Category Archives: Game Reviews - Page 3

Heavy Rain … Or… Press –> to read this post.

After many hours and many times of screaming “No, not that way!!” and “Damnit I DID hit X” I have finished playing through Heavy Rain, the thriller mystery exclusive for the Playstation 3. It took a little longer than I had originally planned due to some frustration with the control scheme and the ever impeding life thing I have going on (I really should do something about that).

Heavy Rain takes us through the story/mystery of the Origami Killer as if affects a family, the detectives searching, and the journalist reporting on it. Unlike some of the other games of this genre, you get to play as each different character to get their point of view on the story, and ultimately drive the story to a unique ending tailored to your actions. This is one of the story points that really makes Heavy Rain stand out. It’s a cleverly disguised “Choose Your Own Adventure” story where, depending on what choices you made, you may get a completely different ending than someone else. Because of the nature of the story, I hesitate to mention any plot line specifics for fear of spoiling it. Instead we will jump to the likes and dislikes.

Likes:
Great Story – Seems like most of the games I have really gotten into as of late have been driven by a good solid story. Heavy Rain really takes the murder mystery story to a whole new level with the different ways you can drive it, including multiple different outcomes. I have said many times that story is really key to a good game so I won’t spend time on this one. The story was good.
Detailed Graphics – The detail that goes into the characters and settings in Heavy Rain is amazing (in some places). If you get the chance I highly suggest checking out some of the bonus videos on the disk that show the actors that portrayed the characters in the game. The fact that they were able to make the in game faces match so perfectly was astounding.
Innovative control scheme – Heavy Rain really takes immerse control to the extreme where you can interact with so many things and each action is meticulous in it’s implementation. The use of the Six Axis to perform tasks like sliding a door, opening a cupboard, or turning a nob worked really well…..for the first 10 min (Continued Bellow).
Multiple perspectives – As the story played out you get to jump from Ethan (The Father), to Madison (The Journalist), to Norman (The Agent), and to Scott (The P.I.). Because of this it almost felt like you were following four different stories, but they all tied together in an amazing way and it was genius to see the same story from all of the different views.
Solid voice acting – None of the voice acting really felt forced like we have seen in other games. Most of the conversation seems to flow naturally and fit the mood of the game very well. The behind the scenes videos showing how they auditioned some of the actors was a great touch. I love watching voice actors perform.

Dislikes:
Suspension of Disbelief – This stemmed from one of the first scenes in the game, hopefully not much of a spoiler, where Ethan looses track of his son in a mall. He can see him only about 30 feet in front of him but the mall is crowded and it’s hard to catch up, even though you are calling out to your son, he blatantly ignores you for the full 20 min you are chasing him (right behind him BTW). The people in the mall actually move in front of you so it makes it even more difficult to catch up. Also, you can’t run so you are doing this at a walking pace. There were quite a few times in the game where I felt that the “fourth wall” was broken due to something completely unbelievable.
Graphic Glitches – So as nice and detailed as the graphics were, there were still quite a few graphics glitches that really took it from a simple glitch to a full blown annoyance. Things like fabric, the clothes they would put on or take off looked horrible. Like they could stand up on their own. Walking around the rooms made your character look like a strung out marionette. It just seemed that in free walk mode the characters had no fluid motion.
Innovative control scheme – So after the first 10 minutes the control scheme starts to really be tedius and aggravating. For example, at one point I needed to walk over to the fridge, tap the analog stick to the left to open the fridge door, tap up to grab the orange juice, shake the controller to shake the juice, tap up again to drink the juice, tap down to put the juice back and tap right to close the fridge. Now count that. That’s 6 button/stick commands to do a simple act of drinking juice. Between each command there is a pause in gameplay so I can issue the next command. Towards the end of the game it wasn’t quite as bad since you aren’t really searching anymore.

For the most part, I didn’t hate the game. The story kept me going and the way the game played out for me was good for how I played it. I really wish that the dislikes didn’t detract from the game as much as they did because it would have made it that much better. As it was I feel like I spent 20 minutes of every hour playing just doing the control gimmicks and tedious button mashing. Overall I enjoyed playing it and would give it a Solid 7 Origami Cranes out of 10.

