NOTE: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE ENDING AND EVENTS OF MASS EFFECT 3. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH THE GAME TO BE SPOILED FOR YOU.

In this day and age, one learns to take internet outrage with a heavy dollop of salt. The videogame community tends to be reactionary in the worst way, for a few reasons: they tend to be young, they tend to express their immediate feelings almost as a stream of consciousness, and let’s face it, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory comes into play as well.

When it comes to game endings, when I hear that the community is upset about a game’s ending, I almost always take that as a good sign that the ending is daring and provocative. For example, there was an outcry over the abruptness of the ending of Halo 2, which had the nerve to conclude with a cliffhanger. The 2009 Prince of Persia reboot ended with the player undoing all of the work to free an ancient evil god they’d just imprisoned.

So when I heard that there was a growing outcry about the endings of Mass Effect 3, my interest peaked, because invariably, that meant the story was provocative and daring, instead of predictable and boring.

“What is one grain of sand in the desert? One grain amongst the storm?”

In the case of Prince of Persia, players felt annoyed that The Prince would undo all the effort the player had spent hours working on in the game – but in the context of the story, it made perfect sense and was powerful in its execution. His faithful companion (and possible love interest) Elika sacrificed all of her life force to contain the evil god Ahriman. The game actually had you carry her lifeless body to the altar during the end credits. After he placed her body down, the game gave you the opportunity to just turn the game off – or, you could keep playing, and sever the trees of life on the nearby landscape. When you did, Elika was restored to life, moaned, “Why?!”, as the Prince carried her off as the darkness surrounded them as Ahriman was freed.

It was powerful in that The Prince followed the same path as her father, The Mourning King. He didn’t accept the price, and he was willing to damn the world just to keep her alive. It was a profound “the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many” moment, and it did force the player to consider the situation from the Prince’s viewpoint. The land was barren, if fertile again. The populace was gone. And, as he stated in the epilogue downloadable content, the prison wasn’t secure anyway. (The fact that Elika never forgave The Prince even at the conclusion of the DLC, leaving him to a grim fate, saved it from being a deux ex machina cop out.)

The Prince of Persia comparison is an apt one, because Mass Effect 3’s ending also negated all of the effort the player put into the game, save the abstract “Galactic Readiness” level that determined if the ending was disastrous or merely inconclusive.

The chief difference between the two, however, is the fact that Prince of Persia’s ending worked within the context of the game. Mass Effect 3 was basically so far out of left field, it felt rushed and contrived.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the endings, Shepard is given three choices – destroy the Reapers, but in the process, all AI machines along with it, or merge with the Reapers and have them simply fly away, but in the process sacrifice his own life, or merge all organic life with synthetic life. In every case, the Normandy crash lands on a mysterious verdant planet. The “Galactic Readiness” determined how bad the decision would be – a low score would have the Earth destroyed in one ending.

The Synthesis Ending did cause coos of delight from fan fic writers.

The chief problem with the endings aren’t the content. Unto themselves, with no context, they’re perfectly valid endings. Gamers have a problem with them not because of the content itself, it’s the fact that they seem completely and utterly arbitrary, with no consideration for anything that had gone on before. In short, nothing the players did meant anything.

Crazy endings aren’t bad at all, when done right. Anyone who’s played the Silent Hill games can attest to that. The Dog Ending to the second game basically scotched all of the events that had gone on in the game, showing that a Japanese akita dog had been behind it all, as a canine mastermind operating a command center controlling all of the events in the game. It was funny, hysterical, and brilliant, and widely accepted as an ending.

So why did the Mass Effect 3 endings fail? The game was building up to something that never happened.

Before the endings, the player had to make clever moves or suffer some hard choices. They had to negotiate a peace between the Krogan and the Turians while mollifying the Salarians. They had to somehow get the Geth and the Quarians to work together, or have one race utterly wiped out. The decisions from the previous two games reared their heads. Did the player save the Rachni Queen? Did the player save Maleon’s research?

