Mass Effect: Revisited and Dissected

Not so long ago, though it seems a lifetime, I replayed Mass Effect. I wanted to have the "perfect" save game for the upcoming ME3 and so I decided that the best thing to do was just replay the whole two first games.

When you come back to a game you love you take it with a pinch of salt brought on by detached perspective. That's what happened to me and I found a completely new set of things to love and hate about it.

Let's take one of the trailers.

Now, if you've played the game you'll notice a few things aren't quite right with this trailer. Noveria isn't actually in such a dire need for help as it may sound here. In fact, most of the people in Noveria are having drinks at the hotel bar or busy with their corporate espionage shenanigans. At best, Noveria has a slight bug problem in a remote research facility and this problem is being kept very much on the down low. None of those big mushroom clouds the trailer starts off with. Besides, you have to stop by Noveria eventually, its a mandatory storyline development. Another thing is that Caleston isn't actually an important place in the game. I'm not even sure it is explorable (although you can survey it in Mass Effect 2). It may just be one of the N planets that you go to to complete sidequests you stumble into. So what can we deduce from this? Noveria is making a big fuss over very little and Shepard has decided to go off and drive around his Mako for a while before actually heeding that overly dramatic distress call. But I'm just nitpicking

While we're at it let's discuss the Mako: without a doubt one of the sorest points of the game. Many rose up against its impossible controls and the usefulness of the thing as a vehicle. To be truthful, the Mako handles like a drug-frenzied baboon thrown off a gelatinous cliff tied to a bungee cord. You don't get much satisfaction from driving it. In fact, if you attempt to actually drive it you will most likely end up belly up in a ditch on a remote planet followed by a Game Over screen because Shepard is all about saving the galaxy and not hauling his ass out of a turtled vehicle and righting it. God forbid. The best way to get any handle on the thing is to simple turn its nose to where you want to go and keep pressing forward without any attempt of steering it whatsoever. In most cases, you'll get there, minus a little vehicle health.

The story is exactly as I remembered it, meaning it's good. Characters (except the two semi-optional ones) have enough depth that you can really get to like them or not at all. For instance, I love Wrex but I could do well without Liara and her 160 years of stuck-upness.

The human companions (the aforementioned semi-optional) are, for the most part, negligible. Ashley has that whole bigot thing going for her but, for personal reasons, that was never my thing so the gut-wrenching moment of deciding who lives or dies was made pretty easy. Kaidan, well... Kaidan is just the guy, like the one you'll bang because he's the only guy there. The voice casting helps, making him a bit more loveable to all things straight with a vagina. Males unexceptionally hate him because they hated Carth. And Kaidan is Carth, minus the stuttering, we all know this. He was put on this earth to please us little Carth groupies.

The whole game has a very distinct feel due to, in great part, the soundtrack. After listening to it out of context I realized it has much of the Blade Runner about it and although I was initially resistant to the song that plays during the credits, I eventually became a fan. Imho, it's so cheesy it works. And who can not love the sheer epicness of the main theme? To be honest, I only realized the piece's true worth after wrapping up Mass Effect 2 and heard the Suicide Mission adaptation of it. But it's going on my top ten favorite instrumentals of all time.

But, in the end, for me Mass Effect lost some points on the whole elevator business. Not elevators in general, mind you. I kind of like it when my companions banter. In fact, I spent a lot of time in Dragon Age finding banter trigger points so I could pass over them frequently just to hear the dialogue. No, my gripe is with that very specific lift I like to call  the TLX 008 WXM AT. In that one single place I would have preferred a loading screen.

There's more I could say but the game speaks for itself. All things considered, not the best of games for a shooter lover but a solid title and a good jump-start for bigger and better things.

Comfort Food

So. Yeah. Might have left this on a bit of a depressing tone. But bad things happen and you deal. Life is for the living and all that.

While I grieve the loss of my old life and start building a new one I'm planning on drowning my sorrows on a few oldies but goldies I found lying around. I might pick up Dragon Age or KotOR again. Funny how I find most solace in Bioware. Funny or predictable. Your choice.

Also amusing is that I am now apparently the proud owner of a retail copy of World of Warcraft which spiked my interest for about 3 seconds. GuildWars is sitting right next to it, though... Hmmm.

Well, I prolly won't have much time for playing whatever anytime soon, just a few minutes/hours at bed time. Packing and unpacking is always a bitch and I should know, I've done a whole lot of it these past few years.

I just hope I actually get to play something soon so I'll have less gloomy things to post about.

Mass Effect 3: Fangirly Drool

There are certain episodes in your life that help you define and reaffirm what you are.

I'm a girl. A fangirl. I am a Kaidan Alenko fangirl. And yes, it's mostly (if not completely) due to Raphael Sbarge's sexy voice.

Which is why I was so flamboyantly excited when I found this in BioWare's Facebook.

'OMG OMG!' my over-excited brain yelled. 'It's Kaidan. I get to see him again. I get to nag him about professing his undying love for me and then shoving me off when some shady characters he had no particularly strong feelings towards had brought me back from the dead!'

Oh, yeah. And Liara's back too, apparently. Yay.

SW:TOR: Expectations Shaped By Experience



For all the weeks I walked this particular path to
school, every day there would be a platter
with a steak under this bridge.



When I was younger and more impressionable there were a few things I took for granted and never even considered to question. The bumpy pothole-ridden part of the street was for people and the smooth even part was for cars.

I once talked to someone who had visited here and he was quite appaled by the service he'd received at a restaurant. You see, as soon as he had sat down the waiter had brought him the menu, a basket of bread and a small plate with butter, cheese and paté. He felt so insulted by him trying to force things he hadn't ordered on to his bill that he got up and left. I, in turn, was appaled that he left. It was then I discovered that not all the world shared this custom of making hors-d'oeuvres available to customers whether they asked for them or not. It was something so familiar and mundane to me, something so deeply rooted in my way of life that it shocked me that life could exist differently.

