There’s hardly a gamer out there who hasn’t heard of the “Mass Effect” series. The original trilogy, while often made fun of for its nonsensical ending, still remains one of the most epic, spectacular tales of adventure, comradery and heroism in the world of gaming, period. The folks at Bioware were at their prime when they worked on the series, releasing numerous hits (such as the trilogy itself, as well as “Dragon Age: Origins”) pretty much back-to-back… Before being purchased by publishing giant Electronic Arts. That’s really where the problems began for the company, and for the series. EA rushed both “Dragon Age 2” and “Mass Effect 3” out the door, and it shows. “Dragon Age 2” is largely considered to be half-finished, and “Mass Effect 3”, while still a genuinely good game, suffered from many problems, particularly the ending which was so badly written that it implied the galaxy was pretty much doomed no matter what the player did over the course of three games, requiring Bioware to release a patch in order to remove some of the plot holes and give players a conclusion to the saga that was slightly more satisfying. Deciding to give both franchises a do-over, EA commanded Bioware to pull them off for a few years and reinvent them for the next console generation, resulting in “Dragon Age: Inquisition” and “Mass Effect: Andromeda”. The former was great! The latter… Well, it’s complicated. Let’s dig deeper.

To be perfectly honest, I knew that there was a problem during development all the way back in summer 2015, when at E3 EA resorted to showing a developer diary and some concepts for the game rather than an actual trailer despite the fact that it had been in development for four years at that point. I mean, really? You’re resorting to buzzwords and interviews with game developers praising their own game instead of, you know, showing us the actual game? Even a theatrical CGI trailer would’ve been something! The next big issue for the game came when it was discovered that Manveer Heir, the lead game designer behind “Mass Effect: Andromeda”, was openly racist and had a history of racist tweets. If you’re wondering why you never heard about this until now, well, it’s because his racism is directed towards white people, and racism towards whites is treated about as seriously as domestic violence against men – most people like to pretend it doesn’t exist. Heir’s racism has found its way of bleeding into the game as well – while the default models for the protagonist is white, if you choose to change it in the character creator you’ll find that it’s actually fairly difficult to make a white person, with options for skin color ranging from “tanned” to “very dark”. This could have probably been attributed to a glitch, except the Codex very clearly states that in the future of “Mass Effect: Andromeda” the white race is extinct due to interracial breeding. Allow me to point out that “Andromeda” takes place 200 years after the original “Mass Effect” trilogy, which had plenty of white people, and that it is impossible to eradicate an entire race on a galactic level within a mere two centuries, but what do I know.

The racism against whites displayed in the final game is problematic, but they’re not even the worst victims of discrimination in “Mass Effect: Andromeda” – that distinction would have to go to trans people. Bioware has decided to represent them by including a minor character called Hainly Abrams who is a trans woman, and it may just be one of the worst representations of a trans person I’ve ever seen – it’s a child’s idea of what a trans woman is. She’s someone whose entire life was defined by her gender, who decided to leave her home galaxy and explore Andromeda literally for no other reason than because nobody there would know that she’s trans… Which she immediately contradicts by revealing her transsexuality to the main character completely unprovoked and out of the blue, without being asked. Compare and contrast this to another trans woman in a videogame, Erica from 2011’s “Catherine”. She is treated and addressed as a woman throughout the entire game by both her boss and her close group of friends, right up until the end (and even then it’s just one of the endings) when one of the characters brings up the fact that her friends knew her as Eric in high school, which she dismisses with a joke. She isn’t there to make some kind of grand statement and hit you over the head with it, she’s there because she’s a great, fun character who just so happens to be trans – that’s part of who she is, but not a big part, and we learn a LOT more about her before we even get to that reveal (which, again, a lot of people don’t even see because they got a different ending).

And of course, we need to talk about the elephant in the room – story and social justice issues aside, “Mass Effect: Andromeda” launched in a technically incomplete state, with MANY glitches and animations that look downright disturbing. Pretty much every single human character in the game, as well as most characters belonging to the humanoid asari race, have plummeted straight to the bottom of the uncanny valley, with little chance of redemption. We don’t know exactly what went wrong in the development process, but the best guess (put forth by the animations director behind the first “Mass Effect”) is that the team was planning to touch up these animations manually, and then simply ran out of time, with EA pushing for a spring 2017 release. Whatever the case, the animations look atrocious, and in a game that’s half about talking to people, that is inexcusable.

