I won’t spoil the plot, but I must say that it starts off feeling more like MW 2.5 than MW3. The game begins right on the heels of the second one, not several years later like the first one. As the plot progresses, it starts to separate a bit and feel more like a true sequel. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that they screwed up the ending of MW2 and had to tidy up the loose ends before moving on. Anyway, the campaign feels pretty good overall, and although it’s heavily scripted and extremely linear, that’s what makes it great. It feels like an interactive movie, almost, a cinematic ride through the theatres of war. It does that even better than the first two games, but seems a bit lacking and repetitive at times. We’ve done the AC-130 how many times now? I think it’s a good thing they’re ending here, because after the stuff they pulled in the second title, it’s kind of hard to top that.

And here’s the bad news- Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t really do it. There are some pretty epic moments, and the conclusion is amazing, but it just doesn’t do the shock and awe thing as well as the first two games. There’s lots of explosions, sure, but they don’t have any impact. However, in terms of Action Movie Quiet Drama Scene, MW3 has quite a few, and they are well done. I know I’m going to piss off a lot of people by saying this, but if you’re looking for video games as art, start with the Modern Warfare series. The visuals are stunning, not necessarily because of the quality but because of what they are. I’m a PC guy and can’t say for the console guys, but MW3 looks great. Yes, there are probably better looking games, but it’s well presented. The sound design is equally excellent, and really rounds out the game. This was Medal of Honor’s failing, if anyone remembers that.

Remember how I said that this feels like MW2.5? That is reflected most in the menus, which are nearly identical. Control configuration is much the same, and the graphics options seem to lock certain settings for some reason, forcing me to override from the nVidia control panel. The game closes and starts a different executable when you switch to multiplayer, which is very glaring especially for Steam users. The campaign completion meter is totally useless- it doesn’t measure how close you are to the end of the campaign but how many achievements you got, or how many intelligence briefcases, or something. I thought I was less than halfway through, when I was really almost done. Multiplayer-wise, at least the dedicated servers are back but as I said I didn’t really try it much.

At the risk of sounding like a Straw Feminist, I’m going to bitch about one last thing before I’m done. WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE WOMEN?! There was a pilot that you don’t see, some civilians that you barely notice, and a hostage. I am not joking. I could understand the first game, which was all about special forces, but still wish it didn’t have the sexist subliminal messaging. The second game was a serious mind screw. Yes, I know they are not allowed in American combat units. Are the lines really going to be that clear cut when your country is being invaded? The Russians are here, all men to the front lines! What the hell are you doing, I said all MEN! Go back and cower in the bunker. The situation is similar (though not exactly the same) in Modern Warfare 3.

Although the story arcs are definitely concluded, there are still loose ends after Modern Warfare 3. What’s going to happen in Russia? How is the Western world going to recover? What’s the story on Israel and the Middle East? What about Asia? There’s room for more here, but I don’t think Infinity Ward should do it. It would only be more of the same, and the horse is pretty tired now. Do Future Warfare. Embrace the near-future sci-fi shooter, and take the same cinematic approach. Walkers, powered armour, space combat, that sort of thing, but big and epic like the other Call of Duty games. We’ve had two Captain Prices, let’s have a third for some continuity. Make her a her this time.

Last but not least, did anyone notice that the Occupy Wall Street?

BioWare wants you to vote for your favourite new FemShep, out of six candidates. This will be the new default female for ME3 and appear on the alternate cover of the collector’s edition. While I love that Sheploo’s Distaff Counterpart is getting some attention, and that they are asking fans for input, I don’t agree with that at all.

First of all, all six concepts suck. Open them up in another tab and follow along. The first three have either really short hair or a bun, I can’t tell from the angle. They’re kind of ugly, but don’t look badass. Number three isn’t as extreme as the other two, and isn’t too bad. Still, they look kind of pale and look like they are wearing makeup. Number four looks like a pop star or maybe a prostitute, not a galaxy saving heroine. The first three at least look the part… mostly. I like the face of number five, but the hair is way too messy and long. I actually wouldn’t mind her face as a reimagining of the original FemShep, as long as the long blonde hair goes. Seriously, will that even fit in a helmet? As for the last one, just no. I don’t know if it’s the black hair, the hairstyle or the dark skin, but I don’t like her look at all.

