Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

After a weekend full of family obligations, I finally got to head to the theaters on Monday evening with my dad and my son and see Avengers: Age of Ultron. The rest of this post will be a spoiler heavy review of the film, so you have been warned. If you aren't interested in the spoilers here's my quick take on it: go see it! It's an incredibly fun movie, that is not perfect by any means, but still managed to keep me fully entertained throughout it's full 141 minute runtime. Personally, I enjoyed the first movie more, but this is still a lot of fun.

Now without further ado...

Hey, We're Getting the Band Back Together!

The opening of this movie had me so excited. The Avengers are working together as a cohesive team to take down a Hyrda castle fortress in the fictional nation of Sokovia. The opening action shot is great callback to the (not really one-shot) one-shot in New York during the first film. All of the Avengers seem to be working together well, while still maintaining their personalities that make them individually interesting. It looks I'm finally gonna see this team working together for the full film like I've wanted all along.

Then Scarlet Witch shows up and throws a monkey wrench in all of that. Now let me state up front that I loved Scarlet Witch in the movie and can't wait to see what else she does in the Infinity Wars movies. However, her powers are used for most of the first two simply to sew discontent among the Avengers, throwing them back to the squabbling state that we saw in the majority of the first film.

So now the Avengers are all focused on their internal strife instead of on the threat of Ultron. Cue good old Uncle Nick Fury to come in and dispense some wisdom to get them to all work together again. Thankfully this downtime where everyone is taking measure of themselves is also used to great effect to finally give Hawkeye some much needed character development. The whole farm scene still feels to me like a longer version of the post-Colson death scenes on the heli-carrier from the first movie. Everyone is beaten down, dejected, and trying to take stock of their motivations to be a part of this team.

I really wish we could have skipped a lot of the infighting that came about in this movie. I realize that Disney/Marvel are trying to set up a lot for what's to come next May in Civil War, and that to do so they need to have some kind of rift between Cap and Stark. I just wish they could have done it without retreading so much ground that was covered in the previous movie.

They're Super-HEROES not SUPER-Heroes

Man of Steel got so much flak from people (die-hard Superman fans in particular) for all of the destruction and assumed death in Metropolis, that I don't think anyone making a super-hero movie could ignore the criticisms. Joss Whedon obviously heard the uproar loud and clear. He goes out of his way in this movie to make sure you know that the Avengers are heroes and that they ultimately just want to save people. I think this is one of the best parts of the movie.

I honestly didn't have any problems with all of the destruction in Man of Steel. I felt that logically, there wasn't any way for Superman to have kept Metropolis from getting destroyed. There's no way that Zod would have let the fight leave the city; he was hell-bent on hurting Superman physically and emotionally. He would have done anything to keep the fight there to do the most harm.

Age of Ultron is full of destruction. The proverbial wrecking ball is applied to Sokovia at the beginning and end of the movie. An African nation (not sure if it was Wakanda they went to, or if it was just mentioned as a source of vibranium, and then the boat that Andy Serkis was on was somewhere else; time for a second watching) gets the brunt of the Hulk and Iron Man. Seoul gets the Batman Begins treatment of runaway train wrecking through the city-center. 

The thing that is done so well in all these action and destruction scenes is the little touches. Tony Stark deploys the Iron Legion in Sokovia to try to help evacuate the city. Quicksilver runs around ahead of the runaway train saving people from getting the bug-on-windshield treatment. Fury shows up with the last remaining heli-carrier (BTW, I was really hoping for more of a tie-in between Agents of SHIELD and the movie than that) to help evacuate Sokovia from Ultron's death rock. I would say though that the heli-carrier evacuation gets a little ham-fisted in the great lengths it goes to trying to continually illustrate that these characters are heroes.

The best part of this hero-highlighting though, is during the fight between Iron Man and the Hulk. The whole scene is expertly done, a lot of which has to do with Whedon's ability to inject personality into all aspects of the movie; something I'll talk about in the next section, but the part that stood out to me those most though is one particular sequence. 

Like I said above, in Man of Steel it made sense to me the Superman couldn't draw Zod out of the city, but it was never really illustrated, I just applied my own logic to it. Whedon takes this logic, and makes it apparent in a really deft way. Stark says something to the effect of, "Alright, let's get you out of here," grabs the Hulk and tries to fly out of the African city. Hulk, in his Scarlet Witch induced rage, isn't having it though and brings the party crashing right back down. You still get your spectacular action scene with crumbling buildings and people running, screaming, and pointing, but your heroes still get to be heroes, without having to suspend too much disbelief.

