Around these parts there seems to be a good deal of positivity surrounding the Playstation 4 reveal, and that’s great to see. When the gaming community can be so unnecessarily pessimistic and focus too much on the negative, it’s promising that people can still stand up and say “This is something we can really be happy about”. I wish I could feel the same way, I want to, but I find my feelings on the conference far more mixed. I’m not even sure if I can say that it was good overall.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought there was some really cool stuff there, and it can get grating seeing the people who just want something to complain about unreasonably beat Sony into the ground, especially when one of the primary complaints has been “We didn’t see the casing for the PS4 so Sony’s event was shit”. I also understand that, despite the number of people who seem to forget this, media briefings like this one are not just there to make sure I am personally satisfied. There are many different people in the audience to try and appeal to, as well as the press, and many of these events are there for the benefit of the company hosting them, and the companies in tow.

All this being said, I think we’re in danger of dismissing any criticism of the Playstation 4 reveal event as “Snarky cynicism”. I also worry that to some extent we’ve become so used to press conferences being 50% motion control demos and content that we just don’t care about, that we’re willing to give praise to anything that doesn’t do that by default. That’s not to say that anyone’s enjoyment of the event was somehow “invalid”, but I find that it’s when I pull out and see the bigger picture that I feel a little soured about what happened there, so let’s take a look at it.

Hardware

I’m slightly surprised that such a big deal was made about the hardware of the Playstation 4. Not because I think it lacks quality in any way, but more because there are still a lot of things we don't know about it. None the less, even if we can’t take them as 100% representative of the power of the console, the graphics in the demos were very impressive. If it looks this good now, I can’t imagine what things will be like a few years down the line when companies have really gotten good at building games on this hardware. I do however, fall on the side of the argument that thinks the lack of backwards compatibility in the PS4 is a bad thing.

Backwards Compatibility

In leaving backwards compatibility out of the console, Sony create three issues. Firstly, it means that users have to switch from one console to another if they want to play their PS3 games, not exactly great in the age of convenience. This issue is only likely to be made worse if the user owns a set-top box, DVD player, or other consoles, as many do, as there are limited ports on a TV, and limited plug sockets in a home. For too many consumers, changing back to your PS3 for whatever purpose may require more than your daily recommended allowance of fiddling with cables.

Secondly, in the past, buying a console has given you the access to not just the library of one console, but two consoles, from day one. For those who hadn’t played the classic games for the GameCube, they could play them with a Wii, for those who hadn’t experienced the games on the Xbox, they could play them with an Xbox 360. This is not the case for the PS4. For anyone who does not own a PS3, they’ll be able to stream PS3 games with a PS4, but I seriously doubt that we’ll see every PS3 game on there from launch, at a price as cheap as a disc copy. This makes it seem like a major step backwards.

Lastly, this kind of thing is very bad for the preservation of our medium. It’s not something that a lot of people talk about, but if you have the time I really recommend checking out The Game Overthinker’s video on this. In short, other mediums like books and movies have seen a large amount of their important work lost because nobody really cared enough about it to properly preserve them at the time, and consequently we’ve lost huge chunks of these art forms. We’ve started to see the same thing happen to video games. The medium is still pretty young, but already arcade machines are dying, games for older consoles are becoming harder to get a hold of, and I’m worried that people won’t care about the abandonment of the hardware to play PS3 games until it’s too late.

Sony haven’t had the greatest history with making their games from one console work on another console, but that doesn’t mean this is an impossible task for them. If you can make PS3 games compatible with the PS Vita, then you can surely make them compatible with the PS4, even if there are some difficulties involved in doing so. Heck, surely it says something that Nintendo, a company often mocked for being technologically behind can easily handle backwards compatibility when Sony cannot. I understand that backwards compatibility is likely to raise the price of the PS4, but even if people don’t want to pay for it, there’s nothing to stop Sony putting out two versions of the console; one that’s backwards compatible and one that’s not.

The Controller

One big question that’s hung over all of the next-gen consoles is where exactly they go next with motion controls, touch devices, and general doodads that have helped bring a more casual audience to video games in the past, especially in the wake of the Wii U. It was rather surprising to see Sony unveil a stereo camera and a new controller with a built-in touchpad, but then not show off any of their functionality. I’d have assumed that they just wanted to keep away from the more “casual” stuff, but then they did have that entire section for the Move. It’s not the biggest disappointment, but it does leave a lot of questions open over how they’re going to use that touchpad in a way that’s better or different from what the Wii U is doing, and suggests it’s not a focal point of their system.

One thing they did show off and I really liked though was the share button. When we first started hearing rumours of it, it seemed like a silly idea, but Sony may have actually hit on something pretty damn special here. Social media is of course important to companies because it turns a large chunk of their audience into their own marketing team who works for free, and is actually enthused to do so. That’s a pretty powerful tool to have. Despite this, one big problem is that many of us don’t care to share everything to Facebook or Twitter or whatever else for the sake of it, and I don’t know about you, but I generally find the way they try to implement social networking features into consoles and games often feels out-of-place and unintuitive.

However, there has been a thriving world of online video and other content, made by complete amateurs, that has both captured the attention of many gamers, and has genuinely helped boost the popularity of games. This is what the share button taps into. How effective and useful that button will be is dependent on how well its implemented, but I’m excited about the potential for one of those times where companies and gamers can mutually benefit each other in a way they both enjoy. Sony have found a way to approach social media that’s much more intelligent than the usual tactic of just duct taping a “Share on Facebook” button to everything.

Other Services

The Vita connectivity, pre-loading, and instant resume, all look like great features. They’re clever and creative uses of the system I just wasn’t expecting. I’m not sure I’m so into the integration of profiles that depict you more as a real person though. I get that they're there to make you feel more connected to your friends and because, well, social media again, but for those who are into games and communicating about games over the internet, there’s a reason we often use aliases and avatars. I’m not entirely sure being able to jack other peoples’ games and complete things for them is fair either, and could involve some serious latency issues, but being able to view other peoples’ games as they play looks like it could be an enjoyable experience. For now, thanks for reading, and next time I'll be talking about the games of the event.

Thirty Flights of Loving is certainly an unusual beast. Under other circumstances I’d tell you that if you haven’t played a game like this, you should stop reading right now and go experience it for yourself, but I’m not sure you can just go and tell anyone interested in video games that it will be worth it for them to spend £3.99 on something that can be easily completed in under 15 minutes. I find it hard to gauge how much Thirty Flights is worth, I’m not sure actually playing through it is a positive experience, I’m not even entirely sure what happens in it, and yet I still like what it does.

With its random and sudden jump-cuts, non-linear narrative, out-of-context scenes, and commitment not to use any dialogue or GUI elements to tell its story, the game is inevitably very confusing, and is undoubtedly meant to be. I feel like it’s the kind of game that despite doing some important things, would sadly never make it past regular QA testing, because it feels that it’s less about the experience you have playing it in the moment, and more about what you gain from reflecting, analysing, and speculating on it afterwards.

While many stories in games may fall apart the more you think about them, Thirty Flights seems built largely for the exact purpose of you picking it apart, and so like with any piece of art or entertainment that requires you to really think about it to fully enjoy it, it seems a necessity to go away and digest the game before you can say you’ve really experienced it. I should probably point out that I use terms like “game” and “playing” loosely, as Thirty Flights is stuck in that same weird space as something like The Stanley Parable (which I would encourage everyone interested in stories in games to play), where it’s not a game, but there’s not really a phrase for what it is beyond something very awful-sounding like “Interactive narrative-based software”.

