Last week, to the day, our “wonderful” Time Warner Cable internet service died. Our computers and consoles have been offline since late Saturday and all the posts I was working on or had planned have been muddled because of it. I promise to get some stuff up soon but right now I’m freezing next to this drafty patio door that the cable guy had to open and I’m also hopelessly hooked on Mass Effect 2! Just wanted to let you know we’re still alive here and more schtuff is coming!
This episode is 100% Martin Sheen-free! Also, spoiler-free!
Katy, Maxx and I (Shawn) talk a little bit about Gravity Crash, Sacred 2 on Xbox 360, Jigapix Pets for the DS, and Fallout 3 on PC before launching into an interstellar discussion of all things Mass Effect (the original and the “Over 2 Million Served” sequel). Don’t worry, we keep the talk on Mass Effect 2 as spoiler-free as possible but some early-game shenanigans from the original are openly divulged. But seriously, if you haven’t played the first one yet you should just skip it and go straight for the new hotness.
Listen to the show right here in this very page or, as always, head over to our Talkshoe page to rate and review the show, subscribe via RSS or iTunes, and check out all of our past episodes! Thanks for listening and letting us know what you think. We hope you like it!
The Relevant Tweets represents all my micro-blogging status updates pertaining to a single game or topic, collected at key moments and patched together here as a timeline. I usually do this when I’ve finished a game but seeing how Afrika is one of those long, slow burns and now that I’ve finished the main missions and will probably be spending less time with the game, I thought I’d throw this together.
Oct 16th - I’ve waited four years. Why am I so broken hearted to hear that Afrika continues to be out of reach?
Nov 5th - Everything about Afrika is slow. Takes 5 min. to load each time, saving games takes nearly as long. But it’s pleasant like Endless Ocean…
Nov 5th - Busy night in Afrika. Got mauled a few times. Got some good shots though. Just like real life only it’d be photos of toys/cats. Later!
Nov 6th - Oh Afrika. Why couldn’t you have made it out here 3 years ago when you would’ve looked good? Still enjoying it but man, is it clunky
Nov 8th - This is where I am right now. Where the heavens touch the earth!
Nov 16th - Back in Afrika for a bit. I’m a busy photographer. Still wish it weren’t so clunky though.
Dec 21st - @Victor_Lucas finished Batman: Arkham Asylum (finally!) and PixelJunk Shooter. Wrapped it up with some Afrika. Sucker for photo sim = me.
Dec 23rd – Oh Afrika. I could get so much more done if you didn’t take AGES to load AND save. Still fun, just a slow, slow, slow burn of a game.
Jan 3rd - Waiting for a vulture and a stork to land near each other AND in front of my camera. EPIC!!!
Jan 11th - Wow, I think I just finished Afrika. But I didn’t save so I can do “final” mission over again. And get better pics of the Barbary Lion!
Jan 13th – Finished Afrika. Still mysteriously incomplete trophies/assignments. No clue what to do but I hope it doesn’t require a 2nd playthrough!
Jan 18th - @NowGamer_Dan ha! I totally know what one is thanks toAfrika! I took many a pretend picture of a sleepy pangolin!
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Speaking of punishing old school gameplay refried like a batch of beans and made all the more potent, I recently played the demo of current Indie darling, VVVVVV. Its got pixels, single-screen rooms, requires absurd timing and just as much twitchy reflex as puzzle-solving gray matter. Where it gets the modern trimmings is with its hook — you don’t jump, you have one button that instantly changes gravity — and its checkpoint system.
So you can’t get too upset because while you’re punching your keyboard and your brain is melting out of your left nostril the most you’re typically set back is one screen’s width. No life counter to worry about. No continues. It’s only Game Over when you give up. That said, I had my fill from the demo when a series of moving platforms over a spike pit (and spike ceiling) proved just as daunting with gravity pulling in one direction as the other. I love what the game does and especially how it looks but I have no desire to punish my brain any further.
I did, however, buy the soundtrack by SoulEye, PPPPPP. It’s just as retro as you might expect from looking at the game and is as diverse in mood and atmosphere as it is loud and chiptuned. Like Shatter’s soundtrack it’s just as important as the visuals for setting the mood. You can check out both the game (here) and the music (here) for nothing but a few minutes of your time.
What do you think of VVVVVV and PPPPPP? Is it totally your thing or, like me, did it squash your cognitive logic like a microwaved M&M?
I was going to do a post today about what I think of my first two days spent with Mass Effect 2 (here’s a hint, I really like it). Instead, I’m going to save that for another day and focus for now on the game’s morality system. As was true with the first Mass Effect, morality plays a big part of your galaxy spanning adventure. Oftentimes in conversations, of which there are many, you have the choice of making Shepard respond with a positive, neutral, or negative tone. Choose the “good” answer and you win positive karma, which builds you into a Paragon. Choose the “bad” answer and you lose karma, sliding you towards being a Renegade. Choose the “neutral” response and, well, your disposition doesn’t go anywhere.
