Sonic is Back! Hopefully…

Well… shit.

 

I have to be careful with all this excitement. This games looks exactly what I’ve been wanting from this franchise for… how many years passed since Knuckles Chaotix? I mean… Techno Dreamworld is back!! Hell, Studiopolis alone looks mother fucking delicious!!

 

I’m not particularly thrilled about the first zone being a clone of Green Hill or that there’s only 3 characters to play, and while they’re ones I actually give a fuck about… no Espio? Rouge? Still no Mighty or Ray? Oh who am I kidding, since everyone including the guy making this game claims that extra characters are ruining the franchise.

 

Eh, I can’t complain too much. It’s more than I can say for that other game. I thought the whole “Retro Sonic meets Retard Sonic” gimmick was only for 1 game, what the fuck is this “Join the Resistence” bullshit with 2 different Sonics!? It’s like Sega wants to dig into the past and ruin SatAM (man this nickname is terrible).

 

I get this feeling that they’re trying to go the whole “alternate universe” gig that… surprisingly worked well for comic books. Sega’s never been subtle when it came to a direction that they’re going with in any franchise while half-assing the actual direction. And if that is the direction they’re going, it’s already being half-assed. You don’t need 2 different Sonics in 1 game to establish this, just make 2 separate series.

Again, I can’t complain too much because we’re moving away from that unmitigated shit piece that is Sonic Boom, and all it’s moronic supporters shall be silenced. Hopefully it stays that way.

I mean… just LOOK at Studiopolis!! That LOOKS like a goddamn Sonic game!!! Nothing screams “I wanna be just like Mario when the industry crashes!!”. That’s vintage shit right there! The animations are beautiful too! Did Sega really green light this!? I thought they were so busy trying to DESTROY the franchise!! It’s unfathomable that they even gave someone the go ahead to make an actual Sonic game for once.

I’m just hoping Taxman or w/e the fuck he calls himself resists the incredible urge to flood this game with puzzles and fetch quests, especially since western developers Jack off to things that pad out the game’s length. I’m looking at you Castlevania: Lords of Shallow. Tomb Raider 2013… practically any computer-centric game that came out after 2003.

I’m fucking serious, if I catch myself having to light some torches in some “intricate but horribly HORRIBLY impractical” method of opening a doorway, I will raze this Earth!

Hyrule Warriors plays like ass. (LBX)

Granted, I haven’t played that long (first day and all), but man it runs like piss. Is it because I’m on a 2DS and it can’t handle the alleged awesomeness of the game, or what? Its like trying to play Diablo 3 on an old Windows computer, with those big ass blocky monitors from back in the day. And Linkle (Linket sounds better, btw)

Anywho, since I obviously haven’t played much, I can’t comment. So instead of that, I’m talking about LBX.

The greatest 3DS game ever!

Behold, young ones! You stare into the visage… of greatness!

CUSTOM ROBO! It was a work of beauty. One of the Gamecube’s rarest of reasons… to own that piece of shit console! Twus a game that me feel truly validated for picking the inferior console!

Actually fuck it. Custom Robo was the tits! I would literally spend an entire night just perfecting my Chickenheart wit the Splash/Air Dive Charge Combo and completely fuck up whoever thought they could win by spamming gattling guns, or going with the Lightening Sky Models and raping everything with the After Burners or the Hornets or what may have you. This shit would turn you into a retarded ass Batman, if you will! All this “prep time” and shit you had to deal!?

Ok look, Custom Robo wasn’t the most bomb game on Cube, but would you honestly pick dat Fire Emblem shit over fucking ROBOTS!?

So after what felt like an eternity after playing the inferior Custom Robo Arena on DS (I still aint finish dat shit), I was wondering “when NIntendo gonna come out with a sequel!?”. Yeah, I know, Custom Robo sold like shit,but so did Pikmin, and that weak ass series got a sequel just cause Nintendo has a hard on for big noses. And swords. Come on, 6 Fire Emblem characters? Just cause Sakurai loves that piece of shi-ok I’m rambling again.

If you or anyone else has been missing Custom Robo, LBX is literally the closest thing you can get to a damn fine substitute.

LBX is a “Mon” type game where the main character, Van or w/e, dreams of having his own killer toy robot. But his mama won’t let him have one because she has husband issues. But one day, a crazy stupid hot chick gives him a briefcase for no reason. Remember kids! Always trust strangers you would totally pork! ……God, that was horrible…

Anywho, when Van gets home, he cracks open the case to find a Mega Man toy.