Naughty Bear…or….20 minutes of game play I’ll never get back

Tuesday is new game release day, and Wednesday is new comic day.  Now I don’t typically buy as many new games as I buy comics, but I tend to keep an eye on what’s getting released in the same way.  This last Tuesday saw two releases that I have been watching for a while now.  Lego Harry Potter, and Naughty Bear.  I knew what to expect with any Lego game, while they may tell different stories, the game play is similar across the board.  The Sleeper was Naughty Bear.  I had seen a number of preview videos and some of the trailers, and to be honest, they did their job well and I was enticed.  It looked funny/cute in a “Happy Tree Friends” sort of way.

Sadly, I was wrong.  I bought Naughty Bear at 7:30pm on Tuesday night, got home and played through the first “episode” and instantly knew that I had made a mistake.  I toughed it out and finished the episode, then packed it up and headed back to Gamestop.  Thankfully the gracious personnel there were nice enough to let me swap it out for Lego Harry Potter.

Side note here.  I was warned, by Erin when I bought Naughty Bear, that it was going to be bad.  I decided to make my own judgment.

So what made it so bad?  Well, The idea was good and funny.  Unfortunately that was the extent of the good.  The Premise was that you played Naughty Bear, the bastard step child of this “Care Bear” style island where everything is puppies and kittens.  Some of the other bears on the island have treated you unfairly and you decide to get back at them by being naughty.  Being Naughty can range from scaring them, sabotaging their stuff, or even bashing their stuffed heads in with a baseball bat.  Who wouldn’t think that could be fun?!

What it ended up being was a series of “Challenges” where you had to sneak around and scare/kill your fellow bears while disrupting their activities.  I guess that you could play the game more Sam Fisher style and sneak in the bushes then pop out and scare them, but after the first time you do that they all know you are there, so no more sneaking will help you.  From there is just becomes “I’m going to run around and hit you with a bat”.  When you finish with the bears, you can gain a few extra points by smashing stuff.  And that was it!  After a while, even the narration is grating.

Now, I think the game may be not as bad as I am making it out to be if it weren’t for one more glaringly bad problem, it was release at the price point of $49.99.  For the same price as something like Lego Harry Potter, you get a game that may have done well as an Xbox Arcade title, for maybe $10-$12 bucks

The Graphics were just ok, the actual game mechanics were horrible.  I had to maneuver myself around and fumble with the view to get into a position where I could actually scare another bear.  Just Awful, one of the worst games I have tried.  This may, and I emphasize MAY, be worth it when the price drops down to like $5, which I have no doubt that it will fall to that.

Alan Wake

Abut a month ago I made this post to Twitter:

Me: Alan wake is a “psychological action thriller”. Sarah: That’s code for “scary as shit!”

Thus began my decent into the darkness that claimed Alan Wake, the latest story driven thriller on the Xbox 360.  I had decided to hold off on playing Alan Wake due to my obsession with Red Dead Redemption.  Since RDR took quite a while to get through the story, it delayed my run of AW.  Of course once I finished AW I had planned to write up my review but my house was set upon by a plague of darkness on it’s own with everyone catching some sort of head cold.  This leaves me behind on quite a few posts, but I will do my best to catch up.

So, Alan Wake lives up to it’s tag line (and thusly, Sarah’s translation).  The main story gets played out as a kind of a Television episodic story that is broken up into 6 parts.  Even though I spread it out over the course of the month, the actual game play was exactly 6 days.  I did this because I really didn’t want to cut off an episode mid way.  Each episode was approximately 2-3 hours of game play, so in hind sight, the whole game was just about 15ish hours of play time.  Some of you would think that is short but trust me, the story is more than worth it.

The story is where Alan Wake really shines.  Most games that come out these days have amazing graphics, outstanding music, etc, etc.  The story is really one part where many games loose it just a little.  Case in point, I loved the story in Red Dead Redemption, but there were enough holes, and missing elements that, as a player, I missed out on.   With Alan Wake, the whole game was very linear so that the string the player follows is the story the developers want to tell.  When the story is done, you may want for more, but it’s not from holes in the story, it’s from the story being so compelling that you want more of it.

Ok, Spoiler time, if you don’t want to know, don’t read any further.

Alan Wake is a troubled writer who, with his wife, vacations to a lake side town of Bright Falls.  Unfortunately, the town has it’s own dramatic flare.  A haunted lake claims Alan’s wife as it’s hostage and forces Alan to write infusing his story with it’s own powers of darkness to gain strength.  Alan escapes the story by writing himself into it (I know, it’s weird but it does make sense, kinda) so that he can rescue his wife.  You spend the bulk of the game racing through town trying to learn about the whereabouts of your wife and following a trail of dropped manuscript pages that “you” wrote for the story.  The really mind blowing meta comes from the last two episodes where you learn that Alan’s Father was trapped by the same lake and forced to write a story that leads to Alan coming to the lake, to get trapped, and forced to write a story where he encounters his father’s story…. I’m going to stop there before my head explodes.

