Mass Effect

Ya know, there's this one thing that's always bothered me about Mass Effect and now DA...

People treated Specters in ME as supermen of a sort. But really, you're visually just another soldier in battlearmor and carrying a gun. Not that remarkable, right? Same issue here in DA. I come up on some wounded soldier and he somehow knows that I'm a Grey Warden. But uh, how would he know that? I look just like any conscripted bum with a suit of armor and a shield and sword. How does my appearance look like a Grey Warden? Not to mention, I wasn't technically a Grey Warden yet. Shouldn't a Grey Warden look like some uber knight with shiny bling or something? I just, I dunno what to think here. There's absolutely nothing to distinguish a Grey Warden from any regular soldier. Why would any NPC talk about Wardens in hushed tones of reverence, when there's no visual indicator that a Warden is among them? I don't get it.

KOTOR was a different matter cause it's obviously easy to tell a Jedi with a lightsaber from any regular soldier wielding some vibroblade.

So I've got 3 untouched games sitting on my hard drive, all I bought from digital services that had them for either a reduced price or for free.  
 
They are: 
 

• Psychonauts-Got this from free from GameTap
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory-$5 on D2D
• Mass Effect-$10 on Steam

There is no doubt that everyone saw this coming way before Modern Warfare 2 was even released. It only took two days before Fox News to to attack Modern Warfare 2.
 
On Wednesday, November 11th fox news released this news report that literally says says that after playing this game an eight year old WILL become a terrorist.
 
 
  It is no surprise that Fox did not do their research. We have seen this in the past with the Mass Effect "SeXbox" scandal. I'm not so much enraged at the fact that they are attacking modern Warfare 2 because as a news outlet, they have that right. The important thing to realize that Fox news will refuse to do any kind of qualitative research whatsoever when it comes to video games. Fox News would claim that they are a news organization that upholds the highest standard of journalistic integrity but the reality is that they have no journalistic integrity when it comes to the subject of video games. They will pass judgment on  something that they, themselves will never personally interact with, other than trying to insinuate that everyone who plays the game will become a terrorist. What is my point in all of this? We should laugh at the ignorance of fox News, not take it as an attack on the gaming community. They simply do not know any better.
 
I'm going to pose one final question? Is Modern warfare 2 anymore graphic than the dozens of murder stories that fox news airs every day?
 
What is your emotional reaction to the game?
 Feel free to comment

So I've finally decided to do something about my liking of video games. I've always found that it wasn't enough to simply sit back and play them, and I've always had to let my voice be heard about certain games. I wasn't too sure where to start out, but using GiantBomb's easy to use blogging feature, It solved my dilemma. I hope to blog most thursdays, although I doubt people will read them. 
 
First off, Machinarium. Awful game, with brilliant art design, it's a shame. The amount of charm that game exudes barely covers the broken movement mechanic. I've never had to wait so long for something to happen in a video game. Sure I can understand it's beautiful art style and charm caters for some people, just not for me. At all.

After finally wading through the summertime arcade launches, (Splosion' Man, Trials HD, The Secret of Monkey Island (SE), Sam & Max Save the World Eps 1 - 6, and Shadow Complex) I thought it would be best to give my eyes a rest and grant myself another dimension to play in. Therefore I picked up Oblivion, an old game I used to own on the PC, but never got around to finishing. I'm not sure what I can say that already hasn't been said, but I will say something that most people will disagree with. The whole of that goddamn engine is broken.
 
It's improbable that I'm the first cynical douchebag to plague the site with this argument, but in my eyes, most games Bethesda develop have lacklustre combat mechanics, as if this is compensating for the amazing role playing aspect. And by most games I mean this and Fallout 3. Obviously it's hard to keep combat flowing with all that number crunching going on, but Mass Effect pulled that off rather well, so it's not impossible. I think I should have bought this game for the PC again, because on the 360 I would have been lucky to get at least a steady 10fps whilst outside. But that's my rant over, and I still do love Oblivion. 
 
