banity = banal vanity

OBVIOUSLY

banal + vanity

Tag is fixed. If you're wondering where it came from, this post.
http://poetv.com/video.php?vid=103105

Getting bought out by EA certainly didn't help.

That and Bioware's general company policy of making the same game over and over forever.

Their games are basically minimalist demos for the toolkits that sometimes come with the games. I usually have more fun playing the RPGs written by the fans.

Jennifer Helper is just one writer who wasn't even involved in the worst stuff Bioware has done lately. She's just a convenient target because she's:
-A girl
-Fat
-May or may not have said something out of context years ago about enjoying reading more than videogames

Blaming EA is way too easy, at least for Dragon Age 2. They were there for Dragon Age 1, and the problems with DA2 weren't the DLC or ending thins in ME3; DA2 was just flawed from the ground up, and all Bioware's fault

They have writers that were hired for making literal fan fiction whose favorite movie was The Crow.

No adult fan of The Crow should be hired to write anything.

Honestly, I've always assumed that bioware blaming EA for Dragon Age 2 was EA's idea. I imagine that if EA really didn't want bioware trashing them, bioware wouldn't have. I can see how it played out.

"We need to run damage control before we put out mass effect. People hate the big corporations anyway. Tell them we made you guys rush dragon age, and assure them we learned our lessons, and that mass effect 3 is going to be the game everyone expects."

GQ's right, reused levels and crap DLC was only half of Dragon age 2' problem. That game was just plain no fun to play, and downright boring most of the time.

I hit what you're talking about a couple years ago. I love this medium...but I can't stand the whining, dry humping and awkwardness that surrounds it. I blame the "new wave" online and guerrilla marketing tactics that seem to have gone off the rails. Everyone is swept into a passionate bi-polar scream-a-thon without anyone having a coherent, critical thought...over really stupid first world shit.

I also lose, but here are some imaginary stars for you.

I hear stuff like this, and it does overlook a few things:

1. Games are an entertainment media. How many movies have you bitched about?
2. We have the internet now. It's kind of a megaphone for complaining.
3. It's nothing new. It wasn't fan mail that made Arthur Conan Doyle have Sherlock Holmes NOT die after going over the falls.

I adore games. Perhaps more than is healthy. It's the greatest current medium and has potential to be far better than it is now. And no, it's not new to have fanatics and crybabies and with the net they are loud enough to ruin the party for the rest of us. I've complained about movies, music and books before, though usually I say something to the effect of "I didn't care for that" and then not think much of it anymore.

I'm not even defending Bioware, DA2 sucked for the most part and ME3 had a shit ending. I'm just sick of hearing it every five fucking seconds. It's no different than the 'Arrow to the knee' thing getting old or...or....oh fuck

I engaged again. That means I lost twice. Fucking video games. I'm gonna go join the peace corp.

Fire all movie critics until Africa is fed.

I understand the shrillness around a lot of the bitching being annoying, but I also think a few other factors are at work. For one, games require a lot more time invested to get to the ending, especially if it's a narrative game (like ME3 or Fallout). If the end sucks, that's 40 hours down the toilet, unless the game play made it worth it. Also, with the advent of DLC, the game companies themselves showed that they can change a game at will, pretty much. Fallout got an extended and open-ended ending after having a rather crap "and then you died" finale that few cared for. Now that players have seen what's possible, they'll probably demand more endings for games, especially if the companies keep hyping choice all over the place (and then not really delivering). Also, unless you want the game spoiled, you don't know if you've just "wasted" 60 bucks until you hit the endgame.

Griping about something is one thing, I agree. That guy who tried to take Bioware to court for false advertising, yeah, he needs to go away.

I'm not going to lie, Steam. I hope that trend sticks around just long enough for something horrible to happen to Peter Molyneux before it goes away.

No offense, but if the enjoyment of a 40-60 hour game hinges on whether or not you liked the ending...you're playing games from a bad angle. For the genre we're specifically talking about, the journey is most definitely more important than the destination. Hell, I played the shit out of Fallout 3 and New Vegas...didn't give two shits about seeing the proper endings or finishing the main quest.

People are allowed to have opinions and voice them. I'm also allowed to be fatigued from listening to said opinions when they are whiny, ill informed and badly thought out...which the vast majority are. Even the paid press side isn't all that much of a relief from it, especially in the age of Kotaku and every ctrl-v blog becoming the standard everyone strives for.

I too love video games but in general I too just can't stand the modern gaming communities. They're the whiniest bunch of self-entitled pricks on the planet.

When it comes to being flat out embarrassments to humanity anymore, gamers on internet forums are indistinguishable from furries anymore.

For the record, the ending to Fallout 3 was fucking stupid and I get angry every time I fucking think about that game. If you're going to force me to sacrifice my own life by pressing a button in a radiation filled room, don't fucking send me there with a functional robot, two guys that are immune to radiation, and a whole bunch of people who are actually getting paid to make that sacrifice. And then they had the goddamn audacity to get all butthurt and narrate the ending like I'm some sort of huge asshole for letting someone else die in my place. Is the president an asshole for letting a secret service agent take a bullet for him?

The thing that strikes me about this game is the crowd's reactions.

"We're not going to reuse the same 5 maps over and over."
WOOOOOOOOOO YEAAAAAAAAH!!!!
"We're going to make your dialogue choises different from each other."
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!
"Your party memebers can equip shit!"
AMAZING!!!!!
"We're going to print this game on a DVD."
YOU GUYS ARE BRILLIANT!!

Are they actually that dumb?

They are wearing papercraft armor. You know the answer to your question.

Thank you, Roberta Williams.