My Top 7 Games of the Year 2012

I haven't played every notable video game that released in 2012, but I have played a fair whack of them, and I wanted to highlight them here.

NUMBER SEVEN: Borderlands 2

 

 I tried to get into Borderlands last year, and once again this year, but it just didn't hook me the way the sequel did.  I'm not certain what was so different about Borderlands 2 that made me hunger for loot and level-ups; perhaps the smart writing and humorous dialogue greased the wheels.  All I know is that with Borderlands 2, I now care what guns I'm carrying; I now want to tick off everything on my to-do list; I now want to play a first person shooter for more than 50 hours...

NUMBER SIX: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

 

I don't play many strategy games, but when I do, it's usually a well-crafted one by Firaxis.  XCOM: Enemy Unknown is no exception, and may well be my favourite strategy game this side of Civilisation II.  I was emotionally invested in my squad, and not wanting to see them die horribly was the key motivator to playing the game patiently and properly.

NUMBER FIVE: Mass Effect 3

Sure, Mass Effect 3's ending left a lot to be desired, but every story beat brought a Mass Effect story thread to a satisfying conclusion.  Some of these moments were among the most deeply moving experiences I've ever had playing a video game.  It's not the best Mass Effect game, but it was worth it just to see Garrus, Thane, and Mordin one last time.

NUMBER FOUR: Mark of the Ninja

Mark of the Ninja was the most mechanically satisfying game I played all year.  The controls are tight and super-smooth, the ninja's arsenal is versatile and interesting, and the game deftly transmits feedback to the player.  All of these things are paramount for a stealth game, but what's most remarkable about Mark of the Ninja is that it makes all of these things work in 2D.  2D stealth has never been done before, but this game will make you wonder why nobody tried it sooner.

NUMBER THREE: Journey

Journey is one of the most beautiful games ever created, inside and out.  It is filled with the awe of discovery. Discovering another player for the first time; discovering that close proximity to that player increases your ability to fly, and keeps you warm in a snowstorm.  It's magical.  By limiting player communication to a single sound and a single button press, it manages to forge unspoken bonds between complete strangers.  So much so, my stranger-turned friend and I simply stopped and stood on top of a hill, just to look at the sky.  It was a rare moment of shared beauty.

NUMBER TWO: Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami is a horrible 80s cocaine binge in the best possible way.  Its broken-record soundtrack, hazy filter, and wavering camera put me right in the disturbed headspace of its protagonist.  In a way, the game is a systematic, stealth action game.  But its one-hit-one-kill policy rewards the brazen far more than the methodical.  The game kills you until you are a genuinely better player.  Twitch reflexes develop; muscle memory sets in.  Make no mistake, I died many times during the course of Hotline Miami, but I thought to myself, just one more try, EVERY time.  The game design really serves and encourages this with quick controls and quick restarts.  Clearing a level is satisfying because it can only be done quickly and flawlessly.  It is also harrowing because the music stops and the game forces you to reflect upon your violence as you do the walk of shame back to your car.  Hotline Miami is conceptually brilliant: the most violent statement against violence in video games.

And NUMERO UNO is...

THE WALKING DEAD

The Walking Dead video game is not only superior to the television show; it is better than the comic book series that spawned them both.  The emotional bond with its characters is strengthened by the interactive nature of the medium.  Its high stakes plot is raised by throwing the player into heart-wrenching decision-making.  The Walking Dead treats player choice with the deepest respect, and yet there is a fatalism that propels its story.  Often those choices will be between abandoning or mercy-killing a doomed friend or family member.  At two particular points, the weight of these decisions reduced me to a weeping, sobbing mess.  By the game's conclusion, I felt like an empty shell of a man - a zombie, if you will - and it took me a long time to recover.  It's not often I can say that about a video game, let alone any form of entertainment.  Congratulations Walking Dead, you are my Game of the Year for 2012.

