FUNside

This is a review on Mass Effect 2 from the notes I took live blogging it while I was playing the game - proudly stating for 50 hours straight…

Remember trying to get relatives excited about video games only to get frustrated that they couldn’t see beyond the bleak graphics? Well, this game sets the record straight - even your grandma can gaze over it like any other space opera

So you start off this game fresh or with an imported character from the first game (on the now so-called trilogy). To be honest I can’t see how you can play this game straight away. The references to the first game are too many - name dropping, events, relationships - basically if you haven’t played the first game you’re screwed. Remember the big revelation with the Prothean? Who are the Protheans you ask?! Exactly!!

Most notable new aspects of the story are the Illusive man, technically your boss, whose voice reminded me Charlie (the boss of Charlie’s Angels). The ship has an AI called EDI - which doesn’t seem to do much more than participating in the cinematic dialogues. Don’t know how much thought when into the shape of the AI, and I’m considering maybe it’s all intentional, but the first thing I though was “it’s like talking to a vagina” (yes that’s what the title refers to - you’re welcome). But even that fun fact becomes old when in-game all it does is tell you which part of the ship you are in, over and over again. And you have no rover(!) this time around. You always land on a shuttle. I’m surprised no one is feeling the loss. I for one missed the free rides on the planet surface. Although admittedly that did have it’s own set of issues…

General observation on the gameplay - you should really treat the game as a cinematic experience so you can appreciate it for what it is. It’s not one of those games that you have to click on everything to find all the secrets - if you play it that way you will just get annoyed from all the things you can’t do. So, talking people in the background are just background, objects are only there as props. The things you can do are usually highlighted and that’s straight forward enough not to mess around with stuff.

On the game mechanics, navigating through the galaxy is just FUNNY. Your spaceship is like a micro machine and it’s hilarious how you can loose your landing spot due to inertia!! But mining planets was boring - period. The battling system makes you feel capable without doing much - dare I say, it’s like Call of Duty without the migraine? It was interesting how facing the different alien races truly changed the combat experience as you had a uniquely different environment to use/navigate through and the use of a different weapon load to achieve maximum damage. To break the tension, there are only two types of hacking games, which is good and bad, familiar yet repetitive. The spacebar seems to be the magic button - you can do all sorts of things depending where you’re standing. That’s (surprisingly) elegant, like the one button logic of Apple.

There is also the upgrade and skill improvement portion of the game. For me personally all this is yawning so I just left it to auto level up. Not to be cynical but I’m under the impression there is not much difference in playing the game , whatever class you choose or skills you advance - a few different forces or weapons don’t make that much of a difference and in the end you could land with the same weapon set whatever path you choose. That’s just my perception though.

I wouldn’t dare to badmouth the game on it’s dialogues, but I feel they are (still) glitchy to me - the “conversation” follows a certain path, which means in some cases you might need to repeat dialogue just to get the options you want and in others you are forbidden to ask something if you choose something else - seems like old school Lucasarts adventure logic - dunno why they advertise it as a high point for the cinematic experience - guess it’s one of those “brand new you’re retro” moments.

There is significant dialogue with underlying messages, the screenplay is truly up to par. “Illium is a wonderful world, for those who can afford it”. And fine humor as well. Most memorable funny line: “Does living in a higher altitude make you feel more intelligent??”. As well known, romance is a main aspect of the game - flirting with a bunch of women was fun but I’m sure the sexual frustration was a common side-effect. Above all, the breakthrough here is that the 3D models expressed convincing emotions! For those who know, that scene with Miranda and her sister was a true soap opera moment.