After Van marvels at his first robot, he is immediately attacked by 3 robots controlled by literal clones (not making this up), so he grabs out his extroller (its a cell phone, really) and proceeds to tear ass. I have to ask, how the fuck do you control robots with cell phones!? It looks complicated.

After the mighty tutorial battle, Van finds his living room is fucked up with bullet holes (O_O) and what not. Yes, these things CAN kill you. And just when you thought he couldn’t be more fucked, his mama comes home, sees her son busted to the living room to shit… and then sees the blue LBX. Logically, this would be his ass for days… but she just says “ok w/e, have fun honey”.

So, the next day, the Mama basically reveals that “It is time for Van to RISE AND BECOME A HERO!” Yeah… the story is kinda dumb, but surprisingly well told that you don’t care about the logic. That or my expectations were severely low.

I’ll say 1 thing, this game gets a thousand bad ass points for actually trying to use a toy robot… to assasinate a mayor! Or using toy robots to send a train running out of control, or just using these toys to initiate a large scale energy crisis. The amount of plots used in this game, and the sheer scale at which they present the dangers of said plots are at times amazing. Sure, the plot loses points for literally having people that cheat Van’s way into victory… over… and over again, but eh. And Amy is completely useless as a person. Otherwise, the story is manageable, and interesting for an excuse plot.

As for the actual game itself? Virtual-On with better controls.

Battles can be fought from 2 to 6 players in typical 3rd person action. Like Custom Robo, you have the opportunity to customize yo shit before a fight. Unlike Custom Robo, fights aren’t entirely dependant on your current equipment… or at least the guns.

You have Guns, Swords, Spears, Knives, Hammers, all kinds of fine weaponry to equip your death machines with. You can also customize the robots entire frame with different set pieces. So you can have like a Gorilla’s arms with Chameleon feet. Why you would want that is anyone’s guess. Beyond the robot frame and weapons, you can also equip special moves which (like lots of games these days) are prone to micromanagement, and they aren’t really all that useful except for the crazy overpowered Super Moves. You know, the ones that have those long cutscenes to emphasize the seering pain it will inflict upon your soul.

Beyond that, you can also customize the Robo’s internal circuitry. Yeah, no bull. You can literally crack the muthas open and fiddle with their CPU, their battery, the core, the processor, all of these things really affect the stats of your robo and how well they perform. Defenses, how many stocks of super guage you get, how fast your guages charge up, how much you resist certain attacks, the kinds of special moves you gain access to, all of it is in the internal parts of the robo you have.

First time I played this game, this shit confused me. Cause there’s so much to keep track, especially the different parts being of different shapes and sizes, so you couldn’t have like several different pieces all over the place. It’s like Resident Evil 4 inventory management system where you’re constantly rearranging shit around to make stuff fit properly just so you can have more room for shit you don’t need. It just ends up with you screaming at the screen until you’re blue in the tits.

Tedious customizations aside, the battle system. You’ve got regular controls, and you got touch screen controls. Both sides are optional, so… don’t worry. Since my shoulder buttons are all shit, I had to stomach the touch screen for certain functions ANYWHO…

Like I said, battles can be from 2-6 combatants on-screen. You can use either a combination of close range or long range attacks. Depending on the gear you have, your robos can be slow or weak. Swords and Knuckle weapons are usually the fastest up close while Polearms, Hammers etc. are slower but hit harder, you get the idea. Also depending on your parts, your robo will excel at certain weapons better than others.

The fighting itself is at a decent pace, if you’ve played games like J-Stars or Digimon All-Star Rumble, or even Xenoverse, this game is pretty similar to some extent. The difference is this game plays better. For one, it doesn’t whore itself out to some puss ass Stamina system (even though LBX still has one). Another is that the fights aren’t as chaotic as the other games, so it’s easier to focus on the actual combat.

1 thing I will say is that guns… dominate… everything. Keeping yourself at a distance and shooting people will often win out more than close quarters. Especially those goddamn snipers with their… high damage… bullets! Its always those damned Snipers that destroy everyone!

So that’s the only real bad aspect of combat in that guns are easy mode and swords are for the non-pussies who know how to get around them. There’s nothing hard about using close-range weapons, but its dealing with bastards that know how to shoot and aim.

