Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 61

Game review: Shinobido 2: The Revenge of Zen

After completing Uncharted: Golden Abyss, I've had bad luck finding a Vita game that I can enjoy as much from the other launch titles. If you read my last post, you know my language problems with Unit 13, and as of this writing Sony still hasn't resolved the problem. This is forcing me to write to them at least once a week to remind them again that I'm still waiting for a patch, for a possible release date for a patch, or for a refund. The last would seem more likely, since they already refunded the game once. But we shall see what happens there.

Since I didn't have much luck with the online store, I went out to the local shop to pick up Shinobido 2: The Revenge of Zen. This meant shelling out 50 euros for a box and a manual, along with some coupon codes for Touch My Katamari and Ridge Racer, two games I wouldn't touch even if they were free.

Getting into the game involves a long, long intro with some really lousy acting. In fact, I may have to stop giving Skyrim shit about its lousy voice acting because of all the shit voice acting I've seen in recent Nintendo and Sony games. The opening story is pretty much standard fare from Japan. In a prefecture called Utakata, war breaks out between 3 daimyo, again. This is just six months after events in the original Shinobodo, but you don't need to know about that to get into this story, because they sum up the whole other game in the opening act.

After you are introduced to Zen's life partner San, she is murdered and set ablaze by Shu the Cypress, who is supposedly a family friend. Zen shows up in time to watch his partner roasting, and to be attacked by Shu and dumped into a river. Except, we aren't allowed to see that part. We're only told that by the dude who claims to have fished Zen out of the river below, a ninja master named Zaji. (This later turns out to be a lie, and in fact, Zaji lies like a rug to suit his own ideals.)

This ninja leader is the sole occupant of Asuka Village, which has been wiped out during the previous war, and now the population count of one is due to the only other two ninjas being away conducting some foreign affairs missions, or something. Zen is asked to stick around and take on missions, which may imply an open world of ninja grinding.

If only. Ten missions in, and I began to realize that I was going to be playing all the variant types of missions in the same locations over and over. My starting point in missions changed from time to time, to give me the sense of variety, but after 30 plus missions, every location is as dull as Zen's katana. It doesn't help that the merchant I'm told to kill or guard or rob is always the same fat guy in different colored robes, always with his head swaying like he's doing a bad Stevie Wonder impersonation. All the enemies share this copy pasta cloning problem, a disappointment since Uncharted made some effort to offer soem variety among the guerrilla forces I was facing. But in Shinobido 2, there's only one enemy model given for each faction. Later levels try to hide this by adding hired ninjas, but these models are even more bland than the common enemies. There's a larger armored ninja in later missions who talks like a borg, and the game flirts the line of plagiarism when the armored dues say shit like "Resistance is useless."

Combat in this game sucks. During the early missions, I felt that this was because the game wanted to emphasize stealth over fighting, but this impression was proved false when some boss fights forced me to use the combat. So I'd go from sneaking around making short one-shot-one-kills to cursing the controls while I tried to find a way to corner a boss and prevent my own movements from defeating me. That's assuming the boss doesn't pull a musket that fires multiple accurate like a semi-auto handgun of a few CENTURIES of development.

And there's also a paradox revealed here about Zen's abilities as a ninja. If you sneak up on someone (not all that hard, considering everyone in the game is partially deaf) and stab them in the back, Zen's sword is good for a one-shot-one-kill execution. But if you try to take a swing at even the lowest level dudes, suddenly, his sword can't kill anyone without a long, long fight. Enemies bleed in copious amounts, but require upwards of 6 strikes to kill. This is assuming you can keep Zen facing the right way, which is easier said then done. Because of the terrible combat controls, it feels like the length of Zen's blade diminishes until he's holding a paring knife. And for boss fights, he swaps out the paring knife for an X-acto blade.

Let's talk about those bosses, some of whom I had to face over and over. The two rival ninjas don't develop any new styles to counter my growing familiarity with their cheap tactics. The "master" of the Kenobe ninjas is depicted as fat and stupid, making it doubtful that anyone would hire him back after his initial failures. But no, every time I defeat him, he just runs away for another fight. So even if I had to cut him 20 or so times with a katana, neither blood loss now nearly two dozen gaping wounds slow him down. And Zen of course lets him run away. Why not just kill the dude, and spare us from anymore of his terrible voice acting? The same could be said of the other nija, a woman who can cast clones of herself, but still can't fight in anything but the same predictable pattern using the same old cheap tactics.

Even knowing I was stumbling into a mess of copy pasta, I decided to commit myself to playing as far into the game as possible, mainly because there is no YouTubing this title to see the ending yet. So, I stayed up overnight, pulling 29 hour all-nighter to play much of the game for an impressive 19 hours straight. In this time, I hunted down and killed Kazayuma, one daimyo, and then another, Ichijo.

You may have a different order depending on which daimyo you choose to serve, but as I didn't like either of the men's reasons for going to war, I chose to side with the priestess of the Amitura order. Well it turns out she's a stock standard religious nut, complete with talk of heaven and hell, and of converting people to her ideals. Which kinda put me in a funk cause I was fighting for the same people I wouldn't associate with in real life. Still, of the three daimyo, her brand of nutter butter was still more appealing than the dick sauce the guys had to offer.

And, y'all regular readers know how I'm a pacifist and generally feel bad even killing on screen enemies unless there's a good reason for it. Well this game seems to hate people like me, because just about every time I'd sneak up on my next victim, they'd say something like, "I guess my wife is sleeping by now." Just…ugh, way to make me despise every kill, no matter how clean or sudden I make it.

Zen doesn't help matters because he's an asshole who only delivers lines with a scowl. He's incapable of any other emotion, and all of his lines are delivered with phoned in quality. He starts and ends every level with pithy comments. At the start, he say one of two things; "A cold wind blows in," or, "All right, let's finish this quickly." At least at the end of a mission he offers a bit more variety with lines like, "This is one flower that blossoms in a bloodbath," or "Life is like a petal, blowing in the wind," or my personal favorite, "I dip my penis in cream, but the cat still won't lick it." (I may have invented that one to relieve my boredom.)

Zen gains another one-shot-one-kill skill called Rankoku, where he is able to suddenly leap much, much farther away than normal, dive bombing distant enemies to deliver a cinematic black and white killing flurry that splashes the screen in red. This is probably to cover up the lousy camera shifts, and it doesn't help that almost every time, Zen says the same thing, "Here it comes." After seeing the same move hundreds of time, I started singing a line from Iggy Pop's Here Comes Success before executing Rankoku, which effectively made Zen my backup singer. Cheap, but effective comedy, which helped me alleviate my growing hand pains as I played through the missions.

After wiping out the army of Ichijo, I attempted to fight him the same way I had the other daimyo, Yamazuma, but the game got real cheap at that point. After fighting through a castles of guards and facing the boss himself, the game informs me that this was actually a double hired to play Ichijo. Another mission is given where Ichijo challenges me to a duel, and I go to the same castle, this time without guards, run all the way up the empty castle levels, and face a harder boss who has no problems using cheap tactics. No other weapons besides my sword will damage him. I laid out 20 landmines and he stepped on all of them, to no effect. So I restarted and just hacked and hacked until he finally fell down…and it's another body double. So then ANOTHER mission says, "Kill Ichijo and take the Mikiri Mirror!" And despite his stats saying he has no more troops, Ichijo still has more guards in his castle. And yes, he uses even more cheap tactics to draw the fight out.

So, I finally kill this harder boss—again, harder because he's even more full of cheap tactics—and when he falls, another boss shows up. She's even cheaper, and once I defeated her after multiple rage filled failures, I was just about ready to give up. I wasn't having fun, and the repetitive game play was just abusing my hands with little reward. I made efforts to learn alchemy and make my own healing potions, but after a while it became clear that herb gathering wouldn't give me any advantages in the boss fights, and none of the items were needed during regular fights. I don't even know why they game me landmines, shuriken, and grenades when all of them are as effective as a moist toilet paper spitball delivered from a short straw at long range.

But I decided to face Shu the Cypress anyway, leading to the dumbest and most painful cinematic scene in the whole game. Then comes the cheap fight to end all cheap fights. Nothing works on Shu. He drinks potions to make himself even stronger, and all fainting or confusion potions thrown at him last for less time than it takes me to close a five foot gap. Landmines are pointless. Grenades are pointless. Zen's sword? drops from the X-acto blade to a dull ball point pen. And even though he doesn't need any extra help, Shu can conjure explosions that will hit Zen, unless he jumps back about ten feet.

