Dimensional Death is Recruiting!

Okay, this is a little different from the usual fare.  I'm not one to use my blog purely for personal gain, or to do favors for my friends, but this is an unusual case.  Dimensional Death, the World of Warcraft guild I have been a member of for some time now and have raided rather successfully with, is getting ready to enter the new Mists of Pandaria expansion and prepare for raiding.

I'm mentioning this because we're recruiting, and I'm hoping anyone that reads my blog that plays WoW might be interested in joining up.  We play on the Elune server, Alliance-side.  If you are interested in raiding with a good group of people who are all very friendly, contact Ayasu at the guild website here.

On a related note, Ayasu, our guild leader, is going to be livestreaming her attempt to be realm first to level 90 here and welcomes you to join her.  I don't think she'll manage to do it, but don't tell her I said that ;-)

Moving On, Moving Forward

It has been several months since I finished Mass Effect 3 and was inspired to start this blog, and I think I can finally say I've moved on.  I've found my will to play games once again and found other games I can enjoy, as well as new things to focus on.  "Moving on," however, is not the same as "getting over it."

I'm still somewhat bitter about the whole thing.  It leaves a wound that I am not sure will ever heal.  I do not believe I will ever be able to trust a game developer again the way I did before ME3.  It is a lesson I have learned, and it's one I don't intend to forget any time soon.  The business of video games is a dangerous place where anything can become corrupted by greed or apathy, and I still desire to do anything in my power to promote awareness of these issues among fellow gamers.

A media company holds a lot of responsibility.  They can hold the hopes and dreams of thousands, even sometimes millions, in their hands, and they must be gentle with that power.  To take the imagination of so many who only want to see your work succeed and to crush it as thoroughly and abruptly as ME3 did is, I would argue, criminal in a moral sense.  Other cases, stories peter out slowly over time, and the people who initially saw something they love grow tired and eventually lose interest.  It is less tragic in the emotional sense, but it is still a tragedy, like watching a loved one grow old and wither away.

Like the Tower of Babel, the industry has built itself a mighty ziggurat in the sky but has failed to take heed of the hubris that leads to corruption.  The driving forces of the industry have constructed a platform of success, but success is fleeting.  They have accepted a status quo that they do not want to give up, but as with all things in a market economy, nothing ever remains in a bubble.  The foundation of the industry, the consumers who purchase the products these businesses wish to sell, will inevitably shift, and if these businesses refuse to adapt to the changing patterns, they will crumble to dust.

It is a tragedy to see someone who holds so much possibility fail so utterly, but it is a greater tragedy to stand by and allow it to happen.  I, for one, will do everything in my power to preserve the good that I can while pushing away the bad.  When the businessmen and women who manage the financial end of the market begin to see that their methods no longer work, I will be the one there already working to fix the problems while they struggle to accept their failures.  I hope I am not alone.

What Technology Could Revitalize the Industry?

Previously, I wrote about how the next generation of consoles will not revitalize the industry, but I suppose I should have put a caveat on that: the next-gen consoles will not revitalize the industry unless they manage to include a kind of creative forward-thinking that the last several generations have lacked.

The previous few generations, we were still coming out of the leap from 2D to 3D games. However, this has now come to a point where improvements in technology can only marginally change things as far as graphics, physics and gameplay are concerned. For some time, the industry has been gradually making attempts to break the current mold in meaningful ways, but nothing has truly stuck because the core of the consumer base likes games that they can enjoy for long periods of time without feeling too gimmicky.

It is controversial to bring it up, but hardcore gamers are the lifeblood of the industry. Casual gamers are important, too, but are far too unreliable a market to be the sole customers of any group. This is part of the reason the Wii did so well early on but started falling behind before long: it appealed to casual gamers, but it was a matter of time before much of the gameplay utility the motion control had became old hat and hardcore gamers wanted to sit back down for something more dedicated.

So, motion control didn't stick the way some developers were hoping it would, but that does not mean it is dead. Far from it; the Kinect, in particular, gave a form of motion control that is promising, but didn't quite go far enough.

There is basically one technology short of full on mind control or holograms that could make the next-gen consoles truly refresh gaming, and that technology is augmented reality. We have basic augmented reality capability now, but it has so far only been applied in limited forms and mostly in mobile devices. It has not been fully integrated into consoles yet, but I believe the capability is there.

For those who don't know, augmented reality is something of a middle ground between virtual reality and, well, “regular” reality. It is when you are presented with a visual of the real world, either through a camera-device or lenses with some form of display in them. It allows you to provide visual augmentations and interaction to things in the real world, such as, for instance, taking a map placed on the table and using it for references to play a form of video game with virtual characters on said map.

We have seen some use of this form of technology in Microsoft's Kinect, which can record footage of the player and map their body movements as they interact with virtual objects in a game. Now, imagine that same form of interaction, but reversed: the player now has a device of some sort, perhaps worn on the head, that would allow them to see interactive objects outside their tv set. This could be used for all sorts of purposes: HUDs, extra buttons, throwing fireballs into your tv set; you name it. It would be like the jump to 3D all over again, except that this time the 3D is both literal and fully interactive.

Sadly, I don't expect to see this sort of thing any time soon, if ever. The industry does not seem to have that kind of creativity these days and simply wants to maintain the status quo. I do not foresee that going well, but if my prediction is right, I am hoping that things don't get too much worse, either. In my mind, it seems like we're heading toward another crash in the games industry similar to the one in the 80's.

Will the Next Gen Game Consoles Save the Industry?

In my last blog, I wrote about Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello's insistence that more games is better, but now I want to talk about a similar, though equally foolish, assertion he has made: that the next generation of game consoles will revitalize the market.

Riccitiello has told investors that EA has built its business plan on an assumption that a new generation of gaming consoles would have been out by now, and that hasn't happened. Of course, that didn't result in EA actually adjusting its plans; instead they have simply doubled down and decided to adapt the plan to continue indefinitely. Cue the cheerleaders. Go team. Rah rah.

Ignoring, for a moment, the indefinite length of time EA intends to keep this going, I have to ask the question that it seems like very few are actually asking: would a new generation of game consoles actually revitalize the market?

We have reached a point in technology at which game systems don't really improve dramatically over previous generations. Yes, graphics improve somewhat, processing power improves, more active models can be on-screen at any given time, and so forth, but the technology doesn't make for huge leaps and bounds above previous generations the way they used to because the technology is already at a point where players can't expect dramatic improvements.

Younger gamers might not relate to this, but I and many of my peers grew up through the advent of 3D games. We were blown away by the sudden jump from sidescrolling or top-down games to games where you could move in more than two dimensions. That, believe it or not, was an ENORMOUS jump forward. It created whole new fields of play that did not exist before that.

The problem, of course, is that the human mind can only perceive three dimensions, excluding time, which we can only perceive in one direction. The entire history of the video game industry is exceedingly short, and much of the way games have evolved over the years is based on just these few decades. There will not be a leap forward like bridging the 2D/3D divide again. Some people have claimed that making games truly 3D, like movies, will be a big leap forward like that, but to be honest, that is a pipe dream. It's a gimmick that, while it might be cool for a bit, will ultimately be like the paint on your console, if it even sticks around that long.

A minor leap forward in graphics and processing power will be fun for a while, but unless the games themselves become better, meaning better writing, better gameplay and more original ideas, the polish will quickly fade and become just more lipstick on the pig.

What makes this worse is that better graphics and artistry also demands more man-hours. The current industry already has enormous numbers of people working on a single, large budget production and launching them out the door faster than ever. The profit margins are ridiculously low as it is. More money being spent on the development of these games, and only a small fraction of them actually earn a profit. The amazing thing is that the few that do wind up earning a profit manage to earn enough to make up for the ones that don't, but only barely. And EA wants to broaden that market, meaning producing more large budget games that won't earn enough, which means they'll have to either hire more employees or drive the ones they already have to work even harder to produce more.

See where I'm going with this? The more detailed the graphics get, the more artists are needed to work on them. Add to that the already increasing volume of games on the market and horribly low profits and you wind up with a situation where thousands of artists and programmers become badly overworked and underpaid. If the quality of games frustrates you now, imagine how bad things will be when the entire workforce is overstressed and unable to think clearly in the little time they have to actually think.

Are There Too Many Games on the Market?

I was following news about the EA shareholders meeting today, and the more I listened, the more I became irritated with the whole situation with gaming as it is. John Riccitiello continues offering “more MORE MORE!” when I can't help but feel like I want less. Here I sit, I have so many video games that I've purchased that I haven't even had time to play them all yet. I have a life, I have friends, family and other responsibilities that I need to keep in mind, so I don't have 100% of my time to devote to experiencing all these games, no matter how good they may be. And, let's be honest, even if I had absolutely nothing else in my life, I would still not devote 100% of my time to gaming because I just can't. I am human; I have needs aside from the basic food, water and sleep. I can't just ignore my need for social interaction, no matter how much I may want to.

