On the gameplay front, FIFA 07 Soccer comes equipped to score new legions of fans. Sure, it’s not sporting the fancy ball physics of the Xbox 360 version, but the ball physics have been reworked a bit here as well. Although not independent of the handler, the ball physics are much more realistic in FIFA 07 Soccer. You’ll notice the ball curve more under a hard shot, hit the pitch and spin naturally into space, and generally act more “lively” when not being controlled.

The shooting mechanic has been revamped as well, taking player context and skill into effect. Having Henry blast one is a good thing, but not if he is well marked. Player skill will rarely outdo an open shot and one with momentum towards the goal. The power gauge is also more sensitive this time around, which means it takes a fair amount of skill to get one on net and not over-hit it. I’m not sure if the new system is more or less realistic (as the pros make it looks easy), but it will definitely take more patience to master shots in FIFA 07 Soccer.

The passing dynamic needed work last year, and it has received the necessary attention in FIFA 07 Soccer. Holding in the pass button will now accurately send a ball toward a teammate, instead of weakly dribbling the pill in every instance. You no longer have to lob a ball to get it on a player’s foot, as the ground pass is now formidable (and more believable). Lofted balls come with reticles that mark where the rock will land, which is quite useful as you can use your left stick to jostle with a defender. Setting up just fore of the reticle and pushing your opponent back away from the incoming ball is now a valid technique, and one that makes any airborne situation more strategic. Even set plays have been reworked in FIFA 07 Soccer, allowing top or back spin on the ball to be set in an analog fashion.

Overall Gameplay FIFA 07 Impressions :

I have a feeling that there’s a percentage of the population that won’t enjoy the changes made to the gameplay in FIFA 07 Soccer. Those that think there’s not enough scoring, or too many ties in soccer will most likely denounce what EA has done in FIFA 07 Soccer. But for those true soccer fans out there, EA’s efforts in FIFA 07 Soccer will surely be applauded. Yes, there are more ties in FIFA 07 Soccer than in years past, and true, it is harder to score. But have you checked the box scores of, say, the last 100 matches of last year? Scoring is low, so EA has done nothing more than make FIFA 07 Soccer more realistic.

The key things that make the gameplay in FIFA 07 Soccer better are air jostling, ground passing, and positioning. The ability to “post up” another player while waiting for an air ball to land is huge in making FIFA 07 Soccer play better. Another nice feature is that you can choose to play air balls without trapping them, and it actually looks natural. The higher velocity ground passes, and the ability to play these passes in rapid succession (without cuing up a one-two pass maneuver) make for much more exciting and believable soccer as well. The general position in of the A.I. players (which has a lot to do with the organic feel of the game) is really solid, making what unfolds on the electronic pitch look a lot like what happens in the real world.

It was quite surprising that I could find the full credits of people working on a game without looking at the credits video in the videogame just by going to, of all places, IMBD.  Just in case any of my readers don’t know, IMDB stands for Internet Movie Database.  With the name movie in the title, it should mean that the website only has data for movies, but it not only has data for movies, but also TV Shows and games.

So, looking at the list of writers for Mass Effect, I saw 6 writers for it.  The names that I saw were Drew Karpyshyn, Lukas Kristjanson, Chris L’Etoile, Mike Laidlaw, Mac Walters and Patrick Weekes.  When Mass Effect 2 came out, only one of them wasn’t credited (Mike Laidlaw), but there were some additional writers like Chris Hepler, Brian Kindregan, Cathleen Rootsaert (as dialogue editor), and Jay Turner.  With those types of numbers, you had a total of eight or nine writers on board with Mass Effect 2.  With Mass Effect 3’s writing team, that number dropped as only five writers came back (Mac Walters, Patrick Weekes, Chris Hepler, Jay Turner [the latter two names were missing from four years ago] and Cathleen Rootsaert moving from dialogue editor to being a writer), with only two of them from the first game.  What the hell happened?!

Because I was so angry about the way Mass Effect 3 was handled, I never did some research into why the number of writers dropped and why some of the Mass Effect 2 writers left.  I accidentally stumbled upon some articles about it one day with Drew Karpyshyn and in them, he explained the writing process with Mass Effect and why he eventually left.  I was in total shock when I found out that the writing team had no idea who the Reapers were as we didn’t and that they made up stories as they went along.  I’ll have to admit, that could make some continuity errors, but they did a splendid job with it…until Mass Effect 3 of course.

Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer of both Mass Effect 1 & 2 and he had left before Mass Effect 2 had finished.  It looked like from this article that he had left because he was too busy doing other things and had no time for continuing with Mass Effect 3.  Since Mac Walters took over the lead writing role for Mass Effect 3, some fans wished for him to not be involved in future Mass Effect projects, but he’s unfortunately involved with Mass Effect Andromeda, so we’ll have to see how that goes.

But what about the remaining writers?  Lukas Kristjanson looks like he moved over to Dragon Age, Chris L’Etoile looks like he’s still working for EA, but his profile says nothing about any projects beyond Mass Effect 2, Mike Laidlaw had worked on something I’ll get to in a little bit and Brian Kindregan is pretty much in a bunch of places.  With some additional writers on board, there was definitely going to be some inconsistencies and I don’t know for sure if there were or not since again, I haven’t played nor have any desire to play Mass Effect 3.

Looking back and seeing some names that I either glossed over or were not on the list before, this one could have also been excluded from the list of disappointing signs.  But then again, how else are we going to transition to the next sign of a disappointment?  That next sign was a sign I didn’t include in my previous rendition of this blog…

It’s been four years to this day since Mass Effect 3 came out and I’ve yet to play and still have no desire to play it.  This game is, by far, the most disappointing Mass Effect game that’s ever come out and we have no idea, as of now, what the story folds for Mass Effect Andromeda.  If there was one thing I did know four years ago, it was that there were signs that were shown to us that Mass Effect 3 was going to be disappointing; I just never noticed them until after the game came out.  I won’t talk about the controversial ending since that wasn’t discovered until after the game came out, but I will talk about the 17 signs that showed us that Mass Effect 3 was going to be disappointing.

When I did the blog four years ago, I split them up into three parts because I thought you guys would need the split since it was going to be a long blog.  I’ve since been proven that my blogs should be as long as I want them to be, so skip the splits.  I’ve also included two other signs that I somehow missed (or rather, never elaborated on with one of them) and I’ll talk about those missing signs in a little bit.  What I can tell you before I get to the list is that I will be less critical of Mass Effect 3 than I was four years ago, but some of those signs still burn.  I’ll also list the signs the same way as I did before, so let’s get to the first sign that Mass Effect 3 was going to be a disappointment before it came out!

The Last Shepard Story

Looking at my old blog and thinking about how I feel about it right now, this is one that I probably should’ve thrown out as a sign of a disappointment.  This could’ve gone out on a great note, but it looked like this game hit the 3 bug.  What’s the 3 bug you ask?  It’s a bug that causes the third story of a series to either suck or become a disappointment.  I would like to talk more about it, but I’ll save that one for another blog as well.

Being told that it was going to be the last story of Shepard was a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but if done right, then people would feel very happy about how they ended the Mass Effect trilogy with Shepard being modeled after the player instead of the default option.  Sadly, we know how that ended up and like I said before, I’m staying away from talking about the controversial ending.

What we know about Mass Effect Andromeda is that there will be no Shepard, the story will take place well after Mass Effect 3, so nobody’s making a return (I think) and you will still play as a human character.  We’ll probably learn more on this year’s E3 event, but what we know so far is that most of the writers from Mass Effect 3 will not make their return.  Oh, and speaking of writers…

The last time we saw Soul Calibur, the third installment didn’t really seem to impress many people. Released on the PS2 a few years ago, it came at an inopportune time and didn’t add enough to the formula to make a huge difference to most gamers. It was solid, but for those who had played the hell out of SC2, the sequel just wasn’t new enough. Namco has taken this into account for the creation of Soul Calibur IV, the first HD installment in the series, and one that’s definitely worthy of the Soul Calibur name.

With plenty of new characters, tons of moves, and a complex new character creation and item system, you’ll find yourself digging deep into building and customizing your favorite new fighter – either make one from scratch or tweak an existing combatant, then choose between any of them at the character select screen. Before long you’ll be fiddling with monocles, trying to figure out how to lose 5 Gauge stat and gain 10 Special in order for that new special ability, and fighting your way to victory in both online and offline matches.

