What I’ve been up to

I dont even think anyone comes here anymore. 😛

Where to begin? Well aside from literally wanting to kill cats and the Warner Bros. for FUCKING CANCELLING MKX… nothing really. Some reason, I now have a laptop as a gift… which caused unnecessary drama too foolish to explain. Deadpool movie was the tits. That’s rich. Fox did X-Men right for a change! That was 100% vintage Deadpool! And unlike the game,  the comedy didn’t feel forced at all! …….oh who am I kidding, I’ll be “wrong” about that somehow.

Anywho, gamewise, I’ve come to learn something. Namco is to Japanese games as a curling iron is to the dick.

Shit… redefined

To be a Tales fan means to have to constantly battle against any and all desires to interact with the fans of said franchise, for there is no threat to your sanity greater  than those that live and breathe this shit.

The Tales games I only invest in for comedic purposes as thus far, somehow, the Japanese actually learned how to be funny… or the localizers used to work on the Mario RPGs. At first glance, you could look at these games and assume they’re Japanese wank fests (it’s not THAT far from the truth), but by some bastion of great fortune, these games managed to exceed the stereotypical nonsense that most JRPGs are prone to (like Star Ocean), and actually entertains you. Sure, they’re long, stretched out, padded out the ass, and can wax poetic about nonsense like the rest of the Animu shmuck, but hey, as long as it’s not a huge bore, then it’s all good.

…….That stopped being the case with Zestiria.

This game, for some reason, managed to be worse than Xillia 1. Worse than Abyss. Worse than… hell, Sticker Star! Yeah…. that’s right, bitch! Sticker Star kicks more ass than Zestiria! Why!? That game’s mere premise alone writes itself!!

……… Oh nevermind. Lets get into it.

Bullshit is about Sorey, your typical JRPG protagonest who is confident, adventurous, and gets randomly picked as the chosen one to save the world, simply because a girl likes him. Sorey is on a mission to liberate the world from the “malevolence”.

He is joined by his best friend Mikleo, a character named after a McDonalds Happy Meal, and has a permanently resting bitch face. One would assume he would be a rival or possibly evil person, but no, he’s just the buttmonkey who complains about everything.

Along the way, Sorey gains the motivation to bring Humans and Seraphim together in harmony. Oh right… Seraphim are beings that live among Humans. Humans can’t see them (except for Sorey) or interact with them in any way. Which makes one of Sorey’s desires… pretty impossible to pull off… or just make sense of. He wants to bring 2 species together when one doesn’t even know the other exists. Right. Someone didn’t check the logic of their universe before handing out character motivations. Oh right, Mikleo is a Seraph too, which makes it look like Sorey is talking to himself… but barely anyone cares.

Sorey is also joined by Lailah, the fanservice bimboo who looks like a stick figure with boobs. Basically a One-Piece character. The voice of reason who randomly rambles about rabbits when conversations get uncomfortable, or makes really shitty attempts at humor because reasons. I would’ve guessed that this was because she was hiding some vaguely terrible secret, that ol’ foreshadowing technique, but an inept idiot could figure out the plot a mile away. And of course, the cast of characters are inept idiots.

Next, there’s Edna, a total cunt that makes Anise Tatlin look the best damn character in Abyss. A “child” genius, she insults everyone’s intelligence, constantly harrasses the McSandwich man, gives everyone stupid nicknames because Japan that would be cute, and makes lewd jokes. Also contributes to 0% of the plot, making her creation solely to piss you off.

Lastly, you have Dezel who’s just as much of a jerkass as Edna… but he dies…. so instead you have Zavied, a shirtless guy voiced by Guile in SF4. Zavied is just a black Zelos Wilder… without all the annoying qualities, and actually makes the game better by default.

Then you have Alisha, a hot white chick voiced by Chun Li from SF4. A princess who fights with a spear, is proactive, will do anything for the safety of her country, and doesn’t cry about shit! But then she leaves when you find out Sorey is allergic to real women… so instead you have to put up with The Mary Sue, Rose. A ninja chick whose only real quality is dat ass. She’s the leader of a merchant… that moonlights as an assasins guild. And somehow a bitch who threatens a kid is pure enough to be Sorey’s Squire…. oh fuck, I forgot to explain that.

*Deep Breath*

Sometime in the beginning of the game, Sorey becomes a “shepard”, a being that can make pacts with warrior Seraphs to kick sufficient amounts of ass, and save the world from the “Malevolence”, which is really just humanity’s own evil (this is game is about religion. Yep). Sorey can also “Armatize” (a fancy word for “fusion” because Japan LOVES fusions! Fusions are IMPOSSIBLE TO ESCAPE!) with the 4 aformentioned Seraphs (Mikleo, Edna, Lailah, Zaveid/Dezel). As a Shepard, Sorey can… “hire” a squire to assist him. Alisha was originally that Squire. But for some reason, Sorey kept losing his senses. Somehow, that was Alisha’s fault. Lets see, a Shepard had to be all pure and shit, and I guess that also applies to the squire. But there was absolutely NOTHING to imply that Alisha was impure. Infact, she was anything BUT impure. But w/e. Japan needed a “BS the player by taking away one of their party members” quota filled and Alisha was the first victim”.

The replacement would be Rose, a bitch so upseld, she’s pure enough to be a better squire than Alisha and even ARMATIZE as well, even though she 1.) Threatened a Child. 2.) Deceived Knights. 3.) Fucking murdered people (she is an assasin, afterall). 4.) Punched the Shepard himself. 5.) Talks about people behind their backs. And of course, she gave the world a pretext for war… so yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit and say Namco played favoritism with this character. Doesn’t help her personality is dismissive. It wouldn’t be enough to bullshit with her, but the game expects you to admire her as much as everyone else does. Even Mikleo, the guy who is overly critical about EVERYONE in the game… believes her dismissiveness is “awesome”. And everyone else follows suit in praising her for basically talking shit.

And the game…doesn’t….stop…. praising her. She might as well be the main character! It must be dat ass…

These days, JRPGs are dependent on good story because they have nothing else going for them, and Zestiria is FUCKED UP about both it’s narrative AND it’s characters. The Story gets repetitive after Alisha leaves, the characters themselves are irritating and/or dull, and shifting all the focus from how to make the world a better place, but to how the game can glorify Rose even further than she needs. The non-stop egotrain that is Rose destroys any semblance of “giving fucks” I might have had with the game, cause in the end, I wanted them all to die… which actually happens. No bullshit.

Anywho, I haven’t even gotten to the GAMEPLAY… which actually makes the experience WORSE. For those who played Xillia 2, awesome battle system, right? Fast paced, easy to understand, easy to play, and Chromatus made everything a joke. Yeah… take EVERYTHING AWAY… and completely fuck it all up. All of it. Fucked beyond. Beyond fucked, I don’t care.

The original battle system of every game starting with Symphonia was basically Smash Bros. meeting Street Fighter. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Battles were fought in 3D arenas with 2D fighting. Characters walked in straight lines toward their enemies and had regular melee attacks and special attacks mapped to a different button. Both moves are done Smash Bros. style so pressing in a direction while pressing special does something and yadda yadda. You could FULLY CUSTOMIZE your characters moves and what not. If this laptop didn’t suck ass so much, I could find pictures to illustrate this. Just go to youtube or some shit. 😛

With a battle system that WORKED JUST FINE, Namco buttfucks the money bed and decides to change it for absolutely no reason other than “because change is awesome”. Now the battle system is in Psuedo 3D and it is literally impossible to perform precise moves. Instead of 2D battles where the camera is situated horizontaly with your party on the left hand side and enemies on the right-hand, now you have stupid 3rd person wannabe shit going on now. Changing the camera perspective was the absolute dumbest move in Tales history. It feels awkward walking up and down when spent all this time walking left and right… like in a fighting game! Depth perception wasn’t an issue until here where I have to try even harder to judge the distance between me and my enemies. The amount of times I’ve missed attacks by even a few inches because I can’t see the space I should’ve cleared is a hassle. I felt like I had to use Semi-auto for once! Fucking hate Semi-auto.

It’s harder to perform normal attacks and special moves. Not because of the camera, but because the actual moves themselves changed. Back in the past, normals and specials were mutually exclusive. Normal attacks had their own combos and what not. In Zesty, however, Namco decided to migrate… fucking specials into normal attack combos. You know what that means!? If you want to use Sword Rain or some shit, you have to press Normal 4 fucking times and the 4th, you have to press into a direction for that specific move to come out. This is like those combo rings that Long and Shenlong had in Bloody Roar, but unfun. Because battle controls are kinda wonky, you end up whiffing your combos. So you may get to use Sword Rain, or you may not.

If moves like Sword Rain remained as purely special attacks, I wouldn’t care. But having to endure these migrated special Normal Combo Rings during a battle ends up being a real drag.

