Gordon Freeman, I don't think he's an everyman. There's the power suit and by HL2 he's a near messianic figure. Barney is an everyman. Shepard, is definitely not an everyman by the criteria being used. Even as a straight up Soldier, cybernetically enhanced but try playing adept in ME3 (or ME1) and they are a superhero. I don't see how these two could possibly be an everyman and Nathan Drake not. He bleeds, he takes a beating. Sure he guns down an entire army each outing but that's poetic licence in the medium. Being an everyman shouldn't comes down to power or ability as much as attitude. Captain America is (or at least should be) an everyman but Batman is not. Many games don't lend them selves to characters who are normal, without special competence or ability and it would be ridiculous and dogmatic approach to try and shoe horn them in. Imagine a fighting game where all the characters are just regular people with no more skill in fighting than most people. ridiculous... but possibly pretty entertaining. By the standards laid out most shooters automatically can't have an everyman protagonist. Games have to go out of their way to make the concept work, Catherine and Heavy Rain are games that relatively ordinary protagonists are essential to game. Most game concepts by the nature of supposedly being a challenge need an extraordinary protagonist.
The chain of logic here really breaks down. First of all Bioware's philosophy and claim has always been they listen to the feedback. They have done so in minor ways. Blasto caught on on their forrums and since became a recurring easter egg. Refund guy again got a lot of attention and recurs through all three games. They've done so with gameplay. ME2's Adept got a lot of complaints about how additional defences on enemies on higher difficulties disproportionately hurt them. It is easy to see that difficulty no longer adds defence or the overhaul of biotic combos to make adepts more effective against enemies with defences as being a reaction to those complaints. They even claimed they adjusted ME3's story based on feedback to leaked plot details. The threads complaining about the endings are some of the most active their forum has seen, much more so than complaints about the DLC. The other factor is the endings are bad, really... really... bad. For a series that has gone out of its way to emphasize both its setting and choice the ending whizzs all over both from a great height. I'm not arguing BW must change the ending though. What I'm arguing is that first of all they really dropped the ball on the ending. Secondly it wouldn't undermine their artistic integrity to add endings. In a weird way in a series that has emphasized player choice it would bring that choice to a new level.
Though I haven't got my hands on a Vita yet how I use my PSP and DS for years, even along side a smart phone doesn't line up with this. Hand helds aren't just for quick fix gaming, the fact is most of my time spent playing them is done within sight of a PS3, Xbox 360 and gaming PC. They can offer a gaming experience compelling enough to compete with less portable gaming platforms. The advantage is they are portable which means you can take them with you for few trips. When commuting much of the time I can't focus enough to pay attention to story but a lot of even hardcore portable games offer quick fix activities as well. Portable gaming platforms cover both these bases. I'll not argue against smart phones and the like doing quick fix better, but that is primarily what they do. Angry Birds, Infinity Blade and even the way Ghost Trick has been repackaged are all about quick fix gaming. Then there's GTAIII, sure it's a game you can sit down and play but given how fiddly the controls are wouldn't you rather have a dedicated controller. There is Chaos Rings but games like that are so few and far between, most of the more hardcore games for smart phones and are available and control better on dedicated gaming platforms. If smart phones really are the way gaming is going then that would be sad because that would make them parasites, killing off gaming and replacing it with a poor substitute. However I disagree, there is room and a separate market for the Vita.
The major problem I have with this article (apart from only being worried about US soldiers) is that it holds if you assume that military shooters can't possibly be making a legitimate commentary. Yes these are a commercial product out to make money but turn that line of reasoning to another media, film. Could you say that you can't watch films like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket or The Hurt Locker as a matter of conscience? A major running theme of the campaigns at least is the burden that we as a society place on a few. For all the faults with BF3's campaign it's something it addressed. Perhaps the game that did that best recently is actually Gears 3 which I decribed to some one as being "like Starship Troopers without the right wing crazy" in that when I finished it I felt like I really had to join the army. Though I cooled on the idea pretty quickly. I have friends and family members in multiple countries who have served and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. People in the armies of multiple countries. I worry about them often. Fortunately no one I know has been seriously injured but I do think about the toll, those that haven't been so fortunate and their families and friends . It's fair to critique and criticise how individual games handle an issue that is complex and something we should think about more. It is wrong to rule out the possibility of these games having something valid to tell us.