I mostly don’t have any issue with this system of interaction. I like being able to play out events in different ways to get every possible outcome. What I’m not big on is the fact that you’re incentivized to go Paragon or Renegade. On my first play through of Mass Effect 2, I’m going the paragon route. I choose to earn those all important karma points every chance I get when having conversations, automatically picking the “good” response as soon as it appears. The problem is, that’s not how I would really behave in real life. Out of the three possible responses, the good choice sounds too namby pamby, the bad choice sounds too hateful, but the neutral choice… that one usually sounds just right. You earn nothing tangible by choosing to play it down the middle, though, so it’s really a non-option. That’s a real shame.
What I think I’d really like is a conversation system that’s somewhere between what this game has, and what Dragon Age offered. The choices were much more varied in Dragon Age, and much more ambiguous. Shades of good and evil, paragon or renegade, were much harder to define in that game. That said, the efficiency of getting through conversations in real time in Mass Effect is something I would hate to lose. There’s a lot to be said for an RPG that lets you talk without having to stop and read through multiple sentences of text.
In any case, my Shepard will finish this game as a good two shoes. He’ll then immediately relive his adventure, choosing to be the galaxy’s biggest jerk. I kinda can’t wait to see the hilarious consequences of Renegade Shepard’s actions. Paragon Shepard can be kind of a bore at times.
I wanted Mass Effect 1 since Dragon Age helped me connect many games I’ve liked have been Bioware. Especially after listening to Giant Bombcast’s special with one of the Bioware guys where they discussed Mass Effect 2 & 1. I bought ME1 last Friday night and started a game with a female character on Saturday. I also received Sacred 2 from GameMine, so I asked Shawn if he’d like to try Mass Effect since it’s not the game he feared it would be, it’s more shooting etc. Shawn has been playing ever since ^_^ I have been having fun with Sacred 2, so I don’t mind.
Here’s my character as I was first starting out.
Then there was this crazy medievel metal concert when I helped some guy:
The game is a bit buggy, here’s my character recently with crazy armor standing with a person stuck in the floor:
That’s all. Shawn finished Mass Effect 1, so maybe tonight I can resume my game.
Still working my way across the Traverse, I have slowly become side tracked by side missions (go figure!) and wound up driving around, planet-side the last day or so. I found some space monkeys and tried really hard not to shoot any of them, I went to the Moon to deal with a rogue A.I. and admire Earth, and now I’m out in uncharted territory looking for Geth bases. This lead Maxx and I to a little e-mail chat about the Mako and how, even though it’s a nightmare to drive and it flops all over the place uncontrollably, I still like driving it.
There’s something about the way it bumbles around that just makes me giggle and running over Geth is pretty hilarious. There’s also something about the terrain of these generic and feature-less lands that reminds me of the crusty old 3DO game, Off-World Interceptor. Watching the video above, though, it’s apparent that the similarities begin and end in my youthful memories. I remember, now, that Off-World was one of the first 3D games where I felt I was really driving around some big open desert world. You pretty much died if you weren’t on track and picking up Fuel but every now and then I’d shoot off the path and peek around the landscape before I exploded. I feel a lot of that same excitement any time I touch down in Mass Effect. I know I should be going straight for the goal… but that Anomaly is just over that hill. And, and there’s probably some unmarked debris right over there. That looks like a good spot for it!
For real, as soon as I finish off these Geth bases I’m going back to story missions hardcore. I’ve gotta rocket through this game and move on to the sequel before all the good stuff gets spoiled!
Sooo pretty. Soooo HARD!
I have discovered that there’s one thing that can instill rage and fuming anger more handily than trying to play an old arcade game; playing a new game designed like one of those old games. I bought Gravity Crash on PlayStation 3 as part of Sony’s half-off sale last week even after the demo left me feeling exceedingly novice. It’s also not advisable to come off of PixelJunk Shooter and dive into Gravity Crash because, though they may have similar mechanics, they are two entirely different creations.
Gravity Crash is brutal. It takes only a single pixel of your ship brushing the landscape to destroy it and weapons fire seems to take ages to cross the screen while aiming isn’t as accurate as I expected. Graciously, the devs have broght a little modern design to the game for those of us who can’t get our heads back into the early 80’s with twin stick controls and an indispensible shield system. Even the shield demands more from you than most modern game. In Manual mode you have to activate it yourself and while dodging enemy fire, combating gravity and keeping an eye on where you’re going it’s still a challenge to stay alive. Automatic shields work as you’d hope but you’ll have to find crystals throughout the level to keep them charged up. Those crystals are also imperative to your survival as they refill your ship’s fuel. More complexity comes with intermitent meteor showers, expansive and labyrinthine new stages, switches that need flipped and target quotas that must be fulfilled. And I’m only on the first few planets of 30+.
