The post 5 reasons to hate Mass Effect appeared first on Game News.
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Mass Effect is one of the greatest series of this console generation – in the top three, easily. But even our dearest loved ones get on our nerves from time to time, like when they make you take really slow elevator rides, or clutter the whole house with piles of tedious inventory. It’s better to get these things off your chest from time to time, rather than let everything build up, so here are our five biggest grievances with our dearly beloved space opera. We hate because we love.
1. The suicide
mission
Above: “I died because I was so distracted thinking about how we didn’t finish our chit chat. derp” -Legion
Furthermore, even completing each character’s loyalty mission doesn’t ensure they’ll survive the assault on the Collector base, even if you select the correct person for each task. For example, I sent my loyal Legion into the vents as the tech specialist, but he kept getting killed and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out there was a dialogue option I had missed while talking to Legion after his loyal mission, and only after exhausting all options for post-mission small talk did he manage to make it through the mission. Would a robot’s performance really hinge on whether or not you talked about his feelings beforehand?
2. The Mako
It’s like BioWare designed the Mako’s handling and controls to be as annoying as possible, and then designed the terrain of each planet to play off that shittiness for maximum frustration. The thing handles like it weighs less than a pound – and don’t blame the planets’ respective gravities, because it doesn’t seem to affect Shepard when he’s outside the vehicle. A Schwinn cruiser handles rocks better than the Mako – if a single tire hits any minute irregularity in the terrain, the whole thing flips on its back like a goddamn turtle.
And why do the shields take so long to recharge, even with squadmates with maxed out tech on board? Throughout the course of the game you could practically read an entire Mass Effect novelization during the time you’re forced to spend waiting for your shields to charge (seriously, you should have a book handy).
3. Mining
“Oh, you hated the Mako? So you hate exploring awesome alien landscapes? You hate seeing the breathtaking majesty of all the horizons in the galaxy? Here, have this shitty minigame instead then, you little shits.”
–Some asshole at BioWare
4. Forced
flirting
Above:Yuko (opens in new tab)ofJohnny Wander (opens in new tab)sums it up perfectly
Nothing says romance like having it shoved in your face with the force of a thousand clueless pick-up artists. It’s painfully obvious who the “canon” romance options are in both ME1 and ME2, and the dialogue becomes so ridiculous that it’s impossible to take seriously. As female Shepard, say anything remotely friendly to Kaiden or Jacob, such as “hey buddy, I don’t want anyone on my crew to die, and that includes you I guess” and they respond saying they’re “flattered” and would be totally interested in sexing you up too. What the!? If you’re playing paragon, it’s impossible to avoid their advances, and often the dialogue wheel does nothing to warn you that you’re about to enter the sexytime talk zone.
And speaking of romance…
5. Only girls can be
gay in space?
Above: One man, one woman
Even in Mass Effect 2’s expanded smorgasbord of intergalactic romance options, which includes no less than three girl-on-girl options, there isn’t a single option for male Shepard to romance another dude. And even then, it’s still a step back from the first game, because all three girl-girl hook-ups are confined to side romances – all six main romance options are hetero, whereas at least in one you could have a main girl-girl romance with Liara. Despite the tastefulness of each romance’s presentation, the one-sidedness of boy-girl or girl-girl only options makes it feel suspiciously like a skeevy attempt to titillate straight male gamers as opposed to actually being inclusive to girls who like girls.Why even include girl-girl options if you’re not going to include boy-boy options too?
We can only hope, given BioWare’sinclusive stance on the romance options of Dragon Age 2 (opens in new tab), that Mass Effect 3 will include a romance option for people who want to play as a gay male Shepard too.
Apr 28, 2011
(opens in new tab)
Indie darling status be damned, we take Minecraft to task
(opens in new tab)
Ezio and Altair are hiding plenty of flaws under those hoods
(opens in new tab)
1. The suicide
mission
So, the end of Mass Effect 2 is quite cool and cinematic. What’s not cool though, is the stringent and obtuse rules that govern who survives and who dies. First, if you don’t go directly to through the Omega 4 relay to the Collector base after obtaining the Reaper IFF, a huge chunk of your crew (non-squadmate) will die, and although the dialogue hints at the urgency of your mission, there’s nothing that explicitly indicates the consequences if you decide to wrap up any outstanding missions before continuing through the relay. Seasoned gamers are used to ignoring the disconnect between the urgency of the narrative and the reality of being able to dick around until you actually select the mission to continue, and it’s easy to mistake that to be the case here.
