Mass Effect 3: Unanswered Questions (No Spoilers)

Good ol' Mass Effect 3, currently the biggest punching bag in the gaming industry.  I finally beat the game and encountered the dreaded ending.  It actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but I won't go into it here because I promised no spoilers.  Today I want to talk about some nagging questions that popped up during my first play-through of ME3, feel free to comment about any unanswered questions that bothered you about the game, as a big fan of the series I'd love to hear them!

1. What happened to all the mechs?

The very first species to go extinct as a result of the Reaper invasion.

I know that everyone has been complaining about the game's ending, and how most of it goes unexplained, but oddly the disappearance of the mechs that were so prominent in Mass Effect 2 has nagged me from the very beginning.  In ME2 mechs were everywhere: the Citadel, Omega, random planets, you name it.  Then Mass Effect 3 arrives, and we find that they have all but vanished without a trace.  It's not like the events of ME3 happen twenty years or so after the ending of ME2, so I find it hard to believe that galaxy wide technology can be completely wiped out in only a year or so.  Even the Reapers would be jealous of the speed at which the mechs were exterminated.

Sure you might argue it was mentioned that Aria's mercenary groups would bring their mechs into the battle against the Reapers, so I guess these groups somehow stockpiled an entire galaxy full of robots.

2. Why do Brute husks look like Elcor when they are explained to be a Turian/Krogan hybrid?

Amused. Silly human, you can't hurt me. In Pain. Put down the shotgun human.

I might be nitpicking here, but I can't be the only one who sees the resemblance between the Elcor and the Brutes.  They have a similar shape and a similar hunched-over gait.  They even have the same need to state every single emotion they feel while they are trying to kill you (only joking!).  Brutes are obviously much larger than Turians and Krogans, while only being slightly larger than the Elcor.  I find that fact notable since the other types of husks are mostly the same size as the races they are created from.  I guess the short answer to this question is that Bioware needed to find some way to rip off the Hunter from Halo, the Berserker from Gears of War, and the (insert giant bad guy that charges at you) from (insert popular game here).

3. What happened to the all-human Council?

Ambassador Udina lied to me, damned politicians!  At the end of Mass Effect 1 after I let the original Council die, Udina stated that the new Council would be composed entirely of humans.  During ME2, the Council didn't make an appearance (well it did, but that was when I played through as a nice Shepard who saved the Council in ME1), so I let it slide.  But in ME3, you find that the original Council has been replaced by another Council made up of a Turian, an Asari, and a Salarian.  Who needs continuity?  Certainly not us gamers who bought the Mass Effect games just so we could see how our choices had consequences throughout the whole series...

4. How is the Reapers' armor so damn tough?

Shepard ponders the mystery of Reaper-brand sheet metal.

Seriously, throughout the game you see the giant capital ship Reapers casually shrug off heavy weapons fire, making it seem as if the races of the galaxy equipped pea-shooters on all their warships.  How is it possible to make steel plating so durable?  Maybe the Reapers were built inside a black hole, with the extreme gravitational pressures making the material extra dense.  Die-hard Mass Effect fans will surely defend this by saying the Reapers have incredible force-field shields surrounding their ships, but their toughness still bothers me.  Also, why do the humans never fire off some nukes at the Reapers orbiting Earth?  If anything, it would eliminate the thousands of Oculi swarming around the Reapers.

On a side note, am I the only person who wondered how the Reapers would hold up against the Molecular Disruption Device (Little Doctor, Dr. Device, etc) from Ender's Game?

The Pain of Disappointing Game Endings

Well look what I found under this pile of dust, the Strange Moments in Gaming blog!  It has been far too long since the last update, so it's time to fire up the gaming consoles once again and deliver another article.

I'll admit, I haven't finished Mass Effect 3 yet.  I'm thoroughly enjoying Commander Shepard's last attempt to save the galaxy, and I find that I'm trying to do as many side missions as possible, while avoiding the main missions.  One of the main reasons I'm taking my time heading to the conclusion of the series is the fact that so many "gamers" are whining about the disappointing ending.  The fact that people have gone so far as to host a fundraising petition to get Bioware's attention is not very encouraging.  On a side note, if you're going to petition something, how about petitioning to stop developers from ruining franchises by milking the cash cows to death (do we really need a new Assassin's Creed game every single year??).

Petitions make Shepard cry.

All the hating on Bioware has got me thinking about other disappointing endings to games I have played.  So here we go!  It's time to re-live the pain.