That’s not the biggest problem, though. The biggest problem is that we already have an official, default, female Shepard. Why not just pretty her up a little and use her? To some of us (well, me, anyway), the green-eyed, redheaded woman is just as iconic as the default male model. Changing that is akin to putting a different guy on the cover of Mass Effect 3, or giving Chief blue armour for Halo 4, or making a version of Minecraft with realistic terrain. Maybe not the latter, but it’s still ridiculous. We have a default Shepard already, why change her?

5. More Love for FemShep

Commander Shepard is the Hero of the Citadel and savior of the galaxy. Commander Shepard is a badass Spectre who headbutts krogan and uses guns that would break normal people’s arms. Commander Shepard can outgun, outrun, and outdrink anything in the galaxy. Commander Shepard wouldn’t stay dead. Commander Shepard is a galactic role model and celebrity. And Commander Shepard is a woman.

I and many others think of the hero this way. Maybe it’s Jennifer Hale’s voice acting. Maybe it’s the fact that there are very few truly badass women in videogames. Maybe it’s just to be different. Maybe it’s just some kind of weird fetish. Whatever the case, there are a lot of fans of FemShep. I must confess, I thought that Shepard should be male at first. Then I actually played as a female, and now I can’t imagine Shepard as anything but a her. And yet, the Distaff Counterpart doesn’t get any marketing attention at all. We don’t see her in any of the official trailers. We don’t see her in any of the pre-release screenshots. We don’t see her on the cover, on the box or the manual. Fortunately, this is changing, with official announcements that she will appear in the trailer and on the Collector’s Edition box. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. I would actually like to see a double-sided cover, with female on one side and male on the other. That being said, I buy most of my games on Steam, so a selectable icon will have to do.

4. Drop The Mining and Research Mechanics

This was possibly the most convoluted and annoying part of ME2. Upgrades had to be discovered by scanning or observing things, and if you missed it, you missed it. Except for the upgrades you had to buy, of course. All the upgrades were tied together with a Linux-like dependency structure, too. Want to upgrade shotgun damage? Too bad, you have to upgrade the ammo capacity first. Add a tedious mineral-scanning “mining” mechanic to this, and you get a disaster of a gameplay element.

I didn’t want the inventory ripped out for ME2, maybe it’s not fair to get rid of this mechanic completely. But it needs to be streamlined if it is kept. Maybe do something like this. Research projects allow you to get items for free, but it’s completely optional. Most of the items can simply be bought. Research is unlocked naturally through tech trees or automatically as you progress through the game. As for funding the research, I don’t really want the mineral scanning back, but it wouldn’t be too bad if it was fully optional. Money to research would defeat the purpose. Of course, the mining mechanic wouldn’t be missed were it to be eliminated.

3. Better Squad Customization

In Mass Effect 1, you could customize your squad to your heart’s content. You could give them all matching armour (take note of that, armour, not outfits), all four weapons of your choosing, and choose from a wide variety of skills even within classes. After all, you’re the boss. Mass Effect 2 took that away. While the leveling system was tighter, more focused and more streamlined, the lack of choice in outfits was disappointing, especially considering the default ones. I liked being able to customize my Shep, but why couldn’t my whole squad have matching N7 armour? It didn’t help that some of the outfits, such as Miranda’s infamous whore cat suit, were totally unsuitable for actual combat. And of course, there’s the whole breath mask fiasco…

The leveling and powers I’m not too concerned about. I actually liked the way ME2 handled it. And let’s face it, having all four weapons was kind of stupid anyway. It’s the outfits that get me, especially after the first game where everyone wore armour, and you could give them whatever would fit. I understand this is more work for the modelers and basically precludes unique bodies. Still, however, I would like to have more customizability. Being able to change the colour scheme shouldn’t be too hard to do, and would allow a team that looks like a pro group of elites instead of a ragtag band of misfits. Maybe give each person a few sets of clothing- at least one of these should be proper armour with a helmet. It’s not perfect, but it would be better than what we have now. Perhaps give them a choice of weapons classes, the kicker being that they can’t carry all of them at once (shotgun, SMG and pistol or just sniper and pistol, for example). This also kind of ties in with the next item on my list…

2. Bring Back The Inventory

Looting items and doling them out was a critical part of the first game. Yes, it was unrealistic, and yes, it was tedious and clumsy. The selection of guns seemed fantastic, until you found out that all the guns were basically the same. The selection of armour was similar. Upgrades were great, if you could find them. Of course, there was the infamous item-limit and the illogical omni-gel. It wasn’t a nightmare, but it was pretty bad. That doesn’t mean it should be ripped out entirely, like in Mass Effect 2.

