If you don't agree with this you must be a corporate ass-kisser...

And while i'm on a non-game specific bent i may as well get my feelings about another phrase:

Angry Internet Men.

Whoever invented this phrase (i have a feeling it was someone over at RockPaperShotgun!) needs to go and hide away from humankind forever. Originally it was supposed to be a term for the most extreme people who overreacted and could not be logically reasoned with in any way, shape or form.... these people are just stereotypically angry and there's nothing anyone can do about it to shut them up or for them to really make much sense.

The phrase has evolved into a sort of derision or dismissal of any argument that goes against 'the establishment'. Complain about LAN functionality being removed from Starcraft 2? You're an AIM. Be annoyed by erroding consumer rights in the games industry? You're an AIM. Complain about Diablo 3's lightness and wow-gayness? You actually are an AIM - that's a legitimate use of the phrase ;)
Like the terms "ad hominem" (often AIM is an ad hominem) and "straw man" it's begining to get carted out during any discussion that has an argument against those in authority or control - regardless of whether the situation warrants the use of those terms. People use them to try and blindly discredit and undermine the arguments of their opponents by sowing seeds of doubt in third parties on the legitimacy of the arguments.

It seems like anyone who rails against a decision these days is a "whiner" or an "angry internet man" in the eyes of fans or the general public.... from the eyes of the publishers and developers they are "pirates". In response to the questions of 'Why no LAN option?' in StarCraft 2 the posted message just reads as a literal - if you want LAN then you must be a pirate - so stop leeching off of society and buy our game, no questions asked.

We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.

If I were to buy StarCraft II or any other title, I know the money I spent would be going to supporting that title. Personally, I would be upset that others were freeloading while others are legitimately supporting a title that has great potential and goals of making this title have 'long legs.'

If you like a song a lot, buy it, and that artist will only come out with more awesome songs for you. If you like a game, buy it, and we will promise to constantly work to make the player experience better at every corner we can.

Support the causes you believe in (This is applicable to all things, not just gaming).
Don't be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations.


Similar intonations have been made by various figureheads throughout the gaming industry whenever DRM schemes have been questioned. Frequently it's a case of, "The people who care about DRM must be pirates and the rest who don't, don't care because they don't know about it."

Don't you just love arguments that rely on cultural division between 'them' and 'us'?

Get. Over. It.

Three little words and yet i find them so offensively callous and childish in their nature and use. Someone typing or spitting these little mouth bullets thinks they're being cool and tough..... like disdaining someone's choice or reason for upset and confusion is a reason to be proud.

"You hurt your knee when you fell over? Well, get over it."

"Gamers may suffer some kind of identity crisis as the familiar markers of their beloved niche evolve – or disappear entirely. The solution to that one's easy: Get over it."

"You are finding it hard to deal with an ex dating one of your long-term friends? Get over it..."

These three little words speak to me on one level and tell me everything that is wrong with society on an empathic level. 'Getting over something' isn't a solution nor is it something you can choose to do. It's not a switch or a mechanism or a mindset or an ideology. You have a problem? You work it out, you try and understand why you have a problem or you analyse what you're feeling or thinking. The solution might be that you come to terms with that thing in your own way - you assign values to items, people and possessions and you can equally easily redefine those values thus changing their significance and thus impact on your life. However, the solution might not be to do that - it might be to keep being the way you are, to keep thinking the way you do or to keep feeling the things you feel.... even if that means that you do not like the 'new thing'.

It's okay to dislike things, you know? You don't have to agree with everyone or everything. You don't have to adhere to every rule, spoken or unspoken..... to sit back and watch the night draw in. Some people get up and turn the light on - not because they are afraid of the dark but because they do not want to sit in darkness.

'Get over it' is the phrase uttered by those who don't care, who don't want to know and frankly couldn't care less about it as long as they never had to hear about it again. They don't want to deal with it and thus, in an ironic turn, they will never 'get over it'.

E3: The Startening...

So E3 has kicked off and it's already more exciting, more disappointing and overall just more than last year's smaller conference - at least in the online reporting department.

Things that i think are of note:

• Splinter Cell Conviction - more action but looks like good fun, less frustrating stealth.
• Crackdown 2 - AWESOME!! Though i wish they'd have stuck with the original style of cell shaded graphics than go for 'full, gritty realism'.
• Alan Wake - release - 2010. Looks more actiony than previous coverage would have hinted at. Resi-frame (because the light seems to be a mechanic of weakening the enemies) or maybe more accurately "Silent Frame" because i think you can still move when you're firing. I think it'll be a solid rental but i'm not sure about its moodiness quality.
• Shadow Complex - Looks awesome... a 'free roaming' metroid style 2D platformer.
  
• Left 4 Dead 2 - seriously?! WTF?!! Released on Nov 17th for 360 and PC.
  

It's this last item that i'll spend the rest of the post ranting about. First off, it seems like a ridiculously short time period for a sequel from the meticulous Valve for one of their games. Secondly, it's only been a year since the first game was released - without a large portion of the promised content which has been rectified but the few maps available and the survival mode don't necessarily add up to the full price i paid for entry.
The most annoying information to come out of the event (actually over at the rock, paper, shotgun site) is that the Left 4 Dead campaigns will work in L4D2. Why not vice versa? Why isn't this new content (which really isn't much more of an upgrade to the game any more than the Half Life Episodes are to Half Life) compatible with Left 4 Dead?