 I hope to play some more recent games soon. Hey, MW2 is out in five days right?

  Thoughts on games I'm playing now or will play in the near future:

1. Borderlands: one I've been expecting anxiously and one I'm really not sure about. I like a lot of what I see and dislike a lot of other things. It seems to me the game has a lot of little flaws that should be no-brainers for the developers and despite being small stuff (like the interface on the PC and no proper loot-sharing method) it might add up. The fact the game didn't unlock on Steam on the 26th (like previously announced for my territory), didn't help much. It bothers me that all the looting is pretty much focused on the guns and that it doesn't change your appearance, this kind of stuff seemed so obvious to me. Still believing, tough. Might turn into a success and maybe Borderlands 2 will turn out to be everything I imagined. Now, can you please unlock the damn thing ?
2. World of Goo: I gave 2D 10 bucks for it. Thought 20 dollars was a bit much, maybe I was wrong. I've only played about an hour, but it looks and sounds awesome and has a lot of charm, wich is something I value and few games have it. Gameplay is still very simple, but I heard it gets pretty hard, so I have to still get there.
3. Machinarium: I'm throught the first three scenes now and this game proves that you can have very simple mechanics and still have a nice game. This is pretty much a Flash puzzle, but it looks incredible, the music is interesting and it also has tons of charm. I'm very curious to find out how it goes on. Also, love the hint mechanic.
4. Torchlight: Already wrote about this one, here it is.
5. Dragon Age:Origins: what got me into this one was the epic scale and it also reminds me of Neverwinter Nights, wich I loved. Not sure what to expect. It seems to be prettty straightforward with the fantasy setting, nothing new there. But Bioware knows their RPG, so I'm hoping for the best. Only thing that scares me is that 20 Gb download on Steam...pretty much the only thing I'll download next month, I guess.
6. Mass Effect: I'm pretty late for it but my previous machine couldn't run it. I'm about two hours into it and since I like Bioware RPG's and like space, well, there you go. The problem with games like this one (and also Dragon Age, I'm sure) is that they take me forever to get through. Usually developers are vey vocal about their 100-hour games and I always think "how the hell am I going to finish this". Now, who the hell thought these elevators were a good idea.
7. L4D 2: I'll be late to this one. Surprisingly, I'm not that curious to play it right away, I didn't pre-order and won't buy it on launch, I'll wait a bit because there's so much stuff to play right now. But I'm guessing it will work out fine and I hope they support this one longer.

Am I missing something ? Probably...
It sucks having a day job and just a couple hours a week to play all this stuff. And you know, there's life outside of videogame world...no, really ! Anyway, what games are you looking forward the most in the holiday season ?

Friends, I am worried about Mass Effect 2. To understand why, we need to take a trip back in time, to the tender year of 2004. 
 
Actually wait we need to stop at 2003 first. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time releases to critical praise and mainstream success off of it's charming storybook atmosphere and tight platforming. A year later, we find ourselves with a sequel, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. It is... different. Tragically different. The rougish charm of the Prince had been discarded for nausea-inducing baditude, the combat became brutal and almost too gory, and the background music became heavy metal- all as if to say: this game is fucking HARDCORE. Only problem: this was a complete tonal 180 from the previous game. No one liked it, and even though it did well enough to generate a sequel, Warrior Within is credited by many as the game that killed the goodwill built up by Sands of Time.
 
I am worried much the same may be happening with Mass Effect 2.
 
The first game was pretty universally loved. Despite being criminally short and possessing the blandest sidequests in the history of sidequests, the roleplaying was pretty solid and it was clear that Bioware had laid the foundations for a great trilogy. It was a good blend of action shooting and interacting with NPCs. The shooting perhaps left a bit to be desired, but aside from that the game was pretty enjoyable. From the get-go we know this is the first in a trilogy, so obviously there's room for improvement.
 