….I really don’t how to describe the combat, ok look ITS JUST FUN, ALRIGHT!?

with all that said, there is an aspect of the game I really don’t like, and it’s the sidequests. These are the only real shitty parts of the game, and them being optional, yes I know. The problem with the sidequests is knowing exactly what you are supposed to do. This is a game that really needs a serious game guide with details on everything. There was this one sidequest where you are sent on an errand to retrieve, are you ready for this!? FUCKING CUP CAKES! Not exactly the item, but close enough. You’re supposed to go to this food area and ask a lady if they have any. But you find that they don’t, so you go back to the girl that gave you the quest, but she tells you the same thing. Bring the bitch some cupcakes. Now, I scoured what little internet I could use to see what was wrong, because it took me 1 whole month to figure this out and complete the whole quest. Getting the cupcakes… is entirely RNG based. So you’re supposed to go back everyday, periodically, and check to see if they have cupcakes. And this is RNG, so you’re gonna be checking it over and over and over until you get those cupcakes.

This is one of the most obnoxious, arbitrary side quests in the whole game, and the reward for that quest is mediocre. Thats kind of the thing. Sidequests offer very little in the way of rewards, and if you’re lucky, you get an LBX card (I’ll explain later). Otherwise, they’re a waste of time and not worth the effort of long ass treks between different city blocks (too much backtracking)

So that’s 1 segment of replay value, the rest is… basically going OCD and trying to find more robo parts and sets, and the best way to do that is through the LBX Arcade, where you find LBX cards, slip em in a machine, and then fight the cards themselves. This way, you can gain new parts… randomly. Yeah. You know where that goes.

Overall, sure, I might’ve exxagerated on how awesome this bitch is… but shit, idc, THIS GAME IS BEYOND A FUCK LOAD OF AWESOMENESS! If you need action games where you kick a lot of robot ass, LBX is the game for you! I guess Level 5 gotta compensate for Nintendo’s bitch asses while they futz with Pokemon’s generic gen 7 names.

Seriously, “Sun and Moon”? Could they be any less original?

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.

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…

Mirror of Fate. Konami is officially on my shit list.

Yes, look away my dear. It is that harrowing!

Upon purchasing Mirror of Fate for mi Bread Slice, I was almost completely aware of how this game was not going to be anything like the Castlevania I know and love, but just like retards at Stadium, I figured I could “adjust to change”. Now a week later and I do so wish I could go back in time and slap the hell out of myself.

OHHHHH the bullshit this game weaves is oh so intricate. Much worse than I imagined. I figured this was gonna be some wannabe IGAvania with Quick Time Events and crappy combat. No, it’s all that plus a bag of peanuts.

You start the game off as Gabriel fighting random monsters in cinematic bullshit pacing, and right off the bat, the first problem comes up. The game runs like ass. It goes for about the same amount of frames as does Ocarina of Time for the N64. It is that slow, and makes the game look ancient in comparison. Secondly, as I’ve covered earlier, these fucks mandate you use the damn thumb tac. After playing Shinobi and what not, trying to play a 2D game with a 3D input device was a no go. It feels so awkward, it’s like I literally have to look down at my thumb to check if I’m pressing directly left or right. And I’m serious, if it is not a straight line you’re pressing in, the shmuck will not move. He will sit his ass there waiting for a better response.

Anywho, after the tripe combat, you get to the story bits of how “Gabriel will become Dracula so the Brotherhood must hide his son from him”. So then we go to… Simon Belmont!?

Yeah, the game doesn’t really follow the game in order of events. You play from the present time and jump into the past when necessary. This is a shitty way to do a plot as it almost ensures how unsatisfying the conclusion will be when you can easily guess what happens in the story.

So anyway, Simon’s character is actually hilarious and is probably one of the few saving graces of this entire game. Nevermind the fact that he looks like some roided up Scottish drunkard that the Castlevania fans grow moist over just because it reminds them of the Barbarian look of the pre-SOTN games. But he’s funny, so that helps.

It starts off pretty decently with a good majority of this campaign being nothing but straight up action. Even has a few subweapons which are useless. Considering that subweapons barely even work against most enemies combined with the range of the whip being the size of an anaconda. Instead, you’re more dependent on 2 magic thingy’s called spirits. You have the Spirit of Belnades which grants you invincibility (also known as “cute shit 1”) as well as the Spirit of Schneider which attacks enemies that are close by (also known as “cute shit 2”).

