I wanted to write about the border of originality and innovation. It is know, in the world of literature that barely anyone can come up with an engaging, original text. Whatever has been done, has been done over countless times. From a gaming perspective, I can dare to say that older games were by far, original and better, as they pawed the path to the ones that copy paste each other. One of the reason Im writing this is to try and extrapolate some info in the 2011-12 period.

I will be writting about decisions, from bad to worse, to either reanimate the franchise, or get more gold.

Three cases that happened and are quite amazing phenomenon are : Game Workshop's 5th ed. Codex Necrons;
Skyrim as GOTY;
Mass Effect 3;

Anyway, what these three subjects have in comon is that their existence defies common sense and logic.

And whoever is reading this, should understand that this isn't rant of rage, this is a 100% true facts.

Codex Necrons is a GW tabletop game rulebook for an army called... Necrons. For those uninformed ( or uninterested)

Necrons were the parallel to fantasy undead. Metallic-terminator like-skeletons that wield guns that shoot green lightnings without no morals desires or souls. Enslaved automatons bound to serve their immortal gods that gave them power.

That is the fluff players had in previous renditions of Codexes. However, one could argue that Necron dice rolls often resulted in enemy army heavy vehicles being destroyed quite quickly. True, Necrons deserved a bit of balancing with the numbers. And most of Necrons players admit, that in one moment the Necrons can easily overtrow the losing game into their win. To be honest, this was also correct considering their fluff and powers. They can randomly reassemble on the go, and Hero Type unit can choose to carry Resurrection Orb that revived almost whole army.

Anyway, in order to be innovative, and deliver the desired "necro nerf" Games Workshop decided to put Matt Ward on the next Codex. And it is known that what Mat writes, it causes a lot of fan rage.

Now, how did they nerf undergo? Necrons were changed 360 degrees into a different army. They developed consciousness, wanted a living bodies, started political quarrels. And that was all the result of them ?choosing? to destroy their IMMORTAL enslaver gods. A lot of fans, just like me, couldn't even comprehend the fact that Soulless Robots that exist to destroy all life chose to become traitors, while not possessing free will. It is like writing 100% goat milk on the back of cow cheese.

It makes no slight sense. Yet it happen. In order to derail the old army from Original, innovation was forced and it resulted in massive logical failure.

Next on the line is so called Game of the Year 2011 Skyrim.

I reviewed Skyrim here on GS. As a gamer with 18 years of experience, I am shocked by what the gaming comunity has become. I am a nerd, I had a few girls, but I would never consider myself a playboy. And I do not need that. But. Game community is suddenly pony, gay infested, casual "Halo rawks" douchebag oriented, where 15y.o boys think that their skinny jeans and emo haircut makes them pro gamers, as well as awesome looking. No. I am an elitist. I support serious gamers. Not the one that buy any kind of crap, just to be accepted in the society. I mean, gamers were shunned by the society and suddenly, playing games is a cool thing to do.

And that this conversation happens

RDB(random douchebag): uM, LOl, yeah PC gameing suxorz

Elitist: Why the f*** do you think that?

RDB: Cus, i meen, I plaed Modern Warfaer 3, right? And liek, um, you dont sea a think! No raedar, and knifes insta keel me! Halo is so much betra,i tell u boi!

Elitist: -_-. Well there are some game ****cs on the PC. Have you tried RPGs?

RDB: of! RPGees, yah. I played like all of dem, you no, Skyrim and Dragon Aeg 2. Was cash.

Elitist(fringe) : Have you tried Baldur's Gate?

RDB: Nah, I didnt has tiem to see all Dragon Aeg 2 DLCs. Imma find it when my gf gets off me. We are going to pony party 2night.

*Elitists has left the chatroom*

The same thing happened to my anime. Japanese creators realized how stupid some people can be, and what kind of (crap) products they will pay for. So suddenly bad mangas and anime are the most popular ones. Devoid of any kind of artistry, depth or plot, garbage like Bleach gets overglorified by horny kids.

How does this relate to Skyrim?

Well, a game that features runing around gray mountains and snow, killing same dragon over and over, "solving" puzzles that instantly give you the answer, talking to unanimated NPC, getting stuck in rocks, and Spamming Fus Ro Dah.