Today I browsed the SW:TOR website, trying to get a feel for the game. I talked earlier how I'd like the concept of not being alone in a MMO and I somehow feared that was the single-player gamer in me talking. SW:TOR boasts about having companions that follow you through the game, that change their behavior depending on your choices and actions. I smiled at this.

While traveling the galaxy, your Companion Characters will provide commentary, information on plots and directions to points of interest-- all from their own unique perspectives. Companion Characters may act as your conscience, and try to influence your decisions. In turn, you will influence them, and change how they develop as the story progresses. Based on your choices, some Companions will become your closest friends, others may become your lovers, and a few may even become your enemies!

Yes, that sounded cool. A few of the consequences of being a girl is that I'm a sucker for romantic options in games. It's the main reason why I played The Sims for so long. I once tried to make an entire city green by breeding this one green guy with multiple women. Ok, maybe that's not very romantic but there you go.



Like the vehicle?

However, I soon realized that these companions they're talking about are fixed. Everybody gets the same companions (or it might depend on your class or something). That's not quite what I wanted. I'm not sure if my expectations are lowered because I've never seen it implemented but I'm not compeltely convinced. I dream of an immense range of characters to be able to add to my posse and live with the consequences of possibly putting together a completely dysfunctional family.

Jack, is that you?

Every day that passes, Rift seems more and more lackluster. I might try out SW:TOR eventually but I'm not jumping on another hype bandwagon, lest it topples over. Given my experience with MMOs I'm holding my breath.



Scary lobster is scary!

Picture unrelated.

Dragon Age II: "I Told You I'd Break Your Heart"

Mike's currently on his 18 hour plane trip which means that, by tonight, I can stop relying on DA2 for my daily dose of romance and drama.

There might be a few spoilers ahead.

I started my first play-through with a Rogue femHawke (femShep just sounds better doesn't it). As a direct consequence I lost Carver early on and was stuck with Bethany. I felt no connection to this thing whatsoever so I indulged my in-game mother and let her keep it while I went on to explore the bowels of the Earth with my friends. Upon my return I learned that it was recruited into the Circle of Magi and I would never see it again. 'Oh... Is that so?' was my reaction. I could've been more concerned, what with reports of mages being killed left and right just for leaving the toilet seat up. I wasn't though.

In all recent Bioware games, not counting mmos I guess, a special emphasis has been put into the relationships you develop with your party members or companions. Their lives influence the game and the way you percieve them affects your decisions towards them and the plot. The pinnacle of these relationships are love interests. Love Interests (LIs) in Dragon Age 2 are along the lines of "see something you like, take it", meaning, either be you boy or girl, you can romance practically anything.

Varric, the dwarf that's actually telling the story, is an exception. I believe this is due to the fact that dwarves are really picky with their relationships, what with dwarf sex being kind of awkward and reproduction rates being subpar. The fact that he needed to become an impartial part in the telling of the story and needed to remain free to be interrogated by the Seeker can also have something to do with it.

One other exception is Sebastian, the DLC Prince. You can only get down and dirty with him if you're a girl. I wanted to, at first. But him going on and on about the Maker and how cool the old bat running the Chantry was kind of put me off the whole thing.

So I did the second best thing and went for Anders. Anders is an apostate (rogue) mage that has very strong beliefs about how the world works. He doesn't like anything. Yes, that's pretty much it. Anders doesn't like the Circle of Mages, doesn't like the Chantry, doesn't like the Templars, doesn't like the whorehouse. What does Anders like? You, if you lead him on a bit. And kittens. He's a bit too whiny for me, a bit reminiscent of Carth only to the tenth degree. But I went for it. The voice acting wasn't half bad and I wasn't getting anywhere romancing Fenris and his sexy Balthier voice. It's like every single thing I did made him more of a rival.

I'll give Anders one thing though: he was always honest. From the beginning he told me "don't do this. I'll end up breaking your heart." Just another bad boy, trying to be cool and warning off the girl to spare her from a dizzying swirl of emotions. Yeah, not quite.

Anders did break my heart. I loved the moment when he said "I love you" and I replied with "Would you like a sandwich?" That really got us closer. But then he turned into a homicidal terrorist. He sat down, looked at me and said "I told you I'd break your heart." How right you were, Anders. How right you were.

And I did feel a bit heart broken. I had invested my time into liking this fictional character, feathery coat and all. I had asked his pixels to merge with my pixels, I had given him a virtual drawer in my virtual mansion and after all of this he still... stayed true to his ideals and wouldn't change, even for me. I might not have liked it but it was powerful. I literally stood up and yelled "NO! ANDERS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" I think that's all the person who wrote him can wish for, isn't it? That what they did had such an impact on me, even though I was well aware it was just a game.

Speaking of writing Anders, I found out that you can change his background by your own choice of gender. Meaning, as a girl, Anders told me he had never even considered love because it was just one other thing that the Templars could use to control him. As a maleHawke, Anders is all like "nah, bitch, I've tamed the one-eyed snake years ago. You Jelly?"

This time around I'm going as a Mage maleHawke and I'm going to try and romance Fenris. Which is a bit contradictory as he hates mages and I am one. It must be noted that you can have a romance with an ally wether they like you or not. Shocking, isn't it? Either you're friends or rivals a romance is possible, or so I have gathered. They'll be like "oh we don't always agree but I can't get you out of my head" and "Maker, I hate every single thing you do and stand for but damn you HAWT!"

I still got a bit more to say about this game before I'm done but the woman by the whiteboard is eyeing me menacingly as it is.