It's Picture Time!

Seeing as I am too lazy (read: too tired from this semester) to actually do a real post, I thought I'd share some of the drawings I've been working on.  All rights reserved on these puppies.  Jump past the break if you want to see more.

Cataclysm, We Hardly Knew Ye

Cataclysm has died. R.I.P.

Today is patch day. However, it's not just any patch day. It is the patch day that ends the game we know as Cata, and replaces it with the beginnings of MoP (Mists of Pandaria). The servers are currently down for the next few (tentative) hours, and will rise again full of the bugs that hopefully Blizzard will detect before the release date of September 25th. The game will be clunky, buggy, and generally unbalanced since all the game content will be designed for level 90; but the cap will remain at 85, so don't fret for now. Basically, we will exist in a state of WoW "limbo" until the actual release of the game.

It is during this time of transition that I find it to be the most appropriate of times to look back before looking forward. Cataclysm, after all, existed for almost two years, took up a ton of recreation time, and had a major impact on the MMO gaming community. In this eulogy of sorts, I feel it most appropriate to review as much of the content in a purely retrospective manner. The game's many successes and handful of faults made the up the whole of the game, and all deserve a look back.

First off, let me start with my credentials for this personal retrospective of this game.  I am mainly a PvE content player, even though I racked up over 30k honorable kills in this expansion alone.  My favorite thing to do in WoW is to raid on my hunter, and is the the aspect from which I have gained the most perspective.  Even though I mainly DPS'd on my hunter, I also healed raids on a shaman, and tanked on a warrior. I have also leveled every class to the max level of 85, and have leveled on both factions.  I have leveled every profession, and earned over 11k achievement points including the "Insane in the Membrane" achievement, so my ability to withstand the mundane is well intact.  I play most days of the week, and consider this game my hobby rather than just a simple diversion for recreation.

With that out of the way, I think instead of just giving the game a rating, it's important to look at all the features individually before looking directly at the sum. There's so much content in this game that it's entirely likely that individual features may be ignored by certain players who are still able to get a full gaming experience by just cherry picking the content they wish to enjoy. Therefore, it would be unfair to rate the game with a uniform grade when the intention of the player can vary to such great degrees. The following retrospective will split the content into individual pieces, and a final grade will only be given if I deem it appropriate to do so.

Let us begin.

Raids (A)

The first tier of raids offered up new raid bosses with extremely fun mechanics. The tier 11 raids, Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds, offered up probably the most exciting and fulfilling content of the expansion. Between the three, there were 12 bosses that were, for the most part, all exceptionally fun fights. Whether I was chaining Magmaw's head to a spike, jumping from platform to platform on the Conclave of Wind, or trying burn the Ascendant Council evenly, there was plenty of nuanced excitement to go around. The first tier of raids was perfect.

Favorite Tier 11 fight: Magmaw
Favorite personal moment: As cool as it was to be the sole survivor in the twin dragons fight one week, defeating Cho'gall as the first raid clear for our guild in Cata sticks out as my most favorite moment.

Tier 12, the second tier in Cataclysm, brought us Firelands. For those who raided Molten Core back in the original WoW, Firelands was a sort of Molten Core 2.0. We journeyed into Ragnaros' elemental plain to destroy him for good, and ran into some good fun along the way. The Firelands' bosses were set up in a much less linear fashion which allowed the raid to decide which order the first five bosses were encountered. Initially, the instance was over tuned and frustrating, but once it was sorted out by Blizzard, it became one of the most intensely entertaining raid experiences imaginable. Each fight brought their own flavor, and all of them required precise execution to complete. While some were easier than others, none were able to be taken as "gimmes." As the months went on, Blizzard hit Firelands with the ultranerf bat, and basically neutred the experience for the sake of overall progression. This took some of the shine of Firelands, making it less than perfect, but still an incredibly fun raid.

Favorite Tier 12 fight: Alysrazor
Favorite personal moment: I'd have to say helping a guild member finish the legendary staff. It took a long time, and it was well deserved.