Now, as for the likes and dislikes:

Bright Falls (Likes)

Story – The story was so well written that you really felt like you were playing out a good novel or enjoying a really well written TV show.

Ambiance – In order to set the mood for the story, the ambiance in the town flows with the story both for daytime and night time.

Narration – I loved that Alan was Narrating the whole story as I played it out.  It added more of that “I am in a novel” feeling.

Barry – Your agent comes to “rescue” you in Bright Falls and ends up tagging along on most of the ride through the story.  His comedy relief is a great add to the whole experience.

Night Falls (Dislikes)

Lip Sync – This was the BIGGEST distraction of the game.  The voicing is good by the sync with the character models became such a distraction that I had to force myself to not watch the character faces during cut scenes because it was detracting from the game.

Scavenger Hunt – One of the things you have to do in the story is to hunt around and find various scraps of the manuscript.  Hidden along the way there are also a number of Coffee Thermoses, weapon stashes, and radio/TV shows you can tune into.  The problem I had with this is that I would walk into an area and start searching the areas that were more off the path of the story in order to try and find these things.  In some respect it’s cool, but in many it’s just a distraction.

Over all I felt Alan Wake was an amazing game.  I can’t wait for the next two episodes that are due out as DLC soon.  Hopefully the game won’t suffer in numbers due to being released opposite Red Dead Redemption.  Go Buy It!!

E3 Week and Kinect

So this is the start of E3 week and the big news so far is the new Kinect controller, or the Controller formerly known as Natal. We all knew it was coming and now it’s hear. The pictures so far look great. I am not too sure about the list of games though. According to USA Today the release list of games at launch will include:

Kinectimals lets you train and play with 20 different virtual cats, including a lion, cheetah and tiger.

Joyride, a racing game, lets players use their hands to hold an imaginary steering wheel — pull your hands toward you and push back out for an acceleration boost — and their bodies to execute jumps and tricks.

•Kinect Sports has six activities including boxing, bowling, beach volleyball, track and field, soccer and table tennis. To serve a volleyball, you mimic the real motion; in soccer, you can kick the ball or do a header.

Kinect Adventures includes a river-raft time trial and obstacle course, playable by up to four players. On the raft, playing as a duo, you and a partner must lean one way or another to steer. Jumping helps the raft reach special areas for extra points.

Dance Central, in development by MTV Games, incorporates immersive, full-body dancing without the need for a controller.

•Star Wars characters and iconic Disney favorites will be featured in separate new games being developed at Microsoft in conjunction with LucasArts and Disney.

In other E3 news, some new game trailers have been released for a few games I am really looking forward to seeing.

The Force Unleashed II:

Rock Band 3:

Spiderman Shattered Dimensions:

Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun week!

Red Dead Redemption

Yeah it’s been a little while since the last update, mostly because I have been powering through Red Dead Redemption, the latest open world game from Rockstar Games.  (There was also a little time spent down with friends in Fredericksburg, Aw Yeah GhettoCon!)  So after much playing and venturing back and forth from New Austin to Mexico, I have finished the game.  (and to those who know, you just lost the game)

One of the things I love about the open world games from Rockstar is that they know how to write a good story, and then they let you play it out as you like, when you like.  This happened with Grand Theft Auto IV as well.  The story was so engaging that I really felt for some of the characters and cared about what happened with them.  When one of the characters wronged me, I felt no compunction when it came time to choose to kill them or let them live.  I also became attached to certain characters and found myself wondering if there would be more missions with them or if I would even run into them again.

This happened in spades in RDR.  From the very start of the story I began to meet characters that made me want to work on the story more than the side missions.  I almost wish that there was some sort of random mission generator that would involve the storyline characters more instead of just standard NPC’s, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The story starts out with John Marston getting escorted into a train to the middle of nowhere in New Austin to Confront one of his old Gang Member friends Bill Williams.  John, not being all that smart, confronts Bill outside of a heavily guarded fort and gets himself shot.  Thankfully, a local Rancher, Bonnie MacFarlane, comes to your rescue and nurses you back to health.  As it turns out these Shady government types have kidnapped your Wife and Son and are holding them until you turn in your former game members.  The story has you venturing all through New Austin to hunt down these gang members. Along the way you learn how to ranch, hunt down other law breakers, fuel a Mexican Revolution, and explore a number of interesting characters.  So as to not spoil anything, I will stop there with the story and move to game play.