Early on, however, you find out how nonsensical the game is about it’s inventory spoiler. There are these red glowing hook points that indicate you latch onto them with your whip… if you had the right one. You need the Combat Cross to even use the points. So ok, w/e, just move on. You won’t get the damn cross until halfway through the campaign either way. Despite that, you will start finding a million of those red points taunting you as you make your way through the damn castle. By the time you find the cross, you’ll be sick to death of them. They’re all over the goddamn place! Hook points! WE HAVE HOOK POINTS FOR DAYZ!

So after a while, you get to the “Toy Maker’s domain”, a character that never really appears in this game…  at all. He appears in LOS2, but is a minor character. Nice job Mercury Steaming Pile, you have this whole area building up this fat mother fucker like he all important and shit… anywho, here, you actually get trapped fighting puppets. The goal? Kill all puppets? Actually no, you just have to wait it out until the trap is opened again. Sucks for you. After the trap is… untrapped, you get a nice little cutscene showing Alucard running away, and Simon getting pissed off again. Can’t blame him, the whole event was stupid.

Then we FINALLY get the Combat Cross after miles and miles of *yoink* YOU BITCH! Instead, some necromancer snatches it from Simon’s hands and now you have to fight for it. Tedious boss fight but w/e, we NOW finally have the Combat Cross! And all the Red points become blue points to signify yadda yadda good, now I can climb some shit. I forgot to mention, climbing in this game suuuuuucks. It’s slow, controls like piss, and trying to make the Scottish bastard jump from wall to wall is grating as he has a delay before he can make the leap. Rage is sure to follow if you’ve got steam vents to watch out for. Oh and make sure you really “look before you leap”, because MS went into the psycho “realism” bullshit that now a Belmont can’t jump from a certain height without dying. I died more times from this bullshit because a lot of this game involves leaps of faith (thank you shit camera) because even looking doesn’t give you much info on your surroundings. How the fuck did you replicate all the problems of 3D adventure games… in a 2D game?!

Anyway, after that fuckery, you come to some merry go round filled with heads. Once again, you get trapped behind laser walls and the merry go heads keep spinning around. So now you have an endurance test. And this one was hell. See, you can’t even duck in this game so you have to jump over everything. And these controls are are not suitable for a game like this. You have to really time these jumps due to poor responses, and this goes on for a good 2 minutes or so, combined with the fact that the ride reverses itself, and the laser beams on the walls, floor moving, they really didn’t think of making better controls for these challenges all the while promoting their fucking “Mercury Engine” as you boot up the game. And you’re reward is another lame cutscene.

You know, if I actually gave a damn about these characters, this wouldn’t seem so obnoxious, because you easily figure out that Alucard was in the background saving your sorry ass and that he’s really your father in the form of a vampire, there’s not much to care about. I mean, you just sat here and wasted my damn time on this merry go round for the sake of a story, you’d think they would make it much more enjoyable.

But shortly after that (and I mean shortly), you get up to Dracula’s throne room… but he isn’t there. Instead, you’re in some arabian palace with a flower in the center, and on top of it is bewbs.

Mmmm, demonic bitches.

Of course, knowing Castlevania, that thing was definitely a Succubus in what happens to be a boss fight. I’ll say one thing, the boss fights are least fun in this mug. So after beating her ass, you get to face off against the big D man himself!

After all these years, I thought to myself “FINALLY! A remixed battle between Simon Belmont and Count Dracula once again!” Dis gon B Guud!

NOT! Instead of that, the party is interrupted by Alucard… and this chapter ends.

………What?!

Yeah, really. No fight, it’s literally the end of Act 1… and the beginning of when this game starts to REALLY blow chunks.

Act 2 puts you in control of fangirl favorite, Alucard.

Vampire Fabio. Come and get it ladies!

He sits around complaining about how it wasn’t supposed to be like this or w/e, but proceeds with a makeshift combat cross to take revenge… only to go outside and get his ass whooped by a spider lion.

My, what sparkling whites you have!

So, you have a boss fight you’re not allowed to win, and you’re thrown off a bridge into the water. Oh look, you can breathe under water (note: Simon and Trevor can’t, which makes for some obligatory swimming challenges.) If only I had my trusty Belnades soul. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, you lose fucking everything… except your 2nd combat cross… since you transition to a brand new character (save the “no shit” retorts), but why give me a combat cross if you’re gonna wipe my inventory?

Can’t touch this, I’m gorgeous!

