Plastic Videogame Comic

The Definition of Madness

2013-01-06T12:14:00.000-02:00

Sorry for not updating here for so long. New job, lack of creative ideas and other stuff kinda hold me back. I will try really hard to update at least once a week. I also decided to use less characters in my comic, to make it easier to tackle the characters. So, Momotaros, Rei, Miku and Eyes will probably be the only ones I will use from now on.

Now, if you played Far Cry 3, you know one of the main villains, Vaas, defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results each time. It is how many game 'fans' act. They see something they don't like, rage over the internet a lot, buy whatever they raged over anyway, the game companies do it again, they rage again, buy product again and you get the idea.

Keeping this same vicious cycle every time, expecting things to change, will never cause change. Doing something different, like refusing to buy a game that do something you don't like, instead of buying it because you 'need' to play it, is what will cause change. Repeating the same rage-buy-rage process over and over again changes nothing.

With such a bunch of self-centered, instant-gratification seekers that many people become today, it is very hard to see any change. Maybe people are really mad. How else we can explain people doing the same things over and over again expecting things to change?

7 Hints About Persona 5 Dropped in Persona 4 Arena

2012-09-06T17:01:00.001-03:00

WARNING! THIS POST WILL HAVE SPOILERS ABOUT PERSONA 3, PERSONA 4 AND PERSONA 4 ARENA. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

So, I finally finished all characters story in Persona 4 Arena. And yes, it is a great fighting game with one of the most interesting stories in gaming. But more importantly, Persona 4 Arena finishes in one of the biggest cliffhangers ever. With Atlus' works in Persona 5 already confirmed, it means that this cliffhanger probably aims towards the next true sequel to the Persona series. Yes, it could just mean that we will have a Persona 4 Arena 2, which, besides being one of the most stupid game names, it is a possibility due to the great numbers P4A have being able to do.

But since P4A is a cooperative job, and both Atlus working in Persona 5 and Arc System Works doing its next BlazBlue game, it may be a long time before we got a sequel in the fighting games. So, I am more inclined thinking that all hints dropped in P4A about a sequel in its story points towards the Persona 5 game, which I am eager waiting to play. And here I show all the hints that may say what we should expect from this future Persona title.

7. It may be set in college, not in high school.

A lot of gamers I know hopes that Persona 5 have a college setting. And this may be just the case! In Akihiko's story mode, he talks about going back to college. Fuuka is in college, it seems. But there is one bigger reason why this may happen. Everyone from the cast of Persona 3 and 4 will be at college age by the time P5 hits the shelves.

See, most of the protagonists in both games are already in college age by now. The P3 cast all where in high school in 2009. Even if they were 1st year students, they would be, at best (or worst) in their last year in high school by now. And if P5 is set in the same year, or the next year of its launch, it means that it will be set in 2014 at earliest. And everyone from both casts will be in college age, maybe some will be even graduating by that time.

Setting the game in high school would simple make any characters from P3 and P4 unable to be more than cameos in P5. And it is unlikely this will be the case, because...

6. The characters from Persona 3 and Persona 4 said they will be meddling in the Persona 5 story.

The Shadow Operatives, a spec ops group fighting shadows formed by many members of the P3 cast, and the Investigation Team formed by the P4 cast, said they would investigate the responsible for the events in P4A, meaning they will be an important part of the events that will happen in P5. And it will be hard to interact with the P5 cast if they are high school students, when most of the old characters will be in college age.

From P3, only Aigis and Ken Amada would be able to go to high school. Ken, because he was in middle school in P3, but since nobody I know likes him, he would be an unlikely choice. Aigis is an android, meaning she don't age, so she can pass as a high school student. From P4, Naoto, Rise and Kanji could pass up as high school students. Maybe Teddy too. But they will all be in college age if P5 is set in 2014. Labrys, the original character from P4A is likely to make a return, specially since she is already a fan favorite.

So, it is likely that at least one of the characters from both P3 and P4 will make a return to P5 in some form, and since is more likely they will have an active role, I doubt they will make just cameos, but in fact be playable characters in P5. So, making the college setting more likely. And remember that Atlus already make a game with an older set of characters, Catherine, and it was a success for them. So, I am betting in their return. In college!

Please, Atlus, make her and her sweet accent be playable in Persona 5. Thank you.

5. Port Island will be the game's city again.

The reason why I believe Port Island, the city from Persona 3 will make a return is because the Investigation Team from P4 said they were going there to investigate the Labrys' incident. Not only that, it is hinted that the responsible for the incident may have connections with the Kirijo Group, the corporation Mitsuru's family ran over in P3. So, no better place than investigate the mystery than in there.

Not only that, a big city like Port Island probably will have a big college somewhere, and it will be a better, more exciting place than the small Inaba. Of course, I am also betting we will be able to travel to locations from previous Persona games because the Malign Entity from P4A is aiming in stealing Personas from its users, making more likely that people from Persona 1 and 2 could make at least a cameo and that their cities may be visited during the investigation.

So, the familiar ground (probably with brand new locales to visit instead of updated old ones), is more likely to make a second appearance this time.

4. Elizabeth and her quest will be in Persona 5.

In the end of Persona 3, the main character uses his own soul to keep humanity desires for death to reach Nyx, a powerful entity who could kill all humanity. Elizabeth, Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room is in a quest to attempt to free the main character' soul. While I doubt that this will be in the main quest, I can easily see it as a side quest, like The Answer in Persona 3 or the Snow Queen quest in the original Persona.

It would be an interesting quest, who could add a new layer of difficulty to the game (the side quests in Persona tends to be more difficulty than the main quest) and to add a new layer on the usually complex stories told in the series.

Also, it would be a nice incentive to play if you could add either Elizabeth or the main character from Persona 3 to your party by finishing this quest. Just saying.

3. It will deal with more mature and personal themes.

Catherine, the first HD game from Atlus and made by the Persona team, is a game with a very personal story and who dealt with themes who usually arouse between adults, like sex, marriage, job, responsibility. I believe Atlus was testing the waters, to see if they could pull out a game like that and sell enough copies. Since they did, there is a likely chance that P5 will be a more mature game than their prequels.

