Before I start the review, I must say that the idea of viewing video games as an art and a medium through which to provide riveting storytelling is becoming more and more accepted by people that actually try to see games as such.  There are a number who still live in the past, as my own mother thinks that I should not be playing games (“Adults don’t play with toys”), but the populace used to think that motion pictures couldn’t tell stories or be considered as artistic either.

In this “Gaming Renaissance” there have been great ideas that have created a new outlook on the way gaming has evolved.  For instance, Valve created both the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2 and the Portal Gun from Portal.  Both of these guns made developers begin to really use physics creatively and… “start thinking with Portals.”  Shadow of the Colossus had the idea to just let the character roam free, with no overworld enemies except for 16 huge puzzles.  It proved that a developer doesn’t have to cram a game with content to make it amazing.  The God of War series introduced ridiculously-sized bosses combined with over-the-top violence and “quick-time events” to really feel the weight of what you were accomplishing in such a foreign setting as ancient Greece.  There are more, such as Chrono Trigger and Prince of Persia’s time manipulation and Bioshock’s completely unique underwater FPS environmental setting, but the main point is that these games usually shift the industry in a fresh, exciting way.

I particularly use these examples because I plan on reviewing Left 4 Dead 1-2 for the new DLC, Bioshock 2, God of War 3, The Last Guardian (Shadow’s maybe sequel), the new Prince of Persia, and hopefully Half-Life 2: Episode 3 if they happen to surprise us and release it this year.  …Also because more Chrono Trigger would be a good thing, but let’s move on.

This is to introduce the next great idea in gaming that the Mass Effect series is pulling off quite amazingly.

PROS:

Great Gaming Idea #1:  The Suicide Mission. As with awesome action games, Mass Effect 2 (ME2) will culminate in a final mission/boss/etc.  Unless you’re Halo 2 (Finnish teh fite lololol).  This is obvious, so no spoilers.  The entire game/advertisements/etc. call this as such, so you pretty much know this.  The amazing part is that almost everything you do factors into this final mission.  Who you do or don’t recruit, whose special missions you do, how much you talk to your squad mates, what upgrades you buy, what morality decisions you make, and what you choose to do for the about 7 or 8 choices that take place during the final mission is all put into a series of equations that determine who lives and dies.  Your character can even die and then cannot be imported into Mass Effect 3.  Peter Molyneux (the Fable series) should pay attention to Bioware.

Great Gaming Idea #2:  It’s a… wait for it… Mass Effect 1 explained that all major and minor choices you made will affect ME2, and it’s true.  Assuming you imported your ME1 character, every choice, even the ones you made during side quests, are brought up in this one.  Most of the choices you can further influence when you come upon them again.  Combine with this the fact that there are more new choices in this one than the first and both games will affect the third game.  OMG.  Do you realize how many branches this can have?  It’s almost like a… Mass Affect!  You can tell in ME2 when you make decisions that these will be brought up majorly in the third one, in almost an epic Lord of the Rings-style encounter.

The story is great. I’ve previously mentioned in the Assassin’s Creed II review that this is one of my favorite plotlines.  This is still true.  The world building is so fleshed out it’s unbelievable.  Every race has little quirks and special customs and you know each one by heart by the time it’s done.  The continuation of the story just makes everything so engrossing.  I say again… you must experience this series.

As with the trend of late… it is much improved from the sequel.  I have listened to interviews with Bioware.  They actually read message boards all over the internet, made lists, and corrected most of the flaws of the first game.  Finally a developer listens to their fanbase.  Driving a vehicle over the same terrain is gone.  Seeing the same 3 types of rooms over and over is gone.

Also, they removed the inventory system. It makes it slightly less of an RPG, but it’s OK.  It feels so much more natural to play this way, and you’ll realize this while playing.

CONS:

There are the occasional twins. Some NPCs look the same as other ones.  You can tell the main male NPC model after you see him over and over.  This isn’t too often, though.

One of the hacking mini-games is difficult for the color-blind. I know this because I watched a color-blind person play the game.  They eventually used the shape instead of the color to complete it correctly every time.

There are some dialog overrides. If you’re listening to dialog and then get close to another NPC who has dialog, it’ll change over to that NPC.  Just stay still if you are invested in a conversation.