The first glimpse of the game and it is great. Yet the content fails short. And it isn't and shouldn't be considered an RPG. Sword swings doesn't equal skill. You just swing your sword. At best, Skyrim (like other TES games) manages to undermine, and mock the art of sword fighting. Whether it was a trained swordsman, or a viking brute, swinging a sword required some degree of finesse. In SKyrim its all about the cross slash and heavy hack. And that is what Skyrim is. Half-assed Hack&Slash that wears an RPG mask. Just like Risen.

And I haven't even touched the amount of bugs you can encounter in the game. Repetitive gameplay that stretches first 5 hours of content to possible 100 hours of same thing, bug descriptions longer then quest guides. 4 Voice actors doing the majority of extra voices (I heard Jarl everywhere). Plot that is pulled out of a random failed fantasy book

"You [player] Possess awesome power to stop evil dragon that will kill us all! Even tho you are a cat, you have dragon blood! Evil dragon wants more power, even if he is the most powerful. He is evil cus he is a dragon"

My soup plate would have been a better story plot, since it has more character and depth:

"In the land of Ordon, a special plate for soup was forged. It was to be a gift to the greatest king and knight, Sir Darwun.

The plate was forged out of the milk metal, one said to be unbreakable. It was big enough to be a shield. And if you prayed he would give onto you a magical soup, said to heal all wounds and ailments. But Darwun saw the gift to powerfull

and at the pinnacle of his corruption, he broke his legendary weapon Thepenci'Lsharpener and the plate. Who ever assembles the pieces, may well take up the throne of men..."

Originality in Fantasy is kinda hard to pull of, but as a genre fantasy allows almost unseen freedom. You can have flying cows as much as you care. And it is this fantastical, unbelievable things that make fantasy- epic!

And then we come down to TES:SKyrim. Unfinished, unoriginal, uninspiring broken product that doesn't live up to the RPG fantasy name, but it ruins it. Gained the title of the best game only based on sales number.

I want to ask: If a famous reviewer marks excrement of a certain artists "amazing", would people buy that artists crap in a can?

Sadly they would, since it happened. And that is what Skyrim is. A **** in a can. The can is pretty. The content inside can be created by anyone. This is all just to point out how stupid people can be. Like a sheep going into a slaughterhouse. And on top of that, they will defend their choice as "tasteful, smart and well thought"

-Go ahead, walk into the slaughterhouse. Bleak Sheep.

Last, Mass Effect 3. A ending to an epic space saga trilogy, about the power of friendship and the struggle of a little man(somewhat resembles a standard anime Deus Ex Machina). But! Mass Effect's main story isn't that shocking, or at some extent engaging. The plot is general theme scifi. Evil machines will kill us. What I salute Mass Effect is that American patriotism has been reduced to almost zero. I have seen many faces, names and accents. I never had a feel that the game was only pro American. And in the setting that flavour was awesome. It was mankind united.

And then what happened? Bioware decided to go and publish a game that doesn't really end, instead you get to choose a color for your ending screen sequence. And then the game reveals you were a story of some Stargazer to his grandchild. And then the game asks you to buy. more. DLC.

Not only was the absence of choice a punch in a players family sack, but the post occurring events are a quick descent from bad to worse. Whether they tried to be original, or found another innovative way to earn more money by scamming people, robbing them of an proper closure or ending, what Bioware pulled off can be ****fied as a worse thing that Dragon Age 2.

Who ever reads this and understands and agree, I just hope that that are more people that see the truth, and that gaming altogether wont be cursed by fails forever.

It has come to my attention, just like it is to many others with good taste for fun, that 2011 marks the beginning of the Entertainment Industry Ending.

For fifteen years have I been watching movies, series and played games, both PC and console ones.

Where are the people that brought us Legacy of Kain, first four Silent Hills, A company that made Warcraft, Max Payne...

Where are the good scripts for movies like Donnie Darko, Titanic, Twelve, Matrix, Inception, Darkness, the Original Japanese "The Ring" and similar.

What has become of ART that games and movies represented.

Why is the casual gamer overwhelming the developers desire to experiment, change a thing but stay on course, hire good writers...