So, I find myself wondering why Riccitiello is trying to convince people there are all these great games and projects in development and how that's going to turn EA around. Why tell us all how more is going to expand their business when I'm too busy finishing the stuff that I've already got to care? Unless they're developing “Mass Effect 4” or some other game I'd really love to see, I'm not going to care. And that's pretty much the problem with the top-tier games nowadays, it seems: none of them seem good enough to justify their price tag, and even if the price on all of them came down, I still wouldn't care much because I just don't have the time to devote to actually play most of them.

We live in a world where the majority of gamers are adults. A generation has been raised on video games, and as that generation has come of age we have found ourselves being more directly marketed to as a major consumer bloc. But now that we've reached such mass market levels, I think the real reason the industry isn't growing is because it has failed to adapt to the changing demographics. Adults have responsibilities and are far more careful about both their money and their time than children. It stands to reason that, eventually, you would reach a point at which you simply cannot produce more variety because there's already so much variety that your consumer base just can't keep up.

Video games are not movies or novels. There are not many ways you can really accurately compare them as media for telling stories, but you can compare them as time-fillers and as mass market products. Think, for a moment, about film. How many movies are released in a year? Quite a few. But how long are movies on average? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the average is about 90 minutes. That's an hour and a half, and seems pretty reasonable for an average film.

Now, how much time does a player spend on an average video game? That's a lot harder to figure out, but we can generally assume it will be much longer than a movie. 90 minutes out of your day is a significant amount of time, but not an unreasonable amount of time that a person might spend once in a while. Video games often times will be played for hundreds of hours, and even sometimes for days or weeks. Mind you, I'm not talking about days in the sense of how long you are interested in a game, I'm talking about real, total time spent playing a game can be that much. How is someone who enjoys playing games going to ever find the time to play all the games they might be interested in if all the games that are available take that much time out of their lives? And then you have DLC, which, when done right, extends the life of the game even further.

It's sort of like trying to get more advertising revenue from tv commercials by telling your audience to quit their jobs and watch tv all day. It just isn't feasible. Not that I don't love variety, but I love my DVR also because it allows me to watch the shows I want to see without having to schedule myself around them constantly. I believe this is the problem with the mainstream games in the industry: they're all vying for the attention of the same people and finding that too much competition is becoming as bad as not enough competition, like a million different tv shows competing for the same half-hour time slot.

Why is this a major problem? Well, because major publishers are cutting down deadlines and pushing games out faster and faster. The only reason this occurs is because they want to provide greater volume, more games in a shorter amount of time, but this means employees become overworked, quality and, in turn, quality assurance gets cut and we wind up with games that don't live up to their own potential. Huge budgets are being spent on games that will not sell as well as they could because they're being pushed out before they should be. At the same time, games that normally wouldn't have multiplayer are having multiplayer features forced on them as a means of extending their gameplay, meaning the games that do get played are also being played longer.

As a result, consumers find they have fewer opportunities to enjoy games they otherwise would have loved, developers stretch themselves thin to meet demand, publishers waste millions of dollars on risky investments and valuable intellectual property is drained until it is a dry husk of its former self. We find ourselves with publishers encouraging developers to produce the same thing over and over again in an effort to benefit off of what worked in the past instead of experimenting with new, innovative ideas.

In short, when it comes to the laws of supply and demand, we have more supply than we have demand for. Big budget games are being released in droves and aren't making enough money because they're not going through the rigorous testing phase that refines them into truly good games. Major brands are being mass produced and exploited instead of grown and shared. And stock prices are falling and John Riccitiello is making excuses.

Now, excuse me, I need to get back to work on reviewing The Secret World. I don't have time for this shit.

On Extended Cuts, Open Wounds and Band-Aids

So, the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut was released today.  I played through it earlier this afternoon, and after a very tearful experience (I swear my tears had tears!) and some dinner, I've now had enough time to think on what I witnessed and reflect.

This is extremely hard to write because I've garnered a considerable amount of notoriety since I started this blog, and I fear that what I'm about to say is going to earn me a lot of hate.  I've been flamed, attacked, and publicly humiliated at times.  On the other hand, I've also received a lot of extremely supportive comments and responses that  I can't even say how thankful I am to have received.  I don't even feel as though I deserve them, but they've been my bread and butter for the past few months, so thank you to everyone who has been so supportive.

With that out of the way, I want to say that in general, like the Extended Cut (which, for simplicity's sake, will be referred to as EC from here on).  It makes the ending of Mass Effect 3 a lot better.  It's a lot more satisfying and a lot less frustrating.  It is by no means perfect, and that is probably the center of what I'm going to say here, but it is at least enough that I no longer feel the big, empty nothing I felt before.

Naturally, it is difficult to talk about it without mentioning spoilers, so, while I intend to avoid spoilers as much as possible, I would suggest not reading further if you are concerned.

The claim that there would be no new endings to the game is a bit of a stretch of the truth.  There is a new option at the end of the game aside from the original three, and it is what most of us wanted from it.  It's even a lot more satisfying than I could have expected it to be, though by no means is it a happy ending.  On top of that, most of the plot holes have been filled in, with one or two being left vague clearly by design, which I'm okay with.  Perhaps not thrilled, but it's enough that I can live with it.

Now here's where things get a little controversial.  I forgive BioWare, and thank them for what they have done with the EC.  A lot of people want to remain angry and stomp around, talking about how they can't forgive BioWare for messing things up so badly.  They'll continue to go on boycotting anything and everything BioWare creates, and that is their right, but I personally feel that is the wrong way to go about it.

Many critics will describe this as a band-aid for an open wound, and they would not necessarily be wrong in that assessment.  However, I personally don't think anyone could have reasonably expected much more than that, nor could anyone have reasonably asked for more than that.  No matter what BioWare did, there will never be any way to satisfy everyone.

Allow me to explain: the ending was set in stone, to some extent, after it was released.  People had formed opinions, developed theories, and become devoted to various clashing ideas.  I witnessed the severity of this on the HTL forums myself.  The Indoctrination Theory had grown to a point that it had an almost rabid following, and while the theory itself is fine, some of the ways in which the people that subscribed to it treated people that didn't were so fanatical and, at times, hateful that it threatened to create a massive rift in the community most of us working with HTL had tried to foster.

The thing is, no matter what happened, BioWare could not undo the endings that had been done.  If the Indoctrination Theory was declared canonically untrue, the IT supporters would have revolted fervently.  In the same way, if it was declared canonically true, then those opposed to it would have had the same reaction.  Essentially, this was a theory that had become so polarizing that to change the endings enough to discredit them both would have made the effort of creating the EC entirely pointless.

That said, BioWare made an honest effort to show they didn't like disappointing their fans, and I think they deserve credit for that.  That's not to say that we can't question how this mess came about in the first place; by all means, I feel that is a fair thing to be concerned about, but I feel it is unreasonable to say that BioWare didn't at least care enough to try.

Don't take that as any means to give BioWare a pass, however.  If anything is clear, there needs to be a closer observation of issues of interest to gamers in the industry.  This is a victory for those of us who were upset by the ending and spoke out, but the fight is far from over.  This is merely the end of this battle, but there will be more.  I intend to stick with the HTL community and continue to stay on the front line, fighting to support the cause of gamers everywhere to the best of my ability.

I have communicated personally with Jessica Merizan, BioWare's Community Manager, and I believe she is being sincere in everything she says.  I take her at her word, and I've gotten a lot of flack from some people for supporting her.  But, the fact remains that she's had a rough time and has worked her ass off, and she deserves credit for that.  She's human, as is everyone at BioWare, and I think it would be cruel not to realize that and appreciate them for the things they have done right while admonishing them for mistakes they might make.

Keelah'selai.

Advanced Recon: Civilization V: Gods & Kings

With the rise of downloadable content in recent years, true “expansions”, as we have known them in the past, have become far more rare than they used to be in video games – not that they were ever terribly common to begin with. It used to be that certain types of games would be released, well received, and then expect additional content to be added some time later in the form of an expansion – a large package of new features, expanded single-player content, and occasionally even some graphical tweaks.In recent years, however, DLC has become the expected norm – small content updates, usually for a small fee, that add perhaps a few extra hours worth of content, if that.

Civilization V has not evaded this fate.

It should be noted, however, that expansion packs do come, and this week saw the release of an honest to goodness expansion pack for Civ V, entitled Gods & Kings. I have now had the chance to play a few games with the new content, and can provide some insight into whether the game is worth it or not.

