Selfish Plug

I'm not often one to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty awesome (obviously, modesty is my middle name). In the name of advertising myself, here are three gaming pieces that I've written recently that may be of interest to someone other than myself:

Borderlands 2 is amazing, but it does have one glaring problem.

Games steal from other games, but sometimes they forget to grab the simple things.

Like people, game franchises die. People should accept that.

Enjoy . . . or don't, it's up to you.

Top Four Most Anticipated Video Games (Fall 2012)

#4 Madden 13 - In recent years, Madden has been trending in a downward spiral, releasing a particularly lack luster effort last August. Madden 12 marked the first Madden that I did not buy since I became a madden fan pre-Xbox 360/PS3. Why will Madden 13 be better? Developer EA Tiburon seems to finally realize that they’ve dropped the ball. A greater effort is being made in the game play as well as the presentation. There will be two new announcers in the booth and they were actually recorded together, sounding more natural than the robotic Chris Collinsworth, who color-commentated the last few games. Even if EA’s hard work doesn’t pay off, this game can’t possibly be worse than its predecessor.

#3 Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - I’m excited for Black Ops 2 for the same reasons as the upcoming Madden. Call of Duty has become stagnant. Gamers unanimously agree that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is by far the best installment in the franchise. Since CoD 4, each annual release has been almost the same thing with little to keep things fresh. Like Madden 12, last years Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the first ever CoD that I didn’t buy since the franchise’s birth. I have not been alone in clamoring for changes to the CoD franchise and Black Ops 2 is bringing changes. Part of the game will be taking place during the Cold War in the 1980’s. The rest of the campaign and all of the multiplayer will be in a future Cold War in 2025. So far the campaign appears to be as over-the-top as ever, but there seems to be signs of evolution as well. There will be several times during the campaign where players will be forced to choose which mission to go to next while those that they do not pick go un-played. The decisions you make impact aspects of the story including who lives and dies. The missions will also allow players to run through the entire mission commanding troops and drones from a birds eye view, hopping into a drone, or playing as a soldier on the ground. Players will also be able to switch to whoever they want whenever they want. This will add replayability to the campaign for the first time in a long time. Little has been revealed about the multiplayer, but there are sure to be changes there, too; hopefully significant ones.

#2 Assassin’s Creed III - After the success of Assassin’s Creed II, the franchise began releasing games annually (Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed Revelations). Unfortunately, annual releases are rarely a good thing for gamers since the short development times oftentimes lead to games that aren’t particularly polished or innovative (see Call of Duty and Madden) and that proved to be true with Assassin’s Creed as well. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood felt like ACII, but somehow not as good. Assassin’s Creed Revelation was supposed to provide fans with answers, but left them with more questions instead. For the first time since the release of ACII, ACIII will bring a lot of change to the series. Ezio Auditore, the main character in the last three Assassin’s Creed installments, is gone; his story has been told. The franchise is abandoning more than just one of the best characters in video game history, but Europe, the Middle East, and all of its characters that don’t play into the modern day story line as well. Players will now be exploring colonial America and will be spending the majority of their time during the American Revolution playing as a half Native American, half British assassin. Although there will be some large cities to use all playgrounds (Philadelphia, Boston, etc.), there won’t be anything like the colossal cities featured in past games. Instead, the wilderness will become a significant part of the game. Trees will be a new way of transportation. Players will have to fend for themselves out in the wilderness, hunting animals for food. Another first for the series is weather; there will actually be seasons. Snow will dramatically slow players down. More so than in the past, players will have to really think about their surrounds both before and during combat. The combat itself will receive various changes, providing more options, and hopefully, simply be better. Ubisoft took some big risks by implementing such huge changes to the setting; will they backfire?

#1 Borderlands 2 - The original Borderlands was phenomenally fun; it earned game of the year awards for a reason. Borderlands 2 will bring gamers back to the planet of Pandora. Four new character classes will be playable as well as a fifth class that will be downloadable sometime post-launch. However, the original four playable characters and other characters from the first game, will make appearances, too. Borderlands was known as a game where players fought a ton of enemies, grabbed an incredible amount of loot, fired thousands of different weapons, and didn’t experience much of a story. Borderlands 2 has set out to change some things. Players will encounter a much greater variety of enemies and more of them. There are thousands of more weapons and each weapon manufacturer feels and plays very different, no longer being just a name. Gearbox is actually valuing story. The antagonist of the game is Handsome Jack (the first game didn’t really have a bad guy), owner of weapons manufacturer Hyperion. He is taking over Pandora in pursuit of alien technology and riches. There will be tons more dialogue as well as parts in-game that serve as cutscenes while keeping players in the game. The graphics are better, there is even more color, and the game brings a much greater variety of environments for players to explore (the first game was mostly, but not exclusively, a desert wasteland). Each new character appears to be a fresh, evolved version of their predecessors. Instead of a berzerker that uses both his fists to pound enemies into submission when filled with an animalistic rage, there is now a gunzerker that has the ability to dual-wield any two weapons (even rocket launches) and unload a significant amount of punishment on his foes. There is a siren class again, but instead of temporarily becoming invisible and very fast (phasewalk), she can now immobilize, suspending them in the air and leaving them vulnerable to attack (phaselock). Each characters skill will also be highly customizable, completely changing the integrity of what the skill is. Claptrap will be making a comeback and is likely to provide more lovable moments to those who adore him, and more rage to those who hate him (or love to hate him). And of course there will be loads or more sweet, sweet loot. Borderlands 2 will be bigger, better, more customizable, and (hopefully) more fun than the previous installment. This is the game that the original Borderlands was supposed to be and that game was pretty damn good.