Good article. The white knighting of Sony in the comments here is so incredibly stupid. Fact: Sony held private details of tens of millions of users. Fact: Sony lost the private details of tens of millions of users. What are you defending? Sony didn't do enough to protect that information. If they had it wouldn't have been stolen, that is the bottom line. Identity theft is horrible, much harder to set right than the potential credit card fraud. Insurance or no, identity theft is traumatic and Sony's lack of care for our personal information has opened that up as very real possibility for many of us. The only way I can see this breach not resulting in many, many cases of identity theft is if the perpetrators are caught. So go ahead fanboys, down vote me but know that's exactly what you are: a stupid fanboy, sticking your head in the sand, sucking up to a multi-billion dollar company that has put tens of millions of their customers at risk.
I don't see the point of these comparisons. We know the 360 has more memory for textures and will have higher resolution textures and more dedicated video hardware allowing more pixel shader trickery. Those are about about all we can distinguish between easily. The only time the PS3 version will look better is if the developer drops the ball in the graphics department (Dragon Age and Oblivion for example) but there are also tragically lazy PS3 versions (bayonetta). And yet even from the first PS3 games I doubt I would be able to tell the difference between the 360 and PS3 version of most games on graphics quality or even performance alone if they aren't put side by side and in most games it won't impact my enjoyment. Or consider Uncharted 2 which is winning quite a lot of best graphics prizes. I role my eyes when fanboys write nonsense about how a 360 couldn't handle Uncharted 2, it doesn't look good because of raw power but because Naughty Dog used the available resources well. They focused texture quality to where it mattered and made it silky smooth. I don't own a PS3 but I am definitely going to buying one soon for four reasons, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, God of War 3, Yakuza 3. But on the flip side of the coin for the 360, (superior) Bayonetta and Mass Effect 2. Graphics difference is such a minor thing.
What this demonstrates is what everyone already knows: High end PC graphics card has more texture memory and grunt than the console so you get sharper textures and better lighting. 360 has more texture memory than a PS3 and the PS3's unconventional pipeline is dealt with in a port by lower quality lighting so we get the usual PC better than Xbox better than PS3 graphics. Great, but not the whole picture. My console is hooked to my TV which is in front a comfy chair. Sure I could hook the PC to the TV but there is no where to put it and I use it to work on as well so it's set up on the desk. So help me I've actually come to prefer playing shooters on a pad. I know Keyboard and Mouse give more accuracy I find the pad less hassle. Finally without putting still pictures side by side and examining them I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the PS3 and Xbox version. While I might notice the difference between the PC and console version I probably wouldn't care while I'm playing. I know the Xbox version has a solid frame rate, I'm sure the PS3 version does too and that matters more. What makes a game gorgeous isn't the grunt of graphics hardware. Just look at Uncharted 2, which is an absolutely gorgeous game but as far as I can tell achieves it's look by using the PS3's resources smartly. You can have all the processing power in the world and still have an ugly game or low spec game which looks beautiful. All three versions of MW2 look great but more importantly play great and that's what matters.
I may get the TE fight stick if it's restocked in April but it's for the fun factor. I never really understood the obsession with special pads/sticks being actually better. I've used some pig of pads and, within reason I've always managed to get used enough to it that I can reliably pull off any move after a while (360 d-pad is beyond hope though). That goes for some of the fiddler moves in KoF series. I've owned and used some much nicer pads and sticks too and they are instantly much easier to use but actually made no real difference: I'm still fundamentally just as good/bad at the game. So I'm ready to throw a large amount of cash at a stick but I don't expect to play any better on it, it's just for a more "authentic" experience.
WeWerePirates' comments