Muramasa: The Demon Blade Finale - Biggest waste of fucking time

This is a continuation of my previous part found here.

So you beat the game and you found the endings unacceptable. You want to know what the fuck happened and don't wanna end with those pitiful excuses for endings. There are four more endings. The true endings for either characters. And two alternate secret endings. For example in Momohime's ending Kongiku was punished for helping Junkuro and turned back into a normal fox and Junkuro died and sacrificed himself to save Momohime. Then Momohime wakes up with no memory and lives with an elderly couple until Oni's come and attack and she fucked them over with her Oboro style. She goes "what is this scary power" and goes around searching for the answer with Kongiku who is a normal fox. The end. WHAT THE FUCK. For Kisuke's ending you randomly meet Momohime out of nowhere and kill Junkuro's spirit and saves her. Then Torahime is like do me one last favor before I die and makes Kisuke Momohime's servant because Kisuke is madly in love with Torahime. Then Momohime goes "Lets go around and collect all the Muramasas!" The end.

You're thinking "Ok maybe the super secret super ending is better!" Nope! Its in fact worse. Worse than you can possibly imagine. First of all to get the ending you must first, beat the game with both characters. Then you must beat the White Monster Lairs which are only available after you beat the game with both characters. In here you fight series of challenges. You are rewarded with secret swords. Then you must equip two very specific swords and go fight the last boss with your two characters. Here you will find your true ending. Then after beating both you must get to maximum level wear the best sword in the game and fight again for the alternate ending. You must be going this is a lot of work. MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE.

How would you like a game where you have to grind over and over again to reach the maximum level just so you can have a real ending. Because the regular endings go "this is not the end..." and tease you while giving you no fucking conclusion. To level you go fight challenge bosses. Theres one boss who is the easiest boss in the game but gives 12x the exp of every single boss in the game combined. So what you do is endlessly fight this guy until you level. Kill, save repeat. Kill, save repeat. I have to ask. Why do you need to level up to equip a sword? What is the point. If I got it just let me use it. The problem is, even after equipping it, it does nothing to help. Everything in the game scales to your level. A shitty ass boss does 7k damage a hit. What in the fuck is that? I thought the boss is level 35. How the fuck he do 95% of my health in a single hit when I'm max level.

Then you have fucking retarded pointless random encounters. I never pointed this out before but I'll point it out now because of how tedious it became when I realized how much running around there are. For example, Momohime's final dungeon will take at least five minutes to walk from beginning to the end without anything in your way. With random encounters this goes up to like an hour. Not exactly but it sure feels like it. Every four steps you take you fight enemies. I got a item from a challenge boss which says "greatly reduces random encounters." That item is a lie. Instead of fighting every four steps, you fight every six steps. Hardly any help. I did not notice any fucking difference with or without the item. You cannot run from combat either and while shit scales with your level you can't blow through them all instantly and move on. You're forced to fight and fight and fight. Why bother when you're max level? Nothing. You already wasted an hour grinding the boss so you can wear your fucking sword now you have to waste another hour walking to the last boss again.

So there I am pissed as fucking hell reach the final boss again make sure I have the final sword equipped, fight the guy. Notice he's scaled to fucking hell, beat his face in easily and then wait for the alternate ending. ONLY TO FIND OUT ITS A PIECE OF SHIT. Instead of Junkuro being killed by Fudoo-Mudoo, Buddha's bodyguard, you managed to kill him with your sword. Now you go back in time. You're Junkuro in human form and you see Momohime and her fiancée running from the castle that should have killed her. Instead of killing her and taking over her body like you did before. You let her go and walk away. Then you go into the future where its Momohime getting married with her fiancee and its hinted that Junkuro has taken over his body and is marrying you instead but since you went back in time Momohime never knew about Junkuro. Then the ending goes "It is said Momohime given birth three times and lived to be over 100. You have reached the end of The Pandemonium of the Oboro Sword."

WHAT IN THE FUCKING SHIT. I fucking did all that and this was what I got? WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY THINK THIS WOULD SATISFY ANYONE. First of all. Junkuro is like 60 years old and Momohime is 12. Fucking her finacee is like 35 years old. The worst part is that if I want to see Kisuke's alternate ending which would probably be just as fucking shitty, I would have to do all this again. But why would I? I would rather fucking play HoN, LoL, and DotA at the same time with 4 feeders on my team in each game while playing Persona 3 and 4 on the TVs while blasting Friday by Rebecca Black on repeat and having my dick sawed off by a chainsaw while cutting my stomach open with a knife. That is less painful that fucking playing this game again.

DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME.

EVER.

Save yourself from the years of nightmare and torture you get from playing this game.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade Part 2 - More filler content than actual gameplay

This is a continuation of my previous one found here.

Now that I went back and finished Kisuke's route, the only thing I can say is what the fuck. At first I thought Kisuke's story would be related to Momohime's story but no. These two are completely irrelevant. They don't cross over except you see them in hot springs and say one word to each other. A lot of games do the finish the game with two or more characters to have the full story shit. I always hated those. You are already attached to your first character. Why do I have to beat the game again to see the full story? Why not have multiple paths and endings so we can discuss with others and see what we got differently? Instead we get one confusing half of a story with no ending and no fucking answers. Until you play the other half you're in the dark. When you play the other character you notice that he or she is a giant dipshit and you don't feel like playing it again.

For example something like Mana Khemia 2 where you have to pick between the slave guy or the country bumpkin. I started off with the slave and you are forced into school by this girl who is your master and she literally drags you around everywhere. You reluctantly do whatever she says because hey she owns your life. Basically the whole half of the game is how you hate Manas and how she has a crush on you but you are oblivious as all fuck. If you play the country bumpkin you are this dipshit chick who is a giant airhead and pisses you off every opportunity she gets. Her story is about raising a Mana egg. The stories cross over a lot as both  of these teams are rivals at school and you often fight against or with each other. Their team often joins your party as a guest and you are often helping the other team in quests or stuff. Thats alright. I get the majority of the story and each team has their own individual storyline.

Something similar but a little different is Arc the Lad where you play the story of two brother separated at birth. You have to play both of them at the same time as the storyline switches between them from chapter to chapter. One goes from one side of the world the other goes from the other. They never meet and just barely miss each other. One person is fighting for the monsters one person is fighting for the humans and they all hate each other. Until finally at the climax you both meet for the first time and then find out whose behind all that shit and team up brother with brother and fuck them up. That game had a nice story and combat was fun as heck.

But I'm getting carried away from the main point. Muramasa is neither of those. Its two confusing halves of two confusing stories with no ending no climax no character development. Hell the fucking filler content is more than the actual gameplay. You spend more time walking to the next location than actual storyline or boss fights. I finished Kisuke's route in a little over three hours. THREE FUCKING HOURS. And funny part is, over 75% of the game was walking from one side of the world to the other. The storyline is pathetically short. You must be asking, how do you develop characters in an RPG in three hours? The answer is you don't.

I liked Momohime's route a lot more than Kisuke's mainly because Momohime is always travelling with Junkuro who taken over her body and using it to kill gods and demons. Then theres the foxgirl Kongiku the servant of Junkuro and her fox friends who faithfully does everything Junkuro says. Basically her story is Junkuro is out to find the evil sword to gain unlimited power and fuck the world. You actually get travel companions with you and actual dialogue. Kisuke's route is you are this dipshit ninja who lost his memory. How cliche. You're this loner who travels around trying to find your memory and beating up the wrong people like a retard because you're being tricked. Following you is the foxgirl Yuzuruha who tells you that her master sent her over to help you by giving you swords to collect souls of the slain and forge demon blades. Yuzuruha is way better than Kongiku. First of all Yuzuruha doesn't talk like a dumbass, have breasts exploding out her clothes, and doesn't refer to you as master. She does do the little spin-around thing while holding her paper umbrella which is a little distracting but its forgivable. She doesn't really help you or do anything to aid you really. Shes hardly even in the story and only appears to say something then disappear. Kisuke is always and forever alone.

Kisuke's story is mainly about Torahime, Momohime's elder sister who died and was resurrected for 49 days. In those 49 days she's looking for revenge for the death of her entire family and clan. What I found retarded is Torahime is related to Momohime and Kisuke is related to Junkuro yet neither of their stories overlap at all. You would think its perfect to come together eventually but no. Its just two stories doing their own shit. The worst part is it still gives you half a story. So in total you get a quarter of the game in each route. Fuck this game.

One thing I have to point out is this game lets you forge a ton of swords. These names are all impossible to remember you just have to look at the stats. Each sword has a different secret art, basically skills unique to that sword. They also have a special stat such as +1 strength, +10% more damage to all swords, 50% fire resistance. Then theres the attack power of the sword itself. As cool as that sound, most swords you get and use for less than five minutes before you toss them for a better one. You might consider keeping one for their stats or secret art but no you rarely ever need to use them. Normal random mobs are too easy to need it. You might use it once or twice to wipe them out fast but your normal hits can kill them just as fast. For bosses you don't use the secret arts because you need to keep your sword power to block attacks. You can carry three swords with you at a time and you can switch at anytime during combat. Each sword has its individual health bar which is drained by blocking or from using their secret arts. Once a sword breaks your damage is neutered and you cannot block. When you sheathe a sword, it will slowly recover their health. A broken sword needs to wait until it gets full health before its fixed. Therefor the only reason you get a sword is for their attack power. Then you slash the boss until it breaks and switch to another.

