Review #1 - Mass Effect 1

Alright, so I guess I should preface this with: I'm back! I realize that some people will probably think that my previous post is a little melodramatic seeing as I said I would most likely be gone for months when it has only been just under a week. In my defence, I genuinely had no idea how long I would have to be gone for. The longest I thought I would possibly be would be a month and a half (return end of April), so I emphasized that so people wouldn't really get there hopes up (person?). I also knew that the most likely time of return would be a week (now), but I couldn't be sure, so I just went with the longest time possible. I'm still not fully up to date on school stuff, so there might not be as many updates as before the hiatus, but there should still be updates, if irregular. With that out of the way though, I shall begin my poorly written, fan boy review of Mass Effect.

I make it no secret that I am a large fan boy of several things. One of these things is BioWare, and specifically Mass Effect (haven't played too much Dragon Age, I should do that some time).  I first picked up Mass Effect in early 2009 and my LP was my third play through of the game.  Mass Effect 1 is currently in my top 3 favourite (deal with the u, I'm Canadian) games of all time. The story is amazing, and the way your decisions even in the early game can effect your end game is just amazing to me.

BioWare also did something that a lot of companies don't do: make the game longer than 5 hours.  I see so many games in today's age that charge you $50 for 5-6 hours of entertainment. Seriously?  Mass Effect takes a step up and sells you a game with a minimum play time of about 12 hours, and a maximum play time of 30-40 hours, for the same $50 price tag (now down to $15, but I'm talking release price).  And the thing is, there are other games with this kind of length, but a lot of it is artificially extended time, like an extremely hard part that takes hours to get through, even when it should take 20 minutes. Mass Effect doesn't do this. It's entire game time is amazing, and seemingly constantly new and original as you progress through it. It's 15 hours of actual game time, not 3 hours of game time spread over 12 hours.

Another thing Mass Effect has that a lot of other games don't have is characters with actual personality. You get to know the characters. They all have their own way of talking or reacting to certain things and events, they aren't just cardboard cutouts. Now, a good portion of this can be attributed to the writing, but writing is nothing if you have terrible actors, which Mass Effect does not. The actors are able to put in real emotion into their voice, making the characters even more real feeling. This seems to be something many game companies struggle with nowadays.

Now, I have said a lot of good about Mass Effect, which is to be expected, but I do have my complaints as well.  One problem is how boring the scanning is. All you do is click the planet and you're done. And the thing is, all you get from it is quest progress, nothing else. It serves no real purpose other than being a completionist, which is artificial game extension.  My bigger complaint is the glitches.  Now, Mass Effect doesn't have very many glitches, but the ones it does have make it VERY difficult to play, like the overheat bug which made it very difficult to get through some areas of the game.  My only other real complaint is the difficulty of Sarren's final form. My God, I don't know if that was my fault or the bugs, or that's just how it's supposed to be, but that was insanely difficult and rage inducing.  I think it took me almost an hour to beat that ass hole.

I think that's about all my thoughts on Mass Effect. I realize that this is very poorly laid out is probably going to be difficult to read as I jump between topics without any sort of transition, but I'm sorry. I'm an engineer, not an English major.  If you actually read the whole thing, thanks! If you have your own opinion, feel free to share it with me, I like hearing what other people think.  I think that's all for now. Bye!

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Sunday, March 11th, 2012 - New Mouse

So, in case you can't read the title but for some reason are able to read this, I got a new mouse today! I have been using a Razer Lachesis for the last 4 years, and although it has served me well and could probably go another 4 years (that thing is built to LAST) I decided to grab a new mouse. Now, you may not know this, but I'm kind of a Razer fan boy, and I've actually never bought or used a non-Razer mouse (not including stock mice or touch pads).  So, knowing that, it may come as a surprise that I decided to buy a Saitek Cyborg R.A.T. 7, but boy do I NOT regret that purchase. I am loving this thing, it's super responsive, surprisingly comfortable, and a sexy beast to boot. Here, have a picture.



In video news, I recorded some stuff, so there should definitely be videos tomorrow. I don't have more than tomorrow's recorded yet, but I'll probably do a large batch recording tomorrow since I get home s early and my parents get home so late.  Enough talk though, here are today's Mass Effect 2 videos:

Episode 3   ---   Episode 4

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Saturday, March 10th, 2012 - I'm Back!

What is up guys! I know it's been almost a week since my last post and I do apologize, but, I'm back now! I had a rather uneventful week filled primarily with studying and doing work. Like I mentioned last week some time, it's engineering prank month, so one day a guy came in playing the trumpet, stripped to his boxers, then ran away. It was pretty funny. Someone also made a giant penis out of like cloth or something and managed to stick it to the roof of the main cafeteria. Did I mention the ceiling is like 30 feet high? God, I love engineers. We're so obnoxious, it's awesome.