In many ways it feels like Thirty Flights has less investment in entertaining you, and more in providing a lesson or thought exercise based around storytelling in games. For one thing it shows us how games can benefit from telling parts of their stories through environments and events rather than dialogue. I feel many games don’t take this idea as far as it could be taken, and their storytelling suffers for it. It also shows that sometimes you can say more by saying less. The game rarely spells things out, instead making its own story a kind of puzzle where the player has to pay attention and really analyse what’s occurred to work out what just happened, or fill in the gaps in the story with their own imagination.

The more something asks for work on the part of its audience for them to enjoy it, the fewer people it becomes accessible to, but it can become all the more enjoyable for those who are willing to put in that work. Asking the audience to figure out large parts of the story for themselves has a number of benefits; as the game commentary notes, you get a sense of satisfaction from solving these little puzzles, and it feels good to know that a game respects your intelligence enough to trust you with solving them. On top of that though, it also lets you become the storyteller to some degree; when you apply your own meaning to the story, and when you fill in the gaps in your own way, you end up creating a unique experience for yourself, and a version of the events that feels very personal to you. This also makes it only more interesting to swap stories of the game with others.

The kind of ambiguous tale that Thirty Flights tells overall isn’t necessarily better than the types of stories you can find in other games, but by the way it isolates a few storytelling concepts and plays them out in a sort of sandbox case, it highlights the value of these concepts and shows what they can bring to a game. For me, it also raises the question that if games are meant to be so focused around the player working for their reward, why don’t more games apply this philosophy to their narratives?

With the games industry evolving so rapidly and the World Wide Web at our finger tips, it seems that it’s increasingly not just the video games themselves that have relevance to the gaming community and those covering the medium. The discussions and events surrounding the games industry are becoming ever-more relevant and important. We’re used to trade shows, award shows, and game releases, but beyond that there are a greater and greater number of unique events that rock the industry and get us talking every year. Let’s take a look back at the biggest of these events over the past year.

Industry Veterans Depart

If you’d told me at the start of 2012 that the Bioware Doctors, Cliff Bleszinski, and Peter Molyneux would all leave their jobs this year, I would have said you were crazy. It must be admitted that the biggest names in the industry aren’t always the biggest names due to their contributions, but often largely because they've promoted themselves well as public figures, but none the less these are people who’ve done a lot for video games, and the fact that they made their exits all in the same year is rather shocking.

For Molyneux this might be just what he needed; rather than sitting at Lionshead and making Fable and Kinect games until the end of time, he now has his own indie studio through which he can channel his insane and ambitious ideas. What this means for Bleszinski and the Doctors still remains to be seen though, and with Muzyka and Zeschuk specifically, it looks as though they could be making a permanent retirement from the games industry. Now serves as a great time to remember their work in the industry and lament their departures.

Companies on Fire

Undoubtedly, one of the most memorable events this year was the collapse of 38 Studios, not necessarily because they were the most famous company, but more because of quite how spectacular their downfall was. This development studio founded by a former Boston Red Sox pitcher borrowed $75 million from the state of Rhode Island, ran into trouble when their MMO Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which needed to sell at least 3 million copies only sold 1.2 million, couldn’t properly pay their loan back, laid off their employees, had their possessions auctioned off, and is now facing a lawsuit. It’s been a bizarre train wreck of events.

Meanwhile, the once publishing Behemoth THQ progressed shakily through the year and just weeks ago filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. A buyer was found for their assets, but the original force that was THQ is essentially out of commission. UK games retail also saw a dramatic hit with long-time king of dedicated games retail Game entering a severe financial rough-patch, and eventually announcing that they were going into administration, ironically on the same day major tax breaks for the UK games industry were also announced. They were bought up by company-sounding company OpCapita, but not before they had to close over 270 stores across the country.

Kickstarter Rises

Kickstarter has been a bit of a double-edged sword. I didn’t think it was the divine and revolutionary addition to the games industry some heralded it as to begin with, but at this point it’s become a little bit of a joke. The accessibility of Kickstarter means that anyone can jump in and ask for funding for their project, regardless of who they are or what their project is, but that’s kind of the problem.

The low bar for entry has meant that concepts that seem ill-conceived or projects where it’s unclear whether the creator can execute properly on their ideas have not become uncommon, and that potentially anyone could run off with the money from their project at any time. Even many of the more popular video game projects on the site over the year have come under considerable scrutiny from the gaming community. On top of this, it was only about a week after Kickstarter reached the height of its fame before games journalism outlets started complaining of having their inboxes filled out with spam about the latest Kickstarter projects, and forums started becoming a dumping ground for solicitations of money for projects right, left, and centre.

Despite what problems it may have had though, it’s played host to some interesting ideas, and helped provide millions of pounds of funding for various video games and video game-related undertakings. When Tim Schafer and Double Fine started receiving donations for their Kickstarter, seeing the donation figure climb through the hundreds of thousands was amazing, and it has been promising seeing the strong backing for other projects like Obsidian’s Project Eternity, 22 Cans’ Godus, Frontier Developments’ Elite: Dangerous, and inXile’s Wasteland 2. Even if you remain sceptical of their final quality, it also remains impressive how much projects like Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, Gaymercon, or the Ouya have been able to raise.

Mass Effect 3’s Ending

If any subject was talked to death this year, it was probably this one. Within days of the first players completing Mass Effect 3, online forums became awash with hundreds of very similar threads about why the ending was so bad. A lack of closure, a self-contradicting plot, a lack of attention to detail, a lack of variation in the endings, a lack of choices in the endings, a lack of recognition of the choices that were made throughout the series, major plotholes, and a deus ex machina were just some of the issues the outpouring of criticism against the game dealt with.

Different fans handled the situation differently; many were angry, many let their anger towards the game turn into an unreasonably hostile attack on Bioware, some thought the ending was good, others politely requested that Bioware change the ending, or even sent them baked goods to try and encourage them to do so. The question was even raised over whether Bioware altering the game’s conclusion would compromise their artistic integrity. In some ways the bar was set impossibly high for Mass Effect 3, and fans did seem to get a little too obsessed with the ending when there was a whole other ~34 hours of that game to reflect on, but it can’t be denied that they had a point.

To their credit, Bioware did release a revised version of the ending for free, but it wasn’t perfect, and nothing could undo the negative experience people had to begin with. There was a positive side to all this negativity though; this reaction was a clear indicator that we had come to expect a kind of quality from a video game story unlike anything that had been seen before, and that despite what some might tell you, a narrative in this medium can matter deeply to people. Right now Mass Effect 3’s conclusion is probably the last thing we want to hear about, but it might just be a major landmark on the road to seeing video games evolve into a truly powerful storytelling medium.

Women in Games

From top to bottom the issue of women in games and the games industry was repeatedly raised this year. Within the industry itself the appropriateness of booth babes at trade shows was called into question, and the #1reasonwhy Twitter hashtag acted as a means for men and women alike to speak out against the discrimination of female developers. On a level closer to the games themselves, the Hitman: Absolution trailer threw up questions about the possible fetishisation of violence and where, how, and to what degree sexualised women belong in games. Further discussions of gender politics ensued surrounding the treatment of Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider, and the comments one developer made about how players will want to “protect her”.

