Over the recent years of Nintendo, they have taken a different approach to advertising their products. They have been more casual and clearly showing they're appealing to a wider audience. These were all fine and dandy at first but the more adverts they made and the more they're shown on TV and anywhere else, the more you wonder if they still care about their true fans or not.
Now I would have let these adverts slide but recently there's been a huge problem with them, most especially in the UK and that's showing the twats known as Ant & Dec. If you've never heard of them before, your luck runs out! All they do is present a bunch of shows run by ITV and get fame from them and believe me, they're getting far FAR too much than they actually deserve.
long with being twats as usual on TV shows, they've recently started appearing on Nintendo adverts and this really pissed me off. The last thing the gaming industry needs are two hacks appearing on game adverts when they should be serving food at McDonalds. It doesn't help when ITV and Nintendo thought this would be a great advertising campaign and reckon it's actually promoting Nintendo's games. What the fuck is up with humanity?! What kind of audience are they trying to attract with slapping these dickheads on their adverts?!
I just fear which other "celebrities" Nintendo want on their adverts but showing Ant & Dec is bad enough. They are fucking nobodies, so why are they there? Infact, why the fuck are they even on TV in the first place? Anyone could be a better presenter than these douchebags. GET YOUR ASSES BACK TO THE FRIER, DAMMIT!
If anyone wants to know how bad these guys are, you should have heard what they said about someone eating rats in I'm a Celebrity (no, I don't watch the show. My mum watches it and I happen to be in the living room when it's on). They claimed it was as spectacular as the moon landing in 1969. I'm not making this up at all. These morons DARED to make such a horrible comparison and they should be booted off TV forever for it!
In conclusion, Nintendo's adverts just make me want to cry, especially when I saw Ant & Dec appearing on them. If anything, these adverts just make me want to sell the Wii and get a 360 or PS3 instead. Well done Nintendo, you've dug deeper into that hole. Just be lucky that I'm still wanting to play the new Metroid game as that and Zelda seem to be the only Nintendo franchises that are still alive and aren't Mario. If it weren't for this, I would have completely given up Nintendo by now. As for you Ant & Dec, GET THE FUCK OFF TV YOU NO GOOD WORTHLESS PIECES OF SHIT!
Original date of rant: 12/10/09 Original rant entry: #17
You've heard most about Activision and Robert Kotick and how much of a disgrace to the gaming industry they are. Now...You're going to hear yet more about them as the one action they made towards one game I found to be so despicable, horrible, disgusting, disgraceful, and so sickening that it got a rant separate to the previous one.
Brutal Legend is an action-adventure game with RTS elements based on heavy metal music directed by Tim Schafer. I anticipated for this game as much as SSBB and MGS4 for those very reasons. Also, heavy metal and video games are two of my favourite things and not only that, this is a game directed by Tim Schafer. This guy has made/worked with several big titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts, despite some of them suffering in poor sales.
Majesco, the publisher for Psychonauts had financial troubles from the poor sales for that game so when it came to Brutal Legend, they had to seek for another publisher and the first one that took them on was Activision who were interested at the time. It all seemed quite good since Tim Schafer had several games which didn't receive enough praise they deserved and a company like Activision would have given them better exposure.
Unfortunately, it all went on a bumpy ride once Activision lost interest in publishing Brutal Legend. EA then picked them up and while they're a bad company most of the time, they at least deserve some respect for willing to publish original titles. However, a few months after, Activision claimed they were still in negotiations with Double Fine over this game and THREATENED A LAWSUIT! BULLSHIT! They left the game behind due to lack of "exploitations" and didn't even care about it. They just wanted it back because they saw its increase in popularity and regretted dropping the title. You were too late to take it back Activision. That was your mistake and you should have lived with it. Too bad they didn't stop there.
The worst of this happened right after E3 2009 press conferences. Following Activision's threat to sue Double Fine for bullshit reasons, after acknowledging even more popularity for Brutal Legend and seeing a huge ass poster advertising the game, they became really jealous and decided to sue Double Fine for yet more bullshit reasons and even going as far as preventing the game from being released!!