In video news, after having 4 tests this week and having my brain destroyed by science, I was finally able to start up Mass Effect 2. I did about an hour and a half of recording and got enough videos for today and tomorrow. I'll be doing some more tomorrow, so there should be videos every day this week if I manage to not procrastinate like a beast as usual.  Enough words though, here's Mass Effect 2!

Trailer   ---   Episode 1   ---   Episode 2

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 - Words

How are you today, Internet? Because I am just swell. Had a long and unproductive day as usual, and enjoyed it. I apologize for not writing anything yesterday, as I had a calculus test and didn't get home until 10:00pm and was too tired to write coherent sentences.  I don't really have any funny or interesting stories today, as I never even left my house today.  So, as per usual, I will just keep saying nothing until I feel that I have written enough words.

In YouTube news, I did some recording today and finished Mass Effect 1. The videos will go up over the next 3 days with the last ones going up on the 5th, the day before ME3 comes out. Now, I realize this means I will have 0 days to do ME2; however, I realized a while ago that I would have no chance of finishing this project at the rate I put out videos. I will still be doing ME2 before ME3; however, I may play ME3 off camera on my good character while playing ME2 on camera on my evil character, so it will most likely be my second run when you see me doing ME3, so, sorry if you like blind LP's.  I'm posting the first video of tonight's session now, but it won't be up for about another hour, so check back soon!

Episode 36

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Thursday, March 1st, 2012 - Not February

I almost typed February in the title. Woops. I know I said I was going to try to get better at writing in a more interesting format, but unfortunately for both of us, I haven't. I don't even have anything to talk about. The most interesting thing I did today was plug capacitors into a bread board for an electrical physics lab. Yup, I am indeed boring.

In video news, like I said yesterday, I didn't get a chance to record anything today with my calculus exam tomorrow and all.  I still had 3 videos on my HDD and posted them. Here they are:

Episode 33   ---   Episode 34   ---   Episode 35

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 - Leap Day

Hello! And welcome to another exciting episode of.........  DREW'S BLOG (cheers from crowd). Today is February 29th, leap day. Did I do anything special for leap day like a lot of other people, you ask? Nope! I'm just super boring like that! If you can't tell by this point, I'm stalling and trying to make this paragraph as long as possible, without putting any content in it, because I didn't do anything today other than take notes in class and do crap loads of integration to prep for my test Friday. That; however, looks like enough words to fill an adequate amount of space.

Onto YouTube news! I was planning on recording a little tonight, but didn't get the time, so there may not be Friday videos, depends if I get a chance tomorrow.  I threw up 2 episodes of Mass Effect today as well, and YouTube is still fighting me over monetization settings, which doesn't really matter I guess when you're making $2 a month and you need $100 before you can get paid.  Whatever. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you that, I din't really read the contract. Please don't ban me YouTube!

Episode 31   ---   Episode 32

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 - Forgot

Almost forgot, really late. Here's videos.

Episode 28   ---   Episode 29   ---   Episode 30

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Monday, February 27th, 2012 - I got my license!

Alright, so today is day 1 of the "new" format, although, now it's just the official format, as I was using that (this?) format for a few days now.  Anyway, into stuff, today I did my last driving test I needed to do ever in my life and got my full license.  I was really nervous as I haven't driven "properly" (legally) since my G2 test, but was able to pretend to know the laws long enough to get my license, so that was good! Also, at my school, freshman do pranks to get into the upper year "Frosh Controller" program, which means they lead frosh week activities and have a shit load of fun, so today a bunch of people brought a couch to my calculus class and just chilled out in bath robes. It was comical.

Into video news: there are none. That's about it.  I did do some recording; however, nothing is processed yet and will probably take 1-2 hours in order to process, and I don't like starting uploads after 9pm (EST) as then I can't set my monetization settings until the morning.  There should be new videos tomorrow, though.  With that though, I said everything I wanted to, so, until tomorrow, stay classy, internet. (I'm just gonna steal catch phrases cause I'm too unoriginal to make up my own).

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Saturday, February 25th, 2012 - This Title is Good

Just kidding, that title isn't really good. in fact, it's really bad. Anyway, today was my first day back after Whistler, so I spent a majority of my time just doing laundry.  I'm going over to my friends place to play D&D in an hour, so I'm writing this a little earlier than usual.  It's been a long time since I played D&D and all my friends play way more seriously than me, so they might rage at me at some point, but it's all good in the neighbourhood.  Also, I got new t-shirts today, and that makes me really happy. Here's a couple pictures of them and me modelling one like a boss.

