all this... the amount of outcry about this stuff managed to get some of it changed or stopped; let's hope this is as bad as it gets.
Keeper3; stop scaring away the ladies damnit!
I'm BACK
Sooo... it's been a while.
I haven't forgotten about this blog... but in the last year a lot has happened for me and I've simply been either too busy or just not had something to talk about.
But OH BOY a lot has happened recently!
New Dungeon keeper style games from Kickstarter!
The 'war-z' controversy...
Sword of the Stars 2: No longer complete shit and free content for those that were scammed into buying a beta product!
Sexism in gaming!
It goes on...
So, what is a gaming nerd to do? With limited time to play games let alone write about them, can I really put in the amount of thought required to give the above topics the due deserved?
Probably not; Fuck it I'm gonna try anyway.
Next; sexism in gaming! You might be surprised on the position I hold on that.
Keeper3; I love gaming, you should too.
I haven't forgotten about this blog... but in the last year a lot has happened for me and I've simply been either too busy or just not had something to talk about.
But OH BOY a lot has happened recently!
New Dungeon keeper style games from Kickstarter!
The 'war-z' controversy...
Sword of the Stars 2: No longer complete shit and free content for those that were scammed into buying a beta product!
Sexism in gaming!
It goes on...
So, what is a gaming nerd to do? With limited time to play games let alone write about them, can I really put in the amount of thought required to give the above topics the due deserved?
Probably not; Fuck it I'm gonna try anyway.
Next; sexism in gaming! You might be surprised on the position I hold on that.
Keeper3; I love gaming, you should too.
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