Raithe

Heh, Claudia Black is doing two seperate voices.. and they even have Natalia Cigliuti back as Morinth. So they even wrote in that part if you chose to keep her alive in ME2... And yes, Conrad Verner is back again

So pretty much every squadmate from ME1 will turn up in your squad. Surviving members of ME2 squad will turn up in the game, and - potentially - might be squadmates for one or two missions, but won't be part of the fly around the universe, live out of the ship type of squadmates. Hm,also, if you pay attention ot the comics... apparently Cerberus were able to take over Omega, so Aria is on the run. Why do I get the feeling she's going to turn up in ME3. Either as a full on squadmate, or as a special squadmate....

One of the interesting things with Europe is how a lot of the countries have a legal system based on the Napoleonic code. And the French have a habit of talking about how rigerous their standards are compared to so many other countries. However, a lot of the European countries don't actually enforce the extent of their legal code on their citizenry. Case in point, MOT's. The French love to talk about how high their standards are compared to the UK's. However, when when we stopped French Lorry Drivers and enforced our apparently "low standards of MOT" to their vehicles, a large percentage failed. Lower standards that actually get enforced, rather then high standards that aren't... It's all sorts of fun and games with any legal systems.

"Valentine's Day can be a lot like your taste in chocolate. Sometimes its soft and gooey. Othertimes its just dark and bitter..."

Eh, she's moved out, she's come back, she got engaged, she moved in with her fiance, a year later that broke up and she moved home.. she spent a year away living at a farm and working at the stables there, then came home to save money so she can get a place for herself... It's that sort of repeat. Heh, I mean, i've kind of got a good excuse for not having left home. I've been mom's primary carer for the..hm, well last decade.

And are there any comparable statistics for unsolved crimes between China and the US? Or just how many of China's judgements end in the bullet to the head that the defendants family are then charged for?

I have to admit, that's one bit that made me blink. The Normandy Mark 2 is a privately owned vessel.. so by what right do the Alliance have to strip Shephard of it and then man it with their own personnel? I mean, apparently both Joker and Doc Chakwa had resigned after Shep's "death", and - depending on how you handle it - Shep is still a Spectre after ME2... Edit: Just had my copy of the Art of the Mass Effect Universe arrive and having a flip through it.. A lot of the 1st chapter is regurgitated from the original "Art of Mass Effect" of course, but has a few new things. The 2nd chapter sketches out some nice points on why things developed in ME2.. and I'm trying to avoid reading too much of the ME3 chapter .,, Although, one thing that did jump out... Apparently the majority of Reapers we see landing on planets are actually "small reapers" who are only around 160 meters tall, as compared to Sovereign's full 2km length. Geared more for "planetary invasion" then actual space battle. So that's one reason why Shephard is likely to be able to cause damage to them without a full Armada along taking pot shots...

Frustrations with the dog. Well, Okay, to be more fair, frustrations with my sister's attitude to the dog. It's her dog. She's the one who went out and insisted on getting an alsatian. And she carefully manipulated the truth to get it past dad. Along with the whole "i'll train it, I'll be walking it, and I'll be moving in with my boyfriend in x months time so you won't have to put up with it for long." Of course, now she's broken up with the bf, so she isn't moving out. The alsatian isn't that greatly trained for anyone else, and pretty much only pays attention to her. She's walking him less and less, and he's only just past his first birthday. The back garden has been turned into a mudpit along one large diagonal swathe. The carpets are getting wrecked no matter how many times I hoover and steam clean them. The washing machine is getting overloaded with mud from the towels used to dry off the dogs. The kitchen cupboards are just dirty from him running past them as he comes in from the garden.. And my sister keeps being totally oblivious about it and doesn't seem to recognise the fact that she should be cleaning some of this up. Even after mom's blown up at her and basically cried in frustration over it. For someone in her 30's... my sister seems to have a knack for acting like a totally clueless, spoiled 15 year old.

Hm, the sound was a bit low. The start up music was really low, but once you began the actual gameplay it did go up a little. Is it me, or does something about the general character animation this time around look a bit more off then usual? Shephards forearms and hands looked really odd during the introduction walk around....] Also, the demo was glitchy and kept doing little pauses when i played it.. which was.. a wee bit annoying. Gameplay wise, feels a lot like ME2, not really that much of a change to it. It would have been nice to have been able to play around with some of the actual non-combat elements, but..eh, it looks like that is not to be. Played through once, and then uninstalled. Nothing we haven't seen in a dozen gameplay videos over the last half a year...