Another thing is cooking. I pointed out how slow and tedious it is to make food. But there are actually two types of food. One type of food is shit that you can carry like rice balls you can make out of a pot and then gently knead it in your hands, baked potato by cooking yams under leaves, and grilled squid by sticking a fucking squid into the fire. These take forever to make but are cheap easy healing when needed. You can carry them with you into battle. The other type are hotpots. You cook them but you have to eat them right away. These are pure shit. You cannot cook in combat so the only reason to use them is if you are low on health from random mobs and you wanna heal up. They are also expensive a shit to make so you're better off eating a squid or something. However unlike the other type of food, hotpots always gives buffs. These buffs only last like 30 seconds so if you use it then fight a boss it wears off by the time it actually starts. Using it to clear random mobs are pointless because how easy they are. So what are the use of these? Nothing. Just for the food porn where you watch it get eaten away bite by tiny bite and comments on how good it taste. Fuck just go to a restaurant instead. At least you get to taste it.

Most good games you don't want the story to end yet, while shitty games you can't wait for it to actually end. For this game I'm torn between the two. I want the game to end but since theres no story or real ending I want it to keep going so it can actually give me something. I think even Blade Kitten has more story and depth to the game than this. You should just think of this game as a side scrolling action platformer than an RPG. The combat is fun. Yes its easy but its fun. Some people may find it a bit difficult but I was around 9-18 levels below the recommended levels the entire game and I managed to beat it fine. I was like level 23 by the time I finished the game on Kisuke's route. I couldn't even use half the swords I got from bosses because I was so underleveled. Funny thing is this is supposed to be the "hard mode." The real hard mode is unlocked by beating a game on either character.

There was some confusion from what I said before. When you start a new save, you automatically have two saves on your one save. One is Momohime's one is Kisuke's. By selecting your save you are able to pick between the two. The time spent and swords collected in either save gets totalled into your main save. If you wish to play the hardest mode you must start over after you beaten either Momohime or Kisuke. That is complete bullshit. Why fucking tease us with a mode we will never play. Should just enable it so on your second playthrough you can feel challenged. And after beating the game on both characters you can finally unlock the blocked monster lairs. All fucking three of them. In there you fight the same bosses as you fought in the main game but this time you fight more than one at a time! Gasp! Fucking too lazy to make real content and have to resort to repeating content into filler content. This game is pathetic and I take back anything good I said about it in part one of my review.

One last thing about this game before I'm done. When you play this game you'll learn that all Japanese women can't or refuse to fight and will whine at every opportunity they get. Seriously when you first meet Torahime you tell her that a woman wearing armor and going off into battle is stupid and should stay home. Then you kick her ass. Momohime cannot fight and will whine at every opportunity. In Momohime's route you fight a thunder god which you would think would be powerful as fuck but no. You just smack her then she falls down from the sky and reveals her ass and you have to spank her while she moans for maximum damage. Then she loses and the other lightning god is like stop being stupid or I'll stop liking you and she's all like what thats mean waaaah whineee whineeee. Fucking horrible portrayal of women in this game. Then again this is Vanillaware, known for their extreme sexism.

Gender Inequality - Character Gender Roles

Video games have always been male dominated as I have already said before in another post. Its pretty chauvinistic but its nothing like the pure shit that is anime. Its the most misogynistic shit ever and anyone should be ashamed for watching it. But moving on from that video games seems to be doing better and better. Maybe more women started picking up games or maybe more women are developing games. There are always talk about how badly women are portrayed in video games yet no one really knows what makes a strong character. Not even the developers that made the character.

Men in video games have more variations. You have the hyper masculine tough guy like Duke Nukem and any other action game. You have the suave smart guy in like L.A. Noire, fat bald angry guy NPCs, feminine wimpy main males in JRPGs, and even homosexual guys like in Shadow Hearts. Theres a huge variation from main characters to NPCs. There are a lot more that I haven't said but then we get to women in video games. They all have one thing in common. They are always attractive first, then you add whatever else next. This holds true in all forms of media too. Watch a movie, watch the TV, look at a magazine. Anything. Just like how minorities aren't properly portrayed, women aren't properly portrayed either. You don't see many minorities in video games. Whens the last time you saw an Asian in a video game outside an Asian themed game that wasn't a martial artist or old wise man? What about a Hispanic that wasn't a gang banger? Like women, when is the last time you saw a non attractive women in a video game outside of background characters?

Women are used for sex appeal for the gamer. You see chain mail bikinis on women who somehow magically have more defense than a man wearing a full plate armor. Yet somehow those swords that stab her exposed flesh are magically deflected. Impractical? Fuck that show more cleavage. Zoom in on that ass. Put on some bondage gear. I already said a lot about this before. There is no need to go into more detail. Sure you get the occasional shirtless male with ripped abs but those are uncommon because they don't want the player base to start feeling insecure about their sexuality.

Men are usually the main characters and women are usually forced into the supportive role in games. Sometimes women are the main characters and men are the support but a lot of developers say they don't like to make games with a female main character because their fans complain about having to play a girl. But that is mostly because anything meant to appeal to both genders are male. A girl can be a tomboy an be socially accepted but as soon as a parent finds out their son is doing or watching anything girly they automatically assume he caught the gay and will put an end to it right away. Society says men have to be manly. And because of that, we have mostly male leads in video games. And since the lead is a male, the support roles are shoved onto females. Then you have the love interest role and the damsel in distress role.

A few games let you play as either gender. For example in Mass Effect you are able to choose a male or female Commander Shepard. People argue that the female Shepard is nothing more than a chick with a dick and shouldn't even be considered in any discussion about characters. Why? I thought feminism was all about equality. If both the male and female versions are doing exactly 100% the same thing minus the romance whats wrong with it really? But Mass Effect also has the worst portrayal of women in gaming. The Asari, an all female race of prostitutes and sluts. Then theres Jack a crazy psycho angry bitch you have to cure her broken life with your penis. Miranda who is the genetically engineered superhuman perfect sex doll who you cure her of her insecurities with your penis. And Tali the naive waif who you cure her of her shyness with your penis. Then Kelly your secretary who you can sexually harass and then molest with your penis. Basically everything else was badly done in the game.

Then there are the "great female characters" like Alyx Vance from Half Life 2 that men claim to be the best. However almost all women agree she is terrible. I have never played that game so I cannot comment but most agree that shes completely dependent on the main character and she just magically falls in love with him without any development. She also becomes a damsel in distress. Just because its a supportive character doesn't mean that she is automatically bad. Just because she plays the role of a damsel in distress doesn't mean shes bad. They don't need to be non feminine to be a good character either. What they need is character depth.

As long as they don't go into this.

Lets take a look at Aveline from Dragon Age 2. Yes I know the game is a piece of shit but she isn't. She is probably one of the most likable female characters in video games. She is well developed, she is a strong female character. She has her own life, her husband died early in the game but that doesn't stop her. She does what she feels is right and isn't afraid to voice her opinions and do what she sets out to do. Eventually she becomes the captain of the guard. She watches over you like a guardian would but at the same time she isn't without flaw. She has a crush on a subordinate but doesn't have the courage to do it even though she is strong when it comes to anything but love. It becomes downright embarrassing yet a little cute at the same time. Eventually she overcomes that hurdle and captures her love. I also like to point out she cannot be romanced by the main character. People go "oh shes ugly she looks manly she doesn't show any cleavage blah blah blah." So what? Do they have to be attractive to be female? Because of that she is overlooked a lot.

Just because it is a damsel in distress or even a supportive character, it doesn't mean they should be devoid of any personality or development. A lot of JRPG's do this. You get weak girls as casters and the males are hotheaded fighters. Most characters are one dimensional and are basically defined by one particular trait. Persona 4 I thought did a good job on the main characters. Yes the game was terrible like Dragon Age 2 but the main characters grow, they have their own lives they do their own shit. They have their own goals and own opinions. Which I thought was quite progressive for a JRPG. But outside the main characters its just horrible.

Games like Skyrim have both men and women in all roles. Gender does not stop you from doing anything. There are Jarls that are women. They can lead, they don't whine in their keeps waiting for a man to do their job. Despite what feminist may or may not agree, you don't have to be ugly, you don't have to be doing a usually male dominated role, and you don't have to be devoid of any sexual attraction to the main character to be a strong female character. One example is Fall-From-Grace from Planescape Torment. She's a succubus, and right away alarm bells go off your head. But she isn't.as bad as you would think. She's a chaste succubus who owns a brothel for intellectual lust over physical lust. She has a dairy that she always holds which you cannot read or get rid of.

There are motherly female characters to female characters who relies on the male lead. That is fine. She can be a prostitute, a mother, a warrior, an independent woman anything you want and still be a strong character. It's not that she has to fulfill these roles to be a good character, it's that she is a good character who doesn't sacrifice these roles in order to appear interesting. It bolsters her character, not defines it. Roles don't make a difference in character. Hell Bayonetta is like the epitome of everything wrong in a video character and she's a strong character. Sure I find her annoying as shit and over the top but I won't deny that she is a strong character.

So why all the fuss about strong female characters in video games? There are tons of weak male characters right? Yes but there are also a ton of strong male characters. Strong female characters are a rare breed and when people see it they notice it. And when its lacking people don't bat an eyelash.

Ubisoft - PC pirating = no more releasing PC games

Ubisoft recently announced they weren't porting games onto the PC because of piracy. They claim that 90% of the players are playing pirated copies of their games which is ironic because when they implemented the always online DRM they claimed that it was working and helped their sales and that was the reason they kept their DRM. Who are Ubisoft anyways? They're a publisher that is known for their hatred for PC gamers and their use of draconian DRMs in their games. DRMs that break people's cd/dvd drives and other stupid shit making paying customers suffer. Why? All because of their irrational fear of pirates.