I have greatly enjoyed playing Civ V since shortly after its initial release. The expansion, however, has made the game, in my opinion, a lot more interesting. Naturally, since Civ V doesn't have a true “story” mode to it, there is no additional story added. There are, however, a whole bunch of new and interesting features that make the game, both single-player and muliplayer, a lot more fun.

There are, of course, several new civilizations to choose from, each with their own leader traits, unique units and buildings, including several old favorites from previous editions of Civ like Boudicca of the Celts and newer ones like Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. There are also new wonders to be built and new units to build, some of which fill some gaps that I had previously felt were oddly empty before the expansion, such as the new Composite Bowman, an intermediary unit to fill the large technology gap between the Archer and the Crossbowman. There are even some new luxury resources, like citrus and crabs (go ahead, laugh. You know goddamn well I did!), though I'm not entirely certain why these were added as they don't seem to add much to the game.

Some unit functions have been improved for combat, as well. Naval combat has gone through a complete overhaul, introducing “melee ships”, ships that need to engage directly against enemy ships the same way a melee land unit would, though obviously not graphically identical. This fixes the issue of having a hard time invading coastal cities on a continent you haven't yet settled, as you can now take over enemy cities with your navy alone. There are also more ranged units in the late-game, like the gatling gun and the machine gun, that are extremely useful against enemy infantry but have only a one-tile range, meaning they can be very vulnerable if not used to flank against melee infantry.

The AI has also seen a huge overhaul. Much of the enemy AI has been revamped to develop more diverse militaries, making it so that you will have to adapt to confront the enemy's differing military units. I was actually caught off-guard on an easier difficulty when Washington nearly creamed me. I finally gave up on that game because I felt so humiliated by the AI.

One feature that was greatly altered was the City-States featured in the game. No longer do City-States offer one quest that does not change until it is either completed or no longer possible. Instead, City-States will offer multiple quests at a time, any or all of which can be completed to gain influence with them. This means no longer do you get stuck with 5 City-States all asking you to eliminate each other and just deciding to pay them all off instead. It does, however, create some confusion, as you now have so many available quests that it can be hard to remember which ones you were trying to complete in the first place.

The feature of the game that really shines, though, is the added feature of religion. This was something that was in Civ IV and seemed sorely lacking in Civ V. Now, religion is back in the game and plays much better than ever. Religions are founded by gathering Faith, a new resource that functions similarly to gold, but is only generated by particular buildings or traits and can only be spent on specific things. Once enough Faith has been earned to earn a Great Prophet, you can expend the Great Prophet to found a religion. When you found a religion, you can pick “beliefs” for that religion, which are bonuses provided by that religion. These beliefs fit a lot of different strategies; there are some that would aid your military, some that would benefit you culturally, and so on. Some work better when you spread them outside your borders and are more suited to a small empire with a wide ranging religion. No two religions can have the same beliefs, so it's a first come, first served deal, meaning that the sooner you found your religion, the better choices you'll have available. I found myself having a lot of fun exploring new strategies and ideas with the religion mechanics and finding ways I could benefit from particular beliefs.

There are also some new scenarios available with the expansion, though I haven't yet had a chance to try them. I don't generally play scenarios; I'm usually more interested in just the regular game. There is apparently a steampunk-themed scenario, which sounds really interesting.

Anyway, I feel like I definitely got my money's worth out of the new features, and am still enjoying it. Hopefully, this will help you decide whether these new features are worth the price tag.

Why I Don't Give A Fuck About E3

Well, it's that time of year again: time for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or, as it's more commonly referred to, "E3".  In past years, I honestly would have been very excited to hear the news from E3.  It was both entertaining and informative, and I genuinely enjoyed watching the live webcasts of the various companies' conferences as they display the major project's they are working on.

But this year is different.  Last year, I watched the Microsoft press conference from E3 while it was being webcast, and as I watched, I couldn't help thinking how much ridiculous crap Microsoft was pushing.  Seriously, not a single thing they showed did not mention Kinect compatibility, and the grand majority of it was casual gamer garbage.

Now, let me be clear here: I don't think casual games are a bad thing, nor do I think they shouldn't be made.  Casual gamers deserve to be catered to as much as anybody, and it is definitely a market worth expanding.  However, there is a reason the average casual game is lower priced than games that require a little more dedication to play: casual gamers are an extremely unreliable section of the market.  It is in the name: "casual", a word that literally means "without definite or serious intention" (thank you, dictionary.com, for that).  Casual gamers play games in their free time, usually when they are bored, but if you crank up the price to the usual 60-70$ most mainstream games go for, most of them aren't going to give a crap for your game any more.  If they do, it's usually only because it's a game that can be played with friends, such as Mario Party or Super Smash Bros.

But the reason I don't give a fuck about E3 this year is not limited to the emphasis on casual games.  In fact, I don't even have a big problem with the casual games, I just think it's a poor business strategy.  The real problem in my opinion is the fact that literally everything in the press conference used Kinect in some form or fashion.  You know, Kinect: that thing that tracks your movement and your voice and takes pictures of you and isn't used for anything except the most gimmicky of gameplay and still, for some reason, costs a hundred bucks.

Now, is Kinect bad?  Not at all.  I haven't used it much myself, but by all accounts it is a perfectly fine peripheral for the Xbox 360.  I even see the fun that can be had with it, though I honestly don't see myself ever being interested in it enough to want to fork over a C-note for it.  But does it really need to be used in everything?  I mean, it basically amounts to a glorified controller for the console.  Some of the things it can do, like allowing voice commands in games or the ability to direct menus with your hands, are pretty nifty, but no one will give a shit if your game still sucks!

It has become a meme in the gaming community, in fact.  Microsoft had such a hard-on for the Kinect that its slogan, "It's better with Kinect!" has become shorthand for "Hey, you know what would make this game suck a whole lot less?  A bunch of gimmicky crap no one wants!"  It's the joke that, in a few years, will be more memorable than the device it was conceived to mock.

Mass Effect 3 was "better with Kinect", but does that make it so that the fans of the series feel any less cheated by the ending?  And how about that Star Wars Kinect title that got so many "rave" reviews for its nonsensical dance routines and musical numbers?

But you know what the real problem is?  It's not for the gamers.  These press conferences are designed not to sell games but to sell the company.  They're out there putting on these shows to convince their shareholders, most of whom don't know jack shit about gaming or the game industry, that they're going to expand their customer base.  They're out to make things sound like they're more interesting to the average consumer instead of the dedicated market that already exists, and because of that they've decided to sell to the shareholders instead of to gamers.

The irony of this is that it's going to have the exact opposite effect from what they want out of it in the long run.  In a few years' time, the industry will be in a massive slump similar to the infamous E.T. Depression from the 1980's because these large developers and publishers are alienating the market they've worked so hard over the past three decades to build in favor of a broader appeal.  That "broader appeal", in the end, will be just as unreliable as it sounds.  Casual gamers won't care enough to go for microtransactions and buy more useless junk to make their progress in the game go a little quicker.  Casual gamers won't have the time or interest.  Casual gamers will play for a little while, get bored, and move on to do something else.  Meanwhile, all the hardcore gamers out there will have stopped caring about what you have to sell and will have moved on in their own ways.

But don't worry about that, because apathy is better with Kinect!

Advance Recon: Diablo III

I just completed my first run through Diablo III on Normal difficulty, and I've got to say I definitely enjoyed it.  Having been playing the Diablo games since I was about twelve years old, the game certainly doesn't disappoint on the gameplay front.  The action, as always in Diablo, is front and center, and is ramped up even beyond my expectations.  In Diablo II, released over a decade ago, players were killing hordes of zombies, demons, and cows (it's a long story) in style with fancy spells and weapon attacks, but this time things become even more explosive with Diablo III being rendered in 3D, allowing for an actual physics engine.

The physics engine itself is mostly aesthetic, since the game still plays in a top-down view like the previous games and very few actual gameplay mechanics use it, but it makes the game seem that much more fun every time you manage to smash a statue, or a wooden scaffold collapses because you shot it, or an entire column collapses in a ruin.  I remember at one point laughing hysterically as one monster's head went flying across the screen after my friends and I caused what can only be described as a cataclysmic level of destruction with our powers.

Speaking of friends (and an obligatory shout-out to some of my guild mates from WoW who joined me), the game's multiplayer, the feature that made the first two games take off as online co-op hits, is still as fun as ever. I would even argue it's more fun now, as with Battle.net's features the game now has achievements and the ability to set your game so that only friends can join.  You can also now jump into a friend's game with a push of a button after logging in, making casual multiplayer that much easier.  And now there is an auction house where players can bid or buy items from other players for either in-game gold or real world cash.