Team mates need help to find cover. This isn’t very noticeable on anything other than high difficulties, but your squad mates might need to be told where to take cover or they’ll just stand in the open and die in two seconds flat.

There is (*gasp*) a hidden “Point of No Return”. This is probably my only big qualm with the game.  A “Point of No Return” in an RPG is basically a point where there is no saving until after the credits.  This isn’t the same thing, technically.  There is a main mission where, should you do it, the game will then decide for you when you should do the Suicide Mission at some undetermined point later.  At that undetermined future point it gives you the choice to wait (a Point of No Return), basically making it a second Point of No Return.  The problem is that if and when the game decides to make you do it you choose to wait, there are consequences.  I won’t spoil you on the consequences, but just know that they are there.  No spoilers, but basically you should do most everything you want to do before doing the IFF mission.  You’ll know what that is when you come to it. There are more missions after the IFF mission, but at that point the invisible clock has started counting down.

Sorry this was so long, but I really can’t put in enough words how much you should play this series.  Next week will be my review of Bioshock 2.

I’m taking a request from the Goblin this week. He asked that I rant about fangirl stereotypes, but honestly, I’ve been having a hard time narrowing “the fangirl” into a stereotype. I feel “the fangirl” is still in the process of being defined, because we have come to the forefront as a people during a time when fandom is so varied. Star Wars, Twilight, Star Trek, Batman, and several different kinds of anime all popular right now, and they are all going to attract very different types of women. We also finally have strong nerd-girl role models in the spotlight, like Tina Fey, Olivia Munn, and Kristen Bell, standing right up there and holding their own with the fanboys. So since I couldn’t stuff us into one box, I decided to see what other people were saying about fangirls.

Almost immediately, I came across this pouty, uninformed column, entitled “Girly Stereotypes: The Fangirl” by a Ms. Bridget Orr on the blog, DollyMix. I can only assume the comments section for the story are closed because of the slew of fangirls reporting in to tell her to go fuck herself and suggesting the Twilight –themed “Vamp” dildo to do it with. Ms. Orr is under the impression that being a fangirl means that you only like a movie or series because you cream your panties when your favorite guy star walks on screen. Frankly, she thinks all of you posers should be ashamed of yourselves for only liking something on such superficial terms, because it makes her and the rest of the “normal” female fans look bad. I’m gonna let you people read this for yourselves before I verbally kick this self-hating fangirl in the twat:

From the mouth of Ms. Orr and DollyMix: “The main differences between normal fans and squeeing fangirls are ambiguous to say the least. If it helps, the easiest way to distinguish between normal fans and squeeing fangirls is being a fan (FOTL: Being a fan? You mother fucker.). They are presumably much younger than normal fans (FOTL: Huh?). They are presumably girlier than normal fans. They’re not as obsessive as normal fans (FOTL: Where the FUCK is this coming from?). They like bands, films or television series for more superficial reasons than normal fans. Putting it this way, they are not normal fans like you and me.”

I don’t know where she is getting this from. She doesn’t cite anything except Urban Dictionary.com, The Oxford English Dictionary, and her own experiences of being teased for being a fan and a girl, which tells me it’s not fangirls that are the problem, it’s her douche-y fucking friends. I can only assume the younger and girlier assumptions are coming from the images of screaming teenage girls at the Twilight premieres. Not as obsessive though? Now you are just pissing me off. Why don’t you actually hang out with some fangirls? You might actually like us, and realize that we are not all terminally horny, manllow-humping, 8^th-graders.

That being said, I gotta stand up for the Twilight chicks right now. People may think that women go to see Twilight because of the pretty boys in it, and I’m sure a lot of girls do, but not all of them. The Twilight fangirls that I know personally, know every-fucking-thing about those books and are just as freaked out by the manllows as everybody else. The dudes may have been a segway into fandom for them, but it is not why they stayed. They stayed because they loved the series, just like the rest of us love Star Wars, Star Trek, Bleach, whatever. They fucking know their shit, and they earned their fangirl title, and I respect their obsession, despite the manllows.