Mass Effect 3 had some of the most haunting moments not only in the series, but in science fiction itself. No player will ever forget Mordin’s final, sacrificial moments curing the insidious Krogan genophage, singing to himself “I am the very model of a Salarian scientist” as the tower exploded all around him. If the player failed to negotiate a peace between the Geth and the Quarians, it ended with beautiful tragedy – and regardless of the player’s choice, it had Legion asking shortly before it died whether it had a soul.

One decision will devastatingly result in Tali commiting a tearful suicide.

Even the romance between Joker and EDI, which could have come off as incredibly idiotic, was sweetly done, as EDI began to experience what it really was to be sentient and emotional.

It is this emotional investment into all of the characters that made the endings such a betrayal to gamers. But not for the reasons they think.

The real reason the endings that were given in Mass Effect 3 were such an insult to players is that everything they’d done to that point – and that includes the first two games – were meaningless. All of the choices given to players to that point had shown a cause-and-effect, and at the very end, all of that was ignored.

In short, the only thing that mattered was the Galactic Readiness meter, and that could be raised to 100% without doing a single thing in single player, since the multiplayer raised the meter alone. There was no connect between the campaign and the ending.

To really contrast this decision, one only need look at Mass Effect 2, which set a template players were expecting in 3.

If the player failed to upgrade their main weapon to the Thannix cannon in the second game, a crew member died. If a player chose the wrong person to lead the second team or provide the biotic bubble, a crew member died. If the player didn’t go on a crew member’s loyalty mission, they potentially could die. Preparation and consequences.

Thannix cannon – don’t leave spacedock without it.

None of that is in Mass Effect 3. Prevent Samara from killing herself and gain an elite Asari commando squad? It was meaningless except for a number that moved you closer to 100% Galactic Readiness. Gain an alliance with the Krogan and the Turians? Just a number. Treat Kalishah al-Jilani nicely and encourage her to keep supporting Earth? Just a number.

Players were expecting their decisions to matter. They wanted to see the Turians fighting, and living or dying depending on how prepared the galaxy was. They wanted to see Jack and her young biotics helping out or dying, depending on the player’s decisions. A player who took their time in the single player campaign, doing most of the sidequests, gaining support, wanted to see the fruits of their labor. Help Aria and get a trio of major mercenary squads on your side? Who wouldn’t want to see a horde of Vorcha and mechs descending on the husks?

When you managed to wrangle up a huge fleet of ships from multiple races for what one of your squadmates said in awe was the biggest fleet ever in the history of the galaxy, you got one brief shot of it. That’s it.

Worse, the endings were a betrayal of the entire theme of the series. The Prothean you managed to save, Javik, near the end of the game talked about how the Prothean Empire, which turned out to be an oppressive militaristic force that basically told all of the races it encountered, “Be our slaves, or else”, couldn’t defeat the Reapers, while an alliance of races working together was more efficient. That was the secret heart of the Mass Effect series. The endings simply dumped all over that concept.

The other problem was the way the endings handled the Reapers. In the first game, the Reapers were mysterious, otherworldly, and a palpable Lovecraftian threat. Basically, they were Elder Gods. When Sovereign boasted in the first game, “You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it” in its deep, metallic voice, that was the point that players realized that the scope of the game had just widened in front of them. It wasn’t about a human-hating Spectre with an army of robot slaves destroying human colonies. It was about the end of life in the galaxy as we know it.

The Reapers at their most threatening.

In the second game, the Reapers became even more blatantly linked to Lovecraft. When exploring a dead Reaper, one log wrote in awe:

“Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god can dream. A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It’s a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn’t have to want to. It doesn’t have to think about it. It just does. That’s what Chandana didn’t get. Not until it was too late. The god’s mind is gone but it still dreams. He knows now. He’s tuned in on our dreams. If I close my eyes I can feel him. I can feel every one of us.”

H.P. couldn’t have written it better himself.

In the third game, the Reapers actually invaded, and they lived up to expectations – unstoppable in force, and peeling away the Earth like an onion. They perverted organic life forms into nightmarish constructs, such as the Banshees.

At the end of the game, however, they’re tools. Nothing more than tools that are conveniently brushed away at one beings whim.

Drew Karpyshyn stated that his endings were different, in that they were cleaning the galaxy of life to save it from Dark Energy, so the choice the player would have would be to either allow the races to be eaten or to destroy the Reapers and deal with extermination by the energy.