PC games must be completely horrible and a dying industry right? Everyone should stick to consoles! Nope. In fact PC games seems to be higher than ever right now. Especially with the release of games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. You don't see them whining that their games are being pirated. Why? Because they're still making money even after they got pirated. The problem isn't piracy itself, its if they can still make money. Its about turning pirates into potential buyers. Have you ever heard stories of pirates pirating a game then finding out that game is the best shit they ever played and decided to buy a real copy? Perhaps not now but later in the future for their future games? Yes you have because its not as uncommon as developers like to think.

To quote Gabe Newall, the co-founder of Valve and Steam:

"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.


Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe."

Full article can be found here.

That sounds familiar. Didn't my last post on piracy mention something like that? Oh yeah! CD Projeckt Red and Witcher 2. Guess what? Witcher 2 is the most pirated game in history because they don't have DRM and yet they managed to sell over a million copies. How? I thought no DRM means no profit because everyone would pirate it! Not everyone is a cheap ass. People want to support you guys but when you make it hard for them they don't. Your DRM encourages pirating. The problem isn't to stop people from playing your game for free, the goal is to make money in the end isn't it? Would crazy ass DRM really help?

Look at GoG, a niche digital distribution company like Steam except for one distinction. THERE ARE NO DRM FOR ANY OF THEIR GAMES. Re-read that a couple of times. Read it again. Done yet? Ok one more time. THERE ARE NO DRM FOR ANY OF THEIR GAMES. Now you're probably going HOLY SHIT NO DRM THEY MUST HAVE FUCKED UP THE ENTIRE GAME INDUSTRY THEN PEOPLE WOULD BUY A COPY AND PUT IT UP ON TORRENTS FOR EVERYONE. Yes they do, but guess what? Its successful. They sell old games for cheap without DRM but now more and more developers want to put their newer games up there for sale as well and they had to change their policy of selling old games. Games like the Witcher 2 were on there and was the first to get pirated but it didn't hurt their sales. Infact CD Projekt Red said they were swimming in money and is able to take more risks on new games.

How were they a success? They didn't have DRM they have the highest piracy rate ever in history yet they're making money. How do they do it? They are very dedicated to their fans. They take what they say to heart and change things based on popular opinion. They said DRM was lowering frame rates? Fuck it take it out. Shit was unbalanced and make the game less challenging? Fuck change it. There was not enough content? Fuck it more free DLCs.

According to GoG.

"If you make the whole gaming experience more complicated and more frustrating for people who buy the game; if it's easier to play a game that is pirated because they removed all the technical restraints, then I think there is a big issue on the plate now. It should be easier to play a game that you bought legally than play a game that you pirated."

You hear that Ubisoft? Maybe your game sucks thats why its failing. No other company seems to be having a problem. The biggest mistake that developers are making are that they refuse to let anyone play their game for free. Why do they get to play it for free for the time and money we spent in making this? Thats why there are no demos because they don't like to give shit out for free. Instead of trying to find a way for people to not play your game, why don't you find a way for people to pay for your game instead? You know how many games are now Free-to-Play these days? That concept single handedly killed the majority of piracy in Asian countries where piracy rates were skyrocketing.

Because people are able to play a game they can decide if they want to pay for the full game or for other content. Its something that works and is proven to work. PC gaming right now is shifting and Ubisoft is one of those that refuse to change. It will be one of those that will eventually collapse and fall because of their stubborness and they won't be missed. Another company will rise and take their place. The PC game industry is growing at an alarming rate afterall. Its at an all time high right now. Some companies just can't see it.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/

"In fact, the decline of sales even calls into question the decline in piracy rates."

Your games are so bad even pirates don't want to touch it.

Bloodline Champions - How to ruin a perfectly balanced game with greed

I played this game when it was in beta. I don't know how or why I got an invite but I found one in my email one day and I was like lets give it a shot. They called themselves an Arena game where everything is skill based with no levels or luck involved. The game wasn't bad. There was 16 champions for you to pick. There are four champions for each role which are Healer, Tank, Melee, Ranged. Healers don't deal a lot of damage and they can heal. Tank don't do a lot but they can take a lot of punishment as well as have a lot of disables at their disposal. Melee deals a lot of damage but they have to get close to deal it. Ranged have paper thin defense but can deal the damage melee does from a distance. Some champions are more offensive some are more mobile they are all different and they are very fun.

Its an Arena type Moba. In other words, imagine dota without the lanes the farming the towers the shopping. Strip it down to its bare bones and put champions inside an arena with 3v3 to 5v5 fights. There are no levels, there are no RNG. Everything is skill shot based, in other words everything must be aimed. You can miss a heal, you can miss a melee swing, and you can even block a player from reaching your ally by standing in front of them. Its fun going into a game and immediately starting the action rather than farming for 30 minutes like other Mobas. You just jump right in and fight to the death. Rounds are short. If the rounds get dragged on too long sudden death starts and the map gets smaller and smaller and everyone standing outside the shrinking map instantly dies. The game was balanced, the game was fun. Then beta ended and I stopped playing the game.

An year later I decide to check out where the game has gone. What the fuck happened I have to ask. How do you ruin a game like this? When the game came out it was a 1 champion per role rotation per week. Which was pretty dumb because everyone plays the same shit every game. You can unlock champions with real money or the in game currency. The in game currency can also be used to buy skins, titles, avatars, and even gender swapped champions. After I came back I noticed that all those are changed to real cash only. The only thing you can buy with in game currency is the champions themselves. Then they added a new system where you can buy and unlock permanent stat boosts. Wait but I thought the game was all skill based and not about RNG and levels and other shit? Yeah thats what they claimed but after realizing they don't earn enough money from shitty skins they adapted to pay to win.

When I jumped into the game I found that people were going around 2 shotting me because I don't have any of the stats. Thats bullshit. And looking around I found they completely killed any reason to make custom games. Using the automatic matchmaker gives you bonus in game currency for every game you play. But this automatic matchmaker is bad at balancing anything. You can have a couple brand new rank 1 players match up against a whole team of veteran rank 15 players who played for an year. You will get demolished. Custom games let you balance the team yourselves so people who are new to the game can set up games to play only newbies. However there is no incentive to make custom games and I see 0 games in there when I check. Which is ironic because back in beta no one used the automatic matchmaker because it was slow as shit and every game was custom.

Then I did some research, looked around, listen to what people say about the game and I realized the game is dying. Not just me but everyone knew the game was dying. New players jump into the game and get slaughtered by veterans. Its a pay to win game so theres basically no way for them to learn anything. Its still 1 champion per role every week so they can never try to see what they like. Rotation systems are retarded. Why milk money out of them buying champions or playing a billion games to unlock a champion? It does nothing but piss off new players and make them want to play the game less. Theres no custom games you don't know who is a noob and where to learn and practice. Basically its a noobie unfriendly game. Its worse than Dota where if you jump into a game and turned out to be a noobie everyone will flame you and banlist you with an illegal wc3 program locking you out from any dota game hosted with that program. Somehow Bloodline Champions went from a decent well balanced game where you can join a game and finish in a couple of minutes into a boring noobie unfriendly unbalanced piece of shit. All in the name of making more money.

The best part is that there were more people playing in the closed beta than the free to play release of the game after 1 year. Maybe thats not true but it definitely feels like there are less people playing. Perhaps the community was more vocal because there were less of us. Perhaps without custom games you can't really judge how many games are being hosted and how many people are playing. The UI is bad as ever outside of the game. The lobby is a terrible mash of garbage on your screen. You would think it would be the first thing they fix after beta. Its the first thing new players see and if they can't even navigate it then what are the chances they'll keep playing after joining automatic matchmaking game and getting their shit fucked up the ass? First impressions are lasting impressions. They also have the worst friend/chat/party system with horrible chatrooms that open up to nowhere when you are in a party and having random people sitting in a lobby while they are in a game and party systems where you are not even sure you're in a party or not. Its a guessing game. During beta it was acceptable because we gave feedback on its shittyness. Guess it wasn't enough to get them to change.

Way to go Funcom. Lets milk as much money as possible and alienate new players. Thats going to help make more money because who needs new players right!? The existing players will keep playing and paying forever for new shit right? Thats why the game is successful right? Its alright Funcom, we know you're greedy. Just keep staying delusional and do nothing about this game.

Portal 2 - I like it when you hurt me

I have to say this game isn't bad. I liked it. While I enjoyed it, there was something missing. Portal is a side project for Half-Life. It was popular enough to get its own sequel. I always wondered why Portal was this popular? Most people say its the portal gun with its unique and fun puzzles while others say GLaDOS with her black humor and sarcasm that made the game. I found the first one ok. It didn't stand out that much while I thought GLaDOS was amazingly well done she wasn't that memorable because of how short the game was. When Portal 2 was announced I was skeptical. Though I never played the first of the series when I heard about it, I knew what the game was about. How could they possibly expand on the game?

When I first started Portal 2, I was surprised by another character, Wheatly. He's entertaining enough but he's no GLaDOS. Have no fear though, after awhile you meet up with your nemesis GLaDOS and start doing the puzzles again. I have to say I was disappointed. I'm glad people kept telling me to continue playing or I would've just stopped after the first few stages. It starts off slow, very slow. The puzzles are stupidly easy and doesn't give any sort of challenge at all. I suppose it was because I played Portal 1 about a week before Portal 2 came out. I found puzzles to be more challenging in the first game than in the sequel. Like someone said, once you add more elements to the game it becomes easier because there is only one specific easy to see way to get past. While I like puzzle games, the puzzles in Portal 2 didn't entertain me that much.

