More to come

In the next few months, Diablo  3 will be dropping in a full out way.  World of Warcraft Pandaria Beta will be accessed.  And all sorts of goodness like that.

My next review is going to be on Saint's Row 3.  It's quite a little crazy, as it should be.  I had a lot of fun with it, but formulating my explosions of experiences here and there in a coherent fashion (as text doesn't allow for much mouth noises, such as "Ahhh! oooo! Gwarrgh!", with tonal context intact).  In the end, purple thug life is hard for a Soviet Princess, such as Svetlana.

Also have been shimmying with Dance Central 2.  It's been in my pile of games college hasn't let me have time for, along with Naughty Bear and Kung Fu Panda 2 the game.  Yup, thar ye have it ya skallywags.  That's all to come.

RRRRWAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!

-N00basaurus

Space Clarification

So there's main stream media covering the angered players over the mass effect ending.  But, like usual, the main stream media is missing the underlying point of "why" players are angry.  It's not because the ending wasn't happy rainbows and bunnies (which in and of it self would make a better ending).  It's because of a specific promise the game was sold on, that wasn't delivered.

SPOILERS

That promise is simple "Your choices matter".  That is to say, you make decisions in the game, and that has rewards and consequences throughout the game, especially the ending.  Well they forgot about that last part.  For example, you fly around the galaxy recruiting this mass army, special units and squads, and tactics and space ships with guns.  After the 2min cut scene of you and Joker, where Joker calls out about 1/3rd of your forces "reporting" the rest of the end battle and ending cut scenes have nothing to do with all your pain staking work of gathering everyone together.

That's the problem.  Nothing you do matters.  That's why everyone is so upset.  And as I've had time to think, it was the very same problem that I had with their game RPG that came out last year "Dragon Age 2" the EXACT same problem.  The only major difference is that where Dragon Age 2 semi-sorta arched in different areas and only specific things happened that you couldn't do anything about, Mass Effect 3 comes out, flips you the middle finger and slaps you in the face with it.  The same people die, no matter what.  Nothing you can do about it.  In some cases you can make them die slightly differently by changing "who" shoots them, but they still get shot and die.

Players are angry because there needed to actually "be" multiple endings.  What they call a "different ending" is a color of an explosion.  Red, green, and blue some how translates as "completely different" endings, even though the cinemas all play out with the exact same scenes, and the exact same timings.  What if your colorblind? Then there's only 1 ending, grey.

This video on Youtube, posted by Youtube user Crosscade illustrates exactly my point.  Although it's not the full ending, it shows plenty enough of it to illustrate why players as a whole are a little pissed about it.

But yes, that's why players are upset.  We were promised dynamic pathways forged by our characters, and then when it came to it, Bioware simply didn't deliver.  It kind of feels that they "copped out" of doing what they promised the players and settled for "the easy way out".  In other words, Troll Face.

Also, this comic sums it up pretty well, thank you www.vgcats.com


-N00basaurus

What the... I don't even...

Ok, yet another game I have to suspend review and critique upon comes to turn.  But this time, it's... well... I have to cool down a while to really write with a level head.  I do want to cover something here though:

Mass Effect 3, it's ending particularly, but throughout story. I'm spoiling a lot, I know, but it needs to be said.  If you haven't played it through, stop here.  You have been warned.


Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! 


Ok, just going to stab at the heart of it and say "What the cock was that crap?".  I liked the game, the bulk of the story was good.  That said, here's what I really had issues with:

1) The fact that such things happen to characters you know, what was the point of not just letting them all die in the second game?  I mean really, if a good chunk of them do it by their own hands, wtf was I fighting so hard for?

2) The lack of the usual diversity in your party saddens me.  Most of the characters are re-hashed from previous games... My main issue, where the hell is my dedicated krogan?  I ended up with Garrus and Edi, which sadly was 90% lack of acceptable companions and 10% fuck yeah Garrus.

3) Continuity errors.  In the beginning, people (specifically James) coming up to Shepard as if they have been life long buds.  I wanted a renegade option to smack him in the face being all like "That's commander to you, bub!"  There was very little of them in the middle.  In the end there, wow, it was a fuck fest of errors.  I'm only going to go off on one though.  The Normandy.  It breaks away from the armada to deposit you planet side.  After that it goes back in formation to attack with the fleet.  In the end, for some reason, it's jumping in a gate going god knows where and gets stranded on some random planet.  Why wasn't it with the fleet?!?  What happens to the armada that survived on earth? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!

4) Synthesis.  So everyone now has circuit boards cut into their skin and no one notices squat.  What the fuck.

5) Illusive man.  I haven't been able to find a way to crack his last speech option.  Why give us that damn option if it's locked and we can't use it?  BLARG!!! Frustration!

6) Choices.  Not only does nothing you have done on any of the few games have any affect what so ever in the last mission (where it should matter a great deal) or the ending (where it should matter most), but the options for the ending, are all bad.  It is nothing but troll face.  Your options are: You kill yourself and the space gates, or You kill yourself and give everyone circuit board skin (which no one even notices) and kill the space gates, or you commit genocide and kill the space gates.  That's it.  I spent 5 min putting bullets into that damn option giver (Bruce Campbell gun was the only pleasing thing in the ending.)

7) Space Forces do pretty much nothing, really.  Your doomed.  That's it.  Regardless of how much readiness you have, how much battle prep you have, you're doomed.  It's a crap shoot from point one and nothing you do really affects it.

8) New peeps.  There are a couple new peeps that pal around with you.  But largely, no.  Most of the game is you running around trying to have your old companions not die (they probably will though).  And even worse, none join your party.  It's sickening.

9)Where was my sex scene?  There have been news report about "sex scene controversy" and not once did Shep get laid.  I was very disappointed.

And 10)  Overall I'd rate the game a solid 8.  It's pretty damn good.  The ending pretty much halves that score.  A 4, almost my worst ever rating given so far, because really? What the cock was that crap?

I was going to write a Skyrim review, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

So here's the skinny.  Skyrim was fun, it was great, I'm taking a break from it for a while, but I'll be back to it sooner than later.  The problem is, I can't really give it a proper review.  From all my experiences with the game, they have been good.  However, every so often I get a major game breaking glitch which makes me have to reset to a previous save, turn my xbox on and off until it goes a way.  I'm afraid to play it cause my character is right where I want it.  A few of these glitches, if I were to review the game now, would affect my opinion and review of it.  So I'm going to wait, and see if they release a patch that addresses most of the issues before I review it.

I WOULD say, however, it is worth the buy.  If you can get it cheap, get the PC version for mods if your into mods.  I chose xbox since oblivion originally came out on xbox, and I'm kind of a purist like that, I guess.   But yeah.  Well worth the play, if you can get past the bugs.

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer: Krogan

Krogan is like the alien version of Bruce Campbell. That is to say "All that is man".

How do krogan's fight? They man on things. That's how they fight.

However...giant robots...are more man than krogan can handle....

Click for full