Levitating With Levity

Joss Whedon has always been a master of witty dialogue. Whether on Buffy, Firefly, or Avengers, his characters always have vibrant and fun personalities. Age of Ultron is no exception here as his trademark humor and back-and-forth between characters is more present in this film than the previous. That Whedon-esque writing is what, in my mind, keeps this movie from being just another generic summer action flick.

The pace of Age of Ultron is absolutely frenetic. It moves from action set-piece to action set-piece with very little downtime in between, with the sole exception being the brief visit to Hawkeye's secret farm home. There's often so much happening on screen at any given time, that it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing. The movie could have very easily veered off into Transformer's territory; becoming a droning, monotonous hodge-podge of destruction on top of destruction.

Whedon and the cast however, handle all this action perfectly. All the characters have various quips and one-liners (many that were spoiled in the 18 million different trailers) that they throw out to add some levity and personality to the action sequences. Unlike Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf in Transformers, Whedon and the cast of Avengers write and deliver these lines perfectly. Tony Stark frantically yelling "Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!" as he tries to pummel the Hulk into submission is brilliant. Hawkeye's self-awareness of the absurdity of taking on an army of evil robots with a bow and arrow is refreshing. Even the overly long running joke of Cap's insistence on keeping the language clean is fun.

Sure it can be fun to watch the wanton destruction and mindless action of the typical summer blockbuster. Transformers and Fast and Furious have made enough money to purchase an island nation solely on that premise. Age of Ultron is able to bring all the bombast that those movies do, and not require the viewer to completely switch off their brain.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself: My Name is Red...I Mean Ultron

Where that personality and levity goes a bit too far in my opinion though, is Ultron. I'm torn on the character of Ultron in the movie. He had some great moments and some truly great lines. Some of the most laugh-out-loud funny moments came from him ("Oh for God's sake"). I just never felt like he was really that much of a threat. 

Having Ultron act like a deranged, sinister, Tony Stark just didn't make that much sense to me. I understand the over-arching reasons behind this; it connects the Avengers to the antagonist, it further serves to set up the coming Civil War, etc. The idea that an AI will bring about peace by destroying humanity is such an old trope now. Yes, Stark wants to "build a suit of armor around the world", but this AI tech was based largely in part on things that Hyrda was doing, and other than him being the bad guy, there wasn't really a trace of Hydra present. Bruce Banner worked on Ultron right alongside Stark, too. 

Why not have some kind of internal conflict raging within Ultron? It would fit perfectly with the lineage from his three "parents". Stark's desire to achieve "peace in our time" and obsession with constantly upgrading himself; Banner's desire to do good for the world, his seeming inability to resist pushing the boundaries of science, and of course his rage; and Hyrda's desire to dominate the world at any cost. I think this could have been a much more interesting character. Instead we essentially just get a sociopath Iron Man.

That similarity to Stark serves to be overly disarming in my opinion. Since he ultimately seems like a flawed copy of Stark, he never quite felt like he presented a real threat to the Avengers or the world at large. In the first film, you knew Loki was just a pawn 20 minutes in, but he still felt intimidating throughout. Of course, you know the Avengers will win in the end, but it has to feel like there are some real things at stake, and I never felt that. I almost think that they could lift Ultron out of the movie and just have the Avengers saving people from natural disasters over and over, and achieve much of the same feeling.

2015: The Year of Fan-Service

As a longtime Marvel fan, it was cool to see Ultron on screen, even if he wasn't as menacing and imposing as I would have hoped. This movie is chock-full of goodies for fans of the Marvel comics. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are cool (even if Aaron Taylor Johnson's fake accent is atrocious), Hulk vs Iron Man is fantastic, and I loved seeing War Machine, Falcon, Peggy Carter, and Heimdall. The quick mention of Wakanda was great since Black Panther is such an under-rated Marvel character and will hopefully be a great movie in three years. And of course, Vision was great to get to see on screen.