Above: “I died because I was so distracted thinking about how we didn’t finish our chit chat. derp” -Legion
Furthermore, even completing each character’s loyalty mission doesn’t ensure they’ll survive the assault on the Collector base, even if you select the correct person for each task. For example, I sent my loyal Legion into the vents as the tech specialist, but he kept getting killed and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out there was a dialogue option I had missed while talking to Legion after his loyal mission, and only after exhausting all options for post-mission small talk did he manage to make it through the mission. Would a robot’s performance really hinge on whether or not you talked about his feelings beforehand?
2. The Mako
It’s like BioWare designed the Mako’s handling and controls to be as annoying as possible, and then designed the terrain of each planet to play off that shittiness for maximum frustration. The thing handles like it weighs less than a pound – and don’t blame the planets’ respective gravities, because it doesn’t seem to affect Shepard when he’s outside the vehicle. A Schwinn cruiser handles rocks better than the Mako – if a single tire hits any minute irregularity in the terrain, the whole thing flips on its back like a goddamn turtle.
And why do the shields take so long to recharge, even with squadmates with maxed out tech on board? Throughout the course of the game you could practically read an entire Mass Effect novelization during the time you’re forced to spend waiting for your shields to charge (seriously, you should have a book handy).
3. Mining
“Oh, you hated the Mako? So you hate exploring awesome alien landscapes? You hate seeing the breathtaking majesty of all the horizons in the galaxy? Here, have this shitty minigame instead then, you little shits.”
–Some asshole at BioWare
4. Forced
flirting
Above:Yuko (opens in new tab)ofJohnny Wander (opens in new tab)sums it up perfectly
Nothing says romance like having it shoved in your face with the force of a thousand clueless pick-up artists. It’s painfully obvious who the “canon” romance options are in both ME1 and ME2, and the dialogue becomes so ridiculous that it’s impossible to take seriously. As female Shepard, say anything remotely friendly to Kaiden or Jacob, such as “hey buddy, I don’t want anyone on my crew to die, and that includes you I guess” and they respond saying they’re “flattered” and would be totally interested in sexing you up too. What the!? If you’re playing paragon, it’s impossible to avoid their advances, and often the dialogue wheel does nothing to warn you that you’re about to enter the sexytime talk zone.
And speaking of romance…
5. Only girls can be
gay in space?
Yeah, yeah, asaris are technically mono-gendered, but let’s be real – anatomically speaking, they’re indistinguishable from blue-skinned human women except for their tentacle-esque hair. Even the Galactic Codex: Essentials Edition 2183 (included with the collector’s edition of Mass Effect) states that “while asari have only one gender, they are not asexual like single-celled life—all asari are sexually female.”
Above: One man, one woman
Even in Mass Effect 2’s expanded smorgasbord of intergalactic romance options, which includes no less than three girl-on-girl options, there isn’t a single option for male Shepard to romance another dude. And even then, it’s still a step back from the first game, because all three girl-girl hook-ups are confined to side romances – all six main romance options are hetero, whereas at least in one you could have a main girl-girl romance with Liara. Despite the tastefulness of each romance’s presentation, the one-sidedness of boy-girl or girl-girl only options makes it feel suspiciously like a skeevy attempt to titillate straight male gamers as opposed to actually being inclusive to girls who like girls.Why even include girl-girl options if you’re not going to include boy-boy options too?
We can only hope, given BioWare’sinclusive stance on the romance options of Dragon Age 2 (opens in new tab), that Mass Effect 3 will include a romance option for people who want to play as a gay male Shepard too.
Apr 28, 2011
(opens in new tab)
5 reasons to hate Minecraft
Indie darling status be damned, we take Minecraft to task
(opens in new tab)
The post 5 reasons to hate Mass Effect appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post 5 reasons to hate Assassin’s Creed appeared first on Game News.