P4A, specially in Labrys own story, already dealt with a very personal and deep story, so I believe the tone for the next game will be darker and mature somehow. Not that they will forget about the slice of life side that made P3 and P4 a hit, but they will probably throw a less 'funny' story this time around. And I am all for that. The college setting would help a lot in this, since then we would have the cast facing the problems of adults and not anymore the problems of teenagers.

2. The Villain will be a returning one.

OK, likely it will not be Danny de Vitto/Igor. But I have a feeling the villain in P4A is someone (something?) who have encountered persona users before, meaning that it have appeared in some of the old titles before, even if in smaller roles.

The voice who talked with Labrys in her story and showed her the school from P4 sounded a lot like the voice of Philemon, a character from the first Persona. It don't mean that he will be the villain, mind you, but that he may be involved somehow. And of course, using an old villain would be a very interesting way to connect all Persona games in the same universe it seems they are set in.

Why not?

1. It will have a new main character.

Not her, sadly.

I know, it doesn't say in P4A that it will have a new character. But it is highly unlikely that any old character would be the lead role. Sure, it will have at least one or two old characters as playable, in my opinion, but P5 will have a lot of new faces, starting with the main character.

The reason for that is that the Malign Entity in P4A already targeted the old casts, meaning he will probably not target them again, but try his/her luck with new persona users, unaware of his/her existence. It may even help them to awake their personas, just so he can try to steal them afterwards. It make more sense to have at least many new characters as old ones.

Also, I am hopeful that we will be able to choose the gender of the main character. It was a great new feature in Persona 3 Portable, so having this option from the get go in P5 would be great.

So, what do you think? What hints Persona 4 Arena gave you about the next game?

Weirder Than Thou

2012-08-19T14:42:00.001-03:00

This is what I always want to do with the guys on forums who start criticizing others by liking characters from anime or Japanese games while completely doing the same for western characters. Both are liking fictional characters. But of course, the critic's preferences are completely normal while the criticized is the weird one, despite both being more equal than different from each other.

It strike me as stupidity when we live in a world where we have to defend our hobbies that instead of getting together we spend so much time and energy trying to prove that we are normal while the other are weird, instead of just appreciating our hobbies and letting others appreciate theirs. In the end, this just prove that those legends that nerds, geek, gamers or other people who were ridicularized because of their hobbies are in fact more similar to their bullies than they want to admit.

And as long as people try to defend their preferences by attacking the preference of others, this will never ends.

OnDead

2012-08-18T15:52:00.000-03:00

Like the OUYA, OnLive promised cheap gaming with a better experience and too many gamers were hopeful it would live its promises and potential. And like the OUYA, too many gamers ignored the obvious flaws in the proper execution of it to be cautiously optimistic.

On paper, OnLive would be great, but reality kicked in. The precarious infrastructure around the world, the price of servers and many other problems put OnLive in its current situation. But gamers seems so desperate for a cheaper, better option for games than the current one that they sure forget the advantages of what we have now and disadvantages of what is promised. And specially when the promises are so good, we tend to want to believe.

In the end, the game market is not an easy one, even if you are making the right promises. You need to earn money to keep making it. And if you fail to earn enough money, you can't make true to your promises. A hard lesson that all dreamer must keep in mind before entering in this business.

The Darkest Day

2012-08-17T19:47:00.002-03:00

And for more of an exaggeration this is, we are really coming too close of the time where making jokes will be impossible. I am not saying that all is excused just because it is supposed to be a joke or that people cannot feel offended, but we are coming to the ridiculous point were people actively try to be offended. Take these examples.

What people need to stop to do is taking everything personally, specially when it have nothing to do with them in any way. Sometimes there was no real offense being done, except the one the 'offended' choose to put in the joke in order to justify his 'hate'. What it feels is that people aren't being 'offended' but is just searching their minutes of spotlight by acting like that.

And the day that humor will be no more seems more closer and real than ever.

Why Evangelion is the Best and Worse Thing That Happened to Anime

2012-08-14T11:30:00.000-03:00

If you are into anime, even a little bit, chances are you have heard of Neon Genesis Evangelion. this 90s anime, at first glance, it is about a bunch of highschool kids fighting monsters in cool giant robots. But you need not more than three episodes to understand that it is way deeper than that. It is way more dark, confusing, deeper and gray than that.

The characters all have a dark past, traumas and are far from being heroic. The story hide several hidden agendas from many characters and organizations. The main characters aren't the usual unchangeable characters that most western shows have. They change a lot during the run of the show. It become a great success and launched several trends that anime follow to this date. So, let's start with all the bad things Evangelion left.

The very first thing it made that I really don't like is all the gore. Sure, Akira had a hand in that, but Akira was not the commercial success that Evangelion is. Evangelion set the way for extremely violent shows, like Elfen Lied. And now it seems any show trying to be more 'mature' seems to rely on great quantities of blood, meat masses exploding and killing people in gruesome ways. It is not a sign of maturity, but the fact that the writers cannot seem to think of mature writing, and just add gore instead.

Another bad trending is the one of making insane plots. Many anime trying to be mature put really hard to follow and understand plots, like making the plot a mess is a sign of cleverness. It is not. Confusing the viewer doesn't help to sell a story, it make them hate it. It is the same as the gore, a cheap tactic to make the writing seem more mature, not just lazy.

The third trend it created is the obsessive fans. Evangelion started the trend of obsessive fans collecting all the stuff made about it, fans who cannot shut up about it. Sure, it is not fault of the show per se, but it is an annoying thing. What is fault of the show is the moe trend. Rei and Asuka pretty much started it all, making today's anime filled with cute girls to gather to the obsessive fans.

The last trend I hate, but this one is very particular to me, is the trend of making characters' life hell. I want to watch TV shows and movies to relax. life is already too hard to just sit and see people suffering during twenty minutes. Many shows have being doing it recently. Some do it for the 'realism' (yeah, realism about a show where giant mechas fight monsters) but honestly, I prefer something more lighthearted.