All of this comes at a price though. I expected the first movie to be problematic due to the fact that it had all of these stars playing all of these big characters in one film. It worked out really well though. I think it didn't work as well in this film. The Ultron creation happens so fast that if you blink you'll miss it, meaning that the story behind his creation becomes so contrived to almost be a joke. The flirtation/romance between Romanov and Banner is nice, but isn't given room to breathe. Vision is awesome but is given short shrift and his power feels a bit deus ex machina (no pun intended). Whedon himself has said in recent interviews that the Thor storyline was significantly cut down, almost to the point of non-existence. 

I love the little touches and nods to the comics that are thrown in for the fans. The Force Awakens looks to be doing a lot in the same vein; making sure that fans of the original movies have certain touchstones to be excited about. I think Age of Ultron also illustrates some of the pitfalls of this though. If you try to pack too much fan-service stuff in, there isn't enough room for the movie to become something great on it's own.

Wrap-Up

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a damned fun movie. Deeply flawed, yes, but still a ton of fun. I give it 3 stars, but that is a must-see 3 stars. Don't miss it, just don't expect it to be the best thing ever.

2014 In Review - Games

Another year is done and gone. I'd like to recap my highs and lows in games, movies, and television for 2014 by coming up with a few categories of award for each medium. I'll start with this post on video games. So without further ado…..

2014 was the first full year with the new next-gen consoles. I didn't jump in to the current generation until late August when I bought a PS4, so I didn't see a whole lot prior to that. That said here's my take on a few of the games from the last year.

Best Game - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

This came really came out of nowhere to surprise me. I've never liked an Assassin's Creed game, and licensed games are notoriously horrible. Not to mention that the elevator pitch for the game (AC traversal meets Arkham combat) sounds like the kind of generic crap that gets spat out on beginner game dev message boards every day. But leave it to Monolith to take a banal sounding design for a game and back it up with amazing systems that bring it to life in a way most games can barely even hint at.

The Nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor elevates the game in such a way to take it from being a good open-world game with fun combat, to make it an amazing game. Running into the various orc captains in the world is a lot of fun. The great Arkham-style combat is, of course, a large part of that. Getting caught in a brawl with 5-10 orcs is immensely satisfying even at the outset of the game. The combat feels fast and fluid, and you're never entirely safe going 1-on-1. The other orcs hold back just enough to not make you feel overwhelmed, but attack frequently enough to not seem like a bad action movie where the henchman just wait in the wings for their turn.

When the game really starts to shine, however, is when you lose a fight and an orc gets promoted. When you then run in to that same orc again later, and he recognizes you and starts smack-talking to you, is when the game world comes to life. Throw in a rich hierarchy of powers to unlock and a lot of good side-missions to indulge in, and you have one helluva game. Sure, if you really poke at the Nemesis system, you can start to see the seams, but that will happen in any game. Another Monolith game, F.E.A.R., was much the same. It had what seemed to be a brilliant artificial intelligence for the enemies, but once you really pushed against it, turned out to just be exemplary scripting. The Nemesis system starts to show similar issues when stretched to it's limits, but most players wouldn't ever even see that.

My only real gripe with the game is the Tolkien-esque trappings. I love the LotR mythology, but sometimes I think being beholden to the Middle Earth storyline holds the game back. Case in point: Gollum. The only reason he seems to be in this game at all is to say, "Hey! Remember this is a Lord of the Rings thing! Precious! Precious!" Once Gollum has done his thing, he just disappears. You could literally lift that section out the game and throw in a few expository lines or flashbacks to accomplish the same thing. The rest of the story just seems to be a pretty generic fantasy theme. I can only wonder what kind of story we could have gotten if the licensed shackles weren't there.

I'm curious to see what other developers do now that the Nemesis system is out there and widely popular. Much like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's multiplayer leveling system revolutionized shooters for the last 7 years, I think the Nemesis system will have a huge impact on how open-world story driven games play for the foreseeable future.

Most Disappointing Games - Titanfall & Destiny

This category is for two games that although I enjoyed, was overall disappointed with for various reason. The first I held very high expectations based on what I saw in the game's beta. The second, shows such glimmers of genius in the finished product, but just doesn't go far enough. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but both of these games are so close to hitting the mark, yet so far.

First up, Titanfall. This first outing from Respawn Entertainment, formed by the creators of Call of Duty. I was incredibly excited at the beginning of the year. I got access to the beta on PC over a weekend about a month or so before the game released. This limited beta included the modes Attrition (team deathmatch), Hardpoint (domination/point capture), and Last Titan Standing (king of the hill with giant robots). After the beta weekend I was excited about the potential and thought it was going to be amazing. In fact, the last post on this blog from nearly a year ago, is me talking about exactly that.

