Sting like a butterfly.

I thought developers had learned the lesson by now.  Remember GRAW’s ridiculous three achievements for being literally the best in the world at the game?  Well they realised, by the time the made GRAW2, that those achievements were stupid and sorted it out.

Even Epic released us from ranked match hell for Gears 2 and a bunch of other games have shifted their focus from ranked match achievements because, as we all know, playing against the random filth you find on Xbox Live is UTTERLY JOYLESS.

EA however seem to be living in this insane fantasy world where Xbox Live is actually some sort of community.  If it is, it’s that place that Karen Matthews is from.  Look at Fifa ’09, it’s a great game but the DLC forces you to try and win online tournaments against randoms.  You know, the sort of pricks who actually pay M$P for the best players, use the unbalanced formation and always play the cheap square pass/tap-in tactic for scoring.  Give me a level playing field and I’m fine, but don’t expect me to drop to their level.  If you were playing against a mate offline you wouldn’t pick Real Madrid if he picked  MK Dons would you?

Anyway, EA have repeated this trick with their new, not-as-good-as-the-last-one, boxing game Fight Night Round 4.  Firstly, there are THREE achievements for winning online belts (ie – be the best in the world against cheap tactic bastards)  in three weight divisions which is fucking ridiculous and shouldn’t happen in these post-GRAW days.  Secondly, this broken fucking system means that the champions can refuse to play you which has, all to predictably, led to the belts all being held to ransom by low self-esteem tossers who are demanding as much as 4000M$P, a year’s worth of Live or a £20 PSN card to give up the title.

I don’t know who are the bigger twats, these pondlife for doing it or EA for thinking it wouldn’t happen.

(Instant IP ban for anyone who comments about games not being about achievements/trophies, that’s not the fucking point).

I first had to question GAME’s pricing policy when they had Tony Hawk’s Project 8 on sale for £35 but had the pre-owned version there for £40.  The oddness continues to this day, as spotted by our forum-member, Dogmeat.