Even bigger than any of these though, was feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian’s announcement of her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series, and with that came what continues to be one of the saddest parts of this whole debate: The way the gaming community are treating gender issues in games and the people talking about them. Worries about the gaming community’s treatment of women also arose when professional fighting game player Aris Bakhtanians sexually harassed a female team-mate live on-air and then attempted to play it off by claiming such behaviour was part of the fighting game culture.

Whether you agree or disagree with the critics of the games industry, the kind of abuse, attacks, and harassment that befell Sarkeesian and others like her can’t be defended. This is still a difficult and very controversial issue, but hopefully, this is all part of us working towards a games industry that is more inclusive and welcoming for both the people in it, and its audience.

Duder, It’s Over

Besides the aforementioned, other notable events of the year include Doritogate, The War Z case, Activision advertising Call of Duty using Oliver North, EA using the Medal of Honor site to link to real gun manufacturers, GaymerCon, the Ouya, the continuing rise of indie games, and the uproar over the Mass Effect 3 launch DLC.

One of the less fortunate trends consistent throughout this past year has been the departure of major companies and figures in the industry, but if there’s one real positive trend that can be identified it’s efforts towards the maturing of video games as a medium, and people really caring about the health of games and the games industry more than ever before. People are taking steps to try and ensure our medium is an inclusive one, not an exclusive one, and that both the industry and its audience are holding the narratives in certain games up to the same standard they would a TV show, film, or book.

Thanks for reading and see you all in 2013.

For a long while I was thinking that I couldn’t do one of these Game of the Year dealies for 2012. Being a Broke-Ass Student™ I usually end up playing most AAA games a year or so after they are originally released, meaning that I haven’t actually played many of the biggest games of 2012. Then I remembered this is a masturbatory exercise entirely based around my personal experiences of games over the year, and that as this isn’t going to be directly comparable to anyone else’s experience of games over the past 12 months, I didn’t have to let a trivial thing like when the games came out define my 2012 picks for games of the year.

The following are my top five picks for games that I have played in 2012, but didn’t necessarily come out in 2012. For a game to have been eligible for my list, I must have played it for a significant amount of time, and must have first played it since the start of this year. I’ve listed my picks in vague order of quality from which I least enjoyed to which I most enjoyed, but it’s not strictly ranked. You can find all my nominees in the tag below:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

A lot of developers talk a big game about how much choice there is to be found in their title, and how in it the same job can be done with a variety of tools, and challenges can be tackled with a range of approaches, but very few games live up to that promise to the extent Deus Ex: Human Revolution does. In all honesty I’m not the biggest fan of stealth combat, and I felt taking down the enemies of Human Revolution was too often a boring experience, involving a lot camping in one spot until guards came off of alert or energy recharged, but despite this, there was always the sense that the way you approached the hurdles the game set in your way was your decision. Hacking, stealth, non-lethal takedown, lethal takedown, and social skills were all potential means of solving the problems of Human Revolution.

Perhaps what resonated even more with me though was the world the game presented. The sleek visual design and subdued sounds of Human Revolution helped build an environment which felt soulless but enthralling, and it was refreshing to see a cyberpunk backdrop for the world, and a story with one foot in real-world issues. Human Revolution’s narrative dealt with subjects both interesting and important to us as a species; what bioaugmentation could mean for us, how it could be exploited, how the media can control public perception, issues of wealth disparity, and more. In its best moments Deus Ex: Human Revolution was unique, liberating, and thought-provoking.

Mass Effect 3

While its ending was probably one of the most crushingly disappointing things I’ve experienced in a video game, it’s a shame that it came to define the game, because, ending aside, Mass Effect 3 was a great RPG. It’s easy to get fixated on the bad things we didn’t expect, and take for granted the quality components that we’ve come to expect of the games, but standing back and analysing it, there are still no other games out there that have handled player choice like Mass Effect has, and so few games with narratives as compelling and rich as those of this Bioware RPG franchise. This stayed true right up to the end.

Throughout the series, the experience I had with the games felt unique to me, and it was hard not to become engrossed in the world and develop a sincere attachment to the characters. The way I and my friends can play this same game and have a completely different journey with it, or the way decisions I made in another game five years ago can affect the fate of a universe in this game today are just two examples of where Mass Effect 3 blows me away. The ending may have been abysmal, and the multiplayer might not have stood up, but Mass Effect 3 is a largely fitting conclusion to a ground-breaking trilogy that has a lot to teach anyone aiming to create truly emotional experiences in video games.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V

Many games, films, or books take place on a grand scale, but the Civilization series goes above almost every other in this regard. The events that you witness, control, and influence in the games don’t just happen on a global scale, but across all of human history, making your path through a single game of Civ feel truly epic.

Other games may let you take on the role of a spaceship captain in an intergalactic conflict, or commander of an army in a world war, but nothing is quite the same as the Civilization experience of taking a group of people from being a small tribe of barbarians in 4,000 B.C. through to being a sprawling and advanced society in the 21 century. Along the way, everything you encounter, from the world leaders, to the various technologies, to the world wonders, make Civilisation feel like one big love letter to human history.

Civ V manages to once again deliver all of this alongside the series’ notorious addictiveness. It’s remarkable how all the disparate mechanics of the game manage to come together to keep giving you small goals to strive towards, and small rewards for your work, in such perfect quantities, with such perfect timing. The major changes that the game makes to systems like culture, unit placement, and the UI, are also all welcome additions. A game of Civilization V is always enjoyable, and as much as it gets said, it really does keep you playing long into the night with that “One more turn” mentality.

Halo 4

I was pretty confident going into Halo 4 that 343 had produced at least a competent recreation of the previous Halo games, but quite how far they managed to go in creating a gripping new Halo game was very impressive. I wish they had distanced themselves a little further from other popular FPSs when thinking about new mechanics, and there is a special pocket of disappointment in my heart for Spartan Ops, but not only does Halo 4 get what the series is about, down to the precise feel and timing of the weapons, but it’s obvious from the moment that you pick it up that the series has benefitted from having a new set of hands on it.

At its core the Halo formula remains as satisfying as ever, and on top of that, 343 managed to drastically improve the progression system, make the multiplayer fairer, give the guns more of a kick, make the gameplay more action-packed, and go to a place with the story more ambitious than anywhere Bungie went. The game also manages to disprove the claim that has been by a number of industry higher-ups recently, that this generation of consoles has reached its technical limitations; both the art design and the technical quality of the game’s graphics are up to a very high standard, presenting some beautiful landscapes and gorgeous environments.

Halo 4 is a fantastic continuation of an excellent series, that is not content to rest on the franchise’s laurels, and instead feels like the product of some serious talent and effort. Hopefully this is just the tip of the iceberg for this new generation for Halo.

Saint’s Row: The Third

Over its first two instalments the Saint’s Row series was one that I found consistently underwhelming. It’s not that they were poorly put together, but they came across to me as a series that aped the successful formula of Grand Theft Auto, but could neither do anything particularly original with it, nor ever quite execute on it with the level of quality that Rockstar did. Saint’s Row: The Third changed that, presenting us with not only a game that was very well-crafted, but that benefited incredibly from having its own distinctive sense of self-identity.