Rockstar is very well known for their open world games and with RDR they took it to the next level.  The setting was absolutely stunning.  Everywhere I went I found myself stopping for a moment to admire the graphics and the environment.  There is something about watching the sun set over the Mexican desert while sitting on the back of your horse who just saved you by outrunning the bandits that were chasing you down.  As I have stated before, the story is awesome.  It engages you, it pulls at your heart strings, and even enrages you at some points.  (I found myself exclaiming as certain points “Damn I hope I get to kill that guy!)

I actually had only a few issues with the game.  There is an aiming system that allows you to snap to a target, kind of like Modern Warfare of Bad Company, when zooming in.  This is a blessing and a curse.  I found myself accidentally snapping to the wrong target a few times and shooting Lawmen instead of Bandits, Stagecoach drivers instead of Bandits, etc.  This resulted in some unwanted bounties and loss of honor.  I didn’t bother to reload thought because. well, accidents happen!  Also, watch out for bears.  There is a reason why they are the Number One Threat to America.  My last complaint is a little bit of a spoiler so I will do my best to talk around it.  After the ending, which is very touching and I loved it, being able to continue roaming the world is great, but I felt very disconnected from the character after that point.  Through all the rest of the story you really start to identify with Marsten and his troubles, after the ending, Marsten just isn’t the same and I felt awkward playing as him.

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Overall the game is outstanding and well worth the many many many hours spent playing it.  I only wish there were more story.

Also….Poor Bonnie.


Red Dead Redemption and Hard Labor

Just a quick post to let you know I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet (again).  The last few weeks have been spent diving into Rockstar’s new Red Dead Redemption and doing a bit of hard time demolition work in my back yard.  I hope to get a review of RDR up soon as I am probably about 50% through it now.  Initial reaction:  Amazing, go get it and expect to spend most of your free time wandering around New Austin.  Speaking of free time, in the back yard, I am tearing down the above ground pool that has lingered in all it’s ghettoness back there and it’s time for it to go.  So I bought a new saw (Dewalt 13 amp Reciprocating Saw) and I am carving it up like a turkey.  Hopefully I can take in the scrap metal and get some good cash out of it.

Also, we picked up a new car!  We traded in the Honda Fit and got a Ford Escape Hybrid model.  2010 with all the bells and whistles.  For a gadget geek like me it’s even got the Microsoft Sync stuff for integration with my phone.  I might even do a little bit about that later, but I wanted to keep this short.  So keep your eyes out for a full review of RDR and next on deck is Alan Wake! (which is sitting in all it’s shrink wrapped glory taunting me)

Bob and Steve Ride Again

When America needs a hero, when Freedom stands alone, Americas top agents will defend our liberty from those who wish us harm.  Let is join Special Agent Bob and Secret Agent Steve, two of the finest official unofficial splinter cells.

That’s right, Splinter Cell is back and it’s awesome.  (Sometimes I wonder if I use the word awesome too much…hmmm)  Splinter Cell Conviction came out this month and I finally got around to focusing on it.  (it’s been a rough few weeks with travel and such)  I managed to finish the outstanding single player campaign last night and was very impressed with the story.  The story for this episode of “Sam Fisher kills everyone” is that Sam discovers that his Daughter is still alive and vows to do anything it takes to get her back!  Oh and something about saving the President and such too.  For the first time in a SC story I felt genuinely involved in the story!  There was an actual level of attachment where I cared about the characters that I haven’t gotten in other SC games.  Most of them before just seemed like puzzle games where I can see how I can get from one side of the map to the other without killing anyone or annihilating everyone.  So this was a nice change of pace.  Finishing up the single player game meant that I unlocked all the weapons I would need for Multi-player.

Before I get into Multi-player, I feel I should mention the Bob and Steve thing. So a few years ago a couple of guys did a little machinima called “Splinter Cell Co-Op Theater” and the stars were Bob and Steve.

