Currently Playing: Mass Effect 2 (PS3)

So I'm a little late jumping onto the Mass Effect band wagon, and I have to say that I'm sorry that it took this long for it to happen.

Mass Effect 2 is quite possibly one of the best games I have ever played ever.

 I will be the first to say that if a game involves guns, I am going to suck at it.  Period.

I went into this game right around the same time I went and saw Chronicle with my friends, and figured that for $20 it was worth a shot. (Lame pun unintended.)

It really kind of has everything going for it: a really involved storyline that keeps you interested, a cast of really interesting characters, and a dynamic sense of gameplay that really keeps things moving along very effectively.

When you start the game you have the option of playing either a male or female Commander Shepard, and after going through a very brief and very "...did that really just happen?" opening sequence you are able to customize their looks.  And by customize their looks I don't mean "oh well this color is nice..." I mean legit warping the bone structure, skin tone/complexion as well as hair and eye color.  You then get the choice of what your base "class" is going to be.

Again, given my history with games with guns, I opted for the "Adept" class, meaning it was very heavily focused on biotics (what this game calls psionic powers) as opposed to heavy gun training.

Right from the start you're thrown into a demo level that helps you come to grips with your Shepard's unique talents against fairly inept enemies as you go charging through a space station filled with malfunctioning protection drones.

It's also right around that point that you realize that Martin Sheen, Seth Green and Steve Blum have all lent their voices to this game.  (Fun Fact: if you chose to play a female Shepard, the voice actress is the same voice actress as Avatar Kyoshi, among other fun roles).

Anyway, without divulging too much of the plot, stuff progresses, you round up your crew, and you go about trying to save the galaxy from ancient life destroying machines.

No Galactus...not you...

  On top of that the NPC crewsmen that kind of mill about doing stuff have full on conversations with one another from time to time, which gives the game a much more cinematic feel for it. The crew each have their own personalities and abilities, which make them all sorts of unique.  Take for instance Mordin Solus:

Not only is he a hyper-active doctor with a Ph.D. in Kicking Your Ass, he has a complicated back story involving biological warfare and questionable experimentation.  And just to round it out, he used to perform with an acting troupe.




Yeah. That just happened. (Love the little "...kaff" at the end).

So anyway, once you start unlocking character special abilities for your cohorts you can then add their abilities to your own, or if you so choose to start a new character you can pick one at character creation.

Go buy this game dear readers.  As much as I suck at shooting games I loved playing it.  Best of all, since I jumped in so late in the game Mass Effect 3 comes out this coming Tuesday so I don't have to wait at all very long before having to go out and spend more money I don't have to complete the epic saga.

Oh, and Shepard is a man whore, which I'm pretty sure you all already knew.

Games in Review: Skyward Sword

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was quite possibly one of my favorite games to play.  Admittedly, I'm a bit of a late comer to the Zelda franchise with my first game played to completion being Windwaker and about 3/4 of Majora's Mask under my belt I jumped into Twilight Princess last summer.  The visuals of Twilight Princess were some of the best that I've played in a while, although I found the colors just a touch flat and brownish, because if VG Cats has taught me anything it's that "brown is real".

But anyway, Skyward Sword is in effect, a prequel to most of the other Zelda games by establishing various points of the franchise such as:

The birth of the eternal princess

The origin of the Master Sword (aka: GLaDOS' cousin)

The reuniting of The Triforce

In that respect, I have to give it a lot of credit.  The motionplus technology works phenomenally with the overall game play aspect, really causing the player to think about how to actually go about attacking rather than swinging wildly.

The visuals are like something out of a watercolor painting: the further things are from the player, the more splotchy and impressionistic they become and gradually come into focus as they get nearer.  The character designs are incredibly tight too, keeping with the "realism" they established in Twilight Princess and borrowing every so slightly from the cartooniness of Windwaker to establish a new style of it's own.