Saint’s Row: The Third is beautifully insane and full of character. From fighting soldiers in a tank as you’re falling through the air thousands of feet above the city, to getting plastic surgery to sneak onto an aircraft carrier, it’s the creativity with which the game is able to produce its brilliant nonsense that makes it so special.

The characters occupying these scenarios (particularly the protagonist) only server to enhance them, acting as a conduit for the player’s attitude by acknowledging that what’s happening is batshit crazy, but jumping in and having fun with it none the less. The game is very confident in what it does and feels greatly empowering in the way it lets you give a huge “Fuck you” to not just the enemies of the game world, but the laws of reality and the notions of subtlety and sensibleness. Saint’s Row: The Third is over-the-top, exciting, stylish, and my biggest criticism of it is simply that there wasn’t more of what made that main story so great.

Duder, It’s Over

And I guess that’s me done for this year. If you have read through all or part of my self-indulgent rambling, I thank you very much, and I hope you’ve all had as enjoyable a year with games as I have. Here’s hoping to a great 2013.

Note: The following post contains spoilers for the entirety of the Halo series, including the ending of Halo 4. You have been warned.

So, the Halo 4 story has a lot of problems. The Chief still isn’t the deepest or most expressive character, the story doesn’t always do a great job of explaining itself, the plot-dump midway through from the Librarian feels a little inelegant and like a lot to take in at once, the Didact feels a little too Saturday morning cartoon villain for my tastes, and given that that Halo 1-3 was largely focused around stopping the Human-Covenant War, the almost immediate return of the Covenant in 4 feels like a bit of a cop-out. That being said, I think in many parts of the internet, there’s been a lack of focus on the strengths of Halo 4’s story, and how the events of Halo 4, if used correctly, really have the potential to positively shape the coming games.

The Stoic Hero

The obvious problem that has existed with the Master Chief as a character is the same one that has plagued many video game characters over the years, and indeed seems to be representative of a traditional problem with game narratives on the whole; It’s empowering to be the Chief, he comes across as a badass, he’s an iconic figure, but he goes through basically no character development, and has no real depth or personality beyond being a strong, silent killing machine. This often gives him a rather epic feel, but doesn’t make him particularly interesting to follow as a person.

Now, that’s not to say you can’t tell interesting stories about an emotionally devoid soldier, you can, but I think the best ways to do that involve exploring the origins and implications of the character being such a thing, and portraying it in at least a somewhat negative light, and that’s never been something the games have been particularly interested in. The Chief’s origins have remained rather untouched by the games, while the fact that the Chief is lacking humanity and solely purposed for war is something that the games have either shown an outright indifference to, or shown in a positive light as they build up the Chief’s “badass” image.

Outside of problems with the character of the Chief himself, the circumstances he finds himself in always seem to turn out a little too perfect for him. We’ve seen things slightly shaken up before, with him temporarily losing Cortana at the end of Halo 2, or ending up drifting through space at the end of Halo 3, but neither of these seemed like things that bothered him all that much. A character has to go through both triumph and turmoil to make their journey meaningful, and it seems that the Chief has gotten far more of one of these than the other. In fact, when the Chief doesn’t care about much in the world but getting his missions done, it’s hard for the writers to really create any situation in which it feels like he’s experiencing something negative.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Halo, and I feel a strong attachment to the Chief, but let’s be realistic, he’s not the best video game character ever. Halo 4 however, starts to show at least a glimmer of change, and a slight promise of some of the deep-rooted problems with the Chief being solved. A large part of this can be seen in the opening of the game, a scene in which a UNSC official starts to interrogate Catherine Halsey, creator of the Spartans, on the program which created the Chief and the Spartans like him.

Green and Blue

History is often remembered as being a lot simpler and a lot more black-and-white than was actually the reality, and this is certainly shown to be the case with the Spartan program. While the Spartans are remembered as heroes and the tools by which the Human-Covenant War was ended, their origins were actually far more questionable, with them having been originally developed as a means to try and quell a human civil war. Here, for the first time we see a kind of moral ambiguity that just hasn’t reared its head in the Halo games to date.

We also see a Halo story which starts to suggest that maybe the emotional detachment of the Chief and Spartans like him, from other human beings, is a bad thing, in fact the officer interrogating Halsey points out that it’s downright sociopathic. After putting these elements into play I wish the game as a whole touched on them a little more, but with the way it’s been set up, I’d be surprised if we didn’t come back to them in later instalments.

When we return to the Master Chief and Cortana, the two are more or less the same people we’ve always known, but at the start of Halo 4’s second mission we see them both start to change as we learn of Cortana’s rampancy, and her inevitable death. This is by no means the first time Cortana has been in peril; after her aforementioned loss to the Gravemind at the conclusion of the second game, the Chief set out to save Cortana, believing she could play a vital role in stopping the Human-Covenant War. There the Chief proved to be right and was successful in his mission, but Halo 4 does something clever by presenting almost the same situation, only turned on its head.

Once again, Cortana is in danger, and once again, against the judgement of someone in some ways superior to himself (Cortana herself), the Chief refuses to accept defeat and insists on saving her, but the situation surrounding him is entirely different. This isn’t presented as an act of good faith and judgement on the Chief’s part, but instead appears somewhat futile. He starts bumping up against the hard rules of the Halo universe, and when Cortana is telling you you’re wrong about something, then there’s not a whole lot of chance you’re right.

The Chief’s Loss

At the conclusion of Halo 4, the Chief doesn’t end up with anything close to his previous idealised victories. He manages to stop the Didact, but for the first time in a Halo game, the Chief’s success comes at a significant cost to him. This time there’s bad with the good, and the Chief isn't just proven wrong about being able to save the person he worked so hard to help, but in the end it’s not even up to him whether she’s saved or not. He is disempowered, and far from coming out of the struggle with everything intact, he’s left in just about the worse position possible, as he’s lost the only other person he’s ever really had any strong connection with.

Not only does this give us a moment to see the Chief briefly display the kind of emotion that we never usually see from him, but more importantly post-Cortana’s death something she said still weighs heavily on his mind; that he may be more of a machine than a man. This is the same point that was touched on in the opening when the officer discussed the sociopathic tendencies of the Spartans, and throughout the game, as the rampant computer program Cortana ironically appeared more emotive than the human she was tied to, the Chief.

It’s all really going to depend how 343 play this over the next game or two, but if done right, this worry in Chief’s head could be the catalyst for a journey in which he and the characters around him explore his lack of emotion as a negative aspect of his character, and if handled especially well could lead to the transformation of the Chief into someone more human. The legendary ending seems to mirror this idea, as the last moment we see of the game involves us literally being shown a small part of the human Chief under the armour for the first time.

Duder, It’s Over

In all honestly, I’m not entirely convinced that 343 can make all the changes necessary to turn the Chief into a compelling character, and I understand that the worries of many people that the death of Cortana may lead to less emotive characters in the series and not more, but if they can pull this off correctly, the events of Halo 4 might be just what the series needed. Either way, as critical as I can get, I still believe the Halo canon is interesting, and I still have great fun with the games. Thanks for reading, and here’s hoping that 343 will do right with the upcoming instalments.

Often, when I feel that an issue has been covered before by someone much smarter and more articulate than me, and when I’ve already said just about everything I want to say about something in online discussion areas, I refrain from blogging about that thing. However, given the subject matter in this case, I think it’s important to get the word out about this in any way possible.