You dirty, stuck-up, sadistic, SHIT-EATING COCKSUCKING BUTTFUCKING...If you've ever seen Nostalgia Critic's AVGN Wizard rant, you'll know the rest of the line. I don't mean to take someone else's insults like that but there is nothing more fitting to describe them for this horrible action than that. This is the very reason why I detest Activision and Robert Kuntick and why whenever I look at EA or even 99.9% of the world population, I see halos on their heads.
It was obvious why Activision wanted Brutal Legend back. However, trying to prevent the game from ever being published? That is very VERY low! What pisses me off the most is that this game had more of a chance of getting decent sales and it's a damn shame. The last thing Schafer needs is yet another big issue with his releases. NO-ONE should ever stop a game frok being released just for childish excuses.
Activision were crying about how Brutal Legend needed so much money to develop the game and supposedly failed to meet one deadline. Well excuse Tim Schafer for actually putting heart into these video games rather than rushing to make a yearly game you fucktards. It was your fault in the first place for not even caring about the game afterwards. Also, the comment on failing to meet one deadline is laughable. Why can't these greedy fucks at least be grateful that they were never going to publish Duke Nukem Forever? Now a lawsuit for the problems with 3DRealms makes some sense but to take a game back they lost interest in only to want it back after acknowledging its hype? No words can describe how pathetic Activision and Robert Kuntick truly are.
What really pissed me off the most is that if Activision actually succeeded and Brutal Legend would never see the day of release as a result, that would have been it for Tim Schafer's games or at least not until ages like the time gap between Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. We would have had to thank these motherfucking cocksucking scumbags for losing a potentially great title as well as destroying any light there would have been for Psychonauts 2.
Fortunately, Tim Schafer and Double Fine weren't going to back down from this. They fought their way to defend their title from Activision and made sure the public would still get their game which they desire to play and for this, they are very respectful in my books, unlike that menacing Kotick.
As you can see, this is why I truly detest Activision and Robert Kotick to oblivion! This is why they don't deserve any respect from me, the fans of Tim Schafer, anyone who acknowledges the heart of gaming...As a matter of fact, WHO THE HELL would even give them any respect after this? The only reasons would be for publishing noteworthy games but besides that, there's nothing for them to make them respectful.
As for Tim Schafer and everyone at Double Fine, I'm aware of the lack of mention of RTS elements in the game before the release and while it wasn't the best of choice to use it for a console only game, it was still a great game and you deserved every credit you got from it. Of course, whatever future projects you have in mind, I'll be willing to hear out for them, even though I would like the next project to be the sequel to Psychonauts considering the ending that game had.
To Activision and Robert Kotick, FUCK YOU! You may have failed to take Brutal Legend back but this is a huge scar on your company's reputation and many gamers such as myself are not likely to forgive you. We'll put every effort into making sure our money doesn't fall into your hands.
Original date of rant: 05/10/09 Original rant entry: #16
NOTE: I'm well aware that Activision have merged with Blizzard to become Activision Blizzard but regardless, this rant focuses more on the Activision side. Anything Blizzard-related is left out due to not covering that area very well for the time being. Maybe there'll be rant on Blizzard themselves at a later point or maybe not. It all depends how I feel in the near future. ANYWAY...
Boy oh boy oh boy. If you thought my rage from the bullshit with Virtual Console, Wii games and EA in general were bad, you have seen nothing until now. Activision is the real deal for the BULLSHIT in the gaming industry, most especially for their actions over the last few years. Yes, this rant contains excessive swearing and CAP LOCKS, surprisingly unlike most of my written rants so far.
If you're not too familiar with their history, then it might come to a surprise that they formed in 1979 and became the very first third-party gaming developers/distributors. The reason for forming the company to begin with was due to a dispute with the programmers and how Atari treated them at the time. Activision even earned respect for the right reasons during the 1980's for making Pitfall which is said to be a strong influence for the very early days of platformer games, possibly even an influence on Super Mario Bros.