Enter Mass Effect 2. What we've seen pre-release is quite worrying and seems to indicate the same sort of tonal shift that sunk Warrior Within. The first time live gameplay was shown it was an entirely combat-oriented demo. Bioware showcased the ability to blow off enemy limbs and new, more brutal guns. First warning sign. Blowing off enemy limbs isn't even necessary in a game like Mass Effect- it's gratuitous.
 
Next, plot info starts surfacing- talk of suicide missions, recruiting scum and villains from across the galaxy. At E3, the developers show off
Talk from Bioware of this being a darker game, darker times. Warning sign two. Not that darker tones are necessarily bad- Empire Strikes Back would like a word if you think they do- but the talk, compared with what's been shown so far, again points to a WW-like shift in direction.
 
Most recently, I direct your attention to this trailer.
 
 
 Warning bells should be going off all over the place. I don't think this really needs any explanation.
 
Now, Bioware's marketing department isn't exactly renowned for their accuracy. As I'm sure we all know, Dragon Age is not exactly the new shit. However, it is worrying to see both the developers (in dev diaries and press interviews) and the marketing department (in trailers) sync up to deliver this message of a darker, more bad-ass game. It's terrifying corporate cohesion that I don't think would be happening if there wasn't some underlying truth.
 
I really want to like Mass Effect 2. I want it to deliver so hard. I'm quite worried about what we've seen so far though, as it seems to be heading down the tragic road of Warrior Within. I don't want to play an RPG with a tone like WW, nor do I want that sort of bad-ass attitude to pervade the product, but my hopes are significantly lower now than they were when we knew nothing about the game.
 
Also: Grunt <<<<<<<<< Wrex

It's been a long time since I've written anything here. I'm scared to check how long exactly because it's probably almost a full year. Much of that time has been spent working a full time job - something I wasn't used to - and I've barely been managing to PLAY any games, let alone write about them. I took a week's holidays and have taken the opportunity to sit down and actually *gasp* finish some games.
 
In order:
 
Played through GH Metallica on Expert Drums.
 
It was the last instrument I needed to beat to get that 150 point achievement so that was nice. 175 points for something like an hour's work. This also marks the third drum kit I have rendered completely useless and with that I am officially resigning from music game drumming. They're so big and so expensive and they work for approximately one week before the pads all crack and they start extra hitting/not hitting. It's a shame, because I AM playing and passing most of the hard stuff on expert, but I'm getting a max combo of like 15 because the drum kit is so broken. I also managed to pull something the wrong way and wreck the connector of my $100 Destroyer pedal. Unless someone accidentally mails me an Ion kit for free I am never ever EVER playing drums in a music game again.
 
While I'm on the subject of being done with music games... I am done with music games. After the soul-crushingly easy Beatles Rock Band left me wondering "Why are we even here?" on my way to a Full Game Full Combo on the second day after release I wasn't TOO dissappointed because, hey, Guitar Hero 5 was out the next week. While the game is certainly a better experience than World Tour (not difficult) there are still enough things wrong with the menus that should have been fixed four games ago alongside a host of new problems (Why, for example, does it scroll right back to the top of the song list any time I do ANYTHING?) that it's just a really frustrating experience all around. Add to that the increasingly aggravating super easy difficulty of the entire setlist and the low quality of most of the songs chosen and it adds up to a game I'm unlikely to go back to very often from here on in - if at all. I used to fail songs. I had to learn how to play them. I LOVED that. Being forced to learn to gallop to 5 star The Trooper in GH2 is one of the most satisfying experiences of my gaming life. There just aren't any new tricks to learn any more. It's a really sad thing realising your favourite genre of game isn't fun any more. Band Hero and Lego Rock Band are both out on the same day in a couple of months and I flat out don't want them. Easier games and worse songs is NOT a step in the right direction for those franchises. Do I still want Van Halen? Probably. I'm not even sure, anymore. I will applaud ONE change in GH5 and that is that no one gets stuck playing the (usually) even easier bass part. Nine games worth of innovation, right there.
 