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A conveniently skewed view of history. Corrupt religious leaders. Serious men in silly white dresses who leap flamboyantly about withknives strapped to their wrists.Jade Raymond. What do these things have in common? They’re hallmarks of Assassin’s Creed, which has quickly grown from a single, divisive game to one of the most popular franchises of the current console generation.And if you’ve been paying attention, you know that makes it a perfect target for our continuing Week of Hate coverage. Specifically the part of thatcoverage in whichwe take a moment each day to nitpick a beloved series to death.
1. The spinoffs
suck
It may seem like we’re reaching if the first thing we pick on isn’t even part of the main series, but if you’re hunting for glaring flaws in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, this is the most obvious. Not every game in a series can be great, but it’s hard to think of many that havehad such a clear divide as”console good, handheld bad.” However fantastic the central Creed games might be, their handheld spinoffs – specifically Altair’s Chronicles, Bloodlines and Discovery – look like a bunch of stunted, malformed clones next to the (doubtless embarrassed) originals.
Art by Alex Barrett
Chronicles wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t Assassin’s Creed, instead giving us a Saturday-morning-cartoon plot and a version of Altair who used a grappling hook to dodge death traps installed on the roofs of small houses. Discovery was a perfectly good Sonic the Hedgehog clone ruined by clunky stealth elements, and Bloodlines – while being the only handheld game to successfully replicate AC’s freeform exploration and climbing – was dull, brown and hampered by too-small explorable areas and idiotic enemies. With the 3DS and NGP bringing more muscle to the table, it’s possible we’ll see an AC spinoff that breaks the trend in the near future, but we’re not holding our breath.
2. The first game was
outrageously repetitive
For its time, the first Assassin’s Creed was revolutionary, and the thrill of being able to freely run, climb and kill in a huge, open re-creation of Crusades-era Jerusalem was intoxicating. However, that intoxication made it easy to ignore the fact that AC was actually a very short game, padded out with grindingly repetitive side tasks. And for those without the patience for grinding repetition, it was hell.
Above: It feels like we followed and beat up like a dozen of this exact guy
Follow that guy. Pickpocket that other guy. Save that citizen. Climb that tower. Go and collect a bunch of flags within the time limit for your incompetent friend. And then when you’re done, get teleported all the way back to your headquarters so you can backtrack through miles of countryside, head to the next city and do it all over again. It might not have been so bad if not for the fact that many of the side tasks weren’t optional. You actually had to complete a few of them before you had enough “intelligence” to assassinate each of your targets, meaning that the interesting parts of the game were withheld until you’d accomplished enough arbitrary bullshit.
3. Beggars
Because fuck beggars.
Above: Seriously, we’re sick of their shit
4. A history of
horrible DRM
The PC release of the first Assassin’s Creed was apparently a hugely pirated game, and publisher Ubisoft didn’t want its sequels to suffer the same fate. Their solution? One of the most horribly draconian DRM solutions ever devised, which required a constant, uninterrupted connection to Ubisoft’s authentication server just to play the game.
Above: GHHGHHGHGHGHHHGN
If your wireless connection briefly hiccupped, Assassin’s Creed II would immediately kick you out, with no chance to save your game. Ditto if something went wrong on Ubisoft’s end. The DRM made the game practically unplayable for some, and while it was eventually toned down and then removed entirely, the fact that it was ever there in the first place was a slapto the face to PC gamers.
5.
Brotherhood%26rsquo;s ending
After we settled accounts with the Borgias in Ezio’s timeline, the modern-day location of the Apple was revealed. As Desmond, we hunted through the Coliseum for a secret chamber – finally, the answers to Assassin’s Creed’s apocalyptic mysteries were within our grasp! And then… THIS happened:
Great. Not only did we not get any answers, but we got a whole bunch of new questions, the biggest being “Wait, what just happened?” Why did Juno hijack Desmond’s body to stab Lucy? Whose voices did we hear over the credits? We won’t know until Assassin’s Creed III, because there’s apparently nothing people who’ve bought a $60 game like better than a massive cliffhanger.