The biggest reason I liked the game was the quirkyness of it all. You have a psychopathic AI(I don't think AI's have empathy so it would probably apply to all AI) out to kill you who wants to test you in the name of science all while spouting off insults and sarcastic remarks. I love GLaDOS, she may be one of my favorite video game characters. I guess I have a thing for abuse or people trying to kill you but say what you want GLaDOS is as likable as she is entertaining. There has been some debate about her amongst feminists but I won't get into that but I'll leave a quote here.

He added that Chell and GLaDOS serve as opposing sides of femininity; where Chell is "dutiful and does every task assigned of her", GLaDOS is "aggressive and seemingly dangerous to the order of a male-dominated society". He also described Chell as a "domestic icon" while he described GLaDOS as a "progressive, intelligent working woman" and that by killing her, "Chell can be seen as the dutiful “safe” woman conquering the “dangerous” feminist"

Its funny though, the more abusive she becomes the more people like her. Or that goes for me at least.

Halfway though the game you find out more about the real story. Like the first one it starts after the tests "end." I liked these parts way more than the standard tests. I felt like the standard tests were "filler content" while these free puzzles to be more entertaining. The constant fear of the unknown and/or death was what the puzzle rooms were severely lacking. You start finding about how Aperature Science came to be and more backstory to GLaDOS. She becomes more and more uh, human? While at the same time you are introduced to two new characters, Cave Johnson and Caroline.

But as quickly as it started, it ended. The game itself is short and the free puzzle sections were even shorter. The atmosphere and ambience of the place itself is amazingly well done. It actually feels like its in terrible shape with broken rails and overgrowth everywhere. But the puzzle rooms are all perfectly constructed. I suppose its because GLaDOS puts testing people in puzzle rooms above the welfare of the laboratory. I like the ability to explore and wander around there but to annoy you more you have to do more puzzle rooms again after you get back to Wheatly after the free puzzles.

Overall its fun but I felt it lacked a lot of meat on the bones. Its a good game I wouldn't argue against that but if there were just a bit more content outside the puzzle rooms I would be more content. I don't know why it has this much praise. Maybe it was because everyone telling me its the best thing since sliced bread that I would be a little disappointed after playing it. Too much hype can do this to a game I suppose.

Titan Quest - An endurance test on your sanity

First off I want to say my index finger is fucking sore right now and if I can avoid typing this shit out I would but the world must know of this piece of shit called Titan Quest. First of all its a Diablo clone. It would mean that you go around left clicking everything until it dies. While Diablo has a simple game play design, every single clone I met seem to fuck it up. Titan Quest over complicates things for the sake of over complicating.

There are huge trees you can pick skills from and mix and match with two trees into different classes. Each character can pick two trees and learn skills from either. But most of the skills are filler talents or garbage. So the best ones are the passives which effectively boils down to holding your left mouse button as its the most effective and the only way to get through the game. Your right mouse button will be hot keyed with the potion button for simplicity's sake. These skills do nothing to help you in your battle, so all you need is your mouse. Fuck the keyboard it does crap.

The difficulty is horrendous. I don't mind games with a challenge but if the challenge and difficulty of this game is how fast you can click your potion button then its a piece of shit. Whenever you go into town just go ahead and buy 300-600 potions. You will be hitting your right mouse button every 5 seconds or whatever amount of time the potions cools off. You'll burn through those potions in 20 minutes. Some monsters are so weak they do literally no damage then suddenly you meet a monster that can do 50% of your health in one shot and they come in packs. If you miss the potion by just one second you will die. Then you get asshole monsters that stun you for 1-2 seconds and if they stun you right when its time to hit your potion you die. This is Titan Quest.

The game started out fine, but as it progressed it just dragged on and on. What you seen in the first act is basically the same as the rest. The map is never randomized so every time you come back its exactly the same. This holds true for the multi player as well. Why no randomization? Too much work? The maps are long, tedious, and boring. Every map looks exactly the same. Some trees a large area with one exit and 2-3 minor caves you can explore for nothing. Quests are mindless and easily missed. As you reach further and further it gets more and more stupid. Once you reach act three you'll notice all the monsters moving at super speed and doing half your health in a single shot. Once you reach the final act the difficulty ramps up to asshole levels. Everything stuns you and you're standing there stun locked for five and up to ten seconds at a time. Its fucking frustrating to stand around doing nothing. If I wasn't on co-op I would be dead the second I got stunned.

Multi player in this game is shit as well. You go online with your single player character so if you want to be an asshole you can just hack all your gear. The problem with this game is the areas are so far apart theres basically no way to play with others unless they start at the same time as you. Going through one area for a minor part of the main quest would take thirty minutes to an hour. The way point portals are so far apart that if you're looking to group up for a quest its going to eat half your day. And the most grating part is chatting. HOW HARD IS IT TO DESIGN A FUCKING CHATBOX. To type you press T to bring up the chatbox. You type then press enter to send the message. When you hit enter the chatbox grays out so you can close it again by pressing T. If you want to talk more you press enter again. BUT if your trying to use skills or close it and it keeps trying to type out 1111111tttttttttttt11ttttt1t1t1t1t11t22ttt in your chatbox. Just to add salt to the wound you can't hold down backspace to clear it so you have to hit backspace 50x or just go fuck it and send it out because whose going to fucking break their fingers more.

The game started out fine, but its way too repetitive. As soon as you're done the four acts. You get to repeat the game in nightmare and hell mode. But they're called different names. Are you so fucking lazy to resort to redoing the game in another difficulty? And the game isn't difficult. I don't find clicking potion buttons over and over difficult. I find it tedious and stupid. Going through the game once is an ordeal already. The maps are too big, the way points are too far apart, the side quests are impossible to find, there are too many pointless monsters while traveling, and scenery are exactly the same. These things make the game longer than it should be. Only thing decent I can say about the game is the BGM is nicely done. But the BGM doesn't really appear that often only whenever the fuck it wants to. Theres are options to "decrease the rate it appears," "normal," and "increase the rate it appears." What the fuck? Why so ambiguous? Why can't we just have ON and OFF. Seems like the easiest options but whatever. Its not like you'll hear it over the grunting sounds of dying tigermen or mantises. Isn't the game about mythology? Why are the monster designs so bad. And why the difficulty inconsistencies on these monsters.

Of all the Diablo clones, this one is not the worst. But anything can be better than Torchlight so its not saying much. My fingers are still hurting and I'm done talking about this shit.

Dota-likes

Dota type games are referred to usually as MOBA or ARTS. MOBA stands for multiplayer online battle arena while ARTS stands for action real time strategy. Both means the same thing, Dota clones. No one is sure how it got so popular or why the worst self-entitled degenerates of society congregate to these types of games and ruin the community into a seething pile of rancid shit. But every game has these people you will say. No, the amount of assholes in these type of games are legendary.

Everyone thinks they're better than the others and every time something goes wrong its their fault. Why? Thats like playing basketball and when you miss a shot your team starts yelling at you for letting the other team get the ball. Then they go on and on for 50 fucking minutes about how the game was lost because you missed that ball and that you should drown in the fucking ocean for sucking so badly at a harmless game of basket ball and how he is going to quit and never play with you again because you are the worst type of scum for missing a fucking ball in the fucking basket. Does that even fucking make sense? Why do people act this way in Dota-likes?

Then there are the so called "trolls" who find it funny to ruin the game for your team. How about people who call out a role and then proceed to bitch and moan when he doesn't get it? Or thinks its funny to keep suiciding and calling out your locations in all chat? Lets go back to basketball again. Imagine a guy on your team keeps calling for you to pass the ball to him and you can't because he's being blocked to shit. He then gets mad and goes "what the fuck man if you're not going to pass me the ball I'm going to ruin the game," then proceeds to taking the ball from your team, checking your own team, and giving the ball to the other team and or throwing the ball into your own basket. Is that fun for either team? No? Yeah you'll get thrown off the court. Not here you don't. They just join another game and repeat it until they log off and come back the next day.

If you play Dota-likes this will happen. I don't know why its so concentrated in these games. Is it because its free? Is it because its a team game and you can't pick your own teams? Has it always been there for every game but you just can't see it? Why do people even play this? Its like the abusive boyfriend you keep crawling back to. He doesn't give a shit because he knows you'll keep coming back. You know he's an asshole but you just can't help yourself. Why are these games so popular?

I am never touching another F2P and Dota-like game again.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade Part 1 - Food porn and hot springs galore

Muramasa is a Vanillaware game. Its not bad, the combat is fun but like all Vanillaware games there are huge flaws. The first and biggest flaw is that there is basically no story. You start in the middle of nowhere where stuff has already happened and theres no conclusion at all. This game is similar to Odin Sphere but the combat is greatly improved. The story however is much weaker. There are two characters you can play as, Momohime or Kisuke, and it takes place in the feudal Japan era. It has so much potential but they blew it.

Like other Vanillaware games, the graphics are great. Since this one is on the Wii its much better than the PS2 titles. Character designs are decently done, some are a little stupid like Momohime is basically running around with no pants and the fox girl Kongiku on Momohime's path has breasts almost bursting out of her clothes. The background is nicely done but there is a minor flaw. Sometimes you can't tell what is in the background and what is in the foreground. Sometimes you're not really sure what you can step on and what you can't. For a platforming game this can be annoying. But the maps almost all use the same background for laziness so once you see it once you won't get that problem again.