Visually the game is stunning. I am a sci-fi buff but this can be considered the epitome of how current virtual reality simulates life in space. On a side-note, I noticed a dark fade around the edges of the screen - is that meant to make the game look more “realistic”, like mimicking eyesight? I REALLY enjoyed the atmosphere - I didn’t want to stop the game cause I didn’t want to leave the world. And there is much more to see in the sequel. You don’t get to free roam the Citadel again but there are many other space stations and surface cities.I’m overall impressed by the art of the game although I must say I noticed some of the less treated level design was put as hidden missions you may or may not discover through planet surface scanning - well played Bioware

Oh, and a real world entrepreneur should create the Aftetlife club EXACTLY as it is - with those ugly faced aliens serving the place - it would be perfect…

My strategy in the game was simple: try to be nice to everyone and take all the side missions you are offered - like a proper boyscout My theory is that there are in fact only two versions of the game, the really good and the really bad outcome and all the other variations of the story are simply cutdowns from one or the other side due to your shortcomings. I chose the boyscout way to see all the good content even if I missed on some badass content - I just couldn’t stand the negative energy to get there… IMO the outline of the game is too simple - you are set with a spaceship off to build your team and to face the enemy you need resources which you gather from different planets. And when you do all the necessary upgrades you face the bad guys and that’s it.

Other notables on the con side - there seems to be little to no renewable content. Visit a place after a dosen missions and the same people are still standing there, with nothing new to say, the merchant lists of available items to buy are still the same. There are also real software glitches to consider. Basically, you will have to turn autosaving on - it is indeed a lifesaver as the game crashes too often (at least my pc version). To add to that, I had more than one incidents where I would just get stuck on top of objects as I swept beside them.

But all those can be easily overlooked. I had short breaks during my game (for food and whatnot) and honestly I couldn’t wait to return back to my crew. Admittedly this hasn’t happened to me for a long time and it can only be a positive indication that I was playing a pretty damn good game.

In short, Mass Effect 2 is bigger, better and more badass - a well done sequel. When the end credits rolled I wanted to stand up and clap like you do in a public viewing to show my appreciation - that’s how engaging it was.

No this is not a sexually charged post - just a live-blog post recording of my impressions from the latest Wolfenstein (2009).

But to justify the title, is the character you are playing seriously called BJ in the game? How did Blaskovich end up being BJ for short?… Anyway, it was funny hearing it, it was funny thinking about it and it was funny writing it so I thought I should make the title cheekier than usual because of it.

On to the actual facts…

Firstly about the level design. The upper city and in general all open world conflicts felt like playing a game of call of duty (but that also had monsters). As soon as you get to the underground base though it was a totally different sensation. The epitome came with one of the latest levels, the castle Wolfenstein itself, which certainly didn’t disappoint - stood up to its name nicely. That’s when I felt that the game really got back to its roots and followed the tradition of the Wolfenstein franchise. To explain myself: walking in narrow corridors with nazis poping out of every corner. That was the original game idea, right? So the game gradually become from something alienating to something familiar.

Gameplay-wise, It was a good decision not to include health packs in the game and follow the next-gen tradition (started by halo?) where the player’s health re-generates when covered and only dies when taken too much damage at one go. Another “enhancement” is that there doesn’t seem to be any saving option - every checkpoint is saved to memory as a saving point automatically and you can simply load that. Checkpoints are frequent and the manual saving option won’t be missed. Towards the end of the game though where you have to complete whole sections or even a big boss fight without dying can be a bit challenging and annoying.

Many people have made negative remarks about the veil, the metaphysical dimension of the world, and they are right that it makes everything look saturated and wash-up but for me it triggered something else, a retro feel layered on top of the level with blunt backgrounds and neon-glowing enemies - it almost looks to me like the developers were trying to simulate an old 8-bit game. The veil made me relate this game to the original game even more. One the other hand, I feel that they could have done more with the veil. Other games like Silent Hill have really focused on the alternate dimension and have created a unique feast For the eyes of the players - this game only offers a green shader with some holes in the walls and floating bugs like blimps that release energy (what are those things anyway?)

The sound effects are as accurate as possible - with the sound of the machine guns clearly stealing the show. Very ardady and gamer-friendly But the technology they “invented” for the game, with metal containers, bars and force fields looks like it has come out straight from half-life 2

The story was OK but after the middle it was all “blah blah blah” for me - just not original enough to keep me interested. On the contrary I clearly remember that “Return to castle Wolfenstein” had an escalating plot that kept me griped on my keyboard. To be honest, it took me a while to realize that this Wolfenstein explores the greater region and eventually concludes to castle Wolfenstein, familiar from the previous games in the series. And who was that girl you were supposed to save - she played too much of a small role in the game to even care about her.