Tier 13, the third and final tier of Cataclysm, allowed raiders to finally take it to that bastard Deathwing, who had spent the majority of the expansion randomly killing players. While the raid Dragon Soul (DS) was indeed fun, it was definitely the most unsatisfying of the five raids in Cata. The raid was a very stripped down experience, requiring little to no utility by players. As a DPS, all that was required was learning the dance to each fight, and then maximizing your damage output while doing so. One fight even went so far as to just require players to hit a button avoid a boss mechanic. However, there were some truly innovative and fun fights like Spine, Warmaster, and Hagara that kept the instance fun, but the fact that too many fights were one trick ponies kept the instance to living up to my personal expectations for the final encounter with Deathwing.

Favorite Tier 13 fight: Warmaster Blackhorn (heroic)
Favorite personal moment: Using my pet to chain the last totem on Hagara to save a wipe, guaranteeing our first heroic kill.

It was also during this time that WoW first introduced the Raid Finder. It provided players an opportunity to get some basic experience with the DS raid and some lower tier loot. The groups were typically annoying, and after a while, I stopped doing them all together since the real raiding was more fun. That being said, it's really great that Blizzard is still thinking of ways to incorporate the casual player into the raiding experience.

In the final analysis, apart from a few dark spots, raiding was spectacular. I happily looked forward to Tuesdays to start a new week of raiding, and got the most personal fulfillment from the game with these Cataclysm raids. I will continue to raid in MoP, and Cataclysm only bolstered my enthusiasm from Wrath.

Dungeons (B+)

This was easily the most controversial aspect of Cataclysm (from a PvE perspective) throughout the expansion. In Wrath, there were tons of players who felt that the heroic dungeon content was far too easy. Blizzard's response was to make the dungeons significantly more difficult. The result was a learning curve that angered and scared off more casual players, and caused dungeon queue times to reach as high as an hour.  Personally, I liked the original dungeon design as they felt like miniature raids. I liked it as a training tool for raids, but I understand many just wanted to grind out the gear, while others simply liked having a casual killing spree. As the expansion went on, the release of the Zandalari dungeons, which were actually old raids that were reformatted into 5-man form, pushed some of the casual players away, while causing gear grinders to stop running dungeons as they chose to focus more on the actual raids.  Finally, Blizzard seemed to decide that accessibility far outweighs challenging players in the heroic dungeon format, and released the Hour of Twilight heroics along with the release of Dragon Soul. This final wave of heroics hearkened back to old days of Wrath where heroics could essentially be face rolled. As a net, no progress was truly made in Cataclysm, and dungeons basically served as data for ongoing research on what is truly the best direction for dungeons going forward.

Quests (A-)

Quests were almost completely overhauled from the original game in Cataclysm. Since Deathwing basically destroyed the existing structure of the world, it only made sense that new quests would result from it. The quests themselves became more streamlined and linear with the vast majority of them being able to be completed without the assistance of a group. Many old quests were replaced by easier, but in most cases, more interesting quests that allowed a more casual player to have a lot fun leveling on their own. However, the biggest drawback was lack of consistency in the overhaul from 1-85. Why weren't Outland and Northrend updated in a similar fashion? After level 58, the fun and new experience was over until you reached level 80. The questing system was a good idea, but didn't completely deliver.

Professions (B-)

There were no new major professions added, and farming the materials seemed to work about the same as it had in previous expansions. I will say that it did seem much easier farming in Cataclysm than Wrath since it seemed like materials were more abundant.

Archaeology was a secondary profession added. It was boring, and I only learned it to try to learn pattern for a mount.

PvP (A-)

While my PvP experience is limited, I did do my fair share of Tol Barad and random battlegrounds. For an open PvP environment, Tol Barad was a lot of fun. Several fights could get really intense with each side gaining massive, but equal, numbers of participants. The fighting was great, but the design of the game wasn't; too many times I would kill someone only to have them beat me to the next node. Blizzard was constantly tuning it as the capture rates never really seemed to adequately reflect who was winning the fighting in close matches.

With the launch of Cata came two new battlegrounds: Twin Peaks and Battle for Gilneas. However, they were only new in name alone as they were basically re-skins of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin respectively. Battlegrounds truly lacked the step forward I think a lot of players were hoping to get. That being said, they were both fairly entertaining, and I logged several hours enjoying fighting the Horde.