But I don’t want to make this blog to bash Bioware, or the game. Quite the opposite, actually – I’m making it to praise them. Because the thing is, “Mass Effect: Andromeda” was a hotly anticipated next installment of a beloved franchise that had been dormant for five years, so it’s been keeping steady as the number 1 best-selling game every single week since launch, despite the fact that we’ve also had other hotly anticipated titles join the fray, such as “Persona 5” and “Kingdom Hearts HD Remix”. Bioware doesn’t really need to do anything at this point, they’ve made their money. Their best bet would be to offer an ambiguous “we’re listening to complaints and will do better next time”, but that’s not what they did. Instead, they’re promising changes. Some, such as a fix for a lot of the glitches and the animations, have already been implemented. Others, such as more options in the character creator to make creating white characters easier and rewriting Hainly Abrams’ dialogue so that it represents trans people more accurately. In addition, they’re also adding more gay romance options for a male protagonist, which is always welcome (no fair if the ladies get most of the fun). And while Bioware have never officially confirmed it, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Manveer Heir is no longer employed at the company. The point is, the developers are trying to make a good game. Sure, it’s lousy to try and fix it NOW, after it has already been out for weeks, while other recent releases like “Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and “Nier: Automata” have been practically flawless on every level on launch day, but it’s better than not fixing it at all. And even though I could never support the messy release, credit should be given where credit is due. Hoping for the best, Bioware! Don’t let me down again!

If you deny the fact that the Free to Play market is here to stay, you’re clearly not familiar with just how big it has grown. Ten years ago, the idea that developers could release games for free and could later charge for smaller things such as extra lives, characters and bonuses seemed absolutely preposterous, and yet here we are, with the F2P market flourishing and bringing a substantial percentage of overall videogame profits. Some of the biggest videogame franchises, such as “Angry Birds” (which, as of right now, served as the source of the highest-rated videogame movie of all time… with a modest score of 43%) and “Clash of Clans”. Phenomena like “Fallout Shelter” and “Pokémon GO” keep popping up all the time, and chances are the industry will keep moving forward. Hell, even some games that used to be pay-to-play for the longest time, such as “The Old Republic” and “Eve Online”, have adopted the F2P model because it’s simply more profitable.

But not all free to play games are created equal. Some truly respect their player and are meant to provide a very fun experience, while others are designed to drain their consumers of every single penny. So let’s take a look at some do’s and don’ts of F2P games in order to give potential developers a little bit of advice on how they can better incorporate microtransactions into their games. Now, keep in mind that, as I said, not all games are created equal, and many use microtransactions differently. Sometimes players can purchase a premium currency that they can use to unlock new levels, characters and customization options, while other times they pay for stuff like extra lives and energy. In the case of currency, it’s very important that you’re able to earn that currency and unlock the game’s full potential simply through playing, without spending a cent – if I was so inclined. There’s NOTHING that can make me quit a game faster than it treating me like a second class citizen because I refused to pay for it just yet. A good (bad) example of this is “Realm of the Mad God”. Now, the game might have gotten a bit better recently, but when I played it a couple of years ago most of its features and equipment options were completely locked off to F2P users and had to be bought with real money, or else you couldn’t enjoy the game properly. On the other hand, “Town Of Salem” (which is amazing and highly addictive, by the way) gives you a small amount of its currency every time you finish a match, and for unlocking achievements. And even if it didn’t, the only things you can buy in the game are customization items (purely cosmetic) and scrolls (which increase the chance of you getting a certain role in a match, but are one-time use only).

