State of the (Animation) Union

Right now there are four superhero animated series out there. Interestingly enough, they are evenly split between two DC-based series and two Marvel-based series. Well, that's a lot to get through in one blog post, so let's get to it.

Young Justice - Well, the first season just finished last Saturday, with season two immediately starting seven days later. For DC fans this is a very good show. Within twenty-six episodes, the first season established characters such as Superboy (a clone of Superman), Aqualad, Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Artemis, and of course Robin (Dick Grayson). The show isn't shy on showing off it's knowledge of DC superheroes, having dozens appear throughout the season. Unfortunately, too much of something can be bad and this show proves it. As the season goes on, not including the character-centric episodes, the main characters get brushed aside to show off all of these other heroes. It gets to the point that the emotions and actions of the teen heroes are glossed over to get to the main plot of The Light.
Regardless, the series is highly entertaining, and the action is superb. When it hits that sweet spot of action and character interaction, you'll wish it would never end. Hopefully, the showrunners have learned how to hit that sweet spot often so that this show becomes the hit it deserves to be.

Green Lantern - The Animated Series - It started off inauspiciously enough. Standard Hal Jordan character doing his thing on Earth. It quickly changes pace, becoming a space epic where Hal and his partner Kilowog are out patrolling the far reaches of space against the evil Red Lanterns. With only eight episodes released so far, it is hard to gauge how good this show will be. Like Young Justice, it has potential, especially since it is being helmed by Bruce Timm (for those that don't know, he was the helmer for Batman TAS, Superman, Justice League and their counterparts). The first DC series produced with CGI, it has a low-grade feel to it at times. When you pay attention, you realize that is intentional, as it looks like a 3D version of a Bruce Timm cartoon. The animation is fluid where it counts, and most of the episodes have a great story. Right now, the main plot revolves around the evil Red Lanterns, controlled by Atrocitus, and their attempts to destroy the Green Lantern Corps. For those not informed by the comics, the new colored Lantern Corps is a bit confusing since the show plays those characters very close to its chest. Little by little they reveal information about this group (including their basic origin), but it really isn't enough to convey the drama necessary for these characters. Hopefully the series will kick into high-gear now that the Red Lanterns' origin has been revealed and they begin their true plan to destroy the Green Lanterns. Until then, it is a decent show that will hopefully get better.

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! - The only superhero show on this list that is already into season two. The show started off interestingly enough with a half dozen or so mini-episodes that showcased the characters involved in the series. The series weaved a great story involving various superheroes from the Marvel universe. Each episode presented its own epic story that further peeled back the plans of Loki and his desire to rule the universe. The end of the first season was a doozy, providing an epic clash between the heroes and villains, with a few intergalactic surprises for season two. Now, the series is bringing a slow build based on the Kree-Skrull war, and including even more heroes from the Marvel universe such as the Fantastic Four. Out of all of the shows that I've talked about in this blog, this series is the most fully realized. There is a clear understanding of who these characters are, and what story the writers want to tell. I think the only real downside is the voice work for Iron Man, and the problem with the Wasp (if you look around the internets, a lot of people cry foul over what happens to her in the show i.e. she gets the crap beat out of her all the time and rarely comes out on top without one of the male heroes to save her). Season two is attempting to rectify that by including female powerhouses like Ms. Marvel. Here's hoping season two will be just as good as the second.

Ultimate Spider-Man - The latest Marvel cartoon helmed by Jeph Loeb and featuring writers that have worked on various hit animated shows like Batman TAS, and Ben 10. This show is a very strange beast, over-emphasizing the comedy over the main story that is Spider-Man. Interestingly enough, it is loosely tied to the Marvel movies, including Nick Fury and Agent Coulson as the acting principal of Peter Parker's school. The show brings a focus on a new teen team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents including Power Man, Nova, Iron Fist, and White Tiger with Spidey as their de facto leader. I am of two minds of this series; on one hand the show looks great and is presenting a strange and new Spidey story and the comedy is funny when it's done right/ on the other, the show misses way too often on the humor and it becomes groan-inducing. The latest episode is a perfect example of this problem. The story calls for Spidey to begin hanging around Iron Man, and thus he gets a new costume. Unfortunately, the show begins to spend the rest of the episode with Spidey comedy based on his mess ups due to said costume. You know what would have been cooler? Actually seeing Spidey interact with one of his idols in more than just a "Hi! You're awesome! *Random science thing*" "That's cool, here is a suit I whipped up for you in an hour, Spidey." Yeah. The show has a long way to go to find the right balance between comedy and story, and if the show continues to have this problem it will lose its audience fast.


