League of Muffins

Ok, first off, it doesn't really matter what your opinions, views, or legal codes say about digital property rights; what matters is that the entertainment industry today is vastly different than it was fifteen, ten, or even five years ago.  And this, is one sad fact that most, nay, nearly all, major digital entertainment companies seems to be putting every effort into ignoring.  However, not all companies have stuck their heads in the sand in the hopes that the existence of a post-scarcity entertainment industry will go unnoticed by the masses.  And that brings us to Riot Games.  The fine boys and girls who have enriched our lives by bringing us League of Legends.  

Now, onto what League of Legends is, and why you should care.  

Well, first off, this is what the gameplay kinda looks like.

League of Legends is, technically, a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)- a genre both created, defined and popularized by the Warcraft III mod that you're probably sick of hearing about by now: DotA.  What I might more correctly classify LoL as is this: a stay at home sport.  Why?  Because it plays more like an actual sports match than a typical videogame.  Now, I've also slightly sabotaged my definition by saying "typical videogame" because the obvious response is to simply say that the "stay at home sport" thing is complete bollocks and that it is, simply, an a-typical videogame.  Well, you could reason that way if you want, but honestly, both the gameplay and the meta-game of LoL more closely resemble a hockey season than any other online/multiplayer videogame that exists, except StarCraft but that only counts if you're Korean (ok, and all those other games that are "just-like" LoL, but for sake of argument and the earlier reference to a post-scarcity entertainment industry, I'll ignore them because LoL works better as an example).  

Yes, that is a real LoL champion
and No, sadly it's not actually Articuno.
But hey, that's never stopped me from yelling at it to use ICE BEAM attack in a fight
and it shouldn't stop you either.

As far as gameplay is concerned, league of legends controls similarly to your typical RTS game, except for the part where you control a single unit.  The difference between LoL and an RTS is how you use that unit.  In LoL your unit is a "Hero", or "Champion", or "More-Important-Than-That-Other-Guy" type and you must level them up, make them more powerful, buy items for them, and use their levels, powers and items to pwn the "Heroes" on the other team.   Sounds simple, yes?  Well, if you think so, go play a game (I mean, for fucks's sake, it's free, you should actually go play a game).  Ok, now that you've been raped, called a noob, blamed for single-handedly ruining your entire team's game and for creepily inappropriate relations with the mothers of people you don't know, you'll see how inapplicable "simple" is for describing this game.  What really defines LoL is that every champion plays differently, both in subtle ways and in drastic you-feel-like-you-don't-know-how-to-play-the-game-anymore ways.  And that every champion can be played in more than one "right" way, even if you're called a noob for trying the other ways.  Now this brings about the second level of complexity in LoL's gameplay: because every champion plays differently, every champion has a different role in the TEAM.  Oh, yes, now you're starting to see.  Every player has a different role in furthering the TEAM's goals, and not the INDIVIDUAL's goals.  MUCH LIKE A REAL SPORT.  And, might I add, exactly unlike games such as, oh, I don't know, *cough*halo*cough*.  So now, you not only have multiple champions and playstyles to master, but different roles that you may end up needing to fill.  Oh hey, it's like it's a game that you need to legitimately master to be good at and not some instant-gratification headshot based shooter.  Now isn't that a novelty?

But, gameplay aside, LoL is also doing something else that the 'mainstream' game industry really, really, needs to adopt, particularly on the console level.  

And that thing is FREE.

But yes, you can play as the creepy little girl
that summons a giant ass demon-teddy-bear from hell to tear her enemy's faces off.
So, Articuno: No, Demon-Teddy: Yes
And that was your daily lesson in compromise.

Now, before you start yelling about how online piracy is/is-not stealing or is/is-not related to the flying spaghetti monster, lets get back to that idea of a post-scarcity entertainment industry i mentioned a while ago.  A simple way of explaining what that means is that, if I were to, hypotherically give you a laptop, theoretically unlimited storage and massive internet bandwidth and challenge you to download all of "X" in a year, do you know how much "X" you could download?  If you answered with anything other than ALL OF THE "X".  You're wrong.  And the reason is simple, all you need for getting all of the "whatever the hell you were after that I probably don't want to know about considering that this IS the internet after all" is effectively copy/paste.  Another example is this.  I have music on my computer, imagine that.  Now, as far as digital property rights go, I think I'm technically only supposed to have one copy of an album on here at a time that I legitimately bought (although, even that's debateable as the IRAA has sued people over ripping music off of CD's they've bought onto their computers for their personal use, but, legal insanity and corporate mind-fuxored ass-clowns aside), BUT, what happens if I do copy/paste of the album?  I can haz over 9,000 albums?  YIS!  I CANZ!  But... what did that really gain me?  Jack-shit.  That's what..  Why?  because ANYONE can do that.  Would it make sense?  No.  But point is, digital media costs effectively nothing to reproduce.  There's no manufacturing costs, no personnel involved, just copy/paste.  And this is what's killing the mainstream digital entertainment industry: people have realized this.  And more importantly, people have realized that paying a massive one-time lump sum of money for something that costs effectively nothing to make and can be acquired for free, is kinda stupid.  UNLESS, that money is buying you, not the costs-less-than-a-cheap-whore to produce ones and zeroes, BUT A SERVICE to accompany those ones and zeroes.  Like, lets just go back a few paragraphs: LoL.  It costs nothing to play, you could play for all eternity and give Riot Games precisely $0.00.  BUT, they also provide a service: the matchmaking.  And, they offer, completely unnecessary stuff for minimal fees, but, it's stuff that appeals to people on a personal level (custom skins for champions, quicker unlocks on stuff, etc.  Nothing necessary for playing the game, but stuff that's either personally appealing or simply convenient), and it's stuff that requires their service to use, therefore, they must pay the fee.  