Top 10 Snarky Impressions of EB Expo 2011

Here are my top ten, half-cocked impressions of the EB Games Expo 2011:

1. The queuing system really sucked.  Big time.  It was not at all clear where members of the media were supposed to register. After a lot of wandering around aimlessly, reading the signs, and even following [conflicting] directions from EB staff, it became clear that the punters' queue was blocking the media registration spot.  Having not yet been registered as a member of the press, it looked like I was simply pushing in. 
2. The press were not welcome.  Even then, I did not receive the press kit that I was originally supposed to receive in the mail, so I basically received less information than the punters.  I probably missed several press conferences and I didn't find the write-up room until I was ready to leave.  I could count the members of the press in attendance on both hands - most of them were either photographers or fansite bloggers - so you can imagine how empty those press conferences probably were.  In retrospect, I find it incredibly hard to believe that Peter Moore did not have time for an interview.  Aside from all that, I had to line up with the "VIPs" who actually paid extra for their status, just to get my hands on the latest games.  I don't know, maybe I was being too nice and I could have pushed in, but I shouldn't have had to.
3. Videogames are dead.  This is a gaming expo and yet I spent the first hour or so watching videogames on a giant screen.  Oh, and motorbikes.  About half an hour of motorbikes.  Don't get me wrong, their stunts were impressive to say the least, but last time I checked, this thing was about videogames.  At this point they were beginning to look like an afterthought.
4. The lost art of carefully crafted demos.  And when I finally got my hands on the games, I had to sit through five minutes worth of cutscenes just to get to the actual game part!  Main offenders: Uncharted 3, The Darkness II, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Mass Effect 3.  Even then, these demos were old - in fact, they were the same ones shown at E3 in May.  So while people are playing three hours of Skyrim over at a comic convention in New York, we're watching a 25-minute video at a gaming expo.  Go figure.
5. Sega still has no idea what they're doing with Sonic the Hedgehog.  Sure, half the levels were 2D, and Sonic nearly felt like Sonic control-wise, but the level design is simply not there.  It's as though the multi-tiered City Escape level was randomly cobbled together.
6. Player agency is king.  My games of show: Saints Row: The Third and Mario Kart 7.  Why?  They were the only two that let me just play the friggin' game!
7. Skyrim is great and all, but it ain't no Fallout.  Elder Scrolls V looked very pretty, and there's certainly no shortage of things to do in it, but a post-nuclear Washington DC still trumps a Tolkien fantasy land any day.  The Dungeons and Dragons card was played out long ago.
8. Gamers love Battlefiend, but they hate Origin.  I have to confess, even I was impressed with Battlefield 3 and its Frostbite 2 engine.  I was even more impressed with Peter Moore's ability to take the anti-Origin heckling in his stride.  Despite all the negative press they've been getting, I think EA is one of the few publishers with a clear vision of where gaming is headed over the next few years.
9. Small things amuse...The most impressive feature of Halo Anniversary is the ability to switch between old Halo 1 and new Halo 1 at the press of a button.  I just couldn't stop doing it!
10. The venue was great.  Really great.  Sure, the Gold Coast is a bit of a drive, but parking at the Exhibition Centre was plentiful, and only ten bucks.  That's unheard of in Brisbane, which would have been brought to its knees by an event like this.  Apparently there was a hail storm in the Gold Coast during the afternoon - I did not find this out until two days later!

15 Reasons Why Videogames Are Heaps Better Than Real Life.

1. You only get one life. That would be ZERO lives in a videogame.


2. Unless you believe in the afterlife, in which case you only have two. That would be ONE life in a videogame - with cheats on - and cheats are just no fun.


3. If you don't like the layout of your house, you can't just switch to debug mode and put girders in.


4. I ate A LOT of mushrooms a couple of weeks ago. They didn't give me extra lives, they didn't make me increase in size; they didn't even give me prophetic visions. FAIL.


SNACK FAIL


5. I smashed open my television screen the other day to see what bonuses were inside. No shields, no speed boots, not even a few lousy golden rings.


What a disappointment.


6. Sewer pipes don't lead to other worlds filled with turtles, coins and funky music. They just lead to a whole lot of excrement.


7. I learnt this from my two plumber friends. Neither of them can jump very high, nor shoot fireballs when they wear white overalls. SNORE.


8. I tried busting open a crate with a crowbar, and not only was it harder to do than in Half-Life, it didn't have any money or weapons inside. Which brings me to my next point:


9. You have to work for money. Well, you *can* kill people for money or steal, but you'll land your ass in jail if you get caught. In a videogame, you can find money in oil drums, barrels, treasure chests or just lying on the ground. And if the cops still want to arrest you, you can usually kill them and take their money too. Okay, that was two points.