There are actually 11 total episodes and they are hilarious.  So, when I heard that Splinter Cell Conviction would have Co-Op multi-player, I talked with my friend Lee and we decided that it was game on for Bob and Steve.  Not so much with the making of Videos and such, but honestly, that’s how we play.  If you watch these videos you will see EXACTLY how Lee and I play SC.  Last night was a great example.  We joined up to start working on the Co-Op campaign and ended nearly in tears as we tried to extract on the helicopter.  (GET DOWN HERE AND REVIVE ME YOU BASTARD!!  NO I Do NOT want to Jump over the RAIL!)

I will work on getting to more of the other side stuff like Deniable Ops and such, but in the meantime, Splinter Cell Conviction gets an 8 Donald Sutherland’s out of 10.  (watch episode 11)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Marlow, Haggard, Sweetwater, and Sarge all return for the sequel to the Battlefield Bad Company line of games. I just finished the single play campaign for BC2, and am in the midst of the multi-player side.  The multi-player will no doubt be occupying many many hours of my gaming time, especially since I have such good friends to play with.  That’s what this game is really all about.  The multi-player aspect of BC2 is designed around you and your friends, not you and 16 of those random people you meet up with in game.  You and your friends start a squad and go to town!  But more on that in a moment.

As I said I finished up with the mingle player “multi-player tutorial” campaign.  Well, that’s what it felt like at least.  With BC1 the game was build with both the single play and the multi-play worked in.  The campaign was rich and well written, with some good funny bits and a solid story.  BC2’s single play is just hollow.  It felt like I was just being walked through and shown all the different things I would be able to use in the multi-player area….”Here is how to drive a tank”….”here is how to use the UAV”…etc.  The writing and dialogue didn’t even pick up to a serious pace until the last chapter.  Also, the collectibles were laughable.  In the first game you were searching for certain guns and gold chests…because they tied into the story.  The second one it’s like “You may run across these blinky chests and a few guns along the way, blow up the chests and take the guns…..if you want”  I was very very very disappointed.  Not even the constant Modern Warfare 2 bashing helped with that.  (Ok, maybe it helped a little.)

Now, to switch gears, the Multi-player is amazing.  Yeah, I said it, Amazing!  I have one word for it….Destructible!!  Everything is!  I love that I can take down an entire building if I don’t like someone on the top of that tower…Boom, no more tower.  Currently I believe I am level 4 (spent most of the time playing single player) and I have found that when you play as a medic, they just hand you points.  You get points for dropping a med kit, reviving players, oh and for that whole killing people thing.  I highly suggest if you are just starting out, run as a medic for the first few levels!

So here I am, torn, because I really feel that, as a multi-player game, this game is outstanding.  But I bought it because I really loved the Single player game from the first one, and that fell short.  Well, honest opinion….buy it.  It’s damn fun to play online.  If you are looking for a game that you and your friends will enjoy for hours on end, this is it.  Sorry if I am not going in depth on any one aspect specifically, but I don’t want to spoil anything of the game, but seriously, you know what you need to about the game, go buy it, run through the single player campaign first so you know what to do in multi-player, and enjoy!

Toy Soldiers (Micro Review)

So I have been a little out of it this week due to some crazy injury to my back.  Don’t ask, I am not sure how it happened either, I just know it hurts like all hell and I apparently did the worst thing I could do for it.  You see, the Doc tells me that I strained the cartilage on my ribs.  So when you strain a muscle you want to apply Ice to reduce swelling and heat to encourage blood flow.  Yeah, when you strain cartilage, you apply ice, and that’s it.  When you apply heat it only makes it worse.  So the other night when my back was hurting to all high hell, (and I hadn’t been to the doc yet) I came down and slept with a electric blanket balled up on my back……alll night.  Needless to say the next day was insanely painful.  They gave me lots of good drugs and I am spending most of my time laying down on an Ice pack.  So I have had lots of time to sit and play on the Xbox.

Enter Toy Soldiers.  Toy Soldiers is a new Arcade title that was released about 2 weeks ago.  The premise of the game is more tower defense style set with your old fashioned Toy Soldiers (Duh).  Now, back in the 90’s there was a game called Army Men, which took your old green army men and animated them to a strategy game.  This game is nothing like that.  The soldiers in this one are the old old style, think the old metal soldiers your grand dad would have had.  (for some of you, your great grand dad, damn I am getting old)  In Toy Soldiers you have your toy box and an unlimited stream of soldiers at your disposal.  You however only control the defensive aspect of the game.  You can queue up your offensive force and hope they make it to the other side.  You can take control of the various turrets and defenses to add more of a human element to the defense.  But that is all just the basic game play.  Some of the best parts of the game come from the overall design.