Combat is amazingly fun. Its fluid and its fast paced. Its a side scrolling brawler with a variety of combos and special skills based on the sword you picked. There is a normal blade which is fast and the combos are usually fast mini hits. The long blade is slower but it does multiple mini hits in a single swing. The long blade has a bug however that I abused a bit. If you jump in the air and use a long sword combo you have this gravitational pull when you hit something that pulls them towards you even if the enemy is in the air behind you. When you do this they cannot perform any action and with a long blade you can chain about 4-5 combos in the air before you finally reach the ground. Doing so on enemies that can leap in the air can combo upwards to 200-300 hits and kill them before you reach the ground.

However fun the combat is the difficulty is incredibly easy. Most monsters you can just spam your A button and kill them all. Monster lairs and Bosses provide a bit of a challenge but they are not that difficult either. When you first start a game it it lets you pick between two difficulties, Muso for people who suck horribly at gaming, or Shura the normal mode for average players. Once you beat either story once on Shura mode Shigurui mode is enabled. HOWEVER! You must start a brand new game instead of starting on new game+ which is continuing your story with the second character. The game lets you play either character at either time. You can play them both at once or finish one first. It is entirely up to you. Note that both characters can use swords unlocked by either character so its beneficial to play both at once. You may not have the amount of souls needed though. This game also pulls the same bullshit as other Vanillaware games though. To get the second ending of either character you must first complete both character's first ending and equip a secret sword you get after getting both of the first endings then beating the respective final bosses. To get the true ending you must equip the secret sword after getting both secondary endings then beating the respective final bosses. A pain in the fucking ass.

The characters are entertaining and you really want to get to know them a bit better but it never really expands on it. Momohime's route you're a princess whose spirit was forced out of her own body by a criminal called Junkuro. Who is he? What is he trying to acomplish? Nothing really is explained. All you know is he knows the Obouro style sword fighting. To keep it for himself he killed his master and all the other disciples. He's a badass who takes no shit from no one and travels to hell and heaven to get a sword back. Along the way you hear Momohime whine at every possible stop about how evil he is being. You get a few sentences of what happened such as Momohime's family being killed and overthrown, some guy who appears for like 2 minutes and gets his ass kicked by Junkuro, random monk who tries so hard to punish Junkuro and then gets a epiphany at the end of the game and turns "good" and travels around the land with Momohime following him because of Junkuro's fucking sacrifice to save Momohime.

The story is short. I finished Momohime's route in a little over 6 hours. Thats pathetically short especially with me dicking around in monster lairs, hot springs, and engaging in food porn every chance I got. I also left the game on for long periods of time while I did other shit. Theres more hidden content after you beat both stories but still. Another thing in this game is the hot springs. How fucking common are hot springs in Japan? Every 10 maps you see a new hot spring and even after beating a boss you all get into the hot spring together. You see a barely naked Momohime walking around. She looks like shes 12 for fucks sake. Its a free heal and sometimes you get to talk to people. Then theres the food porn. You can go into restaurants and order food and it will be placed on the table in front of you. You have to click A repeatedly to eat the item. It eats it bite by bite and Momohime will keep commenting on how nice the food is, etc etc. Cooking isn't much different. Sometimes I wanna bake a bunch of potatoes for the boss and its taking fucking forever because you have to dig a hole place the potato in the hole and cover it with leaves then set it on fire then pull it out. FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL POTATO. There no auto cook, you have to keep hitting the A button. It was cool seeing it for the first time but seeing it time after time is tedious.

This is it for now.

Greed filled DLCs

What is a DLC? If you played anything in the past decade you would know. DLC stands for Downloadable Content. In other words content that is not included in the main game and you have to pay extra money to get. Doesn't sound too bad does it. Pay a little and you can play more of the game you love. WRONG. DLCs are nothing but an attempt to milk every last drop of money from a game. Whatever happened to paying 60 bucks and getting a full game? Nowadays you pay 60 bucks get half a game with 3 release day DLCs where you have to pay 15 bucks each for if you want all the stuff. Then release a new DLC every 3 months for 15 bucks each that has like 20 minutes of content. Fuck you.

My biggest gripe is how stupidly short and how overpriced these DLC are. DLCs are never worth their money. Never. Every company has adapted DLCs into their marketing strategy. Release a game but purposely leave out content. When the game is shipped include DLCs to preorders and those that didn't preorder because they want to wait for reviews to know if the game is a piece of shit or not have to pay 45 bucks for more DLCs! Why the fuck are there release day DLCs? Why is it not included into the game?

"Oh we wanted to include it but we wanted to ship the game out so the game went gold already and so we decided to charge you 15 bucks for each DLC instead of letting you download it for free! Enjoy dipshits."

I like CD Projekt Red's marketing strategy. No DRM because it hinders paying customers and free DLCs because charging their customers 15 bucks for no content is bullshit. They just recently released another patch that added a brand new mode, balances, and an arena system for The Witcher 2.

Lets take a look at a DLC that I tried. Dragon Age Origins for one. Return to Ostagar. You get a new area on your map. You walk over and you appear in the same Ostagar you were in at the start of the game. Wander around you see the dead king then kill an Ogre and you get the king's armor. Then you leave the area in about 5 minutes. That was the DLC. Was it worth 15 bucks? No. Was it worth 5 bucks? No. Was it worth 1 buck? No. Would it be worth it if it was free? No. This fucking shit isn't even worth the time and bandwith to download. You have got to be the greediest fucking shits to release something like that. There was no effort in it. Thats not the worst part. The worst part is there are a shitload of even more terrible DLCs out there.

To make things worse DLCs are tied to your account so if you were to buy a preowned game then you wouldn't get any of this shit. They want to counteract piracy and resales with DLCs as well as milk more money. This was the reason why so many companies have release day DLCs. Like 60 bucks isn't too much for a piece of shit game already why drive up the price even more. If they could charge 100 bucks for their game they would but for now they'll stick to their 60 bucks game with release day DLCs.

Release day DLCs are the most stupidest shit since the horse armor DLC for oblivion for like what 15 bucks? All it gave you was horse armor. HORSE FUCKING ARMOR. Stop buying low quality bullshit. If you do they'll get off their asses and put some work into them. Maybe then we would get something worth downloading.

CRAB FUCKING ARMOR

Word Cloud of Gaming

I played Dead Island and it was incredibly boring and shitty. I didn't wanna finish it because I just can't stand it anymore so I decided to make a word cloud to summarize all the games on this blog.

Vanillaware - What the fuck yet again

Having just finished my previous post, I found something something to add to it. Rather than add to it I'll add to the rest of the Vanillaware games. They made the games Odin Sphere and Grimgrimoire that I reviewed. They are sexist and their designs while are unique and colourful, are sexist as fuck. Like in Odin Sphere, the last boss of the first character arc is Odette which I have linked a video of in my review.

Here is a picture

Is there any reason for her breasts to be bigger than her head? While I have not played Muramasa since I don't own a Wii, the character designs seem to be good and proportional minus a few. Now the newest Vanillaware game is coming out for ps3.

Dragon's Crown

HOLY FUCK Look at the fucking breasts on the sorceress. Not only is it so massive that she needs the dead skeleton of her slain enemies to hold it up or she'll topple over onto the ground. Her ass is so huge she needs to stick her staff in between it or it'll collapse into a black hole from its sheer mass. Look at the combat animations. The breasts flop around in all direction as if they're jell-o. I know Vanillaware's, mostly Odin Sphere, art is ultra exaggerated on purpose. With an enormous giant upper body and muscles that are the weight of an entire high rise building. While the Amazon also has that but she is scantily clad like all fantasy women in art and games. What would be next? A guy with a giant bulge in his pants and a penis so large he needs to hire a slave to hold it while he goes off in battle? Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen because what are exaggerated in men are strength, and whats exaggerated in women is sexuality. It would never happen, but for once I like to see the opposite.

Men and Women in Video Games

Some feminists were complaining about how video games are male dominated. They claim that the reason for it is because games are made to cater to male audiences. Which is true I wouldn't argue against that. But their suggestions for it is completely retarded. They want a character where it uses "femininity" instead of "masculinity" to get things done. How? To paraphrase:

Instead of a woman with a penis, she could use her charm to get things done. Without fighting since aggression is a masculine trait.

What? What kind of shit is that? Would girl gamers want to play this fucking shit? No? Yes? I don't fucking know. What I know is I know a lot of girl gamers and I'm fucking sure as hell they wouldn't want to play that shit. Why do people have to use the label "girl gamers." Are they any different? Misogynistic male gamers would like to make you believe they are. I haven't always been a gamer. From what statistics show though that 54% of gamers are female. What games I'm not sure but that probably doesn't seem too off to me. I even heard of Starcraft championships for girls in Korea. I found that a little odd because if you're good enough, whats stopping you from stomping the boys as a girl? Because you lack a penis and your aggression isn't your main trait so its a huge handicap? Fuck that. Its because some men are scared of being emasculated by losing to a woman. Because of that they will purposely not acknowledge girl gamers.

Girl gamers are not rare at all. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of male friends, I got my first male friend at like grade 4. We all played a bit of video games because video games were the new thing. But mostly we just did stupid shit like run around in the backyard while our friend's older sisters spray us with the hose. Which is really fucked up now I think about it. But honestly, I don't get how a lot of people go "there are no girls that play this game." Then act all surprised when a girl plays and stalk them. "Oh wow a girl plays a video game she must be ugly or a fat Asian!" Of course a girl who plays video games must be ugly or fat or Asian. *rollseyes* I don't get the Asian thing though. One thing I really notice is the hostility between girl gamers. Playing around in different games I noticed there are two types of girl gamers. I don't like to generalize but this is what a girl gamer from my guild on WoW told me.