For those of you who don’t yet know, animal rights activists PETA have recently released a flash RPG they’re calling Pokémon: Black & Blue. In it you take on the role of a team of Pokémon fighting back against their cruel masters who resemble animal testers, circus ring leaders, and other potential threats to animal welfare. Already, plenty of gaming and news outlets are reporting on PETA’s new publicity project and already, gamers across the board seem to be getting up in arms about this.

Once again we’re all falling into PETA’s trap and this has to stop. Two things must be understood here; firstly, PETA are an organisation who should not be receiving any kind of promotion, unless it comes with the very strong message that they should be avoided at all costs, and secondly, PETA’s marketing campaigns are designed to trick people into promoting them, often through outright deception.

In case you’re not familiar with the history or internal workings of PETA, I implore you to look into them. In fact, if you can find it there’s a great episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit on them, but for now I think this infographic will do. If nothing else, the one thing you need to know about PETA is that the so-called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals kill the vast majority of animals which actually come into their care, but a scary number of people just aren’t aware of this fact, and support the organisation thinking they’re genuinely helping animals. What’s more, every time money goes to PETA because someone is trying to help animal rights, that’s a donation that doesn’t go to the other charities that are genuinely trying to aid animals and not doing what PETA does.

Unfortunately, while PETA may have highly flawed ideologies and disturbing behaviours, they also have a lot of advertising power, with a marketing budget of over 30 million dollars. This makes them frighteningly effective at marketing, and they have found a very effective technique for maintaining and spreading awareness of themselves; raising controversy. Their campaigns in the past which have involved such activities as locking naked women in cages, depicting women who’ve been beaten and bruised during sex, or comparing the slaughtering of chickens to the holocaust are a clear sign that they’re looking for their message to be carried by controversy. They know the best way to get people saying their name is through shocking imagery and questionable content.

Unluckily for us, they seem to have latched onto the fact that one of the easiest groups to stir up outrage with is gamers. We’re a group of people who are able to spread our opinions quickly and effectively, given how connected we are to the world wide web, many of us are very forward with our opinions, and many of us aren’t calm and rational when confronted with something we don’t like, but instead immature and angry beyond reason.

This isn’t the first time PETA have tried to raise awareness through gamer outrage, and it won’t be the last. In fact, this is the fifth time this has happened. There have been four flash games PETA have released before now that have either used a beloved game as a jumping-off point for their message, or have directly attacked that game, and every time this has happened the gaming community has raised hell over it. PETA continue targeting gamers specifically because they know they get exactly the reaction they want that way, and every time one of us flips out and starts yelling about PETA, that’s more publicity for them. That’s more publicity for the organisation that is putting thousands of animals to death using the donations of unknowing supporters who think they’re doing good.

By all means, talk about PETA, but when you do, don't just spread their name about and discuss their marketing materials, that’s exactly the kind of thing that’s helping them thrive. When you talk about PETA, show that these campaigns are a ploy for attention, inform people just how fucked up they really are as an organisation, and donate to and/or raise awareness for genuinely helpful animal-based charities that PETA is hamstringing like the World Wildlife Fund, the ASPCA, or the NSPCA. That’s how to really hurt PETA. Thanks for reading.

-Gamer_152

It’s my 21st birthday today and I’ve decided to do something a little different. I have 9 games and 1 game bundle to give away. For each of these games I have a question to be answered or a task to be performed. The first person to do so and post their Steam name will get the prize, although in the case of the bundle no Steam name is required, I’ll PM you what you need. It’s one game per person and usual forum policy applies so please don’t post here unless you want to talk about the giveaway or make your post to claim one of the games. Thanks.

Bastion

Winner: jyluth

Answer the following: Jeff wants to ride which Disney character?

Braid

Winner: mynthon

Answer the following: Ryan has ordered a special mask to attract what kind of bird?

Civilization V

Winner: NIGHTCRAWLER

Post the name of one of your favourite games and make an argument for why it’s so good.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Winner: Mastercheesey

Post a Giant Bomb haiku.

Eversion

Winner: Video_Game_King

I’m not going to set a question or task for this one, just ask for it and I’ll give it to you.

Humble Indie Bundle V (Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Limbo, Psychonauts, SuperBrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP)

Winner: SexyToad

Edit 5 wiki pages and post that you’ve done so.

Portal 2

Winner: Zacagawea

Draw and post a picture of GLaDOS (yes, you can use Paint).

Psychonauts

Winner: joemarch

Answer the following: What is the date Giant Bomb launched?

Saint’s Row The Third

Winner: BongChilla

Give me a convincing argument for why video games are awesome.

The Binding of Isaac

Winner: NoobSauceG7

Compliment another user.

I’ll be back in a while. Have fun duders.

-Gamer_152

So, you may or may not be aware that a Kickstarter page recently went up for “GaymerCon”, an LGBT-focused gaming convention that needed $25,000 to become a reality and already has the support of the likes of Ellen McLain of Half-Life, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 fame, TF2’s John Lowry, the folks behind one of my favourite web comics, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and over 550 backers. Sadly, there has been a rather major negative reaction to this. Even in the face of what appeared to be a harmless event with harmless promotional material, some went into a blind rage, and even many of the calmer and level-headed people out there seemed to express an utter rejection of what I see as a perfectly reasonable event.

The most common of these arguments seem to be that this convention is “self-segregation”, that it's invalid because sexuality has nothing to do with video games, or that this is just “pointless”, but they’ve also ranged into the insulting notions that this is comparable to organising a straight gaming convention, that it’s some sort of disgusting attention grab, or that this is discrimination against straight people. I understand that not everyone out there questioning the need for this convention is attacking it, I think questioning is good, and “Why is a gay gaming convention important?” is a valid query. But while I can’t display what I’d call an exhaustive knowledge of LGBT culture, there seem to be so many people out there ready to immediately dismiss the idea of this convention for reasons which seem entirely flawed, or making downright ignorant statements regarding the LGBT community or their involvement in video games.

Discrimination

I can’t claim to know exactly how it feels to be in the minority when it comes to gender identity or sexual orientation, but one thing is clear; that many people who are have faced vilification, marginalisation, or have been treated as second class citizens. In large parts of the world they’re told that they’re “wrong” or “sick” for reasons beyond their control, they’re denied rights like marriage and adoption, or outright bullied.

That’s just the situation outside of the gaming community though. Within the gaming community games are aimed overwhelmingly towards the 18-35 heterosexual white male population, and they’re not afraid of showing it. The scantily-dressed, suggestively-posed women that are a common sight in games, and the outpouring of “booth babes” at conventions make it clear who they wish to cater to, and within video games we’re left with a great lack of LGBT characters. You can make whatever excuses you want for it, but none the less it’s there.

Online in general, many people also think nothing of throwing about homophobic slurs, while homophobic jokes and bullying are a sad reality. Even on this site I’ve seen people using slurs, making transphobic statements, and explaining why the use of slurs is entirely justified. When I’ve seen people speak up and say that games should better represent minority groups or that there’s something wrong with the way people often interact online, these ideas have been largely dismissed or been faced with outrage from the gaming community.