Of course, I would be unfair saying only the bad things. Evangelion have positive influences in the anime world.

It showed that an anime could gather to an older audience, and that old audience could be as profitable as the children. By that, it opened the door to many people to create works trying to aim at people whose classic stories were not enough. We would probably never had animes like Cowboy Bebop if Evangelion wasn't a success.

It also showed that animation could go deeper with its themes, not being locked like western animation in the old cartoon tropes.It could tell stories about human relationships, about philosophy and about human nature, even if superficially at first in Evangelion.

It created a new kind of star. Megumi Hayashibara (Rei's voice) was one of the first voice actresses to become a success outside of the voice acting, becoming a hit singer. This helped the animation to become more than itself.

It helped small studios gain attention and being able to put their shows on TV, as Gainax at the time was not a very big studio. Many were able to create series who weren't as long but that left a mark in the industry.

And finally, it helped expanding anime not only by broadening the audience back in Japan, but by being one of the first animes to gain world wide fame and success. It was to many the first contact to anime, and in many countries is one of the most known and loved shows ever made.

In the end, what happened is what happens with all successful media. The surprising success made several studios trying to find the one reason that made Evangelion a success, copy it and then multiplying one or several factors of it tenfold, hoping that the more 'in your face' attitude could create a similar success, or bigger.

If you are watching any anime made after Evangelion, the chances are you will find lots of influences of it in the show you are watching. Of course some influences are better than others. But for the good and for the bad, even if you didn't liked the show, Evangelion's influence is there. At the same time that it made the anime a bigger industry today, it also created some of its biggest problems.

I love Evangelion, mind you. But it is clear that many of the negative things I see in modern anime comes from it. But love it or hate it, to this date, Evangelion is one of the most influential shows not only in the anime industry, but in several other media. And if you love or hate anime to this day, you can be sure it have Evangelion's influence in it.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

2012-08-12T16:28:00.001-03:00

I had played three different games recently who put heavy emphasis in the choices you make. InFamous 2, The Walking Dead and Mass Effect 3. InFamous 2 was a very bipolar experience. You either is evil or good. All black and white. The Walking Dead and Mass Effect where very gray in a lot of its decisions. While Mass Effect sure made my past decisions, some of them tracking back to the very first game, make its weight be felt in the later games, specially the third one, The Walking Dead is still to show me this weight ( I have played only two episodes).

I think it is nice to see games holding players responsible for their decisions, even when they were made a long time ago. And specially when they make it seem a good idea at the time. Like most things in the 80s. And I swear, the mullet hair style should be at least a felony. if you have one, don't delude yourself, you are not cool. No, you aren't.

I've Become What I Hate Most

2012-08-11T12:07:00.002-03:00

Human beings have this weird tendency to root for the weaker. We don't want to see someone who is already successful being successful again, we want to believe that anyone can be, so it give us hope that we will be successful ourselves one day. But in the moment that the weak become the strong, we forget their humble beginnings and that we supported them because now they remember us that they succeeded and we don't. That is why it is so easy to find people who now state their hate for something they loved in the past.

The really interesting part is that sometimes the only difference between this relation is the success itself, not that the subject of our rooting changed. Take Call of Duty as an example. People loved Modern Warfare, and now many hate it. The games changed almost nothing (one of the complaints, in fact, about the series) and now many can't withstand it anymore. And what changed was not the company behind it or the games, just the amount of success in it.

We want to see new things succeeding. Not because of any logic, but because we want to hope we can succeed someday.

Dragging

2012-08-05T10:16:00.003-03:00

It like I feel with certain books, movies and games. They take so long to get to some interesting point that by the time you got there, you are already tired and the excitement is lost. Or you just give up all together. In games, many people demand the games to have a certain amount of play time, and the answer many times is to just drag certain sequences. Like Skyrim, where you spend a lot of time just walking to your destinations, not doing something cool. In books this is made with lots of exposition, and movies do it with long sequences of scenarios. So, I prefer something to be short and sweet than drag so long that you start to wonder when it will end.

Jack Of All Trades

2012-08-04T20:29:00.002-03:00

It happens more often in open-world games like GTA and Red Dead Redemption, RPGs and any game that try to be very big in scope. You have to do something and to do this something you need an object or an information who is in possession of someone. Of course, this someone seem unable to just give you what you need, instead you have to go in a long and laborious task to get it. One who usually involves an object or an information who is in possession of someone. Of course, this someone seem unable to just give you what you need, instead you have to go in a long and laborious task to get it. You got the idea.

It was specially maddening in Red Dead Redemption, where you had to spent long times doing menial jobs to some of the most despicable people in the west. People you probably could just have shot in the face and get what you wanted. I can accept that in the event of the main character being someone who must abide to the laws and can be punished by breaking it he cannot just shot someone.

But most of the cases the main character is either a criminal already or someone whose law cannot do anything anyway. So, it all felt like lazy writing of the game creators in order to give the players things to do. I will always wonder why they need to use such cheap devices, instead of making a story where you have lots of things to do, not just one thing who takes more time than they should because someone need you to deliver a box for him.

I Hate This Word

2012-08-03T20:16:00.002-03:00

I hate the word 'gaymer'. It is not even a real word. Not because I have something against gays. I just really wanted that them, as anyone, didn't feel the need to make their own convention because everyone else is a jerk about things that shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter your gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, place of birth or anything like that. you like games, I like games, we should get along. unless you are a jerk, but being a jerk have nothing to do with whom you like to fuck.

I can understand that in a world where calling someone gay is still considered a big offense (specially in gaming) they felt the need to make a convention where they feel they are more welcomed. And I hate that. I want them to go to the conventions already in existence and feel like they are part of that. Maybe one day they will not need to do that and just feel what they already are. Gamers.

I hate the word 'gaymer'. Because it is a made up word. One who represent the fact that us, people, are still able to be really stupid against each other, for reasons that shouldn't matter.