Missed The Cut - Halo 4 - Players return to Master Chief for the first time in years and much has changed, but Bungie is no longer at the reins and this sequel almost feels forced.

Top Four Most (Un)Satisfying Types of Video Game Endings

#4. It Was All a Dream - So you've spent hours playing through a game and finally make it to the end only for it to be revealed that everything you just did was just someone's dream? What?! Games (and movies for that matter) that all take place during a dream are a half-assed way of ending things. Developers are telling their fans one of two things. Either they weren't created enough to actually come up with a gripping narrative or they were lazy. This ending type has been used over and over and over again and by big time games, too. There have been Super Mario, Final Fantasy, and Zelda games that have all been a dream. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

#3. You're Left Wanting More Game - I don't mean you want more game, so you can keep on playing, but you want more game, so you get a new ending. Far too many games have ultimately ended like this; the original Borderlands was this way. The point of the story or so players thought was that there was a something called "The Vault" that contained unimaginable treasures and alien artifacts. However, *spoilers* when you got there some giant monster pops out of it and when you killed it The Vault closed, never to be opened again. When credits appeared after Halo 2's ending, many people were hoping that it was just a joke and that there'd be more after the credits; there wasn't. Sometimes I wonder if developers really don't know that these endings are bad? 

#2. Your Character Dies at the End - As in real life there is death in video games and that is to be expected. However, just like in real life we don't want death to fall upon ourselves or those that we care about. When your character permanently dies at the end of a video game it is as if you and a close friend of died simultaneously. While playing a beloved video game character people tend to connect with them and put some of themselves into them; it's why they are beloved in the first place. As a gamer, the last thing that I want to happen is to pour hours into a game or game series only to have my character die. Whether it is a noble death or not, it's still death and death should never be associated with household video game names . . . like "Commander Shepard."

#1. The One That You Wish Was All Three . . . The Mass Effect 3 Ending - *all spoilers* Mass Effect 3's ending(s) did leave players craving more and their characters did die at the end, which is why some of us wish that the entire series was all just a dream. If the game was a dream then we could at least pretend that Commander Shepard was still alive (or didn't exist), that the ending didn't come down to choosing between red, blue, and green, and we wouldn't have to 'rage quit' the game via turning off our consoles in stunned silence. By the time I was nearing the end of the game I had already heard that the ending was infuriating to most, but I had made sure not to find out what actually happened until I played and I hoped that the ending wouldn't be so bad to me. At first I thought,"OK. What just happened?" I was able to remain pretty calm and even though I didn't like the ending, I didn't think that it was earth shatteringly bad, but time changes things. The more I thought about the ending, the more I re-watched the 'various' endings, and the more time I spent thinking about plot holes (like how all of the members of your crew that you can bring into battle were in London, but somehow made it back onto the Normandy) the more I thoroughly despised the ending with a passionate hate that I normally reserve for things in the real world. The biggest reason why the ending was so terrible is because gamers were lied to. We were all promised "A story that diverges into wildly different conclusions based on the player's actions in the first two chapters" and we got the polar opposite. Nothing that players did factored into the 'choice' that they made at the end of the game. None of the three endings or ending cinematics were fundamentally different. Although there are 'three different' conclusions to the series, they all look and feel exactly the same. No matter what players choose, Shepard dies (or at least loses his/her physical form), the Reapers are no longer a threat, the mass relays are destroyed, and the Normandy crash lands on some unknown planet. After receiving flak from thousands of enraged fans, Bioware has decided to work on "Extended Cut DLC" that will "expand upon the ending." Time will tell if anything really changes or if players will be left with a bad taste in their mouthes and tainted memories of the Mass Effect experience. No matter what happens, gamers will not forget the initial ending that they played through and that's not a good thing.