Apr 26, 2011
(opens in new tab)
Gaming’s silliest spy series has plenty to rag on
(opens in new tab)
From Tingle to Water Temples, we find plenty to hate in Hyrule
(opens in new tab)
Popular FPS franchise is as overrated as they come
1. The spinoffs
suck
It may seem like we’re reaching if the first thing we pick on isn’t even part of the main series, but if you’re hunting for glaring flaws in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, this is the most obvious. Not every game in a series can be great, but it’s hard to think of many that havehad such a clear divide as”console good, handheld bad.” However fantastic the central Creed games might be, their handheld spinoffs – specifically Altair’s Chronicles, Bloodlines and Discovery – look like a bunch of stunted, malformed clones next to the (doubtless embarrassed) originals.
Art by Alex Barrett
Chronicles wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t Assassin’s Creed, instead giving us a Saturday-morning-cartoon plot and a version of Altair who used a grappling hook to dodge death traps installed on the roofs of small houses. Discovery was a perfectly good Sonic the Hedgehog clone ruined by clunky stealth elements, and Bloodlines – while being the only handheld game to successfully replicate AC’s freeform exploration and climbing – was dull, brown and hampered by too-small explorable areas and idiotic enemies. With the 3DS and NGP bringing more muscle to the table, it’s possible we’ll see an AC spinoff that breaks the trend in the near future, but we’re not holding our breath.
2. The first game was
outrageously repetitive
For its time, the first Assassin’s Creed was revolutionary, and the thrill of being able to freely run, climb and kill in a huge, open re-creation of Crusades-era Jerusalem was intoxicating. However, that intoxication made it easy to ignore the fact that AC was actually a very short game, padded out with grindingly repetitive side tasks. And for those without the patience for grinding repetition, it was hell.
Above: It feels like we followed and beat up like a dozen of this exact guy
Follow that guy. Pickpocket that other guy. Save that citizen. Climb that tower. Go and collect a bunch of flags within the time limit for your incompetent friend. And then when you’re done, get teleported all the way back to your headquarters so you can backtrack through miles of countryside, head to the next city and do it all over again. It might not have been so bad if not for the fact that many of the side tasks weren’t optional. You actually had to complete a few of them before you had enough “intelligence” to assassinate each of your targets, meaning that the interesting parts of the game were withheld until you’d accomplished enough arbitrary bullshit.
3. Beggars
Because fuck beggars.
Above: Seriously, we’re sick of their shit
4. A history of
horrible DRM
The PC release of the first Assassin’s Creed was apparently a hugely pirated game, and publisher Ubisoft didn’t want its sequels to suffer the same fate. Their solution? One of the most horribly draconian DRM solutions ever devised, which required a constant, uninterrupted connection to Ubisoft’s authentication server just to play the game.
Above: GHHGHHGHGHGHHHGN
If your wireless connection briefly hiccupped, Assassin’s Creed II would immediately kick you out, with no chance to save your game. Ditto if something went wrong on Ubisoft’s end. The DRM made the game practically unplayable for some, and while it was eventually toned down and then removed entirely, the fact that it was ever there in the first place was a slapto the face to PC gamers.
5.
Brotherhood%26rsquo;s ending
After we settled accounts with the Borgias in Ezio’s timeline, the modern-day location of the Apple was revealed. As Desmond, we hunted through the Coliseum for a secret chamber – finally, the answers to Assassin’s Creed’s apocalyptic mysteries were within our grasp! And then… THIS happened:
Great. Not only did we not get any answers, but we got a whole bunch of new questions, the biggest being “Wait, what just happened?” Why did Juno hijack Desmond’s body to stab Lucy? Whose voices did we hear over the credits? We won’t know until Assassin’s Creed III, because there’s apparently nothing people who’ve bought a $60 game like better than a massive cliffhanger.
Apr 26, 2011
(opens in new tab)
5 reasons to hate Metal Gear Solid
Gaming’s silliest spy series has plenty to rag on
(opens in new tab)
5 reasons to hate Zelda
From Tingle to Water Temples, we find plenty to hate in Hyrule
(opens in new tab)
5 reasons to hate Half-Life
Popular FPS franchise is as overrated as they come
The post 5 reasons to hate Assassin’s Creed appeared first on Game News.
]]>The post The Top 7… Things we hate about modern gaming appeared first on Game News.