I did approximately 20 arena matches and only a few rated battlegrounds. I, therefore, disqualify myself from forming any opinion on those two matters.

Final Thoughts

Cataclysm was a ton of fun. It was more fun than any game I can really remember playing. Like I said, it was the game that took MMOs from diversions to legitimate hobbies for me. The Raiding and other PvE content wasn't perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. I have a great deal of fond memories, and I am excited for the future of the WoW franchise. To give this game anything less than "A" would be a lie for me.

On to Pandaria...

New Podcast: "Batarang" Now Available!

This week on "Just BS," Brad and Scott discuss the upcoming "The Dark Knight Rises," and reflect on the series thus far.

Be sure to subscribe on Itunes, or click the link for every episode of "Just BS" through the RSS feed

This week's episode: Batarang

Trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKUqLcvD8

Damn you, Apple (And Google)! Damn you to hell!

(Note: The Damn You ___! series will likely start running weekly on Wednesdays.  I just got a little itchy and posted this one early.)

Planned obsolescence isn’t a good thing.  I think we, as consumers can all agree on that.  Most of us can name off at least one time when we’ve been the victim of greed that has forced us to either upgrade something that we didn’t want to and there was no need to or has forced us to go without a feature that should have been included from the get go.  Several examples of this are very obvious from Apple in both their iPhone and Macbook Pro line ups, as well as from Google.  First, let’s address the issue with Apple.

Apple hasn’t ever been a company to take great care of its legacy hardware users.  They have shown often that they have no problem with leaving older (read: more than one generation past the present hardware) computers and whatnots out to pasture.  The rationale has been that this allows Apple to “innovate” and not be bogged down making sure their newest idea works on all hardware, just the ‘stuff that can handle the new innovation.’  I call bullshit on this.  I own a Macbook Pro.  It has worked fine since I bought it three years ago.  The battery still works fine (better than my Dell laptop’s after just one year) and I have relatively no complaints about the rest of the laptop itself.  I do have complaints about the operating systems changes, though.  I understand that it is my choice to not upgrade to the latest OS, which I won’t because I would lose functionality and gain little if nothing in return for my work needs, but I hate that many of the nifty bells and whistles aren’t on my OS for no other reason than ‘we don’t feel like supporting it.’

On the laptop, I’m mostly ok with this as it is easier to circumvent or have other work-arounds for the various issues.  On a phone, however, it is not nearly as easy.  With the newest release of the iOS system to 6.0, lots of great new functionality will be introduced to some of the iPhones on the market.  Conveniently, most of the newest, coolest stuff won’t be available on phones that are two years old or more.  If I honestly believed that the newest iPhone was going to have hardware so much more advanced from the iPhone 4, I could see why some features wouldn’t work.  But I don’t.  I don’t believe for one minute that the iPhone 4 is so old and decrepit so as to not work.  Why?  Because the iPhone 4S isn’t THAT advanced compared to the original iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S will be getting most if not all of these new cool features.  Apple is artificially keeping older hardware from working so you will buy a new phone.  I get that Apple makes the majority of its money on hardware sales, but it is just wrong to withhold features simply because they can.  But you know what, I bet this is the bestselling iPhone yet because people won’t care that their old hardware still works.  They just want something new.  American consumerism at its best.

Google also has a problem with this planned obsolescence, but they aren’t the ones causing it.  Rather, it is the cellphone carriers and the handset makers causing the problem.  Google puts out their operating system Android for free to anyone that wants it, much cheaper than Microsoft does for its Windows Phone 7 OS.  The problem with the Google stuff and Android phones in general is that Google is constantly updating the OS.  There may be two or more major updates to Android in any given year.  Great, right?  It is if the cellphone carrier and the handset maker actually push the new update to your phone.  Also great if you have a phone that is actually powerful enough and has enough hardware to handle the new software.  Here, Google is like the mad scientist in the back room making new discoveries and the middle man peddling the wares is purposefully holding back goods so he can sell his existing inventory full well knowing the scientist has just made something vastly superior.  I’d like to blame just the phone companies and handset makers, but Google really should shoulder some of the blame.  If they had a yearly iteration cycle for the new OS that everyone could count on, handset makers would have more impetus to make better, longer lived devices from the get go.  The way it is now, you walk into a Verizon, buy the newest phone with all the features and before you walk out the door it is obsolete.  Again, I call bullshit on this system.