So what happened? Why is Titanfall one of the games I found most disappointing this year? I've got one word for that: depth. The game has no depth to speak of. I was really hoping that the campaign mode in the game would bring something new and fresh to the shooter world. Instead, it was a series of multiplayer missions with a few voice over bits of story shoved in. I found it lackluster compared to the multiplayer, so I switched to playing just that, thinking I would come back to the campaign for a change of pace later on. Several weeks later when I tried to do just that, the campaign mode was a complete mess. I was trying to jump in to something like the 4th mission in the story, but because no one was playing, it would eventually just drop me in to the 1st mission which I had already played. I was never able to continue on in the campaign, so that was a total bust.

The other big disappointment in Titanfall was the multiplayer. Yes, the modes that I played in the beta were fun, and they're still fun today. However, the other modes included didn't do anything to really change things up and weren't as fun as the base three modes from the beta. By the time they launched the update with the "Frontier Defense" horde mode, I had lost pretty much all interest. The game is fun, and I'll still jump in from time to time, but it just didn't have everything that I hoped it would.

The next game on this list is Destiny. I've always been a fan of the Halo series, and I was really excited to see what Bungie did next. This was another game where I played the beta, but this one didn't really excite me as much as the Titanfall one did. Maybe my expectations were a little more tempered after that experience. What it did present though was a gorgeous looking shooter with great mechanics. Throw in the fact that it's made by Bungie and I was sold.

I know that the overall Halo story could sometimes get a little to self-serious with it's overbearing religious themes and schlocky sci-fi, but Bungie always made a shooter that at least had me interested in what was going on in the world as I played. So I went in to Destiny expecting the same kind of world-crafting and character building that was present in Halo. Boy did that not pan out.

The story is so paper-thin as to be almost non-existent most of the time. There's this amazing sci-fi, post apocalyptic, setting that you're thrust into without any real explanation. None of the characters exhibit any motivation for anything beyond some mystical understanding of what "must be done". And when tied in to the actual mission structure of the game, it seems so contrived. I don't know how many times I've cleared out some area on a planet to end a mission, only to have the very next mission send me through that same area, clear it out and then have that mission end in a place just a bit past where the last ended. The repetition is maddening at times.

But their are moments of brilliance that shine through in this game. The moment-to-moment combat feels amazing. The game is absolutely one of the best looking games out there right now. The world that they have built, even though the story around it is lacking, is extraordinary. I would love for them to get the story stuff right in the future so that I can further explore the universe they've created. Unfortunately, as it stands, the game is merely a very competent shooter with pretty graphics and some average MMO trappings.

Best Bad Idea - Elite: Dangerous & a H.O.T.A.S.

This category is for a recent set of purchases that I made that I'm absolutely excited about but know represent a huge black hole of lost time in my future. I recently purchased a Saitek X55 Rhino H.O.T.A.S. And Elite: Dangerous for my PC. Elite Dangerous is a space flight/exploration/dog-fighting/trading game. Frontier has modeled the (so they say) entire Milky Way galaxy to explore. You fly around in your spaceship, fighting other pilots, mining asteroids, and exploring unknown regions of space.

The X55 is a Hands-On Throttle and Stick system. It's two separate pieces, one being a throttle with a ton of buttons and toggle switches all over it, and the other being a flight-stick with a ton of buttons all over it. It takes up an ungodly amount of space on my desk. It is also one of the most awesome things I own. I started playing Elite with my Xbox 360 controller and was having fun with it, but the X55 completely transforms the game. I can't wait to play more of it.

I've also purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator X off of Steam. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it will suck me in as flight sims have always interested me, I've just never had the equipment to fully enjoy them. I should just apologize to my wife in advance of all the time I will be spending in the office.

Favorite Game - Hearthstone

Lastly, we come to the game that isn't necessarily the best game I played this year, but is undoubtedly my favorite. Hearthstone from Blizzard Entertainment. I come back to this game almost every day for at least a little bit. My iPad is constantly chirping out the sounds of this game, much to my wife's chagrin. Hearthstone has completely drawn me in a way that only one other game has in my life; Magic the Gathering back when I was in high school.