Again, that would have the same problems as the endings as they are, if not in a worse fashion. Once again, the Reapers are basically playthings, and in his scenarios, the choice is Apocalypse A or Apocalypse B, and the player never gets to see the fruits of their labor.

Now, I normally would never presume to “fix” another person or person’s artistic work, but if I were asked, this is what I would do:

First off, leave the Reapers be. Just make them forces of nature, as they were portrayed in the previous two games. Hungry godlike machines that do three things: sleep, eat, reproduce. That’s it. No explanation of where they came from. No explanation of their motives. Let them be a mystery; as Voltaire once said, the secret to being boring is to tell everything. The Reapers were at their best when they were godlike boogeymen. Let fans speculate – that’s what they enjoy doing.

“This one just wet his pants at seeing an Enkindler, if this one had any.”

Secondly, let the war play out. Separate the Galactic Readiness from the value of the forces Shepard raised. The quality and number of forces that are required to defeat the Reapers will be in the allies Shepard has rallied to his cause. You should be able to see them fighting, dying and winning or losing their battle. The Galactic Readiness would only determine how ready each force is.

For example, if there are tons of Asari forces but their Readiness is low, they’ll suffer heavy losses but still win a Pyrrhic victory. In there are less Asari forces but the Readiness is high, they’ll win, with their small forces more battle-hardened – however, the Asari will still suffer heavy losses since there’s only a few. A high number of forces and Readiness is high, they’ll wipe out the Reapers in their sector and remain powerful and strong. Low on both counts, the Asari are extinct, akin to losing a crew member in Mass Effect 2.

Everything should play out – it doesn’t matter how long the cutscenes play. This is the final chapter of the Shepard trilogy. Alliances, betrayals, victories, defeats, let it all play out. If BioWare has to keep the Crucible, maybe if the army Shepard raises is strong enough to destroy the Reapers, Shepard can essentially tell the childlike being what to go do with itself. If they can’t, Shepard can choose to sacrifice himself, similar to what he did in the worst case scenario of Mass Effect 2.

Of course, the player would have choices during the end game that could affect the game. The Crucible could be treated as a weapon of last resort that will destroy almost all life, much like the rings in Halo. A boss fight against the leader of the Reapers would also allow players something to do – in order for any sort of victory, the leader of the Reapers would have to be destroyed; perhaps it resurrects Reapers, which could be shown in one mission where it brings back to life the dead Reaper from the second game.

It would also be a good point for Shepard’s Paragon/Renegade option to begin. He could either destroy the wounded Reaper, ensuring that the Reapers never threaten again, but lose something in the process, or he could reach an agreement with the leader, banishing it from the galaxy in exchange for Reaper tech that would keep EDI and the Geth (if they’re still around) sentient. That would be something a Paragon would definitely do.

As with Dragon Age: Origins, an epilogue would give Shepard, who is now the Human Councilor (since Udina’s dead and Anderson doesn’t want it), the ability to change the galaxy one last time, and be given some final choices. For example, he could decree Humans run the Council themselves, retain the status quo, or finally give other races a seat on the Council (which would be a wonderful middle finger and olive branch at the same time to Din Korlack), including, of all things, the Geth.

In the end, the entire point of Mass Effect was to allow the players to write their own story. The three current endings could still be incorporated as bizarre endings to the trilogy, much like the Dog Ending of Silent Hill 2. In that way, they would be so strange they would actually become beloved endings that were smiled about with disbelief. (On a side note, the Synthesis ending was the only ending that made any sort of sense, in that it at least gave closure to one storyline – the Joker/EDI romance.)

This final scene caused tooth decay and cavities in young children.

Finally, without having an inside sources, it seems to me that Mass Effect 3 was rushed to conclusion, that someone set March 6 as a hard release date after the game had been delayed for a few months. The evidence that I have is that much of what Casey Hudson and other BioWare personnel had teased about the game never materialized. The romantic conflicts were relatively mute. The “amazing, definitive” ending never showed up, instead having three definitely non-definitive endings. Hudson cautioning players take their time to finish side quests became irrelevant. There is an unfortunate similarity between Mass Effect 3 and Knights of the Old Republic II in that both games seemed to run out of time and endings were hastily put together, with subplots discarded.