Then there’s the Armatis system. The aformentioned “fusion” system because Japan masterbates to fusions, Sorey and that irritating bitch can Armatize with the other 4 party members to gain new powers. Lailah will give you a fire sword, Mikleo gives you a Hydro Bow, Edna gives you Rock fists, and Dezel/Zaveid gives you… windy wings? Meh, the Armatis system was fun at first, but then it present a glaring problem. You would need at least 2 characters that weren’t Seraphs present… at all times. Meaning if you wanted to avoid using Rose or Sorey… tough titty. You have to put up with those 2 in every….single….battle. This mean Rose’s terrible AI will blow through your Seraphs fast. About that, if you die but have an extra Seraph in reserve, you could swap out 1 Seraph for the other, Armatize, and abuse this for the whole game… if ROSE doesn’t ruin everything. Good thing Seraphs can self heal, even after knockout.

So Armatize would be kewl… if… you know… enemies didn’t arbitrarily ramp up all kinds of resistences. You see, midway through this unnecessarily long fuck of a game, enemies start gaining random super armor, meaning that you attack them, they don’t get stunned, and you might get hurt in the process. Enemies such unbelievable resistences, particularly normal and they love to resist fire. Armatis gives you permant elemental attacks so if you fight an enemy with fire resistence, Lailah is useless. But what if you fight enemies with 2 resistences? Then you’re handicapped. Armatis is, unfortunately, the only way to do any real damage to enemies, particularly Lailah and Edna Armatizing, so if enemies have an assload of resistences (and shit, quite a few enemies have had up to 4 fucking resistences), that Armatis won’t do you a bit of good. And this also goes for that bullshit Combo Ring. You have to keep good memory of what each move does, elemental properties… oh who am I kidding, you might whiff into a move that has exactly what the enemies are resistant against, so you’re fucked either way.

Did I mention there’s a fucking STAMINA SYSTEM in this game!? Oh yes, Namco MASTERBATES to stamina systems! Thank Amma that Tekken and Soul Calibur don’t have that bullshit, but Namco makes sweet luv to de Stamina systems. Instead of an MP meter, your special attacks (and even your NORMAL attacks) run on Stamina. It depletes little by little everytime you attack, free run, etc. Here’s the thing. THe less Stamina you have, the more damage you do, which is basically 1 big fuck you, because then you’d attack lesser and less. This little quirk makes no sense overall and means if you want to do more damage (which is about as noticable as a good Sonic game these days) you’d have to mash away. Oh but that’s not even the worst part. You know that whole cooking thing the Tales series had? You know, that totally useless feature that you never used? Well, you better start using it  because if you don’t feed your asshole team, their stamina starts getting lowered before a battle starts, so if they’re hungry, their stamina might be at fucking Zero. Dats right! You have to actually FEED the bastards! But wait… if I starved them, they do more damage. WORK FOR YOUR MEALS, ASSHOLES!

TLDR, fuck you battle system. You ruined everything. Even the pacing is slower than dirt.

Zestiria is a game that makes me run away from the franchise. The bullshit I assumed about the series before was epitomized in this game. I can’t believe I miss Jude Mathis. At least he kept his mouth shut.. most of the time. Actually, now that I think about it, the Xillia folks were probably the most down to Earth characters in the whole series. But here, it’s like the characters aren’t even… organic. They’re poorly written cardboards for the most part.

And even the gameplay was ruined. You’d think as stagnate as Japanese developers are, they would keep everything as it is with some minor gimmick (Armatus), but shit. I couldn’t even stomach finishing the damned game. Do not play… ever.

Getting away from Tales crap, I soon looked at my collection and had no idea I bought so many Namco games (since company logos are invisible to me until I first boot up the game). Digimon All Star Rumble, had no idea Namco was behind it… probably why that game sucks. J-Stars Victory Vs, no idea Namco was behind it, surprised it doesn’t suck. Dragonball XenoVerse, same story as J-Stars.

And before anyone asks, yeah, I bought J-Stars Victory Vs. And I love it. Come on, why would I pass up the opportunity to take YuYu Hakusho and mother fucking Ruroni Kenshin… and beat the literal shit out of those Naruto characters!!!!!!? ……….It’s RURONI KENSHIN!! Young asses don’t know SHIT about real cartoons! Was hoping Inuyasha was in this game so I could whoop his ass too. Faggot ass Samurai with Cat ears!? Come on…

All 3 of these games have the same glaring issue. Micromanagement. And like I said, Namco jacks off to micro management. Each of these 3 games present “systems” where you must manage a Stamina bar while fighting against hoardes of Astonishingly good AI. You need Stamina to Dash, to use specials, to power up, to guard against attacks, to escape combos, you name it. Each of these games require a Stamina meter. And I ask WHYYY!? Some would argue that it balances the game, and I say they’re idiots. You don’t balance the game by handicapping the players, you balance the game by making sure the characters aren’t too goddamn powerful. And looking at Namco’s track record, fighting game balance isn’t their strongest quality.

Players like to spam moves. If it’s useful, they will not hesistate to abuse the ability. The only safe bet is to not put in such powerful fucking moves in the first place. Stamina systems of any kind only serve to hinder a player from increasing his/her chances of winning a match. It’s literally ridiculous that a single company has produced more games with Stamina ass wankery than an RPG company would. And for Dragon Ball, it’s overkill. We already have the ever-present Ki meter, but we need a secondary meter for other basic functions such as GUARDING!? I can’t tell you how many times getting Guard Broken has ruined my chances of winning missions, cause guard breaks means your whole stamina meter is destroyed and you need to recharge it. During recharge, you can’t guard, dash, or anything useful. It’s like getting dizzied in a regular fighter, but more obnoxious. If Tekken started using a Stamina, I wouldn’t be surprised but I doubt the fanbase would ass kiss that shit.

It’s like Namco set out to bust my balls with every game they produce. Even though I enjoy J-Stars and XenoVerse, these Stamina Systems ruin everything.

*sigh* Got 2 weeks of internet and a shitty Icraig to write this on…

 

Returning to Zero Gravity

A toast to everyone who’s been having a ball grillin the ever loving shit out of Sonic Boom! Savin me ALL kinds of trouble and piss that I could be using to kill those damn cats who keep singing at night!

Anywho, seeing all the turmoil erupting after the bust, there’s been like this… mass awakening going on. Sonic fans starting to smell the coffee and realizing that “hey, Sega’s REALLY fucking up the sonic series, we iz doomed!” Sure is nice of them to get over their unwarranted self importance to start caring about the actual products rather than their status as fans.

That being said, I started to dig out every Sonic game I’ve owned to go on a crying train about where it all went wrong.

Holy crap, I still have this game!?

Back in grade school, I thought this was the second racing game that took actual skill to beat (the first being F-Zero GX) seeing the amount of actions you had to take during a race to ensure victory. Course, by the time I learned all the nuances, I just used power characters and abused their easy shortcuts. Power characters had it easy (or at least Knuckles did). Breaking through everything while maintaining their top speed was a joy.

Playing it now, I realize that there isn’t any real skill involved. It’s actually very petty micromanagement strapped into a racing game. You have to be careful not to use so much air during a race, collect a shit load of rings to carry more air, do several million tricks and character specific actions to gain more air, and hope no one kicks your ass which would cost you all your air. Sonic Riders was a racing game with zero margin for error and almost no accessibility whatsoever, it’s a wonder that I even liked the game back then. Wait, I had a gamecube, I had really shitty taste back then. I even thought Wind Waker was worth anyone’s time…..

Thinking about it now, I started to actually miss some of the improvements in Zero Gravity. Not having to hold down the jump button just to actually “jump” and get bigger air from ramps was one, not having to manage air was another. Luckily, Gamestop sells Wii games at all time lows so hurray $12 games! It’s not everyday that I give a game a second chance (giving Injustice a second chance atm). Trying to think exactly what I did not enjoy about it. After about 4 weeks I got rid of the game, I didn’t even want it in my collection.

Zero Gravity was a sequel of demands and deterrents in itself. It had plenty of improvements like the aforementioned jumping controls, the music is way better, and there aren’t any silly QTE’s mid race like having to spin the control stick to gain air while riding a pulley. Never made much sense to begin with. Not every action you do drains your GP meter like it did for air, and catching rails with speed characters isn’t such a pain in the ass. If anything, Zero Gravity was a more convenient game.

The thing that pissed me off, however, was the changes to how characters and gear worked. Characters no longer had their abilities based on their types (Speed, Fly, Power categories were removed) so everything they could do was entirely gear dependent. Chapped my ass since I usually gave knuckles Grinder shoes so I could have the abilities of smashing things and riding rails. Unfortunately, in this game, that is virtually impossible without the “omnipotence” gear you get. It wasn’t too big of a deal considering that you could play your favorites without worrying if they’ll get decent shortcuts… but then Sega pulled this “gear change” shit.