Why Games Should and Should Not Become Easier

2012-08-02T12:30:00.001-03:00

One of the complaints of the old time gamers is about how easier games are today when compared to the legendary 'good old days'. Of course, it make sense. Arcades didn't wanted gamers to finish a game in a hour and going home, they wanted them to play for hours and put lots of quarters in their machines, so a hard to beat game would be more profitable than easy to beat. And many console games were ports of arcades, so they retained their difficulty.

Now, with arcades almost dead, people play mostly at home. And making a game who gamers will dedicate days in beating it is counter-productive. Developers want gamers to finish their games as soon as possible and buy a new one. That is way they have no interest in keeping games with high replay values or that will take multiple tries to beat it.

That is why games like this is rare today.

Of course, that as a business make sense. If the profit comes from selling more games, making games who keep players trying to beat it for a long time is bad business. With the exception of games who try to keep the players hooked to sell DLC (MMO and Multiplayer heavy games) there is no reason to make a game hard. Not only that, making a game hard to finish will make it less accessible to newer gamers and create an obstacle to sell more games to more people.

And let's face it, most gamers now hate games with far away checkpoints, no autosave feature and no regenerative health. It is frustrating to lost a lot of progress because you made a single mistake or because the game unfairly killed you with a surprise attack you had no way to see it coming. We got to expect those features and to factually like them. But many of us miss the challenge of certain games.

Games like the Soul series and Ninja Gaiden with their brutal difficulties become a heaven for gamers who play games to challenge their skills. Many even call them 'real' games. Of course, games were just games in the old days. Nobody played because they were curious about the sprite in the screen backstory and how the game would end. Well, things changed...

If you played this game because of the gameplay, you did it wrong.

Games now have story, some even good, interesting story. I am one who hate to not finish a great story because the gameplay is getting in my way. It does not mean that I am for getting away with the gameplay altogether. Neither that games should be so hard to beat that you need to get months to play it to the end.

Games need to either find a balance for its difficulty. But a fit-all solution is impossible. That is why I love games who still do difficulty settings. You can just set it yourself, making a game as challenging as you need it to be. Many games don't have this option, making it harder to many people to get into the game and making it hard to newcomers to get into it.

Games have to be easy if developers want to profit and to new gamers to start getting into games. But it does not mean that games cannot be challenging to veteran players. All it need to do is give the options to each player to find the way they like to play games. Unfortunately we live in a time were people seem to believe that one thing must die to other exist. It does not need to be like it.

We just need to have the option. You like a challenge? Set the games at the highest difficulty. You just want to breeze through it? Very Easy in the settings. Developers need to start stop thinking just about a part of the public when making their games. Gamers need to stop to think only about themselves. By making games more easier to customize to the different kind of players, everyone can find their own sweet spot.

It is not that harder to do.

The Gaming Gold Rushs

2012-08-01T13:15:00.002-03:00

We are living interesting times in gaming. From time to time, someone will declare the death of something game related so a new, better thing will take its place. The current trend is people making social and mobile games declaring that traditional gaming, with consoles and $60 games will die. And today, news that Zynga, one of the most famous makers of Facebook games is in serious financial troubles. All of that remembers the famous gold rushs humanity suffered in its History.

Every time that someone strike a successful business, people rush to make similar enterprises in hope to be as successful as that very first guy. Success comes to two kind of people. The ones who do it first and the ones who do it better. But to both of them, this just means short term success.

Long term success comes only to those who perceives the changes in their business and adapt accordingly, by also being very effective in determining for how long they can stay the same way before the gold mine dry out. As it happens with the gold rush, the ones who kept rich was the ones who perceived that simple mining would end up soon, and used the money they got from gold to invest in other stuff, like stores, cattle and more traditional, less fast profitable but more sure fire than just gold mining.

The next to fall?

Being able to perceive when something is a short term success is hard, specially when you are gaining lots of money. You just perceive it when the money start disappearing. The bubbles happened more then once in History. The .com bubble in the late 90s/early 2000s, the videogame crash of the 80s. All of them created because of stories of fast success that attracted too many people with no knowledge about how to make their business a long term affair.

I doubt that Zynga failing will just kill the social gaming scene. It will work as an warning to other companies about what they can become if they don't be careful. They will need to change the way they make business, diversify and improve in order to avoid a similar destiny. After all, we still mine gold, make videogames and have .com companies. Look at Google as an example of a .com company being successful and how they are working to broad the scope of their business.

Ultimately, it is sad that Zynga may be no more, not because of its games, but because of all the people who worked there hoping for success. But it is a warning about gold rushes. Not everyone will succeed and even less will keep being a success in the long run. So, before just declaring something to be the next big thing and the death of the old big thing, it is better be careful. Because only time can prove which one is right and to what extent.

Because not all that glitters is gold.

7 Old Cartoon Girls I had a Crush on

2012-07-31T12:39:00.001-03:00

As a male boy, when we are young, we all have those weird feelings and stuff happening to us. And after passing the age of treating girls as number one enemies, we start looking at anything female in a different light, and specially with an intention way different than making them cry because we tossed bugs at them. Some of them are almost nerd sex symbols today. Characters like:

Yes, April had a penchant for being kidnapped, but ropes, a hot red head... you got the idea...

Cheetara is the one character I would go furry for. And in fact, I blame her for all the furries we have today.

He-man was way better cartoon. But She-ra and her female friends were way hotter than anyone in He-man's party.

A lot of guys loved the blonde girl, but I always had a weak spot for Gi.

Bad girl with glasses and in leather? The Baroness is probably the greatest fetish girl in cartoons.

A lot of kids(and some adults) probably had some funny feelings watching Roger Rabbit. After all, look at Jessica, his wife. Lucky rabbit.

My first cartoon crush. The third red-head in my list. Hmm. But damn, I loved this sweet girl.

Caring Less

2012-07-29T18:21:00.003-03:00

And yet it would be an improvement. We, as a society, are too concerned with the particular lives of people we barely know. Like that famous couple from that infamous movie and that cheating case. If we cared more about our own lives and less about others lives, specially when their options on how to live their lives don't have any affect in our own.