I have to point out how the game makes no sense about Zen's power levels versus Shu's. As the story is laid out in the game, Zen and Shu were both ninja guards working for the same princess. Yet right at the start of the game Shu is a sorcerer with amazing powers, and Zen…is a level one nobody. Zaji talks about how Zen is an amazing ninja with magic powers of his own, but those magic powers never show up. Instead, Zen gets Rankoku, which doesn't work against bosses, and a set of spandex wings that allow him to fall slower. You can't even call it gliding because he's dropping like a stone and almost impossible to control. So the difference in your power levels versus Shu's never improve, even after level grinding in endless mission, and yet, both of these characters grew up together in the same ninja village. This is a double whammy of bad writing and cheap tactics to make the game much, much, MUCH harder.

Oh, and did I mention that I'd selected Easy Mode? Yeah. So if the game is this punishing on easy, I'm not even going to bother trying the other settings like I did on Uncharted. (I even attempted some Crushing levels on Uncharted, and no shock, the difficulty setting lives up to its name.) In easy mode, Zen can lay out 20-30 slashes of his sword without killing Shu, and yet, even with me consuming health potions, Shu can kill Zen with three sword slashes. Actually, almost all bosses can do this, taking insane amounts of damage without dropping, and killing Zen with three short strokes over and over. Namco's idea of easy is so twisted and frustrating, and the cheap tactics of the boss fights makes all the level grinding in between just as useless as the alchemy skills and the item shop.

So after playing this same fight with Shu roughly 60 times, I decided that I didn't care how the game ends. I'm sure that after I kill Shu, there's yet another terrible plot twist to drag the game out to a few more missions and boss fights. "Sorry Zen, but your plot device is in another castle" might have been slightly more effective writing than what's on offer here.

So, let me recap: monotonous level grinding in the same dull locations over and over, low level boss fights with no variety, ending with high-level boss fights who take cheap tactics to a whole new level. Marry this with bad acting, a non-story unfolding mostly in text updates, and a series of plot twists so dumb, they made my eyelid twitch, and you have a game that's sure to annoy. I might not have been so harsh if this was priced around 25 euros or lower. But for the asking price of a full-sized console game, what I got was a half-assed effort that left me cussing and complaining long after I pulled the cartridge from my Vita and debated smashing it with a hammer.

There's not even any need for the stealth options like sneaking up on tip-toes or getting rid of the bodies. You can run full tilt to your victim, slide to a stop making a hellacious amount of noise, and they still won't hear you coming. Enemies who find a body look around suspiciously for a few second,s but then go right back to standing around, waiting patiently for you to come and kill them too.

There's no need to learn the games alchemy, or to gather items from the levels. About the only good thing I can think to say is that the unimaginative naming conventions for alchemy ingredients yielded the occasional pothead chuckle from me because I'd gather up some Super Strength Weed, or some Forgetful Weed. And Speed Weed sounds like someone was stepping on my products. Also, I was told I was allowed to rename my alchemy jars, so the only jar I ever used became known as Raven Jar Jar Binks.

But all enjoyment that I got from this game came solely from my efforts to take the piss from it, delivering my own MST3K-like lines to combat the constant monotony that is Zen's world.

If you must play this game, wait until it goes on sale on the Sony Store. Do not pay extra for the box and cartridge, because they will make this an expensive and painful addition to your game library. And while the game's short XP grinding missions might be the perfect length to make a trip on the bus or subway, a dedicated gamer playing through the game on their couch at home is going to be irritated by how little variety is offered for the asking price.

I give Shinobido 2: Zen's Revenge 1 star, and would recommend it to masochists and people who think monotony is the spice of life. For everyone else looking for stealth mission action on the Vita, I'll advise you to wait until Metal Gear HD comes out. That's two portable stealth games that will still give you a better story, better acting, (yes, really) and better fighting options. Zen's Revenge feels like a game only half completed before it was rushed out to make the launch date, and for me it has no replay value. Your mileage may vary.

Revised verdict for the PS Vita…

Well in the course of one week, I've gone from being a potential fangirl for Sony's PS Vita to being a hater. Part of this has to do with my problems with Unit 13, which I wrote to both Sony's US division, and to their Italian techs, and I'm still waiting for an answer back. But the other problem is, I've just bought Shinobido 2, and less than ten missions into the game I feel ripped off. There are only a few locations used over and over for the same repetitive missions, the same character models are used in every level, and the combat controls are terrible. What little dialogue that isn't delivered in text boxes is atrociously bad, being both poorly written and poorly acted.

At first, I was trying not to complain about the lousy combat system, since the game had a one-shot-one-kill method of dispatching common foes. I figured maybe the combat being so awful was like an intentional punishment for me not being sneaky enough. This idea was further bolstered by me picking up a new technique, again, a one-shot-one-kill maneuver. BUT, the first time I ran into a boss, the game put two big shit-covered middle fingers right up my nostrils, as if to say, "Oh, you paid full price for this game? TOO BAD, FUCKFACE! YOU LOSE, AND WE WIN! HAHAHAHAHA!"

See, at that point, you can't target the boss for the newer technique. You can tap the icon, but the attack doesn't even recognize him as an enemy. You can't evade and then sneak up behind him for the other kind of killing blow, because he just grabs your sword. The fucker is armed with a musket that fires like a semi-auto, and that he never needs to reload. AND, if you dare to run away to take him from another angle, the fucker drinks healing potions. The game couldn't be any more cheap in its tactics without the boss being telepathic.

This is one of many launch titles that are awful, and that don't really use the Vita's features. Aside from the second killing technique, all other menus and screens ignore touch input, and the menus are put together sloppy. The whole thing feels like a half-assed effort, but Sony is charging premium prices for this shit, like this is comparable to a PC or console game. It's not. In fact, phone and browser-based games like Angry Birds offer more depth and fun than this.

What's even more irritating is, I played a demo of Gravity Rush in Cannes just a few days before the Vita's launch, a gorgeous game which uses all of the Vita's features in new and unique ways. That's the game I wanted to play on launch day, but Sony pulled a fucking bait and switch, pushing the release of Gravity Rush back to June while pushing out these lousy titles that cost a bundle, but don't feel worth the cost.

I really want to like my Vita, but aside from Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Super Stardust Delta, the vast majority of the games I've bought are repetitive, dull, and have lousy controls. And yet this is Sony's top tier launch lineup? Seriously? It's no wonder the sales on the units do worse as the product gets out to more people. It's because people like me who get burned by awful games go from pushing the console to pushing people away from buying it.

Last week, I was enthusiastically showing my Vita to EVERYONE who I could get to listen, based pretty much on my playing Uncharted and Super Stardust Delta. But then I bought Unit 13, and the game only plays in French if my system language is set to English. After a week of silence, Sony's Italy tech support sent word that they had refunded my money, and that I should buy the game again, at which point, I'd find three files in my download list. Didn't happen that way. I bought the game again, and when I downloaded the only file available on my download list, the installation locked up my Vita so hard, I thought I'd bricked the unit. I finally got the unit to start up, but Unit 13 still wasn't working, and I was forced to restore the system to factory defaults, and then download the system update and all of my games again. And despite all of this trouble, Unit 13 still won't play in English.

Because I got burned by Unit 13, I'm reluctant to buy any other titles online. The higher cost of buying a physical copy means that if a game is a dog, like Shinobido 2, I'm giving Sony extra cash as a reward for tricking me into a bait and switch campaign. They promised premium content for a premium price, but what they gave is lazy efforts that make the platform look unappealing.

I'm still holding out hope for Gravity Rush, and for the Vita version of Mortal Kombat, but at this point, my opinion of Sony's initial offerings is that they're half-baked concepts that do more to hurt Sony than to help them. My opinion could change if the next year brings better games for the console, but for now, my advice is DO NOT BUY A PS VITA. Pretty graphics aside, most of the games have nothing else to offer; not good game play, not good stories, and not anything resembling fun. (The worst sin of all for a video game to make.) Save your money and get yourself more games for your favorite home console, or for your PC. But for now, this portable wet dream has turned into a nightmare, and not because of the hardware. It's because of lazy, greedy game makers who charge way too much for shit, and then pretend like that shit is really gold.