There are two probable factors in this rush. First, Electronic Arts. As much as the publisher has remained hands-off with BioWare, there had to be some pressure to release the game as soon as possible. And secondly, Star Wars: The Old Republic. There is no way BioWare could have undertaken such a massive project without draining manpower from Mass Effect 3.

Again, I have no proof this was the case, but I strongly suspect it was so. Most fans of the series would probably have happily waited to, say, November 2012 for a full experience, if true.

Dan Quick returns again to cover for Paul Nowak, and this week, the Gaming Podcast is offering free copies of The Darkness II Limited Edition, which comes with the main game and some free DLC. The guys are giving away an Xbox 360 version and a PlayStation 3 version. To win, just listen to the podcast and post what your favorite scary movie is.

The game news this week includes:

• Ex-SCEE senior VP Phil Harrison joins Microsoft’s European team
• DOOM developer John Romero has “plans” for “old school” shooter
• EA defends Mass Effect 3 From Ashes DLC data being on disc
• Notch settles with Bethesda over “Scrolls” trademark
• DICE: 2GB RAM won’t be enough for next gen consoles
• Angry Birds theme park to open in Finland
• GAME puts itself up for sale, GameStop interested
• Diablo III release date announcement “in a few days“, no PvP in launch version

And yes, they know that the announcement was just made today – May 15th release date for Diablo III.

The contest to win either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version of The Darkness II will run this and next week, with the winners announced in Episode 257.

This week, Paul is still not available, which is unfortunate, since the Gaming Flashback is the classic DuckTales for the NES. There’s also a bunch of scintillating news items including:

• Pachter: Nintendo “Blew It” With Wii U, “In Disarray”
• Bethesda hiring talent for Xbox 720, PlayStation 4 game
• EA reveals Mass Effect 3 preorders well ahead of Mass Effect 2‘s
• Pachter: Next generation Sony and Microsoft consoles will have 4GB SKU
• Sony filed patent For Kinect-like motion device
• PSN Minis not working on Vita

We also reveal the winner of the Pixie Diamonds contest.

This week, Paul can’t make it, so we bring on a Paul substitute, Dan Quick of the PolyCast podcast – and the show doesn’t skip a beat thanks to Dan behaving like Paul without realizing it. This week’s Gaming Flashback explodes like a blood sausage with Wasteland.

This week’s news items include:

• Dashboard update gives Indie Marketplace more visibility
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 outed by Amazon France
• Skyrim DLC won’t follow same model as Fallout DLC
• Electronic Arts terminates “free Battlefield 3 for preordering Mass Effect 3” deal early
• Alan Wake on PC because Remedy “a nagging little kid” to Microsoft

In addition, we have Reader Feedback for Paul’s Pixie Diamonds contest – the winners will be determined next week. The contest’s Question of the Week remains the same: “Who is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?”

CES 2012 is going strong, as Jonah and Jordan do tonight’s podcast without Paul, who is packing for a trip. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the notorious Custer’s Revenge, and a punch of intriguing news and rumors comprise this week’s topics:

• Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
• Pachter sez there’s “zero chance” of PS4 at E3 2012
• Rumor: Next Xbox tablet-based?
• Rumor: Kaz Hirai to return as president of Sony
• Diablo III release held due to South Korea (from GameFront)

Plenty of Reader Feedback this week, which is good because we forgot to include a Question of the Week this time.

The latest episode, which is on the short side after having a really long one two weeks ago, sees Paul returning from the flu with somewhat of a shady attitude this week. Meanwhile, the Gaming Flashback is the 1976 coin-op arcade game Blockade.

The news for this week includes:

• Gabe Newell teases something for E3 2012 with a “3” in it
• Richard Garriott working on Ultima successor
• Microsoft includes “do not class action sue us” clause for Xbox Live
• Bizarre circumstances surround GSC Game World

All that plus Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week, “What was your favorite handheld game?”