How the Used Digital Sales Market Will Work

2012-07-28T11:11:00.003-03:00

I am not saying that the used games market is bad for the industry. It is just not as good for the gamers as many gamers think it is. Like the traditional used games, the only one who really is benefiting from it is the likes of GameStop. They will buy your 'used' game for way less than they will sell it, and you can only use the store credits in the store itself, meaning that GameStop will always profit.

Also, don't think that you will trick GameStop by buying lots of games in sales and trade it above value when the game goes back to normal prices. If I thought about this, GameStop thought about it too. They will always pay the lowest possible, so once the prices goes down, even if temporarily, they will lower the price they pay back and never pay more for it.

While it seems a victory for gamers that the European Court decided it is within their rights to resell digital products, it is not mean we will reap any benefit out of it. The publishers and developers will make sure they will not lose any money from it, making things like on-line passes, freemium formats and subscription models the rule for all games. Oh, and always on-line DRM, as a way to know that when you sold that digital copy you are not playing a backup you made.

I know I am sounding pessimistic here, but we tend to just analyze things in one perspective. While it is positive the idea of selling digital goods, in a world who is going more and more digital, it can come for a price too high to us.

How to Improve the Olympic Games

2012-07-27T19:31:00.002-03:00

Because let's face it, you probably aren't aware of half the sports in the Olympics. putting competitions that aren't quite sports but are way funnier than some actual sports would help a lot. And if gluttony is not the capital sin of your liking, we all know the one who would make the Olympics the most watched event ever.

Lust.

The Mass Effect Trilogy: Final Thoughts

2012-07-26T12:56:00.000-03:00

First, as a Playstation 3 only owner (my PC is crap), I haven't played the first Mass Effect. a shame, in fact, one I hope one day to correct. my only contact with the first game is the interactive comic at the beginning of ME2. So, my thoughts about the trilogy will be based on the two later games and the comic.

Mass Effect is a huge game, for starts. it have dozens of locations in each game, with a great number of alien races. many compared it as the Star Wars of videogames. I think that Mass Effect is better than Star Wars for several reasons. The races are more realistic, not just created to look cool, are more developed as a culture and as characteristics of its individuals than Star Wars. While Star Wars, if you base only in the movies and not on the Expanded Universe, feels very artificial when compared with ME.

The universe set in ME is one I can believe as possible, not just the product of some people with lots of imagination but very little concern about how much believable the universe is. All the background offered help to feel the universe is not just a series of backgrounds, but a living entity in itself.

The story on itself is not really unique. Shepard is set to save the universe from a menace most people don't believe it exists or not want to admit it exists. So, he/she group up with a set of unique characters to save the universe. And it is those characters the meat of the game. Most of them feel unique and interesting enough to keep myself interested in their backstories, in their past and in what could happen to them.

It is very rare to find a game where most of its cast escapes many of the stereotypes who populate games. Not that it doesn't have its share, like Miranda and her now infamous buttocks. But characters like Mordin, Tali and Legion more than compensate this.

The story itself is very standard if you look at it superficially. But what make it great is the amount of influence you, the player, have on it. Not only your decisions can have impact in the current events, some will come back to bite you when you least expect. I felt consequences of decisions made in the first Mass Effect game (through the interactive game) come back in the third game to punish me. This is what make the game so interesting. To see how past actions affects you in current events.

Gameplay wise, there is nothing really to write home about. It is a 3rd person cover shooter and it is competent. It is nothing near amazing, but good enough to not be a problem. The choices you make through the games are the real mechanic that set Mass Effect apart.

Shepard, as a character, is also part of the gameplay. It is the Shepard you want to be, a ruthless badass or a paragon of virtue, all depending on how you wish him/her to be. Shepard will be amazing as long as you make him/her to be.

My favorite character of the NPCs surely is Tali, the quarian engineer. She is lovely and energetic. Garrus is pretty damn good too and feel like a real badass. others don't feel so interesting like Jack, Miranda or Ashley, but they aren't a pain in the ass so they hardly affect you appreciation for the game.

And that final in Mass Effect 3 is hardly the awful thing many people decided to make it to be. I felt it was very satisfying. Sure, your choices will not matter in the end, except that one final choice, but it is not like your choices don't mattered. They all mattered during the adventure.

The Mass Effect trilogy is a great sci-fi RPG mixed with a good, competent 3rd person shooter. If you love epic stories, great characters and surprisingly good story choices who affects the game, this is a great game that deserve to be played from the first to the last one. It is not a game for those who only care about shooting stuff, since there is way better shooters in the market without all this story to interfere.

I am glad I gave Mass Effect a chance and this ride have being incredible. I don't know what they will do with the franchise from now on, but surely is a great series that I will keep my eyes on.

Apparently Benigns Stereotypes (That Hurt More Than Help)

2012-07-25T15:15:00.001-03:00

Stereotyping is the fine art of putting a whole group of people under one umbrella, usually a very hateful and prejudicial one. But we have some stereotypes that sounds all good, by making a whole and diverse group of people to fit under one single set of awesomeness. But while this may seem harmless and pretty cool, in fact those stereotypes can hurt as much as the bad stereotypes. Like being born in certain countries make you very good at certain sports.

He can make ten goals, while she can defeat a ninja army.

Being Brazilian means we carry certain stereotypes. Like being awesome football players (the one with a ball and use your feet, not the one you use your hands and a cigar-shaped object). Or Chinese being awesome in kung fu. Or Canadians being good at hockey. At first it does not seem a bad thing, because this stereotype is people saying how much you are good at something.

Until they ask you to do this something. And them discovering that like in any sport, only a small part of the population are any good. In any country. This is specially bad when you are in school and got picked to teams because someone think because you are born in certain place, this place give you magical sports power to do whatever it must be done to win a game. And then discovering that the Brazilian guy really sucks at football and putting all the blame on him.

Another stereotype who hurts a lot is the guy with glasses must be smart. Or the Asians are all good with math. Asians with glasses are so damn smart that they can change matter with the power of their calculators and clever use of functions.

