A Little Gamier

Over at a site called Twenty-Sided they've spent a while, and 50 articles, looking at Mass Effect.

Apparently the last one was in June of last year so I'm a little late to the party. 

Mass Effect is interesting as a game as it straddles a couple of types of Bioware Role-Playing Games (more numbers based to more shooter-y based) and also has a controversial ending -- the games were all about the choices you made and how they had an effect in the game-world. The ending had you choose between three different-coloured buttons no matter what had happened before.

Twenty Sided is arguing that the problem with the ending has roots in the changing culture at Bioware and these problems are ingrained in the game much earlier than the last 2 hours or so (a full play-through of all three games is probably a minimum of 100 hours).

But then again, the ending of a lot of RPGs is to wade through a long tunnel of super hard enemies to make an arbitrary choice before the credits roll. I think people were upset by the implied promise of more, but Mass Effect was not an overly egregious offender in this respect.

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Another party I'm late to is an Oral History of Day of the Tentacle. Tim Schaffer may have frittered away a huge amount of goodwill over his last few projects (DF-9, Broken Age, that hacking thing) and DotT is a touch over-rated but this is well worth a read.

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Gaming Nostaglia is something Ron Gilbert seems to be an expert in. And if Thimbleweed Park turns out to be any good we'll forgive him for it (chances are it'll look nice).