See, this is the shit that bugs me!
By LiquidPrince 48 Comments
Alright there are two main things this blog is going to be about. One is only a very minor annoyance and the second is a bigger one. Lets start with the more minor annoyance.
Minor Annoyance:
The Xbox 360 and its tendency to heavily compress everything. I have been playing a lot of my 360 since I recently bought the slim. I had a 360 before but only got to play Gears of War before it red ringed on me. When the slim came out I though it was time to give it another try. So far it's great, but like I said, holy shit, the amount of compression in all games is mind blowing. Playing Splinter Cell conviction, all the cutscenes are pre-rendered and so heavily compressed that there is compression artifacts everywhere. Same thing with Alan Wake, and even Mass Effect. Although Mass Effect is very minor.
Now this doesn't bug me too much, but it's probably because I have a very keen eye, and love judging things based on visual quality. For example I tend to compare Blu-ray movies together all the time, and figure out which ones look the best and which ones have bad transfers. I can't remember the last time a PS3 game had terrible compression artifacts, and the Blu-ray is to blame.
Bigger Annoyance:
I don't understand most people and their complaints about games. For example why people complained about the elevators in Mass Effect 1 is beyond me. Why the fuck would you want to remove the elevator sequences which keep you immersed in the world, and sometimes had unique dialogue sections, with static load screens that take just as long? Do you people hate immersiveness? Or what about in Prince of Persia's case; why would you want to die, and look at a reload screen when Elika saving you was essentially the same thing, just expedited?
This annoyance really dawned on me, when I realized that I missed the elevator scenes in Mass Effect 1. They kept you immersed, and made the world seem big, because you had to travel there. But now in Mass Effect 2, you just looked at a load screen, which pretty much took just as long, but didn't add to the immersiveness.