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Mass Effect 3 Launch Trailer Review

Reposted from BioWare Forums:

I'm not sure if I'm already too pumped for ME3 or what, but I don't think I had the same reaction other people did to the trailer. I mean, sure it was nice and all, but my pants and my keyboard remain thoroughly unsoiled.

Thoughts on the trailer:

Heavy emphasis on Male Shep. Great for people who want to play him, not so much for people who want to play FemShep.

0:22 Oh great, it's that kid again. Look, it's not like it's not an emotional scene, it just doesn't have the same impact when you keep seeing it over and over and over and over and...

0:43 The Asari being held by that Asari husk (don't remember what it's called), is that Rana Thanoptis? Her markings are white, not black, but aside from that they look the same.

0:47 Looks like some kind of half husk. Is this a product of the Reapers or Cerberus?

0:52 Is it just me or does Garrus sound like he's talking with a bit of lisp?

1:03 Ok, third time seeing him, I'm pretty sure that's Wreav.

1:11 The "Go to Hell" line seemed... I don't know, just out of place for some reason.

1:15 Car flip, explosion, pretty cool looking.

1:19 Blowing up a Reaper: also cool. Though firing weapons on a planet: potentially dangerous and advised against, but I guess you gotta kill the Reaper somehow.

1:21 Explosions in the Migrant Fleet. Hope to god Tali's on my ship during this time.

1:22 Tali!

1:24 Legion!

1:26 Jack, with some sort of mohawk ponytail thing going on. At least it looks like her jacket will cover her up a bit more (though leave plenty exposed).

1:22 - 1:27 Don't really like the heavy handedness of this line. Something about it doesn't strike me as "Shepardy"

1:30 Reaper vs Giant Thresher Maw. Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

1:33 Migrant fleet again, with what looks like a ship of unknown architecture. Possibly Geth? And more explosions.

1:41 - 1:43 And Ashely romance. They've been emphasizing her a lot lately, now we know why. Still, at least they're wearing underwear for the romance scene instead of just straight up dry humping like ME2.

1:49 Nice looking fleet, though in some playthroughs, the Destiny Ascension won't be there.

1:51 This game (and the series in general) seems to flip-flop on whether the reapers all look the same or different. Here, they all look the same.

2:03 Very impressive looking final scene. Liara's line really adds to it. Wonder what that thing is?

Ok, re-watching it, I can definitely say I didn't not like it, but I didn't love it. It crammed a lot into a short amount of time and I really think it could've done it better. The ME2 launch trailer may have set the bar too high. It still gives me chills when I watch it. Heavy emphasis on MShep, plus some of the lines they used not feeling right, makes me give this trailer a rating of 4/5 (Good, not great).

That said, I'm already really pumped for ME3. I definitely didn't need a trailer for that. Also, I think that, as of the end of the day, I'll be going on an Mass Effect media blackout. I'll spend some time with my wife this weekend to preemptively make up for the time she won't be seeing me. Bye everyone, see you once I've finished my first playthrough.

The Dangers of Splenda

The first time I had Splenda was in a candy my mother gave me. Now, I was never a fan of artificial sweeteners in the first place, but I was told that this was different.

They were right.

As soon as the candy touched my tongue, I had to spit it out. It felt like I had placed acid on my tongue. Very soon, my stomach started rumbling. Within minutes, I had the worst hour of gas I'd had ever. I shudder to think what might have happened if I'd had the entire candy.

So, for a while, I assumed I was safe from Splenda. If it causes these problems, it's not likely to catch on, right?

Wrong.

Soon I was seeing the Splenda logo everywhere I looked. New diet drinks, sugar free popsicles, basically anything that used to use aspartame.

Then came the real problem.

One day, I was offered a stick of gum. I began chewing said piece, waiting for the flavor to show itself. The flavor turned out to be acid.

Hurriedly, I spit the gum out. I thought it horrible. They were using Splenda in gum now?

I asked to see the package. No, there was no Splenda logo on the package. I checked the ingredients. There it was, 'sucralose', the technical name for Splenda.

It was my worst fear. Splenda was being used without warning. Apparently, too many people are unaware of it's dangers. It may never again be safe to eat or drink anything sweet without checking the ingredients list.

Warn your friends about the dangers of Splenda. The colon you save may be your own.

Status Report

Hey everyone! I've been meaning to update my blog for a while now. In fact, I'm hoping to do it at least semi-regularly.

Computer Woes

To start things off, if you've been following my Twitter account, you may have seen that I was having trouble with my new video card.

My previous one carped out on me (the Video RAM burnt itself out) a while back. I managed to get it working slightly for a few weeks over the summer, but then it stopped working altogether. I had to wait until I had enough money to buy a new Video Card. Once I had the money, I bought this one. It was the best Graphics Card I could find that would fit in a single slot.