That said, there are a few issues with the online service.  For one thing, the game is now permanently online as a system of DRM and a way to protect the auction economy.  This means that you literally cannot play the game, even single player, without an internet connection.  Also, your ability to play is entirely dependent on being connected to Battle.net's servers, which means that if those servers go down, for whatever reason, you are unable to play the game, even alone, which happened numerous times throughout this first week after release, resulting in a lot of fan protesting.  Finally, this also means that your play is at Blizzard's discretion.  If you are banned by Blizzard, you will not be able to play the game, regardless of how much money you may have paid for it.  While Blizzard has maintained relatively positive service in the past and not abused their ability to discontinue service for customers, it gives them a LOT of potential for abuse that I am not sure is a good thing to want to see in more titles.

As to the real money auction house, it still has not been fully implemented, so I can't say yet what impact that will have on the game.  For the most part, I didn't actually participate in the auction house, as I never had enough gold to afford anything being sold, nor did anyone buy anything I attempted to sell.  The economy is relatively unnecessary in a game so full of randomly generated loot, so you can certainly get by without using it, but so far the economy still seems to be unstable in its infancy.  With people being able to buy and sell for real world cash, it does not seem entirely unreasonable that some people may attempt to buy their way to the top at the highest difficulties, but it is still possible to enjoy Normal, Nightmare and Hard mode just fine without ever touching the auction house.

The game has five classes, which for the first time can be either male or female, and are fully voiced.  And when I say fully-voiced, I don't mean just the one-liners from Diablo 1 and 2.  They now carry on full conversations with other characters.  Throughout the game, you acquire hireling characters, a "scoundrel", a "templar" and an "enchantress", who each have their own dialogue and customization options for their abilities, but they only join you in combat in single player games.  There are also two crafters that follow you on your quest and set up in town, a blacksmith and a jeweller, each with their own personalities, and you can pay gold to level them up and make new items.

As for character abilities, Diablo III does away with Diablo II's "skill trees" in favor of a system capable of much more flexibility while still limiting characters from being "masters of everything".  You start out at level 1 with one ability assigned for your left mouse button, and as you level you gain more ability slots, new abilities, and "runes" for your abilities.  You get up to 6 skill slots, and each ability continues to unlock new runes up until the maximum level.  The runes alter the abilities in sometimes dramatic ways, allowing for an old ability to take on an entirely new function in your skill set.  This means that there are seemingly limitless combinations of abilities and runes that play very differently, and it becomes almost an art in determining the best combinations, which makes for a lot of strategic fun.  Also, your character's abilities can be changed at any time without cost, though, unless you're in town, there will be a short cooldown until they are useable, so it is best not to do it in the middle of a warzone.

And finally, on the story front, I generally liked the story of the game.  Blizzard has previously stated that this essentially brings the story arc begun in the first game to a close, and it certainly doesn't disappoint on that front.  Admittedly, the writing is somewhat predictable, but that's nothing new.  The story has always taken a bit of a backseat to the action anyway, but the story in this game does not disappoint, and the voice acting is significantly better than some in the previous games, including the always wonderful Jennifer Hale playing one of the key characters.  The drama is increased, even taking some somewhat shocking turns, but not in ways that are detrimental to its enjoyment.  In fact, some of the startling events in the game definitely serve to increase the tension in important ways.

So, I can definitely say I've enjoyed the game, and intend to continue to enjoy it.  However, I still hold some serious reservations about the DRM, as I think there's a slippery slope to go along it, and it while I don't expect anything terrible to come from Diablo III, I would not like to see the "always online" feature being added to most single-player games.  There is just too much potential to abuse that level of control, and I think Blizzard is starting to run into the first signs of a rebellion against that sort of feature.  Also, I wouldn't recommend the game if you are looking for a stimulating story.  The story is not the major selling point of the game, and unless you really enjoy hack-and-slash gameplay, you will find yourself disinterested.  That said, it's also not a bad story in spite of being a bit predictable and sometimes shallow.

Advance Recon: The Secret World

Over the weekend, I had the chance to take part in the open beta for FunCom's upcoming MMO, The Secret World.  Since recent events have led me to become extremely mistrusting of game developers and especially video game critics, I've decided that I should write reviews of my own, since clearly so many have a sincere lack of ability to provide what their customers are looking for.  Since The Secret World was my most recent play, I've decided to start here.

Technically, since the game hasn't been released yet, this is really more of a "preview" than a "review", but it's still with a critical eye that I will be writing about it, so make of it what you will.  The beta weekend provided only a small portion of the game, only worth a few hours of play time, but considering it was only one small part of just one of the areas in the game, "a few hours" is still quite a lot to get out of that.

Right from the get-go, I noticed some issues with connecting to the servers, but that may well have been since I was trying to connect shortly after the beta servers went live and the amount of log-in traffic was a bit too much to handle.  I did not notice any major problems connecting later in the day, after the initial rush had died down.

Probably the first thing I noticed once I was in the game was that my framerate was terrible.  Not "impossible to play" terrible, but bad enough that I felt it was worth reducing the video settings to an amazingly low level in order to feel comfortable playing it, and my system is not that old.  This was particularly interesting because, even at max settings, the graphics were not all that great.  Not that the graphics were terrible, mind you, but they certainly didn't seem like they warranted that level of slow-down on my system.  I actually had to reduce the resolution of the game, which is something I almost never have to do.

Once I got the game running at a comfortable pace, I was able to create a character and jump in.  The beta weekend was restricted to allowing only characters of the Templar society, so that took one of the major options for character creation off the table to begin with.  The full release of the game is supposed to have three secret societies that your character can be a member of: the "holier-than-thou" demon hunter Templars, the elitist conspirator Illuminati, and the Asian criminal syndicate Dragon.  I am not clear how the different societies impact gameplay.  It certainly appeared that at least part of the storyline throughout the game was impacted by being a member of the Templars, but I can't yet identify if being a member of one organization prohibits you from participating in activities with members of other organizations the way Alliance and Horde characters can't cooperate with each other in World of Warcraft.

Speaking of storylines, let's get to my favorite subject in video games: story!  As far as story goes, the game does appear to have a major story arc that players play through.  I didn't get very far in it, so I can't say much about what the story actually is about, but the player character does not get any dialogue, so don't expect to be playing a fully voice-acted character like in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  That said, there are cutscenes where non-player characters talk to you and give quests.  The voice acting isn't bad, but it's certainly nothing to write home to your mother about.

Since I can't say much about the story itself, I can at least provide some information about the setting.  The game is set in the modern day, and players take the role of humans who have, for some odd reason (seriously, don't ask if you don't want a head full of bee-flavored nightmare fuel) have been inducted into the "Secret World" - yes, they really do call it that in character - and are able to use magic as well as see things that most people either can't see or are simply too disbelieving to admit.  These people are often invited to join secret societies that operate toward their own ends.  The Templars, based in London, UK, are the descendants of the Knights Templar of the middle ages and are hellbent on destroying monsters and demons, even at the cost of their own righteousness.  The Illuminati are a conspiratorial organization who manipulate events toward their own ends and control entire nations from their headquarters in New York, NY, and Dragon are a chaotic organization based in Seoul, South Korea, that are seemingly devoted to the purpose of Chaos itself.

Naturally, the atmosphere begins to form in your mind from these descriptions, showing themes of secret conspiracies, mysteries and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.  The fact that so many of these things seem clear can make the Secret World seem a little cliché, but FunCom handled this very much the way Joss Whedon would: by not only making it obvious, but having fun with it too.  The meat of the gameplay areas available to players in the beta was in a town called "Kingsmouth" in New England.  Just that name probably causes a few people to guess where I'm going with this, and in case that is you, you are absolutely right.  The streets in the town have names like Lovecraft Lane, Dunwich Road and Arkham Avenue.  Shops have names like "Flagg's Pharmacy", a name that will definitely be recognizable to fans of Stephen King (who, I suspect, also inspired the name of the town itself).  All of these little touches will be fun to look out for for those players who enjoy looking for Easter eggs.

From a gameplay perspective, the atmosphere even makes for interesting and creative questing.  Most MMOs provide quests in which you have to kill so many of a certain type of monster or collect items from such-and-such location.  There are plenty of those types of missions in The Secret World as well, but there is an entirely new type of mission that I've never seen in an MMO: investigation missions.  These are missions where absolutely NONE of the work is done for you, not even telling you where to go.  No markers are placed on your map, and you are only given indirect hints and clues as to where to go and what to do.  For the first time in years while playing an MMO, I actually had to use critical thinking to finish these quests, and it was FUN.  Real life facts and information even become useful, which makes it especially nice that there is an actual web browser built into the game client that defaults to Google.  I spent hours trying to figure out one of the clues, and practically cheered when the solution finally dawned on me.  It reminded me, in many ways, of some older action-adventure horror games like Silent Hill and the earlier Resident Evil games.