The game is incredibly simple and easy to pick up. The rules governing each turn and how all the cards are played can be understood in the time in takes to play the first tutorial. But even with how simple the game is, it is incredibly deep and full of strategy. Putting together a deck and getting some wins in either ranked play or casual is extremely satisfying. The arena mode throws in the random fun that comes with playing draft style CCG games. Add all of that to the fact that the only time I've spent a dime on this was to unlock the Naxramus expansion, and you have one hell of a game. I'm excited to see where Blizzard goes with this in the future.

Wrap-Up

So there you have it; my take on games in 2014. In my next post I'll go over what I thought about in the world of cinema.

Titanfall Impressions

This past weekend everyone was all abuzz about the Titanfall beta, and I'm no exception. I've been telling anyone who was willing to listen about how much fun I had playing the game. Several of those discussions took place via Facebook, IM, or text message, and while they were suitable venues to convey my excitement, it was difficult to get across my justifications for said excitement. I'm putting together this blog post to try and clear some of that up. Not that anyone will read it.

I received my code in the early morning on Saturday and I promptly rushed to my PC to redeem it and download the beta. Of course that meant that I had to first install the Origin client and then clean the vomit off my desk. I ran a few errands, took my son to his basketball game, and then came home to fire up the freshly installed beta. Being married with two kids means that I don't get the immense amount of time to play games that your typical hardcore gamer gets, but I was still able to put in quite a few hours over the next four days.

Before I get to exactly what I thought was so great about this game, I want to take some time to address a couple of opinions I've heard around the interwebs about it. First, I've heard a lot of buzz from people saying that this is a whole new take on the FPS genre and that if you hate what Call of Duty has done to the genre, that this is your excuse to come back/take a crack at a FPS. Total garbage. This game is made by the very same people who created Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and that fact shines through in every aspect of the game. This game's DNA is entirely based on CoD and everything that game has done over the last 7 years. If you are a Mechwarrior fan hoping that this is the rejuvenation of classic mech games, or simply are someone that doesn't like FPS games at all, this game will not tickle your fancy. This is a classic FPS through and through.

Now mind you, the beta only covered a portion of the classic multiplayer modes that will be included in the full game. There is not going to be a proper single-player campaign, but rather some kind of multiplayer, story-based, campaign mode, that we have seen very little about so far. That could end up being a real game-changer, or it could end up being Halo 4: Spartan Ops all over again. We'll find out soon enough.

The other point that is being made by many naysayers out there is that the game is simply Call of Duty with mechs. I even said exactly that briefly on Facebook when I had only put a few minutes into the game. I see where that sentiment is coming from, but I do feel that it is overly reductive. Especially since I think that it isn't the titans that make the game as fun as it is, but the ability to move around the map, and the AI controlled grunts that populate it. If you really break it down, Titans are a more mobile, easier to counter, kill-streak chopper that you would find in CoD games. It's all the other stuff that makes this a better, more accessible shooter.

So again, this is not some kind of new game type that will suddenly make FPS haters join the fold, but isn't just the same old rehashing of CoD that many of us have grown tired of in recent years. If you walked away from FPS games in the last few years because of the annual churn that CoD has turned into, I think that this game is what will bring you back.

What works?

So since it isn't the second coming, what is it exactly that makes me like this game so much? There are several things that this game does that I think make this game way more fun, more accessible, and have me really excited for the final launch of the game. Most of these are seemingly small additions/changes to the core CoD formula, but taken in aggregate, turn the game into something I find wonderful.

Not too long ago Respawn announced that the match size for games would be 6v6 and the internet exploded in a cloud of nerd rage. People began holding up the Battlefield games and the 32v32 matches as what a FPS should strive for as a standard; especially in this age of next-gen hardware. Respawn repeatedly said over the next few days that 6v6 is what they found worked best in their play-testing of the game and that anything above that made the game less fun to play. Since I can't play it with more than 6v6 I can't say with authority that it's true, but it sure seems right after playing the beta. 6v6 seems like a sweet spot. A couple times I was in a match that wasn't completely full and it felt a little off, but as soon as it filled up to twelve players, everything gelled and felt right. My gut tells me that adding more would probably make the map feel too crowded and kill the pace of a match.

Part of why the 6v6 match size feels so right to me is the addition of AI controlled units in the game. Now these units are NOT replacements for actual players. The AI is often dumb, always easy to kill, and you need to be damn near dead already for them to kill you. Even still, they bring so much to the game, and are probably my favorite thing that Respawn has implemented (at least that I've seen so far).