"I don't like to play with girls because they suck at games. They(the other group) think they can get away with anything because they are a girl. Me and my sister plays all the time and we never do any of the shit they do"

When I first heard that I shrugged and moved on. It was much later that I noticed a lot of other girl gamers shared her view. Granted I stuck more with their group since my guilds were usually on the more hardcore side. One particular event stuck with me. One experience I had was playing WoW and there was a "girl" in the group who went around rolling need on everything and randomly pulling. I don't like to call out people for being a retard but she was being a retard. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to teach her since I was on an alt and it might be one of her first few time partying. Then I get a "Lol, I'm a girl I don't know how to play." Before anyone could say anything, the main tank calls out "I'm a fucking girl too and I know how to play. Its people like you that makes guys think we can't play games." And proceeds to kick her. It was a great moment. Some people say girls don't like to play video games because of the way they are treated. Its very hostile against women online. I never really cared who I play with. It doesn't matter if its a girl or a guy, if they are fun to play with and they don't piss you off, then it sounds like you have a good person to friendlist. My friends tell me I'm very equal at treating anyone regardless of gender in real life. I always ask them, "should men and women be treated any differently?" Really ask this question, should men and women be treated differently? This is the root of the problem of men and women in video games. Women are viewed as inferior a lot of the time. When a man is being made fun of he gets called a woman. When a woman is being praised she is compared to a man.

I hear claims that girls don't play video games because when they were growing up they were told video games were for guys and they should play with dolls and shit. I'm going what the fuck are you talking about? They also say the same about women in engineering or other programs of study. I don't know anything about that but I agree that women aren't properly portrayed in video games. They are either the chicks with dicks (femme fatales) or the damsel in distress. Who does feminists think is the perfect female character in video games? Bayonetta. I am not making this shit up. They think she is the perfect woman. She is empowering, she makes men uncomfortable, and she kicks ass while being sexy. To quote.

To prohibit a character like Bayonetta, and rush to cover her up in disapproval, is a rejection of her particular brand of femininity. Why do that? Because she makes men uncomfortable? If men feel uncomfortable with Bayonetta, maybe that means she succeeds.

As a woman, I haven't often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to "the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail." Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that's made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.

Yeah, she is about as cool as Dante from Devil May Cry. The creator of both those characters are the one and same guy. And by cool I mean over the top embarrassing. I might find them "cool" if I was maybe 14. I played the beginning of Bayonetta. While its a fun action game with nice game play the fucking characters and over the top retardation makes me wanna smash my head into the table. The first scene was Bayonetta going around shooting shit while some guy tosses her guns with fly me to the moon playing in the background. The fucking shit drags on for like 10 hours. By the time you're finally done you don't feel like playing anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Uya32CHF8&feature=fvsr

Watch at your own discretion.

She's not much different than Dante. Is Dante a good portrayal of men? Fuck no. There are plenty of women in video games, why would you pick the most over the top one? Its not like theres none of them. Off the top of my head I can think of a bunch. April Ryan from The Longest Journey, Faith from Mirror's Edge, Alice from American Mcgee's Alice, the main girls from Persona 4 (OH GOD). These are games where its only the main character. There are plenty of great secondary characters too which I'm too lazy to think of. Anything is better than a character that uses her hair as her clothes and as you build up more and more combos she gets more and more revealing until shes fighting in the nude. Again, I'm not making any of this shit up. You can play for yourself or even youtube it. Women in video games are highly sexualized. Sure men are sexualized too but there are so many different types of men. Women are all big breasts skinny waist hourglass body. Thats it. There are barely any variation. Its stupid. I have however been told that women like the women in video games. "I don't want to play an ugly character," is the most common response, "women like it as much as men." I don't really know but feminists seem to be saying the opposite.

While sex appeal is one thing, another thing is the roles they are usually fit into. I played a lot of JRPGs, A LOT. They are culturally different so I will not go into details. But long story short they are very sexualized and are very subservient. I do not wish to go into another discussion of subservient Asian women. I had enough of that shit I don't want to talk about it again. Most games, women are the damsel in distress. This is because the main character is usually male given its target audience. So obviously you have to rescue the women with your manliness. In fantasy games, women are usually spell casters or supportive spell casters because they are fragile(I don't fucking know) but apparently the femme fatales are exempt. Women are usually support roles in those games. I like how blatant some of the sexism is for example in Xenogears, the main female character (high ranking officer) was forced to stay home because she's a woman. At first she's pissed but she then said this quote to another female character, "Men like someone to watch the home when they are fighting. They can't fight if they don't have the peace of mind that they will have somewhere to return to." You can't imagine the amount of blood I puked up. They don't even try to hide it.

However the opposite is true, in games like Witcher 2, sexism is all over the place. But it fits the story and world of the game. Its a sexist, racist, dark, grim world. Everyone is flawed, everyone is an asshole, and everyone would stab you in the back given half the chance. It fits but in a game like Xenogears it doesn't. Look at games like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Bioware games where theres "romance!" Look at how some of the characters are developed. Holy fuck are the women sexualized. Look at Miranda from Mass Effect 2. She has ass-pants for fucks sake. There are games that overly girlify things like Final Fantasy X-2. They turned the original characters from FFX into stupid bimbos. For what? Sex appeal. I couldn't finish that game ever. Most of the time the sexism begins before you even play the game. It is the games that are made for women. Yes it exists. They're games like Cooking Mama, Bratz, The Little Mermaid and My Little Pony. They have giant signs and stickers that go, "Games 4 girls." Why? Do women need to be singled out and then pigeon holed into buying shitty games? The fuck. Some people have no idea how to market their shit.

This blog post brings up a good point. There is a reason why sex is so taboo in western culture while violence is completely fine, as long as its a man getting hurt. It is because people view women as weaker than men, which isn't true. Same reason I get a lot of shit because I treat women the same way I would treat a man, and my male friends squirm to it. Why? Because they think women can't hear some of the shit men talk about because they're fragile. Fuck you. I grew up with a bunch of female friends who talk more openly about this shit than you. Plus chivalry is stupid, it was fine back in the middle ages but its the modern age people, women are equals theres no need for this condescending behavior. I don't want this to become another argument on feminism so I'm stopping here.

Every once in awhile you near something nice. Recently there was a step forward. Although small but a small step makes a big difference. For the first time you are able to create female avatars in NHL games. It might be small but small steps add up. Then you get bullshit that takes a step backwards. People are like "its hidden for a reason." Being hidden doesn't change the fact that its offensive. If they see it they have the right to get pissed. Thats like stealing something and then getting caught and go "Oh I was hiding it from you. If you didn't see me stealing it you wouldn't get pissed. Therefor you shouldn't get pissed when you caught me stealing so I will be going now." Way to go.

Women can play the same games men can play. Women can do better in the same games men can play. But fuck the majority of the men are too insecure to acknowledge that. I got my ass kicked by girls in games before. Do I feel bad? No. Does she being a girl have any sort of handicap? No. Stop making a big deal out of this. The games that overly sexualize women are usually the games that sexualize the men as well. The men are usually big strong silent types doing all sorts of bad-assery. When a male character is brought out thats less masculine he's automatically hated by everyone. Waaahhh he's not manly enough, he's a faggot, give us back Commander Kickass! Yet everyone loves it when a strong female character turns into a bimbo and starts giving fanservice, see FFX-2. Unfortunately thats the way things will go. Sex sells. Game companies take advantage of that and sell sell sell. Its not likely going to change but every so often you'll get a nice game where the women aren't sexualized. Just don't hold your breath waiting, it might be awhile.

Bitching about Bitching about Bitching

There are a few that are bitching about me bitching about every game. When I am playing a game they'll go "well time to get started on a new review on your blog." I don't hate every game! It just so happens that this blog is made for the purpose of bitching about shitty games and shitty decisions in the gaming industry. I don't hate every game, I don't hate all jrpgs. What I like may differ from someone. My likes and dislikes differ from Cent and he shares the blog. Some games I like, some I am indifferent, and the ones that suck shit are posted here.

Here are some of the games I like. They are not in any specific order and they are games I have recently played in the past few years that I can remember. Click the name for a clip.

Witcher Series - I was skeptical at first of this game. I thought it was just another fantasy sword and magic RPG. How surprised was I to find this gem. This is what Dragon Age wanted to be, should have been, and could have been. You're a witcher, you're not super human you're just a mutant. You have some special powers but mages can blow your shit up if they're pissy and people can tear you new assholes if you are not careful. You fight with a bunch of tools like traps, bombs, potions, and other stuff to give you an advantage. The game itself is dark, the decisions you make can come back and bite you in the ass, and it has one of the best storytelling in any game. Though it doesn't have flashy magic skills or impossible to fight with weapons and armour the graphics are amazing but then again its just another sword and magic RPG. The story and setting is what sets it apart. Its a jumbled mess of politics. Kings fighting kings and you're just a nobody getting caught up in it. You have your own goals. The only negative part about this game is once you play it, you'll ruin gaming because no other game comes close to it.