So, you have chapter resets in your abilities. And basically you start off fresh. Anywho, Alucard’s story suuuuuuuuucks. Wanna know why? Less action. Alucard is more about puzzles. Along with that, the boss fights become less fun as you spend more time multi-tasking around specific boss patterns rather than whacking the shit out of em. One boss fight has you using some magnetic rail system to leap over laser beams while trying to destroy machines that keep healing the big bastard. Probably wouldn’t be so irritated if that guy wasn’t so cheap.

Totally not Cornell from LOD

Alucard’s new abilities contain a wolf form that is only good for opening doors (complete with a quick time event so you feel like the wolf form is of some awesome importance. He also has a mist form which is a better dodging move that unfortunately uses up MP just so you can’t abuse it, the fuckers. There’s also a bat projectile that really… REALLY sucks, and a stopwatch that is ultimately worthless aside from one platform puzzle. Alucard is gimped in all combat abilities aside from the combat cross, it’s a wonder he can even fight.

 

But most of your time is spent solving puzzles, 2 of which involve saving Simon’s hairy ass. These devices are very complex(and easy) in that you have to usually guide laser lights to their proper end points, or burn some ropes with some asinine contraption (And no, you have no fire powers either). It’s funny how when it comes time to save Simon the second time, Alucard sighs like “this fool in trouble again”. It’s like the developers were trying to patronize you by saying “yeah, we know doing another puzzle sucks, so lets make the character agree with the players!”.

Sorry kids, But deez… are… the breaks!

After one of the most tedious portions of any game, you FINALLY get to have your precious fight against Dracula. By teaming up with Simon Belmont! This… COULD’VE been a fun fight, but then MS put some gay shit in here where Simon gets mind controlled and sicks Simon on you, basically a trick since Simon is Alucard’s son, what happens is that if you try to attack… at all, Alucard will instead sit there and say random shit like “I don’t want to fight you! No!”.

I….. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The game turned my character into a punk bitch! He cries like the pussy he is if you press any attack button. Instead, you’re supposed to counter a good 3 to 5 of his attacks just to snap him out of it, then you go back to fighting Dracula. And Simon fights like a bitch, he can’t get close to Drac without being knocked on his ass. GREAT JOB OF PROVING WHY YOU’RE THE MOST FAMOUS BELMONT, DIP SHIT! So I just used him as bait to distract Drac. Whipped his ass into submission.

So after the most anti-climatic boss fight in Castlevania history (Beat the Sorrow series in those departments), we get a scene where Alucard places his and on Simon’s cheek in the most incestuously homo way imaginable, and they stare into each other’s eyes uncomfortably, and Alucard leaves.

Dad sucks!

So onward to Act 3. This time you play Alucard’s other half, Trevor Belmont, the father of Simon, years before the first 2 acts took place. This one, while not as horrendous as Alucard’s story, is also quite lame. This time, you perform “cinematic action sequences” and fetch quests. One very notable one is where you have to find dead bodies containing answers to a particular puzzle you have to solve before moving one. Wow, combining 2 of my most hated segments in any game. Not to mention having to scale a giant vertical tower where making one wrong jump can kill you, so basically the game is testing your patience with shitty controls.

I also spotted something iffy. Alucard needed to earn the ability of double jumping… but Trevor has it right off the back. It couldn’t be old age, Vampires don’t age. Ah, w/e. Trevor’s abilities now contain light and dark magic, similar to the Spirits that Simon uses. They’re mostly used for opening specific doors and not really for combat purposes. You also get an upgrade for te Combat Cross which allows you to… basically do the same thing as Alucard’s wolf form. So basically, here you just get new equipment for the same reasons Link does in Zelda games, just to get around. It’s kinda sad. It’s stupid shit like this that makes the excitement of getting new equipment… not exciting because you know you’re going to be doing a lot of backtracking just to get through those areas that you couldn’t get through the first time because you didn’t have so and so tool at the time, no wonder Zelda and Metroid sell like ass without good graphics.

Anywho, after a while of “cinematic boss fights” filled with QTE’s, you come to a big area where you climb, jump, climb some more, and jump some more until you get to a point where the final door cannot open until… you leave the entire area and go through the whole castle again to look for 2 balls.

MS is a troll developer, you think you’re going somewhere, but then you’re sent on a goddamn goose chase! Man, who knew Dracula loved elevators? There’s so many here. Something’s wrong. This series is supposed to take place in the 11th century, where did these elevators come from!?