10. There's shopping centres everywhere full of items you don't need or can't carry, and you have to QUEUE to purchase them. In videogames there's just one merchant who sells everything and no queues! Then I can fit my new bicycle in my backpack along with my 150 animals sealed in compact balls for my convenience. I don't need to waste money on food there either, because there's usually juicy red apples and delicious chicken dinners lying on the ground. And get this: the floor is clean enough to EAT OFF!



11. Or I can go fishing, and I'll know whether or not I'm going to catch something within five seconds. No more day-long fruitless fishing trips! No bait required! Oh, and boots and tyres can swim around the water just like regular fish, and they still put up a helluva fight when you're reeling them in. Free tyres! Makes boot-fishing fun!


12. I drive a 1982 Ford Laser to the bus stop each morning. I'd rather drive that BMW across the street, but I can't because I don't have the key . In videogames I wouldn't need to catch the bus to get to work on time [hell, I wouldn't need to go to work]. All I'd need is my '82 Laser and a bazooka. Congestion go bye-bye!


13. I can't even do an olley on a skateboard, let alone snowboard. In Steep Slope Sliders, I can do a chicken salad, canned crab, salvation, and finish with a tasteful 1260 degree indy nosebone. Off a cliff. And live.


14. You have a wife. You can't turn sound off. Think about it.


15. I have to listen to crappy Top 40 songs on the radio at work. Who's on the charts? Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears, but NO K.K. Slider.

Which do you prefer?

The Red Baron's Top 7 Videogame Soundtracks Of All Time.

Recently I have been discussing the importance of music in videogames, and I noticed I had quite a lot to say on the subject. This is because my enjoyment of a videogame is almost inseparable from my enjoyment of its soundtrack. It's something of a chicken-and-egg question trying to determine just what the relationship is between a great videogame and a great videogame soundtrack [is it possible for a great videogame to not have a great soundtrack, or does that disqualify it from greatness? Can a great soundtrack make a 'good' game great?] but it's enough to know that it is important, and it does enrich the gaming experience. Indeed, if you peruse the list below you'll see only three games that cannot also be found on my Top Eighteen Videogames of All Time - one of which was released this year, the other two are sequels to other placeholders. To give the list a bit of context, these are my criteria:

1. I must have played the game. If you can't find your favourite videogame music on this list, it's entirely possible that I've never listened to it. Feel free to chime in with your own picks below if this is the case.


2. The soundtrack must be consistently great. I must be able to listen to it during the entire experience without getting tired of it. With the length of videogames being what they are, this is no mean feat. A soundtrack is only as strong as its weakest link, and I won't be picking games on the strength of a handful of songs. For instance, I LOVE the Metroid Prime title music more than you will ever know, as well as the Magmoor Caverns AND Phendrana Drifts themes, but you won't find the game on this list. No, those songs will have to wait for another list, another day.


3. One entry per franchise. I can almost guarantee you I will make an exception to this rule.


4. This is a list of videogame music, written and recorded/engineered specifically for the videogames they feature in. This means games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Jet Set Radio Future do not qualify. I had to draw the line somewhere, otherwise we'd be seeing Guitar Heroes and Rock Bands all over the place.


5. The music must stay with me long after the experience is over. This is perhaps my most heavily weighted criterion.

Remembering of course, that as in all matters of Aesthetics, everything about this is purely subjective. But we all love a good list, don't we, so occasionally someone has to have to balls to step up and make a few bold claims. If you disagree with me, or you think I've robbed a game of its due, feel free to acknowledge your favourite videogame music below.


Without any further adieu, here are my Top Seven Videogame Soundtracks Of All Time:

7. Magic Carpet


Magic Carpet was innovative in a number of ways, but what interested me most was its music, which changed on the fly according to your circumstances. A foreboding calm across the sea is only moments away from the angular sturm und drang of a wyvern's fiery attack. Undeniably Arabian in flavour, I could not shake the feeling that I was a wizard on my magic carpet.

6. Street Fighter II


It's no mistake that these tunes have been appropriated and remixed by every subsequent entry in the Street Fighter series. Each song is inextricably linked its character, flavoured of course by their respective nationalities, from Blanka's jungle theme to Vega's matadorian dance. They play well at all speeds, too, which is handy when you want to imbue that sense of urgency.