Again, the problem is that this misconception put the people victim of it in a very mean kind of trouble. Of people expecting too much of them. And getting disappointed when they discover that their friend Li is so bad at math as they are and they all got F/0 in their grades because they decided to copy his Math tests.

Another people who get this kind of problem is fat people. No, we aren't funny all the time, always in good mood. We can get angry too. Fat don't create a magical mood change substance that make all fat guys funny and always happy.

Another stereotype is the old foreigner, usually Asian or a tribal native, who is an spiritual counselor and have the wisdom of 10000 years old culture in his mind. Well, guess what? Old foreign people aren't that different from old foreign people anywhere. They have experience, not necessarily wisdom. your grandpa probably can give you way better advice about life than an old man in India, with the advantage that you can understand him. That old sage in the streets in India can have the same amount of knowledge than the old hobo in your neighborhood. just remember that.

Another kind of stereotype that is bad is the one we see plenty in highschool movies. The beautiful, popular kids are always bullies, while all the weird kids, nerds and ugly people are all good hearted people who are misunderstood victims.

Don't get me wrong, bullying is an awful thing and no bully must be portrayed in a good light. Nothing good comes from bullying. It is just that being beautiful and popular don't make you a bully automatically, while being one of the 'weird' kids don't make you an angel.

The problem is by stereotyping bullies and his victims, you make it seems that is a pretty black and white matter, while it is not. Being athletic and beautiful doesn't mean you will not be victim of bullying. Bullies will use anything as an excuse to bully. A weird accent, a bad grade, an unusual taste in movies and games. Also, not all bullies use physical strength to intimidate. many will use words to morally attack its victims. many times, victims of bullying are bullies themselves, discharging in one weaker than them thew abuse they suffer themselves.

In the end, stereotyping, even positive ones, are bad things. It generalizes and make the life of the people being stereotyped harder than it should. So, it is better to avoid stereotypes at all, even the seemingly good ones, because they can be hiding serious problems that must be dealt with.

And Fear Grows

2012-07-24T16:38:00.001-03:00

This picture just appeared in my Twitter. The text was in it already, not my addition, neither I believe it is Anita Sarkeesian words or anything. I already talked a bit about what are my fears about her project about videogames. And honestly, this pic makes nothing to change my fears. First, this is the positive views, that I have not hope to see it happens:

Warning: I have no evidence about what Anita is going to do in her videos, this is pure speculation of my part.

She will play all of those games, to have a huge diversity in female portrayals, from different teams with different philosophies. She will take her time to play all of them, carefully analysis the female portrayals in the context of the game, its story and how the characters interact between each other. She will put them in perspective and will not only take on the bad examples, but also, she will present any good examples she find out, and will comment if the proportion of bad examples is bigger than the good examples. She will carefully explain why she believe something is bad and compare it with the good portrayals she come across.

If possible, she will seek for others opinions, like the game creators and will not make any assumption of their intents without having talked to them. She will not dismiss anything without making a point, based not in personal feelings but in an informed opinion.

well, that is what I hope she do, but I have troubling believing it will be.. here is what I fear she will do, and it is mere speculation from my part:

She will not play all those games. She will select a few games more likely to confirm her point of view, play them for an hour and take whatever she can at face value. She will not mind any games whose portrayal of female characters are not sexist or don't help her make her points. She will not search for any interview and try to understand what the game creators wanted by making certain characters. She will just assume they are sexists with the worst intentions. She will take characters from popular games and interpret them in a way who fits he points of view.

She will make sure that any character she find that is not a sexist portrayals have at least on fault that she can use against them and will just roll her eyes and say come on on many of them without taking anything else then her own prejudices about them. that any argument stating how she may be wrong will be dismissed as an argument a sexist would use. Also, look at the games in the pile? What kinda of sexism she hopes to find in games like Little Big Planet, who have no human beings in there, Blur, a racing game where you only see the cars or Virtua Tennis 4, a game who only use characters who resemble real people?

Again, I will watch all of her videos, and give her a fair chance to prove my hopes to be right and not my fears. That many of those games in that huge pile are games she already owned and she just put in there. But all of this make me lose my hope and grow in fear. So, I ask of you, Anita Sarkeesian, to be fair in your videos.

Or else, you will hurt your cause, a cause worth fighting for, more than help.

7 Great Game Mechanics Ideas (And How Developers Waste Them)

2012-07-23T18:54:00.002-03:00

Sometimes the people designing our games have really brilliant ideas, that make gamer thrilled and looking on how clever the guys who had the idea are. But them, some way less clever people decide that they should implement the idea, but instead of looking for the guys who did it right and keeping like that, they decided that SCREW YOU, THAT WHAT WE WANT and give you a piece of crap of the good idea they decided they could 'improve'. And them make it the worst game possible.

7. Quick Time Events.

OK, hold your torches and pitchforks. Quick Time Events. more popular name QTEs, are not that bad at first. See, they are a clever idea so the player can executed a very complex action at ease, even if the action by itself meant nothing. It is a good way to do something cool and thinking it was all the player without making the need for a suit tracking all your movements or a controller with 200 buttons. God Of War made it right, with the QTEs being rewards to the gamers. You only start one after you have weakened the enemies enough through traditional gameplay. In common enemies, you usually are rewarded with a brutal final blow. And they even give the gamers space enough to screw up a few times. Which is great, specially in the first time you have to pull it off. Other games...

How They Screwed Gamers:

By making messing up with one of those damned random, unexpected buttons appearing in your screen, an automatic game over if you fail. Games like Resident Evil 4 give you no space for mistake. You must keep watching the cutscene with all your attention, controller firmly in hand, or at any moment a flashing button that you miss will cost you a lot of work. And most game makers decided to keep it that way, frustrating millions of gamers who lack the psychic ability to predict random button presses.

6. Cutscenes

Let's admit it. If you have being gaming long enough, a cutscene was the biggest reward you could get. In a time where most games had barely distinguishable as humans sprites, cutscenes, usually way better than the in-game graphics, were amazing. Not only that, cutscenes finally allowed gamers to have story in their games, not just in the paper manuals. In fact, cutscenes basically changed videogames from sophisticated toys to a form of media.