The Cliffhangers of Halo 2 and Halo 3

Now that we've all played through Halo 3 and know how the series concludes, we can somewhat forgive Bungie for the Halo 2 ending.  But the uproar of angry gamers has been ringing in my ears since 2004.  At the time the ending felt like a slap to the face, almost as if Bungie ran out of time and had to cut the game short.  Things were just getting good in the story; the Elites had joined forces with the humans, the Covenant were about to invade Earth, not knowing the Master Chief was a stowaway on their ship, and we were ready to kick some ass.  But sadly, what we got was a short cut-scene of the Master Chief saying he was ready to finish the fight, followed by the ending credits (goodbye Halo 2, hello years of waiting for Halo 3 to be developed!).  Now that I think of it, maybe I haven't forgiven Bungie as much as I thought.

The ending of Halo 3 was almost as bad, because at the time this was supposed to be the last game in the main series.  Once again Bungie hit us with another cliffhanger.  The Master Chief is stranded out on the edge of the galaxy, and as if that wasn't bad enough, a gigantic Death Star-like object approaches the Chief's location, leaving us with  more questions than ever.

Could this be the beginnings of a Star Wars/Halo crossover?

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Sadly this game is a letdown in many ways.  The original Deus Ex had incredibly deep customization of character skills which allowed for each play-through to be mostly unique.  In the sequel, Invisible War, most of this had been cut out, making the entire game feel dumbed down in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  I only experienced a couple of the possible endings in Invisible War, but each one had me shaking my head in disappointment, muttering "that's it??"  For such a story-driven series, the endings of Invisible War are incredibly brief and barely showcase the consequences of your choices/actions throughout the game.  You are left wondering what has become of this world you have immersed yourself in, and it's not like you get any answers in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is a prequel to the first Deus Ex.

Honorary Mention: Grand Theft Auto IV

Ok, I know that the GTA games are mainly about enjoying the large sandbox world that Rockstar always gives us, but damn was this ending depressing.  You are given two options towards the end of the game, and each option results in someone close to Niko getting murdered.  There's no feel-good GTA San Andreas ending here, just a short cut-scene of Niko reflecting on the murder, making us wonder why Rockstar didn't cut the poor guy a break after his struggles throughout the game.


And that wraps up this entry about disappointing game endings.  Which games have set you up for disappointment in the past?

Twisted Metal on PS3, Sweet Tooth Rides Again

Whoa long time no update!  Hope everyone is having great gaming sessions, lots of good stuff out there now (or almost ready to be released), such as Resident Evil Revelations, the new SSX, and the Playstation Vita.  I've been playing the demo for the new Twisted Metal, and it has been awesome.

It's good to see they kept the same Sweet Tooth design from Twisted Metal Black

This new member of the series includes a few changes, such as the addition of "factions" (e.g. the Clowns faction where everyone dresses up like Sweet Tooth and tries desperately to be as evil and demented).  This means you are no longer going solo as any of the characters, you always have some like-minded freak buddies backing you up.  One thing that kind of bothers me is that you can put any character into any of the available vehicles, so if you always wanted to have Sweet Tooth ride Mr. Grimm's motorcycle, this game's for you (but I still believe that he should stick with his iconic ice cream truck).

One really interesting new feature is the helicopter vehicle, which allows you to soar high above your opponents, raining down a world of hurt with missiles and the mounted gun (which you can fire from a first person view).  Who knows what this is going to do for multiplayer balance, are cheating bastards going to hang out high in the sky waiting for everyone else to kill each other?

Other than that this is classic Twisted Metal, with the usual power-ups, destructible environments, and control scheme, but with slightly improved vehicle handling.  If you're a fan, there's no excuse for not taking the demo for a spin!

Resident Evil 6 Announced!

Hey guys, just thought I'd share this news in case you haven't heard yet.  Resident Evil 6 has been announced, with a release date of November 20th.  Capcom has even released an official trailer, and I have to say that I'm really excited, because the series looks to be returning to its roots with actual zombies (but it looks like the parasites from RE4 and RE5 will still put in an appearance).  Enjoy!

Annoying Gaming Sidekicks: Round 2

A while back I wrote a blog entry about some of the irritating game characters who are sidekicks to the main protagonist.  We've all experienced the pain of adventuring alongside one of these characters, who annoy us with their constant whining, excessive neediness, or any other rage-inducing personality traits.  Today I thought I'd throw a few more annoying characters out there, so we can all reminisce about the times we wished we could toss our faithful sidekicks off a cliff.