Overall, it was never too dark - never too horrific - it didn’t even reach the thriller levels of a slasher flick - everything looked nice but “safe”. I enjoyed it but only like I enjoy any other blockbuster game - it will certainly not haunt me in my dreams.

The Sifl and Olly Show was a TV comedy that used sock puppets, animation, and music. Musicians Liam Lynch and Matt Crocco, friends since childhood, created and performed the series. The first episode aired on MTV in 1997 and the show was canceled in 1999.

Personally I still remember that show with love. Watching it after hours on UK MTV was the best way to end the night and sober-out after abusive partying out.

But apart from my personal memories, this was an alternative look to the GenX and the satire, cynicism and stupidity of the talking socks put things in a different perceptive. I’m sure new generations of youths would have things to say alike and benefit from this sort of entertainment.

You can get active! Sign the petition to bring the show back

Signing off, here’s a little (4hour) sample to entice your appetite:

So we all knew about Sacha Baron Cohen’s next movie project and we were wondering how socking it will be, right? Well, was it shocking: - Yes. Was it funny: - Hell Yeah! Was it satisfying? - Sort of…

To be honest I was one of those people that questioned if it was a good idea to go see it in a theater, fearing that it will make people feel too awkward and the social fun won’t sparkle. But I think everyone that goes to see this movie has already an idea what to expect so even if they have to bite their lips in a couple of scenes they force themselves (so to speak) to have fun.

The scenario intelligently used all Bruno’s failed attempts to impress people as part of his downfall and his struggle to be accepted again. And there are catch phrases that you simply can’t get out of your head once you hear them, like “Bono’s got AIDS” and “Osama is like a dirty wizard or a homeless Santa”. There is a nice twist at the end were Bruno becomes “Straight Dave”, but that’s just for laughs as well…

As expected the movie shines in the spontaneous humor and improvised comebacks from real life reactions. The whole scene when Bruno goes through military training is hilarious and funnier than anything “Police Academy” had to offer. And listening a priest talk about what to do not to be gay just made me think that all the stereotypes are well and doing fine (don’t listen to beach boys music and do exercise? Really??)

My biggest problem is the presentation of the movie, mainly the direction. I mean for this kinda story I was expecting to see something in the likes of Zoolander - flashy and superficial. Instead we are treated with the same reality TV gritty look - almost identical to what we saw in Borat. In fact it’s so similar that I can spot identical scenes in the two movies - does running in the dark to escape from imminent danger (falsely) remind you anything?

Anyway, I’m sure Sasha wanted the relation with the previous movie and it was all intentional but if he makes a third on of the likes (a trilogy pre se) I’m sure it won’t have the same impact as these two. Even now, people are already aware of Sasha’s kookiness and aren’t that surprised by his antics as they were before. On the plus side I don’t think he’ll get as many law suits either - so all’s good.

In the end, it was an enjoyable movie, our brain was traumatized forever with a couple of pictures but that came as no surprise either. Dear I say that we were counting on it?

Oh and I should say that I liked the original look of Bruno - not the new improved one. Or is this too 90’s look now?

I’m not the most active member of the 3D community but as I was lazily visiting the Softimage website the other day I found out that it was acquire by Autodesk in November.

Now even I understand how big this acquisition is. One might compare it with Google merging with Yahoo - but in this case no one is concerned about monopoly.

AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder, Mudbox and now Softimage has entered the one big family of 3D suites. From now on, you can consider Autodesk the pinnacle in 3D graphics as Adobe is for rich media and graphic tools.

Of course the 3D community was shaken by the news and in a practical manner (as many 3D artists are technical in mind) some where simply wondering where they can seek tech support for the previous versions purchased…

I think this story is something to ponder on - is it even good from a business point of view for Autodesk? Isn’t competition helping the software become more rapidly improved? What’s the competitions now? Cinema 4D, TrueSpace and Blender?

I don’t know, this all seems to extravagant to me. I only hope that Autodesk will not fall into the slippery slope of creating inferior software and thus bursting its bubble into millions of vertices.