How They Screwed Gamers:

And them some game makers decided that cutscenes were all a game needed. And we got stuck upon lengthy segments of non-interactive short movies, with controller resting in our laps, taking time we would be prefer to be playing. While I don't think cutscenes should be done for, I think some people need to understand that if we gamers wanted to see movies, we would just do that, and cheaper than buying a game. So, keeping the amount of non interactive scenes short, sparse and interesting would not make us hate your games. Oh, and nobody like unskippable cutscenes, especially when we died by the fifth time over that cheap boss fight.

5. Boss Fights

Back to the arcades, boss fights had a way higher meaning. being able to get to a boss with one coin would put you in the badass hall of fame in the time. Or finishing him off in a certain amount of time. Because of that, most bosses were hard, but had patterns and ways to dispatch them out with a bit of patience and skills. Some were out right awesome and people would have a great time fighting them.

How They Screwed Gamers:

By forgetting that it should be fun, not a chore and an exercise in luck. I have lost how many times I have lost a boss fight not because I wasn't powerful enough or bad equipped, but because every time I was almost defeating the damn boss, the damn cheater decided to randomly pull out an all-powerful, one-hit kill out of nowhere and pulverize me. And when you try again, this time expecting the powerful attack, saving resources for it, it does not come. Unless you have used the damn potion or heal spell and them he decided to use the attack. Oh, and a boss fight should not take an hour to be done without the possibility of saving mid fight. We may be gamers, but we have things to do too.

4. Customizing our Characters

Being able to make the main character of a game look like how you want is great. It can look like you, a favorite character from other game or media, just something you thought it was hilarious only to regret it the moment you remember you have to watch this ugly monster you made during dozens of hours. It also make the character feel like yours, not just a character you watch, but your character and his adventure.

How They Screwed Gamers:

By making the damn game in first-person, watching his back all the time or making him use a damn helmet all the time. Skyrim make you loose a great deal of time to create a character he is not ugly. And them you never will see its face ever again. Not in conversations, not in battle, not ever. And the fact that you can't take your helmet off piss me. Bioware corrected this mistake in Mass Effect 3, allowing your customized Shepard to be seeing without the helmet in conversations. But many other games, customizing characters is just a waste of time.

3. NPC companions

Adventuring can get lonely, specially in single-player games. Having some trustworthy NPCs walking with you help the game to have a more realistic feel, while providing a more fun experience. Listening to your NPC friends shouting and fighting at your side can feel a great time. They may even save your ass if they are done right and provide some tips about how to deal with the situation.

How They Screwed Gamers:

Or they will always get in your, need to be saved, using resources in the wrong times, getting in front of your shots, not healing you or hitting the target. Damn, some of them aren't worth even as bullet sponges. you would be better alone.

2. Episodic Content

The idea is great on paper. You make just a part of the game, sell it cheaper to gamers, who will probably buy way more copies since it is cheaper and with an already established fan base, you sell the rest of the game a piece at time, selling way more copies than if you sold an entire game. During the first time I listened about episodic gaming, it seemed that all games would go like that and everyone would be happy. Gamers would save money from bad games, developers and publishers would know if they had a sure hit or a sure miss in their hands. A lovely dream.

How They Screwed Gamers:

They discovered that developing part of a game is as costly as developing all the game. See, making the engine and the gameplay is like 50% of the game anyway. Creating the environments and story is the rest. A big game would suck almost as many resources to have just its first part made than making the whole anyway, and that is why most gamers using the episodic format are simple games when compared to the kind of games people was expecting to benefit from the format. And we all know a case were people are still expecting the conclusion to a certain episode.

1. DLC

The tempting idea to have even more game after you finished what you had, paying cheaper for it and extending your adventure. There is nothing not to like about DLC!

How They Screwed Gamers:

By making DLC being just codes to unlock disc content, many of them useless customization items that make no improvements in gameplay or by dividing the community. That is how you get a cool idea and change it in a piece of shit.

Perfection

2012-07-22T20:25:00.004-03:00

I am not saying here that we should not strive for perfection in what we do. We must try our bests and always seek improving what we do. Neither I am saying that we must accept broken or mediocre things. We must see if we can get the best, always. What I am saying is that we must accept that things aren't and will never be perfect. If we start demanding perfection and rejecting anything who don't fit or particular view of perfection, we would have a very miserable existence, always unhappy because things aren't perfect.

Wishful Thinking

2012-07-21T10:57:00.001-03:00

It is something I cross over a lot with many gaming reviews. people complaining about how they wished a feature used in some other game would be great to have in the game they are talking about. The problem with this is that many times those features don't make or break a game, are just things they wished the game in question had or that they believe should be implemented. Many will go as far as give a game a low score because of features that wasn't there neither was promised.

I think this kind of behavior kinda dumb. A game, or movie or any product, must be evaluated by what it was promised to give and how much of this promise they accomplish. Not about things they never promised but the buyer wish they had. Or else we will ended up always disappointed.

Obnoxious

2012-07-20T12:00:00.000-03:00

Personality don't mean acting obnoxiously. When you keep acting as an attention whore trying to show how much 'personality' you have, you just make people wanting nothing with you.

Witch Hunt, Or How To Make Everybody Forgets What Matters

2012-07-19T17:36:00.002-03:00

The term witch hunt never seemed as ironic and appropriate as I feel it is now, for the issue at hand. An issue that I avoided hard in the last time to put in blog form, because I never felt it was worth the time, effort and trouble it causes to me. And to do it, I decided to use the kind of imagery used up there, to help make my point. What I am going to talk about?

Sexism and misogyny, that’s what.

And of course, if you haven’t run away from this blog by now, it means you are curious to listen what I am going to talk about. First, let’s start with my previous statement, of people running away from the theme in question. This is a bad sign for people trying to fighting sexism and misogyny, which people are not wishing to discuss it anymore. It means that somehow the people discussion such complex and in need of being discussed themes aren’t willing to. Making people wanting to discuss a theme complex as those two is an important step to change things. But now people are so tired and feed up of them that many, like me, don’t even want to start talking about it.