Having all these units running around the map makes the battlefield feel more alive, without making it impossible to walk around a corner and avoid getting shot in the face for more than five seconds. They also are a great strategical source if used properly. In the Attrition mode (essentially team deathmatch) teams earn points for kills. The first team to hit the score limit wins the match. Killing other players or taking out their titans earns the most points, but killing enemy grunts also earns a small amount of points. These units are often found running around in groups, so if you pay attention, you can take out several of them quite easily and help boost your team to victory. All kills also reduce the build time remaining for calling down your next titan. Kill a bunch of grunts and you'll have your titan in no time.

The other thing that I found grunts were great for is their audio cues. Friendly AI units will call out locations of enemy players if you are near them. There were many times that I was able to pick up a kill or avoid being killed simply because I heard an AI unit say that there was an enemy pilot in a window on the second floor of a building.

One thing I've always struggled with in playing FPS games is map awareness. Whenever I would play CoD I would invariably end up in a match at some point where no matter where I went on the map, someone had a better spot already picked out and would kill me in short order. A large part of that is the fact that I only have a short time to dedicate to playing while many of these players are teenagers living with mom and dad and can put in 4-5 hours a night memorizing maps. Titanfall seems to fix this issue (at least for me, and at least in the two maps that were in the beta) by adding an incredible amount of mobility to the player. The ability to wall-run and double-jump around the map opens it up so much. What looks like a dead-end alleyway is suddenly a quick way to gain access to higher ground. It's a ton of fun to run towards a building, double jump through a second story window, run down a hallway, jump out the window into a wall run on the adjacent building, and then launch yourself up onto the roof. The ability to move quickly not just laterally but also vertically adds so much to the game. Getting on top of a building and then jumping down onto an enemy titan for a rodeo kill put a smile on my face every time.

Speaking of titans, while they aren't my favorite part of the game so far, they are still a great amount of fun. There's something about watching a giant robot fall from orbit and land in front of you that makes the 10 year old boy in me nearly piss himself with joy. Jumping in one and stomping on enemies, and then going to battle with another titan is definitely exciting. Even more fun in my mind though is taking out an enemy titan while you're on foot. That definitely makes you feel like a bad-ass even if just for a few fleeting seconds.

EA - Take Notice

I really hope this game does gangbusters (of course it will). Not because I find the game to be a ton of fun (which I do), but because of what it represents being published by EA. Given EA's recent track record of releasing online games that are completely broken, shoehorning online play into games that don't need it, and clogging games so full of microtransactions and timing gates as to be nearly unplayable, I don't fault anyone for being skeptical of a big release from them.

EA took a studio seemingly full of top talent at Maxis, and appears to have pushed an always online agenda so hard that they destroyed the beloved SimCity franchise. That kind of over-involvement and interference doesn't appear to have happened here. My guess is that the kudos should go to Messrs. West and Zampella at Respawn for brokering the deal with EA in such a way as to ensure their autonomy, but EA executives would have had to sign off on that as well. Regardless of how it happened, it did happen, and the game is all the better for it. It has a cohesive and sensible design (at least in the small portion that I've seen) that doesn't feel like pieces were bolted on to serve some darker purpose.

Darker purposes like gross microtransactions. Burn cards in this game would be a prime target for some really disgusting microtransaction shenanigans, but it seems like they are steering clear of that. Cards are instead earned periodically (and seemingly rather often, at least with the way the beta is currently tuned) by completing different objectives such as killing X number of grunts, rodeoing an enemy titan, etc. The cards can then be used after you die for some kind of temporary perk that lasts only as long as your next life. Some might be a amped up weapon, increased move speed, or shaving build time off your titan. The EA that gave us the latest rendition of Dungeon Keeper on mobile would probably have made each of those cards cost $0.99 or be tied to some sort of stupid premium currency. "Pay $1.99 to build your Titan now!" Instead, they've left Respawn alone and the game doesn't have that garbage (yet; I'm an eternal skeptic, after all).

Because of all this I hope it sells ridiculous amounts and makes disgusting amounts of money for EA. Not because I want to see EA make record profits, but because I want EA, and all game companies, to make record profits by making great games in a way that isn't predatory towards gamers. Let's all hope that this game sets an example that focusing on making a quality product is the way to be successful instead of chasing the quick profit.