As to character customization, well, this is where the game has some major hiccups.  When I created my character, there were extremely few clothing options available to choose from.  I suspect there will likely be more clothing items that can be purchased in-game (and possibly with real money) to help customize your appearance more to your liking, but it seemed extremely limited at character creation, though it's possible the choices were simply cut down for this limited beta.  In fact, one of the oddest things was that the lightest possible skin-tone I could get for my character was incredibly dark (think "Indian with a mild tan" dark), even in comparison to non-player characters throughout the game.  I am not sure if this was a problem with the game, or if I just couldn't figure out how to make it lighter.

When it comes to combat abilities, though, customization becomes a whole different game.  This game has no class system or levels whatsoever, meaning you are free to play your character however you like.  You are given two weapon slots, and a number of abilities that require those weapons, meaning you will be restricted to only two ability "trees" to determine your function in combat, but each type is surprisingly flexible.  By fighting in combat or completing missions, you earn experience, which earns your character Anima Points (AP) and Skill Points (SP).  AP are then spent on abilities in the ability wheel to determine what combat functions you can have, while SP are spent in your skills to improve your efficiency in certain things.

For the abilities, you get two sets of seven slots to "equip" your abilities: one set of seven to equip activatable abilities, and another set of seven to equip passive abilities.  Other than that restriction, you are free to equip whatever abilities you like.  There are three categories of weapons - ranged, melee and magic - on the ability wheel, which are then subdivided into three different types of those weapons.  What makes this interesting is that each and every weapon type has different abilities, and can be customized to do... well, just about anything you need them to do.  I was surprised to find that even my double-pistol wielding 60's Bond-girl parody character had healing abilities with her guns.  Equipment, much like most other MMO's, improves your character's efficiency in certain things, like attack power, health or healing, so depending on what equipment your character uses and what skills they have focused on, it seems as though you can manage to build a character to fill just about any role in a group with almost any type of weapon combination.

While it is interesting to explore the different options available to characters, it is important to note that all this freedom definitely can come at the cost of being extremely complicated.  While the game is relatively easy to learn early on, activities designed with a group of players in mind might become very complicated to someone who does not have much experiencing min-maxing their character's abilities in MMOs, especially when it comes to endgame activities.  It's unclear what the endgame looks like in The Secret World, but we could safely assume it has something to do with grouping up for increasingly hard challenges to earn better equipment, and anyone that hasn't absolutely mastered their abilities will probably fall behind, and I would suspect they may suffer admonishment from other players.  In other words, I have a feeling this will be a game that will be hard if it is your first MMO, although learning it shouldn't be too hard if you want to invest the effort.

Altogether, I give the game, or the small bit I experienced of it, 4 out of 5 stars.  It's got some flaws, but altogether it is an enjoyable and refreshing change of pace from the usual MMO fare.

Can Gamers Make A Difference?

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with developers lately.  I recently saw a video of Paul Barnett, Senior Creative Director for EA BioWare's Mythic division, in which he basically states that, unless you are a game designer, you don't have a right to complain about games.  To be honest, I only managed to watch the first five minutes or so of the roughly one-hour long video, but I had heard enough.  He continues to deride his audience as being idiots, and like the utter morons he describes them to be the audience actually seems to LIKE it.

This is one problem with gamers today: for all of the amazing things we can do, and even have done, gamers frequently turn off their brains when the time comes for critical thought.  When it comes time to think if things can be better, gamers frequently just respond with "it could be worse."  We tend to be working stiffs instead of academics when it comes to games.  It's always about what button to push at the right time and never a question of why push that button to begin with.  But why is that?

Most gamers, like myself, have no drive to create games.  We don't enjoy the process.  I, for one, would rather live in a world without video games than live my life typing out C-script.  We can be incredibly passionate about the games we play, but incredibly passive when it comes to assessing whether or not we're getting what we pay for.  I, for example, have taken a lot of crap from game companies that annoyed me, even bothered me, but still kept on enjoying the games they made because, well, if they didn't make them, they wouldn't exist to enjoy at all.  However, even I have my limits.

As long as I can manage to enjoy a game, I will usually have no problem with paying money for it.  That is, after all, the heart of the concept of capitalism: if something is desirable, then people will pay money for it.  But what happens when the game developer/publisher crosses "the line", that event horizon of pleasure at which the product stops being fun and starts being a chore?  Well, you get things like what is going on between BioWare and the fans of Mass Effect.

To explain, the main reason Mass Effect's fans have been so riled up over the extremely disappointing ending of Mass Effect 3 is a number of reasons, perhaps least of all being the actual "ending" itself, though I have honestly become reluctant to call it even that.  Another big reason fans have been so upset is because of things that were said before the game was released.  The game's director, Casey Hudson, made statements, even within WEEKS of the release date, about the ending that turned out to be objectively untrue, and while statements made by a developer generally cannot be considered "false advertising", some of the statements made on the game's promotional website can.  To cap this all off, the criticisms of the ending were met with some of the worst public relations response in recent memory, much of which amounted to implying to the fans they were just too stupid to understand the ending.  This is where I really draw the line.

It is one thing to claim "artistic integrity" for something you have created.  It is a whole different scenario to throw it all back into your customers' faces as an insult.  While I personally hold the view that games can be art, I am also of the opinion that business remains business.  I have paid hundreds of dollars to BioWare and EA for the Mass Effect series alone.  For someone  like myself, that is a lot of money.  Regardless of their reasons for releasing the game in the state of apparent incompleteness that it has, I am not fond of being treated like an idiot, and I have discovered I am not alone.

Lots of fans got together and found that not only were they not the only people who felt let down, but that, in fact, they were the majority.  A large majority.  That's an enormous amount of upset customers who were led to believe they were buying something very different from what they got.  And for the first time that I've ever seen, they began to organize.

When I was first introduced to holdtheline.com, I was impressed.  The website has an incredible, professional look; it functions very well; and the people I spoke with on their forums were delightfully kind, thoughtful and outspoken individuals one would not normally expect from the stereotypes of gamers we see in the media.  What's more, many of them not only were upset about the outcome with Mass Effect 3 but also shared many of my views on how the industry has been shredding us, the consumers that are its lifeblood, for every red cent it can squeeze out of us.  And, before I knew it, I found myself swept into joining the team working on the newsletter.

I am extremely optimistic about this movement.  For now, it is extremely focused on Mass Effect 3, and to some extent on BioWare, but many among us have expressed interest in broadening out and becoming a group more focused on consumer advocacy for video games.  HTL may well be a force for crafting the future for video games, and I think that, if it can, it would be a much brighter future.  So, for now, I will hold the line, and I hope that perhaps some of you who might read this will too.

I Don't Get Resident Evil

Resident Evil is one of those series that has never made much sense to me. On its surface, it's a bio-horror action series featuring zombies, genetically engineered viruses, parasites and biological super weapons. However, underneath all that it carries these bizarre puzzles that seem like they could only have been thought up by an insane chessmaster, like a homicidal schizophrenic version of Batman's Riddler.

You find keys shaped like miniature statues, in some cases in the shapes of actual chess pieces. But why? Nowhere in the series is there any mystical elements beyond the seeming symbolism of these objects that are entirely out of place. Granted, a lot of the villains really ARE totally insane, but most of them don't seem to be what I would describe as "brilliantly insane", like eccentric geniuses. Instead, they seem to be more just criminally insane, or, as in the case of Albert Wesker, insanely gay (CHRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSS!). Not once have I seen a character who seems either brilliantly insane or insanely brilliant, nor have any of these characters shown an honest interest in the occult.

I honestly have not yet played Resident Evil 4, and I only did a quick run-through of the original game. I never played RE0 either, nor did I ever finish Code Veronica. But I've gotten the general gist of things, and none of the villains ever came off, to me, at least, as ever really explaining the placement of these items. Puzzles to solve to open secret passageways seem to be found throughout the series, and yet nowhere is their presence justified, with maybe a few exceptions.

This doesn't ruin the games for me, of course. I can still enjoy them for what they are, but I don't think they will ever make sense. In comparison to what is, in my opinion, both a better series, writing-wise, and scarier, Silent Hill, Resident Evil will never manage to compare, but the Resident Evil series will still remain an enjoyable one in general, even if it is sort of nonsensical.

After all, shooting the heads off zombies will never go out of style, right?

Filling Swiss Cheese: Explaining ME3's Ending Without Indoctrination Theory

Okay, once again, I'm going to write about the ending of Mass Effect 3. Before anyone starts groaning, this time I have a little bit of a different angle to take. This time, I'm going to attempt to give my own alternative to the Indoctrination Theory, in which I attempt to explain the ending as-is without resorting to the idea that it was all a dream. Naturally, your mileage may vary on this, and it's a difficult task to undertake considering the massive Swiss cheese of plotholes, but I think I do a decent job.