Self-published authors put more effort into their books than these game makers put into their titles, and the self-pub authors charge a lot less for a few hours of halfway decent entertainment. I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated if these games were like 10 euros or so, because then I could just chalk it up to my own bad judgment. But after spending 50 euros, I've got a major hate boner for Namco Bandai because they made absolutely no effort to earn my money. The same goes for Zipper Interactive, makers of Unit 13. And this is exactly why I'm not lambasting the makers of Escape Plan or Mutant Blobs Attack, even though I gave both bad reviews. Those games were priced reasonably compared to what they had on offer.

So, Sony, I know you don't really care what a lowly gamer like me thinks, but here's the unvarnished truth: if you can't pull your heads out of your asses and make some good games for the Vita this year, then it deserves to fail. Making great hardware is meaningless if every game you release is an insult to your market. So think long and hard about releasing more of the same crap at premium prices. And if you must release crap games, at least lower the prices to something more reasonable. Instead of 45-50 euros, consider pricing games at 10-30 euros. Or, make better games that justify their price tag. That could work too.

And for my readers, one more time with feeling: DO NOT BUY A PS VITA. It's a waste of money, and you should wait until there are actually some games worth playing before you invest your cash in this new portable.

Why race NEEDS to be discussed with our kids…

Those of you not following me on Twitter may think that Trayvon Martin's murder doesn't matter to me. But I've been retweeting links from other writers as the story plays out. I've watched in horror as white reporters ask blatantly racist questions to a grieving mother, as a white police chief erases the racism of the murderer to try and make a bullshit claim of self-defense, and as thousands of white people downplay this as "a black problem." And I recall how right after Obama was elected, many of those same white folks declared that we were all over race, and clearly we don't need to discuss it anymore.

But race is not a topic that can ever go away, because all it takes is not talking about it for a few years before white supremacy takes over again. And the sad fact is, whites don't perceive granting equal rights to other races as equality, but rather as a loss of their position in the world. Enforcement of white supremacy is so important, white people will belittle every black issue and ignore reality whenever they can. So even though Trayvon was a good student with better grades than I ever had, his value as a person is limited by the color of his skin.

And to give you an idea about how fucked up some peoples' priorities are, There's mass outrage from white gamers over the ending of Mass Effect 3, which has resulted in Amazon issuing refunds for the game being "defective." (Which is bullshit, but this is so not the right time for that rant.) So white gamers can generate rage over a game not ending well, but they can't generate much give a shit for a child murdered by a documented racist and white supremacist, a man who had formerly assaulted a police officer, and who shouldn't have been allowed to carry a gun, or to appoint himself as a vigilante of his neighborhood. But Zimmerman can do whatever he wants, because he's white.

Y'all remember when I bitched about race last time? Y'all remember white people coming out to lecture me that because white people had poor people too, they couldn't think of the blacks' problems at all? Remember how they told me that because I could think of black people, it meant I had no sympathy for their white plight? Remember how a white trans reader pulled moral superiority games by suggesting that she was more charitable than me, and that I had "abandoned my sister"? Well that's the problem with a lot of whites. They claim to be open-minded, but it's just a lie to hide the fact that they're still racist, still sexist, and still bigoted. They won't take the first step in admitting their ignorance, and will instead claim that they don't have to think about race because "we're past race."

No, we are not past race. Yes, white people are still predominantly racist, and so long as they refuse to talk about race, they and their kids will continue to hold ignorant notions that the loss of the privilege to oppress equals the loss of freedoms. But this is why the internet explodes in outrage over gay sex and bad endings in video games, and not over a Florida police chief covering up the murder of a black child as a favor to a middle-aged white vigilante with a history of violence. Because by acknowledging the inequity of the system, they might have to shut the fuck up about their first world problems and think of someone else for a change. (And really, no one is saying they still can't have their first world problems, just that they might have to devote 1% of their me time to something more important than "defective" writing.)

White parents, talk to your kids about race and racism. Do not assume that they have black friends and know what's up. I've often mentioned this story, but years ago, in my teens, I tried to talk to my cousin about racism. He listened to rap music and watched NBA with a passion, being a huge fan of Michael Jordan. So I felt that he could see where I was coming from. But my cousin met my comments with the assurance, "I'm not racist. I don't have any problems with niggers." And that opened a chasm between us because I realized I could never get him to see how he was still racist, even if he was willing to listen to rap or watch black basketball players. The town he lived in fostered his racism and encouraged it, and any attempts at real education would be rebuffed as unneeded, because real racism no longer exists.

And so long as white people insist that we're past race, we will never reach a state of true equality. It really is that simple. I'd open comments and encourage discussion, but I've already been burned too many times by ignorant people. So take this post as your inspiration to move the discussion to your own private space. If you're a closeted racist, blog about how I just don't understand the white need to dominate. Out yourself as a racist to your readers, by all means. Or maybe try something different and admit that race still matters, and that we all need to discuss this to end the constant devaluing of others at our privileged expense.

Partial game review: I Am Alive

I…you know, in my last post, I just got through saying I didn't want hand holding in a video game, and the very next video game I played grabbed my hand in a vice-like grip and dragged me along, kicking and screaming the whole way. I Am Alive is a game that I wanted to like because many reviewers said it had "gritty realism." BULLSHIT. If you think this game is realistic, you are a severely sheltered and ignorant moron. The game is so awful in every facet that I don't even know where to begin.

Oh wait, yes, I do. In the opening scene, the bland, dulls as fuck hero makes a video for his wife using a camera. He's so boring that I know he gave his name, and I just don't care to remember it, or even to look it up for the purpose of this review. It's not all that important anyway. But so our hero highlights his handgun, what looks like it might be a 9MM semi-auto of some sort. (This is relevant in a moment.) Then he says, "I've never even fired a gun before." BUT HOLD THE PHONE. You mean that a year after a post apocalyptic event that changed the world, this dude NEVER went hunting for food with his gun? He's just been carrying it around, just in case? And if that's so, how come he's got perfect aim from the first shot? Most people I know who fired guns without training jerk the trigger, or don't expect the kick and have the gun fire wild the first few times. When I first fired a gun, my accuracy was so piss poor, I was lucky to still have my shots on the edges of the paper target. But not our so-called "hero." No, he fires sure and true with the first shot.

After he gets a bullet, and this…this is a fucking bit of stupidity that I really can't stand. To get a bullet, you slit this guy's throat. THE INSTANT HE'S DEAD, YOUR GUN IS LOADED. There's a sound effect of a revolver cylinder spinning, and a click of the cylinder being fit back into a revolver. But our hero isn't carrying a revolver, nor is anyone else. Assuming that the gang boss had his one round chambered, (and that everyone everywhere is carrying the same caliber of handgun) to get your own gun loaded, you would have to slide the top of the dead guy's gun to eject the live round, drop your own clip, put the bullet in the clip, put the clip back in, and then cock your gun to chamber the round. But, since the game writers have obviously never fired a gun, all of this happens INSTANTLY.

Most every other video game that you have an empty gun, there's an animation of loading the clip. That's slightly implausible in some games for how fast it happens, but they at least try to concede some precious seconds to giving reality lip service. Not this game. Reality and this game aren't on speaking term. This game doesn't even bother with a loading animation. Slash a dude's throat, VWORP! His bullet teleports into your gun chamber. You don't even have to cock it or pull back the hammer.

Then there's the fact that the bad guys have unlimited ammo. If they fire and miss you, they can fire again, and again, and again. But, if you kill that same dude without him firing a shot, he's only got one bullet. Reality isn't even in the same zip code with this game. I'd compare the writing to lousy lemon fan-fiction, but that would be insulting to bad fan-fiction writers.

You want more? How about using a machete, not to clear brush or overgrown weeds, but to CUT THROUGH PADLOCKED CHAINS holding fences shut. NO. You would fucking ruin the machete, and what you want for this job is a long ass pry bar. Which would have made an effective weapon if the game makers had the hero find one. But our game makers seem to love their machete, even if they never have the hero use it for the real purpose that such a tool is made for.

This is even more annoying during an early scene where my path appears to be blocked by some fucking waist-high weeds, and the dude won't hack at them. Instead, I'm made to go cut a chain, wander around a bit in this stupid invisible corridor and find a back way into the same alley. My dude can only jump when the game makers want him to. He can't step over shin high curbs, or climb over the trunk of an abandoned car. I can climb over the open bed of a pickup truck, but my gimp hero can't. There's no opportunity given to wander or get lost, no chance to avoid gangs by simply walking a different road. This is a game so restricting, it might as well had been a 2D side-scroller for how little freedom it offers to players.

