Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 - The Return!

Hey guys! I know there's actually a couple of you who read my blog, so first of all I'd like to apologize for being gone for so long. I enjoy writing, but sometimes I get discouraged because I feel like I write poorly, or I just kind of get distracted and forget about the blog since it takes a lot more time than just doing videos.  I really do want to get back into doing these, though, so I can talk about a lot of the stuff that I can't fit into my videos, or I just don't think about while recording. I don't know how much I'll write today, but I plan for the format of these to go back to the way it was before after this post, a paragraph or two of something interesting, followed by video links and any information that may pertain to YouTube (i.e. whether I record or not, new series's, no-video days, etc.).

Today the main things I want to say are that I'm back, and I hope you guys are enjoying Minecraft Hardcore so far. I've been getting some good feedback, and plan on recording life 3 this afternoon. I have some ideas on how to possibly make it a little more interesting or exciting, but I'll talk about those in the life 3 videos. They should go up probably the 4th (tomorrow at time of writing) as long as I do actually get them recorded. Mass Effect 2 is slowing down a lot as some may have noticed, but I still will finish it, viewers or not, as I still need to play through it to get my evil character ready for Mass Effect 3, and maybe in the future people will go back and watch it, and I want it to be completed.

I also have been upgrading most of my computer peripherals over the last couple weeks (monitors, keyboard, mouse, headset), although the headset was in January. I tried to make a video showing some stuff off yesterday, and after 2 failed recordings of YouTube messing things up, I decided to get a proper webcam recorder, and then I got busy and had no time to do the video. I'll do that today as well, probably before Minecraft life 3.

This turned out pretty long, which is to be expected after 2 weeks off I guess, but I'm going to publish it now, even though it's only 1pm, but I don't really want to be tempted to add to it, because it doesn't need to be any longer. So, hopefully I will talk to you tomorrow.

~Drew (devilwarier9)

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)