Bring back the loot, bring back the inventory! Killing things is oh so much more satisfying when you get free stuff out of it. I’ve already discussed the armour situation above, and it ties in here. Drop the leveled system, that was just awful. But leave a decent variety of items around. Gun upgrades are confirmed, and they seem to actually change physical appearances. I’m definitely excited for that. More guns would be nice, took. You can never have enough dakka, and ME2 was severely lacking in this regard. The variety of weapons was a step forward, but there were few in each category and few overall. It’s hard to describe the feeling of satisfaction with the inventory, but something just feels missing without it.

1. Better PC Support

I’m a PC gamer, always have been and always will be. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were originally XBOX 360 games, ported to the PC. ME1 was a fairly good job. It had a nice revised interface, decent controls, a good deal of options, and even new minigames. The sequel, eh, not so good. The default controls are actually backwards from ME1, and configurability is limited. There were few options graphics-wise, and the menus were not very well adapted. I found myself ignoring the codex, because it is incredibly clunky. Hopefully, ME3 will be better in this regard, as it will be produced for XBOX 360, PS3 and PC all at the same time.

First, graphics options. Let me set more than resolution and a generic “detail level”, please. I have an expensive videocard that can do anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, and I want to be able to set that in-game. Controls are the next thing, but probably more important. Don’t assign sprint, use and crouch-behind-cover to the same button. This isn’t a gamepad, I have a ton of keys to work with. If you think this is optimal, set it as the default but let us separate the functions. Take a gander at the control customization for CoD4- there are several functions just for crouch, including hold-for-crouch, toggle crouch, stance down and stance up. Yes, it’s a bit confusing, but I would rather have confusing and flexible than easy but rigid. Although I don’t use it, native gamepad support would be nice, too. Also, hotkeys for squad, inventory and codex screens. The tactical menu isn’t too bad, but the rest needs work. Circular menus look neat and are great for gamepads, not too bad for a mouse but seemed awkward in ME2. It’s not too bad, though- the worst is the codex. It’s unresponsive, awkward, and annoying. The ME1 codex audio could be muted, this should be back in ME3. Don’t take this the wrong way- ME2 was plenty playable, but ME1 was just a lot better when it came to being optimized for PC.

Those are my top five, but what are your Mass Effect 3 wishes? Fulfilled or not, I’m sure Mass Effect 3 will be some degree of awesome, and I’m looking forward to the release of it and the other third games that will be coming out soon. Not that I’ll be able to afford any of them, damn it.

For those that don’t know it already, I hate Stargate Universe (SGU). I’m a huge fan of the prior two Stargate shows, but SGU just left me disgusted. I forced myself to watch it hoping it would get better and eventually gave up. Later I tried again, then gave up again. I made my opinion absolutely clear- SGU sucks.

I guess the network executives have the same opinion now, because it’s cancelled. So, without further ado, the top five reasons why SGU sucked (in my mind anyway).

5. Terrible Cinematography
The lighting is too dark and the shaky-cam puketastic. ’nuff said.

4. Wrong Tone
This isn’t Stargate at all. Stargate is adventurous and optimistic even in the darkest times. Not completely dark and emo.

3. Stupid Premise
The idea of a bunch of idiots stuck on a spaceship halfway across the universe was flawed from the outset. For a supposedly serious show, anyway.

2. Awful Characters
Rush is an asshole, Young is incompetent, Chloe is a whore, TJ just sucks, Scott and Greer are both cliched, stereotyped lapdogs. And I’m not sure who the fuck Wray is.

1. Drama over Story
SGU had no storyline, no direction, no enemy, no fucking purpose. I really don’t want to see a bunch of desperate losers trying to survive. The drama is terrible. Picture the stupidest, most temperamental borderline insane people you know all tossed into a spaceship. That’s SGU in a nutshell. It would have been pretty funny if they weren’t so serious about it. Basically, instead of stuff like character development, plot advancement or background information, there was pointless melodrama.

Though it’s not a reason the show sucked and therefore can’t go on the list, TPTB’s attitude was terrible. They ignored what the fans wanted, insisted the show was the best thing since sliced bread, then blamed “angry Atlantis fans” for SGU’s failure. I don’t even want these assholes making Stargate.