I don’t think that capitalism is the root of the issue here, but rather greed.  It is still possible to desire making a good profit for shareholders while providing an excellent product and then standing behind that product.  The idea that drawing a line in the sand arbitrarily between the haves and have-nots when realistically there is barely and difference is greedy at best and deplorable at worst.  Oh well.  Both companies will continue down this path with likely little pushback from the public at large and I don’t see anything changing any time soon.

Star Craft II, Then, Now, and the Future

It has been almost two years since Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty was released and I already find myself as bored with the game as I am with the original Star Craft which released in 1998.  I am writing this now because the first expansion pack, Heart of the Swarm, will likely be released within the next year.  In fact, I bet that Blizzard Entertainment will offer another Annual Pass deal to all World of Warcraft subscribers with the free game being Heart of the Swarm as Diablo III was for the last Annual Pass.  While Diablo III was a title that I definitely knew I’d purchase and therefore it made sense for me to buy the Annual Pass, I can’t say the same for Heart of the Swarm.  The Annual Pass might be the only way I would get the expansion, but only as a side benefit.  Why am I so disinterested in this new game?  Because, dear reader, Wings of Liberty was so underwhelming.  Allow me to explain.

First, the gameplay didn’t interest me.  When I buy a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game, I want the story mode to be compelling but most importantly I want the multiplayer experience to keep me engaged.  The single player story line in Wings of Liberty wasn’t the worst I’ve played, but it wasn’t the greatest and I honestly expected more out of Blizzard of which I know more is possible.  It felt like they cheaped out on story hoping that the graphics would distract from a lack of content.  The twists like researching enhancements for troops and the ability to buy upgrades and mercenaries didn’t provide a deep, expansive storyline.  Maybe one of the problems here is that the only playable story was that of the Terrains unlike the original game that gave access to all three race’s stories. 

No matter what the true reason for the lack of interesting single player campaign, the multiplayer didn’t do any better.  Unfortunately, many of the units available and seen in the campaign are not accessible in the multiplayer which was a shame because I remember liking many of the Terrain campaign units.  The biggest nail in the coffin was the lack of originality or spark of something new that was so endearing in the first game.  It feels like SC II’s multiplayer was merely a remix that did little to enhance the original work.  Sure, the graphics are nice and there are upgrades to the core works of the program that allow for play at higher resolutions and bigger screens, there are changed gameplay mechanics that cause the tactics from the first game to no longer be applicable, but this does not make for a revolutionary step.  And honestly, given all the time Blizzard worked on the game, I expected revolution, not evolution like I got.  We’re not even talking evolutionary like going from gills to lungs, but from four fingers to five.

I get that if they changed the game too much, some of the core fan base (read: Korean gamers that play professionally) would have been upset, but with what they produced now, I’m upset.  I’m upset that I should have gotten something amazing and I didn’t.  Maybe Blizzard looked at the situation with SC II and that prompted them to work on Diablo III’s story more (I understand Blizzard held off publishing the game twice for various reasons).  Maybe Blizzard will look at how SC II was like a flat, hot soda when it should have been a bubbly, cold refreshing brew and make this first expansion better.  Here’s hoping.  But honestly, I doubt I ever know unless I get the game for free because after SC II, Blizzard, I just don’t see myself ever buying any of the expansions.

New Podcast: "WoW: the Dumbening" Now Available!

(Note: the beginning of the episode was cut off for some unknown reason. Obviously Brad is the other guy in the podcast. Podcast circumcision under investigation. (lie))

In the latest episode of "Just BS", Brad and Scott discuss a recent youtube video regarding the changes to the difficulty of raid content throughout the years of World of Warcraft.

Be sure to subscribe on Itunes, or click the link for every episode of "Just BS" through the RSS feed.

This week's episode: http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-76124/TS-642849.mp3

The original youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rd0-zVIBVo&feature=g-user-u

Damn you, Blogs! Damn you to hell!