Without having to go into too much detail for those of my readers who are unfamiliar with the games, just before the game reaches its climax, the protagonist, Commander Shepard, and his/her team recapture an ancient virtual intelligence, or VI, a sort of computer that behaves to mimic intelligence for ease of interface but is not actually intelligent, that contains information on where the MacGuffin, known as the Catalyst, is located. Supposedly, the MacGuffin is the key component to a super weapon, referred to as the Crucible, of ancient design intended to be used against the Reapers, the ancient, synthetic entities assaulting the galaxy.

Mind you, up to this point, the Catalyst is simply a MacGuffin. It is nothing more and nothing less; so far as we, the audience, have been informed, the Catalyst is just a plot device meant to be used with the Crucible to stop the Reapers. Up until now, no one even knows what they actually do, let alone what they are, so we're kind of just meant to accept them at face value as plot devices. The Crucible, for further explanation, has supposedly been constructed by different civilizations over numerous Reaper cycles, the period of approximately 50,000 years between when the Reapers arrive and wipe out civilization, and it has never been completed, essentially meaning that you have numerous civilizations attempting to build it in the hopes that it might save them. Such behavior is nonsensical, but plausible enough that I can work with it.

The VI reveals that the Catalyst is, in fact, the Citadel, a huge space station/city in the Serpent Nebula that has served for thousands of cycles as a sort of "galactic capital", with no one really knowing its origins. It even serves in the game as the main hub from which the player can find side missions and purchase goods. It is then revealed that a major antagonist, "the Illusive Man", affectionately referred to by fans as "TIM", who runs a secret organization, Cerberus, devoted to "furthering the goals of Humanity", has informed the Reapers that Shepard has obtained the VI and is now aware of the Catalyst's identity/location. It is not clear how TIM managed to communicate with the Reapers directly, but since it's obvious at this point that he's been Indoctrinated, despite not knowing it himself, we can assume the Reapers were willing to listen, if, indeed, they even needed to speak. Whatever the means, Shepard is then informed that the Citadel has been moved to Earth's orbit.

Now, here is where the first major plot hole enters into the ending. Why Earth? Why do the Reapers suddenly, discovering that their greatest foe has discovered the secret to defeating them, immediately take the Citadel to the human homeworld? Isn't that just a little TOO convenient? Well, in a sense, yes, it is a little too convenient, but it is also explainable. Earth was the second planet the Reapers assaulted directly, and we already know the reason for this. In fact, the only reason it wasn't the first was because the Reapers essentially had to fly through Batarian space just to get there, so they, of course, proceeded to start destroying the Batarians on the way. The reason they target Earth is exactly because it is the human homeworld.

Let me put it this way: you are an entity several hundreds of thousands of years old. In all those hundreds of thousands of years, you've never once even been scratched by another living being. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, some little bug comes along and pokes out your eye. In this analogy, you are the Reapers and Shepard is the bug. In the first Mass Effect, Shepard managed to do what had never been done -- EVER -- by preventing the Reapers' arrival when the Reaper Sovereign attempted to open a Mass Relay, a form of extremely rapid faster-than-light travel, in the middle of the Citadel. In the second game, Shepard manages to lead a team into the heart of the galaxy and either capture or destroy a human Reaper (I'd attempt to explain this one, but it'd really take way too much time than I have for writing and you have for reading to be worth it). So, yes, the Reapers have every reason to think that humans are special, as it is a human that has managed to be the only being in hundreds of thousands of years that could manage to make them rethink their strategy.

So, in that case, why bring the Catalyst straight to Earth? Why not take it somewhere out of the way? Well, I can answer that question with a single word: Harbinger. Harbinger is the oldest known Reaper, effectively the oldest living thing in the known universe, and is, arguably, the leader of the Reapers. Little is known about the Reapers and their origins, but there are a few things that we can say for sure, and especially about Harbinger in particular. Harbinger has an almost fetishistic desire to oversee its plans personally, as we hear over and over again when it "assumes control" of various minions in the second game. Harbinger gets a hard-on for doing the most important jobs itself, which makes its minimal role in Mass Effect 3 seem all the more bizarre, but, well, for arguments' sake I'm taking this for what it is. It makes sense, then, that if Harbinger wants to protect something, it would keep whatever it wants to protect as close by as possible. And, if Harbinger wants to destroy something, it would either be there for its destruction or assume control of something that is. In short, Harbinger would be at Earth in order to destroy humanity, and the Citadel would be at Earth because Harbinger would want to be able to personally keep an eye on it.

We now return to our stupid-ass ending, already in progress. After using the combined fleets he/she has gathered from around the galaxy, Shepard breaks through the Reapers in orbit around Earth, making it possible for the Shepard's ship, the Normandy, to dispatch a landing party. With Shepard in the lead, the landing party break through the front lines and establish a forward position near the space below the Citadel's geosynchronous orbit over London. Alliance troops line up for a final run toward what the military leaders refer to as a "conduit", a weird beam of light running from the ground up into the Citadel. What is the conduit? The only explanation I can come up with is that it is some sort of built in function of the Citadel designed to hold it in geosynchronous orbit. Alliance troops, including Shepard and his/her mentor, Admiral David Anderson, charge the conduit on foot in a momentary bout of stupidity, and after fighting off a massive onslaught of Reaper-created monstrosities, are met with none other than our old friend Harbinger in the sky, who proceeds to blast the crap out of Shepard and the remaining soldiers with a death ray, and Shepard blacks out. That's it for Harbinger. Thanks for the cameo!

Shepard awakens right where he/she blacked out, armor decimated, limping and down to just a pistol to fight off the remaining Reaper forces, all the troops in the immediate area dead or dying. Radio chatter reveals that everyone is dead, giving the order to all remaining soldiers to retreat. Shepard limps on toward the conduit, bravely shooting down a few weak enemies. Finally, Shepard makes it to the conduit and... is transported upward, into the Citadel. Apparently it functions as beaming technology, too. Who knew? Finding him/herself in a dark chamber among the bodies of thousands of people who didn't manage to escape the Citadel before the Reapers claimed it, and discovers Anderson is on the Citadel somehow too via radio communication. Shepard limps forward, meets Anderson, who is also badly wounded, at a terminal that they hope can be used to open the arms of the Citadel in order to let the Crucible in. In walks TIM, to reveal that he thinks it would be much better to CONTROL the Reapers than to destroy them, and he proceeds to begin controlling Shepard and Anderson, forcing Shepard to shoot Anderson in the left abdomen.

Here is where we meet our next major plot hole. If TIM is actually Indoctrinated, how is it that he is able to seemingly control Shepard and Anderson through Indoctrination? This is simple, naturally. TIM is a puppet of the Reapers, and the Reapers are in full control. He only thinks he has free will because the Reapers let him. Meanwhile, the Reapers exert their own control on Shepard and Anderson, killing to birds with one stone: Shepard and Anderson are reminded of the power the Reapers hold, and TIM continues to be a willing pawn doing the Reapers' bidding without even being aware. The alternative in this scenario would be the Reapers attacking directly, but they would deem this too dangerous because it would risk damaging the Catalyst. More on that in a minute.

We continue to go through an exchange in which TIM tries to convince Shepard that his plan of controlling the Reapers is the best plan and can work. This ends either with Shepard shooting TIM to save Anderson or Shepard managing to convince TIM that he's been indoctrinated, at which point TIM realizes the only way out is to kill himself, which he promptly does.

Shepard and Anderson then have a moment to chat, both exhausted from their wounds. This is the one redeeming feature of the ending, in my opinion, and I think most people agree with me. It's a touching moment in which Shepard and his/her father figure throughout the trilogy get to have a real heart-to-heart connection, both sure of their own impending deaths. Indeed, Anderson, a moment later, quietly passes on with Shepard looking on solemnly.

Some people point to a fresh, bleeding wound in Shepards left abdomen as evidence of Shepard's Indoctrination. The argument, in this case, usually points out that it's the same location that Shepard shot Anderson, claiming Anderson represents Shepard's resistance to Indoctrination and that Shepard is, in fact, shooting him/herself. This, of course, requires you to assume that Anderson is, in fact, a representation of Shepard's subconscious, which is at the very least as large a leap to make as simply making the assumption that Shepard accidentally reopened an earlier wound in via stress.

The radio then crackles to life again and we hear the voice of Admiral Hackett, who asks if Shepard can hear him and proceeds to say that the arms of the Citadel still aren't open and they need to be if there is to be any hope of getting the Crucible inside. Some people question how Hackett could know Shepard was on the Citadel if everyone supposedly died in the charge to the conduit, but I don't bother with this one too much. It's a relatively minor plot hole, and can easily be explained away with a handwave, ie. something about trackers being placed on all Alliance soldiers or something. Yes, such handwaves are cheap, but they exist because they are easy explanations for minor detail issues.

