It always seemed odd to me that the male version of Commander Shepard always was billed as the 'canon" version of Commander Shepard. It was especially curious considering she had her own voice actor that I always felt was superior to the male voice actor. Maybe when the Shepard "arc" of the Mass Effect universe comes to a close they can something like KOTOR vs. KOTOR II when it comes to the main charcter. For those that are unaware Darth Revan from the original Knights of the Old Republic in the Star Wars canon is male but the canon version of The Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II is female. To me this was always a fun little touch that was interesting for those that care that seriously about the Star Wars mythos. But it would be an interesting twist that isn't that big of a deal but I would at least look forward to it.
Now it's not like I'm going to go on a massive feminist rant. Nor am I going to talk about how the only reason why I care about female Shepard is because she is sexually appealing to me. Instead I always felt like FemShep was a better character especially in Mass Effect 2. When it came to the romance options female Shepard had the better characters I could have a relationships with specifically Garrus and Thane. In Mass Effect 1 however I want the record to state that I think that Kaidan Alenko is one of the most boring characters I have ever seen in a BioWare game and I did not hesitate to cheat on his ass when presented the option. Also worth talking about is how I think her voice actor is much better than the male voice actor for Shepard. For the male version of Shepard he always seemed very serious even when I selected the renegade options during dialogue sessions. With female Shepard she always seemed snarky and self aware which is exactly how I would carry myself if I was motherfucking Commander Shepard, "Savior of the Universe." Also BioWare always had these little genius touches in their NPC's dialogue where you got a faint sense of sexism in characters that would underestimate female Shepard, and that made it all the more gratifying when I kicked their butt.
I also never really have liked the look of the default male Shepard in the Mass Effect series. Something about him feels...off if you will. Yes I know I could have customized the look of him. But the default version of either Shepard are the versions that animate best and look superior to any abominations you can create. I always tune out when BioWare talks about how you can customize your character. Partly because no matter how much I try the only thing I end up creating is space Bruce Willis or an even more ugly version of myself. All I ever did to female Shepard was make her hair the most brightest color of pink I could possibly make to just further establish that this is the future and in the future people have neon colored hair.
So with that I concluded my mixed messaged filled blog about female Shepard. Who in my books at least is the one true Shepard in the Mass Effect universe.
Something caught my attention when I finally sat down and watched Ubisoft's entire press conference. What caught my attention was that the CG trailer for Assassin's Creed: Revelations uses a song by Yoann Lemoine. I guess the Frenchies stick together especially when you consider that the CG trailer for Brotherhood used a Justice (yes they are French also) song. Anyways Lemoine is a well known well known music video director of all things having directed the music videos for Katy Perry's song "Teenage Dream" and Taylor Swift's song "Back to December." The song that Ubisoft used for Revelations was actually from his debut solo album Iron. The song title is, simply enough, Iron. This is the music video that he directed for his own song:
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Community Spotlight! With the conclusion of E3 many hotly anticipated games have been announced and showcased. With the latest E3 Quest set many of you created lists of your most anticipated E3 2011 games. If you are interested to see what the most popular activities of the Giant Bomb community were last month check out Ethan's Data Porn. Intern Kessler has made a wonderful E3 edition of Kessler Kam. Engineer Alexis is making... unusual design decisions with some site updates. Intern GlenTennis what's you to know what it is like uploading trailers.
Fun Stuff to Check Out
Giant Bomb Uncharted Community Clan! - Check out the User Guide HERE!
Vito's Game Giveaway #21! - Due This Saturday - Try to Win Some FREE GAMES HERE!
Giant Bomb DiRT 3 European Race Night - Sundays at 5:00pm GMT - Join to Race Against Fellow Users HERE!
Giant Bomb Trackmania Server - Compete on Some Crazy Tracks With Fellow Users HERE!
Giant Bomb Mortal Kombat Fight Night - Thursday at 6 PM PDT - Play Some Mortal Kombat with Fellow Users HERE!
Author's Note: Did I forget something? Or maybe you've found something new or created something worth showcasing yourself! Either way please feel free to drop a link to anything you think is amazing or worth showing off! With that I'm off to try an convince Giant bomb tohire John T. Drake to conduct their major interviews.
So the Matrix Online Community Twitter which for the last two years has attempted to gain fan control of The Matrix Online from SOE for the last two year admitted defeat. The announcement came as no surprise anyone following the Twitter account:
And here's the official announcement:
Now as many astute users may remember there are a couple of unofficial emulators running the Matrix Online for dedicated fans to play and enjoy the game on. But the real story is the fact that the fans have been trying for TWO YEARS STRAIGHT in an attempt to bring back The Matrix Online under user control and are now admitting defeat. Now those are some VERY dedicated fans, and I mean that as a compliment. Are Sony villains here? No not reallyyou give this enough time and maybe The Matrix Online will become like Ultima Online....
As you may are may not be aware of the staff are experimenting with a new text editor. They like to call it the site "parchment," and the proper website designer term is "wysiwyg editor." With this there will be changes to the way things are formatted on the wiki. The most notable being that the staff wish to eventually cease the use of tables to properly format images and text without any issues. I will let site designer Mike speak for himself: Â
Hey guys [mods], I added a new button to the table toolbar. It's called magic show. We're trying to get away from using tables in wiki layouts where possible. Clicking on that button should remove the table without removing the content of the table. Dave likened it to pulling the table cloth off a table and keeping the dinnerware on top. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it since it's not clear what it does.
