"This Generation"

Rather than write a "Game of the Year" feature or some other Top 10 to close out 2012, my approach this year was to take a look at "this generation" of hardware and games and attempt to figure out five hallmarks or touchstones of this generation. The Wii U is the harbinger of the "next gen" and rather than look ahead at "What might be" I decided to take a look back at what this generation would be remembered for.

I probably could have added a couple more aspects of this generation that fit the bill as helping to define this generation, but I felt the five I picked were probably the strongest. These aspects will be the hallmark of what this gen is remembered for:

Part I - Meaningless Rewards 

Part II - Motion Controls 

Part III - Co-Op Gaming 

Part IV - Episodic Games and DLC 

Part V - Open World Games

I tried to be "on point" with my observations and make the pieces easy to read; and offer some evidence for why I picked those aspects.

Leave a comment here or smack one down on your article of choice.

Buried: Mass Effect 3 Leviathan DLC

It's possible that BioWare and EA were going for some kind of meta experience with the Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3 -- not entirely sure; this the first piece of additional content for Mass Effect 3 I've played -- because it's so difficult to find.

The basic starting point for the Leviathan story is that there's this mysterious Reaper killer something out in deep space. It's up to Shepherd to find it. And it's up to the player to figure out where the hell the story arc is buried.

Granted I haven't played Mass Effect 3 in a while, but I was expecting a flashing light, a big button somewhere that said, "Leviathan, GO!" to kick off the story.

No.

So, I check Shepherd's email. Nothing obvious there. I wandered the Normandy and Citadel expecting a flashing arrow or other obvious indication of a starting point.

No.

What the hell? I went online to track this down. Surely, it can't be that difficult to start playing this thing that people have plunked down money to purchase.

Radical Wants Me to Fund Their Next Title

Last night I was fooling around in Prototype 2 with the RADnet content and when I selected a "free" download option I was presented with this screen:

Wait. How many MS Points do they want? I had to write it down and count the digits.

4,294,967,295. Or about 4.3 billion MS Points.

I did some quick math to figure out the actual cost because who knows, the next piece of RADnet content may be worth it.

A single MS Point works out to be about $0.02 (CAN). More math. The total cost to grab that content is $66,571,993.00. So either that content will tear a hole in the space-time continuum because it's so awesome or Radical Entertainment wants me to personally fund their next project, which is so not happening!

Or that's just the method being used to make sure the content isn't available until a certain date. Or it's a technical glitch.

I like my first guess.

EDIT: 8:01PM, May 1, 2012 - Clarification from Radical and Activision (thanks, Steve!):  "Given that the DLC isn’t available for purchase yet but it is still listed when you use a VIP code, 66 billion is the default amount it tries to charge you to make sure no one can buy it." Basically, as part of the press, I'm special! To further clarify: "Regular gamers with the Radnet edition will not see this at all. Only you and a chosen few who were lucky enough to get VIP codes."