I need to put more words beside this picture to make the template of the blog look better, so here's some words or something.

This paragraph isn't really about anything, but it's going to make my site look better with words and pictures and things, so you don't really have to read it unless you just want to read me talking about nothing in particular and using extremely long run-on sentences. I think I have enough words now.


Alright, so, once you're done admiring how attractive I am, you can watch today's Mass Effect episodes, which I have no idea if they are showing up in sub boxes.

Episode 23   ---   Episode 24   ---   Episode 25

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Friday, February 24th, 2012 - Almost home

So, when you're reading this I'm probably just landing in Toronto (I'm writing this at 10am but not posting it till later to make sure I don't forget).  I know that doesn't really make sense, make a blog post about my day before my day has even started, but whatever, I don't really care, I barely talk about my day on these anymore because I suck at trying to put thoughts into words.  Especially interesting words.  Sometimes I have good days and am able to write a lot and have some interesting things to say, but not most days.  And that is why I basically turned my blog into a YouTube notification feed for my videos.

It's not like I don't do anything interesting, I mean, not all my days are interesting, but even when I have a day that would be a good read, I am incapable of putting it into words.  I mean, I guess that's why I'm an engineer, we only have to write one paper over our entire four years, and it was only 2 pages double spaced.  I suck at English and creative writing, even though it interests me.  I wish I was a better creative writer.  I guess LP commentary is kind of like very unedited and messy creative writing if you think of it like that.

Anyway, I think I've bored you long enough with my woes and inability to write, so here are today's Mass Effect episodes.  Also, tomorrow I will be going back to posting at normal times, the videos have been late cause I've been on west coast time for a week.

Episode 20   ---   Episode 21   ---   Episode 22

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Thursday, February 23, 2012 - I'm Bad at Titles

What is up guys? Today was my last day in Whistler and that makes me sad cause it was an awesome vacation. Snowboarding is fun. Writing is hard while watching YouTube videos because I keep getting distracted.  Anyway, here's today's Mass Effect videos in case they're not showing up in your sub boxes.

Episode 17   ---   Episode 18   ---   Episode 19

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - Here's some stuff

Hey guys, sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I got home really late and was super tired after Snow Boarding all day and I don't know why I capitalized that  but it's too late to change it.  Anyway, I got home really late and was way to tired to write anything, I basically fell asleep immediately.  So, here's yesterday's and today's videos.  Enjoy!

Episode 12   ---   Episode 13   ---   Episode 14  ---   Episode 15   ---   Episode 16

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Saturday, February 18th, 2012 - Late!

Sorry I'm late, I just got back from seeing a movie with a friend.  I uploaded a video of some of my Minecraft stuff today as a test to see how it does vs Mass Effect and so it it's doing pretty well.  Also, i was not able to finish Mass Effect today, but I did get enough parts to post 3 a day every day I'm gone, as long as I get internet at the hotel, because uploading from my phone is super annoying.

Minecraft Redstone Projects   ---   Mass Effect Episode 8

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Friday, February 17th, 2012 - I hurt

I worked out more and now I hurt. Anyway, here's your Mass Effect videos for Friday. lol I thought it was Thursday for a long time there. I had to check. (Also EP7 is NOT up as of this post, but will be in like an hour and I'm not updating this.)

Episode 4    ---   Episode 5   ---   Episode 6   ---   Episode 7

~Drew (devilwarier9)

Mass Effect 3 Demo videos up!

Here are some links since the embed code won't work:

Episode 1  ---  Episode 2  ---  Episode 3  ---  Episode 4

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 - I'm Back!

So, sorry, I've been gone for a few days, I forgot on Thursday and then went to my friends place a couple hours away and hung out there for the weekend and did standard stupid college things.  I also didn't manage to upload anything while I was there, I had a few videos recorded, and should have set them to upload before I left, but didn't, which was dumb.  And by "a few videos" I mean 3 Saint's Row 3 vids.  I'll upload those probably tomorrow since the Mass Effect 3 demo just came out today and I nerdgasm'd all over the place and recorded that, and it's uploading right now.

Also, my AdSense account finally got approved, so I now now make money off my blog AND my YouTube page.  So go check out some of those obtrusive ads over there ------->

I think that's about all I have to say right now.  You'd think I'd have more to say after being gone for so long, but NOPE. I'm just lazy as fuck.

~Drew (devilwarier9)