It truly is interesting that it is a showdown between Marvel and DC with two series each, on two rival networks (Cartoon Network and DisneyXD). While I am not sure of the ratings (I do know Avengers rated so well that they fast-tracked season two way before the third episode of the first season aired), they are all fairly reviewed well save for Ultimate Spider-Man. Based on my opinion, Marvel barely edges the victory with its Avengers series, but if Green Lantern hastens the pace and Young Justice season two starts with a bang, DC may become the animation victor once again. History has shown that DC series tend to work better in animation, be it due to higher budgets or greater talent, somehow they are reviewed the best and end up lasting the longest. Will history repeat itself again? It doesn't look like that is the case, especially with Avengers hitting its stride and a new Hulk cartoon in the works. Either way, it is a great time for superhero fans that happen to like cartoons!

Want to check out these shows? Green Lantern and Young Justice air on the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network Saturdays @ 9AM Central Time.
Avengers and Ultimate Spider-man air on DisneyXD Sundays @ 10AM Central Time.

A fanboy's review of Mass Effect 3

As I begin writing this review, I have just finished the game and am listening to the amazing music playing during the credits. Like any major book, or television series or movie, emotions rise as you reminisce about events that have transpired. Mass Effect 3 is a spectacular ending to a massive trilogy, but one that comes with a few unfortunate shortcomings.

In 2007 a company known for its heavy-Western RPGs released a science fiction epic called Mass Effect. While still an RPG in its own right, the game featured heavy emphasis on the player shaping the story with his or her decisions. Three years later, its sequel was released bringing about even heavier decisions and doing something no other game has truly done; carrying a story (with all the player had done) from one game to another.

Jump to current time, where it has been stated that this trilogy would not come to an end with the latest game, Mass Effect 3. If you've played the first two, you know what to expect. An epic story that ties together with what you've done in the previous games. If you've never played any of the games (and seriously, why haven't you?), then the story goes like this; You are a starship commander named Shephard who has been tasked with uniting the galaxy together to strike against a synthetic menace known as the Reapers who want to destroy all advanced organic life. Oh, and they happened to start their major push by attacking Earth.

Obviously, the story is more advanced than that, bringing about themes of cooperation, prejudices, and even inherent racism under the guise of a intergalactic space epic. BioWare has shown their affinity for detail by limiting this entire series to the Milky Way Galaxy. Before you go off thinking this sci-fi story is relatively small with just this one galaxy, keep in mind that you'll be exploring hundreds of planets within over a dozen solar systems. BioWare carefully orchestrates various types of aliens and planets within this series, giving enough diversity for any sci-fi geek to enjoy.

Throughout the game, you attempt to gain support from various major alien races by doing favors, such as saving one species' Primarch (think global king), or even sparking a population rise by destroying a genophage (long story, but one species spawned so fast that they would have taken over the galaxy, so their rivals essentially neutered them). It is an intense game of give-and-take as you attempt to amass a strong galactic alliance to take on the synthetic Reapers.

Along the way, you meet up with old friends (assuming you've played the previous games) and join up with new ones. It is here that we get to the first flaw in the game. If you've played the game prior, Mass Effect 2, you are used to your teammates wanting to do their own thing every now and then. If you helped them on these missions, well you gain their loyalty, which was a good thing. It is strange, in a game that is supposed to tie everything together, that a lot of these former teammates have completely gone their separate ways, especially when from a literary standpoint they should have known that your character would help them with their problems before going to the task at hand. It feels like a convenient excuse to have a limited number of teammates, which feels unnecessary for a game of this scope.

The gameplay is essentially a hybrid of run-and-cover gunplay and a mixture of "force" (or magic if you really want to get technical)-like abilities that can be upgraded as you gain experience points by finishing missions. Compared to the original Mass Effect, the RPG elements have been completely stream-lined to the point that this game is no longer an RPG. Many have complained about this, but I actually am okay with it. During my first game, I set the thing to auto-upgrade my squadmates and just did my own. I was more focused on the other element of player choice molding the story than I was about this type of gameplay. If I wanted a real RPG I'd go for Dragon Age (hah, don't get me started). Regardless, the run-and-cover gunplay is fairly exceptional in this game, moreso than the previous two. Unfortunately there are a few problems. The cover mechanics work fairly well when you are in open areas, but as the game progresses you end up in smaller and smaller places with "cover" spots littered everywhere. Since the run button and cover button are tied to the same, well, button, you more often than not end up running when you want to duck for cover, and ducking for cover when you just want to run. It can get frustrating at times, but it is never game-breaking. Regardless, it feels odd that the third game, which theoretically should fix these types of flaws (it has been a problem since the beginning) still has the same problems.