You're probably thinking "How can a company who made a huge contribution to the early days of video gaming fuck up so badly in the later years?" Back when they formed, the company wasn't run by a dickhead known as Robert Kotick who is an evil man. This horrible excuse of a human being didn't become the CEO of Activision until 1991. Now to be fair, the company didn't start becoming terrible right away. Infact, they've done some good in the past such as making the 3D remake of Battlezone (very underrated FPS-RTS game and is one of the very few things that I liked about the company) and publishing most Quake titles.
When did things start to go wrong? Hmm, what about the Tony Hawk series? I'll admit, I did play the first game in the series and enjoyed it but never picked up any of the later titles and when looking at the series now, that was a good thing. Sure, the first game lacked a few things such as customization but ah well, that's something I can easily live without, especially when I lost interest in skateboarding years ago.
The problem with the Tony Hawk games is yearly releases à la EA Sports' FIFA, Madden and such. Although, there was an exception in 2008 when there was only a mere spin-off release but the rest still could have cut down with the amount of sequels, especially in some games they actually RECYCLE skate parks from other games!
It doesn't end there! While the Tony Hawk's yearly releases are what EA Sports do with certain series of games, this isn't even the worst actions from Activision. They, more especially Robert Kotick didn't become complete and utter douchebags until the current generation. What appeared to have corrupted their minds entirely are Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. Not saying these games are bad, especially when the idea itself of Guitar Hero isn't bad and the Call of Duty games are fun to play (OK, I've only played a bit of Modern Warfare 2 as I'm writing this but still...).
Ever since they released sequels for Guitar Hero and Call of Duty in the recent years and the franchises became increasingly popular, Activision knew they could make millions from these games and begun making at least one sequel each year or rather several titles in a short amount of time for Guitar Hero. Sadly, it's become clear as day that they're only doing this to make as much money as they can and making sure Robert Kotick has a lot more than enough money to afford a mansion and a fucking Ferrari. Infact, Kotick openly made this statement on video games which had little to no guarantee on having many sequels:
"Don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises."
I swear to God, this was NOT made up! This is an actual statement from Bobby Kuntick and this proved that he only cares about the money and not whether the games will be a real success. THIS MOTHERFUCKER could care less if the next Guitar Hero game was literally a PIECE OF TURD he took. If it's shit that sells gold, that's all he'll care about, nothing more. This is THE reason as to why these greedy bastards care about Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Crash and Spyro but completely ditch Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters and Riddick despite their hype.
Just seeing Activision "exploiting" the Crash and Spyro franchises truly sickens me. Sure, if they didn't pick up those games, someone else would but the point still stands with Activision's true intentions. What really disgusts me about how they're treating Crash and Spyro is that they were two games series I loved when I was a child, more especially Crash since Crash Bandicoot was the very first PS1 game I ever played and that console made a huge impact on my gaming interests. A decade after that great moment, the franchise has been utterly destroyed and the chances of Crash to make a return to form is pretty much good as gone.
As for ditching non-exploitable games, this is another great example that the fuckers at Activision don't care about the quality and abandoned them simply because there was no potential abuse of making sequels for these games every year. For your information fucktards at Activision, most especially Bobby Kuntick, games like Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters were NEVER made to have annual releases like your precious Guitar Hero and Call of Duty! THIS IS NOT HOW GAMES SHOULD BE TREATED! These games were made to give the public a brand new game to enjoy themselves playing to, not putting as much money as possible in your damn pockets! Care more about the heart and soul into making these games.
That's not even the lowlight of the whole company. Even after they claimed to have no interest in publishing Brutal Legend, they later insisted on taking it back due to its popularity from the public afterwards. Although the publishing issues have been solved, this still pisses me off even today. Those money whores only wanted Brutal Legend back just because they knew the game would put yet more money in their pockets.
You may be thinking "Hang on, how could Activision make any exploitations on Brutal Legend?" Word came from Double Fine that those greedy fucktards wanted to make a Guitar Hero sequel out of Brutal Legend. FUCK YOU ACTIVISION, YOU DO NOT TARNISH OTHER GAMES LIKE THIS JUST TO BENEFIT YOURSELVES, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS MADE BY A VERY TALENTED DIRECTOR! Take note that while they tried to make a Guitar Hero sequel from this game, they later claimed there was no potential to exploit the game so they left it behind and allowed another publisher to take care of the game while they were wiping their arses with dollar bills. Maybe Tim Schafer refused such game to come out and if he did, he has earned so much respect from me for that.