So for those saying this is comparable to a heterosexual gaming convention, it’s not, because the place that the LGBT community occupies within gaming and society as a whole is not the same one that heterosexuals do. Heterosexuals, or at least male heterosexuals, don’t require a games convention of their own as they’re already being largely catered to in a way non-heterosexuals are often not, and while I don’t agree that this is a form of segregation, I think the statement that this convention is self-marginalisation is ignoring the fact that people of certain sexual orientations or gender identities are often marginalised to begin with. Personally, I think the people behind GaymerCon have already made it pretty clear why such a convention is important; they want a place where those who enjoy video games can come together without fear of intolerance or discrimination, where people can be happy about who they are, where they can show that there is a strong LGBT element in the gaming community, and where people who may feel isolated can find out they’re not alone.

This is Not Segregation and This is Not "Showing Off"

Why do I not think this is a form of segregation? For a few reasons. Firstly, this is not a gay-only convention, and that’s not some obscure piece of information hidden off in the depths of one of the comments sections on Kickstarter; like other justifications for this event, it’s something they’ve mentioned upfront repeatedly, and yet some people seem to be ignoring it entirely. I quote, “We want to be clear this isn’t just for gay white dudes [...] We want all genders, races, and sexual identities including our straight friends and allies to come together”. There may be a focus on LGBT issues and community here, but look at that quote, in what way is that even close to segregation?

Secondly, even if you still consider this convention somehow separate from the rest of the gaming world, it isn’t as if LGBT gamers attending GaymerCon are setting down a big permanent divide between themselves and the rest of the gaming community. Heterosexual people are going to go to GaymerCon, non-heterosexual people (including those attending GaymerCon) are still going to go to other conventions, both are still going to play and talk about games together within the gaming community as a whole, and what’s more GaymerCon is just one convention.

Thirdly, I think a lot of the talk about “self-segregation” has been based around the false idea that “gaymers” can’t have events like this where they celebrate their own sub-culture and connect with people within their own minority, while still being equal to and included in the community as a whole. Everyone has both the right and the ability to celebrate their own culture, and meet with people of which they have something in common, while still being treated equally. If you wouldn't call gay pride parades self-segregation, then I certainly see no reason to call GaymerCon self-segregation.

Another common misconception seems to be that anyone within the gaming community expressing their identity, or celebrating part of their identity is “attention seeking”. This isn’t the least bit true and when I see this view brought up it’s very worrying. If you think it’s wrong whenever people express statements like the fact that they’re not heterosexual, or you become frustrated from seeing them do so, then it may be a good time to reassess your perspective on things. If we’re really starting to turn against people because they’re expressing or showing that they’re happy with the fact that they’re gay, bisexual, transsexual, or whatever else, then something is deeply wrong.

Being LGBT is Relevant

To those who say “Being LGBT has nothing to do with video games”, I have two answers. First, sexuality and gender identity have an overwhelming relevance to all art and entertainment. Where we fit in society and who we love or lust after are fundamental parts of who we are, and are ideas that have been embraced by just about every creative medium out there, it’s just they’re not something that video games have yet dealt with in much depth or with much variation. However, this sets up GaymerCon to be a great platform for discussing these matters and the organisers have said as much. It serves a greater purpose than just that though.

In some ways, yes, being LGBT really shouldn’t be a big issue, but certain people within the gaming community and the world as a whole have made it so, in a very bad way. I’m not saying every single LGBT person out there feels like they’re the victim of merciless discrimination and isolation, or anything like that, but in a situation where many people who are LGBT may have faced marginalisation and bullying in their lives, and where wanting to do something as simple as talking about and playing video games online can mean being prepared to face degrading language or even direct personal attacks, it seems perfectly reasonable that some LGBT people would want their own space where that wasn’t the case. Besides, what's wrong with wanting to use video games as a tool to bring people together?

In GaymerCon a few people decided that they wanted to organise an event where people, no matter their race, orientation, or other potentially dividing factors, could come together and enjoy video games in an environment where people would act like decent human beings, without needless insults and attacks. To me this doesn’t just seem reasonable, it seems like a noble goal, but a certain portion of the video game community have decided to turn around and tell them that they don’t get to have this, or that their cause is pointless or wrong. I find that sad, and I think ironically, the negative knee-jerk reactions to an event in the video game fandom that tried to reach out to LGBT people are a reflection of exactly why an event like GaymerCon is so important in the first place. Thanks for reading.

-Gamer_152

I’m sure many of you remember the 2010 action-adventure game Dante’s Inferno, based on the famous 14th century poem by Dante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy. The game generally received fairly good reviews, but a recurring criticism from fans of the original poem seemed to be that not only did Dante’s Inferno stray a fair bit from the original story, but also that it was a rather ridiculous and over-the-top interpretation of the original texts. For some, what was needed was a more subtle retelling of the original poem, but strangely enough the current-gen game to do that might have already come out, and weirder yet, the game I am talking about was a Halo title.

Not long after the release of Halo 3: ODST, various Bungie fans started picking its narrative and drawing parallels between that game and the Divine Comedy. Now this may start off sounding a little crazy, but I believe I can convince you that ODST does in fact make heavy reference to Alighieri’s work, so let’s sit back and take a look at the two of them side by side. Of course, major spoilers follow for Halo 3: ODST.

Sadie’s Story

Halo is obviously no stranger to religious references, having made nods in the past to Greek mythology, Norse mythology, and most frequently the Bible. While the main story of the game does have some parallels with the Divine Comedy, most of the references to the poem seem to be found in the game’s audio logs; small story snippets that the protagonist of the game discovers as he makes his way through the city of New Mombasa. These logs are not dissimilar to the audio files which laid out a story in Halo 2’s I Love Bees ARG.

The logs relate to the story of a girl named Sadie Endesha and her escape from the city as it is attacked by the Covenant. Much like Dante is guided through hell in the Divine Comedy by the poet Virgil, Sadie is guided through New Mombasa by Vergil, a subroutine of the Superintendent AI which manages the city. The audio logs are divided up into 9 chapters which the game refers to as “circles”. Each of these appears to follow the theme of the 9 circles of hell laid out in the Divine Comedy, and in each of them, the people committing the outlined sin seem to receive some form of punishment.

Circle 1

The Divine Comedy opens with Dante “straying from the path” in his life, and eventually ending up in the first circle of hell, “Limbo”, which acts as home to those with false beliefs (i.e. Non-Christians). At the start of ODST’s first circle, Sadie tells Vergil that her train destination is going to be “Magongo if I don’t get caught... Hell if I do” and just as Dante wanders off his path, Vergil detours the train that Sadie is on. She later says to Vergil “Go to hell [...] Scratch that, hell just came here” as the Covenant begin their attack on the city. Much like in Dante’s first circle, the citizens of New Mombasa believe they are safe, but are shocked to find themselves in a hellish environment. Sadie also learns that her father is sheltering nine levels underground and decides to set out to save him.

Circle 2

The second circle of the Divine Comedy is “Lust”. In this circle in ODST, Sadie is seemingly rescued by Police Commissioner Kinsler, however, on their journey out of the city he tries to sexually assault her before being ejected from his own car.

Circle 3

In the third circle, “Gluttony”, Sadie encounters an incredibly overweight man, handing out kebabs to fleeing citizens. The man not only represents gluttony, but may also represent Ciacco, a gluttonous figure which Dante converses with in this circle. Unfortunately, due to his size, the man cannot make it out of the city.