The fault, of course, is in both sides unrelenting desire to not give up in their points of view. Neither side, both defending that sexism and misogyny is a great problem and the side saying it is not a big deal or even a real problem don’t want to listen to each others arguments, or even accept that both sides have some very valid points that must be taken in consideration.

'I don't care you agree with some of my points, Missy! Or you totally agree with me or you are an idiot!'

And constantly hitting the head in brick walls is not the way a discussion is made, not how both sides can find common ground to work with. This constant and consistent walls put by both sides that neither side is willing to put down is making those discussions an exercise in frustration. So, I ask you to withstand me for a while and carefully listen to the point I wish to make.

Yesterday I have crossed over this tweet by famous actor Simon Pegg. He states how much he loves girls in cosplay attires. I also love girls in cosplay attires. Damn, a lot of people of any gender love a lot of people in cosplay attires, women or not. He is stating how much he loves girls cosplaying. Or, if you are out there hunting sexism witches and misogyny devil lovers, what you will read means how much he objectify women and think badly about them.

Exactly what he said.

And that is what I wish to talk about. It is clear to me that Simon Pegg never intended to downplay women or say how they are inferior to men. He never said that. But clearly you cannot say anything regarding women nowadays that don’t fit a mysterious behavior code that someone will take offense and then make it a bigger deal than it should.

There shouldn’t be anything wrong with stating how beautiful a woman is, or how attractive her clothing makes her. It is how men approach women to start relationships. It is not a statement of women’s place in society, or men stating how they dislike women except as sex partners. It just refers to how much men appreciate the female form and how much women make themselves beautiful and attractive.

Of course, this is not what many white knights, usually men trying to look good towards women and some women see it. They are now seeing anything that could be interpreted as offensive to women, no matter how much stretch they must do to fit it in their strict points of view or how much they must completely change the meaning of a statement to make it sounds how they want it to sound. They must make it worth raging over it.

I hate the term ‘feminazi’. It is a term that invalidates all the fighting women have done to have some basic rights in our society. We live in a society that was for centuries based on men having more rights and privileges than women, and we still haven’t reached a point where women have all the same rights and privileges granted. We still live in a society were women gains less than men to do the exact same job having the same qualifications. A society that still denies women promotions or that still doesn’t accept women doing typical male jobs. All those are worth fights we all must support of. Like we must fight against people who belittle women or that make little of problems like rape. But when certain people goes to great length to take everything who they think, being it real or imaginary, are sexist and misogynistic, no matter how small they are, it makes the real cause, the one worth fighting, lose its value.

What most people must think when hearing the word feminazi.

They become the fictional ‘feminazi’, no matter if men or women. The legendary vitriolic feminist who see sexism in everything and that nobody must take it serious. And many men and women are not helping feminism by going after every small thing or hunting fictional sexists, literally witch hunting what many times don’t exist. Many times, there is nothing there to be seem, but this need to fight a very real problem is making many people seeing problems where there is not.

Let’s go back to the cosplay thing. Why people of any sex cosplay? Because they like to do it. They like to put the costume together, going to conventions and get all the attention that a good cosplay can generate. Yes, they are doing it for themselves, but also the reward here is the attention they receive from others.

So, of course they have all the right to not being sexually molested by horny people who think they dressed just to have sex with them. Damn, no women should have to deal with idiots that cannot understand some basic social behavior just because they are dressed more provocatively. Just because the girl is showing cleavage does not mean that she wants sex, just to dress with something they might like.

Of course she have the right to not have to deal with dicks wanting to put their dicks in her. It does not mean I don't have the right to think she looks hot.

But them going to attack men who finds the women attractive and make comments about it is too much. They are not always belittling the woman in question. They may just genuinely think she is quite beautiful and attractive. And what they are doing is stating that. There is a difference between going to a friend at your side and saying how much he thinks that girl on tank top is hot and going to the girl and asking for sex and than verbally insulting her because she refuses. The first is innocent and don’t have any negative effect on the women and their place in society. The second is probably a crime and stupid.

Many white knights and witch hunters are so blind to what is acceptable behavior and have no impact in real life and what really is a trouble and must be addressed, that they just attack everything they can remotely put under their very personal definition of sexism and misogyny. And by doing that, they are hurting the real feminists, the real people who are trying to solve very real problems that affect people in real life by making those people be associated with the raging lunatics who cannot shut up about how sexist it was of that one guy saying how much he love girls in bikinis.

'You idiot! We were almost killing the dragon but your meddling allowed him to escape! I hope that unicorn put his horn in your ass!'

By constantly attacking behaviors that they classify as insulting, but isn't (or maybe they are, but are minor when compared with some real big issues), and by constant annoying anyone on sight with their ranting, they weak the cause. They justify the existence of the ‘feminazi’ stereotype, making anyone trying to talk about their concern about real issues like workplaces that are harmful to women because men are dicks or women who are abused by their partners, being put in the same bag as the people who complaint about how bad is people commenting how much they like a fictional character in a bikini in an obscure internet forum.

What happens is that if anyone starts talking about sexism issues everywhere, people will not know if they are going to talk against misogynistic politicians trying to prevent laws giving equal rights to women or if it is someone who will start discussing how much they hate a comic book character that uses mini-skirt instead of cargo pants. It makes people avoid even engaging conversations by the fear that they will be dragged in an useless discussion about how bad is that a fictional character is portrayed or how awful is the fact that some guy said that some girl have a nice ass.

This witch hunting I am seeing nowadays, were everything is offensive to someone and blow up out of proportion is more harmful than good. It does not raise awareness about real issues; it hid the real issues in layers and layers of pettiness and imaginary issues that make it harder to the people fighting the real issues to be able to do their jobs.

So, before jumping in the wagon and start hunting witches around with torches in hand, the very first thing you may ask is: Are the witches, the issues real? They are really the responsible for the problems? Or there is a real problem that I will not see because I am hunting fictional problems?

Because when you lose your time and everyone else’s time in useless witch hunting, everyone loses. Especially the people you think you are helping.