Why is this year a let down for everything related to movies and games. Look at this industry now. A giant that brought us so many fun games and movies is now drowning in it's gushing bile of avarice for more money. A single cryout in pain. A struggle to confirm it's existence, a giant becomes a chicken and bows down at the feet of a casual jock that can't use his brain properly. He wants a movie with blasts,explosions and big tittied girls. He wants a game where he can choose a gun that one shots everyone so he can show his "pr0l33tuber skills" to his other jock friends.

Industry is being guided by brainless idiots who just want to remain stupid.

Movies made by succesfull games, killing the name forever (Lara Croft, every Uve Boll Movie)

Games made by movie blockbusters to boost movie sales (Spiderman, Xmen etc)

It's like pouring nothing from an empty bucket into a wide tube. That is what we get;

Brainless mind shutdown.

Everything is now Somethingsomething XX, where XX represents a number of the part of the series.

Ok, I salute consistent story in a set universe, in with the given story unravels at a steady pace adding more to gameplay in each part of the series while developing the punch line, the end game with much care and creating anticipation for the next.

Take semi fails and fail for instance. A semi fail would be a case of Resident Evil. Altho I liked cardboard zombie shooter survivor, with its camera angles always creating fear when I walked into a new corridor, I disliked the "great innovation" Capcom seems to like to pull off when the series hit 4x on their name tag.

New Resident Evil had no connections to last three games and their story arc. Ok we know that guy, and yeah the natives are acting rabid... where are the Zombies? Where is the fear? Where is suspension? Where is survival?

Everyone is telling me the game is good, but I consider it a 3rd person shooter. And it has nothing to do with Resident Evil. It is named thusly, so it can sell better. Instead of making a spin of game series, with a better, new story, they changed core gameplay, enemy design, combat and watered down the story to resemble the typical question of a failing franchise "Remember when this was good?"

I salute new ideas, to freshen up series. But switching from one sphere to another makes true fans angry. Then the next addition RE5,moved from the 4s formula even further, as it became Racial Shooter Genocide game.

Full fail game series however should be considered no other then Dragon Age.

With stunning first game, so much depth and gametime, the amount of effort that put togheter a new epic original story, Bioware, known to score so many hit games and their great story writing, dared to scam off its fans by publishing a beatdown consolized version of original Dragon age.

DAII was a fail packed in a pretty box. Cutting things in games are good. But cutting selling points, isn't.

Not everyone dares to be original. And many original good ideas failed to see the day's light due to some big heads saying "it wont sell good"

Its a fact that anything created for the sake of money cant be called ART. Pop culture is brimming with bile, puss and slimy ooze that is hypocriticism. Forcing a game into high sales is usually followed by massive hype. Promising screenshots. Then a mass army of mindless jocks goes and buys the game. They shoot a fun guns. They are happy.

Industry gets fuel.

Breaking down "stories" that drive games and movies... I mean its like they cant invent anything new.They dont want to put their minds into it.

Last week I ween to my DvD Rent place to watch some movies. I had to choose between "Adjustment Bureau" "Source Code" "Unknown" "Harry Potter and ..." "The Hangover II" (notice the II) new Transformers, "The Box"

I mean come on. These movies fail to deliver so hard, I just cant understand how it can charm anyone.

Current Pc gaming is a fail. I can pick between "Alice Madness Returns, and some crappy 200X graphics MMO game (prolly browser too)

I heard they are destroying consoles too since new pirate cases emerged on xbox and ps3.

And I can't accuse pirates. I myself payed for games that were worth it. Everything else was a pile of trash on a DvD, that I wouldn't even recommend to be torrented.

Is earth filled with idiotic hipsters that go with the flow just cus everyone else is. Is every gamer and movie goer a rich American football player that puts "bro" at the end of everything he says?

Where are the good things we had? Where are originals?

Single mind cant light up the night sky. Hopefully more individuals will focus their minds on a failing industry. Maybe one day, individuals like us will create a game. And it would be epic!