Well, it’s finally coming to a close. The best I can hope for is a reboot in ten to twenty years. Gah.

Supposedly it updates automatically, but I’ve had to update both CoD4 and BFBC2 manually. If you don’t have it up to date, you get kicked with a cryptic message. Why doesn’t it update automatically? Is this deliberate or just bad coding?

Apparently the method PunkBuster uses to identify cheaters is dubious at best. One group injected a stream of characters made to look like a common hack into an IRC stream while playing. The result? A ban. PunkBuster also has the (in my opinion scary) ability to PERMANENTLY ban cheaters from ALL PunkBuster enabled servers.

All this would be forgivable if PunkBuster did a good job of stopping cheaters. But it doesn’t. PunkBuster is woefully ineffective. I’ve played against so many aimbots and wallhackers it’s not even funny. And I’m not the only one experiencing this. There is no replacement for a good server admin.

PunkBuster is terrible software. And the guys at Evenbalance seem to be flaunting it like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Why are game companies incorporating this shit? Are they simply too lazy or cheap to implement their own, proper anti-cheat software?

A while back I installed K-lite Codec Pack. It’s a pack consisting of DirectShow filters, splitters, and a whole bunch of other stuff I had never heard of before. Any DirectShow player- WMP included- can take advantage of it and play anything. So, in a nutshell, I no longer needed QuickTime and I can play things in formats I didn’t even know about. Unfortunately, I had to keep QuickTime around since Premiere Elements relies on it for MPEG 4 support. I never use it, though.

So, just recently, I decided to try Media Player Classic. I liked the amount of control it gives you. You can select codecs, change rendering settings, and apply shaders. I found that changing settings doesn’t really do a lot, at least not the ones I changed. The interface was okay, not great but usable, it was a bit slower to load. It doesn’t have any media library functionality. Though I rarely use that stuff, I at least want to have playlists handy. Which is something MPC can’t do. Basically, the only thing I gained over WMP is .vob support (you can get .vob to work in WMP by changing it to .mpg, by the way), so I ditched it after less than a day. It was interesting, but I missed the familiar interface and playlists.

On to web browsers. I’ve been getting screwed by IE for a while now. It messes up the order of pages- what I mean by that is sometimes if you go back a page, forward a page, it screws up the order they are in so you go back two and they are swapped. A minor problem, but really annoying. And of course, it doesn’t display certain pages correctly. And crashes sometimes for no apparent reason. So I decided to make the switch to Firefox.

Overall, Firefox is a better browser. The interface is pretty much the same, though a few things are in different spots. It’s faster. It has a lot of addons, some of which I use. At first it refused to import. Oddly enough, if I import things one at a time (favorites, cookies, internet options, history) it worked fine. Dealing with imported bookmarks was a nightmare. The bookmark manager felt awkward and is slow as hell. I got over the awkwardness but it never sped up. I actually had to reimport my bookmarks/favorites once because I deleted half of them. But I got it all sorted out eventually. I was annoyed by the lack of clicking sounds when browsing- an addon fixed that. The download system is a bit odd, but I’m getting used to it. I’ll probably make the switch if I can get over the little quirks.

Of course, they’re still a bunch of idiots doing stupid shit, it’s still full of “drama” and plot holes. But at least there’s some bad guys and some action, and something resembling a plot. Since I was watching it on a computer, I skipped past most of the scenes with Eli and Chloe, because I don’t like them. I took a moment to remark how bad the characters are. O’Neill and Carter appeared briefly, and O’Neill actually acted somewhat like O’Neill this time. I still don’t understand why they sent 302s instead of beaming a team in just outside or bombarding the Lucian Alliance base from orbit. The whole gamma ray burst thing adds an additional element, but I don’t understand why a ship that can fly through a sun has any problem with it.

There’s one scene where Wray (I think it was Wray) gets handed a ballistic vest that as far as I can tell, has no plates in it. I briefly wondered why they’re still using that crap after two sets of Kull armor and all the knowledge of the Asgard. Not really a complaint about SGU, more of a random thought. Anyway, I actually found myself cheering for the Lucian Alliance. They’re actually competent and can function as a unit. That said, I was still happy when it seemed like everyone was going to die at the end of the episode.

Summarized? Still too much drama, too many unlikeable characters, and a lot of continuity fail and plot holes. But it’s not unwatchable anymore. It’s gone up from a horrible TV show to a bad TV show.