And then there's the issues of stamina. People, I have multiple sclerosis, and I've got better stamina than the weak ass gimp I'm controlling. He can't even climb a ladder without needing to rest. I thought the stamina was going to come into play after he was involved in heavy activities, but instead, even the most mundane shit drains stamina FAST. And when it's less than half depleted, the game starts playing some drum solo shit in the background, like this is going to build tension. Instead, it's irritating, and serves as another reminder that the people making this game are heavy handed with the melodrama.

The worst offense is the fucking hand holding hint system, which is bound and determined not to let me guess at anything. I can't explore five feet off the intended path before a fucking popup says something like "HINT: Go the other way. The story is behind you." If it's not the hint system, it's either my character or someone else telling him where to go. I had a kid strapped to my back, and I DARED to walk five five away from the intended direction. So she says, "No, go the other way. The good places are higher up."

Here, let me give you another example. A dust storm has rolled in, and I'm supposed to head out in this foggy mess to find medicine for that little girl, who is now running a fever. The medicine is in a crate hanging from a crane at the top of a building. I could bitch about the effectiveness of medication stored outdoors in a damaged crate, exposed to the elements for a year of scorching temperatures. That's actually a valid complaint about this so-called "gritty realism." Or I could complain how the same crate with medical supplies also has grappling hooks packed. WTFBBQ?

But no, my problem is, to get to the building I have to climb up, I first must descend from an elevated train track into this foggy dust that's so thick, I can't see the building I'm headed for. For the first time in the game, I was really worried about getting lost and dying from exposure to the dust. BUT NO, I've barely started walking in this hazy soup when my hero says, "I think I can climb that." Then the camera zooms ahead, clearing the dust and sharpening the camera focus so I can see something forty feet ahead of me. It's not the least bit realistic that he should see that, but my real complaint is, the game won't even shut the fuck up long enough to scare me about dying. It has to go out of its way to ruin its attempts at atmosphere.

And, once I'm climbing the building, there's items tucked away in places that don't make sense. A bottle of water is left on a ledge with no access from inside the building. Right next to that is a gun with a bullet. So someone before me climbed up and put these two items out on a ledge…just because? I wouldn't make this a big deal if this were a standard action game, but this is a game which is trying to convince me "this is what it would really be like to be stuck in the post-apoc world." And nothing about this game is what it would really be like. The guy I'm controlling wouldn't survive in the real world because he's got zero survival training, and he's got the stamina of an asthmatic with severe anemia.

And let's talk about bit characters who all cry out for help when you get near. There's roving fucking gangs around every corner, so no, no one in their right mind is going to start shouting "Hello, is someone here?" Even when this is used as a trap, there are TWO other dudes in the same area who also want me to do something for them, both shouting "HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE?! IF YOU'RE IN A GANG PLEASE COME HERE AND KILL ME!" How did any of these people survive a year when they're too fucking stupid to survive ten minutes without me?

I'd forgive most of this other stuff, but there's this goddamn hint system that never goes away. I've slid down a steep incline ten or fifteen times, and yet EVERY SINGLE SLIDE, "HINT: Hold RT to slow down as you slide." I FUCKING KNOW ALREADY, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP. A gang shows up? "HINT: Aim at the guy with the gun first, and if you kill him, his flunkies will surrender." GUGH, WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP?!?! At least let me fail once or twice and die before you get up in my face with unsolicited advice! BUT NO, there's no option in the menus to shut the fucking hints off. To be anymore annoying, I'd need a physical disc to shove up my ass while playing. Possibly wrapped in sandpaper.

I'm not done yet, but I'm not quite ready to quit either. But I have to warn people before I'm done, don't play this game expecting realism, or even a challenge. There MIGHT have been a challenge, if the game would shut up and let me play myself. Because then there would be a risk of me fucking up and going the wrong way.

I'm going to try and finish, but it's going to be a major struggle, especially given that I don't feel anything for the character, his story, or any of the people he meets. Normally, I have some moral problems with killing people in games, but here, I wanted to kill everyone. No, I mean EVERYONE. When I get to the woman being used as bait, the game tells me that I have to find another bullet to shoot off her handcuff, and all I want to do is cut her hand off with my machete. THAT'S how little the game is working to engage me. It gives me so little choice about my path that I'm looking at an innocent hostage as a huge pain in my ass, and I want to do violence to her rather than waste time looking for a way to free her "the right way." By firing a live projectile at her wrist…yeah, okay, what-fucking-ever. I mean, my machete is already cutting through thicker chains binding fences shut, so why not the much thinner handcuff chain? Just, because. (y_<)

The dust in the game seems to me to be hiding how lousy the graphics are, or how all the vehicles are the same cheap ass models. (seriously, if you play, read the number on the first school bus…you'll see the same number after twenty feet on a dozen undamaged, undusty, non-rusted buses.) It could have been genuinely scary to stumble blindly through this toxic cloud, but the game refuses to let me be scared. It refuses to let me feel ANY emotion besides irritation. That's why, even unfinished, I'm giving I Am Alive two stars. It's not so awful that I'd reach for the lowest score ever. It's just so coddling and irritating that playing every sequence feels like a chore my mom gave me when I was wanting to do something fun. Like play any other video game besides this shit.

Difficulty settings and "casual" insults…

So yesterday, I lost my whole day to watching Angry Joe review games. I just wanted to get his take on Kingdoms of Amalur, but that review was so good, I had to keep watching. I don't even know how many reviews I saw, but I do know that at least twice, I risked breaking a rib from laughing. Lots of gamers try to be funny, but end up being cruelly insulting or just lame for trying to be punny with pop culture references. Joe can be funny without being insulting, and in something like 25 episodes, he only goes for a gay joke once. And then his evil bizarro twin called his moustache gay. In a gamer world full of people who can't stop using gay as an insult, Joe's show is like a breath of fresh air…or, he is if you can get over his cussing. Obviously, that shit doesn't bother me any, cause fuck is like my favorite word in the whole English language. (Something that will be shown in the rest of this post.)

And Joe is as passionate about games as I am. So when he hates something, man, he's fucking pissed the same way I would be. When he loves something, he can't stop gushing about what went right this time. Just like me, except he's got that cool moustache going for him. If I had the same moustache, it would just look wrong. (But if I wasn't married, I would so ask him for a moustache ride. Cause Joe ain't no slouch in the looks department.)

I agreed with almost everything Joe said about games. Every time he talked about no character development or lousy writing or acting, I was nodding my head so hard I almost gave myself whiplash. But one place we do not see eye to eye on is difficulty settings, and I need to write a rant on why this issue is my number one pet peeve with some gamer guys out there.

Okay, so like a new game comes out, and it's brutally difficult to play. No, like, even if there is an easy setting, it's not really easy. Game makers could make challenges in the game realistic, but instead they spam the screen with enemies and bullets in this ridiculous copy-pasta assault. There's rarely much variety of the enemies, and there's no AI to speak of. There's not even the semblance of an enemy strategy. The enemies all rush you like waves of suicide bombers, trying to dog pile you and kick you out as soon as possible. There's no time allowed to take in the level designs, the pretty graphics, or the soundtrack. There's just one long crushing line of clones cock-blocking me from enjoying my time in the game. It makes me wonder why game makers spend so much time lovingly crafting their graphics, and then their enemies make it impossible to notice anything going on in the world.

When this kind of game comes out, there's criticism from a HUGE section of the market being pushed out of the games. Then there's the response from other gamers that goes, "Why must every game be easy? Not every game has to be for the casual fans."

FUCK YOU! Fuck you first for calling me a casual fan, like I'm some newbie mom who just got into gaming last year and I'm confused about all those buttons on my controller or some shit like that. I've been playing games since motherfucking PONG, like way before some of you assholes were even born. But that's the fucking problem I'm having with these games. I'm aging, and my hands don't work the same anymore. So that button combo for your favorite hardcore fighting game that you think is SOOOO easy FUCKING HURTS ME.

Second, it's not that hard to make difficulty levels that slow down enemy movement and reaction, or that reduce the number of enemies spawned for each level sequence. In fact, if I ignore how lousy the enemy AI was, Uncharted: Golden Abyss has this system almost sorted out perfectly, even giving a Very Easy mode to go along with their top of the line Crushing mode. (BTW, I played Very Easy after beating Hard, just to see what the difference was. The only mode I can't beat is Crushing, because it crushes my hands.)

When game makers can't be bothered to think of difficulty settings, it shows a laziness of thought on their part, and an unwillingness to let people like me play their games. I'll give a good example. I bought Alice: Madness Returns because I loved the first game. I'd played it dozen of times on all difficulty settings, and I loved the story. And this new game has INCREDIBLE graphics, great voice acting, and some seriously creepy cut-scenes.