There is some hope on the horizon. DJ Hero is out at the end of this month and I'm hoping that, as a completely new skill set to learn, it will bring back that same experience I used to love in GH. Either that or it'll be a total wash and I'll never play a music game again. I'll let you know which in about 4 weeks.

Played through the remaining levels of Wolfenstein.
 
It's a FPS, certainly. There's a big fight going on at the GameFAQs boards about a guy who claims to have beaten this game in 5 hours. Everyone there hates him and say they spent 15 hours or so on it. I beat the game in 4:21 and I am unlikely to return to it. It's not BAD but it's a very long way from being GOOD. The rifle was very nice once fully upgraded and the violence is just over the top enough to be interesting but that's basically all I can say for the game. The only time in recent memory I have cared less about a story in a game was in Mercs 2, where I actually just turned the sound right off for the whole game. I'm hearing pretty widespread reports of the game freezing once you collect most of the hidden items and there seems to be no patch in sight. I'm only mildly surprised by that after seeing the rest of the game. This is NOT as good as the reviews it is getting suggest and if it had been any longer than that 4:21 I might not have bothered.

Started and finished Mass Effect.
 
2007 was stunning. I managed to beat many of the big name releases of the year back then (Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Halo 3, Uncharted etc.) but there will always be a few important ones that slip through the cracks. I loved Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect is a very impressive progression from that game. The graphics are outstanding for the most part, the most obvious flaw being those awful shadows on people's faces. The important part here is the speech between characters. The voice acting is uniformly some of the best to ever appear in a game and the conversation system is outstanding. The actual content of the conversations and the story itself are also some of the best gaming has on offer. The combat works incredibly well and it's a system that I'd like to see blatantly copied in a few more games. I am glad that I waited as long as I did to play it because it's now only a few months until the sequel and I may have gone insane waiting over two years for it.

I think that's everything I've gotten to the credits of in the last few days. I have Tomb Raider Underworld in the drive right now, ready to play with intent to complete. I think I'm halfway through or further already. Also in line to be played through are Prototype, Bionic Commando, Condemned 2, Dead Space and Super Mario Galaxy, all of which I have played maybe the first hour of. My current "Sound turned off, listening to a podcast" games are Dirt 2, Red Faction Guerilla and Trials HD. Dirt 2 is very good, though the shift in stye from the first game was a poor decision. Rewind is a lifesaver, though my "reset to track" button is sorely missed. More actual point to point rally races would have been nice. 3 lap circuit races are not something I am enjoying and if I ever have to race that Ensenada track again I'm going to stop playing. I am liking RF: G for the most part. If things reset when you died, it might be literally unplayable but hey, that's not the case. Knock over a building, it falls on you and kills you, you respawn and it's still knocked down. Genius. Seriously. Trials is fun when you're getting it right but seriously WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? One of the expert tracks I had to retry so many times that it actually kicked in a time limit I'd never seen before and restarted the level after about 250 attempts at a single obstacle. I guess what I mean is that the first three sets of levels are fun and the rest of the game is an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE. I have gone through entire podcasts and still been stuck on the same level.
 
In non gaming news: The Boat That Rocked, Inglourious Basterds and Watchmen are the best three movies so far this year in that order. Here's hoping one or more of those sneak in to that new 10 slot Best Picture shortlist. Oh, and Up is garbage. It seems like everyone else has been watching a totally different movie than I saw.
 
Front runner for GOTY is still Resident Evil 5. The amount of fun I had with that game may come down to the fact that I have never played it in any way other than online co-op. Got the full 1000 in it, which included at LEAST three full playthroughs, maybe more.
 
According to my release schedule the next important release is Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2, both on October 15th. Basically that means that I am never going to play Brutal Legend. Sorry, Tim.
 