Every gamer is aware of the extreme hype of Modern Warfare 2 for most of 2009 and it became so anticipated that Activision went and upped the RRP in the UK by £15, making it £55 due to more shit no-one cares about or even believe and that's just the standard edition. It really kills how the UK residents are penalized for such bullshit reasons and there hasn't been a game in the retail stores sold that high since the N64 days when some games actually went as high as £60. Luckily this backfired when Sainsbury's and Morrisons were selling them for as cheap as £25, way below the RRP.
It didn't even stop there. Activision was asked a few questions by a guy named Tony Gikas about how they handled their business and Bobby Kuntick's response to the question regarding prices for new games was this:
"And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."
YOU SWINE, THIS IS TRULY DESPICABLE! I don't care if this was just a joke, a comment like that only makes you look more of a disgrace than you already are. It's like he wants all the money from the consumers just for his sake. Goddamn, you truly are a selfish bastard Bobby. Even if you were joking, it's clear as day you want games to cost more for...Isn't is obvious by now?
For someone like Robert Kuntick who's on thin ice with all these controversial statements on the gaming industry, the last thing he should do is making such a joke. There was a huge backlash from this and joke or not he deserved every single hate comment for that. Do you see other well hated people like George W. Bush intentionally joking about anything that can make them look like worse individuals than before? Best be careful with what you say next time Bobby.
Not only that, he's also wanting Sony to lower the prices of their consoles and if they don't, he won't give Sony anymore support. This is really a lot coming from Mr I want to raise game prices. Sony already brought the PS3 down to a reasonable price and he thinks the prices need to go lower just to please him? IS HE EVEN AWARE OF THE CAPABILITY OF PLAYING FUCKING BLU-RAY ON THE PS3?! What a douchebag, the prices for PS3 and the PSP (not PSP Go!) are fine right now for what they are.
Another thing that makes Bobby Kuntick a wretched being is how he treats his workers. He has gone as far as saying:
"We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."
WHAT A SACK OF SHIT! Which kind of place would want to make people as miserable as possible? It's like he wants to treat his workers as slaves (except they get paid) and this is the last thing the head of a company should do in business. If I ever worked at Activision (god forbid), I would be seeking for a job elsewhere immediately but here I am still seeking for a first actual job. *sigh* What a shithole this country is.
It's not just Robert Kuntick who's a complete twat, there was actually a statement from Michael Sportouch (Senior Director of Guitar Hero) that retailers should stop selling their rivalry products just because they don't sell as many copies as Guitar Hero. Sorry dipshit, it simply doesn't work that way. There is no way in hell you can force ANY shop to decide what they can sell and what they can't and why he even made such a thought is beyond any sane person's mind. Other companies deserve a chance to sell some products in the gaming industry, unless you're EA Sports or Activision who milk the fuck out of their games to get as much cash as possible. So Michael Sportouch, consider yourself a selfish bastard and a representative that it's not just Robert Kuntick who's a complete jerk in Activision.
In conclusion, Activision may have been the very first third-party company in the gaming industry but that doesn't excuse them for their recent behavior. Tony Hawk, Call of Duty and Guitar Hero have become huge cash-in attempts and they are only keeping those games for that very reason. Any games that aren't going to sell billions will be ditched by the company due to lack of potential to "exploit" them.
As for Robert Kotick, he is the scum of the earth. He is one of the people I despise the most in the entire world for tarnishing video games and business in general. For clearly stating he wants to exploit video games for cash and won't be willing to give other games with little to no chance of surviving, he should be banned from contributing to video games entirely as well as not being involved in business. It's obvious he's only here for more than enough money you ever need so do we really want him hurting businesses even more?
Because of Activision's huge success and with this cocksucking scumbag around, I fear for the future of video gaming. However, the more game companies that know not to become like Kuntick, the better. As a result of these actions, I never want to buy another game of Activision's, unless HE is no longer running the business or it's a second hand copy to show less support towards them.