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Ah yes, the Week of Hate. Seven rage-filled days of complaints, criticisms and straight-up trollin’ that let us vent our collective frustration on the games industry. In the past, we kicked off each week with a Top 7 that specified a certain aspect of gaming we’re angry with, be it stereotypical gamers we hate or the laughable habits of mainstream media coverage. This year we’re casting a wider net and bitching about the very state of video games today, from hardware issues to company behavior to trends we’d love to see die out sooner rather than later…
7 %26ndash; Motion
controls
Yes, hating on Wii has made this well trodden territory, but since Kinect and PlayStation Move became the new jangly-shiny thing to dangle in front of Best Buy zombies, this topic has started up all over again. For the past five or six years we’ve been incessantly told how motion controls (aka waggle) broaden gaming, how they make it omni-accessible for all ages and are even pushing the very medium of gaming into the future. Well, it’s been half a decade and what do they have to show for it? Minigames aplenty, tacked-on gestures for games that never needed them and a choking amount of shovelware cluttering up stores across the world. And look what it’s done to Rare!
Above: The proud developers of Viva Pinata, GoldenEye and Donkey Kong Country are busy working on… a sequel to Kinect Sports
In the many years of Wii’s existence, how many games made groundbreaking, indispensible use of motion control? Looking at the anemic Kinect and Move lineups, which games are actually worth the combined price tag of hardware and software? We’ll concede some of these games are OK (and in the case of Dance Central, quite good) when played in brief spats, but do any offer any ideas that weren’t already done on Wii?
Is this what we’re reduced to, blatant copycatting with nothing to add to the experience? Kinect removes a controller entirely and touts that as a genius distinction from Wii and Move. A look at the games themselves suggests the developers merely took what was already there and replaced a Wii Remote with your own arm. This is not innovative, this is not inclusive – it’s a reactionary dead end. What other technology-led industry launches expensive me-too competitors four years after the market leader arrived?
Above: Who needs controllers when Kinect Joy Ride is straight-up stuntalicious?
Every month we see amazing new stats claiming Kinect and Move are selling like crazy, so clearly people are biting; but will they continue to buy $40-60 games over the next three years, or will they realize it’s all a bit like the Wii they already have and move on? Could this escalate into a mini-crash (opens in new tab)? Probably not the latter, but it’s still effing annoying as shit to go through this all over again and still not have a game that honestly makes us happy to put down the controller. And on that note, controllers weren’t an obstacle to the mass market in the first place – the PS2 remains the best-selling console in history (opens in new tab), 13-button game pad and all.
6 %26ndash;
Nintendo%26rsquo;s stance on tech
Above: This came out last year!
Talk of motion controls directly leads to another area of constant irritation – Nintendo’s years-long refusal to approach technological standards. Five years ago it said more power was not the answer, that its next console would focus more on expanding the audience than besting some other console’s tech specs. No one can deny that’s exactly what Nintendo did, and that it worked alarmingly well, but for those of us who’ve been playing for years on end and actually look forward to better graphics and other advances in game design, Wii has been a giant pain in the ass.
The whole 480p thing was merely obnoxious in 2006; seeing 360 and PS3 games run in gorgeous HD was painful, but we could deal. In 2011 though, it’s downright hideous to witness how substandard Wii is compared to top releases on competing platforms. This visual hump, along with nearly mandatory motion controls, have turned Wii into a graveyard of third party support, and even when a brilliant game does arise (Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes, Muramasa etc) we can’t help but wonder how much better it would have been on any other system, in HD and with proper controls.
Above: Epic Mickey was pretty… but imagine it in 1080p
Wii also has two USB ports in the back – what were they ever good for? Storage? Useful peripherals? Nah. And let’s not even begin complaining about Friend Codes, Wii Speak, the clumsy Wii Shop Channel or any other piece of content that Nintendo passes off as an online presence. Moving to today, the 3DS just launched without an online store or first-party game that focuses on Wi-Fi multiplayer, even though Nintendo made sure to mention how capable the 3DS is… er, will be when it comes to internet connectivity. People used to compare Nintendo to Apple, but that’s hardly fair anymore; Apple continually revises and upgrades its hardware, while Nintendo’s sat on 2005 technology for six years.
