Raithe

Yeah. I mean, they threw in the reference to Dark Energy that the Crucible utilised, but that was just..throwaway technobabble. With the whole Haestrom's sun, and a couple of other references in ME2 - Was it Mordin who makes some mention of dark energy researchers disapearing? I really expected something more to come from that. When it comes down to it, I have no real problems with there being a whole.. dark ending and Shepards likely death. It fits in with the character (regardless of how you played him) that if it came down to it, he would willingly die to save Earth/The Council/His friends. What really bugs me is all of the little things in the background; EDI's potential growth that you can foster, the Geth evolution (potentially), Javik's emotional reawakening (well, sort of), and then boom, it's all pretty much invalidated and rendered null and void. It's the grand climax to the trilogy, and while your choices have had an effect on the final journey there, none of them actually effect the choice of endings. Or gives you a sense of where they go at the end of it. The journey was enjoyable, interesting, and for the most part cohesive and fun. The ending just seems to be.. odd. There's no real closure, or sense of where the people you left behind are going. Hell, if they'd done something like Fallout or Jade Empire's ending sequence where you got some clue as to how it effected your companions/alien races in the future.. That would have made more sense. To a greater or lesser degree, you invest in your companions. Bioware have played up the whole "you have a smaller squad so you can have a greater personal story/connection with them", and then just ends with that vague "lost on a mystery planet" sort of ending.

I think part of the trouble is that when you get down to it, it's an odd niche film. Its not grand sci-fi or fantasy. It's not a hard core drama or action. They haven't released it as a "summer blockbuster", and frankly none of the advertising I've seen for it have really nailed down what sort of story it is. If I hadn't read the original books, I'm not sure I'd have known what to make of the trailers. As it is, pulpy adventure sci-fi is a bit of an odd duck...

Now that I've actually finished a runthrough I'm tempted to go looking up the leaked stuff to find out what was there...

It's also kind of quirky the way they've shifted the "grenade skills" again. The leadup made some references to how they've brought back proper grenades, but eh. You only have access if you select/have access to the skills. And then having skills that are limited to a couple of uses per mission unless you find ammo for them.. I kept finding myself thinking "oh, this isn't serious enough to use my frag/inferno grenades just yet" and then realising I'd made it through to the end of a mission without actually using them.

Heh, with my Vanguard blipping around the battlefield, I found Liara and Garrus useful the majority of the time. Both with different sides of ammo-improving powers, and between Singularity/Warp from the one, and Overload/Concussion Shot from the other..

I have to admit, I forgot that I didn't have a "kelly" on board to feed my fish. So I was picking them up at the stores but not actually going up to my cabin to feed them.. then I suddenly noticed I had mass collection of dead fish floating in the tank.... Also, I'm a bit conflicted on the whole Reporter character. On the one hand, the idea of the embedded reporter is good, and the interviews are nicely handled. The potential effect it can have on War Assets and such. But the whole "quick and cheesy" romance aspect feels like its pretty much thrown in for the geek "i got to bank Chobot in the game" audience. Also, for all the news reports you can listen to as the game progresses, its a shame you never get to hear any of her actual reports... On another sidenote, I am tempted to go back and replay the Thessia mission with the Javik the Prothean on my squad. Just to see if there's any interesting additions/alterations to the dialogue and cutscenes there..

Having one of those odd days. Background headache and just feeling tired emotionally. Having that feel of having put in months of effort on various things, but apart from a few added stress points at home, it still seems that everything is still stuck at the same place it was this time last year. Pulling myself together with a cup of tea, and then slap back on the stiff upper lip and return to the fray.

Yeah, I caught this the other night. They've mashed up the original books a lot (to be expected given the language used), but they've pretty much nailed the spirit of the stories. Firmly running with that classic pulpy sci-fi. And of course, left with the possibility of room to maneuver for other films. I enjoyed it a hellava lot more then Clash of the Titans, so since that managed to grab a followon, here's hoping thsi does to.

I tried to save numerous times during the London part and couldn't. Even in the area where you have the final talk with your squad. I assumed it was BioWare being silly in its design decisions, but maybe it was a bug? I had the same thing, managed a couple of saves during the "get a big weapon to take out the airgun" part of it, but from then on out.. I had to rely on autosaves since it didn't seem to allow manual or quick saves. And really, no save during the "final talk" area? That just seems bizarre.

One thing that does puzzle me.. At various points through the finale sequence, I noticed the "save in progress" message in the bottom of the screen. So, the autosave kicking in. However, you can't actually access that save at any point... Or am I missing something there? Since the game makes yet another autosave when it "returns" you to the Normandy before you head for the finale run up....

Haywire - Directed by Steven Soderbergh, and the lead role played by Gina Carano - who actually brings off a fairly nice performance. The setup being that Carano is a former Marine, now working for a private consulting/security firm that does a lot of odd jobs for various government agencies gets set up after performing a "hostage rescue" mission in Barcelona. Actually fairly low-brow, almost a pulp noir feel to it. The first half of the movie is pretty much a series of flashbacks as she explains whats going on to a kid she ends up carjacking to get away from another killer. Has a couple of actioney/fight sequences but most of it revolves around character pieces of a few people talking. Surprising amount of names in it, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender and even Bill Paxton playing the father..