Since Paul is not in this week’s episode, Jonah and Jordan do the podcast completely nude, to help boost ratings. While being naked, rather than a Gaming Flashback, this week is a Gaming Preview, and Jonah and Jordan discuss the recently announced South Park: The Game, developed by Obsidian.

The other news covered includes:

• Electronic Arts responds to expiring Online Pass issues
• Bethesda: Divided memory pool causes lag for Skyrim PS3
• Sony claims Uncharted series has 13M sales lifetime
• Skyrim Creation Kit landing in January
• Sony: PlayStation Network now has as high a “world-leading security system” there is

There’s also some Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week is “Have you ever taken a console with you on vacation (not handheld)?”

This week features a long podcast, as there’s a ton of news to report. Jonah tries air quotes on a pure audio podcast, while Paul refuses to believe The Legend of Zelda: Skyword Sword failed to hit the top 10 in software sales.

In addition, the Gaming Flashback checks out the JRPG Ys.

This week’s news includes:

• Ubisoft polling gamers for next Assassin’s Creed setting
• Electronic Arts bans a user for saying “badass”
• Newell: Piracy is “almost always a service problem” and not price, DRM agitates
• Christwire makes mock petition asking Pres. Obama ban Skyrim
• Holiday shopping madness sees woman pepper spraying for 360
• Microsoft refunds victims of Marketplace phishing scam

All this, and a bunch of reader feedback, as well as the Question of the Week: “Did you buy videogames as holiday gifts for friends and family?” Let us know.

This week, Jonah Falcon rants about the bosses in Deus Ex: Human Revolution while Jordan Lund expresses a desire for cold, rainy weather. This week’s Gaming Flashback is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, with the following news items:

• Lord British wants to make another Ultima, EA not so much
• Crytek rebukes “unlawful layoff” claims
• Gabe Newell wants Steam on Xbox Live Marketplace
• DICE addresses console “limitations” in Battlefield 3
• Black Ops map packs hit 18 million sold
• Sony targets teens with new PSP
• Angry Birds PS Mini problems

The guys also read more reader mail, and pose this week’s Question of the Week: What was the worst game mechanic you ever dealt with in a game you liked?

I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.

Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?

You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.

Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.

Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.

Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.

Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?

It seems the promise of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 is a big “work in progress” as it’s not actually under development yet. Square Enix is fully ready to commit on a simultaneous release for Europe and North America but not every territory around the globe.

The reason is simple: there are just too many countries to perform language translations in the time of a release window. Final Fantasy, as many know, is very text heavy in terms of dialog and storyline. We’ve spoke at length about that in the gaming podcast which helps explain why certain countries get some releases of Final Fantasy at different times and why some sequels never make it out of Japan.

“We’re ready to start developing FFXIII for 360,” said Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto. “First, we will complete the game for PS3 in Japan, then begin localization for America and Europe while developing the 360 version simultaneously. The PS3 and 360 versions will be released at the same time outside of Japan — although, due to language and other conditions, the game may not be released simultaneously across territories.” (1up)

Their plan of attack seems solid and gives the PlayStation 3 a bit of an advantage in the Japanese market, but considering the lack of 360 presence in the land of the rising sun, this isn’t too surprising. What is surprising, still, is the concept of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 at all!

When it comes to E3 announcements, letting the crowd know Final Fantasy XIII was arriving on Microsoft’s console was a positive shock to the system. It may not be simply because yet another Final Fantasy game is in the works but to prepare gamers for the idea that they don’t have to run out and invest in a PlayStation 3 just to play the next big RPG.

The value to the Xbox 360 is growing and the need to collect all the consoles is fading. End of an era?

Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.

It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.

The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.

The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).

They start you out in a town, and you kill rats and small rodents to learn the basics of the game, all while playing the role of your newbie character. You then ride out of Candlekeep with Gorion, your teacher who is killed in the night by some shady people, you get away and meet up with your best friend, the ever annoying Imoen, who was also teaching under said master and insists on coming with you.

The story weaved well, written like a true Forgotten Realms novel, the game implemented the AD&D rules well, and the RPG genre was flailing at the time; we had Fallout and Diablo but nothing really D&D like, this helped bring back that genre and Bioware was able to build a number of expansions for the game and use the game engine to spin-off other titles like Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale, although they didn’t have a direct hand in all the spin-offs their core engine was responsible for much of it.