Well, I watched Avatar yesterday, and it was a mixed bag.

Let’s start off on a positive note. The special effects were as good as they are hyped up to be. Pandora looks really well done and cool-looking. The battle scenes were impressive both visually and aurally.

And that’s where the good part ends. The story is overlong, overdone, and preachy as fuck. I found myself rooting for the humans. The North American Indians metaphor was incredibly obvious and slammed you in the face.

A lot of stuff, including the design of Pandora itself, seems unrealistic and unlikely. Who the hell was the military advisor for this thing? The tactics used by the humans were completely retarded, even (or maybe especially) for mercs. Whoever designed their vechicles should be shot too. There was nowhere near enough sci-fi stuff- cool technology, technobabble explainations, etc. In fact, the movie felt more fantasy than sci-fi. The whole movie felt 40 years into the future, not 140 years. In fact, the only really futuristic technology was the Avatars themselves.

Overall, Avatar is a great movie for showing off your home theatre or seeing once because everyone else is. But really, it’s not as great as it’s hyped up to be.

I don’t like FanFiction, though. Not only does it have several stupid guidelines and restrictions, horrible administration, and an awkward design, but it’s also filled with idiots.

I try my damndest to write good fanfiction. I know I’m not a good writer, but I try to keep characters in character, strive for canonical and (if applicable) factual accuracy, and make a decent plot. But I might as well write crap! Case in point. Halogate, my Halo/Stargate crossover (under the name Chris4221). My chapters are horribly short, averaging about 1500 words long, and the writing isn’t that great. It’s not like it’s full of spelling errors, but it’s just not very good. I thought the plot out a lot, and spent a lot of time doing research (read: I wasted hours on the Halo wiki), and blended the universes together as seamlessly as I could.

Then some random guy (or very possibly girl) churns out a fanfic that’s longer and better written than mine. However, it lacks things like a (semi) original plot, characters in character, or a nice blended universe. It’s a horrible fic, but despite (or because of) that, it has more, better reviews, and probably more views overall. This really pisses me off. I guess people just like things that are written better, even if they make no sense.

I really need to find another place to post my stories. Right now, I’m tempted to write crap, because people will probably think it’s better. Maybe I’ll write the millionth Jack/Sam fic, even though I don’t even like that pairing.

I should take the time to mention one thing I really hate, a pet peeve if you will. I hate it when someone has a really good idea, usually well written too. Then they ruin it with pointless romances (shipping?) that shouldn’t be there and make no sense. Usually this type of story is full of factual or canonical errors as well, but I digress.

http://www.fanfiction.net/Stargate_SG-1_and_Halo_Crossovers/68/1342/
http://www.fanfiction.net/~chris7221

I’ve seen a lot of good and bad console ports. Am I the only one who thinks “rotate the left analog stick” on a PC game sounds incredibly stupid? Especially ones with crap control layouts that you can’t change. Features taken for granted in the PC world but nonexistant in the console world are missing. Like the ability to change resolution, for example. And the controls, since they are so awful. I guess bad ports are less stable and don’t perform well, but I haven’t really noticed it. Sometimes it’s just minor flaws, though, like over-large text sized for a TV, or controls the opposite of the predecessor (I’m looking at you, Mass Effect 2).

Finally, I’m seeing games mostly on DVD. For a while, it was insane. Some games needed four CDs! At that point, we were well into the sixth generation era where consoles were DVD based and almost every new PC was sold with a combo drive (CD-writer and DVD reader) at the least. I buy most of my games through Steam now, so it doesn’t matter as much for me.

Another archaic practice that seems to be going the way of the dinosaur is having to insert the disc to play. It’s a huge pain in the ass if you have as many games as I do, and pretty much unnecessary. I fail to see how it would do anything about piracy. You still need a disc, copied or legit. Sadly, we get SecuRom instead now.

This is m0re a wish than a complaint, but I wish network play was possible without purchasing two copies of a game. Remember how the old Command and Conquer games came with two discs, both of which could be used to play the game? Something like that. It wouldn’t work with digital distribution, though.

What’s with OnLive? Playing a game on a server? First, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. Second, HD video takes up a lot more bandwidth than playing online normally. Third, you have no control over your game files, which means your save could disappear and you can’t play mods. Lastly, I paid for this quad core and Radeon HD 4670, I’m damn well going to use them!