In Riders 1, you had a leveling system where by collecting rings in acquirements of 20, you could increase the max amount of air you carried as well as gaining access to new attacks. To explain, boosting up someone’s ass allowed you to perform different attacks based on your air level, for example Knuckles would roar at someone, but leveling up would allow him to punch someone.

In this game? No such thing as leveling exists. Instead, you gain access to gear changes that you have to change into mid race. Collecting rings from 20 to 50 to 75 instead of the 20-40-60 for some reason gets you these changes. The problem? The gear’s ability to access short cuts (like rails or flight rings) is tied… to the fucking gear changes. So you can’t really gain any access to these areas until maybe the second lap of the race. It seemed like a really stupid means of “balancing the game” by forcing you to swallow rings before you can access any meaningful short cuts. But this cuts into another issue. Performing gear changes actually depletes your rings, so if you were hasty and performed your first gear change, you’d have a much longer time to collect rings and get to your second and 3rd gear changes. This combined with the fact that if you fall into a pit, you lose all your rings anyway, so that’s an even longer wait. Plus, you still need rings to buy new gear.

What’s this all mean? The micromanagement aspect is STILL present. And if anything, they made it much WORSE in this game by virtue of the gear change system. All of he races in this game become nothing more than mad dashes to collect rings and not much else because that’s the only real “skill” needed to play this game. Every other mechanic was simplified to the point of absurdity that farming rings is the only real goal of the game.

And I mean simplified. You can’t even friggin boost in this game. The one move that most racing games would have for players to quickly catch up with their rivals was strangely removed from ZG. Why? They had to make way for the “gravity boost” and “gravity dive” features. 2 moves that are actually more of a hindrance than a plus. Gravity Boost is basically like drift, however, in that you only really use it to navigate 90 degree sharp ass turns that crop up in every race. And after the super special “beat dropping” dubstep crap is over, you get a really shoddy boost doesn’t even propel you far enough to catch up to anyone. It’s not even viable to exploit. Then you get the Gravity Dives which are… slightly more useful, but in select areas. It starts off like the boosts accept the beat drop moments have a fixed time frame, and you actually do bypass your rivals. You’re really just flying in the air. But… the amount of speed you gain starts to dwindle about half-way and it’s a total bitch to control. It’s not suitable to use this on any part of the road that isn’t straight as your character can only move on-rails. It’s only useful on select parts of the course where you can find large pieces of debris the “slide boost” on. IE if you touch any of these debris, your character gets a sudden boost of speed. And since there’s plenty of debris on the road, you have plenty of boosts at your disposal.

…..Then it hit me. Seeing how gravity boosts and dives are practically used in every race at very specific portions of the course, how your ability to access short cuts was heavily limited, and how there’s no real boost function all led me to one conclusion. Sega took control away from me. It shouldn’t have taken me this long to realize just how completely scripted the courses felt until I started not giving a shit and played the game more relaxed than usual and noticed that all the gravity dive sections appeared near the end of each lap. This wasn’t a racing game at all. It was Sega’s personal experimentation project with features they never properly ironed out… but felt necessary to force you to experience before gaining access to your precious gear exclusive short cuts. Since most Gear-Cuts take you around the gravity sections of the race often, you would have less incentive to use gravity boosts and dives. And why would you? Gravity boosts are a complete liability that can cost you a race if you so much as fuck up an inch in trying to catch a wall or a sharp corner. Gravity boosts would be nice if you didn’t slow waaaaaaaay down while activating it. This would give opponents the chance to catch up with you and pass you while you’re still trapped in middair. It’s absolutely absurd and moronic for any racing game to force a mechanic on you that actually hinders your ability to stay in the lead. To use gravity boosts without losing your place requires that there be no opponents within 5 miles from your rear. And using gravity boosts to do wall runs is even more risky as those shortcuts don’t really ensure victory either. Gravity Dives would’ve been more useful had the game not make them only functional on straight roads or be purposefully designed to work on one section (and one section only) of a course.

This combined with no actual ability to catch up with your opponents (and having no boosting mechanic either) makes this a racing game that is dependent on sheer… dumb… luck. Yes. You have no real control over how to actually win a race, you just have to pray. Between having to amass several rings to be able to do anything combined with the utterly useless gravity features that Sega tried ever so hard to promote, makes this a game that is damn near unplayable without some yac to go along with the sadness. Now granted, they do have gears that already have Gear-Cut abilities unlocked at the start, which would be fine if they actually performed well in comparison to the default gears the characters are given. All to balance them out, no less. >_>

I initially sold the game due to not having a means of playing catch up, but decided to try and use the “awesome features” the game provided you with this time. Turns out, they don’t fucking work to your advantage. There are zero benefits to using zero gravity. It’s a Nintendo experimentation game masquerading as a racing game, and it shows. The design choices are completely baseless and without reason. More pointless micromanagement than anyone ever needed, and just an overall SLOW racing game in general. It’s just not fun. When you know you’re not in control of a race 100% of the time and you spend more time scavenging for rings than actually competing against other racers, there is no such thing as a fun factor. And to think, they could’ve taken the courses, the music, even the tired story, modified them all and made a regular ass Sonic game where you’re going around kicking meteotech robot ass. People wouldn’t even be kissing Sonic Colors’s ass because the techno-dreamworld Sonic game would’ve been made back in 07. Instead, we got a shallow racer that thinks it’s Sonic Shuffle 2.

*sigh* too bad. It had a sweet ass sound track.

Sooooooooooooo much wasted potential…..

Gearbox hates you, and wants you to know it.

Goddamn, that’s creepy.

I think Borderlands The PreSequel will turn into another BL2 soon enough. Couple of weeks back, there was an announcement of potential nerfs to 2 specific items in the game. A legendary rocket launcher that is literally called “the Thingy”…… and a weapon that was capable of dealing 514% damage (The Rosie). Normally, as farming isn’t my thing and rocket launchers being shit in this series, I could care less about the Thingy’s drop rate being nerfed. However as my experience in this series goes, quest items are usually a lot better in helping to clear out mobs, and I swear that Rosie helped in making Nisha a more powerful character. As such, nerfing the damage on the Rosie pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe. BLPS has none of the horrid balance issues that BL2 had at it’s disposal which makes the damage nerf not seem like a huge issue. But when you consider that 3 out of 4 of the present characters all have abilities that make them immortal, you have this one character who is completely dependent on a cheap Action Skill to do anything. I find the best weapons for her are beams, and the Rosie was a god send in TVHM. To find her best weapon is nerfed for no exact reason is frustrating. Most would ponder that because of UVHM’s new release, the Rosie would provide an unfair advantage. This ignoring the fact that everyone and their momma is claiming that UVHM is piss easy anyway, the nerf itself was just an unnecessary action.

This reminds me of the situation back in BL2 where by the Bee shield was nerfed along with a weapon known as the Conference Call. In a game where the enemies were literally bullet sponges, the nerf came as a shock and appalled MANY of the game’s fans. It’s odd to see how little people actually defended such a move. An explanation could be given that the Bee shield and Conference Call combo gave people too much of an advantage over enemies… which, if you’ve been following, is actually fair game considering how cock-smashingly HARD the enemies are to kill in the first damn place. That and this isn’t some PvP series either, whatever method you could use to defeat enemies was fair game. To nerf an advantage like the Bee shield/Conference Call combo was to dictate how the consumers should play the game.

And unfortunately, Gearbox is starting to creep that asinine behavior into PreSequel, but with even more obnoxious changes. The controversy over the nerfing of the Thingy legendary was a tipping point. You see, for the pathetic dregs that even bother to farm legendaries, PreSequel is a crappy game for them. Bosses and unique enemies are pretty rare in this game which meant the chances for finding legendaries is very low. Most farmable legendaries come from bosses you can only fight once. But… there was another option. This game presents the grinder, a machine that allows you to feed 3 weapons into it to possibly get something better. The grinder was the ONLY way to get legendaries. But the catch is you needed to put legendaries into the machine to get legendaries, which is pretty trollish of Gearbox. But a stroke of luck appeared when a boss named Iwajira had a pretty generous drop rate for the Thingy. While the drops were low enough, they were still pretty decent that you’d find a legendary weapon more often than not, which is pretty good given the circumstances of farmable bosses being severely lower than ever before. People used the thingies to produce the legendaries they could’ve gotten from the 1-time bosses, making everyone’s life… a little easier.

BUT LO AND BEHOLD! Gearbox, sitting on their high pirches with their staffs in hand, sends down a bolt of lightning, to slash the drop rates of the Thingy indefinitely as they figure the drops were too generous! This became a (rather short lived) catalyst for the rage of the fans as they stormed youtube and twitter to express their HATRED! And Pitchford fired back at the fans. It was a warzone.

Says it all. I’ve never even heard of this shooting star and am pissed at the prospect of not getting to use something awesome.