Also, I feel I need to address my former Obi-Wan obsession. I admit, Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan lured me into Star Wars, but it was seeing the Trilogy that hooked me. There is so much to love in Star Wars. It’s a vast galaxy. There is Yoda, the Skywalkers, Boba Fett, Darth-Fucking-Vader. If you are in it just for one character, I’m sorry, you are not a fangirl. I wouldn’t even call you a fan. Certainly a fan of that actor, but not a fan of a series.

I’m sorry, Ms. Orr, but if you are so fucking knowledgeable about your obsession of choice, you are a fangirl. Believe me, I hate calling you that too, because I don’t want to share the title with someone who is too scared of being socially ostracized to take it for herself. I find your narrow-minded definition and lack of research insulting.

Take it from a fangirl who knows. You’re one of us. You just need the courage to own it.

I Can’t Un-See This: The Twilight Manllows

This concerns me not just as a girl, but as a nerd. First of all, this thing is homemade. Some chick was so obsessed with snuggling up to/humping in the dark with the Twilight dudes that she fucking made it happen. That takes passion and skill, people, and a whole lot of fucking crazy. I never made myself a stuffed Franken-Kenobi, and it wasn’t just because I am a perfectionist and would never be satisfied with a nightmare-inducing, lumpy-looking, man-pillow hybrid. It was because I know that when you start making real-life substitutes for your favorite fictional characters, maybe you need to back off your geek obsession a little. No one wants to be that nerd, the nerd who no one else wants to be. You know, like the ones that write Robocop/Pokémon porn and makes Edward and Jacob manllows. She’s just one lonely night away from slapping one of those sparkly, Twilight-inspired “Vamp” dildos on her manllow, and then she’s basically got one of those RealDoll sex-bots that lonely, pathetic male nerds have been shelling out thousands of dollars for recently.

Secondly, yes, there is a Twilight-inspired dildo. You read that right. Check the link, read the comments, they’re very funny. The product description encourages the user to put it in the freezer to give it that authentic, vampire feel. What are you gonna tell the ER doctors when he’s asking you how you got frostbite on your snatch? “I just wanted to know what it was like to fuck a sexy, bloodthirsty corpse. Don’t judge me.”

And yes, the dildo sparkles.

I really don’t know what else to say. As a woman, I can’t relate to this chick at all. I guess I should say these chicks, because the manllows are sold out. As a geek, I’m simply scared, because this is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever seen. This was a line I never wanted to cross in my late-night nerd fantasies, and the Twilight fans have done it twice now.

So, Twilight-ers, please give us some feedback. Make me understand this, because now every time I see a teenage girl reading a worn-out copy of Breaking Dawn, I’m gonna start to hyperventilate and look for the nearest exit. I think a manllow is just one step away from murdering Robert Pattison and dancing around in his skin to “Goodbye Horses.”

To top it off, it got me thinking about English phrases that must make very little sense to foreigners. If you saw something on TV and a man puts a gun to his foe’s head and says ‘It’s curtains for you, pal.’ Then we get it. Boom, Headshot! Lols and teabagging from the winning player, probably accompanied by a ‘your mom’ joke over the headset.

But, to foreigners translating that episode of CSI, they must be scratching their heads. Granted, plenty of people will still get it (and its connotations with the end of a performance on stage), but others must sit and wonder why the cloth coverings for windows equate to murder, especially if they have different words in their language for window curtains and stage curtains.

I just can’t stop imagining a Japanese High  Schooler who just finished torrenting CSI Miami. A lady in a textile mill got murdered, falling into the drape press. The main guy simply says “Looks like it’s curtains…” glasses go on here, “for her.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

And the poor Japanese kid is sitting there, blinking, wondering why those happy window coverings mean a crying former husband at the funeral and a criminal investigation.

FOTL will be here tomorrow, as will the Glitch of the Week. Until then, -GG.

Now, admittedly, Dimps made good sonic games, like Sonic Rush and Sonic Advance… but I had really hoped Sonic Team had simply shaped up. Well, it’s way better than another fail game, at least, but part of my nerd heart still doesn’t want to give up on Sonic Team, despite all their failings.

Oh well, either way, at least we have more proof that Sonic 4 will be a good game, and not another boil on my soul like so many Sonic Team games.