Most of SCIV’s depth definitely comes with the character creation and item system. For those who want to just play the arcade mode over and over, it is there and you’ll have a blast with each of the game’s 25ish unique characters (along with many clones with slightly different stats and abilities). But you’ll find quickly that with new items, you can adjust these characters to match your taste and fighting style. Maybe you’d like to make a new version of Tira that doesn’t look so drugged up or sound so annoying – hell, maybe you want to make a dainty woman in a dress with the sword and fighting style of Siegfried, Astaroth, or Nightmare. Maybe you want to customize a cracked-out version of Mitsurugi who does massive damage without regard to special moves, his own health bar, or anything else. All of this is building upon the character customization that was present in SCIII, but you’ll likely find more options here between the weapons, abilities, stats, and from-scratch ability to mimic any of the main characters.

You can do all of that here, and to really get your money’s worth out of Soul Calibur IV, you’re likely going to want to. The problem is that the game doesn’t really explain of these systems to you, instead letting you figure out on your own how the huge amount of equipment plays into your character’s ability points and skills, then how you use those skill points by assigning various abilities to your weapon. The game’s also got several new systems involving breaking your enemies’ armor, using your Soul Gauge for various things, and doing Impact moves and such – none of these terms or moves are explained, and while fighting game aficionados can quickly pick up on this stuff and are probably already deep into the game’s more nuanced fighting system, laymen are going to feel like they’re in the dark.

It turns out, though, that the game’s a hell of a lot of fun even if you ignore all of that. Sure, you’ll eventually pick up the whole thing, but in the meantime you’ll have a blast just busting out the game’s massive range of moves, few of which require any real memorization of long combos or button sequences. Just like the rest of the series, most of your bread-and-butter moves come with a single direction on the stick or d-pad along with one or more attack buttons. Different combinations of buttons with different directions often gets you an entirely unique move, and then there are new ones based on when you’re coming up from a crouch, moving side-to-side, running, jumping, and more. The only downside to this is that for those whose last Soul Calibur experience was the first game, the kind of sweet spot of simplicity versus complexity that it balanced is not here. SCIV is almost as complicated as Virtua Fighter now.

As characters rise in level, they earn “skill points” that can be distributed into five different skills (different for each character). These include weapon skills, ability skills, and one “general” skill. For example, the hero’s general skill, “Bravery,” affects the rate at which he learns spells; pump enough points into this skill, and you’ll learn spells several levels in advance of the normal progression rate. This skill system, while far less robust than a full-out job system, adds a degree of customization to the leveling process.

Hand-drawn maps are available to help adventurers find their way around towns and dungeons. Players can either view these maps with annotations marking the staircases and shop locations or leave them blank for a greater challenge.

Two other systems, not accessible during the first several hours of play, are the “Monster Scout” system and the “Alchemy” system. Some high-level monsters are visible on the world map — defeat them, and they may join your party! Alchemy lets you combine two items to create a new one. Hints around the world provide clues about valid recipes; also, the Alchemy system tells you in advance whether or not two items can be successfully combined, saving you from using reagents unnecessarily.

So far, Sugiyama’s score has varied from so-so to pretty darn good. The overworld, dungeon, and battle themes are of excellent quality, but the town compositions are unpleasantly grating. It’s possible that last year’s Dragon Quest V remake for PlayStation 2, widely considered to have one of the series’ finest scores, preemptively dulled the excitement of hearing well-orchestrated Dragon Quest themes. Regardless, in a game as lengthy as Dragon Quest, it’s likely many of the most memorable songs are yet to come.

Unsurprisingly, the game contains no voice acting. The sound effects are a bizarre mix of 8-bit NES FM synthesis overlaid with digital sounds; casting a fireball spell, for example, plays both the traditional “boop boop” NES jingle and the sound of a roaring flame. It works well enough, and in some ways is a perfect encapsulation of the way Dragon Quest VIII strives to embrace both the nostalgic old and modern new.

