Darth Drabek

Tricky - Black Steel Pretty cool re-imagining of Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos." The music's great, but I kind of wish they did all the verses from the original.

Same. My first guess was pornstar-- really, look at that name! Well, I do remember some stories about the fact that.. uhm.. he was well-endowed... but no, that wasn't his profession. He was a damn' good artist, and that's coming from someone who's never been a fan of Type O Negative. R.I.P. Pete, the musical scene will miss you very much. I'm pretty sure he actually posed for Playgirl. And all the goth girls swooned. The thing that really separated Type O Negative from all the other doom n' gloom black metal bands out there was the sly wit and black humor of their lyrics. Listen to "Everyone I Love Is Dead" or "Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity" for examples. If it weren't for that, I'd probably never have given them the time of day, as I'm not a huge fan of the genre. Oh, and their cover of "Cinnamon Girl" was pretty righteous.

Here's a song I've been listening to a lot lately. The band is from America's Hat and they got Michael Cera to star in their video, so they must be cool! Islands -

Price: 160 BioWare Points. Jack: Can't see ****, Commander! Jeeeeesus, you have to be kidding me. They should have put the duct tape over her mouth instead, amirite? /actually thought Jack was a decent character Oh, and it looks like Garrus finally got that armor patched up.

My two cents: In open-world games that allow you to go anywhere right away, scaling is bad news. If the game allows me to storm the Big Bad's castle at level 2, that's fine. My little adventuring party should get totally eviscerated, though, to let us know just how much better we're going to have to get to succeed. Most games circumvent this by giving the player a not-so-subtle push toward quests/assignments more suited for their level, i.e. "Oh no, my basement! There are rats everywhere!" Would you rather have a system in which if you skipped that particular quest and came back at level 20, and those rats were able to give you a hell of a fight? That does not make sense! In a more linear game, however, when the designers have more control over the types of enemies the player faces and when they face them, scaling can make for more balanced gameplay. I'm cool with that.

Seconded. "Would you be an outlaw for my love?"

How can someone with a cowboy avatar not be looking forward to Red Dead Redemption!? Heh, I missed the first one. But I remember thinking it looked intriguing. I don't have as much time or money for gaming these days, so I keep my focus narrow.

Mass Effect 3. And that's it, really. Although I'm tempted to buy the fancy new Xbox Live versions of the Monkey Island games.

That does sound fantastic. I love me some N.O. jazz. Ryan Adams - Cannonball Days

Nice work GD, but I think you swung and missed on one division. The Mariners are going to win the AL West this year. The moves they've made are in perfect accord with post-steroid era baseball's emphasis on pitching and defense. They won't score a ton of runs, but they will win a bunch of games.

Sentinel is fun. That was the class I chose for my first playthrough, as I was concerned about staying alive but wanted more flexibility than a soldier provides. The sentinel's tech armor really helps a lot with the "staying alive" part. I'll bet it's better than the protection-type of bonus powers (barrier, fortification, geth shield). It has an unlimited time duration, so if you make good use of cover you can actually activate it once and have it last the entire mission. Even if you play more aggressively, the armor always lasts longer than its cooldown, so you can generally reactivate it as soon as it's breached. It also creates a nice explosion around you when it goes down, which makes kamikaze rushing a horde of husks a feasible strategy. I'm on my second time through now, playing an adept. Adepts may have a tough time with enemies sporting multiple layers of protection, but NOBODY wipes out a room of peons with more style. Those singularity+warp combos you keep hearing about? They really are all that and a bag of chips.

And in DLC news: Kasumi's coming on April 6 Hey, a new SMG comes with the DLC? Groovy! Free for Cerberus Network members is the optimal price, of course. I don't think that's gonna happen this time though...

Tom Waits - Shore Leave

Pointless arguments are fun and all, but this thread is supposed to be about MASS EFFECT!

Not this. The codes might have a "best before" date, though. I think my preorder items card had one by the end of this year, or something like that. Can't remember what it was like for the DAO stuff, and as my home computer is currently borked, I won't be the one to check, either Yes. The point isn't to encourage early purchases-- it's a direct attack on that giant shelf full of "used games" at your local game shop. People who buy retail (thus giving Bio & EA their cut) get the DLC for free. People who buy second-hand (with no royalties to EA/Bio) have to lay out $15 if they want it (which is a decent approximation of the markdown between new and used games). Thanks HK, Nepenthe and Enoch. That's what I thought, just wanted to make sure I wouldn't get screwed if I don't make it to the store Tuesday. For the record, I like the incentive. Knowing that the DLC would cost an extra $15 means you would have to wait until the used copies are selling for $45 to break even. That value-add should be enough to entice some people to buy new instead of used.