Pete, from Rockstar's Bully

Ah good ol' Pete, the biggest sissy in all of Bullworth Academy, which is the fictional school and main setting of Bully.  Pete is one of the social outcasts of the school, not belonging to any of the various factions in Bullworth (Nerds, Preps, Greasers, and Jocks).  In his own words, he's "too cool to be a dork, and too dorky to be anything else," although in my opinion the members of the nerd faction seem pretty badass in comparison.

As you can probably guess from the above quote, Petey constantly whines and bitches about his social status and the fact that he is constantly bullied, instead of trying to do something about it, leaving us annoyed rather than sympathetic.  Have you ever had a friend who would never shut the hell up about his/her problems?  Well thanks to Bully you get to experience those joyful one-sided conversations in a videogame!  Sounds fun right?  His appearances are fortunately very few and far in between (except towards the conclusion of the game), but he ends up becoming the only real friend of main character Jimmy, so we are stuck with his sorry ass until the credits roll.

The Co-Driver/Passenger/Annoying Lady Voice from Ridge Racer 3D

I don't know if this is really her, but since she's the only girl shown in the game let's just say it is.

Ok so maybe I'm getting picky once again, but the all-seeing, all-knowing voice in Ridge Racer 3D is always with you when you race, so that should be enough to qualify her as a sidekick.  Prior to owning RR 3D, I have owned RR64, which included one race announcer who would talk occasionally, offering words of encouragement when you battled opponents, telling you how many laps were left, etc.  Ridge Racer 3D still includes the announcer, but has also added a female commentator who comments on each...and...every..single...thing...you...do.  Drive into a wall?  Expect to hear her yell at you every time.  Bump into an opponent?  You will be chastised every time.  Execute a drift??  Expect to hear a "nice drift!" or a "you're making me dizzy!"

As a side note, in case you live in a cave and have never heard of Ridge Racer, these games require that you drift through just about every turn, so in RR 3D expect to constantly hear repetitive commentary.  I searched the game's manual thoroughly but I was unable to find the "throw your co-driver out the passenger door" button, oh well.

Slippy, from Star Fox 64

Well here we are, the mother (father?) of all annoying sidekicks.  This gender ambiguous frog (I'm just going to flip a coin and say Slippy is a guy) has been splitting our eardrums since the Nintendo 64 days.  Slippy's purpose in Star Fox 64 is to provide us with a damage meter for boss battles, as well as stating the obvious by telling us where the weak points are.  The problem is that his voice is a high-pitched shriek from hell, made worse by the fact that he communicates with Fox using a radio that has the quality of a Fisher-Price walkie-talkie.  Slippy's mostly pointless dialogue will pop up more often than you would like (ideally he should have had his vocal chords torn out before being allowed to join the Star Fox team).

When playing Star Fox 64, I usually try to get rid of Slippy as soon as possible by opening fire on his ship, but he even has the nerve to say "Hey! Why are you shooting at me?" in a pissed-off tone when you try to assassinate him, as if he doesn't know we all hate his guts.  Talk about being in denial.

With the recent re-release of Star Fox 64 for the 3DS, a new generation of gamers gets to experience the ear-damaging annoyance that is Slippy Toad.  Poor kids, not only is the 3DS ruining their eyesight, but this game is making them go deaf as well.

This concludes part 2 of Annoying Gaming Sidekicks.  Until next time!

LittleBigPlanet: A World of Dreams, or Nightmares?

Happy New Year everyone!  Sorry for the bit of a hiatus, I ended up getting a bit lazy around Christmas-time, I didn't even write the "Merry Christmas" post I was planning, which was going to include this video for all my fellow Team Fortress 2 players:


I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years!  Now I figure it's time I get back to a semi-regular posting schedule.  Today I wanted to talk about LittleBigPlanet, a game which I have been playing quite a bit lately.  The opening narration states that the world of LittleBigPlanet is composed of the dreams of countless players, but I feel that it is composed of something more dark and disturbing than a simple happy dream.  Looking at some aspects of this game, it appears to be more along the lines of hallucinations of an asylum full of deranged lunatics.


First of all, what is Sackboy (the main character of LittleBigPlanet, for all you PS3 haters out there) supposed to be?