Based on our time so far, as a Dragon Quest game, Dragon Quest VIII is an unqualified success. It manages to strike an almost perfect note between series traditions and modern production values; at times, it feels like a brand-new epic SNES RPG with PlayStation 2-level visuals. Unfortunately, most Americans would prefer a PlayStation 2 RPG with PS2-level presentation. According to Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada, “We’d like to push Dragon Quest overseas. The soil is set for RPGs, with Final Fantasy being a success in Europe and North America, so we feel Dragon Quest can be a success.” But whereas Final Fantasy is a fast, fun series with twisting, addictive stories, Dragon Quest plays slowly, can be unforgivingly difficult, and features a by-the-RPG-books scenario. Japanese gamers and diehard series fans may find Dragon Quest’s VIII‘s lethargic pacing (expect to level up for hours before you can challenge the first boss), over-layered menus, four-letter character names, monospaced fonts, and mismapped face buttons nostalgic — but to U.S. gamers, they’re just awkward holdbacks from a long-dead age. If Square is serious about revitalizing the Dragon Quest brand in the U.S. beyond its core audience of old-school fans, a bit more polish for the English language version would go a long way. Dragon Quest has always been the populist RPG of choice in Japan, and with a few small tweaks and modernizations, this series might finally find an equally warm reception in the States.

For months, gamers have been bursting with questions about Dragon Quest VIII. With a new console, a new developer, a new graphical style, even a new publisher… how would the title compare with previous games in the series? Quite well, actually; though developer Level 5 has given the presentation a state-of-the-art makeover, the underlying gameplay remains nearly identical to previous games in the series. It is, after all, a Dragon Quest game.

The story begins with your caravan breaking camp and preparing to head to the nearby town of Trapetta. Initially, your party consists of the main character, a happy-go-lucky fellow who carries a pet mouse, Toppo, in his pocket, and Yangus, your basic heavyweight axe/hammer bruiser type. Also in your caravan (but absent from any battles) are King Torode and his daughter Mitea — the “cursed princess” of the game’s lengthy subtitle (The Sky, the Sea, the Earth, and the Cursed Princess). Torode’s appearance has been changed to that of a squat, green monster, while the princess has been turned into a white horse which is incapable of speech. Torode has been searching for a cure for their condition as well as the man who did this to them: the evil clown Dolmageth. After accidentally offending the locals and getting kicked out of town, a kind-hearted girl tells the group of a possible clue in the cave to the south. The party sets off to see what they can learn…

Dragon Quest VIII‘s most immediately striking feature is its gorgeous graphics. Dragon Quest VII, despite its success, was one of the ugliest games on the original PlayStation. VIII, in contrast, is one of the best-looking games on the PS2. Its beautiful cel-shaded graphics run at a near constant 30 frames-per-second, and in a shocking nod to modernity, a widescreen option is available for televisions that support it. Even more impressive is the insanely large draw distance; whether in town or on the immense overworld, the vista stretch further than any RPG in recent memory. A first-person view lets you take in your surroundings and is especially useful for noticing details and characters in town. There’s a great satisfaction to be found in noting a few tiny glittering pixels off in the distance, then trekking a minute or two off the beaten path to discover a treasure chest. The transition between day and night is handled well, with the sky gradually darkening and stars twinkling in as night falls.

In addition to the aforementioned Hero and Yangus, the whip-wielding magician Jessica and dashing swordsman Kukule eventually bring your party up to four full characters. The game’s battle system is the ultra-traditional turn-based battle system first introduced with Dragon Quest III. Characters fight, cast spells, use skills, and use items to overcome groups of enemies. In a change from earlier Dragon Quests, players can target individual enemies within an enemy group; i.e., within a group of three slimes, you can choose to specifically direct your attack at Slime A, B, or C. Commands are inputted from the traditional “first-person perspective,” but once the attacks unfold, both party members and enemies are visible as the camera swoops to provide the best view of the action. Enemy designs are up to the series’ regular adorably insane standards, and every creature has a variety of amusing animations. Battles are quick to start and quick to finish; they begin immediately from the field map, and the player is back on the field map within two seconds of a battle’s conclusion.

The “tension system” allows a character to skip turns to build up tension, then unleash an ultra-powerful attack. Your character is vulnerable while charging, but the total damage at the end well exceeds the sum of the individual skipped attacks. At the beginning of the game, the tension meter can be raised three times for a nearly 100% “bonus.” Released screenshots suggest that later on the tension meter can go even higher.