I'll be keeping this up to date from here on in. It's good to be back.

This blog contains spoilers for Mass Effect
 
Now I'm starting to realize how difficult it can be to keep up a consistent user blog. As some of you may or may not have noticed, I disappeared for yet another week or so. The reason being is that my mom's laptop, which I had been using due to mine being killed by a virus, finally met the same fate. This is terribly ironic, as my mom is always telling me to not download stuff because I'll get a virus and that all Giant Bomb is somehow destroying my computer. Our neighbor took her laptop to get it fixed, and we finally got it back. The cool thing is that one of the tech dudes or whatever for the Senate fixed it. We're sending mine in to get fixed next.

Anyway, I'm trying to remember all of the things that happened during the time that I was gone. Probably the biggest thing was that after 2 weeks of school (because I'm incredibly spoiled) we went to Gamestop to spend 60 bones. I got 4000 Microsoft Points, respectfully pushing away Giant Bomb's recommendation of Batman: Arkham Asylum. With it I downloaded Shadow Complex and Mass Effect. The former I've been wanting to play since I watched the demo at E3. The latter of which I hadn't played in a year due to the fact that I had borrowed it from a friend. Both games are great, as I had expected. I never thought that I would play a game like Shadow Complex. I didn't think 2D (or in this case, 2.5D) games would interest me, but this game did , and it rocks. The story is kinda meh, and after about 30 minutes of playing I completely forgot about it. I beat it in just under 7 hours I believe. I started a second playthrough to try and collect 100% of the items, but after spending 3 and a half hours getting 50% of them, I totally screwed myself by doing the quick ending where you abandon Claire. Now I must start that all over again..... I still have 2000 points left, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new Red Faction: Geurilla maps coming out Thursday. That release day is great, because I don't have school Friday. I'll have three days to play them. Sweet.

Mass Effect is still a great game. Back in '08 when I had it, I got to level 54 with my first character, a Soldier, and beat the game. I then started another quick playthrough where I played as a Renegade. Now, I'm on my third character, a Vanguard, and I'm trying to complete the majority o f the game and reach level 60, although I'll probably have to start a New Game+ or whatever in order to do the latter. Right now I have quite a lot of side quests completed, and my next main mission is Virmire. I know that after that mission, I get grounded on the Citadel, so it's been difficult trying to find every quest and beat it before heading there. I actually screwed up pretty bad on Feros. After the colonists turn against you, I ended up killing 2 or 3 of them because I ran out of Thorian grenades. It just so happens that the 2 or 3 that I killed were quest givers, which means I am unable to complete some of them. Lame. Anyway, I really love the whole atmosphere of that game. Everything about it is just......splendid.

Yesterday, we were at Gamestop once more returning Ace Combat 6, which my dad had randomly bought a few days prior. Because it was used, we got a full refund, and I ended up buying Crackdown for $17. This was another game that I had borrowed from the same friend and hadn't played in a year. I managed to beat it in a hour due to me being so close to the end. I've decided that sometime during this week I'm going to trade that back in and get Batman: Arkham Asylum. I can't wait, because that game looks like the sex, yo.

What else..... I've been incredibly lazy the past few weeks or so. Catching up on Giant Bomb can take some time, you know? On Saturday, I took the time to type up a quick review of the film Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. You can find it here. Wanna know something mind blowing? I think he's a pretty good actor. Besides that, I've made very slow progress on my Left 4 Dead Versus Guide, which I suppose I can announce publicly that I'm making one. It's been in the making for probably 2 months now. I've been slowly putting stuff into it, and it's actually looking pretty good so far. I'm surprised I haven't deleted it.

Surprisingly, that's all I can think to write at this time. Weird, because I've been gone for over a week and then some. Oh well.
 
EDIT: Oh, and I laughed myself to sleep last night listening to Marshyd13 harass people on Xbox LIVE. Fantastic.

Until next time, children.