I just installed Origin.. and found that it's recognised that I own TOR, and offered to let me download that as well, even with it already installed on my system. And it uses exactly the same login and password as both Bioware Social and my SW TOR account... so I'm guessing they're all merged together. So it's kind of nice to see that even though I picked up the physical copy of the game, I've also got access to the digital download if I need it at some future point..

Or dig out a copy of that Gibbed Save Game Editor for ME2 that lets you create a totally new save as you want?

Was meant to be doing research, but my internet keeps dying for large chunks of time. Tried calling up my isp to query them on it, and they won't even tell you the status of the exchange in your area unless you go through all sorts of security about who you are and what your account is... Now I'm crossing my fingers that things stay working longer then 5 minutes at a time..

David Weber's eArc of "War Maid's Choice" - a continuation of his Bahzell series. Cheerfully fun fantasy fair. A fairly accurate review - http://www.otherwheregazette.com/2012/02/10/war-maids-choice-a-geeky-good-time/

If you kept Wrex alive, things are more more "friendly" when you go to Tuchanka in ME2. Wrex has a whole plan about trying to organize the clans, and has kind of become a "kublai khan" type figure in his methods. Not quite as brutal as Genghis, and much more focused on trying to keep a certain civilized element of cooperation going.

Wait, actually looks like the French did vote in quite a similar manner to the English..

I don't think the French Revolution really gave the King any votes.. or were muchly concerned about not killing the majority of the aristocracy. They were rather het up at the time. I believe the vote thing relates to Charles I of England, and how he ended up tried for High Treason and executed after the second civil war and Cromwell's Republic was established. On the really random historical note, Louis XVI (said French King) was behind sending monies and armaments to America during the war of independence - purely as a method to annoy the English. However it's generally recognised that the success of the American revolution was one of the key elements that helped inspire the French Revolution... Kind of hoisted on his own petard there.

They normally require you to log into the Cerberus Network to activate them within the game...

I picked up all the DLC together during the steam sale back in October/November time.. started up a fresh playthrough of the whole game. For various reasons I ended up taking a break from it just when I'd started Dead Money.. at the moment I can't seem to find the enthusiasm to get back to it...

Managed about 3 or 4 hours of sleep last night, and feeling like I'm just being incredibly slow with what work I'm pushing along today. Throw in the dog being a wee bit over-enthusiastic and a muddy garden.. just adds to the fun. Drinking much tea to keep me going.

One of the issues I found with the global cooldown was with chained powers. In ME1, if you had a Vanguard, you could use Lift to cause someone to fly up into the air, and then blam, hit them with the Throw ability. In ME2, you really needed to have two people in the squad with matching abilities to be able to combine effects like that. Otherwise, by the time the global cooldown let you have Throw ready.. your Lift had already ended.. It basically had that element of pushing your need to micro-manage your squad to be able to combine different abilities like that.. which has both elements of good and bad. In ME1, it was carefully manage your abilities rather then spam everything. In ME2, it was more about managing your squad together. Of course, the one that always irritated me was the Charge ability. Enemy Vanguards could use Charge to blip around the battlefield (key example, Vasir in Lair of the Shadow Broker), while the player could only use it to attack an enemy.

Since I pretty much only use headphones rather then speakers, I had to get some decent ones when mine broke over christmas. Picked up a Razer Carcharias Gaming Headset, and dang, that's comfortable to be wearing for hours at a time. Full over-ear coverage, and the sound quality is good. Haven't gotten around to using the microphone for anything yet.. but the rest is all good.

Hm, I wouldn't say anything in those videos were spoilerish as such, and they've pretty much shown that whole introduction and first mission off before now. Although I would say Shepherds wrists/hands looked really small compared to his arms and body in the cinematics.. So nothing really fresh shown off about the game mechancis. And of course, since it's the introductory mission, it's keeping it fairly simple to show the player the basics. I'll play the demo to see how it all feels, and I'm keeping my pre-order on track because I do want to wrap up the trilogy just to see what they do with it, and I'm curious about which choices will turn out to have effects - whether small or large.

Well I haven't encountered any serious story-killing moments that have turned me off yet. Of course, apart from the SI and getting the Smuggler into Act 2, I've only dabbled with the prologue of the Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter. I'm just trying to pace myself out rather then spend extended periods playing in rapid order. I can still see myself cheerfully playing TOR for another half a year working through the class stories at a steady pace.