Steam: [SF]Swanson5000

Xbox360: Swanson5000

Add me if you wanna play!

Music:

http://www.last.fm/user/Sean-Dogg

Where to start......

I guess I could start by stating that Halo 3: ODST has one of the worst methods of trying to tell a story. Of course, it's a story of chaos in New Mombasa (sorry if it's spelt incorrectly). BUT, they decided to throw in some audio files found at various places around the gigantic city, told by an absolutely offensive and horrible depiction of an Asian woman trying to speak English (which I think they hired someone to talk like they didn't know English very well. Actually, I know that. But the game really doesn't fit all the pieces together into a story like its predecessors in that way of plot revelation (Resident Evil, Dead Space, etc). These are annoying and don't really give you much information that's worthwhile, besides some girl jib-jabbering with her razor sharp voice.....it really made me want to turn the game off and never play it again. I thought it was some cruel joke.

I like Halo 3: ODST. Just throwing that out there. I just don't want to search for the rest of the audiofiles.

Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is this: with the games that I've finished recently, which are Mass Effect, Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Borderlands, and Halo 3: ODST (in that order), they've progressively gotten worse (minus Condemned 2) as far as plot goes. Of course, Mass Effect is hard to measure up to in terms of that since you literally choose it and COD has a pretty great plot too, but the latter two don't really provide the gamer with nearly enough information.

Borderlands is a prime example of this. The game has fantastic gameplay: I mean, if I beat it with only having it for 5 days (playing 25 hours in those 5 days, which is not like me at all...) then the gameplay must be addicting. The game has so much going for it and it's obvious once you're thrown out into the world. There's just a little problem though: the story just isn't there. They "have" one, but it's not well developed and there are too many questions that should never be in any game.

(KINDA SORTA A SPOILER FOR BORDERLANDS. IT'LL BE UNDERLINED)

I mean.....one of the "baddest" in Borderlands I didn't even know existed, except in those random transmissions which I didn't think were too important.....oh well. It was like, "who's this and why are they in my way," once I was at that part.

Borderlands' transmissions were just as bad as Halo 3: ODST was in revealing the story through audiofiles: not effective and at some parts, irrelevant. It saddened me when I started to reflect on this. They had great potential for amazing stories, but did not execute them well at all.

Seems like these games were more for their raw fun instead of their plot depths. For me, at least, playing single player means that there must be a story to keep you going. I bought these games for both multiplayer and single player, don't get me wrong, but I always beat a game in single player before I play multiplayer on it. Just feels more right and a more complete experience all around for me.

These games are still a ton of fun, but, as a whole, games that are blockbusters for their multiplayer experiences should really have some cheap, but talented authors for their plots so that the single player buffs can enjoy a good story while playing a fun game. For some examples of games that do this, heres a list of my favorites: Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Mass Effect, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Halo: Combat Evolved (yeah, the first one set the series up for perfection, but didn't achieve the perfection in the story that it could have).

Thanks for reading this jumbled mess and feel free to post.

I finished Condemned 2 yesterday after picking it back up (after I got stuck on one mission, since it was hard to see to shoot some people....). I played through the remaining 5 levels from 8 til 2 in the morning, and boy: was it worth it. One of the most gripping stories that I've enjoyed in a long time (well, since Mass Effect, but this blew that out of the water and isn't really in the same category). Looking forward to the next game, if SEGA decides to make it.... (Duke Nukem Forever and XIII's sequel, I wish you guys would've came out :/)