OK....First of I am going to start in a reverse review order.I want to make my own way of reviewing games. This game is great.Not legendary yet,but great for the time being. And here is a short history about it. If you are a hardcore player and you like team play with online interaction elements (i.e good team cooperation, strategy development in-game and/or just want to make friends online) then you must have heard of Warcraft III ,an RTS created by Blizzard. So coming from a Blizzard, game turned gold in matter of months after a release,back in the 2002. As like any other game,their Warcraft got an expansion in 2003.This expansion deepened the story more,and continued where the first game ended.With these two games Blizzard published a game world editor that allowed users to create their own maps,characters,campaigns etc. So one player started a history.Under alias of Eul,he created a map under influence of Starcraft's "Aeon of Strife",witch is also a Blizzard's game,as we all know.So Eul created a map where players fight in teams of five and the main task is to annihilate enemy base.What Eul started was divinity undisputed.Map offered unlimited possibilities of editing,hero and item expansions due to the Blizzard's World Editor kit.Every play-trough was different than the last.Few games claimed to have this,but failed(Now I am pointing finger at you Left4Dead!).Now with that said, I'll move on to the next part. Lets say you are not a hardcore gamer,and you only saw DotA as a name,or even just heard about Heroes of Newerth.And you don't have the slightest idea what is going on.Well,as I started, there was this guy Eul and he made a nice Warcraft III map,for 5vs5 multilayer online ownage.As it was created for the original game,it was later redone into map for expansion pack,featuring even more heroes and items and overall game play mechanics improvements.At the time the community was ever growing.Player under name "Pendgragon" created an official DotA Allstarts site featuring guide forums,history,replays,match ups and change logs. Game community started to create itself.A large one too.After some time,Eul couldn't finish what he started so DotaA was given to other people to edit it.Like Guinsoo and Icefrog. Time passed by and DotA became international game for tournaments.Most of them gave money as a reward to a winner team. As the map's editors changed so did the map geography and content .Current map editor is Icefrog,who posted a blog so he can get in touch with players,for bug feedback, hero tweaks and possibly a new hero/item votes and change logs.Although I personally think that older DotA versions were better(even if they suffered for major unbalance and item issues), Icefrog managed to just...mess his and all the other people's hard work and ideas.New heroes started appearing by the month.Most items had their recipes redone (at such a level that even great experienced player like myself couldn't find the way around).Items are needed too boost a hero's ability,or his stats,add effects to each attack or give strike percentage to stun or slow an enemy hero/unit.For years was one item Manta style(axe) an orb effect with mana burn.Now it doesn't burn mana.Icefrog 1:Players:0.Scenery in DotA changed accordingly.And some of the skills animations were improved.But DotA was getting old.And for that reason game play suffered along with players.I am going to be real here:Warcraft's interface worked fine for a strategy game...but that same interface stands in the way of action team RPG.The Monitor area is cut for almost 35% of the screen.It always felt like you are playing it from a post container, with a narrowed view.That is one reason that made exploits like "ganking" (misspelled ganging) possible where most of the time a mid-lane hero gets attacked and killed by three(four or even five) other fraction heroes(there are 3 lanes in DotA map,upper, middle and lower,and one special creep boss- Roshan the Immortal as a big Rock Golem,who drops aegis upon death.Funny fact-Aegis protected from death itself(passive revive) yet you can kill Roshan who carries it many times over).Also,great number of matches were played since the DotA was 1st created.Even the Blizzard's Battlenet features a dota-allstars channel for experienced players to join and have a good game.In time, game and lan-over-internet(VLAN,virtual lan) clients appeared making LAN(Local Area Network) gaming even more accessible and friend-oriented.Two best to mention are Hamachi and Garena.Both client developers take income from special features and sell entrance into crowded rooms over free users.These two worked fine for DotA.Games were lag free.But big problem with DotA community is its biggest gain.Too many new players join every day.A word known as "leaver" was created.People that join a game and leave on start.Since DotA is a team play game,having one or two heroes less means less damage.So a team with leaver has to be godly good to win over that situation.This caused hate,flame and rage over internet.So creation of ban lists started...And the uselessness of th too.With many ban lists online,there are maybe around 10.000 players with synchronized online ban list.Other just have randoms.So that system failed.Having to write messages to team, gets a chatter dead in most