Aquaria - Its an indie game you can get off steam for cheap. Two developers got together and collaborated on this game then afterwards split up and did their own thing. Which was a shame because this game is amazing. The graphics are clean and crisp and it has probably one of the best BGM I have heard in a game. The atmosphere fits very well with the music. Its soothing and relaxing. The world is designed well and the marine life is accurate. The game itself reminds me of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Its a huge world where you can go anywhere you like. Until you get powers though most of the places are impassable. But once you get it you'll remember where you met those strong currents and go back there with a new form. There are lots of secrets, some puzzle solving, and a sing system. Its like Zelda Ocarina of time where you have to play notes for special songs that do special effects. Loads of fun.

Mirror's Edge - Its a first person parkour game. The game itself isn't that great near the end and the story is shitty but the parkour is amazing. The design and the atmosphere is great. Its has extremely clean contrasting colours and tall buildings that reaches the skies, which makes things awesome to jump from. Basically you run from rooftop to rooftop while people are shooting at you. You have to go fast or you get shot and die or you lose your momentum and miss your jumps. You have to go fast and you want to go fast. When you're going as fast as you can with your heart beating from the adrenaline and then you see nowhere to go so you take a leap of faith then grab onto a helicoptor. That is the most amazing feeling in a game. After each stage you have to take a breather from all the adrenaline. However there are parts where its more puzzle solving and you're forced to stop and solve it. I don't want to solve puzzles you fuckers I want to keep moving. The game starts sucking near the end because of the combat, which doesn't really fit in the game. Overall this is a good game if just for the adrenaline alone.

Mana Khemia - Yeah its a JRPG. First impressions you go, this game looks like a piece of shit. The graphics are terrible I agree but after playing for a little while it doesn't look so bad anymore. Its a school simulator? Is it like persona? Yes it is exactly like persona but its not fucking stupid where you have to go to school and actually do all that shit. Classes are simple and straight forward, alchemy class you mix stuff, combat class you fight stuff, collecting class you find items in dungeons. You can pick whatever classes you like after you finish the first few chapters. If you get A's and high marks you can take less classes. Every chapter moves the story forward a bit. Its a bit light hearted with enough comedy without sounding forced or repetitive. The best part though is the combat. It reminds me of Grandia where you can knock the target's action back but turn based instead. However, you can have 6 people in your party at all times, 3 as the vanguard 3 as the support. These are interchangable at anytime during combat, especially when the boss is about to do a super attack you just hit your switch button then bam your active target switches with a support and he takes the damage for you. When you switch you cast special effects too and you can also use them to chain combos for you. Another great part of the game is the alchemy system where you mix things you find together to make other stuff. For example adding king crab and blue steel will turn into a crabarmor with spikes and crab shells all over it. Adding devil panties and other stuff will give you a dominatrix suit. You know now that you think about it the game itself is pretty fucked up. You go around beating up angel girls, devil girls, dragon girls, sword girls, fairy girls, tree girls, koala girls, girl girls, etc etc. Basically you go around beating up semi nude loli girls and collect their drops that range from underwear to hair. The story itself is good though. Whatever you do, don't play the second one. I have nearly a whole review typed out and never finished writing it.

King's Bounty Series - If you played Heroes of Might and Magic you'll notice the similarities. But that game was based on the original King's Bounty. This is a remake of the old King's Bounty with a completely different story. I'm not that big of a fan of HoMM but I have cherished childhood memories of friends, cousins, everyone getting together on the computer and playing "Hotseat" version of the game. So when King's Bounty came out I gave it a go. The graphics are amazingly well done. The music is superb. Just listen to that BGM in the video. The story itself is quirky but entertaining. However not everyone will like this game as its a little slow paced and the difficulty is all over the place. You need a lot of strategy to clear battles. The sequel which is not as good as the first one is still a good game. Basically you travel around fighting randomly generated enemies and finding randomly generated items while hiring randomly generated creatures. Did I mention all this is randomly generated when you start a game? So no playthrough is exactly the same. You might have a hard time in one game and your friend finds a phoenix spell for his mage from the first shop in the game and starts blazing through the game like a fucker bird on fire. This is King's Bounty.

Okami - This is an action platformer similar to the Zelda series. You play as a goddess in the form of a wolf and you go around vanquishing evil and performing miracles with your celestial brush. The design is unique and very well made. The music also fits perfectly. You have multiple spells and weapons and other stuff similar to Zelda where you find them and then you can backtrack to open up new areas. The story is a little repetitive at times and they got extremely lazy near the end. But any fan of the Zelda series should give this game a go. The combat is fun, the characters are all a little eccentric but memorable and likable. It was the second highest rated game on the PS2 when it came out but unfortunately, Clover said their sales were pretty bad (The fuck!?) so they won't be making a sequel. And to make things worse Capcom shut them down due to petty personal arguments. Okamiden was eventually released as a sequel on the DS. I haven't played that to know what its like.

Recettear - A Japanese indie game. A long time ago two guys on a game forum decided to go into the game translating business. We followed along as they struggled to find a game company that trusts two nameless losers on a game forum that can bring their game overseas, translate it, then sell it. We followed along as they updated us with information and we followed along as they were looking for people to distribute for them. Then we followed along as they made six figures and a massively successful game. We followed along as they moved across the country to work together in their "office" and bring over new games. This was the game that started it all. And honestly I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for what was said above. When I first heard about this it was still in translating stages. But when it was finally released I found that it was way better than I could have ever imagined. Its a item shop simulator as well as a dungeon crawler. Its extremely addictive and charmingly fun. If you like dungeon crawling with randomly generated dungeons/monsters than this is the game for you. If you like to play item shop and be a huge asshole to people by overpricing shit then this is also the game for you. Try it out you won't be disappointed. Just don't pay attention to the terrible song in the video.

Rhapsody: A musical adventure - I keep talking about this because well, its really cute and memorable. Its incredibly funny and so cute you'll die from cuteness diabetes overload. The story is about you, a girl called Cornet with a magical horn that when you play it dolls come to life. Anyways you enter a contest where the best girl gets to marry the prince. This is probably the best and funniest scene in the game. During the contest the evil witch Marjorly comes and kidnaps the prince so you're on a quest to rescue and eventually marry the prince. No bitch is going to steal your man from you. The combat is tactical based but its so easy theres basically no point. Your party members consists of the dolls you collect on your adventure. If you level them up long enough in your party there is a cutscene of them reaching an epiphany and leaving your party. There are cutscenes in the game but instead of showing off graphics and stuff its all musical. Yes its a musical adventure so obviously theres a lot of singing, a lot of friendship, and a lot of cuteness. Luckily you can change to japanese so the music itself isn't that bad. Though its still overly cute that you'll have to secretly play incase your roommate you're gay just like watching my little ponies. It was rereleased on the nintendo DS.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Ok the trailer looks like shit but what do you expect from a game this old? The graphics are not that great compared to today's games but the atmosphere is still there. You feel like its really downtown LA or Santa Monica. Incredibly well designed. The gameplay is a third person stealth RPG. You're a vampire you can't let people know your a vampire or you break the masquerade. Break it enough and you get hunted down by vampire hunters or your fellow vampires. Its basically a secret society and a power struggle for control of the cities. Combat consists of stealthing around or just running in with all sorts of weapons like knives, steel pipes, guns, flame throwers, your hands. You'll fight humans, vampires, and other supernatural beings. The most fun about this game is the side quests and the ability to explore. The characters you meet are all unique and they all have their own distinct personality and quirks. The dungeon designs are generally good, with the exception of the asshole sewer level. Its a very well made RPG and even to this day there are many people still playing this. Too bad though, the company went bankrupt while making this game so it was never really completed. A lot of stuff was cut from the game including additional endings and different clan quests/skills.

This is getting too long and I'm getting bored typing about stuff thats good. Usually I type everything out while in a rage after I'm done a game so things just fly by. There are more games like Mass Effect, Bioshock etc etc but theres really no need to say more. These examples are enough of some nice games. If you're bitching that I have nothing good to say about games then try one of these.

DRM and Piracy

Remember the good old days where all you had was a cd-key or even one of those "enter the password on row and whatever column" to play? Nowadays people are going lunatic over the idea that their shit is getting pirated that they put in retarded DRMs to stop pirates. Newsflash, pirates don't have problems getting past the DRM. Its the people who buy it that suffer. Really when has there been a game that DRM worked in stopping pirating? Answer is none. The only people who suffer from this is the people they want. The actual paying customers.

Pirates aren't hurting sales as much as big game companies like to believe. You always hear them bitch and moan that 60% of their "potential" sales or even upwards to 90% of them were lost to piracy. No. It didn't. If they couldn't pirate they wouldn't play it. End of story. Would you rather people not play your game at all? Probably out of spite. But even pirates, if they never paid for your games, can give positive word of mouth and spread the game more. Yet if you made a game which is unplayable unless you pirate it then the people who would actually buy it wouldn't. You'll lose more. Obviously this isn't how it works but this is what I personally feel. Pirates don't like spending money. Lets face it, they wouldn't pirate if they had the money to throw on these games. Especially when you have no idea if a game was good or bad. Yeah people say you can watch videos online and/or read reviews, but those are biased to shit. Companies pay money to have them give a good review. EA themselves say review sites get bonuses if the game rating was 8.0 or higher. Put a demo out, if people like it they'd buy it. Look at Recettear, a nameless indie game on steam. They put out a demo people flocked to play it found it was amazingly addictive and spread the news. Turned out they had massive sales on the game. And it was easy to pirate as well as having no DRM. Google it and you can pirate it. They didn't have some kind of retarded DRM where you get penalized for being a good gamer.

A good article that I agree with is here.