Players don’t really want to feel forced to pay for something – they want to do it because, well, they want to. Their mentality shouldn’t be “If I don’t pay up I’m not going to be able to enjoy this game right, so I might as well do it”, it should be “I can buy this character if I play for 2 months, or I can spend two pounds and buy them right now”. Of course, you need to be very careful with what exactly you’re selling, especially in a multiplayer title. If the game is singleplayer, then you can absolutely get away with selling a highly overpowered character for some huge price (hey, the people who want the game to be easier and have the resources will buy them, the rest will not), but in a multiplayer game, especially a competitive one, you’re better off selling cosmetic items, because the last thing you want is the guy who paid a ton of money mowing down the F2Players. Last, but not least, you might consider creating some kind of subscription service. “Knights of the Old Republic” has a fantastic one which gives you bonus currency, XP, characters and other goodies if you pay a monthly fee. “Marvel Future Fight” also has a subscription which gives you PLENTY of crystals every day if you only pay a couple of pounds a month, which is an absolutely fantastic deal to the point where almost every single player is paying for it. But as I said earlier, those subscriptions, much like anything F2P, must not comprise the “ultimate” way to play your game – they must merely be a nice bonus, an optional extra, that’s all. For the last time, players must want to spend money on your F2P game, they must not be obligated to in order to get the first class citizen treatment.

Anyway, that’s all from me for the time being! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go play some F2P games!

I don’t need to tell you that E3 is, by far, the biggest gaming show/convention of all time. While other conventions, like Tokyo Game Show and PAX, are gradually growing and gaining more traction, it seems highly unlikely that any of them will be able to dethrone E3 as the absolute leader any time soon. This year, E3 was bigger than ever, with no less than nine presentations running across the first three days of the event. It was crazy! At some point I had to actually stop watching one of the presentations midway through to switch to the other, and I don’t think that’s ever happened at E3 before (though I could be wrong, my memory is notoriously bad). But bigger isn’t always better, and the question is, were we satisfied?

Sadly, for the most part, the answer is no. Many of the companies that did presentations didn’t appear to have that much to show us, having to resort to developer videos and interviews in order to fill out their running time. EA and Ubisoft were definitely among the worst offenders this year, since neither of them really announced anything new that was in any way shocking or even surprising, and both had segments that I believe were unsuitable for the stage of a show as big as E3. What I wanted to see from EA the most were “Mass Effect Andromeda” and Star Wars games, and we only saw videos of developers talking vaguely about the game and giving us no new information whatsoever. It has been four years since “Mass Effect 3” came out, and you mean to tell me that the folks at Bioware haven’t even put a proper trailer together?

Last year, many of the games which were announced as being Xbox One exclusive were later revealed to also be in development for PC. This year, Microsoft didn’t even try and hide the fact – they catered to their PC audience and openly labeled the overwhelming majority of the games they presented as being “Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive”, which led to an Internet joke about how this was the Windows 10 conference. While Microsoft absolutely did a whole lot better than EA and Ubisoft, showcasing gameplay from many exciting games like “Scalebound”, ultimately I felt like their presentation failed to have a proper punch. There wasn’t really a moment that made me go “Holy crap, look at THAT!!!” and jump out of my seat. That’s what the Sony press conference was for.

As far as I’m concerned, Sony did everything right. Now, keep in mind that this is a company which has, in the past, hosted some of the worst E3 press conferences in history, with embarrassments that have become memes such as “$599” and “giant enemy crab”. Since then, though, the company has really stepped up their game as far as E3 is concerned, and this year they absolutely took the cake. Sure, the conference started a little slow, with some live orchestral music (exciting), but it was quickly revealed that the build-up was worth it – the conference started with a 10 minute gameplay demo of a new “God of War” game, and it only got better from there. “Crash Bandicoot” is officially back after so many years, David Cage has shown us that he’ll keep pushing the envelope of narrative-driven gameplay with “Detroit”, “The Last Guardian” – a game that many believed would never see the light of day – finally got a release date, and best of all, the legendary Hideo Kojima revealed the first trailer for his latest game. Think about it – after departing from Konami, Kojima’s non-compete clause expired in mid-December. That means that within six months the guy managed to assemble a team out of nothing and create a concept for a game advanced enough to have a trailer for AND then make the actual trailer using in-game footage. Meanwhile, it’s been four years and established studio Bioware still hasn’t released a proper trailer for “Mass Effect Andromeda”. Gotta love it.