I once heard someone give advice about starting a blog.  He said that if you immediately can't jot down ten topics to write about within a couple of minutes, you probably shouldn't consider doing on any scale greater than hobbyist level.  While there may be some truth in that, I feel that advice doesn't tell the whole picture.  I, frankly, find most blogs to be nothing more than the extensions of their writers' egos, my posts included.  Who cares what I write down and why should they?  While I like posting articles on JustBS.org and recording podcasts, I am not an authority on any topics that show up on the blog and this can be said for most of the other writing I've seen in the blogosphere.  That isn't to say that all blogs are bullshit and should never be read, but it is to say that the reader must look at the credentials of the writer and decide if that writer's voice actually should be heard. 

This is very tangential to citizen journalism; in fact, they almost go hand in hand.  For example, I have written many reviews on movies and other topics that I like.  I've also written opinion pieces.  Great for me.  But you the reader should realize that I've never had a class on movie theory or even looked at a book about the topic.  I'm just saying what I like, which is all fine and good, except it isn't.  It isn't good for me to droll on and on about things I know little about or at best just a little about.  Would you listen to anything I write regarding medical advice?  I sincerely hope not as I've had no training in the field.  I remember a time when professionals were left to do jobs that they were good at while we who weren't good at them didn't do them. 

Sadly, with blogs and the internet in general, every professional and nut job alike is given a bullhorn to shout their opinion to the heavens.  What happened to trusting people who were trained to do tasks while ignoring those who weren't?  I'm not trying to take the position that everyone must receive this training in school, although some fields really should be taught in the classroom before practicing.  All I'm asking is for people who don't know what they are talking about or what they are doing and representing it as fact or some other kind of knowledge to stop.  That's all.  If nothing else, do the world a favor and make it clear that it is opinion.  We all have our own and we are entitled to them, to a degree, so it isn't some big deal if you come clean about it.  Somehow, the world will keep turning.

Why The Avengers Is a Better Movie Than The Dark Knight (And Why It Isn’t)

So I am a huge fan of comics and movies based on comics are usually high on my list of favorite things to watch.  I’ll even watch the adult-oriented cartoons (and the not so adult cartoons) of my favorite comic book heroes (and some of my not-so-favorite comic book heroes).  So when I found out there was going to be an Avengers movie, I immediately started fearing the worst.  The two Iron Man movies had been great, the Thor movie was ok and Captain America’s movie was even good, but I thought there was no way that an Avenger movie would be anything but a publicity stunt.  That was, until I found out that Joss Whedon was the director and helped in writing the script.  Now, I thought, we have a chance at a decent film.

See, Whedon is the author of my favorite comic book run, Astonishing X-Men #1-25, not to mention the creative genius behind the TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity, both of which I adore.  Whedon just seems to understand group dynamics and especially groups of people that make little sense being together if not for one single thread that binds them.  It was this that made me think that The Avengers would be acceptable, because if anything the Avengers are a team of misfits that unite to defend the Earth after they’ve hashed it out amongst themselves for a while.

I went to the midnight showing of The Avengers in an IMAX 3D theater.  I waited in line for forty minutes, after showing up at 9:30 PM to find myself the thirtieth or so person in line, before finding a good seat.  I sat through two ticket checks because people kept sneaking in to the theater or didn’t read their ticket to realize they weren’t in my theater.  I tell this to you the reader so we are all clear on one issue: yes, I am too close to this subject to be completely objective and I blame Whedon for that completely.

I went into the theater not expecting greatness but that is just what I got.  Whedon’s story drew me in unlike the Captain America or Thor stand-alone movies did and in a way that was predictable, yet refreshing at the same time.  It’s your standard story with bad guys threating to do whatever it is that bad guys do and good guys, whom are all deeply flawed in their own ways, getting past themselves and learning a life lesson before showing the bad guys whose boss.  But just like how he did in his previous works, Whedon interjected perfect comic timing (both audiences I saw the movie with laughed very loud at multiple points along the way almost in a symmetric-like fashion) with a gravitas of the surroundings that the viewer couldn’t help but get pulled in.  Of course, there are huge fight scenes but they too had the Whedon flair where they actually drove the story forward significantly and were more than just CGI porn.  It was great and I can’t wait to see it again, and likely again, in theaters.