Anyway, I get the card, put it in, and it's working fine. I download the latest drivers (because who trusts the the drivers that come with the hardware) and installed them and the CCC. When I rebooted into Windows, after a few minutes, I started seeing red dots on the screen. Moments later, other graphical corruptions manifested themselves. After a while of that, I got the dreaded BSOD. A few restarts, same thing kept happening. I even managed to remove the old driver but to no avail. Nothing bad happened in safe mode and it worked fine if used the "Standard VGA Adapter" driver, but that would hardly be enough for gaming.

At that point, it was time to do some diagnostics to find out if this was truly a software problem (like it seemed) or if I'd gotten a faulty card. I installed an old hard drive of mine and set up a partition (which it now seems was unnecessary) to install Windows onto. With a fresh install and up-to-date drivers, I found none of the graphical errors that occurred my normal portion. That was the good news.

The bad news was, that meant I had to re-install Windows for real. I backed up all my important files, as well as my Steam Installations, onto an external hard drive (turned out to be unnecessary, but still a good thing to do). Then it was time to do a fresh install. Thankfully, I was able to do a clean install without having to worry that I only had an upgrade copy of Windows 7.

So mostly this past week has been spent re-installing all the software I've been missing. So far, I've installed Firefox, Winamp (for music), VLC player (for video), Photoshop (along with the rest of CS4), Steam (along with all the Steam games I had on my previous installation), and Mass Effect 2, which looks even more awesome than I remember, by the way. I still have to re-install MS Office (will be doing that later tonight), Dragon Age 2 and the Sims 3. Oh, and I also got a free copy of Deus Ex with my Graphics Card. I'll be trying that out soon.

The Job Front

In other news, I started a new job. I'm going to be working for event security for IU home games. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. Hopefully this will lead to more gainful employment.

Unfortunately, this comes on the heels of some other news. I will not be attending college this semester. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get IU all the information they needed in time so now I have to re-apply for the Spring Semester. I also can't attend classes at Ivy Tech due to a "Maximum Timeframe" issue. Apparently, if you don't graduate after attempting a certain number of hours, you lose your financial aid. Had I known that ahead of time, I wouldn't have taken so many electives.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Till later!

Hipster to English Dictionary

Hipster: They used to be good, before they sold out.
English: I don't know what they sound like now because I can't afford their album.

Hipster: I Liked them before they were popular.
English: This is the first I'm hearing of them.

H: I have X ironically.
E: I learned about irony from Alanis Morissette.

H: This look is in right now.
E: These clothes were on clearance at Goodwill.

H: I have a Facebook page ironically.
E: I got a Facebook page before I became this pretentious.

H: I don't have a Facebook page.
E: I don't want you to know I secretly play Farmville,

H: I don't have a MySpace page.
E: I don't know how to delete my MySpace page

H: I don't have a Twitter account.
E: What's Twitter?

Gripes

As I sit here, waiting for a graphics card for my desktop that may or may not come tomorrow, I've been surfing and have found a few things that really annoy me. If you follow my twitter feed, you may already know them, but I feel like posting them anyway.

Firefox 6 is out already?!?

Seriously? I haven't even updated to 5 yet because Google Toolbar refuses to support anything beyond version 4. Granted, I could probably live without Google Toolbar on my desktop, that is once it starts working again, but it's a real pain to work without it on my laptop.

Protected Tweets

I suppose that's a little misleading. I understand there are people out there who have legitimate reasons for protecting their tweets, among those the potential backlash that could be caused by a current or prospective employer.

No, the problem I have is when people have conversations over twitter and one or more (but not all) of the participants protect their tweets. It's like being in a room with someone who's talking loudly on the phone. Even if what they're saying sounds interesting, it's still annoying because you're only hearing half the conversation. Hell, that's the whole reason I refuse to send any @replies to anyone who protects their tweets.

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Ok, I suppose that's all I've got. Still, even if no one winds up reading this, it was nice to vent a little.

The Rupture

All this talk about the so called "Rapture" that will allegedly happen this week has got me thinking. I've come to a startling realization. I don't think I want to be raptured.

I mean, think about it. Let's say the rapture is real. Lets just say it's going to happen and then you'll be brought up into heaven and be able to do whatever you want when you get there and live in a paradise forever.

Sure, it seems nice, but how long will it be before you don't want it anymore? In a perfect paradise, there will be nothing you can't do, and you don't even have to put any effort into it. There will be no fear. No fear of dying, no fear of injury, no fear of failure.

There will be no challenges to overcome. No challenges means nothing to spark the imagination. Paradise will get boring, only you won't even realize you're bored.