Praise Amma for teleporters or this segment would’ve driven me batshit. These items are spread so far, mang. You’d think you were playing Mother Goose or some shit.

So after screwing around with looking for nutz, you finally get to fight Dracula… again. Now… this fight is supposed to be “harder” than before because you no longer have live bait but honestly, this fight was just as piss easy as the last. When you get him down to a sliver of health, you go into cinematic bullshit mode with more QTE’s. But it looks epic, you got Trevor and Dracula flying through the air like some DBZ shit. BUT…

Problem, Trevor?

Yeah yeah, I know, it had to happen to explain why Trevor became Alucard, but damn if it isn’t unsatisfying. A final boss fight where you are made to lose.

Trying to summarize this game is more difficult because a lot of it’s material is easily forgettable, and I don’t know who would want to play through a second time for any reason, it’s a one and done deal. There’s also a secrent ending for 100% completion, but it’s only a shot of Simon looking at the Castle crumbling as a sort of “easter egg/cute shit” throwback to the regular endings of……. ALL Castlevania games, really. It’s cheap, it’s unrewarding, and shows that Mecury Steam looks at Nostalgia in a completely superficial context. Dracula recites a line from SOTN for no goddamn reason… TWICE in this series. It comes off as cheap and uninspired.

A lot of this game feels nothing like Castlevania, but they think that by throwing in a few little “nods” (w/e the fuck a nod is supposed to mean to me or any other stupid ass Castlevania fan), they can appease the fans of the series? Piece of shit! This is not Castlevania, and I don’t care how much cute shit you toss into it, it will never be Castlevania.

I don’t get this idiocy with developers who completely revamp a series without consent of the fans and have all the fucking gall to move in and convince people that this is the shit they know and love. Gabriel’s armor being red as a reference to Simon’s red armor from CV2, are you on the yak!? And people actually bought that excuse. You’re not gonna look at Gabriel Belmont and think Castlevania 2! Nobody likes Castlevania 2 to give a shit about some 2 bit easter egg that no one would get.

To calm myself down from rage, I found Lament of Innocence over PSN, DL’d it…. THIS GAME WAS THE SHIT! This is REAL Castlevania! You got REAL boss fights that consist of merely whacking the fuckers and dodging their attacks, not doing some contrived “multitasking strategy” bullshit like “counter attacks 3 times to get to the next part” or any dingy involving QTEs. Sure, there’s a few fetch quests and back tracking, but I’ll take anyone’s bullshit over Konami’s new “revisionary series”.

I’ve been playing Castlevania games up the arse. From Bloodlines to SOTN, all the GBA/DS games, it’s real sad how fucked this series got after Harmony of Dissonence. It turned into animu creampuff BS along with having a Pachinko game with titties.

And then we get to overcompensation with some “me too” God of War crap about a guy who cries about his dead wife but has a plan to resurrect her body before she starts to smell. Then it turns into some goth hot topic “underworld” looking shit for the sequel with so much over the top cinematics and more injected testosterone (Satan got roided up), all of it gets overshadowed by Dracula having family issues.

NUUUUUUUUU!

Turning Castlevania into a game about religion, and then into some retarded shit about New World Order in some last minute attempt to one up Ninja Theory’s fuck up with Devil May Cry. Why? Apparently the director had his head so far up his ass according to his “underlings”.

Alright, everyone who complained about Konami. I concede. Fuck Konami. For destroying the ONLY shit I cared about from them… and maybe ruining Metal Gear, idk, I don’t play that shit outside of Rising. IGA was the man. Yeah he cocked up with DOS, POR, and HD, but he knew how to make a competent game (most of the time). So chock full of secrets that you desperately wanted to dig deeper into. Not to mention making it so combat wasn’t a chore like the stiff controlling NES games. MS goes right back to stiff ass controls for this piece of shit. And all with the Thumb tac, no less!

But, they say this is it for the crappy LOS series, so I don’t know what Castlevania will be like in the future. Maybe they’ll kill it off and continue whoring out Metal Gear for all it’s milk.

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

Translation = The way the game is MEANT to be played!

By the balls of Ra, this argument returns!

As a designer, your job isn’t to be a control freak and force things on the player. It’s to create something that allows the player to have fun. House rules are not a bad thing.