I'm not done yet, though. There's still one particular topic that hasn't been covered in this rant. That one move from Activision that has triggered me to hate the bastards to hell and despising them more than any other game company out there. Stay tuned and let's hope I live through the next one. In the meantime, enjoy Nostalgia Critic's thoughts on the #1 douchebag and try to resist yourself from punching the monitor after seeing his ugly face:
Original date of rant: 24/09/09 Original rant entry: #14
This is a gaming franchise we should all be familiar with, especially when it became extremely popular at the start of the 2000's with its debut. As a life simulation game where you can create your own characters in the house, design the house how you want it to be and having the opportunity to give them commands, it only made sense for a game like The Sims to become critically acclaimed.
I'll admit, I wasn't a big fan of The Sims but my parents got me the PS2 version of it ages ago. Of course, I may have been better off with the PC platform but that's how life went. Although, the PS2 port didn't make you worry about expansion packs so to mess around with the family I created, it was fine.
Speaking of expansion packs, The Sims have a huge problem with them and that's having far too many of them. While it's only natural for a company to make more content in a few expansion packs, was it really necessary for Maxis to make SEVEN of them for the first game? Each one was £10 (possibly more) back then so that was £40 for the main game and then £10 for each expansion pack, making it at least £100 in total. Really. they should have reduced the amount of expansion packs by having up to three for each major title. As far as I know, no other game needed seven goddamn expansion packs for one game, so why The Sims?
It didn't stop there with the ridiculous amount of expansion packs, Maxis went even further with the sequel. Not only were there EIGHT expansions packs in total and each of them costing £20 RRP, there were also TEN "stuff packs" consisting of extra parts to use for The Sims 2 and each of them were £10 RRP. Again, way too many releases for one game and the most there should have been was three expansions and two stuff packs. Of course, that's still quite a lot but better that than eighteen additional packs.
The other problem here is the prices for them. No matter how much content you've put on the expansion packs, £20 is really too much, especially when the main title was originally at least £30. As for the parts pack, no more than £5 would have been fine. Since those aren't the prices Maxis thought would be best for them, to own everything in The Sims 2, the total could have been £250 if one bought each game on the day of release. TOTAL FUCKING RIP OFF MAXIS!
Now that The Sims 3 is out, Maxis are no longer making any more additional packs for The Sims 2 but now they're going to focus on expansion packs for The Sims 3. The third major title only came out earlier this year and had their first expansion pack in November. No stuff packs have been announced just yet but here's hoping Maxis will be more reasonable with expansion packs as well as making stuff packs DLC and if a fee is required for them, at least give them a fair price.
That's not all for the wrongdoings with The Sims franchise, there's one particular spin-offs which are Nintendo DS and Wii only called MySims. First of all, what an extremely horrible name. The amount of My_____ names I've come across over the past years are an atrocity and it all started with MySpace which was a stupid name to begin with. This is what I call the MySpace Disease (credit goes to Linkara for the similar idea of his own disease terms in his reviews).
Second, MySims is nothing more than an alternative to Mii characters as well as being a Sims game that's suitable for kids but looking at the gameplay footage, it's a good thing this is just a spin-off series. And yes, I do mean series as alongside the main MySims, there are four more games for the series and one of them I still can't get over what Maxis did and that is making a Mario Kart clone. Seriously, just looking at it for a few seconds was enough to tell it was a blatant Mario Kart ripoff. Why on earth did Maxis think this was a good idea when the same target audience most likely had Mario Kart Wii already? They could also do with slowing down with the amount of titles MySims will get as five titles in two years isn't a good sign at all.
In conclusion, The Sims as games themselves aren't bad, although MySims is exempt from that, but the amount of additional packs Maxis have made for the first two major titles is ridiculous, especially how much the recommended retail prices are. The Sims 3 will most likely suffer the same fate, even though they should consider DLC for the stuff packs and try not making too many expansion packs. After all, it should be quality over quantity. It's reasons like this that make me glad I was never a big fan of The Sims to begin with.