Circle 4

In the fourth circle, “Greed”, Sadie encounters a woman who had spent 40 years of her life losing money at a casino. She ignores an incoming Covenant attack to get to a cash machine on the wall of the casino and try to steal the money inside. She detaches the cash machine from the wall, but is crushed by it, and tells an approaching Brute she will not share her money, before being shot and killed by it. There may also be a parallel to be found here in that as Virgil protects Dante from the figure of Pluto in the Divine Comedy, so the character of Mike (driver of the Commissioner’s car in Circle 2) returns to protect Sadie from a Brute who attempts to kill her.

Circle 5

In the Divine Comedy, the fifth circle, “Anger”, is where Dante crosses the River Styx and tries to gain entrance to the Walls of Dis which are guarded by fallen angels. He is also threatened by the Furies and Medusa, but an angel manages to speak out against them and secure him a passage through the wall. In ODST Sadie and Mike attempt to cross the bridge over the body of water dividing the two halves of Mombasa, with Sadie enraged at the crowd pushing against them.

As they struggle across the bridge a Pelican drop-ship descends with Commissioner Kinsler in it. Kinsler threatens them with a gun, with Sadie noting that their evasion from him must anger him. However, their guardian angel comes in the form of a rubbish truck controlled by Vergil that crashes into the Pelican and buries the Commissioner in rubbish. The truck then acts as a means across the bridge for them.

Circle 6

The sixth circle, “Heresy”, sees Dante encounter heretics encased in tombs of fire and meet with the Florentines Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti. While there seems to be no obvious person in ODST who represents the latter character, Sadie and Mike do meet a salesman called Tom Uberti who enters their rubbish truck.

The heresy theme comes into play when Sadie’s father reports back to her, after he has observed some Covenant Engineers. As the heretics are encased in tombs of fire, the Engineers are bound in harnesses with bombs attached. As part of a plot against their masters six Engineers remove the bomb from a seventh so that it can work on modifying the Superintendent, however, the six Engineers are killed by the bomb in this act of rebellion. Tom also arguably commits an act akin to heresy, deliberately surrendering to the Covenant from the truck and endangering Sadie and Mike, and in doing this he does of course die.

Circle 7

The seventh circle in the Divine Comedy is “Violence”, which is guarded by the Minotaur, and includes among other sinners, the murderers of the world. In the seventh circle of ODST, Sadie and Mike enter the Office of Naval Intelligence headquarters to try and reactivate the deactivated Superintendent, and find the lobby guarded by a crazed ex-police officer called Marshall who observes that it seems they’re all “going to hell today”. Marshall had murdered a number of officers in the lobby before they arrived and murders a former co-worker right in front of them. Eventually a SWAT team manage to gun down Marshall and save Mike and Sadie.

Circle 8

In the eighth circle, “Fraud”, we can see the ODST characters commit multiple acts of fraud. The first occurs after one ONI officer wishes to bring the Superintendent back online but has specific orders from Commissioner Kinsler not to do so. Sadie tries to convince the officer she has a gun pointed at her by holding a stapler under the jacket. Despite knowing that this is a trick, the officer pretends she is being held at gunpoint so she can reactivate the AI.

Mike later discovers that propaganda being broadcast into the crumbling New Mombasa is actually coming from within the police building. He finds an officer by the name of Stephen broadcasting false information about the officers in the lobby being gunned down by the Covenant and that people were saved by a citizen militia. He manages to coerce Mike into posing as a rising police commander and declaring that the fight against the Covenant is going successfully. Seeing through this facade, Kinsler contacts the building and tells them that if Sadie does not meet him alone, he will kill her father.

Circle 9

In the Divine Comedy the ninth circle is “Treachery”, where Dante finds the ultimate traitor, Satan. The ninth circle is also home to the frozen lake Cocytus and it is from here that Dante and Virgil ascend to purgatory. In ODST Sadie meets Kinsler, who is playing traitor to the citizens he was meant to protect, using his corrupt cops to keep a train out of New Mombasa for himself. One of the crowd can be heard telling Kinsler “Selfish devil! To hell with you!” At another point when Sadie is speaking with Kinsler, she asks “You ever worry there might really be a hell?” to hear him respond “Oh I know there is, my dear. And you and I are leaving it”.

Kinsler reveals to Sadie that her father is dead, killed when his men tripped the fire safety system in the Superintendent’s data centre, causing the ninth level to freeze over with her father inside. Eventually Vergil is able to save Sadie by opening the train doors, allowing the crowd to overwhelm Kinsler and rip him apart.

While Kinsler’s men did kill Sadie’s father, she decides to rescue Vergil, as her father thought him so important in stopping the Covenant. However, Vergil convinces her to leave without him and hints that the ODSTs will be able to save him. This does not seem to directly correspond to any part of Dante’s Inferno, but it may be reflective of the end of the second section of the poem, Purgatorio, where Virgil explains to Dante that he cannot ascend to heaven, due to his non-Christian beliefs and Dante goes on without him.

The Rookie’s Story

With the side story of ODST seeming to provide more confirmation that the game is indeed dealing in a partial retelling of the Divine Comedy, that leaves us free to look at the influence in the main storyline, for which parallels may be drawn but seem more sparse. It’s possible that the seeming references in the main story may just be a bi-product of it following on the back of Sadie’s Story, but there are some interesting similarities none the less.

In the main story you play as one of the titular Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, often known by the nickname “Helljumpers”, and bearing the motto of “Feet first into hell”. As the Divine Comedy opens with the lines “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost”, ODST opens with the protagonist, “The Rookie”, attempting to ride in a drop pod down onto a Covenant Carrier, but being knocked off course by a slipspace rupture and descending down into the city of New Mombasa, awakening there during the night.

New Mombasa seems to have a rather hellish quality with much of it being engulfed in flame, and it being referred to within the game as “Hell on Earth”, but just like Sadie the Rookie is also guided by Vergil, our stand-in for Dante’s Virgil.

At the end of the game The Rookie has to descend through the levels of the Superintendent’s data centre (with the levels seeming to be constructed in a circular shape), in a possible reference to Inferno, with the lowest levels still being frozen over, however, it also should be noted that The Rookie travels through the full ten levels of the data centre, instead of nine. It is possible that the data centre is in fact a reference to Dante’s Purgatorio which is composed of ten separate levels and would make everything up to that point a metaphor for Inferno.

The ending of the game may well be a metaphor for Dante’s ascension to Paradiso. As Virgil insists in the Divine Comedy that he cannot ascent to heaven, Vergil in ODST tries to resist being carried into the Phantom drop-ship, however, The Rookie and his team eventually ascend into the light of the drop-ship’s tractor beam and fly off into the sunrise, away from the burning city below.

Duder, It’s Over

All in all I think Halo 3: ODST is an undervalued Halo game. It never seems to spring to people’s minds when they think of Halo, but it used its film noir inspiration to provide an entirely new tone for the series, in its environment, story, and soundtrack, it introduced the series’ Firefight mode, and managed to have three difference story threads running concurrently.

On top of that I think the parallels it draws with Dante’s poem are a very interesting addition. It allows a story that is functional and palatable for everyone to retain a deeper meaning, and gave those who wanted to analyse something to find. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading.

