Diablo 3 expansion

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...

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?

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.

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.