Overall, it’s fair to say that, while for the most part this E3 was pretty disappointing, the Sony press conference more than made up for it. So at the end of the day I’m happy with it! Now, if only we could get a consumer-oriented show like that, but for iGaming! I can’t get all my information from sites like realmoney.co.uk/online-casino/ all the time, you know! Sometimes you gotta add a little flair to those slot announcements!

In 2016, gaming and gambling have both become as accessible as they’ll ever be, unless we somehow evolve to the point where we get born with smart devices embedded in our eyeballs. While only 10-15 years ago the only way to play videogames was to purchase a piece of hardware that cost north of $300, and then a bunch of games for it each priced at $60, which made this hobby rather inaccessible. Similarly, if you wanted to gamble, you had to do so at a physical casino, most of which require a fancy suit and a good group of friends, not to mention a solid investment. After all, you can’t just barge into a casino with a few coins and want to spend a good time now, can you? However, with the advent of online casino, you can now literally just spend 10 minutes gambling and leave it at that. And when it comes to gaming, the “free to play” market has never been more successful, with free games such as “League of Legends”, “SMITE” and “Dota 2” utterly dominating the market. Most laptops now can support a good chunk of the games on the market, and if you’re not a fan of gaming on a laptop, no worries – you can play a ton of games right in your smartphone! Bottom line is that gaming and gambling have never been more accessible, and while that’s a wonderful thing for the most part, it has also raised a lot of concerns.

As of a few years ago, addiction to videogames has been officially recognized as a real mental disorder that deserves proper treatment. Gambling addiction is at an all-time high across the globe, and as of last year the UK government has allowed doctors to prescribe heavy medication to people diagnosed with gambling addiction. These problems, while undoubtedly existing for many years, have been made even worse by the accessibility of gaming and gambling. Performing these two activities is now easier than ever, to the point where even someone who has never, ever gambled or played a videogame before in their life can get started literally within minutes. It’s a growing epidemic, and the obligatory “If you feel you may be addicted click here” banners that grace the footers of every gambling website have proven to be extremely ineffective. But what can we possibly do to counter this problem? Aside from raising awareness about it, I’m not sure what can be done. The power to make some change lies with the game developers and online casinos who can implement some restrictions on how often someone can play, but unless these restrictions were mandated by law I don’t think they would be kept, mostly because if one casino or game did them, players would simply migrate to a non-restricted one. Who knows, maybe there exists some kind of way to curb addiction while making both the businesses and the players happy, but if it exists I have no idea what it is. Talk about a depressing way to end the article, huh?

You know we are into anything and everything gaming related right? Well so are you I am guessing, if you have ended up here. If that is the case, you would sure be familiar with that feeling of people not taking you or your hobby (or god forbid – if you’ve made gaming your living!) seriously. I definitely am and have grown so numb to it by now that I don’t even hear the critics. There are those moments every now and then it does get too much though. And then, you come across something like what I am about to share and you realise that everything can have a deeper meaning and purpose and it is up to us how we use the resources we have and what conclusions we draw from doing so. Yes, gaming can be just careless fun. It can also give purpose and support to people in need. This is what this story is about.

The game I am about to share with you tells a touching story of grieve and hope and will sure leave any sceptics silent – yes, just as anything else, gaming can be meaningful. “That Dragon, Cancer” is an autobiographical game created by Ryan and Amy Green, sharing the story of their son Joel who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of one and battled with the disease for four years.

It is played as an exploration game from different perspectives through a number of abstract scenes from the life of the creators. As a player you will swap roles and be given some choices to interact with the environment. There are real recordings of conversations and voicemails featured, cards and mail send from people who have had a similar story of loss in their life.

The graphics are exceptional, the music – calm and the atmosphere in general very fitting to the story. It will certainly have an emotional effect on you and make you reconsider gaming and what can be achieved with it altogether. The game memorializes the emotions of all people involved in the story better than any written or captured on photo memory could possibly do that. It captivates players making them feel like part of it – I certainly think there should be more games working in that direction.