Original date of rant: 18/09/09 Original rant entry: #13
You've heard about EA Games themselves, now listen to what's bad about EA Sports. We all know what EA Sports are like with their annual releases. Now I'm not a fan of sports game and if someone else enjoys playing them, that's fine. I'm not going to say "Why play a sports video game when you could do this outside" since would I really want to try extreme sports with little to no practice? XD What's truly wrong with EA Sports is how they release their titles EVERY FUCKING YEAR with very little changes, most notably FIFA and Madden.
The annual releases from EA Sports is perhaps one of the lowest forms of scum in the whole gaming industry. Releasing the same goddamn games every year at full price for games which have very little differences (or even reasonable ones) to the previous title. It's even worse when there are hundreds of thousands who are willing to buy this shit yearly. No, this isn't made up, it's actually true since many FIFA/Madden titles have accomplished Platinum/Greatest Hits status. It's even more depressing when other games which deserve more recognition such as Tombi and Psychonauts don't even achieve this status, but that's another story.
The amount of copies each game are sold are part of the problem with the yearly releases. With getting aforementioned statuses for selling well, it only encourages EA Sports to keep making these games every year. It doesn't help either when supposedly these games HAVE to be made so often under contract with the NFL and FIFA. Sounds like both EA Sports and the football companies (the term football applies to both British and American here) want to suck as much money possible from their customers, doesn't it?
These games have become exploited so much that even if John Madden, the person the Madden series was named after retired from football altogether, EA Sports STILL insist on slapping his name on every professional football video game. Although he must have agreed with EA Sports to use his name on their games, you have to feel sorry for the man when a company still insists on exploiting his name even after retirement. It seems no matter what happens to the man, they still want to put his name on these games every year. Do they even have any respect towards him? It's not as bad as how EA Games are treating Tolkkien's Lord of the Rings franchise but still, this point stands.
The worst hasn't even been mentioned. Alongside annual releases of Madden, there's ANOTHER American Football video game series also made by EA Sports. This is no joke, have a look at NCAA Football. What are the real differences between this and Madden? Umm, this is college football and not professional? That's right, this is the same thing except with completely different teams. EA Sports are going as far as making TWO game series of American Football running at the same time with different teams.
The only reason why there's both Madden NFL and NCAA Football games is because of two different companies. There may be those who care more about college football than professional but still, is this necessary? This is money grabbing and plastic wasting to the fucking extreme. They could have found some way to merge the two into one game.
These games would be a lot more tolerable if they were released every few years and not every damn year. Whatever little changes they'd want to make in their games could have easily been saved for whenever they release their next installment and the differences between two games would have been a lot more significant. Whenever a new season starts, why not make a DLC pack to represent the latest teams? You don't see Super Smash Bros. releasing a new game every time Nintendo come up with a brand new idea and name it Super Smash Bros. 09, 10, etc and that's one of the many reasons why a franchise like Super Smash Bros. is highly respected amongst gamers.
Another thing that's rather annoying with EA Sports is how there's also an EA Sports Big. This additional name is rather pointless since they're still games by EA Sports. The only difference is EA Sports Big focuses more on extreme sports but the additional name still isn't necessary. It's like Square-Enix making an additional name for their online games and calling it Square-Enix Online. Besides the name, the other problem with EA Sports Big is making "simpler arcade style" FIFA games. This brings the question, why can't they just make an arcade mode in the main FIFA games? Do they really have to make another FIFA title just to have an alternative gameplay style which could easily fit in the main titles?
On the bright side, EA Sports Big have at least made some games that I enjoyed which are the SSX titles. As stated earlier, this is an extreme sport and it would takes years of practice to become a professional snowboarder in real life so a video game based on snowboarding is a nice substitute if you're not the sort of person who'll ever be able to compete in this kind of sport in the outside world. Another thing that EA Sports Big should be given a pat on the back on for is not releasing their titles yearly. It's actually been 2 years since the last SSX title was released and I wouldn't mind a new title in a few years time. Now why can't all of EA Sports' titles be like this?