AND THAT IS THE DIRECTION THE GAMING INDUSTRY NEEDS TO GO.

Because they can only sell us on one-time-massive-fee games that they don't even let us resell for so long when the need to buy the disc is rapidly disappearing and comparable gameplay value can be had for FREE.  Now, this hasn't even touched on the need to buy entire games (i.e. why should I buy ALL of Gears of War 3 if all I want is the campaign and not multiplayer) or (is piracy REALLY stealing-- but please, for the love of all things not-Canadia, DO NOT FUCKING START THAT SHIT HERE)

And on that note, I'm done ranting for the day, and my recommendations are thus:

Play League of Legends, at least give it a shot.

And be mindful of when you're paying money for nothing and doing so for bullshit reasons.  

Oh, and one more thing:

Why?  Because Pikachu does not approve of you and whatever stupid opinion you
were about to post into the comments section.
And no, sadly there isn't a Pikachu champion in Lol....
....YET.

Massive Muffins

If you have an Xbox 360, you've probably heard of Mass Effect. And if you haven't, you should keep reading. Now two games strong, and with a third and advertised final game on the way, it is, in my opinion, the best single player experience the 360 has to offer.

Mass Effect entered the world of gaming in 2007, shortly after the launch of Halo 3. Unfortunately I didn't get to pick it up until 3 months ago...so it's not exactly new news.

Mass Effect opens with the character creation business. This could have used some work. As interesting as it is, unless you choose the default Shepard, you will almost indefinitely end up looking like a space-pedophile. Luckily, my attempt at a character only resulted in giving him a parrot as a great-grandfather. You then get the joy of choosing between a few different classes, and your options are pretty much this: Weapons or abilities. You carry four weapons with you, the assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and pistol, no matter the class you choose. Turns out though, that Shepard likes to lug around stuff he doesn't need, because unless you choose to be a soldier, you are "untrained" on at least two of your guns. This made me sad at times, as I decided I liked killing people Carmine-style, and sniper rifles are not made for removing an enemy's lower half.

After you've completed your Shepard, you're off to save the galaxy. Literally the entire galaxy is riding on you. I won't spoil the story for those who actually don't know what I'm talking about, because it's the best thing about the game, but basically doom is coming, and no one else believes you. So you set off in your shiny ship, gather a bunch of bros and gals who believe you, and you go stop it.

The story telling method itself is what will make or break the game for a player, as it's what you do most often. It's told almost entirely through conversations you can control the flow of whenever the magic wheel pops up. Critical choices are made throughout the game in this mode, so you'll want to pay attention. There are pretty much two ways to approach every situation. You're either the good-natured, universe-loving hero (the "Paragon"), or the douche-bag, bad-ass (the "Renegade"). To choose the best convo options for either, you'll either want to dump points into charm or intimidate...which is annoying, as those points would be better served making things die faster. I generally stuck to being the "nice guy", but luckily you can still choose to be a dick when you feel like it.

Regardless of which path you follow, the main story pretty much plays out the same. There are enough "choices" (mainly of who dies or not and who you get to have as a "special friend") that the game is worth playing through twice, which apparently is encouraged, as there's an achievement for it.

The game itself plays as a third person shooter which feels a little lighter and more fluid than Gears of War. The only problem is, to get to the smoothness you need to first break through the concrete shell you're teeth are forcibly crushed down on at the start. The game tells you very little about how it is to be played, which, once you figure it out for yourself, is fantastic the second time through. At first though, you may have those moments of: "What just happened, and how the crap did I do it?" Once you get to the creamy center however, you only encounter the occasional piece of gravel.

As tasty as the combat system is, the inventory screen is one of those gravely-bits. You will come across many guns, armors, and upgrades as you screw around in the universe, but will quickly find only a very few of them actually do anything useful. You also eventually run out of pockets on your space-armor, so you either need to reduce stuff into jelly, or hopefully sell it at one of the few and far-between shops you come across.

The other teeth-breaking bit worth mentioning are the vehicle sections. While I found it fun rolling about a few acres on a planet in a tank with jump-jets, cutting through enemies as if I were simply mowing the lawn, you quickly come to have a bit of disdain for it. Not your little tank, mind you, but for the RIDICULOUS terrain you are sometimes made to trek over. The game designers seem to have a mountain fetish, and it gets frustratingly annoying fast.

The tastiness of Mass Effect is easily worth a chipped tooth or two though, especially when you go back for seconds.

Mass Effect 2 does everything the first game did...but it replaces the stony-bits with nutty-bits. Overall the game feels more polished. The story remains the best part, and is on-par with the first's. The game's start is nicer to you, still throwing you right into being shot at, but at least having the courtesy to inform you how to shoot back. The character classes are all still there, but you only carry weapons you're capable of using. The combat in general is more refined and fun, making you want more. Apparently orbital-bombardment tanks are for the poor, so you now get a shiny shuttle to pamper-you to the surface. The paragon/renegade system is entirely conversation dependent (with the occasional awesome quick-time event...I pushed a dude out a 10,000th-something window), and the inventory and level management are refined and user-friendly. In fact, the only noteworthy issue with the second game is the tedious resource mining for upgrades (I will say it was fantastic when the computer gave me sass for probing Uranus).

So far, the Mass Effect series is simply awesome. If you focus only on the story missions themselves, you're looking at about 12 hours for the first game and 20 for the second (if you don't want your entire crew to die, that is). That's the other thing; as mentioned, this is a series of games. I highly recommend playing through Mass Effect, investing in your character and their decisions, importing them into the next game and continuing on. It makes for one of the most personal games available, and is truly a worthwhile endeavor.

But hey, if all that isn't enough, at least you can get some virtual booty.

> EpicError