I’m not gonna sit here and express grief at the admittedly foolish behavior on twitter by many fans because… I feel that their anger is quite justified. Why? Gearbox had the nutz to actually respond to fans on these changes…. and their reasoning reeks of bullshit.

The Rosie
One of the team’s core design philosophies for Borderlands is choice and that there shouldn’t be one “right” way to play the game. Since The Rosie was a super powerful, super accessible mission reward, it was having a negative impact on choice in terms of load out variety — the majority of recommended builds out there included The Rosie as a first, or top, choice.

As a mission reward, we wanted to keep The Rosie as a powerful weapon and viable choice, but bring it closer to level as other weapons to encourage diversity in play styles and character builds.

So… basically they took the Smash Bros. Brawl route of creating diversity… by making things worse by design?! That’s not creating choice at all, that’s removing choice. Now the Rosie… is still powerful as shit, most powerful laser in the game (and lasers are overpowered enough as it is) which begs the question still… as to why they nerf the weapon. If they wanted to create choice, they should’ve created other weapons of similar or of higher calibur. THAT is creating choice. Not making one of the most powerful if not the most powerful weapon in the game….. slightly less so.

This is a euphemism for the team basically saying “we made all these features, yet you ONLY use this one!? FUCK THAT! I WORKED HARD ON THIS SHIT! And as GOD is my witness, you fucking WILL use every resource I pulled into this bitch! No ands, ifs and buts about it!” This is the creator playing God and/or dictator trying to force the players to play the game a certain way. This is the slippery slope of when a developer will become Nintendo in regards to game design philosophy.

Miss Moxxi’s Probe
The Probe is a mission weapon that was intended to be a temporary, not permanent, part of a player’s arsenal. Creative players quickly found a way to utilize the Probe in ways that once again nullified the idea of choice — essentially creating no need to use certain defensive or healing skills and an entire category of grenades (transfusion). The team’s goal here was once again to encourage diverse play styles.

This whole statement reeks of bullshit. If he had said “Using the probe outside of the mission is an unintended exploit”, that would honestly be a much more acceptable answer. But again, they harp on about “choice” as if that was actually the main issue. Players that were clever managed to utilize an in-game mechanic for their own benefit. But overall isn’t completely harmful to anyone’s experience.

Iwajira Drop Rates
From what I’ve heard so far, the team discovered an issue with Iwajira’s drop rate while testing possible future events. Due to the nature of that testing, I can’t reveal too much quite yet in case things change, but it seems to be an unfortunately necessary fix for some of the events the team has in the works.

Horrry sheeeet! A non-answer!? The one thing that people were really pissed off about and no one gets a real answer. We get “well, we have some incredibly vague event planned in the future that we will openly refuse to give details on, so we had to nerf the drop rates of a shitty legendary for no good reason!” That isn’t a response at all. It is a blanket statement that satisfies no  one’s curiosity and rage. An event could be anything from the holodome (which was revealed to be a waste of time anyway) or even a potential campaign DLC. But.. we’ll never truly know because nothing in relation to the drop rate nerf has come up as of yet.

You know why people are really pissed off, though? It’s not that these nerfs destroy the entire fabric of the game. No no. It’s just the tipping point of people’s patience.

Before the game released, there were statements by the company that this game wasn’t worth $60, leading to rumors that the game would be reasonably priced around $30. Considering how truly short the game is, $30 seems very fair. But it launched at $60 off the bat. That pissed people off.

Playing the game all the way through, while it is more enjoyable than 2 IMO, it also lacks in replay value. There aren’t many shopping list missions in the game, not many secret areas to explore, and only has  secret bosses that are easy to kill. As the above video said, there is virtually no such thing as an “endgame. No respawnable bosses to farm. People quickly got bored of it. Me included.

The game is not properly tested for bugs and glitches. Considering that EVERY version of the game has a bug that prevents people from finishing TVHM in some way shows there was no QA testing whatsoever. There are bugs with player skills and inventory of loot randomly com-busting at certain times. Random instances of missions not registering properly when you complete objectives. These issues have yet to be fixed.

There are instances of deceitful advertising of DLC’s. On the PSN store, I’ve noticed that different DLC’s are categorized by types. Character DLC’s are usually listed as “characters”. Not “add-ons”. The Handsome Jack DLC being listed as “add on” gives people the impression that it is more than just an extra character to play as. And at $10 a pop, you’d expect more than just a character. People felt gipped upon loading up the DLC to find that it was nothing bigger than just an on-disc DLC. Character DLC’s I’ve seen don’t usually go higher than 5 dollars. Borderlands is probably the only series I’ve seen where the characters are severely over-priced. Not only that, but people were disappointed by the Season Passes (take that, idiots) not containing anything of worth.

People playing the PreSequel are STARVING for content because the game is fucking barren. And many can’t even finish a second playthrough due to game stopping bugs that shouldn’t even exist.

Yet… the very few enjoyable instances of the game that people could, farming for thingies and grinding them up, whoopin ass with Rosie, the like….. Gearbox sees fit to strip THOSE things away. For incredibly vague and asinine reasons such as “choice”. What choice do we have now that the fun parts are being reduced to ash!? You can’t reset playthroughs, you can’t really farm, there are no real secrets in the game, and it’s entirely too short. It is by and large the laziest installment thus far. And as of right now, Gearbox is ok with this. Using the raging stupidity on twitter to probably justify why they shouldn’t care about what the fans want so they can go and make some shitty MOBA shooter (the fuck does MOBA even mean?) called Battleborn. People are now claiming that Gearbox is deliberately trying to kill this game off just to work on Battleborn. Seeing how they’re behaving with these random and baseless changes, it’s not difficult to imagine that.

GBX president Randy Pitchford once stated that a lot of elements were put into BL2 to purposefully “troll the players”. This goes beyond trolling and is doing nothing more than burning bridges with consumers.

Maybe I should take that guy’s suggestion and go back to talking about older Sonic games. Grieving about Boom got boring quickly. 😛

Hatred

WHITE MALE SIMULATOR 2015
The game all white males have been waiting for. The game where you can feel like Eric Harris from the Columbine High School massacre. The game where you can kill innocents for enjoyment. The game where you are, by definition, a thug, but you won’t be called a thug because you are white. The game where you are literally a terrorist, but you won’t be called a terrorist because you are white. The game that Epic Games, the creators of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine, wants out of. The only objective: kill civilians. Killing civilians is the epitome of fun AND gaming. This game is edgy as fuck. Are you an edgy cunt and a lonely white male? Of course you are. That’s why you are strongly considering buying this game with the money you reserved for those promising penis enlargement pills you saw on that dangerously rough porn video you like to watch because you’re a disgusting cunt.

These youtube comments crack me up.

Why does this feel like some teenager looked at the controversies of GTA, Postal, Mortal Kombat, etc. and say “WOW! I WANNA BE JUST LIKE THOSE GUYS AND TOTALLY PISS OFF SOCCER MOMS!”

Wannabe controversy seems to be this game’s goal. Only problem is at this point, the game is about 15 years too late on the Jack Thompson bait. And a tad sour on the writing. Anyone diggin the gay ass speech at the beginning? It’s like they tried to make it “deep and bad ass” like every other trailer featuring a guy’s crusade against the world for taking something away from him… or some shit.

I’m still trying to decipher why developers feel the need to advertise their game engines, nevertheless use it for a game that’s goddamn monochrome! The last 3 games I bought all have the “Powered by Unreal Engine” logo like I give a rats ass. All but 1 of them suck, potentially less than this game will. You know what game has what Hatred has but is 20 times more awesome?

Not the first game I’d run to to scream “BLACK POWAH”, but the concept is the same. Except you have super powers! And the people who’s glorious asses you whoop actually like to talk shit, making that ass whoopin ever so sweet! You could drop in on some punk bitch who goes “Yo step off man or I’ma beat yo ass!”, and then you bitch slap him into red mist, and his peers cower in fear and run away, then you do a slow walk and be like “fuck with me, I’ll detonate your skull with one well-timed squat thrust!!” Damn I love this game! Shame the devs went under after this one (probably cause the main character is a you know what). Ain’t some random nice people just minding their business, these are assholes thinking they hot shit!

Can “Hatred” turn your arm into the Morning Star Vampire Killer!? I didn’t think so! Hatred is probably the dumbest fucking game to ever be developed. Only because the concept is so dry and tired, uninspired, shallow, and is just looking for attention. The title sucks more than the game and is shamelessly cashing in on some of the recent vigilante shootings going on in America and abroad.

Seriously though, it’s amazing how many people were upset over this game and how people started over analyzing themselves and their actions in other similar video games and I just thought… “what if this game was made for the gamers that over-analyze petty shit in video games?”