Here’s the links, and there’s a snazzy screen shot of the developer info  on Destructoid: CNET Destructoid

Thankfully, we’re nearly two months into this glee-less terror, and it’ll be over soon. Until then, here’s a new song sung by our favorite misfits.

I don’t know if you guys have been following The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, but last week’s episode kinda hit me in my little black fangirl heart. Last week, our good Master Kenobi said that he would have left the Order for Duchess Satine of Mandalore, if she had just asked him to all those unspecified years ago. What the fuck? I would have lost some Republic credits on that bet.

I spent years trying to figure out how to reasonably maneuver my fanfiction character into Obi-Wan’s Jedi knickers, when evidently all I had to do was make my character hide behind a few rocks. To think I wasted so much paper on sassy dialogue, trying to become an equal in combat, and drunken seductions, when all I had to do was quit trying so hard and create a classic damsel in distress, rescue-my-girly-ass, kinda situation.

Sure, Satine has her merits. I like that she’s smart, funny, and a master of biting sarcasm. A lot of other fangirls like her, too. But because of her pacifist beliefs, she’s made herself a willing (willing, damn it!) damsel in distress, and I just can’t fucking left that go.

Two weeks ago, when I watched the first episode in this story arc, “The Mandalore Plot,” something just bothered me about it. I just couldn’t figure it out. Something was out of place. That’s when it hit me. She was the first chick in the entire series to ever hide behind a mother-fucking rock while her boyfriend played hero and rescued them both.

What the fuck? I didn’t even know damsels in distress existed in Star Wars. Sure, Padme and Leia have both been in situations where they needed a little help from their friends (I’m thinking particularly of Leia in the Death Star’s holding cell), but as soon as they could get their hands on a blaster, they were going to defend themselves against more than just droids if they had too.

Also, The Clone Wars writers basically refitted the Anakin-Padme romance to an Obi-Wan storyline. Are Jedi only in to royal pussy? Does blue-collar pussy not taste as sweet? Does it taste like unpaid bills, a 12-pack of ramen noodle, and despair? Why couldn’t Filoni and the team have reached a little further in coming up with a new female character? We have so few of them guys, I’m just asking you to go outside of the box a little.

So far I’ve really enjoyed The Clone Wars. As you guys can probably tell, I’m a girl who loves explosions and ass-kicking, and they have definitely delivered on that this season. But I can’t sit and watch these episodes and not notice this anymore, this I-love-you-because-you-let-me-be-the-man-and-protect-you-while-you-cowered-with-fear thing. I thought we were past that people. And she’s from Mandalore! She was supposed to be the duchess of ass-kicking! She was supposed to bring Hell to your fucking door if you were foolish enough to challenge her! That was a real mind-fuck, guys. Totally surprised me with the Mandalorians being pacifists thing.

Sigh. I’m going to go listen to “Fett’s Vette” and fume. As always, for questions, comments, or rants, leave a comment or e-mail me at fangirlontheloose@gmail.com.

Yep, you read correctly. Johnny Yong Bosch is going to be in the next Saw film, obviously titled Saw VII, but possibly also calld Saw 3-freakin’-D.

Bosch, whom I’ve met at anime cons for the signing of everything Trigun I own as well as a Power Rangers VHS and to (admittedly creepily) ask him to record my voice mail message, has been in quite a few of this nerd’s favorite things. He was my favorite Ninja Ranger because I loved the Frog Zord, and because White Ranger was never as cool as Green Ranger. Sorry Tommy. Good luck in Mixed Martial Arts! He’s kicking serious tail, btw. Not to divert, but here’s the vid, which I saw on nerd news blog Topless Robot.

Holy crap, Jason, way to earn Tommy’s whopping four Ranger helmets, plus that shiny doctorate he got in the later seasons.

Back on topic, Bosch is also the voice of Vash the Stampede, from Trigun, as well as dozens of other anime, but Trigun is my favorite.

He’s also been in TONS of games and a few movies. His IMDB is worth a look.

It’s there that I saw, thanks to my good buddy Niko, that he is going to be in the next Saw movie.

Holy crap, I think the heroes of my childhood are clashing with the villains of my adulthood.

Jigsaw is going to kill my favorite voice actor, and second favorite power ranger… in 3D.

I think I need to pray. -GG