5. Sonic the Hedgehog 2


Before the cheesy 80s guitar riffs and bad lyrics, Sonic was a musical force to be reckoned with, and no game better embodies this than Sonic 2. Its melodies are as varied and vibrant as the levels that host them, from the country guitar twang of Hilltop Zone to the snake-charming Oil Ocean and back to the industrial chug of Metropolis Zone.

4. de Blob


The mind boggles at the sheer wealth of musical material present in de Blob. I can only conclude that the band must have hit 'record' from the moment the game began development. In many ways, de Blob represents the ultimate integration of music into the gameplay experience. You'll want to paint the town all over again when you're done, just to hear more of that funky, funky music. It runs the gamut of jazz, funk, blues, reggae, and hip-hop, and the game lets you paint solos all over it.

3. Super Mario World


Mario World bravely broke away from the famous Mario theme to weave its own thematic tapestry, and for that, I salute it. Think Mario in a milk bar. A really, really cute one with strange hobo sitting in the corner. I don't know what that means.

2. Dune II: The Battle for Arakkis


Westwood's tradition of great RTSs and great videogame music began with Dune II. Its soundtrack is best described as a lithe mechanical beast chugging through quicksand. How fitting.

1. Toejam & Earl/Toejam & Earl in Panic on Funkatron


Remember when I talked about breaking Rule #3? I was serious. I had to call a two-way tie between these two games, because they both deserve recognition as the greatest examples of videogame music ever created. In fact, no discussion about videogame music should be entered into without first recognising Toejam & Earl as its pinnacle. Here's what I wrote about it in my review:

"It's in the music department that Toejam & Earl really comes into its own. The soundtrack is memorable and downright funky, and features some of the most inventive uses of MIDI I've heard. You'll find yourself humming the Big Earl Bump or the Toejam Slowjam as you go about your day-to-day...When a game compels you to record all its songs onto CD for general listening, you know you're onto something special."

What's in your Top Seven?

8 Sega Sequels I Wanna See.

It's tough being a Sega fan. We're a lot like Star Wars fans. It's like we're in an abusive relationship and they tell us that they love us and to come home it'll all be better just like the way it used to be, but then they beat us and beat us and beat us, and all we can say is we fell down the stairs they only do it 'cause they love us. It sucks to be me particularly, because I'm both a Sega and a Star Wars fan. For some reason I still hold out hope that Sega could make that magic game, just as we all held out for a good prequel. It is in this spirit - with my black eyes open and fingers crossed - that I present to you this list of Sega sequels that I would like to see:

Daytona USA 3
I can't remember the last racer I enjoyed playing. Actually, I can - it was Daytona USA on my Sega Saturn. The only thing lacking in that game was the track selection.


Racing perfection has a name: DAYYYTONAAAAAAAA!!!

NiGHTS 2: This Time With Feeling!
I'd like to see Journey Into Dreams retconned somehow, and delivered back into the capable hands of Sonic Team. You know, the real Sonic Team based in Japan, headed by Yuji Naka. What made the original NiGHTS Into Dreams so great was the purity of the gameplay. NiGHTS 2 diluted it with unnecessary cutscenes, voicework, and 3D platforming. It's all about smooth, slick control, running the courses and chaining link combos. It's an arcade racer in fantasy land. Keep it real.


In the NiGHTS, dream delight...

Jet Set/Grind Radio 2
Style, cel-shading, graffiti art, and funky music again, please. The original suffered from wander-around-aimlessly-until-you-find-powerup/tag syndrome, though, so it'd be nice to have an integrated map system or at least a Metroid-style hint system.


Jet-Set, Jet-Set, Jet Set Radiooo!!!

Panzer Dragoon IV vs. Panzer Dragoon Saga II
I'm torn as to what I'd like to see more, Panzer Dragoon IV or Panzer Dragoon Saga II? One thing's for sure, it's Smilebit (formerly Team Andromeda) or bust. After Panzer Dragoon Orta, though, I'm not sure they understand the purity of Panzer Dragoon Zwei. Beautiful, though it was, and a good Xbox game nonetheless, it introduced a scissors-paper-rock mechanic whereby your dragon needed to change forms to destroy certain enemies. And in a game as beautiful as Orta, who wants to think about stuff like that? I just want to fly, shoot, and have my breath taken away every now and then. If my dragon's going to be changing forms, then it better be just as good as another form, and it better be for the whole level. The problem of Panzer Saga II is another thing entirely: what more is there to tell in this story?