BUT, despite all this prettiful, I'm stuck at 28% of the game completed with no desire to play the rest. Why? Because even on easy, there's a fucking monster mini-boss that kills me every. Single. Time. I've looked up a strategy guide, watched YouTube videos to see how other people kill it, and sat through the same sequence for a few hours, and I still can't fucking kill it. And what makes it worse is, being a mini-boss, I know I'll have to face this monster over and over in the later levels. Well, fuck you, Alice developers, but you kicked me out of the fucking game ON EASY MODE.

Hubby is like, "I don't understand why you get so mad about this." I'm sure a lot of gamers don't get this either, so let me explain it this way: imagine that you go to a movie theater, but instead of paying…what is it? Like $9.50 to get in now? Whatever, instead of dropping a ten spot, you're told to pony up 70 bucks to get into this film. You're pissed enough about that, about blowing your whole monthly budget just for one diversion, but whatev, you shake it off and start watching. Maybe you even spring for the extra cost of a popcorn. (the limited edition game with some little goodie added to the box to justify a 100 buck price tag) But like right in the middle of the film, the usher walks up and starts beating the shit out of you, and he says, "If you can't defeat me, you can't watch the rest of the movie." Man, that's just so, so fucked up. And what I'm saying is, with some games, I'm not even allowed to make it to the middle of the story. I got kicked out of Alice so early that I didn't even care to YouTube the rest. (Like I did with Bionic Commando, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and the Win Phone port of the 3DS Assassin's Creed game.)

I'm constantly pissed off by the number of games that don't even try to make a medium difficulty setting. I don't need hand holding, really. I'm not confused by complicated button layouts. I just want to be able to play the game without having to take painkillers for my hand cramps, and oh yeah, I WANT TO FUCKING FINISH THE GAMES I PAID SEVENTY FUCKING EUROS FOR. And with some game makers, their response to criticism about difficulty isn't to release a patch with a new difficulty setting. No, it's to make a sequel that's so fucking dumbed down, it's insulting to the WHOLE MARKET. So it's a joke to "casual" fans as much as it's a slap to the face of so-called hardcore gamers.

Why is it so hard for game companies to admit that there's more than just two types of gamers out in the market? No, instead they decide to make games that focus on just one part of the market, like they just don't want bigger profits. And you know that can't be right. These fuckers love money so much, they'd fucking DLC their mothers if they could sort out digital teleportation. So why do they hate my money, but love the money of the "hardcore" gamer?

I'll give another example, this time a game I was really enjoying up to a certain point, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. In almost all other levels, the makers had a great game that ramped itself to my level of gaming. (Normal mode, FTW.) And yet, there's the fucking chase scenes, which are fucking hard no matter what level you play it on. And it's artificially hard because the game WON'T LET YOU CATCH UP UNTIL A KEY MOMENT AT THE END OF THE CHASE. If you miss that one shot FUCK YOU, DO IT AGAIN. So you have to keep playing the same fucking scene over, and over, and over, and over. After forty times or so, I'm just going to say fuck it and go watch the rest on YouTube. Why should I get myself worked up over one bad part of the game when I loved the rest so much?

But since I am ranting, I should say how fucking insulting it is to me as a woman to listen to Trip whine over and over about how fucking helpless she is. SHE HAS AN EMP PULSE THAT COULD STOP THE RHINO BEFORE IT EVEN STARTED RUNNING, AND SHE SHOULD HAVE FUCKING USED IT. But no, the game makers spit on the female character and turn her into a panicking baby, all so they can make this lousy fucking excuse to use Monkey's cloud in a racing set piece. This is a chick who took down a whole fucking prison ship on her own at the start of the game. But the game makers needed to make her a dumb bitch for this one scene so that once again, Monkey can prove that men know how to get shit done right. Just…FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCK YOU, YOU SEXIST FUCKING PIGS!

One more example, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja. I don't feel as much rage for this one because I bought this used. And while the game companies are all "Arrgh, we didn't make any money cause you bought it used," my response is, "Fuck you, assholes. You didn't fucking deserve my money." Why? Well let's got through this game, and how I got kicked out of it.

I'm introduced to Naruto through this village, and I'm supposed to do little tasks for other people to make them like me. I'm taught how to do a jutsu where Naruto morphs into a hot chick in a swimsuit, and I learn another where I make a twin to punch open doors. That's stupid, but okie dokie, I can handle the task. So far, so good. The village tasks are a little repetitive, but they're not boring, and the graphics are so, so pretty. So I don't mind hunting down coins to help someone open a ramen shop or whatever. Then there's suddenly these bandit fighters showing up, and all of the fights make me feel like I'm struggling to catch up to fighters of better rankings. But I struggle through and rub my throbbing knuckles while I watch the cut scenes that lead up to the next fight. And I beat the bandits, and feel like I accomplished something. Man, this game is great! I'm totally stoked to play this and learn more about Naruto, who I've never read about in his manga, and only saw like one episode out of context a few years back, and that was in Italian, before I knew any words at all. (I'm great at understanding Italian now. I just can't speak it. Pathetic, I know, but there it is.)

But then I get hired to escort a client to his village, and the first fight is this dude who fucking summons a dragon that hits the whole fucking island we're fighting on. Even if I dodge and he never gets a lock on me with his cross-hairs, I still take massive damage. And what have I got to compete with that? A fucking shadow jutsu that makes a few weak ass clones of myself. I'm not even partway through casting that when I'm hit over and over by a fucking sword twice as long as the fucking dude wielding it. (Overcompensating for penis sizes, guys? I think so.) And so, this is like less than one percent into the game before the game makers say, "Fuck you lady, and get the fuck out of our game. You don't deserve the privilege of seeing the rest of our game."

Now if I paid seventy euros to the game maker to be treated like this, I would be livid. Instead, I paid five euros at a gaming con. And that's not so bad. I mean, I got pushed out, sure. But I didn't have to break the bank and then get told that I'm not worthy of taking part in this experience.

Again, it's not that hard to change the difficulty of a game by just changing a few parameters. You don't have to rewrite the script or make a whole new level. You just have to slow down the enemy fighter a little so that I feel like I have time to pull off a combo. (Or just give me enough time to throw a punch or block.) It's not that hard to reduce the number of on screen enemies in a side scrolling platform, or to reduce the spray of bullets made by a boss in space shoot 'em ups. Lots of games do this without difficulty, so when a game maker doesn't do it, it shouldn't be celebrated as catering to a certain market. It's just laziness and an unwillingness to recognize that some older gamers are starting to develop arthritis or repetitive motion syndrome after years of button mashing in these hard as fuck nightmares.

And this is why now I feel so much trepidation about picking up new games, because even if something is getting glowing reviews from the twenty-something game reviewers, there's still a risk that I can spend 70 euros only to be kicked out in the opening act on "easy mode."

And gamer guys, you need to develop some fucking empathy for other people in your hobby. You get all pissy whenever anyone suggests that your precious game have levels of difficulty that make the game more accessible. No one is suggesting that the game shouldn't have a hardcore or nightmare mode to appease your blood lust, and I don't want the game so easy that I could play one-handed. I just don't want to be kicked out of a game I paid for, and I don't want to hear you insulting me for getting older.

When I was your age, I was fucking dominating FPS games on harder modes. I loved the challenge, and I loved that feeling of accomplishment after cracking a tough level. But I'm nearing my forties, and my hands can't handle that shit anymore. In fact, I can't even do multiplayer online FPS now because my hands can't take the strain of a single match, much less a full night of battles like I used to do. This is why single player matters to me, and it's why games that ignore single player in favor of multiplayer modes stopped appealing to me.

One day, you too are going to grow old, and when it happens, you'll start to notice how many games shove you violently out of their play space. You'll also notice how the younger gamers sneer at you for not having "skills" anymore. And that shit will be just as infuriating to you as it is to me.

I am not a casual gamer. I am not confused by my gamepad, and with a game like Forza 4 or Uncharted: Golden Abyss, I can hang tough all the way up to the higher difficulty modes. So don't confuse me with your mom playing Peggle, or with your little sister playing Top Model Makeover. And what's more, stop fucking sneering at female gamers who don't share the same interests as you. There's room for all kinds of gamers in this market, and your attitude is some straight up chauvinistic bullshit.

