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The votes are in! The next game for me to tackle is…

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So, it's time for me to move on from Mass Effect, eh?

…Darksiders.

Honestly, I was surprised at the number of votes for Darksiders, because I’ve heard so little praise for the game. It was a Zelda rip-off, the hack-and-slash gets boring (that complaint never made sense to me…it’s hack-and-slash for God’s sake), the story isn’t that great, yadda yadda yadda. But hey, it’s a game I’ve always meant to finish, and since putting up this poll, my Twitter feed has been ablaze with praise for Darksiders.

Good thing I own it for the Xbox 36o, because I’m not turning on my PS3 anytime soon. So if God of War and Enslaved had won, they would have had to wait. And they wouldn’t have waited for Darksiders, as I still have that Mass Effect addiction thing going on.

Speaking of which, that is what I played this weekend, because I didn’t check the poll results until Saturday night. I’m on my second set of recruits, and I’m burning through loyalty missions. The only side missions I’m going to complete are Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival. This time around playing, if I fail any loyalty missions, I fail them. No repeats. Since I’m also not going to mine planets, if I don’t upgrade my ship fully, ah well. A Renegade seems like he would rather get the job done and get it quickly instead of horsing around through space. That and, I don’t want to.

But I fully expect to honor my poll results and shelve my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2 for now. It’s been well over a year since I’ve played Darksiders, so I believe my best bet would be to start over. I don’t think I’ve even made it to the first boss yet. Or maybe I have. Who knows. It’s been that long and I’ve played numerous games since then. I can’t remember what distracted me from playing Darksiders in the first place; it could have been either Bayonetta, or Final Fantasy XIII, or both. Guess it doesn’t really matter as I’ll be restarting it from the beginning.

So what will I be playing during the week? I have Portal 2 and LEGO Star Wars III for the Xbox and the DS (they’re actually two different games!) slated on the agenda. One game to stress me the hell out and the other(s) to make me laugh. Why do I do this to myself?

FOR SCIENCE!

Sad Week for Strategy Guides: Prima’s Let Down with Mortal Kombat

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In case you haven’t heard the news, Prima Games’ Mortal Kombat strategy guide is apparently riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and useless information. To get a better idea of what is wrong with the guide, watch one disgruntled owner’s review below.

While I believe that this reviewer was a little immature with his antics–albeit, the language and funeral pyre were funny–I can’t deny that he was absolutely right with all of his points. The number of screenshots is overboard and ridiculous, and they’re to the point of not being useful to the user, especially in terms of efficiently finding what you’re looking for. The inconsistencies are also unacceptable, and what is up with the misprints for the control commands? Someone in QA obviously fell asleep at the wheel when this guide was approved for print.

Mortal Kombat Strategy Guide Problems

According to Kotaku, Prima Games will not reprint the guide due to fiscal reasons (somewhat understandable), but they will offer character cards as amends to unhappy guide owners.

“The cards will be complete with all moves, Fatalities and Babalities, and free to anyone who bought the Official Guide or the Kollector’s Edition Guide. To receive your copy of the cards, please send your name, address, and e-mail to feedback@primagames.com.”

This news has greatly saddened me for several reasons. For one, Prima Games is known for putting out high quality guides, and to let something like this slip through the cracks baffles me. Then again, I know I just ranted about their Mass Effect 2 strategy guide, so I am saddened even further. In addition, not only does this damage Prima Games’ credibility, it damages the reputation for print guides, period. Why would someone pay $20 for a risk of bad information? Not to mention, why would someone pay $20 for the promise of updated information? You can just wait for IGN Guides to produce their online guide for free and catch updates there anyway. For an industry that really wants to prove that print guides are still relevant for today’s needs, this is a huge step backwards.

Just like game developers can’t be expected to produce a triple-A game every time, the same goes for publishers with the quality of their books. The big question is if whether this trend will continue, or if this was Prima’s one bad guide of the year–like how Mass Effect 2 strategy guide was the bad egg for 2010. For both Prima’s sake and for the sake of my personal love of strategy guides, I hope this problem will be nipped in the bud for future publications.

On another personal note, a lot of the complaints about the Mortal Kombat guide echo my feelings on Prima Games’ Mass Effect 2 strategy guide. If I wasn’t such a huge Mass Effect and obsessive collector of things, I’d want to incinerate this guide as well. That also greatly saddens me.

Mass Effect 2 Strategy Guide Review

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Mass Effect 2 Strategy Guide ReviewThe first Mass Effect strategy guide was also published by Prima Games, and since that one did so well, I had very high hopes for this one. The fact that Catherine Browne was the author of this guide only made me more excited. However, this guide ended up being a giant disappointment for me–as my big build-up should have already suggested.