The engine doesn't have a huge upgrade, in fact the only upgrades are to the AI director and the randomisation of mesh entities (map elements) since melee coding is already in the Source engine and could easily be applied to Left 4 Dead in a content update or via a paid download. In fact that's what i believe this content should be.... The options on release should be cut price for the content for people who already own Left 4 Dead and a download to include it within Left 4 Dead. The second option would be to buy L4D2 on its own at full retail price which already includes the content of Left 4 Dead (and this is the one that's been announced) - one executable, one menu. It should be a content platform like Rock Band, not a sequel.

Update: I've added more thoughts here about the Left 4 Dead situation

Ramblings....

Is it just me or should remuneration really be renumeration.

Numerate: Origin:
1400–50; late ME: counted, numbered <>numerātus (ptp. of numerāre to number )

It just seems like a better fit.

But i digress....

Games... games.... g- I've actually very little to say at the moment. I'm having a bit of a mental block - something that i'm attributing to my out-of-workedness. Now, if only they'd come up with a word for that!

E3 is just around the corner though so no doubt i'll have plenty to say next week. As it is though i've not really been into playing games.... i've wanted to but nothing i have seems to be what i want.

I recently got Pokemon Diamond (it's only just been released here) and i'm about 20 hours into that - more through boredom than anything else - but it's still the same old game as it ever was. To be fair, it's the first game i've actually paid for since i originally played the game boy version on the PC through an emulator, so i can't complain too much about it not changing. One thing i'm liking is the berry system... it's like free items you can grow and multiply and effectively (along with the vs re-battle system) allows you to better manage your funds. I'm a bit stuck though. I got to the psychic pokemon dojo trainer leader (i forgot the actual title) and i can't beat her.... none of my pokemon seem to have any resistance to the psychic attacks and they don't seem to be vulnerable to any of my attacks.
I have electric, rock/ground, fire, water psychic, normal, flying, grass and grass/poison pokemon as my main 20-26 lvl squad but i can only kill one of her lvl 26 psychic pokemon before i end up getting my ass handed to me.

Anyway, what else have i been playing?

Through the rental queue i got Just Cause. I didn't like it. I played through about 5 hours and sent it back. Why? Well, there's a really poor lack of variety to the missions.... the vehicle handling is appalling as well as the ability to be able to get up in the air via the parachute. I feel like sometimes it takes a mere nudge/jump for that green button to come up, allowing me to open the chute.... other times i need to dive off a precipice before it'll even think about letting me get airborne. It seems to me that this is the 'fun feature' of the game and yet it's quite difficult to be able to achieve that feat. Just Cause 2 seems to be fixing this though if the trailer is to be believed.

Once i get a bit of money i'm tempted to buy Evochron (the latest version) and do some sort of 'space diary' that details my multiple lives as i start out in the game, explore and get lost with no fuel. We'll see how that goes!

Mass Effect? In brief:

I just finished the game this morning - i manged to get through most of the side quests so i was pretty leveled up before taking on the baddies at the end of the game, which i assume made it much easier than if i hadn't. So, my thoughts?

• The story was good, i liked it.
• Fighting was serviceable though a bit broken:

1. If the enemies can run around at 50 miles per hour right past me and i can only turn at a rate of 0.5 of a degree a minute then please give me a lock-on feature. It's not an issue when dealing with enemies at range but frequently you're stuck in narrow corridors and other confined spaces where the enemies (and your allies) all run around you making it pretty difficult to deal with them.
2. Don't give the enemies one or two hit kill, super fast rocket launchers when indoors. This isn't Far Cry and at least i could generally dodge those in that game due to the distance (indeed, even when i was outside on the planets in Mass Effect).
3. Cover feature. WHAT?! Are you mad? This isn't really a tactical game. If i want to take cover behind something i don't want to switch position making it so that i can't shoot or move as fast as i normally can, I just want to be behind it. The cover feature is irrelevant in the game and only adds to the combat frustration.
4. Untrained weapons. Depending on the class you take you are 'untrained' in certain weapons. This doesn't mean you can't use them, it just means that your cone of fire is larger and that you can't 'zoom aim' with them equipped. This is another feature which makes little sense to me. Why allow characters to equip weapons they will never use? Especially if there's no way to train your character to be able to use them. It's superfluous, especially when considering that if your character is very good with a pistol and you have the right mods you can deal more (or the same) damage as another character trained with a weapon that you can't use.

• Don't cut to a video of something that's happening elsewhere during the middle of a boss fight when i'm about to beat the boss and then, when my control is regained, give the boss back all his shields (and then allow him to spam rockets)! WTF? Seriously, it makes no logical sense in relation to how the game works - it wasn't my fault i stopped fighting, his shields shouldn't have recharged! Don't punish the player because you feel like being jerks.
• Item lists.... tut, tut. I don't mind the single list during selling/buying/equipment screen... but it's ordered in the most difficult way. It's ordered by 'level' of item rather than item type which is very annoying because it has a very slow scroll speed and to see if you have cryo rounds 5 (so you can delete/sell all your cryo rounds 4) you must go through every thing that's level 4 before you get to the level 5 stuff and then to where the cryo rounds are located rather than having all the cryo rounds together by level. I don't know who designed that part of the game but they either needed more time on it or they need a better concept of how people would be wanting to compare/use the items. (I know this issue is 'fixed' in the PC release, though i'm not sure if it still sorts things by level or not).

Overall, it was an enjoyable game. The sci-fi universe they constructed is pretty interesting though i'd like less 'douchey' people in positions of power in the next game. It seemed like the requisite of being a leader was to be an asshole or perhaps the person who wrote it has some sort of problem with authority [/psychoanalysis]. I'm looking forward to the next one which i think is out towards the end of the year or possibly early next year.