You know who I’m talking about. The kinds of nerdy people that are attracted to moral ambiguity as if that is the only kind of fax-intellectual stimulation you can gain out of any medium of entertainment. The amount of articles and blogs that people write about the themes of games like Metal Gear Solid, Borderlands, (in regards to Handsome Jack), Max Payne, Batman and the Joker, looking for their 15 minutes of fame to show off how pretentious they can be in analyzing  shit in games no one cares about? Hatred was really made for them.

Many of these articles are found oozing about how everything they do in Hatred is the exact same thing they do in other games (like the aforementioned Prototype 2). Then they go back and forth about “context and depictions of violence” and debating whether or not you really need an “excuse” to kick ass. Or who’s ass you’re kicking.

The issue that people should really spend more time debating about this game is whether or not it’s a misguided attempt at generating controversy or some half-assed political statement about the state of the industry. Reading all these articles and interviews, I’m getting a mixed message that this was a dev team wanting to troll the “gaming communities at large”, but on the other hand, they wax poetic about the industry becoming too P.C. and how all of your victims are killed equally regardless of race, or how video games where you kill many of your victims makes you a hypocrite by default.

“You kill, torture, dominate, humiliate and sin without consequences, but game designers always offer a thin veil of an excuse.”

Course, most games I played where I killed millions of enemies usually had the consequence of them attacking me en masse, but I digress. The developers are tackling an issue that doesn’t exist, especially with shit like Mortal Kombat X on the horizon. Either that or they played the Presequel and got really pissed off at Anthony Burch talking about how “Friend zones” are misogynistic. And if that’s the case, then hell I ain’t mad at em! Should’ve made a murder simulator featuring devs and pubs that overcharge for a fucking character DLC, nerf pretty good gear for no reason, and practically refuse to offer an actual patch for existing bugs and glitches in the game! All that aside, what we’re left with is a game that should never have been controversial in the first place, and probably got some leverage due to the mass shootings that sprung up from 2011 onward.

…..Dammit, now I want a Prototype 3, and I haven’t even played the first game.

A Frustrating Epiphany

My last post before departing again.

Well… now that Sonic Boom’s so-called “Rise” and immediate Fall came and gone like RGIII’s career, the Sonic fandom has to be feeling a much stronger level of remorse and frustration. It is much more disturbing to find that much more people feel that it is time for Sega to take it’s pooch out behind the barnyard and pump 2 barrels in it’s cranium.

To hear that the latest game in the Sonic series is almost “condescending” and treats all of it’s audiences like babies where as before, the series used to treat it’s audiences like adults (Casino levels and polluted power plants, especially) is jarring and offensive. But it is what it has come to be. People have never been so certain that the series needs an indefinite break.

But the truth is this. Sega will continue making Sonic games that will decline greatly in quality for each and every installment they pump out. And for most of us, it’s a difficult pill to swallow. As typical of fans, many want to stay around, hoping things will get better and Sega will get it’s act together. Others firmly believe that this is infact Sega’s “act” so to speak.

For many people in America, there is a newly entrenched and sweeping belief that corporations are machines that destroy things for profit. Most people had already figured this out, but it could’ve fooled you as many Americans annoyingly defended corporations for decades as a bastion of ambition and quality. The act of obtaining profits and material wealth was more important to the American psyche than anything else. The American Dream was all about material wealth “without strings attached” as they imply. After the BP oil spill, Americans started waking up to the realities of just how dangerous corporations really are. They are giant machines filled with sociopathic cogs, if you will, that believe all of humanity are jut warm bodies to extract wealth from. It fills me with delight that people around these are actually starting to fight back against corporate fuckery of this country, one small step at a time. Even hollywood is being fought against (though not as strongly).

There’s only one sector of the population that is still in honeymoon mode with corporations and that is the gaming population. We are still only people who will defend the practices of these companies even with their disastrous performances. When you start to detect a huge dip in quality for many of your favorite franchises, it’s done for the purpose of money. When businesses destroy something, it is for money.

In Sega’s instance, they have destroyed their company image and their mascot for the same exact reason. Think about it this way. Why do they continue to make retro collections of Sonic 1, 2, and 3 every console generation or so? I think an episode of Futurama touched upon this, actually. Some product called “Slurm” was a soft drink that came out of a slug’s ass. Literally. They had plans to turn leila (Some cyclops chick, I think that’s the bitch’s name) into a slug so that they could extract slurm from her. Though one worker noted that because she isn’t a natural slug, her slurm would taste fowl.  The queen said this was a good thing because they could turn around and make something called “new slurm”. Then when people were done hating it, they could turn around and make “slurm classic” and rake in millions.

Sega is using the same exact tactic.

Sonic games continue to be shit, so the frustrated masses would run to the games of higher quality… which are now over 25 years old. We get a taste of New Sonic and it tastes like cornbread. Sonic Classic makes us feel like fat fucks in a cookie store. As long as people feel they can go back and rebuy the old Sonic titles over… and over…. and over again, the more Sega feels justified in destroying Sonic over…. and over again.

It’s never been more clear at this point that Sega could not give a fuck about their customers or fans. It is when we can officially dub them a corporation on the same sociopathic scale as Comcast, BP, Wal-Mart, Capcom, most telecom companies, etc. Nothing speaks more volumes of this than their habitual and pathological lies regarding Sonic… and PSO2. Everyone who has played Sonic Boom can instantly feel that they’ve been lied to. It’s like every game they put out, there is a load of PR marketing that make the games out to be much greater than they are, and of course none of it actually worked because the games looked horrible from the get go. No amount of PR bullshit can make future Sonic games look sexier than 06. Sega used a LOT of nasty tricks to make Boom look better than it is. All those photos of BRB’s offices filled with Boom concept art is a trick to make people think they were “hard at work” trying to make the best game possible. You always need to be suspicious with any game production that has more “fluff” interviews than they do footage of actual gameplay. If you’re shown more about the people than their actual work, it’s best to stay away as they’re concerned about image rather than talent. Other times, they take the exact words of forum goers and use those exact words to advertise their next games (IE, the promises and lies in a nutshell). There are enough examples out there going on about Sonic’s glorious return to his “roots” than I could count on a finger. Then there’s the issue with Mike Bollocks (hehe), some 50+ grandpa fighting with people over the internet to defend Boom. Using an authority figure is probably one of the nastiest tactics you could use in any industry as people are afraid of authority as though it were the police.

But this is the kind of shit corporations do to woo the masses to their side. They get “people” to talk poetically about how awesome they are, and then turn around and screw everyone over. Like fracking, I recall a commercial, it was all black and white and had this old fart talk about the process of finding gas in rocks with some choice lines like “all it takes is an idea” or some inspirational shit that has no weight to it. When come find that fracking is harmful to the environment, the illusion of a beautiful new industry is broken.

W/e they use, it means they don’t give a fuck about you. Only their silver lining. Fans of Atlus have every reason to piss themselves in fear as it means Sega will destroy their own products for profit. Sega’s evolution to a corporate shitlord is unlike that of Nintendo, Capcom, Square, Namco, or any other company that has attained shitlord status. Sega is downright evil. I can’t think of any other game company that has erected wall between themselves and their customers thicker and sturdier than Sega.

The dilemma comes in the form of how Sonic can still be so iconic and memorable while having a stream of terrible games nonstop. Crash Bandicoot, Bomberman, who cares? Sonic? “Man I remember having that on the Genesis!” It’s impressive how many people can recall fond memories of the classics and not be aware that games are still being made. For those that do keep up, it has to be damned frustrating just knowing it’s going to get many times worse from here on out, yet still want to support and/or keep up with the series. We wish we knew how to quit it. Not quitting means in part supporting the very devils that control the series. There’s no petty feeling worse than knowing the stuff you love is controlled by sociopaths. If you want Sonic, you have to go to people that want to destroy it for money. How can you enjoy a series that keeps getting worse? It’s impossible to do, so obviously you have to give up on it. But you just don’t wanna!

There’s always the fan games, but gamers have been trained to love production values over substance, so there’s that dilemma. The comics are being rebooted to crap, so there’s another dilemma. No worth while cartoons either. I wouldn’t even count on that live-action movie doing any good for the series. Even if it turned out to be good, that gives Sega another excuse to sell garbage “New Sonic” to kids while creating “Sonic Classic” to quell the immediate backlash. It’s a “Sonic Cycle” of their own creation.

What is one to do for an icon that deep down… no one wishes to hate?

*sigh* And… that’s it for my vacation. Much appreciated for those bringing me up to speed on everything going on with Sonic Boom as well as Smash 4. Will probably be back for Christmas if me crappy job is willing. Cya darls!

Cross Media Blunder

Yah damn skippy it do!

I just watched a few episodes of Sonic Boom and all of the cutscenes for the game, a few instances of omega glitches and… I just got one question.

Episode 4 where Sticks (Marine) is given a lecture on how to treat animals. Idk about you mother fuckers… but… Sticks… IS… an animal. Right? Why do they give a fuck!? It’s as though the writers forgot the fact that these bitches have long wagging dicks sticking out from their butts that pretty much indicate that… yeah, they’s be some animals.