We’ve got our fingers crossed for E3, where Nintendo is set to reveal a fancy new system (opens in new tab)that could undo all this aggregate stress…
7 %26ndash; Motion
controls
Yes, hating on Wii has made this well trodden territory, but since Kinect and PlayStation Move became the new jangly-shiny thing to dangle in front of Best Buy zombies, this topic has started up all over again. For the past five or six years we’ve been incessantly told how motion controls (aka waggle) broaden gaming, how they make it omni-accessible for all ages and are even pushing the very medium of gaming into the future. Well, it’s been half a decade and what do they have to show for it? Minigames aplenty, tacked-on gestures for games that never needed them and a choking amount of shovelware cluttering up stores across the world. And look what it’s done to Rare!
Above: The proud developers of Viva Pinata, GoldenEye and Donkey Kong Country are busy working on… a sequel to Kinect Sports
In the many years of Wii’s existence, how many games made groundbreaking, indispensible use of motion control? Looking at the anemic Kinect and Move lineups, which games are actually worth the combined price tag of hardware and software? We’ll concede some of these games are OK (and in the case of Dance Central, quite good) when played in brief spats, but do any offer any ideas that weren’t already done on Wii?
Is this what we’re reduced to, blatant copycatting with nothing to add to the experience? Kinect removes a controller entirely and touts that as a genius distinction from Wii and Move. A look at the games themselves suggests the developers merely took what was already there and replaced a Wii Remote with your own arm. This is not innovative, this is not inclusive – it’s a reactionary dead end. What other technology-led industry launches expensive me-too competitors four years after the market leader arrived?
Above: Who needs controllers when Kinect Joy Ride is straight-up stuntalicious?
Every month we see amazing new stats claiming Kinect and Move are selling like crazy, so clearly people are biting; but will they continue to buy $40-60 games over the next three years, or will they realize it’s all a bit like the Wii they already have and move on? Could this escalate into a mini-crash (opens in new tab)? Probably not the latter, but it’s still effing annoying as shit to go through this all over again and still not have a game that honestly makes us happy to put down the controller. And on that note, controllers weren’t an obstacle to the mass market in the first place – the PS2 remains the best-selling console in history (opens in new tab), 13-button game pad and all.
6 %26ndash;
Nintendo%26rsquo;s stance on tech
Above: This came out last year!
Talk of motion controls directly leads to another area of constant irritation – Nintendo’s years-long refusal to approach technological standards. Five years ago it said more power was not the answer, that its next console would focus more on expanding the audience than besting some other console’s tech specs. No one can deny that’s exactly what Nintendo did, and that it worked alarmingly well, but for those of us who’ve been playing for years on end and actually look forward to better graphics and other advances in game design, Wii has been a giant pain in the ass.
The whole 480p thing was merely obnoxious in 2006; seeing 360 and PS3 games run in gorgeous HD was painful, but we could deal. In 2011 though, it’s downright hideous to witness how substandard Wii is compared to top releases on competing platforms. This visual hump, along with nearly mandatory motion controls, have turned Wii into a graveyard of third party support, and even when a brilliant game does arise (Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes, Muramasa etc) we can’t help but wonder how much better it would have been on any other system, in HD and with proper controls.
Above: Epic Mickey was pretty… but imagine it in 1080p
Wii also has two USB ports in the back – what were they ever good for? Storage? Useful peripherals? Nah. And let’s not even begin complaining about Friend Codes, Wii Speak, the clumsy Wii Shop Channel or any other piece of content that Nintendo passes off as an online presence. Moving to today, the 3DS just launched without an online store or first-party game that focuses on Wi-Fi multiplayer, even though Nintendo made sure to mention how capable the 3DS is… er, will be when it comes to internet connectivity. People used to compare Nintendo to Apple, but that’s hardly fair anymore; Apple continually revises and upgrades its hardware, while Nintendo’s sat on 2005 technology for six years.
We’ve got our fingers crossed for E3, where Nintendo is set to reveal a fancy new system (opens in new tab)that could undo all this aggregate stress…
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The post The Top 7… Things we hate about modern gaming appeared first on Game News.
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