Now, the title of this article is why The Avengers is better than The Dark Knight (And Why It Isn’t) so I shall directly answer that now.  The Avengers is most definitely a comic book movie with a huge mass appeal with compelling stories and characters without taking itself as serious as a Shakespearean drama.  The Dark Knight is a definitely a comic book movie that goes deep into what motivates people and truly makes them tick as deep as many a Shakespearean drama.  Sure, you can idly watch The Dark Knight and find it enjoyable, but you are missing half of what Christopher Nolan is trying to show you.  You can watch The Avengers and find deeper meanings, thanks to the nuances of many of the actors’ performances, but you don’t have to dig that deep to get ninety percent of it.  Both tug at your heart strings, but The Dark Knight then releases them just to eviscerate them moments later.  They are both amazing and I can’t and won’t knock either one.  When it comes down to it, it depends on what mood you are in.  Are you in an existential crisis or are you just looking for a great ride?  Either way, you are going to be very much entertained, but one will fit certain moods better than the other.

Overall grade of The Avengers (in IMAX 3D) A

Overall grade of The Avengers (in 2D) A+

Damn You Comics, Damn You to Hell!

If you’ve never listened to Just BS, the podcast that Scott and I host but rarely ever post the audio file for, you know that I am a comic book fan.  Ever since I was a kid, I would find a way to read comics even though I could never afford them.  Usually that meant that I was reading as many comics as fast as I could in the Walden’s bookstore in the local mall before one of the clerks would chase me off.  As I grew older and started driving myself, I found a comic book shop and started purchasing them legitimately.  I’d never be able to wait until I got home to read the comics and would usually park my truck in the parking lot of a nearby town park or even in the comic book shop’s lot to read my most recent purchases.  Growing up, I was a Marvel fan as their stories were more interesting to me.  I remember when that changed, though.  In the world of comics, much like with soap operas, there are big events that “will shape the future of the universe forever” or some jazz like that until the next big event.  The event that ended my blind love affair with Marvel was their Civil War, pitting superheroes against other superheroes.  Best friends fought as well as husbands and wives and siblings against one another.  In principle, it was a neat idea but it ended badly.  I won’t go into it here, but trust me that it was anticlimactic. 

                After my disappointment, I left the comic realm for a number of years until it was DC Comics, with their Green Lantern-based world even, drew me back in.  It was a fresh story for me and the writing was good.  I’d always been interested in the Green Lantern as a character and the power ring as an idea and it was a perfect jump in point as the whole universe was in upheaval and knowing all the backstories wasn’t that critical.  I was pleased and kept buying them.  Since I was buying comics from the DC section, I noticed how there was a great storyline unfolding in the Batman world while Bruce Wayne was apparently dead so I started reading that, too.  Things were going great.  I had a few comics that I was reading again and all was well.  I still wasn’t reading anything Marvel because their world events were just getting dumber and dumber, in my mind, but I was happy with DC.  That is, until DC went and blew everything up.

                Not literately blowing everything up, but DC Comic decided to restart all their comics from scratch.  Everything you had ever known from the DC Universe was now no longer a definitive thing.  The origin story for all the characters had changed and old characters once dead were no longer so, etc.  At first, I thought this was an interesting thing, however, as time has gone on I now find it to be incredibly annoying.  I was never incredibly invested in the DC Universe but I did have a basic understanding of the characters and where they had come from in their origins and their attitudes based on the events in their lives up until everything changed.  I know feel a sense of discontinuity between myself and the characters to the point where I and down to only buying one DC comic, The Justice League and frankly, I’m going to quick buying that one in the next week or so.  Why?  Because I can’t relate to these characters.  They are all flat and two-dimensional which is part of the reason I never bought DC as a youth, besides never having the money.

                I noticed recently that Marvel’s newest “OMG this is the biggest thing since sliced bread!” event, The Avengers vs. The X-men, is on sale and I bought the first issue.  Immediately, the characters were more multidimensional than The Justice League and a lot of that has to do with the fact that these characters have a storied, rich history and one that I know.  I may have been out of the loop for a few years, but I can tell the severity of an issue based on Cyclops’s actions and this event is very severe.  Does this mean that I’ll start back toward the Marvel camp?  Probably not.  I’ll finish this new event and reevaluate, but if I had to guess I am about to be done with comics for a few years.  There just isn’t anything out there that I want to read, not from Marvel or DC at least.  With comics like The Walking Dead and Incredible getting their own shows and fantastic works like Battle Pope, one of my all-time favorites, perhaps this is the time to start looking at independent or indie comics.  All I do know is that for the time being, I will not be making mine Marvel and DC may as well stand for “Don’t Care.”