All I can say is Mission Accomplished. I know I'm not supposed to reveal private messages to mods only to the community all the time but this seems like it's worth publishing. Also if you wanted to know how fellow mod CitizenKane felt about this announcement he published this .gif as his response:
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! This week we have a sizable amount of sites news to go over! As you may have noticed the site got a recent revision! If you have any strong opinions about the site revision (positive or negative) head on over to this thread. If you have found any major bugs on the site check out this thread. For those of you that think Giant Bomb has too many concept pages you might want to read this response by Jeff on his Formspring. Tony (aka G-Man) from Comic Vine celebrated his birthday on the 24th. Also Comic Vine has a new Community Twitter account worth checking out. Finally if you ever wanted to know what it is like being an intern in Whiskey Media check out GlenTennis's blog about his second day as an intern.
Important and Fun Stuff
EpicSteve's Twenty-Eleven Essay Contest Extravaganza 2011!! - Read the rules and see what the prizes are HERE!
Giant Bomb Mortal Kombat Fight Night - Every Thursday at 6:00 P.M. PDT - Sign up HERE!
Giant Bomb DiRT 3 Race Night (for 360 & PC) - Every Sunday 8:00 PM ET - Sign up HERE!
Vito's Game Giveaway #20! 1600 MSP, $20 PSN, or $20 Steam! - Due Saturday, June 4th - Win some FREE POINTS/MONEY!
The Giant Bomb Uncharted Club - Sign up to Prepare yourself for Uncharted 3 HERE!
Author's Note: Have you created an awesome piece of content or found something you think is worth a toot? Well just drop a comment on this blog with a link to the content and I will make sure to showcase it next week the Spotlight rolls around! Also if you are unaware check out the Giant Bomb Community Twitter@GiantBombSquadto stay up on all of the best of the best of the Giant bomb Community's activities...and also some shenanigans.
Not to be one upped by Sweep who is now in the running as the "most artistic mod" on Giant Bomb I feel that it is time for me to showcase my artistic talent to theGiant Bomb community. After talking to Sweep on the Steam chat I felt like "Roasting" him for his poster. The led me to steak and the word "Steaking." Hoping to create a new slang term I went with it So here we are with a piece that I would like to call Steaking:
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! For those interested to read up on some information about the various interns that Giant Bomb is bringing into their premises check out Ethan's blog about the new blood. If any of you are even more interested about what it is like being an intern for Whiskey Media then check out intern Undeadpool's blog about his first month. By hook and by crook the Giant bomb Community barely was able to accomplish the Limited Edtion Brink Quest Set for bonus EXP for 3,000 fastidious users. There are now TWO user created Giant Bomb Windows Phone 7 apps that serve different needs for all of the Giant Bomb users with Windows Phone 7. Here's a thread for one of the apps. Audio/Video man Drew recently celebrated his birthday! Tell him happy birthday if you can!
Important and Fun Stuff
Vito's Game Giveaway #18! Two More Games + Bonus Portal Contest! - Due Saturday, May 21st - Try to win FREE GAMES HERE!
Author's Note: Did I miss something or have you created something awesome yourself? Drop a comment on this blog and give yourself the proper amount of attention you deserve! That and I will remember to showcase it for next week.
Games That I Have had Spoiled as a Result of Being a Mod on GB
I'm truly honored being a member of the Giant Bomb mod community however it has come with its fair share of expected consequences. One of the most prevalent consequences is that wiki editing can spoil some big titles before I buy them. I'll try not to spoil anything for you guys here but it's best to be careful with this list:
Read the character bios when people made edits. Found out who makes it and who doesn't. Not exactly happy with this one and I definitely would have preferred that that information remain a surprise for when I play the game.
Read the ending while looking over some edits on the wiki page for the game...Almost threw my mouse against the wall when this happened. This was a game I absolutely did not want having spoiled...This one sucks the most of all the games on my list I mean I was PISSED when this happened.
Samus has a back-story, and an interesting one at that. Noticed that there was a wiki entry titled MB. Read that and ruined the game for myself. Don't do that
I was so careful as to not watch the later episodes until well over 5 months after they were published. Then I looked over some wiki edits and found out who the killer was...probably one of my angrier spoiler moments next to Red Dead Redemption.
While reading over edits didn't realize that Mirror's Edge actually has an involving story. So much so that I got too involved in reading the wiki entry when someone edited the wiki page....
Read some edits when the Deadly Premonition Endurance Run was still fresh in everyone's minds. The freshness came back to bite me in the ass (FK). I had no intention of playing Deadly Premonition anyways.
I might as well put every game in the Tales of series on this list but Vesperia gets the nod for being a game I actually wanted to buy but didn't after reading some tidying up edits the first month I was a mod.
Bought the game late and I was real careful until I first god my modship. Not a game noted for its story but knowing who the real bad guy was would have been best left to being a genuine surprise.
Reading over wiki edits (it should be noted this wiki is AWESOME!) and spoiled the ending. Ehh I can't play the game due to a severe lack of Sony products in my home. No biggie.
Read the wiki while looking over wiki edits. Didn't really have any desire to play this game after watching it in motion and hearing the primary complaints by reviewers and gamers alike. In my book it was unfortunate but no biggie.
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