Shepard opens the arms of the Citadel, and the Crucible floats in. Hackett's voice over the radio informs us that nothing's happening and the problem must be on Shepard's end. This is when any idea that the ending was at least decent firmly plants itself in the crapper and proceeds to flush itself down into the municipal water system of Dumbassville. Suddenly, a patch of floor beneath Shepard's feet begins to levitate into the air, lifting Shepard up to a level above the terminal that apparently no one noticed was up there. Dogs CAN look up, but apparently every other species in the galaxy seems to have lost this ability. And what is there to welcome Shepard to this hidden chamber of one of the most populous locales in the known universe? Why, the Catalyst, of course! Wait... what? Yes, you heard right, that MacGuffin we've been chasing all this time is, in fact, a fully sentient AI that has been literally beneath your feet the entire time.

The Catalyst appears to Shepard in the form of a ghostly image, the shape of a young boy Shepard witnessed being killed by the Reapers on Earth, and has haunted Shepard's dreams throughout the game. There might be lots of things open to interpretation in this ending, but one thing has been made almost painfully clear by BioWare: the boy is intended to represent all the people Shepard could not save. Why the Catalyst chooses to present itself this way is anyone's guess, but it must be able to read Shepard's mind in order for this explanation to work. Considering that the Reapers are established to be able to control people's minds absolutely, it is not a huge leap in logic to assume that similar technology could be used to read minds.

Now here's where things get complicated. The Catalyst proceeds to explain to Shepard that it controls the Reapers, and that the Reapers exist in order to harvest organic civilizations and preserve them as Reapers every 50,000 years in order to prevent organics from developing synthetic life that will inevitably destroy organic life. Naturally, this notion is ridiculously circular logic, but their is a sort of brilliance behind it that I have worked out. This brilliance, of course, even if it proved true, would never counter the execution so bad it could only have been written by a drunk chimpanzee, but it does make sense. First, the Reapers claim to have more-or-less always existed. They claim to have witnessed synthetics destroying organics. Indeed, they even claim to have originally been victims of this tragedy. That's the first step in the equation. The Reapers have seen this happen, and work to prevent it from occurring again.

From that, we can suppose that, much in the same way that the Reapers "harvest" organics and preserve them as Reapers, the Reapers were, themselves, originally organics. This is the easy conclusion we make in this. It gets more complicated from here. The Catalyst claims to control the Reapers. Some people believe this to be contradictory to the idea that the Reapers are artificial intelligence, but it is and it isn't. The Reapers are still intelligent and capable of acting on their own, but that does not make the Catalyst's claim of controlling them a lie. We could suppose that the Catalyst was the central control of the Reaper cycle, maintaining their purpose and directing them to perform their tasks, but that it somehow lost control. The Reapers, for sake of argument, began to act against the will of the Catalyst.

Why would this system exist? Well, I take a large part of the inspiration for this theory from the conflict between the Geth, another artificial intelligence in the Mass Effect universe, and their creators, the Quarians. Much like the Geth, the first Reapers were created but feared by those among their creators that did not understand them. This resulted in a war that ultimately led to the destruction of the organic species that created the first Reapers. Much as the Geth remained mostly loyal to the Quarians even though they would fight for their own survival, the Reapers would be upset at the loss of their creators, so they begin a process of maintaining the galaxy in their stead. They create the Catalyst to function as a form of central computer to observe and guide their efforts, but over time the Reapers begin to slowly deviate from their original intentions. After witnessing further wars between organics and synthetics, they draw the conclusion that destruction is inevitable and begin the cycles as we see them in the Mass Effect games.

That leaves one major plot hole, however: the Crucible. How is it that a device, designed, added onto and constructed over numerous cycles, could ever perfectly connect to the Catalyst and manage to carry out a function? The answer comes from the only possibility: the Crucible was originally designed by the Reapers themselves. The Reapers are not stupid. They might do things that seem ridiculous to humans, but they never do them because they just weren't thinking. Everything they do is done with specific intent, even when that intent is flawed. The Reapers foresaw the possibility that they would become the very thing they hoped to prevent, so they designed a failsafe, the Crucible, to be used in order to stop them from destroying everything. The core design of the Crucible was the necessary function, but the added devices managed to modify its use, both empowering it and adding additional capabilities, such as being able to control the Reapers directly or to take a template and imprint that template on all life in the galaxy, thus explaining the differing results of the ending.

The rest is mostly little details that can be explained with handwaves, and I really don't feel like going into every little thing. I think I've covered the major points here. Again, a lot of speculation goes into it, but I don't think it requires any more assumptions than the Indoctrination Theory. In essence, it's a sort of Murphy's Law counter to IT more than a "better explanation". It does no better of a job tying all the plot holes together, just ties them together differently. It doesn't change the sheer massive fail that is the ending, but it is an alternative perspective.

Entitlement, Methinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much

I've seen a number of independent developers out there taking stabs at the for-profit video game industry lately that, I think, are kind of unjustified. In many cases, it's just based around the idea that games should be fun and artistic and not used as merely a means to make money. In some cases, this is expanded to the recent boom in "kickstarter" initiatives, a way of soliciting donations in order to fund the development of a game without having to submit to a publisher.

While I can respect the right of developers to simply make games for the joy of making games, I find this to be rather arrogant. Not in the sense that a rich man might believe himself more worthy than a poor man because he "earned his wealth," but rather in the sense that it proposes the thought that this person has the right to dictate what is and is not enjoyable or "worthy" in a game. It causes me to wonder why a person would make such claims in the first place. Perhaps they are fed up with being ignored for games they view as being "less interesting." I don't know. What I do know is this: they are destroying themselves.

A friend of mine once shared with me a bit of wisdom that I shall not soon forget: your politics are boring. Not in the sense that your political opinion is, literally, boring, but that you will never get people to join your way of thinking by making them feel like you think you are better than they are on moral grounds, even if you actually are (yes, typically a subjective thing, I know, but whether subjective or not is irrelevant in the argument). You will only come off as grandstanding, arrogant and holier-than-thou, and in the end will just exhaust your audience rather than get them to be concerned with whatever you want to convince them of.

The way this connects with video games is pretty simple. The industry is as much a political construct as a social one. You might disagree with EA's policies, but at the end of the day they will always have better public relations, a larger budget and more lobbyists. Their business methods, focused more on quantity than quality, do not necessarily create better games, only more money. This is where, if you want to change the structure of the industry, you have to beat them. If you want to get people to respect your opinion and why what you think is better for video games going forward should be accepted, you need to be among them.

If you find yourself shouting from the mountain tops that "they are all whiny, entitled brats," no one will ever give a fuck what you think. But if they find you sitting among them, just as frustrated as they are with the way EA gouges fans of sports games, or ramps up costs on downloadable content, or how much you really hated such-and-such changes made in the sequel to whatever, they will respect you. People will begin to understand your opinion because they can connect to you.

I, for one, find independent games often tend to be some of the best, most imaginative and enjoyable gaming experiences for their cost. I feel I get more out of paying $15 for an indie game that I would give a three-star rating than I would from a big-budget blockbuster with the same rating based almost purely on the fact that it didn't cost me as much. Alternatively, a great indie game for the same price is a treasure, but so can a similarly great big-budget game be. If you want to convince me that your opinion matters, you need to convince me you're not an arrogant snob who thinks you're better than me just because I happen to enjoy some games that are made on larger budgets. Yes, maybe I am a bit too "mainstream," but the fact remains that I play the games I like, and while some of the things in those games might frustrate me, overall I still like them and am passionate about them and will defend them from people that I feel unjustly belittle them, because to belittle them makes me feel that you also belittle me as well.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that video games are art, but art is exactly what art has been for thousands of years: it is both an aesthetic thing intended to convey the makers creativity, and it is a means of making a living. Some people value the creating more than making a living off of it, and that's fine, but some people are willing to pay for something they like, and that's fine too. We should never exclude anyone from the community because we like different things.

Except for Angry Birds. I hate that game.

Can "Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut" Fix the Ending?

So, this morning BioWare announced "Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut", a free downloadable content extension to the ending of the game that is supposed to help clarify some of the things people were confused about as well as provide closure through " additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes," due to be released sometime this summer. These words suggest to me that what I wrote the other day is correct: the so-called "Indoctrination Theory" is wrong. The ending we got is, for better or worse, exactly as bad as it seems.

So, now that we have some idea of what BioWare is doing to address the concerns of the fans, will it manage to satisfy those who have been so angered? Maybe. BioWare's founder and CEO, Dr. Ray Muzyka, has stated that he believes they've managed to find the right balance between addressing the biggest issues the fans had with the ending, while also maintaining the "artistic integrity" of the team (I put "artistic integrity" in quotes mainly just because I don't think the original ending had much "integrity" in it at all).