Remember the days of Smash Bros. Melee when the competitive scene started to discover the “wonders of wave dashing”? Of course you do, everyone played Smash Bros. at least once in their life to get to know the asshole competitive scene running amok on Smash Boards. Everyone who has dealt with them has come to this particular mindset of “PLAY THE GAME THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED!”. I’m assuming most are aware of the “completely unnecessary rules” set by smash players when concerning their tournaments in which items are completely banned as well as certain stages. At most, you would only find people playing on Final Destination.  The attitude against the competitive scene was overwhelmingly negative, you could find so many youtube videos and rant blogs decrying their ways. Their motto was “learn how to deal with situations in a game”. Of course, this kind of mentality was echoed by Nintendo and Sakurai themselves, and thus we get….

POISON! This game with drastically altered physics made players more dependent on items than ever before, and the game was still an unbalanced turd.

But aside from the that, It’s always been in gamer’s nature to level the playing field to his or her own distinct advantages. People don’t want to feel powerless, so they tend to destroy that which reduces their power. If given the option to do so, damn sure they will use it.

As the designer, the question you should ask is why would you give a damn? Your job is to deliver customer satisfaction regardless, not be a dictator of how a game should be played. Let w/e competitive scene exists deal with balancing issues. I tire of the new fad of game developers wanting to co-opt the pathetic competitive scenes of their respective fighters, as if they wish to be seen as some sort of expert on peerless fighting game design. I blame this on Capcom as they’ve become the mascots of EVO where the Eventhoes ride them like rodeo shows. Why a developer would care about a “competitive scene” is mind boggling. The goal should be to attract as many people to your game, not cater exclusively to the TF’s.

The fool who wrote this advocates dictatorial game design on the grounds that it won’t divide the player base. In a bitter taste of irony, he is siding with those that would be deemed “scrubs” by Smash players for advocating the removal of the option to turn off items. As if player preference was ever evil!

Items are an integral part of balancing Smash Bros characters, kind of a global move-set that homogenizes the characters. Take items out and you end up with the current Smash Bros competitive scene, which is playable with only 8 of the 26 characters on 5 of the 29 stages.

Anyone who’s played Melee knows this is bullshit. Even with items set on, a good Shiek would still decimate a good Bowser. Speed plays a much bigger role in advantages than items, and the slower characters tend to get shafted (sans Ganon). Items really do nothing more than add randomization to matches, which can be upsetting to people who were playing well vs those getting the taste smacked out of them. They don’t balance out characters. At all. What they really do is screw up the players themselves. I don’t know about Team Fortress or Beer Pong.

But if I had it my way, I would turn off that fucking Ultra Combo shit in SF4. If I’m doing the ass kicking, the guy’s who’s ass is getting kicked should NOT be fucking rewarded! But that would be evil because it would fragment the player base. I don’t give a fuck about the other player’s, I know that shit would piss me off and I want it the fuck removed!

You know what other options we could remove? Customizing Controls! Yeah! Lets play shit like Castlevania Mirror of Fate on the Bread Slice and get stuck using the thumb tac of a flat analog for all movement while the D-Pad is used for inventory access… and have the audacity to have a DOUBLE TAP MOTION on the thumb tac… to RUN! Thumb tac feels like shit to control in 2D (as do all analogs) and they want me to use that to do what!? Double tap.. to run! And I can’t change that!

Fuck you, Heru! It’s the way the game was meant to be played!

For reference, David Sirlin is cited. For those who don’t know, he’s a competitive Street Fighter player/colossal douche bag who wrote a pretentious book called “Playing to Win” that thinks the reader is a borderline retarded shithead who doesn’t know what a “throw” is, and practically made the “scrub” term infamous. Nevermind that David Sirlin isn’t even a good game designer to begin with (who’s resume only contains tinkering with SF2HD and Super Puzzle Fighter, several game ports and possibly Sonic Rivals) making it a bit of an oxymoron to apply his theories to the concept of video game options being “evil”. Essentially, the “scrub mentality of grafting rules into a game for their own benefit” IE “stop using fireballs, you cheap spammer”, that kind of shit. But, if a game allows you to generate your own rules for specific match ups (no items or w/e), there is no scrub mentality going on. The game designer is allowing the player to call the shots. IE, there is no mental grafting of rules going on, the rules are allowed to be generated. As such, Sirlin’s definition doesn’t apply.