They point out a lot of good things. You'll have to ask yourself. Why are there so many pirated copies of games. Is it because they're out of control? No, almost all games share the same amount of pirates. Some get pirated more some less, but in the end they wouldn't have bought your game anyways even if they can't pirate. Maybe because your game sucks? Maybe because they're boycotting your DRM? Maybe because a better game of the same kind is out on the market? There are a ton of variables yet the one that gets blamed the most is piracy. There is an example, in Witcher 2. They said they weren't going to put in any kind of DRM. When the game was shipped they added in DRM saying, it wasn't going to hurt the game if it was we wouldn't use it. In the end people were getting 10-30% less fps and other annoying issues because of this. What did CD Project Red do? Honored what they said and removed it.

"CD Projekt’s approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services.

We felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users.”

Isn't that the best way to counter piracy? People nowadays wants games, and they want it now. If it was easy to download a game at a click of a button then more people would do it. Look at something like iTunes. In a click of a button you can download music. They're making money so obviously music pirating isn't killing them. People are lazy if you can find a way to make it easier to play than to pirate then it might lessen the piracy rate. I'm sure its not that easy but at least its an attempt at a better solution. Look at Steam. Its easy to use, it organizes all your games and you can download it at will without having to go to a torrent site with billions of leechers slowing the torrent down to shit to download and then crack it. It zooms fast, it auto patches, and it does everything for you. Digital distribution is the future of game distribution.

Bottom line is stop making your game suck. Game developers hate making games on the PC because of the fear of piracy. Consoles get games pirated all the time too. Sure not as much as the PC but its still there. They claim they don't get enough profit from PC because of piracy. No dipshits. Its not piracy its because of all the stupid little things you do.

Things like these.

Recently though, everyone seems to be jumping onto the Always Online bandwagon. If your internet has a hiccup you get kicked from the game. Even in offline single player mode. Too bad, get better internet. Is this necessary? Blizzard's SC2 did it. Yet soon after its release, single player offline mode was cracked and people could pirate it. Guess that didn't help after all. Its less of a pain to just crack your legit copies of the games so you can play offline to save yourself the hassle. People are crying that D3 wouldn't have offline mode but I would have to agree with blizzard on this one. D3 plays more like an MMO. Like WOW it would be a better game online. You're missing out on so much of the game playing single player. Rather than making a single player mode they should just focus on the multiplayer aspect of the game. You can't play WOW offline, neither should D3. But for games that only have single player and be forced to be "always online" then its bullshit. Theres no way to justify that except they're paranoid of pirates.

Thats it. That the root of the problem. Paranoia. Because of this gigantic "fear" of pirates, PC games will forever be shittier than their console counterparts. It will always treat the buyer as a criminal. And it will always be the same. Nothing will change. Pirate are out there they're unstoppable. Its as easy going to piratebay and typing in a name of a game. When Piratebay was sued what happened? Nothing. Nothing at all. Even if they die, theres a million other torrent sites where you can pirate shit. When Napster was shut down did that stop music pirating? No. Its not going to stop them now its not going to stop them ever.

Developers needs to stop using piracy as a scapegoat for their shitty games. If it sucks its not because of pirates, its because your game sucks. Stop blaming pirates. Every game has their share of pirates. And if we finally get to the point where we have a way to stop pirates then you'll find something else to blame it on. When you release a game go, is this game worth 60 bucks? Is there a way where people would know if this game is good or not? Chances are if its not a AAA title or a franchise series then people won't know. Thats why you have to give out demos. Put some gameplay videos anything. Holy shit I don't get why games don't do this. You get a significantly higher % of buyers with a demo than without. Unless you are so unconfident that you assume your game sucks horse balls and you hope that people will stupidly blind buy your game and find out its a piece of shit you barely spent time on because you had to rush it out before the next WoW title came out so they'll buy yours instead of the WoW expansion. Oh wait a lot of games already did that. Guess what? They failed. First impressions are lasting impressions. Spend some time on a demo and its going to make people want to buy your shit.

"One new idea a year..."

So there's a game company out there that has been shamelessly and blatantly copying popular game concepts games for their own sale and distribution. Bet you can't guess what country this developer belongs to. China? South Korea? Russia?

It's France.
Wait what? Yep! A French company, Gameloft, has been replicating popular PC/console titles on mobile devices, such as Android and iPhone. It's copied Gran Turismo (GT), Midnight Club (Asphalt), World of Warcraft (Order and Chaos Online), Halo (NOVA), Assassins Creed (they ported AC, but they also released Backstab), Sunset Riders (Cowboys and Aliens), Uncharted (Shadow Guardian), God of War (Hero of Sparta), GTA4 (Gangsta: Miami Vindication), and Starcraft (Starfront). And that's just for Android!

Hard to believe that they've cloned some of these games on the phone... But just look: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftMMHM

That's nearly 1:1 identical to WoW. How they don't have lawsuits crash onto their ass like a ton of bricks, I don't know. Of course, we've seen shameless game copying before, so why would I talk about it now?

Well, there have been many before me to call Gameloft a copycat, and their CEO has actually responded.

"The video game industry has always played around a limited number of themes. There is maybe one new idea a year. If a type of game is not available, then you should make it. The damaging thing is if you do a bad expression of a good idea."
- Michel Guillemot

Bold statement, buddy. Even if Guillemot's claim of a singular unique idea per year was true, that is not a flattering situation. Nor is it an excuse. It makes us wonder what is happening in the game industry that is causing this stagnation of ideas. Could it be in part that upper management like Guillemot himself is too focused on mimicking popular titles rather than reaching out with daring concepts, leading game designers to hesitate when proposing and promoting new game concepts like back in the gaming golden age of the late 80's and 90's? Could it be that Guillemot is right about the lack of ideas, but yet ironically he is the plague that is pervading it?

Guillemot is a disgusting worm. He's not just copying to make a quick buck like some Asian game developers do... But he doesn't even think it's copying or setting back the development of the industry and propagating more development studios with FEWER original ideas. In fact, his narcissism allows him to believe that he's doing us a favor by paying homage to leading titles. You have to be pretty twisted to say that.

Assassin's Creed: Boringhood

Although not a fan of the series, I nevertheless find myself drawn towards the enigma that is the Assassin's Creed series. I enjoy it's scenic environments and am ever curious about how exceedingly farfetched its historical, conspiracy-laced tale can go. Unfortunately, the last time I played AC:Brotherhood was 6 months ago, and I find it impossible to bring myself back to playing it. As I described with AC2, the game is a test of endurance, and I am simply out of steam.

In AC, it's never made too clear how much you are missing out on if you don't complete the bonus objectives or side missions with perfect results, and so you would be compelled to get it right, or have to forcibly reload by restarting the mission entirely. In AC1, it didn't make a difference, as long as you beat it. In AC2, you would completely miss out on solving the ending sequence, and basically fail to understand a majority of the plot and backstory. In AC:B, you have to complete all optional objectives perfectly, and also complete the main objectives in a predetermined method. This means when I assassinate a target, it has to be with a specific weapon, and with a specific result. So sometimes, I must murder a target, but with a sabre, and throw him into some scaffolding. What frustrates me is that I don't understand why I must do it this way to get full points. I'm an ASSASSIN. What matters is that I am undetected. In AC:B, what matters is superficial requirements that don't make any sense. You'd think I was trying to frame someone or something, but no. Who cares if my target is thrown off the wall when I'm surrounded by 20 guards who are witnesses of my identity? Emphasis has been misplaced on meaningless stipulations, and should you somehow not complete the mission as exactly specified, then you must redo the entire mission, usually involving riding across half the country to reach your mission-start location, then tailing a target for ten minutes, then slowly peeling away layers of vulnerable guards, then sneaking in barely any time left. In short, it is tedious work that balances on the edge of a blade that drags on for 20 minutes, until you wonder why it is so difficult to do something as menial as finding a backalley pickpocket.


The checkpoint and saving systems don't help either. You can only save outside of a mission, and loading the game doesn't take you back to where you were last. It merely saves the progression of your game, but usually spawns you at your HQ (in a very isolated part of the country). Automatic checkpoints are rarely interspersed throughout 20-30 minute long missions, but can only be restored upon your death, so you'll frequently beg for the guards to impale quickly you so that you won't have to replay the mission's stalking sequence. Should you choose to complete the mission, despite not completing all the bonus criteria, you can retry it later, but death no longer restores the previous checkpoint, instead exits you out of the replay mission, and back to where you are currently. You can thank console gaming for the trend of lacking genuine, robust save systems. Replayed missions also restore the equipment, abilities and progression you had when you completed the mission the first time, so once you beat it with terrible equipment, it will never get any easier, no matter how long you delay it. Completing a mission is a commitment, and the results will not likely be changed. Any sane player would choose the order of missions wisely, and not attempt to rush through any of the mission sets unless they complete them perfectly first try. You'll do a lot less loading and dying if you just do it right the first time.

The tediousness of it all really takes the fun out of the missions, even if they weren't as cookie-cutter as they are. I feel more sneaky and cunning playing Fallout or Deus Ex. In AC:B, I find myself using stupidly effective combat or assassination techniques in sequence to blast through how stunningly boring it is, which of course, doesn't help me get those super-special bonuses needed to unlock VITAL parts of the game. =_=. Dear developers, it isn't a bonus if it is needed to understand what the fuck is going on in your twisted universe which otherwise seems like a floundering excuse for a plot. Of course, it's marketed as a complex interwoven net of conspiracies and history, but really, it's more like peeling the countless layers of an onion, and having your eyes tear all the while.