Game makers, you can work just a little bit harder on your games to make them more accessible without dumbing them down for all players. Lots of games have done this without problems, and that's equated to more sales because the game isn't catering to a niche in the game market. If you can't be bothered to do it, it shouldn't be a mark of pride that your games are difficult. Because it's nothing more than laziness on your part, and it's denying you the profits that you claim to want so badly.

I want to close this out by talking about how many games I buy, so that maybe I can speak in a language everyone understands: cash. I got my Xbox in July, and since then, I've bought eleven new games at full retail, and seven games through second hand markets. I just bought the PS Vita, and already, I've bought five games. Two of those games were the upper price range, and one game, Unit 13, I can't play because the game makers won't allow me to choose English as a language. If I select English as my system language, the game play in French. So just to have half a chance at playing, I have to switch over to Italian, and then the static radio sound effects over the dialogue mean I can't understand half the words in my relayed mission instructions. I have to play by guessing at what I have to do, and that's bullshit caused by an arbitrary choice not to allow the Italian market's English speakers to play the game. So that's the entire population of US and UK ex-pats told by Sony, "Fuck you, you aren't allowed to play this game." (And this is why I can't be a fangirl for Sony, because of arbitrary corporate bullshit like this.)

Usually, I bought second-hand because the game is old, and yet the game store still wants forty euros for a new copy, despite the game being three or four years old. There's not even a multiplayer community left, so the only thing I can use the disc for is the single player. And yet, there's almost no attempt to discount these games and try to sweeten the deal a bit. That's because game corporations want to squeeze every last fucking dime from us gamers, and fuck us if we have other concerns like bills, dental visits, or a strange desire to eat food that isn't ramen. Crazy, I know, but some of our money can't go to games. But when I do decide to plunk down 70 euros, I want it to feel like money well spent, like I did after buying Portal 2; a game so awesome, I bought it twice; once for my PC, and then again for my Xbox.

Are you listening, game makers? I said I bought Portal 2 twice, at full retail, and I had no complaints about spending 140 euros for two copies of the game. Why? Because the game is so fun, I didn't even think about the cost. I just knew I wanted to play the same game on my big ass TV in the living room. So Valve made their money off of me, and I didn't feel cheated, like I did with Alice: Madness Returns. And what about those seven used games? Almost all of them kicked me out early on. (The exception was Mini-Ninjas for Xbox, which I just recently beat on normal mode. But I'd already bought that game on Steam, only to be kicked out for another annoying reason: the PC version was buggy as fuck and kept crashing. No, fucking Ubisoft never released a patch on Steam to correct those crashes, and yes, I loved the game on the Xbox because it let me play without constant crashes.) I wasted my money buying them at all, but I didn't feel as pissed off about that because I didn't pay so much. I made a smaller investment because I felt the titles were risky, and I was right to be wary. But, I don't hate these game makers with a burning white hot passion. Yeah, it sucks that I got kicked out early. But I only spent 5-20 euros to "get in," and I don't feel as mad when the game makers kick me out.

So, can we please think about skill levels as something more than an afterthought? Please? And, can gamers with mad skills stop spitting on other players just because we also want to enjoy the story and graphics instead of the lightning fast game play? One of these days, you're going to get old, and then you'll be shut out of the hobby you love so much. But that won't hurt nearly as much as the lack of empathy you get from the next generation of self-centered entitled little boys who think the whole fucking gaming universe should revolve around their needs.

There's a much larger hobby around you, kids. So open your eyes and your ears, and stop acting like your money is more important than mine. Because frankly, your money is probably taken from your parents, and you don't have to think about wasted investments. After you have to pay bills, buy groceries, AND THEN sort out how much is left over for your hobby, you'll begin to understand why being kicked out of a new game is the worst kind of insult. And maybe then, you'll also grasp why "casual gamer" is almost as loaded and divisive a term as "that's gay."

Why consoles and portables ain't going anywhere any time soon…

To hear some people tell it, the console and portable video game markets are DHO_OMED because Apple and Android also play games. While I could go for an easy pun about comparing Apples and oranges…okay, I just did. Never mind. The thing is, people making these statements are misguided fans of the mobile gaming platform who are failing to recognize some basic truths.

First of all, touch screens suck for controlling complex games. This is not to say there are not genres that can use a touch screen well, nor to suggest that all touch screen games suck. But when it comes to controlling a character in 3D space using a touch screen, the results are less than desirable, nor do they convince me to give up physical controls any time soon. I love buttons and analog sticks too much to part with them, yo.

I've played several games on my Win Phone, and I've sampled a number of iPad and Android games while hanging out at Fnac and Saturn. Saturn has a cafe with a bank of tablets out for users to sample the goods while sipping coffee or munching a sandwich, and so I've had a chance to play with games on both capacitive and resistive touch screens. Even with better sensitivity on those resistive screens, there's all kinds of times when a game didn't recognize the right input, resulting in my character's untimely demise.

On games like Assassin's Creed for the Win Phone, users are given a direction pad and standard buttons. But if I had a nickel for every time a button press didn't work, I'd have an impressive stack of nickles. And even increasing the size of the direction pad and moving it to the side of the screen instead of the lower corner, I still had hell trying to get poor Altair to walk slowly in a straight line. He either ran flat out, or he wandered like a drunk. And lest you think it's just the Win Phone, I watched YouTube walkthroughs of players on the iPad version, and clearly, they were having similar problems. The problem isn't one of sensitivity, it's one of failing to imitate haptic feedback. And until they can work out the use of micro-vibrations to simulate "bumps" on a flat surface, this lack of haptic feedback will always hinder certain kinds of games in the mobile market.

Let's talk about driving or other racing games using tilt to steer. If you let the game handle the brake and gas, what you get is a lame gaming experience that strips away any sense of immersion or even of mild enjoyment. If you add touch controls for gas, brake and nitro, very often the game fails to recognize touch gestures. And tilt steering, while sometimes fun, is not the same as using a physical controller in Forza 4. It can still be fun, but it's a vastly different kind of gaming experience.

There really is no risk of the phone game market overtaking consoles and portables for now. This is not to say that the mobile gaming market doesn't have anything to offer gamers. There's lots of great tablet and phone-based games. But none of these are going to convince me to give up my Xbox in favor of my phone games.

I think the biggest problem with this issue is, some fans get attached to a certain platform, and then everything else is just crap that can't hang with their precious toy. I've seen this same "Only one can survive" mentality with people on either side of the ebook VS print debates, and no matter how often someone points out that print and ebooks can both exist as separate markets, there's always someone ready to declare one side or the other as the superior market that will survive and stand the test of time. (For the record, I own an e-ink ereader, and I still buy print books and go shopping at local stores. In some cases, I have both an ebook copy and a print copy of the same titles. That's because while I love e-ink sometimes I still prefer to read a paperback.)

So the real problem isn't with any of the platforms. It lies in fandoms who are unwilling to admit that other markets or platforms are equally good. It's an intentional lack of empathy that serves no useful purpose, not even as a recruiting tool.

Look, I've got a Vita, and I have no desire for the 3DS. To me, the current game lineup just isn't that enticing. BUT, when I was at Cartoomics, I couldn't turn around without finding someone huddled over their 3DS, lovingly tapping the stylus on the lower screen while their gazes were locked on the upper screen. I saw the lines of 3DS fans waiting to try out the next crop of games on the available demo units. And yes, I got in those lines and gave the games a chance. I found some of them to be okay, and in particular, I really liked Super Mario 3D Land. So for this reason, I'm not ready to declare that the Vita will crush the lead that Nintendo has developed after their price drop on the 3DS. (Also, Sony Italy's infuriating lack of customer support is making it damned hard to be a drooling fangirl right now.)

People, we need to get people over this habit of turning every single topic into a constant debate where one side or the other must capitulate that they are using "a dying format." This kind of Us VS Them debate is bad enough when it's something like religious folks VS Atheists. but when you see this same level of religious zealotry from gamers, it's pathetic.

So, to close with a recap, yes, I know the mobile gaming market is growing up and is cranking out lots of great games. I've had a chance to play some of those, and I'm looking forward to a bright future of mobile gaming options for when I forget my Vita or leave it at home for some reason. But I don't believe that the rising wealth of one game market instantly translates as ailing health for other markets. I think anyone suggesting this is misguided by their fandom leanings, and I wish more gamers would just enjoy their preferred platform without going out of their way to spit on other platforms.

In short, grow up, guys.