This game I was hesitant on playing because I didn’t know if the game was going to be as fun as the demo claimed it would be.  I’m really skeptical on open-world games because I had bad experiences with them in the past (GTA San Andreas got too boring and Scarface : The World Is Yours, The Elder Scrolls V, inFamous, Mortal Kombat Gold and Just Cause 2 pissed me off), but I had a good experience with Saints Row The Third.  Was the same thing going to happen with Sleeping Dogs?  That’s what I was interested in finding out!

I decided to use the regular version instead of the Definitive Edition one as the regular one had the demo and I wanted to see how the regular version fared on my PC.  I’m disappointed that the full game has a benchmark mode and not the demo, so I used the benchmark tool to see where I was at.  I was at around 85-95 frames-per-second and that’s with the options turned on at the max (except Motion Blur as I had that option disabled because fuck Motion Blur!).  When I say “at the max”, I’m including anti-aliasing as well.

Normally, I would turn AA on at 2X and that’d be all I need for 900p, but for Sleeping Dogs, that’s not the case.  It’s bad enough that AA’s on automatically and there’s no option to turn it off, but it’s even worse when the highest AA setting is still not enough to eliminate aliasing.  Out of all the games I’ve played, the regular Sleeping Dogs has the worst AA feature I’ve ever seen.  You mean to tell me that with the highest AA settings, Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) and Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) are on High and I’m still seeing aliasing at 900p?  Sounds like poor optimization to me!

The demo ran fine on my old PC and it ran even better on my new PC.  Playing the whole game, I had trouble getting out of it as it was that fun.  I loved doing the regular missions, the side missions, dressing up Wei Shen in different outfits, street races and a bunch of other stuff.  Sleeping Dogs was by far the best non-parody open-world game I’ve ever played thus far and I can’t wait until next year or the Steam Holiday Sale arrives so that I can get the Definitive Edition of the game for a cheap price!

This one doesn’t affect me much as I wasn’t a victim, but there was absolutely no way how I could avoid talking about bad things of 2013 and not mention the biggest deception gamers experienced.  A game being deceptive in this scale either rarely happens or doesn’t happen at all and there’s no excuse for gamers to be promised one thing and not get what was promised as a result.  What game am I talking about?  It should be fairly obvious just by the mere mention that it’s the most deceptive game of the year, but in case anybody doesn’t get it, I’m talking about this game…

I had no interest in the game to begin with as I wasn’t aware about the game until controversy arrived.  Even if I had known about the game, I still wasn’t interested in it as scary movies don’t scare me anymore thanks to their plots (which could’ve been easily avoided) and the fact that I haven’t seen an Aliens movie.  If I had seen any Alien movie, it’s been THAT long since I’ve last seen it.  Despite that, even I had to be angry at the final result as what was shown prior to now was totally different and can ruin trust from gamers to developers/publishers.  That trust was going downhill anyway, but not up to this scale.

Gamers were promised some jaw dropping graphics, better AI, awesome new weapons and an Alien-like experience that could never be experienced elsewhere.  What gamers got instead were weaker graphics compared to the tech demo (and that’s just the PC version), annoying NPC partners and idiotic AI Aliens, I’m not sure about the weapons part, but from what I gathered, they also had a story that was inconsistent with the Alien storyline.  To make matters worse, Aliens Colonial Marines’ story is canon!

Not only did the story not live up to expectations, but the entire game didn’t live up to expectations.  Single player and multiplayer was a disappointment to fans who wanted to play the game and throwing a Season Pass on top of it was like an insult to injury.  Some fans were so disappointed with the game and the blatant false advertising that they sued the developers over it.  According to this website containing false advertising laws, whether the file was claimed through the FTC Act or the Lanham Act, Sega and Gearbox are in the clear despite public knowledge of what happened behind the scenes wasn’t mentioned until after Aliens Colonial Marines was released.  Even if Sega and Gearbox win the lawsuit, Aliens Colonial Marines did enough damage to gamers to lose a lot of trust with them.

As sad as it is that Sega and Gearbox can get away with this lawsuit, the fact remains that this game is most definitely the most deceptive game of this year and is probably the most deceptive game of the 21st century.  Gamers deserved better and both Sega and Gearbox should’ve apologized for the end result of the game.  As far as I know, neither company apologized, so they looked and probably do look bad thanks to the non-apology, despite gamers asking for one.  I feel sorry for every gamer that went through all the trouble of owning or renting the game, so let’s hope that no company does that next year or years afterwards.  And that’s it with this bonus entry!