So lets charge into it, shall we?

The Hoo Rah’s!!

  • The overall look of the game is awesome.  The setting of making the backgrounds look like a bedroom where you are really sitting and just playing with your soldiers is great.  Add in the period music and it’s a great package.  I could almost just set the menus and leave with the background playing and enjoy it.
  • Upgrades Upgrades Upgrades!  Each unit has a series of upgrades which not only make the unit perform better, it changes the look!  A machine gun turret changes to a cannon and it has a completely different look of the soldiers.
  • No Launch and leave.  Most Tower Defense game you can build them up to a specific place and then just leave them alone to finish the job.  Like it or not, you can’t do that here.  You have to stay engaged.

The “Don’t Ask Don’t Tells”

  • It’s a race!  When playing multi-player you pretty much are in a race to get your upgrades done the fastest.  If I can get my howitzer up to level 3 it will have the range to destroy your guns.  So first to get there usually wins.
  • The AI is smart, but not that smart.  You need to be on top of almost every aspect of the defenses if you want to catch everything before it gets to your toy box.  It can get a little “Micro (no pun intended) Management” like.,
  • No Specials for teams.  Maybe I just haven’t found it yet but it looks to be just two Teams, the Brits and the Krauts (British and German troops) and they all seem to have the same equipment.  It would have been nice to have the Germans get a special gun that the British don’t, and vice versa.

Now all that being said, I really do like the game.  It’s a great way to spend some time while I am laid out on the couch.  And I am sure I will find more good in it the more I play.  (I could do without the creepy gas mask Avatar award though).  If you enjoy the old timy aspect of classic Toy Soldiers, I Highly suggest you at least download the demo and check it out!  If you buy it then feel free to send me a game invite!

Picard never Hit me!

Some new Star Trek news real quick for today.  I am, of course, still playing Star Trek Online which has been going good with one small exception that I will go into in a moment, but I want to discuss a few other Trek related things first.  DragonCon is coming and quite a few new guests have been announced and many of them are Trek related.  I don’t know if Shatner and Nimoy got back and passed the word about how much fun they had but there is a HUGE guest list of Trek people:

I am eagerly awaiting the chance to find and get signed a picture of Q and Sisko in their boxing gear from DS9.  This list, no doubt, will be growing as we get closer to the time of the Con, which is Sept.

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3-6 of this year.  I will in attendance and, if I can manage it (without ending up with a restraining order), I will get as many interviews as I can with some of these folks.  I would love to hear what they think about some of the more modern versions of Trek either in Game or other new media.

Also on the radar is a new project that some friends and I are working on….the creation of the “Maroon Monster” costume, which I understand is the nickname for the Wrath of Khan style uniform from Star Trek.  The patterns have been ordered and work will start soon.  I will be more than happy to post progress pics and eventually a full production blog on the process.

Ok, lastly, my progress in STO has slowed only slightly because of a problem I am having.  I made it to Deep Space 9 in the game and noticed that you can purchase a Danube class Runabout from one of the vendors.  This is a small Shuttle that you can fly and outfit with weapons.  It’s purely a luxury item and fun to fly.  The problem lies in that when you buy it, all of your stats on your equipment get cut in half, or at least they display that way.  No one has determined exactly what happens.  I put in a ticket about the issue and was brushed off with a “Yeah we know about it, we’ll fix it soon”.  Normally I would be ok with that except that, from what I have read about this bug from others, No one is sure if it’s a display issue or a real game effecting issue and no GM has stated one way or the other.  Players also claim if you decommishion the shuttle, your stats get resolved, and that’s great but I paid 149k credits for the shuttle and I would hate to waste that.

So I mentioned all this to the GM’s in the ticket I submitted hoping to get an answer on if it was a display issue or real issue, and if they would take the item from me and refund the amount.  Neither of which happened.  I was told again “Yeah we know about it and the devs will get to it” with a side glancing “we don’t give refunds”.  So as of now, you can still purchase the Danube class ship from DS9, it WILL break your stats, and there is NO WAY to get a refund even if you put in multiple tickets.  How hard is it to get a ticket, remove the item, refund the credits?  it has no effect on the economy because the goods are removed.  It would remove the headaches of dealing with players afflicted with this bug, and if you remove the item from sale and implement it when it’s fixed, all the better!  My ticket is still open and there is a thread open on the STO forums.

Sigh.