First, we have the problem of the destruction of the Mass Relays themselves. It is established canon in Mass Effect, starting with the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2, and reaffirmed in the Codex in Mass Effect 3 itself, that rupturing a Mass Relay will release an amount of energy roughly equivalent to a star roughly the size of our sun going supernova. This would mean that destroying ALL the Mass Relays throughout the Milky Way would cause untold amounts of destruction, becoming, effectively, galactic genocide. Now, since the energy released during the ending of ME3 is a special color, we might assume that this is somehow a special case that would NOT cause said destruction. This leads to another problem, however: galactic populations and the importance of trade.

There are two significant species in the Mass Effect universe, the Turians and the Quarians, whose biology is based upon dextro-amino acids, as opposed to levo-amino acids, which almost every other sentient species in the galaxy is based on (yes, including humans). Now, at the ending of the game, when the Mass Relays are destroyed, huge numbers of the military force of both of these species, and perhaps even the entirety of the Quarians in the galaxy, are in the Sol system, on or orbiting Earth. Dextro-based lifeforms cannot subsist on levo-based foods, and it is almost unheard of that the two would be found in the same star system, meaning that neither of these two species would be able to survive indefinitely in our solar system. Since the Mass Relays are the only means of traveling rapidly across the galaxy, that leaves only conventional Faster-Than-Light travel, meaning that if they started traveling immediately, it could be years, perhaps even decades, before they reach a star system with any renewable food sources.

Now, even worse than the idea that these two huge fleets would starve to death is the idea that, with so many billions of people of all different species stranded in the Sol system, which has only one habitable planet, how could all those people survive long on such limited resources? It seems inevitable that war will break out sooner or later as groups begin fighting for survival against starvation, unless they can manage to discover the technology to build Mass Relays on their own REALLY fast.

These are just the BIGGEST issues I feel would have to be addressed in an "extended" ending. There are others, but those are the biggest, and certainly not the only ones that would need to be there for me to feel like it's even worth it. Other issues include:

The fate of your crew. The crew of the Normandy includes a Turian and a Quarian, who, along with the rest of the crew, are stranded on an uninhabited garden world. Either the life on that planet is levo based, in which case both those characters will inevitably starve to death if they don't die of an allergic reaction first, or it is dextro based, which means everyone else will starve to death.

The Catalyst and the Crucible. It is still entirely unexplained how the two devices, built hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years apart with no prior knowledge of the existence of the other, become somehow compatible. Did the Reapers design the initial version of the Crucible? Is the Catalyst just magic? The convenience of this is never even mentioned, let alone explained.

The Reapers. So, the Reapers were created to harvest organic life every 50,000 years before it can develop synthetic life that will destroy them? Ignoring the circular logic there for a moment, what exactly does that mean? Who created them to do this? Does this mean they just ignore the Geth, an already existing synthetic lifeform? More than that, they actually through the course of the game EMPOWER the Geth by providing them with more advanced technology. If synthetic life is so dangerous, why make them MORE dangerous? Furthermore, if the Catalyst "controls" the Reapers, as it says it does, does that mean the Reapers are not really AI because they have no free will? By extension, since the Catalyst is all of a sudden able to do something differently but can't (or won't) do so on its own, does that mean that it isn't truly an AI? I have my own theories, but they are all based entirely on conjecture at this point. While some things can be vague, things being too vague can just become ridiculous.

And finally, pardon my French, but what the fuck is "Synergy?" In the Synergy ending, in which all life, synthetic and organic, are supposed to be merged somehow to create a "perfect evolution" somewhere between the two. What does that mean? We see that the Normandy's crew, climbing out of the crashed ship, now have glowing green "circuitry" on their skin, including EDI, who was already a machine, so are we to assume that the green "circuitry" is also somehow representative of organic life? Does it flow with glowing, digital sap?

Okay, that last one is just me ranting a little bit, and I really don't care that much, but it does feel nice to just let my mind screw around with it. As for the rest, though, these are legitimate concerns I have. I could accept an expanded ending if it at least addresses these clear problems. It doesn't need to be perfect, but I would at least like to know if these major questions can be answered. If not, then it will just seem like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

Why I Think the Indoctrination Theory is Bullshit

So, there is a major theory regarding the ending to Mass Effect 3 that has been making its way around the Internets that attempts to claim that the ending is actually so clever it just goes over people's heads. It is explained in detail in a long video on YouTube, but for those with ADHD who don't have time or energy to watch the whole video, I'll attempt to sum it up.

Essentially, the theory claims that the protagonist of the game, Commander Shepard, is experiencing the process of Reaper Indoctrination. Indoctrination, in this sense, is a literal form of technological mind-control that, with prolonged exposure, makes it essentially impossible for an individual to fight the Reapers, and usually results in active, even willing, servitude to them. The events in the final moments of the game are essentially hallucinations brought on by the finalizing of Shepard's Indoctrination, and the ending cinematic after Shepard makes his/her choice is, essentially, hopeful visions of the future rather than an actual conclusion.

Many people have argued for or against the truth to this claim, and I personally am of the opinion that there is some truth to it. That does not, however, mean that it is in any way brilliant or even fully true. I have a feeling that the intention behind it is somewhere in the middle.

The game's developers have hinted as much by saying they were trying to make an ending that would be talked about for a long time (and Obi-Wan told Luke his father was dead, but that's another story). This suggests, so far as I can guess, that they intended for things to be a bit vague, and if they wanted to be vague, Indoctrination would have been the way to go. Ever since the very first game, Indoctrination has been known to be something that causes hallucinations and can cause people to guess what is and is not real. In fact, I would go so far as to say that would have been an ending truly worthy of the word "awesome." It would have been a brilliant plot twist worthy of high praise. However, it isn't.

My reasoning for this is twofold. First, there are major flaws in the logic used to explain the theory. First, of the three options the player is given at the end of the game, the one that supposedly would be the only choice in which Shepard actually resists the Indoctrination is the only one available no matter what. In the game, you have to gather War Assets in preparation for the final fight against the Reapers. You earn an Effective War Asset value, and the higher it is, the better the ending is supposed to be. The theory claims that the choice of "controlling" the Reapers or "merging all organic and synthetic life" are, supposedly, the wrong choices and would indicate Shepard giving in to the Indoctrination. However, those options are only presented at all if your Effective War Assets are high enough. The supposedly correct choice, "destroying all synthetic life," is the only one available no matter how low your score might be. It makes little sense that the options offered would provide no reward at all for doing better. The only part of this that would suggest truth to the Indoctrination Theory is that, if your score is low enough, you actually wind up destroying all life in the galaxy, not just synthetic life. It's never explained why that would be, so my only guess would be that there weren't enough scientists working to complete the Crucible and fix certain flaws. Regardless, it doesn't make sense that it would be the only option the Catalyst offers, because it would be directly counter to the Reapers' goals, both if what the Catalyst says is taken at face value and if it is, in fact, lying, since it would destroy the Reapers as well.

The second reason I think the Indoctrination Theory is wrong is my issue with the claim that it is somehow "so brilliant" that it just "goes over our heads." Perhaps it does go over our heads, but that does not mean it is brilliant. In fact, I would argue that the reason it fails is exactly because it goes over our heads. It comes down to a matter of understanding the audience. It is wise not to fall into the trap of thinking your audience is stupid, but it is also important to avoid the idea that your audience is too smart. Part of the reason the Indoctrination Theory has become so popular is because it fills in all the blanks. Unfortunately, the fact that there are so many blanks is a problem in and of itself: it is exactly the same as the "God of the Gaps" argument, in which one makes a claim that something is true because there is no other reasonable explanation for things we don't know. In essence, it's trying to justify things that can't otherwise be explained by drawing inferences and conjecture based on clues that are sketchy at best. In fact, some of the "clues" cited in the video are SO sketchy, it is arguable whether they were even things anyone ever intended to be noticed at all, including one-off lines from the first Mass Effect game that are so vague they could be interpreted almost any way one likes and may not even have any connection at all.

Occam's Razor, which can be paraphrased as "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one," leads me to conclude that, in fact, the idea that the Indoctrination Theory is true is based so much on conjecture and speculation that, while it might be the only explanation that accounts for all the plot holes and continuity errors, it is little more than grasping at straws at best. In short, even though the ideas proposed in it might be very clever, if it is, in fact, true, then it is so ineptly executed as to cancel out any genius inherent in its conception. In fact, in this case, it would go so far as to undermine any brilliance, as has been seen in the many blogs, videos, magazine articles, etc., that have analyzed the ending.