Meanwhile, those of us that get "left behind" will have to suffer through the apocalypse. Sure, it'll be Hell on Earth (literally), but at least we'll be living.

Life is filled with pain and fear. Living is finding a way to cope with the pain and rise above the fear. If you can't do that, then you were never really living in the first place

Mass Effect: Extinction

I've started a new FanFic called Mass Effect: Extinction. You can read it over on FanFiction.net

Mass Effect: Extinction
Commander Shepard's actions, while done to safeguard the Galaxy, have resulted in Galaxy-wide chaos. Now, with the Reapers closing in, Shepard must unite the Galaxy's waring factions if she has any hope of stopping them.

This story stars a version of the Shepard from my previous FanFic who made a few different choices over the course of ME2. I'll reveal those different choices throughout the course of the story.

Mass Effect 2.5 is going strong. Not as many readers as I'd like, but much more than I expected. I'll be wrapping up Episode 3 this Friday for anyone who wants to read it.

So I had an idea to write some Fan Fiction for Mass Effect. It's essentially how I'm bridging the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3. It will likely contain references to upcoming bridging DLC that BioWare is coming out with as well as an abbreviated Lair of the Shadow Broker chapter or two. Not a whole lot of focus on Action, but with Drama and Humor galore.

So, without further ado, I present Chapter 1 of:

Mass Effect 2.5

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Entry 217

Personal Log, Shepard, Leanna, Commander, Normandy SR-2

We made it back through the Omega 4 Relay. I didn’t expect to be able to say those words. I fully expected my previous entry to be my last. I’m cancelling the letters I’d scheduled to send to Liara, Ash and Anderson. I’m a little relieved too; they all seem a bit too sappy.

Miranda is busy working on her report. I’m not sure what she’s going to do with it now that we’ve left Cerberus. I can barely imagine the strength it must have taken to turn her back on the man who saved her and her sister from her father. She’s a much stronger woman than she gives herself credit for, genetically engineered or not.

In all, everyone seems glad that I destroyed the base. Grunt even thought it was funny. Legion made a comparison between my choice and the one his people made. He says we’re more alike than he realized. What he doesn’t know is that he inspired me to make my decision. If we continue to build our Civilization on the backs of Reaper technology, how are we ever going to stand on our own two feet?

The rest of the crew’s fine. Jack’s being her usual “chipper” self. Mordin’s already moved on to his next project. Hope it’s a cure for Thane. I’m worried that without more exercise, the Kepral's Syndrome will get worse.

I’m afraid Garrus might be minimalizing his accomplishments. He led that second fire team and probably saved Tali’s life. If something were to happen to me, I trust him to be the one to finish what I’ve started.

I still question the wisdom of having a thief living on our ship. I swear, every time I go down there, her “personal collection” has gotten a bit bigger. Jacob’s spending a lot of time with her, but I’m not sure if he likes her, or just considers her a drinking buddy.

I’m glad Samara hasn’t left yet. When she first joined, I got the impression she’d take off immediately after we returned through the Relay (assuming we got back at all). She’s staying on the ship though. She said she can “Continue to follow the code while onboard the Normandy”. I hope she sticks around. She seems lonely.

Tali seems to be holding up well. I wish everyone had her strength. I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to contact the Migrant Fleet since we’ve been back though. She seems to be spending most of her free time around me instead.

I also want to make a Note in the Logs about Zaeed Masani. Zaeed led the Distraction team that bought us the time we needed to make it through in Samara’s biotic bubble. The team made it through alive because Zaeed took every shot the Collectors fired. In the end, it seems his stubbornness wasn’t enough to keep him from death. Regardless of how he lived, Zaeed Masani died a hero. In his honor, I will make sure his ex-partner Vido is brought to justice.

At this point, I’m unsure of what to do next. Part of me wants to warn the Council about what is coming, but I don’t feel like shouting at a bunch of idiots. Plus the way the Turian Rep does that whole air quotes thing just bugs me.

I can’t face Liara right now. She’s on her whole Vengeance kick and I can’t deal with that. I need to feel happy for a while. I just wish things could go back to the way they used to be between us. The feel of her skin against mine. The way we…

Dear god I’ve got to get off this ship. I’m setting a course for Omega. I’m gonna get drunk.

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You can read the rest by Clicking Here.

Commander of the Grey

Well, earlier this night I finished playing Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening. I used the character I previously played through Origins with, a Noble Human Warrior named Alisand. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that the base game was better than the Expansion.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad game or anything. I liked the added combat options, and it was a good storyline, but I honestly can't see myself playing it more than one more time. I say one more time because there are still a few things I'd like to see play out differently with another (more evil) character, but that'd be it.