Through out all of this nonsense, I kept asking myself… when does the stupidity ever end? I feel like I’ve had a near-death experience just merely watching crap. No wait, I did die. The 7 year old in me died. Not only that, but these “productions” dug my 7 year old up and pissed all over him, then double donged the corpse. I don’t think even the guys from Sonic Dissected can decipher just what in the fresh fuck was going on in these gigs.

Sonic Boom is like Iron Man 2. A soulless production that is on rails. No rhyme, rhythm, or reason. Reason being the key word here as you will be left demanding one for everything wrong with this game.

-Why the random design changes? (as always)
-Why the overuse of bad comedy relief at every… single… opportunity?
-Why was Shadow even in this game?
–And why is he opposed to the concept of “friendship” all of a sudden? Must’ve seen one too many Animes.
-Why does Amy’s man jaw look like a swollen cunt?
-Why does Sticks even matter in this series?
-Why the College Art Project level of crappy animation?
–Why does Knuckles not know his left from his right!?
-Why is Lyric called Lyric? He doesn’t even sing. 😛
-Why does a crappy, buggy, and clearly unfinished video game tie-in have much better quality compared to a cartoon!?
-Why does it feel like the characters have no real personality?
-Why does it seem like all the fucking hype put forward by BRB and Sega was hot air? Every… last… word I might add.

Well…. shit, I don’t know

Whatever the case, the honeymoon is over and the fans got the taste smacked out of their mouths once again by the reality of the franchise’s state. These are the kinds of games that make many of us feel old in how people can even bother putting up a defense for trash. Even though I see no one defending the games besides Sega’s shills. They always provide shitty arguments. It would take a herculean effort to find any meaningful potential in this game.

I mean look at this shit. A Ratchet character, Sega’s rendition of Nurse Joy, and a cowboy that doesn’t do shit in the game (true story).

It’s making me cry! What potential could be derived from this drek of a toon? There’s literally nothing here. Even just to rant about, I don’t feel it’s even warranted. It speaks for itself. My interest in Sonic Boom was literally non-existent for a long time because there was literally nothing special beyond the PR/Shill hype. I mean hell, I’ve been proven wrong on the show even having any kind of chance, that shit’s ratings are in the crapper.

Going through the scenes, it feels as though the game has no sense of cohesion or enough exposition to explain many of the nuiances of the game. Sure you don’t need to explain everything, but when you get to a point where the main villain can pull shit out of his ass (like being able to use ancient technology to control a modern day robot like Metal Sonic without any upgrades or prior knowledge of Robotnik’s own weapons), tis the time to go right the fuck back to the drawing board. It’s bad enough that the characters try so hard to be funny at every single opportunity, but it’s even worse when characters are over-exaggerated and/or have zero personality whatsoever. IE Knuckles and Shadow being the exaggeration, and Sonic, Tails, and Amy having no personality. To make matters worse, characters will randomly use slang terminology with no comedic set ups (seriously, what the fuck does “SPIT-BALLIN” mean… and why is it used 1000 years IN THE PAST!?). These people know fuck all about comedic timing.

For comedy to work properly, there has to be a certain level of shock value and consistent relevance to the character’s personalities involved with the comedic situation at hand. It has to be smart and clever. Comedy gold requires intelligent use of situations. You know how some people can come up with some wild comments for some given situations like a bank robbery or a fight in a store? That’s how the writers should be thinking!

For example, take Jak 2 where at the beginning of the game, Jak and Daxter escape from a high level KG facility after nearly being killed by gun and cannon fire. Daxter’s choice of words?

Daxter: UGH! That’s too much excitement! I wish we were back in the country!

…Well that was funny to me. Or how about the scene in which Daxter (after facing misfortune of having a pipe stuck on his head after attempting to show off his strength) decides to let Jak pull a stiff lever. What happens is that Daxter still gets something dropped on him.

Daxter: “It’s a curse, isn’t it!?”

Or a better example, from Ice Age 2, you have a pack of vultures singing a song “FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD!” talking about eating the main characters. But… the sloth or whoever gets the song stuck in his head and starts fucking singing it. “What? It’s catchy!”

THAT SHIT IS ACTUALLY FUNNY! Ok?! I don’t know who the hell the writers were but they have to be the most dull and lifeless mother fuckers to have ever walked this earth. The very first scene that they try to be funny in involves Knuckles not knowing the difference between left and right. Not only is this insulting to fans of the character pre-2003, it’s also not fucking funny or clever. You can’t do comedy without the right level of cleverness and creativity. It makes the writers out to be a bunch of dumb fuck shut-ins who haven’t taken a nice trip outside to get a breath of fresh air. Their brains could use a little oxygen for Amma’s sake. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to write for shit! Which pretty much explains the rampant idiocy of the plot. Why exactly is Shadow fighting Sonic in the first place? How the fuck can Lyric take control of Metal Sonic using outdated tech!? Why is it that Tails couldn’t prevent that stupid enerbeam to NOT revert back into a binding ring!? Infact, since the Enerbeams technically have “manual controls”, how is it that Lyric can still control them while not being able to do shit about Robotnik’s giant ugly suit!? Why do they try so hard to make Knuckles retarded beyond my wildest nightmares!? Who the hell is Cliff and what does he do that is any bit useful for the game?

I don’t even need to go over everything that’s wrong with the game. Everyone called it, and someone already saved me the trouble. This mother fucker deserves a medal and a lap dance from Nisha the Lawbringer. What really needs to be addressed is the amount of damage this further incurs on the franchise. This being “The year of Sonic” ends in a spectacular disaster to no one’s surprise. All people can really do is question just what is going on, and hope that some Capcom level of financial trouble bites them in the ass soon. All this corporation is doing is pissing on the grave. There is only so many times you can end the life of a once-beloved video game character before people ask “when will it die”? You know a series should end when more people are demanding it. If that’s Sega’s way of killing off the series by deliberately making people HATE it with extreme prejudice, then man, they’s be some vicious mother fuckers.

So… who’s qualified to make a Sonic game now?

Tales of the Borderlands should’ve just been a bunch of actual movies, not some episodic downloads of interactive movies. And I’m getting just fucking tired of Handsome Jack. If the rest of the Borderlands series is going to be about him, count me out.

I can’t imagine a more tasteless admission of defeat. Now all Sega needs to do is get rid of Mike Bollocks and we can have Robotnik being awesome again…. I think.

To hear that Boom has technical errors worse than 06 is surprising considering how well Sega’s been doing polishing their turds to fool people into thinking their games are worth anyone’s time. And Goddamn, you know a product is ass when a chunk of assholes don’t even stick around to finish it. It feels like Sega’s big merchandising plan is collapsing before retailers can get a single toy out of the deal. Namco got lucky. Hearing all the reasons for this massive turnover will be more epic than Sonic X-Treme’s development. Hell, even Sega knew the game was shit. If you have to stoop so low as to revoke what is essentially the right of free press to review your product… to avoid tarnishing your company’s image anymore than you already have, I don’t know what to say. Wait, yes I do. Congrats Sega, you’ve evolved from Dreamcast to Comcast!

So much for the fanboy’s BS on Ex-Naughty Dog folks being any good for Sonic. I would go far to say anyone who thinks the people behind Jak and Daxter have talent probably have no taste whatsoever, but that would be arrogant and I’m sure the amount of retorts would contain the words “Last of Us” because the people behind that game would totes be caught dead on a project like this. Would you trust Sonic in the hands of people that wanted to turn Robotnik some school boy nerd!?

Piss in me eye! Why are these even concepts for Robotnik in the first place!?

These are not the kind of people you would trust with anything resembling your childhood. I wouldn’t trust them with Bay’s rendition of the Ninja Turtles. Hollywood seems to be the only slaughterhouse that can get away with radically changing the appearance of iconic characters, and have no one bat an eye. This leads me to believe that in some dark part of the game industry’s psyche, they want to be more like Hollywood so they can make trash and do as they damn well please. I think games having such steep prices jolts a good dose of high standards in consumers that we haven’t reached a point where we sit back and allow some random jackass’s “vision” to get in the way of our entertainment.

But this is worse than I thought.

For a development team to up and say “fuck it” 6 months in advance and quit the project says a lot. They probably didn’t want their names to be tarnished just in case they get the opportunity to work on something they think is worth their time. Or something! Kinda creepy this happens right when I lose internet access…

So, it’s been proven that BRB and Nintendo are both unreliable in making a Sonic game, and Sega is yet again fixated on making money to notice. If western developers basically show no interest in developing a Sonic game, it shows how far the series has fallen. Many western devs still hold Mario games (even the shitty 3D ones) in their highest regards, but I bet no one wants to even mention Sonic in any of it’s incarnations. If we can’t rely on Nintendo or a Western developer to make a good Sonic game, then who can!? Don’t say the fan projects. Yes, they’re sexy and Freedom Planet looks damned delicious, but I’m talking people who are actually involved in the industry. All the talented people in the industry show no desire in Sonic to care about it’s quality. You will get more feedback about a Zelda game’s lacking quality than that of Sonic. The younger teams (like Ninja Theory and the like) seem to be a bunch of college idiots with all these wild visions of particular franchises that don’t at all seem to be particularly concerned with meeting or exceeding expectations. So we can’t rely on new blood either.