-Gamer_152

The backlash against the Mass Effect 3 ending may have been the biggest fan outcry against a story in a video game to date. In some ways the bar was set impossibly high for the game, and even for a developer like Bioware closing out the series was never going to be an easy job. While in some cases the reaction did seem a little over-the-top, and many people were ignoring the genuinely amazing work that Bioware had done with Mass Effect to focus their attentions on the areas in which they’d fallen down, the fanbase had a point.

The problems with the Mass Effect 3 ending were numerous and impacting, and it was surprising to see something of such low quality coming from a series that been so well-done up to that point. Still, if there was a silver lining to the Mass Effect 3 ending rage, it was that all the emotion and the endless analysing reflected that people were becoming invested in a video game story like never before. While the medium often plays second-fiddle to books, TV, and films in the narrative department, Mass Effect 3 acted as an example of a game had managed to connect very deeply with thousands of people on a story level.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few months since all of that, but on June 26 EA and Bioware released their extended ending for Mass Effect 3. While it was stated outright that they knew they couldn’t please everyone, the effort had been made to try and address at least some of the fans concerns. I’ve played the DLC, read the discussions on it, gone back and looked at the original complaints of the game, and created a rundown of what the Extended Cut DLC has fixed, and what it hasn’t.

What Has Been Fixed

The Mysterious Crash of the Normandy

In the original ending the shockwave sent out by the synthesis and control choices hit the Normandy and caused it to crash-land on an unknown planet. There was really no logical reason this would have happened and Bioware has addressed this. In the new synthesis and control endings Joker tries to pilot away from the shockwave, he lands on the planet, but the Normandy doesn’t crash.

The Mysteriously Disappearing Squad Members

One of the most confusing things about the original Mass Effect 3 ending was the way your squad mates seemed to follow you on the charge towards the Citadel Beam, only to be mysteriously lost for whatever reason, and then be seen somehow exiting the Normandy onto the planet it crashed on. The Extended Cut manages to fill in this blank, showing Shepard saying a proper goodbye to his injured crew members before they are evacuated to the Normandy, giving a legitimate reason for why they ended up back on the ship.

The Lack of Closure

This may be the most important thing that the DLC does. In the original ending we knew little of what happened to the crew and what the world was like in the immediate wake of Shepard’s decision, an important part of the story considering Mass Effect’s emphasis on consequences for player actions. In the Extended Cut not only does Shepard get to say goodbye to his/her two squadmates, but the DLC also provides a touching end scene where the surviving crew members pay their respects to Shepard and Anderson, and some rather uplifting epilogue speeches. Some real kudos go out to Bioware for this addition to the game.

The Lack of Variation in the Endings

While at their core the previous endings had very different consequences for the galaxy, the events we got to see in them were essentially identical. Not only is there a little more variety in the events we see in Extended Cut, but again the post-game epilogue really helps out here and lets each ending feel more specific to the action you took.

The Lack of a Fourth Option

In the original ending Shepard was forced to choose between control, synthesis, or destruction, but there was really no reason this should have been the case. He/she should have logically had the choice to choose none of these. Personally I don’t see why you’d choose to let the entire universe die out like that but for those who want it, you can give the big “Fuck you” to the Catalyst and his solutions, and let the Reapers harvest the universe. It’s a grim choice, but it’s there.

What Hasn’t Been Fixed

The Deus Ex Machina

The endings still revolve around and are facilitated by a character and systems we discover at the eleventh hour. For all the troubles that Shepard overcomes with his/her own skills and co-operation with his/her crew, it’s a kind of “God of the Reapers” and three magic space machines that come out of nowhere at the last minute which solve everything.

Most of the Plot Holes

I won’t go into any great detail in this paragraph, but if you want to see a more in-depth look at the remaining plot holes I have written them out in the spoiler tag below. They include such key problems as Harbinger just flying away and leaving the Citadel Beam unprotected for seemingly no reason, the basics of the Catalyst’s “Reaper Solution” being flawed, and the fact that we still don’t really know what the synthesis ending does.

The Rewriting of the Story

Most of what the Catalyst says contradicts what Reapers have said before. Depending on your perspective this may or may not be a plot hole, but I’m being generous and assuming it’s not here, and that the Reapers said what they said because they were being controlled by the Catalyst. None the less, that means that up to now what the Reapers have said largely means nothing and that the writers mislead us about a lot of key characteristics of the Reapers. Here are some of the things the Reapers claimed which conflict with what the Catalyst says:

• The Geth have limited viability as material for Reapers (they in fact are not eligible to become Reapers at all).
• All Reapers are independent beings acting for themselves.
• The Reapers have always existed and always will.
• The Reapers are the pinnacle of evolution (the Catalyst claims combined synthetic and organic lifeforms are the pinnacle of evolution).
• That Reapers are “The end of everything”.
• That Shepard could not comprehend the true purpose of the Reapers.

Choices Throughout the Games Are Not Recognised

Perhaps one of my biggest problems with the ending that remains is despite Mass Effect often being a game where your actions have consequences, and you’re given choices that mean something, your choices throughout the trilogy still have little bearing on the ending. The Galactic Readiness and EMS scores you have may unlock an extra ending, and apparently your decision to keep or destroy the Collector Base has some effect, but the score systems seems a shallow way of doing it, it’s not clear from playing the game how your choices factor into the ending, and beyond these things, the decisions made over the series or even in Mass Effect 3 really don’t count for anything.

Mass Effect 2 probably stands up as a better example of how to take into account player actions than 3 does, with who lives and who dies in the ending being dependent on who’s loyalty missions you completed, how you upgraded the Normandy, and what people you assigned to what tasks during the final mission. Mass Effect 3’s endings are still almost entirely about whether you picked A, B, C, or D at the last minute.

The Loose End

If there’s one thing the Extended Cut doesn’t give closure on it’s that “special” ending scene where a soldier with the N7 dog tags draped around them wakes up in the rubble, presumably this is Shepard awakening in the ruins of London. This scene doesn’t just show us that Shepard is probably alive but also raises the questions of how Shepard is alive and where exactly things go from that ending if the Shepard trilogy has ended. It is only a small chunk of the plot and I don’t think it’s the biggest problem, but none the less putting a cliffhanger at the end of a trilogy does seem like a bit of a writing misstep.

Duder, It’s Over

With the expectations for Mass Effect 3, disappointment of the original ending and all the ruckus surrounding the game it’s hard to form an opinion that feels entirely unbiased. In my personal opinion, I think the Mass Effect 3 ending still has more holes in it than some are giving it credit for. In an ideal world I would have much preferred to see them pick up and run with the fan’s indoctrination theory. It could have been a smarter and more surprising ending that didn’t have to resort to a deus ex machina, but I appreciate that developing such an ending under the conditions Bioware were creating the Extended Cut was most likely impossible.

Despite my qualms, I do feel that overall the Extended Cut finally gives Mass Effect 3 a good ending. For whatever problems it may have, it’s a very touching close to the trilogy and managed to evoke a kind of emotional response in me that most games haven’t come close to. For all the talk of how EA has corrupted Bioware and turned them evil, Bioware proved that they still care about fans, and EA proved that they’re not always nickel and diming customers. The original ending was obviously a big mistake on the part of Bioware, but when fans said “This ending is not okay”, they and EA responded by dedicating their own resources and effort over a period of about three months to create free content for their fans. This is something which I think is a great move on their part and has the potential to be very underappreciated. Thanks for reading.

-Gamer_152