The idea that because items and “seeking arrows” were included, they are integral to the game overall. If the game can be played without those specific features, it shows how versatile the game is overall. Items, specific powers, or w/e are simply there to provide extra advantages. You don’t need sub weapons in Castlevania, but they give you a bigger advantage than without. You don’t need to use Robot Master Weapons in Mega Man, but damn sure you’d have an easier (and shorter) time fighting bosses and enemies. What does a seeking arrow do? Gives the player a slight advantage in killing his/her opponents. That doesn’t make it an integral element to the game, it just gives you advantages. Just like items in Smash Bros. Items only give you slight advantages. As such, they really aren’t integral to the game overall if you have the ability to still defeat your opponent.

This isn’t me advocating the removal of advantages in games overall (who the fuck wants that!?), this is simply an explanation of how game options are no more harmful than justifying game features. No game feature is needed in a game. Then again, video games aren’t needed for entertainment purposes as there are probably better venues of entertainment now than they were back then. All games and their features are something to be DESIRED by players. If you needed seeking arrows to kill opponents period, the game is automatically bad for including the option, because then there would be no point to it. If items were needed to score kills in Smash Bros. then the option itself is worthless and a complete oversight. If items are infact needed to balance out Smash Bros., it’s more than enough to declare that game shit. It’s like the mid counter holds in DOA5U being different for punches and kicks, it’s a lousy crutch to be lazy in balancing or diversifying the characters.

Lets put it this way. I played the FUCK out of Shinobi on 3DS… but I didn’t use any of the specific powers they give you. Earth, Fire, Water, Lighting, w/e. Hell, I think you can turn them off via cheats that I haven’t unlocked yet. 😛 Does that make the power ups integral to the game? No. I can beat the game without them. This isn’t to say I want them removed, mind you. But if Shinobi were to have some sort of battle mode and the option to turn those powers off? Would the game’s scene be damaged in anyway, I wouldn’t know. I’d bet the Earth/Thunder Power would be abused. But I doubt people would up and not continue to play the game. A competitive scene is only as good as the game itself. Options that turn on/off specific advantages make no difference. And that’s all players are really pissed off over. Whether or not they should have the option to shut off advantages if they wanted. If you can win without advantages, then there’s no harm in turning them off. You don’t need them. If you suck ass and rely on advantages to get you through the game, then yes you’re going to hate Towerfall or w/e.

When designing a multiplayer game be aware that by providing game options, through nothing more than human nature, you are giving your players the tools they need to avoid playing with one another. You are actively working against the virality and social effects you are counting on to cultivate and grow a multiplayer scene. This is the danger of game options.

Game options didn’t stop people from running to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And considering how much Team Fortress crap I see over the internet, I’m willing to bet options didn’t harm that game either. There’s nothing stopping a multiplayer scene from growing except having a shitty or boring game, period. Virtua Fighter has no scene, but also has very few game options, if that means anything. If anything, punishing people for wanting to take out items did more harm to Smash Bros. than anything else. It’s so odd how no one even cares about Smash 4 after Brawl shat the money bed.

If there was anything that was harmful to a multiplayer scene, it would be hardcore competitive gamers who think they are the bastions of good game design “theory” while at the same time causing other players to run away from their narcissism. Competitive types don’t think about growing any scene but to merely “weed out” players that don’t fit into their paradigm. The problem, of course, is that much more recently, game designers (especially Namco) are catering to their whims. Thinking only of the competitive scene made the majority of SNK fighters shit for anyone that isn’t Brazilian. Thinking of the competitive scene nearly killed Tekken, even. It damn sure killed Soul Calibur.

It’s kinda sad how there’s only one detractor in that entire comments section, and everyone is up his ass instead. What’s this bullshit about Ubisoft having “women’s trouble”?

Trailers of Doom

Yep… this game looks lame. Even the speed segments don’t look half as fun as they originally appeared (maybe because they look too samey?)

I like how this trailer displays how desperate BRB is to distance this game from the other Sonic games by pointing out that Robotnik isn’t the primary antagonist (Like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06… and Sonic Heroes. Not to mention how extra lame the combat is.

Yep… this show looks lame. I recoil at Knuckles being a typical “I R COOLER THAN MAIN CHARACTER” cliche.

“Evil ham“, really? I miss the days when Robotnik wasn’t some solo Team Rocket parody. Dean Bristow must be rolling in his grave.

What’s with this sudden development of Robotnik making failed technology, btw? A character with an IQ of w/e hundred oh why bother bitching, some asshole will turn up to scream “DIFFERENT UNIVERSE” even though Iizuka is supposed to make sure there’s slight continuity between this piece of shit and his Retard Sonic.

 

 

 

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!