Is he a Beanie Baby who had a horrible accident?  He sort of reminds me of Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas.  I think it's pretty well known that dolls coming to life are some of the creepiest things known to mankind, yet this cloth Frankenstein was still chosen to be the protagonist of LittleBigPlanet.  The fear has been dampened due to the fact that we have direct control over Sackboy, but others might feel revulsion when playing as this abomination.

Another weird feature of LittleBigPlanet is the group of levels that are each a mix of a haunted house, a graveyard, and a wedding reception (not joking).  Upon arriving in this part of the planet, you are immediately introduced to a gigantic talking zombie/skeleton/bride, prompting you to again wonder whether some game developers should seek psychiatric help.

The levels are admittedly awesome, filled with dark passages, giant skeletons, and skull platforms that shriek and drop their jaws as you approach them.

But it's the bride and groom characters that steal the show, because of the giant zombie bride's level-destroying mood swings, and the tiny zombie groom's creepy belch-voice.  Come to think of it, most characters in this game are pretty damn creepy.  The art style, mixed with the fact that the characters all tower over Sackboy add a sense of surreality.

 
For all its strangeness, and especially because of its strangeness, I highly recommend you check this game out if you haven't already.  The art style and gameplay are very unique and lots of fun, every level is custom made to the designer's vision (before you start a level it states the name of the person who built it).  This is worth mentioning, because just about every single device (such as the skull platforms mentioned earlier) can be unlocked for you to use in your own custom built levels.  In theory you could build clones of the same exact levels that you experience in the story mode. 
Until next time!

The Freaks of Arkham Asylum: The Scarecrow

It goes without saying that Batman: Arkham Asylum is a great game.  Likewise, it goes without saying that Arkham Asylum (the location itself) is one creepy place, with its claustrophobic hallways and ancient hidden passageways.  Batman fans know that it is here that all of Gotham City's super-villains are kept after they get their asses handed to them by the Bat.  While most of these villains are completely insane freaks that each deserve their own blog post, today I'm going to talk about Scarecrow.  In my opinion he was the creepiest character in the game (yes, worse than the Joker), with plenty of appearances throughout Arkham Asylum, each more intense than the previous.

For those who haven't played this game or read the comics, the Scarecrow is a villain who is obsessed with the concept of fear and has invented various fear-inducing toxic gasses.  The scarecrow sack mask only adds to the effect, along with preventing him from breathing in his own fear toxins.

As with all characters in the Arkham Asylum game, the Scarecrow is released from his cell and begins his rampage of terror throughout the asylum, happily attacking security guards and Batman.  From the first moment we encounter him, he is wearing his Scarecrow getup, complete with syringe-tipped gloves.  I've always wondered, did the asylum personnel let him wear this crazy costume in his cell, or did he break into a storage locker and equip all these things after he was released?  Because he seems to be all geared up after only being out of his cell for a short time.  Oh well, this is Batman.  If we can believe that a giant half-human, half-crocodile guy can exist in this world, we can believe that the Arkham staff are stupid enough to let the Scarecrow wear syringe gloves in his cell.

Moving on, whenever you encounter the Scarecrow in Arkham, you inevitably enter a nightmarish hallucination sequence caused by Batman breathing in the fear-toxins.  In these sequences, the Scarecrow manages to take the freakishness to the next level.  Batman hallucinates that the Scarecrow is a 100ft tall giant, with a cringe-inducing distorted voice.

These sequences are pretty intense to play at night without lights.

In the unfortunate case that Batman dies during a hallucination, you are treated to a cutscene of the Scarecrow creeping towards you in the dark, adding to your nightmares for the evening.

There is one hallucination that is worth mentioning due to how cleverly you transfer from the real world to the nightmare world.  If you haven't played the game yet, don't read on!  During one section of the game you are calmly walking through a deserted area of the asylum when Batman starts lightly coughing every once in a while.  All of a sudden the game freezes and the screen gets distorted.  If you've ever had a graphics card overheat and start displaying artifacts on the screen, you will recognize the distortion and expect the worst (I thought I fried my video card).  Before you go into full panic mode and shut down your PC or console, the game unfreezes and cuts to the opening movie of the game, but this time with the roles of Batman and the Joker reversed.  I have to give credit to the game developers for creating such a refreshing prank!

In conclusion, the Scarecrow is one severely freaky character in Arkham Asylum, whose hallucination sequences must be experienced at least once.  What did you guys think of these sequences?  Did you get fooled by the spoof "crash?"