An open letter to Sony's customer support…

I've had a problem with one of the games I bought for my Vita, Unit 13, which will not play in English. When I set the system language to Italian, the game plays in the right language. But when I set my system language to English, the game plays…in French. For as dreadful as my Italian is despite living years in the country, my French is even worse. So this is not ideal. I wrote to the US support, and got back a reply directing me to Sony's Italy customer support division. I wrote to them and got no answer, and I pasted the same message into the Italy support forum and had hubby write a direct translation. I got a flippant answer there. So, this is my second attempt at getting help for my problem, and I've decided to make this an open letter. If I get back an answer, I'll post an update here as well. Why? Because if some of you were still on the fence about getting a Vita, I feel you may want to know how the customer service experience is. So, here were go:

Megan,

I'm going to be sending this email to you, and to as a CC to the email you gave me for Italy's support, whom I have written to with no answer. I'll also be posting this as an open letter on my blog. In any case I wrote the same message that I'd sent to the US on the Italy support forum, with my husband writing a tanslation. There, the technician said that the company has made the choice to region lock Unit 13 and restrict English from the list of choices. Then the technician made light of my problem and said (In italian,) "Just play the game in Italian." (Folllowed by a flippant winking smile emoticon, which was even more infuriating.)

In spite of my anger at being ignored, I tried that, and I can't play Unit 13 in Italian. I can't understand what the mission objectives are, and I'm stumbling blindly through the first level of the game. Not because it's hard, but because I can't understand the language. This is very frustrating, and what makes it worse is Sony's apparent failure to recognize that the UK, all English speaking countries, are part of the EU. Sony's Italy support in the forum has also made it clear with this one response that they don't care about my problems. And the email address you gave me has made no response at all.

So, I need to make myself more clear in the hopes that something will be done to resolve this problem without me just giving up on the Vita less than a month after I bought it. This would be a shame, because I love the hardware and really would like to be a loyal customer. I'm just asking for a small show of support to gain that loyalty.

Sony has been saying in press releases online that they don't want casual gamers who buy only one game every few months, or who only buy games when they're deeply discounted. Fair enough, and I can understand your company's concerns for making this new platform a financial success. In this first month, I have purchased five games, three of the cheaper and shorter indie games, and two premium titles. I bought Uncharted at Fnac along with my pre-ordered Vita, and I've since made those four other purchases from Italy's online store. For all intents and purposes, I am the gamer you claim to want.

One of my main reasons for buying the Vita was the number of reviewers saying that I could buy any game from any of the online stores, regardless of country, and then play them in my language of choice.With only one exception, the other games respected my language choice. Even the Italian version of Uncharted respected my choice. When I wrote to Sony via their support forum to point out this problem, their response seems to be that they are okay with one game being region locked when all others are not.

Feeling unsatisfied with Sony's response, I tried to find a way to contact Zipper Interactive. But their site refers me right back to Sony for tech support. Megan, your message as the US Sony representative was, "That's not our problem, so contact someone in Italy." I've made two attempts at contacting Sony here in Italy, and the email response is dead silence, while the forum response is a flippant answer that ignores my problem outright as if this is no big deal. So, even though I'm the gamer you claimed to want shopping in your stores, the company's customer support is already making it clear that you don't care if I walk away mad.

Megan, I hope that instead of replying to me with another "Sorry, not my problem" response, you will forward this message to your manager, and that they will in turn forward this to someone higher up to sort this mess out. As I've paid for a copy of the game and cannot use it, perhaps Sony could clear me to have a UK or US copy of the game? Failing that, perhaps the Italian store could update their version of Unit 13 so that UK English is one of the language options. Both of the premium games have already had patches, so I know it is possible to fix a mistake after the game is launched.

This choice to deny me a language option is a mistake, even if you won't acknowledge it. But if you choose to ignore me, then you are turning away the very kind of gaming customer that you claimed to need for your success. So please, consider this before you pass the buck again and wash your hands of me. Assuming you do forward this on to someone else, Thank you in advance for your time.

Sincerely,

Zoe E. W.

Turn out the lights, the party's over…

So…this is going to be a familiar tune to regular readers, so if you want to skip this, feel free. Last night, I wrote to the folks at NBP to ask when my name would be added to the list of authors on the blog. This morning, I was informed that I'm not really an NBP author, and therefore won't be listed on the blog. This also means the blog won't be listing my releases.

I'm not complaining about this, but it does upset me how my author page has books by NBP authors in every flavor of porno kink possible, and yet, I'm not good enough to be listed among these people on the blog. I also want to note that this is why I'm no longer with Smashwords, because while Mark Coker is willing to stand up for the authors of rape, incest, and bestiality porn, he still felt he had to ban three of my titles for being "illegal". I'm not good enough to be a Smashwords author, and now, I see I'm not good enough to be an NBP author either. Which is par for the course at this point. I was never good enough to get attention from my parents, teachers, or any of my friends and family either. So why I should expect anything different from complete strangers, I dunno.

Needless to say, I'm in a deep depression, and not even a trip to Cartoomics has done much to change this. I faked happiness while wandering the stalls, but as soon as I left, I started thinking again about this. I wasn't good enough for Belfire to carry my only book with them, and even though I continued to promote their titles and authors, when The New Bedlam Project anthology was released, my stories were dropped from the collection there too.

I'd hoped to at least use my blog to talk about important issues to me, but online, the discussions most important to the moral majority focus on whether women are really human beings or just cattle to be owned by men. I wanted to talk about racism, and I was lectured for not caring about the plight of white people. I wanted to talk about child abuse, and I was labeled a pedophile. I've been accused of promoting deviant values, and that's pretty much the opposite of what I'd intended. I've had friends abandon me despite my continued support of their efforts, both financial and personal. Everything I did, it didn't mean a thing, and just about everyone cut me loose without a second thought. I was never a real friend, no matter what may have been said between us before. And now that the winds have changed direction, all those fair-weather friendships have drifted on to other places.

It's been almost four months since I was able to sit down and write with any consistent quality, and lately, everything I write, I hate. Not because it's bad, but because I know I can't sell it.

No one can really say this is the results of my last series, because my releases were being ignored long before I wrote Peter's book. Every release has been a failure, and I'm tired of asking people to give me a chance, only to end up with the feeling that I'm shouting into a void.

Those of you who bought books and gave me a chance may be wondering "What else did you want from us?" Nothing. You gave me a chance, and some of you made efforts at promoting me. I can't ask for more than that, and I appreciate your support. But the fact is, nothing I wrote made a fandom. After striking out this often, I've got no enthusiasm left to promote my work, or to create new material. So by my reckoning, it's time to quit.

I've said this before, and I'll repeat it; I do plan to one day finish Peter's series, and I'll try to finish All Maid Up. But right now, I'm giving up on all my writing, and I'm just walking away. I can't say how long it will be before the muse and I can work together on finishing these two project. I just know that right now, I have no desire to write, or to promote my titles.

I'm going to delete the Immature Adults blog. Despite early enthusiasm from a few authors, no one offered any guest posts, nor has there been any further submissions, aside from a couple of titles about cutters and rapists. Which is so, so not what I was talking about when I came up with the idea.

I'm going to delete The Marriage of Jason and Julie blog, and unless traffic picks up on the All Maid Up blog, I'm going to erase it and just move the archives over to my main blog. Lastly, I'm going to reduce my time on Twitter. It really doesn't matter if I spend all day cracking jokes or ranting about whatever, because nobody is paying attention to me. That was made painfully clear this week when followers were asking me why I was upset with Smashwords. They never saw my days-long rants, and don't really bother going to my profile to catch up.

I guess the scope of my blogging will be limited now mostly to reviews of other peoples' stuff, be it books, video games, or music. Despite my failures at gaining support for my own art, I would rather not give up on promoting other artists. It's not their fault that I'm not good enough to gain an audience, or that I'm not worthy of being listed with other authors. It's nobody's fault but my own for not being good enough, and I accept that.

I guess I will continue to put up titles on NBP, so then at least I can have another vendor to offer my titles through besides Amazon. In the future, I may even try to find other vendors to carry some of my titles. But aside from a few listings, I don't plan to promote anything. I'm just rehashing pitches that didn't work before, and like I said, I've lost the ability to fake enthusiasm for my work.

So, the show is over. Thanks to those of you who gave me a shot, and to the rest, well, I tried to reach you, and I failed. At this point I feel it's time to cut my losses and do something that doesn't crush my soul on a daily basis.