The Rare Gameplay Review of Mass Effect 3

In 2007, Bioware launched the first of the Mass Effect series. Now, 5 years later, we see the series come to a (controversial) close. Unlike the first couple games, the ending to this one was not universally appreciated. Much like the television series "The Sopranos", "Mass Effect" has now come under fire for its ending. Fans complained in droves on message boards, twitter, and one especially down trodden individual complained all the way to the FTC. However, with Bioware deciding to add a free DLC this summer for free that expands the ending, this subject is far from over.

Yet, this is not what interests me; the gameplay is truly one of the greatest single player experiences ever made, and I'd prefer instead to talk about that.  Much like many of my posts involving reviews of video games, I will simply list all the things that come to mind whether they be good or bad. I find this gives me the opportunity to discover my real feelings for a particular product once I start committing my ideas to paper... er, computer screen (Whatever the hell you call it). One caveat however, I did not play with Kinect, so I have no input there.

Since I'm an optimist, let's start with the Pros...

Pros

• Riveting storytelling and RPG moments continue to captivate. You don't get such an angry feeling on the ending of a series if you didn't care about the story in the first place. I don't know if people liked the end of the "Halo" series when it ended simply because I don't think anyone really cared. Mass Effect is different; Commander Shepard in a lot of ways feels like a true extension of yourself, forcing you to make tough decisions while trying to do everything you can to be ready for the final showdown with the Reapers.  If you've never played Mass Effect, you are missing out on a great story.

• Weapon and armor modifications allow for a more customizable approach to combat. In "Mass Effect 2", one of the worst parts was mining planets for minerals to upgrade your gear, while in "Mass Effect 3", simple discovery along with earning money doing several engaging side missions makes the gear grind much more enjoyable.

• Inclusion of rolls, dives, and other mechanics allow for more exciting movements and tactics when facing enemies.

• Integration of past adventures in the previous games into the final story creates a depth to the game that I have not seen in any other.  Just about everyone you meet in the Mass Effect universe has a part to play in the final game.

• More tech and biotic abilities added to the arsenal allow for more exciting combat.

• Talent trees having more options within a specific ability allows for more customization depending on how you want that particular character to engage in combat.

• Weapon weights affecting special ability recharge times allows you to decide whether or not you want to focus more on a weapon or tech/biotic play style.

• Improves on the model of "Mass Effect 2". (which is pretty difficult to do!)

Cons

• Imports of facial structures from "Mass Effect" can sometimes not be detected by the "Mass Effect 3" character import tool requiring for some people to recreate the face of their character at the beginning.

• In a few instances, the characters models will make some pretty odd movements with either their hands or will twist their necks a bit too far to look behind themselves. 

• Scanning zones for artifacts and other goodies with Reapers chasing you is fun at first, but quickly gets old.

• The Effective Military Strength rating decides which ending you are capable of getting. However, to get the ratings necessary for a certain ending requires the inclusion of multiplayer campaigns. This forces a player who is interested in seeing the full ending to do multiplayer even if they don't want to do so. Multiplayer is fine, but this game was built around the single player experience, and forcing players to partake in something they'd rather not does not impress me much.

• Finally, the ending. Not because I didn't necessarily like the endings (I really enjoyed one while not being overly impressed with the other two), but because it has detracted from what is one of the greatest gaming experiences ever. I hope the DLC will fix most of the problems, but we'll just have to wait and see.

In the final analysis, all I have to say is I love this game. It's somewhat bittersweet to see the series end, but I know I've logged a lot of fun hours playing "Mass Effect". If I had to rate it out of 10, I'd give it every bit of that 10 despite any negatives. Games and series like this are rare indeed.

There you have it. My first post in what seems like forever.

(If I proofread, it means I care. You can guess on that one.)