Why Can't I Be a Squidget?

Seriously, why are there so few games that just let you be a nobody? You're always some huge war hero or something. Sometimes, I just want to be a redshirt, and there are very few games I can think of that let you do that (Battlefield, and uhh...). I just wish there were less Master Chiefs and Nathan Hales and more Medic #33s and Combine Soldier #336s.

1/30/09

i'm sailing away
set an open course for the virgin sea
cause i've got to be free
free to face the life that's ahead of me
i'm bored i'm a captain
so climb aboard
we'll search for tomorrow
and every shore

and i'll try
oh lord
i'll try
to caaaaaaaaaaaaaarry oooooooooooooooooooooooooon

i look to the seeeeeeeeeeeeeeea
reflections in the waves
spark my memory
soooooome happy some sad
i think of tathered friends
and the dreams we had
we lived happily forever
so the story gooooes
but somehow we missed out
on the pot of goooold
but we'll try best ad we can
to caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarry on

a gathering of angels
appeared above my head
they sang to me this song of hope
and this is what they said
they said "come sail away come sail away come sail away with me, lads
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me, baby
come sail away come sail away come sail away with meeeeeeeeeeee"

(boop beep boo boop boo beep boo boop)

i thought that they were angels
but come to my surprise
i climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skieeeees

"come sail away come sail away come sail away with me, lads
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me
come sail away come sail away come sail away with me" (fade out)

Strange Dream #10

Yet another strange dream last night. I was in a house that I've never seen before, but I think I was in Florida or something, because I was also in a bathing suit. Anyway, I don't remember much about the first part, but I do remember my big toe hurting, and I just ignored it. Later, I decided to look at it, and there was a green-ish spot to the right of my toenail. I tried to pop it like a zit or something, and the tiny black thing poked out. I looked away for a second, and when I looked back, the black thing was now about half an inch long. It scared the shit out of me, and I pulled the rest out, and, well, this is what it looked like:

It was completely black, and it was around 3 inches long, and the top two inches were some sort of tentacle (the lines on the plastic base are where it was rigid, like a bottlecap or the sides of a quarter). A moving, living tentacle. It was disgusting. I kept yelling "HOLY SHIT", and then I stood up and...poop...ran down my leg out of my bathing suit, and then I said "Yeah, there it is". I started running to the bathroom, but I chose to go to the carpeted bathroom for some reason, so I was tracking shit all the way through the house and over carpet. Such a weird dream.

Review: Mass Effect (PC)

Unlike just about anyone who ever owned an Xbox, I never played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic much. I had also never played any game from developer BioWare, and I've never much been into RPGs. The last RPG that I can remember really, really being into was Fable. Well, that was until I played Mass Effect.

It is the year 2148. You are Commander Shepard of the Normandy, one of the largest, fastest, and most powerful ships in the Alliance fleet. You are sent to Eden Prime to investigate a mysterious Beacon, and the story takes off from there, I just don't want to spoil it. It really is a fantastic story. One of the coolest parts is that you can set your character's backstory in the extensive character creator. You can choose from things like being a War Hero, to a Sole Survivor of an epic battle. It doesn't really change anything except for maybe a few conversations scattered throughout the game, but it adds an extra layer to your character, which is nice.

Along with choosing your backstory in the character creator, you can also, duh, create a character. It can be either a male or female, and you can choose from several different classes, although you can't choose to play as another race, you have to be human. Honestly, though, with all of the other choices, it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

Through your travels, you will happen upon some NPCs, who, for different reasons, will join your crew. These are characters who you can take out with you, up to two at a time, on missions to help you, so you will be spending a lot of time with them. I became very, very attached to these characters, and it hurt when I had to decide the fate of some or more of them. There are very few games that actually make me have feelings for and sympathize with characters, but Mass Effect did it perfectly.

Like I said, I owned KotOR, but never really played it much. I just couldn't get into it very much, and the combat was one of the biggest reasons as to why. I never liked how it wasn't real-time, and your just sat and watched most of the time. Luckily for me, Mass Effect is nothing like that. The combat in ME is all played out in real-time, and it's not just your stats that decide if you will come out victorious. Since it's a shooter, it actually requires some bit of skill on the player's part, which I really liked. Don't get me wrong, you don't have to be the best Call of Duty 4 player to be able to play ME, but it's not passive like KotOR was.

Along with your regular guns, you also have Biotic powers to manipulate your enemies, such as Throw, Lift, and Warp. While fighting, you can hold the spacebar to bring up a menu of sorts to pause the game, and from here, you can pick your target, choose a Biotic power, and when you release the spacebar, your character and/or squad will carry out the action. You can also control your squadmates to an extent, not unlike Rainbow Six, but I can't remember one time where I really used this funtion.

I've talked so much about the shooter aspects, but I can't forget the RPG/exploration side. Just like any other RPG, you kill enemies, gain EXP, level up, invest Skill Points in your class-based skills, basically just typical RPG stuff. The exploration, though, is something else entirely. Using the Normandy, you can explore the galaxy, moving from solar system to solar system, finding resources, doing sidequests, and, well, exploring. Some planets will even let your land with the Mako, your land rover, so you can explore the galaxy, as well as some of the planets. One of my favorite sidequests is one that takes place on Luna, Earth's moon, just because it's so awesome.

The sound in Mass Effect is fantastic. There are so many talking characters, several different alien races, and I can't remember any of them sounding alike. There are so many recorded lines in this game, it's unbelievable, and on top of that, many of them were rerecorded for if you chose to play as a female. All of the lines feel very real and natural, which is very good for a story-driven game like this. The electronic music sounds just like something out of an old 70's/80's Sci-Fi movie, and always seems to set the appropriate mood.

Even while I think this game is fantastic, there are a few problems, even though they're fairly minor. First, is that while the graphics look great 99% of the time, in the close-up shots, some of the textures look very blurry. Second, there's no Anti-Aliasing. This just doesn't seem right for a PC game nowadays. Third, and this is a very rare glitch that I only experienced 3 times in my 30+ hours of play, is that sometimes when I hit the Quicksave button, it would crash the game. Again, it only happened 3 times, but it was frustrating nonetheless. Lastly, some of the sidequests feel a little repetitive. Most of them are of the "go down to a planet, find the base, kill everyone in said base, exit" variety. All of those can be overlooked very easily, even if they are semi-annoying.

Actually, I do have one more problem (and this is probably the biggest problem). The game just feels too short. Sure, it took me 25+ hours on my first playthough, but it was so awesome that it felt like 3. Thankfully, the game offers extreme replayability, because you can go back through with another class, make different choices, try to go to every planet, etc. The added achievements are nice, too.

Mass Effect is an amazing game, and one that every RPG fan/Sci-Fi Lover/Self-respecting individual should play. The story is brilliantly written, all of the voice acting is prefectly executed (although hearing Seth Green was a little weird, but only because I wasn't expecting it.), and both the RPG and shooter elements work fantastically. 5 out of 5.

1/25/09

HO
LY
SHIT
I just beat Mass Effect. This is now one of my favorite games of all time. It's just so awesome. I think I'm going to write a review tomorrow.

WTF, Mario?

We were going to my dad's house the other day to get some of my mom's old furniture, and Mason decided to come down and stay with us for a little while. That night, Mason wanted to play the NES, so after I got it hooked up, he popped in Super Mario Bros. Apparently, it was messed up. I've never seen it do this. Even after I blew my entire right lung into the cartridge, it was still being weird.

1/24/09

a shickety bee a bob a doo be bob a dob a dee dow yeeeeeeeaaaaaah