To drive that point further, the store I work at has a high turnover rate of employees, so I get to see lots of fresh faces in as little as a month. One particular coworker is a poor shmuck shackled with student debt. He’s also a nerd with poor diction. Breathtaking, isn’t it? Anywho, he’s one of the yahoos that’s an aspiring game developer who hasn’t had any time to work on his pet projects due to trying to pay off his debt. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the guy because it seems like he’s not going to ever get that dream job of his, and even if he does, it’s gonna beat his ass in the long haul. Even then, like most nerds, he argues about the potential of Boom being a good game regardless of all the issues presented. And this was before the game was released.

Of particular note, he felt that fans of the series were problematic and difficult to please, being as fans can be “picky” or overly demanding, and could cause the erosion of a particular series. At one point, he cited Dragon Ball as an example. The series kept continuing on into the Dreaded Cell and Buu sagas because fans wanted more when the series was supposed to end with Frieza. While I could sympathize considering I hated everything Cell Saga and up, blaming it on the fans is a red harring. Significant demand requires sufficient talent to meet the demand. If you’re not up to the task of meeting demand, pass the torch to someone who can and will.

Because of that situation, it’s probably best to never plan on an official “ending” to any series you make. You just might be forced to create more and more. Miyamoto never wanted to make another 2D Mario after World and was quoted as “making every game as if it were your last” in some dire hope of not having to be bothered again.

People are always gonna be passionate about a series they have a planned vision for, not when they’re simply told to make more and more crap for it. The quality will take a noticeable dip, but nah. That ain’t the fans fault. The company itself decided to make more shit. Therefore, it’s solely their responsibility.

But according to said nerd, it’s that people are “too had to please”. He is definitely not the kind of person you want in the industry. But we already have those kinds of people! That’s the fun part. And many of them happen to be a little too power hungry for anyone’s good. And since everyone is so hyper active in creating their own shitty versions of existing mythos, we can’t expect any good to come to Sonic from any external force. Again, Sonic has no business existing in this day and age. There’s too many cards stacked against it, and little to no hope of a recovery.

And I’m starting to feel like w/e good ideas the FANS on the internet have, Sega will just skim them and use them as some asshole selling point proclaiming that they “listened to fans” while creating a turd nugget of a product yet again. No one felt like Sega’s been pulling this kind of shit yet? Every time you get a certain amount of demand for Sonic to be a certain way, the immediate next Sonic game has “something resembling what fans asked for” but it turns out to be ass which further dehumanizes the fans and makes it seem like the fans don’t know what they want? Or is it just me? I mean everyone kept demanding a 2D Sonic game, Sonic 4 is shit, or Nintendo make a Sonic game and they kinda sorta did that with Lost Mind, then I came up with the idea of a western team to do Sonic right, and that blew over worse than anyone could imagine, it’s like Sega is creating false flags to crap over fans or something. Because the same company that was raking in dough from PSO2 would not be that stupid to constantly fuck up their mascot series.

 

I’m getting ahead of myself. I had been informed that some of those BRB members were fired midway through the project, possibly due to low funds. Which kinda makes sense seeing as not one of those ugly ass toys have arrived on store shelves yet. The other bunch left on their own accord. I don’t know how much Sega blew on this endeavor, but if they rolled bitches out that fast, either they lost faith on the project, rushed it to keep the deadline on releasing it with that stupid cartoon, or they wanted to desperately get out of this Nintendo exclusivity deal fast. “HERE! JUST PUT THE DAMN GAME OUT, THE SOONER WE GET THIS DONE, THE SOONER WE CAN ESCAPE THIS MAD HOUSE!” You’d have to be really suspicious of a corporation when they start trying to hide their products from reviewers. That reeks of them having no intent on fixing the series. It really is just a profit generating machine for them, and a really dodgy one at that. All this nonsense about targeting younger demographics, removing games from store shelves with bad reviews, and hiding review copies to keep people in the dark until the game comes out is dirty as shit. If anything, I can’t blame those BRB legions that left. Sega has become a real monster of a corporation. Their behavior since 2008 is no short of amazing and bewildering.

Still, no excuse to make crap designs and leave a game unfinished, but understandable to some degree. In either case, we can really say Sonic is doomed for any future game that comes out as it seems no company that exists has any vested interest in the series to crap out a decent product. And because all the real talent exists in the non-credential sectors of the globe, The only place a Sonic fan could call home is the PC. Kinda scary for a once Arcade Centric franchise to get personal…

I really gotta work on better closing remarks. More and more, I’m starting to think back to that one guy who suggested copyright law be abolished. Sure, the only franchise that would benefit from that would be Sonic, but hell, we here in America like to think that competition is healthy for… some reason. Why not get rid of laws that exist only to protect corporate interests when they damn sure don’t care about OUR interests, rite? That’ll promote lots of competition! If companies weren’t such greedy pussies. I’d like to think Sega would step their game up if the fans were allowed to financially compete against them.

Oh Amma, I love this song…

E3 is over

And for the most part, there’s only one game that I’m looking forward to, and you can all guess what it is.

Of course, for everyone else, E3 is yet again ass. For no specific reasons, but if I had to hazard a guess, most games coming out look no different than last generations.

More shooters? Check

More Grim Adventure games trying to be like Ass Creed? Check

More Nintendo Stupidity? Check

I’ve noticed far more dissappointment this E3 than ever before. As for me, I’ve actually been a little more than anticipating something.

Obviously, Mortal Kombat X is on my list of shit to buy next year. As a person who isn’t a “real” MK fan, the irony is overwhelming. While there’s 2 shitty new characters and no hope for Sub Zero not to suck, the prospects of a much smoother sequel is promising. I’m one of the few people looking forward to this variant shit. I’m sure something like that would turn people off though as you’d have to learn how to counter 3 different versions of the same character, so it’s bound to make more disorientating match ups. But in a way, it’s kinda cool.

I am PISSED at the prospects of micromanagement, though. The run feature should’ve never returned, and for a guy who talks about wanting to move on from the past, he sure is willing to bring it back when no one wants it. Not to mention all the arbitrary restrictions on what you can do. Using up meter to backdash is retarded. I don’t mind the interactables being limited, but backdashing shouldn’t at all be used by meter. It’s a basic evasive function that serves no other purpose than to quickly get away from your opponent, there’s nothing game breaking about it that would mandate such a bullshit change. The fact that the game has a Stamina system pisses me off to the ultimate pisstivity. Who thought that was a good idea? More and more, I’m starting to see how amateurish Netherrealm Studios are with their games. Injustice was bad enough.

It’s odd how the dumbest looking Nintendo game is one of the few that actually looks… promising? I don’t even know what the hell you’re supposed to do in this game, it looks like you’re trying to cover the field in as much of your team’s Nickolodean slime before time runs out. It;s like Reversi Battle in Bomberman Generations, or you just shoot each other’s brains out. W/e the case is, it looks… uh, kinda fun? I’d honestly rather have another Custom Robo game, but w/e. Anything is better than another Pikmin.

Probably the best step for the Zelda series for no other reason than to get away from the puzzle monstrosities of Aonuma’s cartoon faggotry. We have quite a few Zelda characters going into can of whoop ass mode, destroying legions of Skyward Sword enemies as if by some apologetic notion of awarding Zelda fans the chance to take out their frustration on Aonuma’s horrid direction of the series. And dammit, I like me some Koei Warrior shit. Not to mention we finally get another Zelda villain with bewbs and a raging hard on for Link. Er… scratch that.

I’m actually glad Midna got into this game, but is also pissed that she isn’t in her belly dancer form. And who the hell is that white-haired chick in the back of the poster!? And I’m still pissed that Impa is bleached. And GANON is back! Woot!

I’m pretty sure that once the main campaign is over, however, that the game will start to devolve into endless grinds for more characters, stages, weapons and animals. It’s something of a curse for Koei’s games as of late as everything turns into a mindless grind fest for more shit. And hell, Zelda games have had a bad habit of grinding themselves, Koei’s bullshit fits right in. And this will be a pointless hope, but Koei really should cut back on the Puke Rock music. DW8’s soundtrack is bland as shit. Course, Zelda also has trash music after Link’s Awakening.