However, there were points where it sort of got frustrating: particularly when the standard enemies in the dungeon became more difficult than the boss.  When I first encountered the Skultula I died possibly 3 times before figuring out how to actually kill it.  But to it's credit, the items you collect actually carry relevance throughout the game instead of for a dungeon and a half.  I also really enjoyed that it brought in a few aspects of slightly more expansive RPG's in that you can actually collect items from dead monsters as well as bugs and  use them to upgrade your equipment and potions.  The sidequests alone can keep people occupied for hours.

Overall I really enjoyed this game.  The one major downside I can find with being done with it is that I accidentally erased my original save data when prompted to start "Hero Mode".  I'd recommend this game to anyone with a Wii, beginner or veteran because it really is just pure fun.

Currently Playing: Dark Souls (PS3)

I just recently made full use of my employee discount at Target in tandem with one of the post-Christmas sales to purchase myself a Playstation 3 with my Christmas money.  Admittedly, probably not the most responsible use of my money considering I have payments to make and other monetary things to worry about; but nuts to all of that it was my Christmas money and I was going to spend it how I damn well pleased.  And besides, when you have the opportunity to get the 320GB PS3 with the Playstation Move WITH a free $75 giftcard for roughly $286, you don't really pass that up.

So right, Dark Souls.  This game so far has proved to be nothing but frustrating in the best kind of way.  The general premise of the game entails something to the effect of the world dying out and the undead being on the rise.  At least that's what I've gathered from the opening movie thus far.  As such, you play as one of said undead in an attempt to reclaim your humanity by vanquishing other undead monstrosities and demons, thus consuming their souls.

I'm still fairly early on into the game, despite having ground my way up to level 30 and still yet to face the third boss; but so far this game is all sorts of fun.  In the early portion of the game, you select your character's base class (ranging from warrior to sorcerer and even the "I'm broke as balls so I literally get no armor or weapons PERIOD" classes), starting item and then customize the ever-loving crap out of their appearance...only to start off the game in some sort of undead asylum all shriveled up and looking like a walking humanoid pile of beef jerky.  You then proceed to break out of the asylum, killing undead along the way and ultimately coming face to face with the draconic jailer before a giant raven wisks you away to the forgotten realm of kings and lords so you can...do...stuff...

Yeah...they were kind of vague on the "why" of it.  Something about a chosen undead or something?

You then proceed to explore this ancient land by first making your way through an undead city, which apparently was all nice and peaceful until you showed up to murder every unliving thing in sight.

The game itself gets fairly repetitive in that you can rest at a bonfire and all the enemies (save for bosses or other dumb-hard foes) will reset, allowing you to go back and kill them all again, gaining more and more souls.  While that particular level of grinding can be fun for a while it super blows when you're fighting a boss after having cleared out a whole dungeon area and die, forcing you to go back and re-clear the dungeon.  Oh.  And when you die your body becomes a bloodstain that contains all the souls you had prior so you have to go and reclaim them lest you lose out on all of them.

"Please great lords...give me the patience to re-murder everything I layeth mine eyes upon."

The game does let you go off and adventure around, explore the lands as you go which gives you a bit more a freehand playing experience.  Well pretty much after clearing out the first boss that is.  The enemies in these areas are pretty stacked against you though, so it does kind of attempt to reign you into following a pattern of play.  However, if you're willing to take the risk and plunge into these areas before you're ready the souls the enemies bestow upon you can prove to be incredibly helpful.

Overall I really enjoy this game.  The graphics are awesome, the gameplay itself is challenging and I like that it's a fantasy RPG that isn't at all puzzle heavy and focuses almost entirely on combat.  I also really enjoy that you're not married to whatever class you chose at the beginning; by spending enough souls you can basically build your character into whatever you want it to be.  I started off as a Sorcerer so I could start the game with magic at my disposal, but have since branched out into dexterity and weapon capabilities to be a kick-ass archer/backstabber to supplement my magical prowess.  I'd highly recommend this game to all you seasoned gamers out there: definitely not a game for beginners.