WilyBoy

I do think it sucks that Will and Norm are hard to find on the new Tested site, but to be honest, I hardly ever visited Tested.com in the first place. I liked the podcast and I like Will and Norm's personalities, but the site itself was a little too all over the place in terms of content. It always seemed to me that Will and Norm wanted to do more with Tested than they ever had the time/budget to do, so I'm optimistic about the future of the site and that they'll have the chance to actually carry out all their ideas. Just hope they get a little more of the spotlight in the future, though.

@xyzygy: I was actually present when he first attempted that. There were many hours of cursing, a nearly broken controller and an almost-knocked-over television.

Things I did not like about this demo:

- Reapers (the destroyers of galactic civilization) carry out their invasions by landing on the planet surface, shooting lasers and turning inhabitants into blue Lambents. One planet at a time, apparently. I guess I was expecting some more efficient method of world-ending.

- The entire invasion sequence had a real Michael Bay feel to it, and not in a good way. Lots of explosions and bombast, but no feeling of actual danger. It doesn't help that the Reapers all make Transformer noises.

- The child. Minutes before starting the demo, I was joking with a friend about Bioware throwing in a Homefront-style attempt at emotional impact by showing children in danger. I laughed out loud when you do, in fact, stumble across a scared child in danger. I laughed even harder when he died, not because I'm a psychopath, but because it was such a weak, cliched attempt at making the invasion hit home.

- Graphically, the first half of the demo looked like crap. The second half did seem to look a little better, though, so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that the Earth invasion sequence is just from an earlier demo.

- Why did they feel the need to make Ashley super hot all of a sudden?

- The stupid scene where two stupid Cerberus soldiers run directly at two Krogan and are killed, stupidly, so that the player can think: "Oh I guess she's a badass just like all the other Krogan." Stupid.

Things I did like about this demo:

- Long-range shotgun

- Biotic charge is still fun

- More branching options when upgrading skills

- That little arrow that shows you how will come out of cover is pretty neat

Before you call me a hater, bear in mind that Mass Effect 2 was my favorite game of 2010. Based on this demo, ME3 looks... stupid. I'd be happy to learn that the demo does not do justice to the final product, but I won't be picking up a copy right away.

@biggiedubs: I'm pretty sure he used a rapier, 2-handing it most of the time.

@Tackchevy: I should add that he didn't use any magic and I believe he didn't use a shield at all (or if he did he used it very rarely)

I'm sure he's not the first to do it, but now that I know it's possible (by a real person I know and not some crazy speedrun-type internet person) leveling sorta feels like cheating. It's destroyed my drive to beat the game! I feel like my character is fat and spoiled! Just wanted to share, and see if anyone has made similar accomplishments or struggled in the face of such adversity.

@chrissedoff said:

I wanna meet that dad.

@RollingZeppelin: I don't see how your analogy applies here at all. Talking about your personal life on facebook is the same as a doctor sharing someone's medical records? Maybe if this guy gave out the administrator account and password where he works at the end of the video, there would be some sort of similarity.

I don't think "bad parenting" is a fireable offense in most workplaces, either.

@RollingZeppelin: I think it teaches her that he is fed up with her bullshit, and it reminds her who provides all the nice things that she seems to take for granted. Again, I think he was acting out of emotion and not 100% rationally, but I think "I'm destroying your laptop" drives the point home much harder than "I'm taking away facebook."

@RollingZeppelin: Ok, then I agree that yeah you don't always have to be tough on a kid, but there a certain situations and certain kids that you just have to take a hard line with. I don't really have a problem with him "stooping to her level," obviously nothing was getting through to her and he really had to go out of his way to instill some kind of discipline.

The only problem I really have with his reaction is the implication that she will be grounded until she gets to college, and that she was grounded for 3 months for her original offense. Grounding her pretty much forces her to misbehave, its completely unreasonable to expect a teenager to have little to no social interaction for months at a time, AND its obvious that grounding her didn't change her attitude in the first place.

@RollingZeppelin: Congratulations on having a good relationship with your parents, but all kids aren't the same and they don't all need the same type of parenting.