I didn’t start playing Guilty Gear until I found a copy on Wii, but damn, that was some good shit. Since this is just an update of every other GG they’ve made, it’s the only one I’ve bothered playing. Seeing as Xrd will be cutting characters (*sniff*… Jam) aside from the “unique” fucks (since Japan is all about unique playstyles now), I’m on high alert. Luckily, most of the people I use anyway are still in (Millia, Chipp, Venom). And dat theme song, mmmmmmmmm MMMM! Bring this shit the fuck on, mang!

More fighting games, yeah. Take note that I’ve also… only recently played Persona Arena. I don’t have much thoughts on this. I just want more characters cause this piddly ass roster wasn’t cutting it. I mean damn, it was so small, man! It might as well have been SF2. Not to mention 2 of them being clones. Call me spoiled, but so many fighters this generation had more than 10 characters tops, I was expecting something bigger. Ah well, the first fighters of any series usually is small in roster, even Blazblue’s shitty roster started at 10.

I probably shouldn’t concern myself with the latter 2 games as I don’;t plan on buying Nintendo’s crap console in the future, so all I really have to look forward to is Mortal Kombat X, and that could go either way. Scalebound is definitely a no buy considering it’s exclusive to Microshit.

There was some shit about Ratchet and Clank 1 getting a PS4 remake that cures my insomnia, but I’m seeing that movie. Kirby’s Rainbow Curse is fucking clay (it rhymes, so it fits), Star Fox will be ruined further, Nintendo has a “Captain Toad” game that terrifies me, XSEED is publishing games with titties, Capcom as always has nothing to be excited about (except a piddly reskinned Cammy with some Marvel Super Hero mask, I guess), Namco keeps making licensed anime games, EA keeps making sports games, and everything else is crap. Obviously Sonic Boom was going to be ass.

So with that, E3 is over in a flash. Mass dissappointment for anyone not a Nintard. The only question I ask is…. why the graceful hell is Sega making another Aliens game!?

Aside from these 5 titles, E3 showed nothing of promise to me. It just seems to be a display of safe sequels and Nintendo’s stupidity. Not

Negativity (honestly had no good title for this one)

Man, I am so fucking stoked for Mortal Kombat X, you don’t know! It’s got smoother gameplay, it’s got these variants that look tight (hopefully Sub-Zero has one where he doesn’t suck for once), it’s got Kotal Khan lookin like Star Platinum from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure mang, and the run… button? From MK3?

Those moments of interacting with the environment are limited by a small stamina meter below each fighter’s health bar, which has been designed to limit overuse of those moves.

What!?

the stamina meter is a new addition to Mortal Kombat X that does a few specific things. As I mentioned earlier, it restricts how frequently you can use background objects. The meter is divided into two sections, and using an object drains one of the sections.

No!

Back dashing also drains one of the sections.

Please!

Running forward–another new mechanic–drains the stamina meter, but at a slow rate.

Why are you doing this!?

the team is experimenting with letting players use stamina to perform throw canceling.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! OH THE INHUMANITY!

Micromanagement!? In Mortal Kombat!? Fuck that shit son! Boon! Don’t fuck it up! I was starting to like this series! I feel like Leo Dicaprio in the Wolf of Wallstreet when he screamed “GODDAMMIT!!!” Is Boon catering to Eventhubs or SRK? I don’t even know anymore, it just seems like anytime a developer thinks about competitive balance, it’s mostly to appease the “maniac players”. Anything put into a game to “reduce abuse” is mostly dictating how the players play. And amazingly enough, despite how stupid the FGC can be, they HATE being hindered in how they get to play a game. Amazingly enough, that stopped the Smash community from bowing to the whims of Nintendo when they pulled that shit with Brawl, changing all the mechanics to keep the “maniacs” from enjoying it, killing the enjoyment for everyone in the long run. All Boon had to do was make interactables blockable (which they did anyway!). Now the team is making them absolutely pointless in the long run. Not that I care about interactables as they were just “lol” type shit anyway, but back dashing!? There’s fucking meter burning from back dashing!? You’re fucking serious!?

It’s a curse, isn’t it!? Every time I like something, the sequel is bound to blow chunks!

In the words of a Zafford: “Piss in me eyes!!” You know what’s sad though, I’d still buy the damn shit.

Oh right, this was supposed to be about that pasty tea bag from Sega.

*Sigh*… it speaks for itself, I might as well not even comment. Fortunately, someone else had a sip of “REAL TALK” coffee.

Yeaaaaaaaaah, FUCK BOOM! Oh 1:50 cameo!

How awesome was that!? It’s like these guys come in with their zany ideas, and when people start to reject them after quote “years and hours of politics and ego”, they start going on the defensive, rationalizing everything from the designs to mechanics. Instead of learning how to actually sell people on a game, they tell people to play the waiting game instead.

It’s really funny when people go out of their way to shun all criticism as some form of “negativity”. That’s beautiful. To be labeled a negative nancy is a compliment than to be labeled some self-righteous jackass who goes around telling people to swallow any kind of shit when people pop off at the mouth about how much work was put into something. If the world honestly gave a damn about how much work one puts into something, I’d probably be writing hollywood movies right about now. People care only about their own self interests. If your “hard work” benefits them in some tangible way, then they will care.

BRB’s problem is that they’re so caught up in trying to be “different” rather than beneficial. You can’t get anymore pretentious than that. But their trailer for the game spoke volumes within the first few seconds of announcing that Robotnik wasn’t the true villain! Robotnik hasn’t been the main villain since 98. The real antagonist of Sonic Colors was the script. I ask what the point was in needing to point out Robotnik being sidelined in favor of tree snake. Not to inform the public that Robotnik isn’t the real villain (it’s no surprise to anyone), but to make it known that it is “different”.

This desire to be different is a curse among western developers, it seems. At this point, western developers have been dominating game development, and it seems to be going to their heads. Now we have DmC’s and LOS’s running about with all these “different visions” that aren’t at all in line with the fan’s tastes, but are all desires to be different. Why does it exist? Most would say because these franchises are given to people who don’t really give a fuck about said franchise. And this almost always seems to be the case in the showbiz. Like Transformers being given to a guy who openly despises Transformers (I wonder how that douche feels about TMNT *shudders*)

Seems to be in European nature to make everything “in their own image“. In an unfortunate twist as Japanese games are falling out of favor on a global scale, they have the perfect justification. I curse my naivety in hoping a western developer could turn this franchise around, but I grossly underestimated the arrogance of the western industry on a whole. With the possible exception of Retro Studios (The real one, not that Bungee hybrid shit from 2004 and up), I can’t think of one westernized series that has kept the spirit of the series they worked on.

Then again, the western industries are destroying their own series (Iron Man was turned into a high school kid, teen titans is a full-blown comedy series), I guess western entertainment is self-destructive. It shouldn’t be destructive to Sonic as it’s western influences contributed greatly to it’s fame, and created legions of copy cats along the way. This is, instead, an exxageration of “western influence” due to one franchise that has nothing to do with anthro animals (Uncharted).

Still, I can’t help but feel it’s more the fault of trying to create a toy franchise. Merchandise driving begets mediocrity. Look at that Pac Man show. Now he’s a highschool student with a tapeworm! I thought Japan was obsessed with youth. And I swear, that show had a talking carrot with athletic gear on. It seems like all of Japan’s sectors are going ful frontal merchandise. Nintendo with their AB cards and figurines, Namco with their stupid Pac Man and card battle Soul Calibur, and Sega with their cashing in on Hatsune Miku and animu fighters.

The question is why can’t merchandise driven crap have the quality of Transformers, GI Joe and the like? The economy? Decent writers can’t possibly be expensive (then again, there IS a union :P). W/e the case may be, the low quality of the game will have consistency with the low quality of the show, and nothing BRB does will change that even if they were talented. What really concerns me is why Sonic fans are so easily convinced by this company that anything they say and do is fact? Do they know anything about the nature of entertainment? Or is their circle of entertainment so limited to children’s media that they openly accept even the worst offenders (Like MLP) and question absolutely nothing about why Sonic takes turns into what they do? Perhaps that is why Sega keeps making childish games, their only audience is so goddamned infantile, they’re easily fooled that something present at E3 is merely an alpha demo 5 months from a release date.

Happy Father’s Day, bitches. Please don’t fuck up MKX, Boon.

 

Scalebound

(random thoughts: Great, now I can’t get that “Ghostly Adventures” theme song out of my mind. It’s worse than I thought)

So… Dragon May Cry? Monster Trigger? Panzer Dragoon Cry?

I just noticed that Platinum* likes making games starring white people. Eh…

This actually looks interesting… which is sad cause it’s exclusive to the Xbone. But this brings up the question of Kamiya’s “second party” proclamation to Nintendo. This looks like Devil May Cry with Monster Hunter elements, and DMC was Kamiya’s baby. Why to Microshit all of a sudden?

Whatever the case, I’m pissed at this exclusitivity. Grrr to the Xbitches. GRRRR I say!