A lot of what the guide has is great. It incorporated the same layout from the first guide, so everything is very easy to see at a glance, and the images are unobtrusive, significant, and won’t require users to squint. It’s also great that it makes little notes of who Shepard can romance (depending on gender) as well as how one can go about doing it. For example, romancing Jacob takes a lot of subtlety and gentle prying for him to come out of his shell. For Jack, you have to gain her loyalty and either side with her in her “disagreement” with Miranda or diffuse the argument with charm/intimidation. In addition, as someone who imported Shepard from the first game, I really enjoyed the little callout references to things that happened in the original, such as the explanation for why Wreav or Wrex might be the krogan leader.

However, despite all these design elements and the mostly accurate walkthrough, the guide is missing a lot of vital information. These omissions will cause problems and confusion for those who 1) want to snag all of the Achievements/Trophies and/or 2) imported their characters from the original Mass Effect.

The first omission that surprised me was a side mission Shepard can take on Illium. Shepard runs into Giana Parsini from Noveria Internal Affairs, a character only those who have played the first game will remember. She approaches Shepard and asks for help busting a weapons thief. It’s possible that this is a mission a player can only get with an imported game, but that’s really not an excuse for it to not even be mentioned in the side missions section of the guide. Since this was so small, I dismissed it.

But then, I reached the start of the endgame.

From the time I had to play as Joker until the end credits, I was finding holes in the guide. For the scene that you have to play as Joker, it really offers no guidance other than walk the path. However, at one point, if that’s all you do, Joker meets a nasty end. The guide showed a screenshot of what you should do at this point, but there were no captions or mentions in the paragraphs as to what the screenshot even meant. For all I knew, it was just a screenshot of Joker walking down the hallway. At the very end of this venture, when Shepard has a choice to go after the Normandy crew or continue sidequesting, the guide discusses all of these options, but never once says that if you don’t go after your crew immediately, they all die except for Dr. Chakwas.

Mass Effect 2 Strategy GuideThis isn’t the only time that users aren’t given proper warnings for who might die in Shepard’s crew. The guide does mention that if the ship isn’t upgraded properly, a crewmate will die in the ensuing crash, but that’s pretty much where the advice stops. In the Mass Effect 2 endgame, Shepard has to make choices of who is to perform a certain task, who will accompany Shepard, and who will lead a separate party. Shepard has to make these choices three times, and depending on who the Commander chooses, crewmembers will live or die. During this entire section, no suggestions are proffered. I would understand if the writer didn’t want to give too much away at this point, BUT, these suggestions should at the very least go with the Achievements/Trophies appendix, since this is where the “No One Left Behind” Achievement is described.

As a result with my playthrough, Mordin died at the very, very end and I had zero clue why. I stayed up another hour longer to read the guide from cover to cover, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. No explanation. I ended up going to IGN Guides, and they explained exactly who Shepard had to pick for these tasks in order to keep everyone alive. When I replayed the ending with their suggestions–the only thing I didn’t do correctly was who to send with the Normandy crew survivors back to the ship–everyone survived. While it is possible that the guide writer picked the correct crewmembers instantly, surely the “No One Left Behind”Achievement would clue in the writing team that it’s possible for teammates to die.

This experience absolutely enraged me. Of all the information this guide should have had, every scenario of the endgame should most definitely have been included. If I had paid for this guide, I would be even more livid, which is perhaps the biggest disappointment to me.

I can only recommend this guide if you are a huge Mass Effect fan, just because the gorgeous cover and artwork within make it worth it. Otherwise though, save your money and stick with IGN for help with this one.

SGR Rating: 3/5

Author: Catherine Browne
Publishers: Prima Games
Editions Available: Paperback and Collector’s Edition
Acquired by Publisher

Poll: Which game from my stack of shame should I play next?

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Thank God this isn't my stack of shame...

I try to make weekends the time I play games just for me and not for reviewing, whether it’s for the game or for the strategy guide. I know I’ve discussed my stack of shame at length before, and this is the first year that I’m really making a sizable dent in it. My biggest two to complete this year were Mass Effect and its sequel, and I’ve checked both of those off my list with a bit of force. I recently finished my second playthrough of the first game (something that I’ve never done before), and I’m working my way through all of the ME2 DLC. I really want to play ME2 again with my Renegade Shepard, but my stack of shame is out in the open in the living room, staring at me and making me feel guilty. I technically have plenty of time before needing to play ME2 again, and really, I know I’ll play ME3 with my Paragon character first, so I really do have plenty of time.

The question remains though, if I put off Renegading ME2, what game do I tackle next from my list? None of them really jump out of me (which may be really foretelling), so I’m reaching out to the blogosphere, twitterverse, and facebookia for votes.

Please note that the list in my poll is not complete for several reasons:

  • Red Dead Redemption is not listed because that’s going to be my December game (similar to what I did for FFXIII);
  • Dragon Age: Origins is not listed because I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it; and
  • None of my DS games are listed because I’m going to Japan in a month and will have oodles of travel time to spend on DS games.

So please help me decide! Or encourage me to keep riding the Mass Effect train! (And while you’re at it, hope that my Portal 2 guide arrives soon so I can start with that and stop avoiding spoilers.)

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