cases.The flaws of the game made more frustrations by the minute.Yet community still remained true to it.In short:DotA is an action paced/strategy/role playing game focused on a team(you cover one guy-other covers you). As I said I was a fan of DotA for a looooooong time now(with around 3 or so years long letter "o").The last game map really disappointed me.One sentence "Icefrog wtf?" So one day,a best friend with whom I share similar interests, told me that he saw a "DotA clone game" and it looked absolutely amazing.I was excited to hear it.As soon as I could I looked it up.I was amazed. All the Warcraft engine's flaws were cleared by the S2 Games created engine.Even though I read of lot of reviews online(for consoles too,since I only posses a PC) I never heard about S2 games at all.I looked it up and it turns they made a breakthrough with a FPSRPG genre mix even further combined with MMO.So,S2 team,liking the good ol' DotA,created a beta game for testers to play until full retail.Price is 30$ USD-one time only.This price is more then accessible. What does the game do except ripping off DotA? Well,they asked Icefrog for a green light to do it.He agreed, so it probably means he is soon to give up on DotA(my personal opinion)And they added refreshment to the game.So far,beta has heroes from DotA mainly,with some skills redone and some pairs of heroes now make a one hero(witch is great to cut unnecessary similar heroes and unbalance).It takes a short time to realize what model is what hero.One thing that's great is that every hero will have unique model,since they will be added over time.Considering that, DotA nearly reached the end of its resources on model picks,and for future releases modelers will be sought out(making the new content of the game hard to get since it is free). HoN has a built in VoIP which was lacking in the old Warcraft.You can also mute players who misuse microphone.Hero picks are done before the game start,making it far more fast-paced then the warcraft's DotA.And if someone is just playing dumb at voting or away from keyboard,players can vote him off with just a click.And the game is a complete eye candy.I don't know if I would rather watch masterfully animated skill moves,or see my hero die.Animations and surroundings are just too sweet.Sometimes game just forces you to cast a spell,just to see what happens! So,you want to play a game and enter top ranking ones? Nooo wayyy,you will have to climb your way to the pros with S2 ladder system.It's basically a protection of skilled players,so they wont get pissed off when a beginner makes them loose a game.Because S2 implemented stats tracker for every player,leaving a game is not an option you want to do all the time,since your leaver meter fills,therefore you will be unable to play most games.But there is a call vote option in-game to end a match before the actual ending.When all players of the loosing side agree to forfeit(concede) you are given an explanation that you may leave without any impact on stats.If that is not enough ,it also may happen that you leave the game unintentionally(disconnect,power failure,game and/or similar software error) and you get a 5 minutes time to reconnect! Just reset and get back in game! It is great add on.As for the good game play mechanics and interface(itemshop is now a structure with all sellers in one place,and with interlinking item system...aka one item can be bought from everyplace it exist as a recipe with materials it holds,making shopping more faster and easier).As for other things,few of the heroes responses are not yet recorded,this will not be a case in full game though.But,most of the responces were made in the classical Warcraft III style.After sometime of pesky click-to-select mash ups,a hero will probably start adressing you,and will talk about funny stuff from their own history.For instance,a long katana wielding orc known as the Juggernaut Yurnero, was some kind of a samurai in original DotA map.In HoN it is depicted as a two saber wielding man in a full traditional oni style(horned helmet) samurai armor.He speaks with Japanese accent,and after sometimes he says words like "You dishonor me with your poking!"(sounds like "Yo disonah mi vid yor pokin!") and "Cut....it ...OUT!" Similarly a hero named Torturer(known as Leshrac the Malicious Spirit) threatens player after sometime of selecting him "I swear,[click me] one more time..." with his demonic resonating voice. On the other hand, Devourer(Pudge the Butcher) talks like a philosopher(on the account of being a strength and not intelligence hero). In DotA, he was pretty much zombie talker since he is a rotting pile of sewn together corpses,taking sentences long to finish,like me.S2's Pudge is a sane,comic fun-pun death meat wagon- "They say I am spoiled rotten!" -"One bad apple rocks the bunch!" "Kill them...and eat them!" So end line is this:This is the new DotA,it has a lot of things to work around to accomplish the acclaimed name of DotA,but as the Chronos would say it "In due time". [btw spelling check wants to change my VoIP into poop :S) Developer: S2 Games Published: TBA,Closed Beta testing Graphics: 8.2 Gameplay: 9.0 Sound: 7.0 Interface: 9.5 Difficulty: Easy to Medium (considering previous experience) Replayability: Forever Community : Medium Price: 30$