It wasn’t without critics, AD&D fans would complain about not being 100% faithful (they don’t understand game design), some folks were upset at the poor path finding ability (patched a few times later) and the graphics and map were awesome for the time but were restricted to 640×480, which fans later “fixed” in their own cooked up mod’s.

All in all, this was a solid RPG experience with a great core game engine helping build up a falling RPG industry. Perhaps Bioware was the inspiration for some of the future RPG’s in terms of creativity, faithfulness to the Dungeons and Dragons realms and its fairly well crafted dialog tree.

To hear all we have to say about Baldur’s Gate, checkout the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 76.

We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.

Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.

We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.

The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.

Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.

Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!

(Thanks, Nukoda)

]]> http://gamingpodcast.net/2008/06/28/diablo-iii-confirmed-and-isometric/feed/ 2 http://gamingpodcast.net/2008/06/21/classic-cinematics-diablo/ http://gamingpodcast.net/2008/06/21/classic-cinematics-diablo/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:37:22 +0000 Derrick Schommer http://gamingpodcast.net/?p=36

Diablo is a classic title with endings for each class you can play, but all give you the same result: hell and torment. You battle your way through a very difficult game, defeating legions of evils minions, piling their corpses upon the floor as you dig deeper into hell.

Eventually, you battle the essence of hell itself: Diablo. However, the ending does not give you warm fuzzies. The ending shows the results of a man with a burden and ends with the transfer of such burden.

Pure evil. Pure fun. Exciting and well crafted ending. For more talk on cinematic endings, listen to the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 75.

For those non D&D people, this is what it’s like being a true dork. Live it, love it. For our full rant on Summoner Geeks and viral videos checkout the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 74.

I miss old SSI games and all the beauty and wonder they brought me as a child. Perhaps it’s more of the feeling of playing old MS-DOS games and that no worries feeling of playing games all summer long when your parents are out working; no cares in the world but that of the evil dragons and goblins of an RPG world. Secret of the Silver Blades arrived in May of 1990, developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI), a company we covered in our gaming history back in TD Gaming Podcast Episode 9.

Secret of the Silver Blades is actually the third in a four-part game series which was eventually packaged in the Gold Box editing of the SSI games. It was a continuation of the game Curse of the Azure Bonds and the first in the series: Pool of Radiance. The cool part of the series was the leveling system where each would let you level to a certain limit just like most modules in D&D games, this game let you get to level seven which means a Mage could use the cool Delayed Blast Fireball spell which was one of my favorite magic spells in D&D (yeah, I’m a dork.)

The graphics were a whopping 16-colors, with slight graphical improvements over the other two prior games. This game didn’t have an overworld map like the others, going full first person for the length of the game. Another great enhancement was the ability to use the arrow keys to navigate menu’s without the need for “hot keys” like older SSI titles, given the game is very much menu-based for combat, equipment and inventory management it was very handy to have the use of those nice little arrow keys.

You create your party and start adventuring in a game engine very similar to all the games before it, so introduction to game mechanics was minimal, you could advance your characters further in level and, most importantly, import characters from previous games. The D&D world is really a character-driven game environment and you grow fond of your characters and understand the best ways to battle with them, importing is key and still, today, is a big part in well done RPG expansions (Guild Wars is a great example). Unfortunately, many games fall short of character import and it kind of blows away some of the magic of an RPG.

One of the frustrating issues with Secret of the Silver blade is the limitation on levels for the Cleric, because they can’t level up past 7 they can’t get the good ressurection spell, only allowed to use Raise Dead which lowers your characters constitution by 1 (much like the traditional D&D rules). However, given its a video game and not a paper-dice based game, the raise dead penalty is annoying, so it was easier to save often and re-load when you died to try again and avoid the penalty. I do recall their being some scrolls or something to get back your constitution penalty… but it’s been awhile I might be making that up.

Anyway, a well done series, classic RPG and helped build a foundation for games like Morrow Wind and Oblivion in my opinion.