On fandom entitlement…

Before I get all ranty and/or rambly, I need to give a bit of personal history where you see where I'm coming from. Some of you know that I've just recently returned to console gaming after roughly a decade playing only PC games. I've never stopped being a gamer, but for a long time, I couldn't afford to be a console gamer and still pay for book covers and other writing related services. Actually, I still can't, but since I've scaled back my writing operations, the cost of consoles is now within my meager budget once again.

I'm a gamer in more than one sense. Before coming over to the Xbox360 and PS Vita, I've had an original Pong console, an NES, a SNES, three Game Boys, a Game Gear, and a Playstation. During my childhood, I sank a lot of tokens into arcade games, and I was always picking up new Tiger LCD games. In addition to these varied electronic diversions, I've been a role-play gamer and have played in many fantasy and sci-fi settings. I've been an ongoing fan of Magic cards, and briefly got caught up in the Pirates card game before they got stupid with the constant updates. I can even be talked into playing board games if there's enough players around to make it fun. (I don't care if the box says two can play. Two players for any board game usually makes it a "bored game". Add just one more player, and the whole dynamic changes because "cutthroat" behavior begins popping up somewhere around the middle of the game.)

What I'm saying is, I'm not some neophyte approaching gaming for the first time. I'm just getting back in touch with my nerd roots, even if some of my roots are turning grey by now. So I hope other gamers will not take this as an outsider talking down to them, but as a fellow gamer expressing their opinion.

So, if you're a gamer, you know that Bioware made a "polarizing ending" to Mass Effect 3. Fans would use other words, possibly something like "crap ending." I went online to watch the various endings, and wow, that is some truly shitty shit right there. Even the good ending is shit. In a game where the player is given so many choices that affect the plot on a fundamental level, the lack of choices for the endings is disappointing people, and rightly so. But this wouldn't be so bad if at least one ending didn't foster an instant WTF reaction. But even the good ending is a major WTF for the sheer impossibility of it. So that lack of choice and the multiple lousy endings is like a one-two combo punch to fans.

I'll agree with players that the endings suck. I also want to say that I think Bioware has failed to grasp why people were playing their games. When you come to the end of a game trilogy this expansive, you want to have some sense of accomplishment to counter your melancholy that it's finally over. You want to beat the bad guys, get the girl, and ride off into the sunset. But without giving spoilers, most of the endings seem to be Bioware's way of saying, "Fuck you for spending $200 on our series." This sum is assuming you just played the games and didn't buy all the DLC expansions, books, and the comics. If you shelled out dough for the extras, you're out for a much higher sum to get this middle finger shoved in your face. On top of this, the Bioware executives are saying, "We HAD to finish the series this way, or you might forget about us." What a crock of shit.

I haven't spent a dime, and I'm already pissed at Bioware for this attitude. So I totally, 100% get fan anger over these lousy endings. What I cannot get behind is this push to change the game to suit the players. It's one thing to say the ending sucks and that you won't buy the next Bioware game, even if such a statement is unlikely to be true. (Lots of gamers say they won't support a vendor, only to switch stances as soon as a new game has teaser screenshots come out. Gamers have the same resistive willpower as a pothead does against a batch of freshly baked brownies.) But to suggest that Bioware owes you a better ending is a level of fandom entitlement that sets my teeth on edge. (Assuming I'm wearing my dentures, of course.)

The fact is, Bioware doesn't owe you a damn thing, aside from the product that you already voluntarily paid for. It's not like you didn't know this was coming, with the game script having been leaked ages ago. To suggest that they owe you some missed gaming pleasure is to suggest that all stories should only being emotionally satisfying, and that anything less should be changed to reflect the audience's desire for maximum satisfaction. And really, why would any creative team cede that much control over to the audience?

As a writer, I certainly wouldn't change the ending to any of my stories just because what I wrote upset readers. Sometimes, my whole point is to get under your skin and upset you. I frequently market this dark facet of my writing, so I'm not trying to trick you into thinking you'll be reading Mary Poppins only to pull a bait and switch over to Amityville Horror. (Also, my intros are usually pretty blunt about what you're walking into, so the endings shouldn't be a surprise.)

I see some folks making a petition to change the ending, and they are saying on their site "We are not acting entitled." Yes, you most certainly are, and frankly, it's pathetic to watch, even if you did generate $28,000 for a children's charity. That was a nice touch, but you coulda donated that money without attaching it to an entitled request that Bioware make a do-over to please you. Plus, it's kinda scummy using sick kids as a shield for your cause.

Based on the fan reaction to the various Mass Effect 3 endings, I will not be buying any of the series. I see no reason to invest in a story when the conclusion is guaranteed to be unsatisfying. So in this regard, Bioware has cost themselves gamers like me who might have invested in the older games, bu now won't because we know the company can't be trusted to deliver a satisfactory ending. But then again, I've not seen anything from Bioware that got me excited enough to plunk down my money. My stance isn't a boycott based on one game so much as my continuing "meh" reaction to the quality of writing in all Bioware games. For all the pretty graphics they spend millions to develop, it feels to me like Bioware hired a monkey to shit in a typewriter, and whatever dried shit flecks resembled words, that's what they used.

In fact, it's the shitty writing I see used in most games that makes me wonder how companies can continue to push the myth that the gaming market is maturing. It's even more frustrating to watch the bubble that game executives live in, as in the assholes responsible for Skyrim gushing about the arrow to the knee line becoming an internet meme without acknowledging that the meme was criticism for their unimaginative and repetitive writing methods. And to some extent, because of this, I really do understand gamer rage over this lack of accountability. A game company releases a game to howls of outrage, and then can't admit that they've released a dog. Or if they do, it's long after play testing is done, as with the lousy bosses in Deus Ex: Human Evolution. The best we can hope for from some game companies is "Ooops, sorry about that." And the worst we can get is, "Thanks for all the kind feedback! We're glad you're so vocal about our game!"

But you can't go back and unfuck a lousy game just by changing a few lines of the script or the code. What fans are asking for is a major retooling of the game and the script, requiring new voice acting sessions as well. That's a few million in salaries and studio fees to change the game to suit you, and you folks will expect that update to be free. Plainly put, there's no incentive for the company to make that update for you. It's better for them to move on and hope the next game will be received better by fans.

So, what can you do about this? Don't buy Bioware's next game. Put them out of business and teach everyone involved that it is not wise to burn fans with a shit ending to their trilogy. All those people who get fired will remember this as they move to new studios, and they'll worry more about whether the story is as satisfying as the graphics.

This, obviously, won't happen. Remember, gamers have little resistive willpower, so all it takes to break a boycott is a little mea culpa and a few new shiny screenshots of their next game. Voila, all is forgiven, and the company will continue to produce crap writing and call their lipstick-decorated pig a masterpiece. You can't change this by demanding a do-over on past games, and you cannot punish a company without first giving up on their next titles. If you can't resist Bioware's next title, it isn't their fault for giving you more of the same shit. They're operating on the simple guidelines that if this shit sold well last time, it should sell well in a new game too. And they're right, because gamers never give up on a company.

You want this shit to stop? Then close your wallets and don't buy the next Bioware game, no matter how awesome and shiny it looks. Be sure to write to the company and make it clear that you are a past customers who is boycotting their next game for their past mistakes. Make them aware of their shortcomings in a civil manner. But don't whine that you want a do-over. It's no more likely to happen in gaming than Hollywood is likely to re-shoot the ending to a film due to poor audience reception. This kind of demand is a sign of massive egocentric entitlement, and nothing you say will change this fact. So if you can't boycott Bioware's next game, stop whining about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and get on with playing something else. Life is too short for you to waste breath talking to people who live in a bubble.

First releases with NBP…

In my absence, I've been working to update some of my books and send them to No Boundaries Press. Today, I can tell you about my first round of titles through my new vendor. In this first set I've re-released The Lesser of Two Evils, Little Monsters, The Sole Survivors' Club, Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies, Peter the Wolf, and Dogs of War (Peter the Wolf, book 2). If you'd like to keep up with my releases, you can either bookmark my author page or subscribe to the NBP newsletter to follow all of NBP's new releases.

New updates on these titles will be uploaded to Amazon today, so if you're waiting for the revised Kindle version The Sole Survivors' Club, just wait until you see the cover change. That should happen sometime tonight or tomorrow, so you won't have to wait long.

And once again, I apologize for the inconvenience to y'all as I make this transition. Thanks for your patience, and for your help in these shaky and uncertain times. Many time in the last few months, I've reached the point of wanting to give up and just pull all my titles, and only the encouragement of y'all kind folks has kept me going. So, thanks for offering that support when I need it the most.