Eh, there's all sorts of dark/grim gritty sci-fi going on. I like to have some general fun space opera with moments of complexity that Babylon 5 gave us. There's no need for every single thing to be dark/gritty and pseudo-post apocalyptic.

I think one of the things that bugged me most was that there's pretty much no mention of it beyond that point. I mean sure, it gets overshadowed to a certain extent..

It's not just the Shockwave doesn't work on shields, it has a range now. So if they're not within about 10 meters of you it won't work. In fact, one of the power options you get at around rank 5 is to extend it to 15 meters or so. One thought that did crop up about the endings.. Actually, I have to say two moments actually had me feeling kind of angry at characters in the game.. And both pretty much came about because of the Thessia mission.

Well i wrapped it up and crawled my way to the finish line... Fairly enjoyable run, and then that ending.... yeah. I mean, if you take into account the 50% war readiness due to no mp, I had around 3,600 effective war assets. Got the three possibile choices.. and that was so Deus Ex'y it made me chuckle. As so many people have said, there are some very.. weird bits there. While a part of me kind of enjoys Buzz Aldrin's cameo there at the end as a nice nod to space travel, good gawd, he sounded wooded and actually kind of creepy. "My sweet" - Exactly how would you react to your grandad calling you that in exactly that tone of voice? But yes, throw in that whole "future DLC!" moment after the end credits, I do kind of wonder what they have planning, and just how much of a potential rewrite , ala FO3, could happen. Also, how long before they let things like "New Game+" add to the War Readiness values?

And I have to say I enjoyed finding out that Conrad Verner is actually useful.. and they threw in some nice conversation on the whole "sorry I kept saying you put a gun in my face when you didn't..." or the "so ..what is a thermal clip " "uh.that sounds like going back to ammo" "what happened to the original heat sink built into guns?" conversation line.. A couple of odd glitches niggle away, "cutscenes" that show Shepard and co holding one type of assault rifle, while clearly wearing others on their backs. Then some "cutscenes" that get it right.. doesn't seem much ryhme nor reason to the way it goes. And just got that email news from ANN about the Quarian Marines being honored by Turians.. The news report almost brought a tear to the eye

So far I've reached the point where I've done the whole Quarrian/Geth thing.. So guessing there's still a chunk more to do. Pretty much fun overall with a few annoyances. Sure, Bio seem to be going for some of the cheap emotional buttons but they're mostly well crafted cheap emotional buttons, and the music hits the right spot for them. Lost a few old companions, but others have survived..and I'm not sure exactly which decisions led to that. Although with how the ME2 squad members are integrated into the storyline, and seem to have some cinematic moments that save/help Shepard, I'm curious as to how those situations would play out if they died in the previous game... The Codex is annoying. I'm fine with the lack of hand-holding and pointing me in specific directions, but I'd love it if they'd actually freaking update to let me know if I've found items or done parts of the quest... Also, would be nice if they split them up so you could see one list of Priority, one list of Secondary (as they've done b efore) rather then one mass list that really doesn't organise.

Tsk..and then I had a few things I'd picked up for Citadel missions after wrapping up Tuchunka.. only to go back and directly into that .. and now most of those missions are greyed out rather then allowing hand in. Dang it. Something to remember for the future...

I have to admit, the whole conversation between Liara and her "father" made me chuckle. The conversations between folks in the background are usually quite well done, even (or especially) when they aren't related to any quests, just.. background noise.

Well, after hosting a most non-productive afternoon and evening making my way into the game... I have to say it's pretty much fun. Sure, it takes about 2-3 hours of "intro-cinematics and pseudo-tutorial gaming" before it actually opens up and lets you flit around at will, and there are the odd glitches, but mostly it seems to be fun space opera (even with all the war horror/depression going on) Have minor annoyances with a few things, kept having a jerky-graphics-twitch going on, until I realised they have a "mouse blending" option set to automatically on. Turn that off and everything smoothed down properly. Still, onwards and see how much I can poke at it today...

So my ME3 finally arrived, I get to do my snoopy happy dance and see how it actually turns out when I get into it...

And I can say I watched Babylon 5 and thoroughly enjoyed the majority of it. And yeah, I've got the dvd's of the whole series... Anyhow, my CE arrived today so currently installing it all, and shall cheerfully spend a non-productive afternoon getting to see what it's all about..

I do have to admit.. One of the things that has me mildly puzzled is just how Ashley has gone from Gunnery Chief (a nice NCO post) to being a Lieutenant Commander (a fairly senior officer). I mean, Lieutenant Commanders are XO's to the frigates and such.... I know the whole Saren/Geth/Sovereign thing probably got her a promotion, but damn, only three years have passed.... One of those mild mental niggles that has me curious to see just how (or if) it'll be explained.

Unfortunately, after the runaway giant of WoW, that's not going to be something anyone can do if they're trying to get people to sink money into game development. Any mmo is judged against it, not how it was when it started, but against it as it is right now after years of development, tweaks, patches, and expansions....