I feel surpremely inadequate falling back on twin stick mode with automatic shields but that’s what it’s going to take to get me through this game. I was a little too young for Lander and the other games that Gravity Crash draws its inspirations from and I’ve found I have very little patience for that punishing style. I honestly left for work after my first play enraged at the game and, embarassingly, at everything around me. I thought it was raining but when my wipers failed to clear the windshield I realized it was the spit and sputum I was projecting in epic swears that clouded my view. Swearing about how impossible the game was. How this guy won’t change lanes! How tiny everything was and how hard it was to hit. How my stupid lunch isn’t warm yet! How the gravity is constantly pulling you down while water incessantly pushes you upward.
Yup, Gravity Crash is a pretty daunting game but I love the art, the glowing vector look of everything and how these tiny little cookie-cutter structures manage to feel like a real alien world to me. I’m not beaten but I admit that my gamer pride is in need of some emotional salve before I go back.
The Relevant Tweets represents all my micro-blogging status updates pertaining to a single game or topic, collected at key moments and patched together here as a timeline. Now that I’ve put Batman: Arkham Asylum to rest it’s time to compile.
Dec 12th - Batman: Arkham Asylum is better than work. <– First Play!
Dec 12th - Awesome retro-future radio in Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dec 12th - Jar of head in Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dec 12th - HAHA Meta-site from Batman: Arkham Asylum: Only $3500 for a guaranteed shock treatment to cure YOUR loved ones!
Dec 12th - Now a jar of criminal. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dec 13th - Ras didn’t make it. Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Dec 13th - Sometimes you run out of ideas for super villains.Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dec 17th - Today: Out of it at work, got annoyed at last min customers, managed to write something (on Nfamous soon), finishedBatman, fondue, glomped!
Dec 21st - @Victor_Lucas finished Batman: Arkham Asylum (finally!) and PixelJunk Shooter. Wrapped it up with some Afrika. Sucker for photo sim = me.
Even after seeing the game played in front of me by a friend back when it launched I still wasn’t convinced that Mass Effect would be any fun for me. It wasn’t until years later, and on the eve of the sequel’s debut, that I finally played it because Katy had 1) just bought it for herself and 2) told me to try it. Until Mass Effect I hadn’t enjoyed a single BioWare game, not because I’m some snooty ass, they’ve just never appealed to me. The combination of endless dialog trees, bountiful side quests and stat-heavy party management and combat just isn’t my thing. The last role-playing game I really enjoyed was Final Fantasy VII preceded by Lunar and Dragon Warrior before that. Maybe it’s a cyclical thing and every decade I get into one single RPG.
I guess I should start by introducing my particular flavor of Shepard; a Vanguard named Blaeth. She doesn’t care if you say it BlYthe or BlAYthe so long as you don’t talk about it for hours. Auburn haired with dark lips, she’s got a gaunt look that’s more supermodel than Grand Moff Tarkin only with a sweet scar from left to right across her face. I was going to play her as mean as possible just to spite the game but as I’ve gotten slightly more intrigued I realized she’s more like Elen Ripley. Tough, even ruthless, when it comes to the insincere and despicable but compassionate where others would turn a blind eye. That is, of course, until I get tired of listening to characters gab on about who-knows-what, hit the skip button and wind up fighting my former colleagues. Ah well, it just means more experience and gear for Blaeth Shepard and crew.
Of all the cast my thoughts most fall in line with Wrex's
Over 15 hours in I’ve decided to skip all the repetitive and time consuming planet grinding and focus on the story missions. I’ve also put the difficulty on Casual thanks to that first scene with the Geth Stalker where I died repeatedly as soon as the battle started. My enjoyment of the game is tenuous and though I keep playing it’ll only take one more battle as frustrating as that to send my Shepard into early retirement. The real-time combat is the big draw for me. If it were turn-based or more omniscient (where you command characters instead of controlling them directly) I’d have quit after the first fight. I don’t enjoy the ultra-micro-management of characters but here I’m free to play it like a third-person shooter. Although they get stuck and left behind a lot, the A.I. teammates are even smart enough to fight, take cover, use items and abilities without me having to do a thing. I loathed the “programming” of characters in Dragon Age; absolutely no fun! I guess I just assumed that Mass Effect played like Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Dragon and blacked it out in my mind. For that I apoligize to all who tried to get me into it over the years.
I’m sure that accounts for most of you reading this so I’ll try to keep these entries short from now on and wrap up here with some of my personal highlights so far:
What are some of your favorite early-game moments? I know I missed a ton so fill me in on the most memorable stuff up to the Thorian encounter on Feros.
nth_degree: @ShawnS52 Is everything ok w/ the #Gameluv rss feed? It seems to hang in itunes »
ShawnS52: Strangled in cords, recording #GameLuv PodShot! It's gonna be a MASSively EFFECTive show TOO! #fb http://tweetphoto.com/10110178 »ShawnS52: Done at D&B. Knees, legs, feet all throbbing. Sucks to be too old for something you enjoy. #fb #GameLuv »
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