In conclusion, EA Sports have blatantly proven to be complete and utter scumbags in the video game industry and the fact that not only will they still keep making yearly games but they sell extremely well is very sickening. This has to be one of the lowest points of the gaming industry. Also, while the additional title of EA Sports Big being rather redundant, they have at least made some worthwhile titles and don't push their money-grabbing schemes to the extreme for SSX, NBA Street and any other games series of theirs. Still, that doesn't compensate the terrible actions the company has made.
Original date of rant: 08/09/09 Original rant entry: #12
Electronic Arts....Well, this will be a lot of fun, won't it? EA have become infamous for several things and most of us should name at least one thing wrong with them. However, EA haven't entirely been a bad company. They have at least made/published worthwhile titles back then and today such as Theme Park, Command & Conquer, Brutal Legend and Rock Band (Considering the fun side of it only), so they're not entirely bad but the amount of terrible actions they've made in the gaming industry does outweigh its positive side.
One of the things EA are notorious for are acquiring other game companies. The occasional few companies they obtained such as Bullfrog and Maxis would have been fine and a few others who have struggled with financial issues (before the current crisis, that is) but they have acquired over THIRTY game companies since the early 90's when they started taking over other companies. Sure, this is business but this only makes these sort of companies even bigger and giving very little chance for smaller companies to rise. EA only looks like an evil empire that crushes smaller businesses like insects. As a matter of fact, one of the co-founders of id Software said that himself at one point so good to know even other game developers can see through this bullshit.
The sad thing is, EA's acquisitions will continue, most especially when UbiSoft, another major game company have said to merge with them someday. Not only that, EA once attempted to take over Take-Two Interactive when they were unwilling to be merged with them and considering that's they own Rockstar Games and 2K Games and would have had some rights over Grand Theft Auto, it really gives it away for what EA want which is $$$$$!
Speaking of money, EA are one of those companies who are known for creating many movie-based titles. The one series of movie-based games that I have a bone to pick on is the Lord of the Rings games. Now it's only inevitable for a company like EA to make movie-based games on a popular series of films such as The Lord of the Rings and release them on every console. What is truly unacceptable of EA to do is not how poorly made they are but actually the fact that even after the last film in the trilogy was released, the fuckers still intended to make YET MORE games based on the franchise.
Why on earth did there have to be more Lord of the Rings games after the film trilogy was finished? They shouldn't have made any more games based on the novels afterwards but nope, they still went and made MANY games no matter what. Now this is truly milking the franchise and it's truly disgusting. It may not be as bad as Guitar Hero getting at least 20 new titles every year but how EA are treating The Lord of the Rings is almost as bad, especially when the last game they should have made was The Return of the King. Worst of all, EA are still making yet more games based on The Lord of the Rings and for what? My only guess is to make money. Do they even have any respect for Tolkien? There is a huge doubt on that.
Now there's another book/film franchise with many video game titles who are also made by EA but surprisingly enough, the only other Harry Potter game they've made is a stupid Quidditch mini-game. For now, they haven't milked the franchise as bad as they milked The Lord of the Rings but once they make the last game, just you wait and see EA announcing yet more Harry Potter games just so they can suck away yet more money from kids and their parents.
Despite all of this, EA as a company have improved over the past years. There were a lot of problems with their employment policies and DRM issues, especially when Spore was released. EA's working hours a few years back were utterly terrible with over 60 hours a week and UNPAID OVERTIME and it makes me think, who would want to work with a company who force you to work so many hours and not pay you for overtime? Most would look for a job elsewhere if that ever happened to them. Fortunately, EA have wised up and are being less harsh on overtime and will pay extra if workers need to spend more time at the office.
As for DRM, EA used to have a SecuROM software which limits the amount of installs you could do on one disc so if you hit the limit (formerly three and later five), you're screwed and had to buy another copy. EA have wised up here as well where instead of having DRM, anyone who buys the game legitimately will be given extra features for the games they buy. So anyone pirating the game will not get the extras they'll offer for the games and hand them out to the honest buyers. If the company got everything right to make sure there's no back doors, this is actually a good idea and although the honest buyers outweigh the pirates, more companies should reward customers of their services for purchasing their games rightfully.