Player choice, as stated in the various paragraphs above, is a major factor in this game. In fact, the game pulls decisions from previous games moreso than Mass Effect 2 did. If you haven't played the first one in a while, or even the second one, you might end up getting confused over some of the things that are happening due to this. Thankfully, it doesn't take much to catch up, but it makes me glad that you can create an entirely new character (and choose a few certain key events) to completely change up the story if you choose to play again and again. It leads to a lot of replayability, which I will go into more detail later.

The graphics for this game are pretty sharp. Honestly it looks about the same as Mass Effect 2 to me, but I know there are differences, I just can't fully make them out. I do like how the gun physically shows what type of ammo you are using (there are three kinds not including normal rounds that help destroy certain types of enemies). The romance scenes play a heckuva lot smoother compared to the first two games. This time around during certain scenes it felt like I was watching a CGI movie, and not just a game trying to "show" me spectacular or emotional scenes with wooden 3D models. So, while the game may look similar, the animation is incredibly smooth. That is, it is smooth when you're character is involved, or when the camera pans closer for talking scenes. Otherwise, you get to crappy "character is talking but mouths aren't really moving" territory that is just downright sad. For a game of this caliber, it is disappointing to see things like this. I don't recall having the same problems with either of the other two games, but this time around you do spend more time listening to non-essential NPCs to gain interesting information, so I may just have not noticed it till now. Regardless, it really does take you out of the game when you see things like that, especially when it happens every. single. time on your ship, Normandy. You have a room you automatically go to when you complete major missions, and have to walk across an area to get to the part of the ship that chooses where you want to go next. Every time you pass by these two officers who are chit-chatting, and you are forced to stay there as the game loads. Unfortunately, every single time, the two are talking, but their lips either move every now and then, or not at all. I think it is a very big blemish on the game.

The questing system, which is basically what your missions are, are varied for about three hours. Not including the main missions, all of your side missions either include "go kill X amount of enemies here to evacuate people" or "I lost X artifact on this planet, if someone could just find it for me I'd be ever so grateful." It is an incredibly sad downturn from the last game, which had epic side-missions involving teammates. I understand the latest turn of events in the game tends to leave everything else a "waste of time" when you really think about it, but the stakes were just as dire the previous game and there was still time to "stop and smell the roses" with a variety of sidequests. The search side-missions usually are gained when you overhear conversations on the Citadel (think galactic meeting-station), and are the only time you use one of Mass Effect 3's minigames. When you enter Reaper-infested territory you have to scan the surroundings to find anything of interest. Every time you do, the Reapers begin to ping you and find your location. If the alert level reaches 100%, you have to rush out of the system and go somewhere else (that is until you complete a mission, then it thankfully drops back down to 0). It is an interesting and stressful game of give-and-take, but ultimately it is nothing to worry about. Usually via the mission log you find out what planet you need to scan to find needed artifacts, and if you are wanting to know if you've found everything there is a convenient Asset Percentage next to every star system to let you know if you need to keep searching. It isn't as annoying as the seek-and-find minigame was for the previous two games, but at the same time it almost feels non-essential (unless you want to get the absolute best ending, and you need all the assets you can get to do so).

Mass Effect 3 introduces multiplayer to the series for the first time. If you aren't an amazing player, then you'll absolutely need to play this part of the game in order to get the best ending. Every time you complete a multiplayer mission, it raises your Galactic Readiness rating, which boosts your total Assets (Hint: anything under 5000 on total Military Effectiveness and you won't be getting the best ending). Everyone automatically starts out at 50%, and each mission raises that incrementally (for me it was about 3% for every successful multiplayer mission). So what do you do during the multiplayer section? Well you and three others will be tasks with surviving 11 waves of enemies, every other wave adds a new mechanic such as hacking a computer or killing specific enemies within a short time frame. There are six or so multiplayer maps, with three different types of enemies; the Geth (robots), Cerberus troops (bad-guy humans), or Reapers (the nasty-looking ground troops of the main story's enemy). There are three difficulties (Bronze, Silver, or Gold levels), that determine how tough and how many enemies you face, and you go in choosing only two weapons under a pre-determined character (so no importing your main character which makes sense, but at the same time severely sucks). It takes some time getting used to playing, especially when you are used to having certain abilities, and only have a small selection here (in order to streamline the process, can't have you pausing the game deciding on what to do while the others are in play). Depending on how good your team is, expect each session to last from 20 to 40 minutes.