Resonance to resonance, purity to purity, gaming of the spheres.

Shenmue 3
If there's a case against planned trilogies, it's Shenmue. If there's a case against unplanned trilogies, it's Pirates of the Caribbean and The Matrix. And if you have a case against Quick Time Events, then you may as well level it against AM2 legend Yu Suzuki. But by far his biggest crime was bankrupting Sega to leave tens of thousands [let's be realistic here] of fans hanging on the edge of the cliff that is Shenmue 2. Did it really bankrupt Sega? Well, I don't know, but the first game cost $500,000 to make and unfortunately wasn't $500,000 worth of awesome, let alone $500,000 worth of software sales. That $500,000 would probably have been better spent on an advertising campaign for the Dreamcast - you know, so that real [now] Wii-owning people actually knew it existed while it graced this Earth. Then, and maybe then, we may have been able to say that we have felt closure, and its name was Shenmue 3.


"Yes, Suzuki-san, you must do what is right. You must complete Shenmue 3!"

Space Channel 5 (II? 6?)
In this rhythm-based-music-game-crazy world we live in today, it's high time that the Mother-of-all rhythm-based music-games returned. It's hard to imagine the Seamless Narrative in a world ruled by Hideo Kojimas with blank checkbooks and cutscenes with soda-drinking monkeys, but Space Channel 5 had one, and it had it in style.


Dancing with aliens never made so much sense.

Toejam & Earl 3: Keepin' it Real, Dawg!
Again, it would be nice to have another game retconned, this time the Dishonourable Toejam & Earl 3. I remember being promised a 'return to form' in TJ&E3 on their website waaay back in the Saturn days. Well, TJ&E Productions, where is it? Where's the Greatest Videogame Music of All Time? Where's the Celebration of the Random? Where's the endless replayability? All I see is funk ditched for hip-hop, a flat 3D platformer [using that term very loosely, but if Mario 64 gets to be a platformer, then so does this] with terrible art design, and a third-wheel character thrown in for the hell of it. What's the point of a third character in a two-player game, anyway? I can't think of any franchise, videogame or otherwise, that has stood to benefit from the addition of a new character. Scrappy-Doo, anyone? And then there's the classic case of the Rat in the Hat's complete ruination of Bananas in Pyjamas. Lesson learnt? I hope so.


Bonnie & Clyde. Sonnie & Cher. Simon & Garfunkel. Toejam & Earl.

Virtua Cop 4
During my university years, my friends and I used to drive 15 minutes to Westfield Shoppingtown just to play Virtua Cop 3. After collectively sinking what must have been enough tokens to pay for someone's tertiary education, the arcade owners inexplicably and unceremoniously removed the machine from the arcade, never to be seen again. This pissed me off more than just a little bit, not necessarily the action itself, but rather the feeling of utter helplessness, that unlike Virtua Cop 1 & 2, I can't play this game at home. Hell Sega, just port VC3 if you like and give us a decent light-gun to go with it and I'll be happy.


Do it. Do it. DO IT!

Which Sega sequels do you wanna see?

4 Ideas that ‘Wanted’ presents but never really runs with.

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Thanks to IGN AU, I attended the [late] Australian premiere of Wanted with 13 friends, two tag-alongs, a work colleague plus wife, and a random couple we gave tickets to on the street. Yes, it turns out that I don’t have 19 friends, but I at least have enough to feel like a bigshot for one night.

The movie was akin to a dog digging holes in the backyard: it’s got a lot of ideas going on, but it never seemed to stick to one long enough to go anywhere deep. As an action film, it was very over-the-top and there were several thrilling set-pieces, so it’s certainly worth a look for action fans. It’s disappointing, though, how intelligently the film opens compared to its latter half. It’s almost as if it got distracted by all the explosions and gunfire, and dropped everything in the excitement. Rather than give it the standard review treatment, I thought I’d discuss the ideas that Wanted introduces, but never fully explores:

The World has a constant subtext.
Whether you realise it or not, the World is constantly bombarding you with subversive messages. It doesn’t matter how aloof or alert you are, there’s only so many messages one person can block. You think you’re so cool, because you don’t do what the billboards or the TV commercials say, but chances are you’re a slave to the billion other messages you’ve missed. When you check your balance on your ATM and you only have fifteen dollars to your name, it’s telling you “you’re an asshole”. When you withdraw that fifteen dollars, it then tells you that you’re a human doormat and your best friend is screwing your girlfriend. You hit the ‘accept’ button. <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->

Every man and woman has a Higher Calling.
Every normal person works a job that they hate, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. If you are working a desk job, you are wasting your life. In fact, if you are working a desk job, you deserve to die. Follow your dreams [read: shoot the wings off a fly] or we’ll put a bullet through your brain.

It is noble and just to kill one for one thousand.
There are some very rich and powerful people out there, and most of them mean you harm. Therefore, it is okay to kill them for the Greater Good, even though most of them will be replaced by equally corruptible figures (like you and me). <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->
We are but pawns in God’s great game of chess.
The major players [read: the gods] in Wanted all pride themselves on their attunement to the higher plane: their knowledge of the Will of Fate and their bullet-bending instinct. This renders the lives and deaths of everyday people insignificant in the action scenes, as the Will of Fate is paramount to the Greater Good. As the old saying goes: you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

5 Trends That Are Bad For Gaming.

I was reading an article on the Ten Trends in videogames over the last decade and it got me thinking. More specifically, it got me thinking about which trends are or have been generally bad for gaming over the last decade. Here goes:

Square pegs jammed into round holes.
Castlevania. Sonic the Hedgehog. Some games were never meant to be played in three dimensions, and those are just a few examples. We've witnessed a lot of 2D-to-3D transitions over the years; some glamorous (Prince of Persia, Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Metroid Prime) and others not-so-glamorous (Street Fighter EX and the above), but these transitions should never have been forced. 'The Death of the Platformer' has been bandied about a lot recently, but is this really the case, or are there just a lot of square pegs being jammed into round holes? Bionic Commando: ReArmed is a promising step in the right direction, and I am keen to see many glorious returns to 2D or at least 2.5D in future (please, Sonic, PLEASE!).

Violent games vs. Games-with-violence.
Games like Manhunt 2 and Kane & Lynch should really never be made. Not only are they bad for the image of the industry, they're more style than substance. Games like this are developed purely for the controversy, with gameplay tacked on. If it furthers the plot, then fine (obviously you can't play GTA without stealing cars), but don't try to tell me that a game like Manhunt is 'mature'. They're just going to get all the good games with violence banned.

A class-based gaming society.
Don't worry, I'm not going to launch into a Marxist dialectic, but I find the sale of multiple models of the same console to be utterly ridiculous and short-sighted from both a consumer point of view and a marketing point of view. The market may decide this one already (is it any coincidence that the console with only one model is outselling all others?), as Sony seems to have scrapped all other PS3 SKUs in favour of the 40GB model. Microsoft seems to be constantly re-jigging their X360 SKUs, possibly at the risk of further consumer confusion. Is it now the Arcade, Pro, and Elite models? More than one model means more than one price point, and judging by the Wii's performance this last year, this is the most important consideration for consumers. Developers are also in the dark on this - should they account for a hard-drive or not when developing for the 360?

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It seems these days that offline multiplayer has been completely neglected in favour of online. Anyone who's played system link Halo at a friend's place knows that this is a glaring oversight. Two-player split-screen in an FPS is not good enough. Online multiplayer is great, but we still need to play with our friends on the couch. System link and 4-player should be an industry standard for all multiplayer games by now. Make it happen.

Square peg in a round hole: MKII.
Tacking on multiplayer for a single player experience and vice versa is a waste of development time. Metroid Prime didn't need multiplayer - thankfully it is still a great game, but to think that that time could possibly have been used to put more into an already great game, is tragic. I'm sure a lot of FPSs could have also benefited from not having a single player mode as well, instead of having to deal with the pretense of having one. Ultimately, there are chiefly single player experiences and chiefly multiplayer experiences; they should be developed and marketed as such. The lies must end!

And that's all from me for now.