It's also good for EA to publish noteworthy titles such as Rock Band and Brutal Legend. However, the good they've done here doesn't let them get away with their bad actions, most especially their money-grabbing scheme known as EA Sports. Next up, E! A! SPORTS!
Going back to Nintendo, eh? Can't say I'm too surprised considering they were bound to do more stupid things one way or another and my rants will cover latest subjects, even if I've gone through similar things before. Recently, Nintendo have made two more horrible moves.
If this is the first rant of mine you've read, you won't be familiar with the very first gaming I made back in April which I talked about the DSi and how much of a terrible console it really is. Fast forward to the present and Nintendo have announced yet another DS console and what is it, you may ask? It's the DSi XL...
Are you serious Nintendo?! Just a year after the failure known as DSi was released you go and make another fucking handheld which is nothing but a bigger version than its predecessor. That means no return of the GBA slot or even anything to make it a real improvement from the previous "update" of the DS.
Sure, the DS Lite was released within the same amount of time after the DS but Nintendo could have learned from this and released both the DSi and DSi XL at the same time to give their customers an option whether they want the smaller or bigger version. Making a new design a year after is just stupid.
What's worse is that DSi XL is going back to the size issues the original DS has. That just barely fit in most pockets but this is just monsterous. If they want to make the screen bigger, they may as well as made it the size of a goddamn laptop considering the DSi XL will have similar size issues to the original DS. If that's what you really want to do with this piece of shit, then you better make sure you have a huge pocket or a bag to place it somewhere.You know Nintendo, handheld consoles were made to have a gaming console that's easy to carry around and with the DSi XL, that doesn't seem to be something you had in mind.
So there you have it. A pointless "update" from the DSi and absolutely nothing to actually make it an improvement from its predecessor. If it had the GBA slot back or even better, allow it to play GB and GBC games, that would be great. Sadly, Nintendo didn't go with that idea and have still yet to officially announce the DSi Virtual Console which would slightly redeem themselves. My guess is unless they think straight, we'll never have a handheld Virtual Console. What are the odds of them making yet another stupid DS console? We'll see what happens.
As for the other stupid move Nintendo have made lately, you'll find out next week.
Just like TV and films, video games also have credits usually after you beat the game or under the options menu. While I respect the fact that these credits are to give, well, CREDIT to those who took part in a certain video game, there has been a few things that always bugged me about credits, most especially in video games as I play video games more than I watch TV and films.
This isn't every game but there have been some games I've played in the past where credits were simply unskippable. Most of you have probably played a game before where after beating the game, you had to sit through the credits just to save the game data. Really now, WHY do game developers even do this?
I don't care about an excuse like "Oh it's just to give recognition to those who put hard work into making this game" if that even if a point brought up for this subject before and while I acknowledge the fact that they do a lot to get these games finished and released to the public, you should always be allowed to skip the credits if you don't want to. It's like if you're watching a TV DVD boxset and you couldn't even go past the credits after every episode.
If and I do mean IF credits are not meant to be skipped, at least show something to make it interesting like the ending scene going along with the credits shown and not just a blank screen or a still background. What do these developers think of the players when they make them stare at this crap?
On the other hand, if it's a game where you'll be playing time and time again, the last thing you want is not being able to skip the damn credits, even if it has something worth watching. Although it's an old game, Metal Gear Solid is a great example of this. This is a game you may have played through several times for the additional items but before you could even use your Bandana or Stealth Camouflage, you had to let the credits run through and you just have various clips of animals and places for half of the time. That is nothing but a chore.
Another old game but I was playing through Crash Bandicoot again and when I got to the end of the game, I found out I couldn't even skip the goddamn credits. I mean, WHY?! All was shown after Crash and Tawna leaving was the background, nothing else apart from credits. Surely there's modern games that have done this and if game developers are doing this, they had better stop it right away unless they put more effort into credit rolls.
In conclusion, unskippable credits, most especially those that don't show a lot besides names scrolling across are a pain in the ass. They are no better than unskippable ads on DVDs, especially when some games give you benefit for a second playthrough.