Now, here is the main problem. Unless you are spectacular at finding and doing everything needed to get a 5000 total military effectiveness rating, you will NEED to play this portion of the game. If you have a Playstation 3, it's no problem at all. You just hit multiplayer (assuming you don't have a used copy) and you are good to go, free of charge. If you are like me and buy it for the Xbox 360 then you have a slight problem. It is slightly alleviated with the 2 day Xbox Live Gold pass the game offers you, but I had to literally play for about 13 hours total to reach even a 90% readiness rating. After that I stopped. The multiplayer is slightly fun for about the first two hours, but after that you start recycling the same maps, missions, and enemies and it gets dull fast. Thankfully most of my sessions were with high-level players, so I moved through faster than most. To make matters worse, you don't get to import any weapons you receive in the single player game. Instead you start out with the weakest available, and you slowly earn credits that allow you to buy equipment packs from the multiplayer store. I find this to be the most insulting part of the game. For one, you don't get to choose what weapons you buy, you get them at random. Two, if you don't have any credits (which the lower level you are, the less likely you'll earn them), you can just buy them using Xbox Live points (or PSN's equivalent). This feels cheap, and an incredibly gimmicky way for EA/BioWare to gain extra money off of players.

Oh, I did mention that in order to achieve the highest rating without multiplayer you have to be really good at finding everything, right? I failed to mention that even if you do find everything with just the regular game, you STILL won't achieve the rating needed to get the best ending. You have to have the From Ashes DLC pack as well. Expect to spend another 8 dollars on that. It introduces a new mission and another squad-mate, that is pretty cool from a story standpoint, but the character feels useless during actual missions.

Now to backtrack back the questing system. This is where I found the greatest flaw in the game; an incredibly lazy quest-tracking system. In the previous game, your journal would update as you complete certain objectives in a mission. It helped to insure you stay on the right track and knew where to go. It was great for me, as I tend to do multiple missions before turning them in (especially since almost all of them are turned in at the Citadel, and that is just too much loading/waste of time to do one, turn it in, then do another). Don't expect that with this game. Your journal automatically drops you into the middle of your completed missions, so expect to waste time scrolling to the top (seriously, they couldn't make it automatically start at the top?). Next, don't expect it to do anything other than tell you the start point of the mission. So if you are like me, and do a bunch of fetch quests all at once, unless you write down or take mental notes of which ones you actually did, expect to go through every floor of the Citadel to figure out who to turn the quests to. It reeks of pure laziness, and is incredibly disappointing to see in a game of this caliber.

When it comes to the bugs in this game, don't worry there aren't anything too noticeable. I had one game-ending bug during multiplayer once, but I'll chock that up to my crappy internet. Other than that, the game runs smooth from start to finish.

Now, if you pay attention to gaming news sites, you might have noticed a lot of people have complained about the ending. Before getting to the endpoint, I was inclined to agree with them, as the way people explained it they made it seem like the ending is an incredible downer that apparently makes no sense with the perceived themes from the previous games. Now that I have finished the game, I can see why others are upset. If you choose a certain ending then things are going to be a little sad, regardless the themes of perseverance and cooperation are still there and remain unchanged. It could be that these other players may have just expected an incredibly happy ending, which makes no sense at all when you pay attention to all of the major things going on in the series. Regardless, the story is incredibly epic, and the ending will pull at your emotions if you let it.

In conclusion, it may seem like I am harping on this game a lot. I only do so because I expect more from the creators, especially when they knocked the other two games right out of the ballpark. That isn't to say this game isn't horrible, it is incredibly amazing, so much so that I recommend it for everyone to play. I just want people to understand that it isn't perfect. It is interesting to note that many review sites have ignored the problems I have seen in this game, and that's their opinion, they believe that the game as a whole is better than these "small" problems. I, on the other hand, expect a game of this caliber from developers that have been phenomenal to do better, so I was slightly disappointed in some of the design choices made in this game.

Graphics: 9 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Controls: 8 out of 10
Story: 9 out of 10
Gameplay: 7.5 out of 10
Total: 8.7 out of 10

Final take: Definitely buy